one view of the self associates with the view of Bohm (and Mach, Nietzsche, Emerson) wherein the world is a transforming relational continuum (energy-charged plenum) which is the mother of all physically real things (relational forms in the flow). this is what Nietzsche calls the 'big sagacity view of the natural Self'.
the more popular Western/Newtonian view of self is what Nietzsche calls the 'little sagacity view of the ego-self'. The ego-self is the protagonist in a semantic pseudo-reality wherein relational entities such as 'humans', 'organisms' and 'states' (systems) are imagined as 'independently existing objects/organisms/systems that reside, operate and interact within a notional [abstractly idealized] operating habitat that is deemed 'independent' of the 'independent inhabitants' that reside, operate and interact within it [the familiar 'Newtonian', purely mechanical worldview which is made possible by imagining that the relational dynamics of our sense perceptions transpire inside an absolute space and absolute time reference frame]. The 'autonomy' that the 'ego' assumes it has, is that of an independent material system operating and interacting with other such systems within a notional absolute space and absolute time reference frame.
Nationalism is a collective 'little sagacity ego-self' and the nation state of Cuba (like the U.S., Russia etc.) DECLARE their own ego-self 'independence' and 'autonomy' in spite of the physical reality of sharing inclusion in a transforming relational continuum where they are more realistic seen as having the autonomy of sailboaters rather than powerboaters; i.e. they are more like Emerson and Nietzsche's 'big sagacity natural Self',"'vents' that transmit influence from the vast and universal [the energy-charged relational plenum they are situationally included in] to the point on which their genius can act".
the 'autonomy' of a sailboater who derives his power and direction from the relational dynamics he is situationally included in, differs the the 'autonomy' of the powerboater who claims to be an 'independently-existing, internal process driven and directed operating system', and further claims that the 'state' is also an 'independently-existing, internal process driven and directed operating suprasystem.
Of course, this ego-based mechanical worldview is nicely accommodated by the subject-verb-predicate constructs of noun-and-verb Indo-European/scientific language and grammar, so much so, that Benjamin Whorf claims that this language architecture 'came first' and is the source of the mechanistic powerboater view.
My earlier comment on the article being 'Darwinist' was trying to make this point, that as distasteful as it is to acknowledge the non-duality between the global relational suprasystem and the local cuban [or american etc.] system, it is the physical reality while all this powerboater 'autonomy' is abstract idealization born of the subject-verb-predicate constructs of noun-and-verb language-and-grammar.
In the physically real world of our actual experience, the relational suprasystem in which we are uniquely, situationally included, inductively actualizes, orchestrates and shapes, not only our behaviour [in the manner of a sailboater's behaviour in a storm] but our embryonic development and overall fetalization, as with storm-cell in flow.
it is very easy for habitual users of noun-and-verb language-and-grammar to get stuck inside the dualist illusion that comes from idealized depictions of subject and attribute constructs, of their own jumpstart authorship of what they are doing, particularly when they condition their own psyche's by making 'Declarations of Independence', which are absurdities that fly in the face of the physical reality of our actual experience. The 'autonomy' of the 'state' and the 'autonomy' of statist individual derives from the 'little sagacity ego-self' where one imagines that both individual ego-self and collective ego-self (state) are independently-existing systems with internal process driven and directed development (fetalization) and behaviour that operate and interact within a notional absolute space and absolute time operating theatre that is 'independent' of the 'independent inhabitants' residing, operating and interacting within it.
In the 'big sagacity, natural Self' worldview of Nietzsche, Emerson, Mach, Schroedinger, the individual derives from the energy-charged plenum [relational suprasystem] he is uniquely, situationally included in. This is the view of indigenous anarchists who see themselves as 'strands in the one web-of-life' and it is the view given by modern physics as interpreted by Bohm, Mach, Schroedinger and others. In this view, the 'temporary autonomous zone' is like the Euclidian reference frame, ... it is a convenient thinking tool that delivers 'economy of thought' [Mach] but hardly matches the physical reality of our actual experience wherein every material system is included in a relational suprasystem and ultimately in the transforming relational continuum. The 'meaning' of forms and actions given by subject-verb-predicate constructs is 'pragmatic idealization' in the form of 'semantic pseudo-realities' that is a radical departure from the physical reality of our actual experience; e.g. "Katrina is growing larger and stronger", ... "Katrina is moving towards the Gulf Coast", ... "Katrina is ravaging New Orleans", ... "Katrina is moving overland and dissipating", ... is semantic pseudo-reality that our experience-based intuition can see right through and call BULLSHIT. That is, it is our semantic model-building tools that equip us for observing relational transformation by reifying relational forms in the flow, DECLARING THEIR INDEPENDENT EXISTENCE [granting them fullblown 'autonomy' as if in an absolute space and absolute time operating habitat that is independent of the independent systems within it] and RE-CASTING the dynamics of relational transformation in terms of deterministic construction authored by independent humans and independent human collectives (states) and directed by the internal intelligence and purpose of these notionally 'independent', 'autonomous' powerboater systems.
As Emerson observes, the tool [of semantic pseudo-reality constructing] has 'run away with the workman'.
you say;
" [bey] specifies TAZ as mere abandonment of utopia for face-to-face, unmediated experience. Natural selves with the common purpose of survival in nature would have face-to-face experiences, too."
as has been mentioned by Sapir, Whorf, Nietzsche, Schroedinger, Bohm, noun-and-verb language-and-grammar is a tool for fabricating pragmatic idealizations and constructing semantic pseudo-realities' that are very 'convenient' to discourse in that they deliver great 'economy of thought' [Mach].
In particular, they allow us to speak of 'multiple instances of material entities' as in 'sets' or 'categories' and of dynamic interactions among these multiple category members.
i think that you will agree that this contradicts the modern physics notion of the universe as a transforming relational continuum. as Schroedinger points out, there can be no 'pluralities' in a relationally transforming energy-charged plenum.
in an indigenous anarchist 'talking circle', the understanding is that each of the participants is a strand in a mutually dependent common web-of-life. they see the world as in Bohm's terms as a 'field' (the energy-charged plenum) that is continually gathering within it relational features that are, in Emerson's terms, 'vents' that transmit influence from the vast and universal [nonlocal] to the [local] point on which their [nature's] genius can act.
When we sit in a circle face-to-face, were are all included in the common energy-charged plenum which is the mother of the relational features such as ourselves that are continually gathering and being regathered within it.
“Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves.” — David Bohm
the indigenous anarchist talking circle assumes that each individual is in a unique situational relationship with the common living space [the transforming relational continuum or 'field'] and that, therefore, there is no objective reality out there which is the same for all, as Western users of noun-and-verb language-and-grammar are constantly arguing about as if their view were the 'correct and true view', and then attempt to hammer out who understands what is really going on out there 'correctly', through reasoned debate. Since each of us experiences the world uniquely, there is no common reality out there, and the only way to hammer out whose view of what's going on is 'most true' is by the principle of Lafontaine; "La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure".
bey's remarks on 'face-to-face' group meetings fail to acknowledge the basics of the physical world of our experience; i.e. our inclusion in a transforming relational continuum, the (a) mode of understanding dynamics. The implication is that he accepts the reality of 'categories' wherein there is a multiplicity of 'autonomous human beings' as described by 'common properties' (two legs, two arms, head, face etc.) and he puts this (b) understanding of dynamics into an unnatural precedence over the (a) understanding [there are no category-based multiplicities in a transforming relational continuum].
the petitio principii or 'circular reasoning' in your/bey's remarks is as follows; i.e. bey's argument includes the assumption of (b) within it; i.e. the logical separation of man from nature. once this 'dualism' is built into the semantic psychology of the model, the well-being of the individual is seen as deriving fully and solely from his internal processes as a notional 'autonomous being'; i.e. from his intelligence and purpose. Darwinism and 'survival of the fittest' derive from this semantically built-in dualism, as does the view of the world in purely mechanical terms.
" [bey] specifies TAZ as mere abandonment of utopia for face-to-face, unmediated experience. Natural selves with the common purpose of survival in nature would have face-to-face experiences, too."
can fish with eyes on the sides of their heads have a face-to-face meeting? is there really a binary 'up' and 'down'? or is the tool of logic running away with the workman?
"“Purely mechanical phenomena do not exist. The production of mutual accelerations in masses is, to all appearances, a purely dynamical phenomenon. But with these dynamical results are always associated thermal, magnetic, electrical, and chemical phenomena, and the former are always modified in proportion as the latter are asserted. On the other hand, thermal, magnetic, electrical, and chemical conditions also can produce motions. Purely mechanical phenomena, accordingly, are abstractions, made, either intentionally or from necessity, for facilitating our comprehension of things”. … “We … should beware lest the intellectual machinery, employed in the representation of the world on the stage of thought, be regarded as the basis of the real world.” – Ernst Mach
Begging the question implies arguing to a conclusion that is stated in the premises. To assume something is not circular; its just a starting point, nothing more. You want everyone to adopt a different starting point; and I don't see how it makes an iota of difference. We are talking about Bey having a concept of the autonomous, and I am trying to say it doesn't necessarily fall within the categories you presuppose and force onto everything because they are not the concepts of the world. Its a narrative. The world is not known in itself; we know what we say about it and what conceptual nets work and which are unpleasing to our gods. Thats all. As I explained above, check out late medieval metaphysics for a quasi indigenous metaphysics that presupposes everything you think it cuts out by your narrative disjunction.
Face to face is a concept in anarchism that addresses unmediated experience. Ironically, it presupposes independent beings. It is meant to overcome alienation. Its common in the potlatch. Primitivists say its the bees knees. If you want to say this is not as independent as it seems, I wouldn't disagree. It certainly doesn't have to mean liberal individualism in the right wing sense.
the metaphysics that I think make sense are the ones specified by Kant, at least somewhat. The name ding-an-sich implies pure being in opposition to dynamic being. Dynamic being accounts for changing appearances, whereas the forms that activate matter are timeless in themselves, timeless and unchanging, like God, the Ding and Sich, par excellence. Given that these are the things in themselves, saying that they are not, is nothing more than saying that they are not. Saying that we do not observe them is nothing surprising because they are a priori. I can have your pantheism and eat my Pure Being concept just as well; i can have you pantheism and maintain my notion of transcendent beings.
the storm-cell in the flux is a dynamic form that is continually transforming. form and flow are a non-duality. language allows us to give the continually transforming form a name that is not continually changing; e.g. 'Katrina' imputes persisting being/identity suggestive of a Ding an sich.
You speak of 'dynamic being'. What is that? Does it exist in a Euclidian space, or are you speaking of an inhabitant-habitat non-duality as in relational features in a flow-field?
There is nothing 'timeless' about 'forms' in nature. the 'timelessness' in nature refers to the transforming relational continuum [the 'all', the holomovement] and not to 'forms'; i.e. you say;
"the forms that activate matter are timeless in themselves, timeless and unchanging, like God, the Ding and Sich, par excellence."
what are these "forms that activate matter". matter is included in 'field' as a non-duality. as Einstein observes;
"We cannot build physics on the basis of the matter-concept alone. But the division into matter and field is, after the recognition of the equivalence of mass and energy, something artificial and not clearly defined. Could we not reject the concept of matter and build a pure field physics? What impresses our senses as matter is really a great concentration of energy into a comparatively small space. We could regard matter as the regions in space where the field is extremely strong. In this way a new philosophical background could be created. ... A thrown stone is, from this point of view, a changing field, where the states of greatest field intensity travel through space with the velocity of the stone. There would be no place, in our new physics, for both field and matter, field being the only reality." — Einstein and Infeld, ‘The Evolution of Physics’
Because it is convenient to give a relational form that is continually transforming a name that doesn't keep changing, language has us impute Ding an sich 'being' to relational features in the transforming relational continuum.
your contrasting of 'Ding an sich' and 'dynamic being' fails to address 'dualism' and 'non-dualism'; i.e. the dynamic form of a storm-cell in the flow is where dynamic form and flow are a non-duality. what sort of space is this 'dynamic being' of yours included in? i.e. is it that your 'dynamic being' and its operating theatre are 'mutually exclusive' as in dualism?
dynamic beings are those aspects of beings that undergo changes over time, like the fur on a cat thickening, its losing its eyesight; what they are, their essences, their forms, say catness, in this instance, historically have been beyond the appearances and do not change. It is absurd to suppose that the whatness of a thing could change.
The only reason Im defending this position is to produce another narrative that undermines your claim to truth. Whether or not it is false depends, in the end, on whether the position has use. It is useful in language games to find terms that fix the identity of what is being discussed.
there is linguistic reality and non-linguistic reality; truth is a product of both, with the weight being placed on non-linguistic reality, if you're a realist and on linguistic reality if you are an antirealist. The propositions of realism were misplaced because it was once supposed that God functioned as the Mind of the Universe and that truth was a matter of discerning God;s truths. The fact that a truth is true independent of human minds then makes sense; that something is true already an event say is another way of saying that it doesn't depend on this or that mind to describe it; it is awaiting description; its up to us to get it right.
Don't forget that reality isn't linguistically constituted!
You ask;
Why is it that TAZ and PAZ start in (b) type zones, or, what comes to the same, in powerboat right wing individualist frameworks, and not in sailboat relational continuity? That seems like an assertion without evidence...
Answer:
Hakim Bey DEFINES the TAZ and PAZ dynamic in powerboater terms; i.e. in the second of two ways of perceiving 'dynamics'; [(a) continuing-in-the-now relational transformation and, (b) the dynamics of independent material objects/organisms/systems in an absolute space and absolute time operating theatre].
An indigenous anarchist, for example, would define an anarchist group in (a) terms; i.e. in the manner of an ecosystem wherein a collection of very different and truly anarchistic participants get into a mutual support mode; i.e. like bear, fish, forest etc. Ecosystem participants are truly ‘anarchistic’ and this is not to say that the same sort of ecosystemic mutual support cannot happen WITHIN an anarchistic human collective. The important point is that this mutual support does NOT derive from ‘common purpose’. The participants in an ecosystemic type of mutual support dynamic get into a resonant relationship on the basis of Mach’s principle, by helping to condition the relational matrix they are included in so that it delivers nurturance to the participants on a sustained basis;
“The dynamics of the inhabitants (ecosystem participants) are conditioning the dynamics of the habitat (ecosystem) as the same time as the dynamics of the habitat are conditioning the dynamics of the inhabitants” – Mach’s principle
Most of us come from families whose dynamics are ecosystemic like natural ‘food nets’; i.e. the mother and girls (N.B. ... ok, this gender specialization is blurring in our evolving society but my example is traditional) keeps cookie jars, cooked food larders and clean clothes storage cyclically replenished, the males go on the hunt and keep the raw food coming in for cooking cyclically replenished and so on, in a reciprocally complementary dynamic that is a kind of extension of the full natural ecosystem they are included in. What sustains this resonant ecosystemic dynamic is NOT ‘common purpose’, but co-cultivated resonances as arise in a mutual-support-net dynamic that is NOT INTENTION-DRIVEN, but situationally-induced.
N.B. 'intention-driven organization' is not found in nature; i.e. it is the artefact of logical abstraction which follows from questions like: 'what organizes people who conceive of themselves as independent beings with internal process driven and directed behaviours?' Answer: 'common purpose'
When we find ourselves in challenging situations, what is missing, in such situtations, ... inductively actualizes the blossoming of creative potentials within and across the group and people ‘rise to the occasion’ [as ecosystem participants, we are the wind that fills our sails; i.e. relational dynamics are circular]. Ecosystems are nonlinear dynamics, they are not ‘the sum of the parts’ as in the ‘mechanical sum-of-the-parts’ organization of autonomous powerboaters.
Hakim Bey's TAZs and PAZs are 'common purpose' based and it is only those [notional independent beings] with 'powerboater autonomy' that participate in 'common purpose' oriented organizing. An example he gives is 'collectors of glass insulators'. My point is that when Hakim Bey is talking about TAZ and PAZ, he is talking about ‘organization’ in an abstract logical fashion out of the context of the physical reality of our actual experience. He says, for example;
Permanent TAZs by Hakim Bey
.
TAZ-theory tries to concern itself with existing or emerging situations rather than with pure utopianism. All over the world people are leaving or "disappearing" themselves from the Grid of Alienation and seeking ways to restore human contact. An interesting example of this-on the level of "urban folk culture"-can be found in the proliferation of hobby networks and conferences. Recently I discovered the zines of two such groups, Crown Jewels of the High Wire (devoted to the collection of glass electrical insulators) and a journal on cucurbitology (The Gourd). A vast amount of creativity goes into these obsessions. The various periodic gatherings of fellow-maniacs amount to genuine face-to-face (unmediated) festivals of eccentricity. It's not just the "counter-culture" which seeks its TAZs, its nomad encampments and nights of liberation from the Consensus. Self-organized and autonomous groups are springing up amongst every "class" and "sub-culture". Vast tracts of the Babylonian Empire are now virtually empty, populated only by the spooks of MassMedia, and a few psychotic policemen.
.
TAZ-theory realizes that THIS IS HAPPENING- we're not talking about "should" or "will be"-we're talking about an already-existing movement.
This is not a 'movement' in any physical sense, it is intellectual abstraction.
i.e. our experience informs us that the PHYSICAL Babylonian Empire is still alive and well. It is still full of people getting fed and laid and forming TAZs as ‘hobbies’ which means that ‘getting fed and laid’ is still the physically real organizational dynamic even though Hakim Bey is ignoring it in his presentation of modern forms of organization. i.e. Hakim Bey is lost in abstractionville. He has forgotten to include his anarchists IN NATURE.
tl;dr: ... Hakim Bey's exemplars of TAZs and PAZs are of groups of 'eccentrics' that are drawn to self-organize on the basis of common purpose [e.g. people with a passion for collecting glass insulators, or for fomenting revolutions etc.] These are people who see dynamics in (b) terms and are animated by an intellectual desire to achieve something.
In the (a) view of dynamics, as in the case of indigenous anarchists, the participants contribute, in their own diverse multiplicity of ways, to the nurturance of a common living space or common [mutually dependent] relational matrix that they all share inclusion in and all draw nurturance from.
The common living space includes many influences/contributions from all manner of participants and not just humans; i.e. in the case of indigenous anarchists, "All my relations" includes the ‘stone people’, the ‘rooted ones’, the ‘creepy-crawlers’, the swimmers, the feathered ones, the four-legged and the two-legged’. It is the sustaining of balances and resonances within the relational common living space that inductively actualizes and orchestrates the actions of the included participants. There is no way to 'manage this' on the basis of imparting 'common purpose' to the participants and launching an intention-driven, goals and objectives pursuing initiative. 'Ecosystem participants' are afforded only 'sailboater autonomy' since their power and direction derives from the unfolding-in-the-now relational dynamics they are uniquely, situationally included in.
Hakim Bey's TAZs and PAZs are logical models based on notional 'independent beings' with powerboater autonomy that are unified by 'common purpose' as in 'hobbies' such as 'the collection of glass insulators'. In so far as they return, after their hobby-time, to their cutthroat capitalist day jobs and family situations where they get fed and laid, these groups are 'not real' but are instead 'made-up' 'categories'. [logical organizational categories that do not incorporate the dynamics of getting fed and laid are inherently subjective and incomplete and fail to capture the physical reality of our actual experience.]
Part of the deception here, and there is clearly a deception in this TAZ and PAZ business, ... involves the question of 'categories of organization' and how they influence the psychology of our psycho-physical worldview. The deception bundled into the concept of ‘category’ is described here (where the moderators relocated it to).
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