What is Reality? #9 #cong23 #reality

Synopsis:

The human brain is an amazing computational instrument. It can reason, project, control, and otherwise fuse together thousands of inputs at once, creating an awareness, a synthesis of understanding. It’s something that philosophers and scientists throughout the ages have struggled to fully understand and, of late, have attempted to model in silicon and hardware to create things like artificial intelligence and neural networks. The complexity of our creation belies the infinitely complex interconnections between chemicals, electrical signaling, and perhaps, a deeper unseen aspect. Whatever is composed out of the chaos of our cortices, it holds true that we are masters of narrative, of creation, of reality.

Total Words

1,224

Reading Time in Minutes

5

Key Takeaways:

  1. Humanity is incredible for their collective ability to create and imagine.
  2. Reality is defined by our collective narrative and stories.
  3. Reality is a collision between the observable and the imagined.
  4. Shaping reality, especially in the day/age of AI and all of its permutations, must be grounded in who we are as creative, sentimental beings.

About Dave Graham:

Dave Graham is a research technologist and the technology advocate lead for Dell Technologies’ Office of Research where he focuses on how technologies are integrated into organizations, society, and their potential for global transformation.  He is currently working on his PhD at University College Dublin – SMARTLab looking at how data is used to increase social agency.

Contacting Dave Graham

You can follow Dave’s daily musings on Post.News, read his Substack thoughts or check out his photography on Instagram

By Dave Graham

What is reality?

Take a look at the picture presented here. What do you observe?

On first pass, I’m sure that you notice the line of separation down the horizon, separating the two halves of the picture. There are coloured leaves, resplendent in their autumnal finery; the water is still, reflecting mirror-like the sky and the traces of flora that find themselves front and center in this idyllic scene. It’s a tranquility that speaks of preparation, of stillness, of potential. It’s a capture of reality.

On second look, there are perhaps other things that catch your eye: the darkened corners, the almost too-reflective water on the lower half of the picture, the slight blurring of leaves on the trees. There seems to be an almost casual distortion in parts of the image as if some digital thumb swooped in and mucked about with the pixels, upsetting their natural order.

Your brain has determined one of two things in this moment:
1. This is nothing more than a picture showing a tree reflected in the water.
2. There is something amiss with this picture which may mean it’s altered or generated.

So, which is it: which explanation is real?

The human brain is an amazing computational instrument. It can reason, project, control, and otherwise fuse together thousands of inputs at once, creating an awareness, a synthesis of understanding. It’s something that philosophers and scientists throughout the ages have struggled to fully understand and, of late, have attempted to model in silicon and hardware to create things like artificial intelligence and neural networks. The complexity of our creation belies the infinitely complex interconnections between chemicals, electrical signaling, and perhaps, a deeper unseen aspect. Whatever is composed out of the chaos of our cortices, it holds true that we are masters of narrative, of creation, of reality.

The picture you see here was captured no less than 24 hours before writing this piece, near a pond a scant few kilometers from my residence. The fall air was still, the water placid, and the leaves on the maples and birches were stunning. As I leaned over the water, watching for the reflections to align just-so, I was rewarded with momentary calm and reality was captured.

With a slight tweak to colour (I prefer my reality a bit darker than lighter), I noticed that the image was a perfect mirror of itself. That up could be down and down, up. That reality wasn’t constrained to the cardinal directions of captured 3 dimensional space: it could exist completely upside down or right side up. Would the story change, I wondered, and would it represent the same truths of the moment in which I observed it?

I created a reality out of a momentary capture of photons hitting an electrical sensor and simultaneously my optic nerves. My brain flipped the image, letting my neurons do the dirty work of interpreting the scene in meaningful ways. On my laptop, I engaged in digital arbitrage, exchanging light for dark, up for down, reality for a narrative of my own devising. I created the foil for today’s story, an image to back a narrative, a device.

Reality is what we define it to be. I’ve provided my version of reality through an image here: I’ve taken a pastoral scene, flipped it upside down, and made you consider what I’ve done. If you were casually browsing through a collection of photos, you’d more than likely miss what I had done. You’d have seen the darkened corners, the slight blurring and perhaps ascribed an artist’s aesthetic to it: “Ah, this photographer didn’t get their focus correct” or “It’s a bit dark…why do they edit it like that?” It’s easy to pass over because this slice of reality doesn’t jar the senses, doesn’t force a fusion of sight, sound, touch, and emotion. It just is.

The struggle with our definition of reality is that there is an inevitable collision between our reality and that of others.The galling violence we’ve seen displayed via various media outlets over the last year point to this very ideal. There’s a collision between the reality of our daily lives and that of the greater world around us. Our inoculation from war, from violence, from the depravity of humanity allows us to very narrowly define reality to what is directly in front of us, what we can taste, touch, smell, see. When confronted by an outside reality, we have no box to put it in; it affronts our hallowed senses, our stories and we are galled by it.

Reality, then, is a construct of our imagination, composed of our senses and assembled together from the rudiments of experience. It’s a constant metering and evaluation of what lies before us: the click of these keys, the movement of letters on a screen to form words, the vibrant beauty of an idyll captured not so long ago. It’s a story composed for an unconference, a stroll through the meadows of a caffeine-and-ADHD addled mind, and the ideas that reality is a creation, beautifully ugly, of our own devising.

I suppose the grand challenge (and what I’ll leave you with today) is to understand more how reality is shaped: by experience, by novelty, by intersection and to make it life-defining. I challenge you to understand how your reality is shaped by the stories of others and the stories you write for yourself. How can the tide of humanity’s experience be channeled to create a more wholesome reality for all while simultaneously be true to the story of its creation?

Thoughts for another day, another unconference, another journey through the solemnity of the woods outside my domicile, in a world that is more upside down than right-side up in my reality.

May it ever be so.

October 27, 2023 2023 Reality No comments yet

Agonistic Purpose #8 #cong22

Synopsis:

Agonism is most simply defined as the understanding that conflict is intrinsically involved in achieving positive outcomes.  Agonism understands that we, as humans, are driven by a purpose, multifaceted in presentation and scope.  One facet is our inherent “ability” (or need, as some would be inclined to say) to enjoin conflict to find resolution.  To be an agonist then, in my reductionistic definition, is to enjoin conflict with purpose to gain resolution.  In this submission, I discuss how agonism led to finding purpose in fighting (nee conflict) for the marginalized.

Total Words

809

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. Purpose is often found WHILE in the middle of life
  2. Conflict, in its many forms, is necessary and inevitable. Embrace it.
  3. Being adversarial isn’t a negative. Rather, it’s purpose-driven.
  4. Fight for purpose and for those seeking it.

About Dave Graham

Dave Graham is a research technologist and the technology advocate lead for Dell Technologies’ Office of Research where he focuses on how technologies are integrated into organizations, society, and their potential for global transformation.  He is currently working on his PhD at University College Dublin – SMARTLab looking at how data is used to increase social agency.

Contacting Dave Graham

You can contact Dave by email  or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

By Dave Graham

Oftentimes we view purpose as being a wholesome character trait or expression. We marvel at those with purpose: we create seminars and events about “finding purpose,” we have books in self-help about finding purpose, we flock to those who we believe “have it.” And yet, when push comes to shove, we struggle to actualize purpose in our lives. We believe that employment is purpose, that family presumes purpose, that vacations are purpose. Yet, when pushed, we stammer and stutter, having to search much deeper into our souls and hearts to find that volitional pool where purpose is drawn from, if we can find it at all.

I am no different. I am many things: a student, a husband, an employee, a human being. I have roles and responsibilities, actions directed by needs and desires and yet, I can find myself aimless, directionless, unfulfilled even in this fantastically ornamented life. I struggle with the ephemeral pursuit of purpose because, like everyone else, I assume that it is tied to a role, a responsibility, a moment. Finding or discovering purpose, then, is hard-fought yet, once encountered, it becomes the softest down upon which to rest your head. For me, it took the accidental discovery of agonism to find a footing upon which to establish purpose’s foundation in my life.

Agonism is most simply defined as the understanding that conflict is intrinsically involved in achieving positive outcomes. Oftentimes it is wrapped around the understanding of sociopolitical foment (pluralistic agonism), but for wont of a cleaner understanding, I’ve generalized its approach. Agonism understands that we, as humans, are driven by a purpose, multifaceted in presentation and scope. One facet is our inherent “ability” (or need, as some would be inclined to say) to enjoin conflict to find resolution. To be an agonist then, in my reductionistic definition, is to enjoin conflict with purpose to gain resolution. Rather than belabour this point, I suggest we look at a cogent example from our current social gyre to understand agonistic purpose.

I’ve talked previously about how certain American state governments have enacted legislation to restrict or remove individual sovereignty. As an example, Texas Senate Bills 8 and 1646 (SB8, SB1646) sought to create a bounty system for those seeking reproductive services (SB8) and forced Child Protective Services (CPS) to investigate families whose children were body or gender dysphoric, amongst other things (SB1646). While both of these bills are odious in ontology, they had a causal effect on society; namely, the emergence of agonism to counter their application. For example, SB8 provided a mechanism for reporting violations using a simple online form which would, in turn, be used to establish jurisdiction and validity for pursuing legal action. To many of us, this form presented an opportunity for agonistic action.

Our conflict was with SB8 and our purpose became the action of “poisoning the well” of data that the webform sought to draw on. By introducing data that was false, wrong, or otherwise close enough to real as to invalidate the baseline requirements for litigation, we sought (and are still seeking) to cause a systemic “break” in the enforcement and power that this particular bill has on Texas society and those seeking a basic human right. This is agonistic purpose in plain view.

Finding purpose is a struggle. Finding purpose that satisfies the whole self, not just pieces and parts, is a rarity. But once found, it has a powerful assembling force for knitting together the various streams and pieces of who you are into something that is unstoppable.

October 27, 2022 2022 Purpose No comments yet
adversarial leadership in the data era

Adversarial Leadership in the Data Era #15 #cong21

Synopsis:

Leadership is oftentimes ascribed as being an outflow of charisma and character.  In the digital age, however, new aspects to leadership are emerging.  As governments seek to legislate data and organizations attempt to monetize it, a rising tide of civil activism has taken root to countenance these looming threats.  To this stage comes the ideal of adversarial leadership, an antagonist to the widening gyre brought about by exponential data growth.

Total Words

876

Reading Time in Minutes

4

Key Takeaways:

  1. Leadership is not a passive task nor does it always have to be a”positively” framed goal
  2. We are responsible for our communities; Leadership starts from within
  3. We are mostly unaware of our data provenance and how that translates to real-world agency
  4. Adversarial leadership is a new way of approaching and defining our agency in this data era.

About Dave Graham:

 Dave Graham is a research technologist and the technology advocate lead for Dell Technologies’ Office of Research where he focuses on how technologies are integrated into organizations, society, and their potential for global transformation.  He is currently working on his PhD at University College Dublin – SMARTLab looking at how data is used to increase social agency.

Contacting Dave Graham:

 You can contact Dave by email  or follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

adversarial leadership in the data era

By Dave Graham

The world has changed significantly since the day I was born.  One could argue that its fantastic political, moral, philosophical, and environmental gyrations have led to an inevitable collision between what is absolute and that which is not.  Added to this widening gyre is the fundamental role of data and information in seating emperors on their respective thrones.  The shift of power away from the halls of legislature and the proletariat into the hands of the emerging data bourgeoisie has led to the need for a new type of leadership, focused on using the prevalence of data in adversarial ways to shape society (and indeed the world) in new ways.

Adversarial leadership can be construed as being a negative trait or characteristic.  In most cases, however, “adversarial” is conflated with “antagonistic.”  The two couldn’t be further from each other in their actions.  When we look at adversarial leadership, we look to cases like that of Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, who, while relegated to their respective hiding places in Russia and the Ecuadorian embassy, utilised data as tools to unseat or unsettle society.  One could argue that their motives weren’t altruistic (in the sense that they also chose the role of antagonist to the United States government), but the net result was awareness; awareness of data collection principles, bad actors that were using this data to repress or oppress marginalised communities, and so on.  Ideologically, they showed this concept of adversarial leadership: that is, using tools, data, or policy in ways that countermands the original intent or design to create leverage or opportunity.

What lessons can we learn from these adversarial leaders, then, that can be applied to our more hyper-local circumstances?  First, we need to act like everything we do is being recorded.  Understanding that the role of data is to describe or capture the moments of its creation, we need to be aware of how our actions are being mirrored digitally.  When we critically examine Edward Snowden’s role in unveiling the data collection policies of the United States’ intelligence agencies, we become aware that most everything we do is being recorded in some way, shape, or form.  This leads to our second lesson: take control of our data.  When we understand the first lesson, we then have the unique opportunity to control the method in which our data is being delivered.  There are a myriad of tools available and designed to obfuscate, block, or randomize the data that is collected from us.  The “right to be forgotten” is a misnomer as far as it relies on the primary actors (us) to take control of our digital agency.  In this, our second lesson leads to the third:  use your data to create opportunity.  Too often we forget that services like Facebook, Walmart, Amazon, Tesco, et al rely on data to gain market advantage.  In this, we also forget that we, as the consumers, are at the disadvantage when our data is being used.  Efforts to economically commoditise this data to the benefit of the consumer have routinely fallen away leaving, as a result, the nakedness of gross capitalism.  When we talk about using our data to create opportunity, we are forcing the locus of control to shift to us, our communities, our members and away from those who would look to use it for their own gain.  We can command a social destiny far removed from the desperate march towards global irresponsibility that we find ourselves in today.

Leadership, adversarial or not, is a function of knowing place and purpose.  In this, becoming adversarial is nothing more than asserting the place and purpose for which we understand ourselves to best suited for.  We have the capabilities and tools in this century to make the necessary changes to our society if only we choose to.  This, then, is the lesson for all of us:  become leaders by being adversarial.

November 1, 2021 2021 Leadership No comments yet