(Editor's note: this essay is by my philosopher friend John Merryman. John is a 49 year old farmer and horse trainer who grew up and lives in Baltimore County Maryland. Since he is not as obsessed with horses as most of the people he knows, he has tried to give some thought to how the rest of the world works. This is a distillation of some of his observations over the years. If you Google him, you will mostly be reading about a great, great grandfather who had a legal run in with Lincoln at the beginning of the Civil War.)
Between Culture and Nature on Planet Earth
One of life's lessons is that those in charge are the ones who write the rules. Usually this just means that might makes right and the powerful set the standards. Often to their own benefit. On a more fundamental level though, it means the opposite. Those who figure out what the rules are, set the standards by which society functions. Rather than spend my life trying win according to rules which often seem incomprehensible, contradictory and tilted towards those already possessing advantages, I set out to figure what really is going on. I did not seek answers to give me comfort, but truths to which I must answer. The following essay revolves around three interconnected observations about physical reality, spirituality and economics. It is not about how to win, because in life the finish line is death. It is simply about understanding how life works and how it might work better. The conceptual foundation is the cycle of expansion and contraction and the infinite number of interactions.
In trying to make sense of life, there is a constant tension between moving forward and reviewing the past. We neither want to be stuck in the past nor miss any lessons it might have to teach us. There is no one guide to the future, so it is a constant process of adaptation. Often the corrections are so natural, we make them subconsciously, while other times they are the source of endless agonizing. The larger society goes through this process and political coalitions form to advocate for various propensities, such as conservatism looking to the presumed order of the past, or liberalism leaning to the formless energy of the future. That is the cycle of social expansion and civil consolidation.
What is time itself? Is it a narrative path along which we travel from the past to the future? That is the common assumption on which thought, knowledge and the concept of history is based. It is Newton's absolute flow of time and Einstein's relative fourth dimension. There is a problem though. The past is a generally agreed upon series of events, while the future is an infinite number of possibilities, fanning out from the present. According to Relativity there is no absolute measure of time and since Quantum Mechanics says circumstance is not entirely deterministic, many physicists propose that multiple realities emerge whenever the laws governing the progression of events are not deterministic. Schrodinger's Cat is both dead and alive.
Is nature really this inefficient? What if some basic logical error exists in our thinking? There are natives of South America who think of the past as being in front of and the future behind the observer. That is because their frame is the event, not the observer. Something happens, is observed and then is past. We, on the other hand, are a few degrees removed from this basic reality. For us, time is that series of events recorded in our minds and history books, so the future is in front of us and the past is behind.
Consider that if two physical entities collide, it creates an event. While the material proceeds from past events to future ones, those events go the other way, from being in the future to being past. What is the real direction of time? Are we traveling this path from the past into the future, or does the activity of what is present create a series of events which go from being future potential to past circumstance? Does the earth travel the fourth dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, or does tomorrow become yesterday because the earth rotates? Is time really the basis of motion, or simply an effect of it? If it is an effect, then time has more in common with temperature than with space. Energy creates and replaces events. Time is the measurement, not what is being measured and that is why it is relative to the circumstances of the measurement.
There is no such thing as a dimensionless point in time, as that would require a cessation of the very motion being measured. Such a state would have a temperature of absolute zero. The reason light is described as timeless is because it has no internal motion, since that would have to exceed the speed of light in order to happen.
The past is information. The future is where the energy goes.
Reality is composed of energy manifesting structure and information. While the energy is neither created or destroyed, its constant activity is creating and consuming the information. The timeline of energy is from past events to future ones, while the timeline for information and structure, being created and consumed, is from future possibility to past circumstance. While this structure is constantly evolving, it does so at varying rates, so that change can be rapid or slow. As long as structures can absorb as much or more energy as they lose, they continue to exist, but this requires adapting to the information which the consumed energy manifests, whether it is an organism eating food, or an institution adjusting to changes in the larger culture. As institutions become more powerful, they tend to become less adaptive and insular, while provoking external reaction. As long as structures grow and adapt, the future is an evolving continuation of the past. When they can no longer adapt, the future becomes a reaction to the past. Evolution and revolution.
While our brains are of the physical reality that goes from past to future, our minds are the record of events which scroll away into the past. Eventually though, our lives are units of time that begin in the future and ultimately recede into the past, as the larger process of life moves onto the next generation.
This dichotomy is analogous to the top down order, vs. bottom up process of Complexity Theory. Order is the linear information receding into the past, while process is the non-linear energy expanding into the future. As with cosmology, where the gravitational structure of matter is contracting, while the various forms of energy expand.
Space, on the other hand, isn't simply three dimensions. Dimensions are really just linear projections. Lines. Three dimensions are simply the coordinate system of the center point. While relativity tried to model time as an additional dimension, based on the narrative series, it did succeed in showing that space cannot be considered an absolute three dimensional grid, as the perspective is distorted from one point of reference to another. This is evident in basic political terms, since everyone has their own view of reality and they often clash, yet both points of view are serially coherent. You could say the Arabs and Israelis use different coordinate systems to define the same space. There is no universal perspective, as the more universal a concept, perspective, or point of reference is, the more generalized and inconsequential it is to any particular situation. It's the infinite dimensionality which makes life dynamic, since there is no ultimate pattern into which it can settle. The mind feeds on chaos and turns it into order. Without that constant stimulation, it stagnates. Than again the opposite effect is that if we cannot discern order in the chaos, we would fall to pieces, intellectually and emotionally. That's why we constantly make up stories and other explanations to piece together what we do not understand, rather than just accept that we do not understand. We have to move forward, or we will fall apart.
When you have large numbers of points moving about, the one concept which does define the overall situation is temperature. The scalar level of activity. In fact the same logic which uses the speed of light to say time is a fourth dimension of space, could use a given amount of energy to say temperature is an additional parameter of volume, since a change in the volume of this energy would have a proportional effect on its temperature. Volume and dimension are the scalar and vector of the vacuum, while temperature and time are the scalar and vector of the fluctuation.
So time and temperature are actually quite similar, as emergent effects of motion. They describe the conceptual dichotomy of narrative and the larger network of activity from which we distill the narrative. This relationship between temperature and time manifests in the two halves of the brain, with the parallel processor of the right brain functioning as a thermostat, that perceives the multiplicity of the present moment, while the serial processor of the left side records the linear cause and effect of time, from which rationality emerges.
Physics is trying to solve a problem arising from our intellectual distance from reality, not a problem with reality. Other disciplines, such as biology, neurology, computer sciences, etc. are working around this conundrum in their own fashion.
Since thinking is conceptual reductionism, we tend to be focused on the contrasts, rather than the connected medium. With morality, this is the conflict between good and bad. The popular assumption is of a conflict between two extremes, but the attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental is the primordial biological binary code, of which we are complex manifestations. It evolves from the bottom up, rather than proscribed from the top down. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken, yet there is no clear point where the chicken ends and the fox begins. Life is a bootstrapping process
of creation and consumption, just as time needs to consume information in order to create new information. Success is being the foundation of what comes next, while failure is being fodder for it. Both are necessary and all are part of the larger organic process. While we like clear and easy answers, rather than hard and painful truths, it should be remembered that between black and white are not just shades of grey, but all the colors of the spectrum.
We think of God as an all-knowing absolute, but the universal state of the absolute has no division and therefore is both everything and nothing, while anything not absolute is relative to everything else so defined. The distinctions of knowledge are relativistic feedback loops of information and judgement. It is a process, not an object. The essence of interpersonal morality, to treat others as you would have them treat you, is moral relativism. A spiritual absolute would be the raw essence of consciousness from which complex organisms rise, not an all-knowing moral ideal from which humanity fell. When society does prescribe moral absolutes, it is often contradictory, since the linear presumption is that if a little is good, than a lot must be much better and if anything is at all bad, than it must be all bad. There is no conceptual regard for reciprocity, reaction, balance, laws of unintended consequences, silver linings, etc. Ambiguity is derided and people are expected to line up with the good and against the bad. The result is endless chaos as masses of people are herded around complex situations by simple minded assertions of good and bad. The irony is that relativism provides a much more comprehensive moral code, since one's actions are weighed against the rest of the universe, as opposed to whatever definition of God you happen to abide by. Karma means that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What goes around, comes around.
Monotheism began as an idealization of social hierarchy and the wisdom of elders, but it overlooks the more fundamental process by which society regenerates this order, as each generation dies off and is replaced by the next. The top down order is periodically replaced by bottom up processes. Those higher up the evolutionary and social ladder are emergent layers of evolution that depend on those below them, far more than those below depend on those above. In fact, in nature, emergent levels tend to be predatory for the purpose of controlling the growth of those they depend on, just as emergent layers of society control those from which they rise. If they succeed in destroying the health of those below them, then these higher levels are no longer necessary.
It was polytheists who developed democracy, as tribes and cults interacted and had to compromise, while monotheism gave us the divine right of kings. It is necessary to have a common set of goals and standards for any group to coexist, but it is more effective to have one built on a sensible foundation of common goals, than one chasing after abstract ideals. That is because the perfect is often the enemy of the good.
Polytheism weaves a tapestry out of individual threads, while monotheism braids a rope out of individual strands. Each have a purpose.
Even though our religions remain monotheistic, our political institutions are largely democratic because they need the ability to regenerate from the bottom up, as old ways and leaders get stagnant and rigid. Now our social hierarchies are not so much a matter of political power, but economic weight, as wealth accumulates to those most adept at controlling the flow of it. It is becoming increasingly obvious this situation is both unstable and destructive to both society and the environment. The question is how to institute a system which combines healthy bottom up growth, with effective top down leadership and the ability to adjust both to changing circumstances. The old system of adolescent greed and fear, constrained by government regulation and protection, becomes less effective as the level of economic and social complexity increases.
A potential solution might lay in a reconsideration of money, that institution of collective trust on which our mass society is based.
Money functions as both a store of value and a medium of exchange. These work at cross purposes, because as a store of value it is a form of private property, while as a medium of exchange it is a form of public utility, similar to a road system. Most people focus on their own wealth in comparison to others and thus think of it as private property. The reality is that the system belongs to whomever guarantees its value. We do possess the money we hold, in the same way we possess the section of road we are driving on. You own your car, house, business, etc, but not the roads connecting them. Money is a similar medium. It was one thing when money signified some commodity you had stored or traded and its value was entirely based on that underlaying commodity, but now the money supply far exceeds the underlaying value of the real economy and so its value is maintained by the ability of the government to support it through taxation. This means it has become an illusionary bubble of value into which ever more resources are needed to support and so is only functional as a medium of exchange. While this is potentially catastrophic, it presents an opportunity to change the basic economic equation.
Believing money is private property encourages people to hoard it. The problem is that capital is subject to the laws of supply and demand, with the lender as supply and the borrower as demand. Since the supply of capital must be balanced by demand for it, there must be sufficient borrowers for this notational wealth, or its value will collapse. The problem is that political power is on the side of those with money, rather than those borrowing it and this lack of balance regularly creates situations which swell the supply of money, while depleting the abilities of those borrowing it. This results in periodic credit collapse, as masses of borrowers default. We are at an extreme state of this particular situation, since the government has borrowed massive amounts of its own money back, loan standards were left in the dust and enormous bubbles of excess circulation were blown up by the financial services industry to hold this surplus notational wealth. Now that the bubble is collapsing and its value evaporating, the powers that be are engaged in more destructive behavior by issuing ever more debt and currency to keep the bubble from imploding. Since the only way to prevent this additional money from being seriously inflationary is to monetize ever more value out of society and the environment in order to support and pay interest on it, to the increasing detriment of world health. The situation is analogous to high blood pressure. As bad debt clogs the arteries, increasing pressure doesn't clear the clots, but damages healthy tissue and causes it to harden and burst in weak points. When that happens, a person dies, but an economy flooded with loose credit is distorted. In a Ponzi scheme, the money from later investors is used to pay off earlier investors. When an asset bubble builds up, due to easy credit, rather than improved earnings, the same thing happens, as later investors pay earlier investors, then loose their investment when the well of credulous investors dries up.
Paul Volcker is credited with curing inflation in the early 1980's, by raising interest rates and reducing the flow of fresh credit into the economy. While inflation may be caused by loose monetary policy, the effect of higher rates is to reward those with money to lend, while punishing those wishing to borrow it. So how did he cure an oversupply of money already in the system, when his method of choice also significantly reduced demand for it? The difference between the Federal Reserve selling debt it is holding and the Treasury issuing fresh debt, is that while the Fed retires the money it collects, the Treasury uses the money it gets to fund public spending. Public spending doesn't compete with the private sector and generally funds projects that enable increased private investment. So not only does this deficit spending directly provide demand for credit, but has a multiplier effect in the private sector, by increasing both its size and profitability. Suffice to say, the rapidly increasing deficits of the early 1980's had a significant effect on bringing the supply of credit in line with demand for it. The reason a surplus of money increases the expense of borrowing it is because the tendency is to spend it, rather than lend it, so there is actually a shortage of money to borrow and the cost goes up. At the time, economists were concerned that increased government deficits would further raise interest rates for the private sector, but the opposite happened and rates came down. The supply of money is potentially infinite. The issue is keeping it in line with demand, so that its value is stable and people are willing to lend it at nominal interest rates. Or spend it chasing asset values upward, which is often just another form of inflation.
Government debt is in fact one of the primary sources of demand for capital. Just think for a moment where all the money that all the governments of the world borrow would be invested otherwise? The stock market? Real estate? Derivatives? Emerging markets? Now that the economy is distressed and many are buying government debt as a safe investment, rather than houses or pets.com, this public debt has become the biggest bubble of all. Will it pop, like the dot com and housing bubbles? Can the government pay it back? Well, that depends on how its tax receipts do. Need I say more?
Consider how it would change public perception of monetary wealth, if we were to come to the realization that the monetary system really is now entirely a form of public commons? The practice of hoarding excessive amounts would lack logical justification, so savings would be taxed progressively. This is not to discourage individual effort, but a necessary recognition of the effect of excess savings on a functioning monetary system. Too much of a good thing isn't always good. If people understood monetary value constituted public property, than they would be far more reluctant to drain value out of their social networks and environment to put in a bank in the first place. We all like having roads, but there is little inclination to pave more than we need. In this situation, the same would apply to monetizing our lives. Other avenues of trust and reciprocation would have the space to develop, which would strengthen communities and their relationship to the environment.
Political power started as private initiative and eventually grew into monarchy. Monarchists railed against mob rule, but we eventually learned how to make it a public trust by allocating power where it was most responsive. Why not do the same with the banking industry? As the currency is a public utility, so profits from its administration could be public income. A public banking system would not be one huge behemoth, but consist of institutions incorporated at every level of governance, so that individuals could bank with the ones which funded the services they are most likely to use. Different communities would seek to provide the best services with these funds, otherwise they would lose business and citizens to other communities. As it is, banking doesn't need the inventiveness for which private enterprise is most suited, but the stability that is the strength of the public sector. Those running this financial system seem to think they have the right to drain off as much as they can, with other business leaders feeling the need to follow. What if the police, military, courts, etc. felt they had the same rights to exploit their responsibilities? When that happens, it's not a pretty picture.
The lack of extreme amounts of monetized wealth might also reduce the potential for bloated regimes to develop. There will always be economic and political convection cycles of rising influence and power, which eventually cool off and settle back down after a few generations and in many ways that is healthy and normal, but what we have now is an economic hurricane that is sucking wealth out of the entire world as monetary abstraction has metastasized into this enormous bubble of illusionary value. Given the state of the world, it is a crisis we can't afford to waste.
The only unit which fully defines humanity and life is the earth. Possibly humanity is the embryonic central nervous system of a planetary organism. Otherwise we are just top predator of a collapsing ecosystem.
Regards,
John B. Merryman
Sparks, Maryland
Categories: time, space, money, life, society
.......................................................................................................
Somewhere, somehow, during the past few months, we passed a final "point of no return".
I am 
For the first time, I'm actually quite afraid at having Barack Obama occupying the office of President of the United States. I hate to say it, but McCain was right - Obama doesn't have the experience needed for the job under the present circumstances.
Yours truly has been looking for work since November, after having been laid off. Many of you know what that's like.
My introduction to the power of Twitter was the Israeli rape of Gaza a few months ago. I was asked by a long-time blogger friend (who has risen to lofty heights on most of the Twitter rating charts) to help retweet on-the-ground news coming from the war zone. The adrenaline rush was incredible. Addiction. Yes. Physical, emotional, mental. It took me a couple of days (or in Twitter parlance, "daze") to see and accept it for what it was. But for this, like all addictions, recognition of the sickness is 
by 
Sometimes I want to just hug my Google feed reader and give it a big kiss. With no specific skill, just through trial and error, I've been able to put together a set of blog- and search-based feeds that constantly surprise and delight me.
It seems that in every bend and corner of the nation, spring torrents have left us running on rivers of rage.
