Homeostasis has been a pk theme for close for four decades. The group preserves its balance, like any system. It does that by repressing extremes, laying snares for mutations. Systems have "conservative" built into their core. Stability is served: and so is stupidity. Genius is regularly some sort of mutation. Ditto reform, ditto new efficiencies.
We say we honor intelligence, efficiency, order ... god. I deny it. We honor ourselves, we honor the familiar; we crucify messengers, threaten Galileo with torture.
Christians pretend that the crucifixion happened once: I see it happening every day.
Centralization / Decentralization has been a theme of pk’s for nearly as long. My founding of the Free Learning Exchange in 1970 was intended as a major blow for decentralization: replace schools, replace nations, replace governments ... with one coordinated system of decentralized bulletin boards, the form authored, but the content grass roots, all content coming unregulated from the public. From the public to the public, leave out all the middle men.
Today though I have to emphasize: homeostasis is perennially decentralized. No Pope has to tell the girl, the boy, the young wife ... not to rat on the priest that rapes them. No president has to tell Ma & Pa Kettle to shun the kid who doesn’t want to be drafted, to shun the atheist, the Quaker ... the free-love advocate.
And if the girl, the boy, the young wife does rat on the priest that rapes them, they’ll quickly learn: the system simply does not hear them. There’s many more than one thing that the police, the press, the legislature simply does not want to know: and can’t, won’t be told.
Homeostasis is as grass roots as grass. Homeostasis is ubiquitous.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
F.X. Toole as "Van Gogh"
F.X. Toole (AKA Jerry Boyd)
What a great pen name. FX as in special effects. Toole as in tool. Toole as in Irish as hell. F.X. as in Francis Xavier (Irish as hell).
2005 I saw Million Dollar Baby, saw Clint, saw Morgan Freeman, saw Hilary Swank, saw them all win award after award. I liked Baby; though I sure didn’t like it that much, had quarrel after quarrel with it: thought it was one of Clint’s lesser good efforts, enjoyed seeing Swank buff, but didn’t think it was her best. ... Now I just watched the DVD: and hated more than liked it. IMDb.com informed me that the source had been called Rope Burns. I instantly thought that was a better title, went to the library, got it, read it. Van Gogh all over again.
This is great writing. This is great boxing writing. This is great gender writing. ...
So now I know: Jerry Boyd was 70 before he got published. He’d been fielding rejection letters for forty years. He dies two years later. Three years after that, the movie comes out. One year after that pk discovers the writing. ...
Are we still supposed to think that publishers can tell shit from Shinola? their ass from their elbow? "good" from "bad"? marketable from unmarketable?
"Van Gogh," as a principle, has been a theme at
for a decade, a theme with pk for half a century or more: just as is Jesus, just as is Galileo ... Just as has become kleptocracy, just had been civilization ... Nice to have a new example to add.
The author credits an agent for making "a silk purse from a sow’s ear." Editors, agents ... have long collaborated with authors, with composers ... How much of Michael Jackson’s excellence is Michael Jackson? how much the choreographers? the music teachers (or the whole family)? the Hollywood directors of the videos? the rest of the ensemble?
How much of the Mona Lisa is Leonardo and how much Walter Pater? How much of the sunset is the sun and how much the particular day’s atmosphere? How much of "seeing" is in the eye? in the visual cortex? in the pre-existing mind?
How much of the next day’s mind is the pre-existing mind?
Then again: how much of F.X. Toole’s acknowledgment of Nat Sobel is business obligation? mere courtesy? flat-out lies? We’d have to read all the MSs before Sobel, and read them again after, before we could have even so much as an opinion.
What a great pen name. FX as in special effects. Toole as in tool. Toole as in Irish as hell. F.X. as in Francis Xavier (Irish as hell).
2005 I saw Million Dollar Baby, saw Clint, saw Morgan Freeman, saw Hilary Swank, saw them all win award after award. I liked Baby; though I sure didn’t like it that much, had quarrel after quarrel with it: thought it was one of Clint’s lesser good efforts, enjoyed seeing Swank buff, but didn’t think it was her best. ... Now I just watched the DVD: and hated more than liked it. IMDb.com informed me that the source had been called Rope Burns. I instantly thought that was a better title, went to the library, got it, read it. Van Gogh all over again.
This is great writing. This is great boxing writing. This is great gender writing. ...
So now I know: Jerry Boyd was 70 before he got published. He’d been fielding rejection letters for forty years. He dies two years later. Three years after that, the movie comes out. One year after that pk discovers the writing. ...
Are we still supposed to think that publishers can tell shit from Shinola? their ass from their elbow? "good" from "bad"? marketable from unmarketable?
"Van Gogh," as a principle, has been a theme at
for a decade, a theme with pk for half a century or more: just as is Jesus, just as is Galileo ... Just as has become kleptocracy, just had been civilization ... Nice to have a new example to add.The author credits an agent for making "a silk purse from a sow’s ear." Editors, agents ... have long collaborated with authors, with composers ... How much of Michael Jackson’s excellence is Michael Jackson? how much the choreographers? the music teachers (or the whole family)? the Hollywood directors of the videos? the rest of the ensemble?
How much of the Mona Lisa is Leonardo and how much Walter Pater? How much of the sunset is the sun and how much the particular day’s atmosphere? How much of "seeing" is in the eye? in the visual cortex? in the pre-existing mind?
How much of the next day’s mind is the pre-existing mind?
Then again: how much of F.X. Toole’s acknowledgment of Nat Sobel is business obligation? mere courtesy? flat-out lies? We’d have to read all the MSs before Sobel, and read them again after, before we could have even so much as an opinion.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Self-criticism
Self-criticism is common among sentient creatures -- those with a "self." But can anyone possibly claim that self-criticism is reliable or accurate? Hitler might think he made a mistake to wear the dark blue socks, but would he think building concentration camps or invading Poland a mistake?
What's true of individuals goes bango for societies. You or I might be acutely conscious, at least as capable of self-criticism as Hitler, but it's preposterous for societies to pretend to any but the most primitive (and self-indulgent) awareness.
What's true of individuals goes bango for societies. You or I might be acutely conscious, at least as capable of self-criticism as Hitler, but it's preposterous for societies to pretend to any but the most primitive (and self-indulgent) awareness.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Centralized / Decentralized
Centralized / Decentralized ... Cause / Effect
Humans claim sentience. I don't dispute the claim: I only add that sentience must be a spectrum, and that we can't possibly know how "left" or "right" we are on the spectrum (left or right as in statistical limits). Are we toward its beginning? or toward "the end"? (Does such a spectrum even have an end? does it even have a beginning?)
Recently some humans share the claim of self-awareness with a couple of other mammals: the chimp, the orangutan. Note: we're all mammals. All bilaterally symmetrical. All vertabrates. We all have a top and a bottom. We all have a face at the top end. It's not surprising that we should associate self-awareness and sentience with having a bilaterally symmetrical face: and at the top end.
pk loves to point out that we have a "face" at the other end too. On women it's called "ass" or "pussy." (link temp. down) Humans are social: though some males and a very few females are loners. Chimps too are social. Orangutans ... uh ... on occasion: all the adults males are loners. (I suggest you leave them alone: unless you want to see some exquisite violence: exercised against you!)
Social, self-aware, sentient humans have a trick: they generalize. And they have a social trick: they grab generalizations made by somebody smart, and apply them: stupidly.
For example:
Newton was very smart. He figured out some characteristics of gravity. He figured out lots of things. Newton never said he had figured out everything. On the contrary, he said he had picked up a couple of pretty shells from along a vast shore. That's all right: the group tells the lie for him: we can figure out anything. It's not that we have this and that fragment of knowledge; no, no: we have knowledge. God has knowledge. the church, the state has knowledge. experts, the university has knowledge. If I hit you in the head with a stone ax, you might fall down. I see myself as the cause of your falling down. I generalize: I cause things. My generalization is stolen by the group: we cause things. the generalization becomes fuzzy: we cause all things. Uh, no, wait: we cause all good things; all bad things are caused by the enemy. We group together. Now and then the group follows together a decision of some individual. Let's all go beat up on the rooster who's down in his luck, has lost a few feathers. Let's kill him.
We centralize, we form a hierarchy. It works! We form a fearsome efficiency. We worship centralization, hierarchy, efficiency.
Now we do something that makes this individual think that our self-awareness, our sentience (our hierarchy and our efficiency), are definitely on the beginner's side of things: we made flawed generalizations about centralization: the universe must be caused! the universe must be centrally caused! the universe must be hierarchically caused!
Looking at a problem we truck in assumptions about centralization, about cause. We impose hierarchies whether they're there or not.
I always get a kick on sports shows, the commentator says, "There's the first lady, leading the cheers": where some president's wife is more likely to be behind the crowd in the clapping. The network does not get a flood of raspberries: we swallow the flagrant imposition. We sometimes have a true perception, but inevitably spoil it: what was wrong with the Soviet was Stalin; then we think: the solution would be Nixon.
I can imagine cavemen making these errors. They too were sentient, had faces, had a top and a bottom. But they weren't over-organized within an inch of their lives the way all modern kleptocrats are. We escape the church, but fall into the school. we escape Stalin, but fall under Bush.
If we consider the universe we'll find centers: lots of them: billions and trillions. Our earth is the center of our earth moon system. Our sun is the center of the solar system. But there are hundreds of billions of suns: just in this galaxy. Cells have centers: the nucleus. Atoms have centers: the nucleus. The galaxy itself seems to have something like a center.
(Always though beware: does it really? or are we polluting our perception with our prejudice? are we over-reifying our model?)
But consider the universe. We can't see it; we can only see light generated by nearby stars and that light reflecting from other matter. We have to try to conceive it, we have to try to model it. Look at some of the models developed by big astronomy teams. Is there a center? Is there anything like a center? Is center an appropriate concept for the universe? Beware of imposing order on one system by inappropriate analogy with order from a different system.
Does the universe modeled, in any of the models, "look" hierarchical? Where's its "top"? (And where is "north"?) Does the model look like it has a boss? a president? a god? It would be foolish to assume that it doesn't just because we don't see one, it would be foolish to assume that it does: just because we're encouraged to see things that way.
But the universe is too big, too unknown. There are lots of things nearer to hand that we can also look at. Check out a model of a nice big fat organic molecule.
more coming
These thoughts fit with a number of pk projects. First I post this draft at my IonaArc blog, but the materials are destined for InfoAll.org and for the Thinking Tools and Society sections at.
Nam myoho renge kyo: the universal law of cause and effect
Sure there are causes, sure there are effects: many kinds: not all centralized, not all direct, not all top down: not at all as simple as billiards.
But trust the group to get all generalizations wrong.
Humans claim sentience. I don't dispute the claim: I only add that sentience must be a spectrum, and that we can't possibly know how "left" or "right" we are on the spectrum (left or right as in statistical limits). Are we toward its beginning? or toward "the end"? (Does such a spectrum even have an end? does it even have a beginning?)
Recently some humans share the claim of self-awareness with a couple of other mammals: the chimp, the orangutan. Note: we're all mammals. All bilaterally symmetrical. All vertabrates. We all have a top and a bottom. We all have a face at the top end. It's not surprising that we should associate self-awareness and sentience with having a bilaterally symmetrical face: and at the top end.
Social, self-aware, sentient humans have a trick: they generalize. And they have a social trick: they grab generalizations made by somebody smart, and apply them: stupidly.
For example:
We centralize, we form a hierarchy. It works! We form a fearsome efficiency. We worship centralization, hierarchy, efficiency.
Now we do something that makes this individual think that our self-awareness, our sentience (our hierarchy and our efficiency), are definitely on the beginner's side of things: we made flawed generalizations about centralization: the universe must be caused! the universe must be centrally caused! the universe must be hierarchically caused!
Looking at a problem we truck in assumptions about centralization, about cause. We impose hierarchies whether they're there or not.
I can imagine cavemen making these errors. They too were sentient, had faces, had a top and a bottom. But they weren't over-organized within an inch of their lives the way all modern kleptocrats are. We escape the church, but fall into the school. we escape Stalin, but fall under Bush.
If we consider the universe we'll find centers: lots of them: billions and trillions. Our earth is the center of our earth moon system. Our sun is the center of the solar system. But there are hundreds of billions of suns: just in this galaxy. Cells have centers: the nucleus. Atoms have centers: the nucleus. The galaxy itself seems to have something like a center.
(Always though beware: does it really? or are we polluting our perception with our prejudice? are we over-reifying our model?)
But consider the universe. We can't see it; we can only see light generated by nearby stars and that light reflecting from other matter. We have to try to conceive it, we have to try to model it. Look at some of the models developed by big astronomy teams. Is there a center? Is there anything like a center? Is center an appropriate concept for the universe? Beware of imposing order on one system by inappropriate analogy with order from a different system.
Does the universe modeled, in any of the models, "look" hierarchical? Where's its "top"? (And where is "north"?) Does the model look like it has a boss? a president? a god? It would be foolish to assume that it doesn't just because we don't see one, it would be foolish to assume that it does: just because we're encouraged to see things that way.
But the universe is too big, too unknown. There are lots of things nearer to hand that we can also look at. Check out a model of a nice big fat organic molecule.
more coming
These thoughts fit with a number of pk projects. First I post this draft at my IonaArc blog, but the materials are destined for InfoAll.org and for the Thinking Tools and Society sections at
.Nam myoho renge kyo: the universal law of cause and effect
Sure there are causes, sure there are effects: many kinds: not all centralized, not all direct, not all top down: not at all as simple as billiards.
But trust the group to get all generalizations wrong.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Steroid Competition
There’s a new book out saying that Barry Bonds used steroids devotedly, starting in 1998, the year Mark McGwire broke the single season home run record. Bonds has been injured recently. Bonds has been talking about retirement: he’s more than old enough by baseball standards. I’ve been speculating, including online, about whether there might be pressure on him to retire: in the light of the steroid allegations. He hasn’t been caught, nothing’s been proved, but he has been tarnished. The whole age has been tarnished.
Babe Ruth’s famous record was aided by a number of changes in the game specifically designed to aid Ruth’s home run rampages: a new ball, a new customized Yankee Stadium. It’s not that baseball has never been monkeyed with. Baseball has always been monkeyed with. But steroids, that’s another kind of cheating. Ruth’s advantages were manifestly natural: and were connived at by the sport itself: the team, the league, the public. Steroids too were connived at, but not openly.
So: does Bonds belong on the same stage with Ruth, with Aaron? Does McGwire? Bonds doesn’t just have the great bod, the great strength. He can see the ball, he’s coordinated. Most important, he has the patience, the judgment. He can wait on the ball, then unleash. In that he belongs on the stage with anybody. Ah, but the steroids.
On the one hand, if Arnold, why not Barry? If Mark, why not Barry? But here’s another angle, one sympathetic to Bonds. McGuire hit 70 home runs in 1998. Did he do it on Wheetina? Never mind what the public thinks, or thought; these are guys in the dugouts, they have their own grapevine. Should Bonds compete without steroids if important records are being broken with them? 1998 is not 1928.
I say let them compete in their own times. And stop taking records so seriously. I don’t trust that ANY of our records are accurate.
I don’t trust God to keep accurate records. But I trust God’s records to be far more accurate than ours.
I look forward to a time where our records would be compared to God’s: to our sorrow I bet.
But then I look even more forward to the time when God’s judgment comes up for judgment by the god he may not even realize is keeping tabs.
Then I suspect all the gods’ records will just evaporate: before no gods. Just swallowed in infinite time.
Babe Ruth’s famous record was aided by a number of changes in the game specifically designed to aid Ruth’s home run rampages: a new ball, a new customized Yankee Stadium. It’s not that baseball has never been monkeyed with. Baseball has always been monkeyed with. But steroids, that’s another kind of cheating. Ruth’s advantages were manifestly natural: and were connived at by the sport itself: the team, the league, the public. Steroids too were connived at, but not openly.
So: does Bonds belong on the same stage with Ruth, with Aaron? Does McGwire? Bonds doesn’t just have the great bod, the great strength. He can see the ball, he’s coordinated. Most important, he has the patience, the judgment. He can wait on the ball, then unleash. In that he belongs on the stage with anybody. Ah, but the steroids.
On the one hand, if Arnold, why not Barry? If Mark, why not Barry? But here’s another angle, one sympathetic to Bonds. McGuire hit 70 home runs in 1998. Did he do it on Wheetina? Never mind what the public thinks, or thought; these are guys in the dugouts, they have their own grapevine. Should Bonds compete without steroids if important records are being broken with them? 1998 is not 1928.
I say let them compete in their own times. And stop taking records so seriously. I don’t trust that ANY of our records are accurate.
I don’t trust God to keep accurate records. But I trust God’s records to be far more accurate than ours.
I look forward to a time where our records would be compared to God’s: to our sorrow I bet.
But then I look even more forward to the time when God’s judgment comes up for judgment by the god he may not even realize is keeping tabs.
Then I suspect all the gods’ records will just evaporate: before no gods. Just swallowed in infinite time.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Buff Bucks
I love dominant competitors where the competition seems genuinely open. Tiger inherited his genes, but he still has to win the tournament. By the time we get to the US Open you or I and Michelle Wie can have tried to get there without too many artificial obstacles. It's the best golf which has the best chance.
A year ago at this time we were hoping Lefty, Veejay, Big Easy Ernie Els could give Tiger a run for the money. This year Tiger again stands alone.
Tennis too is blessed with a Titan. Roger Federer wins like no one in tennis has won before. Who's dominated a racket sport like that since Hashim Khan in the 1940s? Not even Rod Laver put up numbers like Roger had for 2005. But God bless us, Rafael Nadal, who frustrated Roger in last year's French, just took a final from Roger!
I've ogled Tiger online before, and Roger Federer too, even oohed and ahed about Hashim. I jot this piece today to show off Rafa: but also to stand agape at another buff Spaniard: have you gotten a glam yet of Camilo Villegas? The guy is bursting out of his golf shirt and pants the way Britany Spears showed the world how to burst out of girlhood.
Notice: Nadal isn't exactly hiding. He wears those ridiculous cut-off sleeves, and with reason. Well neither is Villegas taking any evident vows of poverty, modesty, or chastity. This past weekend he was wearing orange shoes and an orange belt. Some other damn thing was coordinated orange: his wrist band, or a hankie. If it weren't for the articulated biceps, legs, butt, he would have looked like a freaking fairy.
I think I'll also put together a note on the subtle perfection of the Federer bod. He reminds me of Mike Schmidt: another physical genius of the super-average.
A year ago at this time we were hoping Lefty, Veejay, Big Easy Ernie Els could give Tiger a run for the money. This year Tiger again stands alone.
Tennis too is blessed with a Titan. Roger Federer wins like no one in tennis has won before. Who's dominated a racket sport like that since Hashim Khan in the 1940s? Not even Rod Laver put up numbers like Roger had for 2005. But God bless us, Rafael Nadal, who frustrated Roger in last year's French, just took a final from Roger!
I've ogled Tiger online before, and Roger Federer too, even oohed and ahed about Hashim. I jot this piece today to show off Rafa: but also to stand agape at another buff Spaniard: have you gotten a glam yet of Camilo Villegas? The guy is bursting out of his golf shirt and pants the way Britany Spears showed the world how to burst out of girlhood.
Notice: Nadal isn't exactly hiding. He wears those ridiculous cut-off sleeves, and with reason. Well neither is Villegas taking any evident vows of poverty, modesty, or chastity. This past weekend he was wearing orange shoes and an orange belt. Some other damn thing was coordinated orange: his wrist band, or a hankie. If it weren't for the articulated biceps, legs, butt, he would have looked like a freaking fairy.
I think I'll also put together a note on the subtle perfection of the Federer bod. He reminds me of Mike Schmidt: another physical genius of the super-average.
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