Sustainability Principles Online Dialogue

Nathen- Corruption in this sense is ignorance. That's why the education thread is so active. People will do what they understand such as acting in the world using Malthus principles!

Otherwise, I agree with you.

Well said, Kirby. A thinker after my own heart and mind.

I only regret that I cannot stand up to the torrent of words that swept through here during the past four or so weeks.

Too many words buried the truth, for my feeble intellect. So I take as my intellectual life-line your article New Circuit Designs for Motherboard Earth.

'Order' and 'disorder' are, as with all human laryngral gruntings, merely words to representand transmit intellectual and experiential meanings. What some see as disorder, such as the chaotic movements of clouds or the mutation of viral or insectoid life forms can be seen as disorder relative to certain preconeived notions about structure and order but do not necessarily reflect the 'real reality' of the situation. Many theories about the development of life on this planet suggest that such chaotic clouds and genetic mutations were the very foundation of order and are the core elements in the developement of such complexly structured systems as the rain forest or the human brain.

Additionally, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics accounts only for electro-magnetic energies, in radiational or knotted matter. The phenomenon of gravity, as well as other energetic phenomenon experienced by various individuals, seems to counter-act this 2nd Law. One such example, often villified, mis-interpreted or extremely idolized, but not irrelevent, were the observations, research and theories of Dr. Wilhelm Reich. According to Dr. Reich's theories there is a subtle form of energy, possibly related to or explaining gravition, that plays a fundamental role in the development of life-forms. This energy, the 'orgone', was observed to behave according to the inverse of Newton's 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

Two thing should be noted in relation to the subject of entropy and negentropy, order and disorder. First, Universe appears to operate in the most efficient way possible, as Bucky noted. Universe, as a scenario of continuous change, requires interactions and processes to continue in order for change to continue. With this in mind it is highly probable that Universe incorporates principles and aspects that would continue the occurance of interactions and processes, a balance of entropy and negentropy, order and disorder.

Second, and perhaps most important, is the fact that human models, from Freudian psychology to Quantum Mechanics, mathematical logic to language and linguistics, are models of our experiences. These brain creations are human artifacts and as such are as faliable as the human brain, if not more. No model is the phenomenon or experience it describes. As Robert Anton Wilson said, "The map is not the territory; the menu is not the meal."

All of that aside, it I agree that our current infrastructure are in desperate need of an 'overhaul' of sorts. The overhaul I have in mind is less structured, however, and is based on the premise that humans, however noble, ethical or otherwise, opertate independantly. Each person makes their own decisions, regardless of what ideas or forces may influence them. What I suggest is to ackowledge this independence, to educate people of the fundamentally 'anarchistic' nature of human experience, and to acknowledge that all experiences and actions are equally valid, equally unique, and equally 'proper' in a Universal sense, for if something occurs in Universe it is by definition an allowable occurance in accordance with the laws of Universal operation.

There are terrible things that happen around the world everyday, and it is quite possible that this course of events with continue ad-infinitum. This is not to say that these terrible things are desirable, or inevitable. It simply means that they occur. If it is the desire of humans to admonish these behaviors it is fundamental to take it as a personal responsibility to remove such behaviors from our personal repetoir of actions. As 'wrong' or 'inappropriate' or 'terrible' as someone else's behavior may seem to us we must not allow it to influence to our behaviors in such a way as to illicit the same behaviors in ourselves.

Any system which illicits competitive behavior amongst it's participants will, it seems, illicit also the variety of thoughts and methods of action that are generally considered 'terrible' or 'wrong'. Lying, cheating and stealing are only viable possibilities in games designed with competition in mind. These behaviors are not viable possibilities in games established to illicit cooperation. Finite, competitive games have a finite, competitive life-span. Infinite, cooperative games have an infinite, cooperative life-span. I will leave this statement at that in hopes that someone may be compelled to ellaborate, validate, or refute this statement.