China & the Third Industrial Revolution

From his TIR website I was led to this recent story on how China (with Europe) will lead the way on implementing the program. A couple of key points from p.2 of the article:

"China has a social market economy like Europe. This is a huge asset. Infrastructure requires a social market economy. Infrastructure is something the government has to do and work with the business community to build it out. There is no example in the history of the world where infrastructure was put in by the private market. The marketplace does not create public goods, so it is absurd to think companies will do it. You can not create the third industrial revolution if your entire business, investment, and financial community is focused on three-month quarterly statements. China is extremely comfortable with the government having this role and with long-term planning. In China they have five-year plans.

Both/and/neither/nor

In re-reading some posts from the Integral Review thread I came upon this post referencing Gidley's article relevant to some of my recent posts. From Gidley's article:

"The postformal features I want to highlight include: complex thinking, paradoxical reasoning. [...] Complex thinking involves the ability to hold multiple perspectives in mind while at the same time being able to meta-reflect on those perspectives and the potential relationships among them. This is also referred to as metasystemic thinking. Paradoxical thinking is one of the expressions of complex postformal logic. [...] Postformal logics go beyond Aristotelian formal logic, which requires an either/or response thus creating what is called an 'excluded middle.' Paradoxical thinking refers to the ability to hold in mind the apparently illogical possibility that two contradictory statements can both be true—or indeed both false. This paradox of the included middle allows for both/and and neither/nor to be correct" (152-3).

Cultural image schemata

Per the last post, nirvana is not the same for everyone. I also like the 'not thinking' inference, as if that is the ultimate in meditation experience. And that if it's non-conceptual it must therefore be the same experience. Balder replied in this post that this is one of Ferrer's criticisms.

Recall this post and several following. (The link to the book for that post is a couple posts up.) It seems that even pre-linguistic image schemata, which I've argued are the medium through which we contact non-conceptual awareness, have cultural differences. Yes, we share some universal features of embodiment, but even those are tweaked by particular environments and the cultures that grow up adapting to them. There is valid criticism about L&J's over-emphasis on embodied individual universalism which I related to Piaget, versus the more contingent and social constructivism of schemas more in line with Vygotsky. Hence from a broader cognitive linguistic paradigm even non-conceptual experience is not only not the same for everyone but it some cases quite different.

Is nirvana the same for everyone?

This cartoon highlights a key issue, one explored in Balder's 2010 ITC paper. We discussed the paper in this IPS thread.

Bernstein on an accurate statement about losing health coverage

I have a few recent posts on Obamacare's claim that if you like your insurance you can keep it. Bernstein weighs in with what that statement should have been, given the reality:

"If you're one of the 95 percent of insured Americans with health coverage through your job or the government, then your plan won't change. If you're purchasing a plan in the individual market, and that plan remains unchanged, you'll also be able to keep it. But if you're non-group plan changes for the worse, it won't be offered once the new law kicks in."

There are of course good reasons for replacing inadequate coverage, as Obama and Bernstein attest. But this should have been stated up front per something like the above.

Obama's healthcare speech today

Building on the last post see the video below. I agree with everything he said. He's right that those who complain about people not being able to keep the plan they like aren't telling you the whole story. Obama accurately explained that if that is the case then it is because the plan they have fails to meet Obamacare's minimum standards. And that insurance companies in that case must help you find a plan that does. And that in the minority of cases where premiums and deductibles go up that there may well be subsidies to help you pay for it. So it's true that the naysayers leave all of that out in misrepresenting the issue. But it's also true that Obama didn't explain all this up front and made a misleading statement in the last post. Nevertheless, go Obamacare!

"If you like your plan you can keep it." Not.

President did promise this several times when rolling out Obamacare and it is simply not true. Regressives are right about that. For example see this article. He goes into the details of why some can no longer keep the plan they have and presumably like because per Obamacare the plans have changed and no longer meet the requirements of the program. Granted in some if not all cases the Obamacare plan that replaces what one had is better overall. And now the administration is trying to redefine what they meant by the original phrase in these terms. But the fact remains that if that's what they meant in the first place they should have stated in different terms up front, since the meaning of "if you like your plan you can keep it" is plain enough and just not true. They're pulling a Clinton: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

So-called post-postmodernism

From Morton's Modern Magic, chapter 3:

“A majority of post-postmodern thinking is a regression, not a progression. It represents a desperate attempt to construct a 'new and improved' version of the good old Nature that Derrida and others erased. This time it’s autopoietic, processual, lava-lampy. I call it lava lamp materialism. […] So if we follow the attitude this thinking implies, it turns out that there is one entity in the Universe that isn’t entangled: consciousness. And I, the lava-lamp materialist, can judge it, from outside of itself … Lava-lamp materialism keeps returning to the square one of Cartesian dualism. And in the end, it’s just a form of atomism.”

On para/transconsistent vision-logic

From the "states, stages, the WC lattice and the fold" IPS thread:

I referenced this article above, "Nagarjuna and the limits of thought." Therein they discuss an issue similar to Thakchoe in this post and following. From the section "The ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth":

"The centerpiece of his Madhyamaka or 'middle way' philosophy is the thesis that everything is empty. This thesis has a profound consequence. Ultimate truths are those about ultimate reality. But since everything is empty, there is no ultimate reality. There are, therefore, no ultimate truths. We can get at the same conclusion another way. To express anything in language is to express truth that depends on language, and so this cannot be an expression of the way things are ultimately. All truths, then, are merely conventional. [...] The views that one must relinquish are views about the ultimate nature of reality. And there is no such thing as the ultimate nature of reality. That is what it is for all phenomena to be empty. [...] There are, therefore, ultimate truths. Indeed, that there is no ultimate reality is itself a truth about ultimate reality and is therefore an ultimate truth!" (10-11)

On being critical

Some recent events reminded me of Edwards' essay "On being critical" at Integral World. It seems the kennilinguists have yet to heed Edwards in this regard, still engaging in the same old story of "you can't criticize if you ain't at the same level." Never mind that they define what a particular level means and then self-fulfill that prophesy, valid criticism on the nature of that level to the contrary by again defining that criticism as a lower level as well. Circle-jerk par excellence. From Edwards in the section called "What level does the critic need to be at?":

"Should the level of development (developmental profile) of the critic be taken into account when judging their criticism? To this question I answer a resounding NO. Here are my reasons. (All of these reasons are based on consistent interpretations of well known integral theory principles).

The Two Truths Debate

We recently mentioned The Two Truths Debate by Sonam Thakchoe in this IPS thread, which was used extensively as a reference in the Batchelor thread and its predecessor thread linked therein. I just found this free e-copy at Scribd for those interested.

The ways the US is the worst

A few tidbits from this article. Please see it for the details and more.

Prasangika's Semantic Nominalism

Balder brought this paper by Thakchoe to my attention. I go into Thakchoe extensively in the Batchelor thread, as well as the Gaia predecessor thread called "letting daylight into magic."* The link let me download the article. I gave it a quick skim and it seems to address the issue only in terms of the various traditional Buddhist formulations. No mention of contemporary cognitive linguistics, which for me provides more relevant answers to the issue. And which would add to and inform Thakchoe's linguistics.

Reich is right (again) on Obamacare

He hits the nail yet again on the regressive opposition to Obamacare. The program was derived from considerable compromise with the regressives that included many of their ideas, particularly the individual mandate from the Heritage Foundation. Reich provides example after example of historical regressive healthcare models, all of which look pretty much like Obamacare. And which the insurance companies love, by the way. They got what they wanted but refuse to accept it because it's called Obamacare.

Transformal

In re-reading this post I recalled a term I used to distinguish the type of postop discusssed in recent posts from kennilingus and the MHC: transformal. From that post:

I am reminded yet again from Levin's references above of the real/false reason thread. Levin is also one who sees the need to hearken back to more fully integrate the pre-rational emotions and body, where as the cogscipragos have ascertained lies our more direct connections to the environmental field at large. And that said instrumental reason, while perhaps a necessary evolution, in itself is a "false" reason according to L&J, in that in its separation from the body/emotions it creates this abstract, dual, metaphysical world of ideal forms. L&J's research shows that "real" reason is one that is indeed embodied, and as such connects us back to that field at large. Other references in that thread also point to how so-called postformal operations, according to the hierarchists, is just so much more complexity piled on top of this disembodied instrumental rationality. Whereas those enacting so-called postformal operations talk much more about the kinds on integration we're seeing in the likes of Levin, Derrida, Caputo, OOO, etc.

Legitimate questions to kennilingus claims

Continuing from the last 2 posts, if this is an accurate variant of a postmetaphysical basis, and if it is a more accurate depiction of what constitutes postformal operations (postop), then it legitimately questions the typical kennilingus formulations as a more sophisticated form of formal operations (formop). The SD FAQ and article support that formop is indeed the origin of the so-called MGM meme, which argument comes right from the Lingam's mouth.* All of which calls into question any such 'test' of postop if it is based on kennilingus formop assumptions, including those of the MHC, itself the basis for much of these claims. The real/false reason thread focuses on the latter with similar postop alternatives, also erroneously labeled 'green' if not MGM by the metaphysical formopers.

A better vision-logic

Pasting from this IPS post:

I will reiterate some posts from other threads that demonstrate that if anything would qualify as a paraconsistent, both/and/neither/nor vision-logic of the fold, this would be it. And of a sort one just does not find in kennilingus.

From this post quoting "Alegebras, geometries, and topologies of the fold: Deleuze, Derrida and quasi-mathematical thinking (with Leibniz and Mallarme)" by Arkady Plotnitsky.

“Godel's findings fundamentally undermine the belief that mathematics could provide an impeccible model of truth and proof. […] Derrida's undecideability extends Godel's. It goes without saying that it is not a question of abandoning logic, but of establishing the limits within which logic would apply and of exploring the areas where one must operate beyond these limits (but never absolutely outside them)” (108-09).

Which reminds me of a few other sources in the forum. E.g, see this post of Norris on Badiou's reading of Derrida, excerpt following:

Ego transcendence?

In re-reading the "context-transcendent meaning" thread this morning recall this post, where Bonnie provides a Cook-Greuter paper. My comment following it has been pasted below, relevant to recent ruminations:

One immediate problem I see with CG's scheme is that despite her protects to the contrary she maintains the increasingly complex hierarchical scale from postformal into ego transcendence, as if one has to be postformal first before going post-symbolic. In other words, as I criticized Commons et al in the real and false reason thread, it extends this formal operational, linear progression into post (and post post) formal operations. Whereas I don't think it even requires postformal operations to go post-symbolic. However one can, and often does, interpret post-symbolic experience metaphysically so it does require a postformal interpretation to go postmetaphysical.

Maher on subsidizing McDonald's

Regressives hate handouts to the poor but love them for the rich. McDonald's median wage is $8 something, not enough to live on. Consequently these workers need public assistance to eat, see a doctor and pay the rent. And the taxpayer is left with the bill to subsidize a company that makes $billions in profits and can afford to pay their workers a living wage and still make healthy profits. But that's the thing, they are not healthy and do not want a society where everyone benefits. They are greedy bastards that like indentured servitude just fine, adding insult to injury by having the rest of us pay for their corporate welfare.

Petition to stop cuts to social security, Medicare or Medicaid

Please join Senator Sanders and Social Security Works in preventing cuts to these programs, which are not the cause of deficits. The real causes are that many corporations pay little to no taxes, the rich do not pay their fair share of taxes and the bloated military budget. Just adjusting those three things would provide plenty for the national coffer to pay all our bills with surpluses. From Senator Sanders, quote:

Billionaires like the Koch Brothers, Pete Peterson, Stanley Druckenmiller and others are leading the charge to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If they succeed, millions of senior citizens, working families, disabled veterans and children will suffer. We must not allow that to happen.

As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus, please stand with me, our friends at Social Security Works and our coalition partners in demanding; “No grand bargain in exchange for cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.” 

Smile or die

"Embedded in all this is the idea that you change the physical world with your thoughts" (2:10). I especially appreciate how this was applied to the financial meltdown (around 4:00). Underwriters that saw it coming several miles away due to taking on bad risk were silenced or fired due to their 'negative thinking.' I personally experienced this as an underwriter with a company that increasingly took on terrible risks and when I raised legitimate concerns was told that I 'didn't fit in.' Fortunately I quit before they could fire me due to my dysfunctional sense of that terribly negative business downer, ethics. At around 5:30 she finds The Secret to be a prime perpetrator of this myth  in the most callous and cruel fashion imaginable. At around 9:00 she sees how this coincides with very conservative ideology in that if you're either rich or poor you deserve it, so why help the poor when it's their own damned fault? Also see her book Bright-Sided.

Financial analysts upset over JP Morgan settlement for fraud

Jon Stewart shows the blatant hypocrisy of many TV talking head financial analysts over the recent settlement between JP Morgan and the Justice Dept. It was a given that JPM committed criminal fraud in selling the risky mortgages they knew would default and in fact bet that they would so they could reap  untold profits. This is exactly what caused the financial collapse of '08, this sort of deliberate fraud. And the so-called analysts paint the narrative that the big bad government is going after the do-good JPM while completely side-stepping the reality of criminal fraud, as if that is standard financial procedure and the cost of doing business in an effective economy.

Beginnings

The last post reminded me of this song from my yute:

Assholonic perspectivalism & integral aperspectivalism

Further riffing on this post, recall Torbert: "The latest action logics aren’t stage-like in their nature." Instead we get this folding where we can be any stage or state without identification as needed. We enact this plurality of voices and views, which is not itself a particular view or stage. One might even say this is postmetaphysics, or after the identification with any particular metaphysics. Hence the integrality of being all of them at times and none of them all the time. This is not anything goes at any time relativism but something specific goes depending on the time and place perspectivism. It is also a-perspective in that there is not any assholon perspective that sees or knows it all and centers all action-logic. Integral-aperspectival in a nutshell.

This sounds similar to the Lingam in this post. To reiterate:

Yeah, this is normal temperature variation, right?

Wrong you regressive wingnut. See this article: Arctic Temperatures Reach Highest Levels In 44,000 Years. "This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." I know, science and facts are involved and regressives will not be impressed. But for the rest of us with half a brain this is dire news indeed. 

Is integral a level?

Here's a post from the old Open Integral blog I got from the Wayback Machine and put in this IPS thread:

Is integral a level? 
January 28th, 2008 (posted by Edward Berge)

This is from an interview with Bill Torbert (2002) at Integral Leadership Review:

Q: When you speak of action logic what model are you referring to?

A: It’s the phrase that I’ve come to use for what other people call developmental stages. I think the notion of stages is very abstract and raises all sorts of problems about it, especially at the later developmental action logics. The latest action logics aren’t stage-like in their nature. They don’t capture you in the way the earlier ones do. In Kegan’s notion of subject and object, in each movement towards a later developmental position you take the action logic you were formerly subject to and turn it into object. You manipulate it by yourself. This moves us to a place where we can be so alert and awake that we recognize that our every thought is simply an expression of a particular action logic. We’re not caught by any of our action logics or we’re caught for shorter periods of time. We’re able to swim back upstream again. We experience that part of the problem we just created was by getting identified or stuck in a particular action logic.

Most claiming 2nd-tier (postformal) are really just formal operations

This IPS thread on ascertaining 2nd-tier has set me off again, as witnessed by recent posts (like here and here). So recall this article called "The mean green meme hypothesis" by Todoric. An excerpt:

"When compiling and analyzing the data, an interesting dimension came to light -- Yellow false positive. [...] Selections of statements intended to elicit Yellow appear to be reflecting a more sophisticated form of Orange instead. [...] This might explain much of the 'second tier' elitism coming from MGM advocates [...] [that] results in a drive to convince self, and others, of living at 'second tier' (if such a thing actually exists!)" (4-5).

Open Integral blog

Update: One can see some of the posts from the missing period at the Wayback Machine. Just input the following into the search engine: http://openintegral.net. When you get into the posts you can activate the comments as well as some of the archives listed on the right column. One can also see the correct authorship.

It is located here. This is an archive for the old Open Integral (OI) blog and well as my current blog here. OI was an international, collaborative blog of integral thinkers and practitioners extending integral thought. Most of us have written essays at Integral World and that’s how we got connected. It was instantiated following the now classic tit-for-tat online fight, the Wyatt Earp incident, between Ken Wilber(Wyatt Earp) and his reaction to the thoughts of other integral thinkers (many of the writers on this blog). We decided to unite and provide alternative integral perspectives in an interactive format, hence this blog.

Unfortunately the administrator of the OI blog did not save all the posts when it shut down. The file he sent me contained only the posts from its inception to November 2007. The posts after November 2007 to October 2010 are missing and lost forever, much to my regret. Also in the conversion process to this format all of the post authorship was attributed to me instead of the original authors. In some of the posts the authors self-identify, in others not. Nothing I can do about that either. The situation sucks but it’s the best I can provide given the circumstances. At least some of the early posts are archived for posterity.

Join Senator Grayson on new proposed financial rule

The following is from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. The link to the petition has a button to read Senator Grayson's entire letter about the proposed new rule.

We could strike a major blow against the big banks and their ability to gamble with our money if we act by tomorrow. Financial regulators have proposed a new rule that ends big bank gambling. The rule requires banks to put up $89 billion to protect against the unforeseen losses like the ones that destroyed the economy in 2008. With this rule in place, the eight biggest banks -- including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs -- will be much safer. The federal regulators are taking public comments on the rule this week and they usually only hear from banks. Those comments will help determine whether the final rule actually makes big banks safer, so we need to make sure the regulators hear from us.

Rep. Alan Grayson has written a letter calling for even stronger regulations and he’s asking for citizens to sign on. Can you add your name?

If thousands of us sign, we’ll show that the public supports strong rules. This will be important throughout the regulatory process. Please take one minute to add your name to the letter.

But we only have until tomorrow to get comments in. Click here to co-sign Rep. Grayson’s letter.

We’ll deliver your signatures and comments to the bank regulators. Thanks for being a bold progressive.

--Forrest Brown, PCCC organizer

The Justice Dept. is letting off Wall Street, again

The below is from The Other 98%:

Last night, I went on All In With Chris Hayes to discuss something that should be unbelievable: The Justice Department has evidence JP Morgan Chase committed major securities fraud – but instead of filing criminal charges, they’re negotiating with them to settle for a small fraction of the damage they did. Chase and Chase CEO Jamie Dimon broke the law, defrauded millions and crashed the economy. It's time for a perpwalk, not a negotiation.

Sign our letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding criminal charges for Chase, not sweetheart deals: http://other98.com/dont-negotiate-with-chase-prosecute-them/

 

The New York Times has reported that JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon has been in regular contact with Eric Holder at the Justice Department, negotiating the terms of his own fines, tacitly admitting guilt without ever having to face a jury for his crimes or even publicly admitting wrongdoing. Isn’t is time we stopped letting the banks get away with buying off the government in exchange for escaping criminal charges? Especially when we are talking about a bank that continues to be charged with new offenses almost every month?

I'm beyond tired of Big Banks being Above The Law - and I think it's long past time to say No Banker Is Too Big To Jail. Join me.

Thank you for all you do to make this movement real.

Sincerely, Alexis Goldstein, The Other 98%

--

Sources:

1. The New York Times, “U.S. Deal with JP Morgan Spurred by a Phone Call.”

2. BuzzFeed, “How Two Deals And Two Lawsuits Led To JPMorgan’s $13 Billion Settlement.”

3. The Other 98%, “Alexis Breaks Down the $13 BN JPM Settlement.”

---

The Other 98% is making democracy work for the rest of us.

Our website is http://other98.com/.

The Republicans welcomed the Tea Party

And now they want to get rid of them because they're too radical? Because they caused the government shut down and brought us to the brink of default? Jon Stewart adroitly points out that the GOP welcomed them with open arms for their votes, and because they riled up the rabid base to a frenzy. And are still so doing. They got exactly what they asked for and it's destroying their Party. All I can say is good riddance to the regressive movement.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

3-year anniversary

I started this blog on 10/16/10, just over 3 years ago. How time flies. It seems like just yesterday. It was my personal outgrowth from the predecessor group blog, Open Integral, which started in 2006. As contributors to the latter went elsewhere it because pretty much my personal outlet for the last year or so. I keep threatening to revive that old blog in an archive somewhere and may yet, if I can find a willing IT person to translate it from SQL. Anyway, this blog has grown ten-fold in readership since I started. And for that I am grateful that you are listening in on occasion. I'll keep trying to inform and entertain, mostly because I am driven to do so by some mad, madhyamaka kaka.

More on metaphysical instincts

Following up on this post and its predecessor, more from Shirazi:

"The various levels of the unconscious (lower, middle, higher in Assagioli, or inconscient, subconscient, and superconscient in Sri Aurobindo) are in actuality not neatly divided and compartmentalized. They are in fact a ‘mixed bag’ of tendencies beyond the reach of the conscious, egoic will" (111).

Earlier he noted that the higher unconscious has its origins in involution, consistent with Aurobindo's (and Wilber's) metaphysics. In my view the reason the levels are mixed is due to my ruminations in this thread, sans the metaphysical involution. Hence the reason he sees both as forms of 'instinct' but only because they are both unconscious. My theory is that the lower unconscious is transformed into the higher unconscious via the conscious, and not that the higher involutionary unconscious does the work from an a priori realm.

New icon

It's supposed to move like this:

It's kind of the Chinese version of this one:

Node thyself

More from Binding Chaos that reminds me of a recent exchange in another thread (see this post and following). To paraphrase the Delphic maxim: Node thyself.

"As work progresses and core team and members grow, more interested and dedicated personalities emerge which begin to steer direction. Specialties are formed around the core team’s interests as the core team produces the most work and the work most valued by the rest of the user group. Systems beyond a certain level of complexity begin to lack coherence as the group’s energy and focus moves from broad to narrow, following the interests of the core team and the availability of resources. Parts of the original system may be left undone.

What is 2nd tier?

As a follow up to this post, what is 2nd tier? You've heard it described by the kennilingus crowd who want to own and copyright that moniker. So let's explore some other possibilities from this post:

I'd like to bring in David Marshall's modified WC lattice from IL. Not because I agree with it but because it raises the right questions. He quotes Wilber from a conversation with Cohen on 3rd tier:

"Another definition of third tier is that it’s the level at which you start to permanently realize the major states of consciousness, and it just so happens that the three major stages in third tier are ones that, of necessity, objectify the subtle, then causal, then nondual states. Second-tier stages are about the highest stage structures you can get to without necessarily having some sort of state realization. And you see this a lot—people who are at an integral stage of development but don’t have a state awakening. And so one of the things that becomes really important is that in order to move into third tier and true transpersonal structures, you have to have some sort of state training and state realization."

End the lunacy

Following up on Grayson in the last post, visit this site to sign his petition for the proposed Bill. The blub from the site, which site also has a link to the 2-page Bill, follows:

Petition: "A pointless and foolish government shutdown cost the U.S. economy $24,000,000,000.00. The same pigheadedness took us to the brink of default on our national debt. This is lunacy. Congress should focus on solving problems, instead of causing them. Representative Alan Grayson has introduced a two-page bill that would fund the government at Budget Act levels, and suspend the debt ceiling until the end of next year. This bill is simple, timely, and just what we need. End the Lunacy – Now!"

Alan Grayson on the Republican Party

He echoes some of my own previous thoughts:

"I think it's already clear to people that the Republican Party is on the way out. The Republican Party is going to go the way of the Whig Party, the way the Whig Party disappeared in the 1830s in America. And the reason is simple. They simply won't do anything useful for ordinary people. Whether the issue is jobs or housing or health care or transportation, whatever the issue might be, they got nothing. And it's not our fault that they've got nothing. They simply want to bring about the End of Days, as quickly as possible. That is the ultimate Tea Party Republican desire, to bring about the End of Days. The Republican Party has become the largest suicide pact in history. And I hope they don't take us with them."

 

Farewell Heisenberg

Both/and/neither/nor and 2nd tier

Layman Pascal started an IPS thread on a questionnaire to identify 2nd tierants. I responded that question 16 is a much more relevant and defining characteristic. Although I'd include 'neither/nor' (double negation) with 'both/and' (double affirmation) in keeping with his notions (and my comments) on adjacency. When asked to expand I added:

Stigmergy and image stigmata

Stigmergy reminds me of image stigmata. And our course the suffix 'ergy' (or 'urgy' meaning 'work') reminds me of theurgy, from which my online persona emanates. So stigmergy in my twisted way is a form of working with image stigmata, as they are the between of anything including competition and cooperation in the example given in Binding Chaos (see last post).

Binding Chaos

P2P Foundation made me aware of the book Binding Chaos. P2P is doing a 3-part excerpt this week, the first of which is at the link. There is also a blog link by the author with access to the book. From the blog post:

"The world is long overdue for a completely new system of governance. If there was ever a need for political representation or a paternalistic and opaque authority it has been removed by technology. Every political system we have tried has proven incapable of protecting human rights and dignity. Every political system we have tried has devolved into oligarchy. To effect the change we require immediately, to give individuals control and responsibility, to bring regional systems under regional governance, allow global collaboration and protect the heritage of future generations, we need a new political model."

The difference between Democrats and Progressives

All progressives are Democrats,* but not all Democrats are progressives. In Congress the progressives belong to the Progressive Caucus (CPC) of which there are 74 members out of 253 Democrats in the House and Senate. It is a minority of representatives that actually represent the people instead of corporate interests. See the link for their agenda. Also see this recent interview of Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Therein you'll see the clear distinction between the progressives and the Democrats.

* Bernie Sanders, Senator from VT, is in the CPC and is an Independent and democratic socialist.

Pentatonix & Lindsey Stirling do Radioactive

Great cover of Image Dragons hit song. And beautiful collaboration with Lindsey. Not only is she a virtuoso on the fiddle and gorgeous but she has great dance moves too. I give it 4 out of 4 stars.

Maher's new rule for atheist 'church'

Ralph Nader rightfully reams the Democrats

See his article here. Don't get the subject line wrong, he doesn't favor Republicans. In fact he calls them retrograde, similar to my denigration of regressive. He's just rightly pissed that the Dems fail to stand up to the destructive policies of the regressives because they need campaign contributions from the same folks the regressives get theirs, the corporations and Wall Street. And there's the crux of our problem, money in politics. Campaign finance reform with publicly financed elections and no outside money allowed is the only way to curtail this. He claims that even the Congressional Progressive caucus refuses to press its agenda on House minority leader Pelosi because she is so good at raising campaign contributions. And when you get that money from corporations and banks that oppose the progressive agenda then that agenda must be off the table or you don't get the money.

Petition Congress to quit holding us hostage

Here is the petition to sign if you're so inclined. The message:

Dear congressional leaders,

Now that the political games are finally over, it's time to actually get back to the real work Americans sent you there to do.Over the past several weeks, while Tea Party politics shut down our government for 16 days and brought us to the brink of economic shutdown, the American people spoke out. From Twitter to rallies to dinner table conversations, Americans expressed outrage that a Tea Party minority in Congress could hold us hostage and keep us from the real work we want to see done.

Now, we have a clear message for the people who let it happen: We can't do this again. There's a lot on Congress' plate. Americans want to see you all come together to solve the real problems facing our country instead of going from one manufactured crisis to another. We'll keep making our voices heard in support of policies that grow the economy, create jobs, and strengthen the middle class. And millions of Americans are waiting to see if you'll take action to fix our broken immigration system. Now, please get back to work on the agenda Americans voted for last November.

Spaces between

Recall this prior post on riffing. Doh! Sometimes I'm Homer Simpson. It occurs to me all of the above are already part of my ILP. I did a brief explanation here (and following posts) how I applied tai chi practice as meditative method to my philosophical method, and which of course both create phenomenological states of awareness. Now my current practice is partner dance, which is all about connection, leverage, compression, space-time and so on. And it most definitely induces meditative states. And the same philosophical principles apply as previously stated in the links and per this forum using the IS in my postmeta theory of differance. I overlook the obvious sometimes since I'm so embedded therein.

Altitude sickness

Recall this post and the one before linked therein. They remind me of the following, posted before but in need of refreshment, Mark Edwards' writing on altitude sickness at the beginning of this thread. An excerpt:

"As with all lenses the altitude lens is subject to different kinds of truncations and reductionisms. I call these reductionisms the varieties of altitude sickness and, in a spirit of playful finger-pointing, I will briefly describe a few of these here:

S&P minutes away last night from another US downgrade

See this article. John Chambers, the global head of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee, said: "If the government does discontinue debt-servicing, unless it is cured immediately, it goes into ‘selective default’," which is the lowest rating of untrustworthiness. “It is simply not a characteristic of the most highly rated sovereigns that you have to worry about them not paying their debts. It is unheard of in a cohesive civil society, making it all the more puzzling and lamentable that we have these shenanigans over spending that has already been approved by Congress.”

US wealth distribution & income equality

I got the following chart from this article, which pulls info from the October 2013 Credit Suisse report. The US has way more rich people than anywhere else. Click to enlarge.

Does this have any relation to income inequality? Let's compare with the below chart from this article, claiming the US has the highest income inequality in the developed world from this source (p.8). And which is supported by the 2013 OECD report on inequality.

Regressives lose

The following is a picture of what they wanted from the shutdown/default ransom and what they got, courtesy of Rachel Maddow. Click to enlarge.

The postive power of negative thinking

For all of you positive thinkers out there check out this article. Seems it depends more on the type of person you are whether positive thinking will work for you. For some negative thinking actually works better. A few excerpts:

"In a series of clever studies, the psychologists Julie Norem and Nancy Cantor compared strategic optimists and defensive pessimists. If you're a strategic optimist, you envision the best possible outcome and then eagerly plan to make it happen. If you're a defensive pessimist, even if you've been successful in the past, you know this time could be different. You start picturing all the things that could go wrong.

popo

Since it is integrally fashionable to state we are post-postmodern to distinguish from those nasty relativists perhaps a new theurjianism might be popo? Pomo is a typical shorthand for postmodernism so why not popo for our advanced state? Never mind that many of those in the category of pomo are not, nor have every been, relativists. Or communists, for that matter. And that the very term pomo has come to erroneously be associated with relativism per the kennilinguists, who themselves have to denigrate that movement. And who, btw, are often pre-pomo, or prepo for short. Still, popo might do for those of us in need of distinction. And that it is close to poopoo adds an added dimension to our need.

Michel Bauwens on the New Age

Recall this post on Andrew Cohen's dilemma. Then see Bauwens' article on the New Age. He highlights many of the problems of the so-called evolutionary enlightenment crowd like Cohen and Wilber. They are still caught up in the individual autonomy combined with guru worship phase. Both of which lead to ego inflation in terms of separate self-sense superiority due to achievement in attaining proficiency with a particular 'state' training identified with ultimate reality. Per Bauwens this alienates any sense of community outside the guru clan and hence an almost complete lack of wider community participation, even to the point of seeing such activism as some lower form of consciousness. Whereas in fact it is the lower form still caught in the kind of individuality rampant in market capitalism, of which this faction is also highly enamored via 'conscious capitalism.'

Krugman's apt metaphor

Here's Krugman on the regressive hostage taking. See the rest for his solution.

"So you have this neighbor who has been making your life hell. First he tied you up with a spurious lawsuit; you’re both suffering from huge legal bills. Then he threatened bodily harm to your family. Now, however, he says he’s willing to compromise: He’ll call off the lawsuit, which is to his advantage as well as yours. But in return you must give him your car. Oh, and he’ll stop threatening your family — but only for a week, after which the threats will resume. Not much of an offer, is it? But here’s the kicker: Your neighbor’s relatives, who have been egging him on, are furious that he didn’t also demand that you kill your dog. And now you understand the current state of budget negotiations."

Fitch places US on negative rating watch

See this Reuters story. This is the beginning of the end of financial security due to the kamikazee regressives. An excerpt on what this means.

"Although Fitch continues to believe that the debt ceiling will be raised soon, the political brinkmanship and reduced financing flexibility could increase the risk of a U.S. default. - Although the Treasury would still have limited capacity to make payments after 17 October it would be exposed to volatile revenue and expenditure flows. The Treasury may be unable to prioritize debt service, and it is unclear whether it even has the legal authority to do so. The U.S. risks being forced to incur widespread delays of payments to suppliers and employees, as well as social security payments to citizens - all of which would damage the perception of U.S. sovereign creditworthiness and the economy. - The prolonged negotiations over raising the debt ceiling (following the episode in August 2011) risks undermining confidence in the role of the U.S. dollar as the preeminent global reserve currency, by casting doubt over the full faith and credit of the U.S. This 'faith' is a key reason why the U.S. 'AAA' rating can tolerate a substantially higher level of public debt than other 'AAA' sovereigns. Medium - The repeated brinkmanship over raising the debt ceiling also dents confidence in the effectiveness of the U.S. government and political institutions, and in the coherence and credibility of economic policy. It will also have some detrimental effect on the U.S. economy."

7 lying Democrats

Recall this post where the regressives changed the House rules so that only the Majority Leader or his designate could call for a vote on a clean continuing resolution bill.  Then see this article on seven House Democrats who voted with the regressives on this while talking out of the other side of their mouth saying they'd vote for a clean resolution. They are lying bastards, since they prevented such a clean vote in the first place. The liars follow. Make sure you give them the hell they deserve.

Ron Barber    AZ-2
John Barrow   GA-12
Dan Maffei   NY-24
Sean Patrick Maloney   NY-18
Jim Matheson   UT-4
Mike McIntyre   NC-7
Collin Peterson   MN-7

Riffing on a la mode

See this prior post. Balder commented at IPS: I may be missing a subtle point that has caught Bryant's attention, but in Adam Robbert's explication of Chapter 3 of AIME, I do not detect the 'object-erasing correlationism' that Bryant criticizes.  It appears Latour is associating the object-in-itself with the (autopoietic) mode of reproduction, of self-maintenance.  What do you think? I note also that the theme of this chapter (mediation) has strong resonance with Layman Pascal's metaphysics of adjacency, Morrison's interface philosophy, and aspects of Sloterdijk as well (all of which I would identify as prepositional approaches).

I replied: Reading Robbert's translation reminds me of course of image schema (IS) and/or basic categories, which arise 'in the middle of things.' Recall this post on how they relate and integrate the metaphysical extremes of the general and particular. This relates to Latour's 'gaps' or 'discontinuities' between the map and the territory, IS being closer to the Real and prepositions being closer to the map (Symbolic) and its interpretation (Imaginary). The IS and prepositions are thus the mediators that allow access to the Real and the other domains respectively, for they are both in and of this gap or bridge. No mediation, no access as he says.

The real cause of Andrew Cohen's Dilemma

* See PS at the end.

See this Integral World article. Erdmann is right about the real cause, but it's not Wilber's fault. Both Wilber and Cohen were indeed subject to the same illusion, that enlightenment is without ego. I.e., ego defined as a separate self-sense. When one arrives at this illusion from experienced practice with formless meditation they assume this means they've arrived at-one-ment with Realty beyond ego, since a separate self-sense is suspended in this state.

What's wrong with our culture in one ad

See this article and the following ad, which sums up what's wrong with our culture. We're so enamored of our tech that we fail to see what's in front of us, thereby disconnecting us from people and nature. Put your damned phone or pad away for a while.

A la mode

This Bryant post discusses Latour's new book on modes of existence. He still prefers Luhmann to Latour. It sounds like another version of IMP but he still criticizes Latour (and Luhmann) for a lack of the virtual Real outside of any 'mode,' i.e., modes are correlationist.

House regressives changed the rules to prevent opening the government

This article with accompanying video clearly show that the regressives do not want the government opened, and how they are preventing it. The responsibliity for this fiasco rests solely with them; both sides are NOT responsible.