Ron,
I actually started a letter to you before I got your email
but was pleased that you were able to identify the source of your memory and
provide me a starting point to write to you.
I had done a bit of research and discovered that there was an author by
the name of Sandra Perl who wrote a book called Felt Sense. I don’t know why, but there are only a few
copies of her book available, and they are “first edition prints” that are
going for hundreds of dollars. Apparently, her book is about how to get to a
deeper meaning in creative writing. An
article about Sandra pointed me to Eugene Gendlin, who, as you know was the
originator of the notion that our felt experience underlies both the conscious
and unconscious aspects of our psyche. I
saw that Gendlin had two major books, Focusing, the one that you mentioned that
was more of a therapeutic “how to” guide, and another book he wrote sixteen
years earlier, in 1962, called Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning. I opted to get this “more philosophical” tome
and have been slowly reading and, when possible, digesting it. Let’s just say it’s not an easy read.
As I
mentioned when we last talked, I’m also reading a couple books by, or about,
Carl Jung. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections is basically a biography in which Jung commissioned an editor,
Aniela Jaffe, but ended up writing several chapters himself. The other book has two of his smaller essays,
“The Undiscovered Self,” and “Symbols and the Interpretation of Dreams.” Jung mixes his childhood memories with dreams
he’s had throughout his life and with his experiences, both professional and
personal. For me, the gist of Jung is
that we should not ignore the two-thirds or more of that portion of our psyche
that is unconscious when attempting to understand human beings and their
behavior. The thin façade of logical thinking
is but a recent evolutionary development, and while it plays a role in human behavior
and the emergence of the human mind, it is not the whole or even primary part
of the enchilada, so to speak.
When I
studied psychology in the later sixties and through the seventies, the emphasis
was on how our primitive limbic system functions were brought under control by a
higher order logical-symbol- processor, the cortex. No matter what we say about the human brain,
it will be an understatement, but clearly what I gathered in my earlier psych
training was overly simplistic.
I did my
masters thesis with a man named Robert Stutz, who was, with several others in
the field of psychobiology, attempting to demonstrate that pleasure was a deep
non-differentiated well that our brains drew upon to strengthen logical
associations, regardless of the particular “drive system” that was being
reinforced. Sexual pleasure, satiation
for hunger and thirst, relief from painful external events, all were ultimately
reinforced from a nexus of brain stem and limbic structures having a particular
biochemical arrangement. Once triggered,
the reward system operated to reinforce patterns of behavior that would be
repeated again and again. If things were
short – circuited, if the reward system could be stimulated more directly by
drugs like cocaine or by direct electrical stimulation of the areas that
released the necessary endogenous chemicals, then the normal adaptive behaviors could be subverted and
addictions would result, locking individuals into persistent maladaptive
patterns.
It’s hard
to cross over from physiology to mind.
To make the leap from a biological system to the psyche. What are the fundamental attributes of the
biological system that, when met, allow for the emergence of the psyche? Emergence in general is a difficult
concept. Jochen Fromm gives, what he
says is a common definition of an emergence:
a property of a system is emergent if it is not a property of any
fundamental element, and emergence is the appearance of emergent properties and
structures on a higher level of organization or complexity.”
Another
definition defines emergent properties as unpredictable and irreducible: “a
property of a complex system is said to be “emergent” just in case, although it
arises out of the properties and relations characterizing its simpler
constituents, it is neither predictable from , nor reducible to, these
lower-level characteristics.”
Neither of
these definitions really satisfies me. I am not even sure I understand them. The closest I can come to a metaphor for
emergence is something like a magnetic field emerging from a flow of
electricity in a wire wrapped around an iron core. What
steps exist between the moving electrons and the emergent magnetic field? I suppose emergence demands that there be
some mystery.
And that is precisely what Jung believes we are missing when
we describe the world using only logical symbolism. Religious experience, not the dogma or creed
of a religion, but the experience of seeing a burning bush that does not
extinguish, of seeing Jesus walk on water, on experiencing the red sea opening to let the Jews flee the
army of the Egyptian Pharaoh. These are
what Jung believes are the true experiences of humans that we ignore at our
peril. Our minds evolved over millennia,
the innate wiring and biochemistry of the brain, the feelings and emotions we experience
are at the root of a system that has been forged by the selection pressures of
evolution. They hold truths about us,
about our interactions with one another and with the world around us that must
be experienced. At least, that’s what I
think Jung’s saying.
While the symbolism of religious experience or dreams are
true felt experiences, their imagery does not readily equate to a shared
external reality. What does it even mean
that we can share an experience, and does sharing such an experience
necessarily validate that our belief about the experience is somehow more true,
more real?
Distinguishing between felt experience and logic and, at
times, giving more credence to one over the other is fundamental to an internal
process of negotiation that our mind employs to manage what are often
dissimilar representations of our personal reality.
Take illusions as an example. Visual illusions in particular can be very
vivid experiences where our conscious awareness dictates a very cogent and
persuasive felt experience. That is,
until we are presented with another perspective, or we identify some logical
inconsistency that makes us question our felt experience. Once we can change our focus or perspective
and see alternative possible “realities” we can no longer rely solely on our
own felt experience. Even for very
strong and persistent illusions, once we know there is “a man behind the
curtain performing magic tricks” as it were, we develop a wariness as to what
we see before our very eyes. Even when
the illusion will not dissipate with an extra effort of focused mental energy
to see it “the other way we have seen it in the past”, it will often
persist. Our memory and/or knowledge of
its improbability now creates a feeling about our felt experience or modifies
the memory of our original feeling. It
is no longer just a simple felt experience, but one that now includes doubt and
uncertainty. We can no longer depend
upon that earlier feeling of vivid reality to give us the certainty of what we
are experiencing as the truth.
Descartes, in considering the erection of a firm and
permanent scientific structure considered the need to “withdraw trust from the
senses, on the grounds that they have sometimes deceived him.” “Whatever I have up to now accepted as most
true, I have received either from the senses, or through the senses; however I
have sometimes found these to deceive; and it is prudent never to trust
completely those who have deceived us even once.”
Descartes and Jung thus, collectively, express the duality
of what humans rely upon for establishing what is real and true, felt experience and
symbolic reasoning, where the latter is characterized by symbolic
representations of strands of thoughts which require a certain consistency to
fundamental rules of logic for them to be believed as, if not true, then at
least possible. Thus, neither felt
experience nor symbolic reasoning provide unequivocal truth, but only the
possibility of what may be true.
Our personal reality is built upon these foundational
elements, and our individuality, our psyche and the outward expression of who
we are, our personality, are to a large extent the product of how felt experience
and analytical modes of thinking are reconciled , or, if not reconciled, then
managed to allow us to operate in a world that would otherwise be filled with
doubt and ambiguity.
Okay, so this is the beginning. This is what I have begun to explore. Maybe we can talk about this in a future Zoom
call.
We are also probably past due for a “cocktail hour” call
with a larger group.
Current circumstances continue to make it clear how fortunate I am to be where I am, and to be connected in meaningful ways with others. Hope you, Marti and all your kids and connections are equally fortunate.
Lee
No comments:
Post a Comment