September 25, 2009
- On the known and the unknown -
Had a couple of posts in my twitter feed this week (from separate people) that I thought went really well together:
Dan Bartlett: All experience is a muddle, until we make a model to explain it. The model can clarify the muddles, but the model is never the muddle itself (which, as Dan explains, is a RAW quote)
integralmath: RT @ryanbiddulph: Purpose invests you with a power which ignores negativity.
For me, this points to a balance between experience-as-meaningless (muddle) and experience-as-meaningful (model), with these meaning-full models being created in order to give ourselves a purpose. Having created that purpose, we gain power over the negative aspects of the chaotic muddle (ie: it helps us push through hard times to get what we want). This is a key aspect of growing up, learning how to step outside of our immediate sensory experience and needs in order to attain a more complete purpose.
But if we cling too tightly to our self-created purpose, we lose sight of the unknown muddle, out of which newer, higher purposes can come. And if we don’t work on good, purposeful models, we get stuck wallowing in the muddle. Hence the need for a balancing act.
On the other hand, this entire argument is based on the assumption that the only way to make sense of life is to create a model to act as a filter over the chaotic mess of signal, and then the purpose becomes to find better, more evolved filters to gain more and more power over the unknown muddle. Implicit in this is that life is always a muddle that needs to be modeled.
I don’t know how much I agree with that, since it implies that there is no implicit model already within the muddle. Is it possible to move beyond the need for filters, and become the muddles way of modeling itself?
>But if we cling too tightly to our self-created purpose, we lose sight of the unknown muddle, out of which newer, higher purposes can come. And if we don’t work on good, purposeful models, we get stuck wallowing in the muddle.
Indeed.
>Is it possible to move beyond the need for filters, and become the muddles way of modeling itself?
I have no idea, but it sounds like a darn fine question.
I once read about this chap Chris Argyris. He was a psychologist who came across the idea that people have tacit (unspoken/unspeakable) models of the world which help determine their actions. He noticed that in certain situations, these ‘theories of action’ could be highly ineffective, in that intent and result could become quite divorced from each other. So he set out to see if he could re-educate a class of psychology majors. His tool was the new-fangled tape-recorder. Dialogues between students would be recorded. Each student would enter the dialogue with a stated intent (e.g. to persuade the other of something without criticizing them, or something like that) and their actual actions could be recorded and presented back to them, as a means of demonstrating the relation between intent and outcome. When challenged in this way, some weird and freaky things started to happen. The students would become defensive and increasingly aggressive, presumably in defence of their unspoken ‘theories of action’. In some cases, however, it became possible to persuade students that their actions in the dialogue actually worked against their stated intent, at which point they would become suddenly lost for words. For a while at least, losing their theories of action denied them the ability to act at all…
Comment by speedbird — September 28, 2009 @ 7:47 am
A lot has to do with genetics probably. There is a book called “the Blank Slate” that talks about how much of behaviour is ruled by genetics. There is an underlying assumption in academia that people are born a “blank slate” and are programmed or whatever from there.
A lot of Feminist and gender studies were based on this assumption. Like the idea that if you raise a boy to be a girl and versa that is what they will be.Its pretty much been disproven.
You’ve been reading these various Buddhist websites too right,, where they approach insight practice or whatever, scientifically?
The idea is that experience is repeatable. So that means we are all pretty much alike. But I think what it is with the models is they they are in a state of evolution. They aren’t perfected yet. But the thing they are attempting to explain is. Its not really a “muddle” its reality. We are “muddled.”
Having a muddle seems more like existentialism. In Existentialism everything is a muddle and we need to create whatever values we want to have otherwise there will be none.
Comment by Ted — September 28, 2009 @ 11:16 am
The underlying structure is not a structure, but its mind. Its a benevolent intelligence, though. But I guess I wouldn’t say the Universe is composed of “objective facts” so much…
I guess it’s like a hologram emanating from a Universal mind in such a way that the same basic pattern continually repeats itself through economies of scale.
So its a consistent pattern that corresponds with the workings of the human mind. That’s how we can have models with any accuracy at all.
Comment by Ted — September 28, 2009 @ 11:24 am
@ speedbird: That Chris Argyris experiment is INTERESTING, and definitely shines some light on just how hard it is to confront and change what really needs to be confronted and changed within us. Or comforted and changed, maybe. (thanks Freudian keyboard slips…) :)
This is what I was trying to fumble towards with my Surveillance, Identity, and Meaning posts (which I am just realizing now had surveillance misspelled…). That seeing ourselves as ourselves, we’ll either crack up, or start examining our “theories of action”. Would love to play around with my own like it was HTML coding, but would need a pretty stable situation in order to do so…
@ Ted: Actually, I’m getting more at “underlying assumptions” than I am at “genetics”, but I think you’re on the right track here. And anyway, genetics are kind of like underlying assumptions anyway, except that they’re underlying really really deeply…
That is an intense idea. I like that a lot. Mirrors within mirrors…
Agreed, except that I think the human mind is just a lower economy of scale of the Universal mind. There’s a zen saying about “the moon in a dewdrop” that applies, in that we can see the moon completely and totally reflected in a drop of water. And that image of the moon is not all the moon, but is exactly the same as what we see when we look at the moon (in that both are the exact same light waves)
I think universal mind is sort of like the ultimate dewdrop, and we are all mirroring it perfectly.
Comment by Ian — September 28, 2009 @ 4:24 pm
Here is a line from Huxley defining The Perennial Philosophy:
“…the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality;…”
Comment by Ted — September 28, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
All awesome stuff.
Well I guess we all experience the world through 5+ senses, but those senses exist themselves because they represent the way the world ‘is’…
As for basic patterns repeating themselves, I think first of fractals but then I think of those Enlightenment dudes who were /absolutely gobsmacked/ when they first looked though a microscope. I mean, they used to throw parties where people could come and look at microbes in pondwater (and then get so stoned on NOx they could cut bits off each other with no apparent ill effect, but that’s another story :-D ) Turtles all the way down? Well maybe yes and maybe no. As my old school chemistry teacher used to say, ‘It’s the same, but different’.
I have this idea at the back of my mind that we are all ourselves ‘ways of seeing’…
There’s something very important about representation, in the sense of ‘being’, that I just can’t quite yet put my finger on.
Comment by speedbird — September 29, 2009 @ 6:13 am
@Ted: That’s exactly what we’re all trying to figure out, I think, those of us in this game…
@speedbird:
Mr Boucher was into this for a while, with his “perceiving centers” concept, of which I was big fan. We are all ways of putting a certain spin or flavor on the consensus reality that we share, patternings of the common flux, to get a bit baroque about it.
I think I know what you’re getting at here but am not sure. There is a way of thinking about this, and there is the realizing this as it is happening.
Of course, Buddhism says everything that comes through our senses is conditioned reality, and therefore dependently arrising, and therefore impermanent -> not able to be held onto -> illusary -> causing suffering -> and so not the self.
But there is no self. So WTF? :)
Comment by Ian — September 29, 2009 @ 11:03 am
Whether or not one agrees with Adyashanti’s Non-Duality teachings, I though this was rather beautiful:
http://www.awaresilence.com/Adyashanti/Adyashanti_-_Actually_One_Being.html
Comment by Ian — October 1, 2009 @ 9:33 am
>> I think I know what you’re getting at here but am not sure.
‘La France, c’est moi’, said (I think) one of the Louis. In a sense I think that’s true. Someone has to Be France. The Queen has to Be England. Which must be a kind of burden. Like in Shakespeare all the kings and suchlike call each other by their territory, not their name. There are other examples which are beyond my Experience Level even to mention. To act in this world, each of us must Be something, something with a True Name. Never mind ‘This Is my body, this Is my blood…’, the Mystery of Communion. All /powerful/ stuff.
Comment by speedbird — October 2, 2009 @ 10:18 am
And France, of course, is just a big-ass Way-of-Seeing.
(and ‘Denmark’s a prison’ ;-D )
Comment by speedbird — October 2, 2009 @ 10:20 am
Which is why of course Lear is sure to lose his mind when he tries to divide his crown:
‘… Only we still retain
The name, and all the additions to a king;
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
This coronet part betwixt you.’
(OK, enough Shakespeare for now!)
Comment by speedbird — October 2, 2009 @ 10:27 am
I think I know what you are saying, Speedbird. “The map is not the territory,” but perhaps ‘We’ are the territory!
Comment by Ted — October 2, 2009 @ 11:03 am
@ Speedbird:
This ties in with the Chain or Dependent Origination as well, in something called “name and form” which I’m still trying to wrap my head around…
Do we though? I don’t know. What happens if we don’t have a True Name? Can we no longer act? I have no idea, but I’d like to find out… Scary thinking of giving up a True Name though.
This though, kind of points to that. Whose body, whose blood? It’s meant to be Christ’s, but is that how Christ meant it…?
@ Ted:
I think maybe that map can become the territory, if I could figure out how to add my sense of self to the map. Maps don’t have ME in them, territories do.
I have an idea that it’s the sense of a separate self is that causes us to divide things into a map and a territory, because why aren’t they the same thing? What divides the sense of “map” from the sense of “territory”…?
But is that “correct”? And even if it is, can I DO anything because I’ve figured that out? What use is an idea or knowledge that just sits there? Frustrating.
Comment by Ian — October 2, 2009 @ 11:34 am
I think “we are the territory” comes down to an idea, such as “I want to help humanity” and then you realize you are humanity!
I also think it comes down to letting go of a type of magical thinking. Maybe Speedbird is less prone to magical thinking being an engineer type.
But I am thinking that with maps, the tendency is to exclude certain things, but in reality nothing is excluded. Everything is made out of everything else. So any process includes all ingredients.
We never get out of the “soup”
Comment by Ted — October 2, 2009 @ 12:58 pm
Ted (1) – I think when it comes to maps there are definite issues of Good and Evil. Some maps help. Some don’t. I think we’re supposed to try and fix them. The map is not the territory, but the map REPRESENTS the territory. Experiencing the territory directly is an interesting thing.
Ian – This is about where I run out of things to say and flounder around wordlessly with much waving of hands :-)
>> Maps don’t have ME in them, territories do.
That’s pretty cool. But of course when I read a map I project myself into it. First job, find out where you are on the map, right?
Ted (2) -
>> letting go of a type of magical thinking
Can you elaborate any?
Comment by speedbird — October 2, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
I mean, how often have you guys actually /seen/ America?
I’ve maybe caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, no more. I’ve probably seen England a couple of times. Poets like Rupert Brooke get to sit and stare for a while. William Blake (who was quite frankly nuts) saw England /all the time/, referring to it as ‘the giant Albion’. What exactly are we dealing with here?
What I mean to say is, most of the time our territories are just more maps. It’s not often we see them as they are.
Comment by speedbird — October 2, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
MAGICAL thinking is just symbolic thinking really-which is both good and bad. We take so many symbols for granted that we forget just how magic they really are.
But when Native American’s first encountered alphabetic writing and photography among the Europeans, they saw it for what it was-magic.
Another thing that has to do with magical thinking is the idea of processes that make jumps (often after uttering magic words like ‘presto’).
I think being around advanced technology without understanding the underlying mechanisms reinforces magical thinking also.
but in real life everything is connected and intimately involved with everything else. Nothing is left out of the equation. Everything happens all at once and involves everything else. Its all inter penetrated.
maps are about limitation-what you don’t want to see, what you don’t want to take into account, what you want to ignore, to exclude. The idea of making a map is to break things down into little bites that are digestible to the individual ego consciousness.
Comment by Ted — October 2, 2009 @ 5:35 pm
So that’s why I’m saying RAW is coming at this like a bit of a nihilist, or perhaps, better, an existentialist.
In that paradigm there is no underlying reality, no truth, no way to apprehend truth, only chaos.
So then map making is a self affirming act, like an act of creation. Almost like a defiant act.
So then the map is all you have.
Comment by Ted — October 2, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
…of course though to be fair, the scientific method requires skepticism and not myticism. science and mysticism are approaching the muddle from two different directions.
science comes from a position of ignorance, mysticism, from a position of “trans rational” experience.
but to get anywhere you need som underlying faith that there is something intelligible there.
Comment by Ted — October 2, 2009 @ 6:03 pm
@ Ted (1):
Yeah, I read something in “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” on this that I’m probably going to put up as soon as I’m done typing here. But I agree. We never get out of the soup, so we must it AS soup, not as “map”.
@ speedbird:
Exactly. First job is find out where you are, but before that, on its own, the map doesn’t have you in it. It’s an abstraction. Putting yourself in it causes a delay…
Why do we need the map to find out where we are? We’re already in the territory. Why is the map even necessary? I don’t mean that rhetorically, I’d seriously like to find out myself. And yes, the map makes it easier to deal with the territory, but that’s hardly a good reason to use a “map”. Our maps our never complete (although we keep thinking, “some day, just maybe…”), so why isn’t a incomplete understanding of the territory as we are it enough?
A post on “names” to come right away as well. Looking forward to your thoughts on it. ;)
@ Ted (2)
I really like this.
The more I examine RAW’s style of thought, the less I like it. There seems to me to be something greasy and grasping under there, some frantically devilish urge to hold onto something known to be false. I don’t know. can’t really put my finger on it…
Although I think THAT might sum it up rather nicely. Believing in chaos-absolute is no different than believing in order-absolute. Let the coin flip, and then render it unto Caesar. :)
I’ve never thought of faith as the thing that would unify science and mysticism, but that’s a really good point. Both start with the idea of the “muddle” and then attempt to make sense of it in different ways. But yeah, both are operating under the assumption that there is intelligibility there somewhere…
Comment by Ian — October 3, 2009 @ 3:31 pm
Thanks guys, I’m really enjoying this discussion.
Comment by Ian — October 3, 2009 @ 3:32 pm
Re RAW,
Playboy is kind of tawdry. I mean sexual repression is not good either and some of it definitely needed to be released in the 60′s and 70′s but it is tawdry. Just look at the reality show today.
But I think maybe at one time it wasn’t as nafarious…but anyway RAW was a writer for playboy for many years, so he has a bit of that in his aura, I think and it comes through in his writing. Also there is the question of magic. What is magic(k)? Tolkein definitely thought of it as evil. “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” etc. RAW was into Magick so that shows through.
Still, he was a great lateral thinker and was big on practical application of esoteric ideas, so I give him a lot of credit for that. But as far as being spiritually elevated through reading his writing, you don’t really get that experience. He always plays the Devil’s advocate.
Comment by Ted — October 3, 2009 @ 3:52 pm
Yeah, devil’s advocate, that’s a good description. He’s the one that said “we’re all cosmic schmucks,” after all. I’ll never have any way of knowing, so this is a pointlessly rhetorical question, but I guess I am just curious how much he believed that about himself.
Either way, yes, I give him a lot of credit as well. Nothing’s ever easy, and he did a lot of work in his life to wake people up…
Comment by Ian — October 3, 2009 @ 3:58 pm
>> I’ve never thought of faith as the thing that would unify science and mysticism
Belief in the scientific method is a kind of faith…
*
As for magical thinking… this got me thinking of the kind of approach that writes things on the map and then expects them to appear in the territory (I call it ‘management-think’ ;-D ). Now clearly there are limitless things in the territory that the map doesn’t ‘capture’ (ugh, horrid word) but I’m not sure this is quite the right way to be going about finding them…
Comment by speedbird — October 4, 2009 @ 4:25 am
Interestingly, I like maps a lot, but GPS gives me the heebie-jeebies. There’s something open and honest about a map, but something disturbingly prescriptive about ‘Turn left here’…
Comment by speedbird — October 4, 2009 @ 4:29 am
I think it’s cos you actually have to /read/ a map.
Comment by speedbird — October 4, 2009 @ 4:30 am
>> render it unto Caesar
Slipped my mind, of course! That’s a pretty explicit passage in the Gospels about images and what to do with them. ‘Whose face is on this?’…
Comment by speedbird — October 4, 2009 @ 4:34 am
The map serves the territory…?
Comment by speedbird — October 4, 2009 @ 4:38 am
Yup. Basically, understand that that which isn’t real isn’t real. Don’t treat it like it is, and you’ve got no problems. Solves the “management-think” problem, rendering unto Caesar, and the GPS.
I’m not sure if it can, but if it can, than THAT’s what a map’s for, I think…
Comment by Ian — October 4, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
In a way roads and land arranged in grids have turned the territory into a map. The territory is much more “squiggley, but in a city the land looks a lot like the vision of Pythagoras to divide land into grids. A mental contstuct has become reality.
Comment by Ted — October 4, 2009 @ 7:55 pm
Yeah, definitely! It’s man’s attempt to “square the circle”, make nature better fit the logic circuits of the mind…
It’s trying to “tame” the territory to better allow mapping. Which I don’t think is an inherently evil act, although it can cause/lead to much bad shit. I think the key is to better understand the territory by doing so, and to actually improve our map-making skills. It’s just ignorance of the way things work that causes the trouble.
Comment by Ian — October 5, 2009 @ 8:26 am
>> understand that that which isn’t real isn’t real
Not easy tho. Every job I’ve had (working for the Man, I mean), I’ve been /told/ what’s real and what’s not. Wears a person down after a while.
>> roads and land arranged in grids have turned the territory into a map
Yeah, that’s good…
Comment by speedbird — October 6, 2009 @ 3:33 am
I think that’s why most people feel a need to lash out against the corporate system. For myself though, I know that I didn’t HAVE my own sense of what was real and what wasn’t for a long time (which says a lot about the modern educational system). I needed someone else to fill in those blanks for me, just so I could function in life/society. And now, I think I might finally have reached a point where I’m able work out for myself what’s “real”.
Ideally, corporation/society/the man/parents/god should function like a cocoon kind of thing, holding you until you’re ready to fly. When the “owners” of the cocoon have a stake in keeping you from flying away, it makes it quite a struggle (think Saturn devouring his children). The good thing is that not all companies are like that. There’s always spaces and places for growth, if you work hard enough to find them. As William Burroughs used to say, in his creepy old man voice, “there’s always a space between…“
Comment by Ian — October 6, 2009 @ 9:18 am
>> I didn’t HAVE my own sense of what was real
Well now that’s interesting. I think I always did have, but I’ve realised most of it retrospectively.
>> have a stake in keeping you from flying away
It’s probably not /really/ in their interest, tho.
>> There’s always spaces and places for growth
Yes, it’s just sometimes hard to find them.
I am reminded of an inspired preacher I heard two Christmases ago, on the significance of ‘no room at the inn’, the point being there was no room /anywhere/ in the (material) ‘World’ for the Saviour – but presumably, plenty of space nonetheless.
Comment by speedbird — October 7, 2009 @ 7:05 am
Not to say that I always in the dark either, but I had no idea how to act on it consciously.
That’s a nice interpretation, I like that. Everyone’s too busy running around, so you have to go out to a stable to bring forth the Savior.
Man, I wish more people acted on the metaphors and stuff like this in the Bible.
Comment by Ian — October 7, 2009 @ 9:25 am