Month: July 2015

Paul Mason’s book “PostCapitalism” is out this week, but has been previewed in talks and articles.

Lots of material I’ve used here. Schumpeter and Kondratiev waves of economic cycles. Freeman and Perez “Techno-Economic-Paradigms” building on Kuhn. Drucker, the guru of management gurus, standing on the shoulders of Parker-Follett. The 5th wave is clearly the information driven wave – the Information TEP – products (even physical products) whose value largely comprises or depends on information. The point is that information (like love) increases in value when shared and isn’t made scarce by copying – that’s quite a shift in capitalism’s foundation. The only scarce resource is the creativity of new patterns, tools and uses. The information itself and the knowledge in people is in connected networks and therefore non-hierarchical. Again, a change affecting the established capitalist model. In many ways the thesis so far is not new – we’ve been working on it for 25 years already.

Personally, I think other aspects of markets will retain scarcity and hierarchy. Knowledge is more than information, in the same way information is more than data and wisdom more than knowledge. Mason’s thesis seems to be that the flattening of the network will destroy pricing mechanisms. Perversely, as Kevin Kelly also predicted, even where hierarchical market power remains, even if only legally enforced, it will tend – has already tended – to monopolies. When one source is easily shared, why create a second source? Hence my point, the real value-add will be beyond the content simply as shareable information.

A network of connected “individuals” – connected but independent, not a monolithic collective – will seek something different from post-capitalism. This much is true. Looking forward to reading.

I had to capture this one for posterity

If you want to know why I rate philosophy above science,
read scientists critiquing philosophy,
then read philosophers critiquing science.
— Alex Gabriel (@AlexGabriel) July 29, 2015

[Post note to state the obvious. Obviously there is no either/or conflict or choice to be made, each has their own place in the scheme of things, and each should recognise the place of the other. The point of the rhetorical quip is that in general many scientists are “philosophy deniers”. I’ve yet to meet a philosopher who would “deny science”, even when aiming to point out flaws, questions and alternatives. In my experience many self-identifying as scientists are “dogmatic” about the primacy of their (contingent) science and disingenuous when it comes to proper scepticism. Scientists will (scientifically) claim lack of clarity and empirical objectivity, and even intentional obfuscation, by the philosophers, but in general the philosophers (if they’re any good) will argue more carefully and respectfully.]

Interesting piece in the Grauniad today by Karen O’Donnell (a student of Prof Francesca), particularly interesting for the (male) responses in the comment thread.

At the outset, I should say I’ve no idea why it is cast as a response to (the media myths of) the Jeremy Hunt debacle, other than the Grauniad audience-attention-grabbing motive, because it obscures an important gender issue. Pity. However, that said, the point is worth making.

One of my agenda threads is “Vive La Difference” – not to deny important gender differences, differences that mean the female view has advantages that we would lose from the meme pool.

The problem here is casting the difference as “emotion” vs “objectivity” – let’s face it, an argument as old as philosophy itself. But, continuing with that language for a moment, even emotion is a valuable part of academic, research and/or (any) discourse – scientific or theological – it takes thinking to places it might not otherwise reach. In the investigative, hypothesis-seeking, exploratory, creative process passion is a powerful force. And it’s an engaging and motivating force as Karen says. Sadly as well as the gender agenda, some of the commenters have the science vs religion agenda in mind too – missing the point of Francesca’s school of theology. As one of the commenters points out arguments involving passion are every bit as important in the history of science as anywhere else.

Obviously, documenting an “argument” in support of a testable proposition – in whatever academic field – will typically require objectification of the story and, since that may include topics whose subject matter includes human psychology, objectification of the subjective content too. But this is the point where contrasting the passion with the objectivity misses the real gender point.

The point is really about how narrow and broad thinking are joined together in the human mind.

I’d recommend Iain McGilchrist’s Master and Emissary. After Nietzsche’s phrase, he is pointing out that narrow objectivity, and the logical rationale that manipulates such well-defined objects, is the emissary, the servant of our wider senses. Something Einstein understood. The constant focus on objectivity – a fetish I consider it – shuts out half of our brains. In women the halves appear to remain better connected. [Lots of left-right brain myths and men vs women myths – male inability to walk, talk and hold two thoughts at the same time, etc – arise from these differences. The myth is that these are due to differences between the halves of the brain, whereas reality is more to do with how the two halves communicate with each other permissively.]

Speaking archetypically, women are – fortunately – more in touch with their wider senses than men are. A quality we’d do to cherish. If that broader range of sense and emotion, the passions, also have motivation and engagement benefits, we’d do well to cherish those too.

See here for Master and Emissary.

See here for Vive La Difference.

See here for Left-Right Brain Myths.

There is certainly a coming together of many related ideas which is very exciting, but there are some implicit assumptions in that “convergence” that blur some details that may not actually be right in any of the three fields.

This post is to record a position. The linked paper ….

“CONVERGENCE of Neuroscience, Biogenetics and Computing
– a convergence whose time has come.”
by Dr Michael Brooks

… is part of a series linking the work of Dan Dennett on the computational aspects of evolution, Craig Venter on the digital informational aspects of genetics and David Deutsch on the fundamental nature of information in physics. I’m a fan of all three, and have referenced their works multiple times in this blog, but I believe there are a couple of traps to avoid in the rush to converge:

Information & computation – the manipulation of information with other patterns of information, in real or virtual “machines” – is a very fundamental process. Information is simply “significant difference”. Possibly more fundamental than physics itself as currently understood in the standard particle model(s).

Mind & brain – cognitive sciences generally are right to see Mind & Brain as a “computer” – that is as a “machine” that does computation, but clearly it’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking of machine here as a physio-mechanical device. Computation is a many layered process, and when it comes to the computer itself, distinctions between hardware and software need not map simply to the brain and the mind. Information and computation processes are fundamentally independent of any physical substrate in which they may be represented. Independent of the substrate notice, not just independent of their representation.

At that level, avoiding the trap of over-simplifying the hardware-software view, there is lots of scope for careful work to bring these ideas together. But there is a second trap to be aware of before looking at the convergence with Genetics. That trap is accidentally assuming the digital nature of what is being considered. And there are two sides to this trap, both to do with digital objectification – one that genetics is necessarily digital, two that the computation is necessarily digital.

Genetics – is real, and it really is about information encoded in molecular patterns of bases in DNA. However, the objectification of those significant patterns as “genes” with distinct boundaries and clear definitions is part of the ontology of bio-genetic science. Useful to the science but not fundamental to the information patterns – there are a lot of fuzzy edges and apparent trash in between. We have a useful digital model of genes, but the genetics – the significance of and manipulation of the information – are not necessarily digital.

Furthermore, this same trap also exists in the Mind-Brain convergence too. There is nothing above that says either of these concern digital information. We tend to think of physical world computers as familiar digital computers, and whilst there is excitement about potential growing realisation of quantum computing, non-digital computing is actually as old as analogue computation – I know, many years ago I used to do it for a living.

In the famous Registry Assembly Programming case, the exercise is indeed fundamentally digital, and yes, it does illustrate the fundamental nature of computation. How can computation not be fundamentally digital?

What that exercise does show is that basic computation steps lead to complex processing – any unlimited sophistication – only by their combination. The underlying processes remain very simple, even when higher level languages and tools are used. The integer registries in the RAP case are themselves a representation of the information, which further represent (human) semantics. The model – the ontology – is a digital abstraction, but the information need not be.

You might argue that even in analogue computing, there are still digital particles involved – individual electrons in the electrical currents and voltages, or water molecules in the physical flows and levels – but as already noted above the information is (may be) more fundamental than even the particle physics.

Food for thought and a fascinating topic.

I’ve made an issue several times before of ensuring we are careful to use the term Islamism when we ought to, and given today’s upcoming announcements by the PM, I thought I’d make a brief summary of my position now:

• Problem of Islamism – A security problem. A policy of hatred of others. Jihadism. Promotion of Islamic rule (hence a so-called Islamic caliphate) by any means at the expense of the freedoms and rights (and lives) of other Muslims, sects and non-Muslims. Solution involves both inter-national political effort and lethal force.
• Problems of Islam – Cultural issues. The source of Islamist ideology (see above). But, also some imposition of repressive, irrational, patriarchal, discriminating and even barbaric practices on other Muslims, even where those same individuals are also members of free democratic and/or secular states. Some problems shared with other religious practices. Solutions involve intra-national political effort and legal force.

ie in taking care to target Islamism when that is what is at issue, is not to say Islam itself is without problems or that the two are unrelated. Indeed thoughtful Muslim commentators see the role of the Islam in Islamism, whilst demanding care in addressing both issues. Care that recognises that the political and cultural freedom issues also have quite independent ethnic and nationality dimensions.

Both Islam and Islamism represent problems, but different problems with particular relationships, each with different solutions and each requiring care to avoid conflation of issues and tarring all with the same brush.

A couple of readings and conversations – face-to-face and social-media – recently, that play directly into my agenda of keeping science and humanism honest, and expose where I’m at odds with received wisdom. I’m used to it after 15 years of blogging and, of course, countering with alternatives to received wisdom is the point. I’m not simply being contrary, there are important alternatives being overlooked. Received wisdom is simply a tyranny of the majority.

A number of campaigns I support, many of which fall under Sense About Science, make a lot of sense (obviously) and their intentions are laudable. Laudable enough to actively support as immediate if temporary measures, efforts to get the topics on the public agenda, curb current excesses and abuses of what passes for scientific knowledge. Starting from a ground zero of ignorance and denial, then all progress is positive. But …

But, there is a kind of arrogance that says being right follows from making progress. That’s evolution, innit? And there is a valid line of thinking that says so long as we make progress, who cares about being right. That’s politics, but it’s not science. In politics there will be values, but rarely any concept of ever being fundamentally right. Science on the other hand, whilst knowing it is never right, always contingent, does care about approaching knowledge as truth. If it doesn’t it’s just politics. And this is the Catch-22 again, when you have a political agenda around science we have to be careful to distinguish the politics from the science.

One of SAS campaigns is “show me the evidence” and a corollary of that one is “show me all the evidence” including the null and negative indications, particularly in (say) Ben Goldacre’s #AllTrials demand for publication of all clinical trials, including the failures. Who could argue with that?

Me actually. This is a political extension of the openness and transparency of all considerations and communications. Leaving aside any issues of privacy and security, this may be pragmatically fine from a freedoms and rights perspective, but what is completely impractical is that we all need to consider all available evidence and information. At some point we have to trust the knowledge we’ve got so far and trust the people with & sources of that knowledge. Asking to be shown the evidence is a statement of mistrust or a default to zero trust in the absence of evidence. So it is clearly a judgement where the process stops – when you have enough evidence to trust. That clearly depends on context.

So for the #AllTrials case, where the responsible and expert licensing authorities are in the loop, it will probably be practical to set some rules about disclosure to those bodies (transparently available to anyone, too)(*). The evidence of trust shifts to our relationship with the authority. In the more general “show me the evidence” case, the practical limits will always be a matter of judgement. Evidence that is easily available – and intelligible in all its subtle nuances to whoever is interested – should never be ignored, but we should not expect to see scientifically objective intelligible evidence to support every judgement. (This is Dick Taverne’s argument, and in fact he is a founder of SAS.) The need to trust judgement never goes away, it just gets pushed around. Trust is inevitable and it is where the science and the application of science must part company. Trust, like scientific knowledge, is something we should work to maximise, we cannot entirely replace one with the other.

And there are other competing factors that mean it is counterproductive to pursue the objective evidence line exclusively. One is we will never succeed in achieving watertight definitions of all the objective evidence needed for all situations. And the tighter and more comprehensive such attempted definitions become the more unlikely the nuances will be understand by more people. Simpler communications may give the illusion of wider understanding, but that understanding will be at the expense of actual scientific truth. It may be politically sound to pursue that kind of science communication, be we must be careful not confuse it with the actual scientific knowledge. At some point we always need to trust that the specialist scientists, like the responsible politicians, know better. It’s an illusion to believe we can drive trust out of the system.

Definitions and objective evidence are part of science’s model of the world, and the human world is more than that.

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(*)Note: Though even here, where management of the rules and their application has clear authority, it is already possible to predict gaming of the system, whereby potential failures are tested under the radar before bringing into the regulated environment. Rather than selective publication of results we get selective “official” testing. Unintended consequences. ie the devil is in the detail of the execution and management, not in the definitions of the rules and processes. Definitions don’t solve the problem.

Dick (ie Baron) Taverne came along to the CLHG book club discussion of his “March of Unreason” last night. Interesting to meet and spend time talking with him.

Since his book is now 10 years old he gave us a 10 minute update on how he saw things different now. I actually thought all his main points were valid anyway – clearly his focus on topical issues was of its time, and limited by the evidence then available – that’s the point – but the underlying points are really unchanged for me. Perhaps because we were an atheist / humanist audience the politician in him gave us what he thought we wanted to hear – rising theistic religious fundamentalism as the main dogmatic threat to rational science (though he cited Pinker’s Better Angels to remind us to keep a sense of proportion and progress.) In his book the rising fundamentalists were the back-to-nature eco-warriors – those who saw science as either unnatural or driven by big business or both. Some so-called “science” is alien to humanity – feeding ground-up animals to herbivores in the BSE scandal for example, though the risks were always tiny and managable when it came to empirical evidence.

I have a counter point to the Sense About Science “show me the evidence” campaign. It’s an error to think everyone should be informed on all the technical nuances of every science-based issue affecting life enough to actually recognise good evidence and spend the time to consider it. We have lives to live. The mantra should be show me the evidence that you have considered enough evidence that I should trust you. If you’re selling “scientific” cosmetics products – I already know you’re selling product. I’ll find my own evidence thanks, by trial and error, if I care. If you want funding for a multi-billion particle physics project, I want to know I can trust who is advising you. Outside of laboratory conditions, evidence is about trust; trusting authority. After the size of the human population of the planet, trust is the no.2 issue for us all. Risk aversion (Taverne’s take on the stultefying “precautionary principle”) is a part of the optimism / pessimism balance of trust. – Nuclear Power, GM crops / technologies, Animal testing. etc.)

Interestingly Taverne is a staunch supporter of the BBC, as I am, and cited recent improvements – whether as a result of “Sense About Science” or otherwise – one example being that the meaningless idea of having balanced reporting by simply giving equal time to any counter spokesperson on every issue was a thing of the past. Based on a recommendation from Prof Steve Jones, it was now normal for producers and editors to take scientific advice on the “weight of evidence” before deciding on balance. Simple but effective stuff. Again it may be a right, but shouldn’t be a necessity, for the public to assess all evidence, when there is an authoritative institution we can trust. We should focus on building trust. Confidence. Living.

I’ve used the idea of focussing on demands for quantifiable objectivity as a fetish previously, akin to autism in economics. Taverne referred to Merkel as a deficit fetishist (quoting another source) in the Grexit saga, focussing too narrowly, applying a rule, without vision or imagination. Rules being for the guidance of wise men, and the enslavement of fools. It’s obvious to anyone that the Greek situation is not really about the debt as a number – some large proportion of it will obviously be written-off – once the fuss dies down. Hands-up anyone who conceived it would ever be repaid. The negotiations should be a game to encourage tackling of previous productivity and corruption problems in public services, with the threat of a little austerity as an incentive. It’s not about using austerity as a punishment, a big stick to achieve a zero deficit. That’s dumb. Wiser and less-public negotiations would achieve the right result. Public pronouncements on numbers are mere hostages to fortune. Naive. Autistic. Counterproductive.

Some discussion on Daniel Kahneman followed; the psychologist with the Nobel prize for economics. Economics has always been about psychology to its practitioners; about perception, sentiment and confidence. I think this was confirmed for me back in my 1980’s MBA days, budgetting and accounting as psychological games. The simplistication (dumbing down) in the media, and thence in public pronouncements by the politicians and Robert Pestons of this world, create a focus on numbers we can fight about – wars make for media-selling headlines (see “fuss” above). Someone also previously coined the idea of “autistic economics” for this problem. We can all do arithmetic, right? Jeez. Come back Stephanomics.

Finally, joining up the German and Greek dots with a conversation about Egyptians specifically and Africans generally, leading naturally to Scots and Brits, Taverne reinforced his aversion to “national” identity and support for the “federal” post-WWII European project – powers delegated upwards by member agreement –  notwithstanding massive problems with the current EU arrangements. The US wants, we and the world need, us (all) to be bigger than little-Englanders.

A man after my own. A fascinating evening.

(Will add more links to the implied references in due course if asked.)

Identity Politics

It is increasingly topical that names used to identify “groups” become contentious topics. Muslim vs Islamist, Humanist vs Christian Humanist, Race vs Ethnicity, Gay vs Straight, CIS vs Trans, Sex vs Gender, Ukraine vs Crimea, Greece vs Europe, UK vs its parts, Locations vs Communities, even species of Monkeys vs Humans. (Post Note – Feminist vs “TERF” didn’t yet exist when I wrote this, but add it to the list above). As soon as you want to tie any of these to actual ethical policy you’re into the minefield of identity politics – “bogus identity politics” some would say. A topic I’ve been promising to say something about for some time.

Choosing which group to talk about is a political choice; what is the point I want to make and why? And this becomes one of the reasons why not only the group chosen as your subject, but its relationship to the name you use for it also becomes so contentious. That names come with baggage is the passive, relatively innocent end of the spectrum, but such choices carry intentional rhetorical force too – as a means of isolating or uniting one kind of identity from or with another. We all have agendas beyond our immediate point. Naming is politics, so whilst individual freedom is a good starting point, social agreement beats ideological imposition of one person’s freedom over another’s rights.

As with the causes, responses to the problem come on a wide spectrum too, from the careless calling of a spade a spade or tarring all with the same brush, to efforts to create tight definitions and carefully chosen labels or invented neologisms to support the particular issues and conversations. Further extreme is the adoption of particular existing terms, that may once have been carefully thought out names and definitions, but whose original purpose becomes lost in the paralysing euphemistic short-hand of political correctness. Both extremes – careless and PC – are effectively ways of ducking or ignoring the problem. The illusion is that careful use of terms with sufficiently tight definitions is the only real solution – it’s certainly the “scientifically rational” solution. But, that’s actually a fools errand.

Defining Identity

The underlying problem whether identifying some topic with or beyond yourself is just that; using a subject-object basis for identity (objective things distinct from each other and your subjectivity). Whether you are identifying with a group to make a point about its distinction from other groups, or identifying another group distinct from yourself or your chosen group, you are objectifying both subject and object. Me / We as opposed to You / They / Other as opposed to Another.

In science, or any endeavour blessed with scientific endorsement, it is pretty much essential that objects and terms are so defined. Repeatability by anyone, anywhere, anytime, with all extraneous effects accounted for, subjectivity specifically excluded, and amenability to mathematical and logical manipulation demands well formed objects and evidence. Even if their definitions are statistical or stochastic, are all fundamental to conventional scientific endeavour. Even when “being objective” in a non-scientific context, it’s about recognising your (subjective) position in relation to the object (subject matter), however much you try to discount it. The concept of knowing a truly neutral god’s-eye view from nowhere really only exists in an abstract model, not in the real world.

This is true of any model of reality, if it is to be amenable to rational analyses.

And science, the body of knowledge and its processes, is exactly that – a model of reality. The best model we have for extending rational objective knowledge of natural reality. There are two points to note. Firstly, the model is not the reality; the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Secondly, the model chosen is abstracted for a purpose; it’s a political choice based on the ends you’re aiming for, and in that way science is the model chosen to extend knowledge of the natural world. A good choice for science, and for the most part non-contentious.

A model of what exists is an ontology, and it’s normal for such a model to use classification, usually a hierarchical taxonomy to define all the things and groups or sets of things that make up your world model. Since the groups may be overlapping and nested hierarchically, things may be members / instances of more than one group / set, but each set is defined by its membership. Meet the definition and you’re in, fail to meet it and you fall outside that set. By definition (literally, by means of definition) the model cuts the world into useful pieces distinct from one another; definitively distinct. It’s what analysis means, it’s more ancient than Aristotle and it’s the old battleground of the romantic poets taking issue with classical science. It’s not new that we “murder to dissect”. Even contemporary philosopher Dan Dennett is at pains to urge his scientist friends, amongst whom he has many, to delay establishing definitions. Hold your definition, he says. Your definitions are not a fundamental aspect of the world, but an emergent part of the scientific model you are developing and extending. Accept that definitions are loose until fitted into your model, only then when usefully forming part of your model are they definitive. Though even there, they’re also contingent of course – they are definitive only for the purposes of the current model, until you find a better one.

If you’ve spent significant time in business and technology, as I have, working on information models, you’ll also realise that even in good functional models, definitions used to identify “business objects” are much less definitive than they might appear. The more you broaden the model to cover wider and wider contexts of life, the closer you get to a generic dictionary of terms independent of context, the more such definitions either include terms like typically or usually used for, or terms that contrast the definition of one object with another. Calling a spade a spade? Try defining “spade”. Seriously if you doubt me, try that exercise before googling or wiki-ing it. You won’t find a comprehensive one that doesn’t say what it’s usually used for, or contrasts it with not being a shovel, nor recognises that the name applies to many unrelated objects from which it has inherited the same name by metaphorical or shape association. If you turn up to work and simply have to choose between a shovel and a spade, the problem is trivial. Then imagine the kind of definition you might need if you had to frame a piece of legislation or policy on what a spade can or cannot be used for ever, anywhere, by anyone? Inconceivable? Don’t even think about it.

Definitions are only definitive within the limits of some model – an abstraction – fitted to a specific purpose. The defined objects are certainly not a fundamental aspect of reality.

The “aha” moment?

So how are we to “discern” different things of different “significance” in the real world, if we accept that objective distinction and definition are simply artefacts of our model, not the world itself? A two-pronged answer. Firstly until people reach an “aha” moment in recognising how significant this objectification problem really is, and how a fundamentally different model might look like and how it would improve life, the answer is one of guidance only.

So, for now, beyond the confines of science, and even within it, don’t get too hung up on definitions as the means to identify your objects & subjects of interest. Certainly in human situations beyond scientific contexts or specific applications, don’t be fooled into thinking you can solve your problem by seeking more definitive definitions. That’s the fools errand. In “identity politics” where waging rhetorical arguments on behalf of or between groups of humans, accept that no such definition can get beyond being a “working definition” for the current conversation. The only reliable identification of a group is mutual self-identity. What does the individual identify as? Even then, there are extreme subjective cases. The individual who refuses any (useful) labelling in order to reject or game the system you’re suggesting, or the individual who chooses perverse identity either for the same reasons or (say) to play the victim card, to claim some freedom conflicting with others, or in order to pursue some other rhetorical or political ideology.

In identity politics, definition of one’s identity is political, subjective, and psychological. It won’t fit your prior objective definitions usefully for long, no matter how carefully you work out such definitions.

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A speculative coda:

Might there be a better solution for identity?

For a more comprehensive and fundamental solution if, as I do, you believe the problem is real (see “aha” above), real in the natural world described by science, then I’m guessing you’re going to need a better solution than a science based on politics and psychological games. You’d also have to believe a little metaphysical consideration is worth the effort. Ironically fundamental physicists, imagining some as yet unknown particle or field underlying their model-so-far are doing exactly that. It was Max Born no less who said “theoretical physics is actual metaphysics”. Sure, they will want to turn their imaginings into definable and testable components of their scientific model of physics but, until they do, such imaginings need not be limited by their existing models. The what-if’s can be as creative and imaginative as you like.

There is nothing supernatural in reality; that’s a naturalistic definition of reality. Anything imagined must be naturalistic and expected to stand the evidential tests of empirical experience. However, in order to have even a conversation about a world model with alternatives to objects (defined objectively, distinct from subjects and from each other), it’s going to be a struggle to fit existing language and rationale and remain intelligible. I’ve many times referred to this as the Catch-22 of making any progress here.

Identity and definition and the idea of identity as something objectively definable (or not) is a long-standing issue here, and the growth of this as a political topic in both the party-political sense, and the wider ethical sense of freedoms and responsibilities, are not new either. What may be new is the increased topicality of free-thought vs ideological extremism. In fact the prompt for this longer post arose from a conversation a couple of weeks ago with one scientist friend, a mycologist, who has his own very particular take on a solution to the problem that the real world is not as definitely objective as our traditional scientific models have led us to accept.

A natural solution – an inclusive and informative view of identity.

Alan Rayner’s metaphysics (or his “non-definitive physics” as he would have it) is called “Natural Inclusion” (NI). Not exactly a monism, since it doesn’t even recognise a single “substance”, but like many monisms it starts with the idea that the subjective (me and my mind) stuff must comprise the same as the objective (other, out there, physical) stuff. That’s a view not inconsistent with scientists who would hold that me and my mind stuff are the “happenings” of my brain and bodily systems and energy stuff; not something else, not fundamentally distinct, and certainly not “woo” or supernatural. However, NI goes further and says even space and stuff are not a fundamentally different presence. Like a number of metaphysics, it uses the language of flow and dynamic patterning as more fundamental than any of the objects we consider significant, but since space itself is included in the flow, rather than flows of stuff contained in space we get flow-forms in and of the space-stuff.

And the language becomes – distinct but mutually inclusive presence, receptivity and permeability, separation as abstraction, dynamically distinct manifestations of informative energy flow …. and so on …. natural inclusion. The language is necessarily alien – unintelligible – if your mind-set is the traditional objective rationality, and I do not attempt to provide a full description of NI here, just a flavour. And, as I say, there are alternative flavours of metaphysics if you prefer. The only sin here would be to assume a metaphysics based only on your existing physics.

No, my purpose here was to illustrate a point about identity without definitions.

Think of two entities A and B, which we can clearly discern (you can see them, right?) as two different things from their (fuzzy red shape) appearance of “space-stuff”, even though their boundaries may appear confused and dynamic. In our “model” – necessarily an abstract model remember – we might choose to define B narrowly or A more widely (say) but equally tightly definitively (blue dotted circles) or we might simply need to draw a line D that clearly distinguishes the spade (A) from the shovel (B). But note that however we might choose to make the distinction between A and B definitive in our model, we can still discern our experience of A from that of B quite independently from those definitions, however narrow, wide, tight, loose, specific or generic.

In the NI approach the space-stuff (natural-flow-forms) that are A and B are “mutually inclusive of receptive space and informative energy”. They don’t “occupy” space as mutually exclusive objects. And note the word “informative” – it’s the information that gives them “form”. Inform as a verb, not just to communicate, but to give form energetically. I believe this is a powerful idea. Another good reason to investigate NI in particular, though as I say I’m not particularly holding up NI here as the solution.

[Post Note: since writing this Alan Rayner’s latest book is published “The Origins of Life Patterns – In the natural inclusion of space and flux“]

[Post Note: Markov Blanket – statistical determination of self-organising system entity / identity boundaries. Within which the entity has a subjective view of the world via that interface – see Mark Solms / Karl Friston.]

The bottom line?

For now however, whether the idea of a non-definitive physics of “natural flow form” – or any metaphysics – is something that turns you on or off, my point here has been very straightforward:

It is perfectly possible to imagine a world model that does not depend on objective definitions. But, if your current context – a scientific one, say – demands definitions, remember not to get too attached to them. If you get to feel that definitive identity of our objective world is the fundamental aspect of our problem, in conflict with subjective identities, then there are alternatives that would re-pay your investigation. For now, the only alternative is messy consensus politics.

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[Post Note : I mentioned earlier in the piece some basic concepts around models and ontologies, taxonomies of sub-classes where parent classes are being selected as significant – every two things have “a” parent class, so simply having a unique parent is rarely the point when it comes to distinguishing identity between any two related things. An interesting article here – about WordPress and WP-Theme code and licensing dependencies – that raises the exact same issues. Distinguishing or establishing a clear relation between two different pieces of code is fraught. In some sense whether one is literally (historical process-wise) derived from the other, they will share some common derivation, and however packaged and distributed, the real-time function of two pieces of code can be inextricably intertwined. Even in software, “identity” is political, subjective, beyond objective. Only case law can resolve the legalities of which definitions rule, not the definitions themselves. And this same issue of well-defined “packets of code” follows for any physical form – genetic or memetic – biological or discursive. It’s the information that is physical – geddit?]

[Post Note : Julian Baggini on personal identity.]

[Post Note : Lily Allen spots the problem with POTUS (sic pouts) as the twitter handle for Obama:

Will Obama get to keep @pouts

— lily (@lilyallen) July 11, 2016

End.]