Strawson on Experience and Experiencers

[Joseph Polanik]

in _Mental Reality_, Second Ed., Galen Strawson quotes Frege as saying
"An experience is impossible without an experiencer" [1] and then
comments:

"This is a necessary truth. ... There cannot be experience with a
subject of experience, because experience is necessarily for someone or
something --- an experiencer or subject of experience." [p. 129]

"Many would concede without question that if there is an
experience-occurrence, there must be someone or something whose
experience it is. They would briskly claim that there must be a physical
(or psychophysical) thing --- a man or a mouse, say --- that is the
subject of experience. And this claim is, of course, compatible with
Frege's thesis. But the truth of Frege's thesis is prior to and
independent of any such claim. It follows immediately from the notion of
experience and does not depend on any commitment to materialism or, more
generally to the view that experiential goings-on must be grounded in or
realized by nonexperiential goings-on of some sort. It is a truth
available and required at the 'purely experiential level of
description' before there has been any talk of physical beings or
nonexperiential goings-on." [129-130]

Joe

[1] in the translation of Frege's 1918 text that appeared in Mind (1956.
65(259):289-311) as "The Thought a Logical Inquiry", Frege wrote "An
experience is impossible without an experient".
--

Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware

@^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
http://what-am-i.net
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[mec...@sbcglobal.net]

But certainly everyone has had an experience in which
they are so completely immersed that there is not even
an experiencer at all anymore; for example; listening
to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or watching children play.

In other words, the 'not yet experience'/'not yet experiencer' unity is
fractured only by the 'movement' of self-reflection; at which point
there is a sharp differentiation between the experience and the experiencer.

The immersion in the 'not yet experience' again, however, gives rise,
again, to the 'not yet experiencer'.

This would appear to be fairly straightforward.

Michael

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[sekhar goteti]

Thought is responsible for the division of experiencer and experience.

In the totality of feeling there is neither the experiencer nor experience

Experience stands as a reference for whatever tasks one wish to undertake.

This can not be the case with feeling.

sekhar

--
sekhar

[mec...@sbcglobal.net]

"Thought is responsible for the division of experiencer and experience."

 

This is precisely the error that J. Krishnamurti and many others of the

Eastern perspective make; that thought is the origin of the duality.

 

It is not thought that is responsible for the duality, but the 'movement' of

self-reflection. That 'movement' of self-reflection creates the 'spatiality'

of the "self"; that is, the duality of "self"/"not self": the drawing of a

circle in which the inside of the circle is the "self" and the outside of

the circle is the "not self".

 

Before you are aware that you are experiencing an experience, you

must reflect upon it; whether that experience is the sensation of pain,

an emotion such as sorrow or fear, or 'thinking' the thoughts of the 'thinker'.

 

You are completely immersed in an experience--you are, in fact,

experiencing the experience--before you have any awareness of

the experience that you are experiencing.

 

The 'movement' of self-reflection occurs in the absence of

thought. It is an immediate reflex of the nervous system whose

purpose is to preserve the life and the pleasure of the biological

organism. Thought may very well be an instantaneous reflex after

the 'movement' of self-reflection. But, no matter how instantaneous,

it is still subsequent to self-reflection.

 

It is the "observing consciousness", of course, which is prior

to both the 'movement' of self-reflection and the postulation of

the thought of the 'thinker'; which stands 'outside' of the consciousness

of the "self" and the 'thinker' as a third dimension of consciousness,

as is explained in more detail at:

 

http://science-of-consciousness.blogspot.com

 

Michael

---

From: mo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:mo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of sekhar goteti
Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2012 1:01 AM
To: mo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [MoFPP: 225] Re: [MoFPP: 224] Strawson on Experience and Experiencers

[sekhar goteti]

Whatever one may express and indulge either in the name of objective investigation or self inquiry is all within the field of

phenomenology.Even if one agrees the universal consciousness still can never be in the human conceptual world.

Simple reason one skips while reading ,writing and thinking is that it is all an imposed game.

You inserted a term such as observing consciousness which is also within the field of language,Language is

three dimensional within its construct like Observer - observing - observed.So called consciousness is also within

this trio.

thank you

sekhar

[mec...@sbcglobal.net]

The term "2-dimensional 'flat' space consciousness" is not merely a theoretical

term. Although the language of both the "self" and the 'thinker' is three-dimensional,

the language of the "observing consciousness" is only 2-dimensional since it

precedes the origin of the 3-dimensional 'space' of the consciousness of the "self".

 

[Much of this kind of language can be found in the writings of J. Krishnamurti;

especially when he refers to observing thought (or, in my terminology, the

consciousness of the 'thinker').]

 

Similar to the collapse of the wave-particle duality, the "observing consciousness"

itself collapses into the knowledge that it 'observes' inasmuch as the duality which

originates in self-reflection has not yet occurred.

 

By the way, the term "universal consciousness" is inherently spatial; that is, inherently

3-dimensional; and, for that reason, can only pertain to the consciousness of the "self".

Thus, there cannot be any "universal" consciousness because the "self" is inherently

a construct of a 3-dimensional 'space'. In other words, to say that there is a "universal"

consciousness would be like saying that it is possible to draw a circle with an inside

but not an outside.

 

The term "2-dimensional 'flat' space consciousness", on the other hand, essentially

signifies non-spatiality inasmuch as space itself is commonly imaged as being in

3 dimensions.

 

This is explained in more detail in my essay: Towards A New Paradigm of

Consciousness on my website.

 

Michael

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From: mo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:mo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of sekhar goteti

Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 12:47 AM
To: mo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [MoFPP: 227] Re: [MoFPP: 226] Re: [MoFPP: 224] Strawson on Experience and Experiencers