Bridge Across Consciousness

From: Bruce Schuman
Date: Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 9:27 AM
Subject: Tree vs. Net
Reply to: 261002
ID: 259960

Good morning.

It looks like this epistemology/cognitive science study is emerging as a daily part of my life. It's exciting; this is a subject to which I gave many years, and these new tools and possibilities, and some kind of "convergence", seems to be making all of this more feasible than it ever was before.

Where this is headed, I think -- is towards what I am now tending to call "The Integral Theorem on Conceptual Structure" --or maybe simply "The Integral Theorem".

More or less, the strategy is: all knowledge and categorical structure can be interpreted as a linear hierarchy/tree structure, defined in a single linearly recursive primitive element (the concept of distinction). This part of the work is more or less in pretty good shape, I think. What is new, and pushing to emerge, is this "integral theorem" concept, that ties all of this vast nested complexity into a single integral framework. It's like tying a little pink ribbon around the entire range of human conceptual thought -- and suggesting that every "instance", regardless of how diverse, can be perfectly and accurately interpreted within this single framework.

It's hard to explain how powerful this is, or could be, if it actually works correctly. Throughout history, we've seen various initiatives for the integration of knowledge, and much of the advance in mathematics has involved simplifying generalizations, that reduce some vast arena of complexity into a few simple basic principles that explain it all, or from which it all unfolds. The idea that "the sciences" could be connected like this is sometimes called "the unity of the sciences" -- and then, there are similar initiatives for doing such things across the entire range of human thinking -- perhaps involving "the unity of science and religion". It's a huge undertaking -- and throughout history, more of a dream of the great philosophers than a realized expression.

But today -- I can feel something like this coming. We've been hearing about "the knowledge explosion" -- for 40 years. Computer science has made incredible advances. And now, computers are everywhere, and just about everything is on the internet and freely available. The potential for powerful integrations is growing. The mysteries of Babel -- are -- at our fingertips...

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All that, just to float this thought, this phrase: Integral Theorem on Conceptual Structure. It's in the air.

Ok, now, I wanted to quote something from Francisco Varela, and the account of his work taken from Maps of the Mind, by Charles Hampden-Turner. I've now got the entire text of that book online, and this excerpt is taken from Map 55:

Two opposing conceptions of mind have run through much of this book: the idea of a 'net' or cybernetic feedback loop, a kind of Garden of Eden where harmony reigns but consciousness is lost; and the idea of a 'tree', which persons create whenever they make parts of their mind, eg their bodies, behaviours and techniques, the servants of their conscious purpose or self.
The net is intuitively perceived as a whole by the brain's right hemisphere; the tree is logically perceived as a sequence of actions by the brain's left hemisphere. While the tree gives direction to the net, it constantly endangers its balance.
The network is unbalanced by the purposively striving tree, and the tree rebalanced by the constraints of the network.
http://bridgeacrossconsciousness.net/documents/mapsofthemind55.pdf

Seen this way -- it's like the entire process of this Bridge project -- can be seen as the Tree tending to transform or consume (or "subsume") the Net.

Or to say -- this emerging Integral Theorem -- may represent the Tree totally consuming and subsuming ("transcending and including") the Net.

So -- maybe that process explains this long interval of time, as this work has continued deep in the currents of our collective cultural/spiritual evolution.

It's a scary thought -- the linearization of all knowledge. That better not be some kind of top-down hierarchy -- who's running this place??

This might be the mystery of the Uroboros -- the closure of the space. It's the "mystery of the circle" that holds all of this together in a state of grace, with no explosion of linearly-directed power. The top of the network -- is controlled and managed by the bottom, in an endless feedback loop.

Is that "pure participatory democracy"? Maybe it is...

Something in my soul -- has told me for years -- that there IS a native and natural and inherent archetype, a simple primal ontological form -- that holds everything together. Spirit, being, all existence, all knowledge -- are held together in its frame.

We are uncovering this mystery -- as part of the wave-front of scientific evolution. The Tree will consume the Net -- it's our natural destiny.

But it's amazing. This stuff -- is truly awesome. This is a full-tilt scientific revolution, of stunning cultural proportions....

Oh, PS -- Jeanie and I have been a living laboratory of this creative process, as we have worked together to make this LightPages system:

---- On Thu, Sep 13, 2007, Jeanie DeRousseau wrote ---

So... the tree and the net feel very seminal to me to the many and the one, me and you, to LightPages.

Let's consider that the net/right hemisphere/nonlinear/wholeness is a metaphor for undifferentiated connectivity. Let's consider that the tree or something like the tree in more than one dimension happens whenever 2 or more centers initiate a manifestation. The net would be evermore, but the tree would be impermanent. Still, there's a relationship because the tree would be overlain on the net in a hierarchical fashion.

If we make a net in LightPages, but allow tree formation to occur and dissolve, will we replicate the implicate order?

Just thoughts to test the system...er, environment.

Love, Jeanie

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