Transcending the Processed for the Whole

Mathematics is a distillation of natural forms and movements.  It’s a result of “processing” events and things for aspects of their essential qualities. And the process of distillation continues upon the products of previous iterations, ad infinitum. Like any distilled product, it can lead to a lopsided perception. Like anything processed, it is short of certain key nutrients.  Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean mathematics doesn’t have its valuable uses.  Just ask any architect, builder, baker, or weaver.

Science and technology rely upon math and so they inherit its qualities. They, too, represent focused perceptions and slices of  reality, rather than whole and complete viewpoints.

Pharmaceuticals are processed products and distillations.  Industrial chemical agents, likewise.  Money itself is a processed product, a distillation of the energy exchanged during transactions between persons.  Academic study, computer systems, TV, movies, advertisements, journalism, all of these are exercises in processing and distilling events and perceptions into a “bite-sized” presentation for general consumption.

As I think may be clear to the reader at this point, I’m attempting to illustrate a particular phenomenon in our society that has become habitual and insidious: the analytical framing of reality for partitioned and limited purpose.

Because this necessarily temporary (and risky) reduction of world systems can serve self-interested purpose and basically because it can lead to alarming wealth and power (e.g. Collateralized Debt Obligations), it has become the recipient of immeasurably concentrated attention and energy from innumerable individuals.  The effort gets institutionalized to serve such interests. Thereby it is encoded into the social framework like a computer program, perhaps more appropriately, like a virus. Its value and purpose seem thereby beyond reproach and question, having become the very air that modern industrialized civilization breathes in order to perpetuate the known and avoid exposure to the unknown.

The example of this malady that stands forth most obviously to me, is the reduction of previously holistic healthcare systems (especially Chinese and Ayurvedic Medicine) into stifling analytical compartments.  For one thing, this behavioral tendency produces chemical drugs instead of whole herbs.  Drugs are synthesized to mirror the geometry of the perceived “active ingredient” of the original herb, but lacking both the correct chirality as well as the natural chemical matrix within which the herb’s activity was regulated and tailored to the whole entity. There is also the issue of chi, or life-energy, or vital energy, which is inherent to natural herbs but is missing from synthesized ones.  Surgery usually ignores the whole person focusing on the mechanism of the person, producing (like pharmaceuticals) unwanted side-effects and frequently failing to address, perhaps even willfully failing to address, underlying pertinent chronic problems of the mind, body, and spirituality of the individual.  Physicians are trained to despise and revile holism as a form of witchcraft.  The truth is, what greater superstition exists than that of modern medicine’s habit of dismissing practices that had been proven over the ages to actually help people? This is truly a deadly deception.

The acculturated tradition that I’m describing here of unnatural focus on the part versus the whole is an illness of the mind stemming from an impoverishment of the soul. Souls in the world are handed a manual (in the form of social indoctrination) as they enter the life stream. This information is conveyed, crammed through a mental funnel, even while the newly launched individual is desperately trying to catch their breath and grasp what has just occurred to them and why they suddenly find themselves emerging under difficult circumstances into this strange place full of appearances, shadows and dazzling lights.  The manual is generally all that’s given (call it “Mankind’s Common Manual”).  The manual is not written down, there’s little chance of finding the accountable party for any lies or half-truths it might contain, or for any way in which it might mislead the evil- or well-intentioned person.  Anyone can amend it at any time as serves their individual interests and its difficult to hold them accountable to their particular modification since the manual has no visible author or authority.  There’s no address, no print-shop, no publisher, no library, no bookstore where this book of life resides.  This manual precedes all legal and other conventional, “encoded” doctrine, and in fact it drives such doctrine and permits the manipulation of their voids in logic to one’s own ends, whether good, bad or indifferent.

Nevertheless, we are given its contents and informed of the pain that descends upon those who violate them.  Of course, every rule within the book seems to have this one unspoken proviso: “Each rule herein is optional. But such option may only be exercised secretly and not publicly. If exercised publicly, you must pay the going price for violation, which varies from age to age and culture to culture.”

Some examples of some of these whispered laws in the unwritten book are as follows.  “You must maintain the appearance of humility, as best you can, while believing fervently that you are unique and superior to all others.”  “Wealth is inherently good, while poverty, and those who are poor, are inferior.”  “Life in the physical body is all there is, even though many talk of other things, there is no proof and you must flourish and foster the glory of your physical existence.  Religion can be used as an aid, a justification, even a path to doing so.”  “You are free to do as you will to augment your own pleasures, even at the expense and harm of others, so long as you can keep it hidden.”  “What the majority says is almost never true, but it is best to give it lip service.  You are free to pursue your own objectives privately.”  “Those who win are superior to those who lose.”  And so on.

What’s not mentioned in this invisible Guide, is that there is yet another book of rules, another manual, which contains the rules that are mandatory and which must be followed.  This is the Book of Nature.  There are no exceptions to its law, even though the degree of grace demonstrated is, at times, astounding.  Of course, Nature’s laws are vast and unfold sometimes over great stretches of time or seemingly in isolated cases.  But to the wise, it is recognized these rules are all-powerful and ubiquitous and none may escape them.

What creates the illusion that the lesser manual of mankind may supersede Nature’s greater one is the effort mentioned at the start of this article, the practice and faith of conceptually isolating portions of reality to serve “off-the-books” interests. By dividing up and disecting the world, partitioning it into properties and componants, into chemicals, commodities, consumables, etc., and by doing this on a grand scale, a kind of hamster’s wheel of self-fulfilling illusion is maintained.  But Nature’s book overtakes this delusion in time, sometimes dramatically in the moment, but always it overcomes these falsehoods and restores order and its original purpose. This happens in what we call illness, natural disaster, “Black Swan” events, or less stridently, in the way water flows through the landscape, in the movement of the sun and moon, in the rising and falling of tides, and of fortunes.  But it also happens in every moment as we breathe and think, as we eat or converse with others.  If one is paying attention, every moment is saturated with purpose and meaning, with the unfolding of a much greater reality than we are taught.

This greater reality is not merely arbitrary.  It’s often considered to be such because  its principles are either undesirable or unknown (remember, they aren’t covered in Mankind’s Common Manual).  They have been described in the vast laws of karma, and dharma.  They have been articulated by Jesus in the simple statement, “As you sew, so shall you reap.”  Socrates gave them form when he explained to his pupils that the laws of life are not learned but remembered, for they are written in one’s own soul. Shakespeare, in describing the laws of love and desire which direct the course of all people, gave lucid form to the powers that ever thwart the arrogant mind and demand a greater truth be lived (such was the yearning that drove Hamlet, though none could help him transcend his struggle). Love can alter the course of civilization.  The wise tell us that love does truly, actually, “steer the stars.”  In other words, there are laws at work which are firm and binding and which cannot be violated, contrary to the warped views perpetuated by the book of approximations and vacuous fictions issued to the unwitting newborn and child.

Like any analysis, this article is intended to help expose errors in thought (perhaps only those of the author!).  The particular problems described here stem from the diminishment in civilization of the place of reason, wisdom, and transcendent insight.  How precious these things are, yet how so many now starve for their boundless nourishment and sustainance.

Stephen Wolfram, in a fascinating talk he gave recently (Computation and the Future of the Human Condition), has a way of articulating why these strangely addictive reductive systematizations our civilization has been absorbed with lately just don’t end up being able to describe reality. To understand his discussion, you need to understand what’s meant by “computation,” or “computability.” It just means, what steps does it take to produce a given product or goal.  A “step” in a process is, really, just a “computation.” Speaking of a step this way is intended to invoke a process that could be so systematized as to be done by a computer.

“…it doesn’t take us and our civilization, with all its sophistication, to make something that’s computationally sophisticated.

It takes only a very simple system—of a kind that we can expect shows up all over nature.

OK. Well, what does this mean?

It has pretty big implications for science.

The exact sciences that have grown up since Galileo’s time have always prided themselves on being able to make predictions.

But how does that really work?

Well, to make a prediction, we have to be able to somehow out-compute the system that we’re trying to predict.

Well, for systems like idealized planets orbiting a star, that’s always been possible.

We don’t have to trace every point in each orbit; we can just have a little computation that jumps immediately to the answer.

In effect, we can computationally reduce the behavior of the system.

But will that always be possible?

The Principle of Computational Equivalence implies that it won’t.

And in fact it implies that even among very simple programs in the computational universe, it’s common to find computational irreducibility.

The exact sciences have always avoided systems that work like this.

But they’re all over the place.

We’ve always implicitly assumed for our science that we as observers or predictors of systems are much more computationally sophisticated than the systems we’re observing or predicting.

But the Principle of Computational Equivalence says that this isn’t true.

And that instead we are just equivalent to the systems.

So that we can never expect to outrun them.

And to find out what they do we have no choice but to simulate each step in their behavior, or in effect just to watch how the behavior unfolds.”

Let me try and put this in other, more holistic terms.  This may be antithetical in some ways to Mr. Wolfram’s intent, but I believe these ideas are inherent to his observations and apply to the discussion in this article.

He’s saying that human beings are not able to predict much of what occurs in nature because the steps required to produce it are unpredictable.  They occur one after the other and each subsequent step requires exactly its predicesor — there are not shortcuts.  In other words, natures system is in at least some cases perfectly efficient (nothing extra, no shortcuts to get a given end) and designed according to laws that cannot be anticipated in a formula or theorem, but are the product only of the steps that are taken to produce them.

Another way to discuss this is that nature is whole and functions holistically. There is an interdependence and a harmonic totality about its behavior, its ends, its means, its source. To understand it, we have to be the same. We cannot hope to understand nature by waiting for it to unfold (because it is never-ending), and we cannot hope for complete understanding through analysis (because its processes are often, if not always, “computationally irreducible”). Analysis implies reductionism to a machine.  Nature doesn’t work this way.

Ultimately, nature is a mirror reflecting our own inner being. This is the prize, the gift, the blessing of life. Nature, all around and within us, teaches us ultimately to better understand who one is one’s self. That’s the grace and the joy of living. And this is why no system, no reduction of “natural processes” can satisfy or satisfactorily explain nature and one’s own existence. Were this allowed, then life would be a big machine and no purpose would exist.  There would be no operator, no consciousness, no being.

*

Nature smiles at us from within the rainbow. Life and soul leap from the water with the fish, run through the tall grass with the deer. Our laughter teaches us more than any philosophical dissertation could ever hope to teach.  The soul of one loves to laugh. Laughter, free and pure, is the soul, the deepest self, living freely through the present moment.

The noise of the machine, the habit to reduce and analyze, is simply a kind of illness, a cynicism of the immature soul living too long in the caves of ego and isolation from the creative fires inside one’s own heart. It makes sense that all would want to minimize the seemingly random forces of pain and sorrow and anticipate such things so as to protect one’s self from that pain. But this comes from fear of life rather than embracing it. It’s completely understandable. But life demands a greater view and that the individual continually transcend the “understandings” of the previous moment with new insights. The “Hero’s Journey,” as described by Joseph Campbell, is very demanding.  The childish toys of computation and analysis will never do. Only facing the Bear straight-on and commanding him will get one through the golden door to the Great Life promised by all heroes.

To help illustrate this principle, here’s a section from the Kalevala.  Otso is the sacred Bear, the un-namable spirit.

CAME the tidings to Pohyola,
To the village of the Northland,
That [the Land of] Wainola had recovered
From her troubles and misfortunes,
From her sicknesses and sorrows.

Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Toothless dame of Sariola,
Envy-laden, spake these measures:
“Know I other means of trouble,
I have many more resources;
I will drive the bear before me,
From the heather and the mountain,
Drive him from the fen and forest,
Drive great Otso from the glen-wood
On the cattle of Wainola,
On the flocks of Kalevala.”

Thereupon the Northland hostess
Drove the hungry bear of Pohya
From his cavern to the meadows,
To Wainola’s plains and pastures.

Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
To his brother spake as follows:
“O thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Forge a spear from magic metals,
Forge a lancet triple-pointed,
Forge the handle out of copper,
That I may destroy great Otso,
Slay the mighty bear of Northland,
That he may not eat my horses,
Nor destroy my herds of cattle,
Nor the flocks upon my pastures.”

Thereupon the skillful blacksmith
Forged a spear from magic metals,
Forged a lancet triple-pointed,
Not the longest, nor the shortest,
Forged the spear in wondrous beauty.
On one side a bear was sitting,
Sat a wolf upon the other,
On the blade an elk lay sleeping,
On the shaft a colt was running,
Near the hilt a roebuck bounding.

Snows had fallen from the heavens,
Made the flocks as white as ermine
Or the hare, in days of winter,
And the minstrel sang these measures:
“My desire impels me onward
To the Metsola-dominions,
To the homes of forest-maidens,
To the courts of the white virgins;
I will hasten to the forest,
Labor with the woodland-forces.

“Ruler of the Tapio-forests,
Make of me a conquering hero,
Help me clear these boundless woodlands.
O Mielikki, forest-hostess,
Tapio’s wife, thou fair Tellervo,
Call thy dogs and well enchain them,
Set in readiness thy hunters,
Let them wait within their kennels.

“Otso, thou O Forest-apple,
Bear of honey-paws and fur-robes,
Learn that Wainamoinen follows,
That the singer comes to meet thee;
Hide thy claws within thy mittens,
Let thy teeth remain in darkness,
That they may not harm the minstrel,
May be powerless in battle.
Mighty Otso, much beloved,
Honey-eater of the mountains,
Settle on the rocks in slumber,
On the turf and in thy caverns;
Let the aspen wave above thee,
Let the merry birch-tree rustle
O’er thy head for thy protection.
Rest in peace, thou much-loved Otso,
Turn about within thy thickets,
Like the partridge at her brooding,
In the spring-time like the wild-goose.”

When the ancient Wainamoinen
Heard his dog bark in the forest,
Heard his hunter’s call and echo,
He addressed the words that follow:
“Thought it was the cuckoo calling,
Thought the pretty bird was singing;
It was not the sacred cuckoo,
Not the liquid notes of songsters,
‘Twas my dog that called and murmured,
‘Twas the echo of my hunter
At the cavern-doors of Otso,
On the border of the woodlands.”

Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Finds the mighty bear in waiting,
Lifts in joy the golden covers,
Well inspects his shining fur-robes;
Lifts his honey-paws in wonder,
Then addresses his Creator:
“Be thou praised, O mighty Ukko,
As thou givest me great Otso,
Givest me the Forest-apple,
Thanks be paid to thee unending.”
To the bear he spake these measures:
“Otso, thou my well beloved,
Honey-eater of the woodlands,
Let not anger swell thy bosom;
I have not the force to slay thee,
Willingly thy life thou givest
As a sacrifice to Northland.
Thou hast from the tree descended,
Glided from the aspen branches,
Slippery the trunks in autumn,
In the fog-days, smooth the branches.
Golden friend of fen and forest,
In thy fur-robes rich and beauteous,
Pride of woodlands, famous Light-foot,
Leave thy cold and cheerless dwelling,
Leave thy home within the alders,
Leave thy couch among the willows,
Hasten in thy purple stockings,
Hasten from thy walks restricted,
Come among the haunts of heroes,
Join thy friends in Kalevala.
We shall never treat thee evil,
Thou shalt dwell in peace and plenty,
Thou shalt feed on milk and honey,
Honey is the food of strangers.
Haste away from this thy covert,
From the couch of the unworthy,
To a couch beneath the rafters
Of Wainola’s ancient dwellings.
Haste thee onward o’er the snow-plain,
As a leaflet in the autumn;
Skip beneath these birchen branches,
As a squirrel in the summer,
As a cuckoo in the spring-time.”

Wainamoinen, the magician,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
O’er the snow-fields hastened homeward,
Singing o’er the hills and mountains,
With his guest, the ancient Otso,
With his friend, the, famous Light-foot,
With the Honey-paw of Northland.

Far away was heard the singing,
Heard the playing of the hunter,
Heard the songs of Wainamoinen;
All the people heard and wondered,
Men and maidens, young and aged,
From their cabins spake as follows:
“Hear the echoes from the woodlands,
Hear the bugle from the forest,
Hear the flute-notes of the songsters,
Hear the pipes of forest-maidens!”

Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Soon appears within the court-yard.
Rush the people from their cabins,
And the heroes ask these questions:
“Has a mine of gold been opened,
Hast thou found a vein of silver,
Precious jewels in thy pathway?
Does the forest yield her treasures,
Give to thee the Honey-eater?
Does the hostess of the woodlands,
Give to thee the lynx and adder,
Since thou comest home rejoicing,
Playing, singing, on thy snow-shoes?”

Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Gave this answer to his people:
“For his songs I caught the adder,
Caught the serpent for his wisdom;
Therefore do I come rejoicing,
Singing, playing, on my snow-shoes.
Not the mountain lynx, nor serpent,
Comes, however, to our dwellings;
The Illustrious is coming,
Pride and beauty of the forest,
‘Tis the Master comes among us,
Covered with his friendly fur-robe.
Welcome, Otso, welcome, Light-foot,
Welcome, Loved-one from the glenwood!
If the mountain guest is welcome,
Open wide the gates of entry;
If the bear is thought unworthy,
Bar the doors against the stranger.”
This the answer of the tribe-folk:
“We salute thee, mighty Otso,
Honey-paw, we bid thee welcome,
Welcome to our courts and cabins,
Welcome, Light-foot, to our tables
Decorated for thy coming!
We have wished for thee for ages,
Waiting since the days of childhood,
For the notes of Tapio’s bugle,
For the singing of the wood-nymphs,
For the coming of dear Otso,
For the forest gold and silver,
Waiting for the year of plenty,
Longing for it as for summer,
As the shoe waits for the snow-fields,
As the sledge for beaten highways,
As the, maiden for her suitor,
And the wife her husband’s coming;
Sat at evening by the windows,
At the gates have, sat at morning,
Sat for ages at the portals,
Near the granaries in winter, Vanished,
Till the snow-fields warmed and
Till the sails unfurled in joyance,
Till the earth grew green and blossomed,
Thinking all the while as follows:
“Where is our beloved Otso,
Why delays our forest-treasure?
Has he gone to distant Ehstland,
To the upper glens of Suomi?”
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
“Whither shall I lead the stranger,
Whither take the golden Light-foot?
Shall I lead him to the garner,
To the house of straw conduct him?”
This the answer of his tribe-folk:
“To the dining-hall lead Otso,
Greatest hero of the Northland.
Famous Light-foot, Forest-apple,
Pride and glory of the woodlands,
Have no fear before these maidens,
Fear not curly-headed virgins,
Clad in silver-tinselled raiment
Maidens hasten to their chambers
When dear Otso joins their number,
When the hero comes among them.”
This the prayer of Wainamoinen:
“Grant, O Ukko, peace and plenty
Underneath these painted rafters,
In this ornamented dweling;
Thanks be paid to gracious Ukko!”
Spake again the ancient minstrel:
“Whither shall we lead dear Otso,
‘Whither take the fur-clad stranger?
This the answer of his people:
“Hither let the fur-robed Light-foot
Be saluted on his coming;
Let the Honey-paw be welcomed
To the hearth-stone of the penthouse,
Welcomed to the boiling caldrons,
That we may admire his fur-robe,
May behold his cloak with joyance.
Have no care, thou much-loved Otso,
Let not anger swell thy bosom
As thy coat we view with pleasure;
We thy fur shall never injure,
Shall not make it into garments
To protect unworthy people.”

Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
Pulled the sacred robe from Otso,
Spread it in the open court-yard,
Cut the, members into fragments,
Laid them in the heating caldrons,
In the copper-bottomed vessels-
O’er the fire the crane was hanging,
On the crane were hooks of copper,
On the hooks the broiling-vessels
Filled with bear-steak for the feasting,
Seasoned with the salt of Dwina,
From the Saxon-land imported,
From the distant Dwina-waters,
From the salt-sea brought in shallops.

Ready is the feast of Otso;
From the fire are swung the kettles
On the crane of polished iron;
In the centers of the tables
Is the bear displayed in dishes,
Golden dishes, decorated;
Of the fir-tree and the linden
Were the tables newly fashioned;
Drinking cups were forged from copper,
Knives of gold and spoons of silver;
Filled the vessels to their borders
With the choicest bits of Light-foot,
Fragments of the Forest-apple.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen
“Ancient one with bosom golden,
Potent voice in Tapio’s councils
Metsola’s most lovely hostess,
Hostess of the glen and forest,
Hero-son of Tapiola,
Stalwart youth in cap of scarlet,
Tapio’s most beauteous virgin,
Fair Tellervo of the woodlands,
Metsola with all her people,
Come, and welcome, to the feasting,
To the marriage-feast of Otso!
All sufficient, the provisions,
Food to eat and drink abundant,
Plenty for the hosts assembled,
Plenty more to give the village.”
This the question of the people:
“Tell us of the birth of Otso!
Was be born within a manger,
Was he nurtured in the bath-room
Was his origin ignoble?”
This is Wainamoinen’s answer:
“Otso was not born a beggar,
Was not born among the rushes,
Was not cradled in a manger;
Honey-paw was born in ether,
In the regions of the Moon-land,
On the shoulders of Otava,
With the daughters of creation…”

The Bear, Otso, isn’t the physical bear and the people aren’t eating bear meat (although certainly that was done). The story is an effort to get past the analytical mind into the myth-soul, if you will, using the language of the transcendent. The hero has recovered his own personal power (Otso), his spirit, his creative force within himself (against the obstacles of his ego-mind (Louhi) and its fear and selfishness) and he brings thereby sustenance, nourishment, and safety to the hordes within himself, all the various divergent thoughts, thought-streams, dissociated past memories, wants, needs of his past and present.  All his fractured self is now whole as it dines on the True Power.  This is the meaning of the story and what nature tries to help us secure for ourselves by encouraging us to go beyond the analytical mind, the partitioning and selfish mind, into a greater domain of wholeness, courage and self-discovery.