Category Archives: Classic Bill

Of Genes, Memes and Phemes

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Originally posted December 8, 2011

John Wheeler’s saying “Its from Bits” means that physical objects are generated from information blueprints, which are a prior form of existence than the physical forms they create.

In other words, at the first foundation of reality our science is able to see the primary substance from which everything is made is information. Not matter, not energy.

Science was already going there, if you look at the scientists leading up to Wheeler.

  • Einstein had reintroduced consciousness (implicitly not explicitly — he didn’t make a big issue out of it) when he made time relative to the observer. This injected the subjective back into what is objective reality in a materially tangible way. Our minds are also part of reality and seem to affect it “mysteriously” (in an “unbelievable” way) depending on the velocity at which we are moving.
  • Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle questioned whether we ever could know simultaneously the position and vector of an electron or any other object vibrating at wavelengths smaller than that of visible light. On a similar tack of the ultimate un-knowability of the universe arose the idea of a cloud of electrons in a probability shell rather than of actual physical electrons, thus also that virtual particles exist in potential if not yet in manifestation.
  • Then came the idea of a probability wave that collapses into a distinct reality only when contacted by the eye of an observer.
  • Quantum Mechanics (QM) in general, and the work around Bell’s Theorem in particular, seemed to be saying that distance may be an illusion, that wavicles spring up and disappear from a quantum foam of potentiality residing beneath the superstructure of matter/energy space/time reality as we know it. The theory of alternate universes arising from QM says there is no scientific reason not to believe that at every decision point in the path of observable history, alternative universes could easily also exist, taking that “road not taken ‘here’”.

Therefore every turning point in the recent history of physics has stripped away one more layer of that feeling of solidity we used to have in our idea of the universe.

Wheeler’s observation that bits of data are the underpinning of all of this we call the universe is actually a great simplifier and cohesifier of all that came before in science. Of course it is simplifying: if one type of substance, ideas in some sort of mathematical software code, otherwise known as information — “in formation”, a pattern that is not chaos (modern chaos theorists also see information in chaos) — this simplifies the discussion of string theory, quarks, and the rest of the complexity that has been emerging at the tiniest physical scale of scientific inquiry.

We have seen even from our own infant knowledge of how the universe works, and nascent technology based on this understanding, that within computers and electronic media we can create three-dimensional realities that change based on laws/programs and “random” number generators. If we are all in some sort of computer then it would seem easier to understand how the miraculous manifestations we see can possibly exist. Someone just spent a lot of time coding, that’s all. Perhaps whoever did it didn’t see time as a scarce quantity the way we do.

But how can information bits be the basis for reality, our mind automatically thinks/feels. What then do the information bits float around in? What is the basis on which they exist? Everything exists in some sort of medium, or container, its own petri dish. What about these supposed bits that Wheeler talks about — what do they move around in, what supports them?

My own cosmological Theory of the Conscious Universe (TOTCU) accepts Wheeler’s dictum based on my own intuition (I got there before reading him) and adds that the container in which these seed ideas are brewing into matter, the universe, is itself a biocomputer in the form of a consciousness, which explains how information bits can be the basic stuff of reality.

It’s common knowledge today that information bits are found in computers. We know that information is recorded/coded into brain cells because of the famous experiments of Wilder Penfield, who touched electrodes to specific parts of people’s exposed brains and the subjects (awake and in no pain) reported that certain vivid memories were being evoked at each spot in the brain touched, different memories in different locations.

The signals that the brain sends to the muscles must also be information. Signals are the communication of information.

The tropism that causes plants to orient to the Sun must be as a result of electrochemical signaling from one part of the plant to another. Again, information.

Wheeler and TOTCU go beyond this to postulate that matter itself is maintained by the information layer, which gives it instructions as to how to erect and sustain electron probability clouds around nuclei. And energy is the raw form of matter existing as radiating probability waves whose wavelength, frequency and amplitude instructions come from the layer of information hidden beneath the appearance of a physical universe that our sensorium presents to our consciousness.

Within our consciousness itself, we have feelings, thoughts, images, memories, perceptions, intuitions, kinesthetic sensations of our bodies — all of it information. In fact, consciousness unlike matter and energy is the only phenomenon we detect in the universe that is purely informational, without the appearance of anything else but the information itself. This is the primary clue from which intuitively springs my cosmology, TOTCU. If consciousness is pure information, and everything in the universe arises from information, then is it not possible that consciousness itself IS the information layer Wheeler speaks of?

Again, if information bits are floating around in our bodies and in everything we see, then how could the whole universe be other than some form of Tron-like computer? What else do we know of as a type of thing that can contain information bits?

And if a computer that contains within it a thing we call consciousness, such as among homo sapiens, such as you yourself have as a primary quality, namely again your consciousness, is it possible that the whole container in which this consciousness-thing (you and me) is/are living — might the whole container also have consciousness? Why would it not be possible? Then the consciousness underlying everything IS the information layer postulated by Wheeler. This is the essence of TOTCU.

Wheeler’s “Its from Bits” recapitulates a theme that is present at every level of the universe:

  • At the quantum level — the smallest bits of matter and energy, the land of wavicles and virtual particle probability clouds — Wheeler now tells us that if we could see down far enough we would see information bits that program the creation, sustenance, and action of the physical forms they create.
  • Earlier science had discovered that at slightly larger scales becoming visible to us, where we could detect genes, DNA and RNA programs living beings at the cellular level. One might see this as the DNA being the actual being itself, and the manifestations in physical form of that being as only its intimate habitation, like a snail has a shell.
  • Very recently the human race has conceptualized memes that are the operant DNA genes of idea movements across individuals, at the macro level.
  • One might speculate that a higher form of meme exists, the Word that existed at the beginning, at the cosmic level, the largest scale in which we can view everything at once. These phemes — memes creating phenomena downward from the cosmic level — would correspond to the Orders given by God (aka Universal Consciousness) to start the universe and/or sustain it and/or end it. Perhaps there was profound inspiration in the line “In the beginning was the Word”. And the Word was with the Original Consciousness, the primary basis of everything else, and from which everything else is made by means of a superhuman (i.e. beyond our capability) ability to self-program so as to deploy aspects of oneself into phemes creating the universe, and avatar creatures through which to enjoy the play of it all together. In other words, if there is a singular consciousness behind and throughout this universe we experience, and we ourselves are each a single consciousness experiencing this universe, is it not an obvious possibility that the original consciousness is looking out our eyes, playing through the playground IT created? With the further possible option on the part of the Original Consciousness of playing with the universe deus ex machina whenever it felt right to do so. These retrospectively obvious possibilities are given scientific credibility by Wheeler’s dictum that there is an information layer programming the whole universe and everything in it. Without Wheeler, our Theory of the Conscious Universe is purely intuition-based. With Wheeler, TOTCU is an orthodox scientific theory.

As Hermes Trismegistus used to say, “As above, so below”. The same arrangement ending up at every touchpoint level we can detect (quanta, cells, bodies, the universe) gives us firm ground for beginning to accept that we are seeing the way the universe designs itself — Its within Bits, as John Wheeler would say. From which we might dare speculate ahead of what we can measure, and drive our measurement tools toward being able to prove or disprove those speculations/hypotheses/intuitions.

Our Theory of the Conscious Universe (TOTCU)*, which combines information and consciousness, represents a synthesis of many strands of scientific research (relativity, quantum mechanics, extrasensory perception, psychobiology, cognitive psychology) into a single picture. T

Because each of us experiences consciousness directly, this is a funny turnaround for science in a way. For centuries science moved away from introspection toward experiment. Introspective experiments continued in the science of the East, but little in the West. Now, through the external physics of relativity and quantum mechanics, we are led to a resolution of the universe as information existing within a grand biocomputer that is the sum of all of us and in all likelihood has its own perspective on the consciousness that it experiences.

The notion of having a positive relationship with the host of our creation seems as good an idea today as when primitive minds first conceived it. Why not capitalize Host? The universe is at once the most beautiful and impressive thing one can possibly imagine, and now that we know (because Its come from Bits) we must all be living in stuff that supports and works with and is all about information, what could that container be if not some form of computer? What is more like a computer than our own mind? Why cannot mind be the container then?

Just another thing to keep an open mind about.

Best to all,

Bill

*The Theory of the Conscious Universe was the working title of my book, “You Are the Universe: Imagine That”, released in 2014 .

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What if your mind can actually do more tricks than you currently believe it can? Part 3

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Originally posted December 1, 2011

2 more incredibly easy and vitally important experiments you can perform surreptitiously

Experiment 3: Make the Eye Naked

Again, all of these experiments relate to level setting reality. This one is primarily visual. You cannot trust your senses to be exactly reporting what is out there, because there are mechanisms that convert light and sound waves and other inbound media into chemical and electrical impulses and then produce an abstracted report to consciousness. We know that atoms are mostly empty space yet everything looks solid and light does not go through most of it. Solidity is therefore an illusion. What else, then, is also an illusion?

Besides the illusory nature of our senses to begin with, the brain has reducing valve systems in the Reticular Activating Structure (RAS) and other systems that have been survival-relevant as evidenced by our race having survived. Acceleritis™ is a very recent (6000-year) condition in the 4,000,000-year descending of human beings from very clever apes. Nature does not change that fast in 6000 years, hence the condition being so challenging to us living through it.

One of the systems in the brain is the gestalting system. This system is why we tend to see wholes even when presented with fragments or diverse objects at varying distances from us. The gestalting (or whole-ing) system is also affected by Acceleritis in that all perceptual systems are conditioned to sense what the user expects — we see what we expect to see, we hear what we expect to hear, taste what we expect to taste, etc. Acceleritis does this because it is just another means of simplifying things. Another reducing valve. We subconsciously say to ourselves that we cannot afford the time to navel gaze about irrelevant subjects.

In this modern trance, when we look out at the world we think we see the box that is the universe, and objects in that box of third-party space that is the materialist view of the universe. We have internalized that view — the box — into the mental frame through the gestalting system. Yet if you were to be honest about the raw stuff of what you are seeing when you make the effort to look out and beat the gestalting system, and to honestly report to yourself what you see whenever you look out your eyes is more of a cloud without edges but that is wider than it is high, kind of runs off at the corners, but you don’t see anything box-like.

So let’s try it now.

(1)  Simply don’t move your body or your eyes right away but start to look carefully out at what you see right now.

(2)  After a moment you can move your eyes but not your body.

(3)  Then you can move your body but continue to put all your attention through your eyes.

(4)  Then let your attention come back into your self. Give this sequence of four steps a minute, or whatever, before you come back to reading further.

What did you see? If you were waking up with amnesia of even being a human being, what would your eyes be showing you?

This visual soup view that you are now seeing or may have briefly seen before the gestalting program wore you out, convinced many early consciousness researchers that empirically, if they wanted to be honest with themselves, the universe appears to be two types of experiences, two manifestations overlaid over one another, two ways of seeing that overlap three-dimensionally over one another and are always both there:

  1. The sense of being in a box-like universe with lots of 90° angles — this is really a product of the mind along with the eyes
  2. The sense of being in a visual soup of some kind, where if one is far enough into this view suppressing the gestalting system, the most intense things that one sees are other eyes looking back*, wherever in the soup they appear. This is the raw view from the eyes.

This raw view is a much more conducive frame of mind for an individual opening her/his mind to the existence of all possibilities, because the box view is packed with hidden assumptions about the nature of reality.

After 72 hours of remembering from time to time to see this way, please record your observations for yourself, and again, if you don’t mind sharing, you can also post as comments below, anonymously or otherwise. The objective is the greatest shared knowledge. If you do post comments, please make sure the reader knows which experiment is involved. Thanks!

Experiment 4: Look for Secret Messages

Now in the visual soup mode of seeing, try on (see if you can get yourself to believe that it is conceivably true) the hypothesis that all of us are connected in this consciousness visual soup we are all embedded in — we are in a sort of bubble rather than a box. And as we move through the world through doors or otherwise, we go from one bubble into another, sharing each bubble with other inhabitants at that time, and occasionally we get to have alone space to take it all in.

Experimental hypothesis for another time: individuals are able to conceive more things as being possible when seeing in the soup/bubble mode than when they are seeing in the box mode.

This experiment is to be open to possible paranormal experiences in the next 72 hours. You have hopped into your new Ferrari toy — this mind of yours whose belief-shackles you have just burst free from. You no longer assume anything without hard scientific proof. You yourself are worthy of using your own experience, the evidence of your senses although inherently imperfect (you can by maintaining Observer state clarify your senses somewhat), to make your own evaluation of what the universe is, what reality is, what it all means. This next 72 hours is the experimental phase. At the end of that time you can decide whether to continue in this mode indefinitely, or return to your previously scheduled program.

Pay specific attention to hunches, including little signals of objection that are easy to ignore and then you are messed up. Keep a written record in one little book you can easily carry. Review after the first 72 hours and see if these mind-tricks might be worth cultivating further.

Clairvoyance or the sudden suspicion that something specific is happening, has happened or (precognition) will happen. Pay attention to things as little as predicting who is calling when the phone rings. Keep track, write it down.

Seeming to know what someone else is thinking or about to say. Make a note.

As previously reported, science has proven that these ESP phenomena are real. Why not cash in on them yourself? J In the sense of taking full advantage of whatever talents you have to make your life even better than it is now. Making you more capable of helping other people and feeling how good that feels.

All you have to do is to drop the wall you have put up and then go with the flow.

Best to all,

Bill

*Remember to do this “looking experiment” in a meeting. The gestalting program over-ridden, your naked eyes will tend to get more information from the eyes part of the visual bubble; those little patches on the picture will seem to have more energy, aliveness, than the rest of the visual field. You may also see someone look back and feel that they are looking right into you, so prepare yourself for the shock of that moment; have your best cool face in place already. Because you as a primate human get about 70% of your action-trusted information from looking, this eye experiment is one the quicker ways to get yourself back into Observer state when you have slipped out into EOP.

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What if your mind can actually do more tricks than you currently believe it can? Part 2

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Originally posted November 23, 2011

2 Incredibly easy and vitally important experiments you can perform surreptitiously

The goal of these experiments is for you to see if you can actually discover new views of reality by stripping away everything in your mind that is unproven.

To recap from the prior post:

You don’t have to believe in anything. In fact, that would bias the experiments. You have to set aside all beliefs, and suspend disbelief, in order to start.

The object of these experiments is to level set reality – you reopen your mind to the existence of all possibilities, you strip away all hidden assumptions, and then allow reality to teach you what it is, without you imposing any restrictions on it.

The reason we say you can perform these experiments surreptitiously is because there are no obvious outward manifestations. It is all going on within you. No one else knows what you are doing. You cannot lose face, so while you are still attached to that, it cannot distract you from the experiment. This is highly useful because distraction is the main means by which Acceleritis™ reduces our effectiveness. Any way distraction can get tuned down or nullified, use it, so that your entire mind is swept as if by a ring of brooms back from its diffuse expanse, into single-pointed focus.

Experiment 1: Dis-bar Assumptions

Dis-bar or dis-enfranchise, the idea here is that you will no longer automatically throw the weight of your innermost approval instantly on every thought and emotion welling up inside of yourself.

You will leave these arisings on the drafting table a little while longer so you can drink in what they are and reflect on how it is that you have these arisings of this thought or that feeling.

The first experiment therefore is to take advantage of a stolen moment in which you can do whatever you feel like in your mind, to play this game.

If you have a moment now, you can try it for a minute or for as long as you enjoy it.

Pay attention to what you are thinking and feeling and look at it as if from the outside, constructively critical.

Communicate to yourself internally that you are serious about reopening all assumptions. You mean to include reflexes, so the autonomic systems in your body know you are talking to them too. You don’t have any prior evidence whether this sort of hopeful internal communication can work or not, but your mind is open — this is an experiment. You don’t want to bias it in any way. If you sense a sarcastic smile on some face inside you, make sure it is not a bias causer.

Then you wait. The test period is 72 hours after the prescribed action.

The first manifestation will be that you catch yourself making an old assumption or reaction and some part of you calls attention to that. You then probably experience an idea cascade where one idea leads to the other so quickly it’s good to jot down one or two “trigger words” to be able to recapture each stream of thought.

It can take a lifetime to root out every last assumption hidden inside of you, yet the relief and happiness that comes each time you get rid of each single one makes the journey pleasurable and ultimately, not overly frustrating to the point of impatience.

You may find you have prejudices you thought you had utterly stamped out years ago.

You may find out you have vain reasons for jumping to some conclusions.

The list of possible self-revelations is infinite.

About 72 hours after you start, jot down any observations regarding the experiment and if you are so disposed, either anonymously or otherwise, share your observations with the rest of us as comments (see below). Make sure everyone knows which experiment you are talking about – thanks.

Experiment 2: Communicate with the Dead

You may have done this experiment before, but not as an experiment. Inside, communicate with someone who has died. “Yes, I talk to my father all the time, but I don’t know if he hears me.”

This time, realize fully that science says the jury is still out. There is voluminous anecdotal evidence for such communication being possible, and no scientific theory that rules it out except from extreme materialism which is out of fashion in modern day physics circles.

Let yourself be amazed by the realization that it is actually scientifically possible that he or she hears you, according to the latest physics thinking e.g. John Wheeler. If, as that giant and The Theory of the Conscious Universe (TTOTCU)* both posit, information is the ultimate residuum of reality, and as TTOTCU further theorizes, consciousness is that which experiences information, and energymatterspacetime is a projection of universal consciousness – if all these things turn out to be true, then your reaching out might actually connect.

To quote from Wikipedia:

“In 1990, Wheeler has suggested that information is fundamental to the physics of the universe. According to this “it from bit” doctrine, all things physical are information-theoretic in origin.[6]

Wheeler: It from bit. Otherwise put, every “it” — every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself — derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely — even if in some contexts indirectly — from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom — a very deep bottom, in most instances — an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes — no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.”

Note the term “participatory” – Wheeler was not as specific on the details of how we might participate in the creation as is this writer’s Theory of the Conscious Universe. Yet both of us and a whole leading generation of physicists today among other thinkers are seeing reality in a new way, which closely resembles the oldest way. They undoubtedly got there by not only thinking deeply about science and its revelations but also by going inside in ways quite similar to these experiments.

For 72 hours after the experiment (or forever) listen and look for an answering communication in everything around you and inside of you. It need not come as words in the mind. If there is an exceptional feeling, note what is in the field of your senses, e.g. a voice on the radio, movement in corner of eye and you turn to see… what? Regard your every perception as a possible communication from something or someone somewhere.

After 72 hours or so, jot down your observations, if only for yourself.

In the next post, two more experiments.

Best to all,

Bill

*The Theory of the Conscious Universe was the working title of my book, “You Are the Universe: Imagine That”, released in 2014 . In the Theory of the Conscious Universe, the brain is the energy emanated by the Original mind, wound into matter, and our experience transcends dependence on the brain as we are a part of Original mind (and the whole of its experience of selfness). In modern day materialism, the mind is an energy field emanated by the brain. In ultra-behaviorism, the mind is an impotent epiphenomenon of the brain, making believe it is calling the shots but is really just along for the ride.

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How Acceleritis Affects Organizational Effectiveness

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Originally posed November 10, 2011

The metrics used today to judge the effectiveness of organizations are primarily stock prices and their direction in context of the market condition. This is supposed to reflect the equity of the brands in the stable of the organization. It is therefore all built on the fuzzy perceptions that people collectively share, of individuals, brands and organizations. However we think most of the judgments made of which organizations are high performing based on stock prices and general fuzzy perceptions, are largely accurate. We hypothesize that human beings have sufficient intuition and intellect to quickly see a team that works well together and to see the opposite. This post offers a few thoughts on how to move your team toward higher effectiveness in terms of these economic metrics.

You’ll recall my hypothesis explaining the increasing inability of the human race to be effective in managing its world: the acceleration of information racing into the brain per average day.

No one can deny there has been such an acceleration whether or not you buy my method of reaching that hypothesis.

Is there a reader who would argue that the human race is just as effective in managing its world today as it ever was, and that the human race is as effective today as it ever can be? You may be right (if “you” exist) but that is a self-limiting thought. This meme can spread like a virus through our biocomputers – and it has. Defeatism, and self-limiting self-fulfilling prophecies have been observed being inculcated in children by pessimistic parents, and the children then perpetuate these self-put-downs and everyone-else-put-downs for the rest of their lives, passing it on to their children, and so on down through the centuries.

Has there ever been a time when no one could think up a new idea to restore equilibrium to the perilously-wobbling globally interconnected economic system?

Of course, we never had such a precariously interconnected system before. The challenges of our own making have escalated due to tool making and invention. This and media are causal drivers of acceleritis in the first place. A secondary hypothesis posits that the three main causal drivers of acceleritis are written language, tools/weapons, and media.

These are three historic shocks that have created the modern trance. (pre-publication monograph available to other researchers in this field.)

The word “trance” implies hypnotism or drugs or a mental state brought on by high fever – characterized by a reduced level of functional effectiveness, especially in terms of complex challenges. EOP (Emergency Oversimplification Procedure) is my name for the state caused by Acceleritis™. Like a trance of any other kind, EOP reduces our functional effectiveness as compared to when we reach two higher states, Observer state and Flow state. The vector that best describes the continuum formed by these three states of waking consciousness is non-distraction: distraction brings the mind down to EOP; and perfect singlepointed focus where distractions are automatically mentally controlled, yields Flow state, Observer state being the doorway to Flow state. The message inherent in these hypotheses is that we must as a race and as individuals learn to stay focused through complexity. This is the purpose of The Human Effectiveness Institute and the psychotechnology toolware we are creating.

How do organizations actually function today, under these widespread conditions of acceleritis and EOP? For a moment, contemplate government. Then, for a moment, contemplate your own organization. What behaviors and outcomes can you see that are consistent with this hypothesis?

The flow of communication in organizations is extremely non-optimal in most cases I’ve observed during my 30 years of consulting for hundreds of Fortune 500 corporations.

As information moves upward in the typical organization today, much information is purposely hidden. The motivations are primarily fear, and secondarily lust for success – not necessarily greed, because that implies people already have the basics covered, which is not the general condition today.

Workers tell certain things to their managers, hiding their mistakes and also hiding bits of information they sense could be useful to them more when the timing is right and they’ve thought it out to the end of the logical stream. “Wisely” they do not want to blurt out ideas that could be powerful and could also be stolen and used by others to gain the power that the individual lusts for. Alas this “wisdom” (actually cunning) serves motivations that are conditioned rather than consciously chosen. Acceleritis is what has conditioned people to “not have time” to fully contemplate their lives and so they are just rushing through it, trying to keep up, and oversimplifying everything as much as possible. Black and white jumping-to-conclusions is one common tactic for keeping things as simple as possible. None of these acceleritis-driven behaviors (information blocking, black and white thinking, rushing) are conducive to being a high performing individual in a high-performing organization.

Information blocking then continues as information flows upward and across an organization. Managers tell directors what is beneficial to the managers. Directors tell officers what is beneficial to the directors. Officers tell the CEO what is beneficial to the officers. Information becomes overladen with this spin and that, with specific people in the organization taking credit for certain spins and where they should lead, so that they will be promoted if the course is taken and works out. These behaviors trace back in the evolutionary dawn to the level of brain development in the reptile stage. Territoriality and pecking order start even earlier and are exalted in this stage. Mammals and humans have more corrugated cortical tissue and the potential to understand nobility. Nobility mediates selfishness to create an individual in tune with others, and thus able to lead. However nobility is a high level of further human development not inherent in the acceleritis shaped civilization we have built. Nobility must be achieved by bootstrapping oneself out of acceleritis driven EOP and into Observer state in order to clear the mind of its own distractions and robotical behaviors, at which point periods of the highly-effective Flow state occur naturally.

The same is true with organizations. The thing that obstructs information the most is lack of direct contact between the top and bottom of the hierarchy. One deals mostly with peers and superiors. The King/Queen does not disguise himself/herself to go among the people to learn what is really going on. When this occasionally happens “accidentally”, so much is learned it inspires creativity throughout the organization.

The larger the organization the more levels and therefore the more filtering of information for selfish reasons. With companies and governments getting larger and larger, acceleritis continuing to accelerate, the harm of organizational bigness is exacerbated. Plato reasoned that a utopian community could consist of individual groupings of people not larger than 1000 persons, because everyone could stay in touch with everyone else. Above that it would not be optimal in effectiveness because communication would break down and selfish interests would tear it apart. Whether or not he got the magic number right, his prediction has certainly been borne out. The larger the organization, the more important that the leaders find a way to stay in touch with people at all levels of the organization, as many as possible.

One method of encouraging people to share their ideas early so that more minds can work on them sooner is to develop a culture that rewards people for their ideas with immediate positive recognition.

Fear can also be minimized in an organization by a culture that provides constructive feedback in a supportive manner, and never creates a mood suggesting impending punishment and disgrace.

A sense of safety and collegiality makes a team more likely to perform in Observer state, where objectivity and search for clarity are the mood, and there is no compelling emotional tug of war between one outcome and another. In this state, which has been called the basic professional state (Ichazo), wasteful movements are minimized, and people keep their eyes on the real priorities from second to second. There is a relative absence of fear and other negative emotion, as people are not attached to getting recognition, nor fearful of sounding stupid, because this has been the context that management has successfully inculcated.

Leaders need to be role models and this is the strongest form of training. Aplomb is the operative word. Merriam-Webster definition: “complete and confident composure or self-assurance: poise.” Poise sounds more like something one is trying to project. In my mind, aplomb beats poise just because aplomb counter-suggests that the person is striving to portray an image. Instead, to me, aplomb evokes an image of a lead plumb bob hanging down perfectly steadily. That is of course where the word came from, French a plomb, “according to the plummet” (plummet=lead plumb bob in modern parlance). A person in equipoise, not needing to prove anything to anybody, incomparably fearless, palpably unflappable. At rest like a plumb bob but ready to move in any direction responsively.

People, especially leaders, like to show confidence. But in doing so sometimes they show a lack of aplomb either by fleeting angry expressions, trying to make a joke, scratching themselves, or any of a number of other obvious clues including just their apparent tension. This shows the confidence is just a façade. People around them know what it is without necessarily putting it into words in their mind. They know the leader is not truly confident but that it’s just an act. This does not attract real supporters.

If the team does not have total confidence in the leader, their acceleritis will immediately leap them into a mode of performance that is sub-optimal for the organization, where they will be in a mood of self-protection rather than a mood of teamwork, solutions and success. If it is not gamelike, if it is not play, if you would not be doing it except for the money and where it might lead you, you might get through the day but Flow state will be a rarity. Your team needs to see that you are enjoying every minute of it so they realize this way would be more fun than the way they usually get through a day.

Acceleritis is the great enemy of aplomb. Imagine a higher being – God if you wish – or simply a being that is to human beings what human beings are to viruses – a scientific possibility in the viewable universe of billions of galaxies. Somewhere right now such a being probably does exist. Imagine that being is the soul of aplomb. What does she/he have to worry about? Phenomena such as acceleritis and EOP cannot take hold in the mind of such a being, its intuition and intellect — being at far higher bandwidth and information processing power than we operate at — can see through such traps of the mind while we as yet cannot. At least until the individual discovers this truth for herself/himself and begins to work consciously on seeing the EOP trap and subtly sliding around it again and again back into Observer state, every minute of the day, every day, and brings it under conscious control such as a higher being could do far more quickly and easily, with no practice needed.

We Earthlings do need constant practice if we are to make our minds fully conscious of what drives us and therefore in control of that whole process. That’s just where our current bandwidth is at. Comes with the package, the brain as it is today in evolution. Software that has been pre-programmed into our minds before we ever knew to think to ask for a choice about which programming came in and which stayed out. By the time we are five there have been over a billion neuron connections wired into our brain simply by our experiences. The brain automatically learns, and some learnings are actually incorrect — they make wrong predictions about what will be successful, yet they exist in your brain as having power over you to force you or impel you into unthought-out actions that have the apparent safety of being exactly the same thing you always did before in such a situation.

This is conditioning. Conscious choice is preferable to being a robot driven by your conditioning.

It’s not what you have to learn. It’s what you have to un-learn.

Imagine how manicky you and I must seem to a higher space being of true aplomb. Racing around to get things done without the perspective of how unimportant most of these things are in the Big Picture, although we are anguished by them at the moment.

When the EOP caused by Acceleritis™ is stripped away, and the person spends more time in Observer state, where fewer and fewer things can press her/his buttons, the individual exhibits true aplomb, signaling true inner freedom from attachment to anything. True fearlessness with regard to whatever could happen, including death. This is not a common state for human beings today. However, we do see this aplomb in sages, saints, “great men” and “great women”, performers of all kinds from athletes to entertainers to public speakers/politicians – very rare in the latter category, though some of our presidents have had aplomb at important turning points in history, and great deeds emerged from this cocoon.

Your team gets closer to aplomb when you have created the right atmosphere, and provided the right role model. They are less obsessed by the petty little personal biases, ambitions and other stuff that a typical team is totally immersed in and can’t see past. This is not coming from their essence as a person but from the acceleritis buildup of conditioned robotic behaviors driven by powerful neuron clusters in the brain. A person who is not aware of this syndrome can obviously do nothing to counter it. Those who have achieved aplomb have done so consciously, having discovered the inner software and reprogrammed it over time.

Aplomb at its highest level exists because the individual identifies not with the body you see standing there before you, but with the entire universe including the parts unseen, and so has nothing to lose. In India and throughout Asia, this ultimate aplomb is also known as enlightenment, liberation, equipoise, and by other names, and those who have achieved this ultimate aplomb are known as gurus. Real gurus are very rare even in the East, although those on the path to guru-ness are a much larger number. In our blog we are constantly offering suggestions toward a degree of guru-hood for all of us some day in the perhaps not-too-distant future. Science and our own Will shall determine the speed of getting there; however, I hypothesize it is in fact our destiny to all rise to this higher level, or Flow state, through long practice maintaining Observer state from which Flow eventually springs.

Ultimately, organizational effectiveness will be exponentially increased as a result of most of us spending most of our time in Observer/Flow states. This will have a hugely beneficial effect on government, the economy, levels of happiness and quality of life.

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular media blog contribution, “In Terms of ROI“ at MediaVillage.com under MediaBizBloggers.