ANNOTATION:
A Trans-Structural Paradigm

For radical constructivism, reality is completely created in the mind of the individual having the experience. This has brought considerable criticism to the paradigm during its emergence, because as researchers, we would have to question if those who are the object of the research actually exist. Even if we add the assumption that others do exist, there still can be no verification, because the reality of that verification too, is relegated to the mind of the researcher. Within the constructivist paradigm, each individual's reality is a closed system. This aspect of constructivism is not easily escaped, and so a variety of adaptations of the paradigm have formed various bridges to other systems.

In natural systems, we do not see such a state, because natural systems are not closed. Systems evolve and reach new levels of complexity exactly and precisely because there are networks through which information can move, evolve, co-evolve, and hence emerge into new patterns and structures.

It is this complex nature of interaction that is the fodder and spark of energy for growth, learning and change that must be protected in the Trans-Structural Paradigm. An individual mind is incapable of generating an infinite variety of self-stimulated experiences that would have to happen in order to describe the miraculously diverse lives we live.

This Trans-Structural Paradigm operates across multiple structures. First, it assumes a structural aspect to information, along with more traditional concepts of the structural aspects of matter. This is but one way that the paradigm is trans-structural. Since it assumes structure to information, Trans-Structural also refers to differing types or structures of thinking (e. g. Gebser, in Combs, 1995, Beck &, Cowan, 1996). Finally, the paradigm underscore the need for a transdisciplinary informing process, and reflects philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, chaos theory and fractal geometry, sensation and perception, consciousness, and some aspects of anthropology.

Reality is process. A real reality exists objectively, but in its entirety is not accessible by any one part of the network of consciousness. It is unfolding and incomplete from the point of view of existence situated in time and space. As humans we have access to that part of reality which rises to, meets with, and participates with our sensibilities, our imaginative faculties, our tangible processes, and our structures of thought. Participation on the part of reality changes reality, as it changes us, though not in a strictly causal sense, rather in an ongoing evolutionary sense which is iterative in nature.

Reality is not subjective, nor is it objective. These distinctions are arbitrary and human oriented. There is no reason to believe that our cognitive schema even approach the ability to assess categories or laws or even the nature of the universe as it experiences itself, or as it presents itself to us. On the other hand, it is likewise unfounded to suggest that our experience of reality is nothing but a construction, experienced solely in our minds. It is reasonable to assume that a level of participation with the presentation of reality is real, is authentic, however mitigated it may be by our individual, cultural, and taxonomic sensibilities.

For paradigmatic purposes, it is most useful to describe the boundary regions of our experience of reality. We experience a level of reality that is manifest as material/energetic. I assume the presentation of this level of reality to be authentic, as opposed to it being a mental construction. Efforts to make known this level are met sometimes by a very predictable set of laws that are measurable and replicable. An example is classical Newtonian physics, which aptly describes the world as we often experience it, allows us to move freely, to drive cars, to eat, to create homes and experience everyday life. Other efforts to make known this level of reality are rewarded with the enigmatic, seemingly paradoxical, and sometimes miraculous.

Reality also exists as a mathematical entity, the experience of which could be said to be exclusively on the non-manifest level. Yet, as intangible as the mathematical reality may be, our experience of it is predictable, self-consistent, and pragmatic. Hence the mathematical reality should be considered as a layer of reality that may somehow have a manifest existence. Our cultural assumption at this time is that the tools of perception that we have created such as the microscope, and the telescope seem to be qualitatively different than such instruments, or extensions of our senses as the oscilloscope, radar, and the like. I am not at all sure that we have considered the implications of our computing extensions from the point of view of sensation extenders that have made us privy to the visible nature of mathematical entities such as the Mandelbrot set, and other models of chaos. One might wonder just how different it is from a microscope. What might that imply toward knowing a different level of reality?

In creating meaningful experiences from information that approaches us during the apprehension/comprehension process, we need to acknowledge that there is almost always a variety of interpretations available to us. So adept are we at this process, we seem to hold multiple possibilities most of the time in our memory. It is not uncommon, when comparing experiences with others who were present at the same event that we will willingly, sometimes even gladly, give up our own interpretation in favor of someone else's interpretation that makes more sense. Having done so, it is also not unusual to re-write both the backward and forward implications from that experience. We may be particularly inclined to do this, if for some reason the "meaningfulness" of the experience is questionable.

If one loosens the egoic structures to the degree that one doesn't really mind the idea of taking on the reality constructs of others, it makes accessing the Integral Fields a fairly simple matter. If we explore and explicate the understanding that cultural biases of individuality are strong and mitigated by language, we can begin to embrace the concept of self while bringing the self into alignment with both individuality and the place of self in the larger tapestry of existence.

Born into the modern worldview, in our modern paradigms so deeply entrenched in the scientific belief structure that insists upon empiricism, all we have abandoned has been relegated and lumped into words like"intuitive," "primitive," or "superstitious." We are far more networked than separated, more interpenetrated than isolated. Our perceptual and linguistic habits have supported the illusion of independence as if it were reality.

There are no closed systems outside those artificially created. When we hold a value of learning, or transforming, or iterating belief systems and emergent experiences, there is no reason to dismiss apprehensions of meaning or messages arising from seemingly incongruent circumstance. On the contrary, holding these apprehensions in a state of suspension at the very least gives us liminal access to the Integral Fields. It is possible that when we find ourselves experiencing something we might call altered consciousness, to move away from comprehension and find ourselves surfing the probability waves that represent multiple and overlaid apprehensions.