Summary of my solution to Chalmers Hard Problem (CHP) for the case of the deep, subjective, ten-hour, religious experience of purgation:

(This scientific solution to CHP is performed by using the System Dynamics (SD)-based Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology to formally analyze purgation's core consciousness data residing in my long term memory (LTM). That data will be associated with my ten hour religious experience of purgation. Purgation culminated in the great experience of mystical union. However, mystical union is not being analyzed here. Mystical union cannot be analyzed using SD, because mystical union is not dynamic. Eventually, the analysis of mystical union will begin with the application of the first law of thermodynamics.)

Arlen Wolpert

System Dynamicist and Independent Scholar

(Draft of June 2,2008)

(Note: To pursue the details of my SD solution to Chalmers Hard Problem (CHP) for the case of purgation in its most recent draft, please click on this link.)

SUMMARY

A subjective or deep inner experience began to present itself to me at about noon on April 8,1962, nineteen days after my 30th birthday: I was walking down a hill with a small suitcase in my hand. As I walked reflectively and in peace down that hill in the warm and brilliant Southern California sun, my heart slowly began to feel full. My mind was drawn inward. This was the very beginning of my ten hour religious experience of purgation, which culminated in the great, 4 to 7 second, experience of mystical union. During those beginning moments I was baffled: I thought, "Where is this experience within me coming from?" Right there was the key problem: Where does this experience originate? In science this problem - associated with the onset and the continuation to the end of subjective or deep inner experiences - is an example of what is now being called Chalmers Hard Problem (CHP). The four paragraphs below answer the following three questions:

1. Where did the ten hour religious experience of purgation originate?
2. Under what conditions did my subjective or deep inner experience become labeled as a ten hour religious experience of purgation?
3. How was it possible for my religious experience of purgation to proceed all the way to its ten-hour completion and then culminate in the great experience of mystical union - despite purgation's intense PsychicStress, Fear, and Anxiety?

However, it is very important to be aware that during the releasing process of a trauma the trauma's associated psychic stress, fear, and anxiety are usually too much to bear for the experiencer. He or she usually panics, has a nervous breakdown, and then develops some sort of mental illness. Therefore, in order for the experiencer to be able to deal with that psychic stress, fear, and anxiety associated with the release of a trauma, the experiencer must use prayer, religious preparedness, etc. Such activity is the Primary Purpose of Religion. That is, my blessed prayers and religious preparedness enabled me to bear the anxiety, fear, and psychic stress without panicking, having a nervous breakdown, etc. This allowed me to go through the emotional crisis and arrive at a complete abreaction or release of my trauma. Because I used prayers, etc, throughout the ten-hour release of my trauma and because the experience was rooted deeply in my heart, my spontaneous religious response has dominated my memory of the abreaction or release of my trauma.

In my particular case, my cramped or paralyzed heart muscles spontaneously went through the process of releasing themselves. The dynamics of my releasing heart muscles drove the dynamic data of my core consciousness phenomena. That dynamic data of core consciousness was then immediately and permanently stored in my long term memory (LTM) at the time of that abreaction or release. The data of core consciousness being stored in my LTM was about the dynamics of my core consciousness during the entire ten hour purgation experience, including the core consciousness data about the state of openness of my heart. (Please note: Because my cramped or paralyzed heart muscles were spontaneously releasing themselves one by one, it naturally caused the state of my cramped up heart to begin to return to its full or open or natural position: Therefore, my heart was opening.)

Twenty two years later, in 1984 when I was 52 years old, I began the system dynamics-based analysis. The first thing I delved into was the dynamic core consciousness data for my ten hour experience of purgation. Immanuel Kant would have called that dynamic core consciousness data, associated with purgation and stored in my LTM, the dynamic phenomena of purgation. Also, he would have called the estimated 12 pairs of cramped or paralyzed, antagonistic muscles in my heart, that were - one by one - being spontaneously abreacted or released, the dynamic noumena.

I will now present how I was able to get the answers to the above three questions:

Getting the answer to Question #1: Identifying the noumena or the origin of the purgation experience.
(This is the scientific solution to Chalmers' hard problem [CHP] for the case of my deep ten-hour religious experience of purgation.)

Though Kant (1724-1804), Franz Brentano (1838-1917), Paul Natorp (1854-1924), the Marburg School of Neokantianism (1870-1920), Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), and others (see Holzhey 2005) studied such phenomena deeply, they were unable to transcendentally ground phenomena in a scientific way, because science was not advanced enough in the 18th, 19th, and the first half of the 20th century. The solving of CHP could only have been attained after the first half of the 20th century, because it was only after World War II that the two critical breakthroughs in science, required for solving CHP, occurred:

1. The publication of the powerful System Dynamics (SD) methodology (Forrester 1961, 1968b).
2. The invention of computers for implementing the SD methodology, particularly implementing the solution to sets of simultaneous nonlinear differential equations.

SD is the underlying analytical tool of the three step Feedback Phenomenological (FP) methodology (For a short introduction to these three steps see the next paragraph. Later, you can also study Chapter 5 or Section I in Chapter 6.) Using the three steps of the SD-based FP methodology, I am able to mathematically analyze my first person core consciousness data residing in my LTM. In that analysis, shown in Section II in Chapter 6, the SD-based FP methodology scientifically structures the data for purgation in a very compatible way: As a multiloop nonlinear feedback system (MNFS). The reason the FP methodology is compatible with biological phenomena is because the MNFS structure is the same structure as the entire neurophysiological system. The neurophysiological system underlies and drives core consciousness.

Here is a short introduction to the three steps of the SD-based FP methodology. The methodology is illustrated by showing how it is used for analyzing core consciousness during purgation:

• Step I: Use the causal loop method or technique (Richardson 1981, Sterman 2000) to organize or structure the core consciousness data in my long term memory (LTM) in the form of a causal loop diagram, which is somewhat similar to a feedback system. Although the causal loop method is very helpful to the analyst during the early stage of the analysis of core consciousness during purgation, the causal loop method is not associated or linked with mathematics. As a result, the causal loop diagram cannot be detailed and structured in such a way that it can be used to model and simulate core consciousness during purgation. Ultimately, the analyst must formally structure core consciousness during purgation and transcendentally ground that structure. In order to accomplish this the analyst must proceed to the use of Forrester's system dynamics (SD) methods in Steps II and III, below.
• Step II: Use Forrester's first book on the SD methodology (Forrester 1961) to take the various causal loop diagrams generated for purgation in Step I and convert them into a mathematical, SD-based, flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation. That flow diagram for purgation is shown a few pages below in Figure 2. The SD flow diagram for purgation and its mathematical model enabled me to simulate core consciousness during purgation. For example, after a ten year analysis (from 1984 to 1994) my 38 variable SD flow diagram for purgation - shown in Figure 2 - and its associated mathematical model were able to simulate all 38 core consciousness variables associated with the ten hour experience of purgation. This was done by iteratively and patiently adjusting the preliminary mathematical model, as I strived to eventually match the various simulations with the dynamic core consciousness data in my LTM. This ten year analysis was a labor of love.
• Step III: Use Forrester's second book on the SD methodology (Forrester 1968b) to transcendentally ground the phenomena for purgation. To transcendentally ground the phenomena means to identify the noumena or the material objects in my neurophysiological system driving the phenomena. Note that those phenomena had already been organized into an accurate, SD-based, flow diagram in Step II. That accurate flow diagram is shown a few pages below in Figure 2. Now, here is how Step III, transcendental grounding, works: By studying the contents of Forrester's second book, the analyst determines that the flow diagram in Figure 2 is structured as a second-order negative feedback system (SONFS). Once this task has been accomplished, the analyst knows that the dynamics of the noumena he is searching for is structured as a SONFS, because the dynamic noumena are driving the dynamic phenomena, shown in Figure 2. For example, a promising candidate for the noumena for the case of purgation is pairs of cramped or paralyzed antagonistic muscles (probably heart muscles) that are being released or abreacted, because it is well known that the dynamics of such muscles operate as a SONFS.

My analysis of core consciousness during purgation began in 1984 and has continued steadily right up to the present time. The key breakthrough was Step III, above. It occurred in 2007. The list of nine items below gives the sequence of scientific tasks I have been performing since 1984, together with the collection of observations and insights that I became aware of during that analytical period. Basically, I used Steps I, II, and III of the SD-based FP methodology to analyze the core consciousness data in my LTM. Please note that all the core consciousness data for purgation, residing in my LTM, is associated with or driven by the dynamic noumena. That core consciousness data was dynamic. It varied - moment by moment - during my ten hour experience of purgation.

In summary, here is how this SD-based FP methodology was used to solve CHP for the case of core consciousness during purgation: I first focused on my core consciousness data, associated with my deep ten hour religious experience of purgation. It resided in my LTM. I then use Steps I and II of the FP methodology to analyze that data. (For details of this formalized analysis and construction of the purgation feedback system, see Section I and Section II of Chapter 6. The results of this scientific task are summarized in item 1 of the nine item list below. Then, by focusing on Step III, I obtained the results summarized in items 2 thru 9 of the list below. In those items my SD-based FP analysis of core consciousness during my experience of purgation identifies the probable dynamic physical objects or transcendental objects or noumena that are the origins or driving forces of my core consciousness during purgation. This comprehensive analysis of purgation illustrates how the SD-based FP methodology was able to solve CHP for my deep inner experience of purgation.

1. In Steps I and II the SD-based FP methodology was used to construct the 38 variable SD flow diagram and its associated mathematical model. This construction used the core consciousness data collected in my LTM during my experience of purgation (see Figure 2 and its derivation in Sections I and II of Chapter 6). The flow diagram in Figure 2 was completed in 1994.
2. Then, in 2007 I began to use perhaps the most critical and most important step, Step III. First the Step III technique found that the flow diagram for core consciousness during purgation, developed in item 1 above and shown in Figure 2, is a second-order negative feedback system (SONFS). Once the order of the flow diagram or feedback system is identified, the dynamic characteristic of the noumena is also identified.
3. Then, to determine the noumena driving the phenomena, I needed to search through all the dynamic physical objects within my neurophysiological system and find those dynamic objects that operate as a SONFS. At this particular early period in my search I have found only one promising candidate: Any set of dynamic antagonistic muscles operates as a SONFS.
4. During my 10 hour experience of purgation I sensed or observed that the dynamics of purgation was being experienced mainly in my heart. Therefore, if the promising candidate is antagonistic muscles, they must be heart muscles.
5. The great stress, fear, and anxiety - accompanying the releasing process of each set of antagonistic heart muscles - indicated that those muscles had been cramped or paralyzed prior to the estimated 72 minute period when the spontaneous releasing of the cramped or paralyzed heart muscles occurred. That estimated 72 minute period occurred between the estimated 545 minute mark and the estimated 617 minute mark (see Figure 1 in Section II.B of Chapter 6).
6. During the Step II analysis (which is located just after the Introduction in Section II of Chapter 6), I sensed or estimated that there were about a dozen or so pairs of cramped antagonistic heart muscles released during purgation.
7. Therefore, the dynamic noumena - that drove my dynamic core consciousness phenomena during purgation as a SONFS - was probably releasing a dozen or so pairs of cramped or paralyzed, antagonistic, heart muscles over an estimated 72 minute period.
8. I then asked myself what had caused the cramping or paralyzation in my heart muscles. I then remembered I had a childhood sexual trauma when I was 9 or 10 years old: The trauma had probably caused the cramping or paralyzation.
9. Therefore, the origin or driving force of the purgation experience was probably the abreaction or release of the effects of my childhood trauma.

Additional information associated with the above summary of my solution to CHP for the case of purgation:

1. Determining the precise location in my heart of the cramped, antagonistic heart muscles. This is a very difficult "easy problem" (see Chalmers' statement about the easy problems of consciousness at the end of this summary).
2. Determining the neurobiological correlates of consciousness (NCC) during purgation. This is also a very difficult "easy problem." (see the statements on CHP by Crick, Koch, and Searle at the end of this summary). These difficult "easy problems" are available for analysis only after the CHP breakthrough for purgation has been precisely solved (see item 1 just above). Once item 1 has been solved, the neuroscientists and cardiovascular experts need to neurophysiologically link the dynamic sets of cramped, antagonistic heart muscles with the dynamic core consciousness going on during the experience of purgation. (My early conjecture is that the key to this linkage is understanding the operation of the experiencer's somatosensory system. It looks to me like that system extends all the way from (1)the cramped heart muscles that are being released to (2)the postcentral gyrus in the experiencer's cerebral cortex. The location of the latter part of the somatosensory system is probably where the dynamic core consciousness associated with purgation had been generated during the release of my trauma.)
3. The method for testing the scientific validity of my SD-based, FP analysis of purgation is shown in Chapter 6, Section II.B, item 11.

Draft of June 2,2008
http://world.std.com/~awolpert/gtr576.html

Return to homepage.