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Proof of Double-Mindedness?

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 10:19 am
by ignosympathnoramus
The single biggest objection to A. L. Wigan's theory of the duality of the mind is that we don't seem to experience two trains of thought at the same time. Roland Puccetti tries to get around this by suggesting that each of the dual minds doesn't have introspective access to the other, and thus there would be no "double-mindedness." I think that the philosopher Roger Scruton has described this experience of two converging trains of thought with his concept of "double intentionality."

Scruton explains that when listening to music, “you hear in those sounds a melody that moves through the imaginary space of music. This is not something you believe to be occurring, but something you imagine: just as you imagine the face in the picture, while seeing that it is not literally there.” Notice that he uses the metaphor of "space." He goes on to show that double intentionality “is explained by our ability to organize a single Gestalt in two ways simultaneously—in one way as something literally present, in another way as something imagined.”

“Double intentionality arises when a mental state involves both belief and imagination: the first focused on realities, the second on what can be imagined in those realities… And because they belong to different orders of mental organization, beliefs and imaginings can co-exist, with a common focus, so that the one informs and controls the other.” (p 45 of Understanding Music)

Could this business about "different orders of mental organization" be a description of double-mindedness? Does anyone else have a possible example of such a thing? (cognitive dissonance?) I wrote up a short sketch of this view and its implications for some big questions in philosophy if anybody is interested: http://thinkonthesethingstoo.wordpress. ... ciousness/

I was going to mention James Barlow's recent article in the Jaynesian, as there was a quote that I really liked that hinted to mental duality. However, I couldn't find his quote in any of the Nietzsche that I have read. Barlow's line goes as follows:

"For Nietzsche, this consists of unconscious elements commanding the ego: the artist is, for him, someone who 'is the vampire of his talent,' and makes it clear that consciousness, even self-consciousness, has little to do with it."

Anybody know where Nietzsche wrote this bit about the artist being the vampire of his talent?

Re: Proof of Double-Mindedness?

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:38 pm
by shrimperdude
I plan to read what you have posted & courteously provided for us a convenient link; but since you have introduced music into the discussion I'll jump at the topic unarmed. Humans (troglodytic or not) respond emotionally to music whether paying attention to it or not. This is partially because there are 'disturbances' of lower(more primitive[?]) nervous systems in the body. The types, clarity and strength of the effect depends heavily on the frequency of the vibration being perceived in various receptors in different locations throughout the body (and most people don't play their music nearly loudly enough to feel the full effect; headphones short-circuit most of the intended effect). Different instruments have different receptors; hence a wide discrepancy in effect; saxaphones are -; flutes are not. Instruments with large ranges (like an eighty-eight) lend themselves to more complex emotional communications (body songs); orchestras are organized to give the composer all the tools he needs to stimulate every corner of the 'sub-conscious' human body. The real importance of all this for our purposes here is that we need to discourage (in ourselves) the use of reductionist models which fail miserably to describe what is going on up there [in there]<---already totally inadequate! The spotlight model swinging about in its Global Workspace is just a reductionist attempt to combine several areas of research & express their findings in a unified theory. We need to know how the emotional us, recently affected by this piece of music(which we may or may not have chosen for ourselves), interacts with the intellectual us; where all the limits in this type stimulation really lay (just because you can't hear a certain frequency doesn't mean it is not perceived & causing some unknown effect) & how to accurately assess the importance of this aspect of our mental make-up in order to manipulate the deliberately applied stimuli (pick out better records to play) to achieve more healthy mental performance.

Re: Proof of Double-Mindedness?

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 12:07 pm
by ignosympathnoramus
Shrimperdude: Thanks for the reply. I find the topic that you focused on quite fascinating, although I must admit to being poorly versed in such theory. Arthur Schopenhauer's metaphysical picture of music seems to be quite similar to what you are describing. Joseph Campbell shows a wonderful page from Practica Musica (1496) that seems to be showing exactly what you explain vis a vis the various levels of the unconscious that respond differently to music. He discusses the "nine muses," an so forth. This is discussed in Mythos 1, episode 5, 40 minutes in. I'm sure that this connects with theories about the chakras. However, I am hoping that you might be able to steer this conversation onto firmer empirical grounds than I can.

I like the way that you put the point about the emotional us versus the intellectual us...this is exactly the language I use in the blog post I alluded to. I have added a second part to this post and was later surprised to find some great research that might confirm my views, or at least give me some encouragement. I would especially be interested to know what our moderator thinks about this research and whether it shows something akin to "double-mindedness:"

A "sticky" interhemispheric switch in bipolar disorder
http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/procroysoc.html

Interhemispheric switching mediates perceptual rivalry
http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/HTMLCBpaper.htm

Binocular Rivalry and the Cerebral Hemispheres
http://sulcus.berkeley.edu/wjf/m/Miller ... pheres.pdf

Re: Proof of Double-Mindedness?

Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:31 pm
by barlow
Yes, I saw your post only today. I think the quote can be found in "Will to Power" if not "BG&E." Nietzche also talked about the godlike effects of inspiration, of being beside himself (so to speak), when writing "Zarathustra." -jb