the upward cascade

[rough]
alright, since this is the story of a system made up of nested nonlinear systems, it can not be told linearly. i am forced to write a trajectory which slowly betrays the shape and tendencies of the system, as to suggest some manner of characterization.

the following will be an introduction to the unifying language. it follows from some realizations and notes that i came upon during my undergraduate studies, which i then found similarly expressed (and better articulated) in robert pirsig's lila. i will use our notation interchangeably, and possibly in a note somewhere, sometime, i will take a second to differentiate and detail our initial differences in notation.

the main idea is based on the recognition that, as we understand the universe, there seem to be more or less discrete levels of organization in the whole of phenomena. i mean to make distinctions between levels of substrate that occur on different size and time scales: atomic, chemical, biological, social, intellectual, etc...
essentially we can turn to the disciplines of science to show us which phenomena are distinct enough to warrant different descriptive languages.
(of course, i do not mean to suggest that the universe can be simply decomposed into these parts understood when each are understood. that would essentially suggest that the universe was linear in some sense, that the whole can be described by describing its parts.)
one may come to contemplate the relationships between these levels, and realize that organization and evolution on one level gives rise to the emergence of phenomena on the next level. for instance, if one was interested in understanding an atom, one would do well to use the language developed by physicists. if one wanted to understand the interaction of two or more atoms, this language might still be useful, but eventually, the language of chemistry would be more useful. what we understand as chemical phenomena is phenomena which emerges from atomic aggregations and interactions. likewise, what we understand as biological phenomena emerges from interactions of chemical aggregations. social phenomena are a consequence of aggregate interactions between biological entities. these are some of the bigger examples, and even in their exposition, i am for the moment not being terribly thorough. a fair treatment of each would take a considerable amount of caution. at the moment, we are trying to roughly frame the bigger picture, so that we can make some higher level remarks.
in general, we may think about one level of phenomena as emerging from aggregation and interactions on another lower substrate level. we might say, in describing a single instance of such, that a "superstrate level", or "superstratum" emerges from a "substrate level" or "substratum". in this perspective, we may think of the universe historically as a sequence of successive instances of emergence, creating ever increasing amounts of complexity and structure on different scales. each superstrate emerging, and then becoming the substrate of the next emergence.
as not to neglect the rampant subtleties involved, i will note again that the superstrate and the substrate interact in highly nontrivial ways, often beyond causality and support. phenomena on the superstrata may very well emerge, and have an effect back on the substrate from which it emerged. this will/may be somewhat further articulated at some later point.

the point of introducing this notation is to have a descriptive language which accesses the various scales of phenomena. quite often, the most vexing issues that humans run into are ones which pertain to multiple scales at once. it is challenging to think about these situations, and to make decisions about them because humans do not yet have a linguistic framework with which to entertain multiple scales of phenomena at once. at best, people have a dilemma, and resort to trying to determine what is "best" somehow. this reduces to determining what is "good", or "bad" in a given context. this is the tricky part, as it often requires recognizing multiple pros and cons which have to somehow be balanced in some mildly justifiable way.
this kind of deliberation can be greatly aided by the recognition that it is not simply that "good" and "bad" are context dependent, and that value in general is this vague shifting mysterious presence in the universe. in fact, with the language developed above, i will suggest that each level of phenomena carries its own sense of value. for instance, in the biological realm, "value" is often called referred to as "fitness". in the absence of social interactions, there are certain behaviors that are especially fit. such behaviors are fundamentally "selfish". an animal is not terribly fit if it does not eat as much as it can at every opportunity, or have sex at every opportunity, or intimidate/kill competitors or potential threats at every opportunity. these are biological imperatives that are woven into the cognitive reflexes of animals. they are imperatives that serve organisms well in an environment of scarcity and competition. to follow these impulses is fundamentally "good", in a strictly biological context. although we are still compelled by these imperatives, we humans tend to recognize that this metric of what is "good" is fundamentally incomplete. there is something beyond it which we sense, namely a sense of social "good". there is some sense of social value within us which puts constraints on the degree to which biological value compels us. a human who only followed biological imperatives would be universally recognized as inhuman, and detestable. in fact, for the most part, what humans consider to be crimes and "inhumanities" are instances where people forfeit social value in favor of biological value. stealing, raping, killing... these fall quite in line with biological values, and yet, we understand that they are inappropriate for humans to do. thus, in more slim language,
(A.) it is socially "bad", or socially "unfit" to be too biologically fit.

we also understand that
(B.) it is socially unfit to be too biologically unfit.

People who are self-destructive (neglectful) by passivity, cowardice, or who under-nourish themselves are recognized as not socially fit.

[ quick mathematical note: if one thinks of superstrata value as a function of substrata value, then in the case of social value as a function of biological value, A and B would suggest that social value is a nonlinear function of biological value.]

similarly, we can examine the various relationships between the other substrata/superstrata. though there is much to still be seen, we may have a preliminary understanding that, from the existence of social structure among organisms which have central nervous systems, the structures which emerge are psychological. these structures are essentially two: emotional patterns, and intellectual patterns. the emotional patterns tend more to respond to and encode information about external or personal/social circumstances. intellectual patterns tend to respond to and encode information about impersonal/internal circumstances. much more about these later, but for the moment, we may suggest that being too socially fit can be intellectually unfit, as in the situation where one forfeits a personal belief, or allows their behavior to defy their knowledge in order to comfortably assimilate into a social system. a lack of social fitness is also unfit intellectually, as people who are completely isolated from others tend to have narrow, maladapted perspectives.

there is plenty nuance and detail to be sought out within these observations, but i will leave that for future selves, or others for the moment. the main imagery to come away with is the fact that phenomena emerge from lower level substrate phenomena, and with each emergence, there is a new context in which value can have meaning. this facilitates a nature which is comprised of systems nested in systems, each level having some distinct meaning of "value", or fitness. these systems interact with each other as they emerge, and their value systems emerge and evolve tangled interdependently across the different scales of phenomena.

the roots of communication, and discommunication

the issues at hand that i am attempting to make an exposition of require the following seemingly ancectotal aside:

(yet another recounting of this story) i was once talking to a friend of mine. she is/was a linguist at the school i was attending. i do not recall what we were initially discussing, perhaps the rarity of finding decent conversation in our small town, or maybe she was just telling me about her work in computational linguistics, but she went on to tell me of the following.

there was a linguist (i have no idea who exactly she was talking about, but i now have some guesses). this linguist made a dichotomizing distinction, demarking two different modes of language. [i will quickly point out that this is not some absolute dichotomy, but an observation about sociolinguistic tendencies. there is clearly a continuum between the two.]
the observation is that there are two main tendencies in language use:

- language which carries high information content, and low affective (emotional) content. this kind of language is called "referential" language.

and
- language which carries low information content, and high affective content. this kind of language is called "affective" language.

(i will pause here to note that i am not seeming, nor do i believe i intend to seem, as thought i am distinguishing "language" from the act of using language. there may be some reason or occasion to do this, but for the moment, this does not seem like that occasion. i will just say that i could have easily mentioned "two main tendencies in language use".)

when she told me about this distinction, it rang out in me immediately. i remarked something to the extent of "right! exactly! you mean small talk verses actual conversation!". i had a great appreciation for her handy notation. at the time "small talk" was something which vexed me a great deal. i was often feeling isolated from family and acquaintances because i felt like what they had to communicate lacked substance, and motivation. i wanted "deep" things, and "small talk" seemed useless, and almost insulting at the time. it was something i was constantly aware of. i told her as much, and communicated my dissatisfaction with the emptiness of affective language.

while politely acknowledging my youthfully idealistic sentiments, she went on to describe that, in fact, both referential and affective language have their uses, and are equally crucial. referential language is the language that is used to do science, and solve technical problems, enabling the emergence of technology and, in many senses, civilization. this observation was the limit of my perspective at the time. my friend went on to so graciously point out that affective language, while often may seem idle to some (simply by not being loaded with technical information), was incredibly important. affective language is used to build and strengthen social bonds. it reinforces emotional connections between people, and thus, allows for the emergence of communities, the coherency of families, and the upkeep of friendships when there is no technical information to share. the use of affective language is the expression of solidarity, and an assurance that the connections between people are fundamentally independent of technical information, or theoretical perspectives. it is a more basic assurance between living things, which frames the empathy inherent in coexisting as humans in the same fundamental predicament.
while this might be obvious to some, and is now to me, at the time, my it completely blew my young mind. of course this was the case! how could i not have seen it? these people that i was coming to despise were not rattling off noise for the sake of noise, they were community building, family building, diligently working to keep civilization afloat. i had no idea that everything i so extolled was useless, and impossible, in the absence of that which came first. abstract intellect is a luxury that is necessarily preceded by the existence of a robust social structure. here i was thinking that somehow, the ultimate "good" (much more on this word later) was in pursuing intellectual heights, and that that was somehow superior, and independent of all else. i felt as though, if you were not my comrade in such pursuits, then you were weighing it down with your small talk, and idle pleasantries. UGH! just thinking back on this destructively naive perspective makes me very uncomfortable. before this moment, i thought my acquaintances, friends, family (especially my mother), were essentially blowing bubbles on a battlefield, clueless while the "real world" carried on without them. but it turned out that i was the one lost in the imaginary efforts, while the actual world carried on without my understanding. my mother was not being idle in her efforts to communicate, she was trying to have a relationship, to strengthen our bonds. i was her only child. she was just trying to be family with me, and i was disgusted by this.

[as a note, i will just briefly say that i have vastly corrected this, and now my relationship with my mother is exemplary. i am so happy for this fact.]

So then, instead of continuing to see virtuous paths in this world as courageous linear trudges, "progressing forward" into the space of scientific ideas, i realized that the situation is much more complex. the network upon which all of this world happens is created and upkept by one kind of language/thought, allowing for the emergence of another language/thought, letting us conceive of, and distinguish between, finer scale things. i will not pretend to suggest that such a complex thing could happen as straight forwardly as the previous sentence might suggest. both modes of language have undoubtedly coexisted and intermingled since the early primate mind, and likely further back than that. animals use tools in the wild, exhibiting critical thought, and problem solving. they also groom each other. furthermore, all humans constantly use both. most, if not all, human activities require and utilize both.
what i mean to remark on here is the highly noticeable specialization, wherein some entities may reside largely in one mode or the other, and begin to identify with one mode more than the other.
regardless, there are recognizably distinct uses and manifestations of these modes within human culture which, in order to understand in full, require an explicit appreciation of these two modes.

after hearing of this distinction between referential and affective language, i began to ever so cautiously, and slowly, notice something else about this distinction. as bad as i felt about it, it occurred to me that quite often, women tended to use affective language more often than referential language, and men tended to use referential language more than affective language. LET ME BE CLEAR that i do not mean to make too general a claim. again, all humans use both. some women are very referential, and some men are very affective. this is not an absolute, but as researchers (and generally, countless societies and generations) have found, it is a universal tendency. women are more often emotional communicators, and men are more often factual communicators. i am now pretty sure that the linguist that my friend was talking about a researcher named janet holmes, who does work in a field called sociolinguistics. she and others have looked into what they call "sociolinguistic universals", which are linguistic tendencies that are independent of culture, and thus are more or less ubiquitous across human civilizations. their research has turned up empirically that which verifies our intuitions, that women generally speak affectively, and men referentially. there are also other really interesting examples of such universals (i.e. the use of formal and informal language when speaking across larger social, or class distances, the fact that women tend to have vastly greater linguistic stylistic variety, etc.), but for the moment, we will concern ourselves with this one.
that women tend to be affective, and men referential, we have often experienced first hand. in so many of my miscommunications with my (very) significant other, i have noticed that the problem stemmed from the fact that we were each using our respective gender-typical languages, without the appreciation that the other person was not speaking the same language we were. often, she would make a statement, and i would refute it or take issue, and this would really offend her, and so on, until either she or i realized that, i was interpreting her as making a factual claim, while she was just describing her feeling. if, for instance, she had prefaced her statement with "i feel as though..", then this would have been clear. but in her language, this preface is more or less implicit, whereas in my language, it is implicit that statements are factual claims, open to factual refutation and examination. another example was an instance where my love informed me that she had decided to open her own preschool for the summer. i was very excited and interested, and immediately began to ask questions about the details of how she was going to go about it. later i found out that she was very disappointed in my reaction, and felt as though i was completely unsupportive. i was baffled to find this out, until i realized that my reaction was completely referential, and i had offered her no sentiments of solidarity, or support. i thought my remarks were "supportive", in the sense that i was attempting to anticipate potential problems, and imagine potential solutions. at the time, it seemed like the most reasonable thing to do if i supported the effort. now i realize that there was a need gone unmet by my remarks. for all she was concerned, i could have been a problem solving robot, who could care less about her excitement, and only wanted to mechanically pose and solve technical problems. she did not feel her emotion resonate within me, and so the social experience failed for her. meanwhile, the intellectual experience went forward without issue to me.
this leads me to my next, and potentially final, prerequisite collection of concepts with which i can begin to frame my predicament. it is a matter of value, and scale, and it requires some remarks on the evolutionary nature of the universe. those remarks are forthcoming, and with them, we will finally arrive at our starting place.

the mind is a weapon i ought not want

leaving off, it seemed to me that i should start by describing my father, his mechanisms, and the complementary mechanisms that were built in me by my experience of him. while i feel that this is important, i am in no hurry to do so, and will instead speak to what compels me at the moment. let's see what that entails.

i have come to realize that every tool is a weapon, and every weapon, a tool. realizing the dynamical nature of how context induces the two roles is a fundamental key to enlightenment* (whatever i may mean by that). we may find occasion to use tool to help relieve suffering, but so subtly may the context shift, and what was once an act of peace may suddenly become an act of war. my mind is the especially pertinent example of this. i use it to do "good". i use it to solve problems, seek and extinguish bias and misconception, and generally derive perspective and awareness of the phenomena i come across. it is my tool for extracting information out of a system, making distinctions, tracing causes from effects, and postulating potential effects from potential causes. this is invaluable to me, and generally, anyone else. i use this mind as a tool to better my actions, my conceptions, and my endeavors. i use this tool on myself, and on nature, to understand us and our relationship. i have come to think of this use of mind as a scalpel, as the most sharpened form of my awareness. it is used to make very find distinctions with its cutting edge, and furthermore, to sever that which is found to be detrimental, or false. (now, of course this can be overdone to our own detriment, but that is another discussion.. for not so far off. possibly *)

at times, another person may come to us, and ask for us to listen to their situation. the hope is that, since our mind does not have the same biases as theirs, we might be able to see something that they are missing. in these situations, our mind can be used to help pull others out of suffering. we might unburden them from misconcept, or identify solutions that had not occurred to them. regardless, this is a very special situation. we are being invited into another mind to see if we can find a problem. there is very much trust involved in this, and the situation is delicate.

[edit: clearly, the situation is still not so simple, as most thought is a complex balance of processes, some of which need our careful discern, others of which need our careful abstinence. the writing above and below really pertains to a single cognitive process.]

we are then primed to arrive at the following question:
when is our scalpel a tool, and when is it a weapon?
when framed in this way, the natural answer likely has much to do with consent.
clearly, if someone who trusts us asks for our discerning criticism, then we may do our best to provide it, as cleanly as possible, to the extend of their desire for it. the moment that they no longer desire our discern, our scalpel becomes a tool of invasion. that is not to say that somehow it immediately ceases to be a tool of healing. the situation is (un)fortunately more subtle than that. there are definitely murky situations when it is not clear whether or not to linger beyond consent for the "sake" of someone, especially if you care deeply for their well being. this is something that must be determined in the moment, but one thing is clear to me: the mind of another is sovereign territory.
in this context, we can quite easily find ourselves having slipped from the role of a benevolent ally, to the role of an accidental imperialist, seeking our own interests in the sovereign lands of another. this transition can be incredibly subtle, and imperceivable, especially when the other person cares for us as much as we care for them. we often tend to allow those we care about to be affectionately imperialist towards us. we allow trespasses on our shores, and in our airspace. there can be many reasons that we do this. we might do so (consciously or not) as to construct a mutually imperialist relationship with another. allowing another to occasionally overstep your sovereignty when they feel it necessary can have the consequence that they may allow you to overstep their sovereignty when you feel it necessary. this can be healthy, as long as neither is taking advantage of this mutual exploitation.

how has this all come to be the case? can this be seen in a more natural context?, perhaps one that is less surprising, or more intuitive? maybe. there are some pieces of perspective which i believe truly have this as a natural consequence. what i am referring to has to do with the nature of language, and how the use of language has necessarily evolved in humans. this will be the next subject of examination.

*clearly, a many of the maladies and hardships that one creates for themselves are likely able to be understood in terms of immoderate use of the above mentioned scalpel on one's self, that is to say, too much or not enough use. there are so many instances when one benefits from having a robustly undiscerning mind, and would otherwise detriment by insisting on being (too) discerning or precise. overthinking can be the bane of many a (too) clever human. likewise, there are times when the mind must be incredibly discerning, and a lack of discern would allow observations to go unmade that would otherwise prevent or reduce suffering. the same challenge that comes up in taking your scalpel to others comes up in taking your scalpel to yourself, namely that of recognizing the shifts in context which change the benefit/detriment of either mode of operation (tee hee.. operation!.. scalpel!? )

disarchetecture pt 1 (a short and not so disarchetectural start, but a start nonetheless)

i suppose it is appropriate to write here, mostly by name.

i have entered a crisis, and am yet again in need of a complete deconstruction of my mind. if i am to fairly attempt to set this down, then i will likely have to account for any previous such efforts at deconstruction.
my crises thus far in life have been catalyzed by realizations that i was causing suffering to someone that i loved. presently, i have hurt my fiance in a way that i did not see until it was too late, and she was already VERY deeply affected by it.

in my life, i have striven to escape becoming like my father. he has never been able to fathom the effect that he has had on others, or the miseries he may have caused them. i do not judge him here. he is near unanimously regarded as a great man. he is perhaps as nearly unanimously regarded as an asshole. but, in my experience, i have found that he is perfectly capable (until inebriated enough) of being agreeable towards friends. but when you are, or become, his family, things change.
i was fortunate(?) enough to observe a particularly stark example of this at his second wedding. he and his new wife got in a fight (about me actually) at their reception party. he had been mostly a nice guy as he had been courting her, and through their engagement. he went to bed angry on their wedding night, and awoke transformed back into that which he had been my whole life, when he lived with my mother and i. what had he been? this is the first important thing to cover. his behavioral mechanisms were so crucial to my development, especially since my mother was so passive (in his presence), and i was an only child.

how to describe my father.....?

omelga

this happened.






and in the process of preparing this photo, realized that, in ms paint, if you select a square from a picture, and hold shift before you click and move that square, the selected square smears as you move it, and this process is responsible for the smear above the omegle log..

sensation

is it quite the case?
even now, i act, and still, my intentions are faintly apprehendable,
as there is a murk about them.
i strain to be still, and let the murk settle, before i carry on, and with each act anew, a fresh stir, and a fresh obfuscation.

there is nothing but to stay forward, be slow, keep observant, and if, in any of these three things i falter, i must make it up by compensating with the others..
this is no dogma, just a convenient notation..

there is suffering all around.
being observant is a hard one for me, most often,
to keep from becoming a part of it, or inventing it myself.

speed is second.

note #1 from ascient

likely noone,
i can not suspect that this is an address of any kind. there is possibly nothing for transmission (possibly, has never been), nor can there be any reasons to consider any transmitting. there may not be substance to be, nor to be transmitted. and whether there are things which may engender transmission, well, it can not be known.
then, if there is something other than transmission, what is this?
this may phenomena be, but if not, then a pour of something else transpired, if so transpired, if so at all. and then, if this searching sentiment, if this self wondering para-nomena..
if! some half-happenings keep!, or not!
then will something be shown? will something (if something) be indicated?
but then, will that indicator be? or not?
it can not seem. a possible struggle may be unbegining, ever in unbegining.. or not.
maybe there was something, and it has finished, and now, there is nothing to seem, no form, no intuition..
may it be that there is nothing to know? is this a phenomena? if so, is it the phenomena of knowledge sticking to nothing in a void?
it can not be seen.