MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

MYTHOS - LOGOS - NOMOS

FOUNDATIONS OF THE

NOMOSPHERE
Copyright © by Barnabas D. Johnson
Introduction
As science swallows logic whole, then moves beyond, so
cybernetics — properly understood — swallows science whole, then
moves beyond. See Cybernetics of Society. Law is the quintessential
cybernetic calling, transcending science. Failure to understand this
might doom civilization.
Understanding this requires delving into ancient Mythos, Logos, and
Nomos. In doing so, however, we must forever remind ourselves that
these words denote a "territory" of impressionistic, unarticulable
mind-stuff which we see, map, and in a sense create in retrospect —
with benefit of hindsight. As "BC" came into being only after "AD",
so Mythos and Logos have no meaning except with reference to their
child, Nomos.
More specifically, Mythos did not "exist" (or at least could not have
been distinguished or recognized) except with reference to what
evolved out of it, and in relation to it, namely, (a) Logos, the precursor
of modern logic and science, and (b) Nomos, the precursor of
evidence-based, reason-upholding, systematically-normative
Constitutional Democracy, whose global quickening into that
"Nomosphere" this book seeks to illuminate.
The Mythos-Logos-Nomos "triangulation" remains part of the crucial
"relic grammar" of thought. It illuminates the Ecology of Mind's

https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 1 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

ultimate justification: "calling forth" the Ecology of Values. Much of

this historical and philosophical ground is covered in First Trinity.
***
This earliest Nomos was the basis of Isonomia — equal justice and,
hence, constitutional democracy — which, in turn, undergirds what I
here call the "nomosphere": a global government under law based on
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology (the biosphere) as well
as all our knowing and thinking about these, and our relationships to
them (the memesphere) which, together — necessity being the mother
of invention — are giving birth to deliberative choice, democratic will,
constitutional governance.
We must distinguish modern "cultural territories" from ancient
mappings of their precursors. Extended metaphors and related cultural
software are tools, including tool-making tools, that must never
become ends in themselves. Paying heed thereto, we must forge our
global future based on inspired yet humble blueprints reflecting our
best understanding of how to achieve biospheric and memespheric
success.
Those blueprints constitute that nomosphere.
***
In the Ecology of Mind, ideas evolve not in a vacuum but in relation to
other ideas and to the people who utilize "thinking" for the
advancement of their purposes. Seek, and ye shall find. The
parameters of our questions necessarily shape any answers we will
recognize as being responsive thereto. Except under the spell of
extreme solipsism, world view does not "create" world-to-view ... but
it might as well, unless we are careful to allow "world to view" to
modify and even transform our world view. Such "feedback cultivating
and harvesting" is of the essence in cybernetics, properly understood.
https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 2 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

Its absence leads to insanity, individual and societal, including faith-

based beliefs that ignore evidence-based realities.
So, what is the "world to view" and how can we know it reliably?
First, context: What is the problem, and what is the goal?
Principled "truth finding" and "theory testing" should lie at the heart of
any "theology" — Humanity knowing Divinity? — worthy of being
called so. Logic, science, and cybernetics are not "opposed" to
religion; yet religion bereft of them is empty at best, toxic at worst;
indeed, our world needs a "new religion" that is deeply rooted in the
long quest for principled thought that can instruct impeccable
behavior. That quest started in ancient Greece before the dawn of
Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheism, and understanding those roots
remains vitally relevant to our world's present and future capacity to
shape "religion" in light of "the Book of Life": experience recorded
with fidelity, without fear or favor. Another word for such experience
is evidence.
Examining Further
At the dawning of systematic thought in the West, starting with Thales
(c. 624-547 BC), who is generally considered the first philosopher of
ancient Greek civilization, the Mythos — the totality of all knowledge,
contained in songs and stories but not yet written — begat the Logos.
The word "logos" came to have several meanings, including (in this
historical order): writing, truth, the rules governing physics, the rules
governing metaphysics, God, the "Word of God", and — according to
contending Christian formulations — the "Child of God" or the "Holy
Spirit" or other conceptions or aspects of the Christian Trinity
(arguably there are many). Triune conceptions are deeply rooted,
perhaps even in the very structure of the human brain. See First
Trinity.

https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 3 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

To Thales, the Logos was what he was seeking: the "changeless

something" from which all change emanates. That search lies as a
"relic" undergirding all subsequent philosophy, science, ethics, and
(arguably) "goal-seeking" itself, at least in the West. (See Note on
Philosophical Origins.) Significantly, perhaps, during this same era
somewhat similar "goal-seeking" appears to have animated philosophy
and theology in Mesopotamia, India, China, and elsewhere.
Systematic and purposeful thinking was "blowing in the wind" far
beyond Thales' home, Miletus, in what is now Turkey. This suggests
that "mind-stuff" might have traveled fairly rapidly long before
invention of, say, the internet. Ideas, good or bad, can be infectious.
Developing "antibodies" or resistances to bad ideas is a major goal of
the Cybernetics of Society. Although these biological metaphors
should not be pressed too far, they can be illuminating. What is most
illuminating here, however, is the story of how the Mythos begat the
Logos, and how the Logos then begat the Nomos.
In many ways the ancient world of the Mythos, of numerous immortal
and changeless gods governing mortal, changeable humans, "called
forth" a search for that changeless One from which all fundamental
truths, values, and rules were thought to emanate. Interestingly, this
occurred at about the same time that a single God, exalted by the
Children of Abraham, replaced various polytheisms. More
interestingly, Thales' student Anaximander disagreed with his teacher,
who thought this "changeless One" was water, and asserted that it
must be "apeiron" — immaterial, pure mindstuff, beyond mapping and
naming — not too different from the "name" Yahweh, or Jehovah,
which means The Nameless Becoming. Most interestingly, however,
(a) Anaximander's student Anaximenes rejected the apeiron for
something material, not water but air, which when rarefied becomes
fire (the agent of change) and when compressed becomes stone (the
agent of changelessness); (b) Anaximenes' philosophical successor,
Pythagorus, rejected "materialism" (thereby returning somewhat to
https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 4 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

apeiron) and asserted that the Changeless is rarefaction and

compression — number, ratios, mathematics, pure reason — and (c)
Pythagorus' students founded numerous "schools of thought" whose
students diverged ever further in their "dialectical" (conversational)
disagreements as to the identity of that One, thereby generating many
Ones.
But they all ended up accepting that "the way of discovery" must be
something all could agree on: Dialectics, systematized conversations,
methodical observations carefully recorded — epistemology, the
rudiments of logic and science.
Yet this course proved unsatisfactory, and indeed led to bedlam — a
sort of "societal mental breakdown" which, however, led to a
"breakthrough" of no small consequence: A changed question, whose
answer was not Logos but Nomos.
In simplest terms, the bifurcation of the Logos into ontology, asking
"What is?", and epistemology, asking "How do we know what is?",
was as stable as any two-legged chair until the quest for the One
became "trifurcated" with the great preoccupation of the ancient
Sophists: "So what? How do we convert knowledge and wisdom into
choice and action? How shall we live our lives with excellence? How
shall we construct a just society?" This third "leg" was called
teleology, and these three in turn "fed back" and changed Logos by
converting the Mythos-Logos dyad into a triad: Mythos, Logos, and
Nomos.
The Sophists got a "bad press" from Plato, who blamed them for his
teacher Socrates' death. That is hardly fair. The best Sophists were true
teachers, preoccupied with the meaning of virtue, the pursuit of areté,
excellence, impeccability, being the best you can be. Socrates was,
arguably, the greatest of the Sophists.

https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 5 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

Ontology, Epistemology, Teleology

Mythos, Logos, and Nomos composed the first great Trinity (at least
of Western civilization), but its begetting required Logos to first
generate the sub-trinity of ontology, epistemology, and teleology, and
then for ontology and teleology to "feed back" and powerfully enrich
epistemology — logic and science — converting part of epistemology
into a meta-science, cybernetics, the art of converting wisdom into
choice, choice into action, and action into subsequent evaluation and
resulting refinements of future choices and actions … especially those
choices and actions which Socrates, according to Plato, associated
with the art of governance.
Such "cybernetic thinking" was crucial to defining and then enriching
Nomos. Note that the ancient Greek verb "kuberne" is embedded in
both "cybernetics" and "governance", and their association originated
with Socrates' analogy to the art of the kubernetes, the helmsman, the
pilot, who must integrate knowledge of the changeless ("stars") with
the naturally changing ("winds and waves") in order to choose
whether and how to act with reference to that which is humanly
changeable — to alter the angle of the rudder, the trim of the sail.
Altering either must feed back into choices affecting the other.
This involves a complex kind of thinking, the rudiments of cybernetic
thinking. This kind of thinking has itself evolved, of course —
coevolved with all other elements of civilization — but understanding
the origin of the "idea of governance" as here summarized is essential
to understanding modern constitutional theory, establishing competent
constitutional democracies, and upholding liberal arts education aimed
at enhancing liberty and justice worldwide.
First and foremost, we must understand that this dialectical or
conversational approach — when focused on finding the Truth about

https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 6 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

the Good, about areté, about excellence in all — is of supernal value,

and that this is why any competent constitutional system must
guarantee freedom of inquiry, thought, conscience, expression,
association, etc. Although no values are absolute, there is a hierarchy
of "abiding values" (highest societal commitments) ... and the abiding
(and closely tied) values of free inquiry, association, and expression
(limited, of course, by other abiding values) together stand about as
high within this hierarchy as can be imagined. The Ecology of Mind
requires free minds, requires liberty bounded only by justice.
Law as Art
The word "art" — used above — comes from the Greek techne, and
refers to those things humans make using skill, reasoning, intelligence.
Aristotle wrote extensively on this subject, and is our main source of
understanding the evolution of ideas leading to the concept of
governance as an art — honoring but transcending science as science
honors but transcends logic.
Such cybernetic thinking is "proper to" participatory systems in which
what we know and do changes the systems we are embedded in,
changes our relationships to them, and changes our concept of
"understanding" to require an ecology of reasoning-rich activity, a
participatory endeavor spanning time, often spanning generations,
centuries, millennia.
Thus, when we talk about the Rule of Law based on the Rule of
Reason, we are talking about a special kind of reasoning — feedback
cultivating and feedback harvesting, seeking not only the True but also
the Good … and then doing something about it, and monitoring the
consequences, and refining, revising, improving. We live and learn, as
individuals and societies; we plan our further living and learning
accordingly; and we see in a good constitutional democracy a fit
"learning organism" that enables us to do all this better, securing
https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 7 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

liberty with justice, wisdom with will.

Law is "science" only in the astonishing sense that we humans are
engaged in a long-term "controlled experiment" testing whether the
evolution of intelligence — and of the capacity to choose based on
knowledge, including self-knowledge — is evolutionarily viable. Such
intelligence is powerful indeed, allowing us to eradicate all forms of
intelligent life on this planet, and perhaps all forms of human mayhem.
Perhaps these things should go without saying. Then again, many
requisites of "sustainable development" can benefit from explicit
identification. We must examine, inform, and inspire. We must find a
basis for hope, for without it our world will not be viable. This hope
must be based on genuine confidence born of genuine competence —
the capacity to combine and embody the quest for Truth with the
determination to find, and do, the Good.
___________________
Note on Philosophical Origins: Aristotle's writings, especially his
Metaphysics, provide the best summary of ancient Greek philosophy,
and also set a powerful pedagogical example by summarizing an
"ecology of ideas" (Thales said x, to which his student Anaximander
replied y, regarding which Anaximenes responded z, etc.) before
weighing in with his own observations, commentaries, and
conclusions.
Although, looking back across two and a half millennia, we must
disagree with many details in Aristotle's work — and perhaps many
fundamentals, too, although that remains debatable — his approach is
astonishingly "modern"; as with Shakespeare's writings, Aristotle's
seem "composed of familiar quotations"; his first lines from
Metaphysics thunder a manifesto that, despite everything we now
know, can hardly be improved upon:

https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 8 de 9
MYTHOS, LOGOS, NOMOS 2/7/18 14(38

"All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the

delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their
usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others
the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even
when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one
might say) to everything else. The reason is that this, most of
all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many
differences between things."
Regarding Thales' original quest for the "Fundamental Principle" (the
ontological foundations) of existence, Aristotle wrote:
"Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the
principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth
rests on water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the
nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is
generated from the moist and kept alive by it (and that from
which they come to be is a principle of all things). He got his
notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all
things have a moist nature, and that water is the origin of the
nature of moist things." (Book 1, Part 3, Para. 3.)
See Aristotle's Metaphysics.
Go back
Go to List of Jurlandia Writings
Go to Jurlandia Institute
Go to Home Page

https://jurlandia.org/mlnomos.htm Página 9 de 9