Personhood

At 25 years old, Albert Einstein was a failure.

After finishing university at 21, he couldn't get a job teaching because

a professor, angry at Albert for skipping lectures, sabotaged

Albert's applications for teaching positions, making Albert

an outcast in academia.

It seemed that Albert's life was missing the mark.

But finally, when he was 23, Albert got a job as a clerk in a patent office.

It turns out that, while in a job he didn't want,

and working outside the academic world where he belonged,

he was not trapped in circumstance.

I wonder ...

Did being stuck actually free Albert's imagination? ...

Thought experiments, as he called them, revived a childhood dream

where he had imagined riding on a rocket ship at the speed of light.

How would the laws of physics behave then?

And so, in 1905, at age 26, Albert Einstein had a "miracle year."

He published five revolutionary papers in science. 

One  contains the simple genius of E = mc2.

In another, he introduced the concept of photons, and also,

most famously, a paper that explored the new realms of relativity.

Albert surpassed his old professor by making history.

Relativity and You

For our purposes here, the mind-bending theory of special relativity

comes to center stage because it altered our understanding of personal experience.

Special relativity makes each person's individual perspective unique -

A special GPS-type location in space and time.

In my blog, Essence, I quote Antonio Damasio's astonishing observation

that our ability to maintain a comprehensive history of our whole life,

as an organism of integrated systems in mind and body,

is "nothing less than the armature of personhood."

Special relativity says that the view from your position 

is unique in space and time.

First, your specific physical position is yours alone, and second,

the fourth dimension of time means that

Your experience of time is different from mine,

different from your coworker's, or her mother's, or any other person.

How you see life, the world, and everything,

at any particular moment, is a snapshot of you!

Time and place moving as you, is you!

This is more than an obvious conclusion; this is science.

What physics can't tell us is how it feels to be you ...

The Diane Theory - the 12 Phases™ -

is a way to map the events of your life

to create a living portrait:

Time, circumstance, relationships -

all of it together illustrate you.

Even then,

only you can tell us what you felt and feel,

what the sum of your life story - so far -

means to you.

You must pause and reflect on what has happened.

You can draw your life experiences,

year by year,

in a personal timeline

just like we do for world events.

Rachel

Rachel's life story starts with the death of her mother.

At just 11 years old, Rachel felt abandoned and cheated,

left without a mother's care and guidance

for the rest of her life.

Rachel developed fibromyalgia, a painful nerve-related condition.

Despite lack of treatment, and knowing the pain was probably

entwined with the trauma of mother's death ...

logic and therapy didn't help.

Rachel had been raised in a science-centered town where

pressure came from intellectually advanced peers.

The competitive culture tended to reinforce Rachel's low sense of self-esteem,

thinking that, not only was she without a mother, she also wasn't smart.

To Rachel, everything she did was inadequate,

a failure - according to standards others held over her.

But when I met her, I found her to be smart and adept with technology,

with a fine artistic sense in photography.

She had ventured into life as any young adult would,

trying to fit in, feeling for

the place where she would shine ...

Even feeling alone and panicky at times,

unable even to rid herself of the fibromyalgia,

Rachel was forced to keep body and mind in motion.

She became a reluctant adventurer.

Getting away from high school condemnations,

Rachel went out of state for college, and then moved to Colorado as a photographer.

She took to website development technology and added her photographer's advantage.

In Colorado, Rachel also developed a spiritual home base, a new place of support.

Happy and productive for several years there,

compassion took her to Texas to help a friend in need.

Wanting more, she decided to spend time in an ashram

and then a silent retreat.

In each experience, perfection eluded Rachel

but she began to put down roots.

Her technical skills were appreciated and she made friends.

Last year, she got married.

Personhood: Albert Einstein, Rachel, you and me - all in the mix.

If you think you're working hard and getting nowhere,

it's not true.

The reflection in the twists and turns of

life's unpredictable intrusions ... is YOU!

You're not finished yet.

The force of life that makes us live

can be described physiologically,

in neurons and the electrical signals

that pass between body and mind.

The 12 Phases™ is a discovery:

The nonconscious passages between body and mind

that become distinctly identifiable, person by person,

arising in the form of individual disposition of mind and will.

Personhood. Identity.

...

Near the end of the last blog, "The Natural Power of Good,"

each of the 12 Phases™ is described in detail.

While the system itself is a built-in "tune" for all humans,

your life story adds special lyrics to the music.

Change is managed - by your organism -

enabling you to subconsciously strategize -

automatically and autonomously on the fly -

to survive change and thrive, by your natural resourcefulness.

More science, facts that support The Diane Theory:

- Albert Einstein did not apply special relativity to

the biological makeup of a person, but I do.

Singular perspective means that it is possible to quantify

the subjective view of a particular person - yours, for example.

- Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio traces the paths

between body and mind toward the formation of mental images

that arise in a person, from memories - which also form new memories.

That kind of vision spawns a person's world view and fuels passion.

- The timeline of a life from birth to death,

is called a "worldline" in theoretical physics.

That is measurable time -

whether the entity is a star, a planet, or a person.

- Your perspective is formed by the steady stream of life situations.

As a  person occupying a particular and separate position in space and time,

regardless of what you and another person may witness at the same time,

you will each have a unique perspective about the situation.

Most of the time, autonomy is hidden from view; protected.

Even from ourselves!

The nonconscious efficiency in our organism,

maintains our autonomous motivation 

for our own Good.

Find the Good hiding in the corners of your life

with the 12 Phases™.

_______________

Mentioned in this blog:

Einstein’s five papers, published in 1905:

- introduced the concept of photons

- on the Brownian movement of random particles

- his doctoral dissertation on the sizes of molecules,

- the principles of special relativity theory that gave us spacetime, and

- the principle of the mass and energy equivalence (E=mc2)

Antonio Damasio's book, Feeling & Knowing: Making Minds Conscious.

The ideas of the block of spacetime and worldlines are clearly demonstrated

by theoretical physicist Professor Fay Dowker in her talk,

"Past present future: Science of Time" at University at Geneva May 17, 2018.