Researcher. I have an open mind, but am particularly interested in what is logical and provable. You infer that you have all the answers, but you then go on about “analogies”, as though admitting there are no absolute answers. If an answer is proven and replicated according to an acknowledged research model, it is absolute at this point in time. You can’t have it both ways, Desmond.
Des. I’m not sure how a philosophical position can be proven along the lines you suggest, but perhaps I should give more detail. Irrespective of what words we use, our understanding of life does not and cannot include every fact and nuance that exist. There is a lot we don’t know of natural processes. This is acknowledged in most if not all areas of science. We are learning more about ourselves and our environment all the time. Therefore everything we personally know (or think we know), we extrapolate into a “knowledge bank” that could loosely be referred to as a mental-emotional analogy, or understanding of life, or total belief structure. This structure may contain, as an example, one fact out of perhaps 10 which is relevant to any particular subject.
No matter how much our knowledge expands, there will always exist a gap between what there is and what we recognize and understand. Look at the subject of so-called dark matter, with its maps, galaxy cluster formations and distribution hypotheses. This will keep nimble minds guessing for many generations.
There is an esoteric reason behind this “eternal mystery dynamic” so far as human evolvement goes. As every individual person reaches out for her own answers in an effort to make sense of the world and her place in it, she uniquely defines and creates herself. This is an important part of human individualization. Not only do we evolve at many levels with each and every life experience, but also we become less and less like any other human being who has ever existed or ever will. Individualization! Guided by the unerring hand of Mother Nature, we are shown only part of every situation making up both the subjective and external environments. In fact, the gaps are more important than the piles of facts separating them. Having said that, the mass of information deluging us is also necessary in the individualizing process, because every person puts his unique interpretation on every situation he encounters and processes.
So … analogies are an inescapable ingeredient in being alive, because every individual immerses herself in one or another every moment of every day; indeed, a different one depending on the mood she is in and the company she happens to be keeping at that time.
Consider: John and Mary may occupy the same windowless cell day and night for a week. But inescapably each will notice different stimuli, minute by minute; remember different ones and forget others; draw on different coping strategies; and put a different interpretation on the circumstances that led to their incarceration. In short, every person dwells within his or her unique emotional and mental universe, contributing to, and also drawing on, an analogy – a living web of interpretations. It is no less a part of human behaviour than breathing. This fact was acknowledged when explanations were moved through the conduit to be included in BEYOND.
Interestingly, at that time, a large number of collective explanations or analogies were crafted by the authors of the book (not me) to carry its various concepts. These enabled a greater field of facts to move into focus and introduce completely unfamiliar concepts.
But at the personal level perhaps we could think of our “universe” as an oil painting on the wall, in the process of being completed; second by second, with our every emotion, every thought, every action and reaction, and every flight of fancy. There is no right painting and no wrong painting. A painting is a painting, although some are nearer completion than others. As we work on it, creating our masterpiece, we are defining ourself. Collectively this process contributes to a body referred to as the Human Organism, the human species, and what it knows of itself. At every level we have given ourself over to an analogy or paradigm.
Okay … Let us reduce the foregoing to a single paragraph: We are all part of the process of evolvement, with every human being becoming increasingly different from every other. How is this achieved? From time to time we find ourselves thrown into a torrent of events whose deeper meaning few people can even start to comprehend. In an effort to make sense of it all, every individual instinctively falls back on his or her life experiences. There is nothing else to fall back on. By definition they are unique. They steer the manner in which she navigates through the confused currents of unanswered and unanswerable questions. She explores herself in the light of these occurrences. Her unfoldment is nurtured by her past, and her uniqueness is honed as part of the evolvement of her consciousness. She lives an extrapolation, she is an analogy. We all are!
