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Cognitive Toolkit Meets Psychotechnology

David Brooks has done what I wanted to do — tried to do for many years but couldn’t make it happen, at least not in such a big way. My hat’s off to him!

In his book The Social Animal — and in the popular reaction to the book — David has called the world’s attention to the levers that we all have inside. Things that make us better — strategies — little acts of will within our own minds. Levers we don’t leverage to their full advantage. I have called them “psychotechnologies” since 1976. David calls them “one’s Cognitive Toolkit”.

If you have read my earlier post about Acceleritis, you know I postulate that our culture has been accelerating since the advent of written language some 6000 years ago, and that the number of question-producing stimuli falling upon the average one of us each day has in that short period increased exponentially, given our 200,000 years in existence as homo sapiens.

If it were not for Acceleritis, most of us would quickly catch on to what David calls “equipoise” — the learnable trait of looking inside objectively so as to see how to improve oneself. In the infopressure stream hitting each and every one of us each second each day (with a few oases here and there), the development of this trait remains stunted. This is to my view a pandemic — a world-wide mental degenerative disease.

Because David has grabbed the mic and the world is listening, I see this as an opportunity to compare my psychotechnology theories to those set forth in The Social Animal. This can make for quite a few of these postings until one of you says talk about something else already. 😀

I’m serious. I really believe it’s important for all of us to learn the traits David wants us to learn — and a few he hasn’t gotten around to yet.

All of the easily-listable things wrong with the world reduce to human behavior, which reduces to what makes us tick inside.

What has been needed for 6000 years is a practical toolkit for overcoming the distractive power of Acceleritis and instead focusing inward — without losing one’s job etc. In fact, making even more money and succeeding in far more important ways as well, because of having seen inside more clearly than one sees in the average daily state of consciousness called “normal” on Earth in the current era.

What we call normal I call EOP: Emergency Oversimplification Procedure. We are not in the moment, savoring the moment, we are trying to get past it and on to the next thing on our list or one of the distractions that arise constantly to draw us away from our list. We are in a robotic state.

What I consider to be the really normal state a human being could be in all the time is the Zone aka Flow State — what David calls “Moments of Transcendence”. We would be there were it not for Acceleritis. That’s my theory anyway.

We can get there with the toolkit. David’s got some of it, I’ve got some of the same and quite a few different tools, others throughout time have had pieces of it. Let’s use it all. The more diverse the toolkit, the more balanced and accessible to all.

Science can help us discover the toolkit and validate it — but that is a very slow process. We might blow ourselves up — literally — if we wait for every tool that works to be validated by science before we use it. We should use it because it works. That is the apropos rule for dealing with runaway culture. Use what works — what is a win for all concerned.

David was in Flow for much of his Keynote at the ARF. But he didn’t mention the state. He gets it about the tools, but did not present an integrated theory — I’m guessing he would modestly say that the scientists from whom he draws his ideas are the ones to look for if we want theory — practical tools is where a writer might feel compelled to stop.

In my case, since I see myself as a scientist (in my approach to research), I have no hesitation to offer whole-cloth theories. My theory of Holosentience encapsulates the tools David presented — and those presented in my book FREEING CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS — within an explanation of how and why we move between states of consciousness — EOP, the Observer State (David’s “Equipoise”), and the Flow State.

By Holosentience I mean that in Flow State we are inhabiting our entire sentience at once — we are totally aware, open to information from unconscious (subconscious) sources — we are in a “Moment of Transcendence”. In the Observer State we have detached from conditioned mental/emotional circuitry that functions autonomically. In EOP we are dominated by the latter robotic circuitry. When distracted by Acceleritis, EOP is the probable result.

That robotic circuitry has been known classically as the ego. It is a subsentience that takes over, and as Dan Goleman and Richie Davidson say, “Hijacks the mind”.

When you are “in” your subsentience you think that’s all there is. You are the whole you that you always are. That’s what you assume. But there is another more noble and elevated part of you that you are oblivious to.

Neuroscience linkages to the three brain states hypothesized by my theory are presented in a previous posting, The Three States of Waking Consciousness, with guidance from Dr. Richard Silberstein, CEO of Neuro-Insight.

In some but maybe not all upcoming postings I’ll continue to bounce my ideas off those of David Brooks. It will be illuminating fun for all, I hope, including me. And maybe David is reading and getting some kicks too.

Best to all,

Bill

Plenty of Time for the Human Race to Wake Up

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Assuming that our theory is correct, the human race is currently in the grips of an Emergency Oversimplification procedure (EOP). This is a worldwide disease of the mind that we don’t know that we all have.

It started no more than about 6000 years ago when written language revolutionized our lives, kicking off inventions, weapons, and ultimately in the last half millennium mass media. There is now a rush of information into the human brain on a daily continuous basis.

Not only do the media pour in this complex and question-producing information, this info-density is also the product of citification, another result of written language. We now mostly live in each other’s faces while the brainwash drumbeat of media creates a ceaseless background context.

Havenotism (the belief that it is normal and appropriate for some individuals to have not) developed because certain individuals within the human race became more accomplished faster at the use of written language, inventions and weapons. Weapons and media are simply part of the inventing capability emergent from written language. Before written language, there was the use of inscribed and sculpted images to aid in the types of thought conducive to inventing things. But without written language, more complex inventions such as machines and machined weapons were very difficult to construct.

Written language not only captures and VISUALLY* freezes thoughts (which are therefore retrievable), it also trains the mind to think analytically about parts and wholes in a way that is visualizable. Imagery can become more complex when the mind is trained to use eyes and mind together in the process of written language. Inventions come about because of complex imagery and written language. Complex imagery cannot develop without the symbolic thinking and logic skills engendered by written language. Written language therefore stands as the most important invention of the human race.

It also brought on a temporary flood tide of ideas, which has hypnotized and intoxicated us all into this rapture we call EOP.

I say temporary because I am thinking of the time scale. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 150 million years. We have had written language for 6000 years, about 0.004% of the time humans will rule the Earth assuming we are as durable as dinosaurs. So as I said in the title of this posting, we have plenty of time as a race to get past EOP.

Best to all,

Bill

*Homo sapiens are a sub-branch of the family of primates, and the perception dominance of primates is visual – whereas for felines and canines it is olfactory (smell) and for dolphins it is auditory (hearing). Written language would never have been such an empowering and seminal invention for us if we were not visually dominant.

The Three States of Waking Consciousness

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Western science has it that there is a single state of human consciousness. In his landmark book The Meditative Mind, my wonderful friend Daniel Goleman presents the ancient Eastern wisdom of the Visuddhimagga and other sacred texts, showing ten waking states above an access state which itself is superior to the everyday state on the path of concentration, and nine such waking states above access state and everyday state on the path of insight. This suggests that there are around a dozen waking states.

Obviously in the East they allowed self-observation to be considered a path to objective knowledge, a technique little used in the West. This is why psychotechnologies – ways of controlling our mental states by acts of will and concentration – were developed first in the East.

If there were only one state of waking consciousness, this means that Osama when he was reportedly high on heroin and about to be shot was in the same state of waking consciousness as Einstein was in when he had the insight of Relativity and the relationships between matter and energy, space and time. How plausible is that?

Even if we want to be snobbish know-it-all Westerners, unscientifically closed-minded and not even interested in experimenting with Eastern mental maps, is it not pretty easy to allow that there could be more than one state of waking consciousness?

As in the paths of concentration and insight in the example above, it is possible to conceive of a number of different maps of states of waking consciousness, all being true from their own viewpoint. There could be a map showing what you go through when you focus on your concentration in itself, and discover higher and higher degrees of your ability to concentrate. There could be a different map for what you experience when you practice ways of achieving deeper and deeper insights into what exists in your purview.

Here at The Human Effectiveness Institute (THEI), because we are singularly focused on the goal of increasing human effectiveness, we divide waking consciousness into three states. We recognize that there are other valid ways of distinguishing states of consciousness, and that there are undoubtedly sub-states within the three states that we use as a basis for our psychotechnology. However, for utilitarian reasons, we simplify to these three states:

Emergency Oversimplification Procedure (EOP). The “functional” state of the human race today. You are acting like a robot. Somebody who knows you well can predict accurately what you will do in a certain situation. He or she could get rich making bets on your next actions, were there anyone to take those bets. You always say the same things, keyed to the situation. You have the same feelings and go through the same mental loops when the same types of things happen to you. You are focused on quickly classifying incoming situations into types so you know what to do.
The Observer State. You can see that you have been acting like a programmed machine. You can see that it’s hard to stop the robot part of you from controlling your actions even though you are wide awake to the situation.
The Flow State. Aka The Zone. Often for short periods, some of us are able to spontaneously do exactly the right thing down to miniscule subtleties, and it all happens automatically while you watch your self do this, from your ringside seat.

We hypothesize that there are underlying measurable brain states corresponding to these three experiential (perceived from the inside) states. It’s possible that one drives the other but we need to be careful in coming to conclusions about which drives which.

In EOP, we hypothesize that there might be high functional connectivity (or functional coupling) between neural networks in Brodmann Area 10 (sense of self; aka BA10) and the limbic system and other brain areas involved in the ancient fight-flight reaction syndrome.

In the Observer State, we hypothesize that there is high functional coupling between BA10 and the prefrontal lobes.

In the Flow State, we hypothesize high functional coupling across a number of brain regions, signifying natural harmony, possibly appearing in brainscan as symmetrical and balanced, possibly crystalline pattern of moving energies. Users of low cost EEG devices such as Mind Mirror since the early 80s have seen this yantra/mandala--like pattern in EEGs of advanced meditators. The Mind Mirror device is conducive to showing these artistic brain patterns during subject Flow State because the display shows left and right brain from “above”.

Computer science professor and prolific science fiction writer Rudy Rucker uses the pre-existing term “autopoiesis” (self-creation) to mean the degree of control an individual has over his or her self. (Rudy’s characteristically quantum mechanics infused twist on the term makes for a paragraph interesting to read.) Using Rudy’s meaning, the three states of waking consciousness as we have defined them, constitute stages along a continuum of self-creation/self-control. In EOP, regardless of what one thinks, one is not in control of one’s actions, which are being driven mechanically by people who push your buttons and by what appear to be stray events. These events may or may not being dragged (by inter-personal signaling among mirror neurons) into your purview, attracted by your fears; it certainly seems that way. Your fears keep attracting the feared situation.

In the Observer State, there are degrees of control. At the earliest stage of learning how to be when in the Observer State, one can see what one’s robot is doing but cannot stop the robot from doing it. Later on there is a higher degree of control.

In the Flow State, one has such a high degree of control that it has become autonomic such that the individual’s will has no inertial drag as it processes through to motor control.

We define “psychotechnology” (the word had earlier meanings in the 1930s) as anything that helps people get from EOP into either or both of the two higher effectiveness states of waking consciousness.

I have been creating such psychotechnology for my own personal use all my life, and began packaging it for others in the 1970s. In 1976 I founded the Human Effectiveness Institute (THEI) and others who saw the effectiveness increases from the early psychotechnology gathered around THEI to help disseminate it. We are working toward an even more effective package with the next book and its accompanying DVD video.

We hope you will experiment with these psychotechnologies on yourself.

Looking forward to that. All the best,

Bill

Increasing Profits for U.S. Corporations is a Social Good

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With all our flaws, the world is a better place for having the U.S. in it. We make our share of mistakes but our intentions are always good. We are trying to help out the world as best we can.

Not that we are alone in this. More and more nations every year are awakening to a viewpoint of enlightened self-interest that recognizes our connectedness and the fact that in order for any of us to succeed as nations, we must pretty much all succeed.

It hasn’t always been this way. The world was neatly isolated into silos as recently as a few hundred years ago. No more. All the world economies are linked like dominos.

Companies that used to be American have been bought by others outside America. The surviving American Red White and Blue companies are getting better. Reducing waste. Improving products. Improving processes. Improving marketing and sales. Their profits are going up. As they become less likely to be bought by a foreign company, the U.S. becomes stronger.

With pressure on our jobs and our homes, and everybody working harder than ever before, it sure would be great if we could find ways to pull together and uncork that good old American ingenuity to make our businesses more profitable, to benefit all of us, worker and owner alike.

It sure would be great if we could find a way.

There is a way.

Having moved from the Industrial Age into the Information Age, we now live with an emerging and ever-growing mountain of information we never had before. From which we can learn things. Some of what we learn will make our companies more efficient. Especially in marketing, where we (and the rest of the world) have been terribly inefficient. Yes, we know half of it is wasted effort. Actually, IRI studies years ago showed that 60% of marginal advertising spend and 80% of marginal promotion spend is wasted. We are talking about the better part of a trillion dollars a year being wasted. Even on the scale of a war, we are talking serious money.

What is the bug in the system? We postulate it is the emotionalization of privacy. Certain elements of the press and the government have made hay – sold papers so to speak – with an emotional appeal to make privacy so sacrosanct that balanced rational decisions (vs black-and-white, yes or no choices) are no longer an option. I guess it helped elect a few of them so I can understand from their point of view. But there is a social good to making our research/information/learning backbone more efficient.

The extra bonus to being a columnist who writes about privacy as a protector of his/her readers is that one is not just being entertaining, but is helping the reader and the world.

The irony is that a columnist can be seduced by hidden ego motives into adopting the savior role on the privacy front and wind up consequently working against the needs of the reader, and the electorate. We need two things: privacy protection and a successful U.S. economy, capable of supporting lots of well-paid workers who don’t have to kill themselves to make ends meet and own a home.

Whoever persuaded a large chunk of the American public that privacy protection and obtaining good information to make businesses more efficient were mutually exclusive? We can have our cake and eat it too. It does require data handling methods to be improved far beyond their current state of practice – to the level of the few companies certified by ISO 27001*, who prove we have the technological capability. It also requires the elimination of personally identifiable information except in actual customer relationships where buy-in has been established, and other such warranted cases.

This is not rocket science, but rather a matter of disciplined processes. It is achievable. And the prize is an accelerated economic recovery with a very long growth phase. Nothing has to be sacrificed in the process except long-winded rhetoric.

These points are made definitively in a 62-page tour de force citing chapter and verse entitled “Tragedy of the Data Commons” by Yale graduate Jane Yakowitz, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School. Among the many salient findings: there has been an intellectual effort to paint anonymization as pragmatically impossible, which it clearly is not. Anonymization is achievable through mathematics. The number of data points required to re-identify a person or a household is the science employed today on a daily basis by HIPAA consultants. If we rigorously employ the mathematical science, anonymization cannot be defeated except by the old bugaboo that affects everything and can never be legislated away: human error.

“Tragedy of the Data Commons” is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1789749

Best to all,

Bill

*ISO 27001 is a standard set by the nonprofit International Standards Organization, and covers every aspect of maintaining information security from the procedures one uses when non-employees enter the office to the self-locking of computers and other devices after a few minutes, from the types of firewalls one uses to the way new employees are checked out, and much more.

Note: As we had mentioned, the plan had been to post our thoughts on The Future of Media Research on 4/24, but we are still working on it so it will post on 4/29.