Soul Salon: Perspicaci-TEA party
The dictionary definition:
The quality of having a ready insight into things; keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration. Perspicacity takes the concept of wisdom deeper in the sense that it denotes a keenness of sense and intelligence as it is applied to insight. It has been described as a deeper level of internalization. Another definition refers to it as the “ability to recognize subtle differences between similar objects or ideas”. In 17th-century Europe, René Descartes devised systematic rules for clear thinking in his work Regulæ ad directionem ingenii (Rules for the direction of natural intelligence). In Descartes’ scheme, intelligence consisted of two faculties: perspicacity, which provided an understanding or intuition of distinct detail; and sagacity, which enabled reasoning about the details in order to make deductions.
Perspicacity is more subtle than simply demonstrating high intelligence or mental acuity. It implies a penetrating aspect of intelligence that more than soley reasons and “understands things”. So what constitutes that subtle difference? The word penetration is the part of the definition that holds the key to that difference. It is one thing to have the intelligence to reason and understand something, it is another to penetrate the more subtle aspects of that which is perceived… to be able to have the refined discernment to compare and contrast those differences with the subtlety of penetrating intelligence, to be able to see beneath the surface of a thing to the underlying coherent pattern that lies beneath the appearance. Perspicacity moves more into the realm of the way intuition works.. that is, having the ability of seeing “through” the obvious layers of something to connect to the meaning and nuances of content and are beyond the more obvious observation or definitions solely mental interpretation would make. Whereas reason moves in a step by step linear format, perspicacity makes quantum leaps, moving holographically to connect dots that at first glance may not seem related. Inventors and artists constantly employ this special genre of intelligence in their work that we call perspicacity. In essence perspicacity is high level creativity…creativity that leaps cosmic lily pads to discover and connect to the edges of known realities. It represents high level imagination and insight.. insight that penetrates known models to reveal new frontiers of the known. The other word in the definition that adds insight to the deeper meaning of perspicacity is the word sagacity or wisdom. Simply put, wisdom cannot be learned (which would simply be knowledge). Wisdom is acquired only through actual, lived experience, through direct knowing, through gnosis. Wisdom requires the penetrating insight of perspicacity and to have that insight requires learning to value and choose to be empty and present such that wisdom can arises directly from the greater hologram of Universal wisdom, instead of simply recapitulated from what is known in the mind. When the dictionary definition above uses the word “internalization” it implies this wisdom that now is coming from an internal essence of Self and life rather than from learned external sources.
Questions:
What would you say is the quality or attribute you hold, that allows the perspicacity of direct knowing and insight to reveal itself in you?
What is an example from your life that demonstrates the penetrating aspect of perspicacity..the ability to see through/beyond mere mental interpretation to creative insight and leaps of intuition?
What quality of consciousness assists you in seeing “through” the obvious layers of something to the coherent pattern, meaning and nuances of content that are beyond the more obvious observation or definitions solely mental interpretation would make?
What is the quality of consciousness that allows us to compare and contrast things without limiting ourselves with reductionist thinking such as science presently accepts and uses in its general paradigm and methods of investigation?
In the book Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos by Mitchell Waldrop, it was postulated that what we now call science, has come as far as it can without self imploding and annihilating the Earth. He holds that we will not survive as a species without bringing more penetrating, perspicacious insight to scientific investigations and being willing to validate and allow the word “consciousness” to even enter into scientific models or discussions. He further postulated that natural selection is not the antagonist of self-organization. It is more like a force that is constantly pushing emergent, self-organizing systems toward the edge of chaos and thus novelty. Many scientists are now catalyzing the complexity revolution away from the Newtonian reductionist model that has reigned for over two centuries. Instead of relying on the Newtonian metaphor of clockwork predictability, complexity is based on metaphors more closely akin to the growth of a plant from a tiny seed, or even the self-organizing flocking of birds.
Complex systems have acquired the ability to bring order and chaos into a special kind of balance. This balance point is a phase transition called the edge of chaos.. where the components of a system never quite lock into place, and yet never quite dissolve into turbulence either. The edge of chaos is where life has enough stability to sustain itself and enough creativity to deserve the name of life. The edge of chaos is where new ideas and innovative genotypes are forever nibbling away at the edges of the status quo, and where even the most entrenched old guard will eventually be overthrown. The edge of chaos is the constantly shifting battle zone between stagnation and anarchy, the one place where a complex system can be spontaneous, adaptive and alive.
Where or how are you still indoctrinated with and caught in the Newtonian reductionist science model that has prevailed as a belief system for two thousand years?
We now find ourselves in a global eco-system that is living on the edge of chaos. We are in a phase transition between stagnation and anarchy. Rather than capitulating to helplessness, what can we do to celebrate and move with this transition phase toward spontaneous, adaptive solutions?
