Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century

-First of all, I give only four stars out of ten to this book. This is because I really think there are lots of problems in it. I must say, however, that the authors are worthy of great scientific respect (and, similarly, this book is worthy of deep respect and attention by the scientific community), that they are among the best in the field, and that, IMO, they are among the top-quality members of the world scientific community. Also, I must stress that I myself believe in the afterlife. But... getting to the problems:The title of this book is "Irreducible" "Mind." For a book with such a title, I would like to have seen a deeper analysis of (reflection on) the concept of reducibility vs irreducibility. And also a deeper discussion of the possible concepts of mind. There are some tricky issues related to both terms that deserve deep analyses, and I do not know how much the authors are aware of these, or even if they consider these relevant or not. For instance, how come one thing is reducible to another in the first place? (e.g. ice to water through heat). And in what sense is a brain a mind, and is a cell not a mind (or a piece of rock)? If the brain is not a mind, what is the definition of mind? We must bear in mind (in mind...) that mind is an objective thing; what is subjective is consciousness (qualia, etc). Similarly, on page xvii in the Introduction, we see this opening statement by Edward Kelly: "The central subject of this book is the problem of relations between the inherently private, subjective, 'first-person' world of human mental life and the publicly observable, objective, 'third-person' world of physiological events and processes in the body and brain." So, the central subject of this book seems not to be the Irreducible Mind, but the Irreducible Consciousness instead... (David Chalmers' "Hard Problem").Nevertheless, we do see, all along the book, a deep treatment of the "irreducible mind" issue. It is perhaps best summarized/introduced on page 28: "There exist certain kinds of empirically verifiable mental properties, states, and effects that appear to outstrip in principle the explanatory potential of physical processes occurring in brains." These, presumably, would include memory, binding, prodigies, secondary or alternate centers of personality, mystical experiences, stigmata (and similar influences of the mind on the body), plus, on the more controversial side of this front, psi (paranormality), DMILS (direct mental interaction with living systems), and afterlife survival. The authors are aware of the different evidential status of each one of these phenomena, and they do report it faithfully. They continue, on page 28: "Facts of this sort, moreover, can often be accommodated more naturally within an alternative interpretation of the mind-brain correlation, one already developed in abstract form by William James (1898/1900)." So they present, in this book, a set of mind-related irreducible (or seemingly irreducible) phenomena plus an introductory theory for them.The theory is the filter/transmission theory, "developed in its fullest version thus far by" Friedrich Myers towards the end of the nineteenth century. It was also supported, to a great extent, by highly renowned psychologist William James (contemporary with Myers). A good way to put this theory is the "visible light vs prism" metaphor (one may include the infrared and the ultraviolet in this metaphor too). Just as the red light is not created by a prism out of white light, but only filtered ("transmitted") by it, consciousness, in all its forms (and all modes and intensities of human consciousness), is not created by the brain/body but merely filtered by it instead. Now, this is pretty bizarre. And I must add that this is, also, my own theory for consciousness (in a maybe-not-slightly different shape)...But how did this theory come to be? (And there are versions of it tracing back to ancient Greece!). What is being filtered, and how, and by what exactly? What happens when the filter... dies? And what is the dynamics of this filtering?On page 83/84, we meet Myers's notion of the "Permeable Boundary," according to which "evolution of consciousness involves the shifting of the supraliminal segment up the spectrum into the ultraviolet region, as more and more psychological processes are mastered and then relegated to the infrared region, while, simultaneously, latent psychological capacities or processes are drawn out of the ultraviolet region and into the supraliminal range." I got the impression that according to Myers's view (and according to the authors' view) we have a, say, "spectrum of psychological processes" and, in parallel, an accompanying "spectrum of modes of consciousness." So, I conclude, we might have the following spectrum of "psychological" processes (brain processes?): 1- Heart-beating commands. 2- T.V. watching. 3- Telepathy communication. So, frogs, humans, and E.T.s., all have these three psychological processes (brain processes) above. But in frogs, the filter (brain/body) enables consciousness (awareness) of number 1 (heart beating); in humans, the filter allows awareness of number 2 (T.V. watching); and in E.T.s, the filter permits awareness of number 3 (telepathy). But E.T.s wouldn't be conscious when watching T.V., I guess (what a regrettable loss... :-) ).And "Myers" adds: "this evolutionary model of a larger Self whose latent capacities gradually emerge and whose emergent manifestation grows increasingly complex in response to the demands of the environment," (page 80). The modes of consciousness, thus, become "higher" through the demands of the environment... Also, page 79, "Myers suggested, there had been a 'primitive simple irritability', or 'undifferentiated sensory capacity of the supposed primal germ', which he called panaesthesia." William James held similar views (he is quoted as having said: "If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness in some shape must have been present at the very origin of things.").The bottom line is this: there is, throughout the evolution of the universe, a shifting of the waking consciousness (i.e. supraliminal consciousness, consciousness, etc) into the "ultraviolet region" of the full spectrum of consciousness-modes available in the universe, and this shifting is brought about by the demands of the environment, that is, by natural selection. Note also that Myers's theory "requires that there be some global creative tendency in the universe, however slight, that results over time in increasing richness and complexity of biological forms" (page 601/602). Add to it that things at the beginning of times where kind of "primal germ / undifferentiated sensory capacity." So here is my list of perplexities with Myers's model (as it was presented, and as I could understand it):1- If what we have at the beginning is a primal germ of consciousness, a primitive irritability, still undifferentiated, then this thing should, IMHO, better be described not as a panaesthesia stuff/state, but rather as an "anaesthesia" stuff/state.2- If "bodies" end up (through natural selection) bringing about this differentiation of the primal consciousness germ, then, actually, bodies can be said to create consciousness (just as fairly as an electron jump to a lower energy level in an atom can be said to create a photon, which, thus far, had been "undifferentiated" together with the higher-energy electron).3- We know that bodies change (evolution) by the demands of the environment (natural selection), and we know the mechanics of it. But we do not know the mechanics of the shifting of consciousness to the so called "higher levels." So, we may as well just say that bodies change through the demands of the environment, and consciousness merely comes along with the bandwagon...4- The "global creative tendency in the universe" seems to be in something of a mismatch with all the rest of Myers's theory. (But not necessarily with his data! Also, lots of phenomena do point in this direction, like the spontaneous symmetry breaking, though we must be very cautious when pondering over these matters...). We might expect this creative tendency from a true panaesthesia primitive plenum (Hyperconscious/Omniconscious), but much less so from a primitive "anaesthesia" (as I see it).Conclusion - In my humble opinion, Myers's theory, as presented by the authors and as understood by me, is just as insightful as all the other theories attempting to explain consciousness and to put it into a scientific framework, that is: it explains absolutely nothing whatsoever...Similarly, the authors just put together the problems of consciousness, volition, teleology, and free will. I think this is very wrong, and I see consciousness and volition as belonging to the same sort of phenomena (qualia/Chalmers' Hard Problem, basically), free will as non-existent, and teleology (depending on how we see it) as easily explainable. The authors, on the other hand, believe the theories they have presented (and favored) - F. Myers's and, more recently, physicist Henry Stapp's - "ratify, rather than reject, our everyday experience of ourselves as purposeful, causally effective, conscious agents" (page 640). But at the same time they acknowledge that (on page 629) "We still have no real understanding of the ultimate nature of the relationship between brain processes and mental activity, and certainly no solution of Chalmers' 'hard problem' - why conscious experiences with their specific qualitative characteristics should arise at all in connection with the associated patterns of brain activity," which renders the central subject of the book (as depicted by Edward Kelly, quoted in the second paragraph of this review) as virtually untouched...The authors point out, about Henry Stapp's theories for quantum mechanics and consciousness, that "As Stapp (2004a) remarks, his model 'makes consciousness causally effective' " (page 614), and that "Stapp and his quantum-theoretic allies have already successfully undermined the basic-science foundations of presentday materialist-monist psychology and neuroscience" (page 616). It may be so. But although I am highly sympathetic to Stapp's views, I doubt it... The place for consciousness in quantum mechanics is still a highly debated and far from settled issue, and the ontological interpretation of quantum mechanics is even more so. We, non-physicists, had better be attentive and respectful to all informed points of view, I think.The authors finish this book with a paragraph quote from Myers, which ends like this: "Never was there a harvest so plenteous with labourers so few." As a matter of fact, I think we are still at a much previous "biblical quote" phase:"It is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff"...Julio Siqueirasite: Criticizing Skepticism______________________

There is much to admire in this book. The authors first take on the hydra-headed monster that present-day cognitive thinking has produced, whacking off in turn each of its heads. This is a monster that years of industrious research and thought on the part of psychologists, neuroscientists, computer experts, and philosophers have created in their effort to understand "mind"; and the authors conduct a veritable demolition derby among their ideas. They risk still more opprobrium, then, by turning to other-worldly "psi" phenomena for their solution. Such phenomena are exemplified by, for instance, the channeling by mediums of people long dead, the memories children have of previous lives, near-death experiences, and mental telepathy. The authors turn to these phenomena for the needed explanation of mind and consciousness and cite extensively in its literature.I must admit that I'm not one who has had experience of these out-of-ordinary phenomena. I've never been in a trance or seen someone who is; I've never observed someone channeling a spirit from another world; I can't read people's minds and tell what they are thinking with more than chance success; I can't telekinetically move anything; I've never had a near-death experience; I don't have any memories of moving down a birth canal (though this doesn't qualify, apparently, as a genuine psi phenomenon); I haven't even tried LSD to see what an alternative state is like. Not having had direct experience of this sort, I must leave the jury out as to psi phenomena's existence. However, I would not want to close the door on them - - the evidence the authors cite for them is impressive.I do have a concern, however. After their critique of present-day attempts to explain mind by reducing it to something else, have the authors really left this reductionist path? Are they not simply substituting one form of reduction for another? As they point out, the crux of the problem that current reductionists run into is their inability to define any mechanism for the transition from their putative source to mind. How do they draw the latter from the former? By what mechanism do the brain's neural transmissions or electrical and chemical events transform into, say, a sensation of "red" or "hot" or the experience of a beautiful sunset? A jump takes place in the derivatory chain, and this invalidates the entire "explanation."So now we have the same problem with psi phenomena. How does a savant accomplish his extraordinary feats? What is the mechanism by which messages from a dead relative come into a channeler's mind? How can memories of previous lives be transmitted into our consciousness? The authors are quite honest in their admission of ignorance here, and they emphasize over and over the need for further research. But absent clear ideas on this matter, they seem to leave us in the same position we were at the beginning.A better approach from my point a view is the one taken by the philosopher Ernst Cassirer. Equally disparaging of any kind of physical or physiological reduction and fully acknowledging the unique qualities of mind, Cassirer posits an innate symbol function as the source of mental content. He shows in detail how this uniquely human function brings about the objects we have in our perception, the more general concepts we advance to, the entire worlds, finally, that myth, religion, art, and science create (for reference, see Cassirer's "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" and my "Symbol Philosophy"). In this approach, there is no stepping outside mind to some other realm for one's explanation; no resort is taken to something that is foreign. It seems to me that this explanatory approach has the virtue of an inner coherence that the others lack.But one should laud these authors for their study. Their book is admirably written and is throughout clear and readable. With their painstaking analysis and exhaustive detail, they have laid the groundwork for advancing beyond our failed physical reductionism. They have opened the door to approaches that will be more productive, and this is no small accomplishment. For what is at stake here is our understanding of a matter that is at once the most important and the most refractory of our various subject areas, "mind."

Knowledge

While I am open to the underlying premise of "irreducible Mind", that consciousness is a) ontologically different and b) causative, I had a hard time accepting some of the arguments and the form in which they took, and ultimately, the somewhat tendentious manner in which the evidence for survival following death is marshaled, as well as the quality of the analysis of such ideas like dissociation.Fundamentally, although the views of Antonio Damasio are acknowledged, albeit briefly by Kelly and Gauld, they do not come even close to doing justice to acknowledging the ORGANIZATIONAL power of his emphasis on homeostasis, and thus, in acknowledging the dominant processes (or THE very process) which underlie organic evolution in the physical universe.In particular, I wish to criticize the quality of the analysis of Adam Crabtree and his study of dissociative processes. It seems to me that the most overarching and significant principle - survival - is left out of his analysis, as well as the chief neuroanatomical organ - the amygdala - which performs so many of those roles haphazardly applied to some posited ontological substance. Again and again, I expected to find mention of the amygdala and its relevance as an all-purpose "relevance detector" to animalian functioning, but alas, it was left out.In anycase, my theory - as well as the theory forming out of the field of interpersonal neurobiology - is that the amygdala serves as a biasing functioning, such that when the right amygdala (will explain further in a moment) picks up a threat in the environment (itself determined by preset genetic programs, as well as the way the organism has developed meaning with its environment) the left amygdala is prompted into some defensive behavior - what can be appropriately termed "instrumental avoidance". In this schema, the amygdala is regarded in terms of biological evolution, and thus, has its origins in animalian forms distant from our present human complexity. Nevertheless, our human complexity has retained this organ because we have retained its all-purpose function: to signal safety or threat for the organism, and so provide some sort of direction or orientation to the environment.Crabtree writes a lot in his analysis, but surprisingly little about the way dissociation serves the efficacy of the conscious mind in it's meaning-making, or, put more simply, its ability to maintain a COHERENT COGNITIVE RELATIONSHIP with the environment, whether conceived as an external object or internal object (memory). Dissociation, in reality - and in fact - as so plausibly explicated by theorists like Philip Bromberg, Paul Wachtel, Lewis Aron, Wilma Bucci, and Richard Chafetz, among others, is a process designed to maintain a stable relationship between the self and it's immediate contextual objects. This helps explain the FORM and FUNCTION of the mind, but not the substance - which is not something that can be explained in functional terms. But it does make clear that the orientation the mind takes at any moment is FUNDAMENTALLY a matter of survival as "seen" from the automatic processes of subocrtical mechanisms i.e. the brainstem, amygdala and basal ganglia.Above and beyond this lies an even more crucial matter that lies outside the purview of Crabtree or any other of the authors behind this book: the CONTEXT of human evolution, and thus, the processes that intervene upon our functioning. It's quite amazing that, despite the sophistication of Myers, James and other writers heavily cited throughout this book, that the concept of "pride" and "shame" never enter the conversation. How is this possible?!!! It's nothing short of amazing, indeed, it is THE hardest thing to notice, as seemingly invisible as water is to a fish. As the psychologist Michael Tomasello shows in his various books, human functioning MUST be understood in terms of the processes of group-selection, which is to say, the human animal, like other social mammals, is fundamentally hardwired to meet the social-goals of the species; Tomasello rightly sees "shared-intentionality" as the common ground which individual human organisms evolved towards, which should mean - if the higher order dynamics of group selection are understood as being of a higher-order - that the processes of human phenomenology are fundamentally biased to lead an indiviudal actor into a state of "shared-intentionality". This is fulfilled by the cognitive-affective processes of shame and pride, and so, shame and pride are not "second order" emotions in the least; they are first order, and are constantly active in biasing the formation of perspectives, attitudes and needs. Needs in particular - indicated by their affective force in our functioning - underlie our normal take of the world.This is not say that consciousness isn't real or doesn't exist, or that existential feelings don't themselves have causative influence (which I believe they do); it's only to point out that the dissociative processes - and automatisms - explored by Crabtree are very well explained by the need of an organism to maintain a coherent sense of relatedness to an object - in a particular state. But how? Neuroscience shows us that the mind is continuously regenerated moment by moment, and indeed, so is the self. My theory is quite simple: every perceptual state is simultaneously influenced by past percepts, and also becomes an influence in FUTURE percepts. The common denominator in terms of what reaches consciousness and what doesn't is affect: affects which intimate, or are predictively associated with a particular behavior, action or state that indicates low status (that is, in relation to the SOCIAL dynamics which underlie group-selection) are interdicted from entering conscious awareness. The attached diagram shows what I mean:Because we are speakers of languages, our defensiveness is masked behind the propositional nature of our behavior - that is, the contents of our speech. Dissociation than is not at all fundamentally related to hypnotic states, but is something occurring all the time, whether it be wishful thinking (dissociation of the reality principle) denial, projection, paranoia or splitting: the common denominator between these various mechanisms is to GET AWAY FROM AN UNWANTED AFFECT (and its impending experience of self). This, of course, is evolution, and its explanatory power is far more plausible and probable than anything else.That said, the old-time language of subliminal vs. supraliminal strikes me as odd and strange, but I think I get what it means. The psychologist Alan Fogel terms the former (without correlating as such) "subjective emotional present" and "conceptual self-awareness", and indeed, I would agree that there is a mysterious intelligence present in the former that seems to be obfuscated by the activities of the latter. In this sense, I agree with Myers that "subliminal" or embodied, enactive forms of knowledge seem to have a capacity that exceeds are usual intellectual abilities. And this indeed doesn't seem to be adequately explained by the usual neo-darwinian metaphysics that sees nature as fundamentally without purpose or direction. In any case, I do think that there does exist a continuity between homeostasis and human functioning, but whether this necessarily entails a non-material mechanism is up-for-debate. That said, I do think there does exist evidence for something beyond the normal and usual framework that should compel a little more humility from scholars who think they KNOW absolutely how things actually are, obviously failing to appreciate that our tendency to make assertions is strongly tethered to our social-needs to "feel pleasure/pride of knowledge". An issue as complex as the nature of our consciousness, I think, deserves to remain an open question. But this applies to both sides. Denying the relationship between relational forces and perspectival frames is as intolerable (to me) as those who claim to know that death is death and thats the end of it.

Takes me back to my college days, and as that was more than 50 years ago, it's a challenge. But the subject is important and exhaustively dealt with. It pokes holes in the dike built of the totally physicalist view of mind and consciousness, and allows the anomalies through to the light of genuine examination. Be prepared to work, but I highly recommend it.

This is a very thoughtful, deeply researched book by critical thinkers with open minds. Philosophical idealists fight back, and this time with the help of empirical evidence. Will the book have the influence it should have in weakening the uncritical materialism that exerts such a huge influence in science, and in the universities as a whole? This remains to be seen. Those with closed minds initially won't read the book. I suggest that those of us who find this material stimulating and persuasive make a point of referring to it in our own work, so that those who have not read it will be forced to do so and to confront their own assumptions.

The book provided me with what I wanted.- a description of all sorts of experiences that the mind produces that were out of the ordinary - ie NDE, out our the body, stigmata, hysteria etc etc. So I can use it in the argument to say that something is happening outside of the normal and it relates to unknown abilities or another existence, or a super-natural existence that we do not understand. The book itself is extensive and not hard to read but I could not finish the wealth of information that it contains. It does what it says ie clearly sets out the unexplainable.