When dealing with connections between ideas other than ‘equivalence,’ setting the stage for a relationship can be of critical importance. Where will two ideas go on their first date? Just as in the intersubjective realm where two people might begin by meeting up at a café, so too our dyad of ideas might have had an awkward and nervous first encounter in the pages of a book we were reading, or perhaps they made their acquaintance when they were both tossed out in the course of a conversation. She was a fashionable matheme and he was a striking economic hypothesis. Together they made a celebrity couple of ideas. She greatly improved his image, cleaning him up and making him more presentable (not to mention more practical) while he took her on all kinds of excursions–mostly business trips. The trouble is that their marital bliss can only be sustained when dealing with commodities trading. Venture outside this ‘topical’ homestead and the force of attraction dissipates. There are places (and applications) where the relationship is simply not meant to go.

When my mind begins to think of two autonomous ideas as a couple, to weigh how suitable a match between them might be, or even what the children of such a  pairing might look like, I am effectively laying down the provisional cognitive wiring. The more my mind travels that road which links up these ideas, the more cemented it becomes. To formalize this bond, I have to be attentive to the venue of their wedding and most significantly where they will finally make a home together. Turf wars ensue when excessive ambiguity and undecidability makes me intellectually uncomfortable. When I want everything clarified and neatly delineated (somewhat like university departments and fields of study in the classical sense) then I want to know if the groom’s ‘economics’ will get married under the chuppah (bridal canopy) that was brought and paid for by the bride’s family–that is, if he will now be taken into the mathematics department and treated as a subject of mathematics. Or perhaps, she will be brought to live in his home as a mathematical skill needed for economists of a certain school in which case, the math resides within the field of economics. She aids him.

In the life of ideas, chapters have to be included that illustrate the back story–all of biographical insights into the childhood and early adulthood as well as the mature post-nuptial period. We want to see all of the generations of ideas to come from this initial union. Yet, we also need to document their extended family which will include research into the ancestry of these ideas as well.

Considering how readily the type of relationship called ezer or ‘helper’ between two people is transposed as a cooperative relationship between two ideas, we should scout out  some of its additional implications. In order for any thought process to succeed, it demands cooperation (co-operation) of ideas. Notions which are not exactly the same or which might even be very different in their ‘conceptual persona’ have to feel enough of an attraction to be able to work together. Thus, heterogeneous components of thought, if they are to flow freely, have to have some degree of compatibility (for instance, one algebraic operation has to operate alongside another). Teaming ideas allows us to pull through problems more readily but only if their energies can be productively harnessed.

Very often in the course of crafting a persuasive essay we are called upon to present supporting (ezer) ideas. In the sphere of discursive writing, this would be comparable to introducing the spouse of an idea whilst debuting the idea itself. ‘Did you know who this idea is married to?’ Such an ‘ex-spousal’ of ideas provides backup evidence to further make one’s case. All corroborating testimony comes when both parties confirm the same story. One idea alone is unfortified (the Talmud [Yevamot 62b] even states that a man without a wife is like a being without a protective wall). One’s spouse is one’s first line of defense. Together our ideas are stronger than either of them by themselves. The other insulates the self. You bring me in from the cold. You shelter me. So too, within the world of ideas, one idea defends and protects another. When they are married the ‘idea’ couple bears witness to one another. One idea says ‘I know this other idea through and through. We’ve been married for so many years, I can’t imagine being thought apart from her for even an instant. I wouldn’t know how to be a widowed or divorced idea. That would require re-thinking everything.’

The problems that derive from this sort of marriage come from the ‘conditionality’ of the bond. One idea supports another only under certain conditions. Alter those conditions and suddenly the support is gone. One minute your idea had my idea’s back and another minute (perhaps we hit upon a sore topic) and your idea turns on me and goes on the attack. An example of this might be the ‘constitutional’ marriage of the idea of freedom with the right to free speech. Being free and saying whatever I want might seem to be a match made in heaven, until I realize that there is such a thing as hate speech or incitement that might permanently compromise the freedom of another. Our reasonableness is continually exploring the helpfulness of such associations. Within bounded conditions (all ezer or ‘cooperative’ constructions of ideas have ‘boundary issues’) the support mechanism for deriving ideas to aid and abed the idea in question, is binah or ‘understanding.’ Understanding relates by derivation or learning one thing from out of another (mavin devar m’tok devar).

Conceptually our ideas are derivative of one another within a certain matrix. Binah or ‘understanding’ is referred to as Imma or ‘mother’ in the Zohar and consequently, her ‘matrix-womb’ is the semi-closed context or sphere of immediacy that cultivates meaningful relationships. Confined within the womb of understanding (this is reminiscent of the popular term ‘bounded rationality’ used by Herbert A. Simon as well as Nobel prize winning economist Daniel Kahneman) the associations taken up are conditioned to this context-specific location. Push the boundaries of a relationship of ideas too much and they might rescind their alliance.

Limited association (a limited liability ‘corporation’) is created from reason (within the limits of reason) as a foundation. By contrast, the super-rational bond or unbounded-bond is one where an idea declares to another ‘I’ll go wherever you will go’ in that my attachment to you is not context specific. This would be an arranged marriage where the participating ideas are not in it of their own free will, but were placed in tandem by intellectual force of circumstance (‘we were caught alone together and everyone just assumed we were married’). Instead, the unconditional bond of ideas acknowledges a shared soul-root and have legitimately become enamored of each other. Such ideational coupling can withstand shifting circumstances. Their marriage continues whether we evaluate them as a wealthily or poor, sick or healthy, pair. Supporting ideas do not necessarily have this same resilience. They enter into the relationship (understanding could be said to be the faculty of mind that inspects how one idea relates to another under specific conditions–in other words: logic) with so many pre-nuptial agreements and provisions that their intellectual life together is only for the duration of ‘this world’ (meaning a specific context). The ‘death’ of one idea in ‘this world’ cancels it’s connection to the other. Whereas, in the unconditional dedication of one idea to another–where they share one essence–they remained married in ‘this world’ and the next (i.e. from one context to another–even a future context that could not be anticipated from the onset of their relationship).

Allied ideas turn into fierce competitors when the contractual nature of the relationship is violated by either party. This k’negdo or conflict based war of ideas will be taken up in Part Eighteen.

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/relationship-differences-fusion-and-defusion-part-18/

http://www.interinclusion.org/inspirations/relationship-differences-fusion-and-defusion-part-16/

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