Archive for the ‘Completed’ Category

About Erving Goffman

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
theaterErving Goffman (1922-1982) observed mental patients in an Asylum (his first wife committed suicide, Asylums, 1961), Players in a Casino (Goffman was an expert in blackjack, Interaction ritual, 1967) and People in Public Places (Behavior in Public Places. 1963).

His most important book is Frame Analysis (1974).

Watch out: Goffmann uses “unusual language“.

When an individual in our Western society recognizes a particular event, he tends, whatever else he does, to imply in this response (and in effect employ) one or more frameworks or schemata of interpretation …[which]is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful

It has been argued that a strip of activity will be perceived by its participants in terms of the rules or premises of a primary framework, whether social or natural, and that activity so perceived provides the model for two basic kinds of transformation - Keying and Fabrication.

It has also been argued that these frameworks are not merely a matter of mind but correspond in some sense to the way in which an aspect of the activity itself is organized – especially activity directly involving social agents.

Organizational premises are involved, and these are something cognition somehow arrives at, not something cognition creates or generates.

Given their understanding of what it is that is going on, individuals fit their actions to this understanding and ordinarily find that the ongoing world supports this fitting

Self is not an entity half-concealed behind events, but a changeable formula for managing oneself during them“.

Goffmann was a Spectator in the Theatre.

In this theatre a play was performed called Life. In this play we are deceiving others. We are constantly trying to understand what is “Behind” the actions of the others.

Goffmann was highly interest in Espionage because he recognized these as extensions of everyday behaviour.

Life is a game and in this game we can be ‘pawns’ that may be sacrificed or ‘tokens’ who express a position. In life we make “moves”.

A player can represent a party or negotiate for a party. Players can be naïve, covered, uncovered and even counter-uncovered.

When we remove all the attributes we carry “nothing” is left. We are just a “changeable formula for managing oneself during events“.

Most of us are not controlling a situation or context. We are controlled by the Context. We are controlled by Frames and we React with Frames (Action patterns). We use frames to identify what is taking place.

The most fundamental frameworks are ‘primary frameworks’ which reveal what is ‘really’ happening either in the natural or social world. The meaning of a primary framework can be challenged in various ways.

It can be ‘Keyed‘.

We observe a fight and suddenly we understand that someone is “joking“.

They are playing a fight.

We laugh.

Suddenly one of the players hits the other and he becomes angry. He uses a knife and blood is flowing. The play changes into a real fight.

Many people watch and wonder what to do.

Is this Real or is this a Play?

One hour later we discover that our wallet is gone.

Someone in the audience was a pickpocket and the joke becomes a nightmare.

He was part of the team and we are “framed” and suddenly the “frame breaks“.

We understand that we were part of a “Fabrication“.

Many Humans are unable to distinguish “Reality” from a “Fabrication“.They “know” Dreams are a Fabrication but they don’t know for sure if the journalist on the Television is telling a Real Story.

They play the Soldier until their friend is killed. At that moment the frame breaks and they are in a new Reality. Later they realize that the War in which they were playing the Role of the Soldier was a Fabrication. It was set up by other people who were playing in a higher game to make money and to gain power.

They trust a friend and lend him all their money to invest and make a profit. Suddenly the friend and the money is gone. The frame breaks. Suddenly they don’t know if their other Friends are really Friends or are also trying to gain their confidence to solve their own financial problems.

They are the “Naïve“, the Pawns in the Play of the Secret Agents who are managed by a Director who is performing a Play that is written by an Author who is paid by an Investor who is watching the Play from a distance who is playing a Role in another Play and who is managed by …….

Who is Behind this????????????????

Behind this all is the Joker (also called the Trickster or the Demiurg) who has invented the Game of Life and is Playing Games with Us to help us to understand the Game behind the Game of Life.

This Game is not a Game at all. It is a Game to create New Games until Infinity.

In this Game we are Playing with Our Selves until we realize that the many Selves we Are are just One Self observing Itself.

If we understand this Game we are able to return to the Infinite Potential, the Void,  that was there before Creation Started.

LINKS

About the Void

About the Trickster

About the Game of Life

Why Conflicts Solve Many Security Problems: About Attacks and Mistakes

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

One of the most interesting jobs in my career was the management of the Security in a big bank. It was an interesting job but also a very stressful job.

When you are responsible for Security you are always fighting against two forces. The first force is the Outside Attacker. The other force is your Boss.

When “Things Go Terribly Wrong” your Boss will be very angry.

When “Nothing is Happening” he will reduce your budget or he will tell you to stop “boddering people” with all the things you do to “Prevent that Terrible Things will Be Happening”.

People don’t like Security Measures.

One of the most spectaculair activities was “The Simulated Attack“. We paid people to attack our Systems and we hoped we could stop them. I can tell you one thing. They always succeeded! Personnally I am convinced it will be much easier to attack a bank than 10 years ago. I still know “How They Did It” and I know it is almost impossible to prevent “This to Happen”.

If you know a little bit about the way payments are processed the only thing you have to do is to change a software-program. “This” can be done on many levels in the IT-Infrastructure. When you do “this” on a “deep level” you need a lot of technical expertise. You can also do it in a simple way. Just sell yourself as a programmer to a contracter or sub-contracter.

The funny things is that you can also Attack a Bank without the intention to Attack the Bank. Just “Make a Vital Mistake” and Complete Systems Stop Working. Soon I discovered that “Preventing Small Mistakes” was much more important than “Preventing a Big Attack”.

The most important reason is that when somebody wants to Attack a Bank you just cannot stop them without Stopping the Bank.

You need to take so many “Counter-Measures” that everybody (Personel and Customers) is simply stopped in everything they want to do.

One of the people that inspired me the most was Prof.dr. Willem Albert Wagenaar. He showed me that it is almost impossible to prevent mistakes.

When you want to Prevent a Mistake you Have to  Change the System Not the People.

Many Security systems are Symbolic Systems. You are not allowed to exceed a speed-limit when you drive a car. It would be much easier to block the car to exceed the limit.

The only thing you can do is to “design” systems that are resistant to the things “you don’t want to happen”. But Beware of the “Total Blocking Effect”.

A very effective way to do this is to “Create a Conflict”.

When you don’t want somebody to spend money without permission make Two persons responsible for the decision to spend the money. When you want to prevent that your personnel is treated badly make one person responsible for the Care of the personnel and another for the Use of the personnel. When you want High Quality and Speedy Delivery make one person responsible for Quality and the other for Speed.

The most important thing you have to do to make this work is to give them Equal Power. When you don’t do this one of them will become the Slave of the Other. When you give them Equal Power they have to Negociate the Two Conflicting Forces.

A Projectmanager needs a Very Special Expert to reach his goals in time and the Expert is very tired or sick or his father is dying. The  solution is to talk with the Customer and explain the problem to him. Perhaps he wants to postpone the project for a few days.

A bad solution is to waste the Expert (he will make mistakes) or to use an unexperienced employee (he will make mistakes). When they make mistakes the project has to be postponed and the Customer will loose his faith in your competence.

When the Opponents are unable to solve the conflict give a third party (The Wise Judge) the Power to Decide and write down “How He Solved the Conflict”.

This will prevent the next one.

Too Many Insights about IT-Architectures and IT-Strategy

Monday, November 19th, 2007

I have been responsible for IT-Architectures and IT-Strategy between 1984 and 1997. From 1997 until now I have reviewed many Architectures and Strategies when I was part of Meta Group (now Gartner).

An IT-Architecture is a System that describes the components of a Software System on an Abstract Level.

An IT-Strategy is a Process that contains Stages. In every Stage a new version of the IT-Architecture is implemented.

A Well-Formed IT-Strategy is able to Adapt the Old Version of the Architecture. When you’re Strategy has failed You have to Start All over Again.

There are two types of Systems. The first type contains Systems. The second type I call a Foundation. It is the level where we think “the Real Things are Happening”. The major problem is to define the Level of the Foundation.

If you look at your Own computer the Foundation lies deeper than you think. It depends on “What You Understand About a Computer“.

We could define the Foundation as the Operating System of Your Computer (most likely a Microsoft Operating System) but below this Foundation other Foundations are in Existence.

At a more abstract level you can see the real Problem. The problem is Containing.

If you use the Containing Metaphor you Never Stop but You Have to Stop Somewhere.

The level where you Stop is the level where you give the responsibility to An-Other. This can be an Organization, A Person or when we dig deep enough even Nature.

When you give the responsibility for something to an-other you have to Trust the Other and the Other has to take Care of You.

The reason why Architectures fail is that they are based on a Foundation that is not stable on the long term.

Suddenly somebody starts to tinker with the Foundation and suddenly everything goes wrong. This happens all the time. The others leave you alone and you have to take care of yourself.

A solution was to create a Foundation that was able to withstand every Change at the Lower level.

This layer was called Middleware. It is situated somewhere between the UP and the DOWN of all the Layers. History has proven that this solution is not helpful.

Everything changes all the time.

I want to give you a Model to understand the complexity of the problem. I use a Horizontal and a Vertical layer, A Matrix. Layered architectures can be mapped on a Matrix, a Cube or a higher dimensional Structure, N-Dimensional Space.

Every component can be described by a point that is connected to N-variables. The links between the components are lines connecting the points.

The first thing we could do is use one dimension to describe the “type” of the component (software, hardware, database, form, etc). If we create a picture of this dimension we have created a System Diagram. There are many types of System Diagrams invented. They were called a Method or a Modeling Language. Every new Method created a “Method War” because the Users always thought that their Method was the Best.

I participated in many activities of the IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing). We tried to find a way to find the “Best Method” to Improve the Practice. It was proven that there was no best method.

Many roads lead to Rome. See “Information Systems Design Methodologies: Improving The Practice“, T.W. Olle, H.G. Sol and A.A. Verrijn-Stuart, (Eds.), North-Holland.

At the end the major Method Wars ended with a Compromise, UML. Compromises are always the worst solution for a problem. UML is a very complicated method.

If we start the Diagram with an Event and we have chosen the right Modeling Language, now called a Programming Language, we are able to “simulate” the System or to “generate” the software. There are many Tools, Modelers, Simulators, Languages and Generators developed.

They also created wars (called Competition) between all kinds of Vendors. In the end many Tools were taken out of the market by the Vendors and the Users got stuck. They were unable to convert the old tools to the new tools or they simply did not take the time to do this. This problem is called the Legacy Problem.

The Market invented something to solve this problem called Reverse Engineering. Reverse Engineering proved to be a failure because the semantics, the meaning, of the software was gone.

When you deconstruct a car and you show an engineer all the parts he knows the parts belonged to a car. When you do this with something nobody ever knew it existed the only engineer that is capable to reconstruct the original is the engineer who constructed it.

When the software is old the original programmer is gone and nobody is able to understand what he was doing. Sometimes the software contains documentation. The programmer has written a Story about the Meaning of the Software. Programmers never took (and take) the time to do this.

I want to get back to N-Dimensional Space. I hope you understand that we when we use enough dimensions we are able to Model Everything.

We are also able to MAP Everything to Everything. Mapping or Converting could solve many problems.

There were Systems on the market that helped you to MAP one Structure to another Structure. An example was Rochade. I implemented Rochade when I was responsible for IT-Architectures and I know Rochade solved many problems with Legacy Systems.

Rochade used something called a Scanner or Parser. A Parser is a “piece of software” that translates a “piece of software” into another “piece of software”. It stored the data of the software (the meta-data) in a “general” format that could be translated to other formats.

When you program in a Software Language the code is translated to another Language. This happens many times until the software reaches the Lowest Level, The Processor or the CPU.

The CPU uses a Cycle to process a very simple language that consists of binary numbers. These numbers are real numbers or operations. The simplest operations are operations on a Set.

The whole concept of the CPU was invented by John von Neumann and is therefore named the Von Neumann Architecture.

The architecture of von Neumann has a big disadvantage called the Von Neumann bottleneck. The CPU is continuously forced to wait.

The Von Neumann Computer is Wasting Time and Energy.

An alternative is the Parallel Architecture. Parallel computing has recently become the dominant paradigm in computer architectures. The main reason is the Rise of the Internet.

The Rise of the Internet started the Fall of Centralized IT-Architectures and Centralized IT-Strategy.

At this moment we need another approach to Manage or Control the sofware-production of a big company.

This approach can be found in the Open Source Movement.

If we use the Matrix Approach we can answer interesting questions.

First I introduce a Rule.

When we increase the amount of Dimensions we are able to make every point and connection between a point Unique. If we do the opposite we are able to make every point and connection The Same.

When people talk about the Reuse of a Component we are looking for a Dimension were some points and their connections are the Same.

I hope you see that it is possible to Reuse Everything and to Reuse Nothing. The Choice is Yours.

This also the Practice in Software. When I discovered that the Year-2000 problem could lead to a disaster I started a research-project with the CWI. The CWI develop a very intelligent parser that could create Software-Maps.

When we studied the maps we saw that some pieces of software came back all the time. These were “citations”. One programmer invented a new construct and others reused the construct all the time. The major difference with the Theory of Reuse was that MANY Parts were the Same.

When you dig deep enough you always find “The Same”.

The CPU is handling binary codes and when you would come from another planet you would not understand why all these zero’s and 1′s are creating a DIVERSITY. They create a DIVERSITY because Something is Interpreting the Sequence. This Something is also a Program. This program uses a Theory about Languages. Most of the time it supposes a Context Free Language. A Context Free Language is a language where the interpretor always moves in one direction. It processes a List.

The Diversity a Computer Produces is based on one long List of Binary patterns. If we could analyze all the possible patterns we could find all the possible software-programs that could be build until Eternity. Because the binary codes can be mapped to the Natural Numbers. We need only one dimension (A line) to classify all the possible software-components in the World.

In 1931 Gödel’s stated the so called incompleteness theorems. He uses the Natural Numbers to prove that a part of our Human Reality cannot be described by a Computer Program.

There is something “left for us” that the Machines cannot take over. This part is related to the Emotions and the Imagination. We cannot Automate them. If we do this we stop Innovation and Commitment.

Now I want to come back to IT-Architectures.

When You start an IT-Architecture Out of Nothing you start with a Small Amount of Dimensions. The world looks very simple to you. When you add detail you have to increase the amount of dimensions. The effect of this is that Everything Changes. New Possibilities arise. If you go on using the Top-Down Approach you will move into a State of Huge Complexity. Always start in the Middle!

At a certain moment You have to move to Reality.This means Programming Software. At that moment You encounter something you never thought of. The Software Legacy!!!!!!!!!!!!

When you increase the Scope of your System and you leave the Boundaries of Your Company (the World of the Internet) the Complexity increases also.At that moment You encounter something you never thought of, Open Source. Millions of Possibilities arise and You don’t Know what to do!

Behind the Software are People. Some of them are creating Small Companies and they are doing things you’re company is also doing but they do it much cheaper and faster.

What to do?

If You Can’t Beat them Join Them.

About The Crazy Experiment of Nikola Tesla and John von Neumann

Thursday, November 15th, 2007

teslaOne of the most influential inventors of our time was Nikola Tesla (1856-1943). He was specialized in “Electro-Magnetic Inventions“.

Tesla became a myth. He became a myth because he was not a “normal” inventor.

Tesla saw his inventions in his mind. He not only saw them he could even play with them in his mind to improve the design.

Tesla invented normal inventions but when the normal inventions were created he started to create abnormal and even absurd inventions.

He became the prototype of the “mad scientist“.

His main objective was to give mankind the opportunity to become God, The Creator.

This a part of a letter to the New York Times that Tesla wrote in 1908. If you read this Letter carefully you will see that Tesla has discovered the Source of Creation, The AEther.

According to an adopted theory, every ponderable atom is differentiated from a tenuous fluid, filling all space merely by spinning motion, as a whirl of water in a calm lake. By being set in movement this fluid, the ether, becomes gross matter. Its movement arrested, the primary substance reverts to its normal state. It appears, then, possible for man through harnessed energy of the medium and suitable agencies for starting and stopping ether whirls to cause matter to form and disappear. At his command, almost without effort on his part, old worlds would vanish and new ones would spring into being. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, adjust its distance from the sun, guide it on its eternal journey along any path he might choose, through the depths of the universe. He could make planets collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light; he could originate life in all its infinite forms. To cause at will the birth and death of matter would be man’s grandest deed, which would give him the mastery of physical creation, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny.”

I want to focus this blog on one highly mythical story in the Life of Tesla. In this Story another “mad scientist” named John von Neumann appears.

vonneumannThe story reads like a science fiction book but many parts of the story are factual and even the facts are disturbing enough.

At a certain moment Tesla claimed a few things. He claimed he could create the “Weapon of all Weapons“. This Weapon would end All Wars. Tesla also claimed he could talk with extra terrestrials by an invention called the Teslascope. Later he claimed he could create Invisibility. Tesla claimed much more. When he was eighty-one, Tesla claimed he had completed a dynamic theory of gravity with this theory he could create anti-gravity.

The claims of Tesla about New Weapons, Invisibility, Anti-Gravity and even Time Travel attracted the US Army. The first goal was to create an invisible ship. In the experiment he would be collaborating with John von Neumann.

John von Neumann was a mathematical genius. Just like Tesla he was not a “social person”.

Von Neumann was the man behind the first computer (the Enniac), the Atomic Bomb and the H-Bomb. He was also highly infuencial in the field of Quantum Mechanics.

John von Neumann believed he could calculate everything. He believed that he could create an Artificial Mind. When he could connect this Artificial Mind to The Force of Creation he could create completely new things. He knew Tesla could help him to reach his goal.

In 1940 a full test was done in the Brooklyn Naval Yard. It was a small test, with no one on board the vehicle. By 1941 a ship was procured to do a full experiment.

EldridgeTesla knew that the mental state and bodies of the crew would be affected severely. He wanted more time to perfect the experiment. Von Neumann disagreed and the experiment was performed with a crew on board. Tesla left the project.

The result of all this became a legend called the Philadelphia Experiment. Tesla was right. He was right because Tesla always used his own body and mind in his own experiments.

The physiological effects on the crew were profound. Almost all of the crew were violently ill. They experienced tremors and other distortions of the neurological system.

Some suffered from mental illness as a result of their experience; behavior consistent with Psychosis is described in other accounts. Still other members were physically unaccounted for. They simply vanished and came back later in time.

Five of the crew were allegedly fused to the metal bulkhead or deck of the ship. Still others were said to fade in and out of sight. All of the crew-members experienced Time-Travel.

Later the project was transferred to Montauk. John Von Neumann became the manager. In the Montauk Project he wanted to create a Mind Amplifier.

The Legend tells us that he was able to do this. What von Neumann did not realize was that the Amplifier created a Hole in Time (a Portal, a Wormhole) and this portal was a Two-Way-Street. Others, Extra Terrestials, used the Hole to enter our Universe.

The story of Montauk reads like a science-fiction story and it inspired many Books and Movies.

Later the projects changed names (Phoenix, MKULTRA).

Everything connected to the Philadelphia Experiment, the Montauk Experiment and other Strange and Dangerous experiments is denied by the American Government.

The American Government was at that time controlled by Congress and Congress organized hearings. One of the most intensive research programs was performed by the Church Committee. It proved that the Army and the Intelligence Services violated many laws.

Many people don’t trust the Army. If you search the Internet it contains thousands of websites that contain facts and interpretations of the facts. Almost nobody believes the Government is telling the Truth. This is a very BAD SIGN. It decreases the believe in Government and its Actions to serve the Citizens.

People don’t trust the Army and the Government because every time when its actions are researched by Parliament many illegal activities are proved. They have aquired the expectation that the Government is always hiding something.

Because they don’t know the “real” facts they create their own theories (Myths). Many of these Myths are about Conspiracies. Somewhere behind the Government is an Evil Force trying to Control Everybody.

If you look at the major priorities at this moment (Mind Control) it is very difficult not to believe in a Conspiracy to Control Everybody.

The Army has developed neural implants to control the behavior of humans. The implants give direct input into the brain and make it possible for a Central Command Center to manage the behavior of soldiers. They are also used to control the behavior of animals (Sharks).

The Army has invented a Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD) that can be used to control a crowd. It is able to induce high levels of pain.

Another technology is called Trancranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). TMS uses Electro-Magnetic Fields to control the emotions.

These projects are all described in “US Electromagnetic Weapons and Human Rights” By Peter Phillips, Lew Brown and Bridget Thornton.

John Norseen, one of scientists cited in the document shows the long term perspective. “If this research pans out you can begin to manipulate what someone is thinking even before they know it.” He is like John von Neumann not interested in Ethics. He is certainly not a “mad” scientist – just a dedicated one. “The ethics don’t concern me,” he says, “they should concern someone else

Do you want to read more about the Ethics of Mind Control?

Do you want to read more about the Legal Implications of Mind Control?

About Self Reproducing Systems

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Many people who are Out of Balance seek the help of a Therapist. There are Thousands of approaches available on the Market. Nobody is able to tell what therapy suits You.

Eugene Gendlin started to do research to find this out. He came back with his own therapy called Focusing. He discovered that every therapy works when the “patient” is able to Focus.

They focus on a very subtle and vague internal bodily awareness – or “felt sense.” When the patient treats his “felt sense” with “care” and an “interested curiosity” emotions and memories come back. When the memories and the feelings are accepted the patient feels a relief in the body (In-Sight).

Felt senses and reliefs are produced in a sequence. The patient changes but the changes are small steps. This is very different from other therapies where the patient HAS TO change something.

I want to explain Focusing with two theories.

The first one comes out of Second Order Cybernetics. It was created by Varela and Maturana. Their theory was named Autopoesis (Self Reproduction).

Just like the bacterium in my blog about The Work of Rodney Cotterill every organism has to renew itself. Every part of an organism is replaced during a certain period (a Cycle) but the process of replacing the parts has to take place in such a way that the organism stays alive. The parts (of the parts of the parts) are taken out of its environment and the “waste” of the organism is given back to the environment.

When the environment changes the Autopoetic System has to adapt. It is unable to adapt itself directly. It adapts in small steps related to the Cycle Time of the autopoetic (sub-)System that has to adapt itself. Everything is related to TIMING.

First the Scientist thought that the Body was run by one Central Clock in the Brain. Recent research shows that every part of the body has its own clock. Many clocks operate on a daily basis but there are also cycles that take a (Moon-)month or longer (Seasons).

When an organism has to adapt to a new environment (and this could simply be another person) it can take months before there is a new balance.

The second theory I will use is the theory of Wilhelm Reich.

I use a very large citation to prove my point. “In body psychotherapy, and more recently in neuroscience, sympathetic activity, has been seen more broadly as an indicator of an impulse or a feeling being stirred. The word sympathetic -sym pathos means with feeling. It is most easily understood as an upsurge – those feelings which are experienced as coming UP – anger, fear, excitement, desire, hatred – and which if expressed involve movement out, or towards, or in the case of fear, away from, an object. Sympathetic physiology increases energy and readies the body for action – so it is also about the need to do, express, act“.

Conversely the parasympathetic action is a concomitant of coming DOWN – disappointment, grief, shame, guilt, despair; and contentment, peacefulness, satisfaction – feelings which involve a decrease in tension, withdrawal of energy inward and tend more towards introspection. Laughter and tears are both usually a sign of parasympathetic activity”.

One way in which the body protects itself from emotional intensity is the development of chronic muscular tension, which dampens down both external and internal stimuli. Although sympathetic activity increases muscular tension, individuals with sustained high tension tend to have lower autonomic arousal than those with less muscle tension. Muscle tension creates a buffer, which reduces anxiety but at a cost – a loss of contact with oneself and others. It can be a negative loop that leads to loss of self-regulation”.

Too much muscular tension impairs health because it constricts and inhibits spontaneous processes in general (i.e. including feelings and thoughts), such as breathing, and the venous and lymphatic circulation, which are responsible for clearing the body of toxins. This repressed inner turmoil translates in the body as tension at every level (visceral/muscular/autonomic etc), including hardening and narrowing the arteries, as in angina, a medical condition which can precede heart attack.”

On the other hand, chronic parasympathetic activation, which correlates more with psychological collapse and depression, is not healthy either. Its characteristics are low blood pressure, sluggishness. The organs and muscles lack tone – in other words there is not sufficient tension”.

The reciprocal action of sympathetic and parasympathetic as part of a four-beat cycle: tension-charge-discharge -relaxation. This is known as the vasomotoric cycle, and is a holistic model embracing both psychological and physiological function”.

One image I have of the sympathetic is the coiling of a spring; the parasympathetic is the rebound back to a resting state. The part in between – the spring springing – is a crucial transition. In the coiled wire this action is governed by physical laws – the extent of its spring depends on fixed physical parameters”.

the inhibition at any point in the cycle means that something is not integrated – its split off but the person will inevitably start to wind down sooner or later – just because of the in-built homeostatic regulation. The split off remnants remain in the body as generalised or localised areas of muscular tension, pain, flaccidity or numbness“.

Well I hope you got the message.

We are Self-Reproducing “Machines“.

To reproduce we need to go through a Cycle that contains Cycles that contains Cycles (a Spiral).

To reproduce we need an environment that gives us the Food (Energy) we need.

We also need the environment to give back our “waste“. Our “waste” is “food” for other organisms.

When we are unable to move through our cycles we create a Reservoir. This reservoir is filled with Tension or the need to experience Tension. The reservoirs are situated in the muscles. The most important Muscles are our Organs.

The muscles are connected by an “Electro-Magnetic” wiring system. This System is the same System the Chinese use in Acupuncture. A needle releases the Tension. It removes the “block” and a new “flow of Energy” is started. Just like Focusing Acupuncture is not a “One Step Cures All“-approach.

In our current Society many people are filled with tension but when you are old the opposite happens (YOU are BORED).

At a certain moment the Tension Explodes and we act with Violence. Until that time we experience A FELT SENSE.

When we are Highly Tensed we create a muscular ARMOUR. This ARMOUR protects us against tension but it also protects us from THE OTHERS. We isolate ourselves even from the THERAPISTS.

If this happens the only thing you can do is DANCE or RUN to get into contact with your Body AGAIN.

LINKS

About Stress

About Focusing

Why we Think with our Muscles

About Acupuncture

Why all Organisms are Moving Memories

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Rodney Cotterill explains a lot about the structure of very simple bacteria. What he shows is that even bacteria have Emotions.

To agree with this we have to agree on a definition of the Emotions. Agreeing about “What an Emotion is” is one of the most complex discussions in Psychology. The discussion is so complex that there is really no discussion possible.

The simplest way to solve this discussion is to start with the meaning of the word Emotion. Emotion simply means “Movement“.

So an Emotion could be described as “Something that moves us” or “Something that shows to other People that we are Moved“.

We are moved by an Event, Something that Happens. Something that “Makes a Difference“.

An Event is a Change in our Environment or Context. This Context could be our Internal Environment (our Body, Pain) or our External Environment.

When you are a bacterium you are moving in an environment that contains Food. You need Food to produce Energy. The environment is not homogeneous. The concentration of food is different in the Space the bacterium is exploring. It even contains deadly food, Poison.

A bacterium like Escherichia coli  procures information by probing its surroundings, through the propulsion provided by its flagellum. In effect, this creature integrates incoming chemical signals during a few-second period of its travels, and adjusts its direction of advance accordingly. The integration is achieved through temporary chemical modifications to molecules located in the bounding membrane, which transfer nutrients to the cytoplasm, and also through changes to certain other molecules in the interior of the cell. Such integration is essentially a short-term memory mechanism”.

The bacterium is probing his environment. When he finds “food” he acquires “energy” and his mover, the flagellum, reacts. The process of intake and movement is a cycle.

The Cycle takes time (a few seconds, a delay, a Rhythm) and acts as “a short term memory“.  Memory is not stored in the body of the bacterium. The Memory of the bacterium is his Cycle.

When the bacterium finds Food he circles around. He is attracted to the Center. When he finds Poison, he moves away. When he moves away his flagellum rotates anticlockwise.  When he is attracted his flagellum moves with the clock. The bacterium shows spiraling behaviour.

The Bacterium LOVES Food and he HATES Poison. In between he is EXITED (Chaotic). He starts to Probe, to Explore, his Environment to find Food (Love) again.

The Emotional State of the Bacterium is a 100% correlated to the State of the Bacterium itself.

The Bacterium Is His Emotions.

When the Bacterium could be AWARE of all his INTERNAL states he would need many words to explain his emotions to us.

When we could show the bacteria that his states are “just” related to a few EXTERNAL states that are related to “the amount of Food in his environment” he could reduce THE AMOUNT OF WORDS to DESCRIBE his emotions to a few.

Cotterill shows that in time many new features (mostly Sensors) are added to the Organisms that followed the Bacterium in the process of Evolution but the basic structure of the bacterium stays in place.

I cite:

The ultimate evolutionary product was the brain itself, though there is not universal agreement as to why this structure actually developed. One obvious view is that it served to gather the sensory organs and their interneurons into a single unit, an alternative idea being that its precursor emerged at a primitive stage, as a device for coordinating the two sides of the body“.

The peripheral reflexes can act independently of the brain, but they can also be coordinated and sequenced by it. The main point to be grasped here is that the brain’s primary purpose lies in the need for inhibiting peripheral reflexes, when particularly sophisticated sequences of muscular movements have to be executed“.

The Brain is not Thinking. It is inhibiting Thinking.

We think independent of the Brain.

The Brain is INHIBITING our thinking when we want to override the Action Patterns that are stored in our Bodily Cycle.

We want to override our Experience when something happens and the Event is not related to our Goals.

Goals are related to Expectations and Expectations are something we, Mammals, are able to “calculate“.

We, the Mammals,  are able to create an Image of the Future. By the process of Abstraction we are able to generate “schema” or “actions patterns” that are imaginary.

When our Goals are violated we are just like the primivitive organisms able to permit the current movement, switch to  another, or stop altogether.

Just like them we have a choice but our choices are not only applicable to the real world.  We are able to switch between the real world and other worlds. The underlying system is comparable it just works on another level.

We, the organisms, are Moving Memories that ARE our Emotions. We are all looking for Love (Energy) and when we are without Love we start to Probe to find it again.

LINKS

Why an Event is not a Collision

About Deleuze and Events

About Deleuze and Ecology

Thinking with our Muscles: About Mirrors, Spindles and Acrobats

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

bacteriumIn 2002 Will McWhinney was writing his never finished book Grammers of Engagement“.

One of the scientists he was communicating with was Rodney Michael John Cotterill (1933-2007).

Will send me an article of John Cotterill called “Cooperation of the basal ganglia, cerebellum, sensory cerebrum and hippocampus: possible implications for cognition, consciousness, intelligence and creativity” .

The article contains a systematic exploration of the Sensory-Motor System of all the organisms on earth noting that the underlying behavioral strategy of Earth’s creatures does not appear to have changed in the four billion or so years since they sprang from their last common ancestor.

In the body the motor output is supported by the underlying anatomy. The various signaling routes appear to converge on the frontal lobe’s movement-mediating areas, that is to say the primary motor cortex (M1), the premotor and supplementary motor cortices, and the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The anatomical details show that the three main movement-provoking streams in higher animals function cooperatively. When the cooperative mechanism is working at full strength the result is overt movement.

The article shows what part of the system was added at what moment and what the effect was of this addition. Strangely enough Cotterill comes to the conclusion that we THINK with the SPINDLES in our MUSCLES.

Muscle spindles are found within the fleshy portions of muscles, embedded in so-called Intrafusal fibers. These fibers are walled off from the rest of the muscle by a collagen sheath. This sheath has a spindle shape. While the intrafusal fibers are wrapped with sensory receptors, their counterpart, are responsible for the power-generating component of muscle and are innervated by motor neurons.

In another Blog I already showed that the Collagen Fibers in our Body are exactly mapped on the Meridians that are used in Acupuncture.

The article of Cotterill is very difficult to read if you don’t know anything about the terminology of the Brain but the Schema’s (The Wiring) in the article are very convincing.

This is what Will wrote: “Rodney Cotterill (2001) presented an important integration of the research on the brain structure. His neuro-physiological work radically undermines any support remaining for the stimulus-response schema, replacing it with motor-environment-mind schemata of complex feedback loops. The complex of feedback loops enables one to “Know what one knows.”

Cotterill goes beyond this, writing: “The ability to know that one knows is referred to by psychologists as first-order embedding. Higher embedding, such as that exemplified by knowing that one knows that one knows, merely depends on the ability to hold things in separate patches of neuronal activity in working memory. This manifests itself in the creature’s intelligence, which also dictates its ability to consolidate existing schemata into new schema.” “This ability, labeled intelligence, is a unique feature of mammalian brains. Intelligence and reflection are explained as due to functioning of the web of feedback loops, both internal and external, that evolved in higher animals“.

What Will is explaining is that the connection between all the spindles in our muscles is a very complex feed-back system. This feed-back system is able to create higher levels of “Abstraction” by the use of “Self-Reference”.

The experience in our body is stored in Schema (Action Patterns). “A schema is a reproducible linking of motor-directing actitity to the optimal environmental feedback resulting from that activity, the reproducibility stemming from the fact that schemata are laid down in the available form of memory“.

The schema are learned by Copying the Behavior of Others. We are not only copying we are Mirroring the Other. This is exactly what people in NLP call Pacing & Leading.

Recent advances in the cognitive neuroscience of action have considerably enlarged our understanding of human motor cognition. In particular, the activity of the mirror system, first discovered in the brain of non-human primates, provides an observer with the understanding of a perceived action by means of the motor simulation of the agent’s observed movements.

This discovery has raised the prospects of a “motor theory of social cognition“. Human social cognition includes the ability to mindread, which in turn plays a crucial role in human communication.

Again a citation of Will McWhinney:

Pacing develops through a harmonizing across the spectrum of enunciations and responses. In human communication, rhythm orchestrates the voices, expressions, e.g., sentences, reception processes, rhythms of the body, demands for attention within and among the participants, and long waves of cultural accommodation across the whole set of conversants.  A conversation is effective when the pacing of each element synchronizes with the others: all the phonemes of a word need to be completely expressed before a speaker begins to generate the next word.  Interruptions in this flow produce stuttering, in speech or thought. The breathing must enable a sentence to be phrased, expressed on a single breath or broken in relation to its grammatical structure. The listeners simultaneously construct the sentences in their own neuro-muscular structure“.

When we are Unable to Mirror we are “Out of Tune” and the dialogue stops. Mirroring forms the basis for Empathy and Language. It is also the main reason why Autists have a difficulty to communicate.

I end this blog with a citation of Ritchie produced in 1936:

At the suggestion that muscular movement may be intellectual I feel that there will be a stirring of indignation among the highbrows. They will say, “Why all these talk about acrobats and muscular activity? Granted that what the acrobat does is perfect of its kind it is not properly an intellectual activity, like the mathematician’s for instance”. In reply to this I should admit at once that what the mathematician does is much more useful than what the acrobat does; but is there any reason apart from snobbery for saying it is more intellectual? In effect the acrobat thinks with the muscles of his whole body while the mathematician thinks with – well, whatever it is he thinks with. Of course it may be that the mathematician does not think with anything but just thinks. Even if this were true, which is doubtful, I find it hard to see why thinking with nothing should be more truly thinking than thinking with your muscles. Because thinking is mental it does not follow that it is not bodily too“.

Cognitive Scientists like Lackoff, Nunez and Dehaene have found an explanation for the “Thinking of the Mathematican“. They are able to mirror, to entrain, to tune, to pace, to synchronize to the “Actions Patterns of the Conscious Universe“.

These Actions Patterns have a lot in common with Music and Harmony. Pythagoras was not the only one who talked about the Music of the Spheres. It also explains why Mathematicians are always (like me) in Love with Music.

LINKS

About Mirroring

About the Emotions of Bacteria

About the Evolution of the Mammals

About the Tetraktys of Pythagoras

About Color and Music

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

kandinskyIn 1999 John Gage wrote the book Color and Culture, Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction. The book explains the way people “think/sense” about Color in History.

I use the word think/sense because I believe there are many ways to look and a one of them is “to Look by Thinking“.

The Science that is trying to explain this phenomenon is called Phenomenology.

I know this sounds strange to you but there are many examples to prove that people don’t see something because their theory about the world is not able to explain what they are seeing.

anatomical lessonA very remarkable researcher who has discovered many phenomena is the Dutch Psychiatrist Jan Hendrik van den Berg .

I read his books when I was a student at the University.

One of his books called the Opened Body (Het geopende Lichaam 1959) is about the History of Anatomy.

In this book he shows that it took a very long time before it was accepted that the Heart was divided into two Chambers. Until that time The Heart was a Whole.

Long after the discovery of the two independent circulatory systems by William Harvey the heart was pierced (!) to show the interconnection between the chambers that was not there.

The Old Scientists simply adjusted reality to their theory and nobody complained about that.

John Cage shows the same things again and again. He shows that the experience of Colors changed because artists started to use pigments.

A Color became a mix of Basic colors. Colors changed into Parts that could be Combined.

At this moment almost nobody understands that Colors change by the influence of other Colors in their environment.

sunset2Before that time Color was a Field. Colors (and Images) were created by adding Layers.

When you see Colors as a Field you understand why Colors are influenced by other Colors. They look like Music and produce Overtones.

The strange thing is that when you start to experiment with Colors by doing a course in Painting (I did) you recognize immediately that there is something wrong with you’re Think/Sensing-system.

When you Paint with your Mind you will never create what you See. You have to Look without Thinking.

Imagine John Cage, Jan Van Den Berg, Husserl and Heidegger and many others are Right. There are many simple experiments to prove their point.

goethe color theoryWhen you want to do a very simple experiment just do what Goethe did. He wrote a book called Color Theory that contains all his experiments. Goethe used the German word “Schauen” to explain the difference between Seeing with the Mind and Seeing with the Intuition or the Consciousness. You could translate “Schauen”  in “Carefull Observation“.

If they are Right you could try to remove your Thinking (your theory about the outside world) when you Observe with Care.

If you do this you’re world will change. You will see Colors and Overtones in your Environment you have never seen before. The World will look much brighter.

Have a Try.