Spheres - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T02:19:20Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/spheres?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A43082&xg_raw_resources=1&feed=yes&xn_auth=noCool to find this comment fro…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-25:5301756:Comment:610142015-04-25T05:41:34.824ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>Cool to find this comment from 2012, relating Expansion/Contraction to Sloterdijk's spherology, which had already occurred to me. It turns out my ITC paper has taken an unexpected turn to focus on this Pattern, and seeing this comment feels like a re-enforcement.</p>
<p>My biggest inspiration on Expansion/Contraction is probably Shinzen Young's teachings on Impermanence from his …</p>
<p>Cool to find this comment from 2012, relating Expansion/Contraction to Sloterdijk's spherology, which had already occurred to me. It turns out my ITC paper has taken an unexpected turn to focus on this Pattern, and seeing this comment feels like a re-enforcement.</p>
<p>My biggest inspiration on Expansion/Contraction is probably Shinzen Young's teachings on Impermanence from his <a href="http://www.c4chaos.com/2009/02/the-science-of-enlightenment-is-paving-the-way-for-the-enlightenment-of-science/" target="_blank">Science of Enlightenment</a> series. Here's <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcba0oq93th9raj/00_The%20Effortless%20Flow%20of%20Nature%20Excerpt_Shinzen%20Young.mp3?dl=0" target="_blank">a link</a> (Dropbox) to an 8 minute excerpt on "The Effortless Flow of Nature." He provides an interesting metaphor with alka-seltzer tablets - the hard tablets represent our congealed selves, but when put in water the vibratory movement continues to loosen more and more of the congealed self, and the "bubbles" represent letting go of resistance to the effortless flow of nature.</p>
<p><br/> <cite>Dial said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/spheres?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A40440#5301756Comment40440"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><blockquote><p>Yes, I like the idea of conceiving of spherological formation via expansion and contraction -- which is reminiscent, to me, not only of Zen teachings, but also of the Time-Space-Knowledge teachings of Tarthang Tulku. Which is perhaps appropriate, as Sloterdijk's work is essentially a meditation on "space" intended to complement and extend Heidegger's meditations on "time."</p>
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<p>That sounds interesting. Do you think that the Time-Space-Knowledge teachings are such that one can find them directly in everyday lived experience?</p>
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<blockquote><p>The idea that I had been playing with in my paper (that inspired me to begin investigating Sloterdijk's work) was the polar notion of enclosure/disenclosure, the former related to the formation and embodiment of autopoietic systems or holons (individual and social, following the work of Varela, Gendlin, and others), the latter related to kenosis, the self-emptying or auto-deconstruction of holons (here, taking a cue from Nancy's work). Sloterdijk's "bubble" metaphor is apt, since we all expect bubbles eventually to pop.</p>
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<p>Yes, this is what I had in mind with expansion and contraction - expansion the creative production of difference/newness/objects, contraction the dissolution of the same. Although, I'm not sure it's quite that simple when experienced more closely. My experience with meditation on expansion/contraction is that each always already contains the other: contraction within expansion, expansion within contraction. Which is to say, the break-down of one form is at one and the same moment the birth into another - there is a constant flow. Originally, I experienced the relationship as some sort of becoming yin/yang. While that is not inaccurate, my mind is beginning to see/intuit the relationship, somewhat differently, as one that curves back upon itself. I cannot see this too clearly and my non-existent grasp of the physics/mathematics of curved space time is not up to trying to model it by those means. Perhaps it will make itself more apparent in time.</p>
<blockquote><p>Concerning the irregular "foam" metaphor, one thing I think of is Harman's suggestion that, while objects might be bottomless, they are not necessarily contained in an infinite array of larger objects - that there may be an upper "limit" at any given time, such that we can image a kind of a bottomless sea of objects with an irregular upper-level surface. I'm not sure I buy this, but I think it's worth exploring. I'm also thinking of Harman's and Bryant's suggestion that any relation between objects can also be considered an object. I'm wondering if Sloterdijk's spheres or bubbles might be a useful way of visualizing and/or languaging this.</p>
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<p>My speculative notion is that all is immanent - one flat ontology - and the expansion and contraction of what is happens according to reality curving back upon itself as already suggested. The model is one of different densities contained within one one materia, surely? The dissolution is a falling away of forms in 'degradation', then on into less dense forms of energy. Expansion, in its turn is the birthing of forms out of these less dense forms of energy. And there is also the becoming aspect of the universe to factor in – its ‘teleology’. Is the ‘final’ state of this model a perfectly balanced sphere in form? – one that is both in constant productive play and perfect still poise? Of course, that is always already the case, and the movement is to ever fuller manifestation. I know this sort of talk is rather old school Integral in Post Metaphysical circles, and out of favor, but it works for me to see the world as always already formed at more subtle levels of existence and that form becoming ever more expressed. Embodiment, after all, is in both time and space. And the pulse of expansion/contraction is producing an ever fuller world.</p>
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<p>The limit of science of course, is the limit of its tools to experience (aka 'measure’) and hence model the less dense forms of energy existing. Coming back to Harman for a moment, he has suggested that metaphor rules – even in science. One might say, then, that the limits of science are contained in the limits of its metaphors. And the limits of its metaphors bound to the limits of its means to explore reality. Whereas Eckhart, Dogen -and you and I – actually have a more sophisticated method of experience and measurement at our disposal. Well, perhaps not at our ‘disposal’, but there to be cultivated, to the degree we are able/desire.</p>
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<p>Physics speak of the curvature of space and time; I wonder, can Sloterdijk's model of the sphere and bubbles be worked into a physical model which curves back upon itself? What commonalities are there between the physics of foam and the physics of time and space as found in contemporary physics? I would be surprised if Sloterdijk doesn't discuss this at some point.</p>
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</blockquote> Hi, David, I'm not recalling…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-20:5301756:Comment:606902015-04-20T21:15:41.832ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Hi, David, I'm not recalling much discussion (yet) in Sloterdijk of the 2nd Law; I will get out his "Globes" book to take a peek ahead. But I think he would certainly agree with your notion of (the need for) the "Space Girth Regulator," arguing as he does that imperial monospheres have tended to collapse once they expand beyond a manageable size.<br></br><br></br>I agree, also, that the pairing of generative (en)closure and disenclosure (unintentionally) can give the impression that disenclosure is…</p>
<p>Hi, David, I'm not recalling much discussion (yet) in Sloterdijk of the 2nd Law; I will get out his "Globes" book to take a peek ahead. But I think he would certainly agree with your notion of (the need for) the "Space Girth Regulator," arguing as he does that imperial monospheres have tended to collapse once they expand beyond a manageable size.<br/><br/>I agree, also, that the pairing of generative (en)closure and disenclosure (unintentionally) can give the impression that disenclosure is degenerative ... which is not the case. In my discussion with LP above, I proposed the term, degenerative (en)closure to clarify that (en)closure in this context is not always intended to indicate something generative; and the same would go for disenclosure -- it could be either, or both at once.<br/><br/></p> Balder,
Given that Sloterdijk…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-19:5301756:Comment:607922015-04-19T20:04:22.128ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>Balder,</p>
<p>Given that Sloterdijk is bringing emphasis to space, as opposed to time, and given your concept of disenclosure, I'm wondering if he discusses the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in this context.</p>
<p>A thought occurred to me in the middle of the night recently. Odum's concept of the Maximum Power Principle ("<span dir="ltr">the mechanism that drives all modern economies to become sophisticated machines for processing mass and energy</span>") as a proposed 4th Law of…</p>
<p>Balder,</p>
<p>Given that Sloterdijk is bringing emphasis to space, as opposed to time, and given your concept of disenclosure, I'm wondering if he discusses the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in this context.</p>
<p>A thought occurred to me in the middle of the night recently. Odum's concept of the Maximum Power Principle ("<span dir="ltr">the mechanism that drives all modern economies to become sophisticated machines for processing mass and energy</span>") as a proposed 4th Law of Thermodynamics (as discussed in Winton's <a href="http://www.academia.edu/5395136/The_Meaning_of_Planetary_Civilisation_Integral_Rational_Spirituality_and_the_Semiotic_Universe" target="_blank">2013 paper</a>), was initially introduced with the interesting title of "Time's Speed Regulator" (Odum and Pinkerton, <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Time_s_Speed_Regulator.html?id=D0srcgAACAAJ" target="_blank">1955</a>). Odum and Pinkerton were referring to the fact that maximum power was obtained by systems not at the slowest, most efficient speed, nor at the fastest, least efficient speed, but somewhere roughly in the middle: "<span class="subtitle"><span dir="ltr">The Optimum Efficiency for Maximum Power Output in Physical and Biological Systems</span></span>." </p>
<p>My thought was that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics could use a similar descriptive phrase, such as <strong>"Space's Girth Regulator."</strong></p>
<p>The size of bubbles (stock market or otherwise) should not and cannot grow infinitely, so they need to be regulated by the 2nd Law, a mechanism that Stanley Salthe (2010) refers to as the Maximum Entropy Production Principle.</p>
<p>One of the things I'm attempting to do is bring balance to the polarity between these two laws. The tendency is to choose to emphasize one over the other, but there could be much gained by simply seeing them as a polarity that needs to be brought into balance.</p>
<p>Even your wording of generative (en)closure and disenclosure seems to imply that enclosure is generative and disenclosure is degenerative. That is clearly not the case however, as you write in your paper:</p>
<blockquote><p>Dis-enclosure is the marker of the generativity of death in the evolutionary unfolding of our being-together. The gifts of death are many, as Michael Dowd (2009) reminds us: it not only seeds and clears the way for new form, as in the kenosis of a supernova; it is generatively enfolded into the very form(s) we take—in the daily dis/enclosure of cells which <i>is</i> our living. (Alderman, 2012)</p>
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<p>I would like to emphasize this aspect, that (en)closure can be both generative and degenerative, and dis-enclosure also can be both generative and degenerative. I believe they are always both, but to different degrees. For example, in my comment earlier in the thread I mentioned Winton's comment that any Patterns (enclosures) that are formed are in a very real sense restrictions on form; this is a form of contraction; and by the same token, any dis-enclosure, or popping of bubbles represents an expansion or a release, opening up to a wider range of possibility.</p> Hi David and Bruce - I just w…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-04:5301756:Comment:608352015-04-04T17:29:46.946ZAmbo Sunohttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/AmboSuno
Hi David and Bruce - I just watched the presentation again and got more from it. Yes, our, I'll emphacize my, phenomena can be easily felt/imagined/reported as a bubble of our subjective experience. I like the visual of transitionary moments of rupture, maybe before one perceives, reinhabits, reconjures, reacknowledges another generative enclosure.<br />
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I like the overlapping of spheres image that corresponds with the always dyadic description and the being-as-singular-plural, though visually the…
Hi David and Bruce - I just watched the presentation again and got more from it. Yes, our, I'll emphacize my, phenomena can be easily felt/imagined/reported as a bubble of our subjective experience. I like the visual of transitionary moments of rupture, maybe before one perceives, reinhabits, reconjures, reacknowledges another generative enclosure.<br />
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I like the overlapping of spheres image that corresponds with the always dyadic description and the being-as-singular-plural, though visually the two dimensions of the recently mentioned Venn diagrams of which we are so familiar has one advantage - we don't imagine that when two bubbles meet or collide everything ruptures totally and disperses in fully disorienting ways.<br />
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Much good/fun play of metaphor in this bubble, egg, generative enclosure introduction.<br />
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<cite>DavidM58 said:</cite><blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/spheres?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A60659&xg_source=activity#5301756Comment60659"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Thanks Balder. Yes, I read the last section of your paper, and I also found the Magic Circles, Generative Enclosures and Kosmic Foam thread, and the youtube <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/5301756:Comment:47530" target="_self">video presentation</a> you gave. Very good, I enjoyed it a lot, and I hope you eventually have a part 2.</p>
<p>My wife has a copy of Gendlin's book "Focusing." Does this book cover the territory you're speaking of? It looks promising.</p>
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</blockquote> Thanks Balder. Yes, I read t…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-04:5301756:Comment:606592015-04-04T04:03:28.935ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>Thanks Balder. Yes, I read the last section of your paper, and I also found the Magic Circles, Generative Enclosures and Kosmic Foam thread, and the youtube <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/5301756:Comment:47530" target="_self">video presentation</a> you gave. Very good, I enjoyed it a lot, and I hope you eventually have a part 2.</p>
<p>My wife has a copy of Gendlin's book "Focusing." Does this book cover the territory you're speaking of? It looks promising.</p>
<p>Thanks Balder. Yes, I read the last section of your paper, and I also found the Magic Circles, Generative Enclosures and Kosmic Foam thread, and the youtube <a href="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/xn/detail/5301756:Comment:47530" target="_self">video presentation</a> you gave. Very good, I enjoyed it a lot, and I hope you eventually have a part 2.</p>
<p>My wife has a copy of Gendlin's book "Focusing." Does this book cover the territory you're speaking of? It looks promising.</p> David, thanks for sharing thi…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-03:5301756:Comment:606572015-04-03T23:11:22.824ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>David, thanks for sharing this excerpt; it reminds me of what I already know, but have not heeded yet: that I will likely benefit from a deeper exploration of Winton's PD! Yes, I agree, Prigogine's "dissipative structure" does include (and coordinate) both (en)closure and dis-enclosure in a single concept -- and autopoietic and complex systems models are both views I had in mind when discussing generative (en)closures. (Autopoietic systems being simultaneously open and closed.) In the…</p>
<p>David, thanks for sharing this excerpt; it reminds me of what I already know, but have not heeded yet: that I will likely benefit from a deeper exploration of Winton's PD! Yes, I agree, Prigogine's "dissipative structure" does include (and coordinate) both (en)closure and dis-enclosure in a single concept -- and autopoietic and complex systems models are both views I had in mind when discussing generative (en)closures. (Autopoietic systems being simultaneously open and closed.) In the paper I uploaded for you, I also referenced Gendlin's (more phenomenologically framed) body-constituting process, but in further work I will make more formal attempts to relate this to Sloterdijk's spherology and Winton's PD. It looks like the ideas you are developing will be informative, too, so I look forward to reading your paper when it is done, and maybe talking further together about this.</p> Many thanks Balder for the at…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-04-01:5301756:Comment:607502015-04-01T18:52:28.423ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>Many thanks Balder for the attachment! Yes, perhaps I need to make a distinction by employing the "allopoietic" term as well. Here's an excerpt of what I wrote the other day, before reading about sphereologoy or (en)closure/dis-enclosure. All caps indicate a Pattern identified by PD. I'm open to any comments/critiques. I reference Prigogine, where it seems to me "dissipative structure" combines both (en)closure and dis-enclosure into one term that includes them…</p>
<p>Many thanks Balder for the attachment! Yes, perhaps I need to make a distinction by employing the "allopoietic" term as well. Here's an excerpt of what I wrote the other day, before reading about sphereologoy or (en)closure/dis-enclosure. All caps indicate a Pattern identified by PD. I'm open to any comments/critiques. I reference Prigogine, where it seems to me "dissipative structure" combines both (en)closure and dis-enclosure into one term that includes them both?</p>
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<p>"...With the POWER made available by the energy flow, a system is able to CREATIVELY interact with and adapt to surrounding circumstances called AUTOPOIESIS: both to maintain its unique system of order and complexity (dancing with the constant tendency toward equilibrium, or entropy), and, when there is sufficient POWER, to participate in creative GROWTH and development. Systems can be thought of as “dissipative structures” (Prigogine, ) which indicates a constant POLARITY of ongoing dissipation (entropy) at the same time as the ongoing creative building of new structure, in the eternal dance of EXPANSION/CONTRACTION, CONCENTRATION/DIFFUSION, ORDER/CHAOS. </p>
<p>The process of AUTOPOIESIS produces one of the following outcomes: a) a creative variant on an existing PATTERN, b) a creative experiment that is so unique and particular that it is successful but never repeated, c) a creative experiment that is unsuccessful, or d) a creative experiment that is successful and can be replicated – a laying down of the first new groove of a new PATTERN.</p>
<p>“The role of Pattern is to provide successful templates of systemic design” (PD Level II Workbook). Winton has commented that Patterns are restrictions on form, and that it is within restrictions that order is created.</p>
<p>Being that all things are in relationship, Winton explains that the creation of Patterns is about the dynamics of how elements connect and order and complexify through a flow of energy. Autopoiesis is “the capacity to exist and create and flourish and maintain forms into certain patterns of existence that are repeated, curiously driven by the energetic winding up.” (Winton, Source lecture).</p>
<p>“The cosmological story has gotten to the point where we have Energy which is the Resource, which drives all Transformations of complexification that increase Power (work rate) and the ability to hold a niche and evolve into new niches, and then the Autopoetic process – we’re showing different aspects of how Source functions to make Patterned Order, or “things” in the universe system.” (Winton, Source lecture).</p>
<p>At the same time as all of the winding up of complexity and Patterned Order, it is to be remembered that a quantity of energy is being dissipated in each step of every process, all being carried back to Source. Every Pulse has a downslope that follows after the upslope; every expansion is followed by a contraction; a dispersion after every concentration; chaos with every building of order. All Patterns simplify even as they complexify – “in the end, everything is simple,” as Jean Gebser noted in his last days, and as George Harrison sang, “All things must pass.” And so Patterns eventually de-complexify back into the VOID, where the CYCLE can begin anew. </p>
<p>The VOID is “the field of potential from which the Patterns of order emerge.” (Winton, Source lecture). And so we see that Patterns emerge not solely from the creative power of the system alone, but really are co-created by the field of potential in which the system resides in relationship to Source."</p> Ambo, thank you for listening…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-03-31:5301756:Comment:607432015-03-31T17:08:46.381ZBalderhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/BruceAlderman
<p>Ambo, thank you for listening, and for "tuning in" to the feeling-space of my post.<br></br><br></br>David, yes, your understanding is correct -- and I agree it would be fruitful to connect this to Tim's pattern dynamics (I look forward to reading your paper). I'd almost want to put it more strongly -- that autopoiesis <em>is</em> the creation (and maintenance) of a generative (en)closure -- but I think it's also likely possible to create them allopoietically. I'm attaching below a copy of the…</p>
<p>Ambo, thank you for listening, and for "tuning in" to the feeling-space of my post.<br/><br/>David, yes, your understanding is correct -- and I agree it would be fruitful to connect this to Tim's pattern dynamics (I look forward to reading your paper). I'd almost want to put it more strongly -- that autopoiesis <em>is</em> the creation (and maintenance) of a generative (en)closure -- but I think it's also likely possible to create them allopoietically. I'm attaching below a copy of the paper that I reference in the letter you quoted.</p> Balder,
I've just been skimmi…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-03-31:5301756:Comment:605482015-03-31T16:20:03.669ZDavidM58http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/DavidM58
<p>Balder,</p>
<p>I've just been skimming through this thread for the first time. I am intrigued by your ideas on enclosure and disenclosure in relation to autopoiesis. I don't have access to your paper that you reference - can you say more about this process? This seems to relate to some ideas I've been exploring for my paper in relation to PatternDynamics. </p>
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<p dir="ltr" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5672"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5847">Would it be fair to say that…</span></p>
<p>Balder,</p>
<p>I've just been skimming through this thread for the first time. I am intrigued by your ideas on enclosure and disenclosure in relation to autopoiesis. I don't have access to your paper that you reference - can you say more about this process? This seems to relate to some ideas I've been exploring for my paper in relation to PatternDynamics. </p>
<p></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5672" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5847">Would it be fair to say that autopoiesis can lead to the creation of generative enclosures, which could be considered equivalent to Kosmic Habits or Dynamic Patterns, or Spheres/Bubbles? </span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5672" dir="ltr"></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5672" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1427817774934_5763">And that these dynamic patterns, or generative enclosures, or bubbles then at some point break apart into a disenclosure, or void, where this void is a field of potential for yet another venturing forth with a pulse of energy?</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505374824?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2505374824?profile=original" width="110" class="align-full"/></a></span></p>
<p><br/> <br/> <cite>Balder said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/spheres?xg_source=activity&id=5301756%3ATopic%3A40113&page=6#5301756Comment42888"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>I was asked recently by Sean Esbjorn-Hargens to share some of my thoughts on Integral, OOO, and Sloterdijk's sphereology with one of his colleagues (who is a Deleuzian and Integralist, apparently, interested also in translineage spirituality, among other things). Here's an excerpt from my letter, which summarizes some of my current thinking on this topic.</p>
<p>My work on the interface of Integral Theory, OOO, and Sloterdijk's sphereology is still in the exploratory phase, so I do not have a piece of writing I'm ready to share with anyone yet, but I'm happy to talk with you about some of my ideas in this area, current streams of inquiry, etc. I'm not sure what your familiarity with either OOO or Sloterdijk is, and I don't want to bore you with unnecessary introductory remarks if you are already familiar with them, so I'll just start making a few cursory remarks about the basic strands of my project and will be happy to discuss things in more detail in subsequent emails if you would like. <br/><br/>I became interested in Sloterdijk's work on sphereology after noticing the resonance between his ideas (in an essay I came across online) and several concepts I explored in my most recent paper (attached). Through recent reflections on OOO's expanded conception of "object" in the context of my ongoing interest in integral enactive theory, autopoiesis and autopoietic closure, etc, I started thinking about holons or objects in enactive terms as "generative (en)closures." (As a brief background aside, OOO argues that all objects contain an irreducible, withdrawn substance, variously conceived by different OOO philosophers. From my conceptual stance as an Integral postmetaphysical theorist, I am not entirely comfortable with some aspects of this new substance-thinking and feel fairly certain that the "withdrawal" of objects OOO philosophers seek can be found in autopoietic closure itself, without having to posit any fixed or hidden substance beyond this). But back to the notion of "generative (en)closures": as you will see in the attached paper, I attempt to (begin to) think this concept in relation to several perspectives, namely holonic, autopoietic-enactive, phenomenological, and ontological (the latter, especially, in relation to Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of <i>being singular plural</i> or Latour's principle of irreduction). I believe Nancy's being singular plural, realized in an integral holonic model or a theory of objects, is quite consonant with, or can give support to, Sean's concept of the "multiple object." From an OOO perspective, the concept of multiple object, if interpreted primarily or exclusively in a perspectivist or correlationist fashion (which might equate the being of objects with their perspectival manifestations), might be seen to veer too far in the direction of an object-undermining, non-realist idealism, but this can be mitigated (I will argue in a paper I'm working on now) by following something like OOO's and/or Bhaskar's transcendental realism (which identifies the "reality" of an object as the irreducibility of any object to any particular perspectival manifestation or set or sum of perspectival manifestations of the object.) Levi Bryant's work is particularly helpful in this regard, integrating as it does the work of Bhaskar, Niklas Luhmann, Deleuze, Lacan, and others.<br/><br/>To relate this to Sloterdijk: as I was thinking about and developing the above ideas, I came across Sloterdijk's <i>Spheres</i> trilogy. I have only read the first book so far, as the other two have yet to be translated into English, so for the latter two, I am at this point relying on various published summaries and discussions of these works. Sloterdijk's work, like OOO philosopher Graham Harman's, is a post-Heideggerian philosophy. In Sloterdijk's case, he attempts to develop a philosophy of Space to complement Heidegger's prior focus on Time. Reading Sloterdijk's work, particularly in his book, <i>Bubbles</i>, I found a natural affinity between some of the concepts I was developing in relation to generative (en)closure and disenclosure (briefly discussed in my attached paper) and Sloterdijk's sphereological model of dyadic bubbles, mythic-metaphysical globes or monospheres, and (post)postmodern multiplistic, multi-focal foams. Sloterdijk proposes the latter as the most suitable topology for our age. As with Nancy (or others), Sloterdijk argues for a kind of plurisingularity: here, seeing intimacy and relationality at the heart of any sphere formation, with any agency understood as always already agency-in-communion. Sloterdijk's spheres are sorts of generative (en)closures, being both enacted products and generative topologies. Sloterdijk proposes "sphere" as a fundamental philosophical concept, "with topological, anthropological, immunological and semiotic aspects" (as Rouanet summarizes his work). With the help of Integral theory's categories of thought, I would like to extend sphereological thinking to other domains as well, and am exploring how the concepts of "sphere" and "holon" (and perhaps also the OOO-ian "object") can complement and inform one other.<br/><br/>As an example, Sloterdijk describes multiple topoi or enacted sphereological spaces, related to various embodied actions or interfaces: the chirotop, or the topos enacted by performances-in-the-world of the human hand; the phonotop, or the topos enacted by vocal performances; the uterotop, empathic spheres that start with and progressively expand from maternal care; the alethotop, or lineages as guardians and enactors of particular knowledge forms; etc. Each of these topoi are generative (en)closures of sorts, to use my terminology, which can easily be related (in my opinion) to, and also supplemented by, an Integral Methodological Pluralist model, so I am in the midst of working that out. I also see a consonance between some of his descriptions and the enactive-phenomenological work of David Michael Levin, who meditates in turn (in his various books) on the phenomenological, spiritual, and political-sociological spaces brought forth by performances of the body, vision, hearing, voice, gesture, etc. So, this is something else I intend to develop and bring forth in one of several papers in the works.<br/><br/>In broad overview, then, Sloterdijk describes a progressive-developmental history of human culture and psyche as the enaction of different types of sphereological spaces, and provides an (Integral postmetaphysically useful) account of the development and inevitable collapse of the metaphysical monosphere and the emergence of a more Deleuzian or Integral pluralistic topology; and philosophically, I believe he introduces concepts which can enrich Integral enactive and holonic theories. I find these ideas useful for extending and further fleshing out my thoughts on translineage practice, for instance, but also for extending Integral thinking as a whole. So, that's the general thrust of my present work.<br/><br/><br/></p>
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</blockquote> B, as a momentary take-away,…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-03-29:5301756:Comment:606382015-03-29T20:16:14.296ZAmbo Sunohttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/AmboSuno
<p>B, as a momentary take-away, here, sweet thoughts and mosaic fineness.<br></br> <br></br> <cite>Balder said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/spheres?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A60823&xg_source=activity#5301756Comment60823"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p></p>
<p>I'm just beginning this book, but already I must say the prologue to it is a thing of beauty. And relevant to our reflections in the forum. The whole prologue is a meditation on…</p>
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<p>B, as a momentary take-away, here, sweet thoughts and mosaic fineness.<br/> <br/> <cite>Balder said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/spheres?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A60823&xg_source=activity#5301756Comment60823"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p></p>
<p>I'm just beginning this book, but already I must say the prologue to it is a thing of beauty. And relevant to our reflections in the forum. The whole prologue is a meditation on a mosaic from Torre Annunziata, which depicts a group of Greek philosophers on the outskirts of town, circled around and contemplating a sphere. I can't do justice to Sloterdijk's poetic reflections in a short summary, but in essence what he wants to demonstrate is the tremendous impact of the dawn<span class="text_exposed_show">ing of our understanding of being in spheric terms -- the superabundant orb of being, for which there is no outside, in which we are all caught up in inescapable intimacy. Sloterdijk traces our modern phase of globalization (and the emergence of worldcentric morality) back to the advent -- the pentecost, he says -- of this insight. It is an all-shaping insight which demands optimism, enthusiasm, from anyone who grasps its import; our participation in the supercompleteness of being, in the fullness of the divine orb, renders each of us a local occasion of its grace, a child or bodying-forth of the One, and serious thought after this point is analysis lit by praise, a critical euphoria, an exact(ing) optimism. This is, of course, ontology as onto-theology. Sloterdijk, in his third book in this series, will chart a path beyond both onto-theology and the post/modern 'critical' turn that followed it (in which the default philosophical position is critique, and the only fact to be celebrated is our incompleteness and deficiency), but I appreciate here his pausing to meditate on the individual- and world-transformative event of the dawning of spheric being (the contemplative, aesthetic, and affective tones of which we can still find and experience, in living form, in traditions such as Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Shaivism, etc).</span></p>
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<p><span class="text_exposed_show">Here is the mosaic:</span></p>
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<p><span class="text_exposed_show"><img class="shrinkToFit" alt="https://estosiesunapipa.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/platos_academy_mosaic_t_siminius_stephanus_pompeii.jpg" src="https://estosiesunapipa.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/platos_academy_mosaic_t_siminius_stephanus_pompeii.jpg" height="789" width="789"/></span></p>
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