H. Alan Jackendoff - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by H. Alan Jackendoff

Mongolian Studies Vol.4, 1977

The article, originally published in 1977, is a cross-textual analysis of the early narratives of... more The article, originally published in 1977, is a cross-textual analysis of the early narratives of the origins of Cinggis Xan and his rise to power (Yuan-ch'ao pi-shih (secret history), Altan Tobci, Erdeni-yin Tobci, and Rashid-Eddin's Jami-al Tawarikh). Set within an anthropological analysis of customary law among nomads of Central Asia, and the published Mongol law of 'Yassax' in the Cinggisid era, the supposed lacunae and contradictions in the Yuan dynastic history are explained--showing that any Mongol reading the Secret History would recognize all the breaches in acknowledged custom to explain Cinggis' story, while Chinese readers wouldn't recognize the basic rogue nature of his rise to power. The "Uriangqai connection" is a hypothesis that the writer is probably of this tribe, for the original narrative continually returns to the 'accidental' role which the Uriangqai played throughout Cinggis' early story, implying that without them the empire would never have come about.

This paper was written in response to the election of Donald Trump, referred to in the text as TG... more This paper was written in response to the election of Donald Trump, referred to in the text as TGT (The Great Twitter).

The “Crisis of Science” refers to the public’s loss of faith in the moral leadership of science, and the author discusses the options for regaining it while avoiding the root symptom, the appearance of an intellectual ruling class.

In today’s anti-intellectual political climate both the ideology and ideals of science are under attack, yet they are two separate issues bundled as one. Science in the service of power is under no threat, while the ideals—and those who cherish them as the basis of an ideology—are at very great risk. The final two pages discuss developing the cross-discipline of Axiology (theory of valuation), which is proposed as one way out of the crisis which clearly, in 2024, still looms large.

The author points out that the dominant scientific ideology is little more than the legacy of Auguste Comte’s Religion of Humanity, while the ideals of science are derived from logic requiring independence from any governing theory, hence, from any ideology.

The battle is unfortunately being waged against both ideals and ideology, by a united front against what is perceived as the power of an ”intellectual elite.” It is (still in 2024) almost word-for-word taken from the rhetoric and cant of a mostly forgotten 1970's pundit, Ayn Rand.

The pandemic of 2020-21 could be the first “painful contraction” of a birth. From the optimistic... more The pandemic of 2020-21 could be the first “painful contraction” of a birth. From the optimistic spectacles of Bucky Fuller's "World Game, " the sense of emergency might have had the markings of an economic and spiritual renaissance. Economic emergencies shook the stability of governments worldwide, while isolationism and old-time tribal mentalities resurfaced. This paper makes the point that this has taken place at the same time as a melting Arctic opens up vast areas for resource extraction.

In a "Fuller" world, the maximization of this newfound wealth for world equilibrium should be of critical priority. But if we don’t take action to avert the latest round of resource wars, we could face “limited nuclear” fallout alongside global warming.

Kick-starting a major technology growth-spurt, a newly-created Bank of Gaia is proposed to broker all future polar resource extraction. The goal is to avoid the next international shut-down while creating collateral against which large-scale population resettlement projects could begin .

Self-sufficient but isolated new colonies with low ecological impacts (somewhat based on Soleri's 'arcologies'), would be he basis of the immediate need for a next generation of sustainable manufacturing technologies, of factories that can efficiently build anything for local use only. Funded by the sale of its non-renewable resources, the Bank of Gaia would be "buying back ownership of human claims to property," redistributing this "newfound" wealth to governments worldwide for new infrastructural development needs of the new colonies built in the earth's hinterlands.

A new era could be defined and funded by Gaia. It would pay the impending costs of adjusting to her destabilized crust (the impacts of global warming) but banked against the long-term future of her deeper resources that we no longer own but must pay for.. Non-renewables would no longer be "free for the cost of extraction." Through a counter-intuitive collusion of J.M. Keynes with the Quesnay, the earth will become a direct source of financial support, eventually underwriting and upending the private banks. Utopian experiments can be carried out while resettling imperiled populations. Teilhard de-Chardin's vision of 'Civitas Dei' can again be a gleam in the eye of humanists whatever their faith. Parallels to John Law’s bank, the Mississippi Bubble and 18th century colonization schemes are critically well-noted. Control of the Bank of Gaia? We might consider Buckminster Fuller's "World Game" in the hands of AI.

The addition of the Smartphone to one's pocket has some enormous consequences - if considered in ... more The addition of the Smartphone to one's pocket has some enormous consequences - if considered in the sense that a hearing aid is merely an extension to the sensory apparatus. The author contends the importance of this extends to many areas, with impacts on Humanism as a whole, including the Paradigm of Knowledge.

The implication of impacts on education are left to the educator to work out; however, this paper originally served as introduction to a proposal for a "new education utility," which was called forth as a response to what we could postulate the new common sense would dictate for children growing up in the modern world.

What is it we are experiencing when the outer world of massively tandem and non-parallel narrativ... more What is it we are experiencing when the outer world of massively tandem and non-parallel narratives by some strange accident line up and converge in a coincidence? If Dan Dennett's 1991 model of the epiphenomenon of “consciousness” is the uppermost processing gate he calls the ‘narrative center of gravity’, which weaves together massively parallel processes of cognition, then our own consciousness may be isomorphic in character or form with what we are presented with taking place before our very eyes.

Coincidence generally refers to an event whose chance of occurring is at or beyond the fringes of probability calculations, as tenuous and improbable connections that seem to have nothing to do with probability.

A critique of the convergent symbols in the film “Babette’s Feast” is used to discuss the feeling, or registering, of ‘perfect’ that is at the center of an event convergence. Nothing else in this world is quite perfect, yet when there is a non-causal temporal convergence of two dissociated narrative streams, even a freak accident, it carries an attribution of meaning. It is proposed that this same process of weaving cognitive convergence may be generalized to the 'science' or craft of art.

This is a review of Streven's book "The Knowledge Machine.How Irrationality created Modern Scienc... more This is a review of Streven's book "The Knowledge Machine.How Irrationality created Modern Science." (Liveright/Norton 2020). Strevens claims that The ‘Enlightenment” was caused by an intellectual trauma that was a result of the Thirty Years War. Religious arguments for transcendent truths were essentially ruled out, causing a search for a new approach and a division of labor of thought that accepted pragmatic explanatory coherence. The knowledge machine gets the job done not in spite of but in virtue of its proprietary blend of inarticulacy, closed-mindedness, and systematic irrationality that, through strict conventions of public discourse arrive at a "Baconian convergence." The article outlines Strevens' thesis and suggests it may be extrapolated to cognition in general.

The "Curious Lacuna" refers to the backstory to the Book of Exodus, the ten generations between t... more The "Curious Lacuna" refers to the backstory to the Book of Exodus, the ten generations between the story of Joseph and when we pick up the people's narrative with Moses, symbolically 400 years later. The lacuna suggests something important that is being left out. A tenuously "united" people is returning to claim the 'promise' of their rights to their original lands --but now knowing the story of Genesis and the promise, one can imagine political factions and intense feuds across the Semitic territory of Goshen leading up to the Exodus. Korah is punished more for questioning Moses' authority than Aaron is chastised for the Golden Calf and his part in the outright rebellion against God himself. Moses represents someone raised outside of the internecine squabbles which the Book of Genesis reflects, where that book might actually represent the codified admission-- by Moses, the lawgiver -- of all the ethical lapses which gave good cause to the squabbles between the many tribal families descended from Ishmael and Esau, including his in-law Midianites (to whom his wife and sons return) and the hated Amalekites. The hermeneutics of this reading leads to a new interpretation of the nature of the "God's Promise" to his people. We need remember that Moses was also given a command for all the Israelites, once they settled in that land, to begin an annual observation: the ritual announcement of the blessings and curses that God had laid on 'his chosen people.' And while the blessings should be announced loudly from Mt. Gerizim (which the Samaritans claim was the mount of the sacrifice) and the curses must be equally acknowledged from Mt. Ebol ---so loudly, in fact, that after the reading of each, all the tribes of all the peoples congregated between them (now in the town of Shechem) declare "Amen" - 'so be it!!" It is in the irony of forgiveness that the non-believers who wish to end the squabbles over the land must press those who believe intensely in the words of the Biblical "promise' to finally take up this commandment, which, for the peace of the world may be as important as the commandments to remember the Exodus. There is no Olympics for human suffering, but a yearly world festival of contrition and forgiveness for all the lapses of the recent and distant past could be the legacy far into the future of our Western Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.

One rarely considers that Jews in the Hellenic world had access to the great library of Alexandri... more One rarely considers that Jews in the Hellenic world had access to the great library of Alexandria. The hypothesis posed by the title is that, once the 12-year-old boy Jesus has demonstrated his wisdom of law with rabbis in the Temple court, if he was the least bit disturbed with the conditions of his world and skeptical of his elders' handling of Jewish affairs, he would want to further his studies beyond that of Talmud. The most natural thought for a smart Jewish boy would be to return to Egypt, where he had spent some of his boyhood, and visit the center of Hellenic civilization before taking on the esoteric knowledge of the Essenes. Whether or not he had been told of the tales circulating about his birth, or made any of the connections to his readings of the prophets (which Christians have so long been familiar), spending some of his youth with the school of Philo in Alexandria is not an impossibility, and should be considered.

Based on Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (founder of the Reconstructionist Movement) and his discussion of the importance of Jewish Messianism, along with an historical interpretation of Jesus reflected in the Nag Hamadi MSS (as discussed by Elaine Pagels)...along with the traditional synoptic gospels... the story of Jesus could take on a suggestive new twist.

The possibility that Jesus absorbed all there was of science and humanism of the time, skeptics and atheists must now ask themselves, if Jesus knew Epicurus, Heraclitus, Aristotle, and possibly even a smattering of Aristophanes, what can be made of his ministry and subsequent claims?

Beyond the hypothesis of that Jesus may have spent time in Alexandria lies the question of why he might go there and if he did, what was he looking for? The author's conjecture is that Jesus had to re-define the purpose and meaning of the "Messianic era" within the Jewish framework of his times...a time filled with popular messianic fervor. By doing so he changed the notion of the Messiah. And yet, if we are talking about a scholar who mastered Talmud, went on to master all the humanist, legal, and scientific knowledge of the time, and then on to study the mystic rather magical/shamanic lore of the Gnostics...perhaps we haven't yet understood what he was trying to say and do.
What, indeed, does a Messianic Era refer to?

This paper suggests that in the pre-biblical, oral period of the Jewish people, there was already... more This paper suggests that in the pre-biblical, oral period of the Jewish people, there was already a highly-developed culture of juridical legal reasoning (or quibbling). Interestingly the word "chutzpa' actually is derived from an Aramaic term for insolence, with an Arabic cognate for 'speaking truly.' Last uploaded Feb.8 2024

The hypothesis raised is that the Ben Zoma reference in the Passover Seder may allude to a 'backs... more The hypothesis raised is that the Ben Zoma reference in the Passover Seder may allude to a 'backstory' present during the times when the modern Haggada took shape. These were the same times that the Zohar (the earliest actual text in the Kaballah tradition) was supposedly penned by Akiva's disciple. Ben Zoma appears in both.

Every Jewish child knows the name of Ben Zoma, as he, along with Rabbi Akiva, is mentioned in the answers to the Four Questions. One of the rabbis discussing the importance of Passover with Akiva all night long (in the cave hiding from the Romans during the Bar Kochba revolution) quotes Ben Zoma as having implied that after the coming of the Messiah, Jews wouldn't have to tell the story of Egypt, but would simply be thankful for being released from their bondage. At the very least, the hypothesis posed in this paper suggests that "speaking of Ben Zoma" had a particular significance to 2nd century Jewish thought.

Outside of this well-known reference to his thought, he is known in the Talmud as having been one of three scribes who accompanied Rabbi Akiva to Paradise ("Pardes," or the Orchard). In this narrative, Ben Zoma is the "one who went insane; only Akiva returned from their apocryphal visit unscathed and all-the-wiser, while Ben Azai died and the Other, Ascher, became an apostate.

The strong view of the hypothesis would be that the "backstory" the Haggadah alludes to is the threat to cultural continuity posed by the popular spread of the Jewish concept of a Messianic era. It is the same concept that led to the growth of Christianity which is already extremely widespread by Akiva's time. Jewish cultural continuity depended on linking the Messiah to the symbol of Passover and the historical escape from bondage referred to so often in the Torah. The Christian messianic concept is tied to a different concept of bondage, and this is precisely the question that may be implied through the allusion to Ben Zoma in the Haggadah.

The paper develops a notion of 'Thingness' (a term Heidegger introduced) with regards to the Inte... more The paper develops a notion of 'Thingness' (a term Heidegger introduced) with regards to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Absolutism of Information Technology ( IT IS ). It considers our feelings of evil in light of Elie Wiesel’s book 'Night,' William Styron’s "Darkness Visible," and Curzio Malaparte’s "Kaputt," (his clandestine reporting from behind Nazi lines during WWII).

The paper is not complete, but sufficiently so to be posted for discussion. This is a suitable topic for more 'social' development. Traditional notions of evil still need to be covered in a discussion of suffering and 'sin', particularly as considered by the challenges Paul Ricouer makes in his short 2004 book "Evil." Similarly, the insane longing for death which Styron describes in the throes of biophysical depression need to be discussed in terms of my paper "Death Reconsidered as 'the White Algorithm' in a Block Universe.'

Book Projects (in process) by H. Alan Jackendoff

Yuval Harari has suggested that we will soon become the well-kept pets of a breed of cyborgs of o... more Yuval Harari has suggested that we will soon become the well-kept pets of a breed of cyborgs of our own creation (the great IT IS [info tech/info science]). This book was an attempt to suggest a way out. It represents two years' of labor put aside in 2022 when it brought me to another set of questions that I seemed to take priority (The Anthropomorphic Singularity). Like many of my works, it is the ghost of an unfinished book that has died before it shall ever be finished. But I felt I should post the ghost....and let its skeleton dance around a bit because Harari's issues with The Algorithm are hardly irrelevant, and extremely important for our current civilized state of stress.

The book is divided into two parts, the first explaining ‘thickness,’ a term unique to William Ja... more The book is divided into two parts, the first explaining ‘thickness,’ a term unique to William James, which served him with a rough criterion of philosophical adequacy. To explain 'thickness,' however, the text must reestablish James’ extreme pluralistic stance, dispensing with any bias for a single underlying source of natural law. Without a so-called 'universe,' the only unification available is that of an interpretive methodology, or a "universe of discourse."

James’ ontology assumes a blooming and buzzing ‘pluriverse,’ or 'pleniverse.' All interpretive methodologies are comparable (but not reduce-able) to the reduction of noise, e.g.at the center of Shannon's concept of information.

The second part of the book moves on to develop a framework from which to discuss complexity. It begins by exploding our assumptions regarding the number One which fall in parallel with James' denial of a "universe." In this case, a methodology can be developed to identify strategies (i.e. unique functional relationships) that support splitting, mirroring, and interpretation of unity, identity, and unit boundaries.

This book from 2018-19 was originally to be the first of three volumes. The second is still in draft, "The Work of Emotion," while the third "Coincidensity, or the Logic of Simultaneity" may have been foreclosed on by the author's "Torque" which was posted here as an incomplete draft in March of 2021.

The bellybutton as both a reminder of the womb and our 'diploma of independence' from it, the au... more The bellybutton as both a reminder of the womb and our 'diploma of independence' from it, the author suggests we take the bellybutton as a new metaphor of the self.

Reminding us that the "omphalus stone" at Delphi was the mythic center of the Greek world of its time, the book is about the logic of the self in regards to the concept of civilization. As we move on to the next Axial Age, most of us dread a painful and hazardous process, and from a humanistic standpoint, some fear a still-birth. But the author suggests that given a little mild self-derision at human ambitions we can grease the passage through the birth canal with hope. Tansson believes the coming era might be fashioned as a new womb of Humanism such that future generations of children shall be born free. We shall all happily accept Gaia's motherly monicker (knowingly tied to the apron strings of matter) “my little bellybutton!” At the very least we shall take it on the chin when someone assaults us with the 'navel yell': “you bellybutton, you!” For we, even the greatest of all times, must be put in our place.

TORQUE is a thought-experiment in projective-plane space. somewhat in the style of Edwin Abbott's... more TORQUE is a thought-experiment in projective-plane space. somewhat in the style of Edwin Abbott's Flatland. In order to carry it out, a six-stage model of experience is used to demonstrate oscillations of consciousness between raw cognitive experiencing and levels of asynchronous processing.

Begun as an attempt to describe shaman-space for his comic-book writer son, Torque posits a formal 'engine' whose artifactual output might "fit the bill" for real world experience.

Ver.3.1 uploaded April 16, 2022 replaced v2.5 on March16, 2021 and Ver 2.2 ( Dec1,2020). replaces v1.1 originally posted.

This book works step by step through the Heraclitean problem of change to introduce an event anal... more This book works step by step through the Heraclitean problem of change to introduce an event analysis methodology. Where the text is highlighted in color..it may need to be reworked from scratch. As yet, this is a very colorful book!!

Having begun in 2014, I had originally hoped to complete this in OCTOBER 2016.....then rescheduled to MAY 2017. As the new Preface relates, as I neared the conclusion, three new books began working out the thesis into something more powerful than I'd originally considered, albeit three works:
1. The Pacioli Principle: A Logic of Simultaneity
2. THICK. Harnessing Chaos with William James
3. The Work of Emotion

I actually believed this book would be updated and completed before "this year" is out...which was 2018! It was still to be unfulfilled, in 2021 when I discovered Gilles Deleuze. It is now 2024, and I am no longer Deleuzional There is quite a lot packed into this book (e.g. 30 years' work in event analysis) that I shall never revisit. Of its three children, only THICK is close to complete. The Pacioli Principle shall never be fully explicated, and #3, above, is essentially what I have on my academic plate for the rest of my life. I was born in 1948, so you figure.

This is a little non-academic and humorous book written in the last two decades of the 20th centu... more This is a little non-academic and humorous book written in the last two decades of the 20th century (though it bears the date 2003). Its humor is rather geared to the young male adolescent, but its subject matter is quite structural...attempting to put the young male adolescent into academic gear.

The chauvinist assumptions built into its language, in fact, seem rather distasteful today, but in fact exemplify one of the central themes of the book -- that what we perceive in others is often a way to reify what is taking place within ourselves. Thus, the crude objectification of the opposite sex is the experience of the self being turned into a sexual function, e.g. object. This is what the adolescent turns into banter to lessen the fear of its overwhelming force.

The book is full of exceedingly interesting structural problems with experience, and in reading it over recently, it seemed appropriate to post at this time, despite its political incorrectness.

The title, by itself, is all you need read. It alludes to the possibility that our century-long ... more The title, by itself, is all you need read. It alludes to the possibility that our century-long search for the 'singularity' equating the discrete branches of physical science as a continuous whole-- is quite appropriate and 'do-able.' The realization is that it must be generally (which is to say local/globally) couched in some form of myth, represented in formal terminology as an artifact of our humanity, such that 'myth' may be a special case of logic, or a "mathematics" of its own. The singularity shall be describable only in the demonstrable terminology of our speciation. The rest of this Abstract accompanied the originally-posted paper, which does NOT bear the same title. Thus, it is unnecessary to read any further, for beyond the next period is nothing but a long-winded walk in the perambulator of a personal mind.

We shall be stuck with anthropomorphic creation myths, however formal and complete our logical representation of reality becomes. Because of our familiarity and comfort in dealing with personality, the most coherent and elegant presentation of vast complexity will be in human terms. Decision rules for navigating complex systems, distilled to formalisms, shall resemble archetypes with Zen-like characteristics, bubbling up into social parables or stories with totally human features. This is what is referred to as 'the anthropomorphic singularity.'

Myths have a way of resembling archaeology, and in this case several redactions of a similar story are laid over one another as in an archaeological tell, growing more complex at each retelling. The dig is not meant to be complete. The cumulative heap of explanatory theory is like a conceptual midden in which notions of the deep laws of logic, symmetry, number, spin, oscillation, grammar, force only allude to answers.

This was only the original premise when first breaking ground. The dig must go on.

Teaching Documents by H. Alan Jackendoff

This paper (version4) demonstrates four different ways to posit the concept of ONE, and pro... more This paper (version4) demonstrates four different ways to posit the concept of ONE, and proposes that our mistaken assumption of the simplicity of ONE as the building block of numbers can be considered the riddle underlying complexity theory (the ultimate riddle).
A complete (latest v4) outline of the Flux Logic is included in the Appendix. The new 2nd appendix (YOUR HOTKEYS) has been added to show a possible application of the Flux Logic to interesting problems, in this case, appetite and attention.
Version 1 of this article was an expansion of a chapter by the same name in the author’s book Thick, explaining William James’ extreme stance on Pluralism. It has been left intact, to show the supporting conjectures as they were worked out.

The Risiological Matrix (or RMat) represents the dense expansion of a point onto a map of all pot... more The Risiological Matrix (or RMat) represents the dense expansion of a point onto a map of all potential changes to nested conjunctions of figure/ground pairs generated by a mechanism called “pointing” or “framing.” Either figure or ground may be substituted for a frame, and frames may be infinitely nested. Transforms across the Risiological Matrix are meant to represent (i.e. function as metaphor for) different classes of equivalence relationships or “mappings.” These include forms of analogy, homeomorphs familiar to topology, and optic/haptic illusions experienced by the senses.

Substitution rules have been identified around the terms figure and ground as understood from Gestalt psychology and common language usage. Through ordinary language, transforms between adjacent and proximate squares may be associated with experience to assist in the generation of rules by inference. To this extent, beyond being simply a set of rules, it may be considered "a logic" which may have uses as an aid to thought.

It is conjectured that figure/ground/frame conjunctions can quickly assume a high level of combinatorial analysis of two basic types: 1) the analysis of best paths, or transforms, between conjunctions, and 2) the comparison of the parallel paths from different starting points. Further analysis of the RMat is expected to yield categories of behavior that could prove useful in explaining natural relationships that have up to now not yielded to formal means of analysis.

NOTE: Cornelius Weygandt III (1905-2004) created the symbol system in 1984 for the RMat. As he is deceased fifteen years it was not possible to list him as a co-author. Dr. Weygandt might be best-remembered as the professor in charge of Aberdeen Proving Grounds' Differential Analyzer at the U.of Penn, who hired Eckert and Mauchley to run it. ENIAC was developed in Dr. Weygandt's office in the Electrical Engineering Department of U.of P. He created the RMat symbol system in the 1980's at his last employment as Ombudsman at Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation's Cherry Hill, NJ BWR Operations Ctr. where I worked at the time.

Mongolian Studies Vol.4, 1977

Begun as an attempt to describe shaman-space for his comic-book writer son, Torque posits a formal 'engine' whose artifactual output might "fit the bill" for real world experience.

Ver.3.1 uploaded April 16, 2022 replaced v2.5 on March16, 2021 and Ver 2.2 ( Dec1,2020). replaces v1.1 originally posted.

The book is full of exceedingly interesting structural problems with experience, and in reading it over recently, it seemed appropriate to post at this time, despite its political incorrectness.

This was only the original premise when first breaking ground. The dig must go on.

The 'point' is a Riemannian 'vortex' or "twisted point," that finds its closest physical instanti... more The 'point' is a Riemannian 'vortex' or "twisted point," that finds its closest physical instantiation in a single-sided manifold, or Moebius Strip. Attempts to split a Moebius Strip end-to-end gives three distinct outcomes. Subtle directional choices in the cutting process which do not initially seem strategic entail entirely different amounts of work (taking time and effort) leading to some game-theoretic issues. While the author is not a topologist, and without claiming any mathematical significance to the discussion, this paper supports some important philosophical conjectures regarding the difference between logical space and physical space. This accentuates the importance of the ideal/pragmatic divide, supporting the incommensurable as being a functional property of form, e.g. archetypal. This essay is foundational to the author's project, both underlying the discussion of " The Logic of Simultaneity," Xtreme Rationality, Jamesian 'Thickness' (the author's 'Coincidensity'), and serves as the core thesis behind a version of Abbott's FLATLAND that takes place on a similar manifold (the book TORQUE).

Riemann is credited with a conjecture about a space made of points-with-a-twist, that is, of "vor... more Riemann is credited with a conjecture about a space made of points-with-a-twist, that is, of "vortices." This is the subject of the author's book-in-draft entitled "Torque" which is considered as a description, or 'solution' to Riemann's proposal. The essay is NOT about that mathematician's hypothesis concerning prime numbers, but touches on how the consideration of such a space would extrapolate to the author's proposed "Flux Logic of One" and a notion of non-arithmetical number.

The difference between the incomprehensible dots on a page of musical score and the incredible ta... more The difference between the incomprehensible dots on a page of musical score and the incredible tangible experiences which the sounds of music can evoke can be used to develop an important classroom tool. The fundamental nature of representation throughout modern science becomes the fulcrum or keystone to grasping the problem of drawing complexity out of chaos (which is how we perceive the page full of points that makes us dismiss the musical score as irrelevant to us) and the issues of learning to learn.

Composition using musical notation proceeds directly from concept on a page to practical testing in experience. A musical score may immediately serve an adept reader as a graphic metaphor of complex temporal/spatial structures that they can hear in their “mind’s eye.”

The paper suggests that there is a whole educational industry of high-tech screen-based versions of DIsney's Fantasia, to be developed for use by teachers as a metaphor for representation itself, such that the process of mapping notational representation to sound (and visa versa) might be used in various ways to introduce children (and adults) to new ways of thinking about complex reality.

The paper's title alludes to the idea that children raised on classroom models of representational problems (through the analogy of musical notation) may provide us a generation in which a few genius children will be capable of coming up with entirely new notational constructs to handle the needs of complexity in modern science --and well as a hoped-for grammar of social science that might eventually help us provide interpretations of social economic reality in ways far beyond the crude market analysis of today, such that we can begin experimenting with interpretive chamber music of political and organizational structures. This, indeed, would provide social science with tools as powerful as those composers and musicians have to share their interpretations of a symphonic score.

The proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” compares the shortcomings of the nuclear family... more The proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” compares the shortcomings of the nuclear family as educator to that of a healthy local society—the extended family of a dynamic ‘village.’ Today, we’ve been entirely freed of the local; each of us has the ability to shape our own personal society within a ‘global village’ of our choice. The internet makes us all autodidacts—to raise ourselves as we please. Unfortunately, the leverage of individualism may be reversed and ‘hacked,’ making us slaves to any global force that would grab our attention and mold our interests. Inventing the Next Education Utility considers creating a humanistic counter-balance to assist individuals manage personal realms of curiosity and growth within the local physical world around them. It is an extremely high-tech “game” that comes to town each year called “The Remarkable Lifelong Learning Circus,” around which the ecology of recreational and commercial life of our local communities may be rebuilt.

NOTE: the current article is version 2.1, having major changes throughout, and replacing v1.0 (unnumbered), v1.1 and v1.2 previously posted.

This paper attempts to provide a critique of how NFTs are being packaged and pitched, essentially... more This paper attempts to provide a critique of how NFTs are being packaged and pitched, essentially confusing the trademark aspects of a brand with patentable improvements supporting the creation of new real wealth. The author shows that the NFT marketplace could well deliver all the promises its proponents claim for it, but only if they clearly make certain critical distinctions--and that investors in NFT development companies can help developers make these distinctions to build the market on a firm foundation.

The argument of this essay is that NFTs have arrived on the scene as an instance of the proverbial "Hidden Hand" of economics, as the artifact or by-product of a deeper theory of markets, but just because they are a 'natural form' doesn't mean that if they disappear, they'll ever come back.

Xtreme Rationality is not what it sounds like. It is NOT Hyper-rationality, as in hyper-focused ... more Xtreme Rationality is not what it sounds like. It is NOT Hyper-rationality, as in hyper-focused and logical, but alludes to the methods of Xtreme Sports. It is to be hyper-open to every possible input without a controlled central logical governor other than an extremely-practiced method such as in the Martial Arts.

This exploratory paper was begun as a way to help specify high-tech educational games that rewarded face-to-face interactions. Developing a paper on the problem led to a looking at the general nature of media in all communication transactions, per McLuhan. But what this led to was a proposal for steps towards any critical awareness, which brought me back to an old theme of mine, William James' Radical Empiricism.

The analysis of Xtreme Rationality leads to a very Jamesian study of concept-formation, focused on the problem of incommensurability. I propose this problem, which is woven throughout the entire history of philosophy and science, shall help turn academia into a popular sport.... which is to say as in watching sports or watching trivial pursuit games on TV. Initially attractive more for the lure of its name, the fun of its instantiation in actual “games” (rewarding face-to-face interaction) could lead to critical checking of claims, exploratory data mining, hypothesis formation around coherence, consistency validation, etc., thus becoming the first step towards a critical awareness of the internet in its inexorable growth into the most efficient and preferred medium through which all experience and economics are transacted.

A concept is presented for an in-class in-person educational delivery system based on old-time mo... more A concept is presented for an in-class in-person educational delivery system based on old-time models of small-group entertainment. It is based around the idea of creating teams of auditioned college students serving a year as museum docents trained in an experimental form of educational theater. It is a proposal suggesting a true RFP (request for proposal) be generated by a philanthropy working with a state museum system.

The short essay describes a proposed interactive educational game structure. It would allow for ... more The short essay describes a proposed interactive educational game structure. It would allow for a privately-funded educational industry creating dozens of different designs of what the author euphemistically calls "polymath pinball machines" that could find their home in small community rooms, libraries, malls, and small heritage tourist sites.

Educationally empowering ‘playful exercises with language’ ("Metamindfulness" games) are initiall... more Educationally empowering ‘playful exercises with language’ ("Metamindfulness" games) are initially to be designed and tested for group settings in camps, business lunch, nursing homes, etc. Focusing on the role of language in life, they would require an online encyclopaedic resource (to be created) called “The Big Puzzle Thesaurus” as a randomizing engine. Programming upgrades of this thesaurus over the project period will eventually prepare the engine for solitaire play and research. This was created, needless to say, as a proposal for funding.

The hypothesis is that an underlying stress exists between language used A) as a tool of thought and B) for social communications. What is proposed is an intervention, challenging and testing a prevailing theory in educational culture.

If the theory underlying the nature of genius is correct, the so-called Meta-Mindfulness games will “unlock genius” in a larger percentage of participants in group settings than when the Big Puzzle Thesaurus is used in solitaire mode. But if the theory is incorrect, the creation of an online thesaurus of science still represents a new research and educational utility pointing to inter-relations of universes of discourse.

At the same time, the educational games, quite separate from any experimental outcomes will assist the growing child in vocational awareness and decisions, and for a more general population provide training in the recognition and application of rhetoric as well as increase tolerance for a pluralist society.

The educational intervention is intended to demonstrate how and why society’s own genius unlocks that of an individual, and that creatively adaptive synergies emerge from what is generally considered the “nature vs nurture” controversy. This is to say, there is no controversy, it is an ongoing World Series we’re both betting on and playing in.

This paper was created as the supporting background for a proposal to the Templeton Foundation en... more This paper was created as the supporting background for a proposal to the Templeton Foundation entitled "The Challenge of a Chautauqua Revival." It is posted among my papers, as it presents additional development to a number of the papers posted over the years on this site.

The following article was originally written to discuss a way to pay for the economic consequence... more The following article was originally written to discuss a way to pay for the economic consequences of COVID-19 ("Augur of an Era...."). Given new uncertainties in the post-COVID world and the first full-scale European war since World War II, a new introductory section has been added. The paper explains why the Arctic is of chief strategic importance to our current geopolitics and proposes the establishment of a Bank of Gaia as the sole arbiter of Arctic resources. This version was posted at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

This is a response to Galen Strawson’s rhetorical challenges to a mainstream tenet of the philoso... more This is a response to Galen Strawson’s rhetorical challenges to a mainstream tenet of the philosophy of “self” which considers narrative at the center of consciousness and identity. The article, “We live beyond any tale that we happen to enact’ [Harvard Review of Philosophy 18 (2012 pp.73-90) is quite opposed to the prevailing narrativity thesis especially because of its mistaken normative function in defining “the healthy individual” and subsequent impacts on therapy.

Over the past several years, Galen Strawson has challenged what he shows has become a mainstream tenet considering narrative at the center of consciousness and identity of the self. Strawson levels a logical polemic against this thesis and its normative function, as it tends to define “the healthy individual” in narrative terms, with rather insidious implications for therapy.

Having read “We live beyond any tale that we happen to enact’ [Harvard Review of Philosophy 18 (2012 pp.73-90) and a more recent paper, from the The Dublin Review of Books (Feb. 2024), “Just Live” https://drb.ie/articles/just-live/, this letter to Dr. Strawson tries to show that to discredit the narrative thesis of self (which is clearly flawed from so many perspectives), we should provide something which works better. As someone who has himself held a version of the narrative thesis of self, we need to recognise its attractiveness from several different angles; to overturn it we need a more coherent thesis addressing the same angles. People are too time-bound to give up the idea of a linear narrative that can be turned into a story with a moral. His recent arguments in “Just Live” are aesthetically preferable, but don’t help someone who processes experience through a narrative filter to see much reason to do otherwise.

In a critique by Matti Hyvärinen of Jerome Bruner’s article “Life as Narrative” which pays close attention to Strawson’s counter-arguments, it’s made clear that the very term ‘narrative’ has been ambiguously and casually used across the psychological and philosophical debates, too often ignoring an extremely long and varied history of literary discourse over the same territory. The deep-structural problems of linearity, time, periodicity (epochal time) remain with us. To answer this problem I have outlined my own theory of an accounting-based logic of event-handling. Treating experience as event-handling we can better explain what the ‘story-teller’ in us is trying to accomplish, and why the narrative thesis of the self seems so powerful.

This article describes a Turing Test for human wisdom with a simple criterion to apply to science... more This article describes a Turing Test for human wisdom with a simple criterion to apply to science as a measure of our intelligence.

The psalmist's phrase, "valley of the shadow of death" suggests a projection-model, which opens u... more The psalmist's phrase, "valley of the shadow of death" suggests a projection-model, which opens up counter-intuitive ways to think about death. This paper considers the possibility that it is merely the most readily-accessible projection of a simplistic block universe.

An essay toying with the notion of the asynchronous as a key property of conceptual relations, an... more An essay toying with the notion of the asynchronous as a key property of conceptual relations, and as a way to blur the distinctions between statistical and non-statistical nature.

The allusion to Plato assumes the reader is familiar with the Ideal as discussed in that literature. Plato's Ideal is not re-thought-out here; rather, the non-statistical is considered from the standpoint of an ideal (e.g. the Super Natural). What is meant by "super natural" is reconsidered as a way to better understand the taboo on superstition and what is considered "natural" (according to nature). It is the taboo on the supernatural that is at the heart of Enlightenment "science", so that there can be no acknowledgement of non-statistical behaviors, which is problematic for the furthering of an open-minded science.

The paper considers ways to introduce the problems of adulthood to children in an era where gende... more The paper considers ways to introduce the problems of adulthood to children in an era where gender choice predominates the topic of sexuality. It seems that discussing the functionalities or affects of gender difference are culturally prohibited, so the question becomes what, and how does one approach this topic? After several pages touching on the scope of the topic of sexuality, Aristophanes' comic speech in Plato's 'Symposium' is used as a "safe" gender-free segue to the metaphor of "one becoming two and two becoming one," central to his jocular "explanation" of the bliss and the drive of love. The second half of the paper takes up the joke somewhat seriously: here, the one/many problem (per Wm.James', "Some Problems in Philosophy") becomes key to the adolescent (sexual) rite of passage, such that the "freedom" which the child identifies with adulthood brings along with it an inescapable form of the mind-body problem, with numberless new forms of social and emotional slavery.

A compilation of several rather playful essays which are best read out-loud to an audience of one... more A compilation of several rather playful essays which are best read out-loud to an audience of one or more about church and state, as if either church or state were relevant. They have been taken from a previous work entitled "Antidisestablishmentarianistically Speaking"

A short essay on hype and its relation to hope and its relations to the creation of realities. Hy... more A short essay on hype and its relation to hope and its relations to the creation of realities. Hype is compared to a double-edged sword with no hilt...very useful if carefully handled, but hard if not impossible to wield in combat.

An 'elephant in the room' refers to something invisible and unspoken. It is often the case, howev... more An 'elephant in the room' refers to something invisible and unspoken. It is often the case, however, that we are like the blind men who know it is 'an elephant,' but cannot agree on what that elephant is. This essay, which would seem to focus around the rhetoric of social justice in urban setting, suggests that there might be an 'intellectual bigotry' at the core of modern cultural dysfunction, and that the invisible elephant might be the difference between classes of Rhetoric.

The rather odd upshot of this essay on American urban dialogue is that the rational tradition taken from Socrates might be countered by that of Aesop. Aesop, ostensibly an African, was thrown off the cliff at Delphi by enraged locals (suburban Corinthians); his rhetorical whip was that of animal parables probably derived from the 'Signifying Monkey" tradition identified by Labov as underlying Black American vernacular.

This is a collection of short essays, or musings on public education, best read out-loud with an ... more This is a collection of short essays, or musings on public education, best read out-loud with an audience of one or more. They are excerpted from a larger volume published in 2011 (ISBN978-4502-7531-6) as Vol.2 of Captions to the Cartoons We Live.

The call for a new legal paradigm of "Restorative Justice" is becoming a popular part of the cult... more The call for a new legal paradigm of "Restorative Justice" is becoming a popular part of the culture debate in the United States. The article attempts a critique, arguing that Restorative Justice might serve as an umbrella, without displacing Distributive Justice and Retributive (Punitive) Justice models (which the popular debate implies).

This is a collection of four essays meant to be read out-loud to an audience of one or more. They... more This is a collection of four essays meant to be read out-loud to an audience of one or more. They are all stories about quizzical experiences. The theme of the essays, and the question posed the reader is the uses to which we put such experiences. For there is an underlying problem of the UTILITY of the inexplicable, irrespective of any putative 'cause.' Any event whatsoever in our lives or our history begs a rationale, yet many of those described here make the term 'rationale' laughable. One might say that the most general "utility" of the inexplicable is to provide the basis for counter-productive superstitions and credulity.

Similar to Carl Jung, who seems to have been a strange-attractor and created an ueber-theory to explain it all, I have had my fill of them.

These essays were penned almost two decades ago, and my credulity has continued to be tested at a consistent rate. In attempts to eschew expressions of the standard folk-idiom for counter-statistical laws (i.e. faeries, bogarts, direct intervention by the saints, or God's own ineffable presence) I simply refer you to Shamanism 101.

The essays in this collection originally appeared in Captions to the Cartoons We Live. Vol.2 2011 ISBN 978-1-4502-7531-6 Lib.Congress #2010918351. Illustrations by the author except "Coincidence Engineers..." by Dan Folkus

This essay represents the audience copy (16pt font / 5.5in booklet 12pp) of a talk read at an inn... more This essay represents the audience copy (16pt font / 5.5in booklet 12pp) of a talk read at an inner-city church attempting to introduce the world of macroeconomics to local community members. What is salient for a lay audience is the potential for bank failures and runaway inflation, and so the title. As preposterous as it might sound, this talk explains how block-chains have changed the perception of the marketplace for the financial world, comparing the new realities to how social media has changed the world for us. What may be of academic interest is as an experiment in adult education. First I have attempted a chain of metaphors developed pp.2-6 leading up to the caricature of block-chains (pp.7-10), this is followed by two very short examples of alternative "models" to add to our mix of economies (pp.11-12) complete the talk. For the few young couples that attended, and one jaded adult (my wife), the experiment was a success. Everyone came away thanking me for explaining what's going on. This was Chautauqua Challenge #8

This was a quick 'waffle' on the link between economic modelling and accounting structures-- and ... more This was a quick 'waffle' on the link between economic modelling and accounting structures-- and the growth of bubbles due to investing wealth in that which is under the radar of taxes, or declarable for a write-off. I woke up this morning to find out my bank had just been taken over by the FDIC. The title alludes to the philosophical issue of derivative markets as a type of "foam" that can seem rigid. The conclusion returns to a deeper issue of accounting conventions and ways to arrive at balance.

This is a series of test presentations given on consecutive Friday nights in the summer of 2023 i... more This is a series of test presentations given on consecutive Friday nights in the summer of 2023 in conjunction with music, food, art opening, and craft vendors.

Taking a critical look at critical thought touches on the acceptance criteria for knowledge as we... more Taking a critical look at critical thought touches on the acceptance criteria for knowledge as well as the pursuit of knowledge. This essay, which was in-process at the time of the Jan.2021 storming of the Capital Building, was modified and posted "while the iron was hot" to address the ancillary problem of bamboozlement.

'Bamboozlement' and its overt uses in propaganda, has its origins in our cognitive structures and is based on a tendency to bamboozle the self. Wm. James' multiple realities are discussed in regards to our inborn ability to swap-out different functional universes of discourse having different 'goods,' utilities, and meanings that obviate ideologies.

A key problem that is identified regarding critical thought, and "free-thought" itself, is in the ambiguity between performance-based knowledge and 'received knowledge.' Much of a student's task is to demonstrate their skills with that which has been passed down by the current 'system' (e.g. the latest knowledge). Yet the gospel of critical thought is sold to students and educators alike as a brother-in-law to the paradigm of business, married to dreams of scientific creativity, giving birth to untold realms of entrepreneurship. This causes a conflict of interest in the education mission, which is essentially technical.

This paper represents a sketch of ideas to be developed. Here the author briefly suggests a new look at hermeneutics, which developed as a methodology for interpreting 'received knowledge', yet which can serve as a springboard for highly innovative thought. Such a program would more truthfully address the current breach between the preacher and the professor, the gospel and the dogma. The technological program considered as a cultural intervention for critical thought is introduced, referencing the author's paper 'Genius and Social Cognition'.

A logic of simultaneity provides us a way to interpret complex events in both nature and narrativ... more A logic of simultaneity provides us a way to interpret complex events in both nature and narrative. Of the book, you have a very good cover. Of the text of the book, it was withdrawn in 2015 or so. What remains is an Abstract of the thesis which you are reading here. It poses that the rudiments of a science of simultaneity exists in Generally Accepted Accounting Practice (GAAP). The 'science' will begin through the critical investigation of principles in the art of declaring an accounting period for balances in a particular set (and nesting) of sub-accounts. Further development of a logic, to be called “generalized Pacioli,” should allow new methodologies of testing balances in nature and human experience.

The five ways to define obligations or claims (in time) across the accounting period boundaries correspond to five ways to define the potential for change and directed action. These five “capacitance families” provide a broader and more coherent theory of work, differentiating static from dynamic potential (through a double-entry method) with qualities that become comparable to that of liquidity. The logic provides a more detailed basis for discussing complexity and function.

The Logic of Simultaneity is at the center of all the works I am currently working on. The actual paper originally posted here was pulled in 2018 when it became clear that Capacitance classes (of work) and Coincidensity classes (of simultaneity) were either the same or descriptions of what is 'balanced' on either side of the ledger. The potential impacts on the 'currency' being logged by experience was too great to leave the paper stand as it was written....(though much of the business about suits and gaming still stand...essentially, the 'winking' I allude to in my book Torque). I anticipate several years before 'The Work of Emotion' is attempted. ...and I leave this up on the site because of the cover design. and the image of Luca Pacioli.

The Pacioli Principle will be a passive representation system and vehicle for analyzing events outside of linear time. Extrapolating the principle to a “Pacioli Postulate” (where a concept of “simultaneity” extends to both paradox and coincidence) the argument is made that this interpretive approach results in a more comprehensive model of natural law, with a more elegant methodology for explaining ordering principles where emergent complexity represents the natural boundary.

The author suggests that both the principle and its strong-form in the postulate were known to Luca Pacioli and his collaborator Leonardo DeVinci when the Summa Arithmetica was published in 1494. Their lives would have been at stake, quite literally, had they disclosed their discovery. So the Pacioli Principle has been hidden for over five hundred years, before our eyes, as the grammar of representational integrity underlying sustainability (economics).

Note, that block-chain technology and the IoT shall eventually obviate postings in currency in parallel with the fading away of money. Transactions logged with capacitance shall require a full-blown grammar of capacitance classes to make it all work---while the potential permutations on relational networks shall depend on that grammar for symmetry maintenance of the value/measure of the current (present) to assure continuity and smooth strangeitions (pronounced 'strans'jitions' if you will, or simply 'change.').

THIS IS NOW TO BE THE THIRD VOLUME FOLLOWING Vol.1: THICK (laying out the issues of Coincidensity) and Vol.2: The Work of Emotion (with the problems of Capacitance). [Abstract, updated 1/31/24]