Embedded Experience

Integrity everywhere

 

Every individual person brings to an interactive encounter a perception set about what things in the world will positively, negatively, or neutrally affect that individual's life and life space. That perception set includes personal welfare and the welfare of persons or things of importance to her or him. The person also brings a self-knowledge - partially built on past performance in similar encounters - of what that individual will or will not do as a "behavior", when a response of some sort is required. What happened in the past, and what continues at every moment of existence, is a constant evaluation of encountered situations. There is a perpetual flow of information whereby an organism evaluates a wide variety of data and knowledge pertinent to continuing and enhancing secure and safe survival. Value judgements are constantly being made, some so quickly that we have come to appreciate them as intuitive or even instinctive. None the less, they are consciously carefully- considered determiners of behavior. All of this is valid for all life forms, and is only limited by the bodily mechanisms an organism has for successfully dealing with the information received. If something is careening towards me, but I don't have strong enough legs or enough lead time to get out of the way or have some way to stop or redirect the object, no amount of desire or degree of perception about the situation would help me protect myself. If I have tenure in a work situation, then no amount of badgering by a subordinate or superior will affect my job security ... only the social contract and my personal considerations of what is best for myself, my family, my co-workers, and my society at large ... and how I rate and evaluate them all in regard to each other. In either of these examples, whether it is bones and muscles, or, a group-accepted dynamic that serves as an operational environment for every participant, there is some tool/function present which enables me to successfully, or not, maintain and continue my being, as the case may be. With strong muscles and information, I can jump out of the way (my Integrity is paramount). With strong muscles and information, I can hold my ground and accept injury to save my child from being killed (my child's Integrity is paramount). With strong muscles and information, I can divert the object into a ravine, and make a step stone there where no bridge was available to help me get across before (the Integrity of completing a journey, for what ever larger purpose, is paramount). With strong muscles and information, I can jump out of a logging flume (my Integrity is important so that I can keep working to earn money to ensure my family's health and Integrity; the log's Integrity needs to be maintained in order to shore-up the Integrity of the mine shaft to ensure the Integrity of the mine to ensure the Integrity of the company which operates it, to ensure the Integrity of the local economy, and ensure the Integrity of the people who rely on the ore coming out of the mine). Social interactions in the work place and elsewhere operate the same way. We all have a vast panorama of factors on which to evaluate and then act out responsive behaviors. Does the Integrity of our company, school or organization rest on encouraging new ideas and being open to change, or does it rest on holding the status quo and keeping things as they are? What are our future objectives? What goals takes precedence? Or, does any of that matter or not, as long as we continue earning money and just make our own jobs "secure"? If the business fails, so what, as long as we still have the knowledge and skills to start over and work someplace else. The answers (our decisions and performance) depend on the information we include and weigh vis a vis the maintenance of someone's or something's or some combinatory's Integrity... now, or in a few moments, or years into the future.

February 10, 1998

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                                                                                                                                         -   Discussions /  Mathematics)

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