C-260.3 Conceptual deflation: serious business
Conceptual deflation is a problem obscured by a problem. Ask someone what “conceptual deflation” means. Odds on, the answer will be that a concept is being deflated. But what needs to be talked about (WICF, WTITBTA) and what we are talking about here is that a concept deflates the condition to which it points.*
Such is the burden we bear when we speak of matters with B-speak technology: its obscurity is absurd – albeit sometimes humorous and occasionally charming. Identify this problem and then we can turn to the kind of conceptual deflation that needs our attention: Picture two concepts as circles on a piece of paper. Venn diagram style they overlap somewhat, sharing a space. A double concept. And a thoughtknot. Because the shared space is clouded, sometimes even opaque.
This space should be CEM! Contingent emergent materiality. The two conditions attended via B-speak’s adjective-noun cognitive (inside-outside, object-attribute) Mind technology.**
Conceptual deflation is serious business. Consider “public opinion.” We might be able to afford various instances of “opinion.” But not of “public.” Public is a needed collectivity functionality. It needs a theory FOR … as, for example, to splice a tool tech (e.g., a constitution) and a procedural tech (e.g., voting)*** alloyed in molecular step mettles to achieve CEM (e.g., “…toward a more perfect Union”).
Concepts are themselves thoughtknots. Double them up, as for “public opinion,” and we end up with a ball entangling what is talked about (WITA), what is called for (WICF), and what there is to be talked about (WTITBTA). And not apparently: With B-speak, our what is said about (WISA) technology, we often can’t see what is being said nor – worse -- what needs to be said … and, further, we don’t even see the problem.
As bad as this is for talking about functionality, it is disastrous for talking about needed functionality, where we need to distinguish between the needed functionality of the Nature of Things (NF): i.e., an operating system (O.S.), in the absence of fully programmed selve behavior and instances of need occasioned by things of nature (nf’s): i.e., a control system (C.S.). We speak of needed functionalities, technologies of tool and procedure of a kind with existing functionalities (e.g., lightbulbs to give light in the absence of the sun).# We speak of “control“ too generously, conceptually re instances, as with “self-control” … obfuscating the selve behavioral problem, Pbeh: our needed operating system.
Much the same can be said about artificial intelligence (AI). It looks backwards. To duplicate past instances of functionalities. It’s doing more for Move than for Mind.## Anything at all for Forward? Our next step AT, ON the Frontier of two expansions: that of the Expansion and that of We, the operating system for Community and Union.
***
*This seems to be Hayakawa’s point re abstraction. Reducing the dimensionality of the observed condition. In effect, flattening Bessie out. There’s more to Bessie than any categorical disposition(s) we make of her. (There is something to “… words won’t hurt a bit.” They may not Help either. But we strive to communicate for good reason: what is called for [WICF].)
** “Cognition,” like every other “-ion” term, is a B-ness mess as a concept. For example, including and treating short-term memory diagnostically as a cognitive instance. Memory affects cognitive behavior … along with just about everything else behavioral. The “before-after” cognitive tech is procedurally very underdeveloped compared to the “inside-outside” cognitive tech. Before-after cognition has been relegated, B-ness and One-ness style, to variations of “cause-effect” (e.g., stimulus-response) – in contrast to “Effect,” the theoretical construct, (an R-word).
*** Preferably something better than voting, given its divisive tendencies. And see voting in relation to the climate problem of “decision making/problem solving >1++”. The last thing we need is more decisions without the benefit of problem solving technology. Consider, for example, the barrier to problem solving’s needed debate procedure posed by the U.S. Senate filibuster rule. (Doesn’t 60 votes in the Senate make more sense for closing debate than for opening it, especially in light of the D.M./P=>S >1++ ratio? See too the partisan “politics/polity >1++” ratio.) And consider the need for new procedural techs to further serve the public’s problem solving.
# As manifested in B-speak conceptual nouns that serve as both needed functionality and achieved functionality (e.g., “identity” and “agency”) but which require new words (e.g., the transitive verb “identify”) or have no verbal form. Compare Message theory: R-words in the S-universe bear both noun functionalities and both verb functionalities (N-1, V-1, V-2, N-2). Which is why “Step,” an R-word, is preferable to “agency” as a theory FOR term. Prefer the theoretical construct, not the concept.
## Concerned observers of the Nature of Things, were they to shout out to us AT, ON the Frontier, would surely yell “Mind!” before “Move!”
In light of the very useful Search feature now available, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2022 R. F. Carter
Such is the burden we bear when we speak of matters with B-speak technology: its obscurity is absurd – albeit sometimes humorous and occasionally charming. Identify this problem and then we can turn to the kind of conceptual deflation that needs our attention: Picture two concepts as circles on a piece of paper. Venn diagram style they overlap somewhat, sharing a space. A double concept. And a thoughtknot. Because the shared space is clouded, sometimes even opaque.
This space should be CEM! Contingent emergent materiality. The two conditions attended via B-speak’s adjective-noun cognitive (inside-outside, object-attribute) Mind technology.**
Conceptual deflation is serious business. Consider “public opinion.” We might be able to afford various instances of “opinion.” But not of “public.” Public is a needed collectivity functionality. It needs a theory FOR … as, for example, to splice a tool tech (e.g., a constitution) and a procedural tech (e.g., voting)*** alloyed in molecular step mettles to achieve CEM (e.g., “…toward a more perfect Union”).
Concepts are themselves thoughtknots. Double them up, as for “public opinion,” and we end up with a ball entangling what is talked about (WITA), what is called for (WICF), and what there is to be talked about (WTITBTA). And not apparently: With B-speak, our what is said about (WISA) technology, we often can’t see what is being said nor – worse -- what needs to be said … and, further, we don’t even see the problem.
As bad as this is for talking about functionality, it is disastrous for talking about needed functionality, where we need to distinguish between the needed functionality of the Nature of Things (NF): i.e., an operating system (O.S.), in the absence of fully programmed selve behavior and instances of need occasioned by things of nature (nf’s): i.e., a control system (C.S.). We speak of needed functionalities, technologies of tool and procedure of a kind with existing functionalities (e.g., lightbulbs to give light in the absence of the sun).# We speak of “control“ too generously, conceptually re instances, as with “self-control” … obfuscating the selve behavioral problem, Pbeh: our needed operating system.
Much the same can be said about artificial intelligence (AI). It looks backwards. To duplicate past instances of functionalities. It’s doing more for Move than for Mind.## Anything at all for Forward? Our next step AT, ON the Frontier of two expansions: that of the Expansion and that of We, the operating system for Community and Union.
*This seems to be Hayakawa’s point re abstraction. Reducing the dimensionality of the observed condition. In effect, flattening Bessie out. There’s more to Bessie than any categorical disposition(s) we make of her. (There is something to “… words won’t hurt a bit.” They may not Help either. But we strive to communicate for good reason: what is called for [WICF].)
** “Cognition,” like every other “-ion” term, is a B-ness mess as a concept. For example, including and treating short-term memory diagnostically as a cognitive instance. Memory affects cognitive behavior … along with just about everything else behavioral. The “before-after” cognitive tech is procedurally very underdeveloped compared to the “inside-outside” cognitive tech. Before-after cognition has been relegated, B-ness and One-ness style, to variations of “cause-effect” (e.g., stimulus-response) – in contrast to “Effect,” the theoretical construct, (an R-word).
*** Preferably something better than voting, given its divisive tendencies. And see voting in relation to the climate problem of “decision making/problem solving >1++”. The last thing we need is more decisions without the benefit of problem solving technology. Consider, for example, the barrier to problem solving’s needed debate procedure posed by the U.S. Senate filibuster rule. (Doesn’t 60 votes in the Senate make more sense for closing debate than for opening it, especially in light of the D.M./P=>S >1++ ratio? See too the partisan “politics/polity >1++” ratio.) And consider the need for new procedural techs to further serve the public’s problem solving.
# As manifested in B-speak conceptual nouns that serve as both needed functionality and achieved functionality (e.g., “identity” and “agency”) but which require new words (e.g., the transitive verb “identify”) or have no verbal form. Compare Message theory: R-words in the S-universe bear both noun functionalities and both verb functionalities (N-1, V-1, V-2, N-2). Which is why “Step,” an R-word, is preferable to “agency” as a theory FOR term. Prefer the theoretical construct, not the concept.
## Concerned observers of the Nature of Things, were they to shout out to us AT, ON the Frontier, would surely yell “Mind!” before “Move!”
In light of the very useful Search feature now available, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2022 R. F. Carter
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