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11_05_27

Simple observation of superstructures

I need to write about some important ideas, one of which is the progressive realization I've been having through the years on the necessity of over-thinking things. A good visualization of this is the classical intelligence problem of having 9 dots and 4 lines to draw through all dots, called Thinking Outside the Box by Wikipedia. Another example that I prefer is simply found at any construction site: one can see the building being built, at least the skeleton of its structure, and more importantly the super-structure of the workers' crew around the contained in-progress new building. It's the civil engineered arrangement of ladders, cranes, containers, the whats-the-name-of-it elevated cubes that wrap the structure and transports workers and equipment to nourish the structure. That's what I mean by the necessity of over-thinking, because there is a natural tendency to disregard super-structures, when one learns something, or thinks about an issue, or tries to connect dots of any kind. About connecting dots, one can discover the nature of the mind's associative nature without looking into neurology, in other words one can recognize the need for linking elements of knowledge in order to master them (e.g. teaching a language by starting with words similar to the language familiar to students), and the inadequacy of a disparate sets of isolated elements (e.g. teaching history as a random series of dates and facts), by simply reflecting on oneself's experience. Super-structures are the places connecting the dots, whether creating them (civil engineering) or displaying them (a good teacher), they are the matrices of the Work, the hidden factor in the symbiosis creator/created, a goal of philosophy, an unattainable goal of metaphysics, the Graal and Black Matter of the Mind.

1 comment:

linda schumacher said...

i love this post b/c it touches on ideas i think about a lot, but with a totally different metaphor - the super structure. lately, i've been thinking a lot about the interconnectedness of all things. i'm obsessed with trying to really see and understand the actual "links" between things - and in the case of your post, what you are referring to as the superstructure. in "spiritual" terms we are asked to understand "everything as one." we are told (through eastern thought) that our suffering arises from thinking that we are somehow separate from other things when, in fact, we are the same. to me this line of thinking is connected to what you discuss in your post - or at least that is the lens i read your post through. but that may just be because that is my lens right now. also interesting, that yesterday i took documentation of the clearing of a large ground mass where i believe they will be putting in a new building. i took video and photographs with the plan of making a short video about it and to follow the development of the structure over time. when i'm done editing the first piece, i'll let you know. thanks for your post. (and also, i responded to your latest comment on my post, too.)