Hyponoetics - An Integral Philosophy of Mind and Matter

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Chapter 1: Introduction

This is not another book about a new philosophy. It’s a book about what makes philosophy, or any point of view for that matter, possible in the first place and what the common ground is for all philosophical views and theories in the world. What all views and beliefs have in common is that they are held and constructed by the mind. Our mind is the launching pad for our understanding of the world and each other. In my view we are not yet in a position to understand the full capacity of our mind although most of the greatest thinkers and philosophers have always anticipated higher forms of thinking that transcend the ordinary usage of mind.

Hyponoetics does not try to resolve philosophical problems by providing just another theory. Hyponoetics is a meta-philosophy that attempts to establish a generic, comprehensive frame of reference for any point of view or theory. Hyponoetics is basically a critical metaphysical philosophy of mind postulating a fundamental unitary reality that manifests itself in a multitude of various mental and physical aspects.

Hyponoetics intends to establish a generic framework that allows to integrate knowledge from all fields of study, such as quantum physics, mysticism, Eastern and Western religion, psychology and of course philosophy.

Hyponoetics is a metaphysical philosophy insofar as it attempts to deal with the most important intellectual questions and problems by drawing on the metaphysical principles of the greatest philosophers. However, modern thinkers keep a skeptical stance towards the metaphysical systems of previous centuries and in general. Therefore I want to introduce a critical metaphysics that does not accept metaphysical assumptions and claims at face value but questions them critically and in the light of modern science and recent consciousness studies.

I propose a critical metaphysics that is the basis for a philosophy of thought or mind. With the term 'critical' I want to avoid dogmatic metaphysics that postulates supra-natural principles without any connection to the world we experience. What I call a noetic metaphysics approaches its object of study, the Mind, in a holistic and synthetic manner. Instead of analyzing Mind’s artificial parts, Hyponoetics attempts to understand the ultimate nature and essence of the mind from within the mind itself; its ontological status within the ultimate reality.

Thus, a system of metaphysics of thinking deals with thinking insofar as it is thinking. That means, we are not interested in the outcome of thought, in its effects and processes, but what thought is, as such in its innermost primary essence, what its roots and apriority are. Thinking, as we experience it, is necessarily joined with our consciousness and our mind. It is part of our being human, actually the differentiating part, which separates us from animals. If we resort to pure thinking, apriori thinking, thinking independent of outer influences and even independent of inner sensational influences, we will be able to reflect upon thinking as such and postulate a metaphysics of thinking without being exaggeratedly speculative or deviating from a course of sound rationality.

The question arises why metaphysics is necessary at all. Why can’t we just dispense with speculative philosophy and stick with the accomplishments and methodology of modern science? The great 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer defined metaphysics as follows:

By metaphysics I understand all so-called knowledge that goes beyond the possibility of experience, and so beyond nature or the given phenomenal appearance of things, in order to give information about that by which, in some sense or other, this experience or nature is conditioned,… about that which is hidden behind nature, and renders nature possible.
(Arthur Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation, Volume II, p. 164, Dover Publications, 1966)

Experience and empirical knowledge is not sufficient in explaining our world. We need certain a priori assumptions, axioms and fundamental principles. What we keep forgetting, however, is the fact, that science is based on certain assumptions (axioms), mental models, and hypothetical ideas. All these represent the basic elements of a metaphysical system. Philosophers and scientists alike have come to understand that we do not have direct experience of the reality per se, and that we interpret the world in terms of our mental models. This is pure metaphysics, in the meaning of postulating ultimate principles that govern our reality. Science describes reality based on tacit metaphysical assumptions. Philosophy, and especially a critical metaphysics, purports to examine those assumptions and review them in the light of the long history of philosophical thinking and recent developments in science and philosophy.

The three fundamental theses of Hyponoetics are discussed in the postulates of the second chapter. Chapter 3 discusses the idea of an underlying reality from which everything we know and experience is manifested. In Chapter 4, I attempt to analyze the primary mental aspects of the manifested world, and in Chapter 5, we look into the manifested physical aspects. I raise the question of what reality is in Chapter 6 and why the world we experience is not independent of our minds. Chapter 7 introduces a new kind of thinking, transrational thinking, that allows a philosopher to access any given information in the universe. Similarly, Chapter 8 and 9 discuss the higher metaphysical principles associated with matter and the world that unite the world of phenomena with the totality of reality. Hyponoetics as meta-philosophy, as framework for our thinking and reasoning, is discussed in Chapter 10. I also examine the impact Hyponoetics has on traditional logics and ethics, entailing new and much broader theories.

The main purpose of this book is to write down my ideas in a way more easily accessible to the general reader. Although I use my own terms that I have coined specially for defining the principles and ideas behind Hyponoetics, I attempt to define and elaborate on those terms in detail and as we proceed. Some of our basic ideas about the world and mind date back to the Ancient Greeks and their language was especially suited for expressing complex philosophical concepts. This is the reason why I have derived most of my terms from ancient Greek. Whenever I introduce one of those new terms I use the following symbol to signify the definition of a concept that is specific to Hyponoetics:

Hyponoetics is basically about thinking and mind. Both words are interpreted and understood in many ways. Although there is no exact and final definition of these concepts, I intend to establish a working definition that describes how I will use them in this book.

I begin with the analysis of the 'mind': 'mind' has a variety of meanings, although they always point to something immaterial within us, be it the intellect, our consciousness, the thinking process, the soul, or even our feelings. The American Heritage Dictionary offers the following definitions:

  1. The human consciousness that originates in the brain and is manifested esp. in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination
  2. The collective conscious and unconscious processes in a sentient organism that direct and influence mental and physical behavior
  3. a) In some philosophies, a principle of intelligence or consciousness pervading reality; the spirit of consciousness regarded as an aspect of reality
    b) Intelligence or the nonmaterial aspect of being in contrast to the material
  4. The faculty of thinking, reasoning, and applying knowledge
  5. A person of great mental ability
  6. a) Individual consciousness, memory, or recollection
    b) A person or group that embodies certain mental qualities
    c)The thought processes characteristic of a person or group; psychological makeup
  7. Opinion or sentiment: changed his mind
  8. Desire or inclination
  9. Focus of thought; attention
  10. A healthy mental state; sanity

Mind is the complex whole of our experience and conscious life, the whole spectrum of emotions and thoughts and their pertinent faculties. Mind consists of all conceivable aspects of the human personality, such as, intellect, reason, volition, memory, sensation, emotion. It is important to understand that I do not attempt to segregate mind into various domains and functions, but instead I consider mind as a unity that includes what we call rational, emotional, and volitional aspects. Mind is a complex entity or holistic unity that can be understood only as a whole and not in terms of artificially differentiated parts, although these parts or functions are legitimate and useful logical concepts and instruments for cognitive science and psychology.

In other words, I am concerned with the question of what mind is for itself and in itself, the underlying ground and substance of all the manifestations that we group with names such as thoughts, emotions, intentions, desires, etc. Although we think that these are different manifestations of our personality, we still know that they are part of one and the same mind.

The next term of our investigation is "thinking". First again the different meanings according to The American Heritage Dictionary:

  1. To have or formulate in the mind
  2. a) To reason about or reflect on; ponder
    b) To decide by reasoning, reflection, or pondering
  3. To judge or regard; look upon
  4. To believe; suppose
  5. a) To expect; hope
    b) To intend
  6. To call to mind; remember
  7. To visualize; imagine
  8. To devise or evolve; invent
  9. To bring into a given condition by mental preoccupation
  10. To concentrate one’s thoughts on
  11. To exercise the power of reason, as by conceiving ideas, drawing inferences, and using judgment
  12. To weigh or consider an idea
  13. a) To bring a thought to mind by imagination or invention
    b) To recall a thought or an image to mind
  14. To have care or consideration
  15. Thought: the act or an instance of deliberate or extended thinking; a meditation

Thinking, as conceived by common-sense, comprises all the operations of our mind which we apply in our everyday life: believing, remembering, thinking of something, imagining, reflecting, judging, reasoning, etc. Although these mental activities do not cover the whole range of our mind's potential, they nevertheless represent the most important functions of everyday mental activity. Some of these functions are more developed and acute in professional thinkers. Artists sometimes have an enhanced faculty of imagination.

One of the core conclusions of Hyponoetics is a new kind of thinking, which I call Transrational Thinking, and which will be explained in more detail in the following chapters. This kind of thinking is completely different from ordinary rational thinking, as we know it. I want to keep the designation 'thinking' for it in order to distinguish it from Eastern methods of meditation or mystic experience. Transrational Thinking can be said to be the Western way of reaching a unity with the fundamental reality, not through experience (as in meditation, mystic experience or other similar techniques) but through the act of thinking.

One important remark I’d like to make is that this book is what in philosophy is called a Prolegomena, an introduction to the final system of metaphysics. In this small book I’m going to introduce the theoretical principles and ideas of Hyponoetics. For the purpose of completeness, I also included a chapter on the practical implications of my philosophy as well as a chapter on philosophical logic.

What you read in this book is not meant to be in absolute terms, but more as an incentive to think about yourself, your mind and reality on your own.

If you would like to comment on the ideas presented here, you are more than welcome to contact the author through his web site at http://www.hyponoesis.org.


© 2003 by Tom Arnold. All rights reserved. Send comments and questions to me.

URL: http://www.hyponoesis.org/