The Genesis of Goals and Souls

The rare earths cannot be fully understood without first examining the elements of Group VIIIB (under Iron, Cobalt and Nickel) where the first hints of internal distinctions which do not result in external (chemical or valence) differences.

The First Three -- Iron, Cobalt and Nickel

Starting with the Imperial Balance an interesting thing begins to happen: Changes become possible in the internals of the Pattern which do not have immediately obvious impacts on the external view of the Developmental Object being modeled by the Pattern. The first set of changes begin with the 26th element (Iron) as it changes to the 27th (Cobalt) and then to the 28th (Nickel?) and eventually reach fruition in the rare earths.

These three elements (Iron, Cobalt and Nickel) represent a minor crisis in the development of self which is known colloquially as the "tantrum." In order to overcome this crisis, an emergent sub-entity begins to emerge as the trantrum-thrower realizes that no matter how much he or she believes in the cause for which the tantrum was thrown some kind of compromise is needed externally with other people. The emergent entity (a goal or an anima or an inner self) is then created so it can continue to hold to its cause while compromising and ending the tantrum.

For instance, a goal resolves the conflict by separating itself from its immediate fulfillment. The child can tell himself or herself the best way to achieve the goal is by postponing the attempt to achieve them, abstracting the goal from its fulfillment. Likewise, we can explain the behavior by hypothesizing the emergence an inner self (anima or soul) which continues to desire the object of the tantrum even while the outer self (persona) appears to have accepted failure.

What both of these explanations share is they use the hypothesis of an internal entity (a goal or a soul) which cannot be directly observed, but which has an impact on the externally observed behavior. It may be possible to show that any explanation of the resolved tantrum will require the postulation of an externally non-visible entity which produces observable behavior. (Anybody care to develop a mathematics of epistemological topology?)

It may even be possible to show that the two explanations are equivalent and that the (apparently ontologically significant) difference are semantically identical.

The anima emerges in sacrificial satisfaction (Cobalt) and must mature into evangelical predation (Nickel) before the external self (or persona or goals) can develop further. Interestingly enough, this is enough for the Imperial Balance's limited needs from an internal dialogue. Once the persona gets to the Institutional Balance, however, the external self itself needs an internal dialogue among its various sub-selves (Kiwanis-me, church-me, work-me, career-me, etc.) to fully develop its institutional balance.

See also The Pattern, The Lanthanide Series, and Rare Earths.

— Scotus - 29 Jul 2000