SUBSTITUTE REALITY and the PANDEMIC

-***- begin AUTHORS PREFACE to draw ATTENTION to a key WEST/EAST dividing subtlety hidden in language.- ***-

We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have built into our language architecture the binary logical abstraction of THE PICTURE;

 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.

By having a PICTURE “IN MIND”, our psyche shifts from FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE as in our INTUITION of TOWNING as something APPEARING in the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE to the RATIO-based (rational) THINKING in terms of the GROWTH of a notional LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF with “its own” (GRAMMAR-given) powers of AUTHORING actions and developments.  Instead of the TOWNING belonging to the TRANSFORMING which invokes our INTUITIVE ‘quantum logic’; the BOTH/AND logic of the INCLUDED medium, … we FALL BACK on the BINARY EITHER/OR logic of the EXCLUDED medium wherein the FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO and the FIGURE is psychologically perceived as being SEPARATE and INDEPENDENT of the GROUND and thus free to AUTHOR ITS OWN GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT.

INSTEAD OF TOWNING IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE (figure-and-ground-as-one) we invoke a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein we imagine a series of PICTURES of the TOWN that imply that the TOWN is AUTHORING its own GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT over “TIME” as if the FIGURE were contained with an EMPTY CONTAINING SPACE and thus free to AUTHOR its own GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT in a ‘figure-and-grround-as-two’ SUBSTITUTE REALITY. 

The reduction of TOWNING in the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE to ‘the TOWN that is AUTHORING its own GROWTH and PRODUCTION of PEOPLE, GOODS and SERVICES is “thanks to the abstract DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR wherein we invent an absolute empty and infinite ‘containing space” in which a notional independent FIGURE can move around in, within a FIGURE-and-GROUND-into TWO based SUBSTITUTE REALITY.

The abstraction of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO is supported by the equally abstract BINARY LOGIC; the EITHER/OR logic of the EXCLUDED medium which brings with ambiguity such as ‘does the HURRICANE AUTHOR the stirring up of the ATMOSPHERE or does the ATMOSPHERE AUTHOR the stirring up of the HURRICANE?  NEITHER!  FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-only ONE, as Schroedinger, Bohm, Nietzsche and other philosophers have noted, and the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR does not REALLY liberate FIGURE-from-GROUND.

Insofar as language-based sharing of sensory experience is concerned, without introducing a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO based SUBSTITUTE REALITY as we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are doing, the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL REAL REALITY presents an obvious challenge to the architecting of language.  The EAST’s solution has been sussed out by Wittgenstein and expressed as follows in his final two propositions in TRACTATUS LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS.  These propositions outline the ‘ploy’ or ‘work-around’ of first using figure-and-ground-as-two language as an expedient for constructing a web of relations so that the RELATIONAL ASPECT, once achieved, can be employed as the new THINGLESS-CONNECTEDNESS figure-and-ground-as-one reality.  As Wittgenstein describes this ‘work-around’ provides an indirect means of expressing figure-and-ground as one (e.g. we can speak NOT ONLY of the GROWTH of the TOWN but also of the conjugate SHRINKING of the Wilderness (both of which are ‘figure-and-ground-as-TWO representations, … so that our INTUITIVE MIND can shift to the TOWNING in the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE) reality of our sensory experience of inclusion in TRANSFORMATION.

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

NOTA BENE: Our sensory experience of inclusion in TOWNING in the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL but it is nevertheless our experiencing of REALITY.  Our voyeur rational constructions of ‘the TOWN that we say is a LOCAL THING-in-ITSELF that is AUTHORING its own GROWTH and PRODUCTION of goods and services is a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO ABSTRACTION that is given rational-mind legitimacy through our intellectual-linguistic construction of an entire SUBSTITUTE REALITY to support it.  The SUBSTITUTE REALITY that we construct with the DOUBLE ERROR or NAMING and GRAMMAR introduces ABSOLUTE EMPTY AND INFINITE SPACE as a CONTAINING GROUND to notionally (in the psyche) LIBERATE the FIGURE from the GROUND, employing GRAMMAR to animate the FIGURE as if in its own ‘independent’ right’.

WEST remains divided from EAST by the WEST’s practice of employing the figure-and-ground-as-two SUBSTITUTE REALITY as the OPERATIVE REALITY, while EAST, as also Modern physics, is using the intellectual abstraction of the figure-and-ground-as-two SUBSTITUTE REALITY … ONLY AS INFERENCE (a Wittgenstein ladder) for INFERRING the figure-and-ground-as-one REAL REALITY of our sensory experience of inclusion therein.

We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS employ a LITERAL interpretation of DOUBLE ERROR based language that features LOCAL AUTHORING of ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS as in the figure-and-ground-as-two terms; ‘the TOWN is GROWING’.   By constrast, EASTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS employ a FIGURATIVE interpretation of DOUBLE ERROR based language where the conceptualizing is figure-and-ground-as-one based; ‘THERE IS TOWNING IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE’.

When we start to see PICTURES in our mind of, for example, A TOWN THAT IS GROWING, … WATCH OUT!   Because it may become difficult to ESCAPE from being haunted by (having the psyche hijacked by) that very limiting PICTURE of a LOCAL and EXPLICIT BEING with GRAMMAR given powers of LOCAL AUTHORING of GROWTH and PRODUCTION, eclipsing the NON-PICTURE-CONSTRAINED “TOWNING in the TRANSFORMING relational continuum, which cannot be ‘pointed to’ and ‘name-labelled’ since it is NONLOCAL-and-INEFFABLE.

WE ARE FREE TO UNDERSTAND —“THERE IS TOWNING IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE” as accords with inclusion in the transforming relational continuum (the Wave-field aka the Tao) when we hear the trigger words ‘The TOWN is AUTHORING its own continuing GROWTH and PRODUCTION’  (i.e. we understand that such ostensibly LOCAL AUTHORSHIP leaves holes and tree stumps all over the NONLOCAL landscape, thus supporting the understanding that THERE IS TOWNING IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE’ in spite of the linguistic reduction to notional LOCAL AUTHORING of GROWTH and PRODUCTION attributed to ‘THE TOWN’.  As Poincaré observes, ‘it is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round’ or in other other words, “it is more convenient to suppose that FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO” and this is what we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have chosen to ‘teach’;

As regards the academies, they are established in order to regulate the studies of the pupils and are concerned not to have the program of teaching change very often: in such places, because it is a question of the progress of the students, it frequently happens that the things which have to be chosen are not those which are most true but those which are most easy. And by that division in things which makes different people form different judgements, it so happens that certain people are in error contrary to their own opinion.” – Johannes Kepler, ‘Harmonies of the World’

We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have chosen the SIMPLIFICATION OF CONVENIENCE of SPEAKING as if FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO and this SIMPLIFYING TOOL has, as Emerson notes, ‘run away with the workman, the human with the divine’; i.e. the EFFABLE figure-and-ground-as-TWO has run away with the INEFFABLE figure-and-ground-as-one.  As Schroedinger notes, the WEST but not the EAST has escaped this falling prey to mistaking our own figure-and-ground-as-two simplifications of reality for reality.  The figure-and-ground-as-one REALITY of Modern physics and the EAST (indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta), while INEFFABLE, can be, and is INFERRED.  As Schroedinger points out whether to make this leap of inference or not distinguishes EAST (affirmative) from WEST (negative);

… In Christian terminology to say: ‘Hence I am God Almighty’ sounds both blasphemous and lunatic. But please disregard these connotations for the moment and consider whether the above inference is not the closest a biologist can get to proving God and immortality at one stroke.

In itself, the insight is not new. The earliest records to my knowledge date back some 2,500 years or more. From the early great Upanishads the recognition ATHMAN = BRAHMAN (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.

 Again, the mystics of many centuries, independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other (somewhat like the particles in an ideal gas) have described, each of them, the unique experience of his or her life in terms that can be condensed in the phrase: DEUS FACTUS SUM (I have become God).

To Western ideology the thought has remained a stranger.  – Erwin Schroedinger, ‘What is LIfe’, ‘Epilogue: On Determinism and Free Will’

-***- end AUTHORS PREFACE to draw ATTENTION to a key WEST/EAST dividing subtlety hidden in language.- ***-

The “REALITY” of Modern physics, indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta is very different from the “SUBSTITUTE REALITY” employed by we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS.

This difference and how it influences our psychological sense of reality relative to our sense-experience of reality is explored in regard to the “COVID 19” PANDEMIC.

The first mistake WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS make in regard to the PANDEMIC is in our employing of the PATHOGEN concept instead or sticking with relational reality wherein we can experience dissonance and resonance such that when a ROBIN HOOD emerges out of the woodwork in association with extreme relational IMBALANCES associated with regions of overabundance and regions of deficiency, the naturally induced re-balancing need not be LABELLED the ATTACK of PATHOGENS (ROBBERS) but can be understood in terms of RESTORING BALANCE as induced by IMBALANCE.

The popular WESTERN CULTURE concept of PATHOGEN leads to the popular WESTERN CULTURE concept of a PATHOGEN-ELIMINATION based REMEDY.  This MISGUIDED -because-OVERSIMPLISTIC action of PATHOGEN ELIMINATION stems from the CONFUSING of IMBALANCE for the ATTACK OF PATHOGENS.

To dig deeper into the WESTERN PSYCHE, we can see that the DOUBLE ERROR structure of WESTERN CULTURE languages constructs SUBSTITUTE REALITIES featuring notional LOCAL AUTHORS of actions and developments.   LOCAL AUTHORING is a language based abstraction, a PHANTOM concept that we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have invented to ‘get around’ the difficulty of capturing in language-based representation, the transforming relational continuum we share inclusion in.

As Poincaré noted, it is MORE CONVENIENT to say that ‘the EARTH TURNS ROUND’ (and thus imply an ‘absolute containing space’), the ‘figure-and-ground-as-two’ representation, than to speak in the ‘figure-and-ground-as-one’ terms of EARTHING or PLANETING in the Wave-field aka the transforming relational continuum aka ‘the Tao’.

Poincaré, expresses our WESTERN CULTURE penchant for language-based over-simplification as follows;

And just as our Copernicus said to us ; It is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round, since thus the laws of mechanics are expressible in a much simpler language. . This does not preclude maintaining that absolute space, that is to say the mark to which it would be necessary to refer the earth to know whether it really moves, has no objective existence. Hence, this affirmation; ‘the earth turns round’ has no meaning, since it can be verified by no experiment; since such an experiment, not only could not be either realized or dreamed by the boldest Jules Verne, but can not be conceived of without contradiction; or rather these two propositions; ‘the earth turns round,’ and, ‘it is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round’ have the same meaning; there is nothing more in the one than in the other. “ — Henri Poincaré, ‘Science and Hypothesis’, Ch. VII Relative Motion and Absolute Motion

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While we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, by this double error NAMING-and-GRAMMAR ploy, have GAINED SIMPLIFICATION IN HOW WE TALK ABOUT REALITY, WE HAVE AS A RESULT LOST TRACTION IN OUR LANGUAGE BASED EXPRESSION of our SENSORY EXPERIENCE of reality. For example, our experience is of HUMANING within the transforming relational continuum, or TOWNING within the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE, but in our NAMING and GRAMMAR based SUBSTITUTE REALITY, we speak of HUMANS and TOWNS that “GROW” and “DEVELOP” in a ‘figure-and-ground-as-TWO’ sense, as if the FIGURE is free to move and develop as if it were situated within an absolute empty space of infinite extent; i.e. as if FIGURE-and-GROUND were TWO and the GROUND was an empty and uninvolved container.

This DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR based simplification allows us to CREATE A SUBSTITUTE REALITY that we can speak of in terms such as ‘the TOWN is GROWING larger and more populous’, taking it entirely OUT OF CONTEXT with the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE it is included in.

In Modern physics as also in indigenous aboriginal languages, we require a language that preserves the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE’; i.e. the “REAL REALITY” as in ‘THERE IS TOWNING IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE’ which preserves the ONE-ness of FIGURE and GROUND as is supported by our sensory experience and affirmed by modern physics.

If we say that THERE IS PLANETING IN THE TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM (aka the Wave-field aka the Tao), this FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE honoring poses challenges for language based representation where we want to speak of MOVEMENT since in the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE case of TRANSFORMATION, “EVERYTHING IS IN FLUX” as is reaffirmed by Modern physics, but this means that there are no LOCAL THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES, which is abstraction in any case, but the imputed ‘existence-of-things-in-themselves’ IS the figure-and-ground-as-two abstraction that we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS have incorporated in our language architecture to make our language more CONVENIENT to capture representations of reality, as pointed out with the example ‘the Earth turns round’.  Language-based representation which would be true to the finding that material bodies such as the Earth are ‘condensations of the magnetic field’ they are included in, as is the finding of Modern physics, demand a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE representation, where the FIGURE is an APPEARANCE within the GROUND.   The ‘boil’ in the rushing flow of the river may “appear” to have a mind of its own”, but ‘APPEAR” is the operative word here since FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE.

If you sense that I am having difficulty in capturing my meaning in words, your sensing is on target!   This language architecture I am using is BUILT FOR DOUBLE ERROR BASED REPRESENTATION, … UNLIKE, indigenous aboriginal languages which are like Bohm’s RHEOMODE (flow-based) language, built TO AVOID DEPENDENCY ON The DOUBLE ERROR ABSTRACTION of NAMING and GRAMMAR as in for example; ‘the EARTH TURNS ROUND’, which is abstraction coming from our desire to ‘break down reality’ into LOCAL PARTS so as to TRY TO AVOID (to do an avoiding ‘end-run-around) the reality that ‘everything is related’ (mitakuye oyasin).

While there is HURRICANING in the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE in the sense of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE, it is MORE CONVENIENT to employ language that depicts a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO so that we can BREAK OUT the FIGURE *AS IF* ON ITS OWN.  When we do this, we are constructing a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO and where the GROUND is now a separate NON-PARTICIPATING realm, an empty container of infinite extent that serves as a non-participating ‘display stage’ so that we can focus, with our language based representing, on the actions and developments of the FIGURE as if that FIGURE were INDEPENDENT of the GROUND it is included in.

NOTA BENE!   In abstractly liberating the FIGURE of the HURRICANE from the GROUND of the ATMOSPHERE and having the tool of GRAMMAR at our disposal for imputing MOVEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT to the FIGURE as if it were situated within an absolute empty space of infinite extent, … we have opened the way to equipping the GROUND in this same DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR fashion, so that we have TWO optional approaches to representation (a) the HURRICANE is STIRRING UP THE ATMOSPHERE, and (b) the ATMOSPHERE is STIRRING UP the HURRICANE’.   This AMBIGUITY arises from our SIMPLIFICATION-of-CONVENIENCE pointed out by Poincaré;  “It is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round, since thus the laws of mechanics are expressible in a much simpler language. Once we give the action AUTHORING power to the FIGURE and make the GROUND passive, the symmetries of language allow us to ALSO employ the CONJUGATE option where we assign the AUTHORING power to the GROUND and make the FIGURE passive.  In other words, we have a MALE-ASSERTIVE option for assigning AUTHORING power and we have a FEMALE-INDUCTIVE option for assigning AUTHORING power, as in the examples; The Male-assertive HURRICANE is stirring up the ATMOSPHERE and its Female-inductive CONJUGATE, the ATMOSPHERE is stirring up the HURRICANE.

If we want to ‘draw a picture’ or ‘VISUAL REPRESENTATION’ to explain ‘WHAT A THING IS’; e.g. ‘WHAT A TREE IS’ (as if it were a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF and forget about its innate inclusion in the transforming relational continuum; i.e. as a TREEING IN THE TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE) then it is clearly more convenient to suppose that the tree grows out of the earth, since the laws of (LOCAL GROWTH) mechanics are expressible in a much simpler language (than would be the case with the unbounded in spacetime dynamics of the transforming relational continuum).

All this has been said many times before; i.e. that language-based representations that are most simple (and thus more convenient) are NOT ‘most true’ (Kepler, Poincaré and others).

EVIDENTLY, THE DOUBLE ERROR OF NAMING AND GRAMMAR ENABLES US TO CONSTRUCT A SUBSTITUTE REALITY WHEREIN IT IS MORE CONVENIENT TO SPEAK IN TERMS OF ‘THE EARTH TURNS ROUND’, IMPLYING FIGURE-AND-GROUND-AS-TWO, … THAN TO HONOUR THE FIGURE-AND-GROUND-AS-ONE “REAL REALITY OF OUR SENSORY EXPERIENCE OF INCLUSION IN THE TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.  Meanwhile, as Einstein and others have pointed out, the all-including electromagnetic field manifests a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE reality.

In the REAL REALITY, FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE; i.e. the elementary particles of matter are also, in their essence, nothing else than condensations of the electromagnetic field, In other words, there is no static persisting thing-in-itself ontology in the Wave-field;

“Since according to our present conceptions the elementary particles of matter are also, in their essence, nothing else than condensations of the electromagnetic field, our present view of the universe presents two realities which are completely separated from each other conceptually, although connected causally, namely, gravitational ether and electromagnetic field, or as they might also be called space and matter. Of course it would be a great advance if we could succeed in comprehending the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field together as one unified conformation. Then for the first time the epoch of theoretical physics founded by Faraday and Maxwell would reach a satisfactory conclusion. The contrast between ether and matter would fade away, and, through the general theory of relativity, the whole of physics would become a complete system of thought, like geometry, kinematics, and the theory of gravitation.” — Einstein, ‘Ether and the Theory of Relativity’

SO, WHY DO WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS PERSIST IN “SPEAKING” as if the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO ABSTRACTION and the SUBSTITUTE REALITY we construct with it, is “REAL”?

“… It is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round, since thus the laws of mechanics are expressible in a much simpler language. …” — Poincaré

Ok, it is MORE CONVENIENT to use the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO SUBSTITUTE REALITY but lets explore the DOWNSIDES of this imposing of a SUBSTITUTE REALITY as our nominal OPERATIVE REALITY.  Once we impute the power of LOCAL AUTHORING with the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, while it is true that this gives us the CONVENIENCE of being able to BREAK DOWN REALITY into LOCAL SNIPPETS, … which surely does SIMPLIFY language-based-REPRESENTATION, … such CONVENIENCE-DRIVEN SIMPLIFIED REPRESENTATION IS NO LONGER A REPRESENTATION OF REALITY WHEREIN FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE, BUT A REPRESENTATION of a SUBSTITUTE REALITY in which FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO.

This FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO SUBSTITUTE REALITY, allows us to impute LOCAL AUTHORING POWERS to notional NAMING-instantiated THINGS-IN-THEMSELVES, now with GRAMMAR-given notional POWERS of AUTHORING actions and developments..  Within this representation, we are free to move the foreground figures about as if motivated by their own will; i.e. as if they were ‘things-in-themselves with their own powers of authoring actions and developments.

BYE-BYE REAL WORLD of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE where HURRICANING in the ATMOSPHERING is a MANIFESTING of the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.  In this REAL WORLD where figure-and-ground-are-one, ‘there are no things-in-themselves-that-move’, there is only the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE.

HELLO, SUBSTITUTE WORLD of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO wherein ‘the HURRICANE’ is a representation a FIGURE that is now INDEPENDENT and equipped with its own LOCAL POWER OF AUTHORING actions and development that it can deploy as if in an absolute empty space of infinite extent.

HOW BIG IS THE “CONVENIENCE” of forming representations in the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO manner?

Let’s put it this way; ‘Capturing the INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM would require an INFINITY of words.  So, it makes sense to find a more CONVENIENT form of language-based representation; i.e. a SUBSTITUTE REALITY representation that requires only a FINITE number of words.

BUT THERE IS A PRICE TO PAY HERE FOR OUR  REPRESENTATIONAL SUBTERFUGE, as in PAYING THE DEVIL HIS DUES.   The ‘payback’ is captured in Goedel’s Theorem which states that all finite logical propositions are innately incomplete, so in this enterprise of forming logical language based representations of reality, the shorter we make the propositions, the more incomplete the representation.  If we say that ‘the TOWN IS GROWING’, then, as the indigenous original full well knows, what is unstated is that the LANDSCAPE IS TRANSFORMING and so to celebrate the GROWTH of the TOWN is akin to worshipping a FALSE ICON.  This is why Nietzsche speaks in terms of the Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert),  If we are mesmerized by the picture of the TOWN that is under construction and is steadily GROWING, … , the indigenous aboriginal elder may hear us talking in ecstatic terms about this GROWTH and give us a shake and say; “THE LANDSCAPE IS TRANSFORMING, CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THAT IS WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON?’.

But as the saying goes, SEEING is BELIEVING and we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS CAN SEE THE TOWN GROWING and document it with a TIME-sequence of pictures which PROVE without a shadow of a doubt, that the GROWTH of the TOWN is TRULY HAPPENING.

Of course, as Goedel’s theorem reminds us, all finite logical propositions are INCOMPLETE and what the indigenous aboriginal is reminding us that the CONJUGATE SHRINKING OF THE WILDERNESS is also true even though we make no mention of it in citing the GROWTH of the TOWN, and thus there is the LARGER REALITY of TRANSFORMATION which incorporates both the GROWTH of the TOWN and the SHRINKING of the Wilderness.

We need Nietzsche to come along with his philosophizing hammer and smash this GROWTH OF THE TOWN ICON so as to liberate what it is obscuring, the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE wherein there is not only the MALE ASSERTIVE PUSHING OUT OF THE TOWN-FIGURE, but also the FEMALE ACCOMMODATING of the COUNTRY GROUND.  Without pulling out our hammer and smashing the false idols of the GROWTH ECONOMY, we are trapping ourselves, psychologically, within a SUBSTITUTE REALITY DREAM.

Nietzsche’s Götzen-Dämmerung title was a pun on Wagner’s ‘Götterdämmerung’ (the Twilight of the Gods).  That is, Götze is a German word for “idol” or “false god”.  What was the ‘false God’ for Nietzsche?   The false God was REASON!

So, this pursuit of CONVENIENCE in our language based representation is taking us somewhere (like on a bus-trip to hell, so-to-speak).

If we think REASON is something SOLID that we can COUNT ON, then consider this; REASON is based on RATIO and RATIO allows us to speak in terms of GROWTH which is the one-sided increase of a FIGURE as if that FIGURE were INDEPENDENT of the GROUND (i.e. as if FIGURE-and-GROUND-were-TWO).  REASON has us speaking of the GROWTH of the TOWN WITHOUT MENTIONING THE CONJUGATE REDUCTION of the Wilderness; i.e. without acknowledging the REAL REALITY of TRANSFORMATION.

HOW TO SUM UP ALL OF THE ABOVE: ….

Our sensory experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT (relational) and would take us FOREVER to capture in language that constructs things bottom up on the basis of NAMING-instantiated LOCAL THINGS-in-THEMSELVES with GRAMMAR-given powers of LOCAL AUTHORING of actions and developments, an abstract SUBSTITUTE REALITY.  If we give credit to the HURRICANE for STIRRING UP the ATMOSPHERE, we dodge the alternative reality wherein the ATMOSPHERE IS STIRRING UP the HURRICANE, but leave the other alternative (the female inductive alternative to the more popular male-assertive ‘stirrer-upper’ conceptualization) in the dark as a kind of DEA ABSCONDITA to ‘HAUNT’ our representational formulations.

HOW’s MY SUMMING UP GOING SO FAR?

What I am saying is that TRANSFORMATION is the PRIMARY REALITY but it is not EFFABLE because it is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT which has been the big language-development challenge for Modern physics, which meanwhile discovered (as David Bohm and F. David Peat make clear in Blackfoot Physics) was a challenge that had already been solved in the indigenous aboriginal language development by keeping language RELATIONAL wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE is viable.  So, instead of using language to fabricate a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO (inhabitant and habitat are TWO), the Modern physics and indigenous aboriginal language architectures preserves the FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE reality.

Once we engineer this FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO split, we construct a SUBSTITUTE REALITY in which the FIGURE is abstractly LIBERATED as a LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF and we inherent what the PreSocratic philosophers called THE BURDEN OF CONCRETENESS since, after having artificially LIBERATED the FIGURE from the GROUND, we have to invent a GRAMMAR to re-mobilize the figures where were implicitly mobile within the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE TRANSFORMATION, to put MOVEMENT and DEVELOPMENT back into our language-based FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO representation of dynamics.

OK, that SUMMARIZES our WESTERN CULTURE language architecture-ing approach to capturing representations of the transforming relational continuum; i.e. we do this by inventing and constructing a SUBSTITUTE REALITY which is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT using the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  This CONVENIENT DOUBLE ERROR language-based representation scheme generates along with its primary REALITY representation a kind of PHANTOM reality.  For example, in constructing imagery of the GROWTH of the TOWN, … we leave out the SHRINKAGE of the Wilderness, and the latter kind of HAUNTS our discussion of reality in the positivist terms of the GROWTH of the TOWN.  Can you imagine a society that is excited and obsessed with new developments to the point that WE FORGET that what is really going on is NOT THE AUTHORING OF NEW DEVELOPMENT but TRANSFORMATION which involves the CONJUGATE LOSS of Wilderness.

As we can discern if we interrogate what we are doing here, our SUBSTITUTE REALITY is not just constituted by the foreground actions of the FIGURES, but this separation of FIGURES from GROUND is made possible by reducing the GROUND to a non-participating absolute empty and infinite pseudo-containing-space.  What this means is that we have created a PHANTOM FEMALE CONJUGATE GROUND, the Wilderness that is shrinking in conjugate relation to the foreground FIGURE of the GROWING TOWN. That is, what comes with our standard WESTERN CULTURE SUBSTITUTE REALITY REPRESENTATION, which we don’t talk about, is a DEA INCOGNITA, a FEMALE PHANTOM-REALITY, the ghost of a departed GROUND which has been SUBSTITUTED with an ABSOLUTE EMPTY SPACE OF INFINITE EXTENT to ensure that it is ABSOLUTELY a NON-PARTICIPANT in the foreground dynamics we are constructing in one-side MALE-ASSERTING FIGURE terms.

THAT’S ABOUT IT!  Those are the ramifications of our simplification of FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE dynamics of reality as understood by Modern physics and by indigenous aboriginal cultures etc. by imputing a FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO SUBSTITUTE REALITY as embraced by us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS because of its CONVENIENCE; i.e.  … It is more convenient to suppose the earth turns round, since thus the laws of mechanics are expressible in a much simpler language. …” — Poincaré

In the more general terms, the convenience derives from the reduction of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE to FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO.  In terms of the Yin/Yang topology of the Tai-Chi symbol wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE, … we reconstitute this reality in a SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein MALE and FEMALE are TWO so that the MALE HURRICANE can be seen as ASSERTIVELY stirring up the ATMOSPHERE or the FEMALE ATMOSPHERE can be seen as INDUCTIVELY (seductively) stirring up the MALE HURRICANE.  As in the Zen story of Wind and Flag, … NEITHER OF THESE TWO “LOCAL AUTHORING” STORIES ARE TRUE, … there is only TRANSFORMATION wherein the CONIUNCTIO OPPOSITORUM of MALE-and-FEMALE and/or FIGURE-and-GROUND are ONLY ONE.

NOTA BENE: It is only the NAMING and GRAMMAR structure of WESTERN CULTURE language architecture that serves up SUBSTITUTE REALITY constructions wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO.  In Modern physics as also in indigenous aboriginal language architectures, FIGURE-and-GROUND-are only ONE, a coincidentia oppositorum as in the Tai-chi (yin/yang) symbol.

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FINALLY, I’m on to the topic of the PANDEMIC as in the title of this essay Substitute Reality and the Pandemic

My apologies for the length of the necessary ‘introduction’ but the facts are not easy to share in this language (an SAE language in Whorf’s designation) I am using which makes foundational use of the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO archetype and the notion of LOCAL AUTHORING that it projects.

In WESTERN LANGUAGES, the NAMING and GRAMMAR constructs facilitate an INJECTING INTO THE PSYCHE of the abstract notion of LOCAL AUTHORING of actions an developments.  THIS MAKES POSSIBLE the concept of the PATHOGEN or the CRIMINAL which would otherwise, in a relational language, be represented in terms of relational DISSONANCE, since RELATIONS are all there are, and relations can be either harmonious (resonance) or conflicting (dissonant).

The BIG DIFFERENCE HERE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST is that THERE IS NO NEED TO IMPUTE A LOCAL AUTHOR in the reality of the EAST and indeed, there is no understanding in EASTERN reality of LOCAL AUTHORSHIP of surfacing events, such events may have been brewing in the relational dynamics of the community and SURFACING through a local LIGHTNING ROD who, in WESTERN CULTURE, is then assumed to be the LOCAL AUTHOR of the disturbance, whereas, in EASTERN CULTURE, he is assumed to be one of the BUMPER-CAR PLAYERS who may bash into someone and cause great injury and pain, BUT WHO IS MEANWHILE NOT THE AUTHOR OF SUCH ACTION AND DEVELOPMENT.

In the EAST and indigenous aboriginal culture understanding, the LIGHTNING ROD or BUMPER CAR through which  (NOT from which) the injury proceeds, has relational roots which are NOT LOCALLY AUTHORED.  This EASTERN and MODERN PHYSICS understanding of dynamics is that DYNAMICS are NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT (relational) which explains the very different sense of JUSTICE between EAST and WEST; i.e. the EAST assuming that the origin of CONSTRUCTIVE or DESTRUCTIVE actions and development is NONLOCAL (as also informs the practice of the POTLATCH on the CONSTRUCTIVE development side of things).  The WEST, meanwhile, thanks to the explicitness of the DOUBLE ERROR NAMING and GRAMMAR based language structure, assumes unfolding events as being due to a LOCAL AUTHOR.

“… It is more convenient to suppose that there is a local entity with its own local power of authoring its movement and development, since thus the representations of reality are possible in a much simpler language. …”

We have the experience of the TWO CULTURES to go by to assess how well the WESTERN CULTURE option for FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO “simpler langauge” is playing out, with its implication of the PATHOGEN as a LOCAL AUTHOR of INJURY, instead of the EASTERN understanding in terms of Wave-field based dissonance which is NONLOCAL as in the dissonance that arises on the BUMPER-CAR GAME.

Once we assume the LOCAL AUTHOR based SUBSTITUTE REALITY, INJURIOUS ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS MAY BE TRACED BACK TO A LOCAL AUTHORING SOURCE so that resolution is by way of ELIMINATING THE AUTHOR of the INJURIOUS actions and developments. Of course, such ‘simple language’ based approach to resolution fails to address NONLOCAL developments.

In the RELATIONAL REALITY of Modern physics and the EAST where one embraces the BOTH/AND logic of the INCLUDED medium, THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a LOCAL AUTHOR, whether a LOCAL AUTHOR OF GOOD ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS (a “BENOGEN”) or a LOCAL AUTHOR of BAD ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENTS (a PATHOGEN).

NOTA BENE:  Once the concept of LOCAL AUTHOR is established by way of the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR, the MORAL JUDGEMENT of GOOD/CONSTRUCTIVE ACTIONS and BAD/DESTRUCTIVE ACTIONS becomes possible.  Without the concept of LOCAL AUTHOR, we have only the NONLOCAL concepts of relational HARMONY and DISSONANCE as in the BUMPER-CAR-GAME since while we can identify those who get bumped, the BUMPEES (basically anyone) and those who bump others , the BUMPORS (basically everyone), we cannot identify the AUTHOR of DAMAGE and INJURY. 

Indigenous aboriginal cultures DO NOT PERCEIVE THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS A ROOT-SOURCE  AUTHOR of a GOOD or BAD ACTIONS or DEVELOPMENTS, because the indigenous aboriginal languages do not have the DOUBLE ERROR construct that Standard Average European (Whorf’s SAE classification) LANGUAGES HAVE, that latter employing the combination of NAMING and GRAMMAR to express explicit LOCAL AUTHORING as is the operative understanding in the WESTERN JUSTICE SYSTEM.   Indigenous aboriginal RESTORATIVE JUSTICE assumes that ‘relational dissonance’ is the NONLOCAL ORIGIN of loss and injury.

In the absolute being based reality of Newtonian physics and WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, where one embraces the EITHER/OR logic of the EXCLUDED medium, the LOCAL AUTHOR abstraction plays a FOUNDATIONAL ROLE in a system where there are REWARDS for LOCAL AUTHORING OF GOOD ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENTS and PUNISHMENTS for LOCAL AUTHORING of BAD ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENTS.  In the EAST, unfolding actions and developments are understood as NONLOCAL and RELATIONAL in origin.

In the microscopic realm of bacterium and viruses, the WEST APPLIES these same MORAL JUDGEMENTS and the corresponding REWARDS for LOCAL AUTHORING OF GOOD ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENTS and PUNISHMENTS for LOCAL AUTHORING of BAD ACTIONS and DEVELOPMENTS.

There is ABSOLUTISM in such abstract thinking which leads to a kind of BLINDNESS as where “a Marie Antoinette” would be blind (not sensory experience informed) to the imbalance between rich and poor such that natural emergence of ROBN HOOD type rebalancing agents would be simply judged to be PATHOGENS or CRIMINALS and their ELIMINATION pursued, in spite of the REALITY where their continuing actions would be induced so as to contribute to a needed rebalancing, which, if left uncorrected, will be the source an unending successions of PATHOGEN VARIANTS (ROBIN HOOD VARIANTS) with a persisting mission of restoring balance where there is imbalance.

In human social collectives, the rich and poor imbalance has historically been moderated by revolutions or serious political actions since it becomes intuitively obvious that the rich-poor imbalance induces ‘rebalancing’ actions as in the ROBIN HOOD metaphor.  In other words, human intuition SOFTENS THE JUDGEMENT OF THE REBALANCING AGENTS FROM PATHOGENS to ‘rebalancing agents’  so that healing can proceed by rebalancing rather than by infesting solely in ANTI-PATHOGEN technologies and initiatives.

The problem in the microbial realm is that microbes cannot talk and make their case to humans so that WE WESTERN CULTURE humans with our PATHOGEN rather than relational imbalance interpretation, in administering the affairs of microbes, are prone to IGNORE the IMBALANCE based origins of relational dissonance in the microbial assemblage, and apply an un-moderated BINARY LOGIC (GOOD VERSUS EVIL MORAL BASED) ANTI-PATHOGEN approach, which is going to DO NOTHING for problems of IMBALANCE.

WESTERN MEDICINE is currently developing vaccines (Pfizer) to ‘do battle’ with the alleged ‘c. difficile’ PATHOGEN regardless of the knowledge that c. difficile proliferation derives IMBALANCE in the microbial assemblage PUT THERE BY THE actions of anti-biotics. The issue is NOT ATTACK OF the C. DIFFICILE TURNED PATHOGEN, there is no PATHOGEN ATTACK, as in SCURVY and 30 different types of bacterial and viral pneumonia one can get, the problem is IMBALANCE in the microbiome  while the ATTACK OF PATHOGENS comes from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.

In the case of COVID 19, we have these same interpretive differences playing out.  Instead of understanding COVID 19 as a manifesting of relational imbalance in the microbial assemblage (the ‘micro-biome’), by understanding it as a PATHOGEN and seeking its elimination, we are EXACERBATING an existing IMBALANCE that is inducing the rebalancing actions.  NO WONDER THAT NEW VARIANTS KEEP APPEARING!  It is not because these PATHOGENS are like the horror movie monsters that keep crawling back out of their graves after we kill and bury them, it is that THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS PATHOGENS (this is a DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR based abstraction), there is only BALANCE and IMBALANCE as in the RICH and POOR example that breeds equalizers such as ROBIN HOOD and Jean Valjean.

As in the case of Scurvy, Beri-Beri, vitamin C deficiency induced pneumonia (30 types of microbial and viral pneumonias), IMBALANCE is recognized as the BASIC problem as also in the case of clostridium difficile infections which arise from IMBALANCE in the microbial assemblage due to the administering of ‘anti-biotics’. In NONE of these instances is there such a thing as a PATHOGEN, but as also in the case of social dynamics where rich and poor differences grow, rebalancing actions are induced, such that, in our WESTERN CULTURE, the figure-and-ground-as-TWO interpretation of an ATTACK of a PATHOGEN is the popular conception.  This MIN-conception is an over-simplistic representation of imbalance-induced rebalancing dynamics within the microbial assemblage.  The knee-jerk of PATHOGEN ELIMINATION follows, which is thanks to;.

“… It is more convenient to suppose that there is a local entity with its own local power of authoring its movement and development, since thus the representations of reality are possible in a much simpler language. …”

Where there is rising imbalance, as far as WESTERN CULTURE SUBSTITUTE REALITY goes, there is rising incident of PATHOGEN ATTACKS and thus the perceived need for ANTI-PATHOGEN technologies, not only in social dynamics but also in microbial dynamics.   This blindness to the greater reality of RELATIONAL IMBALANCE can only exacerbate the more basic problem of relational imbalance which is OBSCURED BY DOUBLE ERROR BASED LANGUAGE that delivers representations in the abstract terms of NAMING-intantiated LOCAL THINGS-in-THEMSELVES with GRAMMAR-instantiated powers of AUTHORING DESTRUCTIVE actions and developments.

This system has been described as putting us on a BUS-TRIP TO HELL because we have OUR LADDER UP AGAINST THE WRONG WALL and are striving to ELIMINATE PATHOGENS instead of resolving relational imbalance.

In the case of COVID 19, there are glimmers of hope that the REAL REALITY of relational imbalance will be identified and addressed as in the following report on the relation between an INTERFERON deficiency (i.e. an imbalance) and COVID 19 proliferation; as pointed to in this article in NATURE;

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03070-1

Interferon deficiency can lead to severe COVID

Understanding what contributes to the development of severe COVID-19 would be of great clinical benefit. Analysis of people in whom this occurred pinpoints a key role for the signalling pathway mediated by type I interferon proteins.

As in other cases mentioned, the concept of the PATHOGEN, BECAUSE IT IS OVER-SIMPLIFIED ABSTRACTION, can ALWAYS be reduced to relational terms where the primary reality is relational harmony or resonance and relational disharmony or dissonance.  That is all there is in a relational system as is reality seen by Modern physics, where FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE.   The abstract SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND are TWO opens the way to this reduced abstract representation in terms of PATHOGENS and BENOGENS that we are supposed to understand as the AUTHORS of local dynamics rather than as relational forms in the transforming relational continuum as would be the understanding of reality of Modern physics and indigenous aboriginal culture adherents.

While the WESTERN FAITH IN THE SUBSTITUTE REALITY IN THE FIGURE AND GROUND AS TWO TERMS IS OVER-SIMPLISTIC AND SPAWNING DYSFUNCTION, IT IS ‘LOCKED IN BY HIGH SWITCHING COSTS’ IN THAT WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS ARE DISHING OUT REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS ON THE BASIS OF “BELIEVING AS TRUE” THE LOCAL AUTHORING OF ‘GOOD’ AND/OR BAD’ ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS, .. . THIS “SUBSTITUTE REALITY” IS ECLIPSING AND WALLPAPERING OVER THE “REAL REALITY’ OF FIGURE AND GROUND AS ONE, WHEREIN THERE IS NO “LOCAL AUTHORING”, ONLY “NONLOCAL AND IMPLICIT TRANSFORMATION”.

The SUBSTITUTE REALITY is the source of the PANDEMIC seen as the ATTACK OF PATHOGENS rather than as IMBALANCE that we are participants within. ROBIN HOOD and COVID 19 may be perceived by us WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS as PATHOGENS for their REBALANCING ACTIONS but in making such judgement, we turn our backs on the reality of relational imbalance that we are all involved in by way of Mitakuye Oyasin (everything is related).

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NOTES:

WHY WE WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS ARE HUNG UP ON FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO (HOW WE ARE LOCKED IN BY HIGH SWITCHING COSTS).

(FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO clears the way to the abstraction of FIGURE-as-LOCAL, INDEPENDENTLY-EXISTING AUTHOR of actions and developments; i.e. it is an EFFABLE substitute for the INEFFABLE FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE reality of TRANSFORMATION).

The following are 7 CONCEPTS supporting our popular WESTERN CULTURE ‘SUBSTITUTE REALITY’.  It is a SUBSTITUTE REALITY since it employs a DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR to synthetically break the flow-continuum into separate ‘locally authored’ parts.

-1- EGO.  EGO feeds on the UNREAL notion of LOCAL AUTHORING of actions and development

-2- LOCAL AUTHORING derives from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR as in WESTERN LANGUAGES

-3- FORGIVENESS is a back-handed way of implying LOCAL AUTHORING

-4-GROWTH implies LOCAL AUTHORING which substitutes for NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION

-5-MOVEMENT of any FIGURE or THING-in-ITSELF is abstraction that implies FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO

-6- PRODUCTION and CONSUMPTION are based on FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO.

-7- GUILT and INNOCENCE are back-handed ways of implying LOCAL AUTHORING.

TRANSFORMATION is the REALITY while the above 7 concepts which are popularly employed in our WESTERN CULTURE representation of a SUBSTITUTE REALITY which is not supported by MODERN PHYSICS nor by indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, all of which understand the basic dynamic of REALITY as TRANSFORMATION.

The above 7 SUBSTITUTE REALITY concepts associated with material ONTOLOGY are grounded in BINARY EITHER/OR logic of the EXCLUDED medium wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-TWO, contrast with;

The following 7 REALITY concepts are associated with relational TRANSFORMATION and are grounded in the QUANTUM BOTH/AND logic of the INCLUDED medium as in the Tai-Chi or Yin/Yang symbol wherein FIGURE-and-GROUND-are-ONE.

-1- INSPIRATION fills the heart while EGO swells the head; i.e. the former is intuitive while the latter is rational.

-2- NONLOCALITY is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT

-3- TRANSFORMATION implies that we participate in cultivating relational resonance or dissonance w/o causal authorship.

-4- TRANSFORMATION is a NONLOCAL DYNAMIC while GROWTH implies LOCAL DEVELOPMENT.

-5- THERE is NO movement in a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE dynamic, there is only TRANSFORMATION

-6- The piling up of material and deepening of holes quarried for material are secondary to the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE.

-7- Relational dynamics (Mitakuye Oyasin) are like a BUMPER-CAR GAME and is without LOCAL AUTHORING.

The first set of 7 concepts are used in the construction of the abstract WESTERN CULTURE SUBSTITUTE REALITY

The second set of 7 concepts point to the Modern physics, indigenous aboriginal, Taoist/Buddhist and Advaita Vedanta REALITY.

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