Hello, Dr. Grinder. 1.  You wrote, "I am completely baffled by this statement - surely, there are thousands of cases where research and the generation of new knowledge have produced 'cures' beyond the wildest dreams of previous practitioners - perhaps I misunderstood." Yes, that's why we're all so healthy, right?  Seriously, I'm not saying I have my hand stretched out, with a spoon of medicine in it, ready to the heal the globe.  But wild-eyed production of knowledge released into a river of applications is no answer either, and some human problems are both enduring and easily solved.  I think its up to the people involved to do it, not necessarily you or me.  Of course there's influencing those people.... Your suggestion on page 357 of "Whispering In The Wind", the suggestion to generalize actions to the world around us, is a good one.  NLPers are skilled in-person communicators, negotiators, deal-makers and salespeople.  That NLPers might apply those skills to tackle solid problems like installing a sewer system, well, that's a cut and dried approach with obvious benefit to people. But knowledge of human (psychological) function, how much of that DO I want NLPer's in the world to have?  Right now, not near as much as the syntax model you are proposing might provide.  What I want is healthy, hopeful, wise, friendly, charismatic NLPer's - people like you and Ms. Bostic St. Clair.  Not people with dangerous knowledge that they apply like self-interested, careless adolescents. 2.  You wrote, "Wow, so, I should never have done the research and generated the knowledge now called NLP?" Yes, probably not.  It's easy to imagine technological applications of NLP that will make a presence in emerging areas of education, entertainment, ..., in such a way that the applications do more harm than NLP will ever do good.  Now that NLP's here, it's too late to turn back the clock.  But you still can choose how to contribute to its continued presence, and whether to contribute to its presence at all. The community of people helped by NLP technology might proclaim its greatness, its personal aid to them,  and its valuable aid to their clients.  Then members of that community might create an explicit model of what they do, and even publish it.  Won't that make those people another crop of researchers?  They're already true believers, and isn't that what you're trying to solicit?  If it isn't, great. Because more and different and bad applications of NLP would be created than the applications you want people to create.  But why not learn about "Neuro-Ethics", anyway.  You could do an internet search by the term, read some recent (online) newspaper and magazine articles on the subject, etc.  You, Dr. Grinder have the knowledge to resolve whatever burning application questions might trouble people other than you, when those questions relate to the research you want to encourage.  You could offer ethical guidelines right along with your research ideas.  Research plus ethical guidelines for research application is better than just research, but the best may be no research at all. 3.  On page 364 of "Whispering In The Wind", you wrote, "...we are proposing that prior to making any new choice generated through a congruent application of these NLP patterns, we would accept the responsibility of systematically using triple description." and on page 249, you wrote, "Triple description ... Castaneda's definition of ... a person who collects multiple descriptions of the world(without any movement to resolve the question of which of these descriptions represent reality)" One way to resolve your burning questions of accurate reality descriptions is to reduce the quality of information about other people's perceptual positions that you can receive.  The internet is perfect for that - which is why you mustn't teach through it.  The technology will change fast enough to meet some multimedia needs within five years, but don't go that route - teach in-person instead. 4.  You wrote, "Where does the presupposition that I intend to divorce my "commumication efforst from my face-te-face interaction with people come from, nj?" Keep looking at your internet screen, Dr. Grinder.  If you had all the money and time in the world, I'm sure you could develop every opportunity for teaching that involves whatever preference for teaching modality that you have at whatever time suits you.  But you don't have all that money or all that time.  Developing a dependence on a trendy teaching modality, particularly a trend on the fast-changing internet, seems risky.  Not only because the modality will change, but because you'll be tempted to move on to using what it changed to.  That slippery slope is not my halucination, it seems to be a practical reality for some fine NLP-trained teachers. 5.  In post 22/06/2003 10:42:09, I wrote, "Try typing your name on a piece of paper.  How did it feel, from second position?" That is a test.  Contrast it with saying your name to a person you are facing in the same room with you.  Your triple description model must depend on information gleaned during a communication process, am I right? If so, then I wonder: - how would you know how I or anyone else feels, during your written communication actions - What feedback have you about my response to it  - whether my response even depended on what you wrote!?  When you choose a research focus, whose effected experiences are you considering?  You have no useful answer, do you.  Your heuristics, if they're anything like mine, can only be broad and shallow.  Right now, I think your heuristics for what to write and when, are not the same as mine.  But I want them to match up. 6.  You wrote, "nj, the whole end piece is pure hallucinatory ranting - get a grip." Try listening to yourself talk about what you want your reader to think in response to what you wrote.  You lack information, you can't apply your triple description model, and what you predict of responses may seem accurate, but you lack assurance that the accurately predicted written responses let you know all the actual human responses.  For some  communication content, in communications involving  some communication participants, that lack of assurance is OK.  But the research context does not produce good control over your work products with that lack of assurance in place. Media-managed and software-managed knowledge (production) will provide more of that lack of assurance, and at the same time, illusions of that assurance.  If we were facing each other, and I started typing in QWERTY keyboard what I had to say to you onto your arm, would you understand me?  No, we both have models of how to effectively communicate in keyboarded text that are distinct from how you communicate face-to-face.  And here you are, reading and writing, not communicating face-to-face.  So what kind of triple description do you use for keyboarded text communications? What kind of triple description can you use for keyboarded research knowledge, then? If you continue to keep up with the internet's communication trends, your models of interpersonal communication will lose applicability to the contexts of communication you enter.  Even in video-telephony, or full-surround virtual reality, you will not experience face-to-face communication.  Consider that you and your communication partners have completely different knowledge than you both would if you were sharing the same room with each other.  Even if knowledge is accurate (for example, my knowledge that this letter will be read through by Dr. Grinder), my response to that reality might be radically different than if I were to say to Dr. Grinder in person what I've written to Dr. Grinder. I'm pained that the value of your knowledge can be measured in terms of the quality of your writing about it.  When I consider how many people out there know how to use the web, and how few can communicate how you can, I cringe.  It's the people with a mastery of the media-production tools at their disposal who perform, nowadays even when writing.  But when that mastery determines the quality of the mediated communications they rely on, then what motivates people to learn in-person communication skills?  This will become more and more of a problem in the future, I predict, as mediated communication replaces in-person, face-to-face, verbal communication. Another problem: better marketing will defeat the best model of  face-to-face, human-modeled, communication, so long as people believe that being face-to-face is not the emphasis of NLP_modeling.  Why? These models will be offered through the internet, that's why.  Teaching effectiveness will depend on something quite different than how you teach in-person, it will depend on computer technology.  That's not a trend to adjust to, it's a trend to ignore or avoid. But considering research, how will users of instrumentation and hardware technology, or practitioners of disciplines like programming or data processing, measure against your modeling prowess? (btw: Is it getting more difficult to perform those disciplines, or easier?)  Pretty darn well, if your syntax model is ever researched.  And by then, whatever guidelines you proposed to go with your syntax model ideas, will be nothing but ashes.  You, as someone who practices communication influence,will encourage new applications of influence_technology, but then be unable to affect how it's used.  So if you intend for your models to be applied to face-to-face communication, won't you at least need to teach your students in-person and face-to-face? If so, and if you want to ethically teach the models you have, particularly the models of face-to-face communication and in-person learning, then please be sure that you are teaching those models through in-person, face-to-face, communication. -nj