Сергей Хоружий - Что такое Synergia?

As a result, we find that the higher steps of hesychast practice represent the overlapping or the common part of all the three domains of synergy, theological, anthropological and synergetic. On this common territory the corresponding paradigms of synergy are perfectly in accordance with each other. The synergetic paradigm can be considered here as a particular case of the anthropological paradigm concretizing the dynamical mechanism of synergy in a definite class of anthropological practices. The presence of a common territory, on which all the three paradigms of synergy essentially coincide, makes it possible to conclude that there is one universal paradigm having the theological, anthropological and synergetic paradigms of synergy as its representations or branches.

This conclusion can be supported by other examples of synergetic phenomena in anthropology. One example is provided by the initial steps of the hesychast Ladder which are conversion and repentance. Their goal is the change-over, in which a human person passes the Spiritual Gate: rejects all former regimes of his/her usual existence and begins to follow the strategy of ontological alternative striving with all his/her energies after God. Although in this initial part the practice did not yet reach synergy, the ascetic tradition basing on its rich experience states that some presence of Divine energy, even though implicit, is necessary to an adept in order to take the road directed to Divine being (in philosophical terms, the event of the ontological choice is a genuine ontological event, it is endowed with actual ontological contents). It means that repentance, at least when it is the start of spiritual practice, presupposes a kind of “pre-synergy”, a certain initial and implicit form of synergy. Let us remember now that Orthodox and especially ascetic repentance is a large set of very specific techniques cultivating a rich spectrum of sharply negative emotions and sensations: intense and insistent self-condemnation, contrition, compunction, remorse, all this taken to the extreme limits; tears and various kinds of physical self-torture… so that all these “repentance labors” were usually regarded by positivist science as a kind of madness. These two features taken together form the conceptual frame of hesychast repentance: its goal is the start of an ontologically alternative strategy and its means for reaching this goal are the concentration of many extreme, unusual and painful practices. But this combination has an obvious synergetic interpretation: the goal of repentance means radical restructuring of man’s inner reality and behavioral patterns; the “repentance labors” drive his inner reality far from its usual regimes of stability and equilibrium; and then even the implicit action of ontologically outer energy (pre-synergy) generates the desired restructuring. This restructuring is, however, not followed by the generation of all the hierarchy of new dynamical forms, i.e. the establishment of full-scale synergetic dynamics; and this fact is another manifestation of the mutual accordance of the two paradigms of synergy: the phenomenon, in which anthropological synergy is present only as a certain “pre-synergy”, in the aspect of its synergetic properties shows only some “synergetic pre-synergy”.

Similar example can be found in Zen, and we shall consider it briefly so as not to restrict our discussion by hesychasm alone. We shall see that the “synergetic paradigm of synergy” is the basic mechanism behind the famous phenomenon of satori, the culminating event of Zen practice. It is a complex event integrated into a subtle spiritual practice that has, in its turn, its doctrinal fundament in certain schools of Buddhism. Here we shall omit all the doctrinal aspects and concentrate only on dynamical mechanisms of satori as an anthropological phenomenon (the detailed exposition of the phenomenon and our interpretation of it is presented in the work [14] S.Horujy. Zen as an Organon // Diogenes’ Lantern. A synergetic anthropology project in the modern context of the humanities. Moscow, 2010. Pp. 522-572. In Russian.) ). In a very simplified description, satori or “illumination” is sudden breakthrough of man’s consciousness to some new Truth or Light or Being related directly to the final goal of all the practice. What is considered as the main distinction of satori is not so much the result of the break-through (which is close to mystical experience of many other spiritual traditions) as specific strategies and techniques developed for reaching it. The way to satori is not the stepped advancement and ascent: instead of the ladder paradigm found usually in spiritual practices we see here the deadlock paradigm. Man’s consciousness must be driven to the deadlock, and this deadlock must be felt most keenly, and it is only out of such deadlock that the break-through to the illumination is possible. Specific techniques invented for producing the necessary deadlock state belong to the most striking and famous elements of Zen. Very roughly, these techniques are of two kinds: 1) the actions of the Zen master with respect to the disciple who wants to reach satori, 2) the meditation on the koans (literally, riddle or absurd situation), special paradoxical problems that have no logical solution. The actions are sudden and unexplainable, absurd, and often shocking, rude, aggressive (e.g., in one famous episode the master has broken the leg of the disciple); koans plunge adept’s mind into the protracted deadlock state that brings him to the extreme limits of exhaustion and despair.

As a result, a certain psychological scheme comes into view. Man’s consciousness is driven to an extreme state full of sharp negative affects (disorientation, despair, anxiety, helplessness…); it is excited to its very limits: it knows that it is in the deadlock, and knows that it is not able to break it.

In this state of maximal and unbearable inner strain the consciousness is ripe for any radical change – and at this moment some outer factor interferes suddenly: some action of the master or simply an unexpected disturbance, sound and so on. And the action of this outer force provokes the sudden breakthrough in the consciousness that is the long-awaited satori. This is the psychological mechanism or the pattern of satori, and we easily recognize its synergetic nature. Evidently, in the described practice the consciousness can be considered as an open system driven far from its equilibrium regimes by means of the “deadlock paradigm”, and under the conditions of this paradigm outer energy induces a radical restructuring of it. Hence we can assert that the “synergetic paradigm of synergy” is represented here. The specific feature of this representation is that outer energy acts as a momentary impulse; but similar variations of the basic synergetic mechanism are known in physical and chemical systems as well. However, like in the case of conversion and repentance in Christian practice, the event of the restructuring is not followed by the generation of the hierarchy of new structures, and we conclude that in the phenomenon of satori the synergetic dynamics is also present not in its fully developed form. In our terms, it means that it is only “synergetic pre-synergy” that is represented here. This conclusion is in accordance with the parallel between satori and the Christian conversion that has been drawn by many authors. And what matters for us, the accordance or coherence between the anthropological and synergetic paradigms of synergy is preserved too.

Now our map of the territory of synergy is outlined fully. Let us add just a few concluding remarks. First of all, one must go a bit deeper into the relation of the synergetic and anthropological domains of the territory. Synergetic and anthropological (personological, philosophical, theological) discourses are very different and distant from each other, and it was important for us to disclose the areas of their mutual closeness and accordance: it made it possible to demonstrate essential unity and universality of the paradigm of synergy. However, it is equally important not to lose sight of the fundamental difference of their epistemological nature. In no way numerous applications of synergetic discourse in the sphere of the humanities withdraw the fact that this discourse can play only an auxiliary part in this sphere. Its concepts and methods belong to natural sciences and general theory of open systems. Indisputably, they form a rich conceptual and epistemological fund, but all this fund cannot describe constitutive properties of anthropological phenomena or philosophical subjects because all phenomena and subjects related to personal being possess specific dimensions and aspects absent on other levels of reality and irreducible to the characteristics of these levels. For this reason, synergetic mechanisms can express and explain only some particular and secondary aspects of anthropological and spiritual reality, but not its constitution. The constitution of a human person cannot be described by the synergetic paradigm, and so are all phenomena which express this constitution directly. In contrast to the anthropological paradigm of synergy, the synergetic paradigm is not a personological paradigm. It means that anthropological phenomena (and, indeed, phenomena from any sphere of the humanities) can have only some not constitutive properties or aspects describable adequately by means of synergetics. For no field in the sphere of the humanities synergetic discourse can serve as the basic discourse, it can only be used as a supporting discourse, and the limits of its validity must be determined on the basis of its relation to the basic humanistic discourse. (In our examples from anthropology, synergetic elements are present exactly in this supporting and auxiliary role.) Thus any statements that some or other anthropological, religious, etc. phenomena “can be described on the basis of synergetics” are essentially incorrect. They express reductionist and scientistic bias or trend that ignores specific and irreducible nature of personal being and always accompanies the attempts to introduce new achievements of natural sciences into the sphere of the humanities. Manifestations of such trend abound in synergetic literature, and we hope that our map of the territory of synergy with clear borders between its domains may help to keep the proper relationship of synergetic, anthropological and theological discourses.