C-220. The new pragmatist: the Way Forward
The new pragmatist is a more complete pragmatist, taking development to its full potential, well beyond the limited back and forth of evolution.
We could, as many have (ala “pragmatism”), see ourselves merely as practitioners of the pragmatic precept (PP). Seeing differences that make differences, after the fact and before the fact, clearly has functional value. A pragmatism preoccupied with results.* However, by extending our capability technologically, we can advance beyond that. We can add further functional value.
With each application, PP makes a difference. It applies across the board: to the Help, architecture and analysis of the humanist, artist and scientist. It applies to the Nature of Things relative to the things of nature. It even applies to WISA, as when the “ambiguity of the singular” is revealed (e.g., to distinguish History from history). We get the new pragmatist.
PP-CEM furthers that. We get the Way Forward. With “PP-CEM” we make a difference that makes a difference in what a difference makes. We employ the principles of CEM, initiated with PP, to make the most of these newly independent conditions by how we relate (“partner”) them (adjusting for balance ratios)** for greater step strength (functional value). PP-CEM is the strategy for employing differences that make differences as tactics.
Thereby increasing utility. Among all the differences, found or made, which make a difference, there is the matter of utility: Among the differences that make differences, which makes the most difference? Further: Our human metastrategy needs to be based on the difference between the Nature of Things and the things of nature. This difference changes everything.
Hence Accord … with the Nature of Things: the first PP we must make, cognitively, relative to the (B-ness plagued) things of nature. Lest we never be free TO, to be ready for the World of Possibility’s “opportunity.” PP-CEM is our R-sense ticket into the World of Possibility.
PP-CEM gives credence to, and adds something to Dewey’s “instrumentalist” pragmatism. It points TO a How that was missing there as well as in earlier pragmatic essays (e.g., James on producing [multiple] unities). But still short of CEM’s partnering and T-TT as the Way Forward. “Effect,” an R-word, begins with needed functionality – i.e., the PP-uncovered Nature of Things. The point OF the World of Possibility? Be there!
What PP-CEM does best is to do something about pragmatism’s, ala things of nature, major shortcoming: its lack of guiding principles. Utility’s value notwithstanding. CEM’s (i.e., History’s) principles apply. We can and should pursue PP possibilities, re DIFs that make DIFs, if and when we can for their Forward, front of the step, energy.***
The good news is that PP-CEM may hold up as the best Way Forward even if we have Read history wrong: as History. If Body CEM Step – the emergence of the multi-step entity in consequence of the Nature of Things’ general persisting conditions – is not a fact. (Although the dependence of evolution on the “back and forth” between body and step – not just natural selection -- is very suggestive.)
Still, consider how the brain might work. (Or a “made brain” to work?) Say that the perceptive eyes, like the rest of the body’s “bi-“s, are evolution’s contributions to animate behavior.# Behind the eyes, the brain makes something cognitively of the initial focus of attention, affirming the needed PP independence (a “what” to relate to the focal “what”) and introducing a CEM developmental procedure? It composes. Beyond “bi-“. Redressing evolution/development >1++. Something to consider if the brain is CEM-ready in capacity, but we are handcuffed, restrained from developing commensurate, stronger step capabilities by the cultural “developments” of B-ness and B-speak.
Minimally, R-sense and R- technologies can serve a dialectic function, intellectually, when contrasted with B-ness and B-speak. As the Nature of things does when contrasted with the things of nature. But why settle for the back and forth dynamic of evolution, when development offers the CEM dynamic for Forwardness via step strengthening materiality? Mind’s Grasp needs all the help it can get from R-technology to deal with WICF and WTITBTA, along with WISA re WITA.
Perhaps most tellingly, the new pragmatist fights indifference. Whether that indifference be with respect to students and education, to voters and democracy, to decision makers relative to problem solvers, to mere collectors of interesting differences (“something new”).
“So what?” Indeed. We need differences that make differences. Step differences to be made if there is no other satisfactory source of effectiveness – as, for example, the development of procedural technology to obtain greater step materiality (consequentiality).
***
“E = PP-CEM”?
Where “E” is emergence (functionality re needed functionality) … and the rest, PP-CEM, is History.
Better, surely, than the “E” in the equation, “I + O = E” …
Where “E” is extinct … and “I + O” is instinct plus outstinct, two B-ness sources of instruction … but not instruction enough for the human condition, given the Nature of Things’ partial order.
And how about a new word – sort of: “CEMinal.” Adjective pertaining to the source of emergence. (Eve would like it. It’s about the beginning of an effective step.) Musical composition provides accessible examples, as when melody is partnered with rhythm (e.g. “swing”), as when songs partner lyrics with music. “Stardust” and “White Christmas” are each effectively CEMinal, Even more so (sometimes) when further composition (“arrangement”) adds performers (e.g., the Artie Shaw band and Bing Crosby, respectively).
PP is CEMinal. It breaks apart so we can compose anew. We must often pry stuff apart in order to see if something better can be made with and/or of them. Thoughtknots, for example. The molecular step, behavioral architecture and relevant Help all depend on this kind of Historical “reductionism.” ##
***
* Seeing “Effect” not as an R-word but as the result of a (B-ness) “cause.” (Adding to Eve’s distress. She insisted on a more complete pragmatist.) Note the appellation of “applied research” pointing to effects of what has been, or might be, tried. In contrast to “basic research,” which points down invidiously to such applied research. “Applicable research,” anyone?
** Not the B-ness “gaps.” Ratios are the R-sense way. The “/” in the ratio points TO the teeter-totter’s functionality in calling for balance via arrangement, for partnering. (“Partner” needs to become an R-word!)
*** See the “other” cognitive dissonance,” which pertains not to the state of the body (“dissonance”) but to the step’s cognition of an obverse relationship. The latter has been found to not lead to post-decision avoidance of information of the unchosen alternative (Carter, Pyszka & Guerrero, Journalism Quarterly, 1969). Any discrepancy cognition (=/=) has potential PP and CEM value. (As when the child, asked to choose among vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream cones, might say “Yes” – or suggest a banana split.)
# i.e., multiple steps forward. The Nature of Things’ general persisting condition of discontinuity applies to steps as well as bodies. Lest “next step” be an empty promise, emergence a lost cause.
## As contrasted with the more familiar B-reductionism, where we dissect a body to distinguish its components. B-reductionism got us out of one Stone Age. H-reductionism can get us out of our behavioral Stone Age. (This is not the same as Peirce’s “abduction.”)
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) 2020 R. F. Carter
We could, as many have (ala “pragmatism”), see ourselves merely as practitioners of the pragmatic precept (PP). Seeing differences that make differences, after the fact and before the fact, clearly has functional value. A pragmatism preoccupied with results.* However, by extending our capability technologically, we can advance beyond that. We can add further functional value.
With each application, PP makes a difference. It applies across the board: to the Help, architecture and analysis of the humanist, artist and scientist. It applies to the Nature of Things relative to the things of nature. It even applies to WISA, as when the “ambiguity of the singular” is revealed (e.g., to distinguish History from history). We get the new pragmatist.
PP-CEM furthers that. We get the Way Forward. With “PP-CEM” we make a difference that makes a difference in what a difference makes. We employ the principles of CEM, initiated with PP, to make the most of these newly independent conditions by how we relate (“partner”) them (adjusting for balance ratios)** for greater step strength (functional value). PP-CEM is the strategy for employing differences that make differences as tactics.
Thereby increasing utility. Among all the differences, found or made, which make a difference, there is the matter of utility: Among the differences that make differences, which makes the most difference? Further: Our human metastrategy needs to be based on the difference between the Nature of Things and the things of nature. This difference changes everything.
Hence Accord … with the Nature of Things: the first PP we must make, cognitively, relative to the (B-ness plagued) things of nature. Lest we never be free TO, to be ready for the World of Possibility’s “opportunity.” PP-CEM is our R-sense ticket into the World of Possibility.
PP-CEM gives credence to, and adds something to Dewey’s “instrumentalist” pragmatism. It points TO a How that was missing there as well as in earlier pragmatic essays (e.g., James on producing [multiple] unities). But still short of CEM’s partnering and T-TT as the Way Forward. “Effect,” an R-word, begins with needed functionality – i.e., the PP-uncovered Nature of Things. The point OF the World of Possibility? Be there!
What PP-CEM does best is to do something about pragmatism’s, ala things of nature, major shortcoming: its lack of guiding principles. Utility’s value notwithstanding. CEM’s (i.e., History’s) principles apply. We can and should pursue PP possibilities, re DIFs that make DIFs, if and when we can for their Forward, front of the step, energy.***
The good news is that PP-CEM may hold up as the best Way Forward even if we have Read history wrong: as History. If Body CEM Step – the emergence of the multi-step entity in consequence of the Nature of Things’ general persisting conditions – is not a fact. (Although the dependence of evolution on the “back and forth” between body and step – not just natural selection -- is very suggestive.)
Still, consider how the brain might work. (Or a “made brain” to work?) Say that the perceptive eyes, like the rest of the body’s “bi-“s, are evolution’s contributions to animate behavior.# Behind the eyes, the brain makes something cognitively of the initial focus of attention, affirming the needed PP independence (a “what” to relate to the focal “what”) and introducing a CEM developmental procedure? It composes. Beyond “bi-“. Redressing evolution/development >1++. Something to consider if the brain is CEM-ready in capacity, but we are handcuffed, restrained from developing commensurate, stronger step capabilities by the cultural “developments” of B-ness and B-speak.
Minimally, R-sense and R- technologies can serve a dialectic function, intellectually, when contrasted with B-ness and B-speak. As the Nature of things does when contrasted with the things of nature. But why settle for the back and forth dynamic of evolution, when development offers the CEM dynamic for Forwardness via step strengthening materiality? Mind’s Grasp needs all the help it can get from R-technology to deal with WICF and WTITBTA, along with WISA re WITA.
Perhaps most tellingly, the new pragmatist fights indifference. Whether that indifference be with respect to students and education, to voters and democracy, to decision makers relative to problem solvers, to mere collectors of interesting differences (“something new”).
“So what?” Indeed. We need differences that make differences. Step differences to be made if there is no other satisfactory source of effectiveness – as, for example, the development of procedural technology to obtain greater step materiality (consequentiality).
“E = PP-CEM”?
Where “E” is emergence (functionality re needed functionality) … and the rest, PP-CEM, is History.
Better, surely, than the “E” in the equation, “I + O = E” …
Where “E” is extinct … and “I + O” is instinct plus outstinct, two B-ness sources of instruction … but not instruction enough for the human condition, given the Nature of Things’ partial order.
And how about a new word – sort of: “CEMinal.” Adjective pertaining to the source of emergence. (Eve would like it. It’s about the beginning of an effective step.) Musical composition provides accessible examples, as when melody is partnered with rhythm (e.g. “swing”), as when songs partner lyrics with music. “Stardust” and “White Christmas” are each effectively CEMinal, Even more so (sometimes) when further composition (“arrangement”) adds performers (e.g., the Artie Shaw band and Bing Crosby, respectively).
PP is CEMinal. It breaks apart so we can compose anew. We must often pry stuff apart in order to see if something better can be made with and/or of them. Thoughtknots, for example. The molecular step, behavioral architecture and relevant Help all depend on this kind of Historical “reductionism.” ##
* Seeing “Effect” not as an R-word but as the result of a (B-ness) “cause.” (Adding to Eve’s distress. She insisted on a more complete pragmatist.) Note the appellation of “applied research” pointing to effects of what has been, or might be, tried. In contrast to “basic research,” which points down invidiously to such applied research. “Applicable research,” anyone?
** Not the B-ness “gaps.” Ratios are the R-sense way. The “/” in the ratio points TO the teeter-totter’s functionality in calling for balance via arrangement, for partnering. (“Partner” needs to become an R-word!)
*** See the “other” cognitive dissonance,” which pertains not to the state of the body (“dissonance”) but to the step’s cognition of an obverse relationship. The latter has been found to not lead to post-decision avoidance of information of the unchosen alternative (Carter, Pyszka & Guerrero, Journalism Quarterly, 1969). Any discrepancy cognition (=/=) has potential PP and CEM value. (As when the child, asked to choose among vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream cones, might say “Yes” – or suggest a banana split.)
# i.e., multiple steps forward. The Nature of Things’ general persisting condition of discontinuity applies to steps as well as bodies. Lest “next step” be an empty promise, emergence a lost cause.
## As contrasted with the more familiar B-reductionism, where we dissect a body to distinguish its components. B-reductionism got us out of one Stone Age. H-reductionism can get us out of our behavioral Stone Age. (This is not the same as Peirce’s “abduction.”)
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) 2020 R. F. Carter
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