C-191. Sideways
Making new steps does not come easily. Most steps we take are not newly composed. Least effort argues against this. Nor composed by ourselves. Weak Solve capabilities constrain us. B-ness thoughtknots frustrate our efforts. So we settle for habit … or decision making re available solutions (triggering the regression of focal attention from problem to issue to savior – our recurrent cultural climate problem).
Or we go sideways. Instead of dealing with Solve’s challenge to improve our steps by developing molecular steps, we turn instead to agency on the one hand and/or to outcome on the other hand to manage our step taking.
Agency, in view of needed functionality, may comprise omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence – or some part and/or degree thereof, as in a god’s (interpreted) will. Or it may be someone to whom we look to for help. Or someone whose steps to follow in. Or, in the style of “-isms,” it may be this or that form of government. And so on.
Outcomes, good and bad, may rule. (See Eve and Adam [C-188].) Perhaps the market. Trial and error (but compare KMmt). “The proof is in the pudding.” Functional vs. dysfunctional? If dysfunctional: let’s pass a law, or de-bug it, or somehow constrain it. Note too that democracy can go sideways, focusing on decision making (e.g., election outcomes) rather than problem solving (e.g., preserving and developing Union to strengthen, via < CEM >, communities of individuals).
***
Consider: producer … process … product. We focus attention on the producer and the product … and assign process to one or the other (e.g., capacity; manufacture) – and/or to their relationship. Pure B-ness: Bs (“behavioral entity”); BsB (“behavioral relationship”). Emphasize the bodies. What of the steps? Do only bodies have structure? Is there no structure to functionality? Technology’s design (an R-word) says otherwise.*
Something similar happens with “stimulus – response,” and with “cause-effect.” Boring pointed out that a lot happens between stimulus and response. Thirty plus B-states? Or have we covered up the happening, not Grasping it? Effect (as an R-word) points to a happening, not handicapping us (“objectively”) with the sideways attention to “cause(s)” and “effect(s).” The plurals are telling.
“Problem(s)-solution(s) may be no better in this respect if we lose sight of the behavioral problem (Pbeh) and/or the behavioral solution (Sbeh [aka Solve]), Then we lose the materiality of the Nature of Things’ needed functionality (NF) and neglect the vast potential emergent materiality (< CEM >) of the molecular step’s Solve. To relegate everything attended to the situational problem (Psit) and/or the situational solution (Ssit) is a losing proposition.
Our focus of attention on the Expansion, then Read via the R-transform, guides us toward a Grasp of functionality, via the Involve of the Nature of Things, in light of needed functionality (with respect to collisions, which we can arrange by step making to have or to avoid) ad in light of applicable (before the fact) principles: Requisites and Imperatives.
Perhaps we might, metaphorically, speak here of a Big Bang II. Of “exploding” confined process out of the B-ness thoughtknots.
***
Perspectives on survival make for two interesting cases of sideways thinking. Survival can be said to be a matter of fit, of evolved adaptive agent. And/or it can be said to be a matter of fittest, of competitive outcome. But it might, and ought to, also be seen as a matter of fittingest, of developed capability: of Solve strength. Of creativeness, of inventiveness … either or both.**
Also of note are such confrontations as those between (agent) “Guns don’t kill people; people do” and (outcome) “Guns are killing school children.” We have labored long to exert controls on this or that behavior. Commandments, norms, statutes, sanctions, licensing, accrediting … but the Muddle of process is still with us.
***
* Perhaps we should insert “(T)” in HAS: e.g., HA(T)S or HAST or THAS. This to make the what is now self-evident point that art and science are conjoined with and by technology. And that technology adds something to humanism too, a point that ancient alchemists made when trying to alleviate human ills. (See C-192 for something better than the above play on letters.)
** Recall: “Instinct plus outstinct equals extinct.” We can’t leave process to B-ness, not when there are needed steps still to be made. We have to manufacture steps, and manufacture steps to make steps, not just bodies that take steps, and not just to find bodies that take helpful steps (e.g., screening for anti-biotics).
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
Or we go sideways. Instead of dealing with Solve’s challenge to improve our steps by developing molecular steps, we turn instead to agency on the one hand and/or to outcome on the other hand to manage our step taking.
Agency, in view of needed functionality, may comprise omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence – or some part and/or degree thereof, as in a god’s (interpreted) will. Or it may be someone to whom we look to for help. Or someone whose steps to follow in. Or, in the style of “-isms,” it may be this or that form of government. And so on.
Outcomes, good and bad, may rule. (See Eve and Adam [C-188].) Perhaps the market. Trial and error (but compare KMmt). “The proof is in the pudding.” Functional vs. dysfunctional? If dysfunctional: let’s pass a law, or de-bug it, or somehow constrain it. Note too that democracy can go sideways, focusing on decision making (e.g., election outcomes) rather than problem solving (e.g., preserving and developing Union to strengthen, via < CEM >, communities of individuals).
Consider: producer … process … product. We focus attention on the producer and the product … and assign process to one or the other (e.g., capacity; manufacture) – and/or to their relationship. Pure B-ness: Bs (“behavioral entity”); BsB (“behavioral relationship”). Emphasize the bodies. What of the steps? Do only bodies have structure? Is there no structure to functionality? Technology’s design (an R-word) says otherwise.*
Something similar happens with “stimulus – response,” and with “cause-effect.” Boring pointed out that a lot happens between stimulus and response. Thirty plus B-states? Or have we covered up the happening, not Grasping it? Effect (as an R-word) points to a happening, not handicapping us (“objectively”) with the sideways attention to “cause(s)” and “effect(s).” The plurals are telling.
“Problem(s)-solution(s) may be no better in this respect if we lose sight of the behavioral problem (Pbeh) and/or the behavioral solution (Sbeh [aka Solve]), Then we lose the materiality of the Nature of Things’ needed functionality (NF) and neglect the vast potential emergent materiality (< CEM >) of the molecular step’s Solve. To relegate everything attended to the situational problem (Psit) and/or the situational solution (Ssit) is a losing proposition.
Our focus of attention on the Expansion, then Read via the R-transform, guides us toward a Grasp of functionality, via the Involve of the Nature of Things, in light of needed functionality (with respect to collisions, which we can arrange by step making to have or to avoid) ad in light of applicable (before the fact) principles: Requisites and Imperatives.
Perhaps we might, metaphorically, speak here of a Big Bang II. Of “exploding” confined process out of the B-ness thoughtknots.
Perspectives on survival make for two interesting cases of sideways thinking. Survival can be said to be a matter of fit, of evolved adaptive agent. And/or it can be said to be a matter of fittest, of competitive outcome. But it might, and ought to, also be seen as a matter of fittingest, of developed capability: of Solve strength. Of creativeness, of inventiveness … either or both.**
Also of note are such confrontations as those between (agent) “Guns don’t kill people; people do” and (outcome) “Guns are killing school children.” We have labored long to exert controls on this or that behavior. Commandments, norms, statutes, sanctions, licensing, accrediting … but the Muddle of process is still with us.
* Perhaps we should insert “(T)” in HAS: e.g., HA(T)S or HAST or THAS. This to make the what is now self-evident point that art and science are conjoined with and by technology. And that technology adds something to humanism too, a point that ancient alchemists made when trying to alleviate human ills. (See C-192 for something better than the above play on letters.)
** Recall: “Instinct plus outstinct equals extinct.” We can’t leave process to B-ness, not when there are needed steps still to be made. We have to manufacture steps, and manufacture steps to make steps, not just bodies that take steps, and not just to find bodies that take helpful steps (e.g., screening for anti-biotics).
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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