What Is Context? ⚠️

[ExploringReality]

@UnbornTao

What is the substance of context?

[ExploringReality]

What is a part and what is a whole? What is a holarchy?

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, ExploringReality said:

What is a part and what is a whole? What is a holarchy?

A part is a piece, a whole is a container of pieces. A holarchy contains parts and wholes where a whole is also a part and a part is also a whole.

[UnbornTao]

10 hours ago, ExploringReality said:

@UnbornTao

What is the substance of context?

Nothing, perhaps? - as nonsensical as that might sound.

Or space. Although how is it space? Certainly it isn't or doesn't need to be physical space - but there's something there. At the risk of oversimplifying it, the frame of a picture is the space, or the possibility, for "picture" to exist.

You mentioned the context of language, and I think that helps us focus on something a little bit more tangible and less abstract.

Bring up another example of what you mean by whole and by part - if you think of 'whole' as context.

Edited Wednesday at 05:13 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

5 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

A part is a piece, a whole is a container of pieces.

What allows the whole to contain the pieces?

Ok, maybe that's not a good question.

As @ExploringReality said, what is the substance of context?

5 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

A holarchy contains parts and wholes where a whole is also a part and a part is also a whole.

This is mighty abstract. Can you provide examples of holarchy, part, and whole?

[ExploringReality]

@UnbornTao @Carl-Richard

Guys! Let's focus our attention on our immediate present experience as it's happening right now. I'm in a room looking at doors, windows, pictures, lamp, shelves, walls, books, cabinets. Even abstract things like thoughts, colors, sensations and perception. Everyone of these things has an overarching context that holds it in awareness. The mistake is for me to say the ultimate ground or context is the room I'm in, then the city, then the planet, then the solar system. It may be relatively and I play that game. But is the room of my house the context for my present experience? Is it the solar system? A context is a line drawn in consciousness. It's the boundary that creates the illusion of these wiggly lines into a coherent state of consciousness. A context is not anything really. I honestly do not know what a context is. It's like trying to stand on infinity.

What is the substance of a holarchy? Ken wilber expands on these ideas. Check him out. 

Edited Wednesday at 07:20 PM by ExploringReality

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

What allows the whole to contain the pieces?

Ok, maybe that's not a good question.

As @ExploringReality said, what is the substance of context?

It's unclear why it has to be allowed to do something or needs a substance. It's an idea, a form, a structure. That form or structure can be implemented in many different substances. For example, you can have a piece of cake being part of a cake, or you can have a piece of dust being part of the wind.

 

2 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

This is mighty abstract. Can you provide examples of holarchy, part, and whole?

Atoms are part of molecules, molecules are part of cells, cells are part of tissues, tissues are part of organs, organs are part of organisms.

Organism-organs-tissues-cells-molecules-atoms is a holarchy.

(Organism(organs(tissues(cells(molecules(atoms)))))). Every circle is a whole that contains more parts, which contains more wholes, which contains more parts, etc. (you can keep adding more either upwards or downwards, from organism and up or from atoms and down).

Edited Wednesday at 07:43 PM by Carl-Richard

[ExploringReality]

@Carl-Richard

" Since each holon is embraced in a larger holon, holons hold themselves to exist in nested hierarchies or holarchies, such as Atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems." - Ken wilber.

[UnbornTao]

17 hours ago, ExploringReality said:

@UnbornTao @Carl-Richard

Guys! Let's focus our attention on our immediate present experience as it's happening right now. I'm in a room looking at doors, windows, pictures, lamp, shelves, walls, books, cabinets. Even abstract things like thoughts, colors, sensations and perception. Everyone of these things has an overarching context that holds it in awareness. The mistake is for me to say the ultimate ground or context is the room I'm in, then the city, then the planet, then the solar system. It may be relatively and I play that game. But is the room of my house the context for my present experience? Is it the solar system? A context is a line drawn in consciousness. It's the boundary that creates the illusion of these wiggly lines into a coherent state of consciousness. A context is not anything really. I honestly do not know what a context is. It's like trying to stand on infinity.

I'd say the self is the context for your experience. 

Again, language as a context is a useful example for our purposes here.

Consider Helen Keller:

Quote

The next month, Keller made a breakthrough, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Keller recalled the moment:

"I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!"

This makes it real, not just something to intellectualize about - even though it is still quite an abstract matter.

Edited Thursday at 01:10 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

For context:

Quote

context (Merriam-Webster Dictionary):

1. the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning
2. the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs : environment, setting

In its earliest uses (documented in the 15th century), context meant "the weaving together of words in language." This sense, now obsolete, developed logically from the word's source in Latin, contexere "to weave or join together." Context now most commonly refers to the environment or setting in which something (whether words or events) exists. When we say that something is contextualized, we mean that it is placed in an appropriate setting, one in which it may be properly considered.

Cambridge dictionary:

1. the situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it
2. the influences and events related to a particular event or situation

 

17 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's unclear why it has to be allowed to do something or needs a substance. It's an idea, a form, a structure. That form or structure can be implemented in many different substances. For example, you can have a piece of cake being part of a cake, or you can have a piece of dust being part of the wind.

For example, what turns meaningless symbols into language? Symbols could be considered a form or structure, yet on their own, they aren't language. Can language - which is a context - be said to be an idea, a form, or a structure?

To begin with, I'd say there's nothing strictly objective about language: it isn't found anywhere, and yet it exists.

Is context the way or space in which something is held? A kind of holding?

Trying to phrase this into a neat definition might actually do a disservice to the exploration. It gives the impression that it's a simplistic matter.

Quote

Atoms are part of molecules, molecules are part of cells, cells are part of tissues, tissues are part of organs, organs are part of organisms.

Organism-organs-tissues-cells-molecules-atoms is a holarchy.

(Organism(organs(tissues(cells(molecules(atoms)))))). Every circle is a whole that contains more parts, which contains more wholes, which contains more parts, etc. (you can keep adding more either upwards or downwards, from organism and up or from atoms and down).

I see, thank you.

Say the self and language are contexts - what do we make of that?  

The more we look, the more we realize we don't know what the nature of context is.

Edited Thursday at 01:06 PM by UnbornTao

[UnbornTao]

What if space turned out to be a form of context, too?

[ZenSwift]

What is Context?
This thread might be an interesting read for you. Especially my comments at the end with the visual examples.