25 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2024
    1. William Nestle’s Vom Mythos zum Logos (1940) is the classical statement of this reading. On the opening page, Nestle claims mythos and logos are “the two poles between which man’s mental life oscillates. Mythic imagination and logical thought are opposites,” the former being “imagistic and involuntary,” rooted in the unconscious, while the latter is “conceptual and intentional, and analyzes and synthesizes by means of consciousness” (quoted in Glenn Most, “From Logos to Mythos,” in From Myth to Reason?, 27).

      Dichotomy of "mythic imagination" rooted in the unconscious versus "logical thought" rooted in the conscious


      Also, see this as a reading of "chaos versus order". See, for example, Apollonian and Dionysian theory or Confucius order and Lao Tzu chaos (with respect to wu-wei). In PKM, this would correlate to the gardener vs architect archetypes.

  2. Jan 2024
    1. The physicistsStephen Wolfram and Brosl Hasslacher introduced me, in the early1980s, to chaos theory and nonlinear systems. In the 1990s, I learnedabout complex systems from conversations with Danny Hillis, the bi-ologist Stuart Kauffman, the Nobel-laureate physicist Murray Gell-Mann, and others. Most recently, Hasslacher and the electrical engineerand device physicist Mark Reed have been giving me insight into the in-credible possibilities of molecular electronics.

      some of Bill Joy's intellectual history here mirrors much of my own...

  3. Nov 2023
    1. It would seem that people who spend too much time online experience more anxiety. Could it be that we've evolved to only be able to manage so many inputs and amounts of variety of those inputs? The experiencing of too much variety in our environments and the resultant anxiety may be a result of the limits of Ross Ashby's law of requisite variety within human systems.

      This may also be why chaos machines like Donald Trump are effective at creating anxiety in a populace whose social systems are not designed to handle so many crazy ideas at once.

      Implications for measurements of resilience?

  4. Sep 2023
      • for: system change, polycrisis, extreme weather, planetary tipping points, climate disruption, climate chaos, tipping point, hothouse earth, new meme, deep transformation
      • title: The Great Disruption has Begun
      • author: Paul Gilding
      • date: Sept 3, 2023
      • source: https://www.paulgilding.com/cockatoo-chronicles/the-great-disruption-has-begun
      • summary

        • good q uick opening paragraphs that summarize the plethora of extreme events in 2023 up to Sept 2023 (but misses the Canadian Wildfires) and also the list of potential planetary tipping points that are giving indication of being at the threshold.
        • He makes a good point about the conservative nature of science that underestimates impacts due to the inertia of scientific study.
        • Coins a good meme
          • Everything, everywhere, all at once
        • He ties all the various crisis together to show the many components of the wicked problem we face
        • finally what it comes down to is that we cannot stop the coming unprecedented changes but we can and must slow it down as much as possible and we should be prepared for a wild ride
      • comment

        • It would be a good educational tool for deep and transformative climate education to map all these elements of the polycrisis and show their feedbacks and interactions, especially how it relates to socio-economic impacts to motivate transformative change and mobilize the urgency now required.
  5. Jul 2023
  6. Jun 2023
    1. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other, formed principles that were fundamental to the Greek culture:[3][4] the Apollonian a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian a state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mould, a man appears as the satyr

      Apollo as representing order, clarity, a dream-state of life, an illusion.

      Dionysus, on the other hand, represent chaos, and the dissolution of this dream.

  7. Oct 2022
    1. Most men's notes are useless stuff to others, useless even to them-selves with the passage of time, and useless especially because ofchaotic arrangement.
  8. Sep 2022
    1. TLDR Hyperion is a moon orbiting Saturn and has chaotic motion about its CoM. This chaos is modeled correctly with classical mechanics but incorrectly with quantum mechanics. The catch being that if the average of all wavefunction collapses due to decoherence with interactions particles+photons is included then the prediction is correct. However, averaging is a non-physical process and, furthermore, collapsing a wavefunction requires instantaneous transfer of information which is nonphysical.

      • Saturn's moon, Hyperion, has chaotic motion due to the orientation of the moon about the orbit. Due to chaos, we can't predict orientation due to chaotic tumbling.
      • This can be described classicly with relativity.
      • Quantum Mechancis has been falsified because it fails to recreate or predict chaotic behaviors of the moon after 20 years.
      • Due to the linear nature of the eigenvector in Schrodinger's equation, it can not contain chaos.
      • By applying the correspondence principle, we only see chaos for up to the Ehrenfest time upon having the time function applied.
      • Physicists explain this incongruence in theories because the Schrodinger equation isn't including the entangled interactions of light/dust. These effects result in decoherence.
      • By averaging over the predictions we achieve the same solution as classical mechanics. Howevering averaging isn't a physical process. (e.g. rolling a 6 sided dice many times gives an average of 3.5 which is nonphysical)

      For a model to be real, we require that each individual prediction is true not the average. One solution is that Hyperion interacts and is having it's wavefunction updated nonlinearly resulting in decoherence. * Collapse of a wavefunction is said to not be physical due to instantaneous transfer of information being impossible. However, this wavefunction collapse due to interactions is required for the chaos of Hyperion to be modeled correctly. This is the issue.

  9. Aug 2022
  10. Jul 2022
    1. The Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi kept a notebook, called Zibaldone, from 1817 to 1832. The idea of keeping that, which contains no fewer than 4,526 pages, was possibly suggested by a priest who fled from the French Revolution and came to live in the poet's hometown. The priest suggested that "every literary man should have a written chaos such as this: notebook containing sottiseries, adrersa, excerpta, pugillares, commentaria... the store-house out of which fine literature of every kind may come, as the sun, moon, and stars issued out of chaos."[1]

      Iris Origo, Leopardi: A Study in Solitude. Helen Marx Books. 1999. pp. 142-3.

  11. Jun 2022
    1. Simply stated, Luhmann’s Zettelkasten structure was not dynamic or fluid in nature. Yet, it was not rigid, either. Examples of a rigid structure are classification systems like the Dewey Decimal Classification System or Paul Otlet’s massive notecard world museum known as, The Mundaneum. These types of systems are helpful for interpersonal knowledge systems; however, they’re not illustrative of what Niklas Luhmann’s system was: an intrapersonal communication system. Luhmann’s notebox system was not logically and neatly organized to allow for the convenience of the public to access. Nor was it meant to be. It seemed chaotic to those who perused its contents other than its creator, Niklas Luhmann. One researcher who studied Luhmann’s system in person says, “at first glance, Luhmann’s organization of his collection appears to lack any clear order; it even seems chaotic. However, this was a deliberate choice.” (11)11 Luhmann’s Zettelkasten was not a structure that could be characterized as one of order. Indeed, it seems closer to that of chaos than order.

      This seems illustrative of the idea that some of the most interesting things in life or living systems exist at the chaotic borders.

      There seem to be differences between more rigid structures like the Dewey Decimal Classification system or Paul Otlet's Mundaneum and less rigid branching systems like Luhmann's version of his zettelkasten. Is this really a difference or only a seeming difference given the standardization some of the systems. There should be a way to do both. Maybe it's by the emergence of public standards, or perhaps it's simply through the use of subject headings and the cross linking of emerging folksonomies.

      What does the use of platforms like the Federated Wiki or the early blogosphere and linking and discovery methods enabled by Technorati indicate?

      Luhmann's system may seem intrapersonal, perhaps as a result of the numbering system, but it becomes highly penetrable by the subject index and the links from one idea (card) to the next. Use over time makes it even easier.

  12. Jan 2022
  13. canvas.ucsc.edu canvas.ucsc.edu
    1. The Culture Industry: Mass Deception in Dialectic of Enlightenment

      The culture industry is any industry that is producing cultural products: news, beauty, music, fashion industry has one goal: generate profit. They will produce things that are produced like a factory. They are intended to produce consumerism. In the way that sex sells, rebellion also sells. The industries that are making our culture are feeding us our news so are corporaterized. Adorno and Horkheimer would not be suprised about YouTube. That cultural adversary may be dialectical.

      Academia. You know more about less and less.

      Backdrop context: Shaky ground of liberal democracy in the beginnings of WW2,rise of social movements, rise of nationalism and facism.

      Englightment: Reason & Individual liberty Bacon: a larger system that synthesized knowledge and power as one; a flipping of nature over man and man over nature; but A/H thought that this played out in a human global scale.

      If Enlightenment was supposed to create logic and reason why did we experience WW2, for A/H if we're to take Bacon seriously we have to consider DOMINATION in newer notions of freedom.

      Regression: Enlightenment as Myth. Englightenment becomes totalitarian it ABSTRACTS. Ex. Hitler youth, a difference among others yet they become homogenous sameness among each other.

      The result of the sacrifice continues that is far more reaching that MArx's alienation. --> UNFETTERED ACCEPTANCE

      Adorno/H say that positivism: 1) a system of philiospgy were every assertion can be proved 2) as ideoogy where eveyrthing is true by default and questioning it goes against objective foundations.

      Kant saw a short-sighted view of self-reason

      IDEOLOGY of defintiion #2 the process of Englightenment is brought into analysis of the Culture Industry.

      Context: AMerica is becoming global powerhouse, Soviet underwent their own Industrial Revolution, change was everywhere and revolutionary change with one large outlier thus the immediat question. Despite a global population of workers revolitng around the globe then why didnt the United States or Western Countries embrace similar post-capitalist systems seen across teh globe? And how is Soviet existing as a post-capitalist system alongside the capitalist system?

      Art is being systematized, newer technology is being synthesized into one and the same narrative. The same repackaged story; subject and authority. This mimics the governance of a few over many.

      A/H utilize Kant's idea of schemtaism (being how the midn communicates with objects and other structures aorund us, how to reason and cogantate; synthesize and bring Froyd into the mix, how we suppress ourselves and our desires to how we fit into society. We cognitively pick up how the world is presented to us. Viewership creates the bounds within which we can do art. A psychological realism that is difficult to break for a person who works a 9-5pm; to break it in a capitalist system is used to labor and build wealth. Art becomes the same even when it tries to stand out. There is a unifornm aethetic if you wnat to be different, the sameness and constant

      Art is now abstracted a fulfilmmnet of mere numbers rather than aesthetic work and utility. Regarding art in newer creation, A/H bring up autombiles as an example, a film must have a romatic sequence that the industry now demands. This is part of Mechanical reproduction. Art will become tailored to your class relation as well. But it's not only class and poleconomy but it's not just corporate art is entirely based oof profit but rather there is a cyclcial ideology that reinforces this ideology. see

      The focus isn't on marvel movies (for their thrist for profit) or to tell consumers to not consume this art but its the industry itself that reproduces the

      "Thirst" is not conscious it is a result of the structure that is capitalism the culture industry modling of our desires in the first place.

      It's not good enough to tell individuals to not consume said tailored art. Example anti-semitism is a result of essentialist notions of race. Largest incubators of anti-semitism stem from the bourigeoise themselves but a ruling class of people attempting to hide a ruling class domination. Here the bouregoise know the struggles of individuals and pins this to Jewish individuals.

      Thus its not really just pushing Jewish people out of certain borders this marks the downfall of bouregoise property.

      Look up: > Cultural education became....

      The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry...

      Culture is a paradoxical commodity. It is so completely subject to the law of exchange that it is no longer exchanged; it is so blindly equated with use that it can no longer be used. For this reason it merges with the adver­tisement. The more meaningless the latter appears under monopoly, the more omnipotent culture becomes. (pg 131).

      Unending sameness also governs the relationship to the past. What is new in the phase of mass culture compared to that of late liberalism is the exclusion of the new.

  14. May 2021
    1. he is focusing on the tensions that what he read causes with other things he knows and has read. He’s not just lifting things out that chime with him, but the things that cause friction. Because in that friction lies the potential of learning.

      Dissonance of juxtaposed ideas, and particularly those just at the edge of chaos, can be some of the most fruitful places for learning.

      Attempting to resolve these frictions can generate new knowledge.

      This is what commonplace books are meant to do. Record this knowledge, allow one to juxtapose, and to think and write into new spaces.

      It's also important to look more closely at things that don't cause dissonance. Is it general wisdom that makes them true or seem true? Question the assumptions underneath them. Where do they come from? Why do they seem comfortable? How could one make them uncomfortable. Questioning assumptions can lead to new pathways.

      An example of this is the questioning the final assumption of Euclid (the "ugly" one) which led mathematicians into different geometry systems.

    1. Why did a figure such as Leibniz fail to use his own tools? Perhaps messiness was the source of his creativity. This is a fact of intellectual originality with which Google must still grapple—libraries, after all, allow for the type of manageable disorder which is often the spark of creativity.

      Manageable disorder, messiness, and even chaos can be the source of boundless creativity.

      There's an idea in complexity theory that the most interesting things happen at the edge of chaos.

  15. Apr 2021
  16. Mar 2021
  17. Jan 2021
    1. the commonplace book has been particularly beloved by poets, whose business is the revelation of wholeness through the fragmentary

      Gestalt: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. See also, emergence in chaos theory and complexity.

  18. Oct 2020
    1. "Protestant" life of wealth and risk over the "Catholic" path of poverty and security.[8]

      Is this simply a restatement of the idea that most of "the interesting things" happen at the border or edge of chaos? The Catholic ethic is firmly inside the stable arena while that of the Protestant ethic is pushing the boundaries.

    1. The solution to imposter syndrome is to see that you are one. When I first wrote about how useful it is to remember that everyone is totally just winging it, all the time, we hadn’t yet entered the current era of leaderly incompetence (Brexit, Trump, coronavirus). Now, it’s harder to ignore. But the lesson to be drawn isn’t that we’re doomed to chaos. It’s that you – unconfident, self-conscious, all-too-aware-of-your-flaws – potentially have as much to contribute to your field, or the world, as anyone else.
  19. Sep 2020
  20. Aug 2018
    1. where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold [ 895 ] Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise

      I'm no physicist or astronomer, but I do think of much of unformed space in our universe or the spewing of forth from the initial white hole from which our galaxy was formed as a kind of Chaos. And the Greeks basically said that in the beginning there was Chaos, and from Chaos sprang Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (earth).

      Also I just looked up "Chaos" at etymonline.com:

      late 14c., "gaping void; empty, immeasurable space," from Old French chaos (14c.) or directly from Latin chaos, from Greek khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, that which is vast and empty," from khnwos, from PIE root ghieh- "to yawn, gape, be wide open."

      Meaning "utter confusion" (c. 1600) is an extended sense from theological use of chaos in the Vulgate version of "Genesis" (1530s in English) for "the void at the beginning of creation, the confused, formless, elementary state of the universe." The Greek for "disorder" was tarakhe, but the use of chaos here was rooted in Hesiod ("Theogony"), who describes khaos as the primeval emptiness of the Universe, and in Ovid ("Metamorphoses"), who opposes Khaos to Kosmos, "the ordered Universe." Sometimes it was personified as a god, begetter of Erebus and Nyx ("Night").

      Meaning "orderless confusion" in human affairs is from c. 1600. Chaos theory in the modern mathematical sense is attested from c. 1977.

  21. Aug 2017
    1. struggle upstream against the discursive power of the term, or playfully subvert it

      How to deal with the problem of conceptualization, as the process of finding terms and applying meaning to things always means reduction of complexity? A solution might be to subvert connotations and implicit meanings by highlighting certain presuppositions. This might be the task of social science, in a broader sense of philosophy (cf. Adorno, who defines philosophy's major task, simply put, in interpreting the world).