When functioning, systems operate with general efficiency within the context in which they operate. However, any system can be subject to stress, threatening the overall system with collapse and dissipation. Most systems have two means of coping with stress being applied: translation and transformation. When a system adjusts to stress via translation, it maintains theContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: Translation and Transformation in Systems”
Monthly Archives: October 2023
The Elusive Obvious: Holonic Systems
One approach towards thinking about phenomena that can be profoundly powerful is that provided by Systems Theory. What qualifies as a “system” is relatively simple: a set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole. Once understood, systems thinking can provide a powerful tool for understanding physical, chemical, biological, and social phenomena and giveContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: Holonic Systems”
Orienting by Desire: Compelling Visions
Why does having a Vision for yourself matter? Why bother revising your Visions regularly? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi estimates in Flow that the human mind can integrate roughly 126 bits of information per second. This seems like a reasonably large amount of information at first glance. However, it is estimated that our nervous system is being bombarded by millionsContinue reading “Orienting by Desire: Compelling Visions “
The Elusive Obvious: Decision Making
Basic decision making by humans follows a fairly similar pattern. This pattern can be made conscious and used as a tool, or it can be allowed to operate in the background, often with bad habits. Each phase of this pattern has its own pitfalls, which will be discussed. I bring up this topic in theContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: Decision Making”
Saturday Diversions
The Community of the Future
Note: This lecture was given the night that the Temple of Set was legally incorporated. Michael A. Aquino attended this lecture following submitting the corporate formation documents. Dr. Iyers would become his Ph.D. advisor. In a time of confusion, constant change, and continual crises, we are ever tempted to elevate our tentative half-judgments to theContinue reading “The Community of the Future”
Orienting by Desire: Visions
In my previous discussions of the constraints on the Gift of Set and the extended exploration of how those constraints inform our Challenges, I mentioned Ipsissimus Flowers’ “Awaken, See, Act” formula. In its basic form, it means Awakening to present circumstances, Seeing what is actually occurring, and then taking Action. In following this formula, youContinue reading “Orienting by Desire: Visions “
The Elusive Obvious: Dialectics
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. John Maynard KeynesContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: Dialectics”
Saturday Diversions
The Elusive Obvious: The Hazards of “Is”
When looking into human stress responses, I learned about one of the odder side effects of the Gift of Set several years ago. Unlike nearly every other animal on the planet, which only experiences stress under conditions of actual threat, humans can be stressed chronically. The root of this comes from one of the criticalContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: The Hazards of “Is””
Setemheb 