Explore every episode of the podcast Learning A Process Model

In this episode we finish Chapter III, continuing from the subsection "Some Motivations and Powers of the Model So Far", and sharing our reflections and amazements of what Gendlin has accomplished in merely twenty pages.

Joey and I have a terrible habit of having long, deep philosophical discussions before moving on to record our podcast episodes and doing even more philosophy. Starting at the four-hour mark of thinking really hard together, we hope you'll enjoy the somewhat looser, sillier flow of this episode we crest into our final hour of reading Chapter III with aplomb.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

02:26 - p. 17, para. 5: "Some Motivations and Powers of the Model So Far"

05:02 - p. 17, para. 6: "Since we humans are here, we can be certain that we are not impossible."

05:48 - p. 17, para. 7: "Human meaning and symbols seem impossible in the spectator's space and time..."

06:34 - p. 18, para. 1: "Postmodernists want to reject any conceptual model."

12:04 - p. 18, para. 2: "We can devise an alternative..."

15:28 - p. 18, paras. 3–5: "We can speak from living..."

19:05 - p. 18, para. 6: "It is known that symbols and rituals have deep bodily effects, but there is no way to think how that can be."

28:39 - continuing para. 6 into p. 19.

29:40 - p. 19, para. 2: "What makes something a symbol is usually said to be that it 'stands for something'"

33:44 - p. 19, paras. 3–4: "Our rudimentary model already says quite a lot that needs to be said and cannot be said in the old model."

43:43 - Learned concepts in an en#1 sense are stoppages until they become relevant to the life process.

47:54 - Crossing APM with Eastern wisdom teachings about non-thinking.

49:33 - p. 19, paras. 5–6: "Later we will derive terms for cognitive processes..."

53:06 - Closing

So far in the book we have organisms that are occurring as (and in) their environment, who are implying their functional cycles and occurring (sometimes) into them. In this model, there is as yet no differentiation from within the organism between itself, and—well—anything.

For a living organism, how does anything become some thing? How might things come to be differentiated in the first place as a thing? According to Gendlin, differentiation happens in a much more (implicitly) meaningful way than our current models suggest.

In this episode, we tackle everything in Chapter 3 up to the first subsection, after which Gendlin starts discussing some motivations of the model (tune in for part 2 coming soon).

So grab you books and come learn with us! We're glad you're here!

00:00 - Introduction

01:19 - p. 14, paras. 1–3, "Our concept of implying has already moved to a second meaning..."

07:13 - p. 14, para. 4, "If the creature does not instantly die..."

15:33 - p. 14, paras. 5–6, "...perhaps a new way forms to do something that changes the implying somewhat..."

18:10 - p. 14, paras. 7–8, "Now we are speaking not just of the whole body-identical 'environment'..."

21:31 - p. 15, para. 1, "The part of en#2 that separates itself by being absent plays a special role..." (we start getting existential here)

28:47 - Objects and oneness, God, purpose...

37:26 - p. 15, para. 2, "...all of that process which was stopped by the absence will occur..."

39:28 - p. 15, para. 3, "...the process that resumes is much more complex than one could guess..."

40:27 - p. 15, paras. 4–5, "The animal recognizes the object."

44:47 - A "too early" definition of Focusing

50:41 - p. 15, para. 6, "In a resumption, the body does not encounter..."

52:32 - p. 15, para. 7, "So what we call an object is part of en#2, and part of the functional cycle..."

56:36 - p. 16, para. 1, "Since the next occurring does not immediately change it..."

01:00:05 - The text is creating itself in its own absences

01:02:28 - p. 16, para. 2, "When people say that 'objects are a function of the organism'..."

01:19:13 - p. 16, para. 3–4, "In our third meaning of the concept of implying..."

01:23:07 - p. 16, para. 5, "Later, we will develop terms for how a body can have objects that can be there for it..."

01:31:29 - p. 16, para. 6, "By allowing our terms to function logically this way, we arrive at puzzling results..."

01:39:14 - p.17, paras. 1–3, "When the object returns, the stopped process resumes and moves on..."

01:41:49 - p. 17, para. 4, "The object implies the resumed process to the body..."

In Chapter I, we explored different ways to think of the environment and of space. Now, in Chapter II, we'll start exploring new ways to think of time.

Grab your books and join us for a reading and discussion that spans topics such as Focusing, the nature of reality (metaphysics), and how Gendlin's concepts keep pointing to the moon of our bodies' felt sense!

And as always, feel free to drop us any APM questions on our form here: https://forms.gle/ydzoChYxv9AY76mf9.

00:00 - Episode begins

01:44 - Reading begins

07:37 - Linear time bits, 3 bits of force

11:41 - The whole string of en#2 is implied by...

17:38 - Feeling the string of en#2's, and implicit time

28:06 - "is" versus "implies"

41:00 - Living cannot well be thought of as unit events only

50:00 - Living context gives true knowledge and understanding

58:47 - A certain very special relation...

01:09:20 - "Being" vs. implying process

01:15:47 - Generating time, habitat-time

01:22:07 - To say that each bit of occurring is what the last bit implied...

01:26:59 - "To the things themselves"

01:33:48 - Implying is not the same as what will occur; not predetermined

01:41:54 - All occurring also implies; implying part of every occurring

01:44:36 - Implying is *not* an occurring that has not yet occurred; never just equal to occurring

01:52:29 - So we see that implying is not just what will occur...

01:59:34 - Whirling in deconstruction of occurring, implying, and en

02:06:32 - The most significant part of this chapter for Joey

02:08:06 - Something about how Focusing works (carrying forward)

02:13:07 - Final thoughts on chapter, and what's to come

02:20:33 - Going back to Footnote #1

02:29:01 - Thinking with patterns

02:35:26 - Gendlin is pointing at the luminous moon within our body

02:41:22 - Closed logical power, vs. opened experience: we can *always* re-open a theory

02:45:15 - The old conceptual pattern that can now imply more

02:50:42 - Let it be Open

We start right before the main text with the very brief Prefatory Note, and clarify how "A Process Model" (APM) differs a bit from standard philosophy fare. Then we proceed right on in, without any further introduction. Exciting!

If you've been interested in (1) reading A Process Model or (2) going deeper on it, then what you really need is to just get inside the text, to be in it.

So grab your copy of APM (or get a copy of it!) and join Joey Massengale and I as we navigate into the necessarily unfamiliar terrain of environments, ahem, "en"s, #2, #3, and #0.

Send your confusions and questions our way at https://forms.gle/s5kQ24cy3Paycyrz9, and we'll try to answer them in future episodes or reach out directly!

Chapters:

00:00 - Prefatory note & context

02:53 - Chapter I: body and environment are one

05:18 - en#1: the spectator’s environment

08:30 - en#2: the reflexively identical environment

09:42 - Example: walking & ground resistance

15:38 - The paradox: equal and not equal to en

22:26 - Mutual implying, non-representational concretion, and interactional concepts

40:34 - en#3: the homemade/domesticated environment

48:33 - Action tracks: the body as process concretized

1:01:50 - When does something become en#3?

1:15:40 - The main environment: other species members

1:25:00 - Rethinking space: two-directional “in”

1:34:13 - en#0: the infinite richness of the unborn

1:41:50 - Determining life process by en#0

1:48:33 - What’s alive about Chapter I for us?

2:00:02 - The exciting stuff that lies ahead in APM