What is or How does the modern Socratic method work?

 It's not an easy question to answer. The fact that 

we are talking about a Modern Socratic Method is 

because we have introduced Buddhist ideas when we 

worked to further develop the Socratic Method (the 

midwife method).

 Buddhism speaks of three pillars:

 1) Dharma (doctrine),

 2) Buddha (insight or aha experience) and

 3) Sangha (the true friendships of a true group).

 Studying different philosophies and deciding what 

is true for you is the first Buddhist step (to study 

Dharma). We have special courses where we study 

different forms of the laws of life (Communication 

Course, Problem Course, Dharma Course, Ethics & 

Moral Course etc.)

 Dharma is about the laws of life. Getting to know 

the laws of life well enough to greatly improve karma 

is with a short life as a human being, without the 

support of Dharma, a virtually hopeless task.

 Buddhism's next corner pillar - Buddha – you arrive 

at when you meet Buddha (= arriving at realizations 

about the laws of life through aha-experiences) 

using the Socratic Method.

 Buddhism's third pillar – Sangha – you arrive at, 

when you together with the true friends of your Sangha 

group, create a true group of true friends who assist 

one another in the pursuit of progress on the road to 

enlightenment.

 Socrates gave a simple piece of advice to his 

disciples: If during your present life you are engaged 

in studying and devoting yourself to the treadmill of 

everyday life (= what in Buddhism is called Samara). 

Then, even after death, you will continue to strive 

towards such always changing and never lasting worlds 

(belonging to the physical universe) and your true 

self with get ever more ensnarled in Samsara.

 If, on the other hand, you are devoting your life 

to studying and striving to reach the eternal truths 

and sources of wisdom, then even after death, you 

will continue the journey towards the universes of 

the eternal and divine.

 So the choice is yours! While it may not be easy to 

live and work in this spirit of this Socratic advice, 

the recipe is simple.

 The human nature's pursuit of material prosperity 

is only good for the true self if the human nature 

can be used to give service to the true self, to 

change the karma of the true self (meaning of life 

according to Buddhism).

 The founder of Buddhism, Gautama Siddharta, carefully 

pointed out that his human nature was not Buddha. The 

task of his human nature was only to show the path 

to enlightenment (= Buddha).

According to Buddhist tradition, Gautama finally met the Buddha (= became aware or enlightened about the principle of the Golden Middle Way) after pondering all his previous existences (past lifes).

 Therefore, when we apply our Modern Socratic Method, 

we begin by asking Socratic questions that enhance 

memory while helping the individual to learn to know 

their true nature (the true self). Improving the 

ability to remember is, of course, necessary if you 

want to help an individual who is stuck in the 

materialistic "you-only-live-once" thinking.

 The Modern Socratic Method consists of Socratic 

dialogues (dialectics), where those who receive the 

questions themselves find their own answers. The 

Modern Socratic Method does not use leading questions 

(as Socrates often does in Plato's dialogues - except 

in the Kriton dialogue). Instead, the questions 

direct the individual's attention to areas of the 

mind, which lead the individual to get to know his 

true self better and thereby become wiser. The 

answers and insights the individuals find within 

themselves are their own ideas and thoughts, which 

are drawn from hidden corners of the mind.

 These are the questions that cause the individual 

to enter areas where various answers and thoughts 

have been hidden from the human nature.

 Each such insight is a step on the road to truth. 

Each step on the road causes the individual to 

become more aware of his true nature.

The Modern Socratic Method uses the 
logic of the logical mind in such a way   that the defense mechanisms of the mind
are bypassed and the true self "tricked
into giving its genuine answers,
 It is advanced philosophy of life.

 Increasing material "wealth" of your 

human nature at the expense of the true 

self's ability to grow in knowledge and

responsibility should not be something 

to strive for. Yet, the overwhelming 

majority of humanity regards material 

wealth as the most important “thing” in 

life.

 Walking the Golden Middle Way would mea

thaf you first carefully ensure the survival 

of your human self in order to be able 

to use "your human beingness" to improve 

the karma of your true self.

 As Socrates said and as was written at the entrance 

to the oracle in Delphi: Know Yourself! (= Learn to 

know your true self!).

 Socrates' most important message to philosophers 

is the idea behind his "midwife method". The idea 

that within you, you have all the insights and all 

the wisdom you need to reach spiritual awareness 

and wisdom. The method works by releasing these 

insights and knowledge through asking Socratic 

questions. The questioner then becomes a midwife to 

the thoughts and wisdoms that are released from the 

individual's interior (the true self). This opens 

the way to further insights and wisdom.

 A Nobel Laureate was once asked a question: How do 

you researchers find the answers to your questions? 

He then replied: Finding the answers is not that 

difficult. The difficult thing is to ask the right 

questions.

 It is the art of asking the right questions that 

determine whether the Modern Socratic Method produces 

better or worse results.

 One of the tricks used in the Modern Socratic Method 

is to reverse the logical nature of the human mind 

in order to "deceive" the mind into issuing answers 

that the mind would not really want to give out.

 In Plato's dialogue "Menon", Socrates uses his method 

(dialectics) to lead an ignorant slave to insight, 

simply by asking questions to the slave. It turns out, 

then, that the slave's ability to think causes him 

(the slave) to reach correct realizations about 

geometry.

 The dialogue continues:

 Socrates: Yet he was oblivious to the outcome when 

we began to question him.

 Menon: I agree with that.

 Socrates: Thus, he must somehow have had an 

awareness of these ideas within him.

 Menon: Yes.

 Socrates: We can then conclude that those who are 

not aware of a certain conclusion can still have real 

ideas in the area.

 Menon: Yes, we have to draw that conclusion.

 Socrates: Thus we have now demonstrated that it is 

possible to get an uneducated slave to draw the 

correct conclusion about something he has never 

studied.

 If you then ask the same questions about something 

else in the same way, he will eventually come to the 

right conclusions about this.

 Menon: Well, it sure looks like that.

 Socrates: We note that without having received any 

teaching and only by answering questions, the slave 

was able to obtain knowledge from within himself. 

This to get knowledge from within is what we 

imply when we say “to remember”?

 Menon: Sure.

 Socrates: But the knowledge that he has now realized 

that he now has, he must either have received at some 

earlier point in time or he has always had this 

knowledge?

 Menon: Yes.

 Socrates: If he has always had this knowledge, he (his true self) must have always been aware of it. But if he has received this knowledge, surely he could not have received it in this life?

 Is there anyone who has taught him such things in this life? You should know, since he was born and raised in your house.

 Menon: No, I know he has not received any such instruction from anyone.

 Socrates: But if he has not received these ideas in this life, it is necessary to conclude that he must have owned or received the knowledge during some other period of time? And it must have been some time before he became human in this life?

 Menon: Yes.

 Socrates: If true ideas have always existed in him, both during the time when he is and the time when he is not human and these ideas can be brought to life by asking questions, so that he becomes aware of them, then it is obvious that his true self has always been knowing? Because it is obvious that he is always either human or something else?

 Menon: Yes it is.

 Socrates: But if there is in our minds a true concept of everything that exists, surely the true self is immortal? Then you can rejoice that you are alive and that you with courage and interest can devote yourself to finding out and investigate everything that you do not know today, so that you can reremember this and become wise.

 Menon: It seems like you're right in this, but I don't understand how you managed to get at it.


In our materialistic age with AI, it may be appropriate to point out that Socrates Method does not work on computers, even if they are equipped with AI.
Of course, it is not possible to say that it could never work in the future, but according to the philosophy of life, it would only work if a spiritual being took responsibility for the computer's AI.

 If you are interested in trying the Modern Socratic Method you can contact: www.duga.se or send an e-mail to  info@duga.se

Todde

 Also check: http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-first-big-seven-step-lifes-mind.html

and

http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2019/02/philosophybuddhism-truth-and.html

About ENERGY STORAGE - For the Future!

 Lars Jacobsson is a CEO who earned his 

money as an oil contractor, but chose to 

invest the money from oil in a technology 

of the future. Today he is involved in 

developing alternative battery technologies 

without lithium and cobalt in the company 

Texel.

 His company got sole control of battery 

technology when Trump focused on coal and oil

 The technology has come so far that the 

days of the oil industry are counted.

 What does Kockums, Ford motors and the technology 

behind the hydrogen bomb has in common, which also 

links to Gothenburg?

 Answer: On Kungsgatan (a street in Gothenburg) there 

is the company, Texel, which in September last year 

was appointed by the US Department of Energy as one 

of the best battery technicians to be able to replace 

lithium batteries on a large scale.

 Their battery solution consists of a 

combination of Stirling engines, developed 

by Kockums and Ford, and a thermochemical 

battery that can store thermal energy, 

developed by the same laboratory in the 

US that once developed the hydrogen bomb.

 Lars Jacobsson is CEO of the company. He has a 

background as an oil contractor, but chose to invest 

the money from oil in a technology of the future.

 How come this technology ended up with 

you?

-        My focus has been heat radiation from the 

sun, and how to convert it into electricity.

 I have been with and founded several companies 

that focus on it, but have always said that it 

is not enough - you have to be able to store 

and supply the energy around the clock.

 So in 2010 I started a company called United 

Sun Systems, which today is Texel, and started 

to buy a lot of different technology to look 

at opportunities to store thermal energy and 

convert it into electricity. When I started 

looking for battery technology, we did not 

look at lithium, but instead of heat batteries, 

since our input was just heat. In 2012, we 

bought what was then the world's largest 

thermal solar plant, in Arizona. Then we 

started to look around the world to find out 

which researchers, labs or universities could 

best solve the storage problem. At this time, 

few people cared about energy storage.

  But we found a laboratory in South Carolina 

that also invented the hydrogen bomb on behalf 

of President Truman. This led them to become 

leaders in hydrogen research and thermal energy 

today. They had succeeded in researching a 

thermochemical battery technology. So we started 

negotiating with the US Department of Energy to 

get exclusive rights to this battery.

 How come the US state allows a Swedish 

company exclusive rights to such technology?

- When we started negotiating to get exclusive 

rights to this battery, Obama was still president. 

Then they said "no, you will never have exclusive 

rights to American top technology". But when 

Donald Trump became president, the air went out 

of all labs that had something to do with 

renewables. Now investments should be in coal 

and oil again. We took up the negotiations again 

in order to gain exclusive rights to the battery, 

and above all a future collaboration with the 

laboratory where we can develop this together. 

In February last year, we were able to sign an 

exclusive agreement on battery technology.

 Explain as easy as possible - how does 

your battery work?

- It is a thermo chemical battery, that is, it 

stores heat energy in chemical form. That was 

the laboratory's part of it all - how to pump 

some kind of thermal energy, such as electricity 

from the sun or wind turbines, convert it into 

heat without losses and then store it as 

chemical thermal energy for up to a hundred years. 

But what comes out after the hundred years is 

still just heat. It is only when you add the 

Stirling engine, which converts the heat into 

electricity, that it becomes a product that can 

benefit from replacing fossil fuels. It is the 

combination of the techniques that is our input 

in the whole.

 What is the advantage of this technology, 

compared to other battery types?

- There are a lot of different things you chase 

in battery technology, which we want to learn 

more about. One is high energy density, where we 

have such a high density that within a few years 

we will surpass lithium batteries technology. 

Then, of course, it is price. If you have to 

store large-scale energy, such as all solar 

energy in California, then the price must go 

down. In some large-scale applications, we are 

up to 90 percent cheaper than lithium, perhaps 

more. Then we have this that our battery does 

not consume limited resources, the battery works 

for about 40 years, when those years have passed 

we can turn it into a new battery, and we do not 

run out of cobalt for example. All this meant 

that last September we were named "The success 

story Beyond Lithium-Ion" by the US Department 

of Energy, at the world's largest energy storage 

conference in Silicon Valley.

 What disadvantages or limitations does 

your battery have?

- We can never make a battery that is so small 

that it can be used in a phone or a computer. It 

is limited down in size, while lithium batteries 

are limited upwards, so they fit well together.

- Then we see no direct technical disadvantages, 

but the difficulties we have before us are to 

industrialize at a high pace. Since we signed the 

agreements in the US, we have become very 

American. But we could use a very large part of 

the subcontracting systems found in, for example, 

Gothenburg in the automotive industry, to build 

our system in the future.

 Talking about the challenges of batteries, 

it is often focused on how the car 

industry will solve the problem, but is 

that not what you mainly aim at?

- Our first focus is not cars, but energy storage 

on a grander scale. We are negotiating with 

energy companies in California where a limit has 

been reached. They produce too much solar energy 

in the middle of the day, the more production 

the cheaper the price becomes and you no longer 

get paid for your surplus energy during the day. 

We take the produced energy and move it over to 

when demand is greatest, which is in the evening 

when people come home.

You have a background in oil storage. Has 

it felt like a big step to move from oil 

to renewable energy?

- 18 years ago it may have been a big step, but 

today I think it feels very natural. The 

technology has come so far that the days of the 

oil world are counted.

 Renewable energy is becoming cheaper and cheaper, 

and the only thing holding back it is the energy 

storage possibilities, so that you can deliver 

cheap solar and wind energy even when the sun is 

not shining or when the wind is not blowing. 

That's where my focus lies. Solving that problem 

would mean the death blow to the oil industry.

Lars Jacobsson about…

… That Sweden and Gothenburg need to 

invest in new technology

 When I was a kid there were shipyards where we 

built ships, then they went bankrupt and we built 

cars instead. We know that developments goes in 

cycles, and we have to keep on top. There is a 

risk that we will end up behind, we cannot live 

only with car industry in the future, we should 

not miss another solar or wind power race.

… On financial interests over commitment

 I do not think that we will manage the 

transformation unless it is profitable, unless 

I can tell our investors that they will make 

money. With ordinary people you find a greater 

commitment, but with the large asset managers, 

they are much more interested in it being 

profitable. Sad, but that's the way it is.

... To solve the big problems first

 There is a lot of talk about flying, and flying 

is one of the hardest nuts to crack, but a small 

part of the carbon dioxide stems from it. 

Electricity and heat account for 35 to 40 percent. 

We have to deal with the big problems first. Then 

we can maybe solve the problems of flight.

… The company has an exciting technology with 

great potential. there is also an exciting 

situation - last year (2018) the plans for 

going public with United Sun Systems were 

canceled as the praise from the US Department of 

Energy was received and the name changed to Texel. 

Now the next goal is large-scale industrialization.

Todde

 Also check: 

http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2019/07/climate-change-caused-by-people-doesnt.html