I am not sure what naturalism as a philosophical system excludes but I am pretty sure that it includes what Ken has written in his post below, 'What if?'
I suspect that this is all true, cells dying and/or being replenished and a sense that the body, biologically, in this narrative, is a bit like the state of nature in Hobbes. Or Bosch. But what I think is possibly excluded in the naturalistic account is, well, to use just one term, desire. I am not sure if desire happens naturally in the way that cellular degeneration does. Desire is about will or intention, conscious or unconscious. And that I think involves a different model of understanding to that of naturalism.
Maybe, following on yet again from the Poe story, swirls for me have a malevolent aspect. An aspect that is willed by a part of the self.
What if ?
If our bodily cells constantly die and renew, what is our constant? Our physical matter being temporary, what if all we are is our memories? Our brain constantly responds to and shapes our 'reality'. retains and forgets information, depends on memory to decide what to do next.
What if the Swirl is a temporary loss of memory, a space where normal continuity is replaced by a threat to survival? When the Swirl invades a person, the illusion of order is gone, linear time is halted, equilibrium is lost, logical thinking no longer possible. 'Dark matter' or 'the unconscious' is the Swirl habitat. and there lies a bottomless tangle of nightmarish images. Or perhaps a Maelstrom.
What if the self is a kind of nothingness, always trying to become a something, and failing to do so? As Sartre had it, life is a constant drama of bad faith.
What if the self is a madly rational void? If so, the Swirl may be an alternative self, a doppelganger that lives in the dark, and sometimes emerges to threaten the self that thinks it owns the light.
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'Dag Solstad's protagonists (Shyness and Dignity 1996) observe their lives as if they belong to someone else.'
'Diving for Seahorses: The Science and Secrets of Memory' Hilde and Ylva Ostby
Culture
I want to return to the Poe story here and in the next couple of posts, somewhat indirectly. Here I take up the gist of a recent book by Daniel Everett called 'Dark Matter of the Mind'. The subtitle says it all: 'The Culturally Articulated Unconscious'. For Everett, the unconscious is conceived of as dark matter:
Dark matter of the mind is any knowledge-how or any knowledge-that that is unspoken in normal circumstances, usually unarticulated even to ourselves. It may be, but is not necessarily, ineffable.1 It emerges from acting, “languag- ing,” and “culturing” as we learn conventions and knowledge organization, and adopt value properties and orderings. It is shared and it is personal. It comes via emicization, apperceptions, and memory, and thereby produces our sense of “self.”
How might this bear on Poe and the swirls?
Everett takes an anti-Freudian position on the unconscious. He thinks that the unconscious denotes an area of an individual mind that is beyond awareness, in the moment, and is fundamentally a cultural phenomenon. It, the unconscious, is cultural, so in terms of causality the move is from the outside in and not from the inside to the outside. Thus what is dark is something intrinsically cultural.
In the Poe story the succumbing of the sailors to the whirlpool and their death might be seen as a function of the omnipotence of their dark matter, and the survival of the sailor as the possibility of something very different. What? Well possibly a third term, or position in culture, that is an alternative to fight and flight.
Dark matter of the mind is any knowledge-how or any knowledge-that that is unspoken in normal circumstances, usually unarticulated even to ourselves. It may be, but is not necessarily, ineffable.1 It emerges from acting, “languag- ing,” and “culturing” as we learn conventions and knowledge organization, and adopt value properties and orderings. It is shared and it is personal. It comes via emicization, apperceptions, and memory, and thereby produces our sense of “self.”
How might this bear on Poe and the swirls?
Everett takes an anti-Freudian position on the unconscious. He thinks that the unconscious denotes an area of an individual mind that is beyond awareness, in the moment, and is fundamentally a cultural phenomenon. It, the unconscious, is cultural, so in terms of causality the move is from the outside in and not from the inside to the outside. Thus what is dark is something intrinsically cultural.
In the Poe story the succumbing of the sailors to the whirlpool and their death might be seen as a function of the omnipotence of their dark matter, and the survival of the sailor as the possibility of something very different. What? Well possibly a third term, or position in culture, that is an alternative to fight and flight.
Ricard's inner gaze
I take Ricard's 'inner gaze' as equivalent to Freud's 'observing ego' - each of which may be 'consulted' at times of emotional distress.
Matthieu Ricard and Poe
It is interesting to compare this excerpt from Ricard's book on happiness to what is, I think, the centre of Poe's story:
"How do we go about making peace with our own emotions? First, we have to focus our mind on the raw power of inner suffering. Instead of avoiding it or burying it away in some dark corner of our mind, we should make it the object of our meditation, without ruminating over the events that caused the pain or reviewing every freeze-frame from the movie of our life. Why is it unnecessary at this stage to dwell on the distant causes of our suffering? The Buddha offered the following image. Will a man who has just been struck in the chest by an arrow ask himself, "What wood is the arrow made of? What kind of bird do the feathers come from? What craftsman made it? Was he a good man or a scoundrel?" He certainly won't. His first concern will be to tear the arrow from his chest.
When a painful emotion strikes us, the most urgent thing is to look at it head-on and to identify the immediate thoughts that triggered and are fanning it. Then by fixing our inner gaze on the emotion itself, we can gradually dissolve it like snow in sunshine. Furthermore, once the strength of the emotion has been sapped, the causes that triggered it will seem less tragic and we will have won ourselves the chance to break free from the vicious circle of negative thoughts."
One way of thinking about the pivotal scene in Poe's story that resonates with this excerpt from Ricard is that the sailor undergoes a diminution in his ego. And that allows him to focus more fully on what is around him.
One way of thinking about the pivotal scene in Poe's story that resonates with this excerpt from Ricard is that the sailor undergoes a diminution in his ego. And that allows him to focus more fully on what is around him.
More maelstrom
In our discussion on the swirl over many years Ken would often ask how someone could get out of the swirl. One is in it.....what next?
There is of course no universal answer to this but in the Poe story there are hints.
Poe starts with a quote from the seventeenth century English philosopher Joseph Glanville:
There is of course no universal answer to this but in the Poe story there are hints.
Poe starts with a quote from the seventeenth century English philosopher Joseph Glanville:
"The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor are the
models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and
unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well
of Democritus."
What on earth does this mean? One way of thinking about this is that it suggests something important about the substance of the story as well as a lesson that is to be learnt by the person to whom the story is told. Nature involves a different process to us, that is to say our commonplace modes of understanding are not appropriate to the complexity of the natural world. Furthermore the models we use to make sense of the natural world are just not appropriate to the intricacy of nature.
Democritus again:
"Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well [lit. in an abyss]."
And this has been interpreted by Charles Francis Richter as follows:
'According to Democritus truth lies at the bottom of a well the water of which serves as a mirror in which objects may be reflected. I have heard however that some philosophers in seeking for truth to pay homage to her have seen their own image and adored it instead'.
What on earth does this mean? One way of thinking about this is that it suggests something important about the substance of the story as well as a lesson that is to be learnt by the person to whom the story is told. Nature involves a different process to us, that is to say our commonplace modes of understanding are not appropriate to the complexity of the natural world. Furthermore the models we use to make sense of the natural world are just not appropriate to the intricacy of nature.
Democritus again:
"Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well [lit. in an abyss]."
And this has been interpreted by Charles Francis Richter as follows:
Vague though this is it does suggest something important about the way in which the sailor avoided being sucked into the vortex. It might have to do with the difference between information and knowledge. The sailor initially gives up, he decides to 'hope no more' and realises that there is no rational way out. So in a way he becomes detached from what might otherwise be a situation of utter dread. In this case giving up is not the same as giving in. It is almost as if at the point of extreme danger he notices what is going on around him in an almost aesthetic way. And it is in this state of mind or rather in this state of body and mind that he is able to notice that some things were floating and thus found the barrel and held on to it. He perceived the beauty of the whirlpool and the perception saved him.
The Poe Maelstrom
The Poe story of being saved by a barrel has two story tellers - Poe himself, as author, and the ancient mariner who is recalling his near death experience.
We have two also - Ron, who thinks of the Swirl as a kind of whirlpool that entraps the victim, and Ken, who thinks of the Swirl as a surge that invades consciousness by replacing normal function with fear and impending doom.
The whirlpool image is powerful, and evokes a sucked in and rendered helpless state that comes suddenly and offers no apparent escape.
How to find a way out, other than crouch and hope for the storm to pass?
The fear and high anxiety Swirl can bring on such panic and disorientation that death feels immanent, and feels less like something one is falling into, like a maelstrom, more like there is an internal wave which threatens to overwhelm. It's as if fears and fantasies surge from the unconscious unbidden and uncontrolled, ruthless terrorists breaching defences and creating mayhem.
How to counter the terror? A part of the self, an observing ego, will be aware, dimly perhaps, that this is a temporary condition, faced before, and like a tsunami it withdraws, leaving wreckage.
A giant Swirl
I wonder what E A Poe would say about the satellite pictures of hurricane Michael, showing its vast size and its evil shifting eye. It was unstoppable, if caught in it there was no escape. A giant Swirl, perhaps made bigger and more damaging by global warming.
The only way to avoid this Swirl was to be somewhere it was not. The only way to avoid the personal Swirl is to deny its potential existence. Some people can do this, by avoiding introspection and reflection, and by constant movement, from distraction to distraction, party to party, job to job, thoughtless actions following each other.
This is the extravert's way of avoiding the perils of his unknown interior, somewhere nightmares lurk, a place or state of mind better disavowed than examined.
The only way to avoid this Swirl was to be somewhere it was not. The only way to avoid the personal Swirl is to deny its potential existence. Some people can do this, by avoiding introspection and reflection, and by constant movement, from distraction to distraction, party to party, job to job, thoughtless actions following each other.
This is the extravert's way of avoiding the perils of his unknown interior, somewhere nightmares lurk, a place or state of mind better disavowed than examined.
Whirlpool
Just a few more brief comments about the story by Poe. The maelstrom, in the title, is the most powerful swirl that has enormous destructive energy. It is not fanciful to presume that Poe imagines this force as a force of nature, and in nature, and a force of the mind.
In the story there are at the centre two positions. One involves succumbing to the force and the process is of being sucked into the vortex and disappearing. So, it is a literally destructive energetic system. But there is another position that manages, maybe surprisingly, to survive the destructive force.
Death and destruction seem immanent, and then this:
"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves."
And then a little later in the text:
In the midst of destruction he becomes 'self-possessed' and finally holds on to a wooden barrel. And that saves him, as the barrel does not, or rather can not sink.
In the story there are at the centre two positions. One involves succumbing to the force and the process is of being sucked into the vortex and disappearing. So, it is a literally destructive energetic system. But there is another position that manages, maybe surprisingly, to survive the destructive force.
Death and destruction seem immanent, and then this:
"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves."
And then a little later in the text:
"After a little while I became possessed
with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to
explore its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal
grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about
the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity --and I have often thought since, that the
revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little light-
headed. "
Maelstrom
Poe's short story 'A Descent into the Maelstrom' is a story about the swirl. That is the swirl as a natural phenomenon and a psychical one.
Here is a description of the sea observed from high up on a crag:
Here is a description of the sea observed from high up on a crag:
"Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convulsions—heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices. ... In a few minutes more, . . . the general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam . . . spreading out to a great distance, and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion "Of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly —very suddenly—this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than a mile in diameter. . . . "
And later this becomes terrifying:
"The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven."
So, this particular phenomenon is about an extraordinarily powerful and intense force. The force is one of sucking in to its space almost everything caught in the maelstrom. Almost everything?
Almost everything and everybody except for the sailor whose story is narrated.
Nasty feelings
Interesting review of 'Nervous States: How Feeling Took Over the World' in the LSE Review of Books:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/09/24/book-review-nervous-states-how-feeling-took-over-the-world-by-william-davies/
The main thesis is that the once dominant modality, reason, crucial for the enlightenment, has been moved into the background by affect. So now affect is dominant; thus the rise of populism and the difficulty in dealing with so-called post truth politics. The point being of course that formerly post-truth would have been undone by rational argument, but now that is no longer effective. That is the story.
In terms of our theme it is worth looking at this from a slightly different angle, and one that does not presume that enlightenment values are no longer valid.
The presumption in all of this is that there is a sort of void between feelings and thoughts. That there is no link between them. But what if there is? What if feelings have an object and irrespective of that, naming the feeling involves cognition. Then to, simplify the story greatly, populism does not just, or can not just appeal to the affective register.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2018/09/24/book-review-nervous-states-how-feeling-took-over-the-world-by-william-davies/
The main thesis is that the once dominant modality, reason, crucial for the enlightenment, has been moved into the background by affect. So now affect is dominant; thus the rise of populism and the difficulty in dealing with so-called post truth politics. The point being of course that formerly post-truth would have been undone by rational argument, but now that is no longer effective. That is the story.
In terms of our theme it is worth looking at this from a slightly different angle, and one that does not presume that enlightenment values are no longer valid.
The presumption in all of this is that there is a sort of void between feelings and thoughts. That there is no link between them. But what if there is? What if feelings have an object and irrespective of that, naming the feeling involves cognition. Then to, simplify the story greatly, populism does not just, or can not just appeal to the affective register.
Zero sum
Each time Trump wins, I feel a loss, acutely.
His wins are not through co operation, as in win/win, but by demolition of those who disagree with him. By using mockery, derision and falsification, he debases the human project. He destroys whatever he touches, be it his family's wealth Democrat achievements or the established order. His public humiliation at the Obama roast evoked hatred and vengeance, still a driving force behind his erratic actions.
Well documented power politics, based on male dominance and assumptions of superiority, still push aside pleas for a more considered and consensual politics, in the USA and in some European and African countries.
'Me too' gives voice to the need to end abuse, and invokes the law, but can there be a cultural change when the President advocates pussy grabbing? When the President needs adulation on a daily basis, and fears exposure of his illegalities and vacuity?
Bluster and blather win over contemplation and reasoning - extraversion over introversion. What's new?
It's enough to bring on a Swirl.
Comment on Flat Ontology post
If affect has replaced Enlightenment reason, why not consider the Swirl as an affect based phenomenon ? It would be difficult to find a reason for the existence of the Swirl. Explanation possibly, like self envy, description certainly, as in many of our iterations, but locating it within the Reason canon may be impossible.
Is an affect an object? Or is it a subjective experience that is not definable as 'anything that is resistant to reduction'
Perhaps the Swirl is a complex of negative feelings that needs a living organism to act as host, so begins inside the self, but mingles internal and external influences as it manifests.
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