Truth is a controversial concept. Some deny its existence altogether – which would be a truth in itself. Others see it as a fundamental belief, call it "knowledge," and have a hard time understanding why others seem to overlook it. But everyone understands that there can be a difference between what one says, what one believes, and what one knows. And which of these takes precedence when it matters.
What
matters?
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| Claus Janew |
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| Claus Janew |
If we can exist only in the constant change of the
point of view (sensory, psychic, mental) and this must apply analogously to
every place of effect (hardly has it worked, it is different), how then
stability, something constant arises?
Of course, by repeating the alternation: of thought, of way of looking at things, of mutual confirmation, of effect. Quite exactly, the change can be repeated only for an infinitely short moment; then it must already reach beyond the repetition in order not to cancel itself out. That is, it changes altogether and thereby remains open. For stabilization, approximate repetition is sufficient, though. So we believe approximately the same thing for a long time.
In What is Consciousness? (I) we considered the formation of i-structures through
circumscription, and in What is Awareness? (I) the alternation of perspective
as such. But basically both are one and the same.
Circumscribing
movement - consciousness - is of course an alternation of individual points of
view. And the perception of an alternation - awareness - also circumscribes a
constant center. The difference between emphasized
circumscription and emphasized alternation
lies in the density of the circumscribed central area. If the circumscribing
alternation (for example, between facades) forms an object (a house), the
content-dense center symbolizes its unity ("being inside"). If the
alternation is perceived more as such, the object character is thin ("Is
it several houses or one?").
The maximum of unity is in the intuitive center point, while the maximum of alternation is in the alternation itself. That is, the alternation is authoritative and the circumscription is derived. (Without facades, there is no interior.)
Your individuality is much more than a little
peculiarity. It is a view that nothing and no one has but you. Otherwise
it/he/she would be you. Also, you will have changed your perspective - yourself
- in the next moment, and you cannot turn back time.
For convenience, we agree on "common" objects that are supposedly perceived by everyone, although everyone is looking at things from his or her own point of view. If you see me rolling a pen across the table to you, you may think it is the same pen that I see. But I see something completely different from what you see. There is not the slightest concord between my perception and yours. Otherwise, I would be sitting in your place, having your thoughts, memories, and feelings, and connecting them to a shape that is rolling toward me.
Radical constructivism was initially formulated by Ernst von Glasersfeld.
Radical constructivists do not speak of creating reality, but of
constructing reality. What is the difference?
"Creating reality" ultimately means creating everything, without exception. "Constructing reality"
means interpreting external "disturbances" and thus shaping effects.
Thus the constructivist has the lesser claim, but at the price of
inconsistency. He cannot avoid including an external cause of effect that essentially
determines his construction. In principle, however, he cannot and does not want
to know by what this obviously pre-structured effect is exerted. What is
important is only what is useful in the context of one's own life, whereby
"usefulness" is equally constructed and thus co-determined by this
external something, and so on.
Instead, he might well admit that there is an external reality, the effect of which he is only further constructing. But he would not be saying anything essentially new. And once he admits its pre-structuring, he might as well go on to ask what else there is to "pre-recognize". And with that, he abolishes the radicality of constructivism.
Excerpts from the
summarizing chapters of my book How Consciousness Creates
Reality – The Full Version. This topic is
developed and explained with many examples in the regular chapters of the book
and also to a certain extent in its abridged version How Consciousness Creates Reality.
The perception of any object is a unique whole, the summit of an individual maximized in a vanishingly small center, and it is only through the transition into its own until then subconscious that an individual reaches another whole (another object). The transition can entail an effect after all, something of the preceding object, and the way back, a retroaction. In this way, a new individual, a new summit, is circumscribed – one that is conscious of the two earlier ones differently, or not at all.
Multitude cannot exist without oneness, and oneness
cannot exist without being determined by multitude.
Oneness, however, means identity, and identity, in
its final consequence, through all "stages," is a zero point. On the other hand, this
infinitesimal center needs to be circumscribed by details. So, despite the details' identity in oneness, they as
individuals have to find their way into circumscription. And as individuals,
they contain infinitesimal centers by themselves, etc. Therefore, the
circumscription of such a center is a changing
between single points.
This means that an existing structure includes both
extremes: absolute identity and absolute separation. Their unity must also be constituted by change – now between the
common point of identity and separateness. Both are nothing at all without this
change, by which they are determined only. The unity built that way of oneness
and multitude in turn has its infinitesimal center of identity...
The same is
valid for every area on every scale. A continuum of this kind is the
precondition of permanent objects. Through the omnipresent change between the
extremes of identity and separation, any point is immediately joined with each other, as well as continuously mediated and also apart from the others.
