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.

• The PatternSmithing Alliance (http://patternsmithing.com/) is being established as a centralized organizing and guiding body for the core activities, knowledge, and applications of static pattern engineering technologies.  This site and my activities (including the book under construction) will be considered contributions to the body of work of the Alliance.
• The “ThingK” company (I am finalizing the company name so will just call it that for now) will work on several products and services that not only apply static pattern engineering technologies but also advance the field as a whole.  After research and development, I’ve seen that several viable technologies exist that can enhance people’s lives as well as the field itself – a commercial vehicle will serve the projects well throughout their lifetime to keep their growth and maintenance sustainable.
• The research and development activities on Static Pattern Engineering will still continue by interested members of the Alliance, either as a voluntary effort, projects commissioned/funded by the Alliance or government grants, and/or activities commissioned under the commercial ventures of the “ThingK” company or other participating partners.  This site will continue to track these activities that fall under the first two categories, whilst the commercial aspects will continue to drift away toward channels created by the “ThingK” company.

I wanted to make this sort of a last post that outlines the whole field (as it stands today), because  many of these aspects grew out of this research and development activity.  This blog’s posts, as well as many other posts related to these separate aspects of the field on other sites (where I’ve been busy recently), are now syndicated together at the PatternSmithing Alliance blogs at http://blogs.patternsmithing.com/.   If you are interested in monitoring the entire field and all activities —  not just the research and development aspects, I encourage you to relocate your attention there – these posts will continue to make their way there.

Also, if you are interested in the body of knowledge surrounding Static Pattern Engineering, while waiting for the publication of the first volume, you can visit the PatternSmithing Alliance wiki (link withheld until it fills up more – just created recently) which will continue to reflect the growing body of knowledge and technologies.  From the research and development side, at times the blog will preceed the wiki in terms of knowledge while at other times the wiki will preceed the blog in terms of knowledge.

To begin involvement in the activities of the field, you are encouraged to submit your information at http://patternsmithing.com/.

Finally, I want to briefly discuss the products and services of the “ThingK” company, which started as research projects here and are now in active development:

• The thingk.com web site is the site alluded to earlier surrounding the notion of ‘thingk’ as expressing a more easily graspable term for ’static pattern’.  This will be a free community web site, with a revenue model based on enhancements, that allows any person to begin working with the core tenets of static pattern engineering without any knowledge of the underlying science, research, or activities surrounding it – this was always one of my goals from the beginning.  The PatternSmithing Alliance will recommend the core standards this site will use so that user’s content will always be reusable, expandable, and exportable by them for collaboration with non-commercial interests.  This site is very central to strategy for all of the groups:
  • The research and development activities of the PatternSmithing Alliance (which this site represents) will be interested in expanding the technology and studying how user content and collaboration progresses as case studies in the state of the art of the field.
  • After creators (the users of the site) begin to see the power of persisting and ultimately creating their Thingks, the PatternSmithing Alliance may be a natural avenue for them to continue their progression into learning about the core of the field, first by simple PatternSmithing activities, and then maybe even vocationally as a PatternSmith, StaticPattern Architect, or StaticPattern Engineer.
  • The initial activities of creators (users) are hoped to lead them toward more advanced applications of Static Pattern Engineering : fluxpoints and spawned dreams.
• Whereas thingk.com is a product aimed at people already engaged in the act of creating (even if it prods them to do so) where the target is clearly identified, the DreamSpawn service works with a more nebulous concept – the dreams that begin to fascinate people but often a clearcut direction does not always manifest (sometimes for years).  By leveraging the concept of Thingks (static patterns) and the activities surrouding PatternSmithing, the service purposely guides its clients through training around the technology (and its goals) and the knowledge of PatternSmithing with the clear dedication to watching their dreams become a reality.  This is a very rational process and is only embarked on once a proper analysis and evaluation has been done.
• The FluxPoints project will eventually become a commercial product and service, but is the most advanced merging of static pattern engineering research with computer technology.  Therefore, it will be a joint venture between the research and development activity, the PatternSmithing Alliance, and the “ThingK” company for quite some time.  Essentially, it allows any Thingk (or collection of Thingks) to virtualize further by leveraging an advanced technological infrastructure for collaboration.  This ‘engine’ will be leveraged by the research and development group, the PatternSmithing Alliance, and the “ThingK” company to drive innovations and collaborations.  You can read more about it at any time at the FluxPoints blog (or via the PatternSmithing Alliance blogs which syndicate it).

Thanks.

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).

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.

First, I’ve made a decision about publication of the first volume I am working on for static pattern engineering.  I have decided to publish it using Amazon’s Digital Media Platform.  Therefore, the first title will only be available electronically and will be an abridged version of the final form.  I will be actively seeking feedback from readers in this first publishing round, then I will seek alternate avenues for the expanded publishing round for the physical (and electronic) unabridged form.

Second, for the past few years I’ve been actively looking for a candidate programming language and platform for the virtual work on static pattern engineering.  I am happy to announce that I’ve finally found it – thanks to some extraordinary work at Microsoft research. They have produced the F# language which is about to reach maturity (the v1.0 release). This language will allow me to finally model some of the complexity surrounding the virtual work in an elegant form using multiple programming paradigms. My previous attempts to model some of the data structures and operations using a purely object oriented paradigm were not sufficient using anything else available. I had explored functional programming using Lisp and Scheme; however, the lack of constructs from imperative programming were also not sufficient and I couldn’t find an active project that maintained a connection to powerful frameworks (such as the .NET framework). The F# language effectively merges these paradigms as well as offering effective abstract representation, symbolic, and lexical processing which we will important for dealing with some of the core concepts in a programming language form.

Finally, 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 (in other words, the medium the static pattern will be expressed in is a ‘physical’ construct that allow it to participate on the Internet). I’d like to note that this is simply a research application of static pattern engineering, so won’t receive full attention here (only in the cases where the application helps inform the core theory); nonetheless, I am expecting some exciting developments from this project and am looking forward to it.

The difference between an operator and a transform is analogous to that between a physical and chemical change in chemistry — in the former, the operation changes the form or state of the substance(s) without changing their underlying composition or identity. In physical or chemical changes, it is interesting to take note of the role of energy in the change:  if the amount of energy doesn’t meet or exceed the activation energy required for a chemical reaction for the system (defined by the reactants, catalysts, and surrounding environment), then a chemical change will not happen but often a physical change will.

In static pattern engineering, our primarily interest in operators and transforms occurs in the cognitive and virtual domains.  When applied to consciousness, operators (and the operations they embody) are useful for  studying effects and for leading static patterns (design concepts, knowledge systems, representations of physical or virtual systems, etc. etc.) through changes for refinement and toward reification in the destination domain.  Transforms (and the transformations they embody) often result in the creation of something entirely new in consciousness.

The role of resonance is powerful, because aided by resonance, ordinary operations can become transformations (similar to how heat or mechanical energy along can lead to a chemical versus physical change).  This fact is why resonance (and the discovery of points of resonance in each individual) is important in the application of static pattern engineering processes:  resonance often invokes transformations in consciousness.  Therefore, ordinary operators discovered in the study of static pattern engineering, when applied to resonant material, can become transforms.  Unfortunately, at this point in time, there haven’t been any absolute universal transforms discovered (although a couple of candidates are under consideration) — that is, operators that are guaranteed to produce transformation in any system with any individual(s) involved.  The discovery of these universal transforms (or at least close approximations to them) is one of the top five goals of SPE.

Unlike purely mathematical constructs in a computational system or purely physical agents in a chemical or physical system, a transform or operator is as much about the underlying operation embodied as it is about the construct that embodies it.  I will delve into more details in this series about this enigmatic statement; however, for consideration, note that a person can act as an embodiment of an operation or transformation.  I bring this up as a complex case to note that at times, what apparently seems to embody a transformational event or operation can be mistaken as possessing the ability to produce that operation (and the transformational event) when it simply provided it at that moment.  Because this requires a much larger discussion about operation embodied and embodiment of operation, I will postpone that until later.

Thanks for reading and for private comments and emails I have received — please feel free to contact me at =Joel.Kotarski for discussion or collaboration.

In order to introduce these roles, I need to talk briefly about what a static pattern is without going into much detail (a separate set of posts will be required for that***). Briefly, a static pattern is a product of consciousness[1] that has reached a degree of coherence[2] that it can persist (stay, remain) within one or more realm/domain (see virtual, cognitive, and physical in the first post on this site) or across these three domains. [ Static pattern engineering seeks to give us the ability to further operate on and transform these units of consciousness in extremely effective ways. Note that we already operate on and transform these patterns as part of our creative lives, our vocations, and perhaps even our spiritual lives; however, SPE seeks to greatly enhance the process toward expected effects as well as results. ] A static pattern can — and will — remain in one or more of the domains by its very definition, especially if an act of will has given a high degree of virtuality — that is, it has been persisted by some means into the physical realm with a high cognitive component to it; however, SPE concerns itself with –activating– the pattern (making it an active pattern) using resonance, operators, and transforms and bringing innovative results and effects back to the domain of origin (often cognitive) as well as the other domains where a pattern can manifest (virtual, physical, and/or cognitive again).

Now, for this discussion it is important to note that these products of consciousness that have coherence often don’t take an immediately analyzable form (so they can be mapped between languages and domains at will), and expressing a pattern, whether by embedding it into physical matter (giving it a higher degree of virtuality) or directly manifesting it into the world (creating it), and the resonant language[3] used to do so start to give form to these three roles/professions I see emerging.

My previous stub post on Artist, Artisan, Artificer finally comes into play in this discussion as well. The act of expressing/manifesting a pattern into the world usually can be categorized as the work of an artisan, artificer, or an artist. The label of artisan is usually associated with a craftsperson or skilled worker who can usually do a standardized operation or piece together standardized operations to produce an instantiation of a desired template or a unique combination or evolution of previous templates. The label of artificer is usually associated with skilled devising, inventing, construction, design of something entirely new or a more complex derivation/transformation of previous creations (thus, implying a longer time scale) but will nonetheless become a template. The label of artist is usually associated with someone who has imagination and noticeable talent in a particular domain that can produce something (through sometimes more mysterious and less-defined processes) that may be described as aesthetically pleasing, unique, original, such that the concept of template is utterly meaningless – it is an individual act of willed creation.

• PatternSmiths will forge a static pattern into the physical, virtual, and/or cognitive domains based on their highly refined resonant language. The act of PatternSmithing itself will be shared by all three disciplines — and actually I dream of a day when every single person with knowledge, experience, and associated resonance in some language can be qualified as a PatternSmith of some type. The desire for ‘every person’s SPE’ that this represents doesn’t detract from the pattern-smithing role in the least or elevate the others; rather, if the engineering role does its job properly (see below), the vast array of fields (vocation[4]) and resonances possible will allow for everyone to become a skilled craftsperson to some degree or another. This fact in itself will confirm the success of the entire body of research and application for static pattern engineering — the patternsmithing is the application of the field.
• Static Pattern Architects will draw on many domains of knowledge, experience, and language to conceptualize and transmit the design for large scale projects that straddle the cognitive, virtual, and physical domains. Working closely with Static Pattern Engineers, an inspiring and innovative design will emerge that will be further improved by the design aspects of SPE’s processing and collaborational technology for identifying the larger context the creation exists in across all three domains as well as the resources that can improve its implementation and continued existence/evolution in aspects of each domain. Because the Architect is examining all three domains in the design, he or she is in fact working not only at a physical level (as we have currently with traditional architecture), nor at just a computerized level (as we have with software architecture), but at a cognitive level and considering -all- virtual manifestations (e.g., creation of a business model is virtual, or defining a set of publications, or designing ways of disseminating the requisite knowledge, etc.).
• Static Pattern Engineers work on multiple dimensions across the field of static pattern engineering and it is going to take a separate post*** to enumerate all the various aspects this will entail, but briefly it will involve managing the movement of knowledge and matching resonances across multidisciplinary teams to actualize (engineer) a complex product that can span multiple domains, operating/facilitating the process of collaboration and innovation in analysis, design, and implementation phases of that product, serving as a subject matter expert in one or more specialties (which they resonate highly with) within the domain of engineering, cognitive science, or computer science to serve as a contributing team member in analysis, design, and implementation phases of that product, developing artifacts which allow for more effective execution of static pattern engineering processes, developing tools which allow for improved detection of resonances (and thus location/training of qualified PatternSmiths), driving teams toward higher challenges and ensuring a high rate of innovation, and doing experiments and/or research which will advance the field on a continual basis.

The important thing to note is that all three of these roles at any point in time be acting as an artist, artificer, or artisan — the large difference between them is the granularity and function of their work (what they are focusing on). A PatternSmith could
in fact be a full-time artist and producing nothing but one of a kind, original productions in any domain, or they could be a craftsperson (artisan) that produces templated results with skill, or even they could be called upon for their artificer skills in producing something unique and innovative. Additionally, the PatternSmith’s varied resonance may allow them to serve in all three capacities across different domains or knowledge areas. Likewise, in their larger scale context, a SPA (StaticPatternArchitect) may use (and often will be required to use) a blend of all three modes of working to produce their initial and continued design, and the output itself will probably be considered a blend of the three — carrying out its refinement and implementation will likewise require a blend of the three in most cases, which the SPE (StaticPatternEngineer will facilitate, as well as initial design). Unlike the other two, however, the StaticPatternEngineer will be –required– to use a blend of all three. He or she has to be a skilled artisan in using the technology for matching resonances, moving knowledge, or invoking collaborations throughout a distributed system of thought – there is no time for innovation or art for this extremely important functional need; however, there will be a need for an artificer skill set in the unique design constraints of each product where only the static pattern engineer will have the requisite ability to perceive and identify unique approaches for that team. I will elaborate further on the SPE’s mapping to these labels in their activities, as well as the artistic output, in a future post***.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I enjoyed writing it — for some who have asked me questions, I hope it also gives a _much_ deeper glimpse into what this whole field is going to be about. Until next time I post, I wish you the best!
___
[1] Don’t be mislead into thinking this is restricted to only human consciousness. More on this later.

[2] I literally mean this in both the sense of coherence we see in physics (explaining how thought patterns can have this kind of coherence requires a much larger discussion) as well as a sense of cohesiveness (with other patterns, with the consciousness hosting it, with a requirement/necessity (perceived or real)) that literally ensures the pattern’s existence.

[3] In a paper on resonance, titled “The Power of Resonance“, I worked on in 2001 with Christopher Galtenberg, we carefully qualified language this way:

In our framework, language serves a critical two-fold mechanism: it converts experience into explicit, transmittable knowledge and transmits knowledge to invoke experiences. Language [thus] can take many forms, and in this framework, fits this broader definition: A language arises from a set of elements allowing transmission (expression) and reception of knowledge and/or experience.

The paper went on to then qualify resonant language, which I will do later in a future post***.

[4] I hope one day we can return to vocation as a calling (where really resonance represents the increasing call itself), and that a vocation, as a way of life, can encompass diverse fields, knowledge, associations, experiences, and possibly roles, as resonance implies a –set of callings– rather than just a singular one. Then we can have career-crafting as an ongoing process.

*** I am just explicitly marking my promises for posts now as a reminder to myself.

Today’s Stub Post:

What separates an Artist, an Artisan, and an Artificer in the expression of an Art into the world? How do resonance, operators, and transforms inform this process?

Accompanying thought:

“It is the job of the artist…to think outside the boundaries of permissible thought and dare to say things that no one else will say.” — Howard Zinn

If that is the job of the artist, what is the job of the artisan?

No related posts.

I’m going to redefine two terms from psychology for the means of making a simpler paradigm for discussion — these terms are ‘Reflex‘ and ‘Unconditioned‘. In classical behavioral psychology, we have conditioned responses and unconditioned responses. The unconditioned responses are innate to a species (e.g., human beings, geese, african or european swallows) [1a]. Conditioned responses are learned by ‘hooking attention’ (this is one of those ‘iceberg phrases’ I will use to signify that a massive structure of useful theory lies below the surface and will be a ‘complex to crack open’ (using one of my best friend’s favorite phrases) later) [1b].

So we have learned behavior and inherent behavior. Not only for linguistic purposes, but for a deep level of integration with core SPE theory, I like to call these behaviors and responses reactions (for now, just assume I’m using a linguistic sleight of hand). I am going to use the term reflexive reaction to define any reaction or behavior that has assumed some degree of automaticity — where the degrees of freedom have been yielded either by choice, by genetics, or subconsciously. Like most terms in SPE, I want to use the notion of ‘degree of’ to qualify and quantify how much this definition is true for a particular instance or event. Thus, for an innate reflex (e.g., if I tap your knee with a rubber hammer) there is an extremely high degree of reflexivity (with little choice) but for a learned behavior it can be considerably lower because a mental choice (a degree of freedom) still exists. Note that at the point of learning a new reflex (those awkward moments of knowledge acquisition), the degree of reflexivity could possibly be nearly zero (unless the new behavior is a combination of previously reflexive behaviors, but even then it is much lower than the sum of the parts).

Now – the problem with observing behavior externally is the same as was addressed in previous posts: we are looking at the individual once action has taken place (a knee jerk, a survival reflex, job interview responses to practiced questions, a complex defense against a political coup). Just as I expanded the criteria for knowledge from ‘information with potential for action’ to ‘information with potential to produce effects’ (see the Towers of Knowledge, Part One post), I would also like to, as a first slice, define a reaction as a ‘response capable of producing effects’ (which may produce variable actions). To use a mundane and easily graspable example, I’ve learned that if I grow extremely tired, I can respond with a cup of coffee. This usually involves a quite careful choice (is it 11pm at night? how much coffee have I had today?) — if it doesn’t, and there is a high degree of automatization (a high degree of reflexivity), you could say there is an addiction at play. This example has both an observable action from a person (getting the coffee) and a learned effect from the response (increased alertness unless the coffee is decaf). What I want to stress is that the effect is of primary importance and it is only because the action is tied to the intended effect by some mechanism (in this case, the tie is pharmacological) that the action has any importance at all. If I were aware of about a dozen equally effective actions that spanned approximately the same amount of time, then really my action would only be a matter of choice.

Even though I have requalified with an emphasis toward effect, my example of learned behavior does however manifest in an action that interacts with the ‘outside’ world [2] (drinking the coffee), but I used this to make it more tangible. To truly extend the notion of what a reaction is to the bounds required for SPE analysis later, I want to show that a learned reaction need not result in any external action whatsoever [3]. If instead the scope of the system that is affected by the reaction is only the mind of the learner, then we have a reflex that has little or no outside manifestation/action whatsoever.  A good example of this is the ’self-calming’ behavior we often learn on our own in childhood (which may have language structure or not, may have overt action if it calls attention or not).

As an aside, this is a good opportunity to talk about human minds as ‘idiosynchrasies’ or private mixtures of thought, knowledge, and reflexes. From the pragmatic side of human affairs, we often talk about thought, knowledge, or behaviors that serve a common useful function — a sort of ‘agreed to’ matrix of thoughts + actions that forms a common system of thought [4] which you will continue to internalize throughout your life (and which goes through its own evolution as all systems do). What I want to talk about now are the unique ’survival’ behaviors we invent, concoct, or learn on our own from the moment we begin to interact with the environment. Please note that in doing so, I am flying squarely in the face of the reason why behavioral psychology (or behaviorism) sought to exclude the subjective abstractions of personal mood, emotions, and reflexes — what really mattered was observable behaviors (which I am calling ‘actions’). Let me start by saying that this abstraction started by Watson over a century ago was extremely useful at the time — an idealization that allowed for a tremendous amount of early results. The field has since moved toward a belief that internal and external stimuli influence behavior (reactions) — but the line I am delineating is one in which internal effects (which may lead to present or future observable behavior) change the internal state of consciousness.

So, why am I taking you through this tortuous and careful journey from focusing not on just observable behavior (and therefore action) toward a paradigm of focusing on the reflexive reactions that produce internal or external effects as well as internal or external actions (behaviors) [5]? Quite simply, it is easy to have awareness of one’s observable behavior but to become aware of internal reflexive behavior opens up another realm of possibilities, which I am going to address in the second part of this set of posts: Unconditioned consciousness. This is actually a recent, complete reworking of the theory of resonance that is core to SPE theory. To be honest, I want to postpone discussing it until I’m completely refreshed and ready to write about it… but basically, let me talk narratively and freely about it. I love when this happens in life: Unconditioned consciousness was my ‘first’ slice at resonance a few years back — I considered it too unrefined and coarse at the time (not enough to define it) and thus took a different approach. It was an intuitive flash, however, and my early notes on it describe perfect what I have come to realize after a long and careful approach toward this realization. As happens often in insights, the first glimpse was full and correct, but it would take years to properly qualify it. That side of creativity, to me, is refreshing and fulfilling. The glimpse gives a large blast of energy that can sustain one on an endeavor for months or years of intense concentration — if this didn’t occur throughout my life in different contexts, I doubt I would have taken up half of the projects I have.

FOOTNOTES

[1a] These ‘unconditioned responses’ are often called reflexes (a single operation or response) or fixed action patterns (this is a series of behaviors in a sequence that goes to completion). An example of a reflex which is common to both animals and humans is the natural withdrawal in the opposing direction from a source of pain (i.e., fire, a stab wound, etc). An excellent example of fixed action patterns in female geese: If the female goose sees an egg outside the nest (key stimulus), it will repeatedly drag the egg toward the nest with its beak and neck — this movement will continue until the goose is back in the nest whether a researcher removes the egg or not.

[1b] I do not want to open a can of worms on this one yet, but if interested in further research, google for ‘classical conditioning’ and then ‘operant conditioning’ as a starting point. This thread of discussion will be essential to return to later.

[2] Part of the requalification of SPE will be to do away with the ’subject-object’ boundary except where absolutely necessary, thus terms like ‘outside world’ will vanish.
[3] The interest in behaviors resulting from external action are simply legacy from our initial and crucial experiments while psychology was emerging as a field, examining both animals and humans.  In other words, it was an experimental approach that developed into a theoretical framework.
[4] Here I am using David Bohm’s expanded redefinition of the thought system as explained by Lee Nichol: “The essential relevance of Bohm’s redefinition of thought is the proposal that body, emotion, intellect, reflex, and artifact are now understood as one unbroken field of mutually informing thought.” – this redefinition of the Thought System will be part of a large future discussion.

[5] The notion of internal action has not been described as of yet — let me just qualify it by calling it ‘virtual action’ for now. If you need examples, they are abundant: Visualizing or practicing an event long before it happens, observing behaviors in the outside world as an infant (thus internalizing them) before even attempting to produce or mimic them (this includes spoken language — which is an action in itself), planning/declaring/plotting an action, etc.. I am relegating this notion to a footnote even though it has intense interest for me and will for you later — it simply clouds an already complicated topic. But this will lead to the ‘in order to’ Operator and its associated Transforms later in discussions.

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This shift is essential to get to the level of granularity that SPE seeks to obtain, and this micro-level granularity leads naturally to a discussion of how knowledge is often organized. We will start with the Tower of Knowledge metaphor — to friends I have presented it a multitude of ways, but my goal on this blog is to express it in the most concise way. Therefore, I feel best it is best to use the metaphorical picture that produced it:

When you embark on a study of anything, you will find, whether to your delight or your dismay, that unless the field is entirely new (i.e., has just been created in the last five years) there will be a group of ’seminal books’ that have been created on the subject. To find out if you truly enjoy this field, it will be suggested to absorb these seminal books, whether it is by the guidance of a curriculum (in an academic institution or any organized program) or the prompting of industry experts or gurus. Whatever the order of the books suggested to you, you can take these books and stack them on the ground. If chapters or sections are omitted, picture cutting those out of the binding.

What you have before you is a physical representation of the Tower of Knowledge your mind must conquer. If you conquer this tower and can demonstrate (whether by certified testing services or application in a field) you did so, you will have accomplished a great deal. In some curricula, you may vary the order of the floors you climb or the breadth and depth of the building may be changed such that the bottom floor is five books wide with one of your choosing (from an approved list) and the other floors may vary in arrangement. The floors or set of floors may carry different titles like ‘Apprentice’, …., ‘Master’, or they may have no title at all.

You may have a guide through these floors, as in an institution where someone professes the essence (hopefully) of the knowledge contained in these books to you, or you may be guiding yourself. All in all, no matter the case, the fact that your mind is climbing this structured tower is a worthy endeavour.

Yet, how will you know before you take the journey whether you will enjoy the knowledge that is interwoven into this Tower? Based on the previous post of Resonant Knowledge, how will you know beforehand if you will truly resonate with the knowledge contained in this tower? If these knowledge components will be what is used and executed throughout your daily life if this is for a vocation (or way of life), would it not be best to know beforehand that due to resonance there is a strong likelihood that your mind will be energized enough to produce extraordinary results/effects from that knowledge?

Looking at professors, it is easy to spot those who chose the right tower to climb because of the way that they resonate with the knowledge they transmit to students. It is equally obvious to spot those who at the very least are asked to transmit a section of the tower they do not resonate with, or at the very worst simply climbed the wrong tower.

The boundary case that has always been of interest in SPE is those who resonate with a high proportion of the knowledge of the tower they have surmounted. These individuals are especially valuable to us as a society — they are the consultant in a certain industry that your company must hire and who produces tremendous results, they are the professors in the university that everyone recommends to each other, they are the ones who fully immerse themselves in their vocation as if they were playing instead of working.

The opposite case is something we’d like to avoid for all involved for obvious reasons. Usually a crisis will invoke abandoning that tower via a career change or otherwise, but that is often painful for the individual undergoing this journey.

Continued in Part Two….

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