Proper Resilience and False Equifinality

Here's something old that I thought I had posted, but apparently had not.

I define proper resilience as employing the capability to cope effectively with certain situations that individuals may be conditioned to view as being non-preferential to their individual system by understanding via reason the true severity in terms of existential risks of a situation. All 'non-preferential' situations that do not threaten the survival of a system are contextual in terms of arbitrary preferences of that system.

The only inherent purpose of a biological system, i.e. something that is living, is to survive long enough to reproduce and thus continue the survival of the genes within that biological system. All else is arbitrarily decided upon. This brings us to self-interest - all living systems have as their sole inherent purpose surviving to procreate.

Now particular situations which are not directly existentially threatening may have indirect consequences to our reproduction-purposed survival insofar as those consequences may affect our ability to reproduce with a desirable mate. This said though, we as humans have the use of reason and may hence develop our own arbitrary purposes based on memetic replication and survivability as opposed to genetic replication: we may live on in our creations by way of our minds, not just our loins.

Improper resilience I define as the ability to cope without the proper understanding of why and not using correct reasoning for / or not having the correct reasoning behind the actions and mindset allowing for the coping thereof; employing the capability to cope effectively with certain situations that individuals are faced with without the employment of reason, i.e. 'for the wrong reasons.' Merely responding correctly does not connote correct understanding of the whys and the hows.

Ludwig van Bertalanffy, the man we have to thank for General Systems Theory, termed equifinality for when you may reach the same conclusions via multiple paths. When we employ reason for coping we are taking the 'correct' (well reasoned, logical) path whereas when we do not employ reason our path does not necessarily correspond with reality or logic and so, although we have coped properly with a situation and hence achieved our desired outcome, we have done so via irrational means and thus we are in danger of applying irrational means in the future with different situations.

Principles are arbitrary. One develops principles according to a given philosophy which may or may not be based on reason. Reason is not arbitrary. It is a corrollary of an axiomatic basis.

Some of My Music

I figured I'd share some of my original music with you guys here, if you're interested. Tell me what you think!

Cheers,

Dolf

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3571424

Present Models Affect Present Outlook

Thirteen years ago I started writing a book which I titled around the same time, "The Means to Self-Idealization". That's awfully pretentious phrasing for an 18 year old, but it got me thinking about a slew of other creatives and both mine and others' criticisms over the years of their aims and directions (specifically the changes thereof). I realized - possibly for the first time explicitly, at least - that everyone takes their direction (and, once again, changes thereof) from their current model of both reality and, hence, what they perceive it to be and the reality tunnels that are predominant in their view of reality.

The resulting effect of this insight is a necessary viewing anew the judgment I and others have of the work and everyday behavior/thinking of everyone else [poor wording - review later]. Who's to say that Van Halen didn't feel that a new direction was the way to go with the addition of Sammy Hagar after losing David Lee Roth? It also helps in understanding where people may go 'astray' when looking at their change in circumstances in this light. Sometimes people get into some shit and that eventually (sooner or later) leads to in a new reality tunnel from which they view everything else. Whether they are aware of this oftentimes (in my experience with humans) plays a large part into whether or not they attempt to get out of said shit, but the point to be made remains.

In summation, my view now is that we might all benefit from keeping this in mind when critiquing others' apparent changes in behavior/thinking.

As always, comments, suggestions, etc. are quite appreciated and encouraged.

Cheers,
Blessed be in 23

Authors to Read

I had the fortuitous blessing of talking at length with my brother this evening about books and decided that I (as a compulsive list-maker) needed to make a list of must read material, so I'll begin that task with a list of - in my opinion - must-read authors which thusly ensues:

Robert Anton Wilson
Douglas Hofstadter
Robert Anson Heinlein
Alan Watts
Tom Robbins
Erich Fromm
Lou Marinoff
Thomas Pynchon
Hermann Hesse
Neil Stephenson
Philip K Dick
Kurt Vonnegut
Jay Ramsay
Erik Davis
Howard Bloom
David Boaz
Alvin Toffler
Paul Johnson
Ayn Rand
Umberto Eco

If you, reader, have anyone to add, please feel free to drop a line with your own list as this is merely a beginning off the top-of-my-head roster of authors.
Fortune to all.
Cheers.

From the Beginning

The first step toward freedom is not fearing or being offended by ideas. Once one has the capacity to ponder a concept without bias then one is able to begin fully exploring the possibilities of that concept as opposed to denying entrance into your internal conversation of any idea which on the face of it appears to be antithetical to your present belief system. Employing a bit of the Pyrrhonistic idea of Epoché in other words. (Cf. Pancritical Rationalism)

This allows one to increase the depth of ones philosophical palette. This, in turn, furthers the philosophical 'opportunities', so to speak, one may pursue, which enriches the routes one may take to fulfilling the desire of a satisfying, productive and successful life.

More Fauxetry

I'll hopefully turn this gibberish into a song here soon.
Working title(s) is(are): To rue a lost love in the 21st Century / Song for the lovelorn 21st Century boy

When I meet my friends at a 100 year old bar
And they all ask me how you are
Imbibe some local craft beers
Wondering what happened over all the years (I'm getting fat and going gray?)
Regardless of what they say...
Going home to myself and my thoughts
Playing some (glorious) hits of the 80s thinking lots
About what went wrong. Playing those old songs
From childhood
From the old neighborhood
When we all stood
Straight and should, could - would
Do everything we said we were going to
Having and doing it all with you
Right there to share
Aw, I should just give it a rest
Bon Jovi said it best:
"I'll still be there for you"
And sometimes, after some grog,
my memory's jogged
and my being gets bogged
down and backlogged
with the times we had
flooding back in a peer-to-peer torrential influx
of reminiscence,
downtrodden nostalgia
and I give in and check your blog
And for what.
Anti-ism
Check your E-prime meter.
What is and never was will never be.
Or according to those who claim to know.

Holons and Politics

I've been giving a lot of thought to the application to my political and philosophical belief system of the concept of holons - the idea described by Koestler as the fact (at least by my lights) that systems are both self-assertive and autonomous as well as integrative parts of yet higher systems.

The self-assertive aspect of my brand of libertarianism - of taking responsibility for ones own actions and destiny - but always having a nagging question of how effective / efficacious the whole political system ties in with the integrative reality of living in 21st Century Western society; the reality of being dependent upon other individuals and groups, organizations, et al.

How does this correlate with the optimization techniques (both internal and external) of the occult and related esoterica? In my case specifically: alchemy, chaos magick and psychology, philosophy, etc...

My bent is typically to view all of this in terms of systems theory, which is why I believe the concept of holons seems to help explain things a little better to me.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated in the comments.

Cheers