A View From the Top/Bottom

Brian K. Toren

 

Western philosophy, based on Aristotle and other early Greek philosophers, has evolved from early investigations into natural phenomenon, accompanied by many wrong guesses, hypothesis and theories, on a steady path up the road of scientific investigation. We westerners have learned to poke and probe and systematically analyze the secrets of nature in smaller and smaller chunks.

 

Scientific investigators have become extremely effective in getting nature to reveal her secrets. This is true in all fields of science. We have become so entrenched in the scientific method of thinking that it pervades the whole of Western thought. The methodology is applied to everything under investigation, from social studies to quantum physics. While this process does isolate the components that make up the whole of the subject under study, it has failed to take into account the matter that interlaces and influences the final result that occurs when a system is a fully operating entity.

 

This has been changing in the past few years as a few enlightened investigators have begun to look at the subject under investigation in a wholistic way. The interactions, boundaries, and influences of the individual parts of the system under investigation are being included in the activities that make a system tick. Eastern philosophies are being recognized, studied and quoted as valid philosophies that we would do well to include in the never ending search for knowledge in how things work. But Eastern philosophies too have their limitations. One cannot just study wholes and understand how a system works. When approaching investigation in this manner, many secrets of nature will remain as such, a mysticism that precludes the advancement of civilization.

 

A dysfunctional preoccupation in Eastern mysticism now seems to be occurring in the advancement of western culture among some the popular scientists and researchers. The approach now winning friends and influencing people seems to be one of "wholeness is everything and scientific analysis be damned, we need both! We should not and cannot continue to advance in scientific and humanistic achievements by ignoring one approach in the favor of another.

 

Looking at the total process without understanding the parts will not in itself enable the human endeavors to continue to advance along the path of evolution open to the human species; just as looking at the pieces and analyzing them in isolation has a naturalistic dead end that will not allow the human spirit to soar.

 

I am at this very moment sitting in the midst of the southern Utah desert on the banks of the Colorado river, gazing at the awesome buttes and rock formations and listening to Sibelius' "Valse Trieste". Never have I seen nature more impressive nor listened to "Valse Trieste" with more emotion. Each is less without the other. But in addition to this juxtaposition of human endeavor and nature's magnificence, is my own knowledge and understanding of the bits and pieces that must exist and how they stand alone in dissection and how they merge to form the whole. This knowledge made the experience even more awesome and memorable.

 

I can look at the side of the mountain where the rubble of nature's erosion lies in a jumbled entanglement of sand, rocks and vegetation. It appears as a smooth layer, extending from a thousand feet below the summit to the base of my perch where I am writing this. I know that this is not so, I know that this whole is comprised of many small and large pieces of earth and rock infused with vegetation struggling for life here in the dessert. I know this because earlier this morning I climbed that mountain and used the chunks of rocks and vegetation as handholds as I slipped on the smaller particles of loose rocks and dirt to get to the top. I also understand the complexities and the wholeness of Sibelius' music from trying in my own fumbling way to play the guitar. The scientific philosophy of the west and the wholistic mysticism of the East have become one entity to me.

 

And that is the theme and purpose of this writing: "don't throw out the baby with the bathwater". We cannot throw out the dissection and materialism of the philosophy that has made western civilization so great. Rather we must combine this with the systems glue of Eastern philosophy to enhance our ability to understand the universe in which we live and to create a wholistic/humanistic approach to life. This will embody the best of nature and the human capacity for continued advancement and growth towards the ultimate evolution of the human body and spirit.

 

The view from the top of the mountain is profoundly different than the view from the bottom, but neither is more or less magnificent. The true beauty and knowledge is the melding of the views and the meticulous ascent and descent using the handholds placed there by nature.