The Inner World:

1
Chapter 4

• The Inner World
• The Fantastic Journey

2
Nikos Kazantzakis writes

• With clarity and quiet, I look upon the world
  and say All that I see, hear, taste, smell, and
  touch are the creations of my mind.I create
  phenomena in swarms, and paint with a full
  palette a gigantic and gaudy curtain before the
  abyss. Do not say, Draw the curtain that I may
  see the painting. The curtain IS the painting.

3
Psyche

• Western philosophy has been occupied almost
  exclusively with rational thinking and the
  symbolic nature of thought. But a few
  philosophers have sought to move beyond symbols,
  and Eastern thinkers have long been aware that,
  beyond the symbols and below the rational mind,
  there exist capacities for quite different and
  valuable kinds of experiencing.

4
The Exploration of Inner Space

• There are other modes of conscious and
  subconscious experience that can enrich our
  lives and on the condition that they do not rob
  us of our sanity or endanger others, there is no
  valid reason why they should not be known.

5
Huxleys Deep Reflection

• One of the great minds of the 20th century
• Huxley developed, through discipline, a technique
  for using a high degree of his considerable
  mental power
• At will, he could withdraw into what he called
  his state of Deep Reflection (DR state)
• A profound progressive psychological withdrawal
  from externalitiesand then a state of complete
  mental absorbtion

6
Mystical Unity

• One of the most valuable but ineffable mystical
  experiences in both the East and the West is the
  experience of unity
• Historically, some have sought after the event
  in which all experience is somehow seen together

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Zen Satori

• Satori flash of enlightenment
• A mind-state of sharp alertness and wide
  awareness accompanied, at the same time, by a
  deep sense of inner calm
• Stage 1 alpha waves with eyes open Stage 2 a
  sharp increase of the alpha Stage 3 gradual
  decrease of alpha Stage 4 sustained period of
  rhythmic theta waves

8
Religious Ecstasy

• Ek (out of) and stasis (standing), implying
  that the ecstatic individual is standing
  outside his body
• Glossolalia speaking in tongues
• A state of consciousness highly prized by Western
  religious minorities

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The Fantastic Journey

• In the Indian religions, the state of nirvana is
  a trance-state outwardly resembling a deep sleep
• It is marked by a progressive deepening of the
  trance through religious disciplines that are
  similar to techniques of self-hypnosis
• Samadhi concentration
• Self-essence (atman) Ultimate Reality (Brahman)

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The BuddhaOne Who Awakened

• The Eightfold Path
• Right Perspective
• Right Intention
• Right Speech
• Right Behavior
• Right Living
• Right Effort
• Right Mindfulness
• Right Meditation

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Reflections

• The text makes the opening statement that there
  is no obvious reason why one should spend his
  lifetime solely in the two traditional
  mind-states the problem-solving conscious state
  and the recovery sleep state. Do you agree?
  Or, in your opinion, are these the only normal
  and natural modes of consciousness?

12
Time

• The essence of conscious life is time. A
  philosophy of time is important. The mystery
  arises partly because the word time is
  maddeningly ambiguous we force it to carry a
  wide range of meanings and partly because of
  faulty introspection.

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A Philosophy of Time

• What is time? How do we experience it? Can we
  understand it?
• What is meant exactly by past, present, and
  future? In what sense can each of them be said
  to exist?
• Where in time do we live? What does time have to
  do with personal existence?

14
Clock Time

• Chronos time
• Clock time probably has nothing to do with time
• Clocks measure space
• Clocks are used to correlate events and not to
  synchronize time

15
Psychological Time

• Subjective or experiential time
• The only temporal phenomenon of which we have any
  clear conception, and many philosophers are of
  the conviction that experiential time is the only
  true time
• Psychological time is our individual experience
  of the continuum of our consciousness

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Real Time

• Matter-in-motion
• Sequences of events occurring in the real world

17
Saint Augustine Gods Time Ours

• God created time when he created everything else
• Since God created time, he existed before time,
  he will exist after time, and therefore he exists
  outside time.
• There was no time before he created it.
• Ex nihilo out of nothing
• In the mind of God there is no before or
  after there is only a now

18
Newton Absolute Time

• Absolute time is a universal medium that flows
  smoothly and evenly, unaffected by all the events
  that occur inside it

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Yesterday, TodayTomorrow

• Time Past
• Time Future
• Time Present
• Time Personal Existence

20
Immanuel KantStarry Heavens the Moral Law

• Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
• Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
• Critique of Judgment (1790)
• The esthetic experience

21
Reflections

• Summarize in your mind the three kinds of time
  dealt with in this chapter. Can you get a good
  grasp of each kind of time, and do the concepts
  sound right to you?

22
Freedom

• Are we humans free (undetermined) in our willing
  and choosing, or are we predetermined to be and
  to do what antecedent programming dictates?

23
The Feeling of Freedom

• Does the experience of freedom, in fact, exist?
• Does the feeling of freedom mask an illusion?

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The Dilemma of Determinism

• If there is no freedom, then there can be no
  moral, legal, or any other kind of responsibility
• If we are not free, then all our striving is
  meaningless
• The question of freedom has to do with what we
  are or arent
• We are the chessmen and something or someone else
  is playing the game

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The Case for Determinism

• Dr. Bruno Bettelheim and the case of Joey
• Skinner and freedom as myth
• Carl Rogers says freedom exists

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The Case for Freedom of Choice

• For human freedom, as Sartre sees it, is not
  always a blessing it is more often a tragedy
• Whether we like it or not, man is condemned to be
  free
• We must try to do what we already know we cannot
  do

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Reflections

• After reading this chapter, jot down your
  thoughts regarding the following (1) Is the
  question of freedom/determinism an authentic
  question or does it need to be rephrased in the
  light of modern knowledge? (2) To what degree can
  we be where we cause ourselves endless troubles
  by confusing primal freedom with various
  secondary freedoms?

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Symbols

• Finding ourselves trapped in the egocentric
  predicament, we humans are isolated and lonely
• To minimize our loneliness we touch and we
  gesture (body language), but mostly we resort
  to symbolic language

29
The Functions of Language

• Is our transmittal of experience all that
  successful?
• Do we listen to and hear others more
  empathetically and sensitively than, say, a
  mother fox calming her young? Or a whale guiding
  her calf?
• Are we, as a matter of fact, less lonely?

30
The Many Roles of Language

• To express emotion
• To drown out silence
• To enjoy the sounds of language
• To establish a feeling of belonging
• To establish relationships
• To affect or manipulate others emotions
• To affect others behavior
• To suggest insights
• To communicate facts and ideas
• To effect word-magic

31
Communications Analysis

• But we dont want others to hear our paltry
  symbols we want them to hear our experience. And
  others want the same from us.
• Charlie Brown and friends
• Adversary vs. supportive dialogue
• Word-oriented rather than meaning-oriented

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Definitions Contexts

• Semanticists remind us that symbols can be
  understood intelligibly only within the context
  of actual usage
• Semanticists keep reminding us that words mean
  nothing at all until we give meanings to them

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Ludwig WittgensteinDissolving the Riddles of Life

• Everything that can be thought of at all can be
  thought of clearly
• A man in a room who wants to get out
• Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
• Philosophical Investigations (1948)

34
Reflections

• Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by words? What
  sort of communicative techniques do you think
  would resort to or develop or invent if,
  suddenly, we found ourselves without words?