Some final words on the residency period:

Energy of Situation

Rather than the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system, I chose to concentrate on a fundamental closer to the bone, as it were, the production of new configurations of the energized world as a tool for individual continuance and relevance to the wider social system. What we do changes the cosmos, always, everywhere, (because everywhere’s are not separated nor distinct).

Traditional art production is (merely) the (re)configuration of certain flows in the near (and far) surround of the producer. My approach generally falls under this model but approaches the reconfiguration process from an entirely different path. Entering a ‘residency’ is (merely) moving from one (life)situation into another: we are constantly doing this in life, transitioning from one semi-stable configuration to another, with periods of more-or-less instability in between. If one leaves traditional temporal and spatial metrics behind, this process may be seen simply as the modulation of a constancy of flowing condition. The particular conditions and configurations of a situation dictate the potential range of reconfigurations possible, given the energy input of the individual and the embodied life-energy/life-time that is available. The configuration is merely a cumulative apprehended set of flows occurring with a reductive purview (and is always relative to the observer!) There is the ‘locally external’ factor of the accessibility of external energy sources for reconfiguring, but if one approaches the situation as a more autonomous and self-contained instance, the range of possibility is limited just as life-time and life-energy is limited. It is along this approach that I undertook this residency. (I will here omit a wider discussion of the framework of my personal model of the cosmos as there isn’t the room here to undertake it even in brief).

Every social structure (or formation) requires (attentive) energy to maintain its intrinsic (or necessary, mandated, desired) order. Without a more-or-less constant influx of energy, any system will tend to greater disorder. CLUI and its constituent formal organizational expressions (residencies, exhibitions, public manifestations, participants) require a certain level of energy inflow to maintain viability at a level acceptable to both the participants and the wider socio-cultural milieu that they wish to participate in.

As a direct expression of my own long-term praxis of facilitating creative situations, I decided to approach the residency as a (direct?) service to the (overt) sustainability of the organization. By putting my life-energy/life-time into aspects of the material infrastructure, I could guarantee, in some dimension, the continuance of the social structure, albeit in a form reflecting my own judgements (based on where I injected my energy into the situation). In basic form, this process is about raising the order of particular aspects of the system. The question of which aspects of course is critical. If I do not understand the goals of the organized structure (to propagate itself, to demise in (X)(t), to re-form itself), the input of life-energy may or may not affect those goals in a positive way. Indeed, the input of energy might even thwart those outcomes. This is where robust and sustained dialogue among the participants is absolutely necessary to identify those points where energy influx is crucial and most efficient.

The question of entropy and order extends directly to all techno-social systems: fundamental thermodynamics applies across the full range of cosmological phenomena. Any technological system (so defined as a sub-set of all possible systems) requires energy input from outside its defined edges to maintain the ordered set of relations and flows that are necessary for it to exist as a (unitary) system. This applies to all systems up to and including what we have collectively labeled the military-industrial complex.

To whit, I undertook the following processes (and more): scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen floors, hands-and-knees, for several hours; wiped down most of the walls, especially the bathroom; reorganized and cleaned all shelves in the storage closet (refolding all linens, sorting dirty ones, putting extras (falling on the floor) into the trailer; sorting and checking all cleaning supplies); scrubbing the shower, sink, toilet; vacuuming entire floor, walls, ceiling, window frames, vents, etc with the shop-vac; wiping down all furniture; organizing and cleaning desk drawers; rearranged the furniture for maximal productivity; checked all electrical equipment, rearranging for ease-of-use; arranged library materials; sorted, (re)labeled file material; zip-lock-bagged cables in cable drawer; thoroughly cleaned the south-facing (and most north-facing) windows inside-and-out; replaced all window screening; cleaned all window frames on the interior; sorted and cleaned all kitchen-ware; cleaned the refrigerator and stove-top; cleaned microwave and all kitchen shelves; re-mounted the fire-extinguisher in a more available location; removed, scrubbed, and replaced the window blinds; raked the immediate back-yard (south); cut weeds and raked immediate front (north) yard; shop-vac’ed the trailer interior; leveled the wooden walkway to the trailer; swept the patios, collected all clothes-pins and put them on the clothes-line; arranged collected rocks on deck; cleaned telescope, fixed mounting; worked (unsuccessfully on web-cam); screw-nailed external trim in numerous places; scrubbed the exterior of the front door, repaired the interior window frame of the door; tightened bolts wherever possible; spray painted desk and several chairs (removing rust first); raked and leveled area between fence and pedal-car garage; picked up all major flotsam and jetsam accumulated in yard; organized and cleaned all media equipment; etc, etc, etc… (didn’t clean under the fridge or stove, though, nor did I tack down the rest of the linoleum … something for the future or so)

In the workshop: organized the pegboard with appropriate tools; vacuumed the entire space; organized the scrap lumber, scrap piping and metal; gathered all 4×8-foot sheets of drywall and plywood; gathered all screws/nails in one area, partially organized them; re-shelved all electrical, plumbing, other materials; organized all materials stored in rafters; gathered and sorted all tools in desk unit; cycled all rechargeable battery drives for tools; etc, etc, etc…

What affect this energy injection will have on the continuance of the organization is indeterminate: moot, relative, and subjective. It will affect the organization in some way, as will it affect the trajectories of those who come after me.

Early Confucian writings point to the “organization of things in organic categories” as a fundamental in dealing with the cosmos as a primary phenomena surrounding and enveloping life. Organizing is an intensely idiosyncratic process which, at the same time, is deeply linked to techno-social structures and their impression on participating individuals. One normative principle is like-with-like combined with some aspects of use and functionality. Moving from home to home with a frequency that is far greater than the norm, I note the similarity and differences in organizational strategy and behavior among a wide variety of individuals. My primary criteria for organizing is grounded in the functional philosophy of (engineering) optimization. This is the same process which drives wide swathes of the techno-social — the concentration of stuff to be formed and projected, deployed, into the technologically more complex future.

Of course, there is the fundamental question of long-term sustainability — in the sense that public attention drawn to the organization in its educational role (or role creating novel configurations of information/wisdom, and energized matter), this attention may then can be converted to abstracted fiscal instrument which is subsequently converted to maintenance versus direct application of the artists-in-residence in maintenance labor. It depends on whether one chooses a localized maintenance cycle or a more involved (and perhaps less efficient conversion cycle).

Now, in concert with this level of physical ordering action, I tapped into, literally, many of the myriad manifestations of the military-industrial flows that were converging and passing-through Wendover. I drew energies off in the form of images and sounds to be re-constituted in the web domain for public sampling. At some level, my deep familiarity with both the existence of these techno-social formations and the sampling of the same brought up some elements of tedium in the process — and a concern that in the mere documentation, recording of the techno-social configurations for display on a chief element of the master’s house itself (here), I was not only not contributing to the demise of such a system, but worse, was contributing to its continuance. No answers to that, the only pathway is the critical engagement and continuance of dialogues surrounding the ongoing situation in the widest sense.

And a final comment: The level of dust and dirt could be seen as a metric of encroaching macro/microscopic disorder. ‘Wind’over, as a locus of chaotic social and natural flows, exists in an increasingly entropic regime. Inexorable decline of order is the order of the day today, everyday, in the state of mind, state of be-ing that is Wendover. When the energy out-go exceeds the in-flow, Wendover will gradually return to the ground state of high-desert solitude. Perhaps Lake Bonneville will once again fill up, or the stresses of the extensional tectonics will cause a full spreading center to develop, and Wendover will be only a down-dropped graben flanked by plenty of volcanic activity.

Simple. Complex. Order. Disorder. Attention, focus, concentration.

Re-construction is continuing on the Enola Gay Hangar almost constantly. All the new windows are finally in, the wing areas seem to be in order with their new galvanized sheeting. A couple days ago, the last gaps in the sheeting on this end and the far roof have been put in place. So, what of the ravens and their constant efforts to build a nest (and hatch chicks perhaps?) somewhere inside? They are now gone. I felt a little ill when I saw that the construction crew was going at the remaining gaps in the sheeting, knowing it would cause a huge disturbance in the lives of the ravens. Okay, to be sure, they would likely not have been nesting here in the flats if the building had not been constructed here to begin with — humans had already caused a significant distortion in the flows of this place — life does that, always. I noticed for a couple days the ravens sitting on the roof, but no more of the flying back and forth by the window of the residency. This is a huge loss, and I wonder if anyone else has thought about this as an affect of the restoration process?

The choppers take off in formation at 09:00 to the west, towards the Toano Range. No decent audio of that as the H4-Zoom is completely worthless recording anything in the wind, a constant feature of life here in Wendover (Wind-over). Really a drag, so that no decent outdoor recordings can be made, period. I just can’t justify the USD 75.00 wind sock, although if the effort is being made to do all this recording to begin with, what’s the point having lousy equipment? Of course, there’s always a higher-end regarding tools. And access to various steps on that sliding scale of quality is largely determined by affiliation to various levels of participation in the techno-social system. Consumer, pro-sumer, employee of a national broadcasting service. And the level of use of archive material depends strongly on the relative quality of the equipment used in the recording process. ach. It comes back to the issue of controlling natural energy flows through technology. The more energy I can exert (read: deploying more expensive systems), the more order I can apply to the system. More signal, less noise.

Today, upon waking, there are two buses parked to the west of the hangar, a bit later, numerous SUV’s begin to pull up along with several official SWAT command vehicles and their teams from Winnemucca, Elko, and Wendover. It’s SWAT play. How to deal with a bus-load of terrorists/hostages or so. Several squads are lectured and engage in practice drills for the morning. I had originally been told by the airport management folks that there were going to be live-fire exercises at South Base, so we were surprised when this began to unfold in the back yard.

There is the fascination of playing Army, recalled from early days in the Maryland woods beyond the pond, beyond the corn fields, into unknown territories of abandoned farmhouses and hunting camps. Learning to make the sound of a gun and of explosions. And here, older boys, men, with very fancy toys, playing for their lives and the lives of their charges. Learning to stay alive, to save life. Learning to kill, or be killed. Learning to protect the innocent and kill the profane.

A few notes on techno-social systems:

In analyzing the affect of technology on a social system it is critical to see 1) who is determining the pathways of energy flow, 2) ultimately how individuals in the system interact with the pathway(s), 3) the resulting benefit and who receives it, 4) how benefit (energy) is accumulated by those controlling the protocols. Prior to this it is profitable to map the sources of energy that is being re-purposed (directed) by the techno-social system.

By tracing in detail 1) the relations of power, 2) the pathways where energy and power flow, 3) the sources and destinations of the flows, the entirety of human relation can be positioned at both a macro scale and a granular (that is, human-to-human) scale: understanding that all relation is permeated with the affects of the wider system.

Somehow, for a techno-social system to be successful, by definition, it has to capture some of the life-time/life-energy of participants in the system: that is a technology’s ultimate function in a social system. What is deterministic is the need for life to continue, and in this continuance, to refine pathways of energy flow to aid in that continuance via the collective techno-social system.

(Are there technologies which seek not to concentrate energy with a certain subset of individuals and increase their ultimate pro-creativity?) What about the struggle of certain individuals for a greater level of personal autonomy those who would seek to either not participate in prescribed flow pathways or would seek to alter those pathways to suit individual desires? The inertia of the techno-social affects the personal trajectories of adoption or imposition.

In a wide social system, technology is used as a means for concentrating energy for a subset of elites of the system. Participants are inculcated from birth with the idea that they are receiving more than they actually surrender to the social system.

Matt pushes off towards Salt Lake City for a flight back to LAX. I roll up sleeves, literally, and begin the task of altering yet another environment to conform to my needs and to optimize my time here. Cleaning is very necessary as I’m the first resident of the year — the center is normally closed from the end of November to the beginning of April. So, raising the level of order with the input of human life-energy and life-time. Scrubbing floors, wiping down shelves, polishing windows, moving furniture, vacuuming and wiping down everything (ceiling vents, floor, blinds, window sills, chairs, tables — everything has a coating of fine dust on it such that touching it leaves the hands dirty — opening all storage areas and inventorying everything, wiping down all devices, drawers, walls, surfaces). This will take days of sporadic effort, but today is completely used up, late into the night. Bringing things in from the truck, looking at the damage to the bike rim and roof rack, figuring out the food situation. Rearranging the kitchen and living spaces. Looking through the library to see what should be looked at more closely. And so on. Settling in for the duration.

2. Maintaining identity of product

a. Each field must be identified with a number or other designation on the field application form and other pertinent documents.
b. Maps showing field identities and locations must be maintained and furnished to crop inspectors.
c. Field inspected product must be positively identified at all times.
d. A bin or lot number must identify all bins.
e. If product is bagged, bags must be identified with a stenciled lot number or a tag securely fastened to the bag.

3. Record requirements

The following records must be maintained:

a. Field number
b. Amount of product harvested
c. Assigned bin number
d. Record of any product transfers
e. Assigned lot numbers
f. Copies of all completed agency documents

Today, mulling the difference between technological determinism (as a self-propagating system on its own immutable trajectory) and the reciprocal idea that human social systems selectively construct the systems of technology they ‘desire’ (subject to all the variability of the particular social system within which the technology is embedded). Then, within that selection process, thinking about the process of development and the general trend towards greater complexity. Do these processes ever trend generally to greater simplicity? Does desire ever, on a wide social scale, ever become directed to less material abundance? Is material security predicated with amassing more-than-sufficient material wealth? Or do society-wide technological systems collapse towards simplicity only in cases of ‘natural’ disaster.

[Complexity and simplicity are used here as general indicators of the depth and breadth of the techno-social system's process of provision and production that leads to services, situations, or products deemed necessary for participants. Metrics of complexity would include geographic proximity, ease of access, energy density, and the number of substantive steps required to produce a product or create a desired energy flow. The relative necessity of a product is highly subjective and varies widely between different systems. Necessity is a cultural construct. Complexity may be indicated by the number of discrete steps that can be described that a process passes through -- steps/degrees of flow alteration.]

When examining a production system, the primary question would have to be, “does this process end with a net gain of energy that can be utilized for the evolutionary advantage of the social system?” This question itself would suggest the inevitable rise of an elite subgroup when the wider population reaches certain environmental carrying thresholds — where that (evolutionarily optimal) subgroup is carried by the energy-providing activities of a wider group. But this is another issue to look at later.

The existence of (the) ‘natural disaster’ suggests that the state of a particular techno-social system may be seen essentially as the (ordered) organization of flows to keep back natural chaotic forces or to push those natural forces along certain (technologically-defined) pathways. Does this make the system merely at the affect of natural laws, and thus binding it into a materially deterministic framework? Nah, that ignores quantum, with its statistically indeterminate outcomes. Although obviously, any techno-social system is bound to thermodynamics and all other prescribed or yet unknown ‘natural laws.’

System collapse to simplicity is obviously a result of the ‘natural’ disaster precipitated by war (as an extension of human survival mechanisms?). War is the impingement of one techno-socially organized and directed expression of ordered energy onto another — with one set of system pathways disrupted to greater simplicity. Loss could be defined by the destruction of the internal structure for the directing of cumulative energy of participants in that social system. Winning is essentially acquiring access to the total (or partial) energy sources of the losing social system. This includes individuals, and all the pathways of energy flow that they have constructed — these are then directed, incorporated, into the winning system.

The whole deterministic model seems to focus on material interpretations — that is, metrics of ‘advance’ that will happen along an apparently calculable technological trajectory. Rather, as outlined here, there are conditions of technological advance and retreat that are framed by other factors which make the prediction of a trajectory highly inaccurate. The first being the level of complexity of the techno-social systems, the second, the efficiency of that system, and the third, the stability. All of these factors fluctuate over time and are deeply embedded in a milieu of human and, indeed, cosmological factors. The general trend, however, looking at the broad arc of the history of technology is to increasing complexity, variable-yet-generally-increasing control by social systems of a wider range of ‘natural’ energy flows. Is it deterministic to say that there will be an increase in complexity of any techno-social system unless interrupted by natural disaster? [Clearly, the complexity of a (the!) techno-social system is limited, as the energy basis for the system is not infinite: what does that imply?]

What motivates this evolution to increasing complexity? The short answer could be the drive to reproductive advantage — evolutionary motivations for life to not just continue, but continue with advantage over the competition. It is easy to see that the affect of this drive could be interpreted as having its own character and endless source of ‘forward’ motivation. But clearly the ultimate source for that is, again, the impelling force of life-systems to simply continue and continue with ever-greater complexity (creating an ever-widening ring of increasing entropy). So, the ‘explanation’ for technological change, as a social phenomena, ultimately rests, as do all social systems, on the fundamentals of living systems.

Vastly complex systems obscure the actual and perceived level of reproductive advantage — for example, while modern Western medical advances have increased overall abilities for successful propagation of the species, the wider technological system on which that (medical)sub-system depends generates substances (and situations) toxic to reproductive viability and life in general. One would then have to argue that the reproductive viability increase is for a limited number of the total population. Those remaining after the cull benefit from technologically augmented survival, while the biologically and energetically compromised remainder are ‘used up’ in supporting the few. The increase of complexity may be directly correlated to the larger absolute number of people, combined with the drive to absolutely optimize reproductive capabilities of those in the positions of power at the same time as the elimination of all actual or potential competing life-forces.

David Brooks, columnist at the New York Times writes in his commentary on New Years Day:

Many people seem to be in the middle of a religious crisis of faith. All the gods they believe in — technology, technocracy, centralized government control — have failed them in this instance.

I have always enjoyed his pragmatism and basic awareness of a wider historical context. It frames the American Way as (merely another) expression of a global continuum of human presence on the planet. And he seems largely to avoid the hybridized reli(geo)-political Destiny’s Child(ish) mentality that so pervades the fragmentary remnants of mediated public discourse in this declining nation-state.

I heartily agree with his explicit suggestion that an issue central to the balance between the individual and the State lies in the strength of faith in centralized authority, and the concomitant surrender of personal autonomy, obligation, and responsibility. The question of larger or smaller (more-or-less pervasive) government is embedded in the larger question of the presence and operation of all (centralizing) social structures — ones which are making inexorable advances in dominating the fabric of the techno-social structure of the country and the globe. As has always been the case, there is no monumental State or any other structure of social organization that can be everything to all people all the time forever. He is very correct to suggest that the great moral issue relates to the taking of personal responsibility — as an expression of autonomy from, not dependence on, any wider social system, (and I emphasize here, not only the State — it is only one particular label for social organization).

The purveyors of technology market their goods to the participants of various techno-social systems as a means to instill control and thus order on the chaotic and threatening world ‘out there.’ The marketing plan, now in its 2.500010 millionth year, promises that if you surrender some of your life-energy to us, we will guarantee that you will live longer. The explicit reward for purchasing is a few extra moments to procreate successfully. There is no mention whether this extra length of life is more or less than the time surrendered to the system — you have to calculate that yourself. The system is hierarchical with many (dis)functional) layers, with some surrendering more time, others using more or less time to manage that time surrendered by thousands. The point is — the same that Brooks makes — that the surrendering process, the giving away of personal responsibility in the process of confronting the Unknown, is where maturity fails. All the complex protocols of the advanced techno-social system that we participate in will not alter the fundamental characteristic of the cosmos: in archaic lingo things happen, have happed, are happing. And, as I remind students and others whenever I have the chance, technology fails.

Maturity comes from facing what is not yet known, learning from it, that and the presumed development of wisdom that experience brings over time. Learning is a process that arises in the embodied interaction of the Self with the unknown (or the Unknown — it is an elemental feature of the (human-sensed) cosmos). This interaction may exhibit different levels of maturity. A mature being, having experienced numerous encounters with different aspects of this Unknown will realize that this is how it goes — there is little or no chance that a new encounter will be any different — so, a degree of stoicism, with a calculated strategy to do what is individually possible would seem best. Immature encounters with that Unknown give rise to the anger of being affronted, snubbed, or even snuffed by the cosmos itself. The effrontery of the Unknown knows no limit. And when the Unknown is conjugated with the infinite, human anger is shown to be what it is, a destructive and ultimately pointless diversion of life itself.

Learning is also a shared process, or can be. Where the autonomous individual connects with those others around and compares notes. Collective experience does sometimes (conditionally) improve on individual experience. Completely ignoring the wisdom garnered from others makes for a very unstable existence, one that is counter to any organized social system. It may be fun, but it is risky and a bit mad.

(Back to one of the core questions) — why does technology fail? It fails because humans, those who form technology do not have access to infinite amounts of energy with which they might control all the rest of the chaotic energy of the cosmos. It takes energy to impose order on chaotic flows. No matter the height of energy-tapping techno-hubris, there is always a bigger flow of energy out there, waiting to obliterate the set of carefully organized protocols of power of puny humans. Things happen, have happed, are happing. All the time. At all scales, every where. Statistics are for reductive hindsight rumination, not prediction, as prediction is merely part of that marketing strategy. Buy into this now and you will gain a procreative edge. Your technology will not fail. But keep in mind, things happen, have happed, are happing. Of course, more things will happen when there is more autonomy. Hmmm. This is the problem.

And anyway, is death really vanquished when it temporarily disappears from the artifice of this ultimately short-term effort to control the cosmos? Of course, length of life is correlated with improved ability to ensure that life goes on into a future: that basal of all paybacks, continuance. But is there a correlation between clock-timed length of life and quality?

He had a good life.
or
He had a long life.
or
He had a bad life.
or
He had a short life.

or a combination of the above…

We face a choice in every moment where to place our individual and collective lives on a sliding scale between a dulling surrender to the creations of human artifice as brought about at some level in any social structures and the high-intensity madness of pure autonomy.

Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. … the past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the “crash” that many fear — a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the “soft landing” that many people hope for — a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a Utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. — Joseph A. Tainter

There is much to explore in the ideas around organizational complexity/simplicity correlated with high/low energy requirements for a system — essentially basic thermodynamics (it always comes down to this). If the wider (widest) scale of human systems could scale social complexity down, the energy requirements would experience a correlative drop. But this is a very substantial IF. And it would mean that the energy reach of the average individual would consequently contract. And human natures seem to preclude any sacrifice of control that is part of the order need. China fancies itself victorious, clambering over other nations to arrive soon at the top of the influential complexity heap, but it will soon discover that the price for this status is, literally, high. And it too, as a complex system, will gradually implode again. Though likely not after extracting, demanding, a high flow, or tribute, as the US is now doing, from the global system. That flow comprising the over consumption and thus concentration of widely distributed materials which now, in their post-use state leave the globe energetically worse off. In the end this is not an issue of nation-state guilt, it is simply the evolutionary state of the tool-wielding bipedal mammalian species. The (over-consuming) developed world crosses many demographic and geographic borders, while likewise the under-consumers are widely distributed.

The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet’s energy balance. -– David Price

A few minor references to energy and socio-cultural systems.

This view is simple, but outlines the fundamental situation. Research in thermodynamics (Prigogine, etc) has looked at the actual counter-intuitive problem of living systems countering thermodynamics. It may come back to the mystical view of Simone Weil:

Two forces rule the universe, light and gravity.

with gravity driving the coalescing of matter, the concentration of energy, or fluctuating densities (or simply fluctuation) of the cosmos. And Light, well, what may or may not be said about Light.

Energy and Economic Myths, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Elsevier Science & Technology, 1977. ISBN 0080210562

Georgescu-Roegen critiques the mechanistic basis for much economic theory (which predominantly focuses on the movement of goods — a state which, thermodynamically, appears as a reversible process — and one which leads, at least conceptually if not in fact to the infinite cycle from production to consumption). It would appear that our current situation is the result of that infinite cycle occurring in a locally finite system.

this book leads to:

More heat than light : economics as social physics, physics as nature’s economics, Mirowski, Philip, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN: 0521350425 (hardback)

and the reflection from Borges:

It is useless to answer that reality is also orderly. Perhaps it is, but in accordance with divine laws – I translate: inhuman laws – which we never quite grasp. Tlön is surely a labyrinth, but it is a labyrinth devised by men, a labyrinth destined to be deciphered by men.

and in the introduction some good inspiration coming from Mirowski in his struggle to bridge between physics and economics. understanding that economics is an important dimensional descriptor of the techno-social system is a nice advance. although the number of economists who have made this connection are few, and the bulk of the discipline are still mired in juggling abstractions. he extends his argument, marking the parallel between the terms value in economics and energy in physics. and later, to developing the concept of energy as critical to understanding economics. this is a good find indeed! and it might end up, indeed, studying the principles of conservation too much and I end up a conservative. (no chance of that, as no one ends up as anything but energy anyway…)

on pages 56-57 there is a symmetric coffee-colored ring, a primitive of a Rorschach test, and on 58-59, some bits of roll-your-own tobacco. the last record of being checked out was 1998. more than a decade ago.

to the indeterminacy of human tendencies towards abstraction:

In describing his ideas on electromagnetic fields,

The substance here treated must not be assumed to possess any of the properties of ordinary fluids except those of freedom of movement and resistance to compression. It is not even a hypothetical fluid which is introduced to explain actual phenomena. It is merely a collection of imaginary properties which may be employed for establishing certain theorems in pure mathematics in a way more intelligible for many minds … I wish merely to direct the mind of the reader to mechanical phenomena which will assist him in understanding the electrical ones. All such phrases in the present paper are to be considered as illustrative, not explanatory. In speaking of the Energy of the field, however, I wish to be understood literally. — James Clerk Maxwell