2nd
Part
Reality1: the transexperiential world which stands to reality2 in the relationship of the pictureed to the picture.
Reality2: the totality of one's experiences, the phenomenal world.
Reality3: what is encountered in the phenomenal world and not merely represented.
Reality4 or 'realness : the extent to which something is experienced as real.
Reality1 consists of everything
that we assume to exist independent of and beyond our experiences. It contains all
'scientific knowledge' as well as the objects we assume to underlie our every momentary
perceptions. Real1 are, thus,
the 'stimuli' of the behaviorist, the 'personality traits' of the psycho-diagnostician,
the 'memory traces' of the learning theorist, in short, whatever must be deduced
from observations and cannot be directly perceived. To call reality1
the physical world seems an unfortunate term, since we experience the manifest world
as physical. It's meaning will, however, become clearer as reality1
is contrasted with reality2 from
which alone it is inferred.
Concerning reality2 Metzger
(1963) states: "In so far as psychology investigates the manifest world itself
everything that exists in this manifest world is simply an undeniable fact: a negative
after-image, a vison of a ghost, a dream, a hunch, and an uncertain feeling no less
than the table on which I am writing and the people with whom I am talking, and
the good and bad moods of these people and their demands and expectations which,
even when they are not speaking, I feel as coming from them no less than their bodies
and limbs ... The question of the scientific validity of the givens does not even
arise bit is replaced by the question about the special laws governing the relationship
between this second realm of reality and the first one, the physical world."
Obviously, "the good and bad moods" and the "demands and expectations"
are those which the observer experiences as present in the observed and which the
observed may not have in reality1.
In reality1 they may be the result
of projection or some other distortion in person perception. Whatever their real1 cause they exist in reality2.
Since an important goal of science is to establish laws concerning the relationship
between reality1 and reality2 we shall clarify both the distinctions
and the relationships further. The physical object and the manifest object are not
one and the same. They are merely similar. When they are not sufficiently similar
we get into trouble, e.g., when one tries to bite into a good imitation of an apple.
In terms of information theory the physical (real1)
object is the beginning of an irreversible chain of transformations which ends in
the manifest (real2) object.
This applies also to the relationship between our physical (real1)
body and our experiences (real2)
of it. The similarity is clearly insufficient when one tries to stand on one's phantom
leg as happens to amputees.
Lack of similarity between reality1
and reality2 is due to mistakes
made in the selection and/or interpretation of charakteristics of reality2
which are taken as indications of certain qualities of the physical world (reality1). Such mistakes must, however, not
be attributed to the "perceptual system" which neither chooses nor errs.
Nor can the perceptual system be said to "utilize" stimuli any more than
a photographic plate "utilizes" the short wave light rays which blacken
it and "leaves unutilized" the long wave light rays which do not affect
it. Similarly, perception is no more "fooled" by "false stimuli"
than the photographic plate by some chemical which, like light, blackens it.
Metzger (1963) emphasizes that "although the things and beings in our immediate
surroundings actually stand to the real1
objects in a relationship of a picture to the pictured object, the things and beings
around us do not have the manifest character of a picture unless they
happen to be pictures in the common sense (paintings, prints, photographs, etc.).
Furthermore, they are by no means experienced as refering to some other,
true reality as is the case with representations and concepts in the true sense.
They are experienced as the final and true, ego-independent reality itself."
The two remaining meanings of reality are clearly phenomenological. Among the
totality of one's experiences (reality2)
we distinguish between things, beings, events, acts themselves and their
representations. Real3
is what is encountered, found or produced. It is in the same sense and on the same
level on which I, the observing subject, am real. Unreal3
on the other hand, is what is merely thought, imagined, conjectured, foreseen, remembered,
conceptually known, planned and/or intended. The unreal3
has frequently, if not always, the quality of "intentionality," of mediation,
imagery or aof meaning something beyond itself. That to which the representations
point or refer is experienced as the world of encounterable perceptual objects (reality3). Only after one has conceptualized
a reality1 can representations
also refer directly to transcendental events. Such direct reference to reality1 remains hoever limited to very specific
areas of theoretical-scientific thinking.
Manifest dreams, true hallucinations, hypochondrical symptoms and ideas of reference
are, of course, encountered whereas one's internal organs are not perceptually encountered
but only known to exist (real1).
This is easily demonstrated by asking someone to place his hand on his stomach.
Most people will indicate it several inches too low. Even an internal pain is not
an encounter of an organ. The non-physician usually does not even know which organ
hurts and even, if he does, he does not encounter the organ as a Gestalt.
If the reader feels uncomfortable about calling dreams 'real' and his liver 'unreal,'
he has slipped back into thinking in terms of reality1
where the vaguest knowledge about something which is considered to be physical is
regarded as reliable while one's experiences are mere appearances. This easily occuring
reversal has its good reasons. The relationship between what is represented
in imagery and ideas (unreal3)
and the perceptually real, i.e., encountered (real3),
object has always been the paradigm for epistemological assumptions concerning the
relationship between the perceptually real, i.e., encountered (real3)
object and the transcendental [bewußtseinsjenseitig], physical real (real1) object. The similarity of these
two relationships has again and again led to their confusion, e.g., when discussing
the perception of an immediately present thing we implicitly attribute to the perceptual
thing (real2,3) the role of the
physical one (real1).
We must also warn against another confusion, namely to mistake what is encountered
(real3) for 'external reality'
and what is represented (unreal3)
for 'inner world'. For you my representations are part of my inner
world. But for me they may experientially lie in specific locations among
the objects I encounter outside of myself. Even if they have no such specific location
in space, my thoughts and images are not experienced by me as being inside myself
but as in some way in front of me. When one searches one's memory in an effort to
recall something, it is more correct to say he entered those areas and moves around
in them than to claim that they are in him. Furthermore conceptualizations can interfere
in a purely mental way with the classification of what is encountered on the outside.
On the other hand, most of one's true 'inner world' is not represented but encountered,
e.g., one's feelings, moods, aspirations, inclinations, etc. from hunger and thirst
to enthusiasm and bliss.
As anywhere else in life and in science borderline instances exist between the represented
and the encountered. A 'good intention' may be experienced as a representation of
what one should or would like to want or as an already encountered change of one's
will. Can one encounter one's own personality traits directly or can they only be
deduced, i.e., represented in opinions, hunches, and convictions? Or, in the external
world, are the just pronounced words of a still unfinished sentence encountered
or represented? The fact that these questions cannot be answered unequivocally does
not invalidate the setting apart of the encountered (real3)
within the wider area of the totality of experiences (reality2).
As the German word for reality - Wirklichkeit - indicates real3
and unreal3 can be distinguished
on the basis of their respective effects - Wirkung. What is encountered is
functionally effective in a way in which the merely represented is not. This is
particularly evident whenever one's 'knowledge' of reality1
conflicts with what one encounters. Such knowledge which is a representation (unreal3) has no effect on the encountered
reality. Knowledge about the color of human skin does not make hands or faces look
any less greenish under a sodium lamp. Nor does one feel any less angry (in reality3) when one knows that there is really1 no reason to feel angry. The two
lines in the Mueller-Lyer illusion do not really3
look equally long after one has measured them and knows that they are really1 of identical length.
The futility and illogicality of the attempt to base psychology on anatomy and physiology
become clearly evident from the discussion of encountered things and parts of things
which belong to the encountered world and cannot be perceived through one's sense
organs. Walls, doors, furniture, and tools are (though in reality1
non-existent) encountered in a good performance of Wilder's "Our Town"
and are not merely represented like the (in reality1
existing) comparable objects in the next room which I cannot see at the moment.
The patient who improved considerably by talking to what she believed to be a therapist
in the adjoining room when there was only a tape-recorder and who established "a
definite positive transference relationship" to "him" (Dimascio &
Brooks, 1961) did obviously not "fantasy" the (really1)
non-existent therapist but encountered him. Here the effect (Wirkung) demonstrates
again the reality (Wirklichkeit) which might be best described as functional
or effective reality.
A change-over from encountered, effective reality (reality3)
to representation (unreality3)
can be observed in a person who turns slowly several times round with his eyes closed:
when the 'invisible' reality3
becomes mere representation for him he begins to stagger. Similarly, the effectiveness
of a person's actions makes it possible to decide whether his religious beliefs
are real3 or unreal3
and whether his god is manifest or an idea. One basic difficulty in the understanding
between Americans and Vietnamese results from the fact that for the Americans the
soul of the dead are 'believed' to be in the hereafter while for the Vietnamese
the dead are 'present' in their graves and deeply influence the everyday life of
the living.
An experiment by Erismann clearly demonstrates the functional effectiveness of 'something'
invisibly encountered (real3)
though unreal1: On a uniform
background two points are lit up alternately at such speed that the stroboscopic
motion is seen as 'pure' motion, i.e., as visible motion without transport of qualities.
If a visible, non-transparent screen is now placed in front of the line of movement
without covering its end points, the impression changes from pure to invisible motion
because of the part covered by the screen. This is the so-called "tunnel-phenomenon."
If the room is now darkened so that the screen too becomes completely invisible,
the impression nevertheless remains; the point seems to continue to move back and
forth disappearing behind and emerging from behind the screen. This impression remains
the same even after the screen has been removed unbeknown to the observer. Only
when the illumination in the room is increased to the point where the observer sees
that the screen is no longer there, does the impression change again into one of
unobstructed pure motion.
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