2009.04.22 19:00 - Embodiment

The Guardian for this meeting was stevenaia Michinaga. The comments are by stevenaia Michinaga.

Pila Mulligan, buddha Nirvana, Pema Pera and Threedee Shepherd arrived shortly after me.

Pila Mulligan: hi buddha
buddha Nirvana: Hey pila:)
Pila Mulligan: how are you?
buddha Nirvana: I;m well ty, how are you?
Pila Mulligan: fine thanks
buddha Nirvana: have you eaten any hot salad recently:)
Pila Mulligan: I only tried it the one time, but I told some friends about it when they were visiting last weekend
buddha Nirvana: :)
Pila Mulligan: they were not eager to try it :)
Pila Mulligan: hi Pema
buddha Nirvana: hi pema:)
Pema Pera: Hi Pila and Buddha!
Pila Mulligan: hi steve
buddha Nirvana: it is good, i have it at;east once a week if i can
Pema Pera: Hi there, Steve!
buddha Nirvana: Hi stevenia
stevenaia Michinaga: hello

Hot Salads?

Pila Mulligan: buddha and I were just talking about his predilection for hot salads
stevenaia Michinaga: a future trend?
buddha Nirvana: its looking that way
Pila Mulligan: it is not as bad as it may first seem, I tried it (once:)
buddha Nirvana: perhaps it was just a matter of time
Pema Pera: as in grilling the vegetables?
stevenaia Michinaga: spicy?
Pila Mulligan: no, nuking the lettuce
Pila Mulligan: hi Threedee
buddha Nirvana: i tend to have it with chillies and black grounded pepper
buddha Nirvana: Hi three
stevenaia Michinaga: I would enjoy that kind of hot
Pema Pera: hi Threedee!
Pila Mulligan: microwave heated lettuce
Threedee Shepherd: Hi Folks.
Threedee Shepherd: Saw you duck pun, Pila
buddha Nirvana: it tastes better than it sounds
Pila Mulligan: it actually does -- but it sounds awful :)
Pema Pera: well, worth a try then, I guess :-)
buddha Nirvana: lol
Pila Mulligan: :)
buddha Nirvana: its perhaps like a solid vegetable soup
buddha Nirvana: semi-solid, anyway
Pila Mulligan: well,we cook cabbage

Pila Mulligan brings up a topic from a previous discussion:

Pila Mulligan: Threedee, a few sessions ago you and Eos both referred to a neuro-phenomenologist (my term) whose name I've forgotten, and someone said Pema knew him as well -- it was _______?
Threedee Shepherd: Varela

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Varela

Pema Pera: He died several years ago, lived in France
Pila Mulligan: and both you and Eos sang his praises
Pila Mulligan: 3d
Threedee Shepherd: indeed
Pila Mulligan: seems like an interesting chat idea
Threedee Shepherd: I think I quoted his statement, "All doing is knowing, all knowing is doing."
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: I think I offered to debate that :)
Pila Mulligan: just for the fun of it
Pila Mulligan: because it sounds self-contradictory
Threedee Shepherd: of course, any "bald" statement like that is readily debated. I use it to help people know what I mean by the concept of embodiment
Threedee Shepherd: embodiment
Pila Mulligan: can you continue there, then please
Pila Mulligan: what do you mean by the concept of embodiment?
Threedee Shepherd: all change in the human involves motion (doing) or the imagination of motion. No change = stasis. Any change involves motion, even a new idea.
Pila Mulligan: ok, that is easily understood
Threedee Shepherd: I--my entire mind/brain/body is part of the world and the world is part of me. As in the knower is part of the known, and vice-versa
buddha Nirvana: so were always doing something
Pila Mulligan: except when we are in stasis?
Threedee Shepherd: Knowledge is never abstract is is based in the context of entire body, which itself is always in-relationship with the world
buddha Nirvana: is stasis possible?
Threedee Shepherd: Buddha, in an absolute sense, probably not, although a catatonic state gets close
buddha Nirvana: everything is in constant flux, we know this by the nature of our body...the subtle vibrations
Threedee Shepherd: yes
buddha Nirvana: always changing
Pila Mulligan: well, let's say someone takes a nap on a long flight in an airplane, then they are doing sleeping and they are also being moved (doing moving) but those two ideas do not seem to be entirely equivalent
Threedee Shepherd: so, I am denying the idea of unembodied, pure knowledge that is somehow "out there" in an abstract sense. This has implications for low, morality and ethics, of course.
Pila Mulligan: so does emboided here mean the material, physical corpuscular body only?
Threedee Shepherd: Ahh dreaming involves imagined movement. The physical movement caused by the airplane may or may not be significantly perceived
Threedee Shepherd: I just yesterday learned the derivation of the word aeroplane (airplane)
Pila Mulligan: :) ...?
Threedee Shepherd: The Wright's used the term to mean the deformable plane that was part of their flyers wing, that was adjusted to get lift and stability. Indeed it was a physical plane that they could deform.
buddha Nirvana: so perhaps responsibility is what were discussinG?
Pila Mulligan: cool
Threedee Shepherd: we could be buddha. In that sense I am asserting it does not arise as some natural force or "deity-given" law.
Pema Pera: I didn't know that, Threedee, interesting.
buddha Nirvana: sure, I'm with you on that
buddha Nirvana: then we claim full responsibility..
Threedee Shepherd: I subscribe to American Heritage Invention & Technology magazine. there was an article on the fights over the Wright's patents.
buddha Nirvana: just touching on what you said about ethics
Pila Mulligan: excuse me, but lest I forget, I brought Threedee a horrible pun joke a couple of days ago -- it was in the log, did you see it Threedee?
Pila Mulligan: like a cat brings a dead bird to your door step
Threedee Shepherd: we have no choice but to have that full responsibility--although many are afraid it could lead to ethical systems that are redefined for convenience sake
Threedee Shepherd: Yes, I peeked at it
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pila Mulligan: sorry :)
Pila Mulligan: does the imagined movement in dreaming count as 'doing' in this context?
Threedee Shepherd: In a recent book, Owen Flanagan - who calls his philosophy naturalism - argues that the particular set of ethics that is found across a broad sweep of cultures, has been selected for--in terms of natural selection and brain wiring--because it allows a social community to survive better than one without such predispositions
Threedee Shepherd: Yes Pila
Pila Mulligan: I agree with the premise that ethics are a survival skill
buddha Nirvana: is there a status quo in the sweep
buddha Nirvana: like a 'balance found'
buddha Nirvana: an 'average' system
Threedee Shepherd: I would say there are strong commonalities
Pila Mulligan: e.g., do not kill
Pila Mulligan: as a standard
Pila Mulligan: with exceptions
buddha Nirvana: :)
Threedee Shepherd: not lying, not cheating, not stealing
Threedee Shepherd: with exceptions
Pila Mulligan: :)
buddha Nirvana: thats interesting, like a sort of scripting.
buddha Nirvana: /scanning
Threedee Shepherd: sharing. "playing nice", generosity
Pila Mulligan: I also agree that change involves motion, what I don't understand is why these ideas require or derive from so expansive a concept of 'doing'?
Pema Pera: it is a survival skill not to jump off a high cliff -- but that skill then reflects the law of physics. Similarly, ethics may be related to survival skills and yet also reflect something deep underlying that.
Threedee Shepherd: yes Pema, that is possible and an interesting path of thought
buddha Nirvana: doing infers 'active'
buddha Nirvana: while change is possibly a passive thing
buddha Nirvana: it happens regardless of any intent
Threedee Shepherd: Pila, the idea is that all doing involves doing something, which always has a component of physical bodily sensation
Threedee Shepherd: what might be a "passive change"? That phrase sounds like an oxymoron
Pila Mulligan: *always* has a component of physical bodily sensation?
Pila Mulligan: sleeping on an airplane ...
buddha Nirvana: i guess im saying that without any effort, things change
Threedee Shepherd: yes, real or implicit in the imagination and/or memory
Pema Pera: yes, Buddha, doing and not-doing . . .
Pila Mulligan: what is the bodily sensation of a sleeping passenger moving in a airplane?
Pila Mulligan: with an airplane more exactly
buddha Nirvana: there is one, there always is sensation
Pila Mulligan: in some sense, sure -- I was thinking more superficially
Threedee Shepherd: Ok leaves change color due to chemical responses to the length of daylight and also temperature. I am not clear what kind of equivalent there is in the human.
buddha Nirvana: entropy?

Ade arrives for a few moments

Pila Mulligan: hi Ade
buddha Nirvana: Hi ade:)
Pema Pera: Hi Adelene!
Adelene Dawner: We have a newbit stuck on 3de who can't teleport or be teleported.
stevenaia Michinaga: hi ADe
Pila Mulligan: sounds like an emergency
Adelene Dawner: He's certainly not happy about it.
stevenaia Michinaga: can't log off and log on somewhere else?
Pila Mulligan: newbie needs movement
Threedee Shepherd: OK, buddha, that is interesting to ponder
buddha Nirvana: eek catatonic
Threedee Shepherd: buddha,
buddha Nirvana: yes?
buddha Nirvana: :)
buddha Nirvana: sry, are you prompting me?
Threedee Shepherd: the entropy question probably throws light on the issues of the scale to which the embodiment concept applies
buddha Nirvana: things disperse, due to a primal cause
Threedee Shepherd: If we start at the most obvious top level of conscious perception and consciousness itself, then it has been argued that all consciousness has explicit or (more often) implicit INTENT
Pila Mulligan: if embodiment = doing= movement, couldn't un-embodiment = not doing = stillness?
Threedee Shepherd: Ahh Pila, you will force me to too much detail.
buddha Nirvana: would we then be talking about singularity?
Pila Mulligan: :)
Pila Mulligan: never mind then :)
Pila Mulligan is ont one to encourage too much thinking or detail
Threedee Shepherd: is there never "thought" at any level--aware or unaware, not happening as long as the human is not comatose?
buddha Nirvana: there is stillness in though, but is that absolute thought - embodiment, im not sure
Pila Mulligan: my thought is that thought indeed persists
buddha Nirvana: thought*
buddha Nirvana: absolute stillness*
buddha Nirvana: sry folks
Pila Mulligan: :)
Threedee Shepherd: we need to be careful about the word stillness
buddha Nirvana: sure
buddha Nirvana: i think there are levels of stillness
buddha Nirvana: just like there are components of the body/mind
buddha Nirvana: i think stillness also occurs in layers
buddha Nirvana: i'e - stillness of thought, stillness of sensation
Threedee Shepherd: All thought is about things learned in relationship to the world in the broadest sense. That learning always has a physical bodily component that is imbedded in the thought/memory when it is recalled, that is, implicit motion
Pema Pera: I think I'll do some moving myself in the RL :). Good seeing you all again!
Threedee Shepherd: goodnight Pema
stevenaia Michinaga: bye Pema
Pila Mulligan: bye Pema, have a nice afternoon
buddha Nirvana: c u pema
Pema Pera: thanks, Pila, lunch coming up :-)
Pema Pera: bf
Pema Pera: bfn

Pema Pera departs

buddha Nirvana: yes, in the buddhist context they call it Kalapa
buddha Nirvana: or a karma, even
buddha Nirvana: the accumulation of sensation/ thought
Threedee Shepherd: You all realize, I hope, that while I am talking in the assertive mode, all that I am asserting is complex and open to deeper discussion
Pila Mulligan: well, the embodiment part sounds a little extreme to me, in a metaphysical sense
buddha Nirvana: so, if we 'are' can we be still?
Pila Mulligan: you're suggesting that Krishna cannot think :)
Threedee Shepherd: Pila, it is a standpoint that is emphasized to get away from Cartesian dualism
buddha Nirvana: i guess thats what it infers
Pila Mulligan: okay, what is Cartesian dualism?
Pila Mulligan is not as smart as you may think :)
Threedee Shepherd: the mind-body split that led to the statement "I think therefore I am" (having nothing to do with my corporeal part)
Pila Mulligan: oh, Descartes
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pila Mulligan: so you want to get away from non-material thoughts
Threedee Shepherd: sorry, I left out the r in Cartesian
buddha Nirvana: can there ever be real stillness if duality 'is'
Threedee Shepherd: correct, Pila. No such thing
Pila Mulligan: you left it in, I left it out :)
Pila Mulligan: but what would Krishna think about that?
Pila Mulligan: a light being, a deity, not thinking -- holy schmoly
buddha Nirvana: sure..
buddha Nirvana: how then did the buddha or jesus, or whoever speak
Threedee Shepherd: Now, the Buddhist references are beyond my easy understanding.
buddha Nirvana: perhaps non-thought / stillness doesn't infer that we be catatonic
Pila Mulligan: emptiness is a good thing
buddha Nirvana: not that anyone has managed to tell us
Threedee Shepherd: being has the -ing component as in be-ing
Pila Mulligan: or do-ing
Threedee Shepherd: yes. -ing -->activity, motion
buddha Nirvana: were 'inging;
Pila Mulligan: Threedee, there are lots of reasons to deny non-material thought, but they need not be held if the purpose is simply to deny non-material existence
buddha Nirvana: sorry three, did you imply that its through choice/doing - that weare?
Pila Mulligan: no reason is needed for a belief
Threedee Shepherd: buddha, it sounds like I am. As I said once we move from absolute statements to nuanced discussion, it is more complicated than that
Pila Mulligan: and so, how is it that we are?
Threedee Shepherd: Pila, loosely put, thinking always has a brain substrate for humans, as in the idea "the brain is the organ of the mind"
Threedee Shepherd: these is "noone" in-there other than my corporeal brain and its workings
Pila Mulligan: why?
buddha Nirvana: just a thought - if there are sensations in the leg, say, is are mind at that moment of observation also in the leg?
Threedee Shepherd: because if there was *someone* non-corporeal in there, how could it communicate eith something corporeal. And also, who then is the someone inside that non-corporeal "little person" who does it's thinking, etc.
buddha Nirvana: is the mind*
Pila Mulligan: well, the non-corporeal someone in there communicates with the corporeal through the brain substrate, same as light communicate with the brain, by stimulating it with an external energy
Threedee Shepherd: In a manner of speaking, buddah, yes. Or from a different perspective, the sensation of brain/body is oneness that we then artificially parcel out
Pila Mulligan: no one else is inside the little fellow
Threedee Shepherd: The non-corporeal must have physical aspects (matter and/or energy) to communicate with the physical brain.
Pila Mulligan: like light , yes
Threedee Shepherd: Light is physical
Pila Mulligan: ok
Pila Mulligan: so is the little fellow then
Threedee Shepherd: and you are lost in infinite regress
Pila Mulligan: see, you are a metaphysical dude then
Pila Mulligan: why
Threedee Shepherd: how so?
Pila Mulligan: light is light
Pila Mulligan: let's take infinite regress first
buddha Nirvana: i must go folks... im off sync with my thinking here, helpfully i wasn't too much of a loose canon:)
Threedee Shepherd: If my corporeal brain needs a little man to interpret for it, then he does too, and so on
Pila Mulligan: bye buddha, thanks for your thoughts
Threedee Shepherd: Not at all, buddha, I think you were right on
Pila Mulligan: one little fellow made of light reposes with the corpuscular being, twins as it were
Pila Mulligan: or perhaps two in some cases of schizophrenia
buddha Nirvana: happy dreams, of little fellows dancing in fields i hope:)
Pila Mulligan: :)
stevenaia Michinaga: night Buddha
Pila Mulligan: see you next time, buddha
buddha Nirvana: nite:)) thanks guys
stevenaia Michinaga: I must go to, thanks
Pila Mulligan: the little fellow is ont interpreting for the brain
Pila Mulligan: bye Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Threedee Shepherd: The whole point of descartes is that there are two things (dualism) a physical body (include brain) and a totally non-physical thing called mind
Threedee Shepherd: night Steve

stevenaia Michinaga departs

Pila Mulligan: ok, I'm taking mind apart from the physical body in the sense that light is apart therefrom, but I'm not being Descartian in the sense you just stated
Threedee Shepherd: How can anything totally non-physical interact with anything physical?
Pila Mulligan: well, if light is physical, as I agree it is, then we are at a finer level of distinction
Pila Mulligan: maybe we should be discussing how thought occupies light
Threedee Shepherd: Oh, it is absolutely possible that consciousness is some kind of physical force/energy
Pila Mulligan: inhabits light
Pila Mulligan: see, that's metaphysical
Pila Mulligan: 21st century metaphysics
Pila Mulligan: someone was telling me you have an interest in meditation
Threedee Shepherd: No it is not, it just says that the physical description of the force/energy that is consciousness escapes us, just at the weak atomic force was unknown to Newton
Pila Mulligan: yes, but I suspect light will be very close to the energy ultimately tied to consciousness
Pila Mulligan: by science
Pila Mulligan: as it has already been done by the ancients
Threedee Shepherd: I see no reason to make a supposition about that, one way or the other
Pila Mulligan: as in 'enlightenment'
Pila Mulligan: reasoning may be guild related here :)
Threedee Shepherd: that kind of enlightenment is a metaphor on the fact that it is hard to see in the dark
Pila Mulligan: well, metaphors are good symbols, and the light indeed helps in the dark
Threedee Shepherd: yes but symbols and analogy recall the finger pointing at the moon injunction
Pila Mulligan: ok, help me here too please
Pila Mulligan: enjoining _____?
Threedee Shepherd: Zen: The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.
Pila Mulligan: ah, ok
Pila Mulligan: but light is likely to be the element of consciousness that has eluded science so far, not just because ancient fingers point to it, but because it seems to have the requisite subtlety
Pila Mulligan: the quantum properties and such
Threedee Shepherd: If so, we don't know it.
Pila Mulligan: we science
Pila Mulligan: don't know it
Pila Mulligan: yet
Threedee Shepherd: we-->humanity in the sense of knowledge leads to testable predictions
Threedee Shepherd: So, I need to do moving, also and will say goodnight
Pila Mulligan: what was the thing we spoke about a few weeks ago, the idea of certain fundamental structures supporting perceived reality -- the term we used slips my mind
Pila Mulligan: ok, see you next time Threedee
Threedee Shepherd: I don't think I was there. Sounds like Pema
Pila Mulligan: :) you were there, you agreed:)
Pila Mulligan: I'll find the log
Pila Mulligan: not to hold you up
Threedee Shepherd: k. Next time ^.^
Pila Mulligan: aloha