MIGHT COLLAPSE BE THE WRONG METAPHOR?

MIGHT COLLAPSE BE THE WRONG METAPHOR?It may be prudent to use a montage of metaphors for major domains. While COLLAPSE remains a viable metaphor for longer term future scenarios as well as apt descriptor for what is happening in some regions, it may be masking more apt metaphors for what emergents face in the present and near future.  This was my situation until recently shifted while reading Arundhati Roy’s latest superb essay: “Capitalism: A Ghost Story”.  IMHO this long essay is an essential read.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30877.htm

Beginning with a review of “Gush-Up” in India’s shift to global capitalist tyranny (blowing away the myth of a Gandhian peaceful India), giving me a view of India potentially as dangerous as US imperialism, Roy romps through an excellent but concise history of the rise of global capitalism and an excellent expose of how corporate philanthropy gains support of the middle class and professional elites.  Although these scenarios forecast genocidal actions on large human populations and severe attacks on our biosphere, they call forth metaphors of transition, not collapse; of brutal oppression, not passive acceptance.

Although longer term scenarios may involve an eventual collapse of global corporatism (or whatever we come to call this new process ALSO EMERGING among the power hungry elites), the societal environments with which OUR EMERGENCE encounters may not be one with opportunities appearing during collapse.  We need to re-examine our metamorphic metaphor for emergence. In biological metamorphosis the caterpillar is passive in a cocoon, dissolving into a nutrient soup for the emerging imaginal buds. Our societal caterpillar is far from passive. It is moving full steam ahead becoming a more powerful caterpillar, increasing dangerous to Gaia and to the vitality of our emergent societal imaginal buds.

I sense the dominant attitude among fellow emergents is to focus almost exclusively on augmenting our own emergence and to assume the metaphor of collapse because (rightly, IMHO) there is nothing we can do to directly influence the game of the elites.  While I fully agree that our primary focus must be our own emergence I fear it is dangerous to assume a passive attitude to our societal environment.  Not that we engage it in vain hopes we can significantly transform it, but that our strategies must take into account this reality and that we explore endgame strategies and what actions we must be taking now so that we can have greater influence on the resultant endgame.

My concern is that we lack a “discourse process” and “platforms” adequate for successful, continuing “dialog-to-action” on an issue of such magnitude, complexity, and security concerns.  I use quotes because I believe that we currently lack appropriate metaphors for our need. On reflection about ongoing interaction on “big pictures” I sense endless jabber (but often of high quality at this level).  We can only begin using what we have; but we must be critically aware that something is missing and work towards creating the “technology” we need for successful, long-term metamorphosis in the face of a societal caterpillar that is not cooperative and not resigned to metamorphosis.

 

WHO ARE WE, a query?

“WHO ARE WE?” is not a question, with an correct answer, even if we haven’t yet discovered it. It is a query, a never-to-end process of discovery AND creativity; for in exploration we emerge and become more than we were.It is often claimed that the human brain is the most complex system in the known universe. This claim has many qualifications, such as that the system must be one of contiguous matter, otherwise the solar system or Gaia (containing brains) would be more complex. Whether a star or a brain is more complex would probably hinge on our definition of complexity.  This metaphorical claim is useful for me in considering education as the most complex and most difficult enterprise for humankind: systematically augmenting changes in this most complex system, the human brain. Yet, humans approach education as a far less difficult or important enterprise than many others.  I’ll return to this issue after we boost our query up a notch.

I claim that a temporally extended network of interacting human brains is a far more complex system than an individual human brain. And not just because it is composed of many brains. This speculation will take us out of many boxes. What is of interest here is not primarily the biological/molecular web of neurons, synapses and the ultra complex processes of the entire neural system in intimate interaction with the whole body. What is of interest is the patterns of interaction within this system from the moment it turns on in embryo to the patterns as the system dies.

I propose the dominant function of this brain-in-body is WORLDWEAVING. Worldweaving  autopoetically processes ongoing sensoria stimulation weaving an emergent pattern (called a “world”) throughout the life of the organism. This world is “constructed”, but not by conscious or intentional direction (although both are component processes within emergence). Survival (continued emergence) employs processes contemporary psychology call conditioning-to-environmental-stimuli and other higher level processes. The maintenance of the whole pattern of the accumulated woven world (including the metaphor, memory) is an essential task of worldweaving.  Conventional models have the brain (with the help of memory) modulating input to generate output (behavior & experientials) – the S/R metaphor.  We reverse this model here: sensoria stimulation modulates whole world processes leading to the “emission” of behavior and experientials.  Actually both models are useful at different times. For “advanced” humans, where earlier survival skills are less important and with technology, the creative, internal initiated activity of this emergent world/self becomes dominant.

All the above was about one human.  In autopoietic theory organisms don’t communicate, they don’t exchange information. Instead, they structurally couple.  We need not be concerned about the difference here because Maturana and Varela proved (using  The Laws of Form by George Spencer-Brown) that communication and structural coupling were logically equivalent.  However, as we move forward, structural coupling may be a more useful model/metaphor than communication.

Today our cultures are dominated by the myth of individuality.  We, each of us, experience our world containing our self as the primary decider of “who we are”. This is an illusion.  We are “who we are” by a confluence of many factors — ALL our sensoria fields over our lifetime interacting with the unique configuration of our specific, inherited body/neural system.  Our woven worlds are heavily culturally laden. Even as young adults we cannot change that we are a node in a temporal web that stretches back to our birth. The “self” is itself a construction of our worldweaving process,  a propensity built into our inheritance via evolution and now having troublesome implications.

Our experientials (as our behaviors) have been conditioned to view our “selves” as within an objective world which we sense – as this is a highly functional model – consistent with the woven worlds of other organisms.  But, what the web of humans on Earth have done is to force an emergency emergence of global world woven humanity in intimate structural coupling with Gaia (of which we are also part).

We are each woven worlds, structurally coupling.  We exchange SEMS (semiotic structures). We interact with a Semiotic World (cyberspace+).

Humans evolved as social beings from when we were as prairie dogs; it is not a recent invention. Mammal brains are specialized for socialization and communication (structural coupling, at later stages).  Languaging (a process a la Maturana), now amplified by technology has kicked human emergence into a dimension/domain beyond the “biologically natural”.  [Which is why the “evolution” metaphor is so inappropriate.]

I will refrain from further speculations at this time – postponed until later.  I come back to EDUCATION as the most challenging and difficult task. Now, we must imagine “education” to apply to the emergent network of structurally coupled woven worlds.  My own emergent woven world, which I call “nuet”, has been working on this challenge for 4-5 decades. My current model/scenario I call UPLIFT, with the practical objective of “rapidly uplifting the distribution of cognitive competencies of all human populations in humankind”.

I need to end this SEM at this point, but the process has only been initiated. I need assistance in constructing a platform where this “issue” can emerge with vitality and commitment.

links to online docs

LARRY VICTOR  nuet     links to some online docs

Here I attempt to create system for links to most of my documents that are currently available online. Although many of my most significant documents are available here this represents only a small percent of my total production of over 5 decades. What are missing are ideas that I simply sketched and stored on my hard drive or composed within platforms not easily accessed without special apps.

My only remaining webpage is:  http://home.comcast.net/~larryvictor/NUCOM/index.htm
I will be moving from COMCAST  by April 2012 and this will no longer be available. I have directories of files that we on other websites, such as during Y2K, that will eventually be consolidated.  Some of my most significant documents are available here, but not the most recent. This is primarily only a listing of links, some of my most significant docs.

Please inform me if any of the links don’t work.

Below are listings from Google Docs  and QuickDoc.

 

I posted some docs on Google Docs, that should be available to the public at:
Later, I will annotate these items.

Bootstrap Uplift Scaffolding BUS   PDF A formal Innovative proposal.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8qHxOXalbUuMDU4MWNmY2MtZjkxNS00MTU5LWIwZGEtNmFjN2Y4YWZlNDU1&authkey=CMag77kP&hl=en_US&authkey=CMag77kP

Human-Cyberspace Interaction: Individuals or Teams (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18xN2Y4YnRqbmdm&hl=en_US

The Emergence/Transformation Distinction (1998)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8qHxOXalbUuZWFkNGRjNjEtNGMwNC00MDhhLWJkYTAtN2MzNTY4YmM4MGZh&hl=en_US

Types, Levels, and Models of Change (1997)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa180MWNuNTRwMmMz&hl=en_US

The Fundamental Reality of Text  (Asilomar General Systems Conf, 1994)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18xNWY5YnBkbWQ2&hl=en_US

Practical Speculations at the Edge of Science (Asilomar  General Systems Conf, 1994)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18xNmdwMm1ydGM4&hl=en_US

Learners for Quality Education (Palomar 1997)  SIGNIFICANT DOC!
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18xZGZxM2ptYzQ&hl=en_US

Essential Features for a Learning Paradigm (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18zOWhjMno2OWRn&hl=en_US

Expeditions Through the Millennium Divide (1998, 2010)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8qHxOXalbUuYjFlMmJjMWMtYTg2OS00MDFjLTg1OTEtMDhjNWI4ZTcyNzNh&authkey=COr7jJIJ&hl=en_US&authkey=COr7jJIJ

Network Power (2011) {re Booher & Innes DIAD}
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AhgUOqWBlArmQDLBiUj16G1SfhI4NQYnSFTyEyT23mw/edit?hl=en_US

 

Paradigm Shift: Enlightened Global Corporations Replace Nation States (2010)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8qHxOXalbUuYWI3YTA4ZTktZGIxNi00MWRmLTkyNzMtZGQ4YTIzNGU2NzU2&authkey=CIemqLoK&hl=en_US&authkey=CIemqLoK

The E/T of LQE   Hyer Education (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18zM2M5YjRnN2Ry&hl=en_US

Pima Vision 20/20  Future Community College Education (1995)  future history
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18xOGZodDNwY2R2&hl=en_US

An Exploration of Paradigmatic Constraints on the Development of Quality Education (1983)
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8qHxOXalbUuNjRjMjU5NDctMDFmMy00NTA3LTkyMmItMTQzOWVmMmUwZDAz&hl=en_US

Cyberspace2020 (1995)  future history
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18yMGRrcnYyd2M4&hl=en_US

Principles of Institutional Structure and Function (1975, 1996))
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18yMmY5NWhwZmQ3&hl=en_US

A Critical History of Pima College (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa180MnA0NmM2dGhk&hl=en_US

PCC Master Planning Process Recommendations (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18yNGhnaHhmN2R2&hl=en_US

Feedback on Master Planning Steering Committee (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18zNGZybnc5MmRq&hl=en_US

Beyond Teaching  (1991, 1996)  A Faculty Development Day Program
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18yN2NtMmhmY2hz&hl=en_US

Creative Learning Conference Workshop Handout (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18zMGRkdnBjaGRq&hl=en_US

CUE for Education (1996)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18zMWdnZmh4N2Ny&hl=en_US

Anti-Summary on Educational Futures (1997)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa18zOGRzaGZncmhq&hl=en_US

Book Reviews: Eaarth & Merchants of Doubt  (2010)
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AcqHxOXalbUuZG1zbm5oa180Mzlna2ZocGN3&authkey=CKCM8MMO&hl=en_US&authkey=CKCM8MMO

 

 

Other documents formatted for interactivity are available on QuickTopic:

An Exploration of Paradigmatic Constraints on the Development of Quality Education (1983)
http://www.quicktopic.com/45/D/5ckNm9Ri26VM.html

UPLIFT in Abstract (2010)
http://www.quicktopic.com/45/D/2SRXiGpRbzUqk.html

What if? (IONS 2009)
http://www.quicktopic.com/43/D/5UTxNZs8TSP.html

Speculations on the Evolution of Consciousness (2010)
http://www.quicktopic.com/44/D/FgYKBAZnXZiP.html

Memory and What Else? (2009)
http://www.quicktopic.com/43/D/JFLLKUwh8vmYn.html

Spontaneous vs Creatively Crafted Emergence (IONS 2009)
http://www.quicktopic.com/43/D/Du8pMPgQXNX.html

Internet Backup & Security  (IONS 2009)
http://www.quicktopic.com/43/D/RV3nvJjRy66Y.html

Global Cognitive Diversity Census (IONS 2009)
http://www.quicktopic.com/43/D/WKxpyb2ZFhP.html

SEMS:  One Feature of Colab Scaffolding (2008)  with dialog
http://www.quicktopic.com/42/D/uNqGFwSL9Ee.html

Seafing Diversity (2008)  7 pages
http://www.quicktopic.com/42/D/Npz5GbKvtzh4W?p=1&inline=0

Taxonomy of Worlds (2008)  dialog with John Ringland & Glisten
http://www.quicktopic.com/42/D/MJ5hVZBKPJT?p=1&inline=0

The Technology of Non-Violent Revolution (1970)
http://www.quicktopic.com/42/D/em7x5LVWViULk.html

The Ontogeny of Emergent Planetary Humanity (2008)  with dialog
http://www.quicktopic.com/42/D/MMtZPFHdFMZNP.html

Accepting the Coming Collapse (2008)
http://www.quicktopic.com/41/D/nP9Wvee8SJ4y.html

Donald Michel’s Some Observations with Regard to a Missing Elephant  (2000)
http://www.quicktopic.com/6/D/qTEX8BtdXrKZXMYoKfb.html

Colab Studios: Augmenting Collaborative Creation of New Digital Literature for Cyberspace
Draft Proposal with comments.  NEH Grant Proposal  (2007)
http://www.quicktopic.com/39/D/Qp52kfMVJSHR.html

Relevant Ramblings 4 (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/pkDvfuX6SLuTz.html

Relevant Ramblings 3  (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/sdjtG2yZgJU.html

Relevant Ramblings 2 (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/uhR8HgrbePL.html

Relevant Ramblings 1 (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/S9VdQ9t9v4U.html

Semiotic Architecture for NES (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/34/D/GVqEQF7yBDsG.html

Workshops Making Miniature Village as Analog to Colab Studio (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/34/D/4GBVnaphYjQq.html

The Story of NU: About a Constructed Worlds for Children (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/34/D/R65kRuszFU4.html

Overture to NU: Transcending the “Natural” (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/34/D/imK862YVncN.html

One / Many Complementarity (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/33/D/iuXgJaipaHB.html

Review of Serious Plan & Weeds  (Dec 2001)
http://www.quicktopic.com/11/D/dkZffsYydKGUE.html

Six Experimental Queries (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/33/D/fsb6Skv4RfiD.html

Live NU Now (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/mxurYFurW325.html

Seafwebs for NU (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/s4eDterNukePA.html

Larry’s History of Experiences with Collaboration  (2005)  long and extensive personal
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/mcLJ9r32EvL.html

Notes on Wilber’s EXCERPT A (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/zB92878cXPxrE.html

Designing Scaffolding for NES (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/cqdikwEzEvm7n.html

Concerns About NES (2005)   Dialog with David Braden
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/H/C4YHRcuDWeLM

Comment 36 to “Concerns About NES” (2005)
http://www.quicktopic.com/32/D/LdhXNsGgxgna.html

Personal Tracks on June 8, 2004
http://www.quicktopic.com/27/D/Urt2nmrFGUB.html

Raw Composition on May 30, 2004
http://www.quicktopic.com/26/D/hueZNTsWXZM.html

On Lacking Mental Imagery (2002)  QuickTopic notes with “Hugh”
http://www.quicktopic.com/14/H/WdsPgfSSVqRyF

Regulating Altered States (2001) First Experimental  QuickTopic Dialog with Michael and Jamie
http://www.quicktopic.com/6/H/rAU89GeT8SBcJquXyc/p-1.-1

Letter to Walter Truett Anderson in QuickDoc (2003)
http://www.quicktopic.com/23/D/iKnuwc6pbkrhb.html

 

 

 

Beyond FOCUS

Beyond FOCUSIntroduction
The past week I have visited a great variety of significant domains; in analogy I traveled to radically different cultures that together provide insight to the “nature of culture”. This set of domains visited, from a much larger potential set, hint to powerful synchronicity or serendipity.  Below I include some urls to sites that were stimuli to some of my  travels along with an attempt to summarize what I groked from the whole experience.

Open Source Project Technology
By chance I chose to view a TED performance before going to bed.  I chose the topic because I am interested in urban gardening.  Although I liked the window gardens I was very excited about their use of Open Source Project technology.  There was another TED performance linked to the first one, and again I was highly impressed by the use of Open Source Project technology in enabling persons to learn to construct their own useful machines.  Before discussing this further I recommend you view the two TED productions.  I also include a google search for Open Source Project Management Software.

http://www.ted.com/talks/britta_riley_a_garden_in_my_apartment.html?utm_sourc…
http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=open+source+project+management+software&ie…:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Until this time I had a very limited view of Open Source, although I wasn’t aware of the limitation.  I knew my ignorance of Open Source processes, as I know my ignorance of most processes.  I know what I don’t yet know or comprehend and know how to learn more should the need arise.  But, I thought Open Source software was created by teams of potential users (and for others not involved in the software development); and that the code was free to developers who collaborated on continued improvements and occasional branching. I knew there was continuing collaboration, but thought the process limited to computer programming.
What I had been blind to was the collaborative process itself and how it can be powerfully facilitated by special apps – many already well developed and available Open Source.  These processes are out there, in our Here&Now.  Why aren’t they proliferating? I recognized that what was demonstrated in the TED presentations were exemplars of activities I clearly envisioned emerging in my uplift scenario.  But in uplift there would be thousands upon thousands of such projects and the ability to conduct such Open Source Projects would continually be improving as more and more persons prepare to participate. I realize that the whole uplift movement would be open source: persons/teams/communities learning to create the technology they will use, including social technology.
I know, if I would research it, I would find many Open Source Projects underway, some successful while others limping along.  These would be done by those already tuned to their use and having basic computer skills to begin learning.  This precludes the vast majority of contemporary computer users. Project design & management apps have been available for decades and readily used by corporations.  Although many are now open source and can be used in the cloud, most are designed to assist businesses and contemporary type projects – including computer programming projects.
Although a few project management apps may be suitable for social change efforts, they are still in their infancy. But, even more will be needed that adequate project management apps (and other apps to seaf organizing/learning).  We need complementary programs to promote their use in many more social change efforts and quality education/training programs for potential users with diverse backgrounds and learning styles.  These programs can themselves be developed using Open Source Project technology.
This is just another face of what I have called Supporting/Enabling/Augmenting/Facilitating (SEAF) networks. SEAF networks would also employ Open Source Project technology – but would use it to assist other persons/teams/communities learn to use this technology.  SEAFing teams will also seaf synergy and collaboration – seafing potential collaborators to do what they cannot do alone, or do only slowly and inadequately.

  •         Enzymes are protein molecules that act as intermediaries for molecular interaction between other proteins; where without the enzymes the process might go too slow and not complete before it was interrupted by the chaos of molecular reality.  Note enzymes are proteins seafing other proteins.
  •         So, seafing teams are human teams seafing the activities of other human teams. Seafing may be the silver bullet that permits humane activism to organize/learn in an exponentially growing global movement of uplift and creation of a new humanity to replace our collapsing civilization.

What the TED exemplars show is that the basic tools for seafing are available. They just need to be applied in meta-projects.1491 & 1493:  Globalization Revisited
This week I finished listening to the CD version of 1493, having read the first half a while ago.  I have previously commented on 1493 and Charles Mann’s earlier book 1491.  Absorbing the many details from these two books, and other alternative histories (e.g., Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States) prompted me to re-evaluate our use of THE past to assist us in comprehending THE present and THE future.  The problem is with THE.
The cliche that “we should learn from THE past” has hidden dangers. THE past is not known by anyone. Histories are human composed narratives and scenarios, all in the context of hidden ideologies, that weave reports (accuracy always questionable) of events and happenings with hypothetical explanations. All histories have an intent, to persuade readers to accept a specific interpretation of THE past.

  • That there exists a (single, logically consistent) model of THE past might even be questioned. This, in line with quantum complementarity that claims reality can’t be sandwiched into a single, logically consistent explanatory system. Existence is, itself, an assumption. But, this issue shouldn’t concern us here.

1491 and 1493 have shattered my comfortable view of an alternative history.  Humans are far, far move diverse than I have ever imagined – and my imagination has already been rather extreme, and one of my life’s adventures is exploring human diversity.  The books contain a torrent of concrete examples that converge into a flood that has washed away my confidence in my understanding of “human nature”.  This is not the case of a person being liberated from a narrow view of history and human nature; it is a situation of the “top being blown off” of an already highly liberated person.  Let me cite a few patterns.

  •         Slavery is far from what we have been taught.  The spoils of almost all human conflict have included slaves. All races and peoples have been slaves. There were many different types of master-slave relationships. Africans were slave holders and Europeans simply tapped into their slave commerce. Slaves can have slaves. Humans obviously have a propensity to view all humans as brothers and sisters, but it doesn’t appear to manifest in most settings.  Humans are very prone to view other humans as prey and view human communities as environments with resources for exploitation.
  •         Far in excess of the number of black slaves in the Americas, for many centuries, was the population of escaped black slaves, who played very important roles in the happenings in the Americas.  Slave escape was an ongoing process, throughout all the Americas, and including in the USA long before the underground railway north. Many native Americans (of all the Americas) were slaves, and also had slaves (even before 1492). Africans and indians, and other ethnics would both work together and also be in conflict.  They were a very significant counterpoint to the European invaders, occupiers, exploiters, and colonists — the primary perspective of our traditional “history”. Natives and escaped slaves were much more than a backdrop for European activities. Often these “others” remained hidden from the Europeans for centuries – as it took time for Europeans to occupy many large regions. In metaphor, European settlements were as thin webs spread over wide terrain, with “civilization” concentrated at the nodes and along the links between. These “others” were sometimes allies for one European group over another (and later the USA playing the role of colonist).
  •         The competitive greed of Europeans in exploiting the Americas goes far beyond our normal histories of conquests.  The focus should be placed on those elites remaining in Europe chartering “corporations” to exploit, extract, and return wealth to Europe. The death rate of colonists and soldiers shipped in endless flows was disastrous, due mostly to disease.  Often half a shipment of humans would be dead in 6 months.  Life was extremely miserable for Europeans in The Americas much of the time.  Yet, somehow the cost (of lives and money) was worth it for the European elite in Europe.  Reports on specific campaigns, showing details of deception and brutality, make the over-story of conquest appear almost humane.
  •         The natural biological environment for human activity was not a passive backdrop.  Indeed, “nature” was often a bigger barrier to human enterprise than other humans.  There was much more involved than how European diseases disseminated many natives in the Western Hemisphere and how diseases native to The Americas (or imported from Africa and Asia) disseminated Europeans in the Americas.  Invasive species often destroyed whole food production systems, bring famine and total destruction to settlements.  This continues to the present day.
  •         A primary theme of 1493 is how European contact with The Americas launched a biological globalization that continues today.  Many of the examples are how biological systems began interfering with each other via human intervention in all areas of the world, including Asia.  The book 1491 attempts to portray what life was like in The Americas before the biological/human systems of Euroasia and Africa made contact.  Again, experiencing the many specific details of these interactions is essential to fully comprehend the massive shift of views of “history” entailed.

There are many other alternative histories, or different filters to view the past, that may be considered.  These two books motivates me to look deeper.Information Scans
If you daily skim hundreds of online reports of events around the globe from many domains (only a small percent reach the more popular outlets, and even fewer the mass media), as I have done for years, you can’t avoid the conclusion that what is happening on planet Earth doesn’t fit into any popular schemes, or even various professional hypothetical schemes about contemporary reality. From my perspective the most comprehensive analyses of contemporary reality are only limited cross sections; but because of the nature of human cognition are taken as Big Pictures.

  •         The whole of reality is well beyond being “pictured”, yet we still seek “pictures” – holistic gestalts in experiential moments that approximate comprehensive awareness of what is most important.  Reality is well beyond what a person might grok in a rapid survey of many domains in a few hours.

I speculate that a person’s social reality can be rather accurately determined by a detailed study of their information input.  It involves more than just basic categories, but amount of detail & variety of examples and whether there is diversity of perspective are also major contributors.  I deeply sense that much of the difference I have in sharing with others is that our informational backgrounds are different in ways that have us weighing the significance of events and processes differently.My input contains reports from different ideologies.
For example, the reports about what happened in Libya tell two totally radically different stories, revealing two massive propaganda machines. There are significant variations of reports on almost every happening in the “news”.
There are reports within different futures scenarios, with accompanying assumptions. They range from catastrophic collapse to anticipated recovery and return to simplistic golden ages.  And, there are large groups of people who have their input limited to only one perspective.  Recently I began receiving emails from the far radical right which informs me of how really distorted they are – far more than what one witnesses if they decide to watch FOX news for a few hours. Limbaugh and Beck are tame compared to the hate and deception I am now collecting.
I see a sharp distinction between how 1) the left view the right and 2) the right view the left – although it is much more complex. View this distinction as what is the content and intent of the reporting.

  1. The left view the right as conditioned and propagandized tools of the wealthy elite – whose greed can be unbridled and are open to any degree of deception and force to get their way.  In their drive for power the elite/right act immorally and unethically, even criminally.  The GOP 2012 election circus is humorous, and we know if any were to become president they would be puppets. The left fear rule by the right in terms of the many limits they would put on our freedoms, forcing everyone to life by their narrow codes.
  2.  The right views the left as diabolically evil to the core. The left is viewed as cunning and intelligent and dangerous. The right view the left as primarily working against them, and thus they fear the left. They are to be totally controlled and eliminated if necessary, as what one does in fighting EVIL.

I could go into details over hundreds of topics where the diversity of perspectives is great. What is important for me, here, is not the differences between the “left and right”, the “1% and 99%”; but what I observe as significant differences between persons I believe should be the closest.  For example, I see many real threats and barriers to activism that others who don’t delve deeply into details of the so-called negative are unable to include in their reality. From my expanded contexts, MSNBC, CNN and FOX all share many basic assumptions that I question.    Tom Atlee’s Random Communication from an Evolutionary Edge.  At times Tom Atlee hints at viewing reality much as I do. In his most recent posting he lists 17 different perspectives of social change.  I include them here to demonstrate again the diversity of realities.
All around us we see many approaches to social change and transformation, including:
* political advocacy – letter, phone and petition campaigns, demonstrations, political art and music, etc.;
* spiritual practices like meditation and prayer;
* charity and service to help the needy;
* community building, community organizing, and bridge-building among different groups;
* convening and hosting public conversations about public issues and concerns;
* alternative lifestyles practicing environmentally and socially responsible consumption, investment, and behavior;
* developing physical, digital, and social technologies that create opportunities for more effective responsible behavior;
* violent or nonviolent direct action to block imminent destruction or harm;
* financing change – strategic philanthropy and social entrepreneurship and venture capitalism;
* attacks on oppressive forces – using violence, laws, exposés, public relations, humor, or anything else that might work;
* doing and promoting research, education, training, journalism and other public awareness approaches to issues and action;
* promoting caring, kindness, forgiveness, and peaceful conflict resolution;
* creating more just and sustainable intentional communities and local institutions;
* working within existing systems to make them more socially and environmentally responsible;
* changing paradigms and promoting new cultural stories about who we are, about how the world works, about what is possible;
* challenging and unlearning the psychological and social patterns of oppression and developing respect for ourselves and others;
* reconnecting to nature at spiritual, psychological, physical, practical, scientific and aesthetic levels…
There are, of course, many more approaches to social betterment, and many different ways to articulate a full range of approaches. I hope the diversity of this particular list will at least hint at the scope of activities I’m exploring here.
I have for many years felt that all such diverse approaches fit together in ways most of us don’t fully appreciate, focussed as we each tend to be on one or a few of them. In fact we – and I definitely include myself in this – often see other approaches as inadequate or counterproductive, given our own strategic, tactical and visionary sensibilities. Someday I hope to participate in a project to map out all the connections and potential synergies among change strategies, perhaps in the form of a pattern language (an articulation of interrelated design elements that add up to a healthy whole).
Tom Atlee’s Random Communication from an Evolutionary Edge.   http://tom-atlee.posterous.com/

Tom envisions an eventual mapping of this diversity. I speculate that a weaving/merging of such diverse realities will require technologies and cognitive skills not yet in existence – but which can emerge rapidly once the need is accepted.  I speculate further that once synergy is achieved our very concept of reality and ourselves will be radically different and not like any contemporary worldviews.  That is, none of our Big Pictures will be elevated as the Big Big Picture, and even the very nature of what a worldview might be will be new.
The emergence of languaging in humans radically expanded our views of reality. In a sense the very concept of reality came with language.  Language has evolved and went through some major phase changes (writing, silent reading, printing, digital).  We have difficulty imagining how the very nature of reality shifted with each language phase change.  The next change may be more than a phase change, but possibly as significant as the emergence of a cognitive process higher than languaging.

Meta Dialog is Missing
“Meta” is a word with many meanings.  I once learned that the chapter Aristotle called “meta-physics” was simply the chapter after the chapter on “physics”.
I have always considered some philosophy as a meta discipline, in that it attempted to examine the assumptions and practices of other disciplines.  Of course, there are competitive disciplines of philosophy – which leads to the regress: meta-meta-meta—-
This week I also realized that I haven’t engaged others in what I want to call meta dialog; although that has been my intent and I believed I sometimes dabbled in meta dialog.  A while back a few of us meet weekly for meta dialog, but – in my opinion there was no meta dialog.  I have email and SKYPE exchanges with intelligent and creative persons and we talk about controversial issues. But we seem to skirt around meta dialog.  I often include what I call meta issues in my writings – none ever generating constructive comment.  Sometimes meta content will catalyze an emotional response, when mistaken as a personal attack. But, that may be one primary criteria of meta dialog: it forces us to reconsider fundamentals. It brings us to confront the distinction between what is intrinsic to our very being and what is a product or possession.  We strongly resist being asked to even consider what is intrinsic as possibly being a possession capable of being changed.
What follows is a quick listing of what meta dialog is and is not, that I dumped onto my computer in a few minutes the other evening.

  •             Meta dialog is not critique or comparison of actions or ideas, although such may be part of meta dialog.
  •             Meta dialog doesn’t intend to rank actions or ideas, or to recommend any.
  •             Most people adhere to their favored actions or ideas and can’t imagine what meta dialog involves. The domain of meta, for many, doesn’t exist as a dimension they can attend to.
  •             Meta dialog, when encountered, is often projected back on their plane of attention and seen as competitive or divisive.
  •             Meta dialog does query processes, assumptions, etc. ; but with the intent to learn what might be missing – assuming that all actions and all ideas have their limitations.
  •             Meta dialog doesn’t critique; rather it studies critiques.
  •             Meta dialog intends to enhance synergy; to expand contexts so specific actions and ideas can be improved and their results amplified by the enlarged context.

We are in desperate need of meta dialog today.

  •         I realize that I need dialog to help determine what meta dialog entails.
  •         Can meta dialog occur in linear conversation modes?
  •         Does meta dialog require frequent feedback, to which all are receptive?
  •         Without attempting to define meta dialog (or a new type of interactivity we need), I find searching for WHAT IS MISSING? as a technique of meta dialog.
  •         Searching for ideological frames is also a meta technique.  This year my discovery of process ontology as an alternative epistemological ideology to existential ontology is an example.
  •         My periodic call for dialog about the fundamental inadequacy of our means of discourse may be noticed, but what kind of discourse is needed to dig into this issue?

As I re-read and edit this essay, I am attracted to speculation that what I seek as meta dialog may involve a a variation on figure/ground reversal. Which I see was a premonition in the title of this essay, Beyond Focus.

  •             Possibly we need to develop peripheral-beyond-focus.  Once I attempted to learn to enhance my peripheral vision by hiking with my attention fixed on an object suspended about 6 inches in front of my eyes, yet expand awareness to the peripheral – as a whole – while attention remained fixed.  A report I read claimed that one could learn to navigate at night, running in rough terrain, depending on subconscious response to peripheral vision.  I never completed the training, but non-attention to the periphery is reported by some.
  •             I speculate we all grok relevant context to what we focus our attention. We can have different degrees of this peripheral awareness of context; ignoring it most of the time, but sometimes being more sensitive. Possibly our aesthetic experientials lie in this context.
  •             Traditionally we talk about what we are attending to, our focus.  I expect it will be difficult to talk about peripheral context without having attention shifting to it.
  •             Might meta dialog involve speaking about what we are attending to, but temporally weaving the dialog to enhance the peripheral context – which is the topic of meta dialog.  Meta dialog would then involve the peripheral context influencing what would next appear in attentions, with the flow/intention the temporal emergence of new context.
  •             Once I tried to preface everything I said with, “Whatever I say is not what I intended to share”.  Although I no longer say this, it is present in my awareness much of the time.

The issue that started this weird essay, seafing open source technology, is a topic for meta dialog. Both the necessity of this meta action and its realizable potential are topics that I have yet to engage anyone in meta dialog.  I both speak and write on this, but don’t dialog with others.
I have never engaged in dialog, meta or otherwise, on the following claims I make periodically (some over decades) in my talk and writing.  After looking at this list I realize that my experientials when “thinking” on them involves neither words or visuals.  Even when I write, the words emerge automatically – I don’t compose in my mind and then type from memory – the strongest aspect of my awareness is the peripheral context.

  •             If a social movement is not growing exponentially, something is seriously wrong.  It is foolish to blame failure to expand exponentially on the power of the opposition.
  •             The Crisis-of-Crises challenge is as much the (blameless) result of default by an inept opposition as to the greed and power of elites.
  •             Conducting WHAT IS MISSING? sessions is essential.  Something valuable is always missing.  Why is this exercise so difficult?
  •             SEAF networks and seafing may be a key innovation for activism, adding an essential enzymatic factor to positive social change.
  •             Both top-down and bottom-up are insufficient strategies. Scripting/Performing cycles involving rational engineered scaffolding to seaf organistic creative flow emergence within the scaffolding – and leading in spirals to future scaffolding for future emergence.
  •             Emergence is a distinct process from transformation. Science is the study of transformations; we need a “science” of emergence, of origination. Large, complex, and highly dysfunctional systems are incapable of significant transformation.  Emergence and replacement can be a viable mega-strategy alternative to transformation.

UNDERSTANDING A WORLD GONE INSANE

UNDERSTANDING A WORLD GONE INSANE

[very rough draft]

Laurence J. Victor   7/25/2011

             Pundits pontificate, but no useful explanation for the rise of insanity has emerged.  How do we explain the behavior of tea party members and the so-called politicians they support?  Why do they appear oblivious to facts? The pundit’s answer is but a rewording of the question: people often are oblivious to facts – couched in academic terminology.

             My recent reading of David Abram’s Becoming Animal and today’s scanning of his earlier book, The Spell of the Sensuous, catalyzed insights on another route to discuss my answer to this question: UPLIFT, in terms of Inner Woven Worlds.

        Abram discusses the phenomenology of experiencing others.

             The sensuous, experiential, phenomenal world, including that of our bodies, is what we experience concurrently with the biological processes associated with perception.  What we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and our agreed upon names for those; we can gesture agreement in confirming a shared immediate world.  Few humans would disagree about the basic inter-subjective phenomenology of their shared immediate environments – after a few moments of pointing and grunting. We can disagree as to the meaning, utility, or origins of things mutually agreed to be present.  Only in special situations where illusions trick our perceptual system can there be temporary disagreements.

             We may share, in our immediate environments passages of text for mutual reading or video sequences to mutually view.  Again, after some discussion back and forth, we can all agree to what words are in text sentences and what images we viewed on a video. However, in these secondary media windows to a distant reality, it may be difficult to separate what was actually perceived from hypothetical types of things and events our direct perceptions appear to imply.

             Humans process perceptual input every moment, from before birth onward. The brain organizes this input into what I am calling an Inner Woven World. Our consciousness doesn’t construct this world. WorldWeaving is a process inherent in our biology. These inner worlds are different from what our imagination may report of an external world of trees and mountains, roads and cities, other people and social organizations, businesses, armies, and economies — all these things “out there” and “real”.  Our inner woven worlds give rise to these thoughts and images, but are much more than a collection of our experiences – which we have yet to begin to adequately comprehend.

             The point of fact is that this larger, external, so-called objective world (and its so-called real components) is never directly perceived. Our facts are limited to what perceived patterns we agree to on our shared immediate environments.

        With one variation. We can find ways to agree that what media we observe, at different locations and times, is the same. We can agree that the different copies of the same book had the same words arranged in the same way. We can write detailed descriptions of a video viewed at different locations and time and expect our descriptions to be similar (minus inserted interpretations).

        The best we can get are reports in our media windows, and we know that such reports can be altered, spun, and even created as total fiction. YouTube videos should be taken as visual reports of distant events – each taken out of context.

             Our worldweaving process evolved without media windows. No radio, TV, or books. What was there was all there was – to be perceived. These ancient laws of worldweaving are more and more applied to the content perceived through media windows AS IF they were part of our immediate environment.

        I am open to extra-physical processes that may effect worldweaving and perception, such as telepathy and remote viewing. I feel that anomalous phenomena point to the limitations of our current consensus worldviews, but I would be greatly surprised if they could be applied to make a significant difference in our current survival/thrival challenge. I may be proven wrong, but I believe these mysteries will become more prominent after we have won our challenge.

             The world of social events and happenings is of special importance.  Before media there were social events and happenings, experienced as part of our human environments. Our emotional bonding to these can be very powerful; when we consider the intricate cultural patterns of tribal peoples and the emotional impact of relationships referenced in the lyrics of contemporary music.

        It appears that brain processes associated with worldweaving can be distinct when attending to humans as from the general environment.  If David Abram is correct, we can expect to find our observing of animals to involve mirror neurons.  The brain already appears to distinguish between the Living and the Environment (which may contain life in mass, as distinct from individual living beings).

        Oral story telling and other means of shared expression, such as art, music and dance might be viewed as precursors to media windows.

             With the growth of media and their multiplying windows, more and more people spend most of their time attentive to their media windows as compared to their other immediate environment.  In addition, they may assign greater significance to what is implied by what they experience in their windows than activity about them in their immediate environment.  Given all this attention to the worlds of media, their inner woven worlds become more and more dominated by what they experience through their media windows.

             This would not be so troublesome if persons used many diverse media windows, where conflicting interpretations about hypothetical events and happenings might challenge their belief that what they view IS THE real WORLD.  With multiple, often conflicting media windows, human remains sensitive that the worlds viewed through the media windows may not be factual, and never the whole picture.

             However, through the wealth of diversity of media windows, individuals (by intentional conspiracy or accident) are locked into narrow sets of media windows representing only one, deceptively spun so-called “objective, real world”. Many humans today are locked-into narrow inner woven worlds that are dangerous because  they are far, far from what “proper” inter-subjective processes would indicate is safe to make decisions on the basis of those worlds.

             These lockins are different for the average tea party member, corporate manipulators of the tea party movement, bankers or CEOs, politicians or media pundits, etc.  Similar lockins exist for activists, liberals, progressives, and scientists.  Individuals can be open to inter-subjective analysis of the contradictory content of some media windows and be locked into narrow and dangerous world for other media windows.

             Why is this relevant? There is a seemingly subtle difference between treating all humans as somewhat warped individuals living in a common objective world and treating each person as BEING an inner woven world, but believing that world is external and objective. This subtle difference can be very significant should one attempt to engage others in relevant dialog or attempt to educate others about larger realities.  For those locked into narrow, inner woven worlds that they believe are objective and real, information and empirical evidence that conflicts with their world cannot be properly perceived.

             Earth doesn’t have 6-7 billion individuals living on one, common planet.  Earth is host to 6-7 billions WORLDS, most unable to recognize others as WORLDS.  Only when two persons recognize and accept that they are both WORLDS can they begin inter-subjective dialog to arrive at a common interpretation of content in their shared media windows sufficient for making appropriate decisions about their common futures.

        In some of my other writings I have called the common perceived content in a media window sems, short for semiotic structures.  The field of sems on the internet is available to all.  We need to develop Dialog & Deliberation processes (both synchronous & asynchronous) for persons to process common sems and begin a collaborative dance of living that brings more harmony and consistency to our shared lives on our ONE COMMON PLANET.

             What concrete and specific actions one should take to survive/thrive can’t follow from this sem, or any other single sem.  We need a process of re-weaving our inner worlds.  A common starting place may the shared experiences of natural settings so well described by David Abram.  Starting with sharing our common spaces in face-to-face settings we may begin to introduce dialog on sems experienced through media windows.  We should learn to highlight the distinction between what we can share as common experience and what we must construct as inter-subjective, hypothetical realities from shared sems.

        Personally I might start with sets of sems that clearly reveal the power of deception and conspiracy as primary strategies of the powerful today – with some people. With others I might start with historical sems to demonstrate that decades long activist action has actually strengthened the power of elites and that activist belief in their own narrow woven worlds has blocked their development of actions that might have made a significant difference.

        There exist today sems of high quality (both essays and videos) to serve as educational media for the re-education of the human population.

Becoming Animal by David Abram — book review

Becoming Animal by David Abram  —  book review 

 

Laurence J. Victor     July 25, 2011

             I found Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology an astonishing book. I discovered the title on the new book shelf of the public library. Over my life I have chanced on a great read many times.  The reading was slow as there is much to digest.

             David Abram is a remarkable person, and I would like to learn more about him. He is highly educated and conversant with the frontiers of science and the big issues that face us all. His brief book bio categories him as a cultural ecologist and environmental philosopher. Skilled as a slight-of-hand magician, he has lived and traded magic with indigenous medicine person in Asia and the Americas. It appears David is known by many; it is only now that I have discovered him and reading his first book, The Spell of the Sensuous, is at the top of my reading list.

        Not finding The Spell in my public library I looked it up in Amazon.  To my surprise a great many pages are available in Look Inside!. My impression is that The Spell of the Sensuous is as powerful as Becoming Animal; maybe even more-so.  My feeling now is that Becoming Animal is Abram’s book version restatement he made in 1996, now again in 2010. If one were to read but one of Abram’s books, I am not sure which I would recommend.  I will continue reading from the Amazon version and order the book via Inter Library Loan.

             In spite of being learned through book reading and familiar with life on the screen, David has learned to experience himself embedded in and part of nature like an animal.  He is a story teller of the oral tradition, and if you imagine it, you can hear him speak from many a page.

             I was initially intrigued by his many lessons of experiencing nature differently.  I associated the book with another book (recommended by a colleague) that did the same: Seeing Nature: Deliberate encounters with the visible world by Paul Krafel.  Becoming Animal met this interest in spades.  Yet, Abram’s deep wisdom about Gaia under attack by humankind in context with many conflicting ideologies and technologically reinforced habits-of-perceiving placed him as a major informant to my own emerging worldviews.

             After fully acknowledging the great achievements of literacy and now computers (and other achievements of technology, and supporting most of their continuation) Abram demonstrates (via story telling of his own experiences) how they block a deeper perception and experiencing of the world around us.  Memorable to me are his stories of discovering the 3d dimension of distance. Also, how his reports of experiences during patient viewing of animals brought to my mind the application of mirror neurons.

             In the last chapters Abram discusses the contemporary polarity of a materialist establishment scientific ideology and the transcendent ideology of mystics – both which remove us from viewing Earth and Live deeply.  He calls for us to carve out time to learn to experience as animals and base a new worldview on the deep ecology of Earth; but without having to abandon the positive aspects of science or mysticism.  Much of this phraseology is mine, and not Abrams.

             Still recovering from cancer treatment and planning to resume my efforts to catalyze uplifting of the distribution of cognitive competencies of the global human population (as an essential strategy in a survival/thrival strategy for humankind facing our Crisis-of-Crises) I am committed to establishing a routine for my re-emergence into a deeper relationship with Gaia/Live.  I hope that others will join me.

Insufficient Actions

There is a feed back loop between the way our society is organized and
the world view of individuals who experience that organization
(civilization).  You and I understand the possibilities of changing the
form of organization better than anyone else with whom I have tried to
communicate it.  However, you focus on the need to find a way to
increase human competencies.  To me, that is a form of assigning
responsibility . . . like insisting we need awareness raising . . . a
hundredth monkey . . .   We cannot save the world unless we have better
humans.I would like to explore with you another possibility.  What if we start
at the other point in the feed back loop?  If we change the way people
experience the organization will that not feed back into a change in
world view?

WE NEED TO WORK AT BOTH POINTS CONCURRENTLY.
Please view the following diagram:
http://home.comcast.net/~larryvictor/NUCOM/STEPS_TO_NU.htm

It has never been an either/or issue, for me. Although the date of the diagram is 2005, the concept goes back to the 1960s and was explicit in my MISSION2000 in 1975. The dynamics between persons and social systems is much more complex than feedback. You might say that “cybernetics” (in all its diverse manifestations) is the sci/tech of this dynamics.  My UPLIFT system/scenario/scaffolding is my current model for how it might be done.

Uplifting will occur from the beginning of the uplift movement and continue forever – it will be the core of the educational/governance system of the nu emergent Humanity.  Those few who collaborate to create the initial BUS (Bootstrap Uplift Scaffolding) will be uplifting themselves in their collaborative work. This is because they will lack the requisite competences to complete the project at the beginning. The Apollo program of NASA was a deliberate uplift process.

I probably should clarify that by cognitive competencies I include emotional and spiritual domains, not only conceptual but both right and left brain. Cognitive competencies involves the stages of adult development as researched by Robert Kegan and the Spiral Dynamics crews. Uplift involves much more than knowledge acquisition and includes different levels of development including better use of fundamental cognitive competencies (perceiving, remembering, thinking, learning).  This is addressed as much to the so-called already educated as to those without any formal education. Uplift calls for us to face the fact of the enormous gap between human potential and the distribution of actualized potential in the human population.  This is a gap much greater than the income gap or standard-of-living gap.

The explicit motivator to my upgrade to UPLIFT and BUS was my research into the evolution of human consciousness for the UofA conference on Consciousness. I discovered that Civilization (a mode of organizing large populations, with many diverse forms) intentionally suppresses the emergence of potential human phenotypes from the human genotype. No other species even begins to achieve what so called human Civilization has achieved.  Indeed, the “civil” in civilization is the polite excuse to suppress opposition. Any serious examination of the state of humankind today should leave one in utter disgust. UPLIFT is one model to right this multi-millennial suppression of humankind’s awesome potential. It is also IMHO absolutely essential to give any emergent nu humanity the competencies to replace (defeat, if necessary) Civilization.

My identifying the full nature of our cognitive competencies and where we all lack doesn’t mean that I have acquired those competencies.  Indeed, it was my lack of many cognitive competencies that many other have that led me to explore the field of cognitive competencies. I am myself in great need of uplift, which cannot be accomplished by lone individuals.

A certain degree of uplift of the distribution of cognitive competencies in a critical percent of the human population is essential for a future Humanity to be sustainable and creative – probably being far better than we can today imagine. But IN NO WAY did I ever believe that we had to uplift everyone before we can change our systems. It boggles my mind how anyone could come to this conclusion from what I wrote. I can only point to some of the cognitive competencies that we need to attend to uplifting, but others will become apparent as we proceed.

The scaffolding for uplift is exactly what you are calling for in “the organization” people need to experience differently. Uplift scaffolding is designed to just that, to seaf (support, enable, augment, facilitate) persons become much better aware of both self and others.  UPLIFT is fully in the camp of process ontology and the process of uplifting will be a clear example of the “mangle” by Andrew Pickering. But, to get started we don’t need to delve too deeply into these “philosophical” issues.

This is one of many instances where the desire for simplicity unfortunately trumped the reality of complexity. IMHO every node in the fractal of our knowledge system is much more complex that acknowledged. This is made worse by a misconception about complexity – primary a confusion of complexity with being-complicated. The latter is the state of a person confronted with complexity and lacking the tools to navigate complexity. This preference for simplicity is possibly rooted in our ideology of existential ontology. If we feel we must have a working representation of a challenge before we can act, we naturally reject the conclusion that such representations are impossible. A process ontology provides ways of working with exceedingly complex systems, uncertainty, and unknowability – situations which often paralyze those fixed in an existential ontology.

I have only recently discovered this long time history of talk about ontology, greatly reinforced by my more recent readings. However, this has just put a name to a perspective that I have used for a very long time.  Thinking in terms of ontologies provides critical insights as to why I have had so much difficulty sharing. Western Civilization is deeply addicted to existential ontology, which is woven into the very structure of most of our languages.  However, in real life activity, in the many smaller and everyday things humans do well they do with process ontology. Academics incorrectly attribute this to the power of simplicity. Rationalizations about what people are doing usually makes reference to representations to mask the fact that progress occurred (in reality) without the need of the representations. What are taken as simple situations are actually complex, but the complexity is not analyzed so action can occur within process ontology.  Sometimes this is called intuition, and then scholars giggle about how this reveals the mystery of reality. Their giggle masks their discomfort that reality doesn’t actually fit their preconceptions.

David, none of this philosophical theory is needed for the vast majority to act in healthy collaboration. Not that it should be hidden from them, and anyone interested can join the dialog. However, those who design the scaffolding should have some awareness of this critical distinction. The scaffolding should help others develop behavior consistent with a process ontology without needing the supporting philosophy.  This is why I seek some others to explore these ontologies (and other assumptions) and join me in creating a Bootstrap Uplift Scaffolding.

This discovery of process ontology has revealed that my attempts to create a comprehensive representation of UPLIFT is futile.  I have long written that it is impossible for me to share the whole of my worldview relevant to real action, and that my conscious self cannot, itself,  experience such a representation, but that I KNOW it exists in nuet (my constructed inner whole world). Now I realize that whatever the nature of nuet might be, a representation for UPLIFT isn’t there.  Instead UPLIFT is one of the process dynamics of nuet, not a thing contained in my mind for others to see.  How this insight effect my behavior coming out of my medical situation is my primary personal challenge.

Laurence/nuet

Hope for the Future

David, I read all your emails and my health is finally returning so I can participate. I take positively to almost all your messages. This one made me react with caution.  You are very right that this issue, which I might label the “panic” issue must be openly addressed. I offer this email as a partial contribution. I apologize for its length; but it is quite short in respect to the dialog needed.First, I want to state that I believe the re-localization and transition movements are the MOST relevant movements on the planet today. I applaud your work and wish you the best in future endeavors.  My critique is not about what YOU are DOING, but about what others are NOT DOING that would make what you are doing more successful (in making life better in our short and longer term futures). From my long experience I am concerned that the BEST being done today is significantly insufficient to our NEED. And, I don’t see any writings or actions related to correcting this insufficiency.  I found a few of your statements possibly contributing to this issue.

My approach to our future is to be as comprehensive as possible. Sometimes I call this Beyond Big Pictures. I cannot probe in great detail  into all relevant domains, but I try to identify them and know what is happening in them (expanding my ignorance). Even our best Big Picture explorers, and those who attempt to place their personal work and practice in the context of a relevant Big Picture — from my experience — are oblivious to the existence of other domains (which I believe are highly relevant). Additionally, many assume they know all they need to know about a domain; but they don’t.

I want to say that I share the concerns that has led Jenny to express her “panic” (if that is the term she used). “Panic” may not be the appropriate state from which to approach these concerns, but neither is the state of comfortable innocence.

I use the term “innocence” to label what you call “ignorance”.  To me, “ignorance” is a form of knowing: knowing OF what we don’t yet know and don’t yet comprehend, and knowing OF what we can’t yet do or appreciate. Ignorance is our knowledge of our potentials. I seek greater and greater ignorance. As my ignorance of the world expands, my concern intensifies.

It is very hard to peer into the pit of worse case scenarios.  For many, it is really best to just know that things could get really bad, but focus on the positives of living well and relevant in the present. No person has the time to scan all that is happening in the world. Especially when most of what is readily available is spin so thick that one begins to believe it. I don’t know what is really going on other than what is in my physical presence, but I do know there is ample evidence that the story of the world is not as it is presented in the mass media. And, data and commentary from The Internet only heightens my uncertainty.

For reasons I won’t go into here, I can probe deeply the black hole into which we are sinking and not be emotionally effected. As a consequence I can also imagine positive actions necessary to counter the big negatives.  If you won’t let yourself know of the real dangers, you might not support sufficient action to counter those dangers. It is nice, but foolish, to be only constructive when there are real dangers.

IMHO our main problem is human misconception of who we are and the nature of our realities.  I am not pointing only to the madness of the Tea Party, but also to those who are working hard to make things better.  I deeply believe we activists are grossly naive as to much of what is happening (and why), and thus our actions have been (over many decades) grossly insufficient.

Again, I am not claiming knowledge of what is happening. I am claiming ignorance of what most others claim as valid knowledge.

Gaia is resilient. Humans lack the capacity of exterminating all life on Earth. But, we could contribute to the knockout of most mammals and birds. Whatever happens, after many hundreds of millions of years a new form of higher multi-cellular life may emerge. Even if the possible collapses are not nearly as bad as the worst, I want to work as hard as I can to make our options as best as possible. That, IMHO, involves facing our concerns as well as creating better personal lives, communities, and societies.

For me, worse than an ending of much of the beautiful life on Gaia is the blocking of the awesome potential that an embryonic humanity has in co-evolving with Gaia. No more humans is worse for me than the death of all humans.  Yes, there are scenarios where a few humans may survive on devastated landscapes. They might prevail, in time. But, should we risk this when there are things that we can do – more than we are doing today. And, we cannot insure that what does eventually emerge can avoid the flaws of civilization. Humankind is on the cusp of a fantastic new relationship with Gaia, and that future is now in extreme risk.

As I said, I am not in panic mode, but I have healthy fear (Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear). I deeply desire to be devoting most of my life participating in an uplift of global humanity, to self organize and replace (not reform) almost all societal structures – and in a few decades.  Unfortunately, since no one believes this possible I get no constructive feedback and collaboration and am diverted into trying to comprehend what is really going on – in human systems.

I want to be really clear. I am not calling for activists in re-localization or other relevant movements to get involved in futile politics and other actions hoping to pressure leaders to change their ways.  This may be what David warns against. We cannot engage the monster and win. But, it would also be foolish to ignore the monster or to hope that the monster will simply evaporate.

As I write this I have an troubling insight. I am more frustrated reading exciting positive news about activist achievements than I am reading reports of the madness of civilization. The former reports feed my ignorance but they also inform me of what is not being done. Since I feel deep empathy with my brothers and sisters of the movements, and my decades of failing to share my concerns with them, leads me away from really delving into such reports. I trust them to continue doing what they are doing. It is not my mission to join them as core activist; I have my own complementary mission.  On the other hand, although frustrated with all the negative news of happenings across the globe, this information is not negative.  It expands my ignorance of the whole reality which we face. These two sources of information, so-called positive which is to me negative and so-called negative which is to me positive do synthesize in providing me with insights that are breathtaking. But, to date, no one is interested because I delve in worlds that don’t yet exist for others.

The core of our crisis is not the interface of humankind and Gaia. The core is serious flaws in the deep structures of human civilization. These flaws can be corrected – not by treating contemporary humankind {real hope that we humans can move beyond the ignorance} but by birthing and nurturing a nu humanity under the radar of the biggies.  We cannot trust our sociopathic leaders not to commit species suicide, or not to viscously stamp out our achievements.  In some scary scenarios we may have to physically defend our selves and our achievements against others who also suffer. Considering what we know about how humans change and resist change, we should admit that there can be no significant and meaningful transformation of contemporary human societal systems. But, transformation is not the only way of change. Creative emergence and metamorphosis are viable alternatives, quite practical once we shed the ideology of transformation.

Although I accept global economic collapse as inevitable (as do a growing number of humans), but see it as necessary and good (in the long run). Human suffering increases and will continue to increase so long as the biggies rule. Nothing we can do in the short run will significantly reduce suffering. We can’t put on any more band-aides. We must get to the root causes, which are many and are not the usual “enemies” the “left” aims at. Protest, resistance, and revolution are activities that are part of the system.

I am aware that there is some concern in the re-localization and transition movements that growth into the general population is not fast enough. I would agree, but I don’t believe it is the sole responsibility of these movements to re-educate the general population. Other movements are needed to collaborate for this – but the isolation of movements and lack of synergy blocks this.  In our time of need, if membership and activity in viable movements is not growing EXPONENTIALLY, then complementary strategies are needed.  Simple linear growth (one connection at a time) is grossly insufficient.

Every movement needs better organizational and educational technologies. Sad to say, but what is used by most movements is archaic, at best. But, it appears all movements somehow believe that these tasks, organizing and learning, are easy to master “naturally”. IMHO the best efforts to improve education, anywhere, are grossly inadequate. There is no expertise on facilitating learning and organizing that movements can turn to; as re-localization can turn to many sources on better ways to grow food. Humans need a movement of the same intensity as the re-localization movement to learn how to change human nature: a strategy of organizing-for-learning & learning-for-organizing so as to rapidly uplift the distribution of cognitive competencies of the global human population. Why is this mission believed totally impossible by almost everyone? Why must there always be “masses”?

David says: The question is not whether the system will collapse in my lifetime. The question is what impact can I make with the time I have. I agree, it should not be a question of whether collapse. But how re-localization will proceed will certainly be different during economic recovery (which many still hope for) and different collapse scenarios.  The question truly is what impact each of us can have, but let not the answer come in limited contexts. Good intentions and great effort may not be enough.

We must start at the level of persons, relationships, and communities. But, our success is dependent on the nature of larger societal contexts. We can hope (quite naively IMHO) that networks of viable sustainable communities will be welcomed by governments and corporations, and those involved will be able to change political leadership. Or, we might take the additional responsibility of creating the larger societal contexts we need.  These must emerge from communities, but the same careful study and experimentation given to re-localization must now be given to creating viable societies from diverse communities.  Diverse is the key word here. This is a task humankind has not yet achieved. Civilization is a model of large population organization that uses force and deception to gain stability. We cannot simply wait to see what emerges – if it ever does. Today there is little evidence that the various communities and movements are closer to requisite synergy.

My models for metamorphic change (from personal to planetary) call for initial real-time action that would be appropriate for any future scenario, even if we were magically able to enlighten and organize viable constituencies for relevant political change. But, what I propose is a radical, out-of-the-box strategy to rapidly uplift the distribution of cognitive competencies of the global human population, and from it will flow a nu humanity to replace (not confront) contemporary societal orders. This strategy appears magical to most. But, magic is relative to the knowledge and ignorance of the beholder.  Doesn’t our Crisis-of-Crises and the glorious future that awaits call for magic?

Again, my apologies for the length of this essay. However my writings related to my insights and ideas, in files on my hard drive, would fill many books, if published.  But, since I have yet to find anyone with the patience to read and comment in depth on even small chapters, I have not considered publishing.  David, my apologies. Our frequent and lengthy exchanges on Omidyar.net years ago were what I needed.  I miss them. Our best systems for dialog, deliberation, and decision are also greatly in need of improvement.  Onward!

Laurence/LJV/nuet

Update from Larry

Dear Friends.  I started this as an email to Michael, planning individual emails to each of you.  But, as I got into writing I realized I was reporting about myself, and should not be concerned that they are not each personal.  In personal emails I hope to inquire about how you are doing in these challenging times.[Michael,  it has been a week since I had to back down from a distance conversation.]  My voice MAY be improving, as I can make louder sounds today than yesterday, but yesterday was the bottom.  During my whole waking hours I took NOTHING in my mouth, not even ONE swallow of water.  I get my water also through my feeding tube.  I can drink water today, so I think my throat as turned the corner.  The reason I have not even been drinking, is that sometimes drinking brings on coughing spells which can bring on vomiting.  These episodes leave me with a very raw throat, where more water only starts the cycle again.
[Nirmalan: your recommendation as to treating my throat will be tried once I can swallow.  I had been swallowing pills coated with honey, but even that became impossible.  I grind up my pills, suspend them in water and insert them into my feeding tube.]

But, some things are looking up.  Each day I have a bit more energy and stamina, but I have a long way to go.  My weight is up and the tube feeding no major hassle. Except, that after a feeding I feel a bit urpy and want to nap, and need to be careful about triggering coughing spells.  I don’t know what I look forward to more, the return of my voice or the return of my taste.  I really miss eating good foods – and talking.  My prognosis looks good, but it will be at least three months until they can tell whether I am cancer free.

It has been a whole week without any medical supervision as I finished all treatment June 1, and I have another full week before they look at me briefly. This is quite different from the almost daily attention and monitoring during treatment.  I’ve begun (slowly) to plot my recovery and future survival strategy – although I really am not interested in giving the time to research that I must. I am researching the best diets.  [Linda, I really must find a way to buy a Kangen water system. How are you suffering the forest fire smoke in Tubac?]

Eloise learned yesterday that early July she needs surgery to fix a urological problem, which will see her in the hospital 2-3 days, bed rest for 2 weeks and then taking it easy.  This on top of her not being on top of her health at this time.  She fatigues very easily and the smoke from all our Arizona fires, even weak in Tucson, is attacking her special sensitivities.  Good thing we live so far away.  These fires are a just another of a type of many very costly “disruptions” that we will witness occurring more and more each year.  Soon “help” for them will become another “entitlement” that will be denied, and one can imagine many consequences. And, the disasters themselves may begin to trigger other disasters.  Our Wallow fire (which may burn the entire White Mountain of Arizona) are threatening electrical power systems; if some go down and the summer heat goes up may lead to some significant electrical power shortages.  I think the media is not telling us that there are greatly insufficient resources to fight and recover from these disasters.
I’ve been generating many new insights and am trying to compose. But, my concentration still is short and none of what I am composing can “stand alone” as an essay.  Except for little tid-bit pieces that could serve as examples.  We read these every day, but seldom add them up.

From yesterday.  There is a group of people in the southwest who truly hate wolves (probably as demons).  They are pledged (as are some anti-abortionists) to exterminate all wolves with whatever means necessary.  Given the shrinking resources for counter action to this and its low priority, there is nothing that will stop them. They are forming a crusade to kill all the wolves. This is but one of tens of thousands of items I have been bookmarking for many years – and the rate is accelerating greatly at this time.  Trying to “integrate” all these conflicting reports, to “let them add up” is a challenge.

I don’t wallow in this “news” as negativity, as many say I do.  I also include reports of social entrepreneurial achievements, which are not as numerous, but give hope.  These are SEMS (semiotic structures) from which each person informs their emerging woven world.  Most people have SEMS from very limited sectors. I attempt to sample from all that appear relevant to a comprehensive selection.  In the last few months I have noticed some patterns that appear new and significant.  One is the extent that the field of SEMS available is highly manipulated and even scripted.  What is new is that this applies to ALL the media, from right to left, from Marxists to liberals to progressives, not only defenders of establishments.  The field of available SEMS is astoundingly large and rapidly expanding. There is an attempted order to the chaos, which fits well into individual human needs for order and the suppression of discord.  We are all sinking deeply into our own little boxes while the chaotic storm brews overhead.  Even those attempting to report the storm are forced to spin and come to believe their own spins.

This is not a negative insight to me.  It is a potential fact, that must be accounted for.  We can only do something about things that may cause us future trouble if we know more about them.

What I am trying to compose is a very radical re-framing of “reality” to possibly account for this and provide suggestions for what can be done.  This re-framing doesn’t attempt to fix any of our problems (fixing is our addiction).  It seeks a realistic (involving real people in real relationships) process of uplifting the whole human population (in stages, and personalized) so this new emergent humanity can replace (not fix or reform) contemporary “reality”. All this is not so difficult when viewed from a process oncology (see below) and the new re-framing of reality.

Another Tidbit example: The current activity re Libya may well be the newest in Wag the Dog productions, with a coverup management to challenge the 9/11 coverup (and benefiting from what was learned from that and other more recent coverups and reality manufacturing).  EVERY main media, from left-liberal to FOX radical-neocon speak the very same words about Libya.  When one looks to it all with the perspective that it may be a Wag the Dog production, the evidence abounds, from CNN and MSNBC to FOX.  Even the actions of Dennis Kucinich and some Tea Party persons to challenge Obama right to wage war in Libya and others to keep USA involvement limited still are in the context of the mainline story. I don’t mean that bombs are not falling and the video we see is faked. It is the spin within which the video is embedded that is a production to mask what is “really going on”. But all we have are SEMS.

A few sources (which I usually trust) report a totally different scenario. There is little foundation (other than reports simply claimed to be true – as the media is careful to qualify) of the dastardly deeds by Quadafi and crew, coupled with reports of support for Quadafi from many African quarters.  One issue is control of oil. Quadafi’s Libya owned the oil and profits were (reportedly) distributed to the people. Also, these actions, under the umbrella of Arab Awakening is to destroy the “Venezuela of Africa”. Libya has been rather successful in fighting off the corporations and has consequently been portrayed in the West as a mad regime for decades.  There are even vastly contrasting SEMS about the Lockerbie incident and related happenings.  That is the alternative story. Also many deep analyses of the so-called rebels, showing them as just tools of what NATO and the USA have planned.  Now, none of this counter story is to believed without further investigation.  But, since this counter story’s very existence appears banned from USA main media makes one wonder.  There isn’t even an attack on it as ignorant conspiracy theorizing.

What is needed is to take ALL the reports (SEMS) re Libya (today and for many decades) and lay them all out to compare them, then we might be able to come upon a probability ranking of possible scenarios to best fit the reports.  One global problem today is that such an analysis is NOT going to be supported by any of the main players and even were it done by such as Wikileaks their reports would never get into the main media.

The entire activity in the so-called Arab Awakening – when looked from the same questioning perspective – becomes very suspicions.

Just as economic recovery may be a scripted fiction, so might the recovery of political/governance in the USA.  All that is reported from left to right about government (FED to Local) is framed in the context of a system that no longer exists.  Today, we see chaotic warfare between many different coup attempts. Trusting elections and polls is seldom mentioned.  Election 2012 will be a battlefield, not a democratic election.  Yet, Weiner’s sexual addiction spins into a political tornado.  All the talk about the Republican field of presidential candidates is meaning drivel, and I can’t watch MSNBC anymore. CNN is worse, and I watch FOX occasionally just to look into that other universe.

Have we entered the world of THE MATRIX?  Far deeper than even critics like Noam Chomsky can accept.

I have set of reports that Russia is a greater threat to US hegemony today than it did (in reality) during the Cold War.  But, except for these rare reports,  DEAD SILENCE.

All the above is but a brief intro to one of many themes I weave in my re-framing of reality.

I note that all of the above are reports of the ills of humankind.  My best thinking are about UPLIFT, but more difficult to share.

I’ve been doing some formative reading – but with shorter reading moments. Many are deep philosophical and biographical.  They all point towards a fresh look at the so-called better minds of history and their contributions.  The conventional story of great minds and their contributions is but another set of myths to mask the underlying complexity and chaos of reality.  I will simply cite them here (and a bit of commentary).

The Cybernetic Brain by Andrew Pickering (2010) – finally a year old and I could borrow it inter-library loan.  A complex and difficult read.  He has for two decades been trying to formulate a Process Ontology (exemplified by his concept of the Mangle), to complement our traditional Existential Ontology. His book is a special history of Cybernetics, with primary focus on Grey Walter, Ross Ashby, Gregory Bateson & R.D. Laing, Stafford Beer and Gordan Pask.  I am 1/4 into the book. He claims that his goal is to provide an alternative ontology that will help us out of our mess – and I foresee it as an ontology well suited for UPLIFT.

What is interesting personally, is that I have been accidentally following Cybernetics (where us wasn’t even called Cybernetics) most of my life.  Pickering claims Cybernetics never became a discipline because of its ontology.  But, I am familiar with almost all the names and have books (many not yet read) by many of them. I can’t now remember why I attended a conference at the Univ of Illinois in 1995 where most of the living Cybernetic persons were in attendance. I vaguely remember long talks with white bearded Stafford Beer.  His cybernetics of management, to be gone into in depth by Pickering, reminds me of the many hours devoted to reading Beer’s many book on the subjects.  And, I have been eager for months to get into a box of books in my storeroom for the book I purchased then but have yet to read on Team Syntegrity and his syntegration icosahedron model for small team organization, which impressed me at the time but had long forgotten.  {An analysis of my forgetting is another story.}  Beer’s work may be a lost but essential component for my uplift scaffolding.
The Empire of the Stars by Arthur I Miller  – A tragic tale about the 40 year war between Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Sir Arthur Eddington over the potential empirical reality of black holes. Chandra showed that they should exist, but Eddington was vicious in his attack on Chandra (from India), primarily because if they did exist Eddington’s lifetime work on his Fundamental Theory would be a dead end. Eddington was able with his arrogance to sway others to opposition to Chandra. No one really wanted to face the infinity of REAL black holes. This is very revealing to me personally, and embarrassing in retrospect. [Thanks, Albert for pointing to to Miller’s work.]

When studying physics in graduate at The University of Chicago in 1956-58 I was privileged ton have Chandra sail in on his magic carpet from the Yerkes Observatory to lecture on classical electrodynamics theory.  Partaking in his performances was like experiencing quality opera.  Everything flowed together. It was all so very clear, during the performance.  Not necessary as clear when you attempted to remember it to later work on the assigned exercises. But, I had my notes. Chandra held his audience spellbound. I rank his course as the best ever in my academic career.  I earned A’s both quarters.  That aspect of his lectures is reported by physicist Paul Dirac during Chandra’s tenure at Cambridge (where in was harassed by Eddington).

While at Chicago and trying to find support for my Philosophy of Science interests I approached Chandra with the possibility of getting his support. One of my projects for a possible thesis was to re-examine Eddington’s work on Fundamental Theory.  Little did I know of the war between Chandra and Eddington. Chandra was polite and never let on.  I eventually transferred to Yale to work with Henry Margenau.  What I learned from Miller’s book was also how Eddington had gone off the wall with his fudging for his Fundamental Theory.  I would have run up against this had I started that project; I decided I didn’t have the scholarship skills. Eddington had died before completing his major book on Fundamental Theory.  I purchased it and still have it, along with two books that attempted to study some of his notes when writing.  But, Eddington’s wife immediately burned all his correspondence soon after his death.  I still agree with, as one possible project to comprehend reality, what Eddington attempted.  It is related to my favorite pure number, 137, and the anthropic principles of cosmology.

It has been interesting to see how two of the most important influences in my physics life actually related.

Another highly informative book is biography of Gregory Bateson by David Lipset  (The Legacy of a Scientist, 1980 – published before Gregory’s death and the result of many interviews with Gregory).  From what I had read by and about Gregory Bateson I strongly identified with his mode of thinking (as well as attracted to his bigger ideas).  This extraordinarily well written book (on my shelf for a decade after purchasing it at a book sale) explores not only Gregory’s life, but that of his father and grandfather at Cambridge – and very deeply the ideas and beliefs, each in context with their times and environments.  This deepened my identification with Gregory.  He never held a long time career and had little regard for tradition (except for his anthropological approach to all human relationships). He was always trying to relate diverse things into highly general ideas that few (if any) of his colleagues comprehended.

This is a common phenomenon that I see appearing in the lives of the most exploratory minds.  Their  closest colleagues may not comprehend their papers, but agree (sometimes) with the merits of their conclusions – that is the “applications” of these “conclusions” to the work these other advanced minds are working on. On reading the biography of Paul Dirac (The Strangest Man by Graham Famelo) I discovered that none of his buddies in the foundation of Quantum Theory really comprehended his mathematically very complex papers.  They gave him the benefit of the doubt when they could successfully apply some of his conclusions.  To biographers, many of these highly explorative minds report that they could never find one person who comprehended their “Big Picture”. [A partial explanation of this, is that these Big Pictures are NOT PICTURES, they can’t be experienced as a whole in realtime.]

So, I identify with many of these persons attempting to get out of the biggest boxes – and never fully achieving, but knowing that they did well, and finally accepting that they would never be fully comprehended – but also never giving up trying.  All had very eccentric lifestyles, which makes me quite ordinary in comparison.  I am trying to map what I do in the future in view of these realizations.  I will no longer attempt to share my own –whole..Holsitic..WHOLE… with others. I host it, and call it nuet, but Larry has never experienced it, so how can I expect others to experience it.  Yet, we all have this illusion that we experience Big Pictures.  However, in that I believe some consequences of nuet are very relevant to the future of humanity/Gaia I will attempt to share these.

I have an audio tape of Gregory Bateson, where after talking a while on a topic, simply stopped.  He asked his audience to hang that idea (I call them conceptual schemes) on a peg for possible later reference.  Then he launched into another topic and another peg.  Gregory never got around to having time to talk about the relationship between the ideas on his many pegs.  Attempts to relate pegs simply ended up on another peg. He probably hoped that others, moving back and forth between pegs them might come to a groking awareness of a pattern linking them – but that pattern was an “impossibly complex idea”.  Although we can’t define a “thing” to represent this, we are capable – in a process ontology – of designing and implementing actions appropriate to our best collaborative knowledge.  At this moment I am hoping the Pickering and Beer might provide me with insight as how to best “present my case”.

This is long enough for now, the most I have written for months.  Hope is all going well for you.  I hope soon be be back in the game – but with a new approach.

Larry/LJV/nuet

2010 Elections – Larry’s Comments

This an an “overly brief and incomplete” report of my view of contemporary times, immediately after the 2010 elections. My focus is in other domains.Before the elections I had concluded that no matter how the elections came out, the next two years will be both obscene and bizarre, but in different ways, depending on the outcome. This view has not changed. The next decade will be very difficult for many.

Throughout the long campaigns I found myself more disturbed by the news and editorials from the Democrats, liberals and progressives, than by the bizarre antics of the mad right. Although I only occasionally devoted some time to viewing FOX (essential, and often enlightening – I was not aware that one of Glen Beck’s agendas is the prosecution of Bankers), I got far more of my fill of the more bizarre moments repeated endlessly on liberal MSNBC and supposedly neutral CNN. Yet, it was the lame commentary, even by more favored commentators Keith and Rachael, that disturbed me. The others on MSNBC, CNN and even on most Internet analyzes disturbed me more. They were unable to properly counter the mad right because to do so would bring the Democrats, Clinton, and The American Myth into question, as a mix of evil doers. The problem with America is not the polarization of political parties, which is primarily high theater, but the deep takeover of government by the economic sector, co-opting ALL branches of government.

It has long been my speculation that the more bizarre antics of Angle, O’Donnell, Paladino, and even Paul were intentionally designed to attract DLP (Democrats, Liberals, Progressives) to react to their antics instead of commenting on what was needed. Rachel Maddow even speculated that Paladino was a performance artist. The first three LOST, which was probably expected. Palin, in her own way, is a diversion. Few know that she was courted by top corporations months before she was pushed into the VP position. The DLP devoted most of their time reacting to the madness and were more-than-lame in either appropriate opposition to the Republican-Banker-Corporate coup-takeover or meaningful presentation of their own views (in a way to be comprehended by the average American). They preached to their choir and made very little effort to reach others with their message. And, they never formulated their message as education.

In my view, the DLP lost the election, the Republican won by default.

Election fraud? The main media is now talking about electron fraud in and around the voting process, and masking the accelerating potential of voter (and polls) manipulation in the tabulation process. I no longer trust any poll or election results. Yet, both sides can play this game; and it can be played by corporations and even foreign forces, unknown by either political parties. We forget the manipulations in the 2000 and 2004 elections. It was more important to the Democrats to “defend” our “system” that to expose electoral corruption – which is also practiced by Democrats. Yet, as the Tofflers pointed out over a decade ago, batch processing at periodic election times cannot compete with continuous influence on policy by corporations and other organizations. In this day-& age, elections, itself, is a fraud; but a useful device for people manipulation.

I have long proposed that DECEPTION in electoral processes be viewed as TREASON against a DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM. To openly lie, to attempt to disenfranchise voters, to attempt to influence polls and election results are brutal attacks against the very fabric of democracy. They are the most heinous of crimes. But, never expect reform to institute this as policy in the USA. Deception is foundational to Civilization.

By any scientific criteria, the 2010 elections were chin deep in deception. “The American People” is a distribution of very diverse worldviews. Blacks, other minorities, the young, those of lower income, and those with more education ALL voted more for the Democrats than Republicans. Actually, a minority of sheep, deceived by well funded propagandists and deceptive political organizers conducted a coup against the Democratic USA. In NO WAY have “The American People” spoken to give the GOP or the Tea Parties a full mandate. Their deceptive post-election claims MUST be aggressively countered.

There is also something STRUCTURAL at play. The new technologies are very significantly transforming the processes by which individual get information and how decisions are made. The financial sector has been boosted to excessive dominance by technology. The media for the masses is now under tight, but subtle, control. Although online media is wide open to diverse views, each is limited to narrow audiences. I speculate that the media constraints are more structural than manipulative; although manipulators take advantage of the structural defects.

The levels of knowledge and cognitive competencies of our “leaders” is well beyond dismal. Even our “best” are severely limited. We are well beyond the stage when any individual or even a small group of individuals have the competencies to make significant decisions. Most of today’s decision makers are naively innocent of the vast knowledge of humankind available in our archives. Even the most intelligent and most knowledgeable are aware of only a very small part of what is available; and disciplinary forces keep them from exploring beyond their large “boxes.” Big Pictures are all limited in scope.

I can yet make no conclusions about Obama. He and his family’s speculative association with the CIA has yet to be resolved. I cannot cite ONE of his decisions that I approve unconditionally. He and his family may be under threat, but IMHO, it is time to sacrifice, if that be the case. He sent no subtle messages to the DLP that he was planning deeply. The weird complexity of politics/governance is beyond easy comprehension. And, the influence of global corporatism & banking, and global national politics cannot be ignored. There is ample evidence that there are groups involved in long term “conspiracy”, even if they are not omnipotent or consistent. They have intelligence, money and influence – even if they lack morality. We have not yet accounted for the numbers of successful sociopaths or paranoids in high places. Our societal processes enables these types to move to high positions.

So, in the USA from 2010 to 2012 the mad game continues. Hang on!

There are many levels of REALITY. The vast majority experience their personal and local realities as primary, and the beyond is mostly cloudy myths, primed by the media. This is why “jobs” and “the economy” are their focus, but neither right or left have any real conception of the complexities and contradictions related to living in a societal holarchy in simultaneous emergence, turbulence, and collapse. The level of politics is very superficial, and yet it dominates discourse. Almost everyone is not yet prepared for the type of discourse needed. An uplifting of cognitive competencies is required, and it will not be facilitated within existing establishments. We truly live within a MATRIX; but with many levels of indoctrination and reinforcement for everyone. Even what we might mean by REAL is beyond consideration. There may bis even a MATRIX for the most knowledgeable and most intelligent. And, even those outside the MATRICES are still influenced by them.

We must carefully distinguish discourse both within and without contemporary perspectives and paradigms. I personally am interested in”out-of-the box” scenarios; but I fully realize that these have NO CHANCE within contemporary paradigms and perspectives. Major SHIFTS never come from reforms! Thus, although Third Party movements are venues for education, they have no real chance in contemporary politics and often contribute to negative electoral results. Radical progressives are making proposals “outside-the-box” which have no chance for approval “inside-the-box”; and yet they continue to push for such unrealistic attention. In keeping to this routine progressives never consider alternative venues.

IMHO, nothing of long term significance can be achieved from within-the box. Yet, we cannot get “outside-the-box” by reform strategies from “within-the box”. Politics, local to national, is like repainting the interior of a house that is soon to be demolished. YET, it can be vital in maintaining a system where “outside-the box” action is possible. A synergistic inside/outside-the-box strategy could be quite effective.

Recommendations for those who are not pleased with what is happening:

1) Don’t depend on Obama or Democrats, to either do what you would hope or respond to your recommendations.
2) Don’t depend on getting your message on the mass/passive (broadcast, including cable) media.
3) Comprehensive, alternative News and Commentary channels could be created online, that can be viewed like TV. People can be attracted to getting their news and commentary from these, instead of FOX and MSNBC. We need many such streaming channels. We can advertrize on TV to move people to these new “channels”.
4) Organize person-to person systems. Create some systems on social networks. Re-create the network that Obama abandoned and improve it.
5) Integrate relevant education in this alternative media. Don’t depend on “spot education”, where the short byte intended is to teach. Develop many online curricula. Move in a direction where this is designed and managed by learners.
6) Know your audience. Don’t attempt to move them where the cannot, at this time, go. But, prepare them for future learning.
7) SERIOUSLY, investigate your own assumptions and limitations. YOU, also, need to significantly change; not only others.

Personally, I would like to leave the USA, but I have difficulty finding a place where Eloise’s health would sustain and where our USA retirement funds would continue to support us. Additionally, how can we untangle from our underwater mortgage and debts and finance a migration. But, we feel it may be necessary to move from Arizona to a better region of the USA, even though the climate of Tuscon is quite suitable.

Until the deadline of Nov 18, I will be focused on preparing a proposal for an InnoCentive Challenge:
https://gw.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9780464 .
This will force me to compress my ideas on UPLIFT into 5 pages. My life after Nov 18 is wide open.
I welcome comments to this, but I won’t respond until after Nov 18.

Larry