C-249. Next big technology
The next “big technology” had better be one of behavioral architecture, of molecular step building. About the next step. Making it better. Exercising this Frontier option. A matter of selves: the selves of Individual, community and union. They are architectural projects. The future’s architecture, not the past’s algorithm. We have not been able to distill enough functionality from prior instances of behavior to supply the algorithm for ourselves as individuals, communities and unions … for our requisite step making and taking, individually and together. We act as if preserving and replicating ourselves were our primary concern!
We need to develop operating systems that move our several selves forward, not just ahead (e.g., from “us” to “we”), so that we do not depend on the losing metastrategy of a control system predicated on the outcomes of prior behaviors and a calculus of functionality/dysfunctionality. We add controls as dysfunctionality increases (e.g., more police, new laws) instead of working to develop an operating system in which functionality increases relative to needed functionality ... so as to require less control system.
The Founders of the U.S. Constitution saw enough they disliked of a king’s arbitrary authority that they split governance into legislative, executive and judicial and then spliced these constitutionally. But there has been more sway than swing in effectiveness.* Pre-algorithm, but algorithmic in design mode. They had come together in 1787 because the federated states lacked functionality.
“Us” is a problem. We need to be “We, the people.” Not just a community of shared interests and values. And we need to be a union too: a CEM relationship of individual and community. Something a lot better than the aggregate efforts of a bucket brigade summoned by an alarm. A technology as much of procedure as of tool.
“We, the people” needs behavioral architecture. “Democracy” is little more than concept until “We, the people” can be realized via behavioral architecture … via procedural technology employing theoretical constructs.** As with alloyed mettles.
Procedural because our tool tech /procedure tech ratio (>1++) is too high. Consider, for example, the Internet. Even though procedures contribute to making tools and then to their use. It’s the B-ness all over again, of course: body/step >1++. Even though what is called for (WICF) is doubly a step: the “CF” and often the “W” (e.g., a language to enable “as one”). A step that needs tech development to become a more effective procedure. A molecular step, fashioned by slice and splice.
Procedural tech because we need to do something about our operating systems as individuals, communities and unions (“selves”). We need something CEM parallel to Gutenberg’s movable type. (“Movable type” names a tool technology for slicing letters from words and then splicing them into new words … or in the same word over again.) A product that enabled a process, movable type spawned societal and individual growth. Something like that, but procedural not tool. Think “human infrastructure.”
Still, movable type has a story to tell that can be helpful here. The story is one of contingent emergent materiality (CEM). A balanced mixture of tin, antimony and lead metals transforms pliable lead into the hardened, individual letter pieces that are spliced into printed words. Such CEM successes are common in tools (e.g., galvanized cans, stainless steel). Less so in procedures? ***
But there is no reason why this must be so, other than that we have not developed procedural capability’s CEM commensurate with tool capacity’s CEM. And we can see by now, here in the S-universe and the Expansion, that we can develop this procedural CEM in a way parallel to the Gutenberg tool initiative … if we have sliced independent mettles, as with metals, to work with … to splice them into an composed balance to a criterion of optimized CEM (e.g., a “solution” that “swings”).
***
The need for a transfigurative tech is apparent if we look to the ocean of troubles facing humanity. How deep is this ocean? The difference between weather and climate is suggestive. We were never going to Grasp the consequentiality of climate if we thought that our knowledge of weather, however much differentiated, would add up to give us a Grasp of climate. Nor would we come to realize to our despair that our solutions to weather problems would add to our climate problem. Our picture of matters has been incomplete and inaccurate.
So, consider these other Mind tech parallels to weather and climate:
We need to develop operating systems that move our several selves forward, not just ahead (e.g., from “us” to “we”), so that we do not depend on the losing metastrategy of a control system predicated on the outcomes of prior behaviors and a calculus of functionality/dysfunctionality. We add controls as dysfunctionality increases (e.g., more police, new laws) instead of working to develop an operating system in which functionality increases relative to needed functionality ... so as to require less control system.
The Founders of the U.S. Constitution saw enough they disliked of a king’s arbitrary authority that they split governance into legislative, executive and judicial and then spliced these constitutionally. But there has been more sway than swing in effectiveness.* Pre-algorithm, but algorithmic in design mode. They had come together in 1787 because the federated states lacked functionality.
“Us” is a problem. We need to be “We, the people.” Not just a community of shared interests and values. And we need to be a union too: a CEM relationship of individual and community. Something a lot better than the aggregate efforts of a bucket brigade summoned by an alarm. A technology as much of procedure as of tool.
“We, the people” needs behavioral architecture. “Democracy” is little more than concept until “We, the people” can be realized via behavioral architecture … via procedural technology employing theoretical constructs.** As with alloyed mettles.
Procedural because our tool tech /procedure tech ratio (>1++) is too high. Consider, for example, the Internet. Even though procedures contribute to making tools and then to their use. It’s the B-ness all over again, of course: body/step >1++. Even though what is called for (WICF) is doubly a step: the “CF” and often the “W” (e.g., a language to enable “as one”). A step that needs tech development to become a more effective procedure. A molecular step, fashioned by slice and splice.
Procedural tech because we need to do something about our operating systems as individuals, communities and unions (“selves”). We need something CEM parallel to Gutenberg’s movable type. (“Movable type” names a tool technology for slicing letters from words and then splicing them into new words … or in the same word over again.) A product that enabled a process, movable type spawned societal and individual growth. Something like that, but procedural not tool. Think “human infrastructure.”
Still, movable type has a story to tell that can be helpful here. The story is one of contingent emergent materiality (CEM). A balanced mixture of tin, antimony and lead metals transforms pliable lead into the hardened, individual letter pieces that are spliced into printed words. Such CEM successes are common in tools (e.g., galvanized cans, stainless steel). Less so in procedures? ***
But there is no reason why this must be so, other than that we have not developed procedural capability’s CEM commensurate with tool capacity’s CEM. And we can see by now, here in the S-universe and the Expansion, that we can develop this procedural CEM in a way parallel to the Gutenberg tool initiative … if we have sliced independent mettles, as with metals, to work with … to splice them into an composed balance to a criterion of optimized CEM (e.g., a “solution” that “swings”).
The need for a transfigurative tech is apparent if we look to the ocean of troubles facing humanity. How deep is this ocean? The difference between weather and climate is suggestive. We were never going to Grasp the consequentiality of climate if we thought that our knowledge of weather, however much differentiated, would add up to give us a Grasp of climate. Nor would we come to realize to our despair that our solutions to weather problems would add to our climate problem. Our picture of matters has been incomplete and inaccurate.
So, consider these other Mind tech parallels to weather and climate:
Weather |
Climate |
B-universe, S-universe |
Expansion |
Things of nature |
Nature of things |
Mass and energy, body and step, particle and wave |
Materiality |
Instances of functionality# |
Needed functionality# |
Practices, actions, ways |
Behavioral architecture |
Adopt, Adapt, Adept |
Accord |
We have been intellectually myopic. We needed a transfiguration tech to see the big picture. Now we need the Involve of behavioral architecture to Grasp the need for and development of Mind techs, of the R-transform and a molecular Step science and an R-word language with which to conduct S-universe experiments on mettles and their step-strengthening alloys.
In terms of human infrastructure, our behavioral foundations have been too shallow, as if for our architectural challenge – i.e., to build an operating system –we have simply leveled ground on which we placed a slab instead of digging down to hard rock on which to place anchoring supports for the building.
That what is called for (WICF) is not well called for should alert us to the need for techs re techs re techs … especially for Mind techs to help us build stronger steps.
* “Sway” as in a skyscraper during an earthquake. “Swing” as in the feel of satisfaction.
** Behavioral architecture is not going to work if the building units for the Mind functionality are concepts rather than theoretical constructs. Theory FOR is an essential “half” of theory’s contribution to Mind: theory FOR the work of architecture. This is such a critical point that we shall dramatize it: If we see the current struggle to overcome the covid-19 pandemic as World War III, then conquering the B-speak dependence on concepts (re instances) ought to be World War IV. We have been drugged by a hegemony of B-ness technology, of B-speak, B-universe and B-spacetime. Theoretical constructs have worked for that which is body (e.g., “atoms,” “electrons”); they can work for that which is step (e.g., “mettles”). It doesn’t help that B-speak contributes a thoughtknot with respect to “we.” An ambiguity of the plural: it can refer to an instance of an aggregate (as in B-speak “us” does); or, more usefully, to a needed functionality (e.g., “We, the people”).
*** As, for example, in our construing “government” as an oppressive, even pernicious body rather than a needed community functionality.
# See “ambiguity of the singular.” (Contrast needed functionality with Plato’s “essence” in regard to a deeper meaning than that provided by instance[s].)
In light of the very useful Search feature now available, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2021 R. F. Carter
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