This page was recovered from the test autologging database.
Pila Mulligan: hi Thredee
Threedee Shepherd: hi Pila, I'm sitting in as GoC for Adelene tonight
Pila Mulligan: how are you today?
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pila Mulligan: I just finished another busy day of semi-retirment :)
Pila Mulligan: as it is only 5 pm here now
Threedee Shepherd: I'm OK thanks, its 8 PM here
Pila Mulligan: did you find satisfactory answers about meditation last week, or whenever it was you asked?
Threedee Shepherd: I don't recall, exactly. Usually I raise an issue to learn more about it as opposed to seeking answers
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: have you tried meditation?
Threedee Shepherd: Onlly the 9-sec PaB variety
Pila Mulligan: somepeople find traditional meditatin satisfying, some don't -- it is ont easy to predict
Threedee Shepherd: I tend to find it hard to just sit, my body gets antsy
Pila Mulligan: hi ****
****: g'evening
Threedee Shepherd: hi ****
Pila Mulligan: we are just sitting around, have a seat if you like
****: just passing through, really
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pila Mulligan: hi Adams
Threedee Shepherd: Hi Adams
Adams Rubble: Hi Pila and Threedee
Adams Rubble: Can I play?
Pila Mulligan: of course
Threedee Shepherd: I was reading about musculoskeletal, tactilew embodiment today, and how much that makes up our being. That got me wondering about "sitting" meditation
Threedee Shepherd: *tactile
****: can i ask, is there always an informal get 2gether here or is it event based?
Pila Mulligan: it is an always
****: ok
Threedee Shepherd: we meet here 4-times daily, comes who may :)
Adams Rubble: 4 times a day 7, 1, 7 and 1
Pila Mulligan: always free form and mixed folks
Threedee Shepherd: Pick up an info card if you are interested
Adams Rubble: and some very big words
Pila Mulligan: I take that back, occasionally events :)
****: thanks
Pila Mulligan: like musculoskeletal tactile embodiment :)
Adams Rubble: tells us more 3D
Pila Mulligan: (I happen to agree about how much that makes up our being, based on meditaion expereince)
Threedee Shepherd: we experience the world simultaneously with all our senses. We are most aware of the visual, yet our "knowledge" of any object is also how our overall body interacts with, or could interact with it.
Pila Mulligan: life is very phyiscal :)l
Adams Rubble: like playing with a ball
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Pila Mulligan: sitting meditation is very physical, that is why your body gets antsy
Threedee Shepherd: Think of it this backwards way: You may be aware of the Oliver Sachs book about the man who recoverd his sight later in live (childhood cataracts). When he saw a ball or a cube or an object defined strongly by its shape
Pila Mulligan: he could feel it but not see it :)
Threedee Shepherd: exactly and knowing what a sphere felt like did not instantly translate to what it looks like
Pila Mulligan: makes sense
Threedee Shepherd: so the senses are complementary, not redundent
Pila Mulligan: did you read the recent artcile about the experiment showing inner vision sufficinet to enable a blind person to walk around objects on a floor?
Threedee Shepherd: no
Pila Mulligan: it was interesting, with a video as well
Pila Mulligan: Ne York times, I think
Threedee Shepherd: we lost Adams
Pila Mulligan: so it seems
Pila Mulligan: the artcile described a subvisual perception that humans have but rarely need to use, with ordinary vision being sufficinet
Threedee Shepherd: perhaps the musculoskeletal aspects are part of why yago is so popular?
Pila Mulligan: but it is a rough approxiamtion of eye sight
Threedee Shepherd: yoga
Pila Mulligan: my guess is that yoga and meditaion and similar exercises enhance all of the senses by liberating the muscles
Pila Mulligan: and bones
Threedee Shepherd: or using them in particular ways
Pila Mulligan: yes, that is the method
Pila Mulligan: but the use of them in particular manners is an old art and the result is to free tension
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Pila Mulligan: the tension in the body inhibits the senses
Threedee Shepherd: and/or channels them in restricted ways
Pila Mulligan: yes, restricts the senses imay be more accurate :0
Pila Mulligan: at the most simple physical level, much that we consider illness is tension of some form
Threedee Shepherd: Funny, though, I doubt the hunter gatherers of 10,000 years ago thought of this stuff while just getting through the days
Pila Mulligan: yes, and they did ont get through as amny days either
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm, but that had LOTS to do with lack of sanitation
Pila Mulligan: we have the luxury of groceries
Pila Mulligan: and indoor plumbing
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Pila Mulligan: yes, it was hygiene that helped start the population explosion
Pila Mulligan: an antibitotics especially
Pila Mulligan: but hygiene first
Threedee Shepherd: I visited the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado. It is not self-evident where the to8ilets were, or if they even existed as such, and that was 1350.
Pila Mulligan: if memory serves, the average world population for 2000 years prior to the 1700's was 300 million
Threedee Shepherd: hYGEINE more THAN 60% BY EXPERTS ESTIMATES, WITH ANTIBIOTICS A FAR SECOND
Pila Mulligan: well, in Europe they just threw it out the window
Threedee Shepherd: oops, sorry for caps
Pila Mulligan: :) OK
Threedee Shepherd: And even that 300 million was almast halved in Europe by the plagues
Pila Mulligan: they say we will peak this century at 10 billion
Threedee Shepherd: I know the basis of that and doubt it. The pressures in local concentrations may lead to dire consequences
Pila Mulligan: yes, that prediction is just demographic statistics
Pila Mulligan: water is already a dire consequence in some places
Threedee Shepherd: We will simply NOT be able to meet pandemic disasters with that many people, either.
Pila Mulligan: we may find ourselves cleansed by nature's hygien
Threedee Shepherd: We are part of a finite "system" and systems are either self-limiting or collapse in time
Pila Mulligan: my guess i that it will self-limit befoe it colapses, I hope so any way
Threedee Shepherd: I *wish* so, but humans have not shown me enough evidence to the contrary ;<
Pila Mulligan: HL Mncken: no one ever went broke overestimating the gullibility of the American people
Pila Mulligan: or something like that :)
Pila Mulligan: snake oil still sells
Threedee Shepherd: PT Barnum: There's a sucker born every minute
Pila Mulligan: and all these necessary ideas get lost in the quagmire
Pila Mulligan: necessary to consciously self-limit that is -- so nature may do the restricing
Threedee Shepherd: perhaps overwhelmed is a better term than lost?
Pila Mulligan: yes, volume can be overwhelming
Threedee Shepherd: and here you and I sit, two aging, semi-retired old farts--what are we doing about it?
Threedee Shepherd: What COULD we do about it?
Pila Mulligan: pray? :)
Pila Mulligan: I don;t pary, though
Pila Mulligan: meditate maybe
Pila Mulligan: actually, tohugh, I voted for OBama, that was a kind of prayer
Threedee Shepherd: me too :D
Pila Mulligan: I hope it works
Threedee Shepherd: so do I
Pila Mulligan: what a bundle of problems he has
Threedee Shepherd: but, realistically, what can anyONE do, however *powerful*
Pila Mulligan: they just have to give it their best, not much more to be done
Pila Mulligan: could be done
Threedee Shepherd: Can he bring peace between the serbs and croatians, the hindus and the muslims, thae araba and the jews, Irish catholics and protestants.........
Pila Mulligan: :0
Pila Mulligan: violence is the first problem, isn;t it
Threedee Shepherd: The primate territorial imperative apparently does not scale with increased populating on a finite space
Pila Mulligan: yep
Pila Mulligan: and grudges last longer than edifices
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Pila Mulligan: but commerce seems to ameliiorate some bitterness, if the parties can do it
Threedee Shepherd: self/other as in ingroup/putgroup also is built into our brain circuitry
Pila Mulligan: yep, and ethnocentricity is the social aspect I suppose
Threedee Shepherd: true about commerce, but if people really paid attention to how commerce and economy relates to their self-interest, W. could never have been elected.
Pila Mulligan: indeed -- that was the most emphasized thought of my episcoopal priest mneighbor -- how oculd all those people vote so plainly against their self interests
Threedee Shepherd: I think it has to do with "perceived" self-interest not being rational
Pila Mulligan: and propaganda seemed to have a lot to do with it
Pila Mulligan: demonizing people
Threedee Shepherd: to go back to scale, in a non-human primatge group, the size is such that every individual knows every other. that is the basis of social control.
Threedee Shepherd: A human "monkey" troop would naturally be about 150.
Pila Mulligan: as in the days when Kingdoms were small collections of extended families
Threedee Shepherd: reference: Robin dunbar, "Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language"
Pila Mulligan: Gandhi wrote a lot about the alienating effect of the indurtrial revolution
Pila Mulligan: breaking up extended fmailies
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm, but here we are stuck with it
Pila Mulligan: yes, it seems we are
Pila Mulligan: I rememebr reading that in the ealry 30's lagre migrations took place with urban folks going back to thweir fmaily farms
Threedee Shepherd: Indeed, without it, YOU and *I* would not be sitting HERE talking
Pila Mulligan: (typig)
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: typing v. talkiing :0
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Pila Mulligan: typoing v stuttering
Pila Mulligan: so we juust need to find competent solutions to obvious problems
Threedee Shepherd: It's all tradeoffs, but if the self-leveling, homeostatic forces are not adequate, we will just be another extinct species in the history of the planet
Pila Mulligan: howmany unknown evolutions of quasi-humans do you suppose there could have already been?
Threedee Shepherd: *A* problem with even good solutions is that "terrorists" can too readily destroy them.
Threedee Shepherd: apparently less thanm a dozen
Pila Mulligan: yes, violence is the first problem
Threedee Shepherd: based on fossil evidence
Pila Mulligan: my guess is that the species will evolve instead of being exitnigiushed, but history may be extinguished
Pila Mulligan: or this pahse of history
Pila Mulligan: phase*
Threedee Shepherd: a realistic possibility. Especially given how much of modern history and expeertise is now stored as bits rather than atoms (paper)
Pila Mulligan: the relationship between a successful economy and decreased violence should be recognizable
Threedee Shepherd: rationality has little to do with it. The underlying system must be tuned to the way the brain crudely works or I think it any system will fail.
Pila Mulligan: yes, but a successful economy should do just that --food, clothing, shelter and security seem to be brain basic
Threedee Shepherd: MY food is, I'm not so sure about *YOUR* food ;<
Pila Mulligan: from what i have read the present population of the world could have all those needs met, but not at a luxury level
Threedee Shepherd: exactly true
Pila Mulligan: the herination of excess in luxurious parts of the world seems to be a problem
Pila Mulligan: I'm a vegetaian :)
Threedee Shepherd: If all the money spent on armament and war, worldwide were suddenly diverted to sanitation, that could be achieved worldwide in less than a generation.
Pila Mulligan: and people would be happy, but some generals may be sad
Threedee Shepherd: make than Generals of Sanitation in the Public Health Corps
Pila Mulligan: :) excellent
Pila Mulligan: Inpsector General, Surgeon General,Sanitation General ...
Threedee Shepherd: mmhmm
Pila Mulligan: actually, to be fair, there are some smart generals
Threedee Shepherd: Yes, I agree.
Threedee Shepherd: Well, now that we have clearly stated the fundamental problems of humanity, it is time to get back to doing all the daily things that ignore them ;D
Pila Mulligan: ohoh my antiv virus just decided to update -- taking resources SL cannot spare :)
Pila Mulligan: good timing for the end 3d
Pila Mulligan: see you next time -- aloha
Threedee Shepherd: goodnight then, see you again Pila
Images 0 | ||
---|---|---|
No images to display in the gallery. |