Vesi of Shorejärvi from Valmet Children on Vimeo.
Of the various belief systems (handily shortened to BS by Robert Anton Wilson), discordianism appeals to me in its attempt to pay homage to the ultimate paradox, that which is true, false, neither and both (and much, much more) at the same time. The application of such a world view to everyday life is a different question altogether - how to live in peace in a profoundly chaotic system? Personally, I've found Zen buddhism sufficiently unassuming (there's a strong link to discordianism, which is sometimes referred to as dada-zen). Once it has been established that all belief systems and abstraction frameworks are more or less arbitrary mappings, it becomes more "acceptable", in my mind, to adopt and adapt some such frameworks and memetic structures. However, a process of self-evaluation should be ongoing to ensure that these frameworks serve a supportive, rather than restrictive, role. Of course, to keep things interesting, even these terms are highly (or perhaps solely?) dependent on context. Said context being up to choice, we're right back where we started (which is not to say that the round-trip's been useless).
Basically, the way to build a memetic framework is something like:
- Choose a basic dichotomy - good/bad, true/false, etc. (or don't)
- Choose an axiom based on this dichotomy. You can say that the two things are "different", for example (dualistic world view), or that they are the same (monistic world view), or that they are both, something in between, neither, or anything else you might think of.
- Keep going in an effort to "refine" your world view.
Step two is basically a description of what (western) science is about - "to divide, separate", which, when iterated upon, creates systems of categorization, classification, etc. Things are broken down into their properties in an effort to learn about them. This is all well and good, of course, and has yielded amazing results! Trouble emerges when a thought structure becomes self-serving; that is, when actions are motivated by adherence to the structure (a "restrictive" structure), rather than the structure serving as a foundation for further exploration (a "supportive" structure). It's good to keep in mind that this division, naturally enough, is just as arbitrary as any other, and there are infinitely many shades in between, above, below, and all around it. Out of necessity, there is always that elusive "more" to find out - therefore, science (or life) should, in my humble opinion, be viewed not as an effort to capture or even describe, but to familiarize with and pay tribute to, the whole.
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