Mind as well ... SOCIAL ONTOLOGY 101

Howdy all,

It's been more than six months since I've blogged ... it feels like a confession to say this ... however it's true.

The reason has been I haven't felt strongly enough about something to write about it regularly on this blog ... BUT NOW!

Those of you who give a damn will find that I'm going to being laying out here a new platform for the work that I do and the foundational basis (and bias) for it. This will be an ongoing series of explorations on the idea of "social ontology" and some explorations of evidence for it in the larger sense of society as well. I won't promise a daily blog, but a consistent outpouring. Of course it will be interesting to see your comments as well. So let's begin this blog of ours ...

Those of you who subscribe to my elist on Yahoo Groups for the MythoSelf(tm) Process work I do (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mythoself-tm/) will find I've begun this discussion on Social Ontology there. In some ways this is a continuation of that discussion, but more accurately this is a new beginning of that discussion.

A couple of fair questions to begin with might be:

1. What is Social Ontology?
2. Why is any discussion of Social Ontology important to me?

So why don't we begin here, with the first question - "What is Social Ontology?" The most honest answer would be "I don't know." However, what I have found to be true is that in order to have a discussion or better yet a dialogue we have to have some agreement about what we talking about. That in essence begins to define what social ontology might be - a shared/collective agreement about what something means and for all intents and purposes "is." As we operate in our shared collective social environment we create meaning together. This meaning as we perceive it to be is our reality - and we co-create it collectively. That's as good a definition of social ontology as we need to begin with. As we continue we'll deepen this definition and the understanding that it brings to our discussion.

For now, let's move onto the second question - "Why is any discussion of Social Ontology important to me?" Here, not only do I not know the answer, there may not be "an" answer - but there might be several million answers depending on who's answering the question or whom it's being answered in regard to. Instead of attempting to answer a question that I have no answer for let me do something else and propose a reason for you to stick around in this discussion, and even possibly raise it to the level of dialogue. What about the idea that the only reality you have is a social reality, i.e.: the only thing you can experience is a social ontology? If that were in fact true would it give you enough of a reason to stick around for a bit?

Well my entire premise is based on that premise - the only reality you have is a social one. While I don't in any way discount a reality that exists a priori to our social reality what I am suggesting is that we have no way to access that one (should it exist). Our experience of "reality" whatever it is comes to us by way of our sensorial experience, both perceived and imagined. Further our social experience is grounded in our somatic processes – our physiology and it’s expressions.

The “kicker� here is that our somatic experience is in part formed before we’re born by our experience in the womb. Our mother’s movement, rhythms, vocalizations … all contribute to our somatic experience in vitro. Of course our mother’s chemical expressions and ingestions also affect our in vitro experience, again creating somatic experience for us. So before we even enter the world as infants separate from our mothers we have somatic imprints that begin to define us.

Then of course immediately upon our births we continue the process of having our somatic experience imprinted by contact with our primary caregivers. Regardless of who it is that feeds, clothes and cleans us there is a pattern or patterns to the way they do this. These patterns become imprinted upon us as well. The layering of somatic experience continues to grow as we become sensitized to and aware of the responses we get from our own expressions. How others respond to us BEFORE WE ARE CONSCIOUSLY AWARE OF IT determine the pattern of expressions we begin to use to create those responses … the imprinting continues.

None of this will be surprising to any of my readers or students of the MythoSelf™ Process. The idea that we are imprinted with patterns of expression and response from before birth is intrinsic to the model I use. What’s interesting isn’t that, that’s been described in some way by almost every explanation of human behavior in the last hundred years, it's that the way the model I propose addresses this consideration is not simply historical but more to the point largely teleological. The question is how are our expectations about what hasn’t happened yet creating our expressions that in turn create what hasn’t happened yet?

Where I intend to take this discussion is towards describing how social ontology can explain and contribute to our ability to create the reality we experience, especially the one that hasn’t happened yet.

This is my answer to question number two, “Why is any discussion of Social Ontology important to me?� Because “getting it’ – what social ontology is and how it impact your life – will allow you greater opportunity and control over the creation of the reality that hasn’t happened yet, and your experience of it. By the way, as far as I’m concerned the reality that hasn’t happened yet is the only reality you can experience, but that’s for our next installment … maybe.

For now what I’d love is for a few things to happen … 1. I’d love to know if you’re interested enough to stick around, 2. I’d love to know what you think about the ideas I’m presenting, 3. I’d love to know what you’d like to see discussed here in this exploration, and 4. I’d love to know what question you have or comments you’d like to make about this whole topic and the way I’m proposing going about it.

Until we meet to create reality again ….

Joseph