Fundamental Dichotomies in Nature

 

  I've read conjectures that early humans were schizophrenic, 
  conjectures about the relationship between mental
  illnesses and creativity, about schizophrenia as a modern day plague,
  and about the chemical/genetic aspects of schizophrenia, and about
  the native american perception of the west as mentally ill due to
  its problems dealing with dualism: "forked tongue", "two-faced",
  "two-hearted",...
  
  There is an overwhelming sense of space-time as being a dividing
  factor between more static agrarians and the more progressive hunters
  which can be given a sort of female/male genderization with some
  care to its dynamic nature. Parkinson talks about East and West
  almost as if these worldviews were a revolving door between
  space-optimization (farmers) vs. time-optimization (hunters).

  We see the same concerns in the hierarchy of a large corporation
  where the laborers are time-optimized (work on the clock) and
  the management is more space-optimized (resource management).
  
  This is also seen in at the individual level where one moment
  we are concerned about time more than distance or space, and the
  next moment we are concerned about cleaning out our closets or
  going on a distant vacation, more than how long it takes.

  It seems fundamental that all considerations are grounded on
  some space-time map and when we get our tragectories on that
  map tangled up, the more extreme results seems to be a neuroses, 
  psychoses or other mental illness. The trajectories seem to be 
  logic based (logic being a causual trajectory through a space of premises),
  but the relationship between the many trajectories a mind can
  take simultaneously in parallel seem related more analogically
  (analogs relating spatial distributions of premises).
  So the culprit seems to be describable as analogical-logical 
  entanglements or more generally, subjective space-time entanglements.
  
  This seems the hunter vs. farmer fighting within in each of us,
  and in terms of societal vs. cultural concerns respectively,
  there is a comparison that can be made. Society is more based
  on causuality in terms the 'function' of the law, while culture
  is more spatial in terms of the 'distribution' of resources.
  [The Fourier transform has been perhaps the most revered mathematical
  tool in physics in its ability to transform between functions and
  distributions].

  Within an individual we see a more physical split as well, besides
  gender traits[1], in terms of right and left brain function. I really
  don't know how strong this chirality of the brain is but there
  is alot of sense that one side is devoted to managing more analogical
  (associative) distributions while the other side to more logical
  or causual functions. The highly parallelized corpus callosum seems
  perhaps to serve as a space-time 'decimation' as in Fourier transforms ?

  I think Jung had ideas in this direction although I've never heard
  him mention 'functional analysis in mathematics' (Fourier stuff) explicitly.
  But we must have some physiological brain function that does this
  kind of calculation which is essential to managing space and time together.
  I would think that this is a very dominant part of brain function
  since these functions are extremely fundamental to both survival and
  comprehension. Other animals can probably get away with far less than
  analogical capacity; for reptiles this function seems a severe overhead
  in terms of temperature control (recall Fourier derived his space-time
  transform in terms of heat equations).

  As far as the chemical vs. electronic nature of the physical processes
  in the brain, there are other analogies that seem plausible.
  In terms of genetics even, there is a sense that 'evolution' as a
  causual function, is complemented by mutation and cross-over which
  are more associative functions. So I see an underlying struggle to
  manage complementary domains in the physics, biology, and philosophy
  but as well everywhere in terms of the most fundamental of constraints
  of space and time and an economy based upon there optimization.
   
  The idea of 'rational' is interesting in that it seems to supercede
  'logic' here. The probabilities represent the associations of possibilities
  or rather the possibility of jumping from a trajectory on one logical
  chain onto another. In quantum physics this is called the "Many Worlds"
  interpretation where each logical chain is called a "universe" in itself.

  'Rational' seems to encompass, a best guess, based
  on both non-deterministic and deterministic information;
  or as I would say equivalently, both analogical and logical information, 
  or associative and causual, or spatial and temporal,...

  The nasty part people (and machines) seem to have the most trouble
  with is the reversals of these dichotomies: when the means of
  analysis is modelled in object of analysis, or, when the object
  and the model of it become a generalized pun as in McLuhan's reversal:
  "the medium is the message" become "the message is the medium".

  The Zen of Model Helicopter Flying
     
  [1] In a conversation between two males alone in a room, 
  the self-centeredness of males, due to their more particle-like 
  natures, evolves in a causual chain. Perspectives are explored 
  causually, one by one. These two males exist as independant 
  points-of-view; and there are only two points-of-view in the room 
  under discussion at any specific time in the convesation.
 
  Females on the other hand, do not seem to converse in this manner.
  A female seems to carry a multitude of perspectives with her,
  and when talking, addresses those perspectives simulataneously
  in an averaging process. In a sense, and there are of course many
  exceptions, two females alone in a room having a conversation
  are really not alone; they have a virtual audience with them.
  This vitual audience composes the many perspectives that the
  females maintain simultaneously. The process of their conversation
  seems to involve a kind of mental lock-picking; trying out
  combinatorical exchanges of distributions rather than 
  single-threaded linear chains like males employ in rapid
  succession like a machine gun (here we can see the comparison
  again with the Fourier transform in terms of function domains
  where the female is largely more spectral and spatial in 
  information and the male is more temporal or causual. 'Spatial'
  here is used in a more general sense here than current physics
  acknowleges: to mean the set of elements/states under consideration.
  It as well can be taken as meaning a memory space or available
  tangible resources)


  If a male and female are alone in a discussion, often the averaging
  out and associative process of the female and her virtual
  audience will seem to be a warm and fuzzy, parallelized and
  wave-like kind of thinking to the male; as well it may seem 
  the female is "arguing in circles".

  The female may perceive the male as being overly pointed (debative) 
  and logical, lacking in perspective, linear and a occasionally
  in the extreme: an anal dullard. Less extremely the female often
  seems amused by how she is able to tie knots in the males
  linear thinking like a cat playing with a ball of yarn.

  If two males are talking in a usenet newsgroup however, they
  are aware of a real audience of perspectives. The males who
  maintain their debative and linear individuality are usually
  complemented by more social males who adopt a more feminine 
  averaging process. 

  Out of fear of being "flamed", these later social males consider
  the possible perspectives of a real audience in advance of posting, 
  and average them out as a female would. In this manner, there
  is less chance of being "cornered" and found "wrong", but 
  it winds up pitting male against male and there is the 
  same sense of the conversation as if a male were talking to
  a female. 

  The more individual male will accuse the more social
  male of being fuzzy and circular in logic; while the more
  social male will usually try in often in vain to be more 
  discoursive rather than debative and may accuse the former 
  of being overly ideological. In the extreme the later will 
  call the former a discriminating racist or some other 
  derogatory term addressing the over-individuality of the former;
  while the individualistic male will accuse the social
  male of being too liberal or too indecisive and usually
  suggests the later to "get real" or read some obscure definitive
  textbook for absolute proof that the later is definitely "wrong".

  In terms of conversation on usenet, there is 'apparently' no
  change in the modes of female discourse. They seem to remain 
  invariant. The usenet may therefore be called intrinsically 
 'female' in nature (as some feminists declare the whole of the 
  internet to be), but more generally this dichotomy of the 
  males should be apparent in any situation involving larger 
  "real" audiences.

  Since females always seem to carry around a virtual audience
  with them, their mode of conversation will not seem to change
  on usenet or any discussion group, their virtual audience
  simply becomes real. This instantiation of the virtual audience
  doesn't change the dynamics of their conversation but may
  change the outcome of their averaging process.
  
  There is a physical analog here in terms of quantum computers 
  which employ a virtual associative memory, but more exactly
  in a hybrid non-deterministic quantum and deterministic 
  von Neumann computer, can the female and male aspects of 
  "conversation" become more better understood.