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Keith,
Just a thought from my own world here.
The Arts as opposed to academic thought is concerned with the body as a whole
instrument. Consciousness is a working concept rather than a
mechanical or as Harry would say, an Object-ive reality. We are
alive and in flux and it is in doing that flux that we attain
mastery. On the other hand Object-ive reality is digital (again a
"working" concept) that stops time in order to examine something
visually.
Those of us who work with sound know that is an
impossibility even in the sound studio where we can do some rather amazing
things digitizing sound waves but still cannot separate an oboe from a voice
once they are "mixed." Eventually they will figure that
out. That object-fying or digit-izing is what in the art is
called "consciousness". The "unconscious" or "subconscious" is
another working term. Practically it refers
to action or thought taken from the whole
instrument. The intuition is the move from the
mega (unconscious) to the specific (conscious).
All knowledge is probably learned with the
potential for knowledge being genetic. I don't speak much about the
brain because it is constantly changing as is the information about such
things as the muscles. I do like Pribram's theories about "holism"
because it conforms to my experience of thinking from different parts of the
organism. You can't "think" from the brain, you with to experience
the whole and the whole speaks from its parts dependant upon the action
needed. You "Think" with you hands if you are a pianist and
with your intellect. With the articulation of your
instrument if you are a dancer and with your intellect. With the
voice and breath if you are a singer and with your intellect. All of
the above integrates the emotion as well.
Not long ago, incorrect information from science,
about the way that muscles worked, destroyed a whole generation of singers
who tried to conform to the latest "scientific knowledge" which were just
theories and inappropiate to build a person's life and technique on.
We had the same thing happen with the theories of thermodynamics which were
supposed to be the way the body worked with the breath but which again was far
too simple to support anything as complex as vocal technique, except for choir
singers. Science has ruined pianists hands and many singers voices
with their latest discoveries that were just someone's desire to get fame by
publishing their theories.
We can't build lives and careers on
fantasies. We work from practical experience and from the heritage
of language and practice. So we find the concepts of
consciousness to be useful. Although if another word appeared
tomorrow that was more useful we would abandon it. There is a third phase
which Donald Schoen has termed "Reflection in Action" which is a type of
awareness during action that is only the realm of the masters.
That means that you are able to be totally aware of your instrument both in an
act of specific control and intuitive trust that becomes an information
loop. Generally, with the average professional it is an act of
thinking before doing and then abandoning themselves to the action without
thinking except at specific practiced points. Gradually over the
years you "become" the music so completely that there is no distinction between
thought and action and that is "reflection in action." A flawed
concept but a step forward maybe. Indian people with the four
directional learning process and the seven layered spiral of growth are the
closest in their pedagogy to what artists experience in learning with their
bodies that I find complete. But those processes are over a thousand
year old. I suspect that there is a better explanation but science has not
come up with it to date. Certainly digital thought and physical
exploration is no answer thus far anymore than they can explain the coordination
of a concert pianist or the act of love.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 11:04
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] RE: But where's
the mind?
Hi Natalia,
At 01:06 06/06/2003 -0700, you
wrote:
Hello Keith,
You wrote, How
do you know you are free to change mind from moment to moment? Leave it to
the
scientific mind to ask and then try to prove the
obvious!
I'm not sure I understand
you.
Just because
electrical potential builds up in relevant brain cells *before* "taking"
(did you mean
extracting or making?--either way, doesn't matter) a
decision, does not mean brain is behind creating
thought or offering response. Electrical
potential building up in brain cells will also be responding
to input,
and how to sort & store same prior to response.
Yes, this is true. The point is, however, is that it is quite clear
that when we think "we" are deciding to do something it has already been
decided. How much "we" have had to do with the preliminaries is a moot point.
I happen to think that "my" decisions are "joint" decisions between me and
what David Bohm called a "quantum field", but that is purely a personal
speculation for which there is no proof nor ever likely to be.
Recent work on brain
shows that women use
more areas of the brain in functioning compared to
men, and also that for everyone--certain sections
do more than they
originally thought and that more tasks are shared than originally thought.
Yes, brain studies show that this is
true
What was conclusive
before is subject to new conclusions. I will concede that brain is a vessel
of communication.
Brain will pursue pathways of subconscious & conscious
memory,
There's really no difference
between conscious and subconscious memory. There's no separate mental "box"
where the unconscious lies -- as implied by Freudian theory but a myth which
still lingers on in the way that people think about the brain. Conscious and
subconscious memories are both in the same place -- the cortex. There are some
memories which are easier to recall than others.
and possibly
collective conscious
in order to process new stimuli or questions or
whatever researchers are providing to people used in
these experiments.
Again, I suspect this type of research is the pre-amble to more advanced
studies
aimed at trying to measure mind energy
You're posing a concept which you called "mind energy". How do you
define this in terms which can be measured? Do you mean the total energy that
the brain uses?
-at which they
will never succeed, mind's abstract qualities
alone precluding that. How do you suppose
they are going to research love energy? Or creative
energy or capacity
for art, music or design? How are they going to figure out appreciation for
beauty?
I am afraid that I have no idea
what you mean by "love energy".
Though they
may have some success at measuring brain energy output or intake, even to
some extent
physical processes--mind function, as opposed to brain
function, will remain a mystery to science.
I'm afraid that you will have to prove that there is "mind
function" in opposition to "brain function".
When you were
growing up you were constantly changing your mind due to new information.
Then you
got to university, and the same applied, but you were trained to
back up everything you put to paper so
that you could be taken into the
commonly accepted paradigm of "scientific". From there, the scientific
self-censor insisted that you back up everything with usually other
people's proof.
I think you have
the wrong angle on what scientists regard as "proof". There are no scientific
laws or beliefs which are considered to be proved once and for all. There are
really only "working statements" which are amended from time to time if and
when (and it's nearly always when) they (or parts of them) fail to be
corroborated by well-designed experiments which probe the the weak spots in
the "law" (and sometimes succeed in finding them!)..
Questioning
everything
is good, so that you understand something for yourself, yet
believing only that which has been proven in
the lab is not only
limiting your consideration of other possible factors, holding you back from
using your
mind freely, it is expecting you to relive someone else's
past in for future work to proceed, thereby
slowing you down.
Once again, you are misunderstanding what is meant by "proven in
the lab". Nothing is ever proven. A scientific fact or law or truth is always
provisional. How do you know you are totally "free" when taking decisions or
believing something? It feels like that, to be sure, but it isn't always so
-- for example, a person who's been hypnotised says he is free when
carrying out a post-hypnotic suggestion.
Scientist
becomes mostly historian, designing "better" nukes and a more marketable
pain reliever.
Significant research is hardly ever conducted because the
petrochemical/pharmaceutical companies providing most funding even to
universities have greedy agendas. Historical evidence has therefore been
suspect.
Not at all. Independent
foundations and governments fund much more research than petrochemical and
pharmaceutical companies added together. I don't know the figures but I would
have thought that the ratio is at least 20:1.
I'm afraid I don't
understand much of what you write below, though every now and again you use
phrases which suggest that you believe that it is desirable for an individual
to make an act of faith, and in this I agree with you. However, I believe that
any act of faith must be minimal, and it should always be consistent with
current scientific language and not in opposition to
it.
Keith
I'm certain
you are familiar with the concept of projection in psychology. All people,
not just those deemed to have mental illnesses, internalize thoughts or
feelings they would rather not have, and, not wishing to harbour such
feelings due to guilt, will project them onto someone else in order to
alleviate the guilt. Of course, this results in further guilt, fractured and
projected again onto others in an endless nightmare of projections until
such time that you acquire a great psychologist who is able to help you
recognize what you've been up to. With
luck, meaning a success rate of
about one in two hundred and fifty-six, you will recognize why you create
scapegoats out of everyone who fits the bill, and get over it.
Our minds are, I
believe--because it's the most logical theory in metaphysics I'm aware
of--fractured ideas
of one collective mind, further fracturing in chaos
and projecting our primary fear of separation from the
source-
mind of a Creator. Liken it to the Big Bang theory. What great
force could have initiated that kind of event, from
alleged nothingness?
Matter born out of nothing? Our Mind (collective use, implying also
one creation of Creator) being created in the image of the Creator (--Who is
spirit alone--love energy) able to create in
form though not in content (eternally),
is capable of such an idea. Yet
like all forms, the universe in all its seeming timelessness, cannot exist
eternally because of its physical nature. Mountains will crumble, and suns
get cold. Nothingness is only true in the sense that it's the playground of
the imagination. Actually there is nothing out there that has
a basis in reality--or eternity. The universe is one big projection of an
insane thought of one tiny idea of the collective mind that the
created (or effect, the one creation of the Creator) could also
become the Cause. Said universe seems absolutely real because we
created it, and one tends to believe in one's own creations, even when they
are but illusions. This accounts for the fact that prayer to God doesn't
really have an effect--because the physical universe is not part of God's
realm (which is eternity). To acknowledge pain, wholly non-existent in
Heaven, would be to acknowledge illusion as fact. It is an impossibility.
Ask for guidance, and you will get it.
Hence a
puppet show of physical bodies, using for our example those of homo-sapiens,
dancing to the bidding of the puppeteer mind, projecting fear thoughts
resulting from its separation from the source. Yet we know that ideas
never leave their source, but as children do, we
become convinced that what is projected is quite real. Further fracturing or
filtering of the divine energy occurs and we split fear into new parts
again, continuously acting out in different ways. What the mind can
conceive, it can create ( and most typically on Earth--mis-create). It
must also, by means of free will, arrive at the conclusion
that only eternal energy is real and that we never really left the source.
Because we made the world we see, we need help to dispel the illusions of
separation and the permutations of endless fearful pathways. Perpetually
trying to prove its existence simply perpetuates fear. It is
tantamount to assigning control over an illusion.
Search for truth is admirable, and reason must help you decide, but try
giving up control and ask the unknown
to guide you there. No one rests until the point that faith takes
over.
Believing
in God is not essential. It is, however, a genuine belief, rather than
imposed, if you arrive at faith because of reason backed up by personal
experience. The only alter is in your mind, devotion only by thought and
action. The deity described in most religious books (a jealous God, a
vengeful God, a schizophrenic God) could never have created Mind, let
alone created in eternity or truth. The true Creator wouldn't even be aware
of our
fearful imaginings
because they are non-existent in a realm of peace. Love is where God
resides, and your right-thinking mind is still safe in eternity. Now,
kick-start that free will, and wake up to Heaven. There is no where else.
Obviously,
there's a lot of unlearning to do before the Big Crunch is possible.
Just as you
concluded, I claim the right to my mind.
Natalia
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith Hudson
To: Darryl and
Natalia
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 12:27 AM
Subject: Re:
[Futurework] RE: But where's the mind?
At 16:40 02/06/2003 -0700,
you wrote:
<<<<
Hello Arthur,
Your remark about mind
being a process that goes on in the brain echoed back at me in a
meditative moment yesterday. You were wondering, Where is the mind?, and
if indeed we have one. I really enjoy these kinds of questions, and ask
that you consider the following:
Mind is quite apart from brain
because you are free to change your mind moment to moment. You can do so
because, unlike brain and body, it is unfettered by physical
laws.
>>>>
How do you know you are free to change
your mind from moment to moment? Brain studies show very clearly that
electrical potential builds up in the relevant brain cells *before* you
are conscious of taking a decision (and apparently exercising your
freewill). This was a counter-intuitive discovery by Libet some 15 years
ago of explosive significance to philosophy and has been more thoroughly
investigated -- and confirmed -- than almost anything else in
neuroscience
If the mind is unfettered by physical laws and
outside their ambit, then how come you can think or say anything at all
about it? Everything you think or say is governed by the neurons in your
brain and these, in turn, are governed by exactly the same physical laws
that govern every other activity.
If one persists in thinking of
the mind as some sort of free-floating entity then you can have an
infinity of different hypotheses about it and every single one of them can
be thought to be true (if anybody believes you) simply because it can't be
tested.
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place,
Bath, England
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper
Camden Place, Bath, England
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