Novelty

Archived from the former firedocs blog. 16 October 2007

Just a random thought for the morning. Some background trivia to explain where the thought came from.

Trivia: One of the things that brought up the research into 'intrinsic target properties', was based on human senses, and the way they are much more sensitive to change/novelty than to repetition. (Shannon Entropy: A Possible Intrinsic Target Property [pdf] by Edwin C. May, S. James P. Spottiswoode, and Christine L. James. Journal of Parapsychology Vol. 58, pp. 384-401, 1994.)

Trivia: I think we all have realized that 'changing up' one's RV process, whether method or any other element of the process, often seems to have an initial improved-result-impact. Initially this often leads people to be sure that whatever they just changed is THE ANSWER, FINALLY, but after awhile most viewers realize this is a fairly predictable effect is all--and alas, it does wear off.

Trivia: Cue-ing for data within a session is an issue of novelty. Change a word, a phrasing, a perspective in space or time, or even other more unusual ways of focusing, and you create a 'new cue' that can often prompt new data. A given cue (whether to self or from other) seems to have a lifespan ranging from once to who-knows how many but not infinite "provoked responses" in data form. Dowsing really can bring home how changing a single word can change response, but even in viewing I think most viewers with a little experience figure out how important novelty in cue-ing is. Some degree of the value of a monitor could be in the sheer 'novelty' factor of their cueing based on the live experience, for example.

OK, so humans are more sensitive to change with their body-senses... viewer intuitive response often seems re-set/re-freshed from a change in the prompt/cue... viewer results often seem re-set/re-refreshed from a change in any part of the viewing process. It's all the same dynamic.

Although this is one reason I always recommend people use as many tasking and feedback forms and sources as possible, I hadn't really focused on this aspect of it clearly in my head before.

CHANGE. Maybe deliberately planning a constant change after so many sessions, would be useful. Maybe changing out a few basics even of the personal process such as standard self-cue's and things like that, should be part of that. I've come to this idea before several times over the years so I'm wondering why I quit thinking about it whenever that was, or why it seems novel again. (Heh. The advantage of being an airhead. New ideas every day!)

The funny thing is, this dynamic really seems to hold for everything. For weight lifting building muscle, for eating plans and fat loss, as two examples of stuff I also work on regularly, it always seems like there is an initial effect and then it ramps down to a holding pattern of sorts, where the body fights for homeostasis.

Well the psychology fights for homeostasis like crazy. That's half the psychological challenge with viewing in protocol, is how hard the body/mind fights to regain a 'known' footing/belief system. "Change=death to the psychology," as we've all heard. Yet growth only happens when homeostasis is absent, or as the old baseball saying goes, "You can't steal second with one foot on first."

Maybe when we plan our own viewer development, when we work out managing our own tasking and method and so on, a deliberately randomized set of changes in our process should be part of that. Maybe at the first sign of a few sessions in a row that don't go well, change should be implemented.

This makes me think (ok, now I'm just rambling!) of live sports performance. We are least challenged to develop when we only spar with an opponent on things we know, or do planned drills we expect. It's the sheer novelty of the fight or the game that forces us to adapt and grow. I wonder if literally creating a little utility that lets a viewer put in a variety of options for every component of their viewing (tasking or target source, a dozen diff points in their method-process, various cue-ing they do in-session, etc.) and having it randomized would actually be useful. So like, if you sat down to do an 'exercise', on the spot you'd have a custom, fairly unpredictable combination of elements. Each one would be familiar, so it wouldn't be like losing the consistency of doing-what-you-know, but the combination of them would be random, so it might be more like the novelty-of-the-live-event. Ya think? OK, rambling off, need to get back to work here.