Freshly updated and modified, May 3rd, 2010...
Okay, let's figure out where we are here, and where we are going...
I am a very ambitious philosopher and psychological theorist...
I want to integrate virtually everything....or so it feels in my most ambitious moments...
Metaphorically speaking, I am a 'mad scientist' -- a 'mad biochemist'...only mainly in philosophy and psychology...and then extending outwards from an 'inner circle' of thought -- a key kernal of thought -- to evolving 'orbits of thought' like planets orbiting around the sun, and/or moons orbiting around the different planets.
When you think about it, what energy doesn't come from the sun? Plants absorb energy from the sun, vegetarian animals absorb 'sun energy' from the plants, and 'carnivorous animals' more indirectly absorb 'sun' energy' from the vegetarian animals that more directly absorb 'sun energy' from the sun...
Now I am not a biologist or a biochemist, so partly I am out of my league and out of my realm here talking about subject matters that I have not fully studied in depth...
But still I think there is some value in making some 'loose comments' and drawing a comparison between man's biology and biochemistry with his philosophy and psychology, even his religion, mythology, spiritualism, and pantheism/deism.
As Spinoza would say -- everything is connected...and indeed, in Spinoza's mind, everything is connected to 'God' -- we all represent a different 'piece' of God...and God's creation...or in Spinoza's mind again, God and Creation are, in effect, one and the same thing.
We could quickly compare the operation of a car (if I had any mechanical knowledge) with the operation of the human body. Both require 'energy' to move. This energy ultimately comes from the sun.
In the case of the car, the car needs 'gas' in it to run...at some point, along the way from the gas tank to the engine, the gas needs to be united with 'oxygen' (like in the human body), the gas reaches the engine, the pistons fire, the spark plugs spark, and we have -- 'energy' -- enough energy, generated by small explosions in the engine, enough generated by a number of necessary things that need to come together in space and time like gas and oxygen and spark plugs...in order to make the car move.
In the human body, energy from the sun is generated in the 'mitochondria' of each individual cell. Here too, we have small 'spark plug explosions' that generate enough energy for us to think, and feel, and move...If any one small item that needs to get to the mitochondria doesn't arrive there -- like 'glucose' or 'oxygen' or 'vitamins' and 'minerals' -- then, this small 'energy explosion' is not going to go off, just like 'gas' not arriving in the engine of a vehicle...Such can be the case with a diabetic if there is not enough 'insulin' present at the 'entry point of the cell', and/or if there is too much 'fat' or 'cholesterol' blocking the entry of glucose, oxygen, and/or the other necessary vitamins and minerals...in any and/or all of these cases, we are not going to have our 'mitochondria' firing off properly because it doesn't have all the necessary materials in order to make this tiny 'energy explosion' in the cell happen...
The more cells that this energy explosion doesn't take place in, the greater the trouble we are going to be in. We are going to be 'energyless'. Similarly, with the 'anemic' person who does not produce enough 'red blood cells' to supply enough of our mitochondria with the necessary raw materials for 'energy explosions' to happen within enough of our individual cells...Again, we are going to feel 'energyless' or 'lethargic'....or 'old'... We need our mitochondria to be 'firing on all cylinders' in order to 'feel alive and pumped with potential energy to be turned into 'kinetic energy' (wow, I just recovered a little bit of high school physics from my 'sparked up' memory banks...)
Now compare what I have just discussed above with the work of the ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers.
Thales theorized that all life originated in 'water' -- not a bad idea as there is some evidence that man may have evolved from the 'fishes', and before that, very tiny 'micro-organisms', like 'amoeba'...that originated in the sea...Or who's to say that very small micro-organisms weren't evolving on 'land' at the same time that they were evolving in the sea....Life, it would seem, has almost an infinite capacity to evolve from anywhere and anything -- just as long as there is the capability of producing 'energy'....Life is energy...and energy creates movement...random, chaotic, movement, and/or planned, directed, teleological movement...and from this...'dialectic collisions'...opposing forces and energies colliding together...like 'protons' and 'electrons'...and creating larger molecules, and new forms of movement, energy, structure -- and 'life'...
Thales' theory of the origin of life was ultimately 'one-sided' as was Heraclitus' theory who believed that all life started with 'fire' (sun energy?)...and Anaxamenes' theory who believed that all life started with 'air' (oxygen)....And then perhaps we have to turn back even further in the pages of history to Greek Mythology to find a God of 'the earth' ...or maybe we have to turn to the Bible and whoever the 'religious philosopher' was who asserted that we are basically born from the 'dust' of the earth, and when we die, it is to the 'dust' of the earth that we return...
At the same time, that we had all of these 'partly one-sided philosophers' (Thales-water, Anaxamenes-air, Heraclitus-fire...) theorizing about the source of the origin of life...we had Anaxamander who was probably the best philosopher-mystic of them all who had a much 'grander' theory of the Creation and the Evolution of life....
Anaxamander was a wonderful philosopher -- he was a combination of the 'Hegel' and 'Darwin' and 'Spinoza' and 'Nietzsche' and 'Foucault' and 'Derrida' and 'Sigmund Freud' and 'Carl Jung' and 'Fritz Perls' of ancient Greece...
If somebody -- anybody -- any scholar of Western philosophy -- were to tell me that the foundation of Western Philosophy was built on the back of Plato's philosophy...
I would say, 'No, you are wrong. The foundation of Western Philosophy was built on the back of Anaxamander's 'multi-dialectic philosophy'....
There is so much of today's modern philosophy that is built on the back, and on the shoulders, of Anaxamander's brilliantly creative multi-dialectic philosophy, that I still sit here and shake my head at what originated in this man's mind...
Indeed, this philosophical treatise -- this 'multi-dialectic Grand Narrative' -- that I am creating here has just as much, if not more, right to be called 'Anaxamander's Hotel' as it does 'Hegel's Hotel'...
I consider Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' to be the most influential philosophical work in the history of Western philosophy. And the main 'dialectic ideas' in 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' were born in the mind of Anaxamander, before Anaxamander in Greek Mythology, and over on the 'Eastern Front'...in the 'yin' and 'yang' philosophy of ancient Chinese philosophy that probably goes back at least as far as Greek Mythology...if not further...
The concept of 'dialectic energy' and 'dialectic evolution' was being born in Greek Mythology, and then in the respective philosophies of Anaxamander and Heraclitus, at about the same time that Ancient Chinese Philosophy was developing the same, or at least similar, ideas in the philosophy of Lao Tse, Confusious, and perhaps even earlier philosophers than these...whoever it was that originated the 'dialectic (bi-polar) ideas' of 'yin' and 'yang'.
Today we talk about 'bi-polar disorder' which is the newer name for 'manic-depression' as if it is the only 'bi-polar disorder' out there....while the philosophical, psychological, political, and religious reality of things is that any form of 'bi-polar extremism' is a form of 'bi-polar disorder' whereas 'health' can, and needs to be, connected to 'bi-polar balance, integration, unity, wholism, and harmony'....Scientists and psychologists call this idea of 'bi-polar balance' -- 'homeostasis' or 'equilibrium'...I also call it 'dialectic balance' and/or 'dialectic-democratic balance'.
A thousand or more mitochondria and brain synapses -- (I didn't pay too much to attention to my introductory psychology lectures, particularly the lectures on 'brain physiology, biochemistry, and brain synapses...' but they too are an important part of this evolving multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, Grand Narrative...) -- to repeat, a thousand or more mitochondria and brain synapses are exploding in my head right now....a thousand places I want to go -- and bring you with me -- both in my mind and in my physical body -- Germany, China, Denmark, Holland, Greece, New Zealand -- ancient history, politics, German Idealism, Communist China, Capitalist America, the trials and tribulations, creations and destructions, love and hatred, equalities and inequalities, of all cultures, all people, all art, all religions, all mythologies...
And for the remainder of the day, all these exploding mitochondria, brain synapses, and evolving integrative ideas...must come to a halt....
My day job is calling me...
We will return to Anaxamander and Ancient Greece when I get back...and then move forward in time to 'German Idealism'...and Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'...
My work is simply a continuation of The Phenomenology of Spirit -- a 21st Century rendition of The Phenomenology of Spirit -- written in much simpler language for the most part, with more practical examples, hopefully useful for beginning philosophy students, as well as for more advanced students and teachers, and for professional practitioners, with modifications in the light of more recent philosophical thought such as in : Irrationalism and/or Dionysian Impulsiveness (Schopenhauer) Humanistic-Existentialism (Kierkegaarde, Nietzsche, Camus, Kafka, Heidegger, Sartre...), The Philosophy and Politics of Power and Narcissism(Foucault) Post-Modernism and Deconstruction (Nietzsche, Derrida), Psychoanalysis and Counter-Psychoanalysis (Freud, Adler, Jung, Melanie Klein, Rank, Reich, Horney, Fromm, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Berne, Kohut, Rogers, Ellis, Maslow, Rollo May, Perls...)
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Religion... (On The Dialectic History, Evolution, and Integration of Life, Man, Culture, Mind, Body, Spirit and Soul...)
I am shooting for the stars here...Even though I write informally and usually outside of most academic standards and parameters, this is meant to be no ordinary philosophical feat I am aiming to accomplish here...I am aiming to integrate significant elements of 3000 years of human history and evolution...
Perhaps time -- or rather, lack of it -- is my worst enemy. Hegel's Hotel -- just like my main mentor, Hegel, and his most extraordinary philosophical achievement, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- in spirit, will never be finished because it will always be subject to new evolutions in human thinking, feeling, and doing...
What I am doing both philosophically and psychologically, is essentially no different than what Nature/God is doing genetically. Life is always genetically mutating...and changing...new hybrids of species evolving even as I write. A while back I read on the internet that a new species of animal had evolved between a 'wolf' and a 'coyote' -- I think they were calling it a 'colve' (or how about a 'woyote').
This morning I read that Nature/God has been at it again...genetically and mutationally...A hunter just shot a bear that was a hybrid between a 'polar bear' and a 'grizzly'....no name for it yet...perhaps a 'prizzly bear'...
That is essentially what Hegel was doing in 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- he was following 'Nature's and/or God's Creative lead....'The Phenomenology of Spirit' was both a theory of evolution that preceded Darwin's 'The Origin of The Species'...and encompassed it...
But not too many people have seen and properly appreciated that Hegel's dialectical form of philosophical integrationism follows the lead of biology, genetics, and mutation....Hegel's dialectic formula of 'thesis/counter-thesis/synthesis' leads to an infinite progression, mutation, and evolution of philosophical diversity and integration in exactly the same manner in which a male, a female, and the genetic integration of sperm and egg (fertilization) leads to infinite progression, mutation, and evolution in the realm of physical, biological and biochemical diversity...
In the realm of clinical psychology, the same dialectic process of evolution has been developing over the last 120 years plus...both inside and outside of Psychoanalysis...
Inside Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis has undergone at least two or three major internal schisms...specifically, between Traumacy-Seduction Theory and Fantasy-Oedipal Theory before and after 1897; and between Freudian Classical Psychoanalysis and Kleinian Object-Relations. A third schism could also be posited between Classical (Pleasure vs. Reality Principle) Psychoanalysis and Freud's later Life vs. Death Instinct Psychoanalysis...
People may say that I am crazy when I say that I can integrate all aspects of 50 years of Freudian Psychoanalysis but that is what Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Religion...is all about -- 'integrating philosophical and psychological and political and religious schisms'...
In fact, here is a name for what I do that I just recently developed: DGBMT standing for 'Dialectic Gap-Bridging Mediation Therapy'.
In my heart and in my brain I am all of these: a neo-Gestalt theorist, a neo-Freudian and Psychoanalytic theorist, a neo-Adlerian theorist, a neo-Jungian theorist, a neo-Transactional-Analysis theorist, a neo-Frommian theorist, with Hegel providing the central philosophical foundation and strong currents of Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Adam Smith, Diderot, Jefferson, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Korzybski, Hayakawa, and Jeffrey Masson circulating throughout my work...
All these different theorists and their theories have been thrown together into the same 'dialectic integrative machine' -- my brain -- where they have engaged -- with me -- and I believe that something creatively new and important has oftentimes come out of their mix...and/or is still in process...Not all the time -- not even Michael Jordan or Lebron James sinks all of his 'shots'...But hopefully often enough to make Hegel's Hotel, one day, if not already, important.
This is what I do every time I sit down and write an essay, whether it be in philosophy, psychology, politics, and/or religion... I aim to bridge gaps....sometimes big ones...
dgb, May 1st-May 3rd, 2010.
