Jared Diamond: Societal Collapse

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If you listen carefully to what Jared Diamond is saying in the TED video above, he is describing not a five part, but a six part power curve into a systemic singularity. This has been one of the core themes of discussion of this blog.  We all seem to be too close to our problems to see the commonality.  The interrogatives come into play here:

1. Goals
2. People
3. Functions
4. Forms
5. Times
6. Distances

Times and Distances being the basis on which the higher orders are built.

When we look at the recent economic “crisis” we see 300 trillion in currency circulating and roughly 1 trillion to 2 trillion shifting suddenly and unexpectedly.  We witnessed a systemic collapse, a singularity, a tipping point, a power curve, an exponential change, a phase transition or whatever label you want to call it.  These have been happening everywhere since Time and Distance began in different contexts and orders both in human and non-human systems.

What Jared Diamond and other alarmists are implying is that human society is now a system approaching its final singularity in this century on this planet.  We are implying that today we are experiencing a less than one percent crisis on a power curve into a singularity.  How many more iterations will the global system withstand?  Will humanity make the step into space successfully before we experience a global dark age?  How will the six or more factors in the power curve play out?

The truth to me appears to be that power curves whether they play out or not result in either a systemic climax or anti-climax followed by a systemic collapse.  Would it not be better if we experienced a systemic climax that led to us expanding into the solar system?

Systemic collapse seems to be the fashion of this generation.  Every generation looks with fascination at its own youth, maturition, reproduction and acceleration into mortality.  Some die early, some die late, but all die.  It is an irrevocable law of nature.  It is not about self-interest.  It is about what self-interest is defined as.

Related Posts:

Beyond the Singularity

Servitas and Libertas

If You Don’t Like the Speed, Get Off the Ride

We have lived in “exponential times” since the big bang (if there was one)

VIDEO

Thinking the Hexads Through

Working with the hexads and the Six Hats, Six Coats model has raised some interesting conceptual questions. This post is an incomplete attempt to address them.

 

We have many personas within each of us. This is evidenced by our ExtraPersonal behaviour. Depending on the environment we interact within we present different behavior. ExtraPersonal thought manages our personas. This meets our safety need.
To satisfy our physiological needs our InterPersonal behavior is exhibited. Our personas communicate with each other. This is true internal dialog.

To engage with other systems we depend on IntraPersonal behavior. These are the sensory-motor functions as guided by a single persona.

I’m trying to think about how this hexad affects the Moffett Universe of Discourse.

Here’s the Universe before:

Here’s the Universe after:

I’m working on developing a data model to represent this new hexad structure as well:

I have been working on creating a new vocabulary to describe the associations in the hexads. I apologize for any terms I have had to invent, but a new concept requires new terms. The first three terms (ie. ExtraNetwork, InterNetwork, IntraNetwork) are external to the entity. The second three terms (ie. ExtraSpatia, InterSpatia, IntraSpatia) are internal to the entity.

MOTIVE
ExtraStrategy
InterStrategy
IntraStrategy
ExtraMotiva
InterMotiva
IntraMotiva

LOCALE
ExtraNetwork
InterNetwork
IntraNetwork
ExtraSpatia
InterSpatia
IntraSpatia

OBJECT
ExtraAssembly
InterAssembly
IntraAssembly
ExtraForma
InterForma
IntraForma

METHOD
ExtraProcess
InterProcess
IntraProcess
ExtraFunctiona
InterFunctiona
IntraFunctiona

PERSON
ExtraGroup
InterGroup
IntraGroup
ExtraPersona
InterPersona
IntraPersona

MOMENT
ExtraSequence
InterSequence
IntraSequence
ExtraTempora
InterTempora
IntraTempora

The gist of all these terms is that there are systems and associations without us and within us. For every level of granularity we establish there are levels of granularity above and below what is essentially an arbitrary “zero point”.

My thoughts on the hexad structure are gradually establishing themselves. There are still some incongruities that I am attempting to work out. One of them is individual and group phenomenology.  Another is how to represent the relationships above and below the person-group horizon in the person focus as well as with the other focuses.

Insideness and Outsideness Revolution

I have been playing with the concept of insideness and outsideness for a couple of posts now and I am realizing I have my concept of insideness and outsideness backwards.  I realized the individual’s or system’s existential or operational layer is always to the outside and the number of layers or complexity of an individual or system is reflected as increased depth.

So, not only will I be presenting hexads, I will be presenting them with new insight into insideness and outsideness.  That insight is that the boundary that separates insideness from outsideness separates one system from another.  Here is what Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs properly looks like:

Here is what Moffett’s Universe of Discourse properly looks like:

Therefore, the following diagram is right and is always right in representing complete communication.

And regular daily interaction between systems probably looks something like this:

So, there you have it.  For insideness and outsideness to exist, a System A requires a System B.  The following pattern is also possible:

Links:

• Insideness and Outsideness

Insideness and Outsideness

 Buckminster Fuller in his book, Synergetics, discusses the concept of insideness and outsideness. He said there are four states you can have relative to a boundary:

1. Outside
2. Outside on the surface
3. Inside on the surface
4. Inside

This appears obvious, but it has interesting implications when we look at tetrads.

First, I want to look at Marshall McLuhan‘s Laws of Media tetrad. McLuhan described his tetrad as having two domains:

1. Figure
2. Ground

Retrieve and Enhance were Figure laws. Reverse and Obsolesce were Ground Laws. The question this left me with is which is Inside and which is Outside? I decided to look at other tetrads to see if they could provide an answer. This led me to look at the Zachman Framework focuses.

The Zachman Framework focuses all complement each other with their four perspectives. I decided to look at the Network focus for guidance:

1. ExtraNetwork
2. InterNetwork
3. IntraNetwork
4. Node

Node appeared to conform with Inside, IntraNetwork with Inside-Surface, InterNetwork with Outside-Surface and ExtraNetwork with Outside.

I believe that Obsolesce correlates to Node, Reverse to IntraNetwork, Enhance to InterNetwork and Retrieve to ExtraNetwork. Therefore, Insideness was Ground and Outsidedness was Figure. That being the case I let it guide all further correlations.

 

Here is Moffett’s Data Dimension:

Here are the DIKW perspectives:

As you can see the possibility of correlations between many tetrads is possible when different metaphors bring out the similarities.

Here’s Maslow’s Hierarchy recognizing that the physiological needs are not a social need:

As you can see with Fuller, McLuhan, Zachman, DIKW and Maslow there is an inside and an outside to their tetrads. Crossing the boundary between the two sides requires a transition in viewpoint that we do not always recognize. That boundary can be the difference between an open and closed society, between order and chaos, between fire and ice.

WQ: Wisdom Quotient

I was watching a video of a presentation by Max More at the Singularity Summit at Stanford where he poses the question: Will Superintelligence come with Superwisdom? And it lead to me thinking about James Moffett’s Universe of Discourse and an earlier related post where I discussed cognition and intelligence.

Moffett’s universe of discourse, I feel takes intelligence and the intelligence quotient and puts it in its place. If we look at the four columns in the above diagram and correlate “recording” to “data”, “reporting” to “information”, “generalizing” to “knowledge” and “theorizing” to “wisdom”, I am of the opinion that the intelligence quotient only measures knowledge or the ability to generalize. And what scientists are trying to create is artificial intelligence. The scope is too narrow.

What we really need is the ability to break down and measure cognition. The American Heritage Science Dictionary defines cognition as ” The mental process of knowing, including awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.” An intelligent system only emphasizes reasoning or in Moffett’s model generalizing. What we need to create is Artificial Cognition. What we need to measure is awareness (recording), perception (reporting), reasoning (generalizing) and judgment (theorizing).

Perhaps the AI scientists are betting way too much on intelligence.