Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

The internalism model starts with human being. The idea is to explore what makes humaness and what makes being. (The name, internalism, was added later as the model evolved to fit the academic and philosophical idea that reality is created by the human mind.)

Being itself can be differentiated into existential awareness (a quality of Consciousness) and thought, which is one's experience. The awareness is what observes one's thoughts. This is sometimes called “the witness”. Essentially: thoughts and experience occur within time (the relative realms) whereas one's awareness is transcendant of time. Awareness is being in the causal and non-dual realms and experience is being in the physical (gross) and mental (subtle) realms.

There are two aspects of being, two basic ontological actions, if you will: expression and perception. Both of thease - expression and perception - can be performed regarding oneself or regarding other. One is humanity expressing itself (to humanity) and perceiving itself (as that expression).

When one perceives an object or another human, one is aware of a phenomenon and has thoughts about it - this constitutes and experience (and adds to one's knowledge).

From here, the model goes into the five precepts of internalism, after a brief explaination of the ontological realms mentioned above.

I am also going to post this on my blog (with a picture). I'd appreciate any comments, questions  and/or crits as this would aid me in enhancing the understandability. :)

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

I'm just going to throw back a few quick reactions…

The model strikes me as a fairly accurate description.

But the presentation is very much in the form of the western tradition of philosophy - let's say from the domains of verbal logics. It would be nice to see some biological and medical and sociological tie-ins, to show that it's not just an idealized mental/verbal model, but is rooted in the reality of the only place we find “being” so far - here in the biosphere of this planet.

I'm also not entirely convinced by your use of the term and concept of 'awareness'. I undestand what you are trying to say, but 'awareness' could cover a large spectrum of reactivity - does a bacterium have awareness when it reacts to a change in chemistry?

Again, what I'm saying is just a quick reaction to the presentation.

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

Thanks Bill, I shall respond to your last point first.

Yes, the term awaremess does have a somewhat non-mainstream definition/meaning in the context of internalism. In the first precept, which I outline on the internalism website and shall get around to posting in this pod, awareness is considered to be a subset of Consciousness. Where Consciousness is defined as the singular, onmipresent quality of existance.

One can equate awareness to mental states, which it includes and is not limited to. All humans, regardless of their developmental stage, have access to thease. (The catchall catagories are: lucid or waking, dreaming and deep sleep states.)

The experience and thought part of being does go though developmental stages, which entail successively wider and more numerous perspectives and understandings of reality. It is this experience part of being that perceives what one is aware of: reality, one's true nature, etc. So the nature of human being is know itself (it's awareness and ultimately Consciousness) experientially.

 Yes, the bacteria is aware in the sense that Consciousness subsumes all - that spirit is the birthing of all beings (both their interior and exterior). However, I would suggest the bacteria will never reach (in it's current manifest form) a level of development sufficient for it to experience a change in its body chemistry.

This goes back to the old question of “Where, in the evolutionary scale, does a being become sentient?”. Being (human and sentient) can be divided into: interior singular (first person), interior plural (second person), exterior single (third person) and exterior plural (fourth person).

I'd like to work with first (interior) and third (exterior) person perspectives for the moment.

he interior and exterior aspects develop in paralell. “Dirt does not get up and start writing poetry.” (Ken Wilber). One cannot get at the interiority of something by studying its externality. This might seem counter-intuitive as when one stops physically growing, one is considered an adult.

The fact is that interior, psychological development starts at birth and (hopefully) continues throughout life - paralell with exterior development. And exterior development includes how one acts - one's behaviour - which starts at birth and (hopefully) continues throughout life - paralell with interior development.

(Next post on presentation and philosophical approach…)

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

The presentation is very much wetern philosophical, as Bill points out. This is quite intentional as I am trying to balance interior with exterior perspectives.

There are tie-ins to external perspectives - both 3rd person (chemical) and 4th person (social) - which are preseted (I should say going to be presented) later on in the exposition.

I am somewhat uncertain of the order of presenting thease two perspectives in the treatise as the thesis needs both and I find it challenging to present them together as many people are more aware of the differentiations between the two and not the paralells between them.

This is, I confess, part of my purpose in thowing the theory out there - to discover how to present the model in an efficacious manner.



 

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

This is, I confess, part of my purpose in thowing the theory out there - to discover how to present the model in an efficacious manner.

That's what I figured. I recognized the effort since I do a lot of the same sort of thing. Trying to express ideas with different approaches and different language to see what works in geting an idea to 'stick'.

Why “internalism”?

It reminds me of other approaches I've tried and seen - the “inner life', “life of the mind”, etc.

I've called this stuff “self-development” as a default generic term since I was fairly young.

That term is supposed to be loose enough so that people can attach a lot of personal meanings to it, while being descriptive enough that simply saying the term, 'self-debvelopment', immediately suggests and implies a 'flavor' of the type of approach, effort, and types of thinking and behaviors that I'm talking about.

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

Internalism because it refers to attending to the interiority that I refer to in the above post. It is my opinion that our - humanity's -external thechnology and abilities have outstripped our internal wisdom capability to use them properly. So I the name is to create a sort of counter-imbalance in that social context.

There seems to be way too much looking outwards for the Absolute Truth and not enough looking inwards for it. (The relativity here is between internal and external, Absolute Truth does not have a polar opposite, it is the integration, in a sense, of all polar opposites.) The Absolute is omnipresent, so, from a relative perspective, it is important to see it's aspects in both interiority and externality.

Self-development, whilst I totally agree with your resaoning, covers only part of the internalism model because the True Self, one's existential awareness, doesn't develop, it Is. (I predict that Mushin and I will be debating this on the self board of this pod.) This is not without irony as the first precept of internalism - We Are One: Consciousness is the singular, omnipresent quality of existance - implies that, in Absolute terms - there is only the inside.

btw, are you familiar with the term noosphere, coined by Buckingham Fuller?

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

Who hasn't heard of the noosphere? It's a pretty basic idea, been in the source material for, what, over half a century now. Vernadsky and Teilhard De Chardin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noosphere

Self-development, whilst I totally agree with your resaoning, covers only part of the internalism model because the True Self, one's existential awareness, doesn't develop, it Is.

In my approach, “True Self” is an unproven metaphor. The “self” in self-development is a small 's' self, the individual and the individual's experience of self.

The idea is that our societies ignore and in fact suppress the growth of the self, producing humans that are badly damaged and stunted. The one thing we truly own, our inner life and experience, is left to rot on the vine. 

What reason do you have to believe there's a true self?

Re: Fundamentals of Internalism Theory

I asked about the noosphere because you mentioned the biosphere in a previous post. One can consider the noosphere to be an extension of the biosphere, as one can cosider the biosphere to be emergent of the physiosphere. Take away one and it's expansions collapse. To put it another way, everything in the biosphere is necessarily in the noosphere and not everything in the noosphere can be found in the biosphere.

I have no reason at all to believe in the True Self. I detect and perceive it not via reason but by observation. The True Self subsumes knowledge - it transcends and includes it (to use a Wilberism). The self development of which you speak is a continual widening of perspective in order to more concisely perceive the True Self.

In internalism terms: Consiousness is singular (first precept) and is the True Self. Perception (and thus knowledge) evolves in a nested structure (second precept) - the physiosphere-biosphere-noosphere sequence. One perceives through an interpretative filter (third precept) it is this that deveolps ever wider, more inclusive perpectives.