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Faith, Love and Something More
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Thursday, August 10, 2006There’s more to human evolution it seems than just what happens on an evolutionary basis “for real” ... the stories we make up and tell ourselves are just as telling about us and meaningful to what we’ve become and are becoming.
Maybe what’s going on right now in the Mid-East between Israel and her neighbors has been a story about ourselves we ‘ve been telling for centuries ... and maybe, just maybe, it’s time to update that particular one, eh?
Mornin' All,
As usual I scan the news and the ole'blogoshpere before I pick up pen in hand (or rather put hand to keyboard these days). I spoke with a colleague yesterday and I have to agree that I pretty much find I don't have to keep up with the news if I'm reading around the blogosphere. If it's an important or popular story, pretty much everything gets reported in some blog, at some point.
Anyway back to our story ... I came across a blog I hadn't read from "One Cosmos" which is an exchange between "Siegfried, Carl and Alfred" and "One Cosmos" (Gagdad Bob) - this particular one is called: "The Crack and the Crock at the Foundation of History (Updated)" ... HEY ... I didn't make up the title I'm only reportin' it!
What Gagdad Bob (a clinical psychologist I believe) is on about is child sacrifice, especially as he sees it occurring in the Islamic world. Talk about explosive, controversial topics, eh? Yet, he states that this obvious point is virtually completely overlooked or disregarded for all intents and purposes (rightfully, IMO). Essentially, Gagdad Bob recounts the history of pagan religion, the ties of Islam to pagan religion and the advent of Judaism and subsequent birthing of Christianity. And, he does this through the perspective of the history of child sacrifice..
I've given you the links above so I won't go there myself (start with, "The Crack and the Crock at the Foundation of History (Updated)" ). However, it's an interesting perspective to consider for at least a couple of reasons I will get into a bit here.
mythology, description and narrative values and values sets neurology, perception and behavior/response
That should be enough to get us going. Essentially, what I'm reading about - both in this exchange with Gagdad Bob and also in the popular press as they attempt to cover the events in the Mid-East - is the story of culture.
More precisely it's the story of cultures as they evolve and in the process go to war over the current positions they hold. What's interesting is that so often they don't see it this way - they only seem capable of "seeing" the positions they currently hold ... and not the ones they have held. This also definitely precludes "seeing" any positions they haven't held yet ... even as their neighbors who once held the exact same positions have moved to other positions themselves.
So it seems, we're unable to see either backwards or forwards for the most part beyond the boundaries of the current position we hold. Some folks would call this a perceptual or "epistemological" (I have to use that word every once in a while just to keep it well polished) consideration. However, it seems to me to much more of an "ontological" consideration. In other words these are considerations of identity, the fundamental way we perceive ourselves to be.
And, I offer you that it's our mythologies that keep these identities intact - it's how we sustain who we perceive ourselves to be. We do this via the stories we tell ourselves and others about who we are - these are our "identity stories". Every individual has them, every family, every business/organization and every society/culture as well. It can be well argued that it is through these identity stories that we know ourselves to be ... a function of both descriptions and narratives. The posting by Gagdad Bob about Judaism and Abraham is a narrative that informs the society/culture - especially the one who tells it to and of themselves.
So we tell ourselves "our story" over and over and it becomes who we are - as we know ourselves to be - regardless of any and all evidence to the contrary.
Yet, the ability to act in spite of all evidence to the contrary based on what we want to be true of us, and for us, is the basis of acting in a truly "ontologically well-formed way" ... that is "teleologically informed".
This is the basis of choosing our lives, choosing our destinies, choosing who and what we will become ... as individuals, as organizations, as societies/cultures - as a species. This ability to choose based NOT upon what has happened, NOR even where we currently find ourselves in this moment of space-time ... but to choose based on what hasn't happened yet that we desire to be so seems to be a unique human prerogative and privilege that comes with the potential prize and penalty of being able to change the world.
Some scientists would argue that this ability - to change the world - is not uniquely human. That many species change their micro-environments and in so doing "change the world" - but no other species has the ability to, or history of, changing the world so dramatically as we do as a species. In terms of the impact and speed of change, we have no equals in this domain.
The ability to choose based upon a story about what could be and isn't yet also seems to be a uniquely human prerogative and privilege. This is the "teleological bias" - our ability to construct futures that haven't happened yet and to allow those futures to inform our present.
Our ability to literally create (or destroy) the world as we know it to be carries with it an obligation as well as an opportunity. As I see it so far, we as a species have mostly aligned ourselves on the side of opportunity and only now may be coming to realize the obligation that goes along with this hand in hand.
However, it is becoming ever more evident to cognitive scientists like myself that we have the opportunity AND the obligation to evolve our own neurology and the behaviors and responses that emerge from us as a result. What a world this will be when we move beyond the impulse to consumption towards the desire for contribution - that would take a completely new story about ourselves. Then I believe that we will have formed the first truly human community, a rejoicing of and by the species at large ... hey, we can all have a dream, can't we?
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
For a bit more about the biases of the Mythogenic Self Process take a look at my updated article The MythoSelf® Process - Exploring the Reality We Create
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Seeing Ahead …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Wednesday, August 09, 2006The evolutionary continuum of acuity ... critical skills for everyone!
Good Morning All!
I'm on a roll it seems (well ... at least to me it seems that way!). I'm referring to the direction I've taken with my blog entries lately, which I see as all about the very most basic distinctions about how we form relationships. For me this would include those relationships that run all the way from the most intimate to those that are the most remote ... i.e.: life partners/lovers/children all the way to the guy/gal at the grocery store check-out. In all cases where we encounter and engage others we are primarily defaulting to patterns that run largely out of awareness about how we make distinctions and decisions about others.
Yesterday I offered the example from Seed Magazine about in-vitro development and the effects on behavior, and even basic neurological development it would seem. Then I took up this idea of how we "notice for" certain information ... I referred to a three-step evolution of acuity - calibration, tracking and adumbration. Today I'd like to briefly explain these and then give a bit about why I think attending to the evolution of your acuity is so critical.
First there is calibration - simply put, noticing what's going on around you in "snapshot" or "soundbite" form. Calibration is the skill of noticing the specifics about what has happened - especially in terms of calibrating change. This is the fundamental skillset required in developing your acuity. The ability to notice what has happened - i.e.: calibrating change against the "baseline" - or fixing the originating conditions in your perception - and then noticing for what changes in relation to the "baseline" conditions is calibration, as I'm using and defining the term here.
Then when you have skill at gathering information in this way - i.e.: as snapshots and/or soundbites of information, calibration - you are ready to begin developing the skills of tracking. Tracking differs from calibration in that it is more dynamic and occurs in 'real-time' as the baseline change is occurring - the significant difference being that you notice for what's happening, not just what's happened. This constant noticing for what's different or changing is the essential art of tracking, again as I'm using and defining these terms here.
Finally, as I'm delineating this continuum in the evolution of acuity is the art of adumbration.
When you've developed this skill - the skill of adumbration - you are significantly more well prepared to move through life elegantly and effortlessly. This may be especially true of making choices about relationships and our interactions within relationships. Imagine knowing what the outcome of our relationships and the interactions that occur within them will be - BEFORE THEY EVEN OCCUR! How valuable would that be to you?!?!??!
For instance imagine being able to predict, with even a moderately improved degree of skill, how someone you intend to hire will workout in the position you're hiring them for - before they begin. Or, imagine being able to predict, again with even a moderately improved degree of accuracy, how a relationship you're entering into will work out. These are the kinds of things that become possible with a significant degree of skill at adumbration. However, the most basic application of adumbration applies to simply being able to predict with some degree of skill and/or accuracy what will happen in the interaction you are currently engaged in over the next few moments - before the events themselves actually unfold and become manifest.
What's interesting to me about this has to do with how this would allow you to make significantly different choices about what to be doing - and how that will in turn allow you to create your outcomes, both on your own and with others, with much, much less friction (NO STRESS!) in your life ... and in your relationships.
I'll spend a bit of time over the next few days giving some examples ...
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
PS - These are the kind of topics I’ll be taking up in my monthly audio newsletter that’s part of my “UnconventialAdvice™ Private Access™” group membership ... check it out for 90 Days Risk Free on me: UnconventionalAdvice - and you can listen to Free Sample right now!
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What It Takes …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Tuesday, August 08, 2006Pre-Destined or Pre-Organized
Is there a difference ... I think so ... some thoughts on how we’ve decided who we’re going to be with before we know who they are ...
Howdy all,
Back again and today I want to put some muscles on the bones, not just flesh. The idea that I'm proposing is that we are "pre-organized", not "pre-destined" to move in a direction, especially with regard to connecting with others.
Unlike Dr. Skinner, (B.F. Skinner of behavioral psychology fame) I don't necessarily believe that what's true of rats or chickens, or in this particular case geckos, mice and gerbils, is true of humans. However, it is interesting to note ... and then begin using the extrapolation of this information as the basis of 'real-time' observation of people (an informal ethnographic study if you like).
I'm referring to the "Living Things" feature that appeared in the September 2006 issue of SEED Magazine by Olivia Judson. In this article a study of the incubating conditions of gecko eggs and the subsequent birthing that occurs with regard to sex, female and male births, is examined. It's quite common in lizard species that the temperature of incubation will determine or at least influence the sex of the newborn. In leopard geckos, the species in this study, the incubation temperature seems to influence not only birth but temperament. At a particular temperature all eggs hatch female, raise the temperature a bit (four degrees centigrade) and some males are hatched (about 30%), raise it again by 2.5 degrees and two-thirds of the eggs will hatch male (about 70%), raise it once more by 1.5 degrees and 95% of the eggs again hatch female.
Now all that may be interesting, but what in heck does it have to do with pre-determining who we select for in our relationships? Good question! ... Well it seems that when females hatch from eggs at temperatures that largely produce males they are bigger and more aggressive than those hatched at other incubation temperatures. Males hatched at cooler temperatures are less aggressive, but more 'amorous' it seems, "sexually rambunctious" and with greater "processing power in those parts of the brain that are important for wooing." WOW! - not only are there physical and behavioral traits that are influenced during incubation but also neurological traits as well! However ... let's continue a bit more ...
Another thing that showed up in this study was that the "wiring or sexual desire" is pre-organized based on the temperature of incubation - 'cool males' (those hatched at lower temperatures) prefer 'hot females' (those hatched at higher temperatures), and 'hot' males (those hatched at higher temperatures) prefer 'cool females' (those hatched at lower temperatures) ... built-in sexual/mating preferences - from birth!.
We could of course dismiss all this to just it being all about lizard behavior, however it also shows up in mammals as well. In mice and gerbils more than one pup is born at a time, and the order in the womb strongly effects mating preferences. Whether a pup is "sandwiched" between two sisters, or two brothers in the womb will determine how desirable they are as mates, and certain behavioral characteristics, after birth. This is independent of nurturing conditions for all intents and purposes.
What I've been saying for years is that we are known largely through the eyes of others - even to ourselves. What we can speculate about as well is that how we are known by others may have something to do with how we are organized during our experience in the womb.
"All of which is a salutary reminder that early environment can have effects that are just as profound as any gene; long before any animal first opens its eyes, events wire its brain and have subtle but indelible effects on the attitudes and tastes of the adult." - Olivia Judson, Seed Magazine, September 2006
Add into all of this the idea that human beings are "pre-born" - born before we are fully developed and requiring years of nurturing while we complete our development outside of the womb, in the absolute care of others. This would seemingly have a significant effect on shaping our personalities - characteristics, preferences ... especially when we incorporate the findings of studies like those referenced above.
Practically, what we want to be be doing next is developing the skills to notice for how first we ourselves respond in the world, and then next how others do this as well. This skill set begins with calibration leads to the skills of tracking (calibrating on the run), and finally to adumbration ... things we'll be addressing as we go ...
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
Here's the schedule for my EPC2 - Exquisite Performance, Virtual Coaching Teleseminars for the next three months:
Aug 10, 3:00PM/15:00 - 4:30PM/16:30 EST (NY Time)
Sep 07, 3:00PM/15:00 - 4:30PM/16:30 EST (NY Time)
Oct 05, 3:00PM/15:00 - 4:30PM/16:30 EST (NY Time)
Nov 09, 3:00PM/15:00 - 4:30PM/16:30 EST (NY Time)
This is exactly the kind of thing I'll be talking about over the next few months - and you can still take advantage of my 90 Day, Risk Free Trial Subscription - which includes access to all my previous teleseminar archives as well. So if you're interested now is a perfect time to check me out "live" and without any risk on your part ... I don't know how long I'll be keeping this offer open "as is" - so go to: EPC2 - Exquisite Performance, Virtual Coaching Teleseminars and take me up on my offer ... Subscribe Today!
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Welcome to Another Day
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Monday, August 07, 2006Relationships are relative after all ... some thoughts on how easily we’re deceived into thinking that we’re making our own decisions about “relationships” ...
Mornin' Folks,
I had a revelation sometime early this morning - just before I woke up I think. What I know is that it was lingering as I became conscious this morning - a kind of momentous realization.
I told my wife that "an idea that I've been waiting fifteen years to have came to me last night" - and I told her a bit about it. What's amazing is that it seemed to make some sense to her as well. Those of you who know her will know that this is almost "proof positive" that the idea makes sense.
Without going too deeply into the idea itself just yet, what I will say is that it's likely that the last few days of blogging have had something to do with it "arriving" now. The idea of "relationship" taken to the "Nth" degree would account for my realization.
Then as usual I checked out the blogs I subscribe to before writing my own this morning - and I went to Villainous Company and read Cassandra's blog posting there. It seemed to make so much sense to me - how easily we're deceived by what we see - regardless of what it actually "is" - take a look for yourself: Seeing is Believing. She does a great job playing with the idea of images and words - and the relationship between them.
What's more important to me is how we override what we think with what we see. Literally, we don't think first - we experience the world sensorially (no surprise here for anyone who's followed any of my stuff before) - and that sets us up for what we think. "We can't think except in relation to what we've already experienced!!! ... Unless we change the fundamental process we use to process what we experience."
Let me take this forward first ... and then back to what I've been writing about over these past few days. It seems to me that a couple of things are evident:
a) our nervous systems are an interface with the world/cosmos at large - and we are positioned "dead center" in it as far as we're concerned (remember all those Copernican debates?)
b)it's all relative (another one of those cosmologists said this if not first, then at least loudly enough for the entire world to hear a few decades ago now) - meaning that we perceive the entirety of our experience "in relation, or relatively" with regards to the relationships between things AND between people as well for that matter
My way of thinking about these things is topologically ... or in terms of a "cognitive landscape." And, when it comes to making sense of the world we only do that in relation to the way we perceive the landscape.
What's evident to me as well is that the way we make sense of our relationships - including and maybe most significantly our most intimate relationships - is in relation to the way we hold the landscape that we're making sense of them in. This of course would include all the other elements of this landscape - through both space (distance) and time as well. How we hold our cognitive landscape will literally determine both what we think and how we think about it.
What I've stated plenty of times before is that our thinking (cognition) is a behavior, and that a specific type of thinking - decision-making - determines all the behaviors that follow, what we call response. Now add in that all our relationships are based on our responses to others - responses that occur within the framework of our individual AND our collective cognitive landscapes!"
So to put it all simply ... who you are with may already be determined before you've ever met them. Put that in your pipe and smoke it - it may not be as tasty as what you're used to, but I'll guarantee you it will be more potent!
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
PS - I'll pick up some of the details ... not just "smoke signals" over the rest of this week, and tomorrow I'll even give you a bit of evidence about my theory from this month's Seed Magazine.
In the meantime I'm announcing the schedule for my EPC2 - Exquisite Performance, Virtual Coaching Teleseminars for the next three months later today - and you can still take advantage of my 90 Day, Risk Free Trial Subscription - which includes access to all my previous teleseminar archives as well. This is exactly the kind of thing I'll be talking about ... e.g.: relationships, cognitive landscapes ... over the next few months. So if you're interested now is a perfect time to check me out "live" and without any risk on your part ... I don't know how long I'll be keeping this offer open "as is" - so go to: EPC2 - Exquisite Performance, Virtual Coaching Teleseminars and take me up on my offer ... Subscribe Today!
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Terra Incognita
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, August 06, 2006Hic sunt dracones ... the *NEW RELATIONSHIPS* ...
Good Morning All,
It Sunday morning here in New Jersey ... and it looks like it will be another hot one. Not that that's any surprise. We've been getting temperatures between 95F and 105F for the last few weeks (that's between 35C and 40C for those of you out there in decimal land) ... and this is New Jersey, which means we're at no less than 80% humidity! So as I've said before just another reason to believe that if you make it to adulthood in NJ you're among the species of human cockroach - YES we will survive a direct nuclear blast ... this is NJ after all ... we laugh at a little radiation, ever hear of "radon?"
I apologize ... maybe the heat is getting to me. However I was struck by a bit of language in a comment on yesterday's post from Agnes Mariakaki - terra incognitia - or unknown territory/land. This reference may have come from the old map makers during the Age of Exploration when there was a vast "unknown territory" at the edge of their maps. Another that showed up in one search about terra incognita was "hic sunt dracones" - or "here be dragons." What's interesting is how Agnes used this term in relation to being in relationship - entering "terra incognita" and I'm now adding ""hic sunt dracones" - the land of dragons, as well.
The only place I'd seen this term used in a modern document was in my own dissertation around another reference to a time of massive upheaval - the 1960's - that moment in history when a bunch of folks were claiming we were entering "the Age of Aquarius."
Sometime during the volatile and intense era of the 1960’s in the United States, specifically on the West Coast in the San Francisco Bay Area, the worlds of modern philosophy and psychology were undergoing changes unprecedented since the beginning of the 20th century. The distinct gap that had existed between Western and Eastern ways of thinking and knowing were collapsing. Worlds of ideas began to merge and coalesce into something previously unknown. There in the midst of the tumult of this intellectual and social upheaval brought to a head by America’s involvement in the Vietnam War a counter-cultural movement was peaking. Taking with it some of the brightest and best that America had to offer at the time, this movement spurred new ways of thinking, about the individual, the individual’s place in society and in the individual’s place within and relationship to the cosmos itself. This new thinking took on many forms in disciplines as diverse as anthropology, sociology, psychology and education.
Whole new movements sprung from the fertile ground of this newly plowed "terra incognita"; encounter groups, gestalt therapy, sensitivity training.
- Joseph Riggio, Ph.D., TOWARDS A THEORY OF TRANSPERSONAL DECISION-MAKING IN HUMAN-SYSTEMS: A NEUROLINGUISTICALLY-MODELED PHENOMENOGRAPHY, 2005, pp.3
So it struck me that Agnes choose this term to describe how she felt about entering into a relationship:
Yet, love, and the kinds of relationship I lust for, I realize they will be taking me out of my comfort zone, initially blissful, perhaps and eventually uncomfortable in some ways. It is the only way, I believe, to experience the deep sharing! To depart from the comfort zone and accept that this will inevitably happen when two unique and different individuals come close. Then, the beloved, the one who takes me out of my comfort zone, becomes the most welcome teacher, leading me to the unseen side of the moon, to another zone completely. Not to paradise, but to a terra incognita inside of me.
His being different and challenging to me, makes me grow and understand more of me.
- Agnes Mariakaki
So the "*NEW RELATIONSHIPS*" have become terra incognita ... hic sunt dracones - or as Agnes puts it, "I realize they will be taking me out of my comfort zone, initially blissful, perhaps and eventually uncomfortable in some ways." - a new territory for a truly new age.
I remember in the "old days" when I was young and my mother and father were the exemplars of the their generation for "relationship" that it was all about keeping their roles intact. Dad went off to work and mom took care of the house and kids. But on Sunday's there was a glimpse of change in the air ... dad would wake up early and begin making breakfast, not when I was very young - that was still mom's territory then - but later on as I entered adolescence dad became the "cook" for our Sunday morning family breakfasts. I fondly remember having what he called "devil's eggs" (I don't know why - they were eggs fried with a piece of bread that had a hole removed from it's center and an egg cracked into it). But, of course a half an hour later the world reverted back to "normal" and mom began cooking Sunday dinner.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ
