C-170. Becoming: the human expansion
How not to Read the Big Step? Well … not just as….
Not just as an attribute (“expanding “) of the “universe” thingk (C-27). In this way the Expansion is pretty much set aside – if not dismissed – by observers of behavior primarily focused on discovering (C-93:Kf) the “underlying order of things” in that universe.
Not just about behavior as nothing more than behavioral particulars of particular bodies, such as has happened with the several sciences. Their universe has been parceled into various body-focused groups (aka sciences), each concerned very territorially with the particular behaviors of their group’s particular bodies (e.g., from orbiting to arguing) … their sciences arrayed invidiously by some from “hard” to “soft” (C-152).
Not just as a matter of merely talking conceptually about the many emergent Expansion particulars, commonplace and familiar. For example, particular biological entities grow; institutions grow; communities grow. Human life, on the average, is longer and richer – at least for now. “Becoming” is familiar as a concept. But what is being talked about is not well Grasped in that manner (C—124).
Not just merely as “fire” (as the “other”) in metaphoric contrast to the substantive earth, air and water. Suggestive though this metaphor may be that there are two sides of the coin we are talking about: behavior and behaviors as well as entity and entities.
Not just as some given, flowing stream of (II: all circumstantial) “change” … not when agency (i.e., “change” as an R-word: C-107) is available to us as opportunity in this World of Possibility … if we are prepared to make use of it (freedom TO).
Not just via the B-transform, which translates any focus of attention (observed condition) into an object, to be described “objectively” via attributed features … not just the B-transform when other transforms might, can and should serve.
Such focal attention objectifications make too little of behavior while shedding very little light on the Expansion qua behavior. In this they exemplify the damage visited by the B-transform on the human condition -- its protocols’ notable achievements in B-spacetime (C-167) notwithstanding. What the B-transform does re the Expansion is analogous to what the Fourier transform does re the flow of radio waves.. It says that what we need to Grasp of the Expansion as behavior can be obtained by focusing on bodies (emergent in the Expansion and what they do [C-114: behavioral entities] together with relationships between and among bodies [behavioral: e.g., connections, “forces”]). But there is more to be made of and in the Expansion (see CEM-history: App. XI) and to our own expansions (aka lives) than that.
For our purposes, we need to Read the Expansion and our own expansions as Becomings. (The latter to see humans as becomings rather than just as beings [a body state].) This because we need to make steps, not just take them, if we are to come up with solutions for the problems – especially the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh) – still incompletely solved (and the problems themselves expanding in number and difficulty [e.g., C-115]). There is more to be seen of behavior (i.e., Grasped) that we have yet to see. And to be seen only if we can bring that behavior about. We need ways to see it. The B-transform, for all the help it has given us, is not help enough (C-161). It is the sound of one hand clapping (C-146).
The R-transform (C-111) addresses Becoming, the Course (C-139) of CEM-history (App. XI) and of human Expansions. The Why (needed functionality) and the How (step making and taking) of Becoming. More than the B-capacity changes addressed by the evolution concept (C-38).
Becoming is a prolonged event. It comprises a multitude of collision events. In the human multi-step condition (albeit not exclusively in humans) these involve steps composed (e.g., arranged) and not just taken. Becoming can be very much what we make for it. Individual style is a familiar example. “Personality” strikes a conceptual bell, but is likely to be detailed in multiple B attributes (e.g., “A boy scout is trustworthy….”). Inventing (as for problem solving), creativity (as for self-expression) and hypothesizing (as for tests for knowing – both kinds: (C-93) are fundamental composed steps of concern to humanism, art and science enterprises.
(Do we see via the B-transpose – even anticipate -- too much -of the collision relationship [hard, soft] and its consequences [attributed to participant agent, colliders] … to the neglect of what was and/or might have been made of the step making and taking to make the collision more productive? Note, for example, the strong tendency to assess and analyze steps in terms of success or failure instead of investing in detailed process consequentiality [App. IX; C-16.] Try thinking of “event” as an R-word [C-107] – as much verb as noun. As in: to arrange is to event.)
***
We need to Read the Expansion more thoroughly and accurately. This is not just about Expansion (i.e., behavioral) particulars seen in B-transform terms. The Expansion is about a general persisting condition of the Nature of Things (III), a historical constant akin to partial order and consequentiality, and following on the “Big Bang” event. (In this the Expansion and our expansions parallel the distinction (III: general vs. particular) we make between Everything and every thing.)
We have to create and manage our own expansions (our “lives” as Becomings) in the context of this Expansion, careful to mind the collisions possible, the collisions soft and hard, the collisions approached and avoided, the collisions approached and avoided by arrangement … when and where discontinuity attends us along with partial order and consequentiality (III) ... but Becomings still something of a free agency in a World of Possibility.
Strengthening our Grasp (VII; C-105) of the Expansion (the G-step) and our particular expansions enables us to discover more of CEM-history’s “Body<=>Step” participation in the Expansion (App. XI). But primarily (and this is a crucial agenda matter) we can then give much more developmental attention to needed step making and step taking: the executors of human expansions – via the R-transform (C-111) and its protocols.
The Expansion, we have seen (C-160,163), is a focus of attention and an “object” only in that sense. We can mind the Expansion further (e.g., cognitively and communicatively) as though it were an entity (aka body), using the L(linguistic)- transform’s protocols (C-156,171) for establishing identity and location (e.g., adjectives, verbs, prepositions, prefixes and suffixes re nouns) … but at the significant risk of forfeiting minding capability that we need to operate successfully (i.e., to solve our problems), capability that we need for ourselves to be most consequential – i.e., to make our respective distinctive Expansion contributions.
We have developed the case for Reading the Expansion as a Becoming, an event with a beginning (“Big Bang”), an event continuing and open ended in S<=>B spacetime** (C-163) … Reading it via the R-transform so as to make the materiality (aka consequentiality), the molecularity, of steps and step-step relationships just as apparent as those of the B-transform’s bodies and body-body relationships.
However, what we had and have been doing is looking at human history and the rest of the Expansion events through a B-transform lens.* With any and every condition seen ”objectively” – i.e., like an entity (aka body). Thus the tremendous B-type “self-consciousness” of parties to collisions, their concern for B-survival, for B-states and B-B relationships. Thus the uninformed impression of humans as something special in the universe (sic) because they have achieved some – but not nearly enough – event control (e.g., use of symbols). To which is countered the view of humans as a bitsy piece of the universe (sic) and a bitsy piece of geological, let alone cosmic, history.
* Which, of course, is what we have also been doing via B-based valuation and language protocols, essentially but only ad hoc, making use of V- and L- transforms. As the Fourier transform is to the radio wave, these transforms together with the R-transform are (or should be) to the CEM-historical “wave” of the Expansion. They should bear on materiality (C-78) … which is to say, consequentiality.
** The B-transform’s ahistorical protocols of four dimensional spacetime and N-dimensional spacetime are inadequate (C-163). S<=>B spacetime is necessary for behavioral analysis after the fact, and for behavioral composition before the fact. S<=>B’s historical spacetime is a special (If not unique) sector of the Expansion … important for humans – but no great credit to us, given what we have made of and made in that special spacetime.
***
Let’s rejoin “Adam and Eve.” After they have been out (of the Garden of Eden) and around a bit.
Adam (appears tired): “We have seen and found out about a lot of things, haven’t we?”
Eve: “Things?”
Adam: “Everything is a thing.”
Eve: (with emotion) “Adam! Stop that! You know I hate it when you talk like that.”
Adam: (only somewhat abject) “Well … there’s a lot of stuff and so many different kinds of stuff … so let’s call them ‘things’.”
Eve: ‘Different things?”
Adam: “Yes. We’ll give each thing a name …so we can tell each other which thing we are talking about. We are things too.”
Eve: “I’m not sure I like where this is going. That’s going to be a lot to remember. And we’ll need names for each of the reasons why we need to remember each thing … such as whether we like it or not. And will things tell us what to do?”
(Thus was the B-transform imposed via B-protocols on human development for generations to come.)
(c) 2016 R. F. Carter
Not just as an attribute (“expanding “) of the “universe” thingk (C-27). In this way the Expansion is pretty much set aside – if not dismissed – by observers of behavior primarily focused on discovering (C-93:Kf) the “underlying order of things” in that universe.
Not just about behavior as nothing more than behavioral particulars of particular bodies, such as has happened with the several sciences. Their universe has been parceled into various body-focused groups (aka sciences), each concerned very territorially with the particular behaviors of their group’s particular bodies (e.g., from orbiting to arguing) … their sciences arrayed invidiously by some from “hard” to “soft” (C-152).
Not just as a matter of merely talking conceptually about the many emergent Expansion particulars, commonplace and familiar. For example, particular biological entities grow; institutions grow; communities grow. Human life, on the average, is longer and richer – at least for now. “Becoming” is familiar as a concept. But what is being talked about is not well Grasped in that manner (C—124).
Not just merely as “fire” (as the “other”) in metaphoric contrast to the substantive earth, air and water. Suggestive though this metaphor may be that there are two sides of the coin we are talking about: behavior and behaviors as well as entity and entities.
Not just as some given, flowing stream of (II: all circumstantial) “change” … not when agency (i.e., “change” as an R-word: C-107) is available to us as opportunity in this World of Possibility … if we are prepared to make use of it (freedom TO).
Not just via the B-transform, which translates any focus of attention (observed condition) into an object, to be described “objectively” via attributed features … not just the B-transform when other transforms might, can and should serve.
Such focal attention objectifications make too little of behavior while shedding very little light on the Expansion qua behavior. In this they exemplify the damage visited by the B-transform on the human condition -- its protocols’ notable achievements in B-spacetime (C-167) notwithstanding. What the B-transform does re the Expansion is analogous to what the Fourier transform does re the flow of radio waves.. It says that what we need to Grasp of the Expansion as behavior can be obtained by focusing on bodies (emergent in the Expansion and what they do [C-114: behavioral entities] together with relationships between and among bodies [behavioral: e.g., connections, “forces”]). But there is more to be made of and in the Expansion (see CEM-history: App. XI) and to our own expansions (aka lives) than that.
For our purposes, we need to Read the Expansion and our own expansions as Becomings. (The latter to see humans as becomings rather than just as beings [a body state].) This because we need to make steps, not just take them, if we are to come up with solutions for the problems – especially the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh) – still incompletely solved (and the problems themselves expanding in number and difficulty [e.g., C-115]). There is more to be seen of behavior (i.e., Grasped) that we have yet to see. And to be seen only if we can bring that behavior about. We need ways to see it. The B-transform, for all the help it has given us, is not help enough (C-161). It is the sound of one hand clapping (C-146).
The R-transform (C-111) addresses Becoming, the Course (C-139) of CEM-history (App. XI) and of human Expansions. The Why (needed functionality) and the How (step making and taking) of Becoming. More than the B-capacity changes addressed by the evolution concept (C-38).
Becoming is a prolonged event. It comprises a multitude of collision events. In the human multi-step condition (albeit not exclusively in humans) these involve steps composed (e.g., arranged) and not just taken. Becoming can be very much what we make for it. Individual style is a familiar example. “Personality” strikes a conceptual bell, but is likely to be detailed in multiple B attributes (e.g., “A boy scout is trustworthy….”). Inventing (as for problem solving), creativity (as for self-expression) and hypothesizing (as for tests for knowing – both kinds: (C-93) are fundamental composed steps of concern to humanism, art and science enterprises.
(Do we see via the B-transpose – even anticipate -- too much -of the collision relationship [hard, soft] and its consequences [attributed to participant agent, colliders] … to the neglect of what was and/or might have been made of the step making and taking to make the collision more productive? Note, for example, the strong tendency to assess and analyze steps in terms of success or failure instead of investing in detailed process consequentiality [App. IX; C-16.] Try thinking of “event” as an R-word [C-107] – as much verb as noun. As in: to arrange is to event.)
We need to Read the Expansion more thoroughly and accurately. This is not just about Expansion (i.e., behavioral) particulars seen in B-transform terms. The Expansion is about a general persisting condition of the Nature of Things (III), a historical constant akin to partial order and consequentiality, and following on the “Big Bang” event. (In this the Expansion and our expansions parallel the distinction (III: general vs. particular) we make between Everything and every thing.)
We have to create and manage our own expansions (our “lives” as Becomings) in the context of this Expansion, careful to mind the collisions possible, the collisions soft and hard, the collisions approached and avoided, the collisions approached and avoided by arrangement … when and where discontinuity attends us along with partial order and consequentiality (III) ... but Becomings still something of a free agency in a World of Possibility.
Strengthening our Grasp (VII; C-105) of the Expansion (the G-step) and our particular expansions enables us to discover more of CEM-history’s “Body<=>Step” participation in the Expansion (App. XI). But primarily (and this is a crucial agenda matter) we can then give much more developmental attention to needed step making and step taking: the executors of human expansions – via the R-transform (C-111) and its protocols.
The Expansion, we have seen (C-160,163), is a focus of attention and an “object” only in that sense. We can mind the Expansion further (e.g., cognitively and communicatively) as though it were an entity (aka body), using the L(linguistic)- transform’s protocols (C-156,171) for establishing identity and location (e.g., adjectives, verbs, prepositions, prefixes and suffixes re nouns) … but at the significant risk of forfeiting minding capability that we need to operate successfully (i.e., to solve our problems), capability that we need for ourselves to be most consequential – i.e., to make our respective distinctive Expansion contributions.
We have developed the case for Reading the Expansion as a Becoming, an event with a beginning (“Big Bang”), an event continuing and open ended in S<=>B spacetime** (C-163) … Reading it via the R-transform so as to make the materiality (aka consequentiality), the molecularity, of steps and step-step relationships just as apparent as those of the B-transform’s bodies and body-body relationships.
However, what we had and have been doing is looking at human history and the rest of the Expansion events through a B-transform lens.* With any and every condition seen ”objectively” – i.e., like an entity (aka body). Thus the tremendous B-type “self-consciousness” of parties to collisions, their concern for B-survival, for B-states and B-B relationships. Thus the uninformed impression of humans as something special in the universe (sic) because they have achieved some – but not nearly enough – event control (e.g., use of symbols). To which is countered the view of humans as a bitsy piece of the universe (sic) and a bitsy piece of geological, let alone cosmic, history.
* Which, of course, is what we have also been doing via B-based valuation and language protocols, essentially but only ad hoc, making use of V- and L- transforms. As the Fourier transform is to the radio wave, these transforms together with the R-transform are (or should be) to the CEM-historical “wave” of the Expansion. They should bear on materiality (C-78) … which is to say, consequentiality.
** The B-transform’s ahistorical protocols of four dimensional spacetime and N-dimensional spacetime are inadequate (C-163). S<=>B spacetime is necessary for behavioral analysis after the fact, and for behavioral composition before the fact. S<=>B’s historical spacetime is a special (If not unique) sector of the Expansion … important for humans – but no great credit to us, given what we have made of and made in that special spacetime.
Let’s rejoin “Adam and Eve.” After they have been out (of the Garden of Eden) and around a bit.
Adam (appears tired): “We have seen and found out about a lot of things, haven’t we?”
Eve: “Things?”
Adam: “Everything is a thing.”
Eve: (with emotion) “Adam! Stop that! You know I hate it when you talk like that.”
Adam: (only somewhat abject) “Well … there’s a lot of stuff and so many different kinds of stuff … so let’s call them ‘things’.”
Eve: ‘Different things?”
Adam: “Yes. We’ll give each thing a name …so we can tell each other which thing we are talking about. We are things too.”
Eve: “I’m not sure I like where this is going. That’s going to be a lot to remember. And we’ll need names for each of the reasons why we need to remember each thing … such as whether we like it or not. And will things tell us what to do?”
(Thus was the B-transform imposed via B-protocols on human development for generations to come.)
(c) 2016 R. F. Carter
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