No end to flux

George Clark, 28 March 2008

There may have been times and places where people felt that "God's in his Heaven, All's right with the world!". The general world view was robust and reinforced through routines, rituals and stereotypes. There would have been certainty and cognitive closure.

No doubt: stick with tradition.

But, for many people, me included, our post-modern times are not like that. Contemporary free-thinkers are inclined to the view that "the only certainty is doubt" and that "the only constant thing is change". Science no longer deals with "the truth" but rather with "the best working hypothesis in the light of evidence presently available".

Ongoing doubt: go with the flow.

But, for many people, me included, the open, emergent, mode of thinking is tough to deal with. The average human brain seems to need certainty and cognitive closure. One way of managing this is to make a virtue of necessity and to have no doubt about the constancy of change. Some thoughts from holistic systems theory can help with this. The essential idea is that any 'thing' is made up of littler things and is simultaneously part of some bigger thing(s).

Consider the 'thing' which is your human mind. It generates 'meaning' and 'action'. What are the littler 'things' that make it up and what is the greater 'thing' of which it is part?

Your mind creates mental formations as a result of causes and conditions.  The causes and conditions are rooted in instinct, culture or chance; the mental formations have conscious and unconscious components. There is an ongoing internal flux as these littler bits interact  (a) with each other and (b) with the external environment.

And your mind is a small part of that bigger 'thing' which is the external (to you) environment. This has at least two components: the social and the physical.

We are social animals so each individual mind will have causes and conditions that are rooted in its cultural context which has many dimensions: political, economic, spiritual etc. Note that the interactions are two-way: we change the world by our presence while it is changing us.

And we also exist in a physical environment which supplies us with food, clothing and shelter. The interactions are again two-way. We are components of the planet's  living system which interacts constantly with the soil and the climate. We feed on  plants and animals and end up as fertiliser!

Note that the 'things' of systems theory go all the way up and all the way down. We can think in terms of a cosmic zoom.

Going up we have the planet, solar system, universe and the mind blowing concept of an infinite and eternal multiverse which is in an endless state of flux.

Going down we have organs, tissues, cells, molecules, atoms, and then we enter the counter-intuitive quantum world where matter and energy are interchangeable and in endless flux ('thingness' slips through our fingers).

SO – does this help with certainty and cognitive closure on your world view in the post-modern age? Does it help to solidify the flux: if only for a short time?

We can leave the last word to the awe-full Albert Einstein:

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. You cannot help but be in awe when you contemplate the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if you try merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity."

cool dudes

• The mind is off on a thought train.
• So?
• So I will reign it in and come back to the stillness.
• Why bother?
• Because being human, there is not much time to get things figured out.
• What kind of things?
• Things other than pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.
• There is an alternative?
• So they say?
• Who are they?
• The meditators?
• So who are they?
• Folk who pay attention to what goes on in their heads.
• Doesn't everybody do that?
• Everybody pays attention to stuff but only a few pay attention to attention itself.
• Sounds like 'introspection'?
• Something like that: thinking about thinking. Or perhaps better: being aware of what you are aware of.
• So what good does that do?
• It induces an altered state of consciousness
• So what alters?
• Your approach to being in the world
• How is it different?
• You become less selfish and more understanding of what other people are going through
• So what are other people going through?
• Life as a consumer in modern civilisation
• What is wrong with that?
• It involves grasping after the 'desirables' and trying to avoid the 'undesirables'
• Duh! Yeh! There is an option?
• Yup!
• Like what?
• Like realising that it is the 'I' that craves and that the 'I' is an illusion
• How does that help?
• No 'I' = no craving = release from the knee jerk reaction to fads and fashions = being a cool dude who passes easily through everything
• Sounds bland and boring
• Yup but those who get there don't see it like that. Those who get out of the rat race find bliss. A peaceful, easy feeling
• OK for some.
• Yup
• Strokes for folks?
• Yup

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford

Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford: "Explaining Religion Project" (EXREL)

Religion | Where angels no longer fear to tread | Economist.com

Religion | Where angels no longer fear to tread | Economist.com: "Where angels no longer fear to tread" - major new scientific study of the significance of religion to evolution

The unconscious iceberg – intention and the muse

George G Clark, 23 March 2008

The mind is a iceberg with consciousness as the little bit poking above the surface and the unconscious as the massive underwater bit. Both bits are programmed by similar causes and conditions and some of these are hard wired (nature) while other are programmed by culture (nurture).

These days I am inclined to 're-consider how my light is spent'. I arrange for time-out from busy-ness and I sit quietly for extended periods. I get in the small boat (see diagram) where (a) 'I' can be 'witness' to what is happening in consciousness and (b) I can be aware of what is going into and coming out of the unconscious. It becomes obvious that 'I' am in at least two minds.

I find that I am no longer willing to engage with many of the old 'shoulds' and 'oughts'. There are habits, stereotypes and viewpoints that no longer correspond to 'reality'. I now grudge stuff for which I once had a healthy appetite. There is conflict between conscious and unconscious promptings. Patterns of attraction and aversion are now for different topics of thought and ways of thinking.

Where once I was content to pay rational and objective attention to externals there is now a strong intention to pay heed to internal and subjective intuitions. Note that the latter have always been present and influential; but, in the days before I became mindful, their influence was rarely apparent and acknowledged. Given the iceberg, this was obviously less than ideal.

In reconsidering how my life is spent I now pay particular attention to my motivation ie to what enthuses me and to what I grudge doing. I play down the promptings to busy-ness which are the habitual 'shoulds'. The new pattern is to wait till the mood captures attention and then to spontaneously go with the flow.

Flow often begins as an 'Aha' moment. There is then effortless, non-egoic action. Control is self-less. Stuff just happens. The mind has a mind of its own – or so it seems in retrospect when ego consciousness has kicked back in. Note that the conscious mind can usually see ways to edit the outpourings of the unconscious! (Aha: if the 'muse' is speaking then why is it not word perfect? Beware magical thinking and reification!)

For me, at the present time, the muse is mainly attending to meta issues such as thinking about thinking (and feeling) and noticing what is being noticed. There is a heightened awareness of the multiple and subtle causes and conditions which drive the flow of thoughts and feelings, and also of the many subtle interactions between mind and body.

"If we begin to listen to the stream of thought as thought, to attend to thoughts as events in the field of awareness, and if we develop a certain calmness and quiet outwardly, we come to see our thinking much more clearly. We are able to listen to it and see exactly what is on our minds, and how much of it is just mental noise." (p405)
Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005) Coming to our senses – healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness; ISBN 0749925884

My fifth decade

George G Clark, 21 March 2008

This week saw the replacement, after ten years, of my 13 yr old Renault Megane for a new (to me) 3 year old version complete with electric windows, a CD player, and an onboard computer. The street value of the old car was £200 while the new one is worth £6000. Thirty times better?

This week also marks my 10^th year since swapping full time work in Lesotho for a freelance life in Portsoy. So has there been a comparable upgrading in my life style and quality of life?

The official work in Lesotho involved full-time institution building for advisory workers in Education: and the unofficial work involved running a home recording studio for local bands. Since then the official work has involved short-term information processing projects based on the idea that digested knowledge is power to the people: and the unofficial work has involved investigating the problems of how we can possibly and plausibly know anything, and what that might be. The recent official work has been channelled through Community Economic Development structures in Scotland (mainly PDL, BPL and CCSD) and through Civil Society in Tanzania (mainly Hakikazi Catalyst). The unofficial work has been channelled through various forms of journaling – including one-pagers. Tangible outputs have been hard copy booklets and a range of websites.

During the  decade I have been in touch with friends from times past and have also made new friends and acquaintances. The latter includes people from Portsoy and surrounding district with a sprinkling of others from Findhorn, Inverness and Tanzania.

New friends from Lesotho include Toshiko, and Ralph & Maria all of whom have visited Portsoy. Toshiko has been my travelling companion many times in Scotland but also in Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. There was also a walking trip to the White Desert in Egypt with the Boyds. Other trips during the decade include to Eigg, Edinburgh, London and Geneva. But, on the whole, I have not strayed much from the well known streets of Portsoy and indeed not all that often from the house and garden.

My abilities as a wordsmith and web designer have developed. Although the latter has tended to fossilize, the former continues to develop in the evolving tradition of plain language writing.

But the main existential thrust of the decade has been the drive to change mental gear. Much of this is captured in my 'let it begin with me' website. To engage with more of the same was to remain part of the problem rather than being a contributor to a solution. So there is an ongoing drive to find a more holistic pattern for being in the world. This is rooted in mindfulness meditation. The process has not been without its problems (eg malaise and burn out) but there may now be light at the end of the tunnel.

So, if my mind was a motor car, has the decade seen a shift from a £200 model to a £6000 one? Am I thirty times better than I used to be? It is hard to tell. How might such things be judged? Self judgements are dependant on mood. And, despite increasing depth and extent of mindfulness, the moods still swing. Some days I feel like a rusty old wreck while other days I feel spanking new and straight out of the box. Existential truth emerges from context and contexts are constantly changing. But we can be more or less mindful of what is going on. Be still and know.