HOW TO USE CONSCIOUS PURPOSE WITHOUT WRECKING EVERYTHING

Evolution always means Co-evolution (Page 4)

our very language allows us to commit the logical error of using the names of classes of things as if they were the actual names of individual things— (Page 4)

maximizing efficiency is the error of having a single goal (Page 4)

optimization is the goal, not maximization (Page 5)

We have such a flood of feedback that we can construct, inside our own brain, a working model of ourself as a feeling, sensing, responsive entity, updated in real time, like a 3-D hologram, and also models of the persons with whom we are interacting at the moment. (Page 5)

The message is in the pattern—in fact, the pattern is the message (Page 10)

Stafford Beer is famous for (among other things) the acronym POSIWID: the purpose of a system is what it does (Page 11)

a frame of reference that encompasses my system and its environment— (Page 12)

—that is, the systems around it (Page 12)

survival of the fitting-in-est, of that which fits in best (Page 12)

single-mindedness, the concentration on one thing to the exclusion of all others, is just the wrong thing for wholeness, for being a complete human being Having only one goal puts us at risk of becoming a robot, a wind-up toy (Page 12)

Life demands multiple higher level goals, all balanced in the interest of being a human being. (Page 12)