Allan Kurzberg And The Four Postulates, Part 2.

“The mind of man is beneficent and noble only when it obeys truth.  As soon as it betrays truth, as soon as it ceases to revere truth, as soon as it sells out, it becomes intensely diabolical.  Then it becomes far worse than instinctual bestiality, which always retains something of the innocence of nature.”–Hermann Hesse

When Allan examined his previous corollary, he decide to redefine the concepts of self-awareness and self-knowledge.  What is self-awareness?  It is to know that at any moment our rational thought may be overcome by the forces of OE+ and/or OE-.  What is self-knowledge?  It is to know that one’s actions are governed by E+, E-, OE+, OE-, and r.

It is interesting to reflect that almost all forms of therapy, meditation, psychological treatments and problem solving are attempts to help and strengthen r and to discover the “hidden” forces acting on it.    But even when such attempts succeed, there is always the possibility that r will again be overwhelmed by emotional forces.  Thus, all of the above methods employ specific exercises to bring the human minding balance to avoid cataclysmic shifts in emotional states.  Discipline and repetition are essential to such exercises, because without them the mind could revert into unhealthy, unbalanced patterns.  This fact leads to Allan Kurzberg’s Corollary of Instability:  The five fundamental forces are unstable and at any point in time one force may change into any of the other forces.  Hence the importance of self-awareness.

Kurzberg recognized the great difficulty in listing all forms of destructive behavior(OE-), but he realized that one form towers above the rest and so became his third postulate:  Postulate 3.  All human beings are “Other” creating biological entities.  For Allan, the concept of the “Other”cannot be overestimated because it is the primary engine that drives human behavior.  By creating “Others”, humans demonstrate the tendency to shape inclusive and exclusive relationships, the basis for the fourth postulate.  Also,  inclusive and exclusive relationships can be treated more precisely through elementary set theory.  “Otherness” runs the gamut to humans perceived to be a little different to “Others” perceived as less than human.  It is instructive to take another look at literary texts, especially, from the point of view of “otherness”.  You will find it everywhere.  In this continuing analysis of Allan Kurzberg’s philosophy, we will examine the concept of the “Other” in more detail.