PERSPECTIVE:

Just as schizophrenia is not resolved by getting the multiple personalities to cooperate with one another, the conflicts among races and nations are not resolved by ‘improving relations’ among these self-declared ‘independent entities’.  They are resolved by an awareness that these divisions DO NOT EXIST, or as Schroedinger puts it; ‘Subject and Object are only ONE”

This perspectival overview comes from exploring the clash in what EAST and WEST, respectively, hold to be ‘REALITY’ and how this very basic difference in understanding derives from language and grammar.  At the core the divide is how that which is perceived as GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT in the WEST is understood as TRANSFORMATION in the EAST.  A ‘side-effect’ of the WEST’s casting of dynamics in terms of GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT is the imputing of LOCAL SOURCING which is also the source of EGO, PRAISE and BLAME, whereas the EAST’s understanding in terms of TRANSFORMATION derives from INSPIRATION, the difference having been captured in the adage; “INSPIRATION fills the heart, EGO swells the head’. While these influences shape the social dynamics of both EAST and WEST, there is a question of precedence that informs the difference in EAST and WEST ‘psychology’.

PRIDE associates most strongly with the ‘DOUBLE ERROR’ of language and grammar and it this DOUBLE ERROR that comes into play in, for example, clear-cutting 160 acres of Wilderness land replacing it with biological monoculture such as fields of wheat.  By contrast, there is inspiration in living in a co-sustaining interdependent matrix of biodiversity in which ‘humanigs’ are just one of the interdependent participants. As F. David Peat observes in ‘Blackfoot Physics, ‘indigenous aboriginals’ planted a mix of corn, beans and squash (the ‘Three Sisters’) to sustain harmony within natural biodiversity.

We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS speak of the GROWTH of LOCAL farmland under monocultural cultivation, but what of the reciprocal LOSS of Wilderness biodiversity that comes with it, the two not really being “two” but being co-included in the overall context of NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION.

This short PERSPECTIVE entitled WESTERN CULTURE: Psychologically Hijacked by The DOUBLE ERROR, delves into how WESTERN and EASTERN minds differ in their views on how GROWTH and TRANSFORMATION fit into ‘reality’ and how the psychological reality of the ‘The EAST’ accords with the NONLOCAL-TRANSFORMATION based understanding of modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, while the psychological reality of the ‘WEST’ continues to accord with the LOCAL-SOURCING of actions and developments (LOCAL GROWTH) based understanding of pre-modern (Newtonian) physics thinking.

Note that GROWTH is a back-handed way of asserting that FIGURE and GROUND are TWO, while TRANSFORMATION casts FIGURE and GROUND as ONE.  Ambiguity arises where FIGURE and GROUND are TWO as to whether the FIGURE sources change in the ground or whether the GROUND sources change in the FIGURE. This is the BIPOLAR DISORDER that plagues WESTERN CULTURE which is absent in EASTERN CULTURE where the understanding is that FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE.

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As Emerson puts it, ‘the tool has run away with the workman, the human with the divine.

Today’s reality has been deeply shaped by the development of LANGUAGE which is hugely useful in that it allows us to widely share (crude representations) of our experience so that we don’t all have to repeat the same mistakes or repeat the many unsuccessful trials that contribute to the development of valuable action and development approaches.

We don’t all have to be ‘pioneers’ and ‘get arrows up the arse’ in our quest for advancing our understanding.  LAGUAGE-based sharing, while hugely valuable, is no substitute for sensory experience, and the shortfall can and IS the source of psychological confusion that is driving us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS CRAZY   Why “JUST” WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS and NOT EASTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS?  This is what this note is about, and the ‘short answer’ is that while EASTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS employ the reduction of sensory experience to intellectual language-based abstraction as a ‘Wittgenstein ladder’ to BOOTSTRAP or in other words ‘make an intuitive leap’ to understanding of the INEFFABLE that lies beyond the EXPLICIT reach of language, we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are employing language-based abstraction, as if it were a competent REALITY SURROGATE.

If the WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT says that his farm has GROWN from a 2 acre spread to its current 160 acre expanse, the EAST (and here I include modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultures Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta) will object, pointing out that the purported “GROWTH” of the cultivated land area, is in reality associated with the reciprocal “SHRINKAGE” of Wilderness area such that TRANSFORMATION is what is ‘really’ going on.

In other words, there is no such thing as GROWTH since the GROWTH of a ‘thing’ implies that that ‘thing’ is separate and independent of the rest of reality as in the logic of FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO, whereas in the ‘real reality’ of our sensory experience, the world is given only once and FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE so that in the case of the cultivating of the land, what is going on is TRANSFORMATION and the notion of GROWTH is intellectual abstraction that is part of the CRAZY-MAKING belief system of us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS.  Because we encourage GROWTH of industry, towns, etc. as if such GROWTH were ‘real’, we leave the condition of the Wilderness flapping like a loose sheet in the breeze.

In short, WE BLIND OURSELVES TO THE REALITY OF TRANSFORMATION.

The title of this note; WESTERN CULTURE: Psychologically Hijacked by The DOUBLE ERROR  is to further highlight the point made by Nietzsche, that we use the tool of the DOUBLE ERROR to notionally break up into pieces, the transforming relational continuum (the reality of our sensory experience). This is what makes the INEFFABLE  EFFABLE, by way of substituting something new that appears to be LOCAL, thus seeming to overcome that which is INEFFABLE-BECAUSE-NONLOCAL.

The FIRST ERROR is NAMING which imputes LOCAL thing-in-itself-BEING to a relational form-in-the-flow, and we conflate this with the SECOND ERROR of GRAMMAR to impute to the NAMING-instantiated thing-in-itself, the notional power of SOURCING actions and developments.   In place of an atmosphere that is hurricaning, we beget ‘the hurricane’ which GRAMMAR endows with ‘its own power of SOURCING actions and development.

This DOUBLE ERROR thus serves as to substitute a NEW language and intellection-based REALITY that replaces our INEFFABLE SENSORY-EXPERIENCE REALITY.  What we gain from this is an ability to render EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT, that which is INEFFABLE-because-NOLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

What is going on here is NOT simply finding a means to EFFABLE-IZE the INEFFABLE, but fabricating an EFFABLE SUBSTITUTE PSEUDO-REALITY that can serve as INFERENCE of the real INEFFABLE sensory experience reality that lies beyond reach of the limited capabilities of the effable-izing tool of language.

What is a CRAZY-MAKER for us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS is that we have fallen into the habit, after saying good-bye to poetic expression, of doing a direct substitute of our DOUBLE ERROR language based construction, for ‘reality’; i.e. we have traded out our sensory experience reality which is ineffable-because-nonlocal, for another pseudo-reality that is effable-because-local.  The DOUBLE ERROR of language and grammar is the device we use to condition the intellect into making the jump from the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL to the EFFABLE-because-local.

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