Transcending Paradox

What is paradox? Why does all existence involve paradox? How can we transcend paradox? What happens when we fail to transcend paradox? These are existential questions involving our sustainability as individuals and as societies.
This page discusses how we can employ our use of language so we are better able to transcend paradox.

We are Information Beings
(We live an information conundrum)

We exist as formations amidst the continuous universal transformation, paradoxically informing all even as we are informed by all.
And this continuous transformation (change) is a universal constant i.e unchanging
We live paradox in which the truth resides in seeming contradiction.

The conundrum of our human condition

“Life is strong and fragile. It’s a paradox… It’s both things, like quantum physics: It’s a particle and a wave at the same time. It all exists all together. “
Quote Joan Jett

Our Conundrum

Paradox challenges and confounds our existence to the core because it forms an anathema to the ego, which would have us act in divisive, exclusive, delusional ways while being oblivious to our dissonance and contradictions.
Compounding this is the fact that, while we can experience and perceive paradox in holistic ways, our thought~~language process can only perceive and know our complementary, dipolar universe in dualistic ways.
The ingenuity of the ego is such that, without a healthy balance of compassion, the ego can easily dominate the thought~~language processes of our psyche, trap us in a spiral of exhausting, circular argument and ultimately cause us to self-destruct.

All things exist as finite balances of the countless universal forces. Nearly all these balances are imperceptible to us. Most of the forces we can sense are invisible to us.
For instance, many of us as children played with a magnet and experienced the mysterious pulls and pushes of the forces of its invisible magnetic field. Part of us reacts to these sensations with alarm, trepidation and repulsion for they are unknowable. Part of us embraces them with wonder, awe and profound reflection for they connect us with all.

The simple magnet in our hand is a macrocosm of an atom even as it is a microcosm of Earth, which is a microcosm of our universe.

We can almost instantly perceive this 2-dimensional picture of the electromagnetic fields of planet Earth in a holistic way. However we can only register and process the words “North” and “South” in alternate sequence. Such is the limitations of our thought-process and words.

The PBS video titled How do we actually see colour? is helpful in that it illustrates at a glance how we experience the phenomenon of “after images”. Words cannot convey the experience of one colour suddenly transforming into complementary colour. No one truly knows how this occurs.

The video concludes, “Turns out things are the colours they are, but also they are not.”
Perhaps it is more compassionate (scientific) to say, “Turns out things are the colours they are and also the colours they are not.”

The Story of The Word “Paradox“

We are born with an abundance of the wonderful and precious gift of being able to transcend our paradoxical state. However we tend to lose it as we become increasingly self-aware and many of us have lost most of this invaluable ability before we are adolescents, especially if we grow up in a dualistic European culture.

As we see in the cartoon below, even the meaning of the word “paradox” has lost much of its compassionate meaning and is now almost exclusively associated with an amoral, deductive way of thinking.

Observe how the ancient meaning speaks of a statement or opinion that is seemingly “incredible” i.e. not credible (not “involving no impossibility”).
Note: The use of double negatives is considered non-standard practice in our modern Crown dialect of English though it is standard in some other English dialects and in many other languages.

Paradox involves our “perception”, meaning the ‘gathering, receiving‘ of information.
Etymology online dictionary advises that the word “perception” arises from the Latin “percipere ” meaning“to grasp with the mind, learn, comprehend,” literally “to take entirely,” from per “thoroughly” (see per) + capere “to grasp, take,” from PIE root *kap- “to grasp.”

The ancient definition inherently acknowledges that we exist amidst the vast universal potential in which anything is possible according to the principles of physics and in which we live finite lives involving immense ambiguity, uncertainty and mystery.

Our psychology~physics is such that we may sense truths that we can never know. Each of the several billion, billion, billion atoms constituting the cells of our being is continuously sentient in some way. Our self-awareness exists as a mere trace amidst this vast personal sentience. And even then our self-awareness is spasmodic throughout the day and is drastically reduced during our sleep.

In other words, our thought process has major limitations and plays a relatively minor role in our perception of existence. Our words, thoughts and actions being inextricably entangled, we live this conundrum: our exclusive force (the ego) can easily exploit in most ingenious ways the limitations of spoken language and without the sufficient balance of our inclusive force (compassion), the ego can easily dis-empower us, trap us in paradox and cause us to act in delusional ways.

Our contemporary Crown dialect of English now defines paradox as merely a narrow, deductive, dualistic way of thinking rather than a humble, generous way of being that inherently embraces the fallibility of our perceptions and opinions. Observe how wordy this modern definition of “paradox” is compared to the ancient definition “contrary to opinion” or contrary to expectation.

Preconception ~~Perception
(Finding Possibility in Impossibility)

“The ‘paradox’ is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ‘ought to be’.” . . . The question is: how do we bring our “feelings” and thoughts into coordination with reality of quantum physics?

Quote Richard Feynman (1918 – 1988) Extraordinary theoretical physicist.

It is not an uncommon sight to see paradoxical illustrations, such as the Penrose Triangle, pinned to the walls in Anglo school classrooms. Often the teacher has written a comment such as “This cannot exist” or “Our eyes deceive us!” or “Optical illusion.”
The Penrose triangle is actually a variation of the Mobius Strip, named after August Mobius who was one of the first to describe it mathematically. It is a simple construction formed by giving a half twist to a strip of paper, a long leaf, thin bar of metal, a vine or other malleable material and splicing the ends together to form a loop. It has been a revered symbol for millennia. For instance, it forms the figure 8, a symbol for many of “Time” and “Eternity”

Roger Penrose, a renowned mathematical physicist, created it after viewing an exhibition of M.C Escher’s prints exploring our perceptual process while attending an International Congress of Mathematicians in Amsterdam in the early 1950s.
Both Roger and his father, Lionel Penrose, a prominent psychiatrist, became fascinated with these graphic explorations of our perceptions and preconceptions. They popularized the triangle, in turn informing and inspiring M.C.Escher.
It is known an earlier version of the “Penrose Triangle” was created by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934.

Sometimes teachers in our English schools pin an M.C.Escher image on the wall as an exemplar of an “unreal” or “impossible” world”, as they do with the Penrose Triangle. In so doing, they deny meaningful discussion about how the universal potential is manifest.
In particular, their denial works to suppress meaningful discourse about about the limitations of language and how our preconceptions impact our perceptions of the ways of the universe.
Paradoxically, this denial dis-empowers students by entrapping them in paradox and making them more vulnerable to delusions about reality.

Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed this lithograph called “Relativity” in 1953. He based it on the Penrose Triangle. In this world of relativity,”up” is “down” and together they form a graphic reminder to us that our perception of any thing is relative to where we are viewing it from e.g. our experience of gravity is relative to our position on planet Earth. Viewed from Outer Space, people are seen to be walking on a multitude of different planes on the surface of the planet.

Our bodies have potent memories of our experiences of the principles of gravity in our particular region of the Earth. So it is easy for the ego to exploit this body-knowledge and have us believe that walking “up” and “down” the “underside” side of Escher’s stairs is universally false and impossible. It blinds us to the vast array of viewpoints in the universe.

Another part of us, our compassionate element, our inclusive force, is fascinated with Escher’s Relativity reminding us this conception is very possible. It is true. Escher’s scene is the reality in other regions of the universe where the same principles of gravity hold. Its all relative.

Escher’s print is also a force field of information. We are impacted by the image. It forms a graphic reminder that, information being physical, any word or drawing alters our personal chemical, electrical and other balances, all of which inform the balances of our emotions, behaviour and general preconceptions of existence.
These changes in our psyche can now be quantified using modern technology and some images reflecting our worldview are so potent they can alter the ecosphere of the planet.

For instance, a new global religion has emerged this past two centuries in conjunction with the English Combustion Revolution – the radical belief of some humans that it is their divine right to burn mineral biomass at their will. It has its own unique ego-derived language and symbolizes Earth’s atmosphere as “a greenhouse world” that they can geoengineer at their will.
Lacking compassion, this “Greenhouse World” symbol denies the principles of thermodynamics and the reality that Earth’s atmosphere is actually a highly dynamic, exquisitely balanced, convective system relative to the atmospheric system in a man-made greenhouse.
In particular, the ego traps men in the paradox of information: small changes in trace elements can have the power to transform global systems in disproportionate ways. Trace gases can have explosive impacts.

World view generated by belief in Conservation of Energy Principle relative to the world view generated by belief in Greenhouse Earth.
This cartoon is the fourth of five cartoons forming a banner explaining to 12 years-olds how, relative to compassionate language, our use of ego-derived language inevitably leads us to self-destruction.

No! Paradox is No Joke! Its not Funny!
(Why yes it can be)

You may have identified these two voices. The first line of the above heading is more characteristic of the arrogant, know-all, exclusive voice in our psyche (the ego) whereas the second line is more characteristic of the humble, inquiring, inclusive voice in our psyche (compassion). These different, complementary forces simultaneously arise together in any moment of self-awareness.

The ego exploits the limitations of spoken language and thrives when it can have us entrap our selves in endless, exclusive circular debate about paradox. Ultimately this is an exhausting exercise in futility.
By comparison, compassion has us find much kind humour and fun in our paradoxical human condition. In so doing we are enabled to transcend the limitations of our language and paradoxically be liberated to live the truths of reality.

So let us briefly forsake words and instead have some fun play about our paradoxical human condition with some more cartoons from the Dear GUD series.

Brief intro to Letters to Dear GUD
In 2017 when I was 70, my congenital bicuspid aortic valve in my heart began failing on scale and I underwent open heart surgery. Surgeons cut it out and replaced it with tricuspid aortic valve like most people are born with, except this is an artificial aortic valve constructed of bovine (cow) tissue.

One is particularly mindful of one’s mortality at such times and already I had experienced periodic, undiagnosed atrial fibrillation for many years, which was to complicate the surgeon’s restart of my heart. So prior to the operation I asked the universe what I might do with my life if I survived the operation. My experience was such open prayer entrusting myself to all evoked more wonderful answers than I could ever imagine or ask for.

So it was and the answer came two days after the operation in the form of a huge basket of flowers and wonderful hand-drawn “get well” from the 5-10 year old students of the school I have long been the cleaner (janitor) of. Nurses, doctors and other visitors arrived in my hospital room serious and strained. They departed smiling, glowing after seeing the cards – further proof to me our children come with all the prerequisites to care for our planet.

Now, as a school exercise, my 10 year-old nephew had written a letter to my father asking what he did in “the war” (WW11). It occurred to me to ask myself what I might say if my great nephews and nieces wrote to me asking why adults act in such strange ways and how they could survive in adulthood.
Through 2018 I created a series of 100 cartoons involving 2 figures – one representing the characteristics of the ego and the other the characteristics of compassion, together forming a yin-yang symbol.
I graduated “colour illiterate” from our English education system The children’s exuberant use of colour in the get-well cards overcame my lifelong doubts and fears of my ability to employ colour and for the first time I dared to play with it.

I believed the cartoon series was my attempt to explain the ways of adults to 12 year-olds so they could avoid adopting our worst, exclusive, addictive ways. However, as the last carton neared completion, the realization occurred it had really all been an exercise to retrieve the wonderful, inclusive spirit of inquiry, awe and honesty I had once enjoyed as a 12 year-old.

Re GUD. A few years prior to this, a niece had introduced me to her new baby proclaiming,”Sophia, meet your Great Uncle Dave!” Such grand introduction prompted me to make a play of the words “God”and “Bud”(dy) and I said, “Yes, meet GUD”.

Here are a selection of Dear GUD cartoons playing with paradox. They come with brief comments, some relating personal experiences as an attempt to reassure the reader that one does not have to be very clever or academically trained, less still a towering intellect to understand and transcend paradox.
The main requisites are a healthy sense of humility, generosity, open inquiry and kind humor for the human condition -smile – even the words “human”, “humor”, “humility”, “humble” inherently remind us we are wet, fluid, sentient formations of “humus” (vegetable moulds) that arise from and return to the earth.
The following cartoons are the endeavours of a common labourer, a very ordinary human being albeit one whose diplopic eyesight means it is a struggle to even read what I write.

1. Belatedly I attended drawing classes and our tutor would give us a sheet of black paper and white chalk, turn the lights down, put a spotlight on the model and instruct us to map out the light areas. Other times he would set up the same scene, give us a sheet of white paper and black charcoal and instruct us to map out the dark areas. It was magical to me how the model would materialize on my paper. In retrospect, he was teaching us to play with paradox.

2. Drawing this chair was one of the most momentous moments of my life. Graham placed a chair with many rungs on a table and instructed us to draw it “negative spaces” i.e. that which was not the chair. We stared blankly. He then taught us to observe and record the spaces between the rungs and how they related to each other and their surroundings.
He gave us 10 minutes to draw the space and towards the end of the time I noticed him smiling at some private joke. “Put your pencils down and hands up all those who have just done the best drawing of you life” We all looked in astonishment at our drawing and everyone raised their hand in wonderment.

It was a truly transformative moment for me. It took a drawing teacher to liberate me and provide vital, practical insight into my paradoxical being.

The simple act of drawing the “negative space” of a simple chair taught me more in ten minutes about the disciplines of psychology and physics than had all my Science, Physics and Psychology teachers and professors in hundreds of hours lessons and lectures during my decade at college and university. Suddenly all their information, which had been so meaningless and sterile to me, now made wonderful sense at last. They had no way of communicating that we are all paradoxical beings.

3. Any form, any formation is informed by all even as it informs all. This includes all sentient forms that ever existed. We can never know when the first self-sentient form occurred begetting the consciousness we now experience. However the same principles of physics prevailed then as now: two complementary forces simultaneously arise in the psyche in any moment of self-awareness: one the equivalent of our exclusive force (the ego or “I”) and the other the equivalent of our inclusive force (compassion).
The form exists according to the state of balance of these forces.

4. The Mobius Strip or Loop forms a beautiful reminder of our paradoxical condition. The ego (the “I”) in our psyche is symbolized as the pompous, overbearing, dualistic figure. Compassion is symbolized as the more open, inquiring, connective figure. Each is of the other.

5. The Mobius Strip forms a fun reminder of our paradoxical condition and the limitations of words to express the reality that all things are relative.

6. More fun with a variation of the Mobius Loop. The ego is blind to the reality of our paradoxical condition. As such it traps us in our paradoxical state of being, having us endlessly argue with ourselves, often having us argue one thing one moment and then contradicting that thing the next moment while having us remain entirely oblivious to the dissonance in our behaviour. It can have us say one thing and do the complete opposite with ease in the absence of compassion.
Compassion enables us to be aware of ourselves more holistically and liberate ourselves from circling thoughts.

7. Our modern English Corporate language and institutions are extremely ego-derived . As a consequence, they are dualistic formations founded in extreme avarice, divisiveness and arrogance. They reflect~generate a delusional culture characterized by extraordinary waste, pollution, species extinction and the general dis-empowerment of people.

8. Letters to Dear GUD is an imagined correspondence with 12 year-olds. They still retain a strong, open (compassionate) spirit of inquiry at this age with which to explore and evaluate the sustainability and truthfulness of the wider “ethical” systems and practices of societies. They tend to remain more keenly aware of dissonant behaviour and hypocrisy. Hence many struggle to detect sane meaning if they grow up surrounded by dualistic, ego-derived cultures and institutions.

9. Any and all forms exist as transient formations amidst the continuous transformation, being informed by all and as it informs all. No matter how large or small, a formation exists as a unique finite balance of the universal forces according to the principles of physics. The formation is transformed and undergoes a change of state when its unique balance ceases. For instance, a formation of liquid undergoes a change of state if its thermal balance is disrupted – it tends to freeze solid if its rate of cooling is greater than its rate of warming and it tends to vaporize if its rate of warming is greater than its rate of cooling.

10. Children thrive on playing and experimenting with all manner of forces. They learn to evaluate and anticipate the impact of forces and inform all the cells of their being in transcendent ways.

For instance, children learn to anticipate the flight-path of ball so that they can catch it. All that information is stored as memory in the neuron networks throughout the body, including the brain.
In many cases, major decisions are entirely made by this general body system, long before the thought process can be activated.
When the information of the motor neurons, the sensory neurons and the interneurons is synchronized and in harmony with the principles of physics, then all the paradox involved in successfully catching the ball are transcended. The child catches the ball.

11. Compassion ( the inclusive forces informing our psyche) and the ego (the exclusive forces informing our psyche) arise simultaneously in any moment of self-awareness, which we experience as a schism or cleft in our general consciousness.
The word “science” arose from the ancient PIE root word *skei- “to cut, split;“. This formed an inherent, compassionate reminder of the limitations and fallibility of our self-awareness and our thought process. However during recent centuries our Crown dialect of English redefined “science” as a deductive, amoral ways of thinking. The original inherent compassion is now much diminished and the ego dominates our world views and lives.
Similarly this more ego-derived world view is manifest in our notion of what constitutes the “environment“. The “environment” is experienced as that which is separate and alien to us rather than as a vital, interactive state of being.

12. Information being physical, it is subject to the principles of physics. This includes any idea, any word and any language. Each is only sustained~sustaining to the extent it is accord with the ways of the universe.
Newton’s “Third Law of Motion” reminds forces paradoxically always come in pairs in any interaction – an active and a reactive. Action-reaction force pairs sustain each other and motivate anything they act upon according to their relative balance of power.

The English Combustion Revolution is the adoption of the radical belief this past three centuries that it is the right of some people to burn the biomass (living and mineral) at their will. This potent delusive force – principally a formation of the merchant bankers of The Crown (The City of London Corporation) – soon generated vast waste, pollution and misery.

This ”Rationalist Movement” generated a potent counter-force in the form of the “Romantic Movement” which included many prominent English wordsmiths (poets, “writers”, “artists” etc) . They responded in reactionary way to the extraordinary waste and pollution of the revolution by engaging with the “Rationalists” in a forceful dualistic way that actually enforced the English language generating the dystopia and paradoxically gave us the exclusive, ego-derived meanings of words such as Physics, Philosophy, Science, Art, Economy, Resource and Man that we inculcated in today.

13. We are our language~~culture. The English Combustion Revolution persists two centuries later as a global phenomenon, impacting Earth’s ecosystem on scale. The Crown dialect of English is the dominant language of global “Business” and other transactions. The reactionary force of the Romantic Movement has transformed into “the global Environmental Movement” (aka the global Green Movement), complete with its own reactionary variation of Crown English, still locked in ego-driven debate with the merchant-bankers now constituting “the Global Business Movement”.

14. Cartoon of Great Uncle Dave (GUD) seated in his cottage gazing at the paradoxical statement, “Every one is vitally familiar with energy and no one knows what it is.”
    His grand nephews and nieces have asked him if the principles of energy are like laws or rules about life and where there is a simple way to an OK way? The compassionate part of him is patiently waiting, waiting for the universe to answer these deep questions about human existence. Meanwhile the clock keeps ticking, corporate media keep blaring urgent messages at him and the ego has him outside futilely chasing all manner of paradox.

15. Information being physical, it is subject to the ways of the universe, the principles of physics and this includes the great wisdom of the Conservation of Energy Principle.
Its great, enduring truths are an anathema to the ego. So Mankind has subjected this great principle to the most intense ingenious scrutiny imaginable since our earliest moments of self-awareness. No man has ever disproved its essential truths that energy continuously transforms all forms, including our form as a human being and it is so bounteous it can usefully be considered to be a constant.

In other words, change is a constant and we can neither create nor destroy energy. However we can employ the great enduring, universal wisdom of this principle as a benchmark to evaluate the sustainability of our language and lives and so be better able to transcend our paradoxical human condition.

16. All the above truths have sustained human cultures for so many millennia. Those cultures that denied them have soon perished in miserable ways.
The ways and messages of physics remain the same and there is nothing new in the statement here of these truths. All that has happened is they have been reformulated in words of the English language in ways now uncommon.