Top, Middle, and Bottom

The Top

The top is the kabbalistic Adam Kadmon, Thomas Aquinas' "Esse", Meister Echkart's "Godhead", and I'm sure there are many more guises, none more true than the other.

Semiotically speaking, say, the mind we have can reach such a high level of phenomenonological perspective, so that a property deriving from that degree of knowing "animates" our being and body - illuminating it, as it were, with a knowledge of existence that is traumatic, and at other times, exhilarating.

But why traumatic? Can it be, that our biggest error is not knowing that the body is biosemiotically structured i.e. that the ontological configuration of interactions i.e. our body-mind in interaction with other body-minds, unfolds from the facts of the symmetry or asymmetry of the interaction, with symmetry defined as the act of "recognizing the need of the other for acting a certain way"?

The top, of course, obviates and eliminates the bottom - or the being on the inside, our 'selves'. We don't want this, of course, and hence the paradox of "being two", even though, in fact, existence derives from one act of existence.

Nevertheless, being traumatized beings, we can never be completely sure that our responses to things are done with much wisdom; for example, some people very much enjoy living in relationship to the infinite, and become the infinite; but alas, if they do so, existence stops and the world ceases to be for such a being. Paradoxically, what was many has become nothing. Yet, is it a "true" nothing, given existence still is, and still exists, despite the getaway of the being who has merged with the infinite?

The Bottom

The bottom is where most humans on Earth find themselves: dissociated from the nature of their being, and its ultimate relationship to the top, their concept of God, spirituality, life and meaning is non-existent. But still, the bottom has 'many rungs'; a person who doesn't know, I would imagine, is less onerously related to being than the person who is identified with opposing and subverting the realm of beings.

Such people, of course, are nice to people who are like them, perhaps not realizing that its these relationships that actually support their satisfaction in living and being. But, suppose they grant that, they are nevertheless structurally opposed to all things 'feminine'; females, self-consciousness in others, people who embody some objective vulnerability i.e. height, weight, looks, etc, which seems to contrast with their projected effort to seem strong. Weakness, self-consciousness, in other words: not being "good enough" to be as strong as they are (or imagine themselves as being), seems to characterize what seems like a serious psychoneurological (and spiritual) pathology of being.

I don't think anyone truly 'likes' feeling as they feel - i.e. to think so goddamn much, to reflect and to believe that you "know everything" - the idea of having a certainty about the nature of reality i.e. how it works, whether it be in the mode of the kabbalistic sephiroth, or neoplatonic gradation of being, etc - there is, it seems to me, a very dense narrative-quality that grows from feelings of intense arousal - arousal which, as it flows through your nervous system, profoundly constrains the ways consciousness can think, feel, and know reality.

Most of all, this is entirely a product of fear. Anger is the internal 'defense' against fear, projected inwardly and outwardly, expressing the preference, in effect, for feeling anger (being active) than feeling fear (passive), as if these were the only two options in question.

The Middle

Since all of reality unfolds in terms of the interaction between yin and yang, it makes no sense to talk about identifying with either one pole or the other pole of the existence of the universe.

Aquinas, like the kabbalists, suppose a creation ex nihilo, yet this is not definitive proof that existence indeed comes from nothing. It seems odd, given that the proofs of existence are inherently dual and interactive, that the human mind would come to focus on a singularity, and hope, and want, as it were, to abnegate its own existence, which seems, at least from the perspective of a traumatologist, to be escapist and hyper-polarized on one aspect or perspective on existence.

Indeed, talk such as this must grate the nerves of people who grow up in very individualistic contexts, given that the self in an individualist context becomes formed around threat-cues and defensive actions, so that existence, in effect, only becomes 'half-known', half understood, and only half 'accepted', if at all, because of the self's interest in understanding for the sake of manipulating.

What is the middle, then? It seems the Abrahamic option, "absorption into the Godhead", it would seem, is simply too depressive and escapist to possibly be true - given that existence is, and that individual beings are, or the idea of ignoring all the other facts of being that embody perspectives of self (i.e. cell life upward) - all this seems to be ignored, and indeed, is comes off as utterly narcissistic - self-absorbed, and completely about just one perspective of being as it appears to a disembodied, reflecting cognition.

So what is the proper being of a human being, but social being? It is obvious that we are happiest when we are moving, in our bodies, and being in relation with others.

The creative arts seem about replenishing and refilling for every new generation a new mode or awareness of being human - as it appears in its infinite ways, through the lens of specific people's lives, their meanings, and the way such meanings become expressed in their art.

On the other hand lies the intellectually exhilarating world of science, where the world teaches us how small, stupid and full-of-# we usually are, and with thanks, we come away feeling smaller than the narcissism of escapism can often create: a feeling of being existence or God itself.

Much still needs clarity in the world, and new beings, new vistas, and new projects - technology being an interesting perspective - lie still to explored.

That said, the middle acknowledges the being of real others. The natural world, animals, and most of all, other human beings who have the same sorts of needs as our own. What this means is simple: care about other people - their needs - but never should the need of one person be allowed to suppress the needs of others. This means power - and the abuse of it. Consent - parity - are fundamentals to a coherent civilization, which means, to a society where people can trust one another, and through that trust, experience less fear, les anxiety, and so less disenlivening feelings.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Consent - parity - are fundamentals to a coherent civilisation, which means, to a society where people can trust one another, and through that trust, experience less fear, less anxiety, and so less dis enlivening feelings.

This sounds like magical thinking - hoping that 'society' will change and be trustworthy - only then will your fear and anxiety go.

Fear happens as soon as there is 'something' else. If there is no 'something' else' - then there is no fear.
The idea that there is 'someone' to please or 'someone' to upset is anxiety and fear making. The idea that what is happening could be 'something other' than it is, causes anxiety.
The cure to fear and anxiety is recognising that there is no other way it could be. If a feeling happens - what is the problem?
A problem is just a 'someone' believing it should be different.

If the idea is 'society should be different then that is' then that is the cause of the anxiety.

Here is a video which explains the uneasiness of should. Should and shouldn't cause dis-ease.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

You don't appreciate science, physics, or anything that could be deemed 'objective'. How then are we supposed to communicate?

Can you understand this? Symmetry is what underlies physics. Biophysics underlies the way and manner cells operate. Cells, in coming together with other cells, achieve a level of relationship to one another so that a symmetry-in-time emerges, or what's called by origin of life researchers, 'autocatalysis'. Autocatalysis is system of chemical transformation which always leaves a 'remainder' molecule which allows the system to go indefinitely, so long as the raw ingredients can be derived from the outside.

The organism is actually a system-property that goes outside itself towards something else, and in this sense, can be regarded as 'centrifugal'. But it always does this for itself, to renew its internal structuring, again and again, so that itcan keep itself going.

When you fast forward to humans, you arrive at a state termed 'shared-intentionality'. Shared intentionality is the term a leader anthropologist, Michael Tomasello, gives to the 'cognitive structure' of human thinking and communicative processes. What this means, in less complex language, is that what you take for granted - your ability to think - is itself a product of an evolutionary process that began from a position of completely parity - or symmetry: with one system 'mirroring' another system.

Look at the natural world for natures examples: the chimpanzee, which lives in central Africa east of the Congo river, is a patrilineal system whereby males determine the affective and communicative styles of interspecific relations. Male chimps are much larger than female chimps, and on many occasions, kill one another. Chimps have many predators - the main being lions, leopards, snakes and birds of prey.

Bonobos, on the other hand, evolved in a small closed in area west of the congo river, in an area with an unusual concentration of fruiting plants - which means the Bonobo gets to spend less time moving from tree to tree searching for food, and more time playing, and, of course, having sex.

This region of west Africa also has less lions, leopards, and snakes, with the crocodile being the only real threat to the bonobos life. Thus, with less predation, the dynamical-system that is the living organism also become less fear and threat oriented, and so, more relaxed, more peaceable, and more happy, relaxed, and enthusiastic.

In terms of symmetry theory, the chimpanzee and the bonobo both express symmetry, inasmuch as the response and meaning structure of each species is a function of the environmental context they develop and evolve within. In other words, their structure/function is expressed in their subjectivity as a complement to the world that these animals encounter.

What you write, that it is "magical", is completely contradicted by the facts of reality.

Humans are ideational - or representational - creatures. We depend on knowledge if we seek to improve our situations in life, whether it be external or internal.

Since context is a complement, or the other half, of every creatures ontological dynamism, I am in other words saying, quite reasonably might I add, that capitalistic cultures and masculinistic cultures create creatures that experience their lived in and adapted to environments as subjectively needed. This is not because it is, indeed, needed; only that the situations we encounter in this sort of world makes us fearful, threat-disposed, and in your case, extraordinarily dissociative.

Chaos theory where dynamics have some kind of order to it, and yet here it would be all topsy tirpy, all backwards and upside down.

Like it was a message from Hell.

a reply to: Astrocyte
I shall try to have a discussion with you - let's start with a question.
Do you believe that the world is wrong and that it should be different from what it is?

U

a reply to: Astrocyte
Why is it that we need to be a PhD candidate to even know what your talking about?

a reply to: Astrocyte

A Stereotype of Me

You thought you had me figured out
Before you knew my name
Cause you're you and you're not satisfied
That I am not the same

You'll never change the way I love
And you can fight for you're dominion
But I'm worth a million times the weight
Of a dogmatist's opinion

I know that all that you can see
Is a stereotype of me
All that you thought I'd ever be
Is a stereotype of me

Did you ever think that you could see me
Past the prejudice you hold
I'm not the picture you created
I'm not the things that you were told

You're voice is long since dead to me
I won't even be provoked
When it hurt you to see me smile
The things you said went up in smoke

I know that all that you can see
Is a stereotype of me
All that you thought I'd ever be
Is a stereotype of me

By: Kyle Ezra Kriticos


Copyright © Kyle kriticos | Year Posted 2012

www.poetrysoup.com...

Astrocyte have you ever heard of the Hard Problem in relation to Consciousness?



Link to part 2..

www.youtube.com...

You are offering in statement that beyond infinity there is no capacity for awareness so can you prove that?

Science is really all about statistics. In example Gravity Theory is called a theory because we cannot possibly know everything about gravity, until we have explored the entire Universe.

It actually is irrational to relate to science without taking seriously that into consideration as such an implication portends. to one who believes all that is knowable is known.

So where is your physical evidence?

Where is your objective data that is now possible to peer into infinity and observe nothingness in so far as consciousness?

As the saying goes extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence so where is yours????