Outlaw Thinking: Part 3

November 9, 2020 by Joseph Riggio 1 Comment

grok

grok/ɡräk/Learn to pronounceverbINFORMAL•US

understand (something) intuitively or by empathy. “because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately”
- empathize or communicate sympathetically; establish a rapport. “nestling earth couple would like to find water brothers to grok with in peace”

Grok/ˈɡrɒk/ is a neologism coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. While the Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with” and “to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment”, Heinlein’s concept is far more nuanced, with critic Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. observing that “the book’s major theme can be seen as an extended definition of the term”.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok)

“Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man.”

It’s what I do … I grok.

I am a Master Grokker.

I grok professionally with and for others.

SO …

I , Joseph Riggio, grok the MythoSelf Process, and within that universe of understanding, the underlying developmental modeling principals that the building of worldviews, and the narratives that form and inform them, ultimately rests upon.

Now, if you’ll stick with me for a short bit longer I’ll get to how and why this may be of critical important to you too.

Hackers also grok, as in “I hack reality, because I grok it.”

The word was later woven into hacker culture, appearing in the earliest editions of the Jargon File from the early 80s, which was later edited and republished by famous programmer Eric S. Raymond under the title The New Hacker’s Dictionary.

The primary definition given there is consistent with Heinlein’s, but the more religious and mystical connotations have been dropped:

To understand. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you “know” LISP is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary — but to say you “grok” LISP is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding experienced as a single brief flash.

Here’s an especially interesting bit for me:

When you claim to ‘grok’ some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity.

I am quite literally asserting that after thirty plus years of immersing myself in the work I do, i.e.: the MythoSelf Process, and all the bits and pieces that it contains and it built up from and in relation to, I grok this stuff like nobody’s business!

NOW onto why this is all important, maybe critical, for and to you …

I’ve been laying out a premise for what I’ve playfully been calling Outlaw Thinking in my last couple of posts.

The essence of the idea is that A) I think (and therefore communicate) differently … other than as folks normally associate what thinking is or how it should be done, i.e.: in a straight linear way, from point A to point B, as efficiently and directly as possible … and, B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

Okay here that is again …

B) I help others to think and communicate like an outlaw too, meaning that I help them build new and more complex worldviews and narratives, that give them unique perspectives, options, choices and opportunities, because they develop significant adaptability in the way they think and communicate.

SIMPLY … I train people to grok their world, their work, their own lives, and the other folks they engage and interact with … and I also train folks to do this work I do with others, so they can help their clients grok too.

Now you have what you need to decide if this is important, or even critical, to where you find yourself in your life today.

If getting to this kind of thinking and communication in your life and work means something to you, you’re in the right place … YOU’VE FOUND IT!

OUTLAW THINKING REVISITED:

So what do I do again, and why is it important, or critical, for you:

Applying the MythoSelf Process model with my clients helps them to unwind sticky, or wicked, problems and situations in their lives, relationships, work and businesses.

“Grokking” the MythoSelf Process model gives me a kind of genius superpower … because it makes it obvious what level of thinking someone is operating from, and where the limitation in their cognitive process exists, and then points the way to resolve that so that my clients can literally upgrade their mind.

The “genius” in the model is available to anyone who groks it, and that’s ultimately the effect of working with someone deeply versed in the MythoSelf Process.

All perspectives, or worldviews, rest on narratives that describe what is real for the individual, or organization, that is living within and in relation to the narrative … the stories they tell about themselves, others and the world as we know it to be.

The MythoSelf Process model uncovers the existing narrative, as well as the “primal narrative” — the origin narrative that contains the uncorrupted and uncompromised form of the individual or organization, before any attempts where made to reshape them to fit into what society wants them to become.

The primal narrative is the pure mythic form of the individual or organization, and provides access to a teleological trajectory the pulls them into the most desirable future possible for them. In some models of transformational work this would be referred to as becoming authentic, or operating authentically.

The advantage of accessing the primal narrative, or mythic form, that working within the MythoSelf Process provides any user, is that decision making becomes unclouded, and action taking become virtually automatic in relation to creating the outcomes you intend … the effect is that taking effective action, and creating results, feels effortless.

Solving wicked problems is especially important to what we’re discussing here, what I’ve call Outlaw Thinking.

The MythoSelf Process allows you to process complexity that gives rise to wicked problems, and develop effective strategies that unravel the complex issues that have tentacles in multiple directions, having multiple consequences that are overlapped, intertwined and potentially costly if you fail to resolve them, and when they are resolved well are highly rewarding.

Doing this requires operating from a different mind and elevating your performance in relation to the world we now live in today.

The deep challenges we face include:

A brain that evolved somewhere between 500,000 and 50,000 years ago, not in the complex and interrelated global world we now move in
Cultural learning and impositions designed hundreds of years ago, imposing explicit laws and implicit rules that order our lives today, that no longer effectively represent the world we are living in now

Only by upgrading your worldview, i.e.: effectively upgrading your mind, can you hope to effectively deal with the actual levels of complexity and circumstances we live in relation to on a daily basis today.

The MythoSelf Process is a method for working with someone who will guide you through the specific things you need to do to shift how you are experiencing yourself and your life, usually in relation to a specific situation or circumstance you are currently facing, that then generalized the upgraded pattern of thinking throughout your life.

Beyond the MythoSelf Process work with a facilitator or trainer of the Process, there is an opportunity to learn more about the foundational principals that form and inform the Process.

These principals used with the MythoSelf Process model are built on a developmental model of cognitive maturity, and will dramatically shift the way you think and the way you communicate (because quite literally communication is thinking — as you raise the level of your cognitive maturity communication, and language use in particular, become a controlling mechanism for thought).

If you’re ready to take the next steps in exploring how you can make this kind of leap in advancing yourself, your thinking and your communication have a look here now:

Mastering Cognitive Maturity

Best,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics

Developer of A.C.T. | Adaptive Cognitive Training and the Cognitive Maturity Model

P.S.: If you’re interested in working with me in one of my small coaching groups or 1:1, there’s no need to wait any longer, reach out to me directly at: joseph@josephriggio.com, and we’ll come back to you about how to find out more about taking the next steps to do that …

SENSING TIME

September 1, 2017 by Joseph Riggio 1 Comment

Just like seeing or hearing TIME is a sense.

I was in a brief exchange with James Tsakalos, an NLP Trainer, colleague and FB friend of mine, about setting time frames in training events. Fundamentally it was about when we begin and end training days with groups. I mentioned that I almost always begin the first day at 10:00 or 11:00, while I think James likes to start early. typically around 8:00. My reasoning for this is that for most folks who work they typically begin their day earlier rather than later, say 8:00 – 9:00 versus 10:00 to 11:00, and starting at a different time signals very clearly “THIS is NOT THAT.” The same can be said for other aspects of timing during the day, e.g.: ending times, or breaks … I usually break for 90 minutes for lunch, not 30 or 60 minutes. Again in part for the distinction that it makes versus many people’s standard routine, as well as because it gives them longer to integrate and incorporate the material we covered in the morning. Also my lunch is ordinarily set at 1:00 PM/13:00, and it’s interesting how much that can shake people up who are habituated to an earlier time for lunch.

A Sense of Time

Most folks don’t think of TIME as a sense, but when you begin to you also get that time is a sense just like seeing or hearing, touch, taste or smell. I also count vestibulation (balance) and proprioception (spatial & movement awareness) as senses. So in my world as a neuro-cognitive scientist there are eight senses I address that we use to discern data about the world we live in, move through, manipulate and experience. FWIW I don’t limit my list to just eight, I only keep these eight in the forefront of my awareness and in the loop when I’m discussing senses and sensation. First a little background to where I’m going … Way back when … I started my movement into consulting, coaching and training as a hypnotist and then I studied and became an NLP trainer. NLPers (those folks who are NLP practitioners) break down the five senses into what the call representational modalities, i.e.: visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinesthetic (feeling), olfactory (smelling), gustatory (tasting), shortened into the acronym VAK-O/G. Then they are trained to calibrate what representational modality that someone is accessing according to the VAK-O/G. NLPers track the VAK-O/G representations that someone is using in a number of ways, but the most common are eye accessing (noticing where locationaly relative to the individual moving their eyes they rotate their gaze to, e.g.: upper left, lower right), language predicates, e.g.: “I see” … “It’s crystal clear to me.” … “You sound funny.” … “I’m feeling excited.” …, and in a more subtle and sophiticated approach by where in their body they are breathing from and the rate of their breathing, e.g.: upper chest, rapid breathing is associated with visual accessing verus lower belly, slow breathing with kinesthetic accessing. Ideally NLPers want to cross calibrate and confirm their assessment of which representational modality a person is accessing by having two or more of these kinds of signals simultaneously happening, e.g.: they look up to their left (a visual access), while they say, “I observed you were moving a lot when I looked across the room.” and they say it quickly for them indicating a more rapid rate of breathing and expression associated with visual accessing. Now, a bit later on in the development of NLP, let’s call it ten years to make it simple, one of the co-developers, Richard Bandler, began putting a lot of attention on what he called “submodalities” – or, more refined distinctions of the representational modalities. For instance if we use the visual representational modality (sight/seeing), we could speak to the distinctions of location … where is the image, what is the posititonal angle of the image (relative to the individual accessing it), how far away or close is the image … then there would be other things we could notice for as well, e.g.: size, color, brightness … Okay, so as a NLPer I learned to calibrate and track for representational modality accessing and the finer aspects of sumbmodality distinctions. BUT, as a NLPer I was only introduced to these within the traditional five senses covered by the VAK-O/G list.

More Than The Traditional Five Senses

As I continued working with people, learning and studying I realized that I had to include both vestibulation (the vestibular process of the sensation of balance) and proprioception too (the awareness of spatial perception, our bodies in space relative to other objects, movement of our own body and other objects relative to one another, and the location and movement of our body relative to ourselves, e.g.: posture, limb articulation, etc. This radically changed how I worked with clients and over time how I perceived and experienced myself, and the world around me. Then at some point I became aware of TIME as a sense like the traditional five senses, and vestibulation or proprioception. This was a powerful moment of awareness for me. To give some credit where it’s due I had some introduction to time as sense of sorts from other sources as well. NLPers also have an awareness of time, and they have a process they use called the “timeline” that indicated how people experience and position themselves relative to time. The NLP book that addresses the “timeline proccess,” “Timeline Therapry and the Basis of Personality” by Tad James and Wyatt Woodsmall. So I’d already had some influences vis-a-vis my discoveries about time with clients. Time was a topic that the great American anthropologist E.T. Hall explored in his book, “The Dance of Time” and I’m a great fan and virtual student of his work. His work covered many “silent languages” as he referred to the non-verbal and cultural aspects of communication, perception and awareness in his many books. The more I learned about “silent languages” the more I became intrigued with how we perceive, think, process and act outside of the normally referred to ways that are what I’ll call fully conscious for now. In other words, some of what we do is available to use as a consciously aware experience we’re having or have had, and some of what we do is utterly outside of our conscious awareness and happens silently or invisibly as E.T. Hall might refer to it. Time for most folks is outside of their conscious awarenss, except as they track it by the clock in modern life. Yet, internally we have incredibly sophisticated ways to track time that are organized primarily around the rising and falling processes of our internal physiology and its chemistry.

The Finer Distinctions Of Time … And Other Things Too

So as I continued my exploration of time I began to realize that time also has submodality distinctions, i.e.: finer ways of thinking about time than “it passes” or that it is a particular time based on the agreed to conventions of time … “clock time.” One of the things that both NLPers and E.T. Hall point out is that time “moves” differently for differnt people in different contexts and depending on what they are experiencing. We’ve probably all experienced a time when we were with people we enjoyed being with and the sensation was that time just flew by and our experience with them was over in what seemed an instant. If you’ve ever been in a bureaucratic or institutional loop where you need to get something done, e.g.: renew your driver’s license or get a copy of your birth certificate, you might have experienced time moving much more slowly than the clock indicates, looking up after an hour and realizing it was actually only five minutes. Now if you love someone and you’re waiting to see them again multiple that by 10, and if you’re a five year old waiting for your birthday to arrive or Christmas maybe, multiple that by 100 (then of course when your birthday comes the party only lasts 1.5 seconds)! But time does more than this … it also organizes our lives syntactically according to the rules of computation, e.g.: this happens before that and after this. Time therefore becomes the tableau upon which we write our lives in part, since we experience our lives syntactically, or happening in a sequence or events that occur according to the movemnt of time. The brilliant theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, wrote about time and space in his popular non-fiction book for lay folks (i.e.: those of us who aren’t theoretical physicists or cosmologists), “A Brief History of Time” where he lays out the relationship of time and space syntactically for the entire universe and everything in it as well. This realization that time and space are singular leads to a secondary realization that the perception of time and space are also singular, meaning that for humans time and proprioception are singular as well. I’d argue that we also experiene balance as a function of time and space, making the actual human perceptual singularity the interwoven realtionality of time, proprioception and vestibulation. This is more than a little relavant with regard to action and outcomes too.

The Teleological Factor

Now to make things just a little more complex, I need to address the fact that I’m a “teleologist” by inclination. By that I mean that I think in terms of the future pulling us toward it versus the past pushing us forward. So rather than being an artifact of our history we are artifacts of our futures … i.e.: we experience ourselves in relation to what has happened, just not yet. This is the teleological equation, and is built on the beliefs and expectations we hold about what will happen when we act or not. So we don’t act based on what we’ve experienced, but rather what we expect we will act upon and experience. So this brings me around to my next point …

TIME IS A CONTEXT.

When I’m training I consider the context as important as the content I’m delivering. And I mean that literally. I organize the context as carefully, and often more carefully, than the content I deliver. My shifting the relationship people in my training have, by doing something as simple as changing the start time to what might be “normally” expected, say 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM, it shifts the sense of where the participants are from “this” is like any other day, to “THIS” is NOT like any other day, “THIS DAY” is special in someway. Now they reorganize their expectations to allow for something special to happen, making it that much more likely that something special will happen. There are many reasons that this can happen, but the simplest expectation is that because they are now experiencing themselves in relation to what’s happening as extraordinary compared to their normal day. When someone expects something out of the ordinary they begin to notice for it, even when it was something that was there all along. Even when what they are noticing for might have been missed or taken for granted before. Also, one shift leads to another, when I shift the time frame that’s typical or normally expected, the relationship to time that someone hold shifts … like when they are on vacation and move through their day differently than when they are at work. So now we can use the presumption that when someone’s relationship with time has shifted and their hold on “normal” time is looser, and I can help them move through time differently. For example, if there is something they want to attain or achieve that they perceive as far off in the future, when their sense of time is loosened we can shift it to bring it closer (remember my teleological premise of the future pulling us forward towards it … when that future is closer the pull tends to be stronger). We gain another shift as well. When the pull of the future is stronger, because we’ve slid it closer in time, we also tend to become more adept at noticing for what will allow us to realize what we intend more effectively and efficiently. In some ways we shift the signal to noise ratio of what’s important to notice versus random data in the system that’s unimportant to us in regard to getting out outcome. This also allows us to adust and adapt more rapidly, and therefore we expend less energy and time getting to where we’re going. So this simple thing of doing something outside of the expected, like starting an hour or so later than people are used to starting their day, becomes a vital contextual advantage to helping them make the shifts they need to so they can both succeed in getting their outcomes and geting them with less effort and time invested.

TRANSFORMATIONAL THINKING

There’s a big difference between shifting what someone thinks about and how someone thinks. To make big shifts in life it’s important to shift the way you think, NOT just what you think about, or how you think about it (whatever the “it” may be … money, relationships, health, fitness, security …). The most significant thing that helps shift the way you think is shifting the way you experience the context you how whatever you’re thinking about within. Part of the premise I work from is that all thinking is both embodied and situated, i.e.: it occurs in and is shaped by the context it occurs within. Now if we shift the context we will shift what is experienced within that context, since everything is experienced within the context it occurs within and is shaped by that context. Taking that a step further we can also presume, whether it’s true or not, that it’s possible that everything we expect to experience within a context is shaped by that context as well. Since we act upon and experience what we expect, how the context affects what we expect it also affects what we act upon and experience. When you accept these presumptions of how context shapes experience you begin to recognize the the significance of shaping the context … hence the importance of shaping time as contextual frame and using it to help shape the way we think, and not just what we think about …

I’ve been describing it… TIME IS A TOOL FOR TRANSFORMATION.

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D. Architect & Designer of the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics P.S. – I’d love to hear what you think too … leave me a comment below … NOTE: Join the extended conversation in my FB group: GNAU Nation at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GNAUNATION/

My comments on Social Ontology

March 18, 2017 by Joseph Riggio Leave a Comment

[NOTE: Copied from http://blognostra.blogspot.in/2005/08/re-sv-mythoself-tm-my-comments-on.html … reposted here in full. Response on mythoself-tm@yahoogroups.com in response to the Social Ontology blog at www.blognostra.blogspot.com – simultaneously posted in both forums. – JSR]

Robert,

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more;

I must admit I don’t “get it” … a lot of words and little point. You the “master” of “simplicity” taking so many words to say so little. I appreciate that Najma loved it so it of course may just be me, but with absolute honesty I don’t get it … at least in relation to Social Ontology … or even the ordinary construction of logical connections.

First, as always with you, I accept that this is ultimately a trance-lation from Swedish into Swenglish … (pronounced either ‘swing-lish’ or ‘sweng-lish’ if you prefer, for those who want to know). I also accept that Najma may speak Swenglish better than I, and that may make a difference. Yet, the connection to Social Ontology, even with these exceptions escapes me.

I want to “get it” … I really do … I read and re-read what I perceive to be your rambling statements … some of which I really liked … individually … and still I must make great leaps of faith to make them connect … faith I have in droves … faith in this connections that are at best so tenuous … I don’t lack … I simply refuse to expend.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
– William Shakespeare

But, maybe, just maybe there is one ‘saving grace’ … the “bridge is just a bridge” part … maybe there you could have pulled it out of the fire of ill-formedness and illogic … you didn’t but …

Let me get to my more immediate point … (and then one more beyond that if you’ll allow me … of course I’ll be writing it, but only you can choose or not to read it) … (BTW is it helpful for me to segregate my comments aside by placing them aside in brackets … in this case indicated by parenthesis) … (I expect if you choose to reply you may go line by line, or paragraph by paragraph and delineate your response in that way … so I want to set it up so that you might use my structure of presentation to make an adequate analysis and rebuttal … let me know if this works for you.) …

My immediate point is that what you write about in your “Comments on Social Ontology” have little to do with Social Ontology. I do recognize that you are disturbed when I elucidate a point with what you consider to be extravagant language, when you believe I could use simple words that would suffice just as well. In part (have spent considerable time in Denmark) this may be an issue of speaking a language based in Old Norse and using lots of “imports” … like German, English and French words … where words are not presently available in the native tongue. Svenska (Swedish for those of us speaking English) is a language that originated in Northern Germany and was imported into Sweden becoming what is sometimes called Old Norse before continuing its evolution into modern Swedish. Discounting “new” compound words that are actually words created to express an idea by combining two or more simple words – similar to the German tradition of compounding words – the language is “vocabulary poor” compared to a language like English, English being one of the worlds richest languages in terms of vocabulary.

Now being “poor” in terms of vocabulary (or “rich” as the case may be) has it pros and cons (as do most things with alternates, or options attached to them – i.e.: a “this/that” framework or framing structure … the essential basis of choice and the decision-making process that follows from it). [Do you notice the cognitive linking and logical chaining? … Do you perceive it’s enhanced by the choice to use bracketing to segment out distinct tangential but separate ideas? … Do you notice that even though I’ve wandered greatly in my response to you, somehow the ideas seem to flow and remain connected? … Have you been able to track how exactly, with precision and specificity I manage this “trick” of presentation? … just curious …]

Nothing can come of nothing.
– William Shakespeare

So back to Swenglish … the pro proposition of a “vocabulary poor” language is that you must use the limited vocabulary to express even the most complex ideas … and sometimes the words themselves don’t actually exist to do this … SO THE CONCEPT MUST BE MADE BY INFERENCE … i.e.: the listener/reader must generate the meaning from the words expressed for themselves. This is an interesting form that generates a specific cognitive approach. The sender and the receiver in the communication “assume” active participation, that the “message” won’t be contained completely in the content of the “expression” of the message, but in the “interpretation” of the message. This particular cognitive structuring regarding communication creates a kind of “short-hand” in communication and leads to a preference for directness, simplicity and brevity. For an insight into the expression of this cognitive structure look at the design ethos of Scandinavia (hear I reference the swath of land ranging from Norway in the west and Finland in the east, all at a latitude north of Germany for all intents and purposes). The Scandinavian design ethos is also one of simplicity, purity that emphasizes clean lines, little decorative extravagance and very direct (some would not hesitate to say “elegant” – myself included) solutions. What you may find “missing” is the “playfulness” and “joy” found in more “extravagant” design – which lead us to …

The con proposition in a “vocabulary poor” language (Swedish compared to English in this particular case) is that somethings are in fact inferred and not expressed. The speaker/writer “intends” a message BUT it is up to the listener/reader to extract it. It is ultimately imprecise in terms of expressing more abstract considerations. Compare the art of Scandinavia pre-WWII with the art now being generated when a large majority of Scandinavians are learning to speak a second language (most typically German or English) and expanding the range of their vocabulary richness. If you want what I’d consider to be the most obvious representation of the Scandinavian ethos that arises from the cognitive structure I’m pointing to follow the “humor.” In most of Scandinavia humor is based in sarcasm. This is itself based in cynicism and irony which of course would work well within the structures I’ve indicated are most present in the cognitive structure driven by a “vocabulary poor” language. By example I give you the comparison between Existentialist philosophers Kierkegaard and Sartre (French being a much more “vocabulary rich” language in comparison to Swedish). It leads to a particular kind of purity in thought, but with little extravagance … what someone raised in a “vocabulary rich” language and the associated cognitive structure might perceive as morose.

Those of you familiar with Edmund Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf and their propositions regarding the influence of language (specifically the specifically the “native” and “crib” languages of an individual) will understand the significance that the native language of a speaker may have on their cognitive structure and the preferences associated with it (the theory that Sapir and Whorf developed is known as the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” by linguists and cognitive scientists). I am a “believer” in the premise of their propositions regarding the influence of language on the development AND APPLICATION of the cognitive structure of an individual. For those of you who want and/or prefer it more simply … the language you use (as a native speaker) will directly influence the way in which you think. In fact this idea would more accurately along begin to represent what I’m driving at then all of what you’ve written Robert. To say it succinctly and directly I’ll actually put it to Edmund Sapir in his own words:

“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached… We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.” (Sapir, 1958 [1929], p. 69)

This is the whole point of what I’m driving at … it’s called Social Ontology … and the creation of a social reality, while what you write about is almost virtually all about a subjective reality (vs. the the inter-subjective position I write about). You are an individualist while I myself more and more find myself becoming a collectivist with a strong individualist consideration. Your entire post is about how an “individual” perceives the world apart from others and then acts upon this perception for all intent and purpose ignoring the impact and influence they have both upon and most importantly from others. That in fact a bridge is only a bridge because we say so … other wise it’s just a structure spanning some gap made of something. When does a fallen tree become a “bridge” or is the answer never? This is my point is unpacking the structure of the structure of how we get to thinking what we think. The fact that the Universe may be infinite is only significant in relation to something else … attached to the cognitive consideration of how space and our relationship with impacts and interacts with our decision-making process for arguments sake. Yet you present this a a poetic “Truth” … when what I am striving for and emphasizing in my work around Social Reality is the presentation of the distinctions between “Truth” (upper-case “T” to indicate some ultimate, inviolate, metaphysical Truth) vs. “truth” (lower-case “t” to indicate something believed to be so by an individual or group based on some empirical evidence they agree to share). The same applies to the distinctions I’m making regarding “Reality” and “reality.”

So while I don’t object to your writing I object to you referring to it as “Comments on Social Reality” and by inference associating that back to what I’ve written about … and the inclusive inferences in what you’ve written about that writing.

The ultimate expression of what I’d like to see is that you express what you are expressing in a way that is intelligible to those who are reading it with regard to the subject you suggest it is in reference to, in this case Social Ontology. And to use your own criteria of “simplicity” as the measure of worth and validity to do so with the extensive suggestion of inference. Do so directly. Say what you mean and want others to “get” from what you are offering. Do this if only within the overall structure of what you say otherwise. BUT … DAMN IT … DO IT!!!

I understand as well as any “staking out a position” … and I understand as well as any staking out that position by standing on the shoulders of giants who’ve come before. I’ve stated well and full that my work, the entire body of my work rests on the enormous foundation of the work I learned with Roye Fraser and most especially his work called the Generative Imprint™ and the Function Mode™ models. Stating anything less would be at the least crude/rude and at the most plagiarism (the most deadly of sins amongst academics and scholars …). However, it is also essential to note that my work resides on a foundation supported and enhanced by the work of Grinder and Bandler called Neurolinguistic Programming or NLP – and my position in regard to these developers is one of ultimate respect, even when I am in disagreement with them. Their work “allows” for my work to exist in the way that it does. Could I have reproduced this work independently … possibly … would I have, unlikely. So to dismantle this work without regard for how it finds its way so deeply into my own is not just disrespectful but duplicitous and deceitful in the extreme … as would be the disregard, dis-acknowledgement or dismantling of the work of so, so many others … including but in no way limited to Joseph Campbell, Sigmund Freud, Edward Hall, Clare Graves, Konrad Lorenz, John Searle … and on and on and on …

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
– William Shakespeare

So let’s move on, shall we … towards an end to this particular rebuttal and reframe. The comments you make have little to nothing to do with Social Ontology and in fact are more poetry than exposition (when the perfect word is available it would be sacrilegious not to glory in its use …don’t you think). The comments you make if they are explanatory or pragmatic in any way are more about the nature of individual perception and expression, or as Bandler and Grinder exposed us to about thirty years ago – subjective experience. This is so much more the domain of phenomenology (as I have clearly expressed on my blog at: http://blognostra.blogspot.com in the earlier postings positioning my take on Social Ontology) then on anything resembling the inquiry I am making into inter-subjective experience (under the rubric, Social Ontology). Further I am taking a particular tack as I move on towards the inclusion and impact of language and specifically communication in the structure and form of Social Ontology as it relates to the construction of social reality.

What I am intending to unpack and make explicit (I personally much prefer the languaging of David Bohm here, “unfolding”) is the nature of the impact and influence of the social constructs of reality on the individual – who often perceive themselves as having their “own” experience when I propose they are most clearly not.

What I am proposing is that the individual, regardless of whom they may be, is having a social experience – even when they are alone. That all of the experience of the “individual” is in fact a social experience and it is perceived individually. So to unfold that point further … the individual has a social experience through an individual perception, or an inter-subjective experience that is perceived subjectively. This is a defining point in my argument (argument as in philosophical argument or proposition put forth in discourse).

The significance I am further bringing to this argument is one of application, that the inter-subjective experience of the individual is the basis of the reality they experience act upon (as well as from). That the inter-subjective experience is the basis of all action and behavior and that this action and behavior is premised in the inter-subjective frame that they reside within. Then further that this frame is constructed in part, albeit in large part, by the structuring of the shared communication of those who participate in it; and in some unique and specific cases most especially by their shared agreements.

[Now a quick aside – how are your comments in any way related to that discussion and argument? … Back to our main program …]

These agreements are largely, if not wholly (Don’cha ya’ just love that ambiguity?) contained in language. This gives rise to the latest direction I’ve taken which is to point towards the impact and influence others who “get” this level of Social Ontology and the structuring of social reality can have on those who don’t “get” that this is the basis of their reality and decision-making process. This is called alternately propaganda, persuasion and influence to name the most prevalent forms of the application. When it’s applied in a mass communication medium it can and does shift the basis of culture and the collective decision-making process engaged in by the individuals who populate that culture (and/or society). This is the realm of Politics (upper-case “P” vs. lower-case “p” which would alternatively apply to the interactions among individuals at a level below that of the “society-at-large” or in the modern sense “Government”).

So my intention is to “set my people free” … what’s yours???

Not wine … men intoxicate themselves; Not vice … men entice themselves.
– William Shakespeare

Best regards … until we meat again,

Joseph Riggio

Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf™ Process
http://www.mythoself.com

“Kick ass, take names” – Matt Furey (http://www.mattfurey.com)

On 12/8/05 05:43, “Robert” <robert@svensknlp.nu> wrote:

Reality, ongoing and working with and without constructing or not within any boundary.
It’s just made up, right in your mind anyway, right?

I was reminded about Milton Erickson in his ways he pursued I guess so many altered states and tested along his journey ways to shift between.
What he found or what he did with that skill and knowledge isn’t for me to say since I never met him.

There are some nice passages in the books about him some about reality and what it is and how to expand on that.

I was reminded earlier this week, that people are often very judgemental about new things, either it be a particular methodology or a particular view or whatever they judge it’s never about exploring new avenues.

The beach is filled with sand, each sand particle is in itself made up by even smaller stuff and in that smaller stuff there is even smaller stuff and then “again” you know and you guessed even smaller stuff!
If I didn’t know better, I bet it would end up empty?

And you guessed right, it does!

It becomes so empty in fact it’s so large it is called space. In relation to that space the sand particle seems large even as a universe some say. Which btw is infinite, that’s how large and small the universe is, it is contained in one single word, infinite, and that if you ask me is pretty neat.
Instead of using complex math describing the universe, we simply accept it is, infinite.

Then some people tries to describe the universe, and many get mad doing so since the universe is so big, remember I did say “infinite” and those scientist cant contain the whole universe in their heads at all. It gets to big, since the brain isn’t infinite but the imagination absolutely is.

Reality is such subtle thing, I worked with realties my whole life, my own and others, its many ways to slice an apple, the description started with NLP gave humanity a way to cut down the apples and oranges to a more down to earth examples where the descriptions could be better describing the reality ongoing and in NLP they named it “a model”.
They found out, its turtles all the way down, and then again another turtle all the way down, an infinite way to say, how big is the universe really?

Infinite of course!

If there is one thing that is clear, sound and felt as it is the one thing, maybe it isn’t and then again maybe it is not that, maybe I should look elsewhere?
Epistemology, the study of how we map cognitively the minds processes and adjusted with the NLP applications by mapping that with the NLP models have brought us truly Jedi Mind powers where we can sway and opinion with just a gesture and a smile and a word…as easy anchored and fired away.

Then a few Jedi’s said, this isn’t the way, we want power, and more of it.
They are known as powerful wizards and never explain what they do and wink and say, come here and become one of power since it is all unconscious ruled and controlled.
They even use waste powers as hypnosis in ways people never before have seen.

Then there was this voice in the crowd, what about just explaining what is going on, take away all the mystery and just plainly explain what it is?
The first night an attempt on his life was made. That power he wielded shined so brightly and was feared by the power wielders as the mightiest power of all and they all missed it.

Truth is what it is, reality for some and a misconception for others, but again, into the unknown we cast our self, and I just never really got it, how can it be unknown if we know it is unknown?
It is as so many argue it is in relation to what is known, the boundary, a string of ideas where your mind just knows this is this, and nothing else it can be, unless you learn NLP or such systems to create a diversion so your mind can hide contemplating that a bridge is a bridge and then it isn’t a bridge but stones and then even other materials in that and then…even more.

Then a few wise men said, just accept it, it is a bridge, then move on to the other side.

The other side?

Yea, while your thinking about the bridge and its reality, this side is crashing down into the sea…so..move it..

Fear is a great ruler of men.
Take away fear and the bridge even if it collapses only offers us the chance of swimming or learning to swim.
Which some would argue and rightly so that seems a tad late to do so.

I saw Dr Phil doing his “get real” workshops where he scare people and even before they end up in the workshop since they are confronting the fears about things like the bridges that collapses even before they do?

That’s the beauty of our minds we can in advance know what things are to be before we even are doing the activity at all!
Doing that into the level of a model where your model is as accurate as the reality it’s applied to is a rare ability, some might argue it is about then creating the reality in your head and I think they are right.
Is the model the reality it is applied to or is the model just a description of what is currently believed to be reality?
It seems it will be a tiny difference, subtle but that level of interaction between our senses and the thing out there as described very well using the epistemology and any further attempt to explain such difference will be just further models about what is infinite.

Then when we can just plainly sit down, eat an apple and look at the waves bathing us into the serenity of life.
Take a sand particle, identify with it in such a way it’s a whole reality of the universe being infinite, and that is just a model about the universe and how you as an observer affects it.

Consciousness allow us great things, what are you going to do today?

Let’s move along, the bridge is closing down.

Where do you want to go?

If there is no fear, life then unfolds, rightly so some would argue.

Infinite

Your best

/Robert
www.riggiomodel.biz <http://www.riggiomodel.biz/>
Kicking asses anywhere and bruising egos all over the world and still sitting there enjoying life.
(Also known as a green small guy by some)
Hey, somehow Lucas got his ideas, why not small green guys from outer space?
Space, a 5 year mission to explore.