An inclusional worldview
ted lumley
to come
Posts by ted lumley
Melting Ice Cap : Effect? or Cause?
0December 13, 2009
by ted lumley
in Ted's Blog
On a hot day in the summer, if we put a block of ice in the middle of our living room, it changes the temperature. That is, melting ice changes the temperature, it brings it down.
Now, some people seem to be getting it backwards and are saying that changing temperatures are causing the ice to melt, as in the case of ‘global warming’ and the polar icecap.
Which is it? We can’t have it both ways, … or can we?
The paradox is resolved if we take a closer look at how we use the notion of ‘cause’. If someone throws a lit cigarette into the forest and it goes up in flames, we say that that person ‘caused a forest fire’. But that’s a loose use of the word ‘cause’. The fact was that potential energy or ‘energy-of-place’ (in chemicals in the trees etc.) had built up to the point that the release of this energy could be easily ‘triggered’.
Since we normally talk about kinetic energy, the visible kind of energy that manifests when invisible potential energy is converted into kinetic energy and ignore the potential energy (the real source), … we get the sourcing of the dynamic backwards.
It would be interesting to compile a list of all those cases where we commonly get this backwards. Here’s a few. If anyone can think of any more, please pitch in!
- The melting ice caps cause a change in the ambient temperature (rather than vice versa) [temperature changes don’t melt Antarctic ice because its too bloody cold!]
- The excitement of the audience creates the celebrity (rather than vice versa)
- The laughter of the audience creates the successful comedian (rather than vice versa)
- The turbulence in the flow of the atmosphere causes the storm (rather than vice versa).
Any more?
The general principle is that potential energy builds up in space (which is why it’s also called the ‘energy of place’) and its ‘release’ is ‘kinetic energy’ (energy of motion) which is visible. When we see this release of ‘kinetic energy’, we look for its cause ALSO in kinetic terms (i.e. a moving object), and we back up the film to find the local ‘kinetic’ causal agent who is ‘holding the smoking gun’. This sort of ‘causal agent’ merely triggers the release of potential energy, he/she/it does not ‘cause’ it.
The ‘celebrity’ and/or the ‘joke-teller’ does not have some ‘magic’ ‘action-at-a-distance’ powers to ‘cause’ the movement of hundreds of bodies in the audience, the audience has certain tensions in them (potential energies) which release when triggered, in the same way as avalanches are an accumulation of potential energy whose release is triggered by a skier.
We can’t see the buildup of potential energy or ‘tensions’ or ‘pressures’ so we don’t associate this with ‘cause’. Instead, we attribute ‘cause’ to whatever we can see, and what we can see is the ‘triggerer’ of the release of potential energies, whom we then label the ‘cause’ of the dynamics.
This doesn’t really work because, for example, the careless smoker who we say causes the forest fire can make exactly the same moves when the forest is sopping wet and nothing happens. Similarly, the temperature can change and the ice doesn’t melt (Antarctic ice is not melting even though the temperature is changing.). The joker can tell the same joke to a different audience and there are no laughs, the celebrity singer can sing to a different audience and the audience may not even pay attention to her. The storm can also ‘fizzle’ since the flow it is included in is the source of its forming and its strength.
So, in your own home, if you have a block of ice in the living room and it is melting you know it is changing the temperature in a moderating way and that seems good. But we all live in this space on the surface of the earth and if the great blocks of ice are melting, we also know it is changing the temperature in a moderating way, and why should that NOT be deemed good? It is just like the audience laughing, it is the relaxing of built-up tensions, … tensions between equatorial loading of the air with water vapour and polar extraction of water vapour from the air (all part of the moderating of thermal energy difference between equator and poles). Since water vapour is the most important ‘greenhouse gas’ and since the polar water vapour extraction system is ‘relaxing’ or ‘reducing inventory’ somewhat, perhaps this signals a net reduction in greenhouse gases.
Leaving these tricky points aside for the moment, … Any more candidates for the list?
* * *
Author’s Subtext: – Global Warming? …
0December 9, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
Because of the emotions tied up on the issue of global warming, there is a danger that when one ‘opens one mouth’ or ‘writes a few words’, they are likely to be summarily dismissed by those who feel that the world can be divided into two groups, -those who support the man-made global warming hypothesis, and, -those who do not support the man-made global warming hypothesis.
So, there is difficulty in sharing inquiry into the topic of climate variance, man’s activities and the relationship between the two, since such inquiry tends to be seen as a ‘re-opening’ of inquiry that has already been ‘settled’, the result being that everyone is identified as being ‘a member of one or the other of two groups’ so that ‘further inquiry into the topic’ is CLOSED, apart from developing more detailed understanding WITHIN one or the other camp.
There is, of course, another ‘line of inquiry’ and that is; ‘what is the source of this division of opinion on this topic of climate variance, human activity, and the relationship between the two.’ (more…)
Global Warming? or Global Norming?
1December 7, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don’t. – Robert Benchley
The notion of ‘global warming’ implies a ‘norm’ for the earth’s temperature that we are experiencing an ‘upward’ departure from. In order to ‘get our facts straight’ it seems that some investigation into ‘norming’ is warranted.
There are some important ‘clues’ in the following video (New Tang Dynasty News Report of 2009-1–28 9:39) that associate with ‘permafrost’, that are explored in this APN article.
Our western culture seems to have, ingrained within it, a habit of establishing and ‘policing’ local norms based on ‘what things do’. We apply it not only to human social behaviours, but to all manner of physical phenomena (e.g. the temperature of the air in our homes). (more…)
Author’s Subtext : The Tiger Woods Affair
0December 6, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
Writing this ‘author’s subtext’ didn’t come as easily to me, as it usually does and I have had to ask myself ‘why’?
I never write ‘from planned structure’ but instead I ‘explode a central idea’ that is essential ‘relational’. The ‘exploding’ is guided from the outside-in by certain thoughts that are in my mind at the time which are ‘bigger than’ the ‘idea’ itself; such as ‘why am I writing this particular article’, and a miscellany of thoughts that pertain to the act of writing it, and how it might be interpreted (or not) by the reader etc. etc.
After I have written the article, then I review what all of those ‘outside of the article’ influences were as I was writing. This is kind of like describing the movements of one’s fingers as one fashions a snowball in one’s bare hands. The shape and quality of the ‘content’, the ‘snowball’ is the thing that ‘persists’ but all of those wigglings and bendings of the fingers have disappeared. What were the shaping forces like along the rocky coast where giant arches persist just offshore, their centres having been ‘chewed out’ of them by the violence of the waves? As one regards ‘content’ (the ‘dynamical figure’) and lets the mind move back and away from it into the invisible-because-purely-transient shape-sourcing ‘dynamical ground’, one can only capture a few of the most ‘obvious’ ‘shapers’; e.g, there was the big storm of ’37 or the missing finger or etc.
Out of my early memories I remember my mother (daughter of Italian peasants who emigrated to Canada before she was born) expressing disgust and outrage over the brutal way in which Mussolini and Carla Petacci were ‘taken out’ and while there was no doubt of how firmly she opposed fascism and supported her brothers who had all served in the Canadian military, she could not support such vile vengefulness of those (perhaps all of us) who were in no way ‘innocent’ themselves. (more…)
The Tiger Woods Affair: Understanding Celebrity Worship
0December 5, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
When we give people God-like status, we are, ourselves, ‘playing God’.
We say that certain individuals have ‘command over the masses’ but this is the ‘tail-wagging-the-dog’ world view of western enlightenment society. The masses always have command over the individual; they are a continuing story while the individual is a ‘candle in the wind’.
Aboriginal physics can shed some light on this ‘tail-wagging-the-dog’ ‘illusion’ wherein the individual seems possessed of extraordinary powers.
And its not just ‘the celebrity’ that suffers when the masses who have ‘played God’ and given the individual his power, take it back and ‘bring him back down to earth’ so forcefully that he and those around him may be figuratively in not literally ‘crushed’.
[This article contains one picture and a video that may be offensive to some viewers. It has been included to underscore the ‘darkness’ that can be associated with celebrity worship ‘gone wrong’] (more…)
Author’s Subtext: AFGHANISTAN
0December 2, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
Though it is unlikely to show in the body of writing in these APN pages, I have been drawn to Barack Obama’s innate ‘potentials’. However, my impression from before he ran for president was that he was applying himself in the wrong place. As an ‘American’ in a world leadership position, YES, … but as an ‘American leader’ positioning the world, NO.
‘Wag-the-dog leadership’: If the tail is to the dog as the leader’s baton is to the body public, the job of the natural leader is to capture, articulate, nurture and sustain the resonances/rhythms emerging freely in the body public (the natural leader’s dynamic is the RESULT of the collective dynamic), whereas ‘wag-the-dog’ leadership is to make the body public captive of the leader’s own top-down imposed rhythms , the result of which is a kind of goose-stepping mono-rhythm (in wag-the-dog leadership, the leader is the CAUSE of the collective dynamic). (more…)
An Aboriginal Physics View on AFGHANISTAN
0December 2, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
But what are the underlying assumptions?
An aboriginal physics viewpoint on Afghanistan is on a level deeper than the mainstream news reporting. It is at the level of our basic understanding of dynamics. Any dynamic situation can be examined from the point of view wherein we no longer look at dynamics in terms of ‘causal agents’, but instead acknowledge that the causal agents are not ‘causal’ but are the ‘result’ rather than the ‘cause’ of the (turbulent) flow they are included in.
The analogy which has been discussed elsewhere in these pages is in medicine, where Pasteur and Béchamp argued that ‘the pathogen is nothing, the terrain is everything’. If we take ‘Al Qaeda’ and ‘the Taliban’ to be the pathogens, we would say that these pathogens are nothing, the global dynamic is everything. Their proliferation is the result of conditions in the terrain being fertile for their proliferation.
What are the implications of this ‘inverted’ view of the situation?
This means that one cannot examine issues starting from what the current ‘cast of players’ (Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the US, the other ISAF countries, the Afghan government and the Pakistan governments) are doing.
The Taliban is the ‘result’ of turbulence in the region, not the cause.
The historical origins of conflict in Afghanistan go back to the so-called ‘Great Game’ (more…)
Gravity is One Slippery Dude
0November 30, 2009
by ted lumley
in Ted's Blog
We have been taught that ‘gravity’ is a ‘field’ and that it is ‘everywhere at the same time’ in the universe, so that if we move, the whole universe is immediately changed by it.
That sounds bizarre for one reason and one reason only; — because of our ‘self-ish’ perspective; i.e. we are in the habit of ‘putting ourselves before the universe’.
Do we really believe that we can move before the universe ‘knows about it’? No way. If we could beat the universe in this game, we would be able to, as well, slip away from our own shadow.
So, if, when we move, the whole universe immediately knows about, isn’t this notion in conflict with science’s contention that no effect can propagate faster than the speed of light? (more…)
Author’s Subtext – Representative Government
0November 29, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
In spite of the fact that many investigators of the social dynamic, from time to time, have suggested that politics derives from how we view ourselves; e.g. as in ‘social darwinism’ wherein we consider ourselves to be a member of a ‘favoured race’, politics is usually discussed in terms of an intellectual ‘world view’ … ‘capitalism’, ‘socialism’, ‘liberalism’ etc.
What this does is to put the focus, MISLEADINGLY, on the intellectual architectures of these different approaches and into debates as to the ramifications and side-effects of each and judgements as to which will work out the best for the overall ‘system’ etc.
We even insist that government is ‘secular’, that ‘church’ and ‘state’ can be, and currently are, kept separate. This is evident nonsense, but it is politically correct to ‘go along with it’.
We all know that ‘religion’ is woven into the issues of governance even though we argue the case for this politics or that politics on ‘intellectual grounds’. (e.g. see Peter D’Errico’s ‘American Indian Sovereignty, Now You See It, Now You Don’t’)
But if we are honest, we would have to acknowledge that it is not all about the merits of our respective ‘social dynamics management systems’ that we build into our ‘politics’. It is more about ‘who we are’, how we give representation to ‘our selves’. (more…)
Who puts the ‘Representation’ in ‘Representative Government’?
0November 29, 2009
by ted lumley
in APN
Evidently, there continues to be confusion over whether ‘representative government’ was intended to be the result of the social dynamic or the cause of the social dynamic.
Some representatives, and some leaders of groups of representatives, seem to feel that their job is to ‘direct’ the social dynamic in the manner that the ‘director’ of an orchestra would direct a group of beginner musicians that did not yet have a feel for how the music itself can become the orchestrator of individual and collective dynamical play. In this mode of ‘representation’ wherein the music itself, through the players becomes the primary source, the ‘director’ becomes the ‘mirroring back’ of the unfolding performance, so as to serve in a support role rather than as some kind of ‘controlling creator’ that must be followed meticulously, even if he takes the music to a place wherein the musicians are no longer inspired to play it.
This is an issue in the politics of nations. To what degree should the government of/by representatives have those representatives ‘direct’ (centrally-source) or ‘orchestrate’ (mirror back) the social dynamics of the nation?
It is clear that in the time of war, the social collective must become a ‘war machine’ and everyone accepts that this requires ‘centrally-sourced direction’, but in times of peace, this is where new symphonic works emerge from the self-organising dynamics of the collective, where a new collective persona arises that opens up new spatial possibilities for the blossom of never-before-seen creative potentialities.
For those politicians aspiring to use their ‘elected representative’ status to become leader-directors and to personally impose shape on the collective, the wartime mode is preferable, since it gives the leader the power to locally instigate and implement changes of his own preferred architecture. (more…)
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