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”
Tag Archives: Working with the Gift of Set
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 “
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”
Constraints: Working Memory and Span of Control
Human awareness has operating limitations built into its structure. Perhaps the most widely known was discovered by George A. Miller in 1956 concerning “working memory.” Through empirical studies, Miller found that participants could keep between five and nine elements in their working memory, with seven being the average. This leads to a simple formula, “7Continue reading “Constraints: Working Memory and Span of Control”
Constraints: The Human Zoo
Since the Neolithic, humanity has lived increasingly in environments resulting from its intentions and unintended consequences. As societies have become more complex, we increasingly live in environments that only minimally reflect the environmental context in which we originally evolved and thrived. This has had some profound effects that essentially go unnoticed. Also, since the Neolithic,Continue reading “Constraints: The Human Zoo”
Constraints: Cognitive, Affective, and Conative
One of the better models of the mind, likely with fairly ancient roots, separates it into three dimensions: cognitive, affective, and conative. The cognitive covers the linguistic and symbolic modes of thought. The affective deals with emotion and feeling. The conative deals with action and activities. Simplified terms for these would be Thinking, Feeling, andContinue reading “Constraints: Cognitive, Affective, and Conative”
Constraints: Abstractions Towards Culture
“The mind has to be built out of specialized parts because it has to solve specialized problems. Only an angel could be a general problem-solver; we mortals have to make fallible guesses from fragmentary information. Each of our mental modules solves its unsolvable problem by a leap of faith about how the world works, byContinue reading “Constraints: Abstractions Towards Culture”
Constraints: Orienting by Desire III
Orienting By Desire: Challenges For those of you doing the exercise portion of this series, take another look at your Challenges. How does other people influence your challenges? What assumptions about yourself and the world you inherited form others? How can consciously using the influence of others be a tool towards overcoming your Challenges? Re-writeContinue reading “Constraints: Orienting by Desire III”
Constraints: Behavioral and Cultural Transmission
There is an apocryphal tale told among Primatologists that, unfortunately, has some roots in actual research. As an experiment, five monkeys are put into a cage together. In the center of the cage is a staircase leading up to a set of hanging bananas. Seeing the bananas and being monkeys, the monkeys step onto theContinue reading “Constraints: Behavioral and Cultural Transmission”
Constrains: Orienting by Desire II
Look at your sheet from the other day outlining your Visions and Challenges. Re-read the past few days’ essays related to identity and cognitive biases. How can these ideas, and your further exploration of these topics, be used to rethink and develop your sense of your Challenges? Are specific modes of identification helping to createContinue reading “Constrains: Orienting by Desire II”
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