A Newcomer\u27s Guide to Kabbalah

Kabbalah is a mystical and highly spiritual form of Judaism. Popularized by its endorsement by high-profile celebrities like Madonna, the average layperson knows enough about Kabbalah to recognize it as a vaguely familiar term, but not much else. This article strives to serve as an entry-point for both an intellectual and a popular audience to help familiarize readers with core components of Kabbalah and to help to begin fostering an appreciation for this very sophisticated faith. Matters of history, philosophy, science, doctrine, and more pertaining to Kabbalah will be discussed in this articl

Postmodern Fuzzy System Theory: A Deconstruction Approach Based on Kabbalah

Modern general system theory proposed a holistic integrative approach based on input-state-output dynamics as opposed to the traditional reductionist detail based approach. Information complexity and uncertainty required a fuzzy system theory, based on fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. While successful in dealing with analysis, synthesis and control of technical engineering systems, general system theory and fuzzy system theory could not fully deal with humanistic and human-like intelligent systems which combine technical engineering components with human or human-like components characterized by their cognitive, emotional/motivational and behavioral/action levels of operation. Such humanistic systems are essential in artificial intelligence, cognitive and behavioral science applications, organization management and social systems, man-machine systems or human factor systems, behavioral knowledge based economics and finance applications. We are introducing here a “postmodern fuzzy system theory” for controlled state dynamics and output fuzzy systems and fuzzy rule based systems using our earlier postmodern fuzzy set theory and a Kabbalah possible worlds model of modal logic and semantics type. In order to create a postmodern fuzzy system theory, we “deconstruct” a fuzzy system in order to incorporate in it the cognitive, emotional and behavioral actions and expressions levels characteristic for humanistic systems. Kabbalah offers a structural, fractal and hierarchic model for integrating cognition, emotions and behavior. We obtain a canonic deconstruction for a fuzzy system into its cognitive, emotional and behavioral fuzzy subsystems

Systems Metaphysics: A Bridge from Science to Religion

\u27Systems theory\u27 is familiar to many as the scientific enterprise that includes the study of chaos, networks, and complex adaptive systems. It is less widely appreciated that the systems research program offers a world view that transcends the individual scientific disciplines. We do not live, as some argue, in a post-metaphysical age, but rather at a time when a new metaphysics is being constructed. This metaphysics is scientific and derives from graph theory, information theory, non-linear dynamics, decision theory, game theory, generalized evolution, and other transdisciplinary theories. These \u27systems\u27 theories focus on form and process, independent of materiality; they are thus relevant to both the natural and social sciences and even to the humanities and the arts. Concerned more with the complex than the very small or very large, they constitute a metaphysics that is centered in biology, and thus near rather than far from the human scale. Systems metaphysics forges a unity of science based on what is general instead of what is fundamental; it is thus genuinely about everything. It counters the nihilism of narrow interpretations of science by affirming the link between fact and value and the reality of purpose and freedom in the natural world. It offers scientific knowledge that is individually useful as a source of insight, not merely societally useful, as a source of technology. With the new world view that it brings, systems metaphysics contributes to the recovery of cultural coherence. It builds a philosophical bridge between science and religion that is informed by our understanding of living systems. It suggests a secular theodicy in which imperfection is lawful yet perfecting is always possible, and uses this perspective to analyze religions as systems. It provides scientific insights into traditional religious concepts, including those ideas that guide spiritual practice

Kabbalah and Neo-Confucianism: a comparative morphology of medieval movements

This study is a comparative analysis of the rise of Neo-Confucianism in China during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the emergence of the school of Kabbalah in France and Spain during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE. This comparison is grounded in the observation that the two schools, in spite of their obvious differences, were an outcome of separate reactions to the rising popularity of foreign paradigms. I draw a distinction between synthetic and analytic modes of operation (modalities), arguing they represent contrasting cultural paradigms characterized by divergent cognitive, social, linguistic, and cultural temperaments. I argue that both the classical Chinese and Jewish worldviews conformed to the basic characteristics of the synthetic modality, and that they entered a period of acute crisis as a result of the rising popularity of the analytic Buddhist and Greek philosophical traditions respectively. As I define it, the synthetic worldview is characterized by the affirmation of the body and this-worldly life, an emphasis on ritual and community, cultural particularism, and associative, non-analytical modes of thought. The contrasting analytic worldview stresses individualism, de-contextualization of data, other-worldliness, contemplative spirituality, and universalism. In the context of this project, I develop a methodological framework I call genetic-morphology. This methodology seeks to integrate a synchronic search for cross-cultural patterns with an emphasis on the diachronic evolution of traditions as they change and adapt to new environmental conditions. It also integrates data from diverse academic fields such as religious studies, anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, biology, and systems theory. As such this study offers a gestalt appreciation of cultural systems, their internal dynamic, the symbiotic relationship between their constituent parts, and the function of information in their operation. This dissertation concludes that Kabbalah and Neo-Confucianism can be understood as "defense theologies," or adaptive responses devised to protect their classical synthetic modes of operation from the cultural pressures of analytic paradigms. Kabbalah and Neo-Confucianism were unique in their ability to appropriate powerful features from analytic traditions and subordinate them to native synthetic sensibilities, thereby equipping the Jewish and Chinese traditions with revolutionary theologies that dismantled the challenges of foreign analytic paradigms

Tartu Ülikooli toimetised. Tööd semiootika alalt. 1964-1992. 0259-4668

http://www.ester.ee/record=b1331700*es

Epistemological Considerations on Systemic Paradigm

This brief study makes some reflections on the systemic paradigm and the claim that Reality is a system advocated by some thinkers. We argue that the General Systems Theory is an abstract theory relating to formal reasons that correspond to real systems scientifically established, and its development can facilitate the task mentioned, which is characteristic of ordinary scientific work

A Peircean Panentheist Scientific Mysticism

Peirce’s philosophy can be interpreted as an integration of mysticism and science. In Peirce’s philosophy mind is feeling on the inside and on the outside, spontaneity, chance and chaos with a tendency to take habits. Peirce’s philosophy has an emptiness beyond the three worlds of reality (his Categories), which is the source from where the categories spring. He emphasizes that God cannot be conscious in the way humans are, because there is no content in his “mind.” Since there is a transcendental3 nothingness behind and before the categories, it seems that Peirce had a mystical view on reality with a transcendental Godhead. Thus Peirce seems to be a panentheist.4 It seems fair to characterize him as a mystic whose path to enlightenment is science as a social activity

Modelo para avaliação de relações dimensionais na criação de conhecimento organizacional

Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia e Gestão do Conhecimento, Florianópolis, 2016.A complexidade organizacional tem sido analisada com base em diferentes aspectos que afetam o ambiente interno das organizações, tais como, tecnologias, múltiplas relações com parceiros internos e externos, adaptação por diferenças culturais, aprendizagem e compartilhamento de conhecimento. Dessa forma, as organizações podem ser consideradas como sistemas complexos de incertezas e interações. Sob este aspecto, esta pesquisa visa propor um modelo para avaliação de relações dimensionais na criação de conhecimento organizacional. Para tanto, buscou-se por meio de uma revisão sistemática da literatura, quais dimensões organizacionais estão relacionadas e contribuem na criação de conhecimento. As dimensões identificadas na literatura foram: Cultura Organizacional (CO), Aprendizagem Organizacional (AO), Cognição Organizacional (CgO), Capital Intelectual (CI), Processos e Rotinas (PR), Espaço Tempo Organizacional (ET), Fluxo de Comunicação (FC), Epistemológica (Ept), Ontológica (Ont), Capacidade de Absorção (CA) e Axiológica (Axl). O modelo foi desenvolvido levando em consideração a arquitetura do principal símbolo kabbalístico - a Árvore Sefirótica. Esse símbolo é composto por dez sefiroth e uma não sefirha (DA?AT) com o qual procura representar o cosmo em toda a sua complexidade. O agrupamento de algumas sefiroth na estrutura sefirótica representa três estágios distintos na criação de conhecimento ? o cognitivo, o emocional e o comportamental/ação. Esse sistema holístico e complexo pode ser comparado a um sistema organizacional, e o modelo proposto intenciona uma representação estrutural de dimensões organizacionais que podem expressar a complexidade organizacional na criação de conhecimento de forma holística. Compõe o modelo um instrumento avaliativo, validado por especialistas (doutores com ampla visão de negócio em empresas intensivas em conhecimento), que possibilitou a construção de uma escala de métricas dimensionais. O instrumento foi aplicado em cinco empresas de core business distintos para investigar o grau da capacidade de criação de conhecimento organizacional. Para tratamento e análise dos dados foram aplicados os conceitos da Lógica Fuzzy que proporciona tratamento matemático de incertezas da vida, do pensamento humano e de ambientes complexos. Os resultados mostraram que, para cada empresa, a criação de conhecimento organizacional se comporta de forma única revelando em qual nível (cognitivo, emocional e comportamental) de conhecimento a empresa expressa maior capacidade criativa. Esta capacidade de criação de conhecimento organizacional é uma representação do fluxo de energia que interconecta toda a arquitetura holística do símbolo kabbbalístico.Abstract : Organizational complexity has been analyzed based on different aspcts that affect the internal environment of organizations, such as, technologies, multiple relationships with internal and external partners, adaptation for cultural differences, learning and knowledge sharing. In this way, organizations can be considered as complex systems of uncertainties and interactions. In this aspect, this research aims to propose a model for evaluating dimensional relationship in the creation of organizational knowledge. In order to do so, it sought through a systematic literature review, which organizational dimensions are related and contribute to the knowledge creation. The dimensions identified in the literature were: Organizational Culture (OC), Organizational Learning (OL), Organizational Cognition (OCg), Intellectual Capital (IC), Processes and Routines (PR), Organizational Space-Time (ST), Communication Flow (CF), Epistemological (Ept), Ontological (Ont), Absorption Capacity (AC) and Axiological (Axl). The model was developed taking into account the architecture of the main Kabbalistic symbol - the Sephirotic Tree. This symbol is composed of ten sefiroth and one non-sefirha (DA'AT) with which it seeks to represent the cosmos in all its complexity. The grouping of some sefiroth into the sefirotic structure represents three distinct stages in the knowledge creation - cognitive, emotional and behavioral/action. This holistic and complex system can be compared to an organizational system, and the proposed model intends a structural representation of organizational dimensions that can express organizational complexity knowledge creating in a holistic way.The model is compose of an evaluation instrument, validated by specialists (doctors with a broad business vision in knowledge intensive companies), which enabled the construction of the scale of dimensional metrics was constructed. The instrument was applied to five distinct core business companies to investigate the degree of organizational knowledge creation capacity. For the treatment and analysis of the data was applied the concepts of Fuzzy Logic that provides mathematical treatment of uncertainties of human life, human thought and complex environments. The results showed that, for each company, the creation of organizational knowledge behaves in a unique way revealing at what level (cognitive, emotional and behavioral) the company expresses greater creative capacity. This ability to create organizational knowledge is a representation of the flow of energy that interconnects all holistic architecture of the Kabbalistic symbol

Insinuated Bodies, Corporeal Resignification and Disembodied Desire in Novels by Jeanette Winterson

My dissertation examines the various ways in which the following novels written by Jeanette Winterson Written on the Body (1992), Gut Symmetries (1997), The.PowerBook (2000), and The Stone Gods (2007) interrogate and denaturalize preexisting power structures by disentangling the body from the discursively inscribed identity categories of gender and sex. Dominant conceptions concerning desire, commonly thought to be an innate byproduct of a wholly natural body, are likewise disrupted in the unraveling of gender and sex from corporeality. Desire is thus opened up to possibilities that exist beyond the limited purview of gendered, heterosexist ideologies. Much like the field of queer theory, this dissertation draws together different branches of knowledge poststructuralism and resignification, psychoanalysis, nomadism, posthumanism, cyborg narratives in order to closely analyze what Wintersons works do to bodies, to language, to gender, to sexuality. The novels studied here offer a way of re-insinuating bodies to desire in ways that are much more inclusive and much less prohibitive. Although my consideration of these novels critically engages with many theorists throughout, there are four key thinkers that helped to shape each chapter: Judith Butler, Elizabeth Grosz, Katherine N. Hayles and Donna Haraway. My first chapter examines the parallels between Butlers theory of the sex/gender/desire matrix and Written on the Body, assessing the novels twofold operation of resignification: the body is first extricated from its naturalization before becoming reformulated in ways that move outside of the framework of the current grand narratives on desire. My second chapter surveys the relationship between Grosz and the Deleuzian Bodies without Organs (BwOs) in Gut Symmetries, while my third chapter explores Hayless version of posthumanism alongside Haraways figure of the cyborg, in relation to The.PowerBook and The Stone Gods, respectively. These novels widen the cracks in the signifying system, shifting conceptions of materiality and desire elsewhere. If we are to acknowledge that desire does indeed come from outside rather than from within the subject, then sexuality can be dissociated from the subjects body subsequently endangering genders impact on how we conceive of our desire