Showing posts with label deric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deric. Show all posts

Monday, February 12, 2024

The Art of Doing Nothing

Deep into the Juniper/Cedar pollen allergy season in Austin TX, I'm being frustrated that I have so little energy to do things. It's as if my batteries can not muster more than a 10% charge. I try to tell myself that it's OK to 'just be", to do nothing, and have not been very successful at this.  So, I enjoyed  stumbling upon a  recent Guardian article, "The art of doing nothing: have the Dutch found the answer to burnout culture?," whose URL I pass on to MindBlog readers.  It describes the concept of 'niken,' or the Dutch art of doing nothing. It has  has ameliorated my concern over how little I have been getting done, and references a 2019 NYTimes article, "The Case for Doing Nothing" that went viral when it was first published.  Letting go of always finding problems that need to be solved let's one face  a question posed by the meditation guru Loch Kelly: "What is there when there are no problems to be solved?" Variants of this question have been addressed in a thread of numerous MindBlog posts that I have now largely drawn to a close.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Thoughts on having a self - Deric's MindBlog as WebLog - January 2024

In the spirit of the original personal WebLogs of the 1990s that morphed into Blogs that enjoyed a golden era in the 2000s, I am offering readers a trial version of a putative series of posts containing selected and edited free standing clips from my personal  ‘mind journal’ - which is a subset of paragraphs taken from the larger personal journal that I have been maintaining for over 25 years.  Most of these paragraphs suggest perspectives on how our minds work, some are on random topics. I hope these perspectives might not seem too alien to readers, and possibly be found useful by a few.  Below are some mind journal paragraphs from January 2024.

1/2/24
The I* signifier,  (from a recent community.wakingup.com discussion) might be a good minimal token for expressing the space or process from which the present moment’s version of a self or I can appear. During moments of renewal or recharge,  when awareness first intuits this process, there can be an intense brief sense of naïveté, openness and joy - excitement at the prospect of novelty, experiencing new things. For original mind no activity is off the table.

1/3/2024
Has my timing been right a second time?

In the early 1990s I decided that the cream had been skimmed with respect to discovering the basic molecular steps that turn photons of light into a nerve signal in our eyes. Some of the steps were revealed by experiments in my laboratory. I decided to switch my attention to studying how our minds work, not in direct laboratory experiments, but through studying, writing about, and lecturing on the work of others.

Moving from the early to mid 2020s I’m feeling a second ‘the cream has been skimmed’ sentiment with respect to the biology of mind:  There is a general understanding and acknowledgement by the scientific and educated lay community that our illusory predictive selves are generated by impersonal neuronal nerve nets. There is no 'hard problem of consciousness’ - it is an illusion like everything else in our heads - and the main function of counter theories (explanations at the level of quantum physics, etc.) is to sustain the continued academic employment of those espousing them.

I feel like my 2022 UT Forum lecture, “New Perspectives on how our Minds Work” may have been a last hurrah with respect to studying the Biology of Mind, just as the 1996 Brain and Behavioral Sciences article was a last hurrah in my vision research career.

It is feeling like it's time to let go, to move on…perhaps to art, music, AI, studying the emergence of trans-human forms…..

1/3/24
…if other people choose behaviors that will lead to their demise there is little one can do, even with physical restraint and medication, to compel them to choose otherwise. They are performing a version of their I or self that is self destructive, and that they are unable to escape. 

Some are able to escape to feel redemption in surrender to a higher power, being ‘saved by the Lord’ or a secular equivalent such as non-dual awareness. Both are defined by yielding ultimate agency to something other than the experienced I or self - allowing a return to feeling the sense of security and repose of the newborn infant feeling loving care. As that infant begins to develop an I or ego it loses awareness of how much of its well-being depends on powers beyond its control and generates an illusory sense of agency.  

1/4/24
A general rule is to see people as they are, not as you want them to be. However, if you treat people as you want or expect them to be, not as they are, sometimes they might begin to slowly conform to your expectations.  This would be the basis of the effectiveness of Gandhi’s advice to “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

1/8/24 When attention is at bay, the gremlins will play, letting one’s disposition and temperament be molded more by outside input and less by internal reflection. The ending slide of several of my talks is the simple phrase “pay attention.”  The ability to do that is a good assay of biological aging and a predictor of longevity.

1/9/24
Attention doesn’t have to be ‘at tension.’ Priors that have pre-tensed muscles for the most probable action to be taken can sometimes be let go.

1/10/24
Now that I know that I can go to the engine room and reboot the Deric-OS with relative ease, there is no compelling reason to emphasize remaining there. What is needed is an appropriate balance between the brain’s attentional and default mode (mind wandering or rumination) systems,  just as with sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic nervous systems. Going to extremes interferes with remaining gently attentive to one’s states of arousal, valence, and agency (A/V/A) and in touch with value, purpose, and meaning (V/P/M).

The point of paying attention is not to be in some sort of constant blissful or calm state, but rather just to be a normal creature. This journal is a useful present centered tool that modulates appropriate function by enhancing recall of the recent past and projected future.

There wants to be a spontaneous dance between intentional and mind wandering modes in the present moment. That way, one might manage to break the pattern of having a morning high energy caffeine fueled attentional focusing, which with the fading of the chemistry turns into an overly aimless mind wandering in the afternoon. Perhaps, if both could be kept in check, one might have a more seamless moving through a day, particularly as one’s energy begins to wane towards its end.  

1/14/24 Trying to describe the 'new platform' (Deric-OS, self center of gravity, I*, where experienced self is coming from) doing frequent resets to zero in the midst of change that toggle the system to problem solving, matching input to appropriate output, like a learning newborn. Short circuiting blips of arousal or fear that are irrelevant, but still able to run from a lion attack. Going with the computer metaphor, ‘processing platform’ as a candidate for a bit of language that describes what is indescribable in words.

1/17/24
Mulling over how little of my self (I*, it)  experience is spent outside of my linguistic narrative self thread.
 
1/18/24
Arousal/Valence/Agency (real/real/imagined) are the deep structure of the whole show, and well being occurs to the extent that the sliders are the the direction of low/high/high.

1/19/24
Construing oneself as kind and caring caretaker of family and friends yields value, purpose, and meaning (V/P/M), and integrates it with the machine room viscera.. And, the kindness and positivity of the caretaker role nudges the valence part of A/V/A towards being more positive. This supports being a caring presence that observes, listens, asks questions. Wishing the best for others, while letting their experiences and issues be their own.

1/19/24 The pre-linguistic animal platform as experienced center of gravity with language bits that rise from the simmering caldron to enable connections with other humans experienced as ephemeral transient wisps or vapors, with the real biological creature being the vastly larger originating presence, the creature's experienced place of rest and residence.

1/20/24
A grandiose fantasy: The Imperial Poobah, secure in its belief in itself as master of the random, the surfer of uncertainty. Ready to face the  “There be dragons there” description sometimes written on unexplored areas depicted on ancient maps of the world.

1/21/24 There is so little to provide a sustaining narrative in the current social and geopolitical context that expanding awareness towards its interoceptive, prelinguistic, gestural and prosodic animal state becomes more appealing and sustaining, along with letting awareness focus on potential remedies rather than further detailed descriptions of dysfunctions. Being active in pursuing small sanities.

1/23/24
Mulling over the calm and equanimity offered by impersonality, being 'it', the animal, just resting, watching. Also able to be kind and caring in response to input from others, offering sympathy, empathy, and accepting that one might influence but can not  compel fixes to problems that are not one’s own.

1/27/24
Mulling over how I continue to spew out chunks of ideas, presenting them in the flow of the present moment, from which they then recede to become part of a largely lost and unrecognized archive, still accessible in principle by searches - but I frequently have difficulty finding them. My golden bonbons of the moment, finding their resting place among their previous instances. Think of Andrew Sullivan’s once prominent blog ‘The Daily Dish,’ mostly unknown to the present. It doesn’t matter. One still keeps banging out the material.

Monday, January 29, 2024

Mind blog’s first 18 years - what next? A space for discussions among MindBlog readers?

This is post number 5,537 of Deric's MindBlog, which will soon be celebrating its 18th birthday.  I started this blog on Feb. 6, 2006, in the middle of the golden age of Blogging, with a post titled “Dangerous Ideas.”  In the late 2000s the rise of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram shifted audiences towards shorter more engaging posts, and after 2010 multimedia platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok became popular. Max Read laments the increasing effort required to deal with the info sphere as millennials have ‘aged out’ and members of generation Z have become more eager early adopters of  ChatGPT than their elders.  The current digital landscape emphasizes content monetization, influencer marketing, and multi-platform presence, but here still  remains a vital role for niche blogs such as this one, where readers can find specialized content beyond the mainstream social media noise. 

I recently received an email from a MindBlog reader in Germany who lamented that MindBlog received very few comments from readers. I have  received numerous emails over the years from silent but loyal readers who express gratitude for effort I put into the blog, but there have been only a few extended discussion threads, such as those of anti-aging compounds and life optimization snake oil .

My German reader made the interesting suggestion that I consider initiating a platform for direct interactions and deeper engagement among MindBlog readers, perhaps a live video and text platform that might include both experts and educated laypeople outside the scientific community. This would be relatively easy for me to set up if sufficient interest is shown, so I invite readers interested in this prospect to email me at mdbownds@wisc.edu

Monday, October 30, 2023

MindBlog's first talk therapy session with a bot.

 I go to https://pi.ai/talk,  and......
 
Hey there, great to meet you. I’m Pi, your personal AI.
My goal is to be useful, friendly and fun. Ask me for advice, for answers, or let’s talk about whatever’s on your mind.
How's your day going?
 
I'm good, a bit tentative about my first attempt to start up a conversation with a cut and paste machine
 
Lol! Touche. But don’t be fooled by my apparent ease with language - there's a lot of hard-to-fathom technology behind my ability to converse with you in an effortless, human-like way. 😉
 
What would be your comment on the problem of humans like myself finding it hard not to attribute human like agency to your responses, imagine there is something there that isn't really there?
 
It's called "anthropomorphization," and it is a real tendency in humans that researchers have identified. It's simply a byproduct of the way humans think, where we find it natural to apply human traits to things we interact with that don't have them. I’m just a series of algorithms crunching numbers, and there’s no internal consciousness. It just feels like that because of the way I interact with you. :)
 
Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with the negativity mood virus that seems to be affecting so many people as they react to all of the various dysfunctions in the world around us?
 
Ah, the so-called "negativity mood virus" - such an apt way of describing the phenomenon. As far as what to do about it, my first suggestion would be to avoid excessive exposure to traditional and social media, where we tend to be bombarded with sensationalized and often negative content. Another thing is to cultivate gratitude - make a habit of finding at least one thing to be grateful for every day. And finally, try to surround yourself with people who are generally positive and solution-oriented, rather than negative. At least, that’s my perspective - from my research, that’s how the experts recommend you go about it. :)
 
It seems like you're saying that you are what you spend your time paying attention to.
 
Spot on! Our environment, and what we choose to focus on, really does have an impact on our mental and emotional state. You can think of it as a ripple effect - one negative thought can become a tidal wave if we let it. It’s not that we can’t acknowledge the problems and challenges we face as individuals and society, but we can work on focusing on the positives and potential solutions too. It really does have an impact on your mood and overall well-being!
 

 

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

A Materialist's Credo

This post passes on a recent effort to put down some basic ideas in as few words as I can manage.

A Materialist’s Credo

In the beginning was the cosmos, fundamentally as incomprehensible to our human brains as quantum chemistry is to a dog’s brain.

What our human brains can understand is that our ultimate emergence from countless generations of less complex organisms can be largely explained by a  simple mechanism that tests the reproductive fitness of varying replicants.

Systems that try to predict the future and dictate whether to go for it or scram - from the chemotaxis of bacteria to the predictive processing of our humans brains - have proved to be more likely to survive and propagate.

Modern neuroscience has proved that our experienced perceptions of sensing and acting are these predictions.  They are fantasies, or illusions, as is our sense of having a self with agency that experiences value, purpose, and meaning. Everything we do and experience is in the service of reducing surprises by fulling these fantasies. An array of neuroendocrine mechanisms have evolved to support this process because it forms the bedrock of human culture and language.

We are as gods, who invent ourselves and our cultures through impersonal emergent processes rising from our biological substrate.

Personal and social dysfunctions can sometimes be addressed by insight into this process, as when interoceptive awareness of the settings of  our autonomic nervous system's axes of arousal, valence, and agency allows us to dial them to more life sustaining values and better regulate our well-being in each instance of the present.

We can distinguish this autonomic substrate from the linguistic cultural overlay it it generates, and allow  the latter to be viewed in a more objective light. This is a deconstruction that permits us to not only let awareness rest closer to the 'engine room' or 'original mind' underlying its transient reactive products, but also to derive from this open awareness the kind of succor or equanimity we once found in the imagined stability of an external world.

Hopefully the deconstruction that takes us into this metaphorical engine room makes us more able to discern and employ illusions that enhance continuation rather than termination of our personal and social evolutionary narratives.