(The end of GROWTH is coming!  indigenous aboriginals and Taoists/Buddhist have been patiently waiting).

 

GROWTH implies coherency that creates a BINARY DIVIDING relation between that which is LOCALLY GROWING and the ‘CONTAINING SPACE’ it is expanding into. There is a sense of an increasing RATIO between the earlier and later expanse of that which is GROWING.   This suggest the passage of TIME along with RATIO-based increase or diminishment.

GROWTH creates a SUBSTITUTE REALITY since it is ‘psychologically enabled’ by the BINARY LOGICAL notion of LOCAL THING-IN-ITSELF expansion and CONJUGATE ABSOLUTE “CONTAINING SPACE”.

In other words, GROWTH implies an ABSOLUTE SPACE as the CONTAINER for the GROWING CONTENT.

Thus, GROWTH is an ABSTRACT CONCEPT that is NOT REAL since ABSOLUTE SPACE is NOT REAL and ABSOLUTE SPACE is the “ENABLER” of the ONE-SIDED GROWTH CONCEPT.

In the reality of our sensory experience there is only TRANSFORMATION.  For example, where WE SAY there is GROWTH of Cultivated land, there is CONJUGATE SHRINKAGE of Wilderness land and thus an overall TRANSFORMATION.

Since the CULTIVATED LAND has ECONOMIC VALUE, this GROWTH in ECONOMIC VALUE gives ‘substance’ (psychological) to GROWTH.

Wilderness, on the other hand, can OVERTAKE the LAND and TRANSFORM it in a manner that we WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS (with our binary JUDGEMENTS of EITHER GOOD OR BAD) might consider to be ‘destructive’ (BAD) as in visions of sandstorms and ‘deserts’ ENCROACHING on the civilized regions.  There is a MALE ASSERTING – FEMALE-ACCOMMODATING sense associated with this conjugate relation.

We do not speak of ‘the GROWTH’ of Wilderness but conceive of Wilderness as a kind of DEGENERATION of that which is coherent and civilized.  This DEGENERATION can come about NONLOCALLY as with TRANSFORMATION of an APPLE that is ‘DEGENERATING’.   While it is the entire APPLE that is DEGENERATING, we may speak of the GROWTH of the BROWN SPOT that is a ‘SIGN’ or manifestation of DEGENERATION.  This DEGENERATION is a DESCRIPTION of TRANSFORMATION which highlights LOCAL APPEARANCE (as with the worm going into metamorphosis where the original flesh rots in making way for the emergence of the butterfly).

We might therefore say that GROWTH (and SHRINKAGE) relate to GENERATION and DEGENERATION in the context of an APPARENT LOCAL manifestation of an inherently NONLOCAL DYNAMIC (TRANSFORMATION).  The DYNAMIC of TRANSFORMATION is NONLOCAL however there may be LOCAL MANIFESTATION).   In the physics of the EARTH, LOCAL EXTRUSION and LOCAL SUBDUCTION are LOCAL ‘signs’ of inherently NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION.

In other words, GROWTH is ONLY APPEARANCE which gives the psychological impression of LOCAL DEVELOPMENT whereas, in reality, there is only NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION.  The GROWTH of the TOWN is, in reality, the TRANSFORMATION of the LANDSCAPE.  What is going on here is that our visual pattern recognition works together with our DOUBLE ERROR based NAMING and GRAMMAR  based language system to CAPTURE (in word-based representations) LOCAL MANIFESTATIONS of the INHERENTLY NONLOCAL DYNAMIC of TRANSFORMATION.  The ‘GROWING’ of the BROWN SPOT on the APPLE and, the ‘GROWING’ of the base-camp crowd of climbers queueing up to climb Mount Everest can both manifest a LOCAL APPEARANCE of GROWTH but there is nothing LOCAL about their “GROWTH” other than APPEARANCE.

Likewise, we say that “the DUNE is GROWING LARGER” but DUNING is a NONLOCAL RESONANCE PHENOMENON; i.e. the so-called “GROWTH” of the DUNE is A RATIONAL reduction aka REASON-based reduction of the REAL dynamic of NONLOCAL RESONANCE.

IN WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES CAN WE CLAIM THAT LOCAL GROWTH IS LEGITIMATE (REAL)?

THERE ARE NONE!  GROWTH is ABSTRACTION coming from LANGUAGE; i.e. from the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  Nietzsche’s example of ‘Lightning Flashes’ and Nishitani’s example of ‘Fire Burns’ are exemplary of the DOUBLE ERROR just as ‘the TOWN is GROWING’ is exemplary of the DOUBLE ERROR.  This “DOUBLE ERROR CONSTRUCT” is a synthetic means of establishing in the psyche, the impression of LOCAL SOURCING of actions and events in order to synthetically ‘break into’ the TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM which is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, … so as to come up with a REPRESENTATION (that gives us an IMPRESSION) that is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL and EXPLICIT.

Nietzsche describes this DOUBLE ERROR based ‘EFFABLE-IZING approach’ as follows;

Our judgement has us conclude that every change must have an author”;–but this conclusion is already mythology: it separates that which effects from the effecting. If I say “lightning flashes,” I have posited the flash once as an activity and a second time as a subject, and thus added to the event a being that is not one with the event but is rather fixed, “is” and does not “become.”–To regard an event as an “effecting,” and this as being, that is the double error, or interpretation, of which we are guilty.” – Nietzsche, ‘Will to Power’, 531

What is in reality a NONLOCAL relational development is re-presented, with the DOUBLE ERROR, as a LOCAL development; i.e. the NONLOCAL RESONANCE that manifests as DUNING, we RE-present in language as a LOCAL DUNE that we animate with GRAMMAR.

As we can see, the DOUBLE ERROR gives us the IMPRESSION of GROWTH where there is INSTEAD TRANSFORMATION.  If we pull out our lawn chair every noon, and sit on a hill overlooking our distant TOWN and observe, and even photograph, our ‘growing’ TOWN every day for a few years.  If we review and compare the thousand or so pictures, we will see “CHANGES OVER TIME” in the TOWN, including GROWTH in the number of residents and in the number of buildings.

But if we look at our sequence of wide-angle shots that capture the full landscape with the TOWN included, we will see many other changes, like the logging of the areas surrounding the TOWN to provide lumber to support the GROWTH of the TOWN, and the quarrying of gravel to provide aggregate for concrete used in the construction of the new TOWN buildings.

It is evidently more realistic to speak of TRANSFORMATION of the LANDSCAPE rather than in terms of ‘the GROWTH of the TOWN’.

Are there EVER any circumstances in which we could legitimately speak of GROWTH?

NO!

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “GROWTH”.  It is a DOUBLE ERROR comprised of NAMING and GRAMMAR that implies LOCAL SOURCING of actions and development. THERE IS NO LOCAL SOURCING OF ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS other than as ABSTRACTION based on the DOUBLE ERROR of NAMING and GRAMMAR.

Reality is our inclusion in the transforming relational continuum aka the Wave-field aka the Tao.

Our TOWN cannot GROW without the conjugate SHRINKING of Wilderness, these two language-based expressions, taken together, are implying the one dynamic of TRANSFORMATION which is NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT and that means INEFFABLE.

This INEFFABILITY of TRANSFORMATION brings us back full circle since the IN-EFFABILITY of our sensory experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum is why we invented an EFFABLE SUBSTITUTE REALITY; i.e. to be able to come up with something we COULD capture in language and therefore COULD SHARE in language-based discourse and learn from each other’s sharing of experience.

At some depth in our understanding of things, we INTUITIVELY UNDERSTAND that when the river delta is GROWING larger, the mountains are SHRINKING in CONJUGATE relation, which means there is neither, in REALITY, GROWTH nor SHRINKAGE but TRANSFORMATION.

The spirit of the valley never dies.
This is called the mysterious female.
The gateway of the mysterious female
Is called the root of heaven and earth.
Dimly visible, it seems as if it were there,
Yet use will never drain it.

Know the male.
But keep the role of the female.
And be ravine to the empire.
Then the constant virtue will not desert you.
And you will again return to being a babe;
–Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching XXVIII

TRANSFORMATION is ANDROGYNOUS.  It is ‘the Tao that cannot be told’.  However, it is the basic reality of our sensory experience so that regardless of the fact that it is, un-tellable, it is REALITY.  We INTUITIVELY KNOW that the OPENING of mountain valleys and the GROWING of the Delta are CONJUGATE aspects of the one dynamic of TRANSFORMATION.

When we see the concrete and steel and brick and wood structures materialize the GROWTH of the TOWN, we can look beyond the TOWN into the surroundings and see the holes in the forests and the quarries in the hillsides and the mines in the ground those female aspects that are conjugate with the GROWTH of the TOWN are informing us over and over again that the assertive Male concept of GROWTH does not exist without the conjugate Female concept of ACCOMMODATING reception, these two CONJUGATE CONCEPTS being ‘abstracted out’ and spoken of separately because of the INEFFABILITY of the NONLOCAL and IMPLICIT REALITY of TRANSFORMATION.

No wonder, then, that Bohm endeavored to develop a flow-based language (Rheomode) for expressing the transforming relational continuum of Modern physics and celebrated the discovery that such a language had already been developed by indigenous aboriginal cultures (e.g. Algonquin).

NONLOCALITY is immanent in the make-up of flow-based language and here one comes to understand that whatever the language structure, one cannot assume ONE’S OWN LOCAL SOURCING of actions and development.  Instead, as in the circus game of BUMPER CARS, one must adjust to the understanding that one is NEVER the LOCAL SOURCE of an ACTION or DEVELOPMENT but is “in the middle” of webs of interfering relations, ambiguating the origins of actions as well as ambiguating the concept of ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  (e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

As WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, we commonly fall into the trap of believing in the DOUBLE ERROR based ‘reality’ of NAMING and GRAMMAR.  This SUBSTITUTE REALITY generates EGO based on belief in LOCAL SOURCING and employs BINARY LOGIC in the conceptualizing of reality, such as in FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO dynamics.

As EASTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS, we fall into the same camp as Modern physics and indigenous aboriginal cultures where NAMING and GRAMMAR collapse into relations.  Instead of ‘the TOWN is GROWING’, there is simply ‘TOWNING’ in the ‘TRANSFORMING” in keeping with ‘everything is in flux’ and with ‘mitakuye oyasin’ (everything, including ourselves is related).

 

BELIEF IN GROWTH is a major source of social-collective-wide (WESTERN CULTURE-WIDE) psychological derangement.  We WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENTS are currently in full commitment mode to the deranging belief in GROWTH.

Where and how we ‘hit the wall’ on this is continuing to unfold; e.g.;

https://ensia.com/voices/end-economic-growth-economy/

Opinion: Sooner or later, we have to stop economic growth — and we’ll be better for it

The end of growth will come one day, perhaps very soon, whether we’re ready or not. If we plan for and manage it, we could well wind up with greater well-being.

by Richard Heinberg

January 8, 2019 — Both the U.S. economy and the global economy have expanded dramatically in the past century, as have life expectancies and material progress. Economists raised in this period of plenty assume that growth is good, necessary even, and should continue forever and ever without end, amen. Growth delivers jobs, returns on investment and higher tax revenues. What’s not to like? We’ve gotten so accustomed to growth that governments, corporations and banks now depend on it. It’s no exaggeration to say that we’re collectively addicted to growth.

The trouble is, a bigger economy uses more stuff than a smaller one, and we happen to live on a finite planet. So, an end to growth is inevitable. Ending growth is also desirable if we want to leave some stuff (minerals, forests, biodiversity and stable climate) for our kids and their kids. Further, if growth is meant to have anything to do with increasing quality of life, there is plenty of evidence to suggest it has passed the point of diminishing returns: Even though the U.S. economy is 5.5 times bigger now than it was in 1960 (in terms of real GDP), America is losing ground on its happiness index.

“GROWTH” is based on the abstract concept of RATIO which is the basis of REASON.  REASON is abstraction wherein we ‘MEASURE THE DIFFERENCE’ between the size of the TOWN today, relative to the size of the TOWN ten years ago.  As Heraclitus would remind us, “One cannot step into the same TOWN twice, for it is not the same TOWN and we are not the same person”.  That is the reality of our sensory experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum.

In the reality of our sensory experience, before we start imposing our abstract word-concepts and grammatical constructions to reduce TRANSFORMATION to ‘RATIO’- based “GROWTH’ which is the basis of ‘REASON’, everything is in relational flux and while there is TOWNING in the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE, … THERE IS NO LOCAL-THING-IN-ITSELF “TOWN”.  Such an ILLUSION in the PSYCHE which hatches out like a Cuckoo from a trickery based implantation of a Cuckoo’s egg, is otherwise known as REASON.  It is by way of the abstract concept of RATIO that we REASON that ‘the TOWN has GROWN’, creating a new SUBSTITUTE REALITY wherein TOWN and COUNTRY are understood in a FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO sense, rather than in the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE sense of TRANSFORMATION.

REASON is a useful REDUCTIVE TOOL (a tool of inference and NOT a reality substitute) based on REATIO (RATIO-NAL THOUGHT) which conjures up the abstract notion of GROWTH as a reality substitute for TRANSFORMATION.  While TRANSFORMATION is INEFFABLE-because-NONLOCAL-and-IMPLICIT, GROWTH is based on REASON (RATIO) and is EFFABLE-because-LOCAL-and-EXPLICIT but is IN NO WAY “REAL”.

“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

“GROWTH is based on “REASON” which is based on “RATIO”.  ‘REASON’ is thus a tool which allows us to FABRICATE ONE-SIDED PSEUDO-REALITIES as where we ‘REASON’ that ‘the TOWN is GROWING LARGER and more populous and productive”.

HEY, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WILDERNESS THAT GOT SHRUNK IN CONJUGATE RELATION TO THE ALLEGED “GROWTH” of the TOWN?

REASON supports the LOGICAL PROPOSITION that THE TOWN IS GROWING, but it is leaving out the conjugate reality that ‘THE WILDERNESS IS RECIPROCALLY SHRINKING”.   Just because we can use language and grammar to construct this FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO (TOWN AND COUNTRY) representation and SUBSTITUTE it for the reality of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE as in TRANSFORMATION (TOWN and COUNTRY as ONE) … DOES NOT MEAN THAT THIS LANGUAGE-TICKLED PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPRESSION WHEREIN ‘THE TOWN IS GROWING’ IS “REALITY”.  IT IS “NOT” REALITY. FIGURE AND GROUND ARE ONLY ONE, AS IN TRANSFORMATION. (We would do better to speak of ‘TOWNING’ in the ‘LANDSCAPING’ to affirm the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE REALITY.

Make no mistake, IT is REASON that reduces the FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-ONE TRANSFORMATION to the ABSTRACTION of FIGURE-and-GROUND-as-TWO whereupon our intellectual caprice can “LIBERATE” the FIGURE from the GROUND and use GRAMMAR to notional endow the FIGURE with ITS OWN CAPABILITY OF “GROWTH” as if it were INDEPENDENT of the TRANSFORMING LANDSCAPE it is included in.

Watch the TOWN GROW in that succession of photographs over the year, but don’t forget to check out the wide-angle hots that include the LANDSCAPE and show how trees go missing for lumber and soil goes missing for gravel for concrete and hard rock goes missing from mine shafts for metallic minerals, and in general how the terrain is TRANSFORMING while we SINGLE OUT ‘the TOWN’ and speak of ‘ITS GROWTH’, as if such MALE ASSERTIVE capture of ‘reality’ on its own were REALISTIC, without acknowledging the conjugate FEMALE aspect, as in the conjugate pairing of extruding mounds and subducting holes in the body of the sphere which together demonstrate TRANSFORMATION.

If we had ‘eyes in the back of our head’ we could observe, at ONCE (as ONE), BOTH the GROWTH of the TOWN, AND the SHRINKAGE of the FOREST and the SHRINKAGE of gravel and mineral deposits, where materials are extracted that support the GROWTH.  Our OMNI-PERSPECTIVAL VISION delivers, in this case, an awareness NOT of GROWTH LOCALLY over here and LOSS LOCALLY over there but of NONLOCAL TRANSFORMATION

REASON is great to expression local ratio based gains and losses as in our GROWTH economy, but it’s limited MORE or LESS representation approach as associates with MORE FIGURE (e.g. the growing convex mound) and LESS GROUND (deepening concave hole) is biased due to the different manifest appearance, to the MALE ‘MORE FIGURE’ as in CONVEX GROWTH of the mound because it is LOCALLY, VISUALLY EXPLICIT while the FEMALE ‘LESS GROUND’ IS NONLOCAL RELATIONAL CHANGE which is IMPLICIT.

The mound is LOCAL and may build and decline but the valley is NONLOCAL and manifests as NONLOCAL SHAPE-SHIFTING.

 The spirit of the valley never dies.
This is called the mysterious female.

Reason and GROWTH speak only to the ‘MALE’ aspect and this fails to comprehend TRANSFORMATION.

Know the male.
But keep the role of the female.

WESTERN CULTURE ADHERENCE is, INSTEAD, ‘keeping the role of the male’ such that the unbalanced (ONE-SIDED) focus on GROWTH and PRODUCTION is leading us into an ouroborical future that has the imagery of the snake that is swallowing itself tall-first.

“The trouble is, a bigger economy uses more stuff than a smaller one, and we happen to live on a finite planet. So, an end to growth is inevitable. Ending growth is also desirable if we want to leave some stuff (minerals, forests, biodiversity and stable climate) for our kids and their kids”  — Richard Heinberg

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