Acoustic Spiritual Sensibilities and the Spirit of Time: Christian Sorenson

Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Speaking of acoustic tolerance, or, rather, acoustics, if we’re looking at the output of human beings, we’re auditory in terms of direct communication, more so in terms of, hopefully, conscious intent. Whereas, there can be a first-level superficial non-verbal language with the body, probably. But at the level of the spoken word, there is a sense in which the quality of speech is a great indicator of the quality of the mind. Not in all cases, but it’s a good heuristic, I’ve found. Have you found the same?

Christian Sorenson: In fact, I would distinguish “three levels” of communication in relation to language, respectively one “non-verbal or corporal,” and two others that I will denominate as “analog and digital verbal.” In my opinion, although the three of them will be given simultaneously, the “non-verbal and analog” ones, would provide an “implicit formal symbolic” message regarding to the latter, while the “digital” is going to contribute with a content that at the same time, is “symbolically explicit” in its “significativity” and “symbolically implicit” within its “significativeness.”

Jacobsen: Back to acoustics, a good mind is often referred to as a sound mind, as in, “He is of sound mind.” It is the use of an auditory term to describe a balanced intelligence. If anything, the world needs far more balanced intelligence and, as Evangelos Katsioulis correctly notes in an interview with also another smart person, Erik Haereid, humility. My sensibility is such that the world appears off-kilter with exaggerations in both some narrow applications of intelligence and in the ego. A sort of pseudo-Asperger’s Syndrome unhealthily combined with borderline narcissism (not formal NPD) en masse. What do you think the world needs?

Sorenson: First of all I believe that it is necessary to refer “more precisely” to “narcissistic personality disorder,” since this is a “diagnostic category” that as such, exists in the “Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-IV) of the “American Psychiatric Society,” which requires the “objective presence” of at least five symptoms within a series of other ten, in order to determine “its effective clinical existence.” In this sense, one of these would be the appearance of “overrated ideas about oneself,” which alone in itself is not a sufficient element to establish categorically this “diagnosis.” What follows from the above, therefore is that when speaking of “narcissism,” it must be distinguished beforehand what “are traits” from what is actually a true “personality disorder” of this nature. In relation to Katsioulis premise regarding “balanced intelligences,” it seems to me that it’s an “attractive and apollonian” proposal, though at the same time it is “not sensibly grounded” to reality, due to the fact that in its deep meaning it is an “absolutely fallacious explanation” in relation to what “exceptionally high intelligences” should be. Indeed, the vast majority of problems in the world lay on some kind “of imbalance,” but this has little to do with what “intelligence” is, because in itself “exists no function regarding any balance.” In other words, its “only and exclusive” property has to do with “knowing objectives” and behalf to “beings reality.” Then “homeostatic resources,” must be sought somewhere else, as for example may occur within “personality and characterological” factors. Another is the situation related to “correlations,” between “intelligence” and the two aforementioned, since in that case is possible to talk about the so-called “harmful imbalances.” In reason of this last, it’s factible to found an almost “perfect correspondence,” but “inversely proportional” due that its value is minus one. Using other terms, “When higher is the balance lack, then lower is the degree of intelligence found.” By this way, within “extremely high intelligences,” there is in fact an “implicit prevalence imbalance,” yet has to do with an “opposite co-valence” in its value, because “geniuses” in their most “original and proper essence,” are “rupturist” and therefore “misunderstood” socially speaking, cause they usually “live out of canons” and “ahead of their time.” Consequently and even though the latter leads to what I will name as an “auto-hetero mis-comprehension,” which is obviously linked to “disagreement arising” within themselves and with society, as ultimately “destabilization” also arrives, in some manner “anyway and anyhow,” they always reach “valuable results,” which “sooner or later” in time, will be “socially rescued” as “unique and necessary contributions,” since lastly “nobody, but except themselves” have been capable to arrive there, to that point. In another sense, it could also be said that “geniuses” unlike the rest of humanity, “acoustically speaking,” not only “are able to hear,” but besides also “are skillful for listening” other “registers of reality” that shouldn’t be accessible not even for highly intelligent ones. In my opinion, by striving to understand this last, and perhaps by trying “to socially harmonize” each other, yet nevertheless without “de-profiling” or “turning-off” their “alma mater,” we may arrive to something “substantially” speaking more relevant, and less absurd for the world. That is instead of pushing efforts towards “to fit them” into “Gaussian Bells,” in function of “self-complacency” and “self-recognition” complexes of some, in which they “sell cough syrups without being aware that they are made of herbs.”

Jacobsen: You mentioned Mozart in another interview. He simply sounds joyful to hear, often. What do you think is behind that phenomenon?

Sorenson: I would say that at the base of Mozarts compositions, there is a “free and creative spontaneity” that “goes beyond all establishments,” and leads to “harmonious melodies,” since when they’re transmitted into “musical scores,” they produce afterwards a “joyful and pleasant” circulation of energy.

Jacobsen: What do you believe is behind Mozart as a genius?

Sorenson: I feel there is an “irreverent and vitalist spirit” that ironizes with “canons status quo maxims,” and “mocks of enlightened minds.”

Jacobsen: If Mozart lived on into old age and died of more slow natural causes, what do you think would be a culmination of the works for him? In other words, what do you think that we missed out?

Sorenson: I “do not believe” that “he or his work,” would have been very different, and therefore I feel that “rather than having lack of something” that we did not see, what we actually lost “was the continuity of what he showed and taught.” In this sense, it could be said that Mozart always lived like “an eternal child,” who played and enjoyed “turning the world upside down.”

Jacobsen: When dealing with someone “evil” or “bad,” etc., we can feel a sense of disharmony, of something not quite right. Do you think there could be an analogous application of auditory metaphors to the forms of disunity of mind and behaviour leading to bad people in addition to the sense that we have about hose people?

Sorenson: I will denominate that sensation of “dis-harmony” and “dis-unity” as “evils aesthetic defects.” The “metaphor” of when listened would be similar to “rape feelings” as if it was “an imaginary phallus,” that in turn is “invested” by some kind of “implicit aggressive knowledge,” since in its meaning “does not distinguish” “the border” that exists between “knowledge and truth,” due to the fact that both “appear identified,” within the message. Therefore also, “unlike someone else” or rather said “better than anyone else,” “leaves no room for reasonable or methodological doubts,” and in consequence by being the only one “who knows that knows,” and “actually is knowing what is truly good for somebody,” uses language as a “seduction tool” for its own benefits, and with the sole purpose “of perverting through conviction,” as if it was “a “flipping” or somehow as if “a tapestry was put on its back.”

Jacobsen: Maybe, this is a general sentiment. When things exist autonomously through time, progress as if by nature herself, it’s a signal of things being set right rather than being built to fail. I suppose this could be a survival advantage. In fact, there might be some clues. Most people who have formal Narcissistic Personality Disorder a) leave a trail destruction behind them and b) tend to live life alone or end up alone if they haven’t ended up that way already. And people feel something is off about them (rightly). This seems like an embodied consciousness thing. Do you think this will make reconstruction in an artificial intelligence more difficult when it comes to intuition, sensibilities, and sentiments about disharmonies in all sorts of ways?

Sorenson: I believe that such forms “of consciousness” certainly are going to be more difficult to be reconstructed as “artificial intelligence.” At the same time, however I feel that by this it would be an excellent way to test if whether human beings actually “possess any spirit or not,” since strictly speaking almost everything, including “consciousness,” could theoretically be “symbolically encoded” and eventually “translated” into “artificial intelligence,” that yes, except if this “insight capacity” is of “a spiritual nature.”

Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.

Sorenson: You are welcome, and I hope that “the spirit of time” continues accompanying us.

Image Credit: Christian Sorenson.