The Hammer of Aristotelian logic

By Gary Jaron, April 26, 2006

[Submitted to ETC magazine for publication]

      Abraham Maslow once said something very important about ideas as tools; at the time he was commenting on the work and analysis being done concerning human psychology by Skinnerian psychologists.  Maslow stated:  "If the only thing you happen to have is a hammer, then you will tend to treat everything as if it were a nail."(1) I call this the tool trap and I hope to help you find ways to compensate for it.

      Maslow's realization is this: that every tool by its very nature imposes its nature, its essence, its usefulness and its uselessness, upon the user, and in doing so shapes the context of the user interacting with the environment.    Hence if you have one tool you will unconsciously distort and ignore the actual nature of your environment and you will consider all the things around you only in accordance with the attributes associated with that tool.  In Maslow's example of the hammer everything other than the hammer must be a nail, things to be pounded upon, to be interacted with and by the nature of the hammer.

      Let me give you a demonstration of the idea of the tool trap's relevance.  Consider one of the most fundamental ideas we have as a very simple analytic tool.  This very simple tool is the rule of logic that says the following:

Rule #1 Given any two things being considered, if one is true and/or good the other must therefore be false and/or bad/evil.

      You say this is self-evident truth.  Well actually it is not.  But for now let's put that ‘self-evident' truth into practice to demonstrate how in practice this specific tool traps us, the user of that rule.

Conclusion #1) If the First Rule is valid then in general is it not the case that there is really only one true thing in any given category of things?  Should we not seek out that one true thing and acknowledge its goodness and truth?

Conclusion #2) Given the First Rule and conclusion #1, since there is only one truth in any one category of things therefore in the category of religions and sacred scriptures there can be only one true religion and one true sacred scripture.  This makes all other scriptures false, bad and/or a source of evil.

Conclusion #3) Given the First Rule and conclusion #1, since there is only one good thing in any one category of things therefore in the category of races that make up the human species one race must be good and all others must be defective, bad and/or evil.

Conclusion #4) Given the First Rule and conclusion #1, since there is only one good thing in any one category of things therefore in the category of the two sexes that make up the human species one sex must be good and the other must be defective, bad and/or evil.

      Conclusions #1, #2, #3 and #4 must be valid if the First Rule is valid.  Is not logically consistency a good thing?  Should we not put into practice the conclusions that are derived from our logical tool?  You should notice that the collection of conclusions I listed is the logical foundations for sexism, racism and religious fundamentalism with the resulting intolerance and acts of violence when each of those four conclusions is put into practice.  The hammer of the First Rule is the root cause.  I will demonstrate how we have allowed ourselves to be tool trapped and therefore we have allowed such destructive ideas to be tolerated in the name of logical consistency.

      To avoid the tool trap you first must be aware that you can be tool trapped.  Secondly, to escape the limitations of any one tool you must have many, that is why I collect ideas, to keep seeking and acquiring more tools and thus to avoid being limited in my ability to interact and comprehend my environment.

      As I explored the realm of human knowledge I encountered the writings of Alfred Korzybski.  Korzybski noted that the tool of everyday logic we use is flawed due to the assumptions it requires.  Yet that everyday logic is our most important and powerful mental set of tools we possess.  To think, to analyze, the very act of comprehension, all of this is done through the use of this most primal and foundational tool.  That tool can be labeled Aristotelian logic, henceforth designated as A-logic.  That tool of everyday logic stems from and grows out of the formal system of logic that Aristotle outlined in his philosophic writings. (2)

      Korzybski laid out an expanded system of logic that he called Non-Aristotelian that I henceforth will refer to by the designation Null-A. (3)  [http://time-binding.org/index.htm]Korzybski's Null-A logic does not replace A-logic.  The rules and tools of A-logic still are utilized.  Null-A logic extends what can be considered possible by recognizing the possibility of the ‘middle ground'.  Additionally I have formulated a metaphoric tool of Null-A system of logic that utilizes and recognizes probabilities, and therefore in any given situation, event, or thing being considered, they can be placed on a theoretical continuum between the two abstract 100% A and 100% non-A possibilities.

      Before we can understand Null-A logic we need to understand something about A-logic, since A-logic is considered a subset of Null-A logic.  We have now returned to the topic I presented in my introduction.  We have returned to what I called the ‘First Rule'.  In actuality the ‘First Rule' is a seminal tool trap that stems from the logical conclusion of Aristotle's three major laws of A-logic.  These three laws can be described as follows:

1. The law of identity: A is A.  A, the thing being considered at a certain point in time is broken down into a list of its identifying properties; this list is the exact and specific definition of and the equivalent of A.

2. The law of non-contradiction: A is not non-A.  If this list of properties determines the definition of A, therefore anything lacking one of those properties must be by definition something other than A and hence must be non-A.  A can only be itself, it cannot at the same time be itself, A, and not be itself, non-A.

3. The law of excluded middle: Anything and everything must be either 100% A or it is 100% non-A, there is nothing that is neither A and non-A at the same time.

      Using this list which defines the properties of A we can examine a second object under consideration, X, it must have as its list of identifying properties all those that A has and nothing more if we are to conclude it is to be classified as A.  If it has even one different identifying property other than those associated with A then X must be designated as not being A.  It is an all or nothing choice.  Every thing under consideration, according to A-logic, is a separate, distinct and unique thing.

      Lastly on the basis of those three laws Aristotle outlines a series of rules utilizing them to create rational inferences.  Outlining how to go from what is known to what is unknown.  These include rules of categorizing objects, analytical reasoning by means of defined terms, premises, and the rules he called syllogisms.

      In defense of the universal and exclusive application of Aristotelian logic's law of excluded middle, it is asserted that whenever we find ourselves in a situation where a proposition and its negation both seem false, then we must assume we have failed to consider all the necessary facts with regards to these two choices.  According to A-logic there can never be a situation in which both choices are false.  The defenders of A-logic's universal and its exclusive application insist that there can be a time period in which there is uncertainty in current knowledge and this uncertainty of knowledge could prevent you from deciding whether or not A or non-A is false.  But A-logic is assuming that once the knowledge acquisition process is complete then there will always be a clear choice between the truth of either A or non-A.  No third alternative can be expected under the universal laws of A-logic.

      It is important to note that the previous assertion is dependent on a time when knowledge acquisition process will be complete and at that time we can conclude whether A or non-A is false.  But in the real world there is never an end to the acquisition of information, therefore no human can possess all knowledge at any given point in time.  No human can know with 100% certainty whether all the necessary knowledge has been obtained at any one time.  Nevertheless at any one point in time decisions need to be made on the basis of the realization that one does not posses all knowledge and therefore one only has incomplete information.  A-logic is used in the here and now when upon reflection we have to admit that despite not having all theoretically possible facts and information, we need to make a decision that could be flawed.

      The real world consequence of this limitation is that in the workings of all fields of science and engineering, these two real world systems utilize probabilities and percentage factors of tolerance to required specifications.  They never have 100% certainty.  They only have statistical probabilities of less than 100%.  Nothing is ever made, built, constructed, manufactured, etc., to 100% perfection of required specifications.

      Alfred Korzybski in his 1933 book Science and Sanity examined A-logic.  There he noted the underlying premises or assumptions in each of these three laws that I propose are the source of the tool traps of A-logic.  The following is a partial list of those underlying premises:

      1.  A-logic assumes that it is possible to obtain 100% certainty at any point in time.  But absolute 100% certainty requires the acquisition of absolutely all knowledge.  As stated previously the acquisition of knowledge is a never ending ongoing process and therefore 100% certainty based on absolutely all knowledge is not obtainable in the real world at any given point in time.

      2.  A- logic assumes that Truth or Falsity is a matter of all or nothing.  For any given examination using the principles of A-logic we can with absolute certainty derive results from which we will know that if a thing is not 100% true then it must therefore be 100% false.  There are only these two possibilities.  But absolute 100% certainty is not obtainable in the real world.  Therefore in the real world there is a continuum of probability between the abstract purity of 100% true and 100% false.

      3.  A-logic assumes that any two objects can be demonstrated to be 100% identical.  But this assertion is false to the facts of the real world.  In actuality it is impossible to demonstrate that any two objects are 100% identical and therefore we can only demonstrate degrees of similarity between any objects under examination and consideration.  Therefore for any given object A, all things must be considered non-A, since no two objects can be 100% identical.  Therefore the only basis for rational and logical analysis of any two objects is to consider the degree of similarity the two objects have in their respective structure of their component parts/elements.  Since no two objects have 100% identical component parts/elements.

      4.  A-logic assumes hidden and/or ignored contexts: A-logic only considers an object within a single context at any one time.  A-logic either assumes a timeless and space-less hypothetical context or considers an object within real space and time but only a singular, usually unstated, moment and point in space and time.  For A-logic the implicit and therefore hidden and unnoticed context in which an object or thing is examined is a context that is static and is a discontinuous segments of time and space.  This static discontinuous segmentation creates a tendency to ignore the fact that the real objects under examination in the real world change over time due to interactions that are continuing to occur between the objects environment and itself.  The real world is dynamic, interrelated, and interconnected.

      5.  A-logic assumes that you are able to completely separate from its environment individual whole objects that can then be examined so that all of the parts, the components, of that whole object can be identified.

      A-logic takes objects and events under consideration out of the context of the real dynamic and interconnect world, we abstract out of reality those items that we are at a given moment to be considered and thus ignore what we left behind.  But all things are totality interrelated and interconnected and are always in a dynamic flux of interactions.  A-logic has to slice events and objects out of this dynamic flux of interconnections and place it in an artificially humanly created abstract setting of limitations.  We are incapable of considering everything all at once, but A-logic fails to acknowledge this limitation and to consider the implications of this real limitation.

      6.  A-logic assumes that for any given object under examination we have in fact identified exhaustively all its relevant and important components with absolute certainty.  This is an assumption that is not verified and can not be verified since we cannot at any one moment in time know all there is to know about the objects under examination, and we cannot with certainty be assured that we are not lacking an important fact that would change our result if we were aware of it.  A-logic just asserts that the results of its logic are timeless and forever applicable and valid.

      7.  A-logic generally assumes that given any two known identified chosen conceptual objects/properties/attributes, A and non-A, that these are: 1) mutually exclusive; and 2) are in opposition and are contradictory in nature to each other.  When a non-conceptual unknown object X is examined, that object X's properties when listed will either have as one of its identifying properties characterized as A or non-A.  Object X has to be A or non-A exclusively.

      A-logic ignores these assumptions and limitations; Null-A logic takes these into account.

      Let us take a few examples to elucidate how A-logic fails to explain or reveal the way reality, the world we live in, operates.

      1.  A and Non-A: Life and Death:  A-logic would have us presume that we must be either alive or dead.  The definitions of Life and the definition of Death are presumed to be mutually exclusive and in opposition and contradictory to one another.  In reality of the dynamic real world, paradoxically this is not the case.  The fact of material physical existence is the inability of any given object or system to sustain its current state of being.

      Any and all material objects will deteriorate.  Any and all material objects that are living systems cannot sustain that system's life indefinitely and forever.  All living things grow old and the systems that sustained its life will inevitably cease to function over time, and the thing will die.  To be alive is not a static event but a dynamic process of change and transformation, a process of transformation that will inevitable end.  We will all die.  We can postpone that time by not taking risks, by a variety of means, but we will all die.

      Actually from the moment of conception the process and time line of our existence begins to flow toward our death.  We are born to die.  We are born in the process of dying.  But we are also born in the process of becoming alive.  We grow and change which is the essence of life.  So at each and every moment of our existence we are both in the process of living and in the process of dying.  We are always A and non-A, it matters not if the A under consideration is life or death.  We are always both.  Life and death are two facts; two points at the end of a time line and are also words for two processes.  The process of living is the process of dying and vice a versa.

      2.  A and non-A: Adequate and Inadequate illumination:  We mainly live in and experience objects or environments that are somewhat less than pure white/light or pure black/dark.  We experience a gradient of color and shading - a continuum.  Most natural objects and natural environments are more or less dark or more or less filled with illumination.  The more illumination the more it appears to be white, the less illumination the more it appears black.  There are also times when for us the environment we are encountering appears black/dark, but to a cat, or other animal with differently attuned preceptors, the environment is filled with illumination, for them it is adequately lit/white.

      For example, at night when I step into a room without the lights turned on, to me all of the room is black, dark, and inadequately illuminated.   Yet, I know that my cat can see me, can perceive me and can walk up to me and rub against me.  The room is not black/dark to my cat.  The non-A of blackness, darkness and inadequate illumination is defined by the context of who is making the judgment, my cat or I.  The condition of adequate or inadequate illumination is valid or invalid at the same time depending on which perspective or vantage point we are defining the situation from.  To me it may be non- A of inadequate illumination, blackness, and darkness but to my cat it is the A of adequate light.  A or non-A is a matter of whose perspective are we considering.  And the choice of A or non-A becomes even more ambiguous once we consider a third person, someone who has night vision goggles and is watching both my cat and I walking in my room at night.  That third observer knows that I am in blackness and inadequate illumination but my cat is in adequate illumination - both are valid descriptions of the same actual environmental conditions.  Hence which is it?  Is the correct description of the environment non-A of inadequate illumination or A of adequate illumination?

      From the perspective of the third person observer of us both, she must conclude it is neither completely, non-A of blackness and inadequate illumination, or A of adequate illumination.  A, the actually environmental condition is a point on a continuum of illumination which from the differing vantage points of I, the human, and the animal my cat, appear one way or the other depending on which of the two participating vantage points are considered.

      A is usually being defined in a specific context and potentially we can shift the context and reveal that from this new vantage point A now can be defined as non-A.

      3.  A or non-A: Wholes and Parts: Known conceptual object A is the property of Wholeness.  Known conceptual object non-A is the property of Partness.  According to A-logic the choice is either exclusive partness or exclusive wholeness.  But, take any other unknown non-conceptual object labeled X, say a human being, according to A-logic must be able to be classified as either having the attribute of being 100% a Whole thing, or 100% a part, which is non-A.  That object X must remain unchanged as either being able to be classified exclusively as A = whole or as non-A = part.  X either is A = whole or can be identified as being non-A = part.  X cannot be both.  According to A-Logic the process and results of such a comparison can and must be 100% exhaustive, all-inclusive and 100% conclusive.  Once truth is derived it is final and valid forever.  Once X is labeled as being A, a whole for example, it is assumed that it is forever has the conceptual characteristics of being A = whole as its defining property.

      By definition and the laws of A-logic, if object X, a human being, is considered in some new context and found that it now has the attributes of being a part, then object X must no longer be itself.  It must now be a totally new object, because the identifying list of object X's attributes must include it having the property of being a whole, attribute A.  It cannot have both the attributes of A=whole and non-A=part.  It must have only one or the other to maintain its own identity.  If it has the attribute non-A, a part, then object X must not be itself according to the law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle, thus it must be given a new designation and be treated as a wholly new thing, object Z.  This is how A-logic can results in paradox and confusion.

      To illustrate the above in concrete terms, we consider ourselves as a human being a whole thing.  Now imagine we are not feeling well and go to see a doctor.  The doctor considers us as a thing composed of many parts, one or more of which is ‘malfunctioning'.  In the context of a medical exam, from our perspective we have the property of being a whole thing, attribute A, we are a whole body that feels ill.  But from the perspective or vantage point of the doctor, who examines us, we, that human being, are an object that is composed of many parts and also an object which is part of our environment where in we became expose to something that triggered our illness.  We, and the environment that we came from, are the whole unit.  Our self, our body is merely a part of the collective whole of us living in our environment, which explains our illness.  We are one whole unit and a collection of parts depending on what context one is considering at any one time.

      Now imagine a third person, a social scientist conducting a survey, enters the examining room.  From the social scientist's perspective we, the patient and the doctor, are parts of one larger social unit in many ways although we consider ourselves to be whole and separate beings.  The social scientist may see us as human beings who are parts of a larger whole, some social context, and some societal whole object.  To the social scientist we, patient and doctor, are parts of a whole thing know as families, or of a whole thing known as religious communities, or of a country, or of political parties, etc.  We, doctor and patient, are merely parts of some social whole entity.  Thus under the rigid rules of A-logic there is a seeming contradictions.  I may think I was a whole, but the doctor knew I was a part of my environment and the social scientist knew we both were a part of some social whole entity.

      It is important to realize that we have not change the point in time under consideration.  We have only shifted between contextual frameworks.  I am and was always a whole and a part depending on the contextual consideration.

      A-logic fails to consider the possibilities of shifting variables in shifting multiple contexts and it also assumes by an underlying foundational assumption of A-logic that any and all two choices of attribute A and non-A are and must always be mutually exclusive and in opposition.  A-logic creates a paradox by ignoring the context of object X when its attributes were being listed.  A-logic does not consider that some or all of the attributes can be present and significant only in certain contexts.  A shift in context and some new factor becomes significant and what was once a whole is now seen as a part.  A = wholeness or non-A = not wholeness, which is partness or A = partness and non-A = not partness which would be wholeness, is present all at the same time depending on the shift in contexts and perspectives.

      If we define A completely, which we must in accordance to the rules of A-logic, then we must conclude that A is always potentially both a whole and a part.  And we must also consider wholeness and partness as not being in opposition but rather as complementary attributes.  But that is not a valid choice in the abstract and theoretical system of A-logic, but it is valid in the actuality of choices within the reality of a living world environment.

      Arthur Koestler in his book The Ghost In The Machine, first published in 1967, coined the term ‘Holon' to recognize the complementary attributes of wholeness and partness.(4)  Koestler later coined the term Holarchy to refer to the structural arrangements of Holons.(5)

      Now let us consider those pairs once again to demonstrate the error of concluding that the three laws can and should create as valid the ‘First Rule'.   Those pairs were:

      Life and Death

      White and Black

      Light and Dark

      Whole and Part

      True and False

      Good and Bad/evil

      A-logic further tool traps us by asserting a classification scheme with only two values.  A-logic asserts that for these two values there can be no middle ground, it is not a matter of degrees of probability but of only 100% uniqueness and completeness.

      Let's take the assertion of 100%, all or nothing.  In the real world we can measure an object or thing.  For example we can measure the amount of ambient light at a particular spot in the environment; photographers do this all the time to adjust their cameras in taking their pictures so that they may get the results they want, intended or need.  If A-logic were the only tool then the meter would simply show that there is no light or that there is all light.  Once you think about this you can realize how absurd that statement is.  The world around us is not one of pure darkness or pure light but a world of gradations of light and shadows.  An actually the world is also full of varying shades of color - this gradation of light and shadow helps create not only the shades of gray but enables the whole continuum of varying colors to be seen.

      In actuality in anything that we could consider to measure there is not the A-logic's limitation of only two possible choices, 100% of anything, but rather a gradation of possibilities.  In actuality the act of measuring and the calibration of the measuring tools utilize a system of logic that is beyond the limited two value 100% all or nothing choices of A-logic.  All those tools utilize a Null-A system of variable possibilities and the model of the continuum.  Science and Engineering would not exist if all its tools were calibrated by the all or nothing limitations of the two-valued trap of A-logic.

      A-logics three laws imply that everything can be classified and evaluated as either A or non-A.  Hence those six pairs that I listed as examples.   The subtlest assumption and the subtlest trap of the A-logic tool is this limitation of only two values.  Since A-logic only considers two values, A or non-A, the tool user assumes that A-logic is asserting a scheme of evaluation which has only two choices and this two valued scheme of evaluation is always relevant.   A tool trap of A-logic is the seeming implication that all things can, and therefore should or must be evaluated by two possible all or nothing, A or non-A, variables, such as True and False, or Good and Bad.   The implications are that True/Good and False/Bad are always applicable.  This is how the First Rule came to be formulated.

      But consider these pairs:

      Up and Down

      Top and Bottom

      Inside and Outside

      Big and Little

      Hard and Soft

      Loud and Quite

      Audio and Visual

      Fast and Slow

      Cats and Dogs

      Does it really make any sense to evaluate either one of these pairs as being true or false; or to evaluate any one of these pairs as being good or bad?  Those evaluation terms in the abstract without any context to those sets of pairs are not relevant.  But we can imagine a context in which those pairs could be evaluated by the two-valued scheme of true and false or good and bad.  We can construct a context whereby we can make a statement such as: the volume of the music we are playing is loud, and in that context someone can evaluate that statement and answer that the statement is either true or false.   It is the context of the situation that makes the evaluating scheme relevant.

      Without a specific context the idea that we can evaluate either of the pairs make no sense.  Fast and slow without a context is neither good nor bad, neither true nor false.  Fast and slow can be evaluated when there is a contextual situation and we can make statements about the contextual situation which can then be evaluated as being either good or bad in that context, or as being true or false descriptions in that context.  Without a context making an evaluation of good or bad, true or false is nonsense.

      But A-logic creates the tool trap that we can always evaluate a thing and that we need not consider any context at all.  Up, down, top, bottom, inside, outside, wholes and parts, Audio, visual, cats, dogs, etc all, and any pair you can imagine, are terms that require a context to be meaningful or relevant.  Without a context to refer to there is no meaning to the application of the evaluating terms of good, bad, true or false.  In the abstract, in the context-less vacuum that is pure abstraction, there can be no relevance to asserting an evaluation to one of the sets of pairs as being good, bad, true or false.  Those pairs I listed, and any pair of terms you can list are statements of differences.  Difference can be evaluated only in a context.

      But even then the evaluating terms of true, false, good, or bad may still not be applicable.  A-logic seems to imply that they are always applicable, hence the First Rule.  A-logic tool traps us by implying that a thing is either always relevant or never relevant - A or non-A.  If it is relevant in one instance, then A-logic tool traps us by the all or nothing implication, that it must therefore always be relevant.  Or if it is not relevant in one instance then it most not be relevant at all in every instance.  The tool trap of A-logic is forcing the evaluating scheme to be considered applicable, useful and relevant on the basis of an all or nothing choice - again A or non-A.

      The evaluating terms of true, false, good, and bad are a conceptual tool.  It is foolish to think that a single tool is always relevant.  Consider as an example the tool we call a hammer.  Is a hammer a useful means to cut wood?  Is a hammer a useful means to smooth down the rough surface of a piece of wood?  Is a hammer a useful means to tap the keys on the computer keyboard?  Is a hammer a useful device if you want to measure the amount of ambient light another object is receiving?  Is a hammer a useful device if you want to write your name on a piece of paper?  Is a hammer a useful device if you want to play the violin?  Is the hammer a useful tool when you want to cook a turkey for thanksgiving dinner?  Is the hammer a useful tool when you want to play a game of golf, pool, football, checkers, chess, etc.?  Does the hammers lack of being useful in each of these instances mean it is utterly and totally useless and never useful?  The all or nothing evaluation tool trap of A-logic seems to imply this outcome.

      But a mere moments consideration is all that is needed to realize that the hammers lack of usefulness in those many contexts I listed does not thereby imply that it is utterly and always useless.  A tool is useful in a specific context.  It is not an all or nothing choice.  It is only the tool trap of A-logic that implies an all or nothing, A or non-A, application.  Null-A logic does not imply an all or nothing choice.  Null-A logic allows for a complete continuum of possibilities with 100% everything/all at one end of the continuum and 0% nothing at the other end of the continuum.

      Depending on the context many things can be good/true or bad/false, and being classified as one or the other does not diminish the possibility of other things be classified the same way.  Goodness/truth and badness/false is not a limited resource that would be diminished and used up with each application.  They are classification schemes whose applicability is limited only by its accuracy of application.  There need not be only one true or good thing.  The idea that ‘there can be only one', is itself a tool trap of A-logic, that idea need not be applicable in all contexts.

      In the end we must recognize that A- logic is a tool and that it is an important analytic set of tools, but like all tools, it can tool trap the tool user.

      Let me restate what I have been calling the First Rule:

Rule #1 Given any two things being considered, if one is true and/or good the other must therefore be false and/or bad/evil.

      I believe that you can now see why I described First Rule in the beginning of this article as erroneous.  The First Rule is a rule whose basis is dependent on the assumptions and implication, the tool traps, of first three laws of A-logic being valid in all cases.  I hope I have shown that since the first three laws of A-logic are not always valid and that the evaluating tool of all or nothing is not always relevant, therefore the First Rule is also not always valid, relevant or applicable.  This conclusion does invalidate the four conclusions mentioned earlier in this article that were derived from that First Rule.  Those conclusions were:

Conclusion #1) If the First Rule is valid then in general is it not the case that there is really only one true thing in any given category of things?  Should we not seek out that one true thing and acknowledge its goodness and truth?

Conclusion #2) Given the First Rule and conclusion #1, since there is only one truth in any one category of things therefore in the category of religions and sacred scriptures there can be only one true religion and one true sacred scripture.  This makes all other scriptures false, bad and/or a source of evil.

Conclusion #3) Given the First Rule and conclusion #1, since there is only one good thing in any one category of things therefore in the category of races that make up the human species one race must be good and all others must be defective, bad and/or evil.

Conclusion #4) Given the First Rule and conclusion #1, since there is only one good thing in any one category of things therefore in the category of the two sexes that make up the human species one sex must be good and the other must be defective, bad and/or evil.

      All of those four conclusions are invalid since they depend on the First Rule being always valid and I have demonstrated that the First Rule, being a tool like any other tool, it is not always valid and/or relevant.  I can now offer some new conclusions.

New conclusion #1) Differences are real.

New conclusion #2) The evaluating tools of good and bad, true and false, are not always applicable and/or relevant.

New conclusion #3) Even when the evaluating tools of good and bad, true and false are applicable and relevant, it is not the case that there must be only one good/true thing.  Every thing needs to be evaluated individually in accordance with whatever set of criteria is being used.  Classification results are not an all or nothing outcome.

New conclusion #4) In accordance with New conclusion #3, given any number of things being considered, if one is true and/or good this has results has no bearing on how the other thing being considered should be classified.

New Conclusion #5) Given new conclusions #1, #2, #3 and #4 the following are possible considerations: male and female, the varying races which make up the human race as a collective, all the varying sacred scriptures and all the varying religions, all of then or none of them could be true, false, good, or bad; or even that those evaluating tools may not be applicable, relevant or meaningful in considering sex, races, sacred scriptures and religions at all.

      Sexism, Racism, and Religious Fundamentalism are in fact the logical application of A-logic and my First Rule.  But without the foundation of validity provided by A-logic Sexism, Racism and Religious Fundamentalism can be shown to be logically invalid and thus unacceptable.  We need not, and we should not, tolerate such unacceptable sets of beliefs any longer.

      I hope you will now realize the hammer-like tool traps of A-logic.  To avoid these tool traps we need to recognize the additional tools found within Null-A logic systems.

References

(1) Robert Ornstein in his book The Psychology of Consciousness, p.60 of the 1986, second revised edition, attribute this quote, without a source text to Abraham Maslow.  In the 1975 first revised edition of the same book on p.23, the quote is footnoted.  The footnote references, without a page number, to Abraham Maslow's book The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance, Henry Regnery, 1969.

(2) http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aristotle.html

(3) A. E. Van Vogt was the author of two science fiction books that used Alfred Korzybski's Non-Aristotelian system as the basis for the novels.  The novels were The World of Null-A, written in magazine form in 1945 and published in book form in 1948; and The Players of Null-A was the sequel novel published in 1948.  A. E. Van Vogt coined the word Null-A as the short form for the word Non-Aristotelian.

(4) Arthur Koestler, The Ghost In The Machine, Hutchinson Publishing Group, Ltd., London, 1967, pp.65-66.

(5) Arthur Koestler, Janus: A Summing Up, Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd., London, 1978, p.34

Gary Jaron graduated in 1977 from the University of Washington, Seattle WA with a BA degree in Comparative Religion and graduated in 1986 from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA with a JD degree.

I want to talk to you about ideas.  Ideas don't spring miraculously Athena-like out of your head without rhyme or reason.  Rather they grow organically out of your imaginative metaphoric and embodied mind.  Ideas are the culmination of conscious and unconscious thought processes and they have discoverable and traceable origins.  Ideas can metaphorically be compared to plants, they have roots that can be traced back, they start as small seedlings which with care and the right environment will grow and develop, and they can be cross breed by taking cuttings from one plant and attaching to a new plant, and so on.  This book is interested in tracing the origins of ideas, and the how's and why's of their growth and development.

This topic is complex but not complicated and it will cross over considerable territory and fields of study.  This is not intended to be a definitive study of the topic but an introduction and survey of this multi-discipline field of investigation.  In making this presentation I will act more as an artisan wielding a wide brush than a thorough and detail oriented analyst.

Ideas are wonderful incredible things of delight, sweeter than honey and more intoxicating than wine.  Ideas are at the heart and source of all things.  Ideas are tools of the mind; they are keys to understand the making of humanly constructed reality.  They are like a compass that could guide us in our journey into the high country of the mystics, the prophets and all those who were instruments of the Divine in conveying the teachings, the wisdom and the knowledge of and from the Divine.   The Divine is the source of Infinite input that our finite mind, our tools, struggles to manifest into finite output.

I was trying to put together the ideas and information that I was reading and suddenly a phrase began to formulate and take shape.  This phrase became my Grail, my guiding star.  It rang with certainty and I knew it was a fundamental formulation of the true nature of human reality.  The phrase is: People shape, and are shaped by, ideas.  My life is about exploring and explaining the implications, the meaning, and the significance of that phrase.

Therefore we must always consider the ideas /tools/ beliefs /values, the world-views, the culture and time you were born into.  We grow up within a community and the values and beliefs of that community seem to be universal.  But they are not; those values and beliefs are only shared by members of the community.  Those communal values and beliefs are the foundation and the building blocks of what you, and I, come to believe.  You then shape that foundation and building block in the creative process, and out of it you could create a new work of art or intellect.

I believe that there is a price to pay for failing to consider and recognizing this shaped by and shaping process.  If you were to pretend that this is not true then those forces that shaped you will unconsciously bias and distort the ideas you hold and propound.  The result will be confusion and lack of clarity in your thinking, feeling and experience of life.  As I briefly demonstrated earlier in this introduction, sexism, racism, and religious fundamentalism is a result of this shaped by process, by failing to consider the possibility that the system of logic that we use can tool trap us into these concepts seemingly in the name of logical consistency.  You can deal with this bias and distortion by discovering and uncovering the ideas that have shaped you, thereby finding a way to compensate for their actual and potential distortive effects in your outlook and analysis of your reality and your environment.

As an example of this principle here is some biographic information about my shaping.  I was born in 1954 and raised as a Reform Jew in Levittown New York.  All during my childhood what interested and fascinated me were two realms of ideas and beliefs: the beliefs of theology and the ideas of sciences.  In the sciences I was especially fascinated by atomic theory.  It became a metaphoric construct that permeated my thinking.

I was electrified to discover that underlying everything that I could see was a view of the world made up of only four things, electrons, protons, neutrons and photons.  This was Niles Bohr's early solar system model of atoms, no hint of quantum theory had I encountered in my early reading.

Those four fundamental building blocks seem to hark back to the four elements of Air, Earth, Water, and Fire, of the ancient Greek philosophers, to interrelate the ancient philosophers systems to the modern scientific systems the set of correspondences could be as follows: Electrons could correspond to the element of Air, since they circle above the nucleus, Neutrons could correspond to Earth-the neutral grounding element, which leaves Protons to correspond to the element of water.  Lastly the element of Fire could correspond to the energy forces of the photons, which are released by the excitation of electrons.  And there was a 5^th element.  It was known by many spoken and unspoken names.  The fifth element is the guiding influence by which all things came to have Structure and Order.

As for my other fascination, theology, it grew out of my encounters with my neighbors.  My neighbors were Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox Catholics, and Protestant Christians.  I was a Reform Jew and thus knew that Judaism was divided into three branches, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.  Orthodox was the traditional view based on the Hebrew Bible and the Rabbis collected writings contained in the Talmud.  Reform Judaism, which grew out of ideas formulated in 1800's, was the idea that there was objective understanding of the world and it was the province of the sciences to build up that understanding.  Having acknowledged the process of investigated truth, Judaism must conform to the conclusions of the scientific system.  (This was what I was understood as the foundation of Reform Judaism.)  Conservative Judaism grew out of the ideas formulated in the 1850's as a response to Reform Judaism.  Conservative Judaism believed that the teachings of the Rabbis was primary but could be complemented by the learning of the sciences.

I looked upon Roman Catholic's as Orthodox Judaism in Christian garb, i.e. that the Popes and the Bishops were like the Rabbis laying down the teachings of how to understand the Biblical text and how to apply the Biblical teachings to the questions of living in the world.  Greek Orthodoxy was some sort of geo-political split that occurred in the medieval times and thus the two groups, Western and Eastern Catholics, from that time forward went their own ways.  Protestantism was the invention of Martin Luther who said that an individual on his own just reading the Bible could decide how to live in accordance with the Biblical truths as that individual believed them.  Thus the individual could pass judgment on which of the Christian ‘Rabbis' (the Pope and the Bishops) teachings to accept or reject.  [All of the preceding is how in my youth I viewed Christianity.]

One last other aspect of my interest in theology.  I was fascinated by the elder theologies of western civilizations, especially, the religions of ancient Greece and Rome.  I read as much as I could find concerning the myths and legends of those Western Civilization's ancestral cultures.

So, I had the scientists (who I likened to Rabbis studying the Bible of the physical world), seven groups of living religious traditions (three Jewish groups and four Christian groups), and lastly there were the old religions of Greece and Rome, that Christianity replaced, all were trying to understand the world.  All were living in the same world.  Yet they were not sharing common ideas and beliefs about that world.  Now I knew that scientists were persecuted by Roman Catholics, I knew of the story of Galileo, and I also knew that Christians killed Jews, there was the Inquisition, the pogroms in Eastern Europe, the slaughtering of the Crusaders on their way to the Holy land, and of course the Nazi horrors.  Ideas and beliefs were important and people could even die as a result of their beliefs!  Yet, all these people lived in the same world.  Saw it with the same human eyes.  How could they live in the same world and yet reach such differing views of that same world?

And underlying all of this is four unseen particles that make up everything.  We are all a vast interconnected and interrelated world of atomic particles and the fields of force that they generate.  Which means that no one is seeing the world as it truly is.  No one sees a world of interconnected systems of atoms.  Those atoms were creating the light that enabled us to see.  We see photons bouncing off collections of atomic structures!  Somehow our brains take this sense data on the atomic level and piece together pictures of objects.  We believe we see trees, houses, cats, people, but what we see on some level is collections of atomic process.  What a confusing, fascinating and mysterious world we all live in.

And so, out of all of this I had a revelation.  An idea formed in my head and one day I spoke it.  That idea felt true.  It felt like pure truth.  It sounded so real that I couldn't doubt its truth.  I felt that this idea was the key to understanding how all these differing groups of people came to live in the same world yet believed such differing and contradictory things about the world.  It was the key to the source of humanly created structure and order.  The revelation was this: People shape, and are shaped by, ideas.

It works like this.  People are shaped by ideas: meaning as children we are taught ideas, which become beliefs and values.  This is the affect of the past on us; hence the phrase is in the past tense.  Our parents, our teachers, our Rabbis, our Popes, Bishops, Priests, etc, all teach us what they believe to be true, what they were taught to be true.  This is the ongoing tradition.  As children we take in those past ideas and beliefs without question and we accept them as our own.  Those formative ideas and beliefs come from our most trusted sources of life.  Upon this unquestioned set of ideas and beliefs we build our view of the world.  To repeat myself, as children we don't generally challenge our elders, our parents and teachers, and so we accept those ideas as being true.  Later we may feel the need to rebel and then we take on the differing beliefs for the sake of contrariness and opposition.  Even still, whether we accept or rebel against them or anything in between, these ideas and beliefs are formative and they work in our minds as if we are all given sunglasses, each made especially from these initial traditional set of beliefs. [[1]]  These early teachings, these traditional beliefs are the lenses crafted by parents, teachers, Scientists, Rabbis, Priests, etc.

It is important to realize that from the moment we develop the ability to learn a language we are incorporating our parents and teachers culture and worldview into ourselves.  From that moment we begin the process of acquiring our life long pair of sunglasses.  Each day as a child that we are taught and learn by example our culture's language, we continue to ‘grind the lenses of our sunglasses'.  And the process never ends.  With each new lesson we learn, from whatever source, we process that new idea and we adjust the lenses of our sunglasses.  These sunglasses shade all further sense data coming in, they give that sense data a tint, a Jewish tint, a Catholic tint, etc.

Thus we are all looking at the same world but we see it tinted by the ideas of our acquired ideas and beliefs.  That is the past tense ‘shaped by' part of my equation.  As we get older we start to think for ourselves, we question.  We can even formulate our own ideas.  We are then again in the process of tinkering with those glasses, making the lenses uniquely our own on the basis of our own original ideas.  The present tense aspect of the phrase represents this: ‘People shape ideas'.  Perhaps we have such good ideas that we convince others and thus those ideas became part of the formula of how to make the next generation's sunglasses.  And this process of the past and the present, of shaped by and shaping, has been going on since the beginning of human history.

We live in the world but only see it through the lenses of our beliefs and ideas.  We can never take off those glasses we can only adjust them.  We are therefore forever biased, biased by our beliefs.  We experience the world through the bias built into our sunglasses.  If we fail to realize this we will mistake and assume that the world we see through this bias of our sunglasses is as if it were a hypothetical ‘objective, non-personal-biased' world.  Through those glasses some see Jesus as the savior, some don't.  Some see only Teutonic blonde haired and blue-eyed Aryans as being humans, some don't.  Some believe that the only thing that is important is objects that can be measured, while others believe that some important objects are beyond measure.  Some believed the world was flat or that the Earth was the center of the universe.  As for that last idea it was later on in history of human quest for knowledge that our glasses were made to see the Earth as orbiting the sun.

It is most important to always recall that all of these people live in the same world, are taking in similar sense data, but what they do with that data changes the data.  What our sense took in never changed from person to person, only the varying differences of the sunglasses changed.  Hence they, we, all see and experience the world through our sunglasses.  Hence historically it was believed by some that the world was flat while others considered, and eventually the accepted view, that the world is round.  The difference in our experience is not the actual shape of the Earth but in our metaphoric and metaphysical sunglasses.

Therefore to understand human conceived of reality we have to understand this process of making these sunglasses, this process of being shaped by and shaping ideas.  If we don't realize this we will have the paradox of conflicting traditions all claiming to be true.  The paradox is gone once we accept that it is the ideas we believe that filter the sense data that is coming into us from the real world.  In a very real and practical effect and consequence, it is not through the process of seeing that we believe, but rather believing creates sight: ‘Believing is seeing'.

[1] ‘Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born--the beneficiary inasmuch as language gives access to the accumulated records of other people's experience, the victim insofar as it confirms him in the belief that reduced awareness is the only awareness...so that he is all too apt to take his concepts for data, his words, for actual things. ... Most people most of the time know only what comes through the reducing valve is consecrated as genuinely real by their local language.' Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, pg. 24.  ‘We constantly seek to find, in the Quality event, analogues to our previous experiences.  ...We build up our language in terms of these analogues.  We build up our whole culture in terms of these analogues.' [ZMM, pg. 248-50]  The structure of language and the structure of the logic tools we use should be examined if we are to avoid a tool trap.  Aristotelian logic is ‘Yes and no...this or that...one or zero.  On the basis of this elementary two-term discrimination, all human knowledge is built up.'[ZMM, pg. 320]  Now Pirsig states that there is logic beyond this two-term system.  ‘Because we're unaccustomed to it, we don't usually see that there's a third possible logical term equal to yes and no which is capable of expanding our understanding in an un-recognized direction.  We don't even have a term for it, so I'll have to use the Japanese mu.  Mu means ‘no thing'.  Like ‘Quality' it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination.' [ZMM, pg. 320]  Now Pirsig didn't know it but in 1933 Alfred Korzybski developed a whole system of logic that grew out of recognizing that two-valued logic is not enough.  By adding this new system, this new tool we can avoid falling into the tool trap of only having A-logic.  Although Null-A-logic itself needs to be studied to avoid any potential tool traps it could give rise too.

The Way of Gan Eden - a Gnostic Qabalistic Taoism [GQT]

What does this mean?

The use of the adjective Gnostic is the recognition that knowledge and wisdom is a redemptive source.  Gnosticism is the belief that there is a hidden knowledge and wisdom waiting to be discovered.  This knowledge of the ‘true' state of being and the ‘true' origin of creation will lead to redemption of one's inner spirit.  Gnosticism believes that we all have within us a spark, a small aspect of the True Divine dwells within us and it calls this spark our ‘spirit'.  Original Gnosticism believed in a duality of opposites: The realm of the flesh, the physical universe and the realm of the spirit, the realm of the Divine.  Original Gnosticism believed in a mind and body, immaterial and material divide.  This same idea which found root in Aristotle's system of logic continued through into the thoughts and writings of Rene Descartes.  Original Gnosticism gave this mind vs. body split, matter vs. spirit divide theological and apocalyptic implications and manifestations.  All things physical - matter itself, was seen in the teachings of original Gnosticism as a corrupting force which entrapped the divine spirit.   The physical realm is the source of evil from which one must ultimate flee and escape from.  We were flung out of the Heavenly realm of the immaterial spirit and plunged into the Hell of the encasement of the physical, material realm, encumbered by a material form which weighs us down so we like Icarus, will fall and sink back into the Abyss when we attempt to return to the heights of our true home.

Original Gnosticism was beholden to the oppositional duality which became manifest in fullness in the formal logic system of Aristotle.  This seeming primal idea that a duality must be of opposites which then means they must oppose each other  - this is the seed idea out of which original Gnosticism built its edifice.  We need not rely upon that flawed foundation.  Simply because we can state and notice an abstract conception of a duality in our thoughts and in Nature as we perceive it, it need not automatically and inevitably be that this duality is and most be locked in eternal conflict whose outcome is that must be only the One as supreme - vanquisher of its imagined foe. No recognizing duality we need not succumb to conflict.  The many and they can coexist.  This was not seen as an option to those who crafted the original Gnosticism. 

The use of the adjective Qabalistic is the recognition of the formative power of myths and symbols, especially those of the Jewish mystical tradition.  I will draw upon the myth of the tale of creation, the Garden of Eden story as presented in the first book of the Hebrew Sacred Scriptures and additional the myth of creation which explains why there is a need for a mission of humanity called Tikkun Olam - the Healing of the All as taught by Rabbi Isaac Luria.  Qabalistic is also the recognition of the power of these myths and symbols to use them actively to transform oneself, the universe and the Divine.  The myth of Luria's crafting is the tale of the Divine's failure to realize its goals, its inability to accomplish the task of creation in all its glory that it had envisioned.  This failure created a disruption in the very fabric of the Cosmos.  The Infinite Divine manifested itself within this Cosmos and was so entrapped in the flawed creation of its own making.  To remedy this the Divine sought to make a being imbued with awareness, consciousness, knowledge and wisdom - a being of creation who partakes of creation and thus from within can heal the heart of all if this being willing takes up the task of healing.  This is the mythic vision of Luria - the purpose of humanity is to be the instruments of Divine need and will to take up the task of Tikkun Olam and heal itself, heal the Cosmos and thus heal the Divine.

The use of the adjective Taoism is the recognition of the unity and harmony of the twin principles - the Yin and the Yang.  In physics this recognition came from the insights of the scientist/physicist Niels Bohr who explained the theory of Complementarity.  Taoism is the teaching that at the center of all is a principle, a force which is the natural state of being it is the Tao, the Way of all things in their harmonious state.  The principle text of Taoism is Lao Tzu's The Tao Te Ching.  Thru the teachings of Taoism it is revealed that the oppositional split of Mind and Body, Matter and Spirit is an illusion: that the two are aspects of the one- The Tao.  The duality is a twin unity and needs to be blended into a harmonious whole.

GQT is a building a new theological and philosophic construct which blends the teachings of the old East and West into a modern unified model.  Through the blending of the three into one GQT seeks to find the ‘true' knowledge and wisdom that runs through the Sacred Scriptures of the world and the works of philosophers, mystics and scientists to find this saving gnosis, this saving wisdom and knowledge.  It taps into the existentialistic concept of we are ultimately responsible for ourselves.

Many are the texts but not of a whole can I believe them.  There is a thread that runs through them that gives them life, meaning and value to me and to us all.  But the gift of the Infinite Divine is immense and no mere finite mind can expect to contain even the smallest portion of its vast wisdom and truth.  Much of what is contained in every human finite text is a product of the human mind that guided, selected and framed the Divine Infinite within in the confines of those very specific words.  All of those source texts are the true products of the finite human that crafted the cage which captures the light of the Infinite within it.  Thus, not all of what is found therein is of the Infinite and is worthy of the Infinite.  We who come upon these texts are explorers, miners, seekers of the rare gems amongst so much strewn rubble and rubbish.  Reading any text one need not take it all or leave it.  It is not a matter of all or nothing as the teachings of Aristotle would hold.  It is as always a continuum of possible usefulness and uselessness.  The world is built and founded upon not the Aristotelian logic of all or nothing but the Null-A logic of varied and multiple possibilities.  The human who was the mystic, the philosopher, the prophet, the scientist, the artist, each and everyone contributed to the task and added what she had to what she found in the moment of transcendence when she glimpsed and/or became one with the Divine.  So, contained in all source texts are the words of the finite and the ideas of the Infinite Divine - knowing the difference, finding the difference is always and forever the challenge and the goal.  You are not required to, nor need you partake of it all, it lies before you, sip and sup as you will.

Sources of knowledge and wisdom

1) Lao Tzu's The Tao Te Ching

2) Ralph Waldo Emerson's collection of essays ‘The Over-Soul', ‘Self Reliance',

3) Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila

4) Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine, The Act of Creation, and Janus.

5) Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity

6) Sanford L. Drob's Kabbalistic Metaphors and Symbols of the Kabbalah

7) Ken Wilber's No Boundary

8) George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought and Metaphors We Live By

9) Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land

Why Gnostic Qabalistic Taoism?

GQT is offered as a synthesis a way to make each of the three reach beyond their original borders and confines.  Taoism is a realization and a statement of that realization.  But it offers only a modest goal and direction - to live according to the Tao, to find the balance and the harmony in one's life so as to reflect the harmony and balance in the flow of the Tao.  But Taoism offers no reason, no explanation of why we humans are here.  What is our purpose?  Why are we here?

The myths of the Qabalah offer such an answer.  The myths of the Qabalah attempt to explain why we are here and what role we play in the life of the Cosmos.  The original Kabbalah was built upon the dualistic oppositional framework.  It thus is confined and constrained by that oppositional dualism.  By joining and blending the insights of the harmony of duality that is perceive through Taoism with the Kabbalah we get a new form of myths - hence the use of the spelling Qabalah.  It is not the Jewish Mystical tradition being used herein but it is that tradition and its insights that are being transformed beyond the prescribed boundaries of Judaism - hence we are voyaging into new territory using the maps of the mystics of Judaism.  The essence of Qabalah is the essence of taking ‘Tradition' any cultures tradition and reshaping it and expanding it beyond the context of its original creators.  By calling it Qabalah I am acknowledging its past but pointing towards something new in the future.  The Kabbalah is a source of symbols and myths.  The Qabalah is taking what was once the creation of one tradition and one cultural and transforming it into a new and universally accessible set of maps.  By blending Taoism with the Kabbalah to form a Taoistic Qabalahism I am transcending the limits of oppositional duality and expounding the fullness of harmonious and harmonized duality to see the flow of Yin and Yang in the wholeness and oneness of the all pervasive Infinite Tao.

By taking this QT and blending it with Gnosticism I am creating and acknowledging an active theology of salvation.  I am not merely creating a philosophic thesis but a map to guide ones soul and spirit; a map to be used.  Gnosticism is sacred and salvational knowledge.  Gnosticism is transformative knowledge.  Gnosticism is the realization that hidden all around is the answer.  That within us lays a seed, a spark, which calls out with deep desire to be cultivated, to be ignited so that this knowledge can lead us and guide us.

By uniting and unifying the three, Gnosticism, Qabalahism and Taoism, we get something more than that which existed when they were apart.  The notion of the divided and opposition of matter and mind, of matter and spirit, is no longer recognized but acknowledged as an error.  Rather than transcending or escaping from the realm of matter, rather than seeing the physical as a prison in which one has been cast down into, rather than seeing the realm of matter as a hellish one, this new and unified map of GQT realizes that the mind is embodied, that spirit is embodied; that the two are one and a unity.  Redemption of oneself and of the Cosmos and even the Infinite is a realization of a healed unity.  The material realm once it is headed is revitalized into a treasure of and a resource.  It is not a prison but rather the palace.  The healed realm of matter is the tools of the temple of spirit.  The sensuous is not sinful and a means of entrapment but rather the rewards of enlightenment.  The pleasures of the flesh are permitted as the joys of Divine blessing and recognition of being the Divine incarnated into the fullness of the Cosmos.  We are not meant to leave the entrapment of the physical but rather to fulfill the physical and complete its destiny in unity of awakened spirit and mindfulness of self awareness.

The Way of Gan Eden is thus a redemptive myth of destiny which seeks to find and release the knowledge of the Harmony of the Tao within creation and the created.  The elements of the Gan Eden myth: The Garden, Eve, Adam, Lilith, the Serpent, nudity, clothing, shame, sin, action and inaction, choice, responsibility, labor, food, life, death, The Tree and the fruit of the Tree are all infused with these new elements of Taoism, Gnosticism and Qabalah.  The Way of Gan Eden transforms the old tale and casts it anew to infuse it with these new insights.  This new myth is not one of Sin, not one of ultimate damnation, nor a tale of the triumph of evil.  The characters of the new myth each play a role of the grand scheme of purposeful awakening to knowledge and wisdom of the true mission of creation.  Through the three unified lenses of GQT this myth is seen not as a tale of rebellion and turning away from the source of truth, wisdom and goodness but rather the opening scenes of a grand story, which presents the first steps taken by humanity towards a life filled with truth, wisdom and goodness.  Eve becomes an existential hero in this re-working of the myth - she takes the first step to becoming a responsible adult/human.  She tired and she failed - but she started us all on the way.

The Way of Gan Eden is the path of enactment.  It is to recreate through thought and deed what did occur and what could have occurred.  It is to return to finish what was started there at the mythic beginning of time.  The Way of Gan Eden desires not to return to Gan Eden as it was thought to be, but to transform where one now dwells into a Gan Eden which one has built anew.  The original Gan Eden was created for us now we must return the favor and create in honor of the first a new Gan Eden of our mature making.  We desire not to dwell in the old Gan Eden of infantile and childlike immaturity and nature but to dwell in a new Gan Eden as mature adults and participants in creation.