The Theory of Dialectic Moment

The Theory of Dialectic Moment occurred to my mind some thirty five years ago, when we were living in a two room flat on the Vesterbro of Copenhagen. There was no toilet and you either had to pee in the sink or pay fifty cents to do the other thing at a place five minutes down the street.

The funny thing is, I never realised that we lived in slum until years after we moved from there. I suppose I focused mainly on the rent which was less than fifty dollars a month, accounting for inflation into today's money.

When I was a kid, my dad had a book called, "So, You Want to be a Writer?". There was a lot of good advice in that book and one was that, if you want to be a writer, the first thing to do is find some place where you could live on very little money.

I did that part pretty good, by settling in Denmark in the sixties. But I forgot about the writing, so I never got very far as a writer.

I also forgot about the Theory of Dialectic moment until recently when I saw on teevee a program about consciousness where an old philosophical bromide was brought up -- the one which says: we cannot determine if there really exists any thing or any consciousness other than our selves and our own consciousness.

That is such complete intellectual bullshit!

Doctor Samuel Johnson refuted this in a most practical way, when told of Bishop Berkeley's waft of disembodied vapour from his ivory tower that "we have no way of knowing that anything really exists, except in our mind", the doctor kicked a large rock by the side of the road, yelped in pain and humped off down the road as Boswell dutifully recorded the event.

The program reminded me of the Theory of Dialectic Moment. So, perhaps the program -- my seeing it anyway -- was not a complete waste of time -- or maybe it was. It all depends upon your general point of view and, more specifically your opinion of my thought.

I know, Dr. Johnson's refutation is not valid -- other than in itself. The dear bishop would never have accepted it, I'm sure. Kicking the rock, though, is a clear and literal demonstration of Johnson's opinion and mind on the matter.

It is also a demonstration of dialectic moment and demonstrates conscious entity. In turn, evidence of conscious entity refutes Berkeley -- but only if you can let go of a lopsided and strictly logical view of reality.

The Theory of Dialectic Moment maintains that every monologue contains some amount of internal dialogue, and that this dialogue, in itself, is evidence of conscious entity.

The sum total of all conscious entity is the Nature-of-the-Universe.

Conscious entity demonstrates itself through the dialectic moment it generates. There are different ways in which this happens, but basically it is through the manifestation of its "word". We meet its "word" in words, or other artefacts of expression.

To the degree writers or speakers pay attention to the meaning of their words as they unfold, awareness is revealed and dialectic moment is generated.

Our speech creates the context in which it can be understood -- again, this implies conscious entity.

We experience this phenomenon as a sort of "tension" in the inner dialogue. Borrowing from physics, I called this tension "moment". As it arises from an inner dialogue -- therefore the term "dialectic moment".

We experience this in poetry.

In poetic texts, the apparent spring of thought, the juxtaposition of seeming incongruence is often quite obvious. When we recognise a text as poetry and not just cut-and-paste babble, we then become aware of cognisance other than our own.

The reason is that: "between the lines", there must unfold, in mind, some cognition, insights, conclusions -- some mental activity -- to which the following line is, to a degree, a comment, answer or criticism of something not said but implied.

Dialectic moment is evidence of conscious entity -- that you are experiencing conscious entity.

Consider the matter, you will see that the experience of conscious entity is not something we do continually -- or at a high level of intensity. If you do, then you must be a natural born saint or Zen master.

Dialectic moment is evidence of conscious entity because conscious entity is what generates dialectic moment. Conductive wire passed through a magnetic field generates electricity.

You may not care for or approve of Maxwell's theories, but you cannot deny that the lamp on the ceiling is proof of the pudding and so it is with dialectic moment and conscious entity.