Saturday, January 7, 2012

Proportional centaurs

The IPS OOO thread continues to be a treasure trove of exploration for me. Here are a few more of my observations from p. 46 of that thread:

I got access to the referenced pages in The Opening of Vision today. I appreciate how he articulates a theoretical-instrumental reason that, among other things, reduces "our capacity to...a physics of light" (99), missing the withdrawn, open clearing of Being from which it depends. He does though admit that the 'new' physics, presumably QM, might be capable of approaching the clearing, given its focus on "a field of continuity and interaction...[in a] hidden unity" (103-4). However this kind of open wholeness is still not totalizing or ever enters into a complete presence, for only a instrumental reason supposes such a presence. He brings in Tarthang Tulku and "contemplation" as the means to enact an awareness (perhaps an inkling is a better term?) of the clearing, however partial given its withdrawn nature.


I am reminded yet again from Levin's references above of the real/false reason thread. Levin is also one who sees the need to hearken back to more fully integrate the pre-rational emotions and body, where as the cogscipragos have ascertained lies our more direct connections to the environmental field at large. And that said instrumental reason, while perhaps a necessary evolution, in itself is a "false" reason according to L&J, in that in its separation from the body/emotions it creates this abstract, dual, metaphysical world of ideal forms. L&J's research shows that "real" reason is one that is indeed embodied, and as such connects us back to that field at large. Other references in that thread also point to how so-called postformal operations, according to the hierarchists, is just so much more complexity piled on top of this disembodied instrumental rationality. Whereas those enacting so-called postformal operations talk much more about the kinds on integration we're seeing in the likes of Levin, Derrida, Caputo, OOO, etc.

That's why I now prefer the term transformal for this more fully integrated and proportional centaur. I agree with Kennilingam in that any level can break off into dissociation and to me that's what happened with the complexity crowd. The more hierarchical and kennilingus centaur has a human head so large and out of proportion as to be comical, its legs skinny and weak, incapable of supporting such superfluous narcissism. Just ask a dancer where our root and connection to the field lies.

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