What does freedom mean to you?

Hi Will
The question of leadership is an interesting one.
What level leadership?
Do you want someone to physically do what you do ? (Not I)
Do you want someone to think what you do? (Not really)
Do you want someone to think and act as you would?  (At what level).

What I want is for people to look around at all that is, all that has been and is being discovered, then in the knowledge of that, to look within themselves and make their own choice about what to do, where to go, who to be.

In an very real sense, I don't want people to follow other people, I want people to follow themselves.
I don't want to lead, I just want to do my thing.
What I do want agreement about, is creating an environment of technology, and legal and social systems, that supports and empowers everyone to lead such a life.  Beyond that agreement about the basic playing field - choose your own game.

So there is a sense, in a limited temporal sense, of the time required to create a defined set of conditions (www.solnx.org ) that I want to lead; but beyond that, no.

Hey Will

Not a lot to disagree with in what you write.
So many people and philosophers have commented on various aspects of that what we condemn in others is what we most dislike within ourselves.  A very good friend of mine who spent over 20 years in our parliament had as his first law of politics, “people condemn others for their own worst faults”.

Personally I have been in the inquiry as to the nature of integrity, and its many levels, for a long time.  Doing the Landmark Forum over 15 years ago was a major breakthrough for me.  For the first time I got to see my own arrogance in action.  I got to call up my ex-wife, and apologise for being such and arrogant self-righteous SOB during our marriage.  That was not in my “probable, almost certain, future prior to that point”.  Prior to then I was strong on the theoretical understanding of behaviour, but not too strong on the practical example.
Since then I have been putting more time and effort into the practice, while continuing the study and contemplation of theoretical underpinnings.

I love the saying (I think it is of Buddhist origins, but cannot clearly recall) - “it is never too late to have a great childhood”.
My experience of my childhood was of a living hell for much of it - isolated, teased, beaten; yet today, I have only gratitude for the access to empathy for others that those experiences gave me.   Without them, I don't know that I would ever have been strong enough to penetrate the arrogance, even with the tools I now have.
I am not a perfect living example of transcendence.  I still have my less than transcended experiences, my periods of arrogance, anger, depression, resignation - and they are becoming less and less common.

I am a stand for continually choosing being the highest self I can imagine - and I fail - often.  Then I get up and stand again.

Most of the time I love my job, and accept everything about the existence in which I find myself; and sometimes old habits kick in and I find myself making some aspect(s) (up to and including everything) wrong.  In those “wrong” times, there is very little love, vitality, or possibility present.

To the extent to which I bring acceptance to all that is and has been, and to the extent to which I stand for the things that I believe are highest; to that extent I feel complete and fulfilled.   Currently that happens most days, some days most of the time.   Prior to 15 years ago it would happen some years, for a millisecond or two.
I've come a long way - long way to go.  The journey is potentially infinite.  I do not believe that perfection can be achieved - or more correctly, that even if I do manage to live perfectly to my highest ideals (my definition of perfection) then there will always be a little uncertainty in the measurement, and I will never be 100% certain.
I am still far enough from that to see a few centuries or millennia of work ahead of me.

As to my conduct - I am not yet leading the world to nirvana; and it is something I am working toward.  Lots to work on there.

Hi Will

I draw a clear distinction between the two things.

One is my emotional response to who someone else is being.   If I find myself getting upset about someone else being too arrogant - then it probably points to my own arrogance, rather than to anything about him.

If I find myself getting emotionally upset about an injustice perpetrated on someone by a 3rd party, then that is a different matter.  And I am likely to take quite strong action against the third party, be he wife beater or child molester or rapist of whatever.   At the same time as I am preventing him from doing whatever he was doing, or was intending to do, I can still show him a certain amount of compassion (in the sense that if I had his history I would possibly be doing what he is doing).   I would still restrain him, and in some circumstance might even kill him, but not from a sense of righteous anger, rather from a sense of something necessary for the safety of another.

I have certainly felt that righteous anger, about 30 years ago when two guys broke into a friend's place and raped and beat his wife (who was also a friend from school days).  Like many others in that community, I took my rifle, and went out tracking down those who did it.   Fortunately it wasn't my group who found them.  Fortunately for them they didn't resist.  They got jail time rather than death.   I didn't have to face the question, would I pull the trigger, but feel that I most probably would have, and not from the highest of motives.

There are not many circumstances where I would actually kill another now.  I would need to be very confident that there was no other way to stop them killing someone who posed no threat to anyone else.

Your sandbox is somewhat bigger than mine, I live on an Island about quarter the size of Texas, but far more varied geologically.  Just got back in from a beach cleaning exercise organised by the local council - about 20 of us turend up and colled three big trailer loads of mostly cans, bottles and plastic (about half a percent of local population).

Hi Will
I can see a sense in which what you say about emtotions works, and it is not a schema I use frequently.

You say “emotions are an automatic reaction to thoughts and my goal is to intelligently choose my actions producing my desired results” which is in one sense true, and it is actually more complex than that.  It seems to me that emotions are a response that is mediated by a number of probability functions.  One set of probability functions is supplied by the model of reality that we run, which is informed in part by our experience in the immediate past, in part by our past experiences, and in part by our choices and declarations (which may be considered a subset of out past).

There is another aspect of the model that we use, that can generally be classed as “context”.  When we ca consciously select the context that we are using in any given instant, we can gain great control over the “automatic” responses that our brain produces.

The default context that we all start with is one based on the concept of right/wrong.  Once we learn to distinguish this context as but one of a potentially infinite set of contexts, we can move our awareness into this realm of meta-contexts.  At once it alters nothing and alters everything.

When one can consciously choose contexts in which there is no “wrong”, then the emotions that we associate with wrong simply cease to express.

It is not a simple thing.  The brain is adept at selecting contexts automatically - as is obvious from an analysis of the language I use on vessels when talking to commercial fishers, compared to the language I use at a Mensa meeting, or as guest speaker to a Christian women's gathering.  I don't consciously select each word - the words just flow from the context that my brain selects.  When I can be sufficiently awake to choose those contexts, my existence takes on a different quality.

Another possible way of getting a handle on how what we condemn in others is a reflection of our own worst faults is to consider how we model the world.   When it comes to emotions, the only direct emotional experience we have is the emotions that we have at some time in our life experienced ourselves.  When we model another person, we ascribed to them some set of attributes, and a subset of those will be a set of emotions, which will be a subset of emotions we have ourselves experienced at some point.   Thus there is a very real sense in which we can only ascribe to others emotions which we have experienced ourselves.  Most often, in most situtaions, this works well, and sometimes, when dealing with things outside our normal experience, it fails us.

Thus to condemn an emotion in others, we must, by definiton, have experienced it ourselves.   When operating from a right/wrong paradigm, we have trouble showing compassion for something we define as wrong.  We often fail to see, (or our subconscious hides from our awareness) those aspects that we judge as being wrong, as being something that we do ourselves (and how frequently we do them).

When viewed from this perspective, it is pefectly logical, and a long way from “psycho babble” - it is actually completely in accord with leading edge research on consciousness - particularly work being done by Douglas Hofstadter, Karl Pribram, and Pentti Kanerva.


I see much truth in what Kierkegaard says, provided one holds the notions of “truth” lightly, and is conscious of measurement error probability functions associated with all perception and conception.   In other words, don't be too sure that what you consider as thruth is actually so.  Holding on to this notion makes it much more realistic to act like Jesus is reported to, and refrain from judging others.

I'm with you in the experience of joy, life and that the exeprience of these can be completely independent of circumstance - ie is determined by the context of interpretation that the brain applies.

Be great (I like the addendum - it annoys the hell out of those who had other plans for you ;) )

Hi Will

I also am enjoying this very much, and share your attitude to the beliefs of other.

I like your description of choosing contexts - it seems to be exactly what I do.  Yes - the automaton things is to be avoided - it is the state of not being present, not being awake.

I guess some of the language of Landmark does become a habit, and I have had a lot of value from their work, and I have been close to being thrown off programs a couple of times.   Currently in a dispute with the leadership over a couple of phrases they use which are clearly false, and do lead some people into serious problems.  Specifically saying that anything is possible.  I believe what is possible is infinite, and what is not possible is infinite.  The only infallible way of determining what is possible and what is not is to try it and see.

I don't deny the experience of Emmerson, but I do dispute the interpretation.   For me the experience is one that is provided by the “holographic processor” that is brain.   What it does is use the form of association similar to that provided by holograms, to find similarity and pattern in and between different things.
Thus, when we still the chatter of the conscious mind (with it's continual conversations with itself) and listen to the associations being thrown up by the other 20 or so processing centers within our minds, it certainly can sound like the wispering of gods.   To me it is simply demonstration of the depth of the incredible power that exists in every human brain.  In that sense, it is much as Jesus and many others said - that God lies within us - except that I don't believe in Gods, but if I did, then I would say much the same.

I do not believe in universal ends.  I believe in possibility space.   In a sense, you might say I believe in Hilbert space - infinitely dimensional, containing infinite possibility.  The present is the current end point of some 14 Billion years of the development of the particular Hilbert space that is our universe.

Each and every one of us is capable of making an impact on how it develops in the future - we are all that powerful.
Nothing is pre-determined, or foretold with certainty.  We are each powerful creators.  And in the absence of creativity, we follow patterns that are for the most part very predictable.

I do not see anything that is an unchangable truth.  I can't imagine what such a thing might be, nor what use it could be.

What I see is the power to make a difference, the power to create.   What could be more antethetical to “unchangable” anything.

I do not follow your obese example - it seems to be a third domain of judgement - unrelated to the previous two.
My original assertion related purely to those occaisions on which, when we are ourselves stressed, we accuse other of something.  To quote my friend Richard Prebble - “The first law of politics is, that politicians, when under stress, accuse others of their own worst faults.”
I could have said it much more clearly, and must accept full responsibility for not stating it explicitly in the first place.

Need to get some sleep myself - been a long day.

Arohanui  (roughly translates to Great Love from the Maori language)

I don't think we disagree about much at all.  I love Ludwig's inquiry, and those of his mentor Russell.  It is strange that I could read Wittgenstein with a knowledge of games theory and systems theory, and years of practice in both evolution and computer systems design, and see clearly the underlying mechanisms that he saw the effects of, but had no real understanding of the mechanics.

Understanding the mechanics does not make it predictable, and it does give one access to a level of power when one is trying to design things at higher levels.   It's much easier to design an efficient jet engine when one is familiar with modern physics and chemistry, and has modern measurement tools, than when one is dealing with phlogiston and the 4 elements.

I see the string of questions and answers as an infinite series of infinite dimensions.  In such a reality, no “ultimate destination” is even conceptually possible - there is only the journey, replete with possibility, and no shortage of “nonsense from bath to bath” (one of my favourite Zen quotes - from the bath of a baby at birth, to the bath of the body after death).

For me, I choose to create a possibility in which I get to explore as much of the infinite as I can manage.   The only way I can see of doing that with any security is to empower everyone else to do likewise - then there is nothing anyone would want to take from me, as they already have it themselves.

Such a possibility is going to require some major mimetic transcendence.
Win, loose or draw, I'm enjoying the game.

As to people under stress, just spend some time watching your politicians in action - go to your state capital, and watch members debating a contentious issue.  I've spent hundreds of hours doing it as well as doing a term on our local district council, and time on boards of trustees etc.  The observation appears to work for most people most of the time.  And it is possible to reach a state where one is not stressed by any occurrence, so the statement doesn't apply - but not many politicians reach such a state (some, but not many).

That definition of a solution works well, at each level I've tried it.

I wish you well.

Ted

Hi Will

Not all things are predictable.
Many things are lawful, without being predictable - like Pi.  There is no way to predict a digit of Pi, without actually working it out.  The first 10 million digits of Pi have been calulated, with any repeating pattern.
Similarly, with many forms of chaotic systems, the only way to work out what will happen next is to try it and see.  There isn't any pattern that repeats in any predictable sense.  There is pattern, and it does follow rules, but there is no repetition of the pattern, it is continually changing and evolving, and the only way to see where it leads is to follow - much like life.

How phlogiston is relevant, is that it is very probable that most of what we believe to be true now, is not - just like phlogiston was back then.  Most people treated it as reality - just as for a long time most people treated the earth as being flat.

I desire to empower others to think for themselves.  To test everything themselves, in the full light of reality (whatever that is).   That, to me is empowerment.  Some may think like me, some may think otherwise.  We may have debate and discussion, and one or other may change their view in the light of evidence.

I desire to give every person power over the things they need in reality to ensure their own existence.  I plan this at several levels.  If you are familiar with Abraham Maslow's work - I plan to proved systems that meet all the external needs he identified.  Beyond that I wish to empower people to extend their own lifespans indefinitely (should they so choose).

Other than that, provided that they are willing to leave me to get on with the things I want to get on with, I am happy to leave them to do their own thing.

I agree pretty much with your observations on stress, it is for the most part self induced, but not many people are fully conscious of that yet.

I see many levels to self.  The physical level needs physical systems to support it.  Those are my first target.
The other levels of self require sustenance also - some of that I get here.

I have met a great many politicians.  Some I have known from childhood.  I think all of them have a genuine concern for their community, and in some it gets lost in disillusionment leading to low level excesses of short term self interest.  I see others that burn out facing the injustices that abound.  And I see many who lose their way in a labyrinth of systems and bureaucracy that few have any real conception of.   Mostly I have a lot of respect for those individuals who are prepared to put themselves forward for public service in the face of the disrespect that you and many others have for them.

I find that we see what we look for in life.
If I look for greatness in others, then they find it in themselves and express it.

There is a limited sense in which I agree with solipsism - cogito ergo sum.  The sense that I can know that I exist, without knowing anything about the nature of that existence (it is almost like it is subject to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle).

Once I start investigating the nature of my existence (which I have spent many tens of thousands of hours doing) it often seems that almost all of my observable behaviour can be categorised in terms of laws.  Which rather leaves one in a difficult position, until one can make the transition to a paradigm where the contradiction disapears.  That transition has to come from within each of us, and can only be hinted at externally.

Be great

Ted

Hi Will

I don't understand what you might mean by “All things are known to some end”.   I don't comprehend what you might mean by “All things known, are known to an agreed-upon point”.  I admit that for many people, there may be agreement on what is so; and that many people treat this agreement as “what is so” - and I am often not in that camp.  I have learned to trust my own experience, my own judgment, my own intuitions.   One of the most powerful of those intuitions occurred in 1974, when having just finished 3rd year (undergrad) biochem studies I attended an international conference on LASERs held at the university campus I was attending (Waikato).  There I got to understand how LASER holograms worked, saw then in action, and realised that something similar (analogous) must be powering the intuitive faculty of the human mind.  At that point I was unaware of the theoretical work being done Karl Pribram and others, so for me it was an original discovery of my own mind.   I had no agreement from others, yet I held on to the “truth” of it for over 3 decades - without any agreement.

After reading Wittgenstein, I realised that we make models within models, and our modeling is powered by our holographic processors.  Each of us makes our own assessments about what is so, and often we fool ourselves that we actually have agreement from others on that (our minds are very adept at push square peg observations into round hole expectations - we do it constantly).

You talk of context within context, and disappearing limits.  To a very great extent I agree with that; and there may be points of significant disagreement in the detail.   I do not believe it is possible to remove all limits - I believe Kurt Goedel has demonstrated that in his incompleteness theorem - an outstanding feat of creativity.   What I do believe is possible, is an infinite series of transcendent paradigms, each one a meta-paradigm for the one preceding it (like each one opening a new infinite series of dimensions on and already infinite possibility space).   [To get a handle on that one must be able to hold the thought that there are larger and smaller infinities - not all infinities are equal.]

I do not agree with your assertion that “When we understand something, that something is just an extension of what we already know”.   Our brain has these “holographic” processors that actually allow us to distinguish pattern that is inherent in the observations, but was not previously distinguished.   If you are familiar with the theory and practice of holography, the idea is that the smallest part contains the image of the whole, but the resolution increases as you get more of the whole (ie it becomes clearer, easier to recognise).  Thus, every sense impression essentially contains all the information available in the universe, but at very low resolution (very blurred).  The more impressions we get, the greater the clarity, and the greater the probability that we will distinguish what is there to be seen.

This “holographic” aspect of brain has to compete with the “habit” aspect of brain.   Once we make a distinction, the brain develops a “habit” of associating anything vaguely similar with that “distinction”.
One must be disciplined with brain, in forcing it stop its habitual “pattern stuffing habits” long enough to become aware of the deeper holographic intuitions that are potentially there.
One mechanism people employ to do this is to study all they can about a particular “problem”, then leave it and do something else (completely clear their conscious level habits and associations) - and leave their “unconscious” to come up with something.  The odd thing is that it seems that it is the act of recall itself that does the “coming up with something”.  It is the process of recall that does the holographic association.  They key to creativity is to be open to all the nuances that are associated with any particular recall - rather than simply focusing directly in on the one that is “habitually” present.

This is my “truth” on the matter.


You ask - “Isn't the desire to empower someone else who thinks differently a quest for power?”   There are certainly several senses in which that is so, yet I suspect not in the way that I suspect you are thinking.
To illustrate it is probably easier to ask a question in return.
If you saw someone in danger, you distinguished some threat to the existence of another, that you could, with relatively little cost and effort, and relatively low risk to yourself, avert - would you take the action to save the other?
I suspect (hope/trust) that you would, as would I, as, I suspect, would everyone on this website.

That is sort of how it is for me.  I feel sort of like Neo in “The Matrix”.   I see a level of the substructure of the stuff that makes up the playing field that many call reality that causes millions of people to die each year.   I see that it is possible to, with relatively little (in the cosmic sense) effort, and relatively little risk (given the alternative is probable almost certain death anyway) change that structure to one that supports the existence of every human being, for as long as they wish to continue existing.   There will be some costs - we would need to slow our rate of reproduction to one of replacement.  I've had my two children, and had my vasectomy, so I am being responsible to that extent.   For my children, the choice to have children may be delayed for millennia, if they ever do.

So in one sense, that I want the power to live a long time,and I want the technical tools to be able to explore the possibility spaces I see in my minds eye, then yes I seek power.   In so far as I intend to make those tools and possibilities available to everyone else, it is not some power that I will hold over anyone else - it is like a rising tide that lifts all boats equally.

I am not making any implied statements about what is right or wrong.  I do sometimes revert to a paradigm where right and wrong exist; and most of my time is spent in a paradigm where right and wrong do not exist - except as a limiting case in a spectrum of possible paradigms.  The words have no meaning outside of that specialised limiting case.  And I acknowledge that everyone must begin their existence in a paradigm where right and wrong exist - that is neither right nor wrong, it is simply what is.


In terms of being the creator of my universe, I see several distinct levels there.
I am and entity of words.  My awareness exists in words, in a model of a world, in a brain, in a body, …..
The model that I am born into is created in and by a culture, though it resides in a brain (my brain - or the brain of my body).
My brain/body has a genetic structure that creates within the brain a model of “reality” (whatever that is) that is predictive in nature - to allow the body to respond to events in real time.   Within that model, my awareness builds its own model within a model (Wittgenstein's shadows on the walls of a cave).
As my holographic processors work at storing and retrieving experiences, which are a mix of the internal models and the sense impressions from “outside”, the models refine, and the paradigm, or context of the models changes.   It appears to me that an infinite succession of such paradigm shifts are available. I can clearly recall 7 such in my experience.  I expect there to be many more, if I am fortunate enough to live long enough.

I don't see any of them as being right.
Each paradigm is infinite.
Each new paradigm infinitely expands upon the previous one.
No individual can fully explore any infinity.
Who is to say which infinity is more worthy of choice?
I leave open, within the very broad limits of not causing harm to another, nor unduly impeding their chosen course, an individual's choice of their own path.  
Why would I do anything else?

I do not have any particular end.  I have an eternal now, with infinite possibility.   My choices are but one input.   Everyone else has an input also.  In the realm of the real (whatever that is), we all get to dance with the consequences of the choices of ourselves and all others.   Within our own models, internally, we can effect a certain degree of isolation, but only in so far as we isolate ourselves from experience - for experience contains the holographic content of the all - the infinite.   There is no ultimate escape from the grand unity, and at the same time, we have our own existence, our own choice, our own creativity.

I agree with you to a very large extent about the bliss of a paradigm.
In my experience there is a greater bliss, when one takes actions that bring the power available in that paradigm into the service of life.

Be great

Ted

Hi Will

A lot of things in that last post of yours.

I see two aspects to Pibram's work, one of which works clearly in the schema that I use most often, and one of which is highly speculative.
The one that works is the holograhpic processor - that gives us links and intuitions as a “side effect” of the way it stores and retrieves information.  This part I have no problem with.   When he starts talking about holographic substructures to reality - I would really require a lot more testable hypotheses and evidence.  I do not see it as being required to explain any observations at this point (which is not to say it is wrong, just to say I am using Occam's Razor).

I believe in cause and effect, at least within certain probability distributions - when one is dealing with objects made of very large collections of other objects (sub atomic particles) over long periods (a second or so - a very long time for a sub atomic particle) then things tend to be very stable and very predictable.   The closer one gets to smaller particles, over very short spaces of time, the less predictable they become (sort of like people).

Again I see two distinct aspects to Werner's empty and meaningless.  At one level, it simply means without meaning.  That the meaning and purpose you see in life is that which you yourself have added.  To become a powerful creator one must take that level of responsibility for what exists - in the realm of meaning - as distinct from physicality.

In a similar but distinct sense, to create, if there is to be true creation, as distinct from simple cause and effect, then there must be no prior cause - ie nothing prior to your creation - at whatever level it is that you are creating.  This can be a very slippery idea - a bit like much of quantum mechanics - but the old Zen masters seemed to have a fairly good handle on it.

I sort of see the hologram connection a bit differently.  I see holograms as a mechanism by which we create pattern by analogy with other pattern.  I see the “uncertainty principle” at the margins of this holograhpic process giving us the “space” to create - a space of field on field within context.   It is very hard to put into words, and it is a picture I have in my head.

I get that there is a sense, which seems sort of logical, in which things bulid on other things.  And if you look at it closely, it doesn't really hold up in the classical way of looking at it.
Some people make the jump to abstraction of variables in algebra very quickly, others need to follow the patterns for hours before they suddenly see what is meant.   The seeing, the jumping, is a creative act.  It is a new paradigm being “invented” anew in and by each mind.
Some teachers are very skilled at creating contexts that make that creative leap easy for folks, and the “leap” is make anew by each mind.
That “leap” is the holographic leap, as a side effect of the way we store and retrieve information.
Once you realise this, you can become very skilled at making those leaps with very little information.
Our minds are very skilled at that anyway, most of us are trained not to trust that faculty, and to ignore it.
It is actually our most powerful faculty.  It is the very thing we all need to be developing within ourselves.
It is amazingly powerful.
When I said I have had 7 major paradigm shifts, I meant 7 reorganisations of how I view the world, that were instantaneous and pround, and required months of follow up worl to tidy up loose ends.
Sometimes I can have several of these lesser holographic “intuitions” per second - and some of them are quite profound.

It isn't actually that hard a thing to teach.  Actually that is wrong.  It cannot be taught - it is there anyway.  What needs to be taught is to stop the habits of ignoring it.  Start listening to it, trusting it.   Some call it meditating, some call it prayer.  Some find the effect so profound that they call it conversations with God.  In my schema - it is becoming aware of the power of the human mind - the power beyond ego - that we each and every one of us have.  We each have over 20 of these holographic processors running full speed, continuously, in our brains.
Is it any wonder some of us hear voices, or talk with Gods ?

To me, the magic is the reality, which, as usual, is far stranger than any fiction - just how complex, powerful and amazing each and every one of us is.

Arohanui
Ted

Hey Will

Once again - we seem to be very largely in agreement - over 90%.  (Thought just occurred to me that the chimp and human genomes are over 98% the same - sometimes small differences make a big difference.)
I agree with the experiential discipline of emptying the mind of preconceptions (as far as possible) and being open to the possibilities inherent in the instant; and at the same time, Werner was also very fond of the notion that the present is given by the future we are living into - which is yet another aspect of our preconceptions determining what we see/create/be.

I think that emotional problems like fear, discontent, hate and despair are a result of an unwillingness to accept something that is or has been - which is totally a waste of energy.   Accept all that is/has been, and from that base make choices/take actions to create the future that calls to you.

For me, the conceptual is powerful in so far as it gives us access to tools that empower our creativity, or to put it another way, allows us to see paths to futures that might not otherwise be visible.

I agree with you, Werner and Albert that our beliefs often deceive us.  A good friend of mine has a discipline of creating at least three different interpretations of anything important, to stop from getting into ruts.   The technique has some merit, and it can just lead to having three ruts instead of 1.

For me, the process is more like Werner's use of the distinction racket (a fixed way of being in some circumstance).  As we get to distinguish our rackets, they no longer run us as automatically as they once did.  In seeing them, we gain some choice over their expression.   So it is for me with the limiting concepts.  As I distinguish them, they are no longer quite the limit that they once were, and it seems probable that there will always be new levels of undistinguished limitation.

This leads to the next level of the inquiry.  If one empties the mind of all past - where does intention and choice live ?
Where is the I ?

To me it seems like a nonsense to ignore the past.  Like one could just snap one's fingers and have a fully functioning rooster appear.  A rooster must first be an egg, then a chicken.  There are developmental processes to go through.  Those processes, over time, leave their mark on the present, in that case we call the mark a rooster.
In my case I call the mark that is the life history of one Thomas Edward (aka Ted) Howard, me.
That life history has genetic components that span some 4 billion years of evolution; and mimetic components that span some 100,000 years of “cultural” evolution, and a body history of some 54 years, and a self awareness history of some 50 years.
All of these things mixing and mingling in complex relationships both internally, and externally.

I completely disagree with your assertion that “Technology has far outdistanced man's ability to deal with it intelligently”.   I think that is a self imposed limit that many people carry that has no basis in reality.

Certainly, technology has given us great power, and has outdistanced the cultural paradigms for controlling it (our “economic” and “political” systems) - and all that means is that it is time for a transcending development in awareness.   Our intelligence is perfectly capable of dealing with it intelligently, but not in the way that our culture and habits tend to make us think.  Something else is required.
It is as Albert said - “The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”.

If we look at ourselves, and our relationship to our technology, and to other living systems, with the same sort of thoughts as we use to look at the relationships between and within ecosystems; then we may just get to live long and happy lives (each and every one of us).   For so long as we continue to use simple capitalist economic structures we are in dire peril.   And in saying that I acknowledge the incredible power that free markets and capital markets have had in raising living standards.   The biggest problem now is that few markets are free - most are dominated by monopolies that use legislation to create barriers to entry to support their monopolies and call it “public good”.

I think perhaps our biggest danger is in the laws of patent and copyright.  These can be used to dangerously slow progress.  We need both, but I think the time-frames are too long.   After 10 years max they should be wide open.
We are all so dependent on the discoveries and creations of others, and most of the things patented are hardly novel at all - just slight variations on a theme. 

There will always be uncertainty - that comes with choice, if more than one person is exercising it.

We can all have a great life - we can all live for a very ling time, in great health, and with wealth beyond the experience of anyone alive today, and have abundant diverse natural ecologies - the technologies all exist now.

This whole global warming thing, while real - is a nonsense.  The technology to fix it is easy.  But it would mean the people making billions from oil profits now wouldn't be making those billions in the future, nor would those making similar billions from the military industrial complex.
I'm getting off topic.
Better go get ready for a meeting.

Be great

Ted

Hi Will,

Interesting question you ask.
In my personal experience, the self aware “I” gets locked out of the control loop, and sometimes gets so little of the processing power of mind that it is like the air has turned to toffee.  I recall skiing down one trail called the waterfall (which it is in summer), about 20 ft vertical drop in, with quite a few rocks to avoid before coming out into a beautiful valley about 200ft further down.  I had just enough time to think “What the *#$@ have I done” before all I could do was watch, as the automatic systems took over.

Had a similar experience a few years ago when I was wingman for a glider launch, and while running at full speed, my right foot went into a concealed rabbit hole.   As I was totally focused on the glider, I had no warning, and just suddenly found myself heading for the ground with 10/10 pain in my ankle.  For several minutes I found my awareness almost like it was locked behind a wall, able to observe, but unable to influence what was going on.  My body was reacting like a bear had it by the ankle, thrashing around, trying to get rid of the pain.  After about a minute one of the other pilots came over and sat on my body, which stopped it thrashing, and I was able to exert control again.

I agree that there is an amazing feeling when one is fully engaged in being.  A few years ago I went swimming with my brother in law - he was a district level representative swimmer, and I had never beaten him in my life - even though I'm 10 inches taller.   On this evening I had just finished doing some landmark work (don't remember exactly what), and was feel very aware.  When I went swimming I had the thought, I only want to put any energy into about 30 degrees of the stroke, when my arms is almost vertical below me, and just relax the rest of the time.  It was amazing.  My body lifted and almost planed along.  Over the 50 yard (45m) length of the pool, I finished 10 yards ahead of Rex.  I had never swum like that before.  It was like everything was in slow motion, total relaxation except for a fraction of a second for each arm to push the water for just a foot - but with everything I had for that small fraction of a second, then rest for the remainder of the stroke.

Yet in all of these experiences, I was aware of the experience, even though each had a differing quality from “ordinary” experience.


I agree with you that we are not dealing with many aspects of our current situation intelligently.  It may simply be a matter of semantics between us.
Many people, even in 1903, said that man was incapable of powered flight.   Today everyone accepts that powered flight is possible, and most in the this country have experienced it.  I even have about 500 hours as pilot in command of many types of powered and unpowered aircraft.
So I agree that we are not yet consistently dealing with technology intelligently, and I am confident that we will do so before very much longer - certainly within the next 30 years, and with a little bit of luck, within the next 5 years.

I believe that individuals of any culture can be called to higher levels of awareness that encompass love, fellowship and active tolerance.  Doing so at a mass level seems to be easier if those masses are feeling secure.

I believe that we are capable of using technology intelligently to produce such an environment.


I stopped buying or reading papers (except for our local community paper - and most of the people in that I know personally) in 1984.  In 1984 I stood for parliament, and was reported in on or other of the major daily papers 9 times.  On one of those occasions, when I read the report, I said, yeah, that is something like what I talked to the reporter about, on the other 8 I could not see any relationship between what was written and what we talked about.   After the election I talked to about 40 other politicians, across a variety of parties, and they had all had similar experiences to mine.   At that point I came to the conclusion that what is written in news papers bares so little resemblance to what actually happened, that it is actually counter productive to read the newspaper - one ends up with lower ration of reality to myth than one started with.

In the last 25 years I would not have read 10 newspapers, and I think I am much the better for it.


To my way of looking at life, what works most powerfully is to be as aware as possible about all the patterns from the past; be open to all the lessons, and, holding that “knowledge” lightly, be open and tuned for the intuitions of the present, and the possibilities they hold.

It is a “yes, and” situation.  Yes, I have a past, and, standing in pure, unbounded possibility, I am free to choose a future.

And, I do not achieve that ideal state very often.  Mostly I am swept along in one of the many levels of “habit” (be it the emotion habit of generations of evolution, or the habits of a culture or a lifetime), into some path without too much conscious choice.

And, I am a stand from bringing every greater awareness to the choices of life, moment by moment; at the same time as I am a stand for living in the moment (moment by moment).

In one sense, we can never “know” the outcome of anything, none of us “know” the future.  And we can make a stand, and dance with the consequences, and fall down and get up and recommit, and …………..

Seems to be what is on offer, so I am happy to accept it (this thing called life).

Be great

Ted