α2 | unfolding expression |
I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Not only do words infect, egotize, narcotize, and paralyse, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain.
Though WORDS have no intrisic MEANING, in language, as elements of 'social signaling' (BIOSEMIOSIS), they trigger responses much as hormones and acrasins do.
The technology of WRITING changed our PERCEPTION. BROADCASTING systems emerged that enabled larger, and urbanized, societies to be coordinated and controlled centrally. Through post-modern information technology a new iteration of this proces is evolving on perhaps a much more fundamental level.
Social signalling consists of SIGNS; SIGNS are elements of social signalling. BIOSEMIOSIS, bootstrapped by RECOGNITION, comprises the BIOPHYSICAL processes of PERCEPTION and COMMUNICATION that enable social signalling both externally (endosemiosis) and internally (endosemiosis).
context
Long after we had crossed the watershed I emigrated. Not realizing how lost I had become, like a child I offered my help expecting to find common ground.
The history of our times calls to mind those of Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it; the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in mid-air but as soon as they look down they see where they are and fall. Focused on understanding and connection, on language, culture and communication, insights and hope in an alien place seemed worth recording. Doing so however raised questions that in answering led instead to a simple everyday paradigm of personal and societal learning.
Commonplace words, inevitably perhaps key to any paradigm of the everyday, have their meanings in particular determined by custom and habit to match their context. When the meanings they carry here are those that are broader and more widely applicable they are then EMPHASIZED to reduce confusion and avoid the bloat of repetitive explanations and links.
content
The paradigm, illustrated here by commonplace axioms, is seen through four coextensive perspectives (B – E below). Like the maps of an atlas these can then be read in several directions, perspectives B and C contextualizing those of D and E, and all four contextualized, detailed and underpinned by the contents of Θ.
Frame Α. Meta-descriptions. back
While perspectives B – E SET OUT the paradigm, frame Α contains accounts of the site itself – e.g this introduction (α2) and the preamble (α1).
Frame Θ. Foundations. back
Frame Θ contains footnotes, expansions, and external documents underpinning the site.
Perspective B. The literal and metaphorical. back
The recognition of different frames of language establishes a neutral foundation, on which perspective C then builds.
Perspective C. Pattern recognition. back
BIOSEMIOSIS, the recognition of patterns, is ubiquitous and coextensive with life. It then predicates the mirrored perspectives of D and E.
Perspective D. Individual learning and development. back
Perspective D outlines the integration of EXPERIENCE and EXPRESSION in ONTOGENY into the identity of an individual.
Perspective E. Societal learning and development. back
Perspective E outlines the ONTOGENY of societies, and the development through BROADCASTING of their identity, EXPRESSION and EXPERIENCE.
from: The revolution of everyday life ("Traite de savoir-vivre a l'usage des jeunes generations"), by Raoul Veneigem, 1965, Gallimard 1967. Translation by John Fullerton and Paul Sieveking, 1972. p.24-25.
the watershed
The WATERSHED, refers here to the transitional period between the Powell Memorandum of 1971, and the full commercialization of the internet in 1995. In the middle of this, the IBM-Microsoft contract of 1980 delivered neo-corporatism with both the platform and the template to drive the SEMIOTIC revolution now transforming the relationships of individuals to one another in their homes, markets, and environments, and to the government and the law.
The two primary differences between the meaning of words that are EMPHASIZED here and those commonly inferred for them, is that here they are defined within the universal context of BIOSEMIOSIS and not anthropocentrically.
When displayed with a red font they are hyperlinked.
When I set out I wanted to become more of what I imagined I was, but unfolding expression is fundamental; a reflexive and recursive exploration. It showed me my lack of fluency. And that this has brought me here.
I have assumed the meaning of what I wrote was as clear as what I imagined I said but although writing can seem like frozen speech it is quite different. Both are arts as well as crafts, and fluency in one often masks its absence in the other. Words are illusory; their context king their content secondary.
From: Tao Te Ching, 70, Lao Tzu, 300 BCE, translated by Stephen Aldiss and Stanley Lombardo, 1993, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
one premise one argument, two premises two arguments.
The description of the paradigm on this site is an ABDUCTION, a process that may be understood as the framework of both inductive and deductive reasoning, and the 'insight' that guides life.
The four perspectives reason the paradigm inductively. Perspective B provides the premise that leads to the argument of perspective C; perspectives B and C then provide the premises that lead to the arguments of perspectives D and E.
Inductive reasoning may be said to address the probabilistic complexity of animate behaviour, and to be the foundation of science. Deductive reasoning, on the other hand, is the foundation of mathematics, and may be said to address the absolutes of virtual and theoretical realities.
"Philosophers as well as psychologists tend to agree that abduction is frequently employed in everyday reasoning." The difference between the definitions used by Pierce and those used by modernists appears to be that Pierce was referring to abstraction whereas modernists refer to cognition; the former relating to life generally the latter referring generally only to humans.
reasoning
The three forms of reasoning may perhaps be seen in relationship to one another, as different focii on the cycle of scientific method; OBSERVE, THEORIZE, TEST, repeat. Elementary abductive 'reasoning' converts sense data into abstractions that guide action (OBSERVE, MODEL, ACT, repeat). Inductive reasoning uses observation to arrive at conclusions that can then inform testing (OBSERVE, THEORIZE, TEST, repeat). Deductive reasoning takes theories and predicts their results (THEORIZE, TEST, OBSERVE), repeat).
science
Science can essentially be represented as a learning loop comprised of three elementary stages that rely on reasoning to make sense:
A similar learning process partners selection to drive the evolution of life:
Science is an elementary practice; scientism is a belief. Eugenics, and the Holocaust it drove, are stark reminders of the dangers of not recognizing the distinction.
biophysicality
If it is accepted that descriptions of the ineffable are unavoidably metaphorical, and creationist, and anthropocentric teleologies and their concepts of the soul are set aside, then BEINGS can be defined simply as 'vehicles' of life and LIFE inferred recursively.
Rather than being merely 'wet' physical entities, BEINGS are BIOPHYSICAL, organized and animated by the interpretations that their BIOSEMIOTIC systems render of their internal and external environments.
To choose actions that ensure its survival, every BIOPHYSICAL construct requires a psychological correlate, and in order to exist every psychological construct requires a BIOPHYSICAL correlate. In actuality, psychology refers to METABIOPHYSICAL systems.
Those attributes of BIOSEMIOTIC systems, which in humans are referred to as awareness, consciousness, EGO and mind, are PERCEPTIONS, generated from the information that the SENSES of a BEING provide of NOUMENA that it encounters — in the same way as the PERCEPTION of colour is.
wellness
In an individual, the development of wellness and illness, is a function of the interaction of their BIOPHYSICAL actuality with their environment. This system then is impacted as a whole by any medical or psychological interventions and any social support and care they receive or are privated of.
Research into cancer and other diseases has identified the existence and primacy of METABIOPHYSICAL systems and the need to address them as a whole; however, despite the work of the WHO, modern societies and their BROADCASTING systems appear obdurate, discounting 'holism' and increasingly promoting reductionist models.
MEANING, is that which a BEING PERCEIVES of an EXPRESSION. It is inherited, encoded and developed through the reference-frame of the individual's ONTOGENY. Different reference-frames then inevitably arise.
Those BEINGS less able to recognize and reconcile differing reference-frames are at greater risk in social groups of being misinformed and deceived.
Ultimately, short term success is an insufficient guide for future action. Locusts are successful but find themselves unable to escape developing from their peaceful co-existance as individuals into the cannibalistic wars of their swarms.
Bioemiosis proceeds through recognition — through current sense-data that a being perceives then being recognized by it as being the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something the being has sensed or perceived before. This then is a recursive process, its first iteration (or 'base case') generating meaning by matching current sense-data and perceptions to those that have previously been recognized, recorded, embodied, and inherited.
Here embodiment refers both to the biophysical expression of semiosis and to the semiosis that biophysical expression represents. EMBODIED COGNITION is then simply a description of biosemiosis.
A metatransition is a metasystem transition to EITHER a more complex OR a simpler structure, ultimately leading to a transitory OR a permanent evolutionary transition in individuality.
Here, metasystem refers to a general, rather than restricted, controlling or organizational system which maintains the homeostasis necessary for the functioning of a system and its subsystems.
functioning, disability and health
First drafted by the WHO in 1980, the International Classification of Functioning (the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health), is an holistic overview of wellness and illness. Despite its publication, and the fact that today biopsychosocial models are taught in medical schools, the significance and impact on social organization and its institutions of these models might appear to citizens to have been relatively minimal — perhaps because of the powerful lobbies that work to promote a fundamentalist belief in scientific reductionism.
When people originally believed that the earth was flat, if that had not been questioned, science wouldn't have advanced this far. ..saying the biopsychosocial model has no value, and that it is "woo", is very similar to that. Sandyshore - university researcher and wikipedian.
footnotes of n_Einstein_Translation.php included in entryNote.php, e_Einstein_HumanDelusion.php, and e_personalMeta.php.
my translation
Einstein wrote the above words, in ink (bold emphasis added), in a note now held in the Albert Einstein Archives, Jerusalem. The translation I have made of them, and quoted from, is made in light of the translation that appears underneath them on the note and written in another hand.
There seem to me several reasons to make another translation: to reflect the gender neutrality of the German more consistently; to echo Einstein's use of both the word delusion and illusion; and to better reflect the certitude of the note's opening argument — carried in the brevity of the original German yet somehow stunted in the translation on the note itself in English.
The translation I offer here then, supported by translations by Google on 6 March 2024, is based on that written in pencil on the original note:—
This translation, in pencil on the original note, became the text of the condolence letter sent from Einstein to Dr. Marcus on 12 February 1950. The first two sentences of it were then used to open the letter of condolence sent on the 4 March 1950 to Norman Salt.
delusions and illusions
Einstein spoke the refined German of the Bildungsbürgertum, a language characterized by its precision. It might the be reasonable to assume, as an inspection of Einstein's note also suggests, that his use of the word Täuschung (delusion) twice and Illusion once, was considered not careless.
Etymologically the word delusion implies an action, a deceiving, referring here to that suffered by human beings through our consciousness, through which we perceive a deceptive appearance, the illusion of being "separated from the rest".
Although I believe the translations that I have found are faithful, quotations, stripped of their context can lose much of their quality. Transliteration of punctuation, for instance, can result in an English that makes their authors sound coarse or uneducated; and 'grammatical transliterations' may substitute gender bias for the gender neutrality of an original.
Where I have edited translations it has been only in order to address issues of punctuation, prosody, and inference that I felt detracted from the content of the originals. The edits have been made with due diligence and, although I am not a professional translator or writer, I believe they are both faithful, and required to make the fluency, erudition, and sensibility of the originals explicit. Original texts are provided for readers to draw their own conclusions.
Footnote {delusion01a} of n_Einstein_Translation.php.
The prefix "meta-" is used here as in the term meta-language — metalanguage: a system of symbols or signs (a language) used to describe or contextualize another language.
The article, from which the above quote was taken, although apparently accessible in 2024, has now been taken down by Stanford Medicine. The new article (at https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2004/02/link-between-sleep-cancer-progression-explored-by-stanford-researcher.html) still refers to Spiegal's work, but the expurgated quote there now seems, intentionally or otherwise, to downplay the research and to distance Stanford from Spiegal and the view he expressed.
family inheritance
Life is the state of being. Being is the condition of BEINGS.
A BEING is a descendant of a BEING.
I am a BEING.
It is as correct or incorrect to say that hormones create love as it is to say that love creates hormones. Love is not definable in the way that hormones are; they are terms in different reference frames.
Noumenon, is a Greek word meaning "that which is perceived". It is used the word Kant used to identify the thing-in-itself, the underlying reality that is then recognized by an observer as a SIGN.
Kant referred to the recognition of the thing-in-itself as perception, but here PERCEPTION is used to label one of four stages bootstrapped by RECOGNITION in the process of BIOSEMIOSIS.
Communicate: to convey information through a system of arbitrary signals.
Language: a system of arbitrary signals used to communicate information.
Meaning: the sense or reference of an expression.
Recognize: to know something as the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something known before.
Semantic: of or relating to meaning.
Ruppert, Edward E.; Fox, Richard, S.; Barnes, Robert D. (2004). Invertebrate Zoology, 7th edition. Cengage Learning. pp. 148-174; cited in Jellyfish, Taxonomy (list item: Staurozoa), Wikipedia..
Fautin, Daphne G. and Sandra L. Romano. 1997. Cnidaria. Sea anemones, corals, jellyfish, sea pens, hydra. Version 24 April 1997. http://tolweb.org/Cnidaria/2461/1997.04.24 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/.
science
Science is an elementary practice. Scientism is a belief. Eugenics and the Holocaust it drove are among the brutal consequences and stark reminders of not recognizing this distinction.