Big History

"Big History assembles accounts of the past from many different disciplines into a single, coherent account of the past."  From What is Big History?, Lecture 1, The Great Courses*

The past refers to the last 13 billion years!  Several months ago, I watched Professor David Christian's TED Talk on The Big History and then I listened to Bill Gates speak of the importance for young people to engage in such a course.  A group of us decided to invest in the 48 thirty minute DVDs and listen to the lectures together, over dinner, wine and lively conversation.  For me it is a wonderful, perhaps life changing, time.  We are not yet halfway through the series but each of us is finding new meaning, new understanding. We are seeing patterns that we can not see from a close up, near term perspective. 

In a nutshell, Christian speaks of eight thresholds beginning with the Big Bang and continuing through today.  Each threshold is an extraordinary  increase in complexity, and by its nature, fragile.  Threshold five brings life to our planet.  Threshold 6, 7, and 8 include human history. We are very recent. 

Humans appear as the 7th threshold, the Paleolithic Era. Christian's working theory is that what makes us human is our unique form of adaptation "collective learning".  All living beings adapt and change but it is very slow often over millienum.  Collective learning enables us to combine, store and reuse information. 

Those of you who know me know that I like to find patterns.  I attempt to work and see at a meta level. If you go to our library, you will find books that help me see and seek patterns.  Patterns are always prevelant in my design and facilitation. 

The following two quotes are magnificent in helping me see patterns from the past unfolding today. 

"There was neither non-existence nor existence then." What we are talking about is a sort of state in which there is not quite nothing, but there's not quite something: there's "sort of a potential". --- Rigveda, the basic Hindu scriptures.

I think of paradigm shifts.  The old is crumbling, disolving; the new is forming, solidifying. We are approaching our 9th threshold and a sort of potential.  We are in a fragile moment in history.

"The evolution of multi-cellular organisms was a complex process. For such organisms to work, billions of cells had to cooperate and communicate with great precision.  It was also necessary for them to be able to communicate with each other in some way, and for each cell to know its place and role in he functioning of the organism as a whole.  These are staggering organizational challenges. However, such challenges were not entirely unprecedented, for evolution can involve cooperation as well as competition. In fact, simpler forms of cooperation that do not count as multi-cellularity had already evolved.  Even eukaryotes formed through symbiosis between distinct types of prokaryotes."

This seems to me to be the same pattern we must repeat today, but on a higher order.  Is this not our challenge today ... for billions of people to learn to cooperate and communicate with great precision? 

Is this not our next collective learning adaptation? Today's mantra for collaboration and cooperation are not fads. It is more than a current trend.  When we take a long now approach, we can see that we are being shown the easiest, most natural route to crossing Threshold 8 successfully. 

Time and work is precious today.  If you are reading this you are probably one of the people building the scafolding for the next threshold.  There always seems to be more work than we could possibly do. Still I invite you to find some friends and enroll in an awesome experience.  You can rent the course from many libraries and The Learning Company has sales for more than 80% off.  I got my set for $90, a very good investment.  And, let's get the kids enrolled. It can be a wonderful family experience!

Occupy

1: to engage the attention or energies of
2 a : to take up (a place or extent in space) <this chair is occupied> <the fireplace will occupy this corner of the room>
b : to take or fill (an extent in time) <the hobby occupies all of my free time>
3a : to take or hold possession or control of <enemy troops occupied the ridge>
b : to fill or perform the functions of (an office or position)
4: to reside in as an owner or tenant
— oc·cu·pi·er noun

Origin of OCCUPY
Middle English occupien to take possession of, occupy, from Anglo-French occupier, occuper, from Latin occupare, from ob- toward + -cupare (akin to capere to seize) — more at ob-, heave
First Known Use: 14th century
from Merriam-Webster dictionary

This morning I listened to the TED talk : The Birth of a Word. The author, Deb Ray, uses his 18 minute talk to explore the unfolding of his child's first words and then moves on to show the research going on to map words and how they filter down throughout  the social environment. As I listened I began to think about the word "occupy" and where the spikes and filtrations of this word were humming and streaming throughout the world.  The talk was made in March, 2011, before we, the 99% gave a deeper meaning to Occupy. It would be both fun and significant to map this word as it travels through time.

Clearly, Deb's talk revealed how important it is to choose words carefully and meaningfully.  As our new global paradigm unfolds, it seems essential to bring new words forth and to give them meaning through all of our media.  What are the words that speak to a better more equitable world?  Words like "environment, sustainable, health, peace" are useful words, but they are often co-opted by the media reporting the old news. They are not thoughtful, crafted words to speak a new language at this moment in time.

This is not to infer that we need all newly invented words. "Occupy" comes from the 14th Century! But it is recontextualized and made fresh and tactical. I think it would be interesting to search all media and find words that are emerging, not yet popular, words filled with new meaning and purpose.  If we could map these words, we could find ways to spread them and accelerate the development of a new paradigm. 

I'd love to hear your words ... words that you are tracking as you work to cause a new paradigm to progress and mature. 

Twelve Angry Men

In the movie, Twelve Angry Men, a jury must decide whether or not to reach a guilty verdict and sentence the 19 year old defendant to death. At the beginning of the play, eleven jurors vote “guilty.” Only one man, Juror #8, believes that the young man might be innocent. He must convince the others that “reasonable doubt” exists. One by one, the jury is persuaded to agree with Juror #8.

The film was produced in 1957 but I only stumbled on it a few weeks ago while looking for a good rental movie.  Now, it is on my list of "see often" movies. I have much to learn from it. 

The drama is a beautiful show for how to bring a diverse, non-engaged group of people into a conversation that allows each person in his own way to challenge his assumptions and authenically change his vantage point.  This kind of process is at the heart of Group Genius. 

Juror #8, against all odds, asks questions and plays 'Spoze with the other jurors making sure that each of the men are brought into an environment of care and listening.  The young boy being tried has had every bad break possible, including a lawyer appointed by the state, who simply did not care if he lost the case. He just assumed his guy was guilty. 

The movie started with 11 jurors against one and the one, Juror #8, was not even sure of the boy's innocense. He only claimed there was reasonable doubt which meant that he was not guilty for sure. With one question and one test, Juror 8 began the process of getting the others to begin the process of thinking for themselves rather than to assume that he could give away their vote without careful consideration. 

One question led to someone else's question and slowly the group came together to ask real questions of each other ... ones that mattered not only to the boy but to each of the jurors.  It was a prime example of the MG Taylor Axioms: 1) Everything that someone tells you is true. They are reporting their experience of reality. 2) To argue with someone else's experience is a waste of time. 3) To add someone's experience to your experience--to create a new experience--is possibly valuable.

These three axioms unfolded over and over throughout the 90 minute film which in the drama was the better part of a day. 

And in the end, most of the jurors left feeling that "WE" found the boy not guilty.  Each played a part and changed their vote only when to do so was authentic, not because others pressured them to conform. 

Of course I wish politics could have this form of dialog. Our world would be so much better. But, my message here is for all of us as facilitators of Group Genius to engage and learn from Twelve Angry Men.