Epistemology

...so far there is no good theory of consciousness. There is not even agreement about what a theory would be like......A view of consciousness that does justice to the variety of complications will almost certainly demand a revolution in our habits of thought.

Douglas R. Hofstadter
Daniel C. Dennett, 1981
Bantam Books 1981

No matter how „scientific“ the psychological investigation is, there are ubiquitous philosophical aspects of it, which when unnoticed, are likely to be defective.

Daniel N. Robinson
Columbia University Press, New York, 1985

Every mere scientific description of human feeling, perception, behaviour and thinking has the touch of reductionism or materialism. Supposing that we were capable of understanding all processes in the human body down to the atoms it would remain the question of what is behind, what is the perceiving I, who am I, my mind, my soul etc.
Therefore, an anthropology which claims for being psychobiological has to contain two components:

	a consistent and comprehensive biological, in particular neuro-biological / psychological theory
	a solution of the central problem of epistemology: the body-mind-problem.

Essential Questions of Epistemology:

1. What / where is the perceiver, the mind, the soul, the psyche, the self, the subject, the I, finally the subject?

2. What is the perceived, the existent, the being, the consciousness, the object, the world, finally the object?

3. How works the perception (German: Anschauung), the intuition, i.e. how functions the transition from the world to the perceiving I and vice versa? How do subject and object „communicate“?

The following short summary of Lungwitz’ epistemology is only suitable for a general impression.

The Epistemology of Lungwitz

	The human cerebral cortex is the organ of consciousness.
	The conscious, the object is function peculiarity of respective specific cells of the cerebral cortex (not to be mixed up with the function itself).

Remark: The conscious is not a byproduct of the body and its processes (epiphenomenon). The brain does not whatsoever produce, construct, project etc. the conscious. There is only a relation between the conscious and the respective function of the cortex what is not to be mixed up with parallelism. The brain and its function are themselves objects when being seen, thought or described and accordingly function peculiarities of the brain. This also is valid for self-consciousness, mind, soul, I.

	The perceived, the existent, the conscious, the object etc. are synonymies.
	The world is identical with the sum of (my) consciousness singlenesses, ie. objects.
	The object „appears“ as feeling, sensory perception/sensation and concept/idea/notion (German: Gefühl, Gegenstand, Begriff).
	The object has no temporal and spatial extension.

Remark: The objects are not located in an absolute space and time. The notions time and space are themselves sequences of objects only describing the relation between objects particularly with regard to their cerebellar symbol components and their changes.

The object is - exclusively phenomenologically - composed of symbol components and is accordingly symbol of all pre- and post-objects, ie. the object is symbol of the world.

Remark: This statement corresponds with the direct and indirect neuronal connection of all cells of the cortex and their inflow into the respective actually functioning cell.

The object exists exclusively as "changedness“ (German: Verändertheit) and is only identical with itself. An identity between objects does not exist.

Remark: This statement corresponds with the permanent alteration of the cells and their associative structure (neuroplasticity).

The subject, the psyche etc. is the non-thing, the nothingness as the polar antithesis to the object, the thing, the entity. The subject has no definiteness, ie. no properties and functions.

Remark: The description of the subject as given here is also objectic, „lies on the object side of the perception“, is a sequence of objects. All what can be asserted about the subject, the psyche etc. is that it is adverse to the object, thing etc.

	Perception (German: Anschauung) is spatial-temporal coincidence of subject:object, non-perceiving:perceived, non-conscious:conscious, etc.
	The perception unit „subject:object“ is designated as eron or individuum (the non-divisible).

Consequences

	There doesn’t exist any absolute world being independent of consciousness in which we are living and of which we only can perceive a part because of the supposed restriction of our sense organs and intellectual power.
	There is no consciousness of consciousness which could put us in the position to recognize the consciousness objectively and independently of the consciousness or to solve the body-mind-problem or the supposed mystery of the essence of the world.
	As many human beings as many worlds.
	Space and time are simply describing words and thus conscious. They don’t exist absolutely and independently of consciousness.
	There is no interaction between subject:subject, subject:object, object:subject, object:object. The doctrine of causation itself is a sequence of objects. It is an interpreting description of a sequence of objects and as such characteristic of the still prevailing perception (personal attitude to the world, German: Weltanschauung). With the solution of the body-mind problem the doctrine of causation is being recognized as a fiction and relinquished.
	The philosophy has to quit the idea of being in the position to achieve a real progress with regard to the discovery of the true essence of human nature independently of natural sciences and in particular of neurobiology.
	The natural sciences will have to give up the claim to explain the world by means of natural laws being absolutely valid and independent of human consciousness. Even the exact laws are as objects „changednesses“ (German: Verändertheiten), of course with an extremely little rate of variability.