≡ At·Matrix ≡

Prologue – Tales from the Matrix

Here is the perennial soap box. Both meanings. The prologue is an attempt to bring a more personal touch to the general abstractness in the air and sprinkle human flavor and specific relevance into the distinct non-particularity that pervades the lay of the land at the At·Matrix Base. Please note that this site is very much a work-in-progress in its initial phase, with the content currently online being the product of three stimulating days of reflection.

A Bit of Background – A Word from the Ancients

For the greater part of my short long career in this world, I've been preoccupied with the "ancient machines", the precursors to modern systems thinking and other forms of relational analysis and collective insight. Specifically, it's been a preoccupation with the field of the orients – featuring Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism in their diverse flavors, with focus on their models of causation, phenomenology and psychological analysis.

There's a distinct fascination in abstractions and systematizations of such factors of being that appear to be inseparable from any and all aspects of relational existence. These systems, in contrast to many modern models preoccupied with gain and wanting in responsibility, are invariably embedded with an undercurrent of ethics and sustainability, of collective duty for the environment, the society and the grand totality, that supersedes the individuated and isolated imperative wreaking havoc in the modern world. The essence of both worlds, the ancient and the modern, deserves to be bridged together for advancing holistic systems of optimal co-existence.

A Byte of Background – Machinations for the Future

In something of an oxymoron apparent, the journey has been a train ride on two parallel tracks, the ancient and the futuristic, with an aspiration to forge the meta-systems of the future with the aid of abstracted technology and out-of-the-box ideation. I like to think that the classical Buddhist analysts and expositors of the Abhidharma (causal and psychological systems of near infinite relationality and depth) would have been lucid systems thinkers and object-oriented designers par excellence, were they around today.

For better or worse, I've been somewhat under-exposed to the finesse of the modern analysts. I'm keen on understanding and extracting the essence of every analytical and systemic achievement in the contemporary domain, although admittedly much of it falls under the heading of "unnecessary complexity with restricted scope" in my records. Nevertheless, it's all out there, and on the merit of its present application and impact, deserves to be abstracted and reconciled into a greater picture of shared operations.

Being a hybrid of an ancient analyst and a progressive programmer, I hope to make a contribution of some worth towards the benevolent systems machinery of the future, employing a skillful admixture of structural logic, causal analysis, recursive abstraction and post-modern software designs that can record, process and meaningfully illustrate the identified complexity.

Analytic Orientation Matrix – The Elementary Foundations

The three major sections of this site – Matrix, Analysis and Orientation – form the back-bone of a toolkit that can be deployed for a deeper and broader understanding of phenomena. Any phenomena. Matrix looks at the system in its entirety. Analysis looks at the methodologies for insight. Orientation looks at compasses for many contexts. When these can be applied with beneficial effect towards understanding the situation of an individual in the complex system called life, with all of its efficient and underlying factors, then how much more should they be applied into analyzing and modeling complex systems that have the potential for impacting countless lives?

Much of the ground covered there is "pretty basic" as far as possible perspectives for analysis and orientation are concerned. However it is these very "pretty basics" that are routinely neglected. A failure to account for the most basal and elementary aspects of self-analysis, causation and relationality – while mesmerized by complex paradigms and haphazard ideation primarily in tune with personal aims – is the root cause of undesirable individual consequence and harmful collective impact. Epic fail, that is. It's neither pretty nor basic, and fortunately it's quite avoidable.

In Conclusion – The Present Semantic Weave

On a closing note for now, I should mention that while the terminology employed here may not be entirely consistent with the usage of choice on a given field of systems thinking and related disciplines, it tends to be faithful to standard dictionary definitions. Some of it is certainly influenced by the world of programming and the semantic fields featured in translations of oriental philosophy. Please bear with me while I'm orienting myself to the multivalent dictionaries of contemporary lingo. There's a definitions glossary and a semantic conversion gateway in the works to be sure...