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What's Up With Ming

"Did you ever feel like an alien who somehow became stranded on a planet called Earth where nothing seemed to make any sense?" A quote from "Ming The Merciless"

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Recovering from civilization can be brutal but neccessary if we are to become truly free from it's influence. Kick the civilization habit here!

Being Human

The Condition Of Our ConditionArticles on the Human condition and how we might improve it.

The Vision

The idea of a small group of people building an entirely new conceptual framework for Human Intelligence is somewhat like the ant standing in front of an elephant talking about 'out of my way chump', humorous but not very realistic. But since this is one of the Agenda of Life Foundation's primary goals as part of our mission to get the Human species on an intelligently directed and planned evolutionary course, we thought that one realistic course of action might be that we throw some ideas out there and invite any thoughtful caring Human life forms to join us in a kind of open source project. A collaboration in order to define a new definition of Human intelligence and hopefully even one that lends itself to measurability.That said, we open the project with the following thoughts and ideas. Think about it, contribute your ideas, and perhaps between the six and a half billion of us we might finally discover our higher consciousness and our true identity, and perhaps also, our place and purpose in the Universe.

The Process of Creating Reality, Is Magic Real?

• The abstract mind imagines it, visualizes it. Creates a conceptual framework.
• A definition is built by describing it. Populating the framework.
• The definition is refined by adding (visualizing) more and more detail.
• Figure out how to make it compatible with current reality. Make it work.
• Reinforce the concept through the acceptance of other minds. Sell the idea.

We believe that this is the real version of Human magic, of abra cadabra poof. The poof just takes a little longer. Creating a new and more useful version of Human intelligence may not take long, but for it to become globally adopted and implemented might take a bit of poof. However, each journey begins with a first step, and so we begin.

The Conscious and Unconscious Human

The process of creating reality can be carried out spontaneously, as it seems to be a natural Human ability, but creating realities unconsciously seems a bit dangerous. On the other hand, creating realities purposefully, consciously, knowing what we are doing and why, with a good idea of the possible consequences, doesn't seem to have caught on much.

If this is a true description of current reality, some questions occur; how can this be? Are we not aware of this power of magic? Why are we not aware of it? And if we are aware of it, why haven't we developed it on a conscious level?

Also, if this is a true description of current reality, are there other powers, abilities and capabilities that we are not aware of? Or perhaps another way of asking this is; are there other powers that we are not conscious of, that we use, or are used by, on an unconscious level? What is the value or danger, of an assortment of resources that we are not conscious of and therefore have little or no understanding of? In such a case, we certainly won't be able to develop those resources to their full potential until we do become conscious and aware of them and learn how to use them appropriately and intelligently.

Consciousness

The subconscious mind seems to be an accepted reality, but that is different from the mind in a state of consciousness or unconsciousness, and the difference between these two is critical. The idea that we can operate while in an unconscious state is scary, yet this seems to be a normal condition for us. While much of this can be attributed to conditioned habitual behavior patterns, who among us ever examines those behaviors? And how much of our unconscious behavior is not habitual, just unconscious?

So the question is; how much of our reality has been created by our minds in an unconscious state? This constitutes uncontrolled, and therefore unpredictable reality creation. Realities that we create without knowing what we are doing, or even that we did anything, need to be reexamined. Which brings up another question; is this state of unconscious behavior a form of ignorance, and if so, is it normal ignorance or self induced? And if it is self inflicted, why are we engaging in such behavior?

Denial and Avoidance? What Does This Have To Do With Intelligence?

Denial and avoidance probably don't have anything to do with the current definition or rather lack of definition of Human intelligence. But a new and much broader definition of intelligence might find it difficult to accept these behaviors since they are a clear indication of dysfunctional thinking as well as a severely limited awareness, which are two of the most critical components of this preliminary effort to build a new Humint 2.0 conceptual framework. By this new definition, a truly intelligent life form doesn't go around denying reality and avoiding responsibility. Intelligent life forms don't engage in behavior such as the act of rationalizing and justifying the killing of their own kind, especially in the name of a dysfunctional economic system and other irrational activities and behaviors.

Thoughts About Thinking

When the Agenda of Life Foundation began this journey of exlporation into Human intelligence, we first began to research it in order to find out where the bar was currently set. We were stunned to find, that for all practical purposes there wasn't any bar. The current definition of intelligence was the sole domain of a few neuro pathologists focused on the cognitive characteristics of the brain and even then their main objective was more about determining ways to measure this activity so that the dysfunctional educational system could use them for some vague intent that has never been clear to me.

But what about the intelligence that we refer to when we think about some alien life forms passing by our territory and checking us out by trying to determine if we are intelligent or not. Would they not understand the difference between intelligent and smart and cleaver? Would they not know that our science and technology isn't the result of intelligence, and that in fact our own smart and cleaver capabilities can represent a possible threat to us, if not administered and regulated by the existence of real intelligence, or rather a higher consciousness, that might be a consequence of real intelligence?
The smart and cleaver mind doesn't necessarily think about consequences, at least long term consequences, especially if it serves the shallow and short sighted agenda of the market place. Only a real condition of intelligence will demand the development of a higher consciousness that can and will make decisions based on solid value systems.
This real condition of intelligence will not be possible without the development of critical thinking skills, which we also discovered from our research were not widespread. Which is astonishing since even our current limited level of intelligence would demand that such thinking skills would be one of the first educational goals of an intelligent civilization and would begin in the early years of Human development and continue throughout a normal lifetime. How did we miss that memo?

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Human Intelligence Assessment

So now that our visiting aliens have departed after having a good laugh at our expense, where does that leave us? Or more to the point, when we get used to the idea that our assumption that we are an intelligent species may not be based on any real facts, what if anything will we do about it? We are painfully aware that our assessment of the current level of Human intelligence is gloomy to say the least, and we will not hammer the point because we also feel that a strong injection of hope and faith is called for at this point. We are confident that out of the ashes of the consequences of our ignorance, neglect, indifference and complacency, the phoenix will rise again, because Humans often realize their greatest achievements out of the hard school of adversity, and perhaps a little embarrassment.

Critical Thinking Skills

We almost have to start with critical thinking skills since they are our best chance of assuring that we achieve the levels of clear high quality thinking necessary to produce results that we can rely on and have confidence in. The quality of our conceptual framework will depend directly on the quality of our critical thinking ability.
Critical thinking is a relatively recent definition of rules and standards designed to organize, guide and manage the Human thinking processes with the goal of achieving solid reliable results through the use of solid reliable reasoning practices. For example;

Elements of thought or reasoning:

 

All thinking has a purpose or goal

 

All thinking raises at least one question

 

All thinking requires information

 

All thinking requires concepts

 

All thinking involves inferences

 

All thinking involves assumptions

 

All thinking involves implications

 

All thinking involves a point of view

The reason that the definition had to be broad enough to include mental standards and virtues, was due to the fact that reasoning alone can be used by any motive to support any goal or agenda. Our ability to think is just another tool in our tool kit, and all tools can be misused by the dysfunctional mind. Consider how the killing of our own kind is rationalized and justified through false reasoning using convenient values and unquestioned assumptions which themselves may be based on bad, misinterpreted or even intentionally manipulated information.

The good news is that in time, with practice, we can acquire these skills. The bad news is that in time, with practice, we can acquire these skills. Yes, they take time and practice, but then, what else do we have to do while we're standing around pretending that we are mature intelligent life forms, while the reality is that we are going down in the flames of our own fear and ignorance? So, in the beginning, we just need to do the best we can with what we currently have available to us in order to tackle this project.

First Steps

With all that said, let's get our feet wet and make a couple of initial assumptions. But first, since making assumptions was partially to blame for our current lack of intelligence in the first place, maybe we should take a moment to look at this element of thinking. Just to get an idea of how powerful, and therefore useful and or dangerous assumptions can be, consider what the consequences of our former assumption of intelligence has been. This assumption effectively ended all investigations, examinations and explorations into the concept of intelligence and therefore all possible further development of that power, which in turn, may have deprived us of discovering potential that we never dreamed of, but may yet realize.

Assumptions are ideas or a collection of ideas that make up concepts, all of which are accepted as established truth, which are then used to support further ideas and or concepts that will be used to support some purpose or goal. Concepts built from assumptions that have not been fully examined, are themselves unreliable and so the conceptual framework built using those concepts may not be strong. Our former assumption that we are an intelligent species was loosely based on the facts that we have a brain, that we can think in the abstract and we can use tools. There are three assumptions operating here. 1) intelligence has something to do with having a brain. 2) intelligence has something to do with the abstract characteristic of the brain. 3) the fact that we are smart and cleaver enough to rub two rock together means we are intelligent.
Now, even if we allow that these assumptions are valid, which we have doubts about, then if that is all we want Human intelligence to be based on, then we're good to go and this project is done. But why would we be satisfied with such a narrow limited concept of ourselves when we have the ability and opportunity now, to see ourselves from a much broader point of view which will generate many different perceptions of ourselves that in turn may suggest the existence of endless possibilities?

Perspectives

The point from which we view something or someone can significantly impact the resulting perceptions both in quantity and quality. A limited point of view will produce limited perceptions which will in turn produce limited possibilities for acquiring awareness and understanding. However, it is never that simple. A view of the forest from among the trees reveals unique perceptions as does the view of the same forest from above. So, achieving a full understanding of any given subject would be well served by considering more than one view.

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