Dottie, Rorry et al

1. i reposted the FAU announcement - so it went on the listserver!

2. I have always been troubled by what some see as breaking things into parts
when the reality is that it is generally an effort to appreciate wholes.

let's imagine that we have an object - origin unknown - could be a UFO, missile,
home run ball... As we watch the object fly across the sky we may think of our
appreciation of it as whole - and it is - within our limited range of
understanding. We do not, for example, yet know whether it is a ball at close
range, a massive UFO half a million miles away, of a dangerous missile. We do
not know whether it is a known metal, a living creature - perhaps a dragon, or a
hummingbird. We do not know the precise velocity, flight path, weight, density,
color, shape, and on and on. As we add information on each of these
characteristics we do not appreciate less - we know and appreciate more.

On first glance we are unable to predict where, if at all, the object will land.
Will it be a soft landing, a hard landing, or a mega disaster? Do we somehow
lose our appreciation of the flight of the object if we chart the path of flight
along a four dimensional coordinate system of space-time? Does recording motion
in an x-plane somehow create a breaking into parts? Certainly if i erroneously
assume that only the X-plane is relevant and predict that the object will
continue to move in only that plane, I will make a very big mistake. But, does
predicting the point of impact fundamentally alter our understandings and
appreciation of the flight of the object of it merely an appreciation of the
fact that the object is leaving some region of space-time and entering another?

I have always been inclined to the view that the issue of parts is an
attitudinal issue - not something that inheres in knowledge. If I record data on
human beings along race, gender, age, social class, employment - parse out
fragments of 'information' rather than 'knowledge,' and then characterize entire
groups on the basis of the information contained in my extremely limited
sampling - 'as though' what was true about parts in my sample as though these
findings were necessarily true when extended to the entire group of race,
gender, social class, etc than I am certainly guilty of the most excessive,
flagrant, and erroneous breaking apart of a whole and I am also quite
intellectually vacuous as well.

But if we are merely learning more and more about something - appreciating more
and more of the whole - that should hardly elicit a knee-jerk assumption about
adding "parts" and being inconsistent with unitary theory. But, if for the
moment, we assume that the reviewer is correct in asserting the inconsistency -
is the inconsistency the problem or is the theory/interpretation of the theory,
in which the process above would be described as inconsistent, the real problem?

bear


RorryZ@... wrote: Dear Dottie:
I have struggled with the same issue when trying to explain aspects of a
phenomenon. John Phillips was always very helpful and I really like Margaret
Newman's paper on parts published a few years ago. I think it is important for
us
all to grapple with the issue of parts. Its very difficult to discuss a
phenomenon-devise a theory -- study a process without looking at the aspects --
dimensions etc. I do like the term dimensions that you used. Phases is another
term
in a process -- sometimes I believe we have to fracture our view in order to
better understand the whole -- the unitary nature.
I hope there is a good dialogue about this on our list. This would also make
an interesting paper of several contributors?

I also tried to send an announcement about the Arts and Healing conference at
FAU this fall. They said I wasn't a member -- oh well try that again and I
hope this gets through as a result.

Best to you

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