View Single Post
Old 08-26-2009, 02:46 PM   #11
Erick Mead
 
Erick Mead's Avatar
Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,619
United_States
Offline
Re: How To Teach Power & Harmony?

Quote:
Robert M Watson Jr wrote: View Post
Absolutely not. Seeking power for the sake of gaining more power ... well, we know where that leads. Seeking greater power in order to bring about harmony ... what one does with the power is of the upmost importance.
Not to continue the paraphrase trope on modern morality tales too far -- but "I would use this (power) for good, but through me it would it wield a power to great and terrible to imagine." Or "In place of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me, and despair!"

Anyway, the question is -- If we want it for its ability to impose control, how are certain that we ourselves are not made subject to the control of that power in doing so? Who is servant and who is master in this situation? Is any power which does not grow natively out of us, for purposes other than the amassing of the power itself, really ours to use? And if we use it, can we be sure that we are not tools in turn of its proper owner?

Quote:
Robert M Watson Jr wrote: View Post
I keep thinking of your penchant for physical models ... Can one cast harmony in terms of entropy since a type of harmony may be considered as 'things in their proper place and or relation'. Harmony defined as opposing chaos which begets harmony is decreased entropy. Just by what mircale is the entropy of the universe decreased? Now, there is something to be reconciled.
1) Entropy never decreases in the universe (caveat -- at least in 4d spacetime).2) decreases in entropy occur but only locally and at the price of accelerated increase elsewhere. The entropy thus shoved around is one measure of "power;" 3) Chaos and harmony are not opposed. The spiralling, branching fractal structures of these systems and our movements are dissipative -- that is, they minimize entropy by maximizing the capture of ever finer tranches of residual differentials that make up the remaining potential energy of the system, until it is completely gone and entropy is at the limit.

In other words, the essence of native "power" or "power in harmony" is not derived from storing and expressing large energy differentials or potentials -- but derived from the facility of such systems in sucking the energy OUT of potential differences in highly efficient ways. When reversed, then, such systems allow the system to collect ANY available potential differences, however small, and making them effective through concentration at arbitrary, but highly critical points. Seeking power, in the sense of building large potentials to exploit, is a different sort of thing. Surfing versus cigarette boats.

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
  Reply With Quote