Let’s return for a short moment to the possible oxymoron that could be Rational Mysticism…
Individual, human experience is just that …. an individuals experience of the world.
We all experience the world in very different ways… our sense organs, our minds ability to take that sensory information and create understanding and meaning, the way we ‘code’ that experience and turn it into something which has relevance to us and the people we communicate with.
In a Facebook comment I wrote…
“Noam Chomsky, and others, might go as far to say that until we have words for a ‘thing’ then that ‘thing’ is not perceivable (yes – I know I’m paraphrasing and generalising a lot there). Our inner reality is, perhaps, three times removed from the reality that exists ‘out there’. In order to see, hear, feel, smell or taste something the ‘original thing’ needs to be (1) received by our senses (2) processed by our sensory apparatus and then (3) ‘understood’ by our minds/brains.
In steps (1) and (2) there can be loss of information….
In step three we make ‘sense’ of our sensese by (a) looking for things we have already experienced that match what we are sensing (b) making associations and (c) if the sensation is profound enough and we have NO internal reference for it, we create new meanings. Steps (a), (b) are far more likely than (c)…
Our minds are happier with what we know and understand (our personal truths or beliefs which are based directly upon our experiences – personal interpretations of reality).
NOW when we try to share our ‘internal representations’ of the world outside we use language – words – words which are of course labels for experience. My words and your words may or may not mean the same thing.
In every sensory situation and the undertanding of that situation we..
DELETE some of the sensory information OR deeper personal meaning.
GENERALISE some the information OR deeper personal meaning.
DISTORT the reality of what we have sensed or what we are explaining.
For example… When asked he question ‘Where do you live?’ you will select how much information you need to give in order to answer that question. What you leave out (delete) or generlaise about will depend upon what your understanding of the questioners need is AND what you are willing to share.
So you might answer… CORNWALL
or… REDRUTH, CORNWALL
or…. Spook Cottage, Devills Advocate Lane, Redruth, Cornwall, TR15 , South West England, England, Great Britain, Europe, The Northern Hemisphee, The World, Planet Earth, The Solar System, The Left Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxay, The Universe…
or GPS 3 65 W 116 60 E
When we talk we talk in ‘shorthand’ so that conversations become meaningful and timely.
To answer the “Where do you live question” you make both conscious and unconscious choices…
I’m really interested in the unconscious choices we make when processing sensory information at the very beginning of our perceptual understanding of any event”
All of this was in response to a comment about ‘experience’ and ‘language’ and really hints at a philosophical approach known as relative constructivism. As Kozbrnski said “The map is not the territory” – we create internal representations of external realities which are limited and perhaps limiting.
We understand each other because there are certain ‘constructs’ (ideas, concepts, perceptions) that we share. There is a ‘consensus reality’. The more abstract the concept we’re trying to ‘internalise’ and/or ‘share’ the more possibility there is for mis-understanding. Concepts like love, trust, respect, God and even home are open to personal and cultural definitions which may or may not be part of a general ‘consensus’ view.
Ok, this post is going somewhere I promise.
Person A and Person B have a common experience. It is intense, emotional and very real. BUT both people may assign different and equally valid interpretations of that same experience. When they talk about the experience they automatically use personal language… a language based upon their personal, cultural and emotional associations. The more they talk they less they will recall of the initial experience and the more the meaning they are co-creating will replace the initial ‘sensory event’. In many cases this will lead to confabulation…. Person A and Person B are NOT lying or creating something that did not happen, but are unconsciously selecting the bits of the total experience which best fits their personal truths (beliefs and presuppositions). They are deleting some of the initial sensory experience and creating new meanings.
This does not invalidate the personal relevance of that shared moment but it does mean that it may not be a reliable report of what actually happened.
Hence the need for two approaches….
The rational mind sets out to investigate, question, challenge and offer other meanings. It recognises when a sensory event is labelled as an ‘entity’, an ‘energy’, a ‘spook’, a ‘UFO’ . It knows that each of these labels lead to other conclusions, other associations…. other realities. The rational mind recognises what it ‘believes’ and ‘knows’ and deliberately works to look for other explanations – to falsify, test, challenge any presuppositions it holds.
IF we are ‘investigating’ then we strive to be emotionally neutral; to question; to explore. If possible we set up very formal ways of collecting and collating information because we know that relying on personal (subjective) observations and anecdotes can lead to conclusions before all avenues have been explored.
NOW non of this is important if, and when we want to be ‘in the moment’, freely relating to our sensory experience and enjoying the personal meanings we are drawing from it. Mystical experiences are profound, personal and can be ‘transformational’ in that they may open up new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking and relating. They ARE not the necessarily the things we need to apply strict rationality to. They are the things we we accept has containing some personal learning – some personal meaning. We cannot be rational about them whilst they are happening as they are deeply emotional and when they are over we often do not wish to ‘take anything away’ by ‘over analysing them’.
We can consider other ideas and possibilities in time, once the initial impact of the experience has subsided, but perhaps choose not too because we are happy with where we have ‘arrived’.
So here is the thing… Mystical experiences are important. They can be seen as metaphors or personal realities and we can learn about ourselves from them. The path of the mystic is a path of self-learning and self-discovery.
If we are setting out to investigate something then we rely on our rational minds to explore, learn and discover what is part of a consensus reality. We want to know ‘how we know what we know; how we see what we see; how we hear what we hear, feel what we feel and think what we think AND how that relates to what can be known about the world.
Both rational and mystical ways of ’perceiving’ have ’awe’ and ‘wonder’ and perhaps we need both ways of being in order to be balanced, creative and personally productive – it is probable that we can be entirely one or the other and still be balanced, creative and personally productive. The point is that they are two different ways of relating to the world and I think that both are valid and both are important.
If all we want is the ‘experience’ and the opportunity to take from it what we want then perhaps there is no need to investigate it. We can be ‘psyche explorers’ and leave it at that.
If we want to look beyond the metaphor, the personally driven perspective, then we need to engage in critical and creative thinking.
In the paranormal world many (perhaps not all) of the groups which purport to ‘investigate’ are actually ‘collecting experiences’ – they want to support their personal truths (beliefs) by finding the evidence to prove that they are ‘right’.
Investigations are rigorous affairs with hypotheses, protocols and clear methodologies designed to eliminate confabulation, perception bias and personal presuppositions.
By no means should we dismiss the value and importance of the personal mystical/transformational experience and perhaps we should simply accept such for what it is – a personal reality, a personal truth a personal revelation which either confirms or transforms pre-existing hopes, dreams, wishes, beliefs and behaviours. Something which meets the emotional, mental, spiritual and personal needs of the individual in that moment.
Alan
