[Neurons] 2021 Neurons #78 FACTS CAN TELL YOU WHAT TO DO

[Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2021 Neurons #78

December 6, 2021

Facts #8

 

FACTS CAN TELL YOU WHAT TO DO

The Transition from Is to Ought

 

First, the is.  What exists-where, when, and in what way.  What we can
assert as a true and valid statement about the data we discover in the
world. Normally facts point to grounded sensory-based information.  Yet
Maslow also noted that they also point in a direction, i.e., they are
vectorial.

"Fact just don't lie there like pancakes, just doing nothing; they are to a
certain extent signposts which tell you want to do, which make suggestions
to you, which nudge you in one direction rather than other.  They 'call
for,' they have demand character, they even have 'requiredness' as Kohler
[co-founder of Gestalt] called it." (Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1971,
p. 26, italics added)

 

The discovery of facts, truth, and reality depends on what is, that is, on
what exists.  When you know what is, often you then know what to do.  In
fact, Maslow suggested that the facts, the is,  can tell you want to do.  He
illustrated by referring to carving a turnkey.  

"Carving a turkey is made easier by the knowledge of where the joints are,
how to handle the knife and fork-that is, by possessing fully knowledge of
the facts of the situation.  If the facts are fully known, they will guide
us and tell us what to do.  But what is also implied here is that the facts
are very soft-spoken and that it is difficult to perceive them.  In order to
be able to hear the fact-voices, it is necessary to be very quiet, to listen
very receptively. ... If we wish to permit the facts to tell us their
oughtness, we must learn to listen to them in a very specific way..."
(Ibid., p. 120)

 

Now "to listen very receptively," in NLP terms, is "losing the mind and
coming to one's senses." It is coming into an uptime state (rather than down
inside oneself) and into sensory awareness.  Then you can more cleanly see
and hear reality for it is rather than for what you wish it to be.  As
Maslow was modeling fully functioning people, he noted that the
self-actualizing person is "a good perceiver of reality and truth" and has a
"clear perception of facts" because he accepts reality for what it is.  He
places no demands on reality.  This enables her to see what is the case and
to end up be superior in perception of reality and in the ability to reason.


 

Who were these self-actualizing people that Maslow modeled?  Alfred North
Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Plato, Spinoza,
Eleanor Roosevelt, etc. These were people who listened deeply to facts and
allowed the facts to tell them what to do.

Fact: Math, science, even reading scores have been going down for decades.

Ought: We ought to refocus on teaching the basics of how to think and how to
learn and stop the "woke" policies of political correctness.

 

Fact: In the most gun-restrictive city in the United States, Chicago where
there are no gun shops- none.  Deaths by guns are the highest and 90% plus
of all deaths of young black men are caused by other black men.  What can we
conclude from these facts?  From these facts we can conclude that the
problem is not the guns, it is the people wielding the guns. Ought: We ought
to focus on creating better homes and schools that promote higher morals and
a sense of responsibility, and promote more respect for law and order.

 

Maslow concluded that who you are, in terms of your personal development and
actualization of your highest potentials, affects your ability to process
information and to clearly see and listen to the facts.  That's because it
is human to project the constructions we have built in the inside world onto
the outside world.  

 

Many people today separate facts and values and treat them as if they not
only are different, but incompatible.  They are different, but are they
truly incompatible?  Where we have facts, does that not imply that we should
treat factual statements as fundamental in our search for truth?  That we
should speak the truth?  Here we transition from the is to the ought.  Here
facts tell us what to do.

 

A different picture of reality comes into view when "the is reveals an
ought."  Maslow believed that by studying superior individuals,
self-actualizing people who were fully functioning, he could find a common
set of values which would enable this higher level of development.  In that
way, he sought to identify right and wrong behavior, good and bad behaviors.
A characteristic of self-actualizing people is their low degree of
self-conflict.  "He is not at war with himself; his personality is
integrated."  And that's what makes his perceptions clearer and cleaner.

 

 

 




 

 

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director 

Neuro-Semantics 

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

 

 

132607 NeuroSemantics Executive Learning Front Cover

 

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