The X factor

I'll provide some guest posts in this one. Balder did a recent TSK (Time-Space-Knowledge) training retreat where he and his team had to contextualize and elaborate on a section of Tarthang Tulku's work on the unknown. Warning: This is for philosophical eggheads like me.

Balder said: The thrust of the passage, as I read it, is to trace a sort of dialectical transformation in the understanding of the relationship between not-knowing and knowledge (arriving at a version of integral asperspectivity).  In TSK, three levels of knowledge (and of time and space) are commonly discussed; this passage describes the transition from level one to level two.  He moves from dualistic framing of the terms, to two transitional perspectives in which a) the unknown is seen to manifest in the known (in a way that is inseparable from the structure and authenticity of knowledge, as the limits to knowledge), and b) knowing to manifest in not-knowing or the unknown (as the open "x" of withdrawn potential rather than the forbidding "x" of nothingness or absolute limitation).  He then shifts to a view in which the (strong or somewhat weaker) dichotomy of knowledge and not-knowing is seen to be a function of limited positioning itself; this is replaced by a more pervasive, aperspectival knowledgeability (where the self no longer confines itself to, or needs to be, 'knowing' or 'the knower'; and where not-knowing is understood, not just to surround or underlie knowledge, but to be inseparable from  or intrinsic to  it.)  You might relate this to your gal, Khora,* or to the future infinitive (which is generative in its always-never-arriving).

* Note: Meaning my various writings on the topic at the forum.

Layman Pascal said:

So here's how these four "transitional stages" sound to the Metaphysics of Adjacency:

FIRSTLY,

The whole "first tier" of human history may be called MOSP civilization -- dominated by the Metaphysics of Simple Presence.  Everything is basically assumed to be as it is given to the ordinary mind and senses.  This includes KNOWING and NOT-KNOWING.  They are straightforward.  They are simple presences but they are not symmetrical.  There are more things known and unknown.  This is a world of various kinds of learnable knowledge.  There is a vast open space and we can explore it.  We make fire or light bulbs in the darkness of night.  We enter something into the blank subject line of emails.  We look to see what is going on.

SECONDLY

The first style of Metaphysics of Adjacency (MOA-1) is readily associated with quantum and relativistic physics.  The former uses probability to make discrete practical use of specific unknowns.  The latter reveals that each perspective fails to encompass the whole of Reality.  We are authentic when we understand the form of our finitude.  A pluralism of ways exist in which each of us are limited by the unknown nature of reality.  And this requires CONSCIOUSLY OPEN-ENDED thinking.  We start to say, "How you really know that?" and "That's just your opinion, man."  The specific knowing of the unknown has entered into our thinking.

THIRDLY,

At MOA-2 levels we begin the conversion of this reality (which is riddled with the Unknown, per se) into a new form form of knowing.  The utility of absence becomes the basis of our new constructions.  A meta-understanding becomes conceivable.  There is a convergence, or structural mutuality and coherence, of the plurality. Open-ended thinking becomes an architecture.  Under these conditions the existence and challenge of "another opinion" no longer poses an incommensurable obstacle to the viability of knowing.  Knowing incorporates knowledge of unknowingness.

FOURTHLY,

At MOA-3 levels we begin to dabble in nondual logistics.  Knowing and Unknowing can not longer be thought of as either the "same" or "different" because sameness and difference are indistinct. Un/knowing is same-different.  They are both compressed maximally into their own edge.  We are contemplating thoughtlessly but in a way that connects with thinking.  Trans-thought is now available.  It is EXACTLY ONLY its known unknowness and unknown knownness with no possible alternative for learning any more or remaining limited with current knowledge.  Being and becoming of knowledge are impossible to think apart from each other.  Declaring that they are identical even implies more contrast than is legitimate.