Human Neutrality

Timothy Wilken, MD

Today human life is not synergic. Most of humanity are ignorant of the natural law of Synergy. Most humans ignore or hurt each other. Most humans ignore or hurt the environment. This is the source of nearly all our current problems.

In the free world, we have created a system of human Neutrality as a mechanism to avoid the loss of Adversity. This is the system that brought us capitalism and the great market.

Remember that the neutral relationship originates in the plant world. Sunlight provides unlimited energy for the plants. And so each individual plant needs only the sun, and adequate water and minerals to survive. Plants are solar energy collectors. They use the sun’s radiant energy in photosynthesis to manufacture glucose, carbohydrates and other plant cells. Individual plants do not relate to each other. They relate only to the earth and the sun.

No plant will deliberately hurt another plant, its success or failure depends solely on its own efforts. Individual plants have no relationship with each other. Plants have no awareness of each other, they ignore each other. To survive as a plant, you must be self-sufficient. Plants are the truly independent. They need no other life form to survive. Each plant lives or dies on its own. If it sits luckily in the Sun with an abundance of solar energy, it does not assist its brother in the shade. The motto of plants could be to live and let live.

The values of human Neutrality parallel the laws of plant neutrality. Free and independent citizens relate to each other as equals. They are prohibited from hurting another free and independent citizen, but that are not required to help another citizen.

The mechanism of relationship is conducted through a free and fair market with the honest exchange of merchandise of good value at a fair price.

FAIR TRADE –def–> The bartering to insure that the exchange is fair – to insure that the price is not too high or too low – to insure that neither party loses.

Human Neutrality is about fairness. The market place is a fair and safe place to exchange goods and services. Neither seller nor buyer should be injured in the exchange. Products should represent a good value and be sold at a fair price. All citizens are guaranteed freedom from loss.

In the free market of Neutrality, our identities and personal relationships are unimportant. We purchase products anonymously, usually without knowing the seller’s name, or he ours. When I enter McDonalds to purchase my lunch, I see only the product, the hamburger stacked in the warmer. I ignore the clerk. I don’t know her name or her story. I see the hamburger, that’s what I want. The clerk behind the counter ignores me. She doesn’t know my name or my story. She sees my five dollars, that’s what she wants.

The store is clean and I feel safe. I expect the kitchen is clean and I will get a good product for a fair price. We will trade. We will speak the neutral words of the trading ritual. I never knowing her name, she never knowing mine. “May I help you?” “Thank you and have a nice day.” We trade.

Fair Trade

Now our trade is fair. By definition, the lunch McDonalds is selling has a fair market value of $5.00. My five dollars has a fair market value of $5.00. We trade fairly. Economically nothing much has changed for me. I had five dollars in cash when I entered McDonalds, and I left with five dollars worth of lunch. My net worth is the same.

While I obviously got some utility from the exchange, I preferred the lunch to my cash. In a strict economic sense, I am little changed by this exchange. In fair exchanges, $5.00 in cash equals $5.00 in food. In fact, McDonalds created the lunch for less than $5.00, the fair market price contains some profit for the seller. But, when I earned my $5.00, I did it by I selling some product or service that cost me a little less. I’m entitled to a profit when I sell products or services. That’s the neutral way.

If we analyze neutral relationships, we discover that in a neutral exchange (1+1) = 2. Humans institute Neutrality to escape Adversity – to protect themselves from loss.

The first principle of human Neutrality is to AVOID LOSS.

In the language of games, where you can win, lose, or draw, we are obtaining a draw. We, like the plants, will be ignored by the experience. We will be the same after the experience as before. The advantage of changing from Adversity to Neutrality is not that we will win, but rather that we will avoid losing.

Neutrality offers a safe haven for humans. With Neutrality it is possible for us humans to avoid playing the adversary game. We are free to work without fear that others will hurt us. We are free and independent citizens. We are free to create products or provide services and sell those in the great market for a fair price.

The capitalistic economics of Neutrality produces a major advance over the economics of Adversity. Humans using neutral organization are much more successful than those using adversarial organization. Because human needs and wants are many and complex and there is no way any individual can meet these needs, we have evolved the great market. We operate as independent producers and consumers. Each neutral citizen is responsible for purchasing their own needs and wants.

Neutral government is committed to fairness for all its citizens.

The government’s only legitimate purpose is to insure economic independence and protect individual freedom. To insure a safe and stable environment that allows the free market to work best.

Today’s free world is dominated by Neutrality in the form of neutral government, neutral nations, neutral organizations, and neutral value systems.

The unchallenged success of human Neutrality in the United States and within the rest of the Free World has established that most modern values and beliefs are neutral ones. Modern humans are strongly convinced that they are self sufficient and independent, or at least that they should be self sufficient and independent. They believe in their right to own property and to freely and independently control their property. These beliefs are so strong in our present culture, that it is almost impossible to imagine things any other way.

Trouble in paradise

But, is neutrality really the best way for humanity?

With careful analysis of the neutral relationship, we discover that the best one can get is only equal value. The best result of a neutral relationship is a draw. We are ignored by the experience. We are the same after the experience as before. At worst, the price is less than fair, we get cheated. We lose. Or the product is not good, we get ripped off. We are less after the experience than before. At best within a neutral exchange (1+1 )= 2, at worst (1+1) < 2.

And while today’s beliefs in freedom and independence may be our most highly prized values, many of our neutral values are not very humanitarian.

While hurting others is highly discouraged, helping others is rarely encouraged. We are focused on products, and help is just another product. Generally, we ignore each other. The free market is a neutral, anonymous and completely impersonal place.

You don’t know the person serving you at McDonalds. You don’t know their name and they don’t know yours. There is nothing special about the relationship. You may eat your lunch there every day for a year, but go in once without your wallet, and you won’t eat. They will ignore you. If you don’t have the admission price. You don’t get in. In a world where the highest value is independence, why should I help anyone. Everyone should be independent and not require any help. In the world of human Neutrality only products and their fair prices really matter. If you can’t pay your way you don’t exist.

Despite all our pride in being free and independent, we humans are blind to the true nature of our neutral relationships. Being truly independent means you are alone. You are all by yourself. There is no one to help you if you get in trouble. The casualties of human Neutrality are numerous. Because we are independent, because we are self sufficient, we are encouraged to ignore the problems and difficulties of others.

It’s always someone else’s job to help others not ours. If my coworker gets fired it’s not my problem. If there are hungry children in my community, it’s not my problem. Neutral humans are indifferent. Neutral humans ignore.

Today we have enormous and evergrowing levels of human poverty and suffering and starvation effecting hundreds of millions of humans worldwide. Millions of children die needlessly every year.

Today, homelessness is an institution found in every city and town in America. Large numbers of humans live out their short lives completely ignored. Hundreds of children disappear every day from the streets of our cities and towns – many without notice. Neutral governments are indifferent. Neutral governments ignore.

Neutrality only works well when there are unlimited resources. Remember the plants have an unlimited supply of sunlight.

As solar collectors, they are the truly independent form of life. Their independence requires unlimited resources.

We humans share the animal body of the space-binder. And good space is limited. This is why Adversity dominated human life until the 17th century. As Hazel Henderson in conversation with Fritjof Capra explained in 1988:

“Until the sixteenth century the notion of purely economic phenomena, isolated from the fabric of life, did not exist. Nor was there a national system of markets. That, too, is a relatively recent phenomena which originated in seventeenth century England.

“Of course markets have existed since the Stone Age, but they were based on barter, not cash, and so they were bound to be local. The motive of individual gain from economic activities was generally absent. The very idea of profit, let alone interest, was either inconceivable or banned.” ⁽¹⁾

Human Neutrality emerged in the old world with the creation of national markets, but it was a partial Neutrality strongly dominated by the adversary systems still in place, and constrained by limited resources.

For Neutrality to work, there must be unlimited resources. A more complete and purer form of human Neutrality was institutionalized by the American Revolution that founded the United States of America. The early colonists were in the right place at the right time.

The right place was the empty continent of North America. Millions of acres of arable land and forests, filled with abundant water in millions of steams, rivers, and lakes and stocked with uncountable numbers of wildlife. This was further enriched with enormous reserves of iron, coal, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead, gold, silver, oil, and much more – all available for the taking.

The right time was 1776, by then the collective power of humanity’s time-binding had discovered, invented, and developed the tools and knowhow that created the mechanism of the Agricultural, Industrial, and Transportational Revolutions. The level of knowledge and technology available to the American colonists coupled with enormous North American reserves, provided them with cheap food, cheap power, and cheap transportation. Thus, conditions were perfect for the success of human Neutrality. America would have the equivalent of unlimited resources for the next 150 years.

The North American continent was nearly empty when human Neutrality began, today it is getting full. We no longer have a limitless abundance of natural resources available for the taking. Our world of plenty is being reduced to a world of scarcity.

In 1776, there were less than a billion humans on the planet, today we approach 6 billion.

As things start to get scarce, the humans lose their option for Neutrality. Soon they have to learn to do without. They go without owning their own homes. They go without higher education for their children. They go without free time for recreation as they are forced to get a second job. Or, they sidestep back into the adversary world – they steal, embezzle, or defraud.

Today, within the United States, the very center of human Neutrality, we see declining quality of life, declining compensation for all workers, deteriorating nuclear families, and declining numbers of humans able to own their own homes. We see increasing mental illness and child abuse; ever escalating health care costs, and more humans without access to medical care. Examining today’s youth, we see declining numbers of college graduates, mixed with increasing drug and alcohol use; increasing suicide; casual sexuality and unwanted pregnancy.

And there are even bigger problems facing Americans and the rest of humanity.

Acid rain, ozone depletion, water and air pollution, toxic buildup, strip mining, deforestation, erosion & topsoil depletion; greenhouse effect, ice age, nuclear winter, el nino, and even asteroids threatening the planet. These big problems are invisible to indifferent governments and ignoring citizens. Whose problems are these anyway? In Neutrality, they belong to no one. They are certainly not mine.

Human Independence is an Illusion

When we humans institutionalized Neutrality over two hundred years ago, it was a great advance over Adversity, it dramatically reduced the pain and suffering for humanity. In the 18th century, Neutrality was a major advance for humankind. The neutral system gave individuals opportunities for great economic success. The birth of capitalistic economics greatly enriched the human condition. Neutral organization was more powerful than adversary organization. Neutrality did work well in the free world for many humans who inhabited it two hundred years ago. This will all be explained in The Past section of this book.

Human independence is an illusion. We humans bought into this illusion in the ‘free’ world that was created in 1776, and many of us have lived by the rules of Neutrality ever since. But things have changed, today, Institutional Neutrality no longer works for humanity – not even for those ‘living’ in free world.

We humans are not independent, we are interdependent.

In summary then, Neutrality was instituted by humans to avoid the loss of Adversity. It is a mechanism most suited for independent organisms which humans are not. Its great benefit over adversity is as a mechanism to avoid loss. Neutrality is dominated by fair trade – the bartering to insure that the price is fair – that neither party loses in a fair exchange. The market is everything.

Neutrality avoids losing, but at best only gets you a draw.

You are ignored by the exchange. (X + Y) = 1. Neutrality only works when there are unlimited resources. The plants – a naturally independent form of life – have unlimited sunlight.

Earlier in our human history, we had relatively unlimited resources especially in the new world of America. Things have changed. Our human population has grown from less than one billion in 1776 to nearly six billion. Neutrality is no longer an option.

1—Life
2—Three Ways
3—The Relationship Continuum
4—Three Classes of Life
5—Human Neutrality
6—Interdependence
7—Wealth

The Science — UnCommon Science – (PDF)

Intro—Science 2001
1—Knowing 2001
2—A Limit to Knowing
3—Scientific Mistakes
4—What Do We Know

5—Order (PDF)-New

The Present — Crisis: Danger & Opportunity

The Future – A Synergic Future

Three Classes of Life

Timothy Wilken, MD

In 1921, Alfred Korzybski (1), a mathematician and scientist, classified Life with precise and accurate operational definitions of plants, animals, and humans. He defined the plants as energy-binders, the animals as space-binders, and we humans as time-binders.

Korzybski explained that the plants adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of energy. The animals adapt to their environment through their awareness and control of space. And we humans adapt to our environment through our awareness and control of time.

Energy-binding – the power of plants

The power of energy-binding is transformation, growth, and organization.

Energy-binders have the ability to transform solar energy to organic chemical energy. The plant is a solar collector. It spreads its leaves and harvests the ultraviolet rays directly from the sun.

Energy-binders have the power of growth. The plant draws water and minerals from the soil organizes this energy and nutrients into growth through cell division. The growth of the energy-binder and its self-propagation through progeny are the resultant of cell division – if the cells remain together we have growth; if they split off into a separate entity we have progeny.

Energy-bindings have the power of organization. Organization possible through the ability to time the release and binding of energy. Timing based on knowledge – energy knowledge.

Life requires complexity. Take one of the simplest of energy-binders – a single celled bacteria.

We are looking at a simple rod-shaped one celled plant which can avoid dangers and seize opportunities. Inside this simple one celled plant – there are four “boss” molecules. These DNA molecules have a molecular weight of 2.5 billion each. Then we find 400,000 assistants to the bosses, RNA molecules of over 1000 types with an average molecular weight of 2 million each. Packed between all of these molecules are about 1 million protein molecules of over 2000 different types with an average molecular weight of 40,000 each. And to complete this simple cell we find 500 million smaller molecules of approximately 700 types with an average molecular weight of 300 each. All of these units working together to bind energy, making controlled choices, adapting to their environment, avoiding danger and embracing opportunity.

This description of a simple one celled energy-binder is mind boggling; but to keep our sense of proportion, we must recognize that life requires complexity. Energy-binders represent a much more complex order of organization that the most complex of nonliving molecules. If a molecule were likened to an automobile, then a cell is like an automotive factory – a vast organization of men, machines, and computers.

And so plants – the energy-binders are energy aware. They are aware and they process information about energy. They remember energy events and from that memory make controlled choices – energy choices. The plants think and decide.

This is not human thinking, not even animal thinking, but it is a form of intelligence – very powerful energy intelligence. The plants use their power to bind energy – to organize, to adapt to their environment. They must adapt by making controlled choices, which keep them within the narrow corridor of life or they will die. They must avoid the dangers threatening their survival and embrace the opportunities for growth and reproduction.

While the energy-binders have the power to collect and store energy, to make controlled choices of the use of that energy, they have limited adaptability. Limited because they cannot move. Plants are rooted to their environment. If a plant roots in the shade, it cannot move to a sunnier place. If it is dying for lack of water, it cannot move to a rainier spot. Plants lack the power of mobility.

Plant growth is movement, but movement towards an infinitely remote goal – the sun. Plant motion is in a constant direction, either away from gravity or towards the sun.

Neutrality – the natural law of plants

Neutral relationships originate in the plant world.

Sunlight provides unlimited energy for the plants. Each individual plant needs only the sun, and adequate water and minerals to survive. Plants are solar energy collectors. They use the sun’s radiant energy in photosynthesis to manufacture glucose, carbohydrate and other plant cells.

Individual plants do not relate to each other. They relate only to the earth and the sun.

Plant survival does not require any relationship with other. The plants unique ability to utilize sunlight directly to synthesize organic tissue frees them from the need for others. This fact makes plants the independent class of life – independent of other.

While no plant will deliberately hurt another plant, it will also never help another plant. A plant’s success or failure depends solely on its own efforts and talents. Individual plants have no relationship with each other. Plants have no awareness of each other, they ignore each other. To survive as a plant, you must be self-sufficient.

Plants are the only form of life that are truly independent.

If we analyze neutral relationships, we discover that individuals are unchanged by their relationship. They are neither less nor more after the relationship. They are the same. (1+1) = 2.

Choices which do not hurt or help are neutral. Actions which do not hurt or help are neutral. Relationships which do not hurt or help are neutral.

Space-binding – the power of animals

The power of space-binding is mobility – the ability to move about in space. This is not the simple motion of plants. This is mobility – running, jumping, leaping, swinging, swimming, creeping, stalking, crawling, diving, and flying.

The space-binder moves towards a specific and attainable goal – water, food, a mate, shelter – and in any direction. The mobility of the space-binder is not just motion, it is controlled motion. The space-binder moves in search of food. For grazing animals the quest is continuous; for predators, occasional but more strenuous. And all animals are under constant threat from natural enemies. The animal, therefore, requires sense awareness – awareness of the space in which he lives. The space-binder uses his awareness to find food and to warn him of the approach of enemies. A deer may be motivated by thirst to go to a waterhole, but if it senses a lion, it will refrain. It must continuously evaluate conflicting stimuli and choose between alternatives, alternatives of pleasure or pain, alternatives of good space or bad space. Space-binders are aware of space, they are aware and they think, they think and they decide – constantly making controlled choices as to where and when to move.

Thinking for the space-binder is wholistic. The animals base their decisions on the whole situation. When the rabbit hears a sound in the thicket, he must react instantly, “fight or flight” and the decision must be made now, based on the whole situation. There is no time for analysis. Only wholistic thinking has the rapidity and flexibility to allow survival in the adversary world of space-binders.

Spacial intelligence allows the animal to move instantly towards good space – space that enables one to survive, and away from bad space – space that produces injury or death.

But the animals are not only space-binders, they also have some of the power of energy-binders. While they cannot transform solar energy directly into organic chemical energy, they can transform the tissues from the plants and animals they eat into organic chemical energy, they can also grow, and they can also organize energy.

To the fox who sees the rabbit, success at seizing this opportunity for a meal depends not just on his ability to know when and where to move, but also on his ability to control the energy which he will need to power his movement. He must have adequate energy stored so that he can release it at the proper moment to catch the rabbit. And the rabbit can only escape if it uses its knowledge of both space and energy effectively.

Adversity – the natural law of animals

Adversary relationship originates on earth in the animal world. Earth supplies limited space for the animals. Space is finite. Good space is even more finite. It is very limited. There is only so much good water, so much good grazing land, so much good shelter, and so much good potential food. There is not enough to go around. The space-binders must compete for this limited amount of good space. They compete adversarialy. They compete by fighting and flighting. They compete by attacking and killing other space-binders. They compete by devouring the energy-binders.

Animal survival depends entirely on finding others to eat. The herbivores depend on finding plants to eat. The carnivores depend on finding other animals to eat. The animals inability to utilize sunlight to synthesize organic tissue means they must eat organic tissue. Animals survive by eating either plants or animals. Animals are completely dependent on other for survival. This fact makes animals the dependent class of life – dependent on other.

Imagine a fox chasing a rabbit, if the fox is quick enough, it will win a meal, at the expense of the rabbit who loses its life. On the other hand, if the rabbit is quicker, the fox loses a meal, and the rabbit wins its life. The animals live in an adversary world of losers and winners. This is a world of fighting and flighting – of pain and dying. To win in this world someone must lose. Winning is always at the cost of another.All animals, from the smallest insect to the largest whale are struggling to avoid losing – struggling to avoid being hurt.

CONFLICT –def–> The struggle to avoid loss – the struggle to avoid being hurt.

The animals must fight and flee to stay alive, and they do. Always ready at a moments notice to go tooth and nail to avoid losing – to avoid death. Losers/winners is the harshest of games. Winning is always at the cost of another’s life.

The loser tends to resist with all of its might occasionally prevailing by killing or wounding its attacker. So both parties can lose, turning the game – losers/winners into losers/losers.

If we analyze adversary relationships, we discover that individuals are less after the relationship. (1+1) < 2. In the animal world where the loser forfeits its life (1+1) = 1. Or in the end game of losers/losers, both adversaries may die in battle, then (1+1) = 0.

Adversity is completely natural in the animal world. It is the law of Nature for dependent live forms. It is the way of all animal life. The adversary way is not bad for the animals, it is Nature’s way.

The animals have acquired the ability to move voluntarily, but they lack the ability to understand their environment. Their inability to understand locks them into the adversary world.

To be complete, some plants do not have chlorophyll. They cannot convert radiant energy to chemical energy. They lack the full power of energy-binding. They are dependent life forms like the animals and survive through adversary relationships with other forms of life. This includes pathological bacteria and parasitic plants. This also includes the carnivorous plants which possess a primitive form of mobility.

Time-binding – the power of humans

We humans are time-binders. We possess the power to understand and through that understanding to control and dominate planet earth.

The power of time-binding is to understand – to observe and remember change over time. Understanding comes from the awareness of time – an awareness that allows humans to experience time as sequential or linear.

Tomorrow follows today as today followed yesterday. Time always moves from the past to the present, from the present to the future. Change is bound in time. And time-binders can understand change in space because of their awareness of time.

Time-binding is a new way of thinking – analytical thinking. The time-binder can make decisions based on understanding changes in his environment over time. Time-binding analysis is sequential analysis – linear analysis – focused on the parts rather than the whole.

Analytical thinking recognizes cause and effect. Time-binders are the masters of cause and effect. When humans understand cause and effect, they make scientific discovery. They make knowledge. When humans make choices based on knowledge, they make inventions. They make technology. Time-binders are the creators of knowledge and technology. When knowledge is incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool.

Humans are above all else toolmakers. Most of our knowledge is embedded in our tools. Human knowledge grows continuously and without limit. As we incorporate our evermore powerful knowledge into tools. We produce evermore powerful tools.

Time-binding’s head start

Time-binding is also that unique human ability to pass that ‘knowing’ from one generation to the next generation. Both animal and human offspring begin their lives in nearly total ignorance. The differences that exist between them are small, but what advantage in ‘knowing’ that does exist belongs clearly to the animal. While the animal seems to begin life with a greater store of inherited ‘knowing’, it possesses little ability to learn from its parents. The animal is condemned to rediscover over and over, every generation must discover anew the ‘knowings’ of its parents. The wise old owl may know a great deal, but he has no way to pass what he knows to his offspring and they have no way to receive it. We humans are very different in that respect. We can and do pass our knowing from one generation to the next.

My grandmother was born in a house without telephone, radio, television, electricity, or running water. My mother was born in the same house, but with the addition of electricity, running water, and radio. I was born in a modern hospital, my mother was put to sleep for the delivery and I grew up in a house with electricity, running water, flush toilets, radios, and telephone, and when I was eight, we got a television.

My daughters were born in a hospital home birth center with my wife awake and participating. My daughters have grown up in a house with three televisions, two stereos, three radios, several telephones, two video recorders, and three personal computers.

We humans do not start our ‘knowing’ over every generation. My paternal grandfather had a 3rd grade education; my maternal grandfather had an 8th grade education.

My parents were high school graduates. I have 26 years of formal education and a doctorate. My wife’s mother has a grade school education; her father finished high school. My wife completed 23 years of formal education and has a graduate degree.

Our two daughters are now teenagers attending college, but both were involved in organized and systematic educational programs since their births. I am not smarter than my grandparents or my parents, I am simply later. Present humanity is not smarter than past humanity, they are simply later. As Alfred Korzybski explained in 1921:

“Human beings possess a most remarkable capacity which is entirely peculiar to them – I mean the capacity to summarize, digest and appropriate the labors and experiences of the past; I mean the capacity to use the fruits of past labors and experiences as intellectual or spiritual capital for developments in the present; I mean the capacity to employ as instruments of increasing power the accumulated achievements of the all-previous lives of the past generations spent in trial and error, trial and success; I mean the capacity of human beings to conduct their lives in the ever increasing light of inherited wisdom; I mean the capacity in virtue of which man is at once the inheritor of the bygone ages and the trustee of posterity. And because humanity is just this magnificent natural agency by which the past lives in the present and the present for the future, I define humanity, in the universal tongue of mathematics and mechanics, to be the time-binding class of life.” (2)

We humans bind time and are bound together in time. The record of our time-binding is everywhere. It is in all that activity that we so innocently call progress. It is the very motor of obsolescence. It is embedded in just about everything associated with humans and yet most humans are unaware of the very power that makes them human. We humans catalogue and store our various knowings in libraries, universities, colleges, data banks, and information services. We store our knowing in many formats – books, tapes, films, movies, newspapers, magazines, video, microfilm, photos, computer files, etc., etc., etc..

We are time-binders and the mark of our human power is everywhere.

But, humans are more than just time-binders with the power to understand. We also have the power of space-binding – mobility and the ability to think wholistically, and the power of energy-binding – conversion of plant and animal tissue to organic chemical energy, growth and organization of energy.

Human success depends not just on understanding, but also on knowing when, where and how to be mobile. And also on the ability to control the energy which we will need to power our movement. We must have adequate energy stored so that we can release it at the proper moment to adapt to our environment.

Synergy – the natural law of humans

The synergic relationship originates in the human world. As Korzybski foresaw:

“The human class of life is a part and a product of nature, therefore, there must be fundamental laws which are natural for this class of life. A stone obeys the natural laws of stones; a liquid conforms to the natural law of liquids; a plant, to the natural laws of plants; an animal, to the natural laws of animals; it follows inevitably that there must be natural laws for humans.” (3)

Universe provides unlimited time for humans. This is in the sense of time-binding. Human lives are finite, but human knowing is not. Humans discovered control of fire ~1.5 million years ago, and it has been in daily use since then.

Humans invented the wheel ~5500 years ago and its use is everywhere today. Because humans pass their knowing to their descendants, in a sense, collective human life is not limited. Understanding is not limited. Knowing is not limited. Technology is not limited. Quality of human life based on knowing and technology is not limited.

We first discover synergic relationship in the microscopic universe. It is the basis of human cellular organization. Each of us has approximately 40 trillion cells organized within our bodies. These cells are related synergically, each acting in a highly co-Operative way.

Synergic relationship becomes available to human individuals because of time-binding. Our ability to invent and to understand new ways of doing things creates a new possibility for co-Operation which does not exist in the world of the plants and animals.

Co-OPERATION –def–> Operating together to insure that both parties win, and that neither party loses. The negotiation to insure that both parties are helped, and that neither party is hurt.

Cooperation is an old word with lots of different meanings and feelings attached to it. Similar words are uniting, banding, combining, concurring, conjoining, and leaguing. Individuals who cooperate are affiliates, allies, associates, or confederates.

To some cooperation seems a losing word associated with socialism and communism. This is not what I mean. Co-Operation in synergic relationship means operating together to insure a win-win outcome.

Co-Operation is the mechanism of action necessary whenever an individual desires to accomplish a task beyond his individual abilities.

Imagine, you and a friend are moving a heavy piece of furniture. Neither of you are strong enough to move the furniture by yourself. You decide to co-operate. You decide to operate together during the lifting. You would negotiate to insure that both of you win – to insure that both of you are helped.

The conversation might go like this, “Are you ready?” “OK.” “Ready, 1.. 2.. 3.. lift!”, and if things are going well that is fine, but if one end gets too heavy then synergic co-Operation requires that you also protect each other from loss. “Whoops! Set it down.”

This is the synergic veto. This is the true meaning of co-Operation. The negotiation to insure that both parties win, and the synergic veto to stop the action if either party is losing.

A very limited form of cooperation exists among some animals. We see it the hunting pride of lions and within the hyena pack. Human co-Operation is a much more powerful mechanism. Animals have no voice with which to negotiate an action in which they win. They have no voice to veto an action in which they lose. Their primitive cooperation is guided by instinct, and it is quick to breakdown into the fighting and flighting of the adversary way.

We humans share the animal body, to survive we must also eat. We are omnivores. We meet our basic needs and survive by eating both plants and animals. Physiologically, we humans are also a dependent class of life. So adversary behavior comes to humans legitimately. But we humans are much more intelligent than the animals and that intelligence gives us the synergic option to avoid fighting or flighting.

True co-Operation – working together, teamwork, joint effort, alliances – these are only possible to a life form with symbolic intelligence – to a life form with a voice and with language – to a life form able to negotiate and veto. On earth, synergic relationships are only available only to humans.

Synergic relationship means sometimes I depend on other and sometimes other depends on me.

Synergic relationship makes humans the interdependent class of life – interdependent on each other. Today, synergic relationship exists only within small groups of humans.

Today, we find synergic relationships within families, occasionally within small businesses. But, there are no examples of institutionalized Synergy. Today, there are no synergic governments.

Co-Operation results when there are no losers and no one is ignored. When humans behave synergically, they seek their goals and needs as allies rather than as competitors. Human intelligence is most useful when we humans think of ways where all parties can win and where there is no need for losers. Synergic relationships can produce all-win scenarios. And when humans begin to co-Operate wonderful things can happen. When we analyze synergic relationships, we find that (1+1) > 2 , frequently it’s much greater (1+1) >>> 2.

Synergic mechanism is basic to Life. Synergy is present in the energy-binders. If we examine the plants microscopically, we find that every cell within a plant is organized to work together, each contributing to the integrity of the whole plant. The whole plant is more than an accumulation of vegetable cells. However at the macroscopic level the plant is neutral. It has no relationship with other plants.

Synergy is present in the space-binders as well. If we examine the animals we will find that microscopically they are synergically organized. Their organelles are synergized into cells, their cells are synergized into tissues, their tissues are synergized into organs, their organs are synergized into the organism-as-a-whole. Every cell interacting synergistically with every other cell. But for space-binders this is where synergy stops. The space-binder is behaviorally an adversary – the very opposite of synergy.

The intelligence of space-binding is inadequate to allow space-binders to organize themselves into a synergic community. The lion kills the zebra with no thought of the community of animals. The space-binder is not irresponsible he is aresponsible. His adversary behavior is the result of innocence. He sees himself as the only “whole”.

In the adversary world there is only good space or bad space. The animal lives the life of true dependence. If he is to eat, he must kill other.

We humans are also microscopic synergies. However, on the macroscopic or behavioral level we have a choice as how to behave. We can choose Adversity, Neutrality or Synergy. Today1999 most of us choose Adversity and Neutrality, and most of our relationships are adversary and neutral.

However, we humans do have the synergic option denied to the plants and animals. In synergic relationship, (1+1 ) > 2, (1+1) can be 25. In synergic relationship (1+1+1+1) can equal 100,000,000.

The Beatles – an example of synergy

Four young musicians named, John, Paul, George, and Ringo form a group in England in the 1960’s.

If we add up their separate individual musical abilities, (1+1+1+1), we would expect it would equal 4. But when The Beatles perform in synergy they break the rules of Newtonian logic with their joining, for The Beatles (1+1+1+1) equaled hundreds of MILLION$.

Synergy is in the “whole”. When the synergic relationship was broken, when The Beatles stopped performing together as a group in 1979, and began performing as individuals, their earnings dropped off dramatically despite high separate activity.

Forbes Magazine ranked The Beatles #5 on its list of the 40 top earners in the field of entertainment for period 1996-1997. The Beatles music royalties for this period totaled $98,000,000.00 eighteen years after they had disbanded.

What made the Beatles so very special cannot be found by analyzing John, Paul, George, or Ringo as separate musicians.

Synergy then is that something extra that exists in the whole that cannot be discovered by analyzing and summing the parts.

In summary then, Alfred Korzybski defined the three classes of life as energy-binders, space-binders, & time-binders.

Plants adapt through their awareness and control of energy. Animals adapt through their awareness and control of space, and. Humans adapt through their awareness and control of time.

Plants possess the power of energy-binding which is growth and organization. Animals possess the power of space-binding which is mobility and some of the power of energy-binding. Humans possess the power of time-binding which is understanding, and some of the power of space-binding and some of the power of energy-binding.

The natural law of plants is Neutrality – they ignore other.

The natural law of animals is Adversity – they hurt other.

The natural law of humans is Synergy – they help other.

Plants have no relationship with other. They are the independent class of life.

Animals depend on others as a source of food. They are the dependent class of life. Their lives are filled with conflict – the struggle to avoid being hurt.

Humans share the animal body and physiologically we depend on others as a source of food. However, psychologically and socially, sometimes we depend on others and sometimes others depend on us. We are the interdependent class of life.

Interdependence gives us humans the option for co-Operation.

We can choose to operate together to insure that both parties win, and neither party loses. We can negotiate to insure that both parties are helped, and that neither party is hurt. We can veto any action that would cause either party to lose or be hurt.

³ Alfred Korzybski, The Manhood of Humanity, ibid

1—Life
2—Three Ways
3—The Relationship Continuum
4—Three Classes of Life
5—Human Neutrality
6—Interdependence
7—Wealth

The Science — UnCommon Science – (PDF)

Intro—Science 2001
1—Knowing 2001
2—A Limit to Knowing
3—Scientific Mistakes
4—What Do We Know

5—Order (PDF)-New

The Present — Crisis: Danger & Opportunity

The Future – A Synergic Future

The Relationship Continuum

Timothy Wilken, MD

All human choices and all human relationships can be described as falling on a continuum.

I define an adversary relationship to be any relationship wherein the participants are less happy, less effective and less productive than they would be without the relationship. An adversary choice is any choice that reduces the happiness, effectiveness, and productivity of the participants in the relationship. The sum of the whole relationship in terms of happiness, effectiveness, productivity, profitability, satisfaction, etc. is less than the sum of the parts – less than the sum of the individual’s ability to be happy, effective, productive, profitable, satisfied, etc. outside this relationship.

I define a neutral relationship to be any relationship wherein the participants are equally happy, equally effective, and equally productive as they would be without the relationship. A neutral choice is any choice that has no effect on the happiness, effectiveness, and productivity of the participants in the relationship. The sum of the whole relationship in terms of happiness, effectiveness, productivity, profitability, satisfaction, etc. is equal to the sum of parts – equal to the individuals’s ability to be happy, effective, productive, profitable, satisfied, etc. outside this relationship.

I define a synergic relationship to be any relationship wherein the participants are more happy, more effective, and more productive than they would be without the relationship. A synergic choice is any choice that increases the happiness, effectiveness, and productivity of the participants in the relationship.

The sum of the whole relationship in terms of happiness, effectiveness, productivity, profitability, satisfaction, etc. is more than the sum of the parts – more than the sum of the individual’s ability to be happy, effective, productive, profitable, satisfied, etc. outside this relationship.

Let us say that you are capable of “X” happiness, effectiveness and productivity. I am capable of “Y” happiness, effectiveness and productivity. If we choose to interact the results can be as follows:

We can have neutrality, your “X” and my “Y” are unchanged by our relationship. The sum of the whole (X +Y ) is equal to the sum of the parts (X) + (Y).

We can have adversity, your “X” and my “Y” are reduced by our relationship. The sum of the whole (X + Y ) is less than the sum of the parts (X) + (Y).

Or, we can have synergy, your “X” and my “Y” are made greater by our relationship. The sum of the whole (X + Y) is more than the sum of the parts (X) + (Y).

These are the three classes of relationship described in Edward Haskell’s Unified Science (1). Haskell further explained that the two parties to a relationship would experience one of nine possible co-actions.

A relationship can be effected in three ways. Your “X” can go up, remain unchanged, or go down. And, my “Y” can go up, remain unchanged, or go down.

Our relationship might be good for you, good for me; it might be good for you, neutral for me; it might be good for you, bad for me; it might be neutral for you, good for me; etc.; etc.. Again in our language of games, we have nine possibilities when examined particulately for gross effect.

And, if we examine the nine possibilities wholistically for net effect, we see the emergence of our three general classes of human relationships.

If we examine our three general classes of human relationships we discover some striking differences. In the adversary class, there is a net loss. We humans lose something, we are less together than we would be apart. The neutral class reveals no change. We are the same together as we would be apart. In the synergic class, there is a net gain. We humans gain something, we are more together than we would be apart. Recall our relationship boxes.

Neutrality 

Edward Haskell called the loss of adversary relationship the “conflictors’s deficit”. Let us represent that loss as ( – Z ).

Adversity

He called the gain of synergic relationship the “cooperator’s surplus”. Let us represent that gain as ( + Z ).

Synergy

Truth lies in eye of the beholder

Each participant determines for himself whether a relationship is synergic or adversary. This is determined from his point of view, and he cannot be fooled.

He is either more happy, more effective, more productive because of the relationship; or he is less happy, less effective, less productive because of the relationship, or he is unchanged by the relationship.

The truth is in the eye of the beholder. The effect can be partial. There may be relationships that are partially synergic, and/or partially neutral, and/or partially adversary.

True synergy exists when all participants are more happy, more effective, and more productive. True synergy is WIN-WIN. True synergy is +,+. True synergy maximizes the cooperator’s surplus – maximizes ( Z ).

1—Life
2—Three Ways
3—The Relationship Continuum
4—Three Classes of Life
5—Human Neutrality
6—Interdependence
7—Wealth

The Science — UnCommon Science – (PDF)

Intro—Science 2001
1—Knowing 2001
2—A Limit to Knowing
3—Scientific Mistakes
4—What Do We Know

5—Order (PDF)-New

The Present — Crisis: Danger & Opportunity

The Future – A Synergic Future

Three Ways of Relating

Timothy Wilken, MD

When we examine the relationship between self and other, we discover that we can choose actions that result in our being worse off, actions that result in our being unchanged, or actions that result in our being better off. We can choose to hurt each other, we can choose to ignore each other, or we can choose to help each other.

It was as a child on the school playgrounds of rural America in the 1950’s that I first learned of these three choices first hand. My twin brother and I were seven years old when our Dad was transferred to a new job and our family moved to the small community of Palco, Kansas. We arrived there after the start of the school year, and soon found ourselves threatened by the established group of boys at our new school. For reasons unclear to me then, conflict seemed almost constant, and real knock down battles occurred all too frequently.

One of my strongest childhood memories is of fear and running. A pack of boys are chasing me and my brother. If they catch us, they will beat us up. I am very tired. We have been running for nearly thirty minutes. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear little else. Perspiration fills my eyes making it difficult to see. A hundred yards ahead my twin brother is running easier. He is taller and a great runner. The pack cannot catch him. But, they are getting closer to me. Recess is almost over now, if we can just hold out until the bell rings, we will escape back into the safety of the classroom. But our escape will be short-lived.

I remember dreading every recess – every lunch hour.

Just like in boxing, at the sound of the bell we would all come out fighting. At every recess, the war would resume.

While my brother could often run all noon hour without getting caught, I was smaller and slower with options more limited. Sooner or later the confrontation came, and with it would come the hurt:

a bloody nose,

a torn shirt,

a pair of broken glasses,

detention after school,

and the risk of a whipping when you got home for fighting at school.

To my seven year old mind, conflict seemed really stupid. Both sides got hurt. I tried to give as good as I got. Hurt and be hurt. I realized in that first year at the new school that there were no real winners in conflict. Even, when you “won” somehow you lost. It didn’t make any sense to me. I resolved to learn how not to fight.

By learning how not to fight, I did not mean giving in. In submission, the threatened party does what the threatener demands so the threatener will not hurt him. A bandit may say “Your money or your life,” the victim gives the bandit his money, and the bandit goes off with it, leaving the victim with his life.⁽¹⁾ This is an ultimatum – lose a little or lose a lot, but you will lose.

As a child, I recognized submission as a clear option. Some of the boys in the pack avoided getting hurt by giving in. But this is not what I had in mind when I sought to learn how not to fight. To me submission was worse than getting a beaten. I had always run my own life and I wanted things to continue that way. At my last school I had many friends. My brother and I began our education in a one room school shared by children ages 5 though 13. There the children were more like family. Conflict was unusual and little part of our daily life. We were friends and it seemed we had always been friends.

This way of being friends seemed to me the best way to relate.

I knew I wanted to turn the enemies in my new school into real friends, like I had enjoyed at my old school. But this could not involve giving in. I began my campaign very simply. I knew I liked friendly people. So, I started by just being friendly to my enemies.

I was friendly not submissive. I still did what I wanted. If that happened to be what others wanted that was fine, and I went along. If I didn’t, I went my own way. But either way I was friendly, and I never tried to impose my way on others. The boys came to realize that while they could beat me up, they could not make me give in. And, since I vigorously resisted being beaten, my attackers could usually count on a few bruises and pains for their trouble.

My strategy of non-submissive friendliness worked to some degree. Conflict was less and my share of battles decreased dramatically. I found myself being more and more left alone.

They ignored me, preferring to focus their efforts elsewhere, but they were not my friends. I had managed to step outside the world of conflict. I was neither predator nor prey. I was in a different place.

I stand next to my taller brother a few years before the chase.

The other boys no longer sought to hurt me. They simply ignored me. We had shifted from an adversary relationship to a neutral relationship.

However, I was not where I wanted to be. Clearly, if I wanted these boys to become my friends, something more would be necessary.

I had no idea what that more might be. The search for an alternative would dominate and shape my life far beyond any other concern.

Many years later as a physician and scientist, I would encounter the work of Edward Haskell. His relationship science would help me understand the phenomena, I had first encountered on the rural playgrounds of Kansas.

Relationships can hurt, ignore, or help

Edward Haskell ⁽²⁾ discovered that when any two individuals relate the result of their interaction may be negative, neutral or positive. Returning to the use of common gaming language, when two individuals relate they can lose, draw, or win. In all relationships, individuals experience one of the following qualitative states:

1) They can lose. They are hurt by the experience. They are less after the experience than before.

2) They can draw. They are ignored by the experience. They will be the same after the experience as before.

3) They can win. They are helped by the experience. They are more after the experience than before.

From the point of view of the individual joining in relationship, I can be hurt, I can be ignored, or I can be helped by the relationship.

Relationships that hurt are adversary. Relationships that ignore are neutral. Relationships that help are synergic.

---

1 Kenneth Boulding, Ecodynamics, Sage, Beverly Hills, 1978

2 Edward Haskell, FULL CIRCLE: The Moral Force of Unified Science, Gordon and Breach, New York, 1972

---

UnCommon Sense Library

FIRSTwords
Introduction

The Basics — We Can All Win!-PDF

1—Life
2—Three Ways
3—The Relationship Continuum
4—Three Classes of Life
5—Human Neutrality
6—Interdependence
7—Wealth

The Science — UnCommon Science – (PDF)

Intro—Science 2001
1—Knowing 2001
2—A Limit to Knowing
3—Scientific Mistakes
4—What Do We Know

5—Order (PDF)-New

The Present — Crisis: Danger & Opportunity

The Future – A Synergic Future

Synergic Science is “real” Science

Timothy Wilken, MD

Orville and Wilbur Wright were aeronautical scientists and they had to understand aeronautical science to invent the Aeroplane. However, one doesn’t have to be an aeronautical scientist to ride in an airplane, or for that matter even to fly one.

UnCommon Sense is based on the synergic sciences. I have devoted many years of study to the synergic sciences, but this book is not written for me. Most humans living today are not scientists and it is not necessary for them to understand science in order to benefit from it. Nor do they need to be synergic scientists in order to act synergically.

The solutions that the synergic sciences bring us must be made available to all of humanity. Since I am seeking to communicate with as large an audience as possible, this requires the use of clear and nontechnical language. The nonscientist reader of UnCommon Sense can expect to learn to understand the human condition, and his or her options for improving his or her life with synergic mechanisms.

But UnCommon Sense must also present the synergic sciences effectively to the most scientifically minded individuals within our species. It must include enough science to provide compelling proof to the most critical of readers.

It cannot ignore the scientists in the reading audience. The synergic mechanisms that can solve humanity’s problems are based on “real” science and that science like all science has a history. UnCommon Sense will therefore present the story of human synergy in six sections – The Basics, The Science, The Past, The Present, The Future, and finally SAFEpassage or how do we get from the Present to a Synergic Future.

The Basics section includes the fundamentals of synergic science necessary to understand and recognize synergic relationships and synergic actions.

The Science section is written to help deepen the reader’s understanding of synergy. Much of it is written in the voices of the synergic scientists themselves. While this section contains some advanced synergic science, it is not as hard to understand as you might imagine.

Bootstrap to knowing

I entered medical school in 1966. In my first week I would learn one of the most valuable lessons of my life.

A fellow classmate and I were in the medical library at our school. We had been reading some science papers assigned in an earlier class, when I noticed he was reading one paper, that I didn’t have listed on my assignment sheet. He seemed much more interested in that paper than in those from our assignment sheet.

My classmate would read a paragraph or two and then hurry off to the big medical dictionary across the room. He made so many trips, I surmised the reading must be very difficult.

Finally ,my curiosity got the better of me, and I also was beginning to worry that I might have missed getting the assignment to read that particular paper, so I queried him.

First he responded by saying, “No, its not part of our assignment, I’m just reading this for myself. The author is a Nobel laureate.”

He started to return to his reading, but then he paused for a moment to look me over and for some reason he decided to share his secret with me. “Its something more than that. It is a secret way to learn that my Father taught me.”

I leaned closer and he continued.

“When you read and understand the work of a world’s leading expert, you can become the world’s second leading expert.”

At first I didn’t know what to say. The thought was so foreign to me. I said nothing and returned to my study of the assigned readings. Later that evening after class, my mind kept coming back to what my classmate had said, “When you read and understand the work of a world’s leading expert, you can become the world’s second leading expert.”

Shortcut

Could it really be true? Could getting ahead be as simple as finding out who the experts were and studying their most advanced works.

To think that I could catch up to a world expert by spending a few hours in the library seemed an oversimplification, and somehow terrible at the same time. Science was supposed to be much harder than that. In the next few years, I would learn that science is much harder than that and yet discover for myself the deep truth of my classmate’s lesson.

Science was hard, and as I began using the bootstrap I discovered there was nothing easy about understanding the advanced papers of experts. I had somehow missed the implication of my fellow student’s repeated trips to the reference dictionary that morning in the library. Now I finally understood. There is a shortcut in science, but like many shortcuts, the path is a more difficult one.

You can learn fastest from the world’s experts if you are ready to invest the effort to learn the expert’s language, definitions and methods.

Since then, this lesson has served me well.

I have saved years of study by using the knowledge of the world’s leading experts to bootstrap myself to a position of better and more complete understanding. And always, with more understanding comes more control.

I have filled UnCommon Sense with the understanding and wisdom of many of the world’s leading experts.

Please make their expert knowledge your own. Please invest a few hours in learning the language and methods of the experts and bootstrap yourself to a more powerful and positive future.

The nonscientist reader may find some parts of The Science section difficult. Fortunately, it is not necessary to completely understand or master this section in order to participate in a synergic future. However, I encourage you not to skip this section as it contains some very important information. I predict that those readers who invest the time to read and think carefully will discover they can understand synergic science.

The synergic sciences are new to everyone including most of today’s scientists. Most scientists are specialists and synergic science is not their speciality The trained scientist may have the advantage of thinking scientifically, but the material is equally new to all readers, and very likely not in most scientist’s field of training. So please do your best. This science will be used throughout the rest of the book to analyze and understand our human past, the crisis that faces us in the present, the shape of a synergic future, and the synergic mechanisms that we can begin using now to move towards that future.

Eventually, I believe most humans will come to understand even the most advanced synergic sciences. While all humans are not considered to be scientists, all human beings are Time-binders. Since science is simply the most powerful form of time-binding, I would argue that all humans are to some degree scientists.

All humans notice and react to the changes in their environment, scientists just do it more intensively and carefully. Scientists discover the laws of Nature by observing changes in their environment. By studying these changes, they come to understand them. The synergic sciences are “science“.

Science

The most powerful tool of science has been the scientific method.

First, the scientist carefully studies some natural phenomena or process – observation. Then the scientist thinks very carefully about what he has observed. He contemplates, he meditates, he thinks, when he sees a pattern, when he develops an insight, then the scientist states a hypothesis – a proposed model of reality. The scientist then makes predictions based on that hypothesis and develops a procedure to test those predictions – experiment. And finally the scientist gathers the results from the experiment and compares the experimental results with the predictions – observation.

Then the scientist begins again, the scientist thinks very carefully about the results that he has observed. He contemplates, he meditates, he thinks, when he sees a clearer pattern, when he develops a better insight, then he modifies his hypothesis and the cycle is repeated. This is the process of science, the scientific method is used over and over to create evermore accurate models of reality.

When a hypothesis is found to be exceedingly accurate in predicting reality, and when no exceptions can be found to its description of a natural phenomena or process, then and only then does it gain the status of scientific theory. A scientific theory sometimes called a generalization means a principle that has been found to hold true in every special case.

Scientific theories are corroborated hypotheses – they are the most accurate models of reality we have.

Near truth

When a scientist uses the word theory, he is talking about something much more than an opinion – something much more than an assumption – something much more than a belief. Scientific theories are near truths.

We humans have used scientific theory to safely take us to the moon and to cure cancers. You can safely bet your life on scientific theory and you do – every time you walk onto an elevator or board an airplane.

And while scientists have the highest respect for scientific theories, they know they are not absolutes. They understand that scientific theories are models of reality and not the reality itself. In the past these models of reality were often confused with reality itself. Those scientific theories that survived continued human experience were thought to be absolute truths. They were thought to be certainties. They were given the most prestigious of names – “Laws of Nature.”

In 1999, scientists know better. Today we know that human knowledge always grows with more experience. A scientific theory believed to be true today will be improved or shown to be incomplete later. Newton’s scientific theories, published in 1687, formed the scientific basis for the Industrial Revolution and our modern world. Thought to be absolute “Laws of Nature“, they were shown to be incomplete by Einstein’s scientific theories published in 1915.

Einstein was not necessarily smarter than Newton. He was simply later. As Newton is quoted as saying, “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” Einstein was 230 years later than Newton. Einstein was standing on Newton’s shoulders as he created a more accurate model of reality. Humans will always seek to know more. Humans will always seek more accurate models of reality. Humans will always seek the laws of Nature. But, today in 1999, human science is more humble.

It accepts the fact that today’s knowledge is incomplete. That human science will always know more later.

In UnCommon Sense, I will be presenting a number of new scientific theories for your consideration. These scientific theories are to my knowledge accurate, and I have found no exceptions in their description of humanity – including human evolution, human behavior, and the human condition. But I do not ask you to accept them on authority – mine or anyone else’s.

As a time-binder, your greatest power is your own intelligence – your own ability to understand. I trust you to read UnCommon Sense critically and think carefully as you evaluate these new scientific theories – these new models of reality.

You will want to ask yourself, do these models help me to better understand humanity? Do they help me to better understand myself, to better understand the individuals important in my life, and to better understand the human condition? Do these models answer my questions about my life and the world as I experience it? Will they help me to make better choices in my future.

Again, they are models of reality, they are not reality. Scientists are human, and nothing can be taken as absolutely certain. So, irregardless of how certain my words may sound. I do not pretend to have all the answers. I believe I have the best answers based on what we know now – 1999.

But that’s now, tomorrow we will know more. Tomorrow these scientific theories will be improved and will be shown to be incomplete. But, the promise of greater knowledge and better tools tomorrow is no reason to postpone building a better world today.

The next section of the book is called The Past. Here I will add much color and flesh out the story of our synergic evolution.

Here we will learn of humanity’s struggle with adversity and neutrality, and of our discovery of synergic mechanisms and synergic relationships. Again, I quote extensively from a number of historians and scientists to explain our human story.

The Present section examines the state of our world today, and reveals a humanity in crisis. I will explain the causes of our adaptational crisis, and clearly delineate the problems that we must solve if humanity is to survive.

I will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If we humans are to continue as a viable species, we must know what is wrong with our world and what must be changed.

The Future section describes how things could be done in a synergic future. It reveals ways of solving human problems that are very different from the way we do things today. It explains how some problems that are difficult now could become easy to solve in a synergic future. It will also show how some problems that are impossible now could become solvable too. This section is very exiting and promises a positive and wonderful option for the continuation of the human story.

And finally, the SAFEpassage section is where the action is. If you are convinced by reading the earlier sections that you want a synergic future, this section of the book will tell you how you can begin changing your life and participate in the synergic revolution. This section reveals a number of powerful synergic mechanisms that can be used now to make your life safer and more meaningful.

A few ground rules and we will be ready to begin.

UnCommon Sense is written with a heightened awareness of time. Therefore, I will present these new scientific theories utilizing Alfred Korzybski’s convention of dating¹. Dating is a time-binding reference tool which allows more accurate communication.

Dating explicitly informs the reader of the temporal context in which a statement is made or when an action being described occurred. Thus America¹⁷⁷⁶ is not America¹⁹⁹⁹, just as Physics¹⁶⁸⁷ is not Physics¹⁹¹⁵ is not Physics¹⁹⁹⁹. Dating can be applied to ourselves just as well. Human beings evolve and change as they live their lives. Timothy Wilken¹⁹⁶⁶ is not the same as Timothy Wilken¹⁹⁹⁹.

UnCommon Sense relies heavily on the work of many other scientists and historians. Time-binding by definition implies that all scientific and historical works must to a large extent be corroborations. Therefore I have abandoned the practice of paraphrasing the work of others, in favor of presenting their work in their own words. This is accomplished through the liberal use of direct quotations from their original writings.

I have occasionally edited these quotations in an attempt to increase clarity, and to underscore their relevance to this work. All changes and additions to the quotations of others are very minor and have been made carefully to avoid disturbing the original content and flavor.

Where I have disagreed with a quoted author or felt the need to comment, I have used *annotations. My annotations are clearly demarcated by a colored bold *font preceded by an asterisk.

My extensive use of quotations should allow the reader a deeper understanding of the process of discovery and of time-binding. While some of these quotations are quite lengthy, your reading of them should not be considered a replacement for reading the original work. I have credited and referenced all quotations to facilitate your finding the originals for yourself.

Remember also that these quotations are themselves bound in Time. They will all be dated so the reader is aware of the time when they were written.

Because our language is evolving, you will discover many of the quotations are not gender neutral for example you will often see the word ‘Man’ used to represent the word ‘Humanity’. Our language is currently full of pronouns with implied gender that do not necessarily represent sexist beliefs or intentions of the writer. Even writing in 1999, with an awareness of gender neutrality, I have not succeeded.

Many words have changing or multiple ‘meanings’ based on context or usage. Korzybski called these words “multiordinal terms” and made use of single quotation marks² to alert the reader to this risk of miscommunication. I will also use this convention in UnCommon Sense.

And now, a word about ‘redundancy‘.

Redundancy is a multiordinal term that has two very different meanings. In the one sense, redundancy means repetition of an act needlessly, or the attribute of being superfluous and unneeded. In a second sense, redundancy means repetition of messages to reduce the probability of errors in transmission, as in electronics, a system design that duplicates components to provide alternatives in case one component fails.

Now both senses of redundancy involve repetition. However, in the first sense repetition is unnecessary, while in the second sense repetition is very necessary.

Neurobiology¹⁹⁹⁹ finds that information presented with the greatest duration, intensity, and repetition is best remembered by the learning mind. Redundancy is an important tool of education. This is especially true when that information contains revolutionary ideas or concepts. The synergic way is so very different from our present reality, that I have chosen to use redundancy as a mechanism to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of my communication with you. Therefore, you will find that I am redundant.

However, I hope that you will experience my redundancy in the second sense – as both necessary and valuable. I apologize for those hopefully few occasions when you find it unecessary and annoying.

And finally, I would like to acknowledge Mark Davidson’s use of the title Uncommon Sense for his book about the life and thought of synergic scientist Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

I had already chosen the name UnCommon Sense as the working title for this book when I came across Davidson’s book in 1984. But, because of his precedence, I initially abandoned the idea of using the same title. Now fifteen years later, I have come to realize that UnCommon Sense is the right name for this work.

Mark Davidson’s book is a very fine one and I recommend it highly. He had good reason to choose the title for his work, and I encourage you to take a closer look. In many ways, Davidson’s words serve as the perfect conclusion to my own introduction of this “UnCommon Sense“. Davidson writing in 1983:

“Common sense, which once assured humanity that the world is flat, now assures us that the world is the sum of its parts.

“As a result, most of us deal with our environment by taking it apart – piece by piece, problem by problem – on the assumption that our efforts ultimately will add up to success.

“The human race has gotten by with that piecemeal approach for centuries, just as it managed to get by for centuries with the pre-Copernican notion of a flat earth. But our age of innocence must now end. The unprecedented interconnectedness of civilization compels us to face the fact that the world is greater than the sum of its parts. We therefore must begin paying attention to the fate of the whole earth rather than just the sum of its nations.

“Similarly, contemporary crises compel us to consider the whole society rather than just its separate groups, and the whole person rather than just the person’s separate roles.

“On nearly every level of our life, challenges have become too complex to yield to orthodox analytic approaches that deal with interrelated problems in artificial isolation. Nationally, we are faced by an interactive linkage of government budgets, interest rates, housing, employment, poverty, welfare, taxes, and crime. Internationally, we are confronted by an interactive linkage of population, food, natural resources, industry, technology, commerce, and conflict. And the overlap between international and national spheres is constantly enlarging.

“Everywhere, we are involved with immensely complex systems that authorities call counter-intuitive, because these systems do not necessarily behave as common sense leads us to expect. And everywhere, we are faced with a set of problems that authorities call a problematique: a veritable Rubik’s Cube in which the solution of one facet by itself can actually be a step backward from overall progress.

“We have abruptly entered a new history, an era that demands a science and philosophy of synthesis.

“We need – all of us need – a new way of thinking.

“We need a way of clearly seeing the forest for the trees, a new perspective that is variously described as holistic, ecological, gestalt, global, molar, integrative, organismic, synergistic, synergetical, synholistic, and systems.

“We need, in short, an uncommon sense of interactive relationships within and between wholes. Not just the occasional holistic insight that some of us experience in one realm or another as we muddle through life, but a total vision of the holistic landscape.”3

---

¹Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, The Colonial Press Inc., Clinton, Mass., 1933

²Alfred Korzybski, ibid

³Mark Davidson, Uncommon Sense – The Life and Thought of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Father of General Systems Theory, J.P. Tarcher, Inc, Los Angeles, 1983

1—Life
2—Three Ways
3—The Relationship Continuum
4—Three Classes of Life
5—Human Neutrality
6—Interdependence
7—Wealth