Integral Perspectives

As interesting as the pattern-machine model of mind is, it is a drop in the ocean of Integral Theory.  Integral Theory is a higher-level way to look at both interior and exterior states, types, stages, levels and lines of development and expression.  It also includes individual and collective quadrants for interior and exterior in a 4 quadrant system.  Integral Theory provides a great framework for organizing and understanding different aspects of individual and collective phenomena.

Pattern Machine

The mind is a reasonably fast, ultra-parallel, massively connected, super-hierarchical pattern machine.  As we get older these hierarchies of categories and categories of hierarchies get strengthened.  This produces hardening of the categories.  Unless we continue to grasp new ideas and concepts, this hardening will be more extreme.  It is good to confuse the existing patterns on a regular basis to help loosen the rigidity.

Fiscal Cliff

I officially do not care about the Fiscal Cliff anymore.  Bring on some short term pain that may give us long term gain.  It's way over-hyped by the media anyway.  Sure, we could do better if we had a functional Congress.  But from my understanding, many economists agree that the short term pain would be 6-12 months, with recovery after that.  Also, the economy is so complex with a myriad of global factors involved that it is impossible to predict what the actual outcome might be.