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Skills and arrogance

Geir Isene 28 Comments

“Could you explain what ‘Knot Theories in N-dimensional space’ is?“, I asked while we walked down the stairs to the ground floor and down the long corridor to the soda vending machine. The Chemistry Department at Oslo University was the venue for the weekly meeting in the role-playing association. It wasn’t much fun to have John Rognes as one of the players in my role-playing world. He was far above anyone I’ve known when it came to problem solving and getting the player characters out of a tight spot. It seemed to passify the other players. But that night I at least got to pick his brains about the passion that brought him mathematical fame. At age 18, he had won prizes in several European countries for his theories that only a handful of people would understand. He was a mathematical genius at the age of three and excelled in math and natural sciences since.

“Sure“, he said, “It’s easy“. He then went on to explain his theories in less than 10 minutes with a simplicity that even my grandmother could follow. I was stunned. I still am. And on top of his obvious genius, he was a fun and social guy. And bereft of arrogance.

I sometimes wonder why Brendan doesn’t display any arrogance. He has a remarkable background with amazing stories from Northern Ireland, plays golf like a pro, can easily make a living as a street entertainer with juggling and magic, competed in the World Championships in Foosball, beats the crap out of me at the pool or snooker table, is the most excellent instructor I’ve met, runs half marathons… etc. Everything the guy touches becomes a product. And he is a social and fun guy to be around.

Maybe the lack of arrogance is because Brendan doesn’t need to prove anything. Just like John. And so many other guys with great skills who are just confident at what they do. Not looking confident and having to prove it, but just being confident.

Time and the incomplete universe

Geir Isene 35 Comments

It seems the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was ahead of Kurt Gödel by a few centuries with his hunch:

There is no law governing all things.

Statue of Giordano Bruno, Campo de’ Fiori, Rome

He also made an interesting statement regarding time:

Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind.

Which brings me to a notion that I share with the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov:

I confess, I do not believe in time.

Help to lighten up :-)

Geir Isene 7 Comments

Anette showed me the range of smilies (emoticons) that can be used in comments and posts on WordPress (and Facebook). And I realized that these could serve well to lighten up some of the more serious discussions on my blog. While many discussions are light and fun and really chill here, some can get a bit heated. Especially when I post about Scientology. So, here are the range of faces that you can use to sprinkle and dress up your comments here. Enjoy 🙄

Video: Scientology and Wikipedia (Internet war)

Geir Isene 17 Comments

My first video on the Church of Scientology’s Internet war created a bit of a splash. The interview I did with J. Swift over at Karen De La Carriere’s lasted more than 45 minutes and will be cut to at least 10 videos. This second video, featured on Tone Ortega’s, covers the church’s situation in 2009 where they were banned from editing the Wikipedia pages on Scientology. I talk here about my proposed strategy on how they could mitigate the situation:

Scientology: The root cause of the harm

Geir Isene 273 Comments

…is repetitive “Duplication“.

Yesterday I wrote a blog post titled, “Defending the detrimental makes you an accomplice“. I indicated there must be some root cause in the basics of Scientology that allows for the harm we see perpetrated by the Church of Scientology.

Today Marty Rathbun wrote a post where he writes what he thinks is the root cause in a blog post titled, “Why Bother?“. He believes it is the induced Certainty that is the reason why scientologists misbehave. He points to the work of Ken Wilber where he says that when people experience great spiritual exaltation, they tend to believe they have found “the only way”. It creates Certainty. In some cases even fanaticism.

But is that the real reason for the Certainty scientologists harbor? Could there be an earlier root cause?

One answer comes from Hubbard himself in a technical bulletin from 8 May 1969 titled, “Important study data”. It is studied as part of an early Scientology course called “The Student Hat”. He writes, in caps:

NUMBER OF TIMES OVER THE MATERIAL EQUALS CERTAINTY AND RESULTS.

The stress on duplication is also prevalent in the counseling (called auditing in Scientology). Hubbard sees the ability to “duplicate” a trauma as the key to removing it. This is based on one of Scientology’s axioms (#12) that says:

The primary condition of any universe is that two spaces, energies or objects must not occupy the same space. When this condition is violated (a perfect duplicate) the apparency of any universe or any part thereof is nulled.

Cryptic? Well, it means that if you are able to fully duplicate a trauma, it will cease to exist as a trauma. While the axiom itself is false and the fact that auditing does not need this explanation of duplication for it to work, we can see that duplication is stressed, not only in training, but in counseling as well.

The act of duplicating in an auditing session begins very early on in Scientology with the level called “Objectives”. At this level, the person receiving the auditing is asked to duplicate the actions of the practitioner (auditor) again and again. The same is done in the early communications training in Scientology.

Brendan pointed this out last Friday. I felt myself reject his view as a sort of knee-jerk reaction since I have had so much gain doing the communications training and the auditing. Aside from getting massive, real and objective gains from both, I do see that the repetitive stress on duplication does mold a person to be more easily controlled. It sets a person up for swallowing Scientology wholesale as it corrodes the person’s critical thinking skills and hence his free will.

On one hand it can produce great gains. On the other, it blunts his ability to question.

Our resident commenter, Harper, puts it this way:

The core “evil” is Repetitive Obedience with an increasing intolerance for free action and choice in the materials application. That is all. That is the core evil.

“Give me that hand.”

“Thank you.”

“Give me that hand.”

“Thank you.”

*** OR ***

“Start …. FLUNK! You smiled … Start.”

In “A Beginner’s Guide to L. Ron Hubbard” Hardeep pointed this out. “If there is any claim of Scientology about brainwashing this is it. Repeat … repeat … repeat …”

Yes Hardeep. Why? Because …

If you control what someone DOES, you eventually control how they think. Look at prisoners who over time cannot function in society because they have been institutionalized. They are forced into a living mold of repetitive acts that SHAPE the person into something they were not before.

If you want freedom, control your repetitive acts.

The TV show by Hardeep is available here: A Beginner’s Guide to L. Ron Hubbard

There are often multiple causes for an effect. Such can be explored in what is called a “fishbone diagram“.

In the case of Scientology and the harm perpetrated by the church, I believe there are several causes. But my view is that the stress on duplication and repetition is a root cause of the Certainty that we see in so many Scientologists. More so then the exalted states pointed to by Wilber. Repetitive duplication is also used in schools, very much so in communism and other patriotic ideologies, in certain types of meditation, tribal chantings, etc. It molds controllability. The Golden Age of Tech (a regimen released in the Church of Scientology in 1996 and version 2 released just now) takes this to new heights. It enforces obedience.

Rebels get into trouble. Conformists are created. They survive.

This is my current view, subject to future revisions.

Another interesting angle on this comes from another commenter on this blog, freebeing.

HP-41: CLR & STATUS

Geir Isene 34 Comments

I’ve had this simple program on my HP-41 for years, “CLR”. It clears the registers, stack and Alpha as well as setting the correct flags and time/date formats. It also checked to see if the clock had been reset (as it does when the battery runs out) and prompts for Time and Date if it has.

Meeting Garth and Joe at our "mini HHC" (the yearly HP Handheld Club is in the autumn). Great to meet with some fellow geeks and talk HP calculators. Yeay!

Meeting Garth and Joe at our “mini HHC” (the yearly HP Handheld Club is in the autumn). Great to meet with some fellow geeks and talk HP calculators. Yeay!

On my trip to the US, I met with Joseph Horn and Garth Wilson. And it was from Garth I got the idea to extend my CLR program to include a simple status line with the current week number, the current moon phase (percentage of illumination of the moon) as well as the time remaining to the next upcoming alarm, if any.

The moon going through its phases

The program is simply run by XEQ “CLR”. This clears all register, stack and Alpha as well as setting the right combinations of flags. It returns with zero in the display. If you press R/S it will prompt for “DATE^TIME” if the clock has been reset (DATE, Enter, TIME) and then display a status line: (ALARM) WEEK# MOON% – Example: “01:32 27 -35%” which shows it is 1 hour and 32 minutes till the next alarm goes off (no such number if there are no future alarms), it is week #27 and the moon is illuminated 35% and it is waning (a positive number means the phase is waxing/growing). Pressing R/S again shows the running clock (the CLOCK command). You can also access the status line (and then the clock by pressing R/S) by XEQ “STATUS” without having to clear registers, stack and Alpha first (thanks Anette).

Here’s the program listing.

Hope this is of use to someone 🙂

Defending the detrimental makes you an accomplice

Geir Isene 933 Comments

No beating around the bush here.

Read Anette’s post on her blog, then consider this:

Lives are ruined in the Church of Scientology. Every day.

The root cause of the harm done in the church lies within Scientology itself. No matter how you want to twist and justify what’s going on in the church, there is no way that the church could end up doing this much harm while it has in its possession the ultimate tool to do everything right. There simply has to be one or more root causes within the teachings of Scientology itself to make this cult evolve as it has. And the root cause(s) is not “misapplication”, “lost Scientology knowledge or tools”, “bad management”, “bad policy” or “a faulty ethics system”. There is something very wrong with the basic Scientology mentality. The mindset. The fundamental approach and principles.

Because if the fundamental principles, approach and mindset was sound and right, the decent people in Scientology would have straightened out the scene a long time ago.

So, if you are knowledgeable in Scientology, it lies within your powers to help uncover the damaging root cause(s). To convince others there are none or to defend the infallibility of Scientology makes you an accomplice to the crimes committed by the church.

And if you have gotten gains in Scientology. If you know it can do good, you harbor the motivation to uncover the reasons within Scientology that perpetrates the damage to people’s lives. Because if you want to save the good before the subject becomes dreaded beyond repair, you need to be quick on your feet to find the evil within and root it out before the good suffocates.

Let’s get to the bottom of this, let’s dig out the harmful parts to help stop the harm, save the good within and again focus completely on helping others.

Bits of This & That

Geir Isene 11 Comments

It got real busy here the past few days with lots of visitors, e-mails and other communications. Final leg done on my book, and it’s heading for production. A new calculator on its way through the customs – a prime looking HP-65. And Stein Halvorsen and I will be on the air with another Midnight Magic show tonight (Radio Nova, Oslo). Enjoying an old book on particle physics from 1965. The kids are enjoying summer holidays and in two weeks we’ll be heading north above the arctic circle to visit my dad. Had a great chat with Brendan today – he gave me a new perspective on Scientology… you don’t join Scientology to remain or become a rebel. Conformity rules. And it may just boil down to Scientology’s stress on duplication. Chew on it and see what happens. What I want to see is people regaining and exercising their free will. More nonconformity, please. And more crazy. And on that note, I leave you with something very crazy (at least if you can understand Norwegian) – DJ Broiler:

Why does the Church of Scientology continue to repeat its mistakes?

Geir Isene 124 Comments

It continues to harass its critics. And it continues to backfire.

It keeps on trying to stifle free speech. And it keeps on backfiring.

It perpetually lies in public. It perpetually comes back and bites them.

Why is the organization not learning from its mistakes? Why does it have the learning potential of a gold fish?

I think the short answer is that it is ingrained in their very makeup. When Hubbard created Scientology, he sealed the deal by ensuring the subject was engraved in stone. He wrote the policy “Keeping Scientology Working” that made sure no one could alter or improve upon what he had created. And it is this fixed mentality that runs through all of Scientology. Hubbard created Scientology, its policies, its modus operandi and there could be nothing wrong with it. So the church continues to do the same thing over and over again expecting better results.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Albert Einstein)

I do not think the church is capable of learning from its mistakes. I think it is doomed for this very reason. Because when it are up against the Internet, Wikipedia, Anonymous and the modern, morphing, learning world, the Church of Scientology’s antiquated policies will ensure an epic fail.