Posts Tagged ‘george lakoff’

How the Proof of the Pudding is Really in the Eating

Monday, August 25th, 2008

When you want to know the truth you are looking for facts. This seems very evident but Philosophy and especially the field of Epistemology has spend a lot of time to find out if this Statement about Truth is really True.

The first step is to look up the definition of the word “fact“. We use Wordnet to do this. WordNet is a semantic lexicon for the English Language. The database contains about 150,000 words.

Fact: A piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred.
Fact: A statement or assertion of verified information about something that is the case or has happened.
Fact: An event known to have happened or something known to have existed.
Fact: A concept whose truth can be proved.

The meaning of words changes in history. If you want to know how the meaning is changed you have to look up the Etymology of the word.

Fact: 1539, “action” especially “evil deed,” from L. factum “event, occurrence,” lit. “thing done,” from neut. pp. of facere “to do”. Usual modern sense of “thing known to be true” appeared 1632, from notion of “something that has actually occurred.”

When we combine the result of both dictionaries we see that the original meaning of the word “Fact” is-related to the word “Event”. Later around 1632 it changed into a concept “whose truth can be proved”.

To find more about the meaning of the word Event we can look for all the occurrences of this word in the sentences of English language. One of the scientists who spend a lot of time researching the meaning of the word “Event” is George Lakoff. He defined The Event Structure Metaphor.

A Metaphor Is-A Mapping. A Mapping Is-A Relation between two Domains, the Source and the Target.

The Event Structure Metaphor is one of the most widespread of all the conceptual metaphors in the world. It maps from the source domain of Space to the target domain of Events, and leads to the following concepts:

A State Is-A Location (a bounded region in space).
A Change Is-A Movement (into or out of bounded region).
A Cause Is-A Force.
An Action Is-A Self-Propelled Movement.
A Purpose Is-A Destination.
A Mean Is-A Path to destinations.
A Difficulty Is-A Blockage.
Expected Progress Is-A Travel Schedule.
A Schedule Is-A Virtual Traveler, who reaches pre-arranged destinations at pre-arranged times.
An External Event Is-A Large Moving Object.
A Long-term, purposeful activity Is-A Journey.

An Event Is-A Blockage that prevents us to Move from One Destination to an other Destination in the Journey called Life. To Move from one Destination to an other Destination we are Propelling our Self. Sometimes we are propelled By something else, An External Event. If this Happens it feels like we are hit by a Large Moving Object.

When we are Hit by an External Event “things get out of hand” or “we are not able to keep a tight rein on the situation” or “we are not going with the flow” or “things take a turn for the worse“.

A Fact is an Event that Causes the Emotion of Frustration (Anger, Irritation, Sadness, Worry,..). An Event Forces us to Move Away from our Original Route, the Path that leads us to the Destination that we wanted to Reach in Life. We have to take a Detour.

What happened around 1632?

Around 1632 Francis Bacon advocated a new method for achieving knowledge, based on careful observation and eliminative induction. Bacon warned that effective reasoning must be freed from the “idolatrous” influence of human nature (Emotions & Imagination).

Francis Bacon started The Age of Enlightenment. The Enlightenment advocated reason as a means to establishing an authoritative philosophical system which would allow human beings to obtain objective truth about the whole of reality. Much later Emmual Kant dedicated his Critique of Pure Reason to Francis Bacon.

What happened?

Facts were moved from the Emotions (Judgement, Opinion) to the Level of the Mind (Truth). With the help of Logic it would be possible to Prove Everything.

According to Aristotle there are four types of truth: universal affirmatives take the form: All S are P, universal negations take the form: No S are P, particular affirmatives take the form: Some S are P, particular negations take the form: Some S are not P. Later so called contingent truths were added. They are dependent on the situation/context.

The Quest for the Eternal Logical Truth is still going on. Many very bright minds have tried to find a solution but the terrible thing is that the Truth of a logical proposition is entirely dependent on the Truth of the Facts that are put into the Proposition. We are again in a State of Infinite Regress.

One of these bright minds was Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-1930). Ramsey lived and worked in Cambridge and was befriended with Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, J. M. Keynes and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ramsey created a theory called Pragmatism.

In his paper ‘Truth and Probability’, written in 1926, Ramsey shows that if people in their behaviour obey a set of axioms or rules, the measure of our ‘degrees of belief’ will satisfy the laws of probability. The Truth is highly related to Judgment and “if we have analysed judgment we have solved the problem of truth“.

“..it is, for instance, possible to say that a chicken believes a certain sort of caterpillar to be poisonous, and mean by that merely that it abstains from eating such caterpillars on account of unpleasant experiences connected with them. … An exact analysis of this relation would be very difficult, but it might well be held that in regard to this kind of belief the pragmatist view was correct, i.e. that the relation between the chicken’s behaviour and the objective factors was that the actions were such as to be useful if, and only if, the caterpillars were actually poisonous. Thus any set of actions for whose utility p is a necessary and sufficient condition might be called a belief that p, and so would be true if p, i.e., if they are useful“.

What Ramsey is telling is that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating“.

What happened?

We are finally back to square one! After about 400 years of Enlightment we have to admit that the only way to find the Truth is to find out if what we Think is true is really True. We don’t have to use very complicated reasoning to prove what we are already experiencing in the Real World.

LINKS

About the Age of Reason

About Pragmatism and Ramsay

About Truth

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What Terrence McKenna forgot to Look at: The Final Explanation of what is Happening in 2012?

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

I have spent a lot of time this week to analyze Time Wave Zero of Terrence McKenna. I have developed my own cycle model. When somebody else has developed such a model I want to find out what the differences are. Suddenly I got a flash of insight and was able to map my model to Time Wave Zero. I will try to explain what I did.

timewavezeroThe cycle is really a (logaritmic) spiral that is closed in itself. It has to be closed in itself because otherwise the spiral would move into infinity. 

Infinity is a concept that has created many problems in mathematics.

The Dutch mathematician Brouwer created a mathematics without infinity and he proved to be right.

George Lakoff proved the same thing by showing that mathematics only works when you are able to visualize a concept. Humans need a metaphor to reason and the metaphor has be connected to their material existence in space.

When a pattern is logaritmic and closed in itself it is a self-referencial system and a self-referential system is a fractal.

The cycle I discovered emerged when I was studying Chinese Philosphy. To understand Chinese Philosophy I went back in history and discovered the Yellow River Map.

The Yellow River Map was created by the first Emperor of China and is in essence a magic square where the sum of all the numbers is 15. The magic square has a 5 in the middle. The first Emperor of China came from the land of MU. MU or Lemuria is an old civilization that existed before Atlantis. The science of MU was aimed at Creation, Harmony and Beauty.

Out of the Yellow River Map came the I Tjing and the I Tjing was the basis of Time Wave Zero.

What Terrence McKenna did not see is that the cycle moves through five stages. The Chinese called them Wood, Earth, Fire, Water and Metal. In other systems different names where used. The most simple model that is you can use to understand the Cycle is the model of the Seasons.

The names of the phases are really not important they are principles or metaphors. Fire is the principle of Expansion and Wind (or Air or Wood) is the principle of Compression. I named the principles Plan, Performance, Protection, Potential and Possibility.

It is very difficult to imagine or understand the principle of self-reference. Self-reference means that a pattern is repeating on every level. When Self-reference is closed in itself the principle is also repeating itself.

The last thing you have to understand is the principle of resonance. Cycles can be seen as Waves and Waves interfere. Long Cycles interfere with Short Cycles. Short term cycles are “riding the waves of” a long term cycle. When Waves are seen as Music the Cycles produces Overtones. When many cycles are in the same stage they are creating a conjunction and the principle of the Wave is amplified.

In essence the Waves are related to Music.

What is Happening?

We are in the Compressing Phase of the Cycle of Time (Male). The Compressing Phase means that Time is Speading Up and we are reaching the Zero Point.

In every step of the compression we see the same fractal appearing and the fractal moves through the five stage but in an excellarating speed.

When we have reached the Zero Point the Wave will Move Back in Time. We will see the same stages appear but the Cycle will be reversed. It will move through the same stages but in a different order.

Until today the Cycle is moving according to what the Chinese call the Destructing Cycle. When we move back in time we will be controlled by the Generating Cycle. This is the Cycle of Creation.

2012 will be the big turning point in many cycles. It will be a major conjunction and in this conjunction one aspect of all the cycles (Essence, The Centre, Harmony, Beauty) will be extremely amplified. We are reaching a moment of Pure Beauty and Extreme Harmony.

After that the Cycle will move back. It will be in the expanding mode (Female).

But before we reach this point Zero we will experience all the stages in an excellerating mode.

We will Expand, Compress, Find Balance, Move Up and Move Down until we have reached the Top the final point of Total Compression of Every Thing, The Alpha and the Omega.

It will be a very “Bumpy Ride” and many people will experience the compression as a Major Crisis. Many (Male) Believe-Systems will fale. At the end we will be without any model to explain what will happen. The Male-principle of Total Control will fail. Science will be without any answer.

The Emotions, the Unconsciousness,  and the Imagination (Spirit) already know what is going to happen. We will be ONE for a short infinite moment of time.

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About The Device Paradigm

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

The Internet shows everything Chaos-Theory is talking about. When the Internet was working on full speed connections were made between people and systems that were never connected.

Out of the Internet something New is Emerging.

The Internet is also a major Force against everybody who wants to take over the power. Everything everybody is doing in secret appears on the Internet and although many people are trying to block the Freedom of Press it will take a major effort to do this.

Even the manipulation of the Search Engines by companies like Google want help because people mainly in the Open Source Community will always create new ways of searching.

Behind the Internet is a phenomenon called Abstraction. Abstraction is a method to Compress a Lot of Information. Abstraction is the Process of Moving UP.

There are two ways to Abstract. The first one just Moves Up but is never able to Come Down. When we have abstracted something we are unable to move to the source of abstraction without loosing information. The only way to this is to use Self-Reference (Fractals).

The American philosopher Albert Borgmann wrote many books about the problems of Abstraction. His main concept is called the Device Paradigm.

In Borgmann’s terminology, a device is an artifact or instrument or tool or gadget or mechanism, which may be physical or conceptual, including hardware and software.

According to Borgmann, it is a general trend of technological development that mechanisms (devices) are increasingly hidden behind service interfaces. Technology is thus regarded as a means to an end, an instrument or contrivance.

The effect of the Device Paradigm is that everything becomes the Same. In the end Every Thing is mapped into “Bits and Bytes“. If this happens we have been moved into Virtual Reality.

What we have to Understand is that Abstraction is a Tool of the Mind. We are now already in a state were we don’t realize this is the case. The Mind is disconnected from the Emotions.

When we Play in Virtual Reality we are able to Kill Virtual People without any problem. If we are in the Army we are using Devices that shield us from Reality. A pilot pushes a button and on his User-Interface the Bomb explodes. He is totally unaware of the effects in Reality.

The Device Paradigm also shows that in the end everything becomes a Commodity. We are not burning wood to produce warmth. We are using Energy and we really don’t know where it came from. Our relationship with Reality, Nature, is disconnected.

By applying technology as a means to an end we have given the Objective Cold Mind the possibility to Move UP. We have created The System.

The System generates the feeling of powerlessness. When we feel Powerless we become Aggressive and because we are unable to fight the System we find others who become the Target of our Aggression.

So we have to bring down the Level of Abstraction again. George Lakoff and many others have already discovered where Abstraction ends. It ends when we are unable to Imagine (make pictures of) what is abstracted.

When we imagine (Spirit) we are able to feel Emotions (Soul). When a Pilot is able to imagine what a Bomb is really doing to others he will think twice before he pushes the button. If we imagine that children are misused to produce our textile we will think twice before we buy.

Borgmann is highly influenced by Heidegger.

“In our time, things are not even regarded as objects, because their only important quality has become their readiness for use. Today all things are being swept together into a vast network in which their only meaning lies in their being available to serve some end that will itself also be directed towards getting everything under control.”

LINKS

About the Device Paradigm

About the System

About Koestler and Lakoff

About Russell and Lakoff

 

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How the US could Move Out of the Drama Triangle: About Games People Play

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

George Lakoff wrote very interesting books about Metaphors. At this moment Lakoff his main subject is US politics. In an article called the Metaphors of Terror he analyzes the “framing” of the US Government in his “battle” against Terrorism that started at 9/11.

“The initial framing was as a “crime” with “victims” and “perpetrators” to be “brought to justice” and “punished.” The crime frame entails law, courts, lawyers, trials, sentencing, appeals, and so on”. Later “crime” changed to “war” with “casualties,” “enemies,” “military action,” “war powers,” and so on. Later “Evil” was added. “To stand up to evil you have to be morally strong. If you’re weak, you let evil triumph, so that weakness is a form of evil in itself, as is promoting weakness. Evil is inherent, an essential trait, that determines how you will act in the world. Evil people do evil things“.

The most important change in the framing is the move to Religion. I think and many people with me this was a very dangerous move. It revived the time of the Crusades. The move to Religion correlates with the strong influence of the Conservative Religious movement in the US. They were already for a long time in the “Crusade Mode”.

Lakoff shows that the role of the parent in childhood determinates the distinction between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are in favor of the Strict Father (or Parent). Democrats like the Nurturing Father.

Parents were born as Children. Children often take over the behavior of the parents when they raise their own children even when the children did not like this behavior at all. The first reason is copying but there is more at stake.

When you look at Interpersonal Theory (Why a Slave needs a Master) the Strict Father is high in Agency (the Self) and the Nurturing Father combines Agency and Communion (The Other). He is able to create an “internal” bridge. The Strict Parent is unable to commune. He is unable to give intimacy, warmth, closeness, social support and love to the Child. The child is “left Alone“.

The Child has to start his life high in Communion. It needs to be Taken Care of. When the Parents are unable to give Intimacy the Child cannot receive Intimacy when he is an Adult. He or She is unable to create a stable relationship of Compassion.He or She moves from relationship to relationship or when he/she is living in a Strictly Moral Environment sustains a relationship that is not “Taking Care” of the Children. History repeats itself.

The next move in Life is the state of the Senses (Communion/Agency). This state ends in the Ego-State (Puberty). Many people don’t want to leave this state because they don’t like the Responsibilities that are connected to the next State.

When they become a Parent they have to move. They can move to the Nurturing State (Communion, Self AND Other) or to the Strict Parent State (Agency, Self). If they don’t know how to Commune there is only one state possible, The Strict Parent. Again History Repeats itself.

The Adult State is the State in the Middle or the Center (Balance, Harmony, Conscioussness). It can be reached when people Take the Time to Reflect (Look Inside).

At this moment almost everything we do is directed at the opposite, Look Outside (TV, Movie, Games, …). The Media take so much time that many people have no time left to “Observe” or “Step Out of” their own situation.

Children and Adults are always Playing Games. One of the psychologists that has analyzed Adult Games is Eric Berne. He created Transactional Analysis.

Berne presented his theories in two popular books: Games People Play (1964) and What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1975). The most famous book was I’m OK, You’re OK (1969) written by Berne’s longtime friend Thomas Anthony Harris.

Will McWhinney analyzed Two Persons games. Berne discovered also three person games (Triangles).

One of the most dysfunctional triangular games is The Drama Triangle (Stephen Karpman).

Each point on the triangle represents a common and ineffective response to conflict, one more likely to prolong disharmony than to end it. Participants in the Drama Triangle create misery for themselves and others.

Each player in this particular mind game begins by assuming one of three archetypical roles: Victim, Rescuer, or Persecutor.

  • Victims are helpless and hopeless. They deny responsibility for their negative circumstances, and deny possession of the power to change them.
  • Rescuers are constantly applying short-term repairs to a Victim’s problems, while neglecting their own needs.
  • Persecutors blame the Victims and criticize the enabling behavior of Rescuers, without providing guidance, assistance or a solution to the underlying problem

The ‘switch’ is then when one of these having allowed stable roles to become established, suddenly switches role. The victim becomes a persecutor, and throws the previous persecutor into the victim role, or the rescuer suddenly switches to become a persecutor (“You never appreciate me helping you!”).

It is not difficult to see that the Persecutor plays the Strict Father Role. Most of the time the Mother plays the Victim and the Child acts as the Rescuer (The Nurturing Child).

Later the Model of Berne was extended into a Five Factor model (The Tokyo University Egogram). It contains the Nurturing Parent, the Critical Parent (Strict Father), the Adult, Adapted Child (Victim) and the Natural Child (Nurturing Child).

According to my insights A Five Factor Model is a complete model. According to Berne the Adult is “in the Now”. This proves to me that this part could be called Consciousness.

Now it is time to move back to US Politics.

I am convinced The US is Playing Roles in a very complicated Drama Triangle. In this triangle all the players are constantly switching roles.

The Role of the Victims is played by the PEOPLE of the Islamic Countries. The US is constantly switching between the role of the Rescuer AND the Persecutor (“You never appreciate me helping you!”).

The US as a Rescuer implements Short-Term Repairs, ”Capitalism”. Capitalism destroyes Islamic Culture based on the Nurturing Father metaphor (Family, Taking Care of the Other) . Kapitalism stimulates Individualism (Ego). It dis-connects people from a Whole.

Not everybody in the Islamic Countries applies the Nurturing Father Metaphor. The Islamic Conservative Religious Movement has a lot in common with the US Conservative Religious Movement. They are the people that want to fight the Holy War again. I don’t think both of them really see that the (poor) People are always the victims.

As a Rescuer the US helps Islamic Strict Fathers (Iraq, Saddam Hoessein) but it also acts as a Persecutor when it destroyes the same Strict Fathers. The US helped Saddam Hoessein and later destroyed him. They also helped the Taliban and is now destroying them.

All the time the People that lived in these countries were and are the real Victims. Some of them Move into a very Special Victim State, they Kill ThemSelves (Suicide Bommers). When you want to Kill Your Self you are really desperatly asking for Communion.

The People in the Islamic Countries believe that when you Offer Your Self you will reach the Ultimate Place of Communion, Heaven. The Strict Islamic Fathers confirm this believe. The Nurturing Fathers in the Islamic Community (The Mystics, Sufi) tell another Story. The believe just like the Mystics in the West (The Essenes) that the Love for the Other is crucial.

Could it be that US never left the Puberty State?

If this is the Case it Explains a Lot to me. It Explains the Enormous Amount of food People Eat and the need to Add Sugar. It explains the US Porno Cult. It explains the most Crazy City on Earth: Las Vegas where every building is A Game in an Adventure-Game. It explains The Cowboy Culture and it explains the Excessive Waste of Energy. It also explains the Exageration: Big Cars, Big Buildings, Being the Best and the Biggest.

It also shows the Way Forward.

The US has to accept that is now an ADULT Country and has to accept the Responsibility of this State.

It could start by accepting US Culture as a FUSE between many cultures that came out of The East (India), Africa (Slaves), Europe, East America (mainly Mexico) and of course its Indian Heritage (Harmony and Nature).

The US could except that its Own Culture is a Self-Reference of the World Culture.

Is it Possible to Leave a Drama Triangle?

When we use the Five Factor Model and move to China we are able to find a solution. The most important strategy in Chinese martial arts is to Refuse to Support your Attacker.

The first step is to Move into the Center. In terms of the TA Model “Become Aware”.

Use your consciousness. Resist the Temptation to play an Exaggerated and Complementary role to a Victim, Rescuer or Persecutor.

Understand that you are not fighting a Person (A CAUSE) but you are in a State (EGO).

The force you are fighting is trying to move you out of the state of Awareness.

In the Centre you can help the other with giving them awareness and performing Enlightened actions (Out of the Heart).

If we move back to US Policy we have to find where the Consciouss of the US can be found.

The Consciousness can be found in the Press.

The Consciousness can be found in its History.

The Consciousness can be found in Law and Justice.

The Consciousness can be found in the Congress.

The Consciousness can be found in the UnConsciousness (Dreams).

The Consciousness can be found in the Arts and Music (Culture).

One of these has to Move to the Centre and Resist the Temptation to Support the Attacker (Ego).

The last thing I want to tell is that I love the people of the US. I travelled the country from East to West and from North to South. Almost everybody I spoke did not like what the System was doing. They wanted a change but they did not know how. The feeling that the System has taken over Control is something that many people in the West (also the Netherlands) are feeling. They feel extremely Powerless.

The only thing we can do is support all the people all over the World that are from the Heart. The Times are Always Changing and at a certain moment the Age of Aquaris (Love will Steer the Stars) will certainly come. It is just a matter of time.

LINKS

About Addiction and Burn-out

About Inter-personal Psychology 

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The Act of Creation: About Fusion and ConFusion

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Arthur Koestler lived between 1905 and 1983. The first book I read was “The Roots of Coincidence (1973)”. Its main subject is Synchronicity.

In the “Ghost in the Machine (1967)” Koestler argues that the human brain has been built upon earlier more primitive brain structures. When a human is attacked the lower layer is dissociated from the higher layer. The human transforms into a reptile fighting-machine (The Ghost). Much later the Dutch psychologist Piet Vroon wrote a very impressive book about the same subject “The Tears of the Crocodile” (1998).

In 1964 Koestler wrote “The Act of Creation“. The book is about theory building. A new theory is a fusion of two previously separate frames of reference (“bisociation”). For example, dynamic systems theory + psychotherapy = family systems therapy.

Much later (2002) Gilles Fauconnier & Mark Turner (The Way We Think) proved that Koestler was right. They called the principle of “bisociation” Conceptual Blending. They made use of the research of George Lakoff and Mark Johnston (Metaphors We Live By (1980), Philosophy in the Flesh (1999)). A good example of conceptual blending can be found with the famous psychologists Sigmund Freud who used the Metaphor of the Steam Machine to explain the Human Mind.

What Koestler is telling is that the creative process is not bounded by rules. It just happens when two separate frames fuse. The fusion is not controlled by reason at all. The mind uses many different blending strategies like perceived internal consistency (It fits), beauty (I love it), the ability to make novel predictions (how exiting) or group pressure (They want it to fit).

This is also the message Feyerabend wanted to tell in his highly attacked book Against Method (1975). A citation: “My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits. The best way to show this is to demonstrate the limits and even the irrationality of some rules which she, or he, is likely to regard as basic“.

You probably ask your self why I have combined so many issues in a few lines. It creates con-fusion. You are “mixed up”. The blends I wanted to mix are not mixing at all.

Let me help you.

If you believe the theory of Koestler  you will probably see (or feel) that I am discussing two separate layers. I am using the layer of the Reptile and I am using the layer of Thinking to explain something. In both of the layers something happens called (Con)Fusion.

In the Reptile-layer an attack dissociates two layers. The dissociation is caused by con-fusion. The pattern of the higher layer of Thinking is suddenly disturbed. The sudden “explosion” needs a lot of energy. This energy is needed to dissociate just like the dissociation of water in oxygen and hydrogen needs a lot of energy. After the attack the Human is highly dissociated. He is unable to remember what he was doing. The association of the layers needs a new proces of fusion.

When something produces an In-Sight (Aha!) the fusion of the frames takes place and suddenly a lot of energy is produced (the emotion of happiness).

The two layers are part of seven connected layers called Chakras (Wheels). The Chakra’s were discovered by Oriental Scientists.

If Oriental Science is not one of the frames you use you will not understand. The explanation will not fuse. Perhaps you believe Oriental Science is not using the right method. You don’t believe Feyerabend. Oriental Science uses the blending strategy of Beauty. Perhaps you don’t believe Beauty is an important strategy.

Perhaps you don’t know what George Lakoff and many others have discovered. They discovered that Humans use their Body to Think(Embodiment).

The only thing you can do is “give it a try“. Perhaps you are able to generate novel predictions or this article proves Oriental Science is not scientific and you are proven right again.

If this Blog is not blending perhaps a next one will. I am telling the same story again and again. Every Human is doing this until he is attacked and has to connect the seven layers again. If this happens perhaps the 6th or even the 7th layer will open.

The layer of the Reptile is called the Basic Chakra. It is connected to reproduction (sex) and survival. It is the lowest chakra. The layer of Thinking is called the Throat Chakra. This is the 5th Chakra. It is related to communication and expression. The System contains Seven chakra’s.

If you want to understand the Human you have to accept the Seven layers and connect them at the right level. All the layers contain the same stages. In the 5th level fusion and con-fusion takes place. It also takes place at all the other layers.

Connecting a layer needs a specialist. The specialist needs to understand the level he has to act on. He has to understand the strategy to accomplish association. The best strategy to accomplish this is Beauty or Harmony. He has to understand that an association at one level is able to disturb the next levels. To harmonize all the layers he has to be intelligent (the 5th layer). The specialist needs the 4th layer, the Heart, to be able to take care. He also needs the 7th layer of Consciousness to become aware of this.

During the Second World War, Koestler continually spoke out against the Nazi regime in Germany – his Central European Jewish family background made him particularly involved in a way that many British and United States politicians were not. He had also witnessed personally, the growth of extremist tendencies in the region.

Koestler and a minority of writers and public figures believed that if they sufficiently described the horrors being committed in Europe in news media and public meetings, it would spur the West to action. Despite their efforts, these protests often fell on deaf ears. Capturing their frustration, Koestler described these people as the “screamers“.

“We, the screamers, have been at it now for about ten years. We started on the night when the epileptic van der Lubbe set fire to the German Parliament; we said that if you don’t quench those flames at once, they will spread all over the world; you thought we were maniacs. At present we have the mania of trying to tell you about the killing-by hot steam, mass-electrocution, and live burial-of the total Jewish population of Europe. So far three million have died. It is the greatest mass killing in recorded history; and it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch. I have photographs before me on the desk while I am writing this, and that accounts for my emotion and bitterness“.

Just like Feyerabend Koestler was a “screamer” all his life. He protested against almost every act of unjustice. To earn money he wrote many books and articles . He researched almost every subject he could find (including the para-normal). He inspired many artists (Orwell, Sting, Pat Metheny). Many of his insights were proved right much later.

Koester was a Mythic and he lived the life of a Mythic. In 1983 suffering from Parkinson’s Disease and terminal Leukemia, Koestler committed suicide via drug overdose. Koestler practised his own preaching.  He was one of the promoters of Euthanasia.

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About the Foundations of Mathematics

Friday, August 3rd, 2007
Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

In the beginning of the 20th century the mathematicians Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead wanted to define the eternal foundation of Mathematics.

To build a foundation Mathematicians always start with defining what they “mean”. They use a symbolic language called Logic to do this.

In Logic “=” means “Being the Same“. If we would use the mathematical “=” in human languages we would say things like “a House is a House“.

These statements are without any meaning. We believe them but they are not adding something to our knowledge of the world we live in. “=” is called a Tautology in Logic. It is the only statement that is always true.

Mathematics is about changing the left hand and the right hand of the tautology without changing the truth. Mathematicians are always proving that the left and the right in what they mean are the same (=).

To speed up the process of proving, Mathematicians define new symbols that are “based on” other symbols. They use the foundation of “lower” symbols to define higher symbols. This process of mapping is called Abstraction (going UP). A Number is abstracted into the symbol A, called a variable.

Human languages are different from Logic. Depending on the language, the context and the person, terms have a different meaning. Mathematicians don’t like that.

The term Foundation is a Latin term (fundus). In the English language “Foundation” means “stable layer“. In the Dutch language “Foundation” is translated into the term “grond-slag“. “grond-slag” means “hitting” (slag) a pole (paal) into the Earth to build a house on. A foundation is something that is connecting a foundation (Poles) to another foundation (Earth). In human language the right and the left are equal AND not equal. They have something “in common“.

When we talk about a foundation most of us See a House. When we communicate we share this picture unconsciously. If we have not lived in a context where houses are build we are not able to share meaning. When a Dutch person “wants to fund” he has “to hit the pole“. In other places “Laying a Foundation” is a much more gentle process.

Human languages differ from Logic in many ways. The left and the right have something in common but are also different. The symbols (words) in human languages are connected to real pictures. A very important difference is the principle of truth. In mathematics we want to be certain. Mathematical truth is binary, Yes or NO. In human languages we have to believe and believing is an Emotion.

Believing is Seeing and Feeling. We have abstracted a thing that is Seeing and Feeling. It I situated in our body. We call it Mind. Mind is a Latin word (“mental“) and it means Spirit and Soul.

Spirit is connected to the Imagination and Soul is connected to the Emotions. We Feel with our Soul and we See with our Spirit (Inspiration, Inspire). Our Soul moves to something it likes and it moves away from something it dis-likes. Our Spirit takes us away. Suddenly we get a Flash of In-Sight and we Have to Move. Soul is gentle. Spirit hits us, like we hit a pole.

Russell used a “Thing called a Set” to create the eternal basis of Mathematics. He defined many operations on the Set. In the end he believed he had succeeded.

Suddenly a nasty problem arose. The set of all sets created a paradox (The Russell Paradox). It contained itself and it did not contain itself. To solve this paradox he defined a new rule (an axiom) that a set had to contain itself. Later others proved that this was not helping him at all. The foundation of Russell proved to be completely unstable.

The reason he failed was related to the boundary of the set. The boundary is not nothing. It can be open or closed to its environment (other sets). An open boundary looks-like your skin. A closed boundary looks-like an armor. Somewhere the set of sets (of sets of ..) had to close itself but the Set of the Whole could not be found.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein

One of the companions of Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, totally changed its views about mathematics. He did not believe in logic and a foundation any more.

He showed that we are playing games with language. Language is context-dependent. It’s meaning changes all the time.

He also showed that many sciences are simply impossible because they belong to the domain of the emotions. Examples are Ethics and Esthetics. Formalizing emotions is impossible. We all know what is right and wrong and beauty is a personal experiences. Nobody is able to tell you what you have-to-like.

Later the Dutch Mathematician Brouwer proved that everything we cannot imagine always leads to a paradox.

Later Gödel created a new problem. Gödel proved that an abstraction (a higher layer) is unable to explain every part of a lower layer. If we go UP we always loose meaning. The Set of Sets of … cannot contain all sets.

Later Lakoff and Nunez proved that the language of Mathematics acts in the same way as human languages. Mathematical Truth is not only connected to Seeing (Brouwer) but also to Feeling. The emotion of believing is necessary to believe mathematics.

Lakoff showed also that in human languages the process of abstraction has an end. It ends when we are unable to imagine what we are talking about (see Brouwer). When we use highly abstract words like “relation” or “furniture” we reason with a part of the set (a prototype) we are using. We use a chair or a table when we use “furniture“. Abstraction without visibility again creates confusion (a paradox).

Now I want to apply the flashes of insight of all the people to show you something about the abstraction called Mind.

(1) Russell: If you think your Mind is a closed environment you’re wrong. You are using the concept of the Set. Your mind is open to other Minds.

(2) Brouwer: If you cannot imagine a Mind it does not exist. Many people see the Brain when they imagine the Mind. The Brain is controlling everything in our body. If we use (1) we have to find a way of explaining how the mind is communicating with other minds. Scientists found the solution. The mind is producing words (speaking).

(3) Wittgenstein showed that speaking is not a reliable tool of communication. Behind words we are exchanging pictures and emotions. Wittgenstein showed that it is impossible to reason about emotions. We cannot reason about the emotional part of the Mind (Soul).

(4) Gödel: Your mind is an abstraction and therefore Your mind is unable to explain everything You Are.

(5) Lakoff: Mind is an abstraction without an image. When you reason about your mind you use a visual (!) sub-set of the Mind. The visual subset we use is “Actor”. Your Cold Analytical Mind (An Actor) controls Your Warm Body. You are a Walking Thinking Mind that is desperatly trying to manage the Instable Fluctuating Emotions (now called Desire) and the Imagination (now called Fantasy). We are back to You again.

The best thing to do is to skip the whole concept of Mind and start to look for something else.

George Lakoff has a theory that is able to give you some insight.

When we are born we come out of a Body and we become a new Body. The Body has to learn to crawl. Crawling gives us the feeling  that we were moving-away (Mother) and moving to-something (Mother?). Crawling is an emotion.

Our most difficult learning process is to learn to stand-”up” and to “keep balance“. In all cultures “Up” is more important than “Down“. Management is always on the upper floor and God is Up  in the heavens and the Devil is Down in hell.

The feeling of “Up” is basically a bias. We are so dominated by our difficult childhood learning process that we Evaluate many things with our “Up-feeling“. Thinking with the “Up” is getting you Down. It kills self-confidence. We believe that we think Up with our head (Brain) and the Brain (Mind) is the manager.

Let’s get back to what You are. You are your Body and your Body is open to its environment.

Lakoff found that the sentences we speak contain metaphors. Many metaphors are connected to the body. We use our organs to define the types of truth. We feel with our heart (com-passion). We feel with our bellies (In-tuition, inner teaching). We also feel with our stomach. Our stomach tells us that we want to express something. Funny enough these places in the Body (the Chakra’s) are independent of Culture. The reason is that every human shares the same body.

When you believe something you will feel this with your heart. You will feel excitement. The rythm of your heartbeat will change. When somebody is explaining something and you don’t see the picture with your inner eye (your imagination) don’t believe him. Ask somebody to draw what he is trying to explain. If your stomach protests ask a question. If you want to do something with what you believe you will feel it in your solar plexus (Navel). Don’t hesitate Act.

Now I want to come back to the foundation Russell was looking for. When you use your body the basic level to reason with is Earth. What we See on Earth is what is and what is does not need an explanation. Trees grow without any theory. The clouds move without any theory.

If you want to develop a theory start to look with attention (Focus). Be aware and watch what is happening on Earth. What is happening on Earth is always Cyclic. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Moon moves around the Earth. The Planets move around the Sun. Seeds turn into flowers and produces seeds again.

When we try to predict these movements we find patterns. These patterns are stages in a cyclic process of enfolding. The patterns are waves and waves are strongly related to Music (Pythagoras). The patterns in Music create overtones. They interfere. Short term Cycles are part of long term cycles. You’re body is a Standing Wave and it resonates with other Standing Waves with the same wavelength.

Out of the analyses of these patterns mathematics was created. Mathematics is about Music and Beauty. A mathematical theory has to be beautiful. If it is not beautiful it is not correct. This is simple. You have to feel enlightened when you understand mathematics. If you don’t get this feeling your teacher does not understand what he is explaining.

The problem of the Set of Sets can now be solved easily. The Whole is part of itself. The Whole is One but also Two. It is OBSERVING itself. It is conscious.

Perhaps now you understand why the Ears are the place in the Body that controls your Balance. Close your Eyes and Listen to the Rhythms in your Body and Nature. Erase your non-existing Mind. Get back to the level of You, Your Body. Observe your Self. Become conscious. Feel the warmth of your skin. Let the images come and observe them without touching them. Feel your gentle Soul move in and out when you breathe. Concentrate on your Belly (the level of In-tuition). Suddenly you get an Insight. Spirit has hit you. You feel full of Joy about the beauty of the Whole. You found the foundation Russell was looking for. Its You.

LINKS

About the Axiomatic Foundations of mathematics

A video interview with Bertrand Russell

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