Archive for February, 2008

What would You do when You were able to Create your own Reality?

Monday, February 11th, 2008
If you believe that you are creating your own reality you are responsible for your own diseases. This sounds like a logical conclusion but is this really the case?  The first thing you have to question is if you would create a disease if you could create everything you wanted. The answer is no.  When people are asked to make three (why three?) wishes they always wish good health.

If a disease is not what we want why are people getting sick?

Sickness is a sign of unbalance. When you are sick something in your body is unable to cope with the sickness. The part that unable to cope with is your immune-system. This system is highly connected to your centre or your consciousness. In the Chines theory of acupuncture this centre is connected to the spleen. 

If you are not conscious your immune-system gets into trouble. This gives a first answer to the question.  

When you get sick you are the cause of your own sickness because you have been neglecting the signs of your body that there was a severe unbalance.

Some people will argue that it was impossible to do something about it because external circumstances (virusses, husband, work, etc) where so strong that they unable to do something about it.

When you analyze these situations you will always find that people are able to change the situation but they did not want to take the consequences.

They felt powerless.

Now there is one issue that complicates this discussion and that is death.

At a moment we all die and the dying is caused by something (a sickness?) and this sickness is something else because we have to die some moment.

Perhaps dying is not caused by a sickness but the way we die and the moment we die is programmed in our system.

Perhaps we are able to speed up this moment of death by not keeping our balance.

I think there is a case to make that you are really responsible for all the diseases you get but you are not responsible for the your death if you take the responsibility of keeping your balance.

Death is a fact of life itself.

If we move one level higher things become more complicated. If we move to the level of the soul things change heavily.

They change in two aspects. You have to believe the human being is a soul that is using a vessel called our body and you have to believe that the soul makes a plan when he occupies the vessel. In this plan sickness plays a role.

The main story about the soul is that we are veiled when we enter to body. We forget the plan and we even forget the fact that we are a “soul in a vessel”.

The last point I really doubt. The story of the soul is widespread and is told in a very similar way in all the cultures of the earth. You must have heard about it.

Why is it questioned?

It is questioned by Science because there is no proof. Many people have a knowledge about former life’s. This is not sufficient to imagine that there is something that persists.

If the story of the soul is true the answer to the question becomes even more simple. The answer is that you have chosen to experience what you experience only the part of you that has chosen this experience is not You but something You are on another level.

Would it help if we could discover our plan?

I think this would help a lot because when you know the plan you have finally broken the veal and you are free to do what you want to do.

What would you do?

Let us start with three wishes.

About the Hormone of Love

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

hormone of loveIn the near future we will have many technologies that will allow us to modify and assist our emotions and reasoning.

In this blog I want to tell you what is happening in the area of the chemical engineering of the human body.

Science is digging deeper and deeper into the structures that matter most in our body. The most interesting substances are called hormones. It is now possible to make these hormones on a large scale.

One of the most interesting hormones is the Hormone of Love. If everybody would take a dose of it everyday we could create peace on earth.

In Nov 20, 2007, James Hughes gave a lecture with the title:  ”Virtue Engineering: Applications of Neurotechnology to Improve Moral Behavior“.

In his talk Mr. Hughes suggests that the introduction of coffee was one of the factors that started the Enlightenment because at that time people started to meet and discuss in coffee-houses (“the foggy ale that besieged our brains, while coffee was the brave and wholesome liquor that heals the stomach, makes the genius quicker, relieves the memory, revives the sad, and cheers the spirits without making mad.”).  

The coffee-houses at that time were called “penny universities” because of all the free newspapers. They were also classless. Working men and men from the middle class could go and have a conversation together.

A much more interesting subject in his speech is Love and Compassion. The most important chemical substance is oxytocin. Oxitocin is a neuroactive hormone that is released during breast-feeding and during orgasm.

Paul J. Zak and Ahlam Fakhar (Neuroactive hormones and interpersonal trust: International evidence, Economics & Human Biology) have investigated the relationship between culture and interpersonal trust.

They went to 32 countries, tested the amount of oxytocin in the blood of people then looked at a hundred different variables to see which ones were correlated with the amount of oxytocin in their blood.

They found a very high correlation between the level of oxytocin and the level of cooperation in a culture. You can imagine that the US was not high on their list.

Oxitocin is the hormone that manages the food intake of the body. When your oxitocin-level is low you are hungry. It explains easily why people that are “without love” eat too much.

Vasopressin has the opposite effect.  So when you want to stop eating too much you know what to do. You can take vasopressin or find a friend. When you don’t eat enough, leave your friend.

Oxitocin, the “hormone of love“, highly influences the nervus vagus. This nerve influences the rhythm of the heart.

It explains why a “broken heart” or “being in love” changes the rhytm. To solve this problem you can take beta-blockers. They turn you into a very rational being and the feeling of love will disappear.

The chemical structure of Beta-blockers has a lot in common with vasopressin. When we look deeper we see that vasopressin and oxitocin are part of a deeper structure. They are part of a “family”, called the “molecules of emotion“.

There are many more interesting stories to tell about the relationship between hormones and our behavior but I want to address the most important subject of the speech, the future use of chemical substances.

One thing is for certain we are using chemical substances all the time. They are part of the food we eat and the liquids we drink. We drink coffee and alcohol and every piece of food we eat contains something that affects us.

At this moment we are getting increasingly more evidence what the effects are of all these chemical substances. Somewhere behind them is a simple structure with complementary chemical structures (peptides) that trigger many processes in our body.

When we know this structure we are able to control the behavior of everybody. We could even put them in the drinking water to enhance cooperation or the opposite.

We could put them in a spray and every boy could easily seduce a girl (or vice versa). This is no joke it was already done by the US Army in wartime and there is no reason to suppose that they will use chemical substances when they need them.

The most important question is how far we want to go in controlling people. If the research that is performed at this moment succeeds we are able to control the virtue of everybody.

We are able to let everynody act according to “ethical rules“. They have to be formulated by somebody (government?). It is not clear what these rules are about.

If we provide every body with its daily dosis of oxytocin we will live in peace for ever. The weapon industry and the army will not like that. They will be out of work!

If you read the whole speech you will see that Mr Hughes is very concerned about all the developments that take place in human engineering.

He even wrote a book about it called Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future.

I don’t think he has a solution. The only think I hope is that people drink a lot of coffee when they start to discuss this issue and that people of with low levels of Oxitocin are excluded or constantly hugged by the others.

Why Politicians are Afraid to Play the Game of Politics

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Will McWhinney defined six games. In the previous blogs I told you about the Game of Life and the Analytical Game. In this blog I want to tell you about a very special game called the Game of Politics.

The game of Politics is a conflict between the worldviews Unity and Social. Unity is the world of Norms and Social is the world of Values.

Many people consider the Game of Politics a “dirty” game. They don’t like politics at all.

It is a dirty game because many people that call themselves politicians are formulating and enforces rules (by the Analytical Game) but don’t apply the rules. They are not consistent.

It is not necessary to be consistent because everybody learns and makes mistakes but the “bad” politicians don’t admit their mistakes.

When they don’t admit their mistakes or deliberately misuse the rules they enforce, they are making use of the System for their own benefit. They want to gain or increase their power and/or their wealth.

When you want to increase your power you believe that your current power is not sufficient to protect your self. You are afraid. Although they never will admit this fear is the main driver of politicians that misuse the system.

When the fear becomes unbearable they develop an extreme position and focus on one worldview. If they do this they are not playing a game anymore. They are focused on one worldview (Unity) and develop a tendency that psychiatrist call Paranoid.

Many powerful leaders in history fell into the trap of fear to loose their power and created very powerful paranoid systems. Famous examples in recent history are of course Hitler and Stalin. When paranoid leaders enforce rules they become opportunistic. They don’t mind if the people believe they are inconsistent or “evil”. Every act is motivated by the impulsive reaction to a possible threat and every threat is part of a big conspiracy.

Let’s get back to the Game of Politics.

The Social worldview is the worldview of emotions. Emotions help you to evaluate attracting and repulsive forces. We show our emotions with our “body-language” and the tonality of the sounds we produce.

The Game of Politics is a game where we express our feelings directly in concepts. Our feeling evaluates so we could also say that the Game of Politics evaluates concepts and (the other way around) attracts or repels us when concepts are stated. We give our opinion.

The Game of Politics is very dependent on the Emotions.

The Emotions are a “very old part” of the Human. This part “does not understand” rational concepts.

The Emotions are “open” to manipulation when we are in a state a trance. We get into a state of trance when we are focused.  This happens when we are looking at TV or a Movie or Driving a Car.

One of the most simple techniques to move a person into a trance-state is to “surprise” a person. We surprise a person when we do something the Expectation ( our Thinking) is not expecting. Surprise is the basis of hypnosis.

Many powerful politicians knew how to manage the Emotions. They are not managed by words. They are managed by the way the words sound and the body-language of the person who speaks the words.

The emotions are strongly managed by collective contexts. When people are united in a stadium the emotions connect. When pressure is used the personal fields of the humans unite into one collective field. They become one entity, a crowd.

LINKS

About Crowds

About the Games of Will McWhinney

About Manipulation

About Mind Control

About the Invisible Fascist State

About the Infinite Game

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

In the Western World many people play the Analytic Game. The Analytical Game resolves the conflict between the Facts of the Senses and the  Models, Rules and Norms of the Human Prediction System, the Expectation (often called Thinking).

The complementary Game is what Will McWhinney and his friend Burkhard Sievers, called the Game that Creates New Games.

James P. Carse (A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility) calls this game the Infinite Game. Perhaps a much better name would be the Game of Life.

Life is a Journey

Infinite players play with rules and boundaries. They include them as part of their playing. They aren’t taking them serious, and they can never be trapped by them, because they use rules and boundaries to play with.

The players are always busy to continue the Game of Life by creating new Games.

They love to play but the aim is not to win because winning ends the game.

The Infinite Game is a Game where the Imagination and the Emotions are playing their roles. The Emotions e-valua-te and the Imagination creates.

A very important distinction between the two Games is Context. The Analytic Game is “above the Context”.

It uses the Abstractions of Maps and Diagrams. When you use a map to travel you will never see the real territory.

The Game of Life is “in the Context”.  In this game Life is a Journey. You will meet people you will never meet when your life is completely planned and you will see places nobody has seen before.

Life Above the Context is dull and predictable.

Life In the Context is an Adventure and Full of Risks.

Evaluation is a Context-Dependent Process. It takes into account that every Situation is unique and needs a unique approach.

The Game of Life is an Improvisation

The Game of Life is about Improvisation. You listen to the Rythm and the central Theme and start your own variation that is “in line with the flow”.

Sometimes you are the person who starts a new rhythm and a new theme and others follow you. You are there at the right time and the right moment.

Timing is essential in the Game of Life.

The Game of Life is about the Tao and Synchronicity. Things happen by accident but the events are meaningful. They are created by the Imagination.

The Game of Life is about Magic. You are the creator of your own reality and your creation bounces back on you. Reality produces signs but the signs are the result of your own creation.

Your personal Magic becomes much stronger when you have a vision and you believe in this vision.

The Game of Life is about belief and not about truth. You know there is no eternal truth because everything changes but behind the changes is an emerging pattern.

The pattern is chaotic and structured. It arise out of the Whole and moves back into the Whole.

The Game of Life is the game of AND. Life is a contradiction, an eternal conflict, a dilemma because meaning is created by “making the difference‘. It is the Comm-Union of Diversity.

The Game of Life is about Spirit (Imagination) and Soul (Emotion).

The Game of Life is Immortal. When the Fire of the compassion of your soul and the Light of your spirit becomes One with the stream of Creation  you will live for ever.

The Game of Life is eternal and new Games are created all the time.

The Games are not competitive but collaborative.

The Game is fueled by Ideas and Ideas are abundant. Some of them stay for a long time. Other ideas just arise and move away like clouds in the Wind.

The Game is Life is a Field. It contains (Standing) Waves and Waves merge without any problem.

dance

The Game of Life is the Game of Music, Dance and Poetry. It does not force. It gives you the freedom of your own interpretation, your own mood.

The Game of Life is a Spiraling Spiral.

The Game of Life is about Values and Quality.

Your personal Values help you to evaluate and Quality is what you want to accomplish.

Quality is the complement of Quantity.

It is something the Numbers and the Names are unable to Express.

LINKS

About the theories of Will McWhinny

About Buckert Sievert

About the Infinite Game of James P. Carse

About Boundaries

About Context

About Adventure

About Synchronicity

About Collaboration

About Fields

About (Standing) Waves

About Music

About Poetry

About the Spiraling Spiral

About Values and Quality

About Ethical Dilemma’s

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

Moral Dilemma’s are situations where two or more moral rules are in conflict. You have to make a choice between two or more actions you don’t want to perform because Ethics forbid you to do so.

A famous example was formulated in Book I of Plato’s Republic, Cephalus defines ‘justice’ as speaking the truth and paying one’s debts.

Socrates quickly refutes this account by suggesting that it would be wrong to repay certain debts – for example, to return a borrowed weapon to a friend who is not in his right mind.

Socrates’ point is not that repaying debts is without moral import; rather, he wants to show that it is not always right to repay one’s debts, at least not exactly when the one to whom the debt is owed demands repayment. What we have here is a conflict between two moral norms: repaying one’s debts and protecting others from harm. And in this case, Socrates maintains that protecting others from harm is the norm that takes priority.

A tragic moral dilemma is formulated in William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice. Sophie and her two children are at a Nazi concentration camp. A guard confronts Sophie and tells her that one of her children will be allowed to live and one will be killed. But it is Sophie who must decide which child will be killed.

Sophie can prevent the death of either of her children, but only by condemning the other to be killed. The guard makes the situation even more excruciating by informing Sophie that if she chooses neither, then both will be killed.

Actions are organized in chains of cause and effect. An (ethical) rule defines a `forbidden` effect. The effect is caused by an actor. In one situation the effect is certain in other situations the effect is (highly?) possible.

Ethics tries to formulate action-guiding principles to prevent that humans create a “forbidden” effect. In the case of Sophie this effect is the killing of a human being. In the example of Plato more or less the same (“doing no harm”) applies.

The example of Sophie shows that some people are able to create contexts where ethical dilemmas are forced upon people. In this context “Sophie has no choice” and when there is no choice ethics is simply not applicable.

The only thing we can do is to avoid these contexts and to prevent the creation of these contexts (concentration camps, crime, war, violence).

Ethics is not only a cognitive action. The emotions are also involved. Although the choice of Sophie is enforced she will feel guilt when she has made a choice. The emotional effect of a forced choice is the same as the effect of a free choice. Avoiding a certain emotion (“feeling guilty”) can be the reason to formulate an ethical rule.

Some people are more empathic than other people. That is why the acceptance of ethical rules varies. People without any empathic feeling don’t agree with the rule that it is forbidden to kill or to do harm. In some cultures those people are called mentally ill in other cultures they are highly praised.

We can always create an example where one rule conflicts with another rule or where the precedence of one rule over the other rule is violated. The rule of “not killing a human being” is overridden by many other rules and these rules are again context-dependent. Some people believe “killing a human being” is allowed to punish or to defend (a human being or a country) or even to enforce a principle (“freedom of choice”).

It is always possible to formulate an external cause. Finding an External Cause is the best way to remove the feeling of guilt or to prevent the feeling of guilt. The Guard in the concentration camp was able to do his work without any remorse because he was helping to accomplish the aims of his Fuhrer.

A soldier can accept the killing of a human being when the other is an enemy. Somebody has convinced him that killing enemies is an important goal. The same applies for all the other people that are part of the immoral context. All of them have created a chain of reasoning where they are not direct connected to the immoral situation. They “have to do it” to make a living or to make a career.

It both cases people have failed to prevent the concentration camps or the war.

What is really behind this all?

Behind this is the issue of world-views.

Ethics shows itself in many (five) flavors and combinations of flavors. The most important combination of these flavors is a combination of the Unity (Rules) and Sensory (Cause/Effect) worldviews. Will McWhinney called this combination the Analytical Game.

The Analytical Game is the dominant game in Western Society. It is highly cognitive. It denies the existence of the emotions (Love, Empathy, Social) and the imagination (Art, Poetry, Music, Mythic).

The emotions and the imagination are transformed by the Analytic Game in a cognitive instrument. Everything has to be planned and evaluated. It blocks improvisation (context-dependent behavior) because it is “Afraid to Loose Control”.

What to do?

The most important advice is to avoid and prevent (!) Ethical Dilemma’s.

When you are encountering a dilemma please trust your “gut feeling”. It is guided by your Emotions and Imagination.

LINKS

About Ethics

About Ma’at, the Egyptian Goddess of Harmony