[Neurons] Neurons #30 THE CONTENT DIMENIONS & PHENOMENOLOGY

Sun Jul 20 14:47:16 EDT 2025

From: L. Michael Hall

2025 Neurons #30

July 21, 2025

Phenomenology Series #5

Last Blog 

THE CONTENT DIMENSIONS &

PHENOMENOLOGY 

Now for the five Content dimensions of the Matrix Model.  I originally took
these from Developmental Psychology as categories of experience.  Each of
these reveals different aspects of self.  The self-world refers to one's
domain, realm, invented universe of meaning where you live.  The term self
refers to your sense of value and worth, your importance or what we call
"self-esteem."  Others refers to the social self, you as sensed by and
responded to by others.  Power refers to what you can do, achieve, and
accomplish and hence, you self-confidence.  Time refers to you temporal
self, self in time and how you experience your journey through time.

The World

The world in Phenomenology is a context, environment, a set of references.
Yet it is more.  Gadmer said "man has both an environment and a world." (p.
440).  Actually, the concept of world stands opposed to the concept of
environment. "All living beings in the world possess" an environment, but
only man has a world (Gadmer, pp. 440-1).  This is called the life-world
that we inhabit.  Arendt writes:

"It is through work that humans come to find themselves in a world; "the
human condition of work is worldliness" "within its borders each individual
life is housed."  Work creates a human world as opposed to labor which
struggles with nature.  Work leads to reification and the
instrumentalization of the world." (311, italics added)

How then do we have a world in addition to an environment?  In
Neuro-Semantics, world stands for all of "the universes of meaning" we live
in.  And as human beings, there are so many worlds: the world of business,
medicine, law, psychology, coaching, NLP, etc.

"The world as world exists for man as for no other creature that is in the
world.  But this world is verbal in nature." (Gadmer, 440)

That any of the thousands of worlds, that we can know and live in,
identifies the role of language in experience.  Language is not just one of
our possessions, the world we have is dependent on language.  Phenomenology
says, "Man's being-in-the-world is primordially linguistic.  It is a product
of a constituting ego" (Husserl, p. 166).  Language as a world-creating
mechanism (283).  No wonder Heidegger wrote, "Language is the house of
being."

Self

Another central theme in Phenomenology is self.  Paul Tillich, theologian
and existential philosopher, writes that "The self is a zero point."  It is
"a centre of reference and orientation." (Ideas II, paragraph 41).  

The self is a part of the world and simultaneously it also has itself as a
world.  The self is self only because it has a world, a structured universe,
to which it belongs and from which it is separated at the same time.  Self
and world are correlated, and so are individualization and participation.
For this is just what "participation" means: being a part of something from
which one is, at the same time, separated" (p. 88, Tillich). 

Power

Part of our experience of ourselves given our meanings and intentions lies
in our sense of what we can and cannot do- in other words, our essential
powers.  The power of one's self is the power and vitality of living and
responding.  The self, as an ego, has a set of abilities, a sense of "I
can..."

When we can do something, we experience confidence in ourselves to do, to
achieve, and to accomplish.  This is what we mean by "self-confidence."
Together this power-to-respond generates the gestalt state of responsibility
which, in turn, distinguishes us as self-directed beings who can choose our
"way of being" in the world.

Others

We are also social beings.  We are who we are, and experiences ourselves as
we do, due to the way we represent and experience others.  So not only do we
have a self in the world, but in the world, there is the other.  Our natural
life is a life in community with others which, in turn, enables us to have
shared language and shared meanings.  Having that, we now have a community,
a culture, a society.  It also gives us a consciousness of the Other:

"How does the other enter into my consciousness?"  "The experience of the
other is a natural and inextricable part of my consciousness." (Dermot, 176)

The existence of others creates a context for all of us to respond - we
respond to the other and from that arises society.  In Phenomenology, the
basic structure of life with others is caring (storge) (Dormet, p. 226).
This also is the essential meaning of dasein (being).  To be is to care.
>From that comes openness to the other which means listening to the other on
the other's terms.

Time

We are time or temporal beings so much so that human existence occurs in
time- in lived time between birth and death.  So our consciousness which is
the basis of all experience is inextricably linked to time.  Our
consciousness is a time consciousness.  In fact, Heidegger's thesis was that
being itself is time, the theme of his book, Time and Being (Gadmer, Truth
and Method, p. 248).

"Since consciousness is presupposed in all science and knowledge, then the
proper approach to the study of consciousness itself must be a
transcendental one, one which focuses on the conditions for the possibility
of knowledge."  (144)

Our time consciousness makes us historical beings.  We are oriented
teleologically (Dermot, p. 179) to the end of things.  So we run ahead (in
time) in expectation, anticipation, worry, etc.  Regarding future time, we
also make promises in order "to create islands of security in the ocean of
future uncertainty."

"We live constantly in the future and in the past, in the distant and the
transcendent, in the unknown and the suspected, we do not live only in the
world around us as it is given to the five senses."  (Soko, p. 37)

Similarly, our time consciousness orients us to the past.  With the past, we
can linger behind in memory.  There is a historicity of our understanding so
that we bring from our past experiences, learnings, ideas, understandings,
etc. into our present.  But the past is not all-determining.  After all, we
can forgive ourselves and others as a way to undo deeds of the past and stop
them from influencing us now and in the future.

In Phenomenology, our singularity in time as a temporal being creates the
contingent nature of human existence.  In other words, we are limited in
time.  We are here now, later we will be not-here.  Running ahead in time,
we can anticipate an experience of non-being.

There are many kinds of times.  An important experience of time is kairos
which refers to the transfiguring moment, the "pregnant moment," the moment
of meaning and meaningfulness.  As when "a woman's time has come" to deliver
a child, regardless of when that is (chronos), that moment is a kairos for
her and the child.

Conclusion: Phenomenology and NLP

Phenomenology informs NLP.  While it was not directly quoted, it was in the
background.  For example, it informed Fritz Perls in his work of gestalt
therapy.  In The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy, Perls
describes working on "the hot seat" as working "on the phenomenological
basis." (p. 128).  This was the book that Bandler edited from the tapes of
Perls.  NLP is phenomenological in nature as it shares many of the same
features with Phenomenology.  And over the years, several trainers in NLP
have describe NLP as a phenomenology.  Both focus on and study the structure
of experience although in vastly different ways.  Yet each can enrich the
other.

NEURO-SEMANTICS NEWS --- 

.       In late Sept and early Oct --- in Mauritius --- we are running a new
Experimental Training.  It is designed for Senior Managers, CEOs, Business
Owners and others in Organizations who need Coaching Skills as Managers.

.       Using the training content of ACMC (Associate Certified
Meta-Coaching) we are adapting it and focusing it for Managers of all levels
. so that they can have those quick 1 minute or 10 minute conversations that
get to the heart of things as they manage people.

.       Interested?  Then check out the following website --- 

.        <https://acpf-mauritius.ns-trainings.com/>
https://acpf-mauritius.ns-trainings.com/#

Or contact Joyce Clever at joyce.clever at hotmail.com  

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

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