Learning principles and concepts for FUTURLOGICS a system of prospective thinking

FUTURLOGICS a system of prospective thinking:
by james n. hall


COPYRIGHT © 1983 BY
JAMES NORMAN HALL

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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatever
       without express written permission of the publisher

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Printed in the United States of America

SELF TEACHING PUBLICATIONS
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Chapter II

LEARNING        


THE ABILITY TO DO THE BEST WITH THE LEAST

     Consciousness is increased when we become aware of all we do
not know.  Facing the unknown will cause the mental conscious to be 
more self-directed as we try to fill in what we do not know.  Solving
a problem with plenty of information requires less thought than when
we try to solve problems with sparse data.  None of  us can ever know it
all; therefore, it is safe to conclude that we may always be making
decisions and solving problems with inadequate information.  Indeed,
realizing this is the beginning of mature thought.
    There is a saying that "to be educated you must know many things,
but to be wise you must be aware of what you do not know."
Surveying the extent of our ignorance is a prudent approach to learning.
  Like the ostrich who thinks he is hiding when he puts his head
in a hole, the comfort in believing that you know all the answers
is false security.  Accepting ignorance is the first step a person must
take to be teachable.
     We approach problems and decisions somewhere between a
vacuum and a solid foundation of adequate information.  How we
handle things in an atmosphere of partial knowledge is a fundamental
key to progress and learning--especially learning the future.
     Each individual varies in ability to make good decisions or
judgments in the face of imperfect data.  Ask any leader how he makes
good decisions and he will tell you he must think ahead.  We respect
leaders to make decision when no one else can.  In fact, good leaders
have the uncanny knack of making decisions when no one else has
enough information to go on.



     The qualification for good leadership are self-confidence, forethought,
energy, and the ability to do well when others are at a loss.
Good leadership is more that the result of self-confidence.  Though it
is true the self-confidence of the leader will give the bewildered 
follower a sense of security, the unstated characteristic of his success is
the special gift that supports that confidence.  The leader must face the
unknown with a method or it will be sensed by his followers.  The
strength of leadership lies in the ability (or gift) of making good
decisions from insufficient data.  The trust put in this skill leads to
self-confidence, which in turn comforts the follower and supports his
confidence that the leader can face the unknown.
     Not only do leaders make decisions and plans for the future, but
everybody must sometime look ahead.  It's in our best interest to learn
the skills to do better with less.  We must avoid falling into the trap of
thinking all our judgments and prejudices are based on a complete
knowledge.  Because we are interested in the future and how to deal
with it, we must acquire the ability to do the best with the least.
Indeed, it is a principle essential to Futurlogics.
     The optimum use of ignorance or innocence is true learning.  In
goes without saying that truth is a thing we all seek.  But to have faith
in anything that is not true is destructive and discredits faith and its
promotion of intellectual growth.  If faith is to any good it should
lead us to the knowledge of the truth.  Ability to do the best with the
least can be one definition of faith.  Faith is an ability to deal with
insufficient facts and data, doing it so we live as successfully as if we
were fully informed.
     That "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is true statement.
But we are forced to work with what we have.  The time required
to gain perfect knowledge would be more that the normal life span.
Ignorance is a condition that will be with us for a long time.  To offset
this condition we will have to learn skills of making decisions and
acting in a climate of partial knowledge.  Doing the best we can is not
enough.  We will have to do better that we can or we won't progress.
Forethought, planning and preparation are the essence  doing the
best with the knowledge we have now, and all of these are based upon
prediction.
     We are not talking about being a good guesser.  Some persons
seem to have developed an innate skill.  They live and act as it they are
better informed.  This suggests that DMP is working for them, because
of the absence of external means used to make wise decisions.  When a
decision is in the balance, the "something" that tips the scales is an
intuitive insight that is akin to inspiration.  Such things defy explanation;
one  must experience such an insight to understand it.
    "A little knowledge" can also make faith grow abundantly.  Faith
should be the foundation from which knowledge grows.  A faith that
does not make a person more knowledgeable and less dependent is
sterile.  Faith is the preliminary operation of the mind that results in
knowledge.
     Faith in science, education, and human rights can be and attitude
that will realize a better civilization and greater knowledge.  Faith in
oneself produces the positive mental attitude described in books
concerning self improvement.  It must be emphasized here that stubborn
adherence to ignorance is not faith.  Faith is readiness to absorb
what is not easily seen.  It is the mental "gift" of learning, of turning to
the heighten state of consciousness that is produced when we finally
realize our knowledge is imperfect and our data insufficient to make
the decisions crucial to progress and survival.  When we are forced to
move ahead our thoughts must reach out for the answers.  This reaching
out is the basis of faith and DMP, which complement each other.



LEARNING

     Applying the principle of "doing the best with the least," or
faith. we should grow in knowledge and experience.  Learning is the 
means to gaining knowledge.  The standard of living that we attain is
based upon out knowledge of, and ability to deal with, our environment.
Thus, how we learn becomes the most thing to learn.
     Schools and institutions of learning are common and necessary,
and we are required by law to attend school from childhood.  Status in
the community is based, to a large extent, upon our schooling.  We
must even be trained to live in our modern society.
     There is a variance in the amount of knowledge that each individual
obtains.  Acquiring knowledge is due most to learning approaches than
native ability to learn.  As two persons of equivalent ability, but with
differing approaches to learning will achieve different amounts of
knowledge, so learning how to learn can increase the efficiency of
learning rate.  If we can learn only when taught by a teacher,
we are blocked from the ultimate source of knowledge--ourselves.
It is true that we can hire teachers to help us, but the problems
come when we try to learn the things the teacher has yet to learn!
New discoveries must be made by accident, or by those who have
learned of themselves.  This ability, which we know as DMP, is
the technique of gaining knowledge without a teacher.  Teachers are
essential to pass on the knowledge of the past, but they cannot teach
us of things that will occur, or that have yet to be discovered and
printed in a textbook.
     Existing educational systems are so powerful that we have
drowned in their successes.  We are led to believe it is a fact we can
learn only through the "system" and its teachers.  And this belief stifles
the innate ability, the gift we possess from birth, to learn how to
learn by ourselves.
     Sooner or later, need will force us to learn through the intuitive
process of DMP.  This is the time when our education reaches its
limits.  School has ended, and life begins.  Education becomes a base of
operations if it contributes to discovery, or a block if it impedes or
interferes with discovery.  Education should extend our vision, and not
blind us with narrow-minded perspectives burdened with prejudice.
What we already know should aid us in learning more.



UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES


     In most university curriculums, prerequisite courses are necessary
before entering advanced classes.  The more complex the class, the
more preliminary background classes must have been taken.  The
principle that greater knowledge is based upon lesser knowledge is
nearly universal, and is not restricted to the school systems.  Every
good businessman learns that it takes money to make money.  The
more money we have to start a business, the easier it is to make it a
profitable venture.  In health, the best way to remain healthy is to start
healthy when young.  Generally, he who has shall receive.
     (We might add here that the quality of what we accept as
knowledge greatly influences what we receive--we are familiar with
the effects of being falsely informed.  Accepting a false-hood as truth
has been an age-old cause of human suffering.  Conversely, accepting
a truth as a lie can cause just as much damage.  It is one thing to be
deficient in knowledge, money, health, etc., but it is another thing to
think we have something when we do not.  Enterprises based upon 
unsound principles, falsehoods, superstitions, myths, or dogmas 
will be a poor bases from which to continue further research.  Such
things can only lead to confusion and loss.  To know more of the 
future we must have correct knowledge with which to begin.)
    Knowledge and DMP will become inseparably connected.  We need 
the knowledge to focus attention, awareness and the state of consciousness
to the future.  But mental contact with the future is useless
unless we have the understanding to grasp our extended "vision."
New knowledge may be misunderstood without the right prior knowledge
to base it on.   Everything either works together or pulls apart
when we turn our minds towards the future.
     The more we have the more we can have is the universal principle
that operates in all phases of life and thought.  This principle is the key
to DMP or any other form of learning by individual study.  When we
understand the nature of the universal principle, we can then begin
to see the process of DMP, and intuitive learning is understood and
can be used effectively.
     For centuries every new custom or invention has met opposition.
During the dark ages persecution and death were the rewards of
private research that brought forth new knowledge.  Galileo was not
warmly received as he formulated and made public his findings. The
"learned community" of his time threatened his life and forced him to
make a public retraction of his discoveries.  DaVinci had to write in
cryptic notes to prevent censure from those who were organized to 
maintain the status quo.
     Today we have seen the results of invention and scientific
research.  New ideas are welcomed, more than they have been at any
time in history.  The attitude that new discoveries are useful, and not a
threat, has changed us for the better.  We know now that all ways of
learning are of value if they produce results.
     Self-educated persons are rare, but they have contributed greatly
to our store of knowledge.  The greatest thing we could learn from the
self-educated is often ignored as their success is celebrated.  What we
miss is the manner in which they have taught themselves.  When we 
marvel at their accomplishments we conclude that it is a sign of their 
genius.  Essential to learning the future is the principle of the 
self-taught genius.
     All new knowledge initially learned from the surface will not
match what we already know.  Genius is the ability to simplify the new
knowledge within the body of existing knowledge, so that all can
understand it.   We block many new ideas from our consciousness
because we feel them to be ridiculous, impertinent, irrelevant, illogical,
worthless, out of the ordinary, out of order, intrusive, etc., because
we don't penetrate the surface to the fountainhead.
     After, when we do receive the new knowledge, it becomes whole
and logically connected.  All learning has momentary confusion while
the old knowledge is broken down and the new is incorporated.  After
this occurs, close cycles and logic begin again until the next "stroke
of inspiration."  DMP, (or "genius") come along.


POSITIVE, NEGATIVE, AND NEUTRAL APPROACHES TO LEARNING

     The method one chooses to use in incorporating new knowledge
reveals an important concept in learning.  The universal principle will
work if allowed to do so, by the right application of what we already
know.  Methods of learning, acceptance of, or proving new ideas can
greatly influence the learning rate.  It can also set direction and
restrict learning to a specific areas.  Given three persons somehow
endowed with equal amounts of knowledge, if they follow differing approaches
to learning, the amount and direction of learning may be different in
each person.
     Those using the positive approach assume everything is true until
it is experienced as untrue.  Every new idea is theoretically accepted as
truth until application of it shows it as false.  Those using the negative
approach assume everything is untrue until proven to be true.  In the
third approach, neither assumption is made, but the new idea is held
suspended until it is observed to be true or false.  (This is known as the
scientific method of learning).
     History is replete with examples of the first two methods of learning.
Indeed, as history progresses, they come into conflict one with another.
Although there have been many cultures represented in history, our
records of all of them are incomplete.  Many have been extinct
except for their relics at archeological diggings.  The surviving
records have produced two philosophies which have dominated western
thought.  These two philosophies which typify the two approaches
to learning are the Judaic-Christian culture and the Greco-Roman
culture.  The Judaic-Christian culture used the positive approach to 
learning, and the Greco-Roman culture used the negative approach.  It
can be debated which of these two cultures conquered the most minds.
But we find both methods of approach in modern thought.
    The following list is a comparison of the two methods:

JUDAIC-CHRISTIAN                    GRECO-ROMAN

1. Ideas, figments, notions         1. Ideas, figments, notions
2. Believe true until experienced   2. Believe false until proven
   false                               true
3. Faith/Belief                     3. Reason
4. Action on belief                 4. Action withheld until evidence
                                       is seen or proved certain
5. Ideal of little children in      5. Nature and disposition of
   learning and believing              the philosopher extolled
6. Future-oriented, looking         6. Historically directed, gaining
   ahead positively; prophesy          direction from records;
   archetype in thinking               retrospective thought
7. Intuitive source of ideas        7. Empirical source of ideas
   empirically confirmed               proved by mental conclusion
8. Spiritually and religiously      8. Logic as the basis of thinking
   imbued thinking

     The conflict between these two approaches to learning has led to
another method, the scientific method.  It is an answer to the 
incompatibility and shows an impartiality that is neutral toward the possible
moral issues underlying the two approaches of the positive and the
negative.
     In the scientific method, the conclusive test of new knowledge is
observation.  If events are not observable then they are not subject to
scientific research.  The next requirement of this approach is that the
phenomena must be repeatable and demonstrable to others when the
same conditions are present.  The special problem of applying the
scientific method to the study of the future is that the future is not
repeatable.  The future is beyond the senses and therefore observation
is impossible.  Because of these obstacles, the future as a general
subject in science is largely ignored with exception to some futuristic
trends.
     Unfortunately, the schools also neglect the topic of the future
because of the influence of hard science.  History and its many divisions
finds place in every curriculum, but even the known elements of
the future are sadly neglected.  Except for momentary speculative
digressions, our schools perpetuate the attitudes of history.
     The future may be considered as all knowledge we have not yet
learned.  (It is this feature that makes futurlogics a research method)
If this conception is carried to its logical conclusion, we
connect the following theory to learning approaches.  How we learn
and how we use "present knowledge" determines what we will see in
the future.  Whether a teacher sees a future or not has no bearing, for
what he teaches is what the child will use to face the future.  If the
teacher has no conception of the future then he prepares his students
blindly.  Every teacher must have some conception of the results of his
teaching or he teaches with no purpose.  Students must know why they
are in school.
     In Futurlogics, all the learning approaches are needed: the positive,
the negative, and the neutral approaches of the scientific methods.
However, emphasis will be placed with the positive approach as it
is under-played in present educational procedures.  Favoring any single
approach will cause a narrow view, but to counter-balance the existing
trends, stressing the positive approach is necessary.
     By definition, the positive approach accepts all new knowledge
equally with present knowledge.  No restrictive of inhibitive effect is
seen with present knowledge upon newly-learned ideas.
     The negative approach suggest that existing knowledge is best
and new ideas are admitted only after passing a test.  This certification
by proof implies lesser value of the new, and sets up a block between
the new and the old.
     The scientific method accepts nothing until it is certified by 
objective proof.  Things not seen are not admitted to exist.
     Other methods or approaches which may be blends of the three name
threads of thoughts; i.e. positive, negative, neutral are not treated as 
they will be found to be effectively positive, negative or neutral anyway.
This rating is to define the acceptance of new knowledge relative to old
knowledge.