Perceptual dynamics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Perceptual dynamics (or PD) is a broad classification of theories of mind. Theories of mind that fall within this category are those which attempt to describe the mode, condition, or dynamic of the act of perception as the cause of its content, rather than the other way around.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Perceptual dynamics describes the body of relationships and dynamics involved in human perception. Primarily, these dynamic actions of mind are described in context to personal knowledge rather than through cultural memes.
In creating a workable and predictive science of perception, Perceptual dynamics founds its precepts on the basis of subjective life rather than empirical information. This departure from normal science is provided by a personal realization of extreme significance, and in so experiencing such a realization, PD offers more in common with Eastern thought than the more popularly understood sciences.
A science, to be entirely dependent on a sense of self-acknowledged inner structure, would normally preclude it from becoming a means to shape cultural and scientific thought.
The tenets of PD, however, are highly explanatory and predictive at the personal level, and as such, while dovetailing well with much of modern psychology, PD considers psychology to be faulty in its assumptions because it is generally based on empirical data, even if its process of treatment has great value at times. Perceptual dynamics considers any science founded on empirical memes and scientific experimentation to be fundamentally flawed. The singular reason for this is that from PD perspective, all empirical knowledge is corrupted by the disinclusion of the observer. As a result of this disinclusion, empirical information is always limited to circular reasoning.
In understanding Perceptual dynamics, one also understands that such circular logic always arises in the immediate perception itself, though the existence of such inconsistencies are not generally available to non-practitioners. This is the predictive sense emerging from realization. The practitioner of PD becomes aware that the cues that are "hidden in plain sight" are clues which provide an immediate realizational sense of validity or non-validity, based entirely upon the presentation of assumptions by the claimant. Recognition of flawed assumptions is understood to be a product of realization, and as such, PD divides knowledge into two distinct bodies of discourse, Information and Realization. Information is always deemed incomplete and hence flawed, but Realization does not require assumptions, and so is always complete, and therefore reliable.
[edit] Varieties of approach
There are various approaches to reconciling issues in Perceptual dynamics. This is a new and burgeoning field and there are probably as many approaches as there are researchers in Perceptual dynamics.
[edit] Perceptual evolution
One approach to Perceptual dynamics is the theory of the evolution of perception. One of its current principal progenitors, Chris Ott,[1] contends that it is not substances and forces that initially or most fundamentally evolved, but rather perception itself which in turn gave rise to these dimensions and the things that form in our experience in terms of them. According to Ott the evolution of perception retains its relics in the process (or dynamic) through which human beings apperceive their world. The theory of the evolution of perception is inherently a process theory and purports to supplant all entity theories and their cosmologies.
Perceptual evolution holds that the world is literally the result of a process of perception and nothing else, i.e. seeing and ways of seeing -- or perception and modes of perception. It is postulated under this view that how we perceive gives rise to what we perceive. These modes (or ways) of seeing are called "evolved perceptual schemata" and can be compared to sanskaras in Eastern philosophy. For instance, space and time are interpreted as evolved perceptual schemata, and so are the laws of nature, which are themselves merely proportional relations of space and time. Over the course of the evolution of perception, the percept emerges. The complexity of the manner of perception (in effect the congeries of the perceptual schemata) is thought to be in direct proportion to the complexity of the percept (object of experience). Thus as consciousness evolves, so appears the percept as its direct result, at last giving rise to self-awareness, language, and culture.
[edit] Process theory
Another way to approach perceptual dynamics is in terms of the principles of contemporary process theory. In simplest terms, the how of the act of experience produces the what (or content) of that experience. Of course the how and what have a reciprocal relationship as well. For instance memory becomes entwined in how you perceive in the future. Thus there is a building up of an ever more complex gestalt.
Under this view the purpose of perceptual dynamics is to recognize this dynamic in one's own experience, see it for the illusion-creator that it is -- and then (through increased mindfulness or awareness of the dynamic) to try to undo or reverse or unwind the process to return to one's original indivisible and limitless state, yet retain full consciousness.
[edit] Non-spatial thinking process
The Non - Spatial Thinking Process Theory (NSTP) is invented by Kedar Joshi. It was first published in October 2002, and then revised and republished in December 2005. It mainly contends that the material universe is exclusively a group of thinking process/es existing in the form of non-spatial feelings. In computer terminology it regards (material) universe as a non-spatial computer (whose hardware is made up of non-spatial feelings and software is made up of superhuman thoughts) and space as a virtual reality (i.e. a projection of non-spatial mind, a form of illusion/mere appearance). It entails 7 theorems which are claimed to have been, to some extent, proved or reasonably demonstrated or supported. It is proclaimed to be a masterkey that can resolve mysteries surrounding Zeno’s paradoxes, quantum mechanics, biology, etc through its non - spatial universal mechanical framework.
[edit] Vedantic associations
Perceptual dynamics is more closely linked to Eastern philosophies, most notably Vedantic and Sufi, than to traditional western Platonic paradigms. While Western philosophies emphasize metaphysical entities and forces, perceptual dynamics takes experience, perception, or consciousness as the basic and fundamental building block of our percept. Probably the closest Eastern tradition is Advaita Vedanta, perfected by the 8th century Indian philosopher Adi Shankaracharya. However, perceptual dynamics makes a clean break from Eastern traditions in that it does not rely upon interpretation of sacred scriptures, but takes a more Western empirical approach to the same underlying principles. Therefore perceptual dynamic theory does not require a scholar be versed in any particular Eastern or Western mystic traditions -- though such teachings can be informative and useful.
[edit] Meher Baba
In "God Speaks" (1955, Dodd Meade), Meher Baba gave a detailed account of the evolution of consciousness and describes how past 'impressions' or sanskaras provide the medium through which we apperceive the 'illusion' of our senses. Meher Baba does not refer to perception, but rather to consciousness itself. Meher Baba writes, "It is well to remember always that the beginning is a beginning in consciousness, the evolution is an evolution in consciousness, the end, if there be an end, is an end in consciousness."
[edit] Nisargadatta Maharaj
The 20th century Indian teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj says that we are neither subject nor object, the seer nor the seen, but rather seeing itself. He says that this experience can be gained by the serious individual through vigilant and prolonged introspection and discrimination accompanied by a benevolent and empathetic way of life. (See "I Am That" by Nisargadatta Maharaj)
[edit] Shankaracharya
The 8th Century Indian philosopher Shankaracharya, also known as Adi Shankara, interpreted the four principal Vedas to mean that Atman is Brahman. The goal of life, for Shankara, is for Atman (the individual self) to correctly identify itself as Brhaman (the collective indivisible Self and the ultimate reality). Shankara taught that the cause of the plurality in our experience is maya, i.e. the principle of ignorance. Through the veil of ignorance (apperception through the falsified mind) we mistake the clay (Brahman or material cause) for the pot (named diverse objects), partly by the act of naming. He gave the analogy of a man walking at twilight who, coming upon a rope in his path, takes it to be a snake and is frightened. Illumination, then, is coming to recognize the rope for a rope and thus cease to suffer from our illusions brought upon by ignorance. Shankara established the Vedic school known as Advaita Vedanta. Advaita literally translates as "nondualism."
[edit] Western philosophical associations
Perceptual dynamics has numerous roots in Western philosophy as well as among Western mystic poets and essayists, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries, that pertain to or anticipate it. Among them are George Berkeley (Esse is Percipi which is Latin for essence is perception, by which Berkeley meant that the essence of a thing lies in its being perceived), Immanuel Kant (time and space are pure intuitions of the mind), Georg Hegel, William James (his definition of apperception), Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Ralph Waldo Emerson (see his essay "The Over Soul"). In the 20th century the main predecessors were John Dewey who isolated the historical fallacy in viewing processes and Alfred Whitehead who discussed the potential of process theory, process philosophy, and process theology in metaphysics at some length. [2] Ancient Western roots can be found in Heraclitus ("A man does not step in the same river twice") and Protagoras ("[Each] man is the measure of all things").
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Evolution of Perception and the Cosmology of Substance, Christopher Ott, 2004
- ^ Process and Reality, 1929 Alfred North Whitehead
