Issues with awareness
Like with other functions of consciousness, agents often have problems with awareness. Moreover, recognizing these problems can be even more challenging: it requires awareness, which is precisely broken in this case. Therefore, issues with awareness are usually identified and corrected with the help of others or through controllability, when the actual state of objects of attention and the agent is forcibly compared with the "model" (how it should be) by means of polling management or interruption.
The first problem with awareness is that agents find it very difficult to realize that they are doing something wrong. Firstly, often at the moment it seems like there is no problem - and only with the consequences does the awareness come that there is one (although what it consists of is still unclear). Secondly, people are reluctant to realize that they have made a mistake, it is unpleasant to admit an error and correct it. Often, such acknowledgments are so painful for self-esteem that a person chooses to live with the problem and ignore it. The problem remains unsolved, but one can cling to their views of the world and not change them. For example, if an operations manager makes a mistake in forecasting project completion dates, by default, they will hide the problem until the last minute and/or try to shift it, especially if such mistakes are punished in the company (with money or social disapproval). If the operations manager does not do this, it is a deviation from the "basic firmware," which can happen for various reasons: the operations manager is highly skilled in craftsmanship and knows the high cost of hiding errors, can tell and show the team the results; the company has a culture of working on mistakes instead of a culture of punishment; it corresponds to the personal views of the performer about what is right and good; or something else. In any case, such behavior is a departure from the "basic firmware" and should be considered as intriguing, not the other way around. By default, such behavior is not included, unfortunately.
Another problem is that after realizing, people still try to use problem-solving methods that do not lead to a change in the situation and generally tend to lean towards old methods. For example, there was a course "Ontology and Communications" in ISSM. There were two types of students who attended it: conditional "physicists" (mostly engineers, programmers), for whom everything was already quite good with modeling (ontology) even before coming to the course, and conditional "lyricists" (often negotiators), for whom everything was already good with communication. Both types came to improve their weak points - communication for "physicists" and modeling for "lyricists." But in the end, without special intervention from the teacher, both types paid much more attention to homework related to what they were familiar with: modeling for "physicists" and communication for "lyricists." Perhaps if you look at how you did the homework for the "Modeling and Consistency" course, you will also find something similar in yourself.
How are awareness issues resolved? Firstly, one can seek help from others - the "outsider's view" effect can help identify the problem faster. Secondly, establish monitoring and then controllability of the necessary behavior. And at first, it is more productive to focus on keeping the attention cameras on the right actions and doing them the right number of times, and only then worry about the quality. For example, if you realize that you do not think enough through writing/modeling and want to correct this. Focus on writing the first 100 notes/posts, rather than on creating a masterpiece immediately. Make thinking by writing a habitual act rather than a passing activity - and then you can focus on improvements. First - bring new actions out of the "blind spot", then - improve them.
Yet another problem with awareness is the lack of creative insight. Sometimes, when an agent gets stuck and needs to find a solution to a problem, inspiration is needed. But it does not come with a snap of fingers. What to do?
Indeed, we cannot summon a sudden inspiration. But a person can create conditions for insights to appear:
- Ensure an uninterrupted flow of information on the topic,
- Immerse oneself (or the team) in the topic: "brew" in it,
- Reflect on the topic through thinking by writing/modeling and verbalizing,
- Spend leisure time qualitatively.
One must read, listen, and communicate on the topic to have valuable information to draw from. Moreover, it is necessary not only to consume information but also to process it (like oil): practice at least verbal thinking, and even better - combine it with thinking by writing/modeling. Also, one must do this continuously: you should be immersed in new information like a cake - cream, in the literal sense of the word, get used to isolating new objects of attention and operations with them. And, finally, for a quality insight, leisure time is crucial: after repeated exposure to information, you need a break during which the loaded information in your memory will be processed in the background. The combination of all these methods will accelerate the emergence of insight. One can accelerate this process for oneself, or for others.
In the same way, one can create conditions for the state of flow or flow experiences to appear. To do this, one must meet the conditions for the flow to appear, listed in the section "Altered States of Consciousness." Additionally, one can observe the appearance of other signs of flow, as listed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the book "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience."