YAP (Yet Another Pattern) from Jordan Peterson structures

I have been listening to a number of Jordan Peterson videos and reading some of his material. What he is saying is well articulated. He backs up his analysis with a deep study of the subject area - very impressive. However, there was something about his meta model that was causing me some cognitive dissonance. I have been trying to understand the source of that dissonance for some time. Every time I listen to him, I find him insightful, honest, and very genuine.

Expectation space pattern

I am taking an online mindfulness course via Coursera at the University of Leiden. One of the  questions that came up was whether we are in a period of greater stress historically than before. One person pointed that with famine, disease, life expectancy, etc. life was more stressful before. My thought was that that is not true. What has happened is that with

• the complexity of our civilizations, 
• all the stories / narratives  / media we are exposed to 

we have developed a very large expectation space. Our expectations of what our lives could be, should be, ought to be, ... And the gap between the actuality of our lives and experiences and our expectation space is  what leads to stress. So, in this model, stress is much more in this age than it has ever been before.

With this pattern, there is also the issue whether a person senses

• they can meet these expectations
• the expectations are impossible to achieve for them
• if only ....  , then .... Which leads to various fantasies which may collide with actuality and cause stress
• ...

One can contrast expectation space with opportunity space. Since we live in a infinite universe, opportunity space is infinite. However, we may not have the strategies, capabilities to  avail ourselves of these opportunities.

Selection pattern

As an example, there are many rules of thumb. Some are direct opposites of each other.  How do we decide which one to select. This is the selection pattern. Selection can be determined by

• context  - 
• groups, e.g., mobs, cultures, religions, philosophies, academic disciplines, ...
• hormonal balance (good day, bad day, what we had for our last meal and how we feel, ...)
• weather
• current news cycle
• ...
• authority - person, religious text, dogma, ....
• life experiences
• trigger events
• ...

Rule of Thumb Pattern

We exist in a very complex context. One way we have found to manage this complexity is by making  rules of thumb. Religions, philosophies are replete with these rules of thumb. There are some side effects to these rules of thumb:

• context is left out. Does the rule apply in this context? A rule is a generalization that may or may not apply in a given context. The generalization leaves out the dynamic nature of existence.
• the rule hides the complexity. In some sense, it creates a veil, a wall, beyond which we do not look. Just like a causal chain - we stop it at some point and don't look past that point. Some causal chain stopping points:
• the big bang
• god
• who is to blame - a group, an ethnicity, a culture, a philosophy, a gender, a  function, ...
• ...
These stopping points help us manage an infinite regression since we exist in infinity, where the causal chain starts is totally unclear to finite beings with limited capacity.
• allows us to deal with great complexity in some manner. Sometimes a useful one and sometimes not.
• ...

Halting Problem

In simple terms, will a program halt or not? Does the universe / existence (as we know it) stop? If we are existing in infinity, there is no end to infinity. This trajectory is covered in an earlier post. Do we just keep discovering that the universe / existence is so deeply fractal that we keep discovering the same pattern(s) over and over.

Presuppositions and Their Discontent

In a recent conversation with a friend, he remarked that he has not yet come to a policy on who to give to gifts to at year end. We talked about how a single policy tries to simplify the context to an unchanging background. However, the context is dynamic. One policy does not do justice to all the variations that are present - more organic is to respond to the complexity by adjusting the action to the situation.

Tragedy and its discontent

These ideas arose from the context of reading the tragedy Antigone in French by Jean Anouilh.

The gist of the tragic structure is that Creon the king has a niece Antigone. Antigone's brother Polynice revolts against the king and is killed. Creon orders that Polynice is not to be buried. And hence in the mythology of the times his soul can not find any rest. Antigone feels duty bound to bury her brother so he can find rest. She disobeys Creon's edict and is caught. Creon is duty bound to uphold the law and kill her no matter who she is as she refuses to hide the fact that she was burying Polynice and will continue that attempt. Hence the tragedy - as long as Creon and Antigone follow their perceived duty, Creon will have to kill Antigone.

The structure of this tragedy is a frequent occurence in human affairs. As long as people, within the structure of their culture and society, follow the norms of their context, tragedy may result.