Defining ‘Maya’: Realism or Pragmatic Idealism?

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Hurricanes are emergent forms in a continually transforming ‘relational space’.  They are like ‘sailboaters’ that derive their form, power and steerage from the dynamic habitat they are situationally included in.  At the same time, they seem also like ‘powerboaters’ whose animative sourcing seems to originate locally, from out of their internal processes.

Ernst Mach, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Poincaré and others [the ‘relational theorists’] contend that this ambiguous non-duality [aka the relativity of habitat and inhabitant] pervades nature, that it applies to man just as it applies to hurricanes.  We can ‘feel’ some truth in this.  From our own experience, we seem to be born into a relational space, a web of relations that is always calling to us to ‘rise to the occasion’ [e.g. as our parents age and/or pass on] and to let our development and behaviour be orchestrated by the ‘opening’ that presents to us in the dynamic habitat that we are each uniquely situationally included in. 

 Yes, its also true that we can think of ourselves as rational-purpose-driven powerboaters that start planning, in their own right, ‘who they are going to be when they grow up’.  But, unless we are robots programmed with the celebrity profiles of media personalities, our assertive actions take on ‘real meaning’, like the hurricanes, from the unfolding situational [spatial-relational] dynamics we find ourselves included in [the hurricane emerges, develops and acts in the service of restoring balance in the ‘dynamics of the habitat’ (thermal energy flow-field) it is situationally included in].

In this case, our animative sourcing does NOT simply come from our interior, from our craving for ‘power’ to make things happen according to our individual preference, but, as Nietzsche suggests, the animative sourcing of our development and behaviour comes from our ‘Will to Power’, from our sailboater’s innate need to ‘rise to the occasion’ of the dynamic situations we find ourselves in.  To be coming purely from our notionally ‘internal’ powerboater ‘make-things-happen-the-way-we-want’ power would blind us to, and deny us our natural opportunity to answer, nature’s call to us; ‘to take our place in the natural scheme of things’.

Is the ‘powerboater’ view of ourselves, then, nothing other than … ‘Maya’, … ‘Fiktion’, … ‘schaumkommen’, …. mere ‘appearances’?

Our sensory experiencing of the world, the continuously unfolding dynamics of the spatial habitat we share inclusion in, the dynamics of we who inhabit it, and our habitat-inhabitant relations, delivers up to us a ‘world view’.

Many of us would say that our ‘world view’ corresponds to ‘physical reality’.  But some philosophers argue that our common ‘world view’ that we present to ourselves on the television news and in the newspapers and in public discourse and debate, is not ‘physical reality’ but ‘Maya’ [Vedics], ‘appearances’, ‘schaumkommen’ [Schrödinger], ‘Fiktion’ [Nietzsche].

Ernst Mach, in particular, held ‘scientific views’ that supported this allegation that our common ‘worldview’ was ‘appearances’, that he could never resolve with the scientific community as a whole.   Mach was the mentor of Einstein, Poincaré and many others on scientific inquiry.  Mach and Einstein were friends and mutually respected one another, and after Mach’s public debate with Max Planck on the issue of ‘physical reality’, Einstein ‘was sent by the scientific community’ to persuade Mach to give up his insistence that matter and material systems ‘were not real’ and to join the mainstream.  Mach’s final views on this were as follows;

“After exhorting the reader, with Christian charity, to respect his opponent, Planck brands me, in the well-known Biblical words, as a ‘false prophet.’  It appears that physicists are already on their way to founding a church; they are already using a church’s traditional weapons.  To this I answer simply: ‘If belief in the reality of atoms is so important to you, I cut myself off from the physicist’s mode of thinking, I do not wish to be a true physicist, I renounce all scientific respect— in short: I decline with thanks the communion of the faithful.  I prefer freedom of thought.” — Ernst Mach, ‘The Guiding Principles of My Scientific Theory of Knowledge’.  See also ‘Ernst Mach leaves the Church of Physics’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Br J Philos Sci (1989) 40 (4): 519-540.)

Here’s the issue that Mach is talking about.  It is also spoken about at length by Poincaré in terms of the split between ‘realists’ and ‘pragmatist idealists’.   The ‘pragmatist idealists’ acknowledge the discursive and model-building utility of the notion that ‘atoms are real’, but the maintain that ‘things-in-themselves’ and the view of dynamics in terms of ‘what things-in-themselves do’, is ‘idealization’ that should not be confused for ‘physical reality’.

The following example exposes the ambiguity that is involved between these two groups [Note that realism is the dominant ‘thinking’ in our Western culture, which is to say, in Mach’s view, and Nietzsche’s, Poincaré’s, Bohm’s, Schrödinger’s, that our culture commonly CONFUSES an idealized world view in terms of ‘things-in-themselves’ [local material ‘beings’] and ‘what things-in-themselves-do’ for ‘physical reality’.

Example, Rising-to-the-occasion versus Purpose-driven.

Imagine that you were a young man in a large family and your father suddenly died at an early age.   Not only was the mother left with numerous young children to support but the father had also provided support and assistance to an ‘extended family’ of friends and blood relatives.  His early passing leaves a huge ‘hole’ in the dynamic web of relations.  Though you are still young, your natural forces fountain forth in you like a burst of adrenalin and you ‘rise to the occasion’ and ‘step into the void’ left by your father’s passing.  You leave school and get a job to support the family and you give support also to the friends and relatives in the extended family that your father had supported.

Imagine also, an observer who knows nothing of this.  Who is simply a scientifically-minded observer of dynamics including human behaviour.  It happens that he observes you and your daily routines and your behaviour in general.  In his scientific reports he writes about your very determined and purposeful actions, your intelligence and knowledge and your commitment to get the job done.

In comparing these two views of the same dynamic behaviour, we note the following;

Science gives the purpose-driven view.

The scientific view of the ‘excluded voyeur observer’ [the objective scientific view] sees the animative sourcing of your behaviour as ‘purpose-driven’.  This is consistent with science’s model of man as a ‘machine made of meat’; i.e. as a local, independently existing, material ‘thing-in-itself’ with its own locally-originating, internal process driven and directed behaviour.  In this scientific view, the animative sourcing of your behaviour is seen as internally driven/directed by your knowledge, powers of rational intellection and your purpose.

Experience gives the ‘rising to the occasion’ view [spatial-relational situational-inclusion view]

Nietzsche distinguishes this from ‘power’ as associates with purely inside-outward asserting behaviour, by calling it ‘the will to power’.

This experiential view is one in which a hole has been blown in a web of spatial-relations and the animative sourcing of your behaviour derives from the hole in the spatial-relations or the transforming dynamic of the relational space you share inclusion in.  There is no way that you, yourself, would explain your actions in the over-simple ‘powerboater’ terms of your behaviour being driven and directed from your interior.  You did not choose to be included in the web of relations you found yourself in, this web seemed to have been evolving on its own and you emerged within it, and it nurtured you and your brothers and sisters and a major source of nurturance suddenly ceased; i.e. your father died, thus it felt natural for you to ‘rise to the occasion’ [‘hear the beckon call of the spatial-relational situation you are included in’] and ‘let your behaviour be orchestrated by whatever it takes to ‘heal the hole’ [resolve the deficiency] in the spatial-relational web you share inclusion in.

Which view is ‘most true’? … the scientific view of you as a ‘thing-in-itself’ with is own locally originating, internal purpose driven behaviour?  … or the sensory experience based understanding of being included in a web of relations that is calling to you to restore and sustain balance and harmony in the web?

One thing is clear.  There is a ‘trade off’ between the two views between the ‘rational purpose’ of the scientist’s view of your behaviour, and the ‘spatial-relations that are calling for your help’.

The scientist’s view is missing the ‘spatial-relational animative sourcing’.  It imputes the animative sourcing of your behaviour to reside within you, not outside of you, where it is in your actual sensory experience.

This is because the scientific observer is framing your actions in notional absolute space and absolute time, rather than by your inclusion in a web of spatial relations.  The scientific observer is assuming that space is Euclidian [absolute, fixed, rectangular, empty and infinite] while your experience is informing you that ‘space is relational’.

[N.B. in non-euclidian spherical space, there are no fixed reference points so that it is impossible to say ‘he moves’ since that implies ‘absolute motion’.  One can only say, ‘the spatial-relational configuration transforms’; e.g. picture a swarm of ants dispersed over the surface of a small sphere.  the ants have no other reference but their own relative arrangement/configuration to judge their ‘location’ and ‘movement’ [both are purely ‘relative’]; i.e. they understand their location and motion in terms of their network of spatial-relations wherein ‘the dynamics of the inhabitants are defining the dynamics of the habitat at the same time as the dynamics of the habitat are defining the dynamics of the inhabitants’ (an equivalent form of Mach’s principle)].

If the scientific observer get’s together with you, to discuss his view of your behaviour, he will ask questions like; ‘is it true that you went to your Uncle Henry’s place on Wednesday, the 3’rd? You will answer ‘yes’.  ‘and is it true you did so of your own volition without any coercement by others?’ You will say, ‘yes’.

What is going on here?   The scientist is dealing with, as Mach says, ‘the objects of sight and touch’.  The tornado is an object of sight and touch and we can speak of ‘its growth’ and ‘its movements’ and ‘its trajectory’, none of which says that it is not an included feature in a larger dynamic.  The ‘relational hole’ or ‘deficiencies in pressure and thermal energy that are its animative sourcing, are NON-LOCAL, NON-VISIBLE and NON-MATERIAL, encouraging us to make the psychological leap that reduces ‘ein Ding an sich selbst betrachtet’ (‘a thing considered in itself’) to ‘ein Ding an sich’ (‘a thing in itself’) and to simplify matter greatly by no longer having to discuss ‘dynamics’ in terms of the endless non-local, non-visible, non-material web of spatial-relations amongst things, and instead being able to discuss them in terms of notional ‘things-in-themselves’ and ‘what things-in-themselves do’. 

Of course, this ‘notional view’ forces us to notionally shift the nonlocal, nonvisible, non-material animative sourcing of the dynamics, to the interior of the ‘thing-in-itself’ making it appear to be a sort of ‘powerboater’ with its own inboard equipment for sourcing is drive and direction.   We don’t have to ‘think so much’ once we, as ‘scientific observers’, have reduced the relational world dynamic to the notional terms of ‘things-in-themselves and ‘what things-in-themselves do’.  As Mach says;

“Science itself, … may be regarded as a minimization problem, consisting of the completest possible presenting of facts with the least possible expenditure of thought. –Ernst Mach [emphasis is Mach’s]

This scientific world view, in terms of ‘local material things-in-themselves’ and ‘what these things do’ is what Mach, Nietzsche, Poincaré, Bohm and Schrödinger term ‘Maya’, ‘schaumkommen’, ‘Fiktion’ [a useful perhaps necessary Fiktion, as Nietzsche says], and what most people in the globally dominant Western culture call ‘reality’ [what they CONFUSE for reality, in the view of the aforementioned ‘relationists’].

Poincaré discusses this ‘psychological schism’ between ‘realists’ [absolutists] and ‘pragmatist idealists’ [relationists]

“At all times, there have been opposite tendencies in philosophy and it does not seem that these tendencies are on the verge of being reconciled. It is no doubt because there are different souls and that we cannot change anything in these souls. There is therefore no hope of seeing harmony established between the pragmatists [-idealists] and the Cantorians [-realists]. Men do not agree because they do not speak the same language, and there are languages which cannot be learned.” — Poincaré, Dernières Pensées, Ch. V. Les Mathematiques et la Logique

The ‘not much hope’ view was in regard to ‘mathematicians’ [this schism crops up in all disciplines and walks of life] and the way that mathematicians think.  Poincaré also describes where and how we have built this ‘reduction’ from the spatial-relational to the local, visible, material into science; i.e. by ‘taking the derivative’ and assuming that ‘change’ is not ‘relational’ but can be ‘computed’ by taking the difference between what one sees, touches and measures in the present and what one saw, touched and measured in the immediate past;

“Origin of Mathematical Physics. Let us go further and study more closely the conditions which have assisted the development of mathematical physics. We recognise at the outset the efforts of men of science have always tended to resolve the complex phenomenon given directly by experiment into a very large number of elementary phenomena, and that in three different ways.

First, with respect to time. Instead of embracing in its entirety the progressive development of a phenomenon, we simply try to connect each moment with the one immediately preceding. We admit that the present state of the world only depends on the immediate past, without being directly influenced, so to speak, by the recollection of a more distant past. Thanks to this postulate, instead of studying directly the whole succession of phenomena, we may confine ourselves to writing down its differential equation; for the laws of Kepler we substitute the law of Newton.” — Henri Poincaré, Science and Hypothesis

Taking this ‘difference’ psychologically ‘localizes’ the causal agency, as in the ad hoc notion of a ‘local force’ [locally jumpstarted animative sourcing that is visible and material]  so as to avoid having to deal with animative sourcing that is non-local, non-visible, and non-material, as in the example of the tornado, and as Mach et al contend is the general case.

The web of spatial relations that Jean Valjean found himself included in, called to him to go out and find some bread to feed starving children, but in scientific view of inspector Javert and the Judge, the animative sourcing for his actions could be computed by taking the difference between the present view where Jean Valjean is running down the road with a loaf of bread and the view in the immediate past where the loaf of bread was lying on the counter in the bakery.  The material facts of this case are open and shut; Jean Valjean stole the loaf of bread, and the animative sourcing of his behaviour came from his interior, from his ‘thieving purpose’.

Reconstructing the world dynamic in terms of the notional purpose-driven action of notional ‘things-in-themselves’ is the product of ‘taking the time derivative’ or ‘differential’ to get rid of the inherent spatial-relational character of nature’s dynamics.  Where we are talking about ‘inanimate dynamics’ we likewise speak of the dynamics being ‘causally determined’ which refers to notional one-sided, inside-outward asserting animative sourcing of dynamics, ignoring the outside-inward orchestrating animative sourcing, the ‘other’ conjugate in the conjugate relation described in Mach’s principle of space-matter relativity; “The dynamics of the habitat are conditioning the dynamics of the inhabitants at the same time as the dynamics of the inhabitants are conditioning the dynamics of the habitat.”

The assertive force of the Miller’s waterwheel is not the starting point for the dynamics in the mill.  As with all dynamics, ‘deficiency’ or a ‘hole that calls out to be filled’ is the deeper animative sourcing.  The opening ocean basin orchestrates and organizes the movement of water and has it come from all over, streaming towards it to heal its deficiency.  The assertive force of the Miller’s wheel is a ‘derivative’ of these spatial-relational dynamic.

Sailboater: – A system that derives its assertive power and steerage from the spatial-relational dynamics it is uniquely, situationally included in.  The dynamics of the habitat are conditioning the dynamics of the sailboat at the same time the dynamics of the sailboat are conditioning the dynamics of the habitat [Mach’s principle.  See also the Buddhist parable of wind, flag, mind].

Powerboater: – A system that derives its power and steerage fully and solely from onboard equipment and processes.  This is a system that we ‘declare to be independent’ much as we do so for our ‘sovereign state’, to which we similarly impute its own internal animative sourcing.   We obtain this concept by referring the dynamics of a sailboater to an absolute space and absolute time reference frame [x,y,z,t reference frame], ignoring its inclusion in a relational spatial dynamic.  In this psychological reduction of a transforming relational space to notionally break out a ‘local material system’ or ‘object of sight and touch’ out of that continuum [energy-charged spatial-plenum], to maintain internal logical consistency, we must ‘relocate’ the animative sourcing of the sailboat from the energy-charged spatial-plenum it is included in, notionally/psychologically, to the interior of the system itself.

We do the same thing in the case of the ‘sovereign state’.  It is a matter of faith/belief to declare a state ‘independent’.  The Amerindians are not ‘believers’ in the existence of an independent sovereign state called ‘the United States’ or ‘Canada’.  Their existence is not ‘physical reality’, it is purely ‘psychical’, and, of course, what is psychical can influence behaviour and thus impinge on the spatial-relational physical reality that both colonizers and indigenous peoples share inclusion in.

Nevertheless, while the indigenous peoples are awarely engaging with the spatial-relational physical reality they are each uniquely situationally included in, the colonizers subject themselves to the rational world view of their political leaders which reduces dynamics to terms of notional ‘things-in-themselves’ and ‘what things-in-themselves do’, so as to get rid of the outside-inward animative sourcing inherent in the relational space of physical reality.

How does this smoke and mirrors game of psychological trickery work?

Consider the notion that ‘all roads lead to Rome’ in the same sense as ‘all rivers lead to the sea’.  As Lao Tsu observes [similar to Nietzsche’s anti-Darwinist observation that deficiency is the animative sourcing of evolution], the emptiness of the clay vessel is where its utility derives, and the emptiness in the hub at the centre of the spokes of the wheel is where the utility of the wheel lies [what is placed in there, i.e. the ‘axle’, will be turned].

Is Rome a ‘powerboating machine’ whose spokes represent the radial power at the center, or is Rome like the dust-devil, the object of sight and touch that, like the sailboater, derives its power and steerage from the dynamics of the habitat that it is uniquely, situationally included in?

Natural communities form as people answer the call of the fertile valley to ‘come and plough my furrow’.  When people answer the call and settle in the valley there are deficiencies in services and needs in these newly evolving spatial-relations that call to others, ‘come and fill the gap in me in services and skills’, and so others do answer this call and in so doing, new spatial relations take form with new gaps which in turn calls out to new people to come and fill them.

Natural communities are, for sure, not determined one-sidedly by the assertive purpose of individual participants, out of the context of the outside-inward orchestrating/organizing influence of the relational space the develop within.  The participants appear to the scientific observer as local, material things-in-themselves whose animative sourcing is local and internal [as in the powerboater concept].

But once natural communities are ‘up and humming’, politicians will claim that the ‘force vitale’ of the city is internal to it, and derives from its political leadership.  Seen as a hub with spokes extending from the centre, the notion is that these are the radial arms or channels of a directive power.  This is Fiktion, of course, but it is nevertheless useful Fiktion to politicians and it is useful to sustaining ‘belief’ in the abstract notion of the ‘independent existence’ of the ‘powerboater’ city/state.

But Mach would say that the people that continually stream into the busy city along these radial spokes are nurturing the city at the same time as they are taking nurturance from the city; i.e. that they are deriving their power and steerage from the city as a dynamic spatial-relational web that they are situationally included in.

Nietzsche describes the continuing evolutionary dynamic IN GENERAL in these Machian conjugate-habitat-inhabitant mutually nurturing relational terms;

“In developing this aspect of the will to power, Nietzsche drew heavily on the ideas of an obscure Anglo-German zoologist, William Rolph (‘Biologische Probleme’). … Rolph denies the existence of an instinct for self-preservation – or at the very least rejects the notion that such a drive represents the principle motivation of animal behaviour. Rather, life seeks primarily to expand itself. This elementary proposition is expressed as a law of assimilation, a law operative in both the organic and inorganic world. Growth, Rolph argues, is determined by a process of diffusion, in which endosmosis predominates over exosmosis. All organic functions, from nutrition and reproduction right up to evolution, can be explained by, and reduced to, this fundamental activity; they are not, as most contemporary biologists assumed, a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation.” – Gregory Moore, ‘Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor’.

We can ‘connect this thought’ with this division of view between ‘rising to the occasion’ and ‘purpose-driven’ animative sourcing.

Both views are possible at the same time, but we notice, by symmetry, the ‘equivalencing’ of the orchestrating influence of spatial-relational dynamics one is included in in the case of ‘rising to the occasion’ [rising to the spatial-relational situation one is included in], on the one hand, with rational planning determined so as to achieve ones a priori purpose, on the other hand.

The scientific view avoids the outside-inward orchestrating influence of inclusion within a spatial-relational dynamic, and goes with ‘rational planning’ aka ‘scientific thinking’ as the local animative sourcing of the dynamic.  ‘The dynamic’, in general, includes the DEVELOPMENT of the dynamic form as well as its movements.   In Nietzsche’s [and Lamarck’s, Rolph’s, Rüdimeyer’s and Roux’s anti-Darwinist views, the deficiency in the spatial-relational dynamic that one is situationally included in, that calls out to be filled, is in conjugate relation to the development of the asserting individual.  The young man who ‘rises to the occasion’ will let himself be developed as a person by the outside-inward orchestrating influence of the spatial-relational dynamic he is included in.  What Mach’s principle implies is that this is the general case in ‘physical reality’; i.e. physical development as well, is subject to outside-inward spatial-relational orchestrating influence.

So, the spoke and hub city of Rome is the conjugate relating of simultaneous ‘giving nurturance’ [endosmosis] and ‘taking nurturance’ [exosmosis], as in Nietzsche’s anti-Darwinist view of the evolutionary dynamic “a law [sic] operative in both the organic and inorganic world”.   This corresponds with the understanding that ‘space is full’ [an energy-charged spatial plenum] rather than an emptiness populated by local independently-existing material ‘things-in-themselves’, as comes from the scientific view where absolute space and absolute time reference framing is used for ‘pulling out’ of the spatial-relational plenum ‘things considered in themselves’ and psychologically reducing them to ‘things-in-themselves’.

A.    The emergence and development of the city/state then, transpires in the same way as a storm cell, by the conjugate relation of ‘taking nurturance’ [endosmosis] and ‘giving nurturance’ [exosmosis].  This is the sailboater view of ‘the thing considered in itself’ [Ding an sich selbst betrachtet] where form [opening of the sails], drive power and steerage all derive from the relational space the sailboater is included in.  

B.     Of course, it can always be ALTERNATIVELY SEEN through one’s scientific observer eyes, in the reduced ‘powerboater’ sense, as a ‘thing-in-itself’ [Ding-an-sich] where form, drive power and steerage/direction are all seen as being locally, internally sourced from inboard equipment and processes.

The non-dualist view, A, can always be reduced to the dualist view, B, that splits matter and space apart and ‘throws away’ comprehension of any animative sourcing of development and dynamics that originates ‘outside-inwardly’ from inclusion in a relational space.  [‘rising to the occasion’ is reduced to ‘purposeful drive and direction’].

The ‘relationist’ like Mach, Nietzsche, Poincaré etc. accepts the A view as the experiencing of ‘physical reality’ and accepts the B view as ‘idealization’, ‘useful Fiktion’, ‘Maya’, that should not be confused for ‘physical reality’.   This was what Mach’s argument with Planck and Einstein was about concerning the ‘reality’ of ‘atoms’ [Mach does not consider ‘things-in-themselves’ to be part of ‘physical reality’].

Meanwhile ‘realism’ which conflates the dualist view of mutually excluding space and matter with ‘physical reality’, predominates in our globally dominant Western culture.   As a result, our cultural approach to organization emulates the hub-and-spoke view in which the animative sourcing is internal, deriving in a mysterious jump-starting, out-of-the-blue fashion, from the central hub.   This is basically a model of monotheist God, the jumpstarting point for actions and ideas.  This is the model that has been ‘incarnated’ in the concept of the ‘sovereign state’.

“ … western political thinking itself is grounded in theological concepts of “Christian nationalism.” The notion of “absolute, unlimited power held permanently in a single person or source, inalienable, indivisible, and original” is a definition of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. This “God died around the time of Machiavelli…. Sovereignty was … His earthly replacement.” —Walker, R. B. J. and Mendlovitz, Saul H. “Interrogating State Sovereignty.”

The ‘democratic process of the sovereign state’, as distinguished from the ‘democratic process of aboriginals and their shared leadership learning circles’, comes up with the notional need to articulate ‘common purpose’ to provide logical consistency with modeling dynamics in terms of local independent ‘things-in-themselves’ and their locally originating internal process driven and directed behaviour.  That is, the notion of a ‘rational common purpose’ serves as the notional local inside-outward-asserting animative sourcing of organization of the collective of independent powerboater things-in-themselves.  This animative sourcing blinds one to the outside-inward orchestrating influence, … the call to rise to the occasion, … that originates in the web of spatial relations that one is situationally included in;

“[T]hat the ultimate moving force which inspires and controls political action is a spiritual force — a common conviction that makes for righteousness, a common conscience …. —Ahmad, Ilyas. Sovereignty: Islamic and Modern.

This suggestion is startling because we are used to the western notion of separation of church and state. Western discussion can speak of “common will,” but gets nervous with the thought that this phrase only acquires meaning in spiritual terms.” — Peter D’Errico, Native American Sovereignty: Now You See It, Now You Don’t.

The people of the world are increasingly troubled by centrally-regulated organization.   Not by centrally-organized organization per se, as this derives from the Fiktion that is useful and perhaps necessary, if it is not confused for physical reality.  What is increasingly problematic is that it is being confused for physical reality.

‘Storm-cells’ of social protest are erupting around the world.  Individual are increasingly finding themselves being caught between a rock and a hard place.  Their individually unique, situational inclusion within a common relational space [their inclusion within a web of spatial relations] calls to them to ‘rise to the occasion’ and continually restore and sustain balance and harmony in the web of relations they find themselves included in, as a means of participating in ‘community’.

Participants in the ‘Occupy movement’ are currently undergoing self retrospection that explores whether they should see themselves as a movement organized by a ‘common, articulable purpose’.  This is problematic for many, since it sounds like another ‘political movement’ that has its own ‘political program’, and the ‘occupy movement’ has drawn many together, not by a common rational, but because of their finding themselves, or their brothers and sisters, for different reasons, ‘between a rock and a hard place’; i.e. between the call to rise to the occasion coming from the web of relations they are situationally included in and the centrally driven ‘common purpose’ that everyone is bound to by the sovereign-state democratic process.

Their current self-reflection on ‘who they are’ is pivoting on the alternatives of; the emerging storm-cells of protest as in the ‘sailboater’ sense [rising to the occasion of their situational inclusion in the spatial-relational habitat-dynamic], or in the powerboater sense; [driven by a rationally articulable internal purpose that is common to each individual].

Many of the participants are suspicious of ‘political isms’ and thus want to avoid preparing a joint statement of their common purpose.  They would like to extract themselves from the prevailing ‘common purpose driven political system’.  Many see themselves in the same situation as the Zapatistas and other native groups that seek to ‘decolonize’ themselves and their communities/collectives, so as to restore the natural way of relating to the land and one another [to live in conjugate habitat-inhabitant relation where the primary animative sourcing is ‘rising to the occasion’ called for by one’s situational inclusion in a relational space]

This particular view amounts to a rejection of ‘realism’ and an embrace of ‘pragmatist idealism’; i.e. to giving priority to the sailboater’s cap over the powerboater’s cap, recognizing the powerboater view as Fiktion that is useful and perhaps necessary, but not to be confused with ‘physical reality’ while associating the ‘non-dualist conjugate inhabitant-habitat relation’ per Mach’s principle [intuitive knowledge of it] with ‘physical reality’.

This self-retrospection of ‘Occupy’ participants is emerging for a reason.  It is essentially ‘defining Maya’ i.e. defining how we have been ‘confusing Maya with physical reality’, and in the process opening the door to acknowledging inclusionality, our situational inclusion in a relational space, … as the natural animative sourcing of social dynamics’.

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