Renouncing your Weltanschauung

Everyone has a world-view but many people are not conscious of having one. It is a comprehensive personal philosophy of the universe and of humanities relation to it. It is often referred to using the German word Weltanschauung

My Weltanschauung has its roots partly in the hard wiring of my brain (nature), partly in the processes that encultured me (nurture), and partly in a host of life’s serendipitous happenstances (chance).

The enculturation process can be viewed as a good thing (eg education) or a bad thing (eg brainwashing). In this age of globalization it might be good to avoid patterns of enculturation that result in xenophobic parochiality and in extreme them/us thinking. It might be good to encourage openness to and curiosity concerning other sub-cultures, cultures and their main ideologies.

Political science recognizes four main ideologies. They are shown below on a matrix with the horizontal axis going from political left to right and the vertical axis going from authoritarian at the top to libertarian at the bottom. This gives the four main ideologies of anarchism, socialism, fascism and liberalism. But the matrix is over simple. For example there are other authoritarian ideologies such as Marxism, communism, and religious fundamentalism. (For more detailed classification systems see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum )

The grander point about ideologies and Weltanshauungs is that people are prepared to kill and die in their name. This suggests that they serve some serious purpose. Presumably it has to do with a person’s sense of identity and their cognitive consonance. A popular and well endorsed world view offers relief from doubt, uncertainty and change.

Thich Nhat Hahn does not use the word Weltanschauung but he is very much aware of the concept. The first three of his fourteen mindfulness trainings tackle the problem of dealing with opposing world views. I have commented on the mindfulness trainings at some length elsewhere  so I will present only the first three here.

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The First Mindfulness Training: Openness

Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. We are committed to seeing the Buddhist teachings as a guiding means that help us learn to look deeply and develop understanding and compassion. They are not doctrines to fight, kill, or die for.

We understand that fanaticism in its many forms is the result of perceiving things in a dualistic or discriminative manner. We will train ourselves to look at everything with openness and the insight of interbeing in order to transform dogmatism and violence in ourselves and the world.

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My  earlier comment:

Individual human beings are conditioned in parts by nature, nurture and serendipity. Both the conscious and the unconscious mindbrain are conditioned. The conditioning fits the individual to operate in a hunting and gathering group of 50-100 in the African savanna. The conditioning process creates a world view rooted in myth and magic and normally includes a distinction between ‘me, us and them’.

The conditioning process has resulted in a wide variety of forms throughout history and geography. At the positive end of the spectrum the conditioning can be thought of as broad-minded and open-ended education and training; while at the negative end it can be viewed as narrow-minded and limiting indoctrination and brainwashing.

THEY are war-mongering, intolerant, idolatrous, dogmatic, fanatics and zealots irrationally bound to theories, doctrines and ideologies that are rooted in dualistic myth and magic. In short, they are parochial xenophobes. Note – there is a lot of this about. In evolutionary terms it is fit enough to survive.

WE are peace-loving, tolerant, flexible, reasonable and rational. Our world view is rooted in the experiential monistic concept of interbeing. Along with the rocks and stones and plants and animals, we are all citizens of planet earth. In short we are global co-operators and environmentalists. Note: this way of understanding things is catching on (eg green politics and MBSR). How might we work towards making this viewpoint fitter?

At the personal level there is the bad news and the good news. The bad news is that often while on the cushion, the darker side of my nature and nurture enter the attention centre. The good news is the fact of neural plasticity – it is never too late to change your mindbrain. Notice what arises, label it and let it go. More good news – having experienced and understood the bad stuff in myself I am more inclined to be compassionate towards other people who have still to get on top of their bad stuff.

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The Second Mindfulness Training: Non-Attachment to Views

Aware of the suffering created by attachment to views and wrong perceptions, we are determined to avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. We are committed to learning and practicing nonattachment from views and being open to other’s insights and experiences in order to benefit from the collective wisdom. Insight is revealed through the practice of compassionate listening, deep looking, and letting go of notions rather than through the accumulation of intellectual knowledge.

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My earlier comment:

In the late 1960s I was conditioned into thinking and writing like a scientist (Zoologist) and later (1980 and 1986) as an academic. My worldview was a creation of those times.

I read Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 book -“The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” and thus knew that we were not dealing with ‘truth’ but rather with ‘the best working hypothesises in the light of evidence presently available’.

I also absorbed the scientific spirit of evidence-based, critical thinking where it was my duty to try and discredit the findings of fellow scientists. If the findings were insecure then it was for the greater good that this should be demonstrated. If the findings could withstand attack by the fiercest of adversaries then so much the better.

It sounds like a cool, rational process but emotions could run very high in opposing camps – scientists are also human beings and prone to cognitive biases. Groupthink is another ever present danger. Older and influential scientific brains often find it hard to shift with the paradigm and they come to be surrounded by careerist sycophants. “Max Planck … sadly remarked that ‘a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.’” Passions can get the better of reason!

But the non-attachment to views brought about by mindfulness is a guiding star in the methodology of both meditators and scientists. And the methodologies lead to very similar insights and understandings related to (a) the workings of the mindbrain, (b) the psychology of perception, (c) the politics of environmental stewardship and (d) the commitment to life-long learning.

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The Third Mindfulness Training: Freedom of Thought

Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our view on others, we are determined not to force others, even our children, by any means whatsoever – such as authority, threat, money, propaganda, or indoctrination – to adopt our views.

We are committed to respecting the rights of others to be different, to choose what to believe and how to decide. We will, however, learn to help others let go of and transform narrowness through loving speech and compassionate dialogue.

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My earlier comment:

We all hold views. The views we hold depend on our conditioning. Our conditioning is part rooted in our nature which is hard wired into our genes as a legacy from our ancestors. It is also part rooted in our nurture which involves the formal and informal myths and magic associated with our family and community during early childhood and then with our friends and fellow workers and bosses when we mature. And finally our conditioning is rooted in serendipity – in chance occurrences that are deemed fortunate or otherwise.

I was not born as a completely blank slate. But my nature is now intimately mixed with my nurture which is rooted in rural Scotland in the 2nd half of the 20th century. There are no completely correct views and those that exist can change. To some extent I grew out of my natal nurturing through living and working in seven different countries. I worked in the beginning as a teacher (sit down shut up and listen) but I gradually evolved to be a facilitator of learning (never mind the views of others, be mindful; what do you think and feel – and why?).

Is there a difference between human nature and Buddha nature and if so what is it and when did it evolve? And how does dog nature, fish nature or even plant and rock nature fit it?

The answer lies in the concept of consciousness which links to awareness. Rocks are not aware of what goes on around them. Plants are aware of, and react to, changes in their environment but they are not conscious of what is happening – they are on automatic pilot like robots. Fish and dogs are aware and reactive but, arguably, they are not self conscious.

Only humans are conscious of being conscious and some are more conscious of it than others. There are two levels of self consciousness (a) the impoverished which is characterised by the idea of “I” want” and (b) the elaborated which can gently ask “Who or what is the “I” that wants?” – and – “Why does it want this rather than that?”.

The historical Buddha said that he was different from others in that he was aware of and awake to what was going on both inside and outside of himself. He embodied mindfulness. He saw the impermanence of all created things and he could thus be effortlessly renunciant of the viewpoints of himself and others.

“We will learn to help others
to let go of and transform narrowness
through loving speech and compassionate dialogue”

“Tread softly for you tread on my jokes” (Malcolm Muggeridge)

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As I get older I spend more time being mindful of what is happening in the present moment. This leads to my being able to treat thoughts and feelings lightly and to know that they are mind made. On those occasions when they rush in and capture most of the attention centre there are small spaces where the ‘observer’ can make a stand and thus quickly defuse the situation.

Something along the lines of, “Ah, hello my little friend anger – and what kind of mischief are you up to today?” OR “hello my little friend lust – now is not a good time - so fade away.”

My default weltanschauung has a strong flavour of anarchy which takes in the concepts of elegant power and its hegemony. The spirit of Antonio Gramsci was part of my conditioning as was Paulo Friere.

My self image is as a facilitator of learning aiming to help people set themselves free of narrow parochialism such that they can be part of the global community of mindfulness practitioners.

If you would like to join then you will have to go about renouncing your weltanschauung.

Questions of consciousness

The soft questions have to do with the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC).  The idea is that any subjective ‘thing’ that ‘appears’ to the mind (consciousness) will be associated with an objective activity in the brain. Neurologists now have a variety of brain scanning systems that make it possible to identify NCCs.

Note that the reverse is not true. There is an enormous amount of activity in the brain which does not register in consciousness. This raises questions about the decision making process that determines whether or not a brain activity will be made available to consciousness.

The hard question of consciousness deals with the physics of NCCs. Granting that the correlations exist, how does objective brain stuff (biochemistry) become subjective mind stuff (consciousness) and vice versa.

Note that this line of thought reflects the long standing philosophical problem of mind/body dualism. It also reflects the more populist notion of ‘mind over matter’ and its partner ‘matter over mind’.

Your mind decides that your arm should be raised above your head and it happens. That is magical. Even more magical is when your mind decides that somebody else’s arm should be raised above their head. This requires noises (words) to come from your mouth, pass through the air, and enter the ears of the other. There are then several rounds of coding and decoding in various parts of their brain that lead to a decision about whether or not to act.

Adolf Hitler was a talented speaker. His voice could make thousands of people raise their arms in Nazi salute. His mind was a prime mover behind the institutionalised gassing of Jews.

Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) was a talented speaker. His voice made thousands of people sit quietly and thus get to know the workings of their mindbrains. His mind was a prime mover behind the institutionalisation of mindfulness meditation.

I am minded of the UNESCO Constitution which includes the timeless realisation “That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

Facts will ding

Robert Burns 1759-1796

In 1786 Robert Burns reckoned – “facts are chiels that winna ding,/An downa be disputed” [‘facts are fellows that will not be overturned,/And cannot be disputed’].

I disagree with our national poet about this.

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 Jay Gould captured the deeper point in 1986 when he said, “The facts of nature are what they are, but we can only view them through the spectacles of our mind.”

But the supposedly hard nosed academics in the 20th century did not factor in the neurology and the evolutionary psychology behind thought and meaning in the collective, human mindbrain. The subjective nature of ‘truth’ was swept under the carpet.

Here are a few quotes that give the intellectual and objective flavor of the times:

(1912) Bertrand Russell - “We are driven back to correspondence with fact as constituting the nature of truth. It remains to define precisely what we mean by 'fact', and what is the nature of the correspondence which must subsist between belief and fact, in order that belief may be true.”

(1949) Albert Einstein - “I despaired of the possibility of discovering the true laws by means of constructive efforts based on known facts. The longer and the more despairingly I tried, the more I came to the conviction that only the discovery of a universal formal principle could lead us to assured results.

(1952) Albert Einstein - “I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.”

(1975) Paul Karl Feyerabend - “Facts are constituted by older ideologies, and a clash between facts and theories may be proof of progress.”

(1975) Paul Karl Feyerabend - “Not only are facts and theories in constant disharmony, they are never as neatly separated as everyone makes them out to be.”

(1987) Thomas Sowell - “Facts do not "speak for themselves." They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theory or visions are mere isolated curiosities.”

From this viewpoint it is as if facts existed and had objective locations in time and space.

Facts were talked about as if they were ‘things’ belonging to the category of ‘abstract’. The analogy was that as bricks make up a wall, so facts make up a theory.

I was encultured to that mechanistic scientific paradigm. I spent four youthful years training to be a Zoologist and my first Master’s degree dug the hole deeper.

However, the second Master’s degree opened doors to phenomenology, post-modernism and cultural relativism. It sparked an ongoing enthusiasm for thinking about thinking and for trying to avoid the conundrum of a mindbrain studying itself using a language that may not be up to the task.

These days I give the subjective unconscious a free rein to figure what is going on with the mindbrain wherein facts are chiels that div ding.

Verbal soup

There is always a need for people who stand out from the crowd by being out of step.

Psychologically they create cognitive dissonance by evoking uncommon sense and counterintuition.

Sociologically they are norm crackers and paradigm shifters.

Politically they expose the hegemonic nature of elegant  power and tend to promote subsidiarity if not outright anarchy.

They promote revolution by being radical rebels.

Language evolves

Language evolves. Old words and concepts go extinct and new ones arrive.

It is now 100 years since WW1. English and the many other European languages have changed in that time – especially in terms of politics and technology.

Here, for example, are a few WW1 words in chronological order -

Prussian military power, the Kaiser, the Boche; Triple Entente, enlistment, rationing, the front, trench warfare, chemical warfare, armistice, demobilization.

Nurturing Attention

There is a psychological and scientific technique that can bring about improvement in your sense of well-being, your ability to work with difficult feelings, and your likelihood of enjoying the rest of your life.

The essence of the technique is to keep paying attention to a particular thought, feeling or event. When attention drifts to the past or future, as it will, notice, and put it back on the chosen target.

The technique involves systematic attentional training. This involves focusing the mind and brain time after time and thus stilling the routine chatter.

The technique has been ‘discovered’ in many times and places and dressed up in a variety of exotic cultural costumes.

The omnipresence of the technique suggests that hard wiring must be involved.  Experienced practitioners explain that there is nothing that needs to be added. The task rather is to pull back the veil and wipe the dust from the mirror so that your light can shine. Enlightenment for the rest of your life!

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Goleman, Daniel (2013). Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine  www.NICABM.com

Awkward consciousness

People think about consciousness in many different ways. At the most basic level it equates with being sensitive to changes in your environment.

Single celled organisms like the Amoeba are aware of some environmental conditions (eg light, heat, chemicals) and react by moving towards or away from them. Some flowers track the sun during the day and fold their petals at night – so there is stimulus and response. But in these cases there are no sense organs or brains. So there is sensitivity but should we think of this as conscious activity?

When ordinary people talk of consciousness they are usually referring to self-consciousness which involves being aware of your own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc. Note that there is a non-egoic frame of mind which might be labelled as self-less-consciousness eg when musicians are in the groove, athletes are in the zone, poets hear their muse, and artisans flow.

Most of the activities of the mindbrain are not apparent to self-consciousness or self-less-consciousness and they are labelled as the unconscious. The unconscious has many modules and is in a constant state of flux so as to monitor changes in the internal and external environments and to organise reactions and responses to those changes.

There is also the concept of the sub-conscious. This can be thought of as a buffer zone between the conscious and the unconscious. It can be visualised as a channel through which the mind feeds the brain which in turn feeds the mind.

It is interesting to note that Buddhism recognises four type of consciousness – Mind, sense, store and self (manas) The following notes are based on http://archive.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2006/summer/consciousness.html

Mind consciousness is our “working” consciousness that makes judgments and plans; it is the part of our consciousness that worries and analyzes … The brain is only 2 percent of the body’s weight, but it consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy. So using mind consciousness is very expensive. Thinking, worrying and planning take a lot of energy.

We can reduce the amount of energy needed by linking mind consciousness to mindfulness. Mindfulness keeps us in the present moment and allows our mind consciousness to relax and cut back on the energy used in worrying about the past or predicting the future.

The second type is sense consciousness, the consciousness that comes from our five senses. We sometimes call these senses “gates,” or “doors,” because all objects of perception enter consciousness through our sensory contact with them.

The third type is store consciousness which is the deepest and has three meanings. The first meaning is of a place, a “store,” where all kinds of seeds and information are kept. The second meaning is that store consciousness doesn’t just take in information, it holds it and preserves it. The third meaning covers the sense of processing and transforming.

Store consciousness can process information without much effort. So if you want to save your energy, don’t think too much, don’t plan too much, and don’t worry too much. Allow your store consciousness to do most of the processing.

Store consciousness can operate independent of mind consciousness. Store consciousness dictates many of the things we do, because it continuously receives, embraces, maintains, processes, and makes decisions without the participation of mind consciousness. So, as practitioners, we can’t rely on our mind consciousness alone; we have to rely on our store consciousness as well. Decisions are being made down there.

In store consciousness there are elements of ignorance—delusion, anger, fear—and these elements form a force of energy that clings, that wants to possess. This is the fourth type of consciousness, called manas, which can be translated as “cogitation.”

At the root of cogitation is the belief in a separate self.  This consciousness, the feeling and instinct called “I am,” is deeply seated in store consciousness and holds the idea that there is a self that is separate from non-self elements.

Whether we’re driving, manipulating a machine, or performing other tasks, many of us allow our sense consciousness to collaborate with store consciousness. This means that many things can happen without the intervention of mind consciousness.

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First there was sensitivity and then consciousness and now consciousness of consciousness and of unconsciousness.

SO consciousness is an awkward concept – but well worth unpicking.

>>>>> More … ‘Consciousness is an enigmatic beast.’ Scientific American Editors (2013). The Secrets of Consciousness (Kindle Edition.)

A little knowledge

Reality is complicated. So is the way we try to understand it. The way includes feelings, moods and motivations (intentions) and also thoughts, words and deeds. And these have to do with how we view and understand our inner and outer environments.

Our knowledge and understanding of the inner and outer environments is rooted in (a) nature -inherited modules in the mindbrain (hard wiring) and (b) nurture - inputs channelled through our various sense organs ie visible light, audible sounds, types of taste and smell, types of touch.

We understand reality using our mindbrains which have evolved through reptilian, mammalian, primate, hominid and now human stages. Our contemporary mindbrains have to deal with our being social animals who now use language. New adaptations have been and will be tweaked from existing and aging heritage systems – the stone age mindbrain contemporises?

As language users we clump and categorise reality into manageably sized things and events linked by cause and event chains. We tend to populate our realities with agents and patterns (Shermer).

Classic examples of classification include (a) the binomial system of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) – he arranged plants and animals into seven levels - Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species, and (b) the periodic table of the elements drawn up by Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907 – his system predicted the existence of elements that were unknown in his time.

The above examples are standing the test of time. Other more common sense examples have now been relegated to that dustbin of history called myth and magic – eg

• arranged marriages
• atoms are indivisible 
• children should be seen but not heard
• every cloud has silver lining
• female genital mutilation
• heavier than air machines cannot fly
• honor killings
• human sacrifice to placate the Gods
• if a pregnant women eats boiled eggs the baby will be born bald
• intelligent design
• nature red in tooth and claw
• seeing is believing
• the divine right of Kings
• the lord helps those that help themselves
• watched kettles never boil

With the recent advances in neurology it is becoming clear that most (99.99%) of what happens in the mindbrain is confined to the unconscious; or to put it the other way round – self consciousness accounts for only about 00.01% of mindbrain activity - and most of that is after the fact of unconscious churn which is laden with cognitive bias and heuristics

A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviant thinking where inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. Cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. But then again, some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. They may lead to more effective actions in a given context, eg by enabling faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics.

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us make decisions and judgments quickly without having to spend a lot of time researching and analyzing information. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution via mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, or common sense

Most people exhibit what Hanson calls Negativity bias.  This is about pessimism and Velcro for the bad as opposed to optimism and Teflon for the good. This may be adaptive. Those who are easy going and freewheeling are more likely to be lion lunch than those who are restless and panicky.

According to Kahneman we are prone to thinking fast and slow and fast is the most common. Fast is adaptive in emergencies while slow is better when there is time for deep reflection. Fast thinking is riddled with cognitive biases and heuristics and much of it is intuitive and instinctive. Slow thinking is tougher as it involves paying more attention to the real evidence while analysing, planning, implementing and evaluating. When you are running on fast thinking you are on automatic pilot, when on slow thinking you are less habit bound and more authentic.

But it is not easy to be authentic rather than to be a creature of blind habit. We are both hard wired and culturally conditioned to run this way rather than that. There is, however, the option of mindfulness which involves being awake to and aware of what is going on in those parts of the mindbrain to which there is conscious access. By bearing witness to the stream of thoughts and feelings that are channelled through the attention centre we can realize that the mind has a mind of its own and that therefore our view of ‘self’ needs reworking.

BUT none of the above is cast in stone. There is neural plasticity which allows the brain to change the mind which in turn changes the brain.

I am minded of the Taoist insight that the reality that can be described is not the real reality. Reality is complicated, awesome and endlessly fascinating. Arguably if the mindbrain has a purpose it is to be conscious of its consciousness and thus to fathom reality in a way that ensures its survival in a post stone age, globalised world.

Malware mountains.

There is a molehill - one of the websites that I maintain has been infected by malware. This is not a major problem except that my mindbrain has decided to make a mountain of it. The technical details are not relevant to this story but I have found the episodes of dis-ease to be interesting and informative.

Since the Malware problem appeared there have been various stress-laden little thought trains, emotions and moods emerging into the attention centre from the overall unconscious churn:

• I am not in control.
• Machines are supposed to operate smoothly and make life easier. Sometimes they stop working and I do not know how to fix them. This gives rise to annoyance and anger. And sometimes to low self esteem – especially when I let other people down.
• There is some self pity. Why should this happen to me?
• Did I offend the Gods and this is their holy vengeance?
• It is a teaching. I can learn from it. Observe what goes on in my head, heart and body eg ball in pit of stomach, nausea, increased heart beat, dizziness, sweating etc
• In life there is suffering. It is good that I suffer occasionally as it keeps me in tune with what lies behind the facade of most other people.
• Look into it for a while as it will soon be gone.

I am making a mountain out of a molehill. The molehill exists but the mountain is an unnecessary mind-made addition. Much ado about nothing. But this may be predictable and necessary given the human negativity bias. (ref Hanson)

Human groups have to develop and maintain a shared status quo made of habits built from biases and rules of thumb. To ensure the smooth running of the group, rules, regulations, eternal verities and laws are made and enforced. Historically these have used myth and magic to explain cause and effect. When there is cognitive consonance there is a truth to die for.

But nothing lasts forever. The only constant thing is change. In evolution the rule is “adapt or die”.

Inevitably change happens and cognitive dissonance emerges. People do not know who or what to believe. There is widespread existential crisis. On the one hand there is restlessness and anxiety while on the other there is sloth and depression.

BUT - the neurotic nihilists living in existential vacuums are not all pathological ‘crazies’.  Some are the ‘creatives’ who dream of adaptations to give a new sense of direction for wavering human groups. Like Vincent van Gogh they suffer for their (and our) sanity. Molehills morph into magnificent mind-made mountains.

Yoh. So. The malware malfunction is just a minor molehill.

Seen but not heard

Essie, Bill and Bella

I was an accommodating youth. There was the idea that ‘children should be seen but not heard’. To show willing I arranged to reduce the amount of time I was even seen. I would go to my room and get lost in books of derring do.

At first there was Enid Blyton (1897-1968) and the children’s adventures of the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. Then there was Capt W E John’s (1893-1968) with “Biggles” and “Algy” having exotic but clean cut adventures involving airplanes. And, when I was a bit older, there was Peter Cheyney (1896-1951) with his slightly racy tales of the private detectives “Lemmy Caution” and “Slim Callaghan”.

Those three prolific authors were born at the end of the 19th century and flourished between the two World Wars. Those were troubled times for British culture generally and for the sub-culture of the NE of Scotland in particular. It became increasingly obvious that our local manner of being and doing was not absolute and that there might be better ways to be human.

In my teenage years before going to University I was (a) inspired by the poetry of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) (b) involved with critiquing the Minister’s sermons and (c) becoming active in field archaeology. There were many lifestyle options up for grabs. To me this seemed like a good thing but few people agreed.

In one of the songs that I was writing back then I noted that ‘I had a sermon that never will bear preaching’. Not only the children but also the revolting youth should be seen but not heard!

Thank you TA

I like to think that I live in retreat from the silly social shenanigans of the home planet’s human habitants.

But, in fact, over these last few weeks, there has been a flood of transactions with individuals and groups with viewpoints different from mine.

This led to a simple-minded, intuitive imagining of two then three then four types of minds and of being in the world.

The two types:

ONE: the serious and responsible leaders and shepherds; the good and the great; the elders and betters; the shakers and movers; the productive entrepreneurs; the priests and emperors with divine rights. Their casual chat revolves around sex, politics and religion – except when such topics are taboo. The rich and ruling elite read quality newspapers and drive expensive cars.

TWO: the frivolous and irresponsible sheep; the poor and vulnerable who will be with us always; the salt of the earth; the cannon fodder; the dedicated followers of fashion; the wage slaves. Their casual chat revolves around wine women and song (aka sex and drugs and rock and roll). The workers read tabloid newspapers and drive cheap cars or use public transport.

Thus had it always been. The metaphor is of society as a family where a few parent types (God Kings) make decisions on behalf of the teeming throngs of children who do what they are told. Myth and magic flourished during the ancestral foraging stages and into the settled agriculture and monument building city states that followed.

The three types:

And then came the 1960s. The two category model (parent, child) became three category (parent, adult, child) and the notion of Transactional Analysis (TA) was born. Two best selling paperbacks by renegade psychiatrists set out the main line of thought.

• Eric Berne (1964) Games People Play – the psychology of human relationships
• Thomas Harris (1967) I’m OK – You’re OK – the Transactional Analysis Breakthrough that’s changing the consciousness and behaviour of people who never before felt OK about themselves

Broadly speaking our behaviour is either reactionary and instinctive or consciously chosen. When we instinctively react, we are in one of two ego states – Parent or Child. The third ego state is Adult, in which we recognise our options and decide how to behave. Games are the patterns of transaction played out by people in the different ego states. (see box).

In parent mode we mimic the behaviours and sentiments we saw in our parent figures. Parents can be Critical or Nurturing. In child mode we think and behave as we learnt to as children. Children can be Free or Adapted.

In adult mode we consciously choose how to respond to events and we understand what the consequences may be. This is empowering because it opens doors to many possibilities and lets us recognise our part in our life’s events. It means that we can learn from the past to build a better future, rather than blaming the past. As Holden (2013) notes, “Being Adult doesn’t mean being sensible and boring all the time, it means being aware. Sometimes an adult will choose to follow the promptings of their Parent or Child, because their instinctive response is good, if not superior, to other options.”

A lot has changed in the last 50 years. Two main lines of thought come to mind.

In the field of behavioural psychology (and economics) Daniel Kahneman in 2011 wrote about “Thinking Fast and Slow”. He recognises System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast, intuitive and can be seen as linked to the parent and child modes of TA. System 2 is slow and rational and appears linked to the adult mode of TA.

The four types:
There is a key feature of the Adult mode of those two lines of thought. It involves a deeper, wider and more accurate ‘awareness’ of what is going on in your external and internal (physical and psychological) environments. It might be argued that we are at a turning point and moving to a widespread, mature awareness of what is going on. Details of our “Big History” are now freely available on the internet.

BUT – what is not so well appreciated is the paradigm shift in ‘agency’ about what and how to think and feel. The rallying call for the new way is ‘mindfulness’. And the new practice is to transcend the heady intellectualism of fast and slow and to ‘be still’. The workings of the unconscious can then help us realise the no-self (the non-egoic state) and thus to transform our way of ‘being’ in the world. This suggests a progression from two types of intuition through rational to mindful

CHILD   PARENT   ADULT   SAGE

References:

Holden, Catherine (2013-01-09). The Ego States (Transactional Analysis in Bite Sized Chunks)

http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/

Journeys both secular and spiritual.

A secular journey gets you from here to there. Before and after can be very different. It can be a physical journey or an intellectual one. It can be an open ended wandering or a more focused pilgrimage.

There is a physical journey from bed to bathroom and kitchen. You might then travel to work. Sometimes you will make a journey as part of a holiday which aims at being both interesting and relaxing.

An intellectual journey can be fictional or factual and more or less academic in tone. It promotes a shift in points of view and of world view. This can happen more or less spontaneously and it can be more or less radical (eg the class struggle before and after the two World Wars). And, while details vary, you can reflect on your journey from cradle to grave or from womb to tomb.

A spiritual journey can run in parallel with a secular journey or it can be independent of it. Two main metaphors describe different ways of understanding the move from secular to spiritual.

[ONE] from the self-conscious, rational HEAD to the non-egoic, unconscious, intuitive HEART;
Some people feel that being empirical, rational, scientific and ‘in your head’ prevents ‘true’ understanding. The alternative practice is to listen to the intuitive promptings of your heart. BUT – these intuitive promptings need not of necessity be ‘nice’.

The metaphor is that heart = the unconscious. And the unconscious is conditioned by nature, nurture and serendipity. Another metaphor is that the unconscious = a garden full of seeds. The spiritual journey involves watering the good seeds (the flowers) and not watering the bad seeds (weeds). Note that the ‘I’ that judges the seeds is also continuously conditioned by nature, nurture and serendipity – it has no abiding reality!

[TWO] from fast thinking on ‘automatic pilot’ to slow thinking and ‘being in control’
Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 bestselling ‘Thinking fast and slow’ is the main source of thoughts for the second metaphor. He does not deal explicitly with the spiritual journey but he does outline two main ways of thinking which he calls System 1 and 2.

System 1 kicks in automatically and generates fast reactions. It is full of biases and rules of thumb that appear as intuitions and therefore promote speedy reactions to objects in the environment. Note that many of these insights date back to the days of hunting and gathering. They may not be relevant anymore.

System 2 involves slow responding and is inclined to reflect on inputs through the sense organs and relevant ‘stories’ from memory. It promotes thoughtful responses to objects in the environment.

SO – in the first case - the journey calls for a move from rational head to emotional heart; and - in the second case - from intuitive heart to thoughtful head. The mindbrain is intimately involved.

I like to call it the mindbrain because “for every thought and feeling in mind there is a corresponding physical event in the brain”.

Note that the opposite is not true. Possibly 99% of what goes on in the unconscious parts of the brain is not available to the self-conscious – and, when available, it is usually after the fact.

But the situation is far from hopeless. Meditators often notice that the mind has a mind of its own. ‘I’ am not in control. But this is not a problem as ‘I’ do not exist in any physical and lasting way.

Having moved some way on your spiritual journey it will still be possible to conjure up world views to inform collective decision making. But the process has the feel of a good natured game. There is nonattachment to views.

Note that this conclusion can be reached as part of a secular journey on automatic pilot. This may be viewed as a good thing as far as it goes. But it involves knowing rather than experiencing. It is not spiritual.

Those who progress on their spiritual journey embrace mindfulness. They see through the ego-illusion and think, speak and act from a position of non-attachment. They have experience of the Taoist view that “the reality which can be described is not the real reality” and that “those who know do not speak”.

Objectively subjective

An article in today’s Guardian considers some potential problems in using Neuroscience to inform teaching and learning strategies. http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/may/16/atl-motion-neuroscience-teaching-education-brain-gym?

These days I am free from the pressure of being at the cutting edge of thinking about “Changing minds” (aka Education). But, by hanging around in cyberspace, I am not totally cut off.

My earlier field of accredited expertise was Education generally and, in particular, curriculum development, teacher training, and the use of plain language in material production.

But, underlying the focus on education was a longstanding fascination with Zoology and, more broadly, with Evolution in its cosmic, biological and cultural forms.

Towards the end of my four year Zoology degree (which included a year of Psychology) my interests were shifting informally to sociology and anthropology. And this in time would guide attention towards development theory, politics and economics. My personal ‘politics’ were left of centre and tending towards anarchy and subsidiarity because “small is beautiful.”

My present interests are in how the emerging fields of ‘evolutionary psychology’, ‘neuroscience’ and ‘mindfulness meditation’ might work together to inform the task of ‘changing minds’.

My evolving point of view is informed by (a) social interactions in real time, (b) ideas that I come across in cyberspace and in books, and (c) whatever happens to emerge from ‘my’ unconscious. Obviously the third set of thoughts and feelings is heavily influenced by the first two, and the roots of the ongoing process are to be found in nature, nurture and serendipity.

Neuroscience points to modules in the brain, and evolutionary psychology considers their adaptive advantage. And it becomes clear that the vast majority of mental work is done by the unconscious. The much lauded self-consciousness is a bit player made of crumbs falling from the table of the unconscious – often after the meal is over.

When I think and write like an objective scientist there is the need to be rational and to let the facts speak for themselves. Ideally this evidence-based work would be done in ‘flow’ which is non-egoic. Attention is focussed on the main task at hand. The normal mental chatter dies down, rationality rules and science progresses.

When I think and write like a subjective citizen there will be much reliance on instinct, intuition and habit. Most of the thinking, speaking and acting is done on automatic pilot. Attention will skip quickly from one thing to another and there will be lots of mental chatter.

When I think and write with Mindfulness ‘I’ deal objectively with ‘my’ subjectivity. The process is easy to describe – (a) bear witness to your thoughts and feelings; (b) know that they are mind-made and not ‘real’, and (c) let them go. The aim is to cultivate non-attachment to views and to so called eternal verities.  Use them if it seems appropriate to do so in a given context; but treat them lightly. Know the underlying peace. Go with the flow.

setting out

Mindfulness from a journalists point of view

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2014/jan/07/mindfulness-beginners-guide-meditation-technique-treatment-depression

Anxious panic and stressing depression

It feels good to be on an even keel and to be free from stress. You can then know the peace that passes all understanding. But that peace can be easily stressed and shattered by anxiety and panic attacks on the one hand and by depression on the other.

Those mental torments are common. This suggests that they have their uses. What might these be? In their various ways they are about changing minds; about helping your mindbrain to drop one point of view and pick up another.

The human mindbrain evolved during the time of our foraging ancestors – this was both before and after language appeared. The purpose of sense organs and the mindbrain is to gather and make sense of information about the external environment so that the foragers could find food and water and avoid being eaten by predators, infected by parasites, and attacked by other human groups.

The African savanna was a tough place to live. Our ancestors had to keep their wits about them if they were to survive. Those who lay dosing in the sun were likely to become a lion’s lunch. Evolution would favor those who were a bit neurotic, paranoid and pessimistic and who thought they saw dangers lurking behind every bush.

Rick Hanson – an eminent psychologist and neurologist - reckons that most human beings have a ‘negativity bias’. They “always look on the bleak side of life.” They are restless, anxious and are intimately awake to and aware of what is going on in their immediate environment – even if only in their imagination. And the adrenalin based, fight or flight system has evolved to make sure that when they need to react swiftly people are well able to do so. Act first, reflect later. Panic is positive rather than pathological.

And the same might be said about depression. It is the mindbrain’s way of letting go of viewpoints that have passed their sell by date - and thus making space for new viewpoints to arise. It is well recognized that many creative people suffer from bouts of depression. It helps them to dream up new ways to be human. This is useful and adaptive.

Most people in a given culture settle into ‘group think’ and thus resist change. This is a good thing when the environment is static - but it is dangerous during periods of rapid change. Think of sheep with their shepherd, or of subjects with their king. Think also of a market place for freelance consultants and advisors who are prone to being alternately creative and depressed.

There tends to be a love/ hate relationship between normal people in leader/led groups and those on the intellectual fringes. As Shakespeare’s Caesar said of Brutus, “That man thinks too much; such men are dangerous.” It is a tricky business for those in power to prevent the prevailing world view from completely falling apart when faced with radical changes. How might peaceful evolution be ensured rather than violent revolution. How might things be managed such that there is enough variability to make selection possible. To what extent might the free press be free? Good questions!

In what remains of this article I will play with the four concepts – anxiety, panic, depression and stress. First there is a table lining up synonyms and antonyms. This shows fear, worry and despondency (pessimism) lined up against serenity, calm and happiness (optimism). Given the human ‘negativity bias’ it might be said that pessimism outweighs optimism. But, then again, we might be at a stage in human evolution when that balance changes.

The next section offers everyday definitions from various online dictionaries; and there are also links to respectable health websites which explain the concepts more rigorously.

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Anxiety = distress or uneasiness of mind caused by fear of danger or misfortune.

Psychiatry. a state of apprehension and psychic tension occurring in some forms of mental disorder.

Synonyms: fear, foreboding, worry, disquiet.

Antonyms: certainty, serenity, tranquillity.

More - http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/understanding-stress.aspx

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Panic =

• A sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a group of persons or animals. 
• A sudden overpowering feeling of terror.

Synonyms: fear, fright, terror, dread

Antonyms: calm, self-control

More: http://www.patient.co.uk/blogs/sarah-says/2013/03/panic-attacks---nothing-to-panic-about

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Depression = sadness; gloom; dejection. The condition of feeling sad or despondent.

Psychiatry.

• A condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal
• Sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason
• A mental disorder characterized by extreme gloom, feelings of inadequacy, and inability to concentrate.
• A psychotic or neurotic condition characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, and feelings of extreme sadness, dejection, and hopelessness
• A mood disorder characterized by an inability to experience pleasure, difficulty in concentrating, disturbance of sleep and appetite, and feelings of sadness, guilt, and helplessness.

Synonyms: discouragement, despondency, melancholy

Antonyms: elation, happiness

More: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/depression-leaflet

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Stress =

• Mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension
• A physical or psychological stimulus that can produce mental tension or physiological reactions that may lead to illness.
• A physiologic reaction by an organism to an uncomfortable or unfamiliar physical or psychological stimulus. Biological changes result from stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, including a heightened state of alertness, anxiety, increased heart rate, and sweating

Synonyms: strain, anxiety, worry, tension

Antonyms: ease, peace

More - http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/understanding-stress.aspx

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The point I was making earlier is that various forms of cognitive and emotional dis-ease are adaptive rather than pathological. Life is such that normal people have their ups and downs while abnormal people have more or less. But if there is normal then there must also be the sub-normal and the supra-normal; and there are two ways of being supra-normal (see table)

The pharmaceutical industries (Big Pharma) have vested interests in pathologising the various human mental conditions and then manufacturing a pill to ‘cure’ them. (eg ref – the Prozac nation) There are also traditional mind changing medications ranging from the relatively mild tea, coffee, nicotine and alcohol through a wide variety of potent hallucigenic drugs some of which are used in religious procedures.

I am not sure about the category of sub-normal in the above table. Theoretically such people exist – but I do not know any. I have come to the conclusion that most of those who appear to be at peace are in fact just good at putting on a brave face.

Normal people are tainted by their Negativity Bias. They are glum pessimists. “In life there is suffering” (The First Noble Truth of Buddhism) But children are produced anyway. If nothing else it gives adults something to keep their attention occupied for the 20 years or so that it takes to fulfill the parental contract.

The supra-normal (A) and (B) characters have been around since the beginnings of written history. They wrote most of it and may thus have been biased! A classic case is that of Confucianism (Type A) skirmishing with Taoism (Type B)) to be favored by the state in China. It is a complex issue where ‘scientific’ type thinking is pitted against the non-scientific (mystical. spiritual, religious etc).

Ken Wilber has the concept of the pre-trans fallacy when thinking about those who do not suffer the ups and downs in life. After nine months in the womb the infant is attended to for several years by hormonically driven parents and extended family. This is the pre-language phase which is largely non-egoic. When language arrives it screws things up. The normal human head is in an existential mess. There are two ways that it can go.

The freelance philosophers are mainly scientific thinkers driven by paradigms that follow a dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. This is the natural home of the intellectuals and academics who share office space with their applied associates who build bridges and put men on the moon.

Type (A) characters go along the road of more numerous and more powerful ups and downs. Type (B) characters no longer have ups and downs. This is because they have changed their minds. Rather than being pre-conscious like a baby, they have transcended the normal, language-based dialectical approach. By sitting quietly and dropping off their body and mind they come to realise non-egoicity that is free of time and space. It is the mindset of a kung-fu master – calm, compassionate and effective.

“Sitting quietly doing nothing,
Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.”

So, it is possible for people to be on an even keel and to know the state of relatively stress-free peace, of transcendent bliss. Our stressors evolved for a purpose. We would not want to be totally free of anxious panic and stressing depression; but we can achieve a state of mind where their impact is minimal.