The medium is the message. The more transparent the medium is, the more seductive the messages expressed in it. The seductiveness of numbers stems from their roots in the mathematical quality of all thinking: the way that signs are used as the media of concept-thing relations. Our captivation with numbers is entirely embedded in the allure of language, which stems in large part from its economy: knowing how to read, write, speak, and listen saves us the trouble of re-inventing words and concepts for ourselves, and of having to translate each other’s private languages. The problem is, of course, that having words for things and sharing them by no means assures understanding. But when it works, it really works, as the history of science shows.
Seductive enthrallment with meaning and beauty defines the parameters of the difference between the modern Cartesian dualist world view and the emerging unmodern nondualist world view. This is the whole point of taking up Heidegger’s sense of method as meta-odos. As Plato saw, Socrates’ recounting of the myth of Eros told to him by Diotima conveys how captivation with beauty embodies the opposites of wealth and poverty in a simultaneous possession and absence, neither of which is ever complete.
The evolutionary/developmental paradigm shift taking place will transform everything by institutionalizing in every area of life an order of magnitude increase in the complexity of relationships, and a corresponding increase in the simplicity with which those relationships can be managed. The compelling absorption into the flow of meaning that necessarily informs discourse but currently functions as an unacknowledged assumption informing operations will itself be brought into view and will become an object of operations.
As Dewey understood, public consciousness of an issue or set of issues, and the will to take them on, emerges when existing institutions fail. We are certainly living in a time in which our political, economic, social, educational, medical, legal, environmental, etc. institutions have been failing to live up to their responsibilities for quite a number of years. The efforts of the public to address these failures have been obstructed by the lack of the media needed for integrating the complex, multilevel, and discontinuous opposites of harmony and dissonance, agreement and dissent, that structure a binding, coherent culture.
Science is nothing but an extension of everyday reasoning. Instead of imitating the natural sciences, the social sciences need to focus on how science extends the complex cognitive ecologies of language. As we figure that out and get these metasystems in place, we will simultaneously create the media the public needs to find its voice and organize itself to meet the challenges of how to build new institutions capable of successfully countering human suffering, social discontent, and environmental degradation.
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