viral winds of change

Do I feel a much needed wind of change blowing through the globalised planet? The last four books that I have read suggest it; as does much of the traffic on the internet.

In essence it includes a move away from neo-liberal, freemarket fundamentalism towards a brand of green, social democracy.

The grass roots are swelling and replacing representative democracy with a more participatory variety. ICT allows the cream to rise and meritocracy to flourish amongst freelance philosophers and social activists of many persuasions and sizes.

The phenomenon of the crowd going viral with ideas and funding is now common place and often quite effective at changing minds, policies and activities.

The four recent books are available at low cost through Kindle:

• Chang, Ha-Joon (2010). 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism . Penguin Books Ltd.
• David Cromwell (2012) “Why Are We The Good Guys?: Reclaiming Your Mind From The Delusions Of Propaganda”. John Hunt Publishing.
• Jones, Owen (2014). The Establishment: And how they get away with it. Penguin Books Ltd.
• Klein, Naomi (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Penguin Books Ltd

Cromwell as rising cream

david cromwell

This morning I read some more David Cromwell (2012) “Why Are We The Good Guys?: Reclaiming Your Mind From The Delusions Of Propaganda”. John Hunt Publishing. Kindle Edition.

He is what I would call a freelance philosopher. He is a quality academic and corporation man but he gave up the formal institutions so as to be free to address the propaganda that serves to cover up the undesirable activities of the rich, powerful, global elite and their henchpersons. He could be thought of as a thinking person’s Russell Brand. There is a Wikipedia page about him and he has a website (Media Lens) and is part of the main social networks.

‘Media Lens is a British media analysis website established in 2001 by David Cromwell and David Edwards. The site is financed by donations from its supporters. The aim of the website is to scrutinize and question the coverage of the mainstream media of prominent issues and events to draw attention to what they regard as "the systemic failure of the corporate media to report the world honestly and accurately".’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Lens

What I save using Kindle can be contributed to the crowd funding of those websites that I reckon to be worthy of support. Thus does freelance meritocracy flourish by allowing the cream to rise to the surface.

Cromwell (born 1962 ) - User friendly writing style, fastidious research and passionate commitment to the common cause of changing minds. Excellent stuff.

Media bits for news needs

When I got up I set the laptop to boot while I washed my face, combed my hair and boiled the kettle for tea. There were no urgent emails so I moved quickly to Facebook which delivered a mix of local, national and international news. I gave more attention to the national (Scotland and the UK) media bits – both mainstream and alternative. There were lots of titillating media bits but what ‘truth’ lies behind them? Who is spinning and to what end?

Some mornings when there is appetite for more titillation I scan the epigrammic tweets in my Twitter list. But this morning, so far, Facebook has fulfilled what we might call the news need.

Several of the media bits held my attention for a few seconds but most of them have now faded from conscious attention – obviously I cannot speak for what they might or might not be doing in the unconscious.

I do, however, notice a smidgin of pride for having an enhanced capacity for spotting spin. But it is said that ‘pride comes before a fall’. But by being aware I might avoid the trip.

SO – at this moment, rather than surrendering attention to particular media bits, I am paying attention to the process of paying attention. So the news need is being fed by outputs from the unconscious churn that is my mindbrain. Another smidgin of pride – I am my own man?

As a human being I am a social animal and I thus have a news need so that I can fit in and keep up with others in my group.

However, IF I gorge exclusively on ‘external’ news THEN I will come to know my society and culture as it is portrayed locally in gossip and nationally in media bits. The system is open to abuse. Thus there is a need to pay some attention to my internal news. I develop my critical and sceptical faculties and use them often. It is a matter of balance.

The ancient Oracle at Delphi recommended that you, a free born citizen, should ‘know yourself’; the modern village gossips and the spin doctors at Westminster suggest that you, the workers and wage slaves, should ‘know your place’.

End of 2014 letter

End of 2014 letter – George Clark (1949 – xxx)

I enjoy reading other people’s end of year letters so I thought to write one. But what might it be about? Knowing me it will probably be intellectual stuff linked to its underlying practicalities!

I am now retired from paid work in part because of my Parkinsons. But I still spend time studying and writing which is what I did when I was working.

The ‘writing’ comes in three forms and includes (a) the unedited scribbles which form my daily diary, (b) various bits for voluntary groups – especially articles for the local newspaper, and (c) edited blogposts for which the aspiration is one every other day; but so far there are only 124 for 2014 – there were 299 in 2013. (Note: I have made several themed compilations of blogposts which are freely available online.)

The blogposts are rooted in the concept of ‘changing minds’ which includes (a) education as part of enculturation, and (b) the role that mindfulness might play in altering personal and thus cultural world views. This is a long standing theme of mine but it has been seriously shook up by recent thinking about evolutionary psychology, neurology and Big History.

Initially the thinking about mindfulness was linked to Buddhism but it has now been Westernised (eg a la Jon Kabat-Zinn et al), and I do not sit with the Northern Lights Sangha as often as I used to – even although Thich Nhat Hahn has been absorbing much of the cutting edge scientific stuff.

We were thinking of shutting down the Caledonia Centre for Social Development but, after the Scottish referendum, the topic of land reform is back on the cultural agenda and the idea now is to renew support for the work of Andy Wightman – including popularisation. From my perspective there is a vague sense that mindfulness might be a useful part of the participatory politics that are emerging in Scotland. It adds an extra dimension to Hemmati’s work on Multi Stakeholder Processes (MSP). The flourishing of the grass roots.

I continue to be reclusive. There is no desire to travel or to meet new people. I can’t be bothered (CBB) with the mundane and pedantic. It is as if the unconscious is setting an agenda that prevents me from getting lost in busy-ness; it prompts the ‘witness’ to be aware of, and awake to, what passes through the attention centre ie to be mindful. The key task is to go beyond intellectual understanding such that the thing as it is in itself might be intuited.

By way of staying grounded in what passes for a cultural reality I belong to the ‘Portsoy past and present community group’ (PPaP), the ‘Northern Lights Sangha’ based in Findhorn, and a local Parkinson’s Disease Support Group. Most Wednesday mornings I hitch a ride to Inverurie with a pal (Anne) who goes for music lessons. While she plays a piano I experience shops bigger than the Coop in Portsoy and am receptive to the vibes of people taking coffee in restaurants.

Most Tuesday mornings in the far kitchen there is a music session with the Dutch lady (Paulina) from the antiques shop – she plays whistle and flute. We both write tunes and our immediate task is to make recordings that are good enough for better players to copy. The loss of fine motor control in my fingers means that I can no longer play guitar effectively. But I can still manage the one note accompaniment facility on the Yamaha keyboard. Eventually we will have quality soundtracks to put behind slideshows on the PPaP website.

2014 has been the year of much needed renovations and extensions to the house. Today Bertie the flooring man put the carpet in the new sun room and he will be back next week to put vinyl in the renovated kitchen and bathroom, and in the expanded utility room. The lighting changes the ambience during the course of the day and I am spending a lot of time on the kitchen sofa absorbing the heat from the wood burning stove. All the work was done by local, freelance tradesmen who provided an excellent service and were a joy to behold. It is an old house and there is still much to be done but I have called a halt till the Spring so that I can have peace to enjoy the fruits of the first phase.

The agency for the CBB mood remains a mystery. What drives and prioritizes the thoughts and feelings that turn up in the attention centre? Is it the meditation, the mentation, the medication, the Parkinson brain damage, or just the onset of old age? The agency will vary with the topic and several of them may be active at a given time.

But anyway, most often these days, the thoughts, feelings and moods are positive. The reading and writing is non-egoic – no self, no problem! There is also numinous appreciation of little things – the weather and the light – the ridiculously easy availability of food and fuel – the ‘miracles’ of emerging technology, especially ICT – the emergence of participatory democracy in the new Scotland – and the burgeoning of mindfulness.

Plans for 2015 involve little more than feeding the blog with largely subjective ideas about the process of changing minds – both personal and cultural.

www.easyintro.co.uk

Fast change of mind

Lately the mindbrain has been occupied with local, social and logistical ‘stuff’. Quiet time has not, therefore, been set aside to convert the informational churn into potentially interesting and useful gobbits of knowledge.

That said, over the last few weeks I have read three books that are being justifiably hyped for the way they dissect out and shine a spotlight, or is it a microscope?, on neo-liberalism and freemarket fundamentalism. All three books are fastidiously researched, presented in a user friendly way, and make the case for more social democratic ways of thinking and doing.

A gobbit of knowledge seems to emerge:

In the 60s and early 70s those few advocates for free-market fundamentalism were thought to be unhinged academic geeks and nerds. Then there was the Thatcherite embrace of the concept; so greed was good, the only measure of success was profit, and the income disparity gap widened: but some of the wealth would trickle down to the workers so that they might better cope with austerity.

SO - in less than 20 years the idea went from the lunatic fringe to a status quo for which there is no alternative. Game set and match. Changing minds is easy.

The three books:

• Chang, Ha-Joon (2010). 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism . Penguin Books Ltd.
• Jones, Owen (2014. The Establishment: And how they get away with it. Penguin Books Ltd.
• Klein, Naomi (2014). This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. Penguin Books Ltd

Anansi Cameron

I was a young lad from a small fishing town in the NE of Scotland in the mid twentieth century. My enculturation seeded me with high expectations of the good and great.

I was expected to be silent in their presence and to implement their projects with efficiency and effectiveness. Things seemed to work out most of the time. But there were some incidents to suggest that all was not well.

• On separate occasions the Minister and the English teacher wrongly accused me of plagiarism
• The Suez Crisis (1956) showed that individuals in the good and great category can have very different views about what to do
• The Profumo Affair  (1963) showed that many of the supposed good and great were  in fact bad and beastly.
• Before the demise of local govt in 1975 there were some muted complaints about having to suck up to the Provost to get a house.
• In a rural, co-ed, boarding school in Zambia in 1979 the Headmaster was renting out female students to ‘entertain’ local big men.
• Whilst facilitating a curriculum conference in Belize in 1990 I was subject to an ad hominem attack by those representing technical and vocational education. The CEO for education apologised but I said that it did not matter. When a participant mounts an attack on a person it shows that they do not have any serious points to make.

I no longer remember when I first read Machiavelli (1469-1527). He is the father of real politics. Which often means of deceit. Private individuals are expected to keep their promises. Public figures often have to break them. In politics and business ‘reality’ changes very quickly. I cannot help but think of the reneging on the big VOW in the lead up to the Scottish Referendum. David Cameron says whatever it takes to get his own way – a text book Machiavellian!

Evolutionary psychology presumably has a take on this issue of deceit. We are social animals and therefore have concerns about status and place in the hierarchy. But in a fast changing world we must beware of group think and rigidity.

One of the folk heroes in the Caribbean is anansi spider who is a trickster, joker and clown. A trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal that exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwise disobey normal rules and conventional behaviour. Variability is thus assured and is available for selection.

Anancy Cameron plays the vow trick – it never fails.

About knowing and feeling

In the same way as you the reader, I have a unique World View (Weltanschauung) made up of many smaller Points of View. This raises two big questions - What do I know and feel? And, how come I know and feel this rather than that?

Our mindbrains have been hardwired with a tendency to know and feel in ways that make us effective social animals. We can refer to this as our human nature although it includes stuff that evolved to meet the needs of our pre-human ancestors – primates, mammals, reptiles and fish.

My particular mindbrain began in the spring of 1948 when the parental sex cells formed a fertilised egg in the womb of Margaret Lesley Clark (nee Gordon). Since then, I whiled away nine months being serviced by a placenta, and spent a few familial years as infant, child, and adolescent. I then became a fully functioning mature human being in the globalised world, and I now have grey hair and will soon be dead.

I have no children. I committed to zero population growth when I was at University. But I became a science/ biology teacher and might thus have influenced the mindbrains of teenagers in the various countries where I taught.

Note that the hardwiring provides only frameworks. These have to be filled in with culturally relevant materials eg we are hard wired by nature to learn a language but it is our nurturing that decides which one.

SO – what do I know and feel?

I cannot think of a short answer. The enculturation process involved several sessions in the mindbrain laundry as I moved from child to adult and from student to teacher – the latter in six different countries. My self image and esteem have been in regular churn and flux.

On occasions there are feelings of regret that I taught the facts rather than the process of science. In my defence (a) it was what the curriculum required and (b), in the South Sudan, we did some real science through our extracurricular Technological and Industrial Studies Group (TISG) eg comparing the fuel efficiency of a traditional stove and the new improved Kanun el Jadid (Umeme Jiku)

I gave up classroom teaching in 1987. Since then I have worked in curriculum development, and as an advisor in educational leadership, management and administration. But I came to accept the view of Bourdieu and Passeron that education on its own cannot change society - it can only reproduce it.  I therefore became an expert in editing plain language versions of materials related to poverty reduction and social development. Most of the later work was performed well under the official aid and development radar. It was deemed contentious. There was never enough funding to seriously evaluate the impact of the plain language work; but anecdotal evidence suggests that it was popular and effective.

SO – how come I know and feel this rather than that?

My early enculturation was in a small fishing town in the NE of Scotland. My father was a butcher, my mother a nurse and I had an older and a younger sister. I also had a maiden aunt who was a primary school teacher and kept me reading and thinking. It is no surprise, therefore, that I reject the economic and political thinking that underpins neo-liberalism and free market fundamentalism. I am at heart a social democrat with leanings towards subsidiarity, and, when wound up, towards anarchy.

I have been, and continue to be, exposed to various mainstream patterns of knowledge and feeling. Amongst others these include Scottish Presbyterianism, archaeology, science, zoology, education, and music – composition and performance. There is also a long standing fascination with Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism and especially with meditation. More recently attention has been given to evolutionary psychology and neuroscience and also to offshoots from Jon Kabat Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme.

I formally engaged with Zoology for four years and in the process absorbed the scientific mode of thinking and writing. For many years this was my gold standard but it is now superceded. There is a progression from the pre-modern, traditional style full of myth and magic; through the modern, scientific, evidence-based style; and on to the post-modern, culturally relativistic mode; and perhaps further on to the post-post¬¬-modern style where the hard wired inclination towards seeing patterns and agents is held in attention such that there can be what the Buddhists call non-attachment to views.

My mindbrain methodology

I aspire to being rational and scientific and with a strong scent of scepticism. But I am aware that the unconscious has a mind of its own and is chock a block with both hardwired and nurtured intuitions and biases. And these tend to be (a) the prime cognisers of patterns and agents and (b) the generators of stories with causes and effects. So which stories are to be believed?

The peer review process is vital. When a scientific specialist discovers something new he publishes it in one of the well established journals. Other specialists comment. If there are problems they are brought into the light so that changes can be made. If no problems are discovered we don’t have the truth but rather the best working hypothesis in the light of evidence presently available.                                                                                                                                                                           

The Big History Project suggests that there are four “claim testers” that help to figure out which stories to believe:  

Intuition is your gut instinct. Does the claim feel right to you, or does it feel a bit off?

Logic involves reasoning. Does the claim make sense? Is there a good argument for it?

Authority requires you to think about who is making the claim. Do you trust the source? Does the source have specific knowledge or expertise that gives you confidence?

Evidence is something you can investigate and verify. If you or another person looked at the same evidence, would you arrive at the same findings?

My present point of view might be labelled as post-post-modern scepticism. By cultivating mindfulness I can be non-attached to such best working hypotheses as turn up. I can be conscious of my beliefs being rooted in the ongoing unconscious churn between various modules in the mindbrain and they need not therefore be taken too seriously. There is definitely no need to kill or die for them.

This is a continuous, vital process which is now ICT assisted. The massed voice of the ordinary people can be expressed globally in the course of a few days. The rich and powerful elites are now more readily held to account for their actions. Given my social democratic world view this is a good thing.

Beliefs can be calmly aired during multi-stakeholder processes which encourage and facilitate a wide range of specialists and ordinary people in exchanging points of view. Contributions are thus made to the ongoing redefinition of the Weltenschauung. I am a social animal - my thoughts and feelings find it easy to go with that flow.

Shermer’s patterns and agents

Renowned sceptic Michael Shermer’s TED talk covers his main ideas.

"patternicity" - the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless noise.

When we do this process, we make two types of errors.

A Type I error, or false positive, is believing a pattern is real when it's not.

A Type II error, or false negative, is not believing a pattern is real when it is.

Now I said back in our little thought experiment, you're a hominid walking on the plains of Africa. Is it just the wind or a dangerous predator? (Making a rustle in the grass).What's the difference between those? Well, the wind is inanimate; the dangerous predator is an intentional agent.

“agenticity” - is the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention and agency, often invisible beings from the top down. This is an idea from Dan Dennett, who talked about taking the intentional stance.

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception?language=en
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception/transcript?language=en 


Shermer also briefly outlines his theory in the Scientific American.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-patterns/

His straightforward answer to the question “Why do people believe?” is stated in his 2011 book “The Believing Brain – from spiritual faiths to political convictions – how we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths”.

“We form our beliefs for a variety of subjective, personal, emotional and psychological reasons in the context of environments created by family, friends, colleagues, culture and society at large;

After forming our beliefs we then defend, justify, and rationalise them with a host of intellectual reasons, cogent arguments, and rational explanations.

Beliefs come first, explanations for beliefs follow.

I call this process belief-dependent realism, where our perceptions about reality are dependant on the beliefs we hold about it. Reality exists independent of human minds, but our understanding of it depends upon the beliefs we hold at any given time.”

See also - Sceptic Magazine - http://www.skeptic.com/about_us/meet_michael_shermer/

Existential points of view

The text of this blogpost is a reply to a postcard from and old friend who was going through a wobbly patch. There is a lot of it about.

>>>>>

Dear xxx

I got your message on the fancy stationary. I did not know if your silence was a good thing or a bad thing. It would seem to have been due to a touch of existential crisis. This is a common affliction these days.

The global situation is in such a mess that people do not know who or what to believe or where best to invest. There is doubt, uncertainty and cognitive dissonance. There are too many ends to tie together. The dis-ease (anxiety, panic, depression and stress) disturbs the sleep patterns and people get weary.

This point of view can lead to a feeling that there is no audience for your performance; so your standards slip. It is the ‘can’t be bothered’ CBB syndrome. Given this, it is interesting to note how you allocate time. What do your senses seek out and to what do they attend? What do you still bother about?

I, for example, am presently bemused by my political, social and existential perspectives.

Politicians, economists and business people now reckon that there is no alternative to neo-liberal, free-market fundamentalism. The theory is that if we give the super-rich free-rein there will be growth for all to share - even when the 1% super rich get a 99% slice of the pie. And the theory turns a blind eye to injustice, poverty, pollution, overexploitation of resources and to climate change. How come the rich and powerful elite still thrive in their top-down, corporate, Thatcher/Regan bubble?

But, there is resistance from the bottom-up. Participatory as opposed to representative democracy is on the rise and, if Naomi Klein is to be believed, it is gradually figuring how to be an influential global force. The lead up to the Scottish referendum demonstrated a range of ways for ordinary people to get motivated and engaged, often using ICT. There was a buzz in the street where people talked about issues rather than about the weather. Is CBB losing its grip?

“An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life: whether it has any meaning, purpose or value.” (Wikipedia). My present view is informed by the big history project (https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home ). The beginnings were about 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang. Then there was cosmic, biological and cultural evolution - and behold human beings with i-pads on planet earth. If we manage to figure how to live sustainably on the planet we might prosper. But, whatever happens, our sun will eventually self destruct and that will be the end of the planet and life as we know it.

Nothing lasts forever. There is creation and destruction, yin and yang. Being an ‘I’ is a fleeting phenomenon. But there are the infinite and eternal options. How parochial is your world view? How far reaching are your boundaries?(ref Wilber) When did you last treat your mindbrain to a cosmic zoom?

If there are questions about the meaning, purpose or value of life then it is not unreasonable to ask who asks them – and why. Because there is need to ask the right questions and to do so demands thoughtful use of our language instinct. (Ref Pinker)

The human mindbrain evolved as a means of making sense of sensory inputs regarding objects and events in the immediate environment… Blah blah …

>>>>> Interlude:

The joiner arrived at 8:00 to finish fitting a roof window to the study. That was the last job for this session which included building a sun room, rebuilding a utility room, and modifying the kitchen and bathroom. I used local tradesmen who have many other calls on their time – so it has taken seven months so far - and painting, decorating and carpet fitting have still to be arranged. Tarting up my cave. It was badly in need of maintenance after 30 years of CBB!

So sometimes attention was with the renovations, sometimes with this letter, and sometimes with a bout of constipation. The shit has now moved on and I am back with this letter after a bout of cleaning which prompted a burst of CBB.

A bit of the vacuum cleaner broke while I was changing the dust bag. So I binned it and bought a new one with a trendy bagless design but with a 1600 watt engine. New rules from the EU say that vacuum cleaners should be 1000 watt maximum. Fads and fashions.

>>>>> a new day.

I am minded to be grateful. The new type of charcoal briquettes burn slowly in the new multi-fuel stove and were still active in the morning. Homefire ecoal 50 – doing my bit for the environment. Sunshine through the new roof window into the office - the brightness is mood changing. Effortless heat and light towards the North Pole.

Today there are blue skies; and a low slung sun pokes fingers into the buildings in new ways. It is as if xmas has come early bearing the gift of light.

>>>>> another new day with some neat ideas from the social networks –

Thoughts are not facts – “Next time your mind jumps to a conclusion that inevitably sends you in a spiral toward depression or anxiety, check to see where your head was at the time of that interpretation.” http://www.mindful.org/mindful-voices/on-mental-health/thoughts-are-not-facts#.VHBRoFEpS9E.twitter

“The research suggests that depression may be a natural condition in which the mind concentrates involuntarily on a complex issue to the point where it allocates resources to analyzing the problem at hand, diminishing concentration on other aspects of living, perhaps giving rise to disrupted eating, sleeping and social interaction that are associated with depression.” http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-bright-side-depression.html

Neurology, evolutionary psychology and cognitive science are causing a paradigm shift (ref Kuhn). We now know that the mindbrain is constantly churning so as to make sense of the internal and external world. This is a highly adaptive process and many aspects of it are now hard wired into the mindbrain. But it is an evolutionary process. The issue is not perfection or truth. It is good enough that your variation is better than your competitors. Mad myth and magic will do fine for creating a cultural world view. Pragmatism rules OK.

What this means, amongst other things, is that an object or an event can easily but wrongly be thought of as being ‘real’ while in fact ‘it’ ‘exists’ only as a perception in a mindbrain and as a word representing a concept in a sentence. The ongoing churn results in many mini inputs giving rise to a ‘story’ which forms the basis of a quick reaction (eg to avoid a hungry lion) or a slower response (eg to see constellations in the night sky). (Ref Kahneman)

>>>>> another day – quite bright and the painter is at work in the sunroom.

My present goal, aim, purpose, motivation, and intention is to get my mindbrain into the new neuropsychological framework such that an abiding peace of mind comes into being.

The methodology involves making time to:

• read widely in the associated literatures,
• associate with like-minded souls
• sit still and watch what my mind gets up to,
• let the unconscious generate stories in flow and
• make the stories available on a blog

So, in the immediate short term, it seems to be a selfish quest. But, paradoxically, the result of all the searching is to know that there is no abiding personal self. And, therefore, the concept of there being a selfish quest is problematic.

The mystics in various times and places have spoken of the ineffable and unspeakable. “He who speaks does not know, he who knows does not speak.” Language has not yet needed to evolve enough to tackle the existential problems. But there can be non-verbal experiences which, when embraced, can stimulate the development of ‘alternate states of consciousness’ many of which change the mindbrain in desirable ways.

Those who make time to stand and stare note that the mind has a mind of its own. The ‘I’ is not in control of what is going on. But this can be a good thing. What appears in consciousness is a reflection of a tiny percentage of what happens in the unconscious.

Many ‘experts’ surrender control to the unconscious because it operates at a much more sophisticated level than the egoic conscious. Athletes are in the zone, musicians are in the groove, and writers let the muse speak through them. These are examples of flow (ref Csikszentmihalyi) which is a prerequisite for what in positive psychology is called flourishing (ref Seligman). It is an effective and efficient frame of mind which rises to challenges and would be deemed wonderful except that there is no self to do the deeming! No self, no problem.

Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist who reckons that the human mindbrain has a negative bias. There is an inbuilt tendency towards pessimism, to anxiety and panic, and to stress and depression. These are evolved and adaptive features to ensure survival in the Stone Age African savannah. But our socio cultural settings are now quite different and the old ways of doing things are no longer appropriate.

A key feature is that bad stuff sticks in mind (like Velcro) while good stuff slips away (like Teflon). It is therefore both desirable and possible that we “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative” by way of changing the mind mood from red to green

SO – slow down, be aware of and awake to the stuff (thoughts feeling and moods TFM)) that appears in the attention centre, and choose the good green stuff over the bad red. This is more easily said than done. But it is a possibility for nearly everyone. Where there is a will there is a way.

But whence the ‘will’? It might begin as an intellectual construct possibly linked to negative feelings and moods. So act ‘as if’ being aware and awake made a difference. In time it will.

Thoughts, feelings and moods.

Everybody has thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) popping into and out of their attention centre.

Individuals have their own pattern of TFM and these are initially shaped by their nature and by their nurture in their family and natal community. This shaping ensures that the individual is able to fit in to the subculture.

As the individual matures he may seek out the stimulation that comes from being part of a crowd – at a sports event, in a theatre, or at a political rally etc

Most homes in Scotland invite the media in by the front door and by the airwaves - newspapers and magazines, radio and television; and also via social networks on the internet. In many cases the media sets the agenda for the day’s communication topics and it links to ongoing politics and economics, entertainment and education, and consumerist fads and fashions.

Thoughts

A given individual will have a personality set partly by their genes and partly by their class in their culture. The personality will influence the individual’s types of thoughts about tasks and tools related to meeting their hierarchy of needs that range from basic through social to existential.

Feelings

There are three types of feeling – for, neutral and against. They are hard wired and linked to the fight or flight response. Feelings are for example for food and sex and against snakes and lions. In Buddhism the three feelings (or sensations) are called the vedana and they occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and with associated consciousness. The human mindbrain has a vast archive of memories based on earlier experiences. This means that reactions and responses to tasty rabbits and hungry lions can be faster than otherwise.

Moods

There are three categories of mood – positive, neutral and negative. Someone in a positive mood would be bright, happy, elated and optimistic. Someone in a negative mood would be dim, sad, depressed and pessimistic. A mood is a general ambience and less specific than a feeling. Moods also tend to be longer lasting than fleeting feelings.

And then there is the enlightenment option. ‘You’ can override the churning autopilot. By thinking this way rather than that way the mindbrain can be changed. That way, the old way, the dark way binds you to a parochial and monocultural world view that breeds hatred, zealotry and war. This way, the new way, the light way liberates you to a cosmopolitan and multicultural world view that breeds tolerance, cooperation and consilience.

This new way calls for attention being paid to ‘your’ thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM). Be a witness to the ongoing churn. Be aware of and awake to what is going on in the mindbrain. Know that the present pattern of TFM is impermanent. It arrives in the attention centre, hangs around for a while, and then is displaced by a new pattern of TFM.

It is never too late to change your mind. Where there is a will there is a way. It is said that what fires together wires together. There is neural plasticity. The human mindbrain is like a dog, horse or elephant, or like an athlete, musician or poet. Time spent training results in Olympian levels of performance. You have what is takes to be different. What stops you? Who are ‘you’?

Micrographia nuisance

James Parkinson may have been aware of micrographia in patients with shaking palsy (later renamed Parkinson's Disease), when he described, "the hand failing to answer with exactness to the dictates of the will". More specifically, according to Wikipedia, people with micrographia have difficulty:

• in routine activities due to lack of overall control of movement
• maintaining the scale of movements
• with reduced amplitude of movement
• with complex, sequential movements

I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in October 2010 and my handwritten notes show the beginnings of micrographia for about two years before that. I presently have problems with fine motor control associated with handwriting, computer keyboard and mouse, piano keyboard, guitar, and various domestic tools and tasks.

I can still doodle without problems using a pen, and I can manage to write large so long as it is thought of as calligraphy and I deal with one letter at a time. The writing can be almost normal when I begin a new session but it quickly deteriorates first as ‘just smallish but still legible’ and then ‘very small and more or less flat line’. It is no longer possible to think of something new while writing the last thought. Full attention has to be given to the immediately present and even then it is not always possible to consciously control what is going on.

Typing at the computer keyboard has two problems – hitting the wrong keys (both as a near miss and as completely in the wrong place) and, holding a key too long so that it repeats. These typos can be fixed but it is a slow process and there is sometimes a freezing of the mind and fingers. I sometimes think of this as arrogance and laziness but most often there is acceptance of the way things are; and there is gratefulness for word processors. Linked to this I find it easier to use the mouse than the fingerpad. But there can be a freezing of the mind and fingers on the mouse. This does not last long but it can be frustrating.

I never was a skilled piano player but I could vamp in live sessions and I used a General Midi keyboard to input to music programmes on the computer. Accuracy and timing are now giving problems but I am still able to use the one-finger accompaniment system on the Yahama YPT-230. This is good enough for the present project that involves making demos of Paulina and my tunes.

Finger picking is no longer possible on the guitar and strumming is not perhaps as timeous as it might be. I can still hold down first position chords in C, G, and A but the left hand freezes before very long. I rarely take a guitar out of its box these days.

There are many tools and tasks that give problems. For example screwdriver, can opener, closing the zip on my fleece, cleaning pans using steel wool. There is not much option other than to muster the patience and accept the awkward slowness.

Fortunately, as yet, there is gracious acceptance and I am not spooked by "the hand failing to answer with exactness to the dictates of the will". But it is a nuisance.

Methodological madness

This is my day for the weekly tag-a-long trip to Inverurie. It results in my sense organs being in a different place for about three hours.

The senses are unfailingly stunned by the effusion of consumer commodities and by the ways that humanity is active in every square inch of the rural and urban landscapes. And the different supermarkets have shelves groaning with price checked, multi variant versions of the same thing eg bread, booze and shampoos - complete with ‘best before’ labels.

After quick wanders around Poundland and Tesco I get a strong black coffee and sit with my notebook to record such passing thoughts and feelings as appear in the attention centre.

Today there were some thoughts about leadership, management and administration in the new politics of popular participation which defined for me the real outcome of the Scottish referendum. This links to the more hopeful and positive side of Naomi Klein’s new book that I am reading on my Kindle (This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate).The notion is that the power held by the present, elitist forces is increasingly being commandeered by various coalitions of the erstwhile ignored and dispossessed.

Ultimately the key concept is ‘changing minds’ so that, through the existential effort of a growing number of individuals and groups, the global Weltenschauung might become more greenly, social democratic.

SO – this week’s rearrangement of sensations did not reach as far as a paradigm shift; but the emerging thoughts helped pinpoint the links to the disasters that are neo-liberalism and free market fundamentalism. There is now more clarity about the nature of the problem and the possible solutions.

Churn – a compilation

The mindbrain in its conscious, self conscious and unconscious forms is in a constant state of churn. The churning involves mixing and matching fresh inputs from the senses with materials stored in memory. Some of the memories will have been hard wired others will have been learned; but there is neural plasticity so changing minds is always possible.

Over the last two years I have blogposted 20 articles containing the word ‘churning’. They are listed below in chronological order. They came spontaneously from the unconscious and lead towards a fuller understanding of the churn concept. I acknowledge Rick Hanson (2013) Hardwiring Happiness for pulling so much together.

28 Feb 2013 changing minds: dropped out              We are the vital churn of stardust whose beginnings and endings are unknown and perhaps ultimately unknowable. We can, however, be conscious of our consciousness but that won't save us when the sun goes out. 

04 Mar 2013 changing minds: responsible for our intentions                There is ongoing churn amongst the brain modules and this creates many items of thought and feeling as possible outputs. These are prioritised and form patterns which tell a story - and the intention to think, speak or act ... 

15 Mar 2013 changing minds: Ask the horse            But you will also sense that the upfront stuff is but the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your unconscious: and the unconscious is in a state of vital churn and constant flux while it (a) processes information coming in from the ... 

31 May 2013                           changing minds: Quagmire Brains   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 ... 

16 Aug 2013                           changing minds: When is a blog useful?         Because of the paradigm shift there is awareness of the ongoing mental churn. Concentration involves focus but this can flicker on and off as attention shifts to accommodate the ongoing monitoring process. Absent minded ... 

15 Dec 2013 changing minds: We're a' John Knox's bairns   This mental churn has been going on since childhood and one of my early songs capture the politics of what is going on: “There's a voice inside you it's the voice of other men. It's the voice of people dead and gone 

11 Jan 2014   changing minds: Imperfect nature     It is driven and shaped by the energetic churn operating on the various levels of the spatial zoom from quantum to cosmos. I find it both amusing and awesome that cosmic stardust became conscious and is now conscious of ... 

17 Jan 2014   changing minds: Perpetual churn       Perpetual churn. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed: but it can be converted from one type to another. There are nine types - heat, light, sound, chemical, electrical, magnetic, ... 

21 Jan 2014   changing minds: Churn and flux        Churn and flux. Heraclitus was an ancient Greek philosopher. He reckoned that all things exist in a state of constant change and he is best known for noting that you cannot step in the same river twice. This idea is captured in ... 

14 Feb 2014 changing minds: Gender urge              When I am anxious and stressed it is because of the churn in the unconscious throwing juicy stuff into the attention centre where the conscious aspect of the mindbrain gives careful thought to the issue. A pause for reflection. 

03 Apr 2014 changing minds: For whatever reason               Because of the ongoing unconscious churn no story with its thoughts and feelings stays the same for long. There is ongoing neural plasticity which ensures that change continues and that the individual, or perhaps the group, ... 

03 Apr 2014 changing minds: Ffafing aboot with churning whims    The unconscious is perpetually busy churning thoughts and feelings. This process involves linking present time sensory inputs to past time memories and then reacting or responding by taking appropriate actions. BUT, for the ... 

17 Apr 2014 changing minds: the mindbrain douche            The Mindbrain is split. There is less focus than there might be. 'I' become an unintentional robot managed by a stream of unconscious churn that incorporates the decoded signals from the wire-less airwaves. To be focused is ... 

18 Apr 2014 changing minds: The multitasking mindbrain 'I' am subjectively aware that the unconscious is continuously churning facts and feelings and making them into little stories some of which are fleeting inhabitants of the conscious attention centre. I sometimes wonder about ...

 

30 Apr 2014 changing minds: Relaxed Social Interaction    When I am by myself it is relatively easy to be mindful of my mental churn or at least those parts that appear in consciousness. When in a group of nine other people there is the churn of nine other mindbrains to consider. 

05 May 2014                           changing minds: Doing a helicopter                 There is then focussed flow which is 'in the groove' or 'in the zone' and the unconscious can churn out its 'stuff'. This is equivalent to letting the 'muse' speak. She is the mind that has a mind of her own; and she is the result of ...

08 May 2014                           changing minds: Mindfulness – short notes 01             This calls for a new answer to the old question “Who am I?” Surprisingly the answer is that 'I' am the output from an ongoing and everchanging churn of mental activity. 'I' have no abiding reality – thoughts of 'I', 'me', 'mine', ...

16 Jun 2014   changing minds: Facts will ding           Facts exist in particular mindbrains and as such are subject to ongoing cognitive churn. They are thus readily overturned, disputed and subject to reinterpretation. There is nothing substantive about them. The biologist Stephen ... 

04 Jul 2014    changing minds: A shifting vocation But there is churn in the mindbrains of policy makers, freelance philosophers, media makers and ordinary people. World views and the language in which they are expressed change. Many new words are created but only a ... 

09 Sep 2014 changing minds: Morality memes      ... stone-age foragers in the African savannah. But then the neo-cortex evolved and language came with it. Metaphorical single track roads and superhighways flourished and gave rise to a dynamic churn of myths and magic.