Saturday, February 02, 2008

The Living Matrix (a Moral Compass)

Part of what a cosmology of Togetherness in a healthy culture does is coordinate and integrate problems and areas of life in such a way as to avoid the typical result of trying to understand issues and solve problems in isolation, which is of course just the creation of other problems in other areas of life not considered when "solving" (and usually only temporarily) the original problem. Cultures all over the world which are or have been relatively more healthy than the dominant culture today have all had some more or less developed variants of the kind of integral categorical understanding I am describing below, though they often differ from it and from each other in important details. What I have worked out and try to share in what follows amounts to an up-dated, individual and personal version of what I suppose to be part the "perennial cosmology" of us human beings, conceived and articulated in a way that is appropriate to the practice of Healthy Culture in our own time.

The Living Matrix is, among other things a set of cognitive coordinates in terms of which Togetherness and Living Wholeness can be understood and so enabled. The Coordinates can be usefully introduced in two parts. First is the 7-fold Static Matrix which takes its nature from the 7 directions of orientation (1-north, 2-east, 3-south, 4-west, 5-up, 6-down, and 7-center) and which constitute the coordination of the Integral (as center) with the Indefinite, Finite, Definite, Transdefinite of the "horizontal plain" (also called the "nexus", and corresponding to "north, south, east, and west"), with the Subjective and the Objective on the "vertical" axis (corresponding to "up and down").

I am mapping these categories of cognitive orientation onto the familiar categories of spatial orientation because, among other things, this serves to show the analogously paradoxical nature of the 7 categories. The existence of the "Indefinite", for example, implies that of the "Finite" and the "Definite" and the "Transdefinite", in the same way that the existence of North implies and involves that of East, South, and West. And just as with a Compass, finding north implies that the compass itself is relatively vertical (and so brings in that dimension and its relative up and down), so the existence of the Indefinite also implies the existence of the "vertical" axis of Subject and Object. As in the case of spatial (we will ignore the idea of "true north" for the moment), the implications here are perfectly mutual and correlative; Indefinite is not absolutely Indefinite any more than north is more than relatively north in practice…

To demonstrate these categories and to illustrate their inherent co-implication I ask the reader to imagine the following:


Imagine (or remember) seeing a friend approach you from a far distance, on the beach say. In the beginning the person is too far away to even be sure that it is a living being, they are a mere point or dot on the horizon that may or may not be moving toward you at all. This is the relatively Indefinite aspect of your experience of them. It is an aspect of experience generally, one from which the intuition of abstraction and its schematic content of mathematics both derive. The Infinite, for example, as a point on the horizon as well as a theoretical and mathematical concept is essentially Indefinite. Counting itself is an inherently indefinite process that abstracts and dissociates the qualitative, existential and other aspects of the thing counted. When we deal with the Indefinite we are generally dealing with the "Itness" of Being.

[It is worth noting parenthetically here that, although it is essentially only one variation on the theme of "General Matrix Dysmutuality" or "General Cognitive Disorientation" (that is, only one way of "getting Lost" cognitively and morally), the dissociation and privileging of "Itness" and abstraction over the other coordinates in our time is a symptom of our sick culture that is involved in our excessively anesthetic "life-styles". Anesthesia (very broadly conceived) often numbs and represses our full experience of self, other and world, in a way that allows for the tyranny of abstraction and the various forms of coercion, callousness, and direct and indirect exploitation, repression fear, and violence that come this. But more on this topic in another post]

Continuing with our beach encounter...as the point in the distance gets closer, we begin to distinguish it from various things; a living thing rather than a piece for wind blown debris, a human being rather than a dog, a woman lets say rather than a man etc…With each distinction we Limit the thing; its becomes less indefinite and less abstract and more Finite and so qualitative. Sooner or later, you recognize that your friend Susan is running towards you very happily in a striking sea-green bathing suit that sets off i-p's skin it such a way that…etc..etc...With all of this we enter the essentially Finite aspect of reality, the qualitative, image and memory based "morphic field" which is part of the substance of the way things are. This Finite aspect of the world one could also describe as the "Thatness" of Being.

Now suppose Susan has reached you now, she has given you a hug, you have sat down together and you are exchanging words; news of how things have been since you last saw each other, of how things are now etc…Already your knowledge and experience of Susan is becoming more Definite (relatively speaking) than before and you are acquiring relatively Definite knowledge of each other. This Definite aspect of reality is more essentially existential and less essentially "aesthetic" than the Finite aspect and certainly much less abstract than the Indefinite aspect of reality with which we began. This relatively Definite aspect of reality one can describe as the "Thisness" of Being.

It is now necessary (for the sake of this explanation) that you and Susan approach (and even transcend) the deepest level of Intimacy, (or relatively Definite knowledge) of each other. I will leave it to you to insert the details regarding how this came about, or how long it took, or even what it means exactly (accept to suggest, for reasons I will explain later) that the example will be more credible if—assuming you are imagining something sexual--that you imagine Tantric or Daoist form of sexuality) and rejoin you again on the beach where you are gazing into Susans eyes, or perhaps even at the back of Susans neck as i-p sleeps, and that at some moment you experience the point at which definite knowledge leads into Transdefinite Mystery; the point at which you know this person so well that you realize you don't know this person at all, and that you yourself, who you presumably know even better, are just as much--and even more--of a mystery, and that Definite Knowledge (which is only relatively definite anyway) itself does not diminish Mystery, or Enigma but ultimately reveals it more clearly. This inherently enigmatic, mystical and Transdefinite aspect of reality can be described as the "Whatness" of the Being.

Now in this entire story both the Objective, outer world, and the inner, Subjective one, have been involved from the beginning and the whole experience not only presupposes them both but also presupposes the essential Integrity ("Togetherness") of them both. For Being is itself this very Togetherness, the Togetherness of subject and object. And while it is true that the subjective memory of someone other than Susan might have, at a certain distance, imposed itself on the person coming toward you, this does not imply some inherent dichotomy of inner image and outer reality, so much as illustrate their paradoxical togetherness in the Living process of Distinction (the Finite Process) within the 12-fold Living (rather than 7-fold static) Matrix itself. But to understand this we must introduce 2 other  aspects of that Living Matrix. We will return to the Beach after we have done so.
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The 7-fold Integral Matrix I have described so far (named for its center) is, as I've implied, only a model of Static wholeness and not the Living Wholeness that actually pertains. A Living Matrix requires that we transcend our static and perfect cognitive "sphere" (and so also our exclusively spatial analogy) and integrate "apart-ness" or the "dis-integral" (or "non-being) as a paradoxically included 8th element in our Matrix. Simultaneously we then also imply a 9th element as the "Living Integral" (as opposed to the 7th "static integral") that reconciles and integrates the Paradoxical Togetherness of Apart-ness (8) and Togetherness (7) because it is itself this Paradoxical and dynamic Togetherness. It is the Living Integral as Becoming that unites--that constitutes--the interplay of Being and Non-being. 

To return now to the beach: It is the dance, Living Integral; the living paradoxical interaction of the integral and the Disintegral (of Togetherness and Apart-ness) that accounts for the possibility of "mistaking" Susan for someone else. In one sense, as I have said, such a "mistake" is only a part of necessary process by which the relatively indefinite becomes the relatively Finite. In another sense, Susan is only "relatively" Susan at anyway, either subjectively or objectively for in the circumstance that you should hold to a "mistaken" identification when "outside"/objective voices say otherwise, there is always both agreement (in this case that someone is there, and perhaps that that someone is "female") as well as disagreement (what the females name and social identity are) in the situation. (By the same token, even subjective/objective agreement--and so "fact"--is not absolute, since you and another will still disagree in many ways—and probably in many ways unknown to yourselves-- about the details of this fact you are agree to as fact; this "Susan" that you agree is "Susan"). It is the constant togetherness of this agreement and disagreement that confirms both the paradoxical mutuality and the validity of the subjective/objective world in itself, (as Being). Yet essential to this static paradox of Being is also the dynamic one that is consists in its integration with Non-being. This is the togetherness/apart-ness of the Living Integral.

But for such a reconciling factor to be a truly dynamic and Living integral, it must be such as leads towards, rather than away from a necessary 10th element of the Living Matrix. For as I have implied, the Living Integral makes the Matrix dance, and so allows our story of the Beach to happen or even be imagined, at all. In a way, the Living Integral Is the Soul of the living Matrix which itself is, Experience, Reality itself, and yet our Life-Logic of paradoxical Togetherness implies something further still. It Implies something Beyond both the Static and the Dancing Integral; beyond Togetherness; and Apart-ness, and the living Dance (the Living Integral) that unites them.This 10th element, which cannot really be named, described, understood, or situated in any particular way vis-à-vis the rest of the Living Matrix, I never-the-less, I call "Freedom" and consider to be in some sense almost the Final Cause of the Living Matrix as a whole as well as both a part of it somehow also beyond it. Becoming is Becoming Freedom.  Nor do I want to qualify this Freedom as either Living or Static or in any other way since it is primarily neither Finite nor Indefinite; neither "Freedom from", nor "Freedom to" nor even "Freedom of". There is nothing much to say about such Freedom. If the Living Integral is the Soul of the Living Matrix, then Freedom is its Spirit.

However, Life-logically this Freedom, what ever it is, also requires (and this took me a while to realize, I guess for subconsciously emotional reasons) its paradoxical complement, and that would presumably also be its opposite. At the moment I can find no other word for this than Slavery. Such Slavery would be as mysterious a thing ultimately as Freedom; I certainly don't mean to limit its meaning to the political, economic, or even to the psychological (though this will necessarily be involved), but some state of affairs justifying such a term does seem to be appropriate when the Becoming that is Life is not "Becoming Freedom"—so that healthy evolution is not happening. In that case "becoming" must mean something like "Becoming Enslaved" or "entrapped" or "Bound" inwardly and outwardly. As with Freedom I do not want do distort things and say that being enslaved means being enslaved by "Matter" or "Sin" or "Maya" or anything else since none of these ideas as yet form a part of Integral Science. It is enough to say that some process of "devolution" seems to be a necessary compliment and possibility corresponding to the "evolution" that leads toward Freedom and that, with such a possibility, the whole "Living Matrix" can also be/become a "Dying Matrix"…

Though Life-logic seems to require the above dualism between Freedom and Slavery, evolution and devolution, and so allow a kind of Moral directionality into the picture, life-logic also (because of its fundamental nature as an affirmation of ultimate Togetherness), requires an affirmation of something that 'transcends", at the same time as including and supporting, this fundamental dichotomy. Rather then just declare my candidate for such a definitive "last Word" for the reader I would like to first share the life-logical "reasoning" that was involved in my choice.

At fist my I chose the word "Spirit" to designate this "final"—even "trans-final" aspect of reality because that world speaks to me of the "unnamable"…. later I thought it might be best to call this "last Word" simply the "the last Word" or "last Thought" (capitalizing "Word" or "Thought" as a reminder that this is just the last or ultimate "cognition" and that I am not saying that there is nothing beyond "cognition" itself). But, following the kind of cognitive algorithm required for life-logical reasoning ultimately lead to hesitation in the choice of either "Spirit" or "the unnamable' or "the last Word" for this 12^th aspect of the Living Matrix.

Then It happened, during the process of rewriting this, that I began to notice how, in the process of the unfolding of theses aspects of the Living Matrix, the terms (from "itness" on through to "slavery") seem to acquire more general and emotionally inclusive connotations. This phenomenon I think speaks to the fact that the Matrix Coordinates are inclusive and holistic by nature and so correspondingly include and involve our emotional and moral as well as our more "intellectual" sensibilities and are therefore something that, even in their more formal and intellectual explication, will not speak to the "inner adult" only but the "inner child" and "inner elder" as well. A more or less at the same time as this  realization, the  appropriate word came to mind, a word which immediately seemed to dissolve the tension of indecision regarding this 12th term, making it all at once obvious that it was the most Life-Logically True (Beautiful, Good, and Inspired) of the terms that I would be capable of coming up with at this time. The word that feels most appropriate for the place that I am intending, the word that affirms and transcends the apartness/togetherness of both Freedom, and Slavery, of both evolution and devolution, of the whole Living/Dying Matrix is (quite obviously)... Love…

By "Love" I mean a kind of Compassionate and All-Inclusive Awareness of the whole Matrix process, whether in its movements toward Slavery or Freedom. In other words; this Love must in some sense compassionately embrace devolution as well as evolution if evolution itself is to continue in a conscious manner and if the devolution is to progressively healed. This is necessary because the complete denial and dissociation of devolution and Slavery would imply a compromise in the Matrix's awareness of (an so integration and wholeness within) itsself. Such a state of affairs would imply the same kind of " "Dysmutuality", "General Cognitive Disorientation" or "getting lost" cognitively and morally" that I mentioned above in relation to the privileging of the "Indefinite" (I should hasten to add however; this is just as much the case when Devolution, and Slavery are embraced to the denial and exclusion of Freedom as the ultimate direction of Life's movement). Thus it must be clear that the Love of which I speak is itself a living and paradoxically inclusive affirmation of a living/dying whole and not some mere static sentimentality directed only to one or other part of that whole…Indeed, because it is truely all-inclusive, the Life-Logical Love of which I speak extends to, includes, and in some sense affirms as part of itself, even the Fear which is its own opposite…

As for Spirit, I do not find I have inner consensus to formally adopt such a term within the description of the Living Matrix...the paradox of naming the unnamable "Spirit" (or even naming the unnamable "the unnamable") is not the problem; life-logic has no problem with such a paradox…It is more a feeling that to either formally include such an idea within (or to formally exclude it from) the unfolding of the Living Matrix would somehow be misleading and obfuscating so far as the actual experience of that reality is concerned… For this, and other reasons I will not go into here, I do not yet (formally) include (or exclude) "Spirit", (which, after all transcends Logic—even Life-Logic) as wholly within the cognitive compass that is the Living Matrix coordinates…

Altogether then, The Living Matrix is described as having Twelve aspects. Expressed in their more abstract form (there are many less abstract correspondences) they are: 1.The Indefinite, ("itness", the abstract), 2.The Finite ("thatness", the qualitative), 3. The Definite ("Thisness", the "existential", 4. The Transdefinite ("Whatness" the "Mystical"), 5. The Subjective ("Insideness" the "Psychological"), 6.The Objective ("Outsideness" the "physical"), 7.The Integral ("Togetherness", Being, Mutuality), 8.The Disintegral ("Apart-ness", Non-Being, "Amutuality"), 9. The Living Integral ("Life", Becoming, "Transmutuality"), 10. Freedom ("Beyondness"; "Paramutuality"), 11. "Slavery" (Bondage; "Dysmutuality"), and 12. Love (Compassionate, All inclusively-Affirming, Awareness; Complete Mutuality)...

The reader will remember my promise to return one last time to Susan and the beach so as to explain my suggestion of some attempt at a healing form of sexuality if sexuality was to be the readers choice of one of the imagined means by which Finite experience of the other (in this case of Susan) was to become integrated into relatively Definite and Transdefinate experience. I did think of trying to do that here, but on second thought, I think that it would be too much for one essay for me to go much more into the topic of healing intimacy and how it relates to the all of this. I have treated the subject of sexuality more fully in another essay; "Sex, Gender, and Healthy Culture"(an essay to which I refer the reader with the proviso that I want to continue to modify or supplement it in the light of new understanding). Suffice to say that such gestures of intimacy (of relatively Definite Knowledge) between and within individuals, to the extent that they partake of and lead to True Life, will involve the Love that is the Compassionate Awareness of both the possibilities of Evolution and Devolution inherent in this kind of "knowing" of self and other. So far as this essay goes however, I hope the you are not disappointed that I choose to leave matters here…after all, the ways in which the cognitive coordinates of the Living Matrix help "choreograph" the Dance of Healthy Culture are both myriad and themselves constantly evolving, with each one meriting more then the kind of cursory treatment that I would have to employ here if I did not want to distract from the main gist of the present essay.

Besides, a big motivation for my writing this is to solicit your conscious and (hopefully more than theoretical) participation with me in such experiments (which I hasten to add need not include the intimate dimension—at least not between the reader and myself!).

So there you have it for now, your introduction to the Living Matrix; It will be seen in other posts (and in practice should you choose to come and participate) the Part the Living Matrix plays in the choreography of the Life-Dance and in the practice of Healthy Culture Generally.

--I-P

posted by: piankhy | 13:52 | comments