Generic consensus process

A trade-mark phrase all across the Occupy Stuff universe is “Mic Check!”.

Shouting “Mic check” means “everybody in earshot listen up and repeat after me…”

Many items of an OWS/99% reform agenda have been hammered out in countless hours of consensus-based “General Assembly” meetings around the US and around the world. “Mic Check” is about as good a phrase as any to represent the entire, evolving OWS consensus process or practice.

This consensus process as a whole, including all its rules and variations, represents the idealistic side of OWS. It has produced many fine ideas for social, political, and economic reforms. But to balance this ”mic check” consensus idealism, OWS needs a complementary, pragmatic process that we might call a “Reality Check”.

What should an OWS “reality check” process consist of?

The academic side of my nature would say that a “reality check” is about using a modern systems science approach: empirical evidence, quantitative measurement, quality control, continuous self-correction, etc. From that perspective the “reality check” process is about how OWS studies and corrects itself– how the movement observes, measures, interprets, documents, and improves itself inch by inch, day by day.

On the other hand, a more intuitive or poetic side of my nature would say that a “reality check” is all about ones instincts or “gut feelings”.

But gut feelings and scientific methods might seem at first glance to have little in common. How could both represent a coherent interpretation of “reality”?

They represent two different ways of empirically checking or verifying a particular interpretation of data.  The “gut feelings” approach (gut feelings about “truth” are sometimes referred to as a “bullshit meter”) is instinctive and fast, whereas the “scientific” approach is generally more formal, standardized, and tedious.

Although a gut feeling and a scientific measurement are both empirical, the former is more subjective and less rational, while the latter is both more objective and rational. We are equally “conscious” of  gut feelings and rational proofs, but we tend to feel more conscious of how we arrive at our scientific measurements and rational proofs–whereas we are often far less conscious of how we arrive at our gut feelings. Our gut feelings just arrive on the threshold of our awareness spontaneously. They are generated by various specialized parts of our brain that have evolved to rapidly respond to danger or opportunity. They do not depend on language or even on our conscious rules of logic or rational thought.

Each in its own way, both rational thought and gut feeling are subject to complex combinations of biases.

Because rational thought is represented in language, problems of language spill over into problems of thought. A given set of facts can often be woven into very different, sometimes diametrically opposed, narratives. Said another way, a given set of dots can often be connected in multiple ways that suggest different interpretations.

The biases involved in gut feelings are programmed into our nervous systems by eons of evolution and are not generally open to our casual self-examination. Science (as in evolutionary psychology) is gradually teasing out some of the common biases in our gut feelings, but what little is yet known is not yet known very widely.

Ultimately, rational analysis and gut feelings must serve as mutual cross-checks (reality checks) on one other.

But how does a reality check process relate to OWS specifically?

For example, there are numerous historical and cultural variations of the consensus process. The appropriate reality check has to do with making sure that the OWS version of consensus process actually works out well in practice. It means measuring actual facts or results (typically before and after activities, projects, or actions) and adjusting  actual practices over time and across local conditions. It means continuous observation, adjustment and improvement– that is, continuously revising theory, ideology, and methods to fit the facts on the ground, not the other way around. (Note: That does not in any way mean “the ends justify the means”. )

Image by ArtistJ via Flickr

Reality Check: what does the latest phase of the “Arab Spring”, the “Arab Autumn”, especially the Egyptian “Second Revolution” against their military  establishment, mean for the OWS movement?

Gut feeling: don’t go home (leave the streets) before the revolution is really over. As soon as occupiers leave the streets the old rats start sneaking back into the halls and the seats of power.

Rational analysis: Moderate, mainstream, middle-class-leaning people are not really comfortable in the street for long. They aren’t all that comfortable with open social (class) conflict, much less civil disobedience. So the tendency may be for Occupy coalitions to weaken and unravel around effects of prolonged physical occupation and the status-quo backlash which may include police or military violence and other reprisals. The evidence seems to show that it is easier to mobilize an oppositional coalition against a corrupt and unjust status quo than to maintain a proactive coalition in support of a specific set of reforms or prescriptions.

Therefore, to maintain the broadest coalition for the longest time, OWS should limit the specific reform proposals to the lowest common denominators across 99% coalition communities.  Adopt narrower ideological agenda items only if and when those opposed to them have already left the coalition, not before.

I think we should reconsider and perhaps pare down the OWS reform agenda in this light.

In my opinion, the lowest possible common denominator for OWS is opposition to political corruption. No other specific reform of social or economic injustice is possible until the general level of corruption is drastically reduced. But getting money out of politics is fairly complicated and controversial in its own right, and that may already be a bigger reform bite than a 99% coalition can chew.

GOP, Tea Party (TP), and Libertarian Party (LP) objections to campaign financing reforms, election reforms, lobbying reforms, and ethics reforms center on conflating money and speech and on an excessive and indiscriminate objection to “regulations” of any kind on any thing. That extreme ideology is unrealistic and incompatible with a 99% coalition.

Its time to concentrate on populist narratives that  justify regulating political corruption as a lesser evil to rampant, unfettered corruption in and out of government. Every single law ever established, including each of the Ten Commandments, is a regulation. The GOP/TP/LP ideal of a tiny government and an unregulated free market economy is based on a premise that all market failures are caused by government regulation or interference. The reality is that unregulated markets also fail for a variety of reasons including information asymmetry (as in the principal-agent problem), game theory dilemmas, externalities, economic irrationality and behavioral idiosyncrasies; and they produce excessive concentrations of wealth and power in weak or failed states as well as in strongly regulated ones. The fact is that corruption, concentration, and abuse of power are problems that cross all public/private sector lines and all ideological lines. Limiting the corruption, concentration, and abuse of power to tolerable levels cannot be implemented simply by reducing the size of government. It requires a fair, balanced, and organic body of law, an impartial judiciary, and a strong but restrained arm of  enforcement.

Furthermore, the issue of systemic political and judicial corruption is one that fully justifies the tactics of non-violent civil disobedience.

The question is not whether we should have laws/regulations or not (that was generally settled several thousand years ago despite the persistence of a cranky minority), but what those laws should be.

Ultimately I agree with FDR:  economic security is just as much a basic a requirement for liberty as is the security of our property and our persons.

But for the present, it will be a miracle if we can all just agree that:

it’s time to GET MONEY OUT of politics.

Period.

(www.getmoneyout.com)

Poor Richard

Related articles

• Mic Check (Mic Check) GA Albuquerque (my.firedoglake.com)
• Life after occupation (Salon) (occupyusatoday.com)
• FDR’s “Economic Bill of Rights” (wikipedia.com)

I think that class, culture, and ideology conflicts among the 99% tend to hurt us and help the 1%. Differences  don’t always have to lead to conflicts. Coalitions can transcend  differences and a coalition of the 99% has many differences to include and transcend.

The positions staked out by the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly all appear to be valid Constitutional, common law, and ethical positions to me.

But perhaps equally important, the 99% movement may offer us an opportunity to help each other to develop and mature psychologically and to evolve culturally.

I’m hoping for the OWS struggle to force us 99% to become more ideology-pluralistic. If we could figure out how to tolerate our diversity and agree to disagree on some issues, maybe we could develop enough common political ground to force the powers-that-be to reform in certain areas.

Beyond that, maybe each ideological group within the 99% can learn to better appreciate the value of diversity and good-faith opposition. Perhaps in some way such diversity and opposition is just a natural “separation of powers”.

In many countries, the principle of “separation of powers” is an important principle of governance.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

“The model was first developed in ancient Greece and came into widespread use by the Roman Republic as part of the unmodified Constitution of the Roman Republic. Under this model, the state is divided into branches, each with separate and independent powers and areas of responsibility so that no one branch has more power than the other branches. The normal division of branches is into an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary. For similar reasons, the concept of separation of church and state has been adopted in a number of countries, to varying degrees depending on the applicable legal structures and prevalent views toward the proper role of religion in society.”

The implicit justification for separation of powers is the goal of a counterpoised balance between opposing forces that leads to a state of stable homeostasis. The point of separation is not to create efficiency but to create inefficiency. If efficiency were the goal, we might get rid of the messy legislature and judiciary and leave all government powers to a unified executive. The independence, equality, and mutual opposition of separate branches of government preserves various values and methods that we want protected. We don’t want one one approach to governance eclipsing the others.

The separation and contra-posed balance between the public and private sectors of an economy may have a similar utility.

I think that progressives err in the false hope that big government will automatically protect them from big business, and I think libertarians err in the false hope that small government will automatically free them from tyranny.

The greatest danger to liberty is not in the balanced opposition between the public and private sector but in their collusion.

In the article “Libertarians to Occupiers: Crony capitalism is the problem | Libertarian Party ” Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle says:

“I have been following the Occupy protesters, who call themselves the ’99%’, with interest.

“It’s true that 99% of Americans do not enjoy the special benefits of crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is very different from real capitalism. In crony capitalism, government hands out special favors and protections to politically well-connected businesses.

“The TARP bailouts, Solyndra, and the military-industrial complex are all facets of crony capitalism.

“Libertarians love free markets and hate crony capitalism.

I agree about the negative consequences of “crony capitalism”. But is crony capitalism only defined as an unwholesome alliance between government and business? What about unwholesome alliances between businesses? Granted, the state can behave badly. Business can behave badly. Is the libertarian position that business behaves badly only when corrupted by the state? In the absence of state interference, in a “state of nature”, would business regulate itself in a way consistent with the public interest, the general welfare, and the pursuit of happiness by the weakest members of society?

The LP article says “A free market is where the government leaves businesses alone, does not attempt to pick winners and losers, does not stifle competition, does not hand out corporate welfare, and does not absolve businesses of liability for their actions. Most of our economy today does not resemble a free market at all.“

Picking winners and losers, stifling competition, handing out corporate welfare, and absolving businesses of liability are things that government generally should not do, I strongly agree. But is opposing and correcting such abuses necessarily the same thing as “leaving business alone” entirely?

It is generally recognized that a free society is characterized by consent of the governed, and that such consent usually includes consent to a system of laws–the rule of law being a lesser evil to the rule of men or the law of the jungle (the “war of all against all” –Thomas Hobbes).

Most people agree that a free market is also a creature of law and not a creature of wild nature or of an oligarchy (a powerful or elite class). In nature, the wild marketplace is very free for the strongest but hardly so for the weakest. A market that is as free and fair for the weak as for the strong is a market of laws. A market of laws is a market with referees.

In libertarian theory, who are the makers of the laws and who are the referees if not the people’s elected representatives?

Human beings don’t live by ideology alone. They must also have peanut butter. The objective metrics of happiness and well-being are better in societies with bigger governments, higher taxes, and less disparity in wealth and income. Those things are not “natural”, nor are they good in and of themselves. We should only measure utility in pragmatic terms, in outcomes judged against our most important values and how well they are served by any particular institution, process, policy, or rule.

Where are the benefits of small government in failed states like Afghanistan, Sudan, or Somalia? Such places are ruled by tribal cronyism and corrupt warlords. I fear that a libertarian revolution would fare little better than communist revolutions have done.

Does that mean there is no room for capitalism in the US? Capitalism comes in many shapes and sizes. Libertarians and progressives can agree on the evils of crony capitalism. But other forms of capitalism also embrace questionable theories about the definition of freedom, the role of externalities, etc. It is all too common for theories of capitalism to incorporate euphamisms for injustice, theft, deception, etc. On the other hand, there are theories such as natural capitalism and cooperative capitalism that try to correct many of those faults. My own terminology for cooperative capitalism is Green Free Enterprise.

An evolving society should be an open laboratory where all economic theories (within reason) can be tested and compared. I would even like to see public and private solutions to providing goods and services compete side by side in the marketplace. Of course, to keep the public sector from taking unfair advantage over private enterprise we would need strict rules of fair play. I explore this in “Why can’t the public and private sectors just get along?“

In modern society there is also room for many competing political ideologies, but there is no room for any single ideology to overpower the whole.  The US founding documents were amazingly ideology-agnostic for their time. I would like to see our future become increasingly pragmatic, utilitarian, and ideology- agnostic. But regardless, for the marketplace of ideas to stay open and free requires limits, rules, and honest referees.

A central thesis of mine is that the true backbone of human civilization and progress is not political theory or ideology but actually what is known as “common law“.

From time to time new states are formed (sometimes in revolution as was ours) and old states are re-formed to achieve closer conformity with the global evolutionary progress of common law, which traces back to pre-history, before the laws of Greece and Rome, even before the ancient code of Hammurabi. The common law represents a gradual, case-by-case resolution of tensions between conflicting rights, interests, values, and circumstances. That is the process which has produced those societies that are best and most convivial to live in today. I think that is the only process that is complex and inefficient enough to produce better societies in the future. Revolutions that have tried to establish states based on pure ideologies rather than on a reconciliation with the global progress of common law have failed.

Back to Occupy Wall Street

In the case of the Occupy Wall Street movement, I think we are hearing many diverse complaints, demands, and proposals from many sub-groups. But from the General Assembly I have seen a set of plainly and briefly stated, specific charges of abuses of power. I have not heard a call for revolution or an end to capitalism from the General Assembly. Only a list of obvious crimes and injustices and a call for redressing these grievances as simply and directly as possible.

In the US the right to petition is guaranteed by the First Amendment, which specifically prohibits Congress from abridging “the right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The positions staked out by the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly are all valid Constitutional and common law positions.

In my opinion, the Occupy Everywhere Together movement is a kind of social and economic earthquake caused by an increasing fracture between layers of society based on common law and layers of powerful special interests. Those powerful special interests exert their power both upon and through government. The line between the public sector and the private sector is not the primary fault line causing this quake. The central fault line runs between the parts of society based upon thousands of years of civilization and common law principles of justice and equity; and those cancerous parts of our society that have grown disproportionately from special interests over the past few decades.

But the cancer has already metastasized and is widely spread throughout society, as the “Stockholm Syndrome” of the Tea Party and the “53%” illustrate. It isn’t just the 1% who are corrupt. The corruption has flowed into every organ and tissue of society where mass media and popular culture could carry it. There is no simple and efficient way of treating this cancer.  There is no neat, efficient  ideological or structural cure.

We are each going to have to battle this cancer of corruption within our selves, within our own beliefs, assumptions, and lifestyles. The Occupy movement may be a venue for this struggle, not just between the 1% and the 99%, but among and within ourselves. It will be best if the Occupy Movement lasts a very long time, if it burns slowly, and it forces us to get to know our own internal diseases very intimately.

Nothing about this can or should be efficient. Efficiency does not give us the space and the time to explore the hidden corners and crevices of our diversity, complexity, and dissonance.

That is the value of inefficiency.

Poor Richard

Related:

(blog.p2pfoundation.net)

Gideon Rosenblatt and Lawrence Lessig: What to think of the framing of the #OccupyWallStreet movement as a ‘Tea Party of the Left’?

Dave Pollard on the long term prospects of the ‘metamovement’

Tim Rayner on the characteristics of #OccupyWallStreet as a swarm movement

John Robb on Real Open Source Leadership at #OccupyWallStreet

Understanding the Consensus Methodology at Occupy Wall Street

Addendum:

VERY FAVORABLE 25%

SOMEWHAT FAVORABLE 29%

SOMEWHAT UNFAVORABLE 10%

VERY UNFAVORABLE 13%

DON’T KNOW ENOUGH 23%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 1%

Q12. DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THAT POSITION?
A. WALL STREET AND ITS LOBBYISTS HAVE TOO MUCH INFLUENCE IN WASHINGTON

BASE: FAMILIAR WITH PROTESTS (787)

AGREE 86%

DISAGREE 11%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 4%

Q12. DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THAT POSITION?

B. THE GAP BETWEEN RICH AND POOR IN THE UNITED STATES HAS GROWN TOO LARGE

BASE: FAMILIAR WITH PROTESTS (787)

AGREE 79%

DISAGREE 17%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 3%

Q12. DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THAT POSITION?

C. EXECUTIVES OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN IN 2008 SHOULD BE PROSECUTED

BASE: FAMILIAR WITH PROTESTS (787)

AGREE 71%

DISAGREE 23%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 6%

Q12. DO YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH THAT POSITION?

D. THE RICH SHOULD PAY MORE TAXES

BASE: FAMILIAR WITH PROTESTS (787)

AGREE 68%

DISAGREE 28%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 4%

Q12A. IN YOUR VIEW, WILL THIS PROTEST MOVEMENT HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON AMERICAN POLITICS TODAY, A NEGATIVE IMPACT, OR WILL IT HAVE LITTLE IMPACT ON AMERICAN POLITICS TODAY?

BASE: FAMILIAR WITH PROTESTS (787)

POSITIVE IMPACT 30%

NEGATIVE IMPACT 9%

LITTLE IMPACT 56%

NO ANSWER/DON’T KNOW 6%

——————————————————–

Why the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Should Cooperate (www.theatlantic.com)

“For all their disagreements, they share a belief that the relationship between finance and government needs reforming”

I discuss these questions further with my libertarian friend, Jeff:

Jeff wrote: “There are issues where the two sides could agree — ending corporate welfare, closing at least some overseas bases – to name just two. I think both groups span a broader spectrum than is being recognized. Some of those participating in OWS are actually advocates of less government interference in the economy — interference which invariably favors Big Business. And the TEA Party groups range from sincere advocates of a small, limited government to typical Romney-McCain Republicans.

PR: Well said, Jeff. Ending corporate welfare and excessive consolidation is as crucial to free enterprise as it is to democratic governance. IMO the global financial crisis is not just some random drive-by event, but is part of a criminal strategy of “robber baron” monopoly capitalism. Financial crises = budget cuts = mass privatization = neo-feudalism (global corporate governance). True free enterprise is the antidote.

I am frustrated by the difficulty my friends on the left have in seeing their entrepreneurial responsibilities and opportunities. I am also frustrated by the difficulty libertarians seem to have understanding the threat posed by concentrated wealth and power whether it be in the public or private sector. I think that progressives err in the false hope that big government will protect them from big business, and I think libertarians err in the false hope that small government will free them from tyranny.

It may well be that a cross-pollination between libertarians and progressives is the only way forward out of this mess. That is going to take depolarizing some class war and culture war biases on both sides. I have been as guilty of polarizing rhetoric as anyone, but I am rethinking my biases and trying to figure out how to mend my ways. You may be just the man to help me with that if you can overlook some of my inevitable old-guard-lefty rhetorical lapses.

I understand it is fairly common for libertarians to oppose corporate welfare, but how are libertarian positions spread on the consolidation of wealth and power in the private sector? IMO that is the more serious threat to liberty, fully equivalent to any threat from the state. As a progressive I might add that at least in the case of state power we still have some semblance of popular representation.

Jeff: “I believe a case could be made that most of the outrageous concentrations of wealth occur -because of, not in spite of, political interference in the economy. This is sometimes at the State and local levels, not just at the Federal level — for instance, a State might pass a statute setting such stringent requirements to sell health insurance within that State that only a few insurers can meet them; they then can divide up the market and charge much more than they could have in a free market. At the local level, even such weapons as zoning and sign control can lead to larger competitors getting larger still, and smaller competitors either shrinking or even going under. Note that -thoroughgoing- deregulation, not the faux kind such as the California electricity “deregulation” of several years ago, is almost always fought by the bigger entrants in a given field. Regarding government power, I would prefer to see legislative districts be smaller so that those not backed by Big Business have a chance of winning.

PR: I agree with all of the above except the possible implication that consolidation and concentration might magically disappear if not for the state. I’b be very skeptical of any such theory, but it’s probably moot. The state, like the poor, is always with us. In fact, I think most ideology is moot, since in the absence of a revolution we can never make over the status quo from top to bottom to meet the conditions required to test and either validate of falsify any ideology. Perhaps we can look around the world for real examples that might support or contradict a given theory. If I had to choose between Scandinavian counties where taxes and regulations were high, or African countries where taxes and regulations were low, I’d prefer the former.

Re: Libertarians to Occupiers: Crony capitalism is the problem | Libertarian Party,  (www.lp.org)

PR: I agree about the negative consequences of “crony capitalism”. But is crony capitalism only defined as an unwholesome alliance between government and business? What about unwholesome alliances between businesses? Granted, the state can behave badly. Business can behave badly. Is the libertarian position that business behaves badly only when corrupted by the state? In the absences of state interference business, in a “state of nature”, will regulate itself in a manner consistent with the public interest, the general welfare, and the pursuit of happiness by the weakest members of society?

The LP article says “”A free market is where the government leaves businesses alone, does not attempt to pick winners and losers, does not stifle competition, does not hand out corporate welfare, and does not absolve businesses of liability for their actions. Most of our economy today does not resemble a free market at all.”

Picking winners and losers, stifling competition, handing out corporate welfare, and absolving businesses of liability are things that government generally shouldn’t do, I agree. But is that really the same as “leaving business alone” entirely?

It is generally recognized that a free society is characterized by consent of the governed, and that consent usually includes consent to a system of laws–the rule of law being a lesser evil to the rule of men or the law of the jungle (the “war of all against all” (Hobbes)).

Most people agree that a free market is also a creature of law and not a creature of wild nature or of oligarchy. In nature, the wild marketplace is very free for the the strongest but hardly so for the weakest. A market that is as free and fair for the weak as for the strong is a market of laws. A market of laws is a market with referees.

In libertarian theory, who are the makers of the laws and who are the referees if not the republic?

Anyway, my own theory is that the real backbone of civilization and progress is not political theory or ideology but actually what is known as “common law”. From time to time new states are formed, as was ours, and old states are periodically reformed, to come into closer conformity with the evolutionary progress in the common law, which traces back to pre-history, even before the code of Hammurabi. The common law represents a gradual, case by case resolution of tensions between conflicting rights, values, and situations. That is the process that has produced those societies that are best to live in.

Jeff: “The libertarian view is that the only “regulation” should be that a business must not engage in force or fraud. Yes, businesses can sometimes for “unholy alliances”, but if they try to exploit that, then others can enter the market involved to compete with them. “Monopolies, trusts, etc. do not last long *if* they are not favored by government. Often, as in the case of the railroads or the phone companies, government will actually force smaller businesses to merge with the larger ones, to form a giant that would never have come about without political interference.

PR: I don’t buy that. What prevents a dominant player from continuing to buy up the competition? That requires neither force nor fraud, and has occurred many times. In fact, it would appear to be almost the rule. Government often gets bribed in to make the process go faster or cheaper for the predator, but is seldom really an essential or necessary accomplice.

Rockefeller and Standard Oil is the classic example where massive consolidation occurred rapidly in a largely unregulated market, but there have been plenty of other examples. Microsoft retarded the progress of computer technology by perhaps 20 years with no help from government. Government corruption often plays a role, but I see the role as secondary. In any case, I see the appropriate solution as eliminating corruption, not eliminating government.

People have a right to have an active, instrumental government and IMO that’s what most people actually desire. No self-sufficient minority will succeed in thwarting that desire very easily. That’s why I think libertarians waste a lot of energy and intelligence that should be invested pragmatically and creatively towards a libertarian sub-economy instead of trying to convert or reform the mainstream. The same goes for anarchists, agorists, mutualists, communists, socialists, etc.

I share your aversion to coercion and I think the mainstream should be forced to provide more “opt out” opportunities wherever practical, especially for taxes on services that someone never uses. One of the ironies I don’t understand is why some nominal libertarians complain about the poor not paying taxes. That whole strata of the economy is pretty libertarian, isn’t it?

Fortunately, despite the US leaning a bit toward central planning and regulation, there are numerous areas of the economy that are still fairly open and free, and I don’t think anyone is trying to exclude libertarians from those parts of the economy or from pursuing self-sufficient lifestyles. That is a route I’ve often taken.

An ideology- pluralistic 99% political coalition might also be used, albeit ironocally, to force the federal government to give each of our ideological subgroups undisturbed domains of the economy and culture within reason. We could almost do that now simply by each group aggregating in its own state, but perhaps we could enact a federally supported relocation program. This might really ease a lot of the tension and conflict between the more extreme or fundamentalist elements of the different ideological camps within the 99% and let the more moderate 78% get on with their lives in peace in the other 46 states.

How about:

• Democratic Socialism Land: Hawaii
• Libertarian Land: Texas
• Commieland: Washington
• Anarchy Land: Arizona

Thinking and communicating are messy processes. I want to serve up a freshly boiled mess, so put on your lobster bib.

Thinking happens in stages or layers. The most basic layer I think I understand somewhat is a process of forming sets or clusters of loosely-structured associations.

Neurons in the brain are organized in layers, columns, clusters, modules, and networked circuits. The organization is dynamically configurable. Different logical associations between  the layers, columns, clusters, modules, and networks are forming and reforming to accomplish different jobs.

One of those jobs is to assemble sets of associations that are organized around some theme. Lets say this set of associations on a common theme is the precursor of a unit of thought. I’ll call this cluster of associations on a theme a proto-thought. This proto-thought is not yet something that is represented in language. It is just a semi-structured set of associations–associations between various items that have been plucked from memory or incoming sensory data and grouped together around some theme. This semi-structured cluster of associations comes bubbling up from wherever it was assembled into a “higher” layer or network of the brain and it gets a snippet of language assigned to it–perhaps a word or group of words.

The snippet of language is like a container that is selected to hold the proto-thought so it can be further “handled” without falling apart or dissolving or getting mixed up with other proto-thoughts. The upside of using this language container is that it gives the proto-thought some persistence and some ease-of-handling properties.

The downside of using the language container is that the proto-thought that is placed into the language container is somewhat fluid and like a fluid once in the container it assumes the shape of that container.

In assuming the shape of the language container some of the original structure of the proto-thought is altered.

Once altered, its exact, original structure is forever gone. That change in structure that results from assuming the shape of the container represents a change of information or meaning. So the more closely the shape of the container matches the original shape of the proto-thought the less the original information or meaning of that proto-thought is altered. To retain as much fidelity to the original information as possible it is very important for the brain to select a container that matches the original shape of the  proto-thought as closely as possible. To the extent that those shapes do not exactly match, the original meaning of the proto-thought is altered by the shape of the selected container.

Once the language packaging is completed a unit of proto-thought becomes a unit of thought.

As the thought-binding process proceeds, many such units of thought are passed on for futher processing and assembly into bundles. By this point the thought may have become a sentence or even a pragraph. These bundles of thought continue to be combined and recombined according to some purpose the brain has set for itself. This may involve only internal self-talk or it may eventually be transmitted in some finished form to another person.

As batches of  language are received by another person they are unpacked and parsed in roughly the reverse of the original process of assembly. They are broken down into units small enough to compare against the reciever’s own internal inventory of “stock” language containers.  The fluid contents of those stock language containers are then poured into another part of the receiver’s brain where they become absorbed as proto-thoughts.

The above is only intended to be taken metaphorically. The details are not important–the main point is that features of language modify and limit the content, shape, and  meaning of our thoughts. We can’t really think outside the box of language –or even if we sometimes do, these non-language-conforming thoughts will be very transient. They will quickly “snap” into conformation with language, loosing some of the original meaning. In this way language is a powerful “snap grid” that makes it difficult for us to read or write outside the lines. I think this is one of the existential underpinnings of confirmation bias.

The take-away message is that we must examine our use of language, especially our choice of vocabulary, very closely. It not only affects how we communicate, It affects how we think.

Poor Richard

You can’t “spend” your way or “borrow” your way out of public debt crises, but you cannot cut or save your way out of them, either. You have to INVEST your way out of them. That’s how real capitalism is supposed to work.

Austrian/libertarian/laissez-faire/Tea-Party economics is wrong. Ron Paul is wrong.  But the Koch brothers hope you buy the deregulation, government is baad (ok?), every-man-for-himslef part of the story.

What progressives want to do is invest in new industries and enterprises that will create millions of good jobs and get revenue flowing into households first and then into the public treasury. The old, vested-interest money doesn’t want competition from green energy, local organic food, credit unions, housing coops, or any of that stuff, and that’s why they bankroll the libertarian/TP laissez-fairyland movements.

I think, I hope, that many in those movements just haven’t thought it all the way through. Some TP’ers only seem to think in terms of bumper-sticker slogans and sound-bite sized ideas. Others are extremely smart but may have arrested personality development (i.e. they are sub-clinical sociopaths).  A lot of young people seem to fall into that category. Self-absorbed and with chips on their shoulders to start with, they want nothing from the busy-bossy, self-absorbed establishment.  Some have conflicts between their financial interests and the better angels of their nature. Some are just decent, ordinary people who have been sold a huge load of crap. They are mad, but may not know who they should really be maddest at.

On the other hand, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that we went from a budget surplus at the end of the Clinton administration to where we are now entirely under GOP leadership. . .

Note: If you hold some of the Laissez-Fairyland beliefs but don’t think you fit any of those categories above, please let me know. I am open to finding common ground.

Poor Richard

Related PRA 2010 posts:

Libertarian Fundamentalism

Green Free-enterprise

Economical Bestiary

At Other Blogs:

Critiques Of Libertarianism

A great web site with the following topics and much more:

A Non-Libertarian FAQ [More...]

A general introduction to discussion with libertarians, with an extensive discussion of arguments commonly used by libertarian evangelists. This is the original FAQ, little changed from when it originated in 1994.

What Is Libertarianism?

Twenty views of the big picture of libertarianism.

Notorious Failures of Libertarianism

Claims widely adopted by libertarians that are spectacularly wrong.

(many more topics)

October 9, 2011, 3:14 pm

IS-LMentary

A number of readers, both at this blog and other places, have been asking for an explanation of what IS-LM is all about. Fair enough – this blogosphere conversation has been an exchange among insiders, and probably a bit baffling to normal human beings (which is why I have been labeling my posts “wonkish”).

[Update: IS-LM stands for investment-savings, liquidity-money -- which will make a lot of sense if you keep reading here]

———————

The following web site has some examples of how the super-rich pay for phoney academic opinions and propaganda to support their fraudulent financial schemes. (Entire universities are becoming little more than hired PR firms.) ~PR

———————

Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman school Tyler Cowan

There is a huge demand for rebuttals to Keynesian arguments about how to fix the economy. Anti-government right-wingers and libertarians oppose Keynesian interventions, and they have vast wads of money to throw at such issues.

Tyler Cowan, at the George Mason University Economics Department, is employed by the Kochs for just that purpose. Apparently, one of his jobs is to undermine rival economists’ arguments.

Now, it is well known that no economics model is perfect, and it is easy to assemble a list of problems and a list of people describing those problems. But the fallacy is to use this list to denounce an imperfect model in favor of worse models or none. Voltaire wrote “the perfect is the enemy of the good”, meaning that we should not discard effective solutions for pie-in-the-sky perfectionism.

It is interesting to note Cowan’s typical strategy, which like most public relations strategies is not aimed at “proof” but at convincing onlookers with incessant repetition of ideas such as “problems with IS-LM”. Cowan throws a bombshell, and then echos supporters without answering any questions about his own position at any point. A ploy to attempt to retain academic credibility in the midst of vigorous dog-whistling. He wishes to use his academic authority without being responsible to the academic community.

It looks to me as if Cowen has won. He has achieved his goal of repeating his memes numerous times and showing that there are other academic supporters of his criticisms. Basically, this is a variant of the tarbaby strategy from Uncle Remus. Trick your opponent into a fight with a tarbaby. The opponent may get in all the good licks and totally destroy the tarbaby, but afterwards you are exhausted, helpless, coated with goo, but the rabbit that set up the tarbaby is untouched and laughing.

(this web page has many links for the technically inclined)

“Real” Reality and “capital T” Truth belong to metaphysics, not to the natural world. We may wish to infer that an absolute, objective level of reality exists, but we must admit that any ultimate reality is largely unknowable to creatures such as ourselves.

The best versions of reality and truth we can capture might be called “Pretty Good Reality” and “Pretty Good Truth.” (I’m thinking of the security program called “Pretty Good Privacy”).

PRETTY GOOD will do for most ordinary purposes.

(BTW, “Pretty Good Reality” and ”Pretty Good Truth” are copyright by Poor Richard, 2011 under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDe­rivs 3.0 Unported License.)

Anti-relativism

What about those who hyperbolically and hypertensively crusade against relativism (esp. “moral relativism“) usually without the slightest understanding of it?

They wrongly believe that relativism means that “anything goes.”

People who fret about “moral relativism” are children. One cannot explain subtle matters to them.

Relativistic Morality

Everything in human life is relative, but morals, well examined, can be the least relative things of all. The passion to be a moral person can come from a place of true conscience, compassion, integrity, and nobility, or it can come from a place of fear and conformity. But if it is the former, the desire or passion to know reality and the passion to act morally are inseparable. In this kind of pragmatism, the fact of relativity is acknowledged, but one struggles through constant practice to achieve one’s highest and best approach to morality and objectivity. The life of the mind, properly understood, is not unlike the athletic life. Excellence comes from practice on the field, not only from books and chalk board talks.

Non-authoritarian (adult) secular morals are based on some version of the “Golden Rule“, which is about empathy and reciprocity, and on utility (the highest good or greatest well-being for the greatest number) both in respect to people and the entire interdependent community of life.

Empathy is a feeling or sentiment that evolution has given us (in part via “mirror neurons“) to make the fundamental law of reciprocity more agreeable to us. But reciprocity (or the “law of reciprocal maintenance” as G. I. Gurdjieff put it) is an essential law of living systems, with or without empathy.

Some people find in the law of reciprocity a justification for living things feeding on one another, but I question that. To fully satisfy the law of reciprocity one would have to be willing to be eaten or otherwise exploited in return. If there were a species of creatures that treated us as we treat the cow, pig, dog, etc.–would we be happy about that? The question of pain is only one factor to consider when imagining how agreeable such a reciprocal relationship would be to us. Would we only be concerned about the process and not the end? Because nature may be in some respects a “war of all against all” (Hobbes), does that limit the human imagination from devising less cruel and violent relationships with nature? Of course not, unless one is simply a dull clod.

Perspective

One aspect of  human relativity is perspectivism. This is a philosophical view developed by Friedrich Nietzsche that all ideations take place from particular perspectives. This means that there are many possible conceptual schemes, or perspectives in which judgment of truth or value can be made. This implies that no way of seeing the world can be taken as definitively “true”, but does not necessarily entail that all perspectives are equally valid.

Simulation

A basic idea of epistemological relativity is that the closest anyone can come to objective reality or truth is some approximation. Each brain creates its own simulation(s) of reality based on its sense inputs, its processing of those inputs, its interpretations, and its own intrinsic characteristics. Since brains can communicate with other brains, multiple perspectives can be combined or merged to some extent.

Wheels within wheels

“…and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.” (Ezekiel 1:16)

We are further removed from absolute truth or reality by the possibility that all we know of reality may be part of another level of simulation. Reality may consist of recursive simulations within simulations. This is the “simulation argument” or “matrix hypothesis”.

http://en.wikipedia/simulated_reality :

“A simplified version of this argument proceeds as such:

1. It is possible that an advanced civilization could create a computer simulation which contains individuals with artificial intelligence (AI).
2. Such a civilization would likely run many, billions for example, of these simulations (just for fun, for research or any other permutation of possible reasons).
3. A simulated individual inside the simulation wouldn’t necessarily know that it is inside a simulation — it is just going about its daily business in what it considers to be the “real world.”

Then the ultimate question is — if one accepts that the above premises are at least possible — which of the following is more likely?

a. We are the one civilization which develops AI simulations and happens not to be in one itself?

b. We are one of the many (billions) of simulations that has run? (Remember point 3.) In greater detail, this argument attempts to prove the trichotomy, either that:

• intelligent races will never reach a level of technology where they can run simulations of reality so detailed they can be mistaken for reality (assuming that this is possible in principle); or
• races who do reach such a sophisticated level do not tend to run such simulations; or
• we are almost certainly living in such a simulation.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Poor Richard

Some Pretty Good Truth from my favorite young youtube philosopher, ContraPoints:

Send the National Guard into New York City and elsewhere to protect the right of We the People peaceably to assemble.

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are being beaten, bloodied, pepper-sprayed, photographed, arrested, finger-printed and harassed by police and by counterintelligence agents.

The First Amendment guarantees “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The kinds of harassment and counterintelligence mentioned above abridge that right.

Local restrictions on assembly intended to keep good order in normal times should also be suspended in this instance.

Therefore, we petition our government to send the National Guard into New York City and anywhere else where police, agents of government, or thugs may abuse and abridge the civil rights of Occupy Wall Street and affiliated demonstrators.

Created: Oct 09, 2011
Issues: Civil Rights and Liberties, Human Rights

Signatures needed by November 08, 2011 to reach goal of 25,000: 24,999

Sign Here at WhiteHouse.gov

http://wh.gov/2XZ

This is the most important thing in the world.

Some musical accompaniment:

Tracy Chapman – Revolution

The statement issued from Zuccotti (Liberty) Park by the general assembly at Occupy Wall Street:

“As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members. That our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors. That a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people, and the Earth, and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.

We come to you at a time when corporations — which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality — run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here as is our right to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in workplaces based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is, itself, a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut worker’s health care and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams, but look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives, or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully kept people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners, even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City general assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard.”

————————–

Keith Olbermann reads the Zuccotti Park manifesto on air (also hundreds of viewer comments)

Occupy Everywhere!!

Buffalo Springfield – Stop Children What’s That Sound

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me i got to beware

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

“What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning. Desire is the theme of all life. It’s what makes a rose want to be a rose…“ — Charles Chaplin, “Limelight”

What is the meaning of life ?

What is the purpose of life?”

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Why do we ask these questions?

What human desire or urge are we seeking to fulfill?

But wait–what do we mean by “meaning”, and what purpose do we have for asking about our purpose?

In the universe of matter and energy, structures give rise to properties; structures and properties give rise to functions; and structures, properties, and functions give rise to capabilities. Each of these things can in turn feed back into the things it arises from, creating dynamically entangled networks of cause and effect.  Perhaps the meaning and purpose of life are defined or revealed by form or function.

"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" by Paul Gauguin

For billions of years before any life appeared on earth, the universe underwent a process of evolution (or what in the case of inanimate physics is often called self-assembly or self-organization) driven by the intrinsic structures, properties, and functions of space, matter, energy, and time.

Any particular case of structure that arises through mechanical self-organization can also be broken down again. In fact, it appears that each individual, localized structure that forms in the universe–atoms, molecules,  stars, galaxies, etc.–almost certainly shall be broken down eventually. And yet despite this, it also appears that the overall amount of structure and complexity created by self-organization and evolution has continued to progressively increase for billions of years.

As intelligent and imaginative creatures we may look back at all of this progressive self-organization and evolution and imagine that the purpose of matter and energy is to produce progressive overall organization and complexity within the universe; and the purpose of life is to continue and extend that trajectory of evolution into ever-greater forms of complexity and diversity.

Viewed retrospectively we can impute the purpose of creating progressive organization and complexity to the role that each individual thing plays in that overall progress. But we probably should admit that the word purpose had no meaning until that word was created by us. Human beings created that word and endowed it with a meaning of our own choosing for its utility to us.

As far as we know, the province of meaning and purpose is confined to the human consciousness or at least to living things with similar cognitive abilities.  When we ask “What is the meaning and the purpose of life?” we are currently limited to asking this question of ourselves, individually and/or collectively, and it is up to us to answer.

Is this anthropomorphizing the idea of purpose? Yes and no. Purpose carries a certain connotation we can’t quite shake: intentionality or design. The purpose of a typewriter is to print words on paper–that’s what its intended for– but it can also function as a doorstop or boat anchor. Function, on the other hand, can be said to be purely objective. There is no anthropomorphism in saying the function of the universe is to create progressive complexity and diversity and, eventually, biological life.  We can clearly see this function in 20-20 hindsight. There may be functions that escape our notice, but those which we notice can be cataloged empirically. So at present we can only ascribe the notion of purpose and meaning to conscious beings.

There are many who consider the evolution of the universe to be purposeless, unintentional, and accidental; yet there are many others who consider the possibility of our particular universe being a “happy accident” to be nil. Back in the 1980′s MIT did a computer simulation that computed the odds of life evolving by chance to be roughly equivalent to the odds of a tornado hitting a junkyard and accidentally creating a fully functional Boeing 747.   However,  scenarios that include multiple cycles of universe expansion and contraction, or scenarios that include multiple concurrent universes (multiverse or M-theory and Membrane cosmology scenarios, for example), suggest that the evolution of a universe such as ours is not only mathematically possible but it could actually be inevitable. Nevertheless, in the absence of conclusive evidence one way or the other, I’ll remain agnostic. That question will not be answered here.

For the present, at least, meaning and purpose will be attributable only to conscious beings. That isn’t strictly anthropomorphic, because we can include animals other than humans as well as other possible intelligent beings unknown to us.

When  is function promoted to the status of a purpose in our eyes?  I don’t exactly know–but it happens in some network or nodule of neurons within the human brain. Perhaps its when the cause and effect become obvious and consistent enough to one or more observers. Then we begin to think of a thing’s most common, customary, and characteristic function as its purpose.

Eventually, with progressively increasing cognitive capabilities, more and more thoughts, meanings, intentions, and purposes arise in the minds of more and more people. The things that people think, say, do, or make may then be considered to happen according to an intentional and explicit human purpose –despite the fact that many (if not most) results of human thought and action are unintended and unanticipated.

Much (if not most) human thought and activity is instinctive, reflexive, conditioned, unconsciously motivated or manipulated. Presumably, the implicit “purpose” of instinctive behavior is to confer survival advantages. But we only define that cause-and-effect relationship as a “purpose” after the fact, in retrospect, when we abstract it and consider it consciously in the context of our ideas about evolution and natural selection.

Like purpose, meaning is really a matter of associations– association of cause and effect, association of one pattern with another, association of a word or symbol with a concept, a memory, or a perception, etc.

However, if our cognitive capabilities continue to evolve without catastrophic interruption, we will continue to find greater and greater meaning in more and more things and to imagine, discover, and pursue greater and greater purposes for ourselves. As life evolves, so will meanings and purposes evolve. Thus a fundamental proto-purpose of human life is to understand, enhance and promote evolution–the progressive organization, complexity, diversity, and capability of the  biosphere.

Like a sprouting seed or fractal pattern, the proto-pupose of increasing complexity and capability will unfold and elaborate into new meanings and purposes without end. In the case of human beings, in our evolving capability for higher meaning and purpose, a primary focus should be the investigation and development of our most unique features and strengths–chief among these being our cognitive, technical, and social abilities.

If our broad purpose is to increase overall capability and utility (the greatest good) for the biosphere, by consciously promoting evolution in every way possible, how should we act? What kind of lifestyles and social institutions should we favor?

Information systems, quantum mechanics, molecular biochemistry, cognitive neuroscience, deep ecology, fractal geometry…the first generation to grow up with such mental tools is alive today. What can this add to a quest at least as old as the anatomically modern human brain, the question of the meanings and purposes of life? How can these new tools and capabilities help us to amplify the evolution of our culture and the evolution of the biosphere?

Human culture has always evolved more rapidly than our anatomy. But even the rapid progress of our culture has begun to fall behind the pace of changes and challenges we now face in our crowded societies and  our ravaged environment. Rather than rising to meet these challenges our social institutions show signs of actually breaking down and becoming less effective. Increasing competition over land, water, food, and other resources is likely to favor increasingly authoritarian institutions. While technology offers solutions to resource problems in theory, in practice it also favors greater stratification of wealth and power. If recent trends continue we may be faced with a future of highly authoritarian corporate neofeudalism (privatized governance).

Faced with such prospects, some of us should be choosing to explore the boundaries of the brain’s ability to examine and extend itself and to accelerate the evolution of culture with the same kind of intensity and effort that it takes for the military occupation of the Middle East or sending a spacecraft to the Moon.

Its time for groups of our most highly-developed and progressive people to start acting more like macro-organisms. This is analogous to the era when communities of single-celled organisms began to coalesce into multi-celled plants and animals that could reproduce true-to-kind.

We all know things we don’t know how to express in words. When we try, they often sound like cliches and tautologies. But sometimes  progress comes through persistent interaction with a friend, a partner, or a colleague. Sometimes two heads or three heads are better than one. Sometimes people who spend a lot of time together develop special kinds of connections. If we live or work together long enough and closely enough we may begin to establish what I call human broadband connections. This may evolve further as we keep house, interact with nature, travel, solve problems, share adventures, meet challenges and survive crises together, until we can finish each others sentences. We are beginning to realize that such intimacy can gradually change the chemistry and structure of the nervous system and allow for progressively increasing inter-personal communication bandwidth and synchronization. One example is menstrual synchrony.

Some might consider it to be an interpersonal spiritual connection, but it is a natural phenomenon that I would call bio-cognitive development (bio-cognitive = body + brain) and psycho-neuro-synchronization.

Bio-cognitive development partners are two or more peers engaging in an in-person practice that focuses not on learning facts but developing and practicing bio-cognitive skills such as high-bandwidth psycho-neuro-synchronization.  As psycho-physiological intimacy and coordination increases over time, the bandwidth and synchronization of the bio-cognitive communication increase.  Some of the coordinating feedback channels are:

• touch
• language
• voice modulation
• body language and microexpressions
• pheromones
• bioelectromagnetic fields

.

.

.Voice modulation, body language , airborne chemicals, and physical contact all stimulate the release of a wide array of neurotransmitters and other hormones throughout the body. These change the states of neural networks, nerves, and tissues throughout the body. That much is established fact.

Actual neural connection patterns in the brain

My additional hypothesis is that all these channels of communication can gradually come into greater synchronization between people. Its similar to the way higher data throughput is achieved between nodes in a communication network as they each synchronize to the same timing, states, and protocols. The rate at which this happens between people and the degree to which it happens depends on the innate psycho-physiological characteristics of the participants as well as their acquired proficiencies.  When well developed, interpersonal bio-cognitive communication bandwidth may change as much as the difference between a 300 baud asynchronous modem connection and a 10-gigabit broadband connection.

The importance of shared activity to developing bio-cognitive intimacy and high communication bandwidth can’t be over-emphasized. Important activities include, but aren’t limited to: singing and dancing, eating and drinking (especially alcohol), domestic housekeeping (especially kitchen work), manual labor (gardening/farm work, carpentry, etc.), professional work, artistic collaboration, dialog/debate, sports and recreation (camping is great), traveling, and adventure. Sharing risks and crises is especially effective for promoting empathy and trust. The more time participants spend together the better. Sharing living quarters and workplaces is especially effective, within the limits of intimacy fatigue. And of course if these things are done mindfully, with the intention of developing high-bandwidth intimacy, and with appropriate methods and skills, excellent results are possible. I have achieved such intimacy with several individuals and small groups who lived and worked together.

As my friend Natural Lefty points out, on some level this is common sense and I am merely stating a truism of social psychology: people who hang together synchronize their language, culture, and behavior to some extent. This can have survival advantages but it can also have negative consequences such as excessive conformity or “group-think”. It can promote cooperation or it can lead to intra-group or inter-group conflicts. Even members of a well-organized wolf pack may attack each other savagely. So the devil is in the details–what are the actual empirical effects of cognitive synchronization and development  in practice, on the ground. What effects prove positive and what effects lead to negative consequences. The process of distinguishing between the positive and negative results, maximizing one and minimizing the other, can be thought of as a process of quality control and continuous improvement.

To achieve continuous improvement and positive quality control, we should systematize and instrument our intentional community of self-study and self-development. We should consciously formalize our group dynamics in a context of systems science and rigorous experimental design. Process transcends objectives, but measurable objectives  provide important feedback for process improvement.

The prerequisites for bio-cognitive development and psycho-neuro-synchronization of groups are motivation, opportunity, and  resources. It is important that various conditions and tools are provided.

One way to provide conditions for bio-cognitive group development is  to establish venues for the kinds of activities mentioned above, in which those activities can be offered to the public and simultaneously shared by a residential staff group. Another approach is to establish intentional communities.  These can be urban or rural.

In addition to the shared activities mentioned above, some of the possible tools and techniques for bio-cognitive development and psycho-neuro-synchronization include:

• Psychological testing
• self-observation techniqies
• Various kinds of meditation
• psychological mindfulness practices
• psycho-physiological exercises (such as yoga, Tai Chi, dance, massage, etc)
• biofeedback
• binaural rhythm stimulation
• hypnosis
• operant conditioning
• psychoactive ethnobotanical substances
•  cognitive behavioral therapy
• peer-to-peer group therapy
• radical honesty
• cognitive video and computer games
• implicit association test (IAT)

These and many other tools can be used for increasing adult brain plasticity and promoting emotional and physiological states that enhance learning, memory, and neural network integration. Conducted in groups they can also promote  psycho-neuro-synchronization and bio-cognitive group intimacy.

All this provides a matrix for accelerated cultural and cognitive evolution that is independent of gross  brain anatomy. (Lets face it, we aren’t getting bigger brains any time soon.)  Nonetheless, there is good reason to hope that radical self-knowledge, bio-cognitive development,  neuro-physiological practice, and psycho-neuro-synchronization may all work together to promote developmental changes in the brain’s micro-structure and its operational patterns. We can try to examine and consciously modify various aspects of our irrationality, automaticity, implicit associations, cognitive biases, etc. With all these tools and techniques we may have a shot at developing a kind of persistent group consciousness capable of hosting perceptions and representations of reality and establishing behavioral innovations and capabilities well beyond the confines of the mainstream culture and language.

This just might help us keep each other alive a few decades longer.

Poor Richard

Closely Related PRA2010 Posts:

• Addiction to Irrationality
• “AHA!”
• Beginning of Wisdom 3.0
• Normal Schnormal

click for photo credit

(being Poor Richard’s humble contribution to the discussion of class warfare.)

Justine: “What’s that I hear? Oh, it’s the sound of guillotines being sharpened.“

Justine, mass executions are bad for public mental health. The rich aristocrats want castles and gated communities– so give them that–only weld the gates and drawbridges shut and quarantine them inside. They can only get out by going through re-education and moral rehab and doing ten years of community service.

All children of these quarantined aristocrats will be boarded with liberal, egalitarian foster parents. The aristocrats will only be permitted visitation under close supervision to prevent them from transmitting their emotional plagues and filthy cognitive habits to the children.

Poor Richard

Consider: the brain has been struggling to get bigger for about the last 100,00 years (since we reached anatomical modernity) but it can’t because we long-since reached the limits of brain & skull-case size that could fit through the human birth canal!

Of course, the birth canal will gradually get bigger–at maybe .1 cm per zillion years.

Meanwhile, enter the c-section. Now a fetus with an abnormally large brain case doesn’t have to get through the birth canal in one piece and unmangled anymore. Because of its delivery risks, discovered in prenatal monitoring,  it will routinely get a c-section and survive. More mothers who gestate big-brained babies will survive, too, possibly to have more big-brained babies (bbb’s)!

OK, so where are these bbb’s? Who knows! Nobody is looking for them!

We need to start systematically looking for these big-brained c-section babes in all the hospital delivery rooms. When we find them we need to get them into a controlled, double-blind research program designed as follows:

An equal number of big-brained and average-brained babies will all be given the same intervention and surveillance. The identities of which babies are bbb’s and which are average will be sealed in a vault for the duration of the study. All babies are treated exactly the same, but the treatment is very, very good.

No, we don’t take the babies away from their moms and hold them in an underground lab, but they go into a very enriched development program using all the latest neurodevelopmental enhancement methods. In other words, damn good schooling. That way they can all get the most consistent treatment throughout the program, which might last from 3 to 12 years, depending on funding. The parents would also be counseled and educated to promote the best possible development of the kids, and they would be paid lavishly so at least one parent won’t need to work and can be a dedicated and highly trained care-giver.

By rounding up these bbb’s and their moms and dads (figuratively) and giving them the best possible care, we accomplish some slight-of-hand eugenics: we help accelerate the emergence and proliferation of the bbb phenotype in the most benign way possible, but without that being an explicit objective.

Huh? Why not?

Poor Richard

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