FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2021: NOTE TO FILE
Domains of Discourse
The twains that never meet
The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas [domain of discourse], that is what makes him a philosopher. —Ludwig Wittgenstein
There are many domains of discourse, but THE domain of discourse, the third secret (the truth), remains uncharted. I seem to have developed a domain of discourse having one speaker. —Charles Dawkins
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this, at a distance of roughly ninety million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet, whose ape descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: Most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small, green pieces of paper, which is odd, because on the whole, it wasn't the small, green pieces of paper which were unhappy. And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake coming down from the trees in the first place, and some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no-one should ever have left the oceans. And then one day, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl, sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realised what it was that had been going wrong all this time and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no-one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass and so the idea was lost forever. ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: 42, FROM THE WIRES, WORSE THAN VOGONS DESTROYING EARTH
Abstract: We modern techno-industrial concept-mongering storytelling animals seek tribal identity groups for social approbation. We seek consensus with all, but there are many domains of discourse, so we seek out those with whom some consensus is possible. When a stranger is met on the road, a few words is often enough to determine that they are outside the tribe's consensus thinking. We may politely chat, but we know that nothing they say needs to be considered. A tribal member in good standing may almost get it, but if they say something 'not right', they can only be ignored or corrected, except in rare cases where the wrong idea becomes right, sometimes posthumously.
COOS BAY (A-P) — Lunch break at the 25th International Conference on Trends in Quantum Magnetism, and you say, 'I've been thinking about what Jesus would have to say about quantum...'. You may have stepped outside the domain of consensus thinking. Or you're at the 61st General Seventh-day Adventist Conference Session and say something about why quantum nonlocality and 1 Corinthians 3:23. seems to be incompatible.
Now imagine, some two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for telling humanity to just get along, that you're sitting in a small café in Rickmansworth and suddenly realize what it was that had been going wrong all this time. Finally someone knows how complex society can be made a good and happy place, and all who persist can live in harmony with the natural world. This time the solution is right, it will work, and no one will have to get nailed to anything.
Should you tell anyone the solution? Let's say you do, but no matter where you go, the solutionatique you offer is outside the domain of discourse of those at every conference, boardroom, university class, NGO, listserv, echo chamber, smoke-filled room or street corner you go to, and the years go by.
Someone quicker on the uptake would merely have smiled, sitting in a small café in Rickmansworth, and said nothing.
As Charles Dawkins noted, a solution to humanity's problematique may require first creating a discourse space with one inquiring mind in it. The solutionatique may depend on an ability to think that I/we are the remorseless dynamic that selects for our condition of overshoot to dissolution (or in 
Pogo Possum's better words in 1971, 'we have met the enemy and he is us'). Some can entertain the idea briefly, but not remorselessly enough for the details to stand clear enough for others to see and thereby join the discourse space.
The me, myself, and I are a product of Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) society, which is a product of fifty thousand years of expansionism, i.e. the normalizing of growth/expansion/taking by an expansionist form of human whose civilization's facets are the cultures that festoon it. If the MTI form of civilization and all expansionist variants are non-viable long term (other than by renormalizing as a non-expansionist form of human), then only humans who come to question their Anthropocene enthusiasm for progress and acquisition may come to consider self dissolution as members of any MTI domain of discourse. A cup emptied may be filled with a viable brew (or worse than what it originally contained).
What if you lost interest in the consensus narratives that other clothed primates tell, or in the voice in your head and the stories it tells? This would be the paradigm shift that would change everything. The condition of abelief in primate prattle creates an empty cup that no ideology could fill. The abelieving mind would have no choice but to listen the Nature who has all the answers. The third secret is an open secret that no Anthropocene enthusiast can see standing clear in front of their pug-nosed face.
A viable domain of discourse involves the endeavor to tell likely stories while believing none of them. No believing mind can enter such a space. Above the door to the third secret reads, "Abandon all hope, ye who would enter here." Predictably, few enter. Only those who would rather know than believe enter. Those who enter note others who endeavor to listen to Nature, and comparing notes is of some interest. Because Nature speaks a various language, accounts vary. Each asks questions and notes answers (data) which needs to be interpreted, a famously error-prone endeavor. Asking slightly different questions, and sharing answers, allows those asking Nature the questions to iterate towards the third secret.
If anyone, for the price of an effort, can ask Nature a question, then whoever asked the question first is merely of historical interest. If a claim is made, and so far everyone who asks it receives the same answer, then the answer, such as usually clothed apes can understand it, may be deemed likely. The community of inquirers may feel privileged to assume the answer is correct, and tentatively ask other questions that presume some prior apparent answers are correct. Should the new answers disallow the presumed answer, then simply cease to presume it.
A community of inquirers (e.g. the Union of Concerned Elders) who endeavor to listen to Nature, can iterate towards consensus narratives that might be descriptive (however crudely) of the nature of things. All other communities of they who refused to abandon all hope of telling true stories, cannot iterate towards any viable consensus. A civilization based on believing minds, on belief in belief, is non-viable, is duḥkha, the condition that modern humans complain of (as did John B. Calhoun's rats of NIMH). This was realized in a small café in Rickmansworth.
“Thought makes the whole dignity [potential value] of man; therefore endeavor to think well, that is the only morality.” — Blaise Pascal
"Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben" [Venerate all Life]
"Thought cannot avoid the ethical or reverence and love for all life."
—Albert Schweitzer, who transitioned from human to Nature centric in 1915
