The Art of Learning

 

How we save ourselves. 

There is a mechanism that creates the features and form of our civilization. The form our civilization takes is a pattern created over the passage of time. This pattern can be seen by looking at our records. It is clear that the scale of the pattern our civilization creates over time is becoming larger, but more significant is that the form remains the same. A pattern that plays out over time is recognizable by identifying the cyclic repetition of the same scenario. Humanity has been playing out the same sequence of events at larger and larger scales for the length of recorded history. That sequence can be illustrated generally and specifically. Specifically, we can refer to the rise and collapse of power structures if you need an example. Still, there are too numerous other specific examples to name without entering into a confused view of this subject. We can agree that this is the case. Can we not? No argument can refute the assertion that humanity repeats that same pattern over and over.

This commentary indicates that the pattern of human affairs on a general scale can be reduced to a subpattern played out ad infinatum by each participating individual. This subpattern on aggregate, the sum of everyone exhibiting this behavior, creates the larger repeating pattern we witness in our civilization as a whole. Recognition of this deeper pattern creates the opportunity to nullify and negate it and thereby break the cycle personally. Which if done by large portions of the world population, will permit us to change the overall pattern and thereby prevent a negative outcome for our civilization by avoiding the approaching limit of our current trajectory. 

If you have made it this far, congratulations, you are about to learn something new. To put it mildly, that shit ain't easy. Because, to learn you have to be open to information that does not mesh with your perspective and that is significant because the foundation of everyone's conditioned belief system is that what does not fit is an existential threat. To truly learn you have to abandon all preconceived notions and this is the equivalent to the rejection of your identity. This, for all intents and purposes, is a threat to your life from your established perspective, however, this is entirely and completely false. Your life is not in danger from information that is not congruent with your worldview, only the tools you use to evaluate the world are in danger, only your learned ability to gauge the value of things is in danger. This is not real death, but ontological death, that is to say, it is a threat to the instruments of the mind used to classify all entities. Such as substances, properties of things, relationships between things, the state of affairs of things, and events. Your worldview or perspective of the world is your ontological tool kit, and this set of measurement devices maintained in your mind will not permit the evaluation of information that is unmeasurable by those tools, because it would render those tools incapable of accurate measurement. To learn something new, you must be comfortable with the notion that your established means of perceiving the world are inadequate for the job. This can be felt as an existential threat because society gave you these tools to operate inside of it and if they are not accurate then how is one to continue to live? This should offer a clue to the actual entity that is in danger, it is not you, it is the establishment that is in danger and your health is not dependent upon the health of the established order, in fact, the opposite is true. The repeated pattern of which I am speaking is maintained by the establishment and as we can all see this pattern is arriving at the limit of its sustainability. So when I say that you are open to learn, it is the willingness to learn what is required to actually survive as a race of beings and avoid our arrival at the limit of our current collective mode of operation. 

To be clear I am not suggesting that you abandon your ability to perceive, but to abandon the model of the world that limited perception has built. Science is forced to do the same. It is the perfect example to illustrate what I am speaking of. Science undergoes periodic paradigm shifts through which the previous model of the world, the previous explanation, must be scraped and rebuilt. The old model was assembled using tools that are inadequate to evaluate data that contradicts the old interpretation and so with the old model, the old explanation, the old interpretation, so also the tools used to create said model must also be repurposed to permit the assembly of the updated interpretation. Science can only learn by abandoning the previous viewpoint that would obscure the contradictory information despite the undeniable existence of it. So we can see that this illustrates the process of learning, not the kind of learning that accumulates but the kind that catalyzes a paradigm shift. It's more than building a new model with updated information, it's rejecting all models, it is recognition that all explanations are subjective and to operate not from a model but from the fluid relationship with all that is. It is recognition that every model, every viewpoint, every worldview, every perspective is incomplete. This is the comprehension that our view of the world is inseparable from the device that is perceiving it and so in order to see, to perceive without limitation we reject perspective. This is ontological death. So now you begin to see that what you are learning here, right now, will permit you to learn anything. This is the ultimate shift in consciousness, this is what the Tao teaches, this is how we break the cycle. So having said this we can now see the pattern of our culture with new eyes, we can begin to know and not believe. Because if you know something, there is no need to believe it. Right? So let us begin now that you have removed your conditioning, your indoctrination, your particular lenses. Let us begin.

First, we must understand the concept of rhythm. We can agree that nature has a certain rhythm to it. This rhythm is the continual shift between two states, it is binary, and we can simply identify these two statuses as on and off. With this definition, we can identify other binary relationships that alternate between each other. Such as light and dark, positive amplitude and negative amplitude, the crest of a wave, and the trough of a wave. In this, we can see that this rhythm is repeated at all scales and identify the cyclical nature of all things. In this, we can name all of the binary relationships, or to put it in another way, all polar relationships, polarity. Nature operates on the cyclic interchange between polarities, the rhythm of polarity. Can we not agree that this is true? Yes. 

But in you, there is a deeply rooted tendency to attempt to come up with a counter-thesis to the previous assertion. That somehow there is an exception, that nature is not entirely a dance of polarities. Right? Can you bring to mind an antithesis to this? Likely some of you can and regardless of its veracity, it suggests enough doubt to begin a rhythmic interchange of debate that will play to completion. This the the dynamic of the Hegelian Dialectic. The rhythm of the Hegelian Dialectic behaves like a real polar relationship, however, it does not depend upon any truth to begin the rhythmic cycle, it only depends on a measurable degree of doubt. On the idea that the original thesis could be incorrect however marginally. We can see from this brief analysis that Heigel describes a dynamic between two subjective points of view, it is a full admittance that any interpretation of reality must be treated as a model, as a construction that takes place in the mind, and that any model by whatever measurement it was created cannot be a full representation of reality and so by the introduction of an antithesis, a mere contradiction of the original should bring about a more complete understanding. Unfortunately, this is not the case. What Heigel discovered was not a description of the way by which humans understand reality but a legitimization of the mechanization of human affairs, the wholesale misrepresentation of an induced artificial rhythm as a natural one. 

We can see that this dynamic, this artificial polarity, this mind inhabiting dialectic does not eventually arrive at a more complete version of the truth but maintains a mental stasis in the mind of the collective. One side or the thesis gains followers and attracts believers just as the followers of the antithesis grows in adherents. On one side we have a group of people who believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that their version of the truth is correct and on the opposing side they believe also that their perspective is absolute. However, the result, the inevitable synthesis is not a more complete version of the truth, it's a bloodbath. The synthesis is victory and defeat. The prevailing side becoming the new thesis and with the bitter seeds of antithesis planted in the survivors of the defeated. Thus, beginning the cycle anew.

This is the general pattern of our civilization. But we can see it on all scales, the artificial rhythm drives the gears of destiny, each generation turning the wheel again. Here are a few more examples; the two-party system. It is obvious that the thesis of the Democrats rising and then falling to the antithesis of the Republicans does not increase the clarity of our vision. The thesis of Capitalism versus the antithesis of Communism does not improve the general management of nations and their natural resources. The result of the synthesis of these two ideologies is the poisoning of the ground, air, and water. There are countless other examples of these false dichotomies. Left vs Right, Globe vs flat-earth, conspiracy theorist vs normie it goes on and on and on.

So knowing what we know now, that false dichotomies mimic a rhythmic cycle such as with natural polarities but represent belief systems that are in opposition to each other. Knowing that a false dichotomy is the thesis and corresponding antithesis of the Hegelian Dialectic and that these opposing opinions fail to confirm or deny either belief structure and instead maintain the division that leads to conflict. Knowing that the artificial rhythm created by the mechanism of the false dichotomic dynamics of dialectical opposition maintains the illusion of separation, knowing this, we can extricate ourselves from it and break the cycle.

Knowing also, that in order to learn you must allow for the possibility for the incompleteness of your belief structure and even the incorrectness of it. As we previously mentioned regarding paradigm shifts. This is important because, to arrive at a more accurate version of the truth you must avoid believing anything, and allow space in your awareness for new information and to know that you can evaluate information unconditionally.  This means that you must know that doubt is the limitation of your bias. The doubt is your identification with your beliefs, the editing of your own perception to protect an identity.  This permits you to be open to rectifying your doubt, your self-serving interpretation by evaluating new information without condition, without a perspective, without a position, and thereby avoid the inevitable conflict of dialectical opposition. This will permit you to recognize the irony of filtering out contradictory information in the protection of a worldview, in the protection of an identity, or a belief system, and accusing the opposing belief system of the same. This is the realization that choosing a thesis to believe and an antithesis to reject, is choosing conflict. By recognizing this you can then avoid the inevitable mechanism of Hegelian synthesis. A synthesis in which the content of the beliefs in opposition to each other is irrelevant because it always represents the conflict between ‘the self’ and ‘the other’. The assumption that everyone chooses self-service over service to the whole. The great crime of the human condition, the conditioning we receive from birth is that it indoctrinates us into believing that ‘self’ and ‘other’ are a dichotomy or simply put, a difference of opinion. This we know to be false beyond any doubt. The mechanism of the Hegelian Dialectic dynamic is fueled by conflict and runs to completion with any set of opposing beliefs. This perpetuates the false presentation of ‘self’ and ‘other’ as a dichotomy instead of what they are in actuality, a natural polarity. Meaning each requires the other to exist by definition. By contrast, one-half of a dichotomy can exist without its opposition. Knowing this we can move forward with a proper comprehension of the polar relationship between self and other realizing that they are one thing. This changes your entire view of things and necessarily catalyzes a paradigm shift transforming your relationship with the world and others.

This physiological transformation performed in mass across the entire population will then on aggregate change the pattern of our civilization breaking the cycle of conflict and returning us to a natural rhythm and the eternal sacred existence that is our right as physical beings. You’ve been doing wrong this whole time, now you know how so don't fuck it up. You’re welcome. 

© 2024 Burch Driver