I have a dumb question but here goes. What is intent (as defined by Tom and this group)? I know what Webster says it is but how do you define intent in the context of this board. How do you put it into practice? Do you coach yourself each morning saying "I AM going to have a great day"? Do you simply focus on an outcome you want and dismiss any other probabilities? Do you simply push away negative outcomes? Do you determine an outcome and simply intend without reservation that it will happen (that smells like "faith"). And how do you know when your personal intent conflicts with the universe at large? Are there times when your intent is ignored for the greater good (I would assume so...). And how would you know? Intent sounds a bit like prayer and faith to me but I most certainly welcome a correction on that.

I know this seems like a silly question but the more I think about it the more I "intend" to find out what the answer is.

It's a magnificent question:) A little bit of explanation on intent from Tom from another thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2587&p=3067&hilit=intent+works#p3067

I practice intent consciously by writing down my wishes and asking my 'guidance system' to influence me (make me wish) according to (in synchronization with) my higher selfs wishes and plans. Also, I practise my intent when I in situations aware of reacting inconstructive, tell myself that this is exercise and that I am now creating my reality and perception-reaction-pattern by how I intend/focus/wish/respond.

I wish I am better at it.

-kristian

wakingup,

There is at present only 1 post on this, the nature of Intent, in the archive section: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4998

A search for Intent with Tom as the author brings up 259 posts. Too fertile a field for practical purposes. We need someone to nominate some of Tom's posts to go into the archive so we have a ready definition of Intent handy. Any volunteers to scan through these 259 posts and pick out the really good ones that were not just passing references?

Tom, in MBT did not initially discriminate the special meaning of intent, which we have come to refer to as Intent, from the ordinary dictionary definitions of the word intent. With a capital I, Intent refers to a property of our being as it exists as a digital consciousness, an IUOC, which amounts to our intent towards, our attitude about and our reaction to all that is not 'us'. At least in short form and as I understand it. It is sort of how we place ourselves in relationship toward everything else but our selves.

Do some more reading and then come back and ask further as required.

Ted

[below written before reading Ted's posting]

excellent links above. I like Tom's characterization of what could be labeled the difference between charity and compassion, the former more vulnerable to being an expression of ego, the latter an expression of empathy/agape love.

[One practise that comes from the root Christian teaching is to perform good works in absolute secrecy if possible, which dilutes the ego effect. - ignore religious reference if this creeps you out! thats just part of my background]

my take on MBTOE is that the core process is a moment by moment choice between ego and love, the sock puppet bump in the AUM sheet (your individuation) vs the sheet (your essential reality as a digital sector of AUM) - and that at each fork in the road (DELTA(t)), you may face stark or subtle choices between these two paths (decision vectors).

now, this comes directly from Tom's guidance to me...don't worry about the fog of war and making mistakes, just do your best to make love based decisions (low entropy intent) -> action -> feedback -> interpretation of feedback -> try again with the new learning, lower entropy

accelerate the process by increasing your social intensity and strengthening your sheet (AUM) awareness through meditation (and creative activities or other-centered actions)

one tool to study such things directly is to go to users and do a keyword search on Tom's postings, and use the "search these results" field
search.php?author_id=4&sr=posts

You can also go to Google Books and search the Trilogy. Let us know if you need help with this.
http://books.google.com/books?id=RYHtBP ... on&f=false

it is also cool to learn how to clip trilogy quotes and place them into your postings...let me know if you want help with that

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Sounds like there is a lot of thread-work about this already; I'll try to sum my current understanding of the idea.

Intent is the thing or process that translates predilection into agency.... from the inclination to act in a certain way or to move in a certain direction to the actual doing of it.

If you could take your being and look at it through a screen that screened out the physical body, your personal emotions and all your models (thoughts or mind-stuff), one of the few things that would be left is intent, with its own 'direction' and/or 'attitude'. It might be aggressive, loving, retiring, fearful, or, more commonly, somewhat numb and/or largely unformed and without direction or attitude.

Know how people and animals can generally tell when someone is looking at them? The primary mechanism with that sort of perception is intent... your intent 'feels' the intent of another.

You can groom your Intent using your mind, and the mind instructs it the way the mind introduces any other new skill.... with understanding and practice, repetition, until the new intent structure becomes second nature.

It happens then that "Intent" with a capital 'I', is a largely unconscious (from where we experience ourselves to be on earth, that is), or pre-conscious process.... just like that sensing and reaction to someone's gaze. It is, as far as I can tell, as utterly a-moral as a reptile's behavior.... it acts as it has been programmed to.

Added Later: I had meant to include that you can feel this intentness directly, but you have to know where to look. One place is that part of yourself that unconsciously senses when someone is looking at you. A second place to look is what kinds of actions spring out of your being when it is time to act and seemingly no time to think.

An example, somewhat embarrassing to me, but what the heck, it serves several purposes to share it:

Once some 15 years ago, I was taking care of an old friend that was dieing of cancer. I was the only one there 24/7 ... he could hardly function at that point and I was the person's interface with what remained of his world. For that whole period, I was fairly intensely focused in a caring/protective mode. It happened one day that I had to dash out, during rush hour, through Sarasota traffic the Friday before Christmas, to get more of some kind of medicine. There was a long line of impatient people waiting to be served. There was this one fellow that seemed to be trying to squeeze ahead of me. After a couple-three position adjustments, I asserted, explaining that I was getting medicine for someone that was critical ill and alone, or some such. He just gave me a wise-ass grin that seemed to say "Tough Shit buddy~"
Instantly, before I had even time to think of it, it was as though I shot up out of my body, took the form of a huge dagger, and drove down into his skull. It was like a 3/4 second dream. Almost instantly the fellow staggered and grabbed the side of his head next to me. "I" was surprised and doubted the connection. The intent part of me, however, had a mood to it of: "Good! and God damn you!"

My conscious self was further horrified to presently discover that there was a "take a number" system operating there!~ The "intent" part of me never felt a trace of guilt though.

So apparently my intent had a component that feels the proper thing to do is to pre-emptively aggress at times.... something which has gradually been brought more under rein. Intent is like 'structure in the soul', (whatever the heck that means), in that, as far as I know, it does not change instantly, but has to be groomed to act in ways consistent with one's overall state/direction of evolution.

Just my understanding,

Montana

"Intent is like 'structure in the soul', (whatever the heck that means), in that, as far as I know, it does not change instantly, but has to be groomed to act in ways consistent with one's overall state/direction of evolution."

I am likely not tracking correctly, but are you sure you are not describing Quality of Consciousness?

I thought intent was something specific to each DELTA(t) decision of significance, and that QoC would be the structure of the soul as you say, which informs each intent?



one more thing that's fun to debate...and hard to do

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Intent is part of the basis of your QoC. It is what is built into your digital consciousness as your basis for interacting with others. Tom has put information about this on the board but it needs to be searched out and put in the reference section. I don't have time now.

Ted

I would have time next week to volunteer as per your higher post on this.

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another definition of intent:
The Noble Eightfold Path

1. Right View Wisdom
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech Ethical Conduct
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort Mental Development
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

2. Right Intention

While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.

"You can groom your Intent using your mind, and the mind instructs it the way the mind introduces any other new skill.... with understanding and practice, repetition, until the new intent structure becomes second nature."

This is important! With practice we can learn to direct our intention by increasing our awareness we expand our consciousness.

love is the answer
patrick

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LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

Like learning to play the guitar (or anything else) we can get better with practice

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LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

I want help with that. Would it be acceptable to.. can you explain it shortly here in this thread?

I've actually tried to do that a couple times on the Google Book site.

I have yet to try is to use Windows 7 Snipping Tool which gives a screen shot.

Thanks everyone. That helps and gives me a lot to think about. I "intend" to grow so maybe my asking the question was a part of the process and response. Seems like intent is a combination of attitude and determination to lower entropy that can influence ones experience in any of the reality frames. Does that make sense?

I did search the forum prior to that and just got more confused so thought I would ask the question.

Assuming you have the correct complete trilogy link, you need to install an add on for screen capture, at least for xp. I use pixlr Grabber for firefox

Once you figure out how to do captures of defined areas and save them, you then need to figure out file uploading, which all takes place below any posting that you are writing.

Let me know if you need more specific hints or if you get stuck.

It would be great if more people would reference the trilogy when asking questions and making arguments.

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Sounds pretty good. More the determination than the attitude, I'd say. You might essentially have a better grasp of it than me.

thank you, kroeran. don't have firefox, but chrome, so I used the print screen button, PrtScn, pasted into the program 'paint' cut and arranged and added file and voila! but it's huge(!)



Noticing the similarities between intent and design.

From 1st chapter of Fred Brooks,jr's 'Design of Design':

"The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb design as
To form a plan or a scheme of, to arrange or conceive inthe mind... for later execution.
(...)Dorothy Sayers, the English writer and dramatist, in her magnificent and thought-provoking book The Mind of the Maker, breaks the creative process out further into three distinct aspects. She calls them the Idea, the Energy (or Impementation), and the Interaction, that is,
1. The formulation of the conceptual constructs
2. Implementation in real media
3. Interactivity with users in real uses

A book, in this conception, or a computer, or a program, comes into existence first as an ideal construct, built outside time and space, but complete in essence in the mind of the author. (...)
The design is thus the mental formulation, which Sayers call "the Idea" and it can be complete before any realization is begun. Mozart's response to his father's inquiry about an opera due to the duke in three weeks both stuns us and clarifies the concept:
Everything has been composed, just not yet written down.
Letter to Leopold Mozart(1780)"