Sunday 31 August 2008

Abolish money.

Threads connected with the thoughts expressed here
- Multinational corporations in 5th gear towards the 'global village'?
- Services. Building up monetisation-free zones?

The world evolves without you. My idea about abolishing money has already being raised and its seeds, the chaotic seeds, already planted. There are already ground-breaking individuals who elevated their thoughts from mere noise in the midst of their minds to firm fledglings, potential cornerstones for the exploration of how, why, when societies should get rid of money.

"The individuals' motivation to evolve and make use of their skills will not be anymore earmarked by a pride factor that is proclaiming its success basically in having been able to raise the envy of neighbours, friends and relatives, but solely by finding a deeper sense of satisfaction in being socially contributive to linking personal self-realization with the common well-being of all individuals & human communities."

The page I opened, in John H. Holland's book, 'Emergence', suited my current frame of mind. Without attempting to elaborate on this thought, I will quote the passage for future reference.

In page 190, I read

"If we turn reductionism on its head, we add levels to a basic description. More carefully, we add new laws that satisfy the constraints imposed by laws already in place. Moreover, these new laws apply to complex phenomena that are consequences of the original laws; they are at a new level."

Aspiring ideas for societies based upon the premise of no-money, treading the path of emergence, are expected to be built along the lines mentioned above.

The basic premise of rendering goods and services without the exchange of money, becoming the ingredient in establishing the original law, upon which new laws that satisfy the constraints imposed by the original law expect to give rise to complex phenomena as consequences of the original law, at a new level. Being followed by similar processes establishes further succesive levels and eventually will lead to the emergence of societies free of money.

Monday 25 August 2008

Resolve...?

Individuals argue their cases with resolve. Being resolute in their stance, fervently defending their case; their thoughts, ideas, attitudes in life. This contains fragments of survival of their identity or integrity, in the arena where all human activities are deployed. Not quite what I had in mind. I am rushing myself. Eager to put down my thoughts, but the initial spark got lost again.

What was I thinking about when this idea of resolve came to me? It was the conclusion or assertion of imperfect minds, along with the myriad of states laid out in front of us, waiting to be chosen. For the human individual to choose.

I have to put tags in my thoughts. Tags to be used, as much like internet links, to identify as well as act as handles, to grip and drag along the thoughts connected, buried deep in my brain circuitry. Tags which do not necessarily need to be synopses, summaries of the thoughts associated with; but rather like gestalt images, only parts of the overall images, 'visible' pattern fragments steadfastly attached to the rest of the pattern that lays hidden, but can easily surface when necessity demands.

The gestalt idea being relevant to internet tags, and brain tags.

Sunday 24 August 2008

Thoughts about thoughts?

Thoughts about thoughts ...

The initial fervour subsided. I got distracted. The thought which was unraveling in my mind got lost. Lost touch. I have to direct my ... What? The words that come into my mind are executive, central executive, the edge of my awareness, my consciousness, my attention. As we can only direct our attention to a single thing at a time, one groove of sorts, a single pathway in the neural networks of our brains, a path that traverses many other thoughts laying lingering, juicy tags along the path pulling you away from your main task, the unraveling of the initial thought. Distracting you, leading you astray.

Thinking and thoughts is more than a furtive agitation of neural cells in the brain. They are the cornerstone of human existence and by them we make sense, and not only, of the world we live in. By them we solve problems we encounter in life, lay out strategies that govern our behaviour, constantly adjusting our ways of life, if we let them, in any scale imaginable no matter how small or large, in tune with the constantly changing conditions in our surroundings. Make change possible within ourselves, in our communities, in the world at large.

Our thoughts and thinking processes tools are words, which altogether make up the languages we use. Languages are neither spruced up ornaments, museum exhibits or art objects the instruments of elitist individuals ever ready to correct and assert their alleged superiority, lost in detail, slave to trivial procedure empty of meaning nor the oral performance, verbal diarrhea, of cunning lawyers, advertisers, public relationists, politicians and the like, all the time busy to twist things around mollycoddling the will of people, mere instruments for deceit.

Language is made out of words forged in each individual's mind to form a rich bed of firm concepts upon which the individual develops his/her thoughts.

Friday 15 August 2008

Metaphor, innovation, creation a direct derivation from chaotic systems self-similarity attribute?

John H. Holland in his book 'Emergence' in chapter 11, page 202-218, points out the significance of metaphor in the advancement of human thought by innovation and creation.

In his elaborate development of the subject the availed transfer of attributes from a source to a target object or system and the ensuing associations brought forth, augments perception and enriches experience, in the individual and collective levels.

Metaphor, an implement used by the mind. Directly derived by the intrinsic property of self-similarity in chaotic systems? Nature all-embracing chaotic systems in either objects or systems, established or developing attractors exhibiting self-similarity, which the human mind attuned by it, itself the product of chaos, another attractor, recognises and makes use of its insipid action and by it innovates, creates and advances knowledge?

Saturday 9 August 2008

Life? Is that a glimpse of what we experience as life?

I read in John H. Holland's "Emergence" book, page 140

"First of all, the glider is not a fixed set of particles bound together and moving on a trajectory through the space."

in describing Conway's simple cellular automaton, the glider being a simple, mobile, self-perpetuating pattern, contained in the automaton exhibiting emergence. But

"Rather, particles are continually being created and deleted to produce the glider."

A thought, driven by the self-similarity property inherent in chaotic systems, urged me to apply the behavioural pattern of a glider to much wider systems. All living systems, be that plants animals human individuals included; all being structures made up of elementary particles constantly recycled. Self-perpetuating patterns contained within nature itself, continually being created and deleted. Birth and demise. Life-cycles? Characteristic of all living systems.

But within each species life cycle, the individual of a species acts and behaves as a fixed set of particles bound together and moving on a trajectory through space. All that despite being constantly recycled in underlying processes that are largely unaware by the individual.

Is that what we experience as life? Our experiences built by our existence as a fixed set of particles bound together? Our movement, in trajectories governed by the laws of nature or physics, through space? Confined space, by the very laws that define our trajectories? Literally, a cage?

How do we go beyond the confined space prescribed by the laws of physics? How do we exceed the limitations imposed upon us? What does that mean in the experiences we accumulate through life?