Prelude: I call this post “Part one”, not because I have a second or extra content intended to complement this one. But rather to acknowledge the overwhelming observation that what I have achieved here is but a very basic introduction to the question. And so:
There’s a switch I can sometimes feel for, somewhere in my mind. It’s just a single button. Nothing fancier than that. But it’s a master switch, of sorts, controlling my control of my mind. It doesn’t need to be pressed. Not in that way. After all, it’s nothing tangible. It’s in the mind, and like everything in the mind, it’s made of such stuff as make the mind. As a way of introduction, it is useful to recall the words of the old psychonaut, “Set and setting.” Psychonauts are travellers of the mind, navigators of the seas of consciousness, cartographers struggling to fix markers and make note of identifying formations in a dimension that is the carrier for all dimensions, and whose outline is topology itself, both absent shape and beyond all shape. It would be foolish to presume that some pithy, gnomic catch-phrase could presume to capture all the truths necessary for these sojourners. But it is similarly foolish to presume that an omniscient password is necessary to begin an understanding. The understanding I venture to study now is the nature of that ill-described switch I had mentioned. And the clue I offer for progress is the incidentally famous “Set and setting.” My meaning, in combining these two, is as follows:
The physical world, the one we measure in space, has a composition whose substrate we may label (in the spirit of philosophical jargon) “matter.” Not everything we know is composed in such a way of matter. There is at least one other substrate, whose compositions that can not be reducible to matter, even if their temporal patterns seem to encode each other*, implying some form of causality albeit of a mechanism I could not begin to unravel. This other substrate that I consider now we may label “mind.” Now that we have given some description, terribly rough but still useful for identifying mind, we can proceed with an effort to providing some rules that explain and govern its formation. Before continuing to do so, however, we must make an admission of humility. I say “must” not only because of its validity, but also that it should serve as a constant reminder of our ignorance. After all, when recording knowledge, even in the most hypothetical manner, it is too easy to become misled by the sparks, confusing them for giant conflagration, thus losing all perspective of size, till we mistake granules for mountains, and petty considerations for the thoughts of god itself. Thus I proceed not only with Ariadne’s thread, but also with sufficient scepticism to know (i.e. doubt, aka Socratic knowledge) that as the bearer of the thread my grasp of it is as weak as my understanding of its working is feeble. I said that “My meaning… is as follows,” and then proceeded to pile caveat upon uncertainties. But it was a necessary prelude, without which all my words could only have been fractured, their cracks hidden by an insolvent doubt. So now, to continue, “[A]s follows:”
Set and setting is both a primitive and a modern attempt at describing the laws of mind. I call it ‘modern’ because of the date of its conception; it is a fairly contemporary hypothesis. I call it ‘primitive’ because it is clearly just the start of a human struggle to enlighten an overwhelming darkness. like a frightened wish for Prometheus’ light during a night-time without herald of dawn. In comparing our understanding of mind in this way to our understanding of matter – two unknowns, so different, but both undoubtedly existent in this experienced world – we might recall the first philosopher to consider that there can be a meaning behind matter that, if unclothed, would reveal an understanding. I am alluding to Thales, who is remembered for teaching that all matter is composed of water; a hypothesis whose simplicity of terms hide profundity. By saying merely that, Thales is saying also that there is a single type of matter that underlies all the apparent differences in matter; all the differences in matter are somehow superficial; the reason for the superficial differences is due to some manner of the composition of the base matter (i.e. water); but that whatever the difference in ‘composition’ that was the mechanism for ‘superficial differences’ was beyond Thales. Perhaps there was some mechanism to do with water’s compression, or the shape of its units, or temperature, or energy, or purpose, or who knows what except that Thales (as far as his record allows us to presume) did not know. Thus we have an illustration of what a primitive philosophy looks like, and an understanding that besides any simplicity it may contain limitations, perhaps lacking answers to questions it could not even dream up.
Let’s recount and continue. There is a useful philosophy that has ventured to describe the composition of mind, aimed at those who would traverse its trails. This philosophy is contemporary, but this is just an incidental fact. It is also likely primitive, although like all scientists whose lives are restricted by history’s flow, just how primitive or how advanced is a question unlikely to bear fruit, especially when the harvest is measured against the press of the infinite. That philosophy suggests that the moulds of the mind, (I pause to admit that metaphors of space and the tangible are too useful to be sidetracked by notations of their problems), can be enlightened by understanding them as “set and setting”. The original explanation for that phrase is that any psychedelic experience is controlled by (mind) set and (experiential) setting. The simplest way to explain this further is by example. The psychedelic experience can vary greatly even when induced by identical agents or mechanisms. The reason for the incredible range of experience atop any preceding uniformity is the variations which are not always obvious unless specifically considered in set and setting. A difference in (mind) set is roughly delineated by the mind frame, including especially mood – note that by ‘mood’ I mean something more general than ’emotion’; perhaps something we could call ‘state’ and which is responsible for differences in a personality even within a single person and which I repeat is more general than mere emotion. As for the second half of the maxim, ‘setting,’ this is often simplified to encompass the setting in which the experience takes place. But such a simplification is misleading if it isn’t understood that the true setting of any experience is situated within the mind, and that even though the physical set pieces contribute to the setting, they only do so because they affect the experiences within which the mind operates. Consider the list of noise (music, talk), people (friends, humour), media (television, paintings), health (illness, well-being) – all these contribute to the substrate that all of contributes, creates, and comprises experience.
Any journey of the mind must contend with its compositional nature; with its set and setting. If I may simplify the above further, if only to ease considerations, then I would note that as a short-hand it is useful to consider set and setting as respectively the internal and external contributions to the psychic domain, (pausing to admit that those terms are misleading, since in the study of phenomenology the dichotomy of phenomenon and noumenon break down, except as a feeble distinction of perspective, of a single thing).
Now, if I have achieved anything at all; if I have furthered my goal which ostensibly was to provide at least a minimum of clarification of the mind’s substance and form, then I should back-track in order to remind myself of my purpose. I sought this explanation of mind so as to be sufficiently situated so as to be able then to give a description of that ephemeral switch I hazarded to mention. To ‘mention,’ but only very poorly, and only enough to provide some clue of what direction I should hope to continue if any elucidation might be achieved. So let me collate the facts so far. Correction: Let me collate the meagre facts I’ve ill-sketched so far. I have an awareness of a master switch whose power I associate with a higher control of my mind. My mind is also where it is located, and so to define it I need to search within that realm. It is useful to consider the mind as a realm different from matter as two different substances, as the portal of phenomenology and thus from which emanates will. Just as physicality (for want of a word) is the substrate of the mode of matter, mental (for want of a word) is the substrate of the mode of the mind. And finally, just as there are laws that dictate the forms of matter so too set and setting for mind.
PS. An obvious predecessor to this kind of thinking is the great philosopher Spinoza, who perceived matter and mind to be two modes of the same substrate. This also bears some similarity to Schopenhauer, who claimed that will is causality witnessed from a first-person perspective.
