Archive for January, 2019

Western Culture’s ‘Invented Reality’ – A Design for Dysfunction

0

 

Introduction:

Suboptimization of the human condition within the global diversity would only make sense if ‘humans’ were ‘independent beings’ (an abstraction that is NOT grounded in experiential reality).   But there are no ‘independent beings’ in a transforming relational continuum, ‘reality’ as understood by modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.  Nevertheless, Western culture not only embraces such ‘suboptimization’, it celebrates the continuing advancement of the conditions of living enjoyed by ‘human beings’ irrespective of ‘the rest’.

The ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ is a concept wherein ‘independent existence’ arises from ‘difference’, in the manner of the ‘constant’ (persisting thing-in-itself) in mathematics that replaces continuing change/transformation, by means of the process of ‘differentiation’.  In human social dynamics, while the inter-relating activities of many people may manifest as relational webs, there may be no explicit separation from the larger web of relations in which a local human relational web is included (i.e. the relational-social system that is included within a relational-social suprasystem may be a purely relational phenomenon). Local polarized opposition may be the development that establishes a new ‘apparent’ ‘stand-alone’ entity.  The new entity arising ‘out of division’ may provide ‘psychological traction’ as a base for the sourcing of actions and developments.  The fact that the self-declared independence of a new thing-in-itself nation may have internal political poles (e.g. conservative and liberal polarization) suggests that that the ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ can provide the psychological base for ‘independent being that can serve as a notional (psychological) ‘launching-pad’ for the sourcing of actions and developments; i.e. a notional ‘difference-based’ thing-in-itself.

The ‘coincidentia oppositorum’ thus appears to be a ‘means’ of  instantiating ‘being’.  As Carl Jung said;  “The self is made manifest in the opposites and the conflicts between them; it is a coincidentia oppositorum.”.  The opposition of ‘conservatives’ and ‘liberals’ may not simply be ‘within the nation as pre-existing thing-in-itself’ but may instead be the coincidentia oppositorum that is the very basis of the persisting ‘thing-in-itself’.  As in the mathematics of differential calculus, the persisting ‘difference’ gives birth to a ‘constant’ (persisting thing-in-itself) that hijacks centre stage’ while the transforming continuum it was ‘abstracted’ disappears from view. Could the Western concept of an ‘independent nation’ acquire its ‘self-hood’ from a political coincidentia oppositorum?  Is the conservative – liberal split the psychological source of persisting ‘thing-in-itself being of the Western nation as an ‘independently-existing thing-in-itself with the notional powers of sourcing actions and developments?

But there are no such things as ‘beings’ outside of the language-based ‘Invented Reality’ of Western culture so this ‘suboptimization’ of the social dynamic, custom-tailored for humans seen as independently-existing beings (things-in-themselves), is a ‘design for dysfunction.

The aberrant thinking of Western culture that manifests in the ‘suboptimizing’ of planetary living conditions for the ‘human’ is the source of rising dysfunction given that there is no ‘independent being’ that associates with the intellectual abstraction that language identifies by the name ‘human being’.  As modern physics would have it (and indigenous aboriginal belief tradition), ‘everything is in flux’; i.e. we are relational features that form and unform within a transforming relational continuum.  Western culture language and grammar may ‘cover this story’ with the reductionist abstractions of ‘beings’, notionally with powers of ‘sourcing actions and developments’, but such Invented Reality construction is not to be confused for (but is being confused for) the ‘reality’ of our experience of inclusion within a transforming relational continuum.

The fallout out from this Western culture confusing of ‘Invented Reality’ for ‘reality’ is the illusion of human engineered ‘suboptimization’ of living conditions for the convenience and benefit of ‘humans’.   The transformation of the world as we see it (intellectually understand it) based on a human convenience-oriented design, is a ‘design for dysfunction’.  The essential condition necessary for ‘suboptimization’ to ‘make sense’, is missing; i.e. the ‘independence’ of the ‘subsystem’ that is being ostensibly ‘optimized’.  Only in a language-based ‘Invented Reality’ can humans be considered ‘independent beings’, inhabitants of a ‘habitat’ that is ‘independent’ of the inhabitants that feed on it.

In the reality of our actual experience (rather than in the Invented reality of language and grammar constructions), the world is given only once, as a transforming relational continuum and there is no ‘inhabitant’ – ‘habitat’ dichotomy, other than that ‘invented’ by the intellect on the basis of ‘language and grammar’ constructions. (more…)

The Deception of ‘The New Year’

0

Do We Want to Liberate Ourselves from the ‘Deception’ of ‘New Year’?

Ok, one can understand the Chinese ‘Spring Festival’ that celebrates cyclic renewal, but ‘cyclic renewal’ does NOT connote an ‘ending’ to something and the subsequent ‘new beginning’ to something else.  Of course, if we decide to name an ‘epoch’ and at some point decide that ‘that epoch’ has run its course and name a ‘new epoch’, we can make it ‘sound’ (in linguistic discourse) as if the continuing relational transformation is being ‘pre-empted’ by the ‘death’ of one period of time and the ‘birth’ of a new period of time.

Is an ‘epoch’ ‘real’?  Epoch: … An extended period of time usually characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events.

Western culture seems to embrace the notion that the various ‘epochs’ are ‘real’, but surely they can only be Invented Realities’ since what is ‘really real’ (as validated by our actual relational experience and by modern physics) is the transforming relational continuum we share inclusion in, which does not ‘break down into separate parts’.

Our ‘experiential reality’  is the ‘more comprehensive ‘relational reality’, and it is unlike our abstract language-based ‘Invented Reality’ . There is cause for concern here since Western culture employs ‘Invented Reality’ as its ‘operative reality’. (more…)

Go to Top