Posts Tagged ‘Art’

About Coding the Context

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

According to Bahktin a Code is a deliberately killed Context. In this Blog I try to Code the Context without Killing it.

The word Context is derived from the Latin word con-textere which means Weaving (Textere) together (Con). The word textere is connected to words like Text, Archi-tect (Carpenter), Tech-nology (Craftmanship), Tekhne (Art), Textile, Texture and Textura (Web, Structure).

A Context is Something that Surrounds Something Else, Puts Something on its Place or Relates Something to Something Else that has a stronger Foundation. Other words that are part of the same Family are Frame of Reference, Setting, Environment, Background, Situation, Ambience, Circumstances, Fabric and Framework.

We can Taste, Smell, Feel (the Texture of the Skin), Create (Weaving), Look (Structure) and Emerge in a Context (Become One). Tasting, Hearing, Feeling and Smelling are Context-Independent. When we Taste, Hear, Touch or Smell we are In The Context.

Our Eyes are the Senses that are Context-Dependent. A Context changes when we Move Away from the Context. A Context is highly dependent on our Frame of Reference, our Point of View. If we change our Focus the context becomes vague or changes into another context. If we look at the Right Distance with the Right Angle the context is clear. We have reached the state of Clarity.

When we Move UP a context becomes a Surface. Moving Up changes the Landscape. Many Contexts merge into a One. When we have lost track we have to climb to a point where we can have an Overview. If we leave the Landscape and use an airplane the Landscape changes into a Map.

When we need to have an Overview we have to find the Right Scale. The word Scale means climbing and when we climb we stay in the Landscape that contains the Context we want to Observe.

When we look at a Context we can look at the Whole or we can look at the Parts. When we have no knowledge of the Context we are not able to define the Parts. There are infinite ways of defining the parts and all the time we define parts the Context disappears. The Parts become a context of their own.

If we understand the context we are able to determine the Whole and the Parts. When the context is created by a Human (an Archi-tect, Carpenter) we recognize the Whole by one or more distinctive Parts. A Door or a Window stands for a House. When the context is part of Nature we have no knowledge of the causal chain of creation. Nature is a Wonder, a Web that was never Woven.

If the context was constructed and we know about the Context we are able to arrange the parts and reconstruct the Context. If we have no idea about the genesis of the Context we are unable to reconstruct the Whole. If the context is destroyed we will never be able to repair it. Never deconstruct a context you don’t understand. You will never be able to recreate it.

If the context was created by a Craftsman (Tech-nology) You will always see the Sign of the Craftsman. A Craftsman is the creator of Art (Teckne) and strangely enough a piece of Art is never Perfect. When the Context is made by a Machine it is Perfect.

If we look at a Context we can point to it to show it to Others. We have to realize that the Others have a different Point of View. They see something else.

When we point to the Context and we want to make our point we can utter a sound. The sound can be related to the Whole (“house”) or to a Part (“window”). If the Other understands the Context he will recognize the Pointed Sounds and reply with his own Sounds (“huis”, “raam”). In this way we can reach mutual understanding about the Context. If You know about the Context and the other does not know about the Context he will only recognize the Whole but not the Parts.

We will never be able to utter enough words to describe the Context. A Context is a Picture and “a Picture Paints a Thousand Words”. When you want to explain a Context to Others make a Picture. Don’t use a Map because a Map is the result of a movement Up to get an Oversight. When you move to High you are Abstracting and Nobody will Understand you’re Abstraction. “A Map is not the Territory”

When you Ex-Plain something you are moving something out of “the plain” (a Flat Surface) to the Right Level. You have to move from the flat level of the Map or the Picture to the 3 dimensions of the Earth. Always take people with you to the Context and show them what is really happening out there. An explanation of a Map will never recreate the Experience of the Exploration of the real Territory.

A Context is always connected to the Emotions. You love the Animal. A house remembers you of your Childhood and you feel nostalgia. When you experience Beauty you have discovered the Whole. When the Emotions take you away you are not Focused. Look at the Context with the Eyes of an Innocent Child.

A Context always moves in Time. A house is designed, build, used and destroyed. The influence of Time can only be seen of you visit the Context often. If you are visiting the Context for the first time you can listen to others who tell the Stories that are connected to the Context. Sometimes a Context is a Focal point of many Stories. It has attracted many Visitors and has changed from an Object to a Texture. The Context is weaved by the experiences of many people (Con-textere).

The origin of the word Thinking is Thenkon which means “Making Visible” (I don’t See the Point, Insight). Thinking was also related to “Standing in the Middle” (Understand). To think you have to stop in the Center of the Context (The Right Point Of View). Later the meaning changed. Thinking became related to the Ears and Listening. The word Dumb means Deaf and you are Stupid when you don’t listen to the Person who Knows everything. When Thinking moved to the Head it became without Feeling. Think with you’re Body.

If you want to understand a Context walk around in the Landscape and Observe from the Right Point of View. Listen to the Stories of Others who have already found Clarity. Don’t believe you are Stupid when you’re Ears function. If you lost Oversight climb to the Right Scale but never leave Earth. If you do this the Worlds becomes flat and changes into a Map.

Act like a Crafsman. Use the Tech-nology of Your Body (Senses, Emotions, Imagination,Expectation) to Create Art (Tehkne). Never strive for perfection but improve Your Self. Weave (Textere) Beautifull Stories that bring Clarity to people that Think they are Dumb but cannot See.

Enjoy The Web (Textura) that was never Woven.

LINKS

How to Kill a Context (in Dutch)

About Bhaktin

About the War of Words

Monday, May 12th, 2008

The amount of people that are confused or are creating confusion is growing. It all has to do with Language. New words are created. Languages and Cultures are mixing. New Inventions and Theories are Created and Destroyed. We are in a highly creative phase, the End Game of Time Wave Zero. Is it possible to find the pattern behind this pattern?

The Encyclopedia Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopedia still in print. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh and quickly grew in popularity and size. The Brittanica expanded from 3 volumes in 1768 to 32 volumes today.

In France Diderot created the first French encyclopedia in 1745. It started as a translation of the English Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers. When he and his co-editor, mathematician Jean d’Alembert, were finished, they created a new work, the ‘Encyclopedie’. At that time it contained everything that was necessary to known about the Western World.

Its aim was “to collect all the knowledge that now lies scattered over the face of the earth, to make known its general structure to the men among we live, and to transmit it to those who will come after us,” to make men not only wiser” but also “more virtuous and more happy“.

Denis Diderot was one of the originators and interpreters of the Age of Enlightenment. This 18th-century movement was based on the belief that Reason could find True Knowledge.

During the Enlightment many scientists hoped that it would be possible to find the Eternal Truth, The Simple set of Rules that would Explain Every Thing. It was just a Matter of Time.

What they did not realize was that Truth is Highly Context Dependent. It is dependent on the Spirit of the Time, the Knowledge and Interpretation of the Writer of the Context, The Status of the Writer and the Genesis of Science.

Not only Knowledge changes but also Words change their meaning all the time. Everything Changes and the only thing that is left is to accept this Fact of Life.

The awareness of the problem of the Eternal Truth has created Cynicism. Scientists especially in the Social Sciences (Post-Modernism, Deconstruction) don’t believe it will be possible to find any objective general accepted pattern or explanation. They are fighting the goals of the highly rational Enlightment with very complicated rational arguments of their own.

When the exponential rise of Novelty predicted by Time Wave Zero (and other comparable models) reaches the Point Omega we will be literally lost in Space. Innovations that took centuries to happen in history will happen in a few days.

It is really true that there are no general Explanations possible? Is Everything Context Dependent?

The problem that the Eternal Change of our primary communication vehicle, Language, is creating is analyzed by many great minds in history. Perhaps the greatest genius was Wittgenstein. At the end of his life his students put all his Observations (he did not believe in Theory) in something called The Blue and Brown Books. In these books he is teaching the Art of Clarification.

Wittgenstein invented a new way of looking at the world called a Family Resemblance. If we gather together members of the same Family, they probably Look Alike, although there is no Distinctive Feature that they all share in Common. A brother and a sister might have the same dark eyes, while that sister and her father share a slightly turned-up nose.

They share a group of features, some of which are more distinctly present in some members of the family, while some features are not present at all. Wittgenstein argues that the different uses of one word and rules share the same Family Resemblance.

A Family is a Vague Set of Relationships that have something in Common but the parts of the set are Different. A Family is a unique set of permutations of distinctive features.

The only way to recognize a Family is to meet the members and create an intuition, a feeling. To do this we have to leave our study room and walk around in Reality. We have to move into the Context instead of floating above The Context.

Floating above the Context is called Imagining. There is nothing wrong with imagining. The imagination (Spirit) is the Mother of Art. Changing Art into a Science Destroys the Beauty of the Work of Art. Just like a Family a Piece of Art shows a pattern but is also shows exceptions of the pattern. The exceptions show a pattern but this pattern also contains a pattern. The world is a self-reference, a Fractal.

Scientists don’t realize that they are creating Fiction. When they would realize that they are producing Fiction they would certainly improve their Style. Scientific Fiction (a Genre) is mostly unreadable for other Scientists and especially for “Normal” people like me.

There are Many Families and there are even Families of Families. Some people have been born with a Talent to Observe one Family. Others are aware of completely different Families. All of them share features but it will never be possible to find The Set of all Sets of features. Finding the set of sets created a huge problem in Mathematics. It was the main reason why Wittgenstein changed his “theory”. He left the field of Mathematics, spend years in complete isolation (he was a teacher) until the people of Cambridge begged him to come back.

It does not help to spend a lot of time to discuss a joint Family. It only creates a War of the Words or a nicer term of Wittgenstein, A Language Game. A major part of Scientific Fiction is about the Quest to find the general Definitions of the set of all sets, The Holy Grail of Science… When we spend too much time to Fight we will never See.

The quest of Objectivity shows itself in the Use of Statistics. Scientists are unable to find the right Context (a Family) but they are also unaware of the Fractal Structure of the Universe. They are also completely unaware about the boundaries of Statistics. They accept the General Truth of Statistics without any awareness of the background.

What is the solution to all these problems?

The fist step is to accept the Spiraling Spiral and Self-Reference as the fundamental Fractal of the Universe. It is really a simple clarifying explanation.

The next step is to determine the Level and the Phase of the Spiral You are in (Style, Chronotope, Family, Network, Field of Reference, Bias). It determines what You are able to See and Do. It defines the Place in Time/Space you are Watching. If You want to move to another Level or State change the State of Your Awareness.

The last step is to feel the Movement of the Force of Life, The Tao,  and connect to this Movement. If you have accomplished this all the Clarifications you are looking for are given to you by the Great Force of Creation, Inspiration.

About The Industrial Revolution

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

industrial revolutionThe Industrial Revolution started with the mechanization of the textile-industry (1740-1790) in England.

A new collaboration concept the Mill, later translated in the Factory, is invented. The Industrial Revolution is preceded by the Renaissance.

The Renaissance is a Creative Phase.

The Industrial Revolution is a Social phase. A Social phase changes the way people cooperate.

Small scale cooperation structures were destroyed and replaced by large-scale cooperation structures.

The Industrial Revolution not only changed the way people cooperated in labour. It also changed the way Cities and Countries cooperated.

At the end of this phase (the Second World War) Europe and the World (UN, China, and India) started to Unite. Cooperation on the Level of the World became possible but was finally not realized.

The French Revolution (1789) breaks the power of the Aristocracy. The Bourgeois (the merchants, the entrepreneurs, the middle class) use the Mill to produce cheap standardized products on a large scale. They became the new Rulers of Society.

The mill and later the factory not only destroyed the Aristocracy.

It also destroyed the Small Scale Collaboration Structure of the Guilds. The Guilds, operating on the level of the City, took care of almost everything at that time.

They operated hospitals, educational facilities and insurance. When the mills turned into factories many people lost their job. The big cities were populated with very poor and hungry people.

Nobody took care of the sick and the old. They became the Prolitariat, the Under-Class. The existence of the Prolitariat produced a huge tension in society.

russian revolution2This tension was resolved when many pressure groups or movements (Conservatives, Liberals, Socialists, and Communists) finally agreed upon new large scale institutions.  

The State, Parliament, Democracy, Voting, and The Union came into existence.

The Social Welfare State was constructed. Government took care of almost everybody.

The first Cotton Mill was opened in 1742. In 1762 Hargreaves invents the spinning jenny. It was operated by hand.

With the invention of the steam-machine (1769, Watt) manual labour was not needed anymore.

In 1785 the first mill was opened that used a steam-machine (the power loom).

The Steam Machine became a Major Paradigm. It highly influenced Physics (ThermoDynamics, Entropy) and Psychology (Freud).

steam_engineIn 1781 Kant wrote his book Kritik der reinen vernunft. He excluded the Imagination (illusions) and the Emotions (love, care, values, quantity) out of reasoning and introduced the concept of mechanized thinking (Logic). Kant excluded Art (Imagination) and Religion (the Emotions) and invented Science.

Mechanized (Scientific) Thinking was used to Optimize the Mill. Slowly it grew into a (big) factory. At the end of the Industrial Revolution Logical reasoning produced its most briljant artefact, the All Purpose Computer. The Computer became a major Paradigm.

The-Railroads-Of-The-World-124Between 1790 and 1840 the world was covered with Railroads. They facilitated the spread of the Industrial Revolution.

Cities flourished and died according to the distance to a railroad station (A node). Many infrastructures were created in this period (Telephone, Sewers, Water, Gas, and Electricity). Later the concept of the railroad was implemented in Traffic (Highway) and Computers (networks, hubs, servers). The Railroad Network became a major Paradigm.

Mechanic thinking resulted in Standardization. Between 1890 and 1940 Mass-production, Mass-consumption and Mass-media dominated society.

TFordThe first step was set by Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor with the production of the T-Ford. The theories of Taylor are until now (most of the time not recognized) used in many forms to optimize work-processes.

The end of optimization is reached when everything is turned into a Utility. A Utility is a Network that operates without Human Beings and transports Objects.

When we look at the Industrial Revolution from a higher perspective we can see the elements of the Cycle at work.

A phase of Creativity is followed by a Social Phase. It is the phase of Power Conflicts (Competition) and the construction of new Movements, new Groups and finally of new Institutions (The State, The Corporation).

The Hierarchy was the major control paradigm of this period. Everybody wanted to move to “the Top”. The Race to the Top was also visible in architecture. The SkyScraper with the Management at the Top became the Symbol of Power.

watching tvThe Industrial Revolution gave the Masses, the Slaves of the Middle Ages a better place. They changed from a Slave into a Consumer.

The Slave was dominated by his Owner. A Consumer is dominated by his Senses. On the Macro-level we see a move from the world-view of Control/Social (Master/Slave) to a Sensory/Social-pattern.

Will Mc Whinny called the Game of Sensory/Social The Game of the Market. The Industrial Revolution produced the Game of the Market.

At the end of this period the Masses controlled the Market. We are now in a demand oriented economy. This created a big problem for the mass-producers.

They controlled the masses and are desperatly trying to keep their position by Manipulation of the Media.

What is Going to Happen?

stock marketOn the level of the Kondratiev-cycle (Period 50 years) a phase of Creativity and the Individual was started in 1950.

This phase ended around 2000.

The move to the Individual challenged the structures of Mass-Production. People wanted to be treated as a Unique Human Being.

Industry found a solution to this need. They invented Mass Customization and User Involvement and went on with the Game of the Market.

This phase is now followed by a Social Phase (Start 2000). The Customer (the new Ruler) is organizing itself in Smart Customer Networks.

The Very Long Cycle (Precession, Period 25.000 years) and the Cycle of Culture (Periodicity 1250 year) is also changing its focus.

On the level of Culture we are moving to the Centre. We are converging on a new and unknown level, Earth. During the Social Phase of the Industrial Revolution huge collaboration structures were formed (EG, UN, NATO, China, India, …). These structures are challenged by the Individual in the Next Phase. The solution of this conflict is a network of small local structures that is part of a large global network (“Think Global, Act Local”).

The precession cycle is moving from the Dark Phase into the Light. This is the most interesting and unknown development. Current Human history has never experienced a shift from the Kali Yuga to the Golden Age. The Golden Age is a period of intense spiritual development, a movement to a New Level of Conscioussness.

It shows itself in a move to religion and mysticism but also in a new awareness about what is really happening in the world.  This new awareness is frightening to most of the people. They cannot understand the major changes that are visible. The predictable future is gone. Everything is on the move and the movement is excellerating culminating in Point Omega, the Big Leap into Nothingness.  

Long Term Phases always dominate short term phases. The effect of this will be tremendous and almost unpredictable.  An unpredictable future is a Future without a Perspective.

Some people expect a dramatic negative change. They are waiting for the Apocalyps. Some people expect the Return of Paradise and a jump to a higher consciousness.

I really don’t know what will happen.

If you read my blogs I am constantly trying to find the solution of this very complex conjunction of cycles. I keep you informed. 

About the Renaissance

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

The Renaissance was a Cultural Movement that spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th century. It started in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spread to the rest of Western Europe.

 After the Dark Middle Ages, controlled by the Church of Rome, aimed at the Inside (Spirit and Soul), many people wanted to discover the Outside.

The Renaissance is the Age of Discovery. It is the time of Columbus.

T704836_23The printing press, invented in 1450, made it possible to distribute all the new knowledge all over the known world.

The new knowledge is in reality very old knowledge. Renaissance means re-birth and the Renaissance is the re-birth of the knowledge (and wisdom) of the Greek and the Romans.

This knowledge was forbidden and destroyed by the Rulers in Rome. It came back because of renewed contacts with the Arab Culture. At that time Arab Culture was at the top of its cycle.

Art (Leonardo Da Vinci) and Science (Copernicus (1514)) exploded. Both of them were funded by the rich merchants (Medici, Venice).

Scientists started to experiment and used advanced tools (Microscope, Telescope) to study the external world and the internal world (the Body). They looked with their own Eyes and not with the Eyes of the Bible.

renaissanceperIn the Arts the Perspective was invented. Artist used advanced tools (“camera’s) to support their own eyes to project the outside world on a flat surface.

Another Re-Birth was the Reformation (Luther, 1517). The Bible was translated in many languages and distributed by the printing press to many people.

For the first time people outside the Church could read and study Religious documents and compare them with Scientific Evidence  from Greece, Arabia and Rome.

columbus_taking_possessionThe need to convert others to the Christian faith was huge. Many expeditions, Crusades,  were send out to unknown territory to find convertible humans.

The missionaries used the old fashioned trick learned from the Huns to force people to accept  the Faith by violence. Millions of people were tortured and killed.

At the outside of the Christian Empire the Arabs were attacking all the time. They were also very wealthy.

The search for Gold stimulated the weapon-industry of the west.

Not only the weapon industry flourished also the transport industry (Maps, Navigation, Big Ships) made a lot of progress.

The combination of both of them (The Navy, “War-Ships”) helped the West to Rule the Sea.

mercatorProduction in the Renaissance was carried out by the Guilds, a Cooperation of Craftsman. They were almost in total control of every craft in the big cities.

The Renaissance (Creation) is part of the Cycle of Western Culture.

In this Cycle it was preceded by the rule of Roman Church (Control) and followed by the Industrial Revolution (Social).

The rebirth was fuelled by an Expansion Phase (Fire).

In this phase not only Arabic Culture expanded and rose to a high point also the new rulers of the West (Celts, Germans), the descendants of the Huns, created new Kingdoms and build the Cathedrals. The Cathedrals contained all the occult knowledge of that time (Sacred Geometry, The Spiral, The Light, The Four Forces,.).

On a macro level we see an interesting pattern.

The phase of Fire (Expansion, Practice, Summer, Sensory, …) fuels the phase of Creation (Up, Spirit, Idea, Eye, Winter, Mythic,…).

Ideas are put into Practice or Practice generates Ideas. The combination of Sensory and Mythic (A Game) is called Invention or Exploration by Will McWhinney.

The game of Exploration is an Infinite Game. Infinite games are about continuing the Game.

Going Back to Jump to another Level is also a pattern that is visible in the most advanced theory about ecologies promoted by the Resilience Alliance (RA).

The Ecology of the Roman Church dominant in the Dark part of the Middle Ages collapsed. It collapsed because of many factors.

In this time the Plague killed millions of people. The Climate was very instable (An Ice-Age) and the new Kingdoms of the Huns and Celts were heavily expanded. They started to fight for dominance.

According to the theory of RA a collapsing ecology reverts to a previous stage to rise again.

What does this say about Innovation?

Innovation is fuelled by an earlier (expansion) stage in history. It is triggered by a collapse of an Ecology.

If we look at the current state of the world we see a Collapse (a Compression) of the World Wide Ecology. It will certainly generate a stage of Ideas and Creativity.

This is needed to solve the current problems. In contrary to many ideas about Innovation the only way to solve the problems is to Look Back and Learn from History.

We can learn from the Control Stage of the Middle Ages where one paradigm was enforced. At this moment Science is enforcing again one paradigm, the paradigm of Control, Abstraction, Technology, the Computer, Statistics and the Factory.

They were created during the Industrial Revolution that was aimed at creating Unity (Every Thing is the Same).

At this moment we are moving into the stage of the Center, Balance and Harmony.  In this stage we always jump to a new level of Conscioussness. In the last Center-Stage the Religion of the Islam was born so the chances are high that a new World Religion will appear or re-appear.

People that explore contradicting paradigms are excluded from the scientific community. This community controls the world of Inspiration just like the Guilds were controlling the crafts in the Renaissance. To innovate we need Freedom of Paradigm.

We can learn from the Idea stage of the Renaissance. It teaches us that a Union of Art, Science and Spirituality is needed to support real innovation.

We can also learn from a comparable phase in the Cycle, the phase of Harmony. In this phase the old is completely destroyed by an invasion of people outside its territory (The Huns).

The West is trying with all its force to block a huge part of the Earth (the “Under-Developed” countries) to take part in its innovation. It creates (Economic and Legal) Walls just like the Roman Empire and the Chinese Empire created Walls to protect their territory from the Huns and The Celts when they were in their end-stage.

The Under-Developed countries are of a Lower Culture. Perhaps these cultures carry something the West desperately needs. In these cultures the collective is more important than the individual. In these cultures the sick, the poor and the old are still taken care of.

Funny.

I believe this was the message Christianity wanted to bring to the World.

Something went wrong in the West don’t you think?

LINKS

About the Perspective

Lectures about the Renaissance part 1

Lectures about the Renaissance part 2

Lectures about the Renaissance part 3

About Learning Styles

Friday, February 15th, 2008

E-Learning is one of the results of the E-Commerce Bubble. During the E-Commerce Bubble everything you can imagine would be changed into a booming business if it was combined with The Internet (a Website).

When you would use the Internet you could learn Everywhere at Every place at Any time. Every “old-fashioned” system that was supporting an Educational Institution was E-ed. It was provided with a “web-site”-interface. Behind this interface nothing changed.

The “old-fashioned” E-Learning packages were designed to automate a professional educational environment. The only thing that changed was that the books (or the PPT’s) were put on a screen.

E-Learning is an example of a technological view on Education. Every new technology that emerges has-to-be used because they (the learners) use it and because they use it it will help them to be educated.

We HAVE TO use the mobile phone and wiki and forums and web-cams and 3-D and games and web 2.0 (or 3.0) and …. If we don’t do that we will be out of the competition..

The big question is are new technologies really helpful to improve the current learning environment?

My answer is that it matters and it does not matter. It matters because we have to stay in contact with “real life”" and it does not matter because an effective learning environment has nothing to do with technology in general.

We learn by practicing and every environment that is related to the practice we want to acquire works fine. So if you want to become an account-manager and to sell you need an mobile-phone you have to learn to use a mobile phone.

But when you want to learn how to fight terrorists you need to learn to use other tools also.

Is it possible to learn “how to design” on a computer?
Is it possible to learn to meditate on a computer?
Is it possible to learn “to be creative” on a computer
?

We don’t learn to play the piano on a mobile phone and we don’t learn to use a mobile phone on a piano but a computer (or better software) could be programmed to simulate a piano.

Is it possible to learn mathematics on a computer?

I ask you these questions because I hope you feel that they are related to different “fields” of learning.

You could learn “how to meditate” on a computer but practicing meditation is something else.

You could use the computer to create but painting and singing and making poetry needs something else.

They need an “internal tool” that has to develop itself. This internal tool could be called a talent and a talent is a “given thing”. We are (by definition) born with a talent. Goethe called the “internal” tools organs.

We are not only equipped with fysical organs but are also equipped with other non-fysical organs. They make it possible to see and to hear. Organs or talents are specialized structures or functions that are there when you are born. They have to be trained by invoking them.

They are invoked by giving them a challenge. Sometimes the challenges is a “cognitive” challenge (mathematics, patterns) but others need a “manual” challenge. They are “handy”.

When “handy” people are forced to do “cognitive” training they are not challenged and they fail.

The current System is not aimed at developing a talent. Some Systems are specialized in certain talents (Art, Top Sport) but some talents are not recognized. They are not recognized and even “killed” by the System.

I was born with a Mathematical Talent. Later I found out that this talent was inherited from my mothers family (Van Biezen). My talent was merely killed by the System.

It was killed because my talent is a specialization and a specialization implies also short-comings. One of my short-comings is my memory. I am able to remember (and recognize) patterns but I am not able to remember lists. I failed school because I was unable to learn the lists in foreign languages.

The strange thing is that I don’t have problems learning to speak a language. A language is not a list of words and learning a language is not about learning a list that maps words. If translating one language in the other was that easy the perfect translator would be on the market for a long time.

The fact that people are different creates a big problem when you want to create an educational factory. The factory is only able to do its job when the Input is “the same”.

If the input is divers you have to create a diversity of production-lines and you have to navigate the resources through these lines at the right moment.

When everybody is different the problem is unsolvable but when we are able to determinate a limited amount of differences current logistic approaches are capable of solving the problem.

The current logistic system in the Educational Factory is aimed at optimizing the activities of the Teacher (Class, Subject). He (or she) is the most important asset and the pupils have to follow the planning of the Logistic System.

If we would change the priority and put the learner in the centre and we would recognize that the development of a talent is the most beautifull thing a human being is able to do we have to change the logistics. Computers are beautifull tools to help to accomplish this.

The interesting point is that it is possible to determine a limited amount of “learning-styles” related to certain classes of talents. To my surprise nobody is using this knowledge. Just one learning style is used called Instruction (Telling “How-to-do-it”).

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

About Third Order Cybernetics

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

escher-heaven-hell-1The Cybernetics Movement has gathered a spectacular amount of Knowledge and Wisdom. The most important Scientists in the World came out of Cybernetics. The basic theory behind Cybernetics is very easy to understand. Every System is controlled by a Feed-Back Cycle.

Cybernetics was defined by Norbert Wiener as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.

When the control engineering and computer science disciplines had become fully independent, the remaining cyberneticists focused on Autonomy, Self-organization and the Role of the Observer in modeling a system.

This movement became known as Second-Order Cybernetics.

At this moment Cybernetics has moved to the Third Order. To define the third order the Cybernetic Movement had to find out what a new order was about. It was easy to see that the Observer of the Observer was still an Observer. This path ended soon.

One solution is to analyze observers and systems co-evolve across different social systems but many other perspectives are possible.

When I read this website I found one Perspective that related to my own research. It states that the higher orders of self-reflexivity may be related to Beauty. I cite “The organism is a self-song“, “Gaia (Earth) is not a big compound individual, nor a song sung by an individual, but a song sung by a chorus or choir of all sentient beings. That choral song, alas, is being sung off key, it is out of harmony, due to one species singing off-key loudly“.

The path of Beauty refers to another article (Cultivating the Songlines of the Noosphere: from presentations by representatives to embodying presence in transformation, 1996).

I cite again “”Language grounded in music is grounded thereby on context dependency; any tone can have any possible relation to other tones, and the shift from one tone to another, which alone makes melody possible, is a shift in perspective which the singer himself embodies. Any perspective (tone) must be “sacrificed” for a new one to come into being; the song is a radical activity which requires innovation while maintaining continuity and the “world” is the creation of the singer, who shares its dimensions with the song.”

My advice:

When you want to Control everything use First Order Cybernetics. It is focused on Software and Machines. Building Software is an Art. If you don’t have aquired this Talent do something else that is related to Your Talent.

If you want to move into Flow start to use Second Order Cybernetics. It teaches you how to Observe and accept Self-Organization.

If you want to find Rest move to the Third Level. This is the Level of Harmony.

Start to sing in a Choir. You will learn a lot about your Voice, your Body, Resonance and Cooperation. Singing helps you to Relax and have FUN.

If you have learned enough start to sing with Eight Different Voices. This teaches you How to Listen to the Other and to Start and Maintain a Dialogue.

The last step is Chanting or Toning.

Find out how people that are not controlled by a Director and a Script are able to produce Beautiful Patterns by becoming ONE VOICE.

LINKS

About Beauty and Harmony

About Third Order Cybernetics

About Resonance

About Synchronization of Crowds