Khalil S. Patwa

My online thought-barn: Education, Economics and Recursion

[khalil-s-patwa]

Take a look at the world and see what ignites your emotion. Towards what kind of action are you called? The trumpets are ringing and it’s time for you to decide if you’re a player or a spectator. Do you want to join the game and add your powerful influence? Or will you remain a spectator, powerless to change the direction of your life. http://bit.ly/1UDTTQ3

[khalil-s-patwa]

How to Find Your Power Now!

Where does your power lie? In authority or security? In control or dominance? In manipulation or subservience? Or do you find you power and joy in Life and Love? In your family and friends? In simp...

Do you ever look out into the world and feel powerless??

Your power to be creative and fulfilled in there in your heart now!

Find your power!!

[khalil-s-patwa]

Why Prof. Edward Wilson is getting so much flak

Just found out about Edward Wilson and his work on human cooperation.

Last week, 3 synchronistic conversations sparked a next level amalgamation of everything that I've been working on for the last 18 years. 

It's all about distributed networks dynamics when applied to human social structures. Things like communities, economies, companies, schools and nations.

We're at a catalyst point, in terms of approaching singularities in a number of fields: Computer Science, Neuroscience, economies are merging, and political power flows towards supra-national organisations. Culturally also, we are experiencing a much greater awareness of each other, mainly thanks to the increased connectivity the internet provides. 

This is where the reason lies for there being so much seething towards Professor Wilson. As we increase connectivity, while maintaining individual discretion a higher level order of power structures is emerging based on sharability as the prime generator of value.

This is what crowd-sourcing is all about; emergent intelligence. And this is why every institutionalised power structure in existence is clamouring; because it is their end.

The notion of sharability and connectivity as value generators is best evidenced in social media and online gaming. Most importantly, it's how Iceland are taking their political system to the next level. Discrete, distributed network dynamics, that result in a higher order intelligence, just like bees and ants, and A.I.

What do we people look like when we come together in crowds? What are the things we do in large numbers? We dance at parties, we cheer at sporting, cultural and musical events, we vote and demonstrate, we fight and wage war, we economise and we educate and organise.

Out of all of those which have effects which support and enhance the others?

We're used to dealing with hierarchies. All our systems are hierarchical and so we get polarisation and disparity across resources. Organisational studies, psychology, engineering and HR have given us new models and functional structures. So has politics with all its ideologies. And so has biology, neuroscience and computing. 

And now we are also aware of the connection between linguistics and genetics, we can begin to look at commonality in areas of success. 

From anthropology to computer modelling, it's always the same conclusions: Models that value connectivity and sharing always have increased sustainability over those that value competition, ownership and authority.

One of our most prominent macro-human structures is 'Science'. It is massively institutionalised and therefore invested in status quo. The degree which it is reactionary towards development is clear in the comments and criticisms  directed towards Prof. Wilson. They obviously understand that there is no resisting embedded fractal harmonics.

Say what?! 

[khalil-s-patwa]

Next Level Education

The last group of students I had were the highest level of English language learners I've ever had. I learnt a lot from them, but not in the way I was expecting. They were all very intelligent, expressive and participative as individuals but as a group of learners they were slow to respond and uninterested in more than the minimum amount of work.

I was well prepared because I am pulling together the final strands of a curriculum that's been in development for time. Consciously, it's been the last three years. Unconsciously, at least 18 years ago when a saw a forgotten documentary about a gentleman, his wife and the school they were running.

The curriculum concept is a potentially massive one; multi-layered and multi-dimensional in it's approach to learning, acquisition and development. It goes to the extent that it becomes similar to a rite of passage. The concept is mapped out and also constantly growing. Well, the nodes are mapped out and I'm developing the paths.

I had to really question my approach, because the material was good, I was with high energy and so were they but the group wasn't gelling.

I've heard a lot from teachers about students collectively displaying apathy, and while I'm convinced that we are responsible, surely it must be obvious that even the best teachers are severely limited by our current systematic approach to education.

It's a blessing to be a language teacher for the freedom that we have.

Today, for 'Culture Day' we conducted Fijian water ceremonies, learnt Scottish colloquialisms,  painted Australian style dot-art, danced an East African story and much more.

This new group have been teaching me about how a certain reflection of discipline can be an act of kindness and generosity, in service of the meaningful outcome you have prepared. They are next level!

[khalil-s-patwa]

The Wonder of Debt

If you're concerned about effectivity, then you desire that all your actions be as fruitful as possible. We can model success and among those organisational systems that humans run we can certainly consider our current economic formula as successful in a particular way.

We know that we either have to build a new system or adapt the one we have. Either way we need to know what a successful system looks like and our modern brand of global economics has certain key attributes.

How many different ways are there to do money?

Let's imagine a conversation between an economist and a biologist, treating classes of economies as Keynesian organisms, whose tendencies must be tempered by currency wranglers. 

If a mode of economics was mapped out according to they way it moved in its territory, then we can clearly see how global capitalism has dominated other ways of handling exchange.

This leads us to the nature of money; by what rules do these systems propagate themselves in our environment?

In our world, one rule dominates: Usury. A bank loan of £100 = £100 + interest.

Doesn't that seem a bit funny? It's a bit like

£1 = more than £1.

I know which side of the equation I'd like to be on.

(Other rules of note are, 'to expand and repeat' and 'to externalise', (that is, to push the downside of the equation to the margins of the territory)).

So whatever else it does, usury performs some kind of wonder. It's a rule that is self-referential and self propagating. It's like a nest full of eggs, one of those chicks is the barter system, one is national dividend, one is interest-free exchange and among the others lies our little speckled usury. Upon hatching all the chicks do their thing but little usury gets an immediate percentage boost in growth rate! Now he's got the strength to be the greediest chicken in the roost.

I love DICTIONARY.

Merriam-Webster defines usury chronologically:

1 - Interest (Archaic)

2 - The lending of money with an interest charge for its use, especially: the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates.

3 - An unconscionable or exorbitant amount or rate of interest; specifically: interest in excess of a legal rate charged to a borrower for the use of money.

It used to be that usury was illegal, as in religiously illegal, as in a serious amount of illegal. Through the passing of time the seriousness grew less, got watered down through legality and differentiation. And now even 'exorbitant' rates are commonplace on the highstreet.

What used to be described as exorbitant in economics terms becomes injustice when translated into human terms. With unrestricted growth, a species will consume resources til it reaches the boundary of its environment. Correlate the spread of debt-based economy through the nations with the total number of taxpayers!

Your presumed conclusion is already correct. There's no more territory to conquer since we went through colonial imperialism; the global tax-paying workforce has been expanded to include men, women and children; we are at the point where the unquestionable flow of value, (from rich to richer and poor to poorer), is reaching the limits of the system.

But then we know that already. We can see this happening all around us everyday. We're a bit like a herd of wildebeest that could easily defeat a pride of lions were they not so busy running in the other direction.

So what can we learn from our situation?? If it's possible to run a system where £1=>£1, then we would already be living in prosperity if we had a healthy circulation system!!

More on fractal exchange soon...

[khalil-s-patwa]

Self-sufficiency takes Not-Self-Proficiency

Ever wonder get to feeling reverential about cosmology, when contemplating The All Of It?

Like if you follow those crazy Huang Twins (hats off) :

Scale of the Universe http://htwins.net/scale2/

What happens when you get to that line that draws the estimated size of our universe?

How come we can even form a concept of 'beyond'?

Beyond everything, beyond boundaries, beyond contentment.

The word is like a conveying concept, between yourself and the unknown.

The nature of the mind in it's ability to go beyond current concepts seems to mirror our scientific exploration of the universe; there's always something new to discover. 

Because the fractal branching of our bodies and the way galaxies cluster seem to be related, you might think that there is a relationship across scale. 

What is the interface between mind and reality? You might say 'language'.

Grammar is also recursive and embeddable,  and when voiced becomes incarnated with colour and rhythm. The tones we use to carry the meaning give us access to the infinite scale of the harmonic series.

So when we engage in cosmologically existential conversations and songs we are accessing mental maps on many scales.

So what?!

We have fractal logic at work in our biology, our language and in the cosmos. We are lacking it in our economics and education. This can be witnessed in the interface between the individual and group scales.

See how bees and ants swarm of one mind, how dolphins breathe together while sleeping, how swifts murmur.

On the community level when we humans get together we dance in our thousands, or pray, or cheer. 

As a species, it seems we are a different creature... Can you, in your mind, run a fast-forward demographic of human species activities as they impact their habitat over the last 5000 years??? Can you see any correlation between bloodshed and highways? Our municipal dominance over the land is paid for in blood.

We are lords of expansion and destruction. Not surprising since we've been dominated by psychopaths for countless generations.

Self-suffiency is a funny old-phrase. It implies harmony with that which is not yourself in order to get what you need; Or a widened sense of self that includes everything else.

Either way, in order to make the collective decisions that will lead to global health and prosperity we need to learn how to flock instead of just being herded. 

Bring on social learning and a healthy fractal economy!!