Intro to Part Two
If it's good enough for George Lucas, it's good enough for me; well, sort of. George gave us the last episode first and the first one later because it told the story he wanted to tell much better than a chronological account would have done. The only difference is that his method had a reason, mine is an excuse. What I believe is not as important to me as is the process of coming to believe that—-- a personality quirk not shared by many. So once again I am going to jump ahead a bit. I am after all a part of this world and I am determined to have my say about it, but it is not really necessary (or polite) for me to try and drag the reader into all the nooks and crannies of my brain in an attempt to "justify" my conclusions.
It appears to me that as a species we have this tremendous need to stand on solid ground, to know that there is an ultimate set of facts upon which we expand and develop our societies. One of the most important aspects of our consciousness is the ability/need to perceive/imagine patterns of like things. Science postulates that singularities exist, but if that is true there are obviously not many of them.
If it's good enough for George Lucas, it's good enough for me; well, sort of. George gave us the last episode first and the first one later because it told the story he wanted to tell much better than a chronological account would have done. The only difference is that his method had a reason, mine is an excuse. What I believe is not as important to me as is the process of coming to believe that—-- a personality quirk not shared by many. So once again I am going to jump ahead a bit. I am after all a part of this world and I am determined to have my say about it, but it is not really necessary (or polite) for me to try and drag the reader into all the nooks and crannies of my brain in an attempt to "justify" my conclusions.
It appears to me that as a species we have this tremendous need to stand on solid ground, to know that there is an ultimate set of facts upon which we expand and develop our societies. One of the most important aspects of our consciousness is the ability/need to perceive/imagine patterns of like things. Science postulates that singularities exist, but if that is true there are obviously not many of them.
Most everything comes in multiples, atoms, dreams, trees, words, people, galaxies, dimensions- and when something becomes large/complex/distinctive enough to be perceived as a separate thing, we form a mental pattern of what it takes to make one of those. Many of the those seem to exist independently of each other [although a growing view of the universe is that everything is connected to everything else]. Other those appear to interact with each other in recognizable ways, and we might then perceive that interaction as a pattern that we can use to identify similar those- so we have groups of like things, herds of sheep, weather fronts, clubs and countries. Early in the existence of a those certain attributes occur more frequently than others. These "certain attributes" appear to play a role in increasing the probability that parts of the stuff becoming part of the those do so as that particular "certain attribute" (the attractor, in chaos theory).
The proliferation of various "certain attributes" within a those makes up the shape/structure/distribution of the those. As development of a those continues, what might be described as a hierarchy of "certain attributes" becomes more established. This hierarchical arrangement plays a number of vital roles in the life span of the those. It assures that the structure of the those will remain stable over time as the tiniest parts of the "certain attributes" phase through the existence/non-existence--life/death cycles of the (ahem) universe. But this method of ensuring survivability comes at a price. The structure of the those begins to lose its ability to change because the density of "certain attributes" limits the development of different attributes. As long as the context/place within which the those resides does not change significantly, the security of the those continues. But if the context/place where the those exists changes in ways that have a negative impact on the those, and the those is unable to change/adapt, then all is not well for the those. At this point the those is headed, in Darwinian terms, toward the extinction of the species, and in more recent terminology is approaching destructive chaos. Like a broken record, the same locus of "certain attributes" that were so vital to the development and longevity of the those now become a burden to the those. They consume most of the energy developed within the those but their contributions become less and less effective; more token/ceremonial/convulsive/repetitive. Picture the fluctuating rhythms of a healthy heart in comparison to the quivering, monotonic, ineffective beats preceding a heart attack.
That is just a simple conceptual view of the way I picture the process of organization. I am hardly naive or pretentious enough to label it a theory of organizational evolution, but in some respects it can serve as something similar to that. Further, few if any of the elements that form my conclusions are truly original, but were first published by folks with the proper credentials. None the less since some of the implications of my thoughts are controversial, I ought to at least pay lip service to the issues. Arguing that self organization occurs absent outside intelligent direction flies in the face of the creationist folks. It also might appear to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (but hopefully only as a misdemeanor not a felony). And even more directly, entropy. Sorry 'bout that. As to the issue of entropy, I agree that structure, compressed energy, does go through the process of dispersal, but I see it as a rhythmic cycle of formation, dispersement, new formation, etc.
While science might have once appeared to be close to a unifying theory of everything, that view is losing ground. We believed we were oh so close back when we discovered atoms that looked like little solar systems. But instead of being the bottom, scientists kept finding littler and littler pieces of stuff. Then, just as they were closing in on the tiniest possible particle, it seemed like they were made of strings, not dots. And that these strings came in so many shapes that we had to consider more dimensions (I believe the most current view holds that there are 11) in order to understand them.
[Assignment: Take a few moments and imagine what the fifth dimension is like (no not that Fifth Dimension) . Can you see a clear picture of what the fifth dimension is like in your mind? Me neither.]
My point is not to belittle science in any way. God bless their little awesome minds!
But, there is no definitive proof that comparing the average dolt on the street's understanding of the universe with Stephen Hawking's understanding of the universe, in comparison to the, really, really everything actual universe is different enough to be statistically significant. In other words we are never going to live in a universe we understand. And we can no longer afford to live as though we do. Beyond the occasional by products of pure scientific thought, we can not depend on it to show us the way. I believe we have abdicated our responsibility for understanding what we are doing, and it is becoming dangerous to our survival.
Moving to another layer of our organizational structure, we come to our civil and military leaders. While they can't make their decisions with a greater depth of understanding than the scientists, at least they understand and use science better then we do; enough for us to trust them with our leadership. Don't they? Whether my idea that we placed more and more trust in our leaders because we were afraid of the unknown and to avoid facing our fears directly we hid behind the decisions of our leaders is accurate or not, the fact is that we are where we are, and we are pretending we are somewhere else.
When we claim that we are in a war against terrorism we are using a term of conflict that has simply lost its historical meaning. Our first major error was in thinking that if we could determine and weed out state sponsored terrorism, we would have the problem solved. There is currently no state in Iraq strong enough to sponsor terrorism, how then does it survive? Why are acts of terrorism not decreasing? Maybe we should just eliminate more states.
After 9/11 our battle cry was that we would stay steadfast and strong for to do otherwise would let the terrorists win. Well, we haven't lost, but we are losing. 9/11 may go down in history as one of the most cost effective and successful acts of war ever. The connotations of the word serendipity make its application to 9/11 entirely abhorrent, but something similar to that seems to have been a major factor in that occurrence. There is little or no evidence that the terrorists planners actually expected to bring down the twin towers. It has been reported that Ben Laden et. al. did expect to kill most if not all of the people at or above the floors where the planes hit, but understanding why the towers fell did not occur until well after the fact. According to the post event analyses most structural engineers were surprised at the towers collapse even while witnessing the buildings burning after the planes crashed into them. Apparently the same interior building design that helped protect the towers from hurricane force winds made them more susceptible to the massive influx of burning fuel. It's silly to think that is something the original designers should have contemplated in 1960. [ But it is inexcusable that such an event would not have been considered in 2001. The building design would have been irrelevant had the known threats to cockpit security been dealt with.]
While our government claims that its actions have prevented further terrorist attacks, there are at least two other pedestrian and painful possibilities. ( 1) Maybe the attack was considered so successful that it would be a hard act to follow and that a less damaging attack would be seen as a sign of weakness. (2) There is no need to attack again at the present. The wounds we suffered in the first attack are continuing to grow worse and continue to damage us.
The airline industry is still reeling from the aftereffects of the attack. We continue to run up huge debt to support a war that has added not one ounce of increased security to us are anyone else. In the process we have created the world's largest terrorist training camp. We have squandered the empathy and good will we received from most of the world just after the attack. The terrorists could not take away our freedom; they didn't have to- - we are surrendering it as fast as we can via the patriot act and our paranoia. We have learned to live with Abu Ghriab and Guantanamo Bay when we should be hanging our heads in shame. To whatever degree oil played a role in our decision to attack Iraq, it had a disastrous outcome, of which we are reminded every time we stop at the gas pumps. We have labeled the terrorists "religious fanatics", and blinded our eyes to the nature of their discontent or its causes. We continue to arm ourselves against war between nations when those attacking us owe no national allegiances, but are myriad dispersed groups, many of which are quite willing to die for their principles and beliefs. We ignore the cries of millions of dying children, and lose ourselves in a frenzy of national concern over whether a husband can remove the feeding tube from his brain dead wife. We protest with barely a whimper the thieves who are gutting of our economy and natural resources, and work ourselves into a lather over whether same sex couples in love have any rights. We are replacing our courage with cowardice--- the fear of facing the facts of our self destruction--- foolishly believing that our leaders will put us on the right path; that no matter how difficult things become they will eventually right themselves. Meanwhile our entire infrastructure is slowly falling apart, and the gap between the rich and poor is becoming wider and wider, planting the seeds that produced the same helpless rage that now consumes much of the Muslim world. Most of our defense budget, international efforts and political changes are about as effective against our real problems as renaming French Fries Freedom Fries.
We know that our earth has a volatile past, we know that over millions of years there have been wave after wave of mass extinctions, seismic events that if they happened today would kill millions and disrupt world order, meteor strikes that would do the same. Yet somehow we manage to limit our knowledge and preparation for such cataclysmic events to The Discovery Channel.
If our president was as articulate as Spiro Agnew (or even many high school graduates) he would label the authors of warnings such as this the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. "Pay them no mind: trust us". But this is not a complaint about the party in power, or those filling the shoes of our leaders. This is a proposition that the organizational structure we call civilization has become so bound up with the density of "certain attributes" that change is virtually impossible. It may be that it is too late to change ourselves, that any significant changes to our future path can only come from outside- whether for good or ill.
But just as Pogo once observed that "we have seen the enemy, and he is us", so now, if the calvary is going to come to our rescue we are going to have to create it ourselves-- not as a political party, or as a patriotic movement, or as a change in policies. The Jedi warriors must come from the periphery, that is the only place where there is still freedom of movement. Look around you. What do you see? What are you going to do about it?
The proliferation of various "certain attributes" within a those makes up the shape/structure/distribution of the those. As development of a those continues, what might be described as a hierarchy of "certain attributes" becomes more established. This hierarchical arrangement plays a number of vital roles in the life span of the those. It assures that the structure of the those will remain stable over time as the tiniest parts of the "certain attributes" phase through the existence/non-existence--life/death cycles of the (ahem) universe. But this method of ensuring survivability comes at a price. The structure of the those begins to lose its ability to change because the density of "certain attributes" limits the development of different attributes. As long as the context/place within which the those resides does not change significantly, the security of the those continues. But if the context/place where the those exists changes in ways that have a negative impact on the those, and the those is unable to change/adapt, then all is not well for the those. At this point the those is headed, in Darwinian terms, toward the extinction of the species, and in more recent terminology is approaching destructive chaos. Like a broken record, the same locus of "certain attributes" that were so vital to the development and longevity of the those now become a burden to the those. They consume most of the energy developed within the those but their contributions become less and less effective; more token/ceremonial/convulsive/repetitive. Picture the fluctuating rhythms of a healthy heart in comparison to the quivering, monotonic, ineffective beats preceding a heart attack.
That is just a simple conceptual view of the way I picture the process of organization. I am hardly naive or pretentious enough to label it a theory of organizational evolution, but in some respects it can serve as something similar to that. Further, few if any of the elements that form my conclusions are truly original, but were first published by folks with the proper credentials. None the less since some of the implications of my thoughts are controversial, I ought to at least pay lip service to the issues. Arguing that self organization occurs absent outside intelligent direction flies in the face of the creationist folks. It also might appear to violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics (but hopefully only as a misdemeanor not a felony). And even more directly, entropy. Sorry 'bout that. As to the issue of entropy, I agree that structure, compressed energy, does go through the process of dispersal, but I see it as a rhythmic cycle of formation, dispersement, new formation, etc.
While science might have once appeared to be close to a unifying theory of everything, that view is losing ground. We believed we were oh so close back when we discovered atoms that looked like little solar systems. But instead of being the bottom, scientists kept finding littler and littler pieces of stuff. Then, just as they were closing in on the tiniest possible particle, it seemed like they were made of strings, not dots. And that these strings came in so many shapes that we had to consider more dimensions (I believe the most current view holds that there are 11) in order to understand them.
[Assignment: Take a few moments and imagine what the fifth dimension is like (no not that Fifth Dimension) . Can you see a clear picture of what the fifth dimension is like in your mind? Me neither.]
My point is not to belittle science in any way. God bless their little awesome minds!
But, there is no definitive proof that comparing the average dolt on the street's understanding of the universe with Stephen Hawking's understanding of the universe, in comparison to the, really, really everything actual universe is different enough to be statistically significant. In other words we are never going to live in a universe we understand. And we can no longer afford to live as though we do. Beyond the occasional by products of pure scientific thought, we can not depend on it to show us the way. I believe we have abdicated our responsibility for understanding what we are doing, and it is becoming dangerous to our survival.
Moving to another layer of our organizational structure, we come to our civil and military leaders. While they can't make their decisions with a greater depth of understanding than the scientists, at least they understand and use science better then we do; enough for us to trust them with our leadership. Don't they? Whether my idea that we placed more and more trust in our leaders because we were afraid of the unknown and to avoid facing our fears directly we hid behind the decisions of our leaders is accurate or not, the fact is that we are where we are, and we are pretending we are somewhere else.
When we claim that we are in a war against terrorism we are using a term of conflict that has simply lost its historical meaning. Our first major error was in thinking that if we could determine and weed out state sponsored terrorism, we would have the problem solved. There is currently no state in Iraq strong enough to sponsor terrorism, how then does it survive? Why are acts of terrorism not decreasing? Maybe we should just eliminate more states.
After 9/11 our battle cry was that we would stay steadfast and strong for to do otherwise would let the terrorists win. Well, we haven't lost, but we are losing. 9/11 may go down in history as one of the most cost effective and successful acts of war ever. The connotations of the word serendipity make its application to 9/11 entirely abhorrent, but something similar to that seems to have been a major factor in that occurrence. There is little or no evidence that the terrorists planners actually expected to bring down the twin towers. It has been reported that Ben Laden et. al. did expect to kill most if not all of the people at or above the floors where the planes hit, but understanding why the towers fell did not occur until well after the fact. According to the post event analyses most structural engineers were surprised at the towers collapse even while witnessing the buildings burning after the planes crashed into them. Apparently the same interior building design that helped protect the towers from hurricane force winds made them more susceptible to the massive influx of burning fuel. It's silly to think that is something the original designers should have contemplated in 1960. [ But it is inexcusable that such an event would not have been considered in 2001. The building design would have been irrelevant had the known threats to cockpit security been dealt with.]
While our government claims that its actions have prevented further terrorist attacks, there are at least two other pedestrian and painful possibilities. ( 1) Maybe the attack was considered so successful that it would be a hard act to follow and that a less damaging attack would be seen as a sign of weakness. (2) There is no need to attack again at the present. The wounds we suffered in the first attack are continuing to grow worse and continue to damage us.
The airline industry is still reeling from the aftereffects of the attack. We continue to run up huge debt to support a war that has added not one ounce of increased security to us are anyone else. In the process we have created the world's largest terrorist training camp. We have squandered the empathy and good will we received from most of the world just after the attack. The terrorists could not take away our freedom; they didn't have to- - we are surrendering it as fast as we can via the patriot act and our paranoia. We have learned to live with Abu Ghriab and Guantanamo Bay when we should be hanging our heads in shame. To whatever degree oil played a role in our decision to attack Iraq, it had a disastrous outcome, of which we are reminded every time we stop at the gas pumps. We have labeled the terrorists "religious fanatics", and blinded our eyes to the nature of their discontent or its causes. We continue to arm ourselves against war between nations when those attacking us owe no national allegiances, but are myriad dispersed groups, many of which are quite willing to die for their principles and beliefs. We ignore the cries of millions of dying children, and lose ourselves in a frenzy of national concern over whether a husband can remove the feeding tube from his brain dead wife. We protest with barely a whimper the thieves who are gutting of our economy and natural resources, and work ourselves into a lather over whether same sex couples in love have any rights. We are replacing our courage with cowardice--- the fear of facing the facts of our self destruction--- foolishly believing that our leaders will put us on the right path; that no matter how difficult things become they will eventually right themselves. Meanwhile our entire infrastructure is slowly falling apart, and the gap between the rich and poor is becoming wider and wider, planting the seeds that produced the same helpless rage that now consumes much of the Muslim world. Most of our defense budget, international efforts and political changes are about as effective against our real problems as renaming French Fries Freedom Fries.
We know that our earth has a volatile past, we know that over millions of years there have been wave after wave of mass extinctions, seismic events that if they happened today would kill millions and disrupt world order, meteor strikes that would do the same. Yet somehow we manage to limit our knowledge and preparation for such cataclysmic events to The Discovery Channel.
If our president was as articulate as Spiro Agnew (or even many high school graduates) he would label the authors of warnings such as this the Nattering Nabobs of Negativism. "Pay them no mind: trust us". But this is not a complaint about the party in power, or those filling the shoes of our leaders. This is a proposition that the organizational structure we call civilization has become so bound up with the density of "certain attributes" that change is virtually impossible. It may be that it is too late to change ourselves, that any significant changes to our future path can only come from outside- whether for good or ill.
But just as Pogo once observed that "we have seen the enemy, and he is us", so now, if the calvary is going to come to our rescue we are going to have to create it ourselves-- not as a political party, or as a patriotic movement, or as a change in policies. The Jedi warriors must come from the periphery, that is the only place where there is still freedom of movement. Look around you. What do you see? What are you going to do about it?
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