Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

One can suspect that to survive and prosper in a rapidly changing world it might be useful to understand the way complexity, conflict and change are manifest in one’s (personal) environment: Complex changes in (external) conditions may require a reconsideration of one’s current organisational and belief systems in order to discover which rules are still valid and which procedures need changing. In turn, it is perhaps important for us to understand the affect, on ourselves and our environment, of the modifications that we make to compensate for the changes made by others -or by the system itself.

“Cybernetics” has been defined as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. However, there are many different ways of controlling something and a broader approach might be more advantageous: “The notion of a system may be seen as simply a more self-conscious and generic term for the dynamic interrelatedness of components” -Von Bertalanffy. This wider range of approaches and techniques might then offer a greater individual choice regarding the aesthetics of control -which can vary from externally imposed coersion to internally organised self-control. Presumably, the way the system is organised also affects the way (both internal and external) communication and control systems might operate. So understanding the system is probably an effective part of the process of gaining control - although perhaps, when we understand the system well enough, we may be able to work within the (existing) bounds of the system and have less desire (or need) to control it externally. Or maybe the way the system is defined would determine what is “internal” and what is “external”.

However, it is surely not easy to understand a complex and diverse system with many components operating on different and perhaps even conflicting principles.

In this context, a “General Theory of Everything” might be useful: Provided this was designed not to impose a preconceived structure upon the world -but to function as an “interface” which, without imposing hidden and unwarranted assumptions, could act as a language allowing us to compare and evaluate the diversity of organisation and process which surrounds us on both physical and mental levels.

Perhaps an important first step in constructing such a unifying system involves an understanding of the relationship between fundamental concepts such as Space, Time, Process and Language:

-If the computer is perceived in terms of Turing’s “universal simulation machine”, in the form of a self-modifying memory system, which in turn can be interpreted as a one-dimensional Einsteinian Time/Space machine -then this would seem to integrate the concepts of Time, Space and Process quite effectively. See “What is Space?” , “Some personal Remarks on Conceptual Space” and “Developing the Einstein/Turing Machine”.

-So how might “Language” then link both descriptive and computational processes? Could the concept of Model (implicit in the universal simulation machine) be the missing link which connects language to the processing of time and space? What is the a distinction between “interface” and “language”? Is the computer fundamentally a “linguistic” machine after all? Might “technology and “language” be linked -and not opposed, as so often appears to be assumed?

Presumably, understanding of the fundamentals of both the aesthetic and practical problems involved in the description, comprehension and control of systems generally would have many useful and creative implications for a wide range of culturally important subjects -including politics, economics, ethics, science and art.

If language is the medium by which concepts are internalized and externalized, then all truly creative activity must involve linguistic-perceptual articulation: the identification, definition and construction of knowledge objects and their representations.

The above describes what I believe is the creative process, a process I sometimes describe in a triad called “knowledge, language, body.”

In this triad, every language is a model, a real and imagined compendium of relationships held together by its rules. This model may be be distilled into knowledge and body, which both have numerous limits, and thus constantly demand upon the model to evolve, to generate new languages and rules of relationships.

In past work, I endeavored to establish the semantics of “knowledge, language, body” through the social dynamics of “communalism, sovereignty, autonomy.” Working from the neocolonial viewpoint, I obtained this triad from the tripartite social structure of ancient Philippine society, and intended it to serve as an analytical tool for the present problems.

In personal art making, see “The Philippine Triad and Western Dichotomous Philosophies: A Contest of Traditions in Three Audio-Performance Projects”, LEONARDO Vol. 39, No. 1, pp 59-63, 2006.

In the critique of technology, “communalism is defined as possession and belonging; sovereignty is the competent practice of supreme and independent political authority; and autonomy ensures selfgovernment and self-determination.” From “No Carrier and Other Stories from Philippine BBS Culture”, READ_ME: SOFTWARE ART AND CULTURES, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus, Denmark.

In the critique of visual art, see “Within the Dynamics of Economic and Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Look at Art, Technology and Development in the Philippines”, “Regeneration of Digital Art” proceedings from The International Symposium on Digital Art in Taiwan, National Chiao Tung University, Hsin Chu, Taiwan, ROC. 2004.

Later, I sought to establish the procedural aspects of “knowledge, language, body” through the creative dynamics of “knowledge, technology, autonomy”, and shortly, through the concept of “diwa” or the body of internal rules governing the systematic ordering of ideas that people - whether on a national, tribal or personal level - employ for a conscious meaningful purpose.

In drawing relationships between creative thinking and FOSS, “Knowledge is a problem-solving activity that goes beyond the mere communication or transfer of information because it demands the need for knowledge (critical consciousness) in dealing with information; Technology is a critical and conscious behavior underlying the function of “creating” something instead of “buying” something; Autonomy is a production process built around an unconventional understanding of property rights.” See presentation made for “Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) and the Creative Practices” at the LinuxWorld Conference in Manila, Philippines. 2005.

In defining Diwa as the rules of aesthetic equilibrium, see “Anito at Diwa: A Filipino Archaeology of Self”, published in proceedings from “The Exchange of the Cultural Creative Design of International Indigenous Peoples” at the Chung Yuan Christian University, Chungli, Taiwan, ROC. 2005.

In 2006, I began to establish the principles underlying the rules of diwa. I established that these are the principles of buhay (life) and bisa (inherited life force).

See “Diwa: A Filipino Aesthetic of Knowledge, Language, Body” (2006), in “PLACE: Local Knowledge and New Media Practice” to be published by Cambridge Scholars Press.

From the past departure points of semantic, social, ideological and cultural analysis, I decided to push my work further via my current projects on “computability.” I define “computability” as the development of rules intended to control the use of language.

“The inter-flowing of kaluluwa (knowledge), ginhawa (body) and wika (language) describe the nature of the elements of buhay (life) and bisa (life force). I believe that that these three elements comprise aesthetic equilibrium, a computational process in the achievement of balance taking into account the organism, the environment and the symbolization that ensues from the fact of life and life force. Space can be identified as present in the organism, the environment and in symbolization. In all three instances, space may be said to be computational, a crucial process of accurate anticipation of the environment by the organism in order to ensure survival**. (A disturbance in any of the elements - i.e. sickness, environmental change, linguistic morbidity through education - reduces and corrupts survivability). And that the comprehension of space requires the anticipation of computable vectors or points in a given dimension.” From “Usapang Ispeys”, lecture notes on “Space” (with Trevor Batten) (2006).

From 2005-2006, I investigated the linguistic aspects (the structure and interpretation) of a number of “spatial manipulations”: pulse reading (palpitation), fisherman’s conceptual map of Laguna de Bay, object-oriented construction in some 19th century Philippine paintings of scenes and landscapes, and local linguistic practices. In 2007, I focused my investigation on computer programming and crochet.

See “Edward’s Crochet and Computability” website (http://www.korakora.org/edward/)

In the conduct of the integrated nature of my project on “computability”, I started working with my partner, Trevor Batten, a British computer artist of the artist-programmer tradition. Although we have conducted workshops, lectures and dialogued together since 2003, only recently did we decide to assess our similarities and confront our differences in our common pursuit of the foundation for variations in human and machine language.

See “Dialogues” website (http://www.korakora.org/dialogues/)
See “Fortun’s Urban Gardening” (http://www.korakora.org/edward/fortuns.php/)

Through this dialogue - perhaps also an efficient east-west dialectic - I envision a greater opportunity for a more rigorous study of primitive expressions, operations and abstractions in a variety of linguistic-perceptual systems, from computer programming to crochet, from gardening to cooking. I also envision the study to create an enriching environment for continuous learning.