X. The Experiential Dimension of Otherness:
What is the Other, and, How is the Other to be Engaged?*

0.    Introduction

	In the last paper, the ninth in a series investigating value and its circulation, it was stated:

…through our inhabitation of one-Life-World and one-Life-World only, we stand and can only stand before others in a direct relationship, encountering and engaging those modalities of experience apposite in the intentional constitution of such patterns of experience. Thence, the inescapable and ineluctable presence of ‘the other’ and its ‘spiritual’ acceptance in the symbol of ‘the Other’ which by its very nature cannot be a ‘wholly other’ since the Other constitutes us and we in turn constitute this spiritual sense of the Other. (1)

	Furthermore, it was also noted that: 

Thence the mundane and trans-mundane natures of the Other are there for us to the same extent that we are, and should be, there for it! Hence the formation, discernment and augmentation of value!! (2)

	And in the last footnote, no.5, this philosophical problem was noted:

However, given that cognitive treatment of phenomenological constitution is in terms of a subtle privileging/de-privileging of Object, Ego and World we will need to ask how the value (sense, meaning and meaningfulness) of the other is constituted? I shall deal with this philosophical problem in the next essay. (3)

	Put another way, this philosophical problem alluded to is this: if intentional consciousness is constituted and simulated through the phenomenological interplay between the polarities of Object, Ego and World, as dialectical moments, then ‘where’ and ‘how’ does the presence or absence of an ‘other’ enter into this tri-partite scheme? (4)

	In this tenth paper I shall attempt to address this problem, note the role of the Other in the constitution of intentional constitution, and, examine the relationship all relationships must have with all other relationships in and through the transcendental unity of the Life-World, this one-World-of-Life there-for-us as we stand and fall with-others before-others? (5)
	
*Link to latest version of paper on my Homestead Homepage Site (circulation10.rtf).
www.homestead.com/noelshomepage/noelshomepage3.html 
1.   The Psychic Location of ‘The Other’

	In essence, our primary philosophical problem is this, how is this ‘Other’ encountered and engaged? In this process of resolution a secondary problem will also be approached, namely, how do relationships relate, if at all, to all other possible relationships, both individually and collectively? (6)

	In our individual passages through this World-of-Life a certain resistance is met in which (other) things seem to have a life of their own, or, the semblance of no life of their own, yet, still able to impede us – obstruct our course, divert us, slow us down, even stop us in our tracks! Even our own overall sense of self, or specific senses of self, often appear to not be sufficiently under a firm sense of a full self-control. We change our minds when we shouldn’t, we do thinks we know we just should not do, we don’t change our minds when we should, and, we just do not seem to be able to fully explicate the nature of our own intentionality. Reasons given for undertaking or not undertaking certain actions just do not seem to gel, or, just cannot be given, or, appear to be retrospective instances of a rationalization of those courses of action that just were not planned or were performed on motivational whims in accordance with no real plan…  Looking over to… or overlooking this lack of self-control into this region where we have no control and can have no influence introduces us to this region of ‘the other’ and its experience of otherness, an otherness to our being at-home with our own overall sense of self. In this expression of ‘the other’ an area of self-experience is symbolically being alluded in to which we have either a diminished sense of self-involvement or absolutely no self involvement whatsoever. In this regard we can consider ‘the other’ as a symbol of all senses of otherness whose presence or absence appear to impinge or not appear to impinge upon us (in our own individual senses of self or in some more collective sense of self). (7)

	However, an absolute sense of otherness could not be-there-for-us since in being absolutely other it could not be an-other-there-for-us. So, in this analysis, an ‘other’ is a certain state of affairs (or a set or series of states) that cannot be absolutely absent. As “an experience of ‘difference’”, a sense of difference must be present and cannot be absolutely absent. Let me examine this dialectic of ‘an experienced sense of otherness’ in the following analogy. (8)

	Let us say a friend is introducing me to a person whom I have never met before. I am introduced and shake hands. My hand shakes their hand. I experience my ‘hand’ as ‘my’ hand, as mine. However, the hand I shake is obviously a hand, and, in this genre of handshaking on introduction, I know I am shaking hands with the hand of another person. It looks just like my hand more or less, but, it just does not feel like my hand, indeed, I cannot feel what this other hand should be feeling, namely, its holding of my hand when we shook hands, and v.v. In a similar situation, it is one thing to tickle myself with a feather, and, quite a different experience to have some one else tickle your self with that same feather. The latter, I believe, can be a lot more ticklish as an experience. We know we are being tickled but just where and how is up to the other person and this known-unknown or unknown-known can be more ticklish than our known-known where I know where I am about to tickle myself and can adjust accordingly, indeed, beforehand. Similarly, I see this other hand I am shaking but cannot feel what it is like for this hand to shake mine. I can shake my own hand with my other hand, but, again, it just is not experienced in the same fashion to shaking hands with someone else whose hand feels other-to-me as other-to-mine. It is in this difference, for a start, that we experience a sense of the other. In shaking hands the hand of the other person can be experienced in one sense but cannot be experienced in some other sense. I can see and feel the hand of the other person but cannot feel how that hand feels to the person whose hand it is. I understand how my hands feels to me, and, have some idea of what the other person’s hand might feel like to them, and, I might add, what it is like to think what the other person’s hand (namely, my hand) might feel like to them. Otherness, it would appear, occupies this no-man’s-land between being able to be experienced and not being able to experience that which in effect is other. (9)

	Can otherness be something that could not be experienced in any degree and might, effectively, be wholly other? (10)

	I ask a friend to ask me to tell them what they are thinking. If I get it right they will give me a $100 bill currently in their hand belonging to them (or the highest note they have on them). Now, as it stands, I cannot know what they are thinking and the other person knows I cannot know what they were thinking so I can never verify my stated guess and they can state I was wrong even if I were right. As long as they think of something so remote from my guessing it or just lie if I should have guessed the topic of their thought I can never claim this $100 bill. Should I lose this bet? But, let me ask myself, just what do I actually know? What do I know, and, know I do know (more or less)? Is there anything I could know or should know? For a start, this other person is obviously conscious and, therefore, should be experiencing a stream of intentional consciousness in a similar fashion to how I seem to be experiencing an intentionally conscious state of affairs. Am I allowed to say this? This other person has asked me what they were thinking. I must assume that there are conscious and, indeed, must be thinking of something. I could say “that you are conscious and thinking a series of thought whose overall tenor is such that I am not suppose to be able to guess”.  Being correct, if they were appearing to play this game, as they stated, I can then demand that I be given this $100, thanking them in the process. But, to all purposes, I have guessed one of their thoughts because they, themselves, have professed thinking just such a thought. And I only had to guess one of their thoughts, and, they told me they were thinking just that thought! If they were playing this game then they were indeed thinking just this thought as well as some other thought that was not to be guessed. I only had to guess one of their thoughts not all of them or all of the others, and, only one, and only one correctly had to be guessed. (11)

	Would the other party feel cheated? That I would be sure of too (since it is the nominated thought rather than the thought that a thought is to be nominated whose intentional topic is to be guessed)! But, it is true that more specific thoughts are not something that can be guessed but can only be ‘shared’ if one party were to communicate the same to the other through language, or, if these two parties were doing something similar together to the extent they would more than likely be thinking the same sort of thoughts more or less. This phenomenon is evident in telling a joke, a well-crafted joke that is successfully told. When the other party ‘sees’ the humorous side of the joke they laugh and can then tell you why they laughed or at least what else was ‘insightfully seen’ in the telling of that joke that they thought was funny through its incongruity, etc. In all of this both parties must know what is entailed in the telling of a joke and be able to experience the humour contained therein. Let it be known, though, that not all people have a sense of humour or a sense of humour as deep as that experienced by most other people. Telling a joke entails a synchronicity of this genre of telling a joke and being able to be told a joke. A synchronicity between a genre of activity and that same genre as a genre of interpretation. Again, the other person is thinking the same series of thoughts, more or less, as the person telling the joke given that they understand what is being done and can experience the humour entailed and find that ‘humour’ humorous. (12)

	Still, in telling a joke, we do not know where the joke is going if we do not know this joke or remember how that joke went if we had been told it before and had forgotten it. But, we are set up to think that what we are being told is a joke. And, if we find it humorous, we laugh. Joke told, and, joke understood. We know we are being told a joke, and, we discover the humour of the joke once told and understood and experienced as humorous. In a certain sense, humour appreciated is a meeting of known and unknown, a non-absolute degree of otherness or difference. A semblance of difference that is in this no-man’s-land between known and unknown. (13)
 
	But, let us consider the following. What Julius Caesar was thinking as he was crossing the Rubicon must forever be beyond us as wholly other. Still, if he were conscious when he deliberately crossed this river then he must be thinking, and, that much we must already know. Not very much, but enough to state that we must know something about this ancient figure from an almost mythic past. (14)

	O.K. What about those souls unknownst to us who at various times in history have also deliberately crossed this same river? Again, being deliberative in their intentions it implies that they, amongst other things, must have been conscious of their decision to cross this river (regardless of the manner of the execution of its performance). We may not know their names, but, we do know something about the intentional nature of consciousness involved in the crossing of a river. (15)

	Does the wholly other exist? No! At least, not for-us! Because it could not exist for-us, therefore, it cannot be a phenomenon for-us to phenomenologically engage with. But, what could be engaged with exists for-us to some extent or other however minimal that engagement might be. Indeed, it might be merely virtual, something merely simulated from the reading of a text in some format or other. The question remains, what is otherness, and, how is it constituted, and, how does it constitute us as claimed (in the last essay)? (16)

	I can shake hands with my friend at this very moment in time not having seen each other for a while and knowing that is what we do when we re-meet. We can relate in this manner because we are contiguous in time and space and in intentional intent (to adopt and adapt the same genre of activity and interpretation, namely, shaking hands). But, if we live in one Life-World and only one Life-World then surely all things must stand in some form of a relationship or other to everything else? That being the case, then how do we understand the relational nature within and between past events… present events… and future events? (17)

	I cannot claim to have some form of a ‘normal’ relationship with Julius Caesar since J.C. died before I was born. Still, I might be able to claim him as an ancestor, or, as a person who inadvertently altered the course of history and thence the manner and the course of my education in my native environment. Some small degree of connect or interconnection, direct or indirect, advertent or inadvertent… is enough to claim that this potential relationship is not absolutely wholly other even though J.C. is for all practical purposes ‘wholly other’. Still, this distinction is important. The transcendental unity of the Life-World demands that all things must be able to be related to each and every one of those things even though it does not demand that such an imputed relationship have a realizable value. Furthermore, and more importantly, it implies that no identity can be absolutely isolated from its environmental introduction and support, and, self-exist entirely in and of itself as wholly other from all other forms of relative otherness and relative non-otherness. To this extent no person is absolutely unique even though their existential descriptors and axes of identity-formation they must emerge with a relative sense of uniqueness. In other words, all (non-self-identical) identity is unique but never absolutely unique. Every person, dead or alive, has or has had both a unique history and a uniquely shared history with-others (that is not uniquely isolated from its other historical participants). Moreover, this shared sense of history is not uni-dimensional but a full reflection of the dimensional richness of the Life-World itself (in its own absolute sense of openness). By such means ‘my history’ is also constituted by others, and, how the history and the constitution of others is constituted by myself too in a reasonably mutual process of co-thematization. E.g., some person in the past decided cars in Australia should drive on the left-hand side of the road just as in the United Kingdom. This decision still effects us today. In a similar manner, wittingly or unwittingly, all intentional decisions made by others and ourselves will dialectically influence the course of our historical progress although such ‘progress’ should not be read in an absolutistic lens of determinism. We still have the ability to defy the apparent force of history at each and every point of bifurcation although we must suffer the consequences of such actions whether intended or unintended in orientation. So, I could decide to drive down the right-hand side of the road… perhaps I see a small child playing on the road on my left-hand side and I should move to the right-hand side, and do so,  in order to avoid hitting them, etc. That vision of reality granted, how does each and every sense of otherness manifest itself? In conjunction with non-otherness to that extent it is not completely non-other! The past is now other than the present, my sense of history is other than your sense of history, our sense of history is other than their sense of history… I am currently here and not there, thinking this set or series of thoughts and not that set or series of thoughts, apparently engaged in this set or series of actions and not that set or series of actions, etc., etc. The overall (particular or specific) sense/s of ‘otherness’ being experienced to that extent I am not able to directly participate in the same. In re-meeting an old friend I shake their hand. Say hello to a passing acquaintance on the street, wave at another on the other side of the road. Not seen waving at another friend in the distance. I ring them using my mobile and meet up for a coffee. We discuss the recent death of a mutual friend. In the course of our lives we meet different densities and differences in density of an overall sense of otherness… whose not so distant edges form the world as it is found to be there for-us to find our passage through this same world with-others. A sense of otherness that is experienced through a sense of resistance… or… the inability to experience the resistance that would be there to some extent or other if we were to be aware of the same. E.g., I discover an old friend living in a part of a large city never before visited but who is currently recovering from a broken leg and is housebound. I am on holiday and head off to that part of this city and visit them numerous times… each time the otherness of that locale becoming more and more familiar and less other in the process… (18)

	So, no sense of otherness can be entirely and absolutely wholly other even if, for all practical purposes, it may as well be ‘wholly other’. Otherness is experienced as ‘other’ by not being absolutely wholly other. This sense of the non-other is our dialectical access to the other. ‘Dialectical’ by virtue of both being both other and non-other. Otherwise, either party could not be encountered let alone engaged if that were not the case (since appropriation, etc., is realized through a diminishment of otherness). (19)

	Now, the ‘other’ constitutes us by virtue of this ‘unrolling’ of otherness into ‘non-otherness’. What we appropriate we are also appropriated by! Appropriation is always a two-way street. All processes of interaction are processes of interaction. Let me demonstrate this point. The process of appropriation is a simulation (in the Postmodern sense of a simulation of a simulation). That accepted, we could say that the ‘process of simulation’ is the ‘simulation of process’. A process where relative otherness becomes relative non-otherness. A process of encountering and engagement wherein additional modes of activity are relatively engaged or re-engaged. The process of encountering and engaging the relatively other being a process of modal enrichment in that regard. I now know one of my old friend is in large city overseas. I write to him and tell him I will be visiting. I ring him on the phone and talk about this visit and he tells me what buses to catch; when; what bus-stops to get off at; what streets I must follow; what his house looks like, etc. I see him through the window, and wave, know the front-door is unlocked, open it and enter. We finally meet again after all these years and shake hands. Over a cup of tea and an assortment of cakes we catch up. More and more modes are engaged. Relative otherness becomes less ‘other’ (or relative non-otherness) in and through re-encountering each other and our subsequent re-engagement. The current ‘reality’ of our relationship is being expressed through those modes of engagement actively encountered and engaged. The time quickly passes but I must now leave and a process of relative disengagement is entered into. I say good bye, walk out the front-door, wave to him through the window and head back to bus-stop, etc. (20)

Appropriation can only be simulated since there is only the simulation of a sense of self who (or, ‘that’) could appropriate. Similarly, the ‘what it is’ that is to be appropriated could only be appropriated through simulation since what is ‘it-in-itself’ that could be absolutely appropriated? Nothing! (From the transcendental perspective) nothing appropriates nothing! The identity thematized can only be thematized and enacted through simulation. In a forest ‘a leaf falls from a tree’, or, is that, ‘a leaf that falls from a forest’? Where does the tree stop and a forest begin? Or should that be ‘a leaf that emerges from the earth, through the tree in the forest, now falls back to the earth’. Where identity begins and ends is never an absolute affair and can only be provisionally decided upon through the context of appropriation, or, rather the simulated context of simulated appropriation. (21)

However, in our processes of encountering and engagement, through processes of relative modal enrichment, in our encountering and engagement with an existential richness of value,  to what extent is that existential richness the limited product of a limited relationship and to what extent is the existential richness the open-ended product of our relationship with the relationship of all relationships, namely, the existential richness of the open-ended Life-World itself? How could we possibly disentangle these productive aspects. Metaphorically, we could say the falling leaf from a tree in the forest is the existential excess of that tree, of that forest, of that earth itself on this planet Earth as it participates in the Solar System in this outlying region of our galaxy the Milky-Way as part of a galactic cluster that includes the galaxy Andromeda…. (22) 

	The nature of any relationship we have is expressed through its relatively distinctive existential excess that we experience, and v.v. The nature of that apparent relationship in question is colored by the nature of our engagement, and v.v. In this the distinctive nature of the intentionality entailed is a direct expression of the existential excess that is realized in and through that engagement. This expression is reflected in those modes relatively activated and engaged. Thence our phenomenal-phenomenological encountering and engagement since it is only through such excess that that type of particular relationship is directly entered and specified in its relatively unique specificity. In general terms of reference we can say that the Life-World is intentionally experienced only in and through such a simulated process of productive of an existential excess, and, that it is only in terms of its phenomenal-being-there-for-us that it can be experienced as a thematized phenomenon or set or series of phenomena there-for-us. Only through this phenomenal-phenomenological transformation of relative otherness into relative non-otherness is an engagement encountered and therein engaged. That such engagement must be direct since it is only through this realized sense of an existential excess that we can intentionally encounter and engage the same! That such an excess is the apparent product of this simulated process of engagement – the nature of such a simulated process being reflected in the expression of that specific excess. So, when we visually entertain the visual image of a person we engage this type of phenomenological expression, and, when we shake their hand then we engage with that type of expression, etc. (23)

	How is otherness to be engaged when it is other? By already engaging with what is already not other. In the distance I see a person who looks familiar. I then realize it is one of my friends. I wave, and head over that way to say “hello” and have a short chat over a cup of coffee. So, I see someone, they look familiar, I recognize them, wave, move over to say “hello” and have a coffee with them. We are, in effect, working with what is already present. Activating a series of modalities, then, de-activating some or all of the same. But activation is never absolute and neither is de-activation an absolute process. Even if a friend is watching television with you and they should fall asleep, they are still with you, albeit, currently, in this deactivated state. And, after waking, should they head off home they are still there in a less activated manner (through your memory of this encounter, and their memory of this encounter, through the very fact of having our existential descriptors and axes in a historical state of relative contiguity in that regard, and, through our mutual standing before-each-other with-each-other. In this regard, through activated simulation and its modal enrichment no relationship thereafter is ever merely a ‘mere relationship’ without some form of resonance and value for those participants unless those parties should meet and through oversight or memory loss or non-recognition merely pass each other without such recognition. Once recognized, that that relationship is not then a mere relationship in this neutral sense, then a process of experiential augmentation of that relationship is either de-augmented, or, continued/re-continued. Now, having characterized the re-activation of a relationship in this manner, are we allowed to ask is existential augmentation a similar if not equivalent process to the re-simulation of a relationship in it re-ongoing relational augmentation? Without too much qualification, I believe this to be generally so. Existential augmentation is, therefore, more or less, realized through a process of relational augmentation (through a relational process of co-option)(entered though the relative overall activation of additional modalities of engagement). (24)

	‘Otherness’ is a spectral phenomenon in the sense that difference is both experienced and mediated (as non-otherness). The weather today is cold, to the south there is snow. The temperature today is experienced as ‘other’ or ‘different’ from what it was yesterday, i.e., when it was relatively warmer. If snow was on the ground everyday could it still be experienced as ‘cold’. Yes, of course. Hopefully our residence is warmer or warm enough to be just comfortable. Or, if the heating had failed, then it is ‘cold’ or ‘colder’ by virtue of some reference we have when the temperature was not cold, say when our residence was warmed or when we stood in front of a fire or had the relative luxury of a warm bath. Otherness in this sense is on a spectrum, a relative gradation of difference. (25)

	As a general principle one could say that, ultimately, from an ultimate and transcendental point of view, all spectral phenomena are discontinuous, i.e., subject to discontinuities. Furthermore, from a non-ultimate point of view one should not rule out discontinuities. Let me explain. Our experience of gradations of temperature superficially looks like a gradual phenomenon without discontinuities when we move from one temperature to another. From a non-ultimate point of view that is generally correct, although, materials subjected to relatively extreme temperature changes do experience changes in phase that are discontinuous in terms of energy distribution, etc. The melting of ice needs additional energy to make that phase change, etc. However, on a quantum level, I would argue that this appearance of general continuity, phase changes apart, is an illusion or ‘simulation’ and that discrete jumps or quanta are registered (both ontologically and epistemologically to the extent that they are allowed to register the same in line with quantum limitations and principles of uncertainty, etc.). That the same applies to all other ‘measurable’ aspects of ‘reality’ as discerned through ‘simulation’. E.g., time, speed, acceleration, mass, intensity of forces, etc.). W.r.t. mass, the addition or subtraction of mass is an incremental affair through the addition or loss of so-called ‘particles’, mass vectors, quanta, etc. W.r.t. time we could see discontinuities at the level of the quantum moment (wherein quantum limitations stop us from encountering/engaging a continuation of apparent continuity). This brings me to my second point that even non-ultimately, i.e., empirically or phenomenally or non-transcendentally, time manifests itself with other forms of discontinuity, e.g., night and day, years, seasons (and artifacts of reckoning such as minutes, hours, weeks, etc.), etc. Hence these two general points w.r.t. spectral phenomena, namely, that ultimately there are discontinuities and that even non-ultimately we should not rule out the same. (26)

	In the light of the above we can now note that a sense of ‘otherness’ or ‘difference’ is either manifested in a relatively continuous manner and/or in an ultimately non-continuous manner (from a spectral point of view, in a spectrum of apparent gradations be they relatively continuous and/or discontinuous in apparent nature. E.g., between my apparent sense of self (from the appearance of my own point of view, be that either empirically and/or phenomenally or ultimately and transcendentally considered) and the appearance of another person there is an apparent discontinuity to the extent a degree of directness (in intentional consciousness is absent). So, e.g., when we shake hands my hand is experienced directly as my hand and the other person’s hand is experiences as the hand of another person. This experience of ‘otherness’ is amplified by these senses of discontinuity experienced by the parties concerned. E.g., I am here and he is there; I am here in writing/reading this essay whereas she, being dead, can no longer read this essay; I speak English and not Maltese but this person on the phone only speaks Maltese and not English and therefore we cannot communicate t any great extent, etc. Effectively, therefore, otherness is a multi-dimensional affair through the invocation of a number of gradations and/or discontinuities, etc. However, I argued that otherness is also a mediated affair through the absence of an absolute form of otherness. How might we account for this problem – just how do we mediate with the dead, mediate geographically, mediate between different languages, etc? Obviously, by various processes of translation. So, a person who can speak both English and Maltese could translate for us in our phone conversation. Geographically, we might be able to see them, talk to them on our mobiles or cell-phones, or just assume they are at the coordinates x and y on a map having been informed that they would be in that vicinity on such and such a date. But, then, how do we mediate with the dead, what form of translation would be involved here? Through simulation we could imagine what they might say to a certain question (and cite various texts created by the same when they were alive). Obviously, here, mediation would have to be indirect and relatively virtual rather than non-virtual, and, the mechanisms of translation would have to be accordingly characterized in a similar fashion. E.g., I read a novel by a dead author and assume that it must reflect their take, to some extent, on their perceived nature of reality although, at the same time, assuming a certain degree of (mediated) distance between the general stance of the author and the stances of their authored characters. So, in this light, what mediation exists for me in trying to understand why Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his army on his route to Rome. I certainly cannot ask him, however, as luck would have it, we can read his account of his various military campaigns and we might find our answers there, or, we might read eyewitness accounts and testimonies of his contemporaries, or, we can do a consequential analysis and judge for ourselves the apparent subsequent unfolding of events in the wake of this decisive action heavily overlaid with meaning to the extent that he was not just merely crossing that river! Indeed, translation itself may be mediated or translated for us too, etc. That, correctly, everything is mediated and hence simulated albeit directly or indirectly. So, e.g., my relationship with J.C. is mediated historically by various authors and their texts be they non-contemporaneous or contemporaneous with us. E.g., my vision of the world is constructed, albeit directly moment from moment through the intentional co-option of mediated sense data, processes of experiential recognition, narrational pressures, utilization of a subjective-intersubjective psychic mapping of the cultural/inter-cultural world etc., etc. (27)

	Therefore, in answering the question “where is the Other?” (openly symbolic of all possible senses of otherness; including the otherness of other persons in all senses, the Divine [when formulated in a possible, coherent process theology, e.g.], all interaction with forms of institution and communities, apparent non-subjectivity, objectivity, embodiment, etc.) I answered that question by noting gradational spectral difference and then noting its ultimate discontinuity and its possible non-ultimate forms of apparent continuity and discontinuity. In the process the question was also answered “how is otherness mediated?” to be answered by the invocation of apparent   mediation through processes of translation. That, indeed, a sense of otherness could only arise through this transcendentally necessary features of mediation, etc. Let me look more closely at how a simulated appearance of otherness is approached, encountered and engaged? (28)

2.   How is Other(ness) Experienced? 

	I would like to finesse this argument so far along the following lines: difference is indicative of change but not so much an indication of otherness, whereas, in contrast, the experience of some form of discontinuity is indicative of some sense of otherness. However, as noted, otherness must always be mediated in some form or other since absolute otherness can never be there-for-us as a phenomenon. The question how otherness, as an apparent discontinuity is to be experienced, therefore, must involve how that form of mediation allows us also to experientially overcome that sense of discontinuity? As a consequence of this insight let me explore this aspect of mediation in order to see if we can resolve this issue how otherness is phenomenologically experienced? (29)

	Imagine the following: yesterday you were feeling somewhat miserable after a week of influenza although you were also starting to feel better. Today you feel much better. Here there is a qualitative difference between how you felt yesterday and how you feel today. Yesterday, you were not your usual self, but, today, you feel more like your usual ebullient self. However, I doubt very much, that you would propose that your sense of self yesterday was other than your sense of self today. On the other hand, in some forms of mental illness a sense of depersonalization, dissociation, etc., can contribute to a sense of otherness. Then, in some forms of illness through dissociation or other mechanisms (like strokes) parts of one’s own body are not recognized as oneself (with various dysmorphic syndromes, etc.). One might wish to argue here that a difference in body-tone, in perception and interpretation, in part or in whole, might contribute to a sense of otherness, however, the semblance of some form of discontinuity certainly would. Putting these conditions to the side, when dealing with another person, under normal circumstances, despite feelings of a certain degree of intimacy, a sense of discontinuity is experienced in our dealings with that ‘other’ person. They have their own point of view and in our mutual explorations of each other’s points of view we would normally expect some degree of difference in this regard. I would suggest that if we were to meet someone who had exactly the same points of view as ourselves that we would find that quite disconcerting. It would be interesting to see if we would still agree with each other given that we are prone to an ongoing misinterpretation of the other even if there were little difference. That aside, in my opinion we prefer to find the other person as a ‘foil’ to our views rather than as a perfect ‘mirror’! In this we have a clue. If the other person were a ‘mirror’ there could be no experience of difference. On the other hand, if the other person were experienced as far too different from us for us to mutually interact profitably with them, and v.v., then that relationship would not be experienced as a relatively enriched relationship. Obviously, a relatively more profitable relationship finds a better middle ground in this regard, namely, some differences and some similarities where those differences are not too psychically great from where we stand. More specifically, a process of harmonization is able to be enacted wherein differences are resolved in the very formation of that resultant relationship. Indeed, as argued elsewhere, that sense of resolution determines the intensity and nature of the fabric of that relationship. In this we need to note that relative commonalities form a general field of consonance and relative differences form a focus of dissonance whose resolution establishes the metaphorical ‘body’ of that relationship. By relative differences we could include both spectral continuities and discontinuities. So, the question of interaction now devolves around the harmonic considerations of how do we experience commonalities, points of dissonant focus and their resultant resolution and ongoing formation of relationships. But, first, a minor problem. How is a relationship continued, if only as a potentiality, if the participants of that relationship are not currently involved in a process of participation? (30)

	Obviously, relationships also have a certain potential existence. Perhaps before they come into existence, and before they go out of existence. In ahistorical terms of reference one might propose the relationship of all relationships are already transcendentally potentiated but not necessarily ever actuated in a realized world of relational formation. I have argued elsewhere, that a relationship is never completely actuated nor completely potentiated. A completely activated relationship would not change and, therefore, cold not phenomenally-phenomenologically exist for-us. Equally, a purely potential relationship could not exist either. That granted, because absolute purity of conceptual content could be neither encountered nor engaged (in a process of recognition) if follows that both pure actuality and pure potentiality can have no part in a viable philosophy. Thus, potentiality can never be purely potentiated, consequently, in some sense and to some degree, however infinitesimal, potentiality must actually exists in some form or other in order for it to be not un-encountered, etc., as in a purely potentiated form it could not exist for-us and thence could not be encountered. Equally, the actual cannot be absolutely activated or actuated and, therefore, must maintain some degree and manner of potentiality within its semblance of a phenomenal-phenomenological process. Hence change and our ability to encounter and engage and recognize this semblance of the other. What ramifications follow from this middle path of reasoning? (31)

	For a start, potentiality-actuality must be a spectral type of phenomenon with some form of a (speculative) discontinuity between the potentially oriented and the actually oriented [and demonstrative of dialectical reasoning as along harmonic lines, e.g., wherein a process of resolution directly establishes the qualitative and quantitative facticity of that relationship as an existential excess of value (be that in non-intentional terms of reference and/or intentional terms of reference)]. How then does a semblance of discontinuity find itself being resolved in order for a relationship to persevere and experientially exist? I can suggest one metaphorical mechanism here. In the asymmetrical performance of an intentional act from the symmetrical matrix of the overall transcendental suspension I have suggested that it is the suspension of the suspension that allows the symmetry of the suspension to be broken. Could we propose a parallel or similar mechanism here? Moreover, the eruptive breaking of symmetry can also be compared to the emissive act of a systematic break-up, the re-organization of a systematic state of affairs. Indeed, the re-organization of a systematic state of affairs in which the breaking of currents (based on apparent dualities, say, e.g., between consonant field/s and dissonant focus/foci) in a tri-modal/multi-modal system releases a relatively unique, no-absolute, uni-modal/uni-polar emissive product. In the resulting process of re-organization though re-self-organization a process of enharmonization ensures. The difference between prior self-organization and re-self-organization being signaled through emissive products/productivity. The latter ensuing that our relatively external (and/or internal) relationship with the same is effectively initiated, continued and re-continued when and where relevant. In this scheme interactions are put in play internally and externally through such direct and/indirect forms of participation. ‘Direct’ through self-emission and/or self-reception of such emissions, and ‘indirect’ through a mediated signaling of the same. E.g., I shake hands in being introduced to a certain person by a friend. Here contact is direct and the emissive act is an extended hand received in an act of handshaking. Or, relatively indirect when I am saying good by from the rails of a ship and in the distance merely wave good-bye. However, how do such ideas help us to understand the relative mediation of a relative discontinuity, and, would not any form of discontinuity be absolute and never merely relative? One could imagine driving along a street to suddenly see, and manage to avoid thankfully, a huge pothole where the road has caved into the opening up of an underground cavern. There is a hole in the road but that hole is not bottomless, it is still mediated by the land upon that landscape itself. The same with the collapse of a bridge, the river being mediated by the banks of that river upon the land of that landscape. Should all discontinuities be proposed in fields of more relatively basic continuity? Yes. Otherwise discontinuity in the continuity of field could not be experienced (on transcendental/non-transcendental grounds). Immediately we must ask: what continuities are present in our experience of the discontinuity of the other, say, e.g., between two lovers, or, two friends, or mother and child, or, two soldiers in combat, etc? Two lovers express their love through an intimacy of embodiment. Embodiment is in a realm of physicality. Then, again, the intentional expression of love in this instance is mediated by the genre of sexual intimacy. Genres, in turn, are mediated in an inter-subjective realm of the social dimension of our existence in being-with-others. Already we see a hierarchy of mediation, a hierarchy mediated in and through the hierarchical organization of the epistemological organization that characterizes individuality and the interaction between individuals, in this instance as lovers. But, as for ‘lovers’ so too in many respects for ‘friends’ or ‘mother and child’ or ‘combative soldiers’, etc. ‘Mediation’ need not be something merely physical but something that also operates in the sheared epistemological dimensions of organization that emerge from such socialized-embodiment. How then is a process of mediation enacted? (32)

	We could say all relational processes are mediated. In the resolution of mediation a harmonic process is engaged (be that non-intentionally and/or intentionally in orientation in our consideration of that specific relational process). Mediation is realized through active accommodation, i.e., resolved in and through and beyond a process of enharmonization wherein consonant field/s and point/s of dissonance are mediated and actively resolved in an ongoing process of engaged interaction (in keeping with the specific character of that type of particular type of relationship [in the generality of the archetypal or transcendental nature of relational processes in general]). All this provisionally and hypothetically granted, what does this modeling do to insightfully inform us as to the nature of relationships and their processes of enharmonization both internally, w.r.t. the relationship in question, and, externally, w.r.t. the nature of its relationship with (all) other relationships? (33)

	In the background to such considerations we have a number of conundrums. How do relationships relate with other relationships (like trees in a forest), and, how do they relate to an overall sense of the Life-World itself as the relationship (or transcendental ‘ground’) of all relationships? Then, how do relatively incommensurate aspects of our intentionality relate to other aspects (when, sometimes, it is obvious that incommensurate products must be able to relate with other relatively incommensurate products being so co-associated, and, at other times, such connections are neither seen nor understood if perceived or conceived as co-associated). Let me first examine these relevant considerations in order to throw some light on this problem of commensuration. (34)

	The three axes of the overall dimension of the spatial do not seem commensurate with a temporal axis? How do subjects interact with objects? In the overall visual field how do the various fields of colour, movement, sharpness of line, focus, all interact to form the simulation of a perceived state of affairs? Or, how does a past which has occurred interact with a present coming into/going out of into existence, or, for that matter also ‘interact’ or ‘relate’ with some sense of the future? Or, translated to a causal field of consequential analysis, how do causal conditions create caused effects? Or, how does the symmetry of the overall transcendental suspension relate with the asymmetry of the suspended suspension, etc? I would argue that through processes of accommodation, mediation, translation in a meta-transformational context we should be in a better position to understand the interaction between these apparent forms of discontinuity. E.g., I can drink a cup of tea by virtue of being embodied and able to make or have made for me a cup of tea that could then be ingested by myself. ‘Accommodation’ is on a physical level of epistemological organization, ‘mediation’ is that the liquid of tea can be ingested, ‘translation’ involves the re-location of that cup of tea and the separation of its ingested contents, and, ‘transformation’ involves the fact that that fluid is actively digested by the body. Discontinuity can be overcome on a more basic level of epistemological organization given a process of transformation(al re-self-organization) upon a supportive basis of mutual epistemological organization subject to relevant and adequate forms of meta-transformational treatment/re-treatment (wherein near parallel processes of transformation are mirrored between different level of meta-status that therein allow the simulation of that resulting process of transformation). Given (my argument) that our intentional thought process mirror such transformations thence their recognition (through passive encountering and active engagement). That by such active reconstructive simulation and its resultant re-simulation thence our simulated/re-simulated passage through this World-of-Life. (35)

	Through the formation of a sense of a relative isomorphic invariance continuity of identity is naturally proposed through an imputative process of identification (on and between both levels of associative and dis-associative treatment/re-treatment). Let me explain in some detail what is entailed in this overall process of simulation/re-simulation. Let me examine, in such a technical frame of reference, my perception of a small collection of various trees forming a small forest. I, as an intentional subject, perceive a group of trees, large enough in quantity and close enough together, that I naturally perceive to be being enclosed within a forest. I, as an embodied perceiver, can perceive the physical presence of a collection of trees whose collectivity falls within the genre of ascription ‘forest’. In meta-transformational terms of reference a relational sense of ‘self’, a collection of ‘trees’ and their overall collectivity as a ‘forest’ are all mediated through embodiment and re-treated on a physical par with the physical nature of my body, the material nature of those trees, the confined geographical location of that forest. In this collective simulation and overall imputation is formed the reasonable notion that ‘I can indeed see a forest of trees’! The genre of ‘ascribing trees to a forest’ through its inter-subjectivity implies that under normal circumstances my ascription and description of that forest is something that can also be ascertained by others and treated as an acceptable fact. By such processes of accommodation, mediation and translation in an adequate meta-transformational frame of reference allows us to correctly ascribe the intentional objective of ‘our’ perceptual focus. Forms of discontinuity being threaded together, so to speak, through our ability to link our embodied sense of perception to the perception of trees as being within a forest as we see all of this in part before us (and modified through ongoing adumbration of different perspectives and inputs [say from a map or as reported or inferred]). Obvious, all of this is synthesized through ongoing construction hence the imputative nature of our simulation of this state of affairs under examination. That, effectively, through processes of meta-transformation we are able to link together relatively discontinuous states of affairs and treat them as collectively co-occurring in our ‘mapping’ of that state of affairs. Thence imputative simulation is able to overcome such discontinuous anomalies in our encountering, engagement and recognition of such elements incorporated into our schematization of that under examination. (36)

	In the light of such complexity, let me now re-address in a summary form these two questions of what is otherness and how is otherness to be experienced, and, furthermore, how internal aspects of relationships can relate to external aspects of those same relationship, etc? (37)

3.    Provisional Conclusions

	I would argue, generally, difference does not constitute a sense of otherness, whereas, in contrast, our experience of discontinuity, between aspects of Object, Ego and/or World, is able to account for the same. That, ultimately, all spectral phenomena are both discontinuous and simulated/re-simulated, and, that non-ultimately we should expect the same to also be present, i.e., the palpable presence of apparent non-absolute discontinuity. That, all interaction with some sense of ‘the other’ is normally realized following the adequate utilization of the apposite genre forms of appropriation, in turn, realized through processes of (reductive) mediation and translation, (synthetic) accommodation and appropriation, etc., all within the critical exercise of a meta-transformational philosophy! That, consequently, these mediated forms of appropriation form various simulated economies wherein senses of the other are simulated/re-simulated and circulated for us in such a manner that through imputation, etc., that a sense of psychic distance, when and where relevant, is overcome…. (38)

   Noël Tointon, Sydney, 12.6.09.