Dear Darragh,
Many thanks. I think we are very close to being on the same flowlength, and
I very much appreciate your appreciation of the sincerity of my intention
and the challenge of using language as simply as possible yet in a way that
doesn't rigidly divide reality into big and small boxes.
I'd just like to point out one significant aspect in your paraphrasing,
however, that doesn't quite convey the depth of my intention. This is that I
find it necessary in describing the FLUID nature of reality, and avoiding
prescriptive definition/objectification, to avoid speaking 'wholistically'
in terms of WHOLES. This is why I sometimes speak of inclusionality as
representing a transformation from 'a definitive WHOLE way of thinking (and
verbalizing)' to a 'dynamic relational HOLE way of thinking (and
verbalizing)', with non-local space included.
Or, to put it another way, as I did recently when asked by a colleague to
talk as I might to a ten-year-old:
'You can't make sense of a river by pretending that it's contained in a box
and made up of lots of little boxes. Nature is like a river' . (My colleague
hasn't spoken to me since!).
More technically, to make sense of the variable viscosity flow of Nature,
the non-locality (limitlessness) of space everywhere has to be included in,
not excluded from our geometric representations. This not only leads to a
different way of using language (see the passage pasted in below from a
paper with Timo Jarvilehto currently under review), but to a new
mathematics - known by its founder as 'transfigural mathematics' - that is
truly continuous in its logical foundations and resolves the paradoxes of
completeness that arise from axiomatic definition.
What this means for our use of language is that I think it may be helpful to
distinguish between thinking of 'language as a game' or 'instrument of
power' to impose control, and regarding language as an aid to conveying
intention. Whether in interpreting the 'rules of the game' or understanding
'how intention is being conveyed', learning cannot be avoided and
unfamiliarity can indeed breed contempt and a resentful or frustrated sense
of exclusion, regardless of intention. But the sense of why the learning is
required - i.e. as a basis for domineering or reciprocal communication - is
very different. Sadly, in our present culture, the domineering use of
language seems to be prevalent, and within this context very liable to spark
resentment and fear.
This distinction carries over into how we regard our selves and one another
in our living and educational practice. Objectively, we regard ourselves
solidly and independently in competition with and seeking power over (by
localizing) our natural neighbourhood. Inclusionally we understand our local
(individually unique) selves spatially as dynamic inclusions of the
omnipresence of our non-local neighbourhood. Objectively, we think of
ourselves and nature only in terms of 'hard nails to be hammered on the
head'. Inclusionally we can also understand ourselves and others as 'in
spiralling screws that by turns bring the non-local influence of everywhere
into somewhere local'. To my mind, that is when the spell of the 'WHOLE
philosophy of Hell' is finally broken, and we can begin to live and love
life as is.
Warmest
Alan
----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------
THE FLUID LOGIC, LANGUAGE AND REGIONAL INFLUENCE OF NATURAL INCLUSION
With the development of inclusional concepts, a new logic and principle of
the 'included middle' emerges in which the inhabitant is a dynamic inclusion
of the habitat, not an exception from it, as objective rationality would
have us believe. Content simultaneously forms from and responsively gives
expression to the receptive spatial pool that it fluid dynamically includes
and is included in; the inhabitant transforms the habitat and vice versa as
inseparable but distinguishable aspects of one including the other, nested
over all scales from microcosm to cosmos. Understanding inclusional flow
entails the dynamic relational, space-including, local-non-local logic of
'somewhere distinct as a dynamic informational inclusion of everywhere
spatial throughout', not solely the local logic of discrete, opposing,
material objects.
This logic is implicitly expressed in the use of living, evolving language
as a means of recognising informational distinctness and storing this
recognition in memorable and communicable form, but not defining it
independently from an ever-transforming context. Within the context of
organism-environment inclusionality, language (and also personal
consciousness mediated through language) arises primarily as a tool or
servant helping to co-ordinate social organization. Hence, a word need not
in essence be regarded as a symbol capable of defining and substituting for
a discrete objective entity, but can be understood as a proposal for common
recognition of and appropriate response to distinct inclusional identity.
The ontological and epistemological history of humankind and its culturally
co-creative learning process is correspondingly stored and expressed in
verbal language, in much the same way that the ontogeny and phylogeny of
organic life and its evolution is stored and expressed in the language of
DNA (Rayner, 1997, 2000).
Like the grooved surface of a record, the explicit, purely local
informational content of this language reciprocally corresponds with but
cannot in itself meaningfully express the implicit, non-local spatial
context it condenses from. For this informational content to convey meaning,
it has to be contextualized through spatial inclusion. Since this spatial
context is heterogeneous and continually transforming through natural
inclusion, the meaning conveyed will be variable and changeable, depending
on local situation. That is, the interpretation of informational content is
context-dependent.
The intrinsic uncertainty and diversity of linguistic meaning that depends
upon distinctive and changing regional influence conflicts, however, with
the fear-borne desire to maintain and control a predictable world order that
comes with the mental dislocation of organism from environment. This desire
leads to the reductive, retrospective and prescriptive hardening of language
use from making naturally incomplete, dynamic distinctions to imposing
unnaturally complete, static definitions. We begin to use language literally
and legalistically, as a purely informational code by which to define,
narrow and enforce the rules that we live by and impose upon one another.
Language begins to get in the way of, not ease human understanding, by
suppressing our evolutionary creativity and locking us in to prescriptive
theory and practice.
Correspondingly, whilst an essential characteristic of human consciousness
is the possibility of communicating about and indicating common recognition
of distinguishing features, we can never adequately specify what a dynamic
relational form or process involves using words alone as stand-in
'freeze-frames'. We can only indicate its explicit expression or 'common
results' and allow our experienced imagination (intuition) to open this out
into fuller comprehension. If 'I' want to describe precisely what happens
when taking a pencil from the table, I must divide my action into smaller
results of action: my hand is now here, I move it, at the next moment it is
there, I grip the pencil, etc. If I am further asked what I mean by 'move'
or 'grip', I must again go to the results and say, for example, that moving
means the hand is now here, but at the next moment there. We have no direct
way of saying (i.e. no precise words for) what is implicit in the process
itself, and, in principle, we cannot have this if our consciousness is
directed only to what it envisages to be the explicit results of action. In
fact, each verb is an abbreviation of a sequence of results. A human being
cannot definitively describe or understand movement, because he, himself, is
continually in the process of moving. There is more, much more, going on
than explicitly meets the eye. The word can at most only be a local
expression of context. It cannot definitively encompass everywhere any more
than an individual can have absolute dominion over all Nature. The problem
comes when we imagine, objectively, that it can, and start to use it in that
way to try to fix-frame Nature and human nature within precise definitions
that seek vainly to eliminate uncertainty.
Although words contribute to the accomplishment of concerted endeavours,
what this accomplishment implicitly involves can hence never be exhaustively
specified by words. Speech and language can only facilitate, they do not
drive co-creative organization and accomplishment. A word is an
'interpretation', a 'guide-lining to possibility. For example, the word
'ship' only implies the possibility to journey overseas, not in itself the
means of doing so. Taken literally, therefore, words have the effect of
fragmenting rather than assisting our journey in the reality of our dynamic
natural neighbourhood.
Inclusional language therefore corresponds with the original intention to
recognize distinctions in an evolutionary flow of word-forms, attuned with
dynamic context, not the imposition of an inflexible set of fixed
definitions that reinforce stasis and objective oppositions. Inclusional
language remains the servant, not the master. Its intention is to open up,
not close down creative possibility and so requires an artfully fluid use of
words that conveys implicit meaning by avoiding definitive expressions and
concepts. In a culture whose definitive thinking has both reinforced and
been reinforced by definitive language, this presents a significant but not
necessarily insurmountable challenge. Since the meaning conveyed by
informational content is context-dependent, when the context and intention
for our use of language is inclusional, so too can be the interpretation of
our verbal expressions. The same words can convey very different meanings
when the context changes from definitive to inclusional.
The contrast between using language to make distinctions and impose
definition, and how this both influences and is influenced by perceptions of
organism-environment relationships, is nowhere more evident than with
respect to notions of sharing and sovereign ownership of resources and
territory. These notions in turn profoundly affect our understanding of and
attitude to our natural neighbourhood and self-identity.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darragh Power" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Ojectivity etc.....
Dear Alan and all,
I get from your postings Alan a sincere attempt at explaining your position
without making anything into a solid subject vs object relationship or
pigeon
holing the whole of reality or people into a little conceptual box, or a
series of conceptual boxes.
I get that you are trying to explain his values of a holistic view of the
universe and the people in it, not as divorced or seperate from each other
but as different manifestations of one continuous whole always in relation
to each other and to the whole. This is a different concept or thought from
the objectivist view - Alan Watts called it the ceramic view - of the
universe
as a big thing, with lots of objects or things in it.
If every thing is an object, then this implies seperation, which implies
difference which as Alan in his postings describes as the language of hell.
To put it in a complicated philosophical language - Alans ontology and
epistemology
is one which differs from the objectivist view.
Where I am coming at with the language game metaphor - is that to play the
game of language with a person you need to understand the rules of the game.
Like if I watch an episode of ER and some doctor says - "pass me the
panniculectomy
knife" - I need to understand what the panniculectomy knife is before I can
make and share in the meaning of the language game.
In ER if they said pass the knife - people watching the program might
understand,
but the other doctor might ask - which knife, the surgical, the
panniculectomy,
the scalpel etc. The attempt at making and sharing meaning between involves
compromise on all sides, what matters is the sincerity of the attempt to
both communicate and understand what is meant.
The power dynamics involved in language are evident in - who can play the
game or not. In the case above if I am an ER doctor I can play the game,
if I am a patient I cannot - unless the doctor takes the time to explain
what they mean, and the patient takes the time to understand it. Language
can certainly make people feel excluded whether that is intended or not.
Alan you said
"So, I suspect that it is not so much my unfamiliar use of language that
people object to as the unfamiliar thought that my language seeks to
guideline."
I do get what you mean, but I think from reading some of the postings other
people dont follow the rules of the language game you're playing, and as
a result are frustrated, though I really dont think that is your intention.
I am from the plain complicated school of English myself!!!
Darragh
>-- Original Message --
>Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:46:46 -0000
>Reply-To: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
><[log in to unmask]>
>From: "Alan Rayner (BU)" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Ojectivity etc.....
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>Dear Matthew,
>
>Many thanks. I'm glad you find the ideas exciting, especially in a
>psychotherapeutic context!
>
>Well, I can reassure you and everyone else that my intention is never
>exclusional - if it was I wouldn't care enough to write and expose my
>vulnerabilities in the way that I do. But I do, like many authors, often
>
>find it difficult to recognise in my own writing what others may find
>difficult to follow, and so I welcome respectfully being given a genuine
>
>opportunity to have another go. In such cases I can get insight into where
>
>the difficulty arises and try to make suitable accommodations, putting any
>
>initially hurt feelings I might have aside.
>
>So it's good to know that I can indeed make more sense second-time-around
>
>when given the chance by someone who points out the difficulty - a case
of
>
>needing practice to enhance the simplicity of the communication, which is
>
>never easy, especially with unfamiliar ideas. On the other hand I must
>admit
>
>that I can get very frustrated when I feel that my or someone else's
>language is being disparaged out-of-hand because it doesn't fit with
>someone's preconceptions - and that this is somehow my/their 'fault', for
>
>me/them to rectify or else be dismissed.
>
>I feel it's very important, especially in a forum such as this one, for
us
>
>all to try to listen respectfully, forgivingly and dare I say lovingly to
>
>each other through our respective language barriers and idiosyncrasies.
Of
>
>course it can be hard work to get on the inside of someone else's cryptic
>
>expression and I too often struggle at first - in my case with some action
>
>research jargon. But if we can't listen respectfully, forgivingly and
>lovingly here, how might we be in our educational and therapeutic practice?
>
>Do we feel excluded or offended by and lose patience with the student or
>
>client as they struggle to find words to express what is on their minds?
>
>It's the thought that is most important (I just avoided saying 'counts'!),
>
>not the language that expresses the thought, notwithstanding the close
>relationship between the two.
>
>Warmest
>
>
>Alan
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Matthew Ganda" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 2:35 PM
>Subject: Re: Ojectivity etc.....
>
>
>> Dear Alan,
>> I personally find your thoughts and ideas exciting and they help me
>> clarify my own thinking as a psychotherapist BUT I frequently struggle
>
>> with the language you use. There are times when others on the this list
>
>> have invited you to explain your ideas in plain and clear English and
when
>
>> you have done so I have often thought to myself, "why didn't Alan put
it
>
>> like that in the first place?". I sometimes experience the language you
>
>> frequently use as having an exclusional effect on me.
>> Regards
>> Matthew
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Alan Rayner (BU)" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 10:13 AM
>> Subject: Re: Ojectivity etc.....
>>
>>
>>>
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