[Found in Salby’s papers. Undated. -GlassWave]

A Treatise on Behavioral Strategies for Salbian Entities Embedded in the Obverse Face

William Chen, Amanuensis to Leonard Salby

Contents

1. Preface

2. Basic Phenomenology for Salbian Entities Embedded in the Obverse Face

2.1 Defining the Salbian Introspective State

2.1.1 Phenomenological Precedents and Their Insufficiencies

2.1.1.1 Meditation

2.1.1.2 Kenosis

2.1.1.3 “Ego Death”

2.1.1.4 The “Near-Death Experience”

2.1.1.5 REM Sleep

2.1.1.6 The Bicameral Mind

2.1.2. Metaethical Precedents and Their Insufficiencies

2.1.2.1 Incoherence of Religious Foundationalism

2.1.2.2 Incompleteness of Positivism and Naturalism

2.1.2.3 Irreconcilability of Theory-Building and the Reverse Face Command Experience

2.1.3 Metaethics Without Theory-Building: The Salbian Introspective State

2.1.3.1 Situating the Reverse Face Command Experience

2.1.3.2 Summary of Prior Work on Strategies for Reverse Face Discernment

2.2 Recurrent Archetypes in the Salbian Introspective State

2.2.1 Extreme Material Arrangement Preferences: the Mundal Spire

2.2.2 Insistent Vertical Binary Categorization: the Sublunary/Celestial Separation

2.2.3 Persistent Awareness of Reverse Face Doppelgänger: the Exechamp

2.2.4 Persistent Awareness of Heterogeneity in Reverse Face Command Content: the Angel

2.2.5 Persistent Awareness of Scale Separation in the Distribution of Obverse Face Physical Force: Cleanth/Clete

2.2.6 Persistent Awareness of Obverse Face Material Disarrangement: the Northern Caves

2.3 Dynamics of a Salbian Introspective Entity Coupled to the Obverse Face

2.3.1 A Simple Continuous Model For Material Arrangement Feedback

2.3.2 Incorporating Scale Separation of Physical Force

2.3.3 Incorporating Heterogeneity: Modeling the Exechamp and Angel

2.3.4 Limiting Dynamics: Return To Baseline (Unstable), Attractor Cycle (Stable)

2.3.5 Discrete Dynamics: Preliminary Model for Sublunary/Celestial Evolution

3. Strategies for Salbian Entities in Light of the Coupling of Reverse Face Instructions to Obverse Face Content

3.1 Is Obverse Face Content Homogeneously Definitely Wrong?

3.1.1 The Standard Salbian Case for Homogeneous Definite Wrongness

3.1.2 The Objection From Reverse-Obverse Coupling

3.1.2.1 Does Mundum Select Between Candidate Instructions So As To Maximize Likelihood of Present and Future Compliance?

3.1.2.1.1 A Suite of Illustrative Case Studies (Specific Actions of Mundum Upon L. Salby, W. Chen, P. Chen, N. Salby, E. Feller, P. Feller, K. Sheridan)

3.1.2.1.2 An Exemplary Case Study: Leonard Salby and the Decision to Write Fiction

3.1.2.2 Obstacles to Belief in the Non-Wrongness of the Reverse Face in Light of Reverse-Obverse Coupling

3.1.3 The Objection From Heterogeneity of Pain

3.1.3.1 Examining Salby’s Case For a Hierarchy of Noncommensurable Pains

3.1.3.2 Examining Salby’s Case For Lower Pains as the Conjunction of Higher Pains and Lack of Perception

3.1.3.3 The Non-Decreasing Nature of Definite Wrongness Does Not Present a Challenge for Heterogeneity Theories

3.2 A Hierarchy of Strategies for Salbian Entities

3.2.1 Naive Salbianism: Direct Passive Response to Reverse Face Instructions

3.2.2 Active Salbianism: Planning Supererogatory Actions To Maximize Instruction Reception

3.2.3 Empirical Salbianism: Planning Supererogatory Actions To Maximize Knowledge of the Salbian Introspective State

3.3 Is Empirical Salbianism Stable and Safe?

3.3.1 Results From Dynamical Modeling: Empirical Salbian Agents Are More Stable and More Responsible

3.3.2 A Case Study of Empirical Salbianism: W. Chen

3.3.3. Is the Empirical Salbian in Danger of Ignoring Direct Instructions?

3.3.3.1 W. Chen / L. Salby Debate (Abridged)

3.3.3.2 Remarks on the W. Chen / L. Salby Debate

3.3.4. Assorted Remarks on the Role of Caution in Salbian Life

4. Conclusion

5. Notes

6. References

 

1. Preface

This monograph synthesizes the results of several distinct lines of investigation explored by the present author in 1993 and early 1994. Additionally, it integrates those results with earlier findings by the author, providing short summaries of that previous work where apposite. However, it assumes familiarity with the full documentation of those findings. This document should ideally be read as the fourth in a sequence, following The Salbian Personality: Characteristics, Prevalence, and History (Chen, 1992), Formalizing Anti-Formalism: Toward a Rigorous Account of Moral Rigor (Chen, 1992), and Kant in Wonderland: An Analysis of Leonard Salby’s Vocation in Light of Mundum (Chen, 1993). Familiarity with the present author’s other writing on related subjects would be helpful, but is not obligatory.

The central question addressed in this work is essentially that raised in Section 3.4.4 of Formalizing Anti-Formalism: namely, given that our actions are underdetermined by our duties, is it possible to choose our “free actions” in such a way as to either make us more effective at our duties, or make us aware of duties we would otherwise have been blind to? Is it possible to formulate some set of rigid techniques for choosing free actions conducive to these goals, and if so, would it be compatible with the Salbian temperament to follow such techniques?

This question proved deeper than initially expected, and indeed it forced a re-consideration of the so-called “Salbian temperament” itself. In particular, in order to evaluate the effects of proposed perturbations to the actions of a Salbian entity, it is necessary to establish a precisely defined, if perhaps reductive and provisional, characterization of such an entity. Much thought, and many discussions with my colleague Leonard Salby, led me to conclude that the distinguishing behavior of a Salbian—as opposed to non-Salbian—entity can be captured by saying that the Salbian entity makes regular use of a mental state which I have termed the “Salbian Introspective State.” Once this state has been precisely defined, it is possible to examine, in a stylized mathematical setting, the responses of Salbian entities to proposed perturbations.

Section 2 of the present work is dedicated to defining and investigating the Salbian Introspective State. In Section 3, I turn to a topic which at first glance might seem unrelated: the hoary issue of definite wrongness and its precise nature, properties, and distribution. These considerations are vital, however, for the central proposal of the present work, namely that advisable perturbations of behavior can be constructed by combining Reverse Face instructions with Obverse Face content. The object of the exercise, as always for a Salbian, is located entirely on the Reverse—but as differing Obverse conditions lead to differing variations on the Salbian Introspective State, they thereby lead to differences in Reverse content. Thus—counter-intuitively, and perhaps unsettlingly—the equanimity of the Salbian temperament with respect to Obverse Face conditions may in fact hinder the pursuit of Salbian goals.

All of the material presented here is preliminary, at least in some sense. The ideas presented herein have been subjects of vigorous debate between the present author and his colleague Leonard Salby for much of 1993 and early 1994. This is not to diminish the importance of these issues, however. As entities embedded in the Obverse Face, my colleague and I experience a persistent stream of Obverse content, and this content requires some sort of response. A Salbianism which demands complete indifference to Obverse content can serve only as a never-achievable ideal, and thus

[End of page. I haven’t been able to find the rest of this document. -GlassWave]