Strange Notion on Logic

In another of my peregrinations, it occurred to me that most so called logic is a very static logic both in terms of time and space. For example, when one says a thing cannot be both A and not A, that is a rather static view point. In terms of time dynamics, it can be day at one time and night at another in the same place. In terms of space dynamics, it can be both night and day at the same time in different locations.

Am I missing something very obvious here or is there a basic structural issue with the notion of logic as we generally practice it?

Employment as a Scarce Resource ?

There are various metrics regularly taken about the level of unemployment. I would suggest that there is no shortage of jobs in this universe. It is vast beyond all our imaginings. What there is is a shortage of is vision. There is so much we don't know, understand. So much we have not expressed, so many dances we have not danced, so many songs yet to be sung. And to think that there is a shortage of jobs!! Our job always has been to discover the undiscovered country. There are more jobs than there is sentience in the the entire universe. That is the beauty and the mystery of this existence - there is no user manual, no predetermined future. Just this unfolding of which we are a part. And we seem to have some choice as to how the unfolding proceeds.

Applied Metaphors and translucent memes

There was a blog with lots of comments on performance reviews. A lot of the comments were similar to comments I have heard or made during my stint in the corporate world. What seemed to be missing (for me) from the dialogue was bringing to the foreground the implicitly applied metaphors and memes in the points and suggestions made. Here are what seem to me be a set of applied metaphors:

• Work is a race and hence the best deserve to win and get rewarded
• Value is a measurable entity
• Workers are widgets and can be categorized by value

Then there are memes that are not quite opaque but somewhat translucent:

• Uniformity is fair
• Evaluation is an industrial process
• The evaluation process can be made uniform and fair like an industrial process
• Uniformity in evaluation is good, as it is in the manufacture of widgets.

The meta meme here is the industrial revolution meme of uniform, repeatable, and directly controlled processes.

For one, there are many possible metaphors that may be applied to an organization and its human members. It can be viewed as a garden. You provide and fertile soil, add amendments, test the soil, observe for pests and other infestations. The measure of success is the harvest. There are both direct and indirect  analogs for these measurements in an organization.

For another, in performance reviews there is an associated vision-logic of the world as a set of competing groups. The competition is for resources of various kinds - economic, materials, human resources, etc. One can suggest a different  vision-logic for the purpose of human groups and human existence. That of a journey into the undiscovered country. In that journey all participants may have vital resources necessary for that journey. Then     the issue becomes not one  of competition but one of developing the available resources as one has very little notion of  what one is about to encounter in the undiscovered country.

Ladder of Inference

I came across this ladder of inference in my peregrinations. This is an area I have been thinking about for a while. Looking at the inference loop, I was dissatisfied with the loop and its implications. So I put together a different structure for what is going on.

It seems to me like there is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that we are consciously quite unaware of. As we come across phenomena (real experience), our neurologies use those phenomena to create assumptions about how the world works. What is up/down, important/less important, and so on. These sets of assumptions group (categorize) into beliefs. This system of beliefs then determines how we filter, what phenomena we are aware of, what meaning we assign to these experiences, what conclusions we draw from these meanings, and what actions (if any) these lead to. An example of this would be an unexpected reward. It could mean that

• one is a good person and deserves the reward
• one is favored by one's deity/deities
• one is lucky
• one is going to be unlucky later to balance the current luck
• and on an on ...

This ladder can be confusing in that the loop from experience to assumptions is happening at various levels:

• direct physical experience
• cultural / social experience
• vicarious experience through media
• ...?

Is it the same loop for all different types of experience? I am not sure.

A Basis of Understanding Phenomena

When we approach trying to understand anything, we bring to that process a lot of givens. These givens are not necessarily in the sense of a myth. They are assumptions and presuppositions that we don't question and tend to take for granted. An example of this is the notice of justice. We have a sense that justice should be the same for everyone. There is a presupposition of uniformity and equality in that notion. Is that notion, in part, derived from the industrial revolution meme of uniformity and replicability? This fairness/equality notion of justice is in one sense very unnatural. There is little uniformity in nature. Nature is chaotic and complex. The uniformity that we achieve is through extraordinary means with our technology and tools. In the larger sense this is quite natural as we are part of nature. From another perspective, this notion of fairness/equality in justice is rather unfair as it does not (and perhaps cannot) take into account the full complexity of the circumstances but applies an industrial model of uniformity to circumstances that are not unique. This can be seen as a great injustice.

In the process of understanding we can continue to uncover these assumptions / givens in our models. This uncovering can lend greater insight into the understanding of phenomena. For example, in the models we have in various disciplines from physics to the social sciences, what tends to be left out is that character and properties of the modeler. We have limited capabilities of handling complex systems. The way our perceptual systems work, we

• tend to favor one modality (sense system)
  
• can handle a very small number of variables simultaneously
• don't sense the implications of the dynamic interactions of these variables
• are limited in our capability to deal with non-linearity and chaos
• are influenced by our affect circuits - loyalty to a model or a person, ...

Yet these models and theories are presented as "absolute" in part because another property we have is a limit to the creative tension our neurologies can maintain in not selecting a final answer to give us direction.

Types of Intelligence

There are notions about different types of intelligence. The distinction of intelligence has grown from a single generalized characteristic to finer distinctions. Gardner's notion of multiple intelligences is an example. Another example is the notion of lines of development in Wilber's Integral Theory.

I suggest a more basic structural way of looking at the notion of intelligence. This space / time we inhabit requires a certain degree of capability for survival / viability / longevity / ... From this perspective there are at least three basic forms of intelligence and combinations and mixtures of them. One intelligence is how well we understand and deal with space. This is manifested in how well we can maneuver in space - not just with our bodies but also with our minds. We use space as a way of creating geometries of understanding phenomena, artifacts, ... There is also entity intelligence. In this space / time we inhabit, there are entities with various characteristics. How well we can understand, utilize, ecologize with these entities is a form of intelligence. Then there is time intelligence. How well do we understand time. When we see entities in this space we inhabit, we have a time sense of how things will change. How what we do will affect this unfolding of which we are a part. The implications of relationships and actions through time is an aspect of time intelligence. Here is an example of time intelligence.

A Beginning

The notion of Practicing Philosopher is from a science fiction story whose name and author are now forgotten by an aging mind. Here is a paraphrased synopsis of the story line.

If you are being chased by green demons and you go to a psychiatrist, she will try to help you by relating these delusions to your past experiences and help you try to overcome these delusions. If you go to a priest, she will try and exorcise these demons for you. If you go to a practicing philosopher, she will pick up a stick and help you chase these demons away.

The first time I read this story, the notion of a practicing philosopher really appealed to me at level that I can't begin to articulate. It struck me as a deeply compassionate act. This is a level of compassion that I aspire to but have not achieved. This is the level of compassion of an awakened mind, imho.