Fuzziology in Service
of Human Survival
Vlad Dimitrov
University of Western Sydney
E-mail: v.dimitrov@uws.edu.au
The disastrous effects, which the development of our 'highly
technological'
civilization has on nature, have brought the human kind at the edge of
a global
ecological catastrophe. More and more scientists understand that the
eco-system
on our planet has already reached the point of no return, that is, the
point
beyond which nature is no more capable to restore its balance and hence
to
support human life.
Fuzziology (Dimitrov, 2003; Dimitrov and Hodge, 2002) is a study of
fuzziness
of human knowing; it provides a rich theoretical and
methodological basis
for better understanding and dealing with fuzziness inherent in one's
knowledge
about oneself, society and nature.
This paper elicits applications of fuzziology to social ecology - application of crucial significance for the survival of human species on the planet.
1.
Specific
Character of Socio-Ecological Application
Postulates of Reclus and
Jung
We are both products of and participants in the unfolding of natural
dynamics.
We are bearers of their capacity for self-organization, and able to
demonstrate
this capacity through our unique ability to be conscious of ourselves.
In his
monumental work "L'Homme et la Terre" (Man and Nature) published in
six volumes from 1905 till 1908, the pioneer in the field of
socio-ecological
research, the French geographer Elisée Reclus refers to the
human beings as
nature achieving self-consciousness (Reclus, 1905). This profound
insight is
encapsulated in the following postulate.
Reclus 'Postulate
(1905) Humans are nature becoming self-conscious.
Reclus' Postulate asserts that it is through human capacity for
self-consciousness (self-awareness, self-exploration,
self-understanding,
self-knowing) that nature becomes conscious of itself, of the
unbreakable
wholeness of its all-pervading dynamics, of its infinite power to
self-organize: create, restore, sustain, transform.
By studying, understanding and knowing ourselves, we are able to reveal
the
secrets of nature as they manifest through us; moreover, we can
consciously
attune our individual dynamics in harmony with the self-organizing
dynamics of
nature and thus be active participants in their endless interplay and
transformations.
In regards to the study of social dynamics, the following insight of
Carl Jung
born out of his deep understanding of the psychological roots of human
and
social dynamics is of significant importance for understanding society.
Jung's Postulate
(1941): Society is nothing more than the concept of symbiosis of a
group of
human beings.
Firstly Carl Jung explained this idea at a meeting of Swiss
psychotherapists in
1941. At that meeting he made it clear that "A concept is not a carrier
of
life. The sole and natural carrier of life is the individual and this
hold true
throughout nature" (Jung, 1984). Being a carrier of life, the
individual
is able to change and grow on the way to wisdom; society is deprived of
this
ability (Dimitrov, 2003). In the whole history of the humankind, wars,
bloodsheds, exploitation and oppression are the inevitable companions
of the
life of each society, of each civilization. No one enlightened
individual has
ever succeeded to make society wiser (usually, the wise people are
prosecuted
or killed by the custodians of the social order).
All current talks on
changing society so as to make it live
and evolve in a 'sustainable way' are nothing but empty intellectual
exercises
conducted by academics, politicians or corporate leaders - exercises
without
any practical effects on the social life.
Change is possible at
individual level only; it requires
a great amount of earnest and persistent efforts by the individual to
stay
awake, to constantly pursue self-knowledge and wisdom, to be
responsible and in
full control of what s/he thinks and speaks and how s/he acts. No one
can be
replaced by another person in the application of these efforts; as a
rule,
society creates impediments on their realizations and, while doing
this,
provides the individual with lessons which, if understood, become
sources of
powerful experiential knowledge.
By understanding
ourselves as "sole and natural
carriers of life", we are capable to understand the way society
functions,
as we all are its creators and it mirrors our own nature, our behaviour
and
relationships with one another, with ourselves and with the universe.
Society
also exercises strong influence on the development of our individual
dynamics. The
less we understand and know ourselves, the stronger the effect society
has on
our lives.
And as
society never advances in wisdom, its effect on those who pursue truth
is
oppressive. The freedom for realization of one's potential is a direct
result
of the degree up to which one knows oneself.
Socrates Legacy
Theorem:
By
studying, understanding and knowing oneself, the individual is able to
study,
understand and know both nature and society.
The validity of this theorem is a direct result of the postulates of
Reclus and
Jung. Our knowledge about ourselves is simultaneously a knowledge about
nature
that has created us as species endowed with self-consciousness and
about
society that we have created as a web of symbiotic relationships to one
another
and nature. All what a countless number of generations of people
have
learned about themselves, their relationships with one another and with
nature
is imprinted in the evolving fabric of each individual's consciousness;
by
revealing its secrets (while practicing concentration, contemplation
and
meditation) one reveals not only the secrets of oneself, but also the
secrets
of everything that is. The opposite is not
true: by studying nature and society as objects
outside us, that is, disconneced from ourselves and existing as an
objective
reality 'overthere', we can never grasp their essence, because their
essence is
our own essence and we are not only the closest to it as its
self-conscious
bearers, but we are also the only species who can verify its truth.
How? By
realization of this truth in our lives, through the functioning of our
bodies
and minds, through the longings of our souls and the power of our
spirit.
Without konwing ourselves, the knowledge we try to accumulate about
nature and
society is inevitably partial and therefore delusive
and misleading.
This theorem reflects the legacy of Socrates: "Know thyself!" - a heartfelt demand
from
each individual to stay awake in his and her experience, to be aware
and in
control of his or her thoughts and words, emotions and feelings,
decisions and
actions. For Socrates, this is The Way to Wisdom.
Corollary: The
fuzziness of our knowledge of ourselves reflects in the fuzziness of
our
knowledge of nature and society.
By studying fuzziness of what we know about ourselves, its roots and
nature,
its dynamics and ways to deal with it, fuzziology helps us maximize the
degree
of our self-understanding and self-realization.
In this paper we
demonstrate application of fuzziology for:
(1) understanding and managing chnages in ourselves;
(2) understanding synchronicities occurring in our experience.
These two applications are of crucial importance for the survival of
each individual; if the individual is unable to change and understand
(extract lessons from) the synchronicities happening in his (her) life,
she has no other alternative but to follow the suicidal rush of today's
society - a destiny repeated by all the past civilizations ans
societies.
2. Understanding
Fuzziness of Change
The theory of change - a theory supported by a large number of
experiential
evidences - is centred in the paradox that the more one strives to
change
himself (herself), the less probable is for the change to happen. This
paradox
has its roots in human psychology: when the individual distinguishes
between
what s/he is and what s/he wants to become, this brings fragmentation
in his or
her life - a fragmentation that inevitably triggers forces which
impedes the
process of change. Each individual is an organic whole, not a sum
of
different qualities, aspects and features; the whole can never be
changed when
divided into separate parts.
The approach of fuzziology helps us explain this paradox.
Let I(p) be the
image that the individual has about himself (herself) at the present
time and I(f) is the image that the
individual
wants to change into. As each individual is characterized by an almost
infinite
number of qualities (aspects, traits, habits, peculiarities, nuances)
one's
knowledge of oneself is fuzzy and hence I(p) and I(s) can be described as
fuzzy classes
defined on a common universe of discourse, that is, on a finite set of
personal
and social characteristics selected so as to reveal as much as possible
the
nature of human individuality.
In the context of fuzzy sets, the assignment of the membership function
in I(p),
that is, of the weights of those
individual characteristics which have been selected to describe I(p), is based on long-term
statistical
observations of the behaviour of the individual in a large number of
experiential situations. For example, if the individual frequently
consumes
significant doses of alcohol, the weight of the characteristic related
to this
kind of habit in the description of I(p) is very high; if the
individual spends most of time
without movement, then the weight of the characteristic related to
individual's
mobility in the description of I(p) is very low, etc.
The weights of the
individual characteristics in I(f) relate to the
description of
personality that the individual wants to change into, therefore the
membership
function of I(f)
is not of statistical nature, that is, not based on observations of the
individual's behaviour.
Definition: Two fuzzy classes
defined on the same universe of
discourse are comparable, if and only if the same
underlying procedure has been used for the
assignment of their membership functions.
Proposition: Only comparable classes
can be changed into one another.
The proof is straightforward: there is no other way
to
reveal the differences between two fuzzy classes (and thus to see what
kind of
changes one of the classes undergoes when transforming into another
class),
except by comparing them. If the both classes are defined on the same
universe
of discourse, the comparison is between the ways (procedures) used for
the
assignment of their membership functions.
Corollary: I(p) cannot be changed
into I(s).
The proof follows from the Proposition: the fuzzy
classes I(p) and I(f) are not comparable. The
membership
function of I(p)
is assigned on the basis of actual observations of the behaviour of the
individual, while the assignment of the membership function of I(f) is based on mere
speculations about
an imaginary (unreal, ideal. desirable) image the individual constructs
about
himself (herself).
How many times gamblers,
alcoholics, smokers or drug abusers
express their willingness to change and promise that 'tomorrow' they
will
become other kinds of persons free from the destructive (and often
fatal)
attachments! The more they try to become 'other kinds of persons', the
stronger
their attachments; if some succeeds in 'changing' for a while, then the
fatal
attachment explodes again in more drastic and destructive way.
Gestalt psychologists are
convinced that the change can
occur if one becomes fully conscious of what s/he is at the present moment
and not of
what s/he is not.
"Change does not take place through a coercive attempt by the
individual or
by another person to change him, but it does take place if one takes
the time
and efforts to be what he is... By rejecting the role of change agent,
we
make
meaningful and orderly change possible... The natural state of man is a
single
whole being - not fragmented into two or more opposite parts. In the
natural
state, there is a constant change based on the dynamic transaction
between the
self and the environment (Beisser, 1971).
In the context of
Proposition and Corollary above, the
change of I(p)
into I(f) can
become reality, if the membership function of I(f) has been assigned
using the
same technique as that used for I(p), that is, on the basis
of real-life experiential evidences
and not on hypothetical, deliberately assigned 'desired' values. Such
evidences
can be obtained only if the long-term observations of the individual
behaviour
confirm that a genuine sustainable change has occurred in the
individual's
life. Is such a kind of change possible?
The amazing results
demonstrated by using the approach of
Alcoholic Anonymous (Drug Anonymous, etc.) confirm that change can
happen when
the addicted accept what they are, stop fighting against
themselves but deepen and sharpen
their self-awareness instead, their alertness and vigilance in relation
to the
situation in which they are here and now, and not in which they
want to move in the future.
www.identitytheory.com/spirit/selfreliance.htmlBeing only "the concept
of symbiosis of a group of
people", society is incapable to be aware of itself and therefore
unable
to advance. Emerson once wrote: "Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on
the other. It
undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is
christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not
amelioration" (quoted from Emerson's essay "Self-reliance" written in
1841 and
available at: www.identitytheory.com/spirit/selfreliance.html).
3. Understanding
Synchronicities
The Observer Effect in quantum physics
implies that human participation is fundamental in
the existence of matter; it is indispensable for the transformation of
the
fuzzy fields of possibilities, tendencies and propensities, through
which the
existential dynamics manifest at the quantum core of the universe, into
actual
effects and materialized outcomes.
There is an essential
correspondence between the process of
thinking of
an individual (observer, participant, actor, agent) and the spread-our
fields
(waves) of possibilities. "The spread out waves correspond to us before
we
decide what to do. Imagine that we are thinking of doing different
things. In
our minds we entertain possibilities, that is, the function of our
understanding is to think about things before we do them. We
'entertain' or
consider possibilities - so the wave pattern in physics is 'like' us
when we
are entertaining multiple possibilities" (Thompson, 2002).
"will
(motivation,
drives, inspiration) - thinking (contemplating, understanding, knowing)
-
experience (actions, effects, changes)"
in the individual
experiential space is isomorphic to the
triad
"active
energy -
wavers of
possibilities (tendencies) - actual outcomes"
in the physical space.
The process of thinking
can be mapped (modelled) through a
dynamic series of fuzzy classes, the membership functions of which
re-emerge
and change in parallel with the deepening of one's understanding of
oneself,
nature and society through concentration and meditation upon the flow
of one's
experience. In a similar way, models based on fuzzy classes can
describe the
fuzzy fields of possibilities in the physical space. From quantum
physics we
know that the matter/energy does not exist with certainty in definite
places,
but rather shows possibilities (tendencies) to exist; it is the
observer
(participant, actor) who tries to fix the location.
The question: "How can a
'fuzzy swarm' of thoughts,
feelings, beliefs, aspiration, etc. in an individual's experiential
space lead
to a specific action?" corresponds to the question "How can a 'fuzzy
cloud' of possibilities, tendencies and propensities in the
all-embracing
quantum space of the universe lead to a specific outcome?"
The phenomenon of synchronicity demonstrates the way in
which the
link between mind and matter/energy work in the form of meaningful
coincidence
of two or more events which seem causally unrelated to one another
(Faber,
1998).
The names of two great
researchers are at the origin of the
scientific study of this phenomenon: the psychologists Carl Jung and
the
physicist Wolfgang Pauli; they both agreed that the "meaningful
coincidences are unthinkable as pure chances" (Jung) and that "there
must be something else" beyond the pure chance (Pauli). We try to
explain
this "something else" with the help of fuzziology applied to the
study of fuzzy classes, no matter what their origins are - in the
'inner' or
the 'outer' world of the individual; the most important is the participation of the individual - the
thinker,
the observer, the actor.
The explanation we offer
is simple; it resonates with
Hesenberg's profound thought that "the same regulating forces that have
created nature in all its forms are responsible for the structure of
our psyche
and also for our capacity to think" (Heisenberg, 1971). Synchronicity
is
associated with moments of intensive individual experience, that is, an
experience underlined by saturated-with-energy activity, be it
physical,
emotional or mental. The individual life is full of such kind of
experiences -
creative work, ruptures of inspirations, bursts of emotions, focused
mental
efforts, deep spiritual experience, etc.
Any saturated-with-energy
activity multiplies the weight of
the first elements in each of the both isomorphic triads - the
individual triad
"will (motivation, drives, inspiration) - thinking (contemplating,
understanding, knowing) - experience (actions, effects, changes)" and
the
universal triad "active energy - wavers of possibilities (tendencies) -
actual outcomes". As Heisenberg pointed out, nature does not select one
kind
of energies (forces) for humans and another kind - for the rest of the
universe; it is one all-pervading flow of energy capable of producing
effects
at different levels of existence. The increase of the weight of the
energy
element in the first triad immediately mirrors in a corresponding
increase of
the energy element in the second triad, which activates the waves of
possibilities up to a degree that they become capable of producing
actual
outcomes. And this is exactly what the synchronicity is about: an
emergent thought
or choice of a person A coincides meaningfully with a specific outcome
produced
at the physical plane of existence by nature, society or by another
person B.
The word "meaningful" simply means that the produced outcome carries
a specific meaning for A.
The author of this paper
has innumerable experiences of
synchronicities. Below are described two types of synchronicities
experienced
by the authors.
The first type relates to
synchronicities triggered by my
conscious mental efforts. For example, some time ago I wanted very much
to meet
a person (say A); my heart was full of deep loving feelings towards A,
but I
knew neither A's address not telephone number. (At that time I lived in
a
capital city of million inhabitants.) I left my house, walked for about
15 min.
and then took a tram, without a slightest idea where A could be. My
willingness
(the energy element of the first triad described in the previous
section) to
meet A was extremely strong and hence my thinking (the second element
of the
triad) - saturated with energy and focused entirely on one specific
thought
only - to meet A. The fuzzy class underlying my thinking seemed to
"collapse" in one single alternative only. After travelling by train
for a while, I alighted and went to a station where many buses used to
stop. I
caught the first bus to come; when I entered in, I saw A there. So, the
'meaningful coincidence' of synchronicity suddenly happened. My
intensive
mental efforts resulted in an actual outcome in the physical reality.
The second type relates
to synchronicities emerging without
a special intention to trigger them. For example, once I was under
enormous
pressure to prepare myself for a very important exam on maths - the
exam
decisive for me becoming a student in a prestigious university in
another
country. Usually, the mathematical problems given at that kind of exams
are
difficult and the competition is severe. I had only a small amount of
days for
preparation, so I randomly selected problems from different book, but
mostly from
one big book containing thousands of problems (the book was written in
the
language of the country where I wanted to study in). One problem took
me quite
a long time and mental efforts to solve it, but I persisted and found
the
solution. What was my amazement, when I saw on the day of the exam that
absolutely the same problem (word-in-word, number-in-number) was given
to all
the candidates! Of course, when preparing for the exam, I had
absolutely no
will to consciously affect the choice of the problems; my will was only
to
succeed, because, as i imagined at that time, this woul open for me the
academic way for studying, understanding, knowing. I was thirsty for
knowledge
and wisdom, and not in acquisition of money or power. My intensive
thinking
concentrated on solving as much as possible randomly selected problems
has
affected the 'waves of possibilities' in the physical reality so as to
bring an
outcome (practically realized by people absolutely unknown to me) that
I dream
for. Like in the previous case, the fuzzy classes underlying my mental
navigation through an almost infinite field of possibilities led me to
a choice
that meaningfully coincided with the choice made by the organizers of
the exam.
The
experiential studies show that for
synchronicity to emerge, individual dynamics must be:
(a) in a
critical state impregnated with a
significant amount of active energy (physical, emotional, mental or/and
spiritual) generated by the individual;
(b) focused
(concentrated) in an issue of a
particular importance for the individual life and growth;
(c) open to
the infinitum of the existential
dynamics, which implies also freedom from the selfish drive of the
individual's
ego.
If one's
psyche is eaten by 'worms' of egotism
and selfishness, if one's mind is locked into a narrow claustrophobic
space of
only personal interests, without active exchange with the existential
dynamics
- the dynamics of nature, society and the universe, if the flow of
energy is
not centred through one's own capacity for concentration, contemplation
and
meditation, then the synchronicities pass by unnoticed. Without seeing
synchronicities and experiencing their power, without extracting
lessons from
them and trying to understand the meaning of these lessons, one cannot
advance
in wisdom. And without wisdom, one can easily be turned into a helpless
victim
of the social apoptosis - the
programmed self-destruction of human society as a
result of its inability to learn from its mistakes and to evolve.
This paper describes
socio-ecological applications of
fuzziology - the study of fuzziness of knowing - for understanding both
the
changes in human nature and the phenomenon of synchronicity. A special
accent
is placed on the important role this understanding plays for human
suvival on
the planet.