About Me

Posted on June 19, 2024 • 13 minutes • 2754 words

Table of contents

Hello friends!
A few of my favorite things
Universal Object Reference
Exurgence
- Dictionary Definition of “Exurgence”
- Encyclopedic Definition of “Exurgence”

Kat Morgan in curls

Hello friends!

My name is Kathryn Morgan, aka Kat among friends or @usrbinkat on socials. Please feel encouraged to reach out if you feel so inspired. I’m always down to chat.

Welcome to my personal home on the interwebs. Mostly a parking place for tech related content as this is largely an outlet for work product that is interesting to me, but of no immediate interest to my professional employers, partners, and projects.

For readers continuing below the fold , feel encouraged to navigate to areas of interest via the Table of Contents. This about me is littered with a smattering of oddities, topics, and tangents. Find what is interesting to you and just go with the flow <3

A few of my favorite things

Language, Expression, & Ideas

The English language is my favorite expressive medium. I adore words, using them, and exchanging them always everywhere anytime forever. Favorite topics include tech past, present, and future. I love getting into the weeds about topics like Kubernetes, KubeVirt, Platform Engineering, DevOps, Education and edu pipelines, community development and ilk. Be warned, I will also go off on other topics like art, religion, politics, automotive centric societal evolution and the imperative need for trains (to be oddly specific).

Sport

As a transplant into the Pacific Northwest I absolutely adore the out of doors here. Whether trail running, mountain biking, lake fun, or just cruising on a long winding road trip adventure my heart belongs among the nature we so miraculously benefit from and call home on this thriving rock flying among the stars.

Arts, Trades, & Hobbies

My personal interests and core motivation in tech is to one day build my art studio and sub-tropical solar gain powered greenhouse.

Both are extremely important to me, my art studio representing all of the core reasons I love to be alive for, and the greenhouse representing the wholesome future I want to build for myself and promote more access to for others.

I’ll save the greenhouse for later, save but to say it will be capable of supporting citrus in northern latitudes during winter months and will also produce a few types of farmed fish as part of the closed circuit nutrient cycle.

The Art studio will support heavy functional architectural art work. Melding together finish carpentry, hand forged iron and metal work, hand blown glass, and low voltage lighting. I find functional art, in the form of structural pillars, beams, and archways, also gates, staircases, and railings, and doors, windows, and skylights to be largely underwhelming in conventional human spaces, and these crafts to be the most rewarding outlets for skills I have developed a passion for.

Navigating Life Differently

I was born in Oklahoma and raised in the 90’s and 2000’s by a conservative homeschool fundamentalist evangelical family. I am fortunate to have the benefit of diagnosis for my Autism spectrum neuro-divergence. “Navigating Life Differently” is a re-coined naming of the acronym “NLD/NVLD ” diagnosis I received as a child. This impacts how I perceive, understand, and react to the world and all of the beautiful people in it. I’m proudly weird, a part time dork, and I play a cool kid on TV with some success professionally. Most importantly, with a world view shaped by an Autistic shadow disorder I feel a strong moral compass and am deeply connected to fostering an objective sense of justice (trains, again with the trains, as a matter of social justice).

Authenticity & Identity

Recently I feel privileged to be growing into my age. Perhaps an odd thing to say, however I have largely lived split between the qualities of being too mature for my age, and simultaneously too inexperienced at the same time. These symptoms of my life story may still exhibit evidence frequently from day to day but I’ve done enough in life now to appreciate the traditions I come from, the values I’ve learned to prioritize, and the ability to make informed decisions with reasonably good instincts to lean on.

Much of the maturity I enjoy now originates from an intersection of self realization born of experience and deeply rooted in my trans-gender life experience, success in tech sector developer advocacy and community development, conservative background, and growing pains from 10 years of marriage.

Authenticity has become a paramount and fundamental necessity in my relationships of all kinds. Caveats and imperfections acknowledged, life is incredibly short and more importantly miraculously unlikely and magnificent. I’m here to connect with people on a real level, to learn, grow, and understand perspectives that may be new or uncomfortable at first, and I hope to generally add to the empathy and joy in the world despite the chaos and drama each day brings.

Self Actualization & Improvement

I have long aimed to improve myself and be the best that I can be each day. This has been a very consuming and destructive endeavor which I have only recently discovered to be toxic.

At 35, I came across the idea that “do your best” is toxic from an empirically objective perspective. I was insulted by this take, perhaps because it cut me too deep and too personally.

Since then I’ve been able to sustain a more balanced and healthy relationship to doing my best. When taken in a subjective context, the human quality of life becomes an asset to the goal rather than a weakness to be defeated.

I once considered human imperfection to be a personal failure. Objectively, from a pure systems perspective one might argue that this is still true. I personally argue in favor of adaptable flaws making complex systems more robust.

Most importantly, doing your best is a relative concept, in that your olympic best after a 10 year training regimen is not the same as your best after a 10 year battle with cancer. However the results from both “bests” are not only valid, but worth celebrating. Similarly, I find that my best each day is routinely better and of higher human quality when I operate from a place of celebrating what I bring to the table each day vs. trying to be the best at everything all the time.

Flow vs Cognitive State

Flow State:

Characteristics: Complete absorption in an activity, loss of self-consciousness, distorted sense of time, intrinsic motivation.
Experience: Activities feel effortless, there’s a deep sense of enjoyment and fulfillment, creativity flows naturally, and productivity peaks.
Benefits: Enhanced performance, increased creativity, improved emotional regulation, and greater overall satisfaction.

Cognitive State:

Characteristics: Deliberate, logical, and effortful thinking, often involving problem-solving, planning, and reasoning.
Experience: Activities require conscious effort, can lead to fatigue if prolonged, and involve constant self-monitoring and correction.
Benefits: Effective problem-solving, strategic planning, and learning new information. However, it can be mentally exhausting and less enjoyable compared to flow.

My Lived Experience

Flow state is a remarkably new discovery for me. I’ve lived in a hyper cognitive condition my whole life, directly thinking my way from problem to problem, whether balancing on a curb while playing, attempting social interaction, or learning brand new ideas and concepts. Everything has always been a cognitive, thought, and logic-driven activity in my mind.

In the last year, I’ve unlocked a first type of meditative state, it’s almost a place of feeling-driven actions and behaviors instead of just thought and planning dominating all of my actions and behaviors.

Flow, a concept introduced by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, is a mental state where a person is fully immersed in an activity, with a sense of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment. In flow, actions and awareness merge, time flies, and self-consciousness fades. It’s about being “in the zone,” where the challenge of the task meets your skills perfectly, leading to peak performance and satisfaction.

Since discovering the flow state and the energies of different chakras, I’ve fallen in love with being alive, living my life, and being me. Human connections come easily now, and being driven to try and experience new things happens quickly. In the past, I was afraid of, exhausted by, and couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do so many things. I was always adept in well-structured activities with other people but could never find my fit in an unstructured recreational social context. Now, I can usually slip into comfort at any social event, whether professional or recreational.

The transition from a predominantly cognitive state to experiencing flow has been transformative. Previously, my life was dominated by logical analysis and strategic thinking, making every activity a mental exercise. Discovering flow has introduced a balance, allowing me to experience life more intuitively and joyfully.

Now, I can engage in activities without overthinking, enjoy spontaneous moments, and connect with people on a deeper level. Social events, which once seemed daunting and exhausting, have become opportunities for genuine connection and fun. This shift has not only enhanced my personal life but also boosted my professional performance, creativity, and overall well-being.

Flow has become a vital part of my life, representing a harmonious blend of cognitive and emotional engagement. It’s about embracing the present moment, trusting my skills, and finding joy in the process. Whether I’m working on a tech project, engaging in a hobby, or simply spending time with friends, flow allows me to be my best self, fully immersed and genuinely happy.

References:

Religion & Spirituality

In keeping with the atheist’ conviction to do rather than to pray, for action rather than passive belief, I strongly identify with the conviction that life should be lived because it is the only chance at living which we are guaranteed.

A recent and new (to me) spiritual belief has sprung up from the study of UOR . Nature’s observance of the Golden Ratio / Fibonacci Sequence and persistent exhibition of Exurgence informs my belief in superior beings, or some such consciousness which exceeds the limits of our own.

While I fully believe in the likelihood of superior beings I also fully reject the premise of divinity and divine beings. All scientifically observable evidence indicates both that conventional religion is exclusively human fabrication, and also that humanity and all life that inhabits earth is entirely independent of divine influence in the present.

Based on this belief I hold a great reverence for spiritual experiences and currently hold onto the ideas that there may be a science based natural phenomena allowing for non-physical or not-currently-observable super natural appearing connection across time, space, and matter. I believe in the power of focused intent and the influence of emotional and non-physical realities.

I will not attack or otherwise discredit un-provable religious beliefs, however I will always confront toxic human activity including bigotry, sexism, neglect, and abuse whether rooted in secular, selfish, or religious beliefs. Modernity is plagued by the superstitions from a millennia of indoctrination by the sword. Monotheism will always breed fascism. Monotheist evangelists will always perform from a world view rooted in the desire to accumulate power and control.

My core beliefs originate from Abrahamic religions and were formed during a time of rigorous study and deep reverence. My lived experience has since proven to me that these ancestral tales are exclusively destructive, and any good seen among the millions who observe them today is due to the great and wholesome empathy which naturally emerges from a well adjusted people or also seen emerging from the hearts of people experienced in trauma on the road to healing and health.

What ever your beliefs, I respect your humanity and dignity above all else and humbly request to be treated with the same due grace and good will.

Universal Object Reference

Universal Object Reference known as UOR is a newly emerging reference specification originating from a reverse engineering and study of the natural order of the universe.

All perceivable objects, relationships, and ideas appear organized by a commonly observable and fundamental relational graph. This “Natural Graph” is the physical space in and between the space we as humans appear to operate within. Objects, or points in this space are separated by space, time, state, property, dimension, and context. Any one thing that is observably distinct from and individually separate from anything and everything else is itself an object.

Objects may be individual things, a relationship between to things may even be an object in as much as attributes are objects. Immaterial concepts in the abstract are also objects.

To date, there is no common information system capable of comfortably representing material and abstract objects together with a complete knowledge graph interface.

UOR takes on the challenge of functionally publishing, indexing, and distributing, all digital, physical, and abstract objects by leveraging off-the-shelf technologies including the OCI distribution spec , NIST OSCAL , and various category theory principals including Semantic Triples to produce a new type of data model which supports addressing and reference of objects by classical name and address attributes, in addition to exposing the features of content addressing and introducing attribute addressing, where an object can be defined by, and discovered by qualities which it is known and articulated to posses.

References:

Exurgence

Dictionary Definition of “Exurgence”

Exurgence (noun) \ ig-ˈzər-jən(t)s \

Definition:

The emergent property or quantity that exceeds the sum of the parts: Exurgence refers to the additional, novel characteristics that arise from the interactions of components within a complex system, which cannot be explained merely by summing the individual properties of those components.
The process by which such emergent properties arise: The act or phenomenon of producing qualities or behaviors in a system that are more than the aggregation of its constituent elements.

Examples:

The cohesive behavior of a flock of birds is an exurgence that cannot be predicted solely by studying individual birds.
In team dynamics, the creativity that emerges from group brainstorming sessions can be seen as an exurgence.

Encyclopedic Definition of “Exurgence”

Exurgence

Overview: Exurgence is a term used to describe emergent properties that go beyond the mere sum of the parts within a system. It encapsulates the concept of additional, novel qualities that arise from complex interactions among simpler entities. This phenomenon is observed across various fields, including biology, physics, chemistry, and cognitive science.

Etymology and Conceptual Foundation: The term “exurgence” is derived from the prefix “ex-” meaning “out of” or “beyond,” and “emergence,” suggesting an emergent quality. It was proposed to specifically highlight the emergent properties that exceed the aggregate of the parts, distinguishing it from general emergence.

Key Characteristics:

Novelty and Irreducibility: Exurgent properties are those that cannot be predicted or explained solely by understanding the individual components of a system. They are novel and arise from the specific ways in which the components interact.
Examples in Nature and Systems:
- Biology: The collective behavior of ant colonies, which exhibit complex social structures and problem-solving abilities that individual ants do not possess, is an example of exurgence.
- Physics and Chemistry: The wetness of water is an emergent property that cannot be deduced from the properties of hydrogen and oxygen atoms alone.
- Cognitive Science: Human consciousness is often cited as an exurgent property that arises from the intricate interactions of neurons in the brain.

Relation to Emergence: While the concept of emergence broadly covers any novel properties arising from complex systems, exurgence specifically refers to those emergent properties that surpass the sum of the system’s parts. It emphasizes the extra qualities that manifest from synergistic interactions within the system.

Applications and Implications: Understanding exurgence has significant implications for various disciplines:

Systems Theory: Helps in designing and managing complex systems by acknowledging and leveraging emergent properties.
Artificial Intelligence: Aids in developing algorithms and systems that can harness emergent behaviors for problem-solving and optimization.
Philosophy of Mind: Contributes to the debate on the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem by highlighting the irreducible aspects of emergent mental states.

Conclusion: Exurgence is a critical concept for understanding how complex behaviors and properties arise from simpler components. It provides a framework for exploring the limits of reductionism and the potential for novel, irreducible qualities in complex systems.

References: