Glen -
What a great cascade here... I'm not sure anyone but you and I are
properly enjoying it however <grin>.
But that probably doesn't account for all of creative/production.
There are plenty of others, e.g. your material from earlier foci, or
perhaps a multi-tasking ability to be able to simultaneously consider
and merge foci. The more important one, I suppose would be if/whether
there's something pivotal happening inside the machine
(consciousness?), something creative rather than merely transformative.
This deserves it's own entire thread... "what means creativity?". And
perhaps, "is creativity just another name for emergent?".
I left out an important point in all of this, I think. The work going
into building "ontologies" for various (sub)domains is roughly the act
of building a shared, formalized "constraint sieve". My interest is in
developing a working environment for ensembles of these.
One thing that's always bothered me (right down to the etymological
nightmare of the words "ontologies" and "methodologies") is the
assumption that ontologies are at all stable, much less static, or
even real. These languages we have for various things (experiences,
domains, identities, expectations) have always seemed so arbitrary to me.
My direct involvement in this work, tangential (direct for me,
tangential for the domain itself) suggests that it is very young and
immature, that it often takes itself too seriously, etc. I'm naturally
interested in "ontologies" as low-fidelity, distorted snapshots in time
from a specific perspective of something much grander. Unfortunately
that line of consideration risks being yet-less mature and yet-more
self-aggrandizing-worthy not unlike classical Platonic Idealism.
Of course, that's what sparks my defense of postmodernism against
people who are clearly smarter and more linguistically endowed than
me. ;-)
I have always had a very complicated relationship with postmodernism
myself. I'm knee-jerk suspicious of any movement whose fundamental
nature is deconstructionistic... that is the central power/theme of
"criticism". It's easy to tear something down, not so easy to build
something (and then defend it from entropy itself and those who would
tear it down for tearing-down sake). That said, I'm naturally
sympathetic with those who question the existing order which is (by
definition?) held in place by authority/intimidation/momentum...
But more importantly, as I age, I consistently find my peers are
maturing faster than I am. They (for good or bad) fall more naturally
into "expertise" or "guru" statuses or fall more naturally into "right
wing nutjob" or "cancer patient" or whatever classification system may
be most convenient for them.
I think you are describing the problem of rut-following and creation?
One often doesn't recognize the ruts they are running in until they
manage to jump them, or more likely get high-centered when they get too
deep. Me, I'm dragging a LOT of shit with my undercarriage despite
having jumped and/or cut across ruts many times.
"don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy" - Eagles
Of course, I can't help but think that if they're doing that, then I
must be doing the same, even if i can't accurately observe it about
myself. And if I'm maturing like they are, then what can I do to
_stop_ it? I've thought seriously about leaping off the cliff and
trying some psychedelics.
In the anti-drug mythology, I believe those two events (jumping off a
cliff and taking psychadelics) happen in the opposite order.
My yard alone tells me there should be some useful fungus around here
somewhere. ;-) It seems like those drugs are an established mechanism
for "cracking the cosmic egg", as it were.
I think their efficacy is intrinsically faith-based... there probably is
no objective way to determine whether the subjective experience induced
by them (immediate and latent) is "real" or not.
But this is an individual, ontogenic observation, not a population
based, transpersonal, or objective one. Perhaps there are stable or
even static/true classification systems out there and I'm just too
lazy to find them?
In my own case, my own maturing has lead me *away* from a strong or deep
belief in any of the specific, accepted classification systems. If
anything I've become more interested in a wider variety of them and
intuitive as well as formal comparative analysis of them. My
professional work in the area is informed by that as well... I'm
interested in how this plenitude of related classification systems are
related to eachother and whether one can combine or superpose them,
interpolate between them, etc.
And, if that's the case, then the Satanists are right. It's not wrong
to purposefully go crazy through, say, meditation or psychedelics, but
why would you do that if you can be _right_ and _know_ things about
the world? Why would you take the risk of abandoning the Truth?
This sounds scarily similar to the argument sometimes made for belief in
the JudeoChristian god (and probably Allah as well)...
We'll have to continue this conversation over beers and fungi from your
yard if I ever make it back up to Portland!
- Steve
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
