It's Elemental

Tag: Assumptions

  • Patterns in Process: Transdisciplinarity as a Background for Working with the Elemental Cycle of Transformation

    Patterns in Process: Transdisciplinarity as a Background for Working with the Elemental Cycle of Transformation

    Elemental Cycle Abstract

    This essay outlines connections between the Elemental Cycle as an archetype of transformation, transdisciplinarity, and  cybernetics.  A number of questions are addressed: the nature and importance of connecting these fields, an examination of resources and the dominant disciplinary discourses for the associated fields, and a critical examination of my assumptions, beliefs, and position.

    Introduction

    How often do we find ourselves in a position of not being able to see something unless it is first pointed out to us?  This happens all the time with the visual and other physical senses, but of course also occurs in our thinking; certain concepts seem to hide in plain sight, and unless we are cued into where and how to look for (or to think about) them, they slide on by as a part of the undifferentiated background of conceptual life.  Usually we are introduced to these sorts of concepts just like we are to new people, through a third party who is already familiar with each of us: “Seth, I’d like you to meet Recursion; Recursion, this is Seth.”  Often with this sort of introduction comes an experience: “Oh hello Recursion!  You know, I feel like you must hang out at some of the same coffee-shops as I do, but we’ve never been formally introduced.”  And so a relationship begins with a concept, and just as with human beings, you can become more intimate and familiar, get into fights, seek new levels of understanding, and go on adventures. (more…)

  • observing the observer

    So then to begin in the middle I have many questions: 
      
    What constitutes an observer? How do we think about what an observer is/does? Is it as simply complex as the recursive: “An observer creates distinctions; distinctions create observers.”? 
      
    What is a distinction? In order for it to occur, does it require only an observer, or is there also an ‘observed’? If so, what constitutes the observed if we are speaking of it before the act of observation? Or is there no such thing as an ‘observed’ before its being observed? Is it possible for the specific distinction within the observed to be meaningless before observation while still maintaining on a higher order level that there is a realm of the ‘unobserved-observed’? 
      
    I mean to think about this issue as much as possible without the benefit of assumptions, knowing this is impossible. 
      
    Does the concept of the complementarity of field/wave in quantum physics help conceptualize this problem? Physicists can speak of descriptions of … using words that evoke particulate metaphors or wave-like metaphors. The … is always …, although some like to speak of wavicles to try and express the idea that beneath (?) the individual descriptions of what happens in particle physics experiments as either particle-like or wave-like, some more encompassing ‘reality’ is manifesting in an either/or fashion while remaining singular in itself. 
      
    The epistemological issue of the observer/observed qua cybernetics thus seems analogically exact to the epistemological dilemmas raised in our attempts to understand the quantum mechanics. Both point to some aspect of recursion as a central feature of any potential ordering of knowledge.

    There's a Light Inside

  • Why every line is a circle… and vice versa: a projective geometric exercise.

    I’d like to make a contribution with regards to circularity/linearity, from a geometrical standpoint.  If you don’t like geometry, stop reading, or better yet, read with increased intensity.

    The polarity between circle/line is one that is fundamental to many geometries – they are taken to be quite different logical entities.  Primarily this arises because of (in a move parallel to Russel’s need to introduce the Theory of Types to avoid paradox) a limited way of dealing with infinity.  Cybernetics shows us, by providing a wider view (attention to relations, recursions, and thus relations of relations, etc.) that the Theory of Types is unnecessary and points towards a more flexible and mysterious understanding of paradox.  In the same way, projective geometry provides a way of dealing with infinity that encompasses, expands, and re-frames the conventional geometric view. (more…)