The way I put it to people is to say; Is it more likely for a better world be shaped by a small group that does the thinking for everybody, or one shaped by the broad base of the population, encouraged by a more sensible narrative that provides a better base for learning to think.
(Actually I said; are we going to have a better world by having a few do the thinking for everyone, or one where thinking is distributed?)
And yes, the megalomaniacs plans will fail, at a cost that could be reduced if it was widely recognized that ego does not run this world, despite appearances, our collective heart connection to Source runs the world.
I am no intellect, preferring to live an experiential life, but I really appreciate true intellectuals in the same way I respect entrepreneurs, if the right ones are picked, they can fill in so many of the blanks that I don't have inclination to examine on my own.
The next narrative will be simple and broadly appealing if it is to overcome the gaslighting that will be directed toward it by the old guard. One suggestion for a new level of thinking is an assertion that the spiritual and the physical are basically the same thing. That may have a useful effect on how we apply our consciousness, versus the current split model where everything becomes about objects and their manipulation.
Please visit the Future Fun Forum for details on this style of thinking. Comments welcome.
Hello there Michael...I love your way with words...you have with references to other thinkers, beautifully encapsulated what I also see as both already occurring and in great need of promoting...that positive change will inevitably occur. As to how soon, depends, I believe in how soon the hundredth monkey effect comes into being...maybe it already has?
I find it sad that there is as much obvious fear, if not more, because they have more to lose, in the fear mongers themselves than there is in some of the populations on earth.
I think fear is most easily created in a persons mind when a person has experienced great loss or great fear of loss, control, and well being as a child. If one examines some of the basic norms in our society, of punishments, that have no relation to the misbehaviour perpetrated (at school and at home), resulting in loss of privileges or toys, so it is safer to 'toe the line'...experienced parental fears resulting in draconian parental behaviour in order to keep one 'safe' (captivity); been told 'don't say things like that', which undermines ones self confidence in many instances, especially if often reiterated, one creates a personality to put it simplistically with fear of criticisms, fear of loss of the goodness in life, and low self confidence. If one adds to those kinds of childhood experiences, the kind of thinking that may be prevalent in wealthy households, of superiority to the 'masses', and an attitude coming from the parents of 'we are the ones who know best, because we're better educated/wealthy', then I think one has a description of the mentalities of some members of the powers that be, and of many of the 'wannebes'.
I know I'm generalising, I realise there are also other circumstances in life that create damaged psyches determined to be 'on top' because they are terrified of loss.
Part of the new directions we can take will, besides needing smaller consensus groups, be to ensure children are allowed to fully express themselves, whilst at the same time imbuing them with the knowledge that everything has a knock on effect, which hopefully will result in adults who know how to take responsibility for their actions, whilst at the same time being truly themselves, which in general is not something we have at present in the Western world.
I've been waiting for what is happening, expecting the decay, expecting the rebirth since the sixties...didn't have anywhere near a 'vision' of how all that would transpire, just a feeling that radical change was needed...the 'evolution' of our species in a non Darwinian fashion, then again maybe those bucking the status quo because of it's obvious malfunction ARE the 'fittest'?
Hello again Michael. I finally found time to read some of your work and it's impressive to say the least. It’s a lot to take in all at once though, and one can get lost in the complexity, which is why I like to break things down into manageable chunks, hopefully without losing the essence - not always easy to do, but necessary in order to communicate effectively in a fast moving world. File that under time management.
The first thing I do when entering a new domain is to show my colours in the medieval sense, where knights displayed their arms to state their heredity and allegiances. The modern equivalent is a list of major influences - ideas I’ve adopted as representative of my evolving world view, which usually means authors I’ve read that have had a lasting impact.
So here they are in chronological order, but not the order in which I’ve read them.
Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching (400 BC)
Here’s the R.L. Wing translation which I feel is the most accurate in terms of meaning, though not alway the most linguistically precise. I have the print version with commentary and illustrations. Well worth owning.
As context, I first encountered these authors, and complexity theory in general, as part of a software project I was involved with in the early 80’s. Basically we were designing educational products for PCs that would introduce young minds to the concepts represented by the above and other authors. Unfortunately the project never made it to market for a variety of reasons, but the years from 81 to 85 were probably the most productive of my life, certainly in terms of redefining my outlook on the world.
In our previous exchange I tossed out the idea of information as a third category, distinct from goods (production) and services. Information can be a service obviously, and it can’t “inform” us without the technology (goods) that supports it, but it’s also an integral feature of nature, as for example the exchange of photons connecting nuclear particles, light itself which accounts for vision, and also signalling molecules in biological processes. These are fuzzy categories which tend to overlap and are best represented as a Venn Diagram.
As you can no doubt tell, my education is in the hard sciences and I usually try to ground my more esoteric thoughts in one or another aspect thereof, at least metaphorically. I do believe there are foundational elements in nature that don’t change, or that for our purposes can be considered as constant in the same sense as Newton’s Laws.
I’ll end with a couple of concepts that came out of that 80s era which I’m still developing. The MU system. I stole the term from Hofstadter which he uses in a different way. For me, MU is just Managed Uncertainty - a set of heuristics we can apply for, well… managing uncertainty! It’s not a new theory, just a different way of describing Game Theory I guess, but hopefully more explicit in its meaning. The other is “the superficial and the profound” an idea I stole from Émile Durkheim’s “sacred and profane.” From this we get 'superficially profound' and 'profoundly superficial' but I think of it more like a Ying-Yang construct where the one contains the essence of the other. A good example would be Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, where seemingly disjointed superficial nonsense has profound underlying meaning.
OK, so there are my ‘colours’ and I have you on my radar. Let’s see what happens next.
Wow, Michael. Such a skillful weaving of so many important theories and historical examples -- so impressive and comprehensive! Thank you for this high-level assessment of where we've been and where we are. I'd never heard of complexity theory before, yet your explanation -- "Tiny inputs to complex systems can have huge and entirely unpredictable effects. Attempts to impose control on such systems invariably destabilise them" -- make SO MUCH SENSE. Intuitively I've known this, but naming and describing it, as always, helps to put it in context. I know where to file it in my brain, now. And I agree that it should be a part of every curriculum, because does it not touch everything?
It will come as no surprise that my favorite line is this: "we are assured that the new world is already growing behind it, and we have the option to accelerate that." It, and we do. All our actions are either in service to its acceleration or its deceleration. This essay puts fuel in all our tanks. :-)
The more I understand the role of the third rail of culture, the more I believe its underpinnings have to be built in childhood. (Of course Steiner created Waldorf; he figured that out long, long ago.) There has to be a moral element to the cultural realm; otherwise, how can it balance corporations and government? And morality is harder to come by later in life -- though not impossible.
Perhaps this is why a return to the spiritual seems to be afoot. Like dandelions, an awareness of the divine is seeding itself in order to re-balance human soil.
The way I put it to people is to say; Is it more likely for a better world be shaped by a small group that does the thinking for everybody, or one shaped by the broad base of the population, encouraged by a more sensible narrative that provides a better base for learning to think.
(Actually I said; are we going to have a better world by having a few do the thinking for everyone, or one where thinking is distributed?)
And yes, the megalomaniacs plans will fail, at a cost that could be reduced if it was widely recognized that ego does not run this world, despite appearances, our collective heart connection to Source runs the world.
I am no intellect, preferring to live an experiential life, but I really appreciate true intellectuals in the same way I respect entrepreneurs, if the right ones are picked, they can fill in so many of the blanks that I don't have inclination to examine on my own.
The next narrative will be simple and broadly appealing if it is to overcome the gaslighting that will be directed toward it by the old guard. One suggestion for a new level of thinking is an assertion that the spiritual and the physical are basically the same thing. That may have a useful effect on how we apply our consciousness, versus the current split model where everything becomes about objects and their manipulation.
Please visit the Future Fun Forum for details on this style of thinking. Comments welcome.
Hello there Michael...I love your way with words...you have with references to other thinkers, beautifully encapsulated what I also see as both already occurring and in great need of promoting...that positive change will inevitably occur. As to how soon, depends, I believe in how soon the hundredth monkey effect comes into being...maybe it already has?
I find it sad that there is as much obvious fear, if not more, because they have more to lose, in the fear mongers themselves than there is in some of the populations on earth.
I think fear is most easily created in a persons mind when a person has experienced great loss or great fear of loss, control, and well being as a child. If one examines some of the basic norms in our society, of punishments, that have no relation to the misbehaviour perpetrated (at school and at home), resulting in loss of privileges or toys, so it is safer to 'toe the line'...experienced parental fears resulting in draconian parental behaviour in order to keep one 'safe' (captivity); been told 'don't say things like that', which undermines ones self confidence in many instances, especially if often reiterated, one creates a personality to put it simplistically with fear of criticisms, fear of loss of the goodness in life, and low self confidence. If one adds to those kinds of childhood experiences, the kind of thinking that may be prevalent in wealthy households, of superiority to the 'masses', and an attitude coming from the parents of 'we are the ones who know best, because we're better educated/wealthy', then I think one has a description of the mentalities of some members of the powers that be, and of many of the 'wannebes'.
I know I'm generalising, I realise there are also other circumstances in life that create damaged psyches determined to be 'on top' because they are terrified of loss.
Part of the new directions we can take will, besides needing smaller consensus groups, be to ensure children are allowed to fully express themselves, whilst at the same time imbuing them with the knowledge that everything has a knock on effect, which hopefully will result in adults who know how to take responsibility for their actions, whilst at the same time being truly themselves, which in general is not something we have at present in the Western world.
I've been waiting for what is happening, expecting the decay, expecting the rebirth since the sixties...didn't have anywhere near a 'vision' of how all that would transpire, just a feeling that radical change was needed...the 'evolution' of our species in a non Darwinian fashion, then again maybe those bucking the status quo because of it's obvious malfunction ARE the 'fittest'?
Hello again Michael. I finally found time to read some of your work and it's impressive to say the least. It’s a lot to take in all at once though, and one can get lost in the complexity, which is why I like to break things down into manageable chunks, hopefully without losing the essence - not always easy to do, but necessary in order to communicate effectively in a fast moving world. File that under time management.
The first thing I do when entering a new domain is to show my colours in the medieval sense, where knights displayed their arms to state their heredity and allegiances. The modern equivalent is a list of major influences - ideas I’ve adopted as representative of my evolving world view, which usually means authors I’ve read that have had a lasting impact.
So here they are in chronological order, but not the order in which I’ve read them.
Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching (400 BC)
Here’s the R.L. Wing translation which I feel is the most accurate in terms of meaning, though not alway the most linguistically precise. I have the print version with commentary and illustrations. Well worth owning.
https://terebess.hu/english/tao/Wing.html
Alfred Korzybski - Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. (1933)
“The map is not the territory" was first coined by this guy.
Marshal McLuhan - The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962)
Anything else by McLuhan, but read this one first if you can.
James Grier Miller - Living Systems (1978)
Examining the complexity of life, and the elements common to all living systems. The concepts described can be applied beyond the field of biology.
Marvin Harris - Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture (1979)
Douglas Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)
Probably the most influential book I’ve ever read. Foundational stuff.
Richard Feynman. Basically anything he wrote.
http://richardfeynman.com/works/textbooks.html
Robert Anton Wilson - again, anything by him, plus lectures and interviews which can be found on YouTube.
There’s more of course, Kuhn, Popper etc. but I’ve tried to keep the list short according to Miller’s Principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
As context, I first encountered these authors, and complexity theory in general, as part of a software project I was involved with in the early 80’s. Basically we were designing educational products for PCs that would introduce young minds to the concepts represented by the above and other authors. Unfortunately the project never made it to market for a variety of reasons, but the years from 81 to 85 were probably the most productive of my life, certainly in terms of redefining my outlook on the world.
In our previous exchange I tossed out the idea of information as a third category, distinct from goods (production) and services. Information can be a service obviously, and it can’t “inform” us without the technology (goods) that supports it, but it’s also an integral feature of nature, as for example the exchange of photons connecting nuclear particles, light itself which accounts for vision, and also signalling molecules in biological processes. These are fuzzy categories which tend to overlap and are best represented as a Venn Diagram.
As you can no doubt tell, my education is in the hard sciences and I usually try to ground my more esoteric thoughts in one or another aspect thereof, at least metaphorically. I do believe there are foundational elements in nature that don’t change, or that for our purposes can be considered as constant in the same sense as Newton’s Laws.
I’ll end with a couple of concepts that came out of that 80s era which I’m still developing. The MU system. I stole the term from Hofstadter which he uses in a different way. For me, MU is just Managed Uncertainty - a set of heuristics we can apply for, well… managing uncertainty! It’s not a new theory, just a different way of describing Game Theory I guess, but hopefully more explicit in its meaning. The other is “the superficial and the profound” an idea I stole from Émile Durkheim’s “sacred and profane.” From this we get 'superficially profound' and 'profoundly superficial' but I think of it more like a Ying-Yang construct where the one contains the essence of the other. A good example would be Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, where seemingly disjointed superficial nonsense has profound underlying meaning.
OK, so there are my ‘colours’ and I have you on my radar. Let’s see what happens next.
Wow, Michael. Such a skillful weaving of so many important theories and historical examples -- so impressive and comprehensive! Thank you for this high-level assessment of where we've been and where we are. I'd never heard of complexity theory before, yet your explanation -- "Tiny inputs to complex systems can have huge and entirely unpredictable effects. Attempts to impose control on such systems invariably destabilise them" -- make SO MUCH SENSE. Intuitively I've known this, but naming and describing it, as always, helps to put it in context. I know where to file it in my brain, now. And I agree that it should be a part of every curriculum, because does it not touch everything?
It will come as no surprise that my favorite line is this: "we are assured that the new world is already growing behind it, and we have the option to accelerate that." It, and we do. All our actions are either in service to its acceleration or its deceleration. This essay puts fuel in all our tanks. :-)
The more I understand the role of the third rail of culture, the more I believe its underpinnings have to be built in childhood. (Of course Steiner created Waldorf; he figured that out long, long ago.) There has to be a moral element to the cultural realm; otherwise, how can it balance corporations and government? And morality is harder to come by later in life -- though not impossible.
Perhaps this is why a return to the spiritual seems to be afoot. Like dandelions, an awareness of the divine is seeding itself in order to re-balance human soil.
So much to think about. Wonderful work. xox
I tried to change my sub-stack name but I guess it did not work. (I am not good around computers.)