Morbid Pathologies:
In his book with the above title,
Riobert M Pirsig, expresses (to me, at least) a feeling that the
quality of life is dependant on the ability to do things "correctly"
-which basically means "love" for the tasks that are involved
(amateurism).
Unfortuantely, as far as I know, he never went into the details and implications of such a viewpoint:
Presumably, if his metaphor of
motorcycle maintenance has any value, then "success" must
surely involve "maintaining" the that which makes the healthy
functioning of the system sustainable....
.....in turn "failure" involves the destruction of a healthy sustainablity.
So, presumably, in order to succeed we need to understand the
conditions that promote, or undermine, the good functioning of
the system.....
-Catalysts, Lockouts and End-games
Sometimes processes can be done in any order
-but some processes require a fixed order: One generally needs to put
on ones socks before putting on one's shoes
Sometimes, systems might work -but they can't start
-for example, one needs to eat in order to
work to get a job -but one can'r buy food because one hasn't got the
money
In this case, a "
catalyst" might be able to start the system -by cutting through the viscious circle while playing no further role:
However, if the system has other problems
besides the "logical lockout" then the system will start but will
founder on another issue......
A working system can also enter
an "
end-game"situation
-where something needs to be done but, for some
reason, cannot be done
for example, perhaps a patient needs to take a
blood thinning agent because of a dangerous blood clot
but because
they also suffer from haemaphilia -they cannot take the
medicine...... death may then be the result
It seems that many accicents involving cars,
planes and trains, for example, cannot be reduced to a single situatio
but are the result of a fatal chain of events that might not have been so
disasterous if conditions had been slighhtly different.
A burst tire
may not be a serious problem at slow speeds on an empty road
but at
high speed on a crowded motorway in a fog it can cause multiple deaths
in a chain reation of colliding cars
-Negative and Positive Feedback:
In "feedback" situations "cause" and "effect" become mutually supportive (or destructive) of each other, For example:
-In Human Systems:
-
Pressure
to solve important problems immediately can mean that there is less
time for contemplation and reflection regarding the possible
consequences of and alternatives for the chosen strategies or aims.
-
Social isolation tends
to turn people into "loose cannons" -which in turn, tends to increase
their isolation because nobody knows how to deal with them (
Websinnig & Kuro).
-Conflicts between dependencies:
"Dependencies" are bits of (human or
computer) programmes that are used by other "programes" (such as
operating a leg muscle would be an erssential part of both walking and
running -or indeed any other operation that involves moving the
leg...and presumably the "leg-muscle" programme is likely to be
dependant on a more genralised muscle operating system.....
-Fatal problems can be caused by conflicts between external
dependancies (resultin in power
struggles) or internal dependancies (resulting in philosophical or
psychological problems).
Presumably, the faster systems change -the
greater the chance of problems with internal or external coordination.
-Internal Coordination:
Sometimes whan a system is in a state of
(internally or externallly induced) change, the "programmes" of the
various sub-components are not (yet) fully syncronised and so may
continue to function in ways that are not apporpriate to the new
approach -and may indeed even be contradictory to the iether the new
aims or other parts of the system.....
-External Coordination:
Systems that are evolving (in non-parallel
ways) will interact differently at different points in time...
For example, two people may meet at one point in time and both behave
completely differently if they had met each other at a different point
in time.
-Equilibria and Disequilibria:
-Corruption and Perversion:
(
preventing systems functioning properly -by short circuiting essential processes)
"
Perversion"
can perhaps be defined in terms of short-term gains given preference top
long-term gains -such that long-term aims can never be realised.
This suggests that the "
pursuit of pleasure"
can be a dangerous game, if it encourages immediate pleasures at the
const of long -term advantages..... However, achieving an aesthetic
balence also gives pleasure..... so it seems that there may well be "
positive pleasures" (joy of living, etc.) that encourage long-term growth and stability on the one hand, and "
negative pleasures" (smoking, drinking, drugtaking, etc) that undermine it.
-Commercial or Political interests can exploit disfunctionality by encouraging disfunctionality....
-Roman Empire (and the European Conciousness)
(Christianity: Rome, Byzantium and the "east")
(Greece and Rome -the Renaissance)
-Perverse Systems of Logic
-Binary Logic
-The Mind/Body Split
(Athenian aristocratic tradition)
(division of labour -social hierarchies)
(theory and practice)
(Cognition and Perception)
(Medium and Message)
(Hardware and Sopftware)
(User and Programmer)
(Church and State?
-political implications of the immaterial ruling the material (Greece
and Rome?))
(neo-platonic
separation of spirit and body (reincarnation) -p57. Icon
book)
(Byzantine Art: the reincarnation and
the spiritualisation of form by the artist -p61 Icon book)
-Abstraction and the NeoPlatonic "ideal"
(the "abstraction"
presumably contains less characteristics than than prototype -a
"ball" has no specific size, colour or weight)
(the "prototype" usually
seems to fall short of (and therefore be "less" than) the "ideal)
(so with "ideals" one gets
less (perfection) when dealing with the prototype -but with
"abstraction" one gets more!)
-Others:
-Non-Responsive Systems
(Auto-Conspiricy Theory: Collabourating with one's own repression)
(Why are the media -and other intellectuals so complient?)
-Conceptual Conflicts
(politcal science: Lim)
(social science: DeWitte)
A Self-Protecting and Regenerative System, that sometimes fails:
-The Human Body as Linguistic Community -A Potential Model/Metaphor for Social Systems?
(levels of definition and identity)
(a diversity of mechanical, chemical and electrical communication systems)
(articulated synergy)
(the selfish cancer)
Trevor Batten
Manila, July/September 2006