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hi everyone and welcome to the session of the funnel lab today it's my pleasure to welcome Professor Claire vitimation I apologize for my bad Branch okay
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and Claire uh is a professor at the economic Superior in Paris after studies in buddies in Buddhist philosophy and 10 years of experience and information
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system design a PhD thesis under the supervision of the Francisco Varela at the cool Polytechnic in Paris on the subject of lived experience that our campaigns the
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merge of an intuition she is presently professor emerita at The Institute mini Telecom and member of the Akiva author at the corner Superior
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in Paris a research focuses on the usually unrecognized dynamics of lived experience and micro phenomenological methods enabling us to become aware of it and describe it
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she studies the epistemological conditions of these methods as well as their contemplative educational therapeutic and artistic applications the title of the talk she is going to
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present today is What Becomes of the ipuki in a micro phenomenology thank you very much there for accepting my invitation the floor is yours
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thank you very much Francisca and thank you prisca for inviting me to the fennel lab I'm very happy to be with you um today this afternoon this morning I
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don't know where where you are yeah so now I need to what I've been trying to do since I started my thesis under the supervision
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of Francisco Varela who initiated this approach is to contribute to the development of a phenomenological practice an empirical
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concrete or experiential phenomenology which took the name of micro phenomenology so the microphone musical method relies on an interview method which
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makes it possible to collect rigorous and fine-grained descriptions of a movement of experience this interview method is an adaptation to research of the entertained
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explicitation created by the French psychologist Pierre merch for educational purposes it has been complemented by an analysis method aiming at
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identifying from a corpus of microfenological description descriptions sorry possible structural regularities of the type of experience under studies
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so for those of you who don't know at all the microfilminological method ear is a brief synthesis of the microfenological
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interview process so after an interview contract I mean at defining the framework the objective the principles and
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the confidentiality of the interview so step one the the next step of the interview consists in choosing or
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eliciting the singular experience to be described The Experience can be elicited triggered just before the interview it can also be a past experience
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which may have been lived even a long time ago in both cases the third step of the interview consists in inviting the interviewee to
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presentify or evoke this past experience by helping her to retrieve its sansouri context just as the odor and taste of the Madeleine enable post to recall very
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precisely one scene and then whole chapters of his childhood in the evocation state the past situation becomes more present for the interviewer interviewee sorry then the
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interview situation this evocation state is characterized by precise objective Clues such as the break of eye contact
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the slowing down of verbal flow the use of the present tense and the use of coverable gestures for example once the evocation is stabilized the
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next step of the interview consists in helping the interview we provide a course description of the temporal unfolding of the experience
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the interview is then an iterative process consisting in choosing a phase of the experience and helping the interview win refine
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its diacronic description that is the description of its unfolding in time or the synchronic description of this moment of experience
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that is the description of the experiential landscape at this particular moment for example the mode of attention which is mobilized at that instant of experience of the sensory modalities
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that are present at that moment the expertise of the interviewer consists in the drawing the interview with attention towards elements of experience which may
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have said unnoticed as the initial moment two questions which are at the same time very precise very focused but non-indictive such as when you did
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that what did you do very simple questions the resulting description at the end is a very fine grained is very fine-grained an hour of interview
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usually allows the description of a few seconds of experience that is why this interview method is called micro the microfenological interview
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so this interview method is complemented by an analysis method enabling the researcher to identify the diacronic and synchronic specific structures of a
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singular experience under the form of a network of descriptive categories and the comparison of several specific structures make it makes it possible
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to identify possible generic structures of the type of experience beings studied so after it's a very very brief overview
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on the of the method my objective today is not to to present it in only its details but to focus on the particular issue
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given the importance of the Apple Care in phenomenology since it is a founding Act of the classical phenomenological approach I would like to try to answer the
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question what becomes the epoke in micro phenomenology will be very concrete as usual I want to discuss the different conceptions of the epoque in the main
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figures of phenomenology it would it's not at all the goal of this present short presentation but I will try to check if something like the epoque occurs in the very
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concrete process of exploration of experience that microfenomenonology offers I'm going to present a work in progress a set of hypothesis born from the
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microfenological exploration of different types of experiences and a hypothesis intended to be confirmed invalidated or refined by
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further investigations so I will start for the observation on which many phenomenologists agree today that there are two interpretations of
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the APK In classical phenomenology there is political in this first interpretation depuke consists in responding one's
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preconceptions and beliefs about experience which conceal The Experience itself so I will call this interpretation the
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light is okay which doesn't mean that this Swiss function is something easy to do of course the in the second interpretation the apocame consists in suspending the
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particular belief our implicit and fundamental belief that things exist a part of our consciousness of them I will I will call this suspension the
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radical epoke my question becomes now ah this acts part of the microphenological method if so what means
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does the method use to elicit them to trigger them and what is the effect of this act what do they enable us to discover
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so in delighted okay in the in the latent interpretation depuke consists in letting go once preconceptions and beliefs about
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experience which conceals The Experience itself this means that to become aware of our experience we must first abandon the representation we make of it to which we
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usually all the very firmly just as someone who spontaneously draw the table as he knows it is rectangular must first abandon this representation
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to be able to see the table as it really appears to to her or him that is like a distorted parallelogram so I'm sorry
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how does the microfenological interview help interview with abandon their beliefs and preconceptions about the experience being described
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the first mean used by the interior method is to focus on a singular experience no one has an experienced in general the premise of the method is that only
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the exploration of a singular concrete experience precisely located in space and time makes it possible to leave the conceptual level that is the expression of preconceptions
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representations generalities and beliefs about re-experience in order to become aware of the experience itself of what is actually lived
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the first stage of the interview is therefore to invite the interviewed person to choose and to explore a singular experience however most of the time
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the agreement on a singular experience to explore doesn't prevent the interviewee from quickly deviating towards the expression of generalities judgments about the experience she is
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exploring created a map of the domains of verbalization that he called the satellite dimension of excursions the whole of the interview voice is to
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identify in which domain the interviewed person is at any given moment and each time she deviates towards the Delight dimensions to gently
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but firmly bring a back to the singular experience which is being described described another possible possible device consists whenever the interview will use
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an abstract word likely likely to convey an implicit preconceptional representation in formulating a question to help him
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discover the concrete experience and notably the concrete action which may be hidden between behind this abstract word for example if the interview we says I
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experienced resistance resistance which is we consider as an abstract word the interviewer will reply take your time to let the movement where you experience this resistance come back
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at that moment how do you know that you are resisting or at that moment what do you do to resist so it's a way of
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uh these are disappears these abstract decisions I don't know to yes to
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oh you understand what I mean I hope so first before addressing the exploring this radically bouquet I I would just say that where do
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preconceptions and beliefs that bail experience come from it is a question I would like now so the microfenological practice clearly shows that
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preconceptions originate in the lack of contact with experience and this lack of contact arises from the
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absorption of attention into the object of experience to the detriment of the experience itself so this observation on which I'm going to come back allows me to address the
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second interpretation of the bouquet so the radical epoque in this second interpretation the epoche is more radical in the sense that it
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consists in suspending the preconception that underlie underlies our very way of relating to the world that is our implicit and fundamental
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belief in the existence of an objective word independent of our experience that I believe that Russell called the natural attitude
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so the radical epoke consists in bracketing or suspending disbelief in order to go back to the thing Center themselves it is the starting point the preliminary
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step of the phenomenological Endeavor to identify the structures of our relationship to the world foreign however it turns out that in the
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classical phenomenological tradition many pages have been written to try to define the APK conceptually but very little has been said about how this suspension is performed about the
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acts that this practice involves moreover very there are very few descriptions of the origin
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of the natural attitude which Remains the greatest of all enigma phenomenologists so the the principles of the microfenological process are the
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following nicofenomology starts from the observation that a large part of our experience escapes us remains unnoticed or unrecognized
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his blindness to experience seems to originate in the absorption of attention into the object or content of experience I will give a few examples in a minute
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this absorption into the object while concealing the experience generates mistaken representations reconceptions which themselves
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contribute to concealing experience one of its preconceptions is that of an objective word independent of the Mind to Natural neutralize preconceptions any
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preconceptions it is therefore necessary to recognize the unrecognized part of experience to become aware of it and this recognition supposes a concrete
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gesture consisting in releasing the absorption into the object of experience so for example while talking to you right now I'm absorbed into the content
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of the ideas that I am trying to express this absorption creates a sort of narrow attentional tunnel which has the effect of concealing for example the rapid
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succession of inner images light emotions that accompany my talk or also the pre-verbal thread of thoughts
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on which I Rely to express my ideas or even the gestures I make while talking usually I'm not even aware that I'm unaware of
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something as a result I have only a various County understanding of my own expressive processes I wouldn't be able to describe
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them in detail and if I tried I would probably describe what I learned about this process this the process of expression
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the preconceptions and belief I have about it but not how I experience it to become aware of it I would need to release the absorption
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of my attention into the content of my ideas more generally becoming aware of an experience requires releasing the absorb absorption
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into the object of experience or the tension towards the object of experience this releasing is a very specific gesture of which I tried to collect descriptions
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not only me but my collection meal so it has been described to us as follows first releasing the focus on the object of
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experience requires opening up the attention scope this opening up is often described as posted by the shift of the area usually perceived as the source of attention
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they add the Isis towards the body a shift itself initiated by a subtle adjustment towards the back of the skull which has described has been described
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to us uh often surprisingly yeah is the description of this tiny movement at this moment I go down into my body
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how do you go down into your body typical microfenological question I go towards the back of my head I move the center of gravity of my attention from the front of my head
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towards the back of my head so it's part of a long description of this Movement by by Elise so this tiny adjustment Fosters the widening of attention
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from focused attention becomes panoramic peripheral diffuse this open and embodied attention lose a receptive attention disposition
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instead of going towards the landscape the sound the person let's say uh for example instead of exploring it in a frontal active and deliberate way instead
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instead of touching it you let yourself be touched by it you let it come you make yourself available to it it's about welcoming the experience
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allowing oneself to be impregnated by it wow sorry I am a problem with my mouth [Music] okay may I share a nice description of this
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receptive attention mode given by Monique Monique was contemplating the yellow flowers of a garden one day in April suddenly she said I felt what it is
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actually to see to see isn't casting your guys towards something projecting it all day holding it out but really it's letting the thing in print itself in you
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you are completely passive and you like the color the landscape come to you the rent going to look for it you welcome it you're there and you receive it and you have the impression that the
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color of the landscape imprints imprints itself inside you so to sum up specific attentional Acts help releasing the straining towards
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objects of experience in order to allow the recognition of the experience concealed by this tension in the microphenogical interview this
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acts are hosted by the very structure of the interview process the first key to the interview is indeed to describe a particular past experience
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which the interviewer helps interviewee to replay reenact presentify in the initial situation the tension towards a goal to achieve
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for example sharing my ideas or to work or towards an object to identify concealed conceals The Experience itself but in the context of an interview
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the goal has already been achieved the object has already been identified the interviewee released from the tension towards the objective or object
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is able to adopt much more easily than in the initial experience the receptive attitude needed to recognize the unrecognized dimension of experiency
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unnoticed dimension of experience making any thought to remember the experience could however introduce a new tension which would once again conceal its
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unrecognized dimensions but it turned out that the technique used in the interview the evocation is based on a form of recollection that is involuntary
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the memory the memory cannot be targeted intentionally and directly but it pops up unexpectedly all that it is possible to do is to encourage the spontaneous
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emergence of the memory by rediscovering the sensory context of the experience and adopting a receptive mode of attention a receptive node which is precisely the
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condition of emergence into awareness of the unrecognized dimension of experience these receptive attention is aroused in the interview by very
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specific interventions such such as the following one I suggest if you agree that you take the time to let this movement
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this sensation this action come back so it's a each word is important in this sentence the words take the time to are notably
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important because they authorize an absence of immediate response and therefore the time of Silence of latency which is necessary for the emergence of the memory
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they divert the nwe from the temptation to fill this silence hastily with something known and not lived with the expression of
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knowledge about the experience which what which would once again be serum sir imposed superimposed on it yeah the slowing down of the verbal flow and
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the presence of movements of Silence are then clues that the person is in this waiting position by agreeing to adopt this receptive disposition
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the interview with give up the control they think they are over their experience and take the risk of discovering a dimension of themselves that they do not know yet
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in order to enter the state of vulnerability and to do this intimate work in the presence in the interviewer it is essential that they feel the later
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totally present attentive and benevolent the relationship of trust that is created is thus one of the key stones of the
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interview so what is the effect of releasing the absorption into objects thanks to these acts of attention
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these movements of attention so amazingly releasing the tension towards contents or objects of experience as the effect of dissolving
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the structure the structures that we consider as the most solid and the most essential to experience the separations we usually perceive between body and mind between inner and
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outer space and between sensory modalities so I will address these three points successively the softening of the separation usually
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perceived between body and mind is well illustrated by the experience of ideation how does an idea come to us although the emergence of an idea is
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luckily a very common experience we know little about it indeed when an idea appears even a scientific idea that has important implications in our daily life
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all the interest usually focuses on its content and the exploration of its consequence consequences spread to the experience of its emergence to the process which made the
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discovery for example possible the reduction of the idea to its content expressed in verbal form and the lack of awareness of its Genesis
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as the effect of reducing our understanding of ideation to a disembodied cognitive mechanism we represent our ideas as thought processors taking place in a mind
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localized in the head and separated from the body the collection of meticulous descriptions of the process of emergence of ideas paints a very different picture
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this exploration shows that in the experience of ideation the distinction that we believe we perceive between mind and live body dissolved dissolves
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according to many testimonies before an idea is expressed in verbal mathematical mathematical pictorial or musical form it appears in the form of a direction a
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movement a rhythm not pertaining to any particular sensory modality but nevertheless certainly felt for instance for instance a well-known scientist that you will probably
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recognize describe described the emergence of his main idea as follows he said there was a feeling of direction of adding straight for something
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concrete it's of course very difficult to express this feeling in words but I add it in a sort of overview and in a certain way visually
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so the space where an idea unfolds even an apparently very abstract one such as the theory of relativity apart from being purely conceptual and
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disempotied takes the form of a landscape which a very specific texture contrasts contrasts of densities and intensity intensities in which the rigid
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separation that we usually establish between body and mind vanishes even when the idea has been expressed this gestural and quivering Dimension
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remains beneath Concepts it seems to constitute the very dimension of meaning just checking the other time I'm sure relaxing the tension towards the object of experience as also the effect of
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softening the Border usually felt between inner and out how to space of baking it's more permeable this characteristic is particularly well
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evidenced in perceptual processes when the tension towards the perceived object releases for example when a sound occurs my attention usually focuses on the
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physical event at the origin of the sound in a fraction of a second I recognize the sound as the song of a blackbird on the plum tree this focused attention as an impact on
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the structure of my lift space the object is out there far from me who I'm here this mode of attention of listening more precisely this mode of
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listening creates a distance a separation between the perceived object and the perceiving subject but when a sound occurs instead of going in search of the sound
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listing it out towards it I can also make myself receptive to it I can let the sound come to me I can let myself be touched by it
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listening like this a little as we listen to a piece of music creates a sort of rhythmic Attunement between bodily space and outer space which has the effect of softening the limit
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between the two spaces the felt song is not over there in the throat of the bird it's not here in me I either it resonates in a space where the
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boundary between ear and their vanishes perception 2 loosening the tension towards the object as the effect of weak weakening the bodily boundaries
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suppose for example that during a walk in the countryside the bend in the path reveals a new landscape immediately I recognize its elements
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birch trees extreme which I look at locate over there at the distance from myself whose point of view is located here at eye level
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but there is another way of looking instead of recognizing objects over there I can let colors shapes movements sounds come to me I can let the atmosphere
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the particular Rhythm that emanates from the landscape they made me a little like a perfume in the sectarians the landscape is no
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longer an expanse that presents itself to me as a beautiful spectacle it's no longer looked at but felt and this feeling dissolves the boundary between it and me
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understand I am going under the description of this experience but I am going to skip it or time reasons these sense of dissolution of bodily boundaries
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is itself associated with the transformation of the feeling of individual identity which becomes lighter and may even disappear this weakening is very obvious in the
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emergence of a new idea again in this instant the sense of urgency that is the sense that I am the one with generating the idea is altered
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the interview interviewed subjects do not say I have an idea but an idea is coming to me even the sense of ownership that is the feeling that this
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idea is my ideal faith interview with don't do not even say an idea is coming to me but there is an idea
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the experience is not felt as being immediately mine as being my experience it's not felt as personal this is also true of an emerging sensation
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like the idea the sensation emerges in a space which is neither subjective nor objective at the very initial moment of its emergence when the tension towards the object releases
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it happens that the distinction usually perceived between sensory modalities also becomes more permeable indeed the vocabulary used to describe
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the texture of these feelings often calls simultaneously on several sensory registers of this of an emerging feeling right for example the feeling of direction that
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led Einstein to the to the theory of relativity that you described in the sentence I quote the a minute ago so this feeling of direction direction
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seems to be both kinesthetic a feeling of Direction and visual I added in a sort of overview in a certain way visually in a different domain the psychoanalyst
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Theodore reik describes the subtle inner Sensations that guide him in the course of a therapeutic session sometimes as visual it described it describes them as
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nuances and treating psychic Shadows sometimes as auditory as almost imperceptible earth tones sometimes as tactile
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as little incoherences slight irregularities that were not visible but were possible to touch as when an ant slides carefully and softly over a
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fabric and sometimes as kinesthetic it described this feeling is as Tiny Saturn Subterranean
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variation so these feelings do not fall within a specific sense of remodality they are strictly speaking never images
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nor kinesthetic or tactile transitions nor sounds however they have specific precise sensory sub modalities such as intensity Direction and Rhythm
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which have the characteristics of being the characteristic of being transmodal unlike for example temperature which is specific to touch and color which is
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specific to vision intensity Direction and Rhythm are not specific to a particular sense but can be transposed from one sense to another
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in in this dimension of experience the the Border usually perceived between the different sensory registers dissolve somehow in some
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releasing the tension towards contents or objects of experience enables us to come into contact with a more subtle dimension of experience
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a dimension where the separations we usually perceive between body and mind between inside and outside and between subject and object
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and between sensory modalities fed or even vanish however amazingly this gesture of releasing that does not only make us aware of the
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subtle dimension of experience but this this gesture subtilizes experience this capitalization of experience may occur in other practice in other practices for example in the practice of
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the focusing method or in some meditative practices where this process is not fostered by evocation
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but by different skillful means aggressively over the course of the practice the experience of the practitioner becomes lighter lightens say it differently
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this fertilization or lightning process does not result from reorienting attention from a layer of solid and coarse phenomena towards a layer or more
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subtle or elusive phenomena layers which would be coexistent ready to be accessed it's different the very gesture of releasing the
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tension on the perceived phenomena attention represented here by honaro softens its solidity its density makes it lighter and in the same way in the same movement
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sorry also softens its separation from a solid perceiving subject releasing the grasping on the object satellizes at the same time the object
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and the subject poles the subject is represented by this circle in the middle and the word by the big circle so this gesture of
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releasing the tension of the object subtilizes the both poles in fact in other words what microfenological
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investigations I liked is that the structure of our lift space is not pre-given but but is shaped by micro attentional Acts
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in this Dynamic perspective we don't have two poles the subject pole and the object Pole but a spectrum of increasing or
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decreasing density of the subject object couple said differently we don't have a pre-given word made of different layers of more or less subtle phenomena
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and different modes of attention giving us access to these different layers but how a very attention mode solidifies or subtilizes the world
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it's interesting to note that our vocabulary as no word to name the to name this process of solidification or structuralization of
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the world at least to my knowledge so at this point of our in our investigations what elements of financial can we provide to the question
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in what by to the question but What Becomes of the radical epoche in micro phenomenology that is the suspension of our fundamental belief in the mind
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independent existence of the world so it's a huge question it's a youth question is a huge question very difficult uh and I
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as I am I've been asked this question I tried to find find elements of an answer and here are a few elements of answer
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so the fundamental gesture that underlies the experiential approach of microfenaminology is not a conceptual gesture of
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responding the belief in the reality of external objects it is a concrete gesture of releasing the tension towards objects that is
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fostered and accompanied very precisely by the indw process this gesture of releasing
00:48:55
results in the lightning of the object as well as as that of the subject that is in the subtilization of the subject
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object diode so it's not a gesture of suspension so I think the the word epoke is not
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well adapted to describe this process and this gesture doesn't initiate the phenomological process but it is carried out again and again during the process and its full realization it it
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can happen it would Mark the it would Mark the end of the process rather than its beginning I think I am going to stop there thank you very much for your attention
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much
End of transcript