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Nested and Meshed Frameworks: A methodology for dissecting events
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[1] Why: My personal motivation for pursuing this.At the end of 2022, I found myself looking at Western Civilization and unable to describe what I was witnessing.
I imagine my experience would be similar to waking up one day to find myself unable to comprehend and make meaning of my native language.
It was as if Western Civilization had become something alien and apart, something inexplicable. I no longer felt at home within the society and culture in which I'd lived my life.
I needed to resolve this gap or forever feel lost within my own home.
Hence this effort.
[2] Concepts underlying the methodology.I have a long background working in software engineering and later as an internal engineering/IT consultant for a number of large multinational technology companies. Throughout my career, I have worked on products and systems that have to work 24x7x365 or people die, and/or large sums of money are lost.
I.e. I'm used to dealing with complex problem/solution sets where the methodological framewok matters.
Concepts like problem decomposition and solution synthesis from my engineering experience inform this methodology.
I also draw upon 'object oriented,' techniques from software engineering, with the principle of inheritance from object orientated software forming a key feature of the method, as we move from general to specific elements - this will be made clear in the example below.
I also make use of set theory, especially for meshed frameworks which typically represent an intersection of sets.
And of course, there is 'framework,' if we consider this definition from: REF: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...
We have,
"1: a basic conceptional structure (as of ideas) the framework of the U.S. Constitution
b : a skeletal, openwork, or structural frame."
The method is designed to enable the analysis of events. The frameworks of relevance are those that inform events.
I.e. Axiom: All events occur within an informing framework.
Hence, if we understand the framework, we will understand the events.
[3] Working assumptions subject to dispute.For a start, this axiom, All events occur within an informing framework.
Disprove this and it all falls apart.
Via contrapositive, if A, then B, if not B, then not A.
If every event has an informing framework (A), then there will be no 'naked,' events without an informing framework (B).
If a naked event exists (Not B), then All events occur within an informing framework is false, and my argument is likely a failure.
[4] A preliminary working example of the method to explicate its structure, meaning and implementation.NESTED Frameworks governing events
The foundational framework is 'FW: Physical Reality' which is composed of a meshed framework 'MFW: Physics-Chemistry,' which informs all possible physical events in this universe.
I.e. All (universal set) physical events will conform with the MFW: Physics-Chemistry. There will be no events (null set) that contravene the MFW: Physics-Chemistry.
I.e. Are you with me so far. There are no events that will contravene the physical laws of the universe. If we discover a novel event, that only means we haven't understood the MFW: Physics-Chemistry, not that MFW: Physics-Chemistry is not comprehensive.
MFW: Physics-Chemistry encapsulates the operation of time, matter, energy, and the specifics of carbon chemistry that enables carbon-based life.
FRAME 0: MFW: Physics-Chemistry.
The meaning of Nested. One frame fully encapulates and governs the operation of a deriviative frame.
(Setting Geology and other frames aside) we have Nested FRAME 1: Carbon Based Life, which is nested within the MFW: Physics-Chemistry frame, hence all operations of life will be in conformance with the MFW: Physics-Chemistry frame.
I.e. Are you with me so far. I.e. All life will conform to the possible set of events dictated by the encapsulating MFW: Physics-Chemistry frame.
FRAME 1: Carbon Based Life
I'm going to skip the intermediate frames of animal vs plant, chordata vs etc, etc, etc... down to FRAME 2: Human Life, which inherits all the informed limitatations of the preceding frames.
FRAME 2: Human Life Being a deriviative frame, all human events will conform with the available set of FRAME 0: MFW: Physics-Chemistry, and FRAME 1: Carbon Based Life constraints. I.e. No one gets to flap their arms and fly to the moon...
Thus we have the following structure...
FRAME 0: MFW: Physics-Chemistry informing
FRAME 1: Carbon Based Life informing
FRAME 2: Human Life
Now it gets interesting as we delve into the frames that inform Western Civilization and its operation.
The frameworks informing the operation of Western CivilizationREF: Comment below: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I suspect I know where this is going. However, I'll withhold critique of as yet unstated Frames.From what has been stated Frames 0 and 1 invite Determinism which undermines all moral arguments.
Further Frame 0 is a proposal in the site of God. We have some predictive models which work fairly well from specific perspectives, but the moment we change perspective our models collapse. For example, consider gravity in a Relativistic universe and a Quantum universe. Both seem to be true, but we don't know how. In short, the Universe is under know obligation to make sense to us.
I'm a fan of free will and human agency... I'd not give it up lightly, but I'm not attempting to explain everything ... just the culture/society in which I'm living and the events that occur inside it.I could have established a God/Divine Agency frame as FRAME 0, but I didn't want to go there ... by the same token religious frames are abundant within the human culture frame.
I was being metaphorical in my paraphrasing.
I'm looking forward to where you go with this, Graeme.
1 early question for you tho...
Do any of your family, friends or peer group share your disbelief at what happened or do they think it was all perfectly rational?
1 early question for you tho...
Do any of your family, friends or peer group share your disbelief at what happened or do they think it was all perfectly rational?
If existing tools of rational explanation fail, the need for a new one becomes obvious. Prepared to follow the development and participate where I've something to say/ask
Beau wrote: "Do any of your family, friends or peer group share your disbelief at what happened or do they think it was all perfectly rational?..."We're a mixed bag, but no one has fallen out over it. We staunchly put family first and leave viewpoints at the door.
Can't wait to see where this goes, Graeme.
[2] Concepts underlying the methodology (additional).What I believe in 2023 is radically different from what I believed at the beginning of 2020.
The process I underwent reminded me of a couple of things.
[A] The parable of the rope and the snake from vedantic literature which has many forms, but which I'll express with my own words below.
"In deep evening, a man walks a woodland path toward his home. He sees a coiled object upon the middle of the hard dirt before him. He starts with fear and whispers, "A snake!" Fearing the snake and its terrible bite, but filled with need to get home to his wife and family, the man edges forward, thinking, perhaps I can sidle past it. As he creeps closer, the coiled object remains perfectly still. He stares at it, transfixed with foreboding until he spots a frayed end ... of ... rope. He pants, lifts himself to his full height, takes a deep breath in relief, then grins sheepishly to himself for being frightened of a rope. With a cheerful whistle he continues his walk home.
[B] A paradigm shift, where what was previously understood as fundamental truths no longer hold in a new paradigm. (Noting that any paradigm is subject to replacement).
"A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events."
REF (non-politicised (yet) article on Wiki): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradig...
Expect snakes to become ropes, and ropes to become snakes. A paradigm shift entails new meanings for old words, and sometimes re-establishing lost meanings.
In addition to the above, I hold that all important and useful ideas can be articulated with crisp, clear, actionable language that can be grounded and understood within the frame of common human experience.
I hold myself to that aim in all my communications.
Is corona a snake turned rope? What were your beliefs in 2020 and what are they now, Graeme?
You said, Graeme: "I hold that all important and useful ideas can be articulated with crisp, clear, actionable language that can be grounded and understood within the frame of common human experience."What criteria determine if an idea is "important and useful"?
Scout wrote: "What criteria determine if an idea is "important and useful"?.."Fundamentally, value judgements are personal, but there are many we'd agree on...
The point I'm making is that anything any of us deem to be important and/or useful should be able to be articulated with crisp, clear, actionable language.
I'm not here to sponsor some arcane jargon or hide ideas behind imcomprehensible word salads.
Once I delve into the framework structure for our modern western civilization a couple of things will show up that I'd like to put out here before I start, as they are both deriviative of some of the current, yet to be articulated frameworks.[1] Social Atomization: Simply defined as a process of moving to a position where you have no personal relationships that matter to you.
There is substantial evidence out there that this is increasing in society with marked negative effects on the welfare of people.
[2] Inner/Self Directedness vs Outer/Other Directedness: Simply put, will you own your self and be the captain of your own destiny OR will you blindly comply with the many and varied demands of others.
In essence, a battle for your soul is underway, and always has been. This particular conflict lives at the heart of western civilization and is in a particular difficult spot at the moment for those who would be masters of their own destiny due to the current frameworks in play.
On a positive note, there are clear methods to push back against social atomization and outer/other directedness, which I'll discuss later.
We can all benefit from practical philosophy. It's a good way of writing a non-fic book, btw :)
Nik wrote: "We can all benefit from practical philosophy. It's a good way of writing a non-fic book, btw :)"I'm just using this thread to clarify and test my ideas against an audience.
I'm with you so far. Looking forward to ways to push back.
Scout wrote: "I'm with you so far. Looking forward to ways to push back."Whatever anyone does has to be reachable.
Looks like this: REF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBH_m...
Our issues are primarily located within our culture. Culture is the sum total of values expressed through individual choices and actions.
Each of us has a choice about what we represent to the world around us.
I'll come to this later.
That's inspiring. It's what I do every day in my small part of the world. But is it enough? The Lord of the Rings trilogy pitted good against evil in a battle that ended when one guy's courage saved the day. Good for him. He had the power to save his world. His actions determined his fate and the fate of his world. If only we had that power. In our world, isn't it true that one person has very little power to influence the world he/she lives in? I don't see how your analogy applies.
Scout wrote: "That's inspiring. It's what I do every day in my small part of the world. But is it enough? The Lord of the Rings trilogy pitted good against evil in a battle that ended when one guy's courage save..."I'll start a thread on optimism, and we can discuss positives there, for despite the problems I see, for a variety of reasons I see hope too.
FRAME 3 (Derived from FRAME 2: Human Life Being) Human Biological Needs whereby all events meeting our needs to breath, drink, eat, shelter (clothing, housing, warmth, cooling), socialize (primates are social animals), have sex, raise children, etc occur.This drives a pair of meshed frames based around two distinct methodologies for meeting these needs.
FRAME 3.1 Extraction Based on negative and zero-sum games where value is transferred from one or more losers to one or more winners. For one person to win, someone else must loose. This view is associated with beliefs in resource scarcity and limitation and is best summed up as, "Its a dog eat dog world."
Catch phrases: "There's only so much pie. He who gets in first gets in best. Winners are grinners. Losers can go pound sand."
There are gentler expressions of this, but the above is the gist of the concept.
There are many moments in life, where there are only negative, or zero-sum games in operation.
FRAME 3.2 Collaboration Based on positive-sum games where two or more people collaborate to create value that is than shared between the collaborators. I.e. A win-win scenario. Like going to a party and taking a plate of food and a bottle of drink... many contributors, many sharers, no passengers, every has a good time, everyone goes home happy. This view is associsted with beliefs in the creation of value, transformation of resources, and creation of abundance and is best summed up with, "If we work together, we can all win."
Catch phrases: "We can make a bigger pie. He who arrives last can still be fed. We can all be winners."
In essence, this is the frame that generates all the consumable value in society.
DEFINITION: Value Value is that which we voluntarily seek to create, share and consume.
The voluntary nature of value creation/consumption is core, but I note a corner case where value can be created through slavery (involuntary/coerced creation) with voluntary consumption of the fruits of slave labour.
Given that Frames 3.1 and 3.2 are a meshed frame, we can derive frames that inherit from both.In a normal human life, we all begin in the extraction frame consuming value provided by our parents (or other guardians). At some point in our maturity, collaboration becomes are dominant theme and we begin creating value including surplus value siphoned off by employers, the tax man, banks, etc...
All of us (apart from pure extractionists) will participate in both frames over the course of a human life. Many of us will produce more value in our lives than we consume enabling the extractionist economy to exist.
In western civilization, we can argue that the dominant economic form encapsulating and expressing the Extractive/Collaborative frames is Frame 4 Capitalism.
ASSERTION There are two major modes (of interest) neither of which have pure forms in existence: Free-Market Capitalism which emphasizes the Collaborative frame, and Monopoly Capitalism with emphasizes the Extraction frame.
FRAME 4.1 Free-Market Capitalism Emphasizes voluntary interaction in a market, supports collobarative games to create value shared between market participants. Lots of peer-to-peer interactions.
FRAME 4.2 Monopoly Capitalism Emphasizes zero-sum games where value is extracted from market participants and transacted upwards to power centers within a heirarchy. Lots of up-down heirarchy interactions.
NOTE: I'm not trying to be exhaustive and articulate every possible frame, or all the frames I think exist. I'm targeting specific frames based on their capacity to inform events occuring in our culture/society today.
FRAME 4.2 Monopoly Capitalism (MC): Key Elements[1] Anti-Competitive: Once a monopoly is achieved, competition is derided as it only produces future competitors to the market hegemon. Competition and associated values such as meritocracy are actively suppressed.
Exemplified in The Godfather: REF: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pf8B...
[2] Dominated by Marketing/Propaganda techniques: "Do I want to sell you a new fridge? Let me sell you your whole life!"
Exemplified in the techniques of marketing/propaganda articulated in Propaganda by Edward L. Bernays which is fundamentally established with the use of techniques that bypass the reasoning/cognitive functions to solicit an irrational emotional response.
This has been so successful it dominates the marketing/propaganda approaches of modern society resulting in the deprecation of reason.
The perfect consumer never thinks for themselves.
[3] Atomisation/Social Isolation: MC fosters social isolation to drive market responsivness. A human being's susceptibility to being driven by market narratives is directly proportional to their social isolation.
The lack of significant/important social relationships renders people vulnerable to marketing/propaganda narratives aimed at their unmet emotional needs.
[4] Outer/Other Directedness, Loss of Self: MC suppresses frames associated with the development of a strong, grounded sense of self. Inner-directedness (trad wisdom, stoics, etc) , strong personal relationships (family, etc) are attacked as inner-directedness and a strong self blocks the operation of market/propaganda narratives.
[5] Market Control, Collectiveness, Co-Option of the State to Private Interests: Modern fascism, neo-fascism leading to the destruction of free markets and voluntary association, privacy, free speech, freedom of movement (15-minute cities), and all other human rights.
The fact that Monopoly Capitalism strives for controlled markets to facillitate endless rentier profit for establisbled monopoly elites confuses many people who associate market control with Marxism.
Marxism is dead, buried by Triumphant Monopoly Capitalism.
ideological AssimilationPost the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western Civilization entered its unipolar moment as the dominant hegemon of the world.
Drunk on success, Capitalism flooded the world and morphed into its own worst excesses - Monopoly Capitalism, which automatically implements neo-fascism (co-option of the state), market control, destruction of the family, atomisation of the individual, triumph of authority over market narratives = no free speech, free association, privacy, or freedom of movement...
Anti-Trust laws remained dusty and largely unused.
We saw 'Systemically Too Big to fail Banks,' bailed out by taxpayers in 2007-8-9 instead of broken up into 'safe corporation...'
The best description of this is by metaphor.
Imagine these dogs are Free-Market Capitalism, Marxism, Anarcho-Capitalism, Socialism, etc ... and Monopoly Capitalism is introduced into the cage.
REF: The Thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFavS...
At first the dogs are indifferent, after all MC is just another ideology ... isn't it.
But it isn't.
Monopoly Capitalism can not allow a competitor. It consumes all and regurgitates it into more MC, just with the appearance of what it once was.
Traditional Marxism has not conquered the Westen Establishment - no, it was the other way around. The establishment ate Marxism and regurgitated it as MARXISM(TM) in the service of neo-fascist monopoly capitalism.
Every single modern 'true-believing' marxist in the West is aiding and abetting a totalitarian society based on the apotheosis of neo-fascist monopoly capitalism.
So, given the above...How does this allow us to understand the pandemic response.
For me, I'm not a believer in 'grand conspiracies,' there are simply too many moving parts in the pandemic response for a 'co-ordinated,' response by some ruling cabel to be belivable.
It's also demonstrable that the pandemic response was terrible in terms of mitigating harm to people while at the same time maximising market controls, select large corporation profits, while destroying small to medium enterprises and atomising personal relationships and driving loneliness and social disconnection.
In a monopoly capitalist system, these are all default outcomes based on long-standing co-option of the machinery of the state to the service of private interests.
The co-ordination of the pandemic response is an illusion generated by top level beareaucrats (Fauci, et al) simply doing what they have always done: represent their corporate clients and corporate interests aligned with state and corporate media managing approved 'market narratives,' in the service of control and profit.
I walked into 2020 thinking there was widespread respect for human rights, for reason, for the rule of law only to see all these things cast aside while those at the top of society seized the opportunity to entrench power, wealth, and control while people died and died from a disease that was was largely curable with off-patent medicines such as HCQ & Ivermectin.
The big positive of all this is that I'm far from alone in noticing that a mask has fallen away and the real nature of our current society has been revealed, and with that truth comes the opportunity to refuse to play the game, to push back, to exemplify core western values of human rights and human dignity.
And hence, I have hope for the future.
An interesting train of thoughts, Graeme. You are taking it into corona direction, which is fine, of course, although still somewhat "narrow". In corona times many governments confronted with a "specialist" issue, outsourced their responsibilities to "med experts" and adopted their recommendations, often blindly. Med experts in their turn chose the "cautious" approach and with it the whole baggage of techniques how they regularly do biz. There are industries that are close to monopolization or cartelization, there are those that still compete, although minimizing the number of players, and a "purer" one on a low/street level like a local butcher shop or pub.
Specifically re pharma we can observe how the market is cornered by regulation and otherwise, as the same drugs would often be much cheaper in Canada than in the US and you can't import them to preserve the higher prices. An interesting showdown to watch: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/he... , as things might be changing.
If Space X managed to squeeze through a monopoly of Lockheed and Boeing they are not as ironclad as it seems and we (public) still have a chance :)
A bigger question would be to what degree we want big biz significant in our lives and in what areas. In this sense China poised to subdue its superrich may be doing the right move albeit with draconian means.
What should be private and what public? We see previously public (through NASA and other agencies) space moving into private direction. As private always has a narrower range of concerns (regularly only profitability) often at the expense of other concerns of public interest - like ecology, safety, accessibility and others, not sure we want corporations everywhere. Private penitentiary system? Education? Healthcare? Police? Army? Housing? Each sphere can as easily be private/public with its own pluses and minuses.
Just thinking out loud, spurred by your super interesting venture.
In the initial comments below, I will detail the following elements.
[1] Why: My personal motivation for pursuing this.
[2] Concepts underlying the methodology.
[3] Working assumptions subject to dispute.
[4] A preliminary working example of the method to explicate its structure, meaning and implementation.