I, for one, have long considered the physical and the metaphysical realms or aspects of experience to be two faces of the same phenomenon. All, in fact. are sensations. They are better thought of "as" physical experiences and metaphysical experiences. Cast in these terms, one can understand their similarity, in fact, their sameness "as" experience which is fundamentally empirical and always sentient, that is SENSATIONAL.
It is intellect, in its attempt to understand the world (of experience) through the process of realization that divides experience into these two realms, the physical and the metaphysical.* This distinction is easy, simple and understandable for, by virtue of our very natures, our basic construction, we seem designed to make this distinction. I suppose that this is so since all acute threats to survival and all acute needs for survival are found in the physical realm of experience. So we seemed evolved or 'designed' to be more acutely concerned about this realm and to make clearer judgments about physical experiences.
Experiential or sensational phenomena are all intuitive, that is, they are judgments by Analogos, presented in the language of Analogos, the language of Sensation. Yet, the additional intellectual distinction between physical and metaphysical phenomena itself (through the process called "realization') seems almost intuitive -or perhaps a very simple logical operation - for the intellect. Frankly, it seems the most basic, common and usual distinction made by the human brain-mind beyond "me-in here-now" and "not me-out there-now". The judgment of "physical",of "object", "thing", "material", "matter", "tangible" etc. is one of the most primary and rudimentary judgments made by brain-mind. After all, the term 'matter' derives from the term 'mater' meaning 'mother'. Matter is the mother of all experience. Without matter, there would be no experience at all for there would be nothing (no thing) and no being to experience. Material provides the matter for experience, the grist for the mill of judgment.
These judgments made by Analogos and Logos are, of course, being made for the purposes of survival which entails actions mandated on part of the organism, in this case, the human being. We realize since Bretano's realization that awareness and consciousness are related to mobility. An immobile although living creature such as a plant or tree has limited need for awareness-consciousness since it has no ability to act upon any judgment. It is dependent upon the environment being friendly and consistent with its survival. It is totally dependent upon the nature of its "external" world.
By virtue of the above considerations, we realize that Mind is a judgmental system making judgments on behalf of the organism and for its survival. These judgments must necessarily provoke, stimulate and generate actions which the organism must make in order to defend itself, to procure essentials for survival, to perpetuate itself in the form of offspring, and to make or find an environment compatible with its needs for survival.
The following of fundamental judgments, beginning with the primary judgment of "be-ing" itself, yielding being and all the subsequent superimposed judgments which make up our daily lives, are those which must necessarily generate the fundamental drives or instincts.
After wallowing around in the reptilian brain-mind and delving into these rudimentary judgments and experiences, I propose the following interpretations of them as the relate to "meaning". In short, what drives or instincts do they create? What actions do they urge? What behavior do they instigate and initiate?
I offer the following list:
The Sensation of Being ---- the drive or instinct for experience.
The Sensation of Continuous Being ----- the drive or instinct for survival, air, water, for nutrition (food) ------ the drives of air hunger, thirst, and hunger The Sensation of Perpetual Being ----- the drive for reproduction or the sexual urge,
------for nurture (love)
The Sensation of Well Being ----- the drives for comfort, for maintenance of body temperature, for a normal physiological state, for health.
Reason tells us that the basic drives must necessarily be found arising out of the basic judgments which "meat-spirit", "body-soul", "brain-mind", , are capable of making. It is here in the most primary judgmental system, the brain stem (reptilian brain) that these basic judgments are made and presented in the crude language of that early system, basic SENSATIONS. These are often referred to as the "internal senses" and include wakefulness, the sense of being, of well or ill being, of orientation is space, body position, balance, posture; they include the sense of the physiological state of the body, of need for air, water, nutrients, body temperature, nurture, safety, threat, sexual urge, etc. These sensations are the crude language of the early reptilian brain-mind which was and is (for it is still operating within us) capable of making only limited distinctions about the world, the world within as well as the world without.
One could construct a hierarchy of drives welling up out of the deepest levels of brain-mind and building all the way up to the delicate desire for a certain flower placed just so on the table, for a bit more of certain spice in one's dish, the desire for a certain perfume for the evening, or the choice of a certain work or delicate phrasing in conversation. These highly evolved, sophisticated drives and delicate distinctions are the functions of the neomammalian brain-mind, the cerebral cortex with its refined neuronal networks and its highly evolved and considerably more intricate languages.
A. Iosue
* I use the term "metaphysical" synonymously with the spiritual; I use it to refer to the intangible, the non-material, the mental etc. I use it in the sense of "beyond the physical" meaning beyond or in addition to or as opposed to "physical experience".table of contents