Month: November 2009

Coincidence, Randomness, and Meaning

Maybe you’ve had this experience: You are thinking about an acquaintance that you haven’t thought about in a long time and at that moment the phone rings. “What are the odds that it’s Jerry?” you think to yourself. And when it IS Jerry on the other line it seems somehow magical, amazing, beyond mere chance. Was this ‘just’ a coincidence, or is there something meaningful about this admittedly unusual event? Hopefully this is something you’ve wondered about before. The whole ‘coincidence’ thing is a fascinating realm to explore, and how we address it says much about our paradigm. What is interesting to me is the debate, such as it is(‘nt), between those who have a mathematical/statistical approach and those who have a spiritual approach (not that these are the only two camps, just that they represent a the major polarity).

For an excellent presentation of ideas about this very issue, listen to this RadioLab episode: Stochasticity. (If you have never met RadioLab before, you’re in for a treat!)

A mathematician will look at coincidence and point out how most people that find meaning in coincidence fail to understand the vastness of the potential field of events. In such a large set, not only is it not strange that coincidences occur, it is inevitable that they do; just a consequence of the numbers, nothing ‘special’.

But of course this completely misses the undeniable reality that such events ARE special by virtue of the fact that we actually experience them as such. What strikes me as unfortunately bizarre is that these two views, “just the numbers”/”full of meaning”, are CONTRASTED, when they are (obviously, it seems to me) complementary.

I would agree with the mathy people that such events are bound to occur, and that it is easily possible to overstate the importance of coincidences in a psychological sense. In other words, we should be careful with how we subjectively responds to coincidences; we should never let coincidence substitute for other means of addressing a phenomenon, such as rational thinking, heart-sense, discussion with friends, etc.; it should ADD to those other means.

I would also agree with the ‘meaning’ people that just because coincidences are inevitable (which is kind of funny, given the meaning of the terms), does NOT provide a sufficient basis for discarding any potential meaning that such events might have. Humans are meaning-making creatures. We can choose to make the meaning of a coincidence “this coincidence is meaningless” or we can make any other meaning from it. In fact, the very stochastic nature of coincidences is a solid reason why we SHOULD ‘use’ them to make meaning.

Take pendulum work, a popular modern divination technique. Here too we are looking at a stochastic system, which can vary within certain parameters… but the parameters are too delicate to be able to precisely control or predict, which is the point. Tiny hand tremors, gusts of wind, the rhythm of the pulse, and so forth, all can have effects on the non-linear motion of a pendulum. The fact that stochastic and physical processes underly and limit its potential motions (pendulums don’t usually point against gravity, for example) does not mean that the system is meaningless, because we–the human beings, meaning-makers–are always a part of the system. And this is the WHOLE POINT of divination, pendulums, and so forth: the taking of a stochastic process of sufficient simplicity and complexity that we can USE it to make meaning. Would any system of divination use a relatively non-variant process as its base? Not a chance. Systems in which differences can be maximized with little effort and within strict boundaries work best. With too few options the lack of variation doesn’t mesh well with the lived complexity of our experiences, (with the limiting case being a completely repetitive system that only gives one result, ex: “Will this rock fall upwards or downwards when released?”), while with too many options it becomes difficult to “find” meaning because we lose the basis for distinguishing between different states (too much ‘gray’ area, when the whole point of these kinds of techniques is to exit with some kind of new direction or idea that is clearly distinguishable from other options).

Does all this mean that the meaning made is “really” meaningless? NO. This is the point that the mathy people don’t quite get, because they discount the OTHER processes (which they generally know next to nothing about) which are involved in meaning making. Such processes, which are VERY difficult to get a hold of (in my view because these processes involve more than what can be accounted for by manipulation of the physical world), are sacrificed on the alter of what can be held in the Mind of Reason.

It makes complete sense for humans to use stochastic systems as the basis for meaning-making, because they have just the right features to allow the meaning-making parts of ourselves to activate. Imagination, the capacity to think “what if…?”, and a heightened sensitivity to difference all accompany the emotional and mental ‘opening up’ that is a central aspect of any transformation.

The issue about this kind of thing usually rests in the term “really”. Is coincidence “really” meaningless, or “really” meaningful? In other words, the question is usually taken ontologically, rather than epistemologically (it’s much simpler to think ontologically, hence psychological “projection”, while contrastingly the process of individuation has strong epistemic roots).

However, in regards to the ontological aspect of coincidence, it is simply not possible to “objectively” gather, using conventional means, an “answer”. The stochastic nature of the physical processes means that no individual coincidence can be actually predicted. Given a particular well-defined system, the fact that a certain individual coincidence willeventually occur with a specific probability can be known, but NOT when that coincidence will occur. The whole thing is very ‘quantum’ in this respect; there is always some inherent “fuzziness” beyond which we cannot penetrate directly, forcing us to rely upon stochastic (and other) techniques. This is precisely where the human being can enter the picture (“other techniques”), helping fill the gap that is left by the math, calling forth from us aspects of ourselves that prime us for change. As long as we don’t rely upon the techniques as substitutes for what otherwise requires harder thinking, they have a place. It is just as much a mistake to reify the meaning of such a system as it is its meaninglessness, ontologically speaking. If I throw some bones and then say “This is God’s Word for me”, and then psychologically close down all other options, I’m probably missing something, but if I use it to enhance the subtlety of my own meaning-making process, taking the ‘signs’ as spurs for my own development in the wider context of all the other meaning-making processes at work, then things probably won’t get out of hand.

Now, just because I am dodging the ontological question here doesn’t mean there is no ontological basis for “meaningful coincidence”. I’m just stating that (in my opinion) the vast majority of human beings don’t have access to the necessary capacities that would make this ontology available to consciousness; not that it can’t be. But my sense is that for those few individuals for whom such a capacity is awakened, it is precisely the divinatory techniques that are first abandoned, because much more direct (spiritual) routes to meaning-making are then available. In Steiner’s terminology this would be a transformation from Imagination to Inspiration and Intuition.

Coincidences can be BOTH stochastically necessary AND meaningful, in the full senses of both those terms.

November 30, 2009
Musings on the rise of the intellect in ancient Greece

I’ve always been struck by the historical uniqueness of ancient Greece. The most amazing and radical transitions were experienced by the culture(s) present around the Aegean sea during only a few centuries. The most striking thing about the transformation was the rise of a thinking that started to take itself as its own object. We could call this thinking qua thinking, or thinking squared, exemplified overtly in Aristotle’s exploration of the stages of the self-reflection of thinking as the literal way to approach the divine.

It is astounding to me the diversity and amount of exploration of the realm of thought that occurred during ancient and particularly classical Greece; it was exemplified everywhere, from the organization of the polis to the architecture, sculpture, plays, games, economics, and of course within the philosophies that spanned enough of the potential field of human thinking that Alfred North Whitehead proclaimed the whole of European philosophy to consist of footnotes—not to the ancient Greeks as a whole—but even just to the single most outstanding Greek of them all: Plato.

Some complex confluence of events led to the possibility for human beings to take up a new, experimental and exploratory stance towards the human endeavor. The environment developed along with the changes in consciousness, which further changed the environment, until it became possible to support a veritable explosion of the intellect. Number, ratio, measure, clarity, precision… but above all the principle of form became paramount. The form of not only outer things like buildings and statues, but of inner things like the conduct of one’s life, morality, aesthetic sensibility, and the brotherly relations between citizens, were held up in the newly dawning type of consciousness that allowed these activities to be overtly reflected upon by the power of the intellect. Before, ideals had lived within people as a kind of semi-conscious drive, but in ancient Greece these ideals became the object of a newly freed capacity for thinking, which could then “hold” an ideal as an idea.

Unfortunately this kind of thinking had a certain kind of intrinsic… shall we say, gesture. It was not inclusive, but divisatory in nature. It excelled at distinction, dissection, difference, but was frankly pretty terrible at putting together, integrating, or seeing the whole. Indeed, one of the principle ‘measures’ of Greek life was the struggle, “agon”, from which we get our words “agony” and “antagonistic”. Excellence came about through the struggle, the contest, the pitting of one against another. The founding of the Olympics provided a typically outer form in which the demonstration of excellence could be had through direct competition. Elsewhere in Greek society, the repeated failures of Greek democracy were a testament to the problematic nature of this kind of thinking. The use of slaves and the subservient role of women (who were generally kept to a special upper room in the house) also demonstrate the consequences of the separatory gesture of thinking. Zeno’s brilliant but failed analysis of motion and time exemplify both this kind of thinking’s promise and simultaneous downfall.

The aftermath of the introduction of the Greek intellect is still being experienced today. The reduction of choice to binary options (yes/no, either/or) is a kind of habitual but false way of thinking that first showed its strength in ancient Greece, and which plagues humankind today. Multi-modal logics and the creation of quantum computers which utilize non-binary “qubits” demonstrate conclusively that binary logic is only one possible way of structuring thought. Cybernetics and the complexity sciences add an even more important layer of possibility by stressing the recursive nature of any complex system and the necessary inclusion of the observer in the observed. Let us hope that the lessons from these sometimes obscure realms are not lost on us!

November 27, 2009
Musings on Paleolithic Art and Consciousness

Paleolithic Art 1

I’m actually somewhat uncomfortable calling Paleolithic renderings “art” – not because they don’t meet some standard set of criterion, but because of the very nature of the ‘calling’ itself seems to go against the experience of the makers of the art. See, there again, an assumption: “the makers of the art”, which includes a dichotomy between the producer and the produced. Our modern language is so full of this type of construction that it is almost impossible to get away from, or to recognize its influence on the content and method of our thinking – which is particularly problematic (at least if unrecognized) when we attempt to consider something like the inner experience of the people in the cultures which produced the images on the rock walls so long ago.

Paleolithic Art 2

Van James, in his book Spirit and Art, paints a picture (in the consciousness of the reader) of the process by which the art was created, including its cultural context, indicating that it had to do with a shift from participatory consciousness to one that had the seeds of self-recognition, and thus self-abstraction, as an essential component. I find this interesting because many artists throughout history, including today, mention something about the way in which one gets lost in the process of creating. This experience of the space between “me” and “my art” asymptotically approaches zero, leaving the artist with an experience of creation without “A” creator. Only retrospectively may an artist whose creating occurs in this state attribute the work rationally to some specific time period, place, and personality; but this knowledge does not need to be held in consciousness during the actual process of creation itself, and (as many artists know) may actively interfere with what might otherwise be brought forth.

Paleolithic Art 3

So I wonder if this experience – or LACK of experience, as the case may be – which characterizes some part of the process of artistic creation even today, may be something that was the ‘cutting edge’ of consciousness in the Paleolithic period. Jean Gebser’s “magic structure” (cf. The Everpresent Origin) speaks of this in a way similar to that of Van James, indicating that the art of this period was indicative of human beings waking up to themselves. Before this stage, (Gebser’s “archaic”), it is not possible to really speak of art at all, of creations “of” humans, because the consciousness was in identity with the world. It is only by transitioning to a consciousness of “unity” that art even becomes possible, because in “unity” is already contained the indication of multiplicity, as multiplicity is required in order for unity to be brought about (otherwise one simply has identity). Thus Paleolithic art may exemplify this transition in consciousness from identity to unity, which gives expression to sensory and magical experience in a form that takes this experience even further, strengthening it recursively through the very act of its creation. The painting of animals, of human figures, and of stenciled human hands may serve as a ‘catch’ for consciousness, by which it can step outside its mode of identity (akin to dreamless sleep) and into a mode which recognizes the beginning of division between the human being and the world (akin to dreaming sleep).

Paleolithic Art hand

So perhaps the pictures of animals and such on the cave walls are not really pictures “of”, but are rather more like techniques for transforming consciousness. We moderns are taught to pay more attention to things rather than processes, so we tend to see the results of some activity as the most important ‘thing’ to consider, i.e. the art itself. But maybe this was not always the case; maybe Paleolithic art was ‘something’ primarily in its making, in the process of its unfolding (such as in Tibetan sand mandalas, or Native American healing mandalas), and not so much in its product, the image on the wall. But, recursively, the production of the images may lead one who views it but does not create it, into a different space of consciousness – a space which invites both a ‘connection to’ and a ‘disconnection from’ at the same time. Maybe the Paleolithic viewer of Paleolithic art was both put into connection with the cultural significance of the art in an experience of magical unity with the forces identified by the culture, while also being called to experience the art in a way that called forth something from within that necessitated a concurrent experience of the without. The very experience of one’s unity with the world perhaps awakened the first seeds of dis-unity, of separation between what would eventually be one’s “self” and “the world”.

November 23, 2009
Bifurcations, Chaos Theory, and Alchemy — oh, and YOUR LIVER

Bifurcations are “splits” in the way a system develops from one state to the next. Think of them as two roads diverging in a yellow wood; one leads to some unknown mystery. The other leads to MILKSHAKES (stay tuned).

My understanding is that bifurcations are always relative (did that paradox slip by you?); depending upon how you look at the system you my find quite ‘steady’ states, or at least steady states within limits (which are generally set by the way you look at the system). Take a different look from a different perspective and you might find bifurcations going on at a different level while some OTHER level maintains its steadiness. This is the whole “order is maintained through change” and “change is maintained by order” song and dance. (Not familiar? Welcome to CYBERNETICS.)

Usually bifurcations occur when energy from ‘outside’ is introduced into the system. Bifurcations don’t occur just because “time passes”, but that as time passes you typically get changes in the amount of energy available for a system. The usual channels by which order is maintained through lower-level change can no longer handle the energy in the same old way… leading to a bifurcation where multiple new possible states result (but quite notably, NOT the ‘old state’–at least as far as I’m aware… Input anyone? Anyone? Beuller?). But those new states are usually less stable and more sensitive to changes in energy or initial conditions; drive the energy up even a little more and you get bifurcations of the bifurcations… and so on. But then, WHAM! More and more and more chaos produces… not more chaos, but suddenly ORDER… a very FEW possible states that sort of ‘collapse’ all the previous activity into a limited set of possibilities. WEIRD. The upshot? Add energy/action/motivation/enthusiasm/motion to a system and things can get a lot more interesting… and FAST. You know this because you have some friend who always takes things one step too far at parties.

by Garrick Besterwitch

Now this does not describe all chaotic systems, at least as far as I am aware, but does give a good picture of how chaotic systems can evolve in general. Now a friend of mine was wondering (he’s not a normal guy; he’s WAY cooler, you can tell because his name is SNAKE) whether humanity as a whole is wasting a lot of time thinking about transforming when we should just take a cue from the caterpillar, who sets up a chrysalis and can just hang out, because transformation is just going to HAPPEN, without having to do anything to produce it. Despite the fact that this is something of a bastardization of his point, it serves my purpose here.

Now it would be nice if we could just sit back and watch humanity transform like a caterpillar into a beautiful soaring butt erfly… but more likely if we sat back to watch the show we’d end up with some kind of oozing slime-mold, or “Twilight“. Ummm, I could be wrong about the slime-mold thing, they are actually pretty awesome. The POINT is that a caterpillar changing into a butterfly takes a LOT of energy; it’s not a ‘quiet, relaxing period’… but one where the caterpillar more or less EATS ITSELF (“Ouroboros, table for two, I mean one?”). Have you ever tried to digest yourself? Well you do every day. Eat a big lunch and get the afternoon sleepies because your liver just got slammed with an order to break down a milkshake so it doesn’t end up in your blood, clogging your arteries. “Too much to do here!” says your liver to your consciousness. “You need to get outta here cause you are holding up my work.” Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

From your perspective you didn’t have to “do” anything to digest your lunch. But on a systemic level we are talking serious amounts of activity… it’s just that the activity is occurring on the basis of processes that are not readily available to your consciousness (even if you remained awake). The system as a whole is changing its state — bifurcating, if you will — because 720 calories of ice cream is a LOT of energy, which drives the system from its previous ‘steady’ state.

Now we can eat milkshakes for lunch (for the record, I have… okay DEFINITELY done this before) and have the systemic relationships activate which result in our loss of ability to influence the system effectively, or to even be aware of where it is headed… Or we can maybe snack on some almonds (or at least eat a reasonable meal–from your liver’s perspective; THINK OF YOUR LIVER!!!) and help steer the context towards one that can more robustly handle the higher-level situations (boss yelling at you, papers to write, world peace and such), which you can’t do very well when your consciousness gets kicked out by your much more powerful digestive processes.

There is some sort of dynamic harmony (not really BALANCE, which is too static) here; you need enough energy to keep the system from stagnation and ossification, but not too much energy that you drive it too fast, yielding bifurcations too quickly (cancer), which pushes the system into a new steady state by virtue of undesirable transformation (death).

As the Rosicrucians were fully aware, you can’t avoid death, BUT YOU CAN DIE BEFORE YOU DIE. By consciously approaching these processes (rather than them approaching you–too late!), they discovered that we could have ‘little deaths’ that allow us to experience the world in a more engaged and subtle and effectively wise way. This was a form of conscious suffering.

And these sorts of processes DID have some order. There were various stages, and it was VITALLY important not do to things out of order; this could ruin the whole work. Alchemists discovered quite a few different processes (every “stage” is really a process), but to boil it all down and oversimplify it you have something like this:

1) Undifferentiated unity (prima materia)
2) Differentiation into parts
3) Purification of parts
4) Integration of parts into a new unity (what I call a “differentiated unity”)

And all of THAT can be summed up in one nice Greek word (perhaps coined by Paracelsus): Spagyrics, from spao, to tear open, + ageiro, to collect.

So in terms of alchemical processes, the WHOLE THING can be understood as a big cycle of taking apart and putting together, with the purification of the parts implied by the fact that they can be put back together again. Thus, at the very least, this is the most important and significant ‘order’ to any alchemical process. All the other sub-processes are, shall we say, bifurcations of this large gesture into smaller and smaller sub-cycles.

Now if you want to get real alchemical about it, it might be worth pointing out that there were three basic ‘gestures’, which was another way to understand this process. They were called Salt, Sulfur, and Mercury.

The Salt corresponds to the taking apart, the Mercury to the purification, and the Sulfur to the re-integration. You’ll find these three processes ALL OVER alchemy, precisely because they represent the WHOLE WORK. These three physical substances exhibited properties–really qualitative transformations, which we usually call ‘processes’ because we like to think we are scientific–which embodied in the material realm the qualities that were found to describe essentially ANY transformation, and came to stand for the higher-level ‘gesture’ of a three-fold transformation of unity into unity.

Simple, huh?

November 12, 2009