Montréal, May 19, 2000
http://www.goodshare.org/lovemyth.htm
The western myth of the 'divine selection' of man (anthropocentrism) brings with it the notions of 'linear hierarchy'- based optimization and non-relativistic 'absolute time'. Since 'love makes the world go round', the application of linear hierarchy to 'love' becomes an important aspect of community behaviour ('A man is more lovable than a stone because God loves men better than stones'... from St. Augustine's 'De Civitate Dei'). Once linear hierarchy is accepted as 'the way things are meant to be', it becomes standard practice to exploit those things lower in the hierarchy in the process of caring for and nurturing those things higher in the hierarchy, ... a pseudo-purification process which,when we view it in terms of the evolution of 'system states' along an absolute time axis, we refer to as 'progress'. Thus, man is given a 'licence' to 'stomp on' the heads of 'other constituents' of nature in his own pursuit of purpose and in his efforts to care for those he loves, a 'purification oriented' process which simultaneously breeds dissonance and dysfunction within the community of man and nature.
The arrival of evolutionary theory with Darwin's 'The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life' rather than dispelling the 'myth of divine selection', re-installed it in the form of 'the myth of natural selection'. This myth, only now being debunked [1], perpetuates love-driven dysfunction in community, by having one believe that if one 'succeeds' in being 'selected' or 'favoured' within one's community so that one is more strongly positioned to 'take care of' those one loves, ... issues of community will 'take care of themselves'. Such theory is non-relativistic in that it considers material-causal phenomenal aspects, or 'what happens', without taking into account the reciprocal context of configurational aspects (the relational geometry of the potential field in the containing environment). When an individual ball moves in the game of billiards (a game which emulates relativistic tradeoffs between the kinetic and the potential in nature), the 'environmental configuration' or 'possibility space' seen by each constituent ball in the ensemble, is simultaneously changed, and so it is in nature in general. This means that management by 'making good things happen' which ignores reciprocal transformation in the containing configuration is innately dysfunctional.
The 'myth of inclusion' (eco-centrism), that man is a constituent within nature, ... the myth of indigenous peoples, is a 'more complete' myth (i.e. it includes relativistic effects) which 'includes' 'selection myth' as the special case where potential field configuration effects are ignored or assumed to be negligible. The 'myth of inclusion' brings with it the notions of 'nested hierarchy'- based dynamical equilibria and relativistic, 'curved space-time'. The 'love' which associates with nested hierarchies, where man is seen, AT THE SAME TIME, as being both independent and a feature of his containing constituencies of community and nature is a love which cannot be given in the form of linear hierarchy. Thus, this myth allows no justification for 'stomping on' the heads of some in order to better position oneself to care for 'the good of others', and instead implies a love which 'opens up opportunity' for loved ones to dance in a 'whole-and-part' harmony with the 'other' constituents of the containing environment.
Thus, there are two 'geometric' strains of love visible in our society, and these two strains are tied to our concepts of space and time. Commonly, love is manifest in an unselfish concern for the good of another, ... the love that would have us 'take care of' each other. This 'paternalistic love' is constrained by our bivalent judgement of 'what is good' for another. In order to better care for our loved ones, we struggle to be 'selected' by the community environment so that we may have the resources and wherewithal to do so. Paternalistic love thus imposes judgements on the loved one and de-opportunizes 'unloved' others through our efforts to be 'selected', a practice which tends to be 'modeled' by the recipients of the love. This type of love, as will be shown, is intrinsically underpinned by 'linear hierarchy' and absolute time, notions rooted in western Aristotelian philosophy and anthropocentrism.
The second strain of love, which is rarer and more common amongst indigenous peoples, is manifest as a desire to 'open up opportunity' for others to 'become whom they are meant to become'. This 'unconditional love' is NOT constrained by bivalent judgement and UNLIKE 'paternalistic love' where the 'lover' builds his own staging ground independently (from which to support his loved ones), ... the unconditional lover allows his own 'becoming' to co-evolve with the 'becoming' of his loved ones and with the containing environment. Unconditional love avoids the lover having to 'stomp over' others in his effort to 'take care of' his loved ones, a co-adaptive approach which is 'modeled' by the recipients of the love. This type of love, as will be shown, is intrinsically underpinned by 'nested hierarchy' and curved space-time, notions rooted in eastern and indigenous peoples philosophy, relativity and eco-centrism.
Understanding the nature and origins of harmony and dysfunction in 'community as complex system' requires an understanding of geometric-experiential relationships which have been articulated in multiple terminologies, models and artistic renderings. While the understanding being sought is innately experiential and beyond the scope of language and science, the relationships are expressed and modeled here in terms of 'the physics of love and the myth of 'selection'. This 'essay-sharing' of this 'physics of love model' comes in three parts, ... the history of the entwinement of love and physics, the 'dipolar' character of love, and the way in which love underpins the global economy.
Part I: The Entwined History of Physics and Love
One can love deeply and naturally without ever hearing the word 'physics' or without 'knowing' that the earth revolves around the Sun and that gravity keeps things in balance, ... thus the experience of 'loving' is not dependent upon any scientific knowledge of 'how it works'.
But this point merely speaks of an 'innocence' which once was but can never be fully restored once one has been 'infected' by ideas, and such ideas can change the emotional flavouring of our perceptions and change the manner of our loving.
It was the simplistic and incomplete physics of absolute time and the euclidian primacy of matter over 'empty' space which has provided the underpinnings of our Darwinian 'survival of the fittest' by 'natural selection' notions of evolution. Once 'infected' with this 'mechanical' notion of survival and evolution, a mother's love for her child may have her fear for his survival and impose great pressures on him so that he will be 'selected', .. pressures which would have him betray his own authentic becoming in exchange for the selection pre-requisites of a cold and mechanical society.
Today, scientists such as Doug Caldwell (Univ. of Saskatchewan [1]) are beginning to expose the radical incompleteness and 'upside-downness' of 'selection' theory, ... and suggesting that the 'organism is the environment', ... that survival and evolution emerge from the harmony of the constituent with its containing environment, ... rather than by going to war against one's environment to subdue and control it.
The war against the environment orchestrated by the western european strain of homo sapiens, in seeking an absolute victory and selection of the species, is inducing new emotional flavorings into our perception and once again changing our 'ways of loving'.
Seb Henagulph, in his essay 'Opportunity Management: Reclaiming the Wisdom of the Fourth World' [2], reviews the growing scientific documentation on how our love-fuelled and technology-amplified drive for selection on an individual, enterprise, national and species basis is backfiring, ... an 'imperialist, purificationist' drive which has been in the reverse direction to nature's way of opening up opportunity for the evolution of diversities to balance the harmonies in nature's multi-reality dynamical equilibrium.
"A 1998 survey of over 400 biologists found that the majority agree we are currently part of/taking part in a planet-wide mass extinction event.2 Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity, speaking of this extinction event said, "The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we've seen in the past -- including those [extinctions] related to meteor collisions." A meteor collision is thought most likely to have caused the last mass extinction, that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Almost 70% of the biologists surveyed believed that a "mass extinction" is underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats.
Even more depressing is a fact revealed by Kirchner and Weil's just-published study on extinctions.3 They found, after studying the many extinction events that have occurred in Earth's history (both large and small), that it takes approximately ten million years for the diversity of animals and plants to recover. A sobering remark is made by one of the authors, who said "If we deplete Earth's biological diversity, we will leave a biologically impoverished planet, not only for our children and our children's children, but for all the children of our species that there will ever be ."
We are no longer 'innocent' and our 'love', in forming out of the emotional flavouring of our perceptions, is modulated by our understanding of 'the way the world works', ... by our collective understanding of physics. And I say 'collective' since as individuals, it is impossible for us to independently determine even such taken-for-granted theses as that the earth revolves around the sun. Such a determination is, in fact, non-trivial and we rely on the 'high priests' of science for such understandings, ... it is a matter of 'faith in science' and our faith in science has been so strong that we continue to 'worship at the altar of science and rationality' even though, as poets, artists, and humanists/naturalists of a psychological/anthropological bent have been saying for many years, ... this faith is inducing us to accept a life of absurdity and alienation from our 'self' and from nature. Our self-love is rapidly falling and our depression and suicide rates are rapidly rising, ... while our faith in science and technology, including the notions of 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' holds firm. We even envisage a resolution of our current predicament as coming through 'more of the same'.
The ideas of classical physics, couched in the notions of infinite and empty euclidian space and absolute time, inform us that 'material-cause' is fully responsible for the way the world is, and we continue to listen. But few people are resistant to the nostalgia and sadness which comes from the thought of our killing our own living environmental container and seeing so many of its constituents depart forever by our hand. This bleak vision of future, we know is one which we are currently in the process of making come true, ... and since we are making it come true, we have the power to change it. That a new and more nature-loving vision of the future can reach back from 'over the horizon' and 'touch us' so that our behaviors are changed gives us an 'understanding of the way the world works' which is no-where to be seen in the reductionist physics we continue to cling to in our management and regulatory processes. The vision of our today's actions changing the future landscape of opportunity, and vice-versa, is a vision which implies a relativistic curved space-time continuum, wherein it is not merely our 'actions' which determine the evolution of our containing environment, but the manner in which our actions harmonize with the dynamical configuration of our containing environment.
The 'love' of an indigenous traditionalist emcompasses all of nature seen as a living and harmonic whole, which includes mineral forms as our sacred 'brothers';
"... unmoved ... from time without end ... you rest ... in the midst of the paths ... in the midst of the winds ... you rest ... covered with the droppings of birds ... grass growing from your feet ... your head decked with the down of birds ... you rest ... in the midst of the winds ... you wait ... Aged one." (Lakota poem)
As Caldwell observes, our reductionist evolutionary theory, based on the non-relativistic primacy of 'matter-over-space' and 'selection' sees our world in terms of a 'dead universe infected with life', and has our reductionist science looking into ever greater detail for the causal process 'responsible' for this 'infection' which supposedly 'happened' several billions of years ago in one special moment along the axis of absolute time.
Such a view is a 'linear' view wherein the system 'progresses' along the axis of absolute time, ... each new product being 'improved' upon the last and thus setting up a 'linear hierarchy' where 'latest is best'. Such a view is in marked contrast to the indigenous traditionalist view and the space-time continuum view of relativity wherein we are a part or 'feature' of our containing environment, rather than a detached product of it. Our concept of space-time therefore relates our valueing and 'love' for our fellow constituents of nature, for if we think in terms of linear hierarchy, our love for those constituents 'beneath us' will be 'paternalistic' rather than 'brotherly'.
In the west, religious belief has only reluctantly conceded evolutionary theory, and has in no way conceded the linear hierarchy of god and man over nature. For example, Pope John Paul II's statement on evolutionary theory in 1996 was the first formal 'acceptance' of this 1859 vintage theory, however, the notion of the linear hierarchy with its inference of the SUPREMACY OF MAN OVER NATURE has never been been abandoned, as is manifest in the Pope's 1999 'Fides et Ratio' encyclical. The two key paragraph excerpts as as follows;
"Today, almost half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory." (His Holiness Pope John Paul II TRUTH CANNOT CONTRADICT TRUTH Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences October 22, 1996 http://www.knight.org/advent )
"The Second Vatican Council, for its part, offers a rich and fruitful teaching concerning philosophy. I cannot fail to note especially in the context of this encyclical letter that one chapter of the constitution Gaudium et Spes amounts to a virtual compendium of the biblical anthropology from which philosophy too can draw inspiration. The chapter deals with the value of the human person created in the image of God, explains the dignity and superiority of the human being over the rest of creation, and declares the transcendent capacity of human reason." (Encyclical Letter FIDES ET RATIO of the Supreme Pontiff JOHN PAUL II to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship between FAITH AND REASON , Sept, 1998 http://www.cin.org)
Since the time of St. Augustine's 'De Civitate Dei' (City of God) in 410 A.D. (prompted by the capture of Rome by the Goths), the Christian notion of 'love' has been associated with linear hierarchy. In this work, Augustine says;
"For since God is the highest essence, that is, wholly is, and therefore is immutable, He granted it to His creatures, which He made out of nothing, to be; but not wholly to be, like Himself. To some He gave more being [esse], to others, less, ordering the natures of beings in degrees."
Martinius Versfeld, philosopher and author of 'A Guide to the City of God' comments;
"What we have is a universe in which some beings are nobler than others because their participation in the divine likeness is more explicit. We have essences diversely distanced from their source. Let us put it that God loves some beings better than others. A man is more lovable than a stone because God loves men better than stones and has created in and by that love. The scale of ontological worth is a scale of love. What we mean by saying that one thing is better than another is that it is more worthy of love. What holds the world together and gives it unity is a system of attractions which derive from the attractiveness of God. "Weight is to a body, what love is to the soul." God, qui summe est, demands the highest love simply by virtue of being God. To love God and to be subordinate or obedient to Him are the same act viewed in two ways. And so down the whole scale of natures: what is lower owes an obedience to what is higher. Insubordination strikes at the roots of the cosmos itself."
The notion of hierarchy falls out of classical physics, ... or, ... the notions of classical physics fall out of the notion of hierarchy. Man cannot be, at the same time, 'part of nature', when he stands above nature in a linear hierarchy.
Meanwhile, the general theory of relativity postulates that a 'thing' is, at the the same time, its 'reciprocal disposition' (its containing environment). The relativistic view is one wherein material entities are 'local features' of their containing field. While their 'kinetics' can be seen as being 'independent', since the conservation of energy preserves the sum of energy stored in the potential field configuration plus the kinetic energy, ... all movement is accompanied by a reciprocal transformation of the containing potential field configuration; i.e. a man is both 'kinetically independent' and a 'feature of his containing potential field configuration, at the same time, ... just as a billiard ball is both capable of independent motion but at the same time an essential determinative feature of its containing configuration. The element of the ensemble which 'moves best' and which we 'love most', is relativistically seen as an inseparable feature of the whole ensemble, and to 'favour' a feature-of-the-whole and see it in terms of being 'naturally selected' and 'more fit' than other features, ... is a delusion brought on by over-simplistic assumptions on space, time and matter.
Up until 500 B.C. and through the period of the pre-socratic philosophers (Heraclitus etc.), the peoples of europe and the mediterranean; ". . . agreed in the fundamental assumptions that the individual is part of society, that society is imbedded in nature, and that nature is but the manifestation of the divine. This doctrine was, in fact, universally accepted by the peoples of the ancient world with the single exception of the Hebrews." ('The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man', Frankfort, Frankfort, Wilson, Jacobsen and Irwin).
The bivalent, exclusionary logic, euclidian space and absolute time based philosophies of the Plato and Aristotle reinforced the notion of linear hierarchy and, at the same time, purged the relativistic notion that a material entity could indeed be a feature of its own containing environment (nature) as it moved about independently within that environment. Thus linear hierarchy and its implications on the emotional flavoring of perception associated with 'love' and 'love-motivated' social behaviors, became part of the foundation of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ... i.e. became part of the foundations of the western culture, ... and part of what Einstein has referred to as "deeply rooted prejudices" as to the way the world works.
The 'love' which forms from a physics of euclidian space and absolute time is thus a 'paternalistic love', ... while the 'love' which forms from a physics of relativity and whole-and-part 'becoming' is an 'unconditional love', ... as will be further discussed.
Part II. The Dipolarity of Love
The juxtaposing of 'Love' and 'Physics' may have given an initial impression of 'blaspheming' a sacred and immutable sentience, however, as discussed above, 'The Physics of Love and the Myth of Selection' is about the geometry of perception which is heavily influenced by our concepts of space and time, ... a geometry which may be applied to all natural phenomena, including 'love'. Thus, while physics and rationality do not 'explain' the transcendent phenomenon of 'love', they can tell us something about our 'perception of love' which may induce insights on 'the way in which 'love makes the world go round'.
'Love' is an affection for others which is deeply enfolded in the evolution of community behaviours. Philosophers have noted that 'love' and 'hate' seem to be 'flip sides' of the same coin, and writers of romantic songs observe that 'There is a thin line between love and hate'. 'Love' seems thus to be very much like magnetism, ... to have a dipolar nature in which there is, at the same time, antagonism and complementarity. To be 'in love' is to be in a state of 'bliss', ... however, the dipolarity does not vanish even in the etymology, since 'bliss' is kin to the french 'blessure' (wound) which suggests that 'love' and 'bliss' are 'pleasure and pain' at the same time, ... a pleasure which provides an open exposure to pain, ... an exposure which can quickly convert the power of 'love', through pain, into the power of 'hate', ... as in the religious wars which continue to smolder and erupt within our modern 'civilization'.
'Love', according to Websters [3] is an "unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as in: the fatherly concern of God for humankind and: the brotherly concern for others. "
From the 'systems' point of view of trying to 'understand the way the world works', ... there are two important notions embedded in this definition of 'love'. The first is the notion of 'the good' of another, and the second is the notion of 'fatherly' or 'brotherly' concern or 'patronization'.
Since such love-driven, humanist activities as the war against poverty' are motivated by 'brotherly love', they seem manifestly 'good things' which are beyond reproach, and to criticize them [2] is likely to draw a response of the type 'if you're not with us, you're 'agin us' from their active supporters.
If you suggest that your critique is equally in support of those 'others' (in the social or natural environment) that are being disopportunized, and if you try to share a 'relativistic' (curved space) view showing how the 'hole' of disopportunizing may be being dug still deeper by the 'war against it' (i.e. by a 'problem elimination' approach rather than an 'opportunity-cultivation' approach), ... one's effort may be met with a response of the following type, as mine was within the proceedings of an internet discussion group;
" ... to discuss curved universes at a time when we are actually running out of oxygen on Earth is sub -human!! Our inate nature should be to preserve our species. Not to ramble on in time wasting discussion while the house is burning down. Let us attend to the house on fire and then gain ourselves a little time to go back to whatever pasttimes may seem valid."
From a systems point of view, ... such a response says a great deal about 'underlying assumptions', which go back to the earlier definition of 'love' and its 'dualist' nature.
'Love' is a 'politically correct' motivator WITHIN our culture, and within all bivalent cultures which believe in the existence of the absolutes of 'good' and 'evil' (rather than seeing 'good' and 'evil' as two illusory faces of a dipolar, yin-yang unity).
But 'love' has a dualism in the same sense as quantum physics and relativity; e.g. 'love' for a child in nature can be seen in terms of 'opening up opportunity' for the child. As the indigenous traditions say,... to open up the 'sacred space' so that the child has the opportunity to 'become' who they are meant to become. This is a 'relativistic' love which is in terms of pure relational geometry and puts no EXPLICIT constraints on what the child is to become. If the child chooses a difficult path which leads to difficulty and even to an early demise, ... this 'relativistic love' will have the parent stick with the child and suffer through the experience.
There is also a 'paternalist love' which is referenced to 'absolute good'. This is the love which seeks to 'take care of' the loved one in an EXPLICIT way. This is the love of the Christian missionary for the pantheist 'savage', ... which seeks to convert the 'savage' to a faith which removes God from nature and removes Him from the earthly presence. This is the love which psychologists such as R.D. Laing and anthropologists such as Jules Henry talk about which parents 'barter' in exchange for their children's conformance to the current social system, ... so that their children will have the love and respect of others around them, ... so that they will 'succeed' in their education and in their working lives. This love-bartering exposes the 'loved one' to the double bind where he may have to betray his authentic self in order to win the love of his parents and those around him, ... and this double bind is the source of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and suicide.
The non-relativistic reference framing of 'good' is the source of dissonance here in this notion of 'love', which as the dictionary says is; "unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as in: the fatherly concern of God for humankind and: the brotherly concern for others. "
Now, the Christian missionary feels he knows 'what is good' for the pantheist 'savage' and this gives him the love-based strength to break the savage away from his philosophical traditions and ritual, just as the Muslim holy man feels he knows 'what is good' for the young female and this gives him the love-based strength to perform the clitorectomy which will save her from the evils of temptation. Similarly, the affluent westerner feels he knows 'what is good' for the 'less educated' and poverty-ridden sector of the domestic and third world populace and this gives him the love-based strength to launch a 'war against poverty' which will re-allocate monetary resources in the direction of the poor.
All of these actions are underpinned by the combination of a 'paternalist love' and the 'knowledge of what is good'. They are NOT based upon a 'liberating love' which seeks to open up the sacred space for the loved one to 'become who they were meant to become'.
Clearly, the 'knowledge of what is good' differs by ethnicity and personal experience, and those differences are the source of much dissonance and conflict in our society, yet our assumed ability to 'know what is good' seems to underly our actions on an individual and community level, ... such as the pre-emptive actions in Iraq and Kosovo which killed many civilians and will kill many more through the toxification of the environment, euphemized as 'collateral damage'.
Some would say (e.g. Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michel Chussodovsky) that one cannot understand complexity by isolating events in time, ... and that the situations in Iraq and Kosovo have been 'induced' by western industry dominated global economy which IMPLICITLY closed down much opportunity in these regions, leading to massive unemployment in the former Yugoslavia and the rise to power of extremist leadership (as was the result of EXPLICIT economic sanctions against Germany after WWI).
The notion of the 'universal knowledge of the good' underpins the implicit 'systems view' in which one believes that it is possible to act 'righteously' in the moment and to have these 'righteous actions' ADD UP OVER TIME in a linear fashion, providing there is more 'right' than 'wrong' in the content of the action. This linear view of time and systems behavior is a mainstay of western culture, and it is manifest in the statement;
" ... to discuss curved universes at a time when we are actually running out of oxygen on Earth is sub -human!! . . . Let us attend to the house on fire and then gain ourselves a little time to go back to whatever pasttimes may seem valid."
This 'linear systems' and 'absolute time' view is, nevertheless, in direct conflict with the theory of relativity. As Einstein says; "The equations of the new theory are, from the formal point of view, more complicated, but their assumptions are, from the point of view of fundamental principles, much simpler. The two frightening ghosts, absolute time and an inertial system, have disappeared."
These two 'frightening ghosts' may have disappeared in relativity theory, but they are alive and well in our culture. We continue to believe that we can manage things in a sequential (linear time) causal manner, ... addressing each event as if it were independent of all other events. Meanwhile relativity says that when we act, our actions do not 'add up' in a linear fashion to create the future, ... instead, there are simultaneous reciprocal effects associated with all actions, ... in the manner of the reciprocal effects of 'shots' on the ball configuration in the game of pool, which induce transformation at the same time as the shot is made. Thus we effect future opportunity at the same time as we take current action.
Culturally, we continue to believe that we 'know what is a good shot to make' in the moment (e.g. the attacks on poverty and pre-emptive strikes against the 'clear and present danger of a Sadam Hussein or a Slobodan Milosevic), and because we think that 'the good in things adds up' we can be comfortable in the belief that things will work out 'for the best' if there is 'more good than bad' in such actions. But as Marshall McLuhan pointed out, ... what 'we do' is the smaller influence on system behaviour, ... it matters little whether the factory makes cadillacs or cornflakes, compared to the reciprocal transformation effects which the factory induces in its containing environment. And as Samuel Johnson says of Pope's poem 'The Rape of the Lock' [4], "It has been well observed that the misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated."
Samuel Johnson's remark conforms to the notion of 'self-organized criticality'. When one continues to drop sand grains on a sandpile at the critical angle of repose, ... each grain transforms the potential field configuration in an 'implicit' (relational interference pattern) manner, and it is this induced transformation of the possibility space which 'gates' the kinetics of the system behavior, ... kinetics which can emerge in the form of avalanches, ... from the 'small vexations continually repeated'.
Paternalist love which fuels 'action management' based on bivalent judgement of 'what is good' for the loved ones is deeply entrenched in our society as this following quote from Pope John Paul II's conclusions in his encyclical 'Fides et Ratio' (Faith and Rationality) indicates;
"Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its prime reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgement about the right conduct to be chosen here and now."
Once again, there is an advocacy of 'action management' based on the bivalent judgement 'in the moment' as to 'what is good' and 'what is bad', ... an advocacy which implicitly assumes that the system is 'linear', that the 'good' will 'add up over time', and that there is no need to consider reciprocal 'induced transformation' effects within the containing environment.
The unconditional love of a parent for its offspring in nature does not lead to 'action management' on the bivalent, judgemental basis of 'what is good' for the loved ones, ... although we can make this interpretation, as is our cultural habitude. Such an interpretation is an incomplete oversimplication, in the same manner as a novice pool player in the gallery will interpret the game of pro pool he is watching in terms of the 'shots' made, ... out of the context of the induced shaping of the configuration, ... the 'opportunity management' which is the 'bigger story' which contains the 'little story' of the kinetics, as a broad landscape contains an explicit, included feature.
The wise pool player 'manages opportunity' for his 'brood' of balls, ... just as the unconditional love of the animal-parent or bird-parent in nature 'manages opportunity' for his/her brood. There is no judgement of 'good' or 'bad' in this management approach, ... the notions of 'good' and 'bad' are binary abstractions, ... absolutes which are linked to the non-natural, mathematical convention of 'absolute time' which, together with the non-natural, mathematical convention of 'euclidian space', give us a 'mechanical' or 'kinetic' portal of perception into the natural reality in which we are immersed constituent-participants.
What we have been discussing then, are two 'portals of perception' into our reality which also associate with two 'ways of being and becoming' in the world. These two ways of 'perceiving' and 'behaving' are geometrically related in the same way that relativity and classical physics are geometrically related, ... the former is a broad landscape in which the latter is a small, INCLUDED, feature. Unconditional love wherein the lover 'moves' so as to open up opportunity for the loved ones 'includes' the secondary 'rational perception' of 'paternalist love' which gives us the dictionary definition of; "unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" .
The 'operative word' in the definition is 'good'. What is 'good' is a cultural judgement. What is 'good' in the western culture does not include 'adultery' or moving out of one relationship into another. But unconditional love is all about 'opening up opportunity' for the loved ones, ... and 'the loved ones' in a nature-centric, rather than ethno-centric philosophy refers to all constituents in nature from the mineral and floral constituents in nature, through the cells and organs of animals and up and outward into community and environment as a whole. Unconditional love is all about SIMULTANEOUS MULTIVALENT HARMONY, ... while 'paternalist love' is constrained to SEQUENTIAL BIVALENT JUDGEMENT. While the former associates with non-euclidian, self-referential space-time, ... the latter associates with euclidian space and absolute time.
These two perceptions and the ways of being and becoming which associate with them are neither equivalent nor 'opposites' in a peer-to-peer sense. They are reciprocal in the same manner as relativistic space is reciprocal to the matter which is included within it, ... as the unbounded area on the surface of a sphere is to the bounded areas associated with the 'footprints' of material objects on such a surface, ... and as the potential energy configuration of an ensemble of billiard balls is to the kinetic energies of the moving balls.
Since the movement of billiard balls is relative (they are all flying through space even as we say that some are in stasis and others are moving), it is our 'judgement' which we impose upon the balls which says which ones are 'at rest' and which ones 'are moving'. Our choice of 'inertial frame' determines the kinetic energy distribution of the balls and how we 'frame' the game. At the same time, the sum of the kinetic and potential energy is constant, by the principle of conservation of energy. Since the kinetic energy given by our subjective framing is simply an illusion dependent upon our choice of reference frame (coordinate system), ... the more general perceptual reference is the 'energy configuration' which is simultaneously transforming, reciprocal to the kinetics of the system. In the game of billiards, the 'shape' of the configuration or 'opportunity space' is the more general perceptual reference for guiding behavior, and, similarly, in 'the game of love', the 'shape' of the multi-reality opportunity space (each ball is uniquely situated with respect to its purpose, and this is what can be visualized as 'its reality') is the more general perceptual reference for guiding behavior.
Unconditional love is 'opportunity management' based and opportunity management is based on multireality harmony, while 'paternalist love' is 'action management' based and action management is based on bi-reality (subject-object) causation of 'good'.
The unconditional lover cultivates opportunity for loved ones, even if it involves a loved one abandoning the nest to move on and live with others. The paternalist lover 'colonizes the ground' of the relationship and cultivates 'what is good' within this colonized ground.
Unconditional love is thus a broader landscape within which paternalist love is an included special case feature, ... the case where multireality cultivation of harmony degenerates down to a two-dimensional 'bi-reality causation of 'good''.
Here is where a basic 'hole' in rational perception comes into play. If one 'starts from' perception of the 'broader landscape' and allows one's behavior to be guided by it, this is 'invisible' to the external observer if the external observer bases his observations solely on explicit material cause. There is no way to distinguish the source of transformation of the configuration of opportunity space (e.g. the 'shape' of the ball configuration) between 'chance' and deliberate intent because it is 'induced' rather than 'caused' in the classical physics sense of 'cause'. If I am playing pool and I deliberately leave a ball close to a corner pocket where it is blocking the opportunity of other balls to get into that pocket, ... is this 'non-action' which changes the opportunity space for all balls, a function of 'chance' or 'intent'? There is no way of knowing since the effect is the result of something I did not do, and classical physics is all about 'what is done'.
Rational perception is not 'big enough' to prove 'cause' in such cases, and thus rational inquiry leaves such 'relational interference pattern' issues to the domain of 'probability'. Is the schizophrenic a schizophrenic because of relational interference effects involving double bind non-actions such as bartering love in exchange for betrayal of self?, ... or is the schizophrenia CAUSED by a defective genetic structure? Rational inquiry can only 'get to' material cause, ... thus it investigates genetic structure because it doesn't have the horsepower to understand multi-reality interference, ... the domain of 'relational intelligence' which is to 'rational intelligence' as the broad implicit landscape of relativity is to its included explicit subfeature of rationality.
This same 'broad implicit landscape and included explicit sub-feature' geometry shows up in the relationship between 'intimacy' and 'physical love'.
David Schnarch, a professor of psychiatry at Louisiana State University and a clinical psychologist with experience in sexual therapy and health care speaks of his 'quantum model of sexuality' which goes beyond the euclidian 'cause-and-effect' pleasure functioning of physical sexuality, into the 'multi-reality configurational' realm of intimacy. Schnarch's model can be likened to the Tantric tradition of the Buddhist philosophy wherein physical sexuality is one of the means of achieving enlightenment. Sex in this case is approached with open-eyes and is characterized by trust and mutual respect, ... a trust and respect which can be seen and sustained through eye contact. Open eye contact can put two conscious minds into co-resonance, and thus in joint resonance with the containing environment, ... it can close a triadic loop and establish the conditions for multi-reality, container-constituent wholeness or 'harmony of whole-and-part'.
In Schnarch's terms, intimacy is not about the bi-reality, 'you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' pursuit of pleasure, but about multi-reality authenticity, cultivating a whole-and-part harmony which is faithful to 'who one is'; i.e. 'Self-validated intimacy sounds like; "I want you to know me before I die." . . . "Intimacy, it should now be clear, is not always soothing and doesn't always 'feel good'. It is, however, how we forge ourselves into the people we would like to be."
As he goes on to say; "Normal sexual styles are designed to *limit* intimacy to tolerable levels, while getting one or both partners to orgasm. Intense intimacy makes people nervous, particularly during sex. Therapists (who often have no greater capacity for intimacy than anyone else) have created a technology that can jumpstart your body and bring you to orgasm while it destroys intimacy."
Schnarch further maintains that; "One of the great myths of American culture is the belief that we achieved sexual liberation in the 1960's. That was the era we convinced ourselves that sex is a natural function and gave ourselves permission to have sex. The squeaky clean effectiveness of 'the new sex therapy' encouraged our technocratic society to believe we could break sex down into its component parts with the right technology, study it and subdue it. We were about to discover the secrets of eroticism the same way we had cracked the atom." ... "Western culture, however, has been highly sex negative (and continues to be in subtle ways). This is a result of the mind-body duality that has dominated Western thinking for centuries. For too long, society has preached that liberation of the soul involves rejecting the pleasures of the flesh. In reality it occurs through sexual development and feeling good, rather than self-abnegation."
According to Schnarch's data, few sexual partners attain the state of intimacy that is possible, and which a minority do succeed in attaining. The situation is analogous to the geometry of pool where if one is always focused on 'shots', ... one will never even see 'shape', ... the implicit, reciprocal realm of container-constituent relational interference, ... a reciprocality more poetically alluded to by the words of T. S. Eliot;
. . . . . . . . Not known, because not looked for
. . . . . . . . But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
. . . . . . . . Between two waves of the sea.
. . . . . . . . Quick now, here, now, always--
. . . . . . . . A condition of complete simplicity
. . . . . . . . (Costing not less than everything)
. . . . . . . . And all shall be well and
. . . . . . . . All manner of thing shall be well
. . . . . . . . When the tongues of flames are in-folded
. . . . . . . . Into the crowned knot of fire
. . . . . . . . And the fire and the rose are one.
In those that do attain self-validating intimacy in sex, ... one can experience a phenomenon termed 'age shifting'. He observes; "Age Shifting is another phenomenon. You may be holding your partner's face in your hands and suddenly see, in a very loving way, what he or she will look like older, or exactly what he looked like when he was eight years old. It is very moving. In the timeless connection of profound sex --- if we have the strength, and that is an important caveat --- we have the opportunity to drop our mask, to drop our character armor, and to let ourselves be seen behind the eyeballs, metaphorically and literally. It's where we see ourselves and our partners against the backdrop of the mystery (and absurdity) of life."
Thus, 'intimacy and physical love' also present to us the same 'broad implicit landscape and included explicit feature' alternatives to perception and behavior. The two geometries may be restated as follows;
* * *
Unconditional love is 'opportunity management' based and opportunity management is based on multi-reality harmony, while 'paternalist love' is 'action management' based and action management is based on bi-reality (subject-object) causation of 'good'.
Intimacy is 'opportunity management' based and opportunity management is based on multi-reality harmony, while 'physical sex' is 'action management' based and action management is based on bi-reality (subject-object) causation of 'good'.
* * *
While intimacy opens up unconstrained opportunity for harmonious co-resonances, physical sex tends to be based on cultural notions of 'what is good', ... and to return to the billiards model once more, ... while poor pool players worry about 'making their shots', ... wise pool players see the game in terms of inducing the opening up of opportunity, within which 'shot-making' is a supportive skill.
In the above discussion of 'the physics of love', ... it is suggested that our perception and response is on a nested dual-tier basis whose 'outer' or 'containing' sphere involves a broad implicit relational landscape wherein one 'manages' on the basis of cultivating opportunity for simultaneous, multivalent harmony, and whose 'inner' or 'included' sphere involves explicit physical features which one 'manages' on the basis of sequential, bivalent causation of 'good'.
A potential problem arises in that only the latter sphere of causal kinetics is accessible to our rational intelligence, while the former sphere emulates a finite and unbounded spherical space and requires relational intelligence or, as Einstein says in 'Geometry and Experience';
"First of all, an observation of epistemological nature. A geometrical-physical theory as such is incapable of being directly pictured, being merely a system of concepts. But these concepts serve the purpose of bringing a multiplicity of real or imaginary sensory experiences into connection in the mind. To 'visualise' a theory, or bring it home to one's mind, therefore means to give a representation to that abundance of experiences for which the theory supplies the schematic arrangement. In the present case we have to ask ourselves how we can represent that relation of solid bodies with respect to their reciprocal disposition (contact) which corresponds to the theory of a finite universe." [i.e. an epistemological observation which applies to any 'finite relativistic space']
Since the rational mind restricts its perceptions to the bivalent domain of explicit material causal kinetics, ... it is 'blind' to the curved space 'reciprocal disposition' effects of relativity. The rational approach, while 'correct' as far as it goes, is thus 'incomplete' with respect to our full breadth of perceptual and behavioral capabilities. Dissonance and dysfunction arise, where the rational tools, rather than being used in support of our broader relational capacities, ... are used to conceal and over-ride the more comprehensive (simultaneous multivalent harmony) aspects of phenomenal perception and response.
Part III: The Physics of Love and the Myth of Selection vis a vis the Global Economy
"It is not enough for a theory not to affirm false relations ; it must not conceal true relations"
When one explores the subtleties of 'community as complex system', ... the notions of 'love' and 'money' become intertwined with the notion of 'community'. In the appended exchange [5] on 'citizen's income', ... questions emerge on the role of equitable allocation of resources relative to the type of community we are seeking to evolve. In view of Poincaré's counsel above, ... it seems useful to reflect on the nature of the 'true relations' surrounding 'community', so as to be alert to the possibility that we may be inadvertently concealing them with present theory.
According to Adam Smith, 'community' refers to "the vast commonwealth of nature", a notion akin to that of the indigenous peoples of North America. And, according to T.S. Eliot's poetic inference, ... 'community' is not a place where "We all dwell together to make money from each other', ... but a place where we " ... huddle close together because [we] love each other'.
So it seems that 'community' is ambiguous with respect to the breadth of the constituency it refers to, and the 'binding force' of 'community' is ambiguous with respect to the extent it is drawing from 'love' and/or from 'resourcing needs'.
These ambiguities are not as resistant to clarification as they might at first appear. In fact, they are resolvable within the same geometric relationship as has been discussed in part I of this essay, ... that which differentiates relativity theory from classical physics theory, ... i.e. the difference between orienting to 'opportunity management' or 'action management'. This is the same difference as gives meaning to the terms 'open systems' and 'closed systems'.
When we love unconditionally, we want to open up opportunities for those we love even if this means sacrificing our own interests. This puts us in the mode suggested by Adam Smith, where; "... to the interest of this great community, [the citizen of the world] ought at all times to be willing that his own little interest should be sacrificed."
The depth of our 'opportunity-opening' oriented love is challenged, to be sure, if our loved one pursues the opportunity of moving on into the company of another lover, ... but it is not unknown for one who deeply loves to even assist his loved one in such a pursuit. In fact, as suggested in part I, it is nature's way for parents to help open up opportunity for their young to leave the loving relationships of the nest and seek love elsewhere. While 'action management' deals with the provision of material requirements for others, it does not go so far as to encompass the notion of 'opportunity management', ... and it does not have 'sufficient dimensionality' to do so.
So, here we come back to the basic geometric, ... or 'topologic', ...distinction between 'opportunity management' and 'action management' and between 'unconditional love' and 'paternalistic love'. It is possible to provide well for our 'loved ones', ... WITHOUT opening up opportunity for them to pursue their own ontogenic 'becoming'. This is, in fact, the complaint of the undeveloped nations with respect to the western industrialized world, it is the complaint of many women in their conjoint relationships with men, and it is the complaint of many workers in their jobs.
Methods of resource allocation are very often associated with 'closed systems', ... mechanical systems in which the components are fed within a control process which deprives them of any opportunity for ontogenic development. This is the domain of the laws and principles of classical physics, ... they are constrained to 'material-causal kinetics' of defined components, ... and do not deal with the ontogenic metamorphosis of the components, ... they deal with matter and energy exchanges and not with evolutionary process.
In matters of community, this 'action management' oriented approach leads to 'resource allocation' based on keeping the components 'satisfied' and 'well-nourished' in their existing 'jobs'. Thus, correcting a system which manifests inequality of resourcing does not necessarily say anything about 'opening up opportunity for ontogenic growth'. The underdeveloped nation or the wife who complains about budgetary allocations may see them resolved in order to restore peace and tranquillity within an ontogenic stasis.
In an 'opportunity management' oriented community, 'action management' addresses resourcing needs as a 'taken for granted' secondary function. The primary function is the opening up of opportunity, by each individual, for fellow community constituents SIMULTANEOUS with the pursuit of the individual's own purpose (whether the 'community' be a duo or a team or a nation or global society). This open systems 'opportunity management' based geometry is the geometry of ecology. It is not abstractly altruistic or based on 'the universal knowledge of 'good'', it emanates from the 'whole-and-part' harmony-seeking aspect of nature, ... which applies across nesting realities from the molecular to the celestial. As Kepler says in 'Harmonies of the World';
"Now, the 'harmony-of-the-whole of all the planets contributes more to the perfection of the world than the single harmonies by twos and the pairs of harmonies by the twos of neighbouring planets. For harmony is, so to speak, a volume [containerful] of unity. A deeper unity yet is presented, when all the planets form a harmony with each another, as when just two at a time harmonize in a bivalent manner. In the interference of these harmonies deriving from the dual harmonic line-ups, which the pairs of planets form with each another, the one or the other must give way, so that the harmony-of-the- whole can prevail."
Apparently, the planets are 'sacrificing their own interests' for the greater good, ... the harmony of whole-and-part of the overall community of sun and planets, ... in the manner suggested by Adam Smith. But they are not sacrificing ALL of their interests, but are opening up opportunity for their fellow constituents AT THE SAME TIME as they pursue their own purposive dynamics.
It may be worthwhile to review our basic assumptions on 'consciousness', since the new idea of 'planetary cooperations' has emerged, ... before returning to the discussion of the 'physics of love' as it pertains to 'community' and the 'global economy'.
The 'harmony of the whole-and-part' is bigger than can be deduced from the individual 'harmonies' of the parts and falls into the definition of 'complex systems', the general case in nature. In a personification of inanimate matter, ... the 'anthropocentric view', if you like, ... this raises the question as to the consciousness of inanimate matter; i.e. 'do the planets have consciousness'?
But such a view which 'starts from matter' is not only anthropocentric but non-relativistic. The theory of relativity sees 'matter' as a secondary entity. As Einstein and Infeld say;
"What impresses our senses as matter is really a great concentration of energy into a comparatively small space. We could regard matter as the regions in space where the field is extremely strong. In this way a new philosophical background could be created. Its final aim would be the explanation of all events in nature by structure laws valid always and everywhere. A thrown stone is, from this point of view, a changing field, where the states of greatest field intensity travel through space with the velocity of of the stone. There would be no place, in our new physics, for both field and matter, field being the only reality. This new view is suggested by the great achievements of field physics, by our success in expressing the laws of electricity, magnetism, gravitation in the form of structure laws, and finally by the equivalence of mass and energy."
The notion of 'consciousness' of a 'thing' is therefore an abstraction which is dependent on the notion of a material 'thing'. The system of sun and planets, according to relativity, can be thought of in terms of 'field' where the planets are local areas of high field intensity within the field-based dynamic, ... a turbulent-flow type of dynamic.
Individual 'things', including ourselves, can be seen in terms of complex turbulence within the field-flow. As Einstein notes, with respect to the subsuming of the notion of matter with field; "It is difficult to get rid of deep-rooted prejudices but there is no other way. From the point of view of relativity theory, the old concepts seem arbitrary. ... Our world is not Euclidian. The geometrical nature of our world is shaped by masses and their velocities. The gravitational equations of the general theory of relativity try to disclose the geometrical properties of our world. . . . The two frightening ghosts, absolute time and an inertial system, have disappeared. . . . It [relativity theory] forces us to analyze the role played by geometry in the description of the physical world."
Now, if this flip to the primacy of 'space -over-matter' were taught to us as children, ... we should have no problem with it. As history shows, children accept the premises of their elders even though these differ radically by cult and culture. But western society continues to teach the primacy of 'matter-over-space' and this has us formulating false questions such as 'is matter conscious'? If our reality starts from 'field', then all of its attributes must emanate from 'field', including consciousness, ... thus it is a 'wild goose chase' to investigate consciousness in inanimate matter. Inanimate matter is a feature of 'field' as we are a feature of 'field' and thus it is an included part of the consciousness of our space-time containing environment.
This does not mean that individual 'zones of complex turbulence' in the field-flow, such as ourselves, are not 'independent', ... it simply means that we are not 'independent' in our own 'divine right'. To dissolve our confusion on the issue of 'independence', all we have to do is to recognize that the inertial reference frame which we assume ourselves to be in is an abstraction, and that our apparent 'stable ground' is instead a dynamical equilibrium, or relational interference pattern. Since we are uniquely placed in space time and uniquely constituted, ... our kinetics can be seen to emanate from external-internal 'disequilibria' in concert with our 'personal' search for sustaining external-internal equilibria (viz. for example, Henri Laborit, 'Biologie et Structure'). In our minds, we see this in terms of navigating in non-euclidian space-time, as described by Einstein in 'Geometry and Experience' and cited above in part I. (i.e. "A geometrical-physical theory as such . . . ")
So, as is clear from our understanding of relativity, there is no need to resort to any dependencies on 'matter' such as 'the consciousness of matter', in order to understand the nature of ourselves or our containing environment. We can see ourselves in terms of relativity and 'space-over-matter', ... a theoretical base which as Einstein says, is simpler in principle than the old theory; "Even if no additional observation could be quoted in favor of the new theory, if its explanation were only just as good as the old one [which is not the case, since relativity has explained many things the older theory could not], given a free choice between the two theories, we should have to decide in favor of the new one. The equations of the new theory are, from the formal point of view, more complicated but their assumptions are, from the point of view of fundamental principles, much simpler."
But we are neither teaching nor using relativity theory because of the 'deep-rooted prejudices' which Einstein speaks of and because of the tendency which Johannes Kepler spoke of back at the beginning of the seventeenth century;
"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."
That completes the diversion into how the principles of modern physics account for our perception of the harmony of whole-and-part being 'larger than' is deducible from the behaviour of the individual constituents of our containing environment.
To return to the behaviours of individuals in nature, it is clear that notions such as 'the selfish gene' and 'survival of the fittest' are rooted in the 'old theory' basis of 'matter-over-space'. The notion of a 'gene', however useful in mechanical, kinetic descriptions of phenomena, remains an incomplete, secondary aspect of our 'space-over-matter' reality. The Darwinian notion of 'survival of the fittest' also represents a 'matter-over-space' view of reality, an 'incomplete' notion which continues to underpin much of the management and regulatory process in our western culture.
Douglas Caldwell suggests that 'natural selection is an incomplete and unsatisfactory way of looking at evolution, leading to arbitrary complexification of theoretical explanations akin to the use of epicycles to perpetuate the earth-centric Ptolemaic model of the system of sun and planets. Caldwell proposes an alternative geometric-informational, 'nested proliferation' model for evolution which transcends selection theory in the same manner that relativity transcends classical physics theory, ... bypassing the dependency on 'bottom-up' explanation of overall systems behaviour. In 'Post-modern ecology - is the environment the organism?', Caldwell observes; "... devising increasingly intricate explanations for altruistic behaviour in terms of either individual or group self-interest (kin selection, group selection, ecosystem selection etc.) is the generation of mythology rather than the advancement of scientific understanding. It serves no useful purpose unless selection theory is an end in itself." ... "The primary difficulty is that, although technology has been strengthened during the past 50 years, scientific thought has weakened. Scientific reasoning is sometimes referred to in the popular press as 'mind-numbing post-modern jargon (Cartmill, 1998), and it is often completely absent from technical journals, being regarded by technologists as philosophical rather than scientific. Few scientists are required to take courses in the philosophy of science, and some do not realize that they have degrees of philosophy (PhD)."
The message is that nature is innately 'whole-and-part harmony seeking'. The planets do not try to outdo each other, ... they give way for the sake of a deeper harmony of diverse constituents. Predator-prey systems are not at all like colonial systems which seize sovereign control over territory and resources and impose imperial laws on the use and allocation of such resources. The more natural indigenous 'hunter' had traditions and rituals of respect for his 'brothers', ... the game which he took for food, ... and the hunter ''gave way' to these fellow constituents of the containing environment' for the sake of 'whole-and-part harmony', as indigenous myth such as 'And who shall speak for wolf' (Paul Underwood) testify. That these traditions were corrupted after the arrival of the colonizing europeans does not refute their existence, nor their persistence amongst the fraction of remaining traditionalists within the indigenous populace.
Conclusions;
If we wish to 'understand the way the world works' and/or 'community as complex system', it seems that we shall have to take account of the fact that 'love makes the world go round', and that 'love' is very much entwined with our notions of space and time, .... notions which we take 'on faith' from the high priests of science, and physics in particular. We do not each have the wherewithal to test the consistency and the coherency of each new scientific theory. We instead accept the word of science, on the basis that 'things seem to happen the way science says they will happen'. The problem is, of course, that 'lots happens' which science does not speak to, ... and there is no way of knowing how the 'what happens which is not spoken to by science' is related to 'what we do according to the guidance provided by science'. That is, science told us that DDT killed bugs, and this was correct but 'incomplete' since science did not tell us all the other things that killing bugs with DDT would lead to. This is because science is all about 'replication of results' under 'laboratory conditions', rather than speaking to the unique environmental situation in which science is applied.
No system in nature is a perfectly 'closed system', and since any space-time coordinates of application of science involve a unique, reciprocal containing environment (unique potential field configuration which envelopes the point of application), ... there can be no way of predicting how the application will induce transformation in its containing environment. This inevitable reciprocity between 'kinetics' and 'potential field configuration' (given in quantitative but not informational terms by the principle of conservation of energy) is the implication of the theory of relativity, and while this relativistic effect is innately associated with system evolution, ... it continues to be ignored by mainstream science. Essentially, 'relativity' asserts that the spatial relationships of things, ... the potential field effects which 'balance' the positioning of things in our containing 'landscape', ... are of over-riding importance compared to the 'kinetic' effects when parts of this potential field stressed-and- tensioned- landscape 'break free' and move. In other words, relativity asserts that space, with its natural tensioning and ordering fields, is in the primacy over matter and material motions, ... that the transformation of 'space', ... the transformation of the containing 'landscape' or 'community' or 'environment', ... is thus the 'big picture' within which the notion of 'material things' and their 'kinetics' is no more than a secondary and 'incomplete' way of looking at the 'bigger picture'.
Thus, there are two 'strains' of science today, ... 'relativity' which says that 'space' is in a primacy over 'matter' and that space-time is a curved continuum , ... and 'materialism' which says that 'matter' is in a primacy over 'space' and that space is euclidian and time is linear and absolute. Adherents to the former are in a small minority amongst scientists, while adherents to the latter are in an overwhelming majority which continues to grow as it creates its own 'community climate' for growth, ... community rewards and resources (e.g. economic patronage) being orchestrated through the high priests of the disciplines who are predominantly in the 'materialist' mode in this orchestrating.
The relativistic strain of science leads to space-time perception which cultivates 'unconditional love', while the materialist strain of science leads to space-time perception which cultivates 'paternalistic love'.
Paternalistic love sees the world in terms of linear hierarchy where some things are more 'advanced' than others, and the behaviors induced from this love are oriented towards the material support of those 'lesser entities' which are 'underdeveloped'. The material support is in turn oriented towards helping the 'underdeveloped entities' to become 'more competitive' within a world which is seen to evolve according to the principles of 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection'. This paternalistic form of love accepts linear hierarchy as being 'natural' and thus the lover strives to be 'amongst the fittest', ... to 'be selected' so that he will be in a position to help those he loves. In the same geometric manner as in the game of pool, ... this approach leads to the closing down of opportunity for those others who are effectively (but not necessarily intentionally) 'deselected' and 'excluded'.
There is nothing lacking in the emotional content and commitment of this 'paternalistic love', ... it is genuine and from the heart, however, ... it sees the hierarchy of those who are developed versus those who are 'underdeveloped' as a real 'fact of life' (the product of a 'God who throws dice') rather than as an abstract linear construct of the mind.
[** The mathematics of probability is therefore a 'catch-all', like epicycles in earth-centric celestial models, which preserves the linear hierarchical model of the world wherein 'lesser things' are seen to 'progress' into 'greater things. Since probability and a 'God who plays dice' artificially resolves why 'some things become greater' and why 'some things become lesser' on the linear hierarchy, there is no need for a more comprehensive and natural theory of 'possibility' based on the relativistic 'law of the included middle' where an individual is simultaneously kinetically independent and potential field configuration dependent. **]
Unconditional love sees the world in terms of nonlinear inclusion wherein we are all 'unique features of the whole', and the behaviors induced in this love are oriented towards the opening up of opportunity of those entities which are differentially 'more snookered' by the current configuring of 'possibility space'. The 'opening up of opportunity' includes, as a supportive aspect, the provision of resources, ... but goes farther by (a) making no judgement as to questions of what is 'good' for the recipient, as in the paternalistic case where love is seen in terms of: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the GOOD of another ", and (b) by the lover allowing his own behaviors in pursuit of purpose to 'flex' in such a manner he becomes part of the multi-reality harmonics of opening up opportunity.
Unconditional love does not have the lover seek to preserve his own position on a linear control hierarchy in order that he may 'better provide for' those he loves (paternalistically). As in the planets in our solar systems, unconditional love has the lover 'give way' in order to cultivate a deeper harmony of whole-and-part, ... wherein opportunity is simultaneously opened up for all constituents in the containing space to 'become who they are meant to become'. He may indeed, in a figurative sense, rise up on the ladder of hierarchy within his community as a result of his embrace of unconditional love, but such a 'view' will be the construct of the 'eye of the beholder'.
The 'global economy' is a paternalistic 'free-for-all' in which individuals and organizations 'stomp of the heads of others' in their attempt to get into better position (to be 'selected' ) to take care of the ones to whom they are beholden or the ones they love more than others. In the latter case, 'activist organizations', motivated by a paternalistic love, are like the poor pool player who feels he can improve the game play by new and better strategies for 'what is done', out of the context of how 'what is done' induces transformation in the containing environment. And in such well-intended and loving activist action, ... ignored 'others' are de-opportunitized by the reconfiguring of possibility space induced by the activist action.
The 'way out' of the vicious cycle of paternalistic dysfunction is to borrow from the lessons of indigenous tradition, and to re-embrace a relativistic worldview in which each constituent of our containing environment is seen as 'strand in the web of life', ... a strand which is independent in a kinetic sense, but which is fully dependent in a configurational (landscape) sense. Such an individual must always account for his configurational impact at the same time as he exercises his kinetic independence, ... he must therefore 'cultivate opportunity' for his fellow constituents through his every motion, for if he ignores his configurational dependence, he will surely infuse dissonance and dysfunction into the system. This is the way of 'unconditional love' and when it is practiced, ... loved one's are 'cared for' without negative repercussions to other constituents within the containing environment.
The observer who looks at 'unconditional love' in practice and 'reduces it' to the purely explicit and intangible, ... who ignores the whole-and-part harmony of action as in Kepler's description of the solar system, ... will 'take away' only the notion of 'paternalistic love', ... will take away the observation that the lover is one who exhibits an "unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another ". This is an 'incomplete view' of unconditional love based on logic, ... the 'bivalent' logic of Aristotle which 'dumbs down' the view of what is essentially a 'multivalent' ('multi-reality') co-dynamic to a simplistic bi-reality subject-object relationship based on the bivalent judgement of 'good' or 'bad', ... this 'incomplete', 'dumbed down' view of unconditional love is all that systems of logic and mathematics are capable of.
The way out of the 'vicious cycle' is to suspend our state of reductionist absurdity and become once again conscious of the obvious, ... that logic is an incomplete, secondary means of perceiving natural phenomena which we cannot continue to allow to be in the primacy in our individual and community 'managing' efforts. We must instead restore unconditional love to its natural primacy over paternalistic love.
* * *
[1] Caldwell, Douglas E., 'Post-modern ecology: is the environment the organism?', Environmental Microbiology, Volume 1, Number 4, August 1999
[2] Henagulph, Seb, 'Opportunity Management: Reclaiming the Wisdom of the Fourth World, http://www.goodshare.org/4thworld.htm
[3] Webster's Online Collegiate Dictionary --- for 'love' and 'patron' (paternalistic)
Main Entry: 1love
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English lufu; akin to Old High
German luba love, Old English lEof dear, Latin lubEre, libEre to please
Date: before 12th century
1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties maternal love for a child> (2) : attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers (3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests <love for his old schoolmates> b : an assurance of love <give her my love>
2 : warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion <love of the sea>
3 a : the object of attachment, devotion, or admiration <baseball was his first love> b (1) : a beloved person : DARLING -- often used as a term of endearment (2) British -- used as an informal term of address
4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of God for humankind (2) : brotherly concern for others b : a person's adoration of God
5: a god or personification of love
6 : an amorous episode : LOVE AFFAIR
7 : the sexual embrace : COPULATION
8 : a score of zero (as in tennis)
9 capitalized, Christian Science : GOD
- at love : holding one's opponent scoreless in tennis
- in love : inspired by affection
Main Entry: pa
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin & Latin; Medieval Latin patronus patron saint, patron of a benefice, pattern, from Latin, defender, from patr-, pater
Date: 14th century
1 a : a person chosen, named, or honored as a special guardian, protector, or supporter b : a wealthy or influential supporter of an artist or writer c : a social or financial sponsor of a social function (as a ball or concert)
2 : one that uses wealth or influence to help an individual, an institution, or a cause
[4] The Rape of the Lock, the most airy, the most ingenious, and the most delightful of [Pope's] compositions, [was] occasioned by a frolick of gallantry, rather too familiar, in which Lord Petre cut off a lock of Mrs. Arabella Fermor's hair. This, whether stealth or violence, was so much resented, that the commerce of the two families, before very friendly, was interrupted. Mr. Caryl, a gentleman who, being secretary to King James's Queen, had followed his Mistress into France, and who being the author of Sir Solomon Single, a comedy, and some translations, was entitled to the notice of a wit, solicited Pope to endeavour a reconciliation by a ludicrous poem, which might bring both the parties to a better temper. In compliance with Caryl's request, though his name was for a long time marked only by the first and last letter, C--l, a poem of two cantos was written (1711), as is said, in a fortnight, and sent to the offended lady, who liked it well enough to shew it; and, with the usual process of literary transactions, the author, dreading a surreptitious edition, was forced to publish it.
[5] Extract from an email discussion group exchange at http://www.egroups.com/group/attractors
wesburt,
as henri poincaré pointed out, there are many theories which describe 'true relations' but which are innately 'incomplete'. newton's 'mathematical principles' are a case in point, and it strikes me that 'citizen's income' falls into the same category of incompleteness..
as poincaré said;
"it is not enough for a theory not to affirm false relations ; it must not conceal true relations."
so, though the theory behind 'citizen's income' may be 'faultless', ... it is in no way 'complete', ... and it is the 'incompleteness' of theory which is leading us into the social disequilibrium and dysfunction which 'citizen's income' is purportedly trying to lead us out of.
the problem, in this case, is with the 'incompleteness' in our notion of 'money'.
'money' evolved as an expedient for exchanging 'worth' within the community, to provide a 'fluidity' or 'product-transparent worth' which lowered the viscosity of; ... tortuous trading sequences such as apples for wheat and wheat for beef, ... for producer incompatibilities such as involved in exchanges between pig farmers and persian rug producers, and for long term harvesting situations such as a tomato farmer whose supply of 'worth' arrives on an annual basis and 'trading in kind' to support his everyday need throughout the year is not practical.
money was thus a device for 'opening up opportunity' for individual constituents in the constituency of community. 'opening up opportunity' or 'management of space' is the basic principle of natural evolution and ecologies.
money can ALSO be seen and deployed in a much narrower way, however. it can be seen simply as fuel for 'making things happen', ... making anything happen, .. without regard to the relational aesthetics and harmony of 'community'.
this is the same difference in view which separates 'the theory of relativity' from 'classical physics'. while relativity addresses the transformation of the potential field or 'possibility space' and sees material-causal 'kinetics' as an included, secondary feature, ... 'classical physics' addresses only the smaller issue of 'kinetics'.
the geometry is clearly given in the game of pool (which emulates relativistic curved space). the wise pool player 'manages the shape of space', ... the 'possibility space' given by how each constituent (ball) 'sees' its opportunities relative to its purpose (where he wants to go). the 'kinetics' or 'material-causal' aspects of the game of pool are secondary, ... a 'small feature included in a far broader landscape' as einstein says in speaking of the relationship of relativity and classical physics. if you move one of the constituents in the configuration, relativistically, all constituents move and all constituents see a new 'possibility space' (i.e. 'potential field configuration').
now, whether you are a scientist, a pool player, or an investing community constituent, ... you are able to conceive of 'the game' either in the broader terms of the transformation of the 'possibility space' and/or the narrow terms of the 'kinetics', ... the 'material-causal actions'.
and it's clear what happens to the pool player who looks only at 'shots', ... the configuration of the overall constituency of balls 'goes to hell', .. he 'infuses dissonance' into the 'possibility space' by failing to consider the reciprocal transformation of the constituency configuration associated with the movements (actions) of the individual constituent.
exceptional teams, extremely rare items in the west, 'manage opportunity', ... they do not 'manage action', ... 'action' is a lesser, reciprocal feature of the primary reality of possibility space transformation. each constituent of an exceptional team, in taking action, assumes responsibility for his inevitable impact on the possibility space of all other constituents and tries to open up opportunity for all of them relative to their purposes as he pursues his own purpose..
this understanding, that there is an inevitable tradeoff between 'action and opportunity', ... between 'kinetic energy and potential field configuration', is well known, and 'opportunity management' is not only practiced by the wise pool player and the exceptional team member, ... it is practiced by individual family members with respect to their fellow family members. at christmas, we like to watch films such as 'it's a wonderful life', which show us the reciprocal side of the coin. that is, we normally assess a person on the basis of their 'kinetics', ... 'what they do', ... but the bigger story is what harmonies (or dissonances) a constituent of the community induces in the possibility space of his containing constituency. the character played by jimmy stewart judged himself rather harshly on the basis of his 'kinetics' but it was pointed out that his more comprehensive influence on community, ... the possibility space transformation induced by his actions, ... had cultivated a lot of harmony. as mcluhan says, it matters little if a factory makes cadillacs or cornflakes, ... what matters more than the actions of the factory is the transformation of the containing community induced by the factory.
the message is clear and simple; ... to view money in the narrow terms of 'kinetics' out of the context of community 'possibility space', ... is to infuse dissonance, dysfunction and inequality of opportunity into the community. the organisers of 'LETS' (local exchange trading system), 'Ithaca Hour' and SHARE ('Self-Help Association for a regional economy') have 'tuned' to the need for the inverse approach, ... elevating 'managing opportunity' into the primacy over 'managing action', ... an ecology oriented primacy which is in agreement with 'the way the natural world works', as has been established by the space-over-matter primacy described by relativity.
the notion of 'citizen's income' is inherently a 'shot-making' action which sees individuals out of the context of their unique reciprocal positioning relative to the overall constituency. while it may be 'faultless', it is radically incomplete and conceals the 'true relations' between 'shots' and 'shape' which exist in all natural systems. it can thus be expected to infuse dissonance and dysfunction of a new kind into the system.
the way forward is clear and simple, as well, ... to achieve a community which cultivates opportunity for all of its constituents, the opportunity-cultivating ethic must be simultaneously incorporated in the actions of its constituents, including the action of investing.
ted lumley
* * *
"Man, according to the Stoics, ought to regard himself, not as something separated and detached but as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast commonwealth of nature . . . and to the interest of this great community, he ought at all times to be willing that his own little interest should be sacrificed."
... Adam Smith
"When the stranger says: 'What is the meaning of this City? Do you huddle close together because you love each other?' What will you answer? 'We all dwell together To make money from each other'? or 'This is a community'?
... T. S. Eliot, Choruses from 'The Rock'
* * *
At 11:43 AM 5/18/00 -0400, WesBurt@aol.com wrote:
>To: Citizen's Income Online at URL
>http://citiinco01.uuhost.uk.uu.net/discussion/index.shtml,
>World Bank's Globalization list at URL
>http://vx.worldbank.org/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=globalization&text_mode=0,
>and friends on several mail lists
>
>Good day folks,
>
>Mr. Stuart Duffin, director CISC, has set the topic for May on the Citizen's Income Discussion web site by asking the question:
>
>"To what extent do you believe the introduction of a Citizen's Income would help to alleviate the problems caused by Globalisation?"
>
>This May topic confirms the favorable impression I received from the topic posed by CISC for February, when the list was first established, which reads:
>
>"Should a CI be introduced to all demographic groups simultaneously? Or are there valid arguments for a piecemeal introduction of a Citizen's Income?"
>
>My favorable impression, from the February topic, was that the folks at the Citizen's Income Study Centre (CISC) were serious about exploring technically valid departures from the status quo in the public policy of the UK and the USA.
>
>It does not matter very much that I firmly believe an adequate Citizen's Income in each nation (similar to the post WW-II level in Europe and Japan which paid for each dependent in a household, one-fifth of the national per capita GDP) would eliminate nearly all of "the problems caused by Globalisation," and preserve the sovereignty of each nation in an efficient, just, and sustainable global society. What matters to all of us is whether, or not, I (we) can persuade the powers-that-be to evaluate a "piecemeal introduction of a Citizen's Income" which is the only technically valid and politically doable solution to the problems caused by Globalization.
>Now a few minutes though on this topic will persuade the great majority of thinking folks that the wealthy, healthy, intelligent, and powerful people in each nation already enjoy all of the real, and imagined, benefits of a Citizen's Income. The WHIPs are free to work as much, or as little, as they think is appropriate. They may volunteer their services to any cooperative venture which meets their heart's desire, without worrying about earning their board and room. The American WHIPs are quite comfortable at the pinnacle of the income distribution in a national economy which has operated for more than a century with 4-10% of their workforce unemployed, for more than a century with a 2-3%/year decline in the value of their medium of exchange (M1), and formore than a
>century with a net 5% of GDP deficit of purchasing power in the lower income half of their workforce. Is it any wonder that the status quo enjoys such a vigorous and in-depth defense by the WHIPs in the UK and the USA? Will anyone step up to the podium and tell the world why a 5% of GDP deficit of purchasing power in the lower income half of their workforce has been accepted as the keynote of the US economy for more than a century?
>
>We have an interesting competition in "wishful thinking and pious exhortation" taking place during the month of May on the Internet, between two mail lists which have focused their attention on the problems of Globalization. Since May 1, the Citizen's Income Discussion list, an unmoderated list, received only two messages in sixteen days. The first was titled "That Part of CI which is a RIGHT" by Alfred F. Andersen on 05/01/00. The second was titled "Progress on the Citizen's Income discussion" by Wesley S. Burt on 05/06/00. Mr Andersen, who is 81 years old and my senior by only five years, reminded me by his message that the twelve tribes of biblical Israel had received an inheritance in the land, a "right" which modern man has lost and must restore if he hopes to live in a stable and prosperous society. At the same time, the thirteenth tribe of biblical Israel (the Levites) claimed that they had received an inheritance in the Law, which has been handed down intact as a "Secret Of The Temple" to the WHIPs of every nation. And they say, one to another, as it is written in the Sanhedrin (59a), page 400:
>
>"Moses commanded us a law for an inheritance, it is our inheritance, not theirs."
>
>Now those of us who still read the Bible, our oldest and most widely published history book, know that Moses commanded only the second tithe to be the inheritance of the Levites, and that the Law was originally promulgated to all nations at Mount Sinai. It is always a wonder, to me, that the Bible contains any truth at all, after being compiled, edited and translated by Jews, Greeks, Romans and members of Oxford for 2500 years.
>
>Mr. Andersen speaks for many thoughtful authors on the Internet when he proposes each citizen's natural "right" to an inheritance in GAIA which would be collected as an "indirect tax" (Tobin Tax, excise tax, sales tax, value-added tax, etc., etc.) on individuals and institutions which are extracting or exploiting the earth's non-reproducible natural resources. This common inheritance, would then be used, as Thomas Paine proposed two hundred years ago, to fund the Citizen's Income (BI, UBI, Citizen's Dividend, etc.) in each nation. This approach to funding a CI would not need to raise the direct taxes of each nation above their present levels, as shown in Figure 1 of the ten figure global model which is hosted at URL http://www.freespeech.org/darves/
>
>My message of 05/06/00, and previous messages, on the other hand, invites your attention to a systemic defect of omission in English and American public policy which has biased the American economy for a century to an abnormal condition of 4-10% unemployment, 2-3%/year inflation, a perennial 5% of GDP net deficiency of purchasing power in the lower half of the workforce, and a dog-eat-dog competitive environment which affects every actor, person or corporation, in the global economy. So much for a slow month on the CI list.
>
>In marked contrast, the World Bank's Globalization list at URL http://vx.worldbank.org/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=globalization&text_mode=0 a moderated list, evaluated and posted 148 messages in sixteen days. Now the list moderators at the World Bank have done their best to establish their reputation for fairness by posting several messages which were quite critical of the World Bank's operating policies and practices. My 05/06/00 message to the CI list was not approved by World Bank moderators for posting to the Globalization list, so we cannot know how the 3600 subscribers to the list would have responded to the opening sentence of the introduction to the global model at URL http://www.freespeech.org/darves/bert.html, which reads:
>
>"WELCOME, you have found the only technically valid global model on the Internet, a global model which fairly illustrates both the macro and micro aspects of the present condition of our global industrial society."
>
>In hopes of gaining a little more insight into the world view of Globalization subscribers, I posted my above 05/06/00 message also to Mr. Barry Coates, the first respondent to the Globalization list, and again to the next thirty respondents to the Globalization list, including many who were openly critical of World Bank policies. None of the thirty-one Globalization subscribers had any thing to say about the systemic defect of omission in English and American public policy. So much for a slow month on the World Bank Globalization list, with its 148 messages in sixteen days but not a word or sentence about the systemic defect of omission in the public policy of industrial nations, which, if corrected in each nation, would eliminate the problems caused by Globalization.
>
>This excerpt from Noam Chomsky, on http://www.cat.org.au/vof/versions/goals.htm describes a world view by using only buzz words like "libertarian," "totalitarian" and "capitalist:"
>
>"The 'humanistic conception' that was expressed by Russell and Dewey in a more civilized period, and that is familiar to the libertarian left, is radically at odds with the leading currents of contemporary thought: the guiding ideas of the totalitarian order crafted by Lenin and Trotsky, and of the state capitalist industrial societies of the West. One of these systems has fortunately collapsed, but the other is on a march backwards to what could be a very ugly future."
>
>Would that Noam Chomsky had pointed out that the keynote feature of "state Capitalist industrial societies" was a 5% of GDP deficit of purchasing power, and, that the keynote feature of the "totalitarian order crafted by Lenin and Trotsky" was that 92% of the public revenue was collected by indirect taxes which raise the price of necessities rather than by direct taxes which are proportioned according to ability to pay.
>
>The sullen silence on this topic has followed the observation of the late David Lawrence, Editor of the US News & World Report, who told me in 1971:
>
>"I cannot publish or comment on your topic until some prominent person discusses the topic, and makes it newsworthy."
>
>Oh well, Noam Chomsky and Wes Burt can still publish on the same web site at URL http://www.freespeech.org/darves/ even though we are not published by the mass media.
>
>Kind regards to all,
>
>Wes Burt
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Montréal, May 29, 2000
http://www.goodshare.org/lovemyth.htm
We are living within a containing environment characterized by a deepening, culturally-induced schizophrenia. We think of ourselves, man, not as part of nature, but as transcending nature, ... as nature's most wonderful God-given 'product'. This anthropocentrism is held in place by the binding forces of popular science and western religious philosophy. Following western religion's revisions to 'creation theory' to accommodate sciences ideas on evolution, ... both philosophies (the mainstream flows), see the 'way the world works' in the mathematical terms of 'linear hierarchy' and 'evolutionary progress', ... a process of continuing causal 'optimization' along an absolute time line, ... a 'history of time' in which 'later states' can transcend 'former states' in the evolving hierarchy.
Mainstream scientific and religious philosophy, is 'materialist' in that it builds from a base of independent 'things', ... seeing 'things' 'in their own right. Thus, though man would appear to be only 'man' whilst he is 'swimming' in his containing ether which sustains his life processes, ... he is nevertheless regarded as being 'above his natural environment'. The linear term 'above' is worth reflecting on. As Poincaré has pointed out ('The Relativity of Space'), ... our experience is volumetric, ... to do with outer-inner 'thrust and parry' basics, ... and the linear notions of 'below and above', 'better and worse' are bivalent abstractions which are the mathematically 'degenerate' derivatives of natural experience. They cannot be found in our codynamic with nature, ... only in the rational astraction of our minds.
As mentioned in the body of the essay, in Pope John Paul II's encyclical on philosophy, 'Fides et Ratio' ('Faith and Rationality') which seeks to clarify today's philosophical position of the Church he says;
"The Second Vatican Council, for its part, offers a rich and fruitful teaching concerning philosophy. I cannot fail to note especially in the context of this encyclical letter that one chapter of the constitution Gaudium et Spes amounts to a virtual compendium of the biblical anthropology from which philosophy too can draw inspiration. The chapter deals with the value of the human person created in the image of God, explains the dignity and superiority of the human being over the rest of creation, and declares the transcendent capacity of human reason."
The linear phraseology 'Over the rest of creation' sets the stage for the 'transcendence' of linear rational intellection and anthropocentrism.
The same linear hierarchy based schizophrenia, which sees man detached and independent of his containing nature, is evident in the works of modern cosmologists such as Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time') and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg ('The First Three Minutes').
These mathematical-cosmological 'visions' of 'the way the world works' are rooted in 'materialism', ... a religious faith in being able to ground scientific theory in the notion of 'things', ... a faith which is not shared by those who would embrace relativity theory with its faith in being able to ground scientific theory in the notion of 'space' ('ether' or 'field'). The notion of a linear hierarchy of independent things is incompatible with the notion of a swirling, ordering etherial 'whole' wherein 'things' are simply local interferential patterns of differing intensity. The waters of the earth's hydrosphere can move independently from the containing atmosphere, ... but the potential field configurations of the two are part of the unity of their containing nature and the conservation of energy says that kinetic activity is compensated by transformation in the containing potential field. The theory of relativity and the principle of conservation of energy say the same for man, ... that he is independent kinetically, but he is part of the containing whole of nature in terms of potential energy configuration, thus his movements involve reciprocal transformation of his containing environment.
This reciprocality associated with relativity, ... validates our experience that all constituents of space, human and otherwise, are uniquely positioned within space, have access to a unique suite of possibilities and, through their movements, induce unique transformations in their containing potential field configuration. In other words, our experience, supported by the general theory of relativity, is that 'space is non-homogeneous'. The non-homogeneity of space (curved space-time) is a more complex fundamental assumption as to the essential nature of our world than can be accommodated by the 'linear hierarchy' theory of Hawkings, Weinberg and the Pope.
For instance, ... as Einstein makes clear, the reciprocality between the movements of the constituents of space (the 'kinetics' of 'material things') and the potential field configuration within which these material things are included, demonstrates that 'things' are simultaneously influenced by, and 'are a part of' the ambient field of influence in which they are contained, ... as an iron filing is to its containing, inductive, ambient field. While the iron filing moves 'independently', ... it's potential field role is part of a containing potential field unity which adjusts simultaneously with its movement. In the words of Einstein and Infeld ('The Evolution of Physics'); "The sum of the two quantities [kinetic and potential energy] remains unchanged, and is called a constant of the motion. The total energy, kinetic plus potential, is like a substance."
Clearly the 'substance' of total energy resident in space is a unity which 'includes' local features (local patterns of field intensity) which we refer to as 'matter', or 'things'.
What is missing from the scientific philosophy of Hawking, Weinberg and the Pope, is this reciprocity between 'things' and their containing space, ... a simple feature which means that matter and space are non-homogeneous, ... a simple feature which renders the 'homogeneous matter'-based linear hierarchical thinking of Hawking, Weinberg and the Pope 'inadequate' and 'incomplete'.
How can modern science and scientists persist in using a base of 'inadequate theory'?
There is a clue in the words of words of Edward O. Wilson in 'Consilience', ... a book of advocacy of continuing embrace of the 'inadequate theory';
"Quantum electrodynamics and evolution by natural selection are examples of successful big theories, addressing important phenomena. The entities they posit, such as photons, electrons, and genes, can be measured. Their statements are designed to be tested in the acid washes of skepticism, experiments, and the claims of rival theories. The best theories are rendered lean by Occam's razor, first expressed in the 1320's by William of Ocaam. He said, 'What can be done with fewer assumptions is done in vain with more.' Parsimony is a criterion of good theory. WIth lean, tested theory we no longer need Phoebus in a chariot to guide the sun across the sky, or dryads to populate the boreal forests. The practice grants less license for New Age dreaming, I admit, but it gets the world straight."
.. Powerful prose in support of the 'status quo' of 'reductionist science' by a two-time Pulitzer prize winner ('On Human Nature' and 'The Ants'), ... 'considered to be one of the world's greatest living scientists', ... a scientist who maintains that "The cutting edge of science is reductionism, the breaking apart of nature into its natural constituents. . . . Complexity is what interests scientists, not simplicity. Reductionism is the way to understand it. The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity without reductionism makes science."
The phrase 'the cutting edge of science is reductionism' says alot, ... so does the term 'natural constituents'. There are no 'natural constituents' in a relativistic view of our containing environment, ... all 'parts' are abstractions, ... useful abstractions but non-natural concepts when one starts from a relativistic view of 'field' and 'features of the field' which are conveniently designated by rational thought as 'parts'.
What is the problem here?
The problem lies in this question of 'Parsimony is a criterion of good theory', ... PARSIMONY OF WHAT?
Einstein says; ""The equations of the new theory are, from the formal point of view, more complicated, but their assumptions are, from the point of view of fundamental principles, much simpler. The two frightening ghosts, absolute time and an inertial system, have disappeared."
What Einstein is referring to is that a parsimony of assumptions on the space-time of our experience leads to greater complexity in the new equations for non-homogeneous space, the space of our experience which presents unique possibilities to each of its unique constituents, ... as contrasted with the euclidian space and absolute time of homogeneous matter and homogeneous space underpinning the linear, hierarchical theory of Hawking, Weinberg and the Pope.
We can compare Poincaré's statement on the equations of space, from 'Non-Euclidian Geometries' in 'Science and Hypothesis' with Einstein's and Wilson's comments;
"One geometry cannot be more true than another; it can only be more convenient. Now, Euclidian geometry is, and will remain, the most convenient: 1st, because it is the simplest, and it not so only because of our mental habits or because of the kind of direct intuition that we have of Euclidian space; it is the simplest in itself, just as a polynomial of the first degree is simpler than a polylnomial of the second degree; 2nd, because it sufficiently agrees with the properties of natural solids, those bodies which we can compare and measure by means of our senses." That 'sufficient agreement' and 'simplicity in itself' are not a sufficient basis for arguing the correctness of the results of our models, is also clearly spoken to by Poincaré; ... "For here the mind may affirm because it lays down its own laws; but let us clearly understand that while these laws are imposed on 'our' science, which otherwise could not exist, they are not imposed on Nature."
So, here is where we find a 'parting of the way's' of sciences and religions, ... on the issue of parsimony, ... which shall it be, ... a parsimony in terms of equations, or a parsimony in terms of 'fundamental principles?
The parsimony of mathematical equations leads to bivalent euclidian space, ... where things 'exist' OR they 'do not exist', ... to the transcendance of man and to a culture based on the imposition of 'judgement' of 'good' OR 'bad', linear exclusionary hierarchies and 'action management'.
The parsimony of fundamental principles leads to a multivalent non-euclidian space-time continuum, ... to man seen as a 'strand-in-the-web-of-life' and to a culture based on 'cultivation of whole-and-part harmony', volumetrically-nested inclusionary hierarchies and 'opportunity management'.
The 'dominator society' inspired by West's opting for the parsimony of equations, which embraces the transcendence of man and denies the 'strand-in-the-web-of-life' geometry of space-time, manifests behaviours which are showing an insensitivity to its brother-strands; i.e. "A 1998 survey of over 400 biologists found that the majority agree we are currently part of/taking part in a planet-wide mass extinction event. . . . Almost 70% of the biologists surveyed believed that a "mass extinction" is underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats."
Hawking and Weinberg speak of the 'singularity' of the 'big bang', ... a voyeur view of 'something out there' which never even attempts to accommodate, in the theory, the relationship between 'what's out there' and the observer who is now spinning this tale of the 'big bang'. How do the two relate?
The schizophrenia is evident in Weinberg's summup commentary on the problems with modern cosmology; "However, all of these problems may be resolved and whichever cosmological model proves correct, there is not much comfort in any of this. It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe , that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. As I write this I happen to be in an airplane at 30,000 feet, flying over Wyoming en route home from San Francisco to Boston. Below, the earth looks very soft and comfortable --- fluffy clouds here and there, snow turning pink as the sun sets, roads stretching straight across the country from one town to another. It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe . It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."
Until circa 500 B.C., the peoples of the ancient world were consistent in their belief that man was nested within community which was in turn nested within nature, ...many aboriginals and peoples of the east continue to believe this. The linear hierarchical (euclidian and absolute time- based) notion of a 'hostile universe' which was 'infected with life' is the product of anthropocentric rationalism, ... i.e. religious thought in the cloak of science.
There is no theory which is not somewhere dependent on 'fundamental principle' or axioms which cannot be tested. Unlike relativity theory, the theory of Hawking, Weinberg and the Pope takes the transcendence of the anthropic rationalism for granted; i.e. such rationalism underpins the theory but is not taken into account within the theory itself. This 'incompleteness' of the theory, in accounting for the mechanisms of its own creation, leads to a curious 'loose thread' referred to as the 'anthropic principle'. As Jeremy Bernstein, in discussing the difference of cosmological view of Weinberg and Hawking in 'Cranks, Quarks and the Cosmos' cites Hawking on the question in this regard;
"Finally, Hawking's book is more benevolent than Weinberg's in its philosophical outlook. Hawking makes frequent and amiable references to God --- somewhat the way Einstein used to do; but since he calls Him 'him', one is not quite sure how to take this. Less ambiguous, perhaps, is his apparent acceptance of what he defines as 'the weak anthropic principle'. The regular anthropic principle (which Hawking does not seem to embrace) he defines in a glossary as the proposition that 'we see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to observe it.' While this appears at first to have some scientific content, the more one thinks about it the more that content slips away, like water running through one's fingers. . . . Apart from the question of how, or whether, such a principle could ever be verified (how could one distinguish it from Weinberg's dictum that 'the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.'?), it flies in the face of the history of science, which has been a retreat from a human-centered cosmos. This point was made by Hawking, who writes;
'We have developed from the geocentric cosmologies of Ptolemy and his forebears, through the heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus and Galileo, to the modern picture in which the earth is a medium-sized planet orbiting around an average star in the outer suburbs of an ordinary spiral galaxy which is itself only one of about a million, million galaxies in the observable universe. Yet the strong anthropic principle would claim that this whole vast construction exists simply for our sake. This is very hard to believe.'
Instead, Hawking accepts the weak anthropic principle, which, as he defines it, states that;
'the conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life will be met only in certain regions that are limited in space and time. The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their experience. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighbourhood not seeing any poverty.'
It is not clear to me that this principle has any real content either, but at least it is not absurd."
... So says Jeremy Bernstein, ... and his comments about 'no real content' are being applied to the 'loose thread' which emanates from the dependency of the theory on non-relativistic euclidian space and absolute time, where the observer is not an innate feature of his own containing environment.
It is indeed interesting that Hawking, by assuming the homogeneity of matter and space, ... comes around to the point of 'declaring' regions of non-homogeneity populated by 'intelligent life' in order to explain the relationship of that 'intelligent life' to its own theory of the cosmos. The parsimony of the equations of bivalent space, linear time, and hierarchical history is certainly not leading to a parsimony of 'fundamental principles'. Instead, additional 'principles' such as the 'weak anthropic principle' and 'exceptional regions of space and time' are needed to compensate for lack of consistency and closure coming from the parsimonious mathematics.
In any case, ... this linear hierarchical science of Hawking, Weinberg, the Pope, the Nobel Foundation and mainstream disciplinary science, ... which opts for neat and tidy rationalist equations at the expense of experientially validated principles of the relativity of space, ... which sees intelligent life as being an infectation feeding upon a dead and hostile universe, ... which denies our 'strand-in-the-web-of-life' participation in the cosmos and thus breeds schizophrenia, ... such linear, hierarchical science is at the base of a very 'special' kind of love, ... the paternalistic - idolatric love which comes of a linear hierarchy, ... emotionally imposing 'what is good for others' on those below us in the hierarchy and emotionally craving 'what is good for us' from those above us in the hierarchy, ... a little bit of 'sado-masochism' to keep the world humping along.
By this linear science, we, as nature's most wonderful product, see ourselves as having to 'take the reins' out of the hands of our containing nature, ... and assume a paternalist responsibility for 'taking care of our natural environment', ... seeing it as something which somehow 'produced us' (i.e. implying a system capable of transcending itself), but something which we now stand apart from, even though we are somehow 'nested' and 'contained' within it. A delightfully psycho-pathological view of the world which proves, as Giordano Bruno said shortly before he was burned at the stake in 1600, ... that 'the majority has no monopoly on the truth'.
So, the next time after a session watching Stephen Hawking et al present to you their linear hierarchical 'histories of time', ... I would advise you to follow this up with an inventory of your possessions, ... because chances are, you will have just been victimized by a gigantic 'con'.
Yes, your underwear and your watch may still be in place, ... but something will be missing, ... what is it?
How about a childhood experience such as this one;
"... and you just looked around at all the new and beautiful things. And after a while, the trader put some things out on the counter, sacks of flour and sugar, a slab of salt pork, some canned goods, and a little bag full of the hard red candy. And your grandfather took off one of his rings and gave it to the trader. It was a small green stone, set carelessly in thin silver. It was new and it wasn't worth very much, not all the trader gave for it, anyway. And the trader opened one of the cans, a big can of whole tomatoes, and your grandfather sprinkled sugar on the tomatoes and the two of you ate them right there and drank bottles of sweet red soda pop. And it was getting late and you rode home in the sunset and the whole land was cold and white. And that night your grandfather hammered the strips of silver and told you stories in the firelight. And you were little and right there in the center of everything, the sacred mountains, the snow-covered mountains and the hills, the gullies and the flats, the sundown and the night, everything --- where you were little, where you were and had to be." (from 'House made of dawn' by Kiowa writer Scott Momaday)
Experiences from a perceptual vantage point, ...'... in the center of everything, ... where you were and had to be.', ... are noticeably absent from these scientific views of 'the way the world is'.
Why are they absent? Because the formulation of mathematical equations of 'the way things are in the common cosmologies of modern science demand that 'things' and 'space' be 'homogeneous'. If we retain the uniqueness of our own personally centered 'vantage points', then we can't reduce the view of the world to linear equations. There must be just 'one world', ... one 'objective view' which is common to us all in order to put the Hawkingian-Weinbergian cosmology into the terms of mathematical physics, ... and that means that you can forget about your implicit personal relationship with the space-time environment that you are immersed in, ... it has to be sacrificed in order to get a 'predictable' model of 'the history of time'.
What's left of 'you', ... in this case?
Well, what you lose is your 'imagination' and what's left of you is your 'kinetic self', ... your statistical properties and statistical behaviors which have been reduced to the purely explicit, tangible and measurable aspects. Imagination is what you need to bring into connection in the mind, the multitude of real and imaginary experiences as seen from your unique space-time coordinates, ... 'from the center of everything, ... where you are and have to be'.
So, you just lost your imagination in this scientific con-game, ... and you come out of it with your rationality now rattling around in your cognitive chambers, with plenty of room to spare having dumbed down and subordinated the natural primacy of relational intellection to a 'transcendent rationalism'.
And 'you', ... who are you?, ... now that you are participating in this 'con'?
You are the new 'Mr. Homogeneous You', ... you are 'fully given' in this continuing 'con' by your statistical properties and behaviours.
What happens if you 'hit the wall' and feel that your rationally assessed 'properties and behaviours', which are assessed by your ability to be 'selected' by an increasingly rationalist society, do not 'stack up' to anything significant? when you have succumbed to the 'con' and are no longer 'grounded' in 'imagination' and 'centered experience', your 'authentic you', the seat of your 'unconditional love' and 'unity with nature'?
You will likely become one of the growing ranks of the drug-taking 'depressed', 26% of women and 12 percent of men, and like these millions of others, you will be prescribed anti-depressant drugs, such as Tofranil or Janimine, Elavil or Endep, Adapin or Sinequan, Surmontil, Norpramin or Pertofrane, Aventyl or Pamelor, Vivactil or Anafranil, Triavil or Etrafon, Limbitrol, Ludiomil, Desyrel or Wellbutrin or Prozac. Drugs which 'block' normal body functions, and to which the body responds by trying even harder to 'do its job', ... and making attempts at withdrawal lead to deeper depression than originally encountered, with drug addiction being the result. One no longer needs a prescription to take these drugs, ... their usage is on such a huge scale that such psychopharmacological products now permeate the water supply and are found in the open oceans in concentrations sufficient to be inducing mutation in fish and other marine lifeforms.
Now, if you are lucky, as Jimmy Stewart was, in 'Its a Wonderful Life', ... you will not go to a psychiatrist, and you will not take drugs, ... but will instead be visited by an angel, who will take you on a magic tour of a world with and without you, and show you that your life is not, as linear hierarchical science says, measured in terms of your physical properties and your tangible behaviors - rational abstractions based on 'homogeneity', ... but that your life is instead given meaning and context by the influence you induce in your containing community and environment, ... how you 'induce' change in the configuration of opportunities for others, ... your 'shape' management (billiards) rather than your 'shot' management.
If you 'hit the wall' in search of your 'self' and the angel doesn't come, ... and if, at the same time, you don't want to take brain-impairing anti-depressants, ... then you had better go back to Mr Hawking and company and ask them where unique personal experience went to in their vision of the world, ... how space and matter became homogeneous when our experience informs us otherwise?
Chances are, the physicists will ignore you, because they are far too busy selling the 'con' to other eager consumers, ... supply creates its own demand when there is a critical mass of people playing the game of 'climb the linear hierarchy'. It's kind of like a pyramidal chain letter, if you can get into the hierarchy at a good time, ... the winnings can be considerable. It is said that 'a good product sells itself', ... but the kicker is this notion of 'good' once again, ... if you try to sell linear science in a buddhist colony, you may end up a beggar.
Many have tried knocking on the doors of the high priests of linear science, but it seems that 'the lights are on but no-one is home'. The appeal of mathematical formulations in their own right have a seductive power which 'makes hungry where most it satisfies'. The solution of 'Fermat's Last Theorem', ... that the expression X**n + Y**n = Z**n has no solutions for integers 'n' greater or equal to 3, ... occupied the thoughts and careers of many mathematicians from 1637 to the present, ... spiced by Fermat's scribbled note in the margin to his theorem, ... "Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet." ("I have a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain."). The colossal effort in search of a proof for this theorem came to a culmination, but in no way a closure to the story, by the 130 page published proof of Andrew Wiles. The story continues with those who believe in the search by those would have it that the proof has 'leaks' in it.
As is the case with 'big bang' theory or 'quantum theory', ... theory can become a 'thing in its own right' and an 'economy' can develops around it which is incidental to the original pursuit of 'understanding the way the world works'.
Linear hierarchical theory, as exemplified by the 'big bang' cosmologies of Hawking and Weinberg and the philosophical doctrines of western religion, become economies of themselves akin to 'Fermat's last theorem', ... but in the case of mainstream science, masquerading as a model of 'the way the world works', in spite of recognized 'incompletenesses' and 'loose threads' leading to massive dysfunction in their real-world application. Meanwhile, massive infrastructures have been established to support this (unintended) 'con-game', ... amongst which are the western 'educational system' and 'the media'.
While western adults have 'bought in' so deeply that there is rampant 'blindness' to the source of dysfunction, and/or feelings of impotence in bringing about change, ... rebel factions amongst youth have an increasing awareness of the pathology of exclusionary logic and linear hierarchy.
For those who do get the chance to ask, a few questions-and-answers follow below which could be of some value, ... questions and answers which bring out the fact that not all scientists are into the purging of imagination and consciousness from our view of the world, ... 'relativity theory', in particular, puts the uniqueness (non-homogeneity of space) back into the 'works'. And physicists who embrace the reciprocal unifying notions of relativity say things like Eric Jantsch has said in 'The Self-Organizing Universe';
"Science is at the point of recognizing these principles [self-organization where individual constituents are 'given back' their imagination and their unity with the whole of nature] as general laws of a natural dynamics. Applied to man and his system of life, they are an expression of natural life in the deepest sense. The dualistic separation of nature and culture is thereby overcome. There is a kind of joy in reaching out, in stepping beyond natural processes --- the joy of life. There is a kind of meaning life's connection with other processes within an all-encompassing evolution --- the meaning of life. We are not at the mercy of evolution --- we are evolution."
Similarly, Einstein describes a 'third aspect' to religion, involving a personal linking to the evolutionary field which goes beyond the anthropocentric motivators of 'fear' and 'morality';
"Common to all these types [types of religions based on fear and good/bad morality] is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. . . . But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole."
Einstein further notes that there is more of this 'cosmic religious feeling' in Buddhism than in western religions, ... and he might have added in the indigenous peoples religious traditions, as well.
... So what is it about this 'homogeneity of space and matter' which runs counter to our experience, which we put in the form of 'embarassing questions' to the physicists who 'steward' our notions of space and time?
The first thing to note, in formulating your question, is that your unique view 'from the center of everything' is not limited to anthropomorphs, .... it is available to all constituents of space, ... the pebble in the streambed is also, from 'its' viewpoint, .'... in the center of everything, ... where you were and had to be.'.
What is it about this view which informs us in a way which goes beyond the 'homogeneous space' view of mainstream science?
The essential feature is that there is an 'implicit', multi-reality relationship between the constituent and its (his) containing environment which goes beyond the 'material-causal' or 'kinetics' orientation of scientific description. The pebble, even when it doesn't move, is a feature in the landscape at the same time as it is the landscape. That is, ... it effects the possibilities as seen by the 'water molecule's reality', and the water molecules must give way for the pebble. We could say that the pebble is an element within the 'possibility space' seen by the water molecule/s, and if the pebble moves, the possibility space for the water molecules is transformed.
Mainstream science describes ONLY the kinetic movements of the pebble. Why?, ... because if science were to consider the pebble's UNIQUE SITUATION WITHIN ITS CONTAINING POSSIBILITY SPACE, ... science could no longer GENERALISE the phenomena of the pebble's motion. In other words, it would have to treat every situation as unique and therefore there could be no 'laws of motion' of material objects.
This 'homogeneity assumption' which sacrifices the natural non-homogeneity of 'material things' in order that generalized 'laws' of material behavior may be formulated is not unknown to science, but it is most definitely ignored, in the interests of keeping reductionism in the primacy. Einstein 'pounded the table' on this point, trying to get people to recognize that SPACE IS NOT HOMOGENEOUS, and that we must think in terms of a SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM since the notion of absolute time has been 'debunked' by the general theory of relativity.
To 'get it right', ... like the angel told Jimmy Stewart in 'Its a Wonderful Life', ... we have to account for the fact that when any material constituent within space moves, it changes the 'possibility space' seen by all other constituents of space. Had it been a friend instead of an angel, the friend might have taken Jimmy to the pool hall to demonstrate this principle with respect to the evolving 'shape' of the configuration in the game of eightball, however, the angel was able to show the REAL effects of how jimmy's movements changed the possibility space for others in his family and in the town, and how that induced transformational effect indeed led to significant and harmonious results, ... which overshadowed the rational assessment of jimmy's properties and behaviors. The angel showed Jimmy, in effect, that the induced transformational influence reciprocally associated with Jimmy's movements, ... reciprocal effects which are ignored in normal scientific treatment, were the more complete informational representation of Jimmy.
How one's 'shots' change the englobing landscape of possibilities is the big story, ... and a description of the shots in their own right is a 'little story' which is included within the 'big story'. If I tell you all there is to know about the rock which rolls down the mountain into the stream, ... that will still not tell you about the changes in the landscape, ... how a tree was able to sprout and grow where the rock had sat, ... and how the rock had bottle-necked the stream so that it backed up and flooded a village. But on the other hand, if I tell you about how the landscape is changed, then I tell you much more, and the bit about the rock rolling down the hill is now a secondary and included 'little story' within the bigger one.
In other words, ... DESCRIBING THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF SPACE (THE LANDSCAPE OF POSSIBILITY) IS A MORE COMPLETE WAY OF DESCRIBING THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS AS COMPARED WITH DESCRIBING MATERIAL-CAUSAL KINETICS.
As Henri Poincaré pointed out, when we use the homogeneity assumption, we IMPOSE a simplicity on things which is not really there. As he said in 'Science and Hypothesis', the approach in science has always been to reduce phenomena into a large number of elementary phenomena, by simplifying the notions of space and time.
With respect to time, ... we could say that to understand the way the world worked, that it was not enough to 'start the clock' with the rock falling down the mountainside, and that we should instead include how the mountain got there in the first place in our investigation, and how it was changed in the process. This would enable us to account for 'the rock's unique view of its possibility space relative to its purpose which led to its rolling down the mountain. Poincaré says;
"First, with respect to time [the first way of approximating the phenomena]. Instead of embracing in its entirety the progressive development of a phenomenon, we simply try to connect each moment with the one immediately preceding. We admit that the present state of the world only depends on the immediate past, without being directly influenced, so to speak, by the recollection of a more distant past. Thanks to this postulate, instead of studying directly the whole succession of phenomena, we may confine ourselves to writing down its differential equation ; for the laws of Kepler, we substitute the laws of Newton."
So the equations of motion speak to any rock sitting on the side of the hill which rolls down, ... and we ignore the bigger story of how that rock got there, in a position within the potential field configuration which is very different from that of the rock which lies in the bottom of the valley. We sacrifice the uniqueness of the rock for the convenience of the equation.
We throw out the unique history and personal 'centeredness' of things with statistical techniques so as to simplify the view. As Poincaré says; "The law of great numbers has re-established simplicity in the mean. Here the simplicity is only apparent."
Poincaré, in fact, reviews three approximations which we make in order to use mathematical physics (laws of 'what happens'), ... homogeneity, relative independence of remote parts and simplicity of the elementary fact. In his examples, he reviews 'what we drop out', in this case, on the question of independence from remote parts;
"In all these examples, which may be increased [in number and variety] without difficulty, it is admitted that there is no action at a distance or at great distances. That is an hypothesis. It is not always true, as the law of gravitation proves. It must therefore be verified. If it is confirmed, even approximately, it is valuable, for it helps us to use mathematical physics, at any rate by successive approximations."
... here we see Poincaré's 'conventionalist' philosophy, ... which is that we are only approximating nature's behaviours and that while this is a very useful approach if our approximation is 'ok' relative the questions we are seeking answers to, it is incomplete if we are investigating the deeper question of 'the way the world works';
"It is therefore, thanks to the approximate homogeneity of the matter studied by physicists, that mathematical physics came into existence. In the natural sciences the following conditions are no longer to be found: --- homogeneity, relative independence of remote parts, simplicity of the elementary fact; and that is why the student of natural science is compelled to have recourse to other modes of generalisation."
So what scientists like Hawking are giving us, is the 'non-relativistic view' of the cosmos based on the assumption of the 'homogeneity of matter', ... the notion that 'matter' has no awareness of its 'place in space'.
What's the problem here? We know that we, homo sapiens, are conscious of our unique place in space, and that our movements cannot be interpreted 'in their own right' out of the context of our consciousness of the possibility space we are immersed in and how it is being changed by our motions.
The problemseems to be one of ascribing consciousness of 'centeredness' within possibility space to all constituents of nature, from rocks to humans, .... and this notion seems to run head on into the 'transcendent rationalism of man' anthropic principle of Hawking, Weinberg, the Pope et al.
But this 'problem' is an artificial, self-inflicted one since, as we know from relativity theory, the notion of a standalone material entity is itself an approximation, ... thus we are not forced to invent an individual consciousness for an abstracted feature of the containing field. As Einstein says, material objects are simply local intensifications of the field. In this case, both our consciousness and our material being are seen as emanating from space rather than consciousness having to be a function of our material being. This is the 'self-organizing' principle of physicists such as Jantsch.
To summarize to this point, ... the homogenization of matter, which homogenizes our brains in the process, by dropping out the imaginary 'space-time phase' components necessary for 'implicit understanding', ... is done to artificially 'get around' the problem of a unique, non-reducible 'centeredness' seen by each individual constituent of space. The homogenization achieved by the contra-experiential choices of the euclidian space 'convention' the notion of 'absolute time' and linear hierarchy (evolutionary progression), is what makes generalized kinetic laws and equations possible. This 'no generalization without homogenization' problem stems from the fact that we base our modeling on 'material things', and the way around it is to, instead, base our modeling on the 'configuration of space' (the 'potential energy field' aspect which is reciprocal to the material-thing based 'kinetic energy' aspect of natural phenomena).
To give an example, the pool player 'manages opportunity' for his brood of balls, ... which means that he simultaneously considers the unique possibility space seen by each of his balls and when he 'takes a shot', ... he moves the balls (or tries to) so that the possibility space transforms in such a way as to open up opportunity for all of his balls in the continuing play. The kinetics of his shot, ... the way the balls which move, move, ... is therefore reciprocally determined by the 'bigger story' of his 'multi-reality opportunity management efforts'. I use the term 'multi-reality' here since each of his balls has a unique view of 'possibility space' in which they visualize their 'opportunity' (possiblity reconciled with their purpose or 'where they want to go'). The purely kinetic aspects, which do not speak to the changes in the configuration associated with those balls which did not move, but which nevertheless contribute to the newly-transformed 'shape of space' which is all important to the possible passageways for the balls to move down which determines the evolution of the game, are radically incomplete with respect to an understanding of 'how the game works'.
Now it is our common experience that the generalized laws of physics, because they depend on homogeneous space, are radically incomplete with respect to the 'way the world REALLY works'.
What confuses us is that we accept science's confirmation of their theories by replication of results UNDER LABORATORY CONDITIONS. Why under laboratory conditions? .... because the real, unique conditions 'in the field' always lead to unique results, ... they do not replicate theory, ... however, the departure from theory due to unique field conditions is referred to as 'random noise'. If you look at the physics of dropping a sandgrain onto the crest of a sandpile, ... the grains will respond approximately to Newton's laws and bounce and tumble down the sides of the pile varying distance, and be stopped by friction according to the the theory, ... and the departures, normally small, will be termed 'random noise'. Now every once in a while, a single sandgrain falling will trigger an avalanche, and this 'nonlinear' effect, due to the continual, undocumented shifting of the landscape of possibilities seen uniquely by each grain, ... is also termed 'noise' because it cannot be explained in terms of generalized laws based on 'homogeneous matter'. Imagine yourself as a sandgrain within a team of sandgrains, ... as each new sandgrain lands on the pile, everyone tries to shift the load to their neighbours and this will be possible for a while, as more sandgrains 'pile on', ... but at some point, certain grains will no longer be able to 'keep their foothold' (due to frictional thresholds), and when this happens there will be a slipping and a re-adjustment (an avalanche) which cannot be generalized on an explicit basis. Only qualitative generalizations are possible (e.g. the Gutenberg-Richter power law associated with self-organized criticality which says, in the case of avalanches, that the frequency of large avalanches, H(m), greater than 'm' in magnitude, is proportional to 10**(-b*m). In other words, big avalanches will be less frequent).
In general the space-time phase relationships associated with non-homegeneity of space will be very complex in nature, and the laboratory basis for replication of theory dealing with explicit results protects that theory against the 'real life' effects of the space-time coordinates where the theory might be tested.
For example, if we dig a hole in the ground, we can describe the process in terms of the generalized laws of physics, ... the strength of materials, volumes and masses displaced, the forces required to displace the volumes, the total energy requirements and so on.
The theory will replicate over many instances if the ground is approximately the same.
But what if we let space be NON-HOMOGENEOUS and dig a hole in soft earth in, ... let's say, ... the Mississipi levee near the fork between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya river. And what if we say that space-time cannot be generalized into 'space AND time' either, so that we dig the hole during springflood at this location?
Well according to the relational intelligence of the engineers who maintain the mississippi waterway, ... the river will eat a whole through the levee and permanently alter its course down the Atchafalaya rivercourse and into the sea through the Atchafalaya swamp. This is a rather large departure from the 'hole-digging' physics theory, which made the approximation in order to generalize, as noted by Poincaré and mentioned above;
"First, with respect to time [the first way of approximating the phenomena]. Instead of embracing in its entirety the progressive development of a phenomenon, we simply try to connect each moment with the one immediately preceding. We admit that the present state of the world only depends on the immediate past, without being directly influenced, so to speak, by the recollection of a more distant past. Thanks to this postulate, instead of studying directly the whole succession of phenomena, we may confine ourselves to writing down its differential equation ; for the laws of Kepler, we substitute the laws of Newton."
Now the fact is that the containing landscape around that hole-digging had been changing for some time, ... and digging a hole involves disturbing an equilibrium of some kind; i.e. there are always reciprocal transformation effects associated with the kinetic action which physics speaks to because we are disturbing dynamical equilbrium (possibility space or potential field configuration) in the containing environment.
Apparently, the physics of 'hole-digging' is not the same everywhere in space, ... in fact the physics of hole-digging is very different at certain space-time coordinates, and while our relational intelligence informs us of this, ... our mainstream scientific laws do not, ... because apart from relativity, which starts from the concept of space rather than the concept of matter, ... the laws of physics do not handle multi-reality interference effects, such as emanate from the 'shape' of the containing landscape associated with the space-time coordinates at which the 'real-life' (non-laboratory) 'experiment' is conducted.
In this case, the 'incompleteness' in our laws of physics is rather large, ... if we dig a hole in the levee of the mississipi at SPACE COORDINATES near its intersection with the atchafalaya river, ... during the TIME COORDINATES of spring flood, ... there will be no stopping the Mississipi from irrevocably changing its course and going down the Atchafalaya passage to the sea, leaving the Port of New Orleans centered around a quiet tidal pond where once the mighty Mississipi flowed. As McLuhan says, the kinetics focus is nothing compared to the induced transformation effects, ... the story is not whether the factory makes cadillacs or cornflakes, ... the story is how the factory induces transformation into its containing environment.
On the biological front, the criticality of space-time coordinates associated with the interference of multiple realities, the same over-riding influence can be seen. For example, in the following news item, concerning an experiment to learn more about the migration of ancient peoples from central and south america to the south pacific, ... the knowledge of the large sea-worms which like to munch on logs, ... the kinetic behavior, ... is not 'the big story', ... and neither is the fact that wood loses its buoyancy when it is drilled full of holes 'the big story', ... the 'big story' in this case is when the worms bore holes in logs which are carrying the observer on a three thousand mile trip over the open ocean;
* * *
"Posted at 06:28 a.m. PST; Wednesday, January 6, 1999 Adventurers retracing ancient route in wood raft by Jared Kotler The Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia - Sailing in the Pacific on a 60-foot balsa-wood raft, an American-led crew hopes to exalt the legacy of an ancient seafaring people and prove they were capable of making long-distance voyages. The four-man crew began its journey in Ecuador, stopped for emergency repairs in Colombia after sea worms feasted on the raft's hull, and now plans to cross the Pacific to Hawaii.
The sea worms forced the 20-ton raft to stop for emergency repairs at the coastal town of Bahia Solano on Oct. 30, two weeks after it began its journey. Its damaged trunks replaced and covered with seven coats of worm-proof tar, "La Manten" went back to sea this weekend. The crew hopes to reach Acapulco, Mexico, before March, then head to Hawaii, a 3,300-mile Pacific crossing that could take three more months.
Led by 34-year-old John Haslett, a former newspaper distributor from Dallas, the raft is a meticulous replica of those used by the Mantenos of what is now northern Ecuador. The pre-Columbian civilization dates back to 500 A.D. Haslett was inspired by Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ethnographer who described his 1947 raft crossing of the South Pacific in the book, "Kon Tiki."
* * *
We are told that the raft is a 'meticulous replica', ... in spite of its seven coats of worm-proof tar and a rescue support effort. Perhaps the ancients who successfully made the trip without the rescue and the tar thought of rafting in more than the mechanical-kinetic terms of raft construction, ... i.e. in the more 'complete' terms of multi-reality interference effects.
The scientific study of systems has exposed this typical 'incompleteness' of traditional scientific disciplines, as Russell Ackoff observes in his writings on 'systems thinking';
"Another important consequence of the commitment to causal thinking derives from the acceptance of a cause as sufficient for its effect. Because of this a cause was [is] taken to explain its effect completely. Nothing else was required to explain it, not even the environment. Therefore, Machine-Age thinking was [is], to a large extent, environment-free, it tried to develop understanding of natural phenomena without using the concept of environment. For example, what does the word 'freely' in the familiar 'Law of Freely Falling Bodies' mean? It means a body falling in the absence of any environmental influences. The apparent universality of such laws (and there were [are] many) does not derive from their applicability to every environment for, strictly speaking, they apply to none; it derives from the fact that they apply approximately to most environments that we experience.
Perhaps even more revealing of the environment-free orientation of Machine-Age science is the nature of the place in which its inquiry was usually conduced, the laboratory. A laboratory is a place so constructed as to facilitate exclusion of the environment. It is a place in which the effect of one variable on another can be studied without the intervention of the environment."
So, in spite of the explicit behaviour predicting capabilities of homogeneous space based scientific laws, our natural experience informs us that the non-homogeneity of space-time is of over-riding importance in determining WHAT REALLY HAPPENS.
Culturally, we have come to think of ourselves as 'homogeneous objects', out of the context of our unique space-time centered experience, ... and we assess and value ourselves on the basis of our 'statistical properties and behaviors', ... on the basis of how strongly we are 'selected' by our culture, ... rather than on the basis of the richness of our engagement with our containing space. Such homogeneous assessment has become very 'hollow' and is a source of increasing depression.
There is a more complete way to view and assess ourselves and the world, ... and that is in terms of the 'shape of our containing landscape of community and nature' and how it is transformed by our actions. This view is one of 'managing opportunity', ... 'managing multi-reality opportunity', ... rather than managing actions. Jimmy Stewart's character in 'It's a Wonderful Life' scored much higher on this 'relativistic' basis, than on the hollow basis of kinetics. Kinetic assessments encourage our increasing blindness to the inevitable reciprocal transformation of our containing landscape induced by our actions.
That we should seek to understand our world in terms of 'kinetics' is a audacious, if unintended, scientific 'con'.
In Einstein's alluding to total energy as 'substance' ("The sum of the two quantities [kinetic and potential energy] remains unchanged, and is called a constant of the motion. The total energy, kinetic plus potential, is like a substance."), the notion follows that our lives are inseparable from this 'substance', the substance being our 'alter-self', our containing environment which we continue to abuse by our unconscious focus on kinetics which has us believe in our 'absolute independence'.
Meanwhile we eagerly applaud and reward the 'con artists' of science whose 'Fermat's Last Theorem-like' foofoora surrounding their-and-our unconscious models of the world we live in, ... linear hierarchical models which, by ignoring our 'strand-in-the-web-of-life' relationship to our containing environment, has us thinking that we and our rational intellection is 'transcencent' and that we can dominate and exploit what's beneath us on the linear hierarchy with impunity. Of course, we do not do this for our own 'selfish purpose', but act out of an 'unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another' which makes it 'right' in the eyes of our culture. This paternalistic love thus has us 'exclude' and 'de-opportunize non-selected 'others' in our unselfish attending to the 'good' of those we most love. The bivalent judgement of 'what is good' and the notion that there are no reciprocal effects (as relativity insists there are) of our actions in 'attending to the good of others', ...means that our paternalistic love driven concentration of 'good' will be linearly additive and our efforts will thus be purificational.
Our minds are becoming so homogenized by this simple-minded science and our cultural raft so full of holes, ... that our prospects of staying afloat in the evolutionary flow are being seriously questioned by evolutionary biologists.
The linear hierarchy of absolute time, the source of naturally selection, ... a purificational process which has given rise to 'transcendent rationality of man', and an achievement otherwise known as 'progress', lives on in our continuing homogenization. Modern man continues to further this progress in a technology-amplified manner, ... furthering the purging of imagination needed to center us within our experience and allow us to 'become who we are meant to become'. The generalizations of science encouraging us to become detached 'voyeurs' of our own experience,... engaging with our containing community and environment on the synthetic basis of social hierarchy of a statistical assessment of ourselves. Our conformance to the scientific 'con' of purging of imagination brings forth increased predictability within the increasingly 'synthetic biosphere' of technological reality, since without imagination, ... without exercising our unique authenticity, .... we become more predictable, as the theory says.
And so it goes, ... as the characters in Kurt Wonnegut's novels are wont to say, ... we are living within a containing environment characterized by a deepening, culturally-induced schizophrenia. We think of ourselves, man, not as part of nature, but as transcending nature, ... nature's most wonderful God-given 'product', ... a product which is licenced to exploit and 'de-opportunize' its brother constituents in the name of a paternalist love guided by the 'universal knowledge of good'.
But there is 'another way' which could be 'revived', ... a minority way, ... the way of relativity and indigenous tradition wherein we see ourselves as 'strands-in-the-web-of-life', ... where love is 'unconditional' rather than 'paternalistic' and where 'linear hierarchy' and 'action management' are subsumed by 'spherically nested hierarchy' and 'opportunity management'.
Perhaps the questioning of free-thinking rebel youth, and a growing awareness of the harmony cultivating power of indigenous tradition will be able to bring such a revival to ferment, .... before the consciousness of authenticity is fully homogenized into the congealed residue of statistical selfhood.
* * *