>difference." So, I prefer trinities (the Hegelian type, not the
>Christian type ;-) to simple dualisms (see Rucker’s _Mind Tools_), as
>in there being three levels to reality: content, context and contest,
>each of which is distinct from, but relies on, the others. Put
>another way, we have agents, environments and interactions (contests
>between them); and, you can’t have any one of these pieces without the
>other. So, everything is certainly linked as Mark says; but, that
>doesn’t mean it’s not necessary to distinguish between them.
Certain things are only possible if distinctions are drawn; certain things are only possible if distinctions are *not* drawn.
Sorry if that sounds mysterious or too rubbery.
>The command model has frequently been considered more "rational",
>since it involves the visible application of reason to the economic
>problem as a whole. Alternatives have frequently been considered
>irrational and an invitation to chaos. This viewpoint, however, smacks
>of the creationist fallacy - it assumes that a coherent result
>requires a guiding plan. In actuality, decentralized planning is
>potentially more rational, since it involves more minds taking into
>account more total information. [SNIP]
There are two other salient points I want to make: there is a presumption that a central plan must be "correct" or "perfectible", and an underlying epistemological ground that there is such a thing as the one correct set of categories, and all one has to do is find them and force the universe to fit. :) (this observation after Lakoff, of course.)
>
>This is why I think we need many individuals and selves, rather than
>some Great Borganism, in order to create an extropian multiverse
>rather than an entropian universe headed for collapse.
>
>I said: This [LILA model] sounds no different to me from the Christian
>Apocalypse & Resurrection.
>
>And Michael noted:
><<As G. Spencer Brown said, the symbol = may be taken to mean "is
>confused with".>
>
>I mistakenly posted an earlier version of what I wrote (working on
>multiple systems can be confusing ;-). My final version of that
>statement said: This sounds to me too much like the Christian Original
>Sin, Apocalypse and Resurrection.
>
>My point about these "New Age" notions of unity (particularly LILA) is
>that, instead of "Out of Many, One", they want to say, "Out of One,
>Many; SO, back to One". This is a Big Bang to Big Crunch scenario
>and, IMHO, it is Creationist; and, this yearning to "return to the
>One" is a desire to dissolve into the primal soup, an abdication of
>individual responsibility for carrying on the creation.
Cop out and "turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..."...
Yeah, I can only stand so much of that myself before I want to stir the pot. Go ahead and return the the ylem if you want; I promise I'll build something fun from you. :) :)
>
>I haven’t read G. Spenser-Brown, but I did take these notes from F.
>David Peat’s discussion of him in _Synchronicity_:
>
><< Next, Peat's explores "the work of the logician and mathematician
>G.Spenser-Brown ... a rather enigmatic figure who first came to the
>attention of the aging Bertrand Russell in 1965.... 'Laws of Form'
>takes as its origin a basic act of distinction ... once an active
>observer or a creative act of perception, is admitted into this void,
>then it becomes possible to draw the first distinction ... [which]
>allows a movement to begin ... A particularly interesting feature of
>this logic is that it is capable of generating expressions that begin
>to refer to themselves ... Spenser-Brown's re-entrant forms are in
>fact self-generating expressions that are capable of perpetuating
>themselves indefinitely." Peat goes on to explain the importance of
>context to this Hegelian dialectic; but, he imparts too much
>significance to the initial creative 'big bang' and not enough to the
>ongoing adaptive process that is thus generated.
>
>02/11/96. And so, as "Synchronicity" wraps up, Peat curls himself into
>a sort of fetal position, seeking to return to the womb in a sense, by
>emphasizing the origin, "the pure, unconditioned perception," what he
>and the mystics call "the stillness", rather than the 'noisy', ongoing
>"creative unfolding ... able to respond to an ever-changing context." >
>
>Mark Crosby
>
>P.S. re Rick Knight's latest response (read after writing the above):
>
><<Frankly, thinking too much and too often makes me rather tired and
>despondent. That's why I perceive it important to keep balance,
>breathe in and exhale out. Quest then rest.>
>
>Nothing wrong with that! That's just balance between Being and
>Becoming. (I don't mean to be a "rigid fundie" about any of this ;-)
>
>I can't resist one more excerpt from my notes that addresses this:
>
><<[Peat] confuses Being and Becoming: "The major barriers to a creative
>transformation of consciousness are the attachments of the self, which
>give rise to the mechanical order of becoming in which the more subtle
>and faster movements of nature are lost." This is backwards! Being is
>mechanical and static [or, at least, restful and neutral ;-] .
>Becoming is creative and dynamic. [snip] In lamenting the
>fragmentation of science, the alienation of the individual and the
>decay of civility, he sets up myths that are only true from a limited
>perspective that is preoccupied with the present. His "better notion
>of an intense and vibrant stillness" is little different from the
>fashionable notion of "holism" he decries which "suggests a self that
>becomes immersed in a warm bath of mindless gravy."
>
>In the end though, it is merely a matter of semantics and taste that
>distinguishes my view from Peat's because he concludes: "Eternity does
>not exist outside the self ... to die to the self does not mean to
>sacrifice all identity or freedom of action in the explicate world.
>Rather it suggests a dying of attachments to rigid, fixed forms and an
>unfolding of sequential time into its wider [fractal] order.... So the
>dissolution of fragmentation does not imply the abandonment of all
>distinctions and categories; rather, it suggests that distinctions are
>constantly being created, modified and ended in harmony with the
>general movement of reality." If that is not a description of eternal
>Becoming rather than the static Being of the mystic then I must have
>my meanings plugged in wrong!>
>
>_____________________________________________________________________
>Sent by RocketMail. Get your free e-mail at http://www.rocketmail.com
>
>
>
Looks like I made a liar of myself re: only having time for 2 points. :) Yeah, advocacy of permanent return-to-the-womb is kind of dumb, but it seems clear you're doing the dissection I asked you to do; I was just worried that you were ignoring the positive aspects of samadhi as a choice. Being stuck there is like being stuck anywhere. :) :)
MMB
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