Implication of Indwelling Intelligence in Global Confidence-building
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 16 Jul 2012
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Sustaining the Construction and Dynamic of Psychosocial Reality through Questioning
Introduction
This is a reflection on the meaning that could be associated with “indwelling” and more specifically with “indwelling intelligence” — and what might then be its “global” implications.
The term “indwelling”, as indicated by any web search, is most commonly associated with the extremes of indwelling prosthetic devices (notably urinary catheters) and its use by Christianity in reference to the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Whilst understanding in relation to the latter use merits respectful attention, the concern here is with what it might otherwise imply — beyond any exclusive appropriation in support of a particular worldview.
References to indwelling readily invite controversy with those who challenge the legitimacy or primacy of the subjective, the experiential or the intangible — or seek to accord some reality to that mode. In the following discussion the capacity to name such forms of “indwelling”, and to make declarative statements regarding them, is challenged as being only questionably related to the experiences and insights so named.
The concern here is to juxtapose a variety of clues from the literature which provide a context implying the nature of a modality with which “indwelling intelligence” might be associated. The question is whether it is possible to make useful qualitative distinctions (of higher dimensionality), without necessarily attaching conventional labels (of lower dimensionality) such as to justify some form of exclusive or proprietary “branding”, as tends to be the case. In that respect it is argued that there is a “semiotic barrier” through which it is necessary to pass so as to achieve a more detached perspective.
A primary concern is the increasingly apparent disconnect between words — often characterized as “empty” — and commitments in a political context from which viable global strategies are expected to emerge. This has been most recently apparent with respect to the final outcome of the Earth Summit (Rio de Janeiro, 2012) whose content was characterized as filled with “weasel words” (Rio+20: Many “mays” but few “musts”: a limp agreement at the UN’s vaunted environmental summit, The Economist, 23 June 2012).
This disconnect is evident in the widespread concern with the breakdown in confidence in systems which it has now been recognized are unexpectedly dependent on it to a high degree — as has proven to be the case with the global financial system and the euro. Following a decade of questionable investment in “hearts and minds”, there is now much preoccupation with “confidence building” — but with little sense of how this is to achieved. Such confidence has been assumed, perhaps far too readily, to be connected in unchallenged ways to “money”, “growth” and “respect for authority”.
In a period in which security concerns have given a special sense to exclusive acquisition of “intelligence” on a global scale, there is a case for exploring the implications of other understandings of intelligence in a global knowledge-based society. What of distributed intelligence, collective intelligence, self-reflective intelligence and the nature of indwelling intelligence — as a complement to corresponding forms of ignorance?
The exploration concludes with the question: If sustainable “growth” is upheld as the definitive answer, what then is the mysterious “indwelling question” through which it can be sustained globally?
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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 16 Jul 2012.
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