Wholesight and the Ontology of Frederick Parker-Rhodes

Posted by James Bowery on Monday, 04 February 2013 06:08.

I came upon the work of Frederick Parker-Rhodes in my quest for the ideal computer language, which I have elsewhere on MR discussed in relation to Heidegger’s “as” structure and GW’s ontology project. Recent work in theoretical physics has provided empirical validation to his “wildly eccentric” views—which managed to provide a priori derivations of the dimensionless scaling constants of physics from his ontology detailed in his book “The Theory of Indistinguishables”. To be brief, there is his “combinatorial hierarchy” that derives from FRP’s attempt to find the underlying mathematical structure of what he called “wholesight”.

Below the fold is an excerpt from “Wholesight: The Spirit Quest” by Frederick Parker-Rodes…

As a theme of mythology the quest goes back to remote antiquity. The great treasure guarded by fearsome monsters in a far country makes a good story line, as well as being an apt simile for the hidden wisdom of Wholesight. But there is also the theme of the Precious Bane, which has been unaccountably neglected. Though not strictly the first, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is the only example known to most readers.

I have therefore introduced this theme into my version of the Grail story. For there are things we need to lose, as well as things to find. What things? Pride is one. Growth economics, the true sacrament of pride, is another. But there is a deeper and more precious bane: that self-sufficiency that man delights in and of which no animal has ever dreamt. Not only the lonely survivalism of the pioneer, not only the self-confidence of the careerist, but the collective assumption that our species, after millions of years of evolution, has at last reached a condition in which our life can be an end in itself. In short, the faith of the humanist, for whom there is no level beyond the human. This is the Piscean heresy which the Aquarian age anathematizes.

And why is this bane so precious? Because it is the seal of our humanity. The humanist way of life is possible, at least on a limited scale. All that is needed is to refuse to go any further, and perfect our own little garden, a showpiece in the wilderness of the world. And the cost? Only now can we begin to reckon up the cost — and that is, no doubt, why the Precious Bane theme seems so recently discovered. All that belongs to the spiritual level in human life is what we must pay. All the works of creative imagination will lose their force: poetry, music, art, and the free answering of the spirit in love and grace, all these which represent yet higher peaks to climb will become empty forms without meaning. The gift of free will, that builtin paradox of humanity, will turn to mere unpredictability, and in due course be restrained by law, a public danger. There will be no purpose left in life.

But there is also a price to be paid for giving up this baneful treasure. Millions must die because our planet cannot sustain them. For the rational behavior this wild hope depends on is not forthcoming, nor ever will be so long as anyone is still allowed to go their own way. But the cost of return is finite, while the cost of going on is infinite: either total material loss, which is the more likely, or total spiritual loss. The choice is ours which it will be, unless we can break ourselves of this pride.

The positive quest, like the negative, is not for the proud. We can win Wholesight, not by cleverness, but by magic. Coincidence has to make do for fortitude, and serendipity for certitude. And these things do not work for those who carry their father’s token. Those who desire to be ends in themselves do not experience meaningful coincidences. But those who are content to be people for others find that things happen which they can be happy with. The very same things, perhaps, which the proud just can’t stand.

Hope we must have, however hopeless. When things go well we must not doze in the slumber of smugness, nor despair when things go ill. We must carry our seeking even to the end of the world. The Holy Grail is not to be found by any who have not sought till their strength fails.

Tags: Art & Design, Christianity, Economics & Finance, Environmentalism & Climate Change, Global Elitism, Globalisation, Science & Technology, Social Sciences, The Ontology Project

Comments:

Posted by Lapidarian on Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:03 | #

Forthgoing alone
resolves a man

A fire in the snow
his dog loves him
and sees him

The planet decided
the continent unwize
the northwest no

Only youth will they say
decided

Meter and whatnot
forget it
this question
where and when

Posted by Graham_Lister on Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:04 | #

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird’s cry at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow . . .
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep’s faded papier mâché . . .
The sun was coming from outside.

That scrawny cry—it was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

By Wallace Stevens

Posted by Graham_Lister on Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:15 | #

The Death of a Soldier

Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.

He does not become a three-days’ personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.

Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops.

When the wind stops and, over the heavens,
The clouds go, nevertheless,
In their direction.

By Wallace Stevens

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 04 Feb 2013 21:35 | #

We anticipate a new era from the invention of a locomotive, or a balloon; the new engine brings with it the old checks. They say that by electro-magnetism, your salad shall be grown from the seed, whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner: it is a symbol of our modern aims and endeavors,—of our condensation and acceleration of objects: but nothing is gained: nature cannot be cheated: man’s life is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these checks and impossibilities, however, we find our advantage, not less than in the impulses. Let the victory fall where it will, we are on that side. And the knowledge that we traverse the whole scale of being, from the centre to the poles of nature, and have some stake in every possibility, lends that sublime lustre to death, which philosophy and religion have too outwardly and literally striven to express in the popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The reality is more excellent than the report.

Excerpted from “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posted by Lapidarian on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 01:41 | #

start a fire ?

consider it done.

Posted by Jiminny Christmas on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:28 | #

gas and all

Posted by Lapidarian on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 03:03 | #

it took long enough but it is burning bright now

come over and see

Posted by Thomas on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:50 | #

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

By Joyce Kilmer

Posted by daniels on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 07:21 | #

I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

- Emily Dickinson

Posted by Suburban_elk on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:42 | #

Wallace writes some sad verses there. He is older than i.

Dickinson sounds very contemporary. She is an example of a voice not using traditional meter. Her last word is Bog. It rhymes with frog. The first line of that second verse, how dreary to be somebody, is quite a line.

Both those examples are commendable.

Posted by Suburban_elk on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:55 | #

My thoughts are in verse because it seems their expression.

I would submit my posts into a contest of verse, against those like. There seems a tone of rebuking in them; but as the poems themselves declare, Who cares about that. it is utterly meaningless. This post is pointless. It should not cost too much in terms of bandwidth. Let us hope. (Because that would be pointless.)

Also, my thoughts are in simple verse, because they are simple. The posts here invoke a reaction; and they dwell, in the Realm of Ideas. Not sucking you off here. Just saying, let us be real, and say, that this is the adult’s table. I consider it a privilege to post here.

Posted by Suburban_elk on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:57 | #

Needs editing. Sorry. I know, i does not matter.

Posted by DanielS on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:04 | #

Personally speaking, Suburban elk, I am not averse to poetry at all. I think Heidegger was onto something when he claimed that it was more like thinking than science.

When I may have taken issue with you, my real concern would have been aimed at content, not the form of poetry - sorry if I may have come across as extinguishing of intellectual means.

Posted by DanielS on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:07 | #

The theme of the precious bane is an important one, and I appreciate its valence of the critique of “self actualization.”

Posted by Thorn on Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:14 | #

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Bill Whittle explains why our relation to “The Gods of the Market Place” is as relevant today as it ever was, maybe more-so; that is, the Gods of Wisdom are long overdue to return. The longer they stay away, the greater the pain when they return…and return they will! Here is Whittle’s rendition of Rudyard Kipling’s poem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx9—zQDfog