{"id":2678,"date":"2013-12-03T14:48:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T19:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/?p=2678"},"modified":"2013-12-03T14:57:19","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T19:57:19","slug":"natural-systems-meet-many-worlds-of-cultural-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/natural-systems-meet-many-worlds-of-cultural-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Natural Systems.. meet many worlds of Cultural Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

I got a strong “like” from Mark Stahlman\u00a0to my comment on Real-World Economic Review <\/a>–<\/a> issue no. 65<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em>that led to A great longer discussion on the Cultural Anthropology of Knowledge<\/strong><\/span> on Open<\/span> A<\/a><\/strong>nthropology<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span>\u00a0. \u00a0 We start a series of excerpts, mostly my writings, with my comment to the economics review journal. \u00a0 \u00a0J.L. Henshaw (@shoudaknown<\/a>)<\/strong> commented\u00a0<\/em>in response to Edward Fullbrook’s “New Paradigm Economics”\u00a0<\/b><\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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Culture was always what defined our realities, till we had to deal with multiple cultures, and found our selves confused.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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1. JLH Comment to Ed Fullerbrook 10\/6\/13: –\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A Solution that leaves out much of the problem<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Edward, Regarding your new paradigm. I\u2019m a natural systems scientist who has spent a lot of time on the puzzle of how economics became so detached\u2026<\/p>\n

I certainly applaud your effort to describe a new paradigm for economics, and see your approach as having the right intent and to be quite elegant in how you construct it. It still overlooks why natural systems will invariably depart from even the most faithful effort to describe them mathematically.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that 1) natural systems change how they\u2019re organized, and so how they behave, ALL the time, 2) all natural systems originate from a growth process in which they change how they work ever faster, to then change form, and 3) by ignoring #2 the present paradigm is to manage a world of systems that all expand and become ever more unmanageable over time. \u00a0 It\u2019s \u201cimpractical\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

What I think this exposes is a very basic flaw in our conception of nature.<\/span> It seem to be coming directly from our attempts to define nature conceptually (treating nature as rules that we control), rather than using the rules we find to help us learn about it. What we have is an ever changing world, full of complex living natural and cultural systems we need to interact with, that are inventing new behavior all the time and fundamentally out of our control. From there I\u2019m not sure what would help you understand my approach, as my terminology is likely to \u2018sound funny\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In general, if investors understood their choices as the leading edge of the advancing form of the economy, steering it in its future directions, and if they were intent on steering it toward being more profitable as a whole, you\u2019d get a self-regulating financial system optimizing its use of the earth, not decimating it. It might take decades of rethinking what we do\u2026, but it would become a pursuit of \u201csustainable development\u201d as \u201chome making\u201d for the earth, in the interests of all. It\u2019d stop being led by people maximizing the inequity between competitors.<\/p>\n

My blog is a good place to browse, old posts as well as new. http:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a collection of short subjects on ways to understand the new systems physics I developed to better understand the organization and workings of individually behaving systems. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0jlh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. Mark Stahlman\u00a0replied 10\/7\/13:<\/strong>\u00a0(cut) –<\/p>\n

Question of Causation<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Excellent comment!\u00a0 I don’t know if you saw my only one (which I think was the first on this issue), in which I asked Edward what sort of *causality* he implied by his NPE “based” on emergence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

to then suggest Aristotle’s “MATERIAL” and “EFFICIENT” concepts drew a line between the two approaches and recommending some of the origins of modern systems thinking as being valuable for it:<\/p>\n

I notice that there are two of the most important people\/books who have contributed to this investigation who are not your lists — Norbert Wiener’s 1950 “The Human Use of Human Beings” (my “godfather,” the other one being Giorgio Desantillana, and who was the modern-day Leibniz, courtesy of his father) and Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 “Understanding Media” (perhaps the deepest thinker on these topics, nominated by Kenneth Boulding to be “dean” of his “Invisible College” and friend\/neighbor to Jane Jacobs, with whom I also had some fascinating conversations.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3. JL Henshaw – 10\/8\/13:\u00a0<\/strong>(cut+[eds])<\/p>\n

The real roots of in natural v. conceptual causation<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

[Yes} Fullbrook on his \u201cNew paradigm economics\u201d, [is] clearly not solving the great problem of the old paradigm. He leaves economics as a design for managing an ever expanding and ever more unmanageable system. The interest is partly in just how glaring a material omission that is, and how it\u2019s invariably omitted from how the problem of economics is discussed.<\/p>\n

That kind of amazing oversight is part of what attracted my interest. It\u2019s like the same kind of blind spot seen in the wide consensus that the economy\u2019s ever doubling resource demands are a \u201csupply problem\u201d\u2026. It\u2019s like our brains work no better than fish bowls, with or without fish!<\/p>\n

So, indeed, has any one of the fine minds who noticed \u201csomething wrong\u201d, from Malthus on, ever really \u201chad a clue\u201d as to what sort of delusion is afoot? \u00a0From my short list the ones who I think actually went a few steps deeper into it than others seem to be J.M. Keynes (who saw well beyond what others took from him), Jane Jacobs, Joe Tainter, George Orwell, and an ecologist I seem to have left off, John Livingston [+Pat Thompson’s split culture view too].<\/p>\n

They each took giant steps further than others, displaying their deep interest in the question at least, and in understanding \u201chow\/why this is all happening\u201d. My own short answer to that \u201cwhy\/how\u201d question first points to our economic system being an accumulation of technical fixes for the original model of the Roman economy; \u201cgrowth at any cost<\/strong><\/span>\u201d[that can be traced to earlier societies too, and comes to cost EVRYTHING].<\/p>\n

From a cultural view, it seems completely natural for a society organized around its growth driven parts to lose its cultural sense of direction, as \u201cgrowth at any cost\u201d becomes too costly. \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ve been \u201cfishing around\u201d for some way to interest the intellectual world in these strangely large blind spots, as that seems to be among the better pieces of hard evidence. From that I can tell the blind spots I find cluster around communities who see the world in terms of their own theories and abstractions, defining their words in relation to words rather than experiences.<\/p>\n

For those \u2018silos of thinking\u2019 any feature of nature they don\u2019t include in their definitions is then just \u201cmissing\u201d from their \u2018sur-reality\u2019.<\/strong> I think I can even trace those cultures back historically, and find it generally seemingly pointing right back to the birth of science, defining nature as made of deterministic rules lacking any living things!<\/p>\n

So you might say it looks as if our great cultural blinders came from the intellectual world believing Aristotle! He and the small group of Greek natural philosophers of his generation [seem to] mark the turning point from experiential [knowledge] to conceptual knowledge.<\/p>\n

In my view they also unwittingly introduced mankind to the tremendously seductive notion that nature is composed of human ideals, which if believed then ties one\u2019s beliefs to other beliefs to become self-referential, what I see as the \u201ccool-aid\u201d the modern world apparently drank as it got started.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Modern culture, [really ANY culture] however, is led by the [segments] that become dominant by growing the fastest, all devoted to following the most productive rules for maximizing their own growth.<\/strong> Before we learned quite how to perfect [] it, that practice might possibly have first been adopted by people being domesticated to be willing servants of authoritarian cultures, which modern culture seems to have come from even deeper in the past.<\/p>\n

So between the 1) raw seductiveness of thinking the universe is centered on our minds [existing as our definitions], and 2) the promise seeming fulfilled by the economic paradigm of piling up limitless piles of money, and 3) \u00a0our both ancient and modern social acculturation to being \u201cgood helpers\u201d for teams ordered to do perform those tasks\u2026 the whole mess does seem quite unstoppable. \u00a0It will stop, of course, as there seems much stronger evidence that nature will stop anything headed for infinity!<\/strong><\/p>\n

My alternative for that, or \u201cbetter cool-aid\u201d has not marketed very well, as it doesn’t at first look like a scheme for making money, I guess\u2026<\/strong>[It’s] based on a switch from \u201cconquest\u201d to \u201chome making\u201d as a paradigm.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0If considered, though, it [ultimately] seem better to use our ideals to help us better understand and [] experience [] the things we don\u2019t define or control, [so we can] relate to a living rather than a conceptual world.<\/p>\n

It ends up more profitable [too], partly just by offering a world with more to enjoy. \u00a0Dropping our self-invented blinders would also make it easier to see what needs to be taken care of to keep it profitable [as well]. Looking at the world more like a \u201chome-maker\u201d than a \u201crule-maker\u201d [imposing rules our world can’t follow..] is [for] someone out to \u201cenjoy the day\u201d rather than out to \u201cprevail for another day\u201d[, though].<\/p>\n

Some of the intuition for it I get [] direct from Boulding, actually, a family friend. Once I got going on my own he pointed me to how Keynes had conceptually solved the systemic financial problem of economics associated with all this<\/strong>. His readers weren’t at all impressed, completely horrified really, and much too busy using his equations for piling up money instead of for being curious about the world. So his thinking on it was lost culturally.<\/p>\n

What he pointed out is in his parable of \u201cthe widow\u2019s cup\u201d and in Ch 16 of the General Theory(1,2) [] is simply that when investors run out of profitable ways to expand the economy it\u2019d be better for them to use their profits to take care it!<\/strong> \u00a0Again, that\u2019s a \u201chome-making\u201d viewpoint. It\u2019s also where \u201csystems ecology\u201d inevitably seems to take you, *IF* you permit the idea that the systems of the world are made of living systems, that behave by themselves and not by our own rules. Abstract thinkers don\u2019t allow that, however.<\/p>\n

[] I never quite caught onto McLuhan, as if he somehow dazzled, but [] not making it \u201cplural\u201d, as a study of the \u201cmessages of the mediums\u201d [left out too much]. [One] of the other messages I found to be important was how \u201cthe medium\u201d we have [began] breaking language into ever more cells. \u00a0 [It’s] giving us a great multiplication of cultural and professional languages, as \u201csilos\u201d that don\u2019t connect much.<\/strong> There\u2019s also how changing ever faster is blocking the inheritance of culture, with what parents have learned unrelated to what kids need to invent, cutting the continuity for human culture, our \u201croots\u201d.<\/strong> I wonder what you see in all that.<\/p>\n

A new voice with a wonderful fresh view of the cultural evolution in particular is Pat Thompson, a completely ignored first rate thinker who wrote her \u201cHestian Trilogy\u201d ten years ago. She seems to do a quite credible job of deconstructing the revisionist histories of modern authoritarian cultures, to expose how the family centered culture of early Greece was successively marginalized and subjugated, by the ever more dominant rule making business and political cultures that took over the public sphere. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Hestia [and Hermes, the archetypes of “the home” (as sacred center of life) and “the public” (as connecting with the world), were apparently worshiped as both<\/span>\u00a0the architypical design principles\u00a0of nature and of human society. \u00a0 <\/strong>That Hestia is associated with the great circular hearth that is an essential feature of the original form of Greek\/Minoan temple, and also with the similar feature of household hearth design, as a principle if nature,\u00a0suggest she and Hermes may have been the first gods] of the earliest Greek [and Minoan] pantheon. \u00a0 [One of them was essentially silenced by the ever growing dominance of the other, as social organizations of the public sphere accumulated swith growth as an insessant purpose, and took over.] \u00a0Restoring that history she unveils the shift from a culture centered on \u201cpreserving the flame\u201d of the family sphere to becoming centered on \u201c[growing] control\u201d as the dominant paradigm of the cultures of the public sphere.<\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 JLH<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a04. JL Henshaw – 10\/11\/13 – <\/strong><\/p>\n

To Open Anthro – Natural worlds v. Hypothetical worlds<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Greetings, I’m checking back in after a couple years, reminded of these discussions by a comment from Mark.<\/p>\n

I think we always have a choice between discussing cultures as living things, like organisms, or as categories of theory, as abstract subjects.<\/strong> \u00a0Discussed as “organic” things, cultures are self-defining objects of nature, viewed subjectively, and discussed in “abstraction” they are “hypothetical” worlds invented subjectively, a very big difference.<\/p>\n

It becomes tricky to not confuse oneself or one’s readers\/listeners, though, due to those viewpoints alternating between ontologically different subjects, with big changes in word meanings and use, almost totally different languages differently using the same words. \u00a0I find scientists don’t yet have a comfortable way to signal a switch between those viewpoints.<\/p>\n

We do all seem to casually switch between back and forth between those ontological viewpoints, many times a day, though. \u00a0 For example, at breakfast we use word meanings associated with self-defining objects of nature, like “toast” defined by pointing to the physical thing. \u00a0 At the office “toast” can also refer to the organic experience of defeat in the battles of the business world.<\/p>\n

More often the language of the office is defined abstractly, in terms of the “rules of the boss” and “the rules of the trade” it is in, with every boss and trade having different rules for the business to create a culture around and work with. \u00a0 We go from one form of “socially defined reality” to another each time we switch between relating to someone’s “private sphere” (and its private language) and the “public sphere” (and its many abstract languages) where larger scale cultures and organizations dominate.<\/p>\n

So that influences my response to what Lee describes as the kernel of his argument:<\/p>\n

“Society is set up to organize a population of ordinary individuals who display predictable, and not particularly extreme differences. \u00a0\u00a0<\/i>Society is\u00a0not\u00a0set up to fit\u00a0extraordinary\u00a0individuals into an organization designed to slot ordinary people into its framework. “<\/i><\/p>\n

I tend to see “Society” from the organic view first, as a “culture of cultures” on multiple scales, [somewhat ecologically]<\/strong> to then struggle with perceptions [of them]… and how differently people in each culture will perceive the world around them[]. \u00a0 The whole “culture of cultures” as an organic system would appear to have evolved over time, as [] sub-cultures emerged and organized around their separate ways of thinking and living. \u00a0 [I]nteracting more or less ecologically [they] arrive at more or less set arrangements with each other, as if species relying on coordinated niches.<\/p>\n

So, I come to agree with Lee on the first statement, on the whole of society seeming to be organized around roles for people that many people find comfortable, naturally reinforced by the productive relationships between its subcultures []. \u00a0 But people still do create new roles all the time too, and the facts of evolution also seem to say societal roles all came from innovations and are always in flux, the opposite of his second assertion.<\/strong> \u00a0That says much the same thing as Margaret Mead’s famous remark, on the subject:<\/p>\n

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”<\/i><\/p>\n

If there’s an error I think it’s suggesting that change requires “committed citizens”, as “commitment” in social circles may as often reflect true blindness as far reaching insight..<\/strong>. (my prejudice?) so perhaps “innovative” [rather than ‘committed’] might be the better word there. \u00a0 But it still expresses the “change comes from people making new paths” idea, which is what’s at once both an insight into the organic nature of cultures, and an expression of what I see as the best of our broadest common culture.<\/p>\n

[]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

5. John McCreery\u00a0– 10\/11\/13 – \u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

“Things” may be harder to define than “conversations”<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You see culture in two ways, as an organism or an abstract subject. In both these conceptions culture becomes what Dan Foss calls a “thingie”<\/strong> and, I would add, an example of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Reification_(fallacy))<\/a>. I have found it more useful to think of culture as conversation. Conversation implies a number of things.<\/p>\n