Jon Stewart nails sequester hypocrites

This series of videos on cut punters begins with this one. The sequester is causing Meals on Wheels to cut back,  unemployment benefits are running out, Head Start programs are closing down. None of those matter though but one cut does: the federal aviation commission. Their cuts this week starting long lines at airports due to reduced security workers. But since Congress is going on a recess, and they have to fly home, what did they do? Created a bi-partisan bill in record time, some of it even handwritten, to give the FAC discretion to get those workers back on the job because the we can't have the sequester affecting them, can we? Everyone else sure.

Comments on Edwards and states

From this IPS post and following posts:

Keep in mind Edwards' essay "An alternative view of states" at Integral World, Part 1 and Part 2. For example this from part 1:

"The current integral theory model of states is committing a category error, the Pre-trans Fallacy #2 to be precise, when it proposes that individuals access transpersonal states and/or realms when they enter into the natural states of dream sleep and deep sleep. This error has important implications for the whole of the Integral theory of states.

"How on earth...could Ken...the great surveyor of this previously unknown territory of the PTF errors, lose sight of this core landmark on the AQAL map in his treatment of states? Well, I have a few suggestions. One is his unswerving reliance on some aspects of the pre-modern Vedantic view of states."

Edwards (and me) on thwarting transformation

Continuing from this post, Edwards said at the end of p. 1:

"There is nothing more threatening to the position of those in social power than transformation. Power is inherently conservative because change means the possibility of losing their privilege, their status, their ideological dominance."

This was in closing on AQAL's lack of a viable social mediation holonics. Which goes hand in hand with its top-down, hero-leader organizational structure, thereby maintaining that form of power relation.* Which is also rampant in conservative-regressive political bodies like Congress, which doesn't want transformation via education or actual citizen participation because then they lose their power.

More gun vote repercussions

Recall this recent post on the repercussions of the gun background check vote. Now 5 more US Senators are seeing their polls plummet in the wake of that vote. Lisa Murkowski's (R-Alaska) has dropped 16 points. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is down 18. 52% of Arizona voters said they were less likely to support Sen. Jeff Flake (R) for reelection. 46 percent of Nevadans said the same of Sen. Dean Heller (R). More than a third of voters were less likely to back Portman as well as Alaska Sens. Mark Begich (D). This is what happens when you vote against the will of the people. And this is great that they are getting their due. Hopefully this will be remembered in the next elections and perhaps democracy might return to Amercia.

Mark Edwards

Mark has been cited more in the IPS forum that probably any other source. I even started a few threads about some of his work but he deserves one in this IPS room. Therein are various posts from those threads and others where he is prominently mentioned. Again there is no rhyme or reason to the order, nor are posts or comments identified, again being the 'property' of this open source forum. As always if you need to identify the source they're easy enough to find.

The privileged get a sequester fix, but what about the rest of us?

The sequester hit airline travel this past Monday causing severe delays. So Congress acted quickly on Thursday and Friday to ameliorate the problem, allowing the Dept. of Transportation more flexibility to re-hire adequate staff that were furloughed. Meanwhile everyone else, particularly the elderly and poor are bearing the full brunt of sequestration, given they don't have the ear of Congress like giant transportation lobbies and the privileged that travel by air. Cuts that remain include health care availability and continuity, food for the poor programs, Head Start, etc. Once again, as usual, the regressives in Congress only care about  the privileged and to hell with everyone else.

Aleastory

I was reminded of our naughty knots in dictionary.com's word of the day. All indicative of that excess or remainder that is not captured by any model or grid. However a model that includes this 'wild hair' might then be called an aleastory?

aleatory \EY-lee-uh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee, AL-ee-\, adjective:

1. of or pertaining to accidental causes; of luck or chance; unpredictable: an aleatory element.
2. Law. depending on a contingent event: an aleatory contract.
3. Music. employing the element of chance in the choice of tones, rests, durations, rhythms, dynamics, etc.

Hailing from the Latin word meaning "the dice" or "chance" alea, aleatory first surfaced in English in the late seventeenth century.

Of holons, models and pissing contests

I'm responding to Joe's comment in this IPS post:

"The Cube of Space provides one data set of attributions and relationships, the Tree of Life another, Esoteric Astrology another, Numerology another, etc...   I see this as being analogous to having some N-dimensional hyper-geometric model of reality and then by fixing certain sets of parameters at a time creating projections of this model into 2d and 3d space so that we can see the multitude of relationships between variables in a way that's visually understandable.  Yes all the models have some cross correlations, but each model also reveals additional relationships which the other models don't show. "

Ah, so the Cube of Space is not the final arbiter of description? And that there may be other '2nd-tier' models that fill in its gaps? And even 3rd or 4th tier models that enfold it? Or using spatial terms, the cube is 3-D, so perhaps there are 4-D models that transcend and include it?

Along these lines I have some visual images to depict what I'm getting at. Recall I said somewhere that there was a difference between a theory for anything and a theory of everything. The former allows for  infinite progress, as well as regress. The latter seems more to have a beginning and end point, both being the fundamental thing in itself, or as I call it, an assholon. So for example, we might have an integral cube of space and an integral tree of life, which some correlative overlaps but also offer spaces not in the other, like a vesica pisces.

Forget the Illuminati; the REAL conspiracy

Matt Taibbi reports on the incredible real conspiracy going on with the big banks. Now they are fixing the benchmark "to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps. Interest-rate swaps are a tool used by big cities, major corporations and sovereign governments to manage their debt." Yes, technical stuff, but worth trillions of dollars. Many of the same banks that paid multi-million dollar settlements in the Libor scandal and involved in this as well. However a civil class-action suit against the Libor banks was dismissed by a federal judge, who accepted the defense notion that it "was their own fault for ever thinking the banks were competing in the first place."

That's the thing. Competition is supposed to be the capitalist way, and by so doing this will keep prices low and competitors scrambling in the interests of the customers. But the big banks have discovered that colluding to fix higher prices means more profits for then. At the expense of everyone else and the economy, or course, but fuck that.

Bruno Latour

There's a new IPS thread on Latour. See the link for more discussion. For now Balder posted a link to a recent interview and said:

"I’m posting it here because of your recent comments about differance. On page 68 of the [OOO] thread, I noted that Latour’s plurimodal approach struck me as a version, or the beginnings of a version, of IMP.  In what he says below, I think he confirms this (Sean notes he touches on the Big 3 here), but I think it’s interesting that he’s also questioning the modern notion of domains (on which Integral also relies) and is arguing for more of a braiding or a knotting of modes…"

I replied:

Plurimodes, prepositions, differance

Continuing the theme of recent posts, I was re-reading a section of the  OOO thread I came upon this post, relevant excerpt below:

And while I'm on Latour's independent modes, he said something on p. 331* [of The Speculative Turn] that reminded me of our earlier discussion about the different systems in a human being suobstances in themselves requiring translation between each other.**

* Where Souriau talks of a human being composed of the independent modes of body, mind and spirit.

Repercussions of regressive gun vote

As we know, the regressives in the US Senate, including 4 Democrats, defeated any new gun control measures. Even an expanded background check that 90% of the people supported. The good news is that in one example, that of Senator Ayotte of NH, her favorable polling rating has dropped 15 points since the vote. This is what happens when you cowtow to the NRA and a fanatical ideology that even the majority of gun owners, NRA members among them, supported the background check legislation.

The Balancing Act by the Congressional Progressive Caucus

As usual they have the most sensible socially and fiscally responsible proposal to handling our budget issues that would actually work. See The Balancing Act at the embedded link. The highlights are below.

Overview 

 

The Math:  

• Round 1:  $1.7 trillion in cuts

• Round 2:  $737 billion in revenue

• Round 3:  The Balancing Act 

 

Achieves 1:1 Revenue and Cuts – by replacing sequester ($948 billion) with revenue

o Achieves 1:1 Defense and Non-Defense Cuts – by eliminating $278 billion in wasteful Pentagon spending and investing it in job creation
o Job investment provisions would create over 1 million jobs  
• Total long-term deficit reduction from the three rounds of over $3.3 trillion 

Haunted from the past

I referenced the TFA and TOE thread in a recent post. In rereading it I found something to bring here, some older notions that are infecting my current ruminations. From this post and the 2 following it in the link:


In Chapter 6 of Goddard’s Transpersonal Theory he reiterates something I said in the Krishnamurti 2 thread about Gebser. Previous structures are not holonically subsumed into the next higher structure. The lower structures continue to develop laterally within the dominant higher structure. However successively higher structures up to the mental-ego are by nature “divisive” or exclusive into a higher-lower polarity whereby one pole is dominant, and higher tends to at least consciously (epistemologically) subsume the lower. Nonetheless ontologically the repressed (and previous) pole (structure) continues to develop but unconsciously and it is not until the so-called centaur structure (Geber’s IA) that we begin the return arc of integration of our formerly repressed structures. This conscious return then finds those previous structures having gone through their own developments unbeknownst to us so that they are not the immature magical and mythical worldviews they were on the upward arc of development. Add in the conscious ego’s recognition and integration of them and we get an IA structure that holds all of the structures as they are without contradiction.

Here are some relevant excerpts from the above referenced chapter 6. Keep in mind that he is using astrological signs as metaphors, not as a literal, pre-modern belief system.

Levels are discontinuous and autonomous

Continuing from this post:

In the last reference as to a body being the right quadrant of any left quadrant consciousness, then body in this sense isn't just a lower level but has an equivalent level, even for the highest inner level. So we can see that putting the body in the left quadrant as a lower level is problematic.

Another problem per Gebser is that prior consciousness-body levels aren't really levels in that they are transcended and included or enfolded in the next level, for they are discontinuous mutations. Recall this post, which was during an extended discussion of basic-transitional structures on p. 1 of the "ladder, climber, view" thread.

The following excerpt is about Eric Weiss, “Jean Gebser: the mutation of structures of consciousness” presented at Esalen’s CTR first annual invitational conference on evolutionary metaphysics, December 2006. To be fair, this doesn't take into account Wilber's differentiation of cogntive structures with worldviews. It does highlight though the discontinuous nature of said views.

hier(an)archy

Hier(an)archy from this post:

Yes, but I prefer a distinct, sacred kind of anarchy called hier(an)archy, a term coined by Caputo. Recall this from the Caputo thread in the old Gaia forum, referencing his book The Weakness of God (IUP, 2006):

Caputo:

To be sure, by advocating différance Derrida does not advocate outright chaos. He does not favor a simple-minded street-corner anarchy (nothing is ever simple) that would let lawlessness sweep over the land, although that is just what his most simplistic and anxious critics take him to say. For that would amount to nothing more than a simple counter-kingdom, a reign of lawlessness….Just like a simple totalitarianism…the opposite way, a simple anarchy would break the tension between the arche and the an-arche, erasing the slash between power and powerlessness….in “Force of Law” Derrida made it plain that deconstruction is not a matter of leveling laws in order to produce a lawless society, but of deconstructing laws in order to produce a just society. To deconstruct the law means to 'negotiate the difference' between law and justice, where the law is thought to be something finite, and ‘justice' calls up an uncontainable event, an infinite or unconditional or undeconstructable demand (27).

I've been exploring another version of this hier(an)archic maintenance of the tension between the arche and the an-arche in this thread with the "space between" and image schemas. And the images provided are to symbolically represent those interstices.

integral-aperspectival hier(an)archy with a twist

Continuing from this post, another example is this post from earlier in the "real and false reason" thread:

Another connection occurring to me (as gift from my Muse) is that these image schemas, as well as Edwards' different lenses, taken singly can represent the various theoretical ideologies. We've already seen how a focus on the container schema can lead to an ideology of objectivist hierarchical complexity. And using Bonnie's talk above, how a focus on a cyclic image schema might lead to what Gebser called the mythic structure (or ideology). Gebser's integral-aperspectival (IA) structure though, at least according to Gidley (2007),* is a means to allow for all previous structures to be as they are and co-exist together simultaneously. The IA is not another isolated structure that transcends and replaces previous structures, including the mental. In this sense it breaks with the pattern of progression in deficient rational. And we see exactly this type of coordination of the various image schemas in Lakoff, that each has its place, none are replaced. Same for Edwards' lenses. This produces a new kind of transparent, postmeta paradigm of multiplicty, in Deleuzes's terms, or IA in Gebser's. One that is relative according to Lakoff, but also constrained by the real.

Constitution Project torture report

Jon Stewart reports on US torture, which contradicts the lies of the Bush administration. An independent, bi-partisan task force on post 9/11 interrogation techniques concluded that the highest Bush admin officials were directly responsible for the indisputable use of torture. And it was not isolated incidents but rampant, given the official policy. And there is no evidence that torture ever produced one bit of credible intelligence. Not one whit. One can read the entire report here. Also see the Rolling Stone report. 

The lies the NRA and its Senate lapdogs tell

Per a recent post we know the gun background check failed in the Senate. But the lies told to support it are easily disproven. As but one example, here's Republican Joe Scarborough debunking them. The proposed legislation before the Senate not only does not create a national registry but says that to do so is a crime punishable by up to15 years imprisonment. The NRA stated it would have prevented individual gun sales between private citizens but the bill was strictly limited to gun shows and online sales. They also claim that expanded background checks would not prevent any shootings, which has been demonstrably, convincingly and totally obliterated. Check out Scarborough's scathing diatribe.

Complicated or complex?

There is a lot to comment about this prior post. For now I'll address the issue of neoteny per above, that novelty or evolution can also be about what is lost or left behind, not just about an advance in complexity. This is a key point throughout this thread and brings me back around to Wilber's use of transitional structures which are transcended and replaced. (See the thread on the topic for a more detailed examination.) Transitional structures include worldviews and moral outlooks. E.g., once one gives up slavery for equal rights there is no turning back unless there is a regression or dysfunction. The same holds for democracy and feudalism.

US representative republic dead

The US Senate has proven that the US form of government is now dead. Deceased. Done. Caput. With about 90% support of the people for stronger background checks on guns the Senate completely ignored the will of the people they are supposed to represent and voted against the measure. Well, actually those for the measure had the majority vote, 54-46, but to avoid a filibuster it required 60 votes. That's another symptom of our dead system, that just the threat of a filibuster without actually having one has led to a total shutdown of the Senate by obstructionist regressives. And this was the weakest of the proposed gun control measures by far. Which means there's no chance the stronger measures have any chance at all. This is a sad day, the day democracy died in America, where our supposed leaders represent their own interests and special interests instead of the public at large.

Correlation between a State's laws and gun violence

You've heard the faux refrain from gun nuts that laws don't prevent criminal gun usage. Wrong! See this article based on this report. It reviewed the 10 States with the most gun violence, which unsurprisingly tend to have the least stringent gun control laws. "The 10 states with the weakest gun laws in America collectively suffer from a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high as the 10 states with the strongest gun laws." 7 of them were rated F, the rest D or D-. The worst States are, in order: Louisiana, Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina, New Mexico, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas. I know, more facts, which have never stopped regressives from their unsubstantiated nonsense and paranoia.

More on DeLanda

Some posts pulled from the complexity and pomo thread:

Quoting ISVP: "Besides the avoidance of essentialist thinking, Deleuze's speculation about virtuality is guided by the closely related constraint of avoiding typological thinking, that style of thought in which individuation is achieved through the creation of classifications and of formal criteria for membership in those classifications. Although some classifications are essentialist, that is, use transcendent essences as the criterion for membership in a class, this is not always the case. For example, unlike Platonic essences which are transcendent entities, Aristotle's 'natural states,' those states toward which an individual tends, and which would be achieved if there were not interfering forces, are not transcendent but immanent to those individuals. But while Aristotelian philosophy is indeed non-essentialist, it is still completely typological, that is, concerned with defining the criteria which group individuals into species, and species into genera" (41).

A comment on Protevi's review of DeLanda's Intensive Science, Virtual Philosophy

The following is from Protevi's review of DeLanda's book Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. For this post I'm only concerned with Chapter 1, which is about a math where multiplicities replace essences using the concept of the manifold. This allows for “a variable number of dimensions and the absence of a higher embedding space.” Hence concrete universals replace general essences, the former of which do not have sharp borders but rather mesh “in a continuum of yielding zones of indiscernibility, the source of novel ‘becomings.’” These are modeled mathematically via state spaces, attractors and trajectories, a very different language than set theory, the latter of which is caught up in Platonism and which DeLanda seeks to overturn.

Maher on US war monger

His special  new rule last night was on how the US just loves wars. Our military industrial complex will use any excuse to start one. Especially now since Afghanistan is winding down "we're dangerously close to not having a war...and that is something we will not tolerate." What, without war we might have to consider poverty, schools and infrastructure. The list of countries the US has invaded is astounding, and that we've been at war throughout most of our history. "At some point you have to look in the mirror and say: 'Maybe it's me.'" By 2020 just the interest payments on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be over $1 trillion. Perhaps it's time we started "defining peace as strength." His advice to Hillary, should she run in 2016, is to not support war, because "what good is it being the first woman President if you still have to be a dick."

The US Senate joins Iran, Syria and North Korea on gun control

Jon Stewart comments on recent gun legislation. While 2 US Senators recently proposed a bill on background checks that temporarily stalled a filibuster, Stewart opines what it will look like after the regressive House gets its hands on it: Mandatory gun and grenade ownership and anti-Sharia Act of 2013. His hyperbole stems from the very real regressive obstruction to gun control of any kind instilled by the fanatical NRA. As but one example of this madness, the UN adopted a resolution to regulate the transfer of weapons to terrorists or organized crime. But the US Senate passed an amendment to prevent us from signing the treaty! We must preserve our freedom to sell guns to terrorists after all.

On space, form and bodies

In the Not Knot video linked earlier they distinguish hyperbolic space from regular space. And in the former we get what appear to be inconsistencies or contradictions from a regular space perspective but what are in fact paraconsistencies given the frame of reference, that of a curved rather that straight space. Hence those twists and curves allow for the sorts of folds and knots not possible in plane geometry, opening up interesting possibilities.

Forget me knots

Tying together some recent posts--yes, intentional pun--perfect circles, spheres or cubes cannot tie into Borroean knots. There has to be some twists and that don't fit into those perfect abstract and/or Platonic forms, forms which do not allow for the ties that bind. Hence such projected perfection is exemplified by a restricted complexity or economy, where suobjects have very clear and strict bi-valent dividing lines as in formal logic. No excluded middle. Everything is in its place within a perfect Whole. Whereas the twists of real suobjects allow melding in a general complexity or economy, blurring the strict distinctions while simultaneously forming inseparable bonds where the middle is included.

Senate overrides regressive filibuster

See this story. Senators voted to filibuster the gun bill from ever reaching debate and they lost. So now at least it moves to the floor for debate, amendment and hopefully a vote. The forces of regressive obstruction have been allayed for the moment, so keep up the pressure folks to get this legislation passed. 2 Democrats joined with 29 Republicans to filibuster. Yes, even Democrats can be regressive, just not to the degree of Republicans. The 31 obstructionists can be found here, so give 'em hell.

3-D Borromean Rings

I've talked quite a bit about them in recent posts. Check out this video by the International Mathematical Union on the geometry of the rings.

Now the Borromean property that if any one ring is removed then the other 2 are not connected is interesting. It suggests that if we view the rings as a unit (or autonomous machine or holon) then Edwards' notion of each holon having 4 inseparable and interconnected quadrants (or 3 rings) is supported over a holon being in each quadrant (or ring). While we can define the rings in terms of paradigms with their own particular enactments (symbolic, imaginal, real), each of those are inextricably tied in any given machine. I.e., each machine has all three expressions. All of course 'around' the withdrawn center.
I'm also thinking of how this relates to endo- versus exo-relations but it's not quite clear yet.

Comments on the last few posts

Morin talks mereology, which is also included in the MHC/Wilber models. But so does Bryant and DeLanda talk mereology. The difference being, as explored at length in different threads, how this mereology is approached. Morin notes that restricted forms still cling to "classical science," and I'd add classical math. Strange mereology allows for the fuzzy boundaries of members is a set, and the absences within the set, which change the very dynamic of its complexity. All of which allows for not just cosmos but chaos, which must be eliminated at all costs in restrictive models demanding the excluded middle with pretenses to pure objectivity. In a general complexity knowledge of knowledge generation is prerequisite, the kind of work done by L&J and others, and the kind of work ignored by the restrictors.

Restricted economy, general economy

Following the last 2 posts, recall this thread on Desilet, a few excerpts following. Similar information can be found in his Integral World article, “Derrida and Wilber at the crossraods of metaphysics,” to appear in the forthcoming book Dancing with Sophia: Integral Philosophy on the Verge, in which I think Balder will also be appearing.

"A restricted economy imposes a structuring principle that establishes a strong polarity of opposites and clear lines of choice. The structural tension between opposites such as true and false or fact and interpretation operates with a clarity that facilitates either/or alternatives and simplified decision-making. In a general economy, however, every oppositional structure submits to a reversal and a displacement. This displacement involves an extraordinary reconfiguration of the structure or dynamic play between opposites.

"General economy displaces discrete and essential difference between opposites with a new structure that sees the opposition as presenting a tension between elements both different yet connected, both penetrated to the core each by the other yet irreducible one to the other. Plotnitsky calls this structure complementary—after Niels Bohr and the quantum theory of wave/particle duality.

Restricted complexity, general complexity

Continuing from the last post, from Morin's paper, "Restricted complexity, general complexity":

"Restricted complexity....still remains within the epistemology of classical science.... Actually, one avoids the fundamental problem of complexity which is epistemological, cognitive, paradigmatic. To some extent, one recognizes complexity, but by decomplexifying it. In this way, the breach is opened, then one tries to clog it: the paradigm of classical science remains, only fissured.

"But then, what is 'generalized' complexity? It requires, I repeat, an epistemological rethinking, that is to say, bearing on the organization of knowledge itself.... In opposition to reduction, complexity requires that one tries to comprehend the relations between the whole and the parts. The knowledge of the parts is not enough, the knowledge of the whole as a whole is not enough, if one ignores its parts; one is thus brought to make a come and go in loop to gather the knowledge of the whole and its parts. Thus, the principle of reduction is substituted by a principle that conceives the relation of whole-part mutual implication.

Whose complexity?

Given that complexity theory is the basis for hierarchical models, whose complexity are they using? Is there more than one variety? Are they similar? Different? I reviving this post to reopen the topic:

Cilliers references Morin in this article, where he says:

"In the first place one has to acknowledge that the 'discipline' of Complexity is a house divided. There are serious differences between different approaches to complexity. After about two or three decades of work explicitly dedicated to the understanding of complex systems, it has become crucial to reflect critically on the value of these different approaches. One way of distinguishing between these approaches is provided by Edgar Morin (2007) who distinguishes between 'general' and 'restricted' complexity. Restricted complexity refers mainly to the mathematical and computational approaches to complexity, often strongly informed by chaos theory. This approach, Morin argues, acknowledges the non-linear, relational nature of complex systems, but seeks to tame it in ways which reintroduces positivism and reductionism. General complexity on the other hand, argues for the limits of all approaches to complex systems and urges that we acknowledge these limits and recognise that we need a new language in which to do this, a language which moves beyond Enlightenment ideals of neutrality and objectivity."

Petition the US Senate to allow a vote on gun control

From the Daily Kos:

Please join with Daily Kos, as well as Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly's organization Americans for Responsible Solutions, in demanding an up-or-down vote on gun safety legislation with universal background checks. Click here to sign the petition.

Gun safety votes are expected to start in the Senate as early as next week, but some senators have other ideas.

At the latest count, fifteen senators, including Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell, have vowed to filibuster any new gun safety legislation.

After Newtown, after Tucson, after Aurora, after so many other places—the victims and their families and their communities deserve an up-or-down vote on gun safety legislation, not another filibuster.

Please, click here to join with Daily Kos and Americans for Responsible Solutions by signing our petition telling the Senate to allow an up-or-down vote on universal background checks.

Obama reams the filibastard regressives

See the previous post on the gun filibuster. Obama gave them well deserved hell yesterday.

Republican senators to filibuster gun measures

Yep, they don't even want it to come to a vote because they don't want to have their votes against any kind of gun control known. It's obvious that a majority of the people support all 3 of the gun measures proposed, from universal background checks to limiting clip capacity to banning assault weapons. But these regressive do not even support background checks, hence the filibuster. Even McCain and Morning Joe don't get this nonsense. The 14 that plan to filibuster follow, so please give them a piece of your mind and remember this when it comes times to vote again: Paul, Lee, Cruz, Rubio, Moran, Inhofe, Burr, Johnson, Enzi, Risch, Crapo, Coats, Roberts, McConnell. Oh yeah, and the cowards won't even defend this insanity on the news. Well, they'll probably end up on Fox, but like I said, the news.

Tarot card meditation game

I've worked hard and my vines are ripe with fruit. I wonder what I'll buy when I sell it at market? First off I'll need some boot polish, as my right boot is filthy from the mud. Good thing I have at least one foot anchored in the mud because in my reverie I stepped into the turbulent stream and could be carried away to who knows where? And yeah, this overcast day after heavy rain made me realize money can't buy me love, so no matter how much I get for my fruit it won't impress Becky Sue, damn it.

Slavery in the name of freedom

Krugman has it right again, as usual, this time on health insurance. Now the regressives say Obamacare and Medicaid is an affront to freedom? Really? They do this by quoting Reagan's infamous speech trying to block Medicare, noting it would undoubtedly cause “you and I...[to] spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” And yet there is no evidence whatsoever that providing health insurance has infringed on any freedom, unless you mean limiting an employer's freedom to curtail a worker's freedom.

Celebrate by Rare Earth

This one popped up in my consciousness today, from my yute:

Archetype and image schema

inthesaltmine started an IPS thread on James Hillman, wherein I asked how Hillman might relate to the following:

From this article:

"Jungian analyst Jean Knox suggests that recent work...makes the inheritance of images and ideas impossible. (Knox, 2003). Her synthesis of current positions of neuroscience, cognitive science and the developments in attachment theory makes a convincing case for the archetype as emergent, based on the presence of genetically catalysed image schemas which are elaborated into images of archetypal complexity by actual affective experience."

And Knox from Archetype, Analysis, Attachment (Routledge 2003):

Rachel Maddow destroys regressive illogic on guns

In this clip she meticulously and scrupulously debunks the absurd and pure demagoguery being used by regressives  The gun lobby's first argument was why have new gun laws when criminals don't obey them anyway? Hence the law doesn't work. So why then have laws against murder, since people murder anyway? Why have any laws at all, since they will be broken? That is what follows from such nonsensical premises.

Since that obvious fallacy has been exposed they're trying a new one. Because there are rare experts at reloading gun magazines, why limits a magazine's capacity? It doesn't matter if a magazine can hold 10 or 100 bullets, since experts can change them so fast as to make no difference. But everyone is not an expert at changing magazines. In fact most aren't. The shooter in Tucson that shot Gabby Giffords had a high capacity clip and was stopped when he took the time to reload. Eleven children escaped in Sandy Hook in the time it took the shooter to reload.

Let Medicare negotiate for drug prices

Please consider signing this petition from Senator Al Franken:

Here’s the best idea you’ll hear all day: Medicare should be able to negotiate with the drug companies to get better prices on prescriptions for seniors.

This simple reform would cut spending -- by around $24 billion a year -- without hurting seniors. In fact, seniors would end up paying less for their prescriptions.

Even better, we know this would work, because this exact strategy is already working for the Veterans Administration, which uses its size to negotiate with drug companies and, according to a recent study, gets the top ten most prescribed drugs at half the price Medicare pays.

Help me fight for this common-sense solution: Click here to sign my petition calling on Washington to allow Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies!

Bill Maher's new rule on libertarianism

At about 50:35 in this video he lays out his new rule. He supports some libertarian notions like keeping government out of the bedroom, the medicine chest or our consumption of marijuana. Today the movement is more about "being a selfish prick" than a reasonable limit to government power. It morphed into an obsession with free-market capitalism along the way based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand. A philosophy which, Maher accurately points out, appeals to impressionable 19-year olds, as well as those adults who never socially develop beyond that immature phase like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul.

Borromean magic

Continuing the riff on Realist Magic with Bryant's recent talk, as autonomous machines our participation in larger assemblages can be otherwise. E.g., in a fascist State we can rebel, fight for freedom, escape the hegemony. That is because there is no natural state of affairs per Bryant, no fixed and unchanging Platonic paradigm to which we must submit. Yes, we get caught in the larger assemblage's gravity and it is immensely difficult to attain escape velocity, but it can and has been done.

The Budget for All

Speaking of the CPC budget, the following is from their web page summary:

The Economic Policy Institute Policy Center provided technical assistance in developing, scoring, and modeling the Budget for All. Their technical report is available here.

The Budget for All puts Americans back to work, charts a path to responsible deficit reduction, enhances our economic competitiveness, rebuilds the middle class and invests in our future. Our budget makes no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits, and asks those who have benefited most from our economy to pay a sensible share.
 
Our Budget Puts Americans Back to Work
• Our budget attacks America’s persistently high unemployment levels with more than $2.9 trillion in additional job-creating investments.  This plan utilizes every tool at the government’s disposal to get our economy moving again, including:
• Direct hire programs that create a School Improvement Corps, a Park Improvement Corps, and a Student Jobs Corps, among others.
• Targeted tax incentives that spur clean energy, manufacturing, and cutting-edge technological investments in the private sector.
• Widespread domestic investments including an infrastructure bank, a $556 billion surface transportation bill, and approximately $2.1 trillion in widespread domestic investment.

Krugman on chained CPI

Here's his 2 cents. Obama thinks he has to offer up something in entitlements to be taken "seriously." By whom? The whack job regressives who literally take pleasure in hurting the poor and middle class? So Obama has to hurt the poor to be seen as "reasonable?" This is sick, twisted non-logic to the core, which is of course the staple of the regressive party. And makes no sense for one who apparently has at least some semblance of sense, the President. But when he keeps giving in to those who have time and again shown they are not in the least reasonable, that they will turn around and stab him not only in the back but right in the face, it makes one wonder just how reasonable Obama is. Fool him once, shame on them. Fool him twice, shame on him. Fool him so many times and he keeps coming back for more, that's a hell of a lot more than shame and borders on insanity.

Robert Reich on chained CPI

He does it again with this quick video. Why on earth would any sane person want to do this? Just to appease the sick regressives and appear open to compromise? Seriously? By throwing the elderly under the bus?

More musings on mereology, levels, octaves and whatnot

One of the implications of the recent quotes is that members of a set, i.e., objects that are members of a larger class, are not only defined by the endo-structural relations of that class but also continue to evolve on their own. This reminds me of a previous discussion relating this to levels of development, how each lower level (holon or object) within a higher-level structure (level or object) not only retains its autonomy but itself continues to evolve. So part of an 'integral' view would be not so much how a particular higher level object oversees and subsumes all lower levels within its purview but rather how it recognizes that previous levels continued to grow within it, not just laterally but vertically as well. And how it integrates those 'octaves.' See for example this post and following on Goddard's work, and it's relation to spiral dynamics (not 'integral' trademarked).

In excess

On the recent theme of how math is changed in a strange mereology beyond a Hegelian dialectic, I offer some excerpts from Bryant's The Democracy of Objects, chapter 6.2:. As to the nature and implications of the referenced excess, see this post and several posts and pages following for one of its manifestations as the objet a.

"Within the domain of formal reasoning, Z-F set theory shows the inconsistency of any attempt to form a totality or whole. Set theory provides a variety of resources for contesting the consistency of any totality or whole, however, here I'll focus on the power set axiom. As we've already seen, the power set axiom allows one to take the set of all subsets of an initial set....If the power set axiom spells the ruin of any whole or totality, then this is because it reveals the existence of a bubbling excess within any whole or collection.... What the power set reveals is the bubbling pluralism of 'the' world beneath any unity or totality. Any totality or whole, in its turn, is itself an object or One alongside all sorts of other ones.

The mathematics of novelty

I've come across this open access book from Re-Press, The Mathematics of Novelty: Badiou’s Minimalist Metaphysics by Sam Gillespie. First I want to thank Re-Press for providing cutting edge books (Bryant, Morton etc.) via open access as well as selling them in the traditional way. They've proven that they can still make a healthy profit with sales and give away knowledge to those not able to pay. Their hybrid P2P or distributed capitalism is the next wave in socio-economics, so well articulated by Rifkin.

And now a few relevant excerpts from the book:

Iteration, fractals, math

I've been pondering the process of iteration, and how it is formulated in the likes of set theory and the MHC versus the likes of Badiou and Derrida. And also how fractals are viewed in complexity theory between Mandlebrot and Prigogine. Both see something novel emerging from an interaction of the parts. I.e., something is retained yet something novel emerges in the iterative process. But it appears the mathematical formula for that process is itself the same for each level, itself just iterating or repeating the same algebraic pattern.