KARL JASPERS FORUM

SHORT NOTE 39

(To N37 by Müller)

EXPERIENCE - CHAOS AND LIGHT'S MPH
by Glenn C. Wood
16 June 2002, posted 16 July 2002

[1]
This response recognizes your efforts to keep the dialogue moving and in that light I'll provide some constancy in the form of several lines, even if it means dancing with you about the line on a pin's head -- until such time as we can go a tip-toeing back to the harvest field.

[2]
If we assume light has a measured determined speed there must be a source if not immeasurable at least not yet measured, and there is some support from theoretical physics that light as such does not travel but is more than less simultaneous. Your choice of "complex patterns" still accessible to mathematical analysis sounds like a structured ontology and almost unbecoming to your normal self -- as though there's a structured ontology and the less than orderly -- chaos -- only appears so this side of unstructured experience. Until each individual structures experience for some purpose it is chaotic regarding what one knows, but not necessarily from the perspective of trust beyond knowledge. Chaos and order represent two extrapolated extremes from experience. Without the chaos there's no need of order for the sake of sanity. But to assume as absolute either order or chaos as the essence of Being can lead to insanity -- that probably being what you are warning against.

[3]
As regards your view that the ontological source tends to be hidden and religious structures can occlude the access to one's own resources and that it may help to start from scratch like in zero derivation; that's what Aquinas attempted, that is, to start from scratch, and there was nothing wrong with the first unmoved mover preclusion -- better than occlusion -- in the sense that by comparison with what appears to move the first mover is not affected by the moving stuff. The problem arose when Aquinas structured his philosophical logic to support the religious establishment like the order regarding unmarried priests and other ordering easily penetrated by infiltrators. Aquinas acted as though the unmoved mover needed a universal Church to move the unmovable. His philosophical logic took on the force of divine revelation when he was made a "Saint."

[4]
I wonder if you want to be interpreted to have an aversion to Biblical concepts and rather than seeing through a few millennium and centuries of misinterpretation, you'd rather discard the meaningfulness of the single book for an uncritical acceptance of occidental/oriental wisdom. If so I take this to be due to the misuse of "Christian" religious language, something I sympathize with but not at the expense of tossing out inspiration plus reason equals revelation in the form of a closed ended book which has guided individuals seeing the need to "start from scratch." If we educate on this principle of starting from scratch as in zero derivation we'd have to start as chicks scratching in the dirt without the benefit of old mother hen.

[5]
You say: "An ontology consists of structures, it cannot be chaotic." The reason I placed the date of your notation at the start of this notation-response is to show I'd addressed this sort of ontological defining, prior to this posting, referencing Karl Jaspers' peri-echontological way of handling the confusion about ontology. The nature of being prior to our logical -- or illogical -- way of handling general experience can be chaotic from the knower's perspective if not yet organized. Specifically when I mentioned ontological chaos I meant that restropective remembering of ... being ... prior to the sewing machine needle penetrating my finger at a very early age (by the way, that early memory posting is still not available on the KJF web site).

[6]
Finally, in contrast to my weakness, there's invaluableness to your comments so often supported by invaluable references to other authors remote or far; though I get this vague feeling there's a wealth of authoritative experience of your own by which for some reason we are not going to benefited -- even if it's sharing the fact of no personal first hand religious experience at all.

---------------------------

Glenn C. Wood