posted on Feb, 2 2017 @ 01:59 AM
“The universe is an expanding spectrum of interaction which means that it has always been interacting with itself, so that it continually samples
new interactions. These interactions are subject to a kind of broad scale selection process, much like Darwinian natural selection, where only those
interactions which are symmetric end up populating our universe. Thus, only symmetric relationships are selected to persist...In a fundamental way
causality is linked to limiting interactive processes, not inciting interactive structures…The changer in this universe is not things, but the
localized loss of degrees of freedom that initially random transformative states have undergone.” – Camelo Castillo, Origin of Mind: A History of
Systems; pg. 2,13-14, 2011; Allardice Creek Press
I start of this post with some insightful quotes from the scientist and systems researcher Camelo Castillo. The first quote states quite clearly the
unity of the universe and the way and manner 'things' come to exist. As he says, symmetric structures persist - they only become 'real' because of
some underlying, transformational coherence in energy interactions. From an asteroid to an atom - what we are seeing is symmetry at different scale.
The second part of the first quote describes what is happening: matter emerges because of local losses of freedom: all matter exists because it is
stable i.e. symmetrical, and so 'natural selection' flows towards producing more and more complex states of symmetry, constrained by local
space-time into a particular structure.
“In fact, this investigation will propose that systems are just persistenty energetically dense parts of their environments. If one imagines
environments as encompassing an enormous spectrum of interaction ranging from almost no interaction, to irregular interaction, to semi-regular
interaction to regular interaction, it becomes possible to see that the systems we know and study are just those very rare instances of regular
interaction...In fact, all physical systems emerged from the big bang environment. All biological systems emerged from an Earth bound physical
environment and all social systems emerged from a biological environment.” – Camelo Castillo, Origin of Mind: A History of Systems; pg. 35, 36,
2011; Allardice Creek Press
Now think of everything you see and know exists: the space above you, beyond our planet, which extends out infinitely in every direction. The space
around you - and you - your own body, your consciousness. In reality, all of this is symmetry/synchrony at various scales and densities of
interaction. Furthermore, as matter becomes more complex in space-time, the new matter exists within the framework of a larger system: the big bang
'contextualizes' the emergence of physical systems (stars, planets, asteroids, etc); the Earth and Sun and the particular location of the galaxy we
live in contextualizes both abiotic and biotic evolution on Earth - very dense, complex symmetries with synchronous - diurnal or nocturnal, for
instance - rhythms, and the process of biological evolution contextualizes the emergence of Human beings.
Reasoning
We are a very, very complex structure, but the way we work, as can be seen, is obviously within the logic of the above description. The question then
is, how do we translate the above idea into what we are?
The logic of our functioning - and structure - and so ultimately, the ontology of reality, can be discerned by paying attention to and understanding
the dynamism of your body.
Feelings, or affects, indicate to us what the world "means" to us. By "us", I mean the self. The following quote from the physicist/philosopher
Karen Barad can help my cause:
“Making knowledge is not simply about making facts but about making worlds, or rather, it is about making specific worldly configurations – not
in the sense of making them up ex-nihilo, or out of language, beliefs, or ideas, but in the sense of materially engaging as part of the world in
giving it specific material form. And yet the fact that we make knowledge not from outside but as part of the world does not mean that knowledge is
necessarily subjective (a notion that already presumes the pre-existing distinction between object and subject that feeds representationalist
thinking). At the same time, objectivity cannot be about producing undistorted represented from afar. Rather, objectivity is about being accountable
to the specific materializations of which we are a part.” – Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway; pg. 91, Duke, 2007
We are a process with nature, and so when we come to think of the way we think, we should give priority to the underlying dynamism of the
process that brings us into existence. Consciousness - mind - thought - feeling: all these phenomena are materially expressed, and whats more,
ontologically real. Barad calls these larger structures (involving innumerable interacting states) "phenomena". The phenomena are ontologically
real, which means they have organizing power - or form new or higher level symmetries. This is what social-processes are.
The Third
Some people conceptualize an 'ether' that exists between people, yet the notion isn't necessary, or at least should be reconceptualized as
constituting an invisible field - imaginary - which underlies our nervous systems existential interpenetration of one another. The third, in
other words, exist between us.
The reasoning process, in order to be truthful - accurate - and coherent - needs to take account of the pre-existing structure of your body's
"blueprint". Since symmetry is the way matter stabilizes and matures, the exact nature of our existence would seem to be very related to symmetry -
or in Human discourse, equality. As I've written elsewhere, the psychologist Michael Tomasello has concluded that Humans must be cognitively
described as systems that incline towards states of 'shared-intentionality'. Of course, in a world as disparate as ours, where we move from one
environment with one group of people - who we may be very synchronous with (our family) our synchrony is a function of mutual interpenetration. Our
'bodies' know one another, and hence, meaning, value, and enlivenment emerges very easily. Your brain doesn't need to try.
But the world we live in produces loads of 'entropy' - which means a loss of information, in this case, for the organizing consciousness when it
moves from one environment to another. The 'self' is permeable to the reactions of others; reactions literally in-form: your nervous system
absorbs the impression, and then assumes a changed state depending on the intensity of the signal.
Because the third is the affects which move between us, the mind "in the head" is tilted, directed, and guided, by the feelings in its body.
Past interactions guide an earlier biological system - the basic metabolic dynamics of the "reptilian" brainstem - and this lowest system is
'first' in the logic of self organization.