Stav,
> One note - the word "authentic" in this context is a very sloppy term.
> Perhaps John Walker and myself mean genuine, heartfelt, original, precious,
> but yet relevant across different periods of time. What word captures all of
> this? Surely "authentic" is not up to this task.
'Authentic' is probably as good a word as any because I don't think what
you're talking about can be nailed down anyway.
The first evening Zen master Momataki arrived at Rain Mountain Monastery the
monks requested their new master show them the way. When Momataki assented
with a nod and pointed to the rising moon all but one of the assembled
looked at his finger.
Lao Tzu, an older contemporary of Confucius, was keeper of the imperial
archives at Luoyang in the province of Honan in the sixth century B.C. All
his life he taught that "The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao"; but,
according to legend, as he was riding off into the desert to die he was
persuaded by a gatekeeper at Hangu Pass of the Great Wall in northwestern
China to write down his teaching for posterity.
The essence of Taoism is contained in the eighty-one chapters of the
book--roughly 5,000 words--which have for 2,500 years provided one of the
major underlying influences in Chinese thought and culture, emerging also in
proverbs and folklore. Whereas Confucianism is concerned with day-to-day
rules of conduct, Taoism is concerned with a more spiritual level of being.
Appropriately, first line of the book is "The Tao that can be told is not
the eternal Tao."
So was Lao Tzu just being mysterious, being difficult--or was he on to
something? Is there something which you has called "authenticity" or isn't
there? And if so, can it be adequately named?
Suppose a slightly edited film (consisting of doctoring the film by removal
of the ball) of a soccer match were shown to a person unaware of the game of
soccer. Could the viewer perceive the rules of the game? It would depend on
the viewer's syntactic awareness. To make it simple lets call syntax--the
rules. It would depend on the viewer's native ability in guessing what was
going on in the film. Did the soccer play have structure, reasons--did it
have rules? Watch a film of cars at an intersection for a while and almost
everyone can pick up on the syntax--the rules. Red light, stop--Green light,
go. As syntax (rules) becomes more subtle our syntactical awareness is
tested and then eclipsed. What rule(s) governs the mass of the sub-atomic
particle called a Muon? Nobody knows. The best minds in the world have
studied the equivalents of Muon/soccer films for decades and haven't a clue.
So what's the syntax of a Muon's mass? At this point blind guessing is about
as good as anything.
If our mental maps, our models of the world are sensorially based, then
those among us with the sharpest sight, the keenest hearing would be the
most knowledgeable. I think that minimal sensory acuity is all that's
required here, because our models of the world aren't the result of sensory
acuity. Let me attempt to define syntactic awareness, explain its domain.
For purposes of framing, let's begin with what syntactic awareness ISN'T.
Syntactic awareness is less an exact procedure and more an art. What can be
described ISN'T intuition, which is the ability to perceive or know without
conscious reasoning. Conscious reasoning often is directly involved in
syntactic awareness--doesn't have to be but quite often is. Syntactic
awareness ISN'T pattern detection. Although it uses pattern detection it is
more concerned with the processes subsequent to the detection of pattern.
Syntactic awareness ISN'T concerned with the search for perfect knowledge
but the process of ever increasing the reliability of one's knowledge.
Syntactic awareness results in the creation or discovery of a personal
operating syntax for the world. The rules, laws, causes--how the world
works. To be syntactically aware is to comprehend the ways of the world. To
be syntactically aware in a particular situation is to possess penetrating
insight into the 'whys' and 'wherefores' of that situation--knowledge of
that situation. Syntactic awareness is the ability to see what can't be
seen, hear what can't be heard, and feel what can't be
touched--comprehension of the ineffable. It's to be aware of the PROCESSES
of the world--the syntax we use to understand it--rather than the world
itself.
For example, there is an important logical and conceptual difference between
the objects of chess (the board and pieces) and the rules of the game
(processes). Such rules can be described and demonstrated but, in fact, have
no sensory basis. The rule that's written down is not the rule, it's an
attempt to describe the rule. Further, individual styles of play have
definite, but non-sensory, attributes which can also be described and
demonstrated. Without syntactic awareness all the chess examples (and
written rules) in the world are pointless, because, in the end, each of
these descriptions or demonstrations is just a finger pointing at the (a)
moon. A chess rule becomes a RULE once you understand what it means, how it
functions--once you see the moon.
Syntactic awareness is sometimes described as "second sight" or a "sixth
sense" and understanding it necessitates a clear separation of sensation
from insight--the separation of visualizability from visualization,
verbalization from comprehension. Although, and this is a central point,
syntactic awareness uses sensory modalities for the representation of
insight, such a representation does not portray or consist of sensory input.
We may draw a picture to represent a concept while the concept itself
remains unseeable. The picture remains an example of the concept, not the
concept itself. So our mental models of the world are symbolic rather than
literal.
Paraphrasing Lao Tzu, "The symbol that can be fully reduced to a sensory
representation is not the eternal symbol." See the problem? Doesn't mean
that 'authenticity' doesn't exist, just that we begin to loose hold of it
when attempting to define it.
You and John Walker can detect a certain quality of purity, consistency and
congruency in the syntax of the things, events, concepts you encounter which
resonate. Call it authenticity, call it beauty, call it ....
The concept which can be fully reduced to a sensory representation is not
the true concept.
Nelson
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 03 2003 - 09:09:50 PST