Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Moments of Truth
- 2 Fragmented Experience in Bulimia Nervosa
- 3 Apprehending Pristine Experience
- 4 Everyday Experience
- 5 Moments Are Essential
- 6 Experience in Tourette's Syndrome
- 7 The Moment (Not): Happy and Sad
- 8 Subjunctification
- 9 Before and After Experience? Adolescence and Old Age
- 10 Iteration Is Essential
- 11 Epistemological Q/A
- 12 A Consciousness Scientist as DES Subject
- 13 Pristine Experience (Not): Emotion and Schizophrenia
- 14 Multiple Autonomous Experience in a Virtuoso Musician
- 15 Unsymbolized Thinking
- 16 Sensory Awareness
- 17 The Radical Non-subjectivity of Pristine Experience
- 18 Diamonds versus Glass
- 19 Into the Floor: A Right-or-Wrong-Answer Natural Experiment
- 20 The Emergence of Salient Characteristics
- 21 Investigating Pristine Inner Experience
- Appendix: List of Constraints
- References
- Index
18 - Diamonds versus Glass
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Moments of Truth
- 2 Fragmented Experience in Bulimia Nervosa
- 3 Apprehending Pristine Experience
- 4 Everyday Experience
- 5 Moments Are Essential
- 6 Experience in Tourette's Syndrome
- 7 The Moment (Not): Happy and Sad
- 8 Subjunctification
- 9 Before and After Experience? Adolescence and Old Age
- 10 Iteration Is Essential
- 11 Epistemological Q/A
- 12 A Consciousness Scientist as DES Subject
- 13 Pristine Experience (Not): Emotion and Schizophrenia
- 14 Multiple Autonomous Experience in a Virtuoso Musician
- 15 Unsymbolized Thinking
- 16 Sensory Awareness
- 17 The Radical Non-subjectivity of Pristine Experience
- 18 Diamonds versus Glass
- 19 Into the Floor: A Right-or-Wrong-Answer Natural Experiment
- 20 The Emergence of Salient Characteristics
- 21 Investigating Pristine Inner Experience
- Appendix: List of Constraints
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter 17 (really the entire book) made the point that bits of pristine experience are radically non-subjective – they have particular, pretty darn directly apprehendable characteristics – and that distinguishes them from other presumed mental structures or processes that are matters of inference, opinion, or impression. Let's call the radically non-subjective bits “diamonds” (following Hurlburt & Heavey, 2006, p. 255) and the other presumed structures/processes “glass”; I invoke that metaphor to highlight the relatively unyielding phenomenal nature of bits of pristine experience. Karen's innerly seeing bubble-letter “abuse treatment” (Chapter 17), Ephraim's attending to the amoeba shape of the soup in his spoon (Chapter 16), Abigail's wondering whether Julio would be driving his pickup truck (Chapter 15), Ricardo Cobo's not-yet-formed seeing of the TV (Chapter 14), and the other examples in this book – are all diamonds, bits of experience that were the way they were and no other way, impervious to the opinion of others or influence by outside forces. Karen directly (but innerly) saw bubble letters that had thin black borders (not thick, not red, not solid). Ephraim's experience at the moment of the beep was dominated by the soup shape on his spoon (not its taste, the music in the room, or anything else). Abigail directly experienced a wondering, which had no experienced words or images. Cobo saw brown and gray but not the TV from which it emanated.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Investigating Pristine Inner ExperienceMoments of Truth, pp. 347 - 360Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011