To remind you of some of the consequences or, rather, advantages (granting superior levels of universal „fitness“ ) of a shift from evolutionary and individual learning to cultural learning:
b1.a. Transgression beyond individual limits: Learning on a behavioral level just is a tremendous acceleration of the learning process – no replacement of learning structures themselves is required (which just is the step from evolutionary to individual learning). Cultural learning has this in common with animal behavioral learning – the advantage of cultural learning on behavioral learning is, of course: It is virtual collective – every single member of a group can relay empirical content to others – the other members of the group need not be exposed to the source of the according experience – delay of time is possible – even such that far later younger members of the group are told what happened in the past such that a collective memory and tradition is built up beyond biographical limits. This level of learning is just about reached in what is called learning based on (behavior) models – up to learned (not innate) behaviorial or technical „cultures“ in animals: Others can draw consequences from experiencing what happened to only one of them. However, language as a tool of sharing experience of others in the past accelerates this process and makes it by far more subtle and more comprehensive: A level which never can be reached by animal learning based on model.
b1.b. Transgression beyond organismic limitis (even of the group or species as a whole) – working by the help of tools up to means for storage of collective memory content. The individual organism then is no longer the only carrier of cultural achievements and information processed – they are embodied and embedded within self-produced objects in the environment – or, they are made „objective“, accessible for anybody (such that they can be taken away as well); the environment becomes a sort of extended collective body (with learning capacities as well) such that the real persons (and their recollection) are discharged and gain additional free capacities..Another word for that is: increase of productivity. However, the aspect of typically cultural „outsourcing“ genuine biological functions by transferring them onto non-biological devices is a very important aspect of intelligent action – an aspect e.g. A.I. had failed to take into account for long time.
b1c. Transgression beyond individual limits of action: Extended division of labour on a technical level (developing groups with specialising technical skills and tools – flexible enough to be adapted to growing knowledge). That means: Actions of individuals with language can steadily be combined – not only on single occasions (as in animal cooperation in e.g. hunting), but perseveringly – such that most parts of the process of physical reproduction can be divided and be subject to specialisation and development of special knowledge and tradition which is only to be transferred to specialists – the results of that knowledge are available for all, though.
b1d. Transgression beyond individual limits of processing – Spreading relevant knowledge all over the community as a whole, tradition of experience (pure decription and report) separate from processing the experience, collective discussion (quick re-interpretation facing new empirical material; spreading of shared interpretations, ability to share concepts and their application on shared experience) – which in the end leads to division of labour as to active research, hence learning itself – appointment of experiments, trials, collective attempts to do things in order to find out if… (the whole practice of a society can be conceived as being a gigantic experiment…)
That was just basic material culture – which is a basis but no more for all and every higher development, be it
b1.e. organisation of knowledge (which experiment (change in society’s ever-experimental practice) should be carried out next considering the entire common inventory of knowledge at that moment?), and/ or
b1.f. organisation of societal relations beyond face-to-face-contact (pushing the limits of shared material culture (exchange of goods, practices, ideas, knowledge; solidarity) beyond that what is possible in a single group or population.
b2. Reflections on racism as being ignoring cultural learning
b21. Racism according to my implicit definition is to ignore the outcome of cultural learning. On which occasions will that occur – where does it matter at all, or make a difference if you explain something either by concepts involving cultural learning, or by a racist interpretation? Which fields of „discourse“ are racist interpretations to be met in?
The word „interpretation“ i have used spontaneously could point to the answer. We do interpret the actions, or rather: the reasons (and causes) for actions of ourselves and other people – and we will treat ourselves and others according to these interpretations. Possible (conscious) reasons for actions split – roughly – into motives and abilities (their alleged wellknown limits). Again, there are two cases: On the one hand, when explaining ordinary actions within the scope of somebody’s abilities, you would emphasize their motives, on the other hand, explaining the fact that somebody (including yourself) does not do what you would expect or wish them to do (considering their alleged own motives, or motives you ascribe to them) you would rather emphasize their allegedly (restricted) abilities – which is true in a very special case, i.e. explaining actions which everybody wishes to perform but ordinarily claims to not be able to (the motive or wish being clear in that case) – what made that action possible despite that common unachievability hence must have been a special, or rather excellent ability or talent. We deny to think that a special motive could account for that kind of action. For the sake of completeness, we should add that there are special cases of that kind in interpreting „ordinary“ actions, too: In order to ascribe motives you have to claim that the actor was in a normal condition as to their scope of abilities (especially, the faculty to reflect, think about consequences of actions etc.) – any argument about resonsibility or not of e.g. criminals or addicts cercles around these questions: Had they been able to (esp. know the consequences) but did not want to? Did they want to not do but were not able to stop themselves doing it? Weren’t they able to although they wanted it? Were they able to control themselves but did not want to? (Next level: Could they have been able if they had cared about in time? etc.)
b22. And what about the question: Even if they were able to (not) do what WE would (not) have done – could they have been NOT ABLE TO WANT TO do it? Because they did not happen to KNOW (experience etc.) what we know? What kind of answer is this? I think it is about the kind of answer which would make a reference to cultural learning – or rather, to a lack of such learning. (It is just „about“ that kind – because there is a type of psychological explanation referring to (individual) learning though not CULTURAL learning. I will soon come back to this.)
In a similar rough manner as we just have been representing „racist“ explanations – how would we characterise in which regards cultural explanations differs from the racist ones?
I think they are just two.
a) Cultural interpretation would still prefer explaining by (rational) motives (based on collective experience) when racist interpretation just refers to (restricted or enhanced) abilities.
b) Cultural interpretation tends to use „deficit“ or „negative“ explanations in general, as „has not yet learned (does not yet know, was not yet motivated to think ) that…“. Whereas racist explanations would ascribe motives as „wants to do, wants to not do“ but never anything of the „does not yet want (because not yet knowing etc.)“ type.
In other words: Racist explanations deny or at least don’t mention possible change as a consequence of rational processed (collective) experience, hence learning. They usually stop at ultimate restrictions for abilities (or enhanced abilities) and/or motives viz. strong and insurmountable dispositions for having such motives. And as a consequence, they necessarily categorise (or „lump together“ ) people in groups with similar dispositions for actions – dispositions which cannot be changed by any experience or information or reason whatsoever.
b23. Of course, i now expect any reader to reply: You call us racists – just because we recognise what you in turn are denying: That there are differences beween people which cannot be reduced to any lack of knowledge – at least as far as we know. You pretend to know better? From where and what is this knowledge derived? We do not deny cultural learning – hence, we agree with all and everything you have enumerated on your section b1, and yes, of course, these are big achievements. But it is begging the question to take these criteria for „cultural learning“ and then claim, that ANY motive or ability must be the outcome of such cultural learning. Humans, persons, as intelligent as they may be, can show all and every single achievement of those types enumerated by you – to more or less extent – and hereby prove themselves to be those beings superior to any animal whatsoever you have claimed them to be. Is this very fact, however, sufficient to imply that all and every mental state and/or disposition of those beings (mental state which must be referred to to account for their actions) must be of THAT kind to be a possible state of a human – even if humans are characterised or even defined by possession of those superior „learning“ abilities?
(If it is characteristic of elephants, or even part of their definition as a species, to be grey – is it necessary for every part of an elephant to be grey, e.g. their blood? Of course it is not, because only the surface and skin of the elephant is grey, and that is characteristic of an elephant and need not be denied, if their blood is red – which, by the way, is characteristic of common elephants, too. Even if it is not defining their species.. and even if they have that in common with other species (though not all). So far for conclusions (or better, fallacies) of that kind..)
So please, would you stop calling us racists and what not any longer?
b24. … (Yes I stop… but.. just for further thinking.. wait and see…)
b240. I know very well that „racist“ is an insult – but you in turn know that i cannot be serious about that in any regard except for showing you some SURPRISING and UNEXPECTED or even UNWANTED similarities between your thoughts and those of real racists; my use of that insulting expression hence is only for to make and keep you aware of the fact that at least I (you may like it or not) keep on paying attention to that similarities – for theoretical reasons (which are the only relevant here); because any (logically) effective and satisfying refutation of genuine racism will have to remove these similarities in order to make racism a position which cannot be maintained any longer – at least in theoretical regard. And THAT is going to be my task now until it is finished. (That may last longer than expected, which does not matter at all because perfect refutation of racism is worthwhile it. Maybe you are getting a notion of Radical Feminism to be a demanding and ambitious theory.)
b241. Let us go back to what turned out (or at least appeared) to be the conceptual structure of racist thinking.
x1)They had
x11) SPECIAL ABILITIES AND MOTIVES, and mostly COMBINATIONS of both of them, on three levels, i.e. below/level with/above average requirements“. This below/level with/above is what interests racist thinkers most. They will admit that beside that scale of abilities and motives of any degree or value,
x12) there is more or less (=below/level with/above average, too) of an UNIVERSAL basic sphere of general human ABILITIES AND MOTIVES which are available for, and have to be ascribed as such to at least most humans – even from the perspective of the racists.
x2) Now let me remind you of my own representation of the same categories, compared to those of the racists:
x21) I don’t allow for any level „above“; it is replaced by SPECIAL MOTIVES (AND SECONDARY ABILITIES, if motives lead to long term specialisation of general abilities: by exercise, preparedness for special tasks at the expense of other tasks= one-sidedness etc.)
x22) On the „average“ or more precisely, „common human“ level, the according concrete combination of abilities and motives of every single person at a certain moment is determined (!) by what these persons KNOW (including the actual state of their capacities to act, embodied in their feelings, emotions, and affective states) and the general capacity shared by all humans being called reason, intelligence, intellect, mind, or CAPACITY TO BUILD UP LANGUAGE (when and to that extent it has not been built up yet) or to learn the existing language.
x23) On the „below“ level, I recognise nothing but restrictions of those reason/experience-determined motives or abilities – RESTRICTIONS being caused by normal restrictions of the actual capacity to act (think etc.) or „health disturbances“ such that all „motives/abilities left on this level are kind of decreased and debased versions of the „average“ ones. (Those average ones are presupposed and define the debased ones – they determine the primary qualities of which the debased ones are derived by being flawed, restricted etc.)
x3) With this survey in mind, let us compare x1 and x2.
In x1, we have a certain determination by knowledge as well; it is hidden within that universal sphere which in x1 is the counterpart to the underlying capacity of x22. In x2, this capacity by its collaboration with knowledge available to a person accounts for the entire variety of motive-ability-combinations of that person at a moment; in a1 there is a second domain or source of variability of such a combination. It is NOT determined by knowledge, and, which is of same relevance, not determined by the universal human capacity either. (Having noticed that in b1, I just had found fault with „racist“ theories that they had had to assume unchangeable innate dispositions on fields which in fact can be influenced by cultural developments, i.e. learning (both terms as defined before). The fictive theoretical racist’s reply to that was: The very fact that SOME fields are determined by „cultural learning“ (more or less common to all humans; according to what THEY would understand by cultural learning, see x12) is not sufficient to prove the claim that all topical fields where abilities and motives exist have to be subject to „cultural learning“ (in either sense). Which I need not disagree with. – Now in preparing my reply for that reply, I want you to remember these most relevant results of this comparison:
x31) there is a massive difference between racist understanding of cultural learning, and mine;
x32) according to racists, there are specific abilities and motives on the same level as those influenced by cultural learning (as it is understood by racists; and, according to them, even as it is understood by me) which are NOT subject to any influence of that kind, i.e. of cultural kind (be it understood in THEIR way, or mine).
That may just have been said before; I hope it is now being said in a more clear fashion than before.
x4)
b242. Before going on, I have to add a note on my concept of „learning“. Learning, taken in an usual sense, could be defined as „gaining knowledge“, and that CAN be about acceptable if we extend the concept of knowing so far as to include „know how“ or even „being able“ in general. Please remember an expression I used in a former section: „rational processed (collective) experience, hence learning“. To just note what is the case would only be a first step in a long series leading up to fitting technically adapted parts of our environment („embodied“ in devices, results of productive work etc.) into our reproduction activities (incl. faculties suiting the requirements of this environment; esp. „knowledge“ ) – our daily life – supposing collaboration of these activities with the technically modified environment to such an extent, that this cultural environment could appear to be a part of our (societal) body/organism.
I have emphasized this melting together of our bodies with the „cultural“ environment as being one of the big achievements of „cultural learning“. But there is another achievement which is by far more essential for our survival: Our abilities incl. knowledge of cultural and non-cultural (non-controlled) parts of our environment must match the „motives“ we just are having and forming at a single moment of our history: Needs – wishes – values – goals – plans – purposes – intentions. This match or suiting each other of abilities (incl. knowledge) and motives in a successful and ongoing practice of a society at a certain moment of their history can be called: a form of life, or culture.
This is a very important detail: The CONCEPTUAL separation of ability-associated and motive-associated mental states, and the increased attentiveness to this split, is an additional peculiarity of „racist“ theories – compared to the emphasis on that necessary fitting and suiting to each other, being expressed in my understanding of „culture“.
b25. Refutation of theoretical racism: TYPES OF RACISM.
b250. To comment on this section in advance (as I did on the previous one, b24): I will go on the same way as I just have. One analysis after the other. And if you ask: Well, T. – when is the refutation to come? I will answer: It will emerge from the series of analyses.. Theoretical or conceptual refutations don’t relate to claims, and hence would not „prove“ anything to be „wrong“. A concept or theoretical approach is not a claim, or system of claims; it is a set of concepts and their way of relating to each other, with the ambition to name relevant and significant categories, their definitions, and what follows from that. A analytical or conceptual refutation, hence, has to demonstrate that in that field which the theory or concept claims to represent the most relevant categories of, it fails to do so – and that it is missing relevant common ideas of the varieties involved, or significant differences, or is missing to represent most relevant relations between categories in that field. So the general form of a conceptual refutation is: Something relevant is missing, is not being contained in the theory or definitions of the concepts – such that you have to name it, and everybody agrees: Yes, that was what was missing. In other words: The refutation of a bad theory consists in replacing it by a good theory – of course, in the field where the bad one had failed.
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b251. So let me now look more in detail at various types of racism. I deem this to be necessary for to recognise the relevant common characteristics of these putatively totally different opinions and attitudes. I continue to call these opinions and attitudes „racist“ because even if they want to build a concept of humans or persons as being equal, they fail to do that, and instead of that, they rather have to recognise the necessity of differentiating between groups of humans or persons who have nothing in common but their being members of the same biological species. Which is not enough to provide a base for far-reaching demands as to their being „equal“ and deserving same respect, solidarity or support as anybody else – they simply seem to be TOO different for that – in most relevant regards. The most relevant of these regards again could be this one:
The „strangers“ are too different to be receptive to your criticism or reasons – they will go on doing and not doing without listening or complying with your words, and without replying in a manner you in turn would accept or understand. Talking to them hence seems to make no sense any longer.. (So what does that marvellous gift of being able to express these facts by language add to these facts – except: being able to complain about these facts – because, from that perspective, language then will be of no more use; it is no longer a means to make you understood.. and agreed with..)
b252. Let me say then which details can be derived of this common conceptual structure of all variants of theoretical racism (including „involontary“ racism..; we could call that „objectively racist theories“ ORT):
y1: ORT fail to define a concept of what all humans or persons have in common such that it can act as a basis, too, for what accounts for the differences between them.
y2: ORT just HAVE a concept of what all humans or persons have in common, but it is only a necessary condition: They are able to speak (or supposed to be able to speak, or build a language if there is none yet). Which seems more or less trivial.. and seems not to cover the other and more important characteristics of persons beyond that trivial essential requirement – those characteristics which make humans or persons to be what they are.
(Whereas, to remind you, I think that necessary condition to simultaneously be sufficient.)
y3: ORT (or persons who by their opinions presuppose one or other ORT to be true) just HAVE an idea of what these common charactistics (beyond language) could consist in. Or, with a more technical term: They know a sufficient condition for being a person – this one: To be like THEY are, in every relevant regard. So they serve as a model without being able to determine where the really relevant differences could start.. and, to be precise, these differences would not be of a kind that „make no difference“ – but differences such that they mark the transition to the non-human, non-person-kind of beings (which does not imply, to be absolutely clear about that, that obligations end.. We would not kill animals without sufficient reason (let alone hurt them, or inflict pain to them), why should we do that to beings even nearer to us..)
y4: Missing THE necessary and sufficient conditions for being a person or „like ourselves, in the relevant regards“ , ORT are missing the DEFINITION of „being a person“ – but, as said in y1, by that they miss the reasons for possible differences between persons as well. And hence (here comes y4) they fail to offer a justified (!)“convincing“ procedure as to either remove the relevant difference, or to come to the conclusion that somebody lack some relevant characteristic such that they cannot be taken serious any longer – because they still would not agree after having undergone application of that procedure (normally a procedure to show them anything what they don’t see or know or haven’t conceived yet etc.).
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Let us asssume a person A tries to convince a person B. B deviates from what according to A is striking rational, obvious etc. A airs his or her reasons up to a point when he or she resigns. If it is about such an opinion of B A would classify as being totally irrational, „not worthwhile discussion“ etc. then A will tend to view B as being not to be taken serious any longer (except A thinks this to be a single and isolated occurance within B’s mind..)
The attempt A made to convince B here (A`s „procedure“ ) was a rather rough and poor one. But when is A really justified in deny B that predicate „being to be taken serious“?
If you are not in contact with B, it does not matter – you can „tolerate“ B and all of his or her sort, evade discussion of that topic with them etc.
But if Bs increase in numbers.. would you give in, tolerate them, grant them appropriate shares of common goods etc.?
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I did not say anything in detail about possible ideas of people as to how these testing or checking procedures (attempts to convince) could work. Nevertheless, the most abstract characterisation of such a procedure shows: It is about giving the persons to be checked a piece of one’s own „processed experience“ (information, concepts, perceptions, experiences, faculties, conditions of life..(your political system..) – if not trying to force these persons to take up this piece of one’s own experience – hoping that this will remove the „relevant difference“ between oneself and them – as you UNDERSTAND it.
Understanding in this context means: Being able to tell what piece of processed expereince is missing to make the other person agree in a understandable manner – you EXPLAIN WHY that person CANNOT agree yet – what that person has not yet.. (learned, noted, thought about etc.)
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Otherwise, you at a certain point would give up and declare the other.. persons?.. to be .. no persons any more? mad, of unsound mind, not responsible for their actions? not to be taken serious any longer? not to be able or deserving to be talked to? being childish? ..in one word: to be tolerated..?
Any ways – at least it is obvious: You at least instinctively try to treat those deviating from what you think to be right in relevant regards as possibly to be influenced by that increase of „processed experience“ you provide them – and hence, you at least try to treat them as „learners“. Which at least COULD point to the fact that you (the same way as I do) expect „persons“ to be able to learn, and that you become confused and doubting the „personality“ of persons if they fail to live up to that expectations..
b26 TYPES OF RACISM: A possible list. (Introduction)
b26.00 According to what has been argued for in b252, any racist theory will presuppose a trivial common characteristic of all persons: possession of language. So any survey of types of racism has to approach the possible varieties by help of the other dimension of any ORT – the „any person has to be like myself in relevant regards“ criterion, and the „attempt to convince“ procedure for to test if and when and who the criterion applies to.
b26.01 There is a link, of course, between „being like I am“ and my „attempts to convince“ because I would choose such content („piece of (my) processed experience“ ) for trying to convince you which would convince myself if I was in your situation. It is my assessment of what you are missing to agree with me – and that assessment was what I had identified with „understanding“.
b26.02 Full understanding hence would consist in being able to break down the whole of your own processed experience in steps of more or less completeness such that you can tell, for every single stage of that kind, which piece of processed experience would help somebody in that stage to make the next step up to the same level of processed experience you yourself have arrived at.
b26.03 This in turn can be taken as full understanding or being able to explain oneself because for every past stage of your own experience you could tell the possible variants of it which had led you to the same „processing“ acitivties as a consequence – the very same ones, or appropriately varied ones; such that you can tell which activities you would expect from anybody on a certain stage of their experience comparable to a former stage of that kind of your own – as a („processing“ ) consequence of that experience: that is understanding why persons ARE what they are by just having the (restricted, incomplete) experience they have; moreover, you should be able to tell then which CHANGE of activities you would expect from them when these people get a certain piece of experience which you just have such that to convey that piece of experience to them would be a form of process to convince them that to perform that change (the same way, or an equivalent on THEIR side, in their special situation) would be an appropriate step for them as well, otherwise you would stop being able to understand them any longer: that is understanding why persons WILL CHANGE if and when facing certain facts – at least as long as they are rational, to be taken seriously, accountable for what they are doing etc.
b26.04 So you will never be able to understand more of others than you currently understand of yourself. And the content of any „convincing“ procedure is linked to „understanding“ in that understanding is nothing but kind of telling why people act how they act on the basis of their experience – „because they did not experience thatandthat yet“ – an explanation which more explicitly reads like: They are and do what they are and do because they have ONLY this experience. But if they would get thatandthat piece of experience (learn..) then they would change suchandsuch. At least I would do so being in THEIR situation – this piece of experience in that situatuion would have made ME to change that way.. at least as long as I am rational etc.
In other words: Transparency regarding yourself is the basis for transparency of any other person for you. Being unclear about yourself makes you unclear about others. Or, still another version: You are the model for any other persons in the world – what you WOULD have done (as far as it makes a difference) in their situation is what you are justified to EXPECT from these persons.
b26.05 As a consequence of what just has been said, an entire series of equivalent formulas unfolds for types of WHAT I am going to present now:
Types/stages of incomplete understanding/ being able to explain/ determining oneself;
types of incomplete understanding etc. others;
types of incomplete convincing procedures;
types of premature breaking off convincing others and not taking them seriously any longer.
b27. Types of racism: First triplet of the possible list.
b270.
Please, be always aware of the fact that my word „racism“ is a technical and theoretical term I have chosen for to point out some common characteristics (see sections before).
My list contains three departments, each of them containing three types of racism (in my sense).
The three main departments are:
ELITIST racism
EGALITARIAN-AUTHORITARIAN racism
NON-AUTHORITARIAN racism.
These are three according stages of „incompleteness“ (cp. 26.05).
b271a In being ELITIST (in my sense), you would not be able to recognise the whole of your own principles of decision-making and reasoning – to the consequence that you will not have the categories to do a full and comprehensive comparison between your own fashion to set goals and that of others. Which in turn will lead you to suppose others to not differ from you in those regards you have no name or concept for, and to translate any difference in those regards into other differences you just have a name and concept for. More in detail: Being elitist (in my sense) means you have no notion of others being different from you in most fundamental regards i.e. your fashion to choose and set up your values, goals, roles – you cannot believe (being elitist in this sense) that others could have other values etc. than yours. Therefore, for every deviation from what you are requiring and expecting others to be or to do (in this common framework of putatively shared values etc.) you just have to find an explanation on a level BELOW those fundamental differences of values etc. (which in fact are accountable for the difference between your own idea of what is appropriate to demand and expect, and the ideas of others…)
To make you understand better what is meant by that, I will present the three types of this department in detail: „PSYCHOLOGISING“ – IDEALISING – RECOGNISING. (I hope you in the end will understand that term „elitist“ I have assigned to this department.)
b271b
For this look onto or into the details of elitist types of racism, I have to add a more precise description of the field which a racist type of incomplete understanding is applied to.
We are talking about negotiations of people who want others to cooperate with them (and refuse to do so). Of course, you would have to get to know those you want to cooperate with you in a certain regard, and let us assume you just have got sufficient information. Then you will go on making a schedule for what everybody should do or – if your schedule is for a longer period of time – in which way the persons involved are required to change, adapt etc. in order to act according to your schedule.
You will participate in the realisation such that you yourself will have a certain role in the schedule (or proposal) as well. In special cases, the role assigned to yourself of others in this „collective“ schedule (or proposal) of yours can be „empty“ – others are required to stay out, or you yourself will contribute nothing. Though being „negative“, these requirements, nevertheless, can be a possible content of your collective schedule as well. If your collective schedule or proposal has same content as that of every other person affected by it, there will be no conflict, quarrel or negotiations any more but just sharing the necessary information and making appointments – such that everybody knows what to do. Unfortunately, things are not so easy in many cases – and therefore, as i said, some negotiating will follow between the different parties involved – parties each of which have a collective schedule for themselves and the other parties which deviates in parts from the collective schedule of others.
Being such a party in a negotiation (real or virtual), you have to design a strategy to convince or persuade the others. The content of that strategy for convincing depends on your assessment of what the others don’t know yet, don’t have thought or conceived of yet etc – or in brief, what they still are lacking such that they don’t agree with you – which they would do if you provide the material lacking – a piece of your own „processed experience“ (as just had been said in b26).
b271c
Being put in this perspective – what does „psychologising“ mean then? In b21, I just had presented the 4 basic question of a psychologising explanation:
P1: Had they been able to (esp. know the consequences) but did not want to?
P2: Did they want to not do but were not able to stop themselves doing it?
P3: Were they not able to although they wanted it?
P4: Were they able to control themselves but did not want to? (Next level: Had they been able if they had cared about in time? etc.)
Let us rearrange these 4 sentences such that we gain more insight into their being related to each other.
The basic sentence is P3: restricted abilities – they do not what they are required to do because they are not even able to do it. This, of course, is your favourite formula to account for breaking off cooperation, trying to convince or make somebody agree with you etc. You will need no convincing strategy in most cases of that kind. Not talking to them any longer and despising them will do as well.
The practical use of this formula is limited because in most cases, you have to negotiate with people you cannot just ignore (you need their support, or they can threaten you, enforce their own will etc.)
Your explanation has to recognise their being able, and the difference is in what they WANT although they are supposed to want what YOU want them to want, and „actually are to be expected to do that if reason X had not interferred“. This X splits in 3 possible versions P1, P2, P4.
P1 is the simple alternative: They had wanted something else and had lied about what they REALLY want. Your convincing strategy consists in making them admit that.
P2 and P4 are more complicated. You presuppose they „actually wanted what they had been supposed to want BUT…“ there was something of a wish, desire, a drive, urge etc. which intervened or, to be precise, interferred with carrying out the „actual“ plan.
P2 and P4 turn out to explain the intervening desire as being the outcome of applying the same categories as before: ability (P2) or want (P4) to restrain or curb the intervening wish, desire, drive, urge. In other words, we assume the existence of abilities and intentions of second degree which again are referring to first degree wants. The same procedure can be applied to limited abilities (as an impediment for performing one’s duties in a shared plan): There can be abilities of second degree – abilities to increase your first degree abilities by training etc – if only you WANT. So far it is due to lack of second degree abilities, that you still have intervening desires..urges, and you can use the extended space of your capacities of self-enhancing („growing“, bettering yourself..) to move your actual limitis towards the real limits.. which still have to be discovered by checking and challenging the actual ones.. IF ONLY you want..
b271d
0 Now let us check the 4 points of section b26.05 – if I am right, „psychologizing“ as has been described thus far, must be able to be characterised in following regards i.e. as being
a type of incomplete understanding/ being able to explain/ determine oneself and/or others;
a type of incomplete convincing procedures;
a type of premature breaking off convincing others and not taking them seriously any longer.
1 Basically, we have two main categories where psychologizing ends: motives – and (lack of) abilities – and a possible blend of them. To ascribe real or possible motives to somebody presupposes ascribing the according abilities – as an explaining category, „ability“ does not occur but in the shape of „lacking ability“. As further differentiation, understanding of psychologizing type would provide 3 sub-categories:
lacking ability or motive to do (what is required);
lacking ability to stick to what one has decided or promised to do, in other words: weakness of will; or motive to do something different (from what is required);
lacking ability to use and exhaust the entire range of one’s capacities, in another word: laziness, or lacking motive to invest the effort necessary for to reach a goal (as one is required to do).
2 According to these ways of understanding, there is basically one single form of reaction – in all cases when you decide a motive to be the determining factor: You will threaten the person to change their intentions (or motives) such that they comply with what they are rewuired to do, or you will promise them an appropriate reward. If you don’t have any trust in the effectiveness of these procedures, you will resign yourself to influence the motives of the other person, and fall back on the according explanation of the „lack of ability“ type.
3 The social environment of people who think according the psychologizing pattern, hence splits into the following departments:
3a those who act as they are required and expected to act;
3b those who are declared to be unable for cooperation on a certain level, and hence derserve being despised;
3c those who disagree with what they are required to do and/or are arcribed as being able or unable to do, and who the „psychologizers“ have to fight with about which decription of their PSYCHOLOGICAL status is correct.
4 Of course, even psychologizers would admit that there are issues beyond psychological ascriptions (motives, abilities) and that conflicts can occur as to correct dealing with those issues. The problem with psychologizers is that they have no rule to decide when disagreement with their proposals or requirements is due to objective reasons. In fact, psychologizers have no category of its own for these cases – the very fact that somebody does not do what they are required and expected to do is sufficient prove for that they show some lack in one or other regard – on the psychological level, i.e. abilities and/or motives.
5 Where this way of thinking is usual, people start to behave as if they were the one and only persons who have objective reasons – and that the reasons of one’s own be the only one’s anybody could have. These people, hence, will represent their disagreements as a permanent conflict on either deviating motives („you don’t want to what I require you to do; you are not impressed enough by my threats or rewards, so I will have to increase them“) or inabilities (which would lead to reduce the range of shared cooperative endeavors: „You are not even able to…“).
6 In the mind of a psychologizer, the „objectively correct things“ (proposals, opinions, plans) go without saying (i.e. discussion). In most cases, there is nothing left to decide in such a world but the assignment of partial tasks in a collective schedule to persons. The schedule itself has been fixed and settled since long, and is beyond discussion. (Challenges of the fixed schedule would be thought of as being pretexts to disguise an inability (causing shame) or deviating motive (in order to avoid punishment, or to gain more of a reward than is derserved.)
7 The most interesting question as to psychologizers, however, is: How do they proceed when dealing with themselves? (Which, of course, refers to the „incomplete self-determination“ department of psychologizing, being interpreted as an objective racist theory (ORT, cp. b252).)
The simple answer is: The same way, of course; a less simple additional answer is: … and this way of decision making of their’s is the actual reason for how they deal with others. By this explanation of psychologizing as being derived from the decision-making-process of the psychologizers, I agree with my own principle as I have stated it above: It is the incomplete determination of what is rational and appropriate for oneself which accounts for incomplete (or primitive) understanding of others.
8 Psychologizing in social regards, hence, has an equivalent in behaving towards the word in general.
If you understand every failure as being a challenge to your motives OR a limit to your abilities (in the sense of: your unability to achieve aims like that you just have failed to achieve now is finally proven by this failure) you never get to think about objektive reasons – or, again, objectice reasons are always immediate part of the question: Shall I go on viewing myself (or „us“) to be able to achieve this or that – or to be unable; and if I deem myself to be able – is my reward still big enough, or the risk (the danger, the threat) such that even this effort being bigger than has been expected still is worthwhile?
9 The primitive aspect of this kind of „psychologizing“ decision-making and looking at objective tasks is that even the question what could have been an objective cause for your failure is secondary being compared to the primary question: if it is worthwhile to investigate that at all – as if it was possible to assess the probability of finding useful results of an investigation before doing this investigation.
So, again, your „racist“ dealing (of a psychologizing type) with others just is a continuation of your own racist dealing (of a psychologizing type) with yourself, or rather, with objective issues – to the consequence, that psychologizing will end as soon as you have arrived at a less primitive way of dealing with objective issues (predominantly, issues of research, not knowing enough, doing experiments, having hypotheses worthwhile testing next etc).
This less primitive way of dealing with the world and your incomplete knowledge of it is religious thinking. If I am right, the next type of racism (racist dealing with onelsef and others) hence will be derived from that way of thinking.
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MAGICAL THINKING
10 Before going on presenting that more advanced type of dealing with world and incomplete knowledge (religion), let me point out some peculiarities of how „psychologizers“ refer to the same – world and incomplete knowledge. In order to have a name for this kind of referring to the world, let us call it: planning/learning according to normal expectations (PLAN).
10a PLAN is a way to act such that you presuppose that there must some sort of useful environment around you (and the group you belong to). This usefulness of the environment implies a certain practice which is well-known to you in a sense such that you know what to do in this environment in order to gain what you need – such that you can go on living and repeat doing what is necessary (and known) for to gain what you need. Moreover, you know ways of how to proceed for to make things better for you, to reduce dangerous threats, to cause relief from labour, use raw materials in an economic way etc. – brief, you know a way of progress starting from your original situation.
10b The underlying hypothesis or rather expectation of PLAN is that there MUST be some sort of such an environment in combination with knowledge on its relevant useful qualities immediately available. The only question for people practicising PLAN is: Which part of the world around us is part of that useful environment? – In that presupposition, there is no separation being made of possible facts and possible knowledge of them, no separation of known facts and facts useful to know about (because they relate to our interests and possible actions), and even no separation of useful facts (in a technical sense) and facts actually used in a practice of reproduction or progress within a framework of definitive expectations.
10c This, in turn, not only means:
i) treating facts, having knowledge of these facts, relevance of knowledge and actual being able to use relevant knowledge as being one and the same but rather as a sort of fact in itself.
It is no question IF there is an optimum and immediately accessible way of reproduction (on a given level) and progress – the only question (as just has been said in 10b) is: How does it look like?
And there are two additional presuppositions which make things even easier:
ii) The actual practice of reproduction and progress as far as it is well confirmed by experience is thought to be an approximate model of the optimum – even if it is not THE optimum it is more or less near to it.
iii) As far as this practice is NOT the optimum possible, it is expected by people acting according to the PLAN mode that there must be a learning process such that step by step they will come nearer to the optimum – such that the difference keeps on getting smaller and smaller (and never increases again..)
This implies that they get the incentives as to WHEN to look for any improvement or as to WHERE, and WHAT that could look like (such that it is worthwhile doing, trying, researching etc.) by clues within their experience as well – experience has taught them (or their ancestors) the existing practice and will teach them how to improve that practice for to get nearer and nearer to the optimum being possible in that environment.
10d The model for this behavior in general is our knowledge of the needs and abilities of our own body – as it is represented within our feelings. Our knowledge as to how to move in a maximum skilful manner – or, as to satisfy the needs and appetites, heed the restrictions of our capacities etc. – this knowledge may be incomplete yet – even if it is just good enough – this is what i) is analogous to). But with growing experience in dealing with and using our body, we will get nearer and nearer to perfection. The way to do that is by trial and error – where the variants (how to move, satisfy, heed) to be tried at all are well-known (concerning their quality) and located between more or less narrow limits (this is what ii) is analogous to). So starting from a quite sufficient state of controlling our bodies, we can still improve by practice and exercise along pre-designed routes – we just KNOW (by feeling, watching) HOW to exercise in order to improve this or that body movement, or in order to use our capacities in an optimum fashion, or heeding our needs and satisfying our appetites by tasting, feeling the amount of success of our attempts, trials (it tastes, feels good!) etc. And even if there is simething in our environment which we just did not know before, be it a good or a bad influence – we will learn it by the resulting effects on our feelings – feelings of „being normal“, „better/worse than average or usual“.
(These external conditions – analogon to our body’s needs – can be called „health conditions“, health roughly being defined as feeling normal, having normal needs and capacities, as usual. We can learn about conditions in our environment (not known before) which are dangerous to our health – and other ones which are favorable. Again, the basis for that knowledge are all those well-known feelings which help define what we consider as being our „health“ or normal condition in life (with special varaints according to age, sex, actual functional states etc.) (internal and external conditions for feeling good and normal hence are which iii) is analogous to).
10e The principle of PLAN hence can be characterised as being this: Acting according to PLAN rules, we expect rules appropriate in dealing with our bodies as far as we control their states by oure feelings, to apply on our purposeful usage of parts of our environment. We do not presuppose that this body-like character applies on the world as a whole – but we are uncertain as to the amount it does apply – such that we think we have to research this amount – along the well-known practice by which we control at least certain parts of our environment as if they were parts of our own body (as regular, as being represented be feelings as our body functions..).
Since we are speaking here not of bodies as physical organisms but only as far as their functions are represented by feelings, and can be controlled by simple daily life measures (the success of these measures again being represented by feelings) – we can call that entity which in PLAN is extended into the physical environment (which begins in the non-felt parts of our body) our SELF.
10f Now let us repeat: Acting according to PLAN means:
i‘) treating a basical or original practice (and idea of possible progress starting from that practice) as an analogy to our „self“. This practice is not claimed to have no limits – quite the opposite, it can be even turn out to bemore restricted in some regards than first had been expected – but THAT this practice is more or less near to what at best CAN be expected in that environment.
ii‘) treating FEELINGS as those representing the condition of our self as representing relevant characteristics of our environment – at least regarding it’s quality as being part or non-part of that extended self we think our original practice and idea of progress (and the possible variants of both) to be.
iii‘) treating events, states of being, courses of events, dispositions etc. in the world which are not being „felt“ or feelings themselves but related to events, states, courses an dispositons within our practice (that „extended self“) in some way or other, as if they were relevant health conditions for the extended self we think our practice and idea of progress to be.
With these equations in mind, we can replace the artificial term PLAN by a far more familiar concept: MAGICAL THINKING – or, more precisely, superstitious epistemological strategies of interpretation and processing experiences, and magical techiques (and experiments) as the according practical consequence (including simple superstitious „avoiding“ measures as part of a complete inventory of techniques or regime actually in use in order to exercise magical control of the environment).
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I will spend some further sub-sections of this paragraph 10 on PLAN or magical thinking in order to show you some consequences of this fundamental way of thinking.
I believe there basically are only three of these ways of thinking at all: magical and religious thinking, being the two possible pre-modern variants; then modern thinking; and that progress beyond modern thinking which radical feminism is an expression of.
PLAN was the original term I assigned to this way of thinking. You will remember that it meant „planning and learning according to normal expectations“. Using this name implies an intentional ambiguity:
First, it means: in this way of acting (planning, learning), we expect a certain normality – our expectations don’t refer to anything extraordinary but regular things (states of affair, events or courses of events, dispositions) exclusively – and hence, our expectations can be thought of as being „normal“ themselves.. It is normal to expect normality and have normal expectations, in a given situation (group, culture, historical epoch).
But, second, it is normal to think in the PLAN mode in general – at least if there are no other educational instructions or (historical, cultural) experiences causing a progress beyond that first stage of development in historical mentalities. If there are no special measures taken to move on, everybody will start on that point of view i.e. PLAN and stay there unless there are massive reasons for leaving it (and head forward to religion which is the next findamental stage of that kind). In pre-historic times, I claim, PLAN was (and in „primitive“ populations still is up to now) the basis for processing experience, forming the ideas of the world as a whole and of how to deal rationally with it. It took mankind a long time of gathering experience and processing it according to PLAN principles for to get beyond that primary stage – to be precise on that: Just to process accumulating experience on the very basis of PLAN made people move beyond it and enter religious thinking without noticing or understanding what happened. People which had arrived at that religious stage (or had received motives to enter that stage in the course of their education) could not but note their difference to people still thinking in the limits of PLAN – the believers mostly had no notion of how their own way of thinking had originated or what could have caused such a change. To the effect that they had not the least notion as to what it was that separated them from the PLAN people and as to how to make others move to their religious stance.
In the sub-sections to come I will deal with these subjects:
10g, cognitive consequences of PLAN or magical thinking: epistemology of superstition
10h, emotional consequences of PLAN or magical thinking: psycho-economy of addiction (drug use), anxiety, depression, impatience/aggression.
10i, the origin and basic fault of magical thinking: behavioral learning patterns (learning by success and failure, learning according to models) transferred to a language based= cultural environment.
10j, result of overcoming PLAN: separation of „identity“ and „individuality“.
10k, the pattern of overcoming PLAN in the wake of its being applied in the long run: the necessary transition to religious thinking as a consequence. Why this cannot be noticed by the persons who perform that transition.
10l, identity and the necessity of determining one’s own identity as being what is rational within PLAN, and will remain even after the transition to religion occurred; the necessity of making identity and individuality suit each other at every single period of one’s life.
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10g Cognitive consequences of PLAN or magical thinking: Epistemology of superstition.
(10g)
1a Epistemology here refers to the inventory of rules being used in a group or historical epoch in order to seek, gain and deal with experience by processing it and transferring it to or fitting it into the knowledge which already is there. – In general, there are three topical domains of gaining and processing knowledge where epistemological rules are to be applied to:
searching (without having specific research strategies) – experiment – trial-and-error-trying (in order to optimize functions and qualities as far as they are able to be changed).
In searching, you are guided by negative results – you did not found anything of interest for you, and change place, direction, type of objects etc. you are looking at or playing with (in order to discover properties of the things: how they are, function, behave in general). The interest which motivates your search may lie in some useful properties of the objects you are looking for such that finding them means taking them and process them for to be used, like raw materials, edible things etc.
In some cases, the interest involved, however, is to gain more knowledge as to how these things function, behave on certain conditions: Then you will move the thing you found in environments where such conditions are realised (maybe artificially brought about by your own actions), and vary these conditions systematically such that you can gain knowledge about regularities – knowledge as to how variation of conditions is followed by according variations of function, qualities etc of things.
If this knowledge allows for technical arrangements of things such that in principle they are ready for use (in a form which never had occurred by itself in a natural environment) – then the experiments become more and more restricted to make these technical and useful devices work in a maximum useful manner. Now it is the inventory of possible combinations of conditions and according functions (qualities) (as it originated from experiments of the second stage) which is being tested – mostly in that way that the outcome of a special trial provides information as to how or how much to vary conditions and functions in order to produce a higher degree of purposefulness. In brief, it is the same as with experiments but now it is about connecting and adapting possible variations of uselful objects to the purposes they are supposed to serve – which they turn out to perform more or less well. If we gain hints by this „wellness“ of the outcome as to which condition is best to be tested next for the device to make it work at maximum purposefulness – then this way to gain knowledge is to be understood as trial-and-error-testing in a narrower sense – at least as I am going to use the expression in the following inquiry.
1b Because this latter way of gaining knowledge is just the way you deal with knowledge in living according to PLAN principles. That does not at all rule out the possibility that the PLAN people (and we all are more or less such!) do search or experiment – but these activities are determined and limitied by the general „trial-and-error“ -design, in that sense that every search and experiment done by PLAN people at the same time is a typical trial-and-error-test as to how much research and trying is appropriate in this environment.
Note. It is not at all wrong to have strategies of gaining knowledge on different levels – the „lower“ ones being kind of emebedded in those of higher levels – the latter ones kind of guiding and controlling the application of the „lower“ ones. I propose to take into account this by introducing special terms for the guiding strategy:
if the most general strategy of gaining knowledge is „searching“, then the whole strategy could be called „empirical research“;
if the most general strategy is of the „experiment“ type then the whole could be called „testing (a definite series of) hypotheses“;
if the general strategy containing, controlling and guiding activities of the other types is of the „trial-and-error-type in narrower sense“ (as has been defined at the end of 1a) then the whole is to be called „optimizing“.
Gaining knowledge under the auspices of the PLAN mode hence is optimizing.
1c If this is true, then according to what had been said on the trial-and-error-principle, we will have to look for
i) a technical device to be optimized;
ii) a set of purposes which help define what is to be viewed as „more or less well“;
iii) a set or series of trials (changes of the technical parameters of the device) being combined with a certain evaluation such that the degree of being more or less well of a single trial can be linked to those evaluating qualities or rather quantities of the trials.
This is not as big a riddle any more if you remember the result of 10f regarding the basic structure (and fault, in a sense) of PLAN – the letter L in „PLAN“ is standing for „learning“, which in other words does point to th efact that the PLAN mode as a whole in some sense is a strategy to gain knowledge in itself. What kind of strategy?
In what I am going to say now in order to express that way of thinking „PLAN“, I am going to repeat (in an explicit manner, at least) all the basic confusions which result from that fundamental extension of logical traits of a „self“ onto the (experimental) practice of this self and even parts of the environment of that self (which must be able to be controlled according to the purposes and plans of the self by the practice of that self – at least hypothetically, in a cautious, trying, preliminary manner…):
i‘) „Using PLAN as a learning strategy means optimizing the current practice of the self (of their’s? of our’s) to reproduce itself (themselves? ourselves?) and make a controlled and planned progress in doing that – AS IF this practice as a whole was a huge technical device.“
ii‘) „The purposes necessary for evaluation of the outcome of trials, of course, are those we have in the course of the underlying practice. At least as long as we don’t change it. The „technology“ of changing the practice (or purposes within it) itself can be treated AS IF it was like the other techniques which are to be optimized by trial and error.“
iii‘) „Considering the fact, that our practice suits our idea of how to reproduce ourselves and make progress in doing that, every unexpected event or course of events confronts us with issues solvable by means which are available in the practice and/or that fringe of additional knowledge we have. The very fact that this should not be the case (as we expect it), again would be one of the unexpected ones, and treated according the principles (of higher degree, in this case) we are prepared to apply on cases like that. There will never be a gap; there will never be an issue we cannot cope with by the help of these strategies..“
I am going to discuss these confusions i‘, ii‘, iii‘ and the mistakes resulting form them in detail in 2a,b,c.
2a
2a1 The PLAN people when airing a sentence like 1c obviously treat their practice as a technical device. Which purpose, however, is this device being thought for? The simple answer of a PLAN practitioner would be: The purpose, of course, is to reproduce ourselves (group, those belonging to us) in the best way possible and make progress in doing that at the fastest pace as possible within th environment we live in. What else did you expect me to say?“ – So what is the problem with this answer? I think whatever is defined and determined by that thought, the only defining term as it were is the naming of WHO should be reproduced – WHOSE needs should be satisfied, and WHOSE (restricted) strengths, capacities, powers, attention are used to do the work necessary to accomplish „reproduction and progress“ as planned. In fact, our practitioner did say almost NOTHING by that.
2a2 So, next question, hence: Why is he or she not aware of that shortcoming? The answer is not to be got by the practitioners themselves: As just had been claimed in 10f, they think about their practice in a way that is extending and transferring qualities of that „who“, „whose“ onto domains where they originally did not belong to – AS IF these domains were part of that who: a successful routine and the attempt to enhance it’s productivity; or even, the relevant environmental conditions for this success.
2a3 Third question: Aren’t those PLAN people a bit childish? How can they make such optimistic assumptions? Well – they actually don’t do that – not really. Because whatever they assume at a certain moment – they would do that just on the condition that there is sufficient experience as to those self-character of practice (attempts) and corresponding environmental parameters. They always are prepared to LEARN from new experiences to restrict or extend their actual extended self: It depends on experience and nothing than experience. Is it still wrong? Of course it is. But – why?
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2a (cont.)
2a4 In order to understand the underlying structure of superstitious dealing with knowledge, let me introduce two more triads which could help to determine what that concept „technique“ does mean.
1st triad:
– PART OF a (reproductive) PRACTICE (to be described by „recipes“: „take/use this.. do this.. do that.., and if situation S (which is to be reckoned with) occurs, .. then take that variant..“; the purpose at best is in the „heading“ and not being mentioned anymore in the description of what has to be done);
– TECHNIQUE (to be described by: „if you want to bring about effect E, then.. and in condition C, vary that like that..)
– more or less known RELEVANT DISPOSITION or PATTERN (of things, materials, courses of events, states of being etc.) which can be controlled, or acted on, or sensibly reacted to.
2nd triad:
– (exactly, or even more than) SUFFICIENT CONDITION (state of being, event, action functioning as a condition) FOR sth.
– JUST (exactly) SUFFICIENT, because containing all NECESSARY-AND-NOTHING-BUT-NECESSARY CONDITION(S)-FOR…
– (cause, or) NECESSARY CONDITION-FOR…
2a5 Of course, these two triads are related to each other because
– a reproductive practice (which comprehends all of its parts) is sufficient, or even more so, to reproduce the self or selves performing it – if it is to deserve that name. At least it is so intended.
– a technique hopefully is just sufficient to perform or bring about the according effect, with all elements necessary for that very effect, and everything being spared or removed which is irrelevant for that effect and would not contribute to it in some way. At least this is aimed at by those who invent, create, test and use a technique in certain conditions (maybe tuned to those special conditions..)
– almost everything necessary for to perform a technique either is a disposition (maybe on a carrier for that disposition), or some sort of consistent and permanent fact (property, quality) on things, materials, (cyclic) courses of events etc. of a certain recurring form, shape, pattern, type.
Or, in other words: dispositions, things, states of beings which are more or less reliably recurring within the limits of a certain pattern, are collected, modified, fitted together and arranged in such a way, that they are just sufficient to reliably bring about a useful and relevant effect in certain circumstances which act as favourable or unfavourable for the effect, and are to be reckoned with in those regions where we use the effect as a part of our reproductive practice and/or as part of the attempts to improve this practice as fast, and in a way as economical, long-lasting, reliable etc. as possible.
I would like to inquire the „conditions“ of the 2nd triad and their according relation to the practical categories of the 1st triad more in detail. This part, however, is of even more theoretical character than other paragraphs, so PLEASE SKIP IT ! ! ! if your budget in terms of time or strength is restricted.
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DIGRESSION:
D1 Content of knowledge, all those more or less known dispositions and patterns, that is, immediately split into two groups: those dispositions etc. which are controllable or able to be processed, influenced, changed – and those which are not. The non-controllable things can be of interest, though: Even if we cannot change them, we can react to them, be prepared for them, avert or neutralise or use the (unchanged) effects originating from them etc.
Now – what is a condition (changeable or unchangeable)?
The being there and being such and being stable of something X depends on something Y to a certain degree: X not (or just seldom) without Y – to a certain degree (in certain circumstances etc).
((Note 1. If „X frequently can be associated with previous Y.“ – but removal or suppression of Y does not remove or suppress X then Y is not a condition but a symptom or sign for X – maybe as a part of it indicating the whole (which just can be identified or recognised by these parts); or, Y is part of a bigger mass or number or „deposit“ (in a e.g. geological sense) of a homogeneous matter or items or individuals of a species (e.g. plants).. a part of that matter ordinarily indicating that there is more of that matter or more items, indviduals nearby etc.
Note 2. We can represent this relation by writing: Y –> X if you don’t confuse that with logical implication. For that level (contraposition is possible) cp. note 5 below.)
This formula, however, is compatible with two ways to assign the role of being the condition (or cause) C, or the effect E:
C+ not (or just seldom) without E.
E not (or just seldom) without C*.
C+ is that sort of condition which would include the according effect E. But.. there obviously are things or circumstances which can be removed without removing E (C+ contains more than the necessary – the necessary along with and among other things).
C* is the sort of condition which would be some sort of „normal“ carrier or presupposition frequently to be perceived when or where E occurs such that its removal in those cases would suppress the occuring of E. But E can occur without C*.
Maybe, E can occur in different conditions C+1, C+2,… and have more carrier-like presuppositions which would replace C*1, C*2…
Our knowledge about relations between C and E has arrived on a technological level, when we can remove every dispensable part of any C+ and/or for every single C* can name a set of additional circumstances such that their removal even in the presence of the respective C* would suppress E.
((Note 3: For technical purposes, we need facilities for suppressing and removing as often as for producing and causing things.))
Which, in the end, amounts to this.
C (ie. C1 or C2..) –> E and E –> C (i.e. C1 or C2 ..) ,
that is, effect E occurs such as it does if and only if one of the possible sufficient combinations Cx of indespensable conditions for E is being fulfilled.
((Note 4: Compare these two formulas to the preceding ones containing C+ and C*.
Note 5: This has been a maximum abridged version of a possible far more comprehensive presentation of the concepts and the argument involved. I left out as an intermediate stage the form „nonE –> nonC“ (to be added to C–>E) and „nonC –> nonE“ (to be added to E–>C). It is not at all necessary that our experience and empirical knowledge provides regularities of that „contraposition possible“ level of the two possible relations between E and C.
D2 To each of the formulas above of the form a–>b, an expression like „c.p.“ could have been added: „ceteris paribus“ = as long as the environment and general parameters and relevant influences remain the same. Now this would make any rule or sentence a–>b senseless unless there is at least a general expectation like that: Even IF there are relevant influences in the environment, the relevance of these influences will decrease in the long run – because we will learn to either control them or to expect them and react to them. What does that mean in detail – which types of surprises can occur (because it must be a surprise when the course of events as we expect them to be is interrupted) – what ist to be expected in the world regarding these surprises such that our general expectation as to the unexpected (that it will decrease in the long run, that is) comes true?
looking at our two formulas,
C–>E and E–>C,
we in principle can extract two types of events deviating from what had been to be expected according to to our seeemingly „technically perfect“ knowledge of before:
D3 If a deviation occurs in the first formula C–>E, there is
EITHER
(1) a disposition of higher degree which was triggered such that a change in at least one relevant condition happened (either some disposition of lower degree unexpectedly was suppressed, or restored after having been suppressed by us)…
((If this is really a disposition, it will be triggered again, and in the long run we will learn the trigger and either learn to provoke the triggering or prevent it from happening.
Our original expectation can be made more precise in this regard like this: We expect that these dispositions the effects of which are rarely to be seen, simultaneously decrease in number – the higher their degree the smaller their number – which amounts, in the end, to a certain small number of ultimate dispositons with these peculiarities:
a) they don’t change (as dispositions of „lower“ degree would do), i.e. they are not dependent on other conditions but are valid at all places and times („laws and (fundamental) constants of nature“): they are absolute, unconditional;
b) they solely would effect transitions of dispositions of lower degree (transitions of those lower-degree-dispositions forming the content of those ultimate dispositions),
c) all transitions (changes) of other dispositions but these are ruled by these ultimate ones.))
OR
(2) there is a coincidence.
((If there are accumulating cases of unexpected and uncontrollable, unforeseen events, we have to expect that that accumulation is restricted to certain areas we can avoid in our future practice.
Or the coincidences remain more or less seldom as they did before (which did not prevent our ancestors or ourselves from being there – such that we can expect that to be the case in the future as well.
Or the coincidence stabilises itself and produces a new stable condition in our environment we can react to.
In all three cases we can expect to be able to adapt to the outcome of possible coincidences in the long run such that the relevance of coincidences is restricted in the long run and will just vary within the narrow margins which allow us to cope with them.))
D4 If a deviation occurs in the second formula, E–>C, which means: E normally includes some sort of constant material, or matter, or „substance“ which it „consists of“ („E consists of C“ in whatever sense), then there is
EITHER
(3) a possible confusion of substances (due to superficial similarities) such that the actual effective component is lost, or an additional alternative exists, or the functional way of composition had been missed, because the limits of functionality (i.e. requirements for the substances involved andt the way of composition) are narrower than had been expected…
((In other words, our knowledge about the specific quality required for the underlying „substance(s)“ was incomplete, or the conditions C1, C2.. necessary for causing E had been specified in a manner which was not precise such that they sometimes can be fulfilled without causing E (or E was able to be caused although the substance falsely believed to be necessary had been suppressed or removed etc.).
The original expectation as to the regularity of our environment in this regard again can be made more precise like this (cp. D3, (1) a-c):
a) they don’t change, as other substances (of „higher“ degrees of composition) would do, i.e. they are not compositions of other substances but are „pure“ and „homogeneous“ (there is no method of separating them (such that ar least two different products with different qualities emerge), or changing their qualities), and hence they are inseparable and not to produced by any putting together anything in any way („elements“);
b) they solely would emerge from separating substances of „higher“ types of „composition“ (or composite) if and when all methods of separating substances are used (exhaustively),
c) all transitions (changes) of substances (and their qualities) beyond the elements are changes of composition of the elements involved.))
OR
(4)= D3, (2).
D5 The categories of (1)-(4) can be re-arranged in such a manner that the following general expectations as to the „rest (of the still) unknown (part of reality) RU“ result:
The RU will be
EITHER
elements with INVARIABLE qualities which in turn would be starting conditions of laws of nature – such that we can discover them with increasing knowledge of the things in our environment (increasing knowledge in the long run will result in knowledge about what primary substances are made up of; and what primary conditions are dependent of).
OR
more or less STABLE compositions of these elements (with qualities emerging from that which are dependent on the type and way of composition of the elements involved, including conditions of stability of these compositions and/or conditions for their decay, decomposition or transition to other states or compositions of elements with different qualities), the comparatively stable and durable compositions and the repetition o ftheir occurrence make it possible to learn their qualities and conditions of being stable and durable (such that they possibly can be preserved or destroyed);
OR
more or less unstable and hence irregular and COINCIDENTAL compositions etc. which are not lasting enough such that we can learn by observation, experience or experiments what they are made of or from which conditions or substances they could result: to the effect that their repercussions on the stable conditions are restricted in terms of time (they are not lasting) and space (the effects fade with increasing distance from the origin).
At least, these expectations regarding the RU must be realised in the long run if the environment (or world) we are living in is to be seen as making sense any longer.
((Note 6: Again, I do not elaborate on the intermediate reasons for laws of nature presupposing elements and vice versa. You will probably see or guess that necessary consequence following from the very definition of elements and dispositions.
Note 7: You may identify the elements (or substances resulting from compositions or elements) and their qualities with the „causa materialis“ type of cause of Aristotle, dispositions (starting from qualities of substances; taken together with the according substances) with the „causa efficiens“, arrangements of substances, their qualities and their actual dispositions (resulting from type of substances involved and the way of their relation in space including movements) with the „causa formalis“, and the special conditions for there being more or less stable entities (resulting from their own being arranged in a special geometrical form and state of movement, on the one hand, and their NOT being affected by the more or less coincidental, brief and uneffective arrangements of no or small stability, on the other hand) with the „causa finalis“.))
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2a6 It had been the aim of the digression to provide some insight into fundamental and universal principles of dealing with experience (philosophers would call them „transcendental“) – principles which are necessarily to be heeded if and as long as we try to make sense of our growing experience such that it is transformed into knowledge (and its technical applications). Deviating from philosophical tradition, or being more precise than that tradition, we emphasize that these principles require us to make attempts (experiments), i.e. to act AS IF certain principles kept on being true in our environment.. but there is a moment when time has come for this environment, too, to fulfil the according expectations in one way or another since we cannot live on „doing-as-if“ in the long run but have some needs to fulfil, and need some conditions in our respective environment to be fulfilled for making that possible. Our „doing-as-if“ (maybe searching, arranging some experiments etc) going on in order to achieve whatever it is trying to achieve has to meet the according conditions such that the intended doing becomes REAL in the wake of that doing-as-if – otherwise, it would fail since the world, our environment, did not play its part or role as it is required to do for the entire action to be successful – a part which often can vary in a wide range of possible variants of equal rank of adequacy – just within certain limits of minimal standards or requirements to be heeded – as NECESSARY CONDITIONS – which we will make SUFFICIENT ones by adding the according „doing“ which just is „doing-as-if“ as long as the intended effect is not routine yet.
Be it routine, however, or still trying to do, experiment, or „doing-as-if“ – in both cases, the effect which has to be realised or produced by that collaboration of our doing and some version or other of the necessary conditions (within their range of variability), in other words, the effect which defines (as a criterion) if and when that collaboration of actions and conditions was sufficient (or failed) – this effect, I say, must have been chosen, selected, determined by us before as a PURPOSE or AIM. (And this is true even in those cases when our action is „doing nothing“ because what we want has to be brought about by conditions themselves..)
2a7 These words „we, us“ do name something which by „choosing, selecting, determining“ creates purposes (or evaluates states of being as just being satisfying, sufficient, or not yet being so), and (if we have the capability) simultaneously is the source of actions of doing-as-if or trying until a failure or success will occur in collaboration with certain conditions (taken as a variant of THE (putatively) necessary ones) – conditions known – or unknown yet (and favourable to our endeavour, or not).
By that very choosing etc., however, this something („we“) at the same time is the source of everything to be called „sufficient“ in the world. Or, in other words, it is what everything sufficient or purposeful in the world is being defined by and starting from. – Let me call this ultimate source of purposefulnes and „being sufficient“ CORE-SELF (the „I, we..“).
Now remember what had been said in 2a4 (cp. logic of superstition 2) on the relation of the parts of the triads to each other, especially on the respective sections b): A technique in best case is something sufficient-AND-necessary-FOR.. (such as it is), or it is THE necessary-and-nothing-but-that FOR…
Considering this and taking it together with that new thought on the core-self as being the source and measure of everything „sufficient for..“ in the world, you will understand what it means to treat this core-self (as is done in trying to treating it as a technical device, cp. 1c i) and i‘) ) as being something sufficient-and-necessary-FOR something else which in the end cannot be anything else but the core-self again. But – how can this doubling of a concept occur?
2a8 As far as we FEEL what is going on within our bodies, or as far as the states of these bodies form the content of our feelings, we can say: We ARE what we are feeling (plus thinking and deciding considering what we feel and know), or, that parts and states of our bodies which are subject and content of our feeling just ARE the core-self (plus..).
And of course it makes sense to say: We try to optimize the state of that core of our bodies being represented within our feelings – in doing that we immediately will be guided by these feelings.
What then does it mean to have this core-self being treated like a technical device? According to what has been said it means: The being sufficient-FOR (the core-self) is mixed (or confused) with something sufficient-(FOR the core self)-and-necessary-FOR (that special way of doing something sufficient-for-the-coreself in a special condition/environment (as far as being known), trying to make progress in it, especially by various forms of experiments etc).
The bottomline hence is: Feelings which just form an appropriate instrument or measure or criteroin for determining the extent of the being „sufficient FOR the coreself“ of anything, are taken for to determine the character of something to be necessary-FOR serving that coreself in a sufficient way, or even the amount this something is doing so – in a certain condition and environment.
To the consequence that a pure quality „being necessary FOR.. in this condition and environment“ acquires a quantitative and measurable dimension.. Again – why that? Because the being necessary-and-sufficient FOR a pre-selected and pre-determined effect in a purely TECHNICAL sense her is connected to being sufficient (as it is to be felt) in a PRACTICAL (economic, epistemological) sense.
So here we have a set of consequences in terms of the triads of 2a4 (practice, technique, regularity; sufficient/ necessary-and-suffcient/ necessary FOR) – consequences following from the original equation or confusion of coreself and the extended self as had been shown to occur in the thinking of PLAN-people – which was identified as the starting point of MAGICAL thinking.
2a9 Feelings are taken as a measure for the amount of appropriateness (being sufficient for the coreself/ves involved) of an actual practice in the respective environment and conditions; the reverse, however, is true as well: Conditions and regularities for that appropriateness represented by feelings can be discovered in the same way as health conditions can be discovered for the state of being comfortable and well (represented by the same feelings) of the coreself.
To the consequence that facts in the world can have a double significance, the one related to other facts – indicating them, influencing them etc. – and the other related to that appropriateness of our practice (as if the practice was our body and our feelings apporpriately would represent its needs and actual abilities) – indicating this appropriateness, influencing it etc.
Although it is the same confusion and extension of the peculiarities of the coreself into the practical trial of its reproduction in a certain environment and condition, you will hesitate to call that way of dealing with feelings in regards of practical decisions within that practice, as „being optimistic, pessimistic, cautious, sceptical“ etc SUPERSTITIOUS – whereas you will do so in regards of using facts as indicating and influencing that practice IN GENERAL because they are related to the being sufficient= successful (or not sufficient= failing) of that practice – as if that practice was tio be described in terms of unspecific needs and abilities and hence in the same manner, as you would describe the needs and abilities of your bodies – at least as far you feel these needs and abilities. (Which, indirectly, does apply to health conditions as well: because health, in the long run, must be related not to a state of being alive but of being well – which is a feeling.)
Of course, I for myself do not agree – to me, the first attitude concerning feelings of expectation which are not the immediate product of cognitive expectations based on knowledge („This or that WILL happen most probably.. and it would be irrational not to expect it.“ etc.) or, feelings of expectations which are similar to basic MOODS must be called superstitious in exactly the same way as those „conditions“ für sucess and failure in general or at least, in general in soem relevant regards.
(Which as everybody knows is the domain of superstitious predictions (as far as there is superstitious knowledge on indicating conditions) – and of magical techniques and practice (as far as possibilities of influence and control on that level seem to be available).
Note. The superstitious emotions or affects or expectation of the mood- or attitude-type are very familiar to everybody. Here I am dealing with them as part of a cognitive pattern but in the section to come, 10h, emotional consequences of of magical thinking: the psycho-economy of addiction (drugs, anxiety, depression), I will demonstrate the far-reaching consequences of that seemingly harmless cognitive pattern. With applications to sex (as a drug) in general, more specific: the possibility of using sex as a fetish, and the use of BDSM as a drug, especially.
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2b
2b0 (Transition from 2a to 2b)
1 It had been the aim of section 2a to look more in detail into that so-called treating of one’s own practice of reproduction the same way as if this practice was a technical device; and the result of 2a is that that confusion of practice and technique can be described as a confusion of „sufficient, like anything or everything satisfying our needs, and heeding the limits of our capacities to act as we are feeling them“ with „doing everything necessary for to be sufficient (in the first sense) in this environment“, or doing something sufficient-AND-necessary-FOR being sufficient (in the first sense) in this environment.
2 Again: What is being called „sufficient“ here, are needs and requirements for the repoduction of the coreself (CS). The CS is put in a certain environment which this CS cannot control the same way as it is able and has to control and serve the various needs and requirements of its body being represented by feelings in general. The simple reason for that is: There are things going on in that environment which are NECESSARILY to be got and gained or to be avoided and prevented from happening – which has to be done in an appropriate manner FOR to be effective.. effective to an extent and special outcome such that a special requirement of ours is met and fulfilled in a SUFFICIENT way (and, apart from that, within a frame of meeting and fulfilling THE WHOLE of our requirements in a sufficient manner at this moment, in this environment).
3 The special confusion here was said to occur in that equation of „being sufficient to fulfil our requirements“ with „being necessary-and-sufficient (to do for) to fulfil our (CS-)needs and requirements exactly within THIS environment“. These words „our needs and requirements in this environment“ do mean: Our needs and requirements as we can feel and observe them in general (the CS incl. health conditions) have to be TRANSLATED into objective requirements in this special environment – we would have to have a lot of knowledge, experience, technical skills, devices, practice and effective arranging all these activities into one single plan in order to define the whole of these objective requirements – which we would have to translate or convert our subjectively felt requirements into WITHIN EXACTLY THIS SPECIAL ENVIRONMENT.
4 The necessary fulfilment of our CS-needs and requirements defined in terms of co-ordinated actions considering chances, risks, challenges within THIS special environment – this is the effect to be brought about AS IF our practice was a technical device. – Since every technical rule (of „jow to bring the effect about“) must contain something „necessary to do FOR to be sufficient FOR to gain thatandthat outcome, result, effect“, this definition of our reproductive practice (practice of self-preservation) in terms of a technical rule has to contain these elements, too: And it is exactly THAT translated version of the CS-requirements into possible variants of requirements of a self-preserving practice WITHIN EXACTLY THIS SPECIAL ENVIRONMENT which will occupy the place or function of the relevant „effect“ in that pseudo-technical rule. – of course, this rule never can be defined because we will never know for sure that „translation“. This, however, is not the only mistake being made in this context by PLAN-people thinking in the magical way of thinking: Moreover, they will estimate the extent of their „doing everything necessary (but nothing more) FOR to be sufficient FOR to fulfil this translated version of CS-requirements within this special environment“ by the very same feelings they use to estimate the requirements (and their being fulfilled in a more or less sufficient manner) of the Cs in general. This confusion leads to estimating possible success or failure of a special practice (incl. ways to improve it) by such terms as „being optimistic, pessimistic, anxious, resigned, daring, hopeful“ – feelings of expectation. As had been said in the end of 2b – this seems to be harmless – but it is the same confusion which leads to use feelings of being able to do or not as a measure for to estimate if and which attempt to continue or change our current practice should be made and which not. And that is the essence of superstition…
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2b1 Let us consider this formula: CS–>ES<–RU. CS=coreself, ES= extended self; RU=remaining unknown. Extended self is an alternative name for a practice of reproduction within a given environment which is at least being claimed to include everything necessary (and nothing else) FOR to preserve the CS (and improve this preservation) in these special environmental conditions.
It is an extended SELF because the original general capacities of the CS to act (the limited strengths etc.) or to endure privation and labour, have to be deployed on the different fields of work within this practice – maybe with some surplus portions being held in reserve – and this deployment has to be successful at least in that sense that the strengths that had been invested must be regenerated in such a way that the procedure can be repeated – maybe in a varied manner. Otherwise, the capacities of the involved CS will be diminished and fade away up to the point of exhaustion, collapse, breakdown of the capacity to act and death.
The deployment of strengths on tasks in order to do THE necessary in this environment is as it were the left side of the formula: CS->ES. What, then, is the right side, RU->ES?
To be precise, the RU is what is outside of any calculation – it is what still nothing is known about. Every portion of our practice and making progress in it, however, includes lots of knowledge – positive and negative knowledge – knowledge on environmental requirements to be met, on way to produce things starting from natural raw materials accessible in our environment, and – last but not least – knowledge on facts without any relevance for our practice – such that they can be ignored even if they are impressing, scaring, promising at first sight..
As has been the case in the deployment of the strengths of CS, the original masses of knowledge on our environment may include reserves of facts which maybe could be used as a substitute for failing techniques and alternative explanations when surprising experiences occur we did not reckon with.
So, in the case of RU->ES, the arrow sign expresses a process of increasing or improving appropriateness of what is known about anything’s being necessary-FOR-something to our current practice and its progress: up to the point where we know a possible alternative technique is available in order to replace one of the actual techniques in certain circumstances, or an alternative explanation for something unexpected happening or something expected failing to happen can help to set up the appropriate measures and make provisions for these cases in the future.
The more this knowledge advances towards ES the more it is made appropriate for to form part of what is necessary and necessarily to be taken into account for to make our practice to be a sufficient means of preserving the CS (our bodies) within this special environment we live in.
Or, brief: In getting nearer to possibly being absorbed into the basis of what is NECESSARY to be known for our practise and its progress, a piece of knowledge becomes more and more USEFUL and USABLE – it means, knowing something necessary-FOR (or being a part of) something necessary-and nothing but that FOR to make our practice sufficient FOR to preserve our CS-within-this-special environment (and practice, with its special deployment of strengths on tasks).
2b2 The special task of this section 2b, according to what had been said in 1c, is to uncover the confusions involved in treating learning in general as a way of optimizing a technical device – and treating our current practice and its progress as if it was such a technical device to reproduce the CS-within-this-environment (=result of 2a). So, the first special question of 2b is: Which are the qualities of that technical device which could be used as a measure for its being more or less well fit and adapted to its purpose – doing what is necessary and ONLY necessary FOR to preserve our CS in its current environment in a way which would be sufficient for it to last as long as is wanted (or, sufficient for at least to improve the chances for that) – and remove more and more risks for that being sufficient in the long run.
At first glance, the feelings which rule and control our dealing with the requirements of the CS, are the same as those involved in controlling failure and success of deploying and applying our strengths to single tasks in order to preserve the CS-within-this-special-environment and make progress in doing that (by removing risks, taking advantage of chances, increasing productivity for to have accumulating surplus of resources and reserves to make provisions for possible risks etc.).
IF and as far as we want to make progress..
The normal, ordinary feelings within a practice which works well are normal as well – up to the point that we can summarize them as „feeling normal“. This, again, indicates that the CS involved in this is being preserved in a sufficient manner. The very same feelings would indicate this in any environment this CS would be placed into. In fact, they are the core of that „being sufficient“ – the sign and/or measure for it. And of course, they would go on indicating that in the special current environment that CS is placed into where its strengths are being spent on tasks in order to meet the requirements of that very CS in that very environment. If everything is working, these feelings will indicate that by „feeling normal“ in a very unspecific manner. And this will be true even in cases when the requirements are not exactly met any longer – if and when more efforts are necessary or less than had been expected.
2b3 The problem is that „feeling well“ indicates „everything is sufficient“ – but what do we learn from bad feelings – what but „something is lacking“? If it was about requirements of the CS, at least being grown up people we would know to interpret these bad feelings – they indicate which needs and limits should be heeded to get back to „being suffcient“ again – they indicate what is NECESSARily to be done and when that will be sufficient. We even can research the limits of the minimum that necessary doing can be reduced to and still be sufficient, though. But this is about states of the CS.
Babies who express their feelings by their voices, facial expression, body movements would not know what to do for themselves – apart from some very primitive actions in order to help themselves.. Taking one’s feelings as a measure of what is necessary to do or to change in our practice can be compared to that – and the fashion we react to that by more or less effective measures trying to OPTIMIZE the state of our practice can be compared to the fashion an adult would try to improve a babys inner state.. trying to do what is NECESSARY without knowing exactly what to do.. because the feelings will not tell..
Again, let us look at the formula of 2b1: CS–>ES<–RU.
On the left side, at CS, feelings are an appropriate guideline or guidance system for our actions (as grown up persons) of feeding, heeding, tending, caring, nursing ourselves.. In terms of feelings, appetites, urges, it is quite clear what would be necessary and sufficient in order to return to a normal emotional condition – at least, we can do our best to get nearer to the optimum – we can OPTIMIZE our feelings and inner state by satisfying appetites and needs, heeding limits, preventing conditions known to cause pain, suffering, grief etc. from occurring etc.
These are, however, feelings indicating inner states of our (felt) bodies and conditions for their being well. So which feelings could indicate ANYTHING comparable to that within the current states or conditions of our practice ES, or even within the still unkown portions of our environment RU (which possibly can influence sucess and failure of our practice)? Are there even such feelings?
2b4 Of course, there are.. They would indicate quite a different quality of what we experience – NOT something’s being sufficient but it’s being deviating from what had been expected – in regards of relevance for practical success – in other words, it’s NOT BEING THE NECESSARY (and only it) -FOR… we need at that moment. It can be worse – but it can be better as well and offer chances we not even had imagined before. More precisely, these feelings just ARE the equivalents for that lasting fundamental feeling (and experience): Everything’s going well, we are well, we are doing well, life is going on, etc. Or, to put it in yet another way, the inner fact that something feels very good or bad cannot be the whole feeling because there is a difference (in feelings) according to whether it was expected as such or not – whether it comes as a surprise, or not.
Surprise is not and cannot be a pure mind-event – being surprised (in relevant regards) does mean: Our plans for a certain moment do not live up to the actual course of events at that moment.
Had we expected it as it has come we had made other plans, had deployed our strengths and resources on other tasks (more cautious.. more optimistic..). So which consequences are we to draw from an experience of being surprised? Shall we draw any at all? Can we allow ourselves just ignoring that fact? Is that not tantamount to abandon the advantages of learning from experience, and restrict oneself to a absolutely narrow-minded, inflexible if not neurotic attitude to life?
Learning from surprises is very well as long as you are aware of the source of the surprise: What in your plans in the past can be blamed for the present lack? Is it overextending your strengths? Is it a yet unknown development within the environment – a peculiarity of ot being not perceived yet.. and to be taken into account in the future? Has something gone wrong in coordinating different branches of the entire work.. do they fail to provide their according effects in combination as they had been thought to?
The problem is: This analysis is not as unequivocally to be done as might be thought..
We often enough don’t have that god-like overall-look on the whole of our joined activities (others at other places may be involved.. we cannot estimate repercussions from there on our own work etc.).
We often enough don’t habe that perfect knowledge and control of what we know, should be able to control on th ebasis of what we just know, and what exactly had to be expected to come in a different way compared to what really was happening.. (What DID happen at all? Often enough we just don’t remember what was different in a failing action compared to previous cases.. did it not look quite normal and NOT different – if we had had noticed anything we had had doubts or had hesitated.. but we had not.. so IF there was a sign or different condition it at best must have been VERY subtle and difficult to perceive.. (and even more difficult to be identified in retrospect..)
2b5 At this point we maybe have to abandon the idea of magical thinking as being a simple mistake, a confusion.. Because you just can confuse what was separate and differentiated before. In this case that would imply: A permanent differentiation between the knowledge of what happened (and was experienced and told as such by somebody), and practical consequences drawn from that – at least, a permanent awareness of possible surprising experiences regarding our practical routines – experiences that could change that routine – and part of that awareness would be a wide range of reflections about which experience would have to be answered by which practical change. Or brief, thinking in a non-magical way immediateley would necessitate thinking in a kind of scientific way – together with the labour involved in that… A similar thought occurs on the left side of the formula, CS->ES<-RU: In order to maintain or keep up that non-magical permenant separating and differentiating between…, you would have to observe and study the reactions of your (felt) body very thouroughly – the general conditions for appearing and disappearing of every single need, urge, strength we notice within ourselves.. kind of permanent hypochondria and medical self-observation or introspection leading to a constant (critical) awareness of possible alternatives and possible better solutions of almost everything we are doing – and hence, missing.. Or brief, an explosion of wants and wishes and demands.. which, in the end, and being added to the first awareness of what we just know about our environment, will lead to a permanent wareness of possible new arrangements and techniques to be realised within our practice – of higher productivity, security, yield, richness of whatever.. In other words.. it will lead to a more or less MODERN way of life. Which maybe makes you aware of that there is a price to pay for not thinking in a magical way any longer..
(Note. There is a second intermediate premodern stage inbetween magical and modern thinking – daily life and experience on the basis of religious faith. I skip this topic here but will come back to it in later sections.)
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2b6 At this point, we have to examine „surprise“ – not surprise in an emotionally neutral sense but that type of surprise that affects us: failing hope, unjustified fear, disappointment, threats and challenges we never had been facing before and which we are not prepared to face..
Surprise being understood in that sense of „affecting“ thus is related to „not being prepared“.
What affects us is the cause of an AFFECT, and in this context of expectations, it is the according „emotion or affect of expectation“ (expectation being the primary source of the affect, surprise the secondary one.)
Calmness would be a sort of „zero level“ of that type of expectation-related emotion – in both regards:
(1) Being calm is equivalent to not being dependent on a certain course of events in your planning: being prepared for everything possible – as far as you have resources and knowledge for being prepared at all. To me, calmness is the most noticeable and common trait of all true believers (be they followers of a religious faith, or of a general attitude towards the world on a non-religious, materialist base).
(2) Staying calm when facing a surprise is equivalent to using your reserve strengths very cautiously and according to what is required by the actual challenge.
NOT being calm, as a consequence, would imply quite the opposite in both regards, i.e.
(1′) depending on a special course of events, NOT having prepared for certain possibilities which must not happen but just are not expected to happen such that
(2′) IF they happen yet there will be not enough reserves of strength available for to master the challenge (a threat, or a special chance) – to the consequence that every reaction will be in danger of possible failing (you will have less attempts, less strengths, resources etc.)
Being NOT calm, hence, is a result of using a certain portion of your resources for special purposes in the hope that events will not happen such that they would require making use of those resources – they are just being used (or used up) elsewhere, and hence not available anymore: that is what is called „not being prepared“.
According to PLAN-people, you should NOT be required to be prepared for everything everytime – at least within a zone of security which you can and will find out the limits of by repeated trials (and errors full of helpful information indicating where these limits finally will be located..).
And this zone is about marked by the actual practice with its special allocation of strengths to (types of) tasks – an allocation having more or less departed from calmness in regards (1) and (2).
Which is to be perceived to a more or less extent by an experience of type (2′), whereas as long as this did not happen, the fact of type (1′) i.e. the being dependent on a more or less limited course of events cannot be perceived (but just can be anticipated by imagination, thinking of it, recollection, being attentive to it – or simple being cautious with spending your strengths, making efforts etc. – as was the case if you were prepared for something special – or…in general for everything possible..)
2b7 So, as a PLAN-person, you will have a measure for to gauge the extent of that alleged deviating of your practice from its possible optimum security level (where nothing will overtax your strengths such as they have been allocated to tasks within that zone, and nothing will be missed just because you have allocated too small portions of the entirety of strengths to the according task..).
The crucial question for the PLAN-people is: How to interpret the data emerging from experiences of being surprised?
((By the way: There are negative and positive surprises.. the world can turn out to be more dangerous than had been thought, or to offer more chances than expected.. The reflections to come are valid in either case.))
First of all, the usual problems related to possible regularity of events (unconditional: part of cycles? conditional: a disposition having been realised or triggered?) will arise: Was that an exception, and IS there regularity at all? Has there been a sufficient number of observations? Are these observations any tokens of any type – are they comparable to an extent such that there is something similar or equal involved (at best varying within narrow limits)? Do we know enough to be able to judge this regularity – or shall we continue observing and wait? etc.
Now, if it was about observations of natural or body events you would go on asking: How to intervene in these cases.. how to react to them, modify them, trying to influence them (move and transport them to other places where you can use them) or to combine them with other devices in order to bring about certain effects (which effects are possible, which combinations are necessary?).
Here, however, it is not about processing observations in order to produce technical devices or capabilities for anticipating events in our practice – it is about this practice itself – being understood as being a device itself, and allowing for statements on its disposition to be secure, not to be violated, not failing, but successful and realising all expectations (at least those located within that scope of security and predictability which we are trying to determine the limits of.)
In order to make a rule starting from observations regarding success and failure of the practice as a whole or relevant portions of it, you will have to generalise the observations and look for common characteristics of different cases – this problem is shared with observations on natural facts and regularities. But unlike natural regularities (which would immediately entail the way of handling them – even if the entirety of ways is not known yet of assembling them for to realise certain effects), the regularities connected with the practice as a whole don’t include sufficient information on how to make use of them – experience has told you to be anxious or to look forward to anything with great pleasure (but you don’t know which kind of good or bad events will happen). The analogy to feelings is perfect: The specific information you gain on your practice as a whole (which could be expressed by some sort of fortunetelling, oracle prediction or prophecy) corresponds to unspecific feelings of anxiety or anticipation – in fact, nothing is caused but these unspecific feelings if information of that kind is obtained and interpreted as such.
2b8 Let us again sort the different concepts which have occurred up to now:
a) regularities („know that“) in the environment (nature, world) („X is necessary for Y.“ Y is an event, state of being, disposition etc.). As far as this information is not available yet or not to an extent sufficient für practical purposes, it is part of what had been called: „the remaining (or rest of the still)unknown“ RU.
b) technical rules („know how“) using well-known regularities („X1 or X2 or X3 or.. Xn – each way to proceed (actions plus appropriate material plus tools/instruments of one of the types in the list would be THE necessary-and sufficient (necessary and nothing but the necessary) for Y in these circumstances (content of a „know-that“ of regularities which currently cannot be controlled but are relevant for success and failure of something important.“) (Here, Y is a possible effect to be brought about by possible actions (combined with tools etc.) of somebody.)
c) feelings, i.e. needs, appetites, urges, emotions including felt limits of capacities to act (exhaustion, tiredness) and emotions of expecation (specific and unspecific anxiety, hope, anticipation): X1 or X2 or X3… (series of examples to be continued and extended) would be sufficient to fulfill the requirements of Y. Here, Y is an emotional state or feeling related to our capacity to act (as all feelings are). This immediate knowledge on „sufficient ways to proceed“, or more precisely, the possible content of that knowledge (still to be completed), had been called the coreself CS.
d) the entirety of the present practice of (re)production with its allocation of strengths (capacities to act and to mentally process) to tasks in the actual well-known (and not so well known) circumstances such that needs are satisfied, capacities of all kind are reproduced and the process can be continued or even extended. This had been called the extended self, or ES.
Why is it so difficult to add a similar X/Y-formula or name the appropriate sort of knowledge here as in a-c?
c´) In c, we face the beginning of a series – the examples may convey at least SOME information on how to continue the series (as to possible variants of what would satisfy each of our needs) but how to use this information? If we stick to what has turned out to be good and satisfying, our scope of possible satisfyers will be narrow – we are limited to them and will continue being limited in every new environment – until we try something new – new food, new ways of living or working, new pleasures..and, maybe, new limits and risks connected with them… – So how to decide this conflict?(Here you can notice the issue with this sort of knowledge: It makes a difference to know SOMETHING to be sufficient (or even an example for something sufficient..) and to know EVERYTHING sufficient – nothing less, nothing beyond that but EXACTLY it – such that, in turn, you know what is necessary and only THE necessary to be within this frame of being sufficient.)
b‘) In b, again, the relevant expression is „necessary-and-sufficient-FOR..something POSSIBLE“. Everything here depends on „IFs“ – IF we want to have this effect, IF everything necessary is available, IF we are prepared to afford the costs, bear the consequences and risks etc.. – well, THEN.. we know what to do. So, again, there is nothing ABSOLUTELY sufficient-and-necessary.. and you may ask if there ever will be anything like that..
a‘) What is true for b, is all the more true of a: Starting from any observation of anything necessary-for.. – shall we use that knowledge or not? Will that very fact help to bring about any effect if combined with this or that sequence of actions and techniques (and other facts of that „necessary..“ kind).. and even if it does – is this effect necessary and useful for anything? With slight variations, this reflection can be applied to facts we know about without any possibility to control them by actions as yet (and hence transform them into a kind of technique). Here, the question will be: Do these facts affect our (re)production in any relevant way – are they signs for anything relevant.. or even if unmodified and not being able to be controlled, of more or less use or harm FOR.. such that we have to modify our practice and adjust it to the requirements of the risks and chances related to the uncontrollable fact. (The least adjustments will consist in „(not)being there“ with everything necessary (remove or protect it, or move it there and expose or use it etc.) – And, again, the question can be asked: Is that fact – or that being related of facts – it may be able to be controlled or not (in principle, or with acceptable costs) – of any relevance for anything of interest for us? And – if it is – will it still be so in the future? If it is not – will it become? What will be of interest for us in the future?
(It would be even more legitimate to ask the same question with reference to things yet unknown: Which observations could turn out to be related to regularities and hence deserve our being attentive?.. so what is relevant to be known at all? Our search and research activities – what should they concentrate on? And what will be researched to no avail.. such that it is not worth further observation or trying?)
2b9 In order to remind you of what had been said in the introductory section on „magical thinking“: That its essence is to equate our practice of reproduction and the function of our (felt) body or self.. in the meantime, we had found a second description of that fact: It was said to be equating the practice of reproduction to a technical device – which would imply that it is equating the function of the body (or self) to that of a technical device.. Now, if we are going to translate that into the latest terms, that does say: „Magical thinking (and superstition, as a consequence) consists in equating content of or information on our body functions being obtained in the shape of feelings, on the one hand, and content of or information on possible technically relevant objective facts, on the other hand….“ – but by now, we have to add a new element, and continue: „… and, moreover, totally confusing the conceptual character of feelings (their being an open series of experiences of „satisfaction“ or being sufficient in that absolute sense..) and simultaneously that of facts with the possible qualities of a practice (and its progress) as to its being ordinary or more successful or less than had been expected: Because that is the starting point for every confusion involved here. So we have
a“) something necessary-for.. (regularity of connected facts)
b“) something sufficient-and-necessary-for.. (technique)
c“) something absolutely sufficient (needs and health conditions)
d) something…neither a nor b nor c…. (our current practice and its progress as had been planned).))
Again:
The first step of equating makes us mistake feelings as a measure for the prospective purposefulness and being operative, hence being sufficient of our current practice – as if it was the same as our coreself.
(Note. The word step here is to be taken as meaning „portion“, „part of the mistake as a whole“ – it is not said by that that there is something like a series of single steps leading to magical thinking or superstition as a result.)
The second step makes us determine this very practice as something which to reproduce is not only sufficient but just necessary exactly as it is done – the practice just IS the technical device for its own reproduction or continuation or for even making progress to higher levels of security and productivity of it; and, on the base of the first step, the degree of its being so can be gauged by feelings.
The third step is the final step into superstition. On a first level, you still look for the conditions your practice seems to depend on – this is the concept of health conditions being applied to the practice (and hence the result of equating the practice to your body as an object of feelungs.) But then, and on a second level, you will start to search conditions for „unforeseen“ improvement of your practice – or the opposite, i.e. deteriorations and dangers still unknown – dangers and improvements being related to the practice (or relevant parts of it) as a whole. The problem with knowledge of that type is: That you will know then that there is a possible threat or chance – but the only hint you will get is: Be cautious – be prepared!
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keine handlungs-idee wie bei technik im fall der naturdinge, überleitung zu 2c.
daher frage, WAS versucht, oder getan werden soll. der saum an alternativ-techniken..
die bedingten regularitäten,va. bedingungen des ungestört-bleibens oder besonders erfolgreich-seins („kräfte-zuwachs“, unspezifische gelingens- oder misslingens-dispositionen, „flüche“)
vorhersagen, plan-anpassungen an solche situationen (abergläubisches meiden oder wagen)
nie anlass-freie forschung
die drei anlässe zum entsetzen der opps.. 3 paradoxien.. und: die ableitung aus den ontologischen basiskategorien der digression: das selbst-artige der substanz+dispo, eingrenzung von ausnahmen, orientierung an kategorien des sich-selbst-gleichbleibens (der selbst-gleichheit?) zur organisation des wissenserwerbs..
paradoxien als erster hineis auf nötigen übergang zu rel (seltsame form der OH)?
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2c
2c0 Again: In „magical thinking“, I claimed that PLAN-people equate felt body functions with their practice of reproduction (that equating was said to be fundamental).
Then, I concluded from reflections on varieties of gaining knowledge that using words like „optimizing yor practice of (re)production and its progress“ point to the fact that PLAN-people, in addition, treat practice the same way as was appropriate regarding a technical device (which can be said to be optimized for certain purposes and in certain circumstances).
By now, it appears as if there was even a third equation: that between what I have called „a regularity“ (regularly connected facts) and a technique.
As a consequence, we have won an additional term in the formula of 2b1:
CS–>ES<–KH/T(technical knowledge)<–RU
CS=coreself, ES= extended self, practice and its possible progress; KH/T: know how/that; RU=remaining unknown.
Now my contention is that each of the relations expressed by the arrows are subject to those various equating operations of PLAN-people – and each equation can be read in either direction. So we have got an agenda für this section: To look at each of these arrow relations in detail, and find out the consequences of its being mis-interpreted as an equation – in both directions. We thus get a set of operations of levelling off/out differences to the effect that qualities of the CS are transferred to the KH/T and even to the RU, and the same in the opposite direction.
Our primary concern here in section 2c, however, is to gain insight into how PLAN-people translate the information obtained by experiences in the fields CS, ES, KH/T and RU into strategies of dealing with the according topics. As a result of our inquiry up to now we have found that perfect levelling out information and applying experience of any kind to any practical field. It is my goal here to show more in detail how that can be done. If I am right, a perfect survey and system of superstitious practices will arise.
Note 1.
1. A practice ES is an attempt to make our needs and capacities of our bodies match techniques and what we know about occurrence of raw materials and relevant events.
I say: it is an attempt – or an experiment. Nothing is definitive within that experiment.
So the practice simultaneously is a strategy to explore the RU, the remaining unknown – a learning strategy.
2. It is not correct to use the term CS – we don’t have knowledge on THE CS but solely on SOME of its possible qualities. So we don’t know the variants of a possible sufficient use of our capacities to meet possible needs (and even less do we know the variants to do that in various environments).
Combination of point 1 and 2 can make us aware of the fact that we are studying nothing more than sets or inventories of limited knowledge here – NOT the entirety of facts themselves – CS or (possible) ES’s (in possible environments).
So the formula above may rather be put like this:
RU(CS)>KH/T(CS)>ES<KH/T(environment))<RU(environment). ))
Note 2.
As a consequence, ES, the experiment our practice of reproduction consists in is NOT to be identified with any other categories: it is NOT a possible content of knowledge, it is not „just being there, or given etc“. It is neither part of our coreself eventhough a certain portion of the coreself’s needs and capacities are involved – nor is it „caused“ as it is by any facts outside but at best motivated, and even then the motivating agent is not the fact itself but our knowledge about it (more or less complete and sure – as far as we.. KNOW..) And again, you may say the practice is not a part of our knowledge of the natural facts and dispositions being used in techniques of our practice eventhough a portion of our knowledge and the facts in our environment are involved…
2c1 Transfer of conceptual qualities of CS to ES, or identification of CS and ES.
2c11 The crucial question here is: How do you make sense of feelings originally associated with CS – how do you interpret those feelings such that they can be read as an instruction or order for changing the practice ES in relevant regards? (This way of questioning at the same time is OUR cue, again, for our questioning as to what exactly is wrong in that way of questioning of PLAN-people..) – We already have determined experiences of surprise to be the starting points of any interpretation of the type just mentioned. In a normal course of events, nothing surprising and hence no unusual feeling will occur and as a consequence no need for change.
Now let us compare possible change in CS and in ES – a practice.
2c12 What exactly IS a practice?
A practice is an appropriate combination of cycles of events (partly being able to be provoked and really being provoked at certain moment) together with special techniques and technical procedures applied to those events – and this cycle of events (cyclic by themselves or because of their being provoked or performed by our actions) revolves together with one central cycle and related to it – the cycle(s) of our needs (to be satisfied) and renewed capacities.
The needs occurring in a particular practice and the capacities to be applied with techniques and within procedures of this practice do not exhaust the entirety of possible needs and capacities of the CS – eventhough there are some real core needs and capacities which would appear in almost any form of practice in whichever circumstances.
Similarly, not all events (cycles, or provokable by actions or other events) known to us are relevant for this practice – eventhough they could become relevant in other forms of practice (we at present may be aware of it or not) and eventhough there may be facts and dispositions which scarcely will be ignored in any form of practice (in this special sort of environment, or even any environment).
A practice, hence, combines objective and subjective cycles (of needs and renewed capacities) by actions combined with technical devices/instruments/skills applied in time.
(Note. The word cycle here is related to yet another concept: predictability.)
2c13 What exactly, then, is a coreself compared to that?
A coreself is something you must have knowledge of – and WILL have some knowledge being a grown up person – and this knowledge will be limited.. in many regards…
Knowing about your needs and (related) capacities (the latter to be restored by satisfying/fulfilling the needs), hence, is knowing some parts of what is SUFFICIENT – to put it in those abstract terms I have used for to make different sections of the above formula able to be compared to each other (i.e. terms like sufficient and necessary) – but sufficient just for awhile, and moreover, just in a whole bunch of special circumstances which would force modifications or changes in the original variant of this coreself’s needs being fulfilled and capacities applied in a sufficient manner – at least referrig to a certain period of time. – The most important modifications in a special „working“ or „able to function“ version of a given coreself („felt body“) are those which would imply concentration of strengths and powers on special tasks – at the expense of possible others including possible risks and chances (that you would not expect to happen) – to the consequence that you will not stay calm any longer if one of these risks or chances is realised yet against all expectations (cp. 2b6).
This special dealing with a special portion of the needs and capacities of a given coreself (as far as it is known), more precisely, this possible over-taxing and over-concentrating these capacities (or under-satisfying the needs, in cases of lack of means, time, capacities to satisfy them) is the portion originating from the coreself within what had been called EXTENDED SELF (ES) – or practice.
2c14 A practice, however, involves a second aspect – not only that modification of a PORTION of the CS but in addition, its being assigned to and distributed to a set of possible tasks to perform within that special environment – in tune with and synchronized with cycles of events – those which are expected to happen for sure and other ones which are expected to happen with such a probability that we should be prepared for them (and pay attention to signs indicating them – if known).
A TASK here is defined as TECHNIQUE or way to proceed (using certain environmental factors as raw material, places with special effects like heat or cold etc, using tools and instruments being prepared and provided in time at the right place) which would consume a certain portion of our entire strength (being assigned to this task within our ES) on the one hand, and at the same time contribute to satisfy some of the entirety of needs, on the other hand, which (in its entirety), again, by pure physilogical mechanisms, leads to reproduction of the capacities consumed. If things are going well, this can be repeated within this environment again and again – with some chances of making progress in doing it – in that you change productivity or decrease the extent of possible being flawed by detrimental effects of the environment.
2c15 In other words, a practice is a preliminary and risky attempt to combine
(a) a certain mode of satisfaction of a portion of needs contained in the (known) coreself which (by physiological mechanisms normally not known to us) is sufficient to reproduce a portion of capacities contained in the (known) coreself (often enough in a way involving possible overtaxing capacities and/or ignoring needs in certain circumstances not having bee expected or reckoned with before);
(b) a certain set of techniques which the raw materials and conditions of their making regularly are to be found within the reach of the place(s) this practice is being realised at;
(c) a certain set of environmental „regularities“ and facts beyond those being used within technical methods and devices (the former being part of your knowing-that, the latter of your knowing-how) which are deemed to exercise relevant influence on conditions of satisfaction of needs and spending capacities on tasks the entirety of which is hoped to guarantee „sufficient“ satisfaction, hence physiological reproduction of these very capacities, and the capability of reproducing the technical means necessary for performing all effects necessary within that special set of environmental challenges – the well-known ones as well as the less well known ones…
After these preparatory reflections, let us summarize the logical and conceptual qualities of the portion of the coreself involved in that practice and the effect of their being transferred onto that practice.
2c16 The sector or portion of our coreself we have been familiar with since ever is something which exists – and which does work by pre-existing physiological mechanisms – they are there without having been installed by us and form a cyclic connection between experienced satisfaction of needs and restoration of capacities such that using our capacities for to procure what is necessary to satisfy our needs that at the same time would be sufficient to at least restore the capacities – again and again (at least within the limits of the lifetime of a grown up person). Ordinarily, in the wake of our growing up we learn how to satisfy the returning needs – how to use our capacities within their limits such that we don’t overtax them – and how to avoid circumstances where this cycle is in danger to be damaged and become dysfunctional such that we become ill.
A practice, in turn, is nothing existing or just being there (and being able to be perceived more or less completely, or to be experienced, noted, known about) – it is what we are DOING. Of course, there are admittedly parts involved in it which actually do have that quality of „just being there“ – the coreself and its requirements and capacities as well as the environment with its risks and chances.
As a third part, we may include the actual knowledge of facts within these two fields (which lacks one of the two qualities i.e. „being there and having effects even if nothing known about it“ – a knowledge which one is not knowing and aware of at least is not effective in any regard).
A practice may have been repeated for so many times – at every step within that practice, you could decide otherwise and leave it.
A practice is what you are DOING and hence, can be changed every moment – can be revised, re-considered, questioned every time, or any time you want.
A practice is a risky connection between the requirements and possibilities of our coreself and those of our environment – as far as we have knowledge of both of these fields.
We cannot say neither that a practice is sufficient and will be sufficient nor that it is necessary exactly that way it is – because we don’t know the possible variants even within this environment (let alone within those we could move to).
The latter peculiarity can be found at the coreself as well – you usually have no knowledge about the scope of possible ways of satisfaction or possible capacities – the scope of all viable combinations – the scope, especially its limits (such that you could say which way of life is NOT to be tolerated by your body and body feelings – at least in the long run).
The coreself is the core and essence of what is sufficient in your life. But knowing it will not tell you the least about what is REALLY necessary to do for that – and what is dispensable.
So we learn: To transfer the conceptual peculiarity of a coreself to your practice includes more than anything else: To establish the practice as being something sufficient. In addition, to try to treat the entirety of the possible variants of your practice (and the single facts in the environment you are living in which you react to) as if it was the entirety of relevant variants of combinations of ways of satisfaction and possible capacities to be repeatedly restored by them – is the same as treating this practice as being THE practice out of all possible practices – the one which is sufficient as it is (also for to make every progress possible starting from there) – that is, with all the necessities and requirements it takes into account – such that THESE necessities and requirements are the only and really relevant ones – and everything else is irrelevant and can be ignored.
To the effect that if it turns out to be otherwise, you will presume to not exactly enough have defined and determined that practice before – and choosing a slightly different one – which could be the right one in this sense – at least, nearer to it than was the previous one. And to make that your strategy of research and gaining knowledge.
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2c2 In addition, transfer of conceptual qualities of CS to the entirety of KH/T, or treating KHT as being part of the result of identifying CS and ES.
2c21 The non-differentiation of CS and ES is extended to the entirety of knowledge available to a PLAN-person – be it knowing how KH or prognostic knowing that KT. Both types of knowledge include imperfect developmental stages of the respective optimum versions: experiences of „regularities“ we are not acquainted well enough with to rely on – and technical procedures and processes not being developed or tried and tested to such an extent that they can be used without more or less risk of failure.
This domain of knowledge of more or less certainty on more or less controllable facts thus not only contains content used in our actual practice (expectation of relevant events, technical devices and processes) but a more or less large „fringe“ of alternative techniques to be used or facts to be expected and exploited and/or avoided – content of alternative but basically not superior versions of the current practice as well as a series of more and more uncertain and/or unproven facts and possible techniques. – Extending peculiarities of CS to that domain of actual knowledge (knowledge actually being used in our practice as well as the „fringe“ of imperfect knowledge), hence, entails treating more or less perfect knowledge of facts the same way as we are used to treat the facts within our bodies we are acquainted with by interpreting feelings – and treating possible techniques the same way as the capacities to act by intentionally moving members of our bodies. Which modifications, then, will the „body of knowledge“ (and technical procedures) KT/KH undergo if it is interpreted according to the familiar patterns of using knowledge (by feeling) of our bodies (its capacities and needs)?
Basically, there are two patterns originating from our having knowledge about body functions from mere feeling:
1st, this knowledge usually does not cover ALL aspects we CAN have knowledge of by feeling (remember methods of e.g. bio-feedback) – but the qualities of our bodies as far as they are relevant for coping with daily life are wellknown to us. And.. as far as they are undicovered yet we don’t worry at all about having difficulties to find them immediately if needed – since we trust in our feelings and their capability to guide us.
2nd, we are used to look at our capacities-to-act as being organised as a multi-dimensional SCOPE – with continuous transitions possible between every pair of states within it. Usually we perform those transitions in the shape of body movements – hereby going through all possible intermediate states inbetween two possible states – the intermediate states forming a line as it were connecting the ends and each point on that line having its special „distance“ to the ends to be gauged by steps you just can differentiate and which are ranked by their respective being nearer to one end and more distant from the other.
2c22 Now let us try to find out which result will emerge from transferring these two qualities of CS to KHT.
Transferring the first one leads to the assumption that our actual KHT i.e. the requirements/risks= the „needs“ of our environment, and its capacities=facts able to be used in our practice, „as far as they are relevant for coping with daily life are wellknown to us. And.. as far as they are undicovered yet we don’t worry at all about having difficulties to find them immediately if needed“. – The most relevant consequence of this assumption is that we will not waste our time in serach of further knowledge – because what is just there will be sufficient to cope with unpredicted events – at worst, we would have to do some research, tests, trials etc. when time has come – we never will try to gain new knowledge or technical capacities without having an incentive or immediate motive or challenge (defined in terms of „requirement =need“ or „chance“ =possible (new) capacity ).
Now this assumption would give us hope to always be able to recognise WHEN it is worthwhile to search new knowledge – but this rule does not say anything about HOW to do that.
Here, the second transfer is helpful. The concept to be transferred is that of our capacity to act as a SCOPE – like the scope of possible body movements e.g. the position of your hand within the reach of your arms (nearer to the body.. or further away from it until the limits of that „scope of reach“). You can get to every single position within this scope from any other position by running through lines (directly, straight – or in a more or less indirect „curved“ way) of possible positions – by making the appropriate movement of the according member(s). This idea of a scope of possible actions related to each other by „vicinity“ in a „spatial“ sense (forming a space or scope of possible actions, points, lines etc.) can be thought to be able to be extended from pure body movements to actions supported by technical devices and supportive environmental facts (more or less known to us and to be used purposefully and selectively – often enough, we don’t know how exactly these facts work in favour of our actions – just THAT they do – regularly, reliably..)
The difference between actions that consist in pure body movements and those which cannot succeed but by the help of (operative) devices and supportive facts is: that we know by far less about the conditions and circumstances necessary to perform such more complex actions than we know about pure body movements. Moreover, the bulk of our „knowledge“ as to body movements basically is „know how“ – with a narrow fringe of knowing that (e.g. having seen that this or that body movement is possible – at least had been possible for somebody – but you have to practice for to master it.. – and don’t know when and even if you will reach full capacity to perform it as excellent as that person did). This fringe of knowing-that KT is by far more extended at complex activities – to learn HOW to perform them (regularly, reliably) involves masses of knowledge on facts and „regularities“ or regular dispositions of every kind and quality.
Transferring conceptual peculiarities of our knowing how to move our bodies onto „technical“ actions, hence, implies kind of translating problems of knowing-that into terms of „learning (such that one knows, in the end) HOW to do“ – learning-that/what by doing this or that way – guided by lines of qualitative vicinity= similarity to a certain paradigm – the center of a SCOPE of possible trials inspired by that paradigm – in this or that regard – which to determine is a challenge to our creativity, and imaginative powers in dealing with isolated facts we have more or less exact knowledge of – with more or less degrees of certainty. This knowledge is derived from that „fringe“ surrounding our robust daily life knowledge involved in our routine actions of every day (week, month, year etc).
2c231 I still want to dwell on this topic. In fact, this reconstruction accounts for the peculiarities of magical and superstitious practice – or, more exactly, for how the methods of magical practice are derived from available knowledge and experience. If readers think that this does not refer to anything in their lives or those of people near to them then let me remind you of people dealing with disease or pain after doctors have declared them to be uncurable; or, much less conspicuous but all the more present in the lives of most people, all those cases when people experience a break in their daily lives without knowing HOW to react to them – starting to try all and everything – within a certain frame of preparedness for tests and trials) possible to reach some effect (before they resign and give up). It is important to keep in mind this concept of a „frame“ of strength or entirety of efforts assigned to these tests and trials – especially by determining the time (number of tials, or amount of efforts) when the attempt has to be broken off and considered to have failed. At this moment, however, we are still dealing with the HOW (or cognitive portion) of this decision making process more than with the HOW LONG or WITH HOW MUCH EFFORTS (i.e. the emotional or „psycho-economical“ portion).
((Nevertheless, let us keep note of that factor: Trying to obtain knowledge as to how to do things always will be related to the budget of efforts available for the search, trials and tests necessarily to perform for that – a budget which always will be a detraction from what has to be used for reproduction, competing ways of increase of productivity, and precautions/provisions for (more or less well-known) risks. This, in turn, is related to the question: By which signs we can assess if it is still WORTHWHILE to continue or end trials to obtain knowledge as to HOW to bring about effects. A question which is maybe one of the most distinctive or distinguishing (if not defining) marks of PLAN-people.))
2c232 Now for the „how“ portion, let me remind you of those well-known characteristics of magical thinking as ANALOGY and ANIMISM, or, more critical and characterising magical thinking in terms of its shortcomings, its being too concrete, or schematic, or too eclectic (in separating parts of wholes..) or too rashing/jumping to judgments (in assembling or better, throwing together possible means in a totally inaccurate and „improvised“ fashion – the „bricolage“ of levi-strauss). Often enough, magical thinking is characterised as a sort of undisciplined and childish variant of historically more advanced ripe, adult problem solving of today – including religion and science; there is, however, only a small number of attempts to EXPLAIN all those characteristics.
My approach for such an explanation (as it has been prepared by the previous sections) is starting from the fact that the special drive for any (re)search, trial, test in a PLAN way of life must be a challenge of that way of life – mostly NOT an indifferent one (merely expanding the knowledge already available) but a sudden risk or chance by which the entire life is affected and could undergo a lasting turn to the worse or better. In most cases, the facts necessarily to be controlled in order to master the challenge are not known for sure – in other words, uncertainty as to frequency, variability, predictability and types of conditions or causes are relevant circumstances for determining the expense (in terms of strengths to be spent) for any attempt to cope with the challenge (risk, chance).
Again, this holds for the „budget-of-strengths/capacities/resources“ portion of the planning and decision making whereas my point here rather is referring to the technical and how-to-do-portion of it.
The nature of problems to be solved in a PLAN practice by research, trial, test (as procedures to obtain knowledge and gaining control over facts relating to challenges, risks and chances), hence, immediately is derived from the origin of these problems as necessary variation solely of parts of an existing practice. These parts, again, are only partly defined or described by technical rules like „if you want effect E do this.. and then this.. (or that.. if that variant of circumstances should occur)“.
At least of same relevance is their being embedded in the whole course of actions the entirety of which form the actual practice of reproduction, precautions/provisions, progress (of productivity, surplus etc).
The choice of this special effect E or series of effects E1..En necessary for this part of the entire practice to be performed totally depends on reasons outside: purposes.
2c233 Purposes, in turn, often or even usully are fragments of PLANS – they occupy a certain place in that plan. That place basically is defined by 4 characteristics:
1. the overall GOAL this branch of the plan is trying to achieve;
2. the EXPECTATIONS regarding OBJECTIVE conditions and environmental facts relevant for possible technical procedures chosen to realise the purpose-related actions (routine procedures or just tests and trials), as well as
3. EXPECTATIONS regarding SUBJECTIVE conditions (capacities, needs) and more or less well-known facts of requirements of our bodies (incl. health conditions) which would set limits to possible technical actions;
4. the actual selection of possible procedures and ways „how to do“ available for performing the actually chosen way of action in a maximum sucessful, secure, convenient manner by using means and instruments within the limits and requirements expected according 2 and 3.
The point here is: These goals and expectations are not arbitrarily determined but are put together in order to guarantee „reproduction“, survival, precautions/provisions, progress in this very environment, under these conditions – the well-known and the less well-known.. or even.. the yet unknown ones..
Of these 4 characteristics, you cannot isolate or take out one and leave the other ones as they are – they are dependent on each other. Considering the incompleteness and insecurity of knowledge in a given environment, a plan and a practice cannot be but experiments – an experimental design in order to (as a trial) fit together a set of procedures which can be carried out with strengths necessary for that (within the overall frame of strengths and capacities available) wherever, whenever it seems appropriate to meet the requirements of the EXPECTED chance or risk at that place and time – such that the underlying IDEA of a sucessful „reproduction“ and „progress“ can be realised – IF things are going as had been expected (or assumed).
2c234 Viewing reproduction and progress as huge experiments, then, implies: It is a whole of steps which only the entirety of (i.e. the PRACTICE as a whole), if anything, is the subject for assessments in following regards: if it is living up to chances and risks, heeding limits of capacities (objective as well as subjective), carrying out the optimum of all possible plans in this environment, considering this actual state of knowledge and level of technical control.
Any fragment of this entirety, any single action within it, is a combination of a purpose X and „ways to do X“: The purpose X itself is the most general characterisation of the X-(achieving)-action. From this perspective you will describe the practice in terms of do „X1, and then X2, and when Y3 has come, do X3.. (and hen it is Y3a, then shift to X3a instead) etc.“ – in other words, a series of steps described in prescriptions – at best being split up for special conditions (subjective, objective) for carrying them out – conditions you reckon with in advance.
To the consequence, that in case you are surprised by an unexpected threat or break-down that is to be averted, or a chance that are to be seized, no strategy is defined WHICH X or portion (series of actions/prescriptions) of the entire practice Xi-Xj should be affected by possible changes for to master the according challenge. Let alone, that possible change can be analysed and thought through by separating the actions and steps involved according to categories 2c233, 1.-4. – there is no pre-established way to classify parts of the way of performing/doing (achieving) any of the Xn involved.
So, every and any way of variation at first sight could be worth considering.
And this variation in its very core (because the action itself is characterised in such a way: the CATEGORY of an X-action is defined like that) is a combination of the purpose and possible acts of bringing it about – anything, everything of similarity to the purpose in some regard in the same way i.e. linked to that similar and relating purpose by „causing“ it or bringing it about, CAN be considered worthwhile to be tested – maybe some of these hypothetical procedures with more hope for sucess than others (because of their being near and related to the problem-defining task).
So from this central „paradigm“, PLAN-people develop that typical MAGICAL strategy of gaining control (via research, trial, test) by „experimental classifying“ procedures i.e. combinations of realising patterns to act and purposes, and arranging them in ranking lists of more or less proximity or nearness to the central paradigm – proximity in as many regards as possible – hereby unfolding a scope of possible procedures which would not exclude or contradict each other but possibly could add to each other’s impact or even enhance and help each other (it is a proper field of research to find these possible synergetic effects).
The being more or less near to the central paradigm then works as a measure for the probability or power to contribute to the effect. (According to this approach, „rational“ technical procedures here act as very effective means.. totally the same way as others..)
to be continued.
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drafts..
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the role of myths. ascribed effects by tradition.. (warnings: lead to avoiding actions the efficiency or necessity of which is never are tested..)..
the expectation that there MUST be something like that..
this procedure as basis of a (presumed, alleged) research and testing strategy..
When we are PLAN-people, our thinking in principle operates top-bottom.
This is NOT to be seen as a theory about the world – there is simply no such idea involved here as a possible „relation to a world“.
–> transition to next short section: a relation to the remaining unknown does not exist in PLAN.
and hence no research strategy as the HOW (what to expect at best in the environment – what could be hoped to be found when being searched etc).
there is nothing like „pure action“ or technical procedure – independent of a purpose;
the category of possible purposeful action (by its obvious similarity to anything purposeful in a strong sense) is the only instrument of probing the unknown available to PLAN people..