The Relational philosophy, introduction and summary

Intro.1. The relation as fitting of forms

In the Relational view, the relation is the fundamental building block of everything, of matter as well. And with relation, with relating as activity, I mean fitting of forms, matching of forms, like the nut fits the bolt and the shoe fits the foot .
Reality consists of things with a form. The form of a thing often, and actually always, points at an other form that matches. In the form of every chair you recognize the form of a human body in sitting shape, like you see the form of your foot in a shoe, and like you see the form of your head with eyes, nose and ears in the form of a pair of glasses.

And in the form of birds you see the form of the air they float on, like the form of the fish fits the form of water perfectly, and like the flower with the form of a satellite dish fits the form of light very well.

So, that is what I mean with a relation, simply fitting of forms. You then always can think of the bolt and the fitting nut, with the (idea of the) screw-thread as relation in between.

Instead of bolt and nut one also can think of man and woman (with Eros playing as relation) or proton and electron (with electromagnetism as relating phenomenon) and these three trinities then symbolize whole reality.

Intro.2. Summary of the Relational philosophy

Some philosophers have a spiritual view at human and reality, which means that they see spirit or ideas, so some immaterial thing, as the root of everything . Even matter is formed by or even made of idea or spirit in such a view.
But what do they mean with spirit or idea then?

The relational view shows that whenever we speak or think of spirit or ideas, we always have relations in mind, relations playing between forms, like between foot and shoe, bolt and nut, man and woman or proton and electron.
Spirit and ideas then become touchable in a way, and then it is much more easy to show and even proof that spirit, thus the relation, indeed is the root of everything.

Whole reality consists of parts (particles in the end) with a form, and relating phenomena that play in the emptiness between the parts. Every thing and every happening, ideas, thinking, feeling and language as well, can be described as a relating between parts.
All our ideas resemble the idea of the screw-thread that plays between bolt and nut, and that idea in a way is touchable by feeling both bolt and nut and seeing that the forms match.

The immaterial relations are fundamentally important. They define the form of the partners, their meaning, their function. Relations also make reality a working reality. The relations also make reality a unity, like bolt and nut form a unity.
On a fundamental level, these immaterial relations even define the materiality of the fundamental particles. That is the subject of part III of the Relational philosophy.

Since the forms of things always point to other forms that match, things can only be fully understood if you also know that other matching form. Would we have a differently formed body, then our chair, shoe, coat et cetera, would not have a useful meaning for us, would not be a chair, shoe or coat for us.
A chair, shoe and every other human article of use, therefore is not objectively that thing but only subjectively, only for beings with the shape of an earthly human body. And a bird, fish or plant is not objectively that being but relatively, only in circumstances like on earth.
That, so the way our mind works and the relativity of truth, is the subject of part II of the Relational philosophy.

In part I, not the working but the purpose of our mind comes into discussion, and it then becomes clear that our mind actually is an extra sense organ, with which we not only see the forms of things but also the relations between forms.
In these relations, we then see all our surviving-techniques, we see the laws of nature, we even see our mathematics. And that is how we survive, so by inventing techniques and the like.
Our mind then also appears to fit perfectly to the nakedness of our body. Animals have all kinds of techniques fixed on their bodies. We however, have our mind and with that, we see a coat in a fur, a shoe in leather et cetera.
Thus, our mind in a way already is our fur, our claws, our wings, our weapon, our shelter and so on. That is why our body can be completely naked, still looking like the fetus we once were. Being naked then even is very handy and intelligent.

All together, the relational view shows that the human is not elevated above nature but actually is the most natural being on earth, pure nature.
The relational view also automatically leads to an other way of thinking about and looking at the practice of daily life.

Jan Helderman
end 1999 - beginning 2000