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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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As my girlfriend slipped into a store in Manhattan’s Soho area, I told her I would wait outside. What caught my eye was four women setting up to play music on the steps in front of a shop. They were a string quartet, cello, viola, and two violins.
As they started to play, and they played pretty well, my mind drifted to the relationship subject we’ve been discussing. Four women playing complex music in relation to each other. In order for this to happen, I thought, “what must be true for them?”
I started quickly to run through all the assumptions I was holding about what made this possible. They all had to be somewhat accomplished on their individual instruments, they had to have decided as a group to show up at this particular place, and time, with the common desire to perform. They had to come to agreement on what pieces they would play, and when in the performance each piece would be played.
They must trust each other in each moment, that each would continue to do her part, at the required moment in time. That each would listen to the others so that they could play as a unit, and with the required dynamics.
I guess I could go on and on.
Then I started to have some hallucinations about their history. I got ideas about their nationality, where they currently live, what they might be experiencing, from observing the expressions on their faces. I believed, I could sense how they felt about each from little observations, as one would play a more complex part, and another could be witness to it.
I tend to fill in the blanks with made up stuff until I know all the details. It happens automatically. Sometimes I am right sometimes I am way off. Is this a function of my neurology? Does the brain take what is observed sensorially,refect it on what has been experienced in the past, and make a fuller, more vivid “story”, and then change the “story” incrementally as more information becomes available?
Mark,
Thanks for the comments.
I’d first of all refer you back again to blog of a few days ago, Expert Mind? regarding the article in Scientific American, “Expert Mind.”
In this article the authors discuss the idea of what makes the expert mind what it is ... including an extensive critical mass of historical data. However, what I’m referencing above goes beyond the referencing of stored data ... way beyond!
Where I’m going is beyond what is know to address what is unknown ... and what cannot be known! Then working from this building the data to make it so ...
Hope that helps ...
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
A little confused...How is this different from fate or the notion that your relationship(s) is/are “meant to be”? I get that relationships are about our responses to others (sort of get it), but don’t get the leap from that to predetermined relationships.
Allison
Allison,
My concept seems to me very different from “fate” in that there is no “pre-destiny” in regard to any particular person I either perceive or imply.
What I’m suggesting is the tendency to “type” ... a certain “resonant signature” that a person carries, sends and responds to ... in an ongoing way.
Best regards,
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Joseph, I would like to know more about the resonant signature and how you understand/define it. Thank you, Agnes
Agnes,
One of the things I love about “blogging” vs. writing “articles” is that they are so dynamic comparatively ... “alive” so to speak. I put something like this out ... and here I have “live” interaction around it in almost ‘real-time’ - it’s fantastic!!!
What I mean by “resonant signature” (a term I’ve been using for years) is that there is something in common’ that is recognizible. Largely I would say that it’s ontological, a way of being that is noticable by someone who’s attuned to whatever it is that is resonant for them.
Take your question here for instance - there must have been a “resonance” in what I wrote to which you responded. Something struck you and stuck to you as well - and that something has a kind of resonance to/for you. Whatever it is that struck you and stuck for you “vibrated” in you in a certain way relative to your natural signals that was either familiar or “resonant.” Or, it went against your natural signals and was “dissonant” to you. In either case the result was your question to me.
What I want to do - when my intention is to make contact - is to strike a resonant form and create an harmonious response in kind.
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Okay. Isn’t this what happens when you’re attracted to someone...something resonates for you? And then you end up always sorting for it or “typing” someone...b/c there’s something that you always pick up on, yes??? But, is this typing always the best thing to do, b/c you might just be brushing someone off, but on the other hand it can be really useful to pick up on that feeling of dissonance...either way do you think it’s more instinctual or learned behavior or both? If it’s instinctual, that’s pretty cool but also if it’s learned it’s pretty fascinating how it gets wired in - how you learn to pick up on something in another person (probably from experiences with others...)
Allison
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