February 11, 2009

The barn is a fine place for philosophy

Alexander T. Bone has made himself at home in the barn with his Moma and his (doting) Auntie. He has a few little warm spots that he curls up in, away from the foot traffic, although he hasn't found his creep yet. I check his little belly from time to time to see if it is full - which it almost always is. He has a powerful instinct to stay out from underfoot and to find the teat and suckle.

I am fascinated with instinctual or intuitive knowledge and think it is overlooked in our human culture. We glorify, codify and exalt scientific thinking as the pinacle in a hierarchical set of mental qualtities. To the top, rationality...fact based upon empirically knowable things. But ask "how do you know" long enough and it will show its all based on our guts.

Our genes are intrinsically wired with intelligent knowledge. Are these habitual actions inherited? And/or are we connected to some greater collective wisdom?

"It (Intuitive knowledge) accounts for our assent to self-evident truths and serves as the foundation up-on which all other genuine knowledge must be established. [Essay IV ii 1] Intuition is most common in our knowledge of identity and relation among clear ideas, but (following Descartes) Locke also supposed that each thinking being has an intuitive knowledge of its own existence". here

Just as it is "luminously evident" to Curls that she must nudge her baby forward, mooing softly and nuzzling his bum, it is clear to some of us that precautionary principle is common sense.
Because very young and "lower" species exhibit this brilliant instinct and because science rarely examines "self-evident truths" ....it must be a "lower" form of intelligence.

Bollocks of course. All knowledge is based on a set of stuff we can't prove, this "knowing it in the gut" quality. The most empirical thinking rests on a foundation of intuitive knowledge.

The problem is that it is masked, enslaved, and disembodied. Disembodied knowledge refuses to recognize its connections, its history, its relationships.
What is self-evident can be ignored and imperial facts made in complete violation of related "luminescent knowledge" (gut feelings) therefore not integrated with all the othere sets of "luminescently" clear stuff. Keeping us divided is strategic.

We are such powerful beings. How much of our abilities do we use? 5% of our brains? While 5 % doesn't factor in the other things a brain does beside think, perhaps some of this abilty is in our interconnectivity, the relational order not based upon heirarchical systems or dominance.

Wisdom of the body. Insights based upon connectivity. Knowledge that we are born with. That is an idea at odds with the contemporary sciencism that rules us.

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