[MD] Step One

[118]

Hey John,

I once asked a Zen Buddhist priest what the principle of Zen was, he said
Balance.  So you got some friends in high places.  Yea, rubbing shoulders, I
had nothing to do with it, just happened to be in the right place at the
right time, guess that's why I keep moving.  Usually I am more like Dr.
John, check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuRDMu87tl0&feature=related

For Borges I was dragged to my sister's graduation.  For Shlain I was
visiting a guy at some weird-ass club in the redwoods called the Bohemian
Grove.

I am looking for and seeing signs all the time.  Most of the time I have no
idea what they mean.  I was driving home today in Ventura, CA during a
thunderstorm.  I was waiting at a stoplight and right across the street, a
bolt of lightening came down and blew up some electrical box, there was a
big burst of sparks that showered into the air.  I was expecting to get a
tablet with some commandments on it.  Well, I'm kind of slow, so if there
was some kind of tablet there, I sure didn't see it.  Perhaps somebody more
able would have run with it.

What is it about the brain that gives us a personal home?  The second most
complex part neurologically is the stomach.  I suppose that if the stomach
had eyes and ears we would think that we lived down there.  Some people seem
like they do anyway.

I think that if there were nobody else around (from the beginning), we would
not have the "I" concept.  This wouldn't mean that we wouldn't be
experiencing things like we do now, just not as "I".  This whole "I" concept
may be similar to each cell in our body having an "I" concept.  In this way
we can differentiate from others and find our personal place in the
structure of things, kind of like a natural tag.  Without that kind of tag
we wouldn't know to work together to maintain the human race, in the same
way that a cell would not know to work with other cells to make up our
bodies.  Its kind of like an eye for an eye (please stop laughing it wasn't
that funny!)

Yeah, male and female brains, as they say in France, "Vive la Difference".
 Not very PC however.  Me? I'm just a robot.

Mark

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 12:21 PM, John Carl <ridgecoyote at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mark I'm glad you brought up Shlain, he has come up before and I think
> Marsha's reading him, got about halfway through that book probably (me
> too!).
>
> When I read it, I ended up having to put it down because I got so excited
> about the congruence with MoQ insights into classical and romantic
> reasoning
> with the Romantic being actually the higher - that the great intellectual
> leaps of modernity were prefigured by artistic genius.
>
> One big reason I argue for a more inclusive term than "intellectual".
>
> That you actually got to meet the guy is very cool, in my book.  First
> Borges, now Shlain.  You sure rub elbows with my kind of people, Mark!
>
>  It can be speculated that the "I" resides
> > mainly in the cortex, and complex thought more in the frontal cortex.  Of
> > course this is a simplification since there are connecting pathways all
> > over
> > the place.
>
>
> Did you know there is a brain in your feet?  I just found out about this.
>  The neural pathways for balance don't all go to the brain, there's part of
> our nervous system that "stands on it's own feet"...I'm pausing to let the
> laugh track die down...
>
>
> >
> > So, what we hold in active thought is a refined portion of what is going
> > on;
> > and there is a lot else going on which affects the active thought, even
> > when
> > we are asleep.  I would say that most of our thinking is not at the
> > conscious level but outside of it.  The intellect therefore is not that
> > simple, and certainly not measurable at this time.  Most insights and
> > revelations may occur outside of our active thinking.  This could be
> where
> > the Eureka comes from.  There is lots and lots of ruminating going on
> > behind
> > the scenes.
>
>
> See, this is that part of that song of Jess Hill's, that keeps going
> through
> my head because she puts it so nicely - there comes a time when the voice
> of
> the wind becomes a sign from above.  The Eureka moment, as you call it.
>  Upon which hinges everything.
>
>
> That part of the brain which is being used for active
> > concentrated thought does so for the purposes of communication (in my
> > opinion).  Thus we believe we think in words.  What is perhaps really
> going
> > on is wordless until the final stage.  The "I" is formed as a mirror.
> >
> >
> My stance is that the "I" is socially created.  It's nurtured, more than
> natured.  Admittedly the nature is all there to support this social
> patterning, but I don't see the social patterning as arising from the
> biological.
>
>
> And so we get to the classical and romantic as concepts.  Linear thinking
> > and lateral thinking, or wordy thinking and symbolic thinking, whatever,
> > RMP
> > describes it well.  Many believe that the two hemispheres have different
> > functions in this regard, and much has been written about this.  In terms
> > of
> > the final thought itself, they are not that different since it is refined
> > for expression, but how that thought is formed may be very different.
> >
> >
> It's very interesting to ponder the fact that humans have dichotomous
> existence with left brain/right brain and male/female reality.  In this
> reality, all males have the same brains and systems as the females, but
> they're repressed with hormones and such that cause the brains to function
> somewhat differently, with sex differences emphasizing left or right half.
>
>
>
> > If intellectual thought is a conglomeration of the deeper regions, and
> > modern art, and music, are too, then it stands to reason that they will
> > appear similar as final human expressions.  Intellectual thought may
> > require
> > much more training in terms of the expressive aspect, and show historical
> > progression.  Art thinking may be more direct in that it doesn't need to
> > memorize rules.  Music, if you are in a punk rock band and know the power
> > chords is pretty direct too.  Classical music of course would have a
> later
> > expression in music history, and current computer techniques allow all
> > sorts
> > of sounds and intervals.  In fact the history of thought can be
> paralleled
> > to innovations in technology   At a fundamental level all these
> expressions
> > are similar product of our brains.
> >
>
> Or to put in another way, all products of our brains is a mixture of these
> differences.  There are extremes, but for the most part expression is a
> balancing act.
>
> Hey, I like that.  Need to make it less wishy-washy and it'd be a swell
> bumper sticker
>
> "All expression is a balancing act."
>
> John Carl with the funny shoes and the ball on his nose
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