Author: Walter

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Colin Wilson online — Intentionality

Philosophy « Colin Wilson online:

One concept I recall from my Colin Wilson reading phase was Intentionality. This was one of the ideas I have stuck with as being useful. I associate it (rightly or wrongly) with Aldous Huxley and the “Doors of Perception”. We are capable of seeing far more than we do. We evolved to see everything and then evolved to select to see only what we need to survive. We can transcend our survival mode of perception with “intentionality”. I think that sums it up.

“Wilson has a sporting analogy for philosophy: ‘You could say on the billiard table of philosophy there are only two pockets – the positive and the negative. In philosophy, all kinds of people who belong to the negative side like David Hume, don’t really believe that the human will serves any purpose whatever. In other words it seems to me that in philosophy you’ve got people who believe that to a large extent, will really matters, and that we human beings have a certain control over our lives, and people who belong to the other side. And basically Derrida is one of these.’ He describes intentionality with another sporting analogy here: ‘Intentionality should not be seen as a synonym for ‘directionality’, an essentially static attribute, but as a dynamic description, involving consciousness and its freedom to act. It is better described by analogy with a baseball pitcher than with a signpost. Paul Ricoeur was the first to state this with clarity. I will suggest that Husserl saw intentionality as a creative act, capable of altering consciousness, and potentially as a kind of mystical discipline.’ That is to say, consciousness is active (perception is intentional). You can see this in Fitche’s statement ‘to be free is nothing; to become free is heavenly.’ This is completely opposed to the passive ‘signpost philosophy’ (semiotics) of Barthes and the ‘language speaks us’ of Derrida.

All of Wilson’s work is concerned with Husserl’s techniques [and Nietzsche’s optimism]. Not just his philosophy books though: the true crime paperbacks, the luridly covered supernatural volumes, the pulp fiction and even the books on booze or music are all in the positive pocket. In The New Existentialism he explains why – ‘Phenomenology is not a philosophy; it is a philosophical method, a tool. It is like an adjustable spanner that can be used for dismantling a refrigerator or a car, or used for hammering in nails, or even for knocking somebody out.’ (p.920).
In the seven volumes of his excellent ‘Outsider cycle’ (1956-1966), Wilson demonstrates the phenomenological method. ‘Husserl has shown that man’s prejudices go a great deal deeper than his intellect or his emotions. Consciousness itself is ‘prejudiced’ – that is to say, intentional.’ (ibid. p 54). So, in order to really experience phenomena, we have to grasp it, like a hand picking up an object. This selectivity is so deeply entrenched in our perceptions that we fail to see it operating and think that things just ‘happen’. But it is not so: perception is intentional, rather like an arrow fired by an archer. The illustration below shows this selectivity in action, as we can choose to see either the faces or the vase, rather like flipping a coin.

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Colin Wilson

Just got a bit carried away looking at Colin Wilson links on the web.
 
In about 1963 I read The Outsider and this changed my life – I was introduced in one fell swoop to a swag of existentialist philosophers and began reading in earnest.  Wilson became a sort of mentor as I’d look to what he said to get my bearings.  Then I began to loos interest… he was too developed in the intellect and not enough in rl.  He had ideas I thought were too mystical, not that I had any time for logical positivist I studied in depth at university or empirical approaches to psychology.  But he crossed a line in my opinion where he accepted too much magical bullshit.
 
But those were opinions I made of him in my 20s!  What do I make of him now, and of my own critiques back then?
 
Recalling him with a lot of gratefulness and delightful memories I just downloaded a swag of samples from Amazon.  Wow.
 
 
 
 

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Conversations on a City

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A new post on In this moment… my art blog – http://www.walterlogeman.com/art/conversations-on-a-city/ http://www.walterlogeman.com/art/images/2010/IMG_1811.jpg

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At home in the digital world

Therapeutic Ethics in the Digital Age – When the Whole World is Watching

By Ofer Zur

This article in the Psychotherapy Networker makes some useful points. I found some useful, but I don’t think of myself as an immigrant in the digital world! That is who he addresses.

The revolution in communication technology has created a new set of ethical dilemmas, which—given the pervasiveness of Internet culture—are invading our sessions, whether we know it or not.

The question that got me thinking is When to Google a client?

digital-ethics.pdf

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Discernment Phase of Couple Therapy

William Doherty brings a wonderful insight into Couple Therapy. The video shows the nature of the problem he addresses. The article in the Psychotherapy Networker brings forward his way of attending to that problem.

With the thorough and useful Imago dialogue approach there are a few things I find myself bringing from other modalities to the work. Warm up – from psychodrama is one. I work for a while with the couple in the warm up phase so that the dialogue topic is related to what the couple together agree is of value to work on in the relationship. This is a bit different from what can happen where the topic is the frustration one partner has with the other – dialogues about that may get there the long way around, a good warm up, which may include some psych ed, from me can be circumvent the potentially derailing process.

But that is not the main idea of this post.

William Doherty’s idea of the Discernment Phase of therapy creates a much larger space for a warm up with clients who may not be in agreement on what is needed. He gives me as the therapist permission – in a relational way – to see each party on their own if that is needed in a phase that is not yet couple therapy. I love the word discernment here. It is so much more engaging of the client therapist relationship than assessment.

This paragraph sums up the essence.

A central strategy of this work is that although the couple comes in together each time, most of the work goes on in separate conversations with each spouse. In the first 40 minutes of the initial session, I see them together and get both their stories and perspectives on the marriage. After asking what they hope to get from seeing me, I inquire about their divorce narratives (how they got to this point), their repair narratives (how they tried to solve their problems and what outside help they sought), and a question about the best of times in their relationship history. I then spend more than an hour seeing each of them separately. During that time, I focus on each one’s agenda (leaving or saving the marriage, along with other agendas) and try to open up a deeper understanding of each one’s contributions to the marital dynamics and areas of potential change. At the end of each individual conversation, I help the partner prepare a summary to be shared with the other partner at the end of the session.

Here is a pdf of the Psychotherapy Networker article.

william-doherty-discernment.pdf

Thanks Yvonne for pointing this article out to me.

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The Silver Chord – Graphic Novel

I’m in the middle (still) of reading Kevin Kelly’s Book “What Technology Wants”. Enjoying it and finding it stimulating.

http://silver-cord.net/

I’m reading the CBZ file in Comic zeal on the iPad. Nice. I’m about 50 pages into the 250.

Finding the free graphic novel, is interesting as it sort of ties in with his other themes. It is si-fi and the links back to the science are fascinating. I learned about Roger Penrose who I’d never heard of. There is a big debate obviously about consciousness, but from the wikipedia article I tend to go with Penrose. Thee is something weird about consciousness. I have an instinctive disdain for the value of neuroscience for psychotherapy – not for neuroscience but for the value people see in it for psychotherapy. However quantum science could change everything once we get the hang of it.

Its well done, a big collaborative production – with an interesting Kick-starter project for volume two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Penrose

Penrose has written books on the connection between fundamental physics and human (or animal) consciousness. In The Emperor’s New Mind (1989), he argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Penrose proposes the characteristics this new physics may have and specifies the requirements for a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics (what he calls correct quantum gravity). Penrose uses a variant of Turing’s halting theorem to demonstrate that a system can be deterministic without being algorithmic. (E.g., imagine a system with only two states, ON and OFF. The system’s state is ON if a given Turing machine halts, and OFF if the Turing machine does not halt, then the system’s state is completely determined by the Turing machine, however there is no algorithmic way to determine whether the Turing machine stops.)

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Obscenity: Intellectual Property

Amy Goodman from Democracy Now hosts this debate between Julian Assange and Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Žižek — From the Troxy Theatre in London, July 2 2011. Also streaming in HQ from Democracy Now for those with faster lines. Brilliant debate!

I wish I’d got hold of this a year ago when it came out, but it is worth watching any time!

 

“Capitalism will have trouble with intellectual property” – Slavoj Žižek In the Amy Goodman interview with Julian Assange

 

Stimulating interview!


I’ve come away thinking that if  property is theft then intellectual property is the most obscene form of theft, as it steals from us what is most human, our creativity and spontaneity.


Are we in an information age, or is this still the industrial age where the workers will create socialism?  What is Slavoj Žižek saying here?  If capitalism can’t cope with intellectual property then it can’t cope because of some new relationship of production?  


If that is the case who is the new revolutionary class?  Is it still the industrial proletariat?  


What clout does any other class have?


Or is it that as the information sector becomes the most consumed sector of the total produce – eg Amazon can afford not to make a profit on hardware as it sells intellectual property – as does Google – then these companies – like newspaper and music companies will falter as consumers protest about the punishments metered out to people who share!  


Not only that but people who create – lets not call it property but intellectual goods and services – are the most advanced producers of social production (recall Marx ‘s point that the contradiction in capitalism is that production is social and ownership is private).  Look at the credits in a movie, while that creation is tied to hardware there is a way to pay the creators and for the middle men to cream most of that off.  Even solitary creation like a novel or science is mostly people standing on the shoulders of giants.  All creation is a mash up.

 

Capitalism inhibits creation.

 

Capitalism inhibits sharing.


Capitalism inhibits the distribution of culture.


But information, creation that is not thwarted by capitalism has already been co-opted by capitalism.  


The potentially revolutionary class then is the creators, and that is all of us.  As Clay Shirkey put it so beautifully following Marshall McLuhan The fundamental shift in the electronic world is that consumers become creators.  Just pressing a Like button is on the lowest end of the spectrum of creativity, with great art and science at the other end, but it is on the continuum!  There is a qualitative shift that was made with the Internet.


Perhaps the early slogan – Information wants to be free – is a forerunner of a class of creators becoming a class that is conscious.  Releasing information is a crime, Bradley Manning, Kim Dotcom, the latter has become a local hero, because he is fighting the superpower and exposing New Zealand’s subservience. 


For people to move fully into a world where information is the dominant item of consumption, and we are probably a long way off that, then a new relationship of production is called for.  New relationships of creation. New ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.  


Think of what that might mean, no copyright, new forms of socialized payment for creativity, no advertising to pay for content.  Most of all education, news and culture in the hands of the creators would change everything.  Intelligence in the CIA sense would be free, releasing information would be heroic.  Secreting publicly beneficial information wld be a crime.


Where does the money come from to pay for all this…


Wait… Money is information, it is currently owned by the ruling class, they create laws (also information) to control all information, about the flow of money, and the creation of money,


This does require a new relationship for the means of production of physical goods.  The same dynamics apply, (material) goods too want to be free, and goods too are created by the very people who use them (could the but afford them) Its is not about the nature of the goods we are dealing with here.  It is labour power, let think of it all as creativity power.  Imagine the force of an alliance of all people who create, but who do not own or share equitably in what they create.


Marx said little about the future – but he did say we could all have the leisure to be philosophers. Sounds like he had an inkling there of the implications of his perspective related to creating ideas.

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