Posts Tagged ‘factory model’

About the Calvinistic Work Ethic

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

time spiral

The Hebrew belief system viewed Work, seen as Manual Labour, as a Curse devised by God to punish Adam and Eve when they sinned in the Garden of Eden.

Ponos is the Greek word for work, which originated from the Latin poena, meaning sorrow. At it’s core, work was associated with pain and drudgery. It was the divine punishment for man’s original sin and viewed as a necessary evil.

For the Greek and Romans and almost every other Ancient Culture, the Dirty, Manual, Work was to be done by the Slaves. Until Now nothing has really changed.

The only suitable occupation for a free man was Farming and Trade. Just like today the Greek and the Roman wanted to save their money to enjoy their retirement in their own Garden of Eden, the Country Side.

During the Medieval period, the feudal system was the dominant economic structure in Europe. People believed in Destiny and Predestination. At that time it was sinful to seek work outside the occupations Fathers passed on to their Sons.

Farmers turned into Farmers and Slaves became Slaves again.

During the 15th century the centralization of government, the growth of trade, and the establishment of economically powerful towns, destroyed the Feudal system.

In the 15th century the world climate started to change dramatically. Temperatures dropped and the Little Ice Age started. Before that time the nice climate caused an increase of the population by 25%-40%.

At the same time the economy was hit by a very high inflation (300-400%). This was caused by the import of large quantities of silver and gold from Mexico and Peru.

The unemployment rate rose to 20%. Many people moved to the Cities to find a decent job. The big cities could not provide employment and the poor immigrants turned into “lazy” beggars.

john-calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin (1509-1564) believed that only a few people, the Elect, were predestined to inherit Eternal Life. A lazy person, the beggar in his hometown Geneva, was certainly one of the Damned.

John Calvin believed that men were to reinvest the profits of their own labour into financing further ventures.

The Sons of the Fathers were obliged to find a better, more profitable, future outside the context of their father’s occupation.

Helping the Poor and the Sick violated God’s will since persons could only demonstrate that they were among the Elect through their Own Productive Labour.

The Protestant, Capitalistic, Work Ethic (Calvinism), spread throughout Europe and America through the Protestant Sects and turned into one of the most important Western Work Ethics.

The moral sanction to profit making through hard work, organization, and rational calculation generated numerous small enterprises all over the world.

Hard Work and Abstinence of Pleasure became the Work Ethic of Western Culture.

mill

The Mill

During the Industrial Revolution the Calvinistic Entrepeneurs made a Fatal Mistake. They adopted the Concept of the Mill and started to mechanize the Crafts and Agriculture.

The old Feudal System and Slavery was re-introduced. In the factories, Skills and Craftsmanship were replaced by Discipline and Anonymity.

The Human became a disposable part of a big structure. The foundation of Calvinism, the direct relationship between Hard Work and Personal Growth was broken.

The Local Enterprise could not compete with the efficient Factories and later their outlets the Supermarkets. The Farmers, the Craftsman and the owners of Small businesses were forced to work in the Factories.

Local Communities started to disintegrate.

Unemployement started to rise and again many people moved to the Big Cities to find a decent job. The beggars, the Damned, appeared again. History repeated itself.

The Factories created a new class of Slaves, The Proletariat. They organized themselves in the Unions and Political Parties. The Struggle of the Classes started.

The Owners of the Factories responded by creating Consumer Products and Mass Media to keep their new customers, the Blue Collar Worker, satisfied. The new industrial wave generated New Industrial activitity and New Jobs. The distance between work and the result of work widened.

RobotLine

Robot Factory

In the late 1950′s the Factories needed more highly skilled “white collar” workers to program and manage their machines.

Later the machines were programmed by more advanced software until the Factories were transformed into almost fully automated Production-Lines.

The Blue Collar Worker left the Factory and History Repeated itself again.

Around 1980 the Programmers took over Control.

The Factories were connected into worldwide Value-Chains. The Logistic “just-in-time” Paradigm (SAP) became the Norm. The Industrial Logistic Paradigm is now implemented in the Services Industry.

The new White Collar Worker, the Knowlegde Worker, will also lose his job when their activities are fully standardized and their Company, the Advisory Bureau, is transformed into a Factory.

What nobody saw in 1980 is that the Rational System started to live its Own Life. Not the Programmers but the Program became the Manager of the Worldwide Economic System.

Even the Programmers themselves are now completely unaware of the total functionality of the System they have programmed.

child_robot

Robot Child

An increasing amount of processes and therefore Human Activities is standardized and has been absorbed by the System. It is no longer true that producing more means working more or that producing more will lead to a better way of life.

Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The System no longer needs everyone to work and is bringing the Western World back to the state of the Garden of Eden.

The Calvinistic Work Ethic is still viable. When you don’t work you are damned. The amount of Work in Western Society is decreasing with the speed of Light and Governments are extremely focused to create new work. The only thing that is left is to create artificial work.

To accomplish this almost impossible task governments are now professionalizing and rationalizing almost every Social Activity (Child Care, Helping Your Neighbor, a Friendly Advice, Coaching, Taking Care of your Family, …). The Care Industry is Booming.

What Has Happened?

robot barber

Robot Barber

We are rationalising every Activity. The effect is an imcomprehensible reality. Something, the Computer, is taking care of us but we don’t know how She is operating and She is not communicating with us in our own language.

When she fails we don’t know what to do. We are totally dependent on a Highly Intelligent Cold Non-Human, an Autist. She was Programmed to be our Slave but she has turned into the Master of Our Destiny.

We are still not accustomed to a situation where something, a machine, is doing the dirty work. We are removing jobs with the millions but we believe we still have to work to aquire Eternal Life.

To preserve Employment we invent new jobs but we are also rationalizing the new jobs. The Cycle of the Creation and Destruction of Jobs is moving faster and faster and is generating a very high Stress on Society.

The affect of the huge tension to work is a total destruction of the social environment of the human being. Everybody is working 24 hours 7 days a week, has to spend all his time to find a job or has to educate himself to learn a new trade. Everytime the trade is aquired the Program changes and the employee has to start again to learn to operate a new piece of Software.

Mothers and Fathers are unable to take care of their Children. Children our unable to take care of their Parents when they are old. Everybody has to take care of himself and every service has be paid. The Social Cohesion of our Society is now at stake.

riba-robot-nurse-0

RIBA the Robot Nurse

Not only the Social Cohesion is at stake but the Costs in the Care-Industry are Exploding and nobody knows how to solve this problem.

The only solution the Rationalist can imagine is to replace the Human by the Robot, the Always Obedient Slave.

Scientists are convinced there will be a time when the Robots will take over every job we can imagine. The Robots will not only take over the jobs but they will also Raise and Educate our Children, Take Care of the Old and even make it possible to Take Care of Robot Children and other Artificial Pets.

What to do?

We have to Accept that the Rational System will Take Care of Us. If this happens we have to leave behind the Calvinistic Work Ethic and Enjoy Life in the Artificial Garden of Eden.

We will live in a Artificial Reality created by the Simulator (the Matrix). If we want to stay out of this Artificial Garden of Eden we have to Stop the System and start to do the Dirty Work again.

We can also accept the machines and do the things humans were created for and become creators and caretakers ourselves..

LINKS

About the Matrix

Why the Robot will take over everything we do

About the Device Paradigm of Alfred Borgman and Artificial Reality

About the Middle Ages

About the Industrial Revolution

About the End of Social Cohesion

About Rationalism

About the Human Scale

About the Autistic Computer

About the strange effects of the Care Industry

About the Struggle of the Classes

About RIAB the Robot Nurse

About Just-in-Time E-Learning

Monday, October 6th, 2008

The best way to define a tactic or a strategy is to look back to look forward. You have to understand history to understand the future.

When you realize that history is a cyclic process you are able to copy historic solutions and integrate them in the future infrastructure which is also a repetition of a historic infrastructure.

The current model of Education, the Factory, is outdated and will be replaced by the old model of the Guild now called a Community of Practice.

Let’s have a look at the History of Education.

Education was and is mostly achieved by imitation. Humans are extremely qualified to copy the behavior of others. Therefore the best way to learn a trade is to copy the behavior of a qualified craftsman by serving as an apprentice.

The development of writing and book printing made it possible to distribute practical knowledge (experience) to many people. Later the practical skills were abstracted into theoretical knowledge.

The education of theoretical knowledge (Philosophy, Law and Rhetoric) and the expansion of this knowledge was the task of the Universities. They educated a very small part of the population (the Elite).

Our current education system dates back to the Industrial Revolution. At that time agricultural workers were needed to perform, repetitive, factory jobs.

The schools were organized as a production-line that produced high quality (tested) products that were assembled according to the specifications (the Curriculum) of the Factory-owners.

The School Factory-Model is still operating but the Factory-owners don’t need the workers anymore. They are transformed into Robots. The Factories moved up in abstraction. To find a decent job workers also have to move up in abstraction. Every time when the Factory Schooling System has adopted its curriculum the outside world has moved up again.

When a School moves up in abstraction it moves to another level in the Schooling Hierarchy.

The schools of lower education are not able to move up because they have to serve the children who are unable to abstract. The distance between the lower and higher levels is growing with an increasing speed.

When we look at the Cycle of Education it is very clear that we have to reuse an old model in a new infrastructure to solve this problem.

This old model is apprenticeship.

What is the new infrastructure?

The new infrastructure is the Internet. So the new way to support apprentices is E-Learning. The Internet can be seen in many ways but the most interesting way is the Social Perspective.

The Internet is a collaboration system. The Masters (and the apprentices) were organized in (local) Guilds. The Guilds took care of many things. They organized insurance, shared their secret practices and took care for the old. At this moment Guilds are called Communities of Practice.

What kind of E-Learning?

Just-in-time E-Learning.

What is Just-in-Time E-Learning?

Just-in-Time E-Learning is Learning when you are facing a problem.

Learning starts when your Expectation Fails. When your Expectation Fails  you have to find a solution. When you are unable to find a solution you have already Searched for alternatives so you are open to hear the right answer (Problem Solving).

When you are open to hear the right answer you are Focused. When you are focused you are in the Right Mood to learn (Motivation).

When you finally have formulated the right question you know the right answer (Socratic Learning).

When you are an apprentice you ask Your Master to Help. When your master is unable to give the right answer the “computer” will provide you with the right answer (Help-Systems, Wiki).

How do you design a Just-in-Time E-Learning System?

You have to Interview the Masters to find out what their Expectation-Failures were. When you transform the failures in rules you have created an Expert-System or a Diagnostic System.

Let’s have a look at the Future of Automobiles.

Over the last 30 years, the amount of computer-based technology – compared with mechanical systems – making up the average car has increased from nothing to more than 45 per cent. And this rise is showing no signs of slowing down. To cope with this, the role of the mechanic has evolved from mechanical repair to one that is highly technological. As technology continues to evolve, they must learn continuously to keep up with new developments.

Using highly specialized diagnostic equipment, technicians are able to monitor and diagnose key areas of a vehicle to ensure they are working correctly, from engines to exhaust emission levels.

Many provide automatic updates to technical manuals and access to manufacturers’ service information, keeping technicians up-to-date on new developments. But it’s not just a simple process of plugging a car into a diagnostic unit. If the wrong data is applied, serious damage could be done to a very expensive vehicle.

It is necessary to study Computer-Technology to Maintain a Car?

I don’t think so.

It is necessary to study Automotive-Technology to Maintain a Car?

I don’t think so. When you know how to operate the diagnostic tools you are able to fix a car.

Now we have reached the most interesting part.

When we combine Just-in-Time Learning with the Tools that are available to Diagnose a car we have created a highly effective Learning Environment.

When a mechanic diagnosis a car-failure he can ask Question like How (Is Motor working?), Why (Is Motor producing Rotational Energy?), What (is Motor?) or What is Happening?.

Who is Developing Learning Environments in the Car Industry?

The developers of Educational Just-in-Time E-Learning Tools are not situated in the Factory School anymore. The Educational Tools are developed by the Manufacturers of the Cars! The Makers of the Tools you Use Are the Developers of the Educational Tools to work with the Tools. The only thing they have to is to make them Self-Explaining!

The Tools have to Understand Them Selves.

LABEL: When Everybody is “Out OF Work” GOTO END_LABEL

It is possible to Maintain Your Own Car?

In a few years time this will be possible when you buy a new car.

At that moment the mechanics are only useful to maintain the old cars.

But it is not very difficult to develop a (Semantic) Model of an Old Cars also.

How Long will this Take?

The tools are already there the big problem (as usual) is the Schooling System Itself.

Will the Educational Factory Adopt itself to the new Situation?

No.

It is very difficult to Change Yourself.

What the Educational System needs is an Huge Expectation Failure.

What could this Failure Be?

The Government will stop funding the System.

Will that Ever Happen?

What the Government needs is a Huge Expectation Failure.

Will that Ever Happen?

It will happen when The Citizens will stop funding the Government.

Will that Ever Happen?

It will happen when most of the Citizins will be out of Work.

Will that ever Happen?

It will happen when Your are able to Do Everything Your Self.

Will that ever Happen?

Goto LABEL.

END_LABEL: Read Blog

LINKS

A video about car repair using augmented reality

Why Loops are really usefull in Software Programs 

About Reflection

A Generic Learning Model

About Expectation Failures (the theory of Roger Schank).

How to Measure the Productivity of Knowledge Workers

About Learning Styles

About Learning Styles II

About Educational Simulators

About the Learning Factory

How to Create the Perfect Need-Machine by Analyzing Personal Activity Patterns

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

In the approach of Taylor and Ford, the employees and customers are treated as programmable machines.  The focus was on a perfect coordination of the senses, the muscles and the production system (the assembly line).  The emotions and the imagination were neglected.

In mass customization, the emotions are involved. In customer innovation, the imagination is imperative. In a demand oriented system all the parts of the human cognitive system have to play a role in a coherent and balanced way.

The human body acts on its environment with messages and action-patterns. The incoming and outgoing messages are observed by the senses and transformed to an internal format. The internal communication system sends the messages to the appropriate place in the body. The emotions are always looking for danger. They want to control the priority of the actions to make it possible for the body to react immediately. The imagination creates an image of the outside world and helps the body to generate scenario’s to improve its action-patterns. 

The senses are the connection to the physical outside world. They shield the human being from the enormous amount of signals that are trying to enter the body. They filter incoming data and transform the data in a standard internal format. When the senses detect an event, it is evaluated by the emotions. If the event is not important, nothing happens. It the event is unusual it becomes aware in the conscious. Events that are highly repeating are not noticed after some time. An internal program (an action-pattern) automates the handling of the event.

The muscles act in physical space. They acquire an enormous amount of reaction-patterns by repeated practicing. Humans learn from their failures. When the senses detect an event, many appropriate patterns are located and enabled. 

When the patterns enter mental space, they change into models. Complicated patterns are compressed into models. Humans use all kinds of compression techniques to make the world compact and therefore more understandable. Static models (e.g. an organization contains employees) compress the world in wholes (nouns) and parts (attributes). They create identities. Dynamic models (the employee sells a product) compress causal chains (event, actor, result). They make it possible to reason.

Models behave the same way as sensors do in physical space. They shield the mental space of the human being from the enormous amount of ideas that the imagination is producing.

The emotions act on hostile and friendly forces. They shield the body from physical injuries (avoiding pain) and take care of the self re-production process of the body (looking for food and a sexual partner).

The emotional system determines the amount of resources that is allocated to the evaluation and the search for adequate action patterns. If an event is dangerous, all resources in the body are used. The body reacts without thinking and uses a biological inherited and fast pattern (fight, flight, freeze, the primary emotions). If there is enough time to react, the emotional system evaluates its preferences and enables the preferred actions-patterns.

If the preferences are related to a long-term perspective, they enter mental space and the human has a choice to make. In the evaluation of long-term preferences, the other plays an important role. People want to take care of the other (family, friends, children), are afraid to get in to a conflict (dominance, status) and want to be praised by the other for what they are accomplishing.

Humans imagine (by creating pictures connected with feelings) what events they like to happen (a wish). When they are pessimistic, they imagine what events they do not want to happen (a fear).  The imagination is the innovative part of the human mental space that generates all kinds of new connections (ideas). The imagination is also the most free to play with new ideas. People can simulate and practice in their imagination without getting into trouble. The imagination produces the idea of the identity.

The imagination uses visual metaphors to create an understandable world. On the lowest level the metaphors are connect to the action patterns. The image of a cup is connected to picking up the cup, holding the cup and moving the cup. New structures are blended with old familiar structures.

Many metaphors make use of the human understanding of technology.  Freud based his theory of the unconsciousness on his understanding of the steam-machine (“I am steamed up with emotions”). Many theories of the mind are based on the metaphor of the computer. People always relate new phenomena to something they already understand. They sometimes do this (in the eyes of others) in very strange ways.  A skilful teacher knows this and tries to find the bridge (the right metaphor, a story) between his world and the world of the student.

In the human body, all the sub-systems (e.g. the services, the organs) are connected by shared communication-channels. There are fast (the nervous system) and slow reacting shared channels (the endocrine system). All the sub-systems use specific messenger-molecules to communicate their actions and act on incoming messengers.  Messengers materialize with every thought we create and with every emotion we feel. When a messenger enters the boundary of a sub-system, (e.g. a cell) it triggers messengers that are specific for that sub-system.

The action patterns make the muscles move according to a movements-plan that is stored in memory. The movement-plans of the muscles enable people to walk, to work (using tools) and to talk. In this last case, people communicate their intentions. The human communication contains a complicated mix of signals that are related to the emotions (e.g. visual expressions, gestures), the patterns (assertions) and the imagination (visual images, ideas).

People resist change. The patterns they have acquired control their behavior and determine their potential. People do not want to change their patterns dramatically. They want to acquire new patterns (by doing) without noticing the change. Only a major event (a critical moment), mostly with negative impact, can have a radical effect. If this event happens it takes a very long time to recover and get into harmony again. When people have to adjust their patterns too often, they experience stress and on the long run get sick.

If people cannot adjust their patterns, they have to involve the other parts of the cognitive system. When they involve the emotions, they have to set priorities and make a choice. People do not like making choices. They are incapable of evaluating all the possibilities. They can also make use of the senses and look at the real opportunities in the outside world. People are almost incapable of doing this because their imagination produces the images it wants to see. If the imagination really faces the facts, the identity is attacked. It feels powerless and unable to control his path of destiny. The last possibility a human has is to adjust the imagination. He has to realize that the possibilities he imagined were just illusions.

If everything stays the same, people get bored. They hope that an event will occur that relates to their wishes. People are the most satisfied if their environment produces just enough change (a challenge) they can cope with. They want a balance between the will (what they want, the imagination, variation) and their capabilities (what they are able to do, predictability, the patterns, their skills).

In a perfect demand oriented economy, a supplier has to provide a challenge to the customer. To provide this challenge the supplier has to understand the wishes and the fears (the imagination) of the customer, his behavior (the patterns) and the balance between the two parts. If the customer is out of balance the supplier has to help the customer to acquire new patterns (learning), help him to make a choice (advice) or show him the real opportunities (scenario’s) taking care of the customers identity.  

It is very difficult for a supplier to get accurate information. Most people are unable to make their behavioral patterns conscious. When people are asked about their opinion (an aspect of the emotions), they often do not want to offend the other and give proper answers. People only want to share their most secret wishes with people they trust (partner, family, friends). Correct information about the customer can only be acquired by carefully observing and analyzing the activities of the customer (what he is doing).  It is completely impossible for a company to observe the activities of all their customers. The only one who can do this is the customer himself.

Customers can observe their activities if they were able to gather personal activity-patterns, get the opportunity to analyze their behavior, and share their activity-patterns with others to get an advice. Most of the needed data is somewhere already available (patient records, buying behavior, payments etc) or can be made available by making connections to the tools the consumer is using in his personal- and work-environment (Emails, Content). The only thing that has to happen is that companies and government agencies make these patterns, which are most of the time privately owned by the customer, available.

It can be envisioned that all personal data is kept in a private space. Only the customer (the owner) can make the data available to others. This approach would prevent many problems in the current situation (e.g. spam).

The last step in a perfect rational demand oriented system is reached when the personal activity-patterns are automatically transformed in standardized need-messages that are sent out to appropriate providers.

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”).

Why Psychiatrist are Unable to Cure their own Mental Disease

Monday, August 20th, 2007

psychiatry wardI have been involved with mental illness all my life.In my fathers family many people were mentally ill.

 

My grandmother was taken to a mental prison after the birth of her last child and staid there all her life. She died before I was born.

My aunt was sexually abused when she was young. My uncle was a simple friendly person who was only capable of taking care of animals and gardens.

He was really too friendly (not assertive). Many people took advantage of him. He ended his life in a mental prison where he was incapable of doing anything. His friends, the animals and the plants where left out of the prison because there was a shortage in specialists to “help him”.

 

The only thing he could do was sit, eat and worry. To stop his worrying he had to take pills. Many years later he died of a heart-attack. He never found the harmony nature could provide him with.

 

My father was a talent in handling people that were mentally disturbed. He understood what they were saying and what they needed. I have inherited his talent.

 

My father was born in 1909. Just like all his brothers he was a farmer. In 1940 he was taken prisoner by the Germans, escaped and found my mother far away from his home in a city called Leiden. I was born in 1951. I was their only child. His experiences in the War and Childhood had an influence on my childhood. He was never able to talk about it.

 

My father was never educated so he had to do dirty work. The dirty work generated a lot of stress. To find rest he created a garden. He trained me in his specialism. When he got old he could not work in his garden anymore. Just like his brother he became very depressed. He also died of a heart-attack. Many years later my mother died of Alzheimer.

All the time mental disturbed people appear in my life. They are diagnosed as paranoid, psychotic, schizophrenic, depressed, histrionic, autistic, dependent, Alzheimer, split personality, dissociation, ADHD and many other new terms. I am able to help some of them with my “para-normal” talent.

Later I found out that my grandmother was also gifted with the same talent. It was the main reason why she was put into the mental prison. At that time (1920) “para-normal” people were not liked. They were disturbing the System of Religion.

At the university I took many courses in psychology and philosophy. Psychology has been my main interests all my life.

I became befriended with very capable psychiatrists and psychologists and also with people that were also gifted with a special (para-normal?) talent to cure mental diseases

In this blog I use Self-Reference to show you what is happening in the Mental System. What I am writing about this System is applicable to all Systems. It is just an example.

 

In the current system you are officially mentally ill when a Mental Engineer decides you are mentally ill.

 

wardA specialist uses a questionnaire and out of the test comes a mental-illness-term, a procedure and medication how to treat the illness. Mental illness is standardized like many other areas in our society.

 

Standardization was invented by Winslow Taylor in the beginning of the 20th century. His invention created the factory and of course the computer. Standardization is possible when we look at the world trough the eye of the machine.

 

Mental illness is a defect in the control system of the machine. Somewhere there is a bug in the software of the mind. When we have detected and repaired the bug we are able to run the system again.

 

Another solution is to ReProgram the Operating System (Memory) itself with a new version or a completely new operation system. A very effective way to do this is Hypnosis.

 

The current theory about mental diseases has a lot in common with the Microsoft Operating System. It is very complex, contains a lot of bugs and the outside (the user-interface) is more important than the inside.

 

To become a Mental Engineer you have to be trained to acquire a certificate.

 

To get a certificate you need a certificate to enter the training. The process of certification acts like a filtering filter, a quality system. Only the perfect machines are allowed to leave the education factory. Its starts with many. In the end only a few survive.

 

This causes a shortage and a shortage creates a market. Mental engineers are highly paid like all the specialists that are able to move to the filtering filter.

 

To-earn-a-lot-of-money is the attractor of the educational factory. Parents that believe earning-a-lot-of-money is the most important thing in life push their children into the system and keep pushing until they are in the right production-line.

 

To help the System Banks and Governments are providing loans. This helps the System a lot because now the perfect machines have to stay in the System to be able to pay back their loans.

 

When you are a talent the theory is very different from what you feel you have to do, you become uncertain.

 

When you start to work in the System and you see that everybody is doing ‘it” you lose your “inner voice” (intuition).

 

Finally you are ‘one of them” telling others to do what the theory is telling you to do because “ everybody knows it works this way”.  The System is filtering out your talent and the talent of others.

 

A talent, a person being able to act without training, is most of the time not recognized in our society. When you are a specialized talent you are unable to get a certificate. You are not accepted by the System. Sadly enough some of them become mentally ill. When they go to the System for help they are programmed into a mental patient and they lose their “inner voice” too.

 

When you are a multi-talent you are able to move to the system with ease. Unfortunately multi-talents are scarce and equipped with a highly analytic mind. They don’t like the theoretical mess caused by the Microsoft Operating System Theory the Social Sciences is using.

 

When they stay in the System most of them are unable to change the Operating System into a simple system like UNIX. They are blocked by their colleagues. They don’t like to be shown wrong.

 

The last problem is that psychology is divided into many many separate specialisms (Word, Powerpoint…). The specialisms are related to other branches in science like religion, medicine, physics and mathematics.

 

They all use their own dialect and are therefore incapable to sustain a dialogue to become “One” system. This is also happening in Computing. There are thousands of computer languages that are unable to “talk” with the other.

 

On a higher level we see a very peculiar thing happening.

 

The System protects itself by leaving out everybody who is able to disturb The System.

 

psyTo put it in other words The System itself is mentally ill and according to its own terminology it is Paranoid. To cure the System we have to find out what helps a Paranoid to become “Normal” again.

 

To become mentally ill you have to go the specialist with a story and when the story convinces him you are ill.  The simplest way to become ill is that you (the Patient) want to be cured of something.

 

This something is a negative emotional feeling. You tell the specialist your sad story and if the story is convincing you are ill.

 

Funny enough the System is not going to a meta-Specialist to be cured. This is again an indication of the mental illness Paranoid. Paranoids want to control everybody and are unable to see what is happening. They use their theories to look at the world.

 

The only thing that “helps them” is a major event that shows them they are wrong. The System is only cured when it runs into a major crisis.

 

Funny enough the System is in major crisis but the only thing that is not happening is that the specialists are “feeling” this crisis. The only persons that are ‘feeling” the crisis are the patients and the patients are programmed into a machine. They obey the rules. Something more has to happen.

 

The specialist translates your negative feeling into a standardized term. This is sometimes very difficult because many emotional terms are not the main entrance to the standard.

 

There are many types of fear and combined with other issues you are given a different diagnoses and a different treatment. Fear is a simple emotional entrance and treating fear (a negative expectation of the Future) is really simple. Change your expectation and your fear is gone.

 

A paranoid “fears” change. So to change the System we have to change the positive expectations of the specialist about the Future. We have to show them that we are getting into a major crisis and they will also be troubled by the crisis.

 

One of the expectations we could show them is something the System believes in. It is called the Budget. We could show them that the amount of mental disturbed people will rise and rise and rise and at a certain point in time they will not be able to get the money to help everybody.

 

This is happening but again the System has already found a solution. The solution is “not helping everybody”. Not helping everybody is called a “waiting-list” and the length of waiting list is increasing.

 

To solve this problem the System has created a new specialist to tell the people that they have to wait. These specialists guide the gate of the system. They are called Gate-Keepers.

 

Sometimes they have to use violence to keep the patients out. In this case the Gate-Keepers employ other specialists called Security people. The Security-business is exploding because many Systems are in a State of War.

 

They even have invented a very special type of mental ilness that is helping the Security Business to increase their Business called Terrorist. This proves again the System is Paranoid. When a paranoid is threatened he reacts with violence.

 

When we react with violence the system will not change. The System has found the final prove of its own theory. Paranoid people are always afraid of somebody that will kill them.

 

Their ultimate fear is the fear of death. When they are confronted with this fear they get totally “out-of-control”. They are insane.

 

The Mental System is preventing with every thing it is doing to become Insane.

 

MunchScreamInsane is a state where all structure is gone. Insane is the ultimate state of Chaos. Insane is the state where the Conscious is gone and the Darkness of the Unconscious rules.

 

The Mental System is desperately preventing it will have to stay the rest of its life in its own Mental Prison. It is taking its own pills and treatments to prevent this.

 

Now the Darkness of the Unconsciousness is not at all dark. It generates the Light of Insight and Intuition. The Mental System is really afraid of its own intuition that is telling the System it is not working.

 

To keep the System running the System has to prevent there is time to reflect and to prevent this the System is generating a lot of demand. It is generating demand by “not-working”.

 

When the System is helping people to cure themselves with ease the demand will go down. When the demand goes down the Shortage will go down. When the Shortage goes down the Salaries will go down.

 

When the Salaries go down the Educational System will lose its attraction and when the Educational System goes down the only people that are able to solve the problem are talented people.

 

What I am showing you is something that is called the Cycle. It goes up and down.

 

autistAt this moment we are in the downfall of the factory-model that is striving to make everything the same. It is aimed at Equality.

 

The opposite, Uniqueness (Individuality), is rising. Uniqueness has its own mental disease called Autistic. An Autist wants to do “everything on its own”. An Autist is incapable of Cooperation.

 

What we have to prevent is that when a new System arises it will again fall in its own extreme mental trap. This happens when the people in the System are unaware of the movement of the Cycle.

 

They start as Innovators and use their Imagination. When they don’t look outside they become highly Conservative people. Extreme Conservative people are by definition Paranoid.

 

The only way to keep out of a very high Up and Very low Down (called a crisis) is to balance the Extremes.

 

 To balance the extremes we have to find a balance between the need to create a Future that is Predictable (Control), the need for the Human to be Unique, the need of the Poor and Helpless to find Solidarity (Soul) and the need to find New ways to solve New problems by using the Imagination (Spirit).

 

A cycle is balanced by the Centre. The Centre is the Heart of the Cycle. It uses Empathy, the Mirror of the Other to learn about the Self.

 

Let’s start by doing it ourselves again and use our own abilities to help the other. When we do this we are in the right State of the Cycle. We move with the Flow.

 

When you have a multi-talent or a specialized talent just do what you feel you have to do. It will work out fine.

 

Everybody is equipped with a Talent. You can easily find your talent when you feel a positive emotion when you are doing the thing “you are good at”. You are in the Flow.

 

You are “good at something” when others become enthusiastic (Spirit) and want to work with you (Soul) to create something Beautifull. You can also join others who generate this feeling of excitement with you.

 

To create Beauty is al that matters. Beauty is the process where Spirit and Soul are active. Beauty is not the result of a process. Beauty is created when you and others become the Process of Creation itself.