Month: May 2021

Just a placeholder for an addition to my “Good Fences” identity agenda.

Gary Younge presents “Thinking in Colour” on BBC Radio 4.

Racial ambiguity / partiality in heritable genes shows considerable complexity for individuals to deal with, especially given their relationships to the racial culture already adopted by their families.

He makes one or two statements I wouldn’t necessarily agree with, but overall makes it clear we are dealing with identity based on broad vs narrow “definitions”. Recommended.

 

I remarked that at the turn of the 2nd millennium, when most of the world was focussed on the eponymous bug, that The Economist had declared “Meta is the Word” for start of the 3rd millennium. I’ve emphasised several times that Meta is a key aspect of my whole agenda, here a string of 2011 and earlier references. It resonated with me back in Y2K because it had become clear in my business information modelling day job that we were really meta-modelling the architecture of such models – and further meta-meta-modelling those ad infinitum – meta is a dimension, a direction, not a single layer.

Jonathan Rowson referred to our “meta-crisis” in a post on his Perspectiva blog in which he coined his “Tasting the Pickle” metaphor (or meme maybe). Just a couple of days ago I recorded having bookmarked this piece (one of many bookmarks, below), I can see it’s important, but haven’t had enough attention time to read it closely enough to get my head around it, yet.

Last night and today Jacob Kishere reminded me when he tweeted a reference to the meta-crisis as a meta-meme, when I didn’t immediately recognise he was referring to the same “meme” until he posted a second Jonathan link to his Medium blog.

Ironically, Jacob’s tweet was to express frustration that Jonathan’s call to arms had inexplicably failed to gain traction. Anyway dots joined-up even if I’ve no more immediate bandwidth to pick up that traction. For now:

[Aside – rough thoughts based on skims so far:

I suspect I completely agree with Jonathan about the meta-dimension of our current “crisis” being epistemic, educational and even spiritual (in some subjective, not entirely objective, sense). This is true almost independent of the explicit content of the current specific “crisis” topic

I suspect I will be disagreeing about the “emergency” timescale implicit in it being a crisis. It runs very deep, so deep and all-pervasive it’s meta to every specific example issue, very significant in terms of the ultimate high stakes in play – “our very rationality is at stake” to quote myself. Critical in terms of importance and priorities and escalating exponentially in terms of the speed of communications cycles (viral, memetic)- but happening over decades and centuries in physical, terrestrial and human lifecycles. Importance and urgency are orthogonal. Meta-urgent because it is VERY important, not because of any “scientifically” predicted “last chance” or “emergency” timescales.

PS what do you guys make of Rupert Read’s “extinction rebellion” take?]

Mentioned just a couple of days ago another addition to Eco’s library of unread books (Mark Solms’ “The Hidden Spring“).

Also picked-up today, because it was in stock at our local bookshop, Carlo Rovelli’s latest “Helgoland“.

I expected it to be in stock, as it’s gone straight onto the Time’s bestseller list, otherwise I wasn’t desperately seeking to read it amongst other immediate priorities. Since I’ve read everything Carlo has published in (English-translated) book form I feel I already share his metaphysics, and wasn’t sure I would get anything fundamentally new from (yet another) popular story of quantum physics, other than the fact he’s always a good read.

“Physics has found its poet”
John Banville.

Actually, my wife tried to pick it up for me a couple of days ago, but despite knowing they had it in stock, they couldn’t find it on the shelves. No-one in the shop was quite sure how they’d classified it.

Given my good fences agenda (the way we classify – discriminate between – things in the ontology of our world, based on our metaphysical understanding of reality) it tickled me that Carlo’s book was hard to classify. Whilst there obviously is a reality independent of us as individuals, the model, our knowledge of that reality is not independent of humans or our history.

Reading the free online copies of the introductory chapter we already know the story starts with Werner Heisenberg choosing to live on the island of Helgoland (Sacred or Holy Island, aka Heligoland, in English). Indeed, the cover blurb says as much, and there have been plenty of interviews accompanying publication – it’s no secret.

Full marks to The Guisborough Bookshop for classifying this popular science under biography. No physics – quantum or otherwise – without its human story.

I mentioned Line of Duty once before, when reviewing Unforgotten, and I don’t intend to add to the screeds written about the low key final episode of series 6. It was low-key, but it was nevertheless genius. Brilliant by Jed Mercurio and the team.

Fits my own story of what makes reality tick at several levels.

Firstly, clearly, though maybe less obviously than with Unforgotten, most of the story is about the interpersonal relationships within the team, crucially that they care for each other, even when no longer part of the actual team. With Unforgotten the main point is that the care extends to the “unforgotten” victims and the victims friends and family, no matter how cold the case. With Line of Duty the obvious focus is police corruption and involvement with organised crime – the point of AC10 – but even there we have the sense that some of those tangled-up in it are themselves victims, at least partially, with complex relationships to the crimes (and errors.) Also explains why so many viewers took to their hearts the “minor” characters in each series, like Chloe, the new team member in series 6 who did most of the leg-work in digging-up evidence and connections received as “good work” by Arnott, Fleming and Hastings. So care for, love of, fellow man is at the heart of it, saint or sinner.

Secondly there is the expectation of simplistic objective causality – it’s institutionalised in modern western rationality, well beyond any institution like the police force or government. Somehow a big crime drama needs a criminal mastermind conclusion with clear causal logic and motivation directing the institutional conspiracy. As ever most is cock-up and imperfect competence amidst institutional circumstance and inertia. The big crime is that “we” still deny this reality in wishfully directing blame. Our crime is in misguided expectations of rational reality.

We need “good fences“.

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[Post Notes:

Major meme circulating that Jimmy Nesbitt deserves a BAFTA for his role as the prime Mr Big suspect. A role which ironically consists of appearing as two photos and already as a corpse on a crime-scene video, with no speaking or acting part throughout the whole of series 6. Again brilliant by Mercurio. Obviously the BAFTA must go to Chloe (Shalom Brune-Franklin).

As to the apparently burning question of a series 7? Well life goes on, the future is open, anything with the realms of possibility is possible. Plenty of hooks left in the ending. Who needs a clearer answer?]