As the environmental situation shifts, the skills and intelligence we need also shift, forcing us to lose capacities in one direction while developing them in another. So, every new skill reaches a point of diminishing returns. Every medicine becomes a poison. *
There is no evolution without death. For those who change, the old form dies. *
Evolution isn’t impressed by big brains, if those brains aren’t capable of changing direction (which requires death). *
We like to think that we’re the ultimate generalists, able to adapt to any environment because of our technological gifts. But specialization is a sneaky tendency. The technologies that helped us become generalists reach a point of diminishing returns and begin to narrow our attention spans with too much passive absorption, and by corralling our intelligence (our awareness and behavior) along the predictable ruts of algorithms. *
Our genetics are recapitulated holograms of the primordial soup, which can germinate in any form when the immaterial lightning of insight alchemically strikes the fertile ground of matter. *
Every shift in shape from Tetrapod to whale could be described as earthly insights, leaps in orders of being.*
From a communal point of view, evolution is not competitive or comparative, but measured by whether the whole (or holon) is thriving or declining. *
We don’t see the relevance of earth and other species anymore, except as playthings or scenic backdrops to our diversions. We’ve become the only relevant thing, which is a loneliness that never existed in previous cultures. A meaninglessness too, because we have divorced ourselves from the undiscovered portions of who we are, which are rooted in the mystery of our surroundings. We slide along the empirical surface of the world, blind to the immaterial forces, which give shape to that empirical world. *
There was a spontaneous genius in the Big Bang, which reverberates in all the little bangs that open new worlds through “blown minds” or insight. *
The desire for a deathless state (an unending Heaven of one sort or another) is an unintentional desire for lifelessness, for a static and inanimate repetitiveness. *
Even if I can’t hear the deep bass of the elephant and the whale echoing across the Savannah or the ocean, I’ll hear their silence. And then I’ll know the real meaning of alienation and loneliness, guilt and sorrow. *
Panic is a dog chasing its tail. Funny if I can see the whole dog, and not so funny if I’m caught up in the chase.
The question, “what is real?” can only be answered with a sense of humor.
Most schools teach only a short-term open-mindedness in order to gain, in the end, conclusive confidence in what is “real.” But a conclusion closes the mind and ends learning. Few schools help students discover a more ineffable confidence in what always exceeds our conclusions.
Scientists might cringe, but electrical or nuclear power could be described as hidden forces charmed into being by the magical formulas of math. These invocations isolate attributes of an undifferentiated whole, giving these forces an independent existence and practical purpose they never had. *
The scientist can become bewitched into a materialist vision; the salesperson can end up thinking that everyone is selling something. We’re made gullible by any story conflated with fact. *
Error is how reality makes itself known. It’s a ceaseless trade wind of correction. Embracing this slant on error, theories no longer strain to be perfect. (A “perfect answer” would put an end to learning). Learning requires riding that current. So, stories flex and shift like sails, catching whispers of larger worlds. Now the wind exceeding the sail is beautiful. *
There’s no greater comic relief than recognizing one’s inner demons as fools on the level of Curly, Moe and Larry. *
What hasn’t changed is this phony sense of a divided consciousness, this feeling of being the better half of a Siamese twin; the other a dummy of a nincompoop dragging along beside me; a co-creation of my own desired destiny divided by the destiny friends and enemies consider more within my grasp. Probably this Siamese self is nothing more than my own recollected behavior sloughed off on an imaginary scapegoat.
Too often, the inner voice (the “I”) escapes into the delusion of being the better angel, who can look back at his dim-witted past from an improved distance. As if I were superior to my own immediate past. And these internal revolutions from dimwit to angel and back again occur in quick succession, like a dog chasing its tail. *
For no sooner do I act in the world then I become immediately annoyed by what I’ve done, rising in opposition to this now utterly deposed former incarnation who had been in his own day (of a moment or two ago) an equally enraged monster with regard to previous incarnations.
“When I get mad or frustrated with myself I notice that the voice (the “I”) feels distinctly superior to the lout I call myself. It’s a kind of voice-throwing trick, placing “me” perpetually outside the scene of my own error, gazing back at my failures like the lab-coated know-it-all, not like the dummy in the wreck. *
Hear me complain about my gaffs with the sternness of an English school-master, condemning what I’ve done from a morally superior third person’s perch (disguised under first person pronouns): “I’ll never forgive myself for what I’ve done!” Or listen as I express the frustrations of an injured party — “there I go again, spilling milk all over myself!” — in this way sidling over to gaze at my wrong-doing as the victim instead of the perpetrator. *
The key to learning is being edified and bemused by our own stupidity. *
I wonder if bad eyesight is caused by a disinclination to see the look on other people’s faces. We blur sight and retreat to senses which are less susceptible to duplicitous signals. So, the eyes atrophy or wear out with misuse.
When I take off my glasses, I end up listening more closely. Then the Other listens more closely too. And all they can see in my own blissfully blurred face is a good-natured ignoramus, which tends to awaken a spirit of charity, if not downright pity. Thus, we both become transfigured so long as at least one of us remains blurry.
The centrality of myself remains stubbornly pre-Galilean. *
What I “know” of another person is only my story of the story they tell about themselves.
Our personalities are merely characters in imaginary dramas. When the drama shifts, the personality shifts. If the drama ends, “we” end. Hence, we cling to dramas.
The imaginary voice is speaking to an imaginary person. The “I” and the “self” that are being addressed are both part of the imaginary performance.
Yes, it’s an inquiry into myself, but it’s not about “me”, as in my personal history or problems. It’s about the common momentum of thought that runs “me.”
If we make this conscious distinction between thought and being, then we are able to move in and out of the shapes imposed on perception by thought and language. This allows us to remain somewhat aloof from who we think we are.
Whatever we are, we’re not found in passing thoughts. They are merely the traces of our passing.
I learn from everything that goes wrong, and everything is always going wrong. *
I don’t write because I know something. I write because I don’t. *
But it’s not like I’m trying to do something. It’s more like something else is trying to do something and “I” keep getting in the way. And all this tripping over myself to avoid what it wants looks like “effort.” It’s a seductive pretense.
Writing happens when effort fails.
The only light the “I” produces is the light of its own combustive friction. This friction is produced by trying to avoid the revealing light of awareness. This friction is the cause of Hellfire. Hellfire is the light of heaven burning away.
Self-discovery is the discovery of nothing.
Self-discovery is the exploration of the cosmos, because the discovery of my absence is the discovery of everything else. But we turn our backs on this larger Being merely because it disturbs the small image of who we thought we were.
Writing is neither a means to an end, nor an end in itself. There is a third possibility. Writing is merely what happens when I’m learning. It’s a necessary corollary of the process, but neither a means nor an end.
If a necessary corollary to something larger is repressed, then the larger thing also can’t form. But we still can’t focus on the corollary as a means towards the larger thing.
I say things after I already know them. I know things silently prior to speaking. I speak in order to hold the surface image steady against a barrage of anomalous information.
Questioner (Q): Is there a material or immaterial basis to everything?
Imaginary Philosopher: I wouldn’t ask that. It creates a false dichotomy and presumes too much.
Q: You don’t think it’s an important question?
IP: I think we urgently need to question the small visions driving us towards a cliff. Materialism is a blindingly short-sighted vision that degrades our relationship to earthly life. But I wouldn’t focus on an answer.
Q: Why not?
IP: Any answer to this question is a form of reductive materialism itself, creating dichotomy and conflict. Positive certainty is destructive. We end up thinking we’re absolutely right about something, and those who hold an opposing view become enemies.
Opposing views needn’t be in conflict. Materialism and Immaterialism are only what we see when facing different directions. It’s similar to microscopic and macroscopic visions. The microscope and the telescope don’t argue with each other. Each has limitations, which are partially completed by the other.
Q: Are you saying it’s both?
IP: Yes, that, and more, they’re all limited.
Q: What are the limitations of both views?
IP: Imagine the absurdity of visiting a doctor because your face is stuck in a frown. The materialistic doctor examines the face, and concludes that the cause of the frozen frown is a combination of changed patterns in blood flow, muscular tension, and temperature, recommending muscle relaxants. Such a doctor would dismiss “sadness” as a cause, because the existence of an immaterial state of mind would be pure conjecture. There’s no material proof of a mind that feels sad.
This may seem absurd, but this is how a typical scientist approaches the study of the material world. We measure the physical attributes of the world and don’t even bother to wonder if these complex systems of order indicate an immaterial intelligence of the earth itself. Materialism limits our vision.
But if we adhere to an opposing viewpoint – that only mind or spirit is real – then the body and the earth itself fade in importance, appearing merely as discardable clothing obscuring the spirit, or as mere illusions, or inanimate shells.
Western culture seems to be vacillating between these two extremes. An abstract Platonism that led to a Sky God divorced from earthly life, becoming a puritanical hatred of the body, which are all different forms of idealism.
And then this strange scientific materialism, which also degrades matter and mines the earth as if it were inanimate.
So, both viewpoints are limited.
Earthly life has been demeaned by both extremes, because we lost a “vision” of sacred matter — a materiality unsevered from the immaterial.
Q: Isn’t this vision of “sacred matter” another competing belief?
IP: Yes, it could degrade into another material fetish of a belief. Do we necessarily move from a belief in materialism or a belief in some form of immaterialism to a belief in “sacred matter?” Many believe that we can only move from one positive belief to another, that it’s impossible to relate intelligently to the world without a symbolic structure that guides us. But this belief is also limiting.
Is it possible to not merely question each belief from a new position of belief, but to question the whole category of “belief”, so that one is not merely thinking about previous forms of thought, but relating to every belief with unvested interest, or ultimate uncertainty?
I’m writing the persons who will replace us. At present we can only see the magnetic flash of someone in utero; that potential, which is more communal than personal. Some fetus audacious enough to see through its own charades.
I’m writing because this is the performance of a new way of being, this is how it begins to take shape. It’s you and I facing our shame, not I alone.
We don’t give birth to a new being by ourselves. This is an alchemical experiment, a shamanic dance. The eyes dance the words, and this ceremony creates someone capable of seeing the Self as a construct of self-deception. A way of being rises from the ashes of who we thought we were.
Imagine the courage it takes to not fool yourself.
Even the imagination of this person can’t be sustained without deception. The effort to do so creates a positive ideal, which is a desire for transcendence, and that desire is opposed to being seen as a fool. It doesn’t want to see how it fools itself. It hides from reality and never acknowledges that it does so.
This is the origins of our political situation also. The system is running from reality as fast as it can, right into the arms of a narcistic dictator.Read More »
Time to summarize where the series on freedom has gone up till now.
The only concern of these essays is the restoration of the earth’s health.
But how can something as pathetic as an essay contribute to the healing of the earth? The same way any other action performed whole-heartedly contributes, the same way any white blood cell encountering a virus contributes to the healing of the whole population: By realizing and metabolizing the world’s poisons as they circulate within this holograph of the whole, called me. By being an example of healing, by facing my diseased self honestly, allowing the old patterns of identification to die, as they should have died thousands of years ago, before the disease suppurated.
Honesty is the painful act of healing. It’s also the most rebellious act one can undertake in a deceitful world.
This isn’t about learning to play the violin while the world burns. None of these essays are about personal advancement or personal adjustments to a world in its death throes. Those concerns make me sick. I mean “sick” as an accurate metaphor, because the world’s sickness is rooted in a frame of mind that is selfish and short-sighted. We are heading towards extinction from too much personal concern.
I can imagine that many of the claims I tend to make would annoy historians, among others.
I tend to say that knowledge isn’t a matter of fact or fiction, but of honest or dishonest fiction.
And I tend to say that a conclusion puts an end to learning.
Historians, reporters and police detectives (among others), however, are often diligent in sorting fact FROM fiction, and wouldn’t take kindly to any smudging of those distinctions. They also tend to work towards a conclusive determination of events. They might argue that the question, “did this happen or not?” demands a conclusive answer in order to learn anything substantial. So right away, both of my claims will seem outlandish from their perspectives.
I myself would argue that we need to retain a distinction between fact and fiction if the context (such as law) is premised on this distinction. We have to understand the definitions and frameworks of any foreign language. But I would argue that these linguistic distinctions are themselves fictional inventions. “Fact or fiction” ‘is a fictional way of sorting events.
After all, a fact (under microscopic examination) is by itself a meaningless dot of data in an infinite sea of data points. Facts only begin to make sense when they are strung together in a narrative. In other words, we can’t understand any fact without understanding the context, which is the story that defines the fact. I can’t think of a single fact that isn’t part of an explanatory narrative, like beads on a string.
Creativity is inseparable from the collection of facts. Read More »
I can’t remain too long in any consistent first person, otherwise you’ll end up believing that I’m really me, and then I’ll be pinned inanimately to the page and unable to shape-shift as any living creature must if it hopes to avoid the tarpits.
Consider Me the ringmaster for what follows. I am part of the performance, just another circus freak, not the kind of Self you’d bring home to meet your mother.
Let’s dare to suggest I’m not even a living thing so much as a material swelling of words, thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, the chaotic surface waves left by the spirit of life as it hovered over the keyboard for a moment before passing on to better things. After all, the screen or page you’re reading is not itself alive. Nor is this picture of “me” that hovers over the page momentarily.
Or say instead that this picture of “Me” is a mnemonic shell that formed where life once placed its fleeting and immaterial finger. I am the fossil of something more lively that passed this way.
Or maybe I’m the detritus of memory, a junk-encrusted tumbleweed of ideas of myself, a messy and clanging assemblage of cans and can’t-do’s, recoils, crossed-wires and lost marbles. This would explain why I’m such a noisy sonofabitch.Read More »
Between the idea And the Reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow
From “The Hollow Men,” by TS Eliot
I notice that I share a fundamental starting assumption with post-modernism – the realization that everything is a story, and the impossibility of obtaining “positive certainty” about the full nature of anything.
Even the factual things people do manage to measure with precision are already fictional distinctions premised on limited assumptions. We imagine different ways of separating and measuring what is otherwise an infinite but unrealized potential, the so-called Void.
And I understand (but don’t share) their tendency to make no distinction between thought and thing, because the “thing” is also a thought. Everything we know is put together by narrative – it’s all a fiction. Peering through the post-modern lens, everything, in other words, is just language. From this angle there is no reality beyond language, or no meaning beyond what language ascribes.
There is insight here, but there is also a very subtle blunder. It’s the same one I made as a teenager when I fell into a depersonalization/derealization crisis, which is a terrifying physical and psychological conviction that nothing is real.
Here’s what this post-modern insight misses: If all conclusive meaning (Truth or Reality) is fictional, then this information itself – this negative discovery – is an example of an insight that is non-fictional, non-linguistic. “Truth” doesn’t disappear, but changes at this juncture from positive certainty to negative discovery. Truth changes shape but doesn’t disappear.
I think this is an unexpectedly meaningful question. It pertains to why human beings tend to differ so violently in our interpretations of reality; whether or not we can come to understand two divergent visions (of anything, even this simple arrow) simultaneously without conflict; or whether we’re forced to take sides and stick to our positions until one of us submits (i.e., plots revenge).
Even the resolution of this simple question depends on finding a view wider than the widest view of the question – not merely a wider interpretation, but an awareness that encompasses the limits (and therefore valid extent) of every interpretation that is encountered. (It’s always a little startling how this “negative awareness of limits” is precisely what adds clarity to an interpretation. Until I know the limits of something I don’t know it’s real shape and function. Two sides of the same coin).
(Whether the arrow describes something abrupt or gradual looks meaningless, I grant you. But I think it matters because climate catastrophe and political rebellions, are all nudging this civilization to an abrupt end, or at least to abrupt changes in direction. But we tend towards despair when we see the magnitude of change that’s necessary, which is why the gradual interpretation of change is still more popular, which means we’re not alert to the more optimistic possibility of rapidly shifting our whole approach to life. I suspect, in other words, that we get comfortable with an illusion of gentle progression, which shuts down the possibility of seeing a new potential for learning and changing astonishingly fast. So that’s probably why this feels like a necessary question, a way of waking myself up from this sleepwalk to extinction).Read More »
Negative Geography 