atw: Re: Let's calm down, apologies, and other things

  • From: "Geoffrey Marnell" <geoffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:55:19 +1100

Chris,

Can you give me "The Idiots Guide to ..." version. You lost me at the first
paragraph, and later had me wondering if I was a hermaphrodite, or someone
in need of gender realignment. (Maybe that would improve my technical
writing?)

For a moment I thought your book on I Ching was subtitled "Vague Language"
rather than "The Language of the Vague". Still, your posting prompts me to
ask: Were I to buy your book, would I understand it? I have a PhD from the
1980s, when precision was all the rage; so I may have trouble with your
post-modernistic, gender-drenched abstractionism. Would a
Bertrand-Russell-Alfred-Ayer mindset like mine get to within a cooee of your
juicy continental truths?

Anyway I would probably be irreversibly distracted by the sort of thinking
-- symmetric, asymmetric, parasymmetric or whatever -- that has me
realigning my education to accept that bosons and fermions (once considered
classes of sub-atomic particles) were really statistics. But then again you
probably assumed that the austechwriter audience, being masters of quantum
physics, would know that you were really talking about the statistics
EXHIBITED BY bosons and fermions, and not the bosons and fermions themselves
...

... which leads me to restate my earlier request that we strive, on this
list, for clarity and precision in our postings, lest some  madman, like me,
reads more into a posting than was originally there. And I'm assuming there
was something there.

Analyse me, Dr Lofting. Let's leave Christine alone for a while.

Drowning, not flaming.

Cheers


 
Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
W: www.abelard.com.au

> 

;-) the truth of the matter is that typologies such as the MBTI etc DO WORK
but at the level of our SPECIES nature; just as in other social species we
have our 'alpha males/females', our 'workers', our 'warriors' etc but in a
far more refined form than other species. WITHOUT the use of consciousness
to transcend such typologies and so bring out INDIVIDUAL differences rather
than specialist collective samenesses our species will fall into the
'routine' of  working to type and reflect symmetric styles of thinking -
there is a natural, energy-conserving, laziness present ;-)

The male/female differences in PRECISION in thinking tie directly to the
influence of sex hormones on brain development just prior to birth. We can
in fact change such precision post birth by giving females testosterone and
males oestrogen - http://www.gendercentre.org.au/oestrogen1.htm (common
practice in sex change issues). The differences ARE very clear and cover
point precision of testosterone vs more diffuse, field precision (pattern
matching etc) of oestrogen (these then lead into competitive vs cooperative
natures that can span collectives). There are also differences in memory
management (oestrogen maintains/improves such - understandable in that
symmetry covers the establishment of rich associative memory capabilities
and so pattern matching etc).

The symmetric element moves into an aspectual form of analysis, identifying
things by what they are NOT, LOTS of prose/discussion and
'beating-around-the-bush' to attempt to flush out 'the point' - the issue is
that symmetry lacks a sense of direction such that 'coming to the point' is
difficult (where such 'point' precision is grounded in rigid hierarchy,
syntax focus leading to the 'correct' result/point etc and so is rigid and
not into relativities). Aspectual analysis means all points are
considered/re-considered/over-considered etc etc etc - often the 'talk' is
qualitative, there are no conclusions reached, but the social gathering
elicited some sense of 'value' treated with equal status as any 'fact'.

Symmetric thinking covers a type of statistical approach reflected in such
Bose-Einstein statistics (bosons) where all elements under consideration
have an EQUAL probability of expression (this then covers a focus on
metaphors and their interchangability). Anti-symmetric thinking covers an
approach of Dirac-Fermi statistics (fermions) where we get more 'normal'
distributions. When we move to asymmetry out pops Boltzmann-Maxwell
Statistical Mechanics.

The above does not mean 'all males are manic sensation seekers' or 'all
females are manic identity seekers', but it does introduce biases in
behaviours across ALL to skew distributions and to show differences in
styles of reasoning (males being more risk focused, as are SOME females, but
compare ALL and the biases emerge). WE note here that a symmetric mindset
will contain a set of rules/hypotheses etc about reality and make DEDUCTIONS
from such (general to particular) whereas the anti-symmetric/asymmetric
mindsets focus more on induction/abduction - this is creative but can also
lead to 'reinventing the wheel' - abduction working to resolve such that a
'due diligence' search through existing hypotheses to see if some particular
pattern etc is already described.

Education and the feedback of consciousness through development and use of
languages aids in resolving some of these 'firmware' coded biases but with
consciousness there is also a psychic dynamic present. Thus an excess in
complexity (asymmetry/anti-symmetry) can elicit a response of an increase in
a focus on symmetry (dumb-down, simplification for the sake of ease in
communications etc)

The overall dynamics of the SPECIES will flow across establishments of
different classes of socio-economic behaviours so one can 'go with the flow'
(as Ms Kent seems to be doing) or break from that flow to create some
different path/perspective. IOW as CONSCIOUS beings we are each in a
position to 'escape' the mindless drive of species dynamics or to exploit
such. (see such as "Sexing the Brain" -
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Sexing-the-Brain/Lesley-J-Rogers/e/97802311
20104 where cultural, psychic, dynamics can modify behaviours considered
'male' or 'female' etc etc etc )

Understanding these general patterns aids in interpreting local dynamics.

Chris
http://www.emotionaliching.com


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