Clues to strategic engagement with the unthought

Unthought as Cognitive Foundation of Global Civilization (Part #9)

Symbols and myth: If the "unthought thought" is understood as engendered by the "collective unconscious", the pioneering work of Carl Jung advocated engagement with its complexity through symbols and myth (The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1981). The case has also been variously made by other authors (Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, 1988 and Myths to Live By, 1972; Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 2005; Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, 1979; Michael Vannoy Adams, The Mythological Unconscious, 2011; Edward C. Whitmont, The Symbolic Quest, 1969). The sense of a necessary cognitive mirror is evident in the myth of Perseus and the Medusa, as mentioned above. This characterizes the cognitive implications as "monstrous" -- recalling the underworld celebrated in many myths contrasting the "Olympian" deities of heaven with the "Chthonic" deities of the earth (including Gaia).

Of relevance to this argument is the study of the ouroboros by Michael Bish (The Uroboric Serpent: water and being and the mythos unthought in metaphysics, 2008), most notably as it relates to the metaphorical use of the conveyor by Ken Wilber, as discussed separately with respect to the Great Ocean Conveyor around the globe (Potential Misuse of the Conveyor Metaphor: recognition of the circular dynamic essential to its appropriate operation, 2007). The potential significance of the ouroboros has been extensively explored from a phenomenological perspective by Steven M. Rosen (Dimensions of Apeiron: a topological phenomenology of space, time, and individuation, 2004).

Medals: At a time of worldwide preoccupation with the "Olympic Games" and the "medals" to be won, it is useful to explore the strange symbolic role of the medals awarded in various circumstances, whether in celebration of athletic achievement, heroism in battle, or a lifetime of service. The nature of track events in a stadium, at the very origin of the Olympic Games, is formally reminiscent of the effort of circling a hole, with the medal recalling that effort -- and the associated sacrifice. The stadium also offers a reminder of the dynamics "in the hole" -- subsequently the focus of the games of the Roman Empire (Ludi Romani), now held to be repugnant through the form they finally took in the Colloseum. Those awarded for heroism recall a strange "unthinking" modality associated with spontaneously placing oneself in mortal danger to assist others -- with the form of the medal now recalling the implication of a bullet hole. From its origins, as now, heroism gave rise to hero cults. A sense of the "unthought" is evident in those devoting their lives "unthinkingly" to benevolent causes -- possibly to be awarded by a medal of honour, even explicitly associated with an unusual "order" -- of merit. The contemporary implications for values transcending thought have been articulated by Edward de Bono (The Six Value Medals: the essential tool for success in the 21st Century, 2005).

Polyhedral facetting: It was suggested above that the unthought could be best "re-cognized" through "facets" which people found variously meaningful or of concern. This suggests the possibility of imaginatively configuring such facets into polyhedral form -- thereby offering a degree of coherence, a potential container for the unthought. The approach has been previously outlined with respect to categories and values (Spherical Configuration of Categories to Reflect Systemic Patterns of Environmental Checks and Balances, 1994; Psychodynamics of Collective Engagement with Polyhedral Value Configurations, 2008; Patterning Archetypal Templates of Emergent Order: implications of diamond faceting for enlightening dialogue, 2002). Of particular interest is the sense in which the unthought is necessarily at a cognitive distance from the facets, much as in the design challenge for the containment of plasma in nuclear fusion, as separately discussed (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006; Cognitive Fusion through Myth and Symbol Making: archetypal dimensions, 2006).

Creativity: In a number of domains requiring creativity in the moment a typical injunction is "don't think". This is most notably the case in the performance arts and the martial arts. It may apply in sports and other domains in which being "in the zone" framed by flow psychology is considered appropriate. A classical articulation of this mode is provided in the much-cited classic taoist tale by Chuang Tzu (The Dexterous Butcher):

All I care about is the Way. If find it in my craft, that's all. When I first butchered an ox, I saw nothing but ox meat. It took three years for me to see the whole ox. Now I go out to meet it with my whole spirit and don't think only about what meets the eye. Sensing and knowing stop. The spirit goes where it will, following the natural contours, revealing large cavities, leading the blade through openings, moving onward according to actual form - yet not touching the central arteries or tendons and ligaments, much less touching bone.

Those inpsired by thre worldview of shamanism would presumably offer equivalent arguments.The question is what is to be understood as the "unthought" with which engagement is enabled in this way.

Embodiment: It would appear that there are at least three interrelated strands of exploration endeavouring to transcend thought and engage with the unthought through the body, notably in movement. The body may be explored as an aesthetic, as in the case of Diane Louise Prosser (Transgressive Corporeality: the body, poststructuralism, and the theological imagination, 1995). For Prosser such an aesthetic is to be understood as understood:

... as holding "in tension the intentionality of a 'body/subject' against the backdrop of a radically temporalized and spatialized existence.... Thus, one might regard the aesthetic as part of Merleau-Ponty's 'unthought thought'..., just as Merleau-Ponty himself spoke of drawing upon the 'unthought thought' of Husserl's Fifth Meditation". (p. 28)

With respect to the nature of the "unthought thought", Prosser cites Michel Foucault (The Order of Things: an archaeology of the human sciences, 2002), as noted above, continuing to the effect that:

The "unthought", or that which disturbs and disrupts the Modern project of reflection, prevents "man" from forming a new positivity, and yet, in its displacement of the thinking subject, creates a space for thinking beyond metaphysics. It is in thinking the "limits" of "man", that is, in thinking those forces of the will-to-power which traverse the "warp and woof" of human existence, wherein a new mode of rationality and subject emerge.(pp. 61-62)

Prosser subsequently notes that:

Merleau-Ponty, Foucault and Kristeva, in struggling toward the articulation of a "third term" of the ternary dispositions of existence, present us with the formulation of an alternative "originary site" for philosophical and theological thinking. This site or primal scene of human becoming has three characteristics which distinguish it from the ground of foundationalist projects. First, as set forth by Merleau-Ponty, the site of bodily thinking, akin to the unruly realm of interhuman relations, is not fully present and able to be represented. Rather, it has the quality of a presence/absence, that is, a presence which comes to the fore only against the backdrop of the absent or tacit relations of one's practical action in the world. Therefore, for him, this site is nota stable foundation but a "gap".... Merleau-Ponty speaks of this gap as the "inalienable horizon" of the flesh. Foucault speaks of it as the "unthought" entangled within the "warp and woof" of thought. And Kriseva speaks of it as the "abject", "wound", or "remainder of the "clean and proper body." Although each of these metaphors directs our attention to different facets of this site, they all insist on its irreducibility to full representation. This gap is a limit to symbolic structures, and as its limit, it is near to representation, indeed at its borders, but never fully contained within it. (pp. 126-7)

Prosser continues by noting that the second feature of this site operates through the powers of attraction or repulsion -- namely desire -- resisting the objectifying gaze of the observer, decentering the subject. The third feature noted by those writers is between this power of seduction and the powers of "eros" -- "not of binary thinking but of ternary body thinking" (p. 127)

The relevance to this argument is further apparent in the more recent work of Mark Johnson on the aesthetics of embodied thinking (The Meaning of the Body: aesthetics of human understanding, 2007). This follows from his earlier work in collaboration with George Lakoff (Philosophy in the Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenges to western thought, 1999). Other relevant authors include Anthony Chemero (Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, 2011) and Lawrence Shapiro (Embodied Cognition, 2010). Considerations of physics, phenomenology and embodiment have been insightfully interwoven by Steven M. Rosen (Topologies of the Flesh: a multidimensional exploration of the lifeworld, 2006).

Given the metaphoric use of "body" in relation to human collective endeavours, there is a case for exploring the above significance of "embodiment" with respect to the "body politic", "body corporate", or the "body of knowledge".

Enactivism: As an approach intimately related to consideration of embodied cognition, enactivism has notably been developed by Franciso Varela (The Embodied Mind: cognitive science and human experience, 1991; Laying Down a Path in Walking: essays on enactive cognition, 1997), as discussed separately (Enveloping Development through Cognitive Enactivism: engaging with climate change by changing apprehension of climate, 2009) (Navigating Alternative Conceptual Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms through movement, 2002)

To what extent is a person considered holy through a subtle sense of what they have embodied?

Mystery and mysticism: In some Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism and Taoism, a sense of emptiness (Sunyata) is highly valued as realized achievement. The Buddhist term emptiness (as noted by Wikipedia) refers specifically to the fact that everything is dependently originated, including the causes and conditions themselves, and even the principle of causality itself. It is not nihilism, nor is it meditating on nothingness. Attaining a realization of emptiness of inherent existence is understood as key to freedom and t the permanent cessation of suffering. Such emptiness is linked to the Creative Void as a state of complete receptivity and perfect enlightenment", namely the merging of the "ego with its own essence", termed by Buddhists the "clear light". For the school of Chán Mahayana Buddhism, Frank W. Stevenson notes that the duality of unthought/thought (silence/language) has always pervaded metaphysical and onto-theological discourse (Sudao: Repeating the Question in Chan Discourse).

In Taoism, attaining a state of emptiness is viewed as a state of stillness and placidity which is the "mirror of the universe" and the "pure mind". For a person who attains a state of emptiness, the "still mind of the sage is the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of all things". In relation to the notion of an "unthought thought", Ray Grig suggests:

The Tao is like nothing; an unsaid word, an unthought thought. Because of words, we think there is the Tao but it is not a word, not a thought (The Tao of Relationships: A Balancing of Man and Woman. 1988, p. 61)

An alternative expression is that of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching:

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub.
It is the centre hole that makes it useful,
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.

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Clues to strategic engagement with the unthought