Comments on: Toward a Balanced Worldview: Order Out Of Chaos And The Emergence Of A Holistic Science ARTSOS 3 http://emergent-culture.com/towards-a-balanced-worldview-order-out-of-chaos-and-the-emergence-of-a-holistic-science/ Making Sense of the Human - Planetary Condition: Demystifying the Past, Unraveling the Present & Anticipating the Future Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:26:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: mitohistoriador http://emergent-culture.com/towards-a-balanced-worldview-order-out-of-chaos-and-the-emergence-of-a-holistic-science/comment-page-1/#comment-14046 mitohistoriador Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:20:44 +0000 http://emergent-culture.com/?p=4858#comment-14046 Trying out this new service of extended notes. I like what you are doing a lot Emergentculture, and your point about the universalization of tzolkin--or let us say mythology in general, which is my field of graduate studies--is well taken. In fact this is the whole bent of Joseph Campbell too, who, in his own way and with the help of Jung's work, also attempted to universalize myth on psychological grounds. As archetypes are "the same" whether you formulate them in Chinese or Arabic, paint them or dance them, etc... ---But are they? Since this "identity" can only be a formal and empty abstraction, devoid of historic content, it is unable to touch the deeper level of our psyches. Scientific universality only satisfies "theoretical man", only the intellect,whereas it leaves our fundamental nature intact. So I understand very well that scientific knowledge, i.e., its method, is universal, but at the same time I recognize that the "universality" of scientific knowledge--which is a subjectless universality (even in quantum physics)and is yet subject to historic change in time--is a very poor kind of universality,empty and abstract and with the added pretense of "timeless" validity and ahistoricity. As I mentioned to you, there is such a thing as a spiritual and intellectual colonization when dealing with other people's myths; assimilating the tzolkin to our Western frames of reference would be such an example. Just imagine some one studying the Maya Religion only to corroborate Christian doctrine. Such a person might think that they're doing the Maya a favor by bringing them "up to date" and "universalizing" their Religion into the universal religion of the West. And has not science today become our tacit Religion? That is why, in view of these dangers and with the help of deconstructive criticism, I am doing exactly the opposite: showing that our customary frames of reference breakdown in the Maya context, that is, when one sticks to the actual imagery and symbolism of their texts in their native soil, with the result that our way of thinking is truly transformed; rather than using the Maya to corroborate our prejudices and our unbounded faith in in science. One does violence, typical of the Western "conquistador" way of thinking, by uprooting traditions and stripping them of everything that does not fit into our current status of knowledge. Context is everything, and to decontextualize something in order to put it to "our use," in order to posses it, is to kill it; is a form of intellectual colonization. That is why I am attracted to what is "other" in the Popol Vuh, other than our western way of thinking, and how in confrontation with this Other--which will not allow itself to be caged into the logic of the same--our own thinking is transformed in ways that CANNOT be predicted. But using a scientific framework actually already "anticipates" a solution. That said, I still look forward to reading your stuff and learning from you, even if, in a certain sense, our approaches may be fundamentally different. (incidentally, the contrast of object science vs relational science is something that has come into our current scientific world-picture (think of the metaphor of the "web" not only on line but in the life sciences as well) w/o having to reach for Native American mythologies). Cheers! Norland Tellez Trying out this new service of extended notes. I like what you are doing a lot Emergentculture, and your point about the universalization of tzolkin–or let us say mythology in general, which is my field of graduate studies–is well taken. In fact this is the whole bent of Joseph Campbell too, who, in his own way and with the help of Jung’s work, also attempted to universalize myth on psychological grounds. As archetypes are “the same” whether you formulate them in Chinese or Arabic, paint them or dance them, etc… —But are they? Since this “identity” can only be a formal and empty abstraction, devoid of historic content, it is unable to touch the deeper level of our psyches. Scientific universality only satisfies “theoretical man”, only the intellect,whereas it leaves our fundamental nature intact. So I understand very well that scientific knowledge, i.e., its method, is universal, but at the same time I recognize that the “universality” of scientific knowledge–which is a subjectless universality (even in quantum physics)and is yet subject to historic change in time–is a very poor kind of universality,empty and abstract and with the added pretense of “timeless” validity and ahistoricity.
As I mentioned to you, there is such a thing as a spiritual and intellectual colonization when dealing with other people’s myths; assimilating the tzolkin to our Western frames of reference would be such an example. Just imagine some one studying the Maya Religion only to corroborate Christian doctrine. Such a person might think that they’re doing the Maya a favor by bringing them “up to date” and “universalizing” their Religion into the universal religion of the West. And has not science today become our tacit Religion? That is why, in view of these dangers and with the help of deconstructive criticism, I am doing exactly the opposite: showing that our customary frames of reference breakdown in the Maya context, that is, when one sticks to the actual imagery and symbolism of their texts in their native soil, with the result that our way of thinking is truly transformed; rather than using the Maya to corroborate our prejudices and our unbounded faith in in science. One does violence, typical of the Western “conquistador” way of thinking, by uprooting traditions and stripping them of everything that does not fit into our current status of knowledge. Context is everything, and to decontextualize something in order to put it to “our use,” in order to posses it, is to kill it; is a form of intellectual colonization.

That is why I am attracted to what is “other” in the Popol Vuh, other than our western way of thinking, and how in confrontation with this Other–which will not allow itself to be caged into the logic of the same–our own thinking is transformed in ways that CANNOT be predicted. But using a scientific framework actually already “anticipates” a solution.

That said, I still look forward to reading your stuff and learning from you, even if, in a certain sense, our approaches may be fundamentally different.
(incidentally, the contrast of object science vs relational science is something that has come into our current scientific world-picture (think of the metaphor of the “web” not only on line but in the life sciences as well) w/o having to reach for Native American mythologies).

Cheers!
Norland Tellez

]]> By: Norland Télle http://emergent-culture.com/towards-a-balanced-worldview-order-out-of-chaos-and-the-emergence-of-a-holistic-science/comment-page-1/#comment-14052 Norland Télle Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:27:13 +0000 http://emergent-culture.com/?p=4858#comment-14052 I also like what you said about the Judeo-Christian-islamic--or MONOTHEISTIC complex---, as I too share a great distrust of Western paradigms of thought--including, or especially, Science, as you mention, by which is meant the mathematically guided methodologies that establish the sciences of Nature. That is why I have taken wings with the postmodern trends of cultural criticism, which do come hard on all of this, with a particular eye to the reconstitution of a meta-narrative or grand récit which attempts a totalizing view of Nature and man, rather than being content with a multiplicity of little narratives (petit histoires) or "truths". The mad drive toward a totalizing (totalitarian?) picture of reality is the hallmark of all such (monotheistic) attempts to derive any and everything from a simple "primordial ground," rather than recognizing the equiprimordiality of constitutive factors--such as those that cleave the humanities as geisteswissenschaften (sciences of the human spirit) from the sciences of Nature. The latter's approach becomes "unscientific" if applied to cultural phenomena. This conclusion comes out nicely in an essay on "A Psychosocial Hermeneutics" by Roy Howard, where he writes: ---------------------------- The moral here is not that the subjectless methodology of the physical sciences is inherently vicious but that it is the wrong basis for mapping the process of intersubjective systems. As McCarthy, in his excellent study of Habermas, puts it, "The real problem...is not technical reason as such but its universalization [!], the forfeiture of a more comprehensive concept of reason in favor of the exclusive validity of scientific and technological thought, the reduction of PRAXIS to TECHNE, and the extension of purposive action to all spheres of life. (THREE FACES OF HERMENEUTICS 93) ---------------------------- That is why the proposition that the tzolkin by itself alone could be a "unified field theory" on the basis of physicalist science makes me rather anxious. For although SEMANTICALLY you may be replacing Western paradigms of thought with those of the Maya, SYNTACTICALLY, in a structural sense, you could easily be reinstating the totalitarian LOGIC of the meta-narrative under a new semantic banner, which in the last analysis no Native Maya shaman could recognize as being their own. I also like what you said about the Judeo-Christian-islamic–or MONOTHEISTIC complex—, as I too share a great distrust of Western paradigms of thought–including, or especially, Science, as you mention, by which is meant the mathematically guided methodologies that establish the sciences of Nature. That is why I have taken wings with the postmodern trends of cultural criticism, which do come hard on all of this, with a particular eye to the reconstitution of a meta-narrative or grand récit which attempts a totalizing view of Nature and man, rather than being content with a multiplicity of little narratives (petit histoires) or "truths". The mad drive toward a totalizing (totalitarian?) picture of reality is the hallmark of all such (monotheistic) attempts to derive any and everything from a simple "primordial ground," rather than recognizing the equiprimordiality of constitutive factors–such as those that cleave the humanities as geisteswissenschaften (sciences of the human spirit) from the sciences of Nature. The latter's approach becomes "unscientific" if applied to cultural phenomena. This conclusion comes out nicely in an essay on "A Psychosocial Hermeneutics" by Roy Howard, where he writes:

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The moral here is not that the subjectless methodology of the physical sciences is inherently vicious but that it is the wrong basis for mapping the process of intersubjective systems. As McCarthy, in his excellent study of Habermas, puts it, "The real problem…is not technical reason as such but its universalization [!], the forfeiture of a more comprehensive concept of reason in favor of the exclusive validity of scientific and technological thought, the reduction of PRAXIS to TECHNE, and the extension of purposive action to all spheres of life. (THREE FACES OF HERMENEUTICS 93)

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That is why the proposition that the tzolkin by itself alone could be a "unified field theory" on the basis of physicalist science makes me rather anxious. For although SEMANTICALLY you may be replacing Western paradigms of thought with those of the Maya, SYNTACTICALLY, in a structural sense, you could easily be reinstating the totalitarian LOGIC of the meta-narrative under a new semantic banner, which in the last analysis no Native Maya shaman could recognize as being their own.

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