Identity state

The unity of consciousness is iffusory. Man does more than one thing at a time—all the time—and the conscious representation of these actions is never complete... as an active agent, he is always making decisions and formulating or implementing plans, and he likes to believe that he exerts control over what he is doing often, however, he may be deceived about the causes of his behavior. 

The unity of consciousness is an illusion, resulting in part from the filling in of the gaps of memory through recognition and recall. 

Which of these quotations do you think is from a leading establishment psychologist, and which from a spiritual master.  

In the previous chapter we examined the pervasiveness of the process of identification, the way the This is me quality can be attached to almost anything. Although we can identify with many things, there are habitual, automatized patterns of identification, related sets of objects of identification that form recognizable identity states. We shall examine these identity states, or subselves, in this chapter. 

We take ourselves to be one. My name, Charles Tart, signifies a 

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We must next consider more precisely the connection between the description of bodily identical states by the two observers (the requirements of Postulate 1). Quite in general, in fact, a physical theory, and quantum electrodynamics in particular, is fully defined only if the connection between the description of bodily identical states by (equivalent) observers is known for every state of the system and for every pair of observers. Since the observers are equivalent every state which can be described by 0 can also be described by O. Given a bodily state of the same system, observer 0 will ascribe to it a state vector Y0> in his Hilbert space and observer O will attribute to it a state vector T0.) in his Hilbert space. The above formulation of invariance means that there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the vectors Y0> and Y0.) used by observers 0 and O to describe bodily the same state.3 This correspondence guarantees that the two Hilbert spaces are in fact isomorphic. It is, therefore, possible for the two observers to agree to describe states of the system by vectors in the same Hilbert space. A similar statement can be made for the observables there exists a one-to-one correspondence between the operators Q0 and Q0>, which observers 0 and O attribute to observables. The consistency of the theory (Postulate 2) demands, however, that the two observers make the same prediction as the outcome of the same experiment performed on bodily the same system. This requires the relation... 

Two isotherms, isochores, adiabatics, or generally any two thermal lines of the same kind, never cut each other in a surface in space representing the states of a fluid with respect to the three variables of the characteristic equation taken as co-ordinates, for a point of intersection would imply that two identical states had some property in a different degree (e.g., two different pressures, or temperatures). Two such curves may, however,... 

While capillary pressure can be determined independently through experiments implementing a series of equilibrium states, this can be very time consuming, particularly if the entire capillary pressure function is to be reconciled. Furthermore, as there can be difficulties in re-establishing identical states of initial saturation, it is most desirable to determine capillary pressure and relative permeability functions simultaneously, from the same experiment. 

Jarzynski has shown that, even for nonequilibrium paths, the inequality (5.6) can be turned into an equality [1], Jarzynski s identity states that... 

In this section we explore the use of the skewed momenta method for estimating the equilibrium free energy from fast pulling trajectories via the Jarzynski identity [104]. The end result will be that generating trajectories with skewed momenta improves the accuracy of the calculated free energy. As described in Chap. 5, Jarzynski s identity states that... 

As we have written it in Equation (8), the DMRG wave function contains redundant variational parameters. This means that the set of variational tensors f/ni... ij/Hk in the DMRG wave function is not unique, because we can find another set of tensors whose matrix product yields an identical state. This redundancy is analogous to the redundancy of the orbital parametrization of the Hartree-Fock determinant. In the case of the DMRG wave function, we can insert a matrix T and its inverse between any two variational tensors and leave the state invariant... 

Subpart D presents the regulations for the equipment used in a study. There are two subsections in both sets, the FDA and the EPA GLP one for equipment design and one for maintenance and calibration. The text of both sets are virtually identical, stating that all equipment must perform as required by the... 

At last, after several chapters of pretending that the state space of a quantum system is linear, we can finally be honest. The state space of each quantum system is a complex projective space. The reader may wish to review Section 1.2 at this point to see that while we were truthful there, we omitted to mention that unit vectors differing by a phase factor represent identical states. (In mathematics, as in life, truthful and honest are not synonyms.) In the next section, we apply our new insight to the spin state space of a spin-1/2 particle. 

Once the two sides of a correlation diagram have been established, the states of the same symmetry and multiplicity are connected by straight lines in such a way as to observe the non-crossing rule identical states cannot cross as the strength of the interaction is changed. When this is done we have completed the correlation diagram. 

This book also discusses methodological problems in research from the point of view of the systems approach for example, the way in which experiential observations of consciousness and transitions from one d-SoC to another can be made and the shifts in research strategies that this approach calls for. The systems approach can also be applied within the ordinary d-SoC to deal with identity states, those rapid... 

Self-observation, observation of others, and psychoanalytic data indicate that various stimuli can produce marked reorgnaizations of ego functioning very rapdily, even though these all remain within the consensus reality definitions of "normal" consciousness. These identity states are much like d-SoCs and can be sutdied in the systems approach framework. They are hard to observe in ordinary life because of the ease and rapidity of transiton, their emotional charge, and other reasons. The isolation of knowledge and experience in various identity states is responsible for much of the psychopathology of everyday life. 

These alterations in functioning that I call identity states can thus be usefully studied with the systems approach to consciousness. 

First, each person has a large repertoire of these identity states and transits between one and another of them extremely readily, practically instantly. Thus, no obvious lapses or transitional phenomena occur that would make him likely to notice the transitions. 

Second, all these identity states share much psychological functioning in common, such as speaking English, responding to the same proper name, wearing the same sets of clothes. Thse many common properties amke differences difficult to notice. 

Third, all a person s ordinarily used identity states share in his culturally defined consensus reality. Although certain aspects of reality are emphasized by particular identity states, the culture as a whole implicitly allows a wide variety of identity states in its definitions of "normal" consciousness and consensus reality, within the cultural consensus reality, for example, there are wel1-understood concepts, perceptions, and allowed behaviors associated with being angry, being sad, feeling sexual desire, being afraid. 

Fourth, a person s identification is ordinarily very high, complete, with each of these identity states. He projects the feeling of "i" onto it (the Sense of identity subsystem function discussed in Chapter 8). This, coupled with the culturally instilled need to believe that he is a single personality, causes him to gloss over distinctions. Thus he says, "I am angry," "I am sad," rather than, "A state of... 

Fifth, identity states are driven by needs, fears, attachments, defensive, maneuvers, coping mechanisms, and this highly charged quality of an identity state makes it unlikely that the person involved will be engaged in self-observation. 

The development of an Observer can allow a person considerable access to observing different identity states. An outside observer can often clearly infer different identity states, but a person who has not developed the Observer function well may never notice his many transitions from one identity state to another. Thus ordinary consciousness, or what society values as "normal" consciousness, may actually consist of a large number of d-SoCs, identity states. But the overall similarities between these identity states and the difficulty of observing them, for the reasons discussed above, lead us to think of ordinary consciousness as relatively unitary state. 

Gurdjieff sees the rapid, unnoticed transitions between identity states, and their relative isolation from one another, as the major cause of the psychopathology of everyday life. I agree with him, and believe this topic deserves intensive psychological research. 

An identity state, like a d-SoC, has coping functions. The culture a person is born into actively inhibits some of his human potentials,... 

An identity state is a specialized version of the ordinary d-SoC, a structure acceptable to consensus reality (ignoring obviously pathological identity states). The extrainformational "This is me" quality from the Sense of identity subsystem added to certain contents/structures constellates the energies of consciousness around them and produces an identity, a rolef21 that a person partially or completely identified with for the time. The identity "eats energy."... 

Some of a person s most important problems arise when his is in an identity state that is not really suited to the situation my children are unhappy when I am a professor when they want a father, and I am not comfortable when my students want me to be like a father when I think the role of professor is more appropriate. 

Being in a particular identity state also functions as limiting stabilization. The identity leads to selective perception to make perceptions congruent with the reigning identity state. Certain kinds of perceptions that might activate other identity states are repressed. The tortured child is perceived as an "enemy agent," not as a "child." This keeps emotional and attention/awareness energy out of empathic processes that, if activated, would undermine and disrupt the "soldier" identity. 

I use the term role to indicate that a person consciously knows he is acting a part that is not really him, and the term identity state to mean he has become the part. Clearly, the degree of identification can vary rapidly, (back)... 

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