Dear Sara and dear Cupane,

The messages that you have both sent in, along with Kathy's, are, to my 
eyes, rich with a depth of understanding, feeling and humility that I find 
delightful and warming to encounter.

Please find attached the paper I wrote in preparation for my keynote 
presentation at ALARA in Melbourne next month. I hope you will find some 
kind of response to your questions in there, and pointers to more. It can 
also be found at www.bestthinking.com (Just search for Alan Rayner, and you 
will find five of my essays)

I have also pasted below, part of a paper entitled 'Space Cannot Be Cut: Why 
Self Identity Naturally Includes Neighbourhood', which is currently under 
review. You might find it resonant.

I have not cut away from this list. It's just that I now think it best to 
'respond only when invited to do so'. In some cases it may be better to do 
this on an individual basis than to the full list.

Warmest

Alan

----------------------------------------
Adverse Abstraction: Self-Dislocation from Natural Neighbourhood
Notions of adversarial 'competition' and coercive 'co-operation', which 
respectively underlie individualistic 'capitalism' and collectivistic 
'socialism', are predicated upon an abstract logical assumption. This is 
that individual or group entities can be defined independently from their 
spatial context and correspondingly that their 'future' can be fully defined 
by present or 'initial conditions'. It gives rise to the familiar idea that 
undesirable present 'means' can justify desirable future 'ends'.



Human beings may be cognitively and psychologically predisposed to make this 
assumption through a combination of our inter-related capacities for 
categorization, sociality, abstract thought, tool and language use and 
awareness of mortality (Rayner and Jarvilehto, 2008; Rayner 2010b; cf. 
Elstrup 2009, 2010). On the other hand, the imagination that comes alongside 
these capacities offers the creative potential to escape the restrictions 
imposed by abstract objectivity through what is actually the more 
comprehensive worldview of natural inclusionality (Rayner 2010a; see below).



As terrestrial, omnivorous, bipedal primates unable to digest cellulose but 
equipped with binocular vision and opposable thumbs that enable us to catch 
and grasp, we are predisposed to view the geometry of our natural 
neighbourhood in an overly definitive way. We see the world in terms of what 
it can do for us and to us as detached observers or abstracted ' exhabitants', 
not how we are inextricably involved in it as natural inhabitants. We see 
'boundaries' as the limits of definable 'objects' and 'space' as 'nothing' - 
a gap or absence outside and between these objects (Rayner, 2004).



This perception of boundaries as discontinuities inescapably renders the 
comprehension of continuity problematic (Smith, 1997). If two adjacent 
locations in space and/or time are distinguished by a boundary, which one 
does the boundary belong to? If it belongs to both of them, how can the 
mutual exclusivity of two-value logic be satisfied, and where do both cease 
to be both and become either one or the other? If it belongs to neither, 
then where does one location end and the other begin and what really comes 
between them? In the case of a curved boundary, does it belong to whatever 
lies within it or to whatever lies without it? If two distinct locations are 
both contained within a larger location, are they mutually exclusive or 
co-existent? Upon such dilemmas rests the whole gamut of alternative 
propositional (either/or) and dialectical/transcendental logics (both/and in 
mutual opposition) that have been in conflict for millennia and continue to 
be so (e.g. see Valsiner, 2009). So too do the 'holons' - as 'Janus-faced' 
entities combining individual and collective aspects, and 'holarchies' - as 
nested arrays of holons, of Koestler (1976) in his 'Open Hierarchical 
Systems Theory' (Rayner et al., 1984; Wilber, 1996).



That it is nonetheless possible to avoid this perception is, however, 
evident from the indigenous cultures that sustain a much stronger sense of 
inclusion in Nature, aided by the preservation of oral, aural and nomadic 
traditions (e.g. Cairns and Harney, 2004; Taylor, 2005). For example, notice 
the similarity between the following quotes from Bill Yidumduma Harney 
(BYH), a fully-initiated Elder of the  Wardaman people of Northern 
Territory, Australia (see Cairns and Harney, 2004) and a 'natural 
inclusional poem', 'The Hole in the Mole', by myself (AR) (see also Rayner, 
2010a).



BYH: 'You might recognise some of the land, changing all the time. Then, 
like imagination to us, with spiritual link-up from the stars, and all the 
other stuff from the top to the bottom, they sort of guide you all the way. 
They start like be still in the valley, you've got it in your mind, links 
the air to you, up to the stars, guide you direct to it straight across 
country...all these stars pulling everything together, moving around, all 
come together'.



AR: 'The Hole in the Mole'

'I AM the hole; That lives in a mole; That induces the mole;To dig the hole; 
That moves the mole; Through the earth; That forms a hill; That becomes a 
mountain; That reaches to sky; That pools in stars; And brings the rain; 
That the mountain collects; Into streams and rivers; That moisten the earth; 
That grows the grass; That freshens the air; That condenses to rain; That 
carries the water; That brings the mole; To Life'





Moreover, according to Walker (2003), "Cross-cultural views of the self 
define individuality in terms of boundaries, locus of control and 
inclusiveness versus exclusiveness, or that which is intrinsic versus that 
which is extrinsic to the self (Heelas and Lock, 1981, Sampson, 1988). 
Cultures that emphasize firm boundaries and high personal control tend to 
view the self as exclusionary or 'self contained'. Fluid boundary, strong 
field control cultures, view the self as "ensembled," meaning that the self 
is inclusive of other individuals. While 'self contained' individualism is 
indigenous to the United States and to the European countries from which its 
dominant ethnic groups draw their roots, 'ensembled' individualism is far 
more prevalent as a percentage of all known cultures (Sampson, 2000). 
Ensembled individualism is also indigenous to Aboriginal, Native American, 
Senoi and other cultures that are widely known to use dreams for social 
purposes."



The perception of completely definable objects separated by intervals of 
space as 'gaps of nothingness' sets the scene for the hard line logic of 
abstract rationality to become established in the foundations of our 
mathematical, scientific, theological, linguistic, governmental and economic 
endeavours. It also profoundly affects our perceptions of 'self' and 
'self-interest'. The Aristotelian axiom that 'one thing is not another 
thing, and, specifically, that 'one self cannot be another self' leads to 
what C.S. Lewis (1942) called 'the philosophy of Hell', in which 'to be 
means to be in competition'.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Salyers, Sara M" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?


Part of your poem is covered up by a nasty PDF notice but I got most of it. 
I don't k now how to tell you how much I love this.

How can I teach you without knowing who you think you are?
How can we create a better world without sharing the meaning of 'better'?
How can we describe to each of us who we think we are?
How can we accept discovering that we are wrong?
I think we are just Awareness/Emptiness What do you think?
A. Cupane
Nov. 2006

I think so too. Thank you.
Sara
________________________________________
From: Practitioner-Researcher [[log in to unmask]] On 
Behalf Of Cupane cupane [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 2:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Is what I am doing a good idea?

Dear all

I think is just one of the questions that we should always make. Do you mind 
to read my poem and tell if what you are doing is good idea for you?


Cupane
Perth-Australia
Phone: 61 - 8 - 92663792
Fax: 61 - 8 - 92662503
Maputo-Mozambique
Mobile: 258 - 82 - 288 1750
http://www.geocities.com/acupane
(under construction)