Wednesday, June 8, 2022

The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts: Alfred North Whitehead, The "Location Of Consciousness", and The Process of Transcendence

 

(This letter/email was written several days ago. I realize it is unlikely that this un-Taurean "ramble" will interest you much, but sometimes I feel the need for you to serve as a "crystallization point" for my thought. If you do not want me to "use" you in this way, please let me know and I will stop.)

Querida

At the end of tonight's zoom session, something came up in our conversation that called to mind a phrase I invented decades ago: "dualistic interpentrationism."

As I recall, the phrase was in some way prompted by A.E. North Whitehead - who worked in mathematics and philosophy - often closely with his student Bertrand Russell, the secularist/agnostic/atheist whom I find the most engaging of that "breed." 

I must say that I find it hard to become enthusiastic about atheists because I find them s0 "thin" - so tinny - and, more often than not, boring.)

C.S. Lewis' "Puddleglum" Proclaims My Favorite Declaration Of Faith


If nothing else, myth, fairy tale and legend have intrinsic depth, a depth that is far more appealing than the shallow utilitarian cant of most proselytizing atheists.

The following blog post reveals my reverence for myth, legend and fairy tale.

"Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling and The Redemption Of The Modern World"


But back to Whitehead, his process philosophy (which, in turn, gave way to process theology), and dualistic interpenetrationism.

"Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another.[23] Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us."[23] For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb."[24][25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead --a Brit (re-settled at Cambridge/Harvard)


*****

I have spent much of my adult life wrestling with the interface between physics (or "the physicial"), and metaphysics (or what lies "beyond the physical").

In an attempt to see the ineffable proximity of "the physical" and "the metaphysical" I groped around (35-40 years ago) with a "model" of phenomenological reality (i.e., reality that is comprised of all the phenomena that are accessible/perceptible by the five senses) and came to see physics and metaphysics as so deeply and subtly "interpenetrated" that the relationship between them was "separate" but more perfectly melded than penis and vagina during intercourse. Immeasurably more subtly entwined.

In intercourse, the "fit" of lingam and yoni is "perfect" and the union is unspeakably wonderful, but it is a relationship that can be -- and is -- separated into its "component" "parts", rather than being an indissoluble or "lasting" union/communion/entity. 

Notably humankind's most frequent "peak moments" arise from relationship and process, not from "things" "in themselves." 

As Buckminster Fuller put it: "I seem to be a verb."

Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller: What Happened After He Attempted Suicide

Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller: "The Most Idealistic Is The Realistically Most Practical"


"Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth," By Buckminster Fuller - Free Online PDF File 

"The Social Dilemma," Marshall McLuhan, And Bucky Fuller's Observation Concerning "Utopia Or Oblivion" Re: Humainologie Creative Dialogue Team Practice

It is the process of bringing penis and vagina into relationship -- or, when considering any two discrete phenomena that come together exquisitely well -- whereby these relationships between mere "things" "produce" far greater grandeur-magnificence-loftiness-transcendence than the separate "things" in themselves. (Even aesthetically, there is little to recommend a penis or a vagina, but! bring them together, and you've got the self-evident makings of mysticism.)

We humans achieve "the very best" we are capable of, only in relationship, not in isolation, no matter how astonishing "our" isolated "components" may be. 

Then, there is this remarkable observation.

In the "same" way that "consciousness" seems to be epiphenomenal to the brain (and other nervous tissue), so too is the epiphenomenal relationship between spirit/soul and body. 

No one denies that consciousness is real, but no one has any idea how to "locate" it within any "part" of a body or organism. (The very attempt may be barking up the wrong tree.) 

And so, the most important "component" of Life is consciousness.

But consciousness has no identifiable body where it can be "pinned" down - where it is located and observable. 

Consciousness doesn't seem to be "inside" anything, although it may be a kind of immaterial "projection" of "things."

This much seems clear: 

In human experience, immaterial consciousness - in and of itself (which is probably a non-sequitur) - is more important than the apparent material substrate of consciousness, even though it may not exist without the physical substrate.

The relationship is perhaps like changing water into wine.

Vaclav Havel, the great Czech leader of Checkoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, and a Catholic intellectual/dramatist, said bluntly in his prison "letters to Olga" that "Consciousness is prior to Being."

Gnosh on that a while.


*****

Havel and Frank Zappa were good friends.

"Frank Zappa Prophesied A Fascist Theocracy. Barry Goldwater Agrees"



Compendium Of Best Posts Concerning American Theocracy

"Aggressive Ignorance And Christianity's Failure To Champion Truth"

A somewhat impertinent digression:

Trolls... And The End Of Civilization As We Knew It

"This Phenomenon Explains What's Wrong With Trump Supporters' Brains"





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