17

Four Hypotheses on the Origin of Mind

152-65

p. 152

[1] "Wallace, said ... consciousness in humans had to be imposed by a Deity. {Why not in the plural, /Deities/?}

{In the Vajra-yana exposition of the nature of consciousness, the interconnected principles of its essentially collective process are the collective fundamentally functional nature of certain categories of deities, who willingly share with ordinary mortals these functional activities of theirs.}

So did Darwin {assent to, at the urging by Wallace} ... several powers which were "originally breathed by the Creator {why not /Creators/?} into a few forms or into one," ... the last paragraph of the Origin of Species.

{Because the original edition of Origin of Species was co-authored by Darwin-and-Wallace, it could be surmised that Wallace (and not Darwin) was responsible for inclusion of this particular passage here quoted.}

[2] And this ... led to a program of research into the evolutionary development consciousness by Darwin's disciple Romanes ... .

[3] Other attempted solutions followed, such as Huxley's ...

{Aldous Huxley soundly based a theory of consciousness on the transcendent consciousness well-known to be induced by certain psychedelic/entheogenic herbs.}

p. 153

[(not counted)] or the mysticism and imprecision of emergent evolution, and then

{The hypothesis of "emergence" of consciousness from material substance, is, because indeed of its impraecision, quite lacking in the delicate praecision characteristic of (as emphasized in EU:M, passim) all systems of religious mysticism.}

[4] in philosophy with the neo-realism of Whitehead, Alexander, Perry, and others, which is ... having a revival as a result of ... "observer-participancy" in quantum physics.

{In this system, all existent matter is regarded as conscious. It is deduced, by physicists, from photons' experimentally-proven capacity to read the minds of the same physicists.}

[(also not counted)] And of course ..., the psychologist's {sic!} flippant solution to the problem

{More actually, it is the materialist (rather than "the psychologist") who is prae-eminently in adamantly absolute denial of the even the possible existence of any consciousness.}

of ... consciousness by denying that it {scil., "consciousness", not [as would be more reasonable -- but materialists are never reaonable] "the problem"} exists at all."

{"We are in the ridiculous situation of having conscious intellectuals tell us that consciousness does not really exist as such ... . If this were not so patently absurd ..., it would be funny." (ChR:"VI")}

"While we can be conscious (though not always) of

of the products of sense-perception,

{As commonly defined, the "products of sense-perception" would include a wide diversity, such as : theories which could be derived from such perceptions; aisthetic categorizations which could be derived from them; behavior-plans which could be arranged through information obtained by means of them; etc etc.}

the actual processes are in no way accessible to conscious introspection.

{to the contrary! : The actualities of perceiving which are in process are, as such, in every way accessible to "introspection" ('looking into', i.e., sensing through means of them). Indeed, they are far more readily accessible than are processes of abstract cogitation.}

Historically, we inferred {untrue!} and abstracted {untrue!} these processes from a realization {i.e., from a fakery claiming speculation to be more real than genuine perceptions!} of our sense organs {"sense organs"? -- which need not even be noticed in order to function!!}, and then,

{wrong! Capacity for sensory perception is not some artificial man-made imposition (as is, e.g., language); and sensations are directly praesented to our awareness with greater immediacy than could any inference or abstraction within deductive processes (which are always inhaerently uncertain in their conclusions) ever be.}

because of prior assumptions about mind and matter or soul and body,

{false! Sensation and perception are automatic; and not needing to be enabled by any "prior assumptions" about anything, least of all about such abstractions as "mind and matter or soul and body".}

we believed these processes to be a part of consciousness --

{false! Sensation and perception are automatic; they do not require any "belief" about anything in order to function -- least of all do they require any sort of prae-existing belief in abstract metaphysics, in order for them to registre to, or in, our innate awareness/consciousness.}

which they are not."

{How can the author (J.J.) claim not to be aware of, nor consciousness of, sensations, nor of perceptions, nor of feelings, nor of emotions, nor of sentiments? Julian Jaynes may be quite lacking in propriety, and quite lacking in conscientiousness, as concerning the strictures of logic, and of logical reasoning, how-be-it.}

"If any of you [readers of this essay] still think that sense-perception is to be equated with consciousness, then ... you could follow a path to a reductio ad absurdum :

There is no one whatsoever who would aequate consciousness/cognizance/gnosis with simply (viz., limit it to) "sense-perception", but rather all knowledgeable persons would agree that sensation and perception are among the aspects of functioning consciousness/cognizance/gnosis, other aspects being : feelings, emotions, sentiments, empathy, love (and other such aspects, of that ilk).}

you would then have to say that since all animals have sense preception, all are conscious, and so on back through the evolutionary scale ... ."

{Almost every last person throughout the world would, doth, and hath, throughout human history (except perhaps the very few self-deluded materialists [entirely restricted to the arrogant ruling-class and its craven hirelings] and other such hypocrite-fanatics), agree that all living beings are conscious/aware/sentient.} {Through our communications with the guardian-spirits both of particular animals-or-plants, and of entire species of animals-or-plants, we may understand how the consciousness of such individuals and species is controlled and is guided by such guardian-spirits for the convenience of human beneficiaries.} {Likewise corresponding results in corresponding domains are achieved, through our communications with the elemental-spirits in charge of states-of-matter.}

"Fechner, a panpsychist, felt he was relating the entire of mind with that of matter by measuring the just noticeable differences in an attribute of sensation, and so forming the famous Weber-Fechner Law."

{"Ernest Heinrich Weber ... found that the difference threshold ... was dependent on the weight of the standard (reference) situmulus . ... Gustav Fechner ... derived ... the following mathematical relationship between perceived magnitude (P) and stimulus intensity I)" + P = klogI" (ERD:"W-FL".).} {"By stating a relationship between the spiritual and physical worlds, the law indicated to Fechner that there is really only one world, the spiritual." (EB:"WL")}

p. 154

"When [Bertrand] Russell, looking for an example of consciousness, simply says,

..., that is a highly artificial and misleading choice --

{It is artificial in that it is not anything that he would be much occupying his own efforts with working at. It is misleading in that it could cause the casual reader of his book to suppose that he would be spending much effort in working with the sort of object mentioned by him.}

like saying that a b flat is an example of a symphony. ...

Not a music-composer, nor a music-player, nor a listener to music would much care about a single note of music, although a single symphony could occupy the willing attention of any of such persons for a period of at least some hours.}

Russell should have picked a more ethologically valid example that was really true of his

p. 155

consciousness, that had really happened, such as

"When will I find time to rework the Principia [Mathematica], or "How can I afford the ... ."

{These instances could conceivably be quandaries which might occupy his attention (off-again-and-on-again) over a period of quite some years.}

He would then have come to other conclusions. Such examples are consciousness in action. ...

{That is to say, he might have, or might not have, come to some sort of conclusions, considering the topics worthwhile to contemplate anyway.}

Descartes would never have said, "I see a __, therefore I am."" {This proposition was (merely for effect) phrased solipsistically.}

{Mention of seeing a single paticular object would sound inadequately significant in the face of a propounding a major philosophical doctrine about the nature of existence.}

"another large class of activities we call preoptive, such as how we sit, walk, move. All these are done without consciousness, unless we decide to be primarily conscious of them --

{It would be more accurate (that is to say, more in line with the usual employment of conventional vocabulary) to state that "all these are done without primary attentivity (attentiveness), unless we decide to be primarily attentive to them".}

Even in speaking, the role of consciousness {read : "ro^le of attention"} is more interpolative than {it is} any constant companion to my words. ... Instead, I have what can best be described as an intention of certain meanings, what I call structions, and then linguistic[-]habit patterns take over without further input from my consciousness {read : "attention"}."

"In humans, ... motor learning, and instrument learning or operant conditioning

can be shown to occur without any awareness or assistance from consciousness. ...

{The fact that the learner must be at least minimally conscious (even if in a rather vague state of mind) in order for this learning to occurr, would go to indicate that there must be in existence some general awareness of some type, and that there must be some degree of assistance being rendred from the state of consciousness.}

And my point is that consciousness is not necessary for learning to occur."

{Learning cannot occurr while the learner in totally non-conscious (as, during dreamless sleep). However, it may be a valid point that attentivity may not be necessary in order to acquire, as a habit, some peculiar manner of bodily muscular activity.}

"in 1901, Karl Marbe ... asked them to make a simple judgement between two identical{-}looking weights as to which was the heavier. ... the result was astonishing."

{"the judgements come, they are usually right (in Marbe's task of which of two lifted weights is the heavier), and ["the judges"] do not know how they got into ["their"] mind." (MW&GTh, p. 55)}

{Having lifted each weight, anyone could detect which was the heavier; but the reason (of feeling the difference in weight) was so trifling, that they did not bother to mention it. Nothing is astonishing here, except the triflingness of the whole procedure.}

p. 159

"In every metaphor there are at least two terms,

the thing we are trying to express in words, the metaphrand, and

the term produced by a struction to do so, the metaphier.

These are similar to what I. A. Richards calls the tenor and the vehicle, tems more suitable to poetry than to philosphical analysis.

I have chosen metaphrand and metaphier instead to have more of the connotation of an operator by echoing the arithmetic{-}terms of mulitplicand {sic; read : "multiplicand"} and mulitplier {sic; read : "multiplier"}. {In writing \MULIT-\, did J.J. have in mind implying an imPLICAtion of praeference for, among meat-stews, \MULLIgaTawny\ over \mulligan\? If so, he must have regarded /metaphor/ as a "meaty" topic.} ...

But metaphiers usually have associations that we are caling paraphiers that then project back into the metaphrand as what are called paraphrands, and, indeed, creating new entities.

The word 'see' has associations of seeing in ... space, and then this space then becomes a paraphrand as it is united with this inferred mental event called the metaphrand. ...

p. 160

This mind-space I regard as the primary feature of cosciousness. It is the the space which you preoptively are inspectively 'introsecting on' or 'seeing' at this very moment."

p. 160

"There are other features of consciousness ... :

concentration, the 'inner' analog of perceptual attention; and its opposite,

suppression, by which we stop being conscious of annoying thoughts, the analogue of turning away from annoyances in the physical world;

excerption, the analog of how we sense only one aspect of a thing

p. 161

at a time; and

consilience, the analog of perceptual assimilation ... ."

"The essential rule here is that on operation goes on in consciousness {read : "attention"} that was not in behavior first."

"But is this consciousness or the concept of consciousness?

This is the well-known "use-mention" criticism which has been applied to Hobbes and others ... . ...

My reply is that we are fusing them, that they are the same."

{For the sake of evading paradox in formal logic, it is advisable cautiously to distinguish between [on the one hand] "the meaning of a word" and [on the other hand] "the word itself".}

"consciousness is based on language". {But J.J. hath somehow assumed that use of a grammatical first-person singular-number is a connecting-link between mind and language; and it is not necessarily so (for, computers can be easily programmed to use it).}

{In modern-day formal logic, the distinction between the language, and the meta-language, is fundamental, indispensable. On the other hand, J.J.'s favorite terms (such as the "I" and the "analog-I") are not deemed necessary in formal logic.}