Rally, bust!

This is a post by Ermel Stepp on merton-l -- it contains so much thinking matter, that I've put it into my thoughts directory.

Rally, bust, rally, bust, rally, bust!
Order -> Chaos -> Order
Finitude <=> Infinity
One.

Beth Cioffoletti asks: Is this just the way things are?!

The post was a condensed expression of resumed service and my perspective on several issues.

The rally-bust syndrome is the apparent reality of this forum in interrupted service from the byrd site, whose system manager graciously assented to host merton-l, and the recurring appearance of provocateurs intent on subversive, destructive, discord. While the system management hosts merton-l, and though I am personally grateful for that, the priority given to hosting is not adequately preventive of discontinuity of service (due to what I believe to be lack of attentiveness of personnel to site operation and maintenance). Although provocateurs may occasionally appear, the forum will retain its private status, allowing anyone to subscribe, but I will exercise my prerogative as listowner to suspend them when I intuit malice. I appreciate your expressions to me privately (stepp@marshall.edu) of any concern about subversion or malicious assault on dignity through ad hominen.

Rally bust, rally, bust, rally, bust!

The rally-bust syndrome is a profound problem, ranging from the extinction of civilizations (Toynbee, 1954) to contemporary chaotic syetems. York (1975) expressed it thusly: Period three implies chaos. The deterministic relationship between two distinctive variables successively bifurcates three times and yields a state of indedependence of those vaiables, a form of utter dissolution without any connection, a state of chaos. However, a latent pattern may allow reversibility and the emergence of a new order subsequent to the destruction of the first order. As Prigogone (1984) says, far from equilibrium new order emerges, and I think that the principle can be extrapolated to all kinds of finite systems--physical, biological, psychological, sociological, political, and so forth. (Relative to the byrd site, the relocation of merton-l to another site may be impending, as I stated to Kathy Kimberly privately. Relative to provocateurs, the disorder syllogized a higher synthesis of community in this forum.)

Order -> Chaos -> Order

[NOTE: See my Fractal FAQ for references to fractals, chaos, and complexity, including images, programs, software, and publications. Text may be viewed with text-based browsers such as lynx, but to view images requires browsers such as netscape or mosaic.]

Peter Montgomery remarks: Conceivably your listserv is trapped inside the event horizon of a Quantum Singularity (ie, the gravitational field of a black hole). Under such conditions effects can precede causes. Have you thought of engaging the services of a good temporal mechanic?

It is not so much the listserv as the system host. If I may, though, clarify my comment, the apparent linearity of normal experience in cause and effect sequences is really very much more complex multiple, nonlinear processes, for example, physis, legein, praxis, and action), even of the vita contemplativa, vita activa, and the Thomistic third state (which is probably transcendent cerebral integration). A higher order meta-aition (not the primum mobile) of the Aristotelian causal materialis, causa efficens, causal formalis, and causa telis, consummates a unification consistent with curled dimensionality. In the curling of dimensionality, or primary distinctions within reality, spatial dimensions may shrink to non-extendedness, time may have no duration, elementary particles may be absorbed into (or emerge from) the vacuum (the physical process of vacuuumization), an analogue of nothingness--whether metaphysical or theological if form. The curl of dimensions is a basic consideration in the elaboration of primordial cosmology, but has, in my opinion, the promise of opening vista of comprehension of scaling the human experience of reality. Thus, linearity of sequence and transitivity (A -> B -> C), the recognition of complementarity, reciprocity, even inherence, of finite units and infinity (A <=> B) is necessary. Infinity is contained in every finite unit, as a reflective image or code, even as the reverse statement is generally asserted. Compare the DNA code, holograms, the image of God, and Cantorian alephs. A simple illustration of inherence is the existence of an infinite number of points in any line segment (of finite length).

Finitude <=> Infinity

Kathy Kimberly remarks: Paradox

Paradox, indeed. The dilemmas of consciousness are the anomalies that necessitate a more profound understanding of the human condition, in its diverse, multicultural varieties. The need to encompass the finite combinations of possibilities necessitates realization of a comprehensive, conjunctive, universalization, not restricted by heritage, tradition, or discipline, but tolerant and inclusive under the highest, most noble principles of action and contemplation. Even the selves we are need to be transfigured into new persons. The expression of this highest praxis requires a transcendent metalanguage for both the prophetic criticism of conventional institutional rationality, such as naive humanism, science, or religion; and a creative spirituality emancipating, expanding, and elevating human consciousness beyond enslavement and resignation to reified categories and criteria of culture. A sufficient creative spirituality is a metaculture of holism, a plenary primordium (disjointly intimated in such concepts as non-locality, UFT, GUT, TOE, cerebral integration, and final integration), in ultimate unity, the totality of Being, not this, not that.

One.

Last modified: April 05, 1995 10:57

stepp@marshall.edu

[Thoughts]

John C. G. Sturdy

Last modified: Sun Jun 10 18:17:20 GMT Daylight Time 2007