Relaxed Social Interaction

This weekend I was one of ten people interacting in an enclosed space. The people were male and female, teenage and 60+, and urban and rural. The space was a room in a traditional cottage. The room was 12ft by 13ft4 (366cm x 409cm).

Normally I have all the space to myself except that it is filled with electromagnetic waves carrying messages. The good news is that my sense organs cannot perceive them without the aid of electronic gadgets such as radio and mobile phone; and there are the options of not owning or at least not using the technology.

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. This requires social skills; and there is the option of adopting a more or less proactive or reactive role.

I am minded of the social interaction analysis tools that we used for training advisors in Lesotho. A group would be interacting and the advisors would observe and record what was going on. Various checklists were used to record how often, and in what ways, the individuals in the group participated. The results were used in various ways with the overall purpose of enabling the trainee advisors “to see ourselves as others see us” and therefore to be more skilful when interacting in groups.

At the weekend meeting I had no particular agenda. I was content to passively follow the flow that was generated by other group members; and to listen rather than to talk. I noticed with an element of pleasure that ‘I’ no longer feel the urge to be proactive and take the lead.

carriers of wood

Wood burning stoves are a growing fad and fashion. I am thinking of having one in my cottage. There is the convenient option of heat at the click of a switch. Organising a wood supply can be hard work and time consuming eg see picture

minds moulded and maintained

From the Times Higher Education Supplement came this idea, “Fierce disputes about canonicity are nearly as old as the academy itself. Confronted with any list of "great books", one should always ask whose interests are being served and whose voices are being excluded.”

There are two thin paperbacks in my personal canon about changing minds. They are from the 1960s, one by E H Carr (What is History?) and one by Tom Bottomore (Elites and society). My thinking will have moved on since first I was captivated by them but they stand out in my mind for what they said (socialist sociology) and for how they said it (short and in plain language). The theme that I draw from them is, predictably, about the use of power in controlling how minds are moulded and maintained.

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Underlying any instance of power is a sense of what is of value and a linked point-of-view with an associated world-view.

In a given individual the world-view is constructed by interactions between their nature (neural hard wiring) their nurture (implanted by family, community, nation and tribe) and serendipity (chance). “Give me the child till he is five and I will give you the man.” But there is neural plasticity such that “it is never too late to change your mind”.

In a given socio-cultural setting ‘the’ tribal and national world-view is implanted in the parents and community by more or less elegant modes of coercive power. A subtle and often unnoticed hegemonic point-of-view can be unwittingly substantiated and transformed by social institutions such as the education, marketing and media systems. These give the impression of being founded on ‘the’ eternal verities and thus being something to die for. But, “the only constant thing is change”.

Particular socio-cultural world-views are, almost by definition, parochial, xenophobic and absolutist. But the real world is riven with cultural relativisms. There are boundaries between ‘them and us’. And the various power elites contend and send their foot soldiers to war having sold the cause as just and the enemy as the spawn of satan. “They” are deluded, idolatrous zealots while “we” are the enlightened, fair-minded, good-guys.

In Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ the crowd is chanting “We are all different” while the small guy at the back notes that “I’m not.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVygqjyS4CA 

There is a pattern to them v us conflicts. It begins with rabble rousing by a particular group and this becomes formalised as official propaganda. Then, when the war is over and the dead have been counted and buried, there is a period of reconciliation whereby “they” come to be seen as normal human beings again.

Much pain and suffering could be avoided if most people, and especially those in leadership positions, were to heed the Diamond Sutra:

Thus shall ye think of this fleeting world;
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

And Thich Nhat Hahn, the contemporary Vietnamese peace activist, fleshes out the implications in his Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings – the first of which deals with “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 guiding means that help us develop our 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 and 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 in the world.”

The second training deals with “Non-attachment to Views” and the third with “Freedom of Thought”. The third includes the following:

“Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our views 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 right of others to be different, to choose what to believe and how to decide.”

Note that I have listed and commented on the Trainings on another website,

It is in the way of things that we are born with several years of enculturation to pass through as infant, child and adolescent. This is inevitable. Man is a social animal and needs a cultural environment to steer his flourishing. The ‘environment’ can be thought of as more or less healthy and desirable but it cannot be eradicated.

That much was almost realised by Carr and Bottomore in the 1960s. But not quite. They were enthusiastic for the politics of the left.

In the past fifty years in the West increasing attention has been given to mindfulness. It has a long history in the East. In essence it is a psychology of perception. It involves stillness of body and mind such that the ‘individual’ becomes aware of and awake to what goes on in the conscious and unconscious aspects of their mindbrain. Non-egoic states of no-self become more common and there is talk of enlightenment. But as Walter Truett Anderson (1996) notes “... we have not one Enlightenment project but three: a Western one based on rational thought, an Eastern one based on seeing through the illusion of the Self, and a Postmodern one based on the concept of socially constructed reality.”

And let us give the second last word to wise Walter - "Men are born free, and everywhere are in chains. And the strongest chains are symbolic ones, mind forged manacles."

And the last word is that “given neural plasticity, it is never too late to mould and maintain the mind of self or other.”

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What Is History? (1961) In this work, Carr argued that he was presenting a middle-of-the-road position between the empirical view of history and R. G. Collingwood's idealism. Carr rejected the empirical view of the historian's work being an accretion of "facts" that he or she has at their disposal as nonsense. Carr claimed: "The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate".

Carr maintained that there is such a vast quantity of information, at least about post-Dark Ages times, that the historian always chooses the "facts" he or she decides to make use of. In Carr's famous example, he claimed that millions had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC is declared noteworthy by historians. Carr divided facts into two categories, "facts of the past", that is historical information that historians deem unimportant, and "historical facts", information that the historians have decided is important. Carr contended that historians quite arbitrarily determine which of the "facts of the past" to turn into "historical facts" according to their own biases and agendas.

More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_H_Carr#What_Is_History.3F

Edward Hallett Carr (1892–1982) was an English historian, diplomat, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography. Carr was best known ... for his book What Is History?, in which he laid out historiographical principles rejecting traditional historical methods and practices.

“He demolished for ever the illusion that the international jungle of power politics could be tamed by institutions, the rule of law or a higher morality on the part of world leaders, unless the policies adopted took account of the factor of power.”

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/the-canon-the-twenty-years-crisis-an-introduction-to-the-study-of-international-relations-by-e-h-carr/408270.article

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Elites and Society (1964 revised 1993) In this substantially revised and enlarged second edition of a classic text that has been used throughout the world in numerous translations, Tom Bottomore reconsiders élite theory in the light of more recent studies. He examines the role and significance of élites in relation to classes and class structure in both advanced industrial and developing countries, and expounds the criticism of élites and élitism that have been formulated by democratic and socialist thinkers and movements. In a new concluding chapter, Professor Bottomore considers the prospect, as humanity approaches the millenium, for a renewed advance towards more egalitarian forms of society, in which all citizens would be able to participate more fully and effectively in the shaping of their social world.

Thomas Burton Bottomore (1920-1992), was a British Marxist sociologist. He was Reader in Sociology at the London School of Economics from 1952 to 1964. He was head of the Department of Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver from 1965 to 1967, leaving after a dispute over academic freedom. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex from 1968 to 1985.

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easy address

This shed no longer exists

There is now an easier URL to get to this website

 

easyintro.co.uk

Who to believe?

I have just watched a video of Andrew Hughes Hallett giving a Guest Lecture at the University of Edinburgh. He is a respected and influential expert in economics. His theme was the economic feasibility of an independent Scotland.

Upon hearing that copies of his shorter Powerpoint had been distributed to the audience in advance, he produced a more detailed one for use during his lecture. This created a classic case of “death by Powerpoint”. He may be an expert economist and academic but he came over as a less than effective communicator.

This led to a playoff in my mind between the presentation and the content. There are four main options as set out below:

Situation 1: The ideal situation. It can be useful to team up an academic for the content and a journalist or educator to fine tune the presentation.

Situation 2: “Effective communication of misleading messages”. The misleading badness may or may not be wilful.

Situation 3:  “He must be very clever, I didn’t understand a thing he said.” Let the author and the presenter be different people.

Situation 4: Reschedule or give up. Recruit more suitable people.

SO – do I believe Andrew Hughes Hallett? Economics is not one of my specialities. If his target audience included me then he covered far too much ground in too short a time.

His personal demeanour put me off – he came across as a self satisfied and infallible senior academic who is sometimes consulted about real world problems – although he does not always get paid for it! But he gives the impression of being quite well on top of the literature and contemporary thinking so he might have his uses. I don’t know how many contending academics are in his specialist field. So I do not have enough information to have a reasoned belief. My gut reaction is negative and tainted with antipathy towards central belt academics.
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Spare quotes:

• Goethe reckoned of poets that “they stir their waters that they might appear deep”.
• Einstein reckoned that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." and "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
• Danny Griffiths reckoned that “an expert is someone who knows the same as you but is more organised and has slides”. (Update = “has a Powerpoint”.)

Google enhanced cognitive churn

‘I’ get the impression that ‘my’ mindbrain is perpetually turning over and recombining facts and feelings. It does this to see patterns and thus to make sense of the past and predict the future. Some of this happens at the conscious level but most of it is in the unconscious. The stories that are generated are prioritized and the winner drives the reaction or response to external stimuli.

As an English speaking Scotsman of the 20th century I have a limited vocabulary for feelings, moods and emotions and there is a taboo against mentioning them. Facts are more readily dealt with as perceptions and concepts which can be subject to judgement and reasoning.

The cognitive churn is ongoing whether or not ‘I’ attempt to influence the outcomes. When there is no attempt to influence then I am little more than a robot driven by my genetic and cultural conditioning. When there is an attempt to influence then who is the ‘I’ and how come they want to go this way rather than that?

The underlying problem is with the concept of ‘agency’. A solution is to be found in the practice of ‘mindfulness’ which, amongst other things, involves thinking about thinking and noticing what ‘you’ notice ie being a witness to (while simultaneously being a part of) the output from the cognitive churn. This could be viewed as a form of enhanced cognitive churn.

The title for this short think piece came out of the blue while I was cruising the internet to clarify the difference between commodification and commoditization. I still have flushes of awe and wonder about the ICT revolution generally and the easy availability of facts in particular. Google as a search engine and Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia stand out as miracles – and there are many others.

Google the company has given its name to google the verb. To google you need not be using Google - but it is often a good place to begin. The list of meanings given below was generated by googling to enhance the cognitive churn relating to the cognitive churn.

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• Churn: to turn over and over in the mind: His brain slowly churned all the choices and possibilities.
• Cognitive: of or pertaining to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional and volitional processes.
• Enhanced: to raise to a higher degree; intensify; magnify: The candelight enhanced her beauty.
• Google: to search the Internet for information about (a person, topic, etc.): We googled the new applicant to check her background.

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Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman

I feel an urge to acknowledge the work of Daniel Goleman who has been one of my continuing sources of inspiration and ideas since at least 1996 with his thoughts on Emotional Intelligence. His skill as a journalist and writer made his records of conversations with the Dalai Lama easy to digest and I am now enjoying his writing style as he deals with Focus and Attention on my Kindle.

Of his many books the ones I have read are:

• 1996: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-38371-3
• 1997: Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health, Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-59030-010-7
• 1998: Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-37858-0
• 2003: Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama, Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-38105-4
• 2013: "Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence", Harper. ISBN 0062114867

His Wikipedia blurb:

“Daniel Jay Goleman (born March 7, 1946) is an author, psychologist, and science journalist. For twelve years, he wrote for The New York Times, specializing in psychology and brain sciences. He is the author of more than 10 books on psychology, education, science, ecological crisis, and leadership. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize nominee.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Goleman
http://www.danielgoleman.info/

The multitasking mindbrain

Yesterday’s blogpost sang the praises of the focused and single task mindbrain. But we must beware of short sighted cognitive bias. Today the urge is to speak in support of multitasking.

Why do we have a mindbrain? The simple answer is that it sits between external stimuli and internal responses.

The mindbrain scans the external and internal environments looking for significant changes and arranging for fast reactions and slower and more mindful responses. The short term goal is to stay safe, healthy and alive; the longer term goal is to ensure the presence of your genes in the next generation.

The best known human sense organs are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin but there are also many internal sensors associated with the various life processes – nutrition, respiration, excretion etc. The amount of data gathered by these various sense organs is staggering and could easily overload the unconscious mindbrain. But ways have evolved of filtering the raw data and of generating perceptions and concepts.

At the basic level our sense organs are limited in the range of stimuli to which they can respond eg from the electromagnetic spectrum our eyes respond only to that narrow band called ‘visible’ light. Other species can ‘sense’ types of light and sound that are beyond the human range. Bats use echolocation and some birds can sense the earth’s magnetic fields.

It is wondrous to behold the technical details of how the various types of stimuli impact on the sense organs; and how the sense organs generate electrical signals that pass along sensory nerves to modules in the brain where they are ‘interpreted’ in terms of their ‘meaning’ concerning survival. But we will skip the physics and chemistry here and give thought to the psychological and cultural aspects.

Fresh input from the sense organs is significant when it either (a) flags up a remembered thought/feeling that calls for very fast reaction (eg fight or flight) or (b) presents a new type of situation that needs to be analyzed so that an appropriate response might be made – often, but not always, very quickly. Beware paralysis by analysis!

Neurologists put people in brain scanning machines and asked them first to solve some problems and then to relax and take it easy. The expectation was that there would be less activity during relaxation. But in fact there was very little difference. Even when relaxing in a safe environment the mindbrain keeps churning. This comes as no surprise to meditators who are well aware that the mind has a mind of its own.

‘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 the decision rules governing which stories are thrust into consciousness. But I now wonder about such things less often. I have learned to relax self consciousness and to let the unconscious do what it wants to do. The concept of the ‘muse’ comes to mind. Her voice can be most clearly heard when the mindbrain is in non-egoic (self-less) mode.

Many of the pragmatic shakers and movers that I know are restless multi-taskers. Their world is very fluid and opportunistic. They are at home in the rough and tumble of the socio-cultural jungle. They do not have much enthusiasm for philosophy and quiet sitting but they make an obvious difference – at least in the short term. They make things happen. Strictly speaking they may not be multi-taskers but rather serial single-taskers who are good at channel hopping and juggling several plates at the same time. The concept of the ‘muse’ comes to mind again. The busy-ness people may not be aware of her presence.

The muse muses about musing – bemused in a museum!

the mindbrain douche

Most mornings, after scanning the email and social networks, I check the News on the online Guardian. Then in the evening I listen to Eddie Mair with the News on radio 4. So I get the News. What do I do with it?

It is only rarely that an item catches my attention for more than the three minutes allocated to it by the media people. And those media people choose what is to feature as that day’s News. So, for more than an hour each day, my mindbrain is fed a fast paced stream of stories from silver tongued journalists, smooth talking politicians and freelance creative types. Talking heads.

I am not immediately aware of being hegemonically got at by the power mongers. But it seems likely that shadows of their stories will become part of the ongoing churn which is my unconscious. My point of view will thus become culturally synchronized with the collective unconscious. Another sausage through the machine. Keep the peasants in ignorance. Elegant power. Paulo Friere where are you now?

SO, from an enlightenment point of view, I allow my mindbrain to be abused by the media mindbrain douche.

There is a double sin with the Radio 4 news. I cook and eat while listening. I am not thus fully awake to what is happening in the kitchen. 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 a good thing (ref Goleman)

“Focus in the midst of a din indicates selective attention, the neural capacity to beam in on just one target while ignoring a staggering sea of incoming stimuli, each one a potential focus in itself. This is what William James, a founder of modern psychology, meant when he defined attention as “the sudden taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.”

Goleman, Daniel (2013-10-08). Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The mindbrain and its machines

My reading this morning was about how much goes on in the mindbrain. It is enormously busy – like a fast-forward film from inside a termite colony. There has to be a way for the important stuff to rise to the top. What kind of system would make this possible?

There is need of functional cognitive and emotional ‘units’ which can be compared and contrasted. The units might be points of view based on new stuff related to old stuff. Inputs via the various sense organs are decoded and inter-related to tell the story that guides the action/ reaction/ response.

A recent TV programme told the story of a pride of lions that targeted a dilapidated herd of Elephants for supper. They were worthy opponents. One time I was training game scouts in the South Sudan. We were walking in the Nimule National Park and stumbled on a herd of Elephants headed for the Nile. Fortunately they were not phased by our presence but, even so, there was direct experience of the fragile insignificance of being human in the savanna.

There were also lions in the park. We heard them roaring but did not see them. They would have seen the guns and kept well clear. We may have puny bodies but we also have exceptional minds; and they have invented tools to support our early hunting and gathering way of life and our more recent sophisticated ways.

While in the South Sudan I ran a Technological and Industrial Studies Group (TISG). We dealt mainly with intermediate technology – water filter, solar food dryer, fuel efficient stove and bread oven, and a ventilated improved pit latrine (VIP).

Some of the students were keenly ambitious. At a brainstorming session there was the idea of putting a Southern Sudanese on the moon. But, after giving it thought, we realised that there was just too much that we did not know. It was as Carl Sagan noted, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”. In the end we decided to make a wooden bicycle but, after several insurmountable technical problems, we went for plan B which was to set up a Raleigh and Wuyangpai bicycle maintenance shop.

Carl Sagan again: “Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which ones best match the facts. It urges on us a fine balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom. We need wide appreciation of this kind of thinking. It works. It’s an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change.”

How the other half live

I live by myself. Most other folk live with a spouse and family. Then the family grows up and is gone. So there is him and her and usually both go out to work. Then they retire and there is no work to go to.

Throughout the stages she does the housework while he sits with his feet up watching the telly. She cooks the food and puts it on a plate for him – and for anybody else that is at the table. How does she know when and how much to serve the various people? Might it not be better to do it buffet style where people fill their own plates; and where they can go back for more if they feel the need?

In my various overseas postings I employed house servants – they were my labour saving devices. I paid them well so they were not house slaves. Domestic service was seen to be a noble profession. Domestic servants were also employed for households occupied by a working spouse and a stay at home one. The concept of the ‘idle rich’ comes to mind. And ‘upstairs/ downstairs’. What does the stay at home spouse do all day?

My meditation group has a pot-luck lunch on the first Saturday of the month. Everybody brings something vegetarian – savory or sweet – home made or shop bought. The division of labour just happens. And the following jobs get done:

• Arrange the foodstuffs in the buffet area along with crockery and cutlery
• Everyone helps themselves to what they fancy
• Everyone sits with their food in front of them till we are all served.
• A Buddhist grace is said
• We eat for 20 minutes in silence
• We chat and have tea while some people gather, wash and put away the dishes.
• The buffet is tidied and wrapped so that people take home the leftovers of what they brought.

On other meditation retreats, especially those lasting more than a day, there are professional cooks. Otherwise the system is the same as outlined above except that there are official rotas which people sign up to for serving and for washing up three times per day.

To get food into their mouths many people use knives, forks, spoons and other people use chopsticks - but the natural way is to use your fingers.

The latter was common in a Zambian boarding school where I taught in the late 1970s. The dining room had tables but no chairs. Groups were assigned to particular tables. Meals consisted of maize porridge with a soup of meat or vegetables. The cooks used wheel barrows to deliver large basins to the groups. Using only their right hands (the left hand is for cleaning the bum) they made a ball with the porridge and indented it with the thumb so they could pick up the soup. When there were leftovers they were offered to the dogs and what was still left over was scavenged in the night by the Kalahari Bush people

“There’s nought so queer as folk”

Rootless happiness

quotes from http://www.mindfulnessbell.org/wp/tag/habit-energies/

I feel inclined to take issue with Thich Nhat Hahn’s overly benevolent attitude regarding an individual’s roots as re-presented by parents, ancestors and traditions.

“Without roots, we cannot be happy. If we return home and touch the wondrous jewels that are there in our traditions — blood and spiritual — we can become whole.”

But surely the jewels may not always be present and may not always be wondrous when they are present. If there are right roots there must also be wrong roots. Parenting can be more or less wondrous and in either case it tends to be transmitted through the generations.

“Our body and many of the seeds we carry in our consciousness are actually our parents. They did not transmit anything less than themselves — seeds of suffering, happiness, and talent, many of which they received from their ancestors.”

“We cannot escape the fact that we are a continuation of our parents and our ancestors. To be angry at our parents is to be angry at ourselves. To reconcile with our father and mother is to make peace with ourselves.”

I was not close to my parents. After I left home at eighteen I did not have much contact with them. I did my filial duty (eg bought them a house) but there was very little emotional attachment. Sometimes when I notice negative moods and intuitions there is a feeling that they have their roots in how I was parented. But that does not normally elicit anger and thus the need for reconciliation.

I am aware of the partisan patriarchy of priests and politicians and of the reification of wrong roots. I have anarchic leanings. I am deeply suspicious of the good and great who are my elders and betters. Behind the benign smiles there often lurks selfishness, greed and exploitation. Talking heads with silver tongues monopolise the media and bolster the hegemonic effectiveness of elegant power.

“According to the Buddha, most of our suffering is caused by wrong perceptions … Each of us has habit energies that cause us difficulties … In Buddhism, we describe consciousness in terms of “seeds” — seeds of peace, joy, and happiness, and seeds of war, anger, despair, and hatred. All of these are in us.”

Some seeds will be hard wired by nature and some learned from nurture. Thoughts and feelings will have neural correlates. Thanks to neural plasticity the seeds can be selectively changed. So free will still has a role to play.

“The practice is to arrive home in each moment, to touch the peace and joy that are within us, and to open our eyes to the wonders of life around us — the blue sky, the sunset, the eyes of our beloved. When we do this, we experience real happiness.”

We can open our eyes to the wonders of life but these can be more or less pleasing.

Thich reckons that most of our suffering is caused by wrong perceptions and that without roots, we cannot be happy. I reckon that there can be both rooted unhappiness and rootless happiness.

Tut tut

Human babies are born hard wired to behave this way rather than that. But the hard wiring just sets the big picture; the details of how to behave in a given culture are supplied by the family, community, tribe and nation. For example the baby is hard wired to learn a language in its early years but the details of the language are supplied by the social environment.

Note – the baby is programmed to ‘absorb’ a language during its early years and it does so very easily and without needing to be taught. There is no hard wiring to learn a second language later in life and the process is famously tough.

As with language so with other aspects of belonging to a particular culture. There are many existing and theoretical possibilities. The process of enculturation involves promoting some of the options and rejecting others. Any given culture will have its myths and magic and the educational task is to ensure that the babies, children and youth accept and apply those that are favoured in a given time and place.

In the West there is a continuum of formal education methods ranging through training (sit down, shut up, and listen) at one end, to enlightenment (what do you think?) at the other.  The education system is doing well if it results in graduates believing and behaving in a culturally appropriate manner.

Despite globalisation and the availability of ‘news’ from all parts of the world it is still possible to rear people who are parochial and xenophobic in outlook. Unquestionable information now exists in support of cultural relativism (ie that there are many possible worldviews none of which are absolutely ‘true’) but there are still many zealots who believe that their ‘small world’ view is THE correct one.

In one of Shakespear’s plays it is said, “That man thinks too much, such men are dangerous”.

Effective education, enculturaton, indoctrination, and brainwashing depend on both the carrot and the stick to promote particular value systems and world views. This is a power issue and it can make crude and inelegant use of torture. But there is the possibility of elegant power wherein the hegemonic techniques of the ruling elites are able to convince the exploited masses that they deserve what they have been given and that they will get their rewards in heaven in the  next life (- jam tomorrow!).

I have worked in five foreign countries and now live alone and work at home. But, even so, I am not free of John Knox’s 16th century hegemonic inputs to my natal culture in the NE of Scotland in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Presbyterian Work Ethic is deeply grounded – ‘no pain no gain’ and take care as ‘the devil finds work for idle hands to do’. I am humbly born and should thus defer to my elders and betters who are the good and great. I should not think too much or have opinions of my own.

I live alone but God is omniscient and sees what I am doing. My parents have now passed away but they, and the other ancestors, can see what I am doing. And, amongst the living, there is a fear of ‘what people might think’. So I am being perpetually watched.

When I notice these thoughts and feelings kicking in I can see them for what they are and thus be amused and dismiss them. But they never totally disappear. Deep in my mindbrain lies a foundation layer of shame and guilt and a dread of eliciting an external cultural ‘tut, tut’.

Eastern Exercises

Taichi and Qigong were developed in the last 200 to 300 years in China and have since been adopted in a variety of forms in the rest of the world. The two techniques draw on earlier Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist theories and practices.
 
T'ai chi ch'uan (often shortened to Taichi) is a Chinese martial art and a form of stylized, meditative exercise. It involves methodically slow circular and stretching movements and positions of bodily balance. It is a system of callisthenics that uses coordinated and rhythmic movements.

Qigong is based on an ancient Chinese system of postures, exercises, breathing techniques, and mental concentration to help control the flow of vital energy. It is widely used as a daily routine to increase overall health and well-being, to prevent disease and increase longevity.

National Health Service  http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/fitness/Pages/taichi.aspx
Taichi for beginners - video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNWPk6tYoUM
Qigong warm up and exercise – video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9qM6G6l6g

For whatever reason

For whatever reason I seem to react emotionally to xxx. There seem to be habit energies that ‘I’ tend to think of as being ‘me’ – it is how I am - all ways and forever. In fact the habit energies change through time but ‘I’ am so involved with them that ‘I’ do not notice that past memories are continually being revised so that they accord with the latest version of the story of me.

I feel that I have reasons for viewing stuff as desirable, neutral or undesirable. There are ever changing fads and fashions in my culture and subculture. The process of enculturation (aka, education, indoctrination, brainwashing etc) is driven by mainly unconscious conditioning forces; and these are continuously reshaped by my nature, nurture and serendipity as it is written into the unconscious and conscious modules in the mindbrain.

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, stays open to ongoing changes in the physical and social environments. It is no wonder that the Buddha noted “the impermanence of all created things”.

It is also no wonder that the first three of the fourteen mindfulness trainings should be about openness, non-attachment to views, and freedom of thought. The main insights are that:

• “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.”
• “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.”
• “Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our views 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.”

SO … for whatever reason … most of ‘my’ present reasons are not normally apparent in consciousness. They can, however, set moods and they can very quickly generate intuitions and make fast reactions to stimuli.

The various practices associated with mindfulness help to still the mindbrain (shamantha). This allows for greater awareness of, and insight into (vipassana), how we calmly, carefully and slowly consider how best to respond to stimuli.

• The mind has a mind of its own.
• The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing about.

Ffafing aboot with churning whims

Upon waking this morning thoughts were mainly about the long overdue house repairs which are being projectised. When I got up there was nothing attention grabbing in the email, social networks, or online news; so attention went back to house repairs generally and sourcing Scottish Larch in particular.

I went to the kitchen to make a coffee and, on a whim, tided up the porch. Then there was focus on the Kindle for a while – about ‘mindfulness’. The idea of its being non judgemental in the present moment struck home. And then there was a switch to the image of the ‘witness’ watching ‘stuff’ from the unconscious entering and leaving the attention centre.

Then an AHA moment.

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 mostpart, the busy-ness is confined to the unconscious. Every now and then some of the froth from the churning is thrust into the attention centre where the I, the self, the witness becomes awake to and aware of what is going on – but after the event. Self consciousness is not in control or in charge. Pause for sound bites:

• The mind has a mind of its own.
• The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing about.

SO, for what reason did the unconscious aspect of mind come to tell this particular story? What part, if any, was played by the illusory notion of I, me, mine, self, or ego?

The story emerged in non-egoic flow and outwith awareness of space and time. There was focused concentration. The underlying theme has been lingering since my enculturation as a Zoologist in the late 60s – there are many “neurotic nihilists living in existential vacuums” – surely there must be “better ways to be human”.

Which of us by taking thought can change the world at personal through planetary level? There is no easy answer to that question. But it seems clear at this present moment that it will involve better understanding of the process of ffafing aboot with churning whims.

“Don’t just DO something – sit there.” (Thich Nhat Hahn)

As others see us

“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.”
Robert Burns (1759-1796)

There is an inclination to play with this poetic fancy.

1. To see ourselves as we see ourselves
2. To see ourselves as others see us
3. To see ourselves as we imagine others see us

How we see ourselves varies with both internal and external factors. Internally the mood can be up, neutral or down. Externally we can be facing desirable, neutral or undesirable situations amongst friends or family and at work or play.

How are we to know how others see us? They may communicate verbally or non verbally. But they may be twisting the truth about their feelings to make us feel good or bad. Beware false flatterers and slimy sycophants.

And we will change as we move from cradle to grave, from womb to tomb. Shakespeare caught the essence:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts
William Shakepeare (1564-1616)

Shakespeare in 16th century England imagined that there were seven ages in the life of man - infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, second childhood. The ancient Hindu system in India imagined that there were four stages - student life (till 24), household life (24-48), retired life (48-72) and renounced life (72-demize). In the 21st century West there is commonly felt to be eight stages – pre-natal, infant, child, teenager, young mature, old mature, retired, geriatric.

Particular cultures and sub cultures have their own models. Members of the culture are expected to toe the line and not to rock the boat - for “what will people think?” And there is no hiding place. An omniscient God (and some recently dead ancestors) know what is going on in your mind. The ongoing process of enculturation locks people into the official world view and has ways of arresting deviance and ensuring compliance.

During mindfulness meditation ‘you’ can be conscious of, and a witness to, your ‘self’. You are also aware that your mind has a mind of its own. All this suggests that ‘self’ is a verb and it is constantly being recreated in the unconscious.  What others see in us is unlikely to hit the mark!