Nicholas,

Waking life was indeed formative and I enjoyed seeing the clip you posted.  I am now remembering the optimism and experimentation of the new age of those years!

I agree that non-dual space is the place to be and it is a privilege to find one's self in the place and time to responsibly hang out there.  I have also humbly acknowledged that participation and mastery of dichotomous thinking is intensely required for continued survival in our current and unfolding world.  Thus eugenical orientations seem to be thriving alongside this awkward self-awareness of the human situation.  Not easy to resolve the dissonance there, which is more related to your comments in the postmodern thread. 

Lee,

It does indeed seem to be the assault on the "asymmetrical" ego's private conceptualization of self and world that we will be reacting to in the days ahead. 








On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 9:30 AM Nicholas Lattanzio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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Chance, 

I love the way you articulated that, it is exactly that kind of chaos I believe will ensue as well, with a slight twist that this metacrisis represents a shift in the predominant aspects of knowledge away from concepts (language or thought-based knowing) towards transjective and non-conceptual knowing, that's where Nondual Empiricism goes with it anyway. But the way you stated it for UTOK appears congruous. We are including and transcending survival of the fittest Darwinian evolution on the level of the physical as we see the 3rd stage of the 'non-physical'/directly observable mental->person progression to a morality/value oriented evolution.

If you've never seen Waking Life, it's a trip man I strongly suggest it. This scene speaks directly to what we're talking about.



   
Regards,

Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.


On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 7:45 PM Chance McDermott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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The implications are as harrowing and as they are inspiring.

If the meta crisis is indeed a real and observable situation, then this may be a great filter event at the cultural level of complexity.  

As repeated digital encounters with other justification systems proliferate in younger and younger generations, the bi directional social effect between all peoples will *factor out* justification systems at the idiographic or “coin” level of the individual.  What we assumed to be the shared justificatory space will be ruthlessly and relentlessly challenged.  

The mass reactions will overall feel chaotic.  However, emerging from this chaos is a potential diamond, or transcendental beacon of cooperative of shared understanding.  JUSTification theory and UTOK could and is likely to be this beacon for at least two reasons.

1.  UTOK defines the problem of narrative shared  generation scientifically.

2.  UTOK simultaneously and ironically solves the shared narrative problem by supplying the ultimate meta narrative while leaving room for the idiographic experiences each of us are stuck with up to this very moment.

Therefore the UTOK system satisfies human narrative needs at the linear level and the experiential quantum levels of reality.

-Chance 





Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 13, 2022, at 4:30 PM, Nicholas Lattanzio <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

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Yes we should definitely talk soon, I would appreciate that. 

I think, based on your last comment, you understand what my first paragraph is getting at (that will be easy to clear up in an actual dialogue). 

I also appreciate your rebuttal of some of my statements, as per usual my first pass at writing it came off waaay too absolutist and I will now try to articulate my responses here to your corrections. I am trying to keep any reference to science as a reference to 3rd-person naturalistic empirical science.

I think I'm just not as clear on how mutually exclusive you have "The Language of Science" vs "The Language of the subjective self." For example take the periodic table of elements, the elements themselves and their dynamic interactions are clearly more objective than even my own experience of them (which exists so strongly that it's unnoticeable). They are of a lower ontological order, and therefore the essence of their existence is demarcated at that level, what you would refer to as a change in information processing capacities (and more), include and transcend up a few levels to Culture, the elements are still here, no doubts, but their essence is not known because as human knowers we operate on an ontologically distinct set of information processing operations that at the mental/animal and culture/person levels increasingly emphasize abstraction/conceptual thought. Put simply, we can't ever understand an atom as an atom with the language of science any more than we can nourish ourselves off of pictures of food. That doesn't mean those abstractions aren't useful in as many ways as they have already shown us how useful they are (science doesn't have to prove that it's good at proving things); but even as a deeper metaphor we can't consider a painting to be as objective as a photo, even if the painting actually has more detail and information (I think this is a HUGE point). Also, using science alone we can't access a different understanding of atoms as they are versus how they are measured, the periodic table of elements does a miserable job of sharing a far more fundamental and objective truth, that we are elements, we are atoms, we are energy. Yet we separate ourselves from "them" and then from our bodies and our justifications/narratives until all we are is some self-dissected observer of the map of the so-called universe, it's impossible. 

I guess that I'm arguing the language of the subjective self (i.e., justification) as being the ontologically distinct and objective epistemology of the person-culture plane of existence. It was never possible until now thanks not to the theories that discovered the possibilities. So we are in agreement about how we "can ontologically see the ontic universe, via scientific epistemology, as being mapped by quantum mechanics, general relativity, big bang, cell theory, genetics, and natural selection in such a way that enables us, for the first time in history with deep transcendent epistemological justification, a view of cosmic evolution on the dimensions of time and complexification," we can do that with science, but more so we can do it with language, and at its root language is highly subjective as a means for communicating anything but interpretations of things (e.g., explanatory gap). So I just can't see science as actually being somehow more objective than the language structures that created it, if it were then we wouldn't need to talk about it. 

The longer I spend writing this stupid thing the more I'm thinking we should just talk about it because I'm confusing myself trying to go any deeper lol; I'll reach out to set something up with you tonight after work or tomorrow. I'm loving this though, I'm feeling more connected to the whole metacrisis every day 😅


Regards,

Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.


On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 12:08 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Nik,

 

  Many thanks for this. Let’s schedule either a call or a UTOKing with Gregg at some point.

 

I will punt on your first paragraph, as we would need some dialogue there.

 

  Re the second paragraph, one point may be helpful, is that when I am using “science” I am referring to “modern empirical natural science” which is clarified here. It emerged in a way that can perhaps most simply framed as via the insights of some greats, say from Galileo to Newton to Darwin to Einstein. It has a couple of core features, one of which is third person objectivist epistemology, which is definitely grounded in an intersubjective socially constructed field of agreement. However, that does not mean it is “inherently value-laden and as particular as any "subjective self." To me, that is deeply misleading and would need to be pulled apart and dissected. The Periodic Table of the Elements and the atomic theory of matter are not subjective, value laden truth claims in the same way that some who loves the Kardashians proclaims they are the best people ever. Indeed, I would argue, ala Bhaskar, that science gives a transcendence realism. And I would further argue from a critical realist ontological perspective, that would stretch from Bhaskar to the Big Historian Dave Christian to folks like Sean Carroll and E O Wilson, can ontologically see the ontic universe, via scientific epistemology, as being mapped by quantum mechanics, general relativity, big bang, cell theory, genetics, and natural selection in such a way that enables us, for the first time in history with deep transcendent epistemological justification, a view of cosmic evolution on the dimensions of time and complexification.

 

Bottom line, the language of physics, which grounds modern empirical natural science, IS different than the language of subjectivity

 

One final comment. There is way that the language of subjectivity is more objective than the language of physics. I am experiencing the world now. Indeed, even deeper…Am Is. Am is pertains to an epistemic ontic relation that is the ground of fact in itself. Unlike science, it is undeniable and indisputable. “Am is” is the better way to find the foundational truth claim than Descartes’ claim, I think therefore I am. So, we need to sort out what we are saying.

 

Again, happy to zoom at some point to see if we can sort this out.

Best,
Gregg

 

From: theory of knowledge society discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Nicholas Lattanzio
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2022 12:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK: Thoughts/References on the Psyche

 

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So I can understand (mostly, enough, I think) how you get there via UTOK, so outside of that I don't know of how much importance this is to you. There are really 2 main points that stand out for me here. The 1st one is that you put the pleasure-pain mental behavior contingency (so to speak) at the base of Mind 2, which as a primitive Kohlbergian moral structure makes perfect sense on a level that Kohlberg and indeed Piaget missed (missing the animal-mental plane). However, I feel this misrepresents Mind 2 as the seat of phenomenological experience (i.e., awareness), even pre-conceptual awareness, which for many of our ontologies has a direct connection and is often integral to the spiritual. I have some ideas on how this can be reconciled within the UTOK framework (basically pre-trans development, "become again as a child to enter the kingdom of heaven," emergent feedback loops operating on lower orders of nature, that kind of thing) but I first want to make sure that my observation is correct according to your thinking; that you place a spiritual foundation as being fundamentally more complex/evolved ontologically than (Pure) awareness.  

 

Second, as you know I have always appreciated the iQuad coin even with limited understandings of/efforts to understand the mathematics involved in iQuadratics. Although in the graphic you displayed above it essentially shows subjectivity versus objectivity as a distinction between 1st and 3rd person, (and honestly comes off a bit biased in that you don't say objective, you say "The language of science") but then you make other distinctions that don't seem to be nearly as exclusive (e.g., the subjective self still has a public world that is not in the realm of naturalistic science and is separate from observation). I would argue that 1st-person has objective qualities to it even outside of phenomenology, and it could more easily be argued that 3rd person absolutely involves subjective qualities. For example, you titled the left side as being "The language of science," but that's not true, that's the language of your science, at least naturalistic science, and as you've said before all science and even UTOK itself is JUST (pun intended) another justification system, which is inherently value-laden and as particular as any "subjective self." I guess I don't fully see where you're drawing the line. Personally I don't think a line need be drawn, as in nonduality we don't have this problem to begin with unless as a developmental precursor to wisdom-attainment. The nondual coin is many on one side and none on the other, yet it is 1 unified coin, heads or tails its still the same exact coin, both sides are always there, and they are never separate unless one hasn't learned to flip it over. 

 

Hopefully this is helpful in seeing where some may get stuck or disagree with UTOK. I can't be the only one lol.

 

 

Regards,

 

Nicholas G. Lattanzio, Psy.D.

 

 

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 6:20 AM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi TOK Folks,

 

  I welcome any thoughts or references people have regarding the framing of the “psyche.”

 

 Let me share some recent developments in my thinking. Over the last year, I have been developing a language system that allows me to entangle and weave this concept into UTOK in a way that is really starting to “hum”. A few months ago, I did this blog, which is, I think the first blog I did that explicitly starts to frame the human psyche from the UTOK language game.

 

I will say that since this blog, I added some details not included here. So, currently in my working this out, there is the “Vital layer” which is the core animal-body connection. That is listed here as “the body,” and it corresponds, in our phylogenetic history, to the emergence of animals in the Cambrian explosion and the way the nervous system functions to move the body as a whole and is guided by the “base of sentience,” which is a sensory-motor loop that is organized by pleasure and pain. The experience of pleasure and pain are the base of Mind2 in the Map of Mind.  More recently, I have been adding another layer, consistent with this blog on the evolution of consciousness, which can be corresponded to our vertebrate-into-mammalian lineage. This is the inner mind’s eye that connects to working memory and includes the basic witness function. To use John V’s framing, this inner minds eye has an adverbial framing function that affords the experience of adjectival qualia. If we decide to stay with this as one layer, we can still consider this the base of the psyche that has animal body / mammal perceptual experiential aspects.

 

Then we move to the primate heart. This is the self-other matrix, grounded in attachment, but emerges as an implicit intersubjective field, the process dimensions mapped by the Influence Matrix. As Tomasello shows, we are unique great apes in this way, forming shared intentional-attentional we spaces, and this is prior to language.

 

Then we get to the head, which I call “mind” in the colloquial sense in the blog above, but I prefer head, as this ontological domain is not the right referent for mind in the UTOK language system. Anyway, the head consists of two streams. First, there is the projected extension of perceptual reasoning across long periods of time. Second, there is the ego narrator that gets socialized on the Person-Culture plane of existence. Folks that do intelligence testing will recognize these two streams as Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning

 

Last, there is the trans-justificatory, trans-egoic, transcendent spiritual aspect.

 

Note, although it is a different map-legend of the terrain, this picture merged well with Zak Stein’s work on his metapsychology and the three major domains of the psyche (skill development, ensoulment, transcendence) as was seen in the series he did with John and me.

 

Finally, what has been clicking for me, is a bridging function between the iQuad Coin and what it does for/how it frames the psyche, and the Tree of Knowledge System, which is a natural science view of the world. And so, I am now starting to weave together the way the ToK System maps animal into human mental behavior from a third person scientific empirical view and the iQuad Coin frames the idiographic architecture of the first person empirical perspective of the unique individual situated in the real. So, via this depiction, we can see the ToK System mapping mental behavior from the scientific language game, and the iQuad coin mapping the specific individual situated in their particular epistemic reality. That is, mental behavior in general and the human psyche in particular can now be placed in proper relation.

 

<image001.png>

Seems like another step on effectively solving the problem of psychology. Would love to know what others think and welcome references to the psyche that others think might be valuable.


Warm regards to all,

Gregg

 

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
President of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (2022)

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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