C-260.10 Mettle health

Mettle health would draw some benefit from a mettle science – when we have developed the molecular step. Instead we have evolved a “science of behaviors.” More a collector’s game of differences and more or less related differences than an experimental investigation of functionality.* than The human operating system (O.S.) – and our study of what there is of it – has evolved as a repertoire of situational functionalities. “Multi-tasking” says it all.

“Finding ourself ?” We come to “know” something about our selves. But we learn far more about behaviors in this and that situation. But not about step making and taking, not at the molecular, mettle level. Our O.S., such as it is, is weak. We manage and govern our lives largely by control system (C.S.). Indeed, we often talk about life as a control challenge.**

But consider our four quality of life product types. Only one, a problem created by a solution (0:Ps), lends itself to C.S. management (e.g., endless policing and corrective measures). The others are primarily O.S. challenges: 0:Sp – unfinished solutions such as distributional difficulties (e.g., inequities); 0:P – problems without solution, such as those requiring collective behavior (e.g., Community, Union); and, 0:S-P – the problem of problem solving, of using procedural technology unsuited for the problems addressed (e.g., B-ness and B-speak).

The distinction between “human conditions” (HC-1 and HC-2) seems well taken here. It does not do to see ourselves only “objectively.” Not when we are possessed of multi-step capacity and can develop that further as capability – to make as well as take steps … in the S-universe and guided by the principles of the Expansion. We need the O.S. emphasis of the HC-1 human condition, to find our selves by procedurally enhanced technology: Trials, not just Tries.

***

We lack a mettle repertoire. We lack a mettle science. And because we have not found our selves in the S-universe, not yet attending to mettles, not constructing molecular steps, we have not developed technologies – especially procedural – to Help us in our O.S. development.***

Mettle health is a matter of architecture, of what a less limited Know tech (e.g., KMmt[trials]) might afford us. Architecture, as intimated by the concept of “character building.” Mettle health because we are doubly troubled by the Nature of Things: 1/ Alone in consequence of our separateness (the price of independence); and, 2/ Incompletely instructed in consequence of partial order (the price of selve as agency).

Of course there’s more to human health than step health: problems of the body.# But we can, with the aid of mettles and procedural technology, pursue as well a more proactive course than, say, today’s C.S. (corrective) cognitive therapy. We – our several selves -- need stronger operating systems, principled by the Expansion and Nature of Things, generated in the S-universe.

***

“Curiosity,” a B-ness concept, exemplifies our need for aggressive experimental work with mettle and their alloys. Though sometimes, but not always, applauded as a behavior, curiosity is a far cry from Socratic inquiry. As “imagination” in children, it may not even be appreciated. Yet Ask, an R-word in the S-universe, is a prime mettle of needed functionality given our incompletely instructed condition. Not the “dreamy” condition so often envisaged by B-ness addicts.

AT, ON the Frontier, with our future in need of imagination and not just prediction, Ask might well comprise half of our cognitive and communicative behavior. Ask can not be relegated to Learn procedures. We require Ask mettle for Know procedures, as in the case of extending Tries (KT) to Trials (KMmt). Further we need to alloy Ask mettle with Attend (e.g., “close reading”) and Point (e.g., pointed question) mettles.

Consider too the concept of “consciousness.” A body state … of “mind”? Of which there are many and varied instances. Is this something we should be looking for in the human brain? So that we might reverse engineer it? Clone it? Even make hardware copies of it – ala AI. What is its history? How did it get there?

Do we have to think about it conceptually? In these B-ness terms? Can’t this be a molecular step matter, of Mind and Move … in response to needed functionality? Can’t we go forward and build (i.e., technologically) what we need? Especially as we can’t find it or reverse engineer it?

Why not just declare what we are talking about here as a CEM phenomenon that has come to be talked about conceptually? Understanding now as we do how CEM works in the S-universe, as well as in the Expansion (History’s “Body CEM Step”),## we might, we ought to, build what we need of it. The Expansion has no brief for One-ness. Functional equivalents are a recognized phenomenon (von Bertalanffy, Stamm). Remember the trilobite’s calcite eys.

B-ness has afforded us a quantitative view of consciousness. Sometimes some people are more aware than others. And there are kinds of consciousness: “turned on, tuned in and listening” for example. Or “subconscious” and “unconscious.” As many types of “consciousness” as there are of “intelligence”?###

Fundamentally, however, moving from concept to theory FOR – to the S-universe via the R-transform – isn’t what we are after here the mettles and their compositions to build operating systems for our selves? To advance us Forward to WE from freedom OF to freedom TO? To join – reverting to the conceptual – conscious with Hardin’s principled conscience?@

Mind technology in the S-universe offers us opportunity for unlimited CEM qualities. Just as tool technology sharpens the dull end of a stick, so can procedural technology add Point to Attend and Ask to sharpen and give step strength to “Huh?”

***

It’s never too early in the child’s life to begin a program of mettle health, to cultivate the development of an operating system, to pursue the positivity of Behavioral freedom TO, once bodily freedom FROM and OF have been achieved at birth.

Freedom OF is a lot. Worth conserving. Especially in the wake of people’s struggles to win it: freedom FROM. But it is not enough, given the Nature of Things. We need freedom TO.

However we see this process of emergence – as needed functionality, as mettle health, as the Behavioral problem (Pbeh), as the Behavioral solution (Sbeh), as the next step, as HC-1, as O.S, as Behavioral architecture, as the molecular step, as procedural technology, as “Slice, Splice and Swing,” as WICF, as “Know thy selves, “as freedom TO, as civic architecture -- however we See it we need to cultivate it, lest it wither in competition with one and another control system in the maelstrom of control systems to be encountered in life … at first from parents (“No!”) and circumstance (“Suffer!”), then from school (“Behave!”) and peers (“Conform!”) … with more to come: rules and regulations, laws and customs, working orders (“Obey!”)….

What’s to counter all this control system assault? Resilience? Hardly! How about – instead -- building positive readiness to go Forward? Capability, not just capacity; capability via procedural technology to meet needs, not just responsibilities; Mind technologies to enhance procedural capability.

Lest imitation be the only viable option. Patterning one’s selve on the behaviors of another … and then another … and then another. To the extent that available information and one’s own information processing makes possible. Better than nothing? How is that working for you? Re function/dysfunction? Re functionality/needed functionality?

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* The Grasp afforded of functionality by the “function” in y = f(x) is not up to the challenges of needed functionality given the Nature of Things. Not when its disdain for History is revealed by x = f(y).

** Effectively coming to see our selves in HC-2, not HC-1 (Humanity), terms. I.e., conceptually deflated.

*** Tool technology, if appropriate, would be welcome. But AI in support of behaviors seems premature, given the step’s needed mettle functionality. Yet still, computer chips continue their dinosauric way (Transport/Message >1+++). Promoting efficiency over effectiveness? AI seems to be serving the population of behavioral entities, not the needed functionality of Humanity.

# And it’s not just a question of body vs step. There is the matter of needed Body CEM Step development. The peak, the crown, of O.S. achievement.

## What seems miraculous in the B-universe could become commonplace in the S-universe. Our problems would not be over, but our solutions would be jump-started.

### Research with SST (Signaled Stop Technique) suggests significant differences in “consciousness.” Not only among how subjects (Ss) attend; but also among what they attend (e.g., medium). With how much industry in the first case (e.g., stops to ask questions); with how much accessibility in the second case (e.g., stops for any reason reading print vs. listening to radio).

@ Principled: Needed functionality given the Nature of Things and the Expansion.


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(c) 2022 R. F. Carter
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