habits of mind

There has recently been a change in habit formation. Past - attention was given to blogging about evolutionary psychology and brain science. Present - attention is given to recording my old songs.  

Running parallel with the above two foci there has been doodles and doses. There have been fewer doodles of late and perhaps more doses.

The non judgemental ‘witness’ has been aware of thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) before they have a chance to swamp the attention centre. The mind state is mainly non-egoic. No self, no problem. 

BUT – of course – the mind generates many other TFM and most of them flash past faster than they can be captured as spoken or written words. They each have their moments which range between fractions of a second when in egoic mode and several hours when in peak non-egoic mode.

the world of work?

The meaning of life in a world without work

As technology renders jobs obsolete, what will keep us busy? Sapiens author Yuval Noah Harari examines ‘the useless class’ and a new quest for purpose.



Click HERE

beyond the stone age

There have been three phase of evolution – cosmic, biological and cultural. Matter and energy are in flux and Homo Sapiens is a recent result. The basics are variations and survival of the fittest variations. The process is ongoing. We are on the road that is made by walking – on the never ending highway. 

Cosmic and biological evolution have no forward plan but fascinating stuff is produced. Cultural evolution holds the potential for pre-planning. In the early days language evolved and created stories that were all myth and magic but nonetheless enabled a huge (exponential) growth in population and technology. 

The mindbrain of Homo sapiens is hard wired to recognise me, us and them. Left to its own devises the selfish me can be altruistic in dealings with us and belligerent in dealings with them. The tendency towards these positions is deep rooted instinct. But fortunately there is neural plasticity. By taking thought and noticing feelings and moods a thinker can revise their position. 

When ideologies collide there is war. There are political, economic, environmental and religious world views that even ‘modern’ citizens are willing to kill and die for.  

But it is never too late to change your mind or the minds of others. Just sit and bear non judgmental witness to the thoughts, feelings and moods that  pass through the attention centre. Variety is the spice of life, dogma is its poison.

In most cultures there is an elite that tries to control what goes on. Their impact will depend on where their heads and personalities are at. They have messages of hope and of fear so as to win over hearts and minds.  

An increasing number of world citizens are noting what their mindbrains are up to and they are rising above the myths and magic of the stone age. If high level positions are given over to such modern, scientific and reformed individuals then cultural evolution can be directed towards making the world and the planet a better place.

Peace making thoughts

This morning there were peace making thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) about the more glorious TFM.  There was an enhanced sense of time and space that was grounded in the notion of a cosmic zoom, and in the three phases of evolution – cosmic, biological and cultural.

In the beginning was the big bang which gave rise to hydrogen and helium and then to all the other elements in Mendeleyev’s periodic table.  There was matter and energy interacting to form universes, galaxies, solar systems and many suns and planets. This was the phase of cosmic evolution – it has not stopped.

I am not an astronomer and what I see when I consider the night sky are tiny spots of light arranged in constellations. So my viewpoint is closer to that of the stone age ancestors rather than to modern scientists. But I trust the well-informed scientists to monitor and challenge each other. Arguably developments in ‘evolutionary psychology’ and ‘neurology’, have given us ‘brain science’ as a new paradigm.

The middle phase is biological evolution. In the beginning a singular, self-replicating, biochemical blueprint evolved and formed the basis of all living things.  It guides the function of all single and many celled plants and animals.   All living things use the same DNA.  There is a unity of biochemistry.

I have studied biochemistry and have wondered at the elegant poetry of Glycolysis, the Kreb’s Cycle and of many other sophisticated, biochemical routines which are found in the cells of all organisms. This is strong evidence that ‘life’ evolved only once.

The next phase is cultural evolution. Culture is possible and necessary in animals that interact with each other. The more advanced organisms have central and peripheral nervous systems which gather information through sense organs (eg eyes and ears), process it in memory modules, and produce chemical, electrical and motor responses.

Culture is particularly important in human beings who have language and can share detailed thoughts, feelings and moods. Language is recently evolved. It’s full potential is still to be realised.

The ancestors used language to create a vast range of myths and magic. But these were based on intuition and imagination rather than on evidence and facts. (eg the flat earth). Since the turn of the centuries there has been a lot of new thinking in the field of brain science. The main idea is that the world view of an individual is rooted in nature, nurture and chance. And the good news is that the contributions of nature (eg instinct, intuition, reflex and various biases) appear to be plastic. It is never too late to change your mind – or anybody else’s (think propaganda.)

Back to the cosmic zoom. Life as we know it is very recently evolved in astronomical terms - and it will be gone when the sun runs out of fuel (hydrogen and helium again.) We are all doomed. It would be nice if people, politicians and policy makers were to practice mindfulness meditation and thus speak truth to power. Most people would know that the reality that can be described is not the real reality and is not worth killing or dying over. It is never too late to change your mind with peacemaking thoughts.