The Guardian for this meeting was Bruce Mowbray. The comments are by Bruce Mowbray

Suppose, for a minute, that "grace" is built into the system -- built into the Cosmos, into everything - from the "bottom-up."

Here's an appetizer that [sort of] offers a 'taste' of the implications:

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52910feb6bb3f738682c6b06/fast%20company.gif

Zon Kwan: hi bruce
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Zon!
Bruce Mowbray: My typist's Ohio State Buckeyes just beat Michigan by ONE POINT!
Bruce Mowbray: yippieeee
Zon Kwan: lol
Zon Kwan: afk
Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Bruce Mowbray: np.

--BELL--

Zon Kwan: back
Bruce Mowbray: wb!
Zon Kwan: ty
Bruce Mowbray: I am re-reading "FUZZY THINKING" By Bart Kosko.
Bruce Mowbray: published exactly 20 years ago.
Zon Kwan: isn't that what we do?
Bruce Mowbray: Well, his book is a fascinating inter-play of Taoist thought and mathematics...
Bruce Mowbray: and cyber-thought.
Bruce Mowbray: written 20 years ago.
Zon Kwan: oh that's interesting
Bruce Mowbray: It's a fascinating book.
Zon Kwan: taking it down
Bruce Mowbray: I will try to find an Amazon listing for it....
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.amazon.com/Fuzzy-Thinking-The-Science-Logic/dp/078688021X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1385845389&sr=8-1&keywords=Fuzzy+Thinking
Bruce Mowbray: There it is.

Bruce Mowbray: Still selling after all these years.
Zon Kwan: btw i read the book you mentioned
Bruce Mowbray: which one was that, Zon?
Zon Kwan: Night Train to Lisbon
Bruce Mowbray: Oh yes!
Bruce Mowbray: An excellent novel. Did you enjoy it?
Zon Kwan: i did actually
Zon Kwan: the style
Bruce Mowbray: Excellent attention to detail, huh?
Zon Kwan: intensive
Zon Kwan: i just had to keep on reading
Bruce Mowbray: yes, "intensive" is an excellent description.
Bruce Mowbray: Me too!

note:  The novel was made into a movie this year:

http://www.nighttrain-film.com/

Zon Kwan: but as to the philosophical content
Bruce Mowbray: His second novel was not quite as good, I thought.
Zon Kwan: I'm not sure
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I agree.
Zon Kwan: courage, of course
Bruce Mowbray: The language-intensity is what intrigued me.
Zon Kwan: to think and act freely
Bruce Mowbray: more than the philosophy.
Bruce Mowbray: Welcome, San!
Zon Kwan: yes
Bruce Mowbray: ooops, she's not here quite yet.
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, San!
Zon Kwan: hello San
Santoshima Resident: hello Zon
Santoshima Resident: and hello Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Zon Kwan: nice outfit
Bruce Mowbray: How's the wood-chopping going, San?
Santoshima Resident: great! raining today, so just stacking into the new sheds
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh!
Santoshima Resident: rather good to get it done
Bruce Mowbray: My typist should have been out there this afternoon gathering more wood for his fire,
Bruce Mowbray: but instead, he watched the Ohio State - Michigan game.
Santoshima Resident: just as good
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: yippieeee
Bruce Mowbray: I just mentioned to Zon that I am re-reading Bart Kosko's FUZZY LOGIC
Bruce Mowbray: published 20 years ago and still an excellent read.
Santoshima Resident: ah
Zon Kwan: what it the core message ?
Bruce Mowbray: Actually, the correct title is FUZZY THINKING.
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm.
Bruce Mowbray: I shall give an example, OK?
Bruce Mowbray: Welcome, Maude!
Santoshima Resident: hi Maude
DR42 Resident: Ɲձოձʂէε
Bruce Mowbray: Suppose that you are driving in a lot of traffic..
Zon Kwan: hi Marjorie
Bruce Mowbray: and you come to a stop light.
Bruce Mowbray: Is the light red or yellow or green?
Zon Kwan: red
Santoshima Resident: could be any of those
Bruce Mowbray: another guess, anyone?
Bruce Mowbray: What if the color of the light depended on the amount of traffic coming from that direction?
Bruce Mowbray: more traffic = more green.. (longer green)....
Bruce Mowbray: Hello, Lila!
Lila Darkmatter: Felicitations :)
Zon Kwan: yes but if the light is red I must stop regardless of how it is processed
Santoshima Resident: greetings

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: but if there were a sufficient amount of traffic, it might NEVER turn to red.
Bruce Mowbray: (drops).
Zon Kwan: hi LIla
Lila Darkmatter: japanese steampunk ^^ Hi everyone
Zon Kwan: then it's not a stop light
Bruce Mowbray: :))))
Santoshima Resident: as i said, could be any of those colours
Bruce Mowbray: So, what if the so-called "stop-light" used bottom-up logic instead of top-down logic?
Santoshima Resident: what if it was malfunctioning?
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Santoshima Resident: jk
Zon Kwan: how can it be green ? it's not stop light , it's go light then ?
Bruce Mowbray: top-down logic would say, "Change colors every so-and-so number of seconds."
Bruce Mowbray: You're making a semantic point, Zon, and a good one.  Thank you.
Santoshima Resident: colloquial name "stop light", properly called "traffic light"
Bruce Mowbray: hmmm, traffic light, yes...
Santoshima Resident: or differently called
DR42 Resident: "Signalized intersection."
Zon Kwan: ah ..i'm not native speaker
Bruce Mowbray: and even better named if it changes colors depending on the amount of traffic...
Bruce Mowbray: not on some top-down, pre-determined time clock.
Bruce Mowbray: But here's my point (I hope!):
Lila Darkmatter dusts herself off
Bruce Mowbray: What if the thing depended on the circumstances..
Bruce Mowbray: not on some top-down programming?
Lila Darkmatter: Programming is included in circumstances?
Bruce Mowbray: It could be, Lila.
Bruce Mowbray: That's the point of the book I am now re-reading: FUZZY THINKING by Bart Kosko.
Lila Darkmatter: hehe....that's not new to me
DR42 Resident: What if the light had fuzzy logic AND talked to adjacent lights with fuzzy logic?
Bruce Mowbray: What if the washing machine could adjust its temperature, and the length of its cycles, and the amount of detergent to use...
Bruce Mowbray: based on the dirtiness of the clothes in each load?
Lila Darkmatter: I think some do...like microwaves now
DR42 Resident: Ummm, they do that now...
Bruce Mowbray: yes!
Bruce Mowbray: Those are examples of FUZZY THINKING.
Lila Darkmatter: acclimating intuitively?
Bruce Mowbray: and my typist's spellings are examples of FUZZY typing.
Bruce Mowbray: What does "intuitive" mean, Lila?
Zon Kwan: adjusting to circumstances ?
Lila Darkmatter: well they are sensing but not by seeing with eyes?
Bruce Mowbray: How about "short-cut" logic?
Lila Darkmatter: or feeling with hands
Bruce Mowbray: If the various traffic lights COULD sense each other's behavior, it would make getting through a busy city a lot easier, huh?
Lila Darkmatter: people who study traffic notice that there is some self-organizing that seems to happen... for all the frustrations we feel we have, there lots of patterns that emerge that make things easier
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Bruce Mowbray: and "emergent patterns" are all about bottom-up behavior, no?
Lila Darkmatter: not sure how sure the levels are..but I'm entering the conversation late
Bruce Mowbray loves Lila's steam punk hat.
Bruce Mowbray: np, Lila.
Lila Darkmatter: I'm acclimating with Maude :))
Bruce Mowbray: In an emergent system, there is really no "late."
DR42 Resident: Lights in modern cities do communicate, and they sense the fire trucks and ambulances and "do the right thing".
Bruce Mowbray: In an emergent system there is only acclimation and re-adjustment.
Lila Darkmatter: so no bottom or top?
Bruce Mowbray: no bottom -- no top...
Bruce Mowbray: but either top-down operations, or bottom-up operations,
Lila Darkmatter: I didn't know that Maude
Bruce Mowbray: or (following John Cage) "indeterminist" operations.
Bruce Mowbray: Good point, Maude.
Bruce Mowbray: Apparently, my typist does not live near any of those cities.
DR42 Resident: And, many have links back to some central office to report their state and can be forced to go to specific states to deal with expected needs (like the president and his motorcade going thru town.)
Bruce Mowbray: wonderful examples, Maude!
Bruce Mowbray: yippieeee
Lila Darkmatter: ah, makes sense
Zon Kwan: waves
Lila Darkmatter waves to Zon :)
Bruce Mowbray: and those are also excellent examples of fuzzy thinking.
Santoshima Resident: bye Zon
Bruce Mowbray: Bye for now, Zon-ji!
Lila Darkmatter: San, I think it was you who shared "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" ?
Bruce Mowbray: a wonderful phrase....
Bruce Mowbray: Where did it come from, San?
Santoshima Resident: nope ... but sounds interesting
Lila Darkmatter: ah, thought it was in the session where you also posted the basketball clip... enjoyed those
Santoshima Resident: how long ago?
Bruce Mowbray: During the break, I suggest that we ponder whether the "Machines of Grace" are built into the system, or somewhere above it or outside it.
Santoshima Resident: maybe has another name?
Lila Darkmatter: Let me post the poem perhaps...
Lila Darkmatter: or excerpt...
Santoshima Resident: oh, a poem

--BELL--

Lila Darkmatter: (after) pauses
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray: Einstein said the biggest question is "Why is there something instead of nothing?" and I feel there is a good answer to that.
Bruce Mowbray: and perhaps your poem has something of that answer within it.
Bruce Mowbray listens.....
Lila Darkmatter: well...it can be read scarily or in a comforting way...

Bruce Mowbray: (as can anything, perhaps).
Bruce Mowbray: kk.
Lila Darkmatter:

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky. 

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms. 

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

© Richard Brautigan.

 
Santoshima Resident: never seen that before ...
Bruce Mowbray: Hmmmm.
Lila Darkmatter: ah, well somehow I connected it with your post, apologies
Lila Darkmatter: but it is interesting
Bruce Mowbray: I shall ponder this poem long and long, as Whitman was wont to say.
Bruce Mowbray: but it sort of begs the question, doesn't it?
Lila Darkmatter: in WoK for a few weeks, Stim asked us the question "What is Natural".... I'm still working on that... :)
Bruce Mowbray: Yes!
Bruce Mowbray: Stim's question seems to be a re-phrasing of Einstein's question, actually.
Santoshima Resident: liking the phrase "loving grace".
Lila Darkmatter: yes!
DR42 Resident: What is "Grace"?
Bruce Mowbray: Is "Grace" built into existence or is Grace something that is bestowed upon the system?
Santoshima Resident: dunno, whatever it is ... it's amazing
Bruce Mowbray: I feel that Plato would say Grace is bestowed.
DR42 Resident: Is it a state of harmonious being?
Bruce Mowbray: but that Heideggar and the phenomenologists would say it is built-in.
Lila Darkmatter: can only be experienced perhaps
Santoshima Resident: seems so
Lila Darkmatter: I feel when I meet a gracious person
Lila Darkmatter: or enter a gracious home
Bruce Mowbray: Our method of "finding" this "Grace" seems to be mostly through experience, indeed.
Bruce Mowbray: but our perceptions are so easily altered.....by circumstances.
Lila Darkmatter: although, hm... some would relate it to charm?
Santoshima Resident: i take it as a lifting of ignorance
DR42 Resident: There is a difference between "Grace" with a capitol "G" and "grace" with a small g.
Santoshima Resident: some opening to a wider view
Lila Darkmatter considers
Bruce Mowbray ponders "a lifting of ignorance...."
Bruce Mowbray: Is that the same thing as a lifting of pre-judgments?
Lila Darkmatter: welcome
Bruce Mowbray: Whom are you welcoming, Lila? Did I miss someone?
Lila Darkmatter: he heh
Bruce Mowbray: (Maybe it's the hat.)
Lila Darkmatter: Actually I was just considering.. taking myself back to meetings with "gracious" persons... and that's what I felt...
Lila Darkmatter: welcomingness... and yes, no judgments...
Santoshima Resident: yes
Lila Darkmatter: openness, as San said
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I am a firm advocate of "Grace" being at the very "bottom" of all things.
Santoshima Resident: please excuse me ... back to the wood stacking ...
Bruce Mowbray: kk,
Lila Darkmatter: :) Enjoy
Bruce Mowbray: bye for now, good San-ji!
Santoshima Resident: thank you for this conversation
DR42 Resident: Careful doing that.
Lila Darkmatter: thank you :))
DR42 Resident: And warm wishes.
Lila Darkmatter: awesome... wood stacking
Lila Darkmatter: Winter came and left Miami already... was 57 degrees one day
Bruce Mowbray: In one way or another, everything comes down to chopping wood or carrying water, no?
Lila Darkmatter: the mundane intricacies and intimacies of daily life
Bruce Mowbray: We got out of the 30's for the first time in a week, just today.
DR42 Resident: was about 3 F today when I got up and of course the stove had run out of wood. :(
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)  OH NO!
Lila Darkmatter: :::seethes with envy and looks at her coats hanging::::
Bruce Mowbray: Been there - done that, Maude!
Lila Darkmatter: :)
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha!
Lila Darkmatter: friendly seething ^^
Bruce Mowbray: So, really for my answer to Einstein's question...
Bruce Mowbray: about why there is something instead of nothing?
Lila Darkmatter listens closely
Bruce Mowbray waits eagerly for an answer....
Bruce Mowbray: kk,
Bruce Mowbray: here it comes...
Bruce Mowbray: Because if there were NOTHING,
DR42 Resident: The glib answer is that if there were nothing, then you would not be asking that question.
Bruce Mowbray: If there were nothing, then the entire field of mathematics would collapse.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, of course, Maude... a good point, to be sure.
Lila Darkmatter: math is the grand signal of somethingness?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes! It is!
Bruce Mowbray: But it is a different sort of math than Plato or Euclid imagined.
Lila Darkmatter: ah, stops typing and listens further
Bruce Mowbray: (a bottom-up math --- not one derived from axions and postulates....)
Lila Darkmatter: back to those patterns...
Bruce Mowbray: that typo might have been a clue to how it works, actually!

--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: axions and math… !!
Lila Darkmatter: what makes for a gracious or elegant universe
Bruce Mowbray: (dropping now).
Bruce Mowbray: For me, that universe is gracious whose "traffic lights" adjust themselves to the traffic -- assuming that the traffic is not violating any of the codes of vehicular movement through cities.
DR42 Resident: I felt vindicated last week. 35 years ago, I wrote a paper for April 1st about particles called "Thermons" that explained how heat was conducted. This month, some physics researchers published about a particle they called a "phonon" which was the particle of heat and wave, and the math is the same as it is for photons and light.
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Lila Darkmatter: whoa....very cool feeling, Maud
Bruce Mowbray: That is really wonderful, Maude.
Bruce Mowbray: I have been thinking a lot about heat-transfer of late.
Lila Darkmatter: You know I was looking for the chart of all the wild particles and quark names for my son, but couldn't find it... any help with that would be appreciated.. not the main 6
Bruce Mowbray: Heat ALWAYS moves from excited molecules to less excited molecules, no?
Bruce Mowbray: "wild particles"?
DR42 Resident: When you pick something up and drop it, it might be because it contains too many thermons.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, too many thermons.
Lila Darkmatter: funnily named ones
Bruce Mowbray: thermons = over-excited molecules?
Lila Darkmatter: fascinating
Bruce Mowbray: I can find you that, Lila....
Lila Darkmatter: thanks so much
Lila Darkmatter: no need to hurry, just email to my secretary if you come across, hehhe
Bruce Mowbray: My typist will make it a priority... but only after this session.
Bruce Mowbray: kk,
DR42 Resident: molecules being excited is the wave model, thermons are the particle model.
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh!
Lila Darkmatter: ahhh
Lila Darkmatter: snap!
Bruce Mowbray loves being able to adjust/switch between wave and particle models!
Lila Darkmatter: I like your name for it better
Lila Darkmatter: something/nothing models :)
Bruce Mowbray: Is it even possible for there to be "nothing" in a Gracious cosmos?
Lila Darkmatter: I hope so....
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray: If graciousness is built into the system, I think not.
Lila Darkmatter: like Mary Poppins bag
Bruce Mowbray: !
Bruce Mowbray: or umbrella!?
Lila Darkmatter smiles
Lila Darkmatter: grrr am being called away....
Bruce Mowbray: kk,
Lila Darkmatter: oh, nice Bruce
DR42 Resident: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1113143215.htm
Bruce Mowbray: bye for now good Lila-ji!
DR42 Resident: bye
Lila Darkmatter clicks and saves... thanks for this marjorie... so interesting
Lila Darkmatter: ht
Lila Darkmatter: hugs to you both, thank you!
Bruce Mowbray: HUGS to you too!
DR42 Resident: have a wonderful day
Lila Darkmatter: you too... now have some neat reading ^^
Lila Darkmatter: bfn
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
DR42 Resident: hope you like that the hat steams when you type.
Bruce Mowbray: bye for now.
DR42 Resident: Well, I need lunch.
Bruce Mowbray: kk,
Bruce Mowbray: bye for now, good Maude-ji!
DR42 Resident: read the article, it really made me laugh....
Bruce Mowbray: ;-)
Bruce Mowbray: which one was that?
DR42 Resident: bye, and hugs.
Bruce Mowbray: bye and big hugs.
DR42 Resident: On heat/wave particles
Bruce Mowbray: kk, gotcha.