Models and Provisional Observations

An interesting side-effect of studying TSK is that writers who were once important to me come to mind in the course of contemplating TSK insights.  One writer is George Gurdjieff.  However, our study of the role models play, in interpreting experience, has allowed me to recognize a limitation in his work.  He made a heroic effort to establish a “model” that would explain everything and provide a tool for completely analyzing all phenomena.  To the extent that he believed this, he must have been stuck inside his model.  Franz Kafka, often comes to mind also.  By contrast, his aphorisms often evoke deep insights, which express a tentative, provisional  understanding of experience.  Absent are the categorical imperatives, which seem to condemn so many thinkers to a limited, closed view of human experience.  A Kafka aphorism came to mind recently.  I don’t think any of us would use a phrase like “the evil one” these days, but if you substitute “the self” or perhaps “the narrator”, I believe that this phrase could be taken directly from a TSK book (something like): “When the evil-one has taken over, the explanations we give are not ours, but those of the evil one.”  –Michael