[Peace-discuss] US to Provide $70 Million Additional Funding to Syrian Rebels

[David Green]

I once had an argument with my sister about whether Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" was meant as satire. I argued no, but I fear I was wrong in this rare instance. 


     On Tuesday, March 17, 2015 10:55 AM, E. W. Johnson <ewj at pigsqq.org> wrote:
   
 

  
 On 03/17/2015 09:40 PM, David Green wrote:
  
The only way .... for the rest of us .... is to change society... at a fundamental and structural level...
 
 I think this is what Ibn Khaldur says happens, and must happen.  The social contract breaks down as the 1%ers get more
 and more control and finally the system collapses.  Of course this is feared but is actually the only way out.
 
 The blue screen of death means that your pissy windoze system has finally gotten so corrupt that it can't function.
 You might be able to patch your way back in somehow, but generally a new operating system restoration i snecessated.
 
 Boyd writes:
 
    According to Gödel we cannot— in general—determine the consistency, hence the character or nature, of an abstract system within itself. According to Heisenberg and the Second Law of Thermodynamics any attempt to do so in the real world will expose uncertainty and generate disorder. Taken together, these three notions support the idea that any inward-oriented and continued effort to improve the match-up of concept with observed reality will only increase the degree of mismatch. Naturally, in this environment, uncertainty and disorder will increase as previously indicated by the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, respectively. Put another way, we can expect unexplained and disturbing ambiguities, uncertainties, anomalies, or apparent inconsistencies to emerge more and more often. Furthermore, unless some kind of relief is available, we can expect confusion to increase until disorder approaches chaos— death
 
 Chuy al-Ka-Seltzer really ain't all that much different from the present bunch.  Even if the people are able
 to evict Rahm-bo, the system will continue on without him.  The same limits of allowable debate will be imposed
 and pretty soon ya get back to square #1.
 
Fortunately, there is a way out. Remember, as previously shown, we can forge a new concept by applying the destructive deduction and creative induction mental operations. Also, remember, in order to perform these dialectic mental operations we must first shatter the rigid conceptual pattern, or patterns, firmly established in our mind. (This should not be too difficult since the rising confusion and disorder is already helping us to undermine any patterns). Next, we must find some common qualities, attributes, or operations to link isolated facts, perceptions, ideas, impressions, interactions, observations, etc. together as possible concepts to represent the real world. Finally, we must repeat this unstructuring and restructuring until we develop a concept that begins to match-up with reality. By doing this—in accordance with Gödel, Heisenberg and the Second Law of Thermodynamics—we find that the uncertainty and disorder generated by an inward-oriented system talking to itself can be offset by going outside and creating a new system. Simply stated, uncertainty and related disorder can be diminished by the direct artifice of creating a higher and broader more general concept to represent reality.
 
 However, once again, when we begin to turn inward and use the new concept—within its own pattern of ideas and interactions—to produce a finer grain match with observed reality we note that the new concept and its match-up with observed reality begins to self-destruct just as before. Accordingly, the dialectic cycle of destruction and creation begins to repeat itself once again. In other words, as suggested by Gödel's Proof of Incompleteness, we imply that the process of Structure, Unstructure, Restructure, Unstructure, Restructure is repeated endlessly in moving to higher and broader levels of elaboration. In this unfolding drama, the alternating cycle of entropy increase toward more and more disorder and the entropy decrease toward more and more order appears to be one part of a control mechanism that literally seems to drive and regulate this alternating cycle of destruction and creation toward higher and broader levels of elaboration. Now, in relating this deductive/inductive activity to the basic goal discussed in the beginning, I believe we have uncovered a Dialectic Engine that permits the construction of decision models needed by individuals and societies for determining and monitoring actions in an effort to improve their capacity for independent action.
 
 Furthermore, since this engine is directed toward satisfying this basic aim or goal, it follows that the goal seeking effort itself appears to be the other side of a control mechanism that seemsalso to drive and regulate the alternating cycle of destruction and creation toward higher and broader levels of elaboration. In this  context, when acting within a rigid or essentially a closed system, the goal seeking effort of individuals and societies to improve their capacity for independent action tends to produce disorder towards randomness and death. On the other hand, as already shown, the increasing disorder generated by the increasing mismatch of the system concept with observed reality opens or unstructures the system. As the unstructuring or, as we'll call it, the destructive deduction unfolds it shifts toward a creative induction to stop the trend toward disorder and chaos to satisfy a goal-oriented need for increased order.
 
 Paradoxically, then, an entropy increase permits both the destruction or unstructuring of a closed system and the creation of a new system to nullify the march toward randomness and death. Taken together, the entropy notion associated with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the basic goal of individuals and societies seem to work in dialectic harmony driving and regulating the destructive/creative, or deductive/inductive, action—that we have described herein as a dialectic engine. The result is a changing and expanding universe of mental concepts matched to a changing and expanding universe of observed reality. As indicated earlier, these mental concepts are employed as decision models by individuals and societies for determining and monitoring actions needed to cope with their environment—or to improve their capacity for independent action.
 (Destruction & Creation, John Boyd)
 
 
 Ibn Khaldun seems to be saying about the same thing... that a genuinely new world order can be formed on the ashes and rubble of the old one, as individuals recognize that their might be the need for a social contract, and everybody gets a 2nd chance, except for those guys.
 
 Norman Greenbaum, the "Spirit in the Sky" guy, imagined that Chicago would be destroyed by a giant marauding aubergine descending
 from outer space.   Probably more realistic if he'd thought of a pickle, probably a good kosher dill.
 
 

 
  
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