Framework

If the economy were to collapse, society and the environment would still exist. Money is just a medium of exchange that makes it convenient to buy things we want and need. The better we manage finite natural resources, the longer we can satisfy our needs. How do we create the best goods, services and associated economic structures to ensure ongoing security and enrichment?

If society were to collapse, the economy would necessarily collapse as well, but the environment would still exist. Individuals are the core components of groups, which are the main elements of a social structure. Though many groups have varying beliefs and values, we’re all trying to satisfy the same basic needs. How do we foster the most supportive and accessible social structures to satisfy those needs for generations to come?

If the environment were to collapse, society and the economy would inevitably collapse, as well. Land, Air, Water and Energy (the LAWEs of Nature) are the primary, yet limited, resources we depend upon to satisfy our most basic needs of food, air, water and shelter. Social and economic laws must be consistent with the laws of nature, if we’re to avoid collapse. How do we improve the conditions of these most basic & precious resources to ensure future generations will thrive?

As a tax-paying and voting constituent, an individual is the most basic part of our democratic government. The government is intended to act in the best interests of its citizens and do so within the framework of an evolving legal structure. How do we create the best legal structure to help improve all lives most, including future generations?

Educators, students and families (primarily mothers) are the key components of an educational system. The ultimate benefits of education are to enhance our skill sets so we are more able to satisfy our physical, psychological, ecological and socio-cultural needs in most circumstances. How do we create the best educational system to improve such skills?

Jobs and money are the core elements of business. For most of us, at least 50% of our waking day is dedicated to earning money by making, providing and/or selling goods and services, which then enables us to purchase what we want and need within our means or credit limits. How do we create the most accessible, affordable, healthy goods and services?

An individual is the most basic part of a group or community. As parts, we affect and are affected by each other. The benefits for a community increase with each person acting in their own and others’ best interests. How do we best help meet our physical, psychological, ecological and socio-cultural needs?

The involvement of the community in any activity that affects them is necessary in all stages of project implementation.

Everyday individuals, households and communities make choices that have broad and lasting impact which include issues of ownership, visioning, flexibility, informed consent, community choice, etc.

A relationship between individuals or groups that is characterized by mutual assistance and responsibility for the achievement of a specified and agreed upon goal. The key to effective community partnership is that members of a community bring to the table different resources, skills and knowledge needed to take action.

Works when societal norms and practices enable and encourage communities to take increasingly greater control over their own development, without impinging upon the accepted rights of others which includes issues of impartiality of resource allocation, adaptation of external and internal pressures, responsiveness, representation, information disclosure, etc.

Knowledge and Information lies at the core of a community’s ability to become aware, make appropriate decisions, communicate and act. This principle includes issues of learning, formatting and packaging information, targeting, delivery mechanisms, information sharing, technologies, etc.

The setting up of a corrective and preventive action system, as well as a learning environment that makes use of lessons learned and involves all members of the community which includes issues of capacity building, indicators, etc.

As goals and processes, lifestyles depend externally on the smooth implementation of the other six triads, but are intrinsically linked to behavior patterns, ethics and value systems of individual community members which includes issues of quality of life, respect, dignity, self-esteem, etc.. Success will largely depend on choices adopted by the community and the value placed on various types of consumed resources.

Existence is fundamentally the system we are interconnected and interdependent with. Genetics are our insertion point into the information configuration space of reality. Instincts and autonomic functions exist at this base level with an inborn drive to satisfy needs (aka pullback attractor states). Our physical and psychological health adjusts to external inputs and internal processes via key mechanisms like neuroplasticity and epigenetics, which are subsets of homeostasis and allostasis.

The grid represents the four interrelated parts of an individual. The left half identifies psychological aspects of life and the right half identifies the physical. Similarly, the top half represents the individual side of life, while the bottom suggests the group. Existence is the first assumption we can make regarding behavioral development. Upon conception, we become a viable part of our ecological, socio-cultural & economic systems.

In a sense, epigenetics enables experiences to be imprinted preconception in egg and sperm. Neurogenesis begins about 3 weeks after conception, establishing the start of neuroplasticity and a lifelong path for creating, retaining, recalling and modifying experiential impressions. The interaction of sensory receptors with external reality and mechanisms of homeostasis and allostasis provide base pleasure-pain info relative to met or unmet needs. Retention and relation enables perception of the subjective here and now. Habits begin to form at this stage… classical conditioning (mid-term)… because we are innately driven to minimize pain and maximize pleasure via need satisfaction.

Pain is an internal signal of some physical or psychological imbalance with internal processes and/or external reality. It lets us know that certain needs are not being met. Pleasure is a bit trickier because if it’s not systemically and critically analyzed, it easily leads to short-, mid- or long-term pain. So, if we are interested in minimizing our pain and that of others (future generations included), we must cautiously indulge our pleasures. With experience the individual begins to form a psychological framework in which their unique thoughts and feelings begin to form their personality.

Meaning is a natural neurophysiological and psychological by-product of an experience that’s stored and then related, via memory, to background experiences (the root of our perception of change and basis for information asymmetry). This is also the stage in which a “value filter” develops to define level of worth or quality (good/bad) via satisfaction of needs (pleasure/pain).

It’s not the environment or external stimuli described in “objective” terms that influences our behavior, but rather the meaning that each individual attaches to his or her experiences of the environment, which is a function of the totality of all previous experiences, something to which one can’t possibly have complete conscious access to. This hard view of subjective meaning creation has been described as information asymmetry, extreme relativism, solipsism, operational closure, semantic impenetrability, computational constraints and/or computational irreducibility.

Logic suggests that the cognizance of inevitable change, resultant from retained, related and recalled memories, forces projection beyond the present moment, causing the drive for needs to be met (pleasure) and fear of needs being unmet (pain – the root of insecurity).

Actions or behaviors are experience-driven efforts to accommodate logic by satisfying desires or needs and reducing or eliminating pain or the fear of possible pain. This is the stage where intention arises. It’s also associated to operant conditioning (long-term).

Learning is largely a heuristic approach to understanding existence and experience. Trial and error reveals level of success in modifying our strategy to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. This stage is where the knowledge filter develops and adds to our needs-satisfaction repertoire by recognizing new or modified patterns. Neuroplasticity is deeply involved in this stage. There are varying ways of learning as well from teacher lead (pedagogy) to learner lead (andragogy) and ultimately to auto-didactic or self-directed (heutagogy). Learning integrates data to form information. Information correlates with other information to create knowledge. Knowledge clusters and connects with lots of other information and knowledge to create wisdom. Wisdom continues connecting more and more knowledge nodes to get closer to perfect information or truth.

Beliefs are learned patterns of success or failure in certain processes. Experienced long-term stability of the patterns establishes trust in them as real or perceived truths, which the brain is unable to distinguish, which sometimes creates placebo and nocebo effects. As we learn about ourselves with respect to the systems we interact with, patterns emerge more readily, acting as guides to help maximize pleasures and minimize pains. Increased pattern recognition creates increased awareness of interdependence.

Understanding our intricate interdependencies deepens proportionately with enhanced physical and psychological need-satisfaction within our ecological and socio-cultural systems, enabling us to progressively act more efficaciously in the best interests of all.

Wisdom is physical and psychological balance and the ability to extend such understanding outward ecologically and socio-culturally to help optimize health and freedom to the greatest extent one is able to.

Love is acting in each other’s best interests due to an implicit and explicit understanding of our common, interdependent nature. Acting in each other’s best interests means to help each other satisfy our needs as if they were out own. It’s also the ability to recognize when one is in need, particularly when their behaviors seem rooted in sadness, fear or anger. Sadness is the most authentic and transparent of the pain-based emotions. Anger is the most inauthentic pain-based emotion that often attempts to mask and/or aggressively project and transfer the pain to someone or something external to them. Anger is the most challenging to deal with but also most often the greatest need and loudest cry for help.

Depleters come in three unsavory flavors:

1. Destroyers don’t actually satisfy needs at all but destroy the possibility of satisfying a need and impair the satisfaction of other needs. An example of a destroyer is the arms race. It was meant to satisfy the need for protection but instead threatened to destroy those societies that were to be protected.

2. Pseudo-satisfiers generate a false sense of satisfaction. Stereotypes are examples of pseudo-satisfiers which appear to satisfy a need for understanding, but which do not give real understanding.

3. Inhibiting-satisfiers oversatisfy a given need, thereby hindering the satisfaction of other needs. E.g. an authoritarian classroom may oversatisfy the need for understanding and hinder participation, creation, identity and freedom

Maintainers (or singular-satisfiers) accommodate one particular need. Insurance is an example of this. It satisfies the need for protection, without satisfying or hindering other needs.

Enrichers (or synergistic-satisfiers) contribute to the accommodation of several needs while taking care of one intended need. Breast feeding, for example, contributes to satisfying the need for subsistence while also contributing to protection, affection and identity.