Thursday, March 06, 2008

Degrees of Psi & Creativity

Archived from the former firedocs blog. 11 April 2006



In the creative worlds, there are "degrees" of creativity not just within an individual, but within the "style" of a given creative art.


Let us take computer graphic design for example.


  • At its lowest level, there are people who may take an existing template, let us say one provided by a newsletter or website template, and choose colors, fonts, and content to move around.

  • Next up, there may be people who take some of those template elements, but creatively mess with them to combine, move around, totally change, etc. those elements in a graphics program (such as PhotoShop).

  • Then, there may be people who custom-create their own design elements, based on certain basics like titles, navigation, etc., but within those parameters the work is wholly custom.

  • Then, there are people who create designs from scratch, meaning the entire page, website, etc. etc. becomes one larger "creative architecture" of design and also has another "dimension," in that it is both including programming, 3rd party technologies, and accounting for the content which will go inside it.

  • Then somewhat sideways of that, but pushing outward further, are designers who aren't dealing with the additional rules/factors of the technology and environment, but instead are going forward into more extensive design. Let us say that they create Java or Flash based "animated" design, which is a different kind of "dimension" added to the creative mix, and which may have much more 'open boundaries' on what can be designed -- at this point it now includes "dynamic motion, relationships, audio" as well as the visuals -- as if tic-tac-toe has been upgraded now to chess.

  • Further beyond that, we have some of the "cinematic engineers" in design, 3D cinematics (e.g., the opening for 'World of Warcraft' game, by Blizzard's awesome designers).

  • Then off to the side again, outside of whether or not technology is involved at all, we have totally creative artists who may do anything from surreal photography to abstract art to novel sculpture, things that may be totally unlike anything any of us have ever really seen; a full-spectrum creativity with almost no limits at all except the form in which it's developed.

All of these things are creativity. Clearly, some require "more" creativity than others; some require a lot more technical or artistic skill than others; but at root, it is all creativity. And, if used in the proper format, at the proper time, all of them have value.




The reality is that some people are better able to do some things than others.


And, some people actually have their creativity 'sparked' by situation -- such as the web technical and content parameters -- to go where it would not have gone without that. Some people can work with zero parameters and create like crazy, vs. some who don't create at all in that environment; whereas others feel oppressed by parameters, vs. some who use them almost as counterweights, the way you 'push off' a diving ramp.


In the psychic world, there are "degrees" of psi not just within an individual, but within the "style" of a given psychic art.


Some of the degree relates to the 'bandwidth' of data. Dowsing, for example, may be a simple 'feeling' that a line or map is warm or has a pull. That is a pretty narrow bandwidth of feeling/info. Early Remote Viewing may tell you only that the target contains water.


Some of the degree relates to the 'specificity' of info. Dowsing, for example, may be able to tell you it's on the left side of the map, but really good dowsing will give you a range of geographical coordinates. Remote viewing, for example, may be able to tell you that something is a natural environ with trees and some manmade structures; or, it may be able to describe a target in such amazing detail (including material composites, dimensions, etc.) that the session breaks another chunk off your belief system and you need a drink after you see it.


Some of the degree relates to the 'depth' of info. In dowsing that can be almost literal, but may include concepts, relationships, and more about what you're dowsing for and its location. Remote Viewing may bring in concepts, history, future, and even metaphysics.


Some is just about the kind of info your art brings you. Some are more specific, some are more conceptual, etc.


And some relates to the 'type and degree' of info. Whether someone can tell you the psychological state and intentions of an individual, is a rather different thing than whether they can tell you the target is made of stone. Maybe on some grand metaphysical level, all information is just information, and OBL's plans are no different than a golf game or a skyscraper or a business letter or a fish, but in the real world one is as different from the other as advanced cinematic engineering (and its product) is from choosing the font and color on your newsletter template.




It has been my experience that just because a person is not really comfortable operating creatively in a formless environment, does not mean they can't be creative or useful. Maybe it is the same for psi.


There are some people who, no matter what kind of RV rain-dance you teach them, are not going to be truly excellent remote viewers in the way that most of us hope for remote viewing. I know that nobody wants to hear this. I know that half the online RV field will probably hate me for saying that. And I know that a huge number of people have the wailing feeling already that they don't want to waste their time on doing something daily for three years "just to see" if they have any ability. They will almost pay for encouragement (wait, they WILL pay for encouragement, by way of this-method-will-make-you-expert). But it would be unreasonable to think that everybody is going to work with the same "degree" of psi. It does not work that way for art, for music, for ANY skill come to think of it (not even basketball!) -- so why on earth should it be that way for RV?

That doesn't mean there is no application for what they can do, their style, their degree of talent, whatever.


It occurred to me this morning that maybe psi should be viewed by this light. Maybe if we really cared about making the most of psi, we would be exploring it in this way: accepting as a no-brainer that the options for remote viewing are not just "world-class vs. incompetent" but that there's a whole spectrum of "degree" of skill, and building opportunities to work with whatever you've got.


In the world that relates to graphic design, there is no assumption that we are all extremely free-form creative artists with 3D CAD and cinematic skills. Get real. So, there are endless amounts of props and programs and photos and scripts and plugins and buttons and templates and more that you can use or tap into or modify as needed. The world has many opportunities for me to use what creativity I have, what technical skills I have, what inspiration, time or opportunity I have, to create -- in whatever degree -- something.


Why can't it be like that for RV?


Rather than only attempting to help individuals reach a level of fairly advanced remote viewing skill, which leaves us with very few individuals and a very long learning curve of time, what if we also sat down and thought about ways that we could apply far lesser-degrees of skills to something practical?




As one off the cuff example, let's take the coming TKR Predict-This! utility. Anybody will be able to enter anything that they think would be fun for people to make predictions about. Let's say we enter a sporting event. The person who enters it, needs to enter all the 'options' (and there's always a default 'other'/null option). Anybody -- viewer, team, educated guesser, or coin-flipper -- can enter a prediction just for the hell of it. The system hides the predictions until the time of the event (so folks can't ride each others bets, and so old votes don't influence the incoming votes). (And like all TKR tools, it allows anonymity.) When it's done, we have stats from the minor to the major that will accumulate.


It may turn out that on a psychic level, most of us don't give a damn about the motion of the stock market, not even inside ARV, but we really care about court cases and sporting events and elections. Or it may vary by the person.


It may turn out that the guy who couldn't remote view his way to his front door with eyes open, has a helluva knack for just getting a feeling about which of several candidates will win an election anywhere in the world. How will we KNOW this, if we don't build something that is big enough, open enough, that anybody can play in it, that everybody -- even those who psychic skills are completely unknown (or not well developed) -- have a chance to work with the type or degree of psi they may have?


And if, using the coming TKR Zeniverse (RV Groups) software, taskers occasionally give someone an aspect of say, a sporting event, that is basic-level data, so that even fairly novice viewers are just as likely to get that kind of data as experts are the larger things -- might it turn out that properly managed, even a very rudimentary level of psi skills could be utilized to good effect?




If we waited for everybody who played basketball to become NBA-quality before we started utilizing their skills or taking them seriously, the NBA wouldn't even exist, because nobody would have worked their way up to that level using "real world" competition and demands. I believe it is the same for psi.


I believe we -- by "we" I mean, "the people in remote viewing who give a damn, and want to see the field move forward" -- need to come up with some ways to provide opportunity, encouragement, fun, applications, etc. for any and all degrees and types of psi. Find a way for at least middling-novices to apply their skills.


Whether someone is a little psi or a lot; whether they are skilled or novice; whether they use remote viewing, dowsing, tarot, channeling, who cares?? What matters is that they have a chance to apply whatever they've got, work with it, experiment, play, learn and grow and improve.


And along the way we might discover that you don't need to be as good as Joe McMoneagle to get some good out of Remote Viewing, which is a lucky thing, since how many people ever will be?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I agree Move things to the next level