RELATIONAL SYSTEMS: Re-View {Re:SYN1-RS Fdns}

NOTIONAL FOUNDATIONS

(See also the posts on "Re-Cognizing Relation"

and "Relational Systems: Prolegomenon")
Personal Experience is the Existence of Relational System,

which, By Presumption,

is the Essence of Existence (Nonexistence) beyond the Personal.

It is a matter of record that throughout history human-expressed Relational Systems (RS) are largely in and of a single explicit form, namely the Interrelation of Systems (SS). Recognizing that this form is incomplete, we have introduced the general presumption of the existence of four relational forms: The Interrelation of Systems (SS), the Interrelation of Systems and Relations (SR), the Interrelation of Relations (RR), and R(S)–NESS.

Logically, these four forms exhaust the number of possible categories

which can be obtained by combining

Systems and Relations through Relations.

The second two of these forms have no generally referenced explicit historical precedent and it is our creation and actualization of these forms which is the unique and radical departure point for a Relational (R)Evolution. Hence, Relational Systems is founded mainly on the experiential recognition of the essentiality of Relation, especially the Interrelation of Relations, a thesis which is in direct contrast to the historical and current emphasis on System, particularly on things and thingness.

Specific Notional Presumptions

of Subsumption
[or Distinction as per George Spencer-Brown ]
and Image[or Sign as per Charles Sanders Peirce]

NOTES ON SELF-RELATION

Invoking the notion of the presupposed existence of distinction (d), SdS' or RdR' (i.e. S or R "themselves" are distinguised from other S=S' or R=R'), re-forms the Relational Systems Forms of SS, SR and RR specifically as SRS', SRR' and RR''R'.
Apparent Self-Relation

With the concepts of "self" and "other" being mutually implied, the forms of apparent self-relation, SRS or RR''R, are implicitly (i.e. subsumed by) re-formed as SRS' or RR''R' whenever a Relational System is subjected to distinction.

When an "other" implied by a given "self" is non-obvious, it has become common to refer to the subject R's in S's as "self-relations" or the S's as "self-relational systems". In the extreme of non-identification of "other", the circumstance is "false paradox", the appearance of which is an indicator of unresolved distinction. This situation is generally categorized as "self-reference".

In the more ordinary case of a Relational Net(work) with feedback or recursive relations, it is usual to view an "other" as a "changed self" and hence, within a fuzzy category of "apparent self-relation", to again refer to the specific RS as a "self-relational system". This case has numerous instances of seemingly disparate meaning, e.g. self-genesis, self-organization, self-reproduction, self-maintenance, self-enclosing, self-reconstituting, self-assembly, self-replicating, self-modification, self-optimization, self-becoming, self-containing, self-complexification, etc.

ON APPARENT SELF-RELATION vs. R(S)-NESS

The "authentic paradoxes" of Relation emerge in the attempts to reconcile R(S)-ness relative to experience in-and-of the SS, SR, and RR forms which suggests (subsumes) a reconciliation based on the realization that a System-as-WHOLE is No-Thing and must be explicated (through distinctions) in the RR form for minimizing paradox. Hence R(S)-ness as Self-Relation is RS-as-Undistinguished Whole and is paradox generative in signing experience with diminishing effect ranging from SS through SR to RR forms. RS-as-Undistinguished Whole is the prime basis for signalling, in SS, SR, and RR forms (of distinction), habits of belief regarding this Whole which when anthropomorphized become the "first cause" (Apparent Self-Relational) argument of theistic religions.

RE-COGNIZING RELATION {Re:SYN1}

WHAT ARE THE TWO

FOUNDATIONAL NOTIONS

OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE?

(SYSTEM and RELATION)

A Person’s Experiences, ranging from common sense to the highly abstact, are all fundamentally either of "things" (Systems) or "connections" (Relations). The expression (Communication) of the Experience rests in-and-on Signs (for Systems or Relations), signs being acknowledgeably also the Essence of Mind (recognizing the carrier role of the brain). However, Human history records that Relations are almost universally confined to being Relations among Systems.

[PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IS THE EXISTENCE OF
RELATION(AL) SYSTEM (R(S))
BY PRESUMPTION, R(S) IS THE ESSENCE
OF EXISTENCE (NON-EXISTENCE) OTHER THAN PERSONAL]

Consider, however, a WHAT IF?

One of the most dramatic (seems magical if unexplained) simple demonstrations is that of of the visual blind spot. This blind spot is the area on the retina without receptors that respond to light. Therefore an image that falls on this region will NOT be seen. It is in this region that the optic nerve exits the eye on its way to the brain. To experience your blind spot, look at the image below. Close your right eye. Position the image about 20 inches away. With your left eye, look at the X. Slowly bring the image (or move your head) closer while looking at the X. At a certain distance, the O will disappear from sight...this is when the O falls on the blind spot of your retina. Reverse the process. Close your left eye and look at the O with your right eye. Move the image slowly closer to you and the X should disappear

o-----------------------------------------------x

By analogy to the visual blind spot, which is a Perceptual Mind/Brain processing phenomena, WHAT IF there were a sign void in Cognitive Mind/Brain functioning, i.e. a cognitive blind spot with respect to the nature of "Relation"? The answer to this query is the ground for our Applied Philosophical Hypothesis regarding the four possible forms of Relation which is the foundations focus of RELATIONISM. In contrast the Human record has historically nearly exclusively exhibited only one form of Relation, i.e. the Relations among Sytems(things).

[See also the Post dated Monday, March 5, 2007 entitled

RELATIONAL SYSTEMS:Prolegomenon {Re:SYN1-RS Fdns}]