Intuitive, Counter-Intuitive and again the Intuitive Environment
All value systems are contained within an environment.
And all environments are invisible.
However over the last 200,000 years we have been contained within three environments.
An intuitive environment, then a counter-intuitive environment and once again we are moving into an intuitive environment.
In fact this environment we are in right now, the internet or the noosphere, is an intuitive environment.
For instance, over most of the last 200,000 years we have leant to speak our language at home intuitively.
But not so long ago the printing press gave rise to the dream of universal literacy.
And almost no one learns to read and write intuitively at home rather the State provides Free, Compulsory and Secular Education.
We are compelled by State law to leave our homes and go to special institutions with specially trained staff to learn to read and write.
So we are compelled to learn to read and write counter-intuitively. But most importantly we learn to think counter-intuitively. And very soon we take this for granted and so we have the invisible, counter-intuitive environment.
And the counter-intuitive environment has given rise to science, modern democracy and modern economics.
Almost all of science is counter-intuitive. For instance we know intuitively that the sun goes round the earth but science tells us counter-intuitively that the earth goes round the sun.
For the best part of 200,000 years we could see that the sun went round the earth - we only had to look - it was intuitive.
And modern democracy is counter-intuitive because the defining trait of modern democracy is the limitation of power (see the Constitution), while the intuitive aim of any politician is to maximise their power.
And modern economics is counter-intuitive as who would have guessed, before Adam Smith, that private greed creates public prosperity.
And of course Biology and Physics are counter-intuitive like most of modern life, even some of modern art is counter-intuitive.
In short, modern life is based on literacy and the counter-intuitive environment it creates.
But something is afoot, at home we learn to use the telephone, the television and now the internet intuitively. We are no longer compelled by the State to leave our intuitive homes and go to a special institution to learn how to use the telephone or the television or the internet.
So once again we are returning to an intuitive environment like the one we are in right now.
And naturally you object and say, but look, we are writing, but I, for instance, am moving away from writing. I have joined
www.seesmic.com and I am having conversations in video - there is no need for me to write anymore.
So for most of the last 200,000 years we have lived in an intuitive environment and over about the last 200 years we have lived in a counter-intuitive environment and now, just now, we are moving into an intuitive environment once again.
And because we are half way between a counter-intuitive environment and the new intuitive environment, we quite naturally can't make up our minds. And it is this uncertainty that gives rise to Relativism - after all, things look relative.
And they only look relative because our environment is changing.
But as you know, all environments are invisible and now our present enviroment is becoming visible - so what will be our new invisible environment - I don't know.
But my guess is Presence.
Victor.