Hi TOK Folks,
I received a note from a friend on this conference on the
Primacy of Consciousness. It is calling for a revolution in our worldview, and pointing to evidence from Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE), Near Death Experiences (NDE), Past Lives, and parapsychology that points to a “postmaterialistic” worldview that is defined
against the “conventional physicalist worldview” and the “prevailing materialistic outlook”. As I told my friend, I think this is important work and we should be open to it, as there is much “evidence for something”. Notice, this comment is intentionally
vague, which is my basic assessment. There is a lot of evidence for something, but when you actually try to state with coherence what that something is, nothing coherent emerges, IMO. Maybe it will in the decades to come, but for now I watch with agnosticism
and a healthy combination of openness and skepticism about what it will ultimately reveal.
The point I would like to share is that we know that there is much work to be done within the basic
MENS knowledge paradigm. The prevailing, conventional paradigm SHOULD NOT BE “materialistic” or “physicalist”. Both of those words make incorrect connotations regarding the clear ontological-ontic ground of being from what we know using our best
epistemological methods for developing a correspondent model of the ontic reality writ large and our place in it and knowledge of it. A much better and more accurate way of thinking and making sense of what MENS knowledge says in the 21st Century
is to realize it offers an Energy-Information-Behavioral-Naturalistic approach
to understanding both reality, our place in it, and our knowledge of it. (For now I will resist my compulsion for acronyms with layered meaning and not switch this around and refer to it as (muy) “BIEN”…oh wait…
😊)
That is what the ToK System makes crystal clear. It says the standard Enlightenment formulation of matter in motion
is known to be wrong and explicitly carries the Enlightenment Gap which
generated the now LONG DOCUMENTED problem of psychology. The ToK System fixes this problem and shows that human propositional knowledge systems---WHICH INCLUDES PHYSICS!--do NOT reside on the Matter plane of existence, but reside on the Culture-Person plane
of existence.
Now it might be the case that there is a yet to be discovered cosmic consciousness field that is playing a role in all the “evidence for something” that the above conference is exploring. That would be amazing and cool. However, I still
fail to see any metaphysical coherence in that view, so I don’t spend too much time with it. However, it is crystal clear and indisputable that we have serious real world conceptual problems in understanding that are staring us in the face! Moreover, as
John and I show in our series, we actually have demonstrable solutions for many of these problems. So it seems to me that it behooves us to work toward solving problems we know we have and we have coherent answers for.
Here is the vision logic of the argument “in Gardenspeak”:
Start with the iQuad concept of unity and differentiation, take four steps and find yourself in the Garden!
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/