Archive for September 26, 2020
TRANSFORMATION goes with INTELLIGENCE, GROWTH goes with RATIONALITY
0PROLOGUE:
An ALTERNATIVE TITLE:to this short article is “Reconciling Nietzsche and Bohm”.
The article starts with an interrogation into the WESTERN CULTURE conservative – liberal Bipolar Disorder, showing how it originates with EGO-based belief in ‘local sourcing’ of actions and developments (in reality, there is only relational transformation; i.e. the concept of ‘local sourcing’ is the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR as Nietzsche points out).
David Bohm comes to the same conclusion which he expresses in terms that ‘rationality’ is a degenerate form of ‘intelligence’. Bohm’s point is that taking a ratio reduces TRANSFORMATION which is what our INTELLIGENCE informs us is reality, to LOCAL GROWTH which is what our rationalizing intellect slips into place as a substitute pseudo-reality. For example, if we are indigenous aboriginals we are likely to orient firstly to the transforming landscape. If we are of European cultural extraction, we will understand ‘what is actually going on’, NOT in terms of TRANSFORMATION but in terms of birth and growth; e.g. the birth and growth of a ‘new Town’.
The RATIONAL concept of GROWTH (smaller to larger is a RATIO-nal abstraction) supports the abstraction of the birth and growth of the Town. WHICH REALITY IS THE “REAL” REALITY? … is it the birth and growth of the Town (the ‘rational’ view), or is it the transformation of the landscape (the Intelligent view)? [this distinction between ‘rational’ and ‘intelligent’ is Bohm’s]
This split in how we may conceive of reality is where Nietzsche’s observation of our DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR comes in, as well as Bohm’s observation of the diffference between RATIO-NALITY and INTELLIGENCE.
The DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR is not ‘an accident’. The DOUBLE ERROR provides a means of ‘breaking in’ to the transforming relational continuum to establish a LOCAL launching pad for ‘effable-izing’ the ineffable-because-nonlocal-and-implicit TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.
Likewise, RATIONALIZING provides an abstract means of ‘breaking in’ to the transforming relational continuum to establish a LOCAL launching pad for ‘effable-izing’ the ineffable-because-nonlocal-and-implicit TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.
For example, if, in a relational social dynamic which might have been at some point fully nomadic and on-the-move (as is the general case since ‘everything is in flux’), a tendency to gather together manifests, … the ‘gathering together’ may have been induced by a favorable situational access to food and water. In other words, the ‘gathering together’ may not have been by ‘rational decision-making’. Yet, it is possible for us to psychologically IMPOSE on such gathering, the notion that the gathering was the result of the deliberate intentions of those included in the gathering, inverting what actually transpired, which was within the overall framework of continuing transformation which is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, … and making it out to be the product of RATIONAL INTENTION. That is, the Town may be a gathering induced by a sheltered fresh-water spring or fish-filled lake.
Note that GRAMMAR makes it possible to attribute AUTHORING POWERS to whatever we give a NAME to, hence “the Town is growing larger and more productive”. This is where we use RATIO as in our ‘rational thinking’ to impute LOCAL SOURCING of GROWTH and PRODUCTION, … which serves as a surrogate replacement for TRANSFORMATION. The advantages are clear; -while LOCAL SOURCING and GROWTH is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT, TRANSFORMATION is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT (TRANSFORMATION is relational as is the nature of the Wave-field aka the Tao). RATIO allows us to DO AWAY WITH relational interdependence as is implicit in TRANSFORMATION, and to instead impute LOCAL SOURCING. Eg. the Town doubled in size over TIME (e.g. the past 2 years). Note that once we have used NAMING to ‘declare the independent local existence of the town-in-itsel, we can infer change to this ‘thing-in-itself’ such as GROWTH ‘over time’. We need not mention what the landscape in which the Town is included is doing since NAMING and GRAMMAR allow us to treat the Town as if it were a LOCAL thing-in-itself.
This use of language LIBERATES a relational feature within the transforming relational continuum from the transforming relational continuum and notionally (abstractly) sets it up as a NAMING-instantiated thing-in-itself with its own (notional) GRAMMAR-given powers of sourcing GROWTH and actions.
This EFFABLE-izing of the INEFFABLE, thanks to the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR based reduction of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT to the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL and EXPLICIT, is a tool of great utility in that it enables language-based sharing of crude reductions of our ineffable experience of inclusion in the Wave-field aka the Tao.
BUT WAIT A MINUTE! WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS ARE LETTING THE REDUCED REALITY THAT THE TOOL ENABLES, SERVE AS OUR OPERATIVE REALITY. For example, to say that the TOWN IS GROWING is a crude way of alluding to TRANSFORMATION of the entire landscape (and Wavefield continuum). REALITY remains the transforming relational continuum and pasting the NAME-LABEL ‘TOWN’ on an innately relational development in the overall flow of the transforming relational continuum, GIVES US AN ABSTRACT FOOTHOLD for EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT REPRESENTATION of that which is INEFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT. IN THE REALITY OF OUR SENSUAL EXPERIENCE, there is no LOCAL TOWN-thing-in-itself that is GROWING (that notion is the abstract construction of language and grammar). There is only the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM which includes the entire landscape in which the TOWNING (a relational development and NOT a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF) is included).
AGAIN, since TRANSFORMATION is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT and is ongoing ‘everywhere-at-the-same-time’ as is the nature of the Wave-field aka the Tao, … IT MAKES UTILITARIAN SENSE TO INVENT A REDUCTION-TO-EFFABLE of the INEFFABLE (opening the way to language-based sharing), and that is what Nietzsche has pointed to as the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, the NAMING which imputes LOCAL EXISTENCE to a relational form in the flow, and the GRAMMAR which imputes the notional power of SOURCING actions and developments to the NAMING-instantiated notional LOCAL thing-in-itself.
A RECONCILING of NIETZSCHE and BOHM, who were coming from the same place here, can be seen as follows;
Nietzsche points to our use of the DOUBLE ERROR to artificially IMPLANT ‘LOCAL SOURCING’ to break into the transforming relational continuum, which is INEFFABLE because it is an all-including continuum in which we ourselves are included. The DOUBLE ERROR uses NAMING to implant a local EXISTENTIAL thing-in-itself presence while GRAMMAR is the second error that conflates the first by imputing the power of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments to the NAMING-instantiated (notional) thing-in-itself.
Bohm points out our use of RATIONALITY and INTELLIGENCE, and our WESTERN CULTURE’s DRIFT towards reality constructions that are preponderantly based on RATIONALITY, subverting INTELLIGENCE and thus inverting the natural order of understanding reality wherein INTELLIGENCE prevails over RATIONALITY. For example,TRANSFORMATION (which our INTELLIGENCE intuits) delivers understanding that runs deeper than PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION which are RATIO-NAL concepts which imply LOCAL increase and decrease but which cannot directly capture TRANSFORMATION.
The FACTORY PRODUCTION may manifest as, for example, a large warehouse filled with manufactured products while the FACTORY CONSUMPTION may show up as holes in the ground (excavations for taking aggregate for concrete, mined shafts for extracting metal ore) and in forests (trees taken for wood) etc.). RATIO-NALITY will capture the MORE of PRODUCTION and also the LESS from CONSUMPTION but it takes INTELLIGENCE to understand both as one that we understand as TRANSFORMATION. Because TRANSFORMATION is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, we have to give it a back seat when we are using NAMING and GRAMMAR language exchanges that deal with the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT. That is, RATIONALITY gets the prime position in language exchanges while INTELLIGENCE is not articulable as it is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT
NIETZSCHE’s expression “PHILOSOPHIZING WITH A HAMMER” IS pointing to the problem that we have been letting DOUBLE ERROR based constructions of reality of RATIONALITY SUBSTITUTE for the fullblown reality of our sensory experience. Wittgenstein later makes the same point; i.e. that what we can put into EXPLICIT statements IS NOT REALITY, it can only be INFERENCE of an INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT reality that lies beyond reach of the EFFABLE;
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)
He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
7.0 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. (“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen”),
–Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
This is also what Nietzsche intends with his ‘PHILOSOPHIZING WITH A HAMMER’ approach; i.e. the understanding embodied in the INEFFABLE because-fluid reality can’t be directly articulated but we can indirectly INFER it through networks of explicit propositions where the implicit relations are the ‘take-away’ reality.
“Reason” in language!—oh what a deceptive old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as we still believe in grammar.
We need to get past RATIONALITY if we are to get to INTELLIGENCE. If we ‘take a hammer to’ the proposition that ‘The Town’ is growing larger and more productive’, … we may expose the living landscape in which the townING is a relational development. This living landscape that includes everything just goes on forever (it is the Wave-field) so it is INEFFABLE because of its persisting continuiity. NAMING as with ‘the Town’ imposes a local thing-in-itself presence, and the second error of GRAMMAR conflates this imputing to ‘the Town’, powers of SOURCING actions and developments. Ok, after smashing the abstract concept of ‘the Town’ we intellectually imposed with the DOUBLE ERROR, we get back the continuous transforming landscape which we CAN’T capture with language because it is in continual flux.
BUT THAT’S OK because we can get it back in our understanding even though it is inarticulable.
OK, NOW FOR BOHM who is making the same point as Nietzsche but using different basic concepts to construct his explanation; i.e. the difference between RATIONALITY and INTELLIGENCE.
Rationality is where we chop everything down and give the Town its own powers of GROWTH by way of RATIO. We say that at time T1 the town is made up of 1200 people and produces 200 tons of product, and that later, at time T2, the town is made up of 1800 people and produces 300 tons of product. This is how we employ RATIO to REVERSE ENGINEER the abstract concept of LOCAL SOURCING.
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON HERE, consider problem of trying to articulate and share our experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum wherein everything is in flux, including ourselves. If we use NAMING, this injects something ‘fixed’ into the transforming continuum and GRAMMAR imparts to it, notionally, its own powers of SOURCING; e.g. we say the volcano is the LOCAL SOURCE of extrusions of magma and elsewhere on the same globe we say there are ‘subjection zones’ wherein there are intrusions that recycle previously extruded materials. By employing NAMING and GRAMMAR we construct representations of extrusions and the intrusions as separate LOCAL phenomena. This is RATIONAL understanding which localizes our conceptualizing of phenomena which is inherently NONLOCAL Our intelligence is capable of understanding the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL however our language can only be used as a tool of inference of the INEFFABLE, therefore, rational expression becomes the basic medium that can be used to stimulate intelligent understanding.
Western Culture has fallen into the habit of employing rational intellection, NOT as inference tool, but as the operative reality.
The following text of this article explores how our hangup on ‘the ‘rational’ induces dysfunction in our understanding as manifests, for example, in the conservative-liberal polarization.
The transforming relational continuum is ineffable because it is a continuum and in order to fabricate an effable allusion we must synthetically BREAK INTO IT which leaves us with the ambiguous option of constructing our ‘effable’ starting from either one of the two pieces. For example we can reduce the transforming earth to visual imagery as a sphere that is (a) changing by continually erupting and extruding molten lava or (b) changing by continually subducting and consuming existing features. These are not really TWO LOCAL DYNAMICS but ONE NONLOCAL DYNAMIC of TRANSFORMATION. Our visiual perception gives us a local perspective which constrains us to perceiving extrusion and subduction as TWO separate dynamics, and is unable to capture the omni-directional reality of TRANSFORMATION. Another example of this AMBIGUITY that arises from our imputing LOCAL SOURCING is hurricanes and atmospheric flow; i.e. we can ambiguously imagine TWO LOCAL DYNAMICS there; .. the hurricane stirs up the atmosphere and the atmosphere stirs up the hurricane. We can overcome this ambiguity by realizing that TRANSFORMATION itself does not involve ambiguity, it is only our abstract reduction of TRANSFORMATION which is NONLOCAL, by way of the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR that engineers the reduction to LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments. .
Thus the conservative – liberal splitting is a psychological BIPOLAR DISORDER pivoting from the initial ERRONEOUS assumption of LOCAL SOURCING which comes with the price of introducing and synthetic ambiguity, which has no place in the all-including TRANSFORMATION. The notion that LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments IS REAL derives from and is sustained by EGO.
END OF PROLOGUE
Why we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS Can’t Shake off our Conservative-Liberal Bipolar Disorder
This split derives from unreal abstraction.
-1- “We all know” that the liberal who is a lazy-good-for-nothing will be out there demonstrating for more ‘government handouts’.
-2- “We all know” that the conservative who exploits powerless unfortunates to enrich his own coffers will be conniving to ensure a good supply of impoverished and desperate to sustain his ‘superior status’
What we have here, in these polarizing descriptions of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ is exemplary of the ‘incompleteness of all finite systems of logic’, as Goedel pointed out. Opposite interpretations of the same system are not only possible but common. One may say that the flapping of the flag sources movement of the air, but another may say just the opposite, that movement of the air sources flapping of the flag. Which is it? WHAT IF THERE IS NO ‘CORRECT ANSWER’? OR COULD the CONSERVATIVE and LIBERAL VIEW BOTH be CORRECT?
This issue has been understood and explained, but it is held in place and persists because of the very basic error that sets up the artificial polar dichotomy in the first place which is the NAMING and GRAMMAR based DOUBLE ERROR of language.
That is, we make an implicit mistake in assuming that movement IS SOURCED (there is no ‘LOCAL SOURCING in TRANSFORMATION as it is purely RELATIONAL). This notion of LOCAL SOURCING is the abstract product of EGO where we invoke the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR to jumpstart-generate the local SOURCING of actions and developments. THERE IS NO “LOCAL SOURCING” OF ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS within the TRANSFORMING relational continuum.
The CONSERVATIVE – LIBERAL split is not going to be resolved because both of the opposing views are based on belief in LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments which is DOUBLE ERROR based ABSTRACTION which reduces TRANSFORMATION to the BINARY terms of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION (BIRTH and DEATH).
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