As I've implied in previous posts, there is localized "purpose" or "intentionality," but it is always, in principle, limited to a particular "systemic whole." More on this tomorrow ... it's tomorrow, so let me begin again.
Let me add a caveat right from the outset. When I write "systemic whole," there are a number of things that are implicit in that statement that need to be unpacked. Although I do not believe that nature, as a whole, is teleological -- is designed and aimed at some purpose in the way that, say, my cell phone is designed and aimed at some purpose -- I do, however, believe that nature, as whole, is causally interconnected. In the broadest sense, to do something here and now, often has an unanticipated effects later. To a certain extent, we can trace these causal links looking backward, and can make predictions looking forward, but our understanding will always and forever be imperfect. The so-called butterfly-effect -- the flapping of a butterfly wing here causes a hurricane there -- states the case if we leave it at that.
There is a sort of religious awe associated with the statements above, but a couple of cautions. I am happy with images like that of Indra's web, which also states the case, but but to assign within it personal Karmic significance to it overstates the case. There is nothing "personal" about it, either for good or for ill, and the butterfly flapping his wings is not to "blame" and will not face karmic retribution for the hurricane. Also, to say our understanding will always and forever be imperfect is more a capitulation to Heisenberg's physics than the complementary implication that there is (or must be) some being whose understanding of the whole is always and forever perfect. It is a feature of our language that one thing always implies its opposite, but the implication need not necessarily be true. There need not necessarily be a thing with a perfect understanding. There need not be anyone with a perfect understanding. And there likely isn't.
Having said that, when I speak of a "systemic whole," by definition, I am referencing, not the "whole" in the cosmicomic sense, but the whole of a limited system around which there are discernible or definable boundaries. The slipperiness in the "and" between "discernible" or "definable" boundaries is intentional and I will come back to it, but for the moment, let me just play with the idea of a "systemic whole" a bit.
We might think of ourselves, for example, as a "systemic whole." When I say, "I am ..." there are an almost infinite variety of things which "I am not ..." but mostly, for the present discussion, "I am not you." Simple empathy allows me to think of "you" as another "systemic whole," but clearly I have my consciousness, you have your consciousness, and others yet have their consciousness. We have discernible boundaries, and clearly there are inter-dependent parts within those boundaries, many of which might also be thought of as "systemic wholes." When I said "I am ..." I probably didn't have in mind the bacteria that inhabit my gullet, but there they are, a multitude of more or less independent individuals which are part and parcel of my larger systemic whole. When I said "I am ..." I probably didn't have in mind the part I play within a larger systemic whole as a social creature, but here I am, say, administering a college. I might wonder if there is a larger, more enveloping "college or meta consciousness," a sort of hive consciousness, but if there is, it is not a consciousness that I can inhabit. If there is, it likely takes no more mind of "me" than I take of the bacteria in my stomach.
To think about the meta-conciousness, and how on might merge into it, however, slips into mysticism, and for the moment at least I want to avoid such slip sliding away. I can speak of the "College" as a "systemic whole" in part because it does have teleology. It has, as an entity, a discernible and definable social intentionality. It can be described, or set out, in the so-called "mission statement," and most public colleges and universities have a legislated purpose. There is no need to wax mystical and assume a "college consciousness," or "general will," or anything of the sort, but clearly there are those elements of my behavior, as an administrator, which are of and for the college, which serve a purpose and help the college serve its purpose. I play a role within the college, as a systemic whole, and I am, or I was, paid for that role. I am not, however, bound by the college in the same way that I am, metaphorically speaking, bound by my skin, and of course I play other roles.
I can speak of myself as a "systemic whole" in part because I do have discernible and definable teleologies. I have, as an entity, discernible and definable purposes, the most basic of which is, of course, simple survival. Beyond that, my life has "intentionality," not in some grand design of a creator to which I am no more privy than I am to a "college" consciousness, but in my concatenated social roles. I sometimes play a fill in the blank game with students to develop a sense asking them to complete the sentence "I am ..." in as many ways as they can. They more or less enumerate the "purposes" or intentionality's they have in life. For example, I could write "I am a man, a husband, a scholar, a college administrator, a citizen" et cetera. The list concerns mostly the social games, so to speak, in which I participate. I will come back to that, but suffice it to say at the moment, that I serve my purposes within an encompassing whole, and consequently have an effect on this larger whole. My actions instrumental to these purposes change things within the more encompassing environment, sometimes (well, almost always) in ways that are unpredictable.
So when I say, there are almost innumerable actors, each acting in ways that change the larger whole about them, I can say that the world about me is in a constant state of flux, is "evolving," but not necessarily to my ends or anyone in particular's ends. We exist in an evolving universe, but it is simply evolving, changing, in flux. Actions here concatenate with actions there, but it is not necessarily the case, and most likely isn't the case, that it is evolving to any discernible or definable end.
No comments:
Post a Comment