#systems philosophy

[interested-pig]

“There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is “true,” that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension. It is to “get” at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny.”

Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems

[interested-pig]

This is a bit repetitive from my last post which I did not capture the full essence of the point.

What is a flock? Take away the birds and it is nothing. Replace all the birds with other bird sand the flock is the same. The flock is nothing more a label for a continual divergence and convergence to an undefinable idealisation.

What is a bird in the flock? it has wings, a beak, feathers. It moves, it flaps it wings. A bird is also a label, a continual convergence and divergence to an undefinable idealisation.

And what about Alex, a bird who flies in the flock? Well Alex changes over time, he is born, grows and loses feathers, his cells are constantly replaced. Even Alex is a label for a continual divergence and convergence to an undefinable idealisation.

The flock is no more than a hierarchy of interconnected inseparable essences. As it is an intuitive ordering of a singular confusion.

And what of the words by which I communicate this. It can be written or printed on paper, temporarily pixelated on a screen, misspelled, or spoken in uncountable accents. It is made of phonemes which are structured by meaningless letters that are nonexistent in Mandarin. 

Once again I find what I hierarchy of essences. Language is no more than a grasped ordering of a singular confusion.

Birds, words can and always myself exist simultaneously in my experience therefore experience is ultimately an intuition of essences in a singular confusion. Confusion sits a the top of the hierarchy of intuitive essences.

I find that annoying and repulsive. I rally against this because it doesn’t make sense, for if confusion reigns then the essence  of intuition cannot be consistent. Intuition makes sense of a moment of confusion. All meaning I intuit or feel is unique to the moment.

I have written the essence of this conclusion many times from multiple perspectives using a variety of descriptive labels. I struggle against confusion to find consistency but when I believe I have a consistent view an inconsistency emerges. 

I usually like to round on something comfortable like this “However intuition is the best model of a moment of confusion. It suggests a best path of following the intuition of the most informative interpretation of confusion which we call being fully present in the present.” But such action no longer provides the comfort it once did. I just feel anxiety at its crumbling into certain uncertainty. Once a convergence now a divergence. My blog posts follow the behaviour described here of infinitely approaching an undefinable idealisation. It is an intuitive belief of the benefit of being fully in the moment, but to be true to myself this feels a little fanciful. My blogs have been a process of railing against an on going subconscious acknowledgement that there is nothing but confusion.

 Intuition is inconsistent and often contradictory. The only constancy is confusion. God that’s depressing.

[interested-pig]

Becoming Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger claims that his success was his ability to have a clear vision of what he wanted to achieve. He recounts his inspiration for becoming a body builder and a movie star seeing a picture of body builder Reg Park in Hercules. In a world of linear cause and effect it could be said that the picture caused Arnold to firstly win body builder competitions which allowed him to move into the movie industry and to become the phenomenon he became.

However, there are good reasons to consider our Universe which is not one of linear cause and effect but one on non-linearity - circular causality. Consider the Universe to be ineffable whole of interconnections. Within such a system emergent patterns appear called strange attractors. Think of the flock as the strange attractor of interacting starlings.

So what is Arnold Schwarzenegger in an interconnected Universe? Well let’s consider him as a pattern in the interconnected system labelled The Arnold Strange Attractor. Similarly then that the picture of Reg Park is the Picture Strange Attractor. The interaction of the Arnold Strange Attractor and the Picture Strange Attractor creates an imagining pattern which is once again is a strange attractor labelled here as The Success Strange Attractor.

An imagining seems very ethereal pattern compared to a very material thing like the Arnold pattern. However they are still both Strange Attractors, it is just one is more ‘tangible’ than the other.

Now instead of seeing Arnold striving towards his goal, the non-linear view is an attraction towards a convergence of The Arnold Strange Attractor and The Success Strange Attractor where the relationship making the Success Strange Attractor more tangible.

Arnold wins competitions and the image of The Success Strange Attractor is broadcast to spectators. A TV documentary is made about him and the Success Strange gains more tangibility through the replication process, not only through the show, marketing and word of mouth. The Success Strange Attractor paired with The Arnold Self Attractor is in a constant state of reinforcement until a very tangible Successful Arnold Strange Attractor is emergent.

Bizarrely, due to the nature of interconnected systems the Success Arnold Strange Attractor is simultaneously Arnold the movie star, Reg Park who was photographed and the future of politics. Arnold is just an atemporal pattern in a much larger pattern.

So, we are not always in charge of what we think and imagine, but sometimes we feel we have the capacity to will them. We may think that those wilful, intangible thoughts and imaginings are private and locked away from the Universe, but each one could actually be shaping our tangible Universe. If this is true should we question the very ethics of what we think, envision or sing about? What we put on social media?

Either way It is good to feel we were as much part of Arnold’s success as he was to his own, something that has brought joy to many, many people - good on us.

[interested-pig]

If I am a complex adaptive system in a complex world, then I am not entirely free to make decisions, but neither are my decisions strictly determined. Rather my decisions are influenced by the past but also spontaneous allowing me to pursue and set my goals in relation to my environment.