Hi everyone. Fascinating, multi-layered discussion from Greg, Gregg, Bradley, and Deepak. Too many interwoven threads to disentangle here. I'm confident there are additional views among our ToK readers
that could further inform the discussion with rivulets that span the full intellectual landscape. But rather than try to map the detailed terrain, I thought I'd share a couple of ideas that may help amplify key aspects of the ToK and situate our thinking in
perhaps an evermore consilient way within the UTOK approach. Important disclaimer: I'm not a psychologist and cannot offer much insight on the "nature" of the "Mind" and the multiple dimensions - whereas Gregg H. & many of you on the list have far more expertise.
Instead, I'd like to propose a couple of ideas from my experience as a sociologist and an observer trying to make sense out of the deep issues involved in understanding things like "race" and "social influence," as but two examples. Here's my latest thinking
for your consideration and critique:
Mind1-Mind2-Mind3 (M1, M2, M3)
The first idea invites us to consider aligning our language games in a consilient fashion with the M1, M2, M3 conceptual framework. In particular, we can link the terms
information, knowledge, and wisdom with M1, M2, M3 respectively. At the level of M1, we are as sentient organisms processing multiple levels of energy operations and interactions via our neuro-cognitive apparatus. Like organisms everywhere,
we are being bombarded constantly with different types of "information," or object-field changes, that we experience directly as sentient organisms that are then processed via our M1 apparatus. Even there, though, we have different material compositions &
"wiring" (not radically different in most cases, but I'm simply pointing out that even at that level we are not empirical "clones" of one another). By way of an analogy, the "information" we receive serves as the raw materials we would work with in writing
a book. And we all have lived experiences and thus exposure to often similar materials and sometimes rather distinct materials based on our "unique-ness" as different entities. As similar as our materials may be, none of us would ever or could ever write precisely
the same book.
Obviously, it doesn't start and end there.
Importantly, we then have to process that information and, in M2, convert that information to "knowledge" at the level of our subjective phenomenology as we begin to organize the information internally.
That process allows us to, in effect, "store the information" in the emerging filing cabinets of our minds that we can access and return to on a regular basis, even if we're not in the immediate presence of the initial stimulus. The "raw materials" of experience
are converted into knowledge and "filed away" accordingly, and thus we can return to the content again and again unless it vanishes for some reason (and, yes, it does - someone buy me some Prevagen!). To return to the book analogy, our knowledge can be stored
and converted into the actual books that we may use to guide us in our thinking and organize "what we know." That's a lot of work, but we all engage in these processes to varying degrees and in different domains. But this is the short version, so I'll leave
it there and move on to M3.
For M3, as human beings, we then - if we are socialized into a formal language system (i.e., if we are
not deprived of primary socialization within a human community), then we can and do engage in the self-conscious narration processes that Gregg has described. Here one has to possess and apply some form of symbolic communication both internally and in
order to communicate intersubjectively with others. And it's here that we convert our "knowledge" into "wisdom" by learning about the different
kinds of knowledge we possess, as well as the rules for engaging with and applying that knowledge - both for our own well-being and in our social interactions. Once more returning to the book analogy, we open up the books and read them, either
to ourselves internally and/or in concert with others, and then engage in an interpretive process to "make sense" out of what we're reading. That's the "wisdom" we develop and nurture over time. I think we can all appreciate that we all have our limitations,
then, based on the information we have at our disposal, the breadth and depth of the books of knowledge we then create, and the extent to which we have invested time and energy in learning how to read those many books & then evaluate and apply that knowledge
(wisdom).
Well, I have a second point about how all this can and must occur only "relationally", which has deep implications for the nature of our "identities" and issues such
as race & tribalism, etc. - but I think I'll stop here for now. I'll just mention that our many "books" then align with different "knowledge systems" that have different ontological and epistemological assumptions. It's not that "everyone is always right"
(i.e., you can definitely be "wrong" in terms of the logic and evidence from within a given system), but rather that people often "talk past one another" because they're operating from different knowledge systems (I think we all already know this) and, perhaps
even more profoundly, because we have often not "read the same books" and/or meaningfully tried to engage with each other's books of knowledge in the deeper pursuit of wisdom. This is most obvious when we do not consider the "other", for whatever reasons,
to be equally deserving of our attention, investment, respect, etc. And this happens all the time. (BTW, the implication is that, um, we will
never be able to all get on the same page - and there are some core reasons as to "why" we can never accomplish some type of common understanding and wisdom across humanity. But, again, there's a much bigger discussion of the entropic forces that undermine
the common mission, even on listserves like the ToK, where we're presumably all
trying to come to a common understanding.)
All best regards everyone. As A. Bard often says (and some of you as well), "big love" to everyone, -Joe
Dr. Joseph H. Michalski
Professor
King’s University College at Western University
266 Epworth Avenue, DL-201
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3
Tel: (519) 433-3491
Email: [log in to unmask]
______________________
eiđ
+ 1 = 0
Hi TOK List,
FYI, I put up a simple description of my Map of Mind1,2,3 as a blog yesterday:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/202010/the-map-mind-1-2-3
Note I am also interested in expanding and exploring what possibility of “Mind2b”
which, as this depiction suggests, we might be able to develop rich explorations of the shared, implicit, intersubjective space that is felt in things like deep relationships and suggested by research on joint attention and mirror neurons and by the logic
of the Influence Matrix.
Best,
Gregg
___________________________________________
Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)
Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.
Check out the Unified Theory Of Knowledge homepage at:
https://www.unifiedtheoryofknowledge.org/
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