[FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sun Oct 20 21:32:39 EDT 2019
Frank...
This is the "hit" I got in my own archives of messages on FriAM
referencing TM
> For some reason I am seeing Nick's comments only when he is quoted by
> others.
>
> Dave, your description of Buddhist breathing reminded me of when my
> father-in-law tried to teach me transcendental meditation. He was a
> retired attorney whose volunteer work was to teach TM to prisoners at
> the Indiana State Prison. I decided to try what he taught me the other
> day to see if I could get any benefit from it. The way he taught it to
> me was you try to remove all thoughts from your mind while silently
> repeating a word which, he said, didn't matter what it was. Anyway
> when I tried it recently I discovered that it was very difficult to
> keep thoughts out of my mind. The way I experienced it, I would think
> I was keeping thoughts out of my mind but then I would remember that I
> had had thoughts a few moments ago. This reminds me of my discussions
> with Nick about whether people think. If you try transcendental
> meditation you will realize that people can't not think.
>
> Frank
>
> -----------------------------------
> Frank Wimberly
>
> My memoir:
> https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly
>
> My scientific publications:
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2
>
> Phone (505) 670-9918
>
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 3:51 AM Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm
> <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>
> Nick,
>
> There I was conversing along without an experiential care in the
> world, when WHAM, a speed bump — Signs all the way down" slams my
> head into the roof — massive headache.
>
> Two aspirins you might provide:
>
> 1) a concise explanation of how Peircian semiotics differs from
> the semiotics I came to know and love;
>
> and 2) an essence preservation transformation of the simple
> narrative to follow into "experience all the way down" and then
> into "signs all the way down."
>
> Hatha Yoga 101
>
> - breathing.
> - attempt to precisely regulate breathing, i.e. five seconds in,
> five seconds hold, five seconds exhale.
> - intense resistance (lizard brain / aka autonomous nervous
> system) "objects" "tries to wrest control"
> - repeated practice —> success as "conscious habit" —> success as
> "non-conscious" habit —> success as, apparently, retrained lizard
> brain
> - increased energy
> - REM brain waves, but no "awareness" of dreaming, nor residual
> "memory" of same
>
> davew
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019, at 7:13 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>
>> Hi, Steve,
>>
>>
>>
>> This is one of those moments when I have to be grateful you-guys
>> let me participate here because it is so obvious to me that I am
>> out of my depth in this conversation. But …
>>
>>
>>
>> You have my shroedinger (what is life?) crystal humming AND my
>> Peirce (it’s signs all the way down) crystal humming. The
>> proposition, “It’s signs all the way down” has to be understood
>> as the proposition that a sign is a certain kind of relation in
>> which something stands in for something for something else. Full
>> stop. So all basic biological processes (think enzymes) are sign
>> systems. Another way to think of a sign system is as a relation
>> è/to a relation//ç//. /So is the sorting of the pebbles on a
>> beach a sign relation? What about the tendency of slush to
>> maintain a 32 degree temperature? Fill in your favorite example,
>> here.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com
>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>] *On Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
>> *Sent:* Monday, September 16, 2019 10:41 AM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake
>>
>>
>>
>> Dave -
>>
>> It felt a strange coincidence, but in the early days of SFx, we
>> were holding a "blender" on the topic of morphometrics at the
>> same time that Sheldrake was visiting SFe to speak at a "Science
>> of Consciousness" conference. This was the meeting at which he
>> was stabbed by a 'fan' who was apparently disturbed going in but
>> more disturbed by Sheldrake's ideas?
>>
>> https://boingboing.net/2008/04/09/biologist-rupert-she.html
>>
>> Our "morphometrics" was an acutely more mundane conversation
>> about the practicalities of starting with laser scans of
>> paleontological and archaelogical artifacts and doing
>> statistical analysis to try to reveal "hidden" correlations. For
>> example, we were hoping to be able to recognize the "hand" in
>> objects such as flaked lithic tools or hand-formed ceramics.
>>
>> It is interesting to me that you bring up homeopathic "dilution
>> to nothing" based on the assumption that the water's
>> quasi-crystalline structure somehow holds something meaningful
>> from the original inoculant which had been titered into oblivion.
>>
>> Are you familiar with Mae-Wan Ho's work in quasi-crystals in
>> water and water emulsions? I understand that where she (and
>> others more acutely) have taken her research to fundamentally
>> vitalistic places in a way that is hard to not dismiss as
>> pseudo-science, but the underlying science seems pretty sound?
>> My daughter who is a molecular biologist has been unable to
>> provide either confirmation nor refutation of the application of
>> this work in her own domain (flavivirii).
>>
>> I naively discarded a personal/professional correspondence (typed
>> letter on letterhead ca 1984) from Roger Penrose in response to a
>> tiny bit of work I did in pre-quantum consciousness (:Cellular
>> automata in cytoskeletal lattices" :
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167278984902598).
>> Penrose was postulating that it was aperiodic tilings (surprise!)
>> that were at the root of consciousness (in human brains). This
>> was some years before his "Emperor's New Mind" and pursuit of
>> "Quantum Consciousness" (with my co-author Stuart Hameroff). I
>> am unable to get sufficient traction on contemporary QC work
>> including Penrose's nor Stu Kauffman's to know what I believe on
>> the topic. I am most sympathetic with the Pibram/Bohm
>> perspective, but that is more intuitive than anything.
>>
>> I understand that Marcus' has moved from LANL to a day-job in
>> full-up Quantum Computing. I don't know that Q computing has
>> any implications for Q consciousness, but it would seem that it
>> can't help but lead to more experience with quantum effects
>> translated into human scales of time and space.
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>> On 9/16/19 12:20 AM, Prof David West wrote:
>>
>> Yes, Sheldrake,yearns for a kind of metaphysical reality and
>> scientific validity that still eludes him. I think that have
>> have reached, and are at risk of blending with, homeopathy
>> and the like cure like, the dilution of "stuff" til there is
>> no stuff left, but the "water has memory."
>>
>>
>>
>> All based, of course on shared resonance.
>>
>>
>>
>> Not sure about the data set. Most of it is from him or true
>> believers and suffers from finding what you are looking for.
>> But, because no one is really taking him seriously, no one is
>> presenting data sets that might prove him wrong. Also, not a
>> statistician so can't comment on methodology or significance.
>>
>>
>>
>> Another of those connection things — a few years back, in a
>> Quantum Consciousness type book, there was a discussion of
>> resonance starting from the vibrating strings of physics fame
>> to aggregates of strings creating blended vibrations to
>> larger aggregates creating "harmonies" and feedback from
>> "observers" blending everything — and when I was reading that
>> it seemed to "resonate with Sheldrake." Being quite vague
>> here, because the book is back home, but when I return I will
>> pick it up and look at it again.
>>
>>
>>
>> davew
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 15, 2019, at 11:56 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Geez, Steve,
>>
>>
>>
>> I didn’t know that morphs COULD resonate.
>>
>>
>>
>> What on earth are you talking about?
>>
>> What Dave just said in description of Sheldrake's theory
>> of "morphic resonance"... a resonant coupling amongst
>> things which have the same morphology (shape). In your
>> case, you and Dave apparently have similar "intellectual
>> resonant chambers" which, in this treatment "begin to
>> resonate" as you spend enough time "coupling" (in
>> conversation).
>>
>> Following the analogy (stronger/more-formal than a
>> metaphor I propose), when you "couple" with others who
>> you end up disagreeing with, I suspect it starts out a
>> bit like a barbershop quartet... one member hitting a
>> tone and another following by hitting the same tone, but
>> as the progression gets more complex, the *differences*
>> in your tonality starts to expose itself as
>> dissonances. I credit you "harmonizing" with Dave in
>> this (and perhaps other) instance to Dave for *trying* to
>> help you find the same note (as I am here).
>>
>> The Nick and Frank show (e.g. recent analogy to train
>> conductors) seems to be a deliberate study/applicatoin in
>> dissonance... one of you hits a note and the other
>> intuitively (or with great intellectual effort) factors
>> the composing frequencies of that note and responds with
>> a new note that has *none* or *few* of the same composing
>> frequencies, generating a complex set of beat frequencies
>> anew. I don't know how much this type of deliberate
>> dissonance is used in echolocating creatures (bats,
>> cetaceans, ???) but finding *dissonance* seems
>> potentially *more useful* than resonance in some cases?
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>
>> Clark University
>>
>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] *On
>> Behalf Of *Steven A Smith
>> *Sent:* Sunday, September 15, 2019 5:32 PM
>> *To:* friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Unmediated perception - sheldrake
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Interesting, David. With most people I find that
>> if we talk long enough, we disagree; with you it
>> mostly works the other way. Thank you.
>>
>>
>>
>> Nick
>>
>>
>>
>> Looks like a case of morphic resonance to me!
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>
>> to unsubscribe
>> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr.
>> Strangelove
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>>
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>>
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20191020/cb8a7005/attachment.html>
More information about the Friam
mailing list