Category Philosophy

The very wide field of philosophy

Self correction

Geir Isene 59 Comments

Self correction is perhaps the greatest of all abilities. The ability to correct one’s own thinking, emotions and actions, to correct one’s own path or one’s own goals to whatever one wishes. This ability relies on not having to defend oneself or any methodology.

To the degree one is defending self, one is glued to one’s own past and self correction suffers. To the degree one is defending a methodology, one is less able to self correct in that area.

An example pops to mind; the Scientology upper levels (the OT levels). As a person progresses up the “Bridge to Total Freedom”, he may get gains. These gains may lead him to defend Scientology. And to that exact degree he will shut himself off from self correction. He may feel “on top of the world”, making him ignore signs of own inabilities, failures, even depression. He feels that “nothing can hurt him”, making him cover up his emotions where he is in fact hurt by another. He may feel obliged to be rational, leading to blind spots of own irrationality.

But Scientology is just a one of a million examples. Every religion and every methodology injects this liability in its adherents. We see this in science where scientists cling to a theory. Energy, effort and IQ is spent defending that theory rather than seeking refinements or even better theories. We see this in marriages where a man is eager to defend his ways rather than improve them. Politicians are perhaps the worst of breed.

Defense weakens the ability to self correct. Loosing one’s need to defend can open up new areas to self correction.

Play

Geir Isene 99 Comments

Had a meeting today with an interesting person. We talked business, life and philosophy. He presented an angle to “Fuck it” that changed my view on letting go – a view that is more direct, active and productive. Play is more positive. While “Fuck it” has great merit, Play is easier to adopt.

You can tell a person to “let go” of the negative emotions he creates. He can perhaps do that. Or perhaps he will struggle to figure out how. You can guide him, coach him, train him to just “give a fuck” and “chillax”. But it may take a while with some serious guidance.

Telling him to play more in life is easier to grasp, easier to do. Play is doing fun stuff that is unserious and not demand results or consequences. Ask the person what “play” is to him. Then encourage him to do more of that in his life. Voilá.

soccer

Xtreme

Geir Isene 11 Comments

“It really is extreme. Extreme people with extreme skills, doing stuff people wouldn’t think possible.” Adrian was half proud, half nervous as he walked through the doors of the most mythical company in town – aptly called Xtreme. Unpretentious, an almost anonymous location. But inside, a nerd’s heaven.

Xtreme

The interview was nothing like he had imagined. And very far from any interview he had experienced before. He was to pitch right in on a project for a week. And then his team mates were to decide if they wanted to let him on board. He had to impress them, ha had to be extreme. “Impress people like Claes, Florian, Maria and Michael. Damn, I have to be on top of my game here, cuz those guys are freakin legends in the open source world.” But so was Adrian. He had run several projects that has gotten good traction on Github, and that was precisely why Florian had asked him to come and show off his awesome. But Adrian was never the bragging, arrogant type. Shy and humble, submerged in an intense interest for developing the next coolest thing – he so wanted to work with these guys.

Getting on board meant to actually own an equal piece of the company and share the responsibilities, decisions, salary, perks and work with everybody else at Xtreme. And it meant getting to work with the top notch developers in the world, doing stuff that really matters. No wonder Adrian was tense.

But the week went surprisingly well. His team mates were including and helpful and he got plenty of opportunity to show his skill set. He worked on a technically challenging and interesting project that would prove extremely valuable for a customer building rescue helicopters.

He got to see the organization up close. Or rather, the lack thereof. Without any executives or hierarchy, the company was light, quick and ultra-dynamic. “But how do you make important decisions, like moving the company to new premises?” he had asked. “It’s like in this village called Endesh in North Tanzania“, Florian replied, “they get together and decide.” “All of them?” “Yeah all of them. All of us.”

“But don’t you need executives?” Adrian looked somewhat puzzled. “Why?” Florian inquired. “What would you need an executive for? Do you need to be told what to do? Or what not to do? Or do you need someone else to motivate you to do your best? Because if you need those things, we don’t need you.” Adrian got the drift and answered “Well, I sure haven’t needed any of that to get me this far. The bosses I’ve had have more often than not been in my way, deciding on stuff they really don’t know and without the hands-on knowledge required to make the right choices. All while they think they know best.” Florian smiled. “Then we’re on the same page here. There is no set process, formal way or exact procedure for what we do. We have the best guys in our field, we get shit done, learn, and get even more shit done. It’s a continual evolution.“

Facts or inspiration

Geir Isene 12 Comments

David wondered how he could best present the strategy to the board. Did they want pure facts or did they want inspiration?

While some of the board members were science types and driven by facts and figures, others were people-oriented and motivated by emotions.

If he were to be succinct and sum everything up as terse as possible, he knew of no better way than using a HyperList. If he were to relate the strategy with inspiration and emotion, the best way was to tell an old fashion story. He could sum everything up in half a page using a HyperList. Or he could write a short story a couple of pages long that took them on an inspirational journey. The story would describe how the company would be when the strategy was fulfilled using a fictional character to relay the points.

He decided to give them a choice by summing up the two forms in a simple HyperList:

OR: 
    Pure facts = HyperList
        The most succinct presentation of data
    Inspiration = Short story
        Words painting pictures and inviting emotions

And then he wrote this story.

My hunches and conclusions to Life, The Universe and Everything

Geir Isene 52 Comments

In my quest to figure out existence, I felt it liberating to sum up my conclusions and hunches this far in the most concise form possible. Although none of my conclusions are permanent, they serve as stepping stones for further research. My hunches are mere pointers to research directions.

Question Hunch Conclusion
Is space and time discrete? Yes – and this is supported by what I consider to be the most promising cosmological theory to date, “Loop Quantum Gravity”.
What is gravity? It is the force mediated by the spin 2 boson “Graviton”. Einstein’s “space curvature” is in reality gravitons acting on matter and time.
What is dark matter? Gravitons have tiny mass and may even be self-interacting. This cater for the lacking gravitation pull needed to explain why galaxies can rotate faster than the visible matter would allow for.
What is dark energy? Dark energy is a name to describe why the universe seems to accelerate over time. This may be explained by the combination of vacuum energy with a graviton of non-zero mass.
Do black holes really exist? Perhaps, but without any singularity. Quantum laws such as the Pauli Exclusion Principle stops gravity from collapsing fermions into a singularity. An event horizon may still exist, though.
Will we ever devise a Theory of Everything? No. A ToE is described as “a hypothetical single, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe”… which was proven impossible by Kurt Gödel and his Incompleteness Theorems.
Is the universe infinite? No. But there is no end to it – as long as consciousness creates more, there is more universe to be observed.
Is the universe real? No, it is created every discrete moment by consciousness. We see what we see because we create it. The universe is the sum of a massive co-creation of all consciousnesses involved.
Is there free will? Yes. Potential free will, when exercised is consciousness which in turn observe its own creations. Existence is not pre-determined or deterministic.
What happens when I die? I get a reboot – out of and into the game of life. I arrive back at a higher understanding and get to participate in the game of life with a different identity in a different body. Much like ending a computer game only to start another.
Higher level of understanding? Are there many such “levels”? It’s not “levels” per se, but rather many plateaus or layers like an onion. The movie “Matrix” is an excellent metaphor for my fractal view of existence.
Which world view is ultimately the correct one? All of them

… To be revised and revised and re…

hcg87_gmoss_960

Coaching and mental training – a summary of my approach

Geir Isene 16 Comments

With the inspiration and help from Brendan Martin, I have written an article that sums up my approach as a coach and mental trainer. It could serve as the seed for an upcoming book that we write together on this topic.

I would like to thank the many hundred subjects that I have had the honor of helping – including the many young people that was struggling in life. A special thanks goes to Tiril Eckhoff who has been an excellent subject and effective measuring stick for what this approach can do.

The article is available as a free pdf (download or read on Scribd).

It is written as a primer to people I coach and as inspiration to those with a purpose of helping others.

What if everyone was right?

Geir Isene 38 Comments

What if Christianity was right? What if Islam holds the truth? And Buddhism? And Hinduism and the Native Americans and the Inca and Scientology and atheism? What if Science also got it right? All at the same time.

Perhaps all viewpoints are correct. Perhaps they represent their own unique view of truth.

Of course it would be hard to fully reconcile two diametrical different viewpoints of “God exists” and “God does not exist”. Or perhaps not.

While each ideology or world view tend to hold their own as the Only Truth, it would be interesting to see if a more universal view could be uncovered by treating each view as looking at truth from but one angle.

Back in 1991 I was interviewed by a student of the Theological Faculty of the University of Oslo. He was doing his master thesis on “Reincarnation in Christianity”. While he didn’t believe in reincarnation himself, he was fascinated with the 19 references left in the Bible after diligent purges were conducted early on in the book’s history. He knew I believed in reincarnation and wanted my views and my past life stories. This example goes to show that seemingly opposing views could be reconciled.

matrix_eye_by_kibarutovs-d571hir

A crude attempt at unification of world views could go like this: The universe is created. Continually. There are causes and there are effects. A higher cause may be called God. Different versions of this cause can go by different names. There are lesser causes and some animate bodies and bring them to life. In doing so, the causes form identities. These identities die when the body dies and what you consider you is no longer. But keeping with the conservation of information (related to “unitarity” in quantum mechanics), the information you carry is never lost. The core of you, the cause, the soul, passes on “to the other side” or a “higher understanding” where this cause can decide to once again forge an identity and participate in experience. There may be several or even infinite levels of such “higher understandings” forming a fractal universe. The movie trilogy, “Matrix” may serve as an artist’s representation of this. Identities from higher causes may be seen as Gods, angels or the like. But none are omnipotent, only potentially so – as taking on an identity exchanges potential for actuality and experience. In keeping with Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems, the physical universe is not complete – it is not all there is. There is always more truth to be uncovered, more realms to understand. The journey never ends and the journey is the destination.

This crude example would make the core of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, all ancient mythologies, new age, angels, spirits and the physical sciences into aspects of truth. Their sum could be even closer to truth. A more complete truth may evolve as more aspects of world views are unified.

Instead of starting with “that viewpoint must be wrong”, perhaps truth is better uncovered by “how can that viewpoint be right”?