2016.01.15 13:00 - Strings, fractals and mystical space

The Guardian for this meeting was Aphrodite Macbain. The comments are by Aphrodite Macbain.

Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Bruce!
Bruce Mowbray: Hi Aph!
Aphrodite Macbain: Nice to see you again
Bruce Mowbray: Long time no see!
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Aphrodite Macbain: Long enough to eat lunch!
Bruce Mowbray: You brought back some fun memories during Xir's voice session....(we are referring to Xiri's first session in voice that will take place in the Theatre cafe at 11 AM Fridays)
Bruce Mowbray: Great, and long enough for me to clean house.
Bruce Mowbray: a bit.
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)

Bruce Mowbray: I'd made a mess of things building my model train.
Bruce Mowbray: (which, btw, is running great now.)
Aphrodite Macbain: Glad to hear it
Bruce Mowbray: ty.
Aphrodite Macbain: How high is it?
Bruce Mowbray: It is about nine inches from the ceiling...
Aphrodite Macbain: oh?
Bruce Mowbray: I will find a photo and upload it for you./...
Aphrodite Macbain: so you don't bump your head on a passing train
Bruce Mowbray: just a sec.....
Aphrodite Macbain: kk
Bruce Mowbray: There you are.
Aphrodite Macbain: wow
Bruce Mowbray: That was a week ago...
Aphrodite Macbain: it's beautiful
Bruce Mowbray: TY!
Aphrodite Macbain: Do you leave it running all day?
Bruce Mowbray: OH no!
Bruce Mowbray: I just enjoy running it a few times each day ---
Aphrodite Macbain: What a major project.
Bruce Mowbray: sort of a relaxation exercise.
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, it took me two weeks.
Bruce Mowbray: It's 70 feet long... the track, I mean.
Bruce Mowbray: It's longer now, has another engine, and is surrounded by Plexiglas on all sides so it doesn't fall onto the floor!

Aphrodite Macbain: You are like me in that you need to always be making or creating or discovering something
Bruce Mowbray: Right!
Aphrodite Macbain: Keeping the grey cells chugging along
Bruce Mowbray: Just before building the train, I built a marble run, you might remember.
Bruce Mowbray: Oh yes.

Bruce Mowbray: also, I didn't have time to reread the chat from the TSK session, but I found something else....
Bruce Mowbray: And I'm also taking a fine course from MIT right now:
Bruce Mowbray: "Minds and Machines"
Bruce Mowbray: Riddle and I talked about that this week.
Aphrodite Macbain: what is it about?
Bruce Mowbray: Well, it's fascinating...
Aphrodite Macbain: are minds like machines?
Bruce Mowbray: It is about theories of mind,
Bruce Mowbray: and theories of artificial intelligence and, of course, logic.

Aphrodite Macbain: Is logic a linear way of thinking?

Aphrodite Macbain: can u give me an example?
Bruce Mowbray: kk,
Bruce Mowbray: How could you prove that a computer program actually thinks?
Bruce Mowbray: (Hard AI, in other words.)
Aphrodite Macbain: by comparing it with a thinking person
Bruce Mowbray: GOOD!
Aphrodite Macbain: the Touring Test
Bruce Mowbray: and also by contrasting both, of course.
Aphrodite Macbain: nods
Aphrodite Macbain: I gather someone in Russia passed the test- creating the computer equivalent of a 13 year old mind

Bruce Mowbray: Yes, our lectures today were about the Turing Test

Bruce Mowbray:. Long time no see.
Aphrodite Macbain: Hey Yaku, Zen
Bruce Mowbray: (with Xir).
Zen Arado: Hi Aph, Bruce, Yaku
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Yaku!
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey you both
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Yaku!
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey zen
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Zen.
 

XIri's new session

Bruce Mowbray: Aph, Zen, and I met up at the voice session two hours ago, Yaku.
Aphrodite Macbain: we were trying to reproduce the atmosphere of our former Pub discussions
Bruce Mowbray: That session meets at the PaB Cafe at 11 slt every Friday.
Yakuzza Lethecus: oh, i have to look for the new cafe
Aphrodite Macbain: up near the theatre
Bruce Mowbray: I will give you an LM for it.
Yakuzza Lethecus: thx
Bruce Mowbray: yw.
Bruce Mowbray: We'll probably need more seats.
Bruce Mowbray: or else sit on the floor, or the wall.
Bruce Mowbray: There's still lots of snow up there.
Aphrodite Macbain: I was worried that the STK meeting on Thursday and Xiri's meeting today might mean people might not come to this session.
Aphrodite Macbain: But it seems I was wrong. :-)
Bruce Mowbray: :)

Aphrodite Macbain: sits silently....
--BELL--

Bruce Mowbray: I read another article on "space" today - - - - (but from the viewpoint of physics, not so much from the view of phenomenology or Buddhism): http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/lets-rethink-space  But it was still helpful.
Aphrodite Macbain: how can we "rethink" space?
Zen Arado: I was thinking there is no space
Bruce Mowbray: I thought it more than coincidental that it arrived yesterday the same day as the TSK session.
Zen Arado: because there is no 'form'
Bruce Mowbray: There isn't.
Aphrodite Macbain: there is form according to physicists
Bruce Mowbray: That's the point of the article.
Zen Arado: and if no form you can't have its dual
Bruce Mowbray: So, pouring nothing into nothing. . . might be another way of saying pouring space into space.
Zen Arado: form is just a concentration of energy fields
Aphrodite Macbain: astrophysicists constantly talk about space and matter
Zen Arado: that we can then see and feel
Zen Arado: but nothing solid there
Bruce Mowbray nods, listens.
Zen Arado: is there?
Bruce Mowbray: Well, energy fields are still SOMEthing....
Aphrodite Macbain: knocks her head- nope...nothing in there
Zen Arado: I used to think atoms were solid
Zen Arado: but they are pure energy too
Zen Arado: yes?
Aphrodite Macbain: when enough of them are linked they are solid
Bruce Mowbray: So did Democrites -- if I'm spelling that right.
Zen Arado: well they feel solid to us
Zen Arado: but still just energy
Bruce Mowbray: Well, solidity is relative, of course.
Aphrodite Macbain: our senses say their solid
Zen Arado: force fields?
Bruce Mowbray: At the quark level, nothing is solid.
Aphrodite Macbain: how else can we imagine the world?
Bruce Mowbray: ?
Aphrodite Macbain: just strings?
Zen Arado: yes these dualities are useful in everyday life
Bruce Mowbray: What do you mean, Aph?.... Strings are just theoretical math... Hard to imagine them as "tangible"
Zen Arado: that's why we use them
Zen Arado: and language works from dualities
Bruce Mowbray: energetic vibrations?
Aphrodite Macbain: We create the world thru our senses, no?
Aphrodite Macbain: the rest is theory
Aphrodite Macbain: no?
Bruce Mowbray: One crisis (sort of) that science faces right now is having to "demonstrate" that what it says (theorizes) is actually fact.... and that is nearly impossible with string theory.
Zen Arado: no more solid then what we are sitting on now
Zen Arado: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: nods good point- but our eyes see the pavilion
Bruce Mowbray: There is also the problem of non-locality.
Bruce Mowbray: that something might be in two different places at the same time,
Bruce Mowbray: even two different universes.
Zen Arado: yes..quantum physics causes that problem
Bruce Mowbray: How are you going to prove that?!!
Aphrodite Macbain: It is on each of our screens
Bruce Mowbray: ha ha.
Aphrodite Macbain: perhaps it is proved mathematically
Zen Arado: our brains create things
Bruce Mowbray: Exactly, Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: nods. that's my point
Zen Arado: from info from our eyes
Aphrodite Macbain: or ears, or touch
Bruce Mowbray: So "pouring space into space" is a mental construction. . . until you also appreciate that it is nothing at all.
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: yes- a construct only
Bruce Mowbray: bingo.
Zen Arado: we use all sorts of useful illusions every day
Bruce Mowbray: Indeed, we do.
Aphrodite Macbain: no one can prove string theory, can they?
Bruce Mowbray: Perhaps our mere existence is also an illusion.
Aphrodite Macbain: yikes
Bruce Mowbray: Well, they can try to prove it....
Aphrodite Macbain: I think therefore I am? all that is there is our brain, thinking....
Zen Arado: ha ha so what is an illusion?
Bruce Mowbray: That's the problem i was referring to earlier.
Aphrodite Macbain: which problem Bruce?
Zen Arado: if nothing really exists...
Bruce Mowbray: The crisis in science nowadays: having to demonstrate that theories are actual facts...
Bruce Mowbray: very hard to do that with string theory.
Zen Arado: but I think scientists usually accept that they just use the latest theories
Bruce Mowbray: One of the biggest problems is the brain-mind problem, of course.
Aphrodite Macbain: It is interesting how much money is spent on such things-
Zen Arado: which will probably be superseded
Aphrodite Macbain: a bigger and better cyclotron, for instance
Aphrodite Macbain: so.....
Bruce Mowbray: Well, the LHC proved that the theoretical Higgs particle actually exists.
Aphrodite Macbain: space can only be defined if there is matter
Bruce Mowbray: But I don't think that the LHC can prove strings.
Zen Arado: but they will find other particles
Bruce Mowbray: (LHC=Large Hadron Collider).
Bruce Mowbray: yes, they will find lots and lots of very short-lived particles.
Aphrodite Macbain: I saw a program which asked the question - "what if there are no other particles?"
Bruce Mowbray: on my!
Bruce Mowbray: What did that program conclude?
Aphrodite Macbain: Have we found them all?
Bruce Mowbray: oh my.
Bruce Mowbray: Yikes!
Aphrodite Macbain: It was left as a question...
Bruce Mowbray: I see - a good place to leave it, I'd say.
Aphrodite Macbain: but man is trying harder and harder to find another
Zen Arado: existence seems like a Mandelbrot set
Zen Arado: goes on forever
Bruce Mowbray totally agrees with Zen about the M. set.
Bruce Mowbray: and existence.
Bruce Mowbray: and space, too.
Bruce Mowbray: and time too, of course.
Aphrodite Macbain: and knowledge?
Bruce Mowbray: yes, that too.
Zen Arado: we throw a kind of veil of rationality and usefulness over existence
Aphrodite Macbain: :-) nicely said
Zen Arado: noticing patterns
Zen Arado: but it stubbornly resists fitting our theories in the end
Bruce Mowbray: Be sure to do the Giant exercise at the beginning of Chapter two of TSK -- To me, it feels just like entering a fractal.

Aphrodite Macbain: onigokko
Aphrodite Macbain: he
Aphrodite Macbain: stop
Bruce Mowbray: [perfect timing, Aph!]
Bruce Mowbray dies from laughing....
Aphrodite Macbain: I thought so....:D
Yakuzza Lethecus: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Nice that we were all prepared

Zen Arado: I'm reading a great David Whyte book
Zen Arado: 'Consolations'
Aphrodite Macbain: which one Zen?
Zen Arado: very deep
Aphrodite Macbain: yes
Bruce Mowbray: I'm resisting saying more about TSK because I don't want to influence anyone else's reading of it.
Zen Arado: won't influence me
Aphrodite Macbain: He is amazing. I saw him speak here over an 8 hr period
Aphrodite Macbain: in November
Bruce Mowbray: David Whyte -- I have one of his books.
Zen Arado: I gave the book away to charity
Bruce Mowbray: very passionate poet, beautiful.
Zen Arado: this is his prose pieces
Aphrodite Macbain: was it consoling Zen?
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Zen Arado: only read 2 of them so far
Zen Arado: he posts them on Facebook
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh.
Aphrodite Macbain: If I had the $, I would go on one of his seminars- Ireland or Italy
Zen Arado: https://www.facebook.com/David-Whyte...18588/?fref=ts
Bruce Mowbray: ty

Aphrodite Macbain loves the concept of entering a fractal!
Bruce Mowbray: Infinitely self-referential.
Aphrodite Macbain: what was the idea that you were referring to Bruce?
Bruce Mowbray: You mean with the Giant body and fractals?
Aphrodite Macbain: ummm
Aphrodite Macbain: maybe
Bruce Mowbray: Well, that exercise in TSK reminded me of fractals, that's all.
Aphrodite Macbain: how? (I wasn't there)
Bruce Mowbray: No, we haven't done it yet.
Bruce Mowbray: Eliza just introduced us to it...
Bruce Mowbray: gave instructions from the book.
Bruce Mowbray: We'll probably discuss it next week.
Aphrodite Macbain: Are there any other issues/ questions that came out of yesterday's session?
Bruce Mowbray: hmmmmm.....
Bruce Mowbray: I said that the book seemed to me like a series of "koans...."
Bruce Mowbray: that lure us forward in the best possible ways.
Aphrodite Macbain: sounds good...propositions? thought experiments?
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Bruce Mowbray: more like exercises, maybe.
Bruce Mowbray: Wol said she'd never read it, which surprised me a lot.
Aphrodite Macbain: surprises me too
Aphrodite Macbain: she was surprised when I asked for a translation of TSK. (Never having been around when it had been discussed)
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, especially since Wol and I were with Stim in Nova Scotia in 2011 and we talked about the book a

Yakuzza Lethecus: i got to sleep, good night everyone
Bruce Mowbray: G'nigt Yaku.
Zen Arado: nite Yaku
Aphrodite Macbain: gute nacht
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Bruce Mowbray: I really hope Yaku comes to our next voice session at the cafe.
Aphrodite Macbain: yes, me too
Bruce Mowbray: I miss hearing about Sweden.
Aphrodite Macbain: you know he has a beautiful new son?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, I know.... and I've even seen photos of the two of them.

Zen Arado: I never understood the interest in the book
Aphrodite Macbain: no Zen?
Aphrodite Macbain: It seems to me it was challenging us to think differently
Bruce Mowbray listens for more from Zen, if he wishes to say more.
Aphrodite Macbain: why not Zen?
Zen Arado: just didn't appeal to me
Bruce Mowbray: Do you 'buy' the title: "A new vision of reality", Zen?
Zen Arado: too mystical or something
Bruce Mowbray: hmmm.
Zen Arado: no I bought TSK
Zen Arado: the old version
Zen Arado: a few years ago
Bruce Mowbray: Well, one of the points that article about space made was that space IS INDEED mystical.
Zen Arado: but I prefer Zen

Mystical vs empirical knowledge

Aphrodite Macbain: I wish I could find my copy
Zen Arado: ordinary life is the way etc.
Zen Arado: not mysticism
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Aphrodite Macbain: I get nervous when I think about mystical
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: to me it's fuzzy thinking
Bruce Mowbray: spooky?
Zen Arado: seem more prefer Tibetan Buddhism in pab
Aphrodite Macbain: no - mysticism is an explanation for something one doesn't understand
Zen Arado: I like Chogyam Trungpa and Pema Chodron
Aphrodite Macbain: me too
Bruce Mowbray: me too, Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: they aren't mystical
Bruce Mowbray: hmmmm......
Aphrodite Macbain: they are focused on reality
Aphrodite Macbain: empirical knowledge
Zen Arado: I went to Samye Ling to see Ringu Tulku one time
Zen Arado: wasn't impressed
Aphrodite Macbain: what or who is Samye Ling?
Zen Arado: (Tibetan temple in Scotland)
Aphrodite Macbain: ah
Bruce Mowbray: To me - and i have considered myself a mystic for decades - the Here and Now is just about the most mystical thing that is possible... can't imagine anything more mystical that simply being here now.
Zen Arado: David Bowie was there for a while
Zen Arado: exactly Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: The physical manifestations of mysticism are ALL lacking, of course.
Aphrodite Macbain: what do you mean by mystical Bruce?
Bruce Mowbray: temples, cathedrals, monasteries ... all lacking.
Zen Arado: but people want some exotic experience
Bruce Mowbray: I mean the reality of being here and now.
Zen Arado: something like LSD gives you
Bruce Mowbray: Want to find the sacred.... in a mystical way? Be here now.
Zen Arado: yes
Bruce Mowbray: No drugs necessary.
Aphrodite Macbain: :)
Bruce Mowbray: Cat Stevens, too.... and the Beatles, too, maybe.
Aphrodite Macbain: mystical is defined as something we don't understand, that eludes definition, that is spiritual rather than solid
Bruce Mowbray: But can you enter that non-knowing, Aph?
Bruce Mowbray: Go inside the not-knowing.
Zen Arado: life is good and bad...a mixed bag
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: I enter the state of not-knowing all the time
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Bruce Mowbray: :))
Zen Arado: but people want to shut out the 'bad'
Zen Arado: part
Aphrodite Macbain: bad?
Bruce Mowbray listens.
Aphrodite Macbain: ah bad part?
Zen Arado: maybe it's like space
Zen Arado: need bad or you don't have good
Bruce Mowbray: indeed, I feel that it is, Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: why do we need dualisms?
Aphrodite Macbain: there are many shades of "bad" or "good"
Zen Arado: just seems the way we are
Aphrodite Macbain: and things that are neither
Zen Arado: maybe need it for explanations
Bruce Mowbray: Was it Thích Nhat Hahn who said "Be the space between your thoughts"?
Zen Arado: comparisons
Zen Arado: but how do you do that?
Bruce Mowbray: ahhhh!
Zen Arado: thoughts just happen
Bruce Mowbray: but they don't happen all at once....
Zen Arado: you can't repress thought
Aphrodite Macbain: those spaces can be multiple
Bruce Mowbray: so there must be some space between them, no?
Zen Arado: oh yes
Aphrodite Macbain: time and space they go together
Zen Arado: like they give meditation instruction
Zen Arado: concentrate on the spaces
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, enter the spaces.... like entering the spaces in the Giant's body.
Zen Arado: we think too much I think :)
Aphrodite Macbain: the spaces between the thoughts....the no-thinking spaces
Bruce Mowbray: or entering a fractal.
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Zen Arado: concentrate on sensations
Bruce Mowbray: No-Mind.
Zen Arado: like a new born baby
Zen Arado: a world of sensations with no labels
Aphrodite Macbain: needs patience and curiosity
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Bruce Mowbray: and freedom.
Aphrodite Macbain: I have the latter but not the former
Zen Arado: how much of our thinking is actually necessary?
Bruce Mowbray: I think it's important to stay light and non-literal about such things.
Aphrodite Macbain: It seems we have no option
Zen Arado: we dwell and ruminate on things
Bruce Mowbray: I surely do that, Zen.
Aphrodite Macbain: it is a natural way of being
Zen Arado: endless repetition
Aphrodite Macbain: a way our brain solves problems
Bruce Mowbray: but I also know that it's possible to make new neural pathways...
Zen Arado: me too of course
Bruce Mowbray: and to escape my ruminations.
Zen Arado: but we solve a problem and then keep thinking about it
Bruce Mowbray: Brain plasticity is really amazing.
Aphrodite Macbain: I think of my ruminations like dreams...they come unbidden
Zen Arado: yes Aph
Bruce Mowbray: But can't we step outside of those loops?
Zen Arado: during meditation you see thoughts pop up
Aphrodite Macbain: we can try
Zen Arado: where do they come from?
Aphrodite Macbain: but i think it's better to not worry about the thoughts and observe our body instead - the thoughts running in the background
Zen Arado: we don't control them
Bruce Mowbray: and where are they going?
Zen Arado: do we control anything?

Bruce Mowbray: Good question. I say, no.
Aphrodite Macbain: the more we try and forget thoughts the more they return
Aphrodite Macbain: like the elephant in the room :-)
Zen Arado: :)

Bruce Mowbray: onigokko
Aphrodite Macbain: lol
Bruce Mowbray: stop
Aphrodite Macbain: a nice way to finish!

Bruce Mowbray wonders if elephants do the oni.
Zen Arado: going to listen to Sandia
Bruce Mowbray: THAT is ELEPHANTASTIC!
Bruce Mowbray: _____
Bruce Mowbray: / 0 \____
Bruce Mowbray: / _ \__/ \
Bruce Mowbray: / / \ ____ I \
Bruce Mowbray: /_/ I I I I
Bruce Mowbray: I__I I__I
Bruce Mowbray:
Bruce Mowbray: Bye for now, good people.
Aphrodite Macbain: I'm going to Mars
Aphrodite Macbain: there is a party there
Aphrodite Macbain: byee
Zen Arado: byee