This site has three major elements:
=> Mechanistic Consciousness and its Consequences;
=> Electricity as a Public Good; and,
=> Stochastocracy.
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-72004920-1', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-72004920-1', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
Mechanistic Consciousness
Download "Stepping out of the Clockwork Garden"
http://www.ipage.com/controlpanel/weebly/
This is a book-length treatment of the idea that the modern world (roughly post 1650) has been created by the emergence of a way of thinking ("mechanistic consciousness") which conceives of the natural world by way of an analogy with clockwork machinery. Once this analogy took root the entire set of relationships between human society and within groups and individuals within society was transformed. Overwhelmingly this is a good thing. It has brought unprecedented material wealth and individual freedom but the dominance of mechanistic thinking has not been without problems. In particular, it has set up a way of relating to non-human nature that has already created substantial negative impacts - generally pollution and resource depletion - and may lead to the destruction of this civilization.
Readers' Digest version
_ Summary of Stepping out of the clockwork garden
The central theme of this work is that the spectacular improvements in economic well-being which have taken place in the past 300 or so years and the more mixed or even dubious developments related to social relations and environmental impacts are derived from a common source. The source is the idea of thinking about the world as if it were a machine like a clock, which is termed “mechanistic” or “Newtonian” consciousness (after Isaac Newton, the seminal figure in the transformation of the “worldview” from the medieval period to the Enlightenment and modernity). Kant’s philosophical system is taken as the best representation of “mechanistic consciousness”.
Kant’s epistemology allows us to see clearly why mechanistic consciousness has had such dramatic material and social and environmental impacts. In Kant’s account of knowledge the human mind imposes on the observable world pre-existing categories. Alternately, we may think of the mind as “filtering” sensory experience in particular ways. In particular, mechanistic consciousness imposes mechanistic categories, such as; the presuppositions of causality, that the whole is merely the sum of the parts and that the world may be represented mathematically, specifically by differential and integral calculus. The central problem of Kant’s system is that the “true” nature of the world is unknowable, only the world as observed via the pre-set categories is known to us; and, this includes human nature. Consequently, while we have come to understand the physical world more in a way which has the allowed for a startling improvement in material conditions, the moral purpose of our knowledge remains elusive. We have, as it were, built a powerful machine the purpose of which we do not know. Hence the uneven consequences, including those for the natural world, in the forms of pollution and resources depletion, which form what is widely known as the “environmental crisis”.
The work traces the origins and development in modernity of the potent metaphor of the world as a clockwork machine. It also sets out a simple model of how we might understand the process of societal transformation. The model identifies three key aspects of society – ideas, institutions and the social lifeworld. Hence changes from medieval ideas to those of the Enlightenment were also accompanied by upheavals in social institutions and in everyday life. In thinking about how we may respond to the “environmental crisis” the suggestion is made that a “gap” has opened up between ideas and institutions. The main presuppositions of physics which embody mechanistic consciousness and are reflected in Kant’s categories have almost all undergone evolution in the last century. While there is no obvious competing metaphor to the compelling image of the clockwork machine, the shifting categories that underlie modern physics suggest a direction for the recasting of societal institutions. Whitehead’s idea of “organic mechanism” is a capsule term for this shift which better reflects the presuppositions that underpin Quantum Mechanics and Relativity than the image of clockwork. In contrast to “clockwork” mechanism “organic” mechanism allows that the whole may not always be the same as the sum of the parts.
The machine analogy now pervades all of human society and thought. Even in art we have seen radical breaks from the past that reflect mechanistic thinking. The chief social institutions that reflect mechanistic consciousness are those of the modern economy. In particular, the dominance of markets reflects the central idea that there are mechanical economic laws that mirror those of Newtonian physics. In terms of environmental policy this has led to treating environmental impacts as “external” to the economy. Consequently, the major challenge of integrating environment and economy, usually captured under the rubric of “sustainable development”, is regarded as one of “internalizing” the external environmental impacts in the economy. This work proposes an alternative conception that is more consistent with the shift in consciousness that may be extrapolated from the changes that have occurred in the underlying presuppositions of physics. The alternative concept is to think of “environment” as production factor, akin to labour, the economic “return” to which requires bargaining on behalf of the natural world. (The “return” would take the forms of measures which prevent or mitigate pollution and resource depletion and which speed the rehabilitation of damaged ecosystems). The new institutions necessary to bargain for an “environmental service charge” and for the application of the resources obtained (“nature’s wages”) would reflect better an emerging worldview that attempts to restore a sense of purpose to society rather than accept the dictates of the “laws of supply and demand”. This would mean a more balanced view of the role of market institutions in liberal democratic society.
The central theme of this work is that the spectacular improvements in economic well-being which have taken place in the past 300 or so years and the more mixed or even dubious developments related to social relations and environmental impacts are derived from a common source. The source is the idea of thinking about the world as if it were a machine like a clock, which is termed “mechanistic” or “Newtonian” consciousness (after Isaac Newton, the seminal figure in the transformation of the “worldview” from the medieval period to the Enlightenment and modernity). Kant’s philosophical system is taken as the best representation of “mechanistic consciousness”.
Kant’s epistemology allows us to see clearly why mechanistic consciousness has had such dramatic material and social and environmental impacts. In Kant’s account of knowledge the human mind imposes on the observable world pre-existing categories. Alternately, we may think of the mind as “filtering” sensory experience in particular ways. In particular, mechanistic consciousness imposes mechanistic categories, such as; the presuppositions of causality, that the whole is merely the sum of the parts and that the world may be represented mathematically, specifically by differential and integral calculus. The central problem of Kant’s system is that the “true” nature of the world is unknowable, only the world as observed via the pre-set categories is known to us; and, this includes human nature. Consequently, while we have come to understand the physical world more in a way which has the allowed for a startling improvement in material conditions, the moral purpose of our knowledge remains elusive. We have, as it were, built a powerful machine the purpose of which we do not know. Hence the uneven consequences, including those for the natural world, in the forms of pollution and resources depletion, which form what is widely known as the “environmental crisis”.
The work traces the origins and development in modernity of the potent metaphor of the world as a clockwork machine. It also sets out a simple model of how we might understand the process of societal transformation. The model identifies three key aspects of society – ideas, institutions and the social lifeworld. Hence changes from medieval ideas to those of the Enlightenment were also accompanied by upheavals in social institutions and in everyday life. In thinking about how we may respond to the “environmental crisis” the suggestion is made that a “gap” has opened up between ideas and institutions. The main presuppositions of physics which embody mechanistic consciousness and are reflected in Kant’s categories have almost all undergone evolution in the last century. While there is no obvious competing metaphor to the compelling image of the clockwork machine, the shifting categories that underlie modern physics suggest a direction for the recasting of societal institutions. Whitehead’s idea of “organic mechanism” is a capsule term for this shift which better reflects the presuppositions that underpin Quantum Mechanics and Relativity than the image of clockwork. In contrast to “clockwork” mechanism “organic” mechanism allows that the whole may not always be the same as the sum of the parts.
The machine analogy now pervades all of human society and thought. Even in art we have seen radical breaks from the past that reflect mechanistic thinking. The chief social institutions that reflect mechanistic consciousness are those of the modern economy. In particular, the dominance of markets reflects the central idea that there are mechanical economic laws that mirror those of Newtonian physics. In terms of environmental policy this has led to treating environmental impacts as “external” to the economy. Consequently, the major challenge of integrating environment and economy, usually captured under the rubric of “sustainable development”, is regarded as one of “internalizing” the external environmental impacts in the economy. This work proposes an alternative conception that is more consistent with the shift in consciousness that may be extrapolated from the changes that have occurred in the underlying presuppositions of physics. The alternative concept is to think of “environment” as production factor, akin to labour, the economic “return” to which requires bargaining on behalf of the natural world. (The “return” would take the forms of measures which prevent or mitigate pollution and resource depletion and which speed the rehabilitation of damaged ecosystems). The new institutions necessary to bargain for an “environmental service charge” and for the application of the resources obtained (“nature’s wages”) would reflect better an emerging worldview that attempts to restore a sense of purpose to society rather than accept the dictates of the “laws of supply and demand”. This would mean a more balanced view of the role of market institutions in liberal democratic society.
Electricity as a Public Good
The electricity systems of all OECD countries, as well as several others, have been taken over in the past 25 years by a process usually dubbed "restructuring" which in its earlier incarnation was more honestly referred to as "deregulation, competition and privatization". This began as a policy experiment that was probably worth a try but has been now been proven a costly failure. Unfortunately institutional inertia has set in and these failed polices will continue to hobble the future of one of the most important infrastructures of the modern world. Central to this failure has been a mistaken analogy with other "deregulated" industries, notably natural gas and telecommunications. The main problem with this analogy is that electricity is much more like a public good (in economic parlance - much more below) than a private good.
Stochastocracy
The greatest threat to representative liberal democracy is the rise of "spinocracy", government by polling and other marketting techniques, mainly Focus Groups. The best way to prevent the continued erosion of democracy is to institute the choice of representatives by random selection rather than elections, hence, "stochastocracy".