What do we mean by IndependentThinker?
We all think, but do we care about thinking? An independent thinker is anybody who returns to their thoughts to develop them further. Even a few such thoughts a day leads to a personal world of thousands of ideas. We hope to bring out the independent thinker in everybody.
See our Glossary for other terms including: CaringAboutThinking, DeepestValue, InvestigatoryQuestion, WorkInParallel, WorkForFree, PrivateLanguage, ToolsForThinking.
Independent Thinkers Wake Us Up!
 July 2, 2001
AndriusKulikauskas: My own passion is knowing everything about life, and doing useful things with that knowledge. A summary of my notes is here. In general, I
look for deep questions about life, accumulate subjective answers, and
then structure their interpretation.
In particular, I've noticed how conversations often deadlock. Academic
philosophy is notorious for this. For example, you'll have two sides,
one that argues for "free will", and another that argues for "fate".
And you'll find this at the bottom of very sophisticated discussion,
under many layers of sophistication, it can boil down to just these
attitudes. But the fact is that we can't get rid of either one of these
concepts. So why would we try to argue it away? Instead, my experience
is that they indicate a structure within the mind, a division of
everything into two parts: one perspective where opposites coexist, and
one perspective where everything is the same. This kind of dual
perspective is very important whenever we take up the issue of
existence: to say that a chair exists, we have to 1) be able to raise
the question, consider that it may or may not 2) be able to conclude,
that it does if it does, (or does not if it does not).
So I noticed that these deadlocked conversations reveal fundamental
structures within the mind. For example, there is a division of
everything into three perspectives (taking a stand, following through,
reflecting) that the issue of "participation" depends on, is defined by.
There is a division of everything into four perspectives (whether? what?
how? why?) that the issue of "knowledge" depends on. Over twenty years
I've catalogued a large part of the structures of life.
However, a tremendous amount of energy is used to try to argue away one
or more perspectives within such a structure. It's a crazy thing to do,
and my conclusion is that people do it because they don't want to have
anything better to do. That's why I keep looking for people who want to
get things done (or I focus my energies with them on that). I think
that's the point at which we people gain that extra awareness that lets
us say: why are we arguing to eliminate points of view? Why not
acknowledge the ones that are real, and do something with the very real
structure that we've documented. Also, this lets us separate the real
from the contrived, because if we're not getting anything done then it's
possible to claim all kinds of absurd, contrived things. But they fall
away when we try to get something done.
In my life, I've seen enormous amounts of completely thoughtless
conversation which may seem very smart but simply reenforces the social
world that we live in, doesn't open us up for genuine conversation. And
in my personal life I've managed to avoid that and stick with very
intense conversation that keeps looking to build on what we have. And
I've found that there's some kind of merit to that, people do find that
attractive, though a lot to swallow. I think of Jesus Christ that way,
he was intense.
Also, I think that a healthy social space depends on having individuals
who are stronger than it, otherwise everything degenerates, we end up
with a weird kind of speaking which is what we have in the corporate
world, that doesn't look for the truth, doesn't start with the truth,
and often looks away from the truth.
If you look at my notes,
http://www.ms.lt/ms/projects/reasonfeatures/index.html then you'll see
that this is the kind of murky but deep thinking that comes from an
independent thinker, somebody like Socrates or Kant or Christ. It
doesn't happen through a group, although of course it helps to have a
lot of interaction. There is no acknowledgement or support for working
from scratch. It's not the kind of thing that anybody can reward. But
this is how revolutionary progress is made, or at least it's the way
that I want to live my life. So the purpose of the lab,
http://www.ms.lt , is to serve such independent thinkers. And they need
tools for thinking simply for working by themselves.
Change comes from a minority, and a minority starts with one person.
The corporate world, and the vendors for it, don't like to think about
this. I think it's the truth, though, and one more instance where the
world sets itself up to overlook things.
However, in order to do something practical, in order to have social
impact, and in order to think about one's own ideas more clearly, it
becomes crucial to establish a social workspace, a cultural framework,
especially to have social impact. The truths of life are bigger than any
single mind can hold at one time, so that's also an important reason to
extend our mental workspace into a social space.
So a lot of work needs to be done to awaken other people that we might
all work to keep heightening our awareness. And also, conversely, great
ideas need to be made ever more relevant, engaging more people, so
that's always a challenge. But I think the deeply meaningful thinking
involves this kind of persistent deliberateness, commitment and this
search for other independent thinkers who have also come to such
existential conclusions.
I think we live mostly asleep, most of the time, and we don't like to
admit this. We choose death over life, we tune ourselves out. We don't
want to live on the edge, on the cusp, flexible - giving away everything
we have, turning the other cheek, engaging and loving our enemy. We
don't want to be wakened, or told that we're asleep.
CassMcNutt, July 16, 2001: Just a quick note, Andrius -- liked this a lot. Printed for further reflection. (Only somewhat independently. <g>
SteveBonzak, July 22, 2001: Andrius- I am sorry it took me so long to read this post. I have to say it reveals some of the most clear "meta"-thinking about your philosophy and mission in
the lab that I ever seen you put down in one place or in one continuous
statement (and you and I have talked a lot over the years). I hope this
statement in some modified form makes it to a prominent place on the website
and into the conversations you have with people when they scratch their
heads and wonder at what you and the rest of minciu sodas are up to.
Needless to say, I liked this very much.
Independent Thinkers as a Layer in Our Culture
This is layer 1 of the PatternLanguage for independent thinkers.
1) Independent thinker.
We have a lot of experience supporting independent thinkers at our
Minciu Sodas laboratory and the OpenLeader network. When I consider
the One Village mandala (six aspects that their unity centers bring
together: economy, culture, education, wellness, governance, ecology) I
think that "economy" is the one that has mattered most for our work at
this level (or perhaps it has for me personally in relation to the
non-independent-thinking world). I suppose that an "independent
thinker" needs to be "independently wealthy", even if they are quite
poor and live day-to-day and with help from others. We also need to be
able to "give everything away". This is important so that we can truly
think freely despite the anxieties of wealth and poverty.
I look forward to working with our investigators so that we are bold in
openly clarifying our personal core concepts. I hope with your help to develop such a program of open learning. I also look forward to growing and leveraging our Open Leader network in ways that support our many efforts.
We will develop ways to acknowledge our independent thinkers so that we
can harness our network on their behalf. We will also develop our
team-building services so that those who "give everything away" are able
to find "part-time-work-on-tap" so they can meet their needs as they
develop their projects.
The issues raised by Surya and the rationale for why those issues exist
offered by Sasha are gaining in recognition with every passing day. Of
course, the real problem is one of how to address them. It is this nagging
question of what to do differently that keeps many people in a preferred
state of ignorance. If they do act, it is to donate money to highly visible
initiatives led by well-known personalities in the misguided belief that
because of the personality leading the campaign, the outcome must be good.
Many remain disengaged from the political process and pass responsibility
for appropriate governance to politicians whose legislative acts allocate
funds to programs that knowingly don't work. We know what happens with
these three--status quo.
And, of course, we know the "answer": become informed, think independently,
know what is truly important in one's life, act on that knowledge within the
context of the village where one lives, work openly, share one's learning
and experience in a global network of peers and associates, apply learning
gained elsewhere in one's local circumstances as it makes sense to do so,
and encourage the development of educational and training forums online and
onsite whereby "survive and thrive" skills can be quickly exchanged,
adopted, and adapted. That is the purpose of Mincui Sodas, Global Villages,
Social Agriculture, and other forums--to live the answer as one sees it and
invite others to find their answers rather than resigning to or accepting
the status quo as immutable. It comes down to simply getting on with it
however one can from wherever one is and know that there are thousands, if
not millions, who share the same principles.
Add Your Comments
| 
