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”
Category Archives: Working with the Gift of Set
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”
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”
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””
The Elusive Obvious: Logic
One of the foundational tools of the Gift of Set derived from, of all things, land use. In trying to understand how to utilize their lands best, the Egyptians developed a set of methods for understanding divisions of space and their relationships. These methods would become the foundation of the ideas brought to Greece byContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: Logic”
The Elusive Obvious: Introduction
Unless you engage in a practice specifically related to it, you probably never really think about your breathing. Since you were born, you have always done it, as if the lungs were designed to breathe themselves. Similarly, in humanity’s default conditions, most people never think about thought. Their minds have always thought as if theyContinue reading “The Elusive Obvious: Introduction”
Constraints: Further Readings
This post marks the end of the section about some constraints upon the Gift of Set. As such, I would like to share further reading suggestions for those interested. As with all things Setian, these are suggestions, not prescriptions. You are free to pursue or ignore them as you see them resonate with your Work.Continue reading “Constraints: Further Readings”
Setemheb 