Dear Alexander,

 

   Wonderful reflections. I completely agree with your point about “ideology” being (large scale) systems of justification and very much equivalent to my meaning of Culture on the ToK. And it is the emergence of systems of justification in particular socio-historical contexts with particular symbols and identities and histories of investment and influence that give rise to both the ideological explicit content, and the subconscious collective backdrop that implicitly frames and shapes it.   

 

  Furthermore, yes, the digital wave is upon us and the issues of how we deal are key. The ToK System is a map of science and a natural philosophy theory of scientific knowledge as behavior writ large. Behavior in the ontological sense refers to change in object field relations. And behavior in the epistemological scientific sense meaning that which can be (directly or indirectly) observed and measured. Indeed, the ToK it gives rise to a Periodic Table of Behavior (attached) that allows us to map out the “objective behavioral facticity” of nature.  

 

  But questions of the justifiability of facts are different than the justifiability of values. The ToK System is not a full synthetic philosophy, nor is it a guide to moral well-being. However, the ToK is a natural philosophy that can set the ground work for a humanistic approach to ethics and aesthetics. Indeed, that is what my next venture is about. The playful “Garden of UTUA” is a first draft to a more complete synthetic philosophy that sets the stage for practical wisdom.

 

  Indeed, it is crucial to realize here my own personal journey. I was training to be a clinical/health service psychologist. I was (and do) making moral decisions about the nature of the good life all the time in that work. I craved a knowledge system that made both facts and values clear. Indeed, the fact-value entanglement problem was primary in my shift from the question of “What is psychotherapy and how might it be better integrated?” (which has, by its very nature, a fact-value fusion) to the question: “What is psychology?” The latter being much more fact/descriptive explanatory and humanistic values are secondary (although I learned that everything is complicated). My point is that the ToK System solves the problem of (American) psychology. It does not solve the problem of value (either ethical values or aesthetics).

 

  The full philosophy (i.e., natural, synthetic and practical) that I am now working on (with others) tackles the issue of value directly, and offers a vision of the future in which the two are holistically synthesized. I think progress is being made toward a value-based algorithm for the future. I will offer a teaser here and not that there is much more to discuss.

 

  First, let me be clear that I am committed to an “integrated pluralism,” meaning that there needs to be and will always be many meaning making systems. Thus, I am certainly not claiming that what I offer is the right or only way. But what is emerging as a clear and clean synthesis in my language game, and something I believe could be part of our collective ideology that would help us ensure the digital transformation ultimately fosters wisdom.

 

  In terms of the algorithm…here is an early version: The outline of an “adaptive living equation”: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201605/the-adaptive-living-equation

 

  In terms of values, here are what I call my “big three” values that provide macro-level society guides toward “the good”:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201201/finding-our-moral-compass

 

  In terms of building our future, I have recently become enamored with the “philosophy of design” as articulated by the architect Harold Nelson and computer scientist Eric Stolterman called The Design Way, which provides a way to think about developing desired change in an unpredictable world.

 

Looking forward to our continued dialogue about this,
Gregg

 

 

 

 

From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Alexander Bard
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2019 6:17 AM
To: Intellectual Deep Web <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Matter, Life, Mind, Culture, Meta-Culture (was: The Inner Senses of the Human Psyche)

 

Dear Gregg

 

The ToK chain of emergences makes a lot of sense, I'm especially happy that consciousness/subconsciousness are not part of your definitions and that each emergence is indeed properly grounded in formal causations.

 

Your term "justification system" is what we European phenomenologists refer to as "ideology" (Jordan Peterson uses the word "ideology" wrongly, mistaking all ideology for being authoritarian-political, not realizing that his own social-conservative Petersonism is very much an ideology in itself) meaning a system of ideas (or at least a chaos perceived as an orderly worldview, psychotics for example have no other worldview then their own narcissism).

 

"Ideology" is then the basis for "models" which we either obey or disobey which in term forms "identities". Where the benefit of our systems is that it can be used on humans both dividually and socially. "Subconsciousness" then operates according to an "ideology" that we are not aware of, or that at least is not transparent to us, therefore the Jungian terms "shadow" and "collective subconsciousness" also apply to our social philosophy.

 

The question is then how we deal with epistemology (truth), ethics (smart versus stupid) and aesthetics (The Beautiful) when The Digital comes crushing in, absorbs culture and generates a Mind drenched in and obsessed with Meta-Culture. Memory should mean a renaissance for Factuality that makes most of value relativism obsolete (and should generate a religious and spiritual awakening in itself; no more imaginary trips but truly factual transformations at the core).

 

But what is the core for ethics and aesthetics here? We have already applied mass democracy on both as soon as billions of users entered the Internet and ended up with a bland chaotic mess, from My Space to Instagram. All built on the ideology of infantilism that was the result of the absent phallus syndrome following the paradigm shift itself.

 

I firmly believe that the problem here is that we are constantly left with grading or degrading accumulations of past experiences. How many more movie or selfie sequels can we muster before we just puke? So for the grand narrative to work, it has to be both audacious like hell and truly challenging, why otherwise even speak of ethics and aesthetics?

 

Could perhaps the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg as an augmented space co-created by architectural genius and algorithm point the way forward? https://www.elbphilharmonie.de/en/ At least for aesthetics? Gaming stills merely seems like animation to me by comparison.

 

Best intentions

Alexander

 

Den tors 24 jan. 2019 kl 13:46 skrev Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]>:

Dear Alexander,

 

Thanks much for the question. It is indeed crucial to be clear regarding the language games we are using. Before answering directly, let me share a brief description of my background with IDWers.

 

My language system emerged over the last twenty years, starting with the Tree of Knowledge System (which first appeared in my head in 1997), which is a new approach to natural philosophy/science writ large. The ToK System resulted from my realization that modern scientific psychology was hopelessly fragmented and confused, in part because philosophy never got the matter and mind relationship quite right. I came to call the hopeless fragmentation of psychology “The Problem of  Psychology,” and ultimately the ToK System emerged as a novel solution. In 2003, I produced the first outline of the system, in  The Tree of Knowledge System and the Theoretical Unification of Psychology. A few years later I examined the system’s capacity to serve as a new consilient approach to nature philosophy/science via comparing it to E. O. Wilson’s in this paper
The Problem of Psychology and the Integration of Human Knowledge: Contrasting Wilson’s Consilience with the Tree of Knowledge System. I then provided a book length treatment of the system in A New Unified Theory of Psychology. I have since been working out the practical philosophical implications of the system, both for professional psychologists, and for everyday living and psychosocial well-being.

 

The central insight of the Tree of Knowledge is that the universe (from our scientific point of view) is an unfolding wave of behavior (much as Whitehead’s process philosophy and Lee Smolin’s version of reality), that pops into existence at the Big Bang, and unfolds as four strongly emergent dimensions of behavioral complexity, which are labeled Matter (the behavior of and on the energy-matter-space-time grid); Life (the behavior of organisms); Mind (the behavior of animals w/brains); and Culture (the behavior of human persons). The reason that, following Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture are strongly emergent (as opposed to weakly emergent properties, which is how I conceive of the relationship between physics and chemistry and other “within” dimension emergences) is because each is associated with the appearance of a novel and functional information processing and communication system. Genetics serves that for “Life”; the nervous system for “Mind”; and human language for “Culture”.

 

Between each dimension of complexity is a “joint point,” which refers to the conceptual structure that provide explanations for the emergence of the higher order dimension of behavioral complexity.  

The ToK posits Behavioral Investment Theory as the joint point for the emergence of Mind.  The Justification Hypothesis (now referred to as Justification Systems Theory) is the joint point for Culture. It is a framework that allows for a clear understanding of the functional organization of the human self-consciousness system and the socially constructed systems that coordinate/mediate the behavior of human persons. Capital “C” Culture on the ToK refers to the large scale systems of justification (i.e., linguistic meaning making) that emerged between 200 and 50K ago, and lines up with Donald’s mythic culture. Our laws, politics, scientific theories and the reasons we give when we are late, are all “justifications or justification systems” in the language game of the ToK. As is this narrative.

 

MetaCulture has its primary origins in writing, which also represents the shift from pre-modern to “modern history” (as opposed to Big History). I am using “Meta” to mean above and beyond. So, I am referring to a theoretical conception of behavior that transcends modern Culture. On the Tree of Knowledge, MetaCulture emerges as “The Fifth Joint Point.”

 

Let’s ask: Why is it happening now, what is driving it, and how might it be guided? It is happening now because we are seeing the emergence of a new form of information processing, communication and memory systems, in the form of “digital.” That is, digital becomes akin to genes, neurons, and human language, and is the driving force. It my hope that its emergence will be fused with the emergence of coherent integrative wise knowledge systems that enable a synthesis of human nature, the nature of our planet and cosmos, and technology with a valued based vision of the future toward the True, Good, and Beautiful. That is, I conceive of the 5th Joint Point as a “transcendental beacon” to serve as a call for wisdom that coalesces and coincides with the digital revolution and provides a path to a higher or meta form of cultural consciousness. In other words, a post, postmodern grand meta-narrative.

 

Attached is a visual that attempts to capture this graphically.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to share my version of reality.

 

Best,
Gregg

___________________________________________

Gregg Henriques, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Graduate Psychology
216 Johnston Hall
MSC 7401
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, VA 22807
(540) 568-7857 (phone)
(540) 568-4747 (fax)


Be that which enhances dignity and well-being with integrity.

Check out my Theory of Knowledge blog at Psychology Today at:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge

 

Check out my webpage at:

www.gregghenriques.com

 

 

 

 

 

.

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