From Stefan Balke (960503.1020 CET)
Bill Powers (960430.1700 MDT) --
Stefan Balke (960430.1530 CET) responding to Rick Marken (960429.2010)
This is a very interesting perspective, but how can you be sure
whether you are just inventing a rationalization or whether you
really raised your consciousness (going up a level) in order to see
the higher order perception?
Are you really interested in getting an answer to your question?
Yes, of course.
That is, do you really want to know how we can be sure, or is this just a way
of expressing a sense of skepticism?
I think that it would be a great help, if we could be sure on this point,
because it would lead to a greater understanding of ourselfs and a closer
touch to reality, but I'm also skeptical whether it would be possible to
make a clear distinction between inventing a rationalization and "raising"
consciousness (going up a level) so that we can "look down".
My first question in this context has to do with the term rationalization,
which is originally used to describe a Freudian anxiety defense mechanismen.
Remember Aesop's tale from the fox and the grapes, which are to sour. The
fox wanted to have some grapes, because he was hungry and he usually liked
the taste of grapes. But he was unable to reach them, because they hang to
high. He invented the rationalization "this grapes are to sour" to protect
himself from the anxiety producing insight of being uncapable to get what he
wanted to get (to be unable to control). I suppose, that Rick didn't mean
the term with this Freudian connotation. In that case, he will probably have
used it in the sense of an attempt to give oneself the first best ex post
explanation, which sounds resonable enough to convince oneself for the
moment, but which not necessarily has anything to do with the explanandum.
The main problem rises because such an ex post explanation could be of the
same wording as the true "look down" from the higher level. The main
question seems to be, how I can detect self-cheating. (By the way cheating,
detecting of and protecting from cheating seems to be a major problem for
all living beeings). A possible answer seems to be, to go up to the highest
level and judge the whole affaire and not only a single aspect of it. This
will allow me to evaluate the cons of self-cheating. This obviously requires
time and a moment of contemplation.
Best, Stefan