Steve Petermann wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 10:28 pmThe engineering design process does both —focus intently on the smallest parts or details but always considering its effects on the system-as-a-whole. Even small details can make or break a complex system. A few years back there was a very small script routine (javascript, I think) that had been in some online libraries that thousands of programmers had used for years. However, that script was linked to someone's personal library and it got either deleted or changed for some reason. That broke everything where it was used.AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Sep 02, 2021 9:44 pm Then why do you insist on isolating every part of the spiritual scientific approach we are suggesting, without ever considering it holistically, as Steve is suggesting? You slice and dice it up and make random arguments against each tiny fragment, moving from one to another whenever you run out of logical responses. It is the exact opposite of your engineering approach - when it comes to spiritual issues, instead of reflecting seriously on Steve's point that "every step or component constrains what can come after or what configuration the system can take", you say "why can't we just have a spiritual system with no constraints whatsoever, because it makes me feel good and it isn't 'tyrannical'?". That is literally your response to 99% of the arguments we make now. Your own musical analogy also suggested this to you - the point of allowing musicians degrees of freedom to explore different keys, times, notes, chords, etc. is not to forever remain in dissonance, but to converge on harmonious pitches and melodies. Basically when it comes to spiritual issues you invert all the logic that you use in normal life and work, which is the hallmark of the modern age.
The question is, is a particular small part of a system essential for the integrity of the system-as-a-whole? If it is and is faulty, criticizing it is warranted.
Steve.
I agree and this is a perfect analogy for spiritual science (not really an analogy, because we don't view Thinking inquiry within any field as fundamentally different in its essential approach). It treats every minute detail in the world of phenomenal appearances as of utmost importance to understand, but it also makes clear we will only understand those minute details by way of their relation to the Whole spiritual organism. It is the holistic and integrated Spiritual which always informs, reveals, renews, revitalizes, transfigures, etc. the fragmented sense-impressions and concepts, whether in myth, philosophy, art, or science. We don't need to (and we really should not) arbitrarily compartmentalize any aspect of our life and shield it from the Spiritual, even though there is constant pressure to do just that. We must be "in the world, but not of the world."