APPENDIX I: Glossary of terms associated with Transcendental Feedback Phenomenology (TFP) [under construction].

Section A:

1. Transcendental Feedback Phenomenology (TFP): a new system dynamics-based platform for performing a Husserlian transcendental phenomenological analysis of consciousness during a traumatic experience. The TFP platform is simpler, more precise, and more formalized in its analysis. It structures consciousness during the release of trauma as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system. TFP is the rigorous science of philosophy that Husserl sought. Husserl unfortunately died in 1938; system dynamics emerged in 1961 from intense work on servomechanisms at MIT during World War II.
2. transcendental:
   • Here is an example of the term or concept of transcendental based on my TFP analysis of the experience of purgation: In the 'natural attitude' the core of my experience of purgation - or the core of what was given to my consciousness or what appeared to my consciousness - was the knots in my heart and the dynamic relationship of those knots to their ability to restrict the opening of my heart. This is what concerned me so desperately during purgation. So this was really what purgation was all about. However, from a transcendental point of view those knots in my heart and the opening of my heart were seen transcendentally as both a mental image and as the intentional object of the experience. Thus, the natural attitude is the common form of subjectivity, while the concepts of mental image and intentionality can be thought of as transcendental forms or terms or concepts of subjectivity during the experience.
   • Kant (Critique of Pure Reason, introduction, VII, A11-12=B25(III,49).): 'I call all knowledge transcendental which is in general concerned not with objects, but with our mode of knowledge of objects, insofar as this is to be possible a priori.'
3. phenomenon (pl. phenomena): anything that appears in experience(consciousness), whether perceived, remembered, imagined, etc.(MacLennan)
4. phenomenology: a science for determining the structure (essence) underlying phenomena
5. system dynamics Link here to my web page on system dynamics.
6. noema: structure of consciousness during an experience. For an example, see the system dynamics flow diagram for the religious experience called purgation or dark night of the soul. The flow diagram or noema shows that consciousness is structured as a multiloop nonlinear feedback system, the same structure as the neurophysiological system unlying consciousness.
7. noemata: the various aspects of consciousness that make up the noema or structure of consciousness. For an example, see the variables or parts of the flow diagram for purgation.
8. noesis: dynamic description or simulation of the intensity of the various noemata of consciousness as a function of time during an experience. For an example, see a simulation of four of the noemata for purgation
   Note: An understanding of TFP's noema/noemata/noesis conception can be visualized by neuroimaging: a particular location of the neuroimage lights up when one of the noemata located there is intense; when the intensity fades the light fades at that location. To illustrate, when the subject experiences one of the noemata, fear for example, the amygdala lights up; when the fear fades the light at the amygdala fades. When you are viewing a neuroimage over time during a subject's experience, particularly when the view includes the limbic brainstem and neurocirculatory system as well as the cortex (where the cognitive mechanism is located), you are viewing the subject's noema or structure of consciousness. Of course, you can't see the feedback connections since they are neurons. At the same time you are viewing the noema you are also viewing the subject's noesis, the dynamics of the intensity of the subject's various noemata.
9. intentionality: what consciousness is about during an experience, e.g., The subject's mind is centered on a tree or a mental image, etc. In the case of purgation the intentionality is a somatosensory mental image (see below).
10. intentional inexistence: when the intentional object of consciousness is not real, that object is said to have intentional inexistence. For example, the intentional object during much of the traumatic, but sacred, experience of purgation is a dynamic mental image of the heart opening against a resistance in the form of knots in the heart. That dynamic mental image is not real. Thus, it has intentional inexistence. What is real are the movements of antagonistic heart muscles which underlie the somatosensory mental image and were the driving force causing it to appear in my mind. Thus, in the release of the trauma these heart muscle movements were converted or interpreted by the imagination and presented to the experiencer in the form of the dynamic mental image of the heart opening against knots. Once this conversion or interpretation is made by the imagination, the experiencer's mind is empowered to use the mental image in his or her prayer during the release of the trauma. The fact that there is a one-to-one relationship between the movements of the somatosensory mental image and the movements of the antagonistic heart muscles allows the movements of the nonexisting or unreal somatosensory mental image to be carefully simulated or described as a function of time by the system dynamics-based TFP method.
11. somatosensory mental image: a mental image that is produced by the imagination but originates or is reified in movements within the body, such as heart muscles.
12. bracketing: the process of thinking away the natural interpretation of an experience in order to concentrate on its intrinsic nature or phenomenology. See also epoche. (MacLennan)
13. epoche: suspension of the natural attitude; to suspend or step back from our ordinary way of looking, to set aside our usual assumptions regarding things, essentially the same as bracketing.(MacLennan)
14. natural attitude: our ordinary attitude toward the world and experience of it when we are engaged in everyday activities rather than phenomenology(MacLennan)
15. eidetic: concerned with the structures (essences) of appearances (phenomena) as opposed to the appearances themselves (MacLennan)
16. eidos: Term used by Plato for the abstract forms or ideas.
17. essence: The basic or primary element in the being of a thing; the thing's nature, or that without which it could not be what it is. A thing cannot lose its essence without ceasing to exist, and the essential nature of a natural kind, such as water or gold, is that property without which there is no instance of the kind.
18. openness: active search for all the possibilities in the noema. (MacLennan)
19. adequacy: a judgement as to how well a phenomenological analysis has been verified; for example, seeing the multiple possibilites inherent in a noema is more adequate than seeing only a single possibility.(MacLennan)
20. variational method: one of the main tools of Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology (HTP): One seeks for what is invariant in a phenomenon under all possible variations, thus revealing the structure (essence) of a phenomenon. In other words, the variational method explores the topology of a phenomenon, by looking for what is potentially present in a noema. (MacLennan)
21. gestalt: an organized whole, in which the parts derive their character from the structure of the whole (MacLennan)
22. solipsism: (Runes)
    • methodological solipsism: The epistemological doctrine which considers the individual self and its states the only possible or legitimate starting point for philosophical construction. Thus, an HTP or TFP analysis begins with methodological solipsism.
    • metaphysical solipsism: Subvariety of idealism which maintains that the individual self of the solipsistic philosopher is the world of reality and that the external world and other persons are representations of that self having no independent existence. Thus, TFP has no connection with metaphysical solipsism. It constantly seeks the physical and behavioral reality underlying phenomena.
23. contingent: Truths of facts.
24. necessary: Truths of reason.
25. idealism: Any doctrine holding that reality is fundamentally mental in nature.
26. naturalism: nothing resists explanation by the methods characteristic of the natural sciences
27. realism: affirmation of the real existence of some kind of thing
28. materialism: The view that the world is entirely composed of matter
29. apologetics: The discipline which deals with a defence of a position or body of doctrines.

Section B:

1. ego, cogito, cogitata (Descartes)
   • ego cogito = cogito ergo sum = I think therefore I exist:
     1. ego: The thinking, active self; the self consceived of as the organizing and continuing subject of experience and the author of action; (same as psychological ego or empirical ego); that within us that acts: fears, prays remembers, is stressed, etc.
     2. cogito: cogitations; acts of consciousness: doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, praying, attending (attention), thinking, etc. In Husserl: a collective name for spontaneous acts, acts in which the ego lives.
   • cogitata:...
2. empirical ego: (Runes)
   The individual self, conceived as a series of conscious acts and contents which the mind is capable of cognizing by direct introspection.
3. pure ego:
   • (Wolpert):
     That part of the mind that is passively aware or watches during mystical union. That part of the mind is characterized by a lack of sentience: It is timeless, without the ability to will, think, imagine, or the ability to will recall from memory. Thus, in mystical union the inner sense of time ceases:
     1. At the same moment that the train of inner sense and the train of time stopped, thought stopped.
     2. The mind was so intensely absorbed with the God-infused present moment within that it was unable to leave that spot to generate thought or imagination or to will recall from memory.
     3. Therefore, with the above cessation the cognition of time had ceased; time did not exist for me. However, I was now aware of what is known in the West as Eternity.
     4. In Eternity there was an exaltation now on the spiritual level:
        I had arrived at the supreme goal I had been seeking, unconsciously. I was in a state where I felt I was experiencing the fundamental note of my existence.
     5. In Eternity I was aware of being in union with the God-infused formless and timeless ground. In addition I was aware of a supreme integrity and a true freedom while in union with this formless ground. The two had become One.
     6. I was satisfied that this state was the end of the search:
     Here are various names for the pure ego.
     1. the watcher within who passively observes the timeless state of mystical union: a state completely lacking in sentience. (Wolpert)
     2. saksin (Hindu)
     3. 'that part of the mind that is eternal' (Spinoza)
   • (From Runes on the pure ego)
     The self conceived as a non-empirical principle, ordinarily inaccessible to direct introspection, but inferred from introspective evidence.
     The principle theories of the pure ego are: (From Runes)
     1. The soul theory which regards the pure ego as a permanent, spiritual substance underlying the fleeting succession of conscious experience.
     2. The transcendental theory of Kant which considers the self an inscrutable subject presupposed by the unity of empirical self-consciousness.
4. sentience: a state of consciousness in which one is responsive to or conscious of sense impressions.
5. ego ideal The ego ideal is attained during mystical union. (Wolpert)
6. apperception:
   • perception versus apperception (Leibniz)
     1. perception: the inner state as representing outer things
     2. apperception: the inner state as reflectively aware of itself
   • apperception (Kant)
     Apperception denotes the unity of self-consciousness pertaining to:
     1. the empirical ego (empirical apperception)
     2. the pure ego (transcendental apperception)
   • transcendental apperception: (Kant: taken from Runes)
     The pure, original, unchangeable consciousness which is the necessary condition of experience as such and the ultimate foundation of the synthetic unity of experience.

Miscellaneous References:

1. Bruce MacLennan's Glossary of Phenomenological Terms
2. References: (See references for S. Blackburn, D.D. Runes, D. Ihde in Appendix II.)
3. Stephen Palmquist's Glossary of Kant's Technical Terms

Arlen Wolpert
http://world.std.com/~awolpert/gtr493.html

June 22,2004

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