Adventures in Thought Space

  Nature’s elements, by definition, arise  naturally . Novelties emerge from randomness and self-organize. Thus, one must understand emergence and self-organization to understand Nature.   Nature is an emergence that exceeds the sum of its many parts, or substrate. Such an emergence can only occur if the system of variables undergoes feedback that allows outcomes to surpass its initial causes. Physical laws--i.e. the laws of causality and energy conversation—are always satisfied, but this requires accounting for an arbitrarily large number of intermediary events, which is next to impossible in any real network. Part one showed that synergetic emergences are made possible by the prevalence of nonlinear change—i.e., Complex  causation / feedback . This article, part two, is a treatise on the structure and dynamics of self-organization in emergent systems, also known as Complexity theory.   Complex systems theory is a multi-disciplinary subfield and cousin of chaos...

  For an environment to evolve into something like Nature,  Nature  can’t be what people think.     As discussed in other posts, vertebrate cognition’s need to make comprehensible and motivating models of reality leads to a host of fallacies and illusions about Nature, the World, and human beings ( see summary intro ). Linear change—constant, predictable change characterized by bell curves and straight lines--is too weak to account for the self-organizing, adaptive powers of Nature. Nor can change occur to accommodate neat, satisfying explanations, where initiating events always lead to proportional outcomes (at least outside of people’s cognitively biased minds). This treatise shows the true dynamics of change, which gives rise to the characteristic phenomena of Complex systems theory presented in the upcoming part two.     You’ve heard “the balance of Nature,” “balance in the Force,” and the like. This is almost exactly what Nature isn’t. Some s...

The following are the notes for the talk I gave on July 1, 2025 based on the article Unidentified Misconceptions on Advisement  Intro:   Tonight’s theme is managing life learning and immediate pragmatism in advisory relationships. It’s loosely based on the article  Unidentified Misconceptions on Advisement . It’s three parts include: part one, a reintroduction to pragmatic unwrongness and suspending judgment and their place in advisory relationships; two, contrasting judgment and life-learning in advisory relationships; and in part three, I’ll get to some misconceptions.      ( Everyone’s the best and worst source of knowledge of themselves, and everyone knows at least something you don’t; mutual participation is necessary for learning and execution of advice ).  Everyone needs advisement. Everyone is both the best and worst source of knowledge of themselves--the best because they have the most information; the worst, because they’re the most bia...