L1

conceptual inquiry regarding meaning » concrete conditions

 
Under L (conditions), the question of the meaning of experience as such is interpreted in terms of the plurality of conditions that give rise to actual experiences. Recalling that this Project's terms are formal indications that point to actual experiences, the L-phase addresses the concrete constraints that make possible the actual experiences. Again, while the forms of our terms are determined both as abstracted (vertically) from actual experience and as (horizontally) related to other forms in theories, the plurality of constraints making possible actual experiences are themselves determined with respect to each other (horizontally) even as they can be discussed abstractly (as abstracted vertically). But whereas the terms' forms self-negate (self-cancel to zero, like the snake that has swallowed its own tale), the conditions/constraints of the L-phase ultimately fuse into a continuum—call it the materio-causal universe—that has no graspable essence. We can describe this continuity indirectly according to its behavior and relative properties, but we can never say what it is. To want to say what it is is to confuse it with something ideal/essentially graspable. Again, if the I-phase is paradigmatically concerned with outlining self-cancelling ideal conditions of possibility—that is, forms—the L-phase is paradigmatically concerned with outlining concrete conditions of possibility that together fuse into an ultimately ungraspable ground. It's between these unintelligible extremes that intelligibility occurs.

The conditions addressed by this phase are ultimately rooted in what we call the natural world, and so the primary mode of investigation employed here shall be the method of science. If experience is a function of the way self and world dynamically interrelate, we have to understand that the ways in which self and world interrelate are finite. The conditions of finitude are those studied by science. Science explores all the subtle ways we bump up against reality, mapping the contours of these conditions. Abstracting from these conditions a way of speaking about them, we can identify three primary types—namely psychological, sociological, and physiological. These three plus their combinations formally produce the six L-phase nodes. (Also note that the most natural way to read the nodes listed under L is from the bottom up, beginning with D.)

The L-phase is this Project's bottom line. It's what keeps the Project anchored to concrete reality. The concrete conditions of our lives are what we bump up against (literally and figuratively)—where our ideas, feelings, and behaviors are fully cashed in on experience. Concrete conditions constrain experience, giving it definite shape, and without these conditioning constraints, no experience would be possible.

Like all areas of this Project, individuals are in dialogue with this phase. We participate with the conditions of our lives. We don't strictly determine the conditions, but neither do the conditions strictly determine our experience. More accurate is an account by which experience unfolds as a function of one's relationship with one's conditions. True, at some point there will be non-negotiable constraints—we simply need to breathe and eat, for example—but to a great extent we can set up for ourselves the conditions which in turn condition what we experience. Again, they don't strictly determine the character of our experience, but shape it. And employing the methods of science will be the best way to engage in dialogue with our conditions, for science gives us the ability to alter the conditions which shape our experience.

Regarding how the L-nodes relate to each other, just like with the other phases, the nodes here will overlap to a great extent. Experience is simultaneously conditioned by all the conditions listed in the nodes under the L-phase. For example, when considering how one's embodiment conditions one's life, we have to take into consideration the body itself (D-node) as well as the way it's perceived by others, where others' perceptions might cause them to include or exclude us from security opportunities (G-node), sharing opportunities (C-node), and recgonitional opportunities (E-node). One's degree of freedom and self-determination (B-node) might thus be affected, and so on.

Another key feature of the L-phase is its progressive nature. There are levels to conditions. The six nodes under L can be thought of as six formal parts of one level of analysis (as six pieces in one pie) or six stages in one cycle of progression. The levels themselves can be variously characterized, from immediate to remote (as in concentric circles, each broader in scope), simple to complex, particular to universal, least to most integrated, narrowest to broadest perspective, shortest to longest timespan, and so on. The levels can consist of the conditions of an individual's psyche, as can most easily be seen, perhaps, in models identifying the stages of moral development in children; they can consist of the conditions of human development overall, from tribal identities to modern liberalism to integrative cosmopolitanism (retaining small-group affiliations even while recognizing universal values and integrating both); they can be hierarchical in nature, as in Maslow's hierarchy of needs (so long as by hierarchy we understand this to mean growth/developmental hierarchy and NOT dominance hierarchy); and so on. Finally, keeping with the fractal nature of this Project's logic overall, there are levels within levels, ad infinitum.

However the levels are characterized, their basic pattern applies across the Project's other phases and nodes. For example, we might apply the concentric circles model of levels to the J-node regarding the self and conclude that "I" am many things: a person, a member of a family, a member of a community, a citizen, a human, an earthling, etc. Similarly, we can imagine a child (or adult) progressing through the stages of moral development answering the R-node question regarding personal values in different ways depending on his or her level of psychological development, and so on.

Possible further correspondences under L, for example:

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