C-187. History, histories and stories
History is a phenomenon in and of itself. It is the Nature of Things, an extended happening (the Expansion) comprising the post-Big Bang general persisting conditions of partial order, consequentiality and emergent disparate bodies – all three conditions manifested and evident in collisions. History is not yet finished. It continues, irrespective of individual and institutional histories.
History is other than and more than the particular historical fragments experienced (the observed) and more than what is seen, conceptually, in reported histories: those fragments of what is talked about and fragments of what is said about those fragments talked about. History has reason to question and ponder this fact of historical fragmentation … and not just the relationship between fragments (WISA re WITA), such as lack of records, lack of journalists and historians, sparse personal accounts and self-serving accounts. History comprises more than WITA. There is the matter of what there is to be talked about (WTITBTA) – especially in light of pressing matters of what is called for (WICF).
We need a Grasp of History per se. History is synonymous with consequentiality per se -- i.e., a general condition. Particular histories are just about what has been observed and how they have been observed. There is a double whammy here. Some of History has not been observed, and what has been observed (i.e., histories) has not been complete and accurate in its observations.
Consider a core message in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: The address begins with history (“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent…”); but it ends with History (”… that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”).
Union forever!
Historical reductionism, the piecing out of histories within History, is much more difficult than the piecing out of a body (substantive reductionism). Some conditions of consequence we haven’t observed, and, even among those we have given our attention, we have failed to Grasp all of their consequentiality. But if compose’s piecing molecular steps together, making steps (i.e., Grasp < CEM > Involve) to take to solve problems is the key to progress in, by and for the human condition, then we must attend to the incompleteness – and possible inaccuracy – of histories.
Incomplete and inaccurate? It’s B-ness. It’s the partial and partisan* view of happening (the Expansion, the World of Possibility and our steps therein) we get by seeing it only in particulars, after the fact, in body-anchored terms (i.e., body attributes [e.g., noun-verb, noun-adjective] and/or body-body connectors [e.g., noun-verb-noun]). When we employ the B-transform on the Expansion, seeing only these “is as does,” molecularly indiscriminate, behavioral chunks, the best we can get, WITA and/or WISA, are histories about histories (e.g., “persons who,” “events which”). History per se and a firmer Grasp of the Expansion and our World of Possibility is lost, the Nature of Things’ consequentiality (especially unending needed functionality in view of partial order and consequentiality) forfeit to consequences (particulars of body and body-body functionality after the fact) among the things of nature. Focus of attention on the Expansion (Big Step) and the steps it comprises, especially those we author, are forfeit to focal attention on a Universe (big body) and the bodies it comprises – as pieces of a puzzle.
What all is lost? A lot of consequentiality (materiality): Much of what has happened, what is happening and what might and ought to be happening is lost to view … and lost as well in the B-based linguistic protocols (e.g., the concept of “behavior”) we have adopted* ... many past steps, many made and not just taken, many more possible steps that might and ought to be made so as could be taken, steps which if made could make step making more productive … molecular steps of many kinds. Solutions for our problems.
***
Stories may redeem something – a sense perhaps – of History per se. As in the sequence aspect of a story line (e.g., the begatness and not just the begats). But stories do not Grasp enough of History per se, the happening which is the Expansion and our own Becomings (i.e., expansions). Stories pretty much stick to historical particulars or, via further B-ness, filling in (e.g., with “person who” and “event which” thoughts) … sometimes making fiction more “true-to-life” than isolated facts. Stories may also dubiously, but simply, ascribe Expansion (aka functionality, happening) to either or both of two B-ness entities (a Creator’s actions and/or the “laws of the Universe”).
Arguably, dramas can say more about History than stories do. An “out of nothingness” cultural story pales, as History, compared to a drama of personal separation and angst.
***
The distinction between History per se and any or every particular history is a Read we must make. (See consequentiality per se’s “any difference that makes a difference”.) It is said that those who do not learn from history (qua histories) are fated to repeat their missteps. But those who do not know History – i.e., all of us now AT and ON the Frontier, who must make histories, might, in ignorance of History, never even get to repeat their missteps.
Consider: Shouldn’t History be the core of education? Not just histories, experienced and observed, not just learning and knowing about things of nature that are IN and OF consequence … but learning and knowing about History itself, as the manifestation of the Nature of Things (of the general persisting conditions: partial order, consequentiality per se and discontinuity), of the human condition?
Shouldn’t higher education’s School of History have a department of Future History … about making History (i.e., making the steps we take to make History and not just histories)? Not just a University whose parochial departments (very territorial observer and practice-based domains) pursue, after the fact, B-ness histories of their own particular focal behavioral entities?
Shouldn’t a School of History insist on the Involve of the Expansion, not just that of B-ness’ Universe, to give us a stronger Grasp of the human condition … of life’s functionality and needed functionality in this World of Possibility? And introduce the minding technology of the R-transform, not just of the B-transform, to Read this Expansion?
Shouldn’t a School of History embrace CEM-History for its Grasp of the human condition beyond, say, the historical fragment of evolution? For the relevant developmental way forward, to Read the pasts of histories and via R-sense compose the path into the future here AT and ON the Frontier,** indicated by the leverages of interdependency (from body and step [e.g., feeding’s “I < CEM > G”] to minding’s “I < CEM > G” within the step [via cognition < CEM > communication]).
Shouldn’t a School of History be the linchpin for HAS (humanism, art and science) development interdependently, uniting them in endeavor via < CEM > and not just collating and/or bridging them as establishments?
Some departments and schools in a typical university work in territorial domains largely dictated by B-ness (e.g., astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology). There, behaviors are of proprietary concern for this or that set of observed entities … in regard to their distinctive functionalities and/or their functional relationships with outcomes, practices and practitioners (e.g., research, teaching and service). Other departments and schools may be more “process” oriented (e.g., engineering, design), but B-ness still blocks their way forward in so far as they look only to and for particular needed functionalities (re Psits) and miss the Nature of Things’ more general needed functionality (re Pbeh) ... by their attention to the putative Universe and universe(s) rather than to the Expansion and expansions (especially emergent lives).
***
Fortunately, there is a “tracer” for the line (and story) of History with which we can develop a stronger Grasp of History and of the human condition. We find it in the Involve < CEM > Grasp interdependency. Evident early on as primitive evolving body capacities (e.g., jaws) and step capabilities (e.g., “chewing”) so as to yield contingent emergent materiality (e.g., “energy” for step-taking) … progressing from there to developing step capabilities (both minding and moving) wherein “< CEM >” operates for each and for them together to greatly strengthen our steps and improve human materiality.
* “Behavior,” the concept, is pretty much a lost cause. (Unlike “step,” it does not lend itself to adoption as an R-word.) It offers functionality and needed functionality (and WICF: what is called for) a dull point TO. It points AT either the category (of behaviors) or its instances (e.g., a property of a body, a relationship between bodies)***. It addresses steps without the molecular specification required for needed step manufacture. For example, “molecular behavior” immediately invokes B-ness: this or that step by this or that kind of a body … and the “Is as does” tautological limitation. (“Is” may, indeed can, emerge in consequence of < CEM >’s “does.”) “Molecular step” more clearly summons attention to functional units within the step and the potential for made steps to become contributing pieces of larger molecular steps made. Concepts (WISA) such as “behavior,” “action,” “response” and “process” are essentially Stone Age when the needed functionality for problem-solving (WICF; WTITBTA [esp. Pbeh]) via newly made steps is a matter of concern (AT and ON the Frontier).
** The Frontier in History, in R-spacetime, calls for experimental step making and taking (Kt – more pointedly: KMmt), in contrast with histories’ explored -- and exploited -- frontiers of territories in B-spacetime. (See footnote to C-186 re KMmt.)
*** This ambiguity of the singular, due to B-ness’ “attribute-object, inside-outside” protocol, afflicts “history” too. Ambiguity of the singular is even more troubling then when we need to distinguish between History and this or that history … something we must do if we are to Grasp the Nature of things and not just the things of nature… if we are to Grasp the general that is other than, and more than, the universal among particulars. And then there is the need for, but potential ambiguity of, R-words, where a term (e.g., “step”) is singular as used in a message’s two nouns and two verbs (App. XX: N-1[needed functionality], V-1 [developed functionality], V-2 [exercised functionality], N-2 [achieved functionality]). Could we color code R-words? (See App. XXIII.)
In light of the very useful Search feature now available in the home page, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2018 R. F. Carter
History is other than and more than the particular historical fragments experienced (the observed) and more than what is seen, conceptually, in reported histories: those fragments of what is talked about and fragments of what is said about those fragments talked about. History has reason to question and ponder this fact of historical fragmentation … and not just the relationship between fragments (WISA re WITA), such as lack of records, lack of journalists and historians, sparse personal accounts and self-serving accounts. History comprises more than WITA. There is the matter of what there is to be talked about (WTITBTA) – especially in light of pressing matters of what is called for (WICF).
We need a Grasp of History per se. History is synonymous with consequentiality per se -- i.e., a general condition. Particular histories are just about what has been observed and how they have been observed. There is a double whammy here. Some of History has not been observed, and what has been observed (i.e., histories) has not been complete and accurate in its observations.
Consider a core message in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: The address begins with history (“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent…”); but it ends with History (”… that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”).
Union forever!
Historical reductionism, the piecing out of histories within History, is much more difficult than the piecing out of a body (substantive reductionism). Some conditions of consequence we haven’t observed, and, even among those we have given our attention, we have failed to Grasp all of their consequentiality. But if compose’s piecing molecular steps together, making steps (i.e., Grasp < CEM > Involve) to take to solve problems is the key to progress in, by and for the human condition, then we must attend to the incompleteness – and possible inaccuracy – of histories.
Incomplete and inaccurate? It’s B-ness. It’s the partial and partisan* view of happening (the Expansion, the World of Possibility and our steps therein) we get by seeing it only in particulars, after the fact, in body-anchored terms (i.e., body attributes [e.g., noun-verb, noun-adjective] and/or body-body connectors [e.g., noun-verb-noun]). When we employ the B-transform on the Expansion, seeing only these “is as does,” molecularly indiscriminate, behavioral chunks, the best we can get, WITA and/or WISA, are histories about histories (e.g., “persons who,” “events which”). History per se and a firmer Grasp of the Expansion and our World of Possibility is lost, the Nature of Things’ consequentiality (especially unending needed functionality in view of partial order and consequentiality) forfeit to consequences (particulars of body and body-body functionality after the fact) among the things of nature. Focus of attention on the Expansion (Big Step) and the steps it comprises, especially those we author, are forfeit to focal attention on a Universe (big body) and the bodies it comprises – as pieces of a puzzle.
What all is lost? A lot of consequentiality (materiality): Much of what has happened, what is happening and what might and ought to be happening is lost to view … and lost as well in the B-based linguistic protocols (e.g., the concept of “behavior”) we have adopted* ... many past steps, many made and not just taken, many more possible steps that might and ought to be made so as could be taken, steps which if made could make step making more productive … molecular steps of many kinds. Solutions for our problems.
Stories may redeem something – a sense perhaps – of History per se. As in the sequence aspect of a story line (e.g., the begatness and not just the begats). But stories do not Grasp enough of History per se, the happening which is the Expansion and our own Becomings (i.e., expansions). Stories pretty much stick to historical particulars or, via further B-ness, filling in (e.g., with “person who” and “event which” thoughts) … sometimes making fiction more “true-to-life” than isolated facts. Stories may also dubiously, but simply, ascribe Expansion (aka functionality, happening) to either or both of two B-ness entities (a Creator’s actions and/or the “laws of the Universe”).
Arguably, dramas can say more about History than stories do. An “out of nothingness” cultural story pales, as History, compared to a drama of personal separation and angst.
The distinction between History per se and any or every particular history is a Read we must make. (See consequentiality per se’s “any difference that makes a difference”.) It is said that those who do not learn from history (qua histories) are fated to repeat their missteps. But those who do not know History – i.e., all of us now AT and ON the Frontier, who must make histories, might, in ignorance of History, never even get to repeat their missteps.
Consider: Shouldn’t History be the core of education? Not just histories, experienced and observed, not just learning and knowing about things of nature that are IN and OF consequence … but learning and knowing about History itself, as the manifestation of the Nature of Things (of the general persisting conditions: partial order, consequentiality per se and discontinuity), of the human condition?
Shouldn’t higher education’s School of History have a department of Future History … about making History (i.e., making the steps we take to make History and not just histories)? Not just a University whose parochial departments (very territorial observer and practice-based domains) pursue, after the fact, B-ness histories of their own particular focal behavioral entities?
Shouldn’t a School of History insist on the Involve of the Expansion, not just that of B-ness’ Universe, to give us a stronger Grasp of the human condition … of life’s functionality and needed functionality in this World of Possibility? And introduce the minding technology of the R-transform, not just of the B-transform, to Read this Expansion?
Shouldn’t a School of History embrace CEM-History for its Grasp of the human condition beyond, say, the historical fragment of evolution? For the relevant developmental way forward, to Read the pasts of histories and via R-sense compose the path into the future here AT and ON the Frontier,** indicated by the leverages of interdependency (from body and step [e.g., feeding’s “I < CEM > G”] to minding’s “I < CEM > G” within the step [via cognition < CEM > communication]).
Shouldn’t a School of History be the linchpin for HAS (humanism, art and science) development interdependently, uniting them in endeavor via < CEM > and not just collating and/or bridging them as establishments?
Some departments and schools in a typical university work in territorial domains largely dictated by B-ness (e.g., astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology). There, behaviors are of proprietary concern for this or that set of observed entities … in regard to their distinctive functionalities and/or their functional relationships with outcomes, practices and practitioners (e.g., research, teaching and service). Other departments and schools may be more “process” oriented (e.g., engineering, design), but B-ness still blocks their way forward in so far as they look only to and for particular needed functionalities (re Psits) and miss the Nature of Things’ more general needed functionality (re Pbeh) ... by their attention to the putative Universe and universe(s) rather than to the Expansion and expansions (especially emergent lives).
Fortunately, there is a “tracer” for the line (and story) of History with which we can develop a stronger Grasp of History and of the human condition. We find it in the Involve < CEM > Grasp interdependency. Evident early on as primitive evolving body capacities (e.g., jaws) and step capabilities (e.g., “chewing”) so as to yield contingent emergent materiality (e.g., “energy” for step-taking) … progressing from there to developing step capabilities (both minding and moving) wherein “< CEM >” operates for each and for them together to greatly strengthen our steps and improve human materiality.
* “Behavior,” the concept, is pretty much a lost cause. (Unlike “step,” it does not lend itself to adoption as an R-word.) It offers functionality and needed functionality (and WICF: what is called for) a dull point TO. It points AT either the category (of behaviors) or its instances (e.g., a property of a body, a relationship between bodies)***. It addresses steps without the molecular specification required for needed step manufacture. For example, “molecular behavior” immediately invokes B-ness: this or that step by this or that kind of a body … and the “Is as does” tautological limitation. (“Is” may, indeed can, emerge in consequence of < CEM >’s “does.”) “Molecular step” more clearly summons attention to functional units within the step and the potential for made steps to become contributing pieces of larger molecular steps made. Concepts (WISA) such as “behavior,” “action,” “response” and “process” are essentially Stone Age when the needed functionality for problem-solving (WICF; WTITBTA [esp. Pbeh]) via newly made steps is a matter of concern (AT and ON the Frontier).
** The Frontier in History, in R-spacetime, calls for experimental step making and taking (Kt – more pointedly: KMmt), in contrast with histories’ explored -- and exploited -- frontiers of territories in B-spacetime. (See footnote to C-186 re KMmt.)
*** This ambiguity of the singular, due to B-ness’ “attribute-object, inside-outside” protocol, afflicts “history” too. Ambiguity of the singular is even more troubling then when we need to distinguish between History and this or that history … something we must do if we are to Grasp the Nature of things and not just the things of nature… if we are to Grasp the general that is other than, and more than, the universal among particulars. And then there is the need for, but potential ambiguity of, R-words, where a term (e.g., “step”) is singular as used in a message’s two nouns and two verbs (App. XX: N-1[needed functionality], V-1 [developed functionality], V-2 [exercised functionality], N-2 [achieved functionality]). Could we color code R-words? (See App. XXIII.)
In light of the very useful Search feature now available in the home page, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2018 R. F. Carter
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