2009.04.22 19:00 - Title goes here

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

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