New Thread on post- s-d (synthetic dialectical) mind. An easy start is an example. Lets say I have four things -- they could be concrete objects, phenomenal experiences, numbers. Now lets say I use my mind to place those four things in a set, which I label the set of these four things. The first question, is do I still have four things, or do I now have five things? Now lets move to a different form of the question which is more problematic to the s-d mind. Lets say I have a thing (a thesis) and its antithesis. And I come up with a synthesis that transcends and includes them. The second question is, in this case, do I have one thing, two things or three things? Here is a third alternative (each one of these are examples of metaphysical proofs of conceptual sublation) Lets say I have {1,1,1,1} and 4. How many things do I have? It is fairly easy to see what is happening in these examples. What is not easy to see is that the synthetic transcend and include move actually does not merely operate as a conceptual metaphysics. Rather the metaphysics discloses what operates as a strong conceptual filter that limits the range of experiences and perceptions that arise. This is to me, the point of enlightenment -- the disclosure of the profound and fundamental role of the typology of mind to determine what is actually experiences as is. Once we see the point we are released into the possibility of greater degrees of freedom, not only in our conceptual or metaphysical or linguistic apparatus, but also in the way that, for example, perceptions arise in my experience, or affects pulse through my experience, or the kinds of active imaginaries I can employ to explore emergent unknowns at the horizons of human potential. The interesting question for me, very much in line with Marks rant, is what causes the resistance of the organism to explore beyond s-d frames of reference? I dont really think it is the conceptual difficulty - sheesh! listen to the brilliance in all of you! No, what resists is something that has to do with existential angst, with deep ontic fear of something like nihilism. Because one of the major existential commitments that s-d mind has to make, is to make sense of multiplicty from the view of wholeness. That is what drives the synthetic move, because we cant see that how we frame experience is what is both causing the condition of the problem (cause) and the condition of the solution (effect). The real-life consequences of this existential angst -- a simultaneous flight from and drive toward wholeness -- I believe are fueling what we see as problematic in the dominant paradigms of the modern and post modern world. I dont believe, for example, that we can solve our environmental problem, if we cannot release the primary separation between nature and culture, human and non-human. And this separation, born of the existential angst of self-conscoiusness of death (IMO) is what has driven consciousness from magical to mythical to mental modes of complexification, without actually solving the root origin -- something about consciousness, something about the human mind. Anyway, perhaps this seems like a strange and fruitless journey I am on. I see it as pregnant with so much possibility.... If you have made it this far, I thank you for your attention. :-)
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 19:11:57 +0000
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