Isomorphism and experience

Patterning Archetypal Templates of Emergent Order (Part #10)

There is a fundamental difference between exercises in explaining how things might be through alternative framings, and the process of actually experiencing in the light of such framings [more]. It is here that there is merit in following the work of Francisco Varela (see references below) on 'embodied mind'. There is also a case for recognizing a degree of isomorphism between any inner dialogue and any outer dialogue within a group -- each may be considered a kind of reflection or constraint on the other and its development.

Sam Webster provides useful comments on A N Whitehead's approach to process reality (as articulated by H V Guenther) to interpret the Tibetan process of the symbolic re-creation of the world [more] -- that might be considered a culmination of dialogue. He argues that:

While Whitehead's approach says that transformative experience should occur, no method is given to place the experiencer at the center of the experience. The value of the Tibetan version of this process is that it is imbedded in a technique for experiencing it rather than merely thinking about it, as philosophers are wont to do.

Webster considers that there is a profound similarity between the description of the symbolic re-creation of the world given by Guenther and the flow relationship between an actual entity and its world and that world's larger context. The symbolic re-creation of the world, bskyed-rim, or 'developing phase' is described as an "iterative feedback process between the outer and inner world... [implying] the co-ordination of the conditions for simultaneous differentiations that retain dynamic interconnectedness." (Guenther, 1987). Webster's discussion of lucency in Buddhism merits review in relation to enlightening dialogue. This could be considered as associated with a form of non-egoic perception in which the phenomena of the world, including partners in dialogue, collectively carry an articulated identity through their dynamic.

Perhaps most intriguing is the degree to which movement of attention, for an individual or for a group, shifts rapidly back and forth between bounding facets -- so delineating a form of 'light body' -- that is very faintly reflected in traces of eye movement and the like (see above). Is this pattern of movement the essence of the sense of being alive, of personal or group integrity, and of that which sustains the coherence of reality?