Subjecting Experience to an Investigation

Jay Garfield hands down has the best translation of Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (the discourses on the middle way and emptiness in Buddhism) and so I was pleasantly surprised to see that he has a new book out called Losing Ourselves: Learning to live without a self. We have covered this territory before but from a meditation practitioner's perspective. In short, in Mahamudra/Dzogchen, the practitioner learns to (i) first practice no-self wherein awareness is directly connected to phenomenal content with the self seen as a construct; (ii) next the practitioner gets behind everything and begins to see the entire world (including space and time) as a construct with awareness being the stillpoint of the universe; (iii) phenomenal content returns and in the one taste meditation, awareness/content is seen as simultaneous with a separate awareness being seen as a construct; (iv) the crossover instructions are taken to heart and the practitioner now sees each moment as awareness/content expressing itself to itself with meditation seen as a construct; (v) the Dzogchen practices then take over (automatic emptiness, Lion's Gaze etc.) with an extraordinarily simple non-practice practice wherein awareness/content is exhorted to stay and stay and with excessive retreat into clarity, stillness and bliss disrupted by the PHAT! instructions. (We have not yet covered Crossing Over and Dzogchen here on this blog.)

I mention all this just to say that Garfield roughly covers step 1 in this book. As such, this aspect of the book is extraordinarily useful. You have a top flight analytic philosopher tackling the no-self doctrine. He very carefully points out the danger of reification of the self, the historical impulses (Kant, most of Indian philosophy etc.) behind it and then brings his attention to modern approaches to the subject of experience. 

And then it all falls apart. Garfield's polemics are reserved for Galen Strawson's thin subject and Dan Zahavi's minimal self (with similar concepts in Evan Thompson's work). We have already covered this territory, and have pointed out how useful it is to have a non-Cartesian thin subject since it so directly corresponds to our experience. Strawson, Zahavi and Thompson have done us a huge service in unpacking this construct - enabling future researchers to include this minimal self into the world stream which they surely will. (We have attempted to do so in the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference series using category theory inspired models, but I digress.)

Why is Garfield so sure he is right? It's because of the very first premise in Galen Strawson's The Subject of Experience to which we now turn:

1.  "Awareness is (necessarily) a property of a subject of awareness." (The Subject of Experience, page 193).
   

Garfield takes issue with this claiming that Strawson is reifying the self with awareness as its property (sorta like the property of an object). He then criticizes Strawson for descending into reflexivity of awareness since what usually happens when you go down this route is that you will get an awareness of awareness recursion causing - as Wilber said a very long time ago - centauric awareness to recede. (Incidentally, I was stuck here for a loooong time and let me tell you, the level of depression got pretty acute: and all stemming from mistaking awareness as "my awareness." The alienation from others and the world goes to infinity and you end up in existential despair territory pretty quickly.)  

But this is not where Strawson ends up! To cut a long story short, while he begins with step 1 which is a fairly simple existential level observation, that's not where he ends up which is:

  "All awareness comports awareness of itself" (page 195).

 

which is where Mahamudra/Dzogchen ends and begins: awareness/content expressing itself to itself.

 

I was curious to see if Garfield would reference and discuss The Embodied Mind co-authored by Evan Thompson and Francisco Varela (whom we all miss terribly) along with Eleanor Rosch. While that book covered similar terrain, it backed away from a univocal no-self doctrine by gingerly bringing emptiness of concept back into the picture. Garfield does not do so and this is a clear regression relative to The Embodied Mind. It is worth revisiting Wilber's criticism (page 691, note 1 to chapter 14, 1st edition) of the no-self arguments in The Embodied Mind since it applies to Losing Ourselves in spades.

 

"Nor, I believe, is Spirit's literal interpretation as "no-self" very helpful either......In short, both the cohesive self and the momentary states are relatively real, but both are ultimately Empty: the absolute is neither self nor no-self (nor both nor neither), neither momentary nor permanent (nor both nor neither), but is rather the "Thatness" disclosed by nondual Prajna or primordial awareness, a "Thatness" which, being radically unquaifiable, cannot be captured in any concepts whatsoever."

A bit more flowery than I would like but the point should be clear. Now, Garfield undoubtedly knows all this, so why does he do it? The answer, I believe, lies in this paragraph:

 

"...awareness can be the result of the cooperation of a number of psychophysical processes, and it can consist in a number of relations between aspects of a person and aspects of their environment. Awareness is most plausibly an umbrella property that reflects an extremely complex set of underlying properties and relations." (page 71).

 

To which I say bollocks. Garfield seems to be attempting to finesse away the hard problem  by attempting a solution on the cheap: this will never work considering that the problem of consciousness has been with us for a very long time. At times in the book, I almost caught a whiff of eliminativism in Garfield which he most likely does not hold but unfortunately the Dennetts of the world are surely taking notes from this book. To be clear, there is a way to interpret "an umbrella property that reflects an extremely complex set of underlying properties and relations" such that it honors both physicalism and consciousness but we must reject the perspective from which Garfield makes this observation: he views the self as a construct and the "underlying" brain processes as real and attempts to get the former from the latter without a fundamental rejiggering of our worldview which I think is impossible. It ends up in a complex systems or radical emergentist view of the world and will likely enable AI engineers to claim that their artifacts are conscious. Before you get upset, the likelihood of AI engineers claiming this is highly remote and I merely offer this as a possibility.

All this goes to show how even a highly principled and sincere investigation can go off the rails. I sometimes wonder if things would be different if  Galen Strawson had called  his concept a "thick perspective" interpreted as "bounded awareness of phenomenal content" (since I can prick you but not directly feel your pain) rather than a "thin subject," but the damage is done. And sadly, the solution is so simple. Acknowledge that the self is a construct (which is Strawson's point as well but Garfield seems to have not figured this out), but so is the world and quarks and leptons, bosons through to cells etc. But, it is a natural construct and not a cultural construct (like astrology). Garfield seems to think it is the latter and not the former, hence his polemics. He therefore selectively applies emptiness of self where it suits him leaving out the emptiness of the world while allowing physicalism to remain unchallenged. But, as Daniel Stoljar tells us, this will never work.

Mahamudra: One Taste

I've been working with George Protos (PointingOut Way) for a while now and he has been very good in pointing out the One Taste state/level in Mahamudra. I'm now going to take a stab at describing this. 

Just as the no self meditation in Mahamudra helps us realize that the self is a construct and the yoga of unelaboration demonstrates that the world is a construct (and that spacetime is a concept), One Taste shows that a separate awareness is a construct and that awareness/phenomena is simultaneous. 

To some extent this is obvious. If emptiness of phenomena shows that phenomena are constructs and emptiness of self shows that the self is a construct, then it's natural to affirm awareness and phenomena as co-present since you cannot have one without the other. However one has to be extremely careful unpacking this state as other traditions like Theravada tend to focus on phenomena only (via the dissolution experience) while Vedanta tends to affirm the pure consciousness event in which no phenomena are present. Mahamudra then sits in the middle (with the metaphor of being the flashlight and not the person carrying it or the illuminated content) adopting a post-tantric non-dual stance. It also refuses to conceptualize this state except to carefully point out a simultaneousness of awareness and content without reifying each one as a separate entity.  

It is important to understand the gains stemming from maintaining One Taste. There's an automatic emptiness wherein anything that arises is not elaborated but tagged as empty upon arising. The impact is that things tend to get taken care of immediately with high energy and without as much attachment (so you do have to be careful doing this in public since taboos could get broken very easily). There's also a brightness and clarity to events as if they are self-illuminated [which makes sense since every event is also simultaneously tagged with awareness and perhaps parodied as "I see god in everything" :-)].

Once again Tashi Namgyal:

 "[T]he meditator realizes [that] the awareness of one flavor manifests itself in diverse forms and how these appearances and existences are of one flavor in primordial evenness. The meditator has achieved insight into the essential nature of one flavor when he discovers the intrinsic identity of every appearance as a self-manifesting objectlessness and evenness in its primordial nature."

Mahamudra: The Yoga of Unelaboration

In a previous blog post, we discussed no self in Mahamudra, taking care to separate out "self as construct" from a more radical no-self of any kind whatsoever concept. Here, we continue with the next stage in Mahamudra which Dan Brown (in his fabulous Pointing Out The Great Way book) calls "the yoga of unelaboration."

The yoga of unelaboration is ostensibly concerned with the ordinary convention of time. Its goal is to see through the observable reality of moment-by-moment arising and passing away of events. In the previous no-self meditation, the ordinary habit of creating a self out of mental phenomena is seen through until no self can be found. In the yoga of unelaboration, the past, present and future as concepts are deconstructed: the past is done with, the future is unborn and the present does not stay. Time, like mind becomes a construct.

I had a lot of difficulty with the yoga of unelaboration and specifically with the emptiness of time practice as summarized above. A second retreat with Dan Brown in the fall of 2019 cleared it up. The yoga of unelaboration (called the nondiscriminatory yoga by Tashi Namgyal) is really about cultivating a perfect mirror in which all phenomenal content is apprehended without any discrimination. There is a shift in perspective away from any "objects" and toward the mind itself in its most natural state: Awareness itself in each and every moment is then realized but without the false identification of any self with that awareness. Emptiness of time then cuts through our habitual tendency to deploy awareness to "move toward or away" from phenomenal content thereby artificially amplifying, diminishing or otherwise distorting them. Take this moment right now: Use your awareness to "move toward" your big toe, apprehending the sensations and then "back away from it." Our habitual tendency is to assume that there is a self using its awareness to move toward and away from sensations. The emptiness of time meditation and the yoga of unelaboration cut through this process. Instead of continuing the narrative of a self that uses its awareness, after a no self state is established, awareness becomes a perfect nondiscriminatory mirror for all phenomenal content. In my case, there's a clear "black mirror" feel of getting behind all content. Furthermore, the content itself often recedes into the distance (but only after a careful process of disentangling awareness from amplified content). Tashi Namgyal, quoting the Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā, says of this extraordinary awareness:

It is neither dissolving nor arising,

Neither nihilism nor eternity,

Neither going nor coming,

Neither separate nor the same,

Completely detached from all conceptual determination,

It is the perfect quiescence.

The meaning should now be perfectly clear.

Neil Peart (of Rush): A Memoriam

Rush's drummer and lyricist Neil Peart passed away on January 7th, 2020 at the age of 67. He was widely considered to be one of the best rock drummers in the world. I found this New Yorker tribute and this one by Rolling Stone to be among the best.

Other noteworthy tributes include Bret Stephens (New York Times) and Nick Raskulinecz (at Ultimate Guitar). Rushisaband has a comprehensive list.

Rush's Power Windows album brought me out of a depression (in 1985/1986). It was also instrumental in helping navigate the treacherous passage that every (non-Western) immigrant has to take. Marathon and Territories were really helpful. Neil Peart's lyrics could be "on the nose" at times but those two songs in particular, spoke to me. Here's a lyric snippet from The Garden (Clockwork Angels):

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect

So hard to earn, so easily burned

In the fullness of time

A garden to nurture and protect

While Tom Sawyer, YYZ, Fly by Night, Working Man, 2112 and Spirit of Radio are well known Rush songs, I thought quite a bit about Rush's best tracks [and the criteria included composition, emotion, vocals (ouch) AND playing]. Came up with this list.

1. The Main Monkey Business

2. The Garden

3. Losing It

4. Afterimage

5. Mystic Rhythms

Honorable mentions:

6. Bravado

7. Clockwork Angels

8. Limelight

9. The Way The Wind Blows

10. Territories

And their best cover:

Heart Full Of Soul (the old Yardbirds song)

Update (2020/02/06): Liz Swan (an academic philosopher at the University of Colorado, Boulder) has a great article on Neil Peart in Psychology Today. She especially focuses on Rush's Hemispheres album and in particular, dwells on the importance of "uniting heart and mind in a single perfect sphere." I'd add that the lyrics on Hold Your Fire (a under-appreciated Rush album, at least lyrically) also emphasize the inner world while elaborating on the themes of Hemispheres in a non-mythological way.

But it's Liz Swan's take on consciousness that caught my eye (and what are the odds that a person would be into Rush AND consciousness). She writes "There is a misguided question in contemporary philosophy called “the hard problem” which was conceived in a philosophical vacuum..." and goes on to say "My own personal answer to this question is that we wouldn’t have the privilege of being alive in the 21st century to ask these questions if we hadn’t in fact been in touch with our world qualitatively the whole time." Since I've thought about the hard problem of consciousness since 1996, a response is absolutely required. It's not the case as Liz Swan says that access to our own phenomenology (via being "in touch with our world qualitatively") renders the hard problem moot. The issue is: what is the relationship between phenomenology and physicalism - the most successful modern doctrine of the world and its dynamics. Of course, we have access to experience. But, how do we accommodate experience within the "natural order." That's the hard problem. I (and many others have suggested) that this implies that our understanding of physicalism and what it entails is cracked. But, cracked how? There's no consensus at present. Whether you're a dual aspect theorist, neutral monist, panpsychist, emergentist, cosmo-psychist or cosmo-holist (my view), you have to concede that there's no consensus on that which is absolutely central to existence - experience.

No self in Mahamudra

In February 2018, I did the Pointing Out retreat with Dan Brown and something clicked. Will try and describe the shift to the best of my ability. But, first a preamble:

Dan Brown's Level 1 retreat uses the pointing out tradition to mainly follow the Mahamudra steps to enlightenment. These, as per Tashi Namgyal are (i) the one-pointed yoga, (ii) the nondiscriminatory yoga, (iii) the yoga of one taste and (iv) the yoga of non-meditation. Since Dan could not assume that we all could achieve good levels of concentration, he used the elephant path (also described by Tashi Namgyal) to build sufficient levels of concentration before embarking on the four yogas. Since we cannot expect much familiarity with any of this, I'll restrict this post to the first stage - the one-pointed yoga - and describe its benefit.

tl;dr: Practicing the one-pointed yoga moves one away from the "existential level," where awareness is unpacked as self-awareness and the self identified with it. The one-pointed yoga causes a shift wherein the self gets out of the way and awareness directly relates to phenomenal content (sensations, perceptions, emotions, cognition, visualizations). The existential depression - caused by mistaken identification of awareness as self-awareness - permanently lifts.

Here's Tashi Namgyal:

 "The meditator has realized the one-pointed yoga when he has with conscious certainty gained insight into his own inmost awareness, which is an inseparable blend of its intrinsic clarity and emptiness. Like the expanse of space, this simplicity of mind is detached from any substantive entity while manifesting itself clearly and uninterruptedly."

And here's Dan Brown:

"Determining the mind to be a nonentity is said to "cut off the root"...The misery of samsara is said to be produced by the mistaken view of a seemingly real, objective world and a self-existent, subjective sense of self, whose interaction leads to attachment, aversion and ignorance."

In the actual practice, the meditator searches for real entities underlying all phenomenal content until finally giving up. Also, the meditator searches for any real entity underlying the self and gives up when it cannot be found. For me personally (while being well aware of the irony), this caused a shift wherein there only seems to be a vast awareness and phenomenal content in each moment. The self identification with awareness finally dropped away and with it the existential depression which had gotten much much worse over the years.

In Praise of Porcupine Tree

I've been listening - rather obsessively I must admit - to Porcupine Tree of late. I started following Porcupine Tree in 2007 but didn't become a full blown fan until now.

Porcupine Tree started life as a parody - a Spinal Tap of progressive rock bands if you will - but as is starting to become common in the irony-drenched era we live in (Sarah Palin anyone?), parody gave way to reality and the mythical 70s supergroup became an actual 90s post-progressive outfit.

Early efforts by Porcupine Tree track the evolution of Pink Floyd rather closely but updated for the 90s - think trance rather than psychedelia. It was not until the middle of naughty oughts (00s) that more mature works like In Absentia and Deadwing appeared. In these two records, Porcupine Tree started including elements of metal and grunge - arguably staking a claim to being really progressive (in the sense of the term). Critical and commercial recognition followed firmly establishing the band as a leading progressive outfit. The two more recent releases - Fear of a Blank Planet and The Incident - showcase the diversity of the band (within the narrow rock context). The former is a clever synthesis of trance, soundscapes, psychedelia and hard rock whereas the latter revisits the concept album motif (popular in the 70s) but is more musically straightforward. As we enter a new decade, the band is a leading live act with band founder Steven Wilson (singer, songwriter and guitarist) hailed as a genius.

Recommended songs:

1. Anesthetize
2. Arriving somewhere not here
3. The Creator has a Mastertape
4. Time flies
5. Waiting phase one
6. Heartattack in a Layby
7. Start of something beautiful
8. Way out of here
9. The sleep of no dreaming
10. .3

The Subject matter of science

I just finished reading Daniel Stoljar's "Physicalism" and David Chalmers' "The Character of Consciousness." Putting these two books together, here's my current impression of the state of consciousness studies. Chalmers' point always seems to be "Why is it accompanied by experience?" That is, he relentlessly asks why any theory should entail the presence of experience. This is a strong charge and almost forces us to consider experience to be fundamental. Galen Strawson, as we previously have seen, approximately follows this line, embraces panpsychism, and launches a broadside on emergence.

Stoljar's approach is more subtle and is the one that appeals to me. His book - distilled into a few lines - makes the claim that we don't have to abandon physicalism for the simple reason that physicalism has never been tried! There is no present theory that is worthy of the name. Why does he claim this? At the risk of distorting the technical contributions in the book, this is due to the fact that present day physics is so far removed from our daily experience that it becomes impossible to rule out fantastical entities - angels and ectoplasm for instance - while accounting for everything else.

Stoljar's characterization of physicalism gives us an avenue to proceed. The steps needed to build a new physicalism that can accommodate experience are: i) Tease out the fundamental characteristics of experience and work out the minimal requirements for a physicalism to entail experience. ii) Go underneath present day physicalism and build a new theory that can accommodate the requirements of (i). Obviously a tall order but if we don't do this, we'll be stuck with radical emergence, panpsychism and idealism which are all unappealing.

While both steps outlined above are challenging, the first step seems to be much more daunting than the second. After all, once we know what entails experience, we should be able to modify present day physics to account for it. Now, I obviously don't have a proof that the idea presented below is the only way to proceed, but it is offered as a possible approach.

The new idea that is very appealing to me at the moment is to consider subjects of experience to be fundamental physical entities. That is, instead of making experience fundamental, I wish to make subjects fundamental. This obviously raises the specter of idealism, but as long as the subjects of experience are i) many and not necessarily just one, and ii) momentary in the sense that they can pop in and out of spacetime, I think the threat of idealism is diminished. With fundamental subjects included in the physicalist base, we can answer Chalmers' question: Why is it accompanied by experience? Answer: "It is accompanied by experience because it is accompanied by experience." Unpacking this answer, for us, subjects are its and accompanied by experience. The immediate question then is: What about objects? For us, objects like fermions and bosons are no longer fundamental and become something more akin to computational entities. In other words, we (when we are a we) are subjects in a computational universe. But what is the universe computing? That will have to be another blog entry.

Why should a subject be accompanied by experience? That depends on how the word "subject" is unpacked. I believe that we can make progress by defining subjects in such a way that it becomes obvious that they are carriers of experience. And by eliminating all objects from the category of fundamental entities, we do not run the risk of objects being carriers of experience. We will later elaborate on this basic theme.