Applied Behavioral Technologies Institute | Princeton
Tools 4 Conscious Evolution
Tools 4 Conscious Evolution
Good morning to everyone (in spite of what time zone you’re in or when you might be reading this ...),
Consider this a wake up call if you will. I’ve been pursuing an idea on this blog for some time now regarding the ideas of social ontology, the co-creation of reality. This posting begins a new direction for this blog by laying out the foundations for a methodology to advance the evolution of such a social ontology.
The underlying idea contained within the premise social ontology as I use it has been inter-subjectivity vs. subjectivity, the realization that our awareness of the world is in actuality the interplay of all the interactions we have been imprinted by throughout the time of our life. Without our conscious awareness or knowledge these imprints have formed our conceptions of the world over time.
These imprints are cumulative and have at least two layers of impact upon us:
- The first layer of impact is the inclusion of the data/information present in the interaction into our content awareness of the world and our experience in it.
- The second layer of impact is the necessity of adaptation to the unfolding experience we are present to in an ongoing way.
These two layers of impact combine to create a harmonic third form which is the inclusion of the adaptations already achieved that are present in the context of the unfolding experience, in other words the adaptations others have already made. This is like a turbo-charging of the updating process such that we don’t necessarily need to learn these adaptations on our own from our own experiences or from the events we ourselves are present to as the sole form of learning and adaptation.
The maps/templates/patterns of the primary adaptations of being human are fully formed and available for us to incorporate immediately as our neurology is capable of including them, without the need for us to develop each of them on our own.
Many of these adaptations have been developed within the species as a response to the challenges of being human and as such are based or formulated within the premise of an a priori “problem state.” This “problem state” bias from which the development and incorporation of many adaptations has been generates a specific kind of response to the world and the experience of being in it. It is one of my propositions that this “problem state” bias has within its essential structure the demand to organize around and in relation to “problems,” and includes the essential quality of perceiving the world and the events that unfold within it through a “problem state” filter. This filter generates in turn behavioral responses organized around and in relation to “problems.” This organization around and in relation to the “problem state” generalizes and forms a recursive loop continuing the “problem state” itself.
The essential premise of that I’m proposing is:
The “problem state” bias in and of itself is the basis for the continuance of the “problem state” - and only by arriving at and operating around and in relation to something other than “problems” (to be solved) can the human species itself evolve beyond the problems encountered to date as a result of simply being human and holding this bias intact. Essentially the time has come for the human species as a whole and at large to go to where they “problems are not.” For most people encountering the premise for the first time this is largely unimaginable – and yet the premise itself contains the necessary considerations to make it manifest and realized as the birthrite of the species.
Let me step aside for a moment ...
These adaptations I’m referring to are the means for interaction in the world that allow us to move in and through it elegantly. These are the means to recognize and respond to the unfoldment of experience in an ongoing moment to moment manner, as well as to make sense of the unfolding of events through time. These adaptations organize the response potential available to us in every moment, i.e.: the range of response available to us as individuals in regard to any given event. The responses I point to are both ways of being and ways of behaving, yet the only available external, observable data is contained in the range of behaviors, which include both cognition and speech acts as well as all other behavioral responses that are possible. From these external, observable behavioral responses the patterns of adaptation available to the individual become known to others.
As these adaptations are expressed and known to others they become available to others based on the neurological development and capability of these others. Over time the system of individuals present to such adaptations increase the range of the behavioral response available to them as a society/culture, i.e.: the adaptations begin to spread through the society/culture as they become more available within that society/culture. The baseline of the adaptation available within any given society/culture raises to the level of the adaptation of the majority of the individuals operating within it. An individual within any given society/culture operating within a given range of adaptation will have greater likelihood of access to that level of adaptation than an individual operating in a society/culture not presently accessing that range of adaptation, thus creating the organizing paradigm for the adaptation level from which any given culture/society operates at large.
Both individuals and societies/cultures have a given range of adaptation available to them which are organized in relation to the capacity of these individuals and societies/cultures to incorporate and operate the given adaptation.
These adaptations that become available are realized as “value memes” in the Graves’ Model of Emergent, Cyclical, Double-Helix Model of the Adult Human Biopsychosocial Systems. These are referred to by Graves according to a numerically labeled, hierarchical system of values evolution ranging at this time from 1-8 with 1-6 fully described by Dr. Graves and 7-8 with less fully formed descriptions available from Dr. Graves himself. Dr. Graves indicated a continuing spiral of this evolution through at least a level 12. However, what’s most interesting for the conversation I’m opening with you is the aspect of how the first six levels on the Graves’ Model can be plotted against societal/cultural historical evolution. The basic concept here is that the historical events of any given society/culture can be plotted in relation to the Graves’ Model and a societal/cultural evolution can be described in relation to this model using these events as the basis of the description.
What is further suggested by Dr. Graves using his model is that the situation any given society/culture finds itself experiencing is in relation to the value memes that created the circumstances for that particular experience to manifest. The individuals within any society/culture will experience the situation from the position of the value meme they are operating from when considering the situation in question, including the consideration of the society at large. These value memes are dynamic in the sense that they are malleable along the entire continuum of the value memes that have been realized by the individual already and incorporated as realized or manifest patterns in their individual neurologies. While the potential for further evolution is surely possible this model does not directly address the limits or means the evolution of value memes in terms of a direct methodology for generating such an evolution, except to say that as an individual and/or society/culture become both exposed to the need for evolution and the presence of prior evolution by others the movement through the hierarchical value memes becomes available.
We could call this evolution that Dr. Graves discovered and codified a movement through the adaptations available to humans to address the contingencies of the world they find themselves living within. What Graves focused his attention on in his research was uncovering the values held by various individuals and then as applied to societies/cultures and further codifying these into his model. These values would manifest as perceptions about the events experienced leading to the meaning applied to such events. Through the accessing of these values as described within the Graves’ Model specific behavioral responses would manifest in regard to the events experienced. The manifestation of specific behavioral responses in regard to the adaptations of the individual (and therefore the societies/cultures comprised of such individuals) is where I have placed my attention in considering this model and the impact of it.
So this brings me back around to the intention behind these postings as well as to some indication of where I’m going with all this:
Why I find this significant is because the clash of values systems throughout the world’s societies/cultures and even more locally between individuals is among the greatest cause of conflict that arises. When more individuals hold a greater range of adaptations they have incorporated at a neurological level their ability to choose their perceptual experience and the behavioral response generated increases as well. When there is a greater range of response available to the system at large more options become available for addressing the specific manner in which a given situation is addressed and conflict can me reduced, minimized or possibly even eliminated as a result.
This reduction in conflict within the species is a necessary component for the evolution of the species beyond the environmental, social and cultural pillage and rape scenario that has plagued human history to date in my estimation. In essence we as a species must become more capable of a greater range of response to the challenges of being human and moving among ourselves and upon this world than we’ve ever had available to us prior to this moment in time. Where in the past the system could absorb the perturbations of conflict, the density of the system has increased to the point where such perturbations are becoming dangerous to the continuance of the system at large – literally not only threatening the human species chances of continued survival, but that of life on the planet as we know it to be as well.
My intention has been and continues to be to map a specific methodology of evolution of the behavioral response available to an individual, based upon the development of the neurological capacity for incorporating higher levels of adaptation and the inclusion of such adaptations by any given individual so that we- as both individuals and as a species - can evolve beyond the embedded “problem state” bias that has been the basis of much of human individual and social/cultural evolution to date and continue to evolve beyond this bias finding ourselves instead going to where the problems are not ...
It seems to me that a species with so many unique gifts available to it to alter it’s environment as we have available to us as a species has a requisite obligation to use those gifts whenever and where ever possible in the interest of the larger system, which includes the consideration not only of the individual or the species as a whole but also the greater contextual system within which they are contained – and the impact upon the system and all it’s inhabitants.
That’s all for today (tomorrow I’ll spend some time with you looking at some of Graves higher levels ... beyond that, who knows?).
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D. - Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf® Process
Posted in conjunction with Applied Behavioral Technologies Institute | Princeton
If this message makes sense to you or even that you find yourself just interested in where I’m going with all of this please help me to extend this conversation beyond the limits of the existing readership of this blog today. First before you do anything else sign-up for a direct email feed of this blog as it’s posted – you’ll only get an email of this blog and nothing else this is a forwarding service only. Then, please forward this message in whole to whomever you think might also find it interesting and benefit from having access to it and becoming engaged in the dialogue around and in relation to it. It is my fervent mission to make this message available to the largest group of interested individuals possible in the interests of the potential evolution in consciousness within the species. Let me know what I can do to help you to do your part in helping me to potentially help us all.
Copyright 2005 Joseph Riggio, Ph.D. - All rights reserved. You may distribute this posting freely “as is” with neither deletion, substitution or alteration of any kind, keeping intact both this copyright notice and the note below.
NOTE: Bringing about the future will require a different set of adaptations then we as a species have had available to us in the past that has created our past as well as our present ... it is the mission of the Applied Behavioral Technologies Institute | Princeton to bring about to the greatest extant we are capable of the opportunity for the evolution of consciousness required to create the future most desirable for the continuation of the system at large. We propose to do this through the ongoing development of those methodologies which most promote the availability of the highest levels of human adaptation to the greatest number of people possible ... feel free to join the evolution!
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