Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00093)

> From: "Mark Kusek" <mark@withoutwalls.com>
> Date: Wednesday, June 03, 1998 12:56 PM
> Subject: Re: Egregores and Masters

"The kingdom of Heaven is all around them... but they do not see it."

> I've been noticing  how some of Jung's theories on projective phenomenon
have
> been finding their way into the field of Information Theory.  Both Edward
> Tufte ("Visual Explanations", "Envisioning Information") and Thomas
> Davenport ("Information Ecology") expose the idea of how cognitive
> environments are created and constrained (for most people) by the
graphics
> and systems available.  Thus systems can be heaven or hell and "users"
> frame their perceived environments within them.

I just saw Tufte lecture on Information Design and wholeheartedly agree
with you. It is amazing what exterior and interior images do to
construct "the world." It is a function that we all too often
unconsciously accept without really noticing or questioning. What
responsibility does that knowledge place on artists, designers and
imagineers of good conscience?

from Pam:
I think "responsibility" is a key word. The designer has a responsibility
to communicate ideas, not just display data.  Too often, as designers, we
think we're done once we've "fulfilled requirements" and presented data
--we need to make sure that we have suceeded in our communication, turned
data into information, given the user something that can enlarge their
understanding.  To the old adage "you can lead a horse to water, but can't
make him drink", Tufte would add "no, but you can shove his nose in the
trough!"  [I saw him lecture in Chicago, last April...great!]

To communicate, we need to allow ourselves to try to enter the interior
whole of the recipient.  The more we can drop our own ego and see through
another's eyes, the better the construct we can create.  When I am working
with users on getting requirements for new software systems, I like to take
time, get away from the specific requirements, and ask the users to share
their "vision" of how they think the system should work --to describe how
they will do their work, what insights will they gain.  I find that by
letting a user group do this, we can create a share vision, a thought form
of what the system will be like.

Good design recognizes that cognition takes place on levels beyond the
surface, verbal intellect.  I read pages and pages of poems by Rumi. If
that's all I do, what do I have? Nothing except to be able to say I've read
Rumi.  I can analyze each poem using academic texts of the meaning of  Sufi
symbology, Islamic metaphor, and historical references.  What do I have?
Just a mechanical analysis of words on a page.  To really know the poems of
Rumi, I have to read the words and let them play with my inner being, let
the images and the feelings they produce seep deep into the pit of my
stomach, and allow them time to digest, unhurried by my intellect's desire
to get to the next page.

 As designers, we need to make sure that the vision, the requirements of
the creation has time to be absorbed, time to be cultured, like cells in a
petri dish. How do we know when this has happened?  When do we know that
we've thoroughly communicated, that a shared vision exists?  This is we a
developed sense of intuition comes in --you speak with users and "feel"
whether or not it is there.

In her guidelines for becoming a chela HPB lists the need to have developed
a sense of intuitive understanding of certain principles.  Developing this
sense is key to art and awareness.  Crowley openly declared that there were
lies in his writing to force his students to rely on and develop their own
sense of intellect rather than be a sheep and passively accept whatever he
put on the page.  This is a common practice amoung occult writers.  That's
why it amuses that this list spends so much time bickering about HPB
"untruths".  From the Crowley perspective, if the student can't intuitively
recognize a human truth from a human lie, what chance to they have finding
their way around other planes!

Pam
pgiese@snd.softfarm.com

"Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light..."