if people were nicer

Ian - Another day and another book being reread.

Walter – yup – this time it's Rick Hanson (2009) Buddha's Brain – the practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom.

Ian – is it any good?

Walter – yup. I am aware of 21 of the people he acknowledges. Many are from the group around Goldstein and Kornfield at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS).

Ian – the worried well – middle class, nicey nicey Massachusetts types?

Walter – many of them lean in that direction. Hanson's approach is that of a neuro-psychologist but, given his client base he has to forge a few sentences to deal with the transcendent.

Ian – how does he do that?

Walter – it involves the presence of an intentional agent which is infinite, eternal and omniscient although 'he' tends to work in mysterious ways.

Ian – but surely he does not take that ancient myth and magic seriously?

Walter - nope - but PR demands that he does not dismiss it entirely.

Ian – is he an easy read?

Walter – yes and he also speaks well. One thing that niggles me, however, is his use of the concept of the 'true self' which is wise and compassionate. This implies the existence of an untrue self which is unwise and lacking in compassion. There are presumably networks in the brain which hold the two opposing modes of thought/feeling and mood.

Ian – God v the Devil, Buddha v Mara

Walter – Jesus changed his mind but so did Hitler. The Buddha changed his mind but so did Pol Pot.

Ian – And human history records many tortures, rapes and genocides with neighbour set against neighbour.

Walter – Aha – I note the feeling and mood related to the worried well, to those who have never had it so good, to those who feel that the world owes them a living.

Ian – the 1% mega rich

Walter – but also the political, economic, military, and religious zealots.

Ian – and the sexists, ageists, racists, wife beaters, alcoholics, drug addicts, paedophiles, and white and blue collar criminals

Walter - a sorry state we are in – the transcendent intentional agent has a lot of work ahead.

Ian – So, what is to be done?

Walter – the grand conclusion – there is neural plasticity – it is never too late to change your mind – mindfulness helps - it would be nice if people were nicer.

much to be said on many sides

Ian - I see that you are rereading Mark Williams and Danny Penman (2011) “Mindfulness – a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world”

Walter – Yes and it is not my first rereading.

Ian – You must rate it quite highly.

Walter – Judging by the number of margin marks it would appear to be so.

Ian – Do you have any niggles about it?

Walter – They have a very rosy view of potential human nature. They note that it is a frantic world but that it is possible to find peace within it. Consider these quotes:

“This is a book about how you can find peace and contentment in such troubled and frantic times as these. Or rather, this is a book about how you can rediscover them; for there are deep well springs of peace and contentment living inside us all, no matter how trapped and distraught we might feel. They're just waiting to be liberated from the cage that our frantic and relentless way of life has crafted for them.” (p2)

“Mindfulness meditation is so beautifully simple that it can be used by the rest of us to reveal our innate joie de vivre.” (p3)

Ian – they reckon “ there are deep well springs of peace and contentment living inside us all” and that we have “innate joie de vivre”.

Walter – as I understand it they have no evidence in support of their views about what is innate and lives inside us all.

Ian – there are now neural correlates of consciousness (NCC).

Walter – yup. There is an NCC for peace and contentment and another for war and discontent. It is a yin/yang thing. Nothing lasts forever. It is like two parliamentarians debating a course of action. The ancient Greeks had the image of a charioteer being drawn by two horses – one white and one black – his task is to reconcile their different natures.

Ian – and some of the native American cultures had the image of two wolves inside them – one black one white. The one you feed is the one that will grow and triumph.

Walter – and there is negativity bias. Better safe than sorry. Those who take the fast, bleak, black view (eg there might a lion behind that bush) will survive and have many children. Those who take the slow, wise, white view (eg being awestruck by the dawn light) will be eaten and have few children.

Ian – It is like optimists and pessimists. They both have their uses.

Walter – Yup – and as it says in that song - “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative”.

Ian – And Rick Hanson has the image of velcro for the negative and teflon for the positive.

Walter - Yoh – there is much to be said on both sides and, given the amount of activity in the unconscious, there are likely to be more than two sides and, the balance between them will be constantly changing. The only constant thing is change. It is never too late to change your mind.

Practice makes perfect

Ian – Can I interview you?

Walter – Yes. What topic interests you at present?

Ian – I won't know till we get going.

Walter – Might I suggest a review of the 'Walter the witness' concept?

Ian – This is where, of the many aspects of ego that inhabit your mindbrain, a stance is taken with Walter the witness to those thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) that emanate from the unconscious and hang around in the attention centre for a while.

Walter – Yup, that's the one.

Ian – Is the concept still as it was?

Walter – 'The only constant thing is change?'

Ian – 'Where there is doubt there is hope.'

Walter – That is cute. An end to zealotry …

Ian – But we have a problem with closed minds.

Walter – Yup - David Eagleman is a fluent communicator about how the mindbrain really works. He is a neurologist with a deep appreciation of positive, cognitive, social and evolutionary psychology. The brain is an organ that evolved over millions of generations to help ensure survival of the fittest groups. It is one organ amongst many that work together in what initially looks like mysterious ways.

Ian – Mysterious being what is not yet scientifically understood. And over the last 50 years amazing things have become widely appreciated.

Walter – But there is objective, scientific understanding and subjective experiential understanding

Ian – And you, as Walter, bridge the gap. Where there are statements about liking and disliking there is the deeper matter of who is the I that has the TFM and why do they have them.

Walter – And, as yet, the potential that this line of thought has for unshackling the mind from passing stories is not well appreciated.

Ian – How has your unshackling been getting on?

Walter – There has been equanimity for several months although there has been some dis-ease and anxiety these last few days brought on by (a) glitches with the technology and (b) not being able to locate pieces of kit.

Ian – But, as Walter, you should have been able to observe the ennui and let it go.

Walter – Yup but it is one of those 'easier said than done' things.

Ian – So what did you do?

Walter – I got up from the computer and engaged with activities that allow me to be non-egoic and in 'flow'.

Ian – And what kind of activities were these?

Walter – There are many possibilities but recently there has been engagement with doodling, reading, writing, baking and meditation.

Ian – But is that not what you usually get up to?

Walter – Yup. I try to live the practice.

Ian – And practise makes perfect.

Walter – Hmm!

a dangerous truth

The Eagleman programmes about the brain are not easy to find on the BBC and this causes me to wonder if there is a conspiracy.

Why do you wonder about that?

I don't know so I will follow the thought trains as they appear from the unconscious.

Go for it.

Shakespeare's Julius Caesar reckoned that “Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”

Ah yes – conspiracy, thinking, danger, threatening authority

When I was a teenager I reckoned that I had 'a sermon that never will bear preaching'. There was also the idea that 'he rationalised his thought about everything he sought and so he annihilated pleasure'.

Ah yes – adolescent angst.

And those ideas were linked to the cultural classics – 'no pain, no gain', and 'the devil finds work for idle hands'. And there is the notion that I should respect the cultural 'good and great' who were my 'elders and betters'.

Ah yes – Scottish Presbyterianism.

But then I was inspired by the thoughts of anarchists while studying psychology, chemistry, botany and zoology.

So what was the gist of the unpreachable sermon?

The merits of thinking in terms of evolution and the scientific method as the 'true' road to 'truth'.

This links to a group of other linguistic bombshells:

The only constant thing is change.

The only certainty is doubt.

God is dead.

There must be better ways to be human.

Make the world a better place.

Progress is possible.

Whose reality counts?

The reality that can be described is not the real reality.

So what does this have to do with Eagleman and the brain?

Neuroscience and evolutionary psychology are causing a paradigm shift. Before Freud, at least in the west, the unconscious was mysterious and under rated. During Freud there was special talk so as to subjectively figure what was happening in the unconscious. After Freud there are neurologists with brain scanners who are objectively mapping the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). Social psychologists are uncovering the many ways that the unconscious is really in control most of the time; and evolutionary psychologists are figuring why and how the various mind/brain interactions came into being.

There is a lot going on!

And I think that the BBC, or parts of it, are trying to bury the Eagleman programmes because of their potential to radicalise people. The truth shall set you free.

But you were suggesting that there is no real reality, no true truth.

Evolution and science don't need 'truth'. They operate in terms of the best working hypotheses given the evidence presently available.

That seems reason-able.

Yes – but - The patronising, hegemonic elite are quite happy to keep the peasants in ignorance as they are then easy to rouse by propaganda and to exterminate in wars.

return to easy feeling

Yesterday there was a mild bout of existential dis-ease. The cause was a computer glitch - or rather a reaction to a computer glitch. The mindset spiralled into negativity with the thought that I would lose all the web sites that I manage. Anxiety and panic.

BUT … 'I' noticed that ego was involved and 'I' thus thought to engage with non-egoic actions so as to return to easy feeling. Recently such non-egoic actions have included:

01 doodling

02 reading non fiction

03 writing blogs

04 meditating – various methods

attending to online audio and video

cruising social networks

housework with grace rather than grudge

lighting the wood burning stove

listening to radio, watching TV

making music on a yamaha keyboard

shopping, cooking, eating, washing up

taking photographs and editing them

No system has yet been designed for logging how much time is used on the various non-egoic actions but, subjectively, there is the impression that the first four are more effective than others.

Doodling is a fail safe. A blank sheet of paper and four thicknesses of felt pen are acted on and a doodle emerges. There is no conscious forward plan. But there must be a host of decisions made concerning the thickness of lines, the size and position of shapes, and the patterns that fill the spaces. The unconscious keeps churning and a never ending host of doodles emerge. This is flow which is by definition non-egoic and unrelated to space and time.

Reading non fiction is also a fail safe. Real books, Kindle books and text from the internet. There is also audio and video from the internet eg on Google, Wikipedia, Youtube. So many “Ideas worth spreading” (ref TED.com). So many talented individuals (often working in teams) have a simple idea and develop it to book length. There are limits on how long attention can be kept on a book. After some time the autopilot switches on and the text is forgotten. OR the mindbrain goes into dose and sleep mode. In such cases the task is to admit defeat and to deliberately engage with another of the non-egoic actions.

For a couple of years the target was a blogpost every other day, but there was often a falling short. There is no longer a target - go with the flow. There is still motivation to write and to break away from the 'research & lesson plan' mode and to adopt a 'titillate the unconscious and let it flow' mode.

Meditation is not always a fail safe. It comes in many forms. There are full time monks who give their life to the practice. On a more modest level there is the ten hours a day for ten days in Goenka's Vipassana, the eight days over eight weeks of the MBSR system, and the one minute quickie that brings a return from busyness to mindfulness.

With practice it gets easier to notice when the mindbrain is on autopilot and thus to put attention on the breathing – take a deep breath and count to ten. Neuroscience has shown that the brains of experienced meditators differ from those of ordinary people, and that even modest amounts of mindfulness can cause noticeable changes in the mindbrain.

When writing blogs there is some slipping in and out of egoic thinking, feeling and moods. When this is noticed, mindfulness methods can be called up (eg just sit, watch the breath, watch the monkey mind without judgement) and, if these fail, there can be a switching to another of the non-egoic activities listed above.

This article is coming to a close. There is a need for the ending to reference the introduction. The theme is 'ease'. The trigger event was the computer glitch. It is still glitching - but it is no longer causing dis-ease. The non-egoic actions, in this case this blogpost, caused a return to an easy feeling. Cool.

doodle parliament

my parliament

There is the conundrum of 'I' …

I want to lose weight

I could go to the gym and join a fitness group

I should stop eating between meals

I could eventually fasten my belt at a closer hole

I want a six pack abdomen

I want to choose organic vegetables in the supermarket

I could want … (many things)

I cannot be bothered (ICBB) with many of the above

So who is the 'I' that 'wants'? How many coulds and shoulds pass through your attention centre in a minute?

Try the following activity - stop reading and, for 60 seconds, pay attention to the thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) that (a) appear from the unconscious, (b) hang around in consciousness, then (c) disappear back into the unconscious.

You will notice that there are many self conscious 'I's loving, hating and being neutral about different TFMs. Neurologists are getting better at locating modular activity in the brain because of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC)

eg the prefrontal cortex is home to the high level executive functions which involve being both rational and emotional in the process of responding relatively slowly while setting priorities and making decisions. Note also that the decision making process in the pre-frontal cortex is shaped by integration with many other modules and networks which, amongst other things, trigger physiological and physical responses while preventing the upset of homeostatic control systems.

David Eagleman offers the analogy of the mindbrain being like a parliament. In the self conscious and in the unconscious there are groups of Is - like there are MPs in parliament. There are many agendas and intentionalities clustered in continuously competing modules and networks. Thus 'reality' and the 'I' illusion are an ongoing changeable feast.

During the above activity where I was witnessing - what was going on? Nothing comes from nothing. Why did that I choose those particular TFMs? Answer = because of minor evolutions of nature, nurture and chance 10 minutes ago, from childhood from our ancestors.

I often think of William the Witness MP. He is a cool dude in his 60s but he keeps up with radical and progressive TFM and with consilience between individual and coalitionary MPs. In essence he functions like the speaker in parliament – he encourages the objectification of the process rather than the content of what goes on.

Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese Zen man, recommends a similar objectification of mind stuff. He recommends sitting still and when a TFM appears to ask of it – What is it? How strong is it? and How long does it last?

I is not as straightforward as we sometimes think. And now the conundrum is politicised. The ancient Chinese knew something when they reckoned that “the reality that can be described is not the real reality”. Easy come, easy go.

I can't be bothered (ICBB)

I can't be bothered (ICBB) – is one of my key acronyms

I could search the archives to see what I have done with it before

but – ICBB. (but see the list at the bottom of this article)

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

It depends on which 'I' has the upper hand. And there are plenty to choose from.

eg

I should take a shower before going to the meeting this afternoon.

But – ICBB

I should at least wash, shampoo and condition my hair

But – ICBB

Where does the should, could or ought come from?

From a module in the unconscious.

How did it get there?

By nature, nurture or chance.

eg

Sub culturally when I was a child 'Friday night was bath night' – in a tub in front of the fire in the living room. The precious hot water was shared by all the family in turn.

Then came hot and cold running water in the bathroom and in the kitchen.

Then came the power shower in the bathroom

With the new, labour saving technology came new 'shoulds' concerning personal hygiene. Ordinary soap gets replaced by shower-gel and shampoo. Sophisticated people have a shower and a change of clothes, especially underware, at least once a day - whether or not they need it.

I spent most of my working days in the tropics where I sweated a lot and often changed my clothes. I employed home helps to take them to the river for washing. The domestic water supply was very erratic and I became a master at washing all over from a big mug.

Cultural 'oughts' evolve through time and some change faster than others. The division of labour now includes slices for advertisers and propagandists. The goal is to convince customers and clients to consume commodities that display their status in the cultural hierarchy.

Once a week I venture into civilisation's class conscious shops and supermarkets (eg Poundland, LIDL, Tesco, M&S) It amuses me to note which items capture my attention and how, by being mindful of what goes on in my mindbrain, attention avoids being taken prisoner. I could thus make a retrospective non-shopping list - but ICBB.

Earlier blogs that deal with ICBB

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/existential-points-of-view.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/when-is-blog-useful.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/end-of-2014-letter.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/unspeakable-speech.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-doodle-focus.html

http://naesaebad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/the-resolution-for-2015.html

“to continue remembering to let go of busy-ness and to revel in the can’t be bothered (CBB) frame of mind and the release it brings from mundanity.” [LINK]

Leadership revisited

In the late 1990s I designed and delivered an up to date course on leadership, management and administration (LMA) for education functionaries in Lesotho. A few years later I tweaked the course and delivered it to a group of community economic development functionaries in Scotland.

Twenty years later much of the traditional thinking about LMA is still around but it has often evolved by incorporating the latest thinking from (a) neuroscience, (b) psychology - positive, cognitive, social and evolutionary, and (c) mindfulness meditation.

Some key points in the new thinking include:-

• There are neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). There are modules in networks in a constant churn which maintain a sense of 'reality' in which 'I' features.
• There is considerable neural plasticity - “What fires together wires together”. “Use it or lose it”. It is never too late to change your mind.
• There is new thinking on the topics of mind v matter; and free-will v determinism.
• Most mind/brain activity is in the Unconscious and Self consciousness is a minor bit player after the event. (So much for the European Enlightenment)
• It is part of the human condition to imagine that there is an abiding self or ego. But it is possible to enter a non-egoic state and to be in 'flow' in the zone.
• There is a growing awareness of the complexity of (a) the three pound brain; (b) of its location on the cosmic zoom; and (c) of the potential of experiencing 'no boundaries'
• The human brain is shaped by nature, nurture and serendipity in astonishing detail)

Multi me

When sitting quietly the 'I' word can be used as a pointer to a mind state that seems to objectively exist. But there is a feeling for something that is my brain – ie I am other than my brain which has a mind of its own. The following dialogues give the flavour:

Statement:“I prefer bangers and mash to fish and chips.”

Question: “Who is the I that prefers and why does the preference exist?”

Statement: “I believe in God the Father almighty.”

Question: “Who is the 'I' that believes and what about God the Mother?

Neurology shows that thoughts, feelings and moods are being continually churned so as to monitor and interpret the incoming sense data in advance of reacting or responding. My 'I' [aka my minds other minds] is changing all the time in mini and maxi ways. The following flow of consciousness gives something of the flavour:

I feel the need to eat less and take more exercise.

I also cannot be bothered.

I make bargains with myself – 2 biscuits now and a ten minute walk later; 12.5 minutes for a chocolate biscuit.

I can bribe myself with home made muffins rather than Coop biscuits

I could grow my own food – or at least make better use of the garden

I cannot be bothered

I could develop a routine for exercising my hands and therefore improving my music and my handwriting.

I could develop a routine for … (many things)

I could leave it to the unconscious to sort thing out.

I try to avoid making a to-do-list – dethrone rationality – be postmodern

I should change my clothes and bed clothes more often

I could do the washing up immediately after every meal.

It was scary when I realised that there are so many cultural and subcultural shoulds and coulds.

I have lived and worked in six different countries.

I could develop indexes for … (various archives).

To be a holistic leader there is need to listen, focus and plan - and some of this can be done in a non-egoic frame of mind.

Of the best leaders,

when they are gone,

the people all say,

we did it ourselves.

(Tao teh Ching)

Evolving expectations

The mood this morning was of a positive and expanding new dawn. Grab hold and make a difference. But there was also a countervailing mood of 'can't be bothered'.

But what would I be bothered about? What matters? What is my, our, the purpose? Is it acceptable that I should be comfortable without answers to those questions? Who decides and on what grounds?

We humans swim in a restless ocean of cultural expectations. They evolved to ensure that we cooperate with others to meet our basic needs and thus be well conditioned for mating and child rearing.

The expectations vary (a) with the five life stages - new born, child, adolescent, mature, elderly, (b) with the culture specific pattern of hierarchy and division of labour, and (c) with the economic system - foraging, settled agriculture, city states, empires.

I am now a retired elder with no wife or children. But I have a pension, a supermarket just along the street, and a gaggle of friends scattered around the planet. In my early mature years I aspired to make the world a better place by, amongst other things, making myself a better person. In my elderly state the expectations look the same but the worldviews have shifted. The words now point to different realities, and they are channeled through three main disciplines – neuroscience, psychology (positive, social, cognitive and evolutionary) and mindfulness meditation.

We are hard wired to absorb and be guided by the worldviews (paradigms) of our natal culture. We use confirmation bias to keep on track. But there is neuroplasticity. It is never too late to change your mind. Being mindful is the key. Earlier 'I' noticed the thought of a new dawn and of feeling that 'I' can't be bothered.

'I''I' – there are evolving expectations for the elderly.