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Problematique, Integrity, Synchrony
getting a grip on global concerns

The following is an email I sent as part of an on going conversation of Gaia-PC.

Subject: Re: the Myopia conversation                                                              April 29, 1998

Don Chisholm wrote:

>With due respect for those interested in math, I haven't a clue about what this conversa- tion is about, or how it is relevant to solving the "problematique".<

[The "problematique" is 'how do people coordinate all the world's needs ... food, shelter, government, education, healthy biosphere, etc, from the smallest local levels up through concerns which must be addressed on a global basis?'.]

"Don,

I'm in the midst of some heavy writing obligations and haven't answered Alan yet, but your question is of critical importance, mainly because it speaks to how the clinical analyses of these issues are drifting apart from everyday common sense and real-world applications for dealing with these mutual concerns.   I can't answer for anyone else (in the Gaia-PC list discussions), but the reason I give so much attention to the underpinning concepts and relationships is to eventually accomplish a translation system.

Now, that's no fancy froofrah. I merely mean that I use the deduction (and, to some extent an on-faith assumption) that the universe is enacted through a limited number of dynamic mechanisms: the 4 fundamental forces, plus entropy gradients.    Everything, and I do mean "everything", are embellished enactments of these five things.    I am skeptical about (and in all honesty totally reject) the implications inherent in the new fractal/complexity notion of "emergence".    Not that new levels of phenomena don't suddenly arise, they do.    I just don't like the implication that some new mechanisms or forces or dynamics arise out of the blue.  

What I'm getting at is that there seems to me to be "patterns" of BEHAVIORS at our level of construction that are expressions of the basic dynamics of our universe, extended to what we experience/enact them as.  This is both reductionist and complexist in one fell swoop.   Getting a grip on the behaviors induced by the fundamental forces will hopefully shed light on the problems we are coping with re Gaia, economics, social interactions etc.

The goal - as I see it - is to recognize the systems similarities and be able to translate among them, and so transduce our comprehensions.  Theory is only useful for what it is applicable to, even looping back to make comprehensible why we take the time to search for 'theory' in the first place.    At this moment in history, we're shifting away from being 8 blind people trying to make sense of what the elephant looks like, to being 8 blind people who can suddenly share the notions of:    "skin can take many shapes" (can form tail or trunk or legs or body), "skin is the outer tangible layer of underlying substance, which is environment specific" (firm 'bones' are inside the 'legs' which support the mass of the body above the ground;  the trunk is very muscular, flexible and is part of the {hidden} aeration and digestion system; the tail keeps annoying flies away from the butt), and so on.  It takes this kind of conceptualizing to avoid wasting time in offering food to the elephant's knee- cap or its eyes in order to keep the elephant nourished whole and functional.

Likewise, you don't inject brain cells directly with dopamine (which it needs to function) because they can't handle it.  You put L-Dopa in the interstitial spaces and let the native metabolism incorporate it in conjunction with all the rest of the chemical soup the neural tissue is bathed in.  You don't throw "money" at people starving on a dry savanna, or even canned goods, and think you've "solved" some problem.  A different approach is needed.  

I search the underscoring dynamics in order to illuminate relationships that I might overlook when doing a gross examination of a situation.  It may seem ethereal and irrelevant, but I hope not. And I recognize in the context of all this too, that it would all be fruitless unless it becomes comprehensible to the lay public at large.    As in ...  here is a technique for dealing with the problematique.    Not a 'solution' (implying a perfect goal), but an open ended method capable of continued evolution, to cope with future scenarios and specifics, not just the present ones.  

That's how I recognize the deficiencies in the current spate of mathematical models. I recognize that they are using an approach relying on formulae to very deterministically map phenomena.  That's commendable and has had much success ... it's just that it's not enough. It could deteriorate - as it's already started - to becoming a science priesthood. The arcane, secret and hallowed mysteries of mathematical complexity (?!?! :-> ), which wisdom is benevolently bestowed on the 'ignorant' masses scurrying across the planet.

Sorry, I don't buy into that. It's just another version of "Power Grab".  Whatever compre- hensions we can distill out of explorations of the primal dynamics of the universe, everyone should be able to apply to their pertinent locales and lives ... on a conscious social global basis.   And we won't have to wait for permission or direction from companions dealing with other parts of the gaianesque system.   We can accomplish a synchronization of global societies rather than the perpetual treadmill of "manipulation, then rebellion".

Jamie"

 

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