Systems Theory

That’s one purpose of my research: to be an additive medium through which I can contribute to the graph of human knowledge my humble little node which draws from many others before me, and from which maybe someone in the future can draw upon as they create theirs.

alexanderobenauer.com • How I approach my core work

Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.

—John Stuart Mill

Henrik Karlsson • Everything That Turned Out Well in My Life Followed the Same Design Process

The Hole Story: How Woodpeckers Make Homes for the Rest of the Forest

Victoria Campbell allaboutbirds.org

I believe—and again, these are bold generalizations, but generally substantiated—that nature is fractal in its structure. What that means is that a pattern occurring on a given scale can be expected to occur on other scales; very different. Simple example: an atom is a nucleus with electrons spinning around it. A solar system is a star with atoms... See more

Culture and Ideology are not Your Friends

Would it be wrong to call this some kind of multi-layer competency architecture?

every technology carries utterly unpredictable consequences. Nobody dreamed that the automobile would create a sexual revolution because it’s a rolling bedroom. Nobody dreamed that the automobile would destroy the extended family, that people would move hundreds and hundreds of miles from [each other]. The automobile created the suburb. McLuhan, on... See more

Build Your Own Damn Wagon

McKenna being a “McLuhanite”
(I’m still not over the fact that he calls it “McLuhanite” when “McLuhanist” is obviously more correct. A rare lapse in aesthetic judgement by Terence :P )

"The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is."

G.K. Chesterton, quoted

Memes are the smallest units of a concept. And they’re like genes. The word is deliberately constructed to rhyme with gene. And so when I say, “Every woman should consider having only one child,” that’s a meme. And that meme goes out into society, where it competes with the family values meme, the gay lifestyle meme, the celibacy meme—they all... See more

Build Your Own Damn Wagon

Information theory, memes, genes

Dissipative structures are these special situations which arise in nature where order is actually preserved far from equilibrium. That’s the technical way of saying it. In other words, equilibrium is where you get to when you let go, and then you drift toward death, disintegration, decay, equilibrium. And sooner or later, in the old paradigm, all... See more

Build Your Own Damn Wagon

This is blowing my mind. This stuff in combination with Levin’s work is very, very interesting.

You know, the theory of evolution is essentially a theory which is an effort to account for the large numbers of diverse plants and animals on the planet. Darwin, in his diaries, referred to what he was doing as searching for a solution to the species problem. It was not thought to have anything to do with sociology or geology, but now I think we... See more

Build Your Own Damn Wagon

Terence is referencing Ilya Prigogine