The Epistemological Revolution:

Uncertainty

The single most pervasive and persistent problem facing all humans through all time is the element of uncertainty, specifically, the gap between what we humans know and experience as certain and that which we do not—and often cannot—know with any degree of surety.

And yet, given the magnitude of the problem of uncertainty and its impact on our daily lives, the issue is one we seldom address directly.

It simply is much easier, and seen as far more direct and practical, to ignore the larger issue of uncertainty per se and “go to the heart of the matters” that vex us. The result tends to produce “authorities,” who often function to displace the creation of contextual knowledge, which can ruduce uncertainty. From authority, particularly in times of change, we tend to get “truth proxies” guiding action most often in reaction to symptoms, which in turn become the focus of our more immediate interests and the framing of differing points of view as “right” or “wrong.”

Thus we reduce our uncertainties to practical immediacies, mainly shorn of the cloak of diverting considerations that emerge from a “larger view.”

The main fact of such ways of seeing the world and building a corresponding intelligence is that for practically all of human history, such intellectual behavior worked. We saw a problem—in building roads, or cities, or empires—and we solved such problems with grand confidence. Human behavior, backed up by the abundance of resources and intelligence in their use, was mainly rewarded for doing things.

During all the time of human history up to present times, it was far less rewarding—and often highly penalized—to ask whether we should do some thing or other.

Today, however, as they say, “The times they is a’changing.” Uncertainty, throughout all levels of human society is perhaps greater than ever before in history. Our daily experiences increasingly make a case for the possibility that it is not ability to do things that are failing us now, as much as the levels of uncertainty increasingly drawing us into questions of what we should be doing, why, and of most importance, how we can know in time, that which will work best to advance our continuing interests.

Nor are these new concerns.

Forces, Laws, and Transitions

Towards the end of his epic novel, War and Peace, published as the United States was embroiled in its Civil War, Count Leo Tolstoy spoke of power, the forces of human will, of necessity, nature, and the repeating patterns of our world. In the last three pages of his novel, Tolstoy has little problem with these greater ideas as he steps to a higher level of human perception. He tells us that as Copernicus and Galileo destroyed the cosmology of the ancients who placed earth at the center of the universe, we must once again shift our conceptual universe. Tolstoy tells us that"...by admitting our free will we arrive at an absurdity, while admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, on cause, we arrive at laws."

Common sense suggests that we should always be active in addressing our absurdities—and now is a particularly prudent time to do so. Good intellectual practice, some of it science, but most of it common sense, gives us far more than the means to avoid absurdity. It can let us build an effective world view for addressing the full diversity of conditions before us.

Five factors are currently at work shaping the ways we confront the realities and the absurdities of our times and future. They are:

Ø Energy, as it is found in:

¨ the free work nature does in ecosystems;

¨ the parts of the free, non-market and thus non-monetized, work nature does in ecosystems that directly and indirectly contributes to the support, economic and otherwise, of human populations;

¨ the works of nature that produces products (oil, natural gas, coal, lumber, etc.) that become commodities traded in human markets and valued with money.

Ø The environment, and the laws of nature which guide its behavior, almost all of which can be recognized and used as examples to further advance our interests.

Ø Markets and money, the abstract and symbol products used to set, trade, and increasingly confuse the value processes in human culture.

Ø Population, relative to ecosystems, resouces, markets, and money

Ø The specific characteristics involved in the way we know and work with our world--e.g., our epistemological frameworks.

Epistemology

In simple terms, Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. However, while it is a critical element in our intellectual foundations, epistemology is not a common concept. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn said human societies are caught up in what he called "paradigms," or shared "world views" of what people think about themselves and their circumstances.^[2] We humans create such paradigms when our accumulations of social norms and reward processes resist addressing the adequacy of same as times change. We fail to exercise one of the most fundamental opportunities of our being human, the ability to assess our epistemological roots—in other words, to constantly question the basis for our individual and shared ideas, motivations, and most fundamental attributes of thought and behavior.

We can find abundant proof of this resistance to questioning the shared values of a time or place. For example, bring the subject up in meetings with any university faculty you come in contact with. Far too often, their answer is direct, highly predictable, and drenched in ambiguity. The answer is surely found within the highly focused specialty of the person asked, we are told, and if today’s answer is not enough, then all it takes is a bit more time and money.

We must recognize that those we support and depend upon to question and find more effective alternatives to our conventional wisdoms are both the product and perpetuator of that same wisdom. This is, of course consistent with the essence of a paradigm. Within any certain paradigm, there are almost never immediately positive rewards for questions—and answers—that transcend the circumstances of the conventional world views in which those of a certain paradigm see themselves living.

On the other hand, continued high quality (e.g., secure and satisfying) survival from one paradigm to the next, is always the result of appropriately questioning the status quo and its common world view.

Thus, the primary issue here is not about the validity of this or that world view, but how what we know has been developed and tested as a means of providing a clear and accurate picture of our condition, resources, tendencies and options for a secure and satisfying future—however it makes itself known.

And when you do find those rare folks who are willing and able to question the conventional wisdom, without merely substituting one set of idiosyncratic ideas with another, hold on to them. Do so not simply for a new set of possibly more facinating beliefs, but for the more powerful and potentially accurate view they can help you obtain of what may, and may not, work.

Further, our resistance to questioning fundamental intellectual processes is never more entrenched than when a society is undergoing great fundamental change—such as we are now experiencing.

Regardless, epistemological revolutions occur with surprising frequency. They just take a lot of work—and courage—because of the way individual and social thought processes are developed, maintained, and change.

Nor should we allow ourselves to be confused by our attempts to deny and avoid the great problems of our times. They are right in line with the denial phase Elizabeth Kubla-Ross describes in her book On Death and Dying.^[3]

Consider, for example, how much of our denial behavior is reflected in our great fanaticism with the very distant (cosmology,) the very small (particle physics,) very complex (chaos and fractals,) the very improbable (mysticism in all its forms) and grandly abstract combinations of all four of these and other interests. All the preceding, such as the complex musings of Stephen Hawking, in his book, A Brief History in Time, are unquestionably fascinating. Yet where is the intellectual counterpart to these cosmic ruminations that deal with the changing realities of human social conditions anywhere in the world?

A strong case can be made that these more real and pertinent subjects exist in great abundance and importance to our lives. For example, consider the repeating patterns of behavior found in all systems. Here, patterns in the formation of crystals and river meanders, evolving physical processes (and not mathematical resemblances such as in fractals) result in ecosystems behaviors and cultures reflecting the processes that shape and form all that everything from primal matter to what thinking creatures like ourselves are and do. From the Serengheti plains of Africa to Wall Street's corporate board rooms, all can have behavior patterns with an ability to fascinate equal to the grandest cosmological construct, and all are far more pertinent to our immediate and future lives.

Where is the discussion of such processes? Where are we building more objective and effective ways for knowing who we are, where we are tending, what our real choices are, and how we can make our choices support out true, sustainable, and satisfying interests?

Regardless of how we play it, our changing world has caught us in an unprecedented epistemological revolution. This is a great transformation each of us can choose to enjoy and participate in, or get trampled by its passing. One clear lesson from our behavior so far: We need to be far more objective, sensitives and accurate in our ways of looking at the way we see ourselves, our problems and our opportunities than we have been to date.

The following will summarize some of the interrelated aspects of an epistemological revolution.

The Context/Action Spectrum

Albert Einstein, greatly concerned about a future he knew would be affected by his ideas, is to have said:

The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems which cannot be solved by the same level of thinking in which they were created.

The basic difference between the two levels of thought alluded to by Einstein are simple and straightforward.

They involve the perceptual positions of context and point-of-view.

Context and point-of-view are necessary (and go a long way toward being sufficient) perceptual complements. Specifically:

Ø Context is the necessary perspective required to discover and understand action possibilities related to diverse points of views and options and to ensure actions are appropriate to further one's interests.

Ø Context sees the forest as a place that has not only trees, but is a part of the larger place and forces of ecosystems, economies, and the other circumstances in which a tree may grow.

Ø Contextual observations are required to ensure one cuts down the right tree and that it is the right thing to do from among all available choices (which can include not using trees at all.)

Ø A point of view is the necessary perspective required to take action.

Ø A point of view sees the trees in a forest and, based on objectives, provides, for example, a basis for making a decision to cut it down or camp next to it. (A component of action is obtaining information regarding the consequences of recent actions and feeding them back to both Point of view and Context as a continuously iterative process.

Ø In other words, action is the end state of a point of view. A contextual perspective is required to ensure that the point of view/action is appropriate to one's interest.

Ø Further, and critical to understanding context and points-of-view, the only action that can be taken from a contextual perspective is to move to a higher contextual perspective. Any movement toward action abrogates the contextual perspective and shifts the contextual perspective into being a point of view.

In the end, context and point-of-view/action are inescapably linked. The quality of our actions will be dependent upon a broad range of circumstances including both the effectiveness of our contextual perspectives and our ability to learn, test, and improve all aspects of our working information system.

The following will be expanded upon

There are numerous ways to elaborate on all this.

In other words, Education in contexts leads to the ability to assess the relative merit of actions. Appropriate points-of-view plus adequate training leads to effective action. etc.

Energy, Ecology, Economics, and our Lives [4]

The following introduces some critical distinctions required to make sense of our world, what it is, and what it is not. As a result, the words "economics," "energy," and "ecology," have specific meanings we should be aware of.

Energy:

Energy relates to human society in four distinct ways:

Ø Energy is a source of power, characterized by the physical flows and storages, both in nature (see Table 1.) and as a consequence of human activity, which make up the design, construction, operation, wastes, maintenance, and recycling of all the systems. In other words, Table 1. describes many of the ways the ecosystem provides its free subsidies to human needs and activities.

Ø Energy has a critical role when used as an indicator of the distinction between physical, ecological, and cultural (symbolic and abstract) processes. Specifically, those things which can be measured by energy consistent with the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics belong to the physical/ecological domain. Those things and processes which cannot be measured with thermodynamic measures, again specifically, are abstractions and symbols—the aggregate of which we know as culture.

Ø When used as a measure of physical change and change potential, backed up by the Laws of Thermodynamics, energy provides an objective means of measuring systems capability and behavior in physical energy terms. With energy measures, all aspects of a system can be considered within a physical metric highly free of human value distortions. Thus, energy measures provide useful complements to the subjective measures provided by economics and other value processes, contributes to reducing "market signal distortions," and improving the "signal quality" of the measurement processes we use to know our world.

Ø Developing an understanding the behavior of all systems and their evolutionary propensity to ascend toward the climax state—or otherwise Knowing how energy processes work, particularly in terms of the accumulated “investments” in energy expenditures required to bring anything to some point in time and space, and when used as an observable component in the processes of competition and survival in all systems,.

Ecology:

Ecology pertains to the interrelated aspects of natural systems and their processes of competition and evolution, among other things. Relative to human systems, the term ecosystems constitute part of both the recognized and unrecognized physical/ecological assets supporting and influencing the humans condition, tendencies, and options.

Knowledge of ecological processes, which as noted above are tightly bound to the physical-ecological domains, can be seen as inherently objective, even though humans can also hold very subjective values regarding ecological systems, which in the aggregate we know as nature.

Economics:

To a large extent, economists, have become the "official" keeper of the definitions of energy, ecology, and practically everything else in our society.

Economists are dominated by the belief economists that growth in production, consumption, and consequent wealth in human society is a nearly infinite process. The only real limits are human demand and inventiveness. To economists, economic growth is unconstained by finite resources, including energy, as the primary attribute of progressive societies. Economists tell us that the marketplace, if left to function on its own, devises certain “efficiencies” which resolve resource problems by substitutions, including technological invention, innovation, and the availability of cheap energy.

Unfortunately, while economic analysis is very good at much of what it does, it breeds potential for disaster when it is depended upon to do what it cannot do. Despite the protestations economists are certain to evoke, economic studies must be complemented with analytical tools and procedures which let users see the physical/ecological structure and processes within which human society lives and upon which economic processes depend for their existence and function. These perceptual and analytical tools—which of course includes economics—can be selected on the basis of their appropriateness to meet users needs. In these more complete and accurate analytical processes, objective physical measures of energy storages and flows complement subjective cultural money measures to identify and quantify the circumstances and propensities related to system's structure, behavior, component relationships, and competitive tendencies.

Thus, economic studies address subjective human values as set in markets, most often using money as a value indicator. The bounds and limitations of economics are clearly stated by Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson and his colleague William Nordhaus. In their popular college economic text, they provide a definition of economics that most economists would agree with. Their definition involves:

humans choosing;

alternative uses of scarce productive resources;

in order to produce various

commodities;

and distribute them for

consumption;

now or in the future;

among various

persons or groups

in society.^[5]

In other words, the central focus of economic analysis is the study of human choice-making—the choice to buy and the choice to sell.

Economics treats the human process of choice-making as the dominant factor in satisfying human wants.

The primary choice-making arena in economic analysis is society and its marketplaces.

To the extent one needs a true understanding of the condition, behavior, and tendency of all systems of interest, the above definition means that economics as it is now known has critical shortcomings:

That which is not open for choice by humans in their society is, by the above definition of economic study, invisible to human concerns. Non-choice factors in the economic process, if not ignored by the study of economics, are only addressed indirectly and with great difficulty.

Economic study is further limited because the dominant arena of choice is the market-place, and the overwhelming tendency of economics to denominate the values placed on choice exclusively in the inherently subjective terms of money.

As Tolstoy was saying in War and Peace, and our experience is increasingly showing us, it just doesn't work that way.

Todays uncertainty driven experiences increasingly illustrate the critical need to supplement subjective economic value measures and analysis with objective analytical processes that are based on physical measures, specifically with energy measures which complement the workings of the human economy with the (often free) work of ecosystems. These complementary perceptual/analytical processes will provide more complete indications of systems structure, behavior, and tendencies—particularly where systemic change is influenced by factors which are poorly or not at all reflected in the price/market signal processes tracked by economics.

Complexity

Dynamic complexity in all levels of our lives is a major contributor to uncertainty.

The wonder is that anything works, and in many ways, much about our lives is increasingly not working due to complexity far beyond that known by any society in history. And while the Y2K problem tied to our digital technology is giving us some indication of all that complexity, its reality goes far beyond the circumstances of technology and reaches into all nooks and crannies of our social organization, from politics to health care, and from education to all aspects of our personal, local, and national security.

Thus, there is an immediate need to confront the management of complexity directly, so we can have the affect we want, avoid what we do not want, and make the best use of all resources.

Finally, this incorporation of physical/ecological parameters into our currently economics-dominated understanding of ourselves, as well as more effective management of the complexity in our lives will occur regardless of what conventional economists want, not because it ought to, or because it is ordained from higher authority, but for simple reasons any economist would recognize. A more complete and coherent analytical process provides the user with a better recognition of options and qualified choices. In other words, those who are best able to reduce uncertainty in timely ways will simply be more competitive and satisfied.

The Galileo Syndrome

Today, for all its recognition as a key component in understaiding the social enterprise, the institution of economic study is very much like the role played by the central Church in Galileo’s time.

The Church, in what can best be called the Galileo Syndrome, said Earth was the center of the universe.

Galileo—basing his argument on observations he was willing and able to share with anyone who looked through his telescope—said “Not so!”

Unfortunately, he was but one man against the power of entrenched institutional perspectives.

Today’s equivalent to the central Church and it’s concept of the universe in Galileo’s time are those economists (and this is the great majority of them) who hold that money and markets are the dominant factors in satisfying people’s wants regardles of the role nature has to play in people’s lives. To these economists, nature imposes its limits only because we bright humans have yet to find a way around them. Once price and market circumstances create sufficient demand, the dominant economic position holds that the limitations imposed by Nature will be overcome.

There are two reasons why it is important to know and address how the study of economics sets up what could be called a contemporary version of the Galileo Syndrome.

While a more involved discussion can be found later in this paper, it should be obvious that all systems compete on the basis of their available information. Those systems, as individuals, families, communities, and nations, who work with the most accurate and timely information will simply have more competitive opportunity than those who are less fortunate. Thus, the issue in dealing with the Galileo Syndrome, as with other circumstances of avoidable perceptual/analytical error has very little to do with right or wrong, and everything to do what works best to advance our individual and aggregate interests.

There will be a day, hopefully not too far off, when the study of economics will admit its need to be complemented with an understanding of natural processes, resources, and their availability to support human interests

After all, in time, the Church did admit that the grand innovator was right. Unfortunately it took till 1992, some some three-hundred and fifty years after Galileo’s death, to make that call.

We may not today have all that much time to find the views that best serve our continuing interests

Goods and Products

Potable water: surface and ground

Industrial water: surface and ground

Irrigation: surface and ground

Lumber and pulpwood: boat hulls

Firewood

Construction materials from wood: posts, beams, shingles, etc.

Ornamental plants: indoor, landscape, dry

Vegetable fibers: rope, cloth

Medicinal plants

Food for human consumption: fruits, chicle, honey, sap, shoots, tubers, seeds, nuts, leaves, bark

Aquatic plants for human consumption: algae, sponges

Food condiments: spices, salt, bicarbonate of soda

Plant chemical substances: dyes, stains, waxes, latex, gums, tannins, syrups, drugs, etc.

Fertilizers: minerals, fishmeal, guano, other dung, etc.

Land and aquatic precious and semiprecious materials, gems, gold and silver, pearls, coral, conchs, mother of pearl

Materials for artisan work: rock, wood for carving, fibers for basket making, etc.

Metallic minerals: bauxite, ores, nuggets, etc.

Non-metallic minerals: asbestos, clays, limestone,, etc.

Construction materials: sands, clay, cinders, cement, gravel, rocks, marble, etc.

Mineral nutrients: phosphorus

Mineral dyes and glazes

Hides, leather, skins

Other animal materials: bones, feathers, tusks, teeth, claws, butterflies

Other vegetation materials: seeds, seed pods

Live fish: ornamental, pets

Live animals: pets, for zoos

Live animals for human work

Live animals for research

Fossil fuel: crude oil, natural gas, coal, lignite

Other fuels: peat, other organic matter, dung, biomass, wastes

Livestock forage

Ecosystems design, operations, maintenance, adaptation, and evolution

Nutrient cycling

nutrient storage

nutrient distribution: floods seasonal rains and snow, glaciers, sediment transport, etc.

Photosynthesis-respiration

Adaptation

Self-regulation of plant and animal populations

Competitive testing and design: population control, evolution

Mineral cycling

Habitat for local land, air, and aquatic animals, insects, plants, and other life forms (feeding, breeding, nursery, shelter, transport, education and training, etc.

Non-Tangible Goods and Services

Windbrakes

Shade

Recreational use of water: swimming, boating, diving, skating, sailing, surfing, etc.

Recreational use of land: hiking, spelunking, climbing, gardening, etc.

Recreational use of air: flying, gliding, parachuting, kiting, etc.

Recreational use of animals: sport hunting, sport fishing, insect collections, flower collecting, etc.

Recreational use of ecosystem, sightseeing, tourism, scientific tourism, etc.

Ecological analogs, values, and mythologies

Spiritual development and storage

Historical value

Cultural value

Early warning system: weather and climate change, ecosystem stress by lifeform change, earthquakes

Moisture modification and control

Light modification and control: tree leaves in winter/summer

Ultraviolet and other radiation filtration

Storage of life form adaptive (genetic) information

Non-Monetized Economic Services

Energy sources: wind, solar heat, solar photoelectric, hydro, tides, biomass, geothermal

Transport of contaminants: wind, water, animal consumption

Dilution of contaminants by air and water

Erosion control

Sediment control

Flood control

Ground water recharge

Space for urban, industrial, agricultural occupations, roadways, canals, airports

Waste and contaminant storage

Physical support for structure

Climate control and protection

Disease control and protection

The Forces of Uncertainty: Intellectual Traps, Distortions, and Misdeeds

The following introduces many, but by no means all, of the elements of intellectual dysfunction, distortions, and delusions so prevalent in this time:

Ø The distortion of contemporary intellectual progress by the dominance of traditional disciplines and reductionist thought processes.

Ø Distortions caused by knowledge for the sake of knowledge in a subsidized intellectual system;

Ø In the contemporary intellectual environment, the destructive role of competition and reward processes that function within narrow boundaries with little reference to the larger system and the behavior that enhances long-term, systemic survival and satisfaction;

Ø The imposition of "values," "ethics," "equality," "free market economies," "science," and other cultural icons without systemic understanding and measurement processes that function to ensure the proper role and use of such concepts;

Ø The difficulty in avoiding the trap of conventional wisdom (CW) in unconventional times, particularly if the CW has been reinforced with success for a long time, though for reasons that no longer exist as they did;

Ø The dominant drive (amplified by the disciplinary, reductionist intellectual tradition) to seek differences and distinctions, at the cost of discovering similarities and agreement.

Ø Our cultural failure to recognize the "fundamental postulates" that apply to all levels of our lives and determine, as Fred Cottrell said in his seminal book, Energy and Society, "Energy determines much of what we can do, what we cannot do, and often what we will do;" [6]

Ø The insidious effect of secrets in a public, democratic, world—where the need for some secrecy is not denied, but its role in the general public enterprise must be constantly and seriously questioned;

Ø The disturbing effect of—and lack of alternatives to—a media which sees itself primarily rewarded for describing what is new and different, troubling, and exciting, (mainly for the purpose of increasing exposure to advertising) rather than addressing realities as determined by the above and other circumstances.

Ø The "Galileo Syndrome," where ideas as "truth proxies" as used by authorities, their supporting cast and public at large, acquire an inertia of their own—and ignores circumstances such as the observed character of nature and its workings;

Ø The "You just can't look at everything." Syndrome which is used by those who insist on constraining themselves to simplistic world views by denying the existence of dynamic complexity and the availability of tools for managing same;

Ø The "No one ever told us... Syndrome," where circumstances that were obvious to those who cared and were able to look could not be communicated to those who held center stage with patently vulnerable beliefs, (Eg., refer to mainstream media after events like the Challenger disaster, any energy problem, and most international debacles);

Ø Both the need for and limits to compromise. Here, compromise is an essential social mechanism for resolving differences in point of view. However, there is no way to compromise in terms of the physical/ecological forces driving our lives. Its difficult enough simply knowing these forces and their effect over time. Once having such knowledge, its just plain silly to ignore it in attempts to satisfy human whim—no matter how entrenched and self-important it seems;

Ø The anthropomorphic spin—that human will drives the universe, and not Nature. See the last forty pages of Tolstoy's War and Peace ;

Ø The debilitating limitations of the study of economics in terms of what it can do (which is substantial) and cannot do, (which is critical) and its associated limits, distortions, confusions and destructive influences on our lives;) [7]

Ø The persistent failure to appreciate and enjoy the benefits of understanding the laws of thermodynamics and the associated aspects of systems behavior--such as the so-called "emission free," environmental requirements to meet the California 1998 automobile emission standards;

Ø Cause- and advocacy-driven activities that take on lives of their own, constantly seeking funding and increasingly focusing on confusing concepts of trivialization, reification, relational confusion, denial, etc., as a way of maintaining support.

Ø The semantic, rhetorical, and technological traps and distortions in "buzz" words, concepts, and dysfunctional political/cultural icons.

Examples of such troublesome mind-traps are:

Economic growth in perpetuity (a physical impossibility catered to by the term "sustainability")

Sustainability (See McKibben, The New York Times, April 10, 1996) Nothing is sustainable, and are we really sure we would want it to be so?

Save Energy (you can't, its already saved by the First Law of Thermodynamics . The most fundamental fact of energy is that we use it. Use it well and we do well. Use it poorly and do likewise.)

Save the Environment (As American comedian George Carlin says, What a silly idea.) The environment was here before us and will be here after us. The big question could be: How long will the environment let us humans hang around. A better question is: What can we do to extract the greatest environmental benefit for all our interests, in as much perpetuity as we are allowed?

Nature as objects like cute furry critters, majestic whales, etc. (Fine for selling membership in the Sierra Club. Disastrous if you want to know how to live within and enjoy the full benefits of what nature has to offer.)

Promote or save diversity (Diversity is a process consequence of natural and human systems behavior. Addressing diversity directly by "saving things" (trees, animals, exotic places, etc) reifies the process and ensures nothing will be done about the forces wrecking not simply diversity, but peoples lives wherever this happens.) (Its like trying to steer a ship by manipulating the bubbles in its wake.)

Ø Supply side economics (I don't know what they mean.)

Ø Ecological economics (This makes the ecosystem subservient to the economy, a fundamentally backward idea.)

Ø Foreign Affairs (promotes Us vs Them at the expense of We. This sets people in different nations as adversaries first and as cooperating entities last, and gets in the way of finding the best course for determining mutual advantage and genuine threats.)

Ø Information and data as defined by the information sciences. (The reality of information is that it organizes energy, matter, and other information. Data is abstract symbol elements we use to build the information we use—in one way or another.)

Ø Tolerance (Sets up the potential for highly controlling tolerer/toleree relationship, rather than an objective pursuit of constructive diversity.)

Ø Nature as good or bad (Like where a hurricane follows a path over a predictable area, with predictable force, and people are surprised when it runs them over and damages their interests.)

Ø Helping without empowering (As the U.S. did and does with most of its "foreign assistance" programs

Ø Good and bad, right and wrong, etc. (Far too often such categorization gets in the way of working out what we have to know and do to get the job done.)

Ø Etc.

Conspiracies of Ignorance

Little in the above is really new. For example, almost a century ago, Homer Lea, a very experienced and successful military strategist was saying to the world:

The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, its extent and validity.

Uncertainty

Forces, Laws, and Transitions

Epistemology

The Context/Action Spectrum

Complexity