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 here, refers 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 the platform and template for neo-corporatism to drive the SEMIOTIC revolution that is now transforming the relationships of individuals to one another and to every type and scale of social organization, whether of government, law, finance, health, education, religion, or commerce. 

The period coincides with the beginning of the Second Gilded Age — the christening of this as ironic as that of the First.

The Second Gilded Age is named for its resemblance to the first Gilded Age of the 1870s to 1890s, a period marked by laissez-faire capitalism, political corruption, and wealth inequality. It is considered to have begun between the 1980s and 2010s, in the United States' history, and to have continued up to the present. 

The narrative of a second Gilded Age erroneously suggests that the current dynamics are repeating those of the late nineteenth century. Although they share certain important characteristics, these are profoundly different historical moments. Focusing on the history of capitalism and labor, and taking a global perspective, demonstrates that the two periods were bookends — the "before" and "after" to a lengthy period when the cruelest characteristics of corporate capitalism were temporarily constrained. The late nineteenth century saw the ascent of serious efforts to rein in the power of the new capitalism and force it to bow down to the needs of civil society. During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, we are experiencing the decline of that effort as capitalists and their ideological and political supporters push to see how far they can go to ensure the unchallenged hegemony of corporate and property rights. The slow climb toward a more humane capitalism and the rapid descent away from it constitute two very different experiences.

These differences were also examined in the 2015 book, The Age of Acquiescence, by historian, Steve Fraser.

What fueled the resistance to the first Gilded Age, [argues Fraser), was the fact that many Americans had a recent memory of a different kind of economic system, whether in America or back in Europe. Many at the forefront of the resistance were actively fighting to protect a way of life, whether it was the family farm that was being lost to predatory creditors or small-scale artisanal businesses being wiped out by industrial capitalism. Having known something different from their grim present, they were capable of imagining — and fighting for — a radically better future. It is this imaginative capacity that is missing from our second Gilded Age.

When in a red font, EMPHASIZED words link to more detailed information. The meanings commonly inferred for these are ANTHROPOCENTRIC while those they carry here are holistic, and these, being less common in the context they are used here, are perhaps surprising.

The meaning, of holism, used here is that of the American Heritage Dictionary, Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts; Concerned with wholes rather than analysis or separation into parts.

This seemed like a great idea, at first, but while making the site appear brief it made it increasingly dense, and also hard to edit — something interminably required on account of the poverty of my writing and as a consequence of the clarification and reconceptualizations that the paradigm drives. When literalism and anthropocentrism are identified and set aside, an elementary, universal understanding of ontogeny — encompassing psychology, education, parenting, law, medicine, psychiatry, husbandry, etc. — seems unavoidable, and long overdue.

Whether icons or text, links here that are styled green or orange are internal, and when blue, external. The arrow icons, when in orange, link to short footnotes, the icon with a dotted underscore links to expansions that contain substantial extra detail.

If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? .. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.

Preamble.

A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out what kinds of assumptions, what kinds of familiar, unchallenged, unconsidered modes of thought, the practices that we accept rest on.

From: Tao Te Ching, 70, Lao Tzu, 300 BCE, translated by Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo, 1993, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

abduction.

The truth is that the whole fabric of our knowledge is one matted felt of pure hypothesis confirmed and refined by induction. Not the smallest advance can be made in knowledge beyond the stage of vacant staring, without making an abduction at every step. 

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.

Inductive reasoning uses related observations to arrive at a general conclusion. This type of reasoning is common in descriptive science. 

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.

Descriptive (or discovery) science, which is usually inductive, aims to observe, explore, and discover, while hypothesis-based science, which is usually deductive, begins with a specific question or problem and a potential answer or solution that can be tested. The boundary between these two forms of study is often blurred and most scientific endeavors combine both approaches. 

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.

Looking out my window this lovely spring morning, I see an azalea in full bloom. No, no! I don't see that; though that is the only way I can describe what I see. That is a Proposition, a sentence, a fact; but what I perceive is not proposition, sentence, fact, but only an image, which I make intelligible in part by means of a statement of fact. This statement is abstract; but what I see is concrete. I perform an abduction when I so much as express in a sentence anything I see. The truth is that the whole fabric of our knowledge is one matted felt of pure hypothesis confirmed and refined by induction. Not the smallest advance can be made in knowledge beyond the stage of vacant staring, without making an abduction at every step.

"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).

Quotation extracts taken from The Process of Science, and Scientific Reasoning, 1.2: The Science of Biology - Scientific Reasoning, by LibreTexts Biology. 

Quotation from Inductive Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 

science

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.    Albert Einstein.

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 we accept as unavoidabe that all descriptions of the ineffable are metaphorical;  and if creationist and anthropocentric teleologies and their concepts of the soul are set aside;  then, BEINGS can be defined as 'vehicles' of life and LIFE inferred recursively.

Rather than merely 'wet' physical entities, BEINGS are BIOPHYSICAL EXPRESSIONS, organized and animated by the interpretations their BIOSEMIOTIC systems make of their external and internal environments.

Any psychological construct requires a BIOPHYSICAL correlate in order to exist; every BIOPHYSICAL construct requires a psychological correlate in order to survive. In actuality then, psychology refers to the METABIOLOGICAL expression of a BEING.

PERCEPTIONS, attributes of BIOSEMIOTIC systems that in humans are considered as awareness, consciousness, EGO and mind, are generated from information that the SENSES of a BEING recognize in the NOUMENA which it encounters — in the same way as PERCEPTIONS of colour are.

wellness

In an individual, the development of wellness and illness is a function of the interaction between their BIOPHYSICAL actuality and their environment.  It is this system as a whole that is impacted by any medical or psychological interventions, and any social support and care, that the individual receives or is privated of.

Research into cancer and other diseases has long since identified the existence and primacy of METABIOPHYSICAL systems, and the need to address these as a whole; however, despite the work of the WHO modern societies and their BROADCASTING systems appear obdurate, discounting 'holism' and instead promoting increasingly reductionist models.

MEANING, is that which a BEING PERCEIVES of the EXPRESSION of a . 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. 

virtuality refers to abstractions of actuality that then pre-process EXPERIENCE.

Inherited and learnt by EXPERIENCE, our PERCEPTION is the recognition of what we can see; seeing what we expect to see, we then construct and integrate the data our eyes and other senses are capable of registering. 

The term BEINGS, applies here to all forms of LIFE, whether multicellular (humans, ants, plants, etc.); unicellular (bacteria, archaea, algae, etc.); or the MODULAR societies of slime molds, jellyfish, ants, humans, deer, etc.

Every BEING generates MEANING through the recursive process of BIOSEMIOSIS aligning its PERCEPTION of current EXPERIENCE with what it can RECOGNIZE from those EXPERIENCES previously EMBODIED through inheritance, or by itself, either in itself or externally — ENDOSEMIOSIS and EXOSEMIOSIS then referring, respectively, to the RECOGNITION of internal and external NOUMENA.

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 to a 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.

After nine years of international revision efforts coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Health Assembly on May 22, 2001, approved the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and its abbreviation of "ICF." This classification was first created in 1980 ... by WHO to provide a unifying framework for classifying the consequences of disease. ... Functioning and disability are viewed as a complex interaction between the health condition of the individual and the contextual factors of the environment as well as personal factors. The picture produced by this combination of factors and dimensions is of "the person in his or her world." The classification treats these dimensions as interactive and dynamic rather than linear or static. It allows for an assessment of the degree of disability, although it is not a measurement instrument. It is applicable to all people, whatever their health condition. The language of the ICF is neutral as to etiology, placing the emphasis on function rather than condition or disease. It also is carefully designed to be relevant across cultures as well as age groups and genders, making it highly appropriate for heterogeneous populations. 

Human beings are spatially and temporally limited parts of the whole that we call "universe"; yet we experience ourselves and our feelings as separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. 

close

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.

 The German word Täuschung in the original note, meaning 'delusion' (JPG opens in a new tab).

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".

Technically, delusion is a belief that, though false, has been surrendered to and accepted by the whole mind as a truth; illusion is an impression that, though false, is entertained on the recommendation of the senses or the imagination. Illusion (n.), developed in Church Latin from the late 14c. onwards to mean: a "deceptive appearance".

On delusion, and illusion; from the Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved: 4 October 2022.

The prefix "meta-" is used here as it is used in the term meta-language — a language (a system of symbols or signs) used to describe or contextualize another language.

I'd like people to reconceptualize cancer as a biological event that triggers stress responses affecting how the disease progresses... Managing those stress responses by adopting healthy eating and exercise habits, getting a good night's sleep, and finding good emotional and social support, should be regarded as much a part of cancer treatment as chemotherapy or radiation.

The article, from which the quote was taken, although apparently accessible in 2024, has now been taken down by Stanford Medicine. The new article (at Stanford research builds link between sleep, cancer progression) still refers to Spiegal's work, but the expurgated quote there now, intentionally or otherwise, seems to downplay the research and to distance Stanford from Spiegal and the view he expressed.

life

Life is the state of being.

Being is the condition of BEINGS.

A BEING is descended from 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 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 recognition of the thing-in-itself as perception. Here however, PERCEPTION is used to label one of the four stages in the process of BIOSEMIOSIS that is bootstrapped by RECOGNITION.

Language: a system of arbitrary signals used to communicate information. 

Meaning: the sense or reference of an expression.

Semantic: of or relating to meaning. 

to communicate: to convey information through a system of arbitrary signals. 

to recognize: to know something as the same as, or belonging to the same class as, something known before. 

Hydrozoa show great diversity of lifestyle; some species maintain the polyp form for their entire life and do not form medusae at all.  Polyps of some species propagate vegetatively, forming colonies.. polymorphism occurs in colonies of some species of hydrozoans and anthozoans, the polyps being specialized for functions such as feeding, defense, and sexual reproduction. 

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/.

Anthropocentrism is the narcissistic belief that the human species is the central fact and final aim of a universe that must therefore be understood in terms of human experience, needs, and values. 

science

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.    Albert Einstein. 

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.

Hormone, from the Greek, hormon, meaning 'that which sets in motion'. 

from the Greek, akrasia, meaning 'loss of free will'.