MULTIPLE HUMAN sWORLDS
::nuet started 06/12/2004
::edited for Wiki 07/11/2004
:What follows are rough segments of a major theory I am constructing.
:"s Worlds" is short for "Semiotic Worlds", to be defined later.
Multiple Human sWorlds' is in analogy to the speculation in 'physics of multiple universes.
Some of these physics theories of multiple universes may consider an "interaction" between multiple universes, in dyads and in other arrangements. The "laws" which may govern such interactions have yet to be discovered, and they need not be similar to "laws" for within individual universes.
One might imagine some universes similar to each other, and others radically different.
Viewed in the context of The Anthropic Principal, there probably has been speculation on a neo-Darwinian selection process, which has selected OUR universe from many alternatives because OUR universe has the rare ability (resulting from a specific set of values for the "constants of nature") to survival long enough for complex systems to emerge that are capable of knowing themselves and learning about the universe as a whole system.
Whether universes that didn*t survive (have short life-spans) "exist" "now" as a collection of "parallel" universes or OUR universe "exists" uniquely is a semantic construction that loops back on itself like an Escher woodcut, having more aesthetic merit than scientific or logical.
Nonetheless, the special freedom to speculate given in our society to the physics priesthood has opened the door to the consideration of alternative/multiple worlds.
I propose that we can treat our human "worlds" as independent of the material worlds that reduce to physics.
This is but one of many perspectives we can take of realty. It is not proposed to replace the cluster of traditional perspectives now in vogue.
By human worlds I mean the collection of descriptions and theories about human orgs and their perceived environments.
I propose to use the term "org", extracted from "organization" or "organism" to label holons at any level in a holarchy of Living Systems, from biological cell, organs, multi-celled persons, groups, institutions, and social systems and cultures. Orgs are units or components of human systems, biological, cultural, social, economic, political, etc.
Holon and holarchy are terms coined by Arthur Koestler. The nested hierarchical model for Living Systems (to include social systems) is explicated in James Greer Miller*s massive treatise by the same name: Living Systems.
I am not proposing that human action can overtly violate laws of the material physical world. I am claiming that the "Difficult" Sciences (a la Gregory Bateson) should be liberated from the Political Authority of the Hard Sciences, especially in terms of their epistemology and future emergence.
The linear ladder of reduction for the sciences is but one of many conceptual themes we can employ in attempting to comprehend.
As we shall see, all human "social" action is in the context of subjective intepretations given perceived semiotic structures by human persons. Our stepping aside when a tree falls is radically different from what marks we make on an election ballot.
We abandon consideration, in this "sWorld" perspective, that there "exists" a single external and/or objective world (in analogy with the material world), which is often called the REAL WORLD.
In this to be abandoned perspective, the singular, objective, external REAL WORLD is populated by many human persons, each who perceive, interpret, and "know" their personally constructed "image" of "their world" to be the TRUE REAL WORLD.
In human practice, the dominant ethic (econo-centric business) often uses "the real world of business" in contrast to the "unreal world of academics".
It appears that the two worlds in competition once proposed by Snow (the Sciences vs the Humanities) has been replaced by the competition of two different educated elites: the Academics persons and the Business persons.
A recent sociological study shows a high correlation between Academic and Business elites and their affiliation with Democratic or Republican political parties.
It becomes easier to think within this new sWorld perspective when we link the non-confirmed hypothesis of the REAL WORLD with the equally non-confirmed hypothesis of an OBJECTIVE MATERIAL UNIVERSE, and abandon both hypotheses as being necessarily and exclusively TRUE.
It is important to re-emphasize * this is an exercise in attempting to comprehend reality, and not simply to assume we "already know" what reality "is".
It is also acknowledged that there will be many times when tasks can be best performed in the context of these (temporarily abandoned) hypotheses. That is, it is OK to temporarily assume the REAL WORLD or an OBJECTIVE MATERIAL UNIVERSE.
Indeed, according to our evolutionary hypothesis, we evolved within a context where these hypotheses were tacitly acted upon without deliberation. We probably would not be able to perform many tasks or complete many projects without temporarily accepting these assumptions.
However, I strongly believe that these hypotheses (when assumed to be Universal Truth) block our ability to emerge as a 'unified", "sustainable", "viable" humanity (with much healthy internal diversity and complexity); and that unless we can temporarily abandon these limiting hypotheses we will be unable to converge on an enterprise that will insure the multi-millennial survival/thrival of Humanity/Gaia.
This Whole Earth "unified" humanity can be viable only when it utilizes the essential diversity of human persons and cultures * just as our Whole Body depends on a wide diversity of biological cell types.
The uniformity sought by narrow, dogmatic sWorlds claiming Universal Truth could result in a Whole Earth humankind organized no higher (in biological analogy) than to that of a sponge.
Basically, I am restating the cliche, REALITY ISN*T WHAT IT USED TO BE (or the book of the same title by Walter Truett Andrson), and it is time to begin a process of discovery and creativity about realities that are more conducive to our short/mid/long-term survival and thrival.
There is an analog to the REAL WORLD, which I will call the GLOBAL SEMIOTIC WORLD.
The GLOBAL SEMIOTIC WORLD has, as its components, all human created Semiotic Structures extant for possible perception at any time. Semiotic Structures are patterns (viewed as existing in physical reality) that when perceived by some humans give rise to experieintial "meaning".
We can never catalogue all Semiotic Structures, or know which are new and which have been deleted (annihilated).
Remember, we have abandoned the hypotheses of real worlds and objective material universes. So, from our new perspective, Semiotic Structures come into "existence" (become available for perceiving) or disappear (are no longer available for perceiving by anyone). This limitation is no different from our acceptance of not knowing each and every atom on earth, or each and every living organism.
SemioticStructures include all text documents, photographs, videos, art forms, constructed objects, roads and paths, buildings and machines, agricultural fields, scientific data, etc.
Living organisms are not semiotic structures, as they were not constructed by humans.
The boundary between structures that are semiotic and not semiotic blurs if examined to closely. However, this does not invalidate this perspective as useful. No perspective has boundaries that don*t blur on close examination.
Living organisms can be altered by human action, and these alterations are semiotic structures. For example, a black eye from being hit by another or a surgical scar is a semiotic structure, whereas an accidental bruise or cut is not a semiotic structure. A photo or written description of the bruise or cut would be a semiotic structure. The plants in an agricultural field are not semiotic structures, but the arrangement of the plants in the field is a semiotic structure.
:By altering the nurturing environment of living systems, humans can intentionally modify their biological structure, and the modification can be viewed as Semiotic Structures. If we could modify a horse fly into a horse, then we may make claim to creating living organisms as Semiotic Structures.
Fluid pressure fields caused by speech or musical instruments are semiotic structures. The rattle noise of a machine is not, unless the machine was constructed to make that sound. DNA modified organisms are not semiotic structures * but this is a touchy, blurry boundary. Something about intentional DNA modified life is semiotic. I would propose to include a reported pattern of difference.
A structure is semiotic if when perceived by a human the human has experientials (inner conscious experiences) that ascribe "meaning" to the structure.
"Meaning" will be left undefined at this stage * it is a primitive for this phenemonological perspective. Which does not prohibit us from later considering variations, types and styles of "meaning" * within the phenomenological domain.
I will use the term "sData" instead of the longer "SemioticStructures".
All that we ordinarily consider "data", resulting from observation, is sData.
SCIENCE can be redefined as the human study of data (according to specific methods for data analysis), and not the study of an objective material universe.
Scientific instruments (sData) can generate data that is, itself, not created by humans. This data can be further processed automatically and an analysis with data gathered and processed at other time presented in dynamic graphical formats to be observed by human scientists.
I chose to include such data as sData, although the patterns in the data were not created by the intention of humans.
:This is not that different from human artistic and musical creations that more emerge subconsciously from the person than intentionally constructed by the person.
sWorlds
An sWorld is "constructed" (in the sense of epistemological constructionism) by unique and individualized human persons.
sWorlds "emerge" as each person grows, develops, and learns, from before birth until death.
Human phenomenological experientals and behavior are in the context of each person*s sWorld.
sWorlds are never experienced; they are lived.
Each of us IS an emergent sWorld.
Each individual sWorld accesses a small part of the sData of the Global Semiotic World or Global sWorld.
There is a different, unique human sWorld for each living human person.
A primary source of human personal/social dysfunction is the confusion of personal sWorlds for the REAL WORLD.
We already accept a relativity of sWorlds when we are open to accepting cultural differences. We accept that there is no "really true" way for people to dress, although we also accept that we may feel more comfortable being with those who dress in styles we "prefer" * without believing that our preferred styles are objectively the "real" styles. We take the same relativity position with different human languages.
The multiple sWorld perspective simply extends this relativity to ideas about "social realities" and our varied interpretations of sData associated with human happenings of which we were not direct participants.
Even direct participants of happenings will differ in their sWorlds created from their direct experiences AND other sdata and sTheories they had previously encountered.
All sWorlds "co-exist" with equal potential to influence the behaviors and thoughts of others.
Recent political activity demonstrates that what participants in the political process call "truth" has very little value. It is what moves people to behave in hoped for ways that determines the value of the semiotic structures, the sData fed to the many, the Propaganda of Deception..
US forces remain in Iraq because a great many Americans believe that what they learn from the media is true * or * they know that "the other side" is always practicing the fine art of deception. They believe that Saddam had a part in 9/11, that WMD have been found, and that the Arabs are bringing their holy war of terror to cities, towns and farms of America.
This is a real Social sWorld, an organization of personal sWorlds that have aspects in common and which have the ability/facility to interact. This is just as sReal as the Social sWorld of disciples of Democracy Now, the "left", "liberal", or "progressive" perspectives.
Flat-Earthers, if they exist, live in an sWorld that is flat * and they have explanations for why things don*t always go the way they expect, but the failure of their expectations is not linked to their belief in a flat Earth.
Indeed, I have a memory of telling myself that I had a talk with my grandfather Frank Victor, who believed that there was no up and down, and in a sense the world was flat. As my distorted memory claims, he believed this because an old priest in Italy (before he emigrated as a teenager to work in lumbering) told him that Galileo had spoken only of the four points of the compass (North, South, East, West), and since Galileo didn*t mention an "up and down" there was no third dimension INTO WHICH ONE COULD TRAVEL.
As my memory-story continues, Frank couldn*t believe that I had just returned from over a year in the Antarctic, wintering over at Byrd Station. None of my excellent slides proved that the earth was spherical. I was just somewhere else on this flat earth.
Grandpa explained the stars as luminous objects in the ocean. They only appear high because of the light being refracted back down * he had is own "physics of optics". I don*t remember whether he believed the sun and moon also were in the ocean.
But as I think about this story now * which is my story (I don*t even know it he ever told me this * but it was to have occurred during that visit after my return from the Antarctic) * it was about moving in space as a concept distinct from the spatial location of things. This would be an interesting distinction to explore in other cultures and languages
ALL SWORLDS EXIST * IN THE PLAY OF SEMIOTICS AND MIND, WITH HUMANS AGAIN AT THE CENTER * THEY ARE ALL FICTIONS.
WE LIVE HISTORICAL FICTION. The sWorlds co-exist in a new type of entity in the cosmos * a new basic domain of Reality. Of the kind that Platonists aspired to but could never achieve.
In sword space * where each of our own sWorlds are points, have coordinates, markers, keywords -- we have a location in ****NEED A TERM Like the models at the Santa Fe Institute, in the Origins of Order *.
The Hard Sciences will have little to contribute (in terms of content) to the Sciences of sWorlds.
Remember Gregory Bateson*s distinction between the "hard" and "difficult" sciences. The opposite of "hard" was not "soft" in this instance.
However, the individual scientists who practice physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, organistic and molecular biology (the biology involved in behavior is not considered here part of the Hard Sciences), etc. can be full participants. They can contribute techniques for data analysis, to our sData concerns * but they don*t have any "rank" over others. The concepts and theories of the Hard Sciences have no special "truth value" to the Sciences of sWorlds.
I agree with William Irwin Thompson in Self and Society who disagrees strongly with E. O. Wilson*s call for consilience among the sciences.
"E.O. Wilson*s consilient campaign to unify all the sciences also comes at a timely moment to help the Right Wing*s desire to eliminate *secular humanism*. By eliminating philosophical divergence and the distinct cognitive approaches of the different disciplines, Wilson*s ideological program of elitist unification would serve to remove the humanities and their tradition of liberal humanism in a new scientific version of a Talibanic state of consilient unity. Total explanations soon become totalitarian states. Dissent can be labeled depression and ministered by the contribution of the pharmaceutical industry. With Ritalin in the schools, Prozac in the universities, Zoloft in the prisons, Ecstasy in the discos, and Viagra in the Senate, America can indeed be at peace with itself to let Kurzweil*s machines inherit the Earth." (pp 58)
This is sort of like scientific free market talk, where it is far from fair, and thus far from being "really" free. The freedoms of consilience are the ability to exploit others and to take almost anything you want (there are limits when there are more than one power broker in the system).
Social sWorlds interact and structurally couple.
( or Collective sWorlds)MEMETICS and this perspective.
* There may be competition with terminology with Memetics.
When persons interact, their sWorlds inter-penetrate. They don*t collide, but they couple, structurally.
Re: Autopoetic Theory and Maturana & Varela
This is a way of thinking that needs getting used to.
But, who knows, it may be commonplace natural in a few centuries (and maybe less).
THEORIES OF SOCIAL SWORLDS ARE TO BE JUDGED ON THEIR UTILITY, NOT THEIR "TRUTH"
Attempts to arrive at a single best scenario of collective sWorld events and happenings would be futile, and a waste of effort * as no person and no group could hold that best scenario as their context for praxis.
sWorld realities involve the complex interaction of different worlds, fought primarily with the creation and manipulation of semiotic structures or sData.
Why did I use the conflicted "fight" terminology above? Why not DANCE instead of FIGHT? Remember the non-competitive sport movement in the 1970s. In the fields below Arconsanti in Arizona Where we experienced the hot air balloon accident with my young daughter Stephanie. Very big Earth Ball on large circular sheet with many people holding the sheet along the circumference. Ping Pong dance * with two paddles per person and more than one ball * an instance of juggling. Cirque du Soliel is non competitive performance.
Propaganda is "natural".
But, what types of games are played, win-lose or win-win. This determines the character of propaganda
Intersubjectivity for Social Holons
Definitions by Ken Wilber : individual and social holons, and artifacts. sData are artifacts.
