2009.12.21 19:00 - Midwinter Night

The Guardian for this meeting was Fox Monacular. The comments are by Fox Monacular.

doug Sosa: hi fox.
doug Sosa: don't see you..
doug Sosa: oh there.
Fox Monacular: here
doug Sosa: indeed.
Fox Monacular: how are you doing tonight?
doug Sosa: well, 4 hours of driving, fve hour conversation.
Fox Monacular: where to? from?
doug Sosa: bit, well, filled up.
Fox Monacular: i can imagine:)
doug Sosa: russian river to san francisco and back.
doug Sosa: yourself?
Fox Monacular: recuperating from a wedding party
Fox Monacular: still eating the food...
doug Sosa: you got married! :)
Fox Monacular: yep:)
doug Sosa: getting married is usually tiring.
Fox Monacular: we made so much food that even though we distributed it between all family members, our fridge is still packed
doug Sosa: wedding leftovers for christmas. but good, right?
Fox Monacular: :) I don't think the salads and fish are going to survive
doug Sosa: hm, fish can be curried.
Fox Monacular: (I can't stay for long today, baby's still not in bed)
Fox Monacular: well, fish is already marinated
doug Sosa: just married and already a baby!
Fox Monacular: that's exactly what my grandma said right after the ceremony
Fox Monacular: :)
doug Sosa: So young and you already have a grandma too?
Fox Monacular: yes, we're very lucky, we still have our grandparents around (just on the next street)
Fox Monacular: so now she's a great-grandmother
doug Sosa: remind me, toronto?
Fox Monacular: montreal
Fox Monacular: although this is going to change in a month - we're going to boston for my husband
Fox Monacular: postdoc
doug Sosa: pardon, si'l vous plais.
Fox Monacular: no vous en faites pas
doug Sosa: What field?
Fox Monacular: dreaming, neuroscience
doug Sosa: ah, i do a lot with dreams.
Fox Monacular: what kind of work do you do with dreams?
doug Sosa: mais non.
doug Sosa: Well, psychoanalyst, and i think about how they work and why a great deal.
Fox Monacular: actually we have the same supervisor with my husband
Fox Monacular: oh, cool!
doug Sosa: and experiment, like the capacity to dream and write fiction.
Fox Monacular: neuroscientists usually dismiss psychoanalysis... it drives me crazy
Fox Monacular: I did some undergraduate project on psychoanalysis applied to art history
doug Sosa: silly. it is crucial to understanding the neurology. The perceiving brain awake is just one moinor state of the sleeping brrain dreaming.
Fox Monacular: I definitely agree
doug Sosa: Rudopf Arnheim, Gombrich?
Fox Monacular: I make a point of quoting freud at least once in all my papers
Fox Monacular: my project was on Klimt and Art Nouveau as a parallel to Freud's Interpretation of dreams
doug Sosa: Where in Boston?
Fox Monacular: same time
Fox Monacular: harvard
Fox Monacular: with robert stickgold
doug Sosa: med school or cambridge?
Fox Monacular: med school
doug Sosa: Ah, dn't know him.
Fox Monacular: and then I had an individual art history project on 'dream residues' in art hostory
Fox Monacular: that was a lot of fun
Fox Monacular: I used data from the dream lav
Fox Monacular: lab
doug Sosa: klimt is pretty racy.
doug Sosa: interesting i once taught a course comparing brecht and freud.
Fox Monacular: oh cool
doug Sosa: well this is fun but i don't want to keep you from baby.
Fox Monacular: I personally like jung more, but I've read a lot of freud, and keep returning
Fox Monacular: it's ok, she's on my lat
Fox Monacular: lap
doug Sosa: Jung is very interesting but not such a nive person.
Fox Monacular: yes
doug Sosa: nice
Fox Monacular: freud had interesting work on leonardo and michelangelo
doug Sosa: i was impressed by ho jung said my patients are like the greek gods, but freud said oedipus is like my patients.
Fox Monacular: :)
doug Sosa: cal
Fox Monacular: hey Cal
doug Sosa: we are talking dreams and psychoanalysis and art.
Calvino Rabeni: good evening Doug, Fox
Calvino Rabeni: I like that topic
--BELL--
doug Sosa: you know, the things that come up in 9 sec :)
Fox Monacular: brb
doug Sosa: i am going to have to go to dinner. Apologies. Alwaysawkward for me at 7.
doug Sosa: bye.
Calvino Rabeni: talk toyou late, doug.
Fox Monacular: sorry, Calvino, I'll have to run too... baby's still not sleeping, husband's putting up the christmas tree
Calvino Rabeni: NP, Fox, take care :)
Fox Monacular: have a good evening!
Calvino Rabeni: Bye!
Storm Nordwind: Hi Calvino. All alone I see.
Calvino Rabeni: Storm, yes, Doug and Fox were here earlier
Calvino Rabeni: I have a fairly mundane question
Storm Nordwind: I'm reasonably good at mundane answers
Calvino Rabeni: My frame rate here is 2.1. My graphics are on minimum.
Storm Nordwind: Sometimes they are even accurate
Calvino Rabeni: Can the frame rate display be inaccurate that much?
Storm Nordwind: And your particle count?
-- BELL --
Calvino Rabeni: I set it to 1024, then 0, no change
Storm Nordwind: It makes 4fps difference on mine
Storm Nordwind: between 0 and 8192
Calvino Rabeni: Back at my area here, it goes form 15 to 2.5 depending on direction I face
Storm Nordwind: Let me tell you my settings and you can compare:
Storm Nordwind: 1280x744 Mid; BumpMap ON; basic and Atmos Shaders both ON; Water refect OFF...
Calvino Rabeni: what do you have for Ping Sim?
Storm Nordwind: Refelection detail all greyed out; imposters ON, Skinning ON Cloth OFF
Storm Nordwind: 44 mmsec
Storm Nordwind: msec
Storm Nordwind: now 119
Calvino Rabeni: right, I have 478
Storm Nordwind: I have a 30Mb connection here
Storm Nordwind: 128m/8192 particles, post process LOWMesh detail Mid.High/Mid/Mid/Low/Low
Storm Nordwind: No Anisotropic, AA disable, VBO on, 256 MB texture mem
Storm Nordwind: Let me kill most of the local particles for you
Storm Nordwind: Any change in frame rate?
Calvino Rabeni: no change
Storm Nordwind sighs and shrugs
Calvino Rabeni: mmmm lemmeseehere
Calvino Rabeni: OK, I found it - the ONE setting that affects FPS is "Texture Memory (MB)"
Storm Nordwind: Yes that has a huge effect
Storm Nordwind: That's why I read it out
Storm Nordwind: Not sure you can change it without relogging
Calvino Rabeni: Under hardware options - I wonder why it depends on avatar direction - complexity of texture you are looking at, perhaps?
Storm Nordwind: Yes
Storm Nordwind: The cache only lasts for so long
Storm Nordwind: Though at least it's a minute now I think instead of 10 seconds
Calvino Rabeni: problem solved more or less
Storm Nordwind: cool
Storm Nordwind: You will have had less of a problem in the Cafe, right?
-- BELL --
Calvino Rabeni: Any PAB topics you care to discuss?
Storm Nordwind: Always game! :)
Calvino Rabeni: What is of interest to you?
Storm Nordwind: It's hard to say. All things and no things. I have a wide background. I have no axe to grind. I'm a chameleon at these meetings! :)
Calvino Rabeni: I noticed those things.
Storm Nordwind: I like people and I like to help others express what has impressed them. So I'm rarely the one who throws the ball, much less hits it.
Calvino Rabeni: There is a case for self-disclosure, I found
Calvino Rabeni: I try to strike a balance
Storm Nordwind: Sharing can help others see you empathize.
Storm Nordwind: It inspires trust to show trust
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, that, and it also demonstrates the safety of expression, and the creativity of a certain style of doing it.
Storm Nordwind: From a pragmatic point of you, for whose benefit would such expression of creativity be?
Storm Nordwind: *of view
Calvino Rabeni: the universe :)
Calvino Rabeni: It benefits all round, I can't see any delimitation
Storm Nordwind: Do you think it needs that benefit? :)
Storm Nordwind is playing devil's advocate
Calvino Rabeni: Well that sounds parsimonious?
Storm Nordwind: Can there not be beautiful expression without need or benefit? Just because it 'is'?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, it is benefit by being
Storm Nordwind: Benefit is only a benefit if it matches a need. The universe may prosper but does it need?
-- BELL --
Calvino Rabeni: It moves, it plays, I don't really have much opinion about "need"
Calvino Rabeni: the birds sing, the water runs downhill, vapors rise
Calvino Rabeni: things happen without a purpose or objective
Storm Nordwind: and without meaning
Calvino Rabeni: yes and no
Calvino Rabeni: no external meaning
Storm Nordwind: no inherently existent meaning
Calvino Rabeni: unless other things inherently exist, then it is the same
Calvino Rabeni: the meaning is not anything "about" something else
Calvino Rabeni: that is, meaning is not a theory
Calvino Rabeni: (although part if it may be "theory" since people love making those up)
Storm Nordwind: Sure. So what do you believe meaning is?
Calvino Rabeni: For me, it is the pattern of what happens, as it appears to awareness
Calvino Rabeni: That is, the part of it I can apprehend.
Calvino Rabeni: And I'd have to say, the un-apprehended part plays into it also
Calvino Rabeni: So perhaps I should call that meaning also
Calvino Rabeni: To allow for uncomprehended meanings
Calvino Rabeni: The pattern is not complete, however
Calvino Rabeni: It is not fixed; it keeps changing
Calvino Rabeni: So it's not that kind of conventional pattern, I suppose
Storm Nordwind: It has always changed, and will always change
Calvino Rabeni: Yeah as far as I can see :)
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Calvino Rabeni: I started doing the "epoche" exercise for the pheno class
Storm Nordwind: I did that for the old classes. I haven't for the new ones.
Calvino Rabeni: It is funny I think.
Storm Nordwind: Oh?
Calvino Rabeni: Well, maybe I mean humouous, not peculiar.
Calvino Rabeni: Things in RL kind of "rez up" as I move along
Storm Nordwind: haha - yes!
Paradise Tennant is Online
Storm Nordwind: That's a very Buddhist viewpoint too
Calvino Rabeni: I've heard that before - but also, they de-rez also, which I haven't heard people remark on
Calvino Rabeni: It is like - they are so proud of having made the distinctions, they don't quite notice when things slip back into the implicit.
Storm Nordwind: Yes. they need to de-rez instantaneously to follow in the Buddhist way of viewing
Calvino Rabeni: Buddhists seem to care a lot about de-rezzing
Storm Nordwind: I wouldn't generalize! :)
Storm Nordwind: They like the come and go
Calvino Rabeni: You hear about it a lot - would be a different way to put it
Calvino Rabeni: Like the come and go - that's the view from farther along a study
-- BELL --
Calvino Rabeni: It appears to be a familar theme in a wide variety of traditions
Storm Nordwind: I wonder why that is? ;)
Calvino Rabeni: Well, there is an obvious reply - however I wonder if it is strictly necessary.
Calvino Rabeni: It makes principled paths have a very shiva type energy
Calvino Rabeni: at first, anyway
Storm Nordwind nods
Calvino Rabeni: Hi, Paradise
Storm Nordwind: Hi Paradise. Good to see you. :)
Paradise Tennant: hiya cal .. storm .. I hope I am not interrupting :)
Calvino Rabeni: We were discussing creativity
Paradise Tennant: great topic :)
Paradise Tennant: almost always think of it as a gift from someone else really .. the mingling of something said .. thought .. with a new place ..time ..application :)
Storm Nordwind: When I was 11 years old, I had an art teacher that doubled occasionally as a divinity master. He used to say, "There's nothing new under the sun." Oddly enough, I didn't find that engendered much artistic creativity!
Calvino Rabeni: Mixed messages :)
Storm Nordwind: He would say that if you took a cross section of a leaf and magnified it in some way from some angle it would look like the drawing I'd just done!
Paradise Tennant: lol well yes but a bit true too .. because creativity is often just about the justaposition of what is.. think of luggage and wheels ..how long have we had those two ideas ..till some creative soul put them together ..
Calvino Rabeni: I was thinking, Paradise, that being appreciative and receptive to a gift is a way of bringing creativity.
Storm Nordwind: Like the Chinese harp strings story I quoted here once, I suspect
Calvino Rabeni: So storm, did you recover your creative drive after that dubious teacher?
Storm Nordwind: yeah... I switched to music!
Calvino Rabeni: Hope no lasting impression :)
Calvino Rabeni: Irrepressable
Storm Nordwind: And took up art again when he'd gone.
Calvino Rabeni: Well, your creation around here is significant
Paradise Tennant: nods very beautiful !
Storm Nordwind: Much is borrowed. Particular the textures. Simply because to do everything yourself from scratch would take a long time
Calvino Rabeni: He could have given a second half of the "nothing new under the sun" idea
Storm Nordwind: But you're very kind
Calvino Rabeni: Live instruments - seem more expressive than, e.g. digital compositions
Storm Nordwind: It can be fun to do both, especially if you have limited resources to procure instruments
-- BELL --
Storm Nordwind: Thank you Paradise!!! :))
Paradise Tennant: :) love musix
Paradise Tennant: really where I find refuge every day :)
Paradise Tennant: yvw storm ..those are some of my favourite textures
Paradise Tennant: I have a fair number of thankas too if you would like some ...
Storm Nordwind: I will treasure them best... by using them!
Storm Nordwind: Oh! yes please! :)
Paradise Tennant: kk
Calvino Rabeni: storm, do you know vijnanahairava tantra?
Storm Nordwind: That is not my practice, no
Calvino Rabeni: You heard about it, if not practiced?
Storm Nordwind nods
Storm Nordwind: Why do you ask?
Paradise Tennant: do you practice it cal :)
Calvino Rabeni: Now this seems nerd-ish, but I was wondering if there is a structural basis for asserting the completeness of the 112 methods
Paradise Tennant: :)
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Calvino Rabeni: It is a structural question, I suppose
Calvino Rabeni: You hear it said - well, that's all, there *can't* be any more.
Paradise Tennant: :)
Storm Nordwind: Well I have no opinion on it. best ask someone who practices... or perhaps practice it yourself! ;)
Paradise Tennant: hmm questioning is always good . ...only way you really understand ..or can get close to understanding
Paradise Tennant: I am just back from a rl session listening to dongsar rinpoche and I confess understood very very little tonight
Calvino Rabeni: depending on the definition I asked about, I do or don't practice it
Paradise Tennant: on buddha nature the isness of it :)
Calvino Rabeni: I'm not educated much in that - is it bodhicitta?
Storm Nordwind: Is what bodhicitta Calvino? Sorry I missed the thread here
Paradise Tennant: what all sentient life has that is pure and unspoiled
Paradise Tennant: they use the fog and mirror metaphor buddha nature if the mirror .. our duallistic thinking the fog
Paradise Tennant: *is
Calvino Rabeni: oh, P listening to a talk on buddha nature, and I asked if that referred to bodhicitta
Storm Nordwind: Ah... the two things are different, yes
Calvino Rabeni: What is the difference ?
Paradise Tennant: bodhicitta is compassion .. buddha nature is our divine nature ..what we realize upon enlightenment
-- BELL --
Calvino Rabeni: OK
Storm Nordwind: In quick and dirty terms, Buddha nature is the potential that a sentient being has to become a Buddha at some point. Bodhicitta is born of compassion and wants to become a Buddha in order to release all sentient beings from suffering.
Paradise Tennant: :) thank you Storm nicely put
Calvino Rabeni: Ok, compassion is a loaded term in ordinary speaking.
Storm Nordwind: Loaded in what way?
Calvino Rabeni: But, my question is, the quality of purity and innocence in regarding sentient beings, is that considered a quality of bodhicitta, or do buddhists have a different term for it?
Storm Nordwind: Now *there* are two loaded terms!! ;)
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Storm Nordwind: Bodhicitta can be seen as the difference between the Hinayana and Mahayana paths (to use tainted terms)
Calvino Rabeni: But it's possible to drop most of the "load"
Calvino Rabeni: I don't know Hin from Mah in that respect
Storm Nordwind: It is only because of the potential that this 'purity and innocence' has that Bodhicitta has any chance of being effective
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Storm Nordwind: The idea is this...
Storm Nordwind: Through suffering, a being comes to want liberation from suffering...
Storm Nordwind: and the means to achieve that would be promulgated and practised through Hinayana...
Storm Nordwind: But there exists the possibility to look around oneself at other sentient beings...
Storm Nordwind: and out of compassion for their sufferings, to want liberation for them too...
Storm Nordwind: and there follows a realisation that this cannot be effected without becoming a Buddha oneself...
Storm Nordwind: and this mind is one of bodhicitta...
Storm Nordwind: and is the mark of the Mahayana path
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks for the well crafted explanation
Calvino Rabeni: Are there buddhists who don't "want liberation"?
Paradise Tennant: :)
Paradise Tennant: great question :)
Storm Nordwind: here are those who are quite content with rebirth in a Pure Land, yes
Storm Nordwind: *There
Paradise Tennant: and others who keep coming back with the thought ..of liberating everyone .. even the ants :)
Storm Nordwind: yes!
Paradise Tennant: yikes .. i have to scoot.. almost midnight here and I have a small hairy dog who wants the liberation of a walk :)
Calvino Rabeni: Here's a parallel that may irritate some - sorry if so - that liberation fro suffering is to buddhists as redemption from sin is to christians
Storm Nordwind: even the politicians!
Paradise Tennant: thanks as always for the wonderful conversation
Storm Nordwind: haha! Bye Paradise!
Calvino Rabeni: Good to see you Paradise, Bye
Storm Nordwind waves
Storm Nordwind: In that it is a central tenet?
Calvino Rabeni: yes, and that it may be in a sense "the same thing" if you are in a mind to look for universals
Calvino Rabeni: obviously my perspective is closer to comparative religion
Storm Nordwind: Superficially they appear different, and would probably appear that way to most Christians. But it is interesting to study the mechanisms for enabling both and perhaps see common threads
Calvino Rabeni: yes perhaps
-- BELL --
Calvino Rabeni: leaving buddhist terminology aside - because it tempts one with "correctness" ...
Calvino Rabeni: I said earlier that compassion was loaded or laden...
Calvino Rabeni: And I think it could be explored in the "ordinary" conceptual and experiential framework
Calvino Rabeni: without overt metaphysical terms
Calvino Rabeni: For example, instead of "compassion" another interesting word
Calvino Rabeni: is "pity".
Calvino Rabeni: That is of course, laden
Storm Nordwind: Even more heavily loaded yes
Calvino Rabeni: yes, I dare say, more heavily :)
Storm Nordwind: But there may well be cultural differences across the Atlantic of which I'm not yet aware! :)
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, cultural is one layer of it.
Calvino Rabeni: And it may be different, I would speculate in advance
Calvino Rabeni: But the cultures have a lot in common
Calvino Rabeni: The question I have in mind is, what is "in" pity, as an experience?
Calvino Rabeni: If the secondary ideas are dropped/
Storm Nordwind: Quite a few things. For example, the feeling that "you're there and I'm glad I'm not"
Calvino Rabeni: That's kind of in-between, Not sure which aspect you meant.
Calvino Rabeni: I could take it two ways
Calvino Rabeni: And as an experience it might go two ways
Calvino Rabeni: It might go towards difference and superiority
Calvino Rabeni: It might go in the opposite direction
Storm Nordwind: yes. pity is indeed an ambiguous term, with a spectrum that goes all the way to condescension and patronising
Calvino Rabeni: But as an experience, it is one of the things that has been buried by culture under false consciousness
Calvino Rabeni: In my view, it has a deeper meaning that is like a buried treasure
Storm Nordwind: I doubt it has been buried. Fragmented at the most, recombined and renamed perhaps, but not lost
Calvino Rabeni: and could use some rehabilitation
Calvino Rabeni: Fragmented, hidden, insofar as it isn't in its purer form an accessible experience for people, because it is occluded by the layer of ideas about what it means
Storm Nordwind: Ah then I would gisagree. People do not need a name for an experience to have that experience in my view
Storm Nordwind: *disagree
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I may disagree, because I am saying that peoples habits are structured by the cultural ideas that are handed to them.
Calvino Rabeni: And their experiences tainted thereby
Calvino Rabeni: Or colored, or structured, to use a less negative word
Storm Nordwind: That will always be so. But there are many people who partly or wholly experience freely to a lesser or greater extent
Calvino Rabeni: Averages count.
Storm Nordwind: The outliers may pull and influence too!
Calvino Rabeni: In a sense, we are having a fact / value split, Is vs Ought
Calvino Rabeni: You're on the ought side, I'm on the is side
Storm Nordwind: No
Storm Nordwind: I'm on the Can side
Calvino Rabeni: So agree, it is possible, and some can do it
Calvino Rabeni: can / ought array against is
Storm Nordwind: ought is a value judgement. Can is a fact
Calvino Rabeni: So yes, it Can be done. And I hope it Will, but it Isn't because of the overlay
Storm Nordwind: sure
Storm Nordwind: You will have to excuse me now
Calvino Rabeni: I could get into can vs ought, interesting, but "can't" right now due to lack of time
Storm Nordwind: I must leave for RL!
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks Storm, for the interesting discussion
Calvino Rabeni: Same here
Storm Nordwind: As always!
Storm Nordwind: Namaste
Calvino Rabeni: As sometimes happens, I didn't get right to the point
Calvino Rabeni: What I had in mind is - pity when experienced with a clear mind, can be a gateway to compassion
Calvino Rabeni: _/!\_