Daniel Quin’s Ishmael

to JB 12/22/06 w/ minor ed.

JB,

I’m writing you from south Florida between trips into the Everglades and out on the Keys. It’s fascinating how many ecosystems you can fit in a small place when you really try! The weather has been cloudy by very pleasant, 80 deg., warm sun & rains that don’t get you wet, no crouds!, lots of beauty, and we have a simply marvelous place to stay. More later.

I mostly want to thank you for getting me to read a little more ‘useless pop psychology’… Of course, now that I’m at least up to the point where he defines his natural laws of competition I’m really wondering why you or someone else didn’t mention Ishmael to me before, too. Didn’t you notice that this approach to the subject, the use of natural laws of how to live that are readily read from the physical world but missing from the popular discussion of [how the world works], is precisely what I’ve been so patiently exploring and talking about for the last, yep, count-em, 30 years?? Continue reading Daniel Quin’s Ishmael

Yet another test model

posted to FRIAM 12/16/05

We definitely need better models of complex system events. Here’s another, to help imagine growth as a spontaneous evolutionary process, as if an organizational ‘fire’ that begins with a ’spark’ of change.

It’s obvious enough that growth systems produce rapid change in complex systems without a template or discrete determinants from the outside, but growth is often so smooth, fast, and ’sure footed’ that it’s hard to imagine it as evolutionary. Maybe this alternate model helps, by

telling the story of a complex system step change by growth as if in QM notation ‘before||after’, with the period between the marks consisting of an evolving internal process discovering its place in an unknown

world. It starts with the generally unobservable ‘earth shaking boom’

of an unstable pattern of change forming that will multiply dramatically, zooming to a point of discovering it’s own limits and a ‘big wow’ as the future comes into its view, to perhaps then be transformed by that reversal in the environmental responses into a sustainable system.

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` *ahhh*`–

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` x

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` x

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` x

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` x

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` *w`O`w*

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `m

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `o

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `o

` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `z

` ` ` `–`*boom*

before | B o o m, Z o o m, W o w, Ahhh– | after

something clicks, takes off, discovers it’s place, and settles in

During the ‘zoom’ the environment appears limitless from the perspective of the growth cell, and in the ‘ahhh–’ the stabilization of new form becomes satisfying by resolving the start-up cell’s unstable contradictions. Humanity’s institutional rules that the ‘zoom’ is never to be allowed to stop…. seem to be a natural misunderstanding coming from our being swept up in a vast change in reality.

It’s good to note that in living systems what comes ‘after’ is often unequivocally the best part.

Phil Henshaw ¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

e-mail: id@synapse9.com

explorations: www.synapse9.com

 

Surprises in the works I think

to AIA C.O.T.E. Forum 12/01/06

All,

I’m really delighted to be among a group of idealists, and to hear the frustration with the efforts that fall short and the failure of many people to reach high enough in setting their goals. We definitely need more of that, for all the reasons of our not doing enough, and also for a special reason. I think we’re getting huge help in changing the world from Mother Nature, and we should probably consider, seriously, the need at some point to ramp up faster than expected in delivering coherent ideas and methods to others.

Sometimes things collapse of their own contradictions, like the Soviet Union, and the NeoCon revenge. I think what the sustainability movement sees as unassailable enemies, like the economic forces of endless selfish growth, could more or less abruptly loose their credibility and collapse around us. There are lots and lots of signs, things like the large amount of ‘red’ money going into buying ‘green’ design. It’s easy to think it’s all for show, but it’s also because the people who run exploitive businesses see the writing on the wall and feel real guilty about their involvement.

Continue reading Surprises in the works I think