.

In the third of this series, I suggested that two attributes, the purpose of process and the qualitative description of time, are not of primary concern. We may regard them as variables relevant to a Process of Interest, and not to Process itself as an archetype. This means that we have to identify these variables in each case.

I suggested that, for any given process, we must first discern what we seek to know, to understand. The short version of this is: anything we discover depends on the context of the search, and that means the answers we get depend entirely on the questions asked. It is the question that provides the essential structure around which a satisfactory answer is developed, and no understanding can arise unless we identify what we would know. In general, as the question crystallizes, the answer begins to appear; it is the questions we ask that make it possible to recognize those answers as they emerge.

I closed the last post by declaring some rather common astrological practices invalid and worthy of being discontinued. I could conceivably extend that judgment to the entire modern practice of astrology, with some controversial exceptions, but it's more useful here to point out why these views have merit. The fact is that the astrological construct is now, and has likely always been, viewed as a powerful Primary Process, such that it will reveal to the astrologer some amount of otherwise inaccessible insight into reality *independent of any focus of interest* on the part of said astrologer.

I would suggest that the practice of astrology is valid only to the extent that a focus of inquiry exists, such that it might be formulated as a question. The corollary is that no astrological practice that is *not* based on such a focus has inherent validity. Thus, the criteria of any valid astrological practice, and so any theoretical base we might develop, is that it is utilized in response to an established focus of inquiry.

Does this mean that the development of such a focus must needs be in any way formal? The answer is probably no, but to the extent that focus is diffuse rather than sharply described, the result will be less useful than it might otherwise be. The use of a formal protocol in developing questions doesn't mean a lot of ponderous philosophical or mathematical (logical) manipulation, it means that a few effective criteria be observed to determine the efficacy of the question (focus of interest). The truth of the matter is, I would guess, is that said protocol is the same sort of applied wisdom that we acquire as we grow older and richer in experience: we figure out what gets results, usually by trial and error, and as we learn why, we gain the tools to ask our questions more effectively.

The point is that the astrologer needs to be aware of this requirement as a matterof professional competency; in practice, that means the recognition and acceptance of the tenet that no answer exists outside the context of a question. This means that the practice of astounding the client with all sorts of dazzling insights without establishing a focus of common inquiry with the client is not sound astrological technique. The astrologer may or may not get some number of "hits", but they are based on previously developed *general* areas of inquiry, which may or may not have any relevance to the client at hand.

In the use of the I Ching, the effective supplicant is said to have the quality of Ling, which is traditionally understood to indicate an ability to meaningfully manipulate the yarrow stalks and derive useful insight therefrom. In some large part, or so I have come to believe, Ling is the result of the ability to know what question to ask and when to ask it. The common modern form of I Ching usage requires the formulation of a concise question, such that the canonical literature may be usefully interpreted. Meditation practices involving the I Ching are traditionally, and so remain, based on well formulated matters of interest, such that the literature is contemplated within an established context. In all cases, the question already exists, even if only in a very primitive form.

I think this is fundamentally true of any divinatory system, of which astrology is probably the most widely used and best known form. [I'll argue the idea of divinatory systems at another time.]

To proceed, we may now ask how we recognize the existence of a question, and how we go about discovering what it is? There is a general case answer to this that is not far removed from the specific case we consider here: the matter of astrology. The recognition of the existence of a question almost always involves something that has been previously experienced but not currently understood; without previous experience we will not recognize the question and if current understanding were adequate, there would be no question. This may sound deceptively trivial, but it is not.

The presence of previous experience implies some sort of repetition, which in turns implies cyclicity. In fact, most often there is a series of repetitions, such that our attention is focused. We can suspect that our attention was already attuned to the Process of Interest (POI), such that it was able to recognize the potential state of understanding thereof. Thus, the recognition of the presence of a question is initiated by an already established awareness of its potential existence: question don't arise out of thin air, they emerge from some already established involvement.

The lack of current understanding implies that it was not previously well enough understood, or that something new is involved. Most often, both of these are true. We can easily recognize the experience of meeting and experiencing something identifiable, but that presents itself differently in some regard each time. [Think: "There it is again! What *is* that?!"]

On inspection, we discover that there are some indeterminate attributes or aspects, such that cannot be traced positively to a constant source and cannot be predicted or somehow derived. We can quickly get to the point of suspecting that there is no dependable formula by which we can address this, that we are recognizing the recurrent ghost of something lacking adequate understanding, but in a different guise never before seen. We wonder if there are indeed any tools we can use to address this. The fact is, I think, in the absence of any recognized and ready at hand, we simply accept the idea of necessary confusion, and lay the whole business to rest.

What we know is that we've seen something in this POI that we recognize, and what is apparent is that it is cloaked in a new presented experience. We can deduce that there is some cyclicity here, but that there appear to be linear attributes as well. To the extent that we recognize the successive appearance of this (cyclical) aspect of the POI, we can discern that there must be some inner process at work here, the extent of which we do not comprehend, and it is this inner process which manifests itself as being linear.

It's convenient here to postulate another descriptive aspect of the temporal dimension, and we can conceive this as cyclicity in motion, which describes a helix. So time is not linear, and it is not cyclic: it is at least helical. The apparent linear factor is revealed by the moving center of the cycle, such that the cycle never exactly repeats itself; any arbitrary point, such as one would use to identify the start of a cycle, moves right along with the center, and so is never in the same place at the end of the cycle that it was at the beginning.

I say that time is *at least* helical, because the motion of the center itself is likely to be part of a larger cycle, and so the full description of the motion of time from this view is probably not possible, given the analytical tools presently available.

[Modern physics seems to suggest that this may in fact be true. Current string theory postulates a double handful of dimensions, all but one of which are conceived to be spacial, with time as an additional dimension. Given that symmetry is now deemed to be one of the most useful assumptions (SuperStrings are super-symmetrical strings....) it would seem conceivable that there may also be more than one temporal dimension as well, such that would complement the spacial dimensions.]

In any case, we can see that there almost certainly is no tractable model that will dependably portray the larger archetypal temporal construct. What we are left with is the phenomena of emergence, and this is familiar to us in the guise of the Explicate emerging from the Implicate, or one of an infinite number and variety of views emerging from the Holoverse. So we must accept that, if an intrinsic Primary Process does exist, we cannot perceive it dependably and so cannot use it. This leaves us to devise our own process archetype, and it must be one that is context independent.

Thus, when we are presented with a POI, we must realize that only we can stipulate the boundaries, for they are not inherent. They arise out of the recognition of what we seek to understand and are defined by the question we develop. The POI can never be assumed to have an absolute definition of limits, from which we can presume intrinsic boundaries. These are the variables that we supply, and for which we are responsible. We posit the initiation and termination of the POI, and we must realize that we do so strictly in accord with the question we've brought to it. If we alter or modify the question, we can expect that the appropriate terminals of the POI will change, and almost certainly, change the POI itself.

This raises an interesting suggestion: no POI exists unless it is the result of a question. Process itself may thus exist only when it is observed, which leads to the question of the tree falling in the forest when no one is there to hear its crash. The answer, of course, is that our definition of things exists solely for our own convenience, but I digress. The point itself, however, is relevant. It is incumbent on the bearer of the question to supply the relevant tools of investigation. These tools are those that serve to reveal the fundamental aspects of process itself.

I have already suggested that any given process has a beginning and an end, between which change is effected. For purposes of convenience, we begin by assuming a motionless center, such that the cycle is functionally a circle, and we can choose any point in that circle to denote the beginning and ending of the POI. It is reasonable to begin thus because we are concerned with those aspects of the POI that appear repetitive; at a later point, the motion of the center is taken into account, and we can contemplate those aspects that are not repetitive.

When we address a delineated process, we discard the context in which it exists and so have to re-establish our orientation entirely within the process itself. We do so by recognizing aspects of the internal structural landscape of the POI. We identify discernible parts thereof, perhaps as subprocesses of some sort. But to regard them as such suggests that each of these require dissecting, such as we are doing to the POI itself. A more useful approach is to view them as mechanisms, and we can regard them as functions, or complexes of activity that perform a characteristic action on (some aspect of) the substance, here, presumably the local environment, in predictable manner.

As we do this, we begin to recognize differences in those functions, such that they are connected in some number of ways. For our purposes here, we are interested in those ways that are basically serial in nature, because those will illuminate the temporal metric of the POI. Connections of other types, such as parallel or concurrent, or of some common nature, may indeed represent a dimensional metric, but do not represent the attribute of sequentiality that is characteristic of time, at least as we experience it.

Incidentally, we are not assuming that these serial connections are necessarily cause and effect; in fact we are making no assumption in that regard at all. The ordering may well be that of prior necessity, where one is a preparation for what follows. In any case, in doing this, we are establishing the specific metric of the POI.

Now we come to the real essence of this matter, and that is the question of how to archetypally describe these serially connected functions. We ask how we can devise a basic description of these connected functions, and the answer is simple: we can number them. Ordinarily, numbering is a simple ordering of sequence, but in archetypal applications, it may be one of the few available; indeed, it may be the only applicable descriptor at that level.

There are a few problems to be addressed here: how does one determine whether the observed sequence is a valid description? At issue is whether the sequence is that of peer mechanisms, such that they are all on the same level of weight within the POI. We have already noted that there may be several levels of mechanism observable, such that one level may be a subset of another. Sequences that cross the boundaries of set level may be valid in some way, but may not be valid as a temporal metric.

A set of connected mechanisms may have more than one type of connection; of interest here are those who have sequential connection, but that have other types as well. As we have already postulated the POI as the context, it is necessary to determine which of these types is more effective therein. It may be that a set of mechanisms may serve as metric for more than one dimension, such that it is not appropriate as a primary metric for any dimension. The fact may well be that there is no means of making these determinations until analysis is more complete, and if so, series sequentiality as observed may set a measure, but not a metric itself.

So we are left with the possibility that number itself may be the only useful metric for identifying the temporal dimension of the POI. Thus, we conclude that we must seek some meaningful sense in the properties of numbers.

Obviously, the path I've described in this series of posts is one that is well trodden, and seems intuitively valid, but we cannot assume that it is well understood; this is why I have tried to build a fully connected description of the issue, lest some assumption necessary to that description remain itself undescribed and therefore untestable. Where we've gotten to is the realm of Number as archetype, as put forth by others on this list.

The application here is a number count of a meaningful sequence of functions comprising a process, here, the POI. And so we contemplate the significance of these number counts, such that we consider the meaning of a number count of one. We will make this a proper noun: thus, One.

Obviously, the significance of One is that of the POI itself, single function. This is the view of the POI as an irreducible entity, a "black box", that can only have significance within the context in which the POI exists. This is what is meant by Wholeness, Unity, etc., etc.. It does not speak to the temporal dimension of the POI, although it posits the POI as part of the metric or measure of the process of which it is a part. To the extent that this larger metric is a part of the temporal definition of the POI, it is a necessary part of the description of the POI itself, but the larger metric is a variable and not a concern of the archetypal metric of process itself. From the modular of the POI, where it is the relevant primary level of observation, the metric of the larger context is descriptive of the center of the helix; here, we are interested only in the cycle itself.

It's probably appropriate to consider the properties of number from the mathematical point of view. The numbers we are using here are called counting numbers, for obvious reasons. They are a part of the domain of Real numbers, which includes both rational and irrational numbers. Counting numbers are also called absolute (unsigned) integers: they do not imply a quantitative relationship to zero, and they are all reducible to the rational number of itself divided by one (1).

The reason this is relevant is because we may discover that other numbers have dimensional significance. We may discover that integers (signed counting numbers), and irrational numbers may also have some dimensional significance; indeed, we may discover that imaginary numbers do as well. It is not my intent to explore these issues here; they are far beyond my competency. But these possibilities have enough evidence to support them as such: all spacial dimensions are not counting numbers; fractals are objects that have rational but non-integer spacial dimensions, hence, (fract)ion(al) dimensionality. And the issue gets worse as one contemplates quantum reality......

Incidentally, we are not declaring that each of these counting numbers indicates the number of temporal dimensions, as they do in spacial dimensions. The counting numbers (Number) are the primary metric of the (presumably single) dimension of time itself. Note, however, that there is no declaration here that there is no connection between Number as a temporal metric and the number of temporal dimensions that might exist; if such a connection does exist, I do not know of it, though the possibility itself may (or may not) be valid.

So we are confined here to counting numbers as having archetypal dimensional significance, and the investigation of these is what the business of Numbers is all about. In so doing, we will seek to develop a set of tools to investigate the nature of process as it expresses itself in the temporal dimension such that the use of these tools provides some insight into the nature of the POI in its own right, an exposition of (some of) its intrinsic nature or essence, and the possibility of understanding the POI on its own terms as it reveals itself to us. The effective stratagem here is to supply an adequately large categorical container within which the POI may reveal itself, and we do that by limiting our specifications of what that container shall accept to the most basic sorts possible.

In a manner of speaking, what we are doing here is providing a filing system into which the POI might distribute itself appropriately. This system will have levels of overview, which can be seen as hierarchical to some extent, and it will have reference systems that will allow successful linkage between various types of functional connectivity, establishing other kinds of overview. All in all, the idea is to develop a structure within which the POI can reveal itself to the extent we desire, and in such a way as we can understand for our own purposes what we see there. In any case, the most important thing is to allow the POI itself to command that sort.

Further, we can hope to discover a fundamental attribute of process itself, already discussed here: purpose. We would like the POI to disclose to us what it is doing, how it is doing it, and what it hopes to accomplish, answering the question 'why'.

In the next post, we will discuss the significance and usage of these numbers. In doing so, we will show how these can be used to discern temporal segments as the POI manifests them. This will allow us to identify the appropriate criteria for choosing specific temporal metrics and measures. We will discover some of the basis for the thinking of Rudhyar and others who focused on the development of the temporal aspect of astrological theory. As they arise, we will identify fundamental principles and suggest how they can be expressed in the theoretical basis of astrology.

Comments?

wtallman