[MD] cognitive awareness

[MarshaV]

Greetings Andy,

I use the term 'cognitive agent' for Ham's benefit.  I think that is the term he 
usually uses, but actually 'individual' suits me better.  And I believe RMP
uses the word 'individual' too.  But this term would be quite different than 
'self' which I understand more as identity.  Self for me is quite false.

It's the terminology that get the discussion messy.

On Jul 29, 2010, at 9:21 AM, Andy Skelton wrote:

> MarshaV wrote:
>> Anyway, there does seem to be a cognitive agent(individual) involved, but not one I would designate a consistent, central controller.
> 
> Isn't this "agent" a result of the subject/object dichotomy? This is
> one of the most interesting (to me) problems: how to understand
> individual awareness in the light of MoQ rather than the reverse.
> 
> (That word "individual" grabs me. Something which cannot be divided. Can't it?

Hmmmm.  Talking about it is more difficult than experiencing.


> I am sometimes aware, in retrospect, that my awareness has momentarily
> become dominated by my biological aspect. My precious intellectual
> patterns are subverted, my social patterns are barely within reach,
> and I act according to the base biological patterns required to keep
> my body alive. This happens in dire physical emergencies.

I'm sure you are not meaning 'base' in a derogatory sense, so I agree.


> Sometimes I see this in others. When my wife was in labor with our
> child, her awareness was almost completely dominated by her biological
> aspect. She had almost no contact with her intellectual beliefs and
> her social inhibitions and use of language were severely attenuated.
> Her being was dominated for several hours by the prehistoric patterns
> of biology.

This sounds about right.  I've had two children myself.  


> Each aspect of our dynamic being, corresponding to Pirsig's levels,
> rises to meet the needs of moment. So perhaps "individual" is a poor
> word for the human being. I always flinch a little when I use it.)

There might be a better word.  Individual body: brain and organs that 
provide sensations and perceptions.  


> Marsha, you mentioned unpatterned experience and cognitive agents. I
> think cognition is essentially pattern recognition. The agent of
> cognition is concerned with patterns previously recognized and
> patterns newly recognized. This almost fits with your "two flavors".

You may be correct.  The language drives me nutty. 


> 
> I fail to see how an agent can have unpatterned experience. "Awareness
> of" is what you get *after* the Quality event. How can awareness take
> place before Quality has created values? That would permit Quality to
> be *seen* but that's impossible; only values can be seen. We know
> about Quality because we see everything that it creates; we don't see
> Quality itself.

There is awareness and there is witnessing.  It is the witnessing that 
is the focus of my interest.  I can be aware of the breeze crossing my face,
or I can be aware (witnessing) of the awareness of the breeze crossing 
my face.  There is a difference.  It is these experiences that I take to be the
essence of mindfulness.  

I do not know what else to say about unpatterned experience except when 
you've had such an experience the difference between patterned 
experience (even with awareness) and unpatterned experience is very 
obvious.  In "my" unpatterned experiences there were no thought of any 
kind, not perception, not conception, but there was awareness.  


> My experiences in meditation and psychedelia may have fooled me into
> believing that I could do that. I don't believe it anymore. I think
> what happened was a temporary inaccessibility of most previously
> recognized patterns. As mysterious and wonderful and terrible as it
> was, that experience was not unpatterned. It was far less rigidly
> patterned than the experience to which I had become accustomed, so
> less static and closer to DQ, but not quite there.

I don't drink and I don't do drugs so that was not its cause.  I 
was acutely aware, so I will not dismiss it as a fluke, especially 
that it happened on three different occasions.  The keenness of 
the 'being aware' made it difficult to explain away.  Although I 
may have a brain tumor or something like that, but otherwise it 
was not illusion.  I cannot prove anything.  Even if I could 
reproduce it a thousand times, could I ever demonstrate it to you 
with any agreement?  It's frustrating.  I'm stuck.  

I'm claiming nothing from the experience other than an intense 
knowing of the difference between patterned experience and 
unpatterned experience.  That's a lot, but nothing much.    

Anyways, it is interesting: the awareness and the witnessing.   



Marsha

 
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