Dear Lee,
I very much like what you have done here, and think it offers A REAL WAY
FORWARD, and indeed the possibility of A REAL REVOLUTION.
The primary inquiry into WHAT IS REAL?, provides a clear route to wise
understanding of our human situation in the natural world. As you bring out, the
notion that ‘what is good’ can differ from ‘what is real’ (and indeed, ‘what is
beautiful’) may actually arise from false assumptions regarding our natural
situation that can and do engender REAL HARM. This is why enquiring into the
REALITY of how we naturally are in the world as it naturally is, has been so
important to me as a truly ‘natural scientist’ (here, as an aside, I recognise
that much of what is currently regarded as ‘scientific’ is actually
‘scientistic’, based on false/abstract assumptions about our natural situation
that are accepted as true).
As I have often mentioned, the impartial (in the sense of ‘comprehensive’)
approach/criterion I use to aid my enquiry into THE REALITY OF NATURE, is to
ask, of any proposition or underlying assumption concerning this reality,
whether it is consistent with actual experience/evidence and whether it makes
consistent sense. On this basis, I have to accept that all scientific
propositions and theories founded on abstract/definitive assumptions are at
least partially inconsistent with actual experience/evidence and do not make
consistent sense (i.e. they engender paradox). Hence many currently accepted
theories of ‘the reality of nature’ are at least partially FALSE, and it is the
embedded falsehood in these theories that render them capable of engendering
REAL HARM, by leading us to think and live in ways that are inconsistent with
how we actually/naturally are in the world as it actually/naturally is. They are
an expression of what has been called NAIVE REALISM, based on rationalistic
assumptions.
While this approach/criterion may not deliver ultimate CERTAINTY about WHAT
IS REAL/REALLY TRUE, it can at least quickly reveal WHAT IS CLEARLY FALSE, and
yet still widely used as a basis for ‘rational inquiry’ and value-judgement of
what is or is not ‘good for humanity’, which can and does engender REAL HARM.
This is what Michael Polanyi was recognising when he said:-
“For once men have been made to realize the crippling mutilations imposed
by an objectivist framework—once the veil of ambiguities covering up
these
mutilations has been definitely dissolved—many fresh minds will turn to the task
of reinterpreting the world as it is, and as it then once more will be seen to
be.”
Vital here, is the need to move from an abstract, ‘excluded observer’ view
of reality that screens self/subject off from other/object, to an ‘included
observer’ view in which each is appreciated as a natural inclusion of other.
In other
words, the difference I am speaking of here is that between regarding reality as
‘what includes me’ (and of which I am a dynamic expression) and as ‘what I am
screening myself off from’. Or, to put it another way, it is the difference
between viewing a game of football as a
player and as a
spectator/commentator. It arises from the difference between ‘natural
perception’ from within the thick of life and ‘abstract perception’ from outside
of it. It is utterly crucial to challenging systems of belief that separate the
reality of ‘self’ from the reality of ‘object of belief’, and so give rise to
needless conflict and suffering.
Perhaps you could add some of what I have just said to your
narrative?
Warmest
Alan
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 1:05 PM
Subject: Unification