File:6-1.png and Chapter 6: Our Three Strata of Awareness as Eidems: Difference between pages

Here will be here evidenced our three strata of awareness as eidems. Briefly summarized, these strata will consist of 1) that which an eidem cognizes to be other than itself as eidem, 2) an eidem’s autoceptually cognized modes of awareness via which (1) is cognized, and 3) that autological aspect of the eidem which cognizes both (1) and (2).

6.1. An Overview of the Proposed Three Strata

The prefix allo- will be used to signify “other”. Allological cognita, i.e. allocepts, will be cognita that are tacitly if not explicitly discerned by an eidem to be other relative to itself as eidem. In other words, allocepts will be all non-autological cognita, be such perceptual or senceptual.

Allological awareness—an eidems awareness of what it discerns to be other relative to itself as eidem—i.e., alloawareness, will then constitute one of the three strata of an eidem’s trifold awareness.

All cognita that are not allological will then be autological. Autoawareness can, in turn, be itself discerned as constituted of the following two strata of awareness:

The prefix meso- will be used to signify “intermediate”. Mesological cognita, i.e., mesocepts, will be the autologically experienced modes of awareness via which allocepts are cognized by the eidem. One’s personally experienced sight and hearing as an eidem can serve as examples of two mesocepts.

Mesological awareness—an eidem’s autological awareness of the modes of awareness via which it apprehends allocepts—i.e., mesoawareness, will then constitute a second strata of an eidem’s trifold awareness.

The prefix proto- will be used to signify “first” or “primary”. The protological cognitum, i.e. the protocept, will be that autologically experienced aspect of the eidem which is aware of both allocepts and mesocepts.

Protoceptive awareness—an eidem’s autological awareness of itself as that which apprehends allocepts via its multiple mesocepts—i.e. protoawareness, will then constitute the last of the three strata of an eidem’s trifold awareness.

Figure 6-1 provides an outline of the trifold awareness that is to be elaborated on.

6.2. Alloawareness

All that an eidem experiences which is tacitly if not also explicitly discerned to be differentiable from, and thereby in some way other than, the given eidem—i.e., all non-autological cognita—will constitute an eidem’s alloawareness.

Alloawareness can thereby include the following: exteroceptive physiocepts; those interoceptive physiocepts which are not fully autological at the moments experienced (e.g., the feeling of having butterflies in one’s stomach—such that this physioawareness of one’s body is differentiable from and thereby other relative to the eidem which is aware of it); exteroceptive phainocepts (e.g., visually remembering a friend); those interoceptive phainocepts which are not fully autological at the moments experienced (e.g., sympathetically imagining what it would be like to have a ghost limb—this contrasted to the possibility of obtaining fully autological interoceptive phainocepts, such as with imagining oneself to be thirsty to such extent that one autoceives oneself as eidem to be thirsty); and ennoocepts, including those of apprehended concepts, awareness of one’s mind’s non-autological intentions (e.g., those pertaining to one’s conscience), felt emotions that are not autological (e.g., experienced pangs of attraction for someone which one as eidem attempts to dispel), and the cognized value of items.

Such allological cognita will be more succinctly specified as allocepts.

To simplify the vast array of possible allocepts, one can distinguish between those allocepts discerned to take place outside one’s total being of mind and body—and qualify these as exological—and those allocepts discerned to take place within one’s total being of mind and body—and qualify these as endological.

Whereas the exteroceptive-interoceptive dichotomy will apply strictly to percepts, the exological-endological dichotomy can apply to both percepts and sencepts. As one example of the latter, inspirations will be addressed. Inspirations will be differentiable from, and thereby other than, the eidem which is influenced by them, and will thereby be allocepts. Because inspirations thus understood will not be perceptually apprehended, they will be sencepts. That said, inspirations can be dichotomized into exological inspirations (e.g. another person’s speech serving as an inspiration to oneself to exercise more often) and endological inspirations (e.g., after not being able to resolve a problem, experiencing an eureka-moment in which one cognizes a novel idea—itself the product of one’s own mind—that resolves the given problem).

Enquiry into the wide variety of allocepts can be both expansive and complex. The complexities can in part result from the possibility of multiple types of cognita being bound together in one’s experience of some, if not all, allocepts. One’s visual physiocept of another person’s photograph (which will be an allocept) can, for example, bind together a) physioceptual data such as that of colors and shapes, b) the conceptual, and thereby ennoological, understanding that what is being seen is a person one has known, and c) a particular emotive state of being which is autologically experienced—thereby resulting in the experience of seeing a loved one’s photograph.

Extending the just mentioned possibility, it might furthermore be the case that senceptions play a crucial role in our cognizance of multiple allocepts. One could, for instance, fathom perceptual experiences to be a homogenous spectrum of meaningless data were it not for an eidem’s senceptions of how this same data is allocated so as to belong to heterogeneous parts—to individual givens—each with their own properties.

These complexities further escalate when considering the following: The threshold between one’s endological allocepts and one’s momentary autoawareness as eidem is often dynamic, rather than static. As one example, there can be found a qualitative difference between the physiological feel of an endo-allological pain—such as with feeling physiological pain located in one’s fingertip on account of a thorn—and the autological experience of being in pain as an eidem due to some interoceptively perceived physiological pain—for instance, on account great pressure being placed on the same fingertip which has a thorn lodged in it. Whereas in the former experience one as eidem can feel one’s body’s physiological pain as something differentiable from oneself as the eidem so aware of it, in the latter experience the eidem in question will momentarily find the physiological pain indifferentiable from itself as eidem. Furthering this example, transitions from allological to autological physio-pain—and vice versa—can often be fluid: one can experience allological pain progressively becoming autological pain (which, if intense enough, might drown out one’s awareness of allological pain within one’s body); conversely, one’s autological pain can progressively become an allological pain that is eventually no longer felt autologically.

The same fluidity of change between endo-allocepts and autocepts—and vice versa—can also be experienced for givens such as emotive states of being. For example, one can at first experience an allological pang of desire to obtain some given item (e.g., an ennooceived impetus conveying that purchasing some musical instrument will be beneficial to oneself) which fluidly then becomes an autological desire to obtain the given item (e.g., one then as eidem autologically holds the conviction that purchasing the musical instrument will be beneficial to oneself). Or, vice versa, one as eidem might change one’s mind about obtaining some item—and thereby no longer hold an autological desire to obtain the item—while yet experiencing pangs of desire as an eidem that obtaining this item would be beneficial and that one as eidem should proceed to do so.

Notwithstanding these complexities, we can nevertheless experientially differentiate at any given moment between those cognita which are autological and those cognita which are not.

6.2.1. The Epistemic Certainty of Our Alloawareness as Eidems

Relative to all those here concerned, because we can all tacitly, if not also explicitly, differentiate at any given moment between what we as eidems autologically experience and what we as eidems experience to not be identical to ourselves as eidems; and because no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of this experienced differentiation can be discerned by us in practice; we hold an unfalsified, and hence epistemic, certainty that we are endowed with alloawareness as eidems.

6.3. Mesoawareness

The notion of “personally experienced modes of awareness”, though itself a communicated concept, will here intend our pre-conceptually experienced modes of awareness that facilitate our awareness of allocepts—and from whose personally experienced usage we can furthermore derive concepts concerning such modes of awareness. Any such non-conceptual, personally experienced mode of awareness will be addressed as a mesocept—and our pre-conceptual awareness of our personal mesocepts will be termed our mesoawareness.

Among our most generalized mesocepts will be our physioawareness (e.g., of givens physiologically seen), phainoawareness (e.g., of givens visually imagined), and ennooawareness (e.g., of concepts which we understand). One, for example, could simultaneously physio-see a child, phaino-see the same child grown into an adult, and ennoo-understand that in-between being a child and an adult this person will hold myriad experiences—while holding the tacit capacity to differentiate between one’s sight, imagination, and understanding as three distinct modes of awareness, this while these three modes of awareness co-occur.

More specific mesocepts can be further discerned. One’s physiological sight, smell, and touch will, for example, be differentiable to oneself—such that one changes the physiology of one’s eyes to better see, takes deeper breaths to better smell, and moves one’s body so as to better touch (rather than, for example, changing the physiology of one’s eyes so as to better smell or touch).

All mesocepts will hold at least the following three qualities: Firstly, mesocepts will be known via direct personal experience, rather than being known inferentially. Secondly, mesocepts will be autologically experienced and will thereby be specific types of autocepts, rather than being experienced as allocepts. And thirdly, mesocepts will be pre-conceptually experienced with or without known concepts describing them—and will be that from which our cognized generalized ideas concerning our personal modes of awareness are derived. These properties will be next addressed in turn.

6.3.1. Mesocepts Will Be Experiential

A dichotomy can be made between experienced modes of awareness and inferred modes of awareness.

As humans we inferentially know that certain lifeforms are endowed with physiological senses we humans lack. An example of such non-human physio-sense is magnetoception—i.e. the ability to discern one’s direction relative to Earth’s magnetic fields—as it occurs in at least some species of birds. Implied in the inferred physiological sense of magnetoception is that at least certain lesser animals can experience Earth’s magnetic fields as allocepts.

As humans, however, we hold no direct experience of what it is like to experience the Earth’s magnetic fields via magnetoception. We as humans, in other words, do not hold any mesocept described by the inferentially known physio-sense of magnetoception.

Similarly, a colorblind person can hold some degree of understanding regarding what it is like for a non-colorblind person to see—this via inference and imagination—but will not, however, hold a direct experience of what the non-colorblind person’s physiological sense of sight is like. Here, the colorblind person will apprehend the concept of non-colorblind sight without holding a mesocept of non-colorblind sight. And the same can be said for a non-colorblind person’s awareness of some given type of colorblindness.

In contrast, we as individual eidems will hold a direct experience of what our own, personally held, modes and sub-modes of awareness are like qualitatively—including our personally experienced physio-touch via which we physiologically feel exo-allocepts, our personally experienced phaino-hearing via which we phainologically hear the endo-allocept of our own inner voice while introspectively questioning, and our personally experienced ennoo-understanding via which we can grasp certain senceptual allocepts, such as the concept of tree.

What our own personal physio-touch, phaino-hearing, and ennoo-understanding is like to us will to us be experientially known—rather than being modes of awareness which we know of only inferentially, such as can be said of magnetoception. And these personally held modes of awareness will be so experientially known whether or not we have terminology via which to adequately communicate what they are qualitatively like to us. One, for example, might have a difficult time in expressing what physio-hearing is like to someone who has been fully deaf since birth.

We hence know that we are not endowed with magnetoception, first and foremost, due to our own personal experiences as eidems being cognized by us as eidems to be devoid of this specific mode of awareness—rather than on account of conceptual inferences that conclude in this being the case.

Then, relative to all those here concerned: Because we can each discern between a) modes of awareness we are ourselves endowed with (e.g., the mode of awareness which facilitates our experiencing the phainological sounds of the inner voice with which we introspectively question) and b) modes of awareness we are not personally endowed with (e.g., any mode of awareness that facilitates a direct physioception of the Earth’s magnetic fields); because this personally experienced discernment between (a) and (b) is itself experienced by each of us to result from our own cognizance of the modes of awareness with which we are personally endowed (rather than, for example, from conceptual inferences regarding which personal modes of awareness we hold as eidems); and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of these aforementioned experiences; we each thereby obtain an unfalsified, and hence epistemic, certainty that we can discern between (a) and (b) due to our cognizance of the personal modes of awareness we are endowed with.

Our personal modes of awareness as eidems of which we hold direct cognizance as eidems will, again, be to each of us our own personal mesocepts.

6.3.2. Mesocepts Will Be Autological

It will first be observed that we do not experience allocepts in the absence of respective mesocepts and, conversely, that we do not experience mesocepts in the absence of respective allocepts.

We, for example, can only see things when our faculty of sight is active; and we can only experience our faulty of sight when seeing things. The same will likewise apply to our hearing, our smell, our tactile feel, our faculty of understanding concepts, and so forth.

Then, relative to all those here concerned, because we can only experience allocepts in the presence of one or more respective mesocepts; because we can only experience mesocepts in the presence of one or more respective allocepts; and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of these experiences; we hold an unfalsified, and thereby epistemic, certainty that the mesocepts we experience are intwined with the allocepts we experience and vice versa.

That stated, any given mesocept, in being an experienced mode of our personal awareness as eidems, will nevertheless be an intrinsic aspect of ourselves as eidems. In so being, mesocepts will not of themselves be experienced to be allocepts. Instead, mesocepts will be autological—hence entailing that a mesocept will be a specific type of autocept that is autoceived by the respective eidem.

For example, we do not experience ourselves to see our faculty of sight as a visual allocept. Our faculty of sight does not stand as one visual allocept among other visual allocepts which we visually discern. Instead, all visually discerned allocepts will be so discerned via our personally experienced faculty of sight which, in not being of itself an allocept, will instead be autologically experienced as an intrinsic aspect of our momentary constituency as eidems. In other words, our mesocept of sight will be autologically experienced as an aspect of what we as eidems actively do—rather than that which is apprehended via this given, autologically experienced, cognitive activity.

As another example, while we can ennooceive (more specifically, conceptually understand) the concept of conceptual understanding—thereby allowing us to analyze the attributes of this generalized idea as that which stands apart from, and is thereby other relative to, us as the eidems which so analyze—our very ennooception of this concept will not of itself be experienced by us to be other relative to ourselves as eidems. Reexpressed, our immediately experienced faculty of conceptual understanding will be experienced by us as eidems as that cognitive activity which we as eidems are engaged in doing, rather than the concept(s) apprehended via this doing. In so being, our mesocept of conceptual understanding will be a specific type of autocept—a momentarily intrinsic aspect of ourselves as eidems—whereas the concept of conceptual understanding which we can conceptually understand will be an allocept relative to us as eidems.

Then, relative to all those here concerned, because we can only experience our mesocepts to be autological (rather than allological); and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of these experiences; we hold an unfalsified, and thereby epistemic, certainty that our mesocepts are autologically experienced by us as eidems.

In review, though our mesocepts are entwined with respective allocepts and vice versa, our mesocepts will nevertheless be autocepts—rather than allocepts. Therefore, an eidem’s enactively experienced mesocepts will be constituent aspects of the respective eidem.

6.3.3. Mesocepts Will Be Non-Conceptual

A concept will again be strictly understood as a generalized idea—which, as such, cannot be perceived but only senceived; which will be other relative to ourselves as the eidems which so cognize generalized ideas; and which we thereby cognize via a faculty of ennooception. This specific faculty of ennooception will, again, be addressed as our faculty of conceptual understanding.

Then, relative to all those here concerned, because we can only autologically experience mesocepts, thereby making a mesocept a specific form of autocept; because the concepts which we cognize will be allologically experienced by us as ennoocepts, thereby making a concept a specific form of allocept; and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to these experiences; we thereby hold an unfalsified, and hence epistemic, certainty that—though we can develop concepts, i.e. generalize ideas, of mesocepts—our autological mesocepts will not of themselves be allological concepts (but can only be non-conceptual instantiations of what certain concepts specify).

Having offered this epistemic certainty that mesocepts are non-conceptual, the following can also be appraised:

Concepts pertaining to mesocepts can be derived from our own personal mesocepts in conjunction with those mesocepts we believe other eidems to be endowed with. The concept of physiological sight will serve as one example. Both those humans and lesser animals endowed with vision will be conceptually understood as endowed with the faculty of sight. As concept, the faculty of sight will be singular, and universally applicable to all individual eidems (human and non-human) which can visually apprehend allocepts. This, however, does not entail that all eidems endowed with sight will hold the same mesocept of sight. For example, while we can conceptually infer that an eight-eyed jumping spider with near 360-degree vision is endowed with sight, we will hold no accurate impression of what such arachnid’s near 360-degree vision is like. Nor, as additional examples, will we hold an accurate impression of what a cat’s night vision is like or of what and eagle’s visual acuity is like. Our own mesocept of sight, that of a jumping spider’s, that of a cat’s, and that of an eagle’s will thereby be significantly different in respect to themselves. Notwithstanding, all these will serve as instantiations of the one generalized idea of physiological sight we as humans alloceptually cognize.

Given that our mesocepts are pre-conceptually experienced, it can also be proposed that we do not need to hold concepts regarding our mesocepts in order to autologically experience such—and, furthermore, in order to autologically cognize in non-reflective manners that we so experience.

As one example of this, we can autologically differentiate between our ennooceiving the concept of conscience and our ennooceiving what our conscience wants. Both these modes of awareness will be ennoological. However, while we can conceptualize the first mode of awareness as “conceptual understanding”, we so far hold no readily available conceptualization for that ennoological mode of awareness which facilitates our apprehension of what our conscience wants us to do. Despite this, we experientially know that our awareness of our conscience as concept is significantly different from our awareness of what our conscience desires. Our autoawareness of what our conscience desires then exemplifies at least one instance in which we experientially know of a mesocept despite not having a ready formed concept regarding it.

6.3.4. The Epistemic Certainty of Our Mesoawareness as Eidems

Relative to all those here concerned, because each allocept we experience as eidems will be experienced by us via one or more modes of awareness we as eidems likewise experience (this irrespective of whether we hold generalized ideas for these experienced modes of cognizing allocepts); because we experience these personally experienced modes of awareness of cognizing allocepts to be intrinsic aspects of ourselves as eidems; and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of these experiences; the following is concluded to be an unfalsified, and hence epistemic, certainty: we hold an autological awareness of our own personal modes of awareness via which we cognize allocepts—i.e., we are autoaware of our personal mesoawareness.

6.3.5. The Epistemic Certainty That Our Mesocepts Are Synchronically Differentiable

Revisiting a previously given example, when seeing a child, simultaneously imagining what the child will look like as an adult, and simultaneously conceptualizing that between the child’s current state of being and that of becoming an adult this child will undergo a vast array of experiences—again, with these three allocepts (that of the seen child, of the imagined adult, and of the generalized idea regarding yet to be undergone experiences) occurring at the same time—one will be able to differentiate between one’s physio-sight, one’s phaino-sight, and one’s ennoo-understanding.

Then, relative to all those here concerned, because we as eidems can synchronically differentiate between at least some of our mesocepts; and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of these experiences in which we can synchronically differentiate between our mesocepts; we thereby also hold an unfalsified, and hence epistemic, certainty that we can synchronically differentiate between at least some of our mesocepts.

6.4. Protoawareness

In the hopes of more easily establishing protoawareness with epistemic certainty, this section will be minimally descriptive.

Given that allocepts are what is being apprehended by an eidem, and given that mesocepts are those autological aspects of an eidem which facilitate the apprehension of allocepts, then the protocept will be that autological aspect of an eidem which apprehends allocepts via mesocepts. Furthermore, whereas mesocepts are autologically experienced as synchronically differentiable autocepts, the protocept will be autologically experienced as a synchronically undifferentiable, and thereby singular, autocept.

For instance, that aspect of oneself as eidem which sees a child, imagines what the child will look like as an adult, and which conceptualizes the child’s yet to be undergone experiences of joy and sorrow between these two states of its being—this, for further example, while autologically experiencing a state of nostalgia in so doing—will be what is here termed the protocept: again, that which experiences allocepts via its synchronically differentiable mesocepts as a synchronically undifferentiable, and thereby singular, autocept.

6.4.1. The Epistemic Certainty of Our Protoawareness as Eidems

As individual eidems, we can autologically experience multiple mesocepts at the same time—just as we can experience multiple allocepts thereby obtained at the same time. Yet, relative to ourselves as individual eidems, we autologically experience ourselves as that which apprehends these multiple allocepts via multiple mesocepts to be singular and synchronically undifferentiable. Our momentary autoawareness of being that which apprehends will, again, be an autoawareness of being a singular autocept—rather than being a plurality of diverse, autologically experienced, mesocepts. This singular and synchronically undifferentiable aspect of ourselves as eidems will, again, be termed the protocept.

No attention will be here given to the ontological relation between protocepts and their respective mesocepts. Instead, here is strictly intended an evidencing that, relative to all those here concerned, we as eidems will at any given juncture be constituted of multiple mesocepts and a singular protocept.

Then, relative to all those here concerned, because we can synchronically experience multiple mesocepts and multiple allocepts thereby obtained; because these experiences are further experienced to pivot around a singular and synchronically undifferentiable autocept which we autoceive to be our own being (that singular autocept which we reference by the pronoun “I”) to which both allocepts and mesocept pertain; and because we in practice can find no justifiable alternative to the occurrence of these experiences; we then hold an unfalsified, and hence epistemic, certainty that we as individual eidems autologically experience ourselves to be in part constituted of a singular protocept (which autologically experiences its own mesocepts as additional aspects of itself as an eidem that experiences allocepts).

It is emphasized that—just as we do not experience allocepts in the absence of mesocepts—neither do we experience mesocepts in the absence of our protoawareness, of ourselves as the protocept to which mesocepts belong.

It also bears note that the protocept, in addition to being aware of allocepts and mesocepts, will also be experienced as that which is autoaware of its own emotive state of being (such as that of nostalgia) and cognitive activity (such as that of volition).

6.5. Concluding Remarks

Because we in practice cannot discern any justifiable alternative to our experiences of allocepts, to our autologically experienced mesocepts as eidems, and to our own autoawareness as a protocept, the occurrence of our alloawareness, mesoawareness, and protoawareness will to us be of epistemic certainty.

Furthermore, because we as eidems are constituted of a protocept and of multiple mesocepts, and because mesocepts only obtain wherever allocepts are apprehended, our awareness as eidems shall perpetually be constituted of all three strata of awareness just mentioned. Hence, our awareness as eidems will always in part consist of a duality between ourselves as eidems and that which is other.

The numerous complexities which can then unfold—such as regarding a protocept’s remembrances of mesocepts previously experienced that are however no longer experienced in the present moment (such as can occur when a non-blind person is blindfolded)—will be here overlooked. It is worth mentioning, however, that, granting the validity of the epistemic certainties this chapter has presented, such complexities will not mitigate the threefold awareness of an eidem which has been here presented.

That having been said, due to the following possibility’s pertinence to the overall treatise, it will be here tangentially addressed in brief:

We cannot presently establish with epistemic certainty that a perfectly non-dualistic awareness is impossible to obtain. In contemplating this hypothetical, however, it can be established that were such perfectly non-dualistic awareness to obtain, it could not be that of an eidem’s—for, as has been heretofore established, all those here concerned will, as eidems, be constituted of both a protocept and mesocepts, and will thereby always be aware of allocepts, hence of other, via the mesocepts experienced. Instead, such hypothesized non-dualistic awareness could solely be constituted of a protoawareness devoid of any allocepts and, therefore, devoid of any mesocepts. Moreover, because there would be no other or otherness via which the given protocept could find limits, this pure protocept would then technically consist of a limitless autoawareness that, in not being bounded by anything, would then be literally selfless.

For contextualization, it might be worth noting that such selfless, thereby formless, and limitless, thereby infinite, autoawareness can—dependent on culture and on disposition—be interpreted as for example pertaining to Nirvana, Brahman, Ein Sof, or God.

Furthering this same hypothetical, in at least one possible interpretation of it, the protocept of each eidem can be inferred as being an individuated, and thereby finite, aspect, or fragment, of an otherwise non-dualistic, limitless, and selfless protoawareness. Even when so interpreted, however, the protocept of each eidem will nevertheless yet persist in being individualized as a self in part via its autoceived mesocepts and the respective allocepts it thereby stands in contrast to and apprehends (and, as will be addressed in later portions of this work, will be furthermore individualized by its volitions as protocept).

Having briefly addressed this hypothetical—and regardless of whether a perfectly non-dualistic (auto)awareness is possible—it will remain the case that for as long as a protocept will be endowed with mesocepts it shall be an eidem and, as such, shall hold a dualistic relation to allocepts—thereby being a self minimally demarcated, and hence limited, by its relations to other.

This addressed duality shall, again, be entailed in an eidem’s trifold awareness of alloceptual, mesoceptual, and protoceptual cognizance.