Five Models for Thinking

In the Phaedrus, Plato has Socrates say that he likes dividing things up into categories because it aides in thinking. He also tells us that, like a good butcher, we need to make sure we are making the cuts at the natural joints; otherwise, we just make a mess of things. Nietzsche came along 2300 years later to remind us that conceptual categories are, ultimately, artificial, and that we need to challenge them periodically, and remember that the divisions among things are not really so clear-cut.

That having been said, let me lay out several models I am using that determine my thinking.

1) Information Theory. I support an ontology of information. If something is inform, it has no form. If something informs, it gives form. Thus, information is that which is without form, yet gives form. All things in the universe are information, and the universe itself began as information and continues to exist as information.

2) Chaos Theory, Bios Theory, Constructal Theory and Fractal Geometry. All things in the universe are self-similar regardless of scale, in several different fractal geometries. They exhibit order and disorder simultaneously around strange attractors. Bios theory is similar to chaos theory, but explains creativity in the universe as a product of bipolar feedback (simultaneous negative and positive feedback)–that is, it explains how systems find new strange attractors.

3) Self-Organization and Spontaneous Order. When objects can interact, they will, and when they do, they will give rise to order spontaneously. That order can range from the simple order of a salt crystal to the complex liquid crystal order of a living cell. Complex order requires an understanding of network theory as well.

4) Emergence. All laws of the universe evolved from separate entities interacting to give rise to those laws. These laws act as strange attractors. The result is a new entity the properties of which cannot be predicts from the underlying interactions.

5) Nested Hierarchies. Everything in the universe evolved into its level of complexity from lower levels of complexity. Biology evolved from chemistry which evolved from quantum physics (atoms), and atoms evolved from quantum strings. New levels of complexity arise naturally from lower levels of complexity as the entities of that lower level interact as a complex, dynamic system.

The idea of nested hierarchies comes in several flavors:

1) The physical model exemplified by J.T. Fraser‘s umwelt theory of time. With his model, the timeless level of pure chaos evolved into the probablistic time of quantum physics, whihc evolved into the deterministic time of chemistry (Newtonian physics), which evolved into the weakly forward direction of biotemporality (biological time), which evolved into the strongly forward direction of nootemporality (human time). Each level contains more and more time. And, I would argue, each new level becomes increasingly fractal in nature.

2) The human cognitive and social model developed by Clare Graves. With his model, the pure survialism of animal life evolved into the weak communitarian structures of tribalism, which evolved into the weak individualism of Achilles-type heroism/belief in power gods, which evolved into the stronger communitarianism of authoritarian-religious systems (like Medieval Christianity of modern-day Islam), which evolved into the stronger individualism of the capitalist/scientific social system (the Modern Era in Europe and America), which evolved into the stronger communitarianism of secular egalitarianism (Marxism/Communism, environmentalism, postmodernism), which evolved into integralism, which recognizes the value of each of the lower levels (lower in the sense of being less complex, as each level is more complex than the lower levels), which evolved into holism, which attempts to more smoothly unify all the lower levels. The last two levels recognize the value of complex, fluid, nested hierarchies, as opposed to the egalitarian level, which rejects all hierarchies, and the authoritarian level, which tries to impose rigid hierarchies on everyone.

To have an even more integrationist way of thinking, we cannot forget these four things: I-we-it-its : individualism-communitarianism-traditional science-systems science. And these must be fully integrated into the two forms of nested hierarchy mentioned above (as those two ideas must themselves be integrated).

These are a few of the models with which I am thinking. Actually, these are really just a single model with which I’m thinking. The model itself exhibits all the qualities listed above. You will also find useful elements of my thinking in catastrophe theory (due to its relation to emergence), and the ideas of both negative and positive feedback (and the bipolar feedback of Bios theory, of course). Negative feedback is equilibrium thinking, but positive feedback results in waves such as boom-bust cycle and the cycles described by cliodynamics. And be sure to read up on complexity as well. Knowing what models I’m using should help to make sense of much of what I have said and will say from now on in the blog.