AKMA’s Random Thoughts

There is authority over (power) and the authority of specialized knowledge (professional authority) and the authority of experience. My daugher's pediatrician tells me it is better to take ADD medication 7 days a week but our experience is that my daughter doesn't have any problem with going off it for a couple of days and doing so allows her to catch up on her eating (the medication takes away her appetite and she was losing too much weight). I am very thankful for a pediatrician who will accept that the authority of experience trumps professional authority (because professional authority talks about what happens on average and doesn't necessarily fit any one individual) and who doesn't have oldfashioned power ideas about how people should do what their doctors say.

Posted by: Pem at October 30, 2002 07:55 AM

There is authority over (power) and the authority of specialized knowledge (professional authority) and the authority of experience. My daugher's pediatrician tells me it is better to take ADD medication 7 days a week but our experience is that my daughter doesn't have any problem with going off it for a couple of days and doing so allows her to catch up on her eating (the medication takes away her appetite and she was losing too much weight). I am very thankful for a pediatrician who will accept that the authority of experience trumps professional authority (because professional authority talks about what happens on average and doesn't necessarily fit any one individual) and who doesn't have oldfashioned power ideas about how people should do what their doctors say.

Posted by: Pem at October 30, 2002 07:57 AM

First, a blogger's "disclaimer" - I'm grateful for the attention!

Second, I'm so pleased you have comments! If for no other reason than I can respond to you while I'm away from my Mac.

With regard to your first intervention: This is hard, so bear with me. Corporate entities ("social organisms") do amount to more than the sum of their parts, no question about it. And they do have a "heart," but it's not the same kind of "heart" you and I might have. Obviously, we're not speaking of the physical organ here. I think we're speaking of belief systems, a set of organizing principles that govern the behavior of the organism.

In my case and yours, our principles are (hopefully?) embraced by each of us because we believe they have some value, some utility, in affording our lives greater "meaning." (I'm struggling here because these are somewhat mushy, metaphysical issues.) Social organisms have belief systems as well, but they do not serve the same purpose since a social organism ("corporate entity") lacks what I think you and I might call a "soul."

Rather, the purpose of belief systems for social organisms is akin to the purpose of DNA for bacteria. This is probably a poor analogy, but bear with me. I believe I've read that we've learned that bacteria can "share" genetic material (not through reproduction, but through contact). That is, some bacteria can pass along useful genes to other bacteria. (Maybe they pass along useless genes as well, but the adverse ones die off, so we only notice the ones that afford a survival advantage. But this isn't about biology.)

Here's an example, maybe I'm out to lunch: In my belief system, there was a belief (gene) that America would never be a nation to first declare war on another nation. Now, we have certain "authorities" in place, who are trying to inactivate that belief (gene) and put in place a new belief (gene) that America is a nation that will first declare war on another nation.

The corporate entity (social organism) that is America has no soul. It is merely another social organism in a world inhabited by many such entities, and competing with them. In the past, we've out-competed all of them, by most of the things we measure as indicators of success. Now, the social organism perceives a new form of competitor and it's trying to adapt.

This is neither good nor bad, it's just the way social organisms behave. Trying to say it's bad is like trying to say bear behavior is bad. It can have unfortunate consequences when the bear behavior involves killing a human, but mostly bears are just being bears. (I'm flashing on Bruce Willis as David Addison in Moonlighting: "Do bears bear? Do bees be?")

So, yes, they do have "hearts," but they lack intrinsic value in and of themselves and are only retained or expressed as they appear to offer a survival advantage in competing with other social organisms.

Where the danger lies is in this matter of a society losing its moorings. I also have a belief that America is not a nation that embrace torture, yet we have "authorities" trying to inactivate that gene and put in place a new one that says it's okay some of the time.

Yes, I know that America and Americans have exhibited behaviors contrary to each of those beliefs in the past. That does not negate the argument, as the gentleman who offered the criticism of Mr. Dershowitz pointed out. By making torture an acceptable practice some of the time, we expand the scope of its practice all of the time, that is, the number of "inappropriate" uses of the practice will increase greatly because whatever inhibiting effect the belief that torture was always wrong had will be lifted.

So, if a society is not to lose its moorings and have things like the Holocaust be repeated, then it is up to individuals to adhere to their principles. That's why it matters what you believe.

With regard to the second intervention, I have little quarrel with you. I believe in authority, but I also believe that people need to assert authority over themselves first, and too often we have been distracted and deceived from discovering our own authority. There is a reason why so many things compete for our attention, in part because that is how they manage to gain access to our beliefs and attempt to manipulate them, and in part because it keeps us from discovering our own authority over ourselves.

I've examined before the confusion regarding "power" and "authority," and that's still a tremendous obstacle to affecting change, and it's no surprise that nearly all social organisms work very hard to maintain that confusion.

Thank you for allowing me to use your forum here to amplify and clarify my comments (if that is what I have achieved). I'm frustrated because I sense this is a critical time, that important changes are underway, and I don't like the way they are going. Everything we need to know to stop this is before us, we understand the principles, but like Archimedes, I'm searching for a lever and a fulcrum to move the world, and I'm not sure it is to be found.

Except insofar as I may suggest to everyone that the place to find them is in each, his or her own heart, and that it is in their interest to do so.

Posted by: Dave Rogers at October 30, 2002 08:43 AM

Dave Rogers speaks my mind. I would only add that corporate "persons" are driven by enumerable assets and liabilities on balance sheets and the bottom lines on income statements. The real persons who work for these corporations may have a wonderful sense of pride and identity coming out of their association with the corporation. If the corporation falls on hard times, the employees may have a chance to buy it from the stockholders. But only if they are the high bidder.

I have reasons that I don't like to use personal pronouns for business entities and would like to influence others not to use them. The reasons include the fact that I think it is important to maintain the distinction between people and the organizations people create. This is founded on my understanding that international corporations too often use comparative advantage to exploit unfairly the resources of people (their land, their labor) in impoverished circumstances. The wealth that accrues goes into the corporate coffers, flowing out of the community. The World bank and the IMF, which in theory should be helping us all (note I use "which," not "who") are too often driven by those self-same balance sheet considerations. This is what has given rise to a world-wide movement seeking the dismantling or disempowerment of these institutions... the corporations and their lenders. When the young people take to the streets chanting "This is what democracy looks like," they are not talking about some corporate business formation papers and the tight-asses who filed them. Rather they are talking about themselves, the people in the street who should have a strong voice in decisions that affect their communities. There is no question in my mind that there is huge distinction between share-holders and citizens. Let's keep it that way.

Posted by: Frank at October 30, 2002 12:40 PM

Bit of a ramble coming - brace yourselves!

I'd be interested to know your views on authority as a Christian akma. Forgive my ignorance on the matter but I have always seen the difference between eastern and western religions as being mostly around internal or external authority. In other words in the east we are seen as part of an indivisible whole with each of us responding in ways that are true to ourselves and driven by our inner sense of truth and right and wrong. This builds up like a hologram into the collective intelligence of the world as a whole. The west has tended to see us as separate from each other and our environment with our actions controlled by a set of rules or principles emanating from a god figure who is outside of ourselves and assumes a patriarchal or kingly character.

I do believe that corporations can behave in human ways but that they have no existence other than in the minds of those involved in them. They are no-thing, they are patterns of behaviour, themes of conversations, and combined aspirtations of the people who turn up and take part in them - nothing more.

It is interesting that the word corporation has the same root, corpus as the body. I have always found biological analogies for organisations more useful than mechanical ones. If every participant in an organisation has, through patterns of influence or conversations, a clear idea of their role in relation to other participants, then they are like a cell with its DNA. If they are energetic and clear about how they fit in and relate to other cells in a similar state then you get a healthy body with the communication equivalents of veigns and arteries, hearts and lungs etc.

I'm not sure I understand why the addition of business into the equation of an organisation makes such a difference - to me the organisation is still a sum of its conversations, its just that the ones about money are possibly clearer.

If you are talking about the individual motivations of people who are drawn to organisations whose primary aim is to make money, especially if their means of doing so is unethical or in any way hard to justify, that's, to me, still the same thing. It is down to their individual world views as expressed through their actions and their conversations.

Organisations only end up the way they do because enough people, somewhere, have said they should. Not using your voice and simply going with the flow is how we end up in the position where we think the organisation has a life of its own. It doesn't - that's an excuse.

Posted by: Euan at October 31, 2002 08:24 AM

I disagree with you on two points Euan. First, "I do believe that corporations can behave in human ways but that they have no existence other than in the minds of those involved in them. They are no-thing, they are patterns of behaviour, themes of conversations, and combined aspirtations of the people who turn up and take part in them - nothing more."

If by "no existence" you mean they are not living organisms, then I think you're wrong. Individual ants are interesting, but it is the ant colony that functions as the mechanism by which the species is preserved. Humans are vastly more complex than ants, but we have evolved to associate and act most effectively in groups, not individually. Although individuals do have roles in the creation of ideas and new beliefs, it is the group that implements those ideas and makes them manifest in some meaningful way.

Second, "Organisations only end up the way they do because enough people, somewhere, have said they should. Not using your voice and simply going with the flow is how we end up in the position where we think the organisation has a life of its own. It doesn't - that's an excuse."

I think you're wrong here. In many organizations, no one has to "say" anyone should do anything. Behaviors just emerge. This is one of the sort of counter-intuitive ideas that springs from complexity theory and emergent behavior (and here I'm speaking both of group and individual behavior). Some parts of our behaviors are wired into our genes and don't get examined very carefully by introspection. Some parts are built into our beliefs and expectations, which are, again, seldom examined in any meaningful way. This, to my thinking, accounts for the behavior of the people in the Stanford Prisoner Experiment, and the bahavior of ordinary Germans who went along with the most despicable parts of Hitler's program.

We are evolutionarily biased to go along with the group, and in groups, we are especially adept at ensuring we reinforce that behavior and keeping everyone in line.

Social organisms are learning organisms. They may not have consciousness as you and I would call it, and therefore I believe they lack something I call a "soul," but they assuredly learn and use the knowledge they acquire to manipulate individuals to behave in ways that work to the organism's advantage, often to the disadvantage of the individual. (Tobacco companies, credit card companies, the gambling industry, fast food industries, junk food industries are pretty obvious examples.)

Because we are social creatures, and the complex societies we have created rely on social cohesion to function, we will never be rid of social organisms. But I think, as individuals, we can become aware of their existence and their behaviors and we can begin to tease apart where our behavior as individuals serves our needs and works to our advantage, and where it may serve the needs of the social organism to our own disadvantage. We can learn how principle can be incorporated into our own behavior more consistently, and thereby modify the behavior of the social organisms we are members of. But to suggest these entities are merely figments of our imagination works to their advantage. "Pay no attention to that man!" (Wizard of Oz reference.)

If we don't believe they exist, we must not be manipulated by them, no? I am an individual! The master of my fate! The Captain of my soul! I have a mortgage, two credit cards, an SUV, drink diet soft-drinks and vote the Republican (Democrat, insert your party here) ticket because I am a free-thinking individual! That's an illusion all social organisms want to maintain.

Why are we seeing so many corporate accounting scandals? Do the financial officers of these companies see themselves as felons? Do they see themselves as men of no principle? I submit they do not. I believe they see themselves as upright members of society and that they only do what "everyone else" does. They don't critically examine their actions in the context of what is "right" or "wrong," and if they examine them at all, I suspect it was seldom very closely or for very long.

Is America a country that would ever declare war on another nation first? Let alone a much smaller nation? Well, it seems we're about to find out, to at least my surprise, that it is. And it seems most folks are going to feel damn good about it too. Because "authorities" tell them they can, and we're disinclined to look too closely at those things. We're disinclined by the nature of our genes, by the nature of our beliefs and expectations, and by the countless distractions thrown in our face every minute of every day to keep us from really thinking for one minute for ourselves.

At least, that's the way it looks to me.

Posted by: dave rogers at November 5, 2002 03:07 PM

I disagree that we disagree David!

[One]I said:"they are patterns of behaviour, themes of conversations, and combined aspirations of the people who turn up and take part in them"

You said: "we have evolved to associate and act most effectively in groups, not individually... it is the group that implements those ideas and makes them manifest in some meaningful way."

I reckon both of those are much the same thing. I didn't mean that organisations didn't exist but that they are like living organisms made of up active, interactive cells rather than a superstructure or org. chart which has some abstract existence.

[Two] Again we agree I just used speech instead of behavior and yes I agree actions speak louder than words.

You, rather partonisingly said "But to suggest these entities are merely figments of our imagination works to their advantage. "Pay no attention to that man!" (Wizard of Oz reference.)" I didn't suggest for a moment that organisations are figments of our imaginations. Thankfully, here in Europe, our inbuilt scpticism protects us from some of the blinder assumptions you appear to be referring to in your reference to corporate America and American global politics.

Posted by: Euan at November 6, 2002 03:08 PM

Earlier I mentioned that variables can live in two different places. We're going to examine these two places one at a time, and we're going to start on the more familiar ground, which is called the Stack. Understanding the stack helps us understand the way programs run, and also helps us understand scope a little better.

Posted by: Cesar at January 13, 2004 01:32 AM

When a variable is finished with it's work, it does not go into retirement, and it is never mentioned again. Variables simply cease to exist, and the thirty-two bits of data that they held is released, so that some other variable may later use them.

Posted by: Elias at January 13, 2004 01:32 AM

This variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.

Posted by: Helegor at January 13, 2004 01:32 AM

Being able to understand that basic idea opens up a vast amount of power that can be used and abused, and we're going to look at a few of the better ways to deal with it in this article.

Posted by: Susanna at January 13, 2004 08:38 AM

These secret identities serve a variety of purposes, and they help us to understand how variables work. In this lesson, we'll be writing a little less code than we've done in previous articles, but we'll be taking a detailed look at how variables live and work.

Posted by: Thomas at January 13, 2004 08:39 AM

These secret identities serve a variety of purposes, and they help us to understand how variables work. In this lesson, we'll be writing a little less code than we've done in previous articles, but we'll be taking a detailed look at how variables live and work.

Posted by: Jasper at January 13, 2004 08:39 AM