by Steven Bindeman & Karl Javorszky
DRAFT ONE
PUBLISHING DETAILS
© 2017 Dr. Steven Bindeman, Dr. Karl Javorszky
Authors: Dr. Steven Bindeman and Dr. Karl Javorszky
Cover photo: vernonwiley – iStockphoto.com
Graphic design: Felicitas Siegl-Linhart, 1200 Vienna
Verlag: Morawa Lesezirkel GmbH, Wien
ISBN: 978-3-99070-086-0 (e-Book)
The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. Any use of this work without the permission of the publisher and the authors is prohibited. This applies in particular to its reproduction, translation, dissemination and release to the public in electronic or any other form. Typographical and printing errors excepted. Dr. Bindeman would like to acknowledge the use of modified material from his book Silence in Philosophy, Literature and Art (Brill, 2017).
sb and kj This is an experiment in dialogical reasoning. It is a dialogue on a subject common to everybody and everything: that which is not there. This subject marks an absence, which envelops us and enables us to function as human beings in the world. Since the problem of grasping what is not there will always be a challenge, what we want to do here is paradoxical: we want to own – to understand – what does not exist. In order to accomplish this we will also have to learn how the human emotional experience is transmitted to the brain by the auditive apparatus. Only then will we begin to recognize how silence is merely one of many appearances of what is not there. However, silence may ultimately be recognized as the most accessible of these phenomena. Because of the credible interpersonal tradition of silence in culture, silence may even count as an objective fact and not just as a shared emotional experience.
It needs to be pointed out up front that while we are both careful to acknowledge our sources, neither of us is particularly interested in the niceties of traditional scholarship. Instead we are both committed to mapping out the world of silence as clearly as we can.
We are both also very aware of the fact that our mutual confrontation with silence challenges the natural order of things. When ordinary discourse is brought up against silence, its limits are challenged at a very basic level. It is becoming increasingly urgent that we learn to realize how our ordinary, historically based, habitual way of understanding reality is consistent with a way of thinking that is over 400 years old – namely the causality of Newtonian empiricism. Since our ways of measuring the world have grown far more sophisticated over the time period from then to now, we can no longer afford to hold on to this point of view.
Nature, of course, keeps her calm with respect to this controversy among us humans. She just keeps doing her things, in her own fashion. We humans are left with no choice other than having to align our understanding, and our efforts of understanding, just exactly what, and according to which rules, Mother Nature does to the facts observed. The facts show that Nature ignores some of our definitions, and appears to work according to rules that do not always obey our other definitions. The insights resulting from not understanding some of Nature’s processes will lead us to experiencing cognitive dissonance and some resistance in following avenues of thoughts that lead us outside of the system of what has been termed traditionally as “rational thinking,” insofar as rational thinking means following age-honored systems of definitions.
As a psychologist, one cannot – and will not want to – avoid thinking in a fashion that accepts the existence of logical conflicts and of contradictions. The resolution of this challenge is equally important to a philosopher as well, since the confrontation with silence forces one to deal with the problem of how to work beyond the limitations of ordinary language. One of the explanations behind this challenge has to do with why classical Greek tragedies retain their immortal cultural value. The answer lies in spite of the fact that even though each participant in these tragedies acts according to a well-reasoned and impeccable logic, he still comes to a bad end. While no one is at fault – or “logically wrong” – by pursuing his goals, the situations still make conflict unavoidable. The moral behind these tragic visions is the realization that not shying away from dealing with logical conflicts opens up wider perspectives for dealing with Nature’s machinations. Once one is ready to disregard traditional definitions, one is free to construct explanatory models that describe Nature in a simple, easy and comprehensive fashion and deliver the penny that drops while one cries “Aha!”.
Catching that which is not absolutely true is a challenge. Framing a logical “not” statement as the mere absence of a “true” statement, however, avoids this challenge – and also misrepresents the complexity of the silence phenomenon. Just as linguists and culture historians don't give up trying to understand what is outside of what is already understood, accountants and other numbers people similarly won’t throw in the towel at trying to corner such an elusive concept.
The cooperation between a philosopher and a psychologist has brought forth this essay. Its body is mostly constructed by the philosopher, and is related to the cultural construct of silence. Interspersed with its paragraphs are text blocks/optically detached/in which the formal arguments implicit to this construct presented in response by the psychologist are reflected.
sb1 1.0 Silence is a phenomenon, an event (not a thing, and not an idea) that takes place or happens in or around time.
Silence is also the absence of a signal, which is registered along an axis that is temporal.
If silence were a thing, it would have properties, including the facts that it would be observable and it would be definable.
That signal which signals the absence of any properties cannot be assigned any properties that go beyond its existence in a temporal sequence.
If silence were an idea, it would be perfect and unchangeable.
If silence were an idea, it would belong to the class of all words in an ideal language, and therefore be a part of an elaborate and detailed system of tautologies.
Since silence must be characterized as an absence rather than a presence it cannot be observed. Therefore it is not a thing.
Since silence is part of human experience it cannot be perfect or unchangeable. Therefore it is not an idea.
kj1 That which is not here is by its nature in contrast to that which is here. If one’s inner habitat has the property between the lines of “whatever you do or think, it will have a flaw,” then the non-existing will be perfect and flawless. If one makes, in spite of this general fallibility, a system of concepts which is perfect (because one has created them and defined their perfectness) then the world outside would in contrast appear mysterious and puzzling. It should be noted in this context that the idea of “not” is well integrated in logic, as a connector between concepts. In other words, if it can be assigned a symbol, then it exists.
sb2 For example, take the following logical syllogism:
A or B
not B
Therefore, A.
In this case, the term “not” has a definite meaning and function in the syllogism: it means that statement B is not true – its function is to negate statement B’s claim to being true. Since the term "not" has a definite meaning and function, then it exists.
2.0 Silence exists at the edge of language.
Language consists of words and silences.
Words represent things and ideas and feelings but are themselves empty shells.
Silences exist between words — and before and after them as well.
Silences enable words to make sense. They provide the necessary mental space that the mind requires to make connections.
kj2 The basic idea of a mental space is represented in our inner picture of the number line. We see units spaced one after the other. What we direct the attention of the reader to are the cuts that separate the units. Similarly, silence seen phenomenologically is a cut in the flow of (linguistically defined) experience.
sb3 3.0 Silence is relational. It has to do with the relation between self and world.
Silence cannot be experienced immediately or directly. The noise of our own body gets in the way. If there is a primordial silence we cannot know it directly either.
We experience silence, then, only in relation to other experiences.
We experience silence first of all as a disruption in the connection of self and world within a given linguistic framing of reality.
For example, babies achieve a level of neurological maturity as they experience and enjoy silence for the first time. Thus, while silence may have disrupted their world, they will have benefited from the disruption all the same.
Silence can also be experienced as part of the mystical experience of the conjoining of self and world.
This is not unlike the experience of pre-school children, who learn to use their inner creativity as they discover daydreaming.
Both experiences, namely disruptive silence and healing silence, exist beyond words. The temporal framing of both experiences is different, though.
Disruptive silence takes place within linear external time, the one that is measured by a clock Its agenda is practical, for when the limits of a particular discursive frame are bumped against repeatedly, then the defining characteristics of that frame are clarified and an avenue leading to other forms of discourse is introduced.
With our introduction of disruptive silence as a kind of limit, we also introduce the concept of the “not,” as a sequenced enumeration of a definite beginning along with a fixed number of elements.
There is also the experience of healing silence, which takes place within vertical internal time-consciousness, and is experienced in terms of heightened levels of emotional and spiritual intensity. It is a breaking through beyond language that is in contrast to, and even dependent on, the breaking down of language by disruptive silence.
Healing silence involves a second sense of the “not” too, since it also involves the content of what occurrences did not take place during the interval.
Disruptive silence takes us away from ourselves, while healing silence reflexively brings us back.
kj3 The reflexivity of healing silence brings out the fact that the physiology of the brain is based on the rhythmicity between being awake and sleeping – this is also like the rhythmicity with the lungs on breathing in and breathing out. Both these examples illustrate how the thinking brain has quite a challenge to understand the sleeping id. Yet, every morning we find the chess pieces rearranged for the next play, the instincts recoordinated and so on; so the Traumzwilling (dream-twin) does its part too. We cannot understand how it works, because it disassembles our understanding mechanism for cleanup and maintenance. By listening to our inner silence, we may feel what happens while we are not present.
The Traumzwilling is that person who inhabits my body while I am away, e.g. by sleeping, being drunk, in a coma, etc. In normal cases, one experiences this twin in the periodicity of being asleep and being awake. He feeds on what is for me waste. In the evening, I am all tired, poisoned, unlusty, fed up, sleepy, I want to get away from that all. For the twin, however, this is appetizing good news. He feeds on my waste products and generates his own waste, on which I get my hearty fill next morning. My exhausted and drained cells are filled up with food for him, and after he has self-toxicated, I live off his excrements.
The betting chip is turned over during the day to its red side. My using it now shows that I have run out of resources to do the next round. My dream- twin then comes to the evening roulette table and is happy, because for him, the chip’s being red side up means there is fresh credit available and now he can arrange things and manage them as he sees fit. Having completed his strategies, he runs out of choices, since all chips are now green side up. I appear and am happy that I can do at my pleasure and insight what I want to do with my own numerous green chips. If the relation above is collegial and friendly, so much the better, since getting angry with oneself seldom helps. It is better to find out first why so many chips remain red side up and then find a compromise, than it is to remain in conflict.
(The Traumzwilling also plays a key role in the creative process, and we will turn to this phenomenon later.)
sb4 4.0 When silence is framed within a social context it is a key element in a speech act or performance.
Silence in performance is an utterance of a particular kind, a way of saying something determinate, a moment of (indirect) discourse.
It appears in two ways: as intervening silence and as fore-and-after silence. (Dauenhauer, 1980)
Intervening silence punctuates the words and phrases in speech.
Fore-and-after silence relates to the whole of a performance in terms of its point of departure and termination — if mishandled the audience may feel confused or even distressed.
kj4 Here we introduce the mathematical construct of the number line, in order to illustrate the idea that the two types of silence discussed above, namely fore and after silence and intervening silence, have distinct mathematical properties that can best be presented in this context.
We begin by distinguishing between level 1 and level 2 cuts. We see the concepts of the whole and parts of the whole developed here. This problem was first introduced by the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno, and not resolved for over 2000 years until the modern British philosopher Whitehead solved it by making the distinction between discrete and continuous orders. This brings us the present issue: is silence discrete or continuous?
One can regard the cuts that separate the entries of N to be of a unitary character: these level 1 cuts simply show that left of the cut is an element and right of the cut is an element, where the elements are implicitly assumed to be similar, only distinguishable by their position. The main order, [Karl, please explain why this is the main level and also how this relates to the two types of silence discussed here] level 2, cuts are those that commence and finalize a sequence of elements. A simple example would be the cuts that delimit one or more prime numbers against those that are not prime. There are intervals of varying lengths between two primes, and the cuts that show the end of a sequence of non-primes and the beginning of a sequence of 1 or more primes: these cuts have an additional force of cutting. [Karl, why do they have an additional force?] Silence as an intervening symbol is understood to stand for a simple cut, while silence as a fore or after symbol is understood to be of a higher category of cuts.
We can see that we use the distinctions between simple and strong [Karl, Is strong the same thing as higher? This whole idea of cuts needs further clarification] cuts by recognizing that in saying a+b=c we assume that the strong cut between a and b has disappeared as we have achieved the state of the collection as a c. In c, there is no distinction between the last of a and the first of b: we have in effect demoted a category 2 cut into a simple, basic cut of level 1. The cultural convention is that we may wish away this distinction and there will be no reckoning for denying having done anything of relevance. We hope that this cavalier attitude to the sensibilities of cuts will not cause them to cause mayhem and exact a terrible revenge on our thinking, making some natural and logical processes incomprehensible, as we cannot for the sake of sanity imagine, what on Earth could cause these funny idiosyncrasies of Nature.
The global – local controversy can be approached in formal thinking by the technique of re-sequencing. Let us imagine a collection of n elements that are sorted on a property A. The same elements could also be sorted on a different property B. The transformation between the two sorting orders involves changes of places. It is almost unavoidable, that this happens by means of closed loops (chains, strings, convoys). (The literature deals with this subject under the name of ‘cyclic permutations’.) The elements within a cycle are sequenced; they are distinguished among each other by cuts of type 1. Among each other however the cycles are not sequenced and they are alien to each other by means of cuts that are of a higher level than 1.
Silence and cuts can only be conceptualized in a system that follows the general principle of order. For example, a sequence of random noises, separated by silences of random type, is obeying the principle of order, namely that of randomness.
sb5 5.0 Deep silence is an additional kind of silence, which may or may not occur in a social context.
kj5 Within the context of the absence of symbols, there can appear the case that inner mechanisms within both parties to a communication between sender and receiver will take place in a specific fashion.
sb6 Deep silence may occur between intimates, bound by love or hate, standing together in abiding silence that involves sharing an understanding that is beyond words.
kj6 The inner processes have to do with the – outwardly invisible – processes of incurporation, digestion, reconditioning, processing, mulling, unveiling, comprehending, classifying, categorizing etc. of the situation. (Situation=intersection of the sets of semantic markers of persons.)
One school of thought (Rohracher, 1969) holds that micro-vibrations are signals of a micropantomime which is instinctively understood. This allows the idea of bio-synchronicity. The silence becomes meaningful if the meaning is generated by the rhythmicity of inner physiological processes that can – but will not necessarily be: voir poker players – transmitted by means of micro-vibrations. The better bio-synchronized two systems are – e.g. mother and child —, the better understanding can be achieved. For the effectivity of the process, it is helpful if there is no other interference, that is, when silence reigns.
sb7 Deep silence may also occur within a liturgical context when it is sustained by private, silent prayer.
kj7 The brain being a manifold, one is always free to picture thinking as a collective process among many competing and cooperating actors. The oddity of something which does not agree to the rules generally in use throughout the assembly will become recognizable if the assembly is in neutral gear, idling, under no external disturbance. Then, the effects of constant inner oscillation will bring up from among the unstructured that what is structured. (Like a shaking sieve makes objects seem to appear on top in a basin of sand.)
sb8 To further illustrate the concept of oscillation (which he found in Norbert Wiener’s work) Gregory Bateson tells the story of being in New Guinea and trying to stand in a wobbly canoe (since, as a male, it was his assigned role to stand and paddle and not to sit). This made him experience the feeling of being “prone to oscillation which may be excessive and disrupt the system called ‘man’s-standing-in-canoe.” Whenever the canoe wobbled he would fall into the water. He had to learn that falling in the water didn’t matter. But more importantly he had to learn not to be afraid of the oscillation. “And the way to convince myself that I could control the oscillation was to cause it. If I made the canoe wobble with my feet, the wobbling caused by me was controllable and not frightening. There’s a mine of psychotherapy in that parable.” With this discussion Bateson exemplifies the modernist belief that control over key aspects of our social environment is possible (and that it is even of fundamental importance for therapy). What is central to schizophrenia theory, however, is his application of Wiener’s idea of a cybernetic feedback system of uncontrollable oscillating perceptions of difference, to the pathological condition of obsessive disorder. (Wiener gives the example of a patient trying to pick up a pencil, constantly overshooting the mark, and going into uncontrollable oscillation; he coined his term “cybernetics” to refer to the need for a governor, or steersman of such a feedback system.) In other words, schizophrenics suffer from an inability to gain control over their oscillating perceptions concerning their environment. Their fearfulness of being out of control in the first place will often be the first obstacle to regaining other kinds of control.
Deep silence may also take place as the “to-be-said,” where it performs the normative function of either validating or invalidating what has been uttered before it.
kj8 The special case of silence – the absence of signals in an auditive channel – is a specific among the general cases by being temporally sequenced. Silence has a predecessor and a successor, and within itself, its elements (microseconds, tics, units) are strictly sequenced.
The general case is not time-bound. The sentence a+b=c states that both processes, the fusion of a and into c, and the fission of c into a and b are considered equivalent readings of the sentence. A true, classical tautology knows no cause or effect, there is no reason for something to be the case because something had previously been the case; all of that what is the case is independent of reason, because it can not be otherwise, grace it having been defined such.
Actual life is of course sequenced, from birth to death. It would be foolish to ignore the fact that we don’t have a language versatile enough to express these lived impressions now in the form of ideas and symbols. Logic is outside of time, because the truth of a=a is of no actual relevance, and as a logical sentence it is true in the moment – in any moment – so therefore its truth is eternal.
We have to invent a partial reading of the general tautology, which allows for processes to be pictured in logical language. The sequence of events has to be found to be an intrinsic property of the elements of a=a. Then it will be possible to express, in an exact way of speaking, the idea that during an interval, in which there are no signals perceived, processes take place that yield resolutions into “acceptable”, “true” “might be”, “certainly not” or similar results. These results are consequences of premises that had already been signaled previously. The silence of the to-be-said is closely akin to mystical silence and healing silence. In this context it can be either benign and comforting or demoniacal, malignant, strange, or awe-inspiring.
There is always a selection possible between “include this element” and “do not include this element” as one assembles a logical sentence. If there is a bias in the collection that constitutes that which is the case – or can be spoken about {exactly, in polite society, explicating, etc.} -, then what is not there, the content of the silence, is biased in the opposite fashion. For example, a person with a highly polished social façade will possess a rugged image of things that he will not necessarily identify with. The most instructive clients declare with conviction, persuasiveness and an impressive rhetoric that they are shy, undecided and inhibited. The polarization between the official persona and the so-called Negativich, the non-ego, can be drastic and can be observed if one listens to one’s own echoes.
Transition from ontology to phenomenology
sb9 Ontology has to do with the logic of something’s being: its essence; phenomenology has to do with the logic of something’s appearance: what it is as an experience.
kj9 Building a table is not a complicated business. We can tabulate the books we have at home by ordering them on the author’s name. We assign a number 1..n to each of the n books. Then we re-tabulate the books, this time by the title. We assign again a number 1..n to each of the n books. We have n books and 2*n numbers, which show the place of a book in two possible sorting orders. So far, this is the ontology of order. Now we begin discussing, which of the two numbers that each book has is the right one. With this discussion, we enter the field of phenomenology.
sb10 1.0 When silence is examined phenomenologically, it is understood as an intentional act.
This means it has intended meaning attached to it, as part of a purposeful conscious experience that unfolds over time.
kj10 Both of the sequential numbers attached to a book are an invitation to “put me in place i if you order us by author” and “put me in place j if you order us by title”. We do not yet know, which of the two voices will be heard. The other will be silent.
sb11 This intentional process takes place within a noetic-noematic schema.
In Heidegger’s view, there is an order in the world, and therefore the implicit prescriptions of belonging together and having a relation between properties of symbols and how the symbols are to be arranged are valid and exist in an interpersonal fashion. E.g. gravitation is an ordering principle which doubtlessly exists. Standing upright and walking is an intentional process confronting the schema which gravitation would impose on us.
This schema divides our experience of the development of meaning of an object into an ongoing correlation between active judgments of and passive acquisitions of perceptual information concerning it.
kj11 Establishing which aspect of an object is perceived, is dependent on the urges and needs of the moment, e.g. if we are hungry, we see the edible side of many things. The object itself is the totality of its possibilities of being included in relations, so that what the object emanates does not change: what we perceive among the possibilities of being included in relations, does.
According to this schema, all expressions involving silence, including verbal, gestural, and musical, would be noemata, involving the ongoing and constantly changing intentional meaning of the object as it continues to be refined over time; while the decision to employ or refrain from employing any activity to interpret them would be their noetic correlates.
We have to do here with something that is missing, lacking, being absent, being not there, not in existence or ”false.” We realize that what is not there cannot have any properties: we thus speak of our wishes or expectations. If we cannot assign shelf positions to books that are not there, we can still wish for order and say “if I had that specific book, it would have its place <here> or <here>”. This is a fluid situation, as we can always imagine one more book that also needs two conceptual places and may well occupy the place intended for the previous imagination. As such, silence enables the phantasy to work and develop plans and alternatives.
sb12 2.0 In order to reach clarity with regards to our intentional use of silence in common discourse, we need to establish how silence can stop the flow of ordinary consciousness.
Deep silence however cannot do this. This is because it does not expect or require a response to its call, and is therefore non-intentional.
kj12 To be able to cause the non-existence of a symbol – create an inner silence – is a many-edged sword. The Zen master’s inner silence is in many ways different from the suppressed envy one hears between the lines, or one experiences as a fact of one’s physiology and personality, which one mastered to counterbalance. [Note to Karl: to counterbalance what? Please clarify this] The Zero at which both arrive is in the first case the result of absence, while the latter case accomplishes a counteracting entity that causes the existing case to become useless, invalid, unheard – but not non-existing.
Being baffled or at loss responding to one’s own productions may be the deep silence my learned friend describes as “deep silence”. This would be an one-sided ledger, where the counter-entries are lacking, being silent for epuisement, which is the realization that one has run out of resources.
sb13 When discourse is recognized as being bounded by and stratified by silence, however, the intentional function of silence is initiated. This means that both the inauguration and termination of discourse are in accordance with a noetic (or actively engaged) approach to silence. Fore-silence, in turn, opens the way for the shift from perceptual performance to signitive performance. When these noetic cuts in the flow of the temporality of conscious experience established by the actions of silence are correlated with the noemata of the different expressions of silence, a schema for understanding how the different iterations of silence function in the world of common experience (what Husserl calls the Lebenswelt or lifeworld) is enabled.