C-150. Steps away

How many steps are we away from a collision? Measures, we have learned, are a useful Grasp technology. They strengthen our hand, we say.

What kind of a collision? An impending hard collision? A scheduled soft or hard collision? An arranged soft or hard collision?

“Moments to midnight” metaphors (e.g., nuclear Armageddon) and stories (e.g., Cinderella’s plight) convey a sense of steps away from impending collisions. We understand that impending collisions, such as indicated by global warming’s rising waters, where the steps of other entities approach us, are not easily measured. But we are able to use B-spacetime estimates of physical distance and/or quotidian time. As, for example, in estimating the likelihood of an asteroid striking the planet Earth. Or, more prosaically, the increased likelihood of collisions with other R-entities due to population increase. Much more difficult to estimate, but perhaps more critical, how many steps are we away from an imbalance of decision making/problem solving sigma value of 3 or 4 (C-98,148) – and the fatal decline and fall of humanity (C-51)?

Scheduled collisions, such as events, lend themselves readily to B-spacetime collision estimates. Recipes are helpful as scheduling technology (procedures), recounting steps previously taken to obtain an event – although, as cooking experience soon tells us, steps to be taken do not always say all that needs to be said about step taking’s step making. Consider, for example, the matter of apprenticeship (i.e., tool and/or procedure usages). The concept of “anticipation” speaks to the risk, for other needed step making and taking, of placing an event closer or farther awy in B-spacetime than is warranted.

Arranged collisions, the region of biology and beyond in CEM-history (App. XI), where collisions are not so simple as a matter of approach or avoidance, call our attention to step making and taking (C-110: what is called for). How many steps then are we away here? What are the units to be counted within, not just between, behavioral molecules (aka “actions”) -- of the steps within steps that are the stuff too of behavioral architecture (C-90)? How easily we envision accomplished performance (as the property of a behavioral entity) without Realizing the balanced and braided* composing of needed capabilities to bring about that structured step? And of composed step structures able to produce body structures with needed and/or wanted functionality (Behavioral, but not R-, entities [C-147])?

So … here we are in this human condition, with a quality of life suppressed by unsolved problems -- many of our own making (0: S-P and Ps) -- in need of functionality to compose solutions, to be able to cover the distance still so many steps away … and with a weak measure (Grasp) of steps. The BS thread of CEM-history tells us to attend to more than B, B-B relationships and B=>S (aka Bs or BE: “Is as does”)… to Include and thus better Grasp S (and S-S relating via relations), S=>B and SB. We are ill-prepared to build our own future. And build we must.

It makes R-sense (C-128). And it takes R-sense.

With all the “How to ___” and “14 steps to success in ____” messages to guide us in coping with situational problems (I:Psit), it may seem whimsical or even silly to bring up this measurement consideration. But what of our behavioral problem (I:Pbeh), which impacts us with such force (C-41) and has so far impeded individual and, especially, collective problem solving? What we face here is a needed functionality analogous to that of a Beethoven: the ability to compose and conduct (and perform) an orchestration of capabilities that emerges (!) well balanced and integrated … where “how much” and “when” must be heeded along with “what.”

* Strength lies in braiding (e.g., strands of fibers), weaving (e.g., cloth), crystallizing (e.g., diamond synthesis), webbing (e.g., the spider’s), union (e.g., team “chemistry”), etc. … the introduction of interdependency via composition that distinguishes it from mere bundling.. Not just of and for bodies, but of and for steps and steps within steps too (e.g., various combinations of functional requisites [VII] such as cognition, memory, questioning, focal attention and exposure). And then too all the other interdependencies open to the R-entity and Realization (e.g., body step, minding moving, grasp involve, responsibility capability, individual community [aka Union: C-112]). Power is dispensable (and gets lost in use, says Banfield); strength is indispensable (and gets found, via use in composed effort – i.e., Realization).


(c) 2016 R. F. Carter
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