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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)