Like minds

Sam Harris says it in an interdisciplinary way that is rooted in meditation and neuroscience. I have been impressed by his talks in Youtube over the years but it was only yesterday that I began on his written work with (2014) “Waking up – searching for spirituality without religion”.

Wow – he writes uncannily like me although this might be because (a) I unconsciously copy him (b) we have been influenced by the same authors and evidence, or (c) that which fascinates us is hard wired in to our mindbrains after generations of selection.

Get his books here

The unconscious driver

There is a stream of thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) passing through the attention centre. And there are many topics in quick succession. ‘I’ am being swept along like autumn leaves in a bubbly stream. It is not surprising therefore that there is a craving for a story line which results in my being non-egoic, focussed and therefore peaceful.

Most of the TFM are centred on egoic social stuff. I sense that much of it comes from early childhood. There is a mirroring of the TFM of Mam and Dad and an assortment of ‘significant’ others. Much of the stuff was informally caught rather than formally taught. There is a feeling that members of the community are watching my every move – “What will the neighbours think?” (Note: omniscient God will see anything the neighbours miss.)

In my present renunciant life style, the intention with writing is that gut-felt subjectivity should trump evidence-based objectivity. The idea is to let the unconscious be in the driver’s seat.

If I was an ordained monk I would be with people intent in being mindful during all their waking hours. I have attended many, well structured, short retreats. There is affirmation and encouragement in mixing with fellow travellers but they cannot do it for you.

“you gotta walk that lonesome valley
you gotta walk it by yourself
nobody here can walk it for you
you gotta walk it by yourself.
(Woody Guthrie)

And I have a ‘thing’ about time and bells.

When I was a student and then a teacher I was expected to drop everything every 40 minutes. When I retired, I thought I would be free of them pealing in my ears; but now there is medication every four hours; pill popping punctuates the day. But this might be a good thing.

The prefrontal cortex is home to the higher executive functions (HEF). People are hard wired for project logical frameworks (Logframes).  This is good stuff for physical planners and engineers but it is not the way of evolution where there is no central planning, forward thinking or striving after beauty and perfection. It is good enough if it out-breeds the competition.

These days ‘I’ allocate chunks of time to specific actions which include:

• sitting quietly doing nothing but being a non-judging witness
• being numinously awe struck (eg the light and heat in the sun room) 
• acting non-egoically in flow, groove or zone (eg read, write, doodle, musical things, media, house-keeping, feeding, peeing, pooping etc)

 

A logframe could be prepared.  The man in the white coat could define aims and objectives with objectively verifiable Indicators (OVI) and means of verification (MOV). But this would be a case of the scientist investigating himself, and of using his mind to study his mind. There is thus the subjective/objective problem.

SO - this story was built from a tiny fraction of the many items of TFM that emerged from the unconscious in the past few days. ‘I’ was not in control of the process. But language and logic demand a causal agent.

Enter the ‘muse’ - within the non-egoic framework of ‘flow’. The reality, in my case, is most often hum drum rather than magic. Heavy editing is sometimes needed. Note that for many authors the output from the muse is perfect on first appearance. This suggests a continuum of outputs from the unconscious that range from rough and humdrum through to polished and magic’. And a key difference is in terms of egocity. If the mindbrain is occupied with I, Me and Mine (or with them and us) in the past, present and future the attention centre will not have space for other TFM.

It might be useful to compare two of my ‘creative’ mindsets – doodling and writing. In both cases there is non-egoic non-action which is associated with peace and contentment.

I doodle using black ink so there is no possibility of editing. I use big strokes to divide the A4 page into sections. Then there are subsections and patterns and quite often conversion of spaces to faces. After about 15-30 minutes the doodle is finished so I put the date on the page and move on to other things.

Writing is like doodling with words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and stories. The title can appear early or late in the process and may sometimes change. I begin with a blank screen and a word or phrase arrives to build into sentences and paragraphs. The last paragraph usually mirrors the first one. In many cases the mindbrain goes back to egoic mode so I take a break. I assume that the unconscious works on the story during the break.

SO – the real driver of ‘me’ is ‘my’ unconscious which is shaped by nature, nurture and serendipity. If the goal is to ‘know your self’ then you will have to learn to make yourself non-egoic. The man said: “No self no problem”.

true data?

Speaking truth to power
TRUTH?

big data and post truth
nifty overview

Two sufferings

The first of the four noble truths of Buddhism is that ‘in life there is suffering’. But there are two types of suffering – essential (real) and negotiable (illusory).

Take for example my ‘Parkinson’s Disease’(PD).  Nerve cells in a particular part of my brain are dying and, amongst other things, this results in the loss of fine motor control of my hands. This causes illegible handwriting, reduced ability to play musical instruments, and slow and clumsy use of the computer keyboard and mouse. The medication does not help much with these problems but there are workarounds; I have given up handwriting other than short notes; I engineer the music played by other people; and I spend a lot of time word processing on the laptop.

Those are examples of essential suffering. They are non-egoic ‘facts’ that will not go away. But they can be accompanied by negative thoughts, feelings, moods and storylines which are not fixed. By taking thought these can be expunged.

I was first diagnosed with PD seven years ago.  There was a lot of negotiable suffering in the beginning and my medication included anti-depressants. But I had a daily sitting practice on my own and a weekly session with a sangha. This regular process of mind changing led to my being a non judgemental witness to the thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) churned out from the unconscious.

These days I spend most of my time focussed on particular tasks. Between tasks attention is open to infestation by the egoic and chaotic TFM from the unconscious. There is still need for training.

Legend has it that a monk came speeding through the village on a horse. The headman shouted, “where are you going at such a speed?”. The monk replied, “ I don’t know – better ask the horse.”

My mind has a mind of its own and it is a monkey mind where the monkey is hyperactive and has fleas. My monkey is created by a mix of nature, nurture and serendipity. My father, mother and Auntie set the cultural tone of the TFM – they were helped by John Knox, Jesus, Aristotle and some impressive eastern characters such as the Buddha, Hui-neng, Confucius and Lao Tzu.

“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!”

Before I figured out how to turn my mind around there was a tendency for the unconscious to totally populate the attention centre with TFM bundles of anxiety, panic and/or depression. This resulted in gut crunching cold sweats, hot flushes, nausea, dizziness, palpitations, feelings of low self-esteem and an urge to avoid other people. AND – in my stoic sub culture it was expected that, through all of this, I should bite the bullet, keep a stiff upper lip and put on a brave face.

In life there is suffering – its a sair chav!

My unretirement

I made it through to retirement with two cottages, a pension and savings. My parents have long since passed away. I never married and I have no children. I worked in five different countries and held prestigious positions as a technical cooperation officer (TCO) working initially for governments and laterally for non-government organisations (NGO). I believed that the work was worthwhile most of the time and I functioned as a workaholic project junkie.

But I no longer work for the Man. I am now independently wealthy and free to do whatever I fancy. My independent financial advisor (IFA) suggested that I spend my money given that I cannot take it with me. But on what? I have done more than enough travel for a lifetime, I am a frugal consumer, and I am not much taken to good causes. At present the most popular notion is to leave my estate to local community groups. This might have a demonstration effect in terms of encouraging local level asset democracy.

I have a long-lasting and ongoing fascination with the concept of ‘changing minds’; both my own and those of other people. Nature, nurture and serendipity (NNS) stamped a natal culture pattern on me. This included the initial quirks of individual family and friends and the later habits and customs from my student days and the worlds of work and play. Having noted that the underlying blueprint was the Scottish Presbyterianism of John Knox (1513-72), I decided that there must be better ways to be human and that I would have to travel to experience them.

In 1968 I was a student of chemistry, psychology, botany and zoology. This was mind expanding stuff that developed a tendency to reject the 9 to 5 worklife in little boxes on the hillside. The existential angst as a student in Aberdeen and as a teacher in Edinburgh gave rise to 42 songs. There have been 24 songs since then reaching up to 1998 with a dry spell during 1980 to 1994. There are 22 songs on line in two albums – “A cure for the blues” and “The never ending highway”.

Here are a dozen lyric bits from the earlier phase:

1968 – My life unchanging is it worthwhile, Walk the same pavements, Cover the same mile

1969 – What the hell should care if the whole wide is wrong

1969 – I am the prisoner and the keeper, and I’ve just broke out of jail

1969 – The writing’s on the wall behind the paper, But the wall is tumbling down

1970 – Hang on to what you’ve got, You ain’t got much but it’s all you got

1970 – There’s a voice inside you, It’s the voice of other men

1971 – I don’t really want to have to break the rules

1971 – I married a harem of thinkers

1973 – Threw away maps and plans, To be a spur of the moment man

1976 – My thoughts are going simpler, My urge to work is gone

1978 – The man said, “there is no answer”

1980 – One more open road and a shining bright tomorrow

I remain true to that initial quest for better ways to be human.

Since speech evolved a lot of myth and magic has been generated. Most of it has been and gone. Everybody has a natal culture based on nature, nurture and serendipity (NNS). This is usually parochial and xenophobic and creates ‘them v us’ but it works in terms of populating the planet with people.

Our ancestors moved from foraging to settled agriculture and beyond. There was, and still is, much division of labour. This usually includes shamans, mystics, priests, poets and philosophers – the religious dimension. Much of this is institutionalised and fossilized. But it keeps the peasants in ignorance so that they are afraid and biddable.

But every now and then exceptional individuals turn up talking about liberation, release, insight, enlightenment. These are states of mind which can be switched on through the practice of mindfulness meditation.

Taoism has known about “The Way” for thousands of years. But it never caught on big-time in terms of liberation of the masses. Religion inevitably gets into bed with politics and helps to legitimize rule by a tiny elite. In life there is suffering. But the times are changing.

In these modern times there is a new and rapidly expanding way of relating to ‘reality’. The roots now lie with science rather than religion. Suffering is a devilment of the monkey mind that leaps quickly from one topic to another without any self-ish intention – the mind stuff emerges from the unconscious. Your mind has a mind of its own.

There are two types of cure for suffering. The first is to sit quietly and bear non-judgmental witness to what turns up. Notice, label, let it go.  The second is to focus on the task in hand and to drop thoughts of ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’. You are thus in ‘flow’ eg musicians and brick layers are in the ‘groove’, athletes and house keepers are in the ‘zone’.

SO – briefly – many modern people are capable of achieving non-egoic mindfulness. I am one of them. 68 years on the planet and still going strong. I notice what happens in my mind and brain and write about it on a blog so that other people may be encouraged to stay on the way.

Better ways to be human depend on changing minds

Khaneman on flow

The following quotation comes from Daniel Kahneman (2011) Thinking, fast and slow (pp40-41)

“Fortunately, cognitive work is not always aversive, and people sometimes expend considerable effort for long periods of time without having to exert willpower.

The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced six-cent- mihaly) has done more than anyone else to study this state of effortless attending, and the name he proposed for it, flow, has become part of the language.

People who experience flow describe it as ‘a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems,’ and their descriptions of the joy of that state are so compelling that Csikszentmihalyi has called it an ‘optimal experience’.

Many activities can induce a sense of flow, from painting to racing motorcycles – and for some fortunate authors I know, even writing a book is often an optimal experience.

Flow neatly separates the two forms of effort: concentrating on the task and the deliberate control of attention.

Riding a motorcycle at 150mph and  playing a competitive game of chess are certainly very effortful. In a state of flow, however, maintaining focused attention on these absorbing requires no exertion of self-control, thereby freeing resources to be directed to the task at hand.”

From Wikipedia;

“In positive psychology, flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.

Named by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields (and has an especially big recognition in occupational therapy), though the concept has existed for thousands of years under other guises, notably in some Eastern religions. Achieving flow is often colloquially referred to as being in the zone.”

And I have mentioned flow, zone, groove, muse at many places in this blog. Enter the keywords in the search boxes in the right and bottom margins and you might turn up something apposite.

 

Lifelong learning

My purpose was not so much to teach Biology as to make learning a lifelong habit. Learning supports escape from the myths and magic of your natal culture which will have evolved to promote some version of them v us. The task is thus as Bob Marley suggested – “emancipate yourself from mental slavery”.

Human cultures evolved slowly during the long millenia of foraging. And then they evolved quickly through settled agriculture, city states, empires, nation states and, nowadays, the globalised economy.

The human brain seems to be hard wired to create a small group of leaders who control a large group of the led. The pairings include the elite v the masses, the haves v the have nots, the starving v the obese, the bosses v the workers, the slave owners v the slaves, etc.

And, as the cultures get bigger, there is more division of labour -  God/King, priests, politicians, policemen, soldiers, philosophers, producers, manufacturers, traders, shop keepers, insurers, bankers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, actors, musicians, craftsmen, athletes, creative artists etc

Given the wide range of special interests there will be conflicts and systems for regulating them. Rules and regulations are created and are disseminated in more or less elegant ways.

Human babies are not born as blank slates. Their slate is hard wired into predetermined sections which become operational on receiving inputs from the environment. Minds have to change. The basic process is ‘education’ which has a range of meanings with ‘indoctrination’ at the spoonfeeding end, and ‘enlightenment’ at the free-thinking end.

I was a school pupil and a university student at the end of the teaching = lecturing period.  Come in, sit down, shut up, listen, remember, repeat in written exams.

When I began teaching the trend was towards individualised learning that was practice based. Topics were introduced through worksheets using a core extension system which allowed different students to cover topics at different levels.  And continuous assessment rather than final exams was the preferred method of grading students. But in the third world, where I did most of my teaching, the conditions called for enlightened chalk and talk.

I gave up teaching to be an education advisor and gave up that to be a plain language editor. My audience moved from secondary school students to community activists; and my topics moved from science/biology to social and community development and poverty reduction.

I am infatuated with my own propaganda. I am a lifelong learner. Topics include archaeology, music, drama, the social sciences, ICT, Website design, social and community development. I hold degrees in Zoology, Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, and in Education. And, more recently, aged 68, the academic interests include evolutionary psychology, neurology, and mindfulness meditation; the ICT interests include social networking, blogging and various digital music programmes; and there are over 800 doodles.

The bottom line – lifelong learning and changing minds

The promoted unconscious

[A catch up on some recent notions]

During the European enlightenment, the rational, self-conscious mind got star billing.  The crude unconscious was hidden in the basement where it dealt with sex, sewerage and other mucky, Freudian stuff.

The individual was king and rational thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) were the drivers in (a) interpreting sensory inputs, (b) planning rational reactions and responses, and (c) monitoring and evaluating ongoing implementation. These are higher executive functions (HEF) and they are housed in the pre-fontal cortex.

New ways of thinking about the structure and function of the mindbrain are evolving. The self-conscious has been demoted to a tiny bit player whose understandings come a fraction of a second after they appear in the unconscious.

The scanning machines of the neurologists provide hard evidence of different nodes of activity in different parts of the mindbrain. They show that there are neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) that are busy parallel processing 24/7, and updating a world view with associated points of view.

In recent times the widely held sociocultural viewpoints of under-developed  peoples have been rated as so much myth and magic which nonetheless helped to weld the believers together and to create the politically virile duality of them and us.

Busy brains

There are busy brains all over the planet. Some are tiny as in earthworms some are massive as in whales. They do the thinking that links sensory stimuli to reaction and response. Human brains are  quite advanced. They have evolved from elementary units in the cold blooded reptiles to increasingly complex organs in the hot blooded mammals and on through the primates and hominids and so to us.

For most of our ancestral time we were sparse hunters and gatherers and our impact on the environment was slight. But then, recently, language erupted and gave rise at first to myths and magic and, extremely recently, to evidence-based scientific hypothesis and theory.

Many, some would say most, modern people still navigate their imagined world by means of myth and magic. For example there is thought to be an old, white man with a long beard who lives in the sky and who is omniscient, omnipotent, supernatural and works in mysterious ways. Such a holy ghost is modelled on man the family patriarch. Nietzsche reckoned that such a God is dead; but now Nietzsche is dead and a large chunk of humanity still believe in the inscrutable celestial.

Wearing his psychological hat at the end of the 19th century William James noted that people who believe that God exists behave differently from non-believers.  Anthropologists have shown that there is a religious component to all socio-cultural systems. The myths and magic serve to explain the meaning and purpose of human beings in the cosmos. It seems that people need to tie together the loose ends and thus develop cognitive consonance and peace of mind.

If belief in myth and magic allows individuals and groups to survive and possibly even flourish then so much the better. They escape the existentialist’s ennuie and dread of inauthenticity.

The modern, scientific point of view is cosmic in scope. Onwards from the big bang to the eventual heat death of everything that evolves. The good news is that the end is a very long way off and we are presently moving into a period where planned, cultural evolution is taking over from the serendipitous, biological variety.

SO – many brains are busy most of the time. They tell stories that ensure that we interact in useful ways with changes in our physical and cultural environments. I am not yet clear about why some brains are occupied with thoughts about evolutionary psychology, neurology and the big bang. Might it just be collateral damage. Subjectively I get a good feeling from the science associated with the new thinking. It keeps my brain busy