The purpose of this chapter is to discuss mind in a very general way in light of the metaphysics of immanence. The discussion also derives systematic reflection on mind that has roots in personal experience as well as the philosophic traditions

The combination of metaphysics of immanence, context, and careful reflection permits an ultimate picture of mind and resolution of a number of fundamental problems in the philosophy of mind

In light of the fact that there are no tenable ultimate substances, it will be seen that while mind cannot be regarded as pervasive, mind can reach down to the root of being

Further reflection on and analysis of the nature of mind and its elements, structures and processes—such as they may be—is taken up in Human being which emphasizes but is not limited to reflection on the human animal

The sustained reflection contributes to the building of a picture of human being against a context of universal being. In addition to being tendered as a contribution to the history of ideas, the picture is pivotal—it is one pivot point—in founding a journey in being that is not shy of the ultimate

The fundamental character of experience

In Being, experience was seen to be a form of being. It was also pointed out that proof is not invariably relative to unproven premises. Experience is part of the fact of ‘my’ being but is so fundamental that no further definition of its nature is possible—of course examples of experience and synonyms for experience may be given but these elaborations are not definitions, rather they add to the meaning of experience by elaborating its reference. I.e. the sense of ‘experience’ remains primitive in intuition—for some primitive must remain and it is not to be founded in something else. Even if there is no external world, there is experience. The aspect of method employed here is the identification of a necessary object—experience is a necessary object that is primarily not external in the sense that it is not experienced but may be experienced and when experienced is also external—recall that the meaning of external is not ‘spatially outside’

The form of experience includes that of the object. An argument that objects lie in ‘the’ external world was given but this argument was probable and not necessary. From the Metaphysics, however, it follows that in some manifestations of being e.g. cosmological systems there must be a system of sentient beings and objects. There is of course no practical reason to doubt the argument’s applicability to this cosmological system but doubting it in general may lead to clarification and illumination of the nature of experience and world. Regarding objects as of the external world (external does not mean outside here but object of experience) and given the fundamental character of experience, that it is in experience that I am ‘appraised’ of being, experience must be the fundamental character of mind. Thus mind does not appear to be an object except that in a sufficiently reflexive mind, there may be awareness or experience of experience and, so, experience may be treated as an object (which may be further confirmed from the treatment of Objects. In the manifest world, experience and things—abstract and particular (concrete)—may be regarded as dual forms of object

Attitude and action

In the recent philosophical literature, experience, attitude and action have been regarded as the attributes or dimensions of mind. The approach to this result is rather empirical in nature and lacks necessity because in responding to a question ‘what is mind’ the connection is associative and neither semantic nor necessary. Other dimensions might be investigated but it may be noted that attitude and action are fundamental in that they represent the modalities of map and navigation or, perhaps, representation and change. However, attitude and action are not so much separate attributes or dimensions of mind but correlates of experience over and above ‘pure’ experience. Therefore, attitude and action are not regarded as constitutive of mind. Therefore, even though they are important parts of a ‘map of mind,’ attitude and action will not be regarded as fundamental characteristics of mind

When the concept of experience was introduced in Being, it was seen that it is fundamental to the life of the individual. The discussion suggested that experience was objectively fundamental to mind. This will be shown in below in discussing mind and matter. Experience is the fundamental character of mind (the question of awareness without consciousness is addressed below.) It will also be shown that the concept of mind may be extended to the root of being and that even in the limited concept, mind may reach the root

A reflection on mind in a material universe

It has been seen that the universe cannot be characterized by substance. Where, in this free-floating situation, may discussion of mind be anchored? In order to provide an anchor, matter is taken to be the substance of being. In the subsequent section, the condition of matter as substance is relinquished and this is found to permit real conclusions regarding mind (and the process of abstraction suggests how to think without an anchor… and the value of such ‘algebraic’ thought)

It is not possible for both mind and matter to be substances for substances cannot interact

Consider the case where matter is the substance. This case is perhaps for some purposes a rough approximation to state of this cosmos. Here, focus is not limited to this cosmos. However, so as to understand the consequences of a strict materialism, consider the idealized case of matter as—the—substance. In this case, mind must be a manifestation of matter. It is useful to ask how this world would be under that materialistic ontology. Organism and environment would be material. In the materialist ontology, experience and knowledge are material. However, experience and knowledge are reference even if latent. The kind of the relation must be a material relation which is constituted of forces of interaction among elements of matter

However, in a materialist ontology, ‘force’ must be a mode of matter (which, though inessential to the present argument, is the case in modern physics.) Therefore, in the materialist ontology, experience and knowledge are material relations. If all forces are sums of elementary forces—as seems to be the case in this cosmos—then experience is some aggregate andor average over elementary interactions

Thus mind goes to the root—i.e. mind-as-manifest is already contained in the elementary interactions. Mind and matter are not distinct and are coeval

This would not be a pan-psychism if by that term it is meant that all human or animal like aspects of mind are found at the elementary level e.g. that a little human mind may be found in a proton. Although the concept is generally not its object, a concept is an object: there is no special space of ‘mental objects’

Experience or ‘feeling’—understood with sufficient generality and abstraction—is the character of mind which goes to the root

Higher—animal—mind is structure, elaboration, focusing and summing or intensifying of the elementary ‘function.’ Structure is revealed in the form of objects and elaboration in the sensory modalities for which environment is object as well as the—higher—feeling modalities for which the organism is the object. Focusing is seen in attention and intensifying, as elaborated later, in bright versus dim consciousness versus feeling without experience of consciousness

Mind

The topic is mind in the actual universe

How is the above account to be modified to account for the metaphysics of immanence in which there is and can be no true substance but the void in its absolute indeterminism may be seen as generating the world? Now, mind may not necessarily originate at the root (but neither does ‘matter’ nor any substance.) Mind may be infused from one part of the universe to another. However, even though mind may not originate at the root it may and must sometimes reach ‘down’ to it

Consciousness

It is now seen that animal and human consciousness includes elements of structure, elaboration, focusing and intensifying of elementary feeling. What is meant by elementary feeling?

It is the root of mind in the organism where e.g. the physical modalities of light, sound, contact, chemistry—not ultimately distinct—manifest as sensory modalities of sight, hearing, touch and taste and smell. How deep does this go? As deep as is necessary to reach the substance-root of this cosmological system

What that means is as follows. Even though there is no substance root for the entire universe, as seen in metaphysics of immanence, a stable cosmos may have, for normal phenomena, a substance-root which, in this cosmos, may be taken, currently, to be the elementary particles. I.e. in this cosmological system, feeling must go down to this root (on assumption that it is the root)

Much is explained: the conscious-unconscious dimension is not a polarity of presence and absence but a continuum of more and less; consciousness is not so much on-off as is awareness of consciousness; how it is possible to have awareness without—bright—consciousness; the dual presence of bright or focal consciousness and scanning and peripheral consciousness field; that while consciousness has sometimes been identified with awareness of awareness or linguistic awareness of awareness but these appear to be mechanisms of focus and cultivation rather than consciousness itself

An illicit ‘kind’ of consciousness

Here, consciousness is the same mode as feeling. There may be a higher consciousness that may have special properties such as intensity, focus, elaboration and integration of sensory modality, form… At root, though, consciousness is feeling; and feeling elaborates as higher consciousness. Consciousness and feeling are identical even though their usual connotations express different regions of a spectrum or continuum

Against this, some late twentieth century analytic philosophers introduce a new ‘kind’ of consciousness, a-consciousness or access-consciousness to account for the ‘awareness without consciousness’ phenomena of access to information without phenomenal consciousness that appear to arise in certain experiments and certain kinds of introspection. These philosophers label the meaning of consciousness of this narrative ‘p-consciousness’ for phenomenal consciousness. The position of this narrative is not that what is labeled a-consciousness is not a phenomenon—it is a highly interesting phenomenon; rather it is that while there is a high level appearance of a distinction, there is no root distinction and that the high level distinction results from the appearance-at-high-level of a lack-of-appearance-at-high-level that is confused as appearance of lack-of-appearance. The discussion in the narrative makes this clear. It is as if a wildlife biologist decides that there are two kinds of tigers, p-tigers—tigers that appear to be tigers and e-tigers—tigers that appear to be elephants

As noted, contrary to some claims in the recent literature of consciousness there are not two kinds of consciousness—the phenomenal consciousness that has been the topic of discussion so far and a-consciousness or access-consciousness which is awareness without phenomenal consciousness; as consciousness a-consciousness is incoherent—to assert that it is a form of consciousness is to conflate distinct categories; it is not being said at all that there is no a-consciousness but that it is a category error to use the word ‘consciousness’ for both ‘kinds’ and, that since phenomenal consciousness is the prototype, a-consciousness should perhaps be given some other name

Possible origin of the illicit distinction

The thoughts in the literature about a-consciousness could be mistaken in the following way. Perhaps there are two kinds of person—and one kind truly does not have experience but only a-consciousness. They would be like zombies amid the rest of us but would not be like those theoretical zombies who are like the rest in every material way but did not have experience. They would be fundamentally distinct even materially as the previous discussion shows they must be to lack experience. In the literature such zombies that are materially identical to us non-zombies but lack feeling-consciousness are sometimes claimed to be possible; the present discussion shows the material identity but mental non-identity to be incoherent

Now consider the case in which the distinction is not absolute but is a tendency. There is a difference of degree rather than kind. If there is a distinction this is the realistic case. One kind, the non zombie-kind, tends to phenomenal consciousness as the mode of knowledge—as relation to the world—and the other kind, zombie-kind, tends to knowledge without phenomenal consciousness. The kinds would be sufficiently similar and their behavior sufficiently alike that the distinction would not be at all apparent on cursory observation. However, the kinds would talk at cross purposes. One kind would sing the praises of the experience of a sunset; the other kind would deny mind, feeling, and experience and consciousness altogether

A third kind would be the first kind but confused by the deliberations of the second. The suspicion is that there are in fact only two kinds—the first and the third and that the second kind does not exist. The appearance of the second kind arises in those persons who are persuaded by theoretical confusion to talk a certain kind of (a-consciousness) language and for whom the persuasion is not especially difficult on account of an innate biological attenuation of intensity of experience—the combination of suggestibility and attenuation is key. Are the kinds of biological origin or do they depend on childhood development—toilet training as metaphor—or both? It might seem that the Anglo-American upbringing might dispose the individual to kind two; that a Continental upbringing might dispose to kind one

(Expanding upon the consequences of kind, one might imagine that kind two might dispose the individual to analysis over synthesis, to seeing the world in the color of scientific materialism…)

There may of course be pathological cases of an extreme second kind

A fourth kind may be contemplated—a kind that enjoys the simulation of kind regardless of innate kind and that may simulate him or her self in addition to being him or herself

Method. Explanation versus proof

Given the magnitude of the topic of discussion, explanation is perhaps the most that may be achieved. Certainly, explanation is most conducive to understanding, clarification, and to painting a picture of mind. There is proof as well but, as noted in the earlier discussion of method, proof is generally easy and what is desired is interpretation (whose character may vary according to case)

Let us be a little clearer about what is achieved in ‘explanation’ and ‘interpretation.’ One initial point is some essential features of mind revealed by the metaphysics starting from the core—experience. Another is some actual and possible features of mind and consciousness for an organism in this cosmological system. Reasoning about this dual system yields an interpretation of the actual features of organism-mind and a resolution of the possible features into an actual form

Freedoms

Since organism and environment have essentially new features relative to origins, there must be freedoms; note that the consistency of freedom—indeterminism—and form has already been established. Especially in artifacts of concept, language and technology, the source of freedom—creation—must be in the organism. However, binding—stable form—must also be present. The concepts of and varieties of freedom and binding and their identities and interrelations will be elaborated in Human World where implications of ‘freedom’ will be taken up

Freedom and method

If a human individual were guided by an external agent, freedom of the human individual would not be necessary, e.g., to adaptation. However, at root, some guiding agent would require to be free. The freedom of the human individual is therefore a normal—immensely probable—but not a necessary inference from novelty. I.e. when human freedom is doubted, the function of doubt is clarification of the nature and source of freedom in an organism with significant binding—determinism—to clarify the significance of political freedom over conceptual and moral freedom and so on but there is no further practical reason to doubt freedom

Logical versus reasonable doubt

Thus human freedom is not beyond all logical doubt. However, freedom itself is beyond such doubt (origin from the void, metaphysics of immanence.) Given the complexity of the animal—human—organism it would be extremely improbable to suppose that animal—human—being is not an author of freedom

The foregoing paragraph applies to this world. It is necessary that there are infinitely many worlds where there are ‘intelligent’ organisms that are significant authors of their own freedom

Attributes

From an idea of mind and matter as substances, Spinoza suggested the possibility of an infinite number of attributes. However, it has been seen that there are no substances and that the mental and material correspond to ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ aspects of an organism or particle—to experience and experienced, to concept and object. This suggests that there is no continuation to the series that begins with mind and matter. This of course does not imply that there are no elaborations of experience and of object e.g. the manifestation as matter, life, society, universe and their forms. However, it suggests that while there may be elaborations, degrees, intensities, depths of consciousness (yet) unknown to human being, there is no mode of being beyond conscious being—where the notion of consciousness is appropriately extended to the root; and it suggests that the variety of external object may be labeled matter even if the variety of form should be of infinitely greater variety than the corresponding variety for this cosmological system. Since the sensory modalities correspond roughly to the modes of physical interaction it is easy to imagine the existence of e.g. cosmological systems where creatures have sensory modalities that are not possessed by any living form on earth. That the list mind, matter… may have no continuation does not imply that there is no other basis for a system of attributes