2009.01.09 19:00 - Not Yet Titled

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    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

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