This paper integrates Alan Fiske’s theory of social relational models into John Holland’s model of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Holland’s model is a meta-model, one that posits four properties (aggregation, flows, diversity, linearity) and three mechanisms (internal model, building blocks, tagging) common to all CAS. However, the nature and implementation of the mechanisms are CAS-specific. With respect to human systems, Fiske’s theory of relational models provides an internal model of social interaction composed of four building blocks (communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching, market pricing) that guide all social interactions; they are species specific and operate cross-culturally. This paper first outlines the two models and shows the relationships between Holland’s mechanisms and Fiske’s relational models. Then, the integrated model is used to look at a first-year university composition class for nonnative speakers of English to understand how students interact with others within the classroom and without. In particular, this paper will focus on how students formed groups, collaborated, accepted authority, and reacted when a relational model had been violated. As implementation of the relational models is guided by cultural constraints, an awareness of the models is important in framing class activities, and especially so in a class of international students with different cultural implementations of the four models.

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Bard Ermentrout

University of Pittsburgh

Bard and sons

I will talk of hallucinations and also some recent thoughts on the existence of supernatural beliefs

fred: this could tie in with Tom’s work, and possibly with my recent psychophysics on strange attractors.

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Ivelisse Lazzarini

Ivelisse Lazzarini, OTD, OTR/L,
Creighton University
School of Pharmacy & Health Professions
Dept. of Occupational Therapy
Omaha, NE 68178

Meaning and Perception. It was published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy (20004).

I teach neuroscience and a course called neuro-occupation. Neuro-occupation is a conflate of philosophy, neuroscience and occupation; it is also the quest for understanding how humans through the meaningful occupations form the patterns of brain activity that lead to the habits and rituals of a life time. Well needles to say, I look forward to attending your conference to listen/share with others our meaningful work and occupations.

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Doris Fromberg, Hofstra

The Power of Play: Gender Issues in Early Childhood Education

Play is an arena in which young children can feel powerful. When children self-select an activity, they view it as play. When a teacher requests them to participate in the same activity, they view it as work (King, 1992). The context of gender in society parallels the context of play in school as an issue that involves power, a sense of identity, communication, and opportunity. This paper considers the dynamics of play and power in relation to gender issues in early childhood, and concludes with some implications for teachers. Within the larger field of types of play, this paper gives particular attention to sociodramatic play because of its dynamic character. The framework of sociodramatic play offers an opportunity for adults to understand and assess how young children use power and reflects the players’ understanding of gender issues.

Doris sent a 39-page paper. Above is the introductory paragraph.—fred

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Mark Filippi:

Dr. Mark R. Filippi
Behavioral Consultant
The Extended Self Program
1890 Palmer Avenue, Suite 401
Larchmont, NY 10538

By Cosmosis: Navigating The Dynamics of Agreement

This will be an experiential presentation of the coupling mechanisms I've been integrating to my protocols that are components of salutogenesis. I've reframed Antonovsky's work on the Sense of Coherence (SoC) into recursive cycles of alignment, agreement and amendment. This allows for a more phylogenic understanding of Antonovosky's factors of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness to gain 'universal' application.
Some of the contributors to my 'journey' are Porges (Polyvagal Theory), Siegel (interpersonal neurobiology),
Tulving (Autonoetic Consciousness), Hanna (Somatic Osmotic Function), Lewis, et. al. (limbic resonance),
and Fritz. et.al. (Atttribution Theory), to name a few. My focus has been to apply some obscure, but useful NDS tools like tensegrity, enformy and biosemiosis in their most informal or tacit manifestations. What I'd like to learn from the group concerns addressing how Sabelli's 'union of opposites' (bios) and Porter's NDS version of syzygenesis relate to my experiences with Burrow's concepts of oscillating cotentive and ditentive states.

Fred note: Between Dan, Enrico, and Mark, we are about to have our vocabulary expanded, and our minds as well!!

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Roulette William Smith, Ph.D.

Institute for Postgraduate Interdisciplinary Studies

Palo Alto, CA 94306-0846 USA

najms@Postgraduate-Interdisciplinary-Studies.org

It took a while to successfully snip this portrait from Roulette’s bio. Since we had put his bios on to accomplish that, for now we leave them there. Here are links to a short bio and a longer bio, both of which are fascinating reading. I’ll put other people’s bio’s on if they wish. Roulette, tell me if you don’t want them here, or if it is ok to leave them in our web site for now.

Short bio with picture

Longer bio, including some of his school projects

Evolution and Long-Term Memories in Living Systems:

Using molecular biology to resolve three great debates …

Lamarck versus Darwin, Nature versus Nurture, and The Central Dogma

It is extremely rare that seminal scientific discoveries lead to profound changes in established and well-heeled

beliefs. In the life sciences, particularly molecular biology, Barbara McClintock’s discovery of transposons

possibly qualifies as such a seminal event because her work demonstrated unanticipated dynamicity in DNA.

Susumu Tonegawa’s discovery of rearrangements in immunoglobulin genes refuted the “one-gene – one

protein” thesis. It also provided the first clues to interdependently evolving systems because rearranged genes

were not communicated to the germ-line. Two February 2001 reports that Human Genome Projects [HGP]

found that the human proteome constitutes as little as 1.2% of the human genome and as few as 20,000 genes

now presage a major revolution in scholarly inquiry — in the life sciences (and especially genetics), logic and the

philosophy of sciences, curriculum and instruction, and, social and clinical sciences. The HGP provided the first

solid, albeit circumstantial, support for Smith’s 1979 hypothesis that DNA must be the repository for long-term

memories [LTM] – especially in brain and the immune system. Thus, the HGP, when coupled with Smith’s

hypothesis, now provide a compelling basis for nine findings:

• Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution can account for at most 25% of human evolution, with Smith’s, Jean-

Baptiste Lamarck’s and others’ theories having validity for 75% or more of human evolution;

• Indeed, three interdependent systems of evolution operate in many higher species – the first system being

associated with classic genetics and transmission of traits via the germ-line, the second system is

associated with passive and active immune function, and the third system accounting for cognition and

behavior – with the second and third systems being associated primarily with inverse molecular pathways

and with changes in DNA not being transmitted to the germ-line;

• In the third of these evolutionary systems, evolution within a host (involving nurturance) can be as profound

as evolution within and across species, with much of that evolution within the host representing the

“transpersonal”;

• Concrete quantitative measures of nature comprise mostly proteomic portions of the genome, whereas

crude quantitative measures of nurture and nurturance are reflected in changing Guanine*Cytosine ::

Adenine*Thymine base-pair ratios in selected regions in brain;

• The “Central Dogma” (that “DNA . RNA . proteins”) may be necessary, but is not sufficient; to wit, there

appears to be a parallel inverse molecular pathway involving “conformed proteins . RNA . DNA,” and

especially including changes in DNA in non-proteomic regions particularly in the third interdependent

evolutionary system;

• Darwinian evolution focuses almost exclusively on genetics and genetic transmission of traits to offspring

along with their survival characteristics, whereas Smith-Lamarckian evolution involves a parallel non-genetic

(i.e., non-proteomic) transmission of nurturance traits possibly involving some form of non-proteomic

molecular and/or cellular mimicry – with those traits having epidemiologic distributions (i.e., not necessarily

comporting with laws of genetics) and provide support for Smith’s 1988 notion of “psychoviruses” underlying

“transmissible negativism” may contribute to aberrant commonsense;

• The mirror neuron system and trinucleotide repeat [TNR] diseases (e.g., Huntington’s disease) provide

clues to underlying mechanisms associated with nurturance and the inverse molecular pathway,

respectively, and to Smith-Lamarckian evolution;

• “Intelligent design” is not consistent with either Darwinian or Smith-Lamarckian evolution – indeed, all forms

of evolution are “unintelligent,” though occasionally understandable using a variant of Murphy’s Law (i.e., “if

it can be different, it will”); and,

• Three corollaries to these findings are:

· using Immanuel Kant’s notions of the a priori and a posteriori, DNA changes in neurons represent a

· priori events and axon-dendrite development and connectivity represent a posteriori events;

· “preliophic” (i.e., protonic-electronic-ionic-photonic) devices and processes invented by Smith (patents

· pending) emulate cellular micro-geography and both (i.e., direct and inverse) molecular information

· pathways; and,

· multivalent killed vaccines against relatively uncommon pathogens can provide efficacious vaccines

· against AIDS.

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Dan Miller, Clinical Psychologist, Brooklyn, danielwmiller@earthlink.net, www.danielwmiller.net


Dan	Dan on the edge of chaos

Reconstructing the Functions and Architecture of Consciousness: With Psychology, Science & Homeodynamics

Homeodynamics in its present version, focused on consciousness, is derived from Dan Miller's extensive readings on scientific issues in biology, evolution, neuroscience, physics, complexity and chaos theory as well as over 40 years of psychotherapeutic practice. His treatment debunks the separation between science and other forms of acquiring knowledge, including the spiritual, by demonstrating that consciousness, evolution and homeodynamics are common to all. Dan will present the fundamental concepts and will welcome questions and discussion.

Homeodynamics can be described as the principle and process whose oversight regulates the changing organization (an reorganization) of information and energy in a system in response to numerous variables pressing on it from environmental, physiological, conscious, and non-material stimuli. Homeodynamics is fundamental to the means of organization of a mind, body and spirit system (MBSS), governing the varieties of everyday life in all its manifestations.

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Tom Malloy

Department of Psychology

University of Utah

Salt Lake City, UT USA

Malloy@psych.utah.edu

The Logic of Logic and the Logic of Dreams

Bateson proposes that there are two fundamental logics that humans use (the logic of logic and the logic of metaphor, which is what I like to call the logic of dreams). My discussion with the group will build on this distinction and focus on the following themes: 1) I will argue that while mathematical models are based on the logic of logic their mapping to scientific data is in the realm of the logic of dreams; 2) That it is essential for a clean scientific epistemology to make this distinction; 3) That our social relations within the society may be muddled because we muddle this distinction; and 4) How dreams (the ones at night) have the same structure Bateson thinks applies to the biological world. Perhaps that is too ambitious; we'll find out how far we get in the time we have. I will elaborate the distinction and find out where the group wants to take it.

My talk will be expressed in my own terms but I will let Bateson pass on to you the kernel idea in his own words by a quote below.

The following is from Bateson and Bateson, Angels Fear: Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred, Chapter II:

“Let me point up the contrast between the truths of metaphor and the truths that the mathematicians pursue by a rather violent and inappropriate trick. Let me spell out metaphor into syllogistic form: Classical logic named several varieties of syllogism, of which the best known is the "syllogism in Barbara." It goes like this:

Men die;
Socrates is a man;
Socrates will die.

“The basic structure of this little monster -- its skeleton -- is built upon classification. The predicate ("will die") is attached to Socrates by identifying him as a member of a class whose members share that predicate.

“The syllogisms of metaphor are quite different, and go like this:

Grass dies;
Men die;
Men are grass.

“[In order to talk about this kind of syllogism and compare it to the "syllogism in Barbara," we can nickname it the "syllogism in grass."] I understand that teachers of classical logic strongly disapprove of this way of arguing and call it "affirming the consequent," and, of course, this pedantic condemnation is justified if what they condemn is confusion between one type of syllogism and the other. But to try to fight all syllogisms in grass would be silly because these syllogisms are the very stuff of which natural history is made. When we look for regularities in the biological world, we meet them all the time.

“Von Domarus long ago pointed out that schizophrenics commonly talk and act in terms of syllogisms in grass,Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. and I think he, too, disapproved of this way of organizing knowledge and life. If I remember rightly, he does not notice that poetry, art, dream, humor, and religion share with schizophrenia a preference for syllogisms in grass.

“But whether you approve or disapprove of poetry, dream, and psychosis, the generalization remains that biological data make sense -- are connected together -- by syllogisms in grass. The whole of animal behavior, the whole of repetitive anatomy, and the whole of biological evolution -- each of these vast realms is within itself linked together by syllogisms in grass, whether the logicians like it or not.

“It's really very simple -- in order to make syllogisms in Barbara, you must have identified classes, so that subjects and predicates can be differentiated. But, apart from language, there are no named classes and no subject-predicate relations. Therefore, syllogisms in grass must be the dominant mode of communicating interconnection of ideas in all preverbal realms.

“I think the first person who actually saw this clearly was Goethe, who noted that if you examine a cabbage and an oak tree, two rather different sorts of organisms but still both flowering plants, you would find that the way to talk about how they are put together is different from the way most people naturally talk. ...we talk about "things," notably leaves or stems, and we try to determine what is what. Now Goethe discovered that a "leaf" is defined as that which grows on a stem and has a bud in its angle; what then comes out of that angle (out of that bud) is again a stem. The correct units of description are not leaf and stem but the relations between them.

“These correspondences allow you to look at another flowering plant -- a potato, for instance -- and recognize that the part that you eat in fact corresponds to a stem.”

Brief comment by Fred:

Coming from the other side of the ying/yang mountain, I think you could make the case that this position might be the one proved by Gödel. It is also syntonic with the paradoxical position taken by systems theorists, that context is always relevant. These positions imply that exactly this issue limits the program of the grand hypothetico-deductive theorists of the 50s and 60s in psychology. On the other hand, I do not follow with any clarity, the argument that this all flows from the ‘fallacy of asserting the consequent’ being equivalent to dreams and metaphor. I might state the idea as the inclusion of context by using metaphor, for these do not invalidate themselves as immediately as most dreams because of their literal impossibility. Perhaps Bateson is implying the metaphoric (analytic) interpretation of dreams as their inherent logic? I suspect a bit of our discussion will flow around Darwin and ID? Which dream will win? What synthesis?

Reply/explication from Tom:

Jan 13, 2006: Thanks for the comment Fred. Bateson is a contextualist (in fact he is rather extreme in that direction, references available upon request) so I doubt that objections (?) to his line of thought based on contextualism will produce much disagreement with the ideas once I develop them. We'll see. Also, your not following with any clarity how metaphor and dream is related to the syllogism in grass is understandable since I haven't developed the idea very well in the short text I submitted. My hope is that you understand it better after a talk for a few minutes (not necessarily agree with it, but at least understand the structure of the argument). But I'll give a shot at it right now:

Very briefly for the moment, dreams from my own and Bateson's perspective are a purely relational nexus in which the RELATA (that which is related, the arguments of the functions) are scrambled. If you pay attention to the relata then, yes, the dreams are impossible; in contrast, if you examine the relations among the relata (possibly replacing them with several other sets of relata until you get a tow hold on what the relations are in the dream) the relations may be a powerfully useful description of (even isomorphic to) context-specific relational patterns experienced by a person in the waking world. There is no dream interpretation in this approach, not in the sense of these dreams "means" X. There is only the experiencing of relationships outside the normal (wakeful) contextual relata that usually accompany those relationships.

Very briefly, once again, metaphor is the mapping of a set of relations from one realm to another (changing the relata to be contextually specific to the second realm). As a trivial example, Human Information Processing is (or originally was when Broadbent wrote his 1958 book) the mapping of relational functions from computational theory to psychological theory. In this sense it is like dreams (in my mine and Bateson's approach) in that a relational pattern is mapped in a way that the relata change (only in dreams the change of the relata seems more "random"). A syllogism in grass for Human Iinformation Processesing as a paradigm might be: