Patterns

Reposting an excerpt from a previous post because I think it deserves to be seen on its own:

All of existence is a collection of patterns and it follows that the world is had through a well-developed pattern language. Patterns are even more fundamental than mathematics, which is simply an abstract articulation of approximations of them. Patterns, to be momentarily tautological, are simply arrangements of things (for lack of a better term; "things" here denotes every delimitable component of every dimension and scale of existence). Patterns are always being naturally selected for; natural selection is thorough, universal, acting on every arrangement within every layer of existence*. For example, ideas - something which some would say do not exist physically - are arrangements of concepts (or arrangements of chemical transmissions (or quantum events)) and thus patterns and these patterns, as all, are constantly being naturally selected for. For example, an idea may be extremely successful in the short-run, which is to say that it is very fecund, prevalent in the short-run, and we may then - our perspectives being naturally immediate - say that it is of high quality. But that pattern, that idea, may eventually result in the total destruction of the only environment in which it is adapted to subsist, the Earth via human neurology, in which case it would be a very unsuccessful pattern, a pattern of very low quality (you could say that human neurology is a type of ecosystem in which ideas are able to thrive; they reconstruct themselves by mingling with other ideas from other ecosystems (thus exchanging "memes" and selecting for the "best" through "corridors", i.e. means of communication)). We arrive, then, at a methodology for parsing out existence and evaluating the quality of individual patterns found therein. This methodology - and it is correct - tells us that the idea that we ought to consume wholesale our environment - our sustaining patterns - is not a pattern of very high quality. Both in physical and aesthetic (aphysical) terms, because it precludes a respectful relationship with the larger patterns, therefore fostering a dysfunctional perspective on living/pattern-making.

(And we also arrive at a potential theory of "God").

I would say that a pattern of high quality is constantly advocating for its own existence and especially the existence of the larger patterns in which it is necessarily nested. As well it is living, which is to say responsive, which is to say charming, which is being both outwardly perceptive and inwardly inviting, which is to say open - for the greater patterns in which all "lesser" patterns necessarily subsist as well the smaller patterns of which all "greater" patterns consist are themselves always changing. We arrive at a moral framework: the most beautiful pattern is always the best and what is most beautiful in any given circumstance is never precisely the same as any other (which is to either suggest to redefine "beauty" or to clarify the generally implied meaning: beauty is patterning of ultimately good quality). 

Morality is a consideration of aesthetic patterns. The optimal moral decision in any moment is that which would render the best - that is, most ultimately successful - pattern over all moments which are ever to transpire. Since we cannot of any moment project all others, the pattern must be alive, adaptive. And since moral decisions for humans are typically expressed as stories, narratives, we might say that the best moral decision in any moment is the one that would make for the most ultimately beautiful, fundamentally affirming story. The most authentically invigorating. 

Toward architecture: think of materials, concrete for example. Concrete only degrades as it ages. It is dead, it is meant to not change which is then to say that it only ever responds to its environment - when it does, which is rarely - in a way which compromises its own integrity which is to say that concrete is a pattern which requires the constant application of energy for its own existence. Now, maintenance is not necessarily a detrimental requirement (this is where I will lead to my justification of the term "beauty" [see: excerpt on Mayan ritualism from a previous post]). But the energy application that concrete requires, for example, is specific to an extremely rare percentile of a specific species which does not enjoy that particular application of energy required. Modern buildings (generally) only degrade with age - they are at their highest quality when they are new - and yet they do not invite maintenance both because the specific requirements are not easily parsed from their form and because the specific maintenance they require is not pleasant or illuminating for those patterns, us, required to apply it. Which is to say that modern buildings are inherently dysfunctional but, even worse, they offend the patterns upon which their existence depends. This, for some, has already been proven. For the rest, it shall be in time. Contrast, for example, the unmortared stone-foundations of Central and South America: their integrity is actually improved by the action of earthquakes.  

I would also argue that modern architecture hides from us both the existence of and the need to engage complexity, thus disposing us to stories which lack the necessary complexity or openness to assimilate themselves into the greater world and thus to be of lasting quality.

Now, as a violin apprentice, I would like to use the example of violins. I believe that violins are a particularly successful pattern because they invite and exalt the patterns upon which they depend. For example, a quality violin is built to be easily taken apart (with hide-glue) and thus maintained, it is also built with material that is alive, responsive, and is said to not only get more aesthetically pleasing as it ages and is acted upon, but to also get more acoustically pleasing. We could say that a violin is a very successful symbiote (organism [lungism]) that depends for its existence upon the manipulation of human emotions and the affirmation of human intellect - it mimics the human form, proportions, the human voice, particularly its most expressive moments; it is saturated with living patterns of parseable intent (wood grain) in which we have been steeped for all of our biological history and which bring us pleasure to rationalize and mentally order; it is a form which is generally sensually pleasant to construct and deconstruct; and it is a form which allows certain inclined persons to use as a tool to gain control and power themselves (by captivating an audience [how illuminating!]) by offering pleasure, not painful force, to an audience. It is also a form of great scientific refinement which is sympathetic and properly responsive to the greater physical patterns of gravity, mass, pressure, etc., in which it is required to subsist. Even at its beginning, Galileo was compelled to comment on the exquisite quality of its pattern and now we have violins upwards of 3 centuries old which yet well exist and as a good representations of themselves and which we divert enormous resources, emotional and physical, toward the maintenance of - when it is not even necessary! If violins did/do require the destruction of the environment upon which their creators and thus they themselves depend, they will/would ultimately prove to be a pattern lacking in quality, evidenced by the snuffing out of their own propagation. But trial and error is not necessary with a thoroughly developed pattern language.

Now to expand upon a previous point: Beauty is a state of being which advocates for the maintenance of existence - beauty exalts existence and thus advocates for the only material in which beauty is to subsist, existence, and thus advocates for the only pattern which can render/transmit beauty, life. 

We also arrive at a more fundamental condition for fulfillment - it is not freedom. Freedom is not achievable, proven by our necessary subsistence in greater patterns. Do we desire to be gravitationally independent? What we truly seek is to be as ultimately precious as possible. 

A word on experience:

Experience is essentially the data our brain collects, via our set of senses, in order to figure out the patterned-tendencies of the world so that it may pursue a refinement of quality of response. The more experience one has, the more data, and the higher the complexity, the more representative the quality, the more likely any given response is going to be effective. The human brain is hardwired to act on experiences. Thus, experience is important for one's growth and any act that goes against one's experience (and instinctual predispositions which have proven to be so generally appropriate that it was apparently a good adaptation to have them genetically encoded; a curiosity: epigenetics) shall result in an internal schism, anxiety. It also follows that if any system wishes to co-opt people's decision-making, it will co-opt their experiences; see: public school, film/TV, modern architecture, western civilization, et al...

Rest assured, there are greater patterns in which we all reside and they tirelessly measure right from wrong - like your immune system, like gravity. And, as a pattern which likewise encloses others, it is your duty to do the same. And our ultimate beauty, our ultimate victory - if we reach it - will be in doing what the cells of which we consist cannot: being not only true to one's nature, but further in understanding and articulating, and perhaps even crafting, toward what more exquisite end.

*Natural selection justified/explained:

Writing of any importance often feels like the terrifying task of defusing a minefield. Such phrases as "natural selection" unavoidably evoke in readers some combination of unpredictable and necessarily subjective  - sometimes explosive - associations with the rhetorical flotsam of the overwhelming historical wreckage that we have all been forced to wade through. It is the frustration of writers to have the in-between lines remain unwritten in the reader's mind, leaving room for the infuriatingly premature, often reactive, scribblings of their  own prejudices. So here is my intent, clarified: natural selection, as I mean it, is axiomatic. It is the basic law which tells us that things (not exclusively biological) which persist, persist; things which either are in themselves able to survive for long periods of time or are somehow adept at reproducing themselves are "naturally selected for". It seems tautological and self-evident to say that "things which sustain themselves sustain themselves" but we have inferred pathetically little with the idea. And neither have we focused it on the more fundamental processes of the universe or extrapolated it to the moral predicament of humankind. Such is the problem with history, myth; we have a couple of characters: Darwin, Dawkins. Their parts are played through, the script read, and the curtains drop on our own critical thought. The ideas presented are mere dialogue which is to be recited only by them, in this way, we feel. And such is the problem with elevating our geniuses, with defining ourselves by -isms (Darwinism, etc.). They are all fallible. Their work is always unfinished. We are they. They are us. And so have I set my sights.

But life is indeed drama, as Jose Ortega y Gasset so eloquently demonstrated in my last post. And we must be careful to not spend much time distracted by the desperate theatrics of the massive, phantasmagoric beast we call History. We are discrete, though submerged and mediated, moments of existence and the great privilege, the necessary salvation, of the universe is to have this drama renew itself with such persistent grace. So the focus should always be on one's own drama - not to imply that it would be small, isolated. Rather to imply that we have been overtaken by a pernicious pattern and have become identical with it, that we articulate intent without seeing that it is not our own. And neither, does it seem to me, is it The Universe's. So we have been given a drama as tremendous as creation itself. Dive in. Find your role by learning yourself and your setting. Say "okay, I'll be a part of this world". Put your soul at hazard. 

The secret is that, though you will find yourself turning away from the teleprompter, you will not be sacrificing a thing. In fact, you sacrifice more by not making the choice. And, the even more secret secret is that it's a hell of a lot of fun. This is an exciting time to be alive. Shit, I suspect they all are.

Alas, McCarthy comes to mind, strangely:

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. 

The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.

...

What is my trade?

War. War is your trade. Is it not?

And it aint yours?

Mine too. Very much so.

What about all them notebooks and bones and stuff?

All other trades are contained in that of war.

Is that why war endures?

No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not.

That's your notion.

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principles and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.

Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to this moment which will tell if he is to die at that man's hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man's worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hands is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.

Substitute drama for war or war for drama and you see that at the core of existence is an insatiable, and thankfully so, aesthetic longing.