Dreyfus, Ferrante and me
I have been developing the concept of two tiers of consciousness for the past two years. In my blog entries to Of Two Minds, I have been focused on the specific implications of the pre-empirical substrate I proposed for first tier experiences. This physiological substrate establishes a physical core of experience at the first tier prior to the differentiation of entities and events at the verbal-symbolic tier.
First-tier experiences are continuous and unvoiced, and they are largely directed by visceral guidance with an urgency and physicality that is both personal and authentic. The conscious version of the world that we develop at the second tier is abstracted away from this core, and it is simplified, predictable and largely under our control. We create a conscious version of the world that we can understand and control.
Hubert Dreyfus was a brilliant philosophy professor at U. C. Berkeley and an expert on Martin Heidegger. He recorded a podcast of his 2007 lectures for Philosophy 6 on the great classics of Western literature. I am presently listening to his presentation of the Oresteia written by Aesculus at the height of the Athenian empire nearly 2500 years ago. Dreyfus emphasizes the tension embodied in the three plays between the Furies, ancient, viscerally intense spiritual forces connected to the individual and family, and the spiritual sanctions of the Olympian gods representing order and the law.
When I am done working for the day, my wife and I usually watch a movie or TV series, and we are currently rewatching My Brilliant Friend, an HBO series based on the Neapolitan stories of Elena Ferrante. The stories portray the contrast between the southern Italians of Naples and the northern Italians of Florence. The Neapolitans are brash, outspoken and physically intense in both their loves and disputes whereas the northern Italians are educated, refined and articulate. The main character is caught within the ongoing tensions that arise between the two groups.
As I listened to Professor Dreyfus’ podcast lectures this past week, I realized that the tensions that tortured the protagonists in Aesculus’ plays is strikingly represented in the contrast between Ferrante’s northern and southern Italians. I envision this as a fundamental tension within the human condition that arises at the interface between the two tiers of consciousness. This version of a strange loop, to use Hofstadter’s term, arises at times between the continuous core of experience and the differentiated world we create. It generates tension and leads to impasses that can only be resolved through mediation and compromise.
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