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Nick Consoletti Response to 2nd Core Report Dear , Here is the 2nd core's report. My immediate response was on August 14 in which I thanked Dr. Cedillos and enclosed several "definitions" and responses in general. A full copy of my initial letter follows this more lengthy rendering of comments. Here is my preliminary report dated 8/4/98 as originally sent. I'm sorry to say that I cannot approve your meeting for reasons I hope you will find compelling. I Emailed Dr. Sharpe today informing him of my decision and asking him to communicate it to you. I am sending your PDEback so you can look at my comments through page 18. My comments in this letter will be brief. Please note that in the first 18 pages you proceed to talk about concepts using terminology without "unpacking" or definitions. I have circled many of these pieces. Please keep in mind that most readers will not have a background in Bohmian concepts. Your section B. Methodology is under-developed and under-presented. You will have to describe the operational concepts and actual practice. For example, when did you record? How did you decide what to record? And so on. As it stands, this section is not adequate. You do not have a section on analysis and interpretation. What did you do with your observational notes? Did you analyze your transcripts? Why is it that you have not brought notice to your facilitation of the non-facilitative process? What about when the group confronted you? What have you done to penetrate the meaning of your notes and your transcripts? Can you sift through these materials with a Bohmian Mind, a Bohmian sieve that draws out the process in the thermodynamic branching of the dialogues? Lastly, what can you say that you can really get your teeth into? Since the above report, your committee has asked that the meeting be allowed to occur so that the entire committee can assist in the final development of your documents, particularly the PDE. Also in that time you have sent a detailed response to the original report and have added annotated set of definitions. I am encouraged by your response, although, given the rushed nature of this process, it is flawed and does not necessarily satisfy the questions I posed in my first report. Honoring your committee's request and having received your response I have agreed to hold the meeting as a working meeting. I feel that there is still much work to do, some of it having to do with a deeper sense of "writing" and conviction, and some of it having to do with coherent, unified conceptualization. In this final report I must emphasize that your writing is generally not precise enough to meet doctoral academic standards of exposition. I will give a few examples but will not try to cover them all since the examples I will give are indicative of the overall vagueness of your writing in the PDE. I leave it to your committee to make the point since I am quite sure that the Dean's Review will not accept your work as written. The following is an example of what I mean:
[10 of Dr. Cedillos's examples follow with my responses in brackets.] 1. You write: "I will give a few examples but will not try to cover them all since the examples I give are indicative of the overall vagueness of your writing in the PDE. I leave it to your committee to make the point since I am quite sure that the Dean's Review will not accept your work as written." [ My response: My committee suggested that copy editing will contribute to the clarification of my contextual essay. I understand your typification of the "vagueness" in my writing to mean a lack of definitiveness. If one looks at a thesaurus vague also means ambiguous, indeterminate etc. My reflection was an attempt to portray my experience with others engaged in dialogue in Eugene, Oregon. This experience of dialogue was a complex occasion. Throughout this work my experience has been one of being inside the eye of a storm. For example, there were many voices speaking (sometimes many at once), and to write about these 'amonglogues', if you will, was daunting. In my preliminary report I mentioned Henri Bortof's "The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way towards a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature (Lindsfarne, 1996), where Bortoft, in his first chapter "Authentic and Counterfeit Wholes" argues that the developmental psychologists have posited two major modes of organization: that of the active mode and the receptive mode. His source of information is Arthur Deikman, "Bimodal Consciousness" in The Nature of Human Consciousness, edited by Robert E. Ornstein (W. H. Freeman, 1973). Both these authors contend that the active mode: the verbal, analytical, sequential, and logical is formed from the interaction with the physical environment. They say that this has been described by many psychologists, mentioning Helmholtz and Piaget. Bortoft states "The receptive mode is one which allows events to happen . . . this mode of consciousness is nonverbal, holistic, nonlinear, and intuitive" (16). With regards to the wholistic nature of my experience in dialogue I contend that views along the lines of Bortoft's regarding Goethe's thinking is similar to Bohm's view of wholeness. Much of what was going on in my experience within this dialogue setting was like this receptive mode. Bortoft goes on to say that the active mode was necessary for biological survival. "This mode of consciousness corresponds to the object world, and since we are not aware of our own mode of consciousness directly, we inevitably identify this world as the only reality. It is because of this mode of consciousness that the whole is 'nothing' to our awareness, and also that we when we encounter it, we do so in an 'active absence' (16). The complexity of face to face interaction is also brought home by Fernando Poyatos in his article "The Deeper Levels of Face to Face Interaction" Language and Communication, (1985). Poyotos's inquiry addressed the complex relation of language-paralinguistic-kinesis. This holistic concept of interaction can be developed only when interaction is understood as: the conscious or out-of -awareness exchange of behavioral and non-behavioral, sensible and intelligible signs from the whole arsenal of somatic and extrasomatic systems ( independently of whether they are activities or nonactivities) and the rest of the surrounding cultural systems, as they are activities or nonactivities) as they all act single emitting components (and potential elicitors or further emissions) which determine the specific characteristics of the exchange. (111) Poyotos sums up his article, talking about the complexity and limitations of language in face of interaction: The multisystem, multilevel complexity of face-to face-interaction defies by its nature any form of simplistic analysis focused only on language and its most obvious cobehaviors. (130) The writer John Briggs, who participated in a dialogue group, has used the term omnivalence to describe the ambiguity that comes forth in dialogue meetings. Briggs and McClusky's article "Ultimate Questioners: The Search For 'Omnivalent' Meaning" in The Search For Meaning, edited by Paavo Pylkkanen (Thorsons, 1992), mentions the work of William Empson's "Seven Kinds of Ambiguity", and also refers to Keat's view of negative culpability, the idea that the essence of being is at the edge of uncertainty. Along these same lines of the notion of omnivalence is a recent article by Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Bate in theTimes Literary Supplement (July 25, 1997) "Words in a Quantum World: How A Cambridge Physics led William Empson to refuse 'either/or'" Bate goes into Empson's work in the Cambridge of the 1930's and comments how Empson proposed a gradual ascent from multiple meaning to radical paradox. "For example, a second-type ambiguity is more complicated than a first-type one, a third-type more complicated than a second, and so on up to the seventh." Seventh-type Empsonian ambiguity is the literary equivalent of Quantum mechanics. In the Cambridge of 1922, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch could only think in terms of either/or, so he could not make sense of Measure for Measure, In the Cambridge of 1930, William Empson became the first man to see the literature of the past through quantum theory's altered notion of reality. An analysis of the literary-theoretical implications of this development would need a whole book in itself. Such a book ought to suggest that the dissolution of absolutes which characterizes late twentieth-century modes of criticism, such as deconstruction, is a fallacious extension of seventh type ambiguity. As Empson noted in one of those reviews written in 1930, relativity is an ill-named theory, since it says not that everything is relative, "but that a new thing (not space but the velocity of light) was found which could be treated as absolute". The problem with deconstruction is that it has no equivalent for the velocity of light. It is not an illiterate theory, but an innumerate one. (15) Bate proposes that Shakespeare's genius is the literary equivalent ot the speed of light, and the Uncertainty principle as applied to Shakespeare's work is represented in Falstaff's characterization. Allow me, further, to mention statements by various scholars which capture the essence of the inquiry into wholeness and the limitations of analysis, and which address this issue of ambiguity, in as much as one of the components of the question of wholeness is creative intelligence, and its sensitivity to new orders of meaning and perception. At a conference addressing the thinking of Krishnamurti, and in particular his pedagogy of education on the question of wholeness, reported in Things of The Mind: Dialogue with American University Professors edited by Brij B. Khare, the chapter "Reorienting the Mind" demonstrates Khare's examples of the limitations of analysis. Insight into the movement of thought can end conflict. This does not mean that thought should be analyzed: it means that we need to go deeply into looking at conflict; and seeing its consequences in our lives. Analysis itself produces conflict; it creates a division between the person analyzing and the subject under analysis. In truth the idea we analyze comes from our own thought, and there is no difference between what is analyzed and the person doing the analysis. (95) Khare continues: Hegel reminds us that the whole has a logic greater than the sum of its parts. Whether we are interested in the psychology of the individual or in the fate of the nations, we must approach our subject by seeing it on the broadest canvass, where all the factors influencing it are present. This is the level of the whole, the totality. It is crucial to understand that an analysis conducted at a lower level, at the level of a "part" will never show us, of itself this greater pattern. On the contrary, the part can only be understood in terms of its place within the whole, which alone gives it meaning. Of course we must keep in mind that wholes and parts are relative; parts are wholes in themselves and wholes are parts of greater wholes. We must be able constantly and flexibly to adjust our focus. Any issue can be comprehended only in totality, along two dimensions, one of which may be called vertical or historical, the other horizontal or synchronic. (144) In Mark Edwards' and David Bohm's Changing Consciousness: Exploring the Hidden Source of the Social, Political and Environmental Crises Facing Our World." by (Harper/Collins, 1991), Bohm talks about wholeness: When life as a whole is harmonious, we don't have to ask for an ultimate meaning, for then life itself is this meaning. And if it isn't we have to find the reason, by looking into life as a whole, which includes the source of the stream, and the basic roots of consciousness and the thought process. If we do this, we will generally find that a lack of meaning in life has its root in sustained and pervasive incoherence in our thoughts, in our feelings and in how we live, along with a self-deceptive defense of the whole process against evidence that it has serious faults. (210) Bohm and Edwards talk about the implications of going to the root of thought as well as a rationale for going to the root causes of issues. To solve humanities problems: It needs the subtle intelligence that is an undivided whole. Getting to the root of "pollution" then leads to going beyond the root and reaching the unpolluted source of this intelligence. And then in itself begins to clean up the pollution, rather as certain bacteria can do in a river. (152) ` Finally I refer to Stafford Beer's experience with reflection. I construe my appraisals in my essay to be akin to Beer's approach, in spirit if not in form, in that my work is like a state of mind reflecting on its own activity. In his Beyond Dispute: the Invention of Team Syntegrity, from the chapter "Self Reference In Icosahedral Space" Beer uses the ancient symbol of an ouroborus to describe the concept of closure, pointing out that it is necessary to include the concept of recursion and iteration for a notion of consciousness to ensue. When he was 17, Beer read Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathemathica, and learned that Russell's assertions were so qualified that he was aware that he was saying nothing. Beer argues: My counter argued that it is perfectly possible to say, within one's own initial language, that the propositions that one is entertaining is actually false. All language is subjective, and no higher order language exists sui generis in which propositions declared in the speakers own language could be questioned. (211) Beer continues: Because the expression offers 'a protracted predicate which can never acquire a subject,' the expression cannot result in paradox. Nothing, in fact, is being said. Only there is a state of mind reflecting on its own activity. That quotation summarizes my conclusion at the time some forty years ago. (211) Such methods of assertion points towards the articulations of a state of mind reflecting on its own activity. These arguments are examples of recursion and iterativeness, and are what Beer calls 'reverberative.' After quoting the neurophysiological-phenomenological evidence for consciousness, he states "awareness is best described as self-awareness; that consciousness is a reflection of its own activity. "] 2. You write: "what does this mean?" p. 4 of your response). Tentatively other than brief commentary, I have decided not to analyze the interviews and questioners [sic] that I represented in the appendices. The committee had agreed to do the interviews with me and I kept my commitment." [My response: You are referring to my statement 'the committee . . . (etc.) commitment'. At my certification meeting it was agreed upon by the committee that I would write about my experience of dialogue and on how the group functioned. The original suggestion was that my contextual essay was to be around 22 pages. "The committee had agreed to do the interviews with me and I kept my commitment." Therefore the use of the word 'committee' refers to the participants of the dialogue group in Eugene, Oregon, and not to my doctoral committee with the Union. I apologize for this ambiguity. Also, allow me to explain that at my pre-grad meeting the committee suggested that I briefly comment on the group record that was transcribed, the individual interview, and Questionnaires that appear in the Appendices. Three years ago, during my certification meeting February 17, 1996, Dr. Kevin Sharpe suggested that my contextual essay be only 22 pages. Therefore my approach was to do what I could with my available resources regarding the presenting of Bohmian dialogue. Before I left for my internship in Hungary on March 7, 1996 I was able to do an audio recording of a group meeting in Eugene, Oregon and to interview a participant, translating written questionnaires into an audio tape which was later transcribed. When I returned to the States in November of 1996, I proceeded to do the requirements for my learning agreement. I worked with my Adjunct Dr. Fred Wood in the Spring of 97, and in the summer of 1997 he was able to find someone to transcribe the tapes into a disc at a fee that I could afford. By no means did I reluctantly represent the interviews and questionnaires. But it seems to me, that it would take more time than I have to represent the significance of these interviews and questionnaires. It is a question whether other researchers will gain insight from the examination of this record on dialogue. Your suggestion that this needs clarifying is very valuable to me: my reflection includes appraisals that the Oregon, London, and Ojai seminar dialogue experiences which will be indented and italicized throughout the contextual essay.] 3. In response to my sentence on page 4: "Due to several reasons etc. . ." you ask: "What do you mean by this vague reference to 'reasons'?" [ My response: As I stated above, due to my internship and new learning requirements I was not able to find a transcriber for my interviews until the summer of 1997. Transcription costs can be as much as one hundred dollars for an hour of taping. After the tapes were transcribed, I went over them again to check for possible errors; this took a significant amount of time. The participant who I chose to represent in the appendix was found dead in the river, and the other dialogue participants who had been interviewed were definite, as well as others in the group, that the deceased participant was the one to be represented.] 4. You write: "Throughout your PDE you use phrases like 'it seems', 'apparently' and so forth that gloss over any substance and end up as vacuous prose. You need to increase the precision and coherence of your writing. I believe that it is the lack of analysis that is hampering your written work." [My response: Yes, I agree that my work needs sharpening and more focus. Undoubtedly I can improve on clarifying my work where appropriate, and will strive to do so. With regards to phrases such as "it seems" "apparently" and so forth, my intent is not to be vague, but on the contrary to be clear. I intend to follow the thinking of people who think along the lines of semanticist Korzybsky who said that the word is not the thing, the map is not the territory, whatever we say it is, it isn't, it is always that, and so much more. Allow me to point up some examples which contain such implications. The Meeting of the Ways: Explorations in East/West Psychology edited by John Welwood (Stochen Books, 1979) features an essay by Robert Ornstein "The Esoteric and Modern Psychology's of Awareness" where in Ornstein quotes Aldous Huxley that awareness is a personal construction. Later on in the chapter Ornstein reports that Jerome Bruner suggests that "correct" perception. . . is not so much a matter of representation as it is a matter of what I shall call model-building." Ornstein points out that we don't see with our eyes, but with the help of our eyes. Our experience is therefore an interactive process between the external world and continuously revised models of our categories." Ornstein writes: There are two major ways in which we "make sense" out of the world First, we use our sensory systems to discard and simplify incoming information. Second, we further sort the amount of information that does come in along a very limited number of dimensions out of which we construct out awareness. These dimensions have been called in psychology "unconscious inferences" "personal constructs," "category systems," "efferent readiness," or "transactions," depending on the writers style or level of analysis." (138) In sum, my writings on my Bohmian dialogue experience are largely personal constructs that are simplified models of complex occasions.] 5. You point out: "Another problem in your writing is that you simply indicate (without explanation, illustration or any analysis) objectives and expect the reader to accept your assertions. For example, 'The aim of my reflection was to write about my experience in the dialogue group; this experience was idiosyncratic (private mixture).' [ My response: The implication of the idiosyncrasy of the human being is that we are as much of the collective conditioning of our culture as we are our own uniqueness—the point being that it is the responsibility of each individual to examine this conditioning. In "Time, The Implicate Order, and Pre-Space" from Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time, edited by David Ray Griffin (SUNY, 1986), Bohm talks about this notion of idiosyncrasy regarding the implications of freedom and individuality. It appears then, that the principle barrier to freedom is ignorance, mainly of "oneself" and secondarily of the "external world." This ignorance is also the main barrier to true individuality. For any human being who is governed by opinions and models unconsciously picked up from society is not really an individual. Rather, as has been made clear, especially by Krishnamurti , such a person is a particular manifestation of the collective consciousness of humankind. He or she may have special peculiarities, but these too are drawn from the collective pool of thought and feelings (here we may usefully consider the word idiosyncrasy, which, in its Greek root, means "private mixture"). A genuine individual could only be one who was actually free from ignorance or his or her attachment to the collective consciousness. Individuality and true freedom go together and ignorance (or lack of awareness) is the principle enemy of both. (204) In retrospect, I was probing to extend the notion of the idiosyncratic (private mixture) of the self into a proposal for an inquiry into Bohmian dialogue as no doubt representing a multidimensional model which will be mentioned below on your question about the psychological dimension of this essay. As I had stated to you my responses were meant to be tentative. My rationale for bringing up Henri Bortoft's work on Goethe was an attempt to see if Goethe's form of analysis would be a useful methodology with regards to this wholistic experience in Bohmian dialogue. I was also responding to your view that I did not have an analysis and interpretation section. My original statement was that my analysis and interpretation was embedded in my dialogue representations in Oregon, London and Ojai Seminars. At my pre-graduate meeting my committee suggested that I mention in the methodology section that I italicize and indent my observations. Permit me to say some more about Goethe's view of analysis. In Bortoft's The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way Toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature: Understanding Goethe's way of Science, Bortoft has been talking about coming into being: What we notice here is that, at this stage, the act of distinguishing is holistic and not analytical. This is surprising at first, because we are accustomed to think of distinguishing as a separating action, and hence as being manifestly "analytical" (lysis: "to separate" ; ana: "from above"). So we do not expect to find a holistic quality in the act of distinction. But we only find this if we try to catch distinguishing in the act. If we do not (and we usually don't), but instead, attend to what is distinguished, then we become aware of separation. Then we do not notice the integrating, relating aspect of distinguishing, and so inevitably we think of distinguishing analytically. i. e. as externally separating one from another. But this is really separating the already distinguished, so that the primary or original act of distinguishing is missed. Once again, this is because we are too late. "Separating" is how distinguishing appears in the plane of the past and not in the living present of the act of distinguishing. (136) Bortoft goes no to say that this "separating the already distinguished" is a "fall from the living present of the process into the dead past of the product."] 6. You say: (p. 6-7 of your response. It was not the object of dialogue to analyze, but to share opinions. I did not analyze my transcripts. The reason that they are represented in the appendix is to give the reader other perspectives, and a sense of what the aspects of the duration of a meeting was like. As Brown, Ponty and Bortoft propose above being which can be understood is language. I extend this statement to the transcripts in the appendix as sufficient, as they stand alone. I argue along the lines of the poet Charles Olson "that which exists through itself is its meaning. "A paragraph like this appears to this reader like a blunt refusal to provide real dialogue with the audience. You simply assert that something is so and tell the reader where to go to find out for her/himself. And this does not even address the coherence of the paragraph. But at any rate, pointing to an appendix as a free-standing, self-explanatory artifact is not only not useful but usurps the design of the Creative Arts program that points to a distinctive product as an example of the creative process of the program, but this product is also accompanied by a contextual essay that explicates, describes in finer conceptual terms and extrapolates from the analysis of the artifact. You not only do not do this but you eschew doing any analysis. Your description of sitting in a coffee shop sorting your notes tell us nothing about your sorting procedures and the process of forming categories from the data and your sorting process." [ My Response: The coffee shop reference about an example of my sorting procedure was only a glimpse of one day in my life. I did sort my notes and reflections in a deliberate manner over time. In the work in progress section of my "Ecology and Self Organization" article for new learning submitted to adjunct Dr. Fred Wood in the Spring of 1997, I had started to formulate 'works in progress' perspectives of the relationships that I represent in my reflection of my contextual essay. You comment on what appears to you to be a blunt refusal to provide real dialogue with the audience. I had said: I argue along the lines of the poet Charles Olson "that which exists through itself is its meaning." See bibliography for reference. (P6-7, response) With regards to this statement made by me in my response. Here is Olson's view from his book Muthologies: The Collected Lectures & Interviews ed. George F Butterick (Four Season Foundation, 1978). In this series he talks about the unity of these themes: The Earth, The Image of the World, History or City, and the Spirit of the World.. . (66). Olson says "and do these four things under an epigraph which would be: that which exists through itself is what is called meaning." After reading these poems he mentions that "It's almost like an exegesis of text, if you'll excuse me. As I said, I have arrived at a point where I really have no more than to feed on myself." He says if one would talk a Causal Mythology, the simplicity of the principle "that which exists through itself is what is called meaning" will be that one produces a one. And in his Poetry and Truth (1971), Olson posits that the etymological definition of logic implies "What is said of what is said": The teeter I mentioned is literally the muthologos, which is the Greek word itself. Not myth. I mean, like, I can't use mythology without finding it muthologos. And I can tell you what's in this whole thing. Again it's a number of years since I first stumbled on that. And it was in pursuing my own interests in the other Greek of myself, beside Hesoid, Herodotus, who was known because of his His-tory. I don't know how immediately and how early this was his name the Logographer in contrast to Herodotus who was to the Greeks the Muthologos. I hope you hear the switch. It's a most exciting switch, to my mind, because actually what you call Heodotus' stories are known to the Greeks as logoi. May I get that to you? Actually logos, in my mind right now, logic or lllll [deliberate stutter] is lll, is like s st story, and is like, only story. And that when you have subjects like pslychology and pslopology, you're actually only having the stories of and history is, like, so. At this point, happily, we can say mythology is stories of myths-which is the word 'mouth.' Muthos is mouth. [sputters] And indeed logos is simply words in the mouth. And in fact I can even be stiffer an etymologist and tell you that if you run the thing right to the back of the pan and scraped off all the scrambled eggs and there's still rust on it and you can't wash it, you'll find that what you have to say muthologos is, is "what is said of what is said" (47) As far as I am concerned, the recursiveness of his definition implies a similarity to my experience along the lines of Bohmian dialogue; I aimed at this kind of story line with what unfolded as the meetings proceeded. As I see it, what is taking place is a lot more richer and subtler than what can be presented in a written text. Poyotos, who I mentioned above in "The Hidden Dimension of Face to Face Analysis," points out the many complex issues involved in face to face interaction. With regards to the difficulty of capturing Bohmian dialogue Evan P. Pritchard portrays oral telling as a component of Bohmian dialogue in his No Word For Time: The Way Of The Algonquin People Evan T. Pritchard (Council Oak Books,1997). Pritchard says: The essential poetics of the Algonquin might be called "poetry in motion" or becoming one's own medium of expression. Certain customs, objects and gestures are recognized as embodying certain feelings, thoughts and energies and can be varied to express almost anything in physical form without words. I call it "embodiment." Everything that really matters is enacted. Even the flow of events we call time are embodied by the river. That is why storytelling far outweighs every other poetic process -- it uses action to show, rather than tell or presume. Stories are three dimensional. Everyone will have a perspective on what it means according to where he or she is standing, just like life. (33) I mentioned Bortoft's work above and in my Preliminary report. Bortoft, a student of David Bohm contends that Goethe' s view on wholeness is the same kind of understanding of wholeness as Bohm's. In his The Wholeness of Nature: Goethe's Way toward a Science of Conscious Participation in Nature (Lindsfarne, 1996), Bortoft points out: The reciprocal relationship of part and whole which is revealed here shows us clearly that the act of understanding is not a logical act of reasoning because such an act depends on the choice either/or. The paradox arises from the tacit assumption of linearity -- implicit in the logic of reason -- which supposes that we must go either from part to whole or from whole to part. Logic is analytical whereas meaning is evidently holistic, and hence cannot be reduced to logic. We understand meaning in the moment of coalescence when the whole is reflected in the parts so that together they disclose the whole. It is because meaning is encountered in this "circle" of the reciprocal relationship of the whole and the parts that we call it the hermeneutic circle. (8-9) The art of saying is in finding the "right parts" The success or failure of saying and hence of writing, turns upon the ability to recognize what is a part and what is not. But a part is a part only in as much as it serves to let the whole come forth, which is to let meaning emerge. (11). . . Thus, the whole emerges simultaneously with the accumulation of the parts, not because it is the sum of the parts, but because it is immanent within them" (12). Bortoft distinguishes between whole as no-thing and not mere nothing. Wholeness an experience phenomenon "Is perceived through the mind, when the mind functions as an organ of perception instead of the medium of logical thought. Dwelling in the phenomena is concrete and not abstract." The authentic whole is reached by going into the parts, whereas a generalization is the counterfeit whole that is obtained by standing back from the parts to get an overview. (22) True interpretation is actively receptive, not assertive in the sense of dominating what is read. True interpretation does not force the text into the mold of the reader's personality or into the requirements of his previous knowledge. It conveys the meaning of the text "conveys" in the sense of "passes through" or "goes between." (7) Heidegger said that phenomenology is an attempt "to let that which shows itself be seen from itself," Bortoft writes. Phenomenology brings to light what is hidden at first (26)." In short this intent, is similar to my "take" on Bohmian dialogue, but the difference is one of form. Although aspects of Heidegger's, Bortoft's, Goethe's, Brown's, Ponty's, etc. way of thinking is similar to my approach of sorting my experience. I am not calling my reflection phenomenological. I leave my experience as an open inquiry which aims at probing for understanding, the similar differences and different similarities of these differences. ( See Bohm and Rosen collaboration below on the importance of probing Figuratively and Poetically).] 7. You write: "If you did not analyze either the dialogue field notes or the transcripts or anything else, what in fact is the basis of understanding Bohmian dialogue at the level of extended study? For example, you have provided a list of definitions in your response, but I don't grasp the organization of your list. It is not organized alphabetically nor is it conceptually sequential. How does each term relate to the one before and the one after. But even more serious, your definitions need to be sharpened and operationalized. Your definitions must be more than just narrative, that is, "talking about" the nomenclature. At this stage these definitions should be quite precise. [My response: Thank you. I agree. As I stated above the appraisals of my dialogue field notes will be italicized and indented throughout my contextual essay. The definitions that I represent include some of Bohm's thinking regarding physics and natural philosophy as well, as dialogue. These are addressed in the Dialogue Proposal by David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garret.(1991). Since Bohm felt that the meaning of terms were unfolding, I have included some of the latest emanating/ emerging definitions. Bohm says "But I think the most fundamental things cannot be defined; we can unfold them, but we can't define them" (104). Unfolding Meaning: A Weekend of Dialogue with David Bohm edited by Don Factor (Ark, 1987). Incidentally "The David Bohm Report" which I wrote in a new learning requirement for the Union, has an exchange between Bohm and Steven Rosen that addresses the need for a broader interpretation of language. For a year and a half Bohm and Rosen exchanged letters concerning the need for an artistic sensitivity to meaning. See Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle: The Evolution of a Transcultural Approach to Wholeness. (SUNY, 1994). Bohm would write every letter by hand and Rosen would transcribe them and put his own response in brackets. On the whole they agreed on many points of contention, concurring that all forms of assertions take place in the implicate, and that poetic statements present the implicate forms directly. In their letter exchange they posit that creativity is an expression of new meaning. Bohm writes: "So to see a new meaning is actively to change the world." He goes on to talk about reality being independent of thought in society as a whole. In the Epilogue Steven Rosen makes this statement of intent. What I have come to understand is that if I am to live wholeness (not just write about it), beyond expanding the scope of my subject matter to language in general, my own manner of writing needs to be less prosaic and more poetic, more meditative or "proprioceptive' (as Bohm would say) Whereas prose objectifies, leaving the subject entirely implicit and thus perpetuating the total splitting of object from subject, poetry allows the subject to reverberate. Amidst the objectification, a fully meditative or proprioceptive writing (one that surpasses traditional poetic forms) would integrate subject and object in a complete and direct way. (270) Rosen had pointed out in a very detailed manner that analogies which Bohm used to describe the implicate order were still mechanistic. Bohm agreed with Rosen and alluded to a fresh set of analogies from art forms that comprehend this totality. Rosen and Bohm asserted that part of the challenge is to make the unconscious conscious; this is a challenge for Transdisciplinarity. This would lead to an understanding of the implicate order that represents a more accurate model of what wholeness might be like for our time. In this correspondence they agreed that a holistic mode of expressing requires and invites reciprocation on the reader's part. Reflecting on their correspondence, I found the exchanging of personal letters by these scholars to be encouraging. Now that we have Electronic letter writing perhaps this form will be enhanced? Bohm also talks about his view on language in an interview with F. David Peat in Buckeley, Paul and Peat Glimpsing Reality: Ideas In Physics and the Link to Biology. (University of Toronto Press, 1996.) Peat: Is it possible, then to understand quantum mechanics or the world within the language we use at present? Bohm: I think we can, although we might also change it. Language is always used figuratively and poetically, I think; we never use it literally. The attempt to give unambiguous significance to language will never work. It is inherently ambiguous, it is flowing, the meanings are flowing. If we think differently, we will find ourselves using the words differently. Perhaps, ultimately, we will change the formal structure as well. (56)] 8. You write, " I would like your committee to consider that in your Learning Agreement (p 25) you state 'I intend to write a psychological study in consciousness about my experience in a dialogue group that I initiated' Unfortunately, the psychological dimension of your PDE escapes me". [My response: My committee suggested that I mention in the introduction and conclusion of my essay how this is a psychological study of psyches. After I cite Robert Ornstein's, Jeffrey Mischlove's, and Manfred Mueller's views on psychology, I will mention that my essay is an inquiry into a multidimensional approach towards an understanding of consciousness. Robert Ornstein talks about the tendency of the brain to simplify by model making in The Meeting of the Ways: Explorations in East/West Psychology e that was edited by John Welwood (New York, 1979). "The Esoteric and Modern Psychologies's of Awareness" Robert Ornstein, who I mentioned above in response #4, says "Psychology is primarily the science of consciousness.... It is time once again to open the scope of psychology to areas of thought that have not been fully represented in contemporary research and to return to the primary source, to the analysis of consciousness." Jeffrey Mischlove makes some timely remarks about the return of psychology to the age old question of consciousness in The Roots of Consciousness: Psychic Exploration Through, History, Science and Experience (Marlow and Company, 1993). Mischlove talks about the scientific exploration of consciousness and The Problem of Consciousness: It may seem ironic that a book titled The Roots of Consciousness has little to say about the field of psychology itself. The primary reasons for this situation is that in developing itself as a scientific discipline, psychology has moved away from the fundamental question of the human psyche in order to address more measurable, tangible issues that could probably be addressed by existing scientific methods. (276) Only within the last twenty years, due a rekindled interest in consciousness in cognitive science has psychology returned to include the psyche in its deliberation about this age old question of mind/body. See Manfred Mueller below. In an article on the philosopher J. Krishnamurti entitled "The Selfless Soul - An Exploration into the Psychological Mutation of Man as Proposed by J. Krishnamurti presented at the Krishnamurti Centennial (1995). Mueller writes: There currently is no well known psychological theory, no model of the human psyche, which maintains that the individual self and personality is based on a collective illusion of separation based on the erroneous notion of an agency of cognition. Psychology mirrors the popular view of personality as a fixed structure. (6) Mueller contends: The most serious question of all remains: Can the mind , heart, and soul of humans change or mutate -- even inside their brain cells -- through insight." Mueller contends that there is probably no academic discipline that is as epistemologically fragmented and so full of fundamental methodological incongruities as the field of psychology was until about twenty years ago. (7) There is in fact still no such thing as a single discipline called psychology. As recently as twenty years ago, the research methodologies and basic assumptions for the study of human behavior and experience within the so-called behavior science were as dissimilar as the field of astronomy is from home economics. . . In the last twenty years a dramatic paradigm shift has taken place. With increasing acceptance of cognition as determining factor in behavior, the study of consciousness has become an acceptable object of scientific study, and has resulted in the virtual abandonment of the previous antagonism between the mentalists and physicalists (1994). (8) A rationale for placing this psychological dimension as an inquiry within a multidimensional approach regarding psyche's consciousness is stated by D.C.Mortenson Communication, the study of Human Interaction (Mcgraw-Hill Books, 1972.) A Multidimensional framework eliminates the difficulties of trying to force all the complexities of communication behavior into a single, all-encompassing criterion that invariably ignores both the differences in constituent processes and the interactions among various clusters of factors. Also, a multi-dimensional framework does not force us to choose among competing theories (learning, cognitive balance, social exchange) or even theoretical orientations (functional versus structural, psychological versus anthropological. (24-25). The heuristic value of such models mentioned above allow the possibility of the emergence or emanence of insight
9 You write: "Your Abstract needs to be completely redone. I suggest that you actually read other Abstracts and follow the form of presentation. Please keep in mind that an Abstract at the Union is usually 350 words (although the Interim Learner Handbook, p. 23, reads "300-word abstract)". [My response: Yes. And my committee has suggested that I copy edit this.] 10 You advise: "On this note, please check all formatting requirements, such as double-sided page use. Most notable in this regard, I recommend you consult the Learner Handbook on the Program Summary and get some examples to follow. As it stands, I believe it will not pass the Dean's Review." [My response: Thank you. I have followed your suggestions.] 11. You conclude: "Nick, your response demonstrates that indeed you have acquired much learning and have persevered during a very strenuous trek through your program. I regret that I had to write a report that seems to demand so much from you but I believe that your committee can give you final directions toward the completion of your program. You have all the material you need for successful completion. This just requires a last, concentrated effort to achieve clarity and coherence. [I conclude: Thanks once again for your suggestions] Sincerely yours, Nick Consoletti Contextual Essay ... by Nick Consoletti
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