THE PSYCHOSIS CALLED ‘WESTERN CULTURE’: A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE

The intellectual-social dynamic of Western culture has fallen prey to the aberrant practice of employing language-and-grammar based ‘logic of the EXCLUDED middle’ to intellectually construct an INVENTED REALITY  that serves as Western culture’s ‘operative realty’.  ‘INVENTED REALITY’ linguistically-intellectually over-writes’ and ‘occludes our EXPERIENTIAL REALITY of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum as described with the logic of the INCLUDED middle.  So, instead of being inspired as ‘Robin Hoods’ who throw ourselves into the cultivating/sustaining of relational balance and harmony, we Western culture adherents become ‘intellectual JUDGES committed to‘PROGRESS‘ in the linear, binary logical terms of ‘feeding/growing good’ while starving/shrinking ‘bad’.

‘Progress’ is a word that ‘tips us off’ to the psychosis that is built into Western culture.  The concept of ‘progress’ (linear time based trend towards more-good-less-bad) is supported within a ‘house of cards’ manner by what Nietzsche terms ‘the double error’ of imputing ‘reality’ to name-instantiated things-in-themselves (first error), …  with powers of sourcing actions and developments (second error which extends the first error in a Pinocchio’s nose-like extension).   There is no ‘progress’ and no ‘things-in-themselves with powers of sourcing actions and developments’ in a transforming relational continuum, the world or our actual relational experience which we ‘know’ even in our pre-lingual experiential understanding as infants, a prelingual understanding that is purely topological relations based [1].

‘Progress’ has been exposed as a sham by systems scientists who refer to it a ‘suboptimization’.  Given that we live in a transforming relational continuum, belief in the possibility of suboptimization is ‘psychosis’ since it is impossible to isolate, within a transforming relational continuum, some ‘thing-in-itself’ There are none!  That is; ‘things-in-themselves’ are the intellectual artifact of hanging ‘names’ on relational forms in the flow).   A ‘human being’, … an ‘independent nation’, … a ‘corporation’ are cases in point; i.e. we ‘name them’ and the intellectual/psychological effect of naming them imputes persisting ‘thing-in-itself being’ to them, whether the named thing is a nation, a person or a corporation.

‘Progress’ is psychologically invoked by language and grammar that employs the double-error abstractions of name-instantiated things-in-themselves, notionally endowed with powers of sourcing actions and developments together with the abstraction of ‘time’ as a linear progression from ‘past’ to ‘future’.   The abstract double error combo together with the abstraction of ‘linear time’ is put together in language and grammar packages to stimulate in the intellect, the psychological impression of self-sourced intention-driven change.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INTENTION-DRIVEN CHANGE IN THE REALITY OF OUR ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF INCLUSION IN A TRANSFORMING RELATIONAL CONTINUUM.

There is, however, the INVENTED REALITY that we put together with language and grammar that develops along a notional axis of ‘time’ from past to future.  Using language and grammar constructs such as ‘Katrina is growing larger and stronger’, … ‘Katrina is ravaging New Orleans’, … ‘Katrina is weakening and dissipating’, … we can intellectually analyze and REDUCE sensations [As in Mach’s ‘Analysis of Sensations’] so that we can express them in terms of ‘things-in-themselves’ with notional powers of sourcing actions and developments. 

‘Progress’ is this sense of name-instantiated thing-in-itself sourced improvement over the notional linear progression we call time.  European society or (insert a ‘thing-in-itself’ name here) has made progressive improvements to the land, as exemplified by the construction of highways, schools, hospitals and factories that produce a great variety of products and services that have radically improved our living conditions.

However, language and grammar aside, experiential reality is of inclusion in a transforming relational continuum.  Western culture alone has elevated the intellectual abstraction of an INVENTED REALITY into an unnatural primacy over our experience of inclusion in a transforming relational continuum.

Western culture belief in the language and grammar based INVENTED REALITY is anchored in place by ‘ego’; i.e. by the appeal of the notion that humans are ‘things-in-themselves’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments which are contributory to ‘progress’, a notional ‘general improvement’ of our living space.

THE CONCEPT OF PROGRESS AS A GENERAL IMPROVEMENT OF THE LIVING SPACE WITHIN WHICH WE ARE INCLUDED RELATIONAL FORMS IS IMPOSSIBLE.  IT IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY LIKE BITING OUR OWN NOSE THAT HAS BEEN DEBUNKED BY GOEDEL’S THEOREM OF INCOMPLETENESS OF LOGICAL CONSTRUCTIONS.

Western culture ‘Invented Reality’ persists because of ‘lock-in by ‘high switching costs’.   Because of the general Western culture belief in that abstraction of people, nations and corporations (name-instantiated things-in-themselves’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments, we have elevated in stature and influence, those who are considered to be superior sorcerers of actions and developments.  Thus any changes to the commonly accepted beliefs of Western culture is mediated by those who we have elevated in power and influence, by our Western culture belief in ‘sorcery’.

This differential power and influence is part of a program of ‘suboptimization’ based on the notional ‘independence’ of humans and other species, in contradiction to reality understood in modern physics as a transforming relational continuum.

The Name of the Devil is Suboptimization’

“The above aphorism, attributed to Kenneth Boulding, points to the inherent weakness characterizing the mindset and socio‐economic, political, educational and managerial practices of Western Industrial society as it developed over the past 300 years. It has its basis in the analytic‐reductionistic scientific paradigm, which, despite the remarkable technological applications it spawned, is inappropriate, conflict‐generating and dysfunctional in a world characterized by global interconnectedness and mutual interdependence …” — György Jaros and Martine Dodds-Taljaard

The notional improvement of living conditions for humans, based on advances in science and technology is illusion that rests dependently on the notional ‘independent existence of things-in-themselves’ that we have accorded to relational forms by ‘naming’ them ‘humans’.  That is, thanks to the psychologically persisting ‘sense of existence’ that ‘naming’ imparts to relational forms, combined with the grammar based imputing of powers of sourcing actions and developments to notional ‘things-in-themselves’ (the ‘double error’) we can construct an INVENTED REALITY on this basis, and that is exactly what Western culture has been doing, as argued in the systems sciences paper , The Name of the Devil is Suboptimization’.

Where that leaves us is in a real mess since we have accorded to individual persons, nations and corporations, based on imputing to them notional ‘independent things-in-itself being’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments, … the stuff that ‘ego’ is made of, … and on that basis have used language and grammar to construct an INVENTED REALITY, eclipsing and occluding (with language and intellect) the real relational world of our actual experience; i.e. the transforming relational continuum that we share inclusion in.

This is a Western culture delusion since other cultures, such as the indigenous aboriginal culture and the Buddhist/Taoist and Advaita Vedanta cultures have not fallen into the mesmerizing influence of this sort of INVENTED REALITY.

* * *

DISCUSSION OF THE PSYCHOSIS CALLED ‘WESTERN CULTURE’: AS KICKOFF FOR A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE

‘Progress’, as refers to the human social dynamic, is like the concept of ‘Forgiveness’; i.e. it is a back-handed means of imputing the existence of a ‘thing-in-itself’ with its own powers of sourcing actions and developments.  How could there be ‘progress’ without some ‘thing’ ‘sourcing’ this forward advancement?  E.g. ‘the child is making good progress in his studies’.   In a similar sort of backhanded inference, ‘forgiveness’ implies the existence of someone who is the source of a negative or regrettable action or development.  In other words ‘progress’ is an intellectual inference that backhandedly supports to illusion of locally sourced action and development (i.e. the advancement of some ‘thing-in-itself’ from an earlier less developed state to a later more developed state).  ‘Transformation’ as in ‘thingless’ relational change, lacks the persisting thing-in-itselfness that is needed to support ‘progress’ (since ‘progress’ is a measure of passage-of-time-based change in a persisting thing-in-itself).

So, in the case of ‘progress’, is there such as thing as ‘the human social dynamic’ whose continuing dynamic is characterized by some form of improvement or ‘progress’?   Is it legitimate to ‘objectify’ ‘the human social dynamic’ or is it one of these ‘backhanded inferences’ like ‘I forgive you’, which implies that the person addressed is the source of some offensive action. The manner in which language shapes cognition, in these cases, removes one from the relational understanding of modern physics and indigenous aboriginal understanding wherein there are no such abstractions as name-instantiated things-in-themselves notionally with the powers of sourcing actions and developments.

When the teacher says; “Your son Johnny is not progressing as well as his peers”, what is the backhanded inference?  It is a backhanded inference similar to ‘I forgive you’ that incorporates the ‘double error’; i.e. instead of understanding the child as a relational form in the transforming relational continuum, it (1) represents the child as an independently-existing thing-in-itself with (2) powers of sourcing actions and developments.  In other words, it breaks you out of the transforming relational continuum and ‘re-casts’ you as a ‘thing-in-itself’ with ‘your own powers of sourcing actions and developments’.

This use of ‘progress’ is ‘sorcery’ of a dark sort as in ‘witchcraft’ as was used to ‘cast a spell’ on others.  While it may strike you as ‘common’ (in Western culture language usage) and therefore ‘seemingly-innocuous-because-common’, it is not ‘innocuous’ and it may breed psychosis either through inflating the ego or deflating the ego; the ‘ego’ being the implicit ‘sourcing stem’ for the ‘double error’; i.e. the aberrant sense of one’s own ‘independent existence’ as a ‘thing-in-itself’ with powers of sourcing actions and development, as implied by language and grammar.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A ‘THING-IN-ITSELF’ WITH ‘ITS OWN POWERS OF SOURCING ACTIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS’!

So the ‘lesson’ is this; that language and grammar allow ‘backhanded means’ of imputing the existence of a subject ‘thing-in-itself’ with its own powers of sourcing actions and developments.

NOTA BENE:  … The ‘double error’ described by Nietzsche is used as the foundation of Western culture INVENTED REALITY and it is a ‘black art’ that is psychosis inducing through its imputing of powers of sourcery (ego) as the catch-basin for inference that can be ego-inflating or ego-deflating, psychological issues that are not present in those cultures where dynamics are understood in purely relational terms without the abstract conjecture of ‘powers of sorcery’ as plays a foundational role in Western culture.

SO, AM I SAYING THAT WESTERN CULTURE’S AMAZING TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES THAT HAVE COME FROM THE HEROIC INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURES OF WESTERN HUMANS ARE SOMEHOW A ‘MIRAGE’?

No, what I am saying is essentially what Martine and Jaros are saying, which I shall repeat here for emphasis, and also ‘spell out’ in the simplest possible term, following this quote;

The Name of the Devil is Suboptimization’

“The above aphorism, attributed to Kenneth Boulding, points to the inherent weakness characterizing the mindset and socio‐economic, political, educational and managerial practices of Western Industrial society as it developed over the past 300 years. It has its basis in the analytic‐reductionistic scientific paradigm, which, despite the remarkable technological applications it spawned, is inappropriate, conflict‐generating and dysfunctional in a world characterized by global interconnectedness and mutual interdependence …” — György Jaros and Martine Dodds-Taljaard

Simply stated, … in a transforming relational continuum, there are only relational webs as in the modern physics ‘surprise version of the game of Twenty Questions, or in Wittegenstein’s allusion to the use of relational inference as a ladder to take the mind to an understanding that is purely relational at which point one must discard the ladder as ‘nonsense’.  This means that a ‘person’, a ‘nation’ and a ‘corporation’ are NOT ‘things-in-themselves with their own powers of sourcing actions and developments, just because we can use language to give them a ‘name’ and use grammar to notionally  endow them with powers of sourcing actions and developments.

What is, ‘suboptimization’?  It is the practice of preferentially rewarding, empowering and expanding the ‘most productive’ elements in a system (which assumes that the system can be understood in a parts-wise breakdown); e.g. by promoting the key contributing person on a highly productive team, if you can guess his name, to a position of higher authority, giving him more resources with which to ‘do his magic’ (of metaphorically ‘spinning straw into gold’, as in the fairy-tale ‘Rumpelstiltskin’). Since there is no such thing as ‘sorcery’ in the real world of our actual relational experience, suboptimization is an exercise in self-deception.   The chemical ‘Round-Up’ suboptimizes the development of unwanted plants so as to accelerate their growth and development in-their own-right, thus, in the process, breaking them out of their natural web of relations within the complex diversity of the ecosystem they are included in, with disastrous consequences (rapid unsustainable growth).

Suboptimization that orients to the ‘needs of humans in their own right’ is based on the notion of a ‘human’ as an independently-existing thing-in-itself with its own powers of sourcing actions and developments.  This comes from language and grammar based intellectual abstraction.  Since humans are, in reality, relational forms in the transforming relational continuum, suboptimization that caters to humans seen as things-in-themselves, runs roughshod over the real needs of a human understood as a relational form in the transforming relational continuum.  The ‘suboptimizing’ of human growth and development, given that humans are relational forms in the transforming relational continuum, can lead to the same genre of incongruous development as in the case of the pesticide ‘Round-Up’.  Suboptimization is the source of dysfunction where the form that is being suboptimized is NOT INDEPENDENT but is, in reality, a relational form within the transforming relational continuum.

The human, in relational reality, can be understood in terms of the ‘The surprise version of the game of Twenty Questions’ of modern physics.  That is, ‘the human’ is not a ‘name-instantiated machine-like thing-in-itself that can be understood by breaking it down into lesser name-instantiated component things-in-themselves.  ‘Suboptimization’that orients to ‘the human’ is thus misguided since the health of the human is coextensive with the health of the matrix of interdependent relations which in constitutes a human in the reality of our actual experience (as contrasted with language and grammar based intellectual abstraction).

This above discussion outlines the language and grammar based origins of THE PSYCHOSIS CALLED ‘WESTERN CULTURE’ . This dysfunction has been described by Ernst Mach (Analysis of Sensations) in terms of the intellectual splitting apart of (Newtonian) physics and Western psychology, raising the need for their ‘reunification’.  Currently, in Western culture, people are divided on the basis of this split which is referred to as the ‘nature’ – ‘nurture’ dichotomy.  Those who advocate for a reality that is ‘nature’ based see the human in the material and mechanistic terms of Newtonian physics, as an independent thing-in-itself understandable in terms of its internal components and their actions and interactions.  Those who advocate for a reality that is ‘nurture’ based see the human in the psychological-inductive terms of “it takes a whole community to raise a child”.  Mach’s point is that the split between Newtonian physics and Western psychology is artificial and needs resolution.

“The science of psychology is auxiliary to physics.  The two mutually support one another, and it is only when they are united that a complete science if formed.  From our standpoint, the antithesis of subject and object, in the ordinary sense, does not exist.” – p. 341 The Analysis of Sensations Ch. XIV Influence of our Preceding Investigations on our Conception of Physics 1914.

While this split IS RESOLVED in modern physics, this resolution has not yet been assimilated into Western culture, thus the nature-nurture dichotomy continues to divide Western culture adherents into ‘conservatives’ (nature-over-nurture adherents) and ‘liberals’ (nurture over nature adherents).  Meanwhile, both the ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ conceptualizations of reality are founded on the ‘double error (Nietzsche); i.e. the language based imputing of ‘thing-in-itself being’ by way of ‘naming relational forms) compounded by imputing the power of sourcing actions and developments to the name-instantiated things-in-themselves.  As Benjamin Whorf has pointed out, Newtonian physics, rather than being a language that captures the essentials of the natural reality we are included in, is a codification of our Western culture home-grown language.

“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 receipts from culture and language. That is where Newton got them.” – Benjamin Whorf, ‘The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language’ 

What this all boils down to is that Western culture is ‘off on a tangent’ due to the inventing of language with an inbuilt foundational dependency on ‘the double error’ (things-in-themselves with notional powers of sourcing actions and developments).  By contrast, indigenous aboriginal cultures and Buddhist cultures have developed languages which are employed in such a manner as to NOT obscure the innately relational essence of reality (e.g. as in the simple example of modern physics; ‘The surprise version of the game of Twenty Questions’.

The above explains the THE PSYCHOSIS CALLED ‘WESTERN CULTURE’ .  That is, the grounding of ‘reality’ in the language and grammar based ‘double error’ gives rise to ego-based belief in the powers of ‘the individual’, ‘the nation’ and ‘the corporation’ to SOURCE actions and developments that, through written and spoken language and grammar, are used for the construction of an INVENTED REALITY which, in Western culture, ‘eclipses and occludes’ the innately relational reality of our actual experience, and by this confusing of double-error spiked INVENTED REALITY, gives rise to endemic psychosis in Western culture, characterized by ego that forms in association with the belief in humans as ‘independent beings’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments (‘aks ‘sorcery’), which leads to ‘ego inflation’ and ‘ego deflation’ and associated emotions based struggles and conflicts, on the level of humans, nations, and corporations, all of which are endowed, by language and grammar with name-instantiated ‘thing-itself being’ with notional powers of sourcing actions and developments (‘sorcery’) .

 A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE

This ‘INVENTED REALITY’ of Western culture is a ‘crazy-maker’, and while it is ‘dispelled’ by the relational understanding of modern physics (consistent with indigenous aboriginal cultures, Taoism/Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta), Western culture CONTINUES TO BE STUCK WITH IT BECAUSE OF ‘LOCK-IN’ BY HIGH SWITCHING COSTS.

Henri Laborit, in ‘La Nouvelle Grille’ (the new framework) puts the ‘lock-in’ due to ‘high switching costs’ (which is well known in nonlinear dynamics) in these terms;

‘We’ who explore such topics, cannot easily share them because (a) they do not fit into the typical dinner conversation format of our present culture, since to express them takes a lot of relational connections that can’t fit into a rapid-fire repartee, and (b) because the humanism  implicit in trying to share them is not seen as “a humanism of real worth” since it undermines, besmirches or topples the esteemed icons, pillars of society, founding fathers, and celebrities of the culture-in-place.  – Henri Laborit, ‘La Nouvelle Grille’

So, what, then might be A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE?

The problem we have to guard against is being ‘sucked in’ to the dysfunctional way of thinking triggered by certain Western culture ways of employing language and grammar, which make an emotional impression on us, as Mach notes in The Analysis of Sensations, and Which Nietzsche further elaborates on.  A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE must be the development of language and grammar usage that avoids cultivating, in the mind/psyche, ‘sorcery’ based impressions.

For example, ‘Robin Hood’ was an old story that cultivated support for relational balancing as an essential quality is sustaining social harmony.  It was opposed by stories based on the abstract ‘binary’ of ‘good’ versus ‘evil’ which broke relational dynamics down into separate ‘things-in-themselves’ sourced ‘actions and developments’ (the ‘double error’) such that the natural movement of materials from regions of excess to regions of deficiency was abstractly partitioned, in Western culture and language, into two notionally separate activities; ‘production’ and ‘consumption’.  Neither of these activities of ‘production’ and ‘consumption’ ‘really exist’ in the transforming relational reality of our actual experience, they are the abstract products of language and grammar, attributed to actions ‘sourced’ by name-instantiated things-in-themselves with powers of sourcing actions and developments.  In other words, our Western culture psychological embrace and deployment of such understanding in our ‘operative reality’ is a source of aberrance in the dynamics of Western social collectives.’.

Note that Western culture HAS THE OPTION OF EMPLOYING LANGUAGE POETICALLY, as in indigenous aboriginal cultures and as in the modern physics ‘Surprise version of the game of Twenty Questions’, wherein we do not intend our words and grammar to be ‘taken literally’ as in Western culture science, but instead to be used as Wittgenstein ladders’ that can, ‘ake us there but cannot show us the way’ (indigenous aboriginal adage).

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.

(Wittgenstein’s final two propositions in ‘Tractatus Logico Philosophicus)

A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE for overcoming the psychological aberrance built into Western culture ‘normal’ (unnatural) language and grammar based INVENTED REALITY must take into account, and avoid or develop ‘work-arounds’ to all language-based implications rooted in binary absolutes (‘is’ or ‘is not’, ‘good’ or ‘evil’ etc.).   This is perfectly possible as it is in the nature of language usage in indigenous aboriginal cultures, Buddhism/Taoism and also in the poetic use of English and other Western culture language and grammar usage.

The following are some common ‘pitfalls’ that drop the psyche back into its aberrant binary logic mode.  I will mention some of the most subtle traps first, since they are those which we are most likely to ‘miss rooting out’.

-1- AVOID BOTH BLAME AND FORGIVENESS SINCE THEY ARE CAMOUFLAGE FOR SORCERY

The concept of ‘forgiveness’.  This is a Western culture concept that does not crop up in indigenous aboriginal language usage (nor in modern physics).  It gives ‘back door entry’ to the abstract concept of ‘things-in-themselves’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments (aka ‘sorcery’). In modern physics as in indigenous aboriginal cultures, we are relational forms in a transforming relational continuum (mitakuye oyasin) and there are no such things as ‘independent beings’ with ‘powers of sourcing actions and developments’.  Thus, there are no grounds FOR EITHER BLAMING A SOURCE OR FORGIVING A SOURCE OF ACTIONS OR DEVELOPMENTS BECAUSE THE CONCEPT OF ‘SOURCE’ AND ‘SORCERY’ IS LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR BASED ABSTRACTION.

In our informal social relational dynamics, we often et go of the hard-edged concepts of ‘blame’ and ‘forgiveness’ which derive from the abstract concept of ‘independently-existing beings’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments (negative actions and developments in this case).

However, we have the mirror image of these abstractions that arise as the underpinning of ‘ego’ in the belief that humans are independent beings with powers of sourcing POSITIVE actions and developments.  In Western culture, this language and grammar base illusion feeds ‘ego’ and gives rise to the social custom of rewarding and elevating those perceived as having superior powers of sourcing POSITIVE actions and developments.   There is no such thing as ‘independent beings with the powers of sourcing actions and developments’ in the real world of our actual relational experience; i.e. such abstraction forms from Western culture language and grammar, HOWEVER, SUCH ABSTRACTION SERVES AS THE FOUNDATIONAL BASIS FOR WESTERN CULTURE’S ‘REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS’ protocols.

Indigenous aboriginal cultures orient to the amplifying of relational harmonies and the attenuating of relational dissonances, WHICH IS IN NO WAY THE SAME THING AS REWARDING POSITIVE SORCERY AND PUNISHING NEGATIVE SORCERY.

-2- AVOID GIVING CREDIT/PRAISE THAT IMPLIES INDIVIDUAL SORCERY

The concept of a name-instantiated thing-in-itself is pure language-and-grammar-based abstraction; there are only relational forms in the transforming relational continuum.    Individual forms can be the lightning rod or conduit for the sourcing of actions and developments deemed GOOD as well as actions and developments deemed BAD.   The appeal of a work of art or music or humour cannot lie in the work itself but rather in the relational continuum that it outwells within.  The ‘shorthand’ of attributing the impact of the work to an ‘author’ (the artist) obscures and occludes the understanding of the author as the ‘lightning rod’ for the release of energy in the relational collective.

Philosophical treatises such as Heinrich von Kleist’s ‘On the Marionette Theatre’ https://southerncrossreview.org/9/kleist.htm remind us how the ‘value’ of a work of art does not lie in the work-of-art per se; i.e. in the nature of the ‘thing-in-itself’, but rather in the emotions it triggers in the observer.  The von Kleist short stories point to the psychological issues that arise when the artist becomes confused (‘grows an ego’) and sees himself as the ‘source’ of his ‘works of art’ rather than as the conduit or channeller while the source lies in the dynamics of the transforming relational continuum in which both he and his works are included.

This confusing of the ‘channeler’ for the ‘source’ is endemic in Western culture and has been the basis for hierarchical social structures.  The man who profits by clear-cutting a forest and selling the lumber may become rich and be given superior social status.  That he is personally credited with ‘sourcing’ valuable production is yet another example of the psychological aberrance that derives from the ‘double error’ of Western language and grammar based ‘INVENTED REALITY”; i.e. the building in of the concept of name-instantiated ‘things-in-themselves’ notionally with powers of sourcing actions and developments.

So, to conclude this point  -2- AVOID GIVING CREDIT/PRAISE THAT IMPLIES INDIVIDUAL BEING-BASED SORCERY. There is no inference here that one should withhold one’s natural rejoicing over favorable developments and/or one’s natural lamenting over unfavourable developments, the point here is to avoid imputing the powers of ‘sorcery’ to the ‘lightning rods’ or ‘channelers’ associated with such unfolding developments.  The ‘mistake’ lies in misconceiving the ‘channeler’ as the ‘source’ of one’s feelings of elation or distress. The concept of a ‘source’ is pure language and grammar based abstraction.

When the words and/or actions of others evoke sensations of elation/pleasure or revulsion/pain in us, there is no justification for understanding these sensations as being ‘sourced’ by others.  The relational origins of actions, as in modern physics ‘Surprise version of the game of Twenty Questions’ means that there is no ‘source’.   As in indigenous aboriginal cultures, ‘mitakuye oyasin’ (all my relations’) means that it is impossible to identify a ‘source’ to unfolding relational dynamics, an understanding that has been reaffirmed in modern physics;

 “In the book ‘Causality and Chance in Modern Physics’ Bohm argued that the way science viewed causality was also much too limited. Most effects were thought of as having only one or several causes. However, Bohm felt that an effect could have an infinite number of causes. For example, if you asked someone what caused Abraham Lincoln’s death, they might answer that it was the bullet in John Wilkes Booth’s gun. But a complete list of all the causes that contributed to Lincoln’s death would have to include all of the events that led to the development of the gun, all of the factors that caused Booth to want to kill Lincoln, all of the steps in the evolution of the human race that allowed for the development of a hand capable of holding a gun, and so on, and so on. Bohm conceded that most of the time one could ignore the vast cascade of causes that had led to any given effect, but he still felt it was important for scientists to remember that no single cause-and-effect relationship was ever really separate from the universe as a whole.”  –The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality: Michael Talbot:

To review ‘where we are’;

A PRACTICAL ANTIDOTE for overcoming the psychological aberrance built into Western culture ‘normal’ (unnatural) language and grammar based INVENTED REALITY must take into account and avoid, or develop ‘work-arounds’, to all language-based implications rooted in binary absolutes (‘is’ or ‘is not’, ‘good’ or ‘evil’ etc.).  Binary logic sets up the impression of the ‘independent existence of things-in-themselves’ with powers of sourcing actions and developments.  It opens the way to logical questions such as ‘was he the source of the actions and developments in question, or was he not?   The psychological concept of thing-in-itself bases ‘sourcing’ of actions and developments aka ‘sorcery’ plays a foundational role in Western culture thinking and it is a ‘crazy-maker’ since it is not part of our relational experience of inclusion in the transforming relational continuum.   The modern physics underwritten answer to “was he the source of the actions and developments in question or was he not?   … is that ‘there is no such thing as the ‘sourcing’ of actions and developments’ in the reality of our actual experience, as relational forms in a transforming relational continuum.

But one might say, … “but it seems like a legitimate question so what is wrong with it?   The answer is that the question is legitimate within the INVENTED REALITY of Western culture, but it is not a legitimate question in the reality of our actual experience of inclusion in a transforming relational continuum.

Robin Hood’s actions in moving excess from regions of excess to regions of deficiency is a natural balancing action that does not involve a ‘source’.  One might say that Robin Hood and his merry band’s balancing actions are ‘inspired’ rather than ‘ego-driven’.

The ‘double error’ that is foundational to Western culture INVENTED REALITY is intrinsically tied to ‘ego’; i.e. in social collectives that would have one see oneself as an independently existing thing-in-oneself with powers of sourcing actions and developments, ego rules, whereas in empathic relational collectives ‘inspiration’ is in a natural precedence over ‘ego’; i.e. Ego is a swelled head, inspiration is a full heart’  and avoidance of ‘double error’ based psychosis requires situating oneself within a relational dynamic that ‘runs on inspiration first’, ‘ego second’.

Newtonian physics plays a foundational role in the ‘INVENTED REALITY’ of Western culture and Newton drew from alchemy and belief in ‘sorcery’ in devising his laws of physics. The Western culture ‘double error’ encapsulates a belief in abstract (name-instantiated) things-in-themselves with notional powers of sorcery, whether ‘humans’, ‘nations’ or ‘corporations’.  This Invented Reality breeds psychosis.

A ‘practical antidote for overcoming Western culture INVENTED REALITY must avoid the use of ‘sorcery’ on which Western culture INVENTED REALITY is based.  This has been done by ‘exceptionally performing teams.  In my own (funded) research into ‘exceptionally performing teams’ in the early nineties, it became evident that ‘backing off fixed thing-in-itself identity’ of the team opened the way to a ‘non-duality’ operating mode wherein the team allowed its inside-outward operations to be inductively actualized, orchestrated and shaped by the dynamics of the matrix of relations it was included in [customers, suppliers, service contractors, families, host community etc.]. The behaviour of the team was no longer fully and solely ‘sourced’ by the team-as-a-thing-in-itself but was inductively actualized by the relational matrix it was included in.  There was no local ‘source’ of the actions and developments associated with these exceptionally performing teams.  As with Robin Hood’s merry band, the dynamic was neither animated by ‘source’ or ‘sink’ (negative source), the dynamic was instead relational transformation.

The Robin Hood form of action also shows up as a natural dynamic in indigenous aboriginal cultures, as in the ‘Potlatch’.   As Chief Maquinna of the Nootka’s said;

“Once I was in Victoria, and I saw a very large house; they told me it was a bank and that the white men place their money there to take care of, and that by-and-by they got it back, with interest. We are Indians and have no such bank; but when we have plenty of money or blankets, we give them away to other chiefs and people, and by-and-by they return them, with interest, and our hearts feel good. Our potlatch is our bank.” [for the full letter and associated context (jailing of first nations people for continuing with the potlatch tradition) see ‘First People First Voices’, edited by Penny Petrone, University of Toronto Press, 1991

A ‘practical antidote to the INVENTED REALITY of Western culture is possible as the above discussion suggests and the antidote lies in the nature of language usage, as manifests in the language usage in indigenous aboriginal cultures, Buddhism/Taoism and also in the poetic use of English and other Western languages.

The key is to use relational language that avoids dependency on binary logic as is implicit in ‘sorcery’.

-1- AVOID BOTH BLAME AND FORGIVENESS SINCE THEY ARE CAMOUFLAGE FOR SORCERY

-2- AVOID GIVING CREDIT/PRAISE THAT IMPLIES INDIVIDUAL BEING-BASED SORCERY

Closing Comment;

There is much more that can be written on this topic, in the context of;

A how psychological aberrance arises in Western culture through the ‘double error’

B how we can be inspired by (rather than egotistically proud of) achievements which we see as our INVENTED REALITY which may be problematic when the intellectual cover/cloak of INVENTED REALITY that obscures our experiential-relational reality is removed.

C How we may develop Antidotes to Western culture ‘double error’ based aberrant social practices that would have us believe in the ‘purported reality’ of the ‘existence of independent things-in-themselves (ourselves, nations, corporations) notionally with powers of sourcing actions and developments.

Footnote:

[1]

The pre-acculturation centre of organismic understanding is topological (relational in a manner that is independent of the abstract notion of name-instantiated things-in-themselves’) as described by F. David Peat in Mathematics and the Language of Nature‘;

To the infant’s developing mind, topology comes before geometry. In general, deeper and more fundamental logical operations are developed earlier than more specific rules and applications. The history of mathematics, which is generally taken as a process of moving towards deeper and more general levels of thought, could also be thought of as a process of excavation which attempts to uncover the earliest operations of thought in infancy. According to this argument, the very first operations exist at a pre-conscious level [i.e. ‘pre-intellectualizing’ level in the conscious and intuitive infant] so that the more fundamental a logical operation happens to be, the earlier it was developed by the infant and the deeper it has become buried in the mind.” – F. David Peat,