PatternSmithing Alliance Blogs

NOTE: This is a preface post (formerly called Stub post) which gives an intro on upcoming content.

As I continue to work on the upcoming volume to be published, one of the opening chapters that has emerged concerns seeing the world in terms of patterns.  This thesis (that the world can be perceived, modeled, and treated as an intermeshed collection of patterns) is central to establishing the entire field of static pattern engineering as well as orienting individuals toward the activities (patternsmithing, pattern engineering, and architecting) that arise from it.

One of the problems I have struggled with is that the term Pattern has a lot of connotations surrounding it and most of them are seemingly purposefully and annoyingly vague.  For current examples across the web, see the following google query.  In a future post, I will reveal the formalization of the term pattern that underlies static pattern engineering (intuitive hints have been spread throughout this blog) and  with this formal definition I will give plenty of exercises of seeing the world (including that which is formed, that which is forming, and that which is yet to be formed) in terms of patterns.

Once patterns are defined and examples are identified, it will be important to introduce how forces are operating on this pattern and the terms static pattern, dynamic pattern, and active pattern will come into focus.  At that point, it is hoped it will become clear how and why individuals work on creating, transforming, and operating on patterns in their daily lives and why we need a field and set of activities for working with these patterns directly.  Once this post is published, I’d welcome feedback on it, as I am hoping this will be an intriguing opening for the book and ultimately an introduction to the field for many.

Also, on another note, as a reader please begin registering your interest levels (via the polls available) which topics you would be most interested in reading next, as the frequency of posting on this blog is fairly low, I want to make sure you have a voice and that I am made aware of what you are looking to discover.  As always, contact me at http://xri.net/=joel.kotarski with any questions or feedback.

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In order to sense resonance clearly, it is my belief that a mind should be able to achieve a state called Unconditioned Consciousness, if only for a moment (which at times is all that is possible). The conditioning of consciousness is necessary (that is a question) to manage the complexity of the physical and mental domains — the usefulness and utility of conditioning can be observed by how well we can achieve such a wide array of useful and varied functions in our daily personal and professional lives (sometimes simultaneously) while still having a large reserve of attention available for achieving so much more.  I like Mihaly Csikzenthalyi’s classification of attention as psychic energy – and the organization of attention down coherent paths of consciousness as psychic order [whilst the opposite is considered psychic entropy].  As for ordering consciousness, a good percentage of learned behaviors (including reflexive reactions) order the flow of consciousness for a period of time and interestingly enough, reflexive reactions can likewise organize consciousness automatically to achieve goals (an often referred to example is that of driving a car between destinations without any awareness at all of the task at hand, while thinking about or attending to other things).

In order to describe how to achieve Unconditioned Consciousness, it is necessary to talk about the relationship between awareness, perception, and attention more deeply.  For a first slice at a model and analogy, let us picture that attention is the currency of consciousness[1] (which gives new meaning to the phrase ‘pay attention’).  Regardless of whether we are aware of the these transactions of consciousness, they are still occurring moment by moment.  Awareness applied reflectively to the contents of consciousness can be thought of a sort of meta-attention, that is attention about the target of attention, or where attention is being absorbed.  In order to suspend (and later rework) the automatic triggering of reflexive reactions, it is necessary to reach awareness of all reflexive reactions.

Early work on static pattern engineering examined two boundary conditions of interest:  Unconditioned Consciousness and Complete Absorption of Attention Without Awareness.  In the latter case, which takes many forms, I was most interested in cases of extreme depression and catatonia:  In catatonia, attention is completely absorbed – none is available – and when questioned later, those that went through this state have no recollection (awareness) of what the contents of consciousness were nor what was external to them (thus attention wasn’t attached to perception).  Nearly everyone would agree that this state is one of complete degeneration.  Short of medication that alleviates or changes the state of consciousness, how do people in this state move out of it?  The solution is a bit counter-intuitive: Awareness (which is completely or nearly nonexistent) is activated and then gradually expanded to encompass the content of consciousness[2].  Of course, the state of the content of consciousness is that nothing is moving – the economy of consciousness is completely frozen, attention is absorbed in apparently nothing, and not even perception is properly processed by attention[3].  Nonetheless, the gradual widening of awareness restores the flow of attention toward perception and gradually awareness detects the slow, painful flow of thoughts (which nearly always have a negative slant). Through this gradual expansion of awareness, the mind seems to reorder itself, allowing attention to work once again as the currency of consciousness.

I wanted to illustrate the extreme boundary case of Complete Absorption of Attention Without Awareness and the mechanisms that lead away from it to state quite simply what Unconditioned Consciousness is:  Complete Absorption of Attention With Complete Awareness.  Consciousness often operates with a mixture of reflexive reactions operating at a threshold below awareness (or at least only partially illuminated by awareness): to move toward unconditioned consciousness, it is necessary to follow the same mechanism of applying awareness as described above to expand awareness to the contents of consciousness.  It is easiest to apply awareness to perception and then to expand it across the entire content of consciousness.   Just as described in the previous post in this series, proprioception of thought (the sixth sense) is possible via invoking awareness.

In the next post in this series, I will continue the journey toward unconditioned consciousness (or complete absorption of attention with complete awareness) and talk further about reflexive reactions and dissolving, activation energy, sensing resonance, and finally resonant reactions.

[1] I know the skeptical mind will immediately transfer to this footnote: To answer any questions and to point out the immediately obvious flaws in this analogy, I will give the more expanded model for completeness sake: static patterns and reflexes are the currency of consciousness while attention is the current of consciousness (when it is causing an ordered flow of consciousness rather than just being absorbed).  Nonetheless, the model used above effectively illustrates the intended point.

[2] Please note that I am not simply stating that the complex treatment of degenerative mental states can be abolished and replaced with ‘awareness therapy’ nor that this works in all cases; however, this is based on studies and cases where a reversal of catatonic states and extreme depression have been reversed by the application of awareness by the volition of the person suffering this state.

[3] This state is intensely interesting in the sense that is attention is completely bound. All of this is more completely described and diagrammed in the upcoming book (sorry title of the book is still pending).

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David Bohm, in a series of talks (that later became the book Thought as as System) once said that we should delineate between ‘thoughts’ and ‘thinks’.   Thoughts are former products of consciousness that are stored in memory and passed around from person to person, while ‘thinks’ are products of consciousness created in the present moment with active mentation (or which consicousness is actively operating on even if former products of consciousness).  Bohm’s clever wordplay has finally led me to a perfect catchy term for describing the far less catchy term ’static pattern’:  thingk. That is, a static pattern, in the form we are most interested in for application can be called a thingk.

Thingk is a union of the words think and thing, and when pronounced sounds deceptively identical to think.  I like it because it embeds a lot of semantic hints that convey what a static pattern is:

• The first word in static pattern, static, comes from Greek and Latin roots for standing, remaining, and implies persistence.  When something persists, we usually identify it (generically) as a thing.
• When you first encounter (or create) a static pattern that resonates with you, it has the effect of gathering such awareness and attention in consciousness that it seems less like a thought and more like a thing.  It usually invokes active mentation and becomes a think in Bohmian terms.  This duality, as it grows, begins to qualify it as a thingk (in the cognitive domain).
• In the physical or virtual domains, before that thingk is manifested, it is just a thought ( think ); however, as you, the creator, drive it toward manifestation, it becomes not just a thought ( think ) but also a thing that exists (stands, remains, persists) with some degree of physical persistence (depending on degree of virtuality).  Yet, behind that now existent thing is the thought(s) that resonate with the creator such that they evoke active mentation and thus are still think(s).  Thus, the manifested static pattern is a thingk spread across multiple domains (cognitive, physical, virtual).
• If you encounter a thing that you can perceive with your senses, there are thoughts that brought it to creation.  When these thoughts and the thing itself invoke resonance in a perceiver, it can be now be described as a thingk.
• When you find a talented individual with a personal connection to the work they create, you can certainly be assured that everything they create has the quality of also being a thingk.
• If you begin to approach the things you work with with the intent to turn them into thingks (or to change your work so that the things you work with have a higher rate of probably of being thingks for you), or you begin to have the intent to find thoughts that resonate enough to become thingks in consciousness and then reified thingks in the cognitive, virtual, and/or physical domains, then the nature of your creative work is transformed.

I intend to not only use this term for describing static patterns in a more easily graspable semantic framework, but also intend to use it drive the fluxpoints project further.  A fluxpoint, by criteria, will be in fact a thingk; however, I am actively working on a partner project to actively get people moving from thought => think => thingk, which will ensure a natural evolution path toward turning those thingks into FluxPoints as well as physical, virtual, and/or cognitive creations.  This will most likely be a free community web site that will allow for active work on static patterns (or thingks) with the intention of bringing them about as creations.

Until then, I still prefer to use the technical term static pattern, but after discussing this more compact and expressive reduction with people who have talked to me about SPs for years, it immediately catches on and they finally ‘get it’.  Nonetheless, this particular journal about static pattern engineering will probably continue to use the technical term – I intend to post a link to the community site once I get it going and that site will probably make scarce use of the technical term, favoring the one described in this post.

Thanks for reading.

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…The virtual side of static pattern engineering is going to take further form in a new project codenamed ‘FluxPoints’. A fluxpoint will be a virtual and active representation of a static pattern (or an aggregation of static patterns) on the Internet…

[From a previous post]

Formerly called the ‘endpoints’ project, after further development of the idea I have renamed it to the FluxPoints project. The endpoints idea started as a thought experiment: provide a way for an individual or group to secure an authorative identifier for a static pattern (or aggregation of static patterns) [1] and:

• represent the evolving structure on the world wide web in multiple rendered formats depending on consumer [data]
• provide a common set of framework operations against the static pattern [behaviors]

I can modestly say this initial concept was nothing more than morphing together a few existing ideas that have developed over the last two decades. The endpoints idea was intended to take the web service endpoint concept and apply it toward static patterns at the service layer with all types of interesting convolutions of the usual infrastructure surrounding web services [2].

This first phase of thinking, which encompasses ‘releasing’ or publishing a static pattern, is still going to be part of the process (with some as yet undisclosed modifications to the way it is represented) — this notion of allowing a pattern’s representation to become static is enforced by the criteria that it:

• has an authorative and established identifier that gives it an identity
• has a physical location that hosts it [3]
• has a structure and set of behaviors that define it, otherwise it is neither active nor static

This last criterion, which defines whether the pattern [virtual] representation (not necessarily the underlying pattern itself) is static also defines whether it can be active introduces the notion of active pattern. In consciousness (the cognitive domain), a static pattern becomes active when cognition is actively operating with that pattern to produce transformations in the pattern itself or other patterns. If the sole purpose of the endpoints project was simply to reflect the products of consciousness as virtual representations, then endpoints would be a proper name; however, the purpose of static pattern engineering is to operate on and transform these patterns — in the transition states they are active patterns. With the tremendous potential of a global network, if the endpoint were designed to release the pattern in a way that allowed it to be activated by bidirectional information flow according to its orientation and exposure then there would be many opportunities for the pattern to become an active pattern (not just for consumer but for creator and aggregators). Thus, we are most interested in the flux through the endpoint — and the sole purpose of the endpoint is to serve as a FluxPoint.

I have most likely become somewhat vague in the -how- this last part will be achieved. This is for several reasons – first and foremost is because I wanted to announce the initial ideas (endpoints) but not necessarily reveal the whole progression since then. Nonetheless, I can assure you that this project will be an interesting experiment that I hope will generate very positive results, not just for the field itself but also for the people that use it. [Insert typical grandiose vision statements here]

[1] analogous to a domain name in concept but not at all in syntax

[2] for instance, web services are usually unique type definitions that usually delegate to a well-known data source while an endpoint represents a unique manifestation using a standard type definition with variable data sources (often other endpoints)

[3] in the first implementation, this will be a hosting location I will provide; however, the infrastructure will be designed from the bottom up that this location can vary for each endpoint

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I love the insights we have gotten from game theory, but I want to explore how games can be used as Operators or even, remarkably, as Transforms (both operators and transforms as two fundamental SPE constructs will be discussed in a future upcoming post). The idea of using games is to get the brain out of the bounds of traditional thought. I’ve devoted a whole new category to the discussion of games in SPE.. using games as tools.

In this post, I want to talk about indulging in Magical Thinking merely for play — only as a game. In this game, we will use the ‘-Mancer Mindset’ — this suffix derived from Greek indicates ascertaining information through non-conventional means. If you had the power to ascertain information using one of the channels shown in the previous link, which would you choose? This little game may be falling flat at the moment, because it seems absurd to even assume someone could gather information by watching the way an animal moves or how a natural or created substance arranges itself in patterns.

Now, what if I told you there actually was a sixth sense… David Bohm, in his excellent book (dialogue transcripts) Thought as a System
(one of the cornerstone members of the list of SPE references), says the sixth sense is developing ‘proprioception of thought’. I’ll also discuss proprioception in depth later (as it is quite important), but I’ll just use Bohm’s excellent example: in the physical world, you demonstrate proprioception when you close your eyes and know the exact position of your arm as you swing it in circles behind your back. So, to become that aware of the movements of thought is developing the sixth sense. Of course, the numbering of it as the sixth sense is ranking its cardinality above all other proposed extra senses.

Now, back to the -Mancer Mindset. Instead of applying this to actual belief of obtaining extra information in the physical world, imagine developing this ability in the realm of thought but analogize it toward the realm of thought. For instance, aeluromancy normally involves watching a cat jump. Since thoughts rarely look like cats, picture instead observing a thought jump to a higher energy level. Amathomancy involves observing sand, dust, or dirt — there is a connotated version of that analogue in how you classify your thoughts (it depends on how you value sand, dust, or dirt by making the analogical jump to looking at thoughts whether the thought that could thus be categorized was valuable or not).

Observing one class of material, energy, or momentum exchange using proprioception alone could take months to develop. Now, using this catalog of {*}mancies, you have an entirely new way of observing your thoughts.

From this exercise alone, many of the serious SPE operators (and some transforms) can be derived. What static pattern engineering will do is combine these operations and transformations into a coherent system of operating on and transforming thought to more useful arrangements (thus, leading to interesting and innovative yields).

Hope you enjoyed the post and expect more in the coming weeks – I’m quite behind on posting!

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