| | taking-off from John Wilde (9/14/148:10 PM as a reply to Mark):
"I find it hard to grasp the notion that meaning is reducible to sensation.The apprehension of meaning happens in the form of thought, and there are sensations associated with thought, but does that mean thatthought is a sensation? To me, it makes every bit as much sense to regardapprehension of meaning (rather than sensation) as the essence of thought."
A view that may help clarify this situation:
Phenomenon as sensation (Theravadan model)
Assuming that what Daniel intends by 'sensation' is analogous to the following Theravadan Abhidhamma scheme (as also supported in many Suttas): all mental events (cittas) arise from the contact of a stimulus and a human sensing faculty, which faculties include the 5 sense-doors -- the eye for sight, the ear for hearing, the nose for smell, the tongue for taste, and the body for touch -- AND a 6th, the 'mind-door'. The mind can be triggered into a conscious event (citta - consciousness of an object) by an impinging physical sensation (light, sound, etc.), OR by something coming out of the mind itself (perhaps associated with some kind of neural event not triggered by sensory input that attracts the focal attention of the mind).
So, in this model, the arising of a thought happens as result of 'sensation' as contact (at an immediate, 'bare' level, aka the 'raw data') between a stimulus and consciousness, where the stimulus comes not from an external physical source, but pops up from the mind itself. A complication: any event from one of the 5 sense-doors also becomes a mind-door contact as well when it becomes consciously known. Namely as distinct from some light, sound, etc. that the mind 'doesn't notice.'
(For a hypothesis of 'meaning' in an Abhidhamma model, see below.)
Substitute the word 'phenomenon' for' sensation' here. A phenomenon arises from contact with one of the 5 sense-doors (also going thru the mind-door), OR something from within the mind itself arouses the mind-door directly (arises in consciousness) without any external stimulus.
To the original question -- Phenomenology -- how it's used here? – Daniel answered (8/18/1412:22 AM as a reply to Chris J Macie.): "I tend to use it to mean the sensations themselves, the colors, the textures, the sounds, as well as things like the energetic aspects, the vibrations, the frequencies of sensations, as well as things like the patterns of those sensations, such as a pulse followed by a mental impression,…"
He refers to 'colors,' 'sounds' (and possibly 'vibrations' as touch) -- all sense-door stuff – and further phenomena that may qualify as mind-door alone sensations, though it's not as clear. One could interpretitvely analyze that 'textures,' 'frequencies,' 'patterns' are mind-door events that arise from mental processing of multiple sense-door events. For instance, the mind detects a pattern (texture and frequency can also be seen as pattern) from a series of sense-door events (simply 'raw data') where the mind itself construes 'pattern', i.e. dredges this concept out of its own memory, associations, etc. as somehow fitting the series of 'raw data', and then the mental event 'pattern' arises in the mind, a mind-door event where the mind experiences the 'sensation' (phenomenon) of being stimulated, from within, to consciousness of the concept, the thought of 'pattern'.
Later Daniel stated (8/26/14 4:11 AM as a reply to Mark): "I truly do mean that sensations, sensate reality, is the thing we can be most certain of from a pragmatic meditative point of view, and it is truly the first basis of all models, all science, all extrapolation, all inference about something else.."
Pragmatic certainty – the bare, 'rawdata' phenomena – as basis of all conceptual knowledge, as the mind, through a lifetime of experience, education, socialization, inculturation, etc. devises a repertory of concepts that 'make sense' of recurring patterns of bare sensations. Subsequently, raw sensory data triggers the arising of consciousness of mental concepts (as 'sensations', as the 'making sense of' experience), and the processing of them into further levels of concept.
1) This is interpretation – Daniel's intent may not be accurately represented by this.
2) On the other hand, these acquired concepts that can then arise at the mind-door as conscious events, may be related to the 'meaning' that Mark questions. For instance, it is sometimes said of science, that raw data are merely quantitifaction of observations – merely numbers or whatever other kind of measurement -- and any statement as to their 'meaning' is in fact interpretation. Scientists frequently argued diverse intrepretations from the same raw data, each according to their own model.
Meaning -- Descriptive phenomenology becoming analytical phenomenology
Put another way, and relating it to my hypothesis of multiple levels of using phenomenology: noting colors, sounds, smells, etc. is descriptive phenomenology of raw sensate data. Noting 'attraction,' 'aversion,' 'anger,' 'joy,' … whatever but at another level than barest physical sensation – these are mind-door mental sensations, phenomena, (though they also may be 'sankaras' – formations or fabrications) and the method is still descriptive phenomenology.
But when / if one also notes 'aha', 'insight' moments of experience, and observe how these mind-door sensations / phenomena arise in the mind, the conditioned linkages that lead to them, notably how there may be an initial physical sense-door event (and it's mind-door consciousness), but then a series of mind-door events set in from there, somehow reactively associated but not necessarily determined or 'caused' by the initial stimulus; there may be discernable some sense of meaning and/or intention that sneaks in and takes over – this is analytical phenomenlogy in action, understanding as well as describing what's happening. This is not just 'seeing' of the arising, this is 'knowing' more about the working, the how of the arising, and seeing the effects. Here a possible sensation, phenomenon can be a realization of how conscious intention is inherent, and can be changed, can change how it all works. And that can lead to experimentation, to trial and error with the plasticity of intention and observed results… and we're off-and-running on the path.
Meaning in the Abhidhamma Model
The Abhidhamma analysis came up with a scheme of discerning each discreetly recognized mental event (state, or similarly identified process) as a series of smaller events, or 'moments', sometimes called a 'cognitive series'. 5-sense-door events consist of 15 or so of these smaller units; pure mind-door events take about 11 units – the difference is explained below.
To get a sense of this in term of time, I've seen mention that minimum neural awareness events happen in something like 10 milleseconds ('ms' – thousandths of a second), or about 100/second. If this is mapped to these smaller events in the 'cognitive series', than a full mental event could be in the neighborhood of 100-150ms, or 8 to 10/second. (This info may be outdated, but gives a referential ballpark here.) (This also may, or not, relate also to those 'vibrations' mentioned in MCTB as appearing at a frequency of 10Hz, more or less.)
A) The cognitive series for 5-sense-door events:
0) background mental activity is rolling along in neutral – no stimulus is engaging it into being consciousness of an object. This is traditionally call a 'bhavanga'; 1) something disturbs, 'shakes' the bhavanga; 2) it's disturbed, shaken a bit more, and bhavanga turns off; 3) the mind 'adverts' ("5-door adverting") to the fact that something is out there; 4) the mind takes in the stimulus – the moment of bare seeing, hearing, etc.; 5) the mind 'receives' it, (maps to a neural image, possibly, (c.f. Damasio)); 6) the mind 'investigates' it; possibly searches memory for aspects by which to classify; 7) the mind 'determines' it; possibly comes up with a mental correlate, a sign / nimitta, a 'name'; 8-14) for up to 7 cycles, the mind processes with that determined object – this is where intention,kamma (action), kusala (wholesome) or akusala (unwholesome) happens; these are called 'javanas'; 15) the mind 'registers' some kind of result; maybe a formed and nuanced memory; something that can arise again later as a mind-door event; (16…) the mind falls back into bhavanga cycles, or starts an other series, e.g. if the sight, sound lures it again.
The critical part is moments 8-14.These are each called 'javana,' often translated as 'impulsion'; here's an explanation from the BPS-Dictionary: "(fr. javati, to impel): 'impulsion', is the phase of full cognition in the cognitive series, or perceptual process (citta-vīthi; s. viññāna-kicca) occurring at its climax, if the respective object is large or distinct. It is at this phase that karma is produced, i.e. wholesome or unwholesome volition concerning the perception that was the object of the previous stages of the respective process of consciousness."
B) The cognitive series for mind-door events:
0-2) same as above 3) the mind adverts to the mental stimulus (mind-door adverting), equivalent to cycle 7 above; the mental object that has arises presumably already includes the results of cycles 4-7 above; the whole package from previous 'registrations' gets activated and presented to consciousness here; 4-10) the mind goes through impulsions, as above. 11) the mind 'registers', as above; (12…) the mind falls back into bhavanga, etc.
Making sense of all of this
To tie this all back into the start of this posting (John Wilde's passage), I venture that 'sensation' is the arising, the presentation of mental objects – sensory or mental – to consciousness, and what happens in the 'impulsions' constructs the 'meaning', which then gets embedded with the object in its 'registration'. This is a way of explaining that meaning is not reduced to sensation, that this processing (impulsions) is constructing meaning, "the essence" of thought. Later, re-presentation at mind-door events brings along previous meaning, and newer series of impulsions elaborate, alter or enrich the meaning.
A footnote to add, that also relates this Abhidhamma scheme to other prominent themes in this discussion forum: The Abhidhammikers (the guys who carried-out and formulated this detailed analysis from their meditative experience) posited that a unique event can take place at the 5th impulsion / javana, called a 'change-of-lineage', which occurs only in the case of the mental events of either entering jhana or attaining a supramundane path/fruition (one of the Theravadan 4 stages of Path).
I can't speak, from experience, to the latter (paths&fruitions), but it does make sense, in my experience, with regard to the former. Namely, the analysis says that at the moment of absorption in jhana, at the change-of-lineage moment, the whole show freezes -- the mind remains in that javana for as long as the absorption lasts -- up to hours or days. Change-of-lineage in this case is said to be a change from the sense-sphere lineage (the original object of concentration) to the fine-material-sphere (rupa-bhumi) lineage; the mind absorbs into the nimitta, or pure mental sign/image that is 'counterpart' of the original object (see Visudhimagga, Chapter IV, 74). In the path/fruition cases, change-of-lineage has to do with the mind taking Nibbana as object, in some sense (I can't really comment; see Visudhimagga concluding Chapters XXII and XXIII, in case you have experience in this area to compare with). |