I was trying to say the same thing as Gregg but instead of stating it I
asked a question.

Lonny's email was deeply concerning. I'm glad to have read it, although I'm
confused. I understand Mind to encompass all of subjective experience,
especially feeling. I prefer to use the term "intellect" for what Lonny is
using Mind for. The Ontology still isn't resolved so we are currently stuck
with having to be very careful in our language about consciousness,
bordering on circumlocution.

it's true that the intellect can lead the person towards suffering. Memetic
mind control is part of the problem, as Mark points out. One has to be
careful about what memes to pay attention to. But I'll say again,
everything cultural is memetic. The very first words uttered by a hominid
were memes. Actually, the primordial meme is described in Howard Bloom's
book The Global Brain as the first nervous system behaviors replicated from
organism to organism.

Anyway,
Although the intellect can become deluded or confused about the nature of
feeling and the causes of suffering, I'm having a hard time imagining that
the intellect can remain unaffected by the feelings it's connected to. At
some point, it seems like it has to become cognizant of it's suffering. As
for myself, I'm deeply sensitive to my feelings. I've noticed that
meditation, or just paying close attention, has enabled me to respond to my
body's needs more effectively. It's often the case that someone who's
working too hard needs to stop and pay attention to what they're feeling.

Many people who just start meditation discover subtle pain that they didn't
notice before.

"But awareness of pain does not require a central nervous system, and
science has shown this again and again. "

I'm very curious about this because it's astonishing. I'd love to hear what
Gregg has to stay about it.



On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 9:34 AM, [log in to unmask] <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Yes.
> Perhaps it is better to consider this as pain which has not reached
> conscious awareness in the individual.
> Sort of like the old saw about a tree falling in the forest - if there is
> no person present, is there a sound?
> Well, yes, sound waves have been produced but no human was present to
> sense/perceive them.
> In the case of psychological pain, it may not be consciously perceived by
> the person suffering the pain but it may still be sensed/perceived at a
> neural level.
> In addition, that “not-sensed/perceived consciously pain” might still
> affect the person’s behavior (including mental).
> More Wittgensteinian games, Gregg?
>
> I suspect you, and Jamie, and I are referring to the same thing, only in
> differing contexts?
>
> Thank you, Gregg, for a psychotherapist’s input.
>
> Best regards,
>
> *Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD*
> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
> 503.631.8044
>
> *Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.* (A Einstein)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 14, 2018, at 5:34 AM, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> As a relatively seasoned clinician, I can say absolutely that
> “subconscious” pain and injury are important parts of human health and
> suffering.
>
> That said, I think there is potential for confusion here. I think that
> Jamie’s point was that an entity that has no capacity for sentient
> experiencing, say a single cell or a robot or something along those lines
> cannot suffer because to suffer requires the capacity for subjective
> experience at some level.
>
> So, clearly I might have traumatic wounds that are “unfinished” and
> outside my self-conscious narrative and experiential attentional set, but
> that influence and impair me. Every clinician who has fostered some
> relatively deep insight work has seen that.
>
> But at the same time, an entity that cannot feel cannot feel pain and thus
> cannot suffer.
>
> Best,
> G
>
> *From:* tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]
> edu> *On Behalf Of *[log in to unmask]
> *Sent:* Monday, August 13, 2018 5:27 PM
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: Behavioral Selection
>
> Jamie:
>
> I am thinking, in particular, of the type of pain referred to as
> psychological pain.
> And, yes, it very much appears to me that psychological pain, in
> particular, can be “felt” or “exist” in the unconscious and they person not
> be fully aware thereof.
> That doesn’t mean that such unconscious psychological pain doesn’t
> influence the person’s behavior (physical or mental) or that it cannot
> become part of the “conscious” experience.
> But, that is based upon my experience in life as a person and a physician.
> And that is why I both of us will benefit from comments from a
> psychotherapist on this matter.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Waldemar
>
> *Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD*
> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
> 503.631.8044
>
> *Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.* (A Einstein)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 12, 2018, at 5:17 PM, Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> Well, it depends on what you mean by conscious. There are various meanings
> to the word. One is to be cognizant and aware of something by thinking
> about it or having a representation of it in short-term memory.
>
> Another meaning is simply subjective or phenomenal, first-person
> experience, thought to be made of qualia.
>
> I contend that pain is necessarily an experience, and when pain is not
> felt, it doesn't even count as pain.
>
> However, one can be in pain, truly feeling it, but not be cognizant of it,
> and not have the idea in their head that they're in pain.
>
> Meditators often realize that when they started meditating and paying
> closer attention to their experience, they became cognizant of pain they
> hadn't been paying attention to.
>
> To me, this means that the pain was felt but the idea hadn't dawned on the
> person that they were in pain. So they were conscious in terms of feeling,
> but not in terms of cognizance.
>
> Do you contend that there can be pain that isn't even felt?
>
> On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 4:14 PM, [log in to unmask] <kok
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Jamie:
>
> I’m interested in what Gregg and others have to say.
> I contend that there is indeed unconscious suffering.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Waldemar
>
> *Waldemar A Schmidt, PhD, MD*
> (Perseveret et Percipiunt)
> 503.631.8044
>
> *Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.* (A Einstein)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 12, 2018, at 2:04 PM, Mathew Jamie Dunbaugh <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> Gregg,
>
> I understand that Skinner discovered the natural selection of behavior,
> that basically reward selects for and reproduces behaviors, and punishment
> eliminates behaviors.
>
> The psychological term for well-being and suffering is valence. The
> pressing question is what are the physical determinants of valence?
>
> Even the smallest single-celled organisms respond to reward and
> punishment, so how can we say that nervous systems are required for
> behavioral selection? I suppose the behavior of single-celled organisms
> can't diversity or vary that much, but they do have aversive and attractive
> responses to stimuli.
>
> I can't imagine a more pressing concern for ethics than to solve the
> mystery of valence.
>
> The theory that I most agree with is that suffering is a form of
> attentional capture. One might ask, does the feeling of nausea cause more
> attentional capture than a warm shower? I don't think so.
>
> Behavioral investment theory talks about how suffering inhibits behavior
> and pleasure leads to behavioral investment.
>
> The problem of valence also boils down to the mystery of consciousness.
> I'm inclined to believe that Jesse Prinz's AIR theory is very close to a
> theory of consciousness, but I'm not sure if it encompasses all of
> subjective experience. Prinz argues that qualia is based on attention, and
> his book The Conscious Brain provides a theory of consciousness based on a
> theory of attention:
>
> ‘AIR’ (‘Attended Intermediate-level Representation’) theory of
> consciousness. According to this theory, consciousness arises when
> intermediate-level perceptual representations (representations of the world
> at a certain stage in the brain’s processing) undergo changes that allow
> them to become available to working memory.
>
> Here is a summary of his book The Conscious Brain
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__philosophynow.org_issues_104_The-5FConscious-5FBrain-5Fby-5FJesse-5FJ-5FPrinz&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=Bqm8a586s9ZohffRYw_eyBQet-X_O3xtaFEZrlEQ-tM&s=D5eccMNiaTs_BokfAz-RcmFN2YFTM4szBkH4LFSmjRY&e=
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__philosophynow.org_issues_104_The-5FConscious-5FBrain-5Fby-5FJesse-5FJ-5FPrinz&d=DwMFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=jhRNOUW91nRKJ_UC-cdIpp_TR7xhasRUtKegjK3j2Dk&s=jlsmOFAkDZ1v07vPrJSW9Dneot6RNoV_jRW9lCdGLVo&e=>
>
> So, I believe that suffering is attentional capture, and this at least
> relates to the idea of a sort of "behavioral capture" as punishment. The
> question is, what is the relationship between attention and behavior?
> Clearly we have unconscious behavior, but I don't agree that we have
> unconscious suffering. Suffering, in my understanding, doesn't occur unless
> it occurs in awareness (which is a broad form of attention; and attention
> is concentrated awareness)
>
> Suffering is used by evolution to inhibit behavior and it does this by
> capuring attention.
>
> A problem here is what do I mean by "capture" of attention? I do mean
> something like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, and I think a screaming
> broken leg is just an increased version of that.
>
> I'm confident that attentional capture at least has a strong relationship
> to suffering. There's a reason Buddhist call the cessation of suffering
> "liberation". But I can't explain why it should feel the way it does, and
> this is perhaps the most important question to solve for ethics.
>
> Jamie
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