Devices form a community

Devices form a community

What is the individual's role in the community?

I used to think that an individual should negate himself vis a vis the community.  Bitul.

But with the analogy of CDMA, I am thinking that the individual spreads himself out throughout the community.  Just like the signal is first expanded and spread out across the entire time and frequency spectrum.

Then by observing the energy of the community the individual is fulfilled.  Like the observance of elctrical flow forms a magnetic field and drives the electric motors.

The tension, voltage, is what powers the motor, NOT the resolution of the tension.

The devices as individual should not exist, but rather they should be powered through the flow, the tension, that exists in the community of devices.

This reminds me of the email regarding bi-directional flow of information. So, not only does the device contribute to the creation of the community, but the community contributes to the definition of the device.

I am an individual.  I have certain idividual traits and characterstics.  I am six feet tall, can ride a bicycle, can think in creative ways, have communication skills, married with children...  I expand myself beyond my idividual traits and distribute myself throughout the community. I get involved in schools, traffic committees, holistic womens health, hi-tech.  In this way I defer my personal self gratification, negate parts of myself and spend the time inside the community.

Yet, now I am redefined as an individual.  I am watching the flow.  The schools continue without my involvement, the traffic flows without me on the committee, the hi-tech industries grow without me.  I feel joy in their continued existance.

In one way I am no longer an individual, I am part of the community.  In another way, I have refashioned myself to be extremly individual, and I feed off the communities magnetic field.

I don't need to receive the direct benefit from the school, my children don't need to be students.  I can observe the field effect.

So, the devices don't need to re-define themselves based on direct feedback from the community of devices.  Rather they should observe the field.

What is the field in the community of devices?  What is the flow?  What flows?

Resource Management vs. Resource Consumption

Abraham wants to manage resources.  Look at what he does in Genesis 23:

3 And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spoke unto the children of Heth, saying: 
4 'I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.'  
5 And the children of Heth answered Abraham, saying unto him:
and later
13 And he spoke unto Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying: 'But if thou wilt, I pray thee, hear me: I will give the price of the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.' 
14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him: 

Abraham in this translation wants a 'possession'.  But is that the correct translation of the word 'אֲחֻזַּת' -- Achuza.  Possession has the connotation of ownership, Achuza refers to entitlement.

Later again the English translation employs the word 'possession': 
18 unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city. 

But here the Hebrew word is 'מִקְנָה' -- 'Mikne'.  Mikne is an acquisition, something that leads to possession.

So the text is playing a game with us, utilizing the two Hebrew words,, Achuze and Mikne to leverage a distinction between resource consumption and resource management, between , acquisition and entitlement.

The text goes out of its way to describe the conversation.  He speaks and they answer.  The amazing thing is that the rest of the Parasha, the next few chapters echo this language.  Eliezer speaks.  Eliezer tells stories.  Laban answers.  The word 'ויען' -- 'VaYan', he answered is evident in the beginning with Abraham and in the following story with Eliezer.

Nothing is taken by force, not the land and not the wife.  Everything is done in a conversation.

Now compare that to Genesis 25:
20 And Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean, of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.  

Isaac 'took' his wife, ,ויקח -- VaYikach.  To acquire.  Isaac is a man of few words.  Isaac is a man of action in Gensis 26:
12 And Isaac sowed in that land, and found in the same year a hundredfold; and the LORD blessed him
Isaac does something that none of our other leaders do, he sows the land.

Creativity and Free Will vs. Servitude

What is the opposite of creativity?  

Why is creativity the center of my universe?

My relationship as an individual with the ruling party, be it a human Rex or God, can be measured in degrees. At the low-end of the scale, I exist as a vegetable to quote Irving Singer.  I have living forces, like a vegetable.  I consume nutrients and perhaps even produce beneficial by-products.  As a vegetable I have a determined life, no free will.  At best I can continue to serve the universe in the manner in which I was created.  My nature pre-defines my abilities and my behavior.  Like a slave before his master, to quote the Rosh Hashana liturgy.   Commandments of the master are observed and imposed through force, violence.

At the high-end of the scale, I exist as a creative force.  My free will determines my future.  My creativity endows my free will.

The human senses perceive external stimuli.  At the low-end of the scale, my reflexes react to this stimulus.  Deterministic.   At the high-end of the scale, I am cognizant of the stimuli and I interpret the stimulus through choice.  My perception is condition on that choice.  If I choose, the stimulus will present a particular reality reflective of my choice.  If I don’t express my free will and behave reflexively to the stimulus, the perceived reality reflects the choice of others.

It is possible to live as a vegetable, to be reactive and express other’s will, but why would I want that type of relationship with God?  I can live under a dictator, be it a divine dictator or a human dictator, even in a democracy, but why would I want to relinquish my individuality?

As long as there is a direct correspondence, a one-to-one relationship, between thought and action, between the mind and the brain, there is no free-will.  I am a reactive being.  The first step in the expression of free will is to create a gap between the mind and the brain, the thought and the action, the stimulus and the perception.  The second step is to bridge that gap, the gap between the idea and the action, the adoption of an invention and creation of an innovation (to utilize Peter Denning’s language).

As a creative being my relationship with the ruling party becomes a partnership.  The royal decree is a stimulus to be observed, to be accepted, to commit oneself to.  These are the speech actions, they bring the idea into fruition.  God’s commandments are not an expression of His will imposed over mine; they are an opportunity for His will and mine to work together in a partnership.

The opposite of creativity is servitude.  I can live my life as a vegetable as a slave, but should I?  I don’t need to know my purpose in life, I don’t even need to have a goal.  But I do need to choose if I want to be a slave or a creative free willed being.

Transcending actions through language

In the world of action it is impossible to do the action and its opposite, to lower taxes and raise taxes.  A paradox cannot exist.

One resolution is to divide the people into their respective groups. Each group lives in their own reality with a belief statement and an idea that the groups are united.  Thus each state in the union raises or lowers taxes according to their local majority, yet all states appreciate that they are part of the union.  This is a resolution in space.

Similarly, a resolution in time is possible.  For example, in year one the taxes will be raised and in year two the taxes will be lowered.  The synthesis is evident in the Ashlagian perspective, where the first action is re-interpreted in light of the second action.  The people pay higher taxes knowing that they are doing it to pay lower taxes, thus the action of payment of higher taxes is truly an action of paying lower taxes.

Both these approaches do not feel like the power of the people, but more like the power of separation of the people, in space or time.

[I have a similar frustration with analyzing the hierarchical society vs. the horizontal society.  Replacing the human ruling party, Rex, with a divine ruling party, God, does not change the contribution of the people that are ruled.  A common law under God is no different than a common law under the Rex – more on this later.]

A resolution above time and space is possible in the world of ideas.  The trick is finding a new language to describe the creative idea and then conversing with that language and thus bring the idea into adoption as action. 

In our example, the word ‘taxes’ is an action, with very well defined connotations to each side of the argument.  Some interpret ‘taxes’ as a negative economic force and others interpret ‘taxes’ as a positive societal force.  The gap between the parties is in the world of action and cannot be bridged.

A new word need to be introduced into the conversation, perhaps ‘investment’ or ‘partnership’.  Instead of raising taxes both parties could agree to a recommended investment policy in the government.  Each citizen is invited to create a partnership with the government, to invest in the government.

This new language is an invention, a new idea.  The idea creates a space for a new conversation between the parties, thus, enabling the idea to be adopted into an action.

The power of the people

To bridge the gap of partisanship is core to democracies.  In a partisan state, the majority that rule dictate to the minority.  The citizens lose their ability to influence and end up with taxation without representation.  Not a democracy but an elected dictatorship.

This is where creativity must exist.  Compromise is neither here nor there.  For example, if one party wants to lower taxes and the other party wants to raise taxes, a compromise would leave the taxes where they are, a result neither parties want.  The solution must be found through creative search.

I believe the power of the people is in creative search.

Sometimes a creative idea starts as just that, an idea in the world of thought.  The challenge in that situation is to adopt the idea into a practice, bring the idea down from the world of thought to the world of action.  In Fernando Flores’s and Peter Denning’s terminology, through conversation between parties, not communication, the ideas can be adopted into practice.  The gap between thought and action is bridged through speech actions.

The reverse situation is a challenge.  Given a desired practice, how do we search for the inventive idea to support it?

A reality perceived by an individual is interpreted by the individual.  The individual’s perception is internal to the individual, trapped inside the individual’s senses.  Thus, the desired practice is observed and interpreted by the individual and limited by the individual’s creative thought and wisdom.  The power of the people to provide external perception is significantly different than that of the individual’s internal perception.  Two witnesses create a new reality that is binding on others, while a single witness cannot.

If we want to search for an idea that supports the reality where taxes are both raised and lowered, we need to cultivate the collective conscious.  The power of the people.

Two are better than one

טובים השנים מהאחד:

Two perspectives are infinitely better than a single perspective.

A single witness interprets reality subjectively.  The witness is trapped within his own ideas.  To bring the witness from the world of ideas to the world of action the judges ground the witness in time and space, where and when.  These are the two components of speech actions, commitment to a time and place.

A second witness with testimony in common with the first witness creates a new joint reality.  This new reality is binding on others because it exists outside of a single person.

Bindings can be created when one expands beyond subjective limits.  Between Man and God the binding is conditioned on the individual’s acceptance and commitment.  Between society and man there exists a different set of conditions, a community can bind individuals against their will.

Commandments pre/post action

 מסכת יומא, דף ב' ע"א

מנא הני מילי

[תחילה חשבתי שהשאלה רק לגבי פרישה לפני יום כיפור, אבל עכשיו נראה שגם לגבי פרישה לפני פרה אדומה, אז מצד אחד יש חילוק בין כפרה לטהרה (משפט הבא) ומצד שני המקור לפרישה היא אותה מקור!]

א''ר מניומי בר חלקיה א''ר מחסיא בר אידי א''ר יוחנן

אמר קרא {ויקרא ח-לד} כאשר עשה ביום הזה צוה ה' לעשות לכפר עליכם לעשות

אלו מעשי פרה

לכפר אלו מעשי יום הכפורים

[השווה בין יום כיפור לפרה אדומה, טהרה ולא כפרה....]

בשלמא

כוליה קרא בפרה לא מתוקם לכפר כתיב ופרה לאו בת כפרה היא

אלא

אימא כוליה קרא ביום הכפורים כתיב

אמרי

יליף צוה צוה

כתיב הכא צוה ה' לעשות

וכתיב התם {במדבר יט-ב} זאת חקת התורה אשר צוה ה' לאמר

מה להלן פרה אף כאן פרה

ומה כאן פרישה אף להלן פרישה

דף ב - ב

ואימא

צוה [צוה] דיום הכפורים

דכתיב {ויקרא טז-לד} ויעש כאשר צוה ה' את משה

דנין

צוה דלפני עשיה מצוה דלפני עשיה

ואין דנין צוה דלאחר עשיה מצוה דלפני עשיה

[מדהים! לשיטתי ברור שיש הבדל, שהרי ציוה לפני עשייה היא כפיה, חוק, זאת חוקת התורה, ימי המילואים.  אבל ציוה לאחר עשיה מופיע הרבה במקרא, שהרי רוב המצוות ניתנות באמירה ודיבור, ומתקבלות בציווי.  וציוה שלאחר עשיה היא שונה לחלוטין, היא התחייבות וקבלה לעשות את האמירה.  היא קבלה אחר שהיחיד מפרש את האמירה.  בלשון של פרנדנו פלורז, היא התחייבות הבאה בתוך שיחה, ולא קבלה הבאה בתוך מסר.

  Commitment through conversation and acceptance through communication]