Thursday, July 08, 2004

Good Sense and the Meaning of Life

GOOD SENSE AND THE MEANING OF LIFE
© 2004 by Piankhy Thompson (aka Horus, aka, Kevin Thompson)

THE MEANING OF LIFE

Whether or not we choose to accept it, we are all Philosophers and have some working hypothesis regarding the Meaning of Life that, however unconsciously, guides our actions. To regard Life as "meaningless" is as much a philosophical and even religious position as any other on the subject. To say that the question is unimportant is to make a value judgment that is guided by some conception of Truth, importance, reality, and meaning. Perhaps we avoid going into the matter because of the dread that our working answers to such questions of ultimate meaning are not substantial or sturdy enough to withstand much scrutiny and that the real Truth about the matter (which we all think we "know" at some level) is unbearable. And perhaps some eschew or abandon conscious inquiry because an intuitive despair of finding an answer that would make any difference or do any good. But, as we will see, Integral Science, involves a theory as to this question of the Meaning of Life that is not only intuitively, emotionally, and empirically obvious, but surprisingly has much potential for making a difference and doing some good.

"When the shoes fit, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. The essence of this observation by the Taoist sage Chang Tzu, when translated into the cognitive idiom of the West, is the concept of "Wholesthesia" or the relative silence of health. As with the shoes and the belt, so with a well "fitting" or functioning organ, muscle, or cell in a living human being. The conscious awareness or sensation of any such parts of ourselves is usually (though not always) a sign of some relative problem or malfunction in that area. All of this is a fact or every day experience.

Why not call this state of affairs "Homeostasis" as modern medicine does, and drop the neologism? Because the concept of "Wholesthesia" points up, in its logical implications, profound and until now, collectively unconscious truths that the other terminology obscures. The word "wholesthesia", which has the etymological meaning of "complete" ("holos") sense perception ("aesthetikos") reveals, like some proof of socio-psychoanalysis, the Freudian –or perhaps I should say "Jungian"—slip of our collective unconscious involved in the currency and use of word "anesthesia". This word has the etymological meaning of "without" ("an") "sense perception" and relates to what might be called the "relative silence of sickness." This is because the lack of feedback involved is, far from being a sign of health, usually a suppression of information to the contrary.

What can we make of these concepts and how can we relate these two phenomena? Well, in modern medicine there is the recognized (though of course dreaded) progression of local anesthesia to general anesthesia and possibly leading to coma and even to death as numbness and the chemicals inducing it, is made or mistakenly allowed to effect progressively deeper levels of the organism. This, of course, is a dynamic of disintegration.

It is possible though, through recourse to the "opposing" concept of Wholesthesia, to map out a dynamic or process of integration in the opposite direction through a kind of inverse analogy:

The phrase "Local Wholesthesia," to begin this analogy, is meant to describe the relative silence of health, as it exists in all of us, as described above, in those local and relatively circumscribable areas of our bodies of which we are relatively unconscious. A relatively healthy liver, for example.

From local wholesthesia we can infer the possibility of "General Wholesthesia". This refers to a general state of physical "Lightness" and effortless functioning that begins to involve the whole of the physical organism in a more inclusive way. To be sure, the experience of this rare state in comparison to a previous one of less than healthy functioning will be very noticeable at first. However this awareness and appreciation is up held more by memory and imagination, and by its alterations with local Wholesthesia, than by any essentially "positive" quality of the state of being itself, and my be expected to pass after a given time.

Just as the application of General Anesthesia can go awry, so that the patient in an operation slips into coma or "sleep", so can the state of General Wholesthesia, as it penetrates more deeply into the nervous system, lead to what may be called "Phenomenesthesia" or "Awakening." I infer this state to be sense of the totality of phenomena from a center, which has ceased to be the relatively unconscious one of the ego-body and to have become the relatively conscious one of the Soul-Body. I write Soul-"Body", in order to suggest that, to the same extent that the true personality or soul of the individual is now awakened, transcending and changing the nature of the ego, so too has his or her physical body been transcended and changed in nature. As the ego is to Soul and Soul is to Self so the body, is to "Body" and Body is to Nature. And the reverse is true as well, so that alienation of the physical body from Nature is symptomatic of a corresponding unconscious alienation of ego from Self, with the loss or sleep of Soul-Body that this implies. Since am as yet at a loss as to what else to call the physical aspect of the soul, which, it is at this point no longer any more only a "body" than the Soul is the same as the ego, (nor is it quite "Nature" with a capital "N" --the Nature that is really SelfNature), I speak of "Soul-Body" with a Capital "B" and some times also of Soul-nature with a small "n". In all three cases (that of ego-body, Soul-nature or Soul-Body and SelfNature), I choose the unity/duality of the nomenclature in an attempt to be more accurate or at least more appropriate to our time and Idiom.{see also footnote}

But to extending our inverse analogy; the chief difference between coma and Death is that coma is a possibly reversible state of affairs whereas Death—at least usually—is not. Precisely the same distinction can be made between Phenomenesthesia (or "Awakening") and Numinesthesia (or "Life"). The experience of awakening can be temporary. The individual may fall back into a closed egoic-personality state and forget his or her Soul-Nature almost completely. But the conscious experience of Life is understood as an abiding sense of the Numinous "Whatness" of Being that is somehow permanent and irreversible. To be alive is to be in the presence of The Ultimate, The Holy, in a conscious way. A state of mystical awareness is being experienced by the soul that is paradoxically consistent with the limitations of everyday life. This is to Live out of in ones Soul-Body.

And does the process end there? The state of conscious awareness of Spirit, of the Presence of "God" is not the same as Union with that Presence. Soul-nature is not the same as Self-Nature and even this is not quite Freedom or Spirit. In this manifestation of SelfNature, both the body and the soul are presumably fully realized and transcended leaving only that which is purely Self and so also Purely Nature and which is the individuation of the Tao, the Great Mystery, The Freedom which transcends even the Whatness of existence and nonexistence. Freedom is arbitrarily predicable and it is unpredictable and yet Freedom and Life are the "strange attractors" and final cause of all evolution and of the world itself. And to say even this about it is perhaps to say too much.

To summarize so far: just as there is a progression from local Anesthesia, to General Anesthesia, to Coma, to Death, so also is there a progression from Local Wholesthesia to General Wholesthesia to Awakening (Phenomenesthesia) to Life (Numinesthesia). And beyond (as well as within) all this there is Freedom or Spirit as something like the immanent/transcendent final cause and ultimate source of all of the above. To experience mostly only ego-body is to be only unconsciously aware of all of this. To be in any given moment consciously aware of all of this is to be, relatively speaking, in ones awakened Soul-nature or Soul-Body. To be stabilized in this Soul-Nature is to be Alive. To progress in ones Soul-nature is to progressively realize (or be realized by) SelfNature, which is the Door to Spirit or Freedom itself.

GOOD SENSE

In the light of all this we might regard our normal state of being as manifestly somnambulant amnesia, dissociation and only rudimentary consciousness. We exist for the most part in an unhealthy and unconscious "synthesis" of the "thesis" of anesthesia and "antithesis" of wholesthesia, which is, not stable synthesis but rather dialectic of progressive degeneration. To become conscious and sensible of this condition is already to partially transcend it and enter a dynamic of integral, conscious, and healing synthesis, which is also of both wholesthesia and anesthesia. This sensibility intuits, feels, and understands the reality of Life and Freedom as ultimate goals as well as their reality in the here and now of a specific situation. It is a progressive intellectual moral and physical reorientation and an indwelling confirmation of Healthy Knowledge. This sensibility and understanding is the opening of the ego-body to the Soul-nature that is none other than the Good Sense of our title.

If Anesthesia is "Nonsense" and Wholesthesia is "Complete Sense", than "Good Sense" (or "Callesthesia"), is that sensibility that recognizes and welcomes them both and yet distinguishes them from each other. It does this in the context of what we have said of their ultimate implications all well as in the context of everyday life. It is the innate understanding of the Soul-nature active in the ego-body in each real and definite everyday situation. Good sense includes and does not exclude, nonsense (anesthesia), which it intuitively understands as a necessary and even essential aspect of what is recognized to be the souls journey to Spirit. It is the healthy instinct/intuition to aim for an over all predominance of wholesthesia over anesthesia in the context of the peculiarities of the individual Soul-nature and situation. Abstractly and morally, the intention is to move toward greater wholesthesia and Life. Practically and ethically the dynamic is more sophisticated and evolves a kind of tacking and a balancing of exigent "weaknesses" and limitations against strengths and possibilities in an ultimately progressive way.

This more sophisticated existential dynamic involves the coordination and balancing of attention to the future, the past, and the eternal with and in the present moment. It is an improvisational sensibility that makes good use even of mistakes, which are in fact indispensable to its manifestation. For without the recognition of the redeeming complementarity and preexistent paradoxical synthesis of nonsense and complete sense in real experience, Awakening, Life, and Freedom would be Meaningless, even as the ideal orienting types. Good Sense is this sense of the mutuality and presence of the remembering of Healthy Knowledge even within our forgetfulness of it, and as such it is the integral crossroad of the categories and the back beat of the Life-Dance itself.

And of course, as with all the Theories of Integral Science, we all really already know all of this, at least deep down in our souls we do. That is just the point. Nevertheless, we seem to need a more formal reminder every now and then, and that is what this essay and the rest of Integral Science are for.

The relatively unconscious, relatively anesthetic (Mal-aesthetic really) nature of the modern/post-modern diet, medicine, architecture, -- of the modern/post-modern world in general-- is too much to go into in a brief essay. But the prescription for all of these disintegrating fields of activity is the same; it is that of Good Sense in the light of Healthy Knowledge. By such Good Sense I mean the sense, not only of the current numbness under which the jewels of Life and Freedom are buried but also the equally strong sense of the very real presence of the jewels there nevertheless (And be assured that they are there, for if they were not within us at some deep level then we would literally be dead) and the gratitude and resolve that come with this. And by such Good Sense I mean a consciousness and embracing of our sick knowledge and our sick culture that can only be effected by truly Healthy Knowledge and Healthy Culture. Such Good sense, is the sense of Togetherness; the balanced, paradoxical dance of the awareness and welcome of both realities in the service of progressive healing and aliveness.

And such Good Sense also implies Good Taste, the taste or sensibility of such paradoxical togetherness and the ability to discern the relatively beautiful, healthy, and appropriate in the context of Mutuality and of Ultimate as well as more immediate truth.

And it implies Good Will, the integrative, willed affirmation and acknowledgment of essential Togetherness and the intention toward its increasing realization both inwardly and in outward practical and world affairs.; a will to inner and outer Life and Freedom in the light of Life Truth that implies conscious understanding and moral commitment to the great Theme of our collective existence as well as its variations in cultural and individual manifestation.

And it implies Good Faith, a Living Faith in Togetherness, which (because it is alive) involves a constant checking of any Belief (including the theories of Integral Science) against the inner consensus of ones intuition, heart, mind and body as to its Living Truth and value, with an eye to either its reformulation or its replacement with something else. It is faith in the existence of some healing and useful shared understanding of reality and a commitment to critical participation in the best that we have yet found.


The role of Death in evolution is to provoke individuals and species toward Life and Freedom. We are going to die anyway but be are not going to "Live" anyway, in the present (new and also very old) sense of the word. To seek death is to be in a state of unconsciousness that is not worthy of our humanity—it is to seek nothing at all. To seek Life and Freedom with humility, humor, wonder, and gratitude is our common privilege as beings that are going to die. Whether or not we succeed in taking advantage of this opportunity is ultimately not in our hands but to make the attempt is the only gesture that is consistent with sapience, with true happiness, and with Good Sense.

Footnote: This use of the word "soul" may seem inconsistent with its use in the concept of "Individual Personhood", since in that context it relates to one of the "horizontal" or social aspects (or "roles") of the Identity of "Individual Living Person" while the present use of the word seems to relate more to the "vertical" Individual/Individuating aspect of Individual Personhood. Similarly, the way I am defining Life here seems to differ from the way I use the world "Living" when I contrast it with "surviving", as in "Individual Living Person". I acknowledge these difficulties and ambiguities in terminology, yet let them stand for the now, since I have not yet resolved the problem and know no better way to refer to the experiences in question. Somehow I feel that its solution will likely be very fruitful for the theory and practice of Integral Science and Healthy Culture as a whole.

Footnote: This use of the word “soul” may seem inconsistent with its use in the concept of “Individual Personhood”, since in that context it relates to one of the “horizontal” or social aspects (or ”roles”) of the Identity of “Individual Living Person” while the present use of the word seems to relate more to the “vertical” Individual/Individuating aspect of Individual Personhood. Similarly, the way I am defining Life here seems to differ from the way I use the world “Living” when I contrast it with “surviving”, as in “Individual Living Person”. I acknowledge these difficulties and ambiguities in terminology, yet let them stand for the now, since I have not yet resolved the problem and know no better way to refer to the experiences in question. Somehow I feel that its solution will likely be very fruitful for the theory and practice of Integral Science and Healthy Culture as a whole.

posted by: piankhy | 19:43 | comments (2)