Under construction...
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For those of you who didn't read my last essay, I will give you a quick, partial synopsis of Anaxamander's philosophy, specifically pertaining to his concept of 'The Apeiron'. --- dgb, April 11th, 2009.
From the internet...
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Anaximander (c. 610–c. 546 BC)
Greek astronomer and philosopher. He claimed that the Earth was a cylinder three times wider than it is deep, motionless at the centre of the universe, and that the celestial bodies were fire seen through holes in the hollow rims of wheels encircling the Earth. According to Anaximander, the first animals came into being from moisture and the first humans grew inside fish, emerging once fully developed.
He was born in Miletus, in what is now Turkey, and was a pupil of Thales. He is thought to have been the first to determine solstices and equinoxes, by means of a sundial, and he is credited with drawing the first geographical map of the whole known world. He believed that the universe originated as a formless mass containing within itself the contraries of hot and cold, and wet and dry, from which land, sea, and air were formed out of the union and separation of these opposites. Perpetual rotation in the universe created cosmic order by sorting heavier from lighter matter.
Overall, he seems to have shared the early Greek philosophical urge to explain the universe with a tiny number of general laws.
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From the internet....Free Essays....Anaxamander and 'The Apeiron'
Well-known for his theory of Apeiron, or the unlimited, Anaxamander pursued the changes of the Earth. He basically thought that apeiron compensated for the many changes the Earth undergoes. As a fragment from Anaxamander says, “the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.” Coming to be is the separation of opposites and does not involve any change in the natural being of a substance. Anaxamander thought that it was neither water nor any other substance, but it is of entirely different nature than that in which the unlimited exists. He believed that all things existed in some place. Whether they were absent or conspicuous was irrelevant; they still existed. He believed that qualities came into existence, vanished away, only to return again. Anaxamnder took into consideration that “there was a storehouse or reservoir from which the qualities that now confront us have ‘separated off’ and into which, when their contraries come forth in time, they will go back; the process being repeated in reverse, and so on in never-ending cycles.” Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot be seen. Equally as important are water, land, and fire that were created by the density in the air. Each of these three things, as seen from Anaxamander’s point of view, were the origin of all the rest of what exists. Water, of course, was the origin of life. From this water, first came fish that would evolve into what is now man.
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The Second Imaginary Meeting Between DGB and Anaxamander....
DGB: The last time we were together, two days ago, Professor Anaxamander, I was trying to ask you the question: If the world is 'unarticulated', 'undifferentiated' where it comes from -- and goes back to -- in 'The Apeiron' to use your word, which I interpret to mean something like 'Chaos', and if slowly or quickly The Apeiron articulates and differentiates itself into the world as we know it, the world that we can see before our eyes, why in your words, would the Apeiron differentiate itself into 'twos', or more specifically,into 'opposites', as you put it, that try to conquer and defeat each other, one side 'winning' and becoming 'dominant' in the world, while the othe side -- the other bi-polar opposite -- retreats to the sidelines again, back into 'The Shadows' again, back into the undifferentiated world of The Apeiron?. Why would this happen according ot your philosophy.
Anaxamander: Well, to be fair to you Mr. Bain, or Mr. DGB, and to the philosophical world as a whole, I think you know that I didn't answer that question. I simply saw the world around me, described what I saw, and hypothesized about what I didn't see. I didn't engage in 'causal explanations' -- I examined the 'what'; not the 'why' of human existence and the existence of life on earth. I left that question for others to follow me. Why don't you address that question to one of my oldest indirect students -- Professor Heraclitus. Or to the student who you named your philosophical treatise after -- Professor Hegel. He seemed to be very interested in the answer to that question.
Or better still, Mr. Bain, since you seem to have at least a decent overview of all our respective philosophies -- why don't you tell me your theory of why the Apeiron seems to 'divide into twos', 'divide into opposite polarities if you will' to either fight with each other, and/or to 'negotiate' with each other and/or to 'come together in 'blissful dialectic-democratic harmony' to use your words, Mr. Bain.
Because yes, most may think I am dead, but I am not dead -- what goes around, comes around -- I am still alive and very well, thank you very much -- alive and living in The Apeirion where I can watch the world continuing to evolve -- and at least partly destroy itself -- alive and watching you, Mr. Bain, as you play with my philosophy, indeed, I may not agree with everything you say, but I can certainly feel a significant part of my dialectic spirit pulsating through your arteries.
Indeed, it is inspiring to me, gratifying to me, to know that my philosophy is deemed by some people to contain enough 'wisdom' that it is still influencing different philosophers -- even as the world evolves into the 21st century some 2600 year after I left the earth and receded back into the Apeiron.
So, you are right Mr. Bain, I didn't really hypothesize why 'Chaos'(The Apeiron) started to articulate itself, organize itself, differentiate itself, as different things, animals and processes entered this world 'two by two' if you will. (Almost sounds like 'Noah's Ark'. -- dgb.) So tell us Mr. Bain, expand on my theory, bring it into the 21st century -- assuming you agree with what I said -- and tell us why the world is 'dualistically and dialectically divided' with different parts of the world seeking either to 'conquer and/or destroy each other' and/or alternatively -- 'negotiate', 'associate', and come to terms with each other, in some form of integrative dualistic-dialectic peace and harmony.
DGB: Well, before we start talking about 'two by twos' and 'bi-polarities', let us first talk about the difference between 'power-dialectics' and 'negotiated-integrative-dialectics'.
'Power Dialectics' can also be called 'POP' Dialectics -- as in 'Power Over People' Dialectics. Alternatively again, it can be called 'Either/Or' Dialectics. 'Either we do this my way, or I will squash you, conquer you, destroy you.'
'Negotiated-Integrative Dialectics' can also be called 'AND' Dialectics -- as in 'Associative-Negotiated Dialectics' -- or alternatively again 'Democratic Dialectics' where two opposing factions attempt to come together in a 'working compromise solution' to a particular problem and/or conflict. Democracy is built on this principle, America is built on this principle, Canada is built on this principle -- of Democratic or Negotiated Integrative Dialectics. However, let us not be fooled into thinking that even in a so-called 'Integrative Democracy' that Power Dialectics doesn't still take place, doesn't still function as a huge factor in democratic dialectics, every waking moment of every day.
In American Government and Canadian Goverment both Democratic Dialectics and Power Dialectics are going on, all the time, at the same time, as opposing factions (Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, Capitalists, Socialists...) work to 'outmuscle', 'overpower', 'conquer' each other even as they are also working towards negotiated, integrative compromise-solutions to partisan conflicts.
In the example of the Somalian pirates and the kidnapped American Captain which just resolved itself yesterday, there was a clear division between two different American factions that were working on the kidnapping problem at the same time: 1. the 'dialectic negotiator(s)' who were looking for a settlement with the pirates that would free the Captain in a manner that didn't involve 'caving in to blackmail'; and 2. the 'dialectic power tacticians' -- the Navy SEALS -- in particular, the 'snipers' under instructions from their leader(s) -- whose job it was to look for a clear shot at the pirates and who fired simultaneously when given the 'execution order' from their leader in a situation of 'perceived, imminent danger to the Captain'. In goverment and in war, this is an example of how 'Negotiated Democratic Dialectics' and 'Power Dialectics' work hand in hand with each other -- or against each other -- looking for 'answers to dualistic-dialectic partisan conflicts'.
Power Dialectics was the area that you specialized in, Professor Anaxamander -- you saw how, over and over again in the world, opposing factions are always striving to 'defeat' or 'conquer' or 'destroy' each other. Your well-known indirect student -- Professor Heraclitus, in contrast, as well as Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers in China started to emphasize the idea of Democratic Dialectics -- the law of 'supply and demand', the law of 'integrative needs and need-fulfillments'.
Professor Heraclitus was the first Western philosopher to articulate the idea that 'opposites attract' and that 'opposites need each other' -- it isn't just a case of 'opposites wanting to control each other, conquer each other, defeat each other, destroy each other'. Similarly, in China, Lao Tse was arguing that 'yin' (feminine energy, estrogen...) needs 'yang' (masculine energy, testosterone) and 'yang' needs 'yin' and the two are 'healthiest' when they integrate harmoniously together, 'unhealthiest' when one is dominating the other or visa versa.
In Ancient Greece, Sparta believed in power dialectics, Athens believed in democratic dialectics, and the two 'City-States' warred with each other for many years each trying to 'Will to Power' their own particular Ideological Partisan Philosophies and Politics.
Even today, we can easily say that The American Republican Party is a ideological descendant of Sparta, Greece while the American Democratic Party is an ideological descendent of Athens, Greece.
Anaxamander: Okay, Mr. DGB. How does what you are talking about here compare and/or contrast with Hegelian Dialectic Theory?
DGB: Well, the first thing we have to understand about Hegel is that he was very difficult to read and understand -- leading to many 'ambiguities' and different ways of 'interpreting Hegel'. So really, the only thing I can give you here is my own 'DGB interpretation and evaluation of Hegel' on Easter Monday, April 13th, 2009. And perhaps I can even compare -- with some 'DGB Creative Extrapolation' Hegel's 'Idealistic-Deterministic' Dialectic Theory with your own Power-Dialectic Theory, Professor Anaximander.
There are certain 'metaphysical truths and/or theories', Professor Anaxamander, that you simply did not indulge in or engage in. In this regard, I do not want to engage in any sort of 'DGB Revisionist Philosophical History'. What you said, Professor Anaxamander, you said, and what you didn't say, you didn't say. I wish no more from you today than what you delivered to the world in the 500 BCs. And if I wish to engage in 'Anaxamander-Revisionist-Philosophy', then I will own up to that and call it something like 'Anaxamander-influenced-DGB Creation Philosophy' -- and not pretend that this is your philosophy coming out of my mouth.
For example, I ask the question: 'Is there a God of the Apeiron?' Is there a God of the Apeiron that created life on earth?
If there is a Creation -- a wonderful, intelligent Creation like life on Earth -- it is very hard to believe, that somewhere, in the shadows of life, in the backdrop of life, there isn't -- or wasn't at least at one time -- a 'Wonderful, Intelligent Creator' who created this creation of 'life on earth'.
Now to be sure, this gets us into very metaphysical, very mythological, spiritual-religious oriented philosophy which is not the way you philosophized about the 'creation of life on earth' back in the 500BCs. I haven't heard any mention of 'Gods' in any recital of your philosophy, Professor Anaxamander. However, one must admit, that if one has any 'religious' and/or 'mythological' inclinations, then it is -- or can be -- very easy to jump from your concept of 'The Apeiron' to -- 'A God ruling over The Apeiron -- and Ruling over The Creation of Life on Earth from the Backdrop of The Apeiron as Chaotic Unorganization, Undifferentation, Unarticulation of Differences that can be viewed as The Holding Pen of all Life Before the raw materials in this holding pen become differentiated and articulated into different organizational structures and processes that we see here around us in Life on Earth...and in other parts of the Articulated Universe...'
DGB Philosophy can work with or without 'Gods as Mythological Entities' but in general, more and more, I am finding that I like to work with them as 'creative-projective-identifications-and-constructions' of man that may or may not have any 'epistemological truth' lying behind them -- probably not -- but if we/I take accountability for this or these 'God-Constructions', we can find out things about ourselves, and about our own Self-Ideals.
Now, for argument sake, Professor Anaximander, let us imagine that there was and/or is indeed a 'God of The Apeiron' who is also the most powerful 'God of The Universe' and the most powerful 'God of Life and Death on Earth'....Call this 'God of Everything' -- simply 'God' if you wish. Or since I am a 'multi-dialectic philosopher' who likes to work with 'multi-dialectic Gods in Greek Mythology' that can perhaps better help us shed light on man's 'multi-dialectic-psychology-philosophy and the 'multi-dialectic structures and processes here on Earth' -- both 'natural' and 'man-made' -- to repeat, since I am this type of a multi-dialectic philosopher, let me call this 'God of The Apeiron, the Universe, and of Life and Death on Earth' -- 'Zeus'. Zeus was simply the most powerful God in Greek Mythology.
Now we could engage in the 'Theory of Creation' as postulated by historians and interpreters of Greek Mythology. We may do this some time but not now. Similarily, we could engage in the 'Biblical Theory or Myth of Creation, which we will probably do shortly.
But right now at this moment, I wish to let my 'imagination go wild' and engage in an 'Anaxamander-DGB Theory/Myth of Creation'.
Let us imagine that Zeus -- the most intelligent and powerful of all Gods -- was bored and was putting together a 'jigsaw puzzle' -- the 'puzzle and architecture of life and death'. Being as brilliant as he was, and creative as he was, he put this jigsaw puzzle together and finished it rather quickly. This was partly 'satisfying' to his 'Gigantic Narcissistic Ego' -- but only partly satsifying. Again, he was bored. He wanted some more 'excitement' in his life and in his role as ruler and leader of all Greek Gods and of all life and death on Earth.
Now this next part is a little 'crazy' perhaps, even a little 'sadistic'. But this reflected a part of Zeus's personality, as it does a part of man's personality, perhaps, mythologically speaking, coming from 'God's or Zeus' seed'.
If you are as old as I am -- or older -- you might remember playing 'alleys or marbles' when you were a kid. This seemed to be mainly a 'boy's game' and perhaps our first introduction to 'The Dialectic Between Narcissistic and Ethical Capitalism'. I played alleys when I was in about Grade 5 and 6. Depending on how good or bad you were at 'shooting marbles' and/or 'setting up your marbles to be shot at', you would either become the 'Donald Trump' of marbles, or the opposite, or something in between.
I don't remember the exact particulars about this -- or the exact nature of the psychology behind it -- but every now and then you would hear one of your fellow alley players yell: 'Scrambles'! And all of the alleys or marbles including 'smokies' and 'crystals' and 'boulders' in some kid's bag of marbles would go 'flying out of the bag' and onto the play yard at school in a hundred different directions with all the alley players in the area going 'scrambling after them'. The objects of some alley person's past alley collection had just been 're-distributed' amongst other alley collectors in the school yard...
Well, let's imagine that Zeus, now bored again, after having finished putting together his 'gigantic jig-saw puzzle and archtectural plan of life and death' suddenly engaged in a 'Godly game of Scrambles'...and having first 'breathed life into all the different parts of his jig-saw puzzle of life', then 'scrambled' this jig-saw puzzle all over the Earth, or worded otherwise, scrambled his 'Godly genetic DNA' all over the Earth, not together in one piece, in one put-together jig-saw puzzle, but rather in millions, indeed billions, of different pieces or parts of this Godly jig-saw puzzle containing Zeus' Godly genetic DNA...
Now perhaps Zeus or God did indeed 'make man in God's/Zeus' own image' -- with idealistically, the potential to be his most 'prized and intelligent' student, and perhaps the only student of life that was/is capable of putting the 'jig-saw puzzle of life' back together again the way that God/Zeus originally made it -- before 'He/She' 'scrambled' it.
Finally, this is starting to sound a bit like Hegelian Dialectic Idealism and his chase of 'The Absolute' and 'Godliness' through the process and logistical dynamics of the dialectic. A mythological integration of sorts between your philosophy, Professor Anaxamander, Hegel's philosophy, and my DGB Philosophy.
However, there are some significant differences between Hegel's Dialectic Philosophy and my own DGB Post-Hegelian, Humanistic-Existential Dialectic Philosophy.
Specifically, Hegel was a 'Pre-Existentialist' -- paving the road for existentialism to evolve in his footsteps and the footsteps of those who followed him -- Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietsche, Sartre, Heidigger, Foucault, Derrida.. but not quite there yet himself. Hegel's fixation seemed to be with 'knowledge' -- his idea of 'the meaning of life' was the chasing of 'Absolute Knowledge or the Knowledge of God -- through the process of the dialectic (power-dialectics and/or democratic dialectics) -- and in so doing, man would eventually 'become close to God' by 'gaining God's wisdom'.
In this regard, Hegel was a 'Grand Abstractionist' -- and this set up what might be called the 'Existentialist' and 'Materialist' Protests that followed shortly behind him.
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Soren Kierkegaard
Soren Kierkegaard rebelled against Hegel's Grand Abstractionism (even as Kierkegaard was partly a Grand Abstractionist himself). He believed that life had to be 'lived concretely'. Kierkegaard's philosophy is generally viewed as being the beginning of 'existentialism' although writers like Schopenhauer and Dostoevsky also had their influence around this time.
Soren Kierkegaard: 'Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.'
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
Beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
If there is no God, everything is permitted.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Arthur Schopenhauer
Most philosophers -- Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche (and myself) tend to be 'Grand Abstractionists' and Schopenhauer was no different. Still, Schopenhauer's philosophy ('The World as Will and Representation') was like Kierkegaard's philosophy, very much an anti-thesis of Hegel's. Firstly, it defied the Kantian-Hegelian dialectic as all became encompassed in 'The Cosmic Will'. Secondly, life was very concrete, and more often than not, 'brutishly and violently concrete' as people pursued pleasure and caused pain and indulged in what I have called 'Power-Dialectics'. One needs to 'escape to the theatre and the arts to escape the ugliness and tragedy of life' according to Schopenhauer. In the theatre, you may at least experience a type of 'cathartic, therapeutic emotional release'. And/or conversely, you have to 'escape to a Buddhist-like philosophy that chooses not to want, not to engage in wishful fantasies but rather to abstain from wanting in order to abstain from being hurt. (Sounds like something written by someone who was deeply hurt -- probably most by his dad's suicide when he was a boy. -- dgb editorial comment).
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.
Arthur Schopenhauer
A man's face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man's thoughts and aspirations.
Arthur Schopenhauer
After your death you will be what you were before your birth.
Arthur Schopenhauer
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer
As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
Arthur Schopenhauer
Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Compassion is the basis of morality.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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Karl Marx
Marx turned Hegel's dialectical-epistemological idealism on its head; opting instead for a 'dialectic-materialist (or anti-materialist) idealism'. Money, private property, and Capitalism, according to Marx, was the root of all evil. It turned man into 'narcissistic-hedonistic monsters' (my words; not his). Move towards Socialism and Communism and you circument all of these terrible 'materialist-Capitialist evils'. (Obviously, Lenin and Stalin didn't get the full Marxian message because I don't think Marx would have advocated 'mass civilian slaughters' nor 'Communist Governments indulging in 'power-dialectics' and behaving just as narcissistically as any preceding form of Capitalist or Feudal System of Government.
Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
Karl Marx
Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Karl Marx
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
Karl Marx
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.
Karl Marx
Democracy is the road to socialism.
Karl Marx
Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.
Karl Marx
For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.
Karl Marx
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Karl Marx
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
Karl Marx
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
Karl Marx
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
Karl Marx
I am not a Marxist.
Karl Marx
In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
Karl Marx
In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
Karl Marx
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
Karl Marx
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Karl Marx
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Saturday, April 11, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Anaxamander's Room (Part 1): Dialectic Opposites and Dialectic Splits -- An Imaginary Meeting Between DGB and Anaxamander
Did God create man, did man create God, and/or How Does 'Creation Theory' Fit With 'Evolution Theory'?
This is one of those essays that started with the intention of going somewhere (a DGB interpretation of 'The Adam and Eve Story') and then made an abrupt turn and ended up going somewhere else (an imaginary meeting between DGB and Anaximander). Actually, this essay started out in a couple of different directions before it made the final turn towards Anxamander. We will come back to some of the other points that were started in this essay but let's see how this 'imaginary meeting with Anaxamander' developed. -- dgb, April 9th, 2009.
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Let us look at the human organism and the human personality from both a 'Biblical-God-Created-Man' perspective and alternatively, from a more 'DGB post-Hegelian-post-Darwinian Historical-Evolutionary' perspective.
The first Biblical way suggests that 'the earth was created in 6 days by God, and that on the 7th day, presumably Sunday, God rested. I think Nietzsche has asked the question -- and I will embellish it slightly: 'What did God do after the 7th day? Did he get bored? (Nietzsche) Did God stop creating? Has He/She been sitting around 'watching the world evolve and destroy itself ever since'?
Now forgive me for my Biblical ignorance but where does the 'Adam and Eve Story' come into play here? I have to do some Biblical homework here. Did the Adam and Eve Story occur in the first 7 days of Creation? Or did it occur some time afterwards -- in which case God was still busy 'Creating' even after the first seven days?
I just went upstairs and picked up a copy of The Bible for the first time in I don't know how many years. But I got at least part of the information I was looking for off the internet -- like usual -- reading a children's version of 'The Adam and Eve Story'. But I still didn't find 'what day' in the seven days man was created by God.
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Book of Genesis: Chapter 2
(Children's Version)
The Story of Adam and Eve...
God took some clay from the ground and made the shape of a man. Then He breathed gently into the shape. The man's eye's opened and he began to live. God called him Adam.
The Lord made a beautiful garden for him to live in. The garden, called Eden, was full of many wonderful things. Beautiful flowers grew everywhere. Birds sang in the trees, streams flowed through the valley and animals roamed across the fields.
God hade made the man in His image to keep Him company and look after the world.
God brought all the animals to Adam one at a time to be given their names. "Elephant", he would say, or "Tiger", or "Porcupine".
But God felt sorry for Adam. "None of these animals is really like him," thought God, "he needs someone to share his life. Someone who cares for him and who he can care for."
That night, God took a rib from Adam's side and made a woman. When Adam awoke the following morning, he found a wife, Eve, lying asleep beside him. Adam was so happy. He took her hand and she woke up. She looked up at him and smiled.
God told the man and woman that it was their job to take care of their new home. God blessed them, saying, "All this is for you. Help yourself to anything you like. But never touch the tree in the middle of the Garden. That tree gives knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat its fruit, you will die."
God did not mean that Adam and Eve would drop down dead the moment they ate the fruit from the tree. He meant that in time they would die with out His Spirit dwelling in them.
One day, Eve was gathering berries for dinner when she heard a silky voice behind her.
"Has God told you that you can eat the fruit from all the trees?" the voice asked softly. Eve turned around to see a snake talking to her.
"God has told us we can eat all the fruit except for what grows on The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," Eve told the serpent.
"Oh come now, that's silly! I hardly think such a lovely fruit would do you any harm," the serpent lied. "God knows that if you eat from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you'll become just like God, and will be able to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong."
The woman looked at the fruit and thought how tasty it looked. She thought how wonderful it would be to be as wise and powerful as God. She believed the serpent's lie and ate the fruit.
She felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She fidgeted and wondered what was wrong with her. Suddenly she realized that she was feeling guilty -- she had disobeyed God and knew she'd done something wrong.
Eve hurriedly picked some more fruit and took it back to Adam. They ate the fruit and sat in gloomy silence. As soon as they ate the fruit a change came over Adam and Eve. They became unhappy and fearful of God.
Adam and Eve heard God calling them. Without thinking, they dived into the bushes, but God knew where they were. When God asked them if they had eaten from The Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil that He had told them not to touch, they blamed each other for their sins.
God was sad that Adam and Eve had disobeyed them. He told them that they had to leave the Garden of Eden, "From now on you'll have to scratch a living from the soil. You'll need to make clothes and grow food. Nothing will come easily -- not even childbirth. And one day, you will die."
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Well, what are you going to do with this, Mr. David Bain? Are there people out there who are going to jump off tall buildings once they read your mythological interpretive analysis of 'The Adam and Eve Story'? Other people who will break out into 'righteous religious rage' over what might turn out to be a rather bizarre, unorthodox interpretation here? Or maybe it isn't so bizarre?
People didn't want to hear about 'The Kantian Dialectical Split' between our 'subjective' (phenomenal) and 'objective' (noumenal) world. Some people couldn't stand the 'epistemological and existential angst (anxiety)' of not being able to 'know' our objective-noumenal world. There's either a semantic problem here with Kantian language or a real epistemological disagreement between Kant and DGB Philosophy. I don't imagine likely that Ayn Rand would have liked what Kant said but I have to check that. Our senses and our logical-evaluative system is the 'dialectic bridge' between ourselves and our outer world. Our senses and logical-evaluative system is far from perfect -- especially in the face of narcissistic bias -- but still this epistemological dialectic bridge is all we have and it is enough to let some people survive for 70,80, 90 years in the world. One lady the other day in Los Angelos! of all places celebrated her 115th, birthday. My dad just celebrated his 80th birthday. So some people are doing some things right in terms of interpreting, evaluating, and living in their 'subjective-objective world'.
Man has always been at least partly a 'control-freak' and there is nothing more anxiety-provoking than 'not knowing something' -- particularly for some or even many people who get more strung out over this 'not knowing' phenomon than others. But obviously, sometimes 'knowing' is important -- it can be the difference between life and death in some situations.
There are many, many other 'dialectical splits' that I could -- and will partly -- go on to talk about in the history and evolution of man -- far too many to count, hundreds, thousands, maybe millions...'right vs. wrong', 'good vs. bad', 'black vs. white', 'men vs. women', 'Christians vs. Muslims', 'employer vs. employee', 'parent vs. child' -- what is essential in many of these cases is whether these dialectic splits are intelligently handled, tolerated, respected, accepted vs. turned into 'righteous-narcissistic raging wars'.
Remember that we are playing 'The Epistemological-Existential Fitting Game' here.
But it is no game, really. Again, in some cases it is about life and death. If there is a car racing towards me at 80km per hour, it is obviously rather important that I 'know' about it. I have to trust the 'probability of correctness' of my senses and logical-evaluative process in this, and hundreds or thousands of other situations every day, some more important than others.
In fact, The Epistemological-Existential Fitting Game can be viewed as a slightly different rendition of the Kantian Dialectical Split between our Subjective and Objective World.
Let us credit Descartes for at least partly identifying 'The Expistemological-Existential Dialectic Split'. His most famous statement was: 'I think, therefore I am.'
But let me distinguish in this regard the difference between a 'one-sided dualistic philosophy' and a 'two-sided, dialectic philosophy'.
In a one-sided dualistic philosophy their is only a righteous 'either/or' point of view -- and thus, argumentative debate against any and/or all opposing philosophies. In contra-distinction, in a two-sided (or multi-sided) dialectic philosophy their is a 'dialectic engagement' within the philosophy itself as opposed to a dialectic engagement with 'external' opposing philosophies... Anaxamander (power is only temporary until the 'suppressed return from the Shadows' -- 'What goes around, comes around...'), Heraclitus (Opposites attract -- and need each other in order to establish a 'dialectic union and harmony' between themselves and their 'opposing, bi-polar, half'...), and Lao Tse ('yin' and 'yang')... (added April 25th, 2011)
Descartes said: 'I think; therefore I am.' Descartes was a one-sided dualistic or dialectic philosopher.
In contrast, I say: 'I think therefore I am.' But also at the same time I say: 'I am; therefore I think.'
I think because I am. And I am because I think. The two are dialectically or bi-laterally inter-connected. Just like the chicken and the egg story. The chicken and the egg are dialectically and bilaterally connected as well. The chicken creates the egg. And the egg creates the chicken. Which came first? I don't know. My mind doesn't extend that far back empirically into the history of chickens and eggs. Ask God.'
Anyways, if you are a 'classic bilateral dialectic, post-Hegelian thinker in the 'Jacques Derrida' mold, you always 'reverse the flow of the action, the flow of the causality' -- from what is epistemologically and/or culterally 'dominant' to what is epistemologically and/or culturally marginalized, suppressed, and/or in 'lying in the background, in the shadow of the epistemologically dominant, one-sided point of view.
This incidently was Jacques Derrida's (1930-2004) main -- and hugely important -- contribution to philosophy.
However, Anaxamander beat all of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Jung, Perls, and Derrida to 'the dialectic punch'.
Indeed, part of me -- actually all of me -- sits here and thinks: Maybe I made a 'labelling' mistake. Maybe I should have titled my philosophical network of blogs: 'Anaxamander's Hotel' rather than 'Hegel's Hotel' because Anaxamander was the first and oldest Western dialectic philosopher. However, in response to this, I can also counter-argue: Without philosophically meeting Hegel, I would never have philosophically met Anaxamander. And Hegel was still the philosopher who put everything 'dialectically together' in one package -- 'The Phenomeonlogy of Spirit (1807) for all 19th, 20th, and 21st century philosophers to go follow and go 'creatively ballistic' over what Hegel put together so profoundly (but not 'Absolutely' perfect).
Back to Anaxamander. Professor Anaxamander -- I want to meet you. Where can I find you? In the 'Apeiron' (your word for 'The Boundless', 'The Unlimited', 'The Undifferentiated', 'The Unarticulated'...) You certainly 'articulated' yourself. Is there a place that I can find you that we might call the 'Articulated Apeiron'?
I need to talk to you. Let's have a talk. I love your story of philosophy. I love your story of Creation. I want to call you a 'Creative-Evolutionist' Philosopher. Can we hear your story again?
(DGB: Allow me some creative-projective liberties here. If you want to get Anaxamander's 'uncontaminated' philosophy -- uncontaminated by DGB Philosophy -- then just google...Anaxamander...on the internet. I have taken some 'creative license' here.)
Anaxamander: Well, firstly, let me say this. I am not dead. I live on in the dialectic spirit of man. I live on in the dialectic spirit of life competing with death, of organisms living and dying, growing and decaying, being born and being destroyed...dominating with power, and being overwhelmed by power...I represent the powerful and the powerless, the dominant and the suppressed or marginalized, the 'figural' and the 'background' at one and the same time. I was the first Western philosopher to fully articulate the 'dialectic' and indeed, the 'multi-dialectic' nature of man -- and life/death. Also, I articulated the 'cyclical nature of life' -- the strong and powerful only being strong and powerful for a while in time before the weak and less powerful gain strength, gain power and energy, 'mutate' in the 'shadows of existence' and come back to the 'foreground' to once again do battle with the more powerful until the powerful are finally defeated and either thrown back or retreat into the 'shadows', the 'background', the 'Apeiron' of life. I was the first philosopher to basically articulate the idea that: 'What goes around, comes around?'
DGB: I know that Professor Anaxamander. I have been blown away by your philosophy. I love it! I can fully see how your philosophy, your theory of the dialectic nature of man and life, have lived on 2500 hundred years plus in the history, the culture, the philosophy, and the psychology of man.
Still, you have to understand, Professor Anaxamander. By your age, I am still a very, very young man. And I am still very ambitious. And looking back at your philosophy, with the greatest of respect for you, I find there is one question -- one major question -- that you did not really answer, for all of us who have listened to, and/or read your philosophy. The question is this: You say that the Universe -- or the 'Apeiron' to use your word -- was -- and still is partly --'Chaotic', 'Unarticulated', 'Undifferentiated' -- and that this remains the 'background' of life from which all more differentiated, articulated forms of life 'spring forward into the Foreground of life' (in this regard, I think you foreshadowed the birth of Gestalt Psychology almost 2000 years before its time) in the dualistic/dialectic form of 'twos' or 'bi-polar opposites'.
My question to you is this: Why did/does life 'differentiate' into 'twos' -- into 'bi-polar opposites'? That I am aware of, I don't think you really answered that question.
Anaxamander: You are right, I never really answered that question. However, after I died -- in body but not in spirit -- there were a few of my indirect, fellow Greek philosophy students who addressed this question that I never answered. Both Heraclitus and Plato answered this question in their own respective philosophical ways. Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers from China answered this question in their own particular philosophical way. The Bible in its own particular way recognized the importance of 'twos' in, for example, 'The Adam and Eve Story', and 'The Noah's Ark Story'...And furthermore, my very young man, I think you are playing with me here.
I think you come back to me in time, not only in humble servitude, but also with ambitious 'egotism' or 'narcissism' as you might say. I think you want to tell me of your version of why the Universe, why Chaos, why the Apeiron, divided into twos -- many, many different types of 'twos'.
DGB: You are right, so right, Professor Anaxamander. I have to laugh. Once again, you are right. You have me pegged so right. You're telepathic, psychic -- or just very, very wise about the ways of the world. I come back here very much in awe of you -- very much humbly your servant. However, at the same time, I want to show you how creatively brilliant I am -- I want to add to your philosophical theory in a way that is at least partly different than all of Heraclitus, Lao tse, The Han Philosophers, and Plato... even though I respect and incorporate their respective philosophical theories as well. I am like a giant 'philosohical Pac-Man'...I just go around 'eating up' other philosophers philosophies -- 'spitting out' the parts I don't like -- and 'digesting', 'assimilating' the 'nutritious' parts that taste good, and are good for my DGB spirit and soul....Another of my favorite mentors -- Dr. Frederick (Fritz) Perls -- I think would be at least partly proud of me in this regard. So, Professor Anaxamander, do you want to hear my philosophical theory of how and/or why the Universe, Chaos, or The Apeiron to use your word -- divided into twos? I confess, the theory is a little on the 'crazy' side -- if nothing else, it is a 'symbolic, mythological story' -- just like Greek Mythology, and just like The Bible -- nothing more, nothing less.
Anaxamander: Do I have a choice? I think you are going to 'implode from your brain and mouth inwards' if I don't listen to you. And it's not like I have a full agenda here -- other than watching the world destroy itself, and different people trying to 'overpower' each other but I saw that and expounded on that some 2500 years ago plus. This is just more of what I saw each year between Sparta and Athens. Another 'dialectical split' to use your words between the 'unilateral, authoritarian, or dictatorial-minded (The Spartans) vs. the 'democratic, equal rights, equal opportunity-minded' (The Athenians) What's new in the world. What goes around, comes around. Everything changes (Heraclitus) but also, paradoxically, everything stays the same (Parmenides). The world in the 2000s is essentially no different than the way I left it in 546 BC. (I'm dating myself.) The world is still the same. Man is still the same -- evolution or no evolution. In the end, 'greed', 'righteousness', 'egotism', and 'narcissism' -- to use your word again (or Freud's, or Havelock Ellis', or the Greeks...) -- these characteristics of man will ultimately destroy him, drive him into extinction, and quite possibly, take the rest of the Earth with him. Anway, I know you are 'exploding at your mouth' here. So -- let hear it. Let's hear your theory about 'why the Apeiron dialectically divides into twos.
DGB: Professor Anaxamander, you are putting a damper on my excitement, my enthusiasm here. Now I don't want to tell it to you.
Anaxamander: Now, don't be that way, young man. See, you are a perfect example of man's greatest 'virtue' and also his/her greatest 'vice' -- personal egotism.
DGB: You are right there Professor Anaxamander. Don't get me going. It's too late. I'm already going... I have to say a few things in this regard.
Ayn Rand recognized 'egotism' as man's greatest mental 'asset'. But Ayn Rand was not a dialectic thinker. Coming from 'Lenin and Stalin-influenced Communist Russia', Ms. Rand obviously knew much about many of the potential vices and even atrocities of 'pathological communism, authoritarianism, socialism...' as she experienced them as a child living in, and then leaving, Russia for her 'internalized idealism as it was still evolving'...the 'virtues' of 'Selfishness' and 'Egotism' and 'Capitalism' in America. Not that she couldn't recognize many of 'American vices' as well. That we can talk about at another time.
But Hegel had it right -- and I am partly paraphrasing: 'Every theory, every characteristic contains within it both its own individual 'virtues' and its own individual 'vices'. The virtues and the vices are both contained within the paradox, the contradiction of any 'unilateral theory or characteristic' that 'captures only one side, one part, of the whole.' Thus, egotism has made man what he is today. And it quite likely it will destroy man because he cannot live with other theoretical, philosophical, religious, political, economic and/or egotistical differences that differentiate him from other 'men' and 'women' who share his species -- but not his philosopohy, or not his particular interpretation of the way things are, and/or the way things came to be.' Egotism -- both as an 'individual' characteristic and as a 'group-cliche' characteristic -- cannot accept and/or tolerate other forms of human egotism and philosophical difference. So everything comes down to what you so wisely and prophetically described, Professor Anaxamander -- it all comes down to a 'social Darwinian struggle for power and control'. Just like the Spartans went after each other, year after year, in your old country -- or close to your old country -- always trying to defeat each other in war. Always trying to achieve 'City-State-Superiority' over the other City-State. From the Spartans and the Athenians to Ghangis Khan, to Alexander the Great, to Napoleon, to Hitler and Nazi Germany -- to America invading Iraq to North Korea 'testing their missiles' -- has anything substantially changed in the world other than technology? Certainly the psychology of man seems exactly the same today as it was 2500 years ago.
Anaxamander: I told you, you were ready to 'verbally explode'. Did you get that all off your chest? What happened to your theory about 'why the world divides into twos'.
DGB: Well, if you are available, I would like to meet with you again. I would love to meet with you again. But I'm a little burnt out here. If i can stay around here for another day, or you stay around here for another day, and not disappear back into the Shadows, back into the Apeiron, I would love to talk with you again tomorrow. Can you stick around one more day? And then I will let you go back to your business. And I will go back to the stressful world I live in.
Anaxamander: Well, I have some other things to do. I have a dinner planned with Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates, and Plato tonight. But I will join you back here for one more meeting tomorrow. I do thank you for giving you my due respect in Western philosophical history. And I do thank you for carrying my dialectical spirit in your heart and in your writing. I do like what you are doing. You go a little 'offside' now and then -- even for me -- but I know your intentions are good, your heart is in the right place -- and I will see you here tomorrow, same place, same time.
DGB: Thank you, Professor Anaxamander. Again, as you well know, you have my greatest respect. Have a great dinner tonight. I have some things to do with the rest of my day as well. But I am envious. I would love to be joining you and your friends for dinner tonight. Maybe one day not so far off. Good day!
-- dgb, April 9th, modified April 10th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
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From the internet....Free Essays....Anaxamander and 'The Apeiron'
Well-known for his theory of Apeiron, or the unlimited, Anaxamander pursued the changes of the Earth. He basically thought that apeiron compensated for the many changes the Earth undergoes. As a fragment from Anaxamander says, “the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.” Coming to be is the separation of opposites and does not involve any change in the natural being of a substance. Anaxamander thought that it was neither water nor any other substance, but it is of entirely different nature than that in which the unlimited exists. He believed that all things existed in some place. Whether they were absent or conspicuous was irrelevant; they still existed. He believed that qualities came into existence, vanished away, only to return again. Anaxamnder took into consideration that “there was a storehouse or reservoir from which the qualities that now confront us have ‘separated off’ and into which, when their contraries come forth in time, they will go back; the process being repeated in reverse, and so on in never-ending cycles.” Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot be seen. Equally as important are water, land, and fire that were created by the density in the air. Each of these three things, as seen from Anaxamander’s point of view, were the origin of all the rest of what exists. Water, of course, was the origin of life. From this water, first came fish that would evolve into what is now man.
This is one of those essays that started with the intention of going somewhere (a DGB interpretation of 'The Adam and Eve Story') and then made an abrupt turn and ended up going somewhere else (an imaginary meeting between DGB and Anaximander). Actually, this essay started out in a couple of different directions before it made the final turn towards Anxamander. We will come back to some of the other points that were started in this essay but let's see how this 'imaginary meeting with Anaxamander' developed. -- dgb, April 9th, 2009.
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Let us look at the human organism and the human personality from both a 'Biblical-God-Created-Man' perspective and alternatively, from a more 'DGB post-Hegelian-post-Darwinian Historical-Evolutionary' perspective.
The first Biblical way suggests that 'the earth was created in 6 days by God, and that on the 7th day, presumably Sunday, God rested. I think Nietzsche has asked the question -- and I will embellish it slightly: 'What did God do after the 7th day? Did he get bored? (Nietzsche) Did God stop creating? Has He/She been sitting around 'watching the world evolve and destroy itself ever since'?
Now forgive me for my Biblical ignorance but where does the 'Adam and Eve Story' come into play here? I have to do some Biblical homework here. Did the Adam and Eve Story occur in the first 7 days of Creation? Or did it occur some time afterwards -- in which case God was still busy 'Creating' even after the first seven days?
I just went upstairs and picked up a copy of The Bible for the first time in I don't know how many years. But I got at least part of the information I was looking for off the internet -- like usual -- reading a children's version of 'The Adam and Eve Story'. But I still didn't find 'what day' in the seven days man was created by God.
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Book of Genesis: Chapter 2
(Children's Version)
The Story of Adam and Eve...
God took some clay from the ground and made the shape of a man. Then He breathed gently into the shape. The man's eye's opened and he began to live. God called him Adam.
The Lord made a beautiful garden for him to live in. The garden, called Eden, was full of many wonderful things. Beautiful flowers grew everywhere. Birds sang in the trees, streams flowed through the valley and animals roamed across the fields.
God hade made the man in His image to keep Him company and look after the world.
God brought all the animals to Adam one at a time to be given their names. "Elephant", he would say, or "Tiger", or "Porcupine".
But God felt sorry for Adam. "None of these animals is really like him," thought God, "he needs someone to share his life. Someone who cares for him and who he can care for."
That night, God took a rib from Adam's side and made a woman. When Adam awoke the following morning, he found a wife, Eve, lying asleep beside him. Adam was so happy. He took her hand and she woke up. She looked up at him and smiled.
God told the man and woman that it was their job to take care of their new home. God blessed them, saying, "All this is for you. Help yourself to anything you like. But never touch the tree in the middle of the Garden. That tree gives knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat its fruit, you will die."
God did not mean that Adam and Eve would drop down dead the moment they ate the fruit from the tree. He meant that in time they would die with out His Spirit dwelling in them.
One day, Eve was gathering berries for dinner when she heard a silky voice behind her.
"Has God told you that you can eat the fruit from all the trees?" the voice asked softly. Eve turned around to see a snake talking to her.
"God has told us we can eat all the fruit except for what grows on The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," Eve told the serpent.
"Oh come now, that's silly! I hardly think such a lovely fruit would do you any harm," the serpent lied. "God knows that if you eat from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you'll become just like God, and will be able to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong."
The woman looked at the fruit and thought how tasty it looked. She thought how wonderful it would be to be as wise and powerful as God. She believed the serpent's lie and ate the fruit.
She felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. She fidgeted and wondered what was wrong with her. Suddenly she realized that she was feeling guilty -- she had disobeyed God and knew she'd done something wrong.
Eve hurriedly picked some more fruit and took it back to Adam. They ate the fruit and sat in gloomy silence. As soon as they ate the fruit a change came over Adam and Eve. They became unhappy and fearful of God.
Adam and Eve heard God calling them. Without thinking, they dived into the bushes, but God knew where they were. When God asked them if they had eaten from The Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil that He had told them not to touch, they blamed each other for their sins.
God was sad that Adam and Eve had disobeyed them. He told them that they had to leave the Garden of Eden, "From now on you'll have to scratch a living from the soil. You'll need to make clothes and grow food. Nothing will come easily -- not even childbirth. And one day, you will die."
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Well, what are you going to do with this, Mr. David Bain? Are there people out there who are going to jump off tall buildings once they read your mythological interpretive analysis of 'The Adam and Eve Story'? Other people who will break out into 'righteous religious rage' over what might turn out to be a rather bizarre, unorthodox interpretation here? Or maybe it isn't so bizarre?
People didn't want to hear about 'The Kantian Dialectical Split' between our 'subjective' (phenomenal) and 'objective' (noumenal) world. Some people couldn't stand the 'epistemological and existential angst (anxiety)' of not being able to 'know' our objective-noumenal world. There's either a semantic problem here with Kantian language or a real epistemological disagreement between Kant and DGB Philosophy. I don't imagine likely that Ayn Rand would have liked what Kant said but I have to check that. Our senses and our logical-evaluative system is the 'dialectic bridge' between ourselves and our outer world. Our senses and logical-evaluative system is far from perfect -- especially in the face of narcissistic bias -- but still this epistemological dialectic bridge is all we have and it is enough to let some people survive for 70,80, 90 years in the world. One lady the other day in Los Angelos! of all places celebrated her 115th, birthday. My dad just celebrated his 80th birthday. So some people are doing some things right in terms of interpreting, evaluating, and living in their 'subjective-objective world'.
Man has always been at least partly a 'control-freak' and there is nothing more anxiety-provoking than 'not knowing something' -- particularly for some or even many people who get more strung out over this 'not knowing' phenomon than others. But obviously, sometimes 'knowing' is important -- it can be the difference between life and death in some situations.
There are many, many other 'dialectical splits' that I could -- and will partly -- go on to talk about in the history and evolution of man -- far too many to count, hundreds, thousands, maybe millions...'right vs. wrong', 'good vs. bad', 'black vs. white', 'men vs. women', 'Christians vs. Muslims', 'employer vs. employee', 'parent vs. child' -- what is essential in many of these cases is whether these dialectic splits are intelligently handled, tolerated, respected, accepted vs. turned into 'righteous-narcissistic raging wars'.
Remember that we are playing 'The Epistemological-Existential Fitting Game' here.
But it is no game, really. Again, in some cases it is about life and death. If there is a car racing towards me at 80km per hour, it is obviously rather important that I 'know' about it. I have to trust the 'probability of correctness' of my senses and logical-evaluative process in this, and hundreds or thousands of other situations every day, some more important than others.
In fact, The Epistemological-Existential Fitting Game can be viewed as a slightly different rendition of the Kantian Dialectical Split between our Subjective and Objective World.
Let us credit Descartes for at least partly identifying 'The Expistemological-Existential Dialectic Split'. His most famous statement was: 'I think, therefore I am.'
But let me distinguish in this regard the difference between a 'one-sided dualistic philosophy' and a 'two-sided, dialectic philosophy'.
In a one-sided dualistic philosophy their is only a righteous 'either/or' point of view -- and thus, argumentative debate against any and/or all opposing philosophies. In contra-distinction, in a two-sided (or multi-sided) dialectic philosophy their is a 'dialectic engagement' within the philosophy itself as opposed to a dialectic engagement with 'external' opposing philosophies... Anaxamander (power is only temporary until the 'suppressed return from the Shadows' -- 'What goes around, comes around...'), Heraclitus (Opposites attract -- and need each other in order to establish a 'dialectic union and harmony' between themselves and their 'opposing, bi-polar, half'...), and Lao Tse ('yin' and 'yang')... (added April 25th, 2011)
Descartes said: 'I think; therefore I am.' Descartes was a one-sided dualistic or dialectic philosopher.
In contrast, I say: 'I think therefore I am.' But also at the same time I say: 'I am; therefore I think.'
I think because I am. And I am because I think. The two are dialectically or bi-laterally inter-connected. Just like the chicken and the egg story. The chicken and the egg are dialectically and bilaterally connected as well. The chicken creates the egg. And the egg creates the chicken. Which came first? I don't know. My mind doesn't extend that far back empirically into the history of chickens and eggs. Ask God.'
Anyways, if you are a 'classic bilateral dialectic, post-Hegelian thinker in the 'Jacques Derrida' mold, you always 'reverse the flow of the action, the flow of the causality' -- from what is epistemologically and/or culterally 'dominant' to what is epistemologically and/or culturally marginalized, suppressed, and/or in 'lying in the background, in the shadow of the epistemologically dominant, one-sided point of view.
This incidently was Jacques Derrida's (1930-2004) main -- and hugely important -- contribution to philosophy.
However, Anaxamander beat all of Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Jung, Perls, and Derrida to 'the dialectic punch'.
Indeed, part of me -- actually all of me -- sits here and thinks: Maybe I made a 'labelling' mistake. Maybe I should have titled my philosophical network of blogs: 'Anaxamander's Hotel' rather than 'Hegel's Hotel' because Anaxamander was the first and oldest Western dialectic philosopher. However, in response to this, I can also counter-argue: Without philosophically meeting Hegel, I would never have philosophically met Anaxamander. And Hegel was still the philosopher who put everything 'dialectically together' in one package -- 'The Phenomeonlogy of Spirit (1807) for all 19th, 20th, and 21st century philosophers to go follow and go 'creatively ballistic' over what Hegel put together so profoundly (but not 'Absolutely' perfect).
Back to Anaxamander. Professor Anaxamander -- I want to meet you. Where can I find you? In the 'Apeiron' (your word for 'The Boundless', 'The Unlimited', 'The Undifferentiated', 'The Unarticulated'...) You certainly 'articulated' yourself. Is there a place that I can find you that we might call the 'Articulated Apeiron'?
I need to talk to you. Let's have a talk. I love your story of philosophy. I love your story of Creation. I want to call you a 'Creative-Evolutionist' Philosopher. Can we hear your story again?
(DGB: Allow me some creative-projective liberties here. If you want to get Anaxamander's 'uncontaminated' philosophy -- uncontaminated by DGB Philosophy -- then just google...Anaxamander...on the internet. I have taken some 'creative license' here.)
Anaxamander: Well, firstly, let me say this. I am not dead. I live on in the dialectic spirit of man. I live on in the dialectic spirit of life competing with death, of organisms living and dying, growing and decaying, being born and being destroyed...dominating with power, and being overwhelmed by power...I represent the powerful and the powerless, the dominant and the suppressed or marginalized, the 'figural' and the 'background' at one and the same time. I was the first Western philosopher to fully articulate the 'dialectic' and indeed, the 'multi-dialectic' nature of man -- and life/death. Also, I articulated the 'cyclical nature of life' -- the strong and powerful only being strong and powerful for a while in time before the weak and less powerful gain strength, gain power and energy, 'mutate' in the 'shadows of existence' and come back to the 'foreground' to once again do battle with the more powerful until the powerful are finally defeated and either thrown back or retreat into the 'shadows', the 'background', the 'Apeiron' of life. I was the first philosopher to basically articulate the idea that: 'What goes around, comes around?'
DGB: I know that Professor Anaxamander. I have been blown away by your philosophy. I love it! I can fully see how your philosophy, your theory of the dialectic nature of man and life, have lived on 2500 hundred years plus in the history, the culture, the philosophy, and the psychology of man.
Still, you have to understand, Professor Anaxamander. By your age, I am still a very, very young man. And I am still very ambitious. And looking back at your philosophy, with the greatest of respect for you, I find there is one question -- one major question -- that you did not really answer, for all of us who have listened to, and/or read your philosophy. The question is this: You say that the Universe -- or the 'Apeiron' to use your word -- was -- and still is partly --'Chaotic', 'Unarticulated', 'Undifferentiated' -- and that this remains the 'background' of life from which all more differentiated, articulated forms of life 'spring forward into the Foreground of life' (in this regard, I think you foreshadowed the birth of Gestalt Psychology almost 2000 years before its time) in the dualistic/dialectic form of 'twos' or 'bi-polar opposites'.
My question to you is this: Why did/does life 'differentiate' into 'twos' -- into 'bi-polar opposites'? That I am aware of, I don't think you really answered that question.
Anaxamander: You are right, I never really answered that question. However, after I died -- in body but not in spirit -- there were a few of my indirect, fellow Greek philosophy students who addressed this question that I never answered. Both Heraclitus and Plato answered this question in their own respective philosophical ways. Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers from China answered this question in their own particular philosophical way. The Bible in its own particular way recognized the importance of 'twos' in, for example, 'The Adam and Eve Story', and 'The Noah's Ark Story'...And furthermore, my very young man, I think you are playing with me here.
I think you come back to me in time, not only in humble servitude, but also with ambitious 'egotism' or 'narcissism' as you might say. I think you want to tell me of your version of why the Universe, why Chaos, why the Apeiron, divided into twos -- many, many different types of 'twos'.
DGB: You are right, so right, Professor Anaxamander. I have to laugh. Once again, you are right. You have me pegged so right. You're telepathic, psychic -- or just very, very wise about the ways of the world. I come back here very much in awe of you -- very much humbly your servant. However, at the same time, I want to show you how creatively brilliant I am -- I want to add to your philosophical theory in a way that is at least partly different than all of Heraclitus, Lao tse, The Han Philosophers, and Plato... even though I respect and incorporate their respective philosophical theories as well. I am like a giant 'philosohical Pac-Man'...I just go around 'eating up' other philosophers philosophies -- 'spitting out' the parts I don't like -- and 'digesting', 'assimilating' the 'nutritious' parts that taste good, and are good for my DGB spirit and soul....Another of my favorite mentors -- Dr. Frederick (Fritz) Perls -- I think would be at least partly proud of me in this regard. So, Professor Anaxamander, do you want to hear my philosophical theory of how and/or why the Universe, Chaos, or The Apeiron to use your word -- divided into twos? I confess, the theory is a little on the 'crazy' side -- if nothing else, it is a 'symbolic, mythological story' -- just like Greek Mythology, and just like The Bible -- nothing more, nothing less.
Anaxamander: Do I have a choice? I think you are going to 'implode from your brain and mouth inwards' if I don't listen to you. And it's not like I have a full agenda here -- other than watching the world destroy itself, and different people trying to 'overpower' each other but I saw that and expounded on that some 2500 years ago plus. This is just more of what I saw each year between Sparta and Athens. Another 'dialectical split' to use your words between the 'unilateral, authoritarian, or dictatorial-minded (The Spartans) vs. the 'democratic, equal rights, equal opportunity-minded' (The Athenians) What's new in the world. What goes around, comes around. Everything changes (Heraclitus) but also, paradoxically, everything stays the same (Parmenides). The world in the 2000s is essentially no different than the way I left it in 546 BC. (I'm dating myself.) The world is still the same. Man is still the same -- evolution or no evolution. In the end, 'greed', 'righteousness', 'egotism', and 'narcissism' -- to use your word again (or Freud's, or Havelock Ellis', or the Greeks...) -- these characteristics of man will ultimately destroy him, drive him into extinction, and quite possibly, take the rest of the Earth with him. Anway, I know you are 'exploding at your mouth' here. So -- let hear it. Let's hear your theory about 'why the Apeiron dialectically divides into twos.
DGB: Professor Anaxamander, you are putting a damper on my excitement, my enthusiasm here. Now I don't want to tell it to you.
Anaxamander: Now, don't be that way, young man. See, you are a perfect example of man's greatest 'virtue' and also his/her greatest 'vice' -- personal egotism.
DGB: You are right there Professor Anaxamander. Don't get me going. It's too late. I'm already going... I have to say a few things in this regard.
Ayn Rand recognized 'egotism' as man's greatest mental 'asset'. But Ayn Rand was not a dialectic thinker. Coming from 'Lenin and Stalin-influenced Communist Russia', Ms. Rand obviously knew much about many of the potential vices and even atrocities of 'pathological communism, authoritarianism, socialism...' as she experienced them as a child living in, and then leaving, Russia for her 'internalized idealism as it was still evolving'...the 'virtues' of 'Selfishness' and 'Egotism' and 'Capitalism' in America. Not that she couldn't recognize many of 'American vices' as well. That we can talk about at another time.
But Hegel had it right -- and I am partly paraphrasing: 'Every theory, every characteristic contains within it both its own individual 'virtues' and its own individual 'vices'. The virtues and the vices are both contained within the paradox, the contradiction of any 'unilateral theory or characteristic' that 'captures only one side, one part, of the whole.' Thus, egotism has made man what he is today. And it quite likely it will destroy man because he cannot live with other theoretical, philosophical, religious, political, economic and/or egotistical differences that differentiate him from other 'men' and 'women' who share his species -- but not his philosopohy, or not his particular interpretation of the way things are, and/or the way things came to be.' Egotism -- both as an 'individual' characteristic and as a 'group-cliche' characteristic -- cannot accept and/or tolerate other forms of human egotism and philosophical difference. So everything comes down to what you so wisely and prophetically described, Professor Anaxamander -- it all comes down to a 'social Darwinian struggle for power and control'. Just like the Spartans went after each other, year after year, in your old country -- or close to your old country -- always trying to defeat each other in war. Always trying to achieve 'City-State-Superiority' over the other City-State. From the Spartans and the Athenians to Ghangis Khan, to Alexander the Great, to Napoleon, to Hitler and Nazi Germany -- to America invading Iraq to North Korea 'testing their missiles' -- has anything substantially changed in the world other than technology? Certainly the psychology of man seems exactly the same today as it was 2500 years ago.
Anaxamander: I told you, you were ready to 'verbally explode'. Did you get that all off your chest? What happened to your theory about 'why the world divides into twos'.
DGB: Well, if you are available, I would like to meet with you again. I would love to meet with you again. But I'm a little burnt out here. If i can stay around here for another day, or you stay around here for another day, and not disappear back into the Shadows, back into the Apeiron, I would love to talk with you again tomorrow. Can you stick around one more day? And then I will let you go back to your business. And I will go back to the stressful world I live in.
Anaxamander: Well, I have some other things to do. I have a dinner planned with Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates, and Plato tonight. But I will join you back here for one more meeting tomorrow. I do thank you for giving you my due respect in Western philosophical history. And I do thank you for carrying my dialectical spirit in your heart and in your writing. I do like what you are doing. You go a little 'offside' now and then -- even for me -- but I know your intentions are good, your heart is in the right place -- and I will see you here tomorrow, same place, same time.
DGB: Thank you, Professor Anaxamander. Again, as you well know, you have my greatest respect. Have a great dinner tonight. I have some things to do with the rest of my day as well. But I am envious. I would love to be joining you and your friends for dinner tonight. Maybe one day not so far off. Good day!
-- dgb, April 9th, modified April 10th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
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From the internet....Free Essays....Anaxamander and 'The Apeiron'
Well-known for his theory of Apeiron, or the unlimited, Anaxamander pursued the changes of the Earth. He basically thought that apeiron compensated for the many changes the Earth undergoes. As a fragment from Anaxamander says, “the unlimited is the first principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be takes place, and it is that to which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time.” Coming to be is the separation of opposites and does not involve any change in the natural being of a substance. Anaxamander thought that it was neither water nor any other substance, but it is of entirely different nature than that in which the unlimited exists. He believed that all things existed in some place. Whether they were absent or conspicuous was irrelevant; they still existed. He believed that qualities came into existence, vanished away, only to return again. Anaxamnder took into consideration that “there was a storehouse or reservoir from which the qualities that now confront us have ‘separated off’ and into which, when their contraries come forth in time, they will go back; the process being repeated in reverse, and so on in never-ending cycles.” Anaxamander, unlike most philosophers of this time, assessed that the world was created from air, not water. He assumed that everything was created from nothing. This nothing, however, was actually the unknown. The unknown, as Anaxamander defines it, can best be described as the other half of what is. The undetermined is what is not and cannot be seen. Equally as important are water, land, and fire that were created by the density in the air. Each of these three things, as seen from Anaxamander’s point of view, were the origin of all the rest of what exists. Water, of course, was the origin of life. From this water, first came fish that would evolve into what is now man.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Personal Development Day
Here is a small piece from my 'Gap-DGB Archives', written sometime in the early
2000s. It's called:
Personal Development Day
Every day is a personal development day that includes these five elements:
1. A vision that supports your passion, and a passion that supports your vision.
2. A game-plan that supports your vision.
3. A decision that supports your game-plan.
4. An action that supports your decision which supports your gameplan which supports your vision which supports your passion.
5. Five additional Friendly Reminders and Motivators
1. Every problem has a solution!
2. There is no obstacle too big for the person who wants something bad enough, and who is willing to tackle this obstacle head on, or find a way around it!
3. Only physical activity -- meaning action -- will get you the results you are looking for! No one is going to deliver your vision on a silver platter without you having to commit yourself to, and persevere through, much hard work, perspiration, discipline, and either figuratively and/or literally knocking on some or many doors...
4. Don't stop until you have succeeded in your goals, working step by step to the ultimate implementation and success of your passionate vision.
5. If your vision is live enough, passionate enough and important enough, you should be able to get other people excited by your vision so that it becomes their vision, their passion, too -- from a personal vision it now becomes a shared and/or community vision and passion.
This is the point at which wonderful things can be accomplished, wonderful things can happen, with everyone excited and pulling in the same direction.
-- dgb, Originally written in the early 2000s, slightly modified April 7th, 2009.
David Gordon Bain
2000s. It's called:
Personal Development Day
Every day is a personal development day that includes these five elements:
1. A vision that supports your passion, and a passion that supports your vision.
2. A game-plan that supports your vision.
3. A decision that supports your game-plan.
4. An action that supports your decision which supports your gameplan which supports your vision which supports your passion.
5. Five additional Friendly Reminders and Motivators
1. Every problem has a solution!
2. There is no obstacle too big for the person who wants something bad enough, and who is willing to tackle this obstacle head on, or find a way around it!
3. Only physical activity -- meaning action -- will get you the results you are looking for! No one is going to deliver your vision on a silver platter without you having to commit yourself to, and persevere through, much hard work, perspiration, discipline, and either figuratively and/or literally knocking on some or many doors...
4. Don't stop until you have succeeded in your goals, working step by step to the ultimate implementation and success of your passionate vision.
5. If your vision is live enough, passionate enough and important enough, you should be able to get other people excited by your vision so that it becomes their vision, their passion, too -- from a personal vision it now becomes a shared and/or community vision and passion.
This is the point at which wonderful things can be accomplished, wonderful things can happen, with everyone excited and pulling in the same direction.
-- dgb, Originally written in the early 2000s, slightly modified April 7th, 2009.
David Gordon Bain
Monday, April 6, 2009
A Message by George Carlin
This is a master piece. If you have not read it, take the time to read it now. If you have read it, take time to read it again!
GEORGE CARLIN (His wife recently died...and George followed her, dying July 2008)
Isn't it amazing that George Carlin - comedian of the 70's and 80's - could write something so very eloquent...and so very appropriate.
A Message by George Carlin:
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
If you don't send this to at least 8 people....Who cares?
George Carlin
GEORGE CARLIN (His wife recently died...and George followed her, dying July 2008)
Isn't it amazing that George Carlin - comedian of the 70's and 80's - could write something so very eloquent...and so very appropriate.
A Message by George Carlin:
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
If you don't send this to at least 8 people....Who cares?
George Carlin
The 'Fitting Game'
How are philosophy, epistemology, science and medicine, and psychology all connected -- aside from sharing the dialectic evolutionary process?
Let's start with Freud's 'life' and 'death' instinct from Freud's controversial essay, 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', 1920.
Freuds' choice of the word 'instinct' is troublesome although that may have more to do with the interpretive translation from German to English than anything. But the word 'drive' is also troublesome. A 'life instinct or drive' is pretty easy to accept -- at least for me. But a 'death instinct or drive' -- that is harder to accept.
I prefer the DGB modified terminology of 'life' vs. 'death' process. This, I can easily work with dualistically and dialectically. Plus it is easily validated or at least supported by modern-day science and biology.
'Oxygenation' is a 'life process'. We need to breathe in oxygen to live, to survive.
In contrast, 'oxidation' (the formation of 'free radical molecules' that cause the decay and eventual destruction of 'non-living objects' as well as 'living organisms' is an automatic 'negative side effect' of oxygenation and is paradoxically -- a 'death process'. An example of this destructive and death process by oxidation is the 'rusting away of cars' that are not properly 'protected' from this 'destructive-death process' happening. 'Erosion' is another example.
And the same thing is happening within each and everyone of our minds and bodies with each and every breath we take. Oxygenation (a life process) is followed immediately by 'oxidation' (a death process).
So Freud -- even 90 years ago (1919-1920), long before Linus Pauling started to introduce to the world in I believe the late 1960s, early 1970s, the idea of 'oxidation', 'free radical theory' and the therapeutic measures of ingesting more 'anti-oxidants' like 'Vitimin C' to ward off this process (Pauling lived into his 90s, so I think he knew what he was talking about -- and his theories, as provocative and controversial as they were back in the 60s and 70s, are pretty well supported and at least partly accepted by the field of science and medicine today.
However, totally independent and yet paradoxically also totally connected to this paradoxical 'dialectical playoff' inside of us between life and death, are the ideas of 'perception', 'interpretation', 'epistemology', 'awareness', 'evaluation' -- and 'action' or ('non-action').
This is where I introduce the idea, borrowed from Fritz Perls of 'the fitting game'.
Life is a fitting game.
Life requires 'good epistemology and awareness'.
'Bad epistemology and awareness' and either or both of two things happen:
1. We fail at what we are trying to accomplish because our information/epistemology is wrong; And/or
2. We die if the consequences of our 'failure to get the epistemology and awareness right' are severe enough.
These ideas about epistemology and awareness -- even before I knew what epistemology was (i.e., the study of knowledge) -- go back to my 1979 Honours Thesis on this subject matter which was influenced by the work of Nataniel Branden, 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem', who in turn was influenced by Ayn Rand and what has more lately been labelled as her philosophy of 'Objectivism'. And these ideas also came from my work in General Semantics (Korzybski, 'Science and Sanity', and Hayakawa, 'Language in Thought and Action'. And these ideas were also influenced my my psychology work at the time in the area of Cognitive Therapy, Albert Ellis and 'Rational-Emotive Therapy', and Aaron Beck...)
There is a reason why 'getting it right' -- and the related subjective process of 'righteousness' which DGB Philosophy-Psychology, following in the footsteps of Freud and Eric Berne, has 'structuralized' into a portion of 'The Split Ego' -- and called 'The Righteous-Critical Topdog-Ego, or Superego' -- to repeat, there is a reason 'why getting it right' and 'righteousness' is a critical subjective-objective phenomenon in human affairs.
'Wrongness' can mean failure, separation, divorce, bankruptcy, dying -- or a fast or slow -- death. .
Again, I must emphasize the principle of homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance here. Because sometimes -- indeed oftentimes -- 'righteousness' itself can be a problem especially when righteousness is either 'wrong' and/or it is connected to an area where 'individual differences, values and goals reign supreme -- and/or should be tolerantly allowed to reign supreme'. In other words, righteousness can reign supreme in areas which should be more amenable to individual tolerance, difference, taste, values and goals, flexibility -- as opposed to believing that everyone else should live their lives inside and only inside the 'tight box' of our own creation, our own consciousness, lifestyle, philosophy, politics, religion, etc.,
A good working homesotatic-dialectic balance needs to be maintained between 'epistemological righteousness' which is ideally connected to 'being existentially right' on the one hand vs. being 'flexible and tolerant enough' so as not to 'torture ourselves and/or someone else over mistakes that shouldn't matter as much as we make them matter in our own consciousness -- and the verbal/physical expression of this consciousness to whoever we are being 'righteous' towards.
I won't deny it. I can be very righteous at times. At the very least, I need to have a strongly based and accurate epistemology to support my righteousness about things that should matter; otherwise, I am not playing the epistemological fitting game well, or possibly I am making a mountain out of a molehill -- either way, I have no right to be righteous if or when I am wrong or being too intolerant and inflexible in areas where I should be more tolerant and flexible!
Still, being right vs. being wrong can be intimately tied to our individual and/or collective survival and/or destruction/extinction.
It is very important for me to connect my DGB philosophy with my personal experience -- and also to connect 'academic' philosophy with 'pragmatic, day-to-day philosophy' -- so I will relate to you a personal example that most 'philosophers' would not likely write about. (Even Freud hid his personal examples in his use of the 'anonymous third person' in his essays.)
About two years ago, at this time of year, I had what might be called either a 'liver attack' and/or a 'liver breakdown'. Important functions of my liver ceased to function. The 'normal route' of bile from the liver down to the intestines and out of the body -- or re-cycled back into the body -- backed up and started going the wrong direction through all other parts of my body. A 'toxification' of the body if you will which gives the classic symptom of serious liver problems -- 'jaundice' (a yellowing of the skin and eyes) -- which usually shows up about a day after a spherocytosis generated liver attack and/or breakdown and goes away after 2 to 3 days, longer if the problem is more than spherocytosis related.
Into the hospital I went. I was there for the better part of a month about two years ago this upcoming June. They needed to better diagnose what the problem was. To begin with, I have a genetic blood disorder called 'Spherocytosis' which puts extra stress on both my spleen and liver as my 'sphere-shaped red blood cells' (called 'spherocytes') are broken down every so many weeks as opposed to every so many months (because the spleen thinks that they are 'old, already beaten up cells'). My dad has lived to 80 with the disease and hasn't had an attack in about 25years. But he is a non-drinker. I can't say the same.
I have been a 'medium social drinker' for most of my adult life and I have obviously thrown more extra stress onto my liver over the years than I should have. There have been years when I basically didnt drink at all. But there have been other years back in my 30s when I was probably closer to 20 drinks a week than 10.
I don't do drugs, never have, but I do take 'herbs' and I wonder to this day whether there may have been an interaction between the herbs I took that night and the white wine. Herbs should be treated as being similar to drugs -- not usually as strong -- but still interactions between alcohol and some types of herbs may be suspect, maybe I took too much 'hawthorne' -- good for the heart and circulation, I was anticipating having some action with my girlfriend that night and might have overcompensated for the effect of the alcohol.
Three or four capsules was perhaps/probably too much for my already over-stressed liver. This remains a matter of 'epistemological speculation' by me about 'life vs. death processes' at work within my body' without our/my being able to empirically verify what actually was going on inside my liver at that time -- until it was too late, and the attack was under way.
The debate between drugs vs. herbs -- what should be pulled off the shelves and what shouldn't -- is a long and drawn out dialectic debate. Each individual drug or herb should be treated separately. We don't have the time to do it here.
Herbs are no different than prescription medications in that they have to be taken carefully and watched carefully for possible side-effects. And researched for their possible side-effects. If the number of 'drug-influenced' medical crises and even deaths was made truly transparent and democratically public -- I am not sure how many of our standard prescription drugs that we would still have left over or behind the counter. Again, food for more thought and debate on another day.
For me, two years ago, tests were done in the hospital, 'a couple of shady areas in my liver' were detected in the CT-Scan that they didn't know what they were. Two 'ERCPs' were done to make sure I had no 'stones blocking my liver passages'. (I don't think they found any also they said they found some small ones. I don't think that was the problem.)
I've been tested all my life in my previous brief stints in the hospital for one of the most obvious causes of jaundice -- hepatitis. Negative every time. Hereditary spherocytosis is more commonly known now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. But still doctors have to take their precautions before they zero in on my hereditary issue -- and its recent complications.
I am no doctor but I put my liver problem down as being simply a combined problem of 'too much stress on the liver' -- a combination of broken down blood cells to get rid of, the complicating effect of alcohol in the system, and a possible interaction of too many herbs that are putting additional stress on my liver -- all coming together and creating the end problem. There could even be the problem of too much 'iron overload' in the liver, a result of too many broken down blood cells for the liver to dispense of properly. Iron overload in itself can cause cirrhosis of the liver. I just read this off the internet. I will have to run this by the next doctor I see.
But I didn't want a 'liver biopsy' two years ago when they wanted to take a chunk out of my liver to see exactly what they were dealing with. I declined and left the care of my liver specialist and the hospital.
I returned to 'normal' very quickly on a careful diet of fruits and veggies, no coffee, no alcohol, beet juice, organic veggie juice, etc.
And then it is rather obvious now -- that I became too 'epistemologically arrogant or cocky with my improved condition back to feeling like normal again'. Back into the bars again that winter, another spring, summer, fall, and winter -- and on the advice of my family doctor -- another CT-Scan this spring.
Bad news. April 1st, 2009. I now have cirrhosis in the right part of my liver. So much for being 'epistemologically confident, even arrogant'. I was dreading the possibility of the other 'C' word when I went into see my doctor on April 1st. Then I quickly became re-aware that there are two dreaded 'C' words when it comes to talking about the liver -- 'Cancer' is probably the worst, but 'Cirrhosis' is not far behind. I'm working on something like 70 per cent of a 'good liver' right now. Cirrhosis is a 'sneaky disease'. You can feel fine -- symptom-free --through its early stages when you still have significant 'good liver' left to take up the normal functions of the liver. But according to my doctor, once you get down to about 30 per cent of a normal functioning liver -- with the rest 'non-functioning' because of the pathological scars of cirrhosis -- things can turn real ugly, real quickly. Obviously, I don't want to get there to find out.
So when I say that it is imperative in some cases to 'get our epistemology -- and our action -- right', this is the type of individual circumstance I am talking about. If I have another two years like my last two years -- even though I didn't miss a day of work in those two years -- I will probably either be hospitalized or dead within another two years.
Strike One was my last stint in the hospital.
Strike Two was my most recent visit to my family doctor on April 1, 2009.
There can be no Strike Three -- or I am out -- gone to meet the 'Grim Reaper'.
As I said, at times it is absolutely imperative that we get our epistemology -- and our action -- right.
God/Nature only gives us so many chances.
Perhaps I can only say that I have been lucky to be given the chances I have been.
Some people don't even get a 'Strike One' -- before a 'heart attack' or a 'stroke' or a 'traumatic accident' leads to absolute tragedy.
When we are given a second or third chance, we have to 'fully value' this gift from wherever.
Get our epistemology right. Get our action right. Get our lifestyle right.
The older we get -- and sometimes not even -- the more that time becomes a ticking timebomb.
Life, in essence, becomes a race between life and death.
Freud knew it. By the time he wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' in 1919-20, he was about 63-64. Ten years older than me right now. I have to check the timeline but I think Freud probably knew by this time that he had 'jaw cancer' -- caused mainly by his famous or infamous 'cigar smoking'. Maybe his cancer hadn't fully articulated itself yet because he didn't die til 1939, about 20 years later.
But whether it have been the influence of World War 1 -- and soldiers coming back with 'repetition compulsions' from 'war traumacies' and/or Freud's increasing awareness of the 'finiteness' of his own existence, Freud's 'life vs. death' principle didn't come out of nowhere.
It came out of the essence of existence.
I support this theory, not in its Freudian entirety, but in its paradoxical, dialectic and existential essence.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2009.
Let's start with Freud's 'life' and 'death' instinct from Freud's controversial essay, 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle', 1920.
Freuds' choice of the word 'instinct' is troublesome although that may have more to do with the interpretive translation from German to English than anything. But the word 'drive' is also troublesome. A 'life instinct or drive' is pretty easy to accept -- at least for me. But a 'death instinct or drive' -- that is harder to accept.
I prefer the DGB modified terminology of 'life' vs. 'death' process. This, I can easily work with dualistically and dialectically. Plus it is easily validated or at least supported by modern-day science and biology.
'Oxygenation' is a 'life process'. We need to breathe in oxygen to live, to survive.
In contrast, 'oxidation' (the formation of 'free radical molecules' that cause the decay and eventual destruction of 'non-living objects' as well as 'living organisms' is an automatic 'negative side effect' of oxygenation and is paradoxically -- a 'death process'. An example of this destructive and death process by oxidation is the 'rusting away of cars' that are not properly 'protected' from this 'destructive-death process' happening. 'Erosion' is another example.
And the same thing is happening within each and everyone of our minds and bodies with each and every breath we take. Oxygenation (a life process) is followed immediately by 'oxidation' (a death process).
So Freud -- even 90 years ago (1919-1920), long before Linus Pauling started to introduce to the world in I believe the late 1960s, early 1970s, the idea of 'oxidation', 'free radical theory' and the therapeutic measures of ingesting more 'anti-oxidants' like 'Vitimin C' to ward off this process (Pauling lived into his 90s, so I think he knew what he was talking about -- and his theories, as provocative and controversial as they were back in the 60s and 70s, are pretty well supported and at least partly accepted by the field of science and medicine today.
However, totally independent and yet paradoxically also totally connected to this paradoxical 'dialectical playoff' inside of us between life and death, are the ideas of 'perception', 'interpretation', 'epistemology', 'awareness', 'evaluation' -- and 'action' or ('non-action').
This is where I introduce the idea, borrowed from Fritz Perls of 'the fitting game'.
Life is a fitting game.
Life requires 'good epistemology and awareness'.
'Bad epistemology and awareness' and either or both of two things happen:
1. We fail at what we are trying to accomplish because our information/epistemology is wrong; And/or
2. We die if the consequences of our 'failure to get the epistemology and awareness right' are severe enough.
These ideas about epistemology and awareness -- even before I knew what epistemology was (i.e., the study of knowledge) -- go back to my 1979 Honours Thesis on this subject matter which was influenced by the work of Nataniel Branden, 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem', who in turn was influenced by Ayn Rand and what has more lately been labelled as her philosophy of 'Objectivism'. And these ideas also came from my work in General Semantics (Korzybski, 'Science and Sanity', and Hayakawa, 'Language in Thought and Action'. And these ideas were also influenced my my psychology work at the time in the area of Cognitive Therapy, Albert Ellis and 'Rational-Emotive Therapy', and Aaron Beck...)
There is a reason why 'getting it right' -- and the related subjective process of 'righteousness' which DGB Philosophy-Psychology, following in the footsteps of Freud and Eric Berne, has 'structuralized' into a portion of 'The Split Ego' -- and called 'The Righteous-Critical Topdog-Ego, or Superego' -- to repeat, there is a reason 'why getting it right' and 'righteousness' is a critical subjective-objective phenomenon in human affairs.
'Wrongness' can mean failure, separation, divorce, bankruptcy, dying -- or a fast or slow -- death. .
Again, I must emphasize the principle of homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance here. Because sometimes -- indeed oftentimes -- 'righteousness' itself can be a problem especially when righteousness is either 'wrong' and/or it is connected to an area where 'individual differences, values and goals reign supreme -- and/or should be tolerantly allowed to reign supreme'. In other words, righteousness can reign supreme in areas which should be more amenable to individual tolerance, difference, taste, values and goals, flexibility -- as opposed to believing that everyone else should live their lives inside and only inside the 'tight box' of our own creation, our own consciousness, lifestyle, philosophy, politics, religion, etc.,
A good working homesotatic-dialectic balance needs to be maintained between 'epistemological righteousness' which is ideally connected to 'being existentially right' on the one hand vs. being 'flexible and tolerant enough' so as not to 'torture ourselves and/or someone else over mistakes that shouldn't matter as much as we make them matter in our own consciousness -- and the verbal/physical expression of this consciousness to whoever we are being 'righteous' towards.
I won't deny it. I can be very righteous at times. At the very least, I need to have a strongly based and accurate epistemology to support my righteousness about things that should matter; otherwise, I am not playing the epistemological fitting game well, or possibly I am making a mountain out of a molehill -- either way, I have no right to be righteous if or when I am wrong or being too intolerant and inflexible in areas where I should be more tolerant and flexible!
Still, being right vs. being wrong can be intimately tied to our individual and/or collective survival and/or destruction/extinction.
It is very important for me to connect my DGB philosophy with my personal experience -- and also to connect 'academic' philosophy with 'pragmatic, day-to-day philosophy' -- so I will relate to you a personal example that most 'philosophers' would not likely write about. (Even Freud hid his personal examples in his use of the 'anonymous third person' in his essays.)
About two years ago, at this time of year, I had what might be called either a 'liver attack' and/or a 'liver breakdown'. Important functions of my liver ceased to function. The 'normal route' of bile from the liver down to the intestines and out of the body -- or re-cycled back into the body -- backed up and started going the wrong direction through all other parts of my body. A 'toxification' of the body if you will which gives the classic symptom of serious liver problems -- 'jaundice' (a yellowing of the skin and eyes) -- which usually shows up about a day after a spherocytosis generated liver attack and/or breakdown and goes away after 2 to 3 days, longer if the problem is more than spherocytosis related.
Into the hospital I went. I was there for the better part of a month about two years ago this upcoming June. They needed to better diagnose what the problem was. To begin with, I have a genetic blood disorder called 'Spherocytosis' which puts extra stress on both my spleen and liver as my 'sphere-shaped red blood cells' (called 'spherocytes') are broken down every so many weeks as opposed to every so many months (because the spleen thinks that they are 'old, already beaten up cells'). My dad has lived to 80 with the disease and hasn't had an attack in about 25years. But he is a non-drinker. I can't say the same.
I have been a 'medium social drinker' for most of my adult life and I have obviously thrown more extra stress onto my liver over the years than I should have. There have been years when I basically didnt drink at all. But there have been other years back in my 30s when I was probably closer to 20 drinks a week than 10.
I don't do drugs, never have, but I do take 'herbs' and I wonder to this day whether there may have been an interaction between the herbs I took that night and the white wine. Herbs should be treated as being similar to drugs -- not usually as strong -- but still interactions between alcohol and some types of herbs may be suspect, maybe I took too much 'hawthorne' -- good for the heart and circulation, I was anticipating having some action with my girlfriend that night and might have overcompensated for the effect of the alcohol.
Three or four capsules was perhaps/probably too much for my already over-stressed liver. This remains a matter of 'epistemological speculation' by me about 'life vs. death processes' at work within my body' without our/my being able to empirically verify what actually was going on inside my liver at that time -- until it was too late, and the attack was under way.
The debate between drugs vs. herbs -- what should be pulled off the shelves and what shouldn't -- is a long and drawn out dialectic debate. Each individual drug or herb should be treated separately. We don't have the time to do it here.
Herbs are no different than prescription medications in that they have to be taken carefully and watched carefully for possible side-effects. And researched for their possible side-effects. If the number of 'drug-influenced' medical crises and even deaths was made truly transparent and democratically public -- I am not sure how many of our standard prescription drugs that we would still have left over or behind the counter. Again, food for more thought and debate on another day.
For me, two years ago, tests were done in the hospital, 'a couple of shady areas in my liver' were detected in the CT-Scan that they didn't know what they were. Two 'ERCPs' were done to make sure I had no 'stones blocking my liver passages'. (I don't think they found any also they said they found some small ones. I don't think that was the problem.)
I've been tested all my life in my previous brief stints in the hospital for one of the most obvious causes of jaundice -- hepatitis. Negative every time. Hereditary spherocytosis is more commonly known now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. But still doctors have to take their precautions before they zero in on my hereditary issue -- and its recent complications.
I am no doctor but I put my liver problem down as being simply a combined problem of 'too much stress on the liver' -- a combination of broken down blood cells to get rid of, the complicating effect of alcohol in the system, and a possible interaction of too many herbs that are putting additional stress on my liver -- all coming together and creating the end problem. There could even be the problem of too much 'iron overload' in the liver, a result of too many broken down blood cells for the liver to dispense of properly. Iron overload in itself can cause cirrhosis of the liver. I just read this off the internet. I will have to run this by the next doctor I see.
But I didn't want a 'liver biopsy' two years ago when they wanted to take a chunk out of my liver to see exactly what they were dealing with. I declined and left the care of my liver specialist and the hospital.
I returned to 'normal' very quickly on a careful diet of fruits and veggies, no coffee, no alcohol, beet juice, organic veggie juice, etc.
And then it is rather obvious now -- that I became too 'epistemologically arrogant or cocky with my improved condition back to feeling like normal again'. Back into the bars again that winter, another spring, summer, fall, and winter -- and on the advice of my family doctor -- another CT-Scan this spring.
Bad news. April 1st, 2009. I now have cirrhosis in the right part of my liver. So much for being 'epistemologically confident, even arrogant'. I was dreading the possibility of the other 'C' word when I went into see my doctor on April 1st. Then I quickly became re-aware that there are two dreaded 'C' words when it comes to talking about the liver -- 'Cancer' is probably the worst, but 'Cirrhosis' is not far behind. I'm working on something like 70 per cent of a 'good liver' right now. Cirrhosis is a 'sneaky disease'. You can feel fine -- symptom-free --through its early stages when you still have significant 'good liver' left to take up the normal functions of the liver. But according to my doctor, once you get down to about 30 per cent of a normal functioning liver -- with the rest 'non-functioning' because of the pathological scars of cirrhosis -- things can turn real ugly, real quickly. Obviously, I don't want to get there to find out.
So when I say that it is imperative in some cases to 'get our epistemology -- and our action -- right', this is the type of individual circumstance I am talking about. If I have another two years like my last two years -- even though I didn't miss a day of work in those two years -- I will probably either be hospitalized or dead within another two years.
Strike One was my last stint in the hospital.
Strike Two was my most recent visit to my family doctor on April 1, 2009.
There can be no Strike Three -- or I am out -- gone to meet the 'Grim Reaper'.
As I said, at times it is absolutely imperative that we get our epistemology -- and our action -- right.
God/Nature only gives us so many chances.
Perhaps I can only say that I have been lucky to be given the chances I have been.
Some people don't even get a 'Strike One' -- before a 'heart attack' or a 'stroke' or a 'traumatic accident' leads to absolute tragedy.
When we are given a second or third chance, we have to 'fully value' this gift from wherever.
Get our epistemology right. Get our action right. Get our lifestyle right.
The older we get -- and sometimes not even -- the more that time becomes a ticking timebomb.
Life, in essence, becomes a race between life and death.
Freud knew it. By the time he wrote 'Beyond The Pleasure Principle' in 1919-20, he was about 63-64. Ten years older than me right now. I have to check the timeline but I think Freud probably knew by this time that he had 'jaw cancer' -- caused mainly by his famous or infamous 'cigar smoking'. Maybe his cancer hadn't fully articulated itself yet because he didn't die til 1939, about 20 years later.
But whether it have been the influence of World War 1 -- and soldiers coming back with 'repetition compulsions' from 'war traumacies' and/or Freud's increasing awareness of the 'finiteness' of his own existence, Freud's 'life vs. death' principle didn't come out of nowhere.
It came out of the essence of existence.
I support this theory, not in its Freudian entirety, but in its paradoxical, dialectic and existential essence.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2009.
An Quick Synopsis On the DGB Upcoming Writing Agenda....
So much to write about...so little time...
My fellow baby-boomers can perhaps appreciate more and more with me the 'ticking away of time'...
Here are some of the things I want to write about in the near future...in no particular order because I have to stay within myself each morning and write what I want to write about that morning because otherwise, Hegel's Hotel goes down in flames...or simply doesn't get finished. Writing has to come upward from The Self, not downward from the conscience, the censor, the Superego, the Topdog...
I remember many years ago in my early adulthood driving down the Don Valley Parkway (DVP)from Don Mills to downtown, Toronto, and as I was turning the corner of the DVP to head into the downtown corridor of Toronto, around about Thorncliffe Park, there used to be what they called this big 'White Elephant'. It was a fairly tall white building overlooking the DVP on the hill that stood empty and unfinished for years and years. The story I heard was that the owner had built the main framework and structure of the building but that he had 'forgot' to get a municipal permit to build a driveway into his building. When he went to get this permit, the city said 'no', and there was nothing the builder could do to change the city's mind. Thus, the building was never finished. It stood there, overlooking the DVP -- its main structure in place -- but totally unfinished and abandoned inside -- to eventually become nicknamed 'The White Elephant'.
We don't want Hegel's Hotel to become a White Elephant.
So let us press on -- and press on with passion -- until we have the inside Hegel's Hotel finished, and finished with substance and style -- a 'Five Star Wellness Hotel' complete with fully functioning telephones at a decent hotel price where you can call anywhere in the world at a moment's notice (that is a little sarcastic jab at my girlfriend of ten years who just spent a week in The Dominican Republic without calling me; she said the phones in the Hotel didn't work properly and/or they were too expensive; she bought a phone card and it didn't work. And they were charging her something like $2 a second to use it. She said she didn't phone anyone while she was down there -- not even her mom and dad -- although she tried phoning me until the phone card thing screwed up. How does that sound for a reason/excuse? Do I buy into it? Or say its Sophism and Hogwash? Or somewhere in between? Do I drop it or continue to give her the cold shoulder for a week like she just did to me?)
Incidently, here is my '5 Step Recipe for Marital and/or any Relationship Disaster':
1. Instigation (One side provokes a confrontation.)
2. Retaliation (The other side strikes back, usually verbally, rhetorically, with or without the beginning of 'trash-talk'.)
3. Escalation (More back and forth 'verbal bashing' that is leading nowhere positive, everywhere negative.)
4. Explosion (Completlely out of control trash-talking that may or may not result in 'physical aggression and violence').
5. Implosion (Impasse. Loss of contact. Loss of passion. Alienation. Separation. Divorce.)
This formula can be applied to my only partly written section at this point: 'DGB Dialectic Theory, Domestic Violence, and The Law.'
So where do we go from here? What do I want to write about?
1. I want to finish to my satisfaction my work on epistemology. The problem is that my goal here -- to re-write my Honours Thesis, 'Evaluation and Health', which was largely a work on epistemology and it relationship to psychology -- is partly boring work unless I can somehow breathe new life into an old paper. However, this paper is important because it gives the strongest connection between epistemology, General Semantics, and Psychology, more partcularly Psychotherapy, and most particularly Cogntive Therapy.
2. I want to write more about Freud and my DGB interpetive evaluations of the different theories contained in the evolution of Freud's work and the different dimensions and offshoots of Pre-Classical Pscyhoanalysis (Traumacy-Seduction Theory), The Evolution of Classical Psychoanalysis (Screen Memories, The Interpretation of Dreams, Infantile and Childhood Sexuality, The Oedipal Complex, Freud's evolving ideas on Transference Theory, Freud's Theory of Narcissism, Beyond The Pleasure Principle, The Ego and The Id,), Object Relations (that is foreshadowed by Freud's paper, 'The Splitting of The Ego' right at the end of his career and life...), Object Relations (Klein, Fairbairn...) Self-Psychology (Kohut), Transactionsal Analysis by Eric Berne (an offshoot of Object Relations and 'The Splitting of The Ego')...
3. I want to start writing about DGB Dialectic Theory in relation to the evolving 'co-operative-competitive' relationship between the evolution of Orthodox Western Prescription Medicine and the more recent Western evolution of Alternative/Natural/Nutritional Health Science and Medicine -- and how they best can be integrated...
I have one essay in mind that is capable of introducing all three different subject matters at the same time. You see, epistmeology is intimately connected to Science and Medicine. And epistemology is also intimately connected to Freud's 'life' and 'death' principle which is also connected to Science and Medicine (as well as Psychology and Philosophy).
The paper I have in mind is called 'The Fitting Game' -- an idea that I am borrowing and extrapolating from Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy.
After I write 'The Fitting Game', then I will decide which way DGB Philosophy-Psychology will build next: 1. Epistemology; 2. DGB Post-Freudian/Psychoanalytic Theory; and/or 3. DGB Dialectic Theory vs. Science and Medicine.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain.
My fellow baby-boomers can perhaps appreciate more and more with me the 'ticking away of time'...
Here are some of the things I want to write about in the near future...in no particular order because I have to stay within myself each morning and write what I want to write about that morning because otherwise, Hegel's Hotel goes down in flames...or simply doesn't get finished. Writing has to come upward from The Self, not downward from the conscience, the censor, the Superego, the Topdog...
I remember many years ago in my early adulthood driving down the Don Valley Parkway (DVP)from Don Mills to downtown, Toronto, and as I was turning the corner of the DVP to head into the downtown corridor of Toronto, around about Thorncliffe Park, there used to be what they called this big 'White Elephant'. It was a fairly tall white building overlooking the DVP on the hill that stood empty and unfinished for years and years. The story I heard was that the owner had built the main framework and structure of the building but that he had 'forgot' to get a municipal permit to build a driveway into his building. When he went to get this permit, the city said 'no', and there was nothing the builder could do to change the city's mind. Thus, the building was never finished. It stood there, overlooking the DVP -- its main structure in place -- but totally unfinished and abandoned inside -- to eventually become nicknamed 'The White Elephant'.
We don't want Hegel's Hotel to become a White Elephant.
So let us press on -- and press on with passion -- until we have the inside Hegel's Hotel finished, and finished with substance and style -- a 'Five Star Wellness Hotel' complete with fully functioning telephones at a decent hotel price where you can call anywhere in the world at a moment's notice (that is a little sarcastic jab at my girlfriend of ten years who just spent a week in The Dominican Republic without calling me; she said the phones in the Hotel didn't work properly and/or they were too expensive; she bought a phone card and it didn't work. And they were charging her something like $2 a second to use it. She said she didn't phone anyone while she was down there -- not even her mom and dad -- although she tried phoning me until the phone card thing screwed up. How does that sound for a reason/excuse? Do I buy into it? Or say its Sophism and Hogwash? Or somewhere in between? Do I drop it or continue to give her the cold shoulder for a week like she just did to me?)
Incidently, here is my '5 Step Recipe for Marital and/or any Relationship Disaster':
1. Instigation (One side provokes a confrontation.)
2. Retaliation (The other side strikes back, usually verbally, rhetorically, with or without the beginning of 'trash-talk'.)
3. Escalation (More back and forth 'verbal bashing' that is leading nowhere positive, everywhere negative.)
4. Explosion (Completlely out of control trash-talking that may or may not result in 'physical aggression and violence').
5. Implosion (Impasse. Loss of contact. Loss of passion. Alienation. Separation. Divorce.)
This formula can be applied to my only partly written section at this point: 'DGB Dialectic Theory, Domestic Violence, and The Law.'
So where do we go from here? What do I want to write about?
1. I want to finish to my satisfaction my work on epistemology. The problem is that my goal here -- to re-write my Honours Thesis, 'Evaluation and Health', which was largely a work on epistemology and it relationship to psychology -- is partly boring work unless I can somehow breathe new life into an old paper. However, this paper is important because it gives the strongest connection between epistemology, General Semantics, and Psychology, more partcularly Psychotherapy, and most particularly Cogntive Therapy.
2. I want to write more about Freud and my DGB interpetive evaluations of the different theories contained in the evolution of Freud's work and the different dimensions and offshoots of Pre-Classical Pscyhoanalysis (Traumacy-Seduction Theory), The Evolution of Classical Psychoanalysis (Screen Memories, The Interpretation of Dreams, Infantile and Childhood Sexuality, The Oedipal Complex, Freud's evolving ideas on Transference Theory, Freud's Theory of Narcissism, Beyond The Pleasure Principle, The Ego and The Id,), Object Relations (that is foreshadowed by Freud's paper, 'The Splitting of The Ego' right at the end of his career and life...), Object Relations (Klein, Fairbairn...) Self-Psychology (Kohut), Transactionsal Analysis by Eric Berne (an offshoot of Object Relations and 'The Splitting of The Ego')...
3. I want to start writing about DGB Dialectic Theory in relation to the evolving 'co-operative-competitive' relationship between the evolution of Orthodox Western Prescription Medicine and the more recent Western evolution of Alternative/Natural/Nutritional Health Science and Medicine -- and how they best can be integrated...
I have one essay in mind that is capable of introducing all three different subject matters at the same time. You see, epistmeology is intimately connected to Science and Medicine. And epistemology is also intimately connected to Freud's 'life' and 'death' principle which is also connected to Science and Medicine (as well as Psychology and Philosophy).
The paper I have in mind is called 'The Fitting Game' -- an idea that I am borrowing and extrapolating from Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy.
After I write 'The Fitting Game', then I will decide which way DGB Philosophy-Psychology will build next: 1. Epistemology; 2. DGB Post-Freudian/Psychoanalytic Theory; and/or 3. DGB Dialectic Theory vs. Science and Medicine.
-- dgb, April 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
An Update On The Progress Of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology...
As of April 1st, 2009, I consider the main structure or foundation of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology...' to be in place.
The finishing piece of this main structural foundation of Hegel's Hotel was my essay of April 1st/09 on the similarity and dialectic connection of: 1. Ancient, Pre-Socratic Western Dialectic Philosophy (led by Anaxamander and Heraclitus) with; 2. Ancient Eastern Dialectic Philosophy (led by Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers)with; 3. the main centrepiece of Hegel's Hotel: the work of the main German Idealists -- Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel (mainly Hegel); with 4. the anti-Hegelians and post-Hegelians (who are too many to count but include): Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, and DGB Philosophy; 5. the biologists and evolution men and women, most notably: Darwin; 6. the clinical psychologists and psychotherapists: Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls...; 7. the medicine men and women: mainly Walter B. Cannon (The Wisdom of The Body, homeostasis) and the current 'dialectical playoff' between orthodox Western Prescription Medicine and Alternative/Natural/Nutritional Medicine; and 8. the implications and extensions of Dialectical Philosophy into Epistomology; 9. Ethics; 10. Business and Economics; 11. Regional, National, International Politics, and Law; 12. Religion, Spirituality, Mythology, and Pantheism; 13. The Arts; 14. Romantic Philosophy, Environmentalism, and Humanistic-Existentialism; 15. Community Altruism; and if I get time to do this last job properly: 16. The DGB Interpretation and Evaluation of The Dialectic Evolution of The History of Western Philosophy.
That is basically the long and the short of what I have been building here for the last two or three years; and God willing, will be finishing off over the next two to three years.
I would say we are now at about the half way point of building Hegel's Hotel.
I have sworn off alcohol as of April 1st/09 (before my liver takes me to meet the 'Grim Reaper') but for those of you who are interested and like the work I am doing here, I would like to raise a collective toast with you,
Say, 'Cheers',
And in a day or so,
Let's get going again.
-- dgb, April 5th, 2009.
David Gordon Bain
The finishing piece of this main structural foundation of Hegel's Hotel was my essay of April 1st/09 on the similarity and dialectic connection of: 1. Ancient, Pre-Socratic Western Dialectic Philosophy (led by Anaxamander and Heraclitus) with; 2. Ancient Eastern Dialectic Philosophy (led by Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers)with; 3. the main centrepiece of Hegel's Hotel: the work of the main German Idealists -- Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel (mainly Hegel); with 4. the anti-Hegelians and post-Hegelians (who are too many to count but include): Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, and DGB Philosophy; 5. the biologists and evolution men and women, most notably: Darwin; 6. the clinical psychologists and psychotherapists: Freud, Jung, Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls...; 7. the medicine men and women: mainly Walter B. Cannon (The Wisdom of The Body, homeostasis) and the current 'dialectical playoff' between orthodox Western Prescription Medicine and Alternative/Natural/Nutritional Medicine; and 8. the implications and extensions of Dialectical Philosophy into Epistomology; 9. Ethics; 10. Business and Economics; 11. Regional, National, International Politics, and Law; 12. Religion, Spirituality, Mythology, and Pantheism; 13. The Arts; 14. Romantic Philosophy, Environmentalism, and Humanistic-Existentialism; 15. Community Altruism; and if I get time to do this last job properly: 16. The DGB Interpretation and Evaluation of The Dialectic Evolution of The History of Western Philosophy.
That is basically the long and the short of what I have been building here for the last two or three years; and God willing, will be finishing off over the next two to three years.
I would say we are now at about the half way point of building Hegel's Hotel.
I have sworn off alcohol as of April 1st/09 (before my liver takes me to meet the 'Grim Reaper') but for those of you who are interested and like the work I am doing here, I would like to raise a collective toast with you,
Say, 'Cheers',
And in a day or so,
Let's get going again.
-- dgb, April 5th, 2009.
David Gordon Bain
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