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Study Group on "Experiential Processes and the Creation of Meaning" (split)

Dec 12, 202111 min read

Study Group on “Experiential Processes and the Creation of Meaning

  • 2021-12-10
  • Purpose of this time
    • Take a path that requires as little prerequisite knowledge as possible to Chapter 3 of Experiential Processes and the Creation of Meaning, which explains how “unspoken fuzziness” works in cognition.
    • nishio.iconI did not know the subtitle “Philosophical and Psychological Approaches to the Subjective” until I bought the original book this time, but I think it is a good subtitle
      • image

Eugene Gendlin.

  • Author of “Experiential Processes and the Creation of Meaning”
  • Eugene Gendlin - Wikipedia
    • Eugene T. Gendlin (1926 – 2017)
      • American philosopher
      • D. in philosophy after studying with clinical psychologist Carl Rogers (1958, University of Chicago).
      • 1962 Experiential Processes and the Creation of Meaning
      • Later gave birth to the psychotherapy technique Focusing (1978) and the general thinking method Thinking At the Edge (2004).

Carl Rogers

  • Carl Rogers - Wikipedia
  • 1902 - 1987
  • Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago (1945-57)
  • Founder of Client-Centered Therapy
    • “Client-Centered Therapy” (1951)

    • In a 1982 survey of 422 psychologists in the U.S. and Canada, Freud was ranked as the most influential psychotherapist in history (Freud ranked third)

    • Later called Person-centered therapy - Wikipedia, Person-centered Approach Person-centered approach
    • I won’t go too deep into the relationship with human-centered design in design or learner-centeredness in pedagogy this time.
  • As for the period, it’s about the same as Abraham Maslow. (1908-70).

What is the experience process?

  • experience process and the creation of meaning.”

  • Eugene Gendlin organized the concepts that Carl Rogers used in practice in doing psychotherapy.

  • The Japanese translation is stiff, but the English is Experiencing

  • Experience process and perceived meaning

“Felt Meaning.”

  • This is the main theme of this book
    • Chapter I. Experienced Meaning Issues
      • right here, right now
    • Chapter II: Examples of perceived meaning at work in cognition
    • Chapter III: How perceived meaning works
      • Destination of this study session
  • Chapter I. The Problem of Experienced Meaning > 2. Problems in Psychology > c. Segmentation of experience.
    • image
    • (Translation by Nishio) Conceptualization and expression are separate from experience and feeling. Experiences and feelings have a meaning that is separate from conceptualization and expression. This is called “felt meaning. The conceptualization or expression may or may not be appropriate for that “felt meaning. What is the relationship between this conceptualization or representation, or to put it another way, “structuring with symbols,” and the “felt meaning”? There are a variety. In the chapters ahead in this book, I will take a closer look at the function that “felt meaning” has in cognition by scrutinizing these relationships.

Necessary functions in cognition

Parallel functional relationships

  • nishio.iconParallel” is defined as “a one-to-one correspondence between the felt meaning and the symbol,” but I think we can roughly understand it now as “a simple pattern.” It’s easier to understand after seeing the “non-parallel” examples in the second half than to discuss definitions here.

  • direct comparison

  • Recognition (RECOGNITION)

    • Only the symbols seem to be ahead of the others.
    • For example, read the words in a book
      • From there, meaning is evoked and felt.
    • Symbols work to evoke “felt meaning” in our minds.

  • Clarification (EXPLICATION)

    • The two so far, the symbols were presented first.
      • EXPLICATION is a movement where “felt meaning” becomes “symbol”.
    • A situation where you want to explain in words what you feel but haven’t found the words yet.
      • Resolve this.
      • (Note: Of course, this is not limited to linguistic symbols, but for the sake of simplicity, I use linguistic symbols as examples.)
    • The reaffirmation evokes the symbol’s perceived meaning.
    • The elucidation is evoking symbols of felt meaning.
    • nishio.iconJust as in reaffirmation, “the meaning that was felt when the symbol was seen was recalled from memory,” so in elucidation, “the symbol that matches the meaning that was felt was selected from memory.”
      • Note: I’m talking about simple “parallel” relationships here, so I’m dealing with cases that could be easily explained in existing terms, not so much in the second half.
    • nishio.iconIllustration.
      • image

  • I’ll skip the rest of this section if I don’t have time, as it’s an afterthought.

  • Clarification was done through a series of direct matches.

  • Direct Match → Partial Match → Segmentation

  • There are three patterns in the results of direct matching

Creative Functional Relationships

  • nishio.iconFinally, the main issue!
  • METAPHOR
  1. understanding (COMPREHENSION)
  • Related (RELEVANCE)
  1. phrasing (CIRCUMLOCUTION)
  • A state of “felt meaning without parallel symbols” (nishio.iconin short, an experience that there are no good words to describe).

Metaphor (METAPHOR) - Eugene Gendlin’s Metaphor Concept

  • It’s translated as a metaphor, but the discussion has nothing to do with whether it’s a metaphor or a direct metaphor.
    • Better to think of it as “parable.”
    • Here we call them “metaphors” as they are in English.
    • Strictly speaking, the term “metaphor” refers to the creation of new meanings from existing symbols, as in “simile” and “metaphor.
  • Example
    • My lover is like a rose.”
    • nishio.iconTime is money.
      • You can’t save time.
    • nishio.iconPublic key cryptography is like a padlock.”
      • I’m saying that you don’t need the “key needed to unlock the door” when you lock it.
      • I don’t mean to imply that “only one person who owns the padlock can lock it.”
  • In every example, the symbol is used in a way that is different from its original meaning.
  • A situation where the meaning felt in the existing symbols cannot be accurately expressed.
    • So we create new bonds to symbols that are not normally connected and express them.
    • image
  • Represented by multiple symbols but not and or
  • The Role of Reaffirmation and Direct Matching in Metaphor

Understanding (COMPREHENSION)

  • nishio.iconThis is translated as “understanding,” but since we will be talking a lot about understanding in the next section, I think it is confusing to use the same translation.
    • I was confused too. - Misconceptions about understanding (COMPREHENSION)
    • This is a nuance rather than “understanding.”
      • image
        • (This is an example of non-parallel symbol usage and does not literally mean “fully understood.“)
    • I will refer to it verbally below as “COMPREHENSION.”

To invent a metaphor to express a prior felt meaning is “comprehension.” Example.

Related (RELEVANCE)

  • So far we have defined the relationship between one felt meaning and one or more symbolizations “about” it

  • However, there are cases where symbols that are not symbolic of that “one felt meaning” promote understanding - In some cases, symbols that do not symbolize “one felt meaning” facilitate understanding (v1)

  • Relevance is “that kind of related felt meaning whereby the symbolization is thereby made intelligible.”

    • relevant felt meanings, from out of which symbolization is understandable

    • nishio.iconThis “understanding” uses UNDERSTAND, which is different from the COMPREHENSION translation “understanding”

  • Here’s what they say in everyday conversation

    • To understand, we need “past experience”.

    • ” context” must be understood

  • A set of symbols comes to be understood with the help of many other experienced meanings, not just the one felt meaning they represent (p. 158).

  • Example: “A beginner learns a saying; after more than 20 years of experience, he understands the meaning of the saying in a different and more complete way, but when he tries to teach it to his student, he cannot find a better expression (=symbolization) for its meaning than the first word he learned 20 years ago.”

    • nishio.iconThat’s a common one in math books.
      • When I first saw the definition of a certain mathematical concept, I didn’t know what it meant.
      • I read various examples and explanations and think, “I see what you mean.
      • I took another look at the definition, thinking, “Why didn’t you just write that?” and that’s exactly what it said.

  • RELEVANCE is a type of symbolization

    • nishio.iconI’m not sure.

  • Two Perspectives

  • nishio.iconI think the choice of the word CIRCUMLOCUTION has created a bit of noise and the choice of “phrase” as a translation has made it harder to understand.

  • Basic premise: I’m not talking exclusively about linguistic symbols.

  • CIRCUMLOCUTION

    • A roundabout or indirect way of speaking; thus:
      • Unnecessary use of extra words to express an idea, such as a pleonastic phrase (sometimes driven by an attempt at emphatic clarity) or a wordy substitution (the latter driven by euphemistic intent, pedagogic intent, or sometimes loquaciousness alone).
      • Necessary use of a phrase to circumvent either a vocabulary fault (of speaker or listener) or a lexical gap, either monolingually or in translation.
        • A technical word, such as hyperkalemia or hypoallergenic, can be glossed for general audiences with a circumlocution, such as “high potassium level” or “less likely to cause allergies” (respectively).
    • I guess the latter example is closer.
      • I used the symbol “hyperkalemia” to express what I wanted to convey, but since it may not be understood, I expressed the same thing again as “high potassium level” (in Japanese, it is “hyperkalemia” ← this is also an example of CIRCUMLOCUTION).
      • In the same way, we speak or use diagrams or gestures to communicate something, and then we express the same thing differently.
      • image
        • This is another example of CIRCUMLOCUTION
      • nishio.iconI think this is more of a “paraphrase” than a “phrase”.

  • Of the “same thing” and “different expressions” just described, the first half “same thing” is converted to “related things” in CIRCUMLOCUTION

    • The “same thing” is, of course, inclusive.
    • CIRCUMLOCUTION is occurring that connects a number of related things like this document.
    • This clarifies “what I wanted to convey.
      • = Creatively shaping and modifying perceived meaning
      • The “two viewpoints” diagram from earlier.
        • image
        • Modifying the meaning by increasing the number of associations.
        • (This is also an actual example)
      • nishio.iconExample, “I bought a new phone - oh, I’m talking about the one I don’t carry around.”
        • Even if the word “phone” conjures up an image of a cell phone, it’s modified.
      • Here’s another real-life example

        • In cognitive therapy, we do things like “write what you feel on paper,” but by putting subjective things into words and putting them outside of yourself, you can “treat them objectively/third-party/as if they were someone else/with distance/associate” with them. I think.

        • The first symbol verbalized was “objectively,” but I felt that didn’t say what I wanted to say, so I added a few more symbols.

  • RELEVANCE and CIRCUMLOCUTION

    • CIRCUMLOCUTION is the creation of RELEVANCE between experienced meaning
    • RELEVANCE assumes that the felt meaning already exists

  • Creative Functional Relationship Summary

  • Clean language: withholding interpretation of symbols

  • Phenomenology as an illogical stage

  • Materials I would use if I had more time.

  • I don’t have it, so I don’t use it.

This page is auto-translated from /nishio/「体験過程と意味の創造」勉強会(split) using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.

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