I’m going to bring a little more focus in form to this weblog, mixing short posts in a more traditional weblog format with longer essays divided up into parts so you don’t get big long chunks of text to wade through.
And we begin with a paper called Self Organizing Systems: a tutorial in Complexity
This is a tutorial on the processes and patterns of organization in complex natural systems. No technical details are included in describing the models or theories used. Instead, I focus on the concepts of self-organization, complexity, complex adaptive systems, criticality, the edge of chaos and evolution as they pertain to the formation of coherent pattern and structure in nature.
The paper looks at mechanisms of self-organization (thermodynamically open, many parts with local interaction, nonlinear dynamics, and emergence) and then moves into complexity, chaos and evolution. It’s a great introduction to complex adaptive systems and a rich source for metaphors.
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In case you think that intuition is just some wacky new age concept with no place in a real world which demands reason and logic, consider the case of Stanislav Petrov who single handedly saved the world from nuclear devastation in 1983 on nothing more than a gut feeling:
It was Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov’?s duty to use computers and satellites to warn the Soviet Union if there were ever a nuclear missile attack by the United States. In the event of such an attack, the Soviet Union�?s strategy was to launch an immediate all-out nuclear weapons counterattack against the United States.
On this particular day, something went wrong. Suddenly the computer alarms sounded, warning that an American missile was heading toward the Soviet Union. Lt. Col. Petrov reasoned that a computer error had occurred, since the United States was not likely to launch just one missile if it were attacking the Soviet Union �? it would launch many. Besides, there had been questions in the past about the reliability of the satellite system being used. So he dismissed the warning as a false alarm, concluding that no missile had actually been launched by the United States.
But then, just a short time later, the situation turned very serious. Now the computer system was indicating a second missile had been launched by the United States and was approaching the Soviet Union. Then it showed a third missile being launched, and then a fourth and a fifth. The sound of the alarms was deafening. In front of Lt. Col. Petrov the word �?Start�? was flashing in bright lettering, presumably the instruction indicating the Soviet Union must begin launching a massive counterstrike against the United States.
Even though Lt. Col. Petrov had a gnawing feeling the computer system was wrong, he had no way of knowing for sure. He had nothing else to go by. The Soviet Union�?s land radar was not capable of detecting any missiles beyond the horizon, information that by then would be too late to be useful. And worse, he had only a few minutes to decide what to tell the Soviet leadership. He made his final decision: He would trust his intuition and declare it a false alarm. If he were wrong, he realized nuclear missiles from the United States would soon begin raining down on the Soviet Union.
He waited. The minutes and seconds passed. Everything remained quiet �? no missiles and no destruction. His decision had been right. Stanislav Petrov had prevented a worldwide nuclear war. He was a hero. Those around him congratulated him for his superb judgment.
Thanks to Barista for the link
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From Curt Rosengren comes a link to a Wall Street Journal article on trusting intution:
“Watch for bias. Don’t confuse intuitive thinking with personal subjectivity, which often emerges as a result of prejudices, biases, fears, fantasies or purely emotional reactions. Constant analysis of your thinking is the only way to winnow genuine intuitive grain from emotional chaff.
Keep a record. To determine how strong your intuitive ability is, keep a record of your intuitive insights, or hunches, as they occur. Rate them objectively. If a reasonable number have worked out, cultivate and pay attention to your intuitions.
Diary-keeping is the best way to separate genuine intuitive hunches from wishful projections. If you discover that many of your hunches turn out to be wrong, take stock. Try to learn how your personal interests, wishes, fears and anxieties tend to distort your perceptions and block the way to clear and valid intuitions.
It’s a normal function. Realize that intuitive thinking is a normal function of the brain, not a euphemism for clairvoyance, mystical precognition or similar questionable phenomena.
Intuitive thinking requires thorough spadework on a problem. You’ve got to have the basic facts and information before intuitive processes can take over. Jerome S. Bruner of Harvard University says, ‘Individuals who have extensive familiarity with a subject matter appear more often to leap intuitively into a decision or to a solution of a problem — one which later proves to be appropriate.’
A combined approach. Use intuitive and analytic modes of thought in combination. The intuitive mode isn’t opposed to the rational, cognitive mode, but complements it. Typically, intuitive insights both precede and follow the exhaustive use of analysis, reason and logic.
Depending on the problem, decide which mode is most appropriate. Where the intuitive mode is used first, the analytic mode should be tried afterward. In fact, all intuitive thinking should be subsequently transposed into linear, logical order for articulation and implementation.
Analyze and wait. Genuine intuitive insights are not under conscious control or will. You can’t predict when they’ll come. So tackle problems consciously. Learn as much about them as you can using the analytic processes. Acquire all known data. Laziness often is the source of faulty hunches.”
Following up on the music postings this week, this list is a guide for animating improvisation, because the best kinds of improvisations come from the gut as intuitive responses to a situation. But again, intuition, like improvisation, needs to be honed with practice and reflection. There is no book that can tell you how to refine your intuition, but articles and lists like this point the way towards a set of practices that will put you more in touch with the skills you need to be able to think on your feet.
Agility comes from a strong ability improvisation and improvisation arises out of a well-honed intuitive sense. Most decisions one needs to make in a complex and changing environment are not self-evident. They are made out of a field of choices. Honing these agility capacities makes one better able to make better choices, finding the je ne sais quoi that rises above the avilable data and creates something truly new and spectacular.
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Got this great little piece from Killing the Buddha by way of wood s lot:
“I got a job pushing monks into the ocean. The monks don’t seem to mind, and the abbot says that my threat promotes awareness. So I’m sitting here on my observation chair, watching the mainland recede, working on my peripheral vision. Not that the monks are fast. They are at peace in walking meditation, so I don’t want to interrupt the cadence so much as divert it, shuffle out into the hot sand, barefoot and cringing, and see if the monk notices my presence. If he turns and nods, I back away. But if he is lost in thought? Whoosh. Most of them surface facing up, smiling. Sometimes — and this is part of their beatific appeal — they gurgle. ‘To drift is to return,’ as the abbot would say.”
There is a difference between being lost in thought and meditating that opens one’s awareness. In meditation, as in other activities in which the flow state is so important, one must remain in contact with the environment, in fact the purpose of the activity is to enhance connections with the environment, both inner and outer.
To do this, to have this luxury of developing a practice that expands our awareness, it is necessary to embrace the external reminders of the real world, for those are ultimately the things that seed our practice.
For more on Buddhist perspectives on working with our own reactions to disturbances outside of us, have a look at the practice of lojong mind training, a practice of working with the messiness in the world by developing our own compassion. Especially useful in this respect is Pema Chodron’s book, Start Where You Are.
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For a while in the mid nineties, CBC ran a satire called “The Great Eastern” which billed itself as “Newfoundland’s Cultural Magazine,” aired by arrangement with the fictitious Broadcasting Corporation of Newfoundland. While looking for something else, I stumbled over their website, featuring a bunch of episodes:
“The Great Eastern–Newfoundland’s Cultural Magazine, started as an hour-long summer replacement on CBC Radio in 1994 and since 1996 was a half-hour program on the regular Saturday morning schedule. Despite critical acclaim and a dedicated fan base, the CBC effectively cancelled the show after the 1998-99 season, further alienating the thousands of listeners out there looking for something intelligent, well-written, and above-all funny on the radio dial.”
This was one of the best shows ever to air on the CBC in the mid nineties. Absolutely brilliant writing, and very subtle humour. Very much in the British tradition (see People Like Us, for example). Rumours are that the GE crew will be back in some guise in the summer, but not as The Great Eastern.