tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post1684599204873271807..comments2012-08-06T09:14:41.664-05:00Comments on our human complexity: Finally, John Ralston Saul! well- at least a start...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-59555461887996060282010-05-27T23:30:36.234-05:002010-05-27T23:30:36.234-05:00They are wonderful indeed, and I like your doorway...They are wonderful indeed, and I like your doorway analogy. I'm seeing how useful the lenses of connotation and denotation are...<br /><br />Looking forward to your next post!Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13650605954800329073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-81939980559269024412010-05-25T09:29:42.903-05:002010-05-25T09:29:42.903-05:00Hey Stephen! I just happened to scroll down and n...Hey Stephen! I just happened to scroll down and noticed your excellent commenting. I especially liked: <br /><br />"But these technologies must necessarily be able to interact with the environment of our consciousness. They are our multi-dimensional creations of language and art which can be represented in the physical but only fully exist when realized in the mind."<br /><br />In particular, I liked the phrase, "environment of our consciousness"; it's a nice handle to name our inner life that doesn't sound new-agey or tepid. I hope you develop the idea of this whole section which I outlined though.<br /><br />Words are wonderful! they can give insight and cause obscurity. For me, I treat words more like doorways, rather than containers, and I've come to value their connotative powers over their denotative ones. (Except when I have to read a technical manual though....)Mike Gottschalkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03570606130437615456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-17891547397276665942010-05-19T02:53:54.505-05:002010-05-19T02:53:54.505-05:00In living organisms, I think the term correspondin...In living organisms, I think the term corresponding to the equilibrium you bring up would be homeostasis... a condition that responds to states of deviation in order to maintain the system within certain parameters.<br /><br />Certain conditions are maintained at homeostasis within organisms as they grow and mature. Things like water and nutrient distribution and temperature as well as nerve synapse potentials among countless other internal processes. The amount of physical stuff that needs to be in balance just for me to write this is mind-boggling. Even without considering the extra-organismal environment! <br /><br />I think we are just beginning to discover the different systems that operate within and sustain our consciousness. Much like our understanding of our biology increased along with the development of microscopes and other laboratory equipment, our knowledge of our consciousness will increase with the development and implementation of relevant technologies. But these technologies must necessarily be able to interact with the environment of our consciousness. They are our multi-dimensional creations of language and art which can be represented in the physical but only fully exist when realized in the mind.<br /><br />- I composed the previous paragraph unaware that you explicitly mentioned "tools" at the end of your post. What a nice convergence!<br /><br />I did skip ahead and read your next latest post, where you mentioned Saul's six "qualities". I like how he severs our obsession with reason by putting equal emphasis on all of the qualities, and that he doesn't consider his list absolute.<br /><br />This may sound strange, but I think de-emphasizing the abilities of our language goes along with removing reason from it's throne. Just as reason occupies a limited sphere of our experience, so do our definitions derived from language. <br /><br />I find great dilemma in attempting to deduce the role of language in forming and interacting with my internal environment. Words are certainly capable of having an impact on my spirit, but I have a strong conviction that a delving into wordless territory is necessary in the pursuit of wholeness. <br /><br />Of course, this is an inherently bizarre inquisition...Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13650605954800329073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-1168596916761972752010-05-09T09:01:02.234-05:002010-05-09T09:01:02.234-05:00Alex- Great link to Poe! I'm gonna spend some...Alex- Great link to Poe! I'm gonna spend some time today on your BTS idea (looks like fun!).Mike Gottschalkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03570606130437615456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-12501623027200830912010-05-07T17:27:53.747-05:002010-05-07T17:27:53.747-05:00Swirling (the Incessant Flow) is the primary probl...Swirling (the Incessant Flow) is the primary problem McLuhan identified as well (via Poe):<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCuFmlwkgG0<br /><br />Ultimately, I think McLuhan's view is that the literary West post-renaissance world is colliding with the East, because the electronic age breaks boundaries at the speed of light. Neither is good or bad and it's all a cycle, but there are worlds of propaganda in freak mode, because they have no perspective to consider from.<br /><br />I'm skipping and reaching, but connect the BTS with metaphor and what it managed to identify for humor. Now imagine this as the "content" of a social media like facebook, asking people to generate and rate metaphors:<br />http://www.rayweaver.net/hbsfiles/truthtelling_incentives.pdf<br /><br />we were promised jetpacks. :)Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06904584136896209368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-56664377779285350592010-05-06T08:50:44.769-05:002010-05-06T08:50:44.769-05:00We have to keep hold of your excellent insight her...We have to keep hold of your excellent insight here Peter as we continue through Saul's ideas. And this is the context: Economic activity is the result of human activity- or an artifact. However, is the aggregate of "particle" interaction an artifact? <br /><br />First I would say no; though "temperature" might be an artifact, it communicates something about physicality that exists apart from human knowledge. Because this is so, such dynamics can serve as a basis of Metaphor. Which in my thinking, I want to construe Metaphor as something fundamentally structural and operational(?) that makes 'metaphors'- simile, hyperbole, synechdoce and the like- possible.<br /><br />In my sense of this "operational" metaphor then, (feel free to amend the word operational- I'm only trying to denote an activity as opposed to the name of a particular figurative form) we can speak of Metaphors as comprised by two components: its "Ground"- here the temperature of a physical system, something "concrete"- and its "Reach"- here the "non-physical" (less-than-concrete) or the artifact of human activity that economists study, where they want to apply the concept of equilibrium.<br /><br />SO, I would argue that Metaphor isn't something less than literal, rather, I would construe it as literal and MORE. Something truly paradoxical happens in Metaphor: the more you can know its Ground, the more you can infer its Reach- even though the realities beneath their respective components are not equivalent: something truly creative happens! (Moreover, as your sense of a particular Reach fills in, it then can communicate more insight back to its Ground- still without gaining equivalency.)<br /><br />You've provided us with a very apt ground from which we can perceive and critique the reach used by economists, as they use Equilibrium Metaphorically.<br /><br />Thanks Peter!Mike Gottschalkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03570606130437615456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3312179782230880680.post-69032111654658948032010-05-05T20:45:39.900-05:002010-05-05T20:45:39.900-05:00Looking forward to more, Mike. Yes, there's mo...Looking forward to more, Mike. Yes, there's more than just Reason, but perhaps the best of them are nameless, or have only proper names, because they happen only once. We can find something similar about Jesus, Muhammad, and Gandhi and make them all a single commonplace.<br /><br />I think the ideas of equilibrium in Economics and in Physics/the rest of science can be reconciled. If the temperature is constant at a large scale, for example, which we can take as an elementary definition of equilibrium in Physics, still we generally suppose there is movement and change on a smaller scale. Temperature in statistical mechanics is a "collective measure" that describes properties that would look chaotic on a small scale. I think equilibrium is equally a matter of some chosen collective measure being constant in Economics. Companies are going bankrupt at the same rate as new start-ups are created, for example. The variables are different, but the idea of collecting together many X's is the same.<br /><br />The concepts of thermodynamics in Physics do not <i>require</i> that there is something that underlies a measurement of temperature, however, which allows your quibble to be sustained. It's enough to have operational procedures for measuring temperatures, without knowing what makes something hot or cold. Modern Physics takes statistical mechanics models to explain thermodynamic states, but it's not essential.<br /><br />In contrast, economic measures are gathered piece by piece. We can only measure the GNP of a country because every company has to report its income to a bank, say, which has to report the aggregate income reported to it to a central organization. It's not easy (or not possible?) to discover the GNP of a country by putting the equivalent of a thermometer in the right place.<br /><br />Nonetheless, if we subscribe to statistical mechanics as an explanation of thermodynamic states, which almost all Physicists do, so we know it to be true, then we can argue that there is no difference between equilibrium in Economics and Physics -- there is change on small scales, stability of some kind on larger scales.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08654675777726560464noreply@blogger.com