Thursday, December 20, 2007
Shark Brain
Some species of shark must continually swim to avoid asphyxiation. Something along the same lines is true of the human brain. Deprived of all inflow of 'normal' sensation, it must create its own (q.v., John Lilly's hallucination-inducing isolation tank experimentation). Impressions are "food" for the brain, grist for the mental mill, and without them you die. So easily understood by everybody vis a vis the physical body and its sustenance. But for the brain? A complete blindside for human consideration and edification. When did it ever strike you as the case? Be honest.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Consciousness
Remember Heraclitus' dictum: "One can never step into the same stream twice. All is change, transformation. The only constant is flux." Yet note that these are pronouncements of and by a human brain, complete with consciousness. Indeed, we should rather say: One can never step outside of consciousness; it is primordial, uncreated and supremely constitutive of All, yet unaffected throughout by All. So...we don't step into any stream...we step into consciousness, yet never were we separate from it.
If you can't understand this, or don't believe it, no matter. You do the work of Consciousness anyway.
(As the Mullah Nasreddin sat on the riverbank, someone shouted to him from the other bank, "Hey! How do I get across?" and the Mullah shouted back "You ARE across!")
If you can't understand this, or don't believe it, no matter. You do the work of Consciousness anyway.
(As the Mullah Nasreddin sat on the riverbank, someone shouted to him from the other bank, "Hey! How do I get across?" and the Mullah shouted back "You ARE across!")
The Bus of Life
"On the Bus-of-Life, everybody needs some help; and if you think you don't, Life will arrange for some other passengers to annoy you enough to where you will." --Jan Cox
EVERYBODY'S on the bus. Nobody knows how or where they got on, and how or where they'll get off. You can't help but sing Life's Song...even as you slit your wrists moaning "Good bye cruel world!" 'cause Life-Its-Own-Self arranged that too.
There's a lesson here for The Alert and Antsy.
EVERYBODY'S on the bus. Nobody knows how or where they got on, and how or where they'll get off. You can't help but sing Life's Song...even as you slit your wrists moaning "Good bye cruel world!" 'cause Life-Its-Own-Self arranged that too.
There's a lesson here for The Alert and Antsy.
I + Not-I = Everything
Equation created by Jan Cox.
Corollary: The Universe is Big Enough for Everybody. We've all heard, at one time or another, "This town ain't big enough for both of us." Well, not so the Universe. The World makes room for everybody's opinions and behavior whether you like 'em or not. That should give you a clue that: There's nothing wrong on this earth...you just THINK that there is! What you don't like (the "Not-I") DEFINES YOU, not the other way around; i.e., "I = Everything minus Not-I". It follows then, that as "Not-I" approaches zero (i.e., the less you don't like), "I" approachs "Everything", which is what everybody is after, one way or another in this life, for then "I = Everything" and what's not to like?
A partial, imperfect, reflection of this subtle truth is articulated in the adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure", and "One man's poison is another man's meat.". More: "Truth is the shattered mirror strewn in myriad bits, and each believes in his little bit, the whole to own."
Corollary: The Universe is Big Enough for Everybody. We've all heard, at one time or another, "This town ain't big enough for both of us." Well, not so the Universe. The World makes room for everybody's opinions and behavior whether you like 'em or not. That should give you a clue that: There's nothing wrong on this earth...you just THINK that there is! What you don't like (the "Not-I") DEFINES YOU, not the other way around; i.e., "I = Everything minus Not-I". It follows then, that as "Not-I" approaches zero (i.e., the less you don't like), "I" approachs "Everything", which is what everybody is after, one way or another in this life, for then "I = Everything" and what's not to like?
A partial, imperfect, reflection of this subtle truth is articulated in the adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure", and "One man's poison is another man's meat.". More: "Truth is the shattered mirror strewn in myriad bits, and each believes in his little bit, the whole to own."
Consciousness
"[Re: the question of how consciousness could arise from matter, generating an inexplicable mystery]...I affirm that this mystery is purely artificial and grows out of assuming an inadequate base of reference. For 'matter,' 'thing,' and 'relation' are creatively constructed notions and by no means originally given material. On the contrary, consciousness is original and is presupposed in the very power to recognize and formulate a problem...Thus every element that is brought into any speculation is, of necessity, within the field of consciousness...This much we know, even though we know nothing else, 'Consciousness is.' For it is presupposed even in the acknowledgement of ignorance and in the agnostical and skeptical attitudes...Consciousness is the common denominator underlying the possibility of any philosophy, world view, religious attitude, art, or science. I, therefore, affirm the systematic primacy of consciousness as such."
Franklin Merrell-Wolff. The Philosophy of Consciousness Without An Object
Franklin Merrell-Wolff. The Philosophy of Consciousness Without An Object
The "E"-Force: 'E' is for Equalizing
Also: The "E-relevant". That context of seeming non-involved irrelevancy surrounding the main interacting forces in any activity whatsoever, which, normally goes unnoticed by the ordinary observers of and participants in said activity. It is the circumscribing boundary wherein yin and yang conduct their drama; the arena constraining, yet supporting the gladiator's combat; the cinemascreen upon which the crash, dash and splendor of phenomena leap forth into life...and without which all forces would be a mere freeze-frame tableau. Gurdjieff called it the Holy Reconciling; the equalizing force between the Holy Affirming and the Holy Denying. Jan Cox tagged the trio: "C-" (constructive), "D-" (destructive) and "E- (E-relevant)" forces.
To become ever-cognizant of the E-force, the indifferent, yet in-forming, catalyzing participant in everything, is to capture an inchoate potential, the latent possibility, of Real Understanding. It's hard work. Just try keeping continually in mind: the movie screen, the overall theater environment and the feeling of your butt and back pressed into your seat, all while missing nothing of the car chases and thunderous explosions of the shoot-'em-up you're watching. Or, try to find its presence when next you have a fight with your spouse, or get bawled out by your boss. Yes, hard work. But you'll never forget the exhilarating taste of it if and when you can do it.
Additional insights at JanCox.com
To become ever-cognizant of the E-force, the indifferent, yet in-forming, catalyzing participant in everything, is to capture an inchoate potential, the latent possibility, of Real Understanding. It's hard work. Just try keeping continually in mind: the movie screen, the overall theater environment and the feeling of your butt and back pressed into your seat, all while missing nothing of the car chases and thunderous explosions of the shoot-'em-up you're watching. Or, try to find its presence when next you have a fight with your spouse, or get bawled out by your boss. Yes, hard work. But you'll never forget the exhilarating taste of it if and when you can do it.
Additional insights at JanCox.com
More Perspective
The Mount Palomar observatory telescope's reflector (some 16 feet in diameter) sees this much of the sky in its field of vision: hold out a poppy seed at arm's length up against the sky and that's it! If the telescope were to pan the heavens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it would take 1000 years to finally cover the night sky...and that's just the half it can see! Now, in that poppy-seed field-of-view mostly what's seen are not stars, but GALAXIES, each containing untold billions of stars in its own right. Try to get your head around that!! This illustration was presented in "First Light: the Search for the Edge of the Universe" by Richard Preston (1980). Highly recommended; a real cosmic thriller.
Perspective
The moon is traveling about 2300 MPH (more than 1/2 mile a second) in its orbit around the Earth. The Earth, spinning on its axis at about 1000 MPH, is traveling roughly 67,000 MPH (19 miles a second) around the sun, while the sun is zooming at 560,000 MPH (156 miles a second) around the hub of the Milky Way (the last time our sun was in it's present relative position on its galactic circuit, dinosaurs walked the earth!). And the Milky Way is going someanywhere even faster. Think about it: all that rushing around! And Sir Isaac, sitting under an apple tree was struck by an apple...so, where do you suppose IT was going? Well, it flew right into Sir Isaac's brain and became The Calculus, and our view of the cosmos has never been the same since... and then there was Einstein...
Mind
The moon orbits the Earth; the Earth orbits the sun; the sun orbits the galactic hub…what does the mind orbit? The mind is a double star orbiting a Singularity: a black hole. Thoughts are its event horizon; spoken words, its comet tail; the line of the penned word, a drifting contrail. The Double Star: I and Not-I. The Black Hole?: Who, What, Where, When, Why….but especially WHO AM I ???
The mind whispers to itself. It tells itself what it knows. It tells itself Religion, it tells itself Science; it tells itself Mathematics and Philosophy. It narrates unto its own ears, and thereby sustains its path above the Black Hole; ever-accelerating—out and away. But how does the speeding bullet strike itself, when it’s the only goal? How the gurgling infant decree and design its selfsame birth? For here is the mystery of the bottomless Black Hole: WHO AM I ???
In Einstein’s Curved Cosmos, the omnipatetic pursuer discovers only the ebon space behind its eyes—the fleeting, receding shadow of its own headlong rush: the presence of absence. Yet that movement is the conjuration of the panoply and play of all phenomena and perception. So the mind whispers, constantly, what it thinks it knows, and can know only what it thinks—and is thereby helplessly ensnared in a web of its own spinning. The kitten chases its tail, and has amusement enough for a time. But the mystery remains, for those unavoidably fascinated: WHO AM I ???
The mind whispers to itself. It tells itself what it knows. It tells itself Religion, it tells itself Science; it tells itself Mathematics and Philosophy. It narrates unto its own ears, and thereby sustains its path above the Black Hole; ever-accelerating—out and away. But how does the speeding bullet strike itself, when it’s the only goal? How the gurgling infant decree and design its selfsame birth? For here is the mystery of the bottomless Black Hole: WHO AM I ???
In Einstein’s Curved Cosmos, the omnipatetic pursuer discovers only the ebon space behind its eyes—the fleeting, receding shadow of its own headlong rush: the presence of absence. Yet that movement is the conjuration of the panoply and play of all phenomena and perception. So the mind whispers, constantly, what it thinks it knows, and can know only what it thinks—and is thereby helplessly ensnared in a web of its own spinning. The kitten chases its tail, and has amusement enough for a time. But the mystery remains, for those unavoidably fascinated: WHO AM I ???
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