by Greg Goode
For most of us when we investigate our perceptions of touch, taste and smell, we find them to be intimate experiences, right here and now. However, perceptions with a spatial component such as hearing and especially vision (the main theme discussed herein) seem to include real and direct evidence of separation between me and the object being perceived. Despite much enquiry for the purpose of deconstructing visual objects, I’d find that when I opened my eyes, the world would jump “out there” distinctly and repetitiously. This seemed to me to be self-evident and incontrovertible: physical objects are real, and part of their reality is their separation-defining distance from me.
The direct-path teaching, like other nondual investigations, insisted on the primacy of direct experience: raw perceptions and the resultant percepts, rather than concepts. I was sure that I was being true to this, but there seemed no getting around it: when I opened my eyes the world really jumped out there!
Like an irate fly newly arrived at a window, I buzzed against the idea that if vision is just a perception like the others, then it should permit direct understanding of the lack of separation between me and these sensations: vision and the objects seen should be intimate like taste and touch. But this was not the case: when the world jumped out there, the distinct feeling of distance seemed to confirm the independence of objects at a distance as the causes of my perceptions. I felt centred and fixed like the hub of a bicycle wheel with spokes of vision radiating out to distant objects.
I read widely around the issue, inquiring into ideas such as the container metaphor of objects in awareness and awareness in the body. Investigation of the objectivity/distance issue through other approaches such as direct pointing seemed flawed because their questions seemed to lack coherence, for instance asking, “What distance is that object from you, who are awareness?” or “Where is the boundary between you, awareness, and that object?” Such queries introduced the very thing they were seeking to show as illusory, and to me, such questions were about as helpful as suggesting, “Don’t think of a pink elephant!”
I was aware from the start that the questions assumed the existence of the very thing they were questioning and were thus to a degree rhetorical. However, I was totally unaware of the strength and over-confidence of the realist-materialist-literalist mind-set of my upbringing and schooling, which asserted and took for granted that things can always be worked out.
At the end of several frustrating months, I took some time out from investigations, to just forget about enquiry for a while.
Berkeley
I returned refreshed and less hurried to inquire once again into physical objectivity and distance and was directed to the writings of the eighteenth-century priest and philosopher George Berkeley. He proved to be a great help, not because of any worldview or metaphysics he propounded, but rather because of the elegance of his method, which to the empirical scientist in me appeared like a welcoming face at the door of enquiry.
Berkeley stressed the importance of what he called “immediate” experience, by which he meant unmediated by thought, which is synonymous with the direct path’s direct experience. In practice, it means attending only to the actual information of the senses without the overlay of thinking. In the introduction to his Principles of Human Knowledge52 he wrote:
…I earnestly desire that every one would use his utmost endeavours to attain to a clear and naked view of the ideas he would consider, by separating them from all that varnish and mist of words, which so fatally blinds the judgement…Unless we take care to clear the first principles of knowledge from the incumbrances and delusions of words, we may make infinite reasonings upon them to no purpose. We may deduce consequences, and never be the wiser.
In attending to experience with the above in mind, he distinguished perceptual objects, or percepts of the senses, from the common-sense physical objects that are perceived. Berkeley challenged the common-sense view of objectivity, which, under the leadership of scientific materialism, asserted that physical objects are made of matter, which is what we actually perceive.
Berkeley and objects
Berkeley’s way of looking had two key insights:
Direct or immediate experience is not about anything—it’s just raw experience. And if we look into that raw experience, the best we can say about it is that it appears as ideas in the mind.
All we know of the world are those ideas, and we never come into direct contact with an object in itself.
These insights were not dismissing common-sense experience as illusory, but rather re-contextualizing it as mind, or arising in awareness, rather than matter. Further, they highlighted in a startlingly clear manner that experience “about” physical objects only makes sense in the context or framework of physical objectivity; the corollary being that physical objectivity requires the existence of physical objects to establish or set the context.
The circularity was stunning! I immediately recognized the revolving thought patterns of an addict. Many years ago when trying to quit smoking I wondered, “Why do I want a cigarette?” The comically obvious answer was “Because it relieves the craving for a cigarette.” That was all! Relief of craving was the only benefit, and it made sense only within the context of addictive smoking, that is to say… craving.
It was dawning on me that such is the case with physical objectivity. Why do I believe in discrete physical objects? Because discrete objects make sense of this belief. And Berkeley revealed it to be a belief. I have never actually come into contact with an object in itself.
Berkeley and distance
Berkeley’s treatment of perception helped me to better understand the perceptual intimacy that I had discovered experientially with tasting, touching, and smelling. Regarding vision, I had made some small progress, and could accept intellectually or in principle that all I might know of a visual object was an idea in the mind (or arising in awareness). But the convincing character of distance seemed to undermine these insights. There was just something about distance that felt so real. It was clearly a sticking point: I needed to have a long hard look at what I understood by “distance.”
In the Three Dialogues53 Berkeley introduces three ways to consider objects at a distance:
First, he observes that distance is common to both the waking and dreaming states, concluding that we cannot be sure that the experience of distance in the waking state really relates to what we think of as spatial separation of objects.
Next, he reminds us of the common-sense view that an object appears to get bigger as we approach it. But he asks, if the object could really get bigger, what would that even mean? He points out that by attending to vision, we realize that we do not see an enlarging physical object, or a similarly changing visual percept; rather, our experiences are perhaps better described as multiple visual percepts. He posits that we learn to associate the experience of a succession of visual percepts with the experience of a succession of bodily feelings and sensations in the context of physical movement, such as walking towards an object. The regular association of these and similar object pairs gives rise to what we have learned to call extension and distance.
Finally, he asks, “But to make it more plain: isn’t distance a line running out from the eye?” It can be conceived this way, but such a line cannot be seen; therefore distance is not an object of direct experience. In conclusion he concedes with respect to distance, “Even if it were truly perceived by the mind [which it is not] it still wouldn’t follow that it existed outside the mind.”
Berkeley is pointing out that distance is not directly experienced, but rather involves vision and kinaesthetic experiences - seeing and “feeling” in association with each other.
A penny dropped… distance feels so real because it’s not just vision: feelings are involved too.54 If you stand beneath a towering cliff, or especially at the top, it becomes clear that the role of feeling in the body is no longer a matter of de
bate!
These conclusions had derived from work begun as part of Berkeley’s doctoral thesis and published as his New Theory of Vision (1709). Here he conducts a thought experiment to explore the interdependence of sight, touch, and objectivity. He considers a disembodied intelligence that only possesses, and has only ever possessed, vision:
“153..…consider the case of an intelligence, or unbodied spirit, which is supposed to see perfectly well, to have a clear perception of the proper and immediate objects of sight, but to have no sense of touch...
154. First, then, it is certain the aforesaid intelligence could have no idea of a solid, or quantity of three dimensions, which followeth from its not having any idea of distance. We indeed are prone to think that we have by sight the ideas of space and solids, which ariseth from our imagining that we do, strictly speaking, see distance and some parts of an object at a greater distance than others; which hath been demonstrated to be the effect of the experience we have had, what ideas of touch are connected with such and such ideas attending vision: but the intelligence here spoken of is supposed to have no experience of touch. He would not, therefore, judge as we do, nor have any idea of distance, outness, or profundity [depth], nor consequently of space or body, either immediately or by suggestion.”
Berkeley concludes that, without the tactile sense (upon which extension and therefore distance rely), the disembodied intelligence would have no means of defining objects in its (uniquely visual) experience. This conclusion made perfect sense to me, and I wondered if I could verify it for myself.
Colour and form
When we speak of visual objects, we often refer to colour and shape (form). It seemed obvious to me that I can see an object that has colour, has shape, and is over there. Now, colour may be characterized by descriptors such as hue, saturation, and brightness, but what about shape? Following Berkeley, and his suggestion that a single unaccompanied perceptual modality would be insufficient to define an object, I wondered if there might not be a distinction to be drawn between these two facets of visual experience. And furthermore if there really are, or even can be, two facets of this thing I call vision. And if so, what would that even mean?
As is the direct-path way, I asked simple questions and looked for experiential answers.
With respect to vision, can there be colour without shape? The answer appeared to be yes. Can there be shape without colour? Visual evidence would indicate no. By this reckoning colour is fundamental to vision but shape is not, i.e. shape isn’t entirely visual in the same way that colour seems to be. But is that true?
I found that I do not see any physical objects that are purely colourful, i.e. a visual experience of an “object” that comprises colour but has no shape. Investigating form, such as the shape of a white cloud in the blue sky, I explore both the outline against the background blue and the billowing internal lobes. Following the hint in Berkeley and paying close attention to bodily sensations, I noticed faint and subtle kinaesthetic movements and feelings, little more than ghostly gestures associated with tracing the outline and sculpting the form.
In a manner similar to Berkeley’s observation on the experience of distance and extension in dreaming, I explored the experience of simple imagination. For example, I visualized a simple shape, in this case a yellow square against a black background. Exploring this I noticed that it was accompanied by subtle tactile stroking of the imaginary sides and cresting of the corners. Similarly, I tried to consider with purely kinaesthetic imagination, or “kinaesation,” a purely tactile square, but it proved almost impossible to exclude associated subtle visualizations. These two senses appear repeatedly and faithfully associated with each other and combine in the context of an object.
These were new experiences, or at least it seemed that way. Charmed and enticed by the discovery, I went on the hunt for more.
Sitting one day at my desk watching a delivery at a neighbour’s house, I saw the driver walk up the path, deliver the package, return to his vehicle, and depart. I noticed that these visually emphasized interpretations were accompanied by what I’d call subtle kinaesthetic gestures of reaching and extension—quite literally a faint bodily sense of movement associated with watching the postman advance up the path. Here was the silent partner of visual distance. It was real, I felt it, and I was excited by the discovery!
Multiple small insights followed. I expanded this to looking at edges, surfaces, and volumes—cables, mantelpieces, brickwork, sculptures, and landscapes. Each and every time, the main visual feast was enlivened by subtle, invisible kinaesthetic condiments.
At the time I thought that this was some kind of major breakthrough! Gone was the frustration of the idea of no distance. Distance was and remained real, but it was not what I’d always thought it to be. I realized that distance was not out there in 3-D space, but in experience it arose as a seeing with feeling. The kinaesthetic feeling that arises with, or is cued by, vision organizes colours as shapes and is congruent with the idea of objectivity.
Very quickly I realized that it was no longer a problem that when I opened my eyes the world jumped out there. Yes, it did. Of course it did! But it didn’t jump into pre-existing space; distance itself is the combination of seeing and the feeling of reaching or extension. The nature of what I knew as distance was visual-kinaesthetic, not dimensional. I had found Berkeley’s “line running out from the eye,” which was unseen and felt rather than inferred and geometrical.
Distance, proximity, closeness, and separation were no longer making the same sense that they once had. “Here” and “there” graduated from referring strictly to a location in space to taking on more evocative meanings, as combinations of intimate experiences of vision and feeling.
Through Berkeley I had confirmed that, to define an object, at least two lines of evidence are required—for example, visual and kinaesthetic. I tagged this as “triangulation.” Furthermore, when two or more senses seem to agree about the existence of an object, the reality effect is increased. The reality effect is a kind of conviction about the existence of a real object. It is increased because we think that our experiences can’t be just the artifacts of one sense. And we’re right, sort of…
We see something at a distance. Firstly, just to delineate its outline and shape, subtle kinaesthetic senses are at work. Then even without actually reaching out and touching the object, the subtle kinaesthetic (extension) sense cued from vision serves as a proxy for independent evidence, and together they combine as distance. Such cues emerge from over a lifetime of learning associations. It is as if perception is cheating: introducing its own supporting evidence and claiming an independent origin for it!
At first blush, then, it seems that I can see an object, which has shape and has colour and is over there. But: I know nothing of the object apart from the ideas of shape and colour; colour and shape are inseparable in the context of an object; and I know nothing of distance without the idea of objectivity and kinaesthetic extension. Everything depends on everything else.
A note on time
Part of my direct-path enquiry included an exploration of language and the ways in which we express ourselves. This illustrated the central role of metaphor. It is much more important than merely a creative mode of expression: we also describe, investigate and compare with metaphor. Many of the metaphors we think with are based on the ideas of distance and space, which I’d come to understand as combinations of vision and kinaesthetic feeling. And just as for distance, we have no way of directly sensing time, but we make it real by association.
In thinking about time we invariably use some form of non-temporal metaphor. The majority of time metaphors are spatial and examples of the relative movement of an observer and an object known as an event—for example, “The summer seems to be zooming by,” or “There’s going to be trouble down the road.”
Even saying “I’ll see you in five minutes” or “I’ll meet you a
t two” defines a location, in or at. There is nothing inherently temporal about these. Even when the hour hand passes over the 2, it’s a spatial correlation.
Following a line of enquiry similar to that followed for physical objects into how I think about time revealed that spatial representation (and for me that means visualization-kinaesation) is central to my experience. I wondered if space and time might be similarly visio-kinaesthetically triangulated. Perhaps I triangulate motion (kinaesthetic) and events (concepts) and appear to come up with time in a similar way that I seem to do so for motion (kinaesthetic) and objects (percepts) for space, such that:
❖Distance (space) is the combination of visual objects and kinaesthetic cues in the context of physical objects (one of which might be me, here).
❖Duration (time) is the combination of visual and kinaesthetic cues in the context of conceptual events (one of which might be me, now).
It matters not whether an object is considered primary or cued; all arise in direct experience as awareness and are thus known without, and prior to, any sense of location. The ideas of here (in space) and now (in time) might just be constructed points of view that provide one-half of the contexts within which space and time make sense, but are not given in either direct or cued experience.
The myth of triangulation
When I understood that kinaesthetic experience cues the idea of seen distance and perhaps also time, it started to become clear that visual-tactile/extension elements seem to be built into the way I think via innumerable spatially referenced metaphors—for example, “directing attention,” a sensation “arising,” or even “in” thinking “about” a problem, and “arriving at” a solution. The examples are legion. And these metaphors are not simply rhetorical devices but rather in my own investigated experience have subtle physical-perceptual embodiments. Fleeting and subtle visual and associated kinaesthetic sensations are seen to accompany even abstract concepts such as mental arithmetic, planning a diary, considering deep geological time, or notions of relationship and history, or in the appreciation of music.