The Paradoxical Paradigm: Cultivating a Transdisciplinary Approach towards Change
In his masterpiece, the Shōbōgenzō, Dogen Zenji wrote: “To study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly (Tanahashi, 2010).” By stating, “to study the self is to forget the self,” Dogen evokes in us, a counterintuitive response to our standard understanding of “knowledge.” The etymology of “knowledge” indicates that the word was compounded from cnāwan, which in Old English means “acknowledge” or “recognize.” Commonly, the word “study” is used in parallel to the word “knowledge.” Therefore, to understand the self, an acknowledgement or recognition of the self must occur. However, Dogen proposes the contrary: to understand the self, an act of renunciation and obliteration must occur.
Through this paragraph from the Genjōkōan, Dogen creates an opening into the mysterious world of paradoxes. From the Greek roots of para, meaning “beyond” or “outside of” and dokien, meaning “to appear,” “to seem,” or ”to think,” the word paradoxon is formulated to describe: “contrary to expectation.” Throughout history, major paradigm shifts have occurred because the “contrary to expectation” dialectic continuously emerged as a way of discovery, progress and evolution. Thus, I will explore the role that paradoxes play in our lives; how it can be used as a tool to understand humanity’s current predicament; investigate the manner in which it can be utilized to advance transdisciplinary research (Goal 3); and unveil its power to inspire individuals to become agents of change (Goal 1).
Paradoxes are evident in many facets of life: from physics, to economics, to biology, and so on. They have been a source of intellectual entertainment since ancient times, and can be found in the works of many philosophers such as Lao Tzu and Plato, to name a few. This can be an indication that paradoxes may be “forcing us to question whether our intuitive understanding of the world is really accurate (Cuonzo, 2014).” That being said, the potential inaccuracy of our intuitive understanding does not have to indicate a falsified notion of reality. As reality itself may not be subject to one form of objectivity. In Philosophical Fragments, Søren Kierkegaard says:
“One must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow. But the ultimate potentiation of every passion is always to will its own downfall, and so it is also the ultimate passion of the understanding to will the collision, although in one way or another the collision must become its downfall. This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think (Hong & Hong, 1985).”
As Kierkegaard might be suggesting, paradoxes are the pathway to “truth”. However, “truth” may always be lurking beneath the surface of what we can physically and psychologically perceive. In a mysterious way, coming in contact with a paradox is almost an initiation into the next phase of human understanding.
These initiations can also be understood as paradigm shifts, a concept identified by Thomas Kuhn. He defines paradigm as a “constellation of achievements - concepts, values, techniques, etc. - shared by the scientific community and used by that community to define legitimate problems and solutions (Capra & Luisi, 2014).” Similarly, we may come to understand a paradigm as a worldview. Currently, the majority of humans hold onto a Cartesian-Newtonian worldview, in which a material reductionist perspective dominates the understanding of ourselves and the cosmos. This paradigm has allowed the scientific community to flourish; so much so that they unintentionally led us into a great derangement: the climate crisis. Therefore, it is crucial for humanity to awaken to the shadow side of the Anthropocene epoch, so it has the potential to alter its own fate before it’s too late. However, for a collective realization to manifest, a paradigm shift must occur. This means that the Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm must come to an end, and a new worldview that unequivocally embraces both, the realm of spirit and matter should come alive. Ultimately, science is just another language for describing the same reality that religions and spiritual leaders have been trying to describe. As mysterious as the world of spirituality is, so is the world of quantum mechanics. A dynamic relationship between spirit and matter may give rise to an exceptional paradigm if we consciously integrate the two.
There are multiple ways in which we can understand the unfolding of historical events. In other words: metaphors for paradigm shifts. System thinkers, Capra and Luisi suggest the view of a pendulum swinging back and forth: “A chaotic pendulum in the sense of chaos theory - oscillations that almost repeat themselves but not quite, seemingly random and yet forming a complex, highly organized pattern. The basic tension is one between the parts and the whole.” For example, a pendulum that was on the side of the whole would have been that of the Renaissance period, in which individuals like Leonardo da Vinci created a synthesis between science and art. However, a century later, the pendulum swung in the other direction. Leading figures such as Galileo Galilei began to embrace the parts and mechanisms of life, which gave birth to the Scientific Revolution. According to this metaphor, all of history has been a dynamic interplay between mechanism and holism. Mechanism asks the question: “what is it made of?,” while holism asks: “what is the pattern?” Evidently, mechanism focuses on quantity and forms of measurement, while holism embraces quality and ways of mapping (Capra & Luisi, 2014).
Another metaphor for the evolution of human consciousness is one that is proposed by integral philosopher, Sean Kelly. He proposes that history has been unfolding in the form of a spiral, in which the top layers of the spiral are dominant worldviews, such as: the Enlightenment and Technocracy; while the bottom loops are indicative of countercultural surges such as: Romanticism and the 1960s. On this expression of evolutionary history, Kelly writes:
“This pattern can be described as a spiral embedded in an arc, or more precisely, a series of the arc (beginning, zenith, end), with each iteration happening in a shorter time span: a tightening spiral. The largest arc corresponds to the movement from the Alpha of human origins to an Omega that promises the possible stabilization of a truly planetary culture. The next shorter arc shares the same end but begins with the historical period. The third arc, always with the same end, begins with the Axial period (Kelly, 2010)”
As the spiral continues to compress, the speed at which dominant worldviews enter into a dialectic with countercultures also increases. Ultimately, Kelly proposes that the end of the spiral is an indication that humanity is reaching an event horizon. According to this view, paradigm shifts are occurring in a cyclical manner. However, the cyclical pattern has an end, implying that history has a goal.
Cosmologist, Brian Swimme, provides another perspective of our historical unfolding. Swimme takes a radically different approach when describing the process of history, in which the origin does not begin from the inception of homo sapiens, but rather from the origin of the universe: the Big Bang. Although Swimme comes from a scientific background, he holds a more poetic stance on the nature of the universe, as he writes:
“The great discovery of contemporary science is that the universe is not simply a place, but a story - a story in which we are immersed, to which we belong, and out of which we arose. This story has the power to awaken us more deeply to who we are. For just as the Milky Way is the universe in the form of a galaxy, and an orchid is the universe in the form of a flower, we are the universe in the form of a human. And every time we are drawn to look up into the night sky and reflect on the awesome beauty of the universe, we are actually the universe reflecting on itself (Swimme & Tucker, 2011).”
By focusing on the power of narrative, Swimme provides a view of paradigm shifts from the perspective of story-telling. According to him, we are entering into a third story. The first story is that of classical religion, in which the element of salvation was glorified through escape and transcendence. The second story was about the betterment of humanity, through science, technology, and capitalism. The third story, the one we’re beginning to tell, is the story of the universe reflecting on itself for the first time; with the ultimate hope of moving humanity into the ecozoic era, in which humans will be able to live in a mutually enhancing relationship with the Earth community (Berry, 1999).
There are various ways in which one can view the evolutionary unfolding of history. These different metaphors for the occurence of paradigm shifts allow for a diverse understanding of our role in this vast cosmos. On a macro scale, the pendulum, spiral, and story metaphor shows us that there is a dynamic interplay occurring at all levels of history. The pendulum obeys the force of gravity, but is in constant resistance to friction; the spiral embraces the cyclical nature of life, while also recognizing the linearity that dominates our perception; and the story gives rise to the notion of cosmogenesis and creativity, which irresistibly enters into a passionate relationship with destruction. Thus, these dynamic interplays shed light on the paradoxical nature that embodies our universe. As we dive into the realm of specific worldviews, the paradox latches on, and begins to fractalize itself within each paradigm. So, what is the next worldview we will take on, and what kinds of paradoxes are going to emerge from it?
Many thinkers have suggested possible adaptations to our forthcoming worldview, such as: systems thinking, integral ecology, archetypal cosmology, and more. Fortunately, all these approaches are pushing humanity into a more participatory relationship with our planet and cosmos. While the participatory element is extremely crucial for us to reverse the effects of the climate crisis, I believe it may also be of tremendous value to first have a grasp on the role that paradoxes play as we enter into this new and important period of evolutionary history.
On a cosmological level, there is one major paradox that our consciousness is currently facing: quantum gravity. Between 1907 and 1915, Albert Einstein developed the Theory of General Relativity, in which he overthrows the Newtonian concept of space as an invisible backdrop for all matter, and gravity as an independent force between two objects. General relativity shows us that matter (or energy) bends space, which then alters the path of objects. Thus, Einstein’s vision encompasses a distortion of space, rather than a force of gravity (Cham & Whiteson, 2017). Despite a major perceptual shift in our understanding of the fabric of the cosmos, one philosophical element remained unchanged from the Newtonian paradigm in Einstein’s equations: determinism. With precise calculations of space’s geometry and its rate of change in the present, scientists can theoretically predict exactly how space-time will evolve, and what the future will consist of (Cartlidge, 2018).
Inevitably, an opposing force enters into this grand vision: quantum mechanics and randomness. The world of quanta brings probability right into the center of reality. The discovery of indeterminacy in quantum mechanics has shown us that chance operates at the atomic level. Einstein’s vision allows for the prediction of the future with exactitude; however, quantum mechanics only allows us to calculate the probability of an event. Poetic physicist, Carlo Rovelli elaborates on this idea further:
“The world is a sequence of granular quantum events. These are discrete, granular, and individual; they are individual interactions of one physical system with another. An electron, a quantum of a field, a photon, does not follow a trajectory in space but appears in a given place and at a given time when colliding with something else. When and where will they appear? There is no way of knowing with certainty [...] Due to this indeterminacy, in the world described by quantum mechanics, things are constantly subject to random change. All the variables “fluctuate” continually, as if, at the smallest scale, everything was constantly vibrating. We do not see these omnipresent fluctuations only because of their small scale; they cannot be observed at a large scale, as when we observe macroscopic bodies. If we look at a stone, it stays still. But if we could see its atoms, we would observe them to be always now here and now there, in ceaseless vibration. Quantum mechanics reveals to us that the more we look at the detail of the world, the less constant it is. The world is not made up of tiny pebbles. It is a world of vibrations, a continuous fluctuation, a microscopic swarming of fleeting microevents (Rovelli, 2014).”
Independently, relativity theory and quantum mechanics have both been experimentally validated. However, they also contradict each other. Therefore, physicists are frantically trying to unify both aspects of reality into a Theory of Everything. This paradox is so clear on a macroscopic scale; and as we zoom in further, to the level of our solar system, we begin to witness the fractalization of this very paradox - between determinism and free will.
Cultural historian, Richard Tarnas, has brought new credibility to some of the basic ideas behind the ancient practice of astrology. Through a historical and cultural analysis of the Western world, he validates that there is a cosmically based connection between the ten planets in our solar system and human existence. By mapping out the planetary movements along with human history, Tarnas has shown that archetypal forces have a meaningful correspondence to the events that unfold on Earth, naming it: archetypal cosmology/astrology. With a heavy influence from the field of depth-psychology, archetypal astrology, “is a continuously ongoing, universally visible form of synchronicity, what Jung describes as a meaningful coincidence between an inner and outer event (Tarnas, 2012).” While many ancient cultures have relied on astrology to reveal an individual’s destined fate, archetypal astrology differentiates itself by emphasizing on the participatory dimension and its ability to liberate one from a deterministic reality. On the topic of free will and determinism, Tarnas writes:
“In this view, knowing the basic archetypal dynamics and patterns of meaning in one’s birth chart allows one to bring greater awareness to the task of fulfilling one’s authentic nature and intrinsic potential, as in Jung’s concept of individuation. The more accurately one understands the archetypal forces that inform and affect one’s life, the more flexibly and intelligently responsive one can be in dealing with them. To the extent that one is unconscious of these potent and sometimes highly problematic forces, one is more or less a pawn of the archetypes, acting according to unconscious motivations with little possibility of being a co-creative participant in the unfolding and refining of those potentials. Archetypal awareness brings greater self-awareness and thus greater personal autonomy (Tarnas, 2006).”
While personal freedom is given significant authority in this arena, I believe there is an obvious relationship at play between determinism and free will within the paradigm of archetypal cosmology. Firstly, the manner in which the planets are aligning themselves is always determined; and although the archetypes can manifest themselves in a multivalent and multidimensional way, to some extent, one can easily project a particular valence and dimension of the alignments onto reality. Simultaneously, the concept of archetypal awareness can also shed a light on the nature of randomness. Bringing quantum mechanics into this realm, we may begin to investigate the possibility of the observer altering the trajectory of the very object that the observer is observing (Cham & Whiteson, 2017). Therefore, the very notion of humanity becoming aware of the planetary correlations to human affairs on Earth, can alter the manner in which the archetypes manifest themselves.
The multivalent and multidimensional nature of archetypes also unveils another paradox within the archetypal cosmology worldview: positive and negative. While there is no hierarchical structure among the planets, each archetype can manifest in two major ways. To provide a specific example, Tarnas elaborates on the archetypal nature of planet Neptune:
“Yet, like every other planetary archetype, Neptune has opposite sides, light and shadow. For it can both illuminate one with the highest spiritual truths that transcend the everyday world, and yet also lead one into escapist fantasy, illusion, and deception. Neptune represents Nirvana, the supreme state of mystical bliss where all the divisions and structures of this world are transcended; yet it also represents Maya, the divine play which produces the many illusions of reality that enchant consciousness. Neptune relates to both madness and mysticism, and the line is often hard to draw (Tarnas, 2006).”
The light and shadow aspects are just two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, there is no real possibility of separating the contradictory aspects; and therein lies the reason for a participatory relationship to the planets. “Because each individual archetype can manifest in a spectrum from noble to shadow qualities, one can spiritually evolve toward the fullest potential of one’s life by striving towards the most noble qualities of the archetypal complexes (Tarnas, 2012).”
To take a deeper look, let’s examine two historical figures: the natal chart of Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, shows that he was born with a Saturn-Pluto square. On the other hand, Karl Marx, a proponent of communism, was born with a Uranus-Pluto square. According to Tarnas, “the Saturn-Pluto cycle coincided with especially challenging historical periods marked by a pervasive quality of intense contraction: eras of international crisis and conflict, empowerment of reactionary forces and totalitarian impulses, organized violence and oppression, all sometimes marked by lasting traumatic effects.” The Uranus-Pluto alignments had a dramatically different effect: “(these) periods consistently coincided with widespread revolutionary upheaval, intensified emancipatory impulses, and radical cultural innovation (Tarnas, 2006).” These distinct characteristics of the two different alignments are evident in the works of Smith and Marx. Within the realm of Saturn-Pluto, Smith put forth the concept of division of labour, which heavily emphasized on the ideas of rational self-interest and competition. However, Marx, who embodied the Uranus-Pluto aspect, criticized capitalism. Instead, he tried to create a revolution around class struggle, by helping to liberate people from a system that was thriving on inequality.
However, Marx was also born with a Saturn-Pluto conjunction. On Marx’s natal chart, Tarnas writes: “it is remarkable that Karl Marx himself was born with Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto all in hard aspect. This three-way archetypal complex can be seen in the marked tension and often unconscious compromised formations in Marx’s personality and thought between the rebellious, innovative, emancipatory impulse of Uranus with the Saturnian principle of control, rigidity, structure, repression, and authority - with the two principles merging in self-contradictory and problematic ways, and with both compelled and empowered with Plutonic titanic intensity (Tarnas, 2006).” Thus, although Marx was extremely critical of capitalism, it’s also evident that he saw a noble side to capitalism, and accepting the contradictory nature of the entire system.
So as we zoom in even further, from the level of the solar system to the microscopic dimension of our planet, we begin to recognize the inherent paradoxes that also manifest within our economic world. In a recent interview, David Harvey, a Marxist economist said:
“Marx is not simply a critic of capitalism, he’s also a fan of some of the things that capitalism builds. That’s the biggest contradiction of all for Marx. Capital has built the capacity, technologically and organizationally, to create a far better world. But it does so through social relations of domination rather than emancipation. That is the central contradiction. And Marx keeps saying, “Why don’t we use all of this technological and organizational capacity to create a world which is liberatory, rather than one which is about domination?” (Denvir & Harvey, 2018).”
With the climate crisis accelerating towards extinction, the economic system has been under major scrutiny in the current state of world affairs. A capitalistic society or an anti-capitalistic society?; a for-profit model or a non-profit model?; the debates are never-ending. However, if we recognize the power of paradoxes to transform potentiality into actuality, then maybe there is no need to debate over which system or model we should subscribe to. Rather, a hybrid manifestation of the two modes can provide an unimagined economic reality that many of us are longing for.
Ultimately, if the planets in our solar system are corresponding to the unfolding of events on Earth, and the fundamental theories of the universe are affecting the way in which our solar system operates, then it is quite evident that the entire cosmos also resides within our psyches. For instance, a single neutron, without colliding into a proton can disintegrate within minutes. However, when a neutron does collide with a proton, the bond between the two lasts for a billion years (Swimme & Tucker, 2011). If we were to superimpose this cosmological habit onto our socio-economic reality, then we might begin to witness a dramatic shift with our relationship to planet Earth. One type of economic system that doesn’t clash with another type, will inevitably demolish itself. However, if the distinct economic systems were to form a relationship and bond, it could create a long-lasting and sustainable system. What might initially seem paradoxical or contradictory to us, may actually be the very essence of life itself.
Paradoxes are an indication that there’s a constant dialectic occurring throughout history. Georg Hegel, the originator of the concept of the dialectic, philosophized that all of history unfolds within a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The thesis is synonymous with “being,” the antithesis with “not-being,” and the synthesis with “becoming.” Hegel was trying to show that two contradictory aspects were just part of a single higher concept:
“The concept of “becoming” is not introduced from “outside”, as it were to resolve the contradiction between “being” and “not-being.” On the contrary, Hegel’s analysis shows that “becoming” was always the meaning of “being” and “not-being”, and that all we had to do was analyze these concepts to see their underlying logic. This resolution of a thesis (being) with its antithesis (not-being) in a synthesis (becoming) is just the beginning of the dialectical process, which goes on to repeat itself at a higher level (Buckingham et al., 2011).”
Hegel’s notion of the dialectic also carries with it, a cosmological principle: interaction and dependent co-arising. On this fundamental nature of reality, Rovelli writes:
“Thinking of the world as a collection of events, of processes, is the way that allows us to better grasp, comprehend, and describe it. It is the only way that is compatible with relativity. The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events. The difference between things and events is that things persist in time; events have a limited duration. A stone is a prototypical “thing”: we can ask ourselves where it will be tomorrow. Conversely, a kiss is an “event”. It makes no sense to ask where the kiss will be tomorrow. The world is made up of a network of kisses, not stones (Rovelli, 2018). ”
Therefore, paradox, being a process of reality, can in no way be removed from any system or thought. Furthermore, while it may feel intuitive to believe that a system or a process has a goal - such as in Hegel’s case, where his philosophy puts forth the notion of “Absolute Spirit”, I speculate that this may not be the case.
Returning to the cosmological realm, we may begin to understand why: the universe began entirely in a plasmic state, with no real structure in the cosmos. However, over time, as quanta collided, the hydrogen and helium atoms were born, and they gave birth to other structures, such as carbon. There will never be another moment in our universe where plasma itself will dominate. Although the plasmic era came to an end, it’s essence resides within the hydrogen and helium atoms, and so forth. Ultimately, the universe is committed to destroying itself in order to give birth to something new (Swimme & Tucker, 2011). Yet again, this paradoxical nature between creativity and destruction emerges. To this point, I would argue that history has a goal and no goal at the same time. Similarly, it has an absolute and a relative spirit. Although humanity might come to an end, our destruction will aid in creation, and our essence will reside in whatever comes next.
Furthermore, in regards to the purpose of history, the world of theoretical physics also provides a hint towards the paradoxical nature of it all. The equations for general relativity predicts the idea of a singularity inside a blackhole; however, quantum mechanics theorizes that, “it’s impossible to isolate anything exactly to a single point (like a singularity) because there is always some uncertainty (Cham & Whiteson, 2017).” Undeniably, this form of uncertainty is in direct correlation to the mysterious nature of our cosmos and psyche. Returning to the last sentence in Kirkegaard’s quote: “This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think” embodies the very essence of mystery. So, as humanity moves into the next phase of evolutionary history, one of our challenges will be to overcome the limits of thought, as thought seems to be dominated by the realm of language. The logocentric aspiration towards “truth”, puts us in a constant battle between the known and the unknown. This is where the power of transdisciplinary research will come in handy; by integrating, cross-fertilizing, and empathizing with different types of knowledge, we will begin to live the paradox, rather than fight it. By living at the intersection of certainty and uncertainty, one can also begin to utilize the power of the paradox to make lasting and creative change. Regardless of whether human history will come to an “end”, the manner in which one approaches life is going to clearly affect the next phase of cosmological evolution. Ultimately, to embrace the paradox is to cultivate the relational nature of life, and to be in relationship is to embrace change, and to embody change is to manifest freedom. As Dogen said: “To study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.”
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