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. 8

03/19/04 Copyright 2004 ©, Hugh M. Lewis.  Sections of this digital text 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.

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Our Junior Partner Framework is Opened for Recruitment

Criticisms/Comments, then Provide Feedback

Feature III

New Store Front

&

Bare-Bones

Non-Profit Links & Announcement

On Top

Today's Newsletter is not brief but hopefully to the point.

Consider becoming a Junior Partner with Lewis Works. You will thereby gain the opportunity to take a lead role in the applied development of our applied systems frameworks with a central focus on critical areas of strategic involvement.

Tell us what your interests and goals are, and we will customize our framework positions to meet your needs and to fulfill your purpose in life. Because our framework is comprehensive in orientation, we can accommodate almost any profile.

We work strictly on a first come, first serve basis, and at this stage we are not being too picky. There are no costs or fees, nor any initial obligations for any working contributions beyond learning more about our framework and systems based approach, and regularly attending the conference call meetings that will be arranged in the forthcoming weeks, in order to assist us in the further planning of the framework that will proceed through until the end of May.

Benefits for joining us are considerable, and will increase as we grow ourselves. This is a true ground floor opportunity, and you will have the chance to directly influence the direction and outcomes of our new company. Inquire with Hugh about becoming a senior founding partner and its benefits.

If are interested even slightly, or you know of anyone who may have such an interest, or who might even remotely benefit from such partnership, you are strongly encouraged to inquire with Hugh

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 realizing new human adaptive possibilities as the result of the global systems knowledge revolution in order to create alternative long-term frameworks for human & biological systems development, both 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.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

All knowledge that is or possibly becomes available to us is human knowledge--if other animals know, we cannot know what or how they know. This knowledge remains fundamentally unavailable to us. There is no knowledge that is not first prescreened and filtered through the mechanisms of human perception, cognition, memory, linguistic interpretation and active social construction. Thus there are certain built in constraints to our knowledge systems, namely and first that they are by definition human knowledge systems. This is the most general form of anthropological relativity that conditions and limits ultimately what, and how, we may know about the larger reality.

We must understand therefore that there are constraints inherent to our knowledge, of how we come to see and understand that world, that are built into our very condition as human beings, and this pre-structures what we may know and see in significant, even unknown ways.

We have developed alternative systems that have allowed us to systematically expand our knowledge base. We have developed instruments of perception, microscopes and telescopes, that allow us to see on scales never ever imagined to exist previously, and these instruments have broadened and deepened our field of view of reality by many orders of magnitude over what it was when we only had the vision of our bare eyes. Other kinds of systems have been developed to increase our knowledge of unknown realities in many other ways as well. All of these systems have broadened reality for us, and broadened our understanding of reality manifold.

But however powerful and enlightening our alternative systems may be, we must face a realization that all knowledge must ultimately be filtered through a human screen of consciousness, and this filter is far from perfect or being infallible, no matter how logical or well trained or informed we may presume ourselves or one another to be. It is most likely that there are some forms of knowledge, some domains of reality, that are for the most part permanently beyond the horizon of our understanding and comprehension, however remotely or indirectly it may be ascertained. Even the possibility of the existence of such unknown realities, containing what we may refer to as unknown systems, is itself even something that may be fundamentally uncertain. I suspect that we will reach our observational and inferential limits in understanding the fundamental processes of physical reality, for instance, in any decisive or certain manner, and that we will also reach certain grander limitations of our view of the larger universe. In fact I think we have already probably encountered such limitations even though we are hesitant to see them as insuperable boundaries to our knowledge and our science.

Two main points arise from this consideration of the fundamental anthropological relativity of all our knowledge systems, or possible knowledge systems. First, what we know, however much this may ultimately be, is always finite and always bound by the horizon of what we do not know--or of the fathomless unknown. We face a fundamental dilemma of trying to comprehend what may be ultimately infinite in terms that are by definition finite. Secondly, what we know is conditioned by the constraints of our knowledge, by how we know, and the act of knowing, which is never "pristine" as the "thing in itself" but always preconditioned by previous experience, by our own assessments, models, and patterns of perceptual recognition. It is not just that our knowledge is pre-selected and constrained in unconscious ways, but that our act of knowing reality, at whatever level, in whatever way, leads to our interaction upon some level with that reality. We bring not only our pre-understandings to our knowledge, but we bring it to what is known or possibly known by us.

These two sets of constraining conditions to human knowledge, that define the basis of anthropological relativity of knowledge, are mutually implicit to one another, and create a condition of ultimately never being certain of our knowledge, of what we really do known, in any non-relative manner. The only kind of knowledge that appears to transcend this dilemma is that encompassed by the logical relations, operations and terminologies of mathematics, the language of the "pure sciences." Pure mathematics does so by fact of its representation of ideal (i.e., non-real) realities that, by themselves, have no direct instantiation in the real world, but which are represented by many phenomenological instances that can be said to be applied forms. Even pure mathematics itself may ultimately be subject to these kinds of relativistic constraints, though we may not ever know for certain. Certain types of mathematical problems remain intransigent to solution.

One cannot over-stress the importance of understanding the role that anthropological relativity must play in our comprehension of the world, in all fields of knowledge, especially in relation to the sciences because it is in these areas of knowledge that objective/empirical claims to reality are regularly made but often without default consideration of possible anthropological constraints to such knowledge. The success of science has bred a certain attitude of hubris about what it knows and is capable of achieving, and in turn perhaps a blind eye to its own intrinsic limitations. 

It is an important caveat to note as well that when we refer to anthropological relativity of knowledge, we are referring to a basic philosophical and cognitive condition intrinsic to our form of symbolic knowledge itself. We are not referring thereby, however implicitly, to more vulgar forms of humanistic relativism, the problems of cultural relativity or interpretive parallax, or the role of emotions and dispositions in our thinking, and so forth. We are referring to a fundamental condition, a basic statement about the limits, nature and structure of all human knowledge, however it may be expressed, interpreted or used in the world.

It is especially in the realm of systems theory and systems science that the question of the anthropological relativity of knowledge comes to greatest focus and therefore gains the greatest significance. This is because systems theory deals primarily with the complementarity of alternative frameworks of reference, especially dealing holistically with complex systems, as all natural systems really are, and this entails the adoption automatically of a relativistic approach to such understanding, consideration of the fundamental contextuality and conditions that constrain our knowledge of the world.

We have largely taken for granted the pan-human condition of the anthropological relativity of our knowledge because it remains normally invisible and transparent to us as a condition intrinsic to ourselves. We cannot see the outside of the room that we are looking out from in the first place. The idea that we can feasible step beyond the boundaries of our own knowledge worlds arises in a partial manner of inter-psychological or inter-cultural parallax when we do encounter and interact with people who have adopted fundamentally different frames of reference for their knowledge than our own. We gain a sense of relativization and objectification of the difference that we normally do not need to deal with when we deal only with collective precepts and assumptions that are considered to be globally shared and universally true. But we are not likely to be brought fully to the objective awarenesss of the limitations and structure of our own knowledge unless and until we encounter some form of alternative intelligence in the universe, that is capable of some form of intelligent knowledge and information transmission. It will only be then that we are fully awakened from the complacency of our own knowledge foundations, and provided a frame of reference that we have never experienced before. I will not presume to make any predictions at this time about the outcomes of such an encounter for our worldview and thus, for our world.

Real Systems as working systems

by: Hugh M. Lewis

Real systems by type and definition encompass all natural systems that are possible in reality, as well as the set of alternative or artificial systems, that do not exist naturally, but that exist primarily, as we understand them, as the consequence of our own construction. Such alternative systems do not occur naturally--they are not self-organizing in occurrence, but exist deliberately as the consequence of our creative efforts at design. We may name many attributes of human civilization today that are the consequence of such efforts, and that can be classified as alternative systems--the wheel, boats, bows and arrows, farming & agriculture, systems of cultural selection, mechanical systems, electrical systems, and so on endlessly. This list and the set it subtends will be expanded considerably when we come into contact with non-human life forms with an intelligence and constructive capability that is comparable or even surpasses our own.

All real systems share at least one central set of characteristics--they are all constrained by the laws of thermodynamics as working systems that can obtain some level of operational efficiency. There is a class, or an order of real systems that in fact do not strictly obey the laws of thermodynamics, but demonstrate alternative principles of gravitational dynamics. I would therefore make a case of a unified field theory as being based on an expanded paradigm of thermo-gravitational dynamics, if we understand that thermo-dynamic and gravitationally dynamic systems are complementary to one another in the normal order of physical phenomena. It is likely as well that upon a very fundamental scale of physical reality, relations and events that occur may not strictly speaking follow the principles of thermodynamics, but occur in some alternative complementary manner to thermodynamic system behavior.

All real systems are constrained by the following conditions:

      1. They are subject to the laws of thermo-gravitational dynamics.

      2. They are subject to continuous change, both exogenous and endogenous.

      3. They are finite and constrained in time and space.

      4. They have some form of physical presence and appearance and are therefore subject to our inter-subjective observational methods and manipulation.

      5. They have a beginning, middle and end--they are temporary, and have a finite state-path trajectory.

      6. They are complexly articulated at multiple levels of organization.

      7. They are contextually defined and conditioned by the environment in which they immediately occur at different levels.

      8. They are able to be symbolically represented in our knowledge systems in terms of ideal types and logical relations that describe the structural charcteristics of their patterning in terms of their appearance, behavior and change dynamics.

      9. All real systems are composed of elements configured from the natural world, and at the end of the life-cycle of a real system these elements are returned to the natural order on a random basis.

     10. All real systems maintain an structural pattern of order that is minimally non-random (non-stochastic) or minimally self-determining by means of some boundary-maintaining mechanism and set of internalized processes. This structural pattern of order that is non-random and semi-determined in a self-organizing manner is a form of "working organization" that maintains functional equilibrium with its environment in a dynamic manner through time. As a working system it depends upon the input of greater amounts of energy than it can yield through the conversion or transformation processes of deterministic organization.

The main point is that any real system that we can delimit from its environment as a self-contained and distinct system with a material presence in its environment, may only operate at a given level of efficiency, in the conversion of energy to work, and work to some kind of finished product or by-product. Feedback is normally used to govern the input-output rates of such a system--too much output will induce a suppression of input, and so forth. Feedback is also used in a manner to increase the operational efficiencies of systems, to create higher output rates or ratios to inputs, by recycling energy or by-products back into input loops. The former function is known as resonance dampening, or first-order feedback, and the second function is referred to as resonance amplifying, or second-order feedback. A simple model of such a feedback is well described by the motions of an ideal pendulum.

All real systems have a fixed life-cycle--a beginning, a middle and an end. All real systems eventually decay as systems, and their elements are returned to the environment from which they were originally configured, either through self-organizational processes or through human (or some other) agency. Hence, real systems are limited in both time and space, and are by definition subject to the variables and dynamic constant of change. That we cannot have a completely changeless or unchanging real system is a derivative ultimately of the laws of thermodynamics. Such a system would represent conditions that no real system could possibly obtain.

We may classify and categorize all real systems, because we can delimit them and name them in terms of the nomic function of our symbolic language. Such taxonomic frameworks are really the basis for our traditional sciences--the definition of types, the typological features used to define classes, etc. Because real systems are finite, immediate to apprehend, subject to both our physical observations and our manipulations, such systems become available to our knowledge and thus measurable in systematic ways. Such measurement, if quantitative, is only accomplished through controlled comparison of other real systems, either directly or indirectly.

Each instance of a real system may be said to be ontologically and empirically unique and one of a kind--no two similar kinds of real system are exactly the same. Industrial production techniques have induced a value of the importance of apparent uniformity. We call this "cloning" and we must recognize the fallacy of apparent uniformity for what it is as well as for the illusion of ideological and symbolic conformity that it induces in people.

The complexity of real systems, in the detail of their articulation and in their contextualization at multiple levels of articulation as real systems, leads to their uniqueness and one of a kind character, and their uniqueness and complexity need to be equally appreciated when we consider the sublime beauty that real systems exhibit and embody.

by: Hugh M. Lewis

For every particular problem, there is a single ideal solution, no matter how complex, even though in reality an ideal solution can never be absolutely achieved. For any general class of problem sets, there is some general class of ideal type solutions specific to that class, no matter how complex and even though in reality such ideal solutions cannot ever be achieved. The problem of fitting solutions to problems, of defining problems and then designing solutions to address to such problems, represents the realm of applied systems. 

From a human standpoint, the primary function of any applied system is to serve the adaptive or alternatively the reproductive success of human beings, in the structure of the long run. This sets up a strange dilemma of long-term objectives and possible alternative strategies defining and constraining the development of applied systems--for it is entirely possible that a relative, "local" solution may work for a specific problem or kind of problem in the immediate term, but not represent the best possible or most optimal solution for the general class of problems represented in the larger frame of reference. We must therefore admit a certain systems based relativity of application, that the value of any solution must be measured ultimately by standards that are contextually defined by a larger frame of reference, and not by standards that are relatively defined by the immediate context of application. We would admit for instance that killing the last remaining pair of deer on earth might save ourselves from immediate starvation if we were snowbound on a mountain top, but that in the larger frame of reference of the extinction of an entire species, our own acquiescence to our cold fate on the mountain top might be a small sacrifice to pay for the good of the larger good of biological systems, knowing that there would be many other humans to replace us, but no other deer to replace the ones we would eat.

All human development issues, whether we are talking about global political-economic development, or we are talking about social and individual human development, remains centrally in the realm and strategic/tactical focus of applied systems theory and practice. Approaching the general problem of development therefore, as a cross-disciplinary academic concern, leads us invariably to the problematics of applied systems and the application of general or specific systems to diverse kinds of problem sets.

From a general systems standpoint, we might approach the problem as attempting to understand what common factors and issues arise in the resolution of a broad range of problem sets, and trying to distill from such an inventory a common structure of systems pattern in the application of general solutions to general problems.

I define applied systems as a subclass of alternative or artificial systems, or those systems that are human-made or that are constructions or products of our construction efforts. There are various kinds of applied systems, but we may say in general that they tend to be heterogeneous and they tend to the solution of certain specific kinds of problem sets at whatever level of their functional engagement in the larger scheme of human systems. As artificial systems these applied systems tend to be complex, to tackle problems without finite or clear solutions, and to function in the manner of all working systems, to obtain to some level of optimal operational efficiencies that are permitted by their design.

I would not now claim that all applied systems are isomorphic with all artificial or human-made systems. Artificial systems are a subset of a broader range of applied or alternative systems, and these encompass other possibilities than just human-made ones. One can make the argument for instance that biological systems are strictly speaking "applied" systems, and that evolution provides alternative systems to the general problems of the survival and reproductive success of living systems. The intentionality structures and deliberateness of such natural systems is obviously lacking, unless one posits the existence of a divine creator, but it is clear they are following an inherent logic and a form of informational transmission (genetic, environmental) that results in the creation of new systems previously unknown or non-existent. Certainly the primates alone would be enough to test our convictions about the exclusive human prerogative over applied systems.

Thus applied systems are by definition almost developmental systems that are subject to growth and possibly regeneration, whether or not they are self-organizational or deliberate. Just as real system are subject to change and eventual termination, so are applied systems, as longer-term frameworks featuring succession and replication, subject to comparable constraints of change and eventual extinction of types coinciding with the creation of new types.

We may stratify applied systems on the basis of their functionality and relative specificity of focus, as well as upon the basis of the level at which they are intentionally operational. An automobile engine is a kind of applied system, and serves as a archetypical model of such an applied system. 

At another level we have the car itself, including the engine, as an applied system at a different level of consideration or functional application. If we back away by one more degree, we see that the car that travels on roads, containing a driver and so many passengers, constitutes part of a larger system of highways and roads that is occupied by numerous cars. We may look at each of these systems as nested within the other, and as occurring at different levels of pattern and analysis. Within the framework of a larger highway system, the individual car, and the engine that is central part of the car, constitute subsystems at their respective levels of analysis, and we know well from experience that a network as large as a highway system contains multiple, indeed a myriad, of subsystems and sub-subsystems.

All applied and real systems exhibit non-random pattern or order that permit some level of operational efficiency to occur on a regular basis. Such a system obtains a state of dynamic equilibrium with its environment when it is said to be functioning normally at its own levels of relative efficiency.

Applied systems may be defined, therefore, as alternative real systems that deal in a functional manner with delimited problem sets, with the application system serving as a partial or imperfect but reasonable solution to such a problem set.

Each applied system, seen from the standpoint of the problem set it is intentionally designed to resolve, may be said to have an ideal prototype that represents the most optimal solution, the single best solution, to the problem set in consideration, if not in a specific sense, then in a general sense of the larger problem set that an individual problem or situation represents and stands for. Therefore all improvements to applied systems to certain delimited problem sets may be said to be developmentally streamlined towards the single best, most optimal solution set that is ideally applicable to that kind or type of problem set. It is predicted therefore that as applied systems develop and become developmentally streamlined over time, different instances or kinds of applied systems dealing with the same general kinds of problem sets will tend towards evolutionary or developmental convergence to a common prototypical form that represents such an optimal solution set.

Because of the complexities involved in all systems, even seemingly simple ones, neither the problem nor the solution set may be said to be simple to define, and thus are themselves complex at a level that may be said to be "infinitely complex." There are two outcomes of this general constraint. First, no matter how much development is involved in an applied systems framework, no matter how much streamlining and developmental convergence that may be achieved in the form and function of an applied system to a particular kind of problem, no perfect or one ideal solution will ever be obtained that will be sufficient for a particular kind of problem, much less for all variants of the general problem set. Secondly, the developmental trajectory of any particular design pathway will tend to achieve some optimal equilibrium state in adaptation to the problem set, that will be the average efficiency that is realizable by that particular problem set over the long run.

The problem of applied systems leads us automatically to consider the process of the developmental elaboration and increasing differentiation of such systems, which is complementary to the process of the developmental convergence of different systems upon a common streamlined prototype. Convergence and developmental divergence through differentiated elaboration are fundamentally, dialectically contraposed processes of all applied systems.

Differentiation must be considered a natural outcome of all applied systems development, since no two real systems are ever exactly alike, and there is a continuous process of reproduction of systems leading to variation of form and function. This can be considered to be inherent to the underdetermined complexity of such systems that permits multiple variation to occur within the same form and framework.

By: Hugh M. Lewis

We normally understand operational systems as either networks or as circular frameworks, and sometimes a mixture of both. We do not see in systems functioning uni-linear causality, in which part A affects part B, in turn affecting part C. We of course are inclined by "common sense" reinforced by "common knowledge" towards a more direct, causal view of reality--strike a match, we get fire. Hit a hammer on the nail head, we drive the nail into the wood. We are not normally inclined to viewing the match stick or the hammer, nail and wood as a part of a larger framework or system of relations in which things are accomplished, hopefully in an organized manner. There is good reason for this--everyday logic underlying common sense demands simple explanations for otherwise complex problems, and there is little left-over for the elaboration of complex explanations entailed by looking at everything as a Hen & Egg kind of problem. But scientific explanation, in spite of a rule of parsimony, cannot rest satisfied with simple explanations to complex realities, especially if the appeal is primarily to "common sense" which is meant a kind of folk ethno-logic.

Fortunately, we have early precedents for a call to a basic shift in cognitive styles of scientific worldview and praxis. This call was issued by none other than Niels Bohr in his article "Natural Philosophy and Human Cultures" (in Nature, Feb 18, 1939: pg. 268-272), when he noted that traditional causal explanation, rooted in the precept that causal behavior was independent of the means of observation, could not account for subatomic phenomena he had discovered, and that a new model of complementarity: "Information regarding the behaviour of an atomic object obtained under definite experimental conditions, may, however, according to a terminology often used in atomic physics, be adequately characterized as complementary to any information about the same object obtained by some other experimental arrangement excluding the fulfillment of the first condition." (ibid, page 269) He goes on to relate this concern to the study of human psychology, as well as to the study of human culture, where he notes a critical dilemma of understanding between "instinct" and "reason." He offers complementarity as a reasonable solution to this kind of dilemma.

He more succinctly elaborated his argument in another essay written in 1958, entitled "Causality & Complementarity", (from Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, by Niels Bohr, 1963 posthumous). "Far from restricting our efforts to put questions to nature in the form of experiments, the notion of complementarity simply characterizes the answers we can receive by such inquiry, whenever the interaction between the measuring instruments and the objects forms an integral part of the phenomena"

   In general philosophical perspective, it is significant that, as regards analysis and synthesis in other fields of knowledge, we are confronted with situations reminding us of the situation in quantum physics. Thus, the integrity of living organisms and the characteristics of conscious individuals and human cultures present features of wholeness, the account of which implies a typical complementary mode of description.....the gradual development of an appropriate terminology for the description of the simpler situation in physical science indicates that we are not dealing with more or less vague analogies, but with clear examples of logical relations which, in different contexts, are met with in wider fields.

Thus we can understand that scientific explanation is in its own development forced to adopt the wider field of view and to take into account the relativity of the observer in all instances, as well as the possibility of alternative, complementary points of view and frames of reference in relation to the phenomena being described. What appears from a conventional standpoint as an insuperable dilemma, as a hen or egg kind of problem, becomes from a complementary perspective the natural holism of divergent frames of reference.

Causality can be inferred in systems--systems function, and make things happen. As a windmill works for instance, the wind turns the vanes of the wheel, which in turn powers a shaft, that in turn drives gears in turn empowering whatever mechanical equipment might be attached to these gears, or alternatively, an electric generator. In a simple diagram of such system, we can infer causality, but we can also see that this system runs on a continuous basis, as a system, as long as the wind turns with sufficient force and speed.

At the same time, we can always construe causal events in systems on the basis of the cyclical processes that can be said to recur in such systems on a regular and predictable basis. We can look at the same system and its behavior from multiple points of view, depending upon our frame of reference, and this multiplicity of frameworks is not mutually exclusive, but complementary to the problem set implicit to the system.

By: Hugh M. Lewis

Heinz Werner, in his thorough treatment of the problem of human symbolization as organic process, defined symbolism as the capacity, uniquely human, for allowing one thing to stand for, or represent, another, so much so that we can refer to a form of symbolic displacement in which the symbol frequently becomes the stand-in, the proxy, and the effective substitute for the reality it represents.

The cognitive structure of symbolic behavior has been sufficiently analyzed and empirically documented, in terms of the gestalt pattern recognition functions, grouping, linking, and the use of analogical relational structures in the organization of everyday experience. The dialectical structure of this in mythology and in meaning has been aptly substantiated by Claude Levi-Strauss, and the semantic construction of symbolism in language elaborated by Giles Fauconnier. The use of logic and its influence to symbolism has been aptly demonstrated as well.

It is safe to say that human experience, understanding and the behavioral encounter and response with the larger world, is symbolically structured and preconditioned by previous symbolically organized experience that is brought to bear unconsciously upon the current moment of apprehension.

It is also safe to say that this experience and its symbolic structure is organized in a complex but fairly ordered manner that is available to our systematic study and measurement. In other words, the structure of symbolic logic that is characteristic of human cognition and cognitive function is available ultimately to our understanding and modeling, and guides our endeavors in learning how the brain functions organically, and in developing models of artificial intelligence.

I have in the course of my own anthropological research developed symbolic framing methodologies, in language, visual recognition, cognition, memory, and in behavioral applications, that yield direct empirical evidence to the structural patterning of human symbolic structure, its cultural and psychological patterns of variation, and its application to various kinds of problem sets. This kind of methodological framework has proven itself to be of great value in the facilitation of learning in many areas, at all age levels, in testing and evaluation, and potentially in rehabilitation. It has as yet unexplored value in linguistics and in language acquisition, in cognition and in cognitive development, and in social relations and human development and individual/group behavior. The productivity of this methodological framework, and its adaptability to a broad range of alternative applications makes it a preferred choice of techniques in the systematic study of human systems.

Theoretically, it leads to an empirically substantive resolution of the classic worldview problem, especially when we combine with this notions of complementary and relativistic frames of reference.

The application of symbolic framing methodologies points clearly to an empirical ground for the presumption that symbolic structure underlies human cognition, perception and behavior, and has a consistent order of its patterning that takes on predictable results in testing and experimentation. The implication of this is that by these methodologies we have significant empirical evidence to support a claim for the human symbolic construction of reality, as a natural process of human adaptation and survival that leads to cultural patterns of social organization.

It was in the research and development of these methodological frameworks that I was lead to development of a human systems framework, and by extension to natural systems and meta-systems frameworks of understanding. The discovery of general systems thinking was only after the fact of this development.

Theory and models of the human or anthropological construction of reality stem directly from this methodology and its application to real systems. Human reality may be said to be symbolically constructed, and even though we may be inclined first to see pragmatic or utilitarian functions in things we have and do, we can never fully alienate the symbolic components of those functions, or their implications for their value and function in the world. We can even make the case that the symbolic component of any constructed system is the primary function of that system, not matter what its other material or pragmatic functions may serve as well.

We refer to the symbolic transformation of experience as being when the symbols come to take the place of the real referents to which symbols originally referred, and hence human behavior becomes symbolically motivated and 'sublimated' in ways that may not otherwise be forthcoming from a person on the basis of purely pragmatic or functional considerations. This transformation occurs unconsciously and psychologically as much as it may occur in crowds or groups, or in social contexts. 

This symbolic transformation of experience is related directly to issues of child cognitive development as well as to issues of behavioral reform and rehabilitation of abnormal or aberrant behavior. Child cognitive development is symbolic in its growth and transformation, and this process is largely one of increasing differentiation of form and function of experience, and increasing degrees of displacement and flexibility of application of symbolic referents in behavioral response, upon increasing levels of sophistication. This process is directly tied to primary language acquisition processes, and for this reason language is considered intrinsic to the symbolic mechanism of human consciousness.

This reference of symbolism and symbolization is not merely the material forms of symbols, flags or religious icons, that are common and immediately apprehended as such, but refers instead to a very basic level of human cognition and apprehension of everyday experience in the world, in all or most areas of human behavioral involvement. Normal waking consciousness is as symbolically constructed as is our dreaming awareness. These two worlds become confused for schizophrenics, for instance, as it may become for normal people under unusual circumstances.

By: Hugh M. Lewis

A General Systems approach is de-facto a holistic approach, and it arose primarily as the result of the general dissatisfaction of exclusively analytical approaches to scientific research & scholarship, across a wide spectrum of disciplinary boundaries and territories. But to emphasize a holistic approach without analysis is to risk something far worse than dilettantism or non-specific eclecticism. It is perhaps to throw away the most powerful tool available to the systems analyst and designer--the tool of reductive analysis that depends upon intensive focus upon a tightly delimited problem set. The greatest gains in science from an experimental and methodological standpoint have always come empirically through such analytical focus.

A meta-systems approach may be said to be complementary in the sense that it embraces both holistic and analytic points of view as alternative frames of reference to the same basic problem sets. These two alternative approaches to the same problem set are not considered to be mutually exclusive, but complementary to each other such that either alone is inadequate and insufficient to a satisfactory meta-system perspective.

Alternating concern with holistic and analytic approaches to some extent mimics the hemispheric lateralization of brain function itself, and defines the normal praxis of problem solving characteristic of most applied fields of knowledge, including the sciences. It underscores the basis of dialectical discourse patterns in human symbolic behavior and the basic structure of dialectical development (thesis, antithesis, and synthesis) and it points to an organic and synthetic approach to human-based knowledge as primarily complementary in reference.

It may even underlie two contraposed cognitive styles or orientation that governs to some extent behavioral response patterns, typified differentially by children, adults and across cultural boundaries, leading to different levels of relative differentiation of response and ego-defense rationalization, as well as to different strategies of perception, recognition, and problem solving. The correlation of relative field-dependency/independence to these two polar extremes of cognitive styles may have important implications for understanding how we may study and know these kinds of things.

We have added several new affiliate accounts.

Our Consolidation efforts continue on different levels. We remain a month behind schedule, but since we have no real deadlines we can continue postponing development due to unexpected delays and eat the operating costs along the way. 

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 Apil, 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

Pending further development and restructuring of the central web-system, we have postponed our advertising campaign by at least one month, and intend to launch this in May rather than April, 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.

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

We have several non-profit domains organized:

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-intgrated common reference resource & comprehensive knowledge compendium resources.

Human Synergetics: promoting health in holistic, alternative lifestyles

by Sam Micheal

if a starving child approached you and you had a basket of fish, you 
could give that child a fish.

that would be good.

but what would be better would be to teach the child to fish.

even better would be to teach that child how to do fish farming, raising 
and cultivating fish.

even better would be to teach that child about how fish and they, 
themselves, fit in the global ecology and genetic engineering - how to 
design a better fish - that still fits into the global ecology without 
damaging it.

• is based on the meta-systems framework

• is holistic and integrative

• will accommodate any appropriate venture willing to join us

• Note: the mission of Symbiotic Systems is not to invest in ventures, but collaborate with them in a symbiotic way! We are interested in "joining forces" with energetic, dynamic, and persevering entrepreneurs!

• please find our new forum at: http://www.symbioticsystems.org/phpbb/                                                                       
• the web-page for Symbiotic Systems can be found at: http://www.symbioticsystems.org/

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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