The Theory of Process Seminar, Day One with Arthur M. Young consists of 33 video clips, of which the most interesting ones have been starred and marked in orange. Recorded December 13, 1980.
01. “We really are in a predicament…” (1:01)*
What is to guide us? Science doesn’t provide a code for living. What is our long term interest?
02. “Suppose I had a box…” (2:28)
Are we to say that the universe is only material things?
03. “I have to convince you that such a world exists…” (5:20)
The power of forces. Forces inside the atom are enormous, but they not “things.” What’s the point? A purpose for existence.
04. “My purpose is to get an education…” (1:32)*
Purpose is perpetually self-renewing.
05. “I need to show you things so I get… let’s say I create a blackboard…” (1:50)
The four levels applied to creating a blackboard. Purpose is communication. Need material and plan.
06. “If somebody’s sick he can go to a healer…” (2:30)
The elusiveness of experimenting with purpose.
07. “Your schematic shows how purpose leads to new entities…?” (2:33)
Purpose is ever outreaching, not local. The arc can also be seen as a spiral. It reaches the same place at a higher level.
08. “One of the best ways to approach this is to think what we mean by dimensions…” (4:18)
An introduction to the fourfold through dimensions in space.
09. “I remember on of the students prepared a huge list of words that I had been guilty of saying went into each categories…” (0:46)
The inclusiveness of the four categories.
10. “The difficulty of this diagram…” (0:31)
The conceptual nature of the theory.
11. “Suppose I say… what’s that. A triangle…” (4:05)
A demonstration of the four categories.
12. “Now the boundary of this sphere is way way out…” (2:34)
Introduction to the Torus – an alternative universe.
13. “The real reason for the Torus I’ve yet to reveal…” (0:51)
The Torus allows the universe to become unitary. Like your life, it has to come back to center to be of value.
14. “In the arc is the going-down-ness and then some kind of coming-back-ness” (0:58)
On the relationship between the Arc, the Torus and the photon.
15. “Let’s take another look at the torus…” (2:49)
The four-color problem. Plus the seven color problem of the Torus and how the Torus relates to the turn.
16. “What I’ve shown here as a turn here, as an angle…” (2:05)
The Turn is where entropy turns to negative entropy, where the molecule begins to store energy.
17. “The freedom of the particles to move around is reflected over here in the animals which have the freedom to move around…” (4:55)
The relative freedoms of the animal and plant kingdoms and how they relate to the freedoms of the particle and atomic stages.
18. “I believe we’re going to have to recognize that this ongoing process is cumulative…” (1:11)
The cumulative nature of process – each stage involves what has gone before.
19. “What is the freedom of the plant…?” (2:12)
The relative freedoms of the plant and animal kingdoms. Combining the plant and animal freedoms characterizes the seventh stage. Does this describe man?
20. “What we’re doing is dividing the whole into seven different kinds of things…” (2:21)
The fundamental nature of division by 7. The grid as a way to represent the 7 principles. Introduction to the grid. Same keywords down the left as across the top.
21. “The animal starts with the unicellular animal…” (3:26)
The animal kingdom on the grid. A stage by stage look.
22. “To show how the grid works I need to go the other way, vertically…” (3:10)
Tracing the third stage (Identity) vertically up the grid.
23. “This actually poses a related question – you said that the torus you like is a torus with an infinitely small hole…?” (1:36)
The center of the torus is as small as a photon, which is more energetic the smaller it gets. A photo that contains the energy of the entire universe has a diameter of 10-80 cm,
24. “Now see I’m trying to tease you into this recognition that man is somehow different from animals…” (4:04)
Communication as characteristic of man.The arc as applied to language and communication.
25. “This is the distinguishing feature of man…?” (1:08)
How the distinguishing characteristic of each stage has to evolve through the sub-stages.
26. “Let’s go back to what it was like to be second substage human…” (1:40)
The emergence of the principle of identity in man.
27. “Remember the tree? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil…” (3:14)
The development of choice and responsibility in man. We can’t transcend the ego until we’ve developed one. Where modern man resides on the arc.
28. “I was at one time perturbed that standardized nuts and bolts would eliminate all the creativity…” (1:50)
Standardization can free us to express our creativity in engineering or in language. Law is the basis of invention. The turn in human terms is when you are able to recognize the law and use it.
29. “The 3-4-5 triangle is an interaction of powers 3, 4 and 5…” (0:58)
The 3-4-5 triangle – the principle of trial and error in nature and evolution and with the helicopter.
30. “Now there’s another type of evolution. That’s what I call the 2-4-6 evolution…” (1:46)
The 2-4-6 triangle – the development of instinct through attraction.
31. “The last one is the kind of evolution that makes man distinct from animals…” (0:53)
The 1-4-7 triangle – from light to recognition. The aha experience is light itself.
32. “I didn’t dwell enough on light. I didn’t tell you how spiritual light is…” (4:29)*
Why light is spiritual. Why light is at stage one. It is indivisible – quantized. Everything that happens does so through photons.
33. “How in using the theory could a person look at their life today…?” (1:50)
People interested in inquiries such as the theory of process are probably at the 4th stage – the turn.
View Day Two of the Theory of Process SeminarCredits
The Yoga of Thinking: Arthur M. Young Video Archive is a project of Anodos Foundation. All video material is copyrighted by Hypersphere and is licensed to Anodos for this Archive.
- Producer: Arthur Bloch
- Principle camerawork: Mike Shedlin
- Additional camerawork: Randy Elliott