Reconsider Information from a Hierarchical Perspective

Lecturer: Kenji Nanasawa, Representative Director of General Incorporated Association Shirakawa Gakkan
Editor: Parole Editorial Section, Yasushi Ohno, supervisor

Q.
You often use the term “hierarchy” in lectures. I also think this concept is very important. I make it a rule to be aware of which level of the hierarchy I transmit information from when speaking to people or sending information. Today, various forms of information are transmitted in the world. Intelligence on how to capture information and interpret it is needed not only for the sender but also for the receiver of information. I would like to know your thoughts on the hierarchy of information.

A.
The other day, I told you that the three sacred imperial treasures represent a process in human evolution. The first was the crescent jewel or stone (obsidian), which we now use as an obsidian ball for Chinkon, or meditation. It emerged to serve mankind. Then the sword, which symbolizes the opening of a new civilization, appeared in the Iron Age. Finally, the mirror appeared. This mirror, reflecting the mind, figure, and spirit, represents information.

Unlike the general definition of information, the information here needs to be viewed in terms of hierarchy. In the first place, there was no notion of hierarchy in Western society for a long time. It was not until the 20th century that a person named Eliade began to advocate a hierarchical theory in the field of religious science. This triggered a hierarchical concept in physics and mathematics as well. In the West, there was no concept of “informational DNA”, or the smallest unit of information. For example, in explaining the triangles of information, matter, and energy using the concept of “idea” of Greek Philosophy, each of these three concepts was deemed to exist individually. Therefore, it would have been difficult to understand that the correlation between them causes their actions.

Through this process, the existence of the minimum unit of information, or the minimum unit of consciousness, which can be called “kami (god) information”, has finally become clear. For example, we have found that mixing different levels of the hierarchy, such as “idea and mind”, and “idea and matter” produces things through connection. In short, when the minimum unit of information is understood, everything starts to move.
Idea refers to gods’ creative information, or kami (god) information, which ranks highest in the hierarchy of information.

With this favorable flow, what is important about the hierarchy of information is how to deal with the level of emotion, which is the stage just before reaching the level of mind. In psychology, for example, each emotion is perceived as something fixed, like joy, anger, sadness, and pleasure. But in reality, there are also “feelings” before we reach emotions. If we cannot internalize this process, we will remain at the mercy of emotions, and will not be able to grasp god no matter how hard we try.

Therefore, it is important to understand objectively the minimum unit of information. Awareness of it leads to a real understanding of kami (god) information, and thus word spirits.

Judging from the above, it is difficult to capture information in the hierarchy. In order to systematize this concept of information and provide it to society, we need to implement a grand design of information in which we clarify how to deal with information in the hierarchy.

Japanese Version

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Kenji Nanasawa
Born in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture in 1947. After graduating from Waseda University, he completed a Doctoral Program in the Graduate School of Letters at Taisho University. He developed an information processing system based on knowledge modeling of traditional medicine and philosophies and is a researcher of religious studies. He is involved in developing a next-generation system for digitizing language energies. Mr. Nanasawa re-established the Shirakawa Gakkan as a research institute for the study of the court rituals and ceremonies carried out by the Shirakawa family of Kyoto, a noble family that oversaw the Jingi, an office for religious rituals, for 800 years from the mid- Heian period to the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. He currently serves as the representative director of Shirakawa Gakkan and CEO of the Nanasawa Institute, among other positions.

He has written and served as the editorial supervisor for a number of books, among them Why Do Things Go Well with Japanese? Knowledge Modeling Inherent in Japanese Language and Culture (Naze nihonjin wa umakuikunoka? Nihongo to nihon bunka ni naizai sareta chishiki moshikika gijutsu) (Bungeisha). Also, he is the supervising editor of Three Works on the Study of Hebrew from a Shinto Perspective (Shinto kara mita heburai kenkyu sanbusho) (by Koji Ogasawara), and co-author with Koji Ogasawara of Princess Otohime of the Dragon Palace and Urashima Taro (Ryugu no Otohime to Urashima Taro).