Held in Motion

Overt power is easier to identify. What about when power intentionally makes itself more covert, more palatable? What about when power becomes the substrate; infiltrating perceptions, language, thinking & reasoning? When it's deemed "neutral", "inevitable", "human"? When we, as products of the environment, self & peer perpetuate & reinforce it?Resources & Notes:Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Goodreads)How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett (Goodreads)Field of flowing grasses. (Instagram)'Do you think people could tell by looking at you, if you're gay or straight?' (Instagram)

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Power uses hierarchies for control & influence. I think morals conceptualized within environments of power are tainted in similarly unhelpful ways. We focus on being “good” or “not bad”, while people & situations are demoted to context. Disassociating us from the greater responsibility found in being present, in relationship with, in bidirectional feedback looping with others.

Here you'll find how I’ve come to think being “good” doesn’t matter, & what I’m attempting to replace it with.

Resources & Notes:

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

There's a lot of shit happening in the world, right now. Some see it, feel it. Others see it, but dismiss the degree of shit. Then, there are the arguments that arise over feelings, perceptions, & even what to do. Who's right? What if patriarchy & white supremacy filter the threat & shape what we see, what we feel, & when? And these same systems keep us from seeing & hearing one another, let alone understanding & addressing the threat before it becomes apocalyptic/catastrophic?

Resources & Notes:

Exposing a Global "Rape Academy” (CNN investigative report.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

What if feedback loops were more popularly understood as dynamic looping? Not a noun, but a verb. Signals sent, uninhibited. Signals acknowledged & metabolized. Leading to a reorganizing of the system, resulting in a change, a shift. A changed output ready for a new feedback signal. A continual looping. The very essence of life!

What if shifting our collective understanding shifted us internally? Relationally? How we design? How we govern, do business, educate?

Resources & Notes:

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A rendering of an atom.

A rendering of the solar system moving through space.

(Images can be seen on Substack.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

From the design of AI to its responses, attention has often been oriented towards fitting into the "bits & bytes" mechanics ('This is how we code file systems/logic gates/etc... Now let's fit this idea of AI into this paradigm.'), when LLMs (large language models) are inherently, messily human. What if we shifted our orientation to look at how humans exist multidimensionally, and then tried to build a similar multi-system integration into AI? From human memory to our ideas of right and wrong.

Resources & Notes:

Human Memory Was Never A Filing System by A. E. Larrson (@aelarrson)

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

Building on ideas from the "Morals as functional theatre?' episode, I share how my thinking has complexified and expanded. Combining the previous conceptual framing with this new one, they seem to make me & others more legible; taking two dimensional perceptions to 3D in high definition.

(For reference, I do a complexified recap of that previous episode for context, if you're wondering whether to go back or not.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

Sometimes, I think we humans are very funny in our audacity. To think that we could remove any and all influences in the practice of science. I love science! I do! But it is imperfect, and IMO is far more powerful when combined with additional knowledge/lenses. Then we can see the "force fields", the relational & multidimensional context.

Ready for a rollercoaster? Think systems, hormones, mosh pits, many worlds, science as, dare I say, messy, and more. Buckle up!

Resources & Notes:

Mosh Pit Fluid Dynamics (Hannah Fry)

A Socio-cultural Context of Rape: A Cross Cultural Study (1981 paper)

Power Causes Brain Damage (Originally published on The Atlantic. This is anon-paywall link.)

Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking by Leonard Modinow (My thinking may shift. I'm currently reading How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett.)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

In the previous episode, I tried to do the ridiculous; take a non-gender-essentialist/exceptionalist look at patriarchy & matriarchy. After taking a step back to really look at matriarchy, to me, it's looking a lot like a projection and reflection of the patriarchy.

Resources & Notes:

How AI sources can increase openness to opposing views

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When hierarchies of dominance teach us to understand everything in boxes, then to evaluate how accurately a thing, a person, each of us, fits in a box, should be evaluated according to that box, in contrast to another box, that the boxes need to be shuffled up and down in importance, according to some ideal, objective valuation that is defined by those in power... What if we rejected the boxes & the complex shifting hierarchies, and reintegrated understanding? Of self, of one another, of categories of information, etc. To understand everything through relational dynamics, multidimensional influences, instead of rigid boxes & hierarchy that need constant policing & enforcing? What if this allowed us to breathe easier, to exist more expansively WITH one another instead of OVER anyone? What if this shift — in thinking, being, relating, creating — was a shifting from patriarchy to matriarchy? Not a gender essentialst destination, but a living, breathing celebration of human diversity?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com

What if morals are functional theatre? For us? For others? What if they really aren't about what is good or right conduct? What if that's just the story? And how we embody & live out the story, is entirely different? And what if those inconsistencies are less about good & evil and instead evidence of moving parts - different cognitive infrastructure, storytelling, & sociological signaling? All moving according to inputs, context, & time?

Resources & Notes:

The four tethers referenced in the example given:

• Hierarchy over mutuality

• Rules-based legitimacy over contextual assessment/judgment

• Order over ambiguity

• Certainty over accuracy

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit heldinmotion.substack.com