h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Raymond Chung -- http://www.dotaichi.com/Articles/Chung.htm

I think there's something that could be related to Kea's idea of Chi in something I wrote in a Philosophy of Mind class at University about twenty years ago and I can't be bothered explaining it --

Oh, sorry. I was channeling Julzes for a moment there.


Let's see if I can remember.

Okay.


'What I'm saying is that how you conceptualise chi affects (determines?) how you experience it.' said Kea.

'my T'ai-chi instructor taught that chi was more a physio/mental process than an actual force.' said Taliesin (channeling Raymond Chung)

I ask:

Is consciousness a 'something' which in fact has an influence on the functioning of the body/brain's processes? Or is it an 'epiphenomenon' which is simply a reflection of the processes which are going on in the body/brain?

To use the analogy I remember using in the above mentioned class, if you unplug your monitor from your computer, you can still use the keyboard and the mouse if you are really careful. You can even print things on your printer. The monitor is not a two way communications instrument: it reflects the position of the mouse, the keys that are pressed, the movements of electrons through the processors, but it does not send signals back down the wire (unless it's a touch screen, but we'll ignore that possibility for the moment).

I've long felt pretty convinced that what we call consciousness is similar in its functioning to the computer monitor. Consciousness is part of the output of the brain/body, output which is most often a rather distorted reflection of what is actually going on. When we feel like our consciousness is directing our brain/body's activities, that feeling of control is actually just another reflection of the real activity, it is not actually 'consciousness' acting on the physical brain/body.

So, chi is a reflection, perhaps distorted, of what is really physically going on, and, yes, 'how you conceptualise chi affects (determines?) how you experience it', not because our concepts affect the physical, but rather, because our introspective experiences are affected by the physical. The physical processes of the brain/body express themselves to our consciousness using the vocabulary available in our consciousness.

Does that make any sense? I had to rush it a bit due to dinner-time demands.

anhaga, you always make sense, even on those all-too rare occasions when you're wrong. This isn't one of them, I think

Anyway, following your 'consciousness as epiphenomenon' idea, here's a bit of my pre-dinner cogitation:

Chi or Ki is one of 'those' foreign words that can mean a number of things.

Literally, it means breath, but figuratively is a short-hand, almost poetic description of a large number of concurrent, interdependent events.

What it is most definitely *not* is a distinct force or form of energy, or part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Also it isn't 'spiritual', whatever that means, despite some claims to that effect by otherwise gifted and respected martial artists.

Chi/Ki most definitely exists, not as a thing, but similarly to consciousness, as an emergent process. Just as it is impossible to *directly* experience your own consciousness, it is not possible to *directly* experience your 'own' chi/ki.

We do not even directly experience our own consciousness -- we *are* consciousness in the process of experiencing. It is only after the fact, subsequent to internal and external events, that we rationalize/ponder/conceptualize/think. So it is with chi/ki

As consciousness requires a reasonably healthy, functioning body/brain, so chi/ki emerges as a function of co-ordinated physical movement, broad perception, and quiet or non-conflicted mind.

When chi/ki 'happens', the individual is scarce aware, (conscious), of the event. Only after the fact does conscious, analytical thought intrude, and it is, as anhaga seems to suggest, a distortion of reality at the moment at which our introspective perception of what just happened moments ago, attempts to interpret it.

We are pattern-makers; intentionality perceivers; entity-inventors, and the conscious mind seems inclined to duality -- we think of our body and mind as distinct, when really we are a unity.

We may erroneously think of chi/ki as a force, or energy, when in fact it inheres in what we do and are, and is naturally expressed when we no longer act from a dualistic perspective.

'anhaga, you always make sense, even on those all-too rare occasions when you're wrong. This isn't one of them, I think'

so . . .

you're saying I'm right, right?

Pretty much, imo.

what? no ?!

Taliesin and anhaga; that's what I was trying to get at, but you both said it rather better.

>>So Ed experiences chi as mechanistic

Ah. No. I *understand* chi to be mechanistic/mental. I *experience* it as...well...the stuff you get from Tai Chi.

The better of the Tai Chi instructors I've had had pretty much the same outlook as Taliesin's - although I'll accept the possibility that they may have been translating the metaphor into something I could get to grips with. They also stressed the importance of remembering that it's a martial art. If the postures/movements were wrong, you'd be unable to unbalance or fend off your opponent - which seems to me a matter of how force is applied.

Some, but not all, have ben Chinese.

Let's take a more Western example...

We understand forces acting on a ball when it's thrown. We understand that the trajectory of a ball is a parabola. But we don't *experience* any of that. Do we?


Anyway...what are we getting at here? That the experience of Chi is a uniquely Chinese thing that can only be experienced with a Chinese mindset? I doubt that very much. Surely it's the roughly same subjective phenomenon that can be experienced during a range of activities by people with perspectives from a range of cultures.

>> what we call consciousness is similar in its functioning to the computer monitor <<

Oh dear, I like that analogy.
I immediately thought of how the time varies before the screen goes to sleep depending on how active any open programs are. And eventually it slips into screensaver dreams.


~jwf~

Hi kea

Yeah chi has come up before in discussion.

I think of it as a kind of experience of *relating* to something. So say if you are doing a skill, such as I mentioned with the woodwork you feel like you've formed a relationship with the wood. And if you are doing something like Tai Chi you are experiencing relationship with yourself in some way, and often in very sophisticated and all sorts of imaginative ways. I think it is a common culturally used term in Chinese thought that has been conceptualised for hundreds of years within that culture, so it is hard for us to know exactly how it is meant within that culture. Personally I don't think of it as an actual thing, but a description of 'relationship' experience.

It's been said on this thread that we can't speak about subjective experience...and yes I think there is a paucity of language for that in our culture unless you use stuff from the arts say in poetry or music or religious terminology. I think of describing it as a *language* closer to that, but one that everyone uses as a matter of course for the most everyday stuff.

***

I'm an AppleMac supremicist ; we never crash, never do annoying things to other people...and generally are the all round the est kids on the block.

>>It's been said on this thread that we can't speak about subjective experience...

Good lord! Who said that?





(and all the *really* kids use Linux. )

>>>It's been said on this thread that we can't speak about subjective experience...

Good lord! Who said that?
< Edward

Okay it was a bit of a vague recollection caught up in the mish mash of the annals...and to be more precise and accurate, it was specifically related to the communication of a 'spiritual experience' which is what I was referring to..but my motherboard must have hit a glitch ..yes..I know...but even Mackids can occasionally miss a binary beat. It was referring to this post of anhaga's.


>Yes, I've had my spiritual experiences but, until they are 'reduced' to the rational, until the semantic issues are resolved through reason, until a common *material* ground can be found, those experiences are incommunicable and useless to anyone but me, and therefore, (in my opinion) useless to me as well.

The reason the conversation about this stuff is insubstantial is because one side is asking for an actual communication of information and the other (you in this particular case, kea) are saying (a bit perversely) 'but personal experience communicates information to the individual that can not be communicated by any means other than personal experience'.

Well, that just shuts down conversation.

I'm not particularly interested in talking about my personal 'spiritual' experiences because, frankly, they are effectively empty of meaning in any useful sense.

<anhaga 489

Hope this helps.

I figured you meant me, effers.


I hope you notice that I *did not* say we can't talk about subjective experiences. I said 'until they are 'reduced' to the rational, until the semantic issues are resolved through reason, until a common *material* ground can be found, those experiences are incommunicable . . . '

So, I said that there must be a translation before they can be communicated. And, I would further argue, that the principal means of translation is discussion, which forces the resolution of the semantic issues, etc.

By all means discuss them, but there won't be actual transfer of information about the experiences until that common material ground is found.

I took that slightly differently. In neuroscience, this would be called 'The Problem of Qualia': If you talk about 'red', how do I know that you're experiencing redness in the same way as I do? Well...we we can *sort of* infer it, from the fact that we're processing the same wavelengths through the same wetware - but that's not quite the same as experiencing. Or is it?

So if we get to the spiritual...is one person's Chi the same as another's Holy Spirit? I guess our only means of comparison are via the Lowest Common Denominator - our mutually accessible physical world.

I think we've said more or less the same thing - albeit in a different way. Which is some sort of minor miracle.

Hey thanks for clarifying that anhaga.

That's an interesting point though about the translation requiring discussion; I agree. But that throws up the question of what form that discussion should take. I'm not sure reducing things to reason are the best way to communicate certain things. But I suppose that also depends on how one defines reason.

Eg In Zen Budhism koans are used as one method to attain 'enlightenment'. And I'm using the term enlightenment in its widest sense of deep understanding, which maybe very complex and profound, if it is about something someone may term spiritual.

Kierkegaard said something along the lines that Truth lies in the process of discussion, not its end point.

I suppose I shouldn't like Kierkegaard, what with him being so anti-Hegelian, but I do. (even to the point of visiting his grave last year). Dialecticians, including Marx, tend to see Truth as a unitary thing, moving from fixed point to fixed point. But it's a lot more slippery than that. Through discussion, we constantly reinterpret and revise the world - rejecting some opinions, taking others on board. Derrida's good on this, too.

I'm not sure I hold with the Zen version of enlightenment, though. I'm not convinced there's a fixed, attainable end point. We should know our place. We are no more capable of understanding the universe in its entirety than any other animal.

Ah, beetles in boxes. Wittgenstein.

Everyone has a box, with a beetle in it. But you can look into only your own box: you can never see into anyone else's. You know what your beetle looks like, but not anyone else's. To what extent is talk about beetles meaningful?

Pain is similar, as is chi, the zone, or intimacy with God. I don't think I'm very good at this. I've never felt many of these things. Sometimes I think I'm not as in touch with the world as I should be. Sometimes I even think I'm even faking art appreciation to myself.

Except when it's a novel. I really do feel things about novels. I've just read the trilogy known as His Dark Materials. The thought of everyone having a beetle brings certain things back to mind from those novels. They had daemons. And on Lyra's world, you could see another person's daemon. Not on Will's world, though. Interesting.

The beetle in the box metaphor can, of course, also be used to defuse religious logic. Was your communication with God more or less real than Peter Sutcliffe's communication with God, and how can you know?

TRiG.

*wanders in, and steps over all the clock parts on the floor*

Sigh. Who made all this mess?