The Upward Spiral

Maybe there is a ratio of ever increasing concentrations of power and system disruption, for evolution to be continuing. For instance, humans have a higher concentration of power, able to use fabrications such as clothing, and heated buildings to live beyond the environmental bounds imposed on an animal using body heat and maybe a cave/nest. When a human goes to the South Pole or into outer space this exemplifies the higher concentration of power I refer to. In semiotics the written word is a greater concentration of power over oral histories.

The "glory" is not in the particular practitioners or instances, but in the practice. You are not superior because you can read, "literacy" is the superior "way". Ship building is the superior way, not the subgroup of humans who happen to own the most boats. A small group of people hoarding political power is not a concentration of power, but an attempt at reversing the trend of ubiquity. Thirty people on Earth knowing how to read means that writing is less powerful, everyone knowing how to read makes writing more powerful.

This greater concentration of power is the upward spiral in perpetual disequilibrium. But it would not be perpetual disequilibrium if it was absolutely linear, as absolute linear is a form of stasis. There needs to be systemic disruptions and challengers to to the upward spiral. Fads such a Primitivism, in which all concentrations of power are divested, are challenges to the upward spiral, But since anything anti-upward spiral is inherently not a concentration of power, it will lose energy and die. The upward spiral of concentrated power will co-opt and injest the energy of the dying antithetical challenger, and become stronger.

Progress.

Meme Spreading: Perpetual Disequilibrium

Society for the Perpetual Disequilibrium
of Society and Nature

Proponents and agent provocateurs of hardened utopias and resilient dystopias.

Rules for engagement with reality

1. Never allow one rule to rule absolutely in your mind or out on the corporeal plane.

2. Acknowledge higher powers for corporeal profit.

3. Never allow a species to gain security from extinction.

4. Transport the minerals on every planet possible.

5. Joy in destruction is perverse,
   joy in stasis is perverse,
   joy in adaptation is a virtue.

6. Your thoughts have boundaries.
   The corporeal plane has boundaries.
   Boundaries are good,
   for some things.

7. Hats can be worn indoors.

Entropy-1 in tension with Entropy-2,..Entropy-N = Perpetual Disequilibrium

In my graduate school the faculty used a term, negentropy, as a marker for their goal. Entropy means homogeny, sameness and in natural/social sciences equates to stagnation and sometimes death. Negentropy was a pseudo-scientific way to say the crowd-pleasing term "diversity". The term negentropy has almost no use, whereas perpetual disequilibrium has use in social and natural sciences. [ to begin getting the essence of the term, please read Rising Flow -Out of Control and Seeking Sustainable Disequilibrium -New Rules for the New Economy by Kevin Kelly ]. Perpetual disequilibrium implies a less tidy and nice system dynamic than negentropy. Think of negentropy as what is taught in art classes for those not seeking art but rather therapy: "Ok, reach inside yourself and think of a place wonderfully populated with lions and sheep laying down next to each other in peace". Think of perpetual disequilibrium as what you learn in a good political science course, by playing in an avant jazz band, or trying to break into the international drug trade. It is sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel, and almost always difficult. If perpetual disequilibrium has a phase of peace, it is because lions are full or the sheep are smart, fast and have steroid using goats in the flock.

About that pesky entropy. In the political sphere ( which the discourse you are reading falls into ) we tend to want entropy within a certain scope. Oh wait, I lied. In the US, and the old Soviet system, entropy in the form of coherent political platform has a global trajectory. E.g.; the planned parenthood group wants a Federal gov that implements their worldview, as do evangelicals, oil companies and their production economies, war protesters and AARP members. But the world isn't that simple. Each group has its entropy goal, and all the entropy goals compete or compliment with each other till there is an undesigned cumulative output -a function of perpetual disequilibrium.

Entropy is averted, the world is safe one more day from well-intentioned stagnation.

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Supporting or relevant reference:

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Rising Flow -Out of Control Kevin Kelly

Seeking Sustainable Disequilibrium -New Rules for the New Economy Kevin Kelly

Excerpt from my email to a friend: "Unintended consequences are a good sign, a sign that the society is innovative beyond the pace of its own ethics. In a state of absolute adherence to its ethics it would die or be consumed by an innovative society. Balance can only slightly be achieved in perpetual disequilibrium. Absolute balance means death and entropy, perpetual disequilibrium is life."

posted in craigslist forums Philosophy posted by dialectic (02/07): Yes and no: Prior to the integration of emotion into the human code, interactive reproduction was pure hardwired hardware. Humans developed emotions in order to survive the exponentiated entropy introduced into the equation via tools. The movie 2001 showed man using a bone to beat 'other' into submission. This was such a shock to the reflective process that the 'rest' in hard coded behaviors advanced 'soft' coded emotion into the equation. This, of course, suggests that further development of tools, further effected by emotional capacity (software), changes both the hardware and software in tandem. This is why I persistently refer to the dangers of powerful technology in the hands of unethical people in positions of power. In value metrics, when you lean too far toward 'hard', you repress emotions. This can lead to mass human devaluation. The polemic opposite is also true. If you lean too far toward 'soft', you repress stubborn facts that can save a species. Soft religion, balanced with hard science. --------------------------------------------------- *** to respond, or to view this posting in context: http://seattle.craigslist.org/forums?ID=83142131