beforeword · English transcription of the sent letter
Intended recipient: Thomas Metzinger
Author: Kirill Shebetov · beforeword
Sent to: metzinger@uni-mainz.de
Sending date in the supplied materials: The header shows only “Friday”; the calendar date is not shown.
The sending timezone is not supplied.
Status: shown in the Sent folder; no reply published.
The published materials do not establish receipt or reading by the recipient.
Record: https://beforeword.xyz/letters/researchers/metzinger/en/#record
Record data: https://beforeword.xyz/letters/researchers/metzinger/record.json
Russian translation: https://beforeword.xyz/letters/researchers/metzinger/#letter
Transcribed from author-supplied screenshots. Screen line wraps are joined and overlaps included once; wording and punctuation are retained.
beforeword’s context and links to discussed publications are separate on the letter page.

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Subject: Your study of awareness: the grounds for reading the reports

Dear Professor Metzinger,

In The Elephant and the Blind (Introduction, p. xxvi), you write that “the blind people’s response patterns are only words”.

Please indicate what grounds would support reading a particular report as evidence of pure awareness, and how those grounds would be distinguished from the report’s classification.

Your introduction already acknowledges the provisional nature of the grouping. beforeword proposes keeping three elements separately inspectable: the written report, what it is read as describing, and the grounds offered for accepting that reading.

“Pure awareness” also remains a written expression within this account. The proposed criterion, written descriptions of supporting research, and their interpretation receive the same examination. This applies equally to human self-descriptions and to this letter.

The reading procedure and worked examples:
https://beforeword.xyz/model/en/

Kirill Shebetov
beforeword

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