Delusion and Reality Check

 

I was always fascinated with human values (cultural included). South Africa is a curious country from this point of view because researchers collect information separately on white and black population: totally overthrowing our aspirations of “Proudly South African”.  Today I was looking (in the millionth time) at GLOBE value survey wondering if there was a reason to separate white and black south african population. From the first sight the values were following the same trend even if the exact numbers were different.

Being preoccupied with how delusional people whom I encounter are, I've decided to quickly calculate “Delusion-ment Index”. The name is a bit affected by my mood, in a very positive view you can even call it “Aspiration Index”, hmmm. What I measured was the mean difference between what society thinks it should be and what it actually is (from the values point of view). Or in plain speech, the difference between what people say and what people actually do. 

I guess I found my answers – indeed there's a good reason to measure black and white population in SA differently. Delusionment index for black population is 9% whereas for white is the whole 35%. Hmmm... looks like a time for a reality check ;) :) :)  

On the positive side, the data is 11 years old, we can hope for some improvement. Though my sentiment here is more towards more blending, I have no opinion about improvement.

Please don't rush to apply these conclusions to your white and black friends – statistics is not psychology. But share your thoughts while I am calculating delusion-ment of other societies...

References:
GLOBE-Phase-2-Aggregated-Societal-Level-Data-for-Society-Culture-Scales-May-17-2004

The Intangible Factors of your Organisation's Success

Religions and psychologists have been preaching for ages that on the long run, it's not the circumstances, but your beliefs/values that define your life. Values are in fact long standing beliefs, so in the context of this post I use them interchangeably. Values shape our lives - what we believe in defines how we act and what we strive for. Personal values are the main driving forces of our decisions, and they also shape organisational values when people come together to do something for – hopefully – mutual benefit. And vice versa – organisational values usually demand compliance and affect people's actions.

Everyone is talking about sustainability now. But since it became such a buzzword, it's losing is meaning. I want to talk about resilience. Resilience is what your values are driving. Your circumstances may be good or bad, but they are usually not permanent. Resilience (and value mix underlying it) will drag you through the bad time; then the good times will bring their rewards. It is the same for an organisation. Of course business needs money to survive. That's financial sustainability. In our neoclassical economics world, so many things are driven by money, that even environmental protection is driven by it. How much is the solar power business? How painful are the penalties for CO2 emissions? What are the fines for environmental noncompliance? Seems that everything gets measured by money.

However, not everything is so simple. If your employees are driven by money – will it bring money to your business? The research shows that - maybe in a short term. But how amazing it is that dominant financial values in a person usually come together with dishonesty, unsubstantiated risk and other financially damaging behaviors. Maybe, on the long run, your financially driven manager will simply bankrupt your organisation.

And on the other hand, employees with a good balance of environmental and social values are actually good guardians of your financial success. And as an extra benefit are usually much more pleasant people to work with. Now that's about whom to hire. But don't forget that organisational values will change everyone's behavior, even those with a good balance may start behaving like freaks if your organisation promotes it. Research proven :)

Do we need intelligent machines?

Continuing the topic of artificial intelligence based on brain-like network structure. Yes, we can potentially replicate the structure of the brain, and the steps in that direction are already made. This artificial memory-processing units will have the potential learn and recognise patterns and develop understanding of things like symbols, metaphors, art, indirect meanings etc.

However, the potential does not mean reality. How can a computer gain the same interpretations of symbols as human brain unless the machine experiences the same reality? Meaning the same senses, the same problems, the same needs as a human. I think it's an oversimplification to interpret human brain on its own, without the body, emotions, survival needs that brain is actually trying to solve all the time. And to take it further - do we actually need a machine that is an exact replication of a human? I guess not?
My thinking was that the whole point of human-like artificial intelligence is get us help in ambiguous environments, like in Big Data analysis, where it's actually not clear what the questions are, but the data is floating in large amounts that is too much for one human brain to absorb. Plus loads of information floating around seem to be useless - isn't it the greatest thing that the human brain can do (sometimes): to distinguish what is important and what not? And it seems that evolutionary it did so well, but now we maybe failing (I am referring to climate change etc). Maybe artificial brains can help us a bit by consolidating all the information and fishing out the patterns that we should look at in more details?
Another interesting thing of course, is the hierarchical neural networks - aren't we all now just neurons in the global brain created through Internet? And if we are - what are the implications of that? Can we benefit from that somehow?
I tend to like questions more than answers :) :) :)

Global Brain's Hemispheres

Global Brain – Hemishperes

I am playing with this idea of likening humanity on Earth to human cortex. Since metaphors are a great way to advance understanding, here we go.

Cortex is the part of human brain associated with thinking and action. It is divided into 2 hemispheres. Cortex is divided in several zones associated with processing of different information. Cortex is a hierarchical network structure. Each neuron has hundreds of thousands of connections to the other neurons. These connections connect neurons in different levels of , but also on the same level. Some connections report to the higher levels in hierarchy, but even more provide feedback to the lower levels. Neocortex is a thin layer on top of cortex. 

And now to Earth. We divide Earth to Northern and Southern hemisphere. 7 continents may be analogous to cortex lobes - I am not sure yet whether this analogy is helpful; there's certainly uniqueness to each continent, but I have very little knowledge of geography to actually grasp if there's distinct function to each continent. People can be seen as brain neurons. Indeed, we have connections within our own level, whom we call friends, relatives, classmates, and in some cases colleagues. We have connections to the higher levels – reporting to our schools, companies, institutions, governments; providing company reports on regional and national level and then governments report to cross national organisations like UN. These are not that numerous, however just like in brain, up-level reporting carries already pre-processed information. But pre-processed information also goes to the lower levels in hierarchy – to children, students, junior colleagues. These links are most numerous – the trend also repeated by the feedback functionality of the brain.

Neocortex is associated with sensory processing, language and consciousness. Human neocortex may be likened to the long distance communication systems developed by people: telegraph, radio, telephone, television and now internet. It is that thin layer that covers everything that happens on Earth. It can also be termed “self-conscious” as the information in our communication level is about us. It is not anymore functional connection like the road system, where goods are transferred. It is purely informational.

These ideas are certainly not new – many thinkers, scholars and writers have made these connections before me. What I am going to say next has occurred to me while reading about meditation. Of course, it does not mean that nobody has made this connection before, but to me it was, non-the-less, an original thought.

Meditation is a way to increase self-awareness. I am not claiming it to be the complete definition, but for the purposes of this post, this is a good start. Meditation brings higher state of consciousness, which increases interconnectedness between left and right hemispheres of the brain. Now back to Earth – Northern and Southern hemispheres are certainly connected, but there's a long-going problems of conflicts and differences between the so-called Global North and Global South. If we liken communication networks and most prominently Internet to neocortex – our Earth's consciousness is concentrated exactly there. Indeed, were there any global concern about Global North and Global South before that consciousness (radio, television, internet) appeared? Not that we know (conscious) about. 

Internet consciousness brings the problems of the world to us almost immediately – Earth's neocortex is functioning and advancing Earth's self-consciousness.  This self-consciousness has started the drive to bridge the gap between Global North and South - and, indeed, large progress has been made. Many of Global South countries, like India, China, South Korea, are closing or have already closed the development gap.  

I am wondering - what is the driving force behind all the positive changes? Of course, information is a requirement. Information is our Earth's knowledge and conscious memory. But ultimately people are making decisions. Can we say that our collective consciousness is developing? Can we liken it to the human stages of moral development (see Kohlberg's theory)?  I see signs of Level 3 - Post conventional morality with orientation of social contract and universal ethics. We start to think as citizens of Earth and inseparable parts of it. This is also manifested in the environmental movements - care of Earth's "health". 

Another bridging happens between Western and Eastern philosophies. Western science starts to recognize the wisdom of Eastern holistic medicine, mind-body connection and meditation. I believe it is largely attributed to the Western development of the Theory of Relativity - the observer is not separable from the observation, the wisdom that was present in Eastern philosophies since the time of Upanishads (at least). And East is also looking to the West: for the technical knowledge, precise sciences and lifestyles. We are getting so much more integrated, whoever it does not happen easily.

And bringing it back to meditation. Meditation is a very curious phenomenon. East claims it to lead to reaching spiritual awakening and enlightenment. And of course West is trying to measure it. And West finds some answers. Meditation causes a change in the electromagnetic waves emitted by brain, adds more order to it. And knowing electromagnetism, we can expect resonance, which indeed happens when a group of people meditate together. Further it creates electromagnetic field and from the theory of the field - it causes further alignment of brain waves for people close by, even if they are not meditating. 

What will happen if a huge amount of people around the world meditate together in the same time? Can we hope to increase interconnectedness of our Earth's brain hemispheres - whether it's North and South or East and West? Reach higher level of Earth's consciousness?

P.S. People with better knowledge on anything that I mention here – please correct me! I love to find out when I am wrong ;)