Alan,
I think we are close-r. My primary point about "man the measurer,"
includes the notion that we have to be engaged in observing the world -
not just infer from other's thoughts and experience. But I also include
the study of "myself" - this being which has been poorly explored in
the actuality and history of thought.
I am not only (an engaged) observer, but I am very active in the
observations, in the doing which "objective" observation necessitates -
I think it/we are much more complicated and different from how we been
described.
My (only?) question, has to do with whether our ideas about others and
the world, might have been derived to whatever extent from "how we
think we are" more than how we "actually are." Maybe not, but...?
A quote from John Dewey which might express this better than I:
“No one would deny that we ourselves enter as an agency into whatever
is attempted and done by us. That is a truism. But the hardest thing to
attend to is that which is closest to ourselves, that which is most
constant and familiar. And this closest ‘something’ is, precisely,
ourselves, our own habits and ways of doing things as agencies in
conditioning what is tried or done by us...the one factor which is the
primary tool in the use of all these other tools, namely ourselves, in
other words, our own psycho-physical disposition, as the basic
condition of our employment of all agencies and energies, has not even
been studied as the central instrumentality.” (Dewey, John,
“Introduction” in Alexander, Frederick Matthias, Constructing Conscious
Control of the Individual, New York. E.P. Dutton, 1923. xxxii)arvey
On Oct 18, 2006, at 2:30 AM, A.D.M.Rayner wrote:
Harvey
> Dear Harvey,
>
> Many thanks.
>
> I think this is a very pertinent question, especially in view of
> Richard
> Trowbridge's mailing concerning aim-oriented rationality, which seems
> also
> to relate to the long trail of correspondence with Karl Rogers.
>
> To cut a long story short, I have nothing against aim-oriented
> rationality
> as an AID to wisdom enquiry, made alongside and in the context of a
> much
> wider and deeper awareness of the natural dynamic geometry of which we
> are
> inclusions. But I do not think aim-oriented rationality can be the SOLE
> source of wisdom any more than I think the tip of a tributary can be
> the
> sole source of a river. Man the objective Measurer is in my view akin
> to the
> tributary tip that declares independence from the river and sets itself
> apart as an observer excluded from what it observes.
>
> I have just written two draft sections in a book chapter on 'beyond
> objectivity' which tries to address these issues. I have pasted them in
> below FYPI.
>
>
> Best
>
>
> Alan
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----
> -----------
>
> Mathematical Definition and Beyond - From Box World to Flow Whirls
>
> Elementary mathematics, the stuff we are exposed to from our first day
> of
> schooling that constrains our formerly unadulterated pleasure in
> playful
> enquiry into and understanding of nature, is founded on two great
> definitive
> abstractions: two great lies. Euclidean geometry imposes a
> three-dimensional
> frame upon the infinite possibilities of space and arithmetic
> dislocates
> figures from their spatial grounding. At a stroke, commonly reinforced
> in my
> living memory by a stroke of the cane of corporal punishment meted out
> to
> those of us who can’t or won’t conform with expectations, we have our
> imagination knocked out of us, never to return if we want a successful
> or
> quiet life.
>
> Elementary mathematics treats nature as a fixed whole that can be
> subdivided
> into sub-wholes that can be re-assembled by simple addition to reform
> the
> whole. This is the basis for the linear methods of analysis that
> underpin so
> much of our working lives and transactions. It’s fine and useful so
> far as
> it goes as long as we don’t take it so far as to think it provides us
> with a
> way of explaining, controlling and predicting the evolutionary
> behaviour of
> all nature, including human nature. But we take it too far when we
> regard
> the sub-wholes as purely material ingredients of nature and so omit
> space
> from consideration by treating the receptive ‘presence of absence’ as
> ‘nothing’ or ‘void’. In doing so we alienate ourselves from our own
> experience as inclusions of space and so lose sight of the source of
> our
> complex local and non-local self-identities in fluid dynamic
> neighbourhood.
> We set everything, including ourselves, against the grain of natural
> process. We try to force nature and ourselves to comply with our
> mathematics
> rather than vice versa and suffer when our predictions fail to account
> for
> the inherently unpredictable implications of our imposition as we
> break down
> socially, psychologically and environmentally.
>
> If we want to have a mathematics that corresponds more closely with
> real
> life experience and helps us to understand our creative potential as
> well as
> the implications of opposing natural flow, then we need a different
> kind of
> mathematics from what most of us are schooled in. This different kind
> of
> mathematics includes space in its representation of natural form and
> dynamic
> geometry. It liberates us ‘beyond the box’ and immerses us ‘into the
> flow’.
> I will discuss further how it may be developed in Chapter 8.
>
>
>
> Scientific Definition and Beyond - From Particles to Stream
>
> In its quest for definitive certainty, by way of concrete fact that all
> observers can agree to regardless of their unique situation,
> rationalistic
> scientific method attempts to isolate the objects of its study from the
> circumstances in which they are being observed. The objects are in
> effect
> stripped free from dynamic context so that they can be independently
> observed from a distance, as though through some impenetrable
> partition that
> alienates them from the observer(s). Although such objectivity is
> commonly
> portrayed as ‘dispassionate’ or ‘unbiased’, it is actually the most
> prejudicial form of enquiry imaginable, coming close to Inquisitorial
> interrogation where the kinds of answers abstracted may be misleading,
> to
> say the least. The inquiry invariably begins with the selection and
> extrication of a sample, which is placed within some actual or
> theoretical
> limiting boundary or reference frame and then subjected to various
> kinds of
> experimental manipulation. A piece of nature is excised and brought
> under
> scrutiny within the imposed framework of the sampling grid, laboratory,
> containing vessel, experimental apparatus or mathematical construct.
>
> The underlying hope of this kind of inquiry is that the small picture
> it
> provides of the part realistically represents the big picture of the
> whole
> from which the part was abstracted. Some hope!
>
> It’s rather like trying to represent a river by scrutinizing the
> contents of
> a cup dipped into it. No form of enquiry based on the deliberate
> ignorance
> of spatial context can comprehend the behaviour and properties of a
> complex,
> dynamic system. True, comparison of the properties of water contained
> in a
> cup with those of the river may yield valuable insights into the
> dynamic
> possibilities of the latter and how these are affected by isolation
> within a
> fixed boundary. But to extrapolate from what can be defined within a
> fixed
> container to the uncertainties of the open field makes nonsense.
> Whatever
> certainty we may gain about the properties and behaviour of our
> isolated
> sample or system, comes at the expense of profound uncertainty about
> the
> applicability of our conclusions to the wider dynamic context. Through
> imposing definition upon a complex flow-field, what is vital to the
> dynamic
> form of this field is excluded, resulting in stasis, whereupon it can
> appear
> via dissection to consist of discrete particles. But this is an
> artefact of
> the imposition, which leads to an inverted understanding of natural
> process
> in which the incoherent fragments become regarded paradoxically as
> fundamental ingredients of the whole.
>
> A more comprehensive kind of scientific enquiry therefore needs to
> include,
> alongside analytical method, approaches that can take the observer
> beyond
> the immediately explicit, measurable and countable into the deeper
> realm of
> the implicit where all is spatially included in all. One way or
> another the
> observer needs to immerse in the dynamic natural situation in which
> both
> he/she and what is being observed are included. Then the fixed
> particles
> melt into the stream of nature, a current in which all remains clearly
> distinct and distinguishable, but never collapses into the
> discreteness of
> isolated forms.
>
> Ecology in its deepest sense as the study of pattern, process and
> relationship over all natural scales therefore demands the inclusion
> of some
> kind of field trip to experience how it feels to be included in the
> situation of study. If you really want to understand the ecology of,
> say a
> forest, can you really do so whilst, like increasing numbers of modern
> ‘remote-sensing’ scientists and students, you are sat at a laboratory
> bench,
> reading a book in the library or viewing a power-point presentation in
> a
> lecture theatre? Don’t you need to walk into the scene you are
> observing?
> Moreover, even if you do walk into it, can you really experience its
> full
> complexity if, like some forest ecologists I know, you enter only on
> isolated occasions, fully clothed and booted so as to insulate
> yourself from
> its prickles and temperature and humidity gradients? Don’t you have to
> live
> in the forest as one of its uniquely situated indigenous inhabitants?
> Don’t
> you have to recognize that the full picture of the forest cannot be
> seen
> from your unique standpoint alone, but can emerge through sharing your
> perspective with others, as in an indigenous ‘sharing circle’?
>
> Of course, there are practical difficulties in the way of our gaining
> such
> subjective experience of immersion, especially if the situation of
> interest
> is far removed in distance or size from human scales. But that doesn’t
> mean
> that we should lose sight of the value and relevance of such
> experience, or
> fail to acknowledge the limitations of our understanding if we don’t
> or can’
> t gain it. Also, even if we are physically unable to immerse ourselves
> in
> the situation we are studying, this doesn’t mean we can’t imagine what
> it is
> like, both individually and collectively.
>
> Our ability to imagine situations is a most wonderful human facility,
> yet
> the way we use it can exaggerate and stifle as well as enhance our
> awareness
> of possibility. Ironically, it is the fear of ‘fantasy’ - the
> subjective
> creation of an imaginary reality - that compels objective scientists to
> impose imaginary limits upon nature and isolate themselves from what
> they
> are observing, with all the potential for misconception and loss of
> insight
> that I have described earlier.
>
> Those innovations of science that transform our understanding of
> nature may
> often if not always depend on feats of imagination that have very
> little to
> do with hard fact and analytical method. They have much more to do with
> intuition and empathy - the related abilities to gain insight by
> drawing
> diverse strands of personal experience mentally together so that they
> fall
> into an identifiable pattern, and to imagine how it feels to be in the
> situation of another. These abilities have always been very important
> to me.
> Nothing gives me more pleasure than to recognize a pattern or recurrent
> theme emerging in my mind from what on first sight seems like a
> clutter of
> disparate information. This is no more and no less than the kind of
> process
> all of us are capable of when recognizing a human face notwithstanding
> its
> many variations in expression. In my case I also use it in being able
> at a
> glance to identify and name several thousand species of fungi, plants
> and
> animals. Also I often joke when giving lectures about fungi by asking
> members of the audience to imagine being a fungus - like I often do!
> But it
> is just that kind of imagining that has led me to ask some of my most
> productive research questions. Why on Earth should we exclude such
> imaginings from our methods of enquiry?
>
> It is also true, however, that if we allow our imagination to run
> completely
> free from material constraint it can - as I know from my OCD
> experience -
> dream up the most unlikely catastrophic and euphoric scenarios and make
> these seem probable if not inevitable. Such dreaming is all too
> evident in
> the conspiracy theories and doom and bloom-laden prophecies that are
> currently mushrooming in our culture. To make creative sense of
> nature, our
> imagination needs to work in partnership with our informative senses,
> just
> as nature itself can be understood as a co-creative inclusion of
> electromagnetic and spatial field.
>
> How, then can we combine our imaginative and informative facilities in
> our
> scientific enquiries in a way that can make sense and enhance
> understanding
> and creative possibilities? My suggestion is simply to include much
> that
> currently gets excluded from objective enquiry so that the latter can
> be
> subsumed and transformed but not entirely replaced. Let’s allow
> ourselves to
> dream and play with imagery. After all that’s how August Kekulé von
> Stradonitz dreamed up the structure of benzene in his mind whilst
> dozing on
> a bus, and Watson and Crick fiddled about with jigsaw pieces
> representing
> the molecular structures included in DNA until they formed a beautiful
> spiral staircase. Let’s include art and feeling and subjectivity and
> love
> and receptivity to others’ viewpoints, wherever they may come from in
> our
> Science. All in all, the scientific community might gain deeper
> understanding of nature if it saw itself as a dynamic neighbourhood
> gathering complementary insights from diverse, uniquely situated
> perspectives, instead of a gathering of conformists seeking consensus
> in a
> single objective view, abstracted out of context.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Harvey Sarles <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: 17 October 2006 22:18
> Subject: Re: inclusionality, rivers and indigenous cultures
>
>
> Alan, Ted, Cherryl,
>
> I "wonder" what Protagoras meant (and mean to interpret him) by the
> notion that "man is the measurer of all things." My question, and much
> of my thought and study, attempts to probe the nature of the (hu)man
> who is "the measurer."
>
> I suggest this has been done quite specifically and narrowly. A place
> to begin is with what I've been calling "An Archeology of the Body." -
> how did I get from the tiniest early cells to this thing which I am,
> today (in order to locate myself - "the measurer").
>
> If we are objective observers - within this thinking - it is a form of
> "active" observing. How/what? The activity of observing? The observer?
> Harvey
>
>
> On Oct 17, 2006, at 3:55 AM, Alan Rayner wrote:
>
>> Dear Harvey,
>>
>> Very much with you here, and hopeful that through this piece Cherryl
>> has brought a sense of peace into our group conversation.
>>
>> What I am hoping is that inclusionality not only brings to the fore
>> the sense of 'somewhere (local) as an expression of everywhere
>> (non-local)' but also helps to place their relationship as inclusions
>> of one another on a dynamic footing. By abstracting the 'somewhere'
>> from the 'everywhere' and defining 'it' as 'something', rationalistic
>> logic not only prevents deeper enquiry into the nature of causation
>> but fixes the inseparable dynamic evolutionary relationship of the
>> informational with the spatial so that these become regarded as
>> 'something' (material) and 'nothing' (immaterial) instead of
>> co-creative aspects of the same fluid possibility field ('dynamical
>> oneness'/ 'dynamical coherence' / 'dynamical togetherness').
>>
>> By the same token, I very much like your generalization of the meaning
>> of 'pregnancy', but not so much as the 'bringing of existence from
>> non-existence', more the 'dynamic emergence of somewhere as an
>> expression of everywhere'.
>>
>> In inclusional terms, we are OF Nature, a continual transformational
>> process in which the destination IS the journey, rich in complex
>> dynamic experience of the kind that we can all recognise in our
>> everyday lives but tend through rationalization to reduce into
>> discrete factions and fractions, devoid of space.
>>
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>> --On 16 October 2006 14:16 -0500 Harvey Sarles <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Cherryl et al,
>>>
>>> I truly love this piece...but I have some thoughts and wonderments
>>> about
>>> some contextual or actual life-events which seem to aid or help in
>>> making
>>> this close to our experience.
>>>
>>> My first question takes us back (in the West) to Aristotle, and the
>>> nature of "causation." This, like most other gathering principles
>>> rings
>>> of the "self-caused first cause." Not all that bad, but it seems to
>>> halt
>>> further questioning, as if to have "solved" the nature of our being
>>> and
>>> thinking.
>>>
>>> The second question: relates to my life-work on the observation of
>>> the
>>> individual, and the noticed/noted fact, that each of us is "attached"
>>> with some person(s) with whom we are in deep and developing
>>> relationships. Whatever is "attachment," the question of the
>>> individual
>>> self remains in question, assumed to be the fount of our being -
>>> somehow
>>> by our being. All this thinking omits or doesn't much notice all the
>>> thought and work of those who take responsibility for our continued
>>> being
>>> - don't they have to have some notion of inclusionality, of existence
>>> from non-existence (otherwise called pregnancy - for lots of reasons
>>> and
>>> directions) - which they imbue to our being, and further notions that
>>> we
>>> are one with the world?
>>>
>>> That is, much of the actual-experiential human condition (which I
>>> believe
>>> is much more "complicated" that we have noted thus far), is active,
>>> involving others, their (bodily and expressive and contextual being
>>> and
>>> understanding) which they endeavor (often successfully) to visit upon
>>> us
>>> and our becoming...who we are. Harvey
>>>
>>> On Oct 13, 2006, at 6:52 PM, Cherryl Martin wrote:
|