A-Blogging we will go

I've started a new blog, The Invisible Eye. There is some potential for confusion, because both that and this one are about my ideas, but the new one is much more tightly focussed on presenting the main ideas as well as possible—like the book, perhaps even as a substitute for the book—while this is more of a notebook, recording my thoughts, as much about the writing as the ideas, and veering off-topic sometimes. It could even be argued that the new blog isn't a proper blog at all, and it might revert to being a relatively static site at some point, but there's no need to rush that decision.

This blog is now publicly accessible. I've decided that I really need to stop worrying about people stealing my ideas, and just go all out to get them out there. Though the fact that publishers no longer seem to worry about material having been previously available on the web helps too.

Contradiction can be good (unlike contraindication)

Just to contradict Later the same day..., I'm now thinking about reinstating the subjective and objective states, and the chapter on Psychology, but the latter, at least, in very different form (probably the former too).

The reason being that we do need some basis in psychology for objectivity and inter/subjectivity, saying, as we are, that these need to be considered modes of human operation. So Psychology is no longer about the implications for that discipline of my findings, but vice versa, support for my findings from psychology. As such, the section on states fits nicely in there—or will do once thoroughly re-written—as does Empathy, and probably the developmental stuff currently sited within Conscious and Unconscious Minds, too. So Subjective and Objective is about the philosophy of it, and Psych, the psych of it. Well, S&O was beginning to seem a bit unwieldy anyway.

I'm now thinking about going public with this, in order to build up some interest generally, and some website traffic specifically (see My Links, on the right). The reason I didn't do so from the start was, of course, because I'm worried about people stealing my ideas. I don't think there's an easy answer to that dilemma, but the better I feel about progress on the book, the happier I am to publicise the ideas, on the assumption I can capitalise on them before anyone who gets them from me. Also, of course, there's the fact that big names, though they can get into publication more easily than me, are not generally trawling the web for ideas, while little people like myself will have the same difficulties as I do. Which means that I should be OK as long as I keep my nose to the grindstone. Well, I'm not going to do it immediately, anyway. I'll give it until tomorrow morning at least, and ponder it some more meanwhile.

Big cuts

Some biggish developments today, cutting out loads of stuff, and making a decision on something that I've vacillating over for months (or years).

As well as states and minds (see previous posts), the chapter provisionally called Psychology is gone now too. It was intended to discuss the significance of dual aspect theory and intersubjectivity in psychology, but much of it wasn't really very good, and the general idea seems highly optional now. These days I tend to feel I can leave quite a lot unsaid, leave the implications for others to work out. The one section from that chapter that I'm keeping, Empathy, will fit well in Subjective and Objective (though it might have its name changed, or be merged with another section).

I've decided to commit to inter/subjective realism. It's the most solid possible foundation for my pro-inter/subjectivity stance. And it works well with the anti-reductionism of Patterns, so I won't be tempted to cut another chapter! But it makes a nice slogan too, along with inter/subjective panpsychism.

Here's another nice slogan, though maybe not directly related to the book: Persistence of Vision. I've decided it's what I have to aim for, not so much in philosophy and the book, as in life generally. Almost literally. Attention under will, giving what's really important its due, that kind of thing. Yes, another very nice slogan, if I say so myself.

Later the same day...

...intuition intervened, suggesting that this is not me. Too many new things, dissing Occam... which makes no immediate difference, but it now seems less likely states and/or minds will be resurrected.

The Zone, Flow, States and Minds

This is a think-piece, intended to help me decide whether I need certain bits of the book as it stands.

In the chapter called Subjective and Objective, there's a section that originated many years ago (over 10), called Subjective and Objective States. The objective state is an ideal, never fully realized, in which a person (or whatever) manages to be perfectly objective. It is what science aspires to. Even though the objective state is unreachable, the concept is implicitly very prevalent, not to say dominant, across British/American philosophy and culture generally.

The subjective state is the same as "the zone" in sports jargon, in which action is spontaneous and performance is optimized, and it is related to elements in some Eastern philosophies, particularly Zen. My hypothesis (to put it no more strongly) is that these two states represent the extremes of a continuum between which we operate at all times, shifting backwards and forwards as circumstances demand and permit. Rationality takes us towards the objective state, for instance, and empathy, towards the subjective. More recently I've come across the concept of flow, which seems very similar if not identical to the zone, ie the subjective state. This view is necessarily a simplified picture of reality, but I think it could be quite useful. The question here is: is it useful within the context of this particular book?

The original intention of this section was to help elucidate subjectivity and objectivity generally. I put a lot of effort over the years into understanding what subj and obj "really" are, and this is that. Except that I no longer cling to such reductionist, or essentialist, tendencies, and I'm now wondering whether this isn't a can of worms, better left unopened. The stuff on the zone and Zen makes it look a bit new-agey. On the other hand, I want both to appeal to, and to enlighten and support, people who tend towards inter/subjectivity, who might not be put off by that, and might even be attracted by it. This is partially, therefore, a marketing issue, but I do need to work out what I get from this set of concepts, exactly what I'd lose by ditching it, before I can make the decision.

At the moment there's a chapter called Conscious and Unconscious Minds, mainly about habits and skills, to show the prevalence and importance of "the unconscious". The link is the unconscious initiation of action in the zone, and my idea that subjectivity always has an unconscious element. It seems likely that, if the states are dropped, the minds would go with them. This unconscious/subjective idea seems a bit essentialist, and even if there's something in it (which I do think there is), that could well be unnecessary and even distracting in the context of this book.

There's an easy way forward here, which is to cut out states and minds but preserve the text carefully (meaning findably), so it can be re-introduced if and when it turns out to fit well with the rest of what I need to say. So I don't really need to work out all the implications first. And that's a decision.

Misc etc.

Things are people too. And people are things. But the inter/subjective implications of adopting either of these slogans are very different.

Objectivity is death. In principle. I mean, really, death is a psych/spiritual implication of the objective state.

In addition to being The Blindspot of Science, consciousness is also The Invisible Eye. The former is the book's working title at present, the latter is not in use.

Just wait until it makes sense.

All performance is acting, of some sort.

The Blindspot of Science

My confidence that I have something new to say was slightly dented this morning when I came across this blog post on The New Mysterians. It's mainly about relationships between the ideas of Owen Flanagan and Ken Wilber. Flanagan coined the term "mysterians" for those philosophers (mainly) who are skeptical about a scientific explanation of consciousness. Wilber suggests that a full solution to the "hard problem" comes only with Enlightenment but I was interested to learn that Flanagan's a Buddhist too. (As well as Wilber? Don't know, but he's certainly a fellow-traveller at least.) And there're some good points made about intersubjectivity in the comments on The New Mysterians - Part Deux.

But that was just a short-lived dip. I'm sure that, by combining a Nagelian take on subjectivity and objectivity with a really good appreciation of the significance of intersubjectivity, I'll have something that people will find worth reading. The title of this post is the new working title of the book. Using "science" instead of "philosophers" or "philosophy" sharpens it up. In fact it's probably not the case that scientists are necessarily more hard-nosed than philosophers on this issue, but titles and blurbs have to deal with perceptions as much as reality. And, in fact, it's the strictly objective approach that fails to find consciousness, so this title is more accurate in that sense.