Quagmire Brains

Time is a slippery beast. Clock time may seem regular and constant but sometimes you feel it dragging and at others times it flashes past. Felt time is our subjective reality.

For most modern, civilized people time is linear. We feel that it moves from a beginning through a middle to an end: from before through during to after. This is particularly true of our life’s journey –

copulation, birth, marriage, copulation, death. 

From womb to tomb. From cradle to grave. (And from left to right – or is that just a personal quirk?)

For many other people time is cyclical. There is movement but, like the seasons, there is also eternal return. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

The yin/yang symbol of Taoism offers an image of intertwined opposites containing each other’s seeds. The scientific concept of biogeochemical cycles mirrors the yin/yang cycle. The mass of atoms on planet earth stays the same but there is ongoing churn as they join together and fall apart.

If we view time as linear then we have the problem of figuring what came before the big bang. A beginningless beginning? Something comes from nothing? Did God come before the big bang? What came before God? What grounds are there for supposing an unmoved mover?

If we view time as cyclical then we can suppose an eternal return. Since the big bang, the universe has been expanding. It may eventually reach its full extent and begin contracting again till it reforms a singularity that gives rise to another big bang. Night follows day follows night. Singularity follows universe follows singularity.

BUT – in what extent of space and time does the singularity operate – how is the universe contained? If you go to the edge of the universe and take a step beyond – where would you be?

“You’ll find plenty question masters
Making quagmires of their brain;
The man said, “There is no answer”
They said “You are insane.” (Clark)

Language is a slippery beast. It is quite new in evolutionary terms. It has been growing and is still expanding. It dictates the patterns and agencies that we invent and label to create our reality. We explain the new and unknown in terms of metaphors, similes and analogies relating to what is already familiar.

Early language would have dealt with the practicalities of work and relationships within and between small groups of hunters and gatherers. There would not have been much call in those days for words dealing with space/time, infinity, eternity and unmoved movers.

So how much progress has there been? Are we now asking the right questions or are we linguistically constrained by language more suited to the days of parochial magic and myth?

This morning I feel inspired to believe that we are arriving at radically new patterns of understanding and vocabulary linked to mindfulness meditation, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and possibly Big History.

Stepping stones across the quagmire of my brain.

Analogy.

Peaceful smile.

Big History

Bill Gates and David Christian

Big History is an emerging and rapidly growing academic discipline which examines history scientifically from the Big Bang to the present.

It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approach based on combining numerous disciplines from science and the humanities, and explores human existence in the context of this bigger picture.

It integrates studies of the cosmos, Earth, life and humanity using empirical evidence to explore cause-and-effect relations.

While some academic historians are skeptical about its value or originality, the 20-year-old discipline appears to be poised for further growth, including an effort to make the discipline available worldwide via a project from philanthropist Bill Gates and David Christian called the Big History Project.


Phases: physical evolution → biological evolution → cultural evolution
Epochs: particulate → galactic → stellar → planetary → chemical → biological → cultural.


Christian explains Big History in terms of eight thresholds of increasing complexity:

1. The Big Bang and the creation of the Universe about 13 billion years ago
2. The creation of the first complex objects, stars, about 12 billion years ago
3. The creation of chemical elements inside dying stars required for chemically-complex objects, including plants and animals
4. The formation of planets, such as our Earth, which are more chemically complex than the Sun
5. The creation and evolution of life from about 3.8 billion years ago, including the evolution of our hominine ancestors
6. The development of our species, Homo sapiens, about 250,000 years ago, covering the Paleolithic era of human history
7. The appearance of agriculture about 11,000 years ago in the Neolithic era, allowing for larger, more complex societies
8. The "Modern revolution", or the vast social, economic, and cultural transformations that brought the world into the Modern era

Wikipedia on Big History
The Big History Project - David Christian at Macquarie University - video

Metanexus

Metanexus - BIG History, BIG Problems, BIG Questions http://www.metanexus.net/

 

“Metanexus fosters a growing international network of individuals and groups exploring the dynamic interface between cosmos, nature and culture. Membership is open to all.”

“At the present moment, despite the increase in the quantity and diversity of our knowledge, our understanding of the world is becoming ever more fragmented. We believe this fragmentation lies at the root of many of the current threats to our wellbeing and the wellbeing of the planet. Therefore, Metanexus proposes a new approach to the way we pursue knowledge about our universe, our lives, and ourselves. Our mandate is to Think Big.

The mission of the Metanexus Institute is to facilitate a global conversation that uses insights from Big History—our common scientific origin story—to discuss solutions to Big Problems and productively debate Big Questions.

Features:

Around the web - http://www.metanexus.net/around-the-web - a large categorized set of articles

PESTLE analysis - Factsheets - CIPD

PESTLE analysis - Factsheets - CIPD

And now there is STEEPLES at https://sites.google.com/site/steeplessrds/

Social
Technological
Environmental
Economic
Political
Legal
Ethical
Spiritual

TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design

TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

Along with two annual conferences TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

The two annual TED conferences, on the North American West Coast and in Edinburgh, Scotland, bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less).

On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 1400 TED Talks are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.




http://www.ted.com

Brights and Supers

The ‘Bright’ world view seems to me to be sensible and reasonable. It accords with my present mode of thinking and being. There are now many self confessed Brights and they include Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and Michael Shermer.

What is a bright?

• A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview
• A bright's worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements
• The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview

The Bright website (http://www.the-brights.net/ ) contains a lot of well digested material including power point presentations and videos.

What is a super?

• A super is a person whose world view includes supernatural and mystical elements – myths and magic.

Cool HOTS

Daniel Dennett

“Thinking is hard - yet barely a waking moment passes when we're not labouring away at it. A few of us may be natural geniuses, able to work through the toughest tangles in an instant; others, blessed with reserves of willpower, stay the course in the dogged pursuit of truth. Then there's the rest of us. Not prodigies and a little bit lazy, but still aspiring to understand the world and our place in it. What can we do?” (Amazon blurb regarding Daniel Dennett’s latest book “Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking”)

I have several feet of bookshelves dealing with the mind and thinking . I could make one-pagers of them. But that is yesterday’s party trick. When I grew up I put away childish things. I used to objectively herd other people’s thinking animals. These days I try to get to holistic grips with the thinking/ feeling animal that is/ is not the non-egoic me.

Today’s news - an 80 year old Japanese gentleman has climbed Everest. My goals are more humble – I seek to climb only the Himalayas of the Soul (HOTS). This can be done from a cushion or an armchair – with occasional transplants to an office chair facing an online laptop.

My map to the HOTS has plenty detail about the foothills but not so much about the heights. In retrospect there has been a sequence:

1. Cultural roots – 20th century, rural Scottish Presbyterian
2. Archaeology, Psychology and Zoology
3. Teaching general science and biology
4. Sociology, anthropology and western philosophy (Development)
5. Eastern philosophy – Taoism and Buddhism - Zen and Vipassana.
6. Mindfulness meditation.
7. Neuroscience and Evolutionary Psychology.

Group (1) was serendipitous in terms of family, community and sub culture. Nature and nurture together set me up as a serious minded, green, scientific, intellectual.

Groups (2) to (4) saw me scratching around the western scientific foothills ; but this did not deliver what I intuitively sought.

Group (5) marked my initial academic review of the Eastern ways of thought. It became clear that there was more to understanding than just knowing.

Group (6) marked the beginnings of a Buddhist practice and the experience of being beyond space, time and ego. Interest in Groups (1) to (5) waned. ‘Being peace’ became the aspiration. And there was interest in extracting the essence of Buddhist practice and of eliminating the exotic ritual and vocabulary. I appreciated the MBSR line of thinking.

And now there is Group (7). The evolution of the modular mind/brain. Structure and function. Past, present and possible future. Consciousness of consciousness.

Neural plasticity. Think different, be different.
Peace is the Way. The HOTS are cool.

Whose news?

Nothing in the online news grabbed my attention. This is surely a good thing. Why should I fill attention with topics prioritized by the media? Habit.

I scan the Google News and then the Guardian online. I made a web page with links to all the other UK papers but I rarely open it.

I could ignore the media. Attention will be filled anyway. There will be reruns of recent sensory inputs and these will be loosely and briefly attached to various long-term memory topics; this can bolster experiential learning.

For example, yesterday I attended a Parkinson’s UK road show in the Boat of Garten. Big yins from Edinburgh and London made presentations. I was more interested in how things were said rather than in what they were saying. The biggest of the big yins were silver tongued devils making the same presentation for the fiftieth time. Smooth but not inspiring.

The Scottish parliamentary liaison wifie was a fiery character and offered many real-politic insights. Much more than a bean counter. The local PD nurse was a last minute stand in who was well informed, committed and charming. Genuine fire and passion are inspiring.

They were touting their various topic specific hand outs. They make a thing about plain language - and they seem to have figured it out for both printed and online materials.

More attention filling. I readjusted the bolts that support the new toilet seat. I have been procrastinating about that for many days. The mechanism is counterintuitive and it seems that I did not keep the installation instructions.

There have been many other attention grabbers in the three hours since I got out of bed. But none of them seemed worthy of being committed to writing. Time passes. What reality counts? Whose news merits attention?

Writers on drugs

In today’s on-line Guardian Alex Preston (writer) asks “Does Prozac help artists be creative? - More than 40 million people globally take an SSRI (serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant, among them many writers and musicians. But do they hamper the creative process, extinguishing the spark that produces great art, or do they enhance artistic endeavour?”

Preston chatted with a few artistically creative friends (I guess that they are mostly Guardian readers like myself) and found that most had been or were on Prozac and that they had mixed responses to it. 

I was on Fluoxytene (basically Prozac) to combat depression for about a year a couple of years ago. As I remember it the drug seemed to prevent the worst of the anxiety and panic attacks. But there was and still is the issue of ‘agency’.  What are the causes and conditions for the many thoughts and feelings that pass through my ever-active, attention centre? There are seven possibly interacting factors:

1. I am now over 60 so old age will be involved. There is mild cognitive impairment.
2. I practice mindfulness meditation both at home and with a Sangha in Findhorn (I completed a formal eight week course of MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction)).
3. I had several sessions with a psychotherapist in Buckie
4. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) in October 2010. So some of the dopamine producing nerve cells in the substantia nigra are dead or dying.
5. It took some time to figure the best type and levels of medication. I am presently on a mix of Madopar and Ropinerole and this is working well.
6. Creativity (blogging) has recently been quite high but was hammered by a recent urinary infection with associated antibiotics that left me knackered.
7. I live alone and work from home (except that I have retired from paid work). But I interact with various individuals and groups by way of keeping in touch with reality.

voice of the people

Preston’s article is based on a few anecdotes from a biased sample. Vox Populi. He admits this but it does not seem to worry him. He is a ‘writer’ rather than a scientist. What matters is that people attend to and buy what he writes.

As a journalist he has to produce material that is acceptable to editors and that follows the style guide for particular publications. (At the end of the article he plugs a couple of books that he has written.)

During 1998/99 I was involved with a home study course in ‘Article Writing and Freelance Journalism.’  My tutor was a crusty old newspaperman who was amazed to come across someone over 50 who still had ideals and an urge to make the world a better place. He was very pragmatic.

The bottom line was getting paid by an editor. Product has to meet the market. Therefore (a) research what the market needs and wants, (b) get the go ahead from an editor to expand a brief, and (c) only then get involved with the writing. Those who write first and then go looking for a buyer are likely to be artists starving in attics.

Journalists are word smiths, often cynical. Many take drugs, especially alcohol.

Writer’s are more than word smiths. The content of their stories are meaningful to them. Most novelists fall into that category. Many freelance intellectuals are also in that group  – people on my present bookshelf who might be included are Sam Harris, Michael Schermer, Ken Wilber and the late Christopher Hitchens. Most had a formal training in academic work when young but broke away from the institutions and became highly energetic independent intellectuals.

In 1998, after three years in Lesotho, I broke away from an institution (the UK Department or International Development (DFID)) with it’s long contracts. I became a plain language writer/ editor and worked for a range of employers on many one-off documents. I like to think that they were of high quality - there were many one-page spin-offs.

But there was a price to pay. I burned out – twice! The first time was when working on a tutor book with a friend in Geneva. I recovered from this and worked on several other books before burning out for a second time. It was then that I was diagnosed with PD and gave up paid work.

Priorities changed after the second burn out. Work on ‘development’ stopped and I concentrated on understanding and writing about my experience of mindfulness practice in the light of new thinking about neuroscience and evolutionary psychology.

And that is where I am today: an aging, mindful, meditator and freelance researcher, who is also a ‘writer’ (blogger) on drugs and with incurable brain rot. Most of the time this is pretty cool.

Evolutionary Psychology Naturally!

The brain and its associated mind are in constant flux. This is right and normal. They are hardwired to this end. Their ‘purpose’ is to gather info about the external environment (as far as this can be known given the limitations of the human sense organs) and to relate this to past experiences. Those who learn from experience survive, those who do not learn do not survive.

There are different kinds of learning. The most ancient is by imitation – girls hang around with their mothers and other female relations – boys hang around with their fathers and other in-group males.

Most human groups have initiation rites of passage. These can be emotional and severe. The idea is to quickly and thoroughly change the individual’s view about purpose. “When I grew up I put away childish things.”


When language (and song/chant) was very young it is easy to imagine ceremonies based around the cave paintings in their splendid seclusion. There would appear to have been cultural patterns and agents giving ‘meaning’ to what might otherwise be a very scary place. Much to know.


As language matured there would have been more rational states of mind perhaps relating to detailed points about the practicalities of hunting and gathering. And as the evening fire turned to ashes thought may have turned to putting the world to rights through dealing with abstract concepts such as truth, beauty, justice, compassion; and with anger, greed, jealousy, status etc. Those groups that communicated more effectively had better survival value.

From the point of view of evolutionary psychology most of these thoughts, moods and emotions will have evolved to be as they are today for a given, adaptive, purpose.  Evolution would have been running at the level of individuals and groups. First stone axes and then, a few minutes later, manned spaceflights to the moon and robots on the surface of Mars.

So what is the point of telling this story? The idea is to breathe air into the thought pattern labeled as ‘evolutionary psychology’. Take it for granted. Treat it as ordinary. The story’s made by talking.

Back in 1997, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby, in “Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer” noted that the older and empiricist Standard Social Science Model (SSSM) had been replaced. These days, “All normal human minds reliably develop a standard collection of reasoning and regulatory circuits that are functionally specialized and, frequently, domain-specific. These circuits

• organize the way we interpret our experiences,
• inject certain recurrent concepts and motivations into our mental life, and
• provide universal frames of meaning that allow us to understand the actions and intentions of others.

Beneath the level of surface variability, all humans share certain views and assumptions about the nature of the world and human action by virtue of these human universal reasoning circuits.”

In short, although great learners, human beings are hard-wired in many ways. Our genes express themselves as ‘instincts’ and there are many specific examples of these, especially relating to social relations.

bruce hood

Bruce Hood

Bruce Hood is an experimental psychologist who specialises in developmental cognitive neuroscience. His research interests include the cognitive processes behind adult magical thinking. He is well known for his ideas that humans are not rational creatures and this innate irrationality leads to religion and superstition.

http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/

 

Bruce Hood - "The Self Illusion: How Your Brain Creates You" - TAM 2012  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIDWcWn21gg

His research interests include:

• ·         the origins of supernatural beliefs,
• ·         intuitive theory formation,
• ·         object representation,
• ·         spatial cognition,
• ·         inhibitory control and
• ·         general cognitive development

He has written two books for the general public:

“SuperSense” (HarperOne, 2009) about the natural origins of supernatural beliefs which has been published in 12 countries, and

“The Self Illusion” (Constable & Robinson 2012) about the fallacy that we are coherent, integrated individuals but rather a constructed narrative largely influenced by those around us.

retirement planning

On top of Parkinson’s Disease and its dopamine increasing medications I am presently got at by a urinary infection and its antibiotics. The infection has been lingering for a week and has induced lethargy and a reduction in posts to this blog. 

I have just returned from the nurse who took blood samples to send for testing. She has exams tomorrow which are stressing her. She is due for retirement soon. She is looking forward to having the pressure levels cut back. There are thoughts about the University of the Third Age.

I have not engaged with formal education as part of my retirement plan. I don’t really have a retirement plan although there is a strong intention to record my progress with mindfulness. The problem with that is the Parkinson’s. The disease and its medications make my experiences abnormal and thus of limited value to other people. But there are grey areas. The PD may be more or less readily felt in some areas than in others. It can, for example, be discounted when I am dealing with neuroscience and evolutionary psychology.

Why would one talk posh in Buckie?

This morning I was inspired by a Herald article“Linguists ask: Why would one talk posh in Buckie?”

In my linguistic history I spent my first 12 years in Buckie – toonie rather than fisher or fairmer – then 6 years in Portsoy. Then another 5 years at University in Aberdeen.

Then, in 1972, I failed an interview for VSO because the interviewer, who came up from England and had a posh accent, could not understand me and therefore reckoned that I would give foreigners a tough time. I can no longer remember the details but I reckon the bloke’s excessive poshness must have made me turn up my Doric class war button. That was not a sensible thing to have done. But it worked out well in the end. 

I past another interview and went to teach in Jamaica where the kids had fun imitating my Scottish accent. But this was my semi-posh, International Scottish voice rather than the Doric. I was well aware of the two forms and when they might be used. Patois is the Jamaican Doric. It has deep and shallow extremes with political and social implications.

I subsequently worked in 5 countries where the official language was English – but there were many other first languages (eg 92 languages in the South Sudan). The kids were nearly all multilingual – often in languages which were very different. This made my encounters with the Doric seem pretty small beer.

I was in the S Sudan helping to set up a Model Day Secondary School. Part of this process was to think of all form one teachers as teachers of English as a Foreign Language. This allowed a maximum number of kids to become competent in English despite the fact that the form one teachers came for a wide range of linguistic backgrounds themselves. 

Later in my career the focus shifted from what was being taught (general science and biology aimed at children) to the process of communication at the national level through the use of ‘plain language’ to influence poverty reduction strategy.

Bit I hivna bed awa. In atween the foreign jobbies a’v taen some time oot tae contemplate the infinite fae Portsoy. When the al fokes were still aroon we’d blether in the Doric. Bit these days the groups that I deal wi hae ootsiders among them so we dinna ging far intae the Doric.

I did my bit tae keep it alive by writing a Doric version o the Boat Festival’s Souvenir Programme’s welcome page for a few years. Bit that wiz jist a token gesture. 

I maybe suffer a bit of ‘colonial lag’ because of my time in ithir pairts. But it seems like a cruel twist o fate that I have not done more to promote my ain language and culture. Perhaps self deprecation is part of the ethos. Doric foke dinna hae existential crisis or class wars? Fitivir. Doric’s on the wye oot. “Why would one talk Doric in Portsoy”.