Dear At,
once again, I have difficulties in understanding your writing about the law of excluded middle (LEM).
>Since from 1048-1994
> apartheid = NOT wholeness
>we have since 1994
> NOT apartheid = NOT NOT wholeness
>
>The Law of the Excluded Middle (LEM) says that
> NOT NOT statement = statement
>Thus we expect according to LEM that
> NOT NOT wholeness = wholeness.
>However, since 1994 South Aricans experience
> NOT NOT wholeness IS NOT EQUAL TO wholeness.
>In other words, to deny a denial will not always rectify a denial!
Let me give a simple example - not wholeness but a little black bird.
blue bird = NOT black bird
NOT blue bird = NOT NOT black bird
The LEM states that
NOT NOT black bird = black bird
but obviously
NOT blue bird can also be a red bird.
The problem is solved by noticing that
blue bird = NOT black bird (apartheid = NOT wholeness)
is wrong. NOT black bird means: ALL BUT black birds. Blue birds are only a
subset of those 'all but black birds':
blue bird < NOT black bird (< instead of =!)
I can transform this relation into an equation again, by introducing an 'x':
blue bird + x = NOT black bird
'NOT blue bird' can be either a black bird (NOT NOT black bird) or a 'x',
which is completely intuitive. It is also clear, that
x = ALL BUT (black bird + blue bird).
LEM works perfectly. The mistake was to take something specific (be it
blue bird or apartheid) for the general 'ALL BUT' (be it NOT black bird or
NOT wholeness).
This mistake is really very common, and I think, this is what you wanted
to point out: If one is against something bad, people expect the outcome
to be something good. This is of course a fallacy:
NOT a specific bad = ALL BUT this specific bad (including all good, but
also all other bad things).
But the whole issue does not scratch LEM, if it is properly applied.
At, I am like you aware that the LEM does not apply to wholeness - LEM
even distroys wholeness. Because this is as important for me as it is for
you I tried my best to show that your formalization of this knowledge
failed. This does NOT mean, that the knowledge itself is wrong, only that
there is need for another approach to formalize.
May I try to guide you to insights which I gained from your theory?
For sureness, LEM is essential. For wholeness, NOT LEM is essential. I
think this is the reason, why so many fierce battles are fought about
these two essentialities. Both seem to be EITHER OR. But both are also two
necessary conditions for constructive emergences which to exist, so BOTH
AND is phenomenological fact. BOTH AND require NOT LEM (wholeness), right?
Wrong! BOTH AND require only NOT LEM if LEM is valid (This is same as
saying wholeness and sureness requires wholeness AND sureness)! A paradox.
You have tried to solve the paradox by thinking in terms of 'NOT LEM' also
for sureness. But I tried to show that LEM is indeed essential to
sureness.
So do wholeness and sureness have to be separated for eternity? Of course
not - the world and we with it emerged as a matter of fact. It is only the
formalization of wholeness in terms of sureness, which doesn't work.
Fortunately, there are more essentialities, which need to be considered.
At, you included liveness ('becoming-being') by pointing to cause-effect
relations and by applying the historical development of
wholeness/apartheid in South Africa. Liveness is good to follow the
entropic force/flux created by the tension between sureness/wholeness
LEM/NOT LEM. But in order to connect the two fruitfully, another
essentiality need to be brought onto the stage. The reactive part of
wholeness is the associative pattern, the reactive part of sureness is
identity.
Now I have to catch my train home for a weekend with family. Aren't
families the places to learn how wholeness and sureness can come together
by means of fruitfullness? What a life!
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
--"Winfried Dressler" <winfried.dressler@voith.de>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>