Into Me See: The beginning

If you are not interested in exploring how we understand ourselves and others then these articles, and the book, The Origin of Consciousness, on which these articles are based, are of likely limited appeal.

I begin with the blurb on the book, and then consider what I aim to do with these articles and how they will relate to the book. Yes, it is plural. I intend regular comment, unashamedly seeking to draw you in, to entice you to really think about who we are, where we came from why we are here, and how can we conceivably understand ourselves.

I also intend to link to Twitter, and have selected the hashtag the title of this introduction, #IntoMeSee. I hope you will participate, and share the ideas and analyses of how we need think if we are indeed to accurately see into ourselves or into another.

‘Origin’ cover blurb

Have you ever wondered what happens inside you that results in how you feel, what you think and what you do?

Views abound on our mind, spirit, consciousness, and ideas like ‘higher’ consciousness. What is real and what not… and how can we know?

Is some idea real merely because someone says so and others believe them? Must understanding reduce to ‘I’m right you’re wrong’? Or is there a better way to decide which ideas we need embrace and which we put aside? How do we judge? More importantly, what method can we use to collectively judge what is right and what is wrong?

In the past 100 years, social science … such as Freud, Jung, Skinner and behaviorism, Marx and Adam Smith … has failed.

Is in fact a social SCIENCE possible?

Do we even want it, with the scary images of killing whales in the name of science, the specter of A-bombs, abuse of animals, the arrogance of the military in its use of technology, and many other things that can only be described as ‘soulless’?  Is science necessarily unethical and self-serving?

When we think in a reasoned and coherent manner, and when we apply that reason and objectivity to better understand the world around us, including ourselves, does one necessarily have to give up on all the gentle, spiritual and ethical things that make us deeply human?

Is the idea of ‘spiritual science’ in principle a contradiction in terms? It is certainly a contradiction in terms today, but does it have to be this way? Will ‘science’ and our humanity, our inherent spirituality always and necessarily be in conflict?

And what about our spirit? Do we have one…and does religion necessarily hold the top hand in the game when it comes to our spirituality?

Let’s assume we can build a ‘spiritual science’. When we apply the methodology to understanding ourselves, what does it say about ourselves, where we came from, why we do what we do, why we are here, how we evolved as we are, the nature of our spirit, the links between our body, brain, mind and spirit, the formation of ideas, the nature of knowledge, he role and power of feeling within us, intelligence, our personality, and consciousness?

The Origin of Consciousness answers all the questions and more. Be prepared to be surprised.

The start point

“Have you ever wondered what happens inside you that results in how you feel, what you think and what you do?” What does happen inside us that results the unique individual that is me? What do we have in common, and what defines our uniqueness?   

The starting question has intrigued us for millennia. Today, yes, still, today, it remains unanswered.  Don’t you find that surprising, interesting? Why does it remain unanswered? What is so hard about it...? The only full solution to the question I have found is that in my book... The Origin of Consciousness. ‘Oh yea’, I can hear it... and your scepticism is appropriate especially given the failure after failure of supposed solutions beginning likely several thousand years ago.

Role of reason

To carry the scepticism forward, what on earth makes me think I may have solved it?

It is a fair question, deserving of a full and balanced answer. I have addressed that question in The Origin of Consciousness. Before addressing it I need to make clear some foundation principles on which I have based my solution. Once I have summarised those principles, then I have a request.

I begin with some simple but quite significant ideas. First, when we look at something what we ‘see’ is actually in our mind, virtual reality drives the point home. The work was also done decades ago by two fellows Anderson and Pritchett (see the reference in ‘Origin’). They took fifty people and put them into a house asking them to look at the house with the view of buying it. They bought them out and sat them in a room. They then took another fifty people and put them into the same house asking them to look at it with a view of burgling it. They bought them out and sat them in a different room. They then asked each group to write down everything they could recall about the house. They produced lists that were so different one would not recognise that they were of the same house.

We see with our mind not with our eyes. What we see depends on what we think. I explore this is depth in the book.

We have now established there are two very distinct ‘things’ in the world, or at least two, what happens in our mind and the objects outside our mind. Again, I discuss these issues in depth in the book. Ontology is implicated at the very start of our attempt to find a solution to the opening question. Then in addition we immediately face a question what exactly is the relationship between what is in our mind, what I call our reality (little ‘r’) and that beyond our mind which I call Reality (big ‘R’). I will henceforth use the terminology reality and Reality to signify that in mind and that existing beyond mind.

The idea that we cannot prove the world beyond our senses has held appeal for hundreds of years, therefore how can there be two things, at very least it is argued we cannot be sure. These arguments have the effect of making all Reality, reality. I show in ‘Origin’ how this idea is in breach of a fundamental methodological issue, and I show that it is not possible in principle for any individual to establish the existence of the external world. I conclude that the only realistic and rational position to adopt is to assume that what one sees is there. That there is what I refer to as congruence between reality and Reality, so if one sees a bus coming best get out of way to avoid being run down.

We have not started thinking about a general theory of psychology and already we are in deep...this is a major reason the opening question has not been previously resolved, historical methodology was simply not good enough. The first several chapters of the book are devoted to this issue and to building a methodology that is strong enough.

What we see depends on the ideas we use to look. We are forced to acknowledge that as a fundamental of humanity. Therefore to find new theory of what happens inside us we are faced with the issue how we go about ‘looking’, what are the ideas and tools we need use, and how do we use them. This turned out to be a complex question but fully resolved in the book. Fundamentally the tools adopted are those of W Ross Ashby, supported by my analysis of the nature of a relationship, strategic science, and the nature and construction of variable.  It likely sounds more difficult than it is and this foundation is crucial for me to see into you, and for you to see into me. And given that it is still, today, unresolved except for my solution, then we should not be surprised if it takes a bit of thinking about. If a solution was really simple and clear, then it would have been done already.

Application of the method, I call Ashby tools, leads to concepts I define as Ashby diagrams. Think of Ashby diagrams as the fundamental structure of our mind in relation to the object we are examining. The Ashby tools are then the process of structuring our mind so we ‘see’ with greater insight and effectiveness. 

I refer to the process of applying the Ashby tools to build improved concepts enabling greater understanding as conceptual reasoning.  It is reasoned in sense it involves application of very specific intellectual method with clearly defined rules of application, to build conceptual models (the Ashby diagrams) with very clear and well defined properties and having a very precise relationship between the diagram in mind, our reality, and the object in Reality.

The nature of an Ashby diagram

To illustrate the relationship between reality and Reality, we can use a simple pendulum. T=k√l is the formula for the period (T) of a simple pendulum at sea level, with k a constant of 2π over the square root of the gravity constant, and ‘l’ the length. With a simple pendulum at sea level, then the formula is simplified to that stated.  

Now there are pendulums at sea level in Algiers, Dubai New York, Bristol, Bangkok, Beijing, and Rangiputa. We can ask ‘what is their period?’ In advance we cannot know, all we can ‘know’, in advance is the theory, the formula, to find out the empirical period of the pendulums we need go to each of those places, measure the length, and then calculate the period using the formula.

Ashby diagrams are exactly equivalent to the formula and all Ashby diagrams bear the exact same relationship to the actual empirical circumstances as the theory of the pendulum bears to the actual pendulums. This point is crucial, and I cannot stress it enough.

All we can ever know in advance of any actual empirical situation is the theory that links the variables to ‘see’, ‘understand’ and ‘manage’ our relationship with the situation. As a matter of tight and non-negotiable principle we can have no specific data on any empirical situation in advance of encountering that situation, and if we do think we know what is going to happen, we need be very, very careful that we do not ‘see’ that which we ‘expected’ or ‘thought’ would happen, and missed aspects of what actually happened.  

I go further and make it clear in the book that the relationship an Ashby diagram of a situation makes with any actual situation, called the empirical circumstance, is the exact relationship all science must make with the situation to which our theories apply. This means science is the process of building conceptual links between selected variables, building theories, and then using the understanding provided by such theories to better manage the empirical circumstances to which the theory applies.

All of this without actually beginning to think of psychology or the variables that may apply, or how to link those variables... etc. All of this is essential if we are to understand what we have when we create our general theory of psychology. The fact that this has not previously been done, that this depth of analysis of the method needed has never before been explored is a major reason why I think I have solved it.

Now, sit back and get gently reflective in mind. Question: Is a general theory of psychology knowledge? Well, of course it is. Next question: Do people create knowledge? Obviously they do. Third question: Should a general theory of psychology account for all outputs from humanity? Well, if it does not then it must be an incomplete theory and therefore cannot be a general theory of psychology.

It follows that any general theory of psychology must account for itself. I call this the reflexive condition that any theory of psychology must meet. All the above discussion was merely exploring this fundamental condition that any general theory of psychology must meet, namely to be apt then any theory of psychology must account fully for its own existence.

I hope you did not quite see that coming...and there are various other issues of method and construction that enforce other conditions and restrictions on any general theory of psychology. I know of no other analysis that has fully dealt with these issues. All of which again adds to the point of why I may have solved it.

My request

What we see depends substantially on the pre-existing ideas we hold through which we ‘look’. The history of failure with very inadequate theory has built a general view that it is not possible, with lots of reasons offered, the latest one I was told very recently was that reductionist causal Western science simply does not apply. Social science is different and must be understood holistically, etc. etc.  All of this begs so many questions: What is cause? What is science? What can we know of specific situation in advance? And so on...Jumping in with inadequate historical assumptions and insisting on them simply goes nowhere. We need sit back and have a close reflective look at what the issues are and then analyse how to do it better and drag ourselves out of the conundrums we have that undermine current social science. I did that, it took 20 years, The Origin of Consciousness is the result, suggesting further that I may just have solved it since I seem to have gone about it beginning at the beginning.

The first thing we need do is understand the questions, and then the order in which the questions must be answered. With the first general question being what intellectual tools do we need that can do the job...? And this question implies all the stuff above about Western science, cause, etc. All of this comes from my view of strategic science, namely first things first. No-one would try and build a house from the roof down it must be built from the ground up. First things first. I simply argue intellectual endeavour is exactly the same, and the first things must be done first... this is fully covered in ‘Origin’.

The book offers a unique, original intellectual position, built from the ground up. Build the method first, ensuring it is solid and strong enough, and covers all the issues of science, relationship between reality and Reality, reductionism and causality, etc. Then apply the method, being sure to stay tightly within its rules. Select variables, apply Ashby tools and build an Ashby diagram of how we ‘work’, the Ashby diagram of how we internally process an input to produce an output. Finally interpret the result.

My request is this, scepticism is legitimate, but please, hold it to one side, seek to read and understand with an open mind, and aim to understand the whole construction, not merely react to some point within it. I suspect it will be different from that which you have previously encountered.

I will work hard to make myself clear, throughout the book I have used examples and analogies that relate to an ‘average informed reader’. I request you work hard to manage your mind so that you can see what is offered clearly, then you decide if it is the breakthrough that has been sought for three millennia.

Cause, mechanisms and physical necessity

Below I offer a list of how and where this intellectual position produces a theory of the person that is quite different from anything that has gone before.  We cannot ever know something of some empirical circumstance in advance of it happening. What we can know in advance is the Ashby diagram, which is a system of linked variables, the theory about the circumstance. In The Origin of Consciousness I explore in depth what exactly an Ashby diagram in our mind, our reality, reflects and captures in Reality. In summary, the Ashby diagram is a conceptualisation of the causal mechanism which result in the outputs of the system.

It likely sounds terribly complicated but it is not. Imagine a system in a box, and imagine there is no aspect of the system outside the box. Now imagine input into that box. Because there is no aspect of the system outside the box we know that the output from the box can only result from the input acted upon by the mechanisms inside the box, it cannot be anything else. These mechanisms are the causal necessity of the system, they are always an aspect of the system no matter the input. The mechanisms are fixed, permanent, a regularity of the system.  It is this regularity of the universe that makes it possible to use ideas in survival, it also enables science, and leads to quips like ‘if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck and walks like a duck then it is probably a duck’. The Ashby diagram is the conceptualisation of those mechanisms, so is our understanding of the mechanism that work on the input producing the output.

I do not want to go any deeper into this argument, so I will sum it by saying the mechanisms in the box are the physical necessity that processes any input, and the Ashby diagram is the conceptualisation of those mechanisms and is our understanding of the physical necessity. I define our understanding of physical necessity as ‘cause’. 

A general theory of the person must account for all human output

A major criteria that I learned as I studied this question was that any valid general theory of psychology had to account for every conceivable human output. If it does not then it cannot be viewed as a complete theory. At the end of this article is a list of topics explained for by the theory, it is a long, broad list, as it must be if it is to be a general theory. 

Much historical psychology has focused on mental illness. Now I do not suggest mental illness is not important, but it does not dominate the world today. I argue quantum physics and the technology arising from it are much more dominant (for example, atom bombs, cold war and the politics of destruction, computer technology and the web, and tech companies as the underpinning of much economic growth). 

Our modern world is dominated by knowledge, therefore it is essential that knowledge creation and management emerged as a major factor, and it does. But some of the things the theory must account for are surprising. All physics is knowledge, therefore any interpretation of any aspect of physics can only be a detail within the overall interpretation of how all knowledge relates to the objects of that knowledge. In short, if the theory cannot fully account for quantum physics then it is not a full general theory. And the power and influence of Wikipedia in our modern world, how and why? And another aspect of physics, universal constants like Plank’s constant, they are produced by us out of our conceptual processes...what are they? Are they part of Reality, or are they an aspect of reality dependent on how we have conceptualised Reality. And time, what is time...? Do we really understand it, and if we more fully understand how exactly we are linked to the world beyond our mind, what will that tell us of time? And if we gain sharper insight into time will that alter our perceptions of ourselves in the universe and the very construction of the universe?

And truth... It is a crucial aspect of human thought and endeavour... what is it, how can we understand it in relation to our reality and Reality?

Then of course there are all the more ‘normal’ psychological issues such as dreams, intelligence, mental health and mental illness, attention, consciousness, human growth, opinion, prejudice, habit, emotional reaction and I have included the human spirit, what is it and how can we understand and define that inner core of us?

The interpretation of the theory

The intellectual position produces an Ashby diagram of a person in their environment. It is the conceptualisation of the mechanisms within our psyche, including the exact relationship between our brain and our mind, such as to offer causal understanding of how the factors within us act on any input resulting in our mood and conduct. We are the box, the Ashby diagram is the diagram of the mechanisms within us providing insight into how we work.

Recall the theory of the pendulum, if we want to know the period of any actual pendulum we need measure the length and place it in our theory. Well, the Ashby diagram of the mechanisms within us bears the exact same relationship to any actual situation involving us, and there are many more variables and it is very much more complex, but it is exact and precise.

 About now you are likely wondering what on earth is the use of this then, it cannot tell me anything about a specific person in some specific circumstance. Well, I understand how it can seem like that, and twenty years ago when early in this research, I thought the same thing. But I was wrong. Be prepared to be very surprised, it has an enormous amount to say on humans not the least is defining very precisely the line between what we have in common and what makes each of us unique.

I summarise below some of strengths and interesting perspectives that emerge from the theory in The Origin of Consciousness.  

·         The first general theory of psychology grounded on a complete preliminary methodological analysis.

·         Meets the criteria of necessarily accounting for all outputs of the human species.  

·         Is fully reflexive able to account in detail for its own existence.

·         Provides a rigorous definition of science while simultaneously fitting fully within that definition.

·         Begins with an analysis of perception and how we necessarily perceive the world.

·         Integrated with evolutionary theory, fully describing the aspect of the environment, differentiated perceptual fields that gives rise to ideas and the application of ideas in survival.

·         Proposes that neural evolution occurs in relation to differentiated perceptual fields with the end result being the greatest ability to create ideas and apply them in survival. It is the interaction of neural functioning with differentiated perceptual fields that drives neural and hence mental evolution across all species.

·         Ideas used in survival enables improved survival potential. Ideas die instead of individuals of the species.

·         The species that evolved the greatest capacity to apply ideas in survival must become the dominant species in the ecosystem. That species is humanity.

·         Establishes that once life begun the application of ideas in survival was inevitable.

·         Provides complete conceptualisation of the human psyche able to account for all observed human outputs.

·         Provides complete conceptualisation of the human spirit as an integral aspect of the human psyche.

·         Shows the emergence of consciousness as an aspect of the use of ideas, and that once life begun, and ideas emerged as an evolutionary force, then consciousness as in humans was an inevitable consequence leading to the view that consciousness is the pinnacle of evolution.

·         Defines the exact seat of consciousness as in human knowledge, precisely the seat of consciousness being the human spirit as the core of the human psyche.  

·         Accounts fully for the development of consciousness within the individual and emergence of the ‘sense’ of self.

·         Specifies the exact nature of ‘higher’ consciousness linking it to spirituality.

·         Clearly shows there is no ‘unconscious’ as in Freudian type analysis.

·         Exactly defines the relationship between mind and body.

·         Defines human existence as a spirit within a psyche within a mind within a brain within a body. All equally important, since if any aspect fails then the person has their existence eroded/constrained to that extent.

·         Fully relates the theory of psychology to causality and to the second law of thermodynamics. Therefore defines the exact line between forces of physical necessity and freewill/choice within humans.

·         Defines the brain as entropic that is functioning via normal/regular mechanism necessarily understood by regular science and via second law of thermodynamics and not necessarily by quantum physics. 

·         Proposes that attention mechanism has the capacity to alter energy states of neurons in the brain and so enable flows of energy to occur that left to internal entropic forces would not have otherwise occurred.

·         Defines habit as the entropic functioning of the brain.

·         Defines the nature of freewill, and that the fundamental of the human condition is the tension between freewill and entropy.

·         In summary, proposes consciousness as the only force in the universe able to overcome/thwart entropy. Hence only conscious choice and applying energy can overcome habit.

·         Contains integrated definitions of knowledge, and causality.

·         Defines the exact difference between humanity and all other species as the line between second and third level conceptualisation. This is symbolised in the statement that only humans have university libraries that conceptualise the mechanisms of Reality.

·         Accounts for culture and the relationship of culture with the development of the individual. 

·         Defines a complete theory of intelligence that extends beyond current models and theories.

·         Defines learning and explores how the actual processes of learning may be fewer than the neural complexity implies.

·         Defines dreams and their interpretation.

·         Provides the only fundamental definition of mental health.

·         Defines all forms of mental illness and psychological dysfunction as different types of failure within the theory.

·         Provides clear guidelines for counselling people with failures of the theory within them, and hence experience psychological or neurological problems.

·         Reinterprets much of physics. Provides a new and complete interpretation of quantum theory. Provides a new and complete interpretation of universal constants that emerge in physics. Provides a full theory of time as the period between events stressing that time is an aspect of reality but does not exist in Reality.    

·         Provides a complete theory of truth, defined as the search for congruence between reality and
Reality.  

This is an exceptionally broad list, however as already pointed out if it does not have the reach across every human output and endeavour then it is not a general theory of the person and must be regarded as limited and suspect as a result.

More detailed discussion in the book, The Origin of Consciousness.

I would be pleased to discuss any aspect if you care to email grl@xtra.co.nz 

Toward new social thinking

It is way past time that historical inadequate slogans like socialism and capitalism were dropped. 

We know Karl Marx and all centralized social models fail. 

We know Adam Smith free markets and deregulation fails. 

Why? 

We need grasp what is really happening. There is no causality in groups, all social causality is via the individual mind. It follows that all social legislation and regulation is not 'social' but operates via individual psychology. 

Most people are ethical, but some are not and in the absence of active constraints they will abuse their position. 'Rules' are the tools that moderate and guide action. 'Rules' are the apps that guide community wealth and health.

It is not a matter of more rules or less rules, more controls or less. It is only a matter of which rules work and which do not. 

We need forge a set of rules that (1) enables individual commercial creativity (2) moderates individual greed and corruption (3) achieves a balance whereby people are able to say 'I can live with that as fair'. Then we need focus on doing those things that build the economy, since we need wealth to sustain our community health. 

Poverty is not willed away, it is defeated only by a stronger economy. We also need to ensure in the long term our expenditure is less than our revenues, I have no wish for my grand children or great grand children to curse the debt legacy I left them.

I look forward to the time when politicians bend their thinking to find rules that work most for everyone in a society focused on citizens wealth and health and where everyone is accepting of their lot as 'fair' in relation to their effort, skill and their start position.  

Who am I and where did I come from?

I know who I am.  I know where I was born, and typically I will know my parents, I know what I like and what I do not. But how do I really define me?  And if I do define me, where did I in fact come from?

Somewhere during gestation a spirit emerges in the foetus.  At birth, breathing, we can agree that the essence of our humanness, our spirit, is fully with us.  From birth the manner of the expression of spirit progressively diverges reflecting the person that is emerging. 

There is a spirit within us expressed differently making each of us unique.  As spirits we are all the same, our spirit does not define us, it just is; it is just us being. It is something else then that defines us, something else that defines identify, defines who we are. How did this person arise and where did they come from?

Imagine two people, a pygmy in the Congo rain forest, and a New Yorker. Now imagine at birth, for wherever reason, they are both born with the exact same genetic potential physically, emotionally, intellectually and as expressed in personality. We are not necessarily clear on exactly how genetics impacts and shapes this potential, but let us assume that whatever the process, at birth it is exactly the same in each infant; two human spirits with the exact same genetic structure and potential. 

Both infants grew fully within their location, so the Pygmy never left the rain forest and the New Yorker never left greater New York. 

At forty, will these two people be similar or different? It is hard to imagine any overlap at all; the physical and social environments are so different.  They will be very different people. 

Now imagine we can swap the infants at birth so that no one knew. What do we think will happen? It is hypothetical of course; a thought experiment, but then Einstein reshaped global physics with a thought experiment or two.

Let’s call the Pygmy in New York the Pygmy New Yorker and the New Yorker in New York, the New York New Yorker, and vice versa.  I suggest the social and physical environment will work exactly the same on our infants, that given the exact same potential and the exact same circumstances and experience of life, the Pygmy New Yorker at forty will be the same as the New York New Yorker at forty and vice versa, that is the Pygmy Pygmy at forty will be the same as the New York Pygmy at forty. 

We get a little closer to defining who we are, at least we begin to see that who we are is most related to our living experience and is not defined by our spirit or by our genetics. Both our spirit and our genetics are important, but as a platform from which ‘we’ emerge and express our existence in the choices we make in response to our life experiences.

We have two factors shaping our expression of our spirit in the world; first our physical environment; second our social environment. In an attempt to clarify the impact of each, imagine we could educate the Pygmy from the Congo in how to survive in the physical environment of New York, but they were not trained in how to survive in the social/cultural environment of New York (let’s imagine that is possible).

How would they get on if they were then moved from the Congo to New York? They would be able to cross the street, understand about taxis and underground, violence and street thugs, getting to work, where to live and how to buy food, etc.  But they would not know how to behave in response to friends, family, co-workers, social events, celebrations of culture such as Christmas and thanksgiving, schooling, and libraries, etc.  We begin to get a sense that our Pygmy Pygmy trained in the environment of New York and then placed in New York would survive, but it would be very difficult, and without development of the social skills and insight they would have a very difficult life. 

Now imagine we could do the reverse, namely educate a Pygmy Pygmy in the necessary social/cultural skills and then transfer them to New York. I suggest they would come to terms with the physical environment and quickly be able to cross the street, understand about taxis and underground, violence and street thugs, getting to work, where to live and how to buy food, etc. Then their social/cultural skills and insights will enable them to move easily in New York society, in fact their size and accent may well make them a center of attraction so depending on the genetic inheritance they may relish the attention and find New York a most satisfying place. Conversely, a New York New Yorker with social skills of Pygmy may well be the center of attention in Pygmy culture and again depending on genetics they may well enjoy that. 

We come to what is perhaps already understood, namely that we are most defined by the ideas we absorb from our social and cultural environment. We are born into a framework of ideas and views, some subset of those we adopt and allow to guide how we think and shape our minds, then our mind guides our brain and so we act and feel.

The idea of a world spirit has been part of Western philosophy for millennia, a Jesuit priest and anthropologist called Tielhard de Chardin called the world of thought the nousphere.  We are all born into this nousphere, or at least that part of it alive and functioning in our society and culture. From the nousphere we draw the ideas and attitudes that forge our active existence; the energy of our spirit flows through the ideas we adopt from the nousphere to be the expression of us in the world. I regard the nousphere as humanity’s rudder. 

We can begin to see the relationship between ‘who I am’ and the social world in which we grow and from which we draw that which most defines us, the ideas we accept into our mind. 

But, what if we live in a complex world, with lots of choices of how to live, and lots of people living very different from how we would choose and some living so different we become offended at how they want to live. 

Let’s call the ideas closest to me and the ideas I seek to live by ‘values’. So in a society with many ways to live there are then many sets of values. We are painting a picture very different from the notion of a tribal society; there is no uniformity, no obvious and shared set of values which defines the group. So how can we have a shared society, when there seems to be no sharing of values?  

This is the modern trap in to which we are inclined to fall… Consider our ideas on freedom, an idea that is the core of the western way of thinking. The ‘barbarian’ tribes of Europe only offered compliance to Rome and were never subjugated. Their spirit of defiance has driven the West for over 2500 years crystallized around 400AD when Rome was overthrown.  How we think today is a product of the European defiance to Roman dictatorship and authority. History interprets the following thousand years as the ‘dark ages’, but in fact is was an intense formative period where was initiated much of the thinking we today take for granted, nation states, limitations of power, rights of people, and freedom of worship. Rome, the dominating power for centuries was no more, people had to work out for themselves how to live side by side and especially so since the tribes of Europe had such limited cultural overlap. Hence rule of law was the only factor able to bind diverse groups into some form of common effort, and this learning process remains alive and well, fully with us today. 

We gain glimpses into the foundation, the very soul of our Western cultural history. We here in New Zealand are not new, we think in a manner the result of over two thousand years of intense cultural development. The thread of core social values and individual freedom found in the defiance of the barbarian tribes of Europe, implicit in the social struggle of dark ages after Rome, then consolidated in the Magna Carta, British Civil War, emergence of sovereignty of parliament, democracy, French Revolution and United States Declaration of Independence. Social values that include separation of powers, so economic activity, judiciaries, legislation, and police, are all separated. Religion is a personal choice and not part of the state; and we have democracy, significant political transparency, social education and health, freedom of movement, right of speech, right to privacy, right to protest, and freedom of association etc.  Those outside the West still struggle to build and apply that which we are able to (almost) take for granted.  

When these values of the European Barbarians were a fight against tyranny and the unfettered power of Kings, dictatorships or authoritarian regimes, of which Rome was one of histories greatest and most vicious, then defining ‘who I am’ was easy; on one side was might and authority, on the other, rights and freedoms of people, freedom of ‘my’ people, my tribe. Today we have no such boundary to make sense of defining our identity. No tribe with which to identify, no struggle to which we commit. Today, we in the West are in an unprecedented stage of human and social development with no exact struggle no obvious opposition with which to define the boundaries and so define our soul and what we stand for. 

The struggle about economic development, of free markets and socialism, is not a struggle remotely comparable to the struggle for freedom itself for no other reason than protagonists in the economic struggle were both within Western philosophy, just different ways of doing it.  From an economic management point of view the cold war gave no clear winner only a clear loser, in that central planning of socialism failed. Now, after the recent global financial crisis it is clear that free and unfettered markets are not the winner in relation to wealth creation and general community prosperity. We need new ways of thinking about issues of regulation of markets and the role of commercial freedom to ensure entrepreneurial motivation and innovation. But this story must wait another time. 

Our problem of defining who we are is now clear and we can now put the accurate question. In a liberal Western democracy like we have here in New Zealand, how do I need think so that I know who I am, and what I really stand for?  Each person must answer this question for themselves; I merely offer some starters and a direction. 

We have lots of different sets of values: Maoris, Caucasians, Polynesians, and Asians, for example, we can call each set of values a ‘culture’, so culture defines how some group chooses to live. Society exists of multiple cultures living side by side. 

The emergence of this social state is inevitable given the focus in establishing freedom of living via the law; this is our cultural history. The law does not define how any of us must live; it defines that we can all live as we choose within the law. At that point, commitment to law as a framework of how people may live in freedom, the law and culture parted company, and our thinking has not quite caught up with that fact. 

The law does not define culture, it enables multiple cultures. In fact there have been many powerful social battles that removed culture from the law, so that today we have what is called ‘secular states’, which initially meant no religion was defined in statute, but today it is moving to not define any form of essential belief or living circumstance, it is law intended to apply to everyone in the society and so must embrace divergent value systems, enabling all culture, all sets of values, but defining none in particular. 

First question: Do I value my right to live as I choose? 

Second question: Do I demand everyone in society live by the same values as I do? 

If you answered ‘yes’ to the first question and ‘no’ to the second, then we are certainly on the same side, and like me, at core a libertarian committed to individual freedom. This means we need embrace as core values the right of others to be different. That they can live as they choose as long as they live within the law and do not seek to impose their point of view, their values, their culture on anyone else. 

This value, that of ‘defending the right of others to live different from how I choose to live’ is our core social value defining our very essence, our nature, rooted back into European barbarian defiance to the authority of Rome, a fierce independence that certainly predated Rome and was central to the psyche of the tribes from likely thousands of years before Rome. I now trace Western cultural history back to before ancient Greece and before any form of cohesive social structure across Europe.   

Today, the value of defending the right of others to live by their values is likely the only value that binds us. We can live as we choose and many will choose to live in ways so different as to require me to ignore their existence as they ignore mine, yet I can but hope they would defend my right to be as I defend their right to be. 

Then we live, in our own culture, as our parents, perhaps, but different, knowing and understanding in a way they did not need to that we must value the culture of others. 

Others coming here must value their right to be different and in so doing embrace our right to be different from them, to come here from another culture they must accept the very core, the essence of our society, embrace the right of others to be very, very different from them and they have no right to seek or impose their culture, and to be here they live by the social, legal, moral and ethical core of what makes us who we are.  … for us to ever let go of the demand that people coming to live among us accept our core social value of diversity and pluralism is to risk losing the very foundation that enables us to live as we choose. 

Understanding culture

There exists a serious confusion confounding politics and communities alike. What precisely is the link between a society and the cultures as they exist in it? 

First we need to clarify some background. We are discussing a modern liberal, western democracy. We are not discussing a largely uniform or at least significantly uniform society such as might exist in a Muslim state, where everyone is expected to be Muslim and live their lives accordingly, nor a religiously dogmatic Jewish or Quaker community where uniformity is not just expected but enforced which under Islam law is by death for those who change religious views. 

No, we are discussing the West, with a tradition that has emerged over millennia where people have fought and died for the right of all to live as they choose.   

I recall Centrepoint community some years ago, before the community was rocked with pedophile scandals, the core social question before legal issues was should such a community be allowed to exist. 

There is no suggestion that sexual abuse of children is acceptable, but in principle did society overall have the right to stop such a community assuming all actions within it were legal? I decided no, society had no right to restrict the community; that is yes the community had the right to exist; not only that but the people within that community should be able to depend on me to support their right to live as they do. 

I am a libertarian, I believe in the primacy of the individual to live as they choose within the law. That is the Western core view… and we in New Zealand are in fact a Western liberal democracy, and I am extremely proud of that fact. We have a depth of innovative libertarian history; the pity is we have ceased to lead the world in the political emergence of a libertarian society. But that is another story. 

My core view is that every spirit born into this world has an unalienable right to seek its own fulfillment. The two restrictions are first any search for fulfillment must be within the law, and second in pursuing our own fulfillment we must not restrict or erode the effort of others in seeking their fulfillment. 

Millions in the West have died to secure these privileges we enjoy today. I believe freedom is a flower that grows only in fields fertilized with blood: Lest we forget their sacrifice.  

So now we have the dilemma made clear. Multiple ways of life, call them ‘cultures’ all living within the same space, and some of those ways of life may be so morally abhorrent as to have one up in arms at every turn.

Does moral repugnance give me the right to stop or restrict the efforts of others in seeking their fulfillment? Assume I believe fervently that they can never find fulfillment in what they do. Their judgment may be wrong, and I may be disgusted, but these reactions do not give me the right to stop them, provided the group operates within the law and does not restrict others, or impose on others.

The law in this view intervenes to provide rules of interaction between groups with very different values and aspirations… and provides rules to protect against general abuse, such as protect children from abuse under any circumstances. 

Society has the right by way of open and transparent political process to define the laws to apply. Beyond that, no member of another group may restrict legal actions of any other group. There is the issue of the right to protest, but within a fair libertarian society we need be careful in extending this to the passive or active restriction of any person going about their legally sanctioned business. Like the erosion of New Zealand’s social and political leadership, this is again another story. 

Now, how can we think about this dilemma, define insightful understanding of words such a ‘society’, ‘culture’, multicultural’, and ‘pluralism’. I offer the following.

Society embraces a core set of values, these I call the ‘social structure’. For a western liberal democracy these include separation of powers, so economic activity, judiciaries, legislation, and police, are all separated. Religion is a personal choice and not part of the state; and we have democracy, significant political transparency, social education and health, freedom of movement, right of speech, right to privacy, right to protest, and freedom of association etc.  

We need identify these core values and hold fast to them, it is these values that go back thousands of years and for which millions have died to enable us to live as we do today. 

We need to be very clear that these values are beyond ‘culture’, they define the very essence of that which fully defines us. So what then is culture? 

Culture is a way of life chosen by some group within the social structure. So Muslims may live as Muslims, Maori as Maori, Caucasians as Caucasians, Polynesians as Polynesians, Asians as Asians, etc. None of these have priority rights; none may insist their cultural values are codified. Culture is how people live within the core social structure which does not define how any must live, but does define rights of fundamental individual freedom which applies to all people. This is who we are, free people within a liberal western democracy and within which each has a place and is welcome provided they adhere to the core right of others to be very different from them. 

‘Multi-culturalism’ does not need defined in law, in fact we need not define it at all, it is intrinsic to our core social structure inherited from two and a half thousand years of Western European social development. I am enormously proud of my cultural heritage and its enormous contribution to human kind. 

It is the social structure that binds us. And it is only the social structure that binds us. Within the social structure our cultures will be very, very different. 

As a people we must commit to defend powerfully the right of all other peoples, other cultures to live and be allowed to live as they choose within the law and without restricting any other group. We must embrace the absolute right of another person to live in a manner we abhor, and we must celebrate such diversity least we indeed lose perspective on who we are, and become a social backwater where once we lead the world.

Where passion meets purpose

What does it feel like when effort invested in vain? 

I will speak for me; I am frustrated, annoyed, hurt, disappointed. If there is seriously good reason then I can reconcile myself to the circumstance, actually, I usually do reconcile myself to reality since to do otherwise is to encourage ongoing depression and loss of fulfillment from life and with us only having one try at this trip we call life, I see no point in persisting with that level of self-destruction. 

A significant aspect of the issue is our selection of the challenge we set for ourselves. It is one thing to take up a shovel and dig a swimming pool in our backyard and something very different to personally and only with a shovel to set out to shift Mount Everest six feet to the left.  

This raises a common irritation of mine, the saying to pursue our dreams… I can dream of moving Mount Everest with a shovel, but it is fully beyond me. Hence our dreams need be in relation to our capacities and to the price we are prepared to pay. I think we instinctively do make that exact judgment call when we do set ourselves to dream and act to pursue that dream. When we do not, our friends look about for the strait jacket and nice men and woman in white coats. 

Immediately we are scoping the question of when and under what circumstances do we give up? Clichés abound … quitters never win and winners never quit … and we return to the challenge of using a shovel to shift Mount Everest six feet to the left. 

Judgment: But more, since the reality of our judgment embraces deep emotional choices of what we want for ourselves and how we seek to have our life express something more than the fact that we passed by, a fact rapidly dispersed by the multitude of spirits existing with us and following behind our existence all clamoring for recognition and self expression, circumstances where very quickly we shrink to a neural trace in mind of those to whom we were close, and then to less as the next generation merely notes our existence, if we are lucky, as a name on the family tree.  

My path: Was pressed hard on me many years ago, 1978, I was in New York on business. During the weekend I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. It had a display of artifacts from Thrace, an ancient society in the mountains to the east above Greece, today again a nation. 

The artifacts were remarkable, dating back to 1400BC (or BCE to be politically correct). Exquisite worked gold and other metal and wood utensils, jewelry, and ornaments. One however, caused me to stand for many, many minutes transfixed. It was a rhyton, a drinking vessel, in the form of a rearing stag; the wine was drunk from the mouth, the vessel filled from behind the neck. It was only a few inches tall, but was solid gold. The detail was remarkable; the eyes seemed to glow with life. It was from around 400 BCE.

Some unknown craftsman reached through time and touched me 2500 years later; an incredible legacy. They did not intend to, they merely did to the very best of their ability that which was in them to do. 

What was I doing with my life that had the slightest chance of reaching through time to just the generation after next, never mind 100 generations? 

Life can turn tiny moments that can define us.  

My only skill lies in ideas. 

I had just six years earlier completed my PhD in chemistry, and joined Shell Oil as a chemical sales representative. To Shell’s surprise and mine, I was good at it. They then opened up a position in their Head Office Personnel, as it was known then, as Training and Recruitment Officer. Again, to Shell’s surprise and mine I was a very good trainer. But during this stage, my scientific background generated questions on psychology, and human development and training etc. I had begun an extensive reading program five years earlier, and had begun the first steps at an extensive research plan in theoretical social science (although I did not think of it as that then, merely questions I was aiming to answer). 

My chemistry PhD had given me an intellectual orientation toward precision. I was then offended in my reading in psychology, epistemology, social philosophy, and sociology by the lack of conceptual precision and had a sense that it did not have to be all so statistical and conceptually loose.  

I had framed four questions in my notes:

§         If we had a complete and apt general theory of knowledge what would it tell us of knowledge and relationship knowledge makes with the objects of that knowledge?

§         If we had a complete and apt general theory of psychology what would it tell us of two people interacting?

§         If we had a complete and apt general theory of sociology what would it tell us of society and the development of society?

§         Given there is only one actor, people, what then are the necessary links between the first three questions? 

As I stood, for a long time, the curator approached me to ask if I was alright. I said no, and spoke to him for some length. He nodded, smiled, touched my on the arm and said ‘good luck son’. 

In the moment in that museum I committed to my path. 

The questions were vastly more complex than I realized then. 

I had a number of self-statements I used to guide my efforts.

§         I would not give a fig for simplicity this side of complexity but give my right arm for simplicity the other side of complexity.  Oliver Wendell Holmes. The final intellectual target, to have simplicity on the other side of complexity, but first need to define the nature of the complexity. 

§         The answer lies in knowledge, wisdom in the next question. Myself; used to ensure I always uncovered the next question so reinforced the demand for ongoing intellectual intensity.   

§         Never did it for the money, only ever did it for challenge, the money just proves you got it right. LJ Fisher, NZ entrepreneur. The final standard, get it right. 

In 1998 I had invested 20 years in researching and thinking and conceptualizing the issues embedded in the questions. I had read extensively, stretched myself to what I thought was my limits. I had fully defined the complexity that needed a solution but solutions that embodied simplicity, that bridged complexity, that I felt and sensed were ‘right’, eluded me.  

I took a long holiday, during which I decided to give up on my quest, after 20 years, this was in 1998, that I could not solve the complexity I had defined, I could not find the singularity, the simplicity. I then returned home and started to write a book on management, I already had five in the market… and early one morning a few weeks after returning from holiday, as my then partner lay in bed and I was writing on my desk by my bedroom window, I wrote down a theory of psychology I did not actually realize I understood and had developed, it just came out of my fingers, I can still see and feel the moment when I realized what I had just written down and it included a general theory of knowledge and causality. My relief was overwhelming. It was so emotional I let it sit on my desk for several months, I would pick it up and look at it, and put it down, still frightened of it. Going to extensive efforts to define questions that chart and illuminate a complexity then the dreadful realization that the answers to those questions are beyond you, this was perhaps one of the worst moments of my life. 

Solutions were not beyond me, they were however beyond my understanding of me.  I lost faith in me, I gave up, or at least I think I did … but serendipity gave me back to me. 

Finally I refined and formalized the ideas, drafting the ideas into papers at my web site www.grlphilosophy.co.nz. Although reading them today, them are often crude in relation to the insight I have now and to my skill at presenting these often quite complex ideas in an easily read form, that is not accident, since I have for the last five or seven years been working hard at the skill of presenting complex ideas into simple readable form able to be read with ease and engagement by anyone interested, and moving beyond that, even making the ideas interesting and engaging to read.  

It was only when I begun to formalize the ideas that I grasped fully the extent of them. It was in effect a redesign of social science itself with core tenets, tools and processes all intertwined arising from key attitudes I had held and worked with for 20 years. The theories of psychology, knowledge and cause were emergent from the fundamental intellectual structure in a quite direct manner. 

OPD theory[1]: winning 1.       Leadership judgment. a.       Build clear effective team game plan. b.      Integrate the individual game plans with the team game plan. 2.      Leadership effectiveness:  a.       Ask every person to make the choice to ‘turn up’ and do their bit as in their personal game plan, so contribute to the team success.

The chief issues of giving purpose to our passion are now sketched clear; they are largely emotional, related more to self-esteem and spiritual purpose than to rational strategic direction which can only give clarity to the deeper issues and provide articulation so that action can then follow with some precision. 

Let us assume the deeper issues are clear and settled in your heart. What then?

Think in terms of a ‘game plan’. A clear summary of what you need to do to achieve the ambition that rests in your heart. The detail will depend on the exact nature of the aim, it can be detailed or simple, but should be detailed enough to offer clearly defined easily understood steps. 

If you are part of a team and most of us are, then a personal game plan is derived from the expected performance in the team. 

The term ‘game plan’ is drawn from sport, where we all know and agree these steps and this reasoned clarity in advance is useful even crucial.   

Of course you need the skills to be able to do it. That goes without saying, and no point bluffing, if you do then very likely, if you are in a team someone else will need to cover your butt. 

The next thing is to ‘turn up’. In sport, we all know and understand exactly what this means. It is much, much more than just physically being there. It is being there with intent and purpose focused on the game plan. It is delivery of the action in the game plan with commitment. The game plan is the skeleton, the bones of the task with the task itself being our best judgment of how to get the greatest success. But it is us ‘turning up’ that gives energy to the bones, brings the skeleton alive.

It is turning up that gives passion to purpose.  

We do need to understand about bringing passion to our purpose; are the moments of truth, the moments where success is gained or lost, are they for brief weekly moments as in sport, or are they daily, six hours each day five and on half days each week? Or are they a few hours each week, where it is crucial to have good records of tasks, progresses and notes on the stage where one is at, and where discipline and patience needs support intensity and passion for a twenty year graft to get it right?  And even more subtle, are we clear on when to push and when to wait, when to walk away and leave it and when to return, in these questions there is seldom a clear reasoned answer, only experience can guide us, so if you do not have it, then seek it and listen. 

May passion ever move me but reason be my guide. 

Passion is our driver, find yours. It will lie beyond thought in the center of your spirit. Draw from it the clear aim for you, judgment so you pit yourself against realistic dreams for you.

Don Quixote had the right spirit, but poor judgment.  

You and only you can make your life meaningful for you. And the only meaning that will touch your heart is the one that you find and draw from your heart and make it real.

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[1] OPD is the organization theory that emerges from applying the social science tools and fundamental theories of cause and knowledge and psychology to the question: How exactly is staff behavior linked to organization strategy? OPD is application of a fundamentally different social science to practical social question of how we make our organizations more effective in supporting community wealth and health.