MONDAY, J UNE 09, 201 4

Strategic Hows and Whys

A strategic systems purposes are not necessarily connected
directly to strategic goals, since their trial and error processes
are more directed to choosing goals that meet their purposes
rather than choosing purposes to meet their goals. The purposes
in general involve the best way to choose the best reactions to
survival challenges, so while the overall goal of strategies must
be to survive, the intermediate goals would involve the hows,
whens, whats and even, or especially, the whys. Which
reminded me to write the following:

The whys of something have at least two aspects: The goal that a
thing might have acquired, and its particular purpose for
attaining it, both of which in turn can have several other
descriptive aspects. Someone for example will tell us of the
what of a single rock, such as its size, position, characteristic
elements, etc.; the where as both its general and precise
location; the how its sitting, loose, stable, crooked, etc., and
how it looks from near or far, how it shines, smells, causes
whistles in the wind, etc., etc.
But as to the why involved, that aspect seems to be an
afterthought of most descriptions, and if necessary to know at
all, its our concern for why weve found it sitting where it is - in
other words for its immediate purpose to exist - and then, if
were the more curious sort, we will ask how it came to serve
that purpose as a secondary aspect of knowing why.
And then we may continue on that same abstract level of
curiosity, concerned perhaps with who or what brought the rock
there and why they did, perhaps suspicious of the purposes it
was put there, but still not suspicious of any purposes attached to
the rock itself. After all, the thing is not alive, and even if it
were, are we concerned for example why a something such as an
ant has become an ant as long as were able to nd out what that
ant does and why it does it?
Do we ask ourselves whether knowing why an ant exists at all
will change our perspective as to what its doing and why? Yes,
some of us will ask that question, but will be easily satised
with an explanation" that as living forms, weve all evolved
from accidental origins.
To be told for example that the ants instinctive qualities
emerged, and that its actions have become spontaneous over
time, will be seemingly enough for science. Leave the whys to
some old speculative philosopher, such as the ones whove told
us of the accidental determinations of nature to begin with.
And so getting back to the proverbial rock, we certainly dont
feel the need to know more about its dead purposes than the
reasons that any living thing might have to use the rock or move
it somewhere else. Not needing in the process to concern
ourselves with any purposes that nature could have had to either
produce a rock, or to make any crucial use of its production.
Rocks, we say, were non-living things among all other material
on this formerly lifeless planet, and living things could have
done nothing other than emerge from that ancient environment
spontaneously - if that.
But then I ask, why use emerge as the possible how if we
really dont know the possible why that any such
materialization process would work? And you might ask in
return what has made me have concerns about the why if I
cant determine the true nature of the how of rocks to begin
with.
But wait, isnt the how of the why the most important question
here? Whether we can ever really know the hows if were
satised that we dont really need to know their whys as well?
Such as why we should have rocks anyway, if theyre really
absolutely and uselessly dead things? Because, of course, if they
are, why are rocks here, there, or anywhere at all?


Unless in the asking, we might discover why they have needed
to be here, and how theyve helped strategically to make the
living come alive.
And how and why those ants acquired instincts.



POSTED BY ROY NILES