This was a useful summary Jere, and I think substantially on target.
In one of my analogies awhile back, I compared M4W to a theme park,
DisneyWorld in particular. I think of Wondrous Wisdom as the trademark
castle, the anchoring, branding trademark at the heart of the complex.
Andrius was OK with this picture as he grew up near Anaheim in his early
days and knew the original Disneyland pretty well.
Disney faced the following challenge, which I see as analogous to what's
happening in our ecosystem: how to attract peer corporate co-venturers into
the project, as sponsors and co-designers of the various pavilions. Why
would a Kodak or a General Motors lavish funds on an EPCOT (experimental
prototype community of tomorrow)?
The Expo and World's Fair models were already well-established so Disney
didn't have to reinvent all the wheels. He could draw from these
precedents. EPCOT would be like a permanent World's Fair, and companies
would sponsor pavilions because (a) it's advertising for them and (b) to
take advantage of synergies they wouldn't get on their own. The overall
upbeat utopianism of a Disney themed park would potentially rub off on
their own brands.
One may have a cynical view of advertising, a form of brainwashing, and
considered a derivative art drawing from outright naked propaganda for
inspiration. Tricky stuff. My boyhood was all about reading Hidden
Persuaders, News from Nowhere and MAD magazine.
I try to remove some of the negative charge (spin) on these words (also
"cult" -- short for "subculture"), and then use them somewhat
unapologetically, since it's my metaphor and I want to fit in to it, as
working on Spaceship Earth, another pavilion, not far from the Wondrous
Wisdom castle.
Spaceship Earth is a "dark ride" meaning a themed experience where you ride
in some vehicle on a track, visiting a succession of what I'll call
"exhibits" as I'm also pulling in a museum vibe. I steer my guests through
a sequence of mnemonically architected "chambers" devoted to various
topics, such as Quadrays or Nested Polyhedrons or Great Circles (31 & 35)
or whatever -- you know the memes.
One of the EPCOT pavilions is / was closer to being a bio-engineering
paradise, a New Alchemy Institute kind of thing, which is where I'd
mentally put the fish farms and sewage treatment plants we talk about.
Plus EPCOT was supposed to feature real-time year-around community living
(thinking of Franz), and not just the usual Florida retirement communities.
There'd be a whole city. I recommend the DefunctLand Youtube channel for
more info on what never came to be. Walt died unexpectedly and his brother
had to come out of retirement and do the best he could to at least get the
theme park implemented.
I imagine the Wondrous Wisdom castle full of friendly classrooms and happy
children absorbing cognitive frameworks of lifetime value. "What Whether
How Why" I hear the little voices chanting inside, as I pass by their
hallway door. They're fluent in group theory to a level way above the old
standards (wherein zero fluency was expected), and in number theory too.
M4W, the theme park, has engendered a higher level civilization than these
Florida swamps were used to.
Kirby
On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 7:31 PM Jere Northrop <
jerenorthrop@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Andrius, Kirby, Daniel, and All,
I really enjoyed the March 12 meeting and I am continuing to be fascinated
by the evolution of the Math 4 Wisdom ecosystem.
Here is a summary of what I think I know. M4W was created by Andrius in
2022 as an investigatory community of independent thinkers who would be
interested in understanding his conceptual framework of Wondrous Wisdom
(WW), thereby assisting in his efforts to gain a wider application of these
ideas for the benefit of humanity. Thus it was a sort of continuation of an
effort he ran from 1998 to 2010 called Minciu Sodas.
Andrius has been developing his “language” of WW since he was a teenager.
He sees that the foundations of WW, which he saw then, and has continued to
work on and evolve ever since, revolves around on ideas of twosome,
threesome, and foursome; how these ideas combine in a theory of everything
and the Divisions of Everything; how they comprise three languages of
Argumentation, Verbalization, and Narration; and that these languages could
be expressed by three levels of consciousness; the unconscious, the
conscious, and consciousness.
Andrius realized early on that to get his ideas accepted he would have to
understand what was already known and accepted. Hence he enrolled in a
college core curriculum, earned a BS in Physics, and a PhD in mathematics.
But he also learned that this knowledge was not central or foundational to
WW. You don’t need theoretical physics or advanced mathematics to develop
and understand WW. These disciplines can provide support for WW and they
may help others understand why WW is important, but they are not of
foundational importance.
Andrius has written voluminously about all this, has built real world
projects to show that it works and is relevant, and is now producing videos
to gain a wider audience and to attract new participants in M4W. But he is
still frustrated about the slow go, and often feels that no one understands
him or WW. I understand his frustration as I spent 55 years developing
ecotechnology that could resolve Climate Change but have not been able to
get it accepted or applied in scale.
So to help mitigate our frustration levels I am committing to
understanding WW. This commitment is possible since I do believe that I do
not have to understand theoretical physics or advance mathematics to
succeed. If I can do this then many others can do it as well, and this is
what we need. I think that the existence of the core M4W group makes this
goal much more attainable and that your participation in this Language of
Wisdom project is crucial for its success.
Fortunately, Andrius has presented a roadmap as to how to do this with his
2 hour video of his conversation with Thomas Gajdosik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72-oUuhNlD0
This expands on the Vocabulary he has posted on M4W
Math 4 Wisdom. "Mathematics for Wisdom" by Andrius Kulikauskas. |
Exposition / Vocabulary
<https://www.math4wisdom.com/wiki/Exposition/Vocabulary>
We need to make sure that all the diagrams in the video are easily reached
from the Vocabulary page, particularly those presented after minute 47 of
the video, but I am sure that this is not a problem.
To begin, I feel that we need to resolve some preliminary issues that were
raised on Tuesday.
Andrius had previously stated that Wondrous Wisdom is not a Natural
Language, it “is not a language of words. It is a language of human
experience, its perspectives, attitudes, stances, modes, concerns…..”
I agree that we need a broader definition of language than that used for
Natural Language, and that this should be accompanied by a broader
definition as to what comprises a word. If WW is to be a language of
everything then it should subsume Natural Language, since that is a
significant part of our personal experience. After all, we are gong to
spend a lot of effort trying to understand WW by using the words of English
and other Natural Languages. Thus, to avoid misinterpretation, let us
define language as covering all of human or conscious experience, including
our own personal experience. Thus it should be able to subsume the
experiences that we all have that include the use of words in Natural
Languages. This does not have to be foundational in the fundamental concept
of WW but it should be included.
I have maintained for some time now that Nature does not do the Math, at
least not in the way that we humans do. This is based on my extensive
experience in observing and working with natural systems. Thus I can see
that in a sense Nature does not use Natural Language either, at least not
in the way that we humans do.
So let’s start there. Now, what comes next. Is it personal values,
cognitive frameworks, onesome-twosome-threesome, ways of figuring things
out, Divisions of Everything, three languages or forms of consciousness,
the Vocabulary,…? Let’s agree on where we start and what we mean.
Follow Enisteins principle of Covariance and extend it to language in
general,
“The general laws of nature are to be expressed by equations which hold
good for all systems of co-ordinates, that is, are co-variant with respect
to any substitutions whatever (generally co-variant).”
From Einstein, Albert, (1916), The Foundation of the General Theory of
Relativity.
Remember Humpty Dumpty as Daniel referenced a while ago,
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “It
means just what I choose it to mean---neither more nor less.”
From Carroll, Lewis, (1865), Through the Looking Glass and What Alice
found There
And we need to listen more to Kirby, how he rails against the rules.
Seeing language in the sense that Wittgenstein did as more like the banks
of the river which are continually being changed by the river running
through them. Who knows, Maybe the real reason for chess is that the white
queen really has a thing for the red king. Have we been playing the game
all wrong?
I hope to have more before Tuesday,
Jere
