If you like nothing, you’ll love this new paper! It’s a nonfiction essay in philosophical psychology, all about objectless experience. Who doesn’t love objectless experience?
The paper combines ideas from “Scientific Introspection” (2020) and “Nothing in Mind” (2023). See those at https://www.psifibooks.com/finding-the-mind-series/.
Here is the abstract:
Naturalistic Nondual Nothingness1
William A. Adams2
Abstract
In epistemological dualism, objects are defined in relation to subjectivity. Any known object presupposes a knower. That is true in phenomenology where both noetic and noematic aspects are acknowledged. Advaita Vedanta and other Eastern philosophies emphasize the transcendent unity of knower and known, but it is not clear to a traditional Western thinker what knowledge means in that case. Is knowing the same as being? For most Western thinkers, nondual knowledge is difficult to appreciate.
This paper describes investigative methods that track a path from epistemological dualism to objectless experience and back. The methods are naturalistic, dealing only with observable evidence and reasoned inference, eschewing spiritual explanation and authoritative assertion. One is a syncretism of Husserlian phenomenology and yoga meditation. A second substitutes a quasi-fictional narrator for the investigating ego to circumvent paradoxes of the ego’s point of view.
These methods lead to description of an object-free nothingness dynamically interacting with ordinary experience in a way that accommodates both epistemological dualism and nondualism. A novel account of experience arises that hermeneutically maps to many religious ideas.
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1 Presented at “Experience and Non-Objects: Towards a Phenomenology of Indiscernibility,” October 28-30, 2024, at the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center, Duquesne University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
2 Independent researcher, cognitive psychology (ret.) Contact: psifibooks.com/contact
Summary of the Paper
AI-generated by https://notebooklm.google.com/ on 10/22/24
This paper explores the concept of “nondual nothingness” in the context of psychology and philosophy. The author argues that nondual states of mind are not a form of higher knowledge but rather a cessation of experience and mental activity. He proposes naturalistic methods for exploring these states, including introspection, phenomenology, yoga meditation, and a novel approach called “MPM hermeneutics” which uses imaginative stories as a way to understand nondual experience. The paper concludes that nondual states are not a direct experience but can be understood as a psychological state that exists beyond the boundaries of traditional dualistic thought.
Discussion Questions (also AI-generated):
What are the key differences and similarities between dualistic and nondual states of mind?
How do the proposed investigative methods contribute to our understanding of nondual psychology?
What are the implications of this model of nondual experience for understanding religious experiences?
Comment by William X. Adams:
Too bad the “Notebook” language generator couldn’t go to the conference and deliver the stand-up talk! I’m sure it would have done a better job than I did. I only went because I have a body and it doesn’t.
