PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION

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PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION are an abstract binary duality that fabricates the impressions of local and explicit material object based reality, … the effable substitute that we use in place of the ineffable-because-nonlocal-and-implicit TRANSFORMATION, the actual reality of our sensory experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao.

This SUBSTITUTE REALITY is NOT a REDUCTION but a SUBSTITUTE and it is BINARY

One might say that this is where EAST and WEST split, in that while this BINARY abstraction that trades out PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION for TRANSFORMATION is expedient for rendering EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT the reality of TRANSFORMATION which is INEFFABLE-because-NOLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, it comes with BAGGAGE.

IN THE EAST; i.e. in In modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, the binary abstraction of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION is employed as an EFFABLE RATIONAL-INTELLECTUAL substitute for the INEFFABLE INTELLIGENT sensory experiencing of inclusion in TRANSFORMATION.

For example, we can capture in language (in the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR) the abstract concept of GROWTH of a NAMING-instantiated thing-in-itself such as a HURRICANE which gives us a LOCAL FOCUS IN PLACE OF the sensory-experience of inclusion in NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION (i.e. inclusion in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao).

HERE’S WHERE EAST AND WEST SPLIT

THE EAST-WEST SPLIT IN CONCEIVING REALITY:

EAST (and modern physics):   RATIONAL-INTELLECTION which employs the SUBSTITUTING, for the INEFFEBALE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT “TRANSFORMATION” , .. the BINARY ABSTRACTION of the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION is used as SUBSTITUTE REALITY in the sense of a TOOL OF INFERENCE.   This referred to in modern physics as BOOTSTRAPPING which is the technique of imposing NAMES of relation forms, not to impute to them permanent existence, but only temporary existence as abstractions in the mind where they can be used to cultivate a web of relations to capture the fluid reality without HARD DEPENDENCY on abstract LOCAL NAMING-INSTANTIATED THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES.  Wittgenstein describes this BOOTSTRAPPING technique in his final two propositions in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus;

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

A point to make note of is, if we listen an EASTERN culture person talking and a WESTERN culture person talking, we may hear the same sort of NAMING and GRAMMAR structures being used by both, but with different understandings in mind; e.g;

We may hear BOTH saying; ‘the Hurricane is growing larger and stronger and is ravaging New Orleans’, but while the EAST understanding is in terms of the overall  NONLOCALtransforming relational continuum, the WEST understanding is LITERAL and understands the HURRICANE as being a REAL “LOCAL” SOURCING AGENT  that is responsible for the ravaging of New Orleans.

This same ‘difference’ in understanding that comes with the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR applies generally and divides the EAST and WEST in our respective conceptualizing of ‘reality’.  We might say, using Bohm’s terms that distinguish INTELLIGENCE (the sensory-experience based understanding of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum) and RATIONAL INTELLECTION (the construction of a visual representation that is in the BINARY terms of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION; e.g. where language invites us to form mental pictures of hurricanes as LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES that GROW larger and stronger OVER TIME and have GRAMMAR-given powers of SOURCING actions and developments.

FOR THE EAST: this binary split into PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION is merely a tool for stimulating an intuitive leap to the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT transforming relational continuum.

FOR THE WEST: this binary split into PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION is a REPRESENTATION of the OPERATIVE REALITY that we are included in.

FOR THE WEST:  The EGO plays an important role here because in the WEST (i.e. in the WESTERN CULTURE way of understanding), there is the common belief that the BINARY duality of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION are REAL (and not just abstraction) which means that these realities SUBSTITUTE for TRANSFORMATION.  The EGO derives, in this view, from the sense of one’s own powers of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments (the ‘DOUBLE ERROR’ of NAMING and GRAMMAR’).

FOR THE EAST:  The binary duality of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION is understood as a ‘thinking tool’ designed to fabricate a SUBSTITUTE PSEUDO-REALITY which is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT in the sense of a Wittgenstein ladder of INFERENCE of INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT which (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

FOR THE WEST: This ladder is employed as the OPERATIVE REALITY.   So, if you ‘read my lips’ when I am in EASTERN mode and using language as a throw-away ladder of inference, you are not going to be ‘reading my mind’ because my mind will be in that understanding mode which Bohm calls INTELLIGENCE to distinguish it from RATIONAL INTELLECTION.  If I am in my EAST mode and say “the hurricane is growing larger and stronger”, I am seeing and making reference to the “NIPPLE” (FIGURE) on the BREAST (GROUND) of a notional INHABITANT-HABITAT DUALITY, and the CRAZINESS (Bipolar Disorder) begins in the WEST where we impute the power of LOCAL SOURCING AGENCY to NAMING-instantiated things-in-themselves, opening the way to a RATIONAL understanding EITHER in terms of the FIGURE (nipple) sourcing the stirring up of the GROUND (breast) or the GROUND (breast) sourcing the stirring up of the FIGURE (nipple).  These AMBIGUOUS choices that associate with the abstraction of LOCAL SOURCING split the WESTERN CULTURE SOCIAL COLLECTIVE into polar opposing groups we know as ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’.

FOR THE EAST:  This ladder is purely and solely a TOOL OF INFERENCE. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)  This very different where the respective understanding of reality of EAST and WEST split go off in their own very different reality-understanding paths.  In the EAST, there is no equivalent to the AMBIGUITY that sources BIPOLAR DISORDER in the WEST

FOR THE WEST, the DOULE ERROR gives rise to the AMBIGUITY as to whether the hurricane sources the stirring up of the atmosphere or whether the atmosphere sources the stirring up of the hurricane, which is also the conservative – liberal polarization in Western political interpretation of ‘reality’.   NOTA BENE: this ambiguity only arises as a secondary effect to the initial error of believing in LOCAL SOURCING in place of TRANSFORMATION.  The substitution of LOCAL SOURCING as in PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION in place of TRANSFORMATION comes with the innate AMBIGUITY (and associated BIPOLAR DISORDER) as to whether CONSUMPTION induces PRODUCTION, as in the duality of the Earth’s subduction zones which CONSUME surface material, …  and, …  volcanic extrusion zones which PRODUCE new surface material to replace the subduction material.  This BINARY OPPOSITE CO-DYNAMIC serves as a CRUDE SIMULATOR of relational TRANSFORMATION.  The advantage that the BINARY of PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION brings with it is that it is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT whereas our sensory experience reality of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

TAKE THE FOLLOWING SHORT QUIZ to help navigate this complexity:   Sorting this stuff out is particularly difficult in our WESTERN CULTURE conditioned minds because our acculturated reflex is to automatically reduce issues to RATIONAL INTELLECTION and thus distance ourselves from our own INTELLIGENCE.  Thus we opt for GROWTH where TRANSFORMATION is the sensory experience reality.  GROWTH is LOCAL and EXPLICIT and thus EFFABLE while TRANSFORMATION is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT and thus INEFFABLE.  Meanwhile, GROWTH IS NOT REAL, it is DOUBLE ERROR based abstraction: the FIRST ERROR is NAMING to impute LOCAL thing-in-itself existence, and we conflate this with the second ERROR of GRAMMAR to impute to the NAMING-created LOCAL thing-in-itself, “IT’S” own powers of SOURCING actions and developments.

THE QUIZ:

Browse the article entitled TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons.. just to get the based sense of what is being said.

This provides an illustration of how the DOUBLE ERROR enters into WESTERN thinking.  In reading this, one needs to suspend one’s WESTERN CULTURE CONDITIONED sense that ‘this is a respectable publication by respected academics’ since this gives us a kind of spontaneous reflex to accept what is being said, and sure, to critique it and find fault in it if we can, but basically to regard it as an honest and respectable dissertation on a complex phenomenon in our social dynamic.

But keep your mind open to the possibility that FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE as in modern physics and as in indigenous aboriginal conceptualizing of reality as also with Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.

The Tragedy of the Commons is where the multiple CONSUMERS of a RESOURCE consume at a rate beyond which that RESOURCE is being replenished; e.g. too many cows feeding off the grassy commons.

Note that this is a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO conceptualization where the cows are understood as consuming animal FIGURES that are separate from the grassy common GROUND..

In reality, FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE, as in modern physics and as in indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.  What is actually going on is TRANSFORMATION as in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao.

The FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO conceptualization is a WESTERN CULTURE intellectual abstraction that we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS conjure up from TWO things; EGO and the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMAMR.  These TWO THINGS are related since the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR gives us the sense of our (the NAMING-instantiated thing’s) own powers of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments; e.g. examples of NAMING-instantiated things include ‘the ATMOSPHERE’ and ‘the HURRICANE’ (and a zillion others, including ‘the HUMAN INHABITANT’ and ‘the HABITAT’).

In the ‘TRAGEDY of the COMMONS’ we deploy the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR to construct a view of ourselves as CONSUMERS and the environment as PRODUCER as if these were two separate things, in which case WE CONSUMERS have to make sure that we do not CONSUME at a rate which exceeds the environment’s capacity to PRODUCE.

This BINARY notion gives rise to a WESTERN CUTURE BIPOLAR DISORDER. The HABITAT is not a separate COW that we INHABITANTS are drawing from so that, if it were, the challenge would be that we, as INHABITANT CONSUMERS who are separate from the PRODUCING RESOURCES of the HABITAT must moderate our demands on the HABITAT’s productive resources so as to keep things ‘in balance’. This is a bogus notion (it is a logical error termed a ‘petitio-principii’).

Modern physics would have us understand ourselves in terms of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE but the TRAGEDY of the COMMONS is assuming that FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO which implies the need for a ‘you scratch my back and I’l scratch yours’ relationship.

That is, in reality, we, and all of nature’s inhabitants are included in the transforming relational continuum.  There is no INHABITANT-HABITAT-as-TWO or FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO dichotomy.  FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE and there is no such thing as PRODUCTION-and-CONSUMPTION, there is only TRANSFORMATION.

BUT HERE COMES THE EAST – WEST SPLIT in understanding the constitution of REALITY;

EAST: THERE IS NO “TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS” since that is abstraction based on FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO.  The problem is NOT that we humans are doing a poor job of managing our natural resources, the problem is in believing in an abstract FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO pseudo-reality (a binary splitting of INHABITANT-and-HABITAT into two separate ONTOLOGIES.

WEST: This is the point of departure whereupon WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS but NOT EASTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS start believing that we are the managers of our own reality, as contrasted with the understanding that we are included in the transforming relational continuum.  For example, if we are driving within a heavy flow of freeway traffic, our movements are relative to the relational dynamics we share inclusion in and the rabbit that darts across the freeway can disturb the flow in a manner as to induce a long succession of swerving and braking and accelerating within which, at some point, two vehicles collide and it is our WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT habit to label one the perpetrator and the other the victim.  This is a SUBSTITION of the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT for the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

The abstract concept of ‘common ground’ or ‘common resource systems’ implies the BINARY PRODUCER-CONSUMER SPLIT, and in the case of the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO split that delivers the notion of human INHABITANTS in a separate HABITAT which sets up, in the psyche, a notional FIGURE-and-GROUND-AS-TWO “INTERACTION”.  In WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT thinking, this ‘split’, which derives from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, is understood not JUST as a tool of INFERENCE as in the EAST (modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta) but as a REAL INHABITANT-HABITAT SPLIT such as portrays the HUMAN INHABITANT as an exploiter and manager of the HABITAT, rather than as relational form included within the transforming relational continuum.  IT is this INHABITANT-HABITAT-as-TWO split (FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO split) that serves up what the Presocratic philosophers called ‘the burden of concreteness’ because once we have used the DOUBLE ERROR to liberate the FIGURES from the GROUND, we have to explicitly manage, in our RALITY CONSTRUCTIONS, the growth, development and movement of all of these DOUBLE ERROR based things-in-themselves with their own (notional) powers of SOURCING actions and developments.  This ‘reality construction’ we are managing, instead of being a tool of inference as in the EAST, is, in the WEST regarded as the ‘operative reality’, as in the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ and its fallout;

In the following excerpt from the Wikipedia article on the Tragedy of the Commons’ at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons there is an automatic assumption of the existence of ‘common resource systems’ such as too many people fishing from the same lake.  Such thinking ‘automatically’ assumes the legitimacy of a purported FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO REALITY wherein HUMAN INHABITANTS are the FIGURES and the HABITAT is the GROUND, setting up a notional CONTENTION between FIGURE and GROUND (INHABITANT and HABITAT).  ACCEPTING this FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO SPLIT characterizes WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, and within this  ABSTRACT BINARY LOGIC BASED PARADIGM, … the most erudite formulations are awarded Nobel Prizes, as described in the following;  *** NOTICE how the abstract concept of a ‘common resource system’ is ‘taken for granted’  * * *

“Although common resource systems have been known to collapse due to overuse (such as in over-fishing), many examples have existed and still do exist where members of a community with access to a common resource co-operate or regulate to exploit those resources prudently without collapse.^[3][4] Elinor Ostrom was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics for demonstrating exactly this concept in her book Governing the Commons, which included examples of how local communities were able to do this without top-down regulations or privatization.^“[5]

What does COMMON RESOURCE imply?  The first thing it implies is a PRODUCER-CONSUMER split since those consuming the resource are distinguished from those producing the resource as in the HABITAT-and-INHABITANT-as-TWO split.

It is evident that the article is based on (the common WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENT) belief in a PRODUCER-CONSUMER SPLIT, … but IS THE PRODUCER-CONSUMER SPLIT REAL?  The earth, so we say, sources extrusions of magma that renew the surface of the sphere of the earth and the earth, so we say, sources intrusive subduction that renew the fluid centre which is supplying extrusive renewing to the exterior, all the while retaining an overall sphericity.  Could we not do away with the concept of a “LOCAL” “EARTH” that is doing this extrusion and subduction and just go with “PLANETING” as a feature of the nonlocal field as in a Van Gogh ‘STARRY NIGHT’ collection of whorlings-in-flowing?

How much does our FIGURE and GROUND splitting DOUBLE ERROR based NAMING and GRAMMAR habit have to do splitting apart the Van Gogh STARRY NIGHT into FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO?

As Zen writer Alan Watts points out in ‘The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are’, …

“This book explores an unrecognized but mighty taboo—our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religions of the East—in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man’s natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction.”

The point is, as crops up in Bohm’s and Nietzsche’s written sharing of intuitive impressions of reality, that FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE (Inhabitant and habitat are ONE) and that the ‘EGO-IN-A-BAG-OF-SKIN’ model of self is a DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.

SUMMARY: We have found ourselves to be inclusions in a transforming relational continuum (the Wave-field aka the Tao) and because we and everything are bound together in a relational flux there is no language based on words that invoke PERSISTING LOCAL BEING, that can capture this fluid reality … UNLESS, … UNLESS…. we use those words that connote PERSISTING LOCAL BEING merely for forming a network of relations whereupon we can employ the relations as our ‘reality’ and let go of the PERSISTING LOCAL BEING used as an expedient for getting to the purely relational understanding.

As Alan Watts and David Bohm and Nietzsche and others have pointed out, our WESTERN CULTURE is in the habit of equating for ‘reality’ “a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religions of the East … i.e. a hallucination of seeing “ oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin”.

I would qualify the words “western science” as referring to ‘modern physics’ rather than to Newtonian physics since it is that Newtonian physics based on notional LOCAL, INDEPENDENT things-in-themselves, with, in conjunction with the abstraction of LOCALLY APPLIED FORCE, are capable of SOURCING actions and developments.  Newtonian physics is thus a ‘contributor’ to the ‘hallucination’ that Watts refers to, and as Benjamin Whorf points out, Newtonian physics derives from DOUBLE ERROR based language and grammar;

From the form-plus-substance dichotomy the philosophical views most traditionally characteristic of the “Western world” have derived huge support. Here belong materialism, psychophysical parallelism, physics–at least in its traditional Newtonian form–and dualistic views of the universe in general. Indeed here belongs almost everything that is “hard, practical common sense.” Monistic, holistic, and relativistic views of reality appeal to philosophers and some scientists, but they are badly handicapped in appealing to the “common sense” of the Western average man–not because nature herself refutes them (if she did, philosophers could have discovered this much), but because they must be talked about in what amounts to a new language. “Common sense,” as its name shows, and “practicality” as its name does not show, are largely matters of talking so that one is readily understood. It is sometimes stated that Newtonian space, time, and matter are sensed by everyone intuitively, whereupon relativity is cited as showing how mathematical analysis can prove intuition wrong. This, besides being unfair to intuition, is an attempt to answer offhand question (1) put at the outset of this paper, to answer which this research was undertaken. Presentation of the findings now nears its end, and I think the answer is clear. The offhand answer, laying the blame upon intuition for our slowness in discovering mysteries of the Cosmos, such as relativity, is the wrong one. The right answer is: Newtonian space, time, and matter are no intuitions. They are recepts from culture and language. That is where Newton got them.” — Benjamin Whorf

Is there any way to bring to a tight and tidy close this SUMMARY, having already said that the EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT is not reality but merely INFERENCE of a reality that is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT as is the nature of the Wave-filed aka the Tao aka the transforming relational continuum.

I don’t believe there is any way, that involves language based sharing, to bring about a tight and tidy close.   That’s what all the discussion is about, of how to use INFERENCE to get to a limited understanding of our sensory experience of inclusion in a transforming relational continuum aka the Tao aka the Wave-field.

I would say that the implication is that our EGO based conceptualizing of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO wherein give ourselves the mission of MASTERY OVER OUR ENVIRONMENT is not working out very well, as might be expected since FIGURE-and-GROUND-is-ONE, so that our going to battle against perceived PATHOGENS rather than cultivating and restoring relational harmony, is an EGO based act of the same topology as characterized in the Tar-Baby Story (see APPENDIX)

* * * END * * *

FOOTNOTE I:

PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION is binary abstraction that is an EFFABLE ‘cover’ for INEFFABLE TRANSFORMATION.

This ‘cover’ has problems deriving from splitting FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE into FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO as necessitated so as to come up with an EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT language based (NAMING and GRAMMAR based) representation of the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

One problem that arises is the introduction of AMBIGUITY since when we split FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE into FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO, … it becomes unclear whether the dynamics of the FIGURE are SOURCING the dynamics of the GROUND or whether the dynamics of the GROUND are SOURCING the dynamics of the FIGURE.

For example, we see the TOWN develop in the LANDSCAPE, and it may be that TOWN is like a staging ground at the base of a mountain where people come to prepare for a climb to the mountain peak and where they rest ‘on their way out’ such that the gathering that constitutes the TOWN is a resonance feature and NOT the embodiment of a LOCAL SOURCING of actions and developments.  In other words, the ‘TOWN’ is a ‘TOWNING’ in the broader landscape.  We would then understand FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE (TOWNING and COURNTRYSIDE as ONE).  Over the long haul since people not only are born and die but arrive and leave the TOWNING, the TOWNING must be understood as a RELATIONAL FEATURE in the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.  The building and streets that persist are like a LOCAL RESIDUE of an innately NONLOCAL DYNAMIC.

In this case, it would be MISREPRESENTATION to apply the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR and to impute to a notional LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF its own GRAMMAR-given powers of SOURCING actions and development/growth.  THERE IS NO ‘LOCAL IT’ in this purely relational dynamic, there is only NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION. wherein ‘everything is in flux’, as Heraclitus suggests.

THE AMBIGUITY arises when we recast FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE (where the persisting FIGURE is a resonance bases standing wave pattern) in terms of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO, because it becomes unclear whether the FIGURE is sourcing a stirring up of the GROUND or whether the GROUND is sourcing a stirring up of the FIGURE.  For example, consider the Hurricane as FIGURE and atmosphere as GROUND.  Which is sourcing the stirring up of which?

In the example just cited, FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE and the concept of TWO is only appearance as when people camp out in a staging area on the way in to their climbing of the nearby peak and also on their way out to return to their home base.  The CAMP that NO-ONE PERMANENTLY RESIDES IN, is CONTINUALLY OCCUPIED and PERSISTS as a LOCAL CENTER OF ACTIVITY, yet IT IS NOT A LOCAL SOURCE OF ITS OWN ACTIVITY so even though we see periodic population GROWTH and SHRINKAGE, it would be wrong to say ‘NOW IT IS GROWING’ and “NOW IT IS SHRINKING’ because there is no ‘LOCAL IT’.

The DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR ‘doesn’t care about this’ and projects the abstract sense of the existence of a LOCAL thing-in-itself with its own powers of SOURCING actions and developments/GROWTH.   In the case of the staging ground camp, if there is bad weather on the mountain peak that the climbers are hoping to scale, the base-camp will enlarge and when the weather improves the base-camp will shrink.    NOTICE HOW MY WORDS IMPUTE LOCAL SOURCING POWER OF GROWTH AND SHRINKAGE TO “THE LOCAL TOWN” as if it were a ‘LOCAL thing-in-itself’ with its own power of sourcing GROWTH and SHRINKAGE.

SUPPOSING WE DID NOT HAVE THE DOUBLE ERROR HABIT OF NAMING AND GRAMMAR.  We would see the ‘ant-trail’ of people coming and going as a series of concentrations and expansions as in a WAVE-DYNAMIC.  In the event of a snowstorm at the summit, the camps on the ascent would GROW due to the ‘back-up’.  Here is where we have the choice between RATIO and INTELLIGENCE as distinguished by Bohm; i.e. if we merely calculate the RATIO of people currently in the camp compared to a week age, the number will have grown.  Simple RATIONALITY would have us say that THE CAMP HAS GROWN.  However, INTELLIGENCE would ‘see’ beyond this to the ‘waves’ of people ascending the mountain are LOCALLY bunching up due to NONLOCAL influences.  If we merely say; ‘this camp is GROWING LARGER, then we may interpret the SOURCE of this GROWTH to the LOCAL CAMP although the reality is that this GROWTH that MANIFESTS LOCALLY is of NONLOCAL origin.  Our RATIO based interpretation is not going to capture NONLOCALITY but our INTELIGENCE is going to capture it.

In general “GROWTH” is a RATIONAL concept based on the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.

As we can see, RATIONALITY involves an intellectual PROJECTION Of LOCAL SOURCING that is not real (the general case is NONLOCAL ORIGINATION).  The rational men making the climb to the peak will assure us that they were proceeding on the basis of their own independent will and judgement as LOCAL things-in-themselves with their own powers of sourcing actions and developments.

We might agree that yes, this is a correct RATIONAL assessment of the reality of what transpired, but it is based on the understanding of one’s self as a LOCAL independent being, in the same sense as we may regard the camp and other NAMING-instantiated LOCAL independent things-in-themselves..

As pointed out above, if we merely say; ‘this camp is GROWING LARGER, then we may interpret the SOURCE of this GROWTH to the LOCAL CAMP although the reality is that this GROWTH that MANIFESTS LOCALLY is of NONLOCAL origin.  NONLOCALITY is the general case we can pick up on with our INTELLIGENCE while LOCAL SOURCING derives from RATIONAL INTELLECTION.

Our RATIONAL mind explores things LOCALLY and can see only LOCAL GROWTH or LOCAL SHRINKAGE which derive from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  However, our INTELLGENCE understands reality in terms of NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION and thus goes beyond the RATIONAL view of the GROWTH or SHRINKAGE of the camps on the mountain, opening our intelligence up to capture NONLOCALITY as in TRANSFORMATION and the resonances in the flow that shape the camps on the mountain; a shaping that manifests as LOCAL GROWTH and SHRINKAGE of the ‘camps’ (these were flow-features arising from NONLOCAL influences prior to getting NAMED (camps).  Meanwhile TRANSORMATION is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT (purely relational as in ‘everything is in flux’)

BOTTOM LINE: NONLOCALITY PREVAILS but it is INEFFABLE-becase-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT.

* * *

APPENDIX: Tar-Baby Story, source of story and appended notes by R. M. Young http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/tar1.html

“DIDN’T the fox never catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus?” asked the little boy the next evening.

“He come mighty nigh it, honey, sho’s you born— Brer Fox did. One day atter Brer Rabbit fool ‘im wid dat calamus root, Brer Fox went ter wuk en got ‘im some tar, en mix it wid some turkentime, en fix up a contrapshun wat he call a Tar-Baby, en he tuck dish yer Tar-Baby en he sot ‘er in de big road, en den he lay off in de bushes fer to see what de news wuz gwineter be. En he didn’t hatter wait long, nudder, kaze bimeby here come Brer Rabbit pacin’ down de road—lippity-clippity, clippity-lippity— dez ez sassy ez a jay-bird. Brer Fox, he lay low. Brer Rabbit come prancin’ ’long twel he spy de Tar-Baby, en den he fotch up on his behime legs like he wus ‘stonished. De Tar-Baby, she sot dar, she did, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“’Mawnin’!’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee—’nice wedder dis mawnin’,’ sezee.

“Tar-Baby ain’t sayin’ nothin’, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“‘How duz yo’ sym’tums seem ter segashuate?’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee.

“Brer Fox, he wink his eye slow, en lay low, en de Tar-Baby, she ain’t sayin’ nothin’.

“‘How you come on, den? Is you deaf? sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. ‘Kaze if you is, I kin holler louder,’ sezee.

“Tar-Baby stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“’Youer stuck up, dat’s w’at you is, Says Brer Rabbit, sezee, ‘en I’m gwineter kyore you, dat’s what I’m a gwinter do,’ sezee

“Brer Fox, he sorter chuckle in his stummick. he did, but Tar-Baby ain’t sayin nothin’.

I’m gwinter larn you how to talk ter ‘spectubblke fokes ef hit’s de las’ ack’, sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. ‘Ef you don’t take off dat hat en tell me howdy. I’m gwinter bus’ you wide open,’ sezee.

“Tar-Baby stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“Brer Rabbit keep on axin’ ‘im, en de Tar-Baby, she keep on sayin’ nothin’, twel present’y Brer Rabbit draw back wid his fis’, he did, en blip he tuck’er side er de head. Right dar’s whar he broks his merlasses jug. His fis’ stuck, en he can’t pull loose. De Tar-Baby hilt ‘im. But Tar-Baby, she stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“‘Ef you don’t lemme loose, Ill knock you agin, sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, en wid dat he fotch ‘er a wipe wid de udder han’, en dat stuck. Tar-Baby, she ain’t sayin’ nothin’, en Brer Fox, he lay low.

“‘Tu’n me loose, fo’ I kick de natal stuffin’ outen you,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain’t sayin’ nothin’. She des hilt on, en den Brer Rab bit lose de use er his feet in de same way. Brer Fox, he lay low. Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-Baby don’t tu’n ‘im loose he butt ‘er cranksided. En den he butted, en his head got stuck. Den Brer Fox, he sa’ntered fort’, lookin’ des ez innercent ez one er yo’ mammy’s mockin’-birds.

“‘Howdy, Brer Rabbit,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee. ‘You look sorter stuck up dis mawnin’,’ sezee, en den he rolled on de groun’, en laughed en laughed twel he couldn’t laugh no mo’. ‘I speck you’ll take dinner wid me dis time, Brer Rabbit. I done laid in some calamus root, en I ain’t gwineter take no skuse,’ sez Brer Fox, sezee.”

Here Uncle Remus paused, and drew a two-pound yam out of the ashes.

“Did the fox eat the rabbit?” asked the little boy to whom the story had been told.

“Dat’s all de fur de tale goes,” replied the old man. ‘He mout, en den again he moutent. Some say Jedge B’ar come long en loosed ‘im— some say he didn’t. I hear Miss Sally callin’. You better run ‘long.”

[The following Notes are by Robert Maxwell Young, Professor of Psychotherapy & Psychoanalytic Studies, Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, University of Sheffield]

My question is whether or not a projective identification was in place between Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby, and my answer is yes. We can see it in two contexts. Brer Rabbit greets the Tar-Baby in a friendly manner. There is no response. He increasingly finds the Tar-Baby insufferably rude and finally loses the use of each of his limbs one by one and his head, as well. This occurs as a result of his growing indignation and his determination to teach his insolent and silent interlocutor a lesson. The Tar-Baby has only not replied and then becomes adhesive as a result of the intrinsic qualities of his somatic features, modified by Brer Fox’s turpentine.

I have no difficulty at all in noting that the Tar-Baby did not have to be changed in her internal world or to do anything in order for the interaction to build up to violence. She omitted to greet a passing fellow creature and, in particular, would not tip her hat. Rude and insolent. Insulting. Outrageous.

So, the Object does not have to be affected and there does not have to be any behaviour elicited for there to be a projective identification in place.

The broader context, of course, is the position of the creature feeling potentially snubbed and insisting on civility. Moreover, Brer Fox has placed the Tar-Baby there just so it would wind up Brer Rabbit – so that he would take umbrage and be captured by the consequences of his own easily affronted sense of dignity. These aspects of the broader context are supremely relevant to many situations where there is a rapid build-up to a virulent projective identification. My Pakistani dentist told me such story this very morning. His wife‘s handbag brushed against a black man as they passed by one another on the pavement, and the man immediately berated her and then her husband for jostling him, being disrespectful, and I don’t know what all.

Looking further, the relationship can be with an inanimate object which in no way resembles a person. My car sometimes offends me in this way. At the moment the automatic lighter on the cooker is doing so every time I try to light the gas ring. This is one reason that Harold Searles wrote his magnificent but under-appreciated The Nonhuman Environment in Normal Development and In Schizophrenia (Madison, Conn.: IUP, 1960).