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 Hugh M. Lewis, PhD, MA, general editor

Vol. I, No. 3

02/13/04 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.

Feature II

On Top

We have amended our primary mission set to explicitly state 10 primary goals and values of the Lewis Works framework.

We have been able to repair and recover most of our e-mail files, though some important documentary information has been permanently lost. We have put in place an in-house small business server with a set of new CPU's with the purpose of providing backup for the entire meta-systems framework.

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

• 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.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

Relativity has been a general concept and problem that has plagued Western Philosophers and other scholars for a very long time. We have inherited a classical Greek view of the world that provided little room for relativistic orientations, though Eastern philosopher's had been quite comfortable with the idea from the beginning.  As an a traditionally trained cultural anthropologist, within the Boasian Tradition, I have taken naturally to a relativistic orientation, although the proposition of cultural relativity is largely rejected by ethical philosophers and many anthropologists who want a more clearly defined deterministic model of the world and a single set of standards by which to judge the many ways of the world. Philosophically and theoretically, and even methodologically, the general problem of relativity informed my own dissertation research, at least in part, that was designed and executed on cross-cultural or comparative grounds. The problem of relativity underlies what is known in the Anthropology of knowledge as the worldview problem, and this informs the cognitive sciences, AI research & theory, as well as diverse areas of linguistics, psychology and other social science disciplines. Even before my fieldwork I wrote an extended manuscript on the problem of relativity that has now been e-published online for some years at:

 http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Publications/Relativism/

The object of this brief article today is to address a central set of issues regarding: 

1. The definition of Meta-systems as systems-based context.

2. The relationship of Meta-systems context to the general problem of relativity.

3. The special relationship of General Systems frameworks to the problem of relativity.

4. Forms of relativity, particularly the role of physical and anthropological relativity in general knowledge systems, and their relationship to one another.

5. The theoretical and methodological role of defining and manipulating knowledge in terms of alternative frames of reference and units of analysis, and the relationship this has upon both systems-based and relativist problem sets.

Before proceeding, several caveats are in order. The general problem of relativism/relativity is difficult to deal with in any form or fashion because basically it proposes a certain inherent uncertainty of our knowledge, which is itself uncertain, and hence puts certain constraints and limits on our ability to know things in any certain way about the world in any fundamental or non-reductive manner. The general doctrine of relativism and the general problem of relativity has therefore posed an implicit kind of paradox concerning the certitude and ground of our knowledge, and our ability to know the world in any certain terms. Different kinds of intellectuals have found this implicit proposition unsatisfactory, particularly scientists who define their primary goal as certain, exact knowledge, Platonic and Rationalist philosopher's who seek a single ideal set of standards by which to measure and judge reality, and various kinds of ideologues and minor scholars who've had their own agendas and paradigms to peddle through the ages. The blatant and often strong rejection of the problem and paradox of Relativity has resulted in a general failure to adequately address the problem as anything but a pseudo-intellectual or minor concern, and therefore the general doctrine of relativism and the definition of relativity has been largely misinterpreted in a shallow sense, or else has fallen prey to being reinterpreted in a revised form as a kind of strong determinism of largely contextual/environmental factors in causal definitions of complex systems. Regardless of the gap in our understanding of the entire problem of Relativity and the doctrine of general relativism, it remains in the background of all we do, think and say, to plague us in our quest for ultimate truths and refined, mathematical formulas, and to mock us in the illusions of our own comprehension of reality.

1. What is a Meta-system, how is it systems-based, and what has this all to do with the problem of relativity, or are we not just making complex issues more confusing by mixing our metaphorical cocktails?

The concept of the Meta-system as it is used within the Lewis Works framework and various publications, has been deployed in several ways with several implicit meanings and several explicit definitions. None of these definitions or functions are considered exclusive of one another, and in a larger, general framework they are complementary to one another. 

First of all, a meta-system is a system of systems. Also, we may say from a more naturalistic and realistic point of view, it is the total surrounding systems-based context that always  embeds any delimited system we may be referring directly to, that is somehow bounded and made finite by the constraints and relationships of its multi-level attachment to the larger meta-systems context.

Second, a meta-systems framework is a conceptual apparatus that permits us a handle for both stepping outside of our own systems relationships and involvement, hopefully for a more objective view of reality, and for allowing us to look both at other systems, and at the natural meta-systems context as well, in a manner that will allow its greater objectification and generalization, especially from a structural and functional point of view.

We may say therefore that the definition of a Meta-system is systems based in the sense that all systems formulations and theories demand a form of contextualization, that, by necessity, must be in terms of and conditional to the relationship to other systems. This is centrally important to the doctrine of relativism and the general problem of relativity because relativism/relativity is in a specific sense the problem of the contextuality and contextualization of knowledge, both in terms of the real world, and in terms of other forms of knowledge and symbolic representations of knowledge. It is not surprising therefore that the key doctrinal statements in regard to General Systems Theory (Von Bertalanffy, 1968) deals in the latter half of the book with the general problem of relativity in various received forms (i.e., linguistic, cultural, & psychological). There is good reason for this, because both general systems thinking and relativistic doctrine demand the same holistic and synthetic (i.e., non-analytic) approach to knowledge and to attempting to see larger part-whole relationships of things to their surrounding contexts. We can conclude therefore that a systems thinking approach is de facto a relativistic approach, and a relativistic way of looking at problems implicitly involves a systems-based approach to such problems.

2. Saying that both meta-systems and relativism are contextual in approach to problems and understanding, and thus both approaches seek to relate focal issues to broader relationships and frameworks that serve to define and configure the issues as problem sets,  still begs the question of what is a more exact nature of the relationship between the concept of the meta-system and what I would call relativistic doctrine as a semi-coherent if not completely rational conceptual system. 

If we take physical systems as an example, we can state clearly and unequivocally that all known physical systems, and all physical systems in principle, are constrained by the laws of thermodynamics. Therefore, certain kinds of systems that are imaginable or conceivable, like perpetual motion machines, perfect vacuums, etc., are physically impossible. All such systems, as working systems, can be said to be relative thermodynamically to the context of physical relationships in which they immediately occur. If we follow chemical reactions in detail, as for instance in the study of physical chemistry, we can find various forms of equilibria occurring that affect rates of reaction and resultant pathways, and that in turn would be affected by the relative presence/absence of chemicals, heat, pressure, etc. We may refer to the classical principle of relativity that states that if two systems move uniformly relative to one another, then all the laws of mechanics are the same in both systems. This classic principle of relativity relates the doctrine of relativism on a level of physical systems at least directly to the concept of physical meta-systems. 

We may extend this same relationship to embrace both biological systems and anthropological systems, as derivatives of physical systems, and also as systems in their own right with associated emergent properties. We may state for instance that in the same sets of contexts, under similar operating bio-geophysical conditions, similar species of life or members of the same species or genus of life will respond in very similar ways, with the principles of evolution, selection and ecology operating similarly for both. If we extend this to the challenge of psychological explanations for human behavior, or anthropological explanations of the cultural patterning of behavior, we can emerge with similar kinds of conclusions that in comparable systems, similar or the same sets of basic structural principles would be operant--at this level the patterning of biological or human behavior would become at least expectable, due to the complexity that we are normally referring to at these levels, if not exactly predictable.

3. The reference has been made previously that those who engage in general systems thinking invariably refer to relativistic doctrines in support of their ideas, and vice versa, those who are inclined to relativistic orientations in their thinking almost invariably fall back upon and come to rely heavily upon systems based principles and general systems thinking in general or specific explanation of phenomena. The reason for this has to do with a concern for the holism of phenomena, and a faithfulness to the natural or real context of real systems and the relations and constraints these may entail for the behavior and outcomes of a system. The approach can be largely called "synthetic" in style, and "global" or "organic" in approach, versus and dialectically contrasted with an analytic and reductionist approach that defines a problem as a mere sum of its parts rather than a set of interrelationships between the parts in the synergistic creation of the whole. Emergent properties, or the synergism of systems that assume their own independent characteristics and state-path trajectory, are associated directly with the sense of equilibrium or steady-dynamic state pattern of relationships maintained or developed between the components of the system. 

The classic example is an biological organism, as in the case of an animal, even a human being, that is reducible as nothing but a collection of cell tissues that interact bio-chemically in complex ways--but beyond respiring, the human organism also has a set of associated behaviors external to the operations of cellular relationships, within a larger ecological environment in relation to other organisms that cannot be simply understood in terms of biochemical reactions. The human brain brings the problem set to an entirely new level of complex, constructive cultural behavior, structural patterns of behavior, social relationship and symbolization that cannot be fully explained by resorting only to physical or biological based explanations.

It can be concluded therefore that a general systems approach is consonant with relativistic doctrine, and both approaches demand and require one another, for the sake of the sense of synergistic, emergent holism of property (i.e., structural pattern) that is found in all systems, and for the sense of contextuality in which all systems are bound and constrained in the larger scheme of thing.

Beyond the fact of consonance between the two approaches to knowledge, we may say even more importantly that a systems-based approach, and a meta-systems framework, actually provides us a way of controlling and thereby transcending the problems and paradoxes that are normally associated with relativistic understanding and relativized problem sets, while being simultaneously capable of comprehending and incorporating these relativistic points of view. It allows us, simply put, to step at least one foot outside of the circle of our own symbolic relativity of our knowledge, to gain some sense of partial, if incomplete, comparative objectivity about that knowledge. It does this by the fact of the unification of a systems-based approach, and the presupposition that all real systems are structurally unified in a general sense, however independent they may be in their occurrence or happenstance.

4. The attacks against relativist doctrine should be all the more surprising when we realize that the modern physical sciences have been largely defined by principles of the physical relativity of systems, from Einstein's theories of special and general relativity, to the theories of the inherent uncertainty, complementariness and non-particularity of electrons in their orbitals and other sub-atomic "events." We can go on to postulate an observational relativity of the visible universe, and a universal relativity of the inferable, total universe, if we are so inclined. And the relativistic buck by no means stops there. If the very ground of our physical experience may be said to be some how, in a fundamental and larger sense, relative to our observation and point of view, to our rate of travel, our size, and the gravitational field in which we are immersed and can only escape with extreme physical energy, then why should we have difficulty with notions of biological relativity of species in eco-evolutionary or meta-biotic contexts, or of biological biomes, regimes and epochs in the natural history of the earth, or the earthbound relativity of all known biological life forms? Why then should we be especially upset and critical of rather studied notions of linguistic relativity, cultural relativity, social relativity, historical relativity, or psychological relativity of human behavior, when we find so much difference and contrast and individual uniqueness in the human world? Is it not possible that so many people have such a demand, a rage for order, that they must try to stamp out any suggestion of difference that might invite a larger sense of disorder?

The doctrine of relativism is a statement of the inherent uncertainty and therefore limitations of our knowledge. For all that we know or may believe we know, there is that much more in reality that remains unknown and probably unknowable. There is much more that remains known but not well known and poorly understood. Ideologically, for symbolic completeness and closure of our worldview, it is nice to live in a make-believe world in which everything is not only known, but known with unshakeable faith and certainty, as well as illusion. The promise of science is the promise of a continuous, never-ending horizon of the unknown, that we may always explore and learn new things about reality.

The various forms of relativity were alluded to above. From the standpoint of natural systems we may distinguish physical, biological and anthropological forms of relativity--within each of these general forms there are recognizable various sub-forms or types and general or specific instances of relativity. In fact, name me an area or field of general or applied knowledge, and I can pick out a form of relativity for that field that applies to the boundaries and parameters of its knowledge and the problem sets it is most theoretically or methodologically concerned with. We may extend the proposition of relativity to cover all real systems, and alternative systems, and the entire idea of alternation of possible systems invites the problem, or is the problem, of the relativity of such systems. Our earthbound biosphere is the only known form of organic life yet discovered--but this does not mean that some alternative system of life does not exist somewhere in the greater sphere of the Universe, and, once discovered, will bring us face to face, to the "relativization" of our own ideas and knowledge about what biological systems are and may be in the larger context.

Of special interest and importance from the standpoint of general systems theory is the problem of the anthropological relativity of knowledge. This is so because the only knowledge we have, know of, or can possibly use, is filtered through our own human screens of symbolic perception and cognition. Our chance encounter with alien intelligence will only suffer us the problem of translation of entirely different styles and ways of seeing and knowing the world. It will also suffer us the "anthropological shock" of the relativization of our own knowledge systems on a very basic level. More immediately important to us though is to comprehend the limitations that this form of anthropological relativity of knowledge actually entails for us, as it is so basic to our entire sense of awareness of the world, whatever our worldview or knowledge base, that we not only take it for granted, but proceed to act in ways as if it didn't even exist. The paradigmatics of scientific knowledge, so clearly elucidated by Thomas Kuhn, is a brilliant demonstration of the inherent anthropological limitations of even our most treasured forms of scientific understand, subject as this may be to predominating social and symbolic constraints. This is only a single noteworthy example, but not the entire problem in a nutshell.

5. All systematic research activity, which must be undertaken if we are to roll back the relativistic boundaries of our knowledge about general systems, must be approached from the standpoint of explicit frames of reference and well defined units of analysis. Any reasonable research design approaches general problem solving this way, especially if it is to have any pretense to being "scientific." Such an approach allows us not only to carve up the complexities of reality into manageable, bite-size pieces, that we can then take a measuring stick to, but also to arrange such pieces into meaningful patterns that we can then manipulate and manage in ways that make greater sense.

From the standpoint of the anthropological relativity of knowledge, we see the world through different sets of lens. The world will look to us very different if we are in the habit of looking at it through a light microscope versus a light telescope. Similarly, our worldview and the maps we hold of the larger sense of the forest of reality is largely constrained by the knowledge, beliefs, and values we hold of the world, however contradictory these may really be--in short, what psychologists call our "attitudes." To put it more precisely, our view of the world is conditioned by the lens of our "attitudes" manifest or latent to our behavior, culturally contextualized, and defined through the symbolic apparatus of our intelligence, emotion and perception of the world. The wonderful thing about human symbolic cognition is not only that it is socially and culturally shared, but that it is capable of enduring and managing contradiction to the nth degree, as well as mediating any kind of sense of contradictory experience that may "marginalize" or relativize our view of the world. If one wants to understand the true persuasive and controlling power of the communication and newsprint media, one must understand how these forms of media hold sway over our symbolic consciousness and imagination in shaping our view of the world and thereby conditioning our responses to it.

From a systems standpoint, in a phenomenological vein, we may say, as defined on the main web-page of http://www.lewisworks.com/, that for any problem set we may encounter in relation to any real or natural system we are dealing with, we may adopt any number of alternative viewpoints, or alternative possible frames of reference, regarding that problem set, and we may say, standards of realism and truth notwithstanding, we may imagine even an infinite number of possible alternative frames of reference for any given problem set. At the same time, from a systems standpoint in a scientific vein, we may hypothesize that for any given problem set or general kind or class or problem set, there may exist one, and only one, single most optimal solution for such a set, regardless of whether this solution is actually realizable or not.

In general, the progress of our scientific knowledge is taking us gradually from the former condition of a kind of "multi-cultural" tower of Babel in our knowledge, to the goal of the latter condition of having fairly precise, if not exact, optimal solutions for any problem set we encounter.

It was the great systems-based archaeologist, Lewis Binford, who inaugurated the revolution of New Archaeology in the early Sixties, breaking a Century long iconoclastic tradition of Culture History, by his seminal articles on systems-based archaeological method, who has also recently given to the world the most cogent and studied example of the systematic deployment of alternative frames of reference/units of analysis in his recent work Constructing Frames of Reference (2001). Defining alternative frames of reference, allowing us to systematically adjust and change our points of view of the world, requires thorough, indeed comprehensive, command of the knowledge base and information about any particular or general problem set. It requires the definition of such alternative frames of reference in terms of fairly precise and well defined units of analysis that are explicit and that become on some level at least available to scientific replication and experimentation. It requires furthermore seeing our units of analysis for what they really are, in relation to one another, rather than in terms or frames of what we might want them to be--this requires in turn a certain suspension of our preconceived frames of reference, our attitudes, and sense of credibility. When a forensic scientist or detective approaches a crime scene, the evidence is looked at in as fresh a light as possible, without presuppositions of what may have happened, or any of the baggage that the human may bring to the moment that is not in the setting itself.

As it has become with scientific archaeology, so it must become as well with all areas of our knowledge that we want to approach in a "scientific manner," i.e., in a systems based approach. A systems based approach, a meta-systems framework and context, and a relativistic orientation to problem solving may all be said to fundamentally transcend in a basic way some of the conundrums and paradoxes represented by the symbolic condition of our knowledge, by our own inimitable anthropological relativity, and by the importation of biased frames of reference and pre-selective units of analysis in our comprehension of reality. They offer us a way out of the symbolic box we are confined within in our view of the world beyond, and they offer at the same time a means for defining in a systematic way alternative frames of reference by which we may compare, contrast and optimize our possible solution to various problem sets.

What is in a name? A domain by any other name would sell as cheap

by: Hugh M. Lewis

A key characteristic of human-like intelligence and symbolic human-like language is the capacity for prevarication--for deception and the presentation of alternative, fictitious realities in lieu of the actual, concrete world. Like the Internet itself, this has been a great boon and a great bane for humankind. The boundary between fact and fiction has become so blurred on the Internet that it is virtually indistinguishable, and even otherwise completely legitimate and honorable companies regularly employ promotional and advertising tactics that purposefully deceive or misrepresent the reality. As one disillusioned Japanese woman wrote, any dog can have a website on the Internet, and one would never know it was a dog. I will call this the widening gap of the parallax of credibility on the Internet, and it reflects to me a fundamental evolutionary transformation that has taken place (is taking place) on the human knowledge landscape.

These issues really seem to come to a focus in reference to domain names, and in relation to the great scramble competition that is out there in regard to the registration, possession and transfer of domain names. The right domain name is prototypically short, to the point, embodying the spirit or essence of what one's domain is supposed to be all about, at least, and well recognized by anyone who hears it. When one in the US at least, and probably most of the rest of the world these days, mentions "Amazon" one thinks first of the successful Internet company that sells almost anything, rather than the Great River that goes by the same name. Amazon.com obviously borrowed some of the symbolic mass that was carried conventionally by the River's name, and in a sense usurped the position of the River on the human knowledge landscape of the collective human imagination, if not in real geographic terms. And there is momentum, force, in this usurpation realized through the mobilization of human resources.

Of course, what is prototypical in the ideal world is not necessarily what is typical in the real world and if one wants a good domain name these days, one is liable to come up disappointed with second best leftovers, hyphenated wanabe's, multi-syllabic monstrosities, or bastardized "clones" of already successful names.

There seems to be a lot riding on a domain name these days, but there also seems to be a lot ado about a little bit. Usually, I suspect, the first thing anyone does in setting up a home-based e-commerce business is to register a domain name that would be representative of the interests/lines as well as the identity of the owner, etc., and perhaps, most importantly, to be attractive to potential customers and occasional surfers.

Undoubtedly, a plethora of new names have been introduced within the last decade upon the global human knowledge landscape, and there has occurred as a consequence both a stratification of this epigenetic landscape on new levels, and a reconfiguration of this landscape in new convolutions and stratigraphy. It has been surging exponentially with each passing year, and many forms of old knowledge have suddenly turned anachronistic, old-fashioned, obsolete, buried beneath the surface like old artifacts, or dusty, unused books in library basements, something like old vinyl records compared to current CD's/DVD's. 

What is "reification?" It is a term technically applied in the theory of the construction of reality that refers primarily to the informal or practical fallacy in logic known also as "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness" or the "fallacy of misplaced concretization."(i.e., making seem real, solid, and substantial in form what is really just a fiction, a fabrication, a construction) It is also related the fallacy of naturalization, making seem natural and therefore more solidly real, what is in fact artificial and arbitrary. In a sense, the entire virtual knowledge landscape can be thought of as a reification of the knowledge that exists in hardcopy or some other concretized form, because virtual knowledge exists only virtually, and only really points somewhat symbolically to real forms in the real world. The distinction between "virtual" and "real" suddenly becomes more palpable and relevant in relation to an information economy versus the pre-digital age of conventional literacy--then reification took more the form of paper worlds and paper words than now, and fiction took longer to formulate, publish and propagate than nowadays. Newspapers, not news portals, carried the persuasive, cutting edge of quasi-fictional landscapes in the heyday of the popular world of conventional literacy. They held sway over the imaginations and motivations of the voting populations of the nation-state economies, and could rally entire nations to war or peace.

But more to the point in this short digression, domain names represent special little reifications of a new form of knowledge, new kinds of symbolic representations of reality, that in turn define little marker flags on a new kind of virtual knowledge scape. Those that are connected to e-commerce are especially relevant in this regard, as they sometimes test our notions of credibility/legitimacy where it counts the most--in our pocket-books. To put it another, non-Japanese way, the right domain name can make any pig look good, and no one on the other end of the client-server chain would be able to tell the difference between a real pig and a real person, or between a real business entity and a fictitious business front.

Scam artists abound who want to exploit and take full advantage of this fact, and it has given e-commerce a bad name from the start, making otherwise faithful customers unwilling to openly deal with even trustworthy and established Internet names. And the game goes one. A common prejudice has surfaced that all Internet business is bad business and cannot be trusted in a fundamental sense, and that all e-commerce is not real commerce. As an example a recent scam tried to steal a little bit of Pay-Pal's thunder to trick people into spending money unwisely. Even digital seals and certificates, expensive and sometimes questionable in their own right, become part of the larger game as it goes on the Internet.

We can call the entire process one of digital "euphemization" that continually tries to chase bad meaning out by good meaning. Thus, .com, to avoid being identified as .bomb, must continuously reinvent itself anew. New names and new associations to old names must be invented almost on a daily basis to drive out a history of bad relations and misplaced connotations.

The web world becomes therefore a very dynamic landscape, one that never remains the same for very long for fear of quickly becoming obsolete and boring. It is also a hall, a maze, of mirrors, in which it is difficult to always keep track of one's true image upon it. One can expect only that little that is of lasting or true value will remain the same for very long on the world wide web, and this becomes its own contradiction, somewhat like the Liar's Dilemma (The man from Crete said all Cretan's are liars), in which one lie must then be chased by another lie to maintain a sense of legitimacy and credibility.

Where then do we draw our bottom-line? Where do we stop the never ending virtual buck? How do we go about restoring virtual credibility once it has been destroyed in the mind's eye of a trusting consumer in a virtual landscape that seems fundamentally groundless anyway?

by: Hugh M. Lewis

Lewis Works was deliberately conceived and designed as a comprehensive meta-systems framework  The received criticism, valid in my simple opinion, is that the conventional knowledge landscape, anchored by conservative Academia and its traditional knowledge boundaries, was analytically driven, half-brain, left-brain lateralized. It was analytic, compulsive, narrowly, restrictively focused, and worse, compartmentalized, hyper-specialized, concerned with only the details at the loss of the large picture or the scope of the grander frames of reality. We developed great technical expertise capable of performing scientific magic, but theoretical idiots who were not much past the Medieval age of scholasticism. Even this criticism though has been marginalized by a conformist, revisionist, "correct" orientation to the conventional status quo. After all, the modern rational world has been built by scientists, accountants and administrators, all following mathematical formulas, and not by artists, priests and revolutionaries. But this prejudice is only half-true, hiding the spark of creativity that has gone into any new discovery, invention or innovation known in the modern world.

The main consequence of this lasting state of affairs has been a state of the World that is Western-centric in orientation, vertically stratified, closed, with many developmental issues and problems unresolved that might otherwise be unnecessary or rather simple to resolve. Most developmental modernization that has occurred has done so in a self-organized manner, haphazard in many cases, short-sighted to long-term consequences, especially environmentally speaking, and by and large mainly uncontrolled in any arbitrary or wise manner. As a result, developmental trajectories have frequently lead to cul-de-sacs that would have been unnecessary if better conceived, and often to destructive outcomes that has done permanent or long-lasting damage to our world. Many worthy efforts have been undertaken, often decontextualized in any larger, more meaningful framework in which such efforts might have had a better chance for success with more lasting outcomes and indirect consequences. 

People may argue over the long-term fate of the world or of humankind in the world, but the fact remains that this fate is open and quite debatable as it now stands. There is little sense of symbolic security when looking down the road, only a lot of prognostications about "doom and gloom" on a collective global horizon, whether this is true or not.

The fact of the matter is that many conventional structures are now essentially obsolete and remain mostly as obstacles to constructive future developments. The world cannot afford any longer to allow what amounts to a very small minority of the world's elite to control all resources and to define new directions in which development should proceed. They do not have the privilege nor the right to continue to do so, under any circumstances. The point being is that with the advent of the Information Revolution, new kinds of democratic control structures are possible, as well as new forms of resource distribution & exchange networks, that obviate the need for the continuation of old and archaic structures that perpetuate human injustice, inequality, human suffering and human violence in order to maintain the status quo.

What the design of Lewis Works has sought is not a split, bifurcated half brain, not a right-dominated view of the world, globalized, organic, and analytically dysfunctional if socially dialectical. What is sought is a whole brain, a balance of sides, an effective and workable combination of both analytic and synthetic approaches to the world--systems based approaches that recognize the importance of the whole but not at the expense of critical, measurable focus upon the many parts.

The key of the Lewis Works meta-systems framework is found in the word comprehensiveness, or what I would call "comprehensivity" though this is not a standard word in the English lexicon. The point of it is the contextualization of all that we know, or may know, and all that we do or may do, in a framework that makes sense functionally as well as formally, and that leads to constructive rather than destructive consequences for humanity in the unintended structures of the long run. Comprehensiveness is the context for thought and action, for knowledge and organization.

And the key towards designing and then developing comprehensive frameworks and achieving a genuinely comprehensive framework for defining action and words, has been and remains the development of genuinely holistic human systems that can function independently of larger predominating contexts, and that can be capable of creating their own context in the world in an independent, system within a system, manner.

The problem of comprehensiveness of worldview, and of a platform of coordinate action in the world, has not been an easy one to resolve, but, especially with the Internet and new communication technologies, it is no longer impossible to achieve. If many of the control functions can be automated, and relegated to the structural organization of the emergent organizational networks, then the chance for human arbitrariness associated with the power of control, and hence of human double standards and corruption, becomes minimized and reduced by default to a system that then only needs to be managed and maintained. Top heavy administrative hierarchies and bureaucracies can then be "up-sized" and the lion's share of systems resources normally bottlenecked at the top can be released to flow back through a non-hierarchically arranged system. Kingship is symbolically obsolete; Aristocracy is symbolically obsolete; even conventional class distinctions between white collar/blue collar become similarly obsolete. Human beings no longer have to feel good about themselves or build their own status and security at the expense of other people, directly or remotely.

How to make the future any less unintended in the structure of the long run? Perhaps following a meta-systems framework, if not exactly like Lewis Works, but similar in purpose, will at least give us a partial sense of control over our destiny than we might otherwise enjoy if we follow blind capitalist strategies of getting as rich as possible as soon as possible, or by misleading the public imagination of people worldwide down the wrong road based on outright lies and the cultivation of outdated or false mythologies.

We have added a new partner. Details to follow later.

Consolidation efforts continue on different levels. Progress is slow but steady.

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

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!

Integrated Business Services: Lewis Business Net

Secure Payment Gateways: 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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