What have you created recently?

 Hi Laurie
I've got a bit more time now.
I'll try filling in a few more steps.
There are two distinct parts to this.
One part is about how we get to know anything.
The other part is about the distinction between the two realms that the mind deals with, and what works in each realm.
One realm is the realm of being, that which is or has been.
The other realm is the realm of the possible, all of the possibilities that may occur.
How is it that we get to know anything?
When we look closely at how we build up our awareness of anything there are several layers to the process.
We have sense organs - eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin; and through these we get sensations from the world around us.
Internally we have nerves connecting these sense organs to our brains.
Our brains are made up of neural networks.
From many hundreds of years of study by many thousands of people, we have worked out quite a bit about how these various organs work at different levels, from the atomic level upwards.
If we look at the eyes as an example.
Our eyes receive photons from the outside world.  If a photon hits a particular molecule in cells at the back of our eyes (retinaldehyde), that molecule can absorb the energy and change shape.  The change in shape causes that molecule to fall free of the much larger molecule it is attached to, which causes that large protein to roll over in the cell membrane, and open a channel to the outside of the cell and start a flow of ions that triggers an electrical signal which alters the rate of firing of the neuron associated with that cell.
This signal goes to the optic lobes of the brain, where it can be processed by several possible centers.  One of those cent res is responsible for facial recognition, another for spatial relationship, etc.
All of this interaction and signal processing takes an appreciable fraction of a second.
The effect of this is that by the time the information has been processed by the brain to the point that it can inform our awareness, it is at least half a second old.   In order to deal with this delay, our brains long ago evolved a mechanism for maintaining a predictive model of reality that is phase shifted from our perceptions, and is updated after the fact by any unexpected changes.
In our ordinary everyday experience, the model is remarkably accurate most of the time, and we rarely experience any dislocation.  Most of the time our brains accurately maintain the illusion that we are aware of reality in real time.  We are not.  For most of our lives this model works well, and sometimes, particularly in high stress situations, it fails, and we switch modes.
Why is this important to understand?
It is important, because we have the illusion that we are dealing with reality in real time.
We are not.
We are always out of phase with our perceptions.
We deal with our model of reality in real time, and mostly it works.
By the time we get to know about reality, it is already history - been and gone.
We cannot change what is gone.
We can change our model of what happened.
We can alter our recollection.
We can alter our stories about what happened.
We can alter our perspectives.
But we cannot alter what actually happened.
The odd thing is, that most of us are so unaware of the difference between our models and stories and perspectives on reality, that we mistake them for reality itself - and we believe that we can actually change what has happened in some way.
We cannot.
What we can influence is what is yet to happen.
We can make choices, take actions, and create futures that are other than the “probable, almost certain, future”.
How do we do make such choices?
A full answer to that would run to a reasonable book, and in short version, we create simplified models, extrapolations, projections, of possible courses of action/reaction; and we choose that which seems most beneficial to us (at some level).
We tend to classify things as things we “ought” to do, and things we “ought not”.
When we are considering the future, such a system of classification is useful.

The big problem for most people is that they do not keep ideas like “ought” applied strictly to considerations of the future, and apply them to contemplations of present or past.
My contention is that all suffering is actually sourced in this mis-classification.
Is there any way what happened (as distinct from our perceptions, understanding or stories about what happened) can be different from what it was?
No!

What happened is what happened.
There is nothing we can do about it.
It cannot be any way other than the way it was.
Thus it is illogical to use terms like “ought” in relation to anything present or past.
Anything that has happened, has happened, all we can powerfully do is accept it.
It can be powerful for us to reflect upon our stories and interpretations of things that have happened, and it is required of us that we do not confuse these with the thing itself.   We can update our interpretations, without altering anything about what actually happened.
It is not powerful to try and change any aspect of history, or to spend time wishing history was anything other than what it is.
Accept what is - all of it.
Having done that - now what do you wish to create?
If one lives from this mode - there is no suffering.
The future always has unlimited possibility.
The past is what it is - nothing wrong with it.  The idea that it can be anything other than what it is just does not make any sense.

Does this make any more sense?

Hi Laurie

Yep.

Have about 20 false starts in various folders on this machine.
The last one got to about 12,000 words before I shelved it for later consideration.

Several difficulties.
Deciding on the subject/title is one.
Creating order in the content is another.
Creating the contexts that will allow most people to make the abstractions for themselves is the other.

Abstraction is the hardest thing to teach, because in a very real sense one cannot teach it, one can only take someone else to a place, with a story, where the probability of them discovering it for themselves is higher.

I found 30 years ago, when teaching maths at secondary school that I could do it, even for kids that everyone else had given up on, and it required intense concentration.   In that case, I would set general problems for the class, and start them working with some general examples, then go around the room and spend one on one time with each of the kids, getting to know them, their home situations, their background and interests.  Then I could create examples of the principles we were dealing with that were directly relevant to them - create interest.
Once they had interest, then they would engage, and make progress.

How to do that on a general scale, where I can reach most people (ideally everyone) in a book?    I have been turning that question over and over and round and round, and teasing it out and about for over a decade now.

I have got some interesting bits, but not yet a whole.
This blog is an intentional part of the process.
It keeps me writing, and keeps me focused on getting my stories to a state that others can indeed get the concepts they point to.

I think like I think, and it is now very difficult for me to imagine how others think.   I spend most of my time in lone contemplation of very complex problems, many in fisheries management, many in computer programming, some in politics, and the big one - what sort of concepts and technologies are required to stabilise society, given our biological and cultural histories, and the probability that we will extend lifespans indefinitely very soon?

There are some very interesting possibilities in history.
Jesus and Buddha are both very interesting from several perspectives; and it is difficult to tease out their original insights, from all the cultural and political stuff that has been added since.

When I was at Auckland university I restarted the campus branch of the Humanist Society, and I found it interesting, that most of those who joined me were more interested in being righteous over Christians (intellectual Christian bashing), than being truly compassionate and of service to all people (which is what humanism is supposed to be about).

It wasn't until 20 years later - doing the Landmark Forum (15 years ago) that I realised what was going on, and how it all interconnected.

It took me 3 full on days (in the Landmark Forum) to see what an arrogant self righteous SOB I was in some circumstances, and to get a glimpse of just how attached I was to “getting it right”.

There are shadows of “getting it right” still present, and I now smile as I contemplate them (rather than gritting my teeth in frustration).

Part of what gets in the way for me is the whole notion of spiritual.   It is easy for me to get a handle on it from computers.  But I have been playing with computers for almost 40 years.   I built my first one, and programmed everything it ever did by hand, though a hexadecimal keypad (a 4 x 4 matrix, with the number 0-9 and the letters A - F) - signifying the hexadecimal (base 16) numbers 0 - 15.
I learned to think in multiple numeric bases - base 2, base 8, base 10, base 16; and to translate between them and various letter encoding systems including ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), and several others.

I watched and participated in the evolution of languages and operating systems - wrote a couple.

So I can see strong analogies between the development of software in computers, and the development of behaviours and awareness in animals (including us).  My degree in zoology/biochemistry, having grown up on farms, and having spent 17 years as a professional hunter/fisherman all contribute to my understanding of natural systems.

I know how hardware can influence software on many levels, and also how software can be used to overcome the limitations of hardware.

As a biochemist I see how living systems have evolved, from the molecular level on upwards.   I see ever more complex mechanisms of control evolving in some lines, while other lines retain their simplicity.   It is amazing to contemplate how many different types of organisms are alive on earth today, and how many of them are virtually unchanged for hundreds of millions of years (some for billions of years) - those particular sets of characteristics being so stable in those particular niches.

Only one species has developed conceptual language, and advanced tool use on this planet, and that has taken almost 4 billion years.

Right now we (as a species) are so vulnerable to even a moderately small asteroid collision.   We have used all the surface ore bodies for most metals.  If we lose technology no future emergent civilisation will ever find copper or tin just by finding lumps of it in high grade ore bodies, they have all been mined.  We have used all the surface oil deposits, and most of the surface coal deposits.

We need to make the leap to independent technology.  We cannot afford the trend to centralisation and control that is driven by our current economic and political structures.  

It is almost like all of humanity is being played as one huge tontine, partially driven by economics, and partially by cultural and political drives to hegemony - none of which are stable or sustainable.

Hegemony is not possible.
Knowledge space is infinite, and there are an infinite number of possible paths through it, giving an infinite spectrum of possible perspectives.

All cultures/ religions that claim they are the “one true way” are demonstrably and logically false.

They may be one possible way of viewing things, and they are demonstrably false in claiming “one true”, and therefore are probably false in a significant number of other aspects.

Yes.
I am sometimes writing a book, and I think it would be powerful if I took a disciplined approach to doing so, yet me and discipline have a very uneasy relationship ;)

Arohanui

Well Judged Laurie

A dare is about the best way of influencing me, and I am considering it carefully.

Did a quick search and found three books by Julia Cameron called -  The Artist's Way - A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
A paperback 4th edition and self study guide amongst them.

Might give the local library a try tomorrow.  Going to Christchurch (nearest city) in a couple of weeks.
Will let you know how I get on.  Not committing at this stage, might not be able to get a sufficient fit to allow me to read and translate easily - and I will have a look.