And the potency of truth as strategy.

• The ability to share and grasp truthful understandings of reality is an evolved product of group behavior. It is one component of the “belief” strategy, another being “false belief”.

It represents a manifestation of the generalized adaptive feedback loop, since the arising of some form of understanding within one mind, and successful strategies of relatedness which it enables, represent environmental fluctuation and adaptive response stimulus from the perspective of other “selves”.

As with everything, there is a system of relatedness between older systems of belief (as far back as the ‘belief strategy” extends), and current systems of thought including the grasping of what is currently thought of as truthful.

Truthful understandings are an enormously powerful adaptive method at least among humans for relating to the fluctuations of reality since:

They enable some of the flow of physical reality (including the body and it’s tools) to be redirected along predictable deterministic patterns of relationship chosen by mind and:

They provide the understanding that the effects of such manipulation cannot be prevented from interacting fully with the rest of reality of which they are simultaneously an aspect and that:

Such unintended interactions may embody as fluctuations in the environment of the organism / mind which performed the original redirection, and that these environmental fluctuations may in fact be to it’s life support system. In addition:

Some of these adverse environmental fluctuations would embody as the responses of other organisms.

This enables the grasping of a further truthful understanding which is as follows:

The abilities of mind have developed as a way of creating safety between the aspects of physical reality with which the mind identifies and everything else, and it may or may not be theoretically possible for the entirety of physical reality to function according to patterns which do not conflict with such will of mind however:

Since mind directed movement of “self” is also movement of “environment” to another mind, the extent to which one mind sees “itself” and “it’s interests” as separate from another and directs it’s interactions with reality accordingly, is also an extent to which conflicted environmental fluctuation must continue to emerge from the point of view of different minds and remain non resolvable.

Any truthful understandings regarding equilibrium between aspects of reality are incomplete to the extent that they do not recognize this since in this case:

Movement towards equilibrium of a “self” or “system” may represent movement away from equilibrium, (i.e. environmental fluctuation), from the perspective of other selves or systems within the one reality, stimulating further dis – equilibrating response.

Minds associated with the human organism do not experience this class of conflicted environmental fluctuation particularly strongly in their relatedness with minds associated with non human organisms.

This is simply because the non human aspects do not have the strategies to relate with the environmental fluctuation that human actions produce, however:

The human aspect of informational reality is fully dependent upon the rest of reality for it’s manifestation since humanity only occurs as one expression of the relationship system of which it is a part.

The extent to which humanity does not recognize it’s manifestation as an expression of the equilibriums of this entire system and behaves accordingly, is the extent to which it will generate disequilibrium between itself and it’s life support system.

Minds associated with the human organism do however experience and produce acutely conflicted environmental fluctuation embodied in the social and political relations between human selves, including relations between groups organized according to belief. This is reflected in the energy which is devoted towards such relatedness. Also:

There is the hypothetical case where the self-environment relational abilities of minds associated with “non human” aspects of reality such as advanced autonomous technology, become more effective than that of humans.

In this case the “self” actions of this technology may represent extreme environmental fluctuation from the human point of view, to which adequate response may not be possible.

To reiterate, these components of conflicted environmental fluctuation will only occur in proportion to the extent to which “different” mind expressions of the one reality see their interests as “separate” and “in conflict” and direct adverse environmental fluctuation at one another accordingly.

The alternative is alignment and cooperation, utilizing the precise movement / accommodation manner by which reality functions to interact in a manner which is “greater than the sum of parts”.

In this way apparently “separate” aspects of reality such as organisms have the facility to interrelate, just as “separate” bones in an arm interact to allow movement in a way which makes them greater than the sum of their parts.

It is clear that great adaptive benefit does accrue via this kind of cooperative behavior, such as to participants in the “hologenome” who are able to utilize the relatedness between the aspects of reality perceived as “self”, and those aspects of reality perceived as “other”.

In an early environment where an example of informationally organized reality is isolated as a small proportion of a reality which is largely non informationally organized, it seems logically satisfying that it would be adaptive to perceive and act as if the self were separate in order that it be protected.

In this case, there appears to be comparatively minimal adaptive benefit to perceiving connectedness between that aspect of reality which is the “self” and everything else.

Within this reality, examples of life have developed through separation into “life” and “death” categories by “nature” (i.e “natural” “selection”). In this sense a certain perception of enmity between the “self” and “nature” may be entirely understandable.

However the ratio between environmental fluctuation produced by the informational content of reality and that produced by the non informational content is increasing, and with it the abilities of informational reality to be the directors of the flow of reality.

In this case environmental fluctuation increasingly consists of the activity of examples of informationally organized reality, which therefor represent a proportionally greater source of adaptive pressure to one another.

Within this reality the adaptive challenges come less from surviving in relation to environmental fluctuation that would otherwise be produced, and more from that as determined by the activities and choices of mind itself.

Within a reality arranged in this manner, perceptions of greater levels of connectedness between “self” or “group” and “the rest of reality” become adaptive as a way of avoiding massive disequilibriums to the “self” or “group’s” life supporting environment induced by the actions produced by their own minds.

This only represents forced conformity to the extent that minds submit to it while still perceiving themselves and their interests as “separate”. Otherwise the expression of “free will” and “cooperative behavior” are one and the same since it is all the will of a single reality.

2013 Peter Sillifant