TOP Quarterly Update #12: 05 April 2014

Dear Member,

A new year: time for a new broom. My resolution was to provide an easier experience for users, especially new visitors. So I have spent most of my time since the last update re-jigging and revising the About pages, and moving topics there from the Hub. Also, Tom has produced an excellent new video for the Homepage-much better than the previous one.

I was surprised just how many small but important changes were needed due to developments over the past 3 years. As I explained in my last update, I also wanted those introductory pages to harmonize more in layout and spirit with the Satellites of the main Taxonomy Project.

Framework Postings

Since the last report in October, posting has focused on Levels of Work-Responsibility. Almost all the Frameworks are now available:

There is just one more Framework to go: Participative Dynamics. These determine the atmosphere at work by creating socio-emotional states.

If management is your area of interest, I encourage you to get your mind around the difference between Frameworks for doing work (from Action-PH1) essential for achievement, and Frameworks for carrying responsibility for results (from Communication-PH5) essential for associating to do work in organizations.

There are a lot of possibilities for new Framework postings-and I am very keen on some just now, e.g. new economy businesses, and Inquiry-PH2. However, the review described above has led me to think that revisions are a higher priority for the website.

Revising the Satellites

Many Frameworks, especially those posted in 2011,now seem slightly inconsistent and not updated with the latest understanding. There is also insufficient integration.

Here is an example of what I mean by updating. As a result of my investigations into Principal Typologies in the Architecture Room, I now have a better understanding of governance as a human need, and politics as an intrinsic feature of any social group. That research took a more fundamental approach than the work performed in the Satellite. I realize that the recent work gives me the formal underpinning for Frameworks dealing with government of a nation-state and politics in society. Those were an exemplification (or perhaps even an application). But without using that example of national politics with which we are all so familiar, and where so much thinking has been directed, I don't think my inquiry would have got traction or been credible.

Re-writing of Politics is not needed. But as I now have a better feel for the subject, the introduction definitely needs changing, and some explanations and formulations will need to be adjusted. Meanwhile, I have briefly (too briefly you will surely think) written up the more fundamental Framework here.

The need for revision also relates to your "Reader Survey" requests. With the increased numbers of Satellites, I need to improve links and navigation. I must also attempt to repair poorly drafted bits, add summaries of various sorts, and ensure a more consistent style.

Scientific Progress

What did you think of my idea that we all constantly experience certain psychosocial pressures? Speaking for myself, I certainly feel a pressure of time, more so as I get older. Then there is an incessant pressure to be confident (e.g. that this newsletter is satisfactory). Though I fight it, I do feel a pressure for acceptability-for my outputs and conduct. I long ago realized, without pleasure, that the pressure for well-being often took second place to other pressures like that for understanding and for autonomy. Finally, a pressure for selflessness seems to be there, also enabling or disrupting well-being. Are there any others?I don't know. However, as these align with Root Levels, there shouldn't be!

The psychosocial pressures have theoretical and practical implications in the Taxonomy. For example, they give a deeper meaning to the Tree structure and the Root Projections. I won't attempt to explain it here. However, to help myself, I created a special page that summarizes the scientific progress to this point: you can visit it here.

This line of thinking led me to focus on the context of human endeavour, which means the context of the Taxonomy as a whole. I found that I needed to postulate the existence of 7 Primal Needs that we have as human beings. Needs are incessant things that are part of survival, unlike wishes. I'm hypothesizing that the psychosocial pressures described above exist in part because of those needs.

Each Primal Need aligns with a Root Level. Our need for Achievement depends on Action-RL1. Our need for Knowing depends on Inquiry-RL2. Our need for Discrimination depends on Change-RL3 (probably not so obvious!). Our need for Individuality depends on Experience-RL4. Our need for Association with others depends on Communication-RL5. Our need for Governance depends on Purpose/Value-RL6. Our need for Professionalism depends on Willingness-RL7.

It turns out that the Spirals of Growth provide, in each case, a psychosocial mechanism for handling those Primal Needs: I now call these the Primal Means. In working on that, I found that transcendence and actualization interact in the maturation of each Means in a way that generates the Root Hierarchy order. It was nice to get this confirmation and clarification.

A summary of the Primal Needs and Means placed in the context of evolutionary pressures can be found here.

This investigation provided a new approach to "reality" and claims of "truth". As you know from my blogs, I have often puzzled about this in the past. I am unequipped and uninterested to provide any philosophic answer, but I did expect to provide a taxonomic answer. Here is the link for those interested in this sort of thing: but the ideas are still a work in progress.

This work has permitted me to go back to review and revise the emergent hierarchies. You will recall that these Frameworks were derived from forcibly reversing oscillating dualities, and understood in terms of 7 Life Necessities. I now call these Life Challenges to avoid confusion with the Primal Needs. The Frameworks here define mental states needed to overcome severe setbacks in those challenges. It turns out that these appear to have a direct correspondence with the 7 Primal Needs. But if you check it out, you will see that it is not a 1 : 1 arrangement. The Primal Needs and necessary Psychosocial Pressures do not align at all. Am I irritated that it is not simple and neat? Not at all. Just puzzled. Either I have made a mistake somewhere, or some new amazing finding is staring me in the face.

Blogs

I returned to the blogosphere with a few items that caught my interest but are insufficiently developed for posting.

The first was a result of my mulling over the name of the Taxonomy. Every element in it is able to come into conscious awareness, but it can exist outside of consciousness too. So I wondered if consciousness might itself exist to enable complex endeavours. Perhaps I should call THEE: TEEC i.e. Taxonomy of Endeavour Elements in Consciousness. Read the blog and see for yourself:

Studying Subjectivity Scientifically: the Hard Problem Solved?

Then I am perennially preoccupied about how psychosocial reality is different. If something is definitely present in that world, then I tend to presume that it cannot be in the reality out there in which we are embedded. So what about time? It is one of my psychosocial pressures, and so perhaps that is all it is. I did a little reading and made a few notes, and it ended up as this blog:

Time: Physical Property or a Trick of the Imagination?

Finally, going back to politics got me thinking about power and why it has to be so problematic for us all. It seemed that there is a way forward here linked to my more recent researches. So I put down a few thoughts:

Corrupt Power Uses Deception: Could this be its Weakness?

That's it for now.

Take care,

Warren