Project Renaissance home page | The Stream Index
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Newsletter of Project Renaissance and Win Wenger
published formerly as Capital Ideasmiths
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March 2003
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Quote of the Month
* Announcements
* Events
* FEATURE ARTICLE:
"Shedding
* Comments & Feedback
* Links - archives, back issues, homepage
* Reader Questionnaire
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QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"Through interaction, intelligence grows in its ability to interact.
We are designed to grow and be strengthened by every event, no matter
how mundane or awesome. The flow of nature and seasons, people,
extreme contrasts, apparent catastrophes, pleasantries--all are
experiences of interaction to be enjoyed and opportunities for
learning, leading to greater ability to interact.
"With what is human intelligence designed to interact? With anything
and everything possible. If there is anything intelligence cannot
interact with, that intelligence is to that extent crippled. A fully
developed intelligence is one designed to exchange energies with
anything existing, without ever being overwhelmed. A mature intell-
igence should be able to interact on three levels that correspond to
and arise from the three stages of biological growth. These levels
are: first, the ability to interact with the living earth according
to the principles and natural laws of this earth; second, the ability
to interact with the earth according to the principles of creative
logic developed in the mind-brain system; and third, the ability to
interact with the processes and products of the mind-brain system
itself, which means the thoughts and creations of our own mind, the
minds of others, and the whole thought system underlying our reality.
Any definition of intelligence that does not encompass these three
categories of interaction is incomplete. Any development of intell-
igence that does not move through these three modalities falls short
of the biological plan for intelligence and betrays nature's 3-
billion-year investment and trust."
Joseph Chilton Pearce, "Magical Child" [
pp.25-26]
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
WELCOME to all new members who have joined us this month. We hope
to hear from you and to give you much food for thought. Back issues
are available upon request. Just add the month to the subject line:
<mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=BackIssues>
~~~
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you can upgrade your participation in Project Renaissance to full
membership, free. Membership in Project Renaissance entitles members
to additional benefits. If you're not yet a member, please register
now, here: http://www.winwenger.com/regmem.htm - or from link on
the homepage, http://www.winwenger.com .
~~~
DUPLICATE MAILING? If you received two (or more?) copies of this
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<mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=duplicate>
~~~
How you can participate...
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* Submit articles, comments or questions for possible inclusion in
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EVENTS
Free monthly meetings of High Thinktank...Open to the public.
Check the Project Renaissance website calendar
for details and directions, at
http://www.winwenger.com/events.htm
This month's meeting: March 20, 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Topic: "The Intuitive Leader: Awakening and Using Intuition"
Guest Leader: Daniel Knight
~~~
DOUBLE FESTIVAL XII - November 2003...
Mark your calendars now for Project Renaissance's annual double
conference on Creative Problem-Solving and Accelerated Learning:
Friday-Saturday-Sunday, November 14-16, 2003
followed by Trainer Training, November 17-18, 2003
at a private facility in
Watch the website, http://www.winwenger.com/upcoming.htm
for further details and for Call for Presentations.
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Feature Article:
SHEDDING LIGHT:
Afterimage as a Method for Problem-Solving
by Win Wenger
This technique is not original with Project Renaissance. We heard
about it from Stanley Korn. It is used variously in many quarters.
We have modified it here to serve as one excellent way to discover
answers and solutions.
You will need a live partner for most of this, though a version
follows that you can use when working alone with a tape recorder
and notepad.
A. Please do the following:
1. Draft 2-3 meaningful questions for which an answer is desired.
2. Asterisk and separate out the most key such question.
3. Take a blank sheet of paper, fold it over once or twice.
4. Sketch a symbol on the top of that folded sheet, or a big "?,"
which represents that most key question. Symbol or "?" should
be marked heavily enough to make a strong visual contrast with
the paper.
5. Insert that most key question inside the folded sheet, with the
symbol or big "?" still uppermost.
6. Find a partner.
To make this process reciprocal, your partner should likewise
prepare a question which you will be answering by the same process.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
So that your subtler faculties won't be overridden by your conscious
expectations as to what the answer 'ought to be,' thus editing and
distorting what your subtler faculties are showing you, it's
important that you not see and consciously know the contents of
your partner's question, or your partner see and consciously know
the contents of your question, until Step C.4 below. Your subtler
faculties do appear to know, from subtle cues, and this way can give
you your best available answer without getting 'edited.'
One can, instead, use a tape recorder; but that is less fun than a
live partner. Also, one then needs to generate at least 6 different
questions, choosing one randomly without looking to see which one
it is, in order for this procedure to work at its most accurate.
B. Getting a running start with afterimages:
Stare for a half minute at the center of a lit lightbulb of from 5
to 40 watts' brightness, from about 3 feet away, then look at and
describe aloud in detail the afterimage left in your vision from
doing this. Continue describing as the afterimage changes.
Experiment with eyes open and eyes shut and continue describing
the evolution of the afterimage. Continue for ten minutes or so.
Afterimages normally last only a few seconds, but such is the power
of behavior's Law of Effect - you get more of what you reinforce -
that even for this purely physiological photochemical effect in
your retina, the same afterimage can, with this reinforcement, go
for an hour or longer.
(This was the "training stage" for this procedure. Now to the
problem-solving:)
C. Problem-Solving through Afterimages:
1. Stare fixedly for a half-minute or so at the "?" or symbol over
your partner's question. Close eyes, let afterimages unfold into
coherent imagery or let it bring impressions to mind.
(Describing all the way, of course.)
2. Get 3 sets of images or impressions, consciously the same answer
to the same question, just shown very differently each time.
3. Both of you find the elements-in-common to those 3 sets.
4. Partner "reveals" the question, both of you interpret.
5. Take turns by switching roles.
D. Solo use:
Under Creative Problem Solving (CPS Techniques) on the Project
Renaissance website, go to the "High Thinktank" process
( http://www.winwenger.com/htt.htm ) and print out the instructions
found there. Learn and practice both the Quick Question/Answer (QQA)
and the High Thinktank procedure proper given there. Prepare six or
more questions, on separate pieces of paper. Fold each piece in on
itself.
Each session: select one question at random, without looking to see
which one it is. Fit it inside a paper sleeve with a large question-
mark on it. Then stare at that question mark fixedly for a half
minute and proceed as in "C" above, describing aloud.
Once you've solved one question of the six or so, replace it with
another so as to have at least six questions to choose from randomly
for the next time.
Conclusion: If you can get up a good running start with description,
you'll be amazed at the fluency - and the uncanny accuracy - of your
answers resulting from this procedure. It'd be a pity not to enjoy
experience of your own remarkable ability at this by stalling out
without a live partner and listener to help you off to a good start
the first time or so.
- Win Wenger <mailto:wwenger101@aol.com>
~~~
To send feedback privately to the author, email to Win Wenger at
<mailto:wwenger101@aol.com?subject=Shedding
To send your comments about this article to
<mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=Shedding
To post your feedback or promote a discussion of this topic:
http://bbs.cartserver.com/bbs/b/7733/#PostMessage
..................................................................
COMMENTS & FEEDBACK
>From Hemal Bhatt
<mailto:hemalbhatt_78@yahoo.com>:
This concept of "The Map is not the Territory" [Harman Benda, "You
Are Not Your Map,"
for a long time, but it just never occurred to me to implement it
consciously. Indeed, this concept has such tricky characteristics
...hard to keep it in mind all the time.
After I understood Harman Benda's article about it during one of
my Memory Bank sessions, it occurred to me that this concept has
to be dealt with seriously. Things became a lot clearer, with rich
ideas of how to implement them practically, even to the extent that
"breaking old maps" and creating new ones should be a fun-filled
endeavour.
A very important point in this context: Throughout our lives we
just reflexively go on creating maps. What really matters is how
much we
1) create new maps consciously
2) break old maps (specifically those created reflexively!)
3) break those consciously created maps
Keeping in mind, "You always get more of what you reinforce", one
can easily proceed by asking,
What are the maps that I just reflexively follow everyday? ....
Discover them, break/alter them, and go on creating new ones.
I would say that this understanding can make dealing with "the
map is not the territory" a fun-filled process.
One of the other ways to get along with "the map is not the
territory" is through the concept of Neuronal Habituation. We all
have a unique way of making sense of things. When we seek to make
sense through a specific way over a certain period of time, it's
a kind of Neuronal Habituation - a stuck state. Ironical in a way
that making sense of things is what we seek in the end, but even
we can get past this Neuronal Habituation through understanding
of "You are not your map".
- Hemal Bhatt <mailto:hemalbhatt_78@yahoo.com?subject=YourMap>
~~~
With reference to the Quote of the Month from Joseph Chilton
Pearce's "Magical Child", quoted above:
Those three levels can also be stated as 1) awareness (sensory
input) of surroundings; 2) awareness of self within the
surroundings; 3) awareness of self awareness.
These parallel the levels in Objectivist psycho-epistemology:
1) perception; 2) conception (concept formation); 3) intro-
spection (understanding of the mind's internal hierarchy and
operation).
We can even extend the paradigm to physical dimensions: line,
plane, space. Each stage subsumes and naturally follows from the
last. Each builds hierarchically on the previous level.
It is said that knowledge is three "why's" deep. It takes those
three levels to get to the bottom of things, down to the root of
that knowledge, to the primordial source. Children are always
asking "Why?", sometimes to distraction of the parents. It's a
challenge to answer them in terms they can integrate. Because
we receive so much knowledge second-hand, by hearsay and claims
of authority, we SHOULD question the truth of everything before
we accept it as permanent - even this! ~~~
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LINKS
* Back issues of THE STREAM by email upon request from
<mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=BackIssues>
* Archived copies of Capital Ideasmiths are here:
http://www.debateit.net/projren/newsletter/index.htm
* Project Renaissance homepage: http://www.winwenger.com
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PROJECT RENAISSANCE
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READER QUESTIONNAIRE
1. What is the chief benefit you hope to receive from Project
Renaissance methods?
Increased Faster ways
Intelligence ____ of learning ____
Other ____________________________________(specify)
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To return this questionnaire, simply reply to this email, deleting all
but the questionnaire portion. Mark your answers with an X except where
long answer is indicated.
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