Mindstructures » Collective vs Individual

The Paradox of Civilization and the Shadow Carried by All

Annemieke — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 08:13:14 +0000

A few days ago I followed the live stream of TEDx Amsterdam.

I really like the concept of TED and have watched many videos of their previous talks.

Those that have my special interest are the ones about the relation between the individual and society. That is why I was especially fascinated by the presentation of the speaker who more or less had to summarise the talks of the whole day, Louise Fresco.

There were a few things in her presentation that I found interesting. The first was her mention of the word ‘learning cycle’ instead of ‘learning curve’, a cycle instead of a straight line as a metaphor for how we learn.

That is very much how I see learning and development and certainly something I am going to explore in some future (hopefully sense making) blog posts.

What I also found very interesting was her mentioning of the third culture. About how we should bridge the gap between art and science. Also something I am really passionate about.

But in this post I want to focus on something else she said. Halfway her presentation she talks about the paradox of civilization.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First she talks about our human capacity to focus, to concentrate on something we personally find important, which requires passion and emotion.

But opposed to that, is another aspect of human nature, the need to control our impulses.

Civilization comes with greater control of impulses. We control violence, the state is there to control ourselves and control others. We also have something called self-control. Inner directed self-control, whereby we know there are certain things we don’t do anymore. You could argue that civilization is increasing control over human nature.

It is this control of our impulses that makes it possible for us to work together, to cooperate, to share ideas, to listen to one another, because if you continue shouting and I continue shouting, we can not listen.

So on the one hand we are, as a society, developing towards more and more civilization, what is characterized by more and more control. But as she points out, this control is getting out of hand.

But here is to the paradox of today, one that we haven’t touched but one that I feel very strongly about and would like to share with you. Yes, we have a learning curve in our societies of increased control. But we also see today in the last few years an increasing move towards uncontrollable things. Uncontrollable behavior, unselfcontroled behavior.

That actually goes against the grain of what has been the great movement of our society of control of human nature.

Many, many thoughts went through my mind when I heard that. Personally I think it all is part of the process, but I am by far not sure how to get that into words. Many of my previous posts were about that theme, but somehow I am not yet capable of bringing my points across in some understandable way.

The shadow carried by all

But this paradox of civilization also made me think again of an article ‘Shadow carried by all says Jung’. It is an article from the archives of the New York Times, and it touched upon this paradox.

In the article, Jung says that morality is not something that can be forced upon someone. We all carry a shadow and it is very likely suppressed and isolated from our consciousness. But along with this shadow, or hidden within, or however that might work, we also have an inherent morality.

But if we force our understanding of morality on someone else it will not work, at least that is what I understand of the following quote.

To live with a saint might cause an inferiority complex or even wild outburst of immorality in individuals less morally gifted. You cannot pump morality into a system where it is not indigenous, though you may spoil it.

The only way things can change, is with a change in individuals.

Such problems can only be solved by a general change of attitude. It begins with a change in individuals. The accumulation of such individual changes only will produce a collective solution.

So we can not force morality upon others. The only way to become moral, is by working through the shadow.

The paradox of civilization

So I guess the paradox of civilization has to do with individual development. The individual needs space to go through this development. Society develops through a gradual increasing civilization, but at a certain point it needs to stop and give the individual the space to go through their own shadow.

And discover their own inherent moral nature.

Image: source

Art and the Context of Society

Annemieke — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 20:05:34 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Living in a certain place and time, we tend to think within a certain set of values and act upon them as if they are universal. And we use our critical skills to judge ‘everything’.

It is a set of values that is a sum of the whole society, and living by its rules is more or less part of the game. The game of a society that keeps a certain balance between individual desire and the common good.

But that does not mean those values are universal. That they apply everywhere. And in all times.

That just means they are good in a certain context. The context of that specific society. In that specific time in history.

Art is also criticized in the spirit of that age. But one of the characteristics of art is, that it is a search for new patterns that fit in a greater whole, which go beyond the context of that specific society in that specific time.

From the post Creativity beyond Praise and Criticism / Music from Sahara by Camel / Image Source / More Videos

Creativity to Prevent External Pressure and Internal Decay

Annemieke — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:24:19 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

David Bohm on Creativity:

Creativity is essential, not only for science but for the whole of life.

If you get stuck in a mechanical, repetitious order, then it will degenerate.

One of the problems is, that every civilization got stuck in a certain repetition.

The creative energy gradually died away and that is why the civilization dies.

Many civilizations vanish, not only because of external pressure, but because they internally decay.

David Bohm on Creativity from Art, Science and Spirituality / Music from Beethoven’s 7th symphony / Image Source / More Videos / More David Bohm Posts

Creativity beyond Praise and Criticism

Annemieke — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:59:59 +0000

Still reading the letters on aesthetic education, I tried to understand the beginning of part two.

In that part, Schiller paints a picture of how the individual is blinded by the age in which he lives, the society in which he is born.

But also about the struggle of that society itself. That has this high ideal of a perfect humanity, but despite all that, still struggles with evil.

I had to read that part a few times before I got an idea of what Schiller was talking about.

The strange thing is that, although I have difficulty understanding what he says exactly, I get the feeling that Schiller says something important. And I also have the feeling that what he wrote 200 years ago, still applies very much in our time.

Creativity and criticism

Especially the following was very interesting.

Nothing is more common than to see science and art bend before the spirit of the age, and creative taste receive its law from critical taste.

What Schiller means, I guess, is that the people, living in a certain place and time, tend to think within a certain set of values and act upon them as if they are universal. And they use their critical skills to judge ‘everything’.

Which is not wrong in itself. It is a set of values that is a sum of the whole society, and living by its rules is more or less part of the game. The game of a society that keeps a certain balance between individual desire and the common good.

But that does not mean those values are universal. That they apply everywhere. And in all times. That just means they are good in a certain context. The context of that specific society. In that specific time in history.

Art, as Schiller says, is also criticized in the spirit of that age. But one of the characteristics of art is, that it is a search for new patterns that fit in a greater whole, which goes beyond the context of that specific society in that specific time.

Creativity and praise

The following quote is something I saw mentioned several times when reading about Schiller. The first few times I did not quite get it, I kind of read over it because it is very subtle.

Live with your age, but be not its creation; labour for your contemporaries, but do for them what they need, and not what they praise.

Be not the creation of your age!

I think this is essential. We have to use the information from outside, but our actions must be based upon that information combined with the information that comes from within. Not disturbed by the praise of others.

It is in the same line as what David Bohm says about creativity. That praise prevents creativity, because of the danger that praise might become more important for the individual than being creative.

Once we are addicted to the opinion and influence of the outside world and get rewarded by it, it becomes more and more difficult to listen to our inner voice, or as Schiller calls it, use the spirit of free inquiry.

But at the same time it is also important to ´live with our age´. To use the result of that free inquiry to serve that same society. To do what needs to be done, using our own unique qualities.

Form becomes Independent of Meaning

Annemieke — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:56:42 +0000

Being distracted by the art of language and the definition of art in my previous posts, I now continued reading Schiller’s Letters.

At the end of part one, Schiller goes a long way to describe the influence of the culture on the individual.

The individual who looses the contact with the whole. The inner union of the human nature that was broken, because it is forced to specialize in one area to serve that culture.

Then there was a rupture between the state and the church, between laws and customs; enjoyment was separated from labour, the means from the end, the effort from the reward. Man himself eternally chained down to a little fragment of the whole, only forms a kind of fragment; having nothing in his ears but the monotonous sound of the perpetually revolving wheel, he never develops the harmony of his being; and instead of imprinting the seal of humanity on his being, he ends by being nothing more than the living impress of the craft to which he devotes himself, of the science that he cultivates.

The result is fragmentation and the free intelligence of humans is suppressed. Form becomes independent of meaning.

The dead letter takes the place of a living meaning, and a practised memory becomes a safer guide than genius and feeling.

Humans are valued by the function they have in that society. Their specific, mechanical skill is important. The skill and function that provide profit. But other parts of the mind are neglected.

Such is the necessary result of an organisation that is indifferent about character, only looking to acquirements, whilst in other cases it tolerates the thickest darkness, to favour a spirit of law and order; it must result if it wishes that individuals in the exercise of special aptitudes should gain in depth what they are permitted to lose in extension. We are aware, no doubt, that a powerful genius does not shut up its activity within the limits of its functions; but mediocre talents consume in the craft fallen to their lot the whole of their feeble energy; and if some of their energy is reserved for matters of preference, without prejudice to its functions, such a state of things at once bespeaks a spirit soaring above the vulgar.

So we need all our energy for our function in society. And little is left for doing what we want.

But Schiller goes on that it was necessary, in the whole of human development, to make this polarisation as far as possible.

He calls it a great instrument of culture. But while that polarisation lasts, it is only the road to that culture.

It is only because these special forces are isolated in man, and because they take on themselves to impose an exclusive legislation, that they enter into strife with the truth of things, and oblige common sense, which generally adheres imperturbably to external phaenomena, to dive into the essence of things. While pure understanding usurps authority in the world of sense, and empiricism attempts to subject this intellect to the conditions of experience, these two rival directions arrive at the highest possible development, and exhaust the whole extent of their sphere.

In this development, the individual is sacrificed for the whole. If the individual is forced to specialistic focus, development goes very far beyond the limits of nature. But it looses contact with the whole.

So at a certain point, there has to be a return to wholeness again. That contact has to be restored.

The isolated forces have made humans extraordinary, but only some sort of equilibrium between those extreme opposite forces can give happiness. Which is at the same time the place from where creativity, and as a result the actual change, can start.

The Importance of Individual Human Experience

Annemieke — Mon, 03 May 2010 08:23:51 +0000

David Bohm has some very interesting things to say about how he sees the future of our world.

In the interview from the previous post, he says things that, at first sight, just look like common sense.

But if you look closer to what he says, I think it is rather revolutionary.

At a certain point the interviewer asks him to give his view on human relations in society and Bohm gives the following answer:

I think it is essential to have coherence and order and harmony, that the whole society moves together with a common pool of information, which is not imposed, but what is established by exchange and dialogue.

The emphasis is mine, because I think it is easy to get focused on the harmony and the dialogue. But personally I think the essence of what he says, to get to this whole pool of information, individual human experience plays a very important role. Further on in the interview he elaborates on that.

But first he says that the general trend has not gone very far yet in exchange and dialogue. Everything is still divided into nations and religions and other kind of groups that behave as if they were independent.

Then the interviewer asks if Bohm is moving the emphasis from the individual to the whole, on which Bohm answers some things that are very interesting.

I took them apart so that I can give my understanding of what he says. And besides that, I can place it in a certain order, which I think is important.

Each individual contains the whole.
Each their own or move together.
Impose leads to conflict.
The individual needs freedom.
Find out for themselves.
Calmly entertain each others views.
Look at all the views.
No need to agree with other views.
Holding all the views is holding the whole.
A common pool of information to guide society.

Each individual contains the whole

Bohm says that each individual already contains the whole information field of society. It is the whole information field, but each individual contains that information field in their own way.

But if each individual contains that whole information field of society, how does it get in there? Bohm says that most of it comes from society. Both information and misinformation. And both of them, information as well as misinformation, determine who you are and what you do. He says the information gets picked up by osmosis. That what you pick up from family, friends, from school, what you read, what you watch on television.

But it also might be build in, or there may be hidden connections we don’t know. But implicitly each person contains the whole.

My understanding: This ‘in their own way’ is an important distinction, I think. Because it is not something objective, not something that is the same for everyone. As mentioned in the posts The meaning of Values and Beneath the World of Logic, each individual has his own unique way to see the world.

Each their own, or move together

Here Bohm gives two different approaches to move further as humans.
1. Each individual with his own pool of information leading to chaos.
2. Or moving together with a common pool of information.

My understanding: So it is impossible for each individual to act upon his own understanding without coming into a conflict. Each individual may think his own way of understanding is the only way. But at some point it is different from others. And the result is chaos.

The alternative is moving together. But then those with the most power have to decide which way to go. And as becomes clear in the next point, that is not Bohm’s idea.

Impose leads to conflict

So it seems that moving together is a better option then the chaos of many individual views. But Bohm seems clear in his desire for moving together without imposing certain views upon others. He says there is an attempt to impose, but that might lead to a conflict with the pool.

My understanding: Bohm talks about a common pool of information. And here he mentions a conflict with that pool when certain views are imposed. If I understand what he means, then I think that is a very important observation.

If certain views are imposed upon others, no matter how well meant, the natural individual views get blurred. And as a result people just follow rules that go against their own self.

The individual needs freedom

‘The individual needs to have freedom to look at all the information and determine in his own way whether it is right or not.’

My understanding: I think there are 3 important things he says here. First there is the concept of the pool of information. I already went into that in the post Make the Quantum World Understandable, where according to Bohm information is a different concept then energy. Which I think is a very important distinction.

Second is that he says the individual has to find out for himself if certain information is right or not. I will go into that in the next point.

But there is the third point where he says that the individual needs freedom to look at all the information. I think this is an extremely important point. And I think that goes way beyond learning at school. It is about having access to mediums like the internet. But also a freedom from pressure to learn things that are not so much necessary then that it is distracting from what is important for the individual.

I think people have an inherent curiosity. They want to learn, they want to discover, they want to find out how things work, they want to improve skills. But they need freedom to do so. And not have to give all their time and energy learning things that are forced upon them, give stress and finally result in knowledge that is only useful in the eyes of others.

Find out for themselves

So then when the individual had the freedom to look at all the information, he now has to ‘determine in his own way whether it is right or not’.

My understanding: Another very important point I think. By looking at all the information, some information might cover his experiences and other information might not. To determine in his own way whether it is right or not, might seem a bit odd (how about scientific evidence) but as long as it is seen as personal experience combined with knowledge, and not some view that gets imposed on others, there is no harm in itself because it is just that, individual knowledge.

Calmly entertain each others views

‘We have got to be able to talk about it, to dialogue, to entertain each others view, to look at it, calmly’.

My understanding: The next few points seem to be the most characteristic for Bohm’s vision. They are at the heart of what he calls dialogue. Dialogue is not just discussion, it is not debate. It has a much more exploring and exchanging character. It requires an open mind, that is capable of putting aside our own prejudice. It needs to be able to see others as individuals.

Individuals that had different experiences.

Bohm calls it here even ‘entertain’ each others views. So that seems much more than just ‘listen’ to them. I think he means a more active attitude. Really think about them from several points of view. See what fits in with our own worldview and what does not. And search for possible explanations.

Look at all the views

‘So that each one can look at all the views’.

My understanding: That means that dialogues will have to be recorded in some way. That people are capable of looking at all of them, ordering them in different ways. And then see what patterns will emerge.

No need to agree with other views

‘He does not necessary agree with them’.

My understanding: Also a very important point I think. It requires a certain development to be able to consider other worldviews without necessary agreeing with them. We need to be able to step outside our own world, to be able to see others.

If we do not have to accept them, if there is no need to totally agree with them, it is much easier to do so. And it is essential to do so anyway, because there might always be certain aspects that fit in with our own vision. And not only fit in, but an addition that would not otherwise have become known.

Holding all the views is holding the whole

‘Each individual, when he holds all the views then he holds the whole’.

My understanding: I think what Bohm means here is that all views, no matter how absurd some of them seem to be, have some degree of truth in them. And each of them is needed to paint the whole picture. We might not agree, we might have strong resistance against certain views, but no matter how opposed it is to our own view, some part does have an element of truth.

But it might be that the way it is communicated, is not understood in the way it was meant. So it is important to find a certain agreed upon way that is capable to express all our personal experience and individual knowledge. Which might require something more than language and logic.

A common pool of information to guide society

‘Of that I think will emerge a common pool of information which would guide society’.

My understanding: So according to Bohm we need to look at all views to find all the information. Actually I think it is the only way to find all the information. Because it is hidden deep inside each of us.

But the only way to become aware of it, is to experience life. To live life, to make decisions, to act, make mistakes, come to conclusions and in the end to ‘entertain’ other conclusions. To dialogue. And then, when we have all the information, it can be used to guide society.

Image: Source

If you Know All the Views, you will Know the Whole

Annemieke — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 07:30:16 +0000

In this post I want to upload and transcribe the fourth part of the interview with David Bohm.

In the previous part he talked about why it is important to distinguish information from energy.

How information plays a major role in our day to day life (although hard to seperate from energy), but has no role in quantum mechanics.

In this part of the interview he elaborates more on the analogy of the quantum world with society.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bohm: Very subtle, it is very hard to exactly pin it down. I think he (Niels Bohr?) would say that there is no point to this sort of speculation, he would regard it as a kind of speculation, which was not tied to an experimental fact.

But I feel that it is important to be able to make it intelligible and also to show the connection between this and also the whole range of experiments in other fields.

Interviewer: But in effect there is no difference at all between your view and the classical view of quantum mechanics, the Niels Bohr view of quantum mechanics, in its experimental predictions.

Bohm: No, they will give the same experimental predictions, but I think experimental predictions is only one of the functions of a theory. It enables you to understand what is going one, to make it intelligible.

Interviewer: But then when the general audience is presented with your views of the universe, it is often based on your interpretation of quantum mechanics, do you think the general audience acknowledges that it is some kind of minority kind of interpretation.

Bohm: Well, I don’t know, I it hard for me to know. But I think the other interpretation, the reason it is not generally known, is that it is not intelligible. It is so abstract and difficult that they really can’t understand what it says.

I think this interpretation will make the whole thing more accessible to more people and also maybe show the connection between different fields in some sense.

Interviewer: But in a way, what people from the Niels Bohr Copenhagen interpretation school would say is that you are reviving a classical world view.

Bohm: I would say it is not classical. With this idea with active information is quite foreign to classical physics. I would say that the thing that makes classical physics is not just the form of Newtons law, but what you say about the forces, if you say that they are this character of information it changes it.

I am going to introduce an entirely non classical concept which is the activity of information. That it contributes fundamentally to the properties of substance.

Now the fact that you still think of a particle doesn’t say that it is classical you see.

Interviewer: But in some senses your view is more classical than the Bohr view.

Bohm: More like the classical yes, it looks more like the classical but it also quite different.

Interviewer: So could you say that it is the classical world view but with information added.

Bohm: Well some other things as well, which I haven’t gone into, but I think that when you have changed the concept so much, it wouldn’t be right to call it classical.

I think the main point, it is hard to say, the main point would be whether we would take the wave function as the whole description or not. See I add this particle and say the wave function as the meaning of information that acts on the particle.

Interviewer: Maybe you should explain the wave function.

Bohm: Yes, this wavefunction is a mathematical representation of the field of information. In the case of one particle it is like a wave, but it is a wave that acts according to its form and not according to its intensity.

With many particles it is more complex.

Interviewer: And in the Bohr interpretation of atomic physics, he would say that the wave function is just something that we made up to describe…

Bohm: We make it up… well, it is something… Bohr called it an algorithm for calculating experimental results in the phenomenon.

The wave function is part of an algorithm. You know what an algorithm is?

Interviewer: A way of calculating.

Bohm: A way of calculating yes, and no more than that. Now, when Neumann said that something is a little bit different, that the wave function is a complete description of the quantum reality.

Now, it is not clear whether Bohr ever talked of a quantum reality, because he only talked about this whole phenomenon.

Interviewer: But then in your interpretation it is very important that the wave function is not just part of our description but part of …

Bohm: We regard it as part of the reality. We make an analogy to society. One view would be if we say society consists of a lot of people who are interrelated. You can say that they are interrelated by information exchange. You can say that is crucial, without that the society would collapse. So that is part of the reality of society.

Interviewer: Could you elaborate on your view if you take it to societal analogies. How would your world view, if you give it a description as human affairs in society.

Bohm: Yes, well you see if you think of society, if you compare if every individual would have his own pool of information and leading to chaos. Or you could have people trying to move together with a common pool.

Of course you can have the attempt to impose the pool, but that might lead to a conflict with the pool.

I think it is essential to have coherence and order and harmony, that the whole society moves together with a common pool of information. Like this ballet dancer. Which is not imposed. But what is established by exchange and dialogue.

Interviewer: Do you think that we are moving in that direction.

Bohm: I think potentially we are, we need to. And some people may be, but the general trend has not gone very far. Because everything is divided into nations and religions and other kinds of groups which behave as if they where independent as they are not.

So people will have to give that all up and they might find that hard. To deal with the ecological problem people will have to give a great deal of that up.

Interviewer: So you are moving the emphasis from the person as individuals, the divided part, to the information flow, the information field of society.

Bohm: Yes, that is right. But I would say that each individual contains the whole information field of society in his own way.

Interviewer: How?

Bohm: Well, it is in his mind, in his brain. You see, everything you know comes from society practically. Both information and misinformation. It determines what you do.

Interviewer: But you have to read books to get the information.

Bohm: Yes, but that comes from society right. Books are part of society. So I would say that the individual is formed out of society, but together the individuals form society.

Now the individual needs to have freedom to look at all the information and determine in his own way whether it is right or not.

But finally he has to be part of society. We call it the culture if you like then. So the individual, now what we need for this is that is that we have so many different individuals each with his own view and different groups and that view and they are coming into clash.

We have got to be able to talk about it, to dialogue, to entertain each others view, to look at it, calmly. So that each one can look at all the views.

Each individual, when he holds all the views then he holds the whole. He does not necessary agree with them but out of that I think will emerge a common pool of information which would guide society.

Interviewer: And when you say that each individual himself or herself has the whole human experience or knowledge, how does it get in there?

Bohm: In many ways. It gets in there first of all by osmosis. They pick it up, implicitly, from family, from friends, from school, what you read, what you watch on television. Television is making this much more so right.

And also it might be build in, some instinct of information which is common. And there may all we know be hidden connections and which we don’t know but implicitly each person contains the whole.

It is like a hologram which contains the whole without all the details.

[Update: There is a transcription of the whole interview on the page David Bohm Video Interview with Transcription]

My understanding

I think Bohm did a very good job in explaining his view on the analogy with society. If I understand it all correct, Bohm’s view on quantum physics includes information.

The very strange thing is that something that plays such a major role in our day to day experiences, does not play a role in those theoretical views of reality.

But as it got clear to me in the previous part of the interview, in the example with the ship, it is also very hard to distinguish that information from the energy that is influenced by that information.

But as Bohm makes very clear in this whole interview, it is essential to make that differentiation. And after that, to look at it as a whole again.

Besides that, he has a very interesting view on how the individual is very important in society. He only touches on that slightly, but I think his view on that is also very important.

In my next post I will highlight some of those points and see how they fit into my own understanding of the individual versus the collective.