Empowermental Studies (no, seriously!)

Doubt Fullness

Dear Dialecticians & Colleagues Across the Curriculum,
 
I salute Carroll’s seemingly sudden suspicion
                  of the notion  

          CONSCIOUSNESS

as a good sign.—and strange: one becomes
conscious of the double- edged (asset/liability)
quality of consciousness ; and is that secondary
consciousness (of primary consciousness) itself
a double edged asset & liability?
 
There’s an infinite regress brewing here,  as you
can quickly see:  an emerging 3d level consciousness
considering the second level consciousness wondering
for the first time about the attention efficient duplicity
of first level consciousness.
 
Typical: when one begins to think about thinking,
and then think about thinking about thinking.
Where do you draw the line? Closure?
 
Gregory Bateson (& Russell and Whitehead)
characterize this hierarchy in terms of Levels of
Logical Type and ascribe confusion & ignore-
ance growing out of our not being conscious
of this hierarchy in our mental process.
  
Logical Type Savvy: ability to track and  “handle”
levels of differentiaton, say,  thinking about plums,
thinking about  thinking-about-plums, thinking
about thinking about thinking-about-any
plums and any x y z  etc.
 
Language doesn’t handle this  levels-discrimination
easily as the  seemingly silly sounding  repetition of
 the word “thinking” incates—because it really is a
Different Kind of THINKING going on at each
level—not to be collapsed, conflated,  or confused .

Well, of course we DO collapse, conflate, and confuse.
But we might could be conscious of it from time
to time.  It's possible
 
(Einstein said the thinking that gets us into a problem
can’t be the kind that gets us out.)
 
Can you FEEL the irony in all this?  A visceral gut-grind.
     ”I am conscious of my consciousness
     as  duplicitous, double-dealing  where
      before I simply assumed it to be  a
        straight-shooter, single-barreled
         is-what-it-is delivery system".
 
Like turning on a light in dark closet. Enlightened?  
Unaware that all  the darkness has been  eclipsed
and  occluded by my lucid schemes.  Unaware that
I’m unaware: my lite is so brilliant andall-encompassing.
 
There’s always a language problem that surfaces as
one consciously turns consciousness back on itself,
turns language back on language: like a hand trying to
scratch it’s own elbow.  
 
It’s possible only when one realizes its impossible.
(Don't let the language get in the way.) 

The word DOUBT is diminutive for  DOUBLE.
Tell me why “doubt” and being “doubtful” seems
primarily to carry negative stigma rather than to
represent AWARENESS of Both Sides of the Coin,
Both Sides of the Fence  and therefore, in one’s doubt-
fullness  able more easily to sit on the fence, flip the coin,
appreciate the dark as well as the light side of
consciousness.
 
Thomas: the name means “twin” and  represents DOUBT,
as in “Doubting Thomas,” mythologically said to be the
brother of Jesus.   Siamese? Joined at the hip?   Single-
minded clarity on the one hand; double-minded doubt
on the other hand. So to speak.
 
    Double, double toil and trouble;
     Fire burn, and caldron bubble

(punch reply or better: reply-to-all
to sustain this courses-w/o borders
converse-action)

xxxooo, Sam