Lewis Works

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Lewis Works Newsletter*

*Back to Basics III

The E-zine of Applied General Systems Science

By Hugh M. Lewis, PhD, MA, general editor

Vol. I, No. 14

4/30/04 Copyright 2004 ©, Hugh M. Lewis.  Facsimiles of this page or parts of this page may be printed and distributed for non-profit research, consulting and educational purposes only, as governed by fair use policy.

On Top

We have taken a fundamental shift of focus, moving the center of our attention and daily involvement away from the web-system framework, toward hands-on involvement in several different research, design, writing & art projects with the aim of tying together the larger meta-system framework. The development of the web-system will continue in the background on a part-time basis, though it will no longer be the exclusive object of our concern.

We have postponed our new three-tiered membership framework. Details for membership may be found next week by following this link to our new membership page: 

http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Newsletter/Membership/

Criticisms/Comments, then Provide Feedback

On Top

Our newsletter is published once a week at 5:30 PM, Pacific Standard Time, Fridays.

We are continuing with our back to basics. We are moving away from exclusive preoccupation with web-system development, and going back to the hands-on development of the various meta-system frameworks for the articulation of the whole. We have found overall the effects of web-system development to be delayed and until now very mixed. We hope to bring our framework to a newer and sounder mode of functioning within a few weeks time. May is to be seen as a real month of transition for Lewis Works, during which some significant outcomes of the framework will be first realized.

We invite your open involvement in our framework. We are creating a new membership program, open to all comers. The full details below, upon three levels: free membership, basic membership & premium membership. 

Mission Statement

Lewis Works is dedicated to realizing new human adaptive possibilities in order to create alternative long-term frameworks for human & biological systems development on earth and beyond.

The primary mission of Lewis Works is to fundamentally empower all human beings, without regard or reference to their individual or cultural differences, so that they may function in a more constructive and non-violent manner by means of their integration within an applied systems framework that enables them to contextualize and focus their independent developmental efforts toward comprehensive solutions to common problems in resource distribution, environmental adaptation, and social-structural interaction.

• 1. Lewis Works seeks alternative meta-systems based development through applied general systems with the main goals of:

• a. Achieving a mutually stable and harmonic balance between future human systems and earthbound biological systems.

• b. Providing all human beings in unbiased structural or cultural contexts the alternative systems-based frameworks for their individual & social development by means of increased opportunities, productivity, security and resource availability that they would not otherwise have in conventional frameworks.

• c. Developing the infra-structural context and means for the regular extension of human and biological systems beyond the boundaries of the earth.

• 2. Lewis Works is dedicated to achieving a better world for all people and for all life-forms through the implementation and articulation of an applied general systems framework to general and specific problem sets that occur in the adaptive organization of human behavior in a shared natural environment.

• 3. Lewis Works is non-exclusive, open, non-authoritarian, philanthropic and pacifist in orientation.

• 4. Lewis Works pursues a combination of both profit and non-profit programs and projects to the achievement of its main goals.

• 5. Lewis Works protects and promotes universal human rights and human responsibilities throughout its various programs and projects by the systematic pursuit of human development strategies.

• 6. Lewis Works is law abiding and honest in all its dealings and transactions in all contexts, and respects and honors the customs and manners of all peoples and all ethnocultural groupings.

• 7. Lewis Works protects and promotes the confidentiality and legitimate interests of its clients and customers under all circumstances and in all cases.

• 8. Lewis Works seeks to efficiently provide a comprehensive range of profit-based services and related product lines within an open, web-based forum of exchange that is global in scope, regional in character, and local in focus, and that serves as the basis for the development of a structurally open meta-systems based context in the world transcending local, regional and national identities and affiliations.

• 9. Lewis Works seeks to promote non-profit programs in alternative human development for the sake of alleviating human suffering, educating people openly and in an unbiased manner, and promoting pro-social human development.

• 10. Lewis Works seeks to create trans-national meta-cultural orientations in the world through various organizational frameworks that promote open, democratic principles of government, fair-play and the rule of just law, and through the development of anti-structural multi-media based systems that provide humanity a common symbolic context for their meta-cultural integration.

The defining characteristic of the human species is that human beings think, speak and act in symbolic terms. There is a universal grammar, psychology, cultural framework and even content that is associated with human symbolic behavior & attitudes. There is almost no part of human behavior or thought process that has not been conditioned and pre-structured by human symbol forming, constructive cognition. Even human perception is largely symbolic both in its original form and in the manner that it becomes parsed up and reemployed after the phenomenal act of perception. Acknowledgement of and careful attention to human symbolic behavior, and its implications for our society, our understanding of ourselves, and of our world, for our social relations, actions and their consequences, forms the basis for a unified field of the human sciences and for comprehending human systems. 

To search for biological determinants of human behavior in an exclusive or primary sense is to miss the defining emergent aspects of human systems. Even Ludwig Von Bertalanffy himself, a successful biologist by background and originator of General Systems theory, had enough sense to see beyond biological determinism as a sufficient explanation of human behavior, and to seek answers in terms of emergent properties of human systems where they belong--that is the symbolic structuring of human experience at all levels and in all ways. The continuing promulgation of theories of biological determinism in relation to human behavior, in the various forms this has taken, largely ignores and sidesteps the issues of symbolization and symbolic structuring of experience because these realities are difficult to quantify and even more difficult to experimentally manipulate. We may for instance see mental illness largely as the rise of discrepancies and contradictions of symbolic process, or else the break down and loss of integrative function of the symbolic apparatus in guiding adaptive human behavior, hence there is little reason to resort to biological pre-determinants underlying behavior. 

This being said it can also be claimed correctly that symbolic human behavior is rooted in human evolution, and thus in human biology in the sense that human beings appear unique in the sense of having evolved a set of physical characteristics that are intrinsic to their symbolic behavior and the cultural construction of reality that is the by-product of this behavior. It is not the purpose of this brief essay to elaborate these characteristics in any detailed manner, but only to mention that these traits collective form a complex of traits that make human culture possible, and that without any one of these traits, we cannot imagine the existence of human culture in the anthropological form that we have come to know it.

We are already in need of qualifying our previous statements on a number of key points. It is not my intention herein to elucidate an entire framework for human systems theory. There would be many ramifications of such a framework--an alternative form of symbolic linguistics, symbolic psychology, models for education & development, rehabilitation & institutional reform. My primary intention at this point is merely to elaborate some key ideas that can be associated with human symbolic process and to thereby highlight its importance to an understanding of General systems.

I will define a model as a form of design that serves as a symbolic representation of an analogical or similar design that exists either in reality or in our imaginations. I will define a symbol by its key function, and that something that "represents" something else, usually by some form of indirect association. A symbol does not have to be similar to the thing that it represents--usually a model is similar by scale or by structural composition to the thing that it represents. A symbol must merely evoke a set of responses from a person that occurs in association with the thing being represented. Usually the thing represented also has a cognate or abstract symbolism that occurs in the mind's eye of the beholder, and that also has a linguistic form also associated with this thing. We can claim that all models are symbols, but not all symbols are necessarily models in the strict sense of the term. A model represents something in reality, a symbol functions to represent things in the world, and hence to say "symbolic representation" is really a kind of emphasis of a single set of complex processes that occur in modeling and symbolization. We may claim loosely that all symbols are in fact models of things in the world, or alternatively imagined. A schizophrenics symbols are largely imaginary, for instance, though for the beholder of these symbols they are as real as any that may be touched or available to the larger collective.

Human symbolic process has several interesting aspects of its articulation: 1. it brings us to confrontation of the anthropological relativity of our own awareness and knowledge of the world, and of our ability to see the world in "objective" form; 2. It leads to the cultural construction of reality, that is "shared" and thereby made coordinate in a collective sense with a group of people, that is "naturalized" in the sense that it is made to appear or function on a level as if "instinctive" and reflexive, that is linguistically and behaviorally transmitted between people, that creates a social level of organization of human systems that is semi-integrated and that feeds back upon the psychological construction of the self in the world.

We build models of reality in our heads--we do this continuously, on a daily basis in fact, and when we sleep and dream it is our dreams that are the symbolic mediators and negotiators of our experience, upon an unconscious level. The models of our reality we depend upon for accuracy and reliability for getting us through our days, and for ordering our world in a manner that make sense to us. Because the world is ever changing and complex, there is an almost continuous need to modify and moderate our models of reality in order that they remain functionally adaptive. We discard old models that are no longer applicable, and we develop new models on the basis of learning. Human beings in fact learn all their lives, and what they learn are to build and refine models of reality upon multiple levels--we are sophisticated when our models are complex and elaborative, and such sophistication allows us in turn to respond to events in our world in ways that in turn appear sophisticated and based upon such elaborated models.

Human beings have a central weakness--without our symbolic models to guide our behavior, we would not be able to function, and would quickly become maladaptive and perish as a consequence. We depend upon our models, and this in a general sense can be called "symbolic dependency." Because our models tend to merge together into larger adaptive frameworks, as psychological & cultural systems, we tend to function with rather open model systems where reference points overlap, boundaries are indistinct, and there is the possibility for much substitution and free-play in our formulations and the functions they are made to serve.

It follows therefore that a Systems based approach that is centered upon the challenge of developing and improving human systems, would seek to make explicit and elaborate the systems-based aspects of modeling in order to render this central articulatory and mediational mechanism of human adaptation more available and technologically useful than it already seems to be. I do not refer only to a form of "symbolic engineering" that relies upon the manipulation of imagery with special effects--indeed the whole of Hollywood can be seen as an industry that is based upon such symbolic engineering. I am referring more directly to the technological development of alternative working systems in a practical sense, understanding that technically such systems have symbolic organization and expression.

Modeling in a more technical sense is a constrained and elaborated form of activity of what we do everyday anyway in our construction of symbolic realities. More careful and studied aspects of modeling as small scale engineering or computing projects, allow us to develop alternative systems based upon our the flexibility of our imagination and understanding of reality, to create new forms and new possibilities thereby. Through modeling, we are able to experiment with these possibilities and bring them "true" to form on a workable level of reality.

I have emphasized the concept and problem of modeling because, methodologically speaking, it stands in central importance to the articulation of our meta-systems framework. Developing means that allow us to model systems in a reliable and efficient way, enables us to directly articulate the framework in a larger context. Modeling extends into every area of interest and endeavor within our framework, and therefore providing a general, broad-range and multipurpose modeling framework provides us with a central articulatory mechanism for the framework, as a direct extension of our planning and design endeavors.

But modeling stands in importance in more than a methodological or operational sense, because we are referring to a broader sense of activity of symbolic representation when we refer to modeling, and we are therefore not just talking about model making or the construction of scale models, etc., but we are also talking about the construction in both a theoretical and applied sense of the entire meta-systems framework as a viable alternative worldview that is capable of competing with symbolic ideologies and adaptive orientations that are extant and predominant in the world.

Without making a systematic modeling approach a central part of the articulatory frameworks, and without generalizing and adapting this modeling approach to a broader range of interests and involvements that are defined by the framework, the model formation and organization process would run helter-skelter and amok, as it so often seems to happen in the larger world that lacks any explicit frameworks of organization and coordination of action. By such means we can put into motion a kind of strategic developmental process, similar to the process of evolution, by means of the transmission of symbolic information and symbolic exploration of the environment. Rather than going at the issue in a blind manner as biological evolution does, we can approach it instead in terms of deliberative efforts and conscious planning and design. We can seek developmental progress in terms of systems integration and automation by an arbitrary means, rather than leaving such processes mainly to chance as they have largely been in our history. 

One of the critical features of human symbolization is that it is arbitrary, and this sense of fundamental arbitrariness of symbol systems is a key defining feature of human systems--we have a choice, and by having such a choice, we have the source of doing both great good and perpetrating great evil. It is the arbitrariness of symbolic design that provides us great freedom from natural constraint, and also puts us chronically and forever upon the horns of a basic moral dilemma about our potential goodness or capacity for evil.

We do not necessarily seek to invest this alternative worldview with a moral agenda or a code of conduct or normative code of evaluation of right and wrong, or good and bad, though there does exist a meta-ethical component to such a framework. The larger purpose of such a framework is that we can free ourselves from such narrow agendas and moralities, and for once approach the world with a more open frame of mind, formalized and collectively received as such. We do so largely for practical and adaptive reasons, and a great deal that passes for a sense or suggestion of a moral code of ethics within the framework is done so largely and primarily on practical grounds.

It becomes valid to ask, for instance, what might constitute a "healthy" model for a particular kind of system in a particular set of circumstances. We can test our model out through demonstration and control of contexts in an experimental manner, and derive our measures and determinants of health for a particular kind of system in an empirical manner. From a larger meta-systems standpoint, a relatively "healthy" specimen might not necessarily be an "good" thing in the larger context--a "healthy" lion in the African savanna is probably a good thing--the same creature displaced to a flock of sheep in New Zealand would probably not be a good thing.

To focus on the problem of General Systems, and in a sense to celebrate a systems-based orientation, is not to necessarily support the idea that we all live, more or less, in the embrace of an impersonal, often tyrannical "System" that controls many if not all aspects of our lives. Indeed, the purpose of a General Systems framework is not the symbolic legitimization of such a "System" but the means to bring such a system under greater human control, and to provide us a way of gaining our own individual and social independence, in relative ways, from such control. We put forward and develop a systems-based orientation in the world in order to rehabilitate the world from the evil consequences of its "Systems" and in order to prevent such "Systems" in the future from either getting out of control or getting the upper hand upon humanity. If we wish, as a collective framework of humanity, to finally create common conditions in the world in which all humankind can seek their own independence, their own happiness and their own prosperity, without achieving this at the expense of other people, then we must be clear to construct the kinds of frameworks that serve our interests in the first sense, and not we the systems interests. Further, such frameworks should be capable of functioning beyond the purview of influence and control of such "Systems" wanting as these are to be totalitarian and all controlling in their reach and power.

Science has indeed become an old whore, and it is especially "whorrific" when it not only sells itself to the highest bidder, for practically any purpose, but even compromises the paradigmatic integrity of its own methods and theory in service of its "funding structures." In my mind the only sure method of preventing the prostitution of science in service of private or arbitrary interest is through its contextualization and operationalization in terms of a meta-systems framework, thereby providing the moral and strategic charter for scientific praxis as well as the necessary resource structure for its implementation and thus obviating the requirement for scientists to place themselves and their research programs on the auction block.

The resistance to development of a paradigm in systems theory is due not only to a lack of a clear methodological framework for general systems theory, but also and primarily it is due to a self-justificatory mindset of scientists and the scientific community at large to any orientation that would even remotely threaten the hierarchical and political-economic structures of the scientific community. Not only jobs, but status, play an important role as ego-factor, somewhat inflated, serves to symbolically rationalize restrictive involvement in rather narrowly defined scientific methodological paradigms, and to ignore or even deny the possibilities of involvement and interconnection between different problem sets and different areas of knowledge. This built-in social and psychological resistance to systems-based approaches can be found at all levels and in all fields of scientific endeavor, and it is almost quite natural, as if instinct, that individual scientists should respond in a closed minded manner to such approaches.

It has not been my purpose in this brief essay to mock the achievements or the great respect that science in general demands and deserves in the world. It has accomplished far more good than bad in the world, and not all scientists can be bought for the highest bidder, though most would like to think they are immune to such considerations. But this has been my way of bringing attention to bear on a background issue, one that concerns the appropriate contextualization (or decontextualization) of any particular endeavor or field of scientific praxis, within a larger framework that governs human thought and action.

The development therefore of a genuine meta-systems framework as a general systems paradigm for the contextualization of all the sciences is perhaps a thing that is overdue in our shared world. It will require beforehand that general systems come into its own both theoretically and methodologically in terms of a body of methods and a set of rules & hypothesis that can guide its adaptation and application in any field of study or research that we may be involved with. Individual scientists who claim expertise in specific areas of research will not yield readily their research prerogatives or territories for the sake of involvement within some larger operational paradigm if that paradigm is poorly defined and does not serve in a sufficient way the interests of their professional work or identity in relation to their work.

I believe it will require as well a major reformulation of many of our conventional scientific models in a manner that will allow them to fit into a meta-systems framework in a manner coordinate with and compatible to other related or unrelated fields of scientific endeavor. There is a fundamental sense of homology operating in a meta-systems framework, and this sense of homology should define the basic operational and theoretical parameters within which various scientific models can be effectively and efficiently articulated.

Our Consolidation efforts continue on different levels. We finished the consolidation phase a month ahead  though there are many loose ends remaining to be taken care of. We have announced out promotional development campaign for the next two months which should include a coordinated and targeted marketing & advertising campaign, though we will avoid e-mail or telephone solicitations or marketing strategies.

During this phase, we hope to announce the opening of our new store-fronts, and further development of our entire framework. We are publishing our own business leverage (business cards, letter-heads, post-cards, etc) and will be setting up new contact details.

Products/Services

http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Newsletter/Membership/

Lewis Works strives to offer a genuinely comprehensive range of services and products for the global e-consumer in an informed, non-aggressive manner. It has taken us time to develop our resources into an integrated framework that will provide largely automated self-service to our members and other customers. But persistence & a great deal of patience is finally beginning to pay-off in terms of the emergence of a real web-system with an active presence on the Internet.

We act both as a reseller for other providers, and we also are increasing the product range that we actually own or buy ourselves wholesale and then resell. We also provide a range of peripheral options through associate/affiliate accounts.

We will soon be adding a comprehensive product service catalog link here.

We will be offering an increasing array of type of service and product we can make available to our clientele within the consolidation period. This services will include:

• Systems-based Consulting & Troubleshooting
• Systems-based Computing and Web-Design Development
• Systems-based Meta-scientific research & development services
• Systems-based Digital Publication and Production Services
• Systems-based Development Services in a range of areas, including Non-profit, Consolidated Business Services, Education & Human Development, Organization, Production & Engineering

What areas are currently Non-Profit in Lewis Works?

We have several non-profit domains organized, though these have not yet been developed for content:

Human Coop: promoting development of non-exploitative, grass-roots based, cooperative development & resource exchange network frameworks.

Aid Systems: organizing and deploying critical resource management & rehabilitation teams

Human Development Systems: promoting programs for alternative human development.

Lewis Library: promoting conventional & electronic literacy worldwide, developing an open, distributed-integrated common reference resource & comprehensive knowledge compendium resources.

Human Synergetics: promoting health in holistic, alternative lifestyles

We also recommend our current Link Palette for related links & portals, though most of these are as yet unfinished.

For external topic-organized links, we recommend Hugh's Hot Links

For popular, top-search links, we recommend Haut Lynx

Query us for advertising on our Advertising Pages that are shown throughout our web-system on more than a eleven hundred distinct URLs.

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