Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Beingsphere

Twin Peaks, San Francisco, California, USA

July 28, 2008

This essay, Beingsphere, is the companion piece to

The beingsphere, in contrast to, say, the atmo-sphere or even in contrast to the northern or the southern hemi-sphere, isn't the so-called inner world as pointed to in the yogic compulsion "Look within!" nor as in the therapeutic "How does it make you feel inside?".

Neither is it useful to think of the beingsphere as the world we move around in, as the world in which we reside ie the so-called outer world, the world we see geographically when we open our eyes.

Werner Erhard originally distinguished and articulated "beingsphere". Every so often an idea comes along which changes everything - or, spoken with rigor, every so often an idea comes along which changes our way of looking at everything. For me the idea ie the notion of "beingsphere" is such an idea. It changes everything. It's a masterstroke, a stroke of genius.

So what exactly is the beingsphere? A more powerful question to ask may be: Where exactly is the beingsphere? Where does the beingsphere show up? The beingsphere is the most immediate world we human beings inhabit. It's also the most obvious. However oftentimes even the most obvious worlds ie even the most obvious milieus like water to a fish, like air to a bird etc are so obvious that at first even their own denizens can't distinguish them. Now let's distinguish beingsphere.

Where human beings show up up as human beings is in the domain of language: water to a fish, air to a bird, language to a human being, yes? The beingsphere, the most immediate world we human beings inhabit, in part shows up in the realm of conversation ie in our speaking - which is to say it shows up in the fact that we're constructed with the faculty of speech in the first place. To a lesser degree, the most immediate world we human beings inhabit, shows up up in the realm of what we speak about ie in what concerns us, in what our issues are. Who we human beings are is constituted in language. What we collectively speak, what we collectively language into existence including both narrative language like story telling, gossiping, reporting, opining etc and generative language like asserting, promising, inventing, and inviting etc all occur within the domain of the beingsphere. In other words, the beingsphere is the domain in which human beings show up being human.

Werner's work, the work of transformation, doesn't set out to transform the inner world. "Inner world" is a non‑rigorous concept with not much power. If I surgically cut you open, I'll not find a world in there - there's only hamburger. Neither (contrary to a widely held and popular misconception) is the intention of the work of transformation to transform the outer world. The work of transformation isn't charity and neither is it missionary work. The work of transformation isn't directed at ecology although in a transformed world, ecological issues will get handled. The intention of the work of transformation isn't to transform the atmo-sphere. The work of transformation isn't directed at politics although in a transformed, political issues will get handled. The intention of the work of transformation isn't to transform the northern or the southern hemi-sphere.

The intention of Werner's work, the work of transformation is to transform the beingsphere.

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