Whitehead’s two modes of pure events of perception entangled in modern Info-sphere

Whitehead’s two modes of pure events of perception entangled in modern Info-sphere 

“Science conceived as resting on mere sense-perception, with no other sources of observation, is bankrupt, so far as concerns its claim to self-sufficiency” — A.N.Whitehead “Philosophy of Science”


Whitehead promotes a radical empiricist methodology, which relies on our perception, not only sense of data but also a manifold of natural relations and an electrodynamic like worldview, in which the fundamental concepts are no long simply located substances or bits of matter, but internally related to processes and events. According to Whitehead, our perception is a symbolic interplay of two modes of perception that are (i) pure sense perception (perception in the mode of presentational immediacy), and (ii) a more basic perception of the relatedness of nature, of the togetherness of things, which could be interpreted as the Info-sphere in modern time.

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The pure event is defined as a process-based, substanceless and durationless moment in which transposed supplementarity within our perception follows the principle of quantum mechanism. To be more specifically, we can understand pure events as the interface without physical forms where the immediate information yields tendency to be transposed or transformed. However, Whitehead’s two modes of pure events of perception can be manifested through the notion of quasi corporeality. According to Brian Massumi, quasi corporeality occupies the spatiality proper to the body without an imagine. The spatiality of the body without an image can be understood as a transient effect of proprioception, defined as the sensibility proper to both tactile sensibility (exteroception) and visceral sensibility (interoception). These two modes of pure perception are entangled between our sensibility and the modern info sphere, where the boundaries between the physical body and the environment are blurred and redefined. 

In Beradi’s “Sensitive Info-sphere”, he sees Techno-semiotic emanation and sensibility as the two poles between which the cultural, historical and social becoming of the planet is set. After several waves of technological revolution, our Info-sphere no longer exists only on the basis of mere natural semiotics but an enriched content occupied by techno-semiotic emanation. Our perception is hence reshaped by the ubiquitous visual and aural cues brought by technologies, which inherently alters our modes of perception. The interfacing of the electronic universe of transmission with the organic world of perception is producing pathological effects: panic, over- excitement, hyper-modality, attention deficit disorder, dyslexia, info-overload and saturation of the neural circuitry. While cyberspace can be infinitely expanded, as it is the virtual dimension of info- productive interaction between agents of communication; cybertime, the duration of perception cannot be expanded beyond certain limits, as it is limited by emotional and cultural temporality and by organic restrictions. Therefore, it is becoming significant to reconsider the position of our two modes of perception in order to equilibrate the imbalance produced by the overwhelmingly traumatising modern info-sphere.

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In the figure attached in this paper, two modes of pure events in perception are communing between sensibility and modern info-sphere, where proprioception enacts two modes of perception corresponding to two events. As the pure events and proprioception are not physically graspable or modifiable, to improve the biased relationship between our sensibility and info- sphere, two methods can be proposed. The first method is subjectively effective. It is to regulate our pathologically affected sensibility by tuning atman and prana into singular breath cosmic rhythm. This method will shift our sensible focus from overwhelming information to a deeper level of self-engendering interoception that harmonise our frequencies. The second method is an objects-based paradigm which has infinite possibilities as well as uncertainties. It is to regulate the Info-sphere based on its overall conditions on the earth. Perhaps, the soft-teleology coined by Nicholas Rescher could be the philosophical guidelines whereas the cybernetics in Technoscience feminism could provide and explore situated knowledge for the solution.