The 'Black Box' Nature and Course of Human Existence

Appendix 1 - The Inevitable Transcendency of Science(*k).
Appendix 2 - The Circumstantial Superfluity of Mankind(*l)

(*q) It is 'the fate of this organism' (consequence of deliberative capability) that the more that it learns about the nature of its being and the effect of that being upon its configuration space as an evolving life-form unique to it, the more 'driven' it is to understand that being and affect; inherently then, the more it learns about its uncorrupted configuration space, the more deliberatively it 'husbands the uncorrupted' for further discovery -the inevitability, therefore, of eventually least population of least resource/environment corruption. The overwhelming importance of this human property is that it clearly (if only eventually) subordinates 'best mental and physical well-being' to 'life-form most knowledgeable being' (-a profound repudiation, it should be noticed, of "American free-enterprise, capitalist democracy and the right to make as much money as you can and spend it any way you choose -as long as there's no law against it"). There are any number of 'ideas resolving the human condition' -all of which fail, however, out of unresolvable differences in at least knowledge, belief and language. Argued here, in repudiation of such political, religious or other differences, is that an only one proper way of addressing the problem is by understanding it as that (solar-system configuration space) of a transient life-form -of deliberative capability. Developing this idea, this essay answers the question 'What is some best way of optimizing human existence on earth?' by identifying human existence as that of a 'black-box situation' (table -*m) -which, in fact, man is already in some process of 'optimizing' -but poorly so, thus as he 'bumbles' towards earth's carrying capacity -eventually 'appreciating the consequences of his intellectual and resource/environment corruptions' as he goes, he is also 'forced naturally to learn from his mistakes and perhaps try to suspend corruption' -often 'too late'. 1 - Our continuing 'best well-being and viability' depends upon what we discover about the organism and what there is of the resource/environment to be discovered 'useful to that best well-being and viability'. 2 - Global warming notwithstanding, there is some probability of 'dynamic stability' (below) succeeding our presently diasporative mode of inhabitation with successively uncorrupted successively polar resource/environment'. 3 - Global warming however, opens use of that resource/environment to our 'generally still warm-blooded cerebrating vertebrate mentality' -use and inhabitation that might otherwise be 'more judicious' (more below). 4 - The sooner we incorporate 'black-box thinking regarding classical diasporation, saturation and dynamic stability', in other words (below), the more we leave of that polar and sub-polar resource/environment to 'optimizing best well-being and viability'. It is mankind inside an earth/econiche box observing (outputs) 'the nature of his being and its effects on the econiche internals of the box' -and then changing his habits (inputs) in some 'meliorative accordance' -but only under some still very primitively noumenal ideations regarding that 'nature of his being'. This essay argues 'best optimization' then, by proper black-box process (discussion and table below -*m) of (a) operating upon what we thus-far know about its contents ('the evolving nature of the organism and its configuration space') and (b) heuristically projecting its progression as a function of 'heuristic inputs for (successive) scientifically observed outputs' -the process intrinsic in any case. It concludes here with the statement that 'The best way of (beginning) understanding and optimizing this black-box of human existence' at this time is by 'steady-state' stabilizing the system to zero population growth and an attrition of related general economics and use of the resource/environment to Base-Domain Human Requirements (itself heuristically evolving) of that population. Following below are four very short sections- definition and intrinsic operational inevitability - why 'incorporation' is inevitable as 'intrinsic of human nature and course' table and discussion - mechanics regarding 'human existence as a black-box' operational factors and mechanics -discussion of variables and their interrelationships heuristic policy and directives mechanizing those implications (work in progress) Definition and Intrinsic Operational Inevitability Definition- black box - a device or theoretical construct, esp. an electric circuit, with known or specified performance characteristics [output] but unknown or unspecified constituents and means [internal] of operation. (-American Heritage Dictionary) -and principle (herein)- The nature and dynamics of 'human existence as a black-box' are essentially determinable by heuristically varying its inputs and correlating outputs with those input variations. [-a situation for which 'minimal-state' (and/or steady-state) is often the most productive factor initial to the heuristics determining black-box internal mechanics -more of which below.] As to the 'merit' of trying to determine 'the nature and course of human existence' by relating that to the operations of some 'unknown and invisible organism inside a black box', we might consider the following- 1 - Life-form evolutionary process is intrinsically circumstantial, fundamentally mechanistic, non-static and non-deterministic(*1). 2 - Warm-blooded life-form (earthly) evolution is fundamentally (and ultimately) dependent on solar system mechanics(*2). 3 - therein the 'perhaps possible' identification of such as black-box heuristics by the 'perhaps possible' evolution of some life-form capable of making such observations (i.e. 'mankind'). 4 - Deliberative capability is itself consequence of such 'evolutionary process'(*3) -the nature of which is 'a machine that goes by itself in discovering the nature of its configuration space and itself in it'. 5 - 'Deliberating H sapiens' (evolutionary process) has come to identify (a) 'black-box mechanism' (3 -above) and (b) the facts of himself in it (4 -above). (-and further then-) 6 - Thus-far mankind is characterizable as 'a life-form comprising individual beings the natures and variously hierarchic interactions of which are generally traceable to the pecking order attaching the evolution of warm-blooded, more or less mechanically and autonomously cerebrating vertebrates'(*4). ['Autonomy and hierarchy of diasporation and resource/environment consumption', consequently, is essentially still that 'mindless consumption by pecking-order-based, warm-blooded, cerebrating vertebrates'.] 7 - Genetic imperative(*5) commits human existence -the viability of the life-form, to maximization out of those 'variously hierarchic autonomies of life-form' -entailing, therefore -natural selection, anything of successively heuristic mechanisms (deliberative capability -above) such as learning, 'subscription', imposition et cetera (*6). -the situation, in other words, of mankind observing the fact of his genetic imperative driving a maximization of his evolving life-form existence out of what he learns (black-box) about the nature of that existence and its configuration space -thus further still and more or less progressively- To whatever extent we preempt carrying capacity saturation, we also decrease (the probability of) resource/environment 'corruption' and increase viability geological time-frame(*7) -ergo the importance of population minimization. To whatever extent we decrease (the probability of) 'resource/environment corruption -pecking-order-based expression for example', we favor life-form requirements and geological time-frame extension (again) -ergo the importance of economic accommodation to that population. To whatever extent we educate 'mankind' to these inevitabilities (aristocratization -*8), we also 'optimize geological time-frame'. -the whole of which identifies The Inevitable Transcendency of Science (Appendix 1 -*k). (*m) The Black-Box - Table and Discussion That 'man's existence on earth constitutes a black box' identifies him as at least partially knowledgeable about 'the nature of the system and his deliberable influence on his existence within it', thus we know (table below)- 1 - All organisms have a genetic imperative, and genetic imperative commits the organism 'to survive as an organism -as long as possible'. 2 - Human existence (so far) is fundamentally dependent on solar system mechanics. 3 - Human deliberative capability commits the organism (then) 'to optimize that geological time-frame survival'. -there exists for humans, in other words, a 'black box' mechanism which consists of- 4 - Inputs: (a) solar radiation and (b -'feedback') what humans seek or 'choose' to do as consequence of what they 'learn' (Outputs -below) about their existence inside the box. 5 - Contents/mechanics: 'the momently-as-is planet earth with its various geophysical material-and-properties, life-form operations and consequences -mental, physical et cetera, as long as that supports the human organism'. 6 - Outputs: what the organism 'deliberates' to affect its existence inside the box (Inputs -'feedback' above) from what it 'learns' about its existence in it.

INPUTS	BLACK BOX CONTENTS	OUTPUTS
Solar radiation Feedback Heuristic policy and 'directives'(*9) Geological timeframe	Natural resources Non-biomass ('non-metabolic'): fossil fuels and geophysical material (landmass, water, atmosphere and minerals) Biomass ('metabolic' -all other) Natural resources 'affect' due to (operators)- Classical non-human biomass dynamics Human 'requirements' Analysis Base-Domain Human Requirements(*a) 'Requirements' in excess of that? What are the mathematics of system response? ('momentum' an element!) Changes to be made? (heuristics)	Heuristic policy and 'directives'(*9) What population 'constitutions' should be What their economics should be -'the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services' Geological timeframe

Overview 'Contents' is always 'current state of operating machine' -the current state of human-being -'the human phenomenon and things human' -'the human condition'. It includes, therefore, all things identifiable as purely physical and their purely physical dynamics (cell life up), but also all mental or intellectual processes and dispositions of any kind which in addition to science and mathematics might even most remotely affect system operation: religion, politics, ethnicity, idiomatics(*b) et cetera. 'Contents', therefore, is 'the current state of mankind's inevitable aristocratization in geological time-frame', thus it identifies a mental and physical integration of mankind superceding a pecking-order-based, primitive individuality of menkinds pseudo-intellectually subspeciated and physically factionalized by those above noumenalisms(*c). There is, in other words, a continuing evolution in which 'outputs' becomes successively more 'knowledgeable' and organism-whole integral with respect to 'the nature and course of the organism-whole' -propagating therefore, successively fewer 'disparately compatible, peculiarly-individual inputs' back into it -especially pecking-order-based. Operational Factors and Mechanics There is nothing of a noumenal nature here, no 'democracy', no religion, no 'natural rights and freedoms' et cetera. Such ideas will always arise at some 'primitive' level however ('We are born in ignorance'), but will also always be superceded by 'successive disposition (aristocratization) to optimizing geological time-frame' (deliberative capability, a 'machine that goes by itself' under genetic imperative)(*d). 1 - There are typically three successive, inhabitation stages attaching a 'new organism surviving into an econiche' -diasporative: that of the new organism proliferating into some 'essentially new' econiche-whole dynamic; saturative: the organism overpopulating what the econiche can support of it, and -organism population receding, consequently- stable: manifesting 'the dynamic stability(*f) of classical, econiche biologies'. (-from The Unemployability Conjecture in which this is discussed further.) 2 - The 'momently basic' mathematics of any existing life-form which depends ultimately on solar radiation is the decay function y=e(exp(-t)). Evolutionary process then(*e) -subordinate that, accounts for 'local noise' by life-forms and econiches evolving and 'jiggling' into dynamic stability -one species not unusually superceding another in the process. [With the involvement of deliberative capability excepted, evolutionary process is fundamentally mechanistic. The evolution of 'an organism of deliberative capability' however (mankind), is that of an organism potentially capable of intruding upon and manipulating such 'fundamentally mechanistic, evolutionary process' -herein then, human kind capable of influencing or affecting virtually all life processes into an affect of its own geological time-frame -thus altho deliberative capability cannot do away with classical evolutionary process (1, above) it now does 'supercede' it -gene modification, for example, and even human genetic imperative itself -ergo suicide(*g).] 3 - Mankind is still 'diasporating out of warm-blooded, cerebrating vertebrate origins'. 'In the absence of better knowledge or countering impetus' therefore, human 'requirements' are driven more by the pecking order, ethnicity and noumenalisms inherent that stage than by 'the black-box operations inevitable of an H cogitans dynamically stabilizing into his econiche'(*h). 4 - The political-whole then, is 'a world democracy of autonomous peoples and nations' (Evolution, Autonomy and Aristocratization) which, like their 'ignorant', constituent individuals, argue that 'They know what's best for themselves and their environments and how they should relate to other autonomies with respect to that'. [Few people (so far) understand that 'human affairs and decisions regarding them' are, in this framework, matters of (a) fact and statisticality, (b) 'unanticipatable eventualities' and (c) 'the circumstantial absence of better knowledge' -NOT 'matters of opinion' which typically lack any such considerations, thus it is a fact of 'lifestyle and the quality of life' (thus-far civilization) that 'the higher one's pecking order', the more dependent he is upon a substructure of political and economic lessers to maintain that 'lifestyle and quality of life' that, in the long run, mankind will not be able to maintain (-see Gross Demographic Changes Attaching Sustainable Resource Use).] 5 - Of both discovered and undiscovered natural resources playing some role in human existence there are those, non-biomass, that only monotonically diminish in availability, and those, biomass, over the related 'inevitable decay' of which (2, above) man is capable of exercising varying degrees of manipulation -manipulation that comes however, only at some corresponding depletion of other biomass and non-biomass resources critical to geological time-frame -'best well-being and viability of the organism-whole' in that. 6 - 'The nature and course of human evolution and progression' continues (so far) to be determined within 'a democracy of ignorantly autonomous peoples and nations' (4, above). Economics thruout then -'the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services', is that of 'a warm-blooded, cerebrating vertebrate (primitive hominid -3,above) diasporating its way into classical econiche dynamic stability -without particularly knowledgeable concern, that is, for resource/environment use in the determination of that nature and course'. (Recapped from above -*q) ["It is 'the fate of this organism' [however] (consequence of deliberative capability) that the more that it learns about the nature of its being and the effect of that being upon its configuration space as an evolving life-form unique to it, the more 'driven' it is to understand that being and affect -inherently then, the more it learns about its uncorrupted configuration space, the more deliberatively it 'husbands the uncorrupted' for further discovery -the inevitability, therefore, of eventually least population of least resource/environment corruption". (See Appendix 1, The Circumstantial Superfluity of Mankind -*l.) [*j - re 'extinguished'-] 7 - 'Human dynamic stability' however, is inevitably to be that of 'an aristocratizing mankind(*8) meeting an inevitably failing resource/environment' -in which therefore, as opposed to a system of 'individuals with natural rights and freedoms (et cetera)', we are -all people, 'an evolving, single life-form optimizing its geological time-frame in (member) operational constitutions, demographics, distributions, numbers et cetera(*i) -therein also the inevitable 'vestigialization' of pecking-order-based expression and influence(*n). 8 - 'Best knowledgeable use of the resource/environment' therefore (-geological time-frame optimization), is eventually, ultimately and inevitably to be determined (a) only by heuristics, (b) only within the configuration space and (c) only as a function of how well black-box mechanization is manifest -ergo (from above) the importance of initialization, -"'steady-state' stabilizing the system to zero population growth and an attrition of related general economics and use of the resource/environment to Base-Domain Human Requirements (itself heuristically evolving) of that population". [Circumstantially 'highest on the food-chain' (and in 'the absence of better knowledge or countering impetus'), mankind has come to have extincted various organisms 'the once discoverable merits of which are now forever lost to him'. Still-diasporating and pecking-order-based, furthermore -'dynamic stability' still to come, there is some probability of continuing such loss -the fact of which (this situation) also identifies 'some probability that anyone understanding such loss also understands its antithesis': (that) 'minimizing resource/environment corruption' intrinsically 'increases the discoverability of merits in uncorrupted resource/environment' -geological time-frame optimization therein.] What this means is that that single life-form will evolve in a general process that integrates the mental dispositions and practical capabilities of ALL peoples and nations -and their individuals, toward that end -aristocratization an intrinsically organism-whole evolutionary process of 'successively science-based natural selection' -peoples and nations reconstituting and 'melding' toward that end. As to implications then, we have the following conditions to meet- 'zero population growth' an attrition of resource/environment use to base-domain human requirements of that population (and) a 'democracy of ignorantly autonomous peoples and nations' thru which to manipulate these undertakings -what remains is 'how'. Heuristic Policy and Directives (link to Heuristic Government and Economic Policy)

feedback? perryb@condition.org
First posted: November 27, 2002 Last revised: June 8, 2008

(*k) The Inevitable Transcendency of Science Appendix 1 Most people reject the idea of science as 'the inevitable arbiter of human differences' because scientists themselves seem to be -are in general, afflicted by virtually any and every failing of 'the common man' -and accountably so in that thruout the world so far the scientist is heir to (a) the neonate ignorance of all mankind and (b) an environment (mental and physical) of at least some ignorance in science and at least some 'primitively pecking-order-based structure' -'no better than anyone else' in that sense. 'The inevitable transcendency of science' however, is another matter. As surely as 'deliberative capability is a machine that goes by itself', so too does natural selection advantage science (and the scientist) in the evolution and progression of the whole -superceding and vestigializing, in that respect, the 'intellectual' ambiguities and inconsistencies inherent the evolution of 'knowledge' out of neonate ignorance and pecking order by (successively) more formally logical constructions (-stem cell research eventually superceding the 'human-being' of fetuses, for example, regardless of 'god-based' government). -It is, simply and ineluctably, a matter (mankind surviving that long :-) of 'operational consequence of fact' (mathematics implicit) eventually but inevitably superceding 'operational consequence of less than fact' (below). The life of the scientist today may be 'tainted' much as that of the common man -religion, ethnicity, politics, the political mechanics of his profession and making money for 'pecking-order-based expression' in particular, but he tends, in general and out of knowledge, to respect the inherency of 'the scientist furthering science above all else' -compromising, even, then, 'pecking-order-based expression' in that respect. -Where, further, this does not 'obtain', it is 'the nature of the advancing scientist' to see to it that it does (example) -genetic imperative and natural selection driving the whole: (*n) Consider the situation of two scientists resolving a problem -the two, equal in every physical and mental respect except for being at an impasse over 'the proper resolution' of some immediate problem -P, in this particular case, literally imposing his 'resolution' upon N. N reflects upon this however, and thereby observes P's 'pecking order' to have suddenly become 'part of the problem'; N, in other words, suddenly knows more about the overall situation than P, thus whether he goes along with P or not in this case, he has actually acquired more knowledge than N -to 'an eventual besting of Ns and their pecking orders'. (-from Pecking Order, Competition and Institution ...) -the advancing scientist, in effect, superceding 'the obstacle of his machine that-goes-by-itself deliberative capability' -only a matter of time then, as the artifactuality of pecking order and noumenalism 'vestigializes' under successive dirigiste heurism(*9). (*l) The Circumstantial Superfluity of Mankind Appendix 2 Much as early modern man may have been responsible for the extinction of various organism species of perhaps 'once potential' interest to man today (the mammoth and european bison for example), he could not have 'deliberated' any such use to continuing mankind; his then numbers and 'operational rationale', consequently, cannot be 'faulted' in this sense -mortality high, his was a scrabble, sustenance-related life of 'trying to stay alive'. Late Stone Age Man, on the other hand, saw the pecking-order-based expression with which he related to his 'warm-blooded cerebrating vertebrate peers' institutionalizing into (beginning) civilization -a certain intellectualization reflecting, in effect, a profound escalation in the reliability of sustenance and corresponding offspring survival -and a more or less deliberated (if ignorant) extinction of the moa (beginning 700 yrs ago) and Steller's sea cow (for example) that might now be of such interest. What this means is that man has come to proliferate (however circumstantially) in a way that has yet to develop any common understanding of 'solar system mechanics and geological time-frame optimization', thus there is a population of unsupportable lifestyle-and-quality that exists today without respect to 'best well-being and viability of the organism-whole' -most of humanity, 'solely in service of its superfluous self'. [Thus people of Bangladesh living on the Ganges floodplain, for example, are -by their very existence as 'autonomous Third World people ignorantly saturating carrying capacity' and NOT advancing optimization- (a) unnecessarily suffering death, serious social upheaval and 'lifestyle-and-quality' degradation due to (eg) periodic monsoon floodings -international 'charitable assistance' withstanding, (b) unnecessarily subject to more 'death, serious social upheaval and lifestyle-and-quality degradation' due (planetary) to ice-age/global warming changes -'international charitable assistance' perhaps non-existing and- (c) 'corrupting their resource/environment of what geological time-frame-advancing potential there may be to the life-form' in any case. [These peoples are not 'inferior' out of 'inferior intellectual (or physical) capability'; they are, rather -out of circumstantiality alone, only 'more likely than some others to be run over by (the mechanics of) diasporatively cheap natural resources and labor and carrying capacity saturation on the road to geological time-frame optimization' -nor is this 'cruel and heartless'; it is, rather (again), a consequence of the ignorance and mindlessness of those 'driving the vehicles'. -And this does not begin to scratch the surface of the effects of such corruption on immediate lifestyle and the quality of life thruout the world. [Some idea of the complexity suggested by the above is identified in The Circumstantial Complexity of Today's 'Thus-far Pecking-Order-Based, Diasporation Economics' -in complete antithesis of (mantra) "The economy has to grow" currently popular in the US: October 4, 2002 Los Angeles Times - Column One Tuvalu's Sinking Feeling A Pacific Island nation fears vanishing beneath the waves. It is weighing a suit against the US over emissions blamed for global warming. -which the US really need not worry about: of only 10 square miles and only 10,400 people, the US could buy them out and retire them here! Inundating Bangladesh (above) is somewhat more problematic.]