“To Be or Not To Be?” Really Isn’t the Question, and Never Has Been. So What IS the Really Important Question that the Brain Needs to be Trained to Handle Adeptly and Maturely?

The future of the human species, and the future of the many other species whose fate is tied to ours, however directly or indirectly, hinges on what the human brain can be taught to do with this question: Is there another way to explain or do this?

This has always been the question. Every advance in tool capability and efficiency has resulted because someone either imagined another way to do or explain something, or else simply stumbled onto it. The same is to be said for progress in religious thought. And in philosophy. And medicine. And all else.

At the biological level, if it has been a way better suited to delivering a result more useful or powerful or adaptive to general circumstances, or often to very specific circumstances, then the result has not infrequently been a reordering or a reconstitution of the biological pecking order or the biological mechanics.

Adroit handling of the question—is there another way to explain or do this?—seems not to come naturally to us humans. It is, for most of us, an acquired taste at best. What we think of the question, if we think of it at all, is most often a consequence of whether we were born to parents who were products of a culture that welcomed the question. Most cultures, and most parents, have not encouraged the question. So unless you found yourself living in a democracy, there has usually been a risk at asking the question. And even in a democracy as formally devoted to the idea that it is always permissible to ask “Is there another way to explain or do this?” as the United States of America, it can be sometimes dangerous to ask the question. It was pervasively so during the Civil War years, during the McCarthy Era, during the reign of Jim Crow in the South and can still be, to a disturbing extent, so in today’s obsessed-with-terrorism political environment.

We have spent years at Brain Technologies developing and perfecting, often assisted by the trenchant and imaginative work of others, ways to forecast how a given brain may handle the question.

Generally, or so it is our experience, the brain will react in one of four ways:

1) In most circumstances, it will reject the idea that there is anything to be gained in asking the question. Thus it will defend, sometimes to the death or to others’ dying, the explanations it already has.

2) It will accept the idea that the question is a good one, but typically be indiscriminate in seeking, judging and acting on answers to the question. The first answer that happens by that seems to work is, for this category of brain functioning, accepted and acted on, whatever the outcomes.

3) It will see the creation of hypotheses and the investigation of them as “end all and be all” of the process. So that the challenge becomes understanding a set of answers in great detail but not necessarily the efficient and imaginative use of any of them.

4) It will automatically assume that there is an infinite variety of ways to explain almost anything and will work to experience as many varieties of ways as possible, giving precedence to the newest and most novel.

Of course, the human brain being what it is, most any healthy and especially fully formed (adults over 30, for the most part) brain can and does move between these four approaches if coached, encouraged and provided with a safe haven for doing so. However, such safe havens, such encouragement and such coaching are in extremely short supply. It is so today, and it has always been so.

This is one way to explain why the world has recently been treated to the 9/11 tragedy, the Iraqi tragedy, the Lebanon tragedy and the Katrina tragedy, and if the trail of bad policies and decisions continues up the mountain of disastrous consequences why the world may soon be treated to the Iranian tragedy, the Israeli tragedy, the Islamic tragedy, the North Korean tragedy and ultimately, perhaps, the American tragedy.

So nothing approaches in importance how human brains handle the question, “Is there another way to explain or do this?” At this stage in our development as a species, handling the question well and effectively and with political astuteness requires unusual pluck, luck and maturity. It is a most intriguing reality that while our species often seems to take three steps backwards for every half-step forward, we do seem to be making some progress in handling the question.

Now explaining the reasons for that has come close to antiquating virtually all foundations of religion and philosophy. Nor are suitable answers in immediate prospect. It may first be necessary to have some good explanations for such questions as what is the world made of (we still don’t know) and what happened before anything happened (we don’t have a clue) and is there conceivably any point or place or combination of circumstances in the universe when it will cease to make sense to ask the question, “Is there another way to explain or do this?”

Stay tuned as long and as healthily as you can. It has really begun to get interesting in these recent times.

Posted on August 31, 2006

Maybe I Just Haven’t Watched Enough National Geographic Specials, But Notice of Some of History’s Most Influential Persons Seems to Have Passed Me By.

Buying books for our online bookstore the other day, I crossed paths with a book called The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History. What’s not to like about such an audacious effort at picking and choosing?

The author is one Michael H. Hart, an astronomer. Obviously, Dr. Hart (Ph.D. from Princeton, Class of ’72) has a passion for reading about famous people and then ranking them according to his opinions of their impact on the world at large.

Checking with Wikipedia, I soon learned that Dr. Hart’s book was reprinted in 1992 (the version I have is the original edition, printed in 1978) and his rankings revised a small bit. But what fascinated me about his listing in the first edition was how many these luminaries I’d never heard of.

Nearly all of those whose names were a mystery to me were produced by Eastern or Middle Eastern cultures, and therein lies an important clue.

I assume that this blog is largely read, to the extent that it is read, by persons civilized, to the extent that we are civilized, in the West and not the East, as am I. And that the people I’d never heard of, you may not have heard of either. We can put that theory to the test easily enough. Here are the personalities I’d never heard of from Michael Hart’s original list of The 100 and a few words about why he awarded them such a distinction:

Ts’ai Lun: A Chinese believed to have invented paper about 100 A.D.

Shih Huang Ti: A Chinese emperor (238-210 B.C.) who augmented sweeping anti-feudalistic reforms influential right down to modern times.

‘Umar ibn al-Khattab: Perhaps the greatest of the Moslem caliphs. First opposed to Mohammad, he suddenly embraced him in a Saul of Tarsus-like conversion.

Asoka: Probably the most important monarch in the history of India (ascended to the throne about 273 B.C).

Sui Wen Ti: The Charlemagne of China in that he reunited the country in the sixth century after hundreds of years of division.

Mani: Founder in the third century of Manichaeism, a religion synthesizing ideas from other religions that spread worldwide and held influence for about a millennium.

Mencius: Born about 371 B.C., a philosopher who was the most important successor to Confucius.

Mahavira: A contemporary of Gautama Buddha who developed the nonviolence-oriented Jainist religion, which strongly influenced Gandhi.

As for changes in Hart’s 1992 edition, Wikipedia notes, “Chief among these revisions was the demotion of figures associated with Communism, such as Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong, and the introduction of Mikhail Gorbachev. Hart took sides in the Shakespearean authorship issue and substituted Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for William Shakespeare. Hart also substituted Niels Bohr and Henri Becquerel with Ernest Rutherford, thus correcting an error in the first edition. Henry Ford was also promoted from the "Honorary Mentions" list, replacing Pablo Picasso. Finally, some of the rankings were re-ordered, while no one listed in the top ten changed position.”
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Hart’s book (which is now rare and pricey) can be ordered here: The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History

Go here for the Wikipedia item: The 100

Posted on August 21, 2006

If You Want Sage Advice on What Needs to Be Overhauled at the Highest Reaches of American Government, Here Are Two Well-Seasoned Advisers Who Seem to Have Their Fingers on the Controls of D.C.’s Acrimonious and Hideously Incompetent Cook Stove

Listen, if you will, to this wise and highly topical counsel for Americans interested in effective, responsible, long-term, and long-“visioned” governance. I quote. And quote. And quote. And quote. And quote. And quote:

• The problem of governance in the United States is mainly one of creating institutions or governing arrangements that can pursue policies of sufficient coherence, consistency, foresight, and stability that the national welfare is not sacrificed for narrow or temporary gains.
• Perhaps the essence [of the problem] today is that current administrative structures…are so entrenched that their adaptations to new conditions contribute little to overall government effectiveness. Established structures no longer can contain political tensions between Congress, the president, and the bureaucracy, and, riven by conflict, they often do not permit successful management of the nation’s problems….Institutional dysfunction helps to stalemate, congressional-presidential negotiations over policy changes, and to hamper the implementation of those policy changes that do get made.
• [Fundamental] changes in government arrangements have never come easy. Political tensions have always had to build to high levels, compromising not only government performance but also the political interests of Congress and the president before action has been taken….[Each] institution has had to be convinced that its own actions were not sufficient to protect the interests or those of the country.
• The presidency can take the broader view of national problems because it is the one office that has a national constituency, and it is the office best placed to find the appropriate balance between domestic and international concerns. The presidency as it is now constituted, however, is not up to these tasks.
• Presidents can be nearly as shortsighted as Congress, as mounting deficits in recent years have amply demonstrated. Also needed are institutional changes that will remind presidents of their obligations to long-range national needs…and less about opinion polls and reelection strategies—things the White House is currently so well designed to consider.
• One cannot help but applaud any efforts at policy compromise when so much of the contemporary acrimony, institutional confrontation, and unrestrained criticism of Congress, the bureaucracy, and the president by partisans in control of other institutions.

So say John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson, who wrote Can the Government Govern? Their book was published in—are you ready for this?—1989!!! Is it time for change or what?
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Their book is available here: Can the Government Govern?

Posted on August 14, 2006

Wanna Know Which World Capital Has the Most NLP Charlatans Per Square Mile? Let’s Check In with My “Alpha Geek” Contact on River Skerne.

One of my favorite, self-admitted “Alpha Geeks” lives and works in Darlington, a small city of about 100,000 that Wikipedia describes variously as 1) in the north-east of England, 2) on the river Skerne 3) known for its association with the birth of railroads 4) home of the Darlington F.C., currently playing in Football League Two and 5) where on Sept. 14-17 this year, the annual Rhythm'n'Brews festival will be held and drank.

I’ll keep his identify cloaked, not because he asked me to, but because I think he’ll continue to speak to me more freely than if you know who he is. And who is he? A very interesting guy, I think, for a geek, alpha or otherwise. I really enjoy my correspondence with him. Here’s some of his opinions (of which he has many) of late:

On the state of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and/or personal coaching in England: “Richard Bandler and John Grinder do lots of seminars in London, which has more NLP charlatans in per square mile than anywhere else in the world. I just think there's so many companies in London, it's like a global trading center. So there's a lot of managers looking to get up the ladder all in one place, so it’s an ideal place to be a personal coach, etc. There's a booming market.”

On how technology can make you feel like a younger person at age 36: I mean no one told me as you got older, your brain didn't. People condition themselves to act like adults I suppose, because they look like adults. I really do feel like I'm 20 or something. One thing I've noticed the rat race holds people down, people really should live a little. In some ways I'm disappointed that the Internet took off in my late 20s, I can vividly remember the excitement I felt for it all. I recall selling websites to people having absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Telling me they'd never ever need e-mail or a website. Strangely I still have the same problem. Now I approach people, and tell them the things that are possible now, and it's like I'm from a different planet.”

On the impact of changing vocabularies over the generations: I am fascinated by new words. I went to a lecture once on the English language in college. It completely changed my life. (There were only six people in the lecture!) It showed how if I met someone say from 1880, we wouldn't be able to communicate, we wouldn't even be able to even read each other's writing. Indeed, I found it extremely difficult to read a local manuscript written in 1880. The reason is people don't realise English is constantly evolving every day, and morphing into an entirely new thing. Language actually evolves. Hence I'm truly amused that a teacher is in despair then when a teenager writes textspeak in their work, and complains to the media, something like "I got dis 4 U". To the teenager, it's perfectly natural to shorten words and change language. There are lots of fascinating and new shortening words, using words in other words. "Blog" was originally "Internet Web Log," then "web log," then "blog". It looks like a wonderful new word, but to me it instantly means "internet web log", or a website set up like a diary. I can see how a gap of even 10 years can cause communication issues! I follow buzzwords closely. I do get worried though I still know a lot of teenagers who don't know what blogs are and are fearful of buzzwords.”

On the emerging phenomenon of people collaborating on creative writing: Fun concept I’ve always thought, the idea of collaboration in writing. It's going to play a big part in business, the idea of group collaboration over the Internet. I don't knew whether you know about, things like puzzles being solved instantly by group/crowd power of many people on the Internet. Murder cases being solved, missing people being found, etc. Recently, people writing novels in blogs and releasing them chapter by chapter, then it getting picked up by a publisher, or even paid for directly by readers contributions. Some amazing things going on right now. People are beginning to realise they don't need publishers, they can reach people directly. If I were a publisher, I'd be getting my brands and developing digital networks in this area. We are truly living in an information age!”

Posted on August 08, 2006