Viscerally Interpersonal
We develop symbol and language movement sequences to use as recognition triggers for the sensory guided entity and event movement sequences we have identified. These entities and events in turn access constellations of neuronal networks within the core of experience and activate them in preparation for a potential response. This is a highly efficient system that enables us to almost immediately prepare for a variety of potential responses to situations based on our prior experience. We are preparing to respond to the world in accordance with the expectations we have developed from experience, a world of plurabilities rather than possibilities (see Of Two Minds #10).
There is general agreement regarding the entities identified by the sensory guided movement sequences that define their contour and form in the perceptual world. We similarly find consensus about how they function in the world. Although we also recognize other people by their contours and forms, it is more difficult to find agreement about their functioning. If someone on the street suddenly yells in our direction, is it a warning, a verbal assault or an action that has nothing to do with us? Should we be looking or not looking, moving away or standing our ground, feeling amused or frightened? It is often impossible to find general agreement about how to respond within the interpersonal realm.
In the pre-empirical core of experience, we develop both a sensory guided world of objects and a viscerally guided realm that involves other people. The former world functions in accordance with generally agreed upon, empirically valid observations, while the latter is colored by personal, visceral experiences. Although one might say that the former realm is objective and the latter subjective, these two realms are largely determined by our conscious awareness of sensory versus visceral guidance.
We are initially led through the realities we encounter at the first tier by visceral processes that guide us toward meeting our wants and needs. This visceral guidance gradually gives way to the more reliably identifiable sensory based recognitions we develop. We become so dependent on the forms and contours we recognize that we are largely unaware of the visceral processes that underlie the objective, form-based world they enable us to create.
The interpersonal realm of other people is also initially predicated on visceral guidance and gradually identified by sensory forms and contours, but this only establishes a facade on the surface of conscious awareness. Our interpersonal experience core remains dominated by visceral guidance and the viscerally based personal resonance made possible by mirroring (see Of Two Minds # 20). These unvoiced core processes are not easily identified as entities and events and remain hidden beneath the objective contours of the world we construct.
We are not only less aware of why we do the things we do (see Chapter 10 of The Two Tiers of Consciousness: A Physiological Paradigm), but the objective surface that overlies our interpersonal world screens off its underlying, unvoiced visceral core. Rationality is embraced regardless of the shallow objectivity it offers, while subjective feelings are avoided. This leads to an understanding of the human condition that is often muddled, confused and riddled in contradictions.
The entities and events we identify at the verbal-symbolic tier are not the realities we encounter at the first tier. They present an objective version of reality based on sensory recognition processes that is largely blind to the underlying visceral forces that determine our choices. It is not surprising that Freud saw these unvoiced forces as unconscious and analyzed interpersonal relationships as object relations. Any world created solely from the entities and events we recognize misses unvoiced, unidentified core experiences essential to the human condition. The unavoidable omission of unvoiced core guidance in artificial intelligence will lead us astray if we try to use AI as a guide rather than a tool.
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