2008.12.23 19:00 - The Tree is Still a Tree

I, Pema, was the guardian that night, but Tarmel had kindly taken over my shift.  She sent me the chat log later, which I put up.  I also added a title.

Tarmel Udimo: hey there crusty having a dip?:-)
Crusty Goldshark: hi
Tarmel Udimo: how's it going in your world?
Crusty Goldshark: ok
Tarmel Udimo: hummm its later or early depending on what's happening
Tarmel Udimo: hey threedee
Threedee Shepherd: hi folks
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hi all.
Tarmel Udimo: howdy..... again :-)
Crusty Goldshark: :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire grins at Tarmel..howdy again.
Tarmel Udimo: didn't bring any vampires, witches or demons along?
Threedee Shepherd: wrong holiday ;>
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs..."left 'em all at the 'bar'"
Tarmel Udimo: true eniough grins
Tarmel Udimo: its christmas eve where I am
Threedee Shepherd: japan?
Tarmel Udimo: australia
Tarmel Udimo: and everyone
Tarmel Udimo: where are we all?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: East coast.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Usa
Crusty Goldshark: gone
Corvuscorva Nightfire: way far gone
Tarmel Udimo: yep...
Threedee Shepherd: boulder colorado USA, Mountain Time Zone
Tarmel Udimo: so its all getting close...
Threedee Shepherd: 8:15, December 23rd
Tarmel Udimo: anyone done their homework yet?
Threedee Shepherd: I lived in Canberra 1969-1971, Having Christmas in the Summer was always wierd
Tarmel Udimo: yes it is - makes it hard to get into the white christmas head space
Threedee Shepherd: Hi Pila
Tarmel Udimo: and canberra would have been a bit of a dead zone in 1969-71
Pila Mulligan: greetings
Tarmel Udimo: hi pila
Corvuscorva Nightfire: hi pila
Pila Mulligan: Tarmel, I cam ein mainly to apologize for missing our date :)
Pila Mulligan: work got complicated today
Tarmel Udimo: no worries
Tarmel Udimo: complicated?
Pila Mulligan: I hope everyone is well and happy
Pila Mulligan: rl building complications, nothing serius, just time consuming
Threedee Shepherd: what IS the work, Pila?
Pila Mulligan: building my retirement house :)
Pila Mulligan: a lineoleum floor situation
Tarmel Udimo: no mud floors?
Pila Mulligan: :)
Threedee Shepherd: Ahh, yes
Threedee Shepherd: You asked about homework earlier, I assume you meant phenomenology stuff?
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Threedee Shepherd: I have trouble disengaging enuf to re-engage differently
Pila Mulligan: :)
Tarmel Udimo: in what way?
Pila Mulligan: the pen I was stargin at blushed and walked off the desk
Tarmel Udimo: hi adelene
 Pila Mulligan: hi Adelene
Threedee Shepherd: I can go into a just observing mode, but the tree is still a tree
Adelene Dawner grins and waggles her eyebrows at Pila.
Squee: The only thing to regret in life is not regretting anything.
Tarmel Udimo: hummmm trees
Pila Mulligan: I think a tree is a better object for expereimentationthan a pen
Threedee Shepherd: The tree paid no attention to me, as best I could tell ;D
Adelene Dawner: How would you know if it did? ^.^
Pila Mulligan: better yet may be a cat or dog
Threedee Shepherd: My mind/body/being space might change?
Adelene Dawner: And what if it's always paying attention to you?
Threedee Shepherd: No change, no new information, nothing to know
Threedee Shepherd: I know the following is a tangent, and perhaps not relevant, but it may be. Here's the experiment:
Tarmel Udimo: sorry folks, I'm back needed to talk as the person had been trying to reach me for a while
Pila Mulligan: :) np
Threedee Shepherd: You may have noticed that perhaps more often than might be random chance, you are walking far behind someone but look at their back intently, and suddenly they either straighten out their purse or backpack, or even glance back at you
Pila Mulligan: welcome back
tevenaia Michinaga: hello
Tarmel Udimo: hi steve
Pila Mulligan: hi steve
Squee: The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Hi, Steve, Maggie.
Magdalena Colclough: hello
Tarmel Udimo: hi
Pila Mulligan: yes 3d
Threedee Shepherd: ok, how would you set up an experiment to really tell if it is some form of ESP, or is a subtle but natural (or random) phenomenon?
Threedee Shepherd: .
Pila Mulligan: hmm
Pila Mulligan: I start with the bias that it is natural ...
Tarmel Udimo: me too
Magdalena Colclough nods
Threedee Shepherd: I want to start with no bias and do a controlled experiment.
Pila Mulligan: yep .. not sure how :)
Adelene Dawner: video camera somewhere on you, vary looking intently vs. just being there, looking elsewhere?
Threedee Shepherd: yes, that is the typical approach. It has the problem that perhaps the person is responding to the camera watching them (which brings us back to the tree and the pen)
Pila Mulligan: isn't this the old gunslinger awareness related to the phrase 'geting the drop on someone'?
Tarmel Udimo: I missed thai bit....The tree paid no attention to me, as best I could tell
Tarmel Udimo: *this
Tarmel Udimo: well I do find trees - shrubs attentive....
Adelene Dawner: I think the experimental data so far has at least implied strongly that people don't notice being watched by cameras, at least if those cameras are discreet. They don't seem to, anyway, from some of hte 'candid camera' type stuff I've seen.
Corvuscorva Nightfire laughs.
Threedee Shepherd: Yes, but if we are looking at a small effect, those are anecdotes.
Threedee Shepherd: Trees...
Magdalena Colclough: I chased my cat all over the library today
Magdalena Colclough: didn't even think about the video cameras
Magdalena Colclough: even though I knew they were there
Tarmel Udimo: heehe
Threedee Shepherd: There is now clear evidence that some of the chemicals released in a forest can be calming ono humans breathing in that forest. Now, if the trees respond to the extra CO2 of the humans, it could "appear" to be responsiveness
Adelene Dawner: only 'appear'?
armel Udimo: okay so that could be the cause and i am 'feeling' or becoming aware of the effect
Adelene Dawner: Is responding to a chemical cue less valid than responding to a photon-based one or sound-based one all of a sudden?
Magdalena Colclough nods at Adelene
Magdalena Colclough: good point
Pila Mulligan: walking in a eucalptus forrest definitely has a chemical effect, it seems
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Threedee Shepherd: Well, to get even more wierd, there are those who study the paranormal who consider time to be multidirectional, such that one would only respond to the camera watching them only if a real person later looked at the tape. (I am not kidding)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: ook
Magdalena Colclough 's eyes widen
Magdalena Colclough: wow
Threedee Shepherd: I am only reporting, not taking a position
Adelene Dawner: I've heard that theory... utterly unsupported, as far as I can tell.
Adelene Dawner: I do think the camera thing is mostly irrelevant, though... it'd be constant whether you're looking intently or not.
Pila Mulligan: I wonder how they arrvied at it -- the theory :)
Corvuscorva Nightfire: it's sort of funny, really...cause every tape you looked at people would be responding?
Corvuscorva Nightfire: if the theory held?
Pila Mulligan: my guess is that some people will sense being looked at, even if it is not intently
Threedee Shepherd: I could tell you, really, but then you would disappear into yesterday. Look up the PEAR Institute in Princeton, via google
Corvuscorva Nightfire giggles.
 Squee: Could not find notecard 'Adelene's Quotefile 12/23/08'.
Magdalena Colclough: "systematic empirical study of consciousness"
Magdalena Colclough: hmm
Tarmel Udimo: is it simply a matter of how tuned in one is and how much mind chatter is present
Threedee Shepherd: I approach the phenomenology experiment by accepting the *I*, the tree/or pen, and the space between us are all just one existance and that defining boundaries is potentially arbitrary. However, for non-sentient things, I find little extra to experience that way, when I try
Magdalena Colclough: oh... "consciousness related physical phenomena"!
Squee: If God has created the world, his primary worry was not to make its understanding easy for us.
Squee giggles. that tickles.
Magdalena Colclough: how do you define sentience?
Threedee Shepherd: subject, verb, object ;D
Pila Mulligan: :)
Threedee Shepherd: Ok, that's another issue, but rocks are not sentient.
Pila Mulligan: horrible pun 3d
Corvuscorva Nightfire nods. "He's very good at that."
Magdalena Colclough: I loved it :)
Magdalena Colclough: and it works so well to define both :)
Threedee Shepherd: I did notice that double use
Pila Mulligan: actually, some people see rocks as semi-sentient, or at least contributive to the creation of a rcok structure
Pila Mulligan: i.e., telling the mason where it should be put
Magdalena Colclough: I've felt "inanimate" objects call to me
Threedee Shepherd: I think for me such phenomenological experiments work better with abstractions. It is true that I start with the principle that "the knower is part of the known" but I think my pondering has no effect on the rock
Tarmel Udimo: my brother built a stone wall on his property and noticed that
Magdalena Colclough: or at least imagined that htey have
Magdalena Colclough: but does the rock have and effect on your pondering?
Pila Mulligan: that is perhaps the essential elment, Magdaelene, because if you cannot imagine it it cannot be expereindced, but if you do then you ownder, where does it fit on the spectrum of reality
Adelene Dawner: Timeframe seems important...
Magdalena Colclough: just Maggie, please
Pila Mulligan: ok
Threedee Shepherd: I know, I do woodwork as a hobby. I collect wood and sometimes keep it for years until it tells me what it wants to be. but I suspect there is a natural way of explaining that which has to do with MY perception changing
Magdalena Colclough nods
Tarmel Udimo: nods
Adelene Dawner: Being with the suchness of the wood contributes to the perception change, though, perhaps? I know that's how my art works, a lot.
 Tarmel Udimo: what medium do you work in adelene
 Adelene Dawner: Several - mostly collage, these days, but I've dabbled in lots of different stuff.
Tarmel Udimo: each with their own 'suchness' :-)
Adelene Dawner: yep.
Pila Mulligan: I must deal with some rl stuff -- thanks for the interesting chat -- see you all later
Adelene Dawner: cya, Pila.
Tarmel Udimo: bye
 Magdalena Colclough: bye Pila
Threedee Shepherd: I think there is much to do with whether the material was alive or at least is in its natural form, whether its suchness matters. I also do metalwork Adelene Dawner: hmm.
Tarmel Udimo: interesting human made vs biological
Threedee Shepherd: or natural, such as rocks
Tarmel Udimo: yes life force made
Adelene Dawner: Things like that take a different kind of awareness... less 'what does this single thing want to be' and more 'what does this group of things want to be'... a single bar of aluminum doesn't become something by itself, I think? Threedee Shepherd: you could say the same for a single piece of wood
Magdalena Colclough: I think it's more than just a distinction between human-made Adelene Dawner: wood is less interchangeable, though.
Tarmel Udimo: hi raja
Tarmel Udimo: sorry rajah
Rajah Yalin: hi Tarmel
Tarmel Udimo: hi belief
Magdalena Colclough: the human interaction with something can have more or less of their energy, creativity, soul woven into it--the creation of a bar of aluminum is mechanical, but the soldering of pieces of a sculpture has a completely different story behind it
Squee: Everyone needs to be loved, especially when they do not deserve it.
Threedee Shepherd: yes Maggie about sculpture
Tarmel Udimo: have you been here before belief?
Threedee Shepherd: a fundamental issue here is that humans have the ability to allow one thing to represent another (are, even music) whereas it is not clear that other creatures do so, or do s0o in subtle ways
beliefbeyond Enoch: never, I'm exploring
Threedee Shepherd: *art
Tarmel Udimo: I'll talk to you on IM so as not to disturb the group
Magdalena Colclough: but the natural history of an item can be more or less evocative as well--say, a dragonfly in amber v. a lump of clay
 Threedee Shepherd ponders amber and clay
Threedee Shepherd: evokative relates to what I was getting at with "representational"
 Magdalena Colclough nods
Adelene Dawner yawns.
Threedee Shepherd: I propose that humans can relate to "animals" because there are "parts" of their brains embedded deep in ours. Trees are something different.
Adelene Dawner: hm... Bedtime for me. See you all around.
Threedee Shepherd: g'night
Rajah Yalin: take cre adelene
Corvuscorva Nightfire: G'night, Ade.
Rajah Yalin: gassho
beliefbeyond Enoch: bye
Tarmel Udimo: bye
Magdalena Colclough: 'night Adelene
Magdalena Colclough: my bedtime as well
stevenaia Michinaga: night maggie
Magdalena Colclough: see you all later
Tarmel Udimo: night maggie
beliefbeyond Enoch: bye
Corvuscorva Nightfire: gn'ight, Maggie.
Threedee Shepherd: night
Tarmel Udimo: I do remember one night sitting with my cat and experiencing this incredible wave of unconditional 'love' what humans call love
Threedee Shepherd: I am not surprised
Tarmel Udimo: it was a flood of emotion and it made me realise that animals must be in a constant emotional state
Threedee Shepherd: or that animals must just BE
Tarmel Udimo: bye rajah
Tarmel Udimo: yes
Rajah Yalin: oh not staying anywhere just adjusting my seat
stevenaia Michinaga: I had soomething similar with my cat.. a connection
Tarmel Udimo: yes
stevenaia Michinaga: stearing into each others eyes for minutes
stevenaia Michinaga: then he turned away and stared at the blank wall in the same way for minutes
Threedee Shepherd: haha
Rajah Yalin: seems as my dog grows older my bonds with him grow tighter.. earlier I had a moment the old time being sprung on him.. hes going blind and possibly going deaf and has bad arthritis, it makes me sad, he has been by my side for 13 years, we share this sadness
Tarmel Udimo: and your conclusion steve? ;-)
Rajah Yalin: he doesnt like me to ever leave him and i dont like leaving him
Tarmel Udimo: yes my last animal friend was 16
Tarmel Udimo: when she passed over...
Tarmel Udimo: so I understand
Tarmel Udimo: in fact here comes the twilight zone...
Tarmel Udimo: there have been times when i've been at home alone and heard her little meow and then feel her enter the room....
[2008/12/23 20:21]  Rajah Yalin: i just wonder if animals can sense the end like they can sense other things
Rajah Yalin: not to sound morbid or anything :O
Threedee Shepherd: Well, there is this stuff about elephants and death
Tarmel Udimo: what stuff?
Threedee Shepherd wonders, if he sits here long enough pulling random thoughts and facts ouot of his head, will he eventually make sense?
Tarmel Udimo: sure why not....
Tarmel Udimo: smiles
Threedee Shepherd: There is a myth about elephant graveyards
Rajah Yalin: everything makes sense even the non-sequitur
Tarmel Udimo: yes..
beliefbeyond Enoch: see you all, bye
Rajah Yalin: take care belief
[2008/12/23 20:25]  Tarmel Udimo: bye belief come back sometime
Corvuscorva Nightfire: bye
Tarmel Udimo: well it often comes down to this - do i beleive in my own perceptions and expereinces or do i constantly check them?
Threedee Shepherd: I believe in them, mostly, but KNOW I am deceived often
Threedee Shepherd: by my perceptions that is
Threedee Shepherd: So, if it REALLY matters, measure twice and cut once, as woodworkers say
Corvuscorva Nightfire puts her head in her hands and shakes her head...
Corvuscorva Nightfire: I DO NOT trust my perceptions.
Corvuscorva Nightfire: Which is what makes this whole conversation so hard!
Threedee Shepherd: Corvi. I know my perceptions can be/are at times wrong. I also know that people lie. However, I decided long ago to believe until and unless I had a reason not to, rather than the other way around. It seems to make life easier that way.
Rajah Yalin: I feel too humble sometimes, makes perception hard to really perceive for me
Tarmel Udimo: I agree with 3D
Tarmel Udimo: in fact that's how things become clearer by taking a position that my intution is working and its okay
 Corvuscorva Nightfire: I am very much interested in this..though it makes my brain hurt...but I have to go to bed....
Tarmel Udimo: if proven wrong one can back track and discover why and see one's own filter more clearly
Corvuscorva Nightfire: so goodnight, all.
Rajah Yalin: goodnight corvu
Tarmel Udimo: okay night corvi
Rajah Yalin: take care
Threedee Shepherd: goodnight Corvi, dear. :)
stevenaia Michinaga: night Corvi
Corvuscorva Nightfire: G'night.
Threedee Shepherd: night Steve
Rajah Yalin: good night steve
Tarmel Udimo: yeah me too peace be with you....
Threedee Shepherd: Goodnight Tarmel