1) The document discusses systems and methods, arguing that methods precede systems and people often progress in nonlinear ways even if bounded by linear systems. 2) It presents a "Yongian Architectonic" of categories that make meaningful distinctions without creating dichotomies, and suggests reality involves an ongoing growth in freedom and value through emergent realities letting go of equality with their origins. 3) While some see reality as fragile and contingent, the author argues ours is a narrative of remembering our origins and returning home, not of forgetting.

1. People might mistake me for being systematic but, on second glance, they would
realize that that is only because I am often speaking meta-systematically. I refer to
systems but don't feel like I wholly inhabit them. My whole philosophical schtick,
really, has been that methods precede systems and that most of us begin much more
so in media res. This is to recognize that, so very often, we will progress nonlinearly,
nonsequentially, nonhierarchically, informally, nonsystematically and
asymmetrically, even though otherwise (and undeniably) rather loosely bounded by
linear, sequential, hierarchical & formal systems and symmetries. My Peircean
critique might be that 3ns and 1ns have been way overemphasized (in science,
culture, philosophy, theology, religion, even politics ... especially politics) at the
expense of 2ns. I do write in methodological fugues but one should not mistake their
thematic nature for any systematic approach. My pneumatological focus is perhaps a
symptom of my existential "holding on loosely" to the theologically vague while
leaving the specifics of the great traditions, in general, and Christologies, in
particular, to the more doctrinally-committed and systematically-oriented. I will
share, below, a summary that I had written to accompany my "Yongian
Architectonic".
Johnboy's Yongian Architectonic
Here are some categories. They present distinctions that make a difference (and
suggest that not all distinctions are also dichotomies). These categories are
methodologically-autonomous but axiologically-integral. They suggest that the
cosmos as a whole and humans in particular are on a journey of value-realization,
always fostered by an ongoing growth in freedom. Others may employ different
categories and name different distinctions and they may work as well or even better;
it is their proper inter-relating per our rubric that matters. That rubric? Again, we
should always inquire: Which distinctions 1) make a difference? 2) are also true
dichotomies or not? 3) entail autonomous methods? 4) are indispensable for human
value-realizations and thus integral?
Curiously, in achieving this growth in freedom, it's almost as if each emergent reality
has deemed --- that equality with its progenitor is nothing to be grasped at. Indeed,
paradoxically, at every level (of ontological density, we might say), this freedom
inevitably derives from sacrifice, from a parlay of losses into gains, a finesse of risks
into rewards (some say perhaps even a shrinking of the Infinite into finitude). Star
dust became trail dust as swirling electrons lost their original orbits, thus
proliferating a diversity of elements. Lost genetic information similarly birthed the
origin of species. Lost linguistic information gifted humankind with signs and
symbols and metaphors that leverage what are essentially literal mistakes into
literary masterpieces, stories full of meaning, poor in facts but rich in truths.
Some thus see reality as naught but a glorious contingency, incredibly fragile and
beautiful but, finally, poignantly sad. We, however, suggest with Wordsworth: "Not
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2. in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we
come, from God, who is our home." For our part, we wager, not without profit, that
ours is less a story about forgetting and much more a narrative (dare we suggest
meta- ?) about remembering (anamnesis), giving thanks (eucharist) and going
home.
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