2010.03.14 19:00 - Evolution Dreams Up "The Brain"

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    The Guardian for this meeting was Calvino Rabeni. The comments are by Calvino Rabeni.

    A long (but quickly passing!) session in which we examine some overlapping ideas in evolution, neurophilosophy, the skill of dreaming, and possibly, spiritual practice.  

    Calvino Rabeni: Hello Mitzi
    Calvino Rabeni: good to see you
    Calvino Rabeni: I was a bit late - not quite synced to daylight time
    Calvino Rabeni: I'd been writing a brief biographic statement about a friend of mine
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: say more
    Calvino Rabeni: He lives in Oregon, USA - recently I helped him with a project of writing a 60 year retrospective on a book he wrote in 1950
    Calvino Rabeni: which was a ahead of its time - titled "Evolution and Human Destiny"
    Calvino Rabeni: It consisted of pretty even-handed long range scientific speculation - the long view
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oooh ... I'm intrigued ... what's the take home lessons?
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: It was, a grand picture naturalizing science and humanity as parts of an evolving, complexifying system.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: You are still a ball of light Calvino!
    Calvino Rabeni: We both look normal to me.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ah.
    Calvino Rabeni: I had some great conversations while at Princeton, and got some feedback on that essay, so I was writing a bio note on its author
    Calvino Rabeni: SL is a little weird - I never understood the cloud thing, or why I am levitating
    Calvino Rabeni: (Am I levitating?)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: for the Princeton IAS folks?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: You appear as a ball of translucent light hovering over your pillow.
    Calvino Rabeni: No the bio was just for someone who was curious
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Your light pulses. It got dim, and then very much brighter and more oblong (tall)
    Calvino Rabeni: The essay is at http://www.archive.org/details/EvolutionsAndHumanDestinyReflectionsOfTheAuthorSixtyYearsAfterThe
    Calvino Rabeni: I was doing more reading in neuroscience and philosophy
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes? such as ?
    Calvino Rabeni: It's another of I think, several things that seem to be getting closer to something reasonable, in the last decade
    Calvino Rabeni: Various neurological models that might reasonably account for brain activity as well as phenomenological observations such as those in meditation
    Calvino Rabeni: The effort being to account for both in a coordinated way
    Calvino Rabeni: rather than reason from first principles or try to design an AI - the approaches seem more empirical and less dogmatic than in the past
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: where do you find your information on this topic?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I'm extremely intrested and would like to see your sources or links - in an email - sometime this week if that's easy enough
    Calvino Rabeni: Hold on - my URL is broken - I had plenty of browsing opportunity in the bookshelves at IAS
    Calvino Rabeni: Just a sec.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: no worries. Enjoying the sunset and the butterflies.
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2010/00000017/F0020001/art00005
    Calvino Rabeni: Unfortunately this article in Journal of Consciousness Studies is not available on the web
    Calvino Rabeni: but the abstract will give you an idea
    Calvino Rabeni: I read it while my laptop was connected via the IAS network
    Calvino Rabeni: But as a synopis, it is in the same approach as Metzingers model - I can find a better link for that
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I found some hints on the web as to why you might appear as a ball of light. I believe they relate to my preferences and possibly clearing a Second Life cache.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: But I don't mind. Kind of like chatting with an Angel or alien or something!
    Calvino Rabeni: What do you need to do?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I've seen that, don't mind it !
    Calvino Rabeni: http://www.philosophie.uni-mainz.de/metzinger/publikationen/precis.pdf
    Calvino Rabeni: http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/0465045677
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: "Clear the cache from outside Second life" also unplug modems which I don't take too seriously. And a bunch of other stuff. Unless it has to do with something YOU should do, but that doesn't make sense ...?
    Calvino Rabeni: No clue - the experienced users know the Control-Alt-Voodoo things to do
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: It doesn't matter. Not worth spending our time on.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: There's a woman, MD named Ginger Campbell who does a "Brain Science Podcast".
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: She has a lot of interesting scientists on there whom she interviews.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: One man wrote a book called "My neurons made me do it." That is interesting to listen to.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: And another podcast is where she summarizes all the arguments for and against reductionism and gives her own view.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Suddenly you are here. Hi!
    Calvino Rabeni: hiya :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Your avatar reminds me a little bit of you in real life. My avatar is deliberately different
    Calvino Rabeni: True on both accounts :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Of course we haven't seen each other in Real Life in over 10 years
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: Hmm at least 10!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: That's probably personal, maybe not appropriate for this venue
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I saaw you one time in the Bookends coffeeshop, after you had moved to Ashland. I think that's the last time.
    Calvino Rabeni: Well parts of me are still excellent :)
    Calvino Rabeni: With neuroscience - deliver us from a-priori speculation and monocausalitis!
    Calvino Rabeni: It's hard to believe some of the stuff they were proposing
    Calvino Rabeni: kind of the "cargo cult" of consciousness
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Who was proposing?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I like your term - "monocausalitis" !!
    Calvino Rabeni: I got it from one of the John Brockman essay collections at edge.org
    Calvino Rabeni: Anyway for a review of various models - http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/
    Calvino Rabeni: It's not state of the art, but kind of reiterates some of the muddle that existed and maybe still does
    Calvino Rabeni: The brain must be a language machine based on syntax processing. NO the brain must be a symbol processing computer. (etc.)
    Calvino Rabeni: Anything but - hey how does this thing here actually work?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I have about six tabs open in Firefox, one for each of your many intriguiguing links.
    Calvino Rabeni: How about the "Planetary Creature" :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, I immediately rejected all the symoblic logic models when I studied cognitive science.
    Calvino Rabeni: Indeed
    Calvino Rabeni: Leave Turing on the shelf too
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: The planetary creature - the Terran Logos - JG Bennett
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: That's where cognitive science meets metaphysics
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: And, speaking of JJ Gibson and "Ecological Perception" the two really can't be studied in isolation.
    Calvino Rabeni: http://triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/129
    Calvino Rabeni: The CCC web site has some interesting articles
    Calvino Rabeni: But that Planetary Creature reiterates the ideas of the article written in 1950
    Calvino Rabeni: Anyway, aren't we supposed to be contemplating experience, and all that :)
    Calvino Rabeni: Would you like to do the honors, and suggest a contemplation for during the next 90 sec pause?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: The word wide web, including what we are doing here, would certainly fall within that.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: OK. Let us contemplate being here now in our respective small places, and simultaenously being together in another dimension.
    Calvino Rabeni: :)
    --BELL--
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: 4th dimension, 5th dimension etc.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I'm still a littele unclear on what we are doing here as Kira / Play as Being participants. What "should" I be doing when I'm here?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I've read the website and all, but it doens't stick in my mind ... somehow.
    Calvino Rabeni: There are certain intentionally unformed ideas we can talk about
    Calvino Rabeni: Remember Peter Ralston?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: oh yeah?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Peter Ralston. Yes indeed!
    Calvino Rabeni: Of course he got asked - can you just tell me - define it
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: He got asked ... what?
    Calvino Rabeni: Like, what the **** are you talking about :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh now I get it. Yes, people wanted a simple mind-bite. But,
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: he was trying to elicit a more experiential state for his students.
    Calvino Rabeni: e.g. a new improved definition about how to know reality, what to do, etc.
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes
    Calvino Rabeni: Just wrapping it up in a conceptual package and putting a bow on it wasn't going to substantively add anything for his students, no matter how good the formulation
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... "definition" in quotes ...
    Calvino Rabeni: Anyway, to some degree PAB is "intentionally left blank"
    Calvino Rabeni: Or rather, somewhat loosely defined
    Calvino Rabeni: Minimally, being here, using the idea of "pauses" to be mindful -
    Calvino Rabeni: And then observing what happens out of that
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Ok then, I'm perfectly within parameters. I knind of knew that already but just felt to check in with you about that.
    Calvino Rabeni: And If you ask different people you get a different answer - or, if you observe their behavior and think what intention it represents
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: It certainly keeps things from getting too calcified around here. SInce you have a lot of scientists that's probably important.
    Calvino Rabeni: You have a good point there - but non-scientists are as easily calcified too
    Calvino Rabeni: It is easy to get calcified around the idea of formlessness or intuition, for example
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, I shouldn't pigeonhole scientists, it's a universal human foible.
    Calvino Rabeni: And perhaps this is how brains work too - I'm not so sure "foible" is a neutral term
    Calvino Rabeni: Interestingly, neuroscience may create some common ground with traditional spiritual ideas - but it may also take some things away
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I enjoyed using the world "foible." I first typed "problem" then changed it t "foible" and felt pleased.
    Calvino Rabeni: The interesting question to me - can neuroscience and religion be truly harmonized?
    Calvino Rabeni: :)
    Calvino Rabeni: Foible is fun
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Depends on what religion!
    Calvino Rabeni: It's a little like "trouble", "fumble", but more innocent
    Calvino Rabeni: Like a peccadillo :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: And just fun to say. Makes your lips make funny shapes.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: There are scientific fundamentalistss just as there are religious fundamentalists.
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: Who says words aren't onomatopoetic?
    Calvino Rabeni: How was it in the 5th dimension?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: onoamontapoeia?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Well I think we live there but don't label it as such.
    Calvino Rabeni: It recalled a cartoon by Roz Chast - you know that artist?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes! She's a big favorite of mine. My cranio-sacral person has a book of hers in the waiting room. I was looking atit rcently
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Onomatopoeia (I looked it up on google).
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Anyway, roz chast?
    Calvino Rabeni: Well, the cartoon gave a diagram of the ability to find the intersection between arbitrary figures, e.g. where do "roz chast" and "franz Kafka" intersect in 5-dimensional space-time
    Calvino Rabeni: The diagram showed an intersection point labeled "like to eat raw dough"
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Ha ha, actually LOL!
    Calvino Rabeni: Kind of - library science humor
    Calvino Rabeni: LOL is a good rating - once I think, I actually got a LMAO :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Library science is not to be scoffed at! Many fascinating problems fall within its domain.
    Calvino Rabeni: Agree totall8y
    Calvino Rabeni: totally
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: LMAO - figured it out right away. I must be a real nerd huh?
    Calvino Rabeni: as in A** ?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, it took me a while
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh yeah, what about Gregory Bateson?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: He wrote a book "MInd and Nature: A necessary unity"
    Calvino Rabeni: It has been a while - do you rememer the crux of it?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: which would seem to be about how mind co-evolved with the world
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: thus to understand our minds we need to understand the world
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I thought of it because of JJ Gibson and Ecological Perception and that
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: you can't study mind in isolation from the world in functions as part of ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Of course I nevber actually read "Mind and Nature." (disclaimer). I am only ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: intuiting his message from the book title."
    Calvino Rabeni: Right - Fair enough :)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: A good book *should* be summarized by its title.
    Calvino Rabeni: That would be an efficient design
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Or .. should holographically embed the essence of the book within itself.
    Calvino Rabeni: So the ideas are somewhat subtle and have to do with perspective
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... say more?
    Calvino Rabeni: Well, the concept of evolution - compared to co-evolution of organism, including mind, with its environment
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: uh huh
    Calvino Rabeni: So for instance, evolution can't be truly modeled by any externally defined "fitness function" or whatever
    Calvino Rabeni: because of the circular logic involved
    Calvino Rabeni: Survival of the fittest - well how do you know they are fittest? Well, because they survived
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: how would it be circular?
    Calvino Rabeni: Survival of the survivals
    Calvino Rabeni: survival of the survivors
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: History is written by the victors, ha ha!
    Calvino Rabeni: Not really a definition
    Calvino Rabeni: but a tautology
    --BELL--
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: There is a book by Francisco Varela "The Roots of Consciousness"
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... it has as subtle point which I *think* I may grok ...
    Bertram Jacobus: hello mitzi and cal
    Calvino Rabeni: Good to see you, Bert, how are things?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: such that ... we think we have certain capacities and abilities that we use to do stuff like eat, buil
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: building things, not bump into objects ... Hellow Bertram!
    Bertram Jacobus: it´s ok - ty cal - and with you ?
    Calvino Rabeni: Well ! Can't complain ! Or might be able to ! Thanks !
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... but evolutionarily speaking, actually its because we are the evolutionary result of zillions of years of selection
    Bertram Jacobus: :-)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Please joing us Bertram, I am in the middle of a rant about Francisco Varela ...
    Calvino Rabeni: Rant or Rap? That is the question.
    Bertram Jacobus: all fine. am reading what you write - all fine ... ty
    Calvino Rabeni: Want a note card?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... anyway we don't bump into things not because we're so smart and adept at maneuvring and aware of our surroundings ...
    Bertram Jacobus: no ty. too lazy
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: but because we are structually incapable of bumping into things ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: evolutionarily we are what happened ... the klutzes didn't make it.
    Calvino Rabeni: A variation on the anthropic principle - with a measure of co-evolution and non-representationalism thrown in ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh dear, I don't think I can convey this concept. I don't feel that what I said is what I had in my mind.
    Calvino Rabeni: Take your time - maybe you had an angle
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Calvino - did that resonate with anything in your repertoire?
    Calvino Rabeni: Start with the angle, not the background - sometimes that works
    Calvino Rabeni: I just summarized what resonated so far
    Calvino Rabeni: But you expressed it more naturally
    Calvino Rabeni: I labeled it in reference to several other ideas
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes you did. Wraparound syndrome!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: OK I have an angle.
    Calvino Rabeni: But, we shouldn't get the credit, as if we made it up
    Calvino Rabeni: We and the world are made for each other
    Calvino Rabeni: Our bodies are affordances that could be seen to be expressions of the environment
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: A submarine navigates through the deep, adeptly avoiding smaashing into things. The submarine thinks to itself - I am so smart!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Look how cleverly I maneuver. I am intelligent and self-directing.
    Bertram Jacobus smiles at the thinking submarine and thinks : better then sinking ... ;-)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: But really the submarine was designed to be that way. It can't take credit.
    Calvino Rabeni: Right. Like, the fly is not so very clever and quick when it gets blown aside by the wind in advance of the hand that's trying to swat it
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: In the same way, we humans think we are responsible for our actions when we are simply being the animal/machine/livingthing that we are...
    Bertram Jacobus: but - don´t we must say also : "we never know" ?
    Calvino Rabeni: Another way to look at it is - 99.9999% of what we need to do to survive, we "outsource"
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: Hello Lucinda, please join us if you like.
    Lucinda Lavender: thanks...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: perhaps "insource" is a better term. ??
    Bertram Jacobus: hy lucinda ! ... :-)
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Welcome Lucinda!
    Lucinda Lavender: Thanks, Hi
    Calvino Rabeni: Bert, we might say "we never know" but could also say, our knowing is present, a knowing of the world itself, not the limited "I"
    Calvino Rabeni: Like, a kind of "great knowledge"
    Calvino Rabeni: ALthough I don't mean to equate it with the idea in the TSK book
    Calvino Rabeni: Book - Time Space, and Knowledge - one we have been studying in a Kira weekly class
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: We *should* say "we never know" ... but many people sincerely feel they *DO* know and are not shy about saying so!
    Calvino Rabeni: Lucinda and Mitzi are both friends I've known a long time
    Calvino Rabeni: :) mitzi
    Bertram Jacobus: i see what you mean - but my state is that i´m not sure whether we are capable to do something or not. whether there is a lot of illusion or not ...
    Calvino Rabeni: Basically a bit of humility would open some new doors
    Calvino Rabeni: I think a starting point is to drop a suspicious feeling about what might be considered "illusion"
    Calvino Rabeni: In other words, without seeing, discrimination has less purchase
    Calvino Rabeni: But on the other hand, the "doing" part is a challenge
    Calvino Rabeni: Mitzi, from your background, what do you know about this idea of "doing"?
    Calvino Rabeni: It has various suspicious perspectives, and various over-optimistic ones
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: As in doing versus being - gurdjieffan?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes
    Bertram Jacobus: so - what is your opinion ? are we capable to act or are we only part of a design and we can'´t really ?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: My opinion is that we are caught in the waves of many overlapping influences
    Bertram Jacobus: (capable to do)
    Calvino Rabeni: My opinion is - if the "design" acts, we are justified in claiming it as an act of "I"
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, in a sense, we may be constituted AS that set of overlapping influences
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... very potent ... and yet there is *always* a point of leverage within our own selves where we can choose to lean one way or another - focus our attention differently ...
    Calvino Rabeni: I can go along with that
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... and the consequences of that difference of focusing can then flow through to action ...
    Bertram Jacobus: i´m not sure about that leverage. could be illusion
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... which can have significant consequences and caussative power of its own ...
    Calvino Rabeni: In phenomenology, and also perhaps in neuroscience, the "attention" is not regarded as a very powerful force - more of a passive observer. But I think that notion is starting to change too
    Calvino Rabeni: If it is illusion, that makes a difference, then it has some potency
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: My own view is that the ONLY damn thing we can control is our attention! Thus it gives us as humans dignity.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Dignity in the face of so many forces beyong our control.
    Calvino Rabeni: No biting in this place, please
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Bertram - if it is illusion - could we design a scientific type experiment to test that notion or not?
    Bertram Jacobus: i think, then the illusion of be capable to do so would be possible mitzi
    Bertram Jacobus: being*
    Calvino Rabeni: I don't personally see that "illusion" has a very precise or useful definition
    --BELL--
    Bertram Jacobus: no ? i think yes : to me it means something like : wrong impressions
    Calvino Rabeni: It's like Mitzi's distinction of a previous discussion - everything is real, but some things don't exist
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: DId we ever get to "being" and "doing"? Is it still of interest?
    Calvino Rabeni: What would define an impression as "wrong"?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes it is of interest Mitzi?
    Calvino Rabeni: I'm mindful of the bell while still typing :)
    Bertram Jacobus: when i said you´re not a human being to me - that could based on wrong impressions for example cal
    Bertram Jacobus: + be
    Calvino Rabeni: It could be seen as a story - stories are fiction, not "wrong"
    Bertram Jacobus: i think, both is possible
    Bertram Jacobus: and you say so, too : it "could" - agree ;-)
    Calvino Rabeni: And in some sense, the waking mind is a subset of the dreaming mind, not the other way around
    Calvino Rabeni: In that sense, the dreaming mind is the baseline, the more important as a capability
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Did you see the Scientific American article about "The Mind's Dark Energy?"
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes
    Bertram Jacobus: so also the idea thet the other way round would be correct could be called "wrong" cal in your view - no ?
    Bertram Jacobus: that*
    Calvino Rabeni: The words illusion and wrong carry a baggage with them
    Bertram Jacobus: i don´t know that article
    Calvino Rabeni: They make a statement of preference, I think
    Bertram Jacobus: yes. but we can drop the baggage or pack some on words
    Calvino Rabeni: Unless you take them coldly, but that would be unusual
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Bertram ... your statementss feel kind of speculative or abstract to me ... What is it you are *REALLY* interested in?
    Lucinda Lavender: I have been discu ssing stories in another group, the stories that do not address our being connected in consciousness. What has been my experience is that we rosnate with the more expended sense of self in dreaming.
    Bertram Jacobus: enlightenment mitzi and i mean with it : end of suffering
    Lucinda Lavender: Sorry, resonate and expanded were two words I mis typed.
    Calvino Rabeni: In which case they are just ambiguous, unless we agree on how to use them in a specific manner, and even then, I don't think we can presume the baggage is reliably "dropped"
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Ah! I hear you and feel you, B!
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, there are "holographic" aspects of self that reside in the dreaming mind anc create the surround of significance for what we do while assuming we are "just" awake
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: The "Brain's Dark Energy" article said that there is a huge amount of so called background activity in the brain all the time ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... and that in the past, neuroscientists just ignored it, presuming it wasn't important. Silly them ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... But that in researching Alzheimer's they found that all this background activity is messed up in Alzheimer's patients
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: compared to normal people ... so now they are intersted in it.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: It goes on all the time ... in sleep as well. So ... supports what you said Calvino about the waking mind as a subset of the dreaming mind.
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, it's analogous to what happened in genomics - ignoring the parts of the genome that didn't directly code for proteins, as if they had no other function
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Science is so stupid sometimes.
    Calvino Rabeni: Sure seems that way :)
    Calvino Rabeni: Ignoring the most basic indirect reasoning
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yup.
    --BELL--
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Lucinda, can you say more about that expanded sense of self?
    Bertram Jacobus: a quite challenging "sentence" came to my mind right before : "blame others is always a fault, to consider them as good is good, considering oneself - afault and blame onself - good" (!) ...
    Bertram Jacobus: + as good
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Bertram, do you yourself feel that way?
    Bertram Jacobus: it´s a challenge to me
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Do you tend to blame others too much then?
    Bertram Jacobus: and i try to contemplate that since a few ears ...
    Bertram Jacobus: years*
    Bertram Jacobus: don´t know yet whether it´s right or wrong
    Lucinda Lavender: I think of dreaming as the place where we tune in to a more expanded self.
    Bertram Jacobus: the sentence doesn´t speak about "too much"
    Lucinda Lavender: In waking I must slow down and question every assumption as part of creating a more expanded script.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Hmm, it could be an interesting experiment to follow for a few hours or days - to follow the instructionns of the sentence that came to you.
    Bertram Jacobus: yes ! i agree very much -
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Calvino ... I feel I was / am being too active ... I will take a break for a few minutes. So others may speak.
    Calvino Rabeni: That's a lojong proverb too - to drive all the blame to oneself - which means to accept all the responsibility - which means, to be fully responsive
    Bertram Jacobus: i appreciate your writing very much mitzi -
    Calvino Rabeni: I thought you were spot on, mitzi :)
    Bertram Jacobus: but also noticed how long this session already rus - time is flying here to me - so i´ll say goodbye for now and ty all ! ...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Sigh -smile. Ahh (relief)
    Bertram Jacobus: runs*
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Good everning Bertram!
    Calvino Rabeni: In fact I canceled my own statement in favor of it :)
    Calvino Rabeni: Bye bert, good to see you, take care
    Bertram Jacobus: ty all again and - may all beings be happy please (!) ...
    Calvino Rabeni: _/!\_
    Lucinda Lavender: Bye
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Calfino, what's that emoticon - a Namaste?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes, did you see the physical gesture that goes with it?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Oh, did I miss it?!? Can yo do it again?
    Calvino Rabeni: _/!\_
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Now I saw it!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Lucinda ... I like very much what you said about slowing down and questioning every assumption.
    Lucinda Lavender: In a group I meet with we are talking about healed thought merging with divine wisdom.
    Lucinda Lavender: We have been looking at the stories and such that we create.
    Calvino Rabeni: I think, if you look carefully, you can find additional aspects not first appreciated
    --BELL--
    Lucinda Lavender: Sure..
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Cal, do you mean .. in the stories we create?
    Calvino Rabeni: Stories and/or other experiences such as memories
    Calvino Rabeni: Lucinda has for a long time focused on dreams as a realm of experience
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: One certainly would have to slow down to see those additional aspects.
    Calvino Rabeni: My opinion is that the lessons there, could be true also of other kinds of experiences
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Lucinda, what have you learned? Sorry, huge question.
    Calvino Rabeni: And in fact, in the past I wanted to study dreams, but later decided that waking expeience could be in fact, the same kind of study
    Lucinda Lavender: In a nutshell, that my walking mind is less free to tune in to possibility.
    Calvino Rabeni: The dreams might make it easier in some ways, but are less accessible than waking experiences
    Calvino Rabeni: Hello Aztlan
    Aztlan Foss: hey calvino
    Aztlan Foss: Hello!
    Aztlan Foss: Hey! everyone
    Calvino Rabeni: :) just so, lucinda
    Lucinda Lavender: hello!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Hellow Aztlan.
    Calvino Rabeni: it's harder to see, in waking experience, the degrees of imiaginative freedom that are clearly present in dreaming
    Lucinda Lavender: I think of dreams coming from a dimension of truth.
    Calvino Rabeni: Call it a survival urge, or something, but waking is more constrained
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I have so many adventurous and active dreams. It makes my daily life seem rather mundane.
    Lucinda Lavender: Sounds rich!
    Calvino Rabeni: You mean,night dreams that are active?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes! Also, there are many houses. Houses with floores and floors, secret passageways, balconies, roof gardens, balustrades, and on and in. Yes, night dreams that are active.
    Calvino Rabeni: Well, let me know - would you *like* the richness of the dreaming mind, with its imaginative capacities, to be available during "daily life" - or would that seem to threaten some kind of performance in the world?
    Lucinda Lavender: Architecture!
    Calvino Rabeni: You remind me Mitzi, of dreams with those features , and consequently how I like RL architecture
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Umm ... it doesn't bother me that the dream world stays in its own place. I feel a lot of rich imaginative possibilities in waking life too.
    Calvino Rabeni: And in one case, there seemed to be a good match
    Calvino Rabeni: You sound pretty balanced
    Lucinda Lavender: To view the architecture without so much human element is like seeing the undergirding of our experience.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I think I'm kind of really right-brained. Not sure about balanced ... hopefully!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Lucinda ... wow! That's a very potent thing to further explore. Love it.
    Lucinda Lavender: Subtract the human element and what are the possibilities?
    Calvino Rabeni: I think of Lucinda as a kind of shaman - although perhaps a modest one :)
    Lucinda Lavender: tee hee!
    Calvino Rabeni: I'm not sure how to do that Lucinda - how do you separate some element as "human"?
    Lucinda Lavender: good question...
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: But many of these ideas like that can be taken as hints - or as "exercises for the reader" :)
    Lucinda Lavender: Some dreams are for seeing maybe...other realms of consciousness. without a story that is personal.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I can feel how you are a kind of shaman, Lucinda.
    Lucinda Lavender: shaman/preschool teacher
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Since these structures (houses) are generated by our own selves the structures they display would come from somewhere ...?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... our experiences, universal mind, a fertile intersection of both, with possible other inputs ...?
    Lucinda Lavender: The dream teacher I study with says that we resonate with the darkness and the energies expose themselves.
    Calvino Rabeni: I think, identity is not a fixed thing but emerges when people interact and define themselves to one another
    Lucinda Lavender: perhaps we build it like as in architecture.
    Calvino Rabeni: in the same way, whether something is "personal" or not would be discerned by what happens when you interact with it, e.g. like "dropping" it
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Yes, Cal, I slowly discovered that very thing.
    Aztlan Foss: it's like that "who makes the grass green?" saying
    Aztlan Foss: the grass isn't gree in and of it's self
    Calvino Rabeni: Nice point lucinda about resonating with darkness
    Aztlan Foss: it's your experience of it, so if you remove either the grass or you, there is no green, you need both
    Lucinda Lavender: not my words but I love them.
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes Aztlan
    Calvino Rabeni: But in doing so, there are different mixes that emerge
    Calvino Rabeni: I could say that "lucinda" is partly me...
    Calvino Rabeni: but in practice, more that other person, and I'm happy to delegate more "being" to Lucinda
    Calvino Rabeni: Than I am about "Calvino"
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Lucinda, to clarify: when we resonate with the darkness - meaning that as we engage with the unknown, experientially, hidden structures (or energies?) have the chance to be perceived? Or something like that?
    Calvino Rabeni: which I hold a bit closer :)
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes Lucinda, I am fascinated also by that description
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Also to agree with you Calvino: I find myself behaving in a specific way when around Calvino, and in a different specific way relative to Lucinda, and so on with each person ... and
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... that is not in conflict at all with being true to myself or authentic
    Lucinda Lavender: interesting Calvino. Yes we experience something in the darkness that we write a story for. The darkness provides the energetic stimulus for the story.
    Calvino Rabeni: All light emerges from darkness in a way
    Lucinda Lavender: Yes and in the darkness is the dreamweave...or stucture we travel upon to create the story.
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... or what if we could be brave enough to not write a story for that unknown something in the darkness ... or is that even possible? *Must* we write a story because we can't tolerate the emptiness?
    Calvino Rabeni: The darkness protects the latent qualities of the germinal and not-yet
    Lucinda Lavender: Yes it is called the not yet realms.
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: Agree Mitzi, interesting to consider
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: protects until the time is right?
    Calvino Rabeni: Really Lucinda - where did I get the term "not yet" - did I fish it up from the dark? Or did it dream itself up through us?
    Calvino Rabeni: Yes Mitzi I agree with that
    Lucinda Lavender: It is in a book I have read.
    Calvino Rabeni: I didn't read the book, but I intuited it from your lead-up
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... reminds me of ... Tibetan Buddhist concept of "terma" which are hidden gems of wisdom. They are found when the time is ready for them to be revealed.
    Lucinda Lavender: ok!
    Calvino Rabeni: But it was an idea I had a couple months ago - which came in handy about now :)
    Lucinda Lavender: I guess I have to go now...it is time for the movie to start about hot dogs...
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: ... if the word "not-yet" came to you just now, then that might be ane xample of the whole reality of 4th and 5th dimensional realms being right here with us and not some glamourous abstraction ...
    Calvino Rabeni: Then about the Terma - does it seem one can bias their appearance - e.g. invite it, or OTOH be too dense to bee receptive?
    Calvino Rabeni: Makes sense Mitzi
    Calvino Rabeni: ?? THe movie is *about* hot dogs?
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Cal ... yes, that's how I think of it ... they perhaps lurk in the not-yet realms until invited forth.
    Lucinda Lavender: Receptiveness is how you get to listen to the not yet realms...
    Calvino Rabeni: Thanks Lucinda, I much enjoyed this with you tonight :)
    Calvino Rabeni: Good way to say it.
    Lucinda Lavender: This is a movie that is a sequel to one about sandwhiches I have already seen.
    Calvino Rabeni: :)
    Calvino Rabeni: The world in a grain of sand - or in a potato chip :)
    Lucinda Lavender: So happy to be with others being...:)
    Calvino Rabeni: Bye Lucinda
    Lucinda Lavender: bye!
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Hello, I am back. Sorry I crashed. Wanted to say to Lucinda
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: that you offered me fertile soil ffor the week, to contemplate ... or is she off to hot dog movie land?
    Calvino Rabeni: I will pass it on - Lucinda is offline
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: I should probably go too ... but I've been having such a good time.
    --BELL--
    Calvino Rabeni: Same here - let's slip out during the pause :)
    Calvino Rabeni: BYe Aztlan, if you are present
    Mitzi Mimistrobell: Good evening Aztlan
    Aztlan Foss: bye
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