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C00003 00002	Dear Pat:
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Dear Pat:


	The following notes have been written as part of an effort to
gain some clarity,  to see some structure in the confusing variety of
things that are  nowadays said about  consciousness. As  far as I  am
concerned, it has been quite useful writing them. First, they sort of
give  a map which can  guide further search  along different lines. I
had Jed  Harris  read them  and he  made  many interesting  comments,
several of which I have included in these notes.
	I purposefully refrained  from explaining many of the issues,
even from being exhaustive or from giving precise references. This is
a first map  and I have  sacrificed detail as  well as rigor  for the
sake  of  encompassing  an  overall  view.  Otherwise, I  could  have
elaborated much longer on some of the issues; several of  the issues,
for instance the  review of contemporary efforts  by psychologists to
create a theory of consciousness, could be the subject of a paper.
	Also,  I could  provide  the precise  references for  all the
authors quoted, if you are interested in it.
	But I'd  prefer to  have first  your reaction  to these  very
sketchy notes, before I make  the effort of making them more coherent
and self-contained.


	 AN HISTORICAL PREVIEW.


	I experience great difficulty in formulating what the  issues
about consciousness are. The reason for this is  that the field is in
a messy state  right now, despite -or perhaps because- of the efforts
that many researchers have lately dedicated to it.
	The study of consciousness is nothing new. Many of the oldest
texts known to us are dedicated to  it. But the ways of approaching a
subject are -as Kuhn has pointed out- inseparable of a socio-cultural
context. In our scientific culture, there are several  avenues to the
study  of the  mind. And  there are  the practicioners  too;  with or
without university degrees.
	Before  Freud,  only   philosophers  were   supposed  to   be
interested  in  the  mind  (but  there   also  were  the  underground
practicioners  and  students, as  we  now know).  With  Freud, modern
psychology and psychiatry are born, so  there is a new set of  people
who are  concerned with  it. And  there is a  new, acceptable  set of
practicioners;   I  view  the  relationship  between  psychology  and
psychiatry very  much like  that  between biology  and medicine.  The
first  serious   effort  to  uncover   the  knowledge  of   the  old,
underground, unrecognized practicioners is made by Jung, who came  to
them as a result of his practicing experience. (However, the mystical
tradition seems to have been a major influence in Freud as well.)
	Another  set of people interested  in the mind  have been the
logicians. However, they have  been concerned with the purely  formal
aspects of its  workings, namely with correct  reasoning and thought.
The   nature  of  the  thought  acts,   and  the  question  "what  is
conciousness" was  not  part of  their  discipline. The  question  of
whether consciousness can be accounted  for in formal terms is one of
the big open questions, if not the main one.
	Gestalt  psychology  and   gestalt  therapy  originate   from
Phenomenology. As i do not know as yet anything about Gestalt, I will
skip this important development for the time being.
	The  next  development  is  cybernetics,  or  the science  of
comunication and control  in the  animal and the  machine, as  Wiener
called  it.  It is  the  first  -and  so  far the  most  significant-
breakthrough  towards understanding man as  a machine. The subsequent
technological inventions,  and especially  the  advent of  computers,
fosters the faith in the  thesis that animals are machines, i.e. that
man can  be accounted  for in  mechanistic terms  - at  least in  the
formal  aspects of  its  organization,  since quantum  mechanics  has
barren the road  to any ultimate description of nature in mechanistic
terms. I view this  as the 20'th  century version of the  mechanistic
credo of the 19'th century.
	Since Wiener,  there are several  new sets of  scientists who
approach  the  mind from  the  point  of view  of  their disciplines:
neurophysiologists, electronics technicians, engineers, etc.
	Turing bridges the  gap between the  formal study of  thought
(logic) and  cybernetics. And he  advocates that all  mental activity
-which he sub-summes under the term "intelligence"- can be programmed
into the  machine. From  there the  field of artificial  intelligence
develops. I think  that it deserves some consideration what the exact
claim of Turing is, and what is the credo of artificial intelligence;
I will discuss this separately so as not to destroy the continuity of
these  thoughts. Let me just say for the  moment that here we come to
terms with the  same big open  question I already mentioned.  Namely,
can consciousness be accounted for  in formal terms? If yes, build up
a rudimentary conscious machine or  give conclusive evidence that  it
can theoretically be built. If not, prove why not.
	A related issue can be expressed in the question: how can one
determine whether a system is conscious within a "Turing test"?
	I have intentionally  postponed to discuss what do we mean by
consciousness. I want to discuss  it later, because that seems to  be
one  of the  main  sources  of confusion:  we  don't  even know  what
consciousness  is! But I am not  going astray from current scientific
practice if I beg this question: many  prestigious scientific writers
like, for  instance, Wooldridge, do just the  same, when they discuss
consciousness. By the way, Wooldridge's "The Machinery of the  Brain"
is in  my  opinion representative  of the  "new  mechanicism" I  have
referred to before.  All he manages to say about conciousness is that
it might come to be explained in the "machinistic" view, that he does
not know what it is, but that it might be much more a "window" than a
control instance,  and he argues that point. So he is focusing on the
issue of  "free  will",  which I  think  is  indeed very  related  to
consciousness.
	It seems  to me that  Wooldridge's book is  representative of
what a certain scientific  paradigm has to say  about the mind,  even
though it was written  10 years ago. Artificial intelligence  has not
fullfilled  its promises;  after its  initial success  in mechanizing
some thought processes, progress  in AI has been quantitative  rather
than qualitative.   (Though I should make two exceptions  to the last
comment:   Winograd's  "world   model"  paradigm   and  the  emerging
"extensible interpreter"  paradigm  (frames,  SMALLTALK) seem  to  be
major advances in AI). I  also feel very unsatisfied with the efforts
of the psychologists to explain human  memory in terms of what  might
by now be called the computer paradigm.
	What I have  briefly sketched might appear to  be essentially
all  that has been happening  in the study  of the mind -  and we are
stuck  if  that  is  true.  But  I  think  we  are  not.  Some  other
developments have taken place in the  last decade, but they have gone
almost unnoticed by the scientific community, since the impulses came
from  the practicioners  and  they  did not  challenge  any  existing
theories,  but rather  reflected total  bewilderment. I  will  try to
sketch this.
	The most  significant  impulse  comes  -initially-  from  the
extensive use  of psychodelic drugs  in the  sixties for purposes  of
therapy,  research and individual exploratory  experiences. It should
not surprise us that data  coming from that source would have  caused
scientists to focus on consciousness:  for a function is not properly
understood  until it is  pushed to  its limits, until  it is observed
under abnormal  conditions, etc.  Conciousness is so  much taken  for
granted  in our everyday  experience, that  medern thinking  has been
barely aware of its problematics.   Most affected by the data  coming
from those experiences were people related, in one way or another, to
the practice  of psychiatry or psychotherapy.  The reason is evident.
They were those who had the best access to people's accounts of their
own  experiences  and  also  -incidentally-  those  who  were  better
prepared to relate those data to other sources.
	(I owe to Jed Harris the remark that Phenomenology is a major
exception to what I say in the last two paragraphs.)
	Their search for  explanations of the  new data lead many  of
these people along  a strange path, to older  and always older texts;
"the older they were  the more relevant" as  someone said in a  joke.
Initially  they  found  that religious  symbology  was  helping  them
understand their patients' experiences better than modern psychology.
Later some began  to understand Eastern  religions from a  completely
new  perspective.  And they  also  discovered  the relevance  of  the
doctrines  of many  old so-called  "esoteric" traditions, as  well as
their intriguing convergence.
	Only very recently, i. e.  in the last two years, do  we find
some  clarity in that  confusion, while  the underlying  ideas become
available  to  a  greater  number  of  people.  Naranjo  argues   the
fundamental unity of all religions  and esoteric traditions. Ornstein
proposes   to   study   consciousness   experimentally  through   the
measurement  of  brain  waves,  presents  a  rudimentary,   tentative
paradigm for a theory of consciousness and argues that the techniques
and  exercises of  the so-called esoteric  traditions are essentially
aimed at de-automatizing conciousness. Tart attempts to formalize the
notion of  "states of consciousness".  Last month researchers  at SRI
succeed at implementing the first mind-computer communication system!
At the last annual meeting  of the AAASc. there is a  two day session
dedicated  to the study  of consciousness  with Ornstein and  Tart as
featured speakers and an attendance of 750.
	[I owe to  Jed Harris the observation  that a rather  complex
-perhaps vague,  but solid enough to  be useful- model is  implied in
the  idea  that  the  disciplines  and  exercises  of  the  esotheric
traditions  are techniques  for  de-automatizing  consciousness.  The
underlying common idea  of all those techniques seems  to be to force
awareness onto consciousness, i.e. to force consciousness to  include
itself. What effects this may have is anybody's  guess - but it seems
that  they are always the  same, as we may  infer from the intriguing
unity of the  different traditions.  Thus, we find  that this  forced
self-re-programming perhaps  leads to a  fixpoint of the  system: and
there  might be a connection between this  idea and Scott's models of
computation. See also the anotherremark below.]
	Somewhat earlier, i.e.  in the late  sixties, I can think  of
two  persons who  were somehow  precursors of  the  developments just
sketched. Allan Watts convincingly argued that the Eastern  religions
were not the equivalent of our religion but of our psychotherapy. And
Lilly  published  in 1967  "Programming and  Meta-programming  in the
Human Bio-computer".  Lilly's theory  was very  especulative, but  it
seems that it contained the right ideas, since it is having very much
influence  in later authors like Tart.  Lilly's paradigm views man as
an hierarchical  "bio-computer" with  9  levels of  control, some  of
which are  called programming or  meta- programming levels;  the last
level is  "unknown",  so as  to  leave  the system  open.  Lilly  was
actively engaged  in LSD research  and he conceived  his theory  as a
psychotherapeutical tool. No  proofs are given. However, it now seems
that his basic paradigm will be around for a while.


	 ON CIRCULARITY.

	A somewhat  separate set of  efforts has  been undertaken  by
some  people   around  Heinz  von  Foerster:   Maturana  and  Varela,
biologists, Lofgren, logician, Gunther, philosopher, and some others.
The  common  theme of  these  is  the  concern  with  circularity  or
self-reference  as an inescapable  property of  nature. Spencer-Brown
focuses on  the same  issue and  develops a  very basic  mathematical
calculus which he claims  to underly all thinking; he says  it is the
hidden arithmetics  of Boolean algebra. Spencer-Brown explicitly says
that he developed his  calculus in the  process of exploring his  own
mind and he claims  anybody can use it for that  purpose. He has been
closely associated with Laing. The theme of circularity is central to
Laing as  well; in  "Knots", for instance,  he lays  bare the  formal
structure of many of the loops most commonly found in people's minds.
These circular structures are self-preserving, or ultra-stable; hence
the difficulty we experience in re-programming our consciousness.
	Some  people claim  that  a new  paradigm  is being  born  in
science.  Varela presents this view  in an as  yet unpublished paper.
What is central to all these different ideas is that circularity -far
from being  shunned- is made  to the  turning stone of  all thinking.
Scientific  paradigms are  self-validating and  self-perpetuating, as
Kuhn noticed.  So are  social, political, economical  systems, as  we
very  well know  by now  (Marx was  very clear  about this  fact, but
non-Marxist Western thinking has been strangely un-aware of it).  And
so is our consciousness  of the world, what we take  to be "reality",
as  Castaneda holds.  So are  also  biological systems;  Maturana and
Varela postulate circularity as the only essential charachteristic of
life  and  try   to  base  biological  theory   on  that  foundation.
Anthropologists have previously recognized the vanity of any attempts
to understand  -even to  describe-  another culture  from without.  I
think one of the most important by-products of such a paradigm -if it
ever develops and attains vigency- is  that it can provide us with  a
better frame  of mind to  live in a  divided world; perhaps  the only
frame of mind which could prevent global war.
	[Another remark of Jed Harris: the above ideas are related to
Quine's "radical  indeterminacy of  translation", something  I  never
heard of.]
	Lofgren   results  show   that  the   concepts  of   complete
self-reproduction  and complete self-explanation are independent from
ordinary scientific  reasoning.  Specifically, he  shows  that it  is
consistent with and independent of the von Neumann-Bernays-Goedel set
theory, but that it would contradict theories containing the axion of
restriction.  I don't  understand  myself  the consequences  of  this
result,  but  I'd guess  they  are interesting  with  respect  to the
possibility of  providing  rigorous  foundations for  a  paradigm  of
self-reference.
	[I owe the  following remark to Jed Harris:  a typeless model
for  the lambda calculus has been developed  by Scott and it provides
probably the single most important advance in formal semantics in the
last several years; this,  together we Scott's ideas of fixpoints, is
likely to be the best handle  on the problems of self-reference.  For
consciousness, the convergency properties  of self-re-writing systems
should be important.]

	 ***************

	The above very  sketchy and incomplete review was intended to
show some of  the developments  that have been  taking place  lately,
especially on the  local scene (with the  proliferation of scientific
information, science is becoming more parrochial than we are normally
willing to accept). 
	Confessedly, the  above paragraphs  are as  scattered as  the
field itself is at the moment. But writing them has helped me to gain
some clarity about the issues.


	 SOME CURRENT ISSUES.


	First, we find  that present day  psychotherapy is lacking  a
scientific foundation;  indeed,  it is  far apart  from any  commonly
accepted  scientific  theories,  and  -what  is  worse-  the  gap  is
increasing. The  reason  for  it  is  not hard  to  guess;  the  "new
mechanicism" -which  might be a satisfying  intellectual exercise, or
"headtrip"-  is USELESS  for any  practical endeavor. Cyril  Burt has
said it well:
	"And so we arrive at the current conception of the brain as a
kind of computer, and of human beings as mere conscious automata. "If
you think we are  waxworks" said Tweedledum to  Alice, "you ought  to
pay." And  contemporary psicology has  had to pay  a heavy  price for
adhering to this mechanistic doctrine. It makes nonsense, not only of
parapsychology,  but  (as  practical  psychologists  have  been  long
protesting)  of every  branch  of applied  psychology -  criminology,
psychotherapy,  educational and vocational guidance, and of all moral
or aesthetic aspirations and values."
	(Quoted in  Koestler's "The  Roots of  Coincidence", which  I
have begun to read after the foregoing pages were written.)
	It  seems  to  me  that  the  ideas  anticipated  in  Lilly's
"Programming and  Metaprogramming..."  are proving  functional  as  a
basic,  praxis oriented  psychological paradigm.  In  this view,  the
brain is considered as a computer and the mind as its software. Thus,
within restrictions imposed by the  nature of the hardware, the  mind
programs  the  body,  and  we  have the  ability  to  re-program  our
software.   This  re-programming,  however,  is  a  fairly  difficult
endeavor. It is the aim of all psychotherapy, education and religion.
In order to achieve  some re-programming, we need to become conscious
of its present workings. Thus we find (for instance in Jung) that the
aim  of  psychotherapy  is  sometimes  defined  as  an  expansion  of
conciousness,  and that one of  its results is an  increased sense of
freedom.
	Another of  Lilly's basic ideas  is expressed  in the  motto:
"What I believe is true, is true  or becomes true within limits to be
determined  experiencially.  This  limits  are  again  beliefs  to be
transcended.", which heads one  of his later books. This  view, which
he does  not bother to prove  formally, appears to be  related to: 1)
the self-validating  nature  of  belief systems;  2)  the  aspect  of
consciousness as  a belief system;  3) the  intriguing nature of  the
commitment required  for any effective psychotherapeutical work. This
issues are indeed related. The commitment or surrender to a system is
an essential, though often hidden  premise, of psychotherapy; in many
psychotherapeutical  disciplines this commitment is not required, but
it is  brought about experientially,  by creating  a world first  and
letting  an  interpretation   emerge  from  the  common  experiential
background (an idea which we also find in Castaneda's development  as
a sorcerer's apprentice).



	 IMPORTANCE OF A THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS.


	A theory of consciousness should at least provide a framework
for understanding the interrelationships between beliefs, experience,
awareness and  sense  of freedom,  as we  find  them in  present  day
psychotherapy. I  think it  should also  provide us  with a  tool for
action. 
	A  better  understanding  of  the  way  our  consciousness is
formed, should prove  effective in designing our  educational systems
as  well.   As  soon  as  we understand  education  as  a process  of
conscious  self-development,   or   as   a   process   of   expanding
consciousness,  we may  accept  that any  knowledge  of the  ways  we
re-program our minds will be relevant for educational practice.
	And  I foresee  another area  of  application, in  the social
domain: namely,  human  organizations are  entities which  exhibit  a
certain degree  of self-consciousness and  a certain degree  of "free
will";  in the computer age, information  can be circulated among the
members of an  organization at a  potentially unlimited rate, but  we
still do not understand how to make use of this ability. (As a matter
of fact, almost all present day  use of computer in organizations  is
fairly stupid, compared to the potentiality.)
	I run up  against these problems  as I was working  in Chile,
under   the  direction  of   Stafford  Beer.  We   were  designing  a
computerized information and  control system  of an absolutely  novel
kind, described  by Beer in  "Brain of  the Firm", which  should have
eventually integrated all Chilean industry. At a certain stage in the
development  of  the  system,  we  tackled  the   issue  of  workers'
participation in the direction of their industries, and in general in
the direction  of society  at the  various levels  of control,  since
workers'  participation  was  a  major  political  aim  of  Allende's
government.  Organizations are nowadays managed  in an authoritarian,
top-down fashion (and they have always  been, as far as we know);  we
wanted to close  the loop, so as to make  society more circular, and,
in  the long  run,  more stable.  Nowhere has  the issue  of workers'
participation been  given a  satisfactory  solution, and  it was  not
solved in Chile.  But it seems to me now  that any effective solution
of this matter  pre-supposes an understanding  of the way  collective
consciousness is constituted. And the  same applies, mutatis mutandi,
to the question of "computerized democracy".


	 ABOUT IDEALIST THEORIES.


	I  have avoided  the  question of  parapsychological resarch,
although I believe that any new developments in this field  will have
profound influence on  our views on consciousness.  I  am not fond of
the  complicated experimental techniques  required for such research,
and  theoretical  research  in   this  area  is  bound  to   be  very
speculative, for the time being. However, I would like to mention one
interesting attempt in this direction: Walker, who is trying to  base
parapsychological phenomena and consciousness on a quantum mechanical
theory,  where  the  hidden variables  account  for  the non-physical
world. He  does  a  fairly  meticulous work  in  linking  the  hidden
variables with the workings of  the nervous cells, analizing rates of
data  transmission,  etc.  Unfortunately,  I  could  elaborate  on or
criticize his  views before I  have given  more careful attention  to
them.
	One of  the basic issues  where opinions go  apart is whether
consciousness is just a  function in the  individual, or a  principle
transcending  our   individual   minds  and   belonging  to   another
ontological  domain, perhaps  a property  of  matter itself  -as some
people hold-. This last view seems to be held by  Spencer-Brown, when
he says: "we cannot  escape the fact that the world is  made so as to
be able to see itself".
	I  believe,  however,  that  research  on  consciousness  can
proceed parallel  to and independent  of such questions.  Alternative
models  can  be  provided,  incorporating  the "materialist"  or  the
"idealist" postulates on the nature of the world. Perhaps the  models
can help us  gain a better  understanding of the different  views, of
its  problems; perhaps  we will  find that  they are  just different,
equally valid ways, of saying the same.