C-262. The R-zone
“We don’t know the half of it!” All of needed functionality, that is. The R-zone “half”: the other, non-ordered half of partial order, which like the ordered half is pertinent to behavior along with the Nature of Things’ other principles: the general persisting conditions (GPC) of consequentiality and (step, body) discontinuity … and along with The Expansion’s principles of Differentiation, Extension and contingent emergent materiality (CEM).
We don’t know the half of it. As if we weren’t living in that other half too. The loud-speaking presence of collisions notwithstanding! We have been too much engaged in particular needed functionalities (aka “problematic situations”) and in the calculus of good versus bad functionalities to realize the full quality and quantity of our behavioral deficit … and, tragically, our susceptibility to credulity, to unwarranted beliefs.
For this we have our customary conceptual way of seeing materiality as things, and for seeing behavior as instances rather than behavior as theory FOR (Involve CEM Grasp) molecular steps. To blame? B-ness and the ambiguity of the singular in B-speak. To these the R-zone speaks.
The R-zone is very much what there is to be talked about (WTITBTA), but isn’t talked about -- except perhaps obliquely (e.g., “mystery, ”the great unknown”). Or not well, as in the case of “notion pictures” such as One-ness. Implying that this sector of partial order is “informed” and we just have yet to discover it.
As if the notion of “born with a blank slate” were a satisfactory explanation of the human Mind condition. With coming to learn what is already known was the way forward. To be informed. A way, yes. But not the whole of it. Without much chalk (just crying) and no eraser … too!
The R-zone bears very much on what is called for (WICF). This is something that isn’t our ignorance of information about an order that is there to be found. This is something that isn’t, wasn’t and never will be there, even if and when we put something(s) there. As, for example, when we add statutory laws to B-universe laws. Or cover everything up with a something.
However much functionality we add to our selves and environs, the R-zone is not going away. Partial order persists. And it imposes needed functionality: i.e., the behavioral problem, Pbeh, and the behavioral solution, Sbeh) distinctive to itself … a demand that never ceases. In the presence of the R-zone, prediction will always have a limited role to play in behavior. But explanation can serve where prediction doesn’t. Missing predictive or prescriptive laws, we can be served by principles and constants. And The Expansion-Nature of Things Conjecture has them to offer.
***
Reason (an R-word) can serve our Grasp of behavioral materiality where cause (a B-speak concept) falters or fails. Behaviorally, a difference that makes a difference may be a reason, not a cause. (“Cause” serves One-ness – until it doesn’t?) Perhaps when behavioral materiality is our concern we should see a “cause” as a kind of reason. A explanation must serve when prediction fails ... and to Grasp when we Read behaviors after the fact that were once behaviors before the fact. (Consider how much behavior is left behind in a “decision tree” map of an event. Or as in the off-diagonal cells of a data matrix.)
The orderings and information about orderings given us, in body and environs, do not, can not suffice. “Doing what comes naturally” and/or “harmonizing with nature” won’t do the job. The evolution dynamic won’t do the job. This is the message of “I + O = E”: Instinct plus outstinct equals extinct. We are not a community; we are just a population if we cannot build our several selves, individuals and communities, via molecular steps … equipped with better Mind functionality to address the R-zone’s incomplete instruction … and achieve our CEM potential. This is a job for development and procedural technology. We have depended for favorable outcomes too much on evolution and abundant natural resources.
As procedural tech for Mind, the R-zone is a cognitive, linguistic objectification that gives B-speak voice to a materiality: a condition OF and IN consequence. A B-speak objectification for a reason: B-speak can be useful when we need to introduce “something that is not there,” but material. We have seen gross neglect and abuse of behavioral materiality, of that which is, in addition to bodies, also IN and OF consequence, notably in the matters (!) of The Expansion, The Nature of Things and the S-universe.
“R” for realization. A zone of opportunity for those able to make use of the “next step “option given step discontinuity and multi-step agency. Opportunity for those wanting to be of consequence, those wanting to give meaning to life and truth to selve-design and selve-development. And a zone of appreciation for the gifts with which we and other species have been endowed (e.g., human birth comes “no assembly required”) … and, for those so inclined, appreciation for giver(s) of these gifts.
“Reality” in B-speak. It is up to us deal with this void as best we can. This is a phenomenon of The Expansion-Nature of Things. It is not the “doubt” of an observer and/or actor. And filling the R-zone with the B-speak concepts such as “nothing” and “chance” invites more behavioral neglect and irresponsibility. Meeting the void responsibly entails building capability, step strength, beyond endowments of bodily capacity … and attention to the ratios of capacity/capability and responsibility/capability in the realm of the operating system (O.S.) for selves (aka Excalibur).*
This is the locus of the behavioral problem, Pbeh, and the behavioral solution, Sbeh. It is a critical part of needed functionality, and of what is called for (WICF). That kind of “information” for our behavior which must come from us: ideas FOR not OF. Most critically, to inform our next step, exercising our Frontier option. This is also what Help is about—and the difficulty that different operating systems (and/or the lack of them) pose for attempts to help.
In tool technology, we see after the fact an operating system (aka “design”) in the advanced “chip” (integrated system) of digital devices. But its before-the-fact companion is sadly missing in procedural technology. After the fact, “habit,” “tradition” and “custom” hint at unfilled need even while pointing to existing functionalities. As, for example, our need to contribute “…toward a more perfect Union,” the needed functionality between individual and community to which democracy aspires.
It seems clear from our behaviors, the “do’s” that we do, and our limited success in problem solving and our having added to the problems that need solving, that we lack a complete and accurate Grasp of behavior: what we need to be doing. How else to account for our advances in tool technology while procedural technology lags far behind? Even though, primitive and twisted as it is, our thinking about thinking in B-ness and B-speak terms has contributed procedurally to that tool technology – as in using mathematics and logic technologies.
We have to do something procedural about informational systems too, because WICF has this important communicative aspect. Not just the informational system transport’s tool technology. The message’s procedural technology too. Especially in light of the disturbing transport/message >1++ ratio in contemporary communication. And as we have noted earlier, communication helps provide leverage Forward in step constriction.
***
But wait; there’s more! We can use the R-zone designation to point to another theoretical condition: In addition to partial order, the Nature of Things’ general persisting conditions also stipulate that structural totality (St) includes structural discontinuity (Sd) as well as structural continuity (Sc). Most obviously separation among bodies. But apparent since the emergence of multi-step behavior, discontinuity between steps too – i.e., the next step AT, ON The Expansion’s Frontier.**
R-zone says we haven’t given enough attention to the implications of step structural discontinuity. Not enough in the development and employment of Stop procedural technology. Abundant though behavioral Stop procedures are in our control systems (e.g., “law and order,” traffic signs). R-zone behavior needs step discontinuity to realize the promise of step molecularity – i.e., behavioral architecture ... which in turn calls for R-zone initiative, for intelligence not just information.
R-zone calls for procedural technology to give intelligence qua Reason (an R-word) the capability to see Forward. Not to be left AT, ON the Frontier with recourse only to uncertainty and choice between available functionalities. Not consigned to a lifetime only of learning what is already known. Nor shielded from the demands and opportunity of the R-zone. Rather to be aided with strengthened mettle health as, for example, to come to know FOR and BY our selves. As by KMmt procedures: fewer tries, more Trials. As by addressing the step making and taking challenges of Community first, developing the molecular step to enable relevant help. Then applying these selve developments to individual and Union.
What does “born free,” speaking conceptually, point TO theoretically? Free OF other bodies? Free FROM others’ steps? Free TO make steps, to Realize selves: individual and community? Concepts such as humanity and democracy are carelessly employed nominally, more identity than agency, as if they were not material process challenges. As if, behaviorally, humanity and democracy are not starting from zero. When in the S-universe, all behavior starts from zero.
And we must provide procedural technologies to enhance our progress from zero.
***
If we array the 4A’s (Adapt, Adopt, Adept and Accord), our three behavioral strategies and their guiding metastrategy, against the R-zone, we may better Grasp both them and the R-zone.
Adapt works when there is unchanging order. This, according to Lewin, is how the Greeks saw lawfulness: physical conditions that are regular and frequent, such as night and day. The Nature of Things’ partial order limits Adapt’s applicability. And, indeed, some things in nature may find us “adapting” them.
Adopt works best when useful orderings have been added (ways of doing things and injunctions against ways of doing things), where conformance and extension (e.g., distribution) are to our advantage. These added orderings of particular functionalities might appear to reduce the size of the R-zone. But they do not. They may however reduce our appreciation of the R-zone, thinking – even believing -- that solving a situational problem has solved the behavioral problem.
Adept is what we are left with, to cope as we can with life’s collisions: hard and soft, avoided and arranged, before the fact and after the fact … the legacy of the Nature of Things’ constants of consequentiality and discontinuity (body and step) that accompany partial order. A legacy that calls for procedural technology development to enhance Adept. Especially in light of the R-zone.
Accord answers this call. The three strategies operate best with the meta-strategic help of The Expansion’s principles (DIFion, Extension and especially CEM: the thread of History) to guide them. Procedure helping procedure. We seem to be operating with an imbalanced ratio of Adept (make information) to Adopt and Adapt (given information).
***
* In B-speak terms we should draw a distinction between “intelligence” and “information.” They are often not distinguished. But even conceptually, “intelligence” points to the R-zone, to the ordering contribution(s) we must make – not just find -- given the Nature of Things’ enduring partial order. Thus we do better to view “cognition” theoretically as the relating of differences (DIF’s – whether objects or not) via relations (e.g. inside, outside, before, after, similar, different) before the fact of a relationship (“idea”). As terms like “smart” suggest and critics of “intelligence testing” note, there is more to intelligence than the information one possesses – however useful some of the latter may prove situationally in conjunction with, and subject to, the former.
**This dual discontinuity constitutes a “bi-ness” that has been fundamental to evolution – and now to further development – of the CEM relationship of body and step ... and in the S-universe to the step molecule. The same bi-ness of behavior and entity, as of wave and particle et al that is History in consequence of the Big Bang.
(c) 2023 R. F. Carter
We don’t know the half of it. As if we weren’t living in that other half too. The loud-speaking presence of collisions notwithstanding! We have been too much engaged in particular needed functionalities (aka “problematic situations”) and in the calculus of good versus bad functionalities to realize the full quality and quantity of our behavioral deficit … and, tragically, our susceptibility to credulity, to unwarranted beliefs.
For this we have our customary conceptual way of seeing materiality as things, and for seeing behavior as instances rather than behavior as theory FOR (Involve CEM Grasp) molecular steps. To blame? B-ness and the ambiguity of the singular in B-speak. To these the R-zone speaks.
The R-zone is very much what there is to be talked about (WTITBTA), but isn’t talked about -- except perhaps obliquely (e.g., “mystery, ”the great unknown”). Or not well, as in the case of “notion pictures” such as One-ness. Implying that this sector of partial order is “informed” and we just have yet to discover it.
As if the notion of “born with a blank slate” were a satisfactory explanation of the human Mind condition. With coming to learn what is already known was the way forward. To be informed. A way, yes. But not the whole of it. Without much chalk (just crying) and no eraser … too!
The R-zone bears very much on what is called for (WICF). This is something that isn’t our ignorance of information about an order that is there to be found. This is something that isn’t, wasn’t and never will be there, even if and when we put something(s) there. As, for example, when we add statutory laws to B-universe laws. Or cover everything up with a something.
However much functionality we add to our selves and environs, the R-zone is not going away. Partial order persists. And it imposes needed functionality: i.e., the behavioral problem, Pbeh, and the behavioral solution, Sbeh) distinctive to itself … a demand that never ceases. In the presence of the R-zone, prediction will always have a limited role to play in behavior. But explanation can serve where prediction doesn’t. Missing predictive or prescriptive laws, we can be served by principles and constants. And The Expansion-Nature of Things Conjecture has them to offer.
Reason (an R-word) can serve our Grasp of behavioral materiality where cause (a B-speak concept) falters or fails. Behaviorally, a difference that makes a difference may be a reason, not a cause. (“Cause” serves One-ness – until it doesn’t?) Perhaps when behavioral materiality is our concern we should see a “cause” as a kind of reason. A explanation must serve when prediction fails ... and to Grasp when we Read behaviors after the fact that were once behaviors before the fact. (Consider how much behavior is left behind in a “decision tree” map of an event. Or as in the off-diagonal cells of a data matrix.)
The orderings and information about orderings given us, in body and environs, do not, can not suffice. “Doing what comes naturally” and/or “harmonizing with nature” won’t do the job. The evolution dynamic won’t do the job. This is the message of “I + O = E”: Instinct plus outstinct equals extinct. We are not a community; we are just a population if we cannot build our several selves, individuals and communities, via molecular steps … equipped with better Mind functionality to address the R-zone’s incomplete instruction … and achieve our CEM potential. This is a job for development and procedural technology. We have depended for favorable outcomes too much on evolution and abundant natural resources.
As procedural tech for Mind, the R-zone is a cognitive, linguistic objectification that gives B-speak voice to a materiality: a condition OF and IN consequence. A B-speak objectification for a reason: B-speak can be useful when we need to introduce “something that is not there,” but material. We have seen gross neglect and abuse of behavioral materiality, of that which is, in addition to bodies, also IN and OF consequence, notably in the matters (!) of The Expansion, The Nature of Things and the S-universe.
“R” for realization. A zone of opportunity for those able to make use of the “next step “option given step discontinuity and multi-step agency. Opportunity for those wanting to be of consequence, those wanting to give meaning to life and truth to selve-design and selve-development. And a zone of appreciation for the gifts with which we and other species have been endowed (e.g., human birth comes “no assembly required”) … and, for those so inclined, appreciation for giver(s) of these gifts.
“Reality” in B-speak. It is up to us deal with this void as best we can. This is a phenomenon of The Expansion-Nature of Things. It is not the “doubt” of an observer and/or actor. And filling the R-zone with the B-speak concepts such as “nothing” and “chance” invites more behavioral neglect and irresponsibility. Meeting the void responsibly entails building capability, step strength, beyond endowments of bodily capacity … and attention to the ratios of capacity/capability and responsibility/capability in the realm of the operating system (O.S.) for selves (aka Excalibur).*
This is the locus of the behavioral problem, Pbeh, and the behavioral solution, Sbeh. It is a critical part of needed functionality, and of what is called for (WICF). That kind of “information” for our behavior which must come from us: ideas FOR not OF. Most critically, to inform our next step, exercising our Frontier option. This is also what Help is about—and the difficulty that different operating systems (and/or the lack of them) pose for attempts to help.
In tool technology, we see after the fact an operating system (aka “design”) in the advanced “chip” (integrated system) of digital devices. But its before-the-fact companion is sadly missing in procedural technology. After the fact, “habit,” “tradition” and “custom” hint at unfilled need even while pointing to existing functionalities. As, for example, our need to contribute “…toward a more perfect Union,” the needed functionality between individual and community to which democracy aspires.
It seems clear from our behaviors, the “do’s” that we do, and our limited success in problem solving and our having added to the problems that need solving, that we lack a complete and accurate Grasp of behavior: what we need to be doing. How else to account for our advances in tool technology while procedural technology lags far behind? Even though, primitive and twisted as it is, our thinking about thinking in B-ness and B-speak terms has contributed procedurally to that tool technology – as in using mathematics and logic technologies.
We have to do something procedural about informational systems too, because WICF has this important communicative aspect. Not just the informational system transport’s tool technology. The message’s procedural technology too. Especially in light of the disturbing transport/message >1++ ratio in contemporary communication. And as we have noted earlier, communication helps provide leverage Forward in step constriction.
But wait; there’s more! We can use the R-zone designation to point to another theoretical condition: In addition to partial order, the Nature of Things’ general persisting conditions also stipulate that structural totality (St) includes structural discontinuity (Sd) as well as structural continuity (Sc). Most obviously separation among bodies. But apparent since the emergence of multi-step behavior, discontinuity between steps too – i.e., the next step AT, ON The Expansion’s Frontier.**
R-zone says we haven’t given enough attention to the implications of step structural discontinuity. Not enough in the development and employment of Stop procedural technology. Abundant though behavioral Stop procedures are in our control systems (e.g., “law and order,” traffic signs). R-zone behavior needs step discontinuity to realize the promise of step molecularity – i.e., behavioral architecture ... which in turn calls for R-zone initiative, for intelligence not just information.
R-zone calls for procedural technology to give intelligence qua Reason (an R-word) the capability to see Forward. Not to be left AT, ON the Frontier with recourse only to uncertainty and choice between available functionalities. Not consigned to a lifetime only of learning what is already known. Nor shielded from the demands and opportunity of the R-zone. Rather to be aided with strengthened mettle health as, for example, to come to know FOR and BY our selves. As by KMmt procedures: fewer tries, more Trials. As by addressing the step making and taking challenges of Community first, developing the molecular step to enable relevant help. Then applying these selve developments to individual and Union.
What does “born free,” speaking conceptually, point TO theoretically? Free OF other bodies? Free FROM others’ steps? Free TO make steps, to Realize selves: individual and community? Concepts such as humanity and democracy are carelessly employed nominally, more identity than agency, as if they were not material process challenges. As if, behaviorally, humanity and democracy are not starting from zero. When in the S-universe, all behavior starts from zero.
And we must provide procedural technologies to enhance our progress from zero.
If we array the 4A’s (Adapt, Adopt, Adept and Accord), our three behavioral strategies and their guiding metastrategy, against the R-zone, we may better Grasp both them and the R-zone.
Adapt works when there is unchanging order. This, according to Lewin, is how the Greeks saw lawfulness: physical conditions that are regular and frequent, such as night and day. The Nature of Things’ partial order limits Adapt’s applicability. And, indeed, some things in nature may find us “adapting” them.
Adopt works best when useful orderings have been added (ways of doing things and injunctions against ways of doing things), where conformance and extension (e.g., distribution) are to our advantage. These added orderings of particular functionalities might appear to reduce the size of the R-zone. But they do not. They may however reduce our appreciation of the R-zone, thinking – even believing -- that solving a situational problem has solved the behavioral problem.
Adept is what we are left with, to cope as we can with life’s collisions: hard and soft, avoided and arranged, before the fact and after the fact … the legacy of the Nature of Things’ constants of consequentiality and discontinuity (body and step) that accompany partial order. A legacy that calls for procedural technology development to enhance Adept. Especially in light of the R-zone.
Accord answers this call. The three strategies operate best with the meta-strategic help of The Expansion’s principles (DIFion, Extension and especially CEM: the thread of History) to guide them. Procedure helping procedure. We seem to be operating with an imbalanced ratio of Adept (make information) to Adopt and Adapt (given information).
* In B-speak terms we should draw a distinction between “intelligence” and “information.” They are often not distinguished. But even conceptually, “intelligence” points to the R-zone, to the ordering contribution(s) we must make – not just find -- given the Nature of Things’ enduring partial order. Thus we do better to view “cognition” theoretically as the relating of differences (DIF’s – whether objects or not) via relations (e.g. inside, outside, before, after, similar, different) before the fact of a relationship (“idea”). As terms like “smart” suggest and critics of “intelligence testing” note, there is more to intelligence than the information one possesses – however useful some of the latter may prove situationally in conjunction with, and subject to, the former.
**This dual discontinuity constitutes a “bi-ness” that has been fundamental to evolution – and now to further development – of the CEM relationship of body and step ... and in the S-universe to the step molecule. The same bi-ness of behavior and entity, as of wave and particle et al that is History in consequence of the Big Bang.
(c) 2023 R. F. Carter
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