Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Universal Language, Binary Code, Mathematics

For some, the prototype of a universal language has been Esperanto.  But, while the generality of it is empirically derived, i. e. it is a hybrid of given languages, the universality envisioned by Leibniz is formal.  For a binary code is constituted by the characteristic that is essential to any Language--two distinct elements.  Now, that those two elements are '1' and '0' is arbitrary, i. e. any other pair of symbols would suffice for the purpose, e. g. 'Yin' and 'Yang'.  Nor are the physical characteristics of the computer chip that currently ground the distinction unique--sonic 'dots' and 'dashes' have previously served the same purpose.  So, if, as some believe, a universal language is fundamentally Mathematical, it is not insofar as it is expressed as such by the symbols '1' and '0'.  Rather, it is insofar as such a language is essentially dyadic, i. e. its foundation is enumerably two.

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Internet, Memory, Immateriality

Whether or not the binary code that constitutes the fundamental content of the Internet manifests a presentational capacity of Language, it certainly exemplifies its representational function--by recording, storing, and retrieving input.  In other words, it accomplishes what in humans is known as Memory.  The code thus confirms Bergson's hypothesis that the Past is always virtually present, even when it is not being actually accessed.  At the same time, however, it refutes Bergson's thesis that pure Memory must be Immaterial, a thesis that is probably encouraged by the best evidence available at the time--that there is no obvious way that such elaborate imagery can occur within the seemingly small inter-cranial location.  But, of course, as Internet hardware manifests, subsequent micro-technological developments have opened up such spaces to possibilites of indefinite elaboration.  So, its code presents a significant problem for Bergson's cardinal concepts of Duration and Elan Vital, to which, on the basis of his theory of Memory, he attributes Immateriality.

Monday, February 26, 2018

Sense Experience and Communication

The standard classification of Berkeley as a British Empiricist tends to obscure one of his innovations.  Better recognized is that his reduction of all experience to Second Qualities constitutes a divergence from Empiricism to Phenomenalism, which consists in the complete privatization of Experience, influencing not only Hume and Smith, but Hegel and Husserl, as well.  However, the standard curriculum tends to under-emphasize Berkeley's own subsequent development--proposing that all such Phenomena are divine communications, thereby pioneering Semiotics prior to Peirce.  Accordingly, Sense Experience is conceived as inherently suffused with meaning beyond the immediately given data, as Husserl best recognizes.  But, the Internet suggests that even that revision of Empiricism might fall short.  For, the fundamental content of the World Wide Web is its binary language, in which even sights and sounds are expressed.  Hence, the medium perhaps demonstrates that Sense Experience is, even prior to any representational arrangement, a communication, the content of which is the immediately given data itself.  Such a concept of Sense Experience is anticipated by Aristotle, for whom a communicated datum is the Form of a perceptual object, i. e. since in his system, any Secondary Quality is a Form.  Thus, that basis, Berkeley could argue that since the ultimate source of the Form of any object in Aristotle's system is the deity of the latter, Sense Experience indeed is, as he proposes two millennia later, the reception of a divine communication.

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Medium, Message, Binary Language

McLuhan's formulation, "The Medium is the Message", has three different meanings: 1. The significant dimension of any Medium of Communication is its Form, not its Content; 2. Any Content is itself a Form of further Content; and 3. A Medium of Communication exerts a Formal Causality on society.  Of these, #1 has had the widest popular recognition, while #3 has been receiving attention here.  Now, #2 is exemplified by the Internet.  For, the ultimate Content of that Medium is the universal language envisioned centuries ago by Leibniz--a binary code.  But, a binary code, e. g. the 0s and 1s of the World Wide Web, is a Form.  So, McLuhan could argue that this common Form complements that of the Medium which is currently transforming the structure of human society.

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Social Atomism and Wi-Fi

The strongest evidence for Social Atomism is the Spatial separation of members of a society, in combination with the apparent independence of their behaviors.  But, the fates of once accepted theses such as that the Earth is flat, and that the Sun orbits around the Earth, have exposed the limited value of immediate empirical evidence.  Plus, patterned collective behavior is often observable in species whose members are spatially separated.  Now, human inventions can be recognized as extensions of human bodies, e. g. the tines of a fork as fingers.  So, likewise, Wi-Fi devices can be recognized as emulating an instinctive integrity among the members of the human species that does not require any apparent Spatial contiguity.

Friday, February 23, 2018

Internet and Nervous System

The significance of Communication differs in Atomist and Organicist concepts of Society.  In the former, Communication is an inessential addition to a self-contained entity.  In the latter, it is a mode of internal integrity.  Accordingly, in the case of the former, the development of a new Means of Communication is an extrinsic event, while in the case of the latter, it is a modification, for survival or evolutionary purposes, of some given integrative processes.  Thus, for example, for the Atomist, the Internet is leisure-time entertainment, while for the Organicist, it is an improvement in the nervous system of the species.

Thursday, February 22, 2018

World Wide Web and its Discontents

The most influential contemporary concept of Soul, Freud's, is Atomist.  By reducing the species' reproductive drive to privately experienced 'sexuality', and abstracting his sub-personal Id from Nietzsche's super-personal Dionysian principle, Freud isolates the personal Psyche from the rest of society.  Accordingly, a person is in a fundamentally antagonistic relation to the Super-Ego, to "Civilization", etc.  Hence, it is unclear how, or even if, Freudian Psychology might register the World Wide Web experience.  In contrast, by the restoration of the Id to its origin as a species drive, i. e. to what can be called the Super-Id, the World Wide Web can be recognized as a manifestation of the Super-Id, i. e. a product of a species drive, the discontents with respect to which are Ego-based civilizations, i. e. Atomist societies.

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

World Wide Web and Alienation

Entailed in the Atomist concept of society is that of the independence of the personal Soul from the rest of society.  In contrast, the personal Soul in an Organicist concept of society is systematically related to every other personal Soul, and to the Soul of the Whole.  Correspondingly, the concept of Psychological Health can vary in accordance with the contrast between the two concepts of Society.  For example, Self-Sufficiency might be a Virtue in an Atomist society, but a symptom of Alienation in an Organicist society.  Thus, if the current incoherence between offline and online experience, previously discussed, were a source of a significant Psychological disorder, the condition would remain unknown to an Atomist Psychologist.  Accordingly, such an expert would be unable to detect if the emergence of the World Wide Web were an occasioning of an Alienation that has been a factor in, for example, any of the recent regular mass shootings in America.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

World Wide Web and Cosmopolitics

These days, many people spend significant amounts of time on the World Wide Web, aka the Internet.  The experience can be characterized as 'globalizing'--one is in immediate contact with others around the planet, and one is regularly reminded that one's location, time zone, and language, are specifications of a range of possibilities.  Accordingly, one is aware of oneself as part of a whole.  Now, many on-line experiences are irreal in some respect--fantasy sports, avatars, virtual friendships, etc.  But, most financial transactions are not.  So, for significant portions of the day, many people experience a reality that is as antithetical to particularistic off-line reality as Cosmopolitics is to traditional Nationalistic or Civic Political Philosophy, the reconciliation of which is among the most immediate of current social problems.

Monday, February 19, 2018

Techne and Comprehension

Whitehead's significant error is to equate Prehension with Feeling.  For, Prehension means Grasp, which, unlike Feeling, involves motor processes in its relation to its object.  Now, the distinction between physical Grasp and intellectual Grasp is that the relation of the latter to its object exceeds the moment--it includes a concept of the antecedent conditions of the object, e. g. its causes, as well as a concept of its potential consequences.  In other words, intellectual Grasp originates in a knowledge of how its object can be used to modify other objects.  Now, of the standard stock of Intellectual terms, Comprehension most precisely characterizes Grasp.  Thus, Techne--knowing how to use an object--is the essence of Comprehension.  That is, Comprehension is Knowledge of a continuation of a Causal chain.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Planetary Grasp, World Wide Web, Cosmopolitics

The thesis that Earth orbits the Sun does not by itself explain the distinction of Day and Night--that requires the additional proposition that the Earth spins on its axis.  Now, the significance of that concept is that it can be characterized as Planetary--in which the Earth as a whole is grasped, i. e. is encompassed.  The concept, initially hypothetical, is eventually empirically confirmed when a human actually orbits the Earth.  So, the development of the World Wide Web is a continuation of Planetarism, consisting in a tightening of the human Grasp of the Earth, an encompassing that is both physical and intellectual.  Accordingly, the transition from Nationalism to Cosmopolitics is already underway, with often violent particularist resistance the growing pains of the transition.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Techne, Technological, Algorithm

Techne is Know-how, e. g. the execution of a plan.  So, automated devices that function merely mechanically are not 'technological', properly speaking.  In contrast, an Algorithm is a formula that entails a sequence of instructions, usually accommodating disjoint contingent alternatives, i. e. is not mechanically linear.  So, an automated device that incorporates an Algorithm in its functioning is 'technological', properly speaking.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Means of Communication

As has been previously discussed, one of the respects in which Marx is a Technocrat is that he conceives the fruits of science to influence the structure of society, i. e. the Means of Production.  However, he does not recognize another mode of such influence--the Means of Communication, notably the privatization of Religion by Gutenberg's invention, centuries prior to Selfishness becoming the cardinal Virtue of Capitalism.  It is not until the rise of Electronic media, that McCluhan can discern the political consequences of the Means of Communication--the beginnings of the collectivization of society as a Global Village.  But still unimaginable to him is the extent to which the World Wide Web has since been actualizing the Humanist Technocracy concept.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Technocrat, Marx, Humanist

Four characteristics, closely related, but distinguishable, of a Technocrat are: 1. Conceives human society on the basis of a scientific model; 2. Via Techne, applies that model; 3. Conceives human society to be structurally influenced by the fruits of scientific discovery; and 4. Conceives the fruits of scientific discovery to be beneficial to humans.  Now, Marx exemplifies each of them: 1. He conceives human society on the basis of Dialectical Atomism, which he presents in his Dissertation, prior to his switching to emphasizing its Materialism; 2. As has been previously discussed, his promotion of Revolution is the harnessing, via Techne, of that Dialectical force; 3. He believes that the fruits of scientific discovery can significantly reduce, if not end completely, human need; and 4. He conceives the Means of Production to be the fundamental determinant of social organization, and the Means of Production are the fruits of scientific discovery, e. g. Industrialization.  But, as has been previously discussed, violence entailed by #2 might disqualify him as a Humanist.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Humanist Technology, Human, Cosmopolity

In its most common usage, 'human' is Atomistic--it connotes a property possessed by an individual person, e. g. that they "err".  In contrast, according to Humanist Technocracy, 'human' is Organicist--it connotes both a species and its members, conceiving them as a Whole and its Parts.  Accordingly, one way to de-humanize a person is to treat them as an inanimate object, and another is to detach them from their species, e. g. the Theology of the Salvation of the Individual Soul, which purports to rescue a person from a cursed species.  So, the locus of Humanist Technocracy is the human species, and, hence, the fundamental Political unit is the Cosmopolity, i. e. the doctrine is planetary, though, in the future it could become interplanetary.  Accordingly, Nations and Cities are subdivisions of the Global Village, or, in other words, the prominent Nationalist and Civic traditional Political Philosophies are obsolete with respect to Humanist Technocracy, e. g. "foreign" no longer has meaning.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Marxism

As has been previously discussed, Private Property is not necessarily inimical to Humanist values, so, in that respect, Capitalism can be consistent with Humanist Technocracy.  Similarly, insofar as the abolition of Private Property can be Humanist, Socialism can be consistent with Humanist Technocracy.  And, just as the dogmatic acceptance of the Invisible Hand is antithetical to any Technocratic principles, so, too, is that of the Dialectical Materialist concept of History.  However, Humanist Technocracy also resolves one of the significant incoherences in Marxism--that Revolution is the product both of a necessary natural Dialectical process, and of the ascendant self-determination of the Proletariat.  For, those two are combined in Techne, i. e. in the deliberate harnessing of a natural force, no different from that of wind power.  But, then, Revolution is subject to the criteria of Humanist Technocracy--that it is successful as a means to Socialism, and that its violence is the only means to overcoming de-humanizing Capitalist exploitation. Now, the former is arguably so, but the latter has not been universally embraced by Socialists, with even Trotsky equivocal about it.  So, while Dogmatism is the reason for the rejection of the Invisible Hand by Humanist Technocracy, the concrete violence of Technical Dialectical Materialism is, if not sufficiently anti-Humanistic, at least problematically Humanistic, at best.

Monday, February 12, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Capitalism

Since, as even Marx recognizes, Private Property can promote Humanist values, e. g. as a development from Feudalism, Capitalism is not inherently precluded in Humanist Technocracy on that ground alone.  However, the principle of the Invisible Hand of the Market, and commonly associated propositions, is antithetical to the doctrine.  For, the Technocratic doctrine requires efficacy, but that such an entity even exists is dubious by its original formulator's own Empiricist standards. Furthermore, that, as its proponents claim, the principle is an effective source of social Justice has not been easy to verify--persistent economic inequality, often defended by question-begging arguments, e. g. that poverty is deserved, is a common counter-example.  Still, even granting that effectiveness, it does not suffice as a protection against a violation of Laissez-Faire policy upon which many advocates insist.  For, that success does not entail that further improvement on Humanist grounds is impossible, whereas for the Humanist Technocrat, the possibility of improvement is always open to experimental determination.  So, any incorporation of Capitalism into a Humanist Technocracy requires the jettisoning of its Dogmatic Invisible Hand thesis.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Democracy

A Humanist Technocrat conceives society as a Whole.  But, the concept of Humanist Technocracy does not entail a specification of quantity of Technocrats.  Thus, depending on circumstances, in a society there can be one Technocrat, many Technocrats, or even everyone can conceive the Whole.  In other words, a Humanist Technocracy can be a Monarchy, an Oligarchy, or a Democracy, depending on circumstances.  For example, Rousseauian Democracy, in which each citizen conceives of, and votes to promote, the General Will, is a rudimentary Democratic Humanist Technocracy.  But Lockean Democracy is not a Technocracy--each citizen votes to promote their own self-interest, as is the case in any Atomist society, in which the Whole is merely Nominal, and, hence, is antithetical to Humanism.  The United States of recent decades is an example of such Atomism, i. e. is only nominally "united".

Saturday, February 10, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Super-Efficiency

With Efficiency defined as the ratio of output to input, maximum Efficiency is often conceived as 1:1, i. e. nothing is wasted.  Accordingly, what can be called Super-Efficiency is constituted by a ratio greater than 1.  Now, many regard Super-Efficiency as impossible; but that thesis presupposes a closed system, e. g. one governed by a principle of Conservation of Energy.  In contrast, Evolutionism accommodates the possibility of systematic openness, and, hence, of Super-Efficiency.  Thus, because Humanist Technocracy promotes the interests of the Human species, and Evolution may be the fundamental principle of any Species, in Human Technocracy, Super-Efficiency is a higher value than maximum Efficiency.

Friday, February 9, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Efficiency

The concept of Technocracy has often been associated with the principle of maximizing Efficiency.  In those contexts, Efficiency is defined as the ratio between output and input, i. e. with respect to which the standard use of 'Efficient Cause' is a misnomer.  Recently, in a Political context, Efficiency has been most recognizable as a criterion for Energy production, and Socialists have invoked it to promote the Labor theory of Value.  But, Efficiency can also be used to justify Slavery, which for an owner involves minimum upkeep and maximum productivity.  Now, common to these cases is a Atomist concept of Technocracy, often under the influence of a Newtonian system, i. e. in which members of society are inherently co-independent, so their relations are associationist, and their interactions are mechanist.  In contrast, a Humanist Technocracy is Organicist, so that Efficiency is a characteristic of both the Whole and its Parts, and maximum Efficiency requires the cultivation of the maximum well-being of its members, as well as of the maximum fruitfulness of their interactions.  Under such conditions, Efficiency becomes Gracefulness, just as Techne is both a Scientific and an Artistic Virtue, as is exemplified by da Vinci.

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Humanist Technocracy and Medieval Theocracy

Humanist Technocracy is a Political system that combines Humanist and Technical principles.  The implication in it of Techne is three-fold: in the production of goods, in the organization of society, and as a focus of character-building.  The Humanist dimension entails the interests of both the Human species and its members, i. e. Humanist Technocracy avoids the dehumanization to which other varieties of Technocracy are susceptible, e. g. mechanistic organization, the promotion of destructive 'technology', etc.  Thus, Humanist Technocracy is antithetical to the predominant Medieval Theocracy in two ways.  First, its privileging of Techne, of which Experimental Reason is an essential phase, challenges the criminalization of it that is the root of the Theology of Salvation, i. e. the events described in Genesis 3.  Second, its promotion of the interests of the Human species is counter to a Salvation that detaches an individual immaterial Soul from an allegedly cursed Species.  Thus, Humanist Technocracy is a more radical departure from Medieval Theocracy than is an Atomist Political doctrine that preserves that detachment, e. g. the concept of Individual Right, even as it jettisons the premise of the existence of a deity.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Experimentation, Fall of Humankind, Ascent of Humankind

Creationism vs. Evolutionism is a Cosmogonic debate that usually distracts from the more substantive Moral challenge that the latter poses to traditional Theology.  While the original Astronomical premises of that Theology are destroyed by the repudiation of Geocentricism, its Ontological premises remain intact--its deity as a maximum, and, hence, perfect entity, with respect to which lesser entities are imperfect.  Now, in that Theology, according to the opening sequences of Genesis, humans enjoy some post-Creation perfection, i. e. existence in Eden.  However, their experimenting is the occasion of a disastrous and fateful Fall from that perfection.  So, the more consequential challenge that Evolutionism poses to the Theology is its theme of Ascent.  The theme in general is entailed in the concept of Evolution, and is instantiated by experimentation that can lead to an increase in the well-being of humans.  So, the inversion that Evolutionism effects with respect to traditional Theology transforms Experimental Reason from an, at best, Morally tainted status, to inherently Good.

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Techne, Habit, Experimental Reason

According to Aristotle, Techne is a Virtue, Virtue is a Habit, and habits are permanent acquisitions.  In contrast, following Hume's implication that a Habit is a past pattern that is only projected to continue in the future, Kant conceives Virtue to be not a permanent acquisition, but the indefinite product that is constantly subject to challenge.  Accordingly, Know-how, too, must be continuously updated if it is to be maintained.  But, then, for even the expert, every new exercise of skill is a test of what has been established, thereby revealing Techne as a mode of Experimental Reason.  Aristotle recognizes that the products of Techne, e. g. a work of Art, might not follow necessarily, but not that some skill itself, even Mathematical, is necessarily effected.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Eden, Techne, Experimentalism

The first knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve acquire is what happens if one disobeys one's deity.  But that curiosity precedes the eating of that fruit.  So, if such Knowledge is Techne, then the serpent in Eden is Experimental Reason, the fundamental principle of which is the interrogative What If?  Nor does the eventual attainment of Know-how eliminate that uncertainty--even experts are constantly learning something new, thereby revising their Techne.  So, as the long history of the Theological reaction to the events of Genesis 3 indicates, the fundamental opponent of Experimentalism is Dogmatism.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Techne, Superman, Miscegenation

Probably the most common interpretation of the term "knowledge" that appears in Genesis 3 is "having unauthorized sexual relations", while a second one, akin to a Promethean reading, is Techne, i. e. that Adam and Eve steal Know-how from God.  So, miscegenation can be doubly Theologically criminal Now, some passages suggest that Nietzsche's Superman is a product of such Techne, i. e. of deliberate human cross-breeding, and it is for this goal that in his prologue Zarathustra judges humans to be not ready.  Plus, this superior being is plainly beyond the Christian Morality that is Nietzsche's target throughout his oeuvre.

Saturday, February 3, 2018

Techne and Superman

Superficially, Nietzsche's Superman and the Superman of American fiction are only nominally related--the superiority of the former is Psychological, while that of the latter is Physiological.  However, one more direct link is that one of the obstacles that Nietzsche's character overcomes, via Self-Affirmation, is "the Spirit of Gravity", expressed by conformist Morality.   So, it, like its correlate, in a sense can 'fly'.  But, a third type of flying, an actual one, arises in the decades in between the first appearances of the other two--that of a flying machine, which overcomes Physicist Gravity.  So, perhaps if Nietzsche were to live a few more decades, he might have witnessed a more profound overcoming, over a force long conceived to be insuperable, ascribable to not the merely Psychological Self-Affirmation, but to the Techne that empowers it, a Knowledge that, too, is beyond conformist Morality.

Friday, February 2, 2018

Techne, Power, Gravity

The expression 'Knowledge is Power' is often interpreted as 'To know X is to have power over X'.  Thus, as has been proven in the past century, to know that Gravity = Mass x 32 ft./second-squared is to have power over it, to overcome it e. g. with a flying machine.  But, on closer examination, G is fundamentally a formulation of what is required for a human to fly, i. e. i. e. the exertion of a force greater than G, from which the concept of 'power over G' is derived.  In other words, knowledge of G first empowers its possessor, with power over G a consequence.  Likewise, more generally, Techne is a Knowledge that is Power primarily because it empowers the Knower.  Accordingly, 'Knowledge is Power' fundamentally means 'Knowledge Empowers'.

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Techne and Definition

In Novum Organum, Bacon establishes an Inductive Logic vs. Deductive Logic contrast with Aristotle.  A less recognized Modern divergence from Ancient Philosophy is presented by Spinoza--his concept of Definition.  Implicitly targeting Aristotle's concept as constituted by some general term and some differentia, he proposes what has become characterized as an Operational concept, constituted by a formulation of what he calls the Proximate Cause of the definiendum, e. g. Circle = the figure described by a line with one end fixed and the other end free, as opposed to the traditional = set of points equidistant from a point.  In other words, insofar as a Definition expresses Knowledge, Spinoza is contrasting Techne to Theory in his concept.  Perhaps if he had emphasized in the Ethics that such a Definition is an Adequate Idea, that the work replaces Theory with Techne might be better recognized.