Partial Glossary list

GLOSSARY
Aristotelian-
Euclidean-
Newtonian-
Non-Aristotelian
Non-Euclidean-
Non-Newtonian-
Quantum Physics-
General Relativity-
Special Relativity-
Essence and Accident-
Existentialism-
Operationalism-
The Copenhagen Interpretation (of quantum physics)-
General Semantics-
Transactional Psychology-
“noise”-
Etic and emic realities-
Meaningful and meaningless, indeterminate and true/false(as pertains to scientific ideas)-
“isness”
Observer & observed-
“objective reality”

Gloss/Eigenstate/reality-tunnel/script/worldview/mindset/schematic/

Chaos

metaprogramming

Inventory of content ideas- part one:

Activity/prompt ideas:

Match the Map to the Monument- use pictures of different maps (subway, topographical, street) of places like Giza, Egypt, Paris, France, New York City, etc. "draw a line from the map to the image of the monument found there"

Which Dollar Bill has no Worth?: Circle the Counterfeit- Several images of real dollar bills.
also Which Dollar is Worth More?- images of dollar bills with little bios like: found on the street, framed and hung by Andy Warhol, Printed by the Mafia, Blessed by a Cardinal

What are the differences between a one dollar issued by the federal reserve bank for the market and a wafer blessed by the church for communion?

Match the image to the title
1Match the label to the person: What's in a name? - A list of titles such as: Communist, Racist, Religious Fundamentalist, Liberal, Conservative etc. and corresponding illustrations of "regular" looking people
2Match the image to the definition/title
-fork
-chair

How many reasons can you come up with for why you are doing this exercise (or reading this book) right now in 20 minutes? accompanied with fold out image of potential answers

Imagine your enemy as a collection of atoms- featuring picture of Kim Jung Il looking a mirrored image silhouetted to look like particles

What is Sound?- Circle the definition(s) you think is/are most true. List of definitions which are all partial but true.

How much of an apple can you see? place an apple on a table, write down what percentage of the apple you can see. Get a friend to stand opposite you and the table, how much can the two of you see combined? Get 12 people to stand in a circle around the table and the apple, now how much can you see? Cut the apple in half, space 6 inches- now how much can the group see. How close to 100% of the apple can you see?

Functionality ideas

So far I have a couple different concept ideas for the way my book will work.

I'm still open to it being written in, but am considering that the presentation of the activity maybe enough, much like the artist Jessica (Larva) had me pull up in class. Then I could print it on a nicer paper which is always fun!

One idea)
is to make it very simple, like a workbook or activity book, with one example after another with explainations. This could be a lot like the book This Means This, This Means That. If you click that link and then click on the picture on the amazon site you can look at a couple pages and see how it works. This could be broken down into chapters, such as: "Money", "Status/Labels", "What role do we play in this?" "Nouns versus Verbs" etc. or just a consistent layout with different ideas sort of randomly organized. Another way it could possibly be organized is by "level" of perception, so one chapter is about social realities, one is more about personal reality etc.

Another idea)
that I've played with is to make the book about one or a handful of specific subjects which is split into four or so chapters or parts. Each part would deal with a different definition or model of the idea in question which is held as true. The title of this would be something like, "EVERYTHING IN THIS BOOK IS TRUE" The idea that all of the definitions are useful by different fields though they seem contradictory, paired with the notion that they are all "truth" could really be strong I think. The problem I am having with this is keeping them somewhat simple. The best examples I have is how light is both a wave and a particle like in the "double slit experiment" video I posted a while back, and the idea of sound which I talked about as posters. This would have to be very specific to limited subjects in order to keep it a realistic length and I think that could be less useful.

I could still make it less structured and have a mixture of brief informational pages, such as in The Medium is the Massage and the questions/activities for examples. If I go this route I think the "Bar graph of Belief could be utilized inside the book as well.

Feb 15:
Due dates: CV+ Portfolio + Card and Poster ideas for the show.

Possible Forms for the Design Solution

My ideas are spinning. I want to do so much and there is not so much time! I feel like if I could commit to an idea in the next week or two I can take it so much further than if I let "it" keep evolving. On the other hand, I keep reading such great stuff and changing the way I state my idea/problem (slightly, but enough that the design solution seems like it would be different).

So far my ideas include:
-A poster series about what the word "sound" means, using the "If a tree falls . . ." example which use different definitions, one in each designated area (Short North, Clintonville, Bexley etc.).

-A mural, preferably projected flash video, of a "bargraph of belief" which depicts the number of people who hold different beliefs compared to the world population

-A workbook, think "Highlights for nerds," with duable activities and project ideas which will present the ideas and give the viewer and interactive experience and allowing for contemplation.
(I think that many of my ideas which I don't see as "final product ideas" could be utilized in this idea)

-Quotes by important thinkers on the subject such as Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Anton Wilson, Alfred Korzybski, Timothy Leary, Fred Allan Wolfe. etc. Presented as street art, perhaps as full scale wheatpaste of the thinker + a quote on the subject

-A book, much like that of Quentin Fiore's work with McLuhan and Fuller, which presents the ideas and examples in a graphic way. (see, The Medium is the Massage, War and Peace in the Global Village, I Seem to be a Verb)

Some "new" sketches

So, these sketches are really just for "fun." I had this idea way back in September and had talked about it a couple of times. I decided it was worth seeing a rough of idea of what they could look like. I just used some google images. The lists are basically what came to mind when I started to type them, I didn't delete or rearrange any parts of them. That said, if I were to really produce these (I imagined them as 40x60in or larger prints) I would obsess over what is included in the lists. Not sure I would keep the words "fork" and "chair" in the actual pieces.

Maybe these could be utilized in some sort of workbook or book if I go that route. Perhaps the opposing page could say, "Circle the correct one" or "What does chair/fork mean?" or "Which of these describes the pictured object?" or something like that. . .

Let me know what you think about these. Do they make sense? Are they helpful? Have they been done before (I feel like something similar must exists somewhere)?

Some More Freewriting. (b&w, abstract concepts, my greatest hope for humanity)

"Black & white" - stemming from an Aristotelian mindset (either/or mentality), this is the idea that everything IS either one way or another. This is easily observed in the idea of morals. An action either is "right" or "wrong" to most people, regardless of the individual context. However, this also seems to appear in any identification.

Words as Forms. Plato's forms are the concepts we attach to words? There seems to be a belief that the word is the thing. I say 'fork' and it implies a shape, a use or short list of uses, a color probably, and a texture perhaps to the fingers and different parts of the mouth. But fork 1 is not fork 2 is not fork 3. The differences between them being, different sources of creation, different histories (being owned by different people, used to eat different foods etc), different physical features, different locations, degrees of cleaness, - all of these seem pretty unimportant though.

When we begin to label abstract concepts [words whose meanings are up for interpretation?] (what do I mean by that word?) such as, "Hip Hop", "Justice", "Appropriate Clothing", "Christian", "Muslim", "Thief", "Nutritious," "Progress," "negative," "positive" etc. etc. etc. . . . all sorts of confusions happen which create disagreements which in many cases escalate into un-cooperativeness (think non-partisanship) with or even violence against other human beings.

How to get on the same page? is that the question? What does "progress" or "the best way for human beings to be" mean to me? A: The best thing I can imagine for human kind is the ability for every human being to pursue the deepest pleasures and aspirations her or she has, to discover their calling and achieve it- for every person to have a purpose to themselves and society as a whole. This of course requires many of things before it could ever happen, abolition of poverty, hunger, slavery, prejudice etc. I'm not imaging a utopia with nothing unfortunate or "bad" ever happening, but a situation in which no one is exploited. My greatest hope for humanity is that no one is exploited.

The Process of Abstraction in Perception.

Our old habits of evaluation, ingrained for centuries if not millenniums, must first be re-evaluated and brought up to date in accordance with modern knowledge.

A. Korzybski, in "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes"

The foundation of General Semantics

I just found this paper by Alfred Korzybski (founder of General Semantics) titled: "The Role of Language in the Perceptual Processes."


"When the premises of this new approach had been formulated, I found unexpectedly that they turned out to be a denial of the old "laws of thought" and the foundation for a non-Aristotelian system, the modus operandi of which I have named "General Semantics." The premises are very simple and may be stated by means of an analogy:

1. A map is not the territory. (Words are not the things they represent.)
2. A map covers not all the territory. (Words cannot cover all they represent.)
3. A map is self-reflexive. (In language we can speak about language.) "

Why We are All Map Makers - a bit of (almost) free writing

What does this whole map/territory thing mean? This won't be short.

A map, in this use of the word, means (to me, of course) a system of organization for navigating a space. Here, "space" can mean many things as well. A familar one is an aerial view (the system) of a city or state (the space). All sorts of things can be thought of as maps. Music genres work as labels which organize music*, so it can be communicated about (or navigated). A history book about the first Moon landing is a map. A diagram of a hydrogen atom is a map. An equally valid word is model. It is my belief, that most of what the human mind does, is map-making. Maps, or models, are limited- they can never contain all of the information or they would cease to be maps. So, this means that all maps are an interpretation of the territory. Different map-makers will make different maps for different purposes. A map of downtown maybe lists all of the streets, all of the restaurants, or all of the five-star restaurants, or perhaps only the donut shops. Once more, it could chart the elevation of the ground, the inner workings of the sewer system, the population, the temperature, the list goes on and on and on and on. Maps or models seem to be everything we have in a sense. Even our past would appear to be a subjective interpretation of our memory.

What's more, maps are to be read. This complicates things even further as the reader's subjective ideas/biases/conclusions/beliefs, are at work when interpreting the map, defining and organizing that map into his or her own model of the universe. How often have you and a friend been recounting a past event, when one of you says something like, "that's not how it happened, it was like this"?

The point of this is really that labels are dangerous. If we become too sure of our maps, we can justify doing foolish things. I want to create a dialogue which aids in putting our models into context in order to establish a further clarity.

That was shorter than I expected.







*The word "music," itself, being a model which serves to simplify a complex idea.

Wave/Particle duality - One place where a Multi Model Approach is necessary

So this is something I've mentioned a few times but haven't found a better way to explain. This is the experiment that ended the debate on whether electrons and other subatomic particles are waves or particles- the answer being, it depends on what kind of measurement you are taking. This idea is really helpful in understanding the reason for using a "multi-model approach" as we need both models of subatomic particles to understand what's "really" happening, and we also realized that it was our own biases which were making the phenomena occur or seem strange. Once we stop confusing language (map) for the actual event (territory), the seemingly contradictory nature of using both models to describe the subatomic world fades away. The question ceases to be, "is light particles or is light waves?" and becomes: "What does looking at light as waves help us discover about the nature of things?" and "What does looking at light as particles help us discover about the nature of things?"

Sorry for the corny animation, but this the best summary of the experiment that I could find. it is an oversimplification for sure, but it gets the point across.

Some new books

Really pumped as I got a couple of books while on break.

Tonight I was just loaned a book about Sufism, The Way of the Sufi, which is a mystic tradition that arose from the Islamic tradition but is much like Zen. (lots of brief seemingly contradictory statements, allegories and poetic riddles,)

I also received my copy of Alfred Korzybski's Science and Sanity. I've been trying to get a copy but the Columbus library system doesn't have a copy and they were no cheaper than 60 bucks online. However, one finally showed up for 30 bucks and I nabbed it.
I think, if I can read a substantial portion of it, it will likely have a great impact on my solution. It is one of the primary texts on General Semantics, which Korzybski describes, "In general semantics we are concerned with teh sanity of the race, including particularly methods of prevention; eliminating from home, elementary, and higher education inadequate aristotelian [either/or, a or not a] types of evaluation which too often lead to the un-sanity of the race, and building up for the first time a positive theory of sanity, as a workable non-aristotelian system."

Definitions: Ontology, Guerilla Ontology, Aristotelian/Non-Aristotelian

Important Concepts Relating to My Thesis

Ontology -

Via Wikipedia:
concerns the determining of whether some categories of being are fundamental and asks in what sense the items in those categories can be said to "be". It is the inquiry into being in so much as it is being, or into beings insofar as they exist—and not insofar as, for instance, particular facts obtained about them or particular properties related to them.
Some philosophers, notably of the Platonic school, contend that all nouns (including abstract nouns) refer to existent entities. Other philosophers contend that nouns do not always name entities, but that some provide a kind of shorthand for reference to a collection of either objects or events. In this latter view, mind, instead of referring to an entity, refers to a collection of mental events experienced by a person; society refers to a collection of persons with some shared characteristics, and geometry refers to a collection of a specific kind of intellectual activity.

Via Merriam Webster:
a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being

Guerrilla Ontology-
Loosely inspired by Guerrilla Warfare, it is a way of presenting information, whether fictional or informational, which deliberately organizes the information in such a way that the viewer/audience must constantly question the truth of what is being communicated. The end result being that the viewer becomes more skeptical and less apt to believe any one thing over all other things.

Aristotelian:
For the purposes of my discussion, I will used in the work of Alfred Korzybski and Robert Anton Wilson - Aristotelianism refers to a dogmatic belief in an "either/or" logic. In other words, logic which implies that all things are either 100% true/real or 0% true/real (false).

Why I think it "is" bad:
It is my belief that this kind of logic system, left unchecked, allows for generalizations which oversimplify ideas to the point where they have no actual connection to reality. This plays into the confusion of value judgments (or opinions) with facts. I believe this to be directly related to the appearance of all forms of prejudice, which acts against the human race's best interests.

Non-Aristotelian:
Allows for multiple valued logic: i.e. "maybe logic"Depends on the idea that there is never a 1 to 1 ratio of proof to idea. This comes from the notion that one cannot experience/witness/apprehend all of the universe forever, which would be the only true way to determine the truth of an idea Asserts that all information we can communicate about is closer to a model of the universe than the universe itself and that models can be improved to better interact with the universe.

Street Campaign concept idea #2

Posters dealing with the question "where does sound exist/occur?". Each one with a different answer to the question, illustrated using the, "If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" riddle.
The answers (as far as I can determine)
a) sound is the waves of vibrating air
b) sound is the brain's interpretations of the signals sent by the ears
c) sound is the product of the eardrum
d) sound is a release of energy from a body.

there are other ways these could be stated, but the point is that each of them is correct, in part. Of course, all of those things together describe the word "sound" more accurately than any one of them alone. A series of posters, each stating a different answer to the question, would be seen individually in different public places. The idea that they are seen in different places, isolated from the rest of the answers, comes from the connection of place and person. Who we are is largely a result of what we have experienced, where we have been, in the big picture. Perhaps I could apply one "model," per section of town, say there are 100 copies of one of the posters in Clintoville and 100 posters with a different answer in the Short North. This would create the sort of Guerrilla Ontology* I am looking for, because you begin to get it only if you see the different posters, if you see them all, you are more likely to question and decide that all of them are true in some sense and false in another, perhaps realizing that the word is just a simplification which doesn't include ALL the information.

Feedback, please!

*see previous post for definition

What do you think?

Hey, leave general questions in the comments!

Please feel free to ask questions, start discussions, tell me it doesn't make sense here. Unless they are about a specific post of course.

People Sketches

Robert Anton Wilson - Maybe Logic

This compilation of interviews and lectures has some great examples of what I'm thinking about.

Statement:

Working Definition: