Synergetics - 35 years later Part 1 - Opening Remarks

So I happened upon a 1st edition copy of "Synergetics" by Buckminster Fuller with E.J Applewhite, 1975, published by Macmillan Publishing. Bucky get's a lot of street cred here because his ideas were so far ahead of their time and crossed the lines of science, consciousness, math, engineering and other fields - sort of like the content here on Evolver. So I thought I would blog about it and break it down chapter by chapter, this book is essentially his life's work and distills his thoughts about a total science of well, everything. As a separate science it has gotten few academic adherents since then. Also note that those who are familiar with his work and his life story know that he is prone to exaggeration and unverifiable claims - be that as it may he was still a great visionary. That is what Evolver seems to me - a place to be visionary, we can get our hands dirty on the pragmatics and details elsewhere. (Like, Evolver projects for instance).

Preface by Arthur Loeb
Loeb discusses Fuller's impact at the time and how his return to the ancient art of geometry is the basis of his design science. That geometry is borne out of astronomy and astrology, trying to make sense of our world, but there are two great quotes I want to share with Evolvers I think we can all resonate with:

"Now the Danger Exists that Geometrics will become respectable once more" and Loeb also says:

"Posterity will have to draw the line between mystical and the scientific, a line that certainly have to be redrawn from time to time"

35 years ago it was becoming apparent even then that the line we accept between what is math and science vs consciousness and metaphysics needs to be reexamined. I think in essence that is what many of us are here to discuss, where is that line today - is quantum mechanics and cosmology any weirder than psychics and ethnogens? Are they just describing the same events, but from a different end of the spectrum? Loeb was one of Synergetics mainstream backers, so it was a significant opening preface at the time.

Introduction by R. Buckminster Fuller
Here fuller breaks out his overall goals for this tome. Reading with 35 years of post OPEC, post cold-war, post Vietnam, globalized, peak oil perspective - there I find his arguments against specialization and direction away from our current economic strategies compelling. Fuller states:

"...humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has breed feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals."

Specialization cuts off interest in discovering general principles - how things cut across all civilization and effects everyone. Our food is specialized, mono-crops and our entire food system must operate on petroleum. We have no other operational alternatives. I think as people begin to accept this we get that feeling that uh-oh here we are on the tight-rope and all of civilization rests on the fraying rope of oil. That is one danger of specialization. General Principles, Fuller hopes, are going to lead to convergence between what are perceived as separate fields of study.

Additionally Fuller adds that specialization leads to conflict over resources, and when looking at species, extinction. Many have characterized a split in the human species - homo sapians sapians, and homo sapians petroleum - humans who's species depends on available oil to run their entire lives. And here we are in 2010 looking at peak oil, reeling from resource wars; we are over specialized.

Fuller is a problem solver not a fear monger so his solutions involve first learning the how the greater whole is effected by the multitude of variables it contains, and how to disseminate this knowledge. Finding a way for people to generalize their abilities, knowledge and talents. His faith was in the youth of 1975, and since I was one year old at the time, he may have also meant me. For the youth he hoped they would utilize new technologies to aggregate knowledge that came from many sources, find the general principles and then disperse it to all, quite prophetically:

"Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their...computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable -opinion-purged...data, shall indeed lead society to it's happy egress from...yesterday"

(well the internet fits that bill, but opinion seems to outweigh data still) His methodology would be further explored in the rest of the volume, and that is what Synergetics is to help solve.

I leave you with this quote from the introduction that sums up our situation:

"Quite clearly our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction."