Hey Lewis, thanks for creating the new thread...and stating the design criterion point more clearly than I did 8) Since we have this shiny new thread I'll respond to joHn here... Hi joHn, you wrote: "We don't agree here" Cool... " - the definitive quality of having a genius - a specific person and their behaviors - as a stable reference point with the accompanying guarentee that the patterning represented by them in their consistent behavior is a far cry from, as you wrote, "an abstract design goal" - there are orders of magnitude of difference between the two." I completely accept this point...and I still believe design CAN have specific criterion as Lewis stated...even if there is a massive difference between the two... Earlier I wrote: "It seems to me that this is sorta what your Erickson example was...as you didn't actually have access to the real model...so you used a collection of externally expressed f2 based models of his work to design a useful Phase 1 strategy...and it worked..." To which you responded: Of course we had "access to the real model" - that really was Milton H. Erickson that Bandler and I modeled. I think you misunderstood what I meant here...I was refering to what you outlined on the bottom half of page 176 and the top half of 177 in Whispering. You wrote: "This is tha old AI split - write programs that mirror the behaviors of humans or simply write programs that are functionally equivalent to the behaviors of human being - two quite distinct endeavors." I'm getting the feeling that I've ended up in an argument about modelling vs design...which is not what I want or believe in at all.  I also think that the AI split you talk about is a useful, yet totally artificial construct...because once you get to the detailed software development level you are only left with creating functionally equivalent elements...after all what you are building is not the human you are imitating...(to follow your metaphor). You wrote: "Look RobMan, we never said that it was easy to model geniuses only that it is an adventure of the highest order.  Have you actually attempted to gain access or is this whining I hear?" Listen joHn, I'm not disagreeing with you...just discussing some thoughts on the interaction between modelling and design - specifically at the unconscious level...but feel free to hear that as whining if you like... 8) You wrote: Look..get off your butt and do it. Thanks...I am... Earlier I wrote: "I'm left wondering if your focus on modelling is simply one of your useful pedagogical distortions and if the Phase 2/3 loop is really the heart of most design..." To which you responded: You lost me again - I would be happy to comment if you could offer me an effective clarification on what you intend here. I'll offer a clarification...and you tell me if it was effective for you or not... As I said above, I was simply discussing some thoughts I had about the role of unconscious design in the phase 2/3 loop...but more specifically in phase 2.  After all when we attempt to imitate another person (with f2 suspened) then surely this is a good example of our unconscious mind "designing" new behaviours/reps...because as you've said we don't have any access to what/how the other person is really representing...or even their real behaviour...just our reps of it.  So I feel that in phase 2 the difference between my unconscious mind imitating an observed behaviour and it imitating a powerfully imagined behaviour can at times be quite small...whereas in phase 3 there is a world of difference. But I sense that you may feel more comfortable if I simply replace the word "designing" in the paragraph above with "creating" or "generating"... Have a great weekend... roBman