active draft. a technical sketch. general, before special —alignment, before distraction

 

following a brief connect on mastodon…

 

@bryankam:

Hello! I was looking more at complexity a few years ago but it’s still on my mind. In the past year I’ve looked more at the history of truth as a concept. What are you working on at the moment?

 

@causalmechanics:

Hello Bryan! I am exploring a methodology for making sense of unusual universal phenomena—with a particular focus on scientific anomalies ^[ Though the methodology ought to apply to anything ].

The methodology aspires to make better sense: by minimising the amount of interpretive decoration required to frame any observation or measurement as a coherent idea.

  • Because historically, it is our interpretation and decoration of observed and measured events which requires the most disruptive updates over time; when new theories, and understandings supplant old ^[ Equivalent to thomas kuhns paradigmatic revolutions ]
  • And because imperfect interpretation is an unnecessary distraction: which misleads; and misunderstanding is a cause of unnecessary suffering ^[ Anomaly and crisis implicate a unrecoverable cost of effort, and delay of application of more potent know-how, in the age old pursuit of improving our circumstances ]

The question then, when looking to make better sense by minimising theoretical framing: what is the minimum viable theory possible?

  1. With the potential to frame observations and measurements of anomalous phenomena?
  2. And any phenomena?

the precedent for minimum viable theory –which in effect, is like a thin wrapper, to structure and align the mathematics of observations, measurements, and predictions– is mechanics

And so the methodology I am exploring includes a phenomena-invariant abstraction of mechanics.

aka mechanics all the things

 

A curious thing about a methodology which can be applied to all universal phenomena, is that it can be applied to itself: meta-methodology.

One consequence, or principle, of the methodology, is that all phenomena can be reasoned by the circumstances in which they arise, and participate (further described below)

So, the circumstances in which this methodology arises, is partly framed by two opposing, incomplete methodologies for making sense of universal phenomena: reductionism; and emergence.

  • Reductionism considers that phenomena can be completely understood in terms of their constituent parts
    • Reductionism is a lossy process; which fails to account for the unique structural composition of phenomena, and the effect of phenomenal structure on causal participation
  • Emergence is a notion commonly used to describe anomalous universal phenomena
    • Emergence too, can be understood by the circumstances in which it arose – which was to consider the unusual causal profile of of some phenomena, left unaccounted for by reductionism
    • Though emergence fails to recognise that every phenomena has unique structural composition, which is the cause of each respective causal profile
      • And so perhaps, resultance, is more fitting, and would apply to all phenomena, whether presently an anomaly or not

 

So continuing: the methodology I an exploring describes all phenomena as composition.

  • Composed, and composable, structural composition
  • Each, one of a finite scope, or family
  • Which relate, by a scoped, multi-inherited taxonomy, of phenomenal and causal concerns

aka periodic table all the things (simplifying)

 

Another description for this kind of methodology, is a theory; and in this case, a universal theory.

this universal theory is called compositional mechanics

 

A few words on complexity and truth:

Despite the often overwhelming perceived complexity of many phenomena –especially scientific anomalies, compositional mechanics is, i believe, accessible, and intuitive.

  • Because all complexity is simply composition, composed of more primitive phenomena ^[ Whereby the causal profile of any phenomena is the circumstantially evaluated result of constituents, after structure ], which together relate and reconcile with the same phenomena-invariant minimum viable framing—all the way down ^[ Which is effectively back through time ]

When considering both complexity and truth, I find it useful to distinguish between interpreted, and innate, phenomena, framed by map and territory: where interpreted phenomena are map, and innate phenomena are territory.

 

on complexity

Territory is a composition of compositions, and so innate complexity is compositional.

We cannot comprehend territory directly; all we have is representation, map.

So follows, however complex the maps of our understandings, all interpreted complexity over innate complexity is redundant.

We can think of measuring the quality of our theories, by map-territory-fit

And where our theories fail to resolve and account for phenomena-as-they-are, the different between map and territory, is map-territory-delta

So follows, all scientific anomaly is map-territory-delta: the result of insufficient map-territory-fit

There is a wonderful expression used by Michael Ashcroft, a teacher of an online alexander technique course ( which I highly recommend ):

learn to get out of your own way

And getting out our own way is an excellent way to frame this methodology:

  • The history of human intellectual development, is a story of incrementally getting out of the way of our own intellectual progress
  • Compositional mechanics is the means to do that comprehensively

a significant amount of scientific complexity is map-territory-delta (largely because science is not unified)

It is only when all maps of understanding are reconciled together, and are composed of the same primitives, that map-territory-delta will be resolved.

 

on truth

Which bring us to truth:

extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Helpfully, the hard work is done: territory is coherent; compositional mechanics is the means to reconcile all maps of all territory; so coherent maps.

Historically truth is most often considered in interpreted form.

With compositional mechanics, all phenomena can be reasoned by the circumstances in which they arise, and participate: where circumstance and participation refer to causality; and causal evaluation occurs when phenomena intersect, in spacetime.

so innate truth is a function of aligned intersection, in four dimensions

For territory, causal participation includes arbitrarily many other phenomena: so any map of causal participation might include arbitrarily many aligned, intersections.

so, interpreted truth, is a composition, of arbitrarily many aligned intersections: interpreted truth is always contextually evaluated

Multi aligned intersection is the nature of an already known phenomena:

consilience: the convergence or concordance of evidence

 

finally

However sure we may be of our own interpreted truth, if our maps have delta, we aren’t as right as we think we are.

So the quest for interpreted truth –and as follows our pursuit of innate truth, both depend upon our minimisation of map-territory-delta, verified across arbitrarily many contexts, across all phenomena

And we do that by the minimal viable theory, compositional mechanics.

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