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I'm of the opinion that C and D are both valid, that C will continue to expand into a whatever structure we find in D, (which I think will be the simple logic of language) and that D can be scientific in a new sense that's not as much public or politically scientific as a deeper collective intersubjectivity.

For example, Self Inquiry - a practice pioneered by Ramana Maharshi, is known to be a spiritual, non-scientific practice, but I can cite at least two reasons to the contrary:

1. Gurus, mystics, Yogis and such types don't babble word salad at one another in endless egoic competition for devotees, but instead, almost universally, make contact in their conversations with phenomena that can only be found deep within oneself (and farther down I will show how easy this is to see). The substance they dabble in is not hard for anyone to see with just a little exposure, but it most definetely cannot be used for word power, nor "being right" such that the other must be wrong... because the "I Am" is the Truth, and being right is context dependant.

That substance is, like postmodernism, beyond any limited use of language, and utterly absolute. One cannot say "these words are right, these are wrong" in all cases, as what allows the yogis, and children, to cohere, is how the words are spoken as much as the words themselves. Being right is not some scarce resource, but in truth relative to the individuals challenges in every moment, not the tests that scare us off course with total and complete falseness.

2. Self Inquiry takes practice, and can be terrifying but also clarifying beyond words... And maybe it can be dangerous...but for paradoxical reasons, and thus paradoxically not. Everyone has their own idiosyncratic relationship with the culture and language, so I find that people start out exploring Ramana's basic teachings, which are logically sound to the point of being unquestionable (if you ask me...just patently obvious that only fear causes people to attempt to deny it, but since they can't, they tend to avoid it.....because it's like facing death, it's utterly heroic, and absolutely imperative.

How many times do we kick ourselves when we recognize we've been avoiding the obvious good, only to drift again, and again....? Self inquiry is the only practicable means to get the ineffable using the intellect, because each inquiry finishes the "strange loop" of some latent, unfinished ego, which, by completing itself, negates itself, leaving you to realize you still miraculously exist without whatever conditions that particular "I-thought" bought into.

I cannot overemphasize how amazing It is the explore this intersubjective space where mind and culture are one, as the TOK is precisely the map to aid in self inquiry, and get to what you call "meta culture" but what I think of as the Truth that negates itself in its completion, and in a manner so perfect that to even say thank you feels like an offense....only silence.

Try, out loud, exploring the following self inquiries, and contemplating what you know of the TOK, of neuroscience, and the idea of the phenomenal self as a loop.

As you are both the one speaking aloud, and the one listening to your own words, you can discover the sense of closing this identity-loop, or "I-thought", which are the same as justifications, little bits of ego that conglomerate around your name and imagined form.

"To whom is/are this/these "I-thought(s)" and from whence do they rise?"

"who knows the source (I-thought, ego, justification) from which this very inquiry is being made?"

*I tend to have many thoughts competing at once, plus a bunch of thoughts which try to distract or disrupt the inquiry, and resist my fight for autonomy from thought (Ramana calls it the Battle Royale) which makes the practice a cluster fuck, but the practice gradually makes the mind one-pointed. It may take a while for both hearing and inquiry to converge, but at some point I feel a clearly measurable shift that should be discernable on an fMRI or something, whereby the mental/cultural/linguistic source of the inquiry converges with the hearing of the inquiry, and by the essential logic of language, metaphysics, and the question asked, the ego, justification, (or Jiva, in Hinduism....like an ego or mini-soul) devours itself leaving a sense of liberation from a view one can now see from without....its so subtle yet amazing.

"From where in the body does the "I-thought", or mind rise?"

(I feel some relief in my chest, heart or lungs when I ask this, so my guess is that, physiologically, since thought is powered by the breath, the inquiry goes right to that source or nerve in the heart or lungs as the breath feeds life.)

Jordan Peterson passionately discussed the dangers of not integrating the shadow, or choosing to be harmless, and he would always talk of how the eyes of such people would scatter wide in the face of confrontation. Well, the scatter is the result of these lazy, worthless, "I-thoughts" that correspond to eye movements less than focused on real goals. Self Inquiry can take them out, but the individual must find the language for their own inquiry. For me, the following work:

"Who knows these thoughts?"

"To whom are these thoughts, and from where and when do they come?"

"Who does these actions?" ( Good way to cut the root of bad habits by simply inquiring away the very damned thought-temptation).

"Who knows the mind?"

OH, and do it with sense phenomena as if they were "I-thoughts", like "to whom is this visual field?" Or this feeling, or some projection, or sound, taste, etc...closing loops all over...and it helps to practice using terms from neuroscience, even "left pfc regarding the scan for threats" or the amygdala regarding any association to threat....gradually, the culture and language will complete itself in and with your body, which is really part of the moral landscape...and mapping the TOK will be like some....something too good to speak of.

I could go on, but I'll end here with a claim about logic. The logic I learned, (Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens and such) and messed me up was about inferring from axioms that must always seem to float in nothing. What makes Socrates a man? What is a man? What is death or mortality anyways? What is the self?

Well, since the effectiveness of self inquiry is rooted in the logic of language itself, as it causes the thought one thinks they are, but only in imagination, to destroy itself and reveal that you're still there, like a miracle - it points to how thought, culture, mind and language govern our individual reality, and how we can control our thoughts, character, and self-fullfill our destinies. What matters is remaining congruent with this transcendent logic between what is and what's absent, not just between floating axioms. (Think Taoism)

Whatever completes itself necessarily negates itself in that completion.

The most complete inventor is the invention.

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 5:30 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi TOK Folks,

I have been writing a bit in my in-progress book, The Problem of Psychology and Its Solution, frames science (i.e., as a modernist, empirical, natural, scientific methods-based system of justification) and the kind of scientific worldview it offers. I have identified four different broad scientific worldviews and would love to get your take.

First, there is the reductive physicalist flatland view, which we can call Scientific Worldview A. This is the view of people like John Watson and his neuro-reflexology, Alex Rosenberg and his embrace of scientism and physical reductionism, and the eliminative materialists. The most recent PT blog I did was on highlighting why I think this is silly. I don’t think too many people really adopt this view or offer strong defenses of it. I think this is mostly a rhetorical position against any “fluffy” ways of thinking, although it can’t be taken seriously on its own terms, as strong versions end up arguing that arguments don’t really exist, thus it collapses in on itself.

Second, there is what I would call “weak epistemological emergentism” (Scientific Worldview B). These are the folks who embrace a broad materialist view of science, and, at the same time, they acknowledge that emergent properties are key and that we need to talk about them. This is someone like Sean Carroll and his poetic naturalism (or, what I would call, “poetic physicalism”). There is a lot of confusion about what exactly emergentism means. But the two weakest versions of emergentism are that (a) aggregate groups have properties that don’t appear in the individual units (i.e., fluidity emerges with lots of water molecules, but does not exist at the individual molecule level) and (b) that our vocabularies and epistemological approaches require us to talk about “higher level” phenomena. However, these folks argue that we could, in theory, reduce it all ontologically to quantum fluctuations. This is scientific worldview B, which I think would probably characterize the majority of big picture scientists. I think Big History generally falls here, as does Consilience, probably David Deutsch. Classifying these folks is hard to say, because I don’t think they understand the difference between their view and the ToK/UTOK view. Many people on the TOK list lean in this direction, but I think most then find the ToK to be an upgrade (although I welcome defenses of Worldview B over C)

Third, there is the ToK/UTOK formulation, which gives a kind of “strong or ontological emergentism” (Scientific Worldview C). (Note, I will no longer be publicly using “strong emergence” as I did in this blog because John V does not like the term, but it is useful here and consistent what how it is often described, such as here by Chalmers). The difference between this and weak can be thought of in terms of the shape of the ToK. A weak version might give a single cone of complexification. The strong version argues that new causal properties emerge that are not reducible ontologically to the levels beneath them. Specifically, there are epistemic/communication/information processes at the level of Life, Mind, and Culture that cannot be ontologically reduced to the levels beneath them. The key here is that the ToK argues for two kinds of emergence. One weak/within, one “strong”/between dimensions. The ToK thus rejects physicalism or materialism, as it implies an ontological reduction akin to the kind of weak emergence that happens within a dimension. Rather, the ToK gives us a view that is “naturalistic” and “behavioral”. That is, science is about observing, describing, and explaining patterns of behavior in nature at various levels and dimensions of complexity, mapped by the ToK and Periodic Table of Behavior. Crucial to the ToK/UTOK is an ontological substance continuity—but new causal emergences as seen in the cosmic evolution from Energy to Matter to Life to Mind to Culture to the scientific knower. The strong version of the ToK/UTOK is that this is ontologically complete. The weak version is that this is ontologically sound (i.e., coherent naturalism) and we are agnostic about other possible realities that might influence the picture (anywhere from dark matter to an infinite cosmic consciousness).

Fourth, there is the post-materialistic vision of science, Scientific Worldview D. Two examples are the Galileo Commission report and Sean Esbjörn-Hargens work in the “Integral Exo Studies.” These perspectives see the need for a different metaphysics than given by a coherent naturalism. This domain is, of course, not homogenous, as it opens up many possible paths. One general way to characterize it would be an approach to science that argues that an emergent naturalistic behaviorism as given by the ToK is not adequate to explain empirically documentable phenomena that warrant belief. For example, NDEs that point to a life beyond, past lives/reincarnation, higher dimensions of a consciousness field that afford parapsychological phenomena, the existence of god/s, etc are enough evidence to conclude that the emergent naturalistic picture is not sufficient for coherence. (Note, I think that the Galileo report is hard to read here, because half of it is about criticizing Worldview A strongly and Worldview b weakly, but it is not really positioned in relationship to Worldview C.

Finally, of course there are traditional theological worldviews, like Catholicism, but I am not considering them here because they are theological rather than scientific.

I am curious to hear what folks think of this taxonomy of scientific worldviews. It seems to me “A” is out. I don’t know how you could argue for a stronger version of reductionism that what Carroll puts out in The Big Picture. If anyone knows of works they consider to be strong examples of this that are well-done, please let me know. Obviously, I think Worldview C is better than B for a host of reasons, starting with the Enlightenment Gap and the problem of psychology.

Worldview D is interesting and worth deep consideration, and I know several people on the TOK list lean in this direction.

but I don’t think it warrants being called “scientific”. That is, although I appreciate the evidence that is offered for it and find it to be pointing to possible truths, I don’t think it gives enough metaphysical/ontological coherence and at the same time raises too many questions. That is, it works as an effective argument against Scientific Worldview A, and somewhat B. But once you have Scientific Worldview C, especially placed in the context of UTOK which frames science as a kind of justification system, rather than “The Truth about the Ontic Reality,” then the argument for Worldview D as science gets much more wobbly.

Welcome thoughts, per usual. Might do a blog on this.

Regards to all!

G

___________________________________________

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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