2012.07.15 19:00 - Awareness; blindsight; synaesthesia

Wol Euler recovered this fascinating session from the autologging database.

Korel Laloix: Heya
Calvino Rabeni: Heya Korel
Korel Laloix: Might be a few other folks popping in.
Calvino Rabeni: Hope so
Korel Laloix: Not sure what the topic is though.
Calvino Rabeni: I think I can look it up
Calvino Rabeni: Hello Santo
Santoshima Resident: hello ~
Korel Laloix: Heya.
Korel Laloix: Might be listening.
Korel Laloix: How was your Sunday?
Santoshima Resident: { me? }
stevenaia Michinaga: waves
Santoshima Resident: hi stevenaia
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Stevenaia
Calvino Rabeni: I came here on my netbook today ... so I will likely be slower than I usually am
Korel Laloix: No worries.
Korel Laloix: I am on mine as well.
stevenaia Michinaga: will Pema and Boxy be having another theme session tomorrow at the 7:00 am session?
Calvino Rabeni: Camping, Korel?
Korel Laloix: Sitting on teh back porch enjoying the heat.
Calvino Rabeni: Ah .. like the heat :)
Calvino Rabeni: I might resort to a dip in the creek
Calvino Rabeni: I don't know, Stev
Korel Laloix: That does sound nice.
stevenaia Michinaga: tough to compromise when one loves the heat and spouse loves the A/c
Calvino Rabeni: Yes there are a couple deep pools with granite boulders around
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds lovely
Korel Laloix: Grandma is tring to freeze me to death inside.
Calvino Rabeni: I thought about you yesterday Korel because there was an exhibition of dancing
Korel Laloix: Lovely ... where?
Calvino Rabeni: but I'm ignorant about exactly what styles
Calvino Rabeni: In Ashland Oregon
Calvino Rabeni: there is a program for um, I think helping kids with their academics
Korel Laloix: OH OK...
Korel Laloix: I do love dance...
Korel Laloix: I am not creative, but I can identify with it at least.

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: And there is a lot of community freeform dances - not of the traditional type - went to one this morning, sort of like church
Calvino Rabeni: Creativity without structure, I suppose
Korel Laloix: I really have a hard to relating to that in some ways.
Calvino Rabeni: I was thinking , wondering actually, how it related to the weeks theme
Korel Laloix: When I go club dancing.. it is fun.. but I am not really in tune with it I guess.
stevenaia Michinaga: dancing is something people always seem to be hesitent to do, until they start, then it;s tough to stop
Calvino Rabeni: which wasn't too definitely defined, but seemed to be about awareness
Calvino Rabeni: heh stev
Calvino Rabeni: yes, I was thinking along that line
Calvino Rabeni: like when kids are given the opportunity to be on their own,
stevenaia Michinaga: something about ahe embarrising moment of not being able to, until it no longers matter cause you end up enjoying yourself to much
Calvino Rabeni: and they get bored for a while, before - *somehow* - their creativity kicks in
Calvino Rabeni: and theres a very awkward transition with acting out, till they get in ghe groove
stevenaia Michinaga: strange how that seems to be built into us
Calvino Rabeni: so there are two ways they can be, and a zone in between that is possibly unstable and unpleasant or something
stevenaia Michinaga: usually requiring peer pressure to begin
stevenaia Michinaga: (for your own good)
Calvino Rabeni: or you could say, I suppose, we are comfortable being this way or that way, but not the in-betweens
stevenaia Michinaga: inertia, a body at rest stays at rest......
Calvino Rabeni: the instruction there today was, well just sit there until you actually feel like moving , then do it
stevenaia Michinaga: and moving keeps moving
Calvino Rabeni: but ... it takes some kind of creativity to "overcome" the inertia?
stevenaia Michinaga: a force :)
Calvino Rabeni: make the switch in way of acting or awareness..?
Calvino Rabeni: Force and inertia ... hmm, who is calling us inert masses?
Korel Laloix: I feel like that from time to time.
stevenaia Michinaga: like the 90 seconds here, refocus to a different awarness, with a simple point in time (and a bell)
Calvino Rabeni likes to think he (others too) are smarter than stones :)
stevenaia Michinaga: smarter, yes, different, well
Korel Laloix: Wishfull thinking sometimes though... smiles
Calvino Rabeni: mmhm
stevenaia Michinaga: we are all the same stuff after all, who;s to say rocks are not as aware
stevenaia Michinaga: or as star's "life"
Calvino Rabeni: Is it possible, we might have the intention during the next pause, to emerge from it having done a shift of some kind ... ?
Calvino Rabeni: Smart Stuff, stev?
stevenaia Michinaga: not for me to say
stevenaia Michinaga: but worth thinking about
Calvino Rabeni: but not saying?
stevenaia Michinaga: perhaps I will ask in the next 90
Calvino Rabeni: maybe "partial" saying
stevenaia Michinaga: me asking rock asking me about awareness
stevenaia Michinaga: perhaps it will respond more warmly than some people
Korel Laloix: Probably true there...

--BELL--

stevenaia Michinaga: yup, it's all the same stuff...stardust
stevenaia Michinaga: when I felt the rock's compassion it got a bit spookie, how could it not posess such
Calvino Rabeni: It has an amazing ability to behave really different, depending on what is around
Calvino Rabeni: I notice a bit of "inertia" .. resistance ? to letting things change into new states that are not easily "talked"
stevenaia Michinaga: which?
Calvino Rabeni: about in some short amount of time ... befitting conversational patterns
stevenaia Michinaga: does conciousness ahve inertia?
stevenaia Michinaga: *have
Calvino Rabeni: what is that "force" ? Something requiring social relevance?
Calvino Rabeni: It seems to have inertia
stevenaia Michinaga: I mentioned peer pressure
stevenaia Michinaga: is it a force or a lubrcant
Calvino Rabeni: Pressure .. good old physics, our trusty source for metaphors for even tricky complex things like awareness !
stevenaia Michinaga: are you pushed, or are you just defected a bit to where you want to go, even if you didn;t know it
stevenaia Michinaga: physics of awareness?
stevenaia Michinaga: can we think of a way to measure that?
Santoshima Resident: shaken by physics
stevenaia Michinaga: you .... who defies gravity with yoga
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Calvino Rabeni: I doubt it can be measured, because the phenomena are too complex with few linear chains of cause and effect
stevenaia Michinaga: so any things we are aware of cannot be quantified, sounds like magic to me
Santoshima Resident: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178451
stevenaia Michinaga: Like.... what is that is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.
Calvino Rabeni: simple things, subject to agreement, it's just that the measurements don't capture the qualities and behavior of the whole situation

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Good Will, Stev ?
stevenaia Michinaga: Time
Calvino Rabeni: Yeah
stevenaia Michinaga: you can measure it.. but that;s about it
Calvino Rabeni: and what is being measured is some kind of regular process, a clock or atom or something
Calvino Rabeni: Notice how things seem different while walking or moving about
Calvino Rabeni: or sitting in different ways
stevenaia Michinaga: measured but unable to affect or change it, you change around it
Santoshima Resident: both change, everything changes
Santoshima Resident: in relation
stevenaia Michinaga: heading out Cal, or have a cramp
Calvino Rabeni: more alert when standing
stevenaia Michinaga: hi Paradise
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening, Paradise
Paradise Tennant: smiles hiya stev c al san and korel :)
Santoshima Resident: hiya Paradise
Calvino Rabeni: Plus, there are some science reports going around ... that people will live 2 years longer, if they spend less than three hours a day sitting down :)
Paradise Tennant: tough to do
stevenaia Michinaga: that;s time affecting you, not you affecting time
Calvino Rabeni: Korel has it covered :0
Korel Laloix smiles
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Korel Laloix: Actually I sit at work and in class a lot.
Korel Laloix: But I make up for it when I run I hope.
Paradise Tennant: yes me too :) very hard to get away from have looked at those walk work stations :)
Calvino Rabeni: nods, think so, the run would make up for it
Calvino Rabeni: Some other tricks might help change the seduction of the tech and work settings
stevenaia Michinaga: mid-day Tai Chi :)
Calvino Rabeni: like taking phone calls with mobile and earbuds while out walking
Calvino Rabeni: That sounds good Stev
stevenaia Michinaga: more alert when standing... are you standing in RL too?
Korel Laloix: Caio all.. have to go do that RL thing for a bit.
stevenaia Michinaga: bye Korel
Paradise Tennant: nite nite korel
Calvino Rabeni: o htat .. :)
Santoshima Resident: so long, korel
Calvino Rabeni: Bye Korel :)

--BELL--

Paradise Tennant: you have to have movement .. but it has to work into your day too .. lately I have been running in the pool and then doing a steam bath session afterwards can somehow do that at the end of the day and I fall asleep if I run outside .. I am awake till 4 am :)
Calvino Rabeni: Bedtime exercise leads to too much energy to sleep?
stevenaia Michinaga: sounds like the perfect night cap
Paradise Tennant: yes been working well use to run in the morning before I started anything but does not work that well with my current job
stevenaia Michinaga: my awareness is fading
Paradise Tennant: smiles and hands stev his teddy :)
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Nighty Night
Paradise Tennant: what was the topic toinight ?
Santoshima Resident: movement of rocks
Paradise Tennant: hmmm
stevenaia Michinaga: awareness (of rocks)
Calvino Rabeni: Something about awareness and its qualities and different types .. oh that was the PaB weekly topic
Calvino Rabeni: I think about our people-awareness experiences
Paradise Tennant: get to know a rock ?
Santoshima Resident: rock getting to know you
stevenaia Michinaga: nods, from their perspective, ofcourse
Paradise Tennant: smiles need to have friends of all types :)
Santoshima Resident: so true
Calvino Rabeni: mm some steady ones
Paradise Tennant: they are life's treasure I find :))

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: spending time with a rock brings .. some unique qualties to awareness that persist for some time
stevenaia Michinaga: truely if the time you spend with them results from an impact
stevenaia Michinaga: thinking that comment came from my lack of awareness....delete
Paradise Tennant: I like rocks I tend to collect the pretty ones the big hunks of quartz :) that are shiny :)
Santoshima Resident: { maybe it came from experience, stev }
Calvino Rabeni: the week topic started out being something like "listening" and then morphed into "awareness", which would be a different kind of focus to maybe, the same events
Santoshima Resident: listening is the week topic
Santoshima Resident: ?
Santoshima Resident: pls continue ...
Paradise Tennant: listens :)
Calvino Rabeni: Want the big quote (email)?
stevenaia Michinaga: yes
Santoshima Resident: ok
Calvino Rabeni: The offered topic for this week's sessions has many possibilities. It began with the umbrella topic of "Listening" and then was narrowed down into looking at "types of awareness". At the guardian session, Luci offered the example of "hyper focusing" which is a word used to describe the kind of intense concentration one has on an object of attention. It is often used with regard to children who may be unable to concentrate on what they are being asked to but can immerse in games or something they like to do, endlessly. Someone able to go deeply into a daydream and keep the narrative string, maybe be in a "hyperfocus" mode. Following up on Luci's example, oO0Oo posted a comment with a link to an interview about a technique called "focusing." http://www.focusing.org/conversation...david_rome.htm "Focusing" is a specific technique, but it is one of several which seem aimed at giving people ways to develop deeper listening skills. "Non-violent Communication" may be another.
At Xirana's session yesterday we wondered whether "active not knowing" (springing from Zen's teacher once suggesting he "not know") is a type of listening, and Bruce shared his working with "embodied sense." Raffila will follow up with a post very soon, but my aim in this email is to shine a soft light in this direction, in hopes that others will share their own experiences. Maybe deeper listening could even be tried in some sessions in unique ways.
Calvino Rabeni: I'll leave you with one excerpt from the main "focusing.org" page, which actually resonates with something I was reading in "Strangers to Ourselves" recently, regarding the possibility of *feelings* (not just thoughts or patterns) of the adaptive unconscious:
Calvino Rabeni: "Staying with the felt sense helps you learn that which you don’t already know. As you pay attention to the felt quality of your current experiencing, you develop new expressions, words that are fresh, appropriate and alive. The felt sense talks to you in words and symbols that are not separate from your experience, but which evoke that experience for you in the present moment. That experience was below your awareness, but not below the awareness of the body."
Calvino Rabeni: -- end --
Calvino Rabeni: well then ..
Calvino Rabeni: (?)
Calvino Rabeni: How did that appear
Santoshima Resident: didn't get the email
Santoshima Resident: appears ok
Paradise Tennant: intriguing to better understand your body's experience ..
Calvino Rabeni: A big chunk .. part of me grabbed onto some bits of it .. and said - I 'know' something 'about' that
Calvino Rabeni: yeah
Santoshima Resident: the last excerpt makes the most sense
Paradise Tennant: I think you attune more closely .. to your body when you move it :))

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Yes, Para .. the movement has an awareness embedded in it, which opens up a qualitiatively different experience
Calvino Rabeni: There's something about it tha seems so easy to forget -
Calvino Rabeni: It is not pre-defined!
Calvino Rabeni: .. either on the "object" end, the things seen,
Paradise Tennant: I know when i run alot .. i am more connected .. feel more in my body if I don't . that connection dissappears
Calvino Rabeni: or on the "subject" end, the one who is seeing it
Calvino Rabeni: nods
Calvino Rabeni: yes i know that effect Para
stevenaia Michinaga: night all
Calvino Rabeni: it is slow -building .. slow fading
Paradise Tennant: nite nite stev :)) sweet dreams
stevenaia Michinaga: :) thx
Calvino Rabeni: Good night Stevenaia :)
Paradise Tennant: bllinking on the object subject spectrum
Calvino Rabeni: Many of these slow forming things .. I fear if we didn't pay attention and name them, we might not realize they are going on
Calvino Rabeni: oh hmmm words !
Paradise Tennant: smiles would be nice trade pictures instead of words mentally like they think animals do :))
Paradise Tennant: smiles
Calvino Rabeni: i meant well we see things, and there is the person seeing , who can change and have different qualities of mind
Calvino Rabeni: and the thing seen, which can "appear" in many different ways ..
Calvino Rabeni: the seeing has a subtle mixture of those two things,
Calvino Rabeni: neither fixed and pre-defined
Calvino Rabeni: I think well if some recent science is to be believed, we basically already do that, Para
Calvino Rabeni: clever animals
Paradise Tennant: wonder if both the seeing and the being seen require openess to get it right
Calvino Rabeni: I think openness can broaden by far, what can happen
Calvino Rabeni: make it more "real" and more "present"
Calvino Rabeni: I'm not sure if "right" exists other than that
Calvino Rabeni: Hi Bertrum, How are you?
Paradise Tennant: hiya betrum we are talking of seeing :))
Bertrum Resident: hi Cal and Paradise.
Paradise Tennant: I guess really seeing :)
Paradise Tennant: there are instance of blind people being able to describe things they should notreally be able to ...wonder if that is the picture trading science you were mentionind cal :)
Calvino Rabeni: maybe :) it is complicated huh .. there are also people who can see, but they are not aware that they can see

--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: blindsight ... their conscious mind process is blind but another part sees okay, and gets the message somehow to conscious self in a roundabout way
Paradise Tennant: smiles we are all alittle blindsight I suspect :))(
Calvino Rabeni: oh yes
Calvino Rabeni: knowing / seeing all kinds of things unconsciously
Calvino Rabeni: and in other cases a little effort of attention (and action) helps
Paradise Tennant: what kinds of exercises would you do to ehance seeing :)
Paradise Tennant: or practises
Calvino Rabeni: The sun is just down, ... a cool breeze has spung up ...I got more of it by standing at the window and opening it, than I had sitting at the screen
Calvino Rabeni: well, practices
Paradise Tennant: wb san
Calvino Rabeni: a metaphor is, awareness is like a fence around part of reality
Bertrum Resident: Backing up I have a question: don't you think a blind person might be able to "see" a conscious mind images (but not transmitted by the optic nerve--a mental image?
Calvino Rabeni: hi San
Santoshima Resident: ty, hi
Bertrum Resident: hi San
Calvino Rabeni: sometimes it is a big fence, sometimes small
Paradise Tennant: love that metaphor
Calvino Rabeni: and sometimes things "come in" that can be oriented to in different ways
Calvino Rabeni: welcomed, skirted around , moved towards, resented or whatever
Calvino Rabeni: which is an action of the body
Calvino Rabeni: and attention
Paradise Tennant: yes need to get outside our stories to really see :)
Bertrum Resident: Backing up I have a question: don't you think a blind person might be able to "see" a conscious mind images (but not transmitted by the optic nerve--a mental image?
Calvino Rabeni: (bert's question on the back burner :)
Santoshima Resident: suggestion for pratice was temporary blindness. erased that
Calvino Rabeni: A constructed image parhaps Bert, an imagination held in place by being match with other senses
Bertrum Resident: What do you mean by constructed?
Calvino Rabeni: I mean it takes form by mental activity ... that has both to do with what is "out there" and what a person has learned to be able to experience
Bertrum Resident: how is that different from an optic image?
Calvino Rabeni: I'd have to say an optic image is in a camera, but human perception doesn't work that way .. maybe just a little bit, but it is much more complex than that
Calvino Rabeni: brains are somewhat slow ... it's been found we see into an imagined near-future ... based on what we expect to be there
Bertrum Resident: I give you a concrete example. I have a colleague whose daughter "hears" in colors. There's a scientific name for this. avtually
Santoshima Resident: sinesthesia
Santoshima Resident: (?sp)
Calvino Rabeni: Have you noticed the cracks in the process, wherethings don't work as they "should"?
Calvino Rabeni: Something like synasthesia ?
Paradise Tennant: yes and some see numbers as colours or landscapes

--BELL--

Paradise Tennant: "on a blue day " :)
Paradise Tennant: 'I was born on 31 January 1979 - a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number nine or the sound of loud voices arguing.' Like the character Hoffman portrayed, he can perform extraordinary maths in his head, sees numbers as shapes, colours, textures and motions, and can learn to speak a language fluently from scratch in three days. He also has a compulsive need for order and routine. He eats exactly 45 grams of porridge for breakfast and cannot leave the house without counting the number of items of clothing he's wearing. If he gets stressed or unhappy he closes his eyes and counts. But in some ways Daniel is not all like the Rain Man. He is virtually unique amongst people who have severe autistic disorders in being capable of living a fully-functioning, independent life. It is this incredible self-awareness and ability to communicate what it feels like to live in a totally extraordinary way that makes BORN ON A BLUE DAY so powerful. Daniel Tammet
Bertrum Resident: Maybe we haven;t developed all the ways of seeing (as opposed to having things not working as they "should").
Calvino Rabeni: The "fence" of awareness has some limits .. perhaps the use of meditation is it clears out stuff we are fixated on, making "space" for things to come in from over the fence
Paradise Tennant: we waste so much mental horsepower in fixating :)) almost laughable
Calvino Rabeni: but it hurts a little to let go
Paradise Tennant: hmm
Calvino Rabeni: a little uncomfortable transitional space, a bardo
Bertrum Resident: Maybe it's about being able to widen the lens as opposed to changing anything external or clearing anything away...?
Calvino Rabeni: mental fixation is actually pretty reflective of a body pattern
Bertrum Resident: there may more than one path?
Calvino Rabeni: it would be nice to think that, Bert, but there's also a lot of evidence we have limited capacity
Paradise Tennant: smiles we are born to fixate ?
Bertrum Resident: What is that evidence?
Calvino Rabeni: yes though, I think, we can "enlist" more parts to participate in the process
Calvino Rabeni: like the quote about felt sense
Calvino Rabeni: a person numb to body sensations will not so easily perceive and think with those parts of him/her self
Bertrum Resident: I think there may be some evidence of that but there may another path...
Calvino Rabeni: Um ,, something true about that, Paradise ... born to focus, anyway
Santoshima Resident: reminds me of botox
Calvino Rabeni: botox, hmm?
Santoshima Resident: freezing the face, freezing the felt sense
Bertrum Resident: The science of studing very learning may suggest the opposite of fix
Santoshima Resident: writing about the effects of immobilizing the small facial muscles
Bertrum Resident: fixation is possible as well.
Calvino Rabeni: some science of learning shows, a certain amount of noise is helpful, not too much or too little
Santoshima Resident: please erase my comments form the log
Santoshima Resident: thanks
Santoshima Resident: g'night
Bertrum Resident: studying very learning gives clues.
Paradise Tennant: nite nite san :) sweet dreams
Bertrum Resident: early learning
Calvino Rabeni: I thought those were good comments, so am a bit loathe to erase them, but I shall do as requested
Paradise Tennant: me too
Paradise Tennant: but speaking of erasing I did not mean to post so much material on daniel tammet maybe cut it off at the sound of loud voices arguing,
Paradise Tennant: just a reference to colour hearing
Paradise Tennant: i wonder if there is not some magic in colour
Paradise Tennant: I mean .. it seems to jump senses ..
Paradise Tennant: we react to it .. it defines .. our felt experience :)
Bertrum Resident: the brain is more complex then is fully understood...

--BELL--

Paradise Tennant: smiles what I truly know is my brain will be mush if I don't go to bed .. after midnight here and I have an early morning .. thanks cal betrum for the company and the conversation .. will try to stop and focus on my felt experience .. :) randomly through the day :))
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Bertrum Resident: I ought to go too. Thanks for the conversation on the topic;)
Paradise Tennant: nite nite my friends namaste :))
Calvino Rabeni: Sleep well and spaciously, Paradise and Bertrum :)
Bertrum Resident: Night everyone.