2010.03.11 13:00 - unconscious & self

The Guardian for this meeting was Lia Rikugun. The comments are by Lia Rikugun.

Lia Rikugun: hello archmage
Archmage Atlantis: Hello Lia
--BELL--

Archmage Atlantis: I have been listening to the music of Woody Guthrie durin the Great Depression
Lia Rikugun: i dont know
Lia Rikugun: :) have to check
Archmage Atlantis: The similarities to this time are startlin
Archmage Atlantis: Also an excellent dvd interviewing modern Philosophers
Archmage Atlantis: Called Examined Life
Lia Rikugun: ok
Lia Rikugun: and is it interesting
Lia Rikugun: what dd you learn?
Archmage Atlantis: That philosophy, if one follows the one element of examination, evolves
Archmage Atlantis: That since the time of Socrates there is a tread
Lia Rikugun: ok an din which direction ;)
Archmage Atlantis: One must do the examination to know :)
Lia Rikugun: oh man, but it took so many years from socrates to now :)
Lia Rikugun: what exactly is the examination?
Lia Rikugun: what exactly should you examine?
Archmage Atlantis: Yes, all these modern philosphers have spent 30+ years examining
Lia Rikugun: wow thats a looong time!
Archmage Atlantis: My best summary is the quote that opens the DVD, and I apologize, I do not remember if it was from Socrates or Aristotle
Lia Rikugun: opens the DVD?
Lia Rikugun: hello eliza hello bleu
Archmage Atlantis: But the quote is, best I can recall it, "A life unexamined is not worth living"
Bleu Oleander: hi Lia, Eliza and Arch
Lia Rikugun: ah yes very nice
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bleu, Lia, Arch :)
Archmage Atlantis: Hi Bleu, Eliza
Lia Rikugun: so this means we should keep thinking about our life and what we are doing
Lia Rikugun: or at least this is what i understand
Archmage Atlantis: Yes, that is a good summary
Lia Rikugun: hello calvino
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Cal
Bleu Oleander: hi Cal
Archmage Atlantis: Hello Cal
Calvino Rabeni: Hello, everyone
Lia Rikugun: archmage was talking about philosophers who examined for 30 years
Lia Rikugun: and more
Lia Rikugun: I am just starting :(
Archmage Atlantis: about a dvd actually
Calvino Rabeni: What eventually became of them ?
Archmage Atlantis: The Examined Life
Archmage Atlantis: They are still very much alive
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, there is an educational group nearby with that title... a kind of hip homeschooling group...
Lia Rikugun: in SL?

Eliza Madrigal: I suppose 'how' one examines life would make it worth living or not...
Eliza Madrigal shakes head, no, rl :)
Archmage Atlantis: I recommend the dvd.....I have no words of wisdom :)
Lia Rikugun: oh ok :)
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks, Arch
Archmage Atlantis: In fact I must go
Archmage Atlantis: Blessings to you all
Lia Rikugun: ok nice to see you, take care
Calvino Rabeni: All too soon
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Arch :)
Calvino Rabeni: BYe
Bleu Oleander: wonders when "how" one would examine life that would make it not worth living
Eliza Madrigal: yes...haha... as soon as I typed that I noticed a billion things wrong with the sentence...
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Maybe I was thinking about decisions and choices we make to find our life in our life along the way... what we attend to
Bleu Oleander: when is life not worth living?
Lia Rikugun: if you dont exmine :)
Bleu Oleander: :)
Eliza Madrigal: hm.. I suppose one could say that even when unconscious there is still worth to one's life...
Eliza Madrigal: one might not see it though
Lia Rikugun: hello Qt
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Qt :)
Bleu Oleander: that's true
Bleu Oleander: hi Qt

Eliza Madrigal: practically, I have been noticing habits that I fall into, like listening to bad, repetitive music...
Eliza Madrigal: that dulls my sense of life, I think... ?
Eliza Madrigal: something I can do without noticing, in other words
Lia Rikugun: i get this feeling if i watch too much tv
Eliza Madrigal nods
Bleu Oleander: i think we do many things that we don't notice
Lia Rikugun: so i stopped :)
Bleu Oleander: question might be what we choose to pay attention to
Eliza Madrigal is working on not turning on the radio when she gets into the car, or at least listening to a cd, etc
Lia Rikugun: but i think it is always interesting to see how you react to things
Calvino Rabeni: :) lol Lia
Eliza Madrigal: Hmmm, true Bleu
Bleu Oleander: every moment we have choices of what to pay attention to
Calvino Rabeni: So true
Bleu Oleander: and how to perceive them
Lia Rikugun: have we?
Lia Rikugun: yes how to perceive
Calvino Rabeni: and every action we take is a "practice"
Calvino Rabeni: we're always practicing ... something
Eliza Madrigal: hm, so we learn to notice what enlivens v what dulls...
Eliza Madrigal nods to Calvino. Yesterday I engaged in making phone calls practice :)
Lia Rikugun: :)
Calvino Rabeni: or a little trickier - what calms versus what dulls

Bleu Oleander: a question would be what drives us to choose what we do
Calvino Rabeni: :) eliza
Eliza Madrigal: yes a great question Bleu
Eliza Madrigal: observations?
Bleu Oleander: sometimes advertizing, sometimes environment, sometimes where we were born, etc.
Eliza Madrigal: conditions
Calvino Rabeni: A constant question of motivation - without getting too prescriptive or moral about it
Bleu Oleander: i don't think we always have direct access to what drives our attention
Calvino Rabeni: Except that's always an issue, I suppose
Calvino Rabeni: Perhaps not much of the time Blue.
Bleu Oleander: our unconscious can be busy, busy, busy!
Calvino Rabeni: *eu
Eliza Madrigal nods to Bleu... lots of hidden agendas and reasons and triggers!!
Bleu Oleander: yes
Calvino Rabeni: Indeed, the unconscious does all the heavy lifting and clerical work
Eliza Madrigal thinks meditative practice can help us catch some of those things but still things there (possibly dormant) that may not factor
Calvino Rabeni: Nice to discover the artists on the "staff" of the unconscios
Eliza Madrigal: or rather may factor :)
Eliza Madrigal: neat idea Cal
Bleu Oleander: :)

Calvino Rabeni: If we trust the "staff" then we can send them messages and look forward to good things happening
Eliza Madrigal: heheh
Eliza Madrigal: I've given mine too much liscence I think...
Bleu Oleander: can't always trust them though
Eliza Madrigal: they are tricky
Bleu Oleander: very
Eliza Madrigal: pranksters
Eliza Madrigal: maybe they see farther than we do though...
Bleu Oleander: farther back i think
Eliza Madrigal: know some things need to be upturned
Eliza Madrigal: hm, maybe that's how they see farther ;-))
Bleu Oleander: could be
Calvino Rabeni: Pranksters and tricksters are frequently to our benefit
Lia Rikugun: hello arabella
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Ara
arabella Ella: Hiya
Eliza Madrigal: Nice purple, Ara :)
Bleu Oleander: hi Ara :)
arabella Ella: ty Eliza
Qt Core: hi ara
Lia Rikugun: we are talking about the staff of the unconscious
arabella Ella: ciao Qt
Lia Rikugun: :)
arabella Ella: Hiya Lia Eliza Bleu Calvino
Calvino Rabeni: :) arabella
arabella Ella: What a lovely dog you have Bleu very friendly!
Eliza Madrigal: :) yes
Bleu Oleander: ty! he's eyeing your cat!
arabella Ella: he seems to like my kitty too!
Eliza Madrigal giggles
arabella Ella: i am sure they will become best friends
Bleu Oleander: i'm sure

arabella Ella: anyone hearing a strange noise?
Eliza Madrigal: yes, Cal's voice is on...
Lia Rikugun: yes i think its calvino
Qt Core: coming from calvino
arabella Ella: ah
Lia Rikugun: :)
arabella Ella: sneezing Calvino?
Eliza Madrigal: his pranksters are at work...
arabella Ella: or gremlins
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Calvino Rabeni: how long was that on? No, *I* didn't do it :)
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Lia Rikugun: just a few secs
Calvino Rabeni: It was Pema :)
Qt Core: 3/4 times, almost like an electronic drum
Eliza Madrigal: they were trying to get a message through to us...
arabella Ella: aliens perhaps?
arabella Ella: in cyberspace
Lia Rikugun: haha maybe you need to put it on again!
Calvino Rabeni: Yes of course - messages !
arabella Ella: your mike is still on Calvino
Eliza Madrigal: alien academics
Eliza Madrigal: 'we're absorbing calvino... keeping him in jersey..."
Calvino Rabeni: ? still on ? The viewer shows it off
Eliza Madrigal doesn't hear it anymore
arabella Ella: still got a green dot near Calvino's name and Lia's too now
Calvino Rabeni: Gremlins Galore
Eliza Madrigal: hm
Lia Rikugun: :) but i dont have a micro put in
Bleu Oleander: spooky action
Eliza Madrigal: :))
Lia Rikugun: do you hear anything from here?
arabella Ella: no i dont hear anything i just see the green dots near your names when i see who has sound on
Eliza Madrigal: See, bleu is right. We are mostly unaware of what influences us...
Lia Rikugun: ok, i think thats ok :)
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Eliza Madrigal: :)
arabella Ella: seems i missed that ... what was it about bleu?
Bleu Oleander: quantum green dots
arabella Ella: :)
Eliza Madrigal: in the end the form a picture maybe
Eliza Madrigal: *they
Bleu Oleander: we were talking about the unconscious Ara
arabella Ella: ah
arabella Ella: interesting

Calvino Rabeni: How does one become better at listening to "messages"?
arabella Ella: through mindfulness perhaps?
Lia Rikugun: openess
Lia Rikugun: whatever message means..
arabella Ella: appreciating the presence of appearance
arabella Ella: appreciating being
Lia Rikugun: openess to new experiences
Lia Rikugun: and going along with them
Eliza Madrigal nods ... working openly and directly right where one is at perhaps... being willing to be shown
Calvino Rabeni: The idea of messages, is that there are messengers
Calvino Rabeni: and that suggests an animistic universe
Lia Rikugun: so people at the other end!
Calvino Rabeni: Or spirits, or entities, or dieties, or vague intelligences, or Gaia, or ...
arabella Ella: not necessarily people at the other end
Calvino Rabeni: Non-human intelligence
Eliza Madrigal: Considering that we are aware of so little of ourselves, much less people here where we are/alive today... I'd guess yes there is lots of conversation going on we aren't aware of
arabella Ella: simply ... intelligence
arabella Ella: reminds me of Nagel ... what is it like to be a bat with sonar?
arabella Ella: or a dolphin
Eliza Madrigal nods... yes sending out signals and reading the response

arabella Ella: will humans ever develop other senses?
Eliza Madrigal: Sure
Eliza Madrigal: I think that's part of what we do here?
Calvino Rabeni: It seems we have many senses
Lia Rikugun: or we have them already
--BELL--
Bleu Oleander: we use tech now to improve upon our senses, so maybe we're directing our own evolution of our sensory percetion?
Calvino Rabeni: That makes sense
Eliza Madrigal: cultivating lives of awareness... yes a tech being part of that for sure
Calvino Rabeni: but it's hard to analyze or understand
arabella Ella: or there may be other senses which we group together and simply call sixth sense ... which is inutitive?
Eliza Madrigal: interesting idea Ara
arabella Ella: my view is that intuition is based on some sort of implicit knowledge or experience
arabella Ella: (not conscious)
Bleu Oleander: from within our past experiences?
arabella Ella: yes possibly ... but which is no longer consciously expressed
Eliza Madrigal: eos has talked a little about organs of perception, which I think is an interesting angle too... that ear-hearing, eye-seeing... so other kinds of capacities perhaps being worked with to preceive other ways of seeing/knowing, etc>?
Eliza Madrigal: hm, deep memory Ara?
arabella Ella: what is interesting is that although the sense organs mediate experience and knowledge, yet we give ... and make ... meaning
Calvino Rabeni: Take Twitter for example - you can broadcast a "message" of only 140 characters - at first intuition might say it would be trivial and not too interesting to do that - but in practice, unexpected things occur
arabella Ella: @Eliza ... I would prefer to call it unconscious
Eliza Madrigal nods to both... we fill in a lot

arabella Ella: and besides filling in I guess our culture, education, etc influence the way we interpret our perceptions a great deal
Bleu Oleander: that's where we started the conversation today Ara
Eliza Madrigal: :)))
arabella Ella: but ... that is also something we can learn to move away from
Lia Rikugun: this is what i experiences when i lived in japan ara
arabella Ella: yes Lia I can imagine
Bleu Oleander: yes, hard job though
Lia Rikugun: people react differently and the i started thinking about why i do things the way i do
Eliza Madrigal: we learn to see the conditioning ... examine :)
Calvino Rabeni: It's good to recognize, it varies a lot from person to person, and for one person, from time to time - it being what is conscious and what is active, or not
Eliza Madrigal: So it was a mirror for you Lia?
Lia Rikugun: in the end there was no I
Lia Rikugun: nothing is really a 'me'
Lia Rikugun: :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
arabella Ella: well my experience of some Asian countries is that they look at Westerners as exotic flowers :)
arabella Ella: just as we sometimes look at people who are very different from the norm
Lia Rikugun: (I still need to think about the mirror eliza :)
Eliza Madrigal smiles
Bleu Oleander: interesting interview
Lia Rikugun: for me it was good to try to understand the other perspective
Bleu Oleander: http://docartemis.com/brainsciencepodcast/2010/03/bsp67-metzinger/
Bleu Oleander: about the self
Lia Rikugun: and the lern a lot about who I am
Lia Rikugun: and why I am I
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, have heard about this bleu. Thanks for the link
Calvino Rabeni: Is that about the author of "being no one"?
Bleu Oleander: I read the book and this interview is pretty good
Bleu Oleander: yes, Cal
Eliza Madrigal: "why I am I"... wow Lia
Calvino Rabeni: The book "the ego tunnel" is the EZ version of the theory
Bleu Oleander: yes
arabella Ella: the EZ?
Lia Rikugun: easy?
Bleu Oleander: there's a more scholarly book by him as well
Calvino Rabeni: easy - for the public rather than the neurophilosopher
Bleu Oleander: did you read it Cal?
Eliza Madrigal: taking a minute to examine components that make up everything and our experience of everything... can't help but throw 'self' into question perhaps
Calvino Rabeni: There's a short version of the book, online at a journal called Psyche. I read that and various reviews.
Lia Rikugun: yes eliza

Calvino Rabeni: However, for me all it says is "self is a process, not a Thing"
Calvino Rabeni: Which seems a lot different than saying "it doesn't exist"
Calvino Rabeni: So my question is why to put it that way?
Bleu Oleander: yes, that's right Cal
Eliza Madrigal: well surely self as distinct and independent/solid seems questionable...
Calvino Rabeni: Agreed, he makes a case for "it is not what you think it is"
--BELL--
arabella Ella: what is the self really?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes @eliza, but it's no surprise or breakthrough, really
Eliza Madrigal wonders if the workshop takes place today?
arabella Ella: which workshop Eliza?
Calvino Rabeni: The "thing" idea of self seems kind of a straw man to use in an argument
Eliza Madrigal thinks it is when one sees it for themselves... not as an idea but hm.. something that affects experience
Eliza Madrigal: and also laughs at using the line'for themselves' haha
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Lia Rikugun: somehow the self is a series of action, reaction with emotions, so situation, or experiences for me
Eliza Madrigal: Ara, cafh? that took place last week..
Calvino Rabeni: And yet, the idea of that book, is that the self is something we see through, like a telescope, but cannot actually see it at work
Eliza Madrigal: not sure if its a weekly workshop
Lia Rikugun: oh yes cafh was great
Lia Rikugun: i think it is
arabella Ella: ah yes ty Eliza
Qt Core: it is weekly if i'm not wrong
Lia Rikugun: i wont be able to go
Lia Rikugun: :( bed time soon
arabella Ella: mine too :(
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, think I'll go check. :( Lia, Ara
Calvino Rabeni: It must be starting now then? I will go also
Lia Rikugun: all so sad :)
Eliza Madrigal: and self as a telescope makes sense Cal
Bleu Oleander: bye all
Eliza Madrigal: or as like...
arabella Ella: lovely dress Eliza
Eliza Madrigal: haha
arabella Ella: so pretty
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks all, off to Kira it is
Calvino Rabeni: Bye :)
Lia Rikugun: have fun
Eliza Madrigal: Bye Bleu, Qt, Ara, Lia. Thanks, Ara!
arabella Ella: bye Calvino Eliza Bleu
Qt Core: bye all, have fun
arabella Ella: bye Qt
arabella Ella: I must go too nite Lia Qt
Lia Rikugun: me too
Lia Rikugun: good night