The illusory subject-object separation

Making a superficial analysis, it seems that a scientist and the object of their investigation areseparate entities; however, an in-depth analysisclearly shows that this is not the case because aninvestigator and the object of investigation arepart of a whole, where they play the everlastinggame of interchangeability. For example, aninvestigator and the laboratory animal they arestudying are joined by the exchange of air he/sheis breathing, among other things; i.e., investigatorsare a self-aware fragment of the world capable ofobserving and analyzing another fragment ofthe world.¹ In general, investigators believe thatnatural laws are discovered by observing andanalyzing a world that is "external" to them. However, investigators actually re-discoverlaws that have always been a part of thembecause, being a fragment of the world, they arepermeated by such laws.²,³ Therefore, the researchprocess is a kind of instrument that contributes toelucidating natural laws that have always resided"inside" the investigator, thus facilitating thepassage from the shadows of the unconscious tothe light of the conscious. Investigators, as fractalsof the universe, contain every secret about theuniverse, but such secrets are written in a natural (genetic-symbolic) language of shapes, sounds, and movements, common to the entire natural (inorganic and organic) world but that is illegiblefor human consciousness, whose language isthat of words (signs). It is necessary to translatefrom one language to the other so that suchelucidation takes place. These languages match, so they correspond to one another because words (conscious language) evolve out of symbols (unconscious language), which, in turn, evolveout of natural shapes, colors, and movements (natural language). Thus, for example, Newton'slaw of universal gravitation was described (made aware) by Isaac Newton in 1687;however, animals and human beings have always "beenaware" of the risk of falling from the top ofthe mountain because they knew the law ofuniversal gravitation as part of their collectiveunconscious.³,⁵

Symbolic language as a reflection of the natural world

The language of the natural world is not based on words (signs) but shapes, colors, and movements (pre-symbols), susceptible ofbeing captured by senses and interpreted in aninstinctive-intuitive manner when translatedto a language of mental images (symbols) at asomatic subcortical level (unconscious), whereall the natural "engineering heritage" is settled. In the case of human beings, a rational fragmentof the natural world, such natural languageis symbolically filed in their individual andcollective unconscious and is expressed in theironeiric and artistic productions. Artistic language, a human variation of natural language, is capableof exploring the dimension of indescribability andfocusing a set of inner feelings in an integratingperception (intuition). The perspective of humansin the setting of art is more like the original, pre-spoken perspective, typical of the prehistoricand child mind, i.e., from a time when the falsesubject/object separation had not consolidatedyet and when the reigning perception did notbelong to linguistic categories.⁶

Investigators as the main instrument of research

In the light of the above, it is clear that the main instrument of research are investigatorsthemselves, who, at the time of explaining aphenomenon, develop a hypothesis originated inthe exercise of their fantasy-intuition and basedon their unconscious ingredients (personal andcollective). Such ingredients come from theirnatural unconscious file, and manage to go fromthe somatic subcortical level to the consciousplane (a memory in itself) at the expense ofthe research process. Only the subsequentconfirmation of the scientific hypothesis validityby contrasting it against the facts of the worldwill distinguish, to a certain extent, whether suchhypothesis was product of fantasy (mind-createdunreality) or intuition (reality perceived throughunconscious reasoning). However, given thatthe scientific method is based on induction (casecollection), science is never able to determine theveracity of a hypothesis because it is impossible tocollect the total necessary cases to confirm it, butonly a sufficient number of cases can be collectedto establish its apparent truthfulness (likelihood), as long as its falsehood is not demonstrated. Therefore, the difference between what hasbeen created by the mind (fantasy) and whathas been re-discovered by it (intuition) is alwaysprovisional; this way, fantasy and intuition maybe encompassed by a single mental activity calledimagination, which is always fostered by theunconscious and is indispensable for scientificresearch development. Such research instrument, made up of investigators' consciousness andactive imagination, requires a connectionwith two elements; on the one side, the objectof investigation and, on the other side, theirunconscious knowledge, which is part of theworld's natural file and is based on at least twoenabling conditions:⁴,⁹

Empathy is usually defined as the ability to understand the feelings of another person; however, such ability may be experienced evenin relation to animals and things (universalempathy). The experience of empathy requires, on the one hand, opening up to recognize others (subject or object), and patience to temporarilyexperience "first hand" an external situation orstatus in order to understand it and then "walkaway" from it to analyze the experience withthe greatest objectivity possible. The empatheticact involves extending the experience horizons, erasing the arbitrary boundaries of the ego, space, and time.¹⁰

Empathy decodes a natural language (indescribable) at a limbic (unconscious) level, thus facilitating its passage to a language made upof words (conscious). Empathy would thereforebe the mental process that achieves the translationfrom the natural language (worldly images) intothe conscious language (words), going back andforth to symbolic language (mental images). Thismeans that intuitive thinking involves a doubletranslation, from the language of things (natural) into that of mental images (symbolic) and, finally, into that of words (signs). This is precisely therationale of the hypothesis that investigators'exposure to settings with a high symbolicsignificance, such as natural surroundings orplaces filled with works of art, may facilitate thepassage of content from the unconscious to theconscious field through empathetic stimulation, which would therefore provide them with the raw materials to work with imagination (fantasyintuition). In relation to the conscious awarenessconcept, it implies that investigators need toachieve, through self-observation and to theextent possible, a conscious level that is freefrom mechanical mental processes (mentalnoise), such as the identification of negativeemotions (fear, envy, greed, prejudices) or anexcessive attachment to the ego (arrogance, selfishness), because these drive to tightness ofmind, loss of critical objectivity, free thinking, andempathetic and creative mental ability. Given thatan individual's evolutionary level conditions theircomprehension, scientists' inner developmentwould therefore foster an adequate unconsciousconscious empathetic flow and, consequently, afruitful ability to exercise introspection and shapeideas.

CONCLUSION

The epistemology of introspection claims that, given that investigators are the main instrumentof research and that the laws of the naturalworld lie in their unconscious, their ability todevelop empathy and a clear conscious based ontheir personal growth, would result in a betterunconscious-conscious connection and, therefore, a better scientific production.