Lies

“Everything I was ever taught by my parents, school, church, or that I found in the media…was either wrong, or a lie.” I can’t seem to shake that thought. As the years go by, I find that it is true.
The churches knowingly teach things that they know are lies. Parents still tell children things that they “want” their kids to believe, knowing they are not true. TV news treats people like James Van Praugh and Silvia Brown like authorities. In school, I was taught that the Crusades were a noble pursuit to “enlighten” the world. Doctors still prescribe antibiotics for colds. The government (there is so much here) still asks what “race” you are.
Even the less important lies, like tradition, are used to control us and make us suffer like the previous generation. Nationalism, Patriotism and Religion are as despicable as Rape, Murder and GOD forbid, coveting. How do we grow to a society that is for the good of its members? “

We live in a society of lies. Not just lies, but agendas, mis-truths, deceptions, religion, politics, finance, ideology. I don’t mean to imply that lies are common, or widespread, or dominant, nah, they are UNIVERSAL. My favorite is the nested lie. Take for instance a news announcement “new claims for unemployment have dropped by 50%”. this would lead one to think that unemployment has improved. WRONG! While most people can see through this lie, they will accept the underlying lie. (IE things suck, and they are getting suckier.) Within that lie is that the total drawing claims has increased. Within that lie is that the statements only apply to NEW claims and do not count those that have run out of benefits. Within that lie is that the method for determining unemployment changes to suit the conditions. Within that lie is that the military is included which is not in the labor pool. Like the matryoshka, each time a lie is exposed, another is revealed. If the nesting is deep enough, eventually the “Big Lie” will be accepted. Why do they do it? Because they can, people are stupid. It works. It is just the zombies trying to eat your brains, or Ayn Rand’s beast, or the abyss, or the wall. “Recent studies have shown” prefixed to any lie will give it credibility. Choice of words, “Free Trade” “Truth in lending” “Sunshine law” “Fair taxation”. An entrenching tool is much more sinister that a shovel. Is there really a difference between a “Freedom Fighter” and an “insurgent”, or a “warlord” and a “tribal elder”? Yes, it depends on what they want us to think. Obfuscation in voluminous legislation is another example.

How do we grow to a society that is for the good of its members? We can’t. Eliminating an asshole only creates a vacuum for an idiot to fill and become an asshole. We have to grow members that are good for society. It starts from the bottom up, not the top down.

 

The Fart Smeller

Hi Mr Ted,

eLG is a pretty fart smeller. Not intelligent, but smart nonetheless (he got SNAP)

Stupid? I prefer to think they publish papers outside the box, like i prefer to think of you as complete rather than wordy. (a result of your amerind worldview)

Check this out, this is the pre-print for Lisi’s paper. I’ve read it and the logic and data seems valid, but it doesn’t “feel right” somehow. It does hold together and is not inconsistent. (that’s annoying) The flaw of course is his use of dimension (particularly 4th) The fact that it was largely ignored by mainstream physics adds further credibility in my mind. I’d say he was one step up from Plato. Notice he eschews calculus, as did Mr Milo and Mr Geoff.

also annoying was a person explaining evolution in hydraulic terms.

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0770?context=hep-th

“An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything is a preprint proposing a basis for a unified field theory, which attempts to describe all known fundamental interactions in physics, and to stand as a possible theory of everything. The preprint was posted to the physics arXiv by Antony Garrett Lisi in November 2007,[1] and was not submitted to a peer-reviewed scientific journal.[2] The title is a pun on the algebra used, the Lie algebra of the largest “simple,” “exceptional” Lie group, E8.

Lie groups

[show]Classical groups

[show]Simple Lie groups

[show]Other Lie groups

[show]Lie algebras

[show]Structure of semi-simple Lie groups

[show]Representation theory

[show]Lie groups in Physics

v • d • e

The theory “received accolades from a few physicists amid a flurry of media coverage,” but also “widespread skepticism.”[3] Scientific American reported in March 2008 that the theory was being “largely but not entirely ignored” by the mainstream physics community, with a few physicists picking up the work to develop it further.[4] In a critical paper[5] published in Communications in Mathematical Physics, Jacques Distler and Skip Garibaldi state that Lisi’s theory, and a large class of related models, cannot work.

As of May 2008 Lisi’s preprint was the most downloaded article in the arXiv.[6]” – wikipedia

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

Here’s the link to Mr Abi (Arlene ‘Abi’ Montefiore)> center@u.arizona.edu

(Mr Abi is the center manager UA psychology) (she’s a woman, Mr is an honorific)

And CSS> http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/

And SAND> http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/

And here’s the specifies> http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/abstract_submission.shtml

TED would be a natural but that’s invitation only.

Exerpt from SAND

“In spite of having successfully used analysis (i.e. “taking things apart”) as a powerful tool for centuries, science is converging on the nondual. Cosmologists seek a first cause for the universe. Physicists look for the ultimate constituent of matter. Neurophysiologists attempt to correlate physiological observables with reported experiences of nonduality. Transpersonal psychologists investigate the effects of these experiences on human mental health. Deep ecologists explore the potential consequences of nondual understanding on long term global health. Mathematics practiced with love and devotion has been described as communion with the nondual Divine.”

found here> http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/mission.shtml

also IEET> http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/eventinfo/consciousness_2010/

 

imprinting

“What can we do about it?” – DrB

In regard imprinting. Interesting question. The word “we” was used with intent. An idiot would say “What can I do about it?’ with resignation. Centereds have a sense of social responsibility, able to balance the individual needs against those of society. An idiot will take the optimum solution for him at the expense of society. Evidently, they want their children to be just as stupid as they are. One would think that all that needed to be done would be to inform the educational system. WRONG! They know, and they’re doing it anyway. They are KNOWINGLY mutilating our children’s minds so as to improve efficiency. That’s what I got so angry about a couple of months back.

The question now becomes “if we didn’t have idiots running the school system, what can we do about it?” The trick would seem to be to enable the bottom up thinking that is crushed by the educational system now. Sitting almost forces top down thinking while standing almost forces bottom up thinking. So one approach would be field trips. Instead of teaching history from a book, get them off their butts and take them to an historical battlefield. “the union troops were up on that hill” (pointing) hiding in the bushes. “The confederate troops came down this path, and were ambushed. The towns people were gathered in the shade under their umbrellas drinking tea, and once the bullets started flying decided that they really needed to get back to their chores” Make it real. On woods excursions teach them important stuff like “don’t wipe with poison ivy” (that’s worth imprinting) or don’t eat the yellow snow.

Sir Ken suggests more emphasis on the arts, particularly drama, and creativity brought into the classroom.

My favorite is learning. I use learn as a transitive verb, I present the data, say what I think about it, and ask for responses. “What do you think?” This is opposed to teaching where opinions are expressed and accepted as fact during the critical period. The Benedictine’s mission was to spread enlightenment, not teach.

“We can’t teach you, we can only show you how to learn” – Bro Max

This critical period is when children become aculturated to society and should be viewed with that in mind. Social mores, interactions, etc. Let them learn what we have evolved to learn in the timeframe which human nature dictates. Hijacking this natural process is no different than brainwashing on a permanent basis. They become idiots.

These are human beings, with a glorious potential. Not a bunch of damned machines to be programmed. Pull, don’t push. Work with nature, don’t try to control it.  Provide a platform to allow them to be who they are supposed to be, not who you want them to be.

Below are two videos by Mr Sir Ken Robinson.  This is his web page, the videos are on the riglht.

Sir Ken Robinson

The Successful Inclusive Classroom

Keys to success include:
Students need to be active – not passive learners.
Children should be encouraged to make choices as often as possible, a good teacher will allow students some time to flounder as some of the most powerful learning stems from taking risks and learning from mistakes.
Parental involvement is crucial.
Students with disabilities must be free to learn at their own pace and have accommodations and alternative assessment strategies in place to meet their unique needs.
Students need to experience success, learning goals need to be specific, attainable and measurable and have some challenge to them.  Inclusional Classroom

 

Plato’s Mobile

Tripolar

This mobile illustrates what I am aware of inside my skull and what I observe inside other peoples skulls. The mobile seeks equilibrium in a turbulent environment. If you would prefer gravity, river, flow, whorls, hydraulics, springs, magic, nirvana, qi, centering, god whatever, that’s fine, the word is not the concept. The words are only words and much meaning is lost. I choose Plato’s model for traditional reasons. The other words are arbitrarily chosen because of personal preference. Anything that does not fit in this model is wrong, or at least incomplete, else the purpose of the entire universe to to play a joke on walt. In any case, this system always works the same way although the balance point may be different because of circumstances, education, religion and a jillion things that affect the balance. The brain evolved/was designed by god/emerged randomly whatever and enables us to deal with a rapidly changing environment. In operation this mobile is dancing all over the place, buffeted by Mr Ted’s much beloved hurricanes, or social change or personal tragedy or mama grizzlies or “unfolding in the now’s” whatever. The Aristotelian Brain Fart locks down the mythos side of the mobile and the Taoist brain fart locks down the logos side of the mobile severely limiting flexibility for the individual but maximizing efficiency for society. What motivational people call focus. The debate over extrinsic or intrinsic is inside the skull. IE it ain’t real. The ether is real, or the great mysterious, or spacial forcing, or cosmic standing wave whatever. Simply put REALITY is real, whatever word you choose, not our perception of it. Else, you’re just fighting the yin/yang wars.

The model only shows the logic part of the process. I can’t figure how to illustrate a 3d picture in two dimensions. There is also a parallel perceptual process. And a biasing aspect.

 

 

a New Psychology

Looking for non-idiots. Using your analogy of the book cover, it’s like walking through a bookstore and examining the books one by one. I pull one off the shelf and it has a glitzy cover with holographic inlays. But I open it up and there’s nothing there. The pages are blank. Shit, another idiot.

It seems that top down thinking washes all the wisdom out of a concept and all that is left is knowledge.

That thing on bipolar shocked even me. They are medicating 1,000,000 kids under false pretenses, with no idea of the long term result. Scary. Idiots pretending to be smart.

“Grof distinguishes between two modes of consciousness: the hylotropic and the holotropic. The hylotropic refers to “the normal, everyday experience of consensus reality. The holotropic refers to states which aim towards wholeness and the totality of existence.”

“Western psychiatrists are aware of the existence of holotropic experiences but, because of their narrow conceptual framework limited to postnatal biography and the Freudian individual unconscious, they have no adequate explanation for them. They see them as pathological products of the brain, symptomatic of a serious mental disease,

psychosis. This conclusion is not supported by clinical findings and is highly problematic, to say the least. Referring to these conditions as ’endogenous psychoses’ might sound impressive to a lay person, but amounts to little more than acknowledgment of the professionals’ ignorance concerning the etiology of these conditions.”

“Western psychiatry and psychology do not see holotropic states (with the exception of dreams that are not recurrent or frightening) as potential sources of valuable information about the human psyche and of healing, but basically as pathological phenomena. Traditional clinicians tend to use indiscriminately pathological labels and uppressive medication whenever these states occur spontaneously.”

“If we study systematically the experiences and observations associated with holotropic states, it leads inevitably to a radical revision of our basic ideas about consciousness and about the human psyche and to an entirely new approach to psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. The changes we would have to make in our thinking fall into several large categories:

1. New understanding and cartography of the human psyche.

2. The nature and architecture of emotional and psychosomatic disorders.

3. Therapeutic mechanisms and the process of healing.

4. The strategy of psychotherapy and self-exploration.

5. The role of spirituality in human life.

6. The nature of reality.”

The New Psychology

The ANN IS the (a) cartography of the human Psyche. OPL Walt

 

Bleem

The problem I have always had with communicating with un-centered people is that whenever the topic turned to soft subjects their thinking became silly, if not insane. Before I recently heard the terms reductionist and constructionist thinking I used the terms top down and bottom up thinking. Math, for instance, is hard. 2+3 = 5, always has, always will. So, unless scientists discover a new number. (the bleem, it comes between 6 and 7 – Woody Allen) Math is a done deal.
The psyche is different. If you are trying to understand a frog, you cut it up and try to understand the pieces. You are dealing with a known. Top down works great here. This only addresses the how. If on the other hand you want to know why, it is necessary to take a more holistic view. Consideration must be given to evolution, environment, ecosystem, niche, mating, food, sex, competition, dangers etc. Top down doesn’t address these issues. Bottom up works here.
In psychology, for instance, there is no frog to cut up. It is an unknown. There is no way you can know what combination of events has led to a particular behavior pattern. Each person is unique, with his own unique environment, hopes, religion, education, experience, dreams, triumphs, failures etc. It is not possible to determine which combination of events caused a particular behavior pattern. It is insane to try. Yet people do. This results in simple concepts exploding into byzantine labyrinths of illogic. Psychology with it’s id, ego, sub-conscious, psychosis’, neurosis’, and all kinds of weird concepts made up to give the illusion of understanding.
Take for instance centering. The concept is simple; “me”, That lone two letter word says all there is to know about centering in bottom up thinking. It is an identity. Integrally implied in the concept of the “me identity” is awareness of self, (I like me, I want to stay me, I don’t want to be anyone else) etc. Even the lowliest life form has a me. ie, Even bacteria are centered. Yet when top down thinking is applied to this concept it explodes into self worth, esteem, pride, moral compass, religion, ethics, philosophy, spirituality etc. which explodes into libraries full of self help books.
Back to the un-centered, their “me” has been displaced, overwritten, co-opted, whatever. It’s still there, always has been, always will be. To me, their mind has become “super tangled”. (If I understand your analogy correctly) They are, to me, insane. Their mind is working against itself. They are scary.
As to the project, oblique verbiage with a visual image should get it past the left hemisphere into the right hemisphere, bypassing the reductionist overlay. There are plenty of self help books, all good stuff, no point in regurgitating them. Assuming a 52 card deck, that’s 26 pages, (both sides) with a 4 page intro. That’s 30 pages for a p-book ($3) or free for an e-book. A physical deck is $13, free for virtual deck.
Fortunately, the mind is a simple thing conceptually, and bottom up thinking works well here.
There is a plethora of data out there, a cornucopia of riches that could solve most of the problems of mankind and allow him to reach his full potential. It just needs to be collated.

 

Highly Illogical

I’ve been reading up on the latest “advances” in psychology.  my previous conclusion was that it was silly.  I’ve since upgraded that to sinister.  And it’s become institutionalized.  Does anyone really believe that?  can they?  anyone who can believe that drivel is insane, or did the drivel drive them insane?  Maslow, on the other hand, had a lot more going for him than he is being given credit for.  as did  Nietzsche. While I disagree with Maslow’s hierchical structure, the rest of his observations were spot on.  His description of the “transcedent personality” (Bi-polar manic depressive).  Keeping away from psychiatrists is a life/death issue for me.  Those people are crazy and they have the power of the state behind them.

Do you remember the old Star Trek series, with Kirk and Spock?  There was always a conflict between Spock’s top down thinking and Kirk’s bottom up thinking.  (my interpretation) Spock was rigidly “scientific method” while Kirk was prone to “hunches”.   Yet Kirk invariably produced the appropriate response to a crisis.  “Most illogical” said Spock.  In one episode Spock was in a shuttle in a decaying orbit with a limited amount of fuel.  There was no logical solution so he flared the fuel guaranteeing iminent death.  The Enterprise saw the flare and beamed him aboard.  Afterward he said “As there was no logical solution, it was only logical to behave illogically.”  He punted on third and goal, the old “hail Mary” pass, shit happens.

How many da Vincis are institutionalized as bi-polar manic depressive?

Highly Illogical

 

TD/BU

Top Down vs Bottom Up

“Bottom up thinking is sneaking up on the truth” – el Loco Gringo

You had asked why I wasn’t content to let people think in whatever way they were comfortable with. I have no problem with reductionist thinking, I have a problem with using reductionist thinking EXCLUSIVELY for scientific inquiry. It doesn’t discover new concepts. Bottom up thinking is dismissed as hunches or guesses, not as the intuition it is. Top down thinking leads to absurdities like psychology, for instance or voodoo. It is a shortcut method of thinking. It precludes NEW concepts. This is the way an animal thinks. It can only rearrange and categorize existing concepts. It is what makes people dumb. There is more, but that’s enough. Consider the following.
scientific method: A process that is the basis for scientific inquiry. The scientific method follows a series of steps: (1) identify a problem you would like to solve, (2) formulate a hypothesis, (3) test the hypothesis, (4) collect and analyze the data, (5) make conclusions.
Hypothesis:1. a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena.
An hypothesis is nothing more than a proposed conclusion. So essentially you start with a conclusion, then try to prove it false or true and declare it true based on the results. Thus it is circular in nature. Perfectly suitable for making decisions based on “knowns”. Consider the nature of knowledge. One perspective is there are things you know, things you don’t know, things you know you don’t know, AND THINGS YOU KNOW THAT AIN’T SO. IE part of this logic tree depends on belief and not fact.
Consider, for instance, DNA. For years geneticists had been studying the genetic structure as if DNA were total and complete fact. Then, here come epigenitics. Oops! The concept of DNA was WRONG. IE they knew something that “wasn’t so”. DNA was never “tested” for validity. (and it CAN’T be tested using the scientific method) It was only true AS FAR AS IT WENT. It was incomplete. It was a n-truth and not a p-truth. The scientific method could never have caught this (and didn’t, the discovery was serendipitous). Now if I’m a plumber, and don’t care, accepting DNA as a p-truth is fine. BUT if I’m a geneticist doing research, using the scientific method is absurd.

Consider Ardi, the newly discovered hominid fossil. For years anthropologists had been working under the assumption than man evolved from chimps. Seems right. WRONG!!! Chimps evolved from hominids. It was an n-truth, not a p-truth. (This is awkward, I’m going to have to change all my Charlie Chimp references to Ardi Australopithecus Africanus, doesn’t really roll of the tongue does it?)

Consider relativity, for years physicists have been doing math on the assumption that time was real, and not a mental construct. And they still are. The are making another false assumption that math dictates physics. It does not. The math is not the physics. It only describes it. If reality and math disagree, the math is wrong, not reality.

In short, when using the scientific method the question “what if they’re all full of shit” is never asked. Consider Heylighen, he is using bottom thinking to look at the problems of “gifted people” IE he is gathering (and verifying) the data THEN will see where it leads. He doesn’t start with the conclusion. (gifted people are bi-polar manic depressive) He will come up with a conclusion which is “less wrong” than psychology’s.

How did this happen? Why have scientists forgotten how to ask why? Let’s look at the educational system. What is it’s purpose? To educate? WRONG. The purpose of the educational system to get the students to perform well on tests (to get increased funding, prestige, gravitas) in a limited time frame. Thus beliefs (n-truths) are presented as (and accepted as) facts. This is what I call the lattice, a block on challenging dogma. Thus the concept of reductionist thinking as being the only valid method of inquiry is carried by the students into life. (This is what I call dumb). If the issue is important, dogma must be challenged. It’s as if you cut out the right hemisphere. My education was somewhat unique, most easily summed up by quoting Bro. Max “We can’t teach you, we can only show you how to learn”. This goes to purpose. The purpose of the Benedictine order is to enlighten students, not to get them to pass tests. Big difference. This is only one of the impediments to understanding.

When listening to someone, an alarm bell frequently goes off (alarmingly frequently) “this guy is full of shit”. (he’s an idiot) I interpret this as the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere being in disagreement. The wire to this alarm bell has been cut in most people and the input is dismissed. In a sense you could view the right hemisphere as a bullshit detector. It flags discrepancies in the logic of top-down and bottom up thinking.

This goes to the heart of my problem, people assume that if they don’t understand me it is because I’m crazy, when the truth is they don’t understand me because they’re dumb.

Read the attached file by Paul Grobstein. (Getting it less wrong, the brains way) He’s right. (he’s not an idiot) non-idiots are depressingly few in this society.

Pragmatism