C-7. Gold and silver
In his tale of the Comstock Lode, DeQuille tells of a prospector coming upon the camp of two other prospectors, In asking them about prospects, he is told that their search for gold has been burdened by a profusion of heavy black material that has to be shoveled out of the way.
He informs them that the heavy black stuff is mostly silver. And the rest is history.
Consequentiality has its gold and silver too. The bodies, the behavioral entities, that make differences and the different entities they make are, so to speak, the gold. But consequentiality qua process, the behavior of making and taking steps, the creative, inventive making of differences that can then make differences, is the silver.
It is this processual consequentiality, not the “dust-to-dust” producer and not the rusting or eroding, perhaps soon-to-be-obsolescent product, which is the most consequential aspect of the Nature of things’ general persisting condition of consequentiality (III).
Still, our understanding of behavioral structure before the fact, when we need it for the composing of solutions to problems (II) – and especially of the behavioral problem (I) – has been largely forfeit to comprehending, after the fact, particular behaviors as properties of bodies (See C-14). And scientific emphasis has been on the Order of things, not the Nature of things.
When it comes to the attention paid to behavioral entities, there is an imbalance: it’s more entity than behavior (XI). Because the structure of the step is so different from that of the body, in its relatings, relations (not relationships) and elements (thingks as well as things) – see X — neglect of its structure (e.g., seeing it as a globby “means” or “response”) has not prepared us to be effective step makers and takers
.
Consider the matter of needs: Bodily needs are well known (e.g., food and shelter) and do not suffer for lack of emphasis. But what of step needs – other than body capacities to take steps? A need for information, yes. A need for community – of some sort, yes. A need for support here or for help there, yes. Particulars of step need. But what about more general needs, such as behavioral necessity’s “requisites and imperatives” principles (III) of capability development with their implications for compositional change?
There’s silver there! Needs … problems … solutions … progress! These are step needs, and like body needs: In consequence, of consequence. Perhaps like the blackness of the Comstock silver deposits our failure to isolate the behavioral problem (I: Pbeh) has made the silver here invisible.
Just how gross the neglect of behavioral structure has been can be seen in the treatment accorded behavior in the familiar cross-tabulation used in empirical research. There two behaviors are given the status of attributes for “the person who” possesses them. A cross-tabulation places such persons in a matrix defined by degrees of the two attributes/properties possessed. For example:
He informs them that the heavy black stuff is mostly silver. And the rest is history.
Consequentiality has its gold and silver too. The bodies, the behavioral entities, that make differences and the different entities they make are, so to speak, the gold. But consequentiality qua process, the behavior of making and taking steps, the creative, inventive making of differences that can then make differences, is the silver.
It is this processual consequentiality, not the “dust-to-dust” producer and not the rusting or eroding, perhaps soon-to-be-obsolescent product, which is the most consequential aspect of the Nature of things’ general persisting condition of consequentiality (III).
Still, our understanding of behavioral structure before the fact, when we need it for the composing of solutions to problems (II) – and especially of the behavioral problem (I) – has been largely forfeit to comprehending, after the fact, particular behaviors as properties of bodies (See C-14). And scientific emphasis has been on the Order of things, not the Nature of things.
When it comes to the attention paid to behavioral entities, there is an imbalance: it’s more entity than behavior (XI). Because the structure of the step is so different from that of the body, in its relatings, relations (not relationships) and elements (thingks as well as things) – see X — neglect of its structure (e.g., seeing it as a globby “means” or “response”) has not prepared us to be effective step makers and takers
.
Consider the matter of needs: Bodily needs are well known (e.g., food and shelter) and do not suffer for lack of emphasis. But what of step needs – other than body capacities to take steps? A need for information, yes. A need for community – of some sort, yes. A need for support here or for help there, yes. Particulars of step need. But what about more general needs, such as behavioral necessity’s “requisites and imperatives” principles (III) of capability development with their implications for compositional change?
There’s silver there! Needs … problems … solutions … progress! These are step needs, and like body needs: In consequence, of consequence. Perhaps like the blackness of the Comstock silver deposits our failure to isolate the behavioral problem (I: Pbeh) has made the silver here invisible.
Just how gross the neglect of behavioral structure has been can be seen in the treatment accorded behavior in the familiar cross-tabulation used in empirical research. There two behaviors are given the status of attributes for “the person who” possesses them. A cross-tabulation places such persons in a matrix defined by degrees of the two attributes/properties possessed. For example:
Attribute A: |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
Attribute B: |
1 |
x |
x |
x |
2 |
x |
x |
x |
|
3 |
x |
x |
x |
For better or worse, each cell entry represents the relationship between the two behaviors (e.g., as gross as years lived or years of education, as singular as vote cast or product purchased).
But, on the agenda of the Order of things, the matrix is thus defined:
But, on the agenda of the Order of things, the matrix is thus defined:
Attribute A: |
1 |
2 |
3 |
|
Attribute B: |
1 |
X |
x |
x |
2 |
x |
X |
x |
|
3 |
x |
x |
X |
Only the X cells are deemed of consequence: they are a demonstration of attribute correlation, and of the Order of things, assessed against the other cells aggregated as “error” for statistical analysis.
Yet each cell pertains to a behavioral relationship. The “off”-diagonal entries serve here only to help assess the degree of correlation. But what justifies dismissing the implications of each cell? Each begs to be understood as a characterization – albeit crude and biased – of process consequentiality – if only to raise a new research question. This, at least potentially, is part of the silver.
However, the major deposit of silver, so to speak, is to be found in the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh), where the need for, and the structure of, compositional change capability (II) in light of the Nature of things can be found. Much that is of consequentiality, most notably of possibility, is yet to be mined. Once extracted, then we can set about a proper smelting, such that the structure and material consequentiality of the behavior (in behavioral entity) will get treatment commensurate with the structure and materiality of the entity. (Hence III: “Life: the double crystal.”)
That behaviors (and behavior per se, especially) have been so poorly represented, and in such a biased manner (as body properties), hardly promises to be the kind of understanding that will enable us to construct the steps we need to make and take in order to solve our problems.
(See C-10: Community Science)
(c) 2010 R. F. Carter
Yet each cell pertains to a behavioral relationship. The “off”-diagonal entries serve here only to help assess the degree of correlation. But what justifies dismissing the implications of each cell? Each begs to be understood as a characterization – albeit crude and biased – of process consequentiality – if only to raise a new research question. This, at least potentially, is part of the silver.
However, the major deposit of silver, so to speak, is to be found in the behavioral problem (I:Pbeh), where the need for, and the structure of, compositional change capability (II) in light of the Nature of things can be found. Much that is of consequentiality, most notably of possibility, is yet to be mined. Once extracted, then we can set about a proper smelting, such that the structure and material consequentiality of the behavior (in behavioral entity) will get treatment commensurate with the structure and materiality of the entity. (Hence III: “Life: the double crystal.”)
That behaviors (and behavior per se, especially) have been so poorly represented, and in such a biased manner (as body properties), hardly promises to be the kind of understanding that will enable us to construct the steps we need to make and take in order to solve our problems.
(See C-10: Community Science)
(c) 2010 R. F. Carter
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