“ORIGINALS”

an essay by
nuet/Larry/LJV

draft

3/4/2010
 Amongst the Luminals there appear to be a few who function in a very
different manner to the rest. They take their orientation from a point
that is a centre of interplay between various flows of information.
They seem to have the capacity to process immense amounts of
information at high speed and to configure information in ways that
enable its use in guiding the process forward.

These are the Originals. They do not need to be taught. They seem able
to extract the information that they need, from their environment and
continuously move forward along paths that do not exist beyond their
perceptions. These Originals are in fact carving out – with their
perceptive power – the paths to the future. They are positioned on the
frontiers of human perception.

Those who share this ability to whatever extent may reach out to each
other and explore what is possible together.

-- Nirmalan Dhas email 19FEB2010 during online video dialog.

“ORIGIN” embedded in “ORIGINAL”

I (Larry) thought on this periodically in the early morning as I slept. After a
few hours of exploring the ideas generated by the term “originals” I
discovered, to my astonishment that the term contained the term “origin” and
was related to another term I have been using: “origination”. After this
shocking discovery, the pattern of my mentation changed somewhat.

This discovery is shocking because for many persons, that “origin” is

embedded in “original” is a no brainer. I initially chose “most” in the
above sentence but replaced it with “many” because I really don’t know
the quantitative statistics on this phenomenon. I have experienced such
discoveries many times, each being a shock; and each eliciting a useful
insight – as trivial as this may appear.

For example, if was shocked to discover:

“create” in” recreation”

“form” in “transformation”

Although I had a quality formal education with a strong emphasis on language,

it appears that I didn’t really digest the parts about prefixes.
What had I been thinking about, re “originals” before I associated it with
“origin”? It is hard to go back. I was probably thinking about those being new
and relatively uncontaminated – and following Nirmalan’s email, “emergent”
and somewhat free from instruction. I was more attending to the processes
and factors that enabled persons to be free to be “originals” – new and
different from what was before. This was somewhat separate from
consideration of the origins (implying first events) that led to “originals”.

Nirmalan and I talked about how “originals” viewed themselves as “unique”

and “different” from others – and whether “originals” could recognize other
“originals”, and how “originals” related to each other. Could “originals”
organize?

DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS
1. Pertaining to the origin or beginning; preceding all others; first in order;
primitive; primary; pristine; pioneering, fresh & different

2. Not copied, imitated, or translated; first form of something from which

copies have been made; new; fresh, genuine.

3. Someone who thinks or behaves in an unusual way and is interesting or

entertaining; having the power to suggest new thoughts or combinations of
thought; inventive.
4. RELATED WORDS: Bohemian, ab ovo, abecedarian, aboriginal, actual,
advanced, alien, antenatal, antetype, antitype, archetypal, archetype,
article, authentic, autochthonous, autograph, avant-garde, basal, basic,
basilar, beat, beatnik, beginning, biotype, bona fide, brainchild, breakaway,
budding, callow, candid, card, card-carrying, case, central, character, classic
example, commencement, composition, computer printout, conception,
conceptive, conceptual, constituent, constitutive, copy, crackpot, crank,
criterion, crucial, demiurgic, derivation, deviant, dewy, different, dinkum,
dissenter, document, draft, dropout, duck, earliest, eccentric, edited
version, elemental, elementary, embryonic, endemic, engrossment,
epitome, esemplastic, essay, essential, ever-new, evergreen, exploratory,
extra, fair copy, fanatic, far out, fecund, fertile, fetal, fiction, final draft,
finished version, first draft, firsthand, fledgling, flimsy, flower child,
following the letter, forerunner, formative, foundational, freak, free and
easy, fringy, fugleman, fugler, fundamental, generative, genesis, genetic,
genotype, genuine, germinal, gestatory, good, grass roots, green, gut, head,
held back, held in reserve, held out, heretic, heretical, hermit, heterodox,
hippie, hobo, holograph, homebred, homegrown, honest, honest-to-God,
ideational, ideative, imaginative, imitatee, immature, in abeyance, in
embryo, in hand, in its infancy, in ovo, in the bud, inartificial, inaugural,
inception, inceptive, inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incunabular,
indigenous, individualist, infant, infantile, informal, ingenious, initiative,
initiatory, innovation, innovational, innovative, inspired, intact, introducer,
introductory, inventor, kinky, kook, lawful, lead, legitimate, letter, lifelike,
literae scriptae, literal, literary artefact, literary production, literature, lone
wolf, loner, lucubration, maiden, maidenly, manuscript, master, material,
matter, maverick, meshuggenah, mint, mirror, misfit, model, mother,
nascent, natal, native, native-born, natural, naturalistic, neoteric, nestling,
new departure, nonconformist, nonfiction, nonjuror, not cricket, not done,
not kosher, notional, nut, odd fellow, oddball, oddity, of the essence,
offbeat, opus, origin, origination, originative, originator, outsider, paper,
paradigm, parchment, pariah, parturient, pattern, penscript, piece, piece of
writing, pilot model, pioneer, play, poem, postnatal, precedent, preceding,
precursor, pregnant, preliminary, prenatal, primal, prime, primitive,
primogenial, printed matter, printout, procreative, production, productive,
prolific, protogenic, prototypal, prototype, prototypical, provenience, pure,
put aside, put by, queer duck, queer fish, queer specimen, quiz, radical,
radix, rara avis, raw, reading matter, real, realistic, recension,
representative, reproduction, reserve, revolutionary, rightful, rise, root,
rudimental, rudimentary, rule, saved, screed, screwball, scrip, script, scrive,
scroll, second draft, sectarian, sectary, seminal, sempervirent, shaping,
simon-pure, simple, sincere, solitary, source, spare, spook, standard,
starting, stem, sterling, stock, stored, strange, substantial, substantive,
sure-enough, suspended, swinger, taproot, teeming, the written word, to
spare, tramp, transcript, transcription, true, true to life, true to nature, true
to reality, type, type species, type specimen, typescript, ugly duckling,
unadulterated, unaffected, unapplied, unassumed, unassuming, unbeaten,
uncolored, uncommon, unconcocted, unconformist, unconsumed,
unconventional, uncopied, uncounterfeited, underived, underlying,
undeveloped, undisguised, undisguising, undistorted, unemployed,
unexaggerated, unexercised, unexpended, unfabricated, unfamiliar,
unfanciful, unfashionable, unfeigned, unfeigning, unfictitious, unflattering,
unfledged, unhandled, unheard-of, unimagined, unimitated, uninvented,
unique, unorthodox, unprecedented, unpretended, unpretending,
unqualified, unromantic, unsimulated, unspecious, unspent, unsynthetic,
untapped, untouched, untried, untrodden, unused, unusual, unutilized,
unvarnished, ur, urtext, verbal, verbatim, veridical, verisimilar, vernacular,
vernal, version, virgin, virginal, visioned, waived, way out, word-for-word,
work, writing, yippie, young, zealot.
LARRY’S PERSONAL ASSOCIATIONS WITH “ORIGINAL”
ORIGINALS AND COPIES
Art and other endeavors, where one creates a material structure from
imagination, are domains where a sharp distinction between original
productions and copies, imitations and counterfeits is clear. There is
clearly only ONE original in this domain.

Some may try to emulate originals. This mode is popular in the

entertainment domain. Communities of misfits could grow by attracting
emulators; but quick variation would be needed or one would end up
with subpopulations of clones of the original originals.

ORIGINALS AS MISFITS
When originals emerge from a population, from which they are
distinguished, they are misfits – that is, they don’t fit well with their
parent population. Being a “misfit” is only negative from standards
based on “fitting in” with a specified population. Misfits may have, but
not necessarily, traits that are “better” than those of their parent
population. Another term might be “mutation”.

Because misfits may become less fit by many different ways, it may be
difficult for misfits from one population to be able to adapt and learn so
as to collaborate in becoming “fitter” for membership in a new
population. This becomes even more difficult when the parent
population is actually a mix of different populations. Often a misfit in
one population can reasonably fit in other populations.

This aspect may be important for originals (viewing themselves,

sometimes, as misfits) in terms of how each must adjust so as to “fit”
with others; and how the positive diversity of misfits contributes to the
viability of the new populations they seed.
 Some parent populations may tolerate misfits, even give them support
and sometimes adulation. Other types of misfits are viewed as
dangerous or parasites.

Misfits were significant in the high conformity cultures of tribal

communities. When expelled from one community, they gathered to
eventually form alternative communities – a process for community
evolution. We might learn from how they succeeded (or failed).

ORIGINALS AND INSTRUCTION

Originals are self generative, emergent, seemingly not in need of
instruction. This may be an innate trait that pushes them to be originals
(misfits) by shielding them from indoctrinating and acculturating
instructions from their social environments. Or, this self generating may
simply have been more influential over instructional forces.

Originals may be attracted to other originals, and may temporarily

submit to instruction. The guru/disciple higher-educational mode in the
East may fit this description

As originals of diverse background commune, there should be much

mutual learning. Some of this may be via instruction, but more probably
by the creation of learning scaffolding within which others are seafed in
their learning.

Too much instruction indoctrinates and makes it more difficult to be an

original. For this reason, college education and specifically graduate
education are highly indoctrinating and produce few originals.

It surprised me, as a graduate student in physics at the University of

Chicago in 1956-8 to learn that very few of my fellow prospective
physicists had any desire to be originals. They aspired only to be
practitioners of “normal science” (Kuhn). This included most of the
brightest students, and it didn’t appear because of any belief that they
lacked the ability mastering physics. Maybe they recognized the
originals as misfits and didn’t wish to become one of them.
 Recently reading the biography of Paul Dirac (The Strangest Man by
Graham Farmelo) who was clearly an original and extreme misfit, I
realized that almost all the famous physicists who gave birth to
Quantum Physics in the 1920s were misfits. The Advanced Institute at
Princeton was established to give basic support to these genius-misfits.

BODGETS AS ORIGINALS
I have come to name all animals raised in the company of humans and
who become originals, “bodgets”. Not all of my pets became bodgets.
Bodgets were able to transcend their animal natures sufficiently to
relate to human intelligence.

Most service animals become bodgets, but animals only trained for
complex behavior may not be “bodgets”.

Those pets who did not become bodgets viewed me only as a friendly
and useful environment, and may seek my attention but never appear
sensitive or appreciative of my needs. Bodgets on the other hand, not
only view me as another being, but one to which they have truly
intimate relations.

ORIGINALS IN EVOLUTION
Our current model of biological evolution has individuals with
variations (viewed as random) in environments that select for “fitness”
(survival and reproductive prowess). This process doesn’t necessarily
lead to evolution (new species) but only to a shifting of the distribution
of variants in the population, given the shifting environment. For
example, drought resistant variants will dominate in drought and wet
resistant variants will dominate in wet, without significantly changing
the gene pool of the species.
Many extreme variants become misfits and are excluded from the
population. Most die. A few have special new “fitnesses” for new
environmental niches (often themselves emergent from the evolution of
other life) and if they survive and can reproduce, become “originals”:
the first members of a potentially new species. As they continue to
adapt and survive this new species becomes established. This has been
called “punctuated evolution” (as distinct from “drift evolution”) which
usually occurs when the originals are isolated from their parent
population and are “free” to evolve without being reabsorbed into that
population.

We now know that significant evolutionary breakthroughs come about

through a radically different process (although survival and
reproductive prowess is always essential). Sometimes two radically
different species biologically merge. They are usually not the same size.
One eats another, but the digestion is not complete. A symbiosis
develops, and over time the two different species merge to become a
radically different species. Their separate genomes may merge. These,
too, can be viewed as originals.

Evolutionary processes have been extended beyond the biological, to

social organisms (hives), cultures, brains and minds. Originals can be
identified in each of these.

These models of evolution and emergence can be useful to us as analogs

and metaphors. But, what is happening now, as human originals are
liberated from conformity and attempt to overcome their misfit
negatives so as to come together – may be different in significant ways
from these analogs and metaphors.

Human emergence today may be a COSMIC ORIGINAL.

ADULT STAGE DEVELOPMENT AND ORIGINALS
Human originals may also be a product of adult stage development. This may
not be fully distinct from evolutionary models, but represents changes that
can occur in a species that has considerable individual longevity and complex
social support. This may be a form of “cultural evolution” reflected back on the
later stages in the lives of individuals.

The factors that lead to human originals may be factors that influence stage
development, both biological and social.

The developmental models of children are now being challenged as not fixed
blueprints, but this does not refute the observation that human development
is not “smooth and continuous”, but occurs in quick bursts with intervals
between where there may not be as outstanding change.

Today, there are a few models for stage development of adult

cognitive/emotional functioning. Unfortunately, those working with these
different models have little interaction with each other and there is little work
on improving or integrating the models. Applying them is their current
priority.

These include the early models of General Semantics; the Spiral

Dynamics models from Graves, Beck and Cowan; Robert Kegan’s
Subject/Object model; and the learning tools model of Kieran Egan (not
specifically applied to adults).

Most of the traits we “originals” and others claiming greater spiritual,

moral, humane, or intellectual insight attribute to us are the traits
present in those at the higher stages of human adult development.
Spiral Dynamic stages:

BEIGE: If the thinking is automatic; the structures are loose bands,

the process is survivalistic.

PURPLE: If the thinking is animistic, the structures will be tribal,

the processes will be circular.

RED: If the thinking is egocentric; the structures are empires; the

process is exploitative.

BLUE: If the thinking is absolutistic; the structures are pyramidal;

the process is authoritarian.

ORANGE: If the thinking is multiplistic; the structures are

delegative; the process is strategic.

GREEN: If the thinking is relativistic; the structures are egalitarian;

the process is consensual.

YELLOW: If the thinking is systemic; the structures are interactive;

the process is integrative.

TURQUOISE: If the thinking is holistic, the structures are global; the

process is flowing and ecological.

Kegan stages: incorporative, impulsive, imperial, interpersonal, institutional,

inter-individual.

Egan stages: somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic/scientific, ironic.

LIMITATIONS OF CURRENT RESEARCH
The data for research into stages of adult development are primarily from
subjects that are both intelligent and highly educated. However, within this
range there is no association between level of development with either
intelligence, levels of education, and social achievement level.

The stages are highly influenced by the worldviews of their authors; much as
they wish to see human development occur. To the novice this may seem to be
NewAge fluff. But, it is very significant, even if the current levels of exploration
are primitive. The different frames adults use to assess and judge information,
and how they view themselves and their changes is critical.

Progression through stages is not deterministic, not necessarily in a given

order, stages can be skipped, and there can be regression, and persons may
alternate between stages given the specific situation.

We can only speculate on how persons of lower intelligence and lacking

formal education (even literacy) may rank or advance on scales for adult stage
development. We will probably have to develop different measures for use
with these populations.

There are no reasons to believe that the core nature of these stages actually
depend on high computational intelligence or advanced formal learning. They
are more associated with fundamental epistemological models, which might
exist in indigenous peoples as well as those living in advanced technological
societies. It is not impossible that the distribution of adults in indigenous
tribes might be shifted to higher levels than distributions in techno-fixed
industrial societies.

None of these limitations should be taken as arguments against the viability

and importance of adult changes in “how we process” as distinct from “what
we know”.
When a person awakens to or shifts to a higher stage (which can be
quite sudden) they often quickly become misfits with respect to their
previous social environment. Unless they can find support from similar
misfits, or have the strength to go it alone, they can easily be reabsorbed
back into behaving and thinking in the prior stage. Media propaganda
and other social constraints can retard or block shifts to new stages.

Very few of the educated and active are aware of these models, although
they can attest to the extreme differences in adults.

A disturbing feature of this concept is the statistical distribution of

individuals in each stage – with the majority in lower stages (of being
societal children) and a very tiny percent having the collection of
competencies for peaceful living in complex societies.

In one sense, all at one stage are “originals” with respect to those at
lower stages. And, it may well be that almost all persons at the highest
stages are variants of the “originals” we see ourselves to be.

What is exciting and encouraging from this perspective, is that

becoming an original may actually be a possibility for most humans
alive today. This “originality” we experience may not be as “special” or
as “rare” as it appears. True, we have a long, long way to go – as we are
a very tiny minority. But, the others are not enemies, but potential
brothers and sisters.

However, we must face the fact, that given the great variation in
human genetics, there is a real percent of the human population
who cannot be fully functional as viable citizens of a new
humanity. We should treat them as “societal children”, and with
support they can find “roles” in the larger society.
ORIGINALS IN BOOTSTRAP UPLIFT SCENARIOS
One way a new human species might emerge would be that a genetically
altered small group become isolated from the rest of the species and are
enabled in their many generations’ population growth. They might outbreed,
but could never inbreed with other humans. Eventually, this group should be
unable to breed successfully with other humans. The first of this new group
might be viewed as new “originals”.

Might some of these already exist among our population, and need only
to converge and isolate? To be successful in the very long term, they
would probably have to leave Earth or exterminate most other humans.

Possibly a large number of such groupings are possible, that over many
generations of inbreeding might produce a somewhat different human.
However, none would necessarily be “better” nor would their survival
be “natural” or “secure”.

A new human and a new humanity are possible without (initially) any
significant change in the human genome. Humankind is an intertwined mix of
genetic, epigenetic, and cultural evolution. The phenotypical distribution of
humans today is primarily determined by societal and cultural constraints.
The future life of each newborn is constrained by opportunity (or the lack of
it).

Imagine all children raised in the most hospitable and “rich”

environments; compared with all the same children raised in the least
hospitable and devastated environments.

The phenotypical distribution of humankind, today, is actually shifted more

toward the negative ideal than the positive – and it is getting worse, rapidly.
Also, environments of the elite are not necessarily producing “better” humans.
Nor, are most humans produced in poor environments “bad” – it is just that
lacking opportunity they have been unable to develop their potentials. They
may be “good” people.
Even the most enlightened humans have demonstrated limited imaginations
when they explore the future uplift of the human population. A few reasons
(or excuses):

No one has had any experience or knowledge of significant uplifts of

human populations. Everyone’s experience with formal education
knows its limits.

Although there are seemly endless claims for magical

transformational practices, neither the practitioners nor their
products are that distinctive. Also, none of these proposed magical
procedures seem to improve nor does the population of
practitioners ever grow exponentially. Thus, any claim for a
magical solution is automatically questioned.

If there was a means for rapid uplift, it would probably be quite complex
and almost impossible to share with sufficient comprehension to gain
viable support.

As comprehensive a survey as possible of serious proposals to improve

“education” would reveal a highly complex process with many highly
interdependent variables. Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety (The Second
Law of Cybernetics – as important as the Laws of Conservation of
Energy in physics) implies that a means to manage such complex
systems must have the same degrees of freedom of “control levers” as
there are essential variable in the system. The consequence of this is
that a truly viable and successful educational system must be as
complex as the system to be educated.

That is, fully viable human systems (communities of teams) are

required to educate human systems (individuals and teams). This
is NOT what one means by a one-to-one teacher-student ratio.
The complexity the best teacher applies to the education of just
one student is vastly inferior to the real complexity of the learner.
 That it takes “A Village to Educate a Child” implies some
recognition of this – but this idea is seldom explored to any
greater depth.

Unfortunately, what “villages” and “professional cults” accomplish

is the narrow indoctrination to the “culture of the village” or the
“discipline of the profession”.

Those nominated as “best teachers” are actually the best emotional

supporters of the learner, many who actually were very poor teachers
(actual facilitators of cognitive development or instructors [trainers]). Of
course, there are exceptions.

Yet, highly functional networks of systems of motivated and

continually-learning educators can, collectively (with much
intimate, human f2f contact) properly uplift each learner.
Actually, as a system, each person has a dual function, as
learner/educator.

I proposed this first in 1978, calling it Learners for Quality

Education. Even the most enlightened, futures oriented
educators and others have not been able to comprehend this – for
a number of reasons (which I won’t go into here).

The objectives and goals of education (and child rearing) are wildly
diverse, as are the many means to achieve them. Attempts to mix these
seem to lead to the least common denominator – and grand failure
(although seldom acknowledged by the practitioners).
 Kieran Egan argues convincingly how the three primary goals of
education in Western Civilization are not only incompatible, but
each on their own are impossible to achieve. The three are: The
Platonic ideal of foundational knowledge, the goal of social
harmony, and designing education to follow the intrinsic learning
ways of the learner. Egan proposes an alternative, also based on
his model of “learning cognitive tools” that has considerable
merit, called Imaginative Education. My concern with Egan is that
he attempts to achieve this within schools, an institutional form I
believe it structurally counter to really seafing learning.

No acclaimed reformers of education are, IMHO sufficiently cognizant of

the scope or complexity of their task. It is my vision that those truly
committed to significant educational change must first engage in a
process of their own re-education coupled with the organizational
design of a new educational system for themselves, and the “already
educated”. In this process they may become competent to design
educational systems for others; but not before.

I envision a subgroup of those emerging through the BUS model will become
such an educational uplift endeavor.

Some of this insight will be required to create the initial educational system
for BUS. But, this initial design should not be made ‘sacred” and could be
scrapped by later emergence.

Social Systems have always endeavored to limit the learning of their

members. It is somehow deeply “known” that a fully knowledgeable member
of their system may destabilize their “system”. Thus, one cannot expect an
established government or social system to support an educational system
that will fully enable each person to seek the actualization of their full
potentials. This is especially true of formal educational establishments.

This has been documented for the USA in the writings of John Taylor
Gatto. He has unearthed statements by politicians and leaders explicitly
calling for limiting education.
 It must be noted that a “totally free and undisciplined championship of
extreme individualism” is not recommended. Indeed, many of the
contemporary models for “freely creative” education are as dangerous
as those that call for strong indoctrination. We must come to terms with
the fact that we are social/cultural beings as well as creative
individualistic beings.

Most persons would reject the system I am proposing, without preparation.

The “already educated” gain their prestige from their educational

“credentials”. Should the systems where they gained their “education”
and “credentials” to be severely criticized and discredited, they may
rapidly lose their status – or so they fear.

Most persons have strong shells protecting their egos (even those who
deny that they have “egos”). Ego protection is “natural” in these times of
extreme challenge and stress. Individuals cannot be expected to
liberate themselves, alone, from their protective shells. Thus, quite
contrary to the popular NewAge view of self-improvement FIRST, a
collective seafnet is essential for individual persons to significantly
change.

The so-called “Awakening” is a delusion. But, it can become real.

This is not the place to outline the detailed scenario for a Bootstrapped Uplift
Scenario. However, in the context of ORIGINALS, those of us who first join and
work with the BUS movement will truly be originals. And those who join later,
and later, will also be originals. When the vast majority of the human
population is part of the movement, they TOO will be ORIGINALS. Centuries
later, those descendent from originals will not be originals. But, they will be
“better” than we are, in many ways. But, the special nature of those of us who
are true originals” will always be appreciated.
INVITATION TO BE AN “ORIGINAL”
Examine yourself; are you an original, a misfit? Be careful, there is MUCH you
don’t yet know about yourself or your world. Return to the toddler stage. You
are fearless with extraordinary courage. You try, you stumble (not failure – a
concept you have not yet accepted) and get up again to try again, and again,
and again. EXPLORE! LEARN! APPRECIATE! SHARE! ENJOY!

NO ONE IS SUPREME; yet, there are those who have lived longer and
differently than you. Nothing they say has ultimate truth, but it was “true” for
them, and that “data” can be useful to you – not as “truth” but as “data”.

I – nuet/Larry/LJV is an original. Not necessarily an “original” for BUS, but I

hope. There are thousands, if not millions of “originals” and “misfits” among
humankind today. Can we unite? Can we collaborate? The potential is truly
there. Can it be actualized? WE SHALL SEE!

If you want to engage as an original in this context, contact nuet at:

larryictor@comcast.net