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Back Home …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, July 26, 2006Howdy all ...
What’s interesting is the way that I “recycle” after I’ve arrived home from a trip. When I’m on the road there are at least two factors that strongly affect my experience:
1) Focus - I’m on the road for something in particular and it’s typically very specific, philosophers of mind call this “intentionality” the fixing of attention
2) Context/Environment - things are set-up so that I can and will get my stuff done, in fact because there aren’t any major distractions as there are more likely to be at home I’m usually more productive on the road during my “downtime” as well
Then I get back home and there are benefits to be sure ...
a) my family is around
b) my personal space is set up for me to work
c) all my stuff is within easy access
d) there’s a rhythm I can establish around my work
Yet, maybe even because of all this, I am more likely to get distracted around my own home. What this means is simply that I have to make better choices here about working - both what to be doing, and how to be doing it. So I ride the blade of a double-edged sword around here ... on one edge things are easier to get done and on the other there are things that I can do and like to do that aren’t especially productive. The keenness of these edges keeps me aware so that I can and do concentrate on what it is I’m actually doing.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t get distracted when I should be working, just that I’m aware of it and it becomes a choice. I think ultimately this is the key for anyone with the option to be doing what they intend or doing anything else ... making the choice.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
The Most Important Thing …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Tuesday, July 25, 2006Howdy,
I just finished presenting the “EPC2™ - Exquisite Performance Consulting” module in the UK at the Manor House in Godalming, Surrey. This was an intense program if you listen to the reports coming back from the participants. I can’t remember folks saying they’ve been so whupped from a training program I’ve delivered before. What’s even more surprising in a way is that the one’s who seemed MOST WHUPPED were the most advanced students I have! So I’ve been thinking ... “What was it that made this program so demanding from their point of view?”
Then like “DUH!!!” ... I got it upside the head ... this program focuses on group dynamics, or how we operate within the context and in relation to others. Four days (or five days for some) of having what’s going on below the level of ordinary conscious awareness presented and re-presented until it surfaces to become evident is exhausting initially. And, the more you’re capable of noticing the more energy it will initially consume. So you could say these folks were worn out by themselves.
What we were attending to is not what “seemed” to be happening as the group encountered itself ... but what was actually happening. Another way to say this is we were attending to how people were “showing up” and the affect that had on the group at large. This was surely fascinating, but also quite consuming. Each day I’d added a bit of complexity to the mix - not in terms of what was going on, (I didn’t have to - there was already more than they could handle!), but in terms of what was available to notice for and be responding to. This is the “ontology of groups” or “social ontology” - how we create the shared realities we operate within. I don’t know how many times I pointed out and used the words ‘boundary’ and/or ‘boundary conditions’, but it was obviously overwhelming for some, at least initially.
This is the most important thing ... to become aware of the implicit and ubiquitous boundaries we operate within. Most of the time these boundaries are out of our awareness and yet they almost completely shape what we’ll perceive and experience. What we must decide about is whether, we will remain subject to these “invisible’ boundaries or become co-creators in the boundaries within which we play.
Now ... that really is the most important thing ... creating the reality within which you play - or not!
Joseph Riggio
Copenhagen, Denmark
Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Tuesday, July 18, 2006Exploring the layers and depths of “cognitive resourcing” ...
Hey everyone!
[WELCOME TO THE NEW WEBSITE RELEASE: Finally ... the “heavy lifting,” as a colleague of mine has said, is done and we are on our way with a new website featuring a “new look and feel” - as well as a dramtically redefined mission and interface. When you’re ready take a look around and get a sense of what we’re up to ... you’ll also notice that we still have a-ways to go ... but I wanted to get this up and out to you all ASAP!]
Now onto today’s comments ...
In developing our new website I’ve had to think long and hard about many things - most centering around what I wanted this site to be representing and how it would serve the community who gathers here. This meant that there were some issues rising up to the service very quickly: “What would the interface look and feel like?” ... “Does the site adequately represent me, my work and my working style?” ... “Is the information here relevant and useful to this community?” ... these thoughts were near the top of my list for instance.
However, there was one specific question which overrode all others from my point of view ... and we’re really talking about the world according to me:
This question is: “What is the essential work I do?”
This question dominated all others because this site re-design was all about building a resouce center in regard to what I do. So ... the answer came to me slowly, the easiest way to frame my area of expertise and practice would be: “I am a cognitive scientist.” Now I’d be curious to hear how true (or not) this rings for those of you who know me and my work.
Specifically, the reason I suggest this title ... “cognitive scientist” ... is because virtually everything I do at some point comes back to reference some aspect of our cognitive acts and the behaviors they generate in the world. These acts are for me, as anyone who knows the slightest bit about my work would agree, “ontologically situated” - meaning that for me cognition functions on the ground of our being. Who we are more than any other single factor determines not only what, but how, we cognitively process things. Our entire experience is a function of this processing. What we perceive, what we know, what we believe and ultimately what we do ... are all grounded in who we are.
So then the next level would have to be that I am an “ontologically-organized cognitive scientist” not just any old cognitive scientist.
The next point we want to address is that the specifics of what we consider are at the center of cognition. These are the “what” of cognition, the raw material we process. Within my consideration of the topic of what is the material of cognition I come up with the things of the world - not abstractions but rather concrete experience in the world. These things are the real artifacts we encounter in the world, as well as the sensory-based experiences we have. Some examples of sensory-based experience would be our interactions with others, all the things that our occur between ourselves and others that “really happen.” Within the structure of my considerations of cognition the “stuff” we process exists at some level in the extant world.
So, the third level must be that I am an “ontologically-organized concrete cognitive scientist” - referencing the “what” of cognition.
Of course once you begin to discus “what” you’ll often find yourself led to considering “how” as well. These two aspects of action are so intertwined as to be virtually inseperable. We act upon something in some particular way, regardless of whether that something is an intrinsically extant thing like a house, or something that isn’t as intrinsically extant like an idea or concept. The how of cognition from my point of view has always been an embodied consideration. We “think” in an embodied way. As we encounter the “stuff” of cognition we experience it in ourselves as a body-based response. To a great extent I’d argue that in many ways we are our bodies, so fundamentally it only makes sense that we would process our experience in a body-based way. The process of cogntion as embodied however has not always been a given in the world of cognitive science so this is a controversial position to take even today. Yet I stand firm in this position that cognition is situated not only in the concrete world in terms of what we consider, but also in terms of the way in which we consider it.
So now we arrive at another level, that I am an “ontologically-organized concrete, embodied cognitive scientist” - taking us much further down this rabbit hole of consideration.
Where this is leading is straight to what I will argue is the most fundamental of all cognitve acts, deciding. Our life is the string of the decisions we’ve made, and anything that serves to improve the process by which we make the decisions from which we make our lives thereby improves our lives. This is where I’ve gathered my professional attention for more than ten years, around the process we use to make the decisions that become our lives as we know them. I have “lived and breathed” the pursuit of a somatically-based decision-making process during this entire time. My work as a “cognitive scientist” is specifically in the domain of decision-making and helping folks to buid higher-quality lives by teaching them how to make higher-quality decisions that are ontologically organized, concrete and embodied - as they go ...
I promise I’ll come back to the application of these ruminations soon.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
Why Bother?
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, July 05, 2006Mornin’,
There’s an interesting thing that goes on with regard to how people seem to make decisions about what to do ... and someday I’ll get more deeply into that actual process, but for today I want to do something else entirely and that is to talk about the “WHY” instead of the “HOW.” WHY do people make the decisions they do?
First let me share with you a simple definitiion about decisions that I use when I refer to them - for me “a decision” includes the process of perceiving the sensory information in the environment/context that leads up to the decision and is included in it, the internal cognitive, “thinking” process used to make the decision AND the actual action taken in implementing it. Without action there is no decision in this definition. That’s critical to where I’m going with this ...
What I find is that some folks make their decisions because of some externally driven “cause,” or “reason” if you prefer. They are organized to do what they do BECAUSE of the stimulus they encounter - and this is most often tied to the belief that what will happen as a result, i.e.: the effect of their actions, will be somehow “better than” what’s in place before they act. This works brilliantly as long as the drivers to action are hedonistic - i.e.: “I’ll get something from doing this.” or “I’ll feel good as a result of doing this.” you can keep this going.
While this may be logical as hell it’s also difficult to sustain beyond a certain level of consideration. As soon as you go even slightly existential - as in, “What does it all mean?” or “Why does this matter?” this kind of thinking and logic begins to collapse. Then if you add in a certain amount of determinism - as in, “Destiny is everything.” or “The Universe is a clockwork mechanism unfolding from the moment of the “Big Bang"." this logic again falls apart on you. In other words it’s mighty hard to sustain the external motivation to act.
The worst thing of all however to an externally driven, hedonistic motivation model is the consideration of that killjoy ... ETHICS. SH-T!!! As soon as you add in an ethical consideration - simply put, “What is the right thing to do?” It becomes almost impossible to act on a solely hedonistic motivation. Of course you’d have to ask and answer for yourself, “What is the right thing to do?” - and, this is almost absolutely individualistic, something that is almost impossible to prescribe vis-a-vis an “ethical” or “moral” code that’s etched stone - almost everyone has got to learn this one from a combination of absorbing the ethics and morals of their mileau/culture and a certain amount of soul-searching for themselves. Yet almost everyone has an ethical position they hold as well - even when they are not upholding it (or acting from it).
Where this brings me is that from my studies, my own personal contemplation of “what is right” and the work I’ve done for over two decades now with clients - is that, those who act from an internally driven position make better decisions. This means that the decisions they make serve both them and the system they operate within and in relation to better through time than decisions that are made on purely external references. I could put it even more simply - when you ask these folks about their lives they are more settled and happier overall in response to the query.
So, in spite of recognizing that an action might not “mean” anything in the overall scheme of things - that the gum or cigarette you choose NOT to throw on the ground for someone else to have to deal with won’t change in any meaningul way the state of the world, or even the level of trash in your personal environment - it matters to you. When you uncover or discover what truly matters to you ... and then choose to live by that standard ... IN SPITE OF THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY ... your life becomes meaningful to you. That seems to me the basis of the beginning of a great decision-making strategy at the very least.
Best regards,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
05 July 2006 Princeton, NJ
