Ken wrote:

I was told (and I can't prove it's wrong) that your will moves your arm, but it is your intent that fires your will; and that intent runs both consciously (foreground) and uncounciously (background).

So it seems to me their intent was running backgrorund for a great while, arranging all the little things necessary to evoke the circumstance desired.

There are some interesting studies being done on the genetic control of behavior. Its there, its real, Did you ever have a basis for doubt? Our genetics drive us to be where we are,partly (or wholely?).

Seems to me this couples back to the operating system model of self. If will is one of the attributes of the self meta-program is intent an attribute of the OS. Does the OS reside on the individual biocomputer or is it distributed paralell processing?

Is intent the invisible hand and whose hand is that anyway? -------------------

My father gave me a weird education while growing up. He would repeatedly ask me "why is that person doing that thing? what are they feeling? what does it feel like to be them?" Then later he would explain people were in their curent situation or circumstance because THEY WANTED IT THAT WAY. They had spent much time, effort and money to be in that state at that time, and that I was not to interfere,whether I approved of their situation/circumstance or not.

Here we need to tear this apart.

There is the learning technique that ken's dad taught him. Will you give us more ken. From the empathic wholistic modeling arises understanding/knowledge (power? entrainment? resonance?) Watch kids playing pretend, modeling the world, following an adult, etc.

And there is the conclusion which he had ken draw, with which I may not agree. Its a good lesson for keeping out of trouble, avoiding disapointment, not aquiring karma, etc. It will not change the world.

Just because intent brought you to where it did does not mean that that is where it must have nor that it is best, it just is. Part of free will is being able to over-ride innate drives. (or not)

Unless we postulate an over-riding coordinating intent leading to correct outcomes then each individual arrives at an idiosyncratic outcome having tested genetics and experience against environmement and time. At every step a complex dance of transaction between potential and actual, between self and other (environment).

The transaction is the message, the mirror reflects back as in a fun show, congruent but not identical image, and so an ever changing dance with ourself (its just one big standing wave).

So there. Now, if that will is not free, how much is it going to cost?

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2000

Answers

I can say a little about the modelling technique. It's a bit like a term called "Miller's Law" that Suzette Haden Elgin talks about (she's the author of "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense" series). You take what the other person is saying as true, and use your imagination to construct the world required for it to be so. An explicit cognitive maneuver to try and walk in their shoes. As compared to that physiological maneuver of matching as much of their physiology as you are capable of.

The exit point to the modelling strikes me as being able to state why it makes sense. Sort of a local optimum of behaving for them -- any other explanation would make less sense FOR THEM. At that point you have the beginnings of a workable representation of where they are coming from (and have probably stretched your world in the process).

To do the modelling well it's like you can't import your own values or agenda into the activity or it blinds you to what is "really" going on. Sort of like that injunction of "objectivity" that a scientist is to maintain.

After that I get stuck about what "should" be done unless I'm in an explicit context like therapy. Sort of like being able to count the alligators, but not readily making the jump that this calls for the swamp to be drained.

I know it doesn't change the world by itself. It's a starting point to being able to work with the world without making it a worse place. Sort of a "Do no harm" starting point?

Changing the world has always struck me as projecting a personal agenda out there. And improving it - excuse me, according to whose value system?

Small improvements, local in nature like working the drainage flow in a field by plowing so as to properly crown the overall shape --- okay. Redirectly rivers --- hmmmm. How's the Aswan dam doing these days? Boldness I believe in, arrogance is scary.

"If its not free, how much is it going to cost?"

Well everything of worth, because when you lose your childhood superstitions you lose your all your heroes as well as your ghosts. (Luckily new ones appear?) Campbell the mythologist talks of a small initiation exercise that he participated in held in a cave (in Hawaii?). They were to take five small objects and associate them with the five most important things in their lives. Then, being led through the caves they would reach a portal, where a guardian would demand an object to allow passage. Deciding which important thing to sacrifice, and then ultimately having to yield them all... He reported the exercise was transforming, and spoke with contempt of one of the initiates who was "clever" and who at each portal rummaged around the floor of the cave and gave the guardian a pebble. Thus this initiate made it through the entire initiation sequence without yielding any of his personal treasures (he who dies with the most toys wins?). Hello??? Winning each battle and losing the war.

-- Anonymous, March 30, 2000