Embracing the paradox of Being: A relational view of epistemology, ontology, logic and difference.

Embracing the paradox of Being: A relational view of epistemology, ontology, logic and difference.

Let’s get right to it, shall we? With respect to ontology, let us say that there is no “it,” no independent reality that is exclusive of the observer.  This is a basic insight from second-order cybernetics: the observer must always be included in the observed.  Despite this, of course, we do have much talk and...

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Sketches of Another Future

Sketches of Another Future

http://vimeo.com/10929373 This is a great interview with Professor Andrew Pickering, University of Exeter, author of The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future. It gives a nice introduction to some key aspects of cybernetics.  He doesn't make much of a distinction between first and second-order cybernetics, but it is a great presentation.  Some highlights (in note form,...

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An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #6

An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #6

(New readers will want to start with the first installment.) We ended the last installment by discussing the esoteric nature of the injunction.  We continue this exploration, and bring this series to a close. LoF p. 81 In the command "let the crossing be to the state indicated by the token" we at once make the token doubly meaningful, first...

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An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #5

An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #5

(New readers will want to start with the first installment.) We ended the last installment with a recognition that the Laws of Form naturally led GSB to an understanding of both the necessity and importance of the realm of imaginary numbers.  We will continue this elaboration. You are likely familiar with the paradoxical sentence: "This sentence is...

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An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #4

An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #4

(New readers will want to start with the first installment.) We ended the last installment having come to realize something of the esoteric significance of the taijitu, or yin-yang, form, in something of an extended tangent. We return now to the text. GSB himself seemed to understand the importance of the Laws of Form, even if there...

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An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #2

An Esoteric Guide to Spencer Brown’s Laws of Form #2

(New readers will want to start with the first installment.) Let us continue our beginning: LoF p. 1 We take as given the idea of distinction and the idea of indication, and that we cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction. We take, therefore, the form of distinction for the form. If this doesn't strike you as having a "mystical"...

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Blow your mind with epistemology and ontology!

Blow your mind with epistemology and ontology!

To begin in the middle: -          There is no “it”, but there is talk about “it”.  Ultimately the talk about “it”, the pointing to “it”, is more fundamental to “it” than anything else, because it is the RELATIONS that are primary: thingness is a subset of relatedness.  Relations are not between two “things” but are...

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Inception: Dreams, Waking, and Epistemology

Inception: Dreams, Waking, and Epistemology

The movie Inception is the best “question reality” movie since the Matrix (ultimately the Matrix is better, in my opinion), and it raises many fascinating questions having to do with the differences between the two primary states of consciousness available to humans today: waking and dreaming. This issue has been around for about as long...

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Thinking about thinking about feedback

Thinking about thinking about feedback

Ok I've been thinking about feedback. One thing that struck me as interesting was that feedback, as a concept, seems to assume two things (and probably more): 1) step-wise time (and thus some kind of "state" in which a system can be identified, and thus 2) some kind of 'levels' within and between systems, in...

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is reliance upon dualism hardwired?

I wonder about the extent to which dichotomous thinking is either hard-wired or at least dependent on completely non-social forces.  It seems almost to be a thermodynamic question, that is, a question of trying to optimize the amount of energy spent in thinking for a given situation.  Thinking is a very expensive activity, physiologically...

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distinguishing between the ego and “I”

Our experience of ourselves is in many ways completely mediated by aspects which are located beyond the normal boundary of the "I".  I'd like to offer one possible way of looking at the issue.   I approach this question concerning the boudaries of the "I" by taking into account the transformations of the "I" as...

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