A Phenomenological Argument

1. Mobile Beings and Consciousness

Summary: Man is best conceived as a creature of dual psychic nature, having two simultaneously operating judgmental systems using different languages. These are Analogos and Logos. These generate two types of mental phenomena, Sensations (sensations-emotions-feelings-images) and Symbols (concepts, ideas and symbolic languages). These can be thought of as comprising two separate worlds, the world of sensations called Actuality and the world of symbols called Reality. The process of interpretation and translation from the language of experience (Actuality) into the language of intellectual understanding is called 'realization'. Thereby the world of Reality is created. Each judgmental system is an ontoic/epistemoic system (Analogos is the ontic/epistemic system and Logos is the ontological/epistemological system). Analogs generates 'being' and 'knowledge' while Logos generates 'existence' and'understanding'.

I have learned to show respect for being (Being). I now consider 'being' the "black hole of metaphysics!" That is to say, if one gets too close to Being, it can draw you in with the gravitational field of a black hole. Its pull is continuous, powerful, and tenacious. You can become constantly aware of it, desirous of it, wanting to understand and talk about it, and hopeful of knowing more of it. Being Itself can be enough to occupy one for a lifetime, perhaps for eternity, with its unbearable mass and gravity. Oh, how we want to be and how we want to know being. But as we cast about for the object of our awareness, we find none! For 'being itself' is me!^*

Firstly, I suggest that 'being' should be spelled as follows: be-ing! This spelling emphasizes that 'being' does not simply refer to an entity in the world, a thing. It is not just an ontic/ontological state. Instead, 'be-ing' refers to a process. It is spelled 'b-e-i-n-g,' the verb form ending in '-ing', a present participle, which informs the reader/listener of an ongoing activity! This term, 'be-ing' is written like other verbs: doing, running, swimming, walking, listening, etc., etc. These all imply ongoing, continuous activity. Being, a process, occurs through time and has duration. It endures, it continues, it goes on and on.

Franz Bretano related consciousness to mobility. It is mobile beings that are, have or find themselves aware and/or conscious. This is not surprising. Unlike plants and trees, mobile beings cannot survive by remaining long in one place. To fulfill needs they must change their environments. If environments vary, this requires that mobile beings have the capacity to make judgments about the world, about their ever-changing environments.

The powers behind creation, nature, God or whatever, induced in mobile beings a judgmental system by means of which they could assess the world and survive and procreate in it. This judgmental system we know as 'brain and mind'. I propose to call it 'brain-mind' to convey the oneness of the judgmental system. Enough is now known and understood to accept the idea that mind is related to functioning of the brain. And further, certain kinds of mental phenomena, such as sight, hearing, smell, taste, balance, etc., are related to the function of certain areas of the brain. In other words, mental phenomena and brain function are two aspects of the same process. One we think of 'as' a physical process, the other 'as' as mental process. I will refer to them as 'physical' and 'metaphysical' processes ('meta' implying beyond or in addition to the physical).

2. The Language of Experience.

My first point is that man is a mobile creature endowed with a judgmental system with which to assess the world and make judgments about the world. This judgmental (note: judge - mental) system is brain-mind. These judgments are known as 'experience'. And the language in which these judgments are presented is known 'as' sensation. Sensation includes emotions, feelings and spontaneous images. These are often referred to 'as' intuitive judgments. They occur immediately, spontaneously, and instantly summated.* They are ongoing and continuously upgraded, analogous to an ongoing live TV show in real-time. I will refer to the judgmental system using the language(s) of sensation, in its entirety, as Analogos.

3. Man's Additional Judgmental System, Intellect.

Man, unique to all other animals, appears to have an additional judgmental system not significantly found in any other mobile being(s) (animals, birds, fish, reptiles, etc). In the past, it has been referred to as Logos. It has been referred to 'as' the rational principle in the world. The Book of St. John begins: "In the beginning was Logos." It is now called Intellect.

Intellect makes its judgments in a different manner from those of Analogos. It operates in a linear, sequential, rationcinative mode. It performs rational or logical thinking. It creates models of the world called 'concepts' and labels or gives them identity by using 'symbols'. Modern digital computers are clear and direct manifestations of intellectual processes. They were invented by Intellect and their operations are based on analogy to intellectual operation. In a way, Intellect created a model of itself. The language of intellect is Symbolic. Symbolic language includes 'concepts' (verbal and pictorial) and spoken, written and sign language(s). I like to refer to the entire system which makes rational, linear, sequential type judgments presented in the language of Symbol(s) as Logos or Intellect.

4. Man's Two Judgmental Systems.

Man is best conceived of 'as' a creature of dual psychic nature, having two simultaneously operating judgmental systems using different languages. Each presents its judgments in its own language. These judgments and language expressions create what we know 'as' experience. But we can divide the entire world of our experiences into two realms, those generated by the judgments of Analogos and those generated by the judgments of Logos. The entire world comprised of the judgments of Analogos I refer to 'as' Actuality. The entire world comprised of the judgments of Logos I refer to 'as' Reality.

Each of us, of course, has only one mind. But, just as each eye presents its own vision, yet we experience only one vision, so mind consists of two judgmental systems yet we have only one mind. However, because of the nature of Logos, understanding requires that we form at least a duality, a dichotomy. This is simply a requirement due to the nature of intellectual function. It is not capable of dealing with 'oneness', or with 'at onceness'. In order to understand anything, intellect requires that it be broken or divided into at least two or more categories and symbolically labeled. Thus, we realize the nature of thesis and antithesis. Once a phenomenon is conceived, an anticoncept is usually generated. If I realize a phenomenon as 'black', I can offer an anticoncept of 'white'. If a phenomenon is conceived of as 'up', the anticoncept of 'down' is generated. Up-down, left-right, light-dark, black-white, good-bad, happy-sad, fat-thin, tall-short, healthy-unhealthy, ill-well, intelligent-stupid. Thesis generates its own antithesis. Particles necessitate the idea of anti-particles. Anything generates the possibility of anti-anything or non-anything, however inane it may be. This is like the 'reverse image' found on some computers which can turn black on white images into white on black with a push of the button. For example, something-nothing. What is the concept of nothing? To what does it refer. Has 'nothing' somehow become a 'thing' in itself by virtue of being generated 'as' a concept by Logos. The answer is yes, indeed! Nothing now 'exists' as a concept in the world of Reality. It simply has no correspondent being in the world of Actuality, much like the idea or concept of unicorns (connotation verses denotation).

5. Actuality and Reality.

Thus Man, unique to all other beings in the world, lives simultaneously in two different worlds, the worlds of Actuality, which he shares with all the other mobile beings, and the world of Reality, which is unique to Man. Actuality is the immediate wordless world of ongoing intuitive judgments and the knowledge imbedded in the memory of Analogos which results from those experiences. Reality is the entire conceptual world of man, comprised of categorical concepts and their attendant symbolic languages, i.e., the languages of chemistry, physics, biology, economics, sociology, politics, medicine, ontology, epistemology, cosmology, religion, and on and on, almost ad infinitum. The world of Reality is expanding rapidly as the number of concepts and new languages grow.

This duality results in Man being the first animal capable of serious and severe internal conflict! This ability to make two judgments about the same phenomenon gives man alternatives which no other creature has. The judgments can be 'correspondent,' that is they can be in agreement, or they can be 'non-correspondent' and disagree. The ultimate purpose of these judgments is action and behavior. The ultimate meaning of the judgments is the act or behavior they urge or cause.

6. Being verses Existence.

The major point to be realized is that these two simultaneously operating judgmental systems are ontological-epistemological judgmental systems. Their primary judgments are judgments of being or existence and knowledge or understanding.

Analogos is responsible for the judgments of being and knowledge. Logos is responsible for the judgments of existence and understanding.

And never the twain shall meet! To confuse being with existence or to confuse knowledge with understanding is exceedingly common, in fact, routine. They are even defined synonymously in the dictionary. Yet it is every bit as wrong as to conceive of hearing as seeing or smelling as seeing. These are functions performed by two very different and separate brain-mind judgmental systems using different languages. It is the simultaneous nature of their judgments, which fill the mind with phenomena generated by both systems 'at once,' that results in the confusion which most human beings experience in their lives. Which judgment takes precedence or 'wins' is dependent on the relative degree of neurobiological power* associated with that judgment (to what degree it may be cathected, according to Freudian language, or how much psychic energy it may be associated with according to others).

7. The Sensation of Being.

If I were to ask you: "How do you feel right now?" How might you respond in a simple way? Would you not respond "I feel well" or "good", or perhaps, "I feel ill" or "poorly"? If I ask you how you knew you were standing upright, would you not reasonably respond that "I simply sense myself to be upright"? I implore the reader to grant me a particular phraseology in response to these questions; that is, to respond in a particular and more accurate way to these questions which will cast some light on the underlying judgments.

To claim to "feel well" or to "feel ill" is equivalent to claiming that one is experiencing the "sense of well-being" or "the sense of ill-being". How else could you know how you felt? In what other mode could you judge the status of your being at the moment? While intellect may step forward and catch the question, being deaf, dumb, blind and internally senseless (it receives all of its input from the Analogic areas of the brain)*, it must toss the question over to Analogos for evaluation of "how you feel" at the moment. Analogos, the intuitive judgmental system, using the language of Sensation, can assess the nature of your immediate being and can inform Logos of its status. Logos can then respond in its symbolic language: "I feel well" or "I feel ill". Analogos judges the nature of your being in the language of sensation. Thus, it is important to realize that before Analogos can judge the wellness or illness or uprightness of one's being, it must necessarily make the judgment of 'being itself'! One must necessarily 'be' prior to being well, ill, upright, sitting, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, thinking, imaging, moving, running, eating lobster, or be anything else! Thus 'being' is the primary judgment of Analogos. Being is the primary judgment of Analogos upon which all other judgments are necessarily superimposed. As Descartes long ago implied: to sense is to be! "Cogito ergo sum" means "I sense, therefore, I am." (It is commonly and erroneously translated as "I think therefore I am")(read a few paragraphs past the "cogito" to find DesCartes own clarification). None of this is new!

I propose then that 'being' is the primary judgment made by Analogos, presented in the language of Analogos, sensation. It is experienced 'as' the sensation of being. When realized by intellect and interpreted and translated into conceptual and symbolic language, it is stated as "I am" (in English), Ich bin (in German), Yo soy (in Spanish) etc. "I realize that I am". I now have created an alternative ontological state, the conceptual state of being, called existence! Once realized by intellect, I now "am" in the world of Actuality and I "exist" in the world of Reality.

I suspect that these ideas have been in existence and had become embedded into the language long ago, perhaps by those who first realized them. For example, why the terms 'exist' and 'existence'? I propose they are chosen because, like so much English, they have Teutonic origin. From the Germanic 'er ist,' the term 'ist' refers to the ontic state of 'being'; 'ex-ist' came to refer to the alternate ontological state, literally 'out-of-being' or 'outside-of-being'. I believe this implies the early recognition of Man's two ontic/ontological states, being and existence. The interpretation and translation of that understanding from the language of Analogos to that of Logos, I refer to as the process of 'realization'. By virtue of realization, Logos creates the world of Reality, the total conceptual world of Man. Ergo, the two metaphysical states of Man are Actuality, the world generated by the judgments of Analogos filled with sensational phenomena, and Reality, the world generated by the judgments of Logos filled with conceptual and symbolic phenomena.