Topologies of the Flesh: A Multidimensional Exploration of the Lifeworld (Series In Continental Thought) [Hardcover]

Steven M. Rosen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2006 | Series: Series In Continental Thought

The concept of “flesh” in philosophical terms derives from the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. This was the word he used to name the concrete realm of sentient bodies and life processes that has been eclipsed by the abstractions of science, technology, and modern culture. Topology, to conventional understanding, is the branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the properties of geometric figures that stay the same when the figures are stretched or deformed. Topologies of the Flesh is an original blend of continental thought and mathematical imagination. Steven M. Rosen opens up a new area of philosophical inquiry: topological phenomenology. Through his unique application of qualitative mathematics, he extends the approaches of Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger so as to offer a detailed exploration of previously uncharted dimensions of human experience and the natural world. Rosen’s unprecedented marriage of topology and phenomenology is motivated by the desire to help overcome the pervasive dualism of contemporary philosophy and Western culture at large. To carry this to completion, he must address his own dualistic stance as author. Challenging the author’s traditional posture of detachment and anonymity, Rosen makes his presence vividly felt in his final chapter, and his philosophical analysis is transformed into a living reality.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Steven M. Rosen is emeritus professor of psychology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. His philosophical works includeDimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space, Time, and Individuation and Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle: The Evolution of a “Transcultural” Approach to Wholeness.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Ohio University Press; 1 edition (May 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821416766
• ISBN-13: 978-0821416761
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,951,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alchemy of Metacognition, January 17, 2012

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Pavel Somov, Ph.D., psychologist, author of &... - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Topologies of the Flesh: A Multidimensional Exploration of the Lifeworld (Series In Continental Thought) (Hardcover)

Brilliantly unorthodox, shamelessly abstruse, bewildering in complexity, paradigm-shifting in importance, surprisingly (small)-self-revealing and (big)-Self-revealing, pattern-breaking in its scholarly provocation. "Topologies of the Flesh" is "topologies of consciousness," a profound ontological investigation of the matter of consciousness and its paradoxical dynamics. "Topologies of the Flesh" is a neo-shamanic "how-to" manual full of the alchemy of metacognition.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars holiest of the (w)hole, June 7, 2006

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John Dotson (Monterey, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Topologies of the Flesh: A Multidimensional Exploration of the Lifeworld (Series In Continental Thought) (Hardcover)

This book is surely the most profound twist through Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Gebser -- since Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Gebser.

10 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars kidney energy is intention, June 19, 2006

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drew hempel (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Topologies of the Flesh: A Multidimensional Exploration of the Lifeworld (Series In Continental Thought) (Hardcover)

Here's the deal: Rosen has dared to go where most philosophers only hint at with trendy neologisms. Having said that I think Rosen needs to get even more radical. For example when he states that Altaic peoples were not capable of modern logical analysis of paranormal paradoxes (giving the example of climbing a mountain to travel to hell as being just wrong) Rosen follows a long line of "traditional" dead white males who were just racist.

Professor Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty in her book "Dreams, Illusions and other Realities" provides a nice counter-weight to the view of Rosen, Ken Wilber and so many others. She states, for example, that the Hausa believe dreams are real until 10 years old then learn dreams are not real and then finally, by say 18 years old, learn that dreams provide a means to travel beyond the body and see the future.

Meanwhile us Western "modern" people still think that dreams are not real. Other examples are numerous from the anthropological literature. Farley Mowhat's "People of the Deer" gives a good "altaic" example (although it's on the Innuit of midland Canada). Paul Stoller. The book on the Senufo of the Ivory Coast is another good example. "In the Eyes of the Night: Witchcraft among the Senegalese People" is excellent. "Women Like Meat" is a recent Ivy-league anthropology professor analysis of the sophisticated magic of the Koi-San.

What's tragic of course is that this real sophisticated knowledge has been rapidly destroyed although rare lineages do still exist.

Let's just state that a recent study proved that melatonin dramatically increases with altitude and melatonin then turns into DMT -- the spirit molecule (so traveling up a mountain enables human consciousness to "descend" to it's quantum foundation).

Anyway the emphasis on topology by Rosen is greatly underscored by mathematical biologist professor Steven Strogatz' best-seller "Sync" (2003) wherein the twisted scroll-ring is the equivalent of the double torus kleinian analysis. Strogatz (via the fastest supercomputers at Los Alamos) discovered that this topology is truly a universal alchemical structure which can heal heretofore chaotic diseases (like heart arrhythmia).

Another excellent source on consciousness and topology is psychology Professor Harry Hunt's work (Yale U Press) -- he cites Ralph Abrahamson's "double torus" model.

Strogatz, though, being a truly mature scientist, has also admitted that the Pythagorean harmonic series (which is the foundation for the Riemann Hypothesis at value zero and predicts all numbers) is "a conspiracy between nature and number, between atom and arithmetic." (promo for the 2006 book "Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis")

Better yet Strogatz has come out stating that the latest math proofs rely on computers to demonstrate their logic such that humans are no longer in control of math, the foundation for all science. This loss of control will, for structural reasons, spread to the rest of science.

I submit, and would hope that Rosen would agree, that humans were never in control. The "zero linking value" discovered to be the key for Strogatz' twisted scroll ring universality should also be the "apeiron" central to Rosen's metaphysics.

Apeiron is truly the empty awareness which secretly guides all of "evolution" or "progress" -- what have you.

So free will and intention are inherent to the platonic form in the higher dimensional topology -- hidden within the 4th dimension of space.

This topology is literally the full-lotus body position, as taught in the most traditional form of qigong. The hands face the heart-mind, as taught by Master Yan Xin, the national treasure of China.

The knees and spine form an equilateral triangle with great pressure on the hands and elbows so that a Kleinian free-energy dynamic is created through:

tensigrity -- the key principle to Bucky Fuller's topological universality.

The double torus equilateral tetrahedron (pyramid power) is the same as the Kleinian analysis and the twisted scroll ring of macro quantum chaos theory. Freemasonry is based on the same pyramid power full-lotus secrets, as professor Hugh B. Urban reveals.

The equilateral triangle is composed of two Pythagorean 3:4:5 triangles taking us back to the Pythagorean Logos, now central to Rosen's new book.

The key mystery to the Pythagorean Tetrad is that it's ASYMMETRICAL while science is based on symmetrical logic. Even Alain Connes points this out in his new book "Triangle of Thoughts" (2001). Connes, the top mathematician of France, and creator of non-commutative geometry, realized that One plus One does not equal Two!! Connes states that music theory is the key to understanding, the formal language, for quantum computing.

The Golden Ratio is actually derived from the Law of Pythagoras but it violates the symmetric logic of Eudoxus (in otherwords A:B::B:A + B is not the same as 2:3::3:4 even though it is the same as 1:2::2:3.

So this basic paradox, at the foundation of science, created a "deep disharmony" (math professor Luigi Borzacchini) that has resonated, building up exponentially as science.

In otherwords the music logarithmic spiral which Rosen promotes will not work -- because of macro quantum chaos!! The nonlinear results of technology derived from the non-real continuum (as John Wheeler stated since "it comes from bit" for black holes there can be no real number continuum governing black holes. Black holes are governed by the golden ratio and the Pythagorean triangle. Only music theory resolves this paradox of which comes first -- math or physics). This paradox of math over physics has been the focus of debate for David Deutsch and Paul Davies -- music theory resolves it as both Steve Strogatz and Alain Connes realize.

Brian Josephson has turned to music theory as well and he has also promoted Rosen's work.

My background is music theory and for this reason, just as professors Charles Sayward and Philip Hughes could not accept the logic of the Pythagorean Theorem (see spring, 1999 issue of the journal Philosophy) I also was forced to research the deep paradoxes which have resulted from a misunderstanding of the Logos.

Music is not left-brain logic, nor is it right-brain topology. Music, as natural resonance, turns into pressure as anti-gravity phonons which drives the evolution of quasars and galaxies. But, again, music is transcultural and defined by the Law of Pythagoras yet he was forcefully driven out by the imperialism of Plato and Archytas as Dr. Peter Kingsely so well documents in his masterful book "In the Dark Places of Wisdom." (1999)

I recommend "the small universe" Pythagorean practice to work the body back into the full-lotus position which truly enables realization of the Kleinian action proscribed by Rosen in his brilliant tour de force.

Rosen emphasizes Chinese alchemy via Von Franz but the best source for the small universe (an ancient Chinese secret documented in India in Mircea Eliade's book on yoga) is "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" trans. by Charles Luk.