Linda, your comment is very “uplifting” for me in the sense that it provides me with very useful information that may move UPLIFT forward. CHANGE IS NOT EASY, or words in the same vein, have been quoted by many. In that our emotional domains also need changing, we must expect some emotional turmoil during such changes.
- I fully relate to your issues with your “partner”. I believe that adjusting/adapting to peaceful cohabitation doesn’t – on its own – resolve deeper differences that require more. What follows are a few of my insights into this matter. The full changes we desire, I believe, can’t be achieved at the levels we apply – and humankind has yet to learn (via UPLIFT) what more is needed – including a re-examination of our desired objectives.
- There isn’t a day goes by than I haven’t “shouted” at Eloise. I was going to say I “go emotional” only with those I love – and that was once the case. But, recently I lost my temper at two bank tellers who were just doing their job – but requiring I get Eloise with ID to sign an insurance check (for the totaled Tundra truck) written out by the insurance company to Laurence AND Elizabeth. I am taking anxiety pills.
- Eloise, Tommy, and I live in radically different experienced “homes”. Disorder that highly disturbs me is just stuff to be processed later by T and E. A little dirt, that isn’t going to jump up and bite me, is in critical need of attention for Eloise. I have had no input in “furnishing” any part of this house except my bedroom, and even there Eloise attempts to dictate. Aesthetics totally dominates functionality for Eloise (especially if it isn’t for her functions). I prefer a balance. This is HER house, but it was the same at the Lester Street house, which was MY house (in terms of ownership). Eloise hoards, but nicely (most of the time) in cabinets, closets, or arranged in artistic order. Much of her house is a museum. I hoard some of my past records and a few things I might later need. I won’t go into Tommy’s iWorld here, but it is quite different from either my or Eloise’s iWorlds.
- We are all three GOOD people. We never attempt to harm anyone, and love animals. We are all open to help others. Yet, our inner, emergent, woven iWorlds (which is all we experience in our mind/brains) are quite different. Yet we, like most humans, treat them as objectively REAL and are frustrated that others don’t SEE what is OBVIOUSLY THERE. We three are a microcosm simulating the dysfunctions of the macrocosm. Although most educated persons have encountered this information, it is seldom applied, and the vast majority are unaware of this “fact” about human interaction and experience. Even I live most of the time in “naive reality”.
CONTINUING MY RESPONSE TO LINDA re DIALOG
Does facilitating Bohm dialog take this into account? In my experience, information exchange is not sufficient to open persons to accept their own limits and accept (more than just tolerate) differences in others. There are two distinct objectives/outcomes of extended, seafed dialog:
1) everyone converges to experiencing the same iWorld, or
2) each person tunes their personalized iWorld to be synergistically complementary to the other personalized iWorlds, so the collective team-iWorld of a group is more than the sum of their individual iWorlds.
(1) can be achieved via brainwashing and indoctrination, mob and hysterical group minds or simply passively becoming “sheep”. However, for smaller, specific, common tasks a group can learn to converge on similar enough iWorlds for those tasks – otherwise there would be no social/cultural life.
(2) is possible, but we have yet to learn how to make it happen. But, creating team-iWorlds is but the first step. Different team-iWorlds will be different; on up to the massive network of millions of different team-iWorlds. This should not be a theoretical problem for, in analogy, the diversity of different non-interacting biological cells in our bodies do function well in synergy as a viable whole. In metaphor: humankind is primarily a “network” of individualized and semi-isolated persons, whereas humanity will be a “system” – a combination of ecology and organism.
Many, many other aspects/factors/dimensions must be part of this larger-longer-term effort. Rates of change are so incongruous. Our fast and slow minds. The pace of things immediate and glacial. Humans never evolved to live beyond tribal; societal demands we uplift beyond – but we each live in our own emergent inner woven worlds/contexts, believing others live there too. Our iWorlds Structurally Couple with the illusion about how we relate. WE DO RELATE, but not as we think. Relating is more than exchanging signals and touches, which are processes where we experience the other indirectly by experiencing their “image” in our iWorlds. The “experience” of relating is an “illusion” (but only relative to a distorted definition of reality). There is a literal dance in Structural Coupling that is beyond experiencing. Mirror neurons are only the tip of the iceberg. But, the coupling is superficial most of the time. We must learn to couple, which means to be open that we are each far from complete. We are beings in process, and we can become quite other than we think we are.
My frustration is that this is so very difficult to achieve, even when one desires it. Most persons are blocked to fundamental change, and for many very good reasons. Only when we are open to our blindspots, open to our domains of low ability, open to our incompleteness – only then might we invite others to learn to seaf filling those holes as we seek to seaf filling the holes in others. I dream of a future humanity were children are woven into web-teams of persons of all ages seeking completeness of that whole – filling all holes. This is not a transition that can be quickly achieved by waving a magical wand. It is a creative challenge beyond beyond. Yet, I grok it is achievable; is may even be our “destiny”.
Linda, in your brief analysis of our “situation & times”, you reveal that you have yet to comprehend the different perspectives I take to all this. You are not alone. I’m working hard with Bill Veltrop, as he works with me, to both uplift each other. Bill and I are not trying to get the other to adopt our own perspectives. We ARE trying to get each other to first COMPREHEND the other’s perspective – without evaluating or judging. Once this mutual comprehension of our different conceptual schemes is achieved, we will be in a better position to move forward creating a nu conceptual scheme that includes the best of each of our prior efforts. This entails the willingness of each of us to FUNDAMENTALLY change. I’m 80, Bill is 85! [9/3/17 – Bill eventually “gave up” on my “accepting his truths” and doesn’t want to hear from me ever again.]
Specifically what you don’t yet comprehend, Linda, is very important for me – as I expect that many others also have more to learn. It is very positive that you are able to be explicit. Permit me to attempt to identify and comment on some of your perspectives.
1) You seem to prefer looking at tools/techniques/ideas that are in our current arsenal (Maslow, Spiral Dynamics, Bohm, etc.) to apply. UPLIFT assumes we currently lack the requisite ideas and technologies, but can engage in processes to learn/acquire what we need – in stages. We will use the resources on hand, but not try to create what we need with them. When Kennedy launched the Apollo Program we didn’t immediately try to launch a rocket to the moon. We accepted we then lacked the requisite knowhow – but we knew how to acquire it. The Apollo Program is a rare example of a limited application of what I call UPLIFT: limited to a single project. Our current limitations apply also to our own competencies and even imaginative visions. WE, the aspiring Change Agents, must be the FIRST to engage UPLIFT. UPLIFT is about a population uplifting itself, not uplifting others. Others are helped by joining UPLIFT.
One of our first steps in UPLIFT is to attempt an honest assessment of who/what/where-we-are, now? Take off our blinders. To accept our limitations doesn’t require us to degrade our accomplishments. It isn’t a zero-sum-game. For example, what I call Adult-Stage-Development (Spiral Dynamics or Robert Kegan’s “Objectification”) have been around long enough to demonstrate they aren’t the full answer. Their “visions” or “perspectives” have clouded innovation to explore deeper into these processes. Each of the different models for Adult-Stage-Development are locked into their silos and don’t interact or move to improve their models. Significant human change is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT than any practitioner today imagines. As long as they feel no need to go beyond what they are doing, they block advancement.
2) You write: “it is probably centuries beyond where we are that we will see any real shift“. You are right in questioning whether we will still be around. We won’t, if we have to wait. Our challenge is to greatly accelerate the rate of change of HUMANKIND. Paradoxically, this may require slowing down on some fixing broken systems and even tending to the increasing suffering of the general population. Our priority MUST be fundamental/rapid change, not treating symptoms. And this can be very hard on humans hardwired to alleviate suffering.
[ASIDE: I speculate the survival value of sociopaths in human evolution was the someone could make the hard decisions to abandon some tribal members when actions were needed to insure tribal survival. This positive aspect then, is a real problem today, as sociopaths are attracted to the top positions of our societal hierarchies.]
Capitalism must go, but not by inventing a better capitalism. We must go beyond econo-centrism that demands making “economics” our primary societal subsystem – to the neglect of all other essential subsystems (such as “education” and “health”). In my proposal for Societal Metamorphosis, we don’t confront Capitalism, but “magically – but practically” create-in-rapid-stages an alternative local-2-global system that simply makes Capitalism irrelevant. To convince others that this process may actually be achievable is my challenge. We, change-agents are also STUCK in our self-reinforcing silos, waiting (but not acknowledging that we are waiting – and for what?).
3) Linda, you reinforce my assessment that others don’t comprehend me as being “practical” (I wanted to use the metaphor “see”, but our visual metaphors – as useful as they are – are also a handicap), as having ideas about “design” and “making things happen” – that I limited to being a visionary, delving in wild abstractions. This characterization of Larry/nuet is accurate if you focus only on what Larry does in his realtime. Larry is not a practical person about his own life – for many reasons.
To Larry/nuet, “practical” relates to ANY objective/project/venture/endeavor, no matter the scope, complexity or time required. “Practical” is synonymous with “Achievable-in-Time”. I am primary concerned with MAKING IT HAPPEN, with the emphasis on the “IT”. In this sense I am more an engineer than a scientist. In nano-technology guru Eric Drexler’s concepts Larry/nuet is an “exploratory engineer“. With a very major qualification: Larry/nuet attends primarily to the exploratory engineering of psychological, social, cultural, and societal systems – which are literally excluded from the domain of interest of most with “engineering” competencies.
EXPLORATORY ENGINEERING
In this domain of “Exploratory Engineering of Societal Systems”, I move beyond the determinism/reductionism of physical science. What are traditionally engineered are scaffolding (material structures that seaf human processes). The engineering design doesn’t prescribe all detail for the behavior of humans living/working/learning within scaffolding. Spontaneous, innovative, creative, improvisational behavior is encouraged, even seafed.
Larry/nuet has thought and written extensively on this, but is now aware that much of this “practical domain” has not been featured in any of his more widely distributed docs. To do so would have made those documents even more lengthily. This practical work was in crude draft, requiring future team work to expand. I now recognize that complementary to OLLO, is what I once called “scripting/performing cycles”. We script scaffolding and perform within scaffolding, including “performing scripting” and “scripting performing”. OLLO (Organizing-for-Learning=&=Learning-for-Organizing) involves both scripting and performing. Performing includes creative improvisation within scaffolding. All this occurs within a new integrated RT/DT Synergy system; involving fully integrated: RealTime, F2F (both in-the-same-room and online Synchronous) AND DelayedTime, online Asynchronous interactivity.
4) Larry/nuet has to be much more clear about the distinction between UPLIFT and Societal Metamorphosis. UPLIFT is a prerequisite for SocMet, and can be seafed without explicit concern for SocMet. SocMet calls for additional exploratory engineering innovations. UPLIFT is a generative process internal to a growing population, employing OLLO with a Societal Environment (which it doesn’t attempt to significantly change). This Societal Environment will contain friends and foes, resources and dangers. The growth of the UPLIFT MOVEMENT (UpMov) comes from one-by-one PRSOS to persons in the Societal Environment. PRSOS = Promote, Recruit, Select, Orient, SEAF. Each new member is immediately embedded in a supportive network of others and is immediately given tasks they can perform while they are learning. OLLO includes a Work/Study Program.
- This relates to a barrier for most to accept the feasibility of UPLIFT expanding to most of the global population in a decade or less. Everyone’s experience with “education” included deep awareness of its many lacks. Even the best is bad! Education has been trivialized in the industrial revolution, and in civilization in general. In a way it is even more trivialized in our digital age – given the limited goals compared with the exciting educational technologies. Formal education has been downgraded to job preparation, indoctrination to passive acceptance of authority, and learning pleasurable activities that enhance economic consumption. The full scope of the educational challenge has never been adequately approached and no reform can improve existing educational theories or practices (some of which, reconfigured, may be part of the nu OLLO system).
- Persons can learn very rapidly and well when there is a good match between their personal “cognitive/learning styles” and their “learning environment” (which will include educational materials and other learners). The emerging UPLIFT Movement (UpMov) will have tasks to be performed by members. Everyone (from age 2 up) will have tasks assigned for which they will be prepared with the requisite competencies – or they will learn those competencies performing the task. There is no need for persons to wait until they “graduate from school” to be part of an OLLO society. Many tasks done by persons with comprehensive training can be performed by persons without the full education in that area but specifically trained to perform those tasks. The workforce in UpMov doesn’t involve careers or long-term employment. Basic needs are met for all in UpMov. This can be accomplished as UpMov galdees, from small populations to larger. To transform existing societies into system having these features is a near impossibility. As UpMov emerges it will be more and more competent in designing and implementing OLLO and the rapid uplifting of the global human population. UPLIFT involves many bootstrap cycles; and we don’t have to be fully clear of later cycles before we start.
- OLLO in UPLIFT is highly personalized and tailored to the specific cultural aspects of each population approached. As each new population is selected for uplift, individuals will be identified/selected and seafed to be key in designing the specific OLLO program (BUS in my earlier doc) for that population. Cultural differences will be a very delictate challenge, not to be discussed her – but noted.
- To those today most concerned about poverty, security, food & water, community, and climate change – this focus on OLLO may appear misdirected. The general population call for JOBS, as their means to a “good life” – not that they want just any ole job. The future of food, water, and security motivate many to exclusively focus on re-localization initiatives. UPLIFT and OLLO don’t ignore them. They are integral in the TASKS to be performed in OLLO. OLLO is absolutely essential if the movements to provide these BASICS are to grow to serve everyone.
NOTE FROM LARRY/NUET: Composing the above has been very enlightening/revealing. The whole futuring schemes/scenarios emergent within nuet has literally hundreds of independent variables, much more than the 7+/-2 we humans (including Larry) are limited to use at any one time. I had addressed this briefly in. There are digital technologies that can seaf working with many independent variables feasible for teams and crews which Larry/nuet will attempt to address in the near future, which will relate to many of the “points” identified in the above document. As long as this is, it is but a start at what “nu”” we must begin doing.