metapunk

What is it?  The short answer is: taking a wide view of human experience. Holodoxy is Greek for “whole thinking,” a name intended to contrast with various concepts of orthodoxy (“straight thinking”). Where orthodoxies represent traditional, hierarchically organized dogmas, both religious and secular; holodoxy is heterarchical (distributed, democratic) and fluid. Holodoxy means a global perspective, but one rooted in individual experience. Whether or not it achieves this I will leave to you to decide.

In any case, giving your philosophy a fancy Greek name is a little pretentious, so I often just call it the wide view; or more accurately “a” wide view—one of many possible wide views.

So what is this wide view?

Well, it breaks down into three major areas: thoughts on the nature of reality (metaphysics), thoughts on the nature of the mind and meaning (epistemology), and thoughts on living a healthy and good life (ethics). I want to be clear from the start, however, that these are not intended as lectures or sermons. This is me just sharing my thoughts with you in an open-minded way. If you disagree with something I’m saying, feel free to comment. I only ask that you do so in a spirit of mutual respect. Also, bear in mind that these ideas are not intended to be definitive—in fact, holodoxy kind of rejects the notion that any theory can be absolutely definitive. These ideas will expand and evolve as time goes on, and hopefully, as readers offer their input.

Here’s what I have so far:

Reality / Metaphysics

1. Change: The fundamental tenet of holodox metaphysics is that life is change. Whatever else reality might be, it is extremely dynamic. This includes every little movement of the universe, from molecules moving inside apparently solid matter, to the cycles of night and day or the weather. Most importantly it includes the big changes all life endures: birth, growth, aging, and death—and everything else that happens along the way. Things may appear fixed, but they are not. Everything flows.

   This is both good and bad; because it means that intolerable situations will change—but also that every situations we enjoy will eventually go away. That second part is a sticking point, because we don’t want to lose the things we enjoy, and will cling so tenaciously to the idea of preserving what we like, and pushing away what we don’t like. We get into a mental battle with reality that we are guaranteed to lose—because reality is bigger than us, and it will change whether we like it or not.

2. Relation: Not only does reality constantly change, it is also fundamentally relational. No one thing is separate from the rest of creation, but is part of an endless, complex network or field of relationships. Things can only be defined in terms of their relationships to other things. Big things are only big because other things are small. Light only has meaning in contrast to darkness. These might be relationships between objects in space; or they might be relationships of a social or emotional kind. In fact, you could almost say that objects as we tend to think of them don’t really exist at all—because even a solid object, like an apple, is made up of other objects and properties, without end. Everything flows into and out of everything else, and it’s impossible to say absolutely where you end and the universe begins. We only see separate objects as a matter of convenience and convention.  Have a look around you—try to see the spaces between things, instead of the things themselves.

Notes: This is not a metaphysics that tries to explain the movement of particles or the nature of the physical universe as an objective thing. Rather, it is intended to explain the cosmos as it is experienced in day to day life by living beings.

Mind, Meaning, and Knowledge / Epistemology

1. Uncertainty: Because reality is really a set of changing relationships, we really don’t know what will happen from moment to moment.  We are fundamentally uncertain about anything we care about. This causes a great deal of anxiety, and this anxiety motivates people to create truths and then pretend they are solid and immutable facts. Examples include what most people would call religion, obviously, but it also includes a great deal of scientific truth as well. When something happens that challenges someone’s notions of a solid truth, they often suffer, and may bring suffering to people around them as well. In the wide view, the remedy for uncertainty is not to fight against it or deny it, but to accept it. This is nothing more than a healthy dose of skepticism—the recognition that nothing we think we know is actually known for sure, and thus all of our views are subject to revision. Pragmatist philosophers call this fallibilism, but this author also associates it with agnosticism. The truth of uncertainty means knowing that you don’t know.

2. Perspective: Akin to the Jain notion of Anekantavada, this is the idea that all of our beliefs and knowledge depend on our own point of view as individuals. This is not to say that there is no objective truth, it’s just that as limited mortal beings, we are confined to our own opinions of truth—we can’t know objective truth directly (although we can approach it). Because we all have our own perspective, it is incumbent upon us as individuals to recognize the perspectives of other individuals. We may not agree with them, but in general, we must accept the fact that other people will have different opinions than us. This seems pretty obvious, but one quick glance at any typical Internet forum will quickly prove how difficult it is to embody this concept.

3. Meaning—a recognition of self in the other: Something is meaningful (that is: comprehensible, personally relevant, and emotionally valuable) when a conscious being recognizes some aspect of his/her/its own experience in another conscious agent, or in an external object or situation. A movie is meaningful if it resonates with your life or your beliefs. A written word is meaningful if you recognize the combination of symbols, sounds, and ideas that it represents—things that were already a part of you. We learn only when something we already recognize carries some new element, which becomes the basis for future meaning and learning.

Ethics

1. Relativity: Morality refers to the relation of self and other. A person who ignores the needs, desires, and perspective of others is operating in a moral vacuum.  By denying the relation, a strict individualist (or a moral relativist) who is concerned only with his or her own self, is not a moral agent. A martyr who ignores his own needs is not a moral agent either. Only in recognizing the connection—the relation—of self and other (or self and society) is moral action possible. Moral behaviour comes out of honouring our relationships with other people, and with the Earth and life itself. This is the essence of the ethic of reciprocity, the golden rule.

   If life is uncertain, then we cannot cling to facts. All we can cling to is each other, and make life as pleasant as possible for everyone.

Well, that’s the beginning. The theory is far from complete, but I hope you found it thought provoking.  More to come, in time.