One of the participants in the online group mentioned reasoning from first principles the other day. Reflecting on this today I began to see more deeply into the wisdom of this approach. Essentially this ties in with developing an objective cosmology. But whereas a focus on cosmology has more to do with understanding how the world is structured, the focus on first principles is more focused on the laws that govern how things happen.
For the last couple of days I’ve been researching the link between reasoning and conscience. Through a Wikipedia article I was led to a source that I’ve never used before, namely the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Contained in that document is the following:
“Conscience is a judgment of reason whereby the human person recognizes the moral quality of a concrete act that he is going to perform, is in the process of performing, or has already completed.”
I just happened on this section from page 188 of Beelzebub’s Tales.
“Soon after we were on ‘good terms’ with each other, I discovered that in the Being of this priest Abdil—owing to very many external circumstances, among which were also heredity and the conditions under which he had been prepared for a responsible being—the function called ’conscience’ which ought to be present in every three centered being, had not yet been quite atrophied in him, so that after he had cognized with his Reason certain cosmic truths I had explained to him, he immediately acquired in his presence towards the beings around him, similar to him, almost that attitude which should be in all normal three-brained beings of the whole Universe, that is to say, he became, as it is also said there, ‘compassionate,’ and ‘sensitive’ towards the beings surrounding him. -- (emphasis added)
One of the participants in the online group posted an observation today that included a comment about the help he received from his wife and what a great partner she was. Reflecting on his post I suddenly saw that reasoning in the arena of creative action, like who our partner should be, is probably not wise, at least in the beginning. Even with our best insight and methods of evaluation it does seem to me that we would come up short trying to reason this through on the front end. Too much is hidden, even with our best efforts at seeing.
For the last three weeks we’ve looked at reasoning, Objective Reason, and the reasoning process from a number of different perspectives. We’ve had input from Gurdjieff, Wikipedia, Bennett … and yours truly, among others. But are we any closer to really getting a handle on reasoning?
At this point, we can make a few statements about reasoning that appear to have some validity...
As we said yesterday, Gurdjieff mentions objective Reason 30 times in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. Here are a few more of Beelzebub’s guiding words of wisdom.
Page 366: Organization by Ashiata Sheimash:
“I must remark by the way, that both of these two terrestrial genuine initiates of that time had already by then ’coated’ in their common presences their higher being-parts to the gradation called ‘completion’ and hence they had time during their further existence to perfect these higher parts of theirs to the required gradation of Sacred Objective Reason, and now their perfected higher being-parts have even ‘become worthy’ to have and already now have the place of their further existence on the holy planet Purgatory.
Gurdjieff mentions objective reason 30 times in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. Here are a few of those references, along with some commentary.
Page 87: Why Men Are Not Men:
“And of course there began gradually to be crystallized in the three-brained beings there the corresponding data for the acquisition of objective Reason.
One way of describing the aim of our focus on the process of reasoning is to “gradually crystallize corresponding data for the acquisition of objective Reason.” Each act of reasoning we do, however small, should generate exactly that kind of data. More than that, it will improve the reasoning process itself.
In the online group today we each gave our own understanding of the reasoning process. One person started with a question, another with “first principles”, and another through feeling. However, one of our online participants said he often started with ‘curiosity’, and this curiosity was located in the emotional center.
I found this approach to be quite interesting, especially since I’m quite sure that I would never have come up with this idea myself. Curiosity also seems to have an odd if not unique characteristic of not being ‘goal oriented’. Most reasoning processes seem to come out of needing to solve a problem, deal with a situation, arrive at some known destination, or achieve some aim. Curiosity is largely an end in itself.
I was struck by something from our reading the other day where Bennett responds to a question about patterns, because it calls into question some of the things that I have been saying about when and where we can use this process of reasoning. Here is the exchange:
Student: How do you know when a pattern is emerging, whether it is right to let it happen or try and change it? I really get lost in this.
JG Bennett: You know according to your own state. If you are in a subjective state you cannot have reliable indications because your state will perhaps even make you see white as black and black as white.
Therefore, when it appears that something is revealing itself, it is really important to set about getting oneself as completely as possible into an objective state. If you really wish to be able to make an impartial judgment about whether something is right or not, you must be prepared to devote a certain amount of time to it. It may take you an hour. You have to put the whole thing out of your mind and concern yourself only with your own state. Supposing I had to do that, I would go and make my ablutions, sit down and do an exercise. I would certainly find that I would be tending to think about the particular thing, but I would go on until I realized that I am calmed down and no longer thinking about it. Then I would start the exercise or do a zikr.* When I know that I am free from subjective feelings, it usually happens that the whole thing shows itself quite clearly. I need not worry about self-will. One must not expect to be in the right place just because one wants to be; it does not come in that way. One has to be ready. People who work a great deal and regularly on themselves still need to prepare themselves to get into an objective state when they wish to make an impartial judgment.
