Writing the Mind

Toy blocks that... think?

2009-02-14T10:59:00.001-08:00

In a talk by David Merrill at TED conference, he showed a set of computers that look like children's toy blocks - only they are aware of each other, and programming becomes a game of rearranging the blocks spatially. Sounds like fun - when even 5-year-olds (not to mention adults) get hooked on some of these games :-)

Animation on the theme "Master and Margarita"

2009-02-13T10:51:00.001-08:00

A beautiful Russian animation on the theme of "Master and Margarita" (Bulgakov) - by Natasha Berezovaya & Svetlana Petrova:

Power Plant (Tree to be exact) in Your Back Yard

2009-02-10T11:44:00.001-08:00

Green leaves have been solar power plants of nature since forever - and it seems humans are only now are starting to catch onto that. In a bit of a curious twist, a company called "SolarBotanic" is producing artificial trees that provide "green energy" - literally.

"SolarBotanic will introduce artificial trees that make use of renewable energy from the sun and wind, they are an efficient clean and environmentally sound means of collecting solar radiation and wind energy."

Now, how cool is that?

2008-11-27T14:40:00.001-08:00

A short video I've created with other students at BAVC in October, 2008:

There is no secret!

2008-09-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Some people make it, and some people don't. Some seem to just "get it" somehow, and others can't. Some people study and learn for their entire life, and remain firmly stuck in a rut, and others pull through with no degrees or special courses.

What's the secret?

When I was visiting my family in Russia last month, my nephew played Kung-Fu Panda cartoon over and over again. It's a fun cartoon, no doubts, to watch once. Well, maybe twice. But every other day for a month - oh, come on, stop it already! Right? Well, guess what... I'm flying back to the US, and on the longest (transatlantic) lag, they've been showing a bunch of movies, including... Yes! Kung-Fu Panda! Oh, no...

When I saw that, "Oh no..." was indeed my first reaction. But then, I remembered the line from that same cartoon - "there are no coincidences" - hence, I asked myself a question, "Why is this cartoon being shown to me? What do I have to learn from it?" So, I decided to bite the bullet and watch it one more time... And sure enough - (CAUTION! SPOILER ALERT!) the Panda opens up the Dragon Scroll, supposedly containing the greatest secret of the Dragon Warrior - just to find it ... empty! And, sure enough, his dad gives away his secret ingredient for his famous noodle soop (ONE MORE SPOILER ALERT!) - that there is no secret ingredient. And, sure enough, Panda finally "gets it"...

And, sure enough, I finally "get it" too!

So, here's the scoop, my brothers and sisters... To my utter embarrassment, in that very moment I'm realizing that for a while (for quite a while, in fact), I've been searching for that "secret ingredient" - without realizing it - to make my life happier, to move to the "next level", to become someone I want to become but apparently haven't gotten there yet... All because, I thought, I haven't "gotten" some kind of "secret ingredient" that other, more successful / happier people, apparently, discovered... BANG! Here's your secret, my dear friends. Look no further. Sell your ticket to that expensive "The Most Well-Guarded Secrets Of <...>" seminar, use your "The Secret" DVD as a backyard decoration (scares of squirrels, by the way, I kid you not!), stop running around like a madman spying out the techniques and ideas from all and everyone you might think have "got it". The real secret is that there is no secret. Stop looking, start living. It's that simple.

Of course, I'm in no way saying that you should stop learning - no-no-no! I didn't mean that at all. In fact, you'll probably start learning at a "new and improved" rate and quality. What I'm saying is - stop stopping yourself from being who you are, and start living your goddamn life already! You've had your "secret ingredient" all along - you might need to learn a few technicalities and practice and few things, maybe even quite a few things, maybe even for a few years. But don't expect to "get it" from some sort of "secret revealed" hoccus-poccus delivered to you over the week-end by some "guru" - that's what I mean.

Curiously, I should have known that long ago from my prior successes in science, in music, in NLP, and a few other things. What is that "secret ingredient" in being a good programmer, for example? If you asked me, I would laugh and say, "common sense, hard work, and lots of patience." That's no "secret", really. If you ask me what's the secret ingredient in skillful communication - I would say, "common sense, hard work, and even more patience." And probably laugh even harder :-) But when it came to making my own life happier, what did I do? Yeah, you got me there... Your turn to laugh.

So, why do people look for "secrets", to begin with? Perhaps, one reason is our own greed - to get more for less... One Russian humorist, Michael Zadornov, writes how he once saw a very wealthy Russian businessman playing piano in a hotel during his trip to the US. Just for fun, for his own entertainment. Played very well, with all his soul... Like only Russians can play Russian popular melodies - passers-by were stopping to listen... Someone gave him a $20 bill (remember, his an insanely rich businessman!). When he finished playing, he grabbed that $20 bill, ran back to his friends, all thrilled and happy, like a kid, showing the money. One guy remarked, "You know why you are so happy? This is the first $20 you have actually earned, honestly."

Another reason, perhaps, is the appearance of successful people "getting lucky". Someone said, "It took me 20 years to become an overnight success." Funny, but true. Sadly, most people don't see the prior 20 years leading to the glorious "popping out of nowhere" celebrity, hence the illusion of a "secret ingredient".

And the third reason - sadly, not the least, in my opinion - that "secrets" sell... So our infamous marketing and advertising does every trick in the book to get the unsuspecting crowd bite another bait of "secret ingredient", just to find an expensive hook underneath, and a chef waiting for you with a knife and a campfire on the other end of the line...

A child-carp asks his mother - where's daddy? - Gone fishing...

Are you aware?

2008-04-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

A great video demonstrating the power of our perceptual filters (follow the instruction carefully):

No comments... Watch and find out for yourself what you might be missing :-)

Martial Arts and Me

2008-02-19T19:59:00.000-08:00

Long time ago, when I was a college undergrad in the "capital of Siberia", I had a roommate who was totally passionate about martial arts. I remember he would regularly get the 3 or 4 of us out at the University stadium and teach us some Karate - punches, blocks, stances. Being young and having too much extra energy, we would often get into dynamic sparring sessions, occasionally getting each other's noses to bleed, or knocking the wind out - but it was fun, and we kept it friendly. One day, a real Karate sensei showed up at our school, and for about a month I had my first real martial art class experience. I really loved the class, but unfortunately, life circumstances prevented me from continuing on this path for a number of years...

Years went by, I moved to the US, and every time I would pass a martial art school, I would feel the urge to go and join it... But I thought I was too busy for that. Until one day, already in California, one of my friends finally dragged me into a dojo of a Korean martial arts called Kuk Sool Won. I liked the instructor and his gentle yet quite precise way of teaching. I was fascinated to see my progress, and stayed with the school for a few years until I got my black belt rank.

However, something was still missing in that school. Even though I was pretty good at doing forms and kicks and various techniques on the mat, I didn't feel confident that I could actually fight in real life, if the need be. Also, I had a sense that there has to be more to martial arts than what I was learning...

...And I was right. Not too long ago, I met a sensei of a rare Japanese variety of Aiki Jujutsu, who graciously agreed to teach me the art. And after a few classes, I realized what I have been looking for, and could not find in the other schools - the practical approach of simplicity, elegance, time-proven concepts (not just techniques!) that really work in a real fight. My new sensei has been systematically showing me new defenses and movements that were so effective that I just couldn't believe it! It took me several years and many tests to get to the black belt rank in another system just to be totally blown away by the techniques I never thought were possible! I feel that after only a few months in the new system I have probably learned more ways to defend myself than in all my previous years of martial arts experience.

What is also remarkable about my current sensei is his amazing level of skill. He has been studying for many years under a Grand Master of the system - and before that had many years of martial arts experience from other schools, some of which were also quite effective for a practical fight. Listen to the Grand Master talk about the art himself.

In addition, this art is not just an extremely effective self-defense system. It is a rather holistic art that pays a lot of attention to the balanced development of body and mind, together. And it starts right there, in the first class. I cannot really do a good justice in explaining or describing it here, you have to go and experience it for yourself.

By the way, for a limited time, my sensei has opened the school for new students. So, if you live in or near Mountain View, you are welcome to join the school. This is truly a rare treat, as this particular art is usually not openly taught to the public, and if you are serious about martial arts, you don't want to miss this one out.

How to join us? Really easy. We practice in the Rengstorff park in the open-air dojo, in Mountain View every Monday and Thursday from 5:45 to 6:45pm. The cost is only $75/month (which is a steal compared to most commercial schools), and we have some scholarships available for students in need. All you have to do is show up, and ask to be admitted to the floor.

If you have questions about this art, feel free to contact me through my website at http://martial-arts.sergeyberezin.com

On Purpose

2007-12-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

Piles of crap are accumulating over my head. No, it’s not a bad crap - in fact, it’s a pile of gems, jewels, and precious stones in the form of knowledge that was almost lost to the world, and by sheer accident has landed on my laps - yet there is so much of it right now that I don’t know how to even begin to unwind this big knot of the million threads, and the billion of ideas. I don’t know how can I possibly find time just to absorb all this, much less to integrate it into my bones and muscles, before I will be able to share it with you. And yet I must... This is my mission. This is what I’m living for...

Has it ever occurred to anyone that our mission has always been there at the moment we were born? I think we have become too arrogant in believing that we can choose our mission, that we can decide our destiny. As if a liver cell can one day decide that it is bored to be a liver cell, and it wants to become a neuron cell instead, or a heart cell, or a muscle cell. How arrogant and selfish. You know what happens when that happens? Cancer. Not only the cell fails to achieve what it was set out to do, but it also ruins the entire organism, and after a seemingly overwhelming success of that particular cell to replicate and “take over the world” - suddenly things become worse and worse, and the entire organism dies... How selfish and arrogant, and what a great price to pay for it.

What if we as people are “cells” in the organism of the culture, or even humanity as a whole? Or, how about the entire biosphere of the planet Earth? What is the price of becoming selfish and arrogant about the World and our role as gods and rulers and kings of our own destiny?

A cell cannot decide what it will become - it has to discover its purpose, through the interaction with other cells, through its own introspection of its DNA and the unfolding of it specific to this cell, is how it discovers its purpose. And if it lives its purpose, the entire organism is living happily, and many other cells, for many generations, are living a healthy life. Likewise, we cannot decide what our purpose is, we can only discover it. And a way to discover it is through observing the signals the Universe is sending us, and observing the unfolding of our own DNA, or what makes up our personal code - from within.

How can I communicate these ideas to you? How can I even comprehend these ideas for myself in a way that they become communicable? How do I find time to absorb and integrate all that mass of collective wisdom before I even begin to think of a possibility of pointing it out to someone else?

Questions, questions, questions...

Come on, come in, get up, shut up, and dance!

2007-11-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

I lose myself to the wave of love
to the spirit of fire
to the water of waves
to the rhythm, to the force,
to the air, to source,
I lose myself - my mind, my body
to that which is me,
to that which is I
to that which will be after I die
to others, to planet, to this Universe,
I dance - I don't think I have any words
I know I'll dance again & again
till midnight, till dawn, and till midnight again
I'm starting my week with an eternal dance
and nothing exists after eternity ends.
It ends... With a dance...

The Cultures and Colors - what would happen if Clare Graves and Daniel Quinn got together?

2007-10-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Spiral dynamics, also known as vMemes, or "colors", apply to individual people, groups, organizations, countries, and (here's a new one!) - cultures. Not what we usually think as different cultures (e.g. Easten, Westen, etc.), but the cultures as Ishmael and "B" talked about them - the Takers' culture, and the Leavers cultures.

Or, more precisely, the interaction between different cultures. In the Leavers cultures, not only the people in tribes are in "purple", but the way the cultures live together is also "purple" in many ways. The interaction of different cultures are very much the same everywhere (our way is the only way - and it's the only way we know and understand), and how the cultures evolve and co-exist is "magical" to the different tribes. I don't know if there was ever a "wise elder" among those cultures, but I suspect some cultures in the past might have served a purpose of an "elder" culture in promoting certian ways of being around them.

The Takers culture, on the other hand, has changed the equation about 10,000 years ago. Takers happened to discover a very strong source of power - a particular way of agriculture, and then technology, and on it went. Intoxicated by their power, they presumed that the World is theirs to rule. They kicked the gods out of the garden high into the Heaven and deep under the ground, took their place, and proceeded to conquer the world until there was no more place to go. The Takers' culture is clearly on top at the moment, the sole dictator of the World populated by many other (now very small, powerless, and therefore, rather insignificant by Takers' standards) "indigenous" cultures. The strongest takes the food, and kills anyone it considers a threat. In a way, countries, sub-cultures, even Takers' wars, are created as a way for the Takers culture as a whole to strengthen and spread itself as much as it can.

The Takers are burning red. In a world populated by many cultures with one of them being one big bully, it is as simple and obvious as it gets. This is what Hell is really about. It is a Hot Red World.

And now the Takers culture is in crisis. They don't quite believe it yet, although the rats are already leaving the ship, but as sure as hell we are going right there, and the temperature's rising. In fact, quite literally - the global warming is no joke.

Is there any hope at the end of the Red Tunnel? Am I seeing a Blue Light, or is it an oncoming train? Well, it was just a random thought.

Just a thought...

PS. If none of this makes any sense, read Ishmael and The Story of B by Daniel Quinn, and study Clare Graves work - e.g. "Spiral Dynamics" by Don Beck and Chris Cowen is a good intro.

Don't read this!

2005-07-10T10:14:00.000-07:00

What did I just tell you? Don't read it!

OK, since you are still reading, at least do NOT think about a green elephant, and remember that there is no pink ball under your chair.

So, what am I really not saying here? Let's not think of an example: you are on your first date with someone you really like, and you really don't want to say something stupid, or do something awkward. And you don't necessarily keep imagining what you don't want to do over and over again, until your mind gets trained so well that when you get there, you actually DON'T DO IT!

I don't think I'm making you imagine all these weird things. It's not the way your mind works. And I'm not saying that next time you don't want to avoid not thinking about something, that you shouldn't say to yourself not to think about it.

Instead, imagine what you want. The space under your chair is empty. On your first date you'll be relaxed and friendly, and everything will just flow. Be yourself, and treat your mind well.

Oh well... I don't think it makes any sense anyway. You won't notice in the future when you are not thinking in "donts" anyway, so don't use my advice. In fact, avoid not thinking in negatives.

And don't take it seriously... :-)

KinoReading: Beyond PhotoReading

2004-10-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

PhotoReading: the Whole Mind System?

Paul Scheele, the developer of PhotoReading, explains this technique as an integration of your conscious and "other than conscious" (or unconscious) mind in the process of extracting information from the written material. However, the way he teaches it first separates the two "minds," and only loosely combines their efforts at the last two stages of the process.

Specifically, setting the goal and previewing the book (the first two steps) are mostly conscious processes of becoming familiar with the content, extracting keywords and key concepts, which will later serve as triggers for the unconscious mind.

Next step, the actual photoreading process, is a totally unconscious activity. In fact, this step is designed specifically to take your conscious mind out of the way (chanting, rythmic page turning, photo-focus), and let the uncoscious take over. The idea is to "download" the photographic images of the pages into our unconscious memory for later (completely unconscious) processing.

Finally, activation and rapid reading steps connect the conscious intent and unconscious memory and processing power together in extracting the most important information and re-coding it for our conscious mind. Normally, only one of the two steps is done (either activation or rapid reading), and this is exactly when the conscious mind finally gets a chance to talk to the unconscious and receive the knowledge and information it needs.

Integrating the Steps

While the above steps can be done much faster than regular reading (conscious cover to cover linear processing), it is still far less than optimal strategy to process written material. In my experience, separating the process into purely conscious and purely unconscious steps limits our brain processing power. What if we could make conscious and unconsious minds cooperate from the start? Can it improve our ability to process information?

My experience suggests that the answer is definitely yes! Here is an alternative strategy that I found myself using much more effectively than the classical "vanilla" photoreading.

The following are the steps of my own version of the photoreading system. It is very important to note that all of these steps are only effective when done in a special state of trance called accelerative learning state. Paul Scheele does a great job teaching it, and in what follows, I assume that you always go into that focused and relaxed state of mind before even taking a book.

1. Prepare

The first step is to state your goal, purpose, and intent for reading a book. It is similar to regular photoreading, however I like to make a fine distinction between a goal and a purpose, and stress the importance of intent.

The goal is what you want from the book, what kind of information, what specific ideas, techniques, specific knowledge or data you want to extract, and how do you know which data is the right one or not.

The purpose is why you want that information or data. The purpose provides you with motivation, the reason for taking the effort, and helps you focus on the task.

Finally, the intent is the commitment to obtaining the information from the book. The intent provides the driving force for accomplishing the reading, sharpens the focus of attention to the stated goal, and keeps you in the best flow state of mind while reading.

For example, a goal for reading a textbook for a programming class can be to learn the syntax and semantics of the specific programming language (for instance, C++), and programming techniques which are required by the instructor. The purpose, on the other hand, is to get a good grade in class, to become an expert in C++ programming, to get a better job, or whatever else is important to you and motivates you to read the book. Lastly, setting the intent to achieve the goal is what makes you to take action and actually do the reading.

Notice, that not only I distinguish the goal from the purpose and intent, but I also suggest that your goal should be verifiable. That is, there is a specific way by which you know you have achieved your goal. In our example it may be the ability to answer the test questions on the midterm, or read the course syllabus and match the keywords with the concepts you have learned from the book.

Often, it helps to go through the table of contents, especially if you are not familiar with the book, and study it for a few seconds. This often gives you a very good idea of what this book is about, and what information more specifically to look for in the latter steps.

2. Quick Scan

This is a version of the photoreading step taken to its extreme. Mechanically, you will take a book and flip through the pages as fast as your eyes can perceive the images (about 5-15 pages per second) by running your thumb through the right edge of the book. The purpose of this step is to get an idea of what is inside the book, to pick out some important keywords and illustrations, and to understand more precisely the structure of the book and the quality of information it provides (what we often call depth). Quite often, the phrases in the table of contents are rather ambiguous and not as descriptive as we would like. This step helps you clarify what the author meant by certain keywords or idioms in the table of contents, and provides you with a rough map of what you can get from this book.

To some of you, this may sound too unreal (how on earth can I go through the book so fast and still get something out of it?!). Nontheless, each of us has done this many times in the past, for other reasons. For example, have you ever used a piece of paper as a bookmark, and had it slip inside the book? How do you search for it? Exactly! What are you looking for when you flip the pages at a movie-frame speed? Obviously, you have an image of that piece of paper in mind, and you let your eyes match it when the pages fly by.

So, you can do it already. By the same principle, you can be searching for the keywords from the table of contents which you want to understand better, or notice the length of the description is of each idea that you want to learn, thus, estimating the depth of explanation, and so on. The key is to be able to do this on purpose, and take the skill you already have to the new context -- extracting written information.

The scanning step is so fast that there is no excuse not to do it with any book you are considering to read. It will take you 10-20 seconds to zip through the book several times, back and forth, so you can see both even and odd pages, and have several passes through the material that attracted your attention in the table of contents, or on the first pass through.

The bulk of the data processing in this step is done in your unconscious mind, but a few most important bits and pieces of information trickle through to your conscious mind in real time, giving you a sense of participation and progress. Your conscious mind can then steer the focus of your unconscious mind to a more refined goal, which improves the quality and precision of the extracted data.

3. Deep Scan

This is a much slower and thorough process of going through the material, and I usually do it at a normal photoreading speed (flipping 1-2 pages per second), and scanning both pages with a soft (but focused!) gaze. Since this process takes 5-10 minutes for the entire book, flooding your conscious mind with too much information in too short period of time, I prefer to deep-scan only the most interesting and the most important portions of the book, which I identified through the quick scan process and from the table of contents.

Again, both conscious and unconscious mind participate in the process together, providing you with immediate feedback and sense of involvement. You will construct a detailed picture of the material, especially how it is structured, what are the most important keywords and their meaning, and what more specifically the book provides to you.

The amount of information you get after this step is roughly equivalent to the quick activation step of the "vanilla" photoreading. Taking into account that you would have to photoread, incubate (wait for 20 minutes, or better overnight), and then activate, which is generally a slower process than photoreading, the "prepare - scan - deep scan" process is at least 5-10 times as fast, and in my experience, provides much better results.

It is important to mention that deep scan does not have to be done linearly. In fact, it is often more advantageous to deep-scan various portions of the book, jumping back and forth as you sense the need for more information about certain keywords, ideas, and notions.

By the way, it is perfectly fine to slow down to skittering and dipping speeds during the deep scanning step whenever you happen to notice a very important piece of information and want to absorb it in more detail. Just make sure you don't get caught into slow regular reading or studying at this step, and resume deep scanning as soon as you have gotten enough information to proceed. Remember, the goal of this step is to get a more detailed understanding of the important parts of the book, but it is still a very high-level and approximate view. If you need, you can always go back later and study that particular paragraph or section in more detail.

4. Skittering and Dipping

This step is directly taken from the Paul Scheele's photoreading process, and in my version it becomes a slow and more thorough version of deep scanning. I usually do it after finishing the deep scanning of all the parts of the book that I consider important. This way I know that I am not going to waste my time on a section which is not that important.

Often, this step gives me so much information that I tend to call it "studying." For many popular technical and not-so-technical books, skittering is all it takes to really study the material in sufficient depth, at least intellectually.

5. Rapid Reading and Studying

Once you have decided to really go for the gory details, depending on whether this is your pleasure reading or a class textbook reading, you have a choice of rapid reading or studying the book.

For most pleasure reading books I would heartily recommend rapid reading, or even regular reading from the start. This way you get all the pleasure of re-living the lives of the main characters and being in the moment that the author intended to create. In other words, do not photoread a detective novel, you'll know the answer to the puzzle before you even start, which spoils all the fun. Remember, not all books are meant for fast information processing. However, rapid reading technique may be a good way to speed up your consumption of prose, and Paul Scheele has a good tutorial on that in his PhotoReading course.

For technical books, once you decide to go for the really deep understanding of the material, you are up for studying the book. Examples of when this step is useful is taking an exam on the material from the textbook, or acquiring new skills or knowledge for your work.

Studying should only be done once you have completed all the previous steps, including skittering and dipping. You will be spending significant amounts of time going through the material and scrutinizing every word the author is saying, possibly doing the exercises or reworking the proofs of theorems. Therefore, you have to be sure you are studying exactly what you need in the best portions of the book. Also, the rest of the book is always there for you to consult, in case you want to clarify the details of a certain definition or an idea. If you do not remember where this definition is located, and the table of contents is not giving any useful hints, then fast scanning is your friend again. You will be amazed at how easy you can find the right page in the book any time you need it!

Conclusion

The new system of photoreading which I have just described works for me orders of magnitude faster and better than the regular photoreading by Paul Scheele. I believe that the reason is a tighter integration of the conscious and unconscious mind at every step of the process, and together they work as an interactive team, adjusting and refining information processing in real time.

Regular photoreading is similar to having two people working independently, briefly communicating the results to each other once in a while, and immediately going back to their cubicles.

In contrast, my system resembles two people working together in a team, brainstorming together the ideas and new information the moment it becomes available. One plus one in this case is certainly much greater than two.

If photoreading is orders of magnitude faster than regular reading, just as photography is much faster than drawing pictures by hand, then a better name for my system would be KinoReading, as cinematographic capture of information is orders of magnitude more efficient than photography.

I see what you are saying!

2004-09-25T13:41:00.000-07:00

"Yes, I see what you are saying." How many times have you heard this phrase before? How many times did you say it yourself during conversations? Probably a lot. But how many times did you really notice that you can literally see what the other person is saying? I bet, not that often, if at all.

Meaning

Most of the time, we are conscious of not even the words the other person is saying, but the meaning (mental pictures, sounds, or feelings) that those words trigger. Remember, when after some confusion you suddenly went, "Ah! Now I understand what you really mean by it." Why didn't you understand it the first time the person said it? Because they didn't explain it well? Not as far as they are concerned, since what they said made perfect sense to them. Just not to you. What is the difference?

Different people often assign different meanings to the same word. Take, for instance, comfort. When someone says "I'm comfortable now," what do they really mean by it? That the chair they are sitting in is soft and of the right shape, allowing them to relax? Or that the topic of the conversation makes them feel relaxed? Or is it not about being relaxed, but about being confident, or strong, or calm, or... And you thought you knew what they were saying, huh?

Words

It is much more interesting to let go of the meaning, or immediate content of the conversation, and notice the actual words people are saying. Don't interpret the words just yet, just notice them. This way you have a chance to re-interpret the same sentence in multiple different ways in the process of understanding it, and if there are too many possible conflicting meanings, you know you did not really understand what they just said. Or, you may find that what they say reflect the way they store the information in their head. How about the following conversation:

-- I want to take a bath now, I want to look good.
-- Is there anything else that will make you feel better?
-- No, I think I'm OK.
-- Huh?

Do these people even talk to each other? Apparently, they have trouble communicating, since neither of them pays attention to the words. The first person wants to look good, while the second one interpreted "looking good" as "feeling good," which confused the first person ("why is he even asking me about feeling?"), and her reply definitely confused the guy ("Didn't she just say she wants to feel good???")

Playing with words is fun, and with some practice you'll find that you can communicate much better, because you automatically start using similar words to what the other person is using, and paying attention to the meaning that the other person assigns to those words. In other words, you will start noticing that their meaning for the same word is different from your meaning, and you will recognize and utilize that during the conversation.

Structures

Once you mastered the words, you will start noticing the structure of the other people's thoughts. Watch for their gestures as they talk, this is often the easiest way to elicit their internal representations. People literally draw complex pictures in the air, and then methodically and consistently follow that mental image with their hands, eyes, or even legs (rocking side to side, or walking along the same curves).

In technical discussions, people often draw their ideas as circles and arrows, or as a hierarchical outline, and then use that picture to refer to their specific thoughts by pointing to the picture. It's fun to watch them do that even after the actual picture is already erased and replaced with something else! They keep seeing the old one and pointing to it, as if it is still there!!

Just like with words, different people use different structures, or internal representations, for their knowledge (data, ideas, ...). When two people with radically different representations talk to each other, even if they are paying attention to the words, they still have hard time finding a "common language."

It is, therefore, very useful to be able to think in terms of different representations. Find an interesting topic, possibly your project at work, or some abstract philosophical idea which you can discuss with a friend, and find out exactly how you represent it, and how is it different from your partner's representation. Do you see it a an image? As a sequence of images? Do you have to talk to yourself in order to think about it? Or do you have to feel something specific about it? What are the specific details of all these pictures, sounds, words, and feelings? What is the sequence, if there is one?

Investigate this for yourself, by noticing how you come up with explanations or new ideas as you speak. Then do the same with your friend. Ask him or her about the specifics, if you cannot tell what they do by just watching them and listening to the words they say.

Once you determined the structure, try thinking of the same subject in your friend's representation! Most likely it will be quite disorienting and confusing at first, but try it anyway. See how close can you get to your friend's way of thinking. And notice how he or she responds when you take his/her representation. You will suddenly get in sync, and start completing each other's thoughts, even if you don't really know each other that well. Sometimes it might even be a bit scary...

Mental Pictures

But the freakiest part is only one small step ahead... Practice taking other's representations often enough, until it becomes easy and natural, like an old habit, and watch what happens next...

You will start seeing their mental pictures! Yes, I am not kidding. Of course, this is not exactly extra-sensory acuity, but it surely gets frighteningly close, especially for the clueless observers. My theory is that it's your unconscious mind learns to guess the other person's internal images based on their words, gestures, posture and body movements, eye cues, facial expression, muscles tone, skin color changes, and many many other little things which are constantly happening at the same time as they talk.

It is practically impossible to keep track of all these cues consciously, but not a big deal for our unconscious mind, which will happily preprocess this vast body of information and will present it to our consciousness in a form of simple pictures, sounds, or feelings. And when your unconscious mind gets enough experience in guessing what the other person imagines, says to themselves, or feels, it will communicate its guess to your conscious mind as those same images, sounds, and feelings... Now that feels like peeking inside someone else's head and seeing what they are seeing! It's really freaky at first, trust me on this one :-)

Deep Trance Identification (DTI)

Finally, you are at the stage where you can literally observe the other person's internal thought processes, notice many minuscule movements of hundreds of muscles, detect the tiniest changes of skin color, and still have your conscious mind completely free to think of other, more important things of the moment. What is possible in this level? What do these skills give you?

With some more practice, you will be able to literally become the other person. In the literature, it is called Deep Trance Identification. It is a profound state change, when you temporarily put away your own identity and personality, and take on someone else's internal representations. For the complete experience, you might also take along their beliefs, values, memories, and whatever else you consider important to simulate the other person. Then just be yourself... No, I mean, be them. Well, at this point it doesn't matter. You are them. Just do it.

Now I wonder, is it how the world's best actors play their roles? I don't know, but most likely. And now you can do too.

Isn't it scary what kind of things you can do with it? Try being another person for a moment, figure out how to make them believe in something, or want a product you are selling, or find out what kinds of people they like and trust, and become such a person to make them trust you for no apparent reason. It is a great power, and with power comes great responsibility.

What's Next?

I don't know what lies next after DTI, but I'm sure this is not the limit of what is possible, and even more profound and deeper skills can be developed. I will find out. Keep watching!

The Revealing Power of Art

2004-09-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Five hundred years ago Leonardo Da Vinci said that "most people look without seeing." He referred to the fact that people don't really notice what their eyes perceive, and instead, only see the interpretation of the visual information, its symbolic representation.

For example, everyone can easily tell whether a face on a picture belongs to a man or a woman. But how many of us can tell what exactly makes a face look like a man's or a woman's face? Or, how many of us know that the eyes are actually in the middle of the head, and not closer to the top?

The same observation applies to the other senses, most important of those are auditory (hearing) and kinesthetic (feeling, sensation). If you don't believe me, try singing the bass guitar part in Pink Floyd's "The Wall", or remember the exact words someone used to describe something exciting to you. Did they mostly use words related to vision, hearing, or feeling?

The reason we do not remember such specific detail is because our unconscious mind gladly preprocesses the direct sensory information for us, and presents it to our conscious mind in a simplified symbolic form. In other words, we see things through perceptual filters. Normally, these filters help us immensely by freeing our consciousness from processing vast amounts of data, making our routine daily activities much easier.

However, there are times when we want to see things the way they really are. The trouble is that we get so much used to the filters, that we start to believe what we consciously perceive is the reality! Getting someone to realize that they have been seeing symbols all their life instead of real objects often takes people by surprise. I was surely surprised when I learned that the eye line is exactly in the middle of a human head, and not close to the top, as I always thought. Taking a photograph and measuring it with a ruler for the first time in my life was a revelation...

The question is, How do we learn to see (hear, feel) again? And my answer is, Learn the Arts.

Visual: Learning to Draw

Learning to draw pencil photo-realistic pictures is probably the best and fastest way to start seeing the real shapes, colors, and shades of the objects around us. Get the book The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, or search the Web for drawing instructions like this one, and start seeing things again!

Auditory tonal: Playing music, Singing

Music is by far the most abundant and the most beautiful source of complex combinations of sounds. I found that learning to play your favorite tunes by ear (without the music scores) is the most demanding activity for listening to the actual tone and rhythm of a song. It takes a while to learn, and as you practice it more and more, you start noticing how the simple sounds are put together to create this moving, sensational melody. If you do not play any instrument, then singing is a good replacement for it.

Auditory digital (words): Professional writing, public speaking

Words are another important (and very different) dimension of hearing, and I often separate auditory tonal and auditory digital perceptions into two separate categories.

If you want to learn to notice the actual words people speak, the most direct way, of course, is to listen to the words. You will be amazed at what some people utter at times, without even realizing what they have said it. This constantly keeps me amused in otherwise boring conversations or during those hypnotizing lectures.

However, just like with playing music or drawing realistic objects, you truly learn to notice the bare words when you use them yourself, and others critic you. So, start writing, if you have not yet. Or go make a public presentation next time you have a chance. This does not have to be a professional activity, it could be just a simple Web site, or your diary, or a Blog like this one!

Write random thoughts about things, curious ideas of the moment you have, then make a speech about the most interesting observations during a party at your friend's house!

And please, please! Accept all the criticism. This is how you learn to improve your skills. Friends may laugh at you for the first ten or twenty times, but then, as you get better at it, they will start laughing with you, and will be asking for more.

Kinesthetic: Martial Arts, Dancing

The art of moving your body, both in martial arts and in any kind of dancing, teaches you the sense of balance, the control of your motions. You will be able to feel your movements more accurately, and tell whether you are moving the way you want it. Just like with any other art, this takes a lot of practice, and you will be amazed at the vastness of feelings and sensations you will discover!

As a form of physical activity, you will also learn to pay attention to your body, to the condition of your muscles, joints, tendons, and even internal organs. This by itself is a great skill to have, and I will give you an important example of its usefulness in the next section...

In addition, feeling your body will help you better control your emotions. The reason is, the emotions are encoded in your body as kinesthetic feelings (did you know that?), but our conscious mind perceives them as abstract symbols. For instance, "I feel nervous" surely is much more symbolic and imprecise than "I feel tension in my chest, my face and upper body is flaring with heat, and the muscles in my shoulders and hips are so tight that they are trembling".

Once you learn to notice how your emotions actually feel, without the perceptual filters, you will be able to change them at will. For example, if your shoulder and hip muscles become tense when you are nervous, then relaxing them, and adding a solid calm warmth to your stomach may be all you need to change the nervousness into confidence. Wouldn't that be nice?

Gustatory (taste) and Olfactory (smell): Cooking, Wine Tasting

These two sensory inputs are often the least developed, since human beings do not usually rely on them too much in our daily life. However, even for those "rare" sensory inputs there are activities for their development. The most obvious, and probably the best of all, is, of course, cooking.

You surely love your mom's cooking, don't you? Well, OK, not all moms can cook well, but most do. I love when my mom cooks something tasty for sure! :-) But can you recreate those wonderful dishes yourself? Can you figure out by taste and smell what went into it? Or, if that sounds too complicated, can you get the recipe and do it yourself? Remember that cooking, even when you have a precise recipe, requires a lot of sniffing, tasting, feeling the texture of the food, seeing the color of the crust, and so on. Rarely you can just follow the steps blindly and get the result.

Cooking, like any other form of art, takes time to learn, and takes time to do. If you are looking for a quicker treat, luckily, there is one -- wine tasting. I do not need to explain you this one, do I? :-) Go to your grocery or wine store, pick a few bottles of various wines (you can start with cheap ones, some of them are actually quite good!), invite a bunch of friends, and carefully taste a little bit from each bottle. (The reason for having many friends is to make sure you do not drink too much of the same wine, or you get quickly drunk, and the exercise will become pointless.)

Write down your observations for each type of wine. What does it taste like? How does it smell? What does it remind you of?

Of course, know your limit, take long breaks between each sample, evaluate your condition (you have already mastered your kinesthetic feelings, right?), and proceed only if you can comfortably handle it.

Enjoy!

Degrees of conscious trance

2004-08-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

The number of things one can pay attention to simultaneously (or hold in their conscious mind) is inversly proportional to the degree of trance.

For example, a person in a deep trance will not pay much conscious attention to anything in particular, besides, maybe, the voice of the hypnotist, or his/her own internal images (sounds, feelings, etc.). In the "wide awake" state, on the other hand, one can pay attention to several things at a time (alegedly 7 +/- 2, but I will argue that it widely varies in different people).

Thus, trance can be defined as a state with reduced number of items in our conscious awareness at any given moment in time. In particular, when this number reaches zero, we become totally unconscious, or fall asleep.

In my daily observations, many people cannot pay attention to more than 2-3 things at a time. No wonder so many people spend all their life in trance, as NLPers noticed long time ago.

Time to Wake Up

If the above observation holds up in reality, then this model gives a practical way to "wake up" from the perpetual trance. Practice to pay attention to more than one thing at a time. For example, listen to a conversation on a radio, draw a picture, and check how your left foot feels in your shoe, all at the same time. Can you make sense of what is spoken on the radio without stopping to draw? Can you keep listening without forgetting about your left foot?

When you are talking to a person, can you keep up with the content of the conversation and at the same time pick out which predicates (visual, auditory, kinesthetic) the person is using most often? Can you keep track of the overall structure of the conversation, while pondering the detail of the moment?

When in a crowded supermarket, can you see the people around you with your periferal vision, walking and moving all at the same time, as if you are in a middle of a giant anthill? Can you tell a man from a woman way to your right while looking straight at the shelf and reading the price tags? Can you tell the colors of their dress? Can you tell what they are wearing?

Make up such exercises on the go wherever it is safe to do so, practice daily, and check to see how much more you start noticing around you...

Is this really what widely awake means, or have I been in trance all my life?

Food and Sex Zone

2004-07-23T09:33:00.000-07:00

According to Tony Robbins, most of our everyday activities can be divided into four categories, or dimensions, based on two parameters: urgency and importance. He pointed out that activities from different dimensions create different emotions and leave different level of feeling of accomplishment. In one of my idle moments, when I was pondering the connection between these activities and emotional states, I realized that indeed there is a connection, and rather direct, with the primary survival instincts of human beings that developed early in our evolution. In fact, the Mother Nature has built the emotional responses into our bodies which directly reflect the importance and roles of these dimensions in our lives. Or at least I like to think of it that way :-)

Dimension of Distraction: Not Urgent and Not Important

Those activities that are not urgent and not important are often a waste of time, or an escape from reality. This is when an early man was lying near his cave after a good hunt and an abundant dinner, having fulfilled all his needs, and now having time to gaze around, wonder about the insects in the grass, the birds in the trees, biting off his overgrown toe nails, painting the cave walls, and otherwise having a good and totally unproductive time. A good modern example from this dimension is playing a silly computer game, or prettying up your desk "preparing" for work. Depending on the activity, it may yield immediate little pleasures, or fulfill the idle curiosity (I wonder what my co-workers had for lunch today?). Other times it may result in indifference or boredom. Think of it as a time when you have done your job, filled your stomach, took care of all the other important affairs, and have time to lie down on a couch, scratch your belly, and wonder what part of a woman's body resembles the crack on the ceiling. Despite the negative description, this dimension can be quite useful, for instance, for jump-starting your creative thinking processes which in a long run may produce very interesting and unexpected results.

Dimension of Dillusion: Urgent but Not Important

Ever had an annoying phone ringing in a middle of a very important meeting? Did you pick it up? What if you simply let the caller leave a message and call back later, at a more convenient time for you? How did you feel about it? This is the dimension which causes most of irritation. Coming back to our cave man, he may be annoyed by a mosquito buzzing right around his left ear, or little kids pulling out his favorite bear skin again from the corner.

Dimension of Demand: Urgent and Important

In the modern society this dimension creates most stress. Project deadlines at work which you put off till the last minute and emergencies obviously fall into this category. In the early days, this dimension was coming up mostly in life-threatening situations: a saber-tooth tiger attacks you, or the rock gives away as you're climbing it, or a stranger from another tribe is going after you. Or you are terribly hungry, and you know that it is time to get food, or it might be too late. Naturally, this dimension creates lots of fear, agitation and anger -- familiar simptoms of stress, even in today's life.

Dimension of Fulfillment: Not Urgent, but Important (The Zone)

This dimension is the most rewarding and pleasurable of all. It is when you are doing something because you know it is important, and you are doing it well before the deadline, without any time pressure. Or, perhaps, you are doing something which you always wanted to do as a hobby, like learning to draw, but never found time to do it before. What activities may a cave man do that belong to this category? The obvious ones are having sex and eating food before getting too hungry. OK, the food part is clear. But why sex? Because reproduction is absolutely important for survival of the species, but it is not that urgent -- one can always put it off for another day. Therefore, our body developed a wonderful sensory gratification mechanism called orgasm to encourage reproductive activities. Eating food has a similar, albeit slightly lower degree of sensory gratification. Again, from the completely intellectual point of view, eating food when one just starts to feel hungry is not that urgent -- it can be done a bit later without any harm, but it is extremely important to have enough energy for survival. When I think about these built-in mechanisms, I find them rather clever in directing us by emotions to the most important, though not necessarily urgent activities for survival.

The Art of Argument: I agree, you are... wrong!

2004-06-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

How many times did it happen to me that I disagree with someone, and start arguing my ass off to win the argument, apparently making things only worse? I don't know, I've lost the count. But what happenned recently quite surprised me: someone started an argument with me, and ended up with an opposite view after only a single brief reply from me. And I didn't even argue, but instead, mostly agreed with the guy... OK, let me tell you the story from the very beginning.

I have a hobby - I study how the human mind works, and I run a little club where my friends come once a week or so, and we play with various mind experiments. I also collect books and tapes on the subject, and share them with my friends, so we can play with the techniques in these books. The listings of the library are on the Web, for convenience, but it's only available to the club members. I bought one of the video tapes from a guy, let's call him John (which is not his real name, of course), and added the video to the library. Some time later, John finds out that his tape is listed in my library, and writes me a rather harsh email blaming me in being untrustworthy and harming his business. In reality though, whoever borrows the tapes from my library would not even know John existed otherwise, much less buy something from him, so how can I possibly harm his business? In fact, I'm actually letting people know about John's tapes.

Sounds like a cause for an argument, doesn't it? It surely does, and that was my immediate reaction... But after reading what I typed in for a response (before I hit the send button), I realized that it's not going to work, and neither me nor John will ever agree with each other. I have to say, John has a tendency for quick and radical judgement sometimes, and flaming back at him only adds oil to the fire.

So, I erased whatever I've written, and started over, this time carefully thinking of the consequences. And here's what I wrote:

Sorry, I didn't realize I can't even show the video to a couple of friends, so we can play with the technique together... (This is what this library really amounts to - I'm not lending anything to random people). In fact, so far nobody else besides me has looked at the video anyway.
In any case, I took it off the library list.

No arguing, just admitting that I made a mistake (and on the way I made it sound ridiculous). In other words, he says "X", and I say "I hear you're saying Y, and you're right, and I'm wrong." Surely, he has to agree with "You're right, I'm wrong" part, which implies that X=Y... But now Y is ridiculous!

In addition, replying to his "harming the business" comment, I "digressed" into a story of how many people around don't even have a clue about powerful seft-development techniques, and many could really use them to improve their lives...

Again, no argument, just "thoughts along the way," which I even call a "digression." Of course, it's obvious what I'm driving at, but notice what "no argument" format does -- John has nothing to contradict me here! Hence, he is more likely to look at the situation from my point of view. And, apparently, he did, as I understood from his (this time rather careful and even somewhat apologetic) answer. I have a suspicion that he's now thinking he might have just turned down a slew of potential customers... Quite a change in a point of view, if you ask me! That was a surprise :-)

What did I learn from this?

Winning the argument can be much easier if you always agree with the opponent, rather than trying to "prove him wrong." --How's that? -- you might ask. Let's analyze it in more detail.

What does it mean to "win the argument"? In my definition, it means getting your opponent agree with your point of view, or, alternatively, come up with a new point of view which suits you both (in which case, you both win).

How can that be done? Here's one way to do this, similar to the way I structured my email above: first, agree with the opponent ("Yes, you're right"), and then restate his position in your own words -- but with a subtle change, which either brings it closer to your position, or makes it ridiculous, or contradictory, or at least somewhat shaky. That is, he says "A", you say "Yes, I agrere, B". What this does is it makes the person concentrate on the "I agree" part, and take your statement "B" as an equivalent restatement of his "A". Subconsciously, he will try to solve the A=B equation, and if it is possible to do relatively easily, he might even not notice the trick, and will agree with you in return.

Next, you can go further and claim B=C, and C=D, either getting closer to your point of view, or gradually trashing his position. If your opponent keeps trying to argue with you about other aspects of his opinion, so much the better! Use that to agree with him and restate that again. By the time you get to "Z", you've built an equivalence chain "A=B=C=...=Z", implying that "A=Z", but now "Z" is either exactly your point of view, or is totally ridiculous or impossible. If it is the former, then you've just won the argument - you only need to mention that "Z" is exactly what your opinion was from the start, so you two have been talking about the same thing without realizing it (which is not necessarily the case, but your opponent might not even notice it!). Alternatively, if "Z" is a complete ridicule of your opponent's opinion, and you managed to get him to accept his position as equivalent to "Z", then all you need to do is to say something like, "Wait a minite, are you sure Z really makes sense?" This will get him thinking, discovering all the contradictions by himself! After realizing that he's on a shaky ground, your point of view might come as a rescue.

Needless to say that leading the opponent through the chain of "equivalent" statements must be done very carefully, and you'll need some practice before you can do it naturally and in small enough steps that the person does not catch you. It is also not a good idea (although it might be tempting) to point out that his original statement "A" is the same as "Z" -- at this point the difference may be so dramatic that he will immediately see your trick, and you lose your winning position. It's better to forget about the "A" entirely. After all, you don't want your opponent to submit and suffer from your superiority. All you are after is winning the argument, which, by definition, is getting your opponent to agree with you. So, start by agreeing with him! Wouldn't you agree that it might just work? :-)

This reminds me of some marshal art techniques, when you use your attacker's momentum against him -- rather than trying to stop his power punch, redirect it ever so slightly, push the guy off balance, and let his own force drive him to the ground... The stronger he hits, the harder he falls.

And remember that this is only one way, out of many more... Keep exploring!

The Creation

2004-06-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

Reading mind is easy once someone else has written it down. So, here I am, scripting it for you...

Enjoy!