Spinbitz

[Edward theurj Berge]

In my research I came upon this free e-book called Spinbitz: Interface Philosophy, Mathematics and Nondual Rational Empiricism, A Philosophy of Vision-Logic Interfaces. Here's the "spin" on it from the site:

 

SpinbitZ is a playful, whirling, churning, folding and unfolding set of concepts for the illumination and integration of abstract philosophical ideas, through the integrated use of the imagination and its percepts.  SpinbitZ constructs a set of philosophical "graphical user-interfaces" at the vision-logic level of cognition.  It is thus a philosophy of vision-logic interfaces, employing the "triune interfaces," or "cultivated thirds" hidden within the polarities of every duality, dichotomy, controversy and paradox to build a consistent system for the effective understanding and resolution of their key esoteric truths, rather than for their dualistic and reactionary refutation.  In using these interfaces to trace a nondual thread of rationality to its historical roots, it is discovered that only the dualistic, exoteric (or commonly understood) forms of rationality begin with the Greek trinity:  Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.  By reconnecting to the earlier nondual truths of Heraclitus and Parmenides, the conceptual axis-mundi itself (what Lao Tzu called "the door to all wonders") is found spinning at the core of Zeno's paradox, and thus at the core of nondual rationality.  Through a fusion of Art, Science, Mathematics and Philosophy—and with the help of nearly a hundred detailed diagrams and illustrations—this embryogenesis of rationality is traced as it reconnects to the alternative lineage of philosophy uncovered by Deleuze, with a nondual fusion of the systems of Spinoza and Leibniz.

In esoteric Theosophy it is said that in the "shock" of the interface between Spinoza and Leibniz "the essence and Spirit of esoteric philosophy would be made to appear."  Unfolding through these vision-logic interfaces, this Interface Philosophy finally appears to reconcile many of the dualities plaguing the history of exoteric rationality.  In its nondual interface with empiricism and Integral theory, for example, a detailed sketch of an Interface Epistemology is unfolded.  Operating at the crossroads of the ontic-epistemic (reality vs. knowledge) and subject-object polarities, the evolutionary symbiogenesis of the exoteric dichotomies at the foundations of human knowledge is examined—illuminating and reconciling the "ontic-shadow" of post-modernity. 

The process of reanimating these hidden nondual truths of rationality demonstrates that mathematics itself mirrors this holarchic structure implicit in the embryogenesis of the concept.  This is because mathematics, as the art and science of pure relation, employs the most rarefied and abstract form of the concept, e.g. numbers and operations.  Unfolding in layer upon layer, this Interface Mathematics transitions from the "oppositional forces" of dualism, ultimately again to the "intensive," integral or "second-tier" truths, and to the originary axis-mundi of the nondual.  In making mathematics visible, visceral and understandable—a Vision-Logic Coordinate System is constructed revealing two fundamental axes of conceptual thought (one of which is this axis mundi or immanent/transcendent axis).  Spinoza's "three infinities" are then shown as the triune interface, or cultivating third between these binary axes, for illuminating and reconciling the many paradoxes and controversies of infinity—e.g. Zeno's, Galileo's and Cantor's—as they wind their way into the truths of our modern mathematics of the continuum and set-theory.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Yes, has this guy been reading my threads or something? I don't see me referenced in the book though... Perhaps like Wilber he just steals good ideas without citation? I kid, a little. I disagree however that one can find this univocity in Vedanta or neo-platonism unless one retro-fits the idea into what was not likely there to start. Or for that matter even all schools of Madhyamaka. He really is loose and free with the "orienting generalzations," perhaps another trait he's picked up from Kenni. Again I kid, a little.

[Christophe]

Balder said: ...unfamiliar with what Deleuze means by univocity.


Mister Deleuze explains his take on univocity in "The Logic of Sense", 25th Chapter, 'On Univocity'.

Here's the link. Unfortunately the crucial pages are missing.

Here's my translation from the paperback:

"The Univocity of being does not mean that there is one and only one self: to the contrary, everything that IS is multiple and different, always produved by the disjunctive synthesis, it is itself disjunct and divergent, membra disjuncta. The Univocity of Being means that Being is Voice, that it says itself and that it does so with one and only one "sense" of that whereof it says itself. Whereof it says itself is in no way the Same. But it is the same for all that whereof it says itself. Therefore it is like a singular event for all that happens to the different things, Eventum Tantum for all events, ultimate form for all forms, which stay disjunct within it but let their disjunction reverb and derive."

And so on and so on.

[Balder]

Thank you, sir. In reading the original, I see that Morisson did a pretty good job of defining the term and summarizing Deleuze's view in the section I referenced above (pp. 155ff.)

[Edward theurj Berge]

Cross-posted from the "real and false reason" thread:

I mentioned above how embodied realism does not fall prey to Meillassoux's criticism of correlationism. I found a relevant passage from Spinbitz that highlights this, in that cognitive science not only dispels the myth of the given the the given of the myth. The latter is how Morrison sees the correlationism (not his term) that begins with Kant. An excerpt:

"Kant wanted to find out what happens when 'pure reason,' beyond the limits of human experience, confronts only itself, but Kant’s own pool of experience was far more limited than ours today. Kant was unaware of the empirical facts of evolution and of the embryogenesis of the forms of the understanding far prior even to his a priori categories. In the light of this new experience with the natural world—e.g. evolutionary and cognitive science—we will find that experience and reason emerge together, symbiogenetically, or structurally coupled, in the very process of evolution. The 'fundamental' categories are themselves inherited from billions of years of experience with the problem-solving intelligence (primitive rationality) of evolution. The 'forms of sensibility,' we will see, are not ultimately a priori, in the anti-Copernican anthropocentric sense, but symbiogenetic with the sensations or experience of form. And one of the core elements of reason is the rational 'acategorical imperative,' which, by itself, pulverizes the categories required by dogma.

"Kant shattered the 'myth of the given,' and handed us merely the 'given of the myth,' the given of the ontic forms underlying the illusion of experience itself. His self-proclaimed 'Copernican Revolution' demonstrated that the world is not simply given to the mind as it is in itself, but that the mind, as it is in itself, is given to experience and interpret the world. The mind, according to Kant, generates and imposes its own pregiven a priori structure and order (e.g. the categories of Time and Space) on the world before it can experience anything" (46).

It is understandable that Wilber, Commons and anyone into Aristotelian metaphysical hierarchies (hidden in the given of the myth) does not even mention cognitive science in this regard, as it challenges the very foundations of its false (ie not embodied) reasoning.

[Balder]

What do you think of Morisson's reliance on one of Wilber's staple concepts, holons and holonic relationships? Do you think he is being inconsistent, or do you think he provides sufficient justification for the retention of this notion?

[Edward theurj Berge]

I don't know yet but that was one of my initial concerns. I haven't yet read any pages or sections dealing with how he combines Wilber's holons to the argument I'm making. At first blush from the recent quotes I've pulled from the book, and the one below I just cross-posted from the real-false reason thread, it does seem inconsistent. If you've read more can you refer me to some pages/sections that show how he uses W's holoarchy?

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here's another cross-post originally in the "real and false reason" thread, quoting Spinbitz:

So we begin in media res, in the middle of things and then "reason" both up and down the classical hierarchy, not realizing that the "base" of that hierarchy is not the real foundation, which is hidden "in the midst." Which reminded me of course, nondualist that I am, of the Madhyamka "middle way" between the categories of absolute and relative. Morrison's book Spinbiz also notes this and has his "resolution" of categories in the middle. Here are a few excerpts:

"Toward the goal of laying out a middle-path between these extremes of relative nihilism and absolute eternalism (or essentialism), Nagarjuna developed a concept he called sunyata, or Emptiness, which essentially means that all manifestations of existence, what we might call objects or modifications, are empty of their own self-contained essence (i.e. they are empty of the metaphysical essences which Plato called forms or ideas). Nagarjuna, like Deleuze, basically implores us to think acategorically, and he even titled one of his later books, Pulverizing the Categories. Indeed, this common categorical, or essentialist thinking, is the 'essence' (pardon the term) of the 'forces of representation' which, Deleuze argues, have distorted the reading and interpretation of philosophy (mainly Spinoza and Leibniz, herein) throughout History via an essentialist and idealist (Platonic) lens" (61).

"Indeed, according to the interpretation herein, Spinoza does not begin logically, or even sequentially with a definition of God or Substance from which all else follows, and upon which all else logically rests. Rather, logically, he begins in the middle, with a critical definition of the finite in its own kind, as that which is limited or surpassed by another modification of the same kind. It is The Infinite (The Absolute), or Substance/God, which hinges or turns on this definition of the finite, the mode, or the relative, as that which is not limited by anything else" (98).

"In the real world, as individuals, we begin in the middle and work in both directions simultaneously—differentiating and integrating, transcending-and-including in both immanent and transcendent directions, and mapping it all out, transitively and conceptually—creating the future at the same time we reconstruct the past, in this embryogenesis of the concept" (110).

[Edward theurj Berge]

A section on Implicit Holonic Set Theory starts on p. 208. He begins by noting natural holarchies of size. An orange is composed of smaller parts, the wedges, which are in turn composed of smaller parts, the juice sacs. These are implicit part-whole relations we pick up from our natural interaction with the environment. I think this agrees with L&J so far, as they note basic categories as part-whole relations and container schemas. In fact the basic image schemas themselves form a part-whole relation within a hierarchy to propositions to metaphors to metonyms to symbols. Morrison goes on to note that later abstract categories somehow lose the connection to this natural, implicit holoarchy.

More is brewing in my neurons/lobes/hemispheres/brain holarchy on this but I'm exhausted at this hour and must go unconscious for several hours. And maybe some of you lurkers out there might read the section and join in, eh? I tire of talking to myself.

[Edward theurj Berge]

It seems that Morrison's notions of "natural" hierarchies assumes that the container metaphor is "real." I.e., because our natural image schemas are so close to the thing-in-itself he, like so many others, assumes it is in fact the thing-in-itself. Hence he argues against notions of the empty set and mathematical infinity in this section because they don't fit in the container schema. Whereas the likes of Nunez, who co-wrote Where Mathematics Comes From with Lakoff, sees notions like the empty set and actual infinity as metaphorical blends and not limited to the container metaphor. Hence Spinbitz is leaving out some serious research for his mathematical project and suffers therefrom. Nunez says in "Conceptual Metaphor and the Cognitive Foundations of Mathematics: Actual Infinity and Human Imagination":

"Unfortunately, mathematics texts in general ignore the metaphorical nature of Cantor’s new meaning given to the idea of pairability, ascribing to it a kind of transcendental truth, and failing to see its truth as derived from a conceptual metaphor. As a consequence, they often conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong with human intuition when dealing with infinity" (65).

Morrisson doesn't see the error in our intuition but rather with the mathematical notions of infinity. This is because he assumes that the natural container metaphor is our body-based, intuitive grasp of the transcendental truth, i.e., 1-to-1 correspondence with reality, instead of seeing it too as a metaphor. Nunez goes on in discussing Cantor's infinite sets:

"Consider this other statement: “[Cantor concluded,] there are just as many even numbers as there are counting numbers, just as many squares as counting numbers, and just as many integers (positive and negative) as counting numbers” (Maor, 19, p. 57). In our ordinary conceptual system, this is not true. Not because our intuition is wrong, or because our everyday language is imprecise and vague, but because it is an inference made within a different conceptual structure with a different inferential structure. According to our ordinary notion of “more than” there are indeed more natural numbers than there are positive even integers or squares. And there are more integers than there are natural numbers. There is a precise cognitively-structured logic underlying this inference.

"This of course doesn’t lessen Cantor’s brilliant results. Cantor’s ingenious metaphorical extension of the concept of pairability and his application of it to infinite sets constitutes an extraordinary conceptual achievement in mathematics. What he did in the process was create a new technical mathematical concept - pairability - and with it, new mathematics. This new mathematics couldn’t have been invented only with our everyday ordinary notions of “same number as” and “more than.” But Cantor also intended pairability to be a literal extension of our ordinary notion of “same number as” from finite to infinite sets. There Cantor was mistaken. From a cognitive perspective, it is a metaphorical rather than literal extension of our very precise everyday concept" (66).

Whereas Cantor's mistake was to see pairability as a literal extension of the container metaphor, Morrison's was to see the container metaphor itself as a literal expression of truth.

[Edward theurj Berge]

That's not quite right Edward. Previously Morrison was well aware of the bodily basis of abstract thought and that even the former is not exactly the thing in itself. It seems though that because of the close proximity of percerpts to reality then its categories are somehow more true or accurate than more abstract categories like mathematical sets. And/or that the latter are so far removed as to lose their grounding in the former, to be a sort of false reasoning or hierarchy as explored in that thread. Whereas Nunez sees the latter as a more inclusive set of metaphors that indeed build on the more basic container schema but yet transcend its limitations.

And yet Nunez distinguishes metaphorical from literal extensions, so there are nonetheless differences between them as hierarchies of the real and false reason variety. Some of that has been explored in the latter-named thread and a few more incipient ideas on that are percolating like morning coffee as yet tasted, its aroma hinting at delights yet to come.

Hmm, a metaphor about metaphor... Is that a meta-metaphor? Or or post-metaphor?

[Edward theurj Berge]

I am reminded of Joseph’s excellent thread, “evolution as metaphysics and spiritual violence.” As in that thread Morrison takes an example of a biological process, the physical orange as a “holarchy,” and translates (or is it transforms?) this into the metaphysical general principle called “holon.” Of course he is only following Wilber’s lead on this. Hence when you translate the principle to linguistics one gets the holon: letter-word-sentence-paragraph. While this general principle applies broadly, in each particular holon the parts are not subsumed into a ultimate, metaphysical whole, since each word, for example, changes its very meaning due to being part of another sentence-holon. There is no ultimate holon that completely contextualizes each word-part usage.

Which leads into Mark Edwards fine seven-part critique of Wilber’s holon concept in “Through AQAL Eyes” at Integral World. In Part 2 he makes clear that Wilber has “the almost reflexive tendency…to reify the AQAL model into an inflexible structural map of Everything. Given that the model can be flexibly applied at any level we can better appreciate its interpretive power when it is seen as an interpretive tool for, rather than a rigid representation of, reality.” This of course is depicted in the AQAL diagram which represents the universal holon. We have the useful interpretative “lens” of the holon, based on some biological properties of oranges, being transformed into a metaphysical principle of everything.

As Joseph said about evolution:

“The term evolution is used as a metaphor for the idealized ultimate unfolding of personal potential. A foundational concept of biology is given a metaphysical meaning. I believe that it is important to question whether this is problematic, if it is a metaphor that can lead to a skewed understanding of the possibilities of human development.”

The holon metaphor is used in the same way and for the same purpose, often as justification for, or theoretical grounding in, their notion of evolution.

[Balder]

Morisson: In the context of the Principle of Nondual Rationalism, we can see the bundle views as correlating with infinite division of substance into its deeper properties, and the bundle views as the assertion that the absolute is fundamentally indivisible with respect to properties. We saw that in the case of numbers, this infinite divisibility actually gave rise to the fundamental indivisibility of the absolute, in that there can be no end to division and therefore the absolute cannot finally and ultimately be divided.


Some of Morisson's discussion on pages 101-104 reminds me of our conversations with Gregory Desilet on the older forum. In particular, the above reminds me of an argument that I recall trying to make regarding the Dzogchen notion of unbounded wholeness in relation to Derrida's notion of differance -- something along the lines that, taken far enough, the infinite divisibility of differance leads logically to something like the "open continuum" of Buddhist nondualism/emptiness.