Hope

Question of the Day ~ May 7, 2013 What is Hope

What is hope, and where do you go to find it?

Hope is a complex notion that can mean very different things to different people in different contexts.

It has been described as one of the 3 heavenly graces, and it has also been described as the “gold plated turd”.

It seems to me that when hope is part of the motivation that involves creative visualisation followed by actions in alignment with that vision, then it is a powerful force.

And it seems also that when hope is simply delivered as that mix of “desire and expectation” that encourages individuals simply to endure within a system, without taking meaningful action to alter that system; then it has the quality of the “gold plated turd”.

Of the turd I want nothing.
Of the power to create, to bring into being that which had not previously existed, that resides within every one of us – that I want for all. It seems clear to me that the creative power is the result of a vast amount of information being processed in holographic fashion far below the level of conscious awareness; and we can consciously choose to listen to and to see those results, or we can be taught to ignore them and to trust external authority.

I find hope in what seems to be the quantum nature of individuals, in the power of evolution, and within the evolutionary paradigm the power of cooperation.
I find hope in the vast variety I see in individual human beings, and in the infinite potential available to every one of us.
I find hope in our desire to live, and our desire to make a difference in the lives of others, and in turn be enriched by the company of those others.

All these things give me hope that we can create a set of technical, social and political institutions that will empower every individual in exploring their own creativity, and in the responsible exercise of their freedom to be and to grow as they choose.

Nightmares

Question of the Day ~ May 6, 2013 Did You Ever Have a Nightmare

Did you ever have a nightmare, that after the fact, seemed to have a basis in information, you didn’t know when falling asleep?
Two friends of mine had nightmares recently. One had a nightmare that seems more like a precognition, than simply fears being worked through by the mind, and was actually “confirmed” as having some basis, by coincidental news reports.

Surprise !!! I have a different interpretation from OM

Our senses deal with several hundred times more information than we are capable of consciously being aware of. All of that information goes into the amazing processing system that is our brains.
The patterns that our subconsciousness extracts from that information, and puts into experiences like dreams and intuitions, can seem to be part of a universal awareness, and in a very limited sense it sort of is (in that we are connected to everything by our sensory inputs and our shared genetic and cultural histories).
Certainly, when we have intuitions and dreams they can seem like precognitions, and in another very real sense, they are. It seems beyond any reasonable doubt that our brains have evolved to extract patterns relating to our future from our past experience. That is a very big part of what brains have evolved to do. So in that sense, they are predicting the future, and there are very definite systems involved in their doing so (systems both similar and different to the systems that make our computers do what they do – and vastly more complex and subtle).

Certainly I have had many nightmares that seemed to be based upon information that I had no conscious awareness of, and that is entirely to be expected. And I can see reasonably probable mechanisms whereby my brain might have become unconsciously aware of that information at some time in my life.
Thus, on balance of probabilities, it seems clear to me that we are all individual minds, all in individual bodies, yet all possessing vastly more information than we are consciously aware of; and thus limiting ourselves only to our conscious knowledge is a huge limitation.
It seems very clear to me that we all need to give our unconscious (mystic) side a lot of room to play if we are to make the most of this experience of being a human being.
And it also seems abundantly clear that we are also best served by developing our rational (scientific) side in conjunction with our intuitive (mystic) sides.
The amount of knowledge known by humanity is doubling every year or two, and is already far beyond the ability of any single human mind to hold. It seems that we now must all be vastly more ignorant than we are knowledgeable, and that is just of what we know that we know, without considering what we know that we don’t know, or the infinitely greater what we don’t know, and don’t know that we don’t know.

So I write what I have above in the full knowledge of my ignorance, and acknowledging all of the unknowns and probabilities involved.

Death

Ray Kurzweil sees no reason why he should accept death

Seems to me that Ray completely misunderstood the sense in which Jobs was speaking.
I agree with Ray that it is desirable to extend life-spans indefinitely, and I agree with Jobs’ comment on death in the following sense.
Prior to the invention of programmed death at a certain age, individual cells were (and many remain) essentially immortal. With such long lived individuals evolution is very slow. Once a line of sexually reproducing individuals developed programmed aging, then evolution stepped up two gears in the descendants of those lines (of which we and all other macro-biota are examples).
We are rapidly taking control of our own genetics, so aging is now redundant, and our society now requires that we shift to considering the long term consequences of our actions, and the easiest way to incentivise that is to give all individuals a reasonable expectation of living a long time (over 1,000 years). Doing that should incentivise environmental awareness as well as active tolerance of diversity and resulting peace and security (a necessary aspect of having a reasonable expectation of living a long time).

Money (or more accurately a reliance on market valuation) still appears to me to be the greatest systemic threat we currently face, as there is no logical mechanism to incentivise the required universal abundance in such a context.

And I have been exploring these issues since completing my undergrad biochem studies in 1974, and realising that aging is almost certainly a genetically controlled effect, and thus can in logic be stopped and reversed (even if we are not quite certain how to do so yet).

Vegetarian?

Question of the Day ~ May 1, 2013 To Be or Not To Be Vegetarian

To Be or Not To Be Vegetarian?
What is your opinion on this issue?

I now strongly support a vegan diet.
Even after 3 years, I still don’t find it easy.
Lots of interesting stuff worth reading out there:

Caldwell Esselstyn

Mike Anderson

My own experience with cancer

After 55 years of being a carnivore, being told I had a few months to live gave me the impetus to try a strict vegan diet.

It isn’t easy, and I am alive, and possibly healthier than at any time in my life. And my gut has still not adjusted well. Gas production is quite high.

And it seems clear to me that we would all be a lot healthier if we all went vegan.

Home

The Makings of Home Sweet Home

What is it to you that makes a house a home?

Hi Laurie,
For me, a house is a home if it has a sense of security around it.
For me, ownership/stewardship is a part of that, having family around is another part, having tools and resources is another part.
Another part is security of community – having relationships with neighbours and wider community.
On a daily basis, having things in their place, so that I know where to find stuff is really important to my sense of belonging. If someone else is constantly moving stuff, that takes away from my sense of belonging, of home.
Another part is having things around that work for me – like a comfortable bed, and a chair, and a favourite cup and favoured food.
So for me, a home is a complex weave of many sets of relationships and history – as I suspect it is for most others.

Psychospritualsomatic Practices

Question of the Day ~ April 30, 2013 Psychospritualsomatic Practices

What kinds of psychospritualsomatic practices help you cope with acute/chronic pain?

Acceptance.
When I stop resisting pain, it is free to go.
Sometimes, if it is really acute pain, then there is new pain there on the next heartbeat, and there is usually a gap, between acceptance and the next heartbeat, and the next wave of pain, within which I am free to think and to be.
And most pain actually goes as soon as it is allowed to do its job of informing us – as soon as we allow it to be what it is.
Having tumours growing around major nerves can generate quite a bit of pain, which I handled without pain killers.

Children’s Books

Question of the Day ~ April 29, 2013 5 Recommended Books For Children

What are your top 5 recommended books for children?

For young children – the Dr Seuss books.

A little older – the Harry Potter series.

A bit older – Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy – “Northern Lights”, “The Subtle Knife”, “Amber Spyglass” – probably my top pick.

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series – (In fact everything Asimov wrote).

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell’s “Ringworld” series.

And there are thousands of great books out there well worth reading – most of those others have mentioned I have read and enjoyed.