Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God looked upon ALL that He had made, and indeed, it was very GOOD. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. Gen 1

“Sect. 25. Whether we consider natural reason, which tells us, that men, being once born, have a right to their preservation, and consequently to meat and drink, and such other things as nature affords for their subsistence: or revelation, which gives us an account of those grants God made of the world to Adam, and to Noah, and his sons, it is very clear, that God, as king David says, Psal. cxv. 16. has given the earth to the children of men; given it to mankind in common.” Locke, Second Treatise Of Government, Of Property

“Another characteristic of a living society is that it requires food. In a museum the crystals are kept under glass cases; in zoological gardens the animals are fed. Having regard to the universality of reactions with environment, the distinction is not quite absolute. It cannot, however, be ignored. The crystals are not agencies requiring the destruction of elaborate societies derived from the environment; a living society is such an agency. The societies which it destroys are its food . This food is destroyed by dissolving it into somewhat simpler social elements. It has been robbed of something. Thus, all societies require interplay with their environment; and in the case of living societies this interplay takes the form of robbery. The living society may, or may not, be a higher type of organism than the food which it disintegrates. But whether or no it be for the general good, life is robbery. It is at this point that with life morals become acute. The robber requires justification.” Whitehead, Process and Reality, Chap III The Order of Nature, Section X

hierarchy => Greek - hiera+arkhein = sacred rites+to lead, rule

"The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again." Orwell, 1984

Organic means

all things [comprehensive scope]
work together for the sustainable good of all things [continuous coherence].

This echos the declarations God repeated each day in the Genesis creation story … “and God saw that it was good”. [For more listen to The earth and all that is in it: “good” for what?].

But there are immediate and apparent exceptions to this organic ideal beginning with, as Whitehead notes above, the fundamental notion of “food” for a “living society” which presents a paradox evoking a need for “justification” that what is taking place is somehow “good” for everything … somehow including the food.

Thus the notion of hierarchy [ie. subordinating one thing to another] arises from Nature herself by introducing a dimension [call it function, purpose, value, morality, rank, etc.] grounded in physical reality to rescue the organic from chaos when comprehensive scope appears to result in incoherence … even temporarily.

Hierarchy: first inherit then inhabit

In Java, each class can only be derived from one other class. That class is called a superclass, or parent class. The derived class is called subclass, or child class. You use the keyword “extends” to identify the [super]class that your subclass extends. If you don’t declare a superclass, your class implicitly extends the class “Object”. Object is the root of all inheritance hierarchies. OOP Concept for Beginners: What is Inheritance?

Most of us accept as self-evident the idea that each individual “thing” belongs to a “class” of similar things … and that all classes taken together make up the “universe”. The assumed existence of this ordering of individuals into classes of a universe is the foundation for order and predictability on which we rely in living every minute of every day.

But our reliance is not directly on the actual ordering itself but rather on our partial understanding and incomplete articulation of our limited perception of the ordering as we observe it across the universe of physical things.

We assume the physical things we observe as discrete individuals in the universe [oikos] inherit their common characteristics from real metaphysical classes in a higher, comprehensive and coherent hierarchy [logos] … a combination we will call oikos-logos ~ or Ecology.
Ecology is then understood [ie. observed, named, articulated and culturally incorporated] by sentient individuals living in societies [human or otherwise] as ideas and actions which are believed to more or less reliably “work” for the purpose of managing [nomos] those same physical things in the universe [oikos] … giving us oikos-nomos ~ Economy.

Nomos reliability is thus correlated with

accuracy … how closely the nomos articulation approaches the logos and
specificity … how [in]discretely the nomos is constructed.
eg. for the man/society who/which possesses only a hammer [low nomos specificity], everything is a nail [low nomos reliability].

Thus nomos inherits from oikos which relies on logos to “hold every thing together”. Nomos and logos are linked by oikos … all three concepts presuppose one another to make the term “organic” meaningful. We might rename

the three levels of this hierarchy as Creator, Creation and Creatures,
the Creator’s thoughts and actions sustaining the Creation as oikos-logos or Ecology,
the Creatures’ thoughts and actions managing the Creation as oikos-nomos or Economy
and the process of reconciling sustaining to managing … Ecology to Economy … as Education … thus the 3e’s.

But inheritance must descend one more level to be complete and to begin the transformation in which it reverses direction and becomes inhabitance.

MONOS and the mandate to inhabit

“For the upright will inhabit the land,

and the blameless will remain in it;

but the wicked will be cut off from the land,

and the unfaithful will be uprooted.” Proverbs 2

“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!

For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.” Joel 3:14

“[T]he world is not such that one thing has nothing to do with another, but they are connected. For all are ordered together to one end, but it is as in a house [oikos - eco], where the freemen [monos] are least at liberty to act at random [nomos], but all things or most things are already ordained for them [logos].” Aristotle’s Metaphysics Book XII

“In each concrescence, whatever is determinable is determined, but there is always a remainder for the decision of the subject-superject of that concrescence. ... This final decision is the reaction of the unity of the whole to its own internal determination. This reaction is the final modification of emotion, appreciation, and purpose. But the decision of the whole arises out of the determination of the parts, so as to be strictly relevant to it.”

Thus far we have proposed a comprehensive and coherent hierarchy with inheritance from universal classes [logos] through physical things [oikos] to management beliefs [nomos]. But if these beliefs are to be meaningfully “held”, we must continue by allowing for the instantiation of the individual physical thing [monos] within a class where the inheritance can be “received”. For example, we can talk about snowflakes, but no two individual flakes are identical, and thus Nature makes it obvious that something besides class inheritance is at work in creation resulting in a multitude of unique individuals within a single class … and that something is power.

Each individual inherits down through the same path: logos > oikos > nomos > monos. In this manner, much … but not all … of what the individual will think and then do is determined in advance by the inherited nomos. And yet when this inheritance reaches the individual it is mixed with a personal power to decide [as Locke puts it]

what is necessary to be retained from the inherited nomos and
what, if anything, is at liberty to be rejected from, reformed in or added to the nomos.

The collective power of individuals to reform the nomos [and in so doing change the future inheritance] is based on each individual’s personal power

to observe and reinterpret the oikos [observation] or
to “access” the logos [inspiration] which must then be affirmed by observation.

Inhabiting, then, is the process by which each individual [having receiving the inherited nomos]

decides [ by observation and/or inspiration] to reinterpret the oikos in such a way that,
with sufficient support from others making the same reinterpretation over time,
the nomos is reformed and the inheritance to the next generation is changed
rendering the inherited nomos progressively either more or less reliable [ie. either more or less accurate as a reflection of the logos and oikos].

Ontostrosy: 4 levels of being

ontostrosy - ὄντος (ontos) ‘being’ + στρώση (strosi) ‘layers’

“While the nineteenth-century ideas deny or obliterate the hierarchy of levels in the universe, the notion of an hierarchical order is an indispensable instrument of understanding. Without the recognition of ‘Levels of Being’ or 'Grades of Significance’ we cannot make the world intelligible to ourselves nor have we the slightest possibility to define our own position, the position of man, in the scheme of the universe. It is only when we can see the world as a ladder, and when we can see man's position on the ladder, that we can recognise a meaningful task for man's life on earth. Maybe it is man's task -or simply, if you like, man's happiness - to attain a higher degree of realisation of his potentialities, a higher level of being or 'grade of significance’ than that which comes to him 'naturally': we cannot even study this possibility except by recognising the existence of a hierarchical structure.” EF Schumacher, Small is Beautiful, Chap 6: Education

The concepts we are introducing are not new to most, but the common context into which we are placing them may be. An easy way to think of them is using EF Schumacher’s notion of levels of being which we have the privilege to inherit then inhabit … or to lose … over multiple generations. For ease of remembrance we might call these 4 levels of being the ontostrosy … and designate them as 4c’s

Creator [logos] - the real unity of all things enabling oikos to work [truth]
creation [oikos] - the physical actuality of all things working together [beauty]
culture [nomos] - the nominal management of oikos thru freedom & necessity [law]
creature [monos] - the personal discovery of truth & beauty to formulate nomos

We might attempt to combine these 4 levels of being graphically to better understand how they are related and how they work together. In doing so, we have used the 7 days of creation to reveal different aspects of the oikos.

Logos provides the range of possible [potential] configurations of all things in oikos. Nomos has the collective power to determine which potential configurations of oikos will be actualized. It also acts as the ligament [ie. religion, rule, domus, dominion, etc.] binding oikos/creation to monos/creature. Finally, nomos [as collective power] is continuously reformed by monos/creatures as the individuals in which actual power resides.

Nomos can be stretched [usually over generations of monos] away from logos in an ill-fated attempt to manage/plan oikos in a way that is simply not possible per the logos. In such cases, nomos can reach a breaking point … in what might be called multi-generational nomocide. The ramifications of nomocide are pervasive [including ecocide] as examined in RM Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences [1948] and graphically portrayed in the following section.

The pathogenesis of nomos collapse … nomocide or “falling away”

pathogenesis - πάθος (pathos) 'disease' + γένεσις (genesis) 'creation'

“Again, the sins of the fathers are being visited on the third and fourth generations who now find themselves growing up without moral instruction of any kind. The men [of the nineteenth century] who conceived the idea that 'morality is bunk' did so with a mind well-stocked with moral ideas. But the minds of the third and fourth generations are no longer well-stocked with such ideas: they are well stocked with ideas conceived in the nineteenth century, namely, that ‘morality is bunk’, that everything that appears to be 'higher' is really nothing but something quite mean and vulgar.” EF Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, 1973

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thes 2

Each successive monos generation starts where the preceding monos generation ended which tends to make the level of inhabitance by the monos associated with the nomos over time a progression either approaching towards or departing from the logos and oikos. The convergence or divergence of the logos and nomos tend to pull the oikos in the same direction as the nomos.

If the departure of the nomos reaches a breaking point … due denial of the logos and detachment from the oikos ... the nomos will suddenly collapse [ie. it will “fall away” from the oikos and the logos] and the oikos will immediately be drawn back towards the logos [ie. the linkage between heaven and earth will begin to be restored].

Scheler, McGilchrist, Cicero, Paul of Tarsus

The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis

A conversation between Iain McGilchrist, John Vervaeke and Daniel Schmachtenberger,

recorded at Merton College, Oxford, in September 2023

[00:58:48:02] Transcript

40:41 Distinctions for an Ontology of a Meaningful Universe

McGilchrist:

“When I talk about values, I'm thinking of a hierarchy drawn up by Max Scheler, the German early twentieth-century philosopher, in which he had a hierarchy of values, at the base of which was utility, and this is the lowest level of his values. And then there came things like, he called them values of life, Lebenswerte, but these were values of fidelity, magnanimity, generosity, bravery, and so forth, a lot of which seemed to have gone out of fashion. And then above that came beauty, goodness, and truth, the spiritual or geistige of Arthur, and then the top of the apex of the pyramid was the sacred.

“And I think that structure has been incredibly helpful to me in seeing what we're getting wrong, because the value—the only really driving value of the left hemisphere is utility. It's evolved in order to serve utility for us. And of course we need it because it's very useful. But we mustn't think that this answers our questions, or at least this sort of level of value is going to give us the fulfillment that is promised to us by our culture, which is all about acquisition and greed and competition: typical values of the left hemisphere. So when we come to talk about purpose and its relationship with meaning, what I would say is, first of all, to make the distinction, which really, we've made, but it's the distinction between Carse’s finite games and infinite games. Finite games have a purpose and when you’ve achieved it, the game is over. Infinite games are things that have their value in being performed at all, and therefore eternally have that value. We've got locked into the type of belief that everything is a finite good, which it very clearly can't be, and the things that give us meaning, I think, are for very obvious reasons not specifiable as extrinsic goals: we should try and do this and make that, and so on.

“There's a level at which we have to guide ourselves and think, “Well, we need to make a conscious effort to shift our values.” But in the end, these things are not going to be of that kind. They're going to be openness to an attractive force. And those attractive forces are many, but they can boil down in some ways to three incredibly important things that give meaning to life, each of which has been more or less trashed by our current civilization.

“And the first is our relationship with society, our being bound to one another in the sense of religio, you and the the business of sharing one's life with people who share your values, whom you can trust, whom you can confide in, whom you can eat with, play with, and generally share a culture, which may be based on a religion, but has common rituals that we all understand. That is one thing and it is extremely difficult to find any such coherence in modern society for a host of reasons, which most people would be able to fill in for themselves. But we don't have that kind of cohesion anymore. And we are increasingly isolated, apparently by technology, and we live lonely lives. The UCLA Loneliness Index has shot up in recent years, and I think we’ve mentioned loneliness already. And it's one of the key things that people say when you ask them about their lives. They say they're lonely. No. Meaning can't come from any purpose in being with others and belonging in the social world and contributing to it in some sort of obvious extrinsic way. You can't specify ahead of time what that value will be. You only know it in the experiencing of it. This isn't the problem. It's the swimming problem. You can't have a manual that tells you how to swim. You sit on the bank of the river reading, no idea how to swim. You have to get in the water.

“The second is a relationship with the natural world in all its complexity and beauty. So for most people, until very recently, it was almost impossible for their lives not to be enmeshed with the surrounding natural world. Only in the last, perhaps one hundred fifty years or so have we become isolated from nature. And this is like a really important divorce, a very, very important one. The divorce from one another is very important. The divorce from nature, the sense of it as an “environment,” which is a technical term for something that surrounds you, but not what you are born out of, which is what nature really means, and what you return to.

“And the third is the relationship to a realm of something beyond this. Again, we've mentioned this, I believe, but it is the transcendent realm or the realm of the spiritual or the sacred. And this to a lot of people now, they've been trained to think that this is a rather negligible issue, that it really is a kind of vestige of something that hangs over from a primitive time when people weren't properly educated and they invented superstitions to try and explain life. And I mean, that is such a terrible, terrible diminution and tragedy of what it is—a travesty of what I’m talking about—and it is a tragedy.

“And so those three things are what I believe fundamentally are most important for bringing meaning to our lives. I can't specify, obviously, what the meaning is. You know, what is the meaning of life? A question you cannot answer, although I believe it's.

“But that's what I would say about that. And it relates to the [brain] hemispheres in this way: that the left hemisphere is designed only for acquisition and pleasure: getting stuff, having fun. It's more dopaminergically driven than the right hemisphere, it's more associated with addiction than the right hemisphere, and it's certainly more associated with getting a kick out of power and acquisition, whereas the right hemisphere is more able to open itself to the sacred and to these other higher values that I specified where we kept them now. So I think there is a very important thing there: that we're guided by something that literally doesn't see what it is that's pulling us—or should be pulling us—forward. That sense of direction or purpose in life and the values that call us forward. McGilchrist

“All that is morally right rises from some one of four sources: it is concerned either (1) with the full perception and intelligent development of the true; or (2) with the conservation of organized society, with rendering to every man his due, and with the faithful discharge of obligations assumed; or (3) with the greatness and strength of a noble and invincible spirit; or (4) with the orderliness and moderation of everything that is said and done, wherein consist temperance and self-control.” Cicero, De Officiis (15)

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” Phil 4:8

In all the thoughts above, we see remarkable references to one or all of the 4 levels of being This should make us less reticent to embrace these categories as helpful in distinguishing the proper epistemological methods to use to inhabit each level.

Utility + Left Brain = Doom

1:08:15 The Challenges of Binding Power with Wisdom

[must read or listen]

Life’s Swiss Army Knife: 10 Commandments integrating 4 levels of being

“Some Christian lawyers—some eminent and stupid judges—have said and still say, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law. Nothing could be more absurd. ... If Jehovah had been civilized, how much grander the Ten Commandments would have been." ― Robert G Ingersoll

Yet another historical example of human awareness of ontostrosy is the 10 commandments of Moses … which, inspite of Ingersoll’s angst, are the constitution for Mosaic law even as they reflect the foundation for “all law” in the broad sense of nomos which they accomplish by deftly revealing

nomos as merely one level in reality’s ontological infrastructure and
Economy, Ecology and Education as the three stages in reality’s metabolic system.

Wikipedia presents a provocative graphic suggesting that the nominal statement of the 10 commandments can be read as a numerical tapestry in which the 4 levels of being overlap at the edges where they are bound to one another with unbreakable tethers. For our present purposes, we will merely make some of the more obvious observations.

Commandments 1-3 establish logos as the highest level of being in reality and warn against intentionally confusing or attempting to dilute it with lower levels.
Commandment 4 establishes NATURE/the household [oikos] and family as the medium of exchange for logos and nomos making it clear that thru the oikos, logos [Ecology] evokes the nomos [Economy]. It also establishes that the resulting “tension” [or tautness as in a bow string] between Ecology and Economy is to be regulated via Education in a metabolic cycle that involves

engaging Economy [ie. work] for 6 days then
pausing from work for one day
to reflect on divergences resulting from the ideas and actions of Economy encountering the limits and consequences of Ecology.

Commandment 5 establishes the ecological family unit as the foundation for all subsequent formulations of nomos … ie. community, society, collective, etc.
Commandments 6-9 establish the constitution for all detailed restatements of nomos.
Commandment 10 establishes the foundation for monos … or auto-nomos which is self-control.

As McGilchrist propose so elegantly in the section above, it takes two brain hemispheres to grasp and hold these 10 commandments and to exercise the 4 unique modes of knowledge [epistemology] needed to inherit and inhabit the 4 unique but connected levels of being in the universe. What could be more elegant? It’s like a Swiss Army knife for living !!!

Culture in context

“This is the way with so many issues: instead of analyzing the problem for ourselves, we let the group we identify with make the decision for us as to what we believe. A lazy way to live, requiring no thought, no study, no consideration, no introspection. … It has been my purpose to state the reasons which appeal to me in support of the doctrine [I hold], rather than to give authorities to sustain the theories advanced.” Resist Not Evil, Clarence Darrow, 1902

“Throughout our lives the proportion of necessity to freedom depends on our tolerance of conflict … [and] high among the uses of necessity is relief from tension. What we can’t alter we don’t have to worry about; so the enlargement of necessity is a measure of economy in psychic housekeeping … a way of establishing why we must continue to be what we have been, a way of disavowing choice with the apparent blessing of science. … If, however, the determining causes [of the present] of which we gain awareness lie within, or are brought within, our experience, and if we use this gain in understanding to create present options, freedom will be increased, and with it greater responsibility for what we have been, are and will become.” Wheelis, How People Change, Freedom and Necessity

Is “culture” … a lazy way to live … a brilliant feat of psychological efficiency … or both depending on the circumstances? Perhaps, it helps to put culture in context … as something sandwiched between nature and individual understanding … between true necessity and potential responsibility … as Economy is sandwiched between Ecology and Education.

Our point is that “culture” [ie. Economy] is both inherited through the class and inhabited by the individual members. When what is inherited and what is inhabited are inconsistent, conflict arises and requests resolution. The 3e-cycle is an attempt to portray this conflict as a purposeful and healthy metabolic process [if honestly embraced] rather than as a bipolar process of creative destruction. With this attitude, we may begin to transform life’s “rising and falling” into “round and round” resembling a small wheel on a long journey.

America and the collapse of western civilization

… more is coming here on the SPECIFIC events leading to the founding of America as the beginning of the collapse of western civilization …

The great detachment … losing the mediator

“Come now and let us reason together.” Isaiah 1

"For He is not a man like me, that I can answer Him, that we can take each other to court. Nor is there a mediator between us, to lay his hand upon us both." Job 9

They worship the work of their own hands. Is 2, Jer 1

For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images of mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity for the dishonoring of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. Rom 1

The creature cannot destroy the creator or the creation from which it inherits. But [s]he/it can [in what we will call a deviant nomos]

ignore [thru idolatry or image worship] or
reject [thru gnosticism]

the creation in either case resulting in a creature-induced detachment of creature from creator thru loss of the creation as a medium or mediator.

Of course, such a notion is foolish, since it implies the absence of hierarchy and inheritance which, as we have already seen, renders organic chaotic. And, as a result, embracing ignorance or rejection of the creation will have real consequences which must be both unexpected by and destructive of the deviant nomos. And this is where we are today in western civilization.

However, let us be clear. It is not an over-embrace of the creation which damns the creature but rather an under-embrace and an over-reliance on the creature’s autonomy [auto-nomos] rather than submission to economy which implicitly relies on ecology. I realize this is ALOT of terms to digest [another metabolic term], but making distinctions is vital to avoid confusion and to formulate remediation.

What is AI … the detachment of nomos from oikos.

"The operating system of every human culture [nomos] in history has always been language. In the beginning was the word. We use language ... to create mythology and laws ... to create gods and money ... to create Art and Science ... to create friendships and Nations. For example, human rights are not a biological reality [oikos] : they are not inscribed in our DNA: human rights is something that we created with language by telling stories and writing laws. Gods are also not a biological or physical reality: Gods too is something that we humans have created with language by telling legends and writing scriptures. Money is not a biological or physical reality: banknotes are just worthless pieces of paper and at present more than 90 percent of the money in the world is not even banknotes: it's just electronic information in computers passing from here to there: what gives money of any kind value is only the stories that people like bankers and finance ministers and cryptocurrency gurus tell us about money.

…

What we are potentially talking about [with AI] is nothing less than the end of human history. Now not the end of history, just the end of the human dominated part of what we call history as the interaction between biology [the oikos] and culture [the nomos]. It's the interaction between our biological needs and desires for things like food and sex and our cultural Creations like religions and laws. History is the process through which religions and laws interact with food and sex. Now what will happen to the cause of this interaction of history when AI takes over culture within a few years? AI could eat the whole of human culture." AI and the future of humanity, Yuval Noah Harari

Seen from another point of view, the Great Stereopticon is a translation into actuality of Plato’s celebrated figure of the cave. The defect of the prisoners, let us recall, is that they cannot perceive the truth [logos]. The wall before them, on which the shadows play, is the screen on which press, motion picture, and radio project their account of life. The chains which keep the prisoners from turning their heads are the physical monopoly [oikos] which the engines of publicity [nomos] naturally possess. Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver

By declining to speculate beyond physical reality, Harari could be described as a physicalist-nominalist to be contrasted with Richard Weaver as a realist … the first looks forwards from nomos to oikos but stops short of asserting any extra-temporal connection … while the latter dares to gaze beyond oikos and speculate about logos as the source of an eternal inheritance and inhabitance. [See the drawing above showing the vectors of inheritance and inhabitance].

However, inspite of their differences, both thinkers seem to agree

that AI occurs to the degree that human culture [in any form] detaches from physical reality … [nomos from oikos],
that this is true regardless of the way or reason the detachment occurs and, as such,
that AI is not new in 2023 but merely technologically enabled to move civilization into degrees of detachment never before probable in human history … with consequences that could spell the end of human history as such.

In this sense, when cultures turns inwards, intelligence becomes artificial … resulting in injustice, idolatry and a system of fiat [including but not limited to currency & credit] … which observations are totally consistent with even a casual reading of the Old and New Testament prophets [eg. Micah 6 or Matt 23]. And yet, who in today’s world has ever heard injustice, idolatry and fiat money linked together as co-results of a deviant nomos … since MLK was murdered?

IF we are to extend human history and escape AI in all its forms … ancient and modern … we must think and act in ways that discern, preserve and strengthen the hierarchical links between logos, oikos and nomos … between Ecology and Economy … and that is, perhaps, the role of Education.

Comprehensive and coherent

"Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of 'interpretation' I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme. Thus the philosophical scheme should be coherent, logical, and, in respect to its interpretation, applicable and adequate. Here 'applicable' means that some items of experience are thus interpretable, and 'adequate' means that there are no items incapable of such interpretation." ― AN Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1927

"My conclusion [that the collapse of industrial consumer societies has begun] was not purely based on the climate science. It was based on my decades of research and practice in a variety of fields at national and international level: business, finance, government, politics and activism. From that I knew how deep-seated our patterns of behavior are and how entrenched power is. In particular, I knew how growth demanding our economic and monetary systems are. Therefore my analysis would include the range of factors that maintain modern societies. It would be a huge undertaking and require a team to help. Writing these lines three years later, I didn't realize quite what a drag it would be on both me and my colleagues. We were an interdisciplinary team including an ecologist, agricultural scientist, heterodox economist, psychologist, ethicist, physicist, theologian and environmental journalist. I used an approach called critical interdisciplinary research analysis which I will explain in chapter 7. That approach allows me to embrace the power of science while not being as restricted by the cultural, economic and institutional influences as those Scholars who operate within single subject specialisms or for establishment institutions. Such restrictions are widely recognized by Scholars themselves including a group of leading scientists who concluded it means the possibility of global systemic collapse is being dangerously downplayed." ― Jem Bendell, Breaking Together. 2023

Though impossible to articulate completely, most of us have little trouble believing we live in a universe that somehow connects everything across time in a “process” of some sort that somehow “works” [from the Greek “organon”]. Examining this “process of reality” [ie. logos] is therefore a task to which we are irresistibly drawn and in which we are inevitably engaged.

However, we [being finite] can understand the process of reality only by focusing on an immediate part of it then more or less extrapolating our conclusions to other parts outside our initial focus. The extrapolation to other parts can take many forms including

determining [rightly or wrongly] that they align with our conclusions [incorporation],
accepting them [temporarily or permanently] when they appear inconsistent [paradox],
ignoring [temporarily or permanently] them [externalization] or
rejecting the possibility that they can ever be aligned [incoherence].

In this way, we [being finite] incrementally build our understanding of the process of reality … step by step … adding [assimilation] or altering [accommodation] fundamental concepts as we go in what might be called the “process of acculturation” [ie. nomos] … until

a prevailing inability to incorporate leads to persistent externalization and/or incoherence [ie. violence] or
the process of reality produces [gradually or suddenly] unanticipated and dis-existentializing consequences

at which point the “process of dissolution” begins.

PONR

“Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.” ― Albert Camus

point of no return ???

System thinking is metabolic … “what’s next”

metabolic - Greek meta+boli = “after, next”+ “throw”

“The three main purposes of metabolism are the timely

conversion of food to energy to run cellular processes;
conversion of food/fuel to building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates; and
elimination of metabolic wastes.

These enzyme-catalyzed reactions allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments.” ― Wikipedia

[For more on assimilation and accommodation, see Piaget.]

Wikipedia defines a system as

a group of interacting or interrelated elements
that act according to a set of rules
to form a unified whole
surrounded and influenced by its environment,
described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and
expressed in its functioning.

Let’s briefly examine each identifying characteristic.

Inter

“Quantum Field Theory treats particles as excited states (also called quanta) of their underlying quantum fields, which are more fundamental than the particles.” Wikipedia

From the Latin for “between, among”, inter distinguishes the individual element from the collection without losing the connection. A question that inevitably arises is whether the individual is sovereign from or subservient to the connection. The answer arises from whether one considers multiple individuals as

a collection [designating mere plurality but not purpose] or as
a connection with an existence, purpose, and value beyond any single individual.

Act+Rules

From the Latin actus+regula = "set in motion”+”in a straight line”, act+rule implies mass, acceleration and direction. They are combined because act implies rules just as force [F=MA] implies direction … the notions, though separate, presuppose one another in the nature of things so that one cannot be understood without the others.

Form+Whole

From Greek+Old English morphe+hal = "shape, beauty, outward appearance"+"entire, unhurt, safe, genuine”, form+whole implies a connection of individuals that is both comprehensive and coherent [at least internally].

Surrounded+Influenced

From Latin super+unda = "over"+"wave" and in+fluere = "into, in, on, upon" + "to flow", the notion is that even a genuine connection of individuals is itself an individual in a still more comprehensive connection in which it resides and with which it trans-acts to maintain its coherence. This hierarchy can be demonstrated by the following type of progression:

individual > population > community > ecosystem > biome > biosphere.

Described

From Latin de+scribere = "down"+"to write", a system’s description is the properties which give it internal integrity [eg. structure] and external relevance [eg. boundaries and purpose].

Production abilities & wants v. consumption needs & waste

Whitehead explains that an organism lives by acquiring and consuming sub-organisms from its environment as food, where the act of acquisition [aka production] is based on its individual, internal and subjective abilities and wants. This act of “economic robbery” requires “ecological [ie. moral] justification”.The purpose of a metabolism is to provide that justification by converting only the food consumed that is needed by the organism and disposing of what is consumed but not needed as waste. What is produced but not consumed may be saved.

The need-waste determination associated with all consumption is made by the metabolism based solely on the organism’s species-common needs [not the individual wants which motivated production]: it is an involuntary process as far as the organism is concerned. This implies a metabolic scale of values external to any volition of the organism which ruthlessly “imposes” common ecological limits & consequences on the organism’s consumption. Consumption in excess of common needs MUST ALWAYS become waste … and is morally unjustifiable. These harsh ecological, metabolic restraints were what Adam Smith referred to as the “invisible hand” regulating consumption in his Theory of Moral Sentiments:

“The rich only select from the [common] heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. When Providence divided the earth among a few lordly masters, it neither forgot nor abandoned those who seemed to have been left out in the partition. These last too enjoy their share of all that it produces.”

Those who imply that the “invisible hand” refers to some naturally just apportioning of wealth via a market meritocracy are mistaken. Even when used in the Wealth of Nations, the “invisible hand” is an ecological restraint based on a speci-common consumption attribute which is equal across members. It is not a reference to some mysterious, natural economic law of value based on subjective marginal utility.

“But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can, both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce maybe of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.”

In other words, the production of wealth is uneven based on individual economic abilities and wants. But the consumption of wealth is equal based on common ecological needs of the species. This is the obvious rule within the family where property rights are viewed collectively not individually.

“For it is not that others would have relief and you would have distress, But that your abundance might come together at this time with their lack of these things, so that their abundance also of those things would be for your lack, that there would be equality. As it is written: 'He who increased took no surplus and he who took little was not deprived.'” 2 Cor 8

“From each according to his ability [economy], to each according to his needs [ecology].” Marx, Gotha Programme

Expressed

From Latin ex+pressare = "out"+"to press, push", a system’s expression is the methods by which it changes itself and its environment in a way that can be understood and predicted which implies that it is cyclical.

As you can now see, we have combined

6x elements - ideas, actions, limits, consequences, assimilations, accommodations into
3x stages - Economy, Ecology and Education … to form
1x system - which unifies them and in so doing clarifies their individual meanings and purposes

in an iterative cycle … a metabolism … by which an idea is changed into other useful forms [including waste to be eliminated during accommodation] in order to become a new idea. By taking the system approach, we hope to discover more about all the things within the system than would be possible by considering them separately and in isolation.

Self-regulation via fractal opponent processing

The 3e-System

“The only thing worse than not requesting feedback is not acting on it.” ― Frank Sonnenberg

With a little imagination, we can envision our metabolism of the universe in the more familiar terms of

Economy - changes initiated by HUMAN ACTION
Ecology - meanings and values returned by NATURE’S HIERARCHY and
Education - processing the feedback from Ecology to Economy which enables progress.

A note on Economy

Using Mises’ broad definition of Economy as agent action [including human action], we will identify three levels of regulation for action.

Law - This is external regulation [eg. positive law] that explicitly grants privilege to or prohibits action by an agent enforced by coercion if necessary.
Responsibility - This is internal regulation [eg. etiquette, culture, customary law or natural law] voluntarily observed by an agent conforming to generally accepted norms in such a way that no significant or sustained objections thereto or damages therefrom result affecting other agents or the common environment.
Liberty - This is the state in which there are no external or internal regulations at the time an agent chooses to act in a certain way.

In practice, almost all agents begin life with both law and responsibility regulating them, although some argue that, in theory, we all begin in a state of pure liberty and proceed to responsibility and law only as necessary. When the agent wishes to act, the normal [from nomos] procedure would be:

Is it lawful? If NOT, then stop.
Is it responsible? If NOT, then stop.

Disagreement about what is responsible leads to law.

Proceed to exercise liberty.

The exercise of liberty is judged by Ecology which, via feedback through Education, may result in new responsibilities and/or laws.

By Economy, we do not mean Nature’s limits and consequences which we have designated as Ecology except to the extent that they, via feedback through Education, have been incorporated into Economy in the form of law or responsibility.

What is a “system”?

For those unaccustomed to system thinking, it can be daunting to imagine how Economy, Ecology and Education could be sequential steps in a repeating cycle. But a simple example explains this powerful idea.

Economy [Action] ->	Ecology [Nature] ->	Education [Feedback] ->
wolf pup kills and eats rabbit	wolf is strengthened	positive feedback
bear cub kills and eats mushroom	bear becomes sick	negative feedback

ACTIONS are extrapolated by NATURE with immediate and remote results providing FEEDBACK that reinforces and/or restrains future actions … uniting past, present and future in a continuous and potentially progressive stream. “Feedback” is merely the system term for information submitted to the actor’s cognitive processes which Piaget identified as assimilation and accommodation. One might say that during each cycle Education informs Economy about Ecology so that Economy can assimilate and accommodate more meaning and value from Ecology for the future.

Sometimes we qualify ACTION as HUMAN, but in our example we use animals. This reminds us that any “thing” capable of initiating action and receiving feedback from Nature uses the same 3e-system. Indeed, modern evolutionary theory implies Education [in the form of ecological cooperation as opposed to biological mutation] is one venue by which individual Economies seek [some would say compete for] their place in a comprehensive Ecology which continuously and coherently evaluates them vis-a-vis one another with feedback to all in the form of value judgments for whoever is listening.

Thus everything springs from the dynamic and creative cycling of these three co-fundamental forces … Economy, Ecology and Education … which can help explain our actual experiences and observations in life.

Defining Education as dialectical maturity

Any attempt to define “education” must first deal with defining “knowledge” and “learning”. If we follow Piaget, we might say that

knowledge = the “schemas” [or schemata] we possess and use to identify, relate and think about things
learning = the “process” or “metabolism” by which those schemas are formed and sustained which involves assimilation and accommodation.

The dialectic

Steve Keen offers a valuable alternative insight into how the dialectic occurs:

“[When Marx] starts to think in Hegelian [ie. dialectical] terms, what he talks about is [not the customary thesis, antithesis and synthesis but] foreground, background and tension. The way Marx's logic worked was that any entity is embedded in a society which will focus [foreground] on one aspect of that entity while the other aspects of the entity [background] are left in tact without [much consideration], until the foreground and the background [begin to diverge creating] a tension [within the entity] ... which, if unresolved, can transform BOTH society and the entity over time.” Value in economics Explained by Prof. Steve Keen 15:04, 2023

This vision of the dialectic is remarkably consistent with psychologist Iain McGilchrist’s notion of the double-minded brain:

Apprehend/Foreground - Some regions of the brain focus on “granular” questions, the exact representation and configuration of detailed local perceptions,
Comprehend/Background - Others enable the mapping of such perceptions in complex mutual relations, both in time and space.
If the former regions are affected by lesions or dysfunctions of any kind — strokes, tumors — quite a lot of what we regard as normal [nomos] perception survives.
If the latter are inhibited or disabled, the result is chaos.

which in turn corresponds with the ophthalmological phenomenon of mono or blended vision in which the brain “combines” two separate “views” [schema] into a single “vision” containing both close-up attributes [the foreground] and far-away attributes [the background]:

“Most people have a dominant eye (one that you prefer to see with if you had to close one eye). With monovision, the vision in your dominant eye is corrected for distance vision, while your other eye is intentionally left somewhat nearsighted to allow you to see close objects. Both eyes still work together, allowing you to see clearly at any distance. While this way of seeing may sound complicated, many people find they adapt well to this technique. In fact, with both eyes open, they may not be able to tell which eye is set for distance and which is set for near. … However, monovision is not for everyone. Some people find they [ie. their brain] simply cannot adapt to it.” What Is Monovision or Blended Vision?

Thus dialectical maturity might be thought of as the ability … acquired by practice … to resolve divergences by keeping BOTH foreground and background in focus simultaneously … or, as Schumacher explains above, by keeping the 4C’s in simultaneous focus at all times.

To combine all the above in a unified expression of sorts, we might say

the loss of one’s ability to apprehend the near-foreground [monos] is not fatal as long as the far-foreground [nomos] remains functional but
the loss of one’s willingness or ability to comprehend the far-background [logos] or the near-background [oikos] must eventually result in chaos and collapse. [Romans 1] and
keeping that focus is Education or the exercise of duty and reverence in the resolution of tensions that arises between the foreground [Economy] and the background [Ecology] of life.

Heuristics arise from then bypass Education

“If there are obstacles, the shortest line between two points may be the crooked line.” ― Galileo & Bertolt Brecht

Life would be simpler if the 3e-system was all we had, but it would also be more difficult. As anyone knows who has engaged it, Education is a time and resource intensive activity which, even when pursued with diligence, can never convey the dynamic, organic fullness of Ecology which inevitably presents Economy with obstacles … the unpleasant part of any Education … especially if negative feedback has been delayed or previously neglected. Thus, even though Education is ALWAYS the shortest distance between Ecology and Economy, there is ALWAYS a strong temptation to look for another, easier and less costly way forward.

To allow us to “keep moving” [short of some involuntary reflex] when our Education threatens to bring everything to a halt, Nature has provided us an alternative that takes the form of bypasses, shortcuts or overrides known as Heuristics or paradigms.

The argument for using Heuristics is that they arise from previous Education and are simply “held-over” for reuse to expedite future cycles by assuming ceteris paribus and eliminating the need to relearn.
The danger is that ceteris paribus is often false in a dynamic Ecology so that bypassing Education too often or too long results in the neglect of new feedback and the false reinforcement of prior feedback.

One way to picture Heuristics is as a channel inside the 3e-system that can be used to bypass part or all of Education while still providing a quasi-feedback [based on Education in previous cycles] which reinforces Economy.

Education and Heuristics differ in some important ways.

Education is open to consider the widest implications of an organic cosmos, while Heuristics limit the spectrum of relevant ecological valuations and economic actions.
Education engages metaphysical as well as physical issues, while Heuristics tend to accept established assumptions and focus on new measurements.
Education is a long term perspective, while Heuristics are short term solutions.
Education impartially considers new feedback, while Heuristics assume old feedback.

Bias

bias - a technical term in the old French game of bowls used to refer to balls made with a greater weight on one side, causing them to curve obliquely

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” ― Jonathan Swift

Heuristics rely on a bias which is used to interpret or override new value judgments arising from Ecology. The existence of a bias makes Education optional but not unavailable. A few notes about bias are helpful.

A bias from outside Ecology will cause quasi-feedback to Economy to diverge from what would have come through Education, since Education ALWAYS uses new feedback from Ecology to evaluate Economy.
A bias from inside Ecology means quasi-feedback to Economy will tend to parallel any new feedback from Ecology in the long run if one accepts the premises that Ecology is organic so that all its judgments are coherent over time.
When feedback from Ecology processed by Education is strong and consistent, it can reconstitute bias.