thanks for directing me to that article of yours. It’s well developed and accurate. One of the best I’ve seen of its kind.
At the same time, I’m not sure that people experience it the way you describe it. And I’m wondering about the relationship between your description and the process of experience. For example part of the experience of freezing may be an unawareness of fear itself. This is particularly marked in the case of the fawn response where people may actually believe what they’re doing is something positive. This goes along with the so-called Stockholm syndrome. I love phenomenology but I think that it leans upon the creation of a narrative of experience that doesn’t always capture all the elements involved. This is where I think neuroscience can be helpful in providing a way of looking at non-conscious process.
I think Merleau-Ponty would’ve been fascinated by current neuroscience for example. I’m curious what you would think of these issues.
I agree with you. I'm not sure that everyone experiences fear in the same way, or whether certain nuances of bodily sensation become available only as people become more aware of their own experience.
That was certainly the case for me. I used to experience these emotional states as a general sense of unease, together with a tendency to act in certain ways, while becoming very caught up in the thoughts that accompanied those states. Over time, I began to realize that much of this unease seemed to be bodily in nature.
When I describe these experiences, my goal is not to claim that everyone experiences them identically, but rather to look for possible invariants in experience and see whether they can be validated intersubjectively.
My background probably explains why I'm so interested in these questions. I was trained in philosophy and spent many years practicing Buddhism, but both my master's and PhD are in psychobiology (behavioral neuroscience).
So my main interest lies precisely in the dialogue between phenomenology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. I see them as complementary perspectives.
Phenomenology can reveal aspects of lived experience that neuroscience cannot access directly, while neuroscience can illuminate non-conscious processes that phenomenology alone cannot describe. To me, the most interesting work happens where these approaches begin to inform one another.
Thank you for this exchange! I really hope this can lead to more discussions like this within the community. My goal isn't simply to publish articles, but to encourage meaningful dialogue around these ideas.
thanks for directing me to that article of yours. It’s well developed and accurate. One of the best I’ve seen of its kind.
At the same time, I’m not sure that people experience it the way you describe it. And I’m wondering about the relationship between your description and the process of experience. For example part of the experience of freezing may be an unawareness of fear itself. This is particularly marked in the case of the fawn response where people may actually believe what they’re doing is something positive. This goes along with the so-called Stockholm syndrome. I love phenomenology but I think that it leans upon the creation of a narrative of experience that doesn’t always capture all the elements involved. This is where I think neuroscience can be helpful in providing a way of looking at non-conscious process.
I think Merleau-Ponty would’ve been fascinated by current neuroscience for example. I’m curious what you would think of these issues.
I agree with you. I'm not sure that everyone experiences fear in the same way, or whether certain nuances of bodily sensation become available only as people become more aware of their own experience.
That was certainly the case for me. I used to experience these emotional states as a general sense of unease, together with a tendency to act in certain ways, while becoming very caught up in the thoughts that accompanied those states. Over time, I began to realize that much of this unease seemed to be bodily in nature.
When I describe these experiences, my goal is not to claim that everyone experiences them identically, but rather to look for possible invariants in experience and see whether they can be validated intersubjectively.
My background probably explains why I'm so interested in these questions. I was trained in philosophy and spent many years practicing Buddhism, but both my master's and PhD are in psychobiology (behavioral neuroscience).
So my main interest lies precisely in the dialogue between phenomenology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. I see them as complementary perspectives.
Phenomenology can reveal aspects of lived experience that neuroscience cannot access directly, while neuroscience can illuminate non-conscious processes that phenomenology alone cannot describe. To me, the most interesting work happens where these approaches begin to inform one another.
Thank you for this exchange! I really hope this can lead to more discussions like this within the community. My goal isn't simply to publish articles, but to encourage meaningful dialogue around these ideas.
I appreciate your approach and I understand how your training informs it in a way that is rare.