Dear Friends of the POP-UP School,
We are about to embark on a journey, an exploration, and a challenge --- on our way to discover, through inspiration and insight, a new theory of the body.
The idea of a new theory of the body came to me as an insight on the Respond Network’s MAPLE event this summer. We were asked to come up with a hypotheses and questions around “what is wisdom.” At the end of the exercise, my mind was burning with the question
If wisdom comes from the body, do we need a new theory of the body to account for it?
I realized that the purpose of a new theory of the body--- a purpose aligned with everything we do in this school--- would mean that the theory would have to show the deep continuity of mind, body and world. Make no mistake. This will not be a theory of emergentism, which I have argued in a previous post, actually sets a divine gap between nature and human, body and mind.
The sense of separation comes not despite the term, “Emergence” but with it. This is because “emergence” means something like “a miracle happens here” --- a placeholder where no other explantory theory is possible. It is this miracle--- reminiscent of the hand of god--- that separates us. A divine gap that cannot be mended.
It occurs to me now, that emergentism also sets an unbridgeable gap between human and the Divine. We need a theory, an understanding, that connects and heals – makes and mends (makes ammends)
... putting the mind back into the body and the body back into nature