Tag: michael bahktin

About Very Long Term Cycles

On By konstapelIn CompletedLeave a comment

Kondratiev did not look at very long term waves that span many generations. He also did not realize that the Kondratiev-Wave contains a Fractal pattern, the fractal of the Seasons.

A fractal-pattern repeats itself on many levels with different periodicity. If you understand the fractal pattern, the levels and the frequencies of the Harmonic Universe, it becomes very easy to predict the short and long term future. According to Kondratiev the Depression will end around 2012.

The harmonic levels interfere, creating resonances or overtones. The self-referencing harmonic structure of the Universe can be seen in Nature, Music (the Music of the Spheres) and Colours (The Seven Rays).

One of the most important cycles for this moment is not the Kondratiev but the Precession. It is a very long time cycle with a periodicity of about 25.000 years.

The Cycle played a very important role in Astrology. The precession predicts a very important transformation around 2012. This transformation coincides with the start of the Spring Phase in the Kondratiev Cycle.

Around 2012 the Very Long Term Precession Cycle synchronizes or conjuncts with the “long term” Kondratiev Cycle. The Cycles are “added up”. Around 2012 we will experience a Giant Jump into the State of the Imagination and Creation.

Another very Long Term Cycle is the Cycle of Culture. This Cycle has a periodicity of 1250 years. Strangely enough this cycle also moves into the Spring-State around 2012.

The coming Spring-state in 2012 will start with an Innovation the World has never seen before.

The states of the cycles, the Seasons, are related to “Themes” or “Meta Narratives” (Myths). The old Magi, the Astrologers, used these themes to explain what would happen to the layman.

They projected the Story of the Precession on the Movement of the Stars and the Constellations. The Story of the Precession, the Zodiac, can be found in many myths in many cultures. If you understand the Myths of the Zodiac you know what will happen on the very long term and why it is happening.

The same Meta-Stories, written in the language and the metaphors of the Middle Ages, were later projected in the Cathedrals of the Masons. If you walk the labyrinth you will be guided through all the stages.

The meta-stories always appear in literature, art and in our time in Movies and Games. The Theme of the current Season is easily identified when you understand the Meta-Patterns.

Michael Bahktin found the meta-patterns (Chronotopes) of the Magi in literature and Joseph Campbell found the same Meta-Narratives when he researched ancient Myths.

He called the meta-patterns the Hero with a Thousand Faces. What is going to happen in the Short Term is visible in your Dreams. Jung has spent all his life to find the pattern behind dreams (The Archetypes). The Archetypes can be easily mapped to the meta-patterns of the Hero, the Chronotope and the Zodiac.

When you reflect about your dreams, the movies you like or are afraid of, the books you read, the paintings you paint, the poems you write and even about the “slips of the tongue” you know what is going to happen in the short term. Your Unconsciousness knows everything and the only thing to do is find the key to understand what it is telling you.

The theme of the Quest for the Grail, the Infinite Resource, is the theme of our Time. This theme is not a coincidence. Coincidences (signs and signifiers) are also not happening for nothing. They are trying to tell us something. The Western Mind has lost its focus on Signs, Dreams and Coincidences. They are funny or interesting stuff to talk about. I advice you to take them seriously because the Winter of Kondratiev in combination with all the other conjunctions will finally force you to accept a World behind the World you are Seeing.

The World behind the World is already known by the Physicist. They understand that the World is a Self-Reference, a Fractal. They also know that Linear Time is an Illusion and that there are many Universes. These Universes are now highly mixing with our own Material Universe.

This happens when major waves conjunct. Suddenly people start to communicate with Ghosts, talk with Trees, are aware of Extra Terrestrials and have strange feelings about being in different times in history at the same place. Believe me You are not getting Crazy! You are moving like every Soul on Earth into the Great Conjunction.

The Cycle of Culture repeats itself just like the Kondratiev. We are not only going to repeat the Great Depression (Kondratiev) and the Phase of Aquarius (Precession). We are also repeating the Dark Middle Ages (2008-1250=758). Don’t you think our Time has a lot in common with this phase in Western History? It is not difficult to detect the new Witch-hunters (the Inquisition), the new Crusades (Iraq, Afghanistan), the new Plague (Aids) and the new global warming (The Medieval Warmth Period).

About the Spiral of Time

About the Kondratiev

About Joseph Campbell

About Bahktin

About the Middle Ages

About the Renaissance

About the Industrial Revolution

About Genesis

On By konstapelIn Biology, CompletedLeave a comment
A very interesting principle that helps to shape education is the principle of Genesis. The principle of Genesis can be seen in the development of the human fetus. It follows all the stages of human evolution but the process takes nine months instead of millions of years.

The most interesting scientists that researched genesis can be found in Russia. They lived in the time of Stalin and tried to cope with Marxism.

Their names are Lev Vigotsky, Yury Lotman’s (the Semiosphere), Vernadsky‘s (the Biosphere, now called Gaya) and of course Bakhtin‘s (the Logosphere). All of them felt that we are reaching a new “jump” in the genesis of our “systems” (thinking, living and commun-ication).

Vigotsky believed in the Genesis of Education. To educate a person we have to teach him all the important stages in the development of a certain science. The only thing we have to do is detect the Major Events or “Jumps” or “Phase Transitions” so we can speed up the process.  

Vigotsky argued that the human evolution is largely connected to the development of tools. If we want to learn more about the Major Jumps of  human culture we have to look at the genesis of our instruments including our “tools of the mind”.
 
The other important issue of Vigotsky is Context.
 
People learn when they are operating in the same context the science is applied. The major learning process is Exploration, making mistakes and learning from the mistakes.
Education is only successful if the teacher stretches his pupil a little bit. He (or she) has to Push (Challenge) the learner into a higher State of Understanding to make the next step and to explore a new territory of Understanding.

Bahktin, Vigotsky, Vernadsky and Lotman all believed in a Cyclic system that suddenly moves to a new level. At this moment we would classify their science as Chaos Theory.

If Bahktin, Vernadsky and Lotman and Vigotsky are right we have to prepare ourselves for a new step (Gaya, The Semiosphere, The Logosphere, The Internet).

This step will bring Cooperation on a New scale, Earth.It is not very clear if the new cooperative structure will guide us of if we will guide the structure ourselves.

I think the first thing is happening. We are already confronted with the “New Wave” and the Wave is increasing his strength. It will “Blow Away” all the Old structures like a Tsunami.

If we look at human cultures the same pattern is visible. We have-to move (!) to certain stages to reach the next stage of development. We cannot enforce Democracy on a culture that is in the stage of the Kingdom or the Tribe.

The same happens in the field of economics and the market. The capitalists are enforcing free trade but they protected their own trade when they were in another stage of their development. We have to accept that the development countries are able to protect their trade because we (the West) did the same thing long ago.

About The Story of Your Life

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The term “story” originates from the word “historein” or “histor” meaning “to inquire” and “wise man, judge”. It is also related to the term “seeing”. A story was meant to give insight.

To create a insightfull story a special framework was used that was based on a cyclic-model. Creating a story was an art and story-tellers (bards) were highly professional people travelling around the country. Storytellers triggered the imagination of their audience.

There is another way of Storytelling. It is based on the Conduit Metaphor. In this case a story is something that is exchanged between people. It is a recall of a situation or chain of situations out of memory.

Stories of this kind can be used to give insight when we use the theories of Roger Schank. Roger Schank researched human memory.

He realized thet people learn when their expectation is violated. At that moment they are very open to the advice of an (older?) expert that made the same mistake and found another solution. Stories of experienced people can be used to teach not experienced people.

When people tell a story out of their memory they use a framework. They select and chain the situations in a certain way. When you analyze life-stories this framework becomes very visible.

The framework behind the stories can be related to the theory of Michael Bahktin. Bahktin showed that there are five basic story-frameworks (tragedy, romance, myth,..). When you use the tragic framework you act like a victim. In the mythical framework people play the roles of   kings, heros, magicians, fayries or other mythical beings. Jung calls these mythical beings archetypes

Goffman showed that people play a role in a play. Most of the people don’t know they are playd by the play. They are pawns. Behind every play there is a new play (a meta-play). Somewhere somebody or something is guiding or directing us in our lifes. Some people call this directing principle karma. It is very helpfull to know your karma. If you resolve this puzzle you are free to play the play to want to play. You have left the Matrix.

What can you do?

When you want to use story-telling as a tool to educate please understand that some people are telling the same story again and again. They are pawns and not experts. Experts are hard to find.

When you want to plan interviews the 80/20-rule is applicable. 80% of the stories you collect are about failures and not about solutions or new inventions. 

When you want to apply storytelling remember that all the stories that have to be told are already available. They are available in myths and literature. Use one of the many old stories and bring them to our time. 

Personal stories are a variant of old stories. The most interesting persons to look for are the Mythics or the Heroes. Joseph Campbell has collected and analyzed the meta-myths.

If you are looking at your own life-story try to find the play or myth you are playing. Try to find out if you are pawn in a play and determine who is your director.

Find out who or what is calling you to go on a Quest. Don’t resist the calling. In the Quest you will learn a lot about your self. In the end you will find the Grale or another tool humankind is waiting for.

Please remember that Heroes are never awarded. Others will take over your invention and claim succes. Don’t bother about that. They are still played by the game of competition. Once in their life (perhaps 1 minute before they die) the will know their own calling.

Leave the play and create your own play. Live a unique life-story and inspire others to do the same. Use the toolmaker methaphor.Explore and create new tools. Share your inventions with others.

Prepare Yourself for a Spectaculair Change

On By konstapelIn Completed, Not StartedLeave a comment

About A year ago I was writing a strategy for a company. Suddenly I got the idea I was writing something I had already written a long time ago. I got the feeling that “History was repeating itself”.

I started to investigate and suddenly I found a Pattern. The pattern I found was the Kondratiev Cycle.

Behind the Kondratiev Cycle another pattern appeared. Kondratiev related the cycle already to the Seasons. The Seasons where at time also a subject I was investigating.

I was very interested in Acupuncture and Chinese Philosophy. I already found a mapping of the World Views to the Seasons and the theory of narratives of Bahktin. With ease I could translated the themes of the Kondratiev Cycle to Major Narratives. I made a picture and started to calibrate. The dates I found where significant.

Another insight appeared when I started to have a look at the website of The Cycles Research Institute. This Institute has gathered a immense amount of data about cycles.

The most interesting document was a document of the Founder of the Institute (Dewey) where he tried to explain strange relationships between cycles that were “independent”. What he found was something he called Harmonics. Harmonics are created when waves are entangeld. They can be compared to overtones in Music.

The last and most dramatic insight came from Ray Tomes. He found a pattern behind the pattern of the harmonics Dewey discovered. This is his main conclusion “The Universe consists of a standing wave which develops harmonically related standing waves and each of these does the same“.

If you are interested in Religion you will you notice that he is writing a very old “mystical” statement. He is writing about what people in India call The Svara.

“The proper translation of the word Svara is the current of life-wave. It is that wavy motion which is the cause of the evolution of cosmic undifferentiated matter into the differentiated universe, and the involution of this into the primary state of non-differentiation, and so on, inand out, for ever and ever. The Svara is the manifestation of the impression on matter of that power which in man is known to us as the power which knows itself“.

The pattern behind “History Repeating itself” was the Current of Life Wave.

What I also found out is that the numbers behind the pattern were related to multiples of 5. I started to calculate “Important dates” and “Major Overtones (Harmonics)” and went back as far as 5000 BC. The pattern fitted. I was completely overwhelmed by the regularity of the clocks and the many levels that were in Motion. The Universe was playing Music, The Music of the Spheres.

The last thing I did was to use the pattern and move forwards in Time. I found a remarkable date (2012). It was the date where many many cycles of history would harmonize (A major conjunction) and “start to swing back“. At that time I did not know about the predictions of the Maya’s and others. I learnt about that a year later.

I can tell you one thing.

Prepare yourself for a very spectaculair time ahead.

Nothing will stay the same.

About Life Stories

On By konstapelIn Completed, Not StartedLeave a comment

When you want to build a Story-Based-Game the best way to interview is to ask people about their Life-story. Let us first have a look at the The Foley Center.  The Foley Center of Northwestern University is specialized in Life Stories.

Dan P. McAdams of the Foley Center uses Agency and Communion as the major “modalities in the existence of living forms“. These two modalities may be viewed as two thematic clusterings in life narratives, each articulating important life goals, strivings, needs, and desires”.  When I read the articles of McAdams it was not difficult to see that he was using Interpersonal Theory .

Because I was able to map Interpersonal Theory to The Theory of Will McWhinney . I was able to to open up a huge potential to litterally Play with Life Stories. Will has also mapped his World Views to Games Levels.

When you consider a Life Story as a Narrative a mapping to the Theory of Bakhtin about Chronotopes is also very helpful.

When you use the concept of the Chronotope you will see that a life-story takes Place in a named Time/Place-continuum (A House, The Office,). So not only ask When an Event took place but also Where it took place. A place is are very important factor in a life story. Many people remember the atmosphere of a Place. The House I was born felt Warm and Cosey. In my office I felt Alone.

When we had a look at the thoughts of Bahktin about Context we realized that we were really trying to describe a Situation and that other Actors in the Situation also plaid an important Role (Father, Mother, Manager, …..). So not only ask Where and When but also Who was playing an important Role.

Many people are unable to make a distinction between the Self (I AM) and the Role they are playing in a Situation. This is an important cause of conflicts. When you are a Manager you have to play the Manager and not be the Manager.

A life story is a Sequence of Situations that are always started by a CRITICAL Event. There a many ways to classify Events but a simple classification is a high point, a low point or a turning point.

In his book Paths of Change Will explains that there a many “Strategies” to change a life and of course a Life Story. Every connection of a World View to another World View can be considered a Change, a Conflict, a Game or a Dialogue.

An Event is related to the the World View Sensory. Sensory People view the world as a Causal Chain. When an Event takes place the Emotions come into play. Emotions are related to the Social World View.

According to Nico Frijda:

  • An emotion is usually caused by a person consciously or unconsciously evaluating an event as relevant to a concern that is important; the emotion is felt as positive when a concern is advanced and negative when a concern is impeded.
  •  The core of an emotion is readiness to act and the prompting of plans; an emotion gives priority for one or a few kinds of actions to which it gives a sense of urgency – so it can interrupt, or compete with, alternative mental processes or actions. Different types of readiness create different outline relationships with others
  • An emotion is usually experienced as a distinctive type of mental state, sometimes accompanied or followed by bodily changes, expressions, actions“.

Emotions Evaluate a Situation. When they Evaluate a Situation they use a Concern to Priotize. When they are able to priotize with ease or when the Event is Dangerous the Action is Unconscious. When a dangerous event takes place the Reptile Brain starts to work and the only re-actions that are possible are Fight, Flight and Freeze.

When a Major Event happens the priotization becomes Conscious. The Actor has to make a Decision. This decision is crucial for the next step (a new Situation).

When you have a look at (or feel, or listen to, ) Life Stories the Process of Decision Making is the most important factor. Socials always feel what the Others are doing or start to take care. Unities start to manage and want to restore Order. Sensories take care of Themselves (Ego) and Mythics want to restore harmony. What we see here is the Self-refererence of the Model of Will McWhinney. Inside the Emotions the World Views are again at play.

If we know how people Evaluate we are able to learn a lot about their Personality.

When we look at the Chronotopes of Bahktin we also know their Favorite Life Narrative. A Sensory uses the Chronotope of Destiny. His or her life is a sequence of events that are just happening.

A Social uses the Biography, the praise of a public figure who has accomplished something in life. When he has not accomplished anything his life is worthless. He is a total failure.

A Mythic is always searching for something (The Grale). His story is described by the Chronotope of Adventure. Deep inside the Mythic wants to find Rest and Harmony. When he finally finds Rest he feels the urge to move on. Therefore the Life of a Mythic is full of Turning Points.

When we know the Favorite Life Narrative we also know “How to Help“. A Social needs to be re-valuated. He needs a tap on the shoulder. He needs to be praised.

A Sensory has to stop to Wait and See. He needs to do something and learn from his mistakes. Somebody has to tell him that others have made the same mistake and he is able to prevent mistakes by looking (!!) at other life stories of comparable people. The most important persons could be his father or mother. They also have made mistakes and when they just tell their children frankly what they did many children would simply learn from the parents.

I hope you understand why the theory of Roger Schank is so important. His theory is able to help the Unity/Sensory-combination (Experts or Craftsman) and this combination covers about 80% of the people in Western Civilization.

Roger has now created an impressive Virtual School for Children all over the World. He is teaching children to learn a CRAFT again. He is not teaching THEORY but he is giving children the opportunity to ACT in REAL LIFE SITUATIONS. He is teaching them to become a Nurse or an Engineer. Craftmanship is HIGLHY needed in the underveloped countries.

The Virtual School is FOR FREE. It is financed by people who want to take care of the poor children in the World. The Virtual High School is using Games and it able to train Children to move to the level of the University within a very short time (max 8 years). Roger has made connections to Famous Universities in the US. They are also giving away their educational content (again Games developed by Roger Schank!) for free.

Funny enough I was unable to find anybody in the Netherlands who just wanted to try out his Virtual School. Every School and University in The Netherlands is re-inventing the Wheel. This is a Rule. The Dutch Government is spending billions to create something that is already available. This is also a Rule. If you want to know more send me an EMAIL.

About Pan and Anarchy

On By konstapelIn Completed, Religion3 Comments
The colors in this picture relate Panarchy to the Theory of Change Paths of Change. (PoC) Poc is a Fourfold model based on the Quaternion of Jung.
3D model of Panarchy
2D model of Panarchy.

In 2002 the book Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, (Gunderson, L.H and Holling, C.S (eds)) was published. To my knowledge this is one of the most important books of our time.

Panarchy is the first theory that is able to explain the behavior of complex ecosystems. It is an integration of many former theories in economics, biology, ecology, sociology, mathematics, psychology and other sciences.

Have a look at RA to learn more about Panarchy. You will be surprised by the amount of interesting articles and insights.

In this blog I will use long citations: “The world has not collapsed because natural ecological systems have the resilience to experience wide change and still maintain the integrity of their functions.

The world also has not collapsed because of human behavior and creativity. People do learn, however spasmodically. Change and extreme transformations have been part of humanity’s evolutionary history. People’s adaptive capabilities, have made it possible not only to persist passively, but to create and innovate when limits are reached.

The controls determined by each set of biotic structuring processes within terrestrial ecosystems are remarkably robust and the behaviors resulting are remarkably resilient. That robustness comes from functional diversity and spatial heterogeneity in the species and physical variables that mediate the key processes that structure and organize patterns in ecosystems and landscapes.

The stability domains that define the type of system (e.g. forest, savanna, grassland, or shrub steppe) are so large that external disturbances have to be extreme and/or persistent before the system flips irreversibly into another state. Except under extreme climatic conditions, Mother Nature is not basically in a state of delicate balance. If She were, the world would indeed have collapsed long ago“.

The books starts with a description of the five metaphors or world-views that are used to look at Nature. These metaphors are the same metaphors Bhaktin uses to describe the proces of the evolving narratives in human culture.

The World-Views are connected to Mathematical Models that are commonly used in Science to explain an Ecology. The authors show that every model has its consequences. The most beautifull thing they show is that these models are not wrong. They are needed to keep the Cycle of the Ecology running.

What they also show is that a Panarchy-cycle uses a memory when the Ecology is collapsing. Somewhere a small area is preserved. It contains the “seeds” of the new Cycle. We have to look back when we want to move foreward. We also have to look back to learn feom our mistakes. “People do learn, however spasmodically”. Learning is not copying. We have “to create and innovate when limits are reached”.

Somewhere in History the Seeds of the New Cycle are available. A beautifull example is the Sacred Groove. It is a place where very old trees are preserved by the local community. They need the trees to aquire medicine to cure deseases or snake bites.

Because the new Cycle has to be based on Harmony I feel you have to have a look at China. China is not only the Economy Power that is able to destroy the World when it moves on the way it moves. It is also the Culture where Harmony was the basic Concept. When you read my blogs you will see that I use many Chinese Concepts to explain.

The theory is a Self-Referencial (“Fractal”) theory and uses the Moebius Ring as the central concept. You understand why I was flabbergasted when I found Panarchy on the Internet.

The last thing that made me very enthousiastic is the name Panarchy. It is based on the name of the Old Greek God of Joy and Nature, Pan.

Pan was “Goat-legged, enthusiastic, a lover of ectacy, dancing among the stars, weaving the harmony of the Cosmos into playfull song” (The Orphic Hymns). The myth was told in Early Creece that he had left the Earth. It is of a high urgency that we ask Pan to come back. We can only save Mother Nature when we become enthusiastic again to weave Harmony all over the World.

Pan is also the God of Dance and Rythm:

“Complex natural systems work in rhythms – with a front-loop phase of slow, incremental growth and accumulation, and a back-loop stage of rapid reorganisation leading to renewal, to, collapse. The front-loop phase is more predictable with higher degrees of certainty.

In both the natural and social worlds, it maximises production and accumulation. The consequence of this is an accumulation and concentration of wealth, but also emergence of greater vulnerability, due to the increasing number of interconnections that link that wealth, and those that bear it, in efforts to sustain it.

Little time and few resources are available for alternatives that explore different visions or opportunities. Emergence and novelty is inhibited. This growing connectedness leads to increasing rigidity in its goal to retain control, and the system becomes ever more tightly bound together. This reduces resilience and the capacity of the system to absorb change, thus increasing the threat of abrupt change.

We can recognise the needs for change but become politically stifled in our capacity to act effectively. Wealth and broadening wealth accumulated to lead to our present vulnerability on a world stage.

We are entering the back loop of re-organisation that entails the collapse of accumulated connections, the release of bound up knowledge and capital. But it also opens a creative potential and the opportunity for ‘creative destruction“.

The World and Our Society is now in the non-predictable back-loop stage of rapid reorganisation, creative destruction, collaps and renewal. It will soon jump back to an early stage where the Seeds of the New Cycle of Creation are Stored.

Because the Long Term Cycle of Earth is now Collapsing we have to look back for a long time to find the Seeds. The most impressive collaps of our World happened when the Great Flood appeared at 3117 BC.

Strangely enough 3117 BC is the start of the Mayan Calendar and the Indian Kali Yuga (“The Dark Age“).  Before that time the Humans lived in the Green Sahara also called Paradise. At that time Pan, the God of Nature,  was still there.

Do we have to move back to Paradise to Start All over Again?