An inclusional worldview
ted lumley
to come
Posts by ted lumley
Pro-Nature or Pro-Choice?
0April 8, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
spatial habitat-inhabitant resonances orchestrating individual and collective behaviour
The argument between the ‘Pro-Life’ and ‘Pro-Choice’ factions might take on a very different complexion if the notion of ‘choice’ were to be examined more closely.
In particular, the notion of human ‘control’ over ‘population’ could be exposed as an artefact of science confusing ‘idealised models’ for ‘reality’. Human beings are not ‘in control’, not when they are understood as being ‘a strand in the interdependent, mutually supportive ‘web-of-life’. When they/we label insects as ‘pests’ and attempt to ‘control their population’, we are spitting on the web and in so doing, we spit on ourselves. When they/we identify and label bacteria as ‘pathogens’ and attempt to ‘control their population’, we are spitting on the web and in so doing, we spit on ourselves (keeping things in ‘resonant’ balance is another matter). As Pasteur said, in refuting his own ‘germ theory’ which labeled microbes ‘pathogens’, and as Hippocrates had said before him, when one lives in a web of interdependencies within a dynamic space (Nature) that one is merely an inclusion in (man did not invent it but was invented by it), the issue is not ‘control’ but ‘sustaining balance and harmony’. (more…)
Man’s Absurdity Derives From ‘Culture’
0April 3, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
In the sixties, Anthropologist Jules Henry hit the nail on the head in ‘Culture Against Man’ (1963), saying that culture makes us live absurd lives.
Culture has us running around like electrons in a magnetic field. ‘Tensions’ that we can feel, shape our individual and collective behaviour. Racial tensions between ‘blacks’ and ‘whites’ (whether they began from intellectual notions of inherent white racial supremacy or whatever) induced blacks to use separate eating places, toilets, seating at the back of the bus and it induced outrage in whites if blacks did not show deference to their (self-declared) ‘superiors’, those of the white race.
‘Tensions’ within a culture shape more individual and collective behaviours than ‘race relations’. They can also trigger actions in the explosive manner that tensions in the earth trigger earthquakes. Powerful ‘tensions’ that we associate with symbolic meaning (the quasi-religious meaning of white and black skin, of a national flag, of a cow in India, or a pig in Israel etc.) suggest that homo sapiens should have been called ‘homo symbolicus’. But since our response to symbolic meaning keeps us living absurd lives, it has also been suggested that homo sapiens should have been called ‘homo absurdus’. (more…)
Spirit is a Commons
0March 21, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
What if scientists had labelled ‘field’, ‘spirit’, instead of field? Would science and religion then be ‘more together’?
Buoyant spirits ................................... Sinking spirits
‘Spirit’ seems to be a property of nature that shows through in the dynamics of the diverse forms in nature.
However, our western culture decided to build a common worldview based on material existence rather than ‘field’, and we are so heavily invested in it now, that doing a ‘retro-fit’ to put ‘field’ or ‘spirit’ first, is like the proverbial ‘changing tires on a car while it is speeding down the freeway’. (more…)
The Western Myth of ‘Random Chance’
0March 17, 2010
by ted lumley
in Ted's Blog
Just where does the notion of a ‘random chance happening’ come from?
All of our experience testifies to the fact that Nature is continually gathering and regathering EVERYTHING in its ceaseless innovating. NOTHING is excluded from this continually unifying fluid-dynamic we know as ‘nature’.
The spacetime continuum we are included in is evolving as one dynamic entity, is it not?
We notionally divide transforming nature up according to OUR visual impression that there are ‘local, independently existing material objects/organisms/systems’ that APPEAR to us to have ‘their own locally originating (internal process-driven and internal knowledge, purpose and instinct-directed) behaviours’. (more…)
Author’s Subtext: Darwin’s Troubling Choice
1March 13, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
One can understand very well Emerson’s view of ‘evolution’ and how it is more truthful to life and experience than Darwin’s, if and only if one trains one’s ‘mind’ to suspend acculturated ‘perception framing habits’.
Without suspending these habits, it is pointless to ‘debate’ an Emersonian ‘worldview’ with others. Emerson realized this and would not accept invitations to debate his views with those who were clearly coming from a different set of basic ‘framing’ assumptions than he. There would be no point since, by coming from different foundations, the two would be talking at crossed purposes, unless they preceded their debate with a debate on those different foundations.
Emerson declared what his were, but many people didn’t listen, so in spite of Emerson’s readings and writings being extraordinarily inspirational, the logicians working them over concluded that they boiled down to nothing tangible and usable, that they were all ‘smoke and mirrors’ e.g;
“Dr. Burnap of Baltimore described Transcendentalism as “a new philosophy which has risen, maintaining that nothing is everything in general, and everything is nothing in particular.”” (more…)
Darwin’s Troubling Choice
0March 11, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
darwin................................... emerson....................................newton
Darwin, pausing briefly on the wave-washed decks of the Beagle, contemplated how close to the edge of an early ‘recycling’ in nature that the ship, its crew and passengers were now hanging. The thought of the ship being broken open by the sea and its plummeting descent to a peaceful resting place in the briny depths was not entirely unpleasant, in view of how it would bring an end to his frightful mal-de-mer. On the sea bottom, his body would be food for algae and the algae would be food for plankton and the plankton food for fish. Some other human mariner would eat that fish that ate the plankton that ate the algae that ate Charles Darwin and the circle of life would go on. In his log he wrote;
“In the Bay of Biscay there was a long and continued swell, and the misery I endured from seasickness is far far beyond what I ever guessed … Nobody who has only been to sea for 24 hours has a right to say that sea-sickness is even uncomfortable. The real misery only begins when you are so exhausted that a little exertion makes a feeling of faintness come on.” — ‘Charles Darwin and the voyage of the Beagle’. (more…)
What’s (the) Matter?
2March 6, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
Chief Dan George, ........................... Erwin Schroedinger, ........................ Albert Einstein
Erwin Schroedinger, Albert Einstein and Chief Dan George get together in a longhouse on the Northwest Pacific coast to compare notes on science and reality and ‘what’s the matter’. The following is a transcript of their dialogue; .
Chief Dan George: Welcome, Erwin, Albert, let us start by paying tribute to the rocks which make Turtle Island possible for us to sit together here, patient bearers of moss and bird droppings (… mind yourself there, Erwin), we salute you, and we salute as well all of the four-leggeds, two-leggeds, rooted and winged ones, the running waters that transport us, the fresh winds that breathe life into us, and the sun now shining brightly above us which warms our brows and brings flowers from the earth to brighten our spirits. We are but strands in this web-of-life though our proud words often take us captive and have us strut about as if we were its owners. (more…)
Humility Quiz: How Humble Are You?
3February 27, 2010
by ted lumley
in Ted's Blog
Humility Quiz: How Humble Are You?
Give what you think is the most comprehensive, least superficial answer to the following questions. (more…)
A One-Page Progress Report on My Intellectual Journey
0February 22, 2010
by ted lumley
in Ted's Blog
One starts off in pursuit of understanding a single issue, following a single-issue path of inquiry so to speak, and after doing this many times with many issues, the paths criss-cross, connecting here and there and what emerges is a view of the overall landscape one is covering with one’s explorations. What then stands out are ‘deeper orientations’ that were not initially apparent in the A to B single issue paths of inquiry.
For example, on one road we see a change in the shrubbery and on another, a change in the forestry; there is a slight rise in elevation on this road and a slight drop in elevation in another and when we look at all of our criss-crossing paths of inquiry in connected context, we see, with extreme clarity, the gentle ‘S’ shape of a subsurface fault making itself known in all kinds of different ways on the surface that are ‘lateral’ to our single issue pursuits. Only then when we recognize such common underlying connections can we go back to the single issue roads, scrape away some of the ‘topsoil’ of detailed particulars, and verify that there is something deeper and ‘in common’ that is simultaneously influencing what we thought were a multiplicity of independent ‘single issues’.
This ‘all-on-the-same-page’ note is an attempt to describe a major below-the-surface source of division, that brings into connection, a multitude of contentious divisions of opinion on a diverse array of particular ‘single issues’, exposing the fact the ‘division’ in these different issues derives from a deeper, below-the-surface source which is being obscured by the surficial single-issue ‘particulars’. (more…)
God Is Under Review
0February 10, 2010
by ted lumley
in APN
did Darwin UNNECESSARILY throw the Baby out with the bathwater?
There is always controversy in talking about God, starting from the basic issue of whether or not ‘God Exists’. But there is general agreement that different people have different views on the topic.
Thus, there is an opportunity to review the different ‘ways of seeing things’ that influence one’s views on this matter which in turn have a major influence on the global social dynamic.
I will ‘jump in’ upfront with a simplifying hypothesis to avoid getting bogged down in a conventional review of this huge subject.
Science typically models the world in terms of LOCAL objects/organisms/systems and the actions/interactions of this diverse plurality, imputing them to have ‘their own LOCAL AGENCY’ and imputing to ‘living systems’, their own LOCALLY ORIGINATING (internal process/purpose-driven) BEHAVIOUR, … however, … scientists are more often and more seriously challenging this (their own) ‘LOCAL-FORCING’ view of dynamics with the alternative ‘SPATIAL-FORCING’ (aka ‘CELESTIAL-SOURCING‘) view of dynamics. This issue is cross-coupled with theology since ‘GOD’ has always been associated with the ‘basic sourcing power of creation (i.e. ‘GOD’ has been the answer for many as to why we and other creatures are here and why the world dynamic unfolds the way it does. So, there is a question as to whether the fundamental (first-cause) creative sourcing power is ‘LOCAL’ and lies within local objects/organisms/systems (e.g. the ‘gene’, the ‘human’, the ‘earth’) or whether it permeates the energy-charged medium we call ‘SPACE’ that science now sees as the mothering medium of all precipitate material objects, organisms and systems. While this may seem to be an ‘intra-science issue’, it is tightly coupled to ‘THE GOD ISSUE’.
One of these seemingly ‘intra-science’ issues is ‘climate change’. Scientists are split as to whether this behaviour-of-the-total-earth is ‘celestially-forced’ or ‘locally (internal-process) forced’. (more…)
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