“I’m late, I’m late”, as the Hare said in Lewis Carroll’s Alice world. My justification is that I am pro-actively adjusting to the up coming clock time change this Sunday morning at 2:00am! The second reason is that it was twelve midnight, when I went to sleep and awoke again at five am. As a retired person of age seventy seven, I insist on having enough rest for my body. It is the only means available to me to have my daily human experience, so I treat it with respect and bless it in gratitude with loving mindfulness and care.

There, how is that for an opening? Last night I did forget my Wednesday night class with Herman and was alerted by Denise’s kind reminder, so I arrived late there as well! But, I did not forget to make my utility payments!

Today is Reformation day in my old country and throughout Protestant Europe. Halloween, like Christmas are pagan festivities celebrated in the old Celtic cultures of Europe. This was in pre-Roman times when the occasional human sacrifices did get conducted by the now revered Druids, as reported by Caesar.

Human sacrifices are known to have taken place in all human cultures. It is my understanding that most of these were deeds of desperation by the community concerned. Today we read about people dying because of safety short cuts taken for the sake of profit making. So, what higher power is served here?

Today maybe a coffee with John, some money for my elusive web service provider and some web work with emails. I did get the figure captions of my album Fall2013 aligned, which now looks less wild. I do have to fine tune the album catalogue by balancing its display. Then I should give some thought to my home page, which looks a bit topsy-turvy at present.

From the writings of entry for the 28th this instance, I insert the following line: 'To be added definitions: Emergence, transcendent [function] and Existence Divine for easy reference.'

Existence Divine was described to some extend in the writings of the 29th, with a supplement on the 30th, of this month. Now we come to emergence and the transcendent function. The latter being the older concept will be given first.

The Transcendent Function.

Jung added ‘of the psyche’ in his essay on this subject, however in the ‘Jung Lexicon’ the editor Sharp speaks of typology (p.77) for the four functions thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting.

The transcendent function is essentially an aspect of the self-regulation of the psyche. It manifests symbolically and is experienced as a new attitude towards oneself and life.

Then, on pages 135/6 the transcendent function is described as “arising from the tension between consciousness and the unconscious and supports their union” (p.135). On page 136 Sharp adds “The transcendent function is essentially an aspect of the self-regulation of the psyche. It manifests symbolically and is experienced as a new attitude towards oneself and life.”

Such a symbolic manifestation can be a dream, a new insight or an experience in nature, the essence being the experience of a new energy. It is my opinion that this can take the form of feeling deflated, meaning then that the current way may not be a good way to proceed.

From my own readings of Jung’s writings and some about him, it is clear that Jung regarded the unconscious as indistinguishable from god. This became the reason for the break between Jung and his life long friend Father Victor White. (p.426, “A Life of Jung” by R. Hayman.)

Emergence:

In the section ‘The concept of emergence’ of chapter 1, four accepted concepts of emergence are listed. I adhere to number three (3), which states: "The irreducibility of the emergence: Emergent properties are irreducible to, and unpredictable from, the lower-level phenomena from which they emerge."

The irreducibility of the emergence: Emergent properties are irreducible to, and unpredictable from, the lower-level phenomena from which they emerge.

I reserve the possibility of down ward emergence, because this way I avoid the value judgement of the what’s lower or higher. That latter notion implies a hierarchy that is human imposed by our ordering system and not necessary.

I have a number of personal reasons for choosing for the irreducibility option. They go back to my high school days, but in short it is this. Known laws of nature are explained by reasoned logic and so used when applying these laws in practice.

Yet, many new insight and discoveries are made first and only explained afterwards, this to provide an aid in memory, understanding and make it fit the present model.

This observation suggests that much new knowledge is discovered directly and then ‘proven’ after the fact. The laws of evolution should be able to predict missing species, like we do with the elements, but such predictions are not possible now. Yet, once the new species is discovered, explanations for its existence quickly emerge! New geometries too are discovered through insight, such as Riemann geometry, with their propositions coming later on.

Hence, to me emergence’s irreducibility is an essential aspect and a new concept, where as the others listed by Clayton offer nothing new! One and two address only material, as in physics, existence, while four takes refuge in causation, which is limiting and inadequate since it does not predict from its causality.

I’m not sure that this fit’s the bill with respect to being an easy reference, but at least it is easy to find and close together within this week’s entries. <11:36am and 12:34pm after lunch.
Reference: “Mind & Emergence”, by Ph. Clayton.