“Consciousness and Transcendence” Ch.4 Sick Souls, Healthy Minds by John Kaag Nate Hicks - PHIL-1030-005

 “Consciousness and Transcendence” Ch.4 

Sick Souls, Healthy Minds by John Kaag

Nate Hicks - PHIL-1030-005

           Intro

Consciousness and Transcendence is the fourth chapter in John Kaag’s Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life. While James wrote much of his book The Principles of Psychology in the 1870s in the enclosed and confined walls of a lab, he garnered more knowledge and wisdom through experience outside of confinement. That is not to say that his time in the tiny, dimly lit laboratory failed to provide insight into cognition, habits, formation, and human volition. These truly are great contributions to the fields of psychology and philosophy. Yet, far beyond these, were concepts with nomadic comprehension and understanding. Had the book/dictionary of Obscure Sorrow by John Koenig existed back then, I think James would have definitely added an entry. The meaning of an obscure sorrow suggests a feeling of confusion or sadness that you are unable to identify, which I believe satisfies his reasons for this research. While he had the drive “...to see if consciousness might allow him to transcend…” as John Kaag mentions, James was also motivated by the slew of misfortune. The death of his father, Henry James Sr., and the premature death of his brother, Herman. This started James off to seek out tolerability after the tragic family deaths, from which he noted “the taste of the intolerable mysteriousness of this thing called existence.”

Now, after the passing of his father, James came back to his father’s old writings. A belief that Henry James held was that life is not a game. Not a comedy, that is to say, it might start out rough, but life was really saving the best bit for last. That even amongst the sincerest, and abyssal tragedies, life “flowers and fructifies”. That much is certain. “This sounds awesome sauce!”, mere nonchalance, perhaps some merited profanity, or any combination of the like might have drifted through your head as you read. Because we all come from different experiences that warrant such reactions. But if we’re trusting William James to save our souls, we might want to give it a shot.

The Stream

The stream of consciousness is the focal point of James' perception of transcendence. Before it’s outlined specifically, it opposed two popular ideas at the time. First, John Locke’s “simple ideas” theory. Which identified the most basic “unit” of knowledge, and that it comes from experience. He’s also the philosopher behind the blank slate idea.

Second was David Hume’s idea on consciousness, which, in a watered-down sense, says that consciousness occurs through and by perception; this is the part that James disagreed with. (from what I understand) 

The undermining of the two ideas was not James' primary goal; rather, it was to lay a pathway from consciousness to transcendence. This stream follows these rules.

Absolute:

1. Insulation - Thoughts are entirely subjective. Your thoughts and experiences will not come into contact with another stream other than one’s own. 

2. Irreducible - Your consciousness is you, when it ceases, so must you. How you exercise your consciousness is up to you.

3. Pluralism - Thoughts absolutely one’s own and unique. Multiple perspectives and experiences can exist at once.

Here, Henry David Thoreau and James seem to converge on an existential mindfulness. James sought out to notice more, then more than that. From James, “Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake.” 

Timeout

Now, upon hearing that, I think it's easy to get carried away. Just because stream of consciousness highlights this very personal and unique outlook on consciousness, essentially, oneself. There is still a distinction to be made between truth and fact. John Kaag talks about that in the very next chapter of his book. What’s more is that it’s very easy, just by reading Principles of Psychology, to take a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” or pure human volition angle to this theory. This is not what I believe James is attempting to communicate, possibly even the opposite. That being said, I think transcendence can get misconstrued, at least by the guide of James here.

Grandiose Moment of Enlightenment is what I’ve decided to term this as. The two portrayals that come to mind come from the movie The Matrix, and the other is the anime Jujutsu Kaisen (JJK). What both of these tell a viewer to expect is that transcendence is something akin to a very cinematic turn of events. Like the last puzzle piece you finally find and choose to put into place, putting you into a new realm of power and control never once known to you before. Rendering all other previous ailments null and void.

For The Matrix, Keanu Reeves just has to “Free his mind,” and absolute control is his. 

For Jujutsu Kaisen(JJK), Mahito, the character getting the snot kicked out of him in the video, it was his revelation on the precipice of death, and the pinnacle of strength was granted.

Outside of the media, John Kaag described that his students referred to James’ quote about being half awake as “woke”. Similarly, my generation has an equivalent for transcendence, that being “lock in”. A term designated to calling upon a mysteriously latent power within the beholder to finally complete a task or meticulously improve on something you were unable to before. Without anything changing besides exclaiming they will “lock in”. This lives in the presumption that one might be living life at below 100%.

Without exploring the deeper insinuations about why we live life below 100%, I've come to dislike this term. Cinematically, it’s beautiful; both those clips highlight very exciting moments in the plot, Neo with mastery over the Matrix, and Mahito, the peak of power in his fight. But it gives those who rely on it a dangerously false sense of transcendence. The belief that you can surpass all failure or limitations by the utterance of “Free your mind”, “Domain Expansion”, or “lock in.”

Death

So what IS James saying with this consciousness and transcendence connection? Well, I think that James was so far ahead of his time in this concept of balance. What he was trying to get across was, as John Kaag puts it, “not about activity, but rather receptivity”. There are moments of life to be active, live, and act with intentionality. At the same time, the moments of calm and to humbly receive life as it is. One thing that the media gets right is that the realization can arrive suddenly; they fail to show how one needs to maintain it. I don’t believe transcendence to be a sudden finality, but slow activity, not a moment of becoming great, but becoming whole. Like walking out of the movie theater, allowing your eyes to adjust to the light. Seeing the significance, you, yourself, bear. 

James wrote, “Does the clamor of our own practical interests make us to all other things.” I believe that the perception of control leaves us all blind to the full capacity of our consciousness and thus to transcendence. What my generation lacks is the ability to grieve death and loss. We try and will ourselves, even reality, into the perception that we’ve constrained ourselves into. Never willing to accept or face pain or suffering that does not align with our agendas. In the process, we miss new experiences, dull our expansive capacity to understand, and miss the transformative work of death to life.