Off The Grid

I think and write a lot about mental frameworks, sometimes as if they are not a part of a person, sometimes as if they are a part of a person. On one hand, we do not always make entirely volitional choices about how we view and think about ourselves and the world so one’s mental framework seems not very different from one’s self; it is just part of who we are. On the other hand, there is some dynamic and volitional interplay that suggests some separation of our selves from our frameworks.

Right now I rather think one’s mental framework is merely a mind’s modus operandi, the way in which people interact with and think about the world and themselves. As a method and manner of doing things, it thus seems to me one’s mental framework is as much a part of that person, and equally as separate and changeable, as anything else they do.
~OH: Framing My Mental Me

In talking about mental frameworks, I had previously pointed out to my wife that everyone had a mental framework, that no one could not have a mental framework, even kids arrogate and modify parts of their parents frameworks as needed. Of course she asked why not, why couldn’t a person just not have such a piece of knowledge or information and refuse to be an adherent of such a framework.

So I pointed out that a framework isn’t really a piece of knowledge or information; it is a system for valuing and finding meaningful associations and symbols among the information you already have and for making guesses for where you might find more meaningful information associated with the meaningful information you already have. A framework is not a library of books but the systematic organizing catalogue for the collection of books. People without an access system or with a faulty access system for their meaningful interior information are unwell; I think of Alzheimer’s as a degradation first of the biological structure of a person’s mental framework so information can be there, just without ability to access it. 

And clearly such a system could come from a ‘brand name company’ an explicitly coherent and socially recognized system, Christianity, Atheism, Buddhism (perhaps too, Conservative Republican, Liberal Democrat), or the system might merely use some general aspects of those well known systems, materialism, existentialism, spirituality etc. And this challenged me to imagine a scenario:

Imagine frameworks are bought and sold by customers and stores, and stores and chains of stores compete by pitting their brands against one another, offer more here less there, and offer them for more cost here less cost there. There are popular trends, special markets, entire economies, discounts, sales, even attempts at market regulation by various agencies, which of course only work to varying extents. For every practice in modern day business one can imagine a “framework business” parallel.

Now imagine someone who has always lived off this grid – someone who has never used or seen a complete framework for sale, or even specialized parts and bits for sale, or the ‘companies’ who ‘sell’ them, who has always used their own framework grown on their own as they happened to need it.

So you can just go and get one off the shelf?

Yes, and compatible parts too if you only have specific needs.

Oh. But why would you do that, why would you use someone else’s framework?

Uh… wow. Well see, they’ve been tested, tested to hold up under wide or specific circumstances and… … er… huh. You know, I suppose if you have to ask you obviously can’t afford to suddenly start having one of them.

My point is only that such a person may have lived off the “frameword grid” but they still had a framework, one that told them the value (to them) of such a framework market, told them the value (to them) of having someone else’s framework, and told them that such a value (for them) was one they didn’t need.