Archive for October, 2020

“(Canada) Living next to the U.S. is like sleeping with an elephant” — Pierre Trudeau.

The large neighbour has no bad intention but when it rolls over in its sleep it can crush its smaller neighbour.

Neighbours are like the hexagonal cells in the beehive wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND (inhabitant and habitat, cell and matrix) are ONE.  It is only NAMING and GRAMMAR and the intellect that splits FIGURE-and-GROUND-into-TWO.

The abstract splitting of FIGURE-and-GROUND-into-TWO gives rise to the abstract concept of GROWTH of the FIGURE, commonly without reference to the conjugate SHRINKING of GROUND.

GROWTH implies that THERE IS SOMETHING LOCAL that is GROWING as ‘intellectually enabled’ by the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  This LOCAL, one-sided GROWTH is understood as RATIO as in RATIONAL INTELLECTION or REASON (which obscures and SUBSTITUTES for TRANSFORMATION so that our understanding in terms of TRANSFORMATION is ABANDONED and we move forward on the abstract basis of REASON instead.

Instead of the honeybee cell belonging to a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE dynamic, our NAMING and GRAMMAR based language lets us LIFT OUT the FIGURE as if it were a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF (FIGURE-and-GROUND-are then TWO) which opens the way to  abstractly ANIMATING the FIGURE with GRAMMAR; i.e. the NAMING instantiated LOCAL thing-in-itself is, so we say, GROWING larger and more intricate and aesthetic (e.g. the initial circular and independent growing form called the ‘bee cell’ is TRANSFORMING, or more correctly, IS INVOLVED IN TRANSFORMATION since the hexagonal matrix is not LOCALLY SOURCED by ‘ITS’ “INTERNAL” CELLS.  IN FACT, the cell matrix CANNOT BE EXPLAINED by way on ‘ITS CELLS’ since the individual cells DO NOT “KNOW” how to grow into HEXAGONS, … the HEXAGONAL configuration is the manifestation of a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE dynamic, as is basic in modern physics.

Whether we are orienting our attention to FIGURES such as CELLS or HUMANS, modern physics is informing us that FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE!   (Schroedinger, Bohm, Nietzsche et al)

RATIO is an abstraction that allows us to speak in terms of GROWTH of notional LOCAL-THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES given notional LOCAL EXISTENCE and LOCAL POWERS OF SOURCING ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENT, by, as Nietzsche points out, the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.   For example, we can … “SAY” …  that ‘the HEXAGONAL CELL IS GROWING LARGER AND MORE PRODUCTIVE AS “ITS CONTENTS” DEVELOP, but this is a DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING (the CELL) and GRAMMAR (using the verb GROW to impute a RATIO-based expansion of the NAMING-instantiated thing-in-itself.  This is a synthetic, DOUBLE ERROR based ‘liberation’ of FIGURE-from-GROUND.

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As Nietzsche pointed out, our WESTERN CULTURE language usage employs the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR to impute LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments.

This is the basis of RATIO-based aka RATIONAL aka REASON based understanding.

RATIO is a concept that, in turn, enables the concept of TRANSACTION.

Example: Fred sold three tons of topsoil to Jane.

Our understanding here is in terms of TRANSACTION, yet the reality is TRANSFORMATION; i.e.  there is a hole in the ground over here and a big mound of topsoil over there.   What is REALLY manifest is TRANSFORMATION of the LANDSCAPE, so WHY DON”T WE TELL IT LIKE IT IS AND SAY THAT WHAT IS GOING ON HERE IS TRANSFORMATION.

The challenge is that TRANSFORMATION is NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT (purely relational) so an ARTICULATION of TRANSFORMATION would be INFINITE  in the sense that it is ongoing and there is no end to it thus LANGUAGE is not up to the task of capturing TRANSFORMATION in a LOCAL and thus FINITE sense.   Evidently, WE ARE INCLUDED IN TRANSFORMATION (I.E. WE ARE INCLUDED IN THE TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM AKA THE WAVE-FIELD).

Of course, language is a valuable tool for sharing (SOME SEMBLANCE OF) our INEFFABL-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum, so that it is worthwhile to BASTARDIZE the DYNAMIC REALITY that we would like to SHARE in order to render it SHAREABLE.

This BASTARDIZATION is achieved by way of the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR as Nietzsche has pointed out.  The NAMING chops out a bit of ‘reality’ and imputes LOCAL existence to it, while GRAMMAR re-animates IN OUR PSYCHE, the chopped out bit of ‘reality’.  Instead of DUNING as in NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION we have ‘the LOCAL DUNE that is GROWING LARGER and is MOVING towards the coast’

The RESULT is that we shift the focus of understanding from TRANSFORMATION to TRANSACTION.  For example, when we excavate a truckload of topsoil and move it from here to there, we are, in reality, TRANSFORMING the LANDSCAPE.  Such TRANSFORMATION IS “THE REALITY”, but RATIO-NALITY allows us REDUCE this TRANSFORMATION to TRANSACTION by focusing on ‘how much LESS there NOW is over here’ and ‘how much MORE there NOW is over there’ (e.g. the DESERT FLOOR is being swept bare here and the DUNE is GROWING LARGER AND LONGER over there).

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Everywhere in my philosophical investigations I keep bumping into the confusion coming from ambiguities in the basic architecture of our language; i.e. does the hurricane source the stirring up of the atmosphere or does the stirring up of the atmosphere source the hurricane?

These ambiguities are everywhere and are duly noted in the Zen koan of ‘wind-and-flag’ i.e. does the movement of the air source the movement of the flag or does the movement of the flag source movement of the air.

As modern physics and the understanding of EASTERN CULTURES will tell us, we don’t need to waste our time trying to solve this one ambiguity because it is based on the abstract concept of LOCAL SOURCING and there is no such thing as LOCAL SOURCING, there is only NOLOCAL TRANSFORMATION as is the nature of the Wave-field.

We are confusing ourselves with our own language; … more specifically, we are confusing ourselves by having built into our language the DOUBLE ERROR based concept of LOCAL SOURCING where the FIRST ERROR is NAMING which imputes the existence of a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF and we conflate this with the SECOND ERROR of GRAMMAR that notionally endows the FIRST ERROR based THING-IN-ITSELF with ‘its own’ powers of SOURCING actions and developments.

This DOUBLE ERROR is how we construct the abstraction of LOCAL SOURCING, and guess what this does for us.  It allows us to build EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT actions and developments, whereas, without the DOUBLE ERROR, our language lacked the capability of dealing with TRANSFORMATION which is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

The DOUBLE ERROR doesn’t OVERCOME this problem that reality of TRANSFORMATION is INEFFABLE, it SIDESTEPS it by instead CONSTRUCTING A SUBSTITUTE REALITY that IS EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT.

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The ORCHARD and the LANDSCAPE open the door of language-based understanding to TWO possibilities; i.e. the ORCHARD that we say ‘grows larger’ as implies the LOCAL and EXPLICIT existence of the ORCHARD and ascribes to it the DOUBLE ERROR based powers of GROWTH, … or, quite differently, … the LANDSCAPE which is continually TRANSFORMING which steals and diffuses the spotlight from the ORCHARD with its notional LOCAL thing-in-itself existence with its endowment of powers of SOURCING actions and development including it’s locally incipient GROWTH.  While it is common to hear language-based conceptualizations featuring the GROWTH of the ORCHARD as if it were a LOCAL and EXPLICIT thing-in-itself as if FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO, …  we also hear language-based conceptualizations featuring the transforming LANDSCAPE in which the ORCHARD has been cast in the manner of a boil in the flow wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE.

If we START by imputing the existence of a LOCAL thing-in-itself (the ORCHARD) that we say GROWS larger OVER TIME, we are making use of RATIO-NAL INTELLECTION.  If we, on the other hand, start with the concept of the transforming LANDSCAPE,  we are appealing to RELATIONAL INTELLECTION which is purely relative and has no absolute foundation as in the case of RATIO which implies that SOME LOCAL-THING-in-ITSELF that was smaller has GROWN into a larger version of ITSELF.  This conceptualizing has no dependence on influences coming from beyond the notional LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF; i.e. the implication is one of GROWTH in the sense of RATIO of its present larger state from its prior smaller state. On the other hand, the term LANDSCAPE implies something that is in a continual condition of TRANSFORMATION in which the ORCHARD is included, NOT as a local thing-in-itself but as a relational form in the fluidity of the transforming relational continuum.

In terms of language-based sharing of visual and other sensory experience, TALK in terms of the ORCHARD as if it were a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF with its own (GRAMMAR-GIVEN) powers of SOURCING ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENT such as GROWTH (of a local thing in space that ratios up over TIME), gives us a LOCAL FOCUS that is ABSTRACT but nevertheless LOCAL and FINITE and far easier to capture and share in language than the transforming LANDSCAPE which is unbounded in spacetime as are the relational features in the transforming relational spacetime continuum.

It is evident that we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have opted in our reductive language-based conceptualization of reality NOT for that which is most true according to our sensory experience (the transforming LANDSCAPE) but for that which is most easy in our intellectual sharing (the local ORCHARD that grows larger (ratios up) over TIME).

In general, we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS use RATIO based concepts to render TRANSFORMATION that is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT in the SUBSTITUTE terms of the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT, thus we speak of NON-realities such as GROWTH (and its shadow DECLINE), PROGRESS (and its shadow SETBACK) and IMPROVEMENT (and its shadow DETERIORATION).  These are NOT REAL (there is only TRANSFORMATION) but, the thinking they induce has emotional impact for us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS.

While the RATIO-NALIZING of TRANSFORMATION delivers up abstract snapshot PICTURES that, in the culture of the EAST, only qualify for use as tools of INFERENCE of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, … these RATIO-NALIZATIONS that are EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT are employed by us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, as the basis of our OPERATIVE REALITY.

 A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. –-Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations.

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This note opens up a view to why our WESTERN CULTURE is cultivating social dysfunction that is continuing to intensify.  The problem is our WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT orientation to RATIONAL INTELLECTION aka REASON as a FIRST ORDER tool for UNDERSTANDING REALITY.

As David Bohm, Nietzsche and others have pointed out, we have INTELLIGENCE-and-INTUITION which orient to TRANSFORMATION which is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT, and then we have RATIONAL INTELLECTION which orients to GROWTH which is LOCAL and EXPLICIT

What is going wrong on the scale of an entire CULTURE is that our WESTERN CULTURE has put RATIONAL INTELLECTION as is capturable in explicit language (BECAUSE it is a reduction to the LOCAL and EXPLICIT) into an unnatural precedence over INTELLIGENCE and INTUITION with attunes to TRANSFORMATION which, because it is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT is NOT CAPTURABLE in explicit LANGUAGE.  The title of the ORCHARD (local and explicit) and the LANDSCAPE (nonlocal and implicit) was chosen to highlight this difference in our modes of understanding; RATIONALITY which is informed by the abstractions of LOCAL and EXPLICIT and INTELLIGENCE/INTUITION which is informed by the sensory experience of the NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT.

The concern expressed in philosophers such as Nietzsche and Alan Watts is a concern that we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are taking the crude tool of RATIONALITY aka REASON as a substitute conception of REALITY.   REASON can inform us on the LOCAL EXPLICITS of the ORCHARD but it CANNOT inform us on the NONLOCAL IMPLICATIONS of LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMATION.    The misplaced precedence given to RATIONALITY (GROWTH of the ORCHARD) over INTELLIGENCE (the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE) and how this leads to a dysfunctional sense of ‘reality’ is the focus of this essay.  REASON aka RATIONALITY which abstractly splits out the FIGURE from the GROUND (e.g. the ORCHARD from the LANDSCAPE) and constructs a reality oriented to the GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT and QUALITIES of the FIGURE as if INDEPENDENT of the GROUND, can lead to an abandonment of INTELLIGENCE.

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