The birth of the concrete world
I. FEAR
It is through the fear of chaos and death that form and recognition are sought, in order to create clarity through the well-known symbolisms such as language and speech.
The urge to imitate caused by this fear causes action.
The actions we take are rewarded or punished from birth and we don’t realize that reward and punishment are part of the same principle.
The new-born child is immediately confronted with these contrasts, because the contrasts after and before the blissful period in the womb are enormous.
The warm bath resembles the familiar feeling before birth, but from the bath it seems the absolute opposite.
Before birth there was no hunger, but now it is a recurring phenomenon.
The warm feeling in the bath and drinking the (breast) milk are inculcated as highlights of the day, and as a reward.
In such a process, in which it becomes clear who creates which condition in order to create a climate for infant and child, confidence in the parents grows, who generally draw their wisdom from stories passed down and from books.
The child grows up, and through sensory perception, plus the increase in abstractions, a world is formed, which is seen and felt as concrete.
II. JUDGMENT
A chair is a chair, sometimes made of wood but not always.
A child relates the chair phenomenon to the chair it is familiar with in the living room at home or at grandparents’ house.
What is a chair? Can you sit on a chair? Then all matter can be a chair because you can sit on all matter. Everything depends on the description.
A photo of a chair is, in the first instance, a photo, but within the framework of thinking in reward and punishment, the right solution will point in the direction of the chair: Photo is wrong; chair is good!
Symbolism sneaks into the child’s life. We call this: a development in correct symbolic thinking. Correct, because the recognition of “different” is not possible within the frame of reference at that moment.
We give a description of a chair that fits into our practical existence and recognition. Through growth in knowledge, abstraction and ability, a connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brains grows.
This cooperation is possible due to the growth of the brain bar (corpus calossum), the connection between left and right) that transmits all incoming stimuli.
Ordering then takes place in the left half of the brain under the heading of cognition or cognitive skills.
One of the important orders that we have come to appreciate is the assessment of time. Night and day contradict each other when we find that neither can be described because of the fact that even within the framework in which they exist (the concrete world) they are subjective and localized.
The division into year, month, day and hour is an invention to provide structure for fear of chaos. Different solutions have been devised for each culture to discover a rhythm that you may call “time” on the basis of an inventory of events in space. Rainy season, spring, happy hour, before-war, etc.
With the help of such time determinations one can then determine whether reward or punishment should be handed out.
In this way one can enforce expectations.
III. CLARITY, SECURITY, GRIP.
The actions that are related to the determination of time can now be shaped from a certain rigidity where conclusions and outcomes … offer a solution.
Then there is the overview that we experience as clear, certain and reliable…. the science. Knowing that a bicycle can be cycled at a speed of 15 km per hour, it is possible to assume that the distance from A to B (15 km) can be covered by bicycle in approximately one hour.
If it turns out that a strong wind is blowing, we must quickly change our conclusion.
Science can only exist by determining the conditions for a climate, from which observations or assertions are made.
Scientific practice within a defined climate serves the development of the sense of relativity.
As soon as science is generalized and takes the position of truth, the organic threatens to disappear from the climate:
Science that has become instituted.
Convenience and the limited thinking of people lend a hand to come up with rules that embody “the law” and “the truth” through this institutionalization.
We were already accustomed to reward and punishment, now a record confirms the truth once again.
Rules are rules!
The emergence of certainty, clarity and grip (stability) within a subculture.
IV. SUBCULTURE
The subculture is created by the formation of a so-called circle of friends in front of a so-called circle of enemies. By creating “the enemy” you get an overview in a smaller circle, which uses a norm and jargon within a cultural environment and background. War actually is perhaps not a matter of good and evil, but more likely a question of clashing subcultures. These subcultures are institutionalized in such a way that there is a complete lack of awareness that within their “own” culture or pseudo-democratic system, they (also) are guilty of warfare and violence. War with bombs and guns seems much more serious and gruesome. This means: the maintenance of good and evil in one’s own culture, due to the lack of any form of self-relativity. All kinds of (super-)powers have the power over their people and can realize the plans that dictate the doctrine and/or ideas.
It does not matter whether the suppression of a despot creates a subculture or a sham democracy. Both are dictating institutions.
The United States have always needed opponents (war) to make the people believe that everything outside the U.S. danger and is undemocratic.
Hand on heart as the national anthem is sung, while the disorder is visible and noticeable in all states. I’d rather have a joking president than accept other ways of thinking. Nationalistic thinking remains a fictitious plaster on a miserable existence, due to the fact that cause and effect arise from the same experience.
An age-old example of organically formed thoughts becoming entrenched can be found in the dogmas of many religions. The religion as a philosophy, which has an assumption that leads to a flexible and creative life, no longer exists as soon as reward and punishment, hell and damnation are preached. Institutions can be recognized by a hierarchical structure.
V. GOOD AND EVIL
Good and evil are always related to the subculture where they flourish. Good and evil are inventions that arise from the combination of the cause-effect and the reward-punishment mechanism.
There is good music and bad music, good taste and bad taste. But is that really so? Do ‘good’ taste and ‘good’ manners mean really better development?
Only by refining sensory perception is it possible to enlarge the spectrum of Recognition. This is a cognitive development. No development in spatial awareness. On the contrary! Recognition of Bruckner’s 6th Symphony only says something about the ready memory of stored and classified repertoire.
Recognition of different performances of this symphony, and recognition of the style, only say something about the recognition of the imprinted. Nothing about musicality and certainly nothing about creativity.
Because we can notice differences between performances of the same piece of music by e.g. different orchestras, we like to profile ourselves by presuming an opinion. It’s beautiful, or it’s outrageously bad. The context is not looked at.
The preview of a concert, which will be performed by a Chinese folkloric music company in a renowned theatre, fails to convey to a number of interested parties the frame of reference and the cultural-philosophical backgrounds of the music and the musicians. The ability (by classifying) to imprint the phenomenon as an isolated phenomenon results in the situation that the preview has become the recognition and experience of the concert.