SpaceweaverMon, Jun 8, 2009 Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am not sure what do you mean by 'shallow knowledge', so I will try to iterate on the links you reflect upon.
I see transparency as a very deep and essential characteristic of minds. It seems that every perception, feeling, emotion, thought or any other phenomenological content that is brought to consciousness is a product of a very precise and multilayered selection process that initiates with the way our senses acquire information, and continues in the various levels of neural processing thereafter. This selective process is partly a product of biological evolution, partly a product of cultural evolution and also depends on individual history. Metaphorically speaking, it is constructed as a kind of geological layered system.This selective process actually constructs, highlights and represents that which we consciously experience as phenomenal reality.
The power of this selective process is not only on account of what is being highlighted; that which is filtered out or hidden from consciousness (or more locally from our immediate attention) is not less important. The hidden and the overt are strongly co dependent. In this important sense, if I understand you correctly, every knowledge is shallow knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is constructed not only as what is the case (after Wittgenstein) but significantly as what is not the case. Any knowledge therefore is a product of some selective process and I would even say that the selective process and the knowledge it brings forth are but two modalities of a deeper, more abstract, happening/entity (will develop this synthesis in forthcoming posts).
In the case of minds, there is however an important difference between transparency and shallow knowledge. While so called shallow knowledge generally maps between two territories, (highlighting and hiding aspects in the process) as you write, transparency brings forth one territory, the experiential first person universe. In the case of minds, there is no territory of origination. Conscious phenomenal content appears as if from no where, hanged in the void, yet pervading and immanent. It is an inside without an outside (or vice-versa, depending on perspective). No amount of probing changes this very significant state of affairs. We can only infer, as we usually do, the second territory: that what we see represents a source reality which is somehow independent and separated from our constructed representation. But there is no such reality. Our inference is merely a semantic reflex wired into our very model of mind.
Indeed I agree that there is no point to speak of 'precise knowledge' and there is no point to speak of a final model. Both are nonsense. Every model, a conceptualization of knowledge is inherently a work in progress that goes hand in hand with an on going selective (and transparent) evolutionary process. I tried to hint this at the end of my post: "Perhaps because we can perceive absolutely no depth just an infinite surface of appearances..." Also depth of knowledge is a product of our existential-virtual minding; as such it is bound to be hidden.
As to your last question, I am trying to tread very slowly here and lay some foundations. I do not know what will be our new model, I have some ideas which I will try to articulate in future posts. Yet, we can already see what the combination of circularity and transparency, which I believe are inherent to minds, strongly imply: They imply that our model of mind and therefore our mind is evolving by its very nature. They also imply that whatever such new model might be, if it will emerge at all, us, its beholders/creators, will be entirely transformed as our mind space will spontaneously and transparently reorganize accordingly (collectively so...).
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I am not sure what do you mean by 'shallow knowledge', so I will try to iterate on the links you reflect upon.
I see transparency as a very deep and essential characteristic of minds. It seems that every perception, feeling, emotion, thought or any other phenomenological content that is brought to consciousness is a product of a very precise and multilayered selection process that initiates with the way our senses acquire information, and continues in the various levels of neural processing thereafter. This selective process is partly a product of biological evolution, partly a product of cultural evolution and also depends on individual history. Metaphorically speaking, it is constructed as a kind of geological layered system.This selective process actually constructs, highlights and represents that which we consciously experience as phenomenal reality.
The power of this selective process is not only on account of what is being highlighted; that which is filtered out or hidden from consciousness (or more locally from our immediate attention) is not less important. The hidden and the overt are strongly co dependent. In this important sense, if I understand you correctly, every knowledge is shallow knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is constructed not only as what is the case (after Wittgenstein) but significantly as what is not the case. Any knowledge therefore is a product of some selective process and I would even say that the selective process and the knowledge it brings forth are but two modalities of a deeper, more abstract, happening/entity (will develop this synthesis in forthcoming posts).
In the case of minds, there is however an important difference between transparency and shallow knowledge. While so called shallow knowledge generally maps between two territories, (highlighting and hiding aspects in the process) as you write, transparency brings forth one territory, the experiential first person universe. In the case of minds, there is no territory of origination. Conscious phenomenal content appears as if from no where, hanged in the void, yet pervading and immanent. It is an inside without an outside (or vice-versa, depending on perspective). No amount of probing changes this very significant state of affairs. We can only infer, as we usually do, the second territory: that what we see represents a source reality which is somehow independent and separated from our constructed representation. But there is no such reality. Our inference is merely a semantic reflex wired into our very model of mind.
Indeed I agree that there is no point to speak of 'precise knowledge' and there is no point to speak of a final model. Both are nonsense. Every model, a conceptualization of knowledge is inherently a work in progress that goes hand in hand with an on going selective (and transparent) evolutionary process. I tried to hint this at the end of my post: "Perhaps because we can perceive absolutely no depth just an infinite surface of appearances..." Also depth of knowledge is a product of our existential-virtual minding; as such it is bound to be hidden.
As to your last question, I am trying to tread very slowly here and lay some foundations. I do not know what will be our new model, I have some ideas which I will try to articulate in future posts. Yet, we can already see what the combination of circularity and transparency, which I believe are inherent to minds, strongly imply: They imply that our model of mind and therefore our mind is evolving by its very nature. They also imply that whatever such new model might be, if it will emerge at all, us, its beholders/creators, will be entirely transformed as our mind space will spontaneously and transparently reorganize accordingly (collectively so...).