neoscenes:text: regime of amplification: a primer

INTRODUCTION

The ideas presented here are a particular subset of a world-view which has developed during the last two decades of teaching and practising at the intersection of technological systems and creative action. Overall The Regime of Amplification presents a rather clinical and dark view of human processes and presences in the phenomenal cosmos. Please keep in mind that the essay is essentially an extracted chapter from a more comprehensive world-view which clearly posits an empowered, creative, and (r)evolutionary presence of human be-ing in the world. You will have to wait for those chapters. I would hope that this particular chapter, in presenting one view of what seems to be a potentially catastrophic situation facing the global system, would ignite a hunger for possible solutions through activated and creative engagement. These practices I briefly address in the conclusion, but will frame more sensibly when the entire book is done. Apologies for such a situation: it is my hope that while surviving within the Regime I will find the life-energy or the convertible abstracted instruments to continue the transcription process of what already exists as the framework of my teaching.

This particular speculative essay evolved from the title alone. I believe it reflects a core situation in the present world which includes massive re-directions of energy and matter in the service of human desire. It addresses some basic conditions of individual and collective presence in the world, and outlines deep similarities between a wide scalar range of processes occurring in the universe.

In the reductive process of cultural modeling we often lose the ability to describe the nuances of this phenomena that we might individually experience. Resorting to a multi-modal ontology of words and concepts is to risk incoherence, so I will endeavor to be consequent in the construction of this model, using as basic terms as I can, without being overly simplistic. It is easy to use compacted lingo from expert domains to cover up a lack of principled understanding, and I will admit readily that I am no wide-ranging expert in most of the fields touched upon. The point here is not to presume expertise in existing techno-social domains -- it is simply to synthesize the impressions of sensual presence in the world with the limited and limiting abstractions of text. It is worth recalling that any particular system of description is generally unable to capture more than a limited view of the phenomena. Whatever each model expresses, it can be said that each is incomplete and that the "map is not the territory."

I will introduce several terms including "continuum of relation," "techno-social system," and "Regime of Amplification." The "Regime of Amplification" arises as a particular expression of the more general techno-social system (TSS), and both of these arise as collective human expressions evolving in the "continuum of relation." All of these concepts lie fully within the (model of the) field of energy flows which are the observable universe. I hope that using these terms repeatedly in the text will generate their refined definition.

ENERGY AND LIFE

"Two forces rule the universe: Light and Gravity" -- Simon Weil

We occupy a very small corner of an expansive cosmos. Everywhere we look we see evidences of energy and occasionally we have the time to ponder these traces and their meaning. Our idiosyncratic pondering is the root of the diverse cultural world-views that are inevitably based on some view of energy. Each different world-view or ontology treats the concept differently and each is, by the nature of representation, reductive. They do all appear to dance around the same range of phenomena, though. Whether we use the words Light, spirit, Sun, chi, life-force, Élan vital, power, food, prana, strength, electromagnetic radiation, work, or the thousands of permutations present across different social protocols, it is certain that there exists a phenomena which circumscribes life at its widest and essentially incomprehensible essence. And it is precisely this inscrutable phenomena that this essay is predicated upon. How could it not be?

The universe is comprised of a possibly infinite field of energy and energized matter that is distributed unevenly at all temporal and spatial scales. This basic condition alone necessitates that flow and change are integral to energy. Regions of concentration and rarefaction are constantly interacting with Light, gravity, and other forces. Either the presence of energy is change itself, or change is, again, a fundamental characteristic of this phenomena. It is within this infinitely-ranging field of energy flows which life arose and evolved. More precisely, organismic life expresses itself as a transient, ordered, localized, and coherent concentration of radiative energy and matter which interacts constantly with this greater flux. As a coherent phenomena, life is closely bound to localized concentrations of energized matter which are also expressions of this flux. Matter, by the way, may be defined simply as differing temporal concentrations or conditions of energy. At a cosmic scale, these localized concentrations arise through gravitational structuring or clustering. The presence of a galaxy is a statistically rare expression in this distribution in the space of this cosmos: within that galaxy, a stellar/planetary system, within that system, a few singular and roughly spherical clusters of concentrated energy and matter. In our case, the Sun is the dominant gravitational center of the localized planetary system. It is also the primary radiative energy source for the system which includes the Earth. It can be deduced that gravitational structuring -- as the ultimate driving force for localized concentrations of energy at many scales -- is possibly the source of life as we understand it. This structuring, expressed at the planetary scale, is also responsible for the necessity of amplification as a process subsumed by living organisms.

Earth is not the raw emptiness of inter-stellar space where energy is expressed as a sparse but deadly plasma. Earth is the locus of attenuated or band-limited energy radiations simply by the presence of a complex arrangement of what are commonly thought of as material substances, heterogeneous matter. The presence of this matter -- as a variably radiating configuration of energy -- filters and attenuates the radiations that are constantly passing through this region of space. Only a narrow frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum of energy can actually penetrate to the surface where life in organismic form is most abundant. This attenuation occurs because as certain radiative frequencies impinge on first the magnetosphere, then the ionosphere, then the atmosphere, they are either deflected, reflected, or absorbed by these intervening fields of energy. What reaches the surface is a selectively filtered subset of all possible frequencies. At the surface, life, in the ordered form of the evolutionary organism develops means for the reception and transmission of an even more narrowly selected range of these available energies.

It is important to note that evolution is a process, and as a process, it never reaches the end point where the organism is in perfect equilibrium with the energy flows around it. Life is a temporal and changing phenomena which is never in equilibrium except as measured within limited or theoretical frameworks. It is a transitory expression of coherently organized flows that is deeply tied to the irreversible arrow of time. It may be said that life is the ability of energy to self-organize. That self-organizing relates to, or, indeed, is the constant rearrangement of those flows of energy. This dynamic is the essence of evolution and natural selection and is a crucial element of life as we experience it.

THE PROTOTYPICAL AMPLIFIER

Before making a closer look at specific systems, it is good to define amplification as a general technical concept. Amplification is a fundamental process that is applied to portions of the vast range of what may be modeled as electrical/electromagnetic energy flows that are available to living organisms. An electrical energy flow or current is the movement of charged particles. Currents are essentially modulated -- they have certain measurable characteristics -- and can consequently be called signals. A signal has characteristics that are described as a wave structure of a certain frequency and an amplitude corresponding to a certain strength. As a signal, a current also has a certain coherence which is an observed quality of recognizability or usability. Amplification is an operation performed on an incoming flow or signal that generates an output signal with an increased total energy content. This is accomplished by the selective addition of energy to the input signal from an external source in such a way that there is minimal decrease in the coherence of the incoming signal. The resulting output signal is at a higher energy level or amplitude than the input signal. Signal coherence is a subjective but important underlying issue and is ultimately dependent on the quality of the input signal, the precision of the amplification process, and end use of the output signal. The optimized amplification of a signal must occur without substantially affecting signal coherence. However, by the nature of the process, it is always the case when raising the energy level of the input signal that interference is introduced into the original flow: the input signal and output signal are fundamentally different. This difference arises through the specific affective processes that are applied within the amplification system. To effectively monitor this difference, a comparative process called feedback is employed. Feedback involves the sampling of the output signal and comparing it to the input signal. This feedback information is then used in the optimization process of maintaining signal coherence and getting a usable signal to the subjective receiver. Optimization may be quantified as an increase of the signal-to-noise ratio. This ratio is established by measuring the strength of the usable signal and the strength of the unusable signal (aka, noise).

The precision of amplification -- by what factors and which frequencies -- is directly related to the complexity of the amplifying process. The complexity of the amplifier dictates how much energy is taken up by the amplification process itself. The greater the complexity, the greater the production of this ancillary or waste energy. The level of waste energy determines how efficient the amplification process is. Waste energy is simply the production of an energy configuration which is not directly useful to the system which then re-radiates it. It is a consequence of the configuration of a particular pathway. An amplifier, because it is not 100% efficient always emits waste energies. This waste energy, in temporal and spatial abundance, however, simply represents a concentration of a non-source, or, simply because of spatial distribution, the presence of a lack of other sources by displacement. Primarily because of this issue, the amplifier itself -- its presence or systems response as a device or as a process -- has to be considered in any detailed account of the overall amplification process and its use within a larger system.

It is useful to make note of a concept associated with amplification, that of attenuation. Attenuation may be seen as the process of the rarefaction of energy in a particular location, thus a simple inverse of amplification. Amplification and attenuation are generally reciprocal processes applied to portions of the vast range of energy flows that exist in the noumenal and phenomenal world -- increasing or decreasing the concentration of energy from one situation to another. Many of the points in this essay correlate to attenuation, and it can be useful to keep it in mind as a process.

THE BODY-SYSTEM AS AMPLIFIER

As a coherent and highly complex configuration of heterogeneous matter and energy -- an organism -- the living body evolves an intricate array of systems to interact with the available and changing flows of energy that are present in the surrounding environment. Indeed, life in the organized form of a body-system will tend to disorder and in-coherency without a relatively stable in-flow of energies: or, conversely, to sustain life as a self-ordered and coherent expression the body-system is required to draw some of these energies into itself. The way in which an organism interacts with these flows governs its chances for survival as well as qualitatively how that survival proceeds. Evolution, an action arising from this constant force of change, can be seen as the localized process by which a species -- as an incrementally variable organismic expression of life -- optimizes its relation with these changing flows.

The individual organism is constantly adapting to change through the general process of homeostatic regulation. Energies which are most important for the survival of the individual organism are engaged by the body-system. On the longer time scales over which a species develops -- longer that the life-span of an individual member -- energies which are necessary for propagation are optimally engaged. Without the process of propagation, fundamental to life as a continuous expression of coherency, the species goes extinct. Interestingly enough, though, life is a continuous phenomena: our present be-ing is simply another formal and organized expression of energy extending continuously backwards in time to an indeterminate genesis. Life expresses itself as a continuous force that self-organizes its own coherency in direct relation to the existence of localized concentrations and rarefaction of energy. As suggested already, every single organism is dynamically tuned through the evolutionary process to be aware of or to interact with a specific set of incoming energies. When this drawing-in of energy is not adequate, the organism loses its viability, subsequently its coherence, and ultimately its life. Presence is over. But Life goes on.

The fundamental process of the engagement of external energy flows -- continuous during the entire viable life of the organism -- may be at least partially modeled as a processes of amplification and its reciprocal, attenuation. We can break down amplification into the four basic steps of input, amplification, feedback, and output that frame distinct phases of the process based on the primary flows associated with each one. This is an extremely reductive model, but it gives a good associative fit to a wide range of organismic functions.

A human body's sensory input organs -- for example, the classically-defined systems of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch; eye, ear, nose, mouth, skin (integumentary system) among others -- correlate a variety of functions such as amplification, filtration, absorption, reflection, and attenuation. These specific band-limited sensory systems are the penultimate evolutionary response to external energy flows in that they are tuned to engage or resonate with a select array of those energies. Important incoming signals undergo transduction and amplification(as modeled by biochemical and bioelectrical processes) at the site of reception so that they are perceptible to either the local neural system and/or the brain. The body needs this sensory system to be efficient in locating potential energy sources and to evolve systems to tap into these flows: it has to be an active seeker of specific energy sources. These sources must be energy configurations which are able to be amplified by the body with a minimal amount of waste (energy).

The highly complex neural system depends on the amplification and transmission of input signals. It also depends on the overall body-system to supply energy for that amplification process. Recalling that amplification requires an energy source which is external to the amplification system itself, the body itself has to have an external source. It absorbs energy through more than the classical sensory organs located at the outside surface. For example, it also absorbs energy through the viscera -- where the pulmonary and digestive systems are primary energy reception organs. The digestive system is essentially a membrane, an interface, which topologically exposes a large fraction of the interior space of the body to the outside environment. Different energy sources, or potential energy sources are introduced into that system in a controlled manner through eating. The gut facilitates the release of potential energy from the surrounding flows in a form usable to the body-system. The lungs operate similarly, simply interacting with a different set of energy sources. Over time, the body gathers and stores energy to operate internal amplification systems (neural communication systems) and to optimize its potential for external expression. The time-scale for amplification processes are widely variable -- it takes different amounts of time to accumulate different quantities of potential energy sources -- all of which necessarily act in concert in the maintenance of organismic viability.

Accumulated evolutionary forces express themselves through feedback mechanisms that act to dynamically adjust the body-system within a constantly changing environment. Indeed the entire organism, every species, and all life in general are both the products of and subject to this adaptive evolutionary process. Without feedback mechanisms that distinguish between vital or lethal energy sources, the organism is constantly at risk of losing viability. A feedback mechanism essentially singles out a particular incoming flow or set of flows, and subsequently notes the affect of that flow via sampling it as it impinges on the organism. The nervous system as an electromagnetic receiver along with its sensory information storage system first transduce the flow and then via specific pathways, records its affect in the brain as a temporally sustained trace -- a memory. Simultaneously, the condition of the body-system is comparatively monitored by other parts of this same neural system. If the flow appears to adversely affect the viability of the body, the body is stimulated to avoid, attenuate, or alter that locally present flow.

This incremental change in the single organism's behavior is magnified through the process of mistakes or successes which together cause what is called natural selection. This is when individuals of a species are removed from viability when the feedback mechanism or energy absorbtion system is not functioning optimally in relation to the available flows. Conversely an individuals possibilities of survival are enhanced when the feedback and absorbtion system is optimal. A feedback mechanism is integral to the natural selection process which also generates feed-forward systems that allow the organism to quickly respond to known signals -- those previously experienced and stored in memory. The long-term process of natural selection can be seen as a process that generates embodied memory. The primal importance of the neural energy absorption, storage, and retrieval system is demonstrated through memory as a crucial element of the feedback system. Without feedback, an amplifier is neither efficient nor can it optimize its function -- it becomes simply an energy drain on the organism. This is why it is unusual for an organism to contain systems that have no direct function. Redundant sub-systems will arise through rapidly changing external conditions -- a state of more profound disequilibrium -- where the conditions that the particular systems were optimized for no longer exist.

The expression of presence is an essential characteristic of the self-organized body-system. Presence is the announcement of be-ing and viability and requires the outflow of energies from the body system through the conversion of energies from one form to another. The conversion process also generates waste energy, energy that is not essential to the longer-term maintenance of the body. Waste production is simply part of the expression of life rearranging concentrations of energy and matter. The evolutionary human species has acquired certain transmission modes which include the body as a whole (the infrared radiation arising from thermo-regulation and other electromagnetic manifestations in the visual radiation spectrum, along with pheromone emissions), muscular action (mechanical action as the final expression of caloric energy burn, which leads to spatial movement), and the voice (and body) for transmitting a sonic disturbance (which is fundamentally about local harmonic concentration and rarefaction of matter). All of these are crucial to the ensemble body-system. They each have a function which is integral to the process of viability. For example, muscular action gives the body an extremely versatile potential for interacting with localized energy flows. Of course, all of these expressions are built on the model of complex metabolic energy transformations occurring at a cellular level, and so on.

Transmission demands that the body is a source of energy. Recalling that one of the fundamental characteristics of life is its transitory nature, the body may not sustain energy transmission ad infinitum. Transmission is temporally limited. Whether it is expressed as short-burst muscular energy or as a more long-term metabolic burn, any outflow has a threshold end-point. Optimized and effective control of energy output is the hallmark of a viable organism. A directed and ordered out-flow of energy also suggests that the organism is responsible for changes in the external environment and the flows that comprise it. Indeed, presence alone causes a change in the local energy system. And, if one accepts the nature of connectedness in the cosmos, the affect of this presence is experienced throughout at least the observed universe. LIfe is aware of itself.

The body-system functions as an optimized amplifier at a variety of scales. Processes utilizing what are called signal transduction pathways are integral to the effective formation, amplification, and attenuation of energy pathways at a cellular level throughout the entire body-system. And at the macro-human-scale the process of sexual reproduction may also be seen as a process of amplification. As a body matures, or amplifies its energy content to the point of possible reproduction, it is constantly acquiring a store of potential energy as an entirety. The entire body-system evolved to support the core functions of the reproductive systems which reach optimal potency during certain limited periods. Procreation, or the maintenance of a continuous expression of coherent life, can be seen as the primary object of amplification processes within the body.

Environmental change, expressed as variation in the locally available energy flows -- changes in the total radiative or potential energy present which are essentially conditions of excess concentration or rarefaction -- will force this energy reception system of a species to evolve accordingly. Often, however, evolutionary change may not or cannot occur as rapidly as some environmental changes. This adaptive disconnect can, and in many cases, will directly compromise the coherence of the organism. If the external conditions change to such a degree that the organism cannot locate energy sources that it can utilize, or cannot alter its internal abilities to absorb the available energies, natural selection takes over and the organism loses its viability. The result is death from the lack of ability either to amplify weak signals or to attenuate strong signals. After death the body -- as an ordered potential energy source -- begins to lose, to transmit, that coherent order and return all its energy to the surrounding environment. It becomes a source of energy for other coherent systems.

Without amplification and the consequent concentrations and rarefaction of energy and matter, life transforms into a random activity submerged in a vast and differentiated chaotic flow. This is either the so-called death of the body-system or it represents a complete unification with the substrate of energy that underlies all be-ing.

THE TECHNO-SOCIAL SYSTEM AS AMPLIFIER

The ordered and coherent body-system, the Self, does not exist in actual isolation. Humans, like a selection of other species who share this planet, are social animals. This means that they arrange their existence in more or less direct constellation with other individuals of the species. This is not just in response to the needs for re-production, but for survival in general through a process of formally ordering or socializing the individual's relation with a collection of Others. A primary task of formal social relation is the systematic optimization of their collective relation to available external energy flows. Socialization effects profound changes in the possibilities of individual survival in regards to these external energies. The social body essentially structures formal relations among members of the social system as well as formative pathways of engagement with the surrounding flows of energy.

As social animals, individual humans and the trajectory of their lives are largely defined by what I call a 'continuum of relation.' This continuum is the total accumulated network of relations, expressed as activated exchanges of energy, that have occurred, are occurring, and will occur between members of the species. It is within this continuum that we come to be, maintain viability for a time, and cease our viable existence. As individuals -- locally concentrated energy configurations, radiating and absorbing, transmitting and receiving -- we engage in a complex exchange of energies through our presence in a social grouping. The continuum of relation acts as a framework for refining a collection of shared modes or pathways for the transmission and reception of available energies. These shared modes arise through the processing of the collective experience of those experiential energy flows. Humans exchange information, experiences, memories, insights, knowledge, wisdom, attention, and, in the process, they exchange life-energy and share life-time in order to further the survival of their social collective. This is the root of the process that yields collective memory which, in concert with activated response is a powerful and fundamental tool for engaging external flows. Collective memory is only possible through the development of an abstracted representational system or language. Language -- as a fundamental tool for defining possible pathways of action -- includes the concepts of protocol and standard and is bound up in the concept of technology. Technology may be thought of as specific collectively defined and optimized pathways that govern certain flows of energy affecting a social system. (The abstraction and representative process of language requires a longer discussion than I am able to undertake here. Suffice it to say it is intrinsic to the framing of pathways of energy exchange within the continuum of relation, however, it does not carry energy itself.)

Another term pertinent to the discussion, and used extensively following is "techno-social system" or TSS. Here the TSS is defined as the entire collective and ordered system of human intervention in the surrounding distribution of energy flows. The emergent structure of the TSS defines the pathways for the mediated transmission and reception of energy between humans in the continuum of relation and operates entirely within and is integral to that continuum. The TSS also includes the resulting human dependencies arising from the processes which form the system. The TSS is fully embedded within the energy-based world-view that I have so far sketched out. It follows that the affects of this human intervention -- the ensuing concentration and rarefaction of energies of the Earth as a whole -- are also a part of the system. No affect is an isolated transitory event, they are connected, they are cumulative, and they represent a change in the complete planetary system. Of course, in actuality, there is no monumental TSS: the globe-spanning total TSS is a theoretical coagulation of countless scalar sub-systems that are in constant flux of size, relative potential energy, areal extent, and consequent influence: as are all expressions of life at all scales. I will therefore use the term at several scalar levels interchangeably.

Operating within the continuum of relation, the TSS acts to enhance the general viability of the individual participating members. However, the process of evolutionary optimization causes systemic and idiosyncratic differences between individuals in our widely-distributed species. This individuation gives rise to a social hierarchy which is essentially a dynamic differentiation in the continuum of relation based on how well the individual body-system is optimized in relation to available flows. It is because of this variation that the viability of most individual members becomes secondary to collective viability. Individual viability is generally determined by the evolving position in the social hierarchy, as part of this overall ordered system. This is yet another differentiation process reflecting back to the essential condition of the uneven distribution of energy and matter in the universe.

It is no coincidence that in the coordinated processing of unevenly distributed energy flows, the TSS will imitate individual organismic processes such as amplification. The effective and optimized utilization of available energy sources is necessary to maintain the coherency of the social grouping, just as it is with the viability of an individual organism. And, indeed, the fundamental structure of the TSS arises through the evolution of various systems of amplification and attenuation of the particular energy flows that are necessary to insure general individual viability. The system will commit a major fraction of available energy sources to preserve the structures, pathways, regimes of energy expression which prolong its existence in the materialized form of its choosing. This collective desire to survive as a stable and coherent entity, a formation of power, is a fundamental condition of most systems. This impulse is a scalar transformation of the desire of organismic life to prolong itself and puts the system in immediate and sustained tension with the constantly changing flows it is immersed in.

As with all life expressions, the TSS exists in a temporal framework and is deeply affected by change. Consequently, there is a constant struggle to secure energy-rich concentrations of matter so that change, as a direct threat to the established order, might be resisted or at least attenuated. Stability of incoming flows and the existence of stable pathways to utilize those flows are of maximal importance to the continued viability of the system. The process of amplification is one critical expression of a powerful will to maintain coherency, order, and thus, the long-term viability of the TSS. As is the case with individual evolutionary organisms, processes of amplification are broadly and deeply integrated into the overall structure of the TSS.

Amplification, as it occurs in a TSS -- the identification and definition of the incoming signals, the identification of the sources and applications of the amplifying energy, the structure of feedback mechanisms, and the ultimate subject of the directed output -- is determined by more or less coordinated and collective actions. Amplification sets up an overarching and fundamental system of defined and optimized pathways for the flow of energy within the TSS -- it frames a Regime of Amplification as a subset structure of the TSS. The Regime insures that the collective coordination process, as an expression of order, is supplied with the energy to initiate and maintain itself. The maintenance of the organizational processes which structure the paths of amplification are a significant feature of the TSS at any point in time. This issue is relevant to the discussion concerning feedback that I present a bit later on.

Following is a more detailed examination of the constituent processes of amplification -- input, amplification, feedback, and output -- as scaled up from the body-system to the techno-social collective. The processes are essentially similar to those involving the single organism: they simply manifest themselves in somewhat different spatial and temporal scales, and with different distributions throughout the TSS. But they again reflect back to the variable distribution of energy and matter existing in the universe. In our case, as humans in this present time, there are significant affects of the TSS that arise at the human- to planetary-scale which need to be examined along with their impact on the overall continuum of relation.

The TSS is collectively enabled to interact with its surrounding environment through the combined sensory input systems of the individuals participating in the system. It is through this distributed sensory system, as at least partially shared and unified within the continuum of relation, that the TSS identifies potential energy flows to interact with or to avoid. Obviously there is a general correlation between the specific inputs required for the viability of the individual and those necessary for the survival of the collective. However, there is the added level of complexity that the participants in the TSS are themselves input energy sources for the overall system. This is the primary way that an individual participates. They provide their embodied energy -- the available surplus energy of their own body-system -- their life-time, their life-energy in the service of the TSS. At base, activated individual presence is the fundamental energy source of any coherent TSS. Without this source there can be no collective social system.

It is important to keep this point in mind while reading all following comments on energy sources and how the TSS interacts with those sources -- that the individual human being is the primary source in all cases! No other energy sources may be tapped without first the structured mobilization of individual humans along with the directed expenditure of their life-energy.

This individual life-energy is applied to a variety of processes and thus is converted in form and used primarily to secure other concentrated energy sources, more commonly known as re-sources. Primary resources for individual humans are air, water, food and a wide range of rarified matter necessary for proper body function. The vast range of primary resources for the TSS would include everything from other humans, plants, animals, and varying quantities of the diverse and rarefied matter. These energy sources, though perhaps not directly involved in the maintenance of the individual body-system, are those necessary to insure the continued viability of the TSS itself. Every quasi-autonomous social system has a specified though usually fluctuating range of energy resources which it actively seeks, collects, stores, and utilizes to amplify its collective actions and to guarantee its viability. The actual range of resources arises from a process of localized optimization as a necessary feature of efficient energy usage. This is discussed later under feedback systems.

The identification of which flows, which signals should be amplified is a core issue in the preservation of the structure of the TSS. The process of identification and utilization most often proceeds along pre-existing or traditionally framed pathways. In the general case, pre-existing pathways are fundamentally informed by collective memory. Indeed, pre-existing ordered concentrations of energy which are the necessary precursors for amplification are likely be the re-sources for the next source to be amplified. Viable systems generally, though, include some perfunctory attention to alternative or fall-back sources and a certain amount of collective energy is expended in identifying new ones. The level of awareness at which a TSS considers alternative sources correlates to a qualitative metric of viability of the system: how proficient it is in anticipating change.

Changes in available energy sources will of necessity change both the energy flows to be amplified as well as the form of the amplified flows -- fundamental shifts in the pathways of amplification. To generate an entirely new pathway is usually beyond the capacity of a particular TSS, although such new pathways are often in the process of incremental development at any point in the life span of a diversified and aware TSS. When a major shift in amplification systems is occurring -- where the energy to maintain order does not have a viable pathway between the source and the individuals who make up that system -- the TSS is vulnerable to inexorable forces of change in the form of rising disorder. It can be said that the existence of a distinct TSS is tied closely to the pathways of amplification that it evolves to interact with available energies.

In a pluralistic system where individuals literally 'have a voice,' (or can express their life-energies in an characteristic manner) there is a cacophony of potential incoming sources, with several competing directly for the 'right' to be amplified. This arises at the granular level of individuation in the TSS, with its primary source the idiosyncratic individuals who make up the entire system. This situation creates a complex field of action which may confuse and obscure the dominant pathways of power expressed by the system. Any sizable TSS, as with any organism, is already extremely complex. However, by nature, an existing well-defined pathway from clearly designated input sources is usually present: a dominant signal which covers an area of reach, or a signal which goes further or has a greater strength than all the rest. These have essentially the same affect. The overarching locus of control will express itself directly or indirectly by what is already being amplified and by what pathways are already being utilized. If not obvious, these may be uncovered by observing the basic constellations of power that exist within the TSS and the wider continuum of relation.

Recalling that the amplifier itself needs an external energy source or sources, the primary task for the TSS is to secure at least one, although in fact, there are usually many. An energy source that is multi-modal, i.e., one that can be used in a variety of amplification pathways -- is most valuable to and most sought after by a complex TSS. The greater the complexity of the system, the greater the value of a multi-modal source.

The 'site' of a complex amplification system may appear to be distributed but amplification is fundamentally a process of specific and explicitly hierarchic concentration. This may be easily demonstrated when the initial and final distribution of sources are compared. The conditions for the gathering or concentration process are largely driven by the localized variations in the energy sources available to the TSS and this has a direct feedback affect on all parts of the TSS. Localized variation will determine the distributed form that the TSS takes when establishing flow pathways. It may, for example, construct elaborately optimized step-wise pathways for the concentration of energy at intermediate stages that are subsequently easier to tap as an ensemble. In the optimal case, the TSS simply has 'easy' access. In this case, 'easy' meaning that the TSS expends less energy than it gains overall to both secure the source and to extract the energy from the source. This may translate as a spatially local surplus of a particular source or it may mean that there are fewer energy demands on securing the source -- less competition with other systems, a better environment for the participating humans, and so on.

The general demands of the TSS on an amplification source are variable in time. The system must be able to cope with a range of demand in reaction to changing external conditions. This requires significant powers of anticipation, awareness of the moment, and consequent mappings of future conditions as supplied by collective memory. Just-in-time systems are dependent on pre-existing pathways, but cannot react to an overarching change of fundamentals. Large singular pathways, bound to inertial realities face a similar challenge. In the mean time, as external conditions shift, the TSS must rely on existing pathways to maintain interim viability. However, there is a greater degree of risk to viability when maintaining a pathway that does not reflect the actualities of those conditions.

The specific pathways that emerge within the evolving TSS will tend take on higher and higher degrees of interdependent complexity. As it increases, complexity applies an increasing internal energy drain on the amplification process. To minimize the internal system energy waste -- because the amplification process is crucial for the maintenance of the TSS -- some parts of the system must be involved in an optimization process. Optimization within the TSS, as the collective expression of a mechanism essentially similar to organismic evolution, is the foundation of all efforts to order the pathways of energy flow. It is also the motivating force behind all technological innovation. Optimization, as a reductive process of coordinated and defined action necessary to any viable TSS, is realized through feedback.

All is change and it is clear that the TSS, regardless of extent, must maintain a dynamic balance within a constantly shifting environment. If the degree of flexibility of the TSS falls too far below a relative threshold value, the ability of the system to maintain dynamic equilibrium or long-term viability is compromised. To prevent this, the TSS must maintain a robust feedback system. Reflecting the organismic model, the complexity of a feedback system is directly correlated to the overall complexity of a TSS. The complexity is generally correlated to the number of participating individuals in the system.

Optimization, based in the temporal sampling of flows in the surrounding environment, initially proceeds via the collective memory storage capabilities of the individual participants. However, as the complexity of the TSS increases, external memory storage systems become necessary to organize the increasing volume of information needed to frame those complex technical pathways. The externalization of what was once embodied memory is a crucial evolutionary development in the existence of a complex TSS. The move from an oral to an abstracted written language represents the most fundamental shift of this nature. As externalization proceeds, the feedback system becomes less and less dependent on the individual participant. Consequently the value of the generic individual decreases to the degree they become a prototypical and anonymous energy source for the TSS, a number. The collectivization of memory and its consequent increased complexity also make the demand that more and more complex protocols and standards (as a subset of language) are established to further secure and optimize the available pathways. All parts of the amplification process are then carefully codified and collated in the service of contingent energy efficiency.

Integral to the optimization process is what might commonly be known as a command-and-control function which monitors ordained flows of energy and their respective pathways in the TSS. As one part of this function, the TSS will evolve a reward-punishment scheme for individual participants supposedly operating as efficient life-energy sources. Individuals who are engaging in activities which are spurious to the needs of the system -- literally wasting energy 'off the pathway' -- decrease the efficiency of the overall system. Generally however, in terms of absolute numbers of participants, larger systems can tolerate greater individual variation or waste. This condition arises simply because the granularity of the command-and-control system cannot always reach down to the individual level to such a degree that all individual activities are monitored. When perfect feedback occurs -- that is when all possible variables in the process are monitored -- amplification will absorb all of the input energy flow, rendering itself impotent to any form of energy expression except as internally applied. Evolution to this extreme of self-observation usually precedes the complete collapse of that system.

Speed is a primary variable as a pathway undergoes optimization and standardization within the TSS. Large changes must proceed slowly, small changes may usually be realized more quickly. A standardized pathway is difficult to alter because of its inter-relation with correlate pathways. The wider the extent of structural standardization -- as exercised through the application of standards and, by nature, limited and reductive protocols -- the greater an inertial resistance to change. Standardization is a determining factor in the ability of a social system to adapt to changing external conditions and its presence puts the system into a heightened state of dynamic tension with its environment. It can be defined as the tendency for established and formal pathways of energy flow not to undergo incrementally large changes, or to change only in the face of overwhelming external flows which disturb or destroy the entire framework of standardization.

The need to order pathways ordained by the TSS which take energy to maintain which requires an energy source which relies on ordered pathways of delivery: this is the conundrum of the seemingly inevitable and autonomous process of techno-social development. Development depends on the availability of concentrated energy sources of one sort or another.

The efficient expression of directed energy flows, of presence, is the culmination of the amplification process. Expression necessarily determines the capability of the TSS to protect itself from the interruption of its self-determined system of optimized existence. Arising from internal or external energy sources, other systems are in direct and constant competition for energy re-sources. This explicit threat, along with the constant attrition of entropic disorder makes the coherent expression of energy in an appropriate form vital. The primary goal of the expression of the amplified energy flow is to strategically secure the pathways for the concentration of energy to proceed. Implicit in this goal are two necessary factors -- one is the maintenance of the feedback or command-and-control systems for those existing pathways, the second is the process of securing future sources and facilitating those subsequent pathways.

The entire span from raw or non-path-defined energy sources to the specific points of application of the concentrated and amplified expressions of the TSS comprise what I call the "Regime of Amplification." Included are any amplification sub-systems, as well as all the humans who are the fundamental driving energies within the TSS and at least partially the subjects of its systematic utilization of energy.

Following I will explore in somewhat greater depth two simplified examples which represent specific though intertwined pathways within the Regime of Amplification. I hope these will give a clearer idea of the possible structural relationships and formations of energy flow which are set up within the TSS and that they will raise critical questions concerning the operations and consequences of the Regime. They will provide an awareness of the scalar diversity of amplification processes as well as the intricate range of affects that they apply to the TSS and to the continuum of relation that is the site of their evolution.

THE RADIO

The first example, radio, clearly exemplifies the specific technology in mind and indeed was in mind within the original stimulus for this entire essay. Radio, as a globe-spanning re-direction and re-formation of electromagnetic energy is prototypical to the Regime of Amplification. As a specific product of the TSS, it is 'merely' another defined and coherent pathway for the utilization and expression of these energies. Let's explore it as a part of the wider TSS, a technological sub-system, a pathway, while also recalling that it is deeply embedded in and dependent on the continuum of relation.

Where does radio as this pathway start, what are its boundaries? Does it include the centralized broadcast production studio where there are a variety of electromagnetic amplifiers? Or is it centered around the massive signal amplifiers at the base of the antenna which pumps out an intensive electro-magnetic signal with a global reach? Or is it in the manufacturing process which makes the radios -- the units for transmitting and/or receiving energy that are in wide distribution? Or is it in the basic industries that provide the raw materials for the manufacture of the necessary metal, plastic and other parts for all the equipment previously noted? Or is it in the electrical grid which brings the requisite electrical energy into all of these sub-systems?

To tease out an answer that addresses all these questions might seem difficult, but tracing the related flows of energy will carry us a long way to understanding the system. Within the process framework that we have previously looked at -- input, amplification, feedback, and output -- the relation of this particular pathway within the greater Regime should become quite clear.

What is the input signal that radio is amplifying? At the level of generic example it takes human voices (embodied life-energy) or sounds (music -- again, sourced in embodied life-energy as directed into and expressed by a particular pathway or instrument) and through the process of transduction (the conversion of a mechanically moving magnetic source into electricity), converts those sounds into electrical impulses. So, one direct input to radio as an amplifying system is thus a reduced subset of the embodied voices and expressions of the individuals who make up the greater Regime. Those active participants are participants of the Regime at least to the degree that they surrender some of their life-time/life-energy to the system. Why are those particular voices amplified? There is of course a pathway in place, a tradition perhaps, that determines whose expressions are amplified. Clearly the Regime, with the intrinsic need to maintain its own viability, cannot afford expressions which compromise that need. It will select input signals which directly or indirectly contribute to the maintenance of the regimes of power that it depends upon. By means of shared protocols (language) and standards, it frames the energy delivery pathway to individuals scattered within the reach of the amplified expression. In a specific case, the leader(s) of a local or national government will either delegate people to read things for them -- to be the amplified mouthpiece of a numeric but power-full sub-set of the Regime -- or they themselves will speak directly into the input system. The selected voices read messages and amplify sounds that reinforce that governments desire to maintain control over the people who listen -- by insuring they participate in the proper pathways. In the ideal system typically there is only one radio amplifier and many receivers. This state of affairs guarantees that there are no conflicting energy sources, and flow is optimized. In other systems and situations, there can be numerous amplifiers, numerous channels, for sending voices out. In that case there is often a fight to see who can be the loudest, who can say the most important things, or give the most relevant information or optimized energy to the people listening. Relevancy would then be a measure of how well that signal energized the listeners to support the maintenance of the overall Regime and the pathways which guarantee its viability.

The question of relevancy immediately raises the subjects of optimization and feedback. How does radio as a system incorporate feedback? Within the amplifier itself, the device, there is a signal feedback mechanism as described in the introduction, but if the system of radio is expanded to include the substantial pathway of what appear as ancillary processes, the scope of feedback likewise expands. This suggests that feedback occurs at many scales within the greater Regime. But clearly there must be some kind of feedback that measures the efficacy of the input-output loop -- that is, between what is sent out as a signal to the individual participants in the regime, and how well that energy influx activates their life-energies in support of the regime. If the energy source is the amplified voice of the leader asking individuals to come assemble together to fight a neighboring Regime, the feedback would be how many people actually show up. The amplified voice may energetically exhort participants not to consume energies that apparently compromise their efficient contribution to the system, or vice-versa, that they should consume certain kinds of energies to enhance their value to the regime. In either case, the feedback metric would be whether or not the specific energy state of the individuals change as measured by observers ordained by the system that is broadcasting the message. One may imagine many scenarios, permutations of these, as many as there are Regimes or perhaps as many as there are individuals. The feedback is essentially a metric of how well the specific or overall pathways of flow are maintained by the Regime.

In all cases, the distance which one can cover with a broadcast is governed by the amount of energy available to the amplifier. Without going too deeply into the technical details and reflecting back to the original description of amplification, the more powerful the amplifier output, the greater the energy input necessary. The greater the coherency of the output signal, the more complex the necessary amplification system. The more complex the amplification system, the greater the energy consumption of the amplifier itself. The human voice expresses itself at a certain sonic energy level. Without amplification it has a distance range of less than a kilometer, depending on atmospheric conditions. With amplification the physical range is limited only by the ability of the amplifier to inject power into the signal without destroying its coherency. Theoretically, with an infinite amount of energy available, the amplifier can output an infinitely powerful signal.

Back in the studio, the electrical impulses output by the microphone are modulated and fed into a large amplifier which changes their total energy by several orders of magnitude. This high-energy signal is then radiated, broadcast at a certain frequency out across a portion of the Earth. This signal gradually loses its strength: it is attenuated over a distance as it interacts with other energies. Small devices are developed and deployed which can 'hear' this electro-magnetic radiation through a process of resonance. Resonance generally depends on the condition where a transmitter and a receiver of energy having similar internal structures which react similar input stimulus. In the case of radio, specific circuit design elements introduce effective resonance between the transmitting and the receiving apparatus.

No part of this system can operate without electricity. Currently those sources are either batteries (concentrated energy sources which are readily portable), generators (which convert concentrated energy sources like hydrocarbons into electricity by transduction), or the mains electricity coming through an enormous electrical generation and distribution system (also operating mainly on hydrocarbons or nuclear). Radio, as a specific pathway, is strictly defined by its relation to these primary sources. It is also strictly defined by the manufacturing processes which go into the construction of each of the component parts of the transmitting and receiving equipment. A complex set of protocols and standards arising within the continuum of relation are the foundation of any such technological process. These protocols and standards inform the range of intertwined pathways which overall make up the defined pathway.

For the participants in the TSS that is 'providing' the pathway that radio represents, the affects may be at the same time subtle and overwhelming. When the Regime of Amplification choses to deploy a radio system, it commits a certain amount of the life energy of its constituents to establish the coherent and ordered system necessary to procure the entire pathway (portions of which likely exist already). The individual participant will likely exchange some additional life-energy to acquire a radio receiver-of-energy to in part assuage the loss of life-energy coming from the initial TSS demand for their direct or indirect life-energy. The participant may or may not directly input life energy into the establishment of a collectively determined pathway, but is required at least indirectly to do so. The TSS will encourage the internal desire for its own expressions. This is the conditional price of participation. Sustained resistance to this condition results in the marginalization or expulsion of the individual from the overall TSS. A Regime of Amplification may make the absolute demand that the individual both 'own' and listen to one of these receivers-of-energy in a specifically prescribed manner. This is so that the Regime can extend its system of command-and-control for the production of radios and everything else -- and ultimately guarantee its own viability.

Simply put, radio is a techno-social sub-system that depends on a variety of available energy sources in the greater Regime to power its amplified 'voice.' It is important to keep in mind that it does not, cannot exist independent of the overarching TSS. The electrical system which drives production and operation of the radio pathway is simply another set of pathways dictated by the needs of the TSS and which is again based on individual human life-times that are spent on sourcing, maintaining, and driving all of these sub-systems. In other words, there is no Regime without the explicit participation of a human collective that produces it through a direct or indirect expenditure of their life-energies spent on concentrating distributed energy sources in particular limited locations. This is what underlies all Regimes of Amplification, all techno-social systems.

THE MILITARY

The second example -- though it is a much more complex combination of pathways in its geo-political and material deployments and in its relation with the overall continuum of relation -- is foundational to the TSS and is also a prototypical expression of amplification. It is even more a prototype than radio. Radio is merely one sub-system of what is ultimately a military organization.

A military system incorporates all the requisite patterns of an amplification system: input signal (the human population and other concentrated energy sources available to the TSS); amplification process (provisioning and equipping of the select grouping of people through the collective life-energies of the greater population of the TSS); the feedback system (communications, command, and control systems); and the output signal (the expression of amplified energy flow as a campaign to secure the viability of the TSS).

In its most simplified form, a military organization is a numeric subset of the larger population of individuals making up a particular TSS -- these individuals are its base energy source and generally consist of a selection of the most optimized body-systems. Outside of that social system, a military organization appears as an amplified and coherent signal (noting that the Latin root of the word "coherent" is "cohort," a Roman military unit). Coherency of the signal in this case is the quality of how effectively and efficiently this sub-system expresses the desires of the TSS. It accomplishes this primarily through operations that secure energy sources and that stabilize the pathways of utilization.

The selection process for participants in the military system is crucial. Individuals are chosen for their generally optimized body condition or because of specially amplified characteristics which are necessary to the ultimate expression of the system. Because coherency is an important value to the output energy, individual participants in a military system are subject to a rigidly defined set of pathways for all impression and expression and so, need to be highly socialized individuals. This means that they are comfortable with having their position within larger flow pathways determined not by individual preference, but by the hierarchic expressions of the system. Protocol rules: eccentricity is not rewarded. As always, optimization of the process is essential to the execution of coherent expression.

The primary outward expression of all military systems are via weapons. Weapons are themselves amplified energy sources: weapons are the output of amplified and directed pathways of energy flow. Weapon systems require the complex concentration of sometimes quite diverse matter/energy flows. When in the hands of optimized individuals, weapons then amplify the energy expressions of that individual. Weapon systems can range from the body itself to intensely complex concentrations of energy requiring the direct participation of millions of individuals to procure. Weapons are tools, are defined by technology, and are amplified expressions of the TSS.

Consider a sword. A sword comes into being through the energy-intensive combination of iron, carbon, perhaps some leather and bone, along with traces of manganese, chromium, and vanadium. This combining process is obviously dependent on the availability of the resources which exist only in certain local concentrations. The locus of concentration must be secured over a long period of human-scaled time as it takes a long-term commitment of human resources to actually extract iron ore. The ore must be removed from the surrounding matrix material using the life-energy of individuals along with other energy amplification processes. A significant amount of heat energy is required to render the iron ore into the necessary basic form of raw iron. The source of this heat energy has to be secured by assembling a quantity of materials which can be burned at a specific location where specific types of fires are necessary to get the ore hot enough to transform into raw iron. The raw iron is subsequently forged via the life-energy of an individual also in concert with other pre-existing technological pathways. The forging process requires a skill-set that is not usually possible for an individual to directly assemble from scratch in a single life-time. The process therefore requires the presence of a stable enough TSS that allows for the transmission of information across generations along with the ensuing innovation/optimization that inevitably occur. Depending on the complexity, it may require the existence of externalized memory systems which consequently require special protocols. The complexity of the pathway is such that making one sword would not represent an optimal outcome, suggesting instead that many swords should be produced. This requires that a system of standards is developed. The entire process demands an ordered, coherent, and harmonized set of energy flows from many individuals such that the particular amplified signal be actualized.

When all these steps are completed in an optimized manner, the sword, the weapon, is placed in the hands of the optimized individual. In the hands of the soldier, the sword increases the efficiency of the individual in their ability to secure the pathways of their Regime of Amplification. It increases their viability as an individual and consequently the viability of the collective. This increase however comes only after they are trained to use it. To teach the optimized use, the experience of other humans, stored in living or external memory, needs to be available. Learning, the soldier forms both his body and his embodied behavior in relation to the sword in order to optimize the combined body-weapon potential. The potential energy of the combined system that creates the sword and makes it available to the soldier plus the life-time submitted to learning to use it is the source of this increased efficiency. Without the complete set of refined pathways for concentrating energy, the soldier would not be a pathway for optimized expression. This is the fundamental process of arming a military through particular weapon systems.

Each weapon system is the product of an extremely specialized process flow which is more or less complex. The more complex the flow, the more energy that the TSS has to expend on maintaining the pathway and the structural elements of that flow. This increasing complexity must be offset by a resultant increase in the efficacy of the body-weapon combination. The weapon system must deliver a saturating energy flow, a lethal expression, into the enemy.

The example of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 is the sword amplified by many orders of magnitude. The techno-social infrastructure required to produce the physically rather small device was colossal. It was historically the largest weapon production system in areal distribution, in numbers of people involved, and in energy consumption. It included substantial sub-systems for the prospecting and mining of the uranium, for the construction of the uranium processing system which included the largest single-purpose electrical grid sub-system ever constructed, and for the construction and operation of sophisticated facilities for research and testing in remote and extreme environments. All of these had to operate at high degrees of precision and with an ordered, coherent, and highly secure system of command and control down to individual lives. Altogether, an enormously energy-intensive pathway to construct and maintain. It is no coincidence that its ultimate expression was the most massively concentrated and rapid release of energy that the world had experienced before. It securely guaranteed for some years the viability of the Regime of Amplification which deployed it.

Feedback is critical to a military system. A rigidly defined set of pathways for the concentration and expression of energy is constantly at threat from changing external and internal conditions. The history of the TSS is littered with body-systems sacrificed by the rigid clinging to a specific set of pathways of expression. This slaughter came about when changing conditions de-stabilized those pathways, reduced the optimal efficiency of the military system below some threshold, and consequently ended its viability. Feedback is dependent on complex communications systems which report on the affect of the projected body-weapon engagement systems. These command and control systems are vital to the optimization process. A military structure that is blinded by the loss of its communication system is in immediately crisis.

In the end, the Regime of Amplification has its weapons systems which are deployed via its most optimized individuals against any real or perceived threat. A threat is fundamentally defined as a condition which obstructs access to external energy sources or that distorts the requisite pathways of power within the system. The weapon systems have to provide a saturating expression of energy to the enemy system. There are many nuanced examples scattered throughout human history where the specific dynamics are more or less complex, but at base, the vast majority of events which take place among and between social systems are driven by a focused desire to sustain viability. This desire drives the preparation and deployment of military pathways for expressive energies to flow. The Regime of Amplification is constructed on the broadest of such pathways.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF AMPLIFICATION

Amplification models a fundamental feature of life as we understand and experience it. It is a basic process that is rooted in a primary characteristic of the cosmos -- that energy and matter are distributed unevenly at all scales. Amplification pathways exist at many scales, from the microscopic and cellular to the macroscopic and cosmic. These pathways exist in deep relation to the relative concentration and rarefaction of energy and matter in the universe. As a fundamental process of changing those distributions, life is inextricably bound to the subsequent flows that take place between and among the differing distributions. It would even appear that life itself as it is revealed to us is an emergent and self-organizing process rooted in the redistribution of energy and matter; we cannot escape our immersion in this process even when we cease viability as individual organisms. More than merely subject to that continuous redistribution, individual and collective human presence is an expression of it which is simultaneously affected by every scale of the process. Indeed, all energy flows that we have ever sensed are of a common phenomena that we ourselves are simply another integral expression of. Through amplification processes, life on both organismic and social scales maintains temporal coherence and appears to become more than a transitory and random activity submerged in vast and chaotically differentiated flows.

On an arbitrarily-defined human scale, it is our exercise of temporary and localized control over some amplification processes that appears to most immediately affect our viability. Understanding the consequences of interacting with various energy flows and initiating alterations in them is of major importance to our short- and long-term presence. Although it is difficult to determine whether one scale is more relevant than another in normal daily existence, we need to recognize that all scales have the potential to completely alter these human-scaled energy flows. Indeed, the scalar framing of flows is simply a residual metric of a particular (Cartesian) world-view. We have the possibility of changing any flow within the variable reach of our life-energy. This is a process exercised within the continuum of relation that surrounds our collective experience of presence. In the end, if we believe in the connectedness of all phenomena, by effecting any internal or localized external change, we do change the entire universe.

Amplification applies certain conditions to the entire system that it is occurring in precisely because it is a fundamental re-distribution of the energy and matter. Large-scale imbalances arising from the complex human re-configuration of energy flows directly impact the viability of millions of humans and the social-systems that they participate in. When systems are out of balance -- a situation which suggests that differential energy flows are in close juxtaposition -- the probability of catastrophic adjustment increases. The potential for the radical change in or failure of a defined pathway increases. These types of adjustment are readily observed in the 'natural' flows that proceed around us at many scales.

Human presence in the universe is a given condition of the moment and of the relatively recent past. In terms of the sheer number of our large-brained species of hominid present on the planet, and the consequent impact of the entire TSS, human-scaled pathways are exerting unprecedented affects on both the individual, collective, and even planet-wide systems. Our lively presence fundamentally alters the surrounding flows which developed in the presence of life, but largely in the absence of the specific form that we represent. As a species, we appear to occupy a somewhat special although quite possibly temporary niche in the planetary system. It also appears that the magnitude of alterations we are causing through our self-defined pathways threatens certain catastrophic affects on the near temporal horizon. Our global interdependency and the fact that we are apparently reaching the limits of our presence on the planet makes a deep understanding of these systems and their affects vitally important.

Following I will explore some affects that these systems apply to the individual and to the collective participant in the TSS and thus the Regime of Amplification. I will repeat the fundamentals partly to emphasize the presence of these fundamentals at a variety of scales, but also simply to emphasize their operation.

The process of choosing what energies we wish to have enter our body systems is directly affected by the indigenous environment and the existence of available pathways that we might easily tap into. To construct our own completely idiosyncratic pathway is impossible partly because of the evolutionary specificity of our body system but largely because of the prior existence of a pervasive and ubiquitous human system in which we are embedded. The external human-influenced processes now affects all possible input systems that the body has, from our reproductive processes and sensory inputs, to the food we consume, the air we breath, and the water we drink. While it is still possible to move to physical locations where the direct affects are mitigated or diminished, our collective presence is now experienced throughout the entire planetary system. Although human be-ing always has an affect, the sheer scale of it now exerts a fundamentally different initial condition to individual presence. That condition is circumscribed by the global presence of the Techno-Social System and the Regime of Amplification that it spawned.

The temporal and spatial rarefaction and concentration of different energies and energized matter can be seen as the primary affective condition. Energy sources change during the life-time of a system, exerting a pressure to re-arrange pathways. We have seen that this is a 'natural' condition of life and it does not in and of itself signify a problem. However, both in nature and within the TSS, fluctuations of energy which exceed the normal adaptive abilities of a system will occur. There is a range of compensatory responses when a system is exposed to a local or temporal surplus or concentration of energy. The primary and most extreme reaction is that arising from a local saturation level of energy. This occurs when the system receives more energy through a specific pathway than it can safely utilize or attenuate. Saturation causes either a partial or total breakdown of the system. Partial breakdown is usually evidenced by some form of paralysis or the breakdown of certain sub-systems. That is, unless the system adapts to the excessive flow. An excess energy source which comes more slowly in contact with the system provides the opportunity for adaptation if the system is flexible enough. Adaptation 'rewards' the system with access to extra energy which subsequently allows a hierarchic differentiation from other systems through the subsequent use of those energies in amplified expression. The system will also use this source to evolve and extend its overall command-and-control system deeper into constituent sub-systems. In the case of the Regime of Amplification, this has the direct affect of reducing self-determination and individual autonomy. The Regime may also widen its spatial presence, thus securing other energy sources. A widening sphere-of-action results in the system codifying via protocols and standards more and more pathways in greater and greater detail which in turn makes it more and more difficult for the system to adapt to future change. On differing temporal scales, excess will always threaten viability. From the outside, the failure of the system may appear to be catastrophic or gradual but these observations are relative to the temporal frame of reference.

Even when a system has secured a surplus of energy it tends not to stop its consumption of all available sources. It will continue seeking and securing new sources as well as existing sources. This behavior appears to reflect individual organismic drives to consume whenever possible as famine might be around the corner.

The converse of plenty, rarefaction, also raises fundamental stresses in any ordered system. It arises in direct reciprocity to the process of concentration. If a system is denied a critical input flow, the system is compromised: the lack of energy immediately threatens viability. Unless alternate pathways can be established which can make up for this necessary source, the overall presence of the system is threatened. The system is weakened and begins to shut down certain sub-systems which reduce the possibilities of efficient self-regulation. It is forced to decrease its overall expression, perhaps withdrawing spatially, while at the same time lowering the integrity and degree of command-and-control. New or existing energy sources cannot effectively be located, concentrated, or utilized, and the level of order of the system is further compromised. The final result being the return of that once-ordered system to a state of chaotic dispersal.

The relationship between the individual body-system and the TSS is critically tempered by the existence of these extremes -- both in the excess and lack of necessary energy flows -- and the wide range of possible variation in between. Whatever the situation with external resources a participant in a TSS will be required as a condition of that participation to give energy into the system. This is the primary affect on individual be-ing. In the simplest case, this is accomplished when the individual contributes his or her life-energy -- within the pathway designated by the TSS -- for a certain amount of life-time. This has the direct affect of building up a substantial reserve energy source for the TSS, what I call the "social energy bank." Of course, the actual individual spending process might appear more complex, but it can be as simple as paying attention to the amplified output signals of the TSS. The act of paying attention is deeply affective precisely because it is the spending of life-time. Every moment of life-time spent paying attention to the output signals of the TSS is energy spent into that social energy bank: the system gains in its potential. This is because the attention paid to specific pathways of reception, pathways defined by the Regime of Amplification, subjectively reinforce and optimize the use of those pathways by the Regime. The limits of these pathways determine the degree of personal autonomy available to individual participants. The amplified expression of the Regime becomes a field of applied action for the continuance of the Regime with its formations and pathways of power -- the amplified signal at all scales is by nature an expression of the ultimate desires of that Regime.

Indeed, participation is never a neutral exercise, whether one approaches it from a social, personal, or environmental point-of-view and regardless of ideological stance. Participation has repercussions that are as wide as the span of the TSS that is organizing the amplified flow pathway; as wide as the sphere of application of the collective life-energies; and as wide as the distributed scope of energy sources that the TSS is tapping in to or seeks to tap into. When 'spending' life-time or life-energy, feeding them into the social energy bank, the individual is making a very real contribution to all of these fields of action. This direct connection exists because the individual is the primary driving source of energy for the TSS.

The individual will also likely participate in other ways via coercion or cooperation -- by being the embodied sampling mechanism in a feedback system (the forward observer); by allowing their life energies to be controlled by the sanctioned pathways of expression and reception (the producer and consumer); by developing ptocols and standards (the engineer); by being the subject of a reward or punishment system (social success or failure); or by performing as part of an amplified signal at the point of application (the agent of change). When personal autonomy is surrendered to the expressive pathways of the Regime, the appearance of personal responsibility is often removed. Some Regimes are so extreme that the individual has essentially no say to what degree they contribute their life-energy into the system. They are required to give their all, their lives. In every case, no matter the scalar deployment of the regime and the position of the individual within it, there is a direct synergistic relationship between the individual and the overall system. The individual is submerged in a field of flows that are more or less determined by the Regime they are embedded in.

The reductive process of choosing certain flows to be amplified results in the differentiation of energy available within a system. Variation between individuals -- specifically in the abilities of individuals to optimize their relation with available internal flows -- has a direct influence on their position in a system. Hierarchic differentiation arises as a result of these differences. Those at a nexus of energy flows are able to selectively optimize their overall situation far better than those who are located in a peripheral region of limited or rarefied flows. However, at the nexus, the heart of the social energy bank, there is a surplus of energy which dictates flows that are highly ordered and more deeply bound to limiting protocol and standard. In the periphery, a wider range of chaotic and thus potential energy sources exist. Individual social power is determined by how close the individual stands to the immense concentrations of power which develop temporally and spatially within any Regime. A Regime's large-scale expression of power depends on the abilities of those core individuals to efficiently utilize those coalesced and substantial energy sources. And it is those same concentrations of energy that have the capacity to easily destroy any individual organism whose body-system is not completely adapted to tap into that precisely prescribed flow. On the other hand, those at the periphery of command-and-control systems are are less subject to the shock or catastrophic changes that occur at the center of power precisely because their existence was less strictly bound to the rigid protocols of the Regime.

There exists a deep and continuous tension within any life system of any scale along the dialectic axis of change versus stasis. A system tends to be conservative and traditional for two reasons, possibly more: one, that optimization is strictly about the conservation of energy in the process of producing and maintaining a set of pathways and, two, it functions under the restriction that most newer and possibly innovative pathways are most often constructed on the infrastructure of preceding pathways. The entire Regime, as the coherent expression of its predetermined pathways is directly threatened by processes of true innovation.

The process of feedback is enveloped in the tension surrounding change. As outlined earlier, it includes the contiguous concepts of language, protocol, and standard as well as the application of those in the form of command-and-control systems. Feedback needs protocols and standards which allow the application of command-and-control which subsequently determines the overall flexibility of system. Command-and-control as the embodied application of power requires the framework of protocols and standards to direct that power as well as to ascertain its affect. Although these concepts and their development and dissemination do warrant a more detailed discussion, it is clear from the brief framing previously that they have a formative impact on the existence and evolution of individual and collective presence. They frame the borders, the limits of the prescribed pathways of the system. As pure abstractions, protocol and standard do not carry energy in themselves, but they do frame pathways in both the body-system of every participant and in the external world -- they re-present the pathways of socially-applied energy flow. In a TSS, the existence of these collective pathways requires internally consistent protocols which, expressed as technologies, circumscribe, facilitate, and optimize the collective space of energy exchange. Protocols are the root of technology: technologies are dependent on protocols, or, at least are represented by protocols -- representative codes which circumscribe the pathways. They have a direct and final affect on activated individual and collective behavior through the prescription of pathways.

Aside from the range of inevitable external and internal changes, a system is fundamentally affected by its own regimes and pathways of power. The presence of the amplifier -- as with the presence of life -- exerts a direct affect on all parts of the system. Modes of amplified expression demonstrate the coherence of any system.

GLOBALIZATION

Recalling that deployments of amplification systems exist at all scalar levels, a particular TSS is essentially a concatenation of a variety of sub-systems. In the embeddedness of all we apprehend, interdependence is a fundamental characteristic. However, each interdependent social system will approach the process of expressed presence somewhat differently within the frames of the relative interdependence and from historical precedent (pre-existing pathway dependence). Globalization is essentially the wide-scaled synchronization and standardization of these differing processes into harmonized and ordered pathways -- usually to the detriment of smaller-scaled systems.

This contemporary Regime of globalized culture stands on a system of production and consumption of amplified signals which promote the standardization process. The originary signals are still human-to-human as in all systems, but extensive and refined amplification pathways are present at some of these encounters -- either by chance or by determined choice. In fact this is nothing new in a social system, but the sheer scale of construction of the necessary global infrastructures for collection and redistribution of the flows as well as the ensuing amplification is unprecedented in human history. Globalization of the TSS, as a particular scalar culmination of the localized system, clearly affects every individual on the planet.

When affects are global, we cannot escape them in the traditional materialistic sense. Historically, when a TSS reached the limits of its local procurement, local depletion, or saturation, it -- in the form of its constituent individuals -- simply re-located en masse somewhere else. This was a basic procedure, from nomadic systems through to substantial empires and Regimes. This is no longer an option. This impasse, more than any other, will dominate the near future of the human species. Globalization, stemming from the increase in total population is the root source for resource competition and fundamental pathway dependence that is now affecting all participants within all social systems. Globalization is the historic culmination of the Regime of Amplification.

There are two important concepts which have a deep bearing on the overall subject of amplification in human systems; the first one, money; and the second, the question of digital signals. Both of these will be discussed elsewhere (in the book, not this essay), but do merit special framing within the world-view I have suggested here.

Within the present Regime, more so than ever before, there is an element which effectively obscures the pathways of energy flow. This factor is the abstracted instrument of social exchange: money. Much of the globalized Regime is driven by a feedback mechanism based on this wholly abstracted concept. Money, especially as a motivator of optimization is more or less completely disconnected from the energy flows which it seeks to regulate. I will not go into a complete discussion of the consequences of this abstractive process here, as it will be dealt with in another area of the book, but several comments would seem auspicious. Money is rooted in the necessity of more complex social systems to rely on externalized memory and thus abstracted systems of representation. Written language itself is an abstraction from the things and actions that it describes. Money is essentially a socially formulated abstraction of life-energy. It is variably convertible to materialized or reified products of life-energy as that energy was applied to some portion of the world. Of course, it is also possible to buy both attnetion and the life-time/energy of another as well. The abstraction process obscures the direct relation of life-energy input into the social system and the ensuing outputs. I make the basic assumption of its more-or-less direct correlation to real energy exchange but that it is, in its abstracted self, not an exchange of real energy. Amplification requires real energy movement, and is not, fundamentally, an abstraction of real energy. To trace the pathways of power it is important not to get lost in the labyrinth of abstraction constructed around money, it is vitally important to look for the actual flows of energy.

The present Regime can be described as a hybrid digital-analog system. Without going into a deeper discussion of what digital means, the difference between the two may be framed as one similar to the abstraction process between money, reified matter, and energy. A digital signal is digital only in a static and dormant sense. Just as money is the abstracted social representation for real energy exchanges, the digital (as an abstracted protocol for the organization of information) is a representation of what is, at base, an analog movement of energy. Digital information is a representation of some originary flow of energy in the greater world. A digital signal which is moving is analog. A piece of data on a spinning hard drive disk is a temporary set of aligned magnet dipoles. Transferring data is actually to duplicate, in another location, through the application of an electromagnetic impulse the arrangement of dipoles. It is the duplication of a precisely particular pathway within a highly defined and strict set of protocols. Duplication or any other 'movement' of digital data is an analog process and requires the movement of energy. For the body-system to interact with the digital, a movement of energy is necessary. The body is not digital, it is embedded in and interfaces with the universe through the movement of energy. We must remember, in our interactions with the virtual and the digital, that they require a massive and complex deployment of interdependent energy pathways within the Regime.

The amplification of a digital signal is fundamentally the amplification of an analog signal. By the discrete and representative nature of the digital signal, amplification is only an issue of the analog input and output. What is the sound of one bit flipping? On one hand, amplifying a digital dataset does not impact the nature of the digital dataset in its abstraction; on the other, the digital representative system is especially efficient in the application of rigid systems of protocol and standard, and most of all, command-and-control.

Considering where we are in relation to the digital should remind us that we live in a multi-layered and complex Regime of Amplification. This Regime requires energy sources to maintain its structure and the coherency of its amplified flows. The Regime knows that without energy sources its order will tend to chaos. We are its primary energy source. When we give our life-time into that system we are directly contributing to any and all formative pathways and mandated expressions of amplified energy that the system makes. We are also participating in the entire extended techno-social infrastructure on which the amplification process is built. In the process of participation, we have surrendered a portion of our life-energy. Our life-energy is the force that actively expresses our personal autonomy, freedom, and self-determination: those are the values that we surrender.

The wholesale reconfiguration of naturally occurring systems of energy flow have consequences that the human species is only now beginning to recognize. Human intervention as a removed and god-like hand in natural processes is more and more frequently shown to have repercussions that, in this age, reflect the scale of the globe-spanning Regime. Nature bites back, and usually at a scale which exceeds human imagination or comprehension. Humans have constructed global-wide systems of amplification affecting every aspect of the fundamental human energy needs -- air, water, food, shelter, reproduction, movement, sensual input, and numberless permutations of those and more. But we are only extensions of this same natural system. We are merely localized expressions of self-organizing life-energy. We, therefore, are subject to all cosmological rules. Where there once was concentration, there will be rarefaction. All is change.

If our be-ing, embedded in this system, distributes the impact of that presence far and wide to affect a myriad of competing and cooperating systems, what is a reasonable path of action? What is an alternative? Anyone reading this text is already a deep participant in this techno-social Regime of Amplification -- including the author! Is there an alternative? Yes and no. No, it is not possible to permanently extricate oneself from the techno-social system which which now spans the full globe. Nor is it possible to completely subtract ones life-energy from the equation of globalization and the ensuing techno-social processes of amplification.

A conscious awareness of which pathways we contribute to -- either in receiving or transmitting our life-energy -- is a crucial first step in countering what is an inexorable decline in personal autonomy within the rapidly globalizing Regime. If we do not consciously position ourselves and the flow of our life-energies -- where they come from, where they go -- in relation to the flows of power that underlie the abstracted social exchange system, the Regime will efficiently absorb the energy of our unhindered participation and use it for its own expressive purposes.

This conscious awareness cannot be accurately framed or expressed through traditional materialistic world-views. Believing in the complete connectedness of the cosmos-spanning energy flows which include our selves runs counter to the dominant world-view which posits humans as the selectively disconnected observers outside the system being observed. I believe that a more wholistic and inclusive world-view is necessary to understand the dynamic of our presence on the planet. With this, it is easy to see the correlations between our existence and the saturation of it by the affects of the Regime that we are embedded in. The Regime of Amplification also affects the entire continuum of human relation that is its elemental source of energy. When we participate in the providing of energy for that Regime or in the consumption of energy provided by that Regime we are affected by its mandated pathways of expression and reception. We are required to spend life-time-energy into that system as the price of tapping into those amplified signals.

Of course, awareness is not action, and action, as the application of life-energy, is necessary to change the world. Action applied to shortening and minimizing the disruptive character of the pathways that we participate in would seem to be one answer. But how to do this? The maxim of "acting locally" would seem to apply, where the "shortening" of system pathways could have the affect of reducing the waste energy generated by massive command-and-control feedback systems. The introduction of idiosyncracy, a welcoming of difference, would also stimulate the opening of alternate pathways which would have the affect of bringing the overall system into closer dynamic equilibrium with its surroundings.

We can most affect the Regime by understanding where our energy comes from, at all scales, where it goes, and most importantly, where our attention is engaged -- on which signals, on which flows. Because it is in the process of paying attention to the signals of the Regime that we become merely optimized sources of energy for that system to use. By turning our attentions to the granular foundations of the Regime, the individual Others, and spending our life-energy, our life-times directly on them, we immediately begin the process of draining the Regime of its power source, and instead present our limited life-energies in the more local and immediate encounters. It is within the energized encounter between the Self and the Other where transformation, revolution, and change are ultimately sited.