Understanding logical levels, what they are, how they work, and finding your way around the logical levels of a problem, system or ecology with accuracy and ease is a very important part of sorting information in such a way that it becomes USEFUL.

This article contains an introduction to the concept of logical levels as it is used in NLP, using the example of The Genius Symbols, and a logical levels diagram.

Logical Levels & The Genius Symbols

The Genius Symbols are a form of metaphorical alphabet to enable conscious to unconscious communication by using 23 symbols that BOTH the conscious mind, AND the unconscious mind understand, and can use as a basis for communication.

Each symbol exists at all logical levels, from the very specific here-and-now to the extremely abstract, metaphysical, spiritual, global, which is one of the hallmarks of metaphor/unconscious/energy mind communication and has caused much confusion to people working with unconsciously generated materials and visions in the past.

For example, the TIME symbol can be about such things as the Lord of Time itself, the Zeitgeist, the structure of time in the Universe at large. It can also refer to the way people measure and understand time; to the seasons, the hours in the day, and all the way down to the actual clock on your bedside table that might have run out of batteries, causing you to be late for work tomorrow.

It is understandable that in the past, when people worked with symbols and metaphors, and most importantly, with communications from their own energy mind, that they got confused amongst the logical levels, hopelessly lost and so the information received made no sense, because the reference of which logical level it was relating to, was absent.

In the Genius Symbols, what we do to end this logical levels confusion is to decide up front which logical level we are seeking an answer at, and pitching a question or a set up at that specific logical level.

So for example, with the PEOPLE symbol, we might ask for something that is global to all people by virtue of structure; or we might seek a more specific answer or solution for people in the world today; or in a particular country, or in a city, or in this particular business, or in a department of this one business, or of a particular family, or for this one particular person, or even further down, for an aspect (new word for part) of one single person.

• The QUESTION sets the logical level for the answer to be understood at.

This makes the Genius Symbols pretty unique; and in deciding up front at which level you are seeking the information you are seeking from the energy mind, you find out (usually much to people's amazement!) that their energy mind can handle all these logical levels with ease and most importantly, with surprising ACCURACY and SPECIFICITY - something that was previously entirely unheard of when working with unconsciously generated materials and visions.

Also, having to think about the logical levels you're pitching your question or set up at BEFORE you ask the question is very good training in the arts of working correctly with the logical levels of any situation or problem, or even problem group.

The way this works with "real people in the real world" is that the distinction made is not that of abstraction VS specificity, but of metaphysical VS mundane instead.

For example, someone might ask their energy mind, "What would be the perfect colour for my aura to be at this important party tonight?" which is an esoteric or metaphysical question, a very complex metaphor that describes overall state across the board - for an "aura" to be a particular colour, emotions, physical state, thought, behaviour all have to align in a specific way.

Or they might ask, "What colour should my tie be tonight?" which is extremely mundane as the energy mind in response flashes up the green tie with the purple stripes, one single specific object our friend actually has in his wardrobe.

The movement of going up the logical levels towards more abstract and INCLUSIVE themes, metaphors, existences gives likewise more leverage, the higher up you go, over all the systems that are lower down the logical levels. In NLP, the movement of going towards more abstraction is called "chunking up" and the movement into more specificity or the more mundane is called "chunking down".

As an aside, the ability to move smoothly around the logical levels of any given system is essential for real intelligence; and the entrained human propensity to only ever chunk down into more and more details, which leads to less and less leverage and control over the system as a whole, is a real stumbling block to applying intelligence and finding intelligent solutions to the problems that have been created by low chunk, details orientated, "narrow minded" thinking in the first place.

Check out this article on using the chunking up movements to improve intelligence and results: https://silviahartmann.com/essay-meta-pattern-genius.php

Here is a diagram illustrating an example of moving around the logical levels of a single genius symbol, which is a form of level-free metaphor or gateway to ALL the information that we can gain by adding the input of the energy mind to the data the conscious mind has assembled and organised, thus often exponentially increasing the amount of information on any given topic, which is what leads to the new ideas and the genius solutions in the first place.

As you can see, by controlling the logical levels through the question, we essentially unlock all the information that exists throughout all the logical levels of that one symbol.

This is a single symbol example; of course, things become far more multi-dimensional and fun when you start combining symbols (there are 23 in all). But even with all 23 symbols in play for a single question or set up, we still keep a steady course by using the question to hold all this vast amount of information together and sort for what we need to know in order to do exactly what we want to be doing.

In Conclusion

Understanding how logical levels work is at the very least, one of the master keys of understanding systems within systems, understanding relationships, ecology, and "seeing the bigger picture".

It is particularly important so that we do not get lost amidst the logical levels, and don't end up applying mundane or low chunk strategies when something much more abstract, metaphysical or high level is required to solve a problem - and vice versa.

For someone working with the Genius Symbols, it can also be observed what kind of questions are routinely being asked, and where these questions are pitched at in the overall system that contains all the logical levels.

Some people have a tendency to always go for the very abstract which may not always be the most effective place to leverage a system, or achieve a result. Likewise, people who have a tendency to be very "narrow minded" and unable to see the bigger picture will begin to notice after a while and expand their thinking to include and involve more high chunk questions, at least once in a while.

This brings flexibility back into our systems of thinking and information sorting and processing, and best of all, creates much better "matches" between the problems we have and the solutions we find for them.

Silvia Hartmann

Creator, The Genius Symbols

April 2010