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rkm website: http://cyberjournal.org
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The Transformation Project: full version
Vera Bradova wrote:
Richard, yes, inventions begin with a vision. Then many different approaches are tried and learned from. If that is what you meant, then I got caught up in semantics… and it sounds like I might have, because what you just said makes sense.In that case, I am not sure what you mean by “backward bridge.” Can you explain?What I mean by my question is this: there was no backward bridge from the flying machine of say 1930 to the flying machine of 1890. There was the vision, and there were many things tried, and the learning fed back into the process, and the contraptions evolved. That’s what I see.Or are you simply meaning that when we have a vision, then being guided by it is a backward bridge? I am confused.Vera
Hi Vera,
There are individual plane-design projects, and then there is the sequence of projects over time.
Each individual design project involves a backward bridge, where they start with a vision of how they want the plane to operate, and then they work backwards to design the various components that will be needed, then how to engineer those components, then how to source the necessary materials and tools, etc.
There is no backward bridge that connects the plane of 1890 to that of 1930. Rather, there is a sequence of microcosm backward bridges that add together to make one macrocosm bridge to the planes of today, a macrocosm bridge that has been constructed in the forward direction.
The Transformation Project is a single project, aimed at developing a vision, and then building a backward bridge to that vision. However, in a project this big and complex, with so many uncertainties, the bridge and the vision can only be approximations and inspirations. Once the journey begins, it becomes a dynamic process of adjusting to unfolding events.
It’s like when the wagon trains headed west in pioneer days. They knew there was a promising place they could migrate to, and they knew there was a trail to follow, but there would be many surprises, obstacles, and changes of plans that would happen along the way.
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Peter Koenig wrote:
Dear Richard,I like your dialogue with Vera. Please allow me to ‘bug’ in. You are saying a lot of very enlightening things. In particular:But I fully realize – and I thought people would know this – that the project could not possibly unfold in the way I’ve imagined it. The map is never the territory. Assembling the project team will already bring in ideas about changing the approach. The very first pilot council event will undoubtedly dispel many illusions, and force some serious reconsiderations.
We need to be humble and realize that an idea is only an idea – and that blueprints are good for building a bridge which relies on linear technology – but much less so (or not at all) for building a new social edifice.A blueprint can never grasp dynamics.Nor the spirituality that drives dynamics.But the dialogue you have started – the thinking process you have put in motion – and the spreading of this thinking process throughout your readership (I don’t know how large it is) may start whole new dynamics – and if its spiced with truth news, analysis of what is really going on around us, it my evolve in changing consciousness – which I believe is the crux of the matter.If consciousness changes in a group of people – as research with animals, predominantly apes, has shown – it may spread to other groups – and others – and others. It may spread to groups of people who are not even connected, may even be isolated by water or continents. There is a spirituality that transcends distances.The new consciousness may take different forms in different social / cultural settings, but it could produce something like what Marx said – that 5% of a society is enough to start a revolution. Five percent would be enough to outnumber the 1%. I do believe 2012 is a favorable era for change. And backcasting is like engaging in a spiral, where the next evolution is slightly disphased, emerging in a higher spiritual level of consciousness.Cheers,peter
Hi Peter,
You say, quite rightly, that a “blueprint can never grasp dynamics”. In the case of dynamics, blueprints come in the form of scenarios, and the analysis of scenarios. Of course any particular scenario description can only be approximate, if it is about something that hasn’t happened yet.
The Transformation Project document is an organized collection of scenarios, with analysis. When the project gets underway, those scenarios will be tested. The scenario descriptions will surely go through revisions and will evolve, based on what really happens on the weekends, and as the project unfolds. If the project document is the blueprint of how the project will be carried out, then the blueprint itself is dynamic.
Similarly, the ‘vision’ and the ‘blueprints’ that the project is aimed at generating, via the council events, take the form of storyboards, which are essentially scenario descriptions. When those storyboards converge into something everyone agrees on, then we will have an agreed blueprint for creating a new society – a macrocosm version of the Transformation Project. That macrocosm blueprint also consists of scenarios, along with analysis, and those scenarios will evolve as the macrocosm project unfolds, just as the scenarios will evolve in the microcosm project. The means become the ends, and the microcosm anticipates the macrocosm.
You refer to the hundredth-monkey story. The animal research isn’t about consciousness per se, it’s about behaviors. And my own research has led me to the conclusion that transformations of consciousness come about through certain experiences, ie from behaving in certain ways. Meditation and yoga are examples of that. Similarly, I think liberation and empowerment will be spread by behaviors that people engage in, that awaken within them their inherent free nature.
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Harvey Jones wrote [excerpted]:
Hi RichardI have been following the comments and discussion of this project with interest.In your comments about the apparently unsuccessful outcomes of Transition Towns, Occupy movement and so on, you don’t mention the fact that the established systems in place do not want to let go of their power. They are well versed and quite practiced in the processes required to subvert any public upswell of opinion against them. Control of media and hence public opinion, corporate business interests, governments, secret societies and a myriad of other ploys are tools of the trade.Some may call these “conspiracy theories”, and those who may quote them are automatically labelled in ways to discredit them. Just another tool in the trade of the spin doctors. The normal process is “deny”, “discredit” and then use “slapp writs” to silence opposition.In more extreme situations, such as the anti-globalisation movement which attracted demonstations of millions of people, a greater power play is required. A global event changed the world and its surveillance / control systems as a result.
Hi Harvey,
I quite agree with you that the establishment works actively against movements that threaten to change things. 9/11 was indeed partly a response to the anti-globalization movement. After Genoa I was expecting something big, but didn’t know what form it would take.
But I don’t think that’s what’s limiting the success of the localization movement. There simply aren’t sufficient immediate benefits to attract a large following in any given community.
rkm
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