Lewis Works

This open, on-line Newsletter is published weekly, every Friday Afternoon at 4:30 PM PST. It is updated with new announcements and articles each week.

The E-zine of Applied General Systems Science

By Sam Micheal, BS in Psychology, Probability & Statistics, contributor

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

Vol. I, No. 2

02/07/04 Copyright 2004 ©, Hugh M. Lewis.  Portions of this page Copyright 2004 ©, Sam Micheal. 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.

Feature IV

On Top

MyDoom virus hit my computer Big Time on Sunday Morning, and, responding to what I took to be a personal inquiry, by the evening my entire mail system, based on a data-base file, was corrupted, requiring rebuilding my entire ISP connection software and e-mail files.

We invite you to submit any kind of information you would like to see published on these pages.

Suggestions, Criticisms, Comments, Advertisements & Feature Article Submissions are most welcome.

All submissions or other materials must be received by me by e-mail attachment no later than Thursday Evening, the day before publication, otherwise they will be posted the following week.

If you would like to submit your own feature article, please inquire.

Mission Statement

• 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.
• Lewis Works is non-exclusive, open, non-authoritarian, philanthropic and pacifist in orientation.
• Lewis Works pursues a combination of both profit and non-profit programs and projects to the achievement of its main goals.
• 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.
• 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.
• Lewis Works protects and promotes the confidentiality and legitimate interests of its clients and customers under all circumstances and in all cases.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

Scientific knowledge is really systems based knowledge. The object of scientific research is the understanding of the principles underlying the manifest patterning of natural systems in all the multifaceted forms of their occurrence and the many different levels of their articulation. Science assumes a certain universal validity of its basic physical laws and principles that are considered inviolable under all conditions. The laws of Thermodynamics are a case in point, and the first to come to mind when we consider non-relative formulations in science. The systematic and quite predictable interactions of subatomic particles are another kind of phenomena that can be said to be universally applicable--we can assume that wherever we get to in the universe we will find the same kinds of basic interactions occurring between the same kinds of particles on the same levels of analysis.

The principle of change is one of the most fundamental, enduring and perplexing problems of our shared reality. We do not really have a comprehensive or universal theory of physical change. For instance, are the laws that we ascribe to the physical universe as we know it now, really immutable and universally applicable according to the cosmological principle, or is it possible that the universe may have evolved from one stage to another during which periods the laws that pertained and governed physical events were varied and relative to the frame in which they applied? We cannot at this stage of development of our knowledge answer these kinds of questions with any final authority or, especially, in any kind of manner that would be completely satisfactory for all areas of application of our knowledge in the world.

The principle of change itself begs us an implicit question of the very structure of reality. We know for instance, that all things change--all things are really events subject to change, whether these changes are partly predictable or completely random. We can legitimately ask the paradox: does change change, or does all change somehow remain the same?

If science is about systems, and systems are really about change, then we can conclude that science is primarily concerned with the principles and patterns of change in systems, and indeed, in all fields of science, this is the case. Static, non-dynamic systems that do not change are of no real scientific interest, because they cannot be studied in any valid methodological manner.

Before proceeding, I will attempt to briefly define a nosological framework for classifying systems in a general manner. Real systems are those which can be said to exist in some form in objective reality (i.e., they have some form of physical manifestation). Natural systems may be said to be a subset of real systems that includes those systems that are partly determined by structural relations between variables that are intrinsic to and emergent from the system. Artificial systems are those human-made systems that are partially the result of human arbitration and construction, and hence may be said to be partly determined by human defined relations between variables. We may distinguish real systems from ideal systems, or abstract systems in the pure sense, that may be said to exist in principle but do not necessarily take any real or corporeal form or manifestation, except in terms of symbolic representation that is humanly mediated. We may go on to distinguish other kinds of systems, i.e.: possible systems; alternative systems; applied systems; etc. 

General Systems Proposition 1: All science is primarily concerned with the understanding of the pattern of change in dynamic systems.

• Corollary 1a: All real systems are complex in terms of their part-whole relations.

• Corollary 1b: All real systems are dynamic in a non-linear and partly determined manner.

I will now make a statement that I cannot really prove or qualify, but which I feel may be intuitively and probably true.

General Systems Proposition 2: There exist a set of basic principles of systems design, applicable universally to all naturally occurring systems, relatively to the context of their occurrence, that may be said to be universal (i.e., immutable) for all possible occurrences of real systems.

We may not fully or explicitly comprehend these principles of systems design, but may theoretically hypothesize their universal applicability to all real systems.

General Systems Proposition 3: All real systems are working systems--whatever their level of articulation or configuration or state-path trajectory, they obey the principles of thermodynamics (and, in the larger meta-systemic context, gravitational dynamics) in some basic manner.

Finally, I will conclude this brief with one more proposition that derives proposition 4 above and from the consideration that all real systems that we know of or imagine are found embedded in a larger context of physical reality, and hence, in exogenous relationship with other systems. We may explain this physically in terms of both thermodynamics and gravitational dynamics in stating that we can imagine no physically real system that exists in a total or complete vacuum in perfect isolation from a larger system in which it is embedded. Therefore:

General Systems Proposition 4: All real systems are bound by and delimited by a meta-systems context in relation to other systems that encompass and compose any particular system in time and space.

• Corollary 4a: All real systems are finite in space and time and are relative to the meta-systems context in which they immediate occur in a phenomenological sense.

• Corollary 4b: All real systems demonstrate some form of dynamic boundary maintaining mechanism in relation to the larger meta-systemic context.

• Corollary 4c: All real systems demonstrate a sense of holism in terms of emergent or synergistic properties that are the consequence of the boundary maintaining mechanism relative.

• Corollary 4d: All real systems are subject to a unique state-path trajectory or life-cycle as a consequence of exogenous change patterns arising from its meta-systemic context (i.e., external meta-systemic factors are primary determinants or causal of dynamics in the change patterning of real systems, while internal intra-systemic factors are secondary determinants or consequents of dynamics of change in this patterning)

Finally, we may speculate that the total meta-systemic context, i.e., in a physical objective sense, the total universe, is infinite and unbounded in some basic sense, as we cannot imagine the total universe as a finite system within a vacuum, or that may not be a part of some larger meta-systemic context.

by: Sam Micheal, Founder, HuMetaSys.org

What is Humetasys? The acronym comes from HUman META-SYStems. 
Humetasys has three major purposes or functional divisions: cooperative, 
association, and infrastructure. Each paragraph here will describe each 
part. The cooperative division links producers and consumers. The 
traditional definition of cooperative applies: consumers group together 
to purchase goods and services from a select few producers. Typically, 
in the past, these were farm-produce coops. Today, here in Humetasys, 
these are information services, internet services, and home-systems - 
such as integrated packages of composting toilets, water 
collection/purification, solar/wind power, and heating/cooling systems - 
which will become available to consumers as Humetasys grows. The 
purpose of a coop is two-fold: to protect the consumer - by providing 
consistent high quality products and services at consistent non-inflated 
prices - and - protect the producers by keeping a consistent consumer 
base, purchasing their products. The obvious key word is consistency. 
In the ‘old days’, farmers would band together to sell quality produce 
to coop members who would share time in running/distribution/packaging. 
That was a donation of money and time. Today, with time so ‘tight,’ 
we only ask for a donation and willingness to consider high-quality 
products at non-inflated prices. Humetasys is non-profit with the 
interests of the consumer at its heart.

The association division of Humetasys is filled with contract engineers: 
agricultural, communications, genetic/ecosystem, power systems, 
sanitation, and water resource. Team leaders do estimation and contract 
bidding. They also do project management. It is important to note in 
today’s ‘sue happy’ atmosphere that Humetasys has limited liability, 
restricted by its role in the contract process. Engineering teams, by 
the nature of the contracts Humetasys endorses, assume legal liability 
for their designs - not Humetasys. This puts the burden on the 
engineers, but we are confident the teams and designs they produce will 
be of such high quality - that legal liability for design problems - 
will be a minor consideration. Humetasys is actively recruiting 
contract engineers for its staff. If you are an experienced engineer in 
an area described above, most importantly, with a desire to help 
humanity create sustainable growth - implicit in your designs, then 
please send your resume/CV to -@i.am

The third division of Humetasys is ‘infrastructure.’ This is a loose 
‘catch-all’ category of functions that will become clearer as you read. 
Once we establish our permanent consumer memberships, that will be a 
mode for addressing systemic problems in the ‘current paradigm.’ Our 
consumers will be independent, individualistic, and fiercely pro-active. 
That energy will be synergistic. I anticipate a grass-roots movement 
in global democracy. It should be emphasized that this 
evolution/transformation will be non-violent. I cannot predict its 
form, however, because I am not a psychic - merely a visionary. Who am 
I? My name is Sam Micheal. I was born and raised in Michigan. Both of 
my parents were teachers. I am middle-aged and have spent most of my 
life as a technician, but have the equivalent of at least one masters 
degree in advanced education, the bulk in systems science and 
mathematics. There are two principles that have guided me in my life 
here on your beautiful planet: The Golden Rule (both sides) and The Ends 
Cannot Justify The Means. My interests are quite diverse with eclectic 
tastes. My hobbies are hang-gliding and designing sailplanes. These 
also fluctuate from time to time. I have many dreams for myself and 
humanity; I consider myself a visionary, although neglected. What is 
the main intent for Humetasys? It is to help your dreams come true, 
without conflict and adversity. It is a balanced approach to saving our 
planet and species. It is both mode and method for positive and lasting 
change. It is the roots for sustainable growth.

by: Sam Micheal

What is Distributed Mind Project? There are only two divisions here, 
which correspond to these two paragraph descriptions. The first 
division is the team of developers. We recently ‘fired’ a bunch of lazy 
people who expressed interest, but did no actual work. It is obviously 
difficult to find volunteers willing to donate time and expertise in 
artificial intelligence. Our initial project design was too broad. Dr. 
Lewis recommended narrowing our scope - our project goals - and this 
current design reflects it. We currently focus on knowledge 
engineering. When I say ‘we’ it is loose because right now - it is me, 
Sam Micheal. I wrote another seminal paper on AI and forwarded it to 
Dr. Lewis for his consideration. It should be the basis for our 
approach to knowledge engineering in DMP. I am waiting for his detailed 
response. ‘We’ are actively recruiting serious designers with 
experience in knowledge engineering and database design. If you have 
experience or in-depth education in those areas, please write to -@i.am 
with ideas of how you might help the project. You will be sent my 
latest paper on knowledge engineering as applied to artificial intelligence.

The other division is our group of testers. We have several willing to 
donate computer time on their home/business systems to do testing for 
DMP. These are a wonderful group of volunteers just waiting to test 
code. But as outlined above, we have no code to test - our developers 
were a good for nothing group of lazy idiots wasting my time .. Sorry 
to tie-raid .. It’s a bit frustrating. Anyways, the group uses ‘Yahoo 
Groups’ to keep in touch and document developments. Testers are 
assigned ‘special notice’ status, while more interested individuals 
subscribe to daily/individual emails. Please write to -@i.am if you are 
interested in testing.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

The Information Revolution has become centered upon the Internet, though not exclusively so. It involves also the rapid development of digital technologies for information storage & processing, and infrastructure employing a wide range of techniques and technology in communications. The Internet is larger than the worldwide web, and involves the development and distributed integration of many different kinds of computer based network systems, as well as e-mail systems and, to a lesser extent, news and other media transmission systems.

The primary consequence of this information revolution has been the empowerment, or at least the potential empowerment, of the individual user who is caught somewhere within a complex, circuitous global information loop. On the open Internet, all users are potentially free and equal. On the open Internet, all information published is potentially free and equally available. This sense of empowerment has taken many different forms, and has also led to unfortunate results in the abuse of power and the perpetration of various forms of exploitation and even violence. An unintended consequence of this process has been the pyschosocial de-repression of some forms of symbolically based behavior due to, and the resulting rise of a relatively high incidence of the formation of neurosis, personality and impulse-control disorders triggered by informational access on the Internet, as well as the formation of counter-cultural networks of people centered around these deviant forms of behavior. The dissemination of e-viruses are a fitting example of the abuse of this form of power--originating from a single source computer, and capable of infecting millions of distant computer files and crippling and permanently damaging entire networks.

Global empowerment in the emerging Information Economy also takes the form of the growth of what can be called a global common stock of world knowledge that, as it develops, becomes increasingly detailed, specific and comprehensive in form and function. This global common stock of world knowledge can be rendered comprehensive, and rapidly available at any point on the earth at any time of the day or night. The knowledge base itself grows in volume, detail, and sophistication with each passing minute. Language barriers certainly exist and persist and serve to partition the global Internet into large sub-realms, primarily on the basis of the world's major languages, and secondarily in terms of more local national, regional divisions. Even these boundaries are slowly eroding with the rise of improved automated translators that are capable of quickly rendering electronic text in one linguistic medium into some rough equivalent and meaningful form in some alternative linguistic medium.

As in all areas of human endeavor, those process and functions that cannot be easily or simply automated, remain the purview of rather intensive investment of human time and energy, and hence, of other capital resources.

Where is empowerment of the Internet taking us? The key words seem to me at this time to be the following:

• 1. distributed integration: networks and resource management systems are spreading out and becoming decentralized in form and function.
• 2. modularization & dynamic diversification: there is a occurring a tailoring and customization of goods and services, labor & knowledge to fit individual profiles of both producers/consumers.
• 3. automation: increasing kinds of processes are becoming the purview of automated systems not requiring direct human labor inputs except for initial & final control functions, management & maintenance.
• 4. informational globalization: a common knowledge-based foundation will be created for emergence of a global meta-cultural pattern transcending ethnocentric and nationalistic boundaries.
• 5. redomestication: there seems to be a return to the home, and a redefinition of the functions and spaces of the home, of work and play.
• 6. resymbolization: there will invariably occur maze-way reformulation and realignment of symbolic worldview to reflect emergent patterns of globalization and new requirements for communication and understanding across traditional or conventional social boundaries.
• 7. consumer/producer foreshortening & mirror integration: We are all consumers and producers, but generally the market place separates places of production from places of consumption, and hence separates as well our identity as producer and consumer. It also is the case that patterns of production vary substantially throughout the world, both within a world capitalist system and cross-culturally in what have become increasingly marginalized contexts. I predict a convergence of consumer and producer into a mirror identity of one another. On one hand relationships between consumer A in one part of the world and producer B in another part of the world will become more immediate and more direct, and each will become their own middleman in being able to deliver on demand their goods/services.

In summary, I would say that the information revolution and its empowerment is creating a totally new global marketplace, as evident by entities like E-bay or Amazon.com, mediated by shipping/transportation corporations like Federal Express or UPS. This marketplace is largely virtual, decentralized and domestically oriented toward the needs of an increasing array of individual consumers.

Each of these points will be dealt with more thoroughly in later publications. It will only be mentioned in closing this brief notice of the empowerment of the Internet that the larger structural consequences of the Information revolution will be a complete realignment of structural relations (social, economic, political & ideological) rendering a many traditional and conventional structures essentially obsolete or at least relativized or relatively localized by the larger meta-systemic context created by the Information revolution. Under the right conditions, many human-based control structures may be obviated through automation, and resource distribution and production programs can be realigned in new and more open and viable informational networks. We can speak of the teleological realization of the "more with less" synergistic revolution talked about by Buckminster Fuller in the late 1960's.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

I have over the last few years received justifiable criticism of my web-pages for the opacity and density of their content, overall, and for the complexity of the navigational linkages that the overall system presents, especially to the novice surfer. It renders the system confusing and therefore uninviting to the casual visitor and the serious user alike. There is, I would say, a certain responsibility for any web-designer/developer to keep things  as simple, simple, simple as possible for the sake of the sanity of the Internet. Beyond my apologies I would suggest that there are two remedies emerging for the central problem of Lewis Works. These two remedies are on one level interconnected. That they are arising is evident in the pattern of traffic flow through the system. It is apparent that visitors are only apprehending parts of the whole, rather than the entire framework, at any one time, and that they are finding and visiting the pages through major search engines mostly, or through links that have developed in relation to other sites, on the basis of their particular interest in specific content found in the various pages visited. The pattern that is emerging is that more and more parts of the whole are being visited more frequently, and visitors are staying at particular pages and revisiting these pages for longer periods of time. In relation to the larger context of the worldwide web, the visibility and availability of the Lewis Works system is beginning to crystallize in parts and larger pieces that are groups of parts, rather than as a single well-integrated and immediately apprehended totality. 

It is as with the publication of this Newsletter or E-zine. Though it is not directly e-mailed and therefore its effect and visual impact is minimized or even, in most instances, non-existent when a recipient on the mailing list simply disregards or deletes the link notification, the Newsletter pages remain permanently posted on the web as a part of a larger back-grounded system, and as a result, eventually become visited by increasing numbers of people who may take a more serious interest in its content and its messages and meanings. The general effect of the Newsletter therefore is delayed and gradual in its onset, but more lasting in the long run than a temporary e-zine that is broadcast out to multiple locations at the same time.

First, the Lewis Works system is designed intentionally as both a comprehensive systems based framework, and simultaneously, as a framework that is meant to be back-grounded to a lot of other activities and interests that are normally played out in relation to the Internet. In other words, it is the main goal of Lewis Works to provision through various portals a comprehensive range of resources in a manner that makes the whole normally inconspicuous if not completely invisible to the occasional surfer.

Secondly, the Lewis Works system is intended at the same time to become increasingly integrated as it develops, such that it will work more directly, simply and seamlessly in the foreground for the benefit and increased utility value of the average web-user.

The primary goal of the Lewis Works framework is to deliberately, conscientiously explore and facilitate the process of systems-based integration in the formation of a new global meta-system. It is hoped that many extended articulatory structures, programs, projects and subsystems will emerge from a successful Lewis Works framework, by whatever name, serving to flesh out its skeleton and dress it in real clothes for presentation to the larger world.

It is hoped most that Lewis Works as a systems-based framework can serve down the road the interests and needs of an increasing array of different people, facilitating and mediating for those people their own adaptations to a rapidly changing global meta-systems context, and thereby helping them to realize their own sense of adaptive habitus and productive, modularized meta-system in their own way.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

In the 1930's Ruth Benedict issued a plea in her essay "Anthropology and the Abnormal" for greater tolerance of the range of human variation, especially set against what she interpreted correctly as the constraints and contradictions of contemporary American culture and character. That plea reverberates today on American political platforms and in court rooms adjudicating rights for homosexual unions, abortion, race-based discrimination and the mentally ill. This plea was based on the notion that human variation existed on a continuum that varied widely, not only on the basis of cultural factors, but also for psychological factors as well.

If we exam the fundamental unit of human systems, the human individual, we discover a phenomenal complexity of pattern that defies even until today tidy nomothetic systems of classifications as for instance that found in the DSMIV used by psychiatrists in the categorization of mental illness and behavioral deviance. However we may lump and classify human beings, individual's still remain unique to themselves in the synergistic patterning of their own behavior.

This phenomenal complexity is largely due to the highly developed frontal & cortical regions of the human brain, associated development of nerve & muscular structures of the hands and mouth/facial regions, and an evolution of an extremely generalized and adaptive form of behavior that is based upon the capacity to symbolically manipulate and manage the environment in fairly arbitrary and willful ways. This behavior and brain development furthermore occurred in social contexts that can be described as cultural in pattern, if we ascribe to human beings the unique condition of being cultural animals. (Culture in this case being defined technically as non-instinctive behavior that is learned or acquired post-partum within an environmental context or set and that is transmitted from one individual to another in social groups that endure successive generations. In fact forms of primitive culture and learning have been more recently described and demonstrated in a comparative manner for many different groupings of the Great Apes, as well as for other various primates)

Each individual human being, when looked at from the standpoint of being a human system, a microcosm in a larger sea of humanity, constitutes an entirely unique set of adaptive patterns that obtains, in the words of Jean Piaget, a form of equilibriation with the adaptive constraints of their environment. This overall pattern of adaptive behavioral equilibrium, somewhat loosely defined as "habitus," that is exhibited uniquely by each human being, whether we are a schizophrenic street person, a president of a large company or nation, a school teacher or a repeat criminal in a high security prison, may be said in the parlance of General Systems Theory to be a form of "emergent pattern" or set of synergistic properties that are associated with the identity and life-trajectory of any particular individual. 

In my own household, there are four individuals spanning three generations, three females and myself, a male. It is observable from day to day, week to week, and month to month, that each individual has an entirely unique habitus associated with their life and behavior centered as this is on the home environment. I would even include our pet dog, a young female mixed, who also has her own more narrowly defined but no less interesting sense of habitus. For the most part, these five sets of behavioral patterns occur and coexist in a shared environment without significant disruption or significant disrepair of relations or destructive interference of behavior. There are occasions of argument in the conversational apparatus, marking some subjective psychological discrepancies of pattern due primarily to age, gender and values, and sometimes a background sense of "being too close and enclosed" too much of the time between us. But otherwise, it is evident that each individual within this common behavioral setting has carved for themselves an adaptive sense of equilibrium that requires to some extent their own contexts, possessions, daily and weekly routines and habits. Very few demands are placed between individuals in this context, except for parental demands on our daughter.

The point of this digression is simply to illustrate what can be taken as a fairly healthy, if unusual pattern of complex human habitus in a shared context. Unfortunately, not all shared contexts in the world are so blessed or fortunate, in spite of whatever circumstances. We may say that the promotion of each individuals sense of habitus in the world is appropriate, as long as this sense of habitus does not come at the expense of other individuals and their own sense of habitus. It is what we get when we have one-man dictatorships who rule by fear and a system of authoritarian violence. In such a context, of which there have been and remain many such instances in the world, one person's enlarged sense of habitus is allowed to dominate, manipulate, exploit and control the sense of habitus of entire nations of people at the same time, constraining and foreshortening those lives in every conceivable manner.

If we define the individual as a fundamental human system, and the sense of equilibrium of that system as their adaptive habitus, then we can define the larger social contexts in which this sense of habitus becomes expressed and played out in the state-path trajectories of the individual human system, as the human meta-system. There have been and are many such human meta-systems. We understand these meta-systems anthropologically as cultural patterns and systems of adaptation that tend to take on a complexity and uniqueness that is even greater than that ascribable to the individual people who are part of such systems. Sociologically we tend to look at such meta-systems from the standpoint of social institutions, functions and patterns that may be more or less formalized, and usually from the standpoint of the larger state or structural system in which social groups are embedded. 

From the standpoint of the development of human meta-systems on earth, as a function of the natural history of human evolution, I will venture the following analytic stadial model:

1. A prolonged pre- or proto-cultural period of human group adaptation that was probably remarkably similar to patterns found among extant primate groups, from the earliest dawn of the hominid line, probably 6 to 4.5 million BP, down to the first rise of modern & archaic Homo sapien and Homo neanderthalensus populations approximately 2 to 100,000 BP. The transition between pre, proto- or full cultural patterns of adaptation are probably not clear and probably emerged independently in many different periods and places over a very long span of time.

2. A traditional cultural pattern of human group adaptation, based primarily upon a form of oral human information transmission, that probably arose among Archaic and Neanderthal populations, associated with group hunting/foraging patterns, language development, and related technologies, and that was obviously in full swing with the advent of modern Homo sapiens populations about 65 to 45 thousand BP, and that shows evidence of rapid development from about 30,000 BP forward.

3. A conventional cultural pattern of human group adaptation based upon written script and literacy, that arose at the latest between 4 and 5,000 BC and probably earlier, associated with the rise of patterns of domestication, state formation, centralization of governing authority, and that became full blown with the advent of alphabetic scripts and the rise of complex state civilizations.

4. A post-conventional cultural pattern of human group adaptation that is based upon new computer-automated technologies of electronic information storage and transmission. We are witness today to the emergence and transition of this fourth period of human group adaptation, and this is the basis of what we call today the Information Revolution.

We are really in the throes of the fourth Information revolution that humankind has experienced in its long evolutionary history from its first rise on the forest plains of Africa 5 million years ago. This pattern reflects directly the rise and transformation of human knowledge systems in context, that is the result of the predominant method of communication and information storage that a society depends upon.

The prediction is made that if this trend continues in an historical sense, there should emerge gradually a structural pattern of integration of human systems into a single global meta-system, and a single "meta-cultural" patterning that can be described as global in scope and orientation. This pattern should "transcend" traditional and conventional ethno-cultural patterns that tend to be localized and nationalistic in scope, and these latter orientations should become "embedded" in the background beneath an overlay produced by trends in globalization.

A key aspect of this process, and a key theoretical factor in understanding human systems as complex and unique, one of a kind in the entire universe, in fact, is what can be referred to as the symbolic transformation and resulting plasticity of human behavior in adaptation to shared environments. This is a critical component of the development of human meta-systems that most state theorists, looking to war and to materialist mechanisms of social or ecological transformation, fail to take into account, and this serves as the key point of departure for the entire human systems framework.

It may be said unequivocally that human beings, in their habitus, are symbolic creatures and rely upon their brain-behavioral-group apparatus of symbolization as the basis of their adaptive habitus in the world. Impulses, drives and needs that are in dogs rather direct, instinctively bound and in a sense, more "honest" if sometimes vulgar and violent, are in human beings transformed through the complex interplay of a variety of mechanisms, including home life, play, school, work, and social interaction in various contexts, into a large suite of possible forms of complex behaviors that can be arbitrarily manipulated, channeled, sublimated, and indirectly expressed in numerous constructive or destructive, adaptive or maladaptive ways.

To summarize an overwrought e-say, and to make a very long and old human story short, I will conclude this by stating that in the rise of a global meta-cultural system, it remains undecided how the future pattern of human development will be ultimately decided. It is possible, given recent evidence of the last Century especially, that a totalitarian regime, whether capitalist or otherwise, could arise to a position of global domination, and that the entire human meta-systems framework would come under the control and guise of a very limited number of individuals. If we observe the world system today, and patterns of global stratification, we see ultimately developed a scenario not too different from this pattern.

Returning finally to Ruth Benedict's plea for greater socio-structural tolerance for the wide-range of human variation, I would suggest that the future of the fourth Information Revolution that is resulting in the further transformation of human society and human meta-systems, can and in a sense must ultimately be founded upon a call for wide-range tolerance to the full spectrum of human behavioral adaptation similar to what Ruth Benedict stated 70 years ago. The main problem set for the rise of what can be interpreted as a fair and just global meta-system is the open meta-cultural development of individual and group patterning of habitus, i.e., the problem of human development on the individual and group levels of analysis. In other words, what is called for centrally is the promotion of strategies of human development upon multiple levels simultaneously, for the individual, the family, the local or regional community, and the larger nation or state-system, as well as globally. These encompass programs of nutrition, health, poverty-relief, infra-structural & super-structural development, rehabilitation, education, etc. The uniqueness of each individual, and their habitus, must become better realized and appreciated in a constructive and productive manner. This is as true for rich and poor alike, for the insane as for the sane. Hence modernization, development & globalization is more than just about economic development benefiting mostly an elite, it is foremost about human development in all its natural and cultural contexts.

A central part of the phenomenon of the empowerment of the Internet is that it makes these forms of development, at all levels and in all unique instances, not only possible, but truly feasible.

We have reworked our telephone systems and upgraded these to better meet our future requirements.

We have begun our consolidation efforts and all goes well. We called in the cows on unfinished accounts, and expect most of these new domains to be fully functional and on-line by the end of February.

We apologize for numerous broken links, erroneous links, unfinished sites and dead-ends within the current system, and we are working to resolve this state of affairs as soon as possible.

We went E-commerce on November 1st, 2003.

On February 1st, 2004, we are entering a second period of consolidation. This period should be marked by considerable structural and content development of our web-system, by network development and by further script-based integration of the system. 

During the month of February, we expect to go on-line with several store fronts.

During this same month we hope to go on-line with the following networking frameworks:

• An affiliate program 

• An open membership program

• A home-based business partnership program

• A strategic e-business partnership program

We will be launching a concerted advertising campaign in March, and this campaign should run until the end of the consolidation period on the first of June, 2004.

We expect to become officially incorporated in June of 2004.

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.

At this time most of our services and products are web-based Networking & Telecommunication services:

Hosting: We offer free, standard and premium quality hosting services.

Domain Registration: Quick-Stop, Bulk and Do-It-Yourself or Tucows Open-SRS (coming soon)

Website Design & Construction: Updateable Websites (coming soon)

Web-system Development & Management: Coming Soon!

Advertising Services: Coming Soon! At this time, submission of Banners & Links are free!

Submission & Consolidation Services: Coming Soon!

ISP Connection Services: Coming Soon!

Telecommunications Services: Lewis-Com: Related Communications Portal: Lewis-Com.Biz

E-Marketing Services: Coming Very Soon!

Network Development Services: Coming Soon!

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 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

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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