Abstract
1. This study seeks to establish that: (a) there is a current Western paradigm or conceptual framework; (b) this contains important misconceptions; (c) these stem primarily from failures to distinguish conceptual levels. 2. The most basic misconceptions concern the body-mind relationship and perception where sense experiences and the physical world are typically regarded as at the same conceptual level, the latter being dominant. 3. The study seeks to establish an alternative interpretation at three conceptual levels: (a) a sensory/physical world of which we are parts and which in us is self-intimating; (b) our sense experiences; (c) deriving from different aspects of our sense experiences, our concepts of consciousness and mind and of the external and physical worlds. 4. This is a double-aspect theory supplemented by the concept of a more basic sensory/physical world. 5. Ontologically, there is a sensory/physical world of which we are parts; which in us is self-intimating; and of which consciousness and mind and the external and physical worlds are aspects. 6. Similar paradigm misconceptions apply to memory and the role of the unconscious. From this aspect, the brain is seen primarily as a processor of sense experiences whereby they are rendered meaningful: a processor which itself develops in the light of experiences. The memories themselves are retained in a collective or interpersonal unconscious. 7. Given the role of associations, evidence relating to memory and various parapsychological phenomena are re-assessed and an explanation offered. 8. The outcome is a monistic view of a timeless collective unconscious having within it past and future events which are activated by an evolving 'wave' of energy which constitutes our sensory/physical world of which we are parts and through which the unconscious is becoming self-conscious. 9. This study offers the basis for a further study developing and completing this monistic interpretation in terms of a top-level concept.