We can take our pick as to whether to conceive of reality in terms of TRANSFORMATION or GROWTH…. does the LANDSCAPE TRANSFORM?  (EAST) or does the TOWN GROW?  (WEST).

 

These TWO WAYS of UNDERSTANDING REALITY; by TRANSFORMATION or by GROWTH, can divide the psyche and society.

 

If one accepts GROWTH as in ‘the GROWTH of the TOWN this comes with a SPLITTING into FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO.  To speak and understand GROWTH invites the mind to think in terms of a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF that is ‘doing the GROWING’ on an independent basis where it is NO LONGER INCLUDED IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE.  We can envisage, in our ‘mind’s eye’, a MAP wherein the grid of streets and avenues DOUBLES as “the TOWN GROWS”.

 

However, the REALITY is that THE LANDSCAPE IS TRANSFORMING and this is the reality of the EAST, a reality that is supported by MODERN PHYSICS which splits off from the GROWTH-based (pseudo) reality of the WEST.

 

If we are INVESTORS in GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT of new suburbs etc., our GROWTH-based thinking is NOT, at the same time, addressing the CONJUGATE SHRINKING OF THE WILDERNESS, or in other words, the OVERALL REALITY OF TRANSFORMATION of the LANDSCAPE.

Yes, it is not only possible to VISUALIZE “GROWTH” as if it were “REAL” but that is the defining characteristic of us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS.  We speak all the time of GROWTH and we say that ‘our TOWN is GROWING’ and our CHILD is GROWING, … and by-and-by we lose our grip on REALITY which is that we are included in TRANSFORMATION; i.e. in the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM otherwise known as the Wave-field aka the Tao.

 

The reality WE CONSTRUCT WITH LANGUAGE, and here I mean by ‘WE’, WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, …  is a SUBSTITUTE REALITY featuring notional LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES which are capable of GROWING such as ‘the TOWN’ and ‘the CHILD’.

 

… GOODBYE TRANSFORMATION as in the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM!  HELLO ABSTRACTION OF LOCAL GROWTH!

 

In order to render EFFABLE in language, the INEFFABLE transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao, we had to conjure up a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein everything was NOT in continuing flux.  But we needed this only as a tool to stimulate an intuitive leap from the SUBSTITUTE REALITY to the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT fluid reality of our actual sensory experience.

 

In the reality of our actual sensory experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao, … there are no LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES with their own powers of SOURCING actions and developments.  As Nietzsche pointed out, this abstraction comes from a DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, as in the example; ‘the TOWN is GROWING’.  The first part of the DOUBLE ERROR is NAMING to ‘implant’ a notional (unreal) LOCAL EXISTING THING-IN-ITSELF, and the second part of the DOUBLE ERROR is GRAMMAR to impute to the NAMING-instantiated LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF, its own powers of SOURCING actions and developments.

 

With this DOUBLE ERROR, we notionally (in our unconstrained-by-sensual experience thinking mind) establish LOCAL SOURCING of actions and development as triggered by the word GROWTH.

 

HEY!  WE JUST LEFT THE REAL WORLD OF TRANSFORMATION AND ENTERED INTO A SUBSTITUTE WORLD where FIGURE and GROUND are now TWO SEPARATELY EXISTING THINGS (we can call them INHABITANT and HABITAT) whereas in our sensory experience, as supported by modern physics, FIGURE and GROUND are only ONE!

 

As Schroedinger puts it, the language-based splitting out of the observing subject is thought based and not sensory-experience real;

 

“The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist.” – Erwin Schroedinger

 

NOTHING NEW HERE FOR THE CULTURES OF THE EAST, because they opted for ‘relational languages’ unlike us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS who employ a NON-RELATIONAL language that constructs SUBSTITUTE REALITIES featuring FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO ABSTRACTION; i.e. where we say ‘the TOWN is GROWING’ instead of staying with ‘the LANDSCAPE is TRANSFORMING’.

 

NOTA BENE: THERE IS NO “GROWTH” in “TRANSFORMATION” since the concept of GROWTH ‘back-handedly’ forces upon us the notion of a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF THAT IS “DOING THE GROWING”.  Nietzsche refers to this back-handed imputing as the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR (e.g. ‘the TOWN is GROWING’).  Nietzsche’s example was ‘LIGHTNING FLASHES’.  The ploy is the same in that the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR establishes,…  NOTIONALLY, … LOCAL SOURCING of actions and development.

 

There is NO LOCAL SOURCING in reality, … i.e. the reality of inclusion within the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.

 

In other words, there is no such REAL dynamic as GROWTH, there is only TRANSFORMATION.   “GROWTH” is ABSTRACTION that introduces a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein the FIGURE that is purportedly “GROWING” is VISUALLY PICTURED as separate from the “GROUND”  it is ‘situated’ in.  In other words, FIGURE and GROUND are SEEN as TWO SEPARATE ENTITIES.

 

“GROWTH” is a language-stimulated abstract CONCEPT that SPLITS FIGURE AND GROUND INTO TWO.

 

“REALITY” is TRANSFORMATION wherein FIGURE AND GROUND ARE ONE.  We INTUITIVELY understand that the LANDSCAPE IS TRANSFORMING and that THIS IS THE REALITY that is affirmed by our SENSORY EXPERIENCE.  The notion of GROWTH is ABSTRACTION based on, as Nietzsche points out, the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR; e.g. ‘the TOWN is GROWING’ or ‘the CHILD is GROWING’, … WATCH OUT!, …with our UTTERANCE OF SUCH ABSTRACTION, what ‘IS BROUGHT TO MIND’ is a picture of a TOWN or a CHILD as a LONESOME THING-IN-ITSELF as if it were in an EMPTY SPACE and thus UNDERGOING GROWTH ON ITS OWN.

 

In SENSORY-EXPERIENCE REALITY, as contrasted with the PICTURES IN THE MIND of the TOWN ‘out there’ undergoing GROWTH, there is the all-including transforming relational continuum wherein ‘everything is in flux’ as in fluid TRANSFORMATION.  This SENSORY EXPERIENCE AFFIRMED FLUID REALITY is the Wave-field reality of modern physics.  In this physical, sensory-experience-affirmed reality, FIGURE AND GROUND ARE ONE!

 

The DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR that allows us to say ‘the TOWN is GROWING” …. ESTABLISHES A SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein FIGURE and GROUND (TOWN and COUNTRY) ARE VISUALIZED AS TWO, … but are they?   If our ‘sensory experience based intuition of TRANSFORMATION’ is strong enough, ‘it’ (our intuition) will resist being HIJACKED, removed and locked up “OUT OF SIGHT” as the NAMING-instantiated LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF such as ‘the TOWN’ is brought into the foreground of the MIND’S EYE and treated with GRAMMAR so that we can speak and share in the SUBSTITUTE REALITY terms of the (GRAMMAR-BASED) GROWTH of the (NAMING-BASED) LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF.  The GROWING TOWN is thus abstractly LIBERATED from its inclusion as a TOWNING within the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE and given a DOUBLE ERROR based ‘life of its own’.

 

NOTA BENE: With this DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, we construct a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein the abstraction of GROWTH has replaced and done away with the sensory experience reality of TRANSFORMATION.  The intellect thus gives the intuition leave to go on vacation.

 

Ok, this inventing of GROWTH ‘solves the problem’ of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT nature of TRANSFORMATION as in the Wave-field aka the Tao, but at the price of having to construct a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein GROWTH (the GROWTH of notional LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES) takes over (as in “SUBSTITUTES FOR”) the reality of the all-encompassing TRANSFORMATION which, while it is the REALITY, lies beyond the capture reach of languages that are based on notional LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES.

 

Sure, we can use that sort of DOUBLE ERROR language to say that ‘the TOWN is GROWING’ but we can’t say, in the same breath, the rest of the story, the conjugate aspect, that ‘the Wilderness is SHRINKING’.

 

MAYBE WE SHOULDN’T HAVE DRIVEN SUCH A SOLID STAKE IN THE GROUND AS THE DOUBLE ERROR; i.e. the FIRST ERROR of NAMING to impute a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF EXISTENCE conflated with the SECOND ERROR of GRAMMAR to impute to the FIRST ERROR, ‘its own’ power of SOURCING actions and developments’.

 

BECAUSE, having ABSTRACTLY LIBERATED FIGURE from GROUND, we have a TWO-PRONGED pseudo-REALITY MANAGEMENT OVERHEAD where, if we talk about the GROWTH of the cultivated land, … if we don’t mention AT THE SAME TIME, the SHRINKAGE of the Wilderness, we are creating a MONSTER FIGURE that is cavorting about INDEPENDENT OF THE GROUND.  AT LEAST THAT IS THE “PICTURE” in our mind’s eye when we use the term GROWTH or GROWING, splitting this out of TRANSFORMATION like splitting out a rib from “EVE” to make a seeming INDEPENDENT, or is that CONJUGATE, “ADAM”.

 

The ‘price’ we pay to render the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT (fluid reality) EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT is the job of maintaining a SUBSTITUTE REALITY based on LOCAL THINGS THAT WE PICTURE as undergoing GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT, like ‘the TOWN’.

 

CAN WE KEEP ‘OUR EYE’ ON the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE as we ‘watch’ ‘THE TOWN GROW’?  NO!, In order to unleash our mind’s eye to ‘SEE’ and WATCH the TOWN GROW’ we have to move into a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein the FIGURE (the TOWN) and the GROUND (the COUNTRY) … ARE TWO SEPARATE AND INDEPENDENT (IMAGINARY) REALMS.  ONLY THEN can we see this notional GRAMMAR-INSTANTIATED phenomenon that we refer to as GROWTH of a notional ‘NAMING-INSTANTIATED’ LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF.

 

WHAT HAPPENS IF WE ‘GET STUCK’ IN OUR ‘SUBSTITUTE REALITY’ AND CAN’T FIND OUR WAY OUT?

 

THAT IS TODAY’S UNFOLDING STORY BEING EXPERIENCED BY US WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS.

 

ONE THING IS FOR SURE, WE CAN’T FIND THE WAY OUT THROUGH TALKING AND REASONING BECAUSE THAT IS ONLY GOOD FOR CONSTRUCTING “SUBSTITUTE REALITIES” AND THE ‘REAL REALITY’ OF OUR SENSORY EXPERIENCE IN THE TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM REMAINS INEFFABLE-BECAUSE-NONLOCAL-AND-IMPLICIT, … MEANING THAT WE HAD BETTER ‘SHUT UP’ AND BRING OUR INTUITION BACK FROM OUT OF ITS BANISHMENT BY REASON.   WE CAN DO IT, AND WE DO DO IT, BUT EVERYTIME WE OPEN OUR MOUTHS TO SPOUT OFF IN A REASON BASED MANNER, WE PUT OURSELVES BACK INTO A “SUBSTITUTE REALITY” WHICH IS WHERE THE PROBLEM LIES; I.E. THE PROBLEM OF “THE TOOL OF REASON RUNNING AWAY WITH THE WORKMAN”.

 

‘REASON IS TOO SIMPLE TO CAPTURE REALITY.  IT IS RATIO-BASED AND ALL THAT THAT GETS US IS GROWTH AND NOT TRANSFORMATION.  GROWTH IMPLIES THE GOD-LIKE POWER OF “LOCAL SOURCING” AKA ‘CREATION’ AND NOT ‘TRANSFORMATION’.

 

“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.  – Nietzsche

 

We may ask ourselves whether, deep down, we really ‘believe’ that the notion of ‘THE GROWTH of the TOWN’  MAKES MORE SENSE than ‘THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE’.

 

For those of us who enjoy a lot of jibber-jabber, if we opt for GROWTH we can ramble on incessantly and in unlimited detail as to what is going on in terms of LOCAL GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT, but if we opt for TRANSFORMATION, we fall into the situation noted by Lao Tzu wherein ‘the Tao that can be told is not the true Tao’.  This is because TRANSFORMATION is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT, … so that if we are going to TALK, the best we can do is use INFERENCE to imply that there is a reality that lies innately beyond LOCAL and EXPLICIT capture in language.  That limits our style of talking to INFERENCE as in METAPHOR whereby the INFERENCE reaches out beyond the explicit content used in constructing the inference;

 

“A man’s reach can exceed his grasp or what’s a meta phor?’  — Mcluhan et al.

 

What we need is a relational INFERENCE-generating language.  That is where Bohm was headed with his aim of developing Rheomode but he found out that it had already been developed, as his colleague in modern physics research, F. David Peat noted;

 

 A few months before his death, Bohm met with a number of Algonkian speakers and was struck by the perfect bridge between their language and worldview and his own exploratory philosophy. What to Bohm had been major breakthroughs in human thought — quantum theory, relativity, his implicate order and rheomode – were part of the everyday life and speech of the Blackfoot, Mic Maq, Cree and Ojibwaj.” – F. David Peat, ‘Blackfoot Physics’

 

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SUMMARY:

 

In brief, We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS developed a language architecture that develops SUBSTITUTE REALITIES which are EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT, by way of employing the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  Instead of TRANSFORMATION, this language substitutes GROWTH.  Thus, instead of the fluid reality capture as with an impression of the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE, we “DROP DOWN” to language that invokes NAMING to establish a notional LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF which we use GRAMMAR to equip with its own powers of SOURCING actions and development.  As we know, we can invent TOWNS, PEOPLE, NATIONS, CORPORATIONS with their own notional powers of sourcing actions and developments, using this DOUBLE ERROR technique, and use these as PLAY-PIECES in constructing a SUBSTITUTE REALITY.

 

Ideally, the SUBSTITUTE REALITY based on the abstraction of the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT can serve as a tool of INFERENCE of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT (transforming relational continuum) REAL REALITY.   For example, we can use language to talk in terms of ‘the Hurricane that is stirring up the atmosphere’ …and/or..  ‘the Atmosphere that is stirring up the Hurricane’ as a means of INFERRING the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION that, being NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT (purely relational), lies beyond the reach of explicit discourse.  The unavoidable ambiguity associated with the SUBSTITUTE REALITY is always there to ‘haunt us’.

 

Our WESTERN CULTURE problem is that while this SUBSTITUTE REALITY is “only good for INFERENCE”, we have fallen into the habit of using the SUBSTITUTE REALITY which features the abstraction of GROWTH as our OPERATIVE REALITY in a ‘read-my-lips’ fashion: When I say that “the TOWN IS GROWING” I AM SAYING THAT THIS IS REALLY WHAT IS GOING ON.   They can’t both be real; i.e….  the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE and  … the ‘GROWTH of the TOWN’ …. CAN’T BOTH BE “REAL”.  TRANSFORMATION is a case of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE while GROWTH is a case of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO.

 

Language allows us to mix and match such expressions so it is up to the LISTENER to choose whether he wants to think in terms of the GROWTH of the TOWN or in the more realistic terms of TRANSFORMATION of the LANDSCAPE (as the old indigenous aboriginal is sure to do), or whether to ‘lose oneself’ inside a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein one takes GROWTH to be REAL.  We get paid for GROWTH and in our WESTERN CULTURE, such payment is rarely contingent on coming to grips with the REAL REALITY that what is going on is instead TRANSFORMATION of the relational continuum, since that is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT regardless of its being the primary reality.  The CITY PLANNING COMMISSION is concerned with managing the development of an imaginary-line bounded LOCAL thing-in-itself ‘city’, … an imaginary LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF which is purportedly undergoing GROWTH in population, construction of houses, roads, high-rises etc.  So long as we maintain a LOCAL VISUAL FOCUS wherein thinking is in NEWTONIAN language based terms of MATTER, SPACE and TIME, we forestall the resurrecting of our intuition of fluid TRANSFORMATION into its rightful primacy.  In this case, the DOUBLE ERROR based vision of GROWTH that gives rise to a SUBSTITUTE REALITY in place of TRANSFORMATION persists and prevails as the surrogate OPERATIVE REALITY.

 

Our intuition is always with us, so we are NOT imprisoned in the SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein the abstraction of GROWTH is planted like a Cuckoo’s egg to hatch out and take over from our understanding or reality as TRANSFORMATION, but if we want to ‘get along with the majority’ of our WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT fellows (a majority has a monopoly on what will be the socially accepted ‘reality’), then we are going to have to ‘go along with’ the SUBSTITUTE REALITY pretense.  This is where we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are putting ourselves into one of those DOUBLE BIND predicaments.

 

The first part of the ‘double bind’ is;

 

What we call ‘normal’ is a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection and other forms of destructive action on experience.”  — R.D. Laing

 

The second part of the ‘double bind’ is;

 

They are playing a game.  They are playing at not playing a game.  If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.  I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.”  R. D. Laing – ‘Knots’

 

I personally ‘run into’ this double bind situation on an almost daily basis (as is the common plight of the Mahavit).  I understand that the whole crazy-making WESTERN CULTURE SYSTEM is held together by EGO which is the archetype for belief in LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments.

 

If the indigenous aboriginal elder comments ‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LOCAL SOURCING’ when we say that ‘the TOWN is GROWING” because he wants to make the point that reality is the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE, we can continue to accuse him of standing in the way of progress due to his ignorance of the ways of our modern reality.  So far, our WESTERN CULTURE supply of EGO needed to silence such nay-saying is showing no sighs of ‘running out’.  So long as this situation persists, the belief in GROWTH as something REAL that we can substitute for TRANSFORMATION will remain tenable, putting us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS (and those who share participation in the transforming relational continuum including the four-leggeds and the winged and crawly ones) on a veritable BUS-RIDE TO HELL (i.e. a dissonance and dysfunction permeated relational transformation).

 

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FOOTNOTE:

As is described in the above body of this commentary, WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS use language to construct a SUBSTITUTE REALITY which we imagine ourselves to be ‘inside ofl’.  In this SUBSTITUTE REALITY, GROWTH replaces TRANSFORMATION.  While GROWTH is LOCAL and EXPLICIT, pertaining to notional LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES, TRANSFORMATION is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT so that TRANSFORMATION, even though it is the reality of our sensory experience of inclusion therein, is not something we can speak to directly (in terms that are LOCAL and EXPLICIT).

Thus, what can be spoken of; i.e. the SUBSTITUTE REALITY, is not the real reality of our sensory experience since that is ineffable.

There are many problems with the SUBSTITUTE REALITY and this FOOTNOTE is to point to just a couple of the most important-because-most-confusing of the SUBSTITUTE REALITY. At the top of the ‘confusing’ list is AMBIGUITY.

-1- AMBIGUITY.  The SUBSTITUTE REALITY which is achieved with the help of the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING AND GRAMMAR introduces a basic AMBIGUITY in its abstract breaking apart of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE in TRANSFORMATION to FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO which opens the way to the abstraction of GROWTH of the FIGURE.   Ambiguity arises within the SUBSTITUTE REALITY as in the example ‘the Hurricane sources the stirring up of the Atmosphere’, … or ‘The Atmosphere sources the stirring up of the Hurricane.  This Ambiguity is the PRICE we have to pay for ‘breaking into’ the TRANSFORMING relational continuum and establishing and abstract LOCAL SOURCING AGENCY.  There is always a Janus-faced flip-side, as in the case where we describe the ‘reality’ of the GROWTH of cultivated land.  The flip-side is the SHRINKAGE of Wilderness.  Overall, the reality is TRANSFORMATION.

Because we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS commonly impute LOCAL SOURCING POWER to the FIGURE in the FIGURE-and-GROUND DUALITY, … the GROUND is left loose to ‘haunt’ our SUBSTITUTE REALITY.  The FIGURE side corresponds to ‘male’ asserting while the GROUND side to FEMALE-accommodating.  Because we commonly speak only in terms of the ‘male’ assertive action and development as in the case where we speak of the GROWTH of cultivated land, … the ‘female’ aspect which is accommodating this male asserting is left without mention; i.e. the SHRINKAGE of the Wilderness land.  This comes back to ‘haunt us’ since the reality is not as where we one-sidedly speak to the FIGURE as if FIGURE-and-GROUND-were TWO and thus we could address the actions of the FIGURE ‘on its own’.  Such an approach results in our one-sided reality being HAUNTED by GROUND that we thought we could ignore in speaking of the FIGURE as if it were a THING-IN-ITSELF.

This HAUNTING by the GROUND we thought we could treat as an uninvolved background shows up in the ignored SHRINKING of the diversity-rich ‘Wilderness’ in conjugate relation to the GROWTH of the cultivated lands.  In other words, GROWTH is an unrealistic ONE-SIDED concept which exists only in language and grammar and NOT in sense-experience reality.

In pursuing GROWTH, we are increasingly HAUNTED by the GHOST of the DECLINING WILDERNESS, yet we continue to remain in DENIAL even as our own humanist confederation, now afflicted with COVID 19 is looking more like the Portrait of Dorian Gray.

WE ARE both the self and the-alter-self of the INHABITANT-and-HABITAT-as-ONE, as F. David Peat observes in Blackfoot Physics.  It is no longer necessary to listen ONLY to ‘Chief Seattle’ as there are many echoes of his message.

This we know, the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”— “Chief Seattle”

Our phantom brother, COVID 19, is sending us a message from the declining Wilderness that is also ‘us’.

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