THIS ITEM, initially an email response, has been bopping around  as draft for a week.   It contains a mixed bag of ideas and insights and attempted explications.  I will soon send it as an email reply to Alex and also post it in my blog. This week has been confusing and disturbing on many fronts and I am quite unsure of my immediate future – no crisis other than total loss of “direction”.

This old bod keeps me hopping.  Friday (6/28/13) I was reamed at both ends (EDG and colonscopy); all went well and when home went to sleep. Woke Saturday with severe upper body pains: arms, wrists, hands, neck, upper back. Nothing new in life except double reaming. All day bouncing from place to place seeking minimum pain – and off and on sleep Sat/Sun. Sunday saw some parts worse, some better – but another useless day.  Monday much better except swollen left hand making it impossible to keyboard efficiently. Tuesday almost back to “normal”, can type with my left hand , although swollen somewhat and my neck/upperback still stiff.  Mystery remains: what happened? HYPOTHESIS: In moving me around during the Friday procedure, when unconscious, they twisted my neck and activated my damaged cervical spine. 3 years ago an MRI of spine showed severe damages such that the doc coming into the room to discuss the MRI was shocked to see me not in a wheelchair and not in pain.  My neck cancer was discovered at the same time and took priority.

This got me thinking about training myself to use a new system of intelligent tools for greater efficiency and backup facilities if I should lose some body functioning. In the past I used both speech2text (Dragon) and text2speech (Text Aloud).  I would have long emails read to me and found T2S valuable for editing docs. I never got in the swing of S2T – when I set it up I never got into the flow, which often happened when not set up.  I would like some audio control of text features such as size, font, color, etc.  I know that reading while listening to T2S at high rate enables you to comprehend hearing at same accelerated rate.

S2T in the cloud is both fast and accurate, but I need to learn to use it on my PC/tablet – I don’t want to do most of my work on a small screen.

I recently learned why apps can rapidly translate between languages when decades ago Chomsky and others proved that such automatic translation was impossible. The apps don’t actually “translate” as psycho-linguists would use the term. With great memory computers seek, match, copy, paste from DBs of  texts that have already been translated BY HUMANS. It was the many, many idiosyncrasies of languages that made machine translation impossible. This barrier is still handled by humans.

People who have yet a long productive life ahead of them would find it very worthwhile to invest time&effort in crafting a new system – that is also tuned for relatively easy improvements. We know that direct mind/brain “conscious” commands can yield structured output from body to machine. From what I have seen, this requires considerable conscious effort which currently limits their use.  From my research into “training” such a remake, for most people, would require a team of trainers with individualized programs continually modified as the training proceeds. Only a few dedicated and resourced persons could today make the investment.  UPLIFT and BUS could be designed to create the teams (in seafwebs) to train each other through individualized programs (the personalization already a primary feature of BUS). Yet, each of us might benefit considerably from improving our “tools & techniques” for doing what we intend to do.

I think I have been holding back remaking my computer systems (hardware, OS, apps and online features) because I wanted to make a small step towards some of what I discussed above. However, even a basic remake I cannot do alone. I need trainers and/or others co-training with me.  Nor can or should we attempt to accomplish as “individuals”, seemingly independent of other, what only teams can accomplish. Our intuitive mapping of Action to Agent (individual to community) is quite underdeveloped and often in error.

When I let myself open to the messy details of human actions I wonder that we accomplish anything.  There are so many essential dependencies,  most of which we are unaware. In that most of our assessment of competencies is comparative, we are tragically unaware of how inadequate our VERY BEST are, and how domains of top achievement are usually very narrow.

All this often leads to confusion when reading my writings. I shift between talking of things individuals can do alone to things only trained crews could do to things whole cultures are necessary to make manifest – and back to personal doings. Most of what I appear to say persons can do, they can’t alone.

These are some of the advances I expect to see in UPLIFT – much more than simply gaining greater traditional knowledge-of-facts and competencies.

COMMENTS WITHIN email

Hi, Larry. Just a quick response. For one, I don’t expect you to respond to everything that is contained in my emails. My emails, in fact all my writing, is stream of consciousness writing. Secondly, I do have a rich deep inner world, I do not have a name for it. To me it is Alex, it’s just the inward part of Alex, which in my case is 90% of Alex, the outward part being 10%. (Or maybe 5%, the other 5% is pure illusion, pretension, fakeness, despite my efforts to remaining genuine, authentic).

I’m not comfortable conceptualizing Larry/nuet as quantitative fractions of some bigger whole. Many single sentences would be part nuet, part Larry and seeking quantification would make the measurement dependent on context.  I think back to my rewrite of lyrics: My Mind is in my World and my World is in my Mind. And for which I made a Mobius headband. Mind ~ Larry; nuet ~ World. Of course person/world is only a conceptual model/framework used in an attempt to comprehend (find order in) our experientials.

I come at this distinction from the extreme ends.  Attending to percepts of things automatically taken as “out there” (my chair and keyboard) I analogize Larry turning his eyes inward and viewing patterns of neural firing associated with the percepts. And do this more and more until I come to a state where the external world is one big analogy.  Experiencing outer as inner. Yet, something is missing: the pattern of neural firing is not the experientials I have labeled as percepts.

At the other extreme I attend to my inner, personal thoughts when resting, of conceptual schemes beyond visualization (e.g., globalization and metamorphosis). I analogize these abstractions as complex patterns of neural firing (and other molecular processes) – BUT OCCURRING OUTSIDE, AS PROCESSES IN AN OBJECTIVE WORLD. Experiencing inner as outer.

Again, what is missing is the quality of the experientials. “Experiential” is a term associated with another term: “consciousness” – for which we have the figure/ground quality of gestalt – although there may be experientials which have no figures, only “ground”. “Terms” in language always refer to figures (of attention) in the gestalt. I use figure/ground well beyond the visual metaphor.

“illusion, pretension, fakeness,.., genuine, authentic” are aspects of the gestalt.  A “power” of the Larry/nuet model is in enablement of comprehending others in a useful way. Persons whose behavior is not authentic-to-us live in a world (which they believe is objective) where their behavior is genuine-to them.  To change a person we must assist them in changing their world, not just changing their view of a common, objective world. Whether this task is easier or more difficult is not obvious.

I will think on a name for Alex’s Inner World as distinct from the being, Alex, that hosts that world.

——————————
Factoid: In fruit fly metamorphosis the neurons of the larvae lose all their dendrites, growing new ones to become neurons of the fly. Three subsystems of the larvae stage do transform to become subsystems of the fly stage: neural, respiratory, digestive.  The rest of the fly comes from imaginal buds.
——————————

I will ask direct questions on specifics. I tend to focus on experiences, like How did you come up with xyz? Instead of focusing on the concepts or whatnot. I am interested in the person, not the works, the concepts, etc. Maybe that is a flaw and not the right attitude for BUS/UPLIFT. I’m also not an evangelist for BUS/UPLIFT, I’m still trying to understand it precisely and almost solely so that I can figure out how I can be of assistance..

I’m not sure I would like “evangelism” to be a process for UPLIFT, because of strong connotations the term has for me: dogmatic, brainwashing. I would expect others to make manifesting UPLIFT a high priority once they adequately comprehended it.  Yet, it may be more than comprehension. Howard Margolis, in PARADIGMS AND BARRIERS: How Habits of Mind Govern Scientific Beliefs, demonstrates – through examples from the history of science – how a population (of knowledgeable persons) may adequately comprehend a new perspective but be unable to make the behavioral paradigm shift because of psychological barriers associated with their cultures and social systems. Engagement with UPLIFT will expect it becoming the major context for other aspects of one’s life. Not that every moment it explicitly related to UPLIFT, but like the influence of living in a specific place (neighborhood and city), circle of contacts, and frequent information sources.  Others may unconsciously sense this future “commitment” and stay away from full engagement.

A while back I had the insight to view the objective of UPLIFT including MIGRATION.  There is a period between when a person decides to emigrate and when they actually move. The actual moving can be all-at-once or strategically spread out in time.  But, the mindset for deep engagement with UPLIFT should imply the same emotional issues as one planning to migrate. This may seem extreme, but the intensity of issues behind migration are the same – both carrot and stick: new opportunities and fleeing oppression.  The trends of our Crisis-of-Crises provides strong motivation to migrate. But to where?  Today, many of the poor do migrate to areas they perceive as being much better (but often aren’t). To migrate to “outside THE SYSTEM” requires more than finding a better geographical space and preexisting culture. UPLIFT creates the “space/time” to which we will migrate. Read: Exodus  . Once engaged with a vital and viable UPLIFT movement, life can become a rewarding adventure with minimal risk.

Alex, I don’t think finding a boundary to separate a person from their works would be useful.  Today many biographies of persons whose works made them famous reveal complex persons not generally known. This other aspect makes them “human” (and sometimes bordering on super human), but only has interest in the context of their work. My “savant” nature – my lack of mental imagery and conative dysfunction are worthy of study (not of Larry, but of a rare phenomenon). I’ve contemplated asking Oliver Sacks to lead such a study of such persons. Since few people “know” of my work, there are “things of interest” about Larry that attracts others. My life could be viewed as an adventure – as others have commented to me; but I’ve not seen it that way.

I’ve long speculated on the idiosyncrasies of my styles and how they seem to fit (hand to glove) seafing my work; and in making seafing my work difficult. My work has contributed greatly to my insights about my life styles. Sometimes this borders on the metaphysical, and that I may have “failed”. Larry is certainly not an exemplar; more an outlier. But, some aspects of my mind-style may be necessary for certain levels of comprehension of UPLIFT (as well as the detailed background in may fields I have acquired). I expect a large percent of humankind would not be interested (nor need they be) to put in the effort and time requisite for comprehension. Just as there are many domains of mind beyond my comprehension (let alone experience) that I neither have time, trainers, or even adequate neural structures to learn.

In the vast diversity of humankind, there may be many outliers – with attributes to be understood only by a few.  Nuet (hosted by Larry) may be only circumstantially unique in relation to his work and our Crisis-of-Crises & the transition facing humankind this century. I expect there are others who have related circumstantial relevance. Beyond Larry/nuet and his works is the challenge to seaf the full potentials of each human in domains relevant to humanity. If our individualist personal/societal framework requires that each person is alone responsible for sharing their worth with others, humankind is being deprived of much potential worth. Systems developed to seaf Larry/nuet sharing can be the first step in the creation of a new educational process; a futures application of seafing for everyone.

But, Alex, ask any question you like and let us see what happens.

I like to serve people, I have accomplished most of my own goals in this life, I want to serve others, help them accomplish their goals… again, maybe that is a flaw…

I am pleased when my actions have served an other. Serving specific individuals has never been my intent, but there are many instances where I see I could be of service. I have a strange type of empathy. Once a third person observed me assisting another and commented on the quality of my behavior.  It has become increasingly difficult for me to be of service to others. What my empathy perceives are deep R.D. Laingarian Knots where single isolated changes may actually make things worse. Few people are open to big changes, and even when they are open they cannot do it themselves and I alone am far from sufficient.

“I have accomplished most of my own goals in this life” is very difficult for me to comprehend. My goal list is virtually infinite – and I have accepted that I will accomplish only a very, very small fraction of them.  I add new goals, sometime daily.  Why don’t you add new goals?  Helping other people “accomplish their goals” has many sub-goals.

Insight: Seafing and creating SeafWebs may be the conceptual scheme I should be attempting to share with you.  I have yet to compose a single, attempting to be comprehensive, doc about seafing; other than my first draft, unedited, stream of thought related to Zuboff’s The Support Economy (2004). This was written before I realized seafing as a enzymatic process for social/societal activity.

I write too much, I can’t expect people to read everything and then respond to everything…

What do we do with our thoughts – just let them emerge and then sink back into the whole. Writing can clarify thinking and is essential for thinking. I should actually compose more, but more importantly integrate improvement in composing into my writing agenda.

That’s all for now. Maybe shorter emails is the trick.

Not necessarily a useful ‘trick”.

Alex