Introducing the Structure of Attention
Part 1: Mastering the Field of Awareness
Our intention is to create a new science of subjective experience. How does observation work in this realm?
When our focus is upon the external, objectifiable world, attention just happens without our needing to pay much attention to it (ha!). But when we are choosing to investigate the territory of the inner world, suddenly the function of attention itself becomes very, very important.
What exactly is “attention?” What does it do, and how does it work? And how do we most effectively use it to harvest robust and reliable observational data from this pristine landscape of inner experience?
Observation in Science
In any science, it is crucially important that our means of observation lend itself well to systematic, methodical application. We need to be able to conduct observations with methods that do not themselves get in the way of collecting the data about what it is we choose to observe. The observation method itself needs to be relatively invisible, to take up residence in the background of the full scientific process.
We can turn for an example of this to any one of many tools of observation used in the physical sciences. Take the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM). This machine applies a quantum phenomenon called electron tunneling to scan atomic surfaces. Here’s a sci-fi-style rendering of one of these STMs (I couldn’t find a good photo with no copyright restrictions).
If all the conditions are well managed (e.g. zero vibration, absolute vacuum), this machine is able to “view” surfaces at a high enough resolution to reveal individual atoms. Here is an example showing the arrangement of atoms on the surface of gold.
Becoming proficient with an STM requires a combination of technical training and scientific expertise. Scientists may spend months, if not years, learning to operate an STM effectively to collect reliable data. If you hand the controls to a college freshman, you’re not going to get anything useful, and you could easily wind up with a broken machine.
Operating the Instrument of Attention
If we are to attain a similar position of strength from which to conduct our observations of the inner, subjective realm, we owe it to our science to bring as much precision, skill and discipline to the function of attention as we possibly can. This is where psychotopology steps forward.
In conventional research of many kinds, a research subject is given instructions to place their attention on something specific. Depending on the research goals, that focus of attention might be a visual stimulus on a screen, their own bodily sensations, their emotional reactions to an image, or a memory from their past. This instruction for the “what” upon which to place attention is considered sufficient to the task. And perhaps it is in many cases. But psychotopology opens an opportunity for far greater sophistication in how we operate this instrument of attention by introducing more of a “how.”
The Components of How
Two top-level components make up the structure of attention. The first has to do with the space occupied by our awareness, which psychotopology calls the field of awareness. The second component has to do with the place from which we are observing what is in awareness, which psychotopology calls the witness position.
At this point in our exploration of the science of psychotopology, we are going to focus on the field of awareness to get us started. We will need to move further along in our investigations in order to make a few key discoveries about the topology of self before we can talk in detail about the witness position.
The Spatial Property of the Field of Awareness
We will be using the field of awareness extensively in the process of fieldwork, so it will be important for you to get the basics down before we dig in to our deeper explorations of the science of psychotopology. One key property important to become aware of and master is that of space. The field of awareness activated by the function of attention literally occupies three-dimensional space in and around our bodies.
No matter whether we are attending to perceptual input from our surroundings, reviewing or creating mental imagery, or focusing on a stream of thought, this field of awareness is situated within the three-dimensional matrix we inhabit. It occupies specific location, size and shape, inside of which our subjective experience of awareness is at its maximum, outside of which it drops to zero.
The Difference Between the Field of Awareness and Our Perceptual Field
Our field of awareness often seems to coincide with what it is we are perceiving. Whether we’re looking at some flowers in the garden or the face of a friend sharing an earnest story, it may seem that our field of awareness overlays with their location.
In many cases, this will be true. Often, however, our field of awareness will be located somewhere different from the actual location of the objects of our perception in three-dimensional space. There’s a distinct difference, and the interaction between these two is responsible for many subjective nuances.
To demonstrate this for yourself, try the following exercise:
Focus your eyes on an object about two or three feet away. Choose something small enough to also be able to see what’s behind it at a further distance.
First, notice that you have the capacity to make your focus very narrow, restricted to the object at which you are looking. Or you can open your focus wider to include its surroundings. Experiment with growing and shrinking your field of awareness, with your object of focus at the center of it. Notice how this changes your experience of the object.
Now, with your field of awareness at a medium size, experiment with bringing it closer to your face, so the object is no longer situated inside of it. Then try moving the field of awareness farther away, fully beyond the object. Practice doing this while maintaining the actual focus of your eyes on the object. Notice how your experience changes as your field of awareness retracts or extends.
Now, maintaining your eyes’ focus on the object, experiment with moving your field of awareness off to the right, then the left. What is different about your experience?
If your experiment goes well, you will see clearly the distinction between the field of awareness and what enters your sensory stream. We tend to keep these distinctions fully collapsed in everyday life, but we will find it advantageous to separate the them as we move toward observing subjective experience with discipline and precision through the practice of fieldwork.
For now, let me move on to describe a few other characteristics of the field of awareness that are essential to understand and master in order to do fieldwork well.
The Filter Function of the Field of Awareness
Overlaid upon the spatial field of awareness, the filter function raises some elements within the field into awareness while allowing other elements to drop away. This filter functions first on a coarse level, and second on a more fine-grain level. Here are a few examples of how this works:
Situation: You’re looking for your keys.
Coarse: setting the filter for the visual channel.
Fine: looking for the bright red key fob amongst the clutter of your kitchen counter.
Situation: Your dog has run off into the woods and you can’t find her.
Coarse: setting the filter for the auditory channel after you call her name.
Fine: listening for rustling in the undergrowth or a bark, ignoring the whine of a jet passing by in the sky.
Situation: You’re telling the story of an eventful day.
Coarse: setting the filter for internal, multi-sensory memory images.
Fine: replaying the details of a particular event, to recall what happened and how it felt to be there.
Situation: You’re doing fieldwork, mapping a feeling state you’ve named Sadness.
Coarse: setting the filter for the dimension of inner feeling.
Fine: zooming in on the inner sense of your Sadness as you scan the space in and around your body to find its location.
The first two situations focus the field of awareness in sensory realms, while the second two focus more on inner realms. These may seem to occupy very different domains, but we discover in psychotopology that they overlap considerably. In particular, when we examine the property of three-dimensional space with respect to sensory data versus inner, or “mental” experience, we can make these complementary distinctions:
As suggested earlier in discussing the difference between the field of awareness and our perceptual field, the data of perception do not automatically occupy the space of the physical world. Our experience of what we perceive is mediated by the subjectivity of our field of awareness.
When we are focusing upon memories, as in the third example above, our field of awareness also occupies space relative to our body. The imagery of our memories is likely to be located more or less in front of us. It may be near or far, large or small, more flat or carrying more depth. Our field of awareness overlaps with the “projection” of these memory images into that relative space.
When we focus on the experience of feeling in the fieldwork practice, as in the fourth example above, we often explicitly manipulate the field of awareness to “scan” our body and the space around it, keeping the filter set to pick up specifically the sense of the feeling state we are mapping.
This opens up a larger question. There seems to be a strong relationship between the dimension of space and the focus of awareness, equally so whether we are paying attention to outer sensory information or inner subjective experience. This may seem a little confusing. What’s going on here?
The Difference Between Conscious Experience and Conscious Awareness
Most of us have had the experience many times of having someone ask a question about our in-the-moment inner experience, turning our awareness toward the focus of that question, and discovering something within ourselves that we had previously not been aware of. Something simple like, “What’s on your mind?” or “What are you feeling?” can make us suddenly aware of a stream of thought or strong emotion that had been occurring below the level of our awareness in that moment.
As we will see as we move forward in our investigation, our inner world of conscious experience is very active, very complex, and very interconnected. There is a lot going on, all the time. Not only that, but this activity of conscious experience occupies space. Literally. Conscious experience itself is a field phenomenon.
The great majority of this activity is happening outside of awareness, though. Conscious experience by itself is not “aware.” To bring the contents of conscious activity into awareness, we must superimpose the field of awareness over the spatial locations of the activity, and we must set our filters to bring into awareness the specific contents in which we are interested.
Conscious experience is our active landscape. And the field of awareness is a relatively small bubble placed somewhere within this landscape to bring some of its features into awareness. Awareness occupies a subset of the sprawling terrain of conscious experience, bringing some to the surface, leaving the rest active, but hidden.
An important note: You will notice that I am avoiding using the term “consciousness.” Psychotopology concerns itself primarily with the structure and dynamics of actual, subjective conscious experience without regard for “what” that is. In other words, psychotopology describes with great detail and precision the structure and dynamics of experience without (or at least before) getting into theorizing about the nature of experience itself.
In this post, I describe the experience of the field of awareness, but cannot say more about how such a phenomenon comes into existence, or what that might mean about the purest nature of reality. When being given such powerful tools, I feel it is important to also be humble about what they can actually do.
Revisiting the Question of the Operator
In examining this instrument of attention as our primary tool for observing inner experience, we have skimmed over the question of who or what is operating this instrument. Before closing here, let’s revisit this.
In entering into our science of subjective experience, we are exploring the literal structure of being. We are not superimposing a conceptual or abstract idea over the raw material of experience, but instead we bring a careful discipline to noticing structures that make themselves evident to our observations. We are looking for patterns, and in those patterns we are looking for stable, persistent entities which can form the components of our maps for navigating this inner realm. What is emerging here, and what will emerge with greater fidelity with each step on our investigatory journey, is an actual structure underlying our experience of being.
One part of this structure becomes evident as we examine the actual experience of attention — the field of awareness. But another component of this structure of attention is less evident at this point. How exactly is it that we are able to bring intention and agency to the manipulation of this field of awareness? Who or what is directing this focus? And how?
In service to these questions, let me leave you with a simple reflection, picking up on our field of awareness exercise earlier.
In conducting your field of awareness experiment, while focusing your eyes on the object, where are you looking from as you move your field of awareness from place to place? And what is your experience of the “you” who is moving the field and taking in its observations?
Much more to come to help us unpack these questions, as you will see in good time.
Reflections
Here’s your chance to influence how I move forward by adding your reflections in the comments below.
How does this post land for you?
What in you feels like it is being spoken to in this post?
What questions are you left with? What are you most curious about?
What feedback would you like to offer me, in service to my being able to share this new work with you and the world?
What feedback could you offer toward improving my writing of this post?
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Thank you.
Thank you for being here, thank you for reading, and thank you for sharing your thoughts in the comments below. I look forward to meeting you soon.
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Great work! I love how you define your terms and the distinctions you make between 'field of awareness' and 'witness position' and 'field of awareness' and 'perceptual field.' The examples are very clear.