Dark Matter, Dark Energy & #Contructivism (#stwg #systemsthinking)
Someone sent this link in another social network: Dark Matter, Dark Energy And The Shadow Universe.
According to recent research, it seems that 95% of the universe accounts for something which we can’t sense, yet know (for, as constructivism tells us, the nervous system is a closed system and we can only build knowledge from what we experience through our senses).
What gives hope for the future, yet, is that we inferred the existence of that Dark side of the universe through its consequences in the reality-out-there-we’re-able-to-sense.
How does it relates to constructivism? Well, all of our knowledge is initially rooted in what we once felt through our senses as primitive humans. That means that what we can’t sense, we can’t know about. Yet, some systemic trick inside our mind is at play here, meaning that there’s a reverse to the medal: what we don’t know about, we most often can’t sense. Thomas the Apostle might complain here, but if he was to only believe in what he saw, the facts are that we only see what we believe in first. Moreover, this has been proven biologically by great researchers such as Humberto Maturana at least that studied some nervous systems: the external stimuli to nervous systems are really not up to par with the electrical activity constantly going on internally – it only barely account for changes in the nervous system.
The reason for our brain discounting what he doesn’t know from the sense is probably because it’s a way to filter the vast amount of information that comes constantly from the senses to the brain. Some abstractions and simplifications are done that allow it to more quickly react to potential dangers.
And yet, we, as humans, are sometimes capable of “discovering” new facts for which we didn’t know about. Of this, we must thank our time-binding capability, as Alfred Korzybski taught us (that mean we don’t start from scratch at each generation, but we build our knowledge on top of that of the preceding generations). And thanks to our high-level cortex, we’re able to make some mental analysis and infer things for which we might not have any sensory experience before. Indeed, that what some great thinkers do all the time, as for instance Einstein when he “discovered” the Theory of Relativity.
So, what’s the point of this article? Well, it depends on you, dear reader 
On some basic account, it’s a tremendous message for the future to come about possible new discoveries regarding the Universe.
On some more pragmatic level, the next time you don’t understand your manager, your employee or any of these humans you encounters all day long, rather than discounting them as idiots:
- ask yourself what dark side of them you might not be knowing?
- ask yourself what side of you is a dark side from their point of view?
- finally, ask them about what might be the reasons for their acting as they do that you don’t know about which explains the behaviors you witnessed. Because chances you assigned meaning to those behaviors that are different from their intent or that you didn’t saw other part of their behaviors that would have explained everything, should you have known before.
Have a nice week-end!