The more we close in upon the ‘identity’ (the what-ness, who-ness, where-ness, when-ness, and so on) of a being, place, situation, relationship, idea, etc.) with a static model, the more narrow our expectations of function or value will become. And that has a huge impact on who -we- may become, and how the possibilities of relation, intelligence, creativity and discovery are either unnecessarily narrowed, or usefully focused.

The more we know what (or who) a thing (or being) ‘is’, we then rather ignorantly and unconsciously ‘presume’ we know ‘what they do’ or ‘are’ or ‘are for’. In truth, these matters are extremely vague. They are not extrinsically stipulated as our languages suppose and demand. Neither are we. So in choosing to adopt a representational framework, we are, too often (and without meaning to) also adopting a set of limitations, enhancements, inhibitions, opportunities and prohibitions for our minds and our development.

If we are aware of this, we can learn to see when this gesture has the opposite effect it is deployed to produce: in short, when it misfires, generating too few or too narrow a range of emergence opportunities when this is neither necessary (for focus) nor desirable (for function). Unfortunately, this is ‘most of the time’ in nearly all representational systems.

There are two interesting exceptions, and both point in worthy directions that can help us to transcend or even take advantage of these ‘problems’. The first is the learning-oriented play of small children. The second is the capacity to ratchet the degree of completeness of the specifications we ordinarily employ.

For example, although that is -provisionally- (according to reference) a ‘tree’, its true identity, and my own, are incomlpetely specificed by reference and are thus discovered not through reference but through relation: we become what we do and feel and explore together, now, in both correspondence with and refutation of the representational strategies we employ to prefigure or communicate about our conscious experience and awareness.