conceptual inquiry regarding meaning » concrete conditions » transcendence
The formal indication underlying this node combines psychological and physiological conditions, where psychological and physiological are analogous to self and world, respectively. This node represents experiencing the nonduality of the psychological and physiological—the nonduality of self and world. The apparent duality is transcended. So, the F-node addresses the conditions for experiencing this transcendence.
When the L-phase is interpreted formally, its nodes are as pie pieces—each its own color in a color wheel. The F node's color is magenta, combining the blue of psychological/self with the red of physiological/world. Yet the electromagnetic spectrum isn't a wheel; it's a continuum, where colors higher in frequency than blues and lower in frequency than reds are invisible to the human eye. Magenta is thus a place-holder for the point at which the two ends of the visible spectrum are looped back around to meet. But since the frequencies can't align at these ends, the color wheel spectrum loop is really a spiral as viewed from above, and magenta marks the point at which the loop breaks. If this were music, it'd be the octave. The F-node represents a shift from one level to another. The self of one level combines with the world of another level. If self is to part as world is to whole, when a self aligns harmoniously with all other parts in a world, in some sense, that self becomes that world, and that world it's become is but one part of a larger world.
Generally, transcendence occurs as all parts in a domain are integrated into a simple whole that is itself a part in a "higher" domain previously unacknowledged. Concretely, this could mean something as basic as increasing one's standard of living, advancing in one's level of fitness, or mastering the play of one's musical instrument at another skill level. In each case, a new world is opened up to the individual. But it can also mean a shift in what one values and considers valuable. It could mean that a child has advanced another level in psychological development and so has become capable of participating in a wider world. And perhaps adults can do the same, advancing from an egocentric worldview to an ethnocentric, anthropocentric, geo/Gaia-centric, or even a cosmocentric worldview. A religious experience, for example, might offer a profound glipse at a cosmocentric worldview even when the individual experiencing that glimpse is not well prepared for it. It can be horrific or beautiful beyond comprehension.
The F-node combines the S and X nodes from the A-phase, addressing authenticity and culture, respectively. The F-node also takes the color (magenta) of skillful knowledge achieved in the flow state of active intelligibility (N in O). In both these cases (in A and O), an individual as agent is seamlessly caught up in active engagement with her world as an arena of signficance. The boundary between self and world dissolves. The authentic agent has found a way to make her own, unique contribution to her wider world—her cultural arena—and does so with perfect skill, thus making that wider world her own.
