Friday 26 December 2008

Chaos is mayhem and destruction? No.

Posts relevant

"The stage is set"
"The end of free-market fundamentalism"
"My first lecture in Berkeley!"
"The End Of Free-Market Fundamentalism"
"Not recommended: frantically seeking escape from a chaotic situation, we find ourselves in."
"Throwing overboard relentlessly whatever is remotely connected with what is not agreed now."
"Imperfect kinds of consciousness"

If once more, I hear or read on chaos and chaotic conditions or situations in that manner I will explode.

Referring to chaos as synonym to mayhem and destruction and ignoring the fact that, this is a result, of our limited perspectives, every human individual's limited perspective. We should not attribute as chaos, what our obvious inability to asses any situations in their widest breadth and furthest depth ever, brings forth.

An inability which even comes out from the comment of Philippe, in the post 'My first lecture in Berkeley!'of 'Au bout de l'ouest / Running out of west' website,

"If you look at the quote by Poincaré (arguably the person who introduced the concept of chaos without naming it that way) I put in the text, it's clear that he takes an epistemological point of view compared to Laplace's "omniscient being" point of view (which is not that much useful for the actual practice of science with finite means of inquiry)."

Human individuals obviously suffering from an "omniscient being" syndrome, which drives them to assume the product of their senses and the information gathered, limited as is, as an absolute and unequivocal view of the world and ignore that as individuals, we have 'finite means of inquiry', which is even reflected in the way we practice science.

That, what we take as chaos, it is merely apparent, as our brains can not take in, everything there is out there. What is described and taken as chaos is a result of our very limited views for almost everything that unfolds around us.

Whereas, as it is pointed out in the same comment

"Another way you can see it is that if you believe the world is deterministic, "randomness" doesn't exist per se. True randomness would mean, for example, that the state of some object in the future is totally uncorrelated with its present state. Chaotic systems give the appearance of randomness, because there is a time in the future where our uncertainty in our knowledge of the present (no matter how small it is, as long as it's larger than 0) will prevent us from seeing any correlations."

the randomness which is a common theme, in the view of chaos as mayhem and destruction, 'doesn't exist per se', as states of objects, any object, are correlated with their states in the past, and the future states are correlated with their present states. That chaotic systems give the appearance of randomness, exacerbated by the enormity of objects around us, building up a complexity that our minds cannot fathom, a complexity out of countless processes and objects, which we can only 'see', understand, make it meaningful to us, a very limited portion. What is referred to, as 'our uncertainty in our knowledge of the present' which 'prevent us from seeing any correlations'.

Assuming such a stance towards chaos, accentuates helplessness, reduce ourselves, our capacity to provide solutions to any problems, to whatever size or implications in every aspect of our lives, our societies, the world at large.

Or even drive people, in groups or individually, to seek just another saviour of humanity whereas the only saviour that exists, is the very own human individual, himself or herself. An endeavour which dilutes and weakens the strength of any messages passed to wider circles, or any goals sought for, despite how worthwhile they might be.

Thursday 25 December 2008

Why personality change is so hard? Because monetizing societies squeeze every inch out of the lives of the individuals amidst them.

Blatant remark, in the 'Set in Our Ways: Why Change Is So Hard', article in scientific american mind?

"Personality can continue to change somewhat in middle and old age, but openness to new experiences tends to decline gradually until about age 60. After that, some people become more open again, perhaps because their responsibilities for raising a family and earning a living have been lifted."

Killing dreams, shun new experiences? Why? Openness to new experiences decline until about 60. The age for retirement? Retirement from what?

Their squeezed out lives, being trapped in the cogs of western or westernized economies, pressured from any angle possible, sentenced to live their lives out, in the service of economic interests, which their sole purpose is to accumulate wealth that its bulk is siphoned in the pockets of a handful of individuals.

Leaving the equivalent of crumbs, as reward for their toil, a meager flow of wealth carefully administered so they can barely sustain vital functions for their survival and that of their families. Never a moment's peace.

Keeping them constantly on their toes, with sparse moments for rest through their whole working lives.

How can they ever be able to sustain the fervour of their youth?

No wonder the 22-year-old Christopher McCandless, chose death to a life, so ruthlessly drained of its force.

'Set in Our Ways', and the only thing offered is “The shortest path to oneself leads around the world.”, trivializing a trait responsible for the stagnant societies, the world over. As usually.

The whole article is a mock to the face of every individual, and they have the audacity to throw it in piles.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

Rules fit for a monster? The human individual?

- Rules to serve the public and not the hungry for profit needs of providers, so-called entrepreneurs.
- Malthusian societies? Modern societies determined by bare subsistence wages?
- Are all individuals in a society considered potential offenders?

Laws and rules that they do not fall into the norms that drive human interactions, streamlined to paths that do not follow the painstakingly trodden by attractors, grooves. What the attractors that bear the norms, demand for.

State authorities asking for blind obedience, as any beat policeman will tell, your ignorance is not allowed, so fervently delivered in a stern, unforgiving manner, and profoundly unquestionable. An exterior which its main purpose is to dress with a shroud of importance meaningless code which barely touches what a human individual has to deal with, in its every day life.

Strict adherence to rules renders them stupid, as solutions offered are naive and short-sighted, as they are heavily influenced by monetising criteria, which utterly warp and distort the meaning coming out of even the most well-thought benign rules, barely touch the source of the problems, as they hardly manage to provide the solutions human individuals require

Rules which their natural place fit for shrines, objects to be revered and worshiped but not to be used, to deal with the problems individuals face in their every day lives.

As in their strict adherence, its enforcers miss the point, that the reason for the rules of being there in the first place is to facilitate the interactions of human individuals but instead the rules devised, their only purpose is to serve monetising interests.

Rules that deal with individuals problems, are in no need to be enforced, they are adhered by the individuals as it is the glue that keep societies intact.

The human individual has no need for anyone to tell them what to do.

The human individual is not the monster that so ingeniously is spread by states agencies and public media, that swamp human consciousness with the one in a million cases of aberrant behaviour examples, grossly exaggerated.

A fallacy constantly perpetuated by states agencies and public media held tight in the grip of monetising concerns and their acolytes.

So eagerly are out to convince us that the human individual is a monster to be afraid of and not the incessant strict adherence to monetise every bit of human activity that there is.

Adverts from state agencies, that their sole purpose for being aired is to twist and turn the feelings of a human individual for his fellow individuals, to drive them deeper into their cocoons, their comfort zones, isolate humanity, divide individuals and subsequently conquer, easy prey for all exploiters to squeeze out of them every bit of energy, and promptly monetise it.

Sunday 30 November 2008

"Economically viable", a phrase which should be eradicated from the minds of the people.

"Economically viable", a phrase which should be eradicated from the minds of the people, along with whatever it symbolizes, whatever notions, ideas, practices or even concepts is associated with. It opens up wider routes to think about, what the role of states and governments is. Gives a wider perspective what the states and governments supposed to do.

It is directly connected with the most revered tenets of chaos embodied in the phrase 'butterfly's wing flap', the tiny change that should be effected in societies, at the level of the single individual, which will radically re-structure the societal complexities current, and adjust the social fibre to only amenable to states, emergent for that matter, where the human individual is at its core.

Its goal to proliferate human values, values for which any association with monetisation, any attempt to be looked at with economic criteria would be regarded, as is, an insult in the minds of the people and therefore scornfully rejected.

There is no need to appeal to the good will of any individual regardless its position or its clout, planetarch, read currently Barack Obama, presidents, prime ministers, ministers, governments and state officials as the authorities structures already in place, fought hard and gained by the struggle of innumerable individuals, our forefathers in countless generations before us, taken and not given, will assure that any change, minuscule by the matters of societies scales, in the minds of people, is sufficient to effect the re-structuring, societies should undergo.

Thursday 27 November 2008

The source of evil

It comes out from within an individual, a natural tendency to destroy what individuals find themselves unable to comprehend. What they see as it should be destroyed includes ideas, thoughts intangible objects, abstract as well as any tangible object which they do not comprehend its significance.

This urgency to destroy is not only directed towards objects but the subjects, meaning the individuals responsible for existant structures and processes that they do not comprehend, as well.

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Rules to serve the public and not the hungry for profit needs of providers, so-called entrepreneurs.

Threads that contributed to the thoughts developed here

- Cheat, the form trust is abundantly displayed in social interactions
- The Big Insurance Scam
- 'Smart' laws? Built along the lines of co-operation instead of conflict as the driving force in individuals relationships?
- 'Legal and binding'? What is the value of that expression
- Scope of individuality
- Atlas Shrugged at 50
- The current state of the world determined by individuals trapped in a web which undermines humanity.
- The implications of society's adherence to a rigid framework of rules.
- Thoughts about rules and their universal application

When the rules are not devised to serve the needs of the public, but instead to serve the needs of the providers (the hungry for profits mob) of the service. And the needs of the providers are not even close, to what the service to the public is for, in the first place. The legislation devised is so terribly warped towards serving the needs of the providers that there is hardly anything useful for the public to benefit from. The whole procedure ends up being a money-making scheme, that is an affront, an embarrassment (if these individuals are capable of sensing it), and certainly a mock to the face of the public.

As in this article in Shawn Olson's Creative Arts website, is proclaimed

"Those industries that have snuck through the back door of the legislative process (like auto insurers) have created a monster in the system that is a giant parasite on the American economy—private companies are essentially taxing the American public."

Rules that prove to be a menace to society, rules that promote values that erode its fabric, poison the relationships between its members, a scourge to humanity. Money-making, profits vile notions, that their mere mention should run chills down the spines of individuals, even in their tinniest of expression, their most imperceptible hints.

Rules to serve the public and not the hungry for profit needs of providers, so-called entrepreneurs. It is out of the mind of these imaginative entrepreneurs the practices mentioned in this website are quite common in societies the world over

".. they also increase the cost of health care because of the plans that pass covered patients’ bills onto insurance companies… allowing hospitals to charge extortionately higher for medications that would otherwise cost much less."

In Ayn Rand's originated individualist cult, where Alan Greenspan's brilliant mind was nurtured in, in the introduction in their website, under the title 'Atlas shrugged at 50' they mention

"She contrasted these heroes with pseudo-businessmen, looters who were more interested in appearance than products; who used government to extort wealth from others; and who were guilty and ashamed of their prosperity."

Pseudo-businessmen? That is the only kind of entrepreneur that survives. It is the norm and not its exception.

To my mind and it should be in everybody's mind, entrepreneurs equals unscrupulous individuals that will do anything to protect their self-interest, their profits and nothing else. The modern day version of Attila the Hun.

Tuesday 21 October 2008

Not recommended: frantically seeking escape from a chaotic situation, we find ourselves in.

What powers the rise of emergent properties?


Not recommended: frantically seeking for a way to escape from a chaotic situation, we find ourselves in. Prey to our emotions. Looking for a quick getaway.

As I read through the paper 'Chaos-assisted tunneling in dielectric microcavities', by Viktor A. Podolskiy* and Evgenii E. Narimanov, stating that the asymmetric microcavities introduced chaotic orbits. After some deliberations that notion had been associated in my mind, with what I read in the National Science Foundation MRSC declaration of a research program on 'Emergent Properties Resulting from Constraints'. That goes along with what I was contemplating about the significance of incompatible forces in instantiating emergent properties in systems. States, objects, processes, systems that emerge endowed with novel properties?

That, as in the case of the microlasers studied by Viktor A. Podolskiy* and Evgenii E. Narimanov, lead to chaos-assisted quantum tunneling and drastically changes lifetimes and emission patterns of produced rays. All made possible from the constraints imposed by using asymmetric instead of circular resonators.

And in the case brought forward by the MRSC research program, the confinement of macromolecules in cells, to very small and crowded volumes having major consequences for structure and dynamics. Or the effect of chirality, the concept behind the reason why a left-handed glove does not fit on a right hand, frustrates long range order in both crystals and membranes, resulting in new structures, with the implications of the second effect of chirality, that leads to finite self-limiting self-assembled structures, still to be contemplated.

All cases where imposed constraints introduce chaos, and result in chaos created novel objects, that emerge as attractors. A theme similar to what we are going through in our daily lives. A notion along the lines of the self-similarity principle in chaotically developed systems.

There is not a day passing, without finding ourselves squeezed, cornered, tested by constraints of any sort imposed upon our selves. That is when chaos undertakes the task to pull us through. It is why, we are never really trapped, as we always find a way out or there is a way out.

However, our first instinctive move is to escape from the offensive situation. A sterile approach. We leave our emotions full reign to direct our actions and in doing so we loose the chance to take stock of the solutions chaos unravels before us. Overwhelmed by our emotions, we are incapable of distilling out of the chaotic situation the lessons to be taught out of the rich bed of solutions on offer. The novel properties of the emerged state. Succumbing to the urge laid down by emotions, nagging problems will continue to scourge the individual.

The human mind is equipped to deal with such situations ... situations where a quick, fast solution is required. It uses our quantum mechanical computation processes based upon the quantum mechanical superposition principle.

Should enter the chaotic situation and learn from it.

Monday 20 October 2008

Time-constraints and emotion-led considerations in the unfounded fear of chaos by individuals

Uncharted draft thoughts on the inexplicable fear of chaotic by individuals.

"A draft Housing Law intended to halt chaotic development and stabilise the real estate market was introduced to the Nation."

this statement in LuatViet.com, an advocates and solicitors firm from Vietnam, struck me as a misnomer, in the way I see it. Why would the meaning coming out from that sentence feel odd to me? To halt chaotic development? As far as I could say, individuals should not wish to halt chaotic development as chaotically developed states are the ones that explore all possible arrangements and provide the solutions someone seeks for. Halting chaotic development you stop a tool with which you explore a given field. Without that tool you would not be able to develop the appropriate solutions for the problem at hand.

Chunks of time for a chaotic development to devolve, chunks which might exceed the expectations of time limits as perceived by the individuals involved. The attention of individuals need to span through the length of time a chaotic state development require to fulfill its goal, the attractors final states to which they lead to. The widely discomforting feeling individuals are grabbed with, is when they find themselves within the transitory stage of the developing chaotic situation, what is referred to as being amidst the chaos, as emotions run high.

The main concern is to make sure that the initial conditions are kept intact as the desired final state, the attractors to be reached dictate. Further, while in the process of developing should make sure that the objectives are not compromised.

Certainly the time evolution that development takes might not follow the time evolution of the individuals involved. It would take time for the appropriate attractors to emerge. Time which might even be more even from the life cycle of human lives could span. And certainly, while in that transitory stage, what the individuals experience is confusing and disheartening. What one experiences and attributes as chaotic. But that view is shortsighted and largely prone to interference by emotionally triggered factors. It clouds judgment, as individuals are oriented towards satisfying short-term goals.

The chaotic development looked as a whole? A whole that is unfolding not in space but in time? States ever changing till they reach a level that can be called final states? Final states that can be desirable or undesirable? Their course determined by the parametres, and specifically the values of the parametres at the start of their evolution? Parameters, and values of parametres that define the initial conditions? And the chaotic development undergoes by following the dictum of sensitive dependence, in the initial conditions?

Laws devised should set the parameter values defining the initial conditions which, after the chaotic development will lead to the final states which are deemed as desirable? The sought up attractors? The chaotic progress checked while is developing by measuring the convergence or divergence towards the final states? The final states being the desirable states and would represent the goals sought? Take into account a measure based in the concept of the Lyapunov exponents?

Seeking out chaotic development is paramount. Once the goals are set, laws, their sole aim, should be introduced to set the stage, the initial conditions. Laws should be clear and adhere to the objectives put forth. Any other approach will compromise the development of the sought after chaotic attractors.

As in this page is stated

"The National Assembly passed the Law on the Real Estate Business on June 21. Under the law, to take effect on January 1, 2007, individuals, organisations, foreigners and overseas Vietnamese will be authorised to offer real estate services including brokerage and agency, appraisal, marketing, and consultancy."

the provision of the relevant services have no bounds. In an open world, service providers come from everywhere.

However, the stipulations in the laws about the requirements of the individuals seeking to participate in this field

"Article 50 provides that an individual who wants to be granted a broker’s license shall (i) have full civil act capacity, (ii) be trained in real estate brokerage, and (iii) submit a dossier to the provincial People’s Committee."

and

"The requirements for becoming licensed as a real estate appraiser are higher, including: (i) full civil act capacity, (ii) training in real estate appraisal, (iii) a college or university degree, and (iv) submission of a dossier to the provincial People’s Committee."

are interpretable in so many ways, the laws are rendered vague and compromises their effect. Introduce other considerations alien to the goals will hinder the objectives sought after.

The only credential should be required for individuals entering such an enterprise it should be the provision of the service. Certainly Vietnam's desire for a stable housing market should be aware of the pitfalls capitalist economies are writhed with. The greed of the entrepreneurs involved inherent in the capitalist way of thinking. If full civil act capacity and the dossier required to submit to provincial People's Committees aim towards ensuring that the initial conditions necessary for the sought after final states in the chaotic development, are intact, s not clear. Final states where housing becomes available that satisfies the needs of individuals.

Sunday 5 October 2008

Monopolies

An interesting account of monopolies evolution in America and the result of the current framework of today's multinational companies. Certainly they are responsible for quite a lot of the misery prevalent in this world a Darwinian parody played over and over but from the other point they provided the infrastructure which in today's state of the world is capable of sustaining its growth.

As, behind the monopoly idea is included the creation of an infrastructure necessary to furnish the needs of ever increasing populations in a suitable manner. By becoming bigger a company takes into consideration a larger size of the world and therefore its increase is directed towards fulfilling the demands put forward by that larger size.

By becoming a monopoly is able to channel more resources to acquire these objectives. Maybe the drive to create more profits is what pushed these companies to assume such a role, but while doing so they have managed to built the infrastructure necessary today. Because beyond their immediate needs for more profits, in the framework they were operating, they could not have achieved this, if they were not providing an ever-increasing standard of service for an ever-increasing population base.

Monday 15 September 2008

Cheat, the form trust is abundantly displayed in social interactions

Everybody is out there in order to cheat everyone else. Why? It largely comes out from a lack of trust in themselves. Always in doubt of themselves. Self-respect at its lowest points.

Society demands a lot. High expectations, as a result everyone feels under par. As if they do not amount to anything, therefore they hide their inner self from other people in fear of being exposed. They hide even from (and especially) their own self. They feel they have to cheat their way out in.

Instead of being themselves, they pretend to be somebody else. A trend, a mode of behaviour which is aptly taken up by media of whatever form, which bombard the public with unreal, idealized images of certain individuals, celebrities and the like, perpetuating an image of inadequacy in the individuals at large, hugely exploited for senseless financial gains, undermining further individuals self-esteem and their development of empowered personalities.

A reciprocal relationship where their short-sighted, petty financial gains and the drive of individuals towards empowerment act as incompatible forces. Their incessant greed for more monies counteract the development of empowered personalities in individuals.

The more their gains the deeper their readership disorients into meaningless personal states.

Thursday 4 September 2008

Human being. A beast that has to be tamed?

Subconscious. What is the subconscious? Or more likely what do people think that subconscious is? Even more, is the idea of subconscious universal or it changes from place to place, culture from culture or even from era to era? Would the changes in time and place matter? Can the subconscious really assume psychological content? Be evil or good? Harbour feelings, hates, animosities or even love, compassion, altruism?

Tuesday 8 April 2008

'Smart' laws? Built along the lines of co-operation instead of conflict as the driving force in individuals relationships?

Chaos attracting basins constantly test norms, regulations, laws.


Co-operation and not conflict as the primary drive in an individual, govern relationships with other individuals? And this to be taken into account in devising 'smart' laws to deal with human interactions?

Quantum mechanical states and the act of observation that decoheres the superposition of states into a single state, transfered into the context of human interactions and be used to direct the actions of the individual in dealing with problems faced in the course of his/her life, seeking solutions?

The observer influencing the kind of the single state that is instantiated by the individual under observation?

The laws are based on the assumption that human individuals are in conflict and not in co-operation. That comes from the acceptance of competition as it is portrayed in the darwinian theory.

How would law-making be different if co-operation instead of conflict is recognised as the primary drive in the acts individuals engage into? Certainly that will follow what is assumed actually drives the lives of individuals. If we assume that either co-operation or conflict is the main drive within an individual.

We should take both cases and see what might happen. Each case separate, either conflict or co-operation. How it would be if an individual assumes conflict, to deal with a situation and how it would be when it assumes co-operation to provide solution for the same problem.

What differ are the variables and parametres each approach would consider prevalent in any given situation. If it assumes conflict, it would consider different variables and parametres than when it assumes co-operation.

There we go to the quantum mechanical states and decoherence. As any situation in the world exists in a superposition of states, both states of either conflict or co-operation, co-exist simultaneously and what will be instantiated by the individual observed, depend on the act of observation.

And there comes the observer. According to his/her prevalent stance, co-operation or conflict, decoheres the superposition of states in the observed individual, in the same state as the observer. The observed individual assumes a similar stance as the observer and abides to the same parametres and variables connected with either conflict or co-operation.

If it is conflict the observer's prevalent stance then the decoherence effected, leads likewise to a state characterized by conflict in the observed. A clash is imminent, in whatever way the psychosynthesis of the observed individual use to deal with. Fight or flight.

If it is co-operation, the prevalent stance of the individual observer, decoherence will likewise lead the observed individual to the single state defined by co-operation.

Law-making and collapse of quantum mechanical superposition of states? Laws engineered alongside the doctrines of quantum theory? Concentrate on the parametres and variables prevalent in co-operation than in conflict? Social engineering towards co-operation and not conflict?

I gather that co-operation is more amenable than conflict in a society.

Sunday 23 March 2008

What are we? Filling the void with matchsticks.

What are we?

A void, a vacuum, an emptiness that we hopelessly try to fill in with a myriad of activities crammed tight in the tiniest of spaces in respect with the vastness of the void we try to fill in.

Our every day lives is packed with activities, be that the jobs we do to finance our ways of living, the entertainment methods we choose, our enjoyment, our social lives.

But if we stray, accidentally or not, even for a second from the fervor that our activities bring forth, our minds wander, into the void that surrounds us. We are immediately filled with unease, we find ourselves lost within its unyielding emptiness. Primal angst engulf us.

Monday 17 March 2008

Curb not, embrace anger. Instabilities triggered by emotions induce bifurcations to new attractors.

In the "Mind and Brain, Chaos and Quantum Mechanics" publication, in the chapter dealing with the non-linear synapse, page 22, it is mentioned that:

"Such non-linearities make it possible for unstable fluctuation at the synaptic vesicle or ion channel level within a critically poised neuron, to precipitate cellular instability and subsequent global neurosystem bifurcation."

What drew my attention, was the precipitation of cellular instability and the subsequent global system bifurcation. As a result of the ensued bifurcation the system's phase space is explored and a new attractor emerges; along the lines mentioned elsewhere in the paper, namely in the Electrodynamics chapter, page 18:

"... falling into an existing attractor in the case of a recognised odour, but bifurcating to form a new attractor in the case of a newly learned stimulus."

Leaving aside the case for the stimulus eliciting the response and concentrating on the matter of the instability precipitated by the unstable fluctuation at the synaptic vesicle or ion channel level, as well as, the non-linearities as being responsible, for a later use.

It occurred to me, that instability is a common feature in the lives of human individuals, triggered and driven by the emotional aspects of our character. Our whole being is in turmoil, when we are grappled by our emotions, being triggered by unstable fluctuations, in whatever way these can be imagined. It is what kick starts a bout of emotional outbursts. Fluctuations presented as changes in the usual patterns of activities, encountered in every day life. Even slight, minute differences, are enough.

Such fluctuations have also been refered to as

"... the fluctuating energy level that is responsible for varying physical and mental states.."

Emotions, their significance obvious as they are described as

"Emotions are evolutionary adaptations, as they enhance an organism's ability to experience, reproduce and evaluate its environment and thus increase its likelihood to survive and reproduce, by providing the simplest plans for evolutionary most common actions needed,..."

and as well

"Our emotions are a valuable source of information. Our emotions help us make decisions. Studies show that when a person's emotional connections are severed in the brain, he can not make even simple decisions. Why? Because he doesn't know how he will feel about his choices."

We rely heavily on our emotions to guide us in life, being the source of information, but not only. It is foremost, because of the ability conferred to us, to create new information.

Therefore, it is not a matter of

"Take measures such as anger management training to tame your beast!"

.... a person void of emotional content? Sanitizing ourselves from the most valuable tools we have at hand, our emotions? What leads, what induces states on a par to schizophrenia?

"People diagnosed with schizophrenia usually experience a combination of positive (i.e. hallucinations, delusions, racing thoughts), negative (i.e. apathy, lack of emotion, poor or non-existant social functioning), and cognitive (disorganized thoughts, difficulty concentrating and/or following instructions, difficulty completing tasks, memory problems)."

.... experience apathy, lack of emotion, poor or non-existant social functioning. It is not our emotions that are at fault, but the inability, the unwillingness to learn how to handle what our emotions bring forth.

Instead, it sounds more promising to do what this website proclaims:

"Give your feelings, good or bad, full rein and you will be bursting with energy."

Therefore our goal should not be to curb our emotions but instead to learn from them, to take advantage of the possibilities they open to us, to create new attractors. As emotional engagement brings about instabilities in our being, and the instabilities bifurcations, bifurcations to new attractors, which equates to learning. Learning which provides solutions to problems we are asked to deal with.

So after we recovered from, or fresh out of an emotional outburst, we should take stalk and capitulate on what we learned out of it. Identifying the new attractors which have been created as a results of the induced bifurcations.

Any other way or ignore and continue on, our lives are left with an emotional baggage to carry along with its whatever sinister implications, for us and the lives of the individuals around us.

Should embrace our chaotic lives.

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Intuitions. Should we be afraid or trust our intuitions? Building up a case for trust.

- intuition based on information, informed intuition. Like a computer program to which you provide, feed the data in, tweak the parametres and start the program. You have programmed into it, the variable parametres which you regard as crucial for the outcomes you seek.

Monday 11 February 2008

Chaos attracting basins constantly test norms, regulations, laws.

In page 231 of James Gleick book "Chaos, making a new science" in the footnote describes how to emulate a Mandelbrot set

"A Mandelbrot set program needs just a few essential pieces. The main engine is a loop of instructions that takes its starting complex number and applies the arithmetical rule to it. For the Mandelbrot set, the rule is this: z-> z(square)+ c, where z begins at zero and c is the complex number corresponding to the point being tested. So take 0, multiply it by itself, and add the starting number; take the result-the starting number-multiply it by itself, and add the starting number; take the new result, multiply it by itself, and add the starting number."

Iterations at the heart of the Mandelbrot set that reveal stunning worlds and if the iterations continue unabated the points plotted can not escape the pull of the set, balanced between competing attractors.

What can this tell us about our lives? The worlds we create and we live in? The same principles apply, as well. The iterations, that give rise to the mathematical objects of the Mandelbrot sets, do happen in our every day lives as well. Certainly they can not be formulated mathematically, rigorously or not, but they 'live', they are inherent in the ways we spend our lives, the many tasks we repeat daily on and on, in and through the simple rules that govern our daily acts, the communities, the corporations we are part of, all the systems we have built up to now and continue to build.

We can not define them, they do not have a rigid form, escape our reasoned intuitions but nevertheless they are there.

In the same page continues,

"A complex number is written with two parts: for example, 2 + 3i (the address for the point at 2 east and 3 north on the complex plane)."

And if the notion of a complex number does not have a meaningful counterpart in our lives, the plotting of that number, the point represented with the 2 east and 3 north coordinates, do have. It represents the state we are in, the state we have acquired by virtue of the system which we are part of. And our coordinates, our complex number, is determined by the rules that define the system and confine it, at the same time. The rules be that norms, regulations, laws or whatever other prescriptions exist that define the boundaries and therefore the extents of our state in the system we belong to.

In page 232, the footnote continues,

"To break out of this loop, the program needs to watch the running total. If the total heads off to infinity, moving farther and farther from the center of the plane, the original point does not belong to the set, and if the running total becomes greater than 2 or smaller than -2 in either its real or imaginary part, it is surely heading off to infinity-the program can move on. But if the program repeats the calculation many times without becoming greater than 2, then the point is part of the set."

And there is the crunch, as continuously experiment and test the system we are part of, that defines the state we are in, testing its tolerance will determine whether a certain norm, or rule or any other prescribed guideline, is heading into infinity or not, whether it belongs into the set or not. If it belongs into the set it will allow the iterations to continue, it will continue to be balanced under the influence of the existing competing attractors. If it is not it will be lost for ever, away into infinity and into nothingness. It is not part of the set.

Chaos rules our lives, the systems we built and defines what norms, what regulations, what laws are applicable. That have a chance at all. Whatever falls under the influence of the attracting basins survives, whatever is not, perishes and is banished. And this applies to every human system built, at whatever level. The norms, the regulations, the laws are constantly tested and if they fall outside the influence of the attracting basins they do not stand a chance of surviving. They perish, languish into oblivion, vanish for ever. And what finally determines the attracting basins? To which each norm, each regulation, each law should be attracted to?

The human individual defines the attracting basins, as it is the entity that makes them up and spawn such systems. The single individual is more susceptible to ideas. Ideas that constantly test the norms, the regulations, the laws and is the one that can freely generate new ideas, unbiased, unhindered by the self-preservation angst organisations suffer. Organisations are rigid structures unable to adapt as quickly as the human single individual can. History bears witness as countless norms and laws have perished as they journeyed to infinity and oblivion as they were not part of the attracting basins and countless more keep perishing and will perish as the human kind draws closer to its goal.

Monday 21 January 2008

Redundant concepts perpetrate illusions

Illusions can be directly attributed to redundant concepts the collective human mind has accumulated in its efforts to understand reality. These concepts as they continue to be in force, muddle up the human mind's further attempts to elucidate reality.

Illusions emerged and are propagated by the mental constructs human individuals create/d in order to understand nature's workings mainly by philosophy. In the myriads of concepts which they do not have a foothold in reality. Of course human individuals have employed their imagination in order to understand reality. This led/leads to the creation of abstract entities and rules of practice in order to be able to expand beyond a limited area. Being consistent, as what has been contemplated in the past had to be the starting point for what to be contemplated in the future. Need of continuity.

But the final goal is the elucidation of a particular process and the concepts needed to do so are finite and specific. That means a lot of the concepts invented need to be abandoned, their use being temporary, products of a transitional stage. Once the main concepts have been defined, the redundant concepts are not needed anymore. Their use obsolete. This can be seen in the words, that even in every day life have gone out of fashion, become forgotten and discarded. The same goes for models that redundant concepts have built and have been employed to explain natural phenomena.

In what is known as a paradigm shift, old ways of thinking, collective or individual, are completely abandoned, erased from memory never to be visited again, utterly overwhelmed by new ways of thinking, new ideas. When paradigm shifts happen to single individuals the change is so complete the old ways of thinking lapse into oblivion. If by any chance the old self appears, in whatever way at any point after, is confronted with disbelief. Old ways of thinking seem alien to the point the individual wonders how was it possible to have embraced such ideas and does not recognise itself.

In the book of Bill Bryson, 'A short history of nearly everything', there is an account of ways of thought, widely accepted, that have been abandoned. It was in 1796 that Georges Cuvier put forward for the first time a formal theory of extinctions.

"His belief was that from time to time the Earth experienced global catastrophes in which groups of creatures were wiped out. For religious people, including Cuvier himself, the idea raised uncomfortable implications since it suggested an unaccountable casualness on the part of Providence. To what end would God create species only to wipe them out later? The notion was contrary to the belief in the Great Chain of Being, which held that the world was carefully ordered and that every living thing within it had a place and purpose, and always had and always would. Thomas Jefferson for one couldn't abide the thought that whole species would ever be permitted to vanish (or come to that, to evolve)."

Deep-rooted religious beliefs were at question there. At the beginning the idea that whole groups of animals were repeatedly wiped out and replaced with new sets were ignored, resisted, mocked and ridiculed. Charles Lyell, who geologists admit as the father of modern geological thought allegedly said:

"Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity."

Though it was he who proved to be calculating in that matter, despite what he has contributed for the advance of geology. And it wasn't until the 1980s that the theory of extinctions finally won and the old ways of thinking abandoned:

"It is a testament to the strength of Lyell's sway that in the 1980s, when geologists had to abandon just a part of his theory to accommodate the impact theory of extinctions, it nearly killed them."

In the same way have been abandoned and if not any remnants still lingering in the minds of people should be wiped out leaving no trace at all, are concepts that stirred the hearts and directed the lives of many people. Concepts which have been used to erect huge artificial divides among groups of people, nations and their use brought only strife and destruction.

Thursday 17 January 2008

Throwing overboard relentlessly whatever is remotely connected with what is not agreed now.

Single individuals, as well as all the structures built and maintained by individuals, have a tendency, for various reasons, to hold on to old practices and ignore the new. Such a tendency, to whatever degree is adhered to, suppresses progress and hinders natural development based on notions that what have worked well in the past, it works in the present and it will work in the future. Its influence becomes overriding and suppresses new ideas.

Usually development reaches a plateau, as the premises for their rise in the first place, presented as the initial conditions, confine and determine the extent to which they can develop or even the kinds of development possible. These initial conditions which can be taken as the foundations of the system(s) built, do not offer any room for further development. Any further development is impossible. Further development is only possible by acting on the very foundations that the system(s) are built. Shaking at the very foundations of the built system(s).

An example of such process is provided by the rise in France of the Bourbaki movement in the 1930s among young mathematicians, presented in this article from PlanetMath website.

The system comprising the state of mathematics in France at that period pushed young mathematicians toward a complete overhaul on the way mathematics were taught as they felt that older mathematicians were holding on to old practices and ignoring the new.

As it is stated:

"Bourbaki felt that the old mathematical divisions were no longer valid comparing them to ancient zoological divisions. The ancient zoologist would classify animals based on some basic superficial similarities such as “all these animals live in the ocean”. Eventually they realized that more complexity was required to classify these animals. Past mathematicians had apparently made similar mistakes : “the order in which we (Bourbaki) arranged our subjects was decided according to a logical and rational scheme. If that does not agree with what was done previously, well, it means that what was done previously has to be thrown overboard.”"

The notion, of throwing overboard what was done previously, if that does not agree with what is agreed in the present, no matter how widespread and deep-rooted it might appear to be. That goes along at every scale, even at the level of a single individual in its efforts to acquire meaning accomplished by the eclectic use of language and the subsequent application of that meaning to deal with everyday life phenomena.

"Someone should stick to language, as far as the words, the symbols used, serve their purpose, in achieving meaning, and then words should be discarded, thrown away."

Amending old and tried practices, ideas that held true in the past, instead of tampering with the initial conditions, the foundations, it will only alter superficially a given system, as the limits have already been reached. As what is required is to advance to the next stage, a higher state in the system's development where new, innovative ideas will find room to flourish and proliferate.

The prerogative of acting on the initial conditions is professed by the chaotic systems development. The sensitive dependence on a system's initial conditions, where tiny perturbations have drastic effects in the final outcome of a state. A force that is unstoppable and able to carry forward whatever changes have touched and are about the initial conditions of any given system.

Any attempts to stifle such drive, goes against the premises of natural development, futile attempts of a system in its dying throes to perpetuate its existence, destined to fail as it stands against a much larger force.