Thinking and feeling

 

The theatrical effect is of two kinds: fusion of the actors and fusion of the spectators. The staging can produce both. Karl Kraus

Very often, we have the impression of being able to do several things at once — answer the phone, follow a conversation while feeling things.

But this is not valid for all cerebral activities. Some are impossible to accomplish simultaneously. Reasoning and feeling are among these irreducibilities. According to us, intentional reasoning and pure sensation are two radically different states... There can be no fusion between them. One cannot be simultaneously in intellectual tension and in sensation. One must leave analysis to enter into deep contact with a sensation.

 

The mind plays ping pong

 

We certainly have the feeling of being able to think while feeling things — of being concentrated on intellectual work while perceiving bodily sensations. This is above all a feat of our mind. The mind, indeed, can perform countless back-and-forth movements between our reflections and our sensations. It knows how to play ping pong between these two modes to give the impression of being in both places at once. A little like two telephone conversations can travel through a single wire, at different frequencies, through splitting or intervals. Our brain functions, in my view, in the same way. It can think and reflect sequentially, with intervals so rapid that they give the impression of doing both things simultaneously — though the two modes are impossible at the same time. This viewpoint derives from my simple experimentation. It would of course require good scientific verification — if this type of experiment has not already been done.

I hold this deduction from the state of ecstasy. This superior position, indeed, offers the experimenter the feeling of an absolute and unique sensation — the sensation of being penetrated by a love emanating from all things. The feeling of being in a state of mind fully conscious. Of course, images reach the beatific mind. It says words and makes gestures. But no constructive reflection, no concentrated study, can approach its mind.

 

The experience of ecstasy

Mute beatitude

 

 

The happiness of the beatific

 

As infallibly as the cat begins to purr when one strokes its back, just as surely one sees a gentle ecstasy paint itself on the face of the person one praises. Arthur Schopenhauer

When one is in a state of ecstasy, the mind is incapable of the smallest volition. It is incapable of conceiving the slightest intention, the slightest intentional analysis. In this position, one is on the contrary naturally animated by instinctive intentions (to rise, drink, eat, walk, move toward...). But these emanate from the body, and the ecstatic simply obeys them.

 

On ecstasy

 

Ecstasy, beatitude — these are states of absolute sensation, states of pure contemplation. They permit no intentional reflection. In beatitude, the mind and body are entirely occupied in enjoying this state of felicity. The intellect can carry no judgement. It can make no projects, no analysis, nor any distinction between things. The ecstatic is in direct and absolute contact with the energy animating the world and the ecosystem. In this "psychic enjoyment", no analysis, no reflection can intercalate itself between the mind and this bliss.

 

On reflection

 

Conversely, during an extreme intellectual concentration, sensations pass to the background. When I am, for example, immersed in writing or correcting one of my pages, emotions, affects and bodily sensations seem to disappear entirely from consciousness. One forgets one's body when the mind is perfectly concentrated on reflexivity (it is the body that calls us back, for example, when it is time to eat!).

Thus, for our philosophy there exist 2 fundamental states of consciousness: ordinary consciousness and ecstatic consciousness.

Year 2000