Cracking open the blackbox

This past St. Patties’ day was probably the best one I’ve had as someone who is becoming more social. Although I have much to learn, I wonder if I am making progress at the right direction and at the right pace. Throughout the night at only one venue, I opened around 20-some sets. I would say almost every set opened and had I plowed, I would have progressed in my game.

There was a long drawn out discussion on naturals vs. us. The debate got quite personal at times. Hopefully someone will recount here in Seattle lair and describe what he saw. I agree that naturals don’t really run our version of the game. I would even contend that the game we run isn’t natural; not because the game isn’t natural, as it was built from the ground up based on what many deconstructed of their observations of naturals, published peer-reviewed works in evolutionary psycho-biology, and their in-field experience. Our “game” isn’t natural is the result of our incongruence; rather than blaming the game or the community as I have described before about other “gurus”, I should bear the responsibility of practicing and improving my game.

The next part was more difficult so I will start with an analogy. Medicine, as it was practiced in the Roman empire, was horrendous. Their physicians harmed more than they helped their patients. Then Galen came along and used his opportunity of treating wounded gladiators to understand human anatomy. So I do see a value in observing naturals in field; however, until we use the scientific process of deconstructing their behaviors and interactions, how do we model someone without even being able to describe his/her looks, presentation, behaviors,…?! Or in the case of Galen, he can’t start treating his men until he can describe the basic anatomy.

Perhaps my professional training automatically kicks in when I encounter a difficult problem, like the blackbox of how naturals doing PU. The first step is to collect data, that means making observations, of not just one interaction, but many of multiple naturals. Second, we deconstruct their interactions to similarities and differences, and formulate a hypothesis that consists of a series of simple yes-no questions that we go out in-field and test. Finally, we reconstruct a model that we can use to apply in future to see if we get the same result. Yes, the process is tedious and unless we are meticulous in this process, we would never “get” naturals.

We spent nearly 2 hours arguing about the merit of the community and trying to find ways to reject commonly held beliefs within the community. Sure, I can always find a few anecdotes that go against the community teachings. This tantamounts to finding a zebra among a herd of horses. Sure, there are always exception to the rules; which is the point, those few exceptions prove that the rules are correct most of the time. Most guys coming into this are from the computer industry, so they see almost everything in terms of black and white, and the second they see something gray or a zebra, they become nihilists and decide to reject everything wholesale. They do the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Perhaps it’s my personal philosophy, I find that it’s easier to build on the works of others than to tear everything down and claim that I’m the second-coming of Christ, so my teaching is correct. This PU skillset is frustratingly difficult to learn & master without any guidance as we are all blind leading the blind here. But to take this frustration out and blame on others are not the best way of solving this blackbox. Yes, there are limitations to any PU method, that doesn’t mean we should reject it outright, many ppl have succeeded in using it. The lack of progress and/or success lies with the practitioner, whether that is due his lack of mastery, intelligence, whatever,…

Rather than throwing our hands up and admit defeat, or to say this-or-that is wrong, we need to solve this puzzle. Until we have faith in our ability and we dedicate our energy to solving it, we can sit around a bicker all day and trash any other method. The more productive way of spending our time and energy is to systematically finding solutions.