Karl Pribram

In an attempt to formulate a coherent view of quantum reality, the theoretical physicist David Bohm has proposed a new concept of order to supplement the mechanistic Cartesian order of traditional physics. The "implicate" order is a subtler and deeper order that emphasizes "unbroken wholeness in flowing movement," in contrast to the coarser and more superficial, "explicate" Cartesian order of distinct phenomena.

This dissertation attempts to develop a meaning for the idea of implicate order in the human world. First is offered an account of some evolutionary episodes in terms of implicate and explicate order which draws on compatible work in cosmology, embryogenesis, visual perception, brain memory, decision making and phenomenology.

Two important characteristics of the implicate order are then identified: in an implicate order, the whole is enfolded (or represented) in each of its parts; and all parts renders different perspectives of the whole. Using arguments from decision making, the study of "flow" in human consciousness, and a model of skill acquisition, it is suggested that these characteristics manifest themselves in the human world as the "unity experience" and the "diversity experience," respectively. The former is the experience that a given part of one's life reveals a larger wholeness or unity; the subject-object distinction is transcended and one becomes absorbed in the flow of whatever activity is pursued. The latter is a deep appreciation of the diversity of ways in which people may seek the unity experience. These experiences are proposed as general values: social and psychological conditions ought to be such that these experiences are enhanced in all people.

A two-by-two matrix of these experiences demonstrates the danger of pursuing one to the exclusion of the other. The experience of unity without diversity turns into absolutism, the insistence that one's chosen activities or beliefs are the only right one. The experience of diversity without unity becomes relativism, the excessive tolerance of and indifference to other people's pursuits. The good life lies in the simultaneous realization of both, unity-in-diversity. Lastly, it is suggested that this so-called unity-diversity matrix may be used as a personal compass the meaning of which is negotiated and calibrated in a community of users.

The Pribram-Bohm holoflux theory, a model describing the topology of consciousness in the universe, is presented here to address the issue posed by David Chalmers in his “hard problem of consciousness.” The theory emerges from an integral evaluation of evidence drawn from two sources: (1) the holonomic mind/brain theories of Karl Pribram, (2) the ontological interpretation of quantum theory by David Bohm. From their work emerges the holoflux theory, after a term proposed by Karl Pribram to express the flow characterized by David Bohm as the “holomovement,” a two-way flow of consciousness between the explicate order and the implicate order. This hypothesis supports both local and non-local phenomena in the observable cosmos.
Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance and Ervin László’s holofield theory are examined and shown to be congruent with the holoflux theory. László’s postulated existence of two domains or dimensions of cosmological architecture, an “A-dimension” equivalent to Bohm’s implicate order and an “M-dimension,” equivalent to Bohm’s explicate, space–time material domain. Sheldrake’s morphic resonance biological forms are described as products of a Fourier transform-like process between these same two domains.
Concluding remarks support the congruence of the Pribram–Bohm topological model with other major paradigms of consciousness, including those elaborated by Chalmers, Lilly, Block, and Teilhard de Chardin.

Abstract (added for 2013 upload): This chapter compares classical dualist and reductionist views of phenomenal consciousness with an alternative, reflexive way of viewing the relations amongst consciousness, brain and the external physical world. It argues that dualism splits the universe in two fundamental ways: in viewing phenomenal consciousness as having neither location nor extension it splits consciousness from the material world, and subject from object. Materialist reductionism views consciousness as a brain state or function (located and extended in the brain) which eliminates the consciousness/material world split, but retains the split of subject from object. The chapter argues that neither dualism nor reductionism accurately describes the phenomenal world; consequently they each provide a misleading understanding of phenomenal consciousness. Reflexive monism follows the contours of everyday experience, thereby allowing a more unified understanding of how phenomenal consciousness relates to the brain and external physical world that is consistent both with the findings of science and with common sense. The chapter goes on to consider how phenomenal objects relate to real objects, perceptual projection, how phenomenal space relates to physical space, whether the brain is in the world or the world in the brain, and why this matters for science.

I argue in this essay that Derrida understood the logic operative in Freud’s thinking over the course of his entire life in a way that justifies my showing its presence in Freud’s earliest neurological texts. I show that in their radicality: an interactionist neurology based on inscription and archiving, opposition to the 19th century cortico-centrism (and the homunculus model of psychic sovereignty), and an opposition to traditional “localizationism” the Freudian model of the brain and mind would have advanced the understanding of the mental “archive” about a hundred years before this upheaval took place in neuroscience.
In Mal d’archive Derrida brings Freud’s logic into dialogue with Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, author of Freud’s Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable (1993). Yerushalmi’s argument, based on his reading of the dedication Freud’s father inscribed on the Bible that he returned to his adult son, amounts to this question: how best to take seriously the idea that psychoanalysis is, or was, a Jewish science? What does it mean to create a “Jewish” science; how is a Jewish science different from a Christian science, or a Muslim science? In various studies on Freud, Derrida proposes responses to Yerushalmi’s question (Mal d’Archive, Être juste avec Freud, and La bête et le souverain II). I examine these herein.

"Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes (eds.), Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind, Albany, New York, State University of New York Press, 2009. (484 p. ; ISBN 978-1-4384-2941-0 ; 65,32 €) (Jan 2011, paperback, ISBN 978-1-4384-2940-3)
A good part of what fuels the current boom in consciousness studies is the robust progress of cognitive psychology and neuroscience toward reaching consensus explanations of just about anything except consciousness. Despite hopes that empirical research and computational modeling would constrain theory, it seems that scholarly debate has not so much reached an impasse as remained at one reached in the 17th century. Given the massive effort currently invested in research and debate, the lack of progress towards a general (and generally accepted) theory of consciousness begins indeed to make consciousness look like a kind of 21st century Philosopher’s Stone, whose hidden nature seems to hold the key to the greatest mysteries, but continues to elude us. Accordingly, the present volume taps leading researchers and theorists in the study of consciousness and Whitehead scholars to explore an interface between process thinking and the burgeoning field of consciousness studies. In sum, the rationale for such a project has two main facets: first, the state of an educated debate that seems, first, unproductive and peculiarly burdened by its deep modernist origins; and, secondly, marked more by disciplinary rivalry than interdisciplinary synthesis.
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Preface, Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes
1. Main Themes of the Book
2. Précis of the Contributions
I. Introductory Essays, Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes
1. Process Thought as a Heuristic for Investigating Consciousness
2. Whitehead as a Neglected Figure of 20th Century Philosophy
3. Consciousness as a Topic of Investigation in Western Thought
4. Whitehead’s Unique Approach to the Topic of Consciousness
II. Psychology and Philosophy of Mind
5. Consciousness as a Subjective Form, David Ray Griffin (Claremont)
6. The Interpretation and Integration of the Literature on Consciousness from a Process Perspective, Michael W. Katzko (Nijmegen)
7. Windows on Nonhuman Minds, Donald R. Griffin (Harvard)
III. From Metaphysics to (Neuro-)Science and Back Again
8. Panexperientialism, Quantum Theory, and Neuroplasticity, George W. Shields (Kentucky State)
9. The Evolution of Consciousness, Max Velmans (Goldsmiths)
10. The Carrier Theory Of Causation, Gregg H. Rosenberg (New York)
IV. Applications to Psychiatry: Consciousness as Process
11. The Microgenetic Revolution in Contemporary Neuropsychology and Neurolinguistics, Maria Pachalska (Lublin and Gdansk) and Bruce Duncan MacQueen (Bydgoszcz)
12. From Coma to Consciousness, Avraham Schweiger (Tel Aviv), Michael Frost (Tel Aviv) , Ofer Keren (Raanana and Tel-Aviv)
13. Consciousness and Rationality from a Process Perspective, Michel Weber (Chromatiques)
V. History (and Future?) of Philosophy
14. Consciousness, Memory, and Recollection according to Whitehead, Xavier Verley (Toulouse le Mirail)
15. Consciousness and Causation in Light of Whitehead’s Phenomenology of Becoming, Anderson Weekes (New York)"

The top of the mountain does not belong to the mountain, but to Heaven. In the study of the brain, science must begin with this truth and understand: the summit and master of the body, the brain is not matter, but pure Energy; not flesh, but Spirit. // Вершина горы принадлежит не горе, а Небесам. В изучении мозга наука должна начинать с этой истины и понимать: вершина и владыка тела, мозг есть не материя, а чистая Энергия; не плоть, а Дух.

En el libro "La Convergencia holística" , hacia 1993, revisé el proceso histórico que condujo a la cosmovisión no participativa (cfr Morris Berman) , a las representaciones diurnas del mundo (cfr Gilbert Durand), al olvido del ser (Martín Heidegger) para dilucidar filosóficamente la crisis de la conciencia espiritual de occidente y del mundo occidentalizado en el siglo XX y XXI. El texto se escribió para su aprobación por los eventuales jurados del doctorado en filosofía de la Universidad Javeriana, doctorado que nunca terminé, pues muy a tiempo me dí cuenta que mi libertad filosófica, laboral y académica era un camino divergente de la carrera académica institucional, tan ceñida a ciertos implícitos paradigmas epistemológicos de la comunidad filosófica internacional. El libro contiene tres ensayos, y delineé el cuarto. Aquí su esbozo, muy relacionable por cierto con otro texto, de difusión y lenguaje menos academicista, en la colección de artículos que llamé El retorno a Lo Sagrado (1999). En el presente esbozo hago referencias a los tres primeros ensayos de mi tesis doctoral.