Reflection

Who is an apithologist?

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The obvious answer to the question of ‘who is an apithologist?‘ would be someone who is an expert in or a student of the science of apithology.

This would logically be someone with more than a passing interest in the topic. It would also be someone who not only studies the content of this field, but who also studies the field itself.

At a colloquial level, an apithologist is probably someone who ‘studies the study of apithology within the field of apithology’. As apithology involves the study of the generative dynamics of causation of health and wellness in living systems, an apithologist is someone who investigates the generative dynamics of apithology itself as a field.

At a technical level, the standard is higher than this. An apithologist is a someone who has accomplished three indica within the field. These are:

  • they exhibit the qualities of the Five Emulations (5 attributes);
  • they have completed the integration of the Ten Self-Qualities (30 correlates); and
  • they have attained coherence in the Fifteen Virtues (45 components).

It is not surprising then that in the first 120,000 hours of apithology practice the term has hardly been used, for no-one has (as yet) become qualified as an apithologist.

Some may want to identify themselves as an apithologist because they are interested in the concept of apithology. This may be seen as being similar to calling yourself a geologist, because you have an personal interest in rocks, or a meteorologist because you often observe the weather. This is a totally excusable novice error which does occur occasionally prior to someone investigating the field’s actual content.

Who can’t learn apithology?

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The basic premise is that everyone can learn apithology.

The foundational concepts are no harder conceptually than the ability to recognise a person, look at an ocean, watch a juggler in motion, use a compass to find a direction, ride a bicycle safely, write looking in a mirror, explore a museum, follow an easy recipe, learn to dance with another, build a model house to your own specifications, or read a book with many chapters.

The theory of education in apithology, known as apithagogy, looks at how humans learn generatively, as if they were to become contributive to humanity. Its simple forms are different, only because they have a different attainment in mind.

The forms of learning in apithology are simple for simple concepts and complex for complex concepts. They unfold sequentially. There are no shortcuts, but learning to learn apithologically, speeds up the process of learning immeasurably.

To enhance apithology’s premise of radical inclusion – are two qualifications to the openness of all to learning apithology, being preclusion and exclusion.

Preclusion ~ occurs when someone’s first engagement with apithology demonstrates the opposite of open engagement. There are three forms of this (Three Preclusions):

  • negation ~ denying the existence of apithology in favour of promoting one’s own ontology;
  • co-option ~ claiming ownership or origination of apithology ideas as one’s own invention;
  • conflation ~ reducing the forms of apithology into one’s own bounded conception.

If these appear, there is a reversal of the assumption of inclusion, until both the person and apithology are safe from unconscious mis-appropriation. The reason for this is the learner, in claiming a knowing not attained, has precluded a part of their own learning and potentially the pathway of other learners, prior to even commencing. This signals a place of pause prior to proceeding. Those promoting these secondary forms of knowing without due care (or inquiry back to source) may then also become precluded by association.

Exclusion ~ occurs when there is a breach of apithology ethics, that escalates as a conduct of personal preference, and which becomes antithetical to the care and regard for others and humanity. There are five stages to this and they have never been fully evoked.

When can I learn apithology?

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There has been a question open for some years regarding the timing of when people come to apithology?

Unlike other new ideas that seek or demand our attention as a hopeful solution to a known or prompted problem, apithology was designed as discipline of inquiry to allow the discovery of personal knowings from a vast category of questions.

Those with the questions apithology answers, usually find themselves at the doorway to its learning pathways eventually.

What happens next is really a function of three enabling dynamics in conditions, motivations and aptitudes. The guidance is that people find themselves being ‘able, ready and willing’ to begin their apithology learning.

To understand this unique apithology formulation is easy:

  • some may be able when conditions allow, when other work has been completed, space has been made, and deficiency needs have been satisfied. For some the timing is perfect, some plan for years for this and some are still hoping for that time of arriving.
  • others are ready when priorities change, work that was requested departs, or new questions appear. Mostly, an idea or hope they had held and needed to prove to themselves first has now resolved itself clearly. Having spoken answers to others and gathered vast information, we may become ready to learn what apithology allows to be newly discovered.
  • those  who are willing often have ability, and opportunity, but also a curiosity that is not satiated by a glib or momentary familiarity. Those willing to learn apithology well arrive with a discernible humility, knowing the inquiry is greater than their present capacity.

While the moment of prompt is always personal, there does seem to be an in common place of commencement in the ‘when’ of apithology.

This appears as each person’s recognition of their membership of humanity and an in-common desire to serve all others in enablement.

Because this is the focus that founded the necessity for the discipline it is often said: “If you hold apithology’s questions, you may as well have, all of its answers.”

The informed path of generative contribution once available, is then wide open and available.

Who can learn apithology?

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Apithology as a field of education is available to all members of humanity.

There are children’s books, art installations, physical toys, on-line courses, and complex mathematical and abstract theory papers.

Some of its forms are designed to require simple repetition and others enable learning by pure movement forms without words.

In fact, there is a theory that if everyone was to learn this way of engaging with the world at an early age, different possibilities in thought would come much more easily to us collectively, and this would be so increasingly – generationally.

One limitation currently is because apithology uses precise words as signifiers of meaning, there are only English language forms available at present. Translations, not made by apithology practitioners, are probably more misleading than informative to the new learner.

Presently, it is easier to learn an English vocabulary for apithology thinking, than it is to learn apithology from any translations into a non-English language.

This is because apithology actually has its own lexicon of thought-forms which become inherent in its selection of words and text formats.

We may notice this in the way that apithology sentences and texts are even written differently.

As someone once said: “This may be easier to dance than to talk about”.

How can I learn apithology?

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This is a such an interesting question – as it actually defines a significant part of the field of apithology research. The answer to ‘how can I learn apithology’ is: ‘apithologically‘.

This is not a tautology, rather it acknowledges that the field that examines generative dynamics is only accessible, by making the specific dynamics of generative learning observable, as a phenomenon.

The experience gained in doing apithology learning suggests that traditional pedagogy transmits knowledge and methods of knowledge already discovered proficiently. However, the forms of generative learning used in apithology require a different pedagogical premise. This theory of generative learning is called ‘apithagogy‘ and (when done well) reflects apithology theory and practice in its structure and processes.

In essence this is the type of generative learning humans do when initially mastering language skills in infancy and the rapid development of mastery in an unfamiliar skill that can be guided expertly (e.g. mountain climbing, crafting, juggling).

In terms of technical educational theory the learning of apithology requiries a conjunction of coherent foundational concepts, orientation towards the unknown  generative, and integrations in orders of complexity through unfolding domains of relational ontology.

In developmental psychology theory the learning theory for apithology is beyond trans-disciplinary processes or meta-paradigmatic nominalism, using instead forms of humanity-scale para-paradigmatic constructivism.

All this means really is apithology is best learned as a practice of the ’embodied generative’, where each step of the learning pathway, leads to and enables well the next – in expanding orders of complexity, empathy, and personal capacity.

Where can I learn apithology?

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The only official location where you can learn apithology at present is at Apitholo ~ The Centre for Humanity Learning (www.apitholo.com). This dedicate learning centre replaces (and leads to) the practitioner training program that operated between 2008-2016.

The learning at Apitholo opens up a wider range of apithology techniques to a broader group of people. From this maturing of apithology practice the entry-level requirements have now become more flexible and the standards for continuance have become more rigorous and transparent.

More information is available here: (apitholo)

What is apithology’s biggest challenge long-term?

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This too is a challenging question.

The answer is counter-intuitive and the biggest challenge is (possibly) … having ‘good intentions’.

Apithology is a discipline of inquiry that looks with humility at vast complexity. It recognises that the practice of humanity-caring requires a dedication similar in scale to the scope of its questions.

In having ‘good intentions’ to make shorter-term benefits easily available, there is often a desire to simplify, promote, and make initially difficult concepts easier to grasp.

It is not clear that by making humanity benefiting ideas simplistic that anyone truly benefits. What may happen is the tension of a good question is reduced into our present thinking. The collapse of this generative tension is actually something that negates our very best asking.

In apithology the greatest benefits are gained by staying with our most important questions in a longer-term asking. The habit of hoping for quick answers to ill-framed questions as a form of instant gaining, is probably the greatest challenge facing any humanity-scale inquiry. As individuals we are often not practiced at asking well and waiting for our best (or better) answers.

It is a mistaken good intention that because others (like ourselves) may not be able to hold a worthwhile question, that we feel the need to make new ideas simpler, so there is no unfamiliarity in our asking.

Hoping to make apithology simple, possibly will make it permanently unavailable.

What are apithology’s short-term challenges?

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In apithology mostly what is looked to is identifying essential actions with enduring benefits.

In apithology practice the biggest short term challenge is therefore ‘attentiveness’. It becomes hard to build on one thing, so as to enable the next thing, if we move our attention from – a random thing, to something else, and then on to another thing.

The response to the ‘speed with which the world is innovating’ misses acutely the loss of what we might actually be ignoring. It is hard to see in the ‘gratifications of distractions’ how we might build the capacity for a moment by moment sense of the presence of presencing.

However, this is a simple skill that can be learned by practice. The only question is what would be meaningful enough for us to learn to direct our attention, to this attentiveness?

What is apithology’s theory of change?

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There is a maxim in apithology praxis that “The only valid theory of change is one that changes your theory of change.”

Apithology itself does not seek to change anything, or change anyone. As a generative system of inquiry it recognises that change occurs naturally. In healthy, growing systems transformational change is the norm – and so changing something into a normative ideal is not really acceptable or normal.

What apithology does believe is that by providing enabling conditions the potential that is presently available can be actuated. In enabling natural changes apithology privileges inquiry into the enablements of generative change that benefit all humanity equally.

It also asks that each practitioner of apithology has their own theory of change, so that this is ethically transparent and radically apparent. If a practice is ineffective or unrealistic, this becomes a basis for reflexive change of one’s own held premise.

The same principle applies to apithology as a discipline. It has been changed by its theory of generative change daily since its beginning – and continues to do so with each new learning.

What does humanity most need to know now?

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This question was asked of apithology and is significant (just by its asking).

Mostly what humanity needs to know now is that there is available to humanity a way of caring for humanity. This provides hope for a future. This is a future that is vast and inspirational and intensely humbling and practical.

In times of personal difficulty, localised strife and global concerns there is a need to know there is a new hope for our times. In seeing beyond our present capacities, and deeply into humanity’s inspiring past qualities, there is the premise for a future trajectory in humanity’s potentiality. What apithology offers is a possibility. This is a humanity-centered future, that begins with each person, in their understanding held personally.