Individuology

Individuology

A New Approach to Thinking

Why a new 'ology'?

People Problems Persist - in spite of millions of sincere people, 'professional' and 'private' trying to solve them, many, crucial people problems, like the Columbine High School, & Virginia Tech massacres, corporate, congressional, and international greed; suicide etc. have not been solved in any consistent way.

People have tried to solve these problems with both Category or Type Based Thinking, which I'll explain later, and Statistical Reasoning, if we can call it that. Neither has worked, which is the need or Why for creating some new thinking tools.

At a more personal level, many of us, and our loved ones, are not achieving all the satisfactions and fulfillments that we are capable of achieving. In some cases these frustrations lead to personal violence.
A question we can all ask ourselves is:

Is my life going completely well in all areas?

So what is Individuology?

& How can I use it?

Individuology is a new paradigm, which contains within it specific Models, Rules, Techniques, and Tools for understanding Individuals and their interactionsš. This may sound complicated but it's quite simple. A paradigm is a 'whole mindset' for approaching certain types of problems or situations. It usually contains certain rules, often unspoken yet very firm, for how to think, or question things, ideas, and/or people. A paradigm often defines, subtly, what questions can and can't be asked and even what specific words can & cannot be used.
Examples:

Being in a grocery store
Being at a board meeting
or a wedding
or at Aunt Nellie's house
or in court
or on death row
or on spring break
Political Correctness - has many questions that can't be asked
and specific words that are not allowed.

š Interactions, both internal & external are the relationships between our internal parts and external friends & foes. They are 'similar to' some of the ideas of Systems Thinking & System Dynamics, disciplines which largely ignore or downplay the importance of Individuals.

A paradigm is often characterized by a metaphor. A crucial metaphor to understanding this new paradigm of Individuology is:
The metaphor of the Map vs the Territory.

This clearly distinguishes 2 very distinct types of knowledge.

Territory - Knowledge about our 1 shared experiential world which consists exclusively of Individuals that are created or born, grow or shrink and/or decay and die over time.

Map - Knowledge (the ideas, concepts, & beliefs) we, each one of us, constructs in our heads about that 1 shared experiential reality. This knowledge is individual, personal & unique to each one of us - our personal 'maps' of our one shared Territory. Indeed we often construct, over time, multiple cognitive ideas or maps about a single experiential person or event. These cognitive ideas, or maps, have a timeless quality, neither growing nor decaying over time, unlike the Territory they attempt to represent. This 'timelessness' is a key quality that distinguishes our internal personal maps from the reality of our single shared experience, the territory.

Here's a simple illustration from an airport near me:

The common shared experiential reality (a picture)

Google Maps Satellite view

Private Maps or Specific Views (Conceptual Abstractions)

Google Mapview Mapquest view.

As our private maps get closer to the shared reality, our lives become more manageable.

For more details see:
the web page World views
and/or the blog entry Experiential & Abstract World views

A new Knowledge Paradigm
This paradigm is a subset of the new Individuology paradigm which addresses how we learn, think, & share knowledge.

The old Objective vs Subjective Knowledge Paradigm is replaced by:
The new Personal and Shared Knowledge Paradigm.

In the old Objective Knowledge Paradigm, you can't ask about 'subjective' experiences. (All of the personal experiences that make life worth living.) Only so-called Objective data is saved for analysis and all of the richer subjective experiences are thrown away. This makes the actions of Individuals and specific events incomprehensible.

In the new Personal and Shared Knowledge Paradigm we acknowledge that all new knowledge is created by an Individual with a specific need, want, or preference or perhaps a strong frustration or problem. They might survey what others have tried, but if no workable solution emerges, they strike out on their own as I have done after studying many other 'people' models. They. & I explore our common shared experiential world with all sorts of observations & experiments, most of which will fail, but hopefully at least 1 will succeed. It's rumored that Thomas Edison rejected over 100 elements for a filament for his light bulb, before settling on one that worked. I have tested & rejected over 150 'systems' of psychology & education.

Then 2 phases follow:
1. Personal - Does it solve my problem? Does it just solve today's problem, or will it be useful in other circumstances and for other Individuals?
2. Shared - Could it be useful to others?
  To answer this, at least 2 more activities are relevant:
IF we decide to share, How exactly do we go about it?
How is our personally constructed knowledge Shared and/or Hidden?
The primary method is Language: words, phrases. diagrams & charts organized by syntax and metaphors. This can be broken down in several ways, verbal & non-verbal, written, spoken, acted, etc.
In addition to popular languages like English, British, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese etc. There is one language that is close to being universal and that is the language of science - Mathematics. A truly delightful language!
I hope to add a 2nd universal language - KnCells!
A way to share the meanings behind the words we use.

The basic sharing process is that you start with an intention to share something useful.
1. You then convert that intention into words, metaphors, diagrams & charts from your own personal experiences.
2. Then you share those words, diagrams, etc. by speaking and/or writing;
3. The other person then translates your words, phrases & metaphors with their own private experiences into their personal private meanings.
A very fragile process indeed.
A breakdown of this new more precise type of Knowledge reveals the 5 Necessary & Sufficient causal elements which are needed for things to come into existence and maintain existence:

Distinctions or Identities, often called facts or vocabulary.
Skills - To Distinquish and/or Connect
Organizations with Connections and Relationships
Purposes, Intentions or Motives
Contexts which vary over time for Experiential Knowledge, but remain frozen in time for Cognitive 'Maps'.

Types of testing. There are many types of tests but 2 main categories stand out.

Academic testing - Creates questionaires and lab experiments.
Experiential testing - Goes into the field to observe Individuals. This often requires doing rather than just answering questions. Example: the WAIS sub-tests.

Types of Certificates - A strong clue to the type of training is who signs the final certificate - an Individual as in aviation or an Institution? More later...

Principles of the new Shared Paradigm - Rather than collect a huge list of very rules for very specific situations, to implement the purpose of the new paradigm we develop principles that are more general guidelines which help us figure out what to do in new and even unforeseen situations. Principles are like meta-rules or condensed rules.
Before accepting a new paradigm it's important to list and consciously evaluate & decide to accept, reject or modify its principles.
And also when our values conflict, which value is more important to us? For example: Safety is paramount in aeronautics.
PCP Ladders are a useful technique for sorting this out.
In Individuology these are most paramount:

Respect for Individuals AS Individuals, NOT simply as members of a group. This works both ways for inclusion & exclusion.
Experiential Testing - see above.

Performance based, like the WAIS sub-tests.
Not artificial lab tests or questionnaires.

Generalizing - Never project past the most extreme value tested. And be sensitive to the incremental range of values tested. ˛

˛ See my blood sugar example.

Our everyday Working Mental Models, Rules, Techniques & Tools:
see: Glossary for my definitions of these terms.

Necessary & Sufficient Causality. (No mysterious, unverifiable, forces like Id, Ego, SuperEgo, Introjects, death wishes, etc.!).
See: Necessary & Sufficient Causality
Dynamic Thresholds (Relative - Absolutes). (Tipping points)
See: Dynamic Thresholds
An Individual Person Model - A model for understanding Individual People, i.e. what makes them 'tick' as an Individual! Their specific driving forces, and how they express those driving forces in their unique behaviors in both internal and external relationships, and especially the dynamic boundaries between them all.
A Community Model
DSS - A Deliberately Selected Sample Populations for surveys!

Yes, the great God Random is indeed DEAD!

Personal yet Precise Terminology - so we can talk meaningfully to one another, and create group projects. In aerospace we measure things like O-Rings to thousands of an inch; in psychology we have vague terms like 'anxious' or 'depressed'.

KnCells to Store & Compare Knowledge.
Checklists, the antidote to Individual differences.
KRG, (Kelly's Repertory Grids), Clean Language & ZBT.
Paul Linden's Body Language for Emotions.
Robert Kegan & Lisa Laskow Lahey's 7 Languages for developmental stages.
Elaine Aron's Undervalued Self

Incremental Knowledge Growth - A place & process for testing and improving our answers over time. This has worked well in aerospace, but not so well in education & psychology. For example: Memory! Back in my University days, I studied several different books about memorizing facts, dates, Names, Faces, etc. Over the years, I added several more. (I don't remember how many.) Yet in spite of how critical this skill of memory is to the learning process; it's Knowledge & Skills are not collected into a single place or curriculum.

Checklists - Aerospace & other industry's solution to the challenges Individual Differences & growth over time.
KnBases - Personal & Shared.
Places like the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board).
See: NISB

If the NTSB can investigate every plane crash from many, many directions - mechanical failure, pilot error, communications errors, weather, runway length, component stress, etc., etc., etc. Why does the psychological community which dares to call itself a profession, when they have a crash, a suicide, simply bury the evidence and learn absolutely nothing!!!!!

Maintenance - Since Individuals in our experiential world grow & deteriorate or decay over time, maintenance activities need to be scheduled and performed. These activities are NOT needed for our conceptual realities.

Personal note: This discipline of Individuology and it's principles, techniques, & tools could also be applied to all other 'Individual' things and events, such as animals, plants, trees, and perhaps even rocks, and our chemical environment. However, my personal focus is exclusively on Individual People. If there comes a time when all Individual people on the planet, have adequate shelter, food, and dignified living conditions, then and only then, will I turn my attention to animals and others issues...

A summary in slide format is at: Overview Slides
A Narrative Description is at Founder's Narrative
A mind map of the various Paradigms, Models, related articles etc. is at: Sitemap

Bob's Blog

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Last Updated: Sunday, Jun. 13, 2010 4:07 PM

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