C-176. The other “unborn”: a new beginning for Humanism
Unborn steps. Steps that, were they made, would be available to help solve human problems that have so far proved intractable … the unsolved problems, situational and behavioral (I), that impose a mind-bound ceiling on the quality of human life (0). But, in the realm of multi-step makers and takers, humans especially, there is always an opportunity for a new beginning….
And a new beginning we need. Our structures and processes (political, economic, social, et al), for all their estimable, albeit sometimes questionable, worth as protocols, share a fundamental flaw: their reliance on the B(ody)-transform of the Expansion (C-63, 69: the Big Step). Our problems with problems begin there. There is our body-centered technology for minding (0:S-P) that impedes all the other sectors of needed problem solving (0:Sp, Ps,P), that blocks progress toward an improved quality of life.
The other abortion. This “B-ness,” this intellectual artifact of a defacto B-transform, that slices here and there across the full spectrum of Expansion behavior … to the distress of behavioral possibility, need and development. This B-ness that obscures and cripples step making and taking. This B-ness that is the imbalanced body/step > 1+ (XI; C-148) … an imbalance that saps the strength from their potential interdependence (B < = > S) – especially as the lack of commensurate emphasis on step building (C-90: Behavioral architecture) fails to maximize the benefits of interdependence available within the step (principally minding < = > moving, but extending among developed capabilities).
We can see it in the way we talk about humanism. Conceptually, we talk about humans and their behaviors (e.g., symbol using), about humanist institutions and their behaviors (e.g., helpful, supportive). But humanism is not just about such body-anchored behavioral particulars (C-114). It’s also about the still-needed functionality of humans (C-144). It’s not as though we have been doing such a great job of Becoming (C-170).
Humanism is the face of the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh). Humanism is not just what we talk about, behavioral particulars and a corralling concept (C-124). It is also about what needs to be talked about (C-178).
How are we to forward humanism without a strong Grasp (a more complete, more accurate understanding) of the human condition? Of its needed, but still underdeveloped, functionality? Of CEM-history (App. XI-XII) in which human agency shines with occasional, though flickering, brilliance … but where the path forward is weakly Read by the default B-transform with its emphasis on the particulars of past behaviors by particular bodies?
Becoming a more effective agency is frustrated by the lack of a Grasp and application of the Realization (R-) transform, with its emphasis on Becoming (C-70), based on the Read of the Expansion -- not a bodily Universe. Linguistic (L-) and valuative (V-) protocols, B-transform-based, are flawed and weakened for lack of effected interdependence with the R-transform (C-173).
Protocols of tool and/or procedure serve this or that particular needed human functionality (nf’s). But how well do they serve the human condition that begins with the general needed functionality, NF, imposed by the Nature of Things (III; C-144,175), and continues through CEM-history (App. XI) along with the particular demands for needed functionality (I; C-115,175: “…nf => f => nf => f =>…”) ... problems and the problem of problems. Not just solutions, but the solution to solving – the “big How.”
That “human” in English is either noun or adjective, but never verb, is Telling. All B-ness. “Human” might best be an R-word (C-107) to make the message (App. XX) here that “humanize” can via its B-ness only obliquely suggest -- as a kind of cloning.
***
The transforms on which protocols are based address the Grasp we need of the Expansion and our own Expansions* – our Becomings Constructing a solution to a problem (aka innovation**) requires us to compose a particular step, whether itself to take care of the problem or to make a behavioral entity that possesses the needed functionality (App. XIX). But composing is itself a problem in need of solution. R-sense (App. XXIII; C-128) says, “p-innovations need G-innovation.”
The steps we need to take to solve our problems (especially Becoming) can be blocked, and too often are (0:S-P), by our lack of G-innovation. We attend to particulars of innovation (p-innovations), re particular needed functionalities. We search for, cultivate and reward behavioral entities possessed of innovative capacity and/or capability (persons of “talent”).
Need more innovations? To grow the polity? The grow the economy? To grow the self? To enable Becoming? Then look to development in step-making. Lest we forfeit the consequentiality of step materiality, of what it adds to body materiality, of what composed interdependencies within the step can add to our strength.
Don’t wait for evolution to bring forth needed functionalities. Thomas Edisons (e.g., needed illumination) are rare. And many functional innovations are not as helpful as the light bulb (e.g., financial instruments). And then there is the behavioral problem (e.g., ‘’… toward a more perfect Union”).
***
“Help” is the (rare) R-word that “human” ought to be. In common usage, the word pertains to needed functionality, to developed capabilities, to their exercise and to the functional product (App. XIX) … to all of these (App. XX’s two noun and two verb usages for messaging).
To think of help is to think of relevance (C-103), of the fit in content and timing of needed and/or offered help … to think of the structure of process and, more specifically, of molecular step components and of behavioral architecture (C-90) – i.e., the creation of steps.
For unborn steps. For our future, can we afford anything less than a full and firm Grasp of behavior? Something more than the B-transform’s B-ness has given us? Not to dismiss the limited Grasp of functionality that B-ness has given us, but to add to its contributions.
Helping (App. I) may be the best test of human development, of Humanism as a way of life. How helpful are we? How well do we assist in the making and taking of others’ steps? (In a survey of student communication accidents, the top category of losses and damages dealt with telling someone or being told by someone what to do. We are not that good at helping.)
Can we even help ourselves, improve our own steps? Will any structural fix (e.g., form of government) survive weak step making and step taking … especially now that so-called developed societies are suffering the severe R-erosion (C-125) of an imbalanced decision making/problem solving >1+ ratio (C-98,148).
We need to share an R-sense of step making and taking, to be helped and to help. A “common sensEry.” Re solving. More than a common sense re this or that among solutions. We cannot start too soon on that developmental path … today not tomorrow, preschool not later (e.g., App. XXIII’s “R-blocks” and “S-blocks”).
* We are not just parts of the Expansion. We are party to and in it, to the extent of our R-engagement (“participants”).
** “Innovate,” like “regulate” (C-175), may not appeal as an R-word. (The “-ion” suffix objectifies both terms, making them B-ness compatible.) “Birth” might make a fine R-word too were it not B-encumbered. Languages’ word protocol development has not been solicitous re behavioral roots (C-55,95).
(c) 2017 R. F. Carter
And a new beginning we need. Our structures and processes (political, economic, social, et al), for all their estimable, albeit sometimes questionable, worth as protocols, share a fundamental flaw: their reliance on the B(ody)-transform of the Expansion (C-63, 69: the Big Step). Our problems with problems begin there. There is our body-centered technology for minding (0:S-P) that impedes all the other sectors of needed problem solving (0:Sp, Ps,P), that blocks progress toward an improved quality of life.
The other abortion. This “B-ness,” this intellectual artifact of a defacto B-transform, that slices here and there across the full spectrum of Expansion behavior … to the distress of behavioral possibility, need and development. This B-ness that obscures and cripples step making and taking. This B-ness that is the imbalanced body/step > 1+ (XI; C-148) … an imbalance that saps the strength from their potential interdependence (B < = > S) – especially as the lack of commensurate emphasis on step building (C-90: Behavioral architecture) fails to maximize the benefits of interdependence available within the step (principally minding < = > moving, but extending among developed capabilities).
We can see it in the way we talk about humanism. Conceptually, we talk about humans and their behaviors (e.g., symbol using), about humanist institutions and their behaviors (e.g., helpful, supportive). But humanism is not just about such body-anchored behavioral particulars (C-114). It’s also about the still-needed functionality of humans (C-144). It’s not as though we have been doing such a great job of Becoming (C-170).
Humanism is the face of the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh). Humanism is not just what we talk about, behavioral particulars and a corralling concept (C-124). It is also about what needs to be talked about (C-178).
How are we to forward humanism without a strong Grasp (a more complete, more accurate understanding) of the human condition? Of its needed, but still underdeveloped, functionality? Of CEM-history (App. XI-XII) in which human agency shines with occasional, though flickering, brilliance … but where the path forward is weakly Read by the default B-transform with its emphasis on the particulars of past behaviors by particular bodies?
Becoming a more effective agency is frustrated by the lack of a Grasp and application of the Realization (R-) transform, with its emphasis on Becoming (C-70), based on the Read of the Expansion -- not a bodily Universe. Linguistic (L-) and valuative (V-) protocols, B-transform-based, are flawed and weakened for lack of effected interdependence with the R-transform (C-173).
Protocols of tool and/or procedure serve this or that particular needed human functionality (nf’s). But how well do they serve the human condition that begins with the general needed functionality, NF, imposed by the Nature of Things (III; C-144,175), and continues through CEM-history (App. XI) along with the particular demands for needed functionality (I; C-115,175: “…nf => f => nf => f =>…”) ... problems and the problem of problems. Not just solutions, but the solution to solving – the “big How.”
That “human” in English is either noun or adjective, but never verb, is Telling. All B-ness. “Human” might best be an R-word (C-107) to make the message (App. XX) here that “humanize” can via its B-ness only obliquely suggest -- as a kind of cloning.
The transforms on which protocols are based address the Grasp we need of the Expansion and our own Expansions* – our Becomings Constructing a solution to a problem (aka innovation**) requires us to compose a particular step, whether itself to take care of the problem or to make a behavioral entity that possesses the needed functionality (App. XIX). But composing is itself a problem in need of solution. R-sense (App. XXIII; C-128) says, “p-innovations need G-innovation.”
The steps we need to take to solve our problems (especially Becoming) can be blocked, and too often are (0:S-P), by our lack of G-innovation. We attend to particulars of innovation (p-innovations), re particular needed functionalities. We search for, cultivate and reward behavioral entities possessed of innovative capacity and/or capability (persons of “talent”).
Need more innovations? To grow the polity? The grow the economy? To grow the self? To enable Becoming? Then look to development in step-making. Lest we forfeit the consequentiality of step materiality, of what it adds to body materiality, of what composed interdependencies within the step can add to our strength.
Don’t wait for evolution to bring forth needed functionalities. Thomas Edisons (e.g., needed illumination) are rare. And many functional innovations are not as helpful as the light bulb (e.g., financial instruments). And then there is the behavioral problem (e.g., ‘’… toward a more perfect Union”).
“Help” is the (rare) R-word that “human” ought to be. In common usage, the word pertains to needed functionality, to developed capabilities, to their exercise and to the functional product (App. XIX) … to all of these (App. XX’s two noun and two verb usages for messaging).
To think of help is to think of relevance (C-103), of the fit in content and timing of needed and/or offered help … to think of the structure of process and, more specifically, of molecular step components and of behavioral architecture (C-90) – i.e., the creation of steps.
For unborn steps. For our future, can we afford anything less than a full and firm Grasp of behavior? Something more than the B-transform’s B-ness has given us? Not to dismiss the limited Grasp of functionality that B-ness has given us, but to add to its contributions.
Helping (App. I) may be the best test of human development, of Humanism as a way of life. How helpful are we? How well do we assist in the making and taking of others’ steps? (In a survey of student communication accidents, the top category of losses and damages dealt with telling someone or being told by someone what to do. We are not that good at helping.)
Can we even help ourselves, improve our own steps? Will any structural fix (e.g., form of government) survive weak step making and step taking … especially now that so-called developed societies are suffering the severe R-erosion (C-125) of an imbalanced decision making/problem solving >1+ ratio (C-98,148).
We need to share an R-sense of step making and taking, to be helped and to help. A “common sensEry.” Re solving. More than a common sense re this or that among solutions. We cannot start too soon on that developmental path … today not tomorrow, preschool not later (e.g., App. XXIII’s “R-blocks” and “S-blocks”).
* We are not just parts of the Expansion. We are party to and in it, to the extent of our R-engagement (“participants”).
** “Innovate,” like “regulate” (C-175), may not appeal as an R-word. (The “-ion” suffix objectifies both terms, making them B-ness compatible.) “Birth” might make a fine R-word too were it not B-encumbered. Languages’ word protocol development has not been solicitous re behavioral roots (C-55,95).
(c) 2017 R. F. Carter
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