Monday, January 14, 2008

Me: The Mutation

This blog posting may appear as 100 per cent indulgent. I am going to talk about what I like. But the idea is not to propagate readers -you are not being asked to be like me. The focus is on two axioms:

  1. No one is entirely alone in their preferences and methodologies. If I prefer, contemplate, or do something, there are others doing the same.
  2. Humans have been evolving in very separate ways, grouped by continents (influenced by unique climates and landscape), and even more so in the last 5,000 years with culture (not nature) being the filter for surviving mutations.

These axioms are the a priori assumptions to keep in mind as you look at

Me: The Mutation: My Ambient Environments:


ice, mountains, and technology

rock and ice topped mountains

concrete bridges

power and communication towers

high population density
(city)

high population density
(remote village)

high altitude, treeless plains

big city urban core

command line interface

data link to globe

buckethead types of music

caffeine

surveillance

long tail economics

The point of listing these cognitive artifacts/biota is to press for their antithesis -all the types which do not fit on the list. Now think of all the humans that function at optimum on the antithesis list.

Those humans are of a different evolutionary track. We are genetically different.

Supporting and supplemental documentation:
The neural bases of complex tool use in humans

Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A., & Laland, K. N. (2006). Towards a Unified Science of Cultural Evolution. Behav Brain Sci, 29(4), 329-347; discussion 347-383
Human-Computer Interaction: Cognitive Science, Memes and Evolution.
21st Century Public Safety

Buckethead video.

Long tail economics theory.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure I agree with all of this...especially the caffeine part...

Anonymous said...

Hi Lance

Relative to your most recent "indulgent" blog (aren't all blogs indulgent?:) since you asked, I'll tell you -- it gave me a clearer understanding of you and why we see things from such opposite points of view. What I found most interesting though is something we have in common -- our apparent attraction/repulsion to people.

Acknowledging and integrating these polarities, seeing them as expressions of each "mutational" aspect of the whole and finding balance through intention (or design) is what I consider my life's work. This is process to me -- and examining the repulsion (need to be separate from) aspect has been very interesting indeed. And not unlike what we discovered about managing polarities at AUS, it involves the element we have of choosing to move beyond it -- which to me is transmutation.

Which perhaps is why, beyond my initial reactive dislike of your word use "mutation", I take exception to it... because we are always changing. And we have the ability to do so.

and how this relates to oncoming birth of your son, North? as a mutation, as a miracle?

A