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.

>>>>>

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

>>>>>

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

>>>>>

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

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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

>>>>>>

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.

Imperfect evolution

Evolution does not strive for perfection. It has no blueprint for the future. It is a serendipitous chancer. It never wipes the slate clean to begin again. It makes changes by selecting from the variations created by hiccoughs in the processes of reproducing genes and of switching them on and off.

Evolution is not so much an agent with an agenda (a man with a plan) as an ongoing, blind, impersonal process like the weather and the seasons (consider the lilies of the field). Evolution reacts and responds to ongoing changes in the external environment. As animals we have to find food and avoid being eaten - as a prerequisite for reproduction. And evolution is amoral. There are variations and the fittest (ie those with the most copies in the next generation) survive. It is a matter of pure pragmatism with no thought for political or poetic perfection.

I see this as good news. I seem to have been conditioned to prefer anarchy (without bosses/ chiefs/ emperors/ gods). Small is beautiful and possible. Go with the flow. These days it seems silly and unnecessary to imagine that there are super natural agencies planning for and controlling our existence.

The cosmos just is and, at least once, the isness generated (a) ‘life’ based on carbon, (b) ‘consciousness’ to facilitate feeding and thus reproduction, and (c) language driven ‘self consciousness’ that has given rise to the possibility of humanity steering the future direction of evolution. We have done it for dogs and pigeons and it seems likely that we will do it for ourselves and for the environment that sustains us. But why might we steer in what direction?

Is human nature good, bad or neutral and if so can it be changed? The only constant thing is change - so there are no restrictions in that area. It is never too late for minds to change.

What about morality? Do or should all living things have rights? What about the predators and the parasites? Are lions evil because they eat meat. Are plague viruses to be condemned because of their diabolical effects on their hosts. What about the rights of domesticated cabbages? How might we figure the morality of a world where the rule is ‘eat or be eaten!’? Does language at its present stage of evolution present a bridge or a barrier to dealing with moral issues?

Human nature has evolved by reshaping ancestral modules in the brain. Neuroscientists are gradually figuring out the structure and functions of the various modules. Parts of the lower brain are hangovers from our reptile ancestors, mid brain bits are from the time of our mammalian ancestors, and the upper bits (the frontal cortex) came into being with the primates and were reshaped by the hominids and then dramatically by humans.

Most of the modules in the frontal cortex evolved during the long, slow period of our evolution as hunters and gathers. And language did not appear until relatively recently during that time – about 150,000 years ago. (See note). The pre-frontal cortex in particular seems to be home to the more sophisticated cognitive operations of an individual living as a part of a social group which interacts with other groups and with the physical environment.

Our ability to use language influences our reproductive potential. But language is still a babe in arms. It has come a long way since the grunts of its origins and it is obviously good enough to get bye. But, as we noted earlier, evolution is a serendipitous chancer. Of old it dealt with myth and magic, recently it has gone scientific, and it will doubtless go in new, possibly transcendent, directions in the future.

I am fascinated at the prospect of language evolving so as to create a mindbrain blueprint which allows for, and makes good use of, the relatively new phenomenon of consciousness of consciousness (ie noticing what is being noticed and thinking about what is being thought).

In past times, by using selection under domestication, we transformed dogs, pigeons, oats, potatoes, tomatoes and bananas. What might be done in the future by biased selection on the conceptual variations that exist, and might yet be created? These might deal with such cognitive hot potatoes as sex, politics and religion; wine, women and song; and truth, beauty and wisdom etc.

In order to operate in a given socio-cultural setting human beings have various points of view and usually a catch-all world view that promotes cognitive consonance. Language is a key part of the enculturation process that ties individuals and groups into a particular world view. Boundaries are created between ‘me’, ‘we/us’, and ‘them’. These lock people into narrow clusters of parochial and xenophobic views. This might have been adaptive in the ancestral foraging times. But, arguably, in these global times, narrow mindedness is not an attractive feature during the mating process. So what is? Arguably the gentle peace that comes with ‘mindfulness’.

The practice of mindfulness is at least 2500 years old. But, until recently, it has been reserved for a minority of the people. It is now going mainstream. It is a world view variation (a meme?) whose time has come. It is settling in the mindbrains of increasing numbers of individuals and is being supported by communities of like-minded devotees. Many variations exist. This is a healthy sign as it gives evolution plenty to work with. But, this time around, it need not be left to its own devices. Those individuals and groups who are mindfully awake and aware can plan for and promote a style of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting that is ‘better’ than what presently exists. Towards political or poetic perfection – stardust comes to know itself - yoh!



NOTE: “The time range for the evolution of language and/or its anatomical prerequisites extends, at least in principle, from the phylogenetic divergence of Homo (2.3 to 2.4 million years ago) from Pan (5 to 6 million years ago) to the emergence of full behavioral modernity some 150,000 - 50,000 years ago. Few dispute that Australopithecus probably lacked vocal communication significantly more sophisticated than that of great apes in general, but scholarly opinions vary as to the developments since the appearance of Homo some 2.5 million years ago. Some scholars assume the development of primitive language-like systems (proto-language) as early as Homo habilis, while others place the development of symbolic communication only with Homo erectus (1.8 million years ago) or Homo heidelbergensis (0.6 million years ago) and the development of language proper with Homo sapiens less than 200,000 years ago.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

Mindfulness – short notes 01

Everybody can be more or less ‘mindful’. It involves exercising your mind using an inward looking psychological technique. The technique is hard wired into in all human beings but is often obscured.

Following scientific advances in the last ten years or so mindfulness can now be viewed as a contemplative science which is independent of religious, spiritual, or cultural beliefs.

The word and the idea of mindfulness is becoming popular. In April 2004 mindfulness was mentioned in British Newspapers just twice. In April 2014 it was mentioned 150 times. Also in April 2014 there were 7,554 returns from an Amazon books search and 5,670,000 returns from a Google search

In the 1970s Jon Kabat-Zinn (the creator of the popular Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) technique) described mindfulness as: “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgementally”.

Other definitions have been produced in the last 40 years. I have wrapped them together to give the following composite definition: “Mindfulness involves paying open, non-judgemental attention purposefully focussed on the breath and sometimes noting currently experienced sensations, thoughts, emotions, and memories. It involves waking up from a life lived on automatic pilot and based on habitual responding.”

Many people refuse to accept that they respond out of habit and that they run on automatic pilot. They do not see themselves as following a course through life based on how they were conditioned – both consciously and in their unconscious - by nature, nurture and serendipity. And this is despite the fact that they think, speak and act in a way that matches the requirements of a particular culture in a given space and time.

Most of our ancestral time involved hunting and gathering. Then relatively recently came settled agriculture, followed by cities and by nation states. There was, and still is, much myth, magic, mayhem and murder. But it is possible that the increasing interest in mindfulness indicates a cultural evolution first in individuals then in humanity as a whole. Mindfulness presents the theoretical option of widespread compassion, and peace in our time.

One of the main formal mindfulness practices is to sit quietly paying attention to your breathing. When you notice that attention has shifted to the past or future – as it will - then gently lead it back to the breathing. It soon becomes obvious that the mind has a mind of its own and that huge amounts of thinking and feeling goes on in the unconscious.

This calls for a new answer to the old question “Who am I?” Surprisingly the answer is that ‘I’ am the output from an ongoing and everchanging churn of mental activity. ‘I’ have no abiding reality – thoughts of ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘mine’, ‘self’ and ‘ego’ are mind-made constructions which are continually being reconditioned by nature, nurture and serendipity.

We do not need to add anything to be mindful. All that we need is already built in. Just remove impediments, pull back the curtains, and wipe the dust from the mirror. Be still and be mindful of InterBeing - of the interconnected Oneness that is everything.

mainstreaming mindfulness

Madeleine Bunting

Mindfulness is catching on - see Madeline Bunting in the Guardian - LINK

Doing a helicopter

There are various states of consciousness. Some are parochial and feeble while others are cosmopolitan and expansive. In either case you can feel anxious or at peace.

 That gives four possibilities:

1. Parochial and anxious
2. Parochial and peaceful
3. Cosmopolitan and anxious
4. Cosmopolitan and peaceful

State 1 is very common. The human mindbrain has a built in negativity bias. This involves ongoing anxiety, restlessness and fear which makes you alert to your surroundings and more likely than not to spot an approaching lion.

State 2 is not uncommon. There is less need of the ancestral pessimism in the modern world. There are still dangers but they are of a different and less immediate kind now that we are ‘civilised’? Happiness is being normal! Ignorance is bliss!

State 3 is increasingly common. The rich are getting richer, there is exploitation of people and the environment, and there are problems with waste management and global warming etc. Planet earth is like the Titanic. The fact that you have a first class cabin is small comfort.

State 4 might be becoming more common. Mindfulness brings non-egoic points of view which promote compassion and peace. There is an ongoing appreciation of the extent of time and space and the inevitability of the death of our solar system. But there need not be bad feelings about this. It is unlikely that we are the only instance of self conscious star dust. We are a tiny and ephemeral part of something much grander

‘I’ have a tendency to slip into states 1 and 3. I am pessimistic. There is anxiety, panic and restlessness verging on depression. ‘Reality’ is in a mess at personal, cultural, environmental and global levels. We are all doomed!

But these days I am not as afflicted by such things as I used to be. I am getting better at noticing the blue mood approaching and taking defensive action. This amounts to seeing a big picture eg David Christian’s Big History. There is a variety of ways to think about this.

There is the notion of kicking the mind upstairs so as to get a bird’s eye view or the view from a helicopter or a rocket. There is the notion of expanding horizons and getting things in perspective - metacognition. I can take a cosmic zoom through space, from quantum to cosmos; and through time, from nanoseconds to billions of years.

But it is not always possible to get the mindbrain to change its focus right away. Where there is resistance  attention can be pointed at texts (books or kindle) and at audio and video recordings by some of my favourite cutting edge thinkers eg on TED, Google Talks and many channels on YouTube. There can also be confirmation and inspiration from social networks eg  Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

In terms of process the task is to drop the concepts of ego, space and time so that the mindbrain is concentrated and pays undisturbed attention to the topic at hand. There is then focussed flow which is ‘in the groove’ or ‘in the zone’ and the unconscious can churn out its ‘stuff’. This is equivalent to letting the ‘muse’ speak. She is the mind that has a mind of her own; and she is the result of a mix of the forces of nature, nurture and serendipity.

In terms of product there is the notion of raising the bar for the human condition – of promoting high levels of well being. Martin Seligman labels the mind state ‘Flourishing’. There is an appreciation that reality is mind made and that it can thus be readily changed. You change the mind to change the brain that changes the mind. There is neural plasticity. It is never too late to change your mind.

Mindfulness is a way of taking thought that brings release from the blind and empassioned zealotry of the parochially encultured mindbrain [State 1]. In its place there can be a radical flourishing that gives rise to an open mind, to a fresh beginner’s mind [State 4]. And a first step is to embrace aspects of big history by doing a helicopter.

Rick Hanson

Rick Hanson

I endorse Rick Hanson as a user friendly purveyor of evolutionary psychology and neuroscience and of how these link to mindfulness. At first I reckoned he was a bit of a middle class, California happy clappy type but this impression wore off and I think of him now as a gifted writer and educator. A good bloke. He has probably influenced my present line of thinking more than I realise.

I found two of his books to be compulsive reading -

• (2009) Rick Hanson: Buddha’s Brain – the practical neuroscience of happiness love and wisdom
• (2013) Rick Hanson: Hardwiring Happiness – the practical science of reshaping your brain – and your life 

His website provides more information about Rick the person and also links to large amounts of text, audio and video materials most of which are freely given. http://www.rickhanson.net/

I have mentioned him in nine previous blogposts:

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/12.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/a-buddha-mindbrain.html 

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/stone-age-brain.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/mindfulness-and-mindbrain.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/a-better-place.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/good-reads-in-2013.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/habit-releasers.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/basis-in-mindfulness.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/mindfulness-methodology.html

Busy doing nothing

Imagine a line stretching from ‘very busy’ at one end through to ‘not at all busy’ at the other. The feeling in most ‘modern’ cultures is that a strong dose of productive busy-ness is a good thing.

The serious and ascetic tone of this line of thought has its historical roots in the ‘Protestant work ethic’. This is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history; it celebrates constant hard work, frugality and diligence as a display of a person's salvation in the Christian faith.

This of course is not an absolute truth. The recent roots of the concept are in the work of Max Weber (1864-1920) who is best known for his thesis combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion. This is elaborated in his book ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, in which he proposed that ascetic Protestantism was associated with the rise in the Western world of market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state.

The Protestant Reformation (1517-1648) included the establishment of Reformed Churches in Scotland under the command of John Knox (1513-1572). I hold him in large part accountable for the dreech and mean spirited tone of the Scottish enculturation process which is still alive today. He was in mind in 1970 when I wrote these lyrics:

“There's a voice inside you, It's the voice of other men
It's the voice of people dead and gone
Whose preaching makes the world go on -
Or off”

More - http://www.toonloon.bizland.com/cureblues/track-01.htm

In the following table I have listed some ideas from both ends of the spectrum. Many of the ideas have roots in 16th century religion but they have now transformed into secular truisms, eternal verities, and the undisputed facts of life.

Most of my friends and acquaintances are busy people. Some verge on workaholism. This is how they have been conditioned. I used to be the same. But I had five bursts of early retirement along the way. I made time to stand and stare and came to experience the joys of not doing. There is neuroplasticity – it is never too late to change your mind.

I took time out from the rat race that is education development. The early retreats involved reading about philosophy, history and sociology such that I might be more useful operating in multidisciplinary teams. The middling retreats were characterized by postmodernism, existentialism and cultural relativism. The later retreats turned away from sterile intellectualism and I began to practice mindfulness meditation with a view to experiencing altered states of consciousness that would cause a paradigm shift in my thinking about, and experience of, mind and ‘reality’.

It is delightfully serendipitous that I should be operating in an age that is brimming with neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. There is still fun to be had in generating points of view to guide policy formation and social action. But, in what seems like another dimension of spacetime, there is an other transcendent, non-egoic mode of renunciant Being whose key feature is compassionate and non contentious bliss. It is said, “Drop off body and mind” and you will know that “No self, no problems.”

We already have all that is needed to transform. The task is to get rid of those features of enculturation that close you down and make you possessive and violent. The world might soon become a better place. All that is required is that most people and their leaders get busy doing no-thing.