(Photo courtesy of Steve Rhodes)
“Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment. . . .
Humanity is in ‘final exam’ as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in Universe.”
– Buckminster Fuller
Many of the biggest problems we face in our lives, and in society as a whole are the result of belief systems; habitual patterns of thought that often diverge wildly from reality, and can be profoundly limiting. In this article we’re going to explore the distinction between belief systems (BS) and facts. You’re also going to discover why aligning yourself with fact can be a massive leverage point for creating results.
Nobody is immune to beliefs, myself included. “Belief" is another way of saying "thinking that seems like there's more to it than thinking”. However… There appears to me to be a substantive difference between truth/ facts of life and concepts / BS. For instance…
Things that look to me like facts of life include: the principle of Universal gravitation, the laws of thermodynamics, the human immune system.
Things that look to me like concepts / BS include: religious dogma, Freudian psychoanalytic theory and the law of attraction.
While I am not immune to BS, I am extremely interested in finding the places in life where something is grounded in fact rather than concept. Why? Because all understanding is based in fact. Understanding that is not based in fact is not understanding; it's misunderstanding.
For much of my early career, I was fascinated with models, because I somehow "got" that the field of psychology didn't have any "facts", just BS. As a result, I put my attention on finding models and heuristics that were useful and helped me be effective in the *absence* of facts (my early fascination with the field of NLP combined with my lack of traditional psychology training was a huge boon in this regard). When people told me they had "facts" about the mind, these “facts” were quickly revealed to be concepts / BS. Nice (sometimes useful) ideas, but not facts. When I was first introduced to the 3 principles as articulated by Sydney Banks, I assumed I was being presented with a BS, and did my best to poke holes in it, but to no avail. While his language can sometimes be confusing, it seems to me that the core of what Banks was pointing to is fact. This shocked me when I first saw it, and it still shocks me to this day. I am still very open to finding exceptions to the core "fact" that seems to sit at the centre of this understanding, but I haven't found one yet.
Now here's the thing: I consider myself to be a "model agnostic" in the tradition of Robert Anton Wilson, in that I don't believe there exists a model that is "equal to" reality. Us humans don't have access to "reality" as such; we only have access to our internally generated perceptual realities. Thus, all we can ever talk about is our internally generated models, not reality per se (if you disagree with this statement, please let me know by communicating your proof to me without using an internally generated model). Nevertheless, it seems to me that some models are a poor fit and match to "reality" (eg. Miasmas, geocentric universe, the phlogiston theory of combustion) and some are a good fit and match (eg. Germ theory, solar centric universe, the oxidation theory of combustion).
As you will appreciate, the value of a model is relative to how useful it is. History shows us that, in general, the models that have the least misunderstanding behind them are the most valuable and useful. Note that I say "the least misunderstanding" rather than "the most accurate". The London Underground Map is not accurate per se (e.g. its distance ratios are not to scale) but it is incredibly valuable because it has been designed by someone who understands both the territory described and the map's intended function.
So where does this get us to? It seems to me that what Syd Banks is "pointing to" is a fact in a similar way that what the word "gravity" is pointing to is a fact. Just as the word "gravity" is not the mysterious force it points to, the words mind, thought and consciousness are not the mysterious force they point to. I am already of the opinion that any description of reality is merely a model – a metaphor that points to something beyond metaphor. This includes the models created by physics, chemistry and medicine. It also includes the models created by philosophy, psychology and ethics.
So why can aligning yourself with fact be a massive leverage point for creating results?
Once again, the value of a model is a function of how useful it is. And how useful it is to humanity as a whole appears to be a function of how little misunderstanding it represents ie how deep the map-maker's understanding of reality is. Example: the discovery of the link between specific microbes and specific diseases was an incredibly useful map which led to innovations (antiseptic procedures, antibiotics etc) which have added 30 years to the average human lifespan.
As far as I can tell, the "single paradigm" coding of Syd Banks' 3 principles metaphor is pointing to something factual that forms the basis of our perceptual experience. The "single paradigm" coding (as I see it) can be distinguished by the statement: "You're living in the feeling of the principle of thought taking form in the moment." (For more on this read this article and listen to the accompanying 8-minute audio). When you start to align your understanding with the facts behind this, you’ll start to experience profoundly positive shifts in how you relate to yourself, to other people and to life itself. When we start to align our understanding as a society with these facts, we have the chance of thriving on this planet and beyond it.
The more deeply you understand the principles behind clarity, the more you get to benefit from that understanding, in terms of inner security, peace of mind, resilience, creativity, wisdom etc. All the articles, audios and videos and products here at www.JamieSmart.com are devoted to helping you deepen your understanding of these principles, so I encourage you to keep exploring.