Desert Flower

Last night my husband and I saw Desert Flower, a film made from the autobiography of Waris Dire, a Somalian woman who was a top model and is a renowned activist against the ancestral practice of excision in some African cultures. I don't know if this film is visible in the U.S., if it has already come out or not. I encourage you and your other halves to go see it. It is not a Walt Disney film at all, and will wrench your gut sometimes.

You will leave some feathers in it, as we say in French. You COULD emerge from this film a changed person. Who knows ?

Reducing Waris's story to a petition against excision would be regretful.

Because Waris is an extraordinary flesh and blood person. She WILL NOT let herself be reduced.

Here is a woman who as a child fled across the Somalian desert, alone, on foot, traveling countless miles without food, without shoes to reach Mogadischiu (spelling ??) in order to escape an arranged marriage with a sixty year old toothless neighbor.

Who, through good fortune (...) becomes a slave in the Somalian embassy in London, and manages to avoid being sent home when the embassy closes.

Waris has exceptional intelligence and exceptional will. She knows how to be a reed AND an oak. Both.

She knows how to reach out to the people around her. To ASK for help.

And the people she meets cannot help but be affected by her grace.

Her beautiful smile. Her... innocence.

Chance (or God ?) is looking out for Waris.

The people she rubs up against can SEE how beautiful, how graceful, how exceptional she is.

And they want to help her. Even if she is dirty, uneducated, can barely speak a word of English. Even if she is black.

A miracle, Waris. She transforms (almost) everyone she touches. (That's what GRACE does. It transforms (almost)everyone you touch. And you too.)

I wept all the way through the film.

I... weep when beautiful things happen. I cannot help it.

Seeing how beautiful human beings can be makes me weep with wonder.

I did not weep so much at the "sad", "sordid" events in Waris's life. They were trying, and they made ME sad FOR Waris, but they did not manage to touch me the same way.

It was evident to me that Waris, as someone SO extraordinary would not remain content with the life of a top model, and that she would need to find a larger sense for her life.

It looks like she has found it.

She is the first person to have spoken publicly about excision in Africa.

The excerpts from her U.N. speech on the problem reveal how tactful, how compassionate how... resistant to reduction her view on the question is.

And how personally implicated she is.

Some ramblings...

What does it MEAN to be a woman ?

Am I a woman because I have ? between my legs ?

Is Waris a woman because she DOESN'T have ? between her legs ?

Why do WE mutilate our nature ? given bodies ?

Why.. DON'T we mutilate them ?

I wept in the film for myself. For feeling that being human, since the frontal cortex started mushrooming, means proving that we are DIFFERENT from the dumb animals.

Why do we do this ?

Why do we NEED to do this ?

I think I will NEVER be resigned to this...

Call it.. my PERSONAL revolt...

LJ Washington

Embedded?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GTEZFhjx4E

Magic

A short while ago, over there in the jungle, Hell quoted from one of my comments : "it seems that man is an animal that has to have his "fix" of gambling and counting angels on the head of a pin".

I corrected that statement to read that man is an animal that has to integrate risk into his daily living in order to feel fully alive. I don't think that this question can be reduced to the idea, necessarily pejorative in most people's minds, of a fix.

I did NOT say what form that that risk HAD to take. And I did not, I think, make any prescriptive statement about it. But I definitely believe that being vibrantly alive is a positive value.

By being vibrantly alive, I mean the capacity to feel pleasure, and pain INTENSELY, as each presents itself, and without seeking to dull down our senses, or our emotions. Without feeling that the intensity of our emotions is something bad, something that is not normal (pathological) and needs to be controlled at all times. Something that we need to get rid of with drugs, or therapy, for example.

Today I want to talk about another fundamental need that I see in human beings.

The need to believe in magic.

For me, our THWARTED AND DISQUALIFIED need for magic is one of the major forces at work in the... debt bubble.

There is something... miraculous about magic.

In shrink talk in France we talk about pensée magique. Magic thought.

Magic thought is part of our childhood development.

In this shrink context, magic thought means... having things appear out of nowhere.

It means... having lily bulbs spring up automatically the second after planting them, instead of HAVING TO WAIT for them to spend time in the earth over the winter. Being the king of the castle. CREATING the world out of nothing, just for us.

And as adults, we carry around with us at all times the memories of who we were as children, what we thought and believed.

Magic thought, since it is linked with our childhood, is a vital need for us. We NEED to SEE areas of our life where magic is at work. To feel empowered. To counter the feeling of helplessness that the passage of time engenders in us. To resist the despair that accompanies that helplessness.

Magic is at work in... sticking that credit card into the ATM machine and having the bills pop out instantaneously too.

I always say that things hang together.

That means that you can take a look at the smallest part of a human structure, and see in it the structure of the whole. (Right, Thai ?)

That means that if you look at what is going on at the ATM machines on a DAILY basis, ALL OVER THE WORLD, you can ALSO have an idea of what is going on... in sovereign default. At least, in the ATTITUDES that we have towards money, and where it comes from.

What does our daily experience with money tell us AT ONE LEVEL ?

That money comes from.. ATM machines (a little bit like spaghetti growing on trees, right ?).

Now... we may know SOMEWHERE that money does NOT come from ATM machines, but that does not mean that we know EVERYWHERE that money does not come from ATM machines.

(Remember the saying "out of sight, out of mind" ?)

Indeed.... I maintain that we have set up the ATM machines PRECISELY in order to maintain intact an infantile belief that money is magic. Or rather that... GETTING MONEY is magic.

Work is a process that implies duration. Investment too.

Work for money is like sticking the lilies into the ground, in a certain way.

But... sticking the card into the machine is NOTHING LIKE the lilies gig.

It is NOTHING LIKE work.

Now, one of my major premises is that in order of us to be able to think we HAVE to be able to perceive differences BETWEEN. (This premise is founded on the structure of our language.)

And this means that...

Money comes from work "means" something IN OPPOSITION TO... money does NOT come from work.

And working for money "means" something IN OPPOSITION TO ... working NOT for money.

No differences... no money.

No differences... no work.

This "means" that our social body is constantly creating new areas, new terrains where this NEED FOR DIFFERENCE is going to play out.

If you look at this closely you will see that... one of the functions of the financial markets is to materialize that area where "money does not come from work" plays out.

And... "money does not come from work" is a manifestation of our... infantile and oh so human desire for magic in our lives.

This little development is intended to show you, among other things that..

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BEING OUTSIDE THE SYSTEM WHEN IT IS SOCIETY.

There is NO outside society, for the reason that society is simultaneously defining what it is IN RELATION TO what it is NOT. A paradox, admittedly...

Now of course, this demonstration has NOT taken into account WHO does WHAT, and that is very important.

It is important to US, as individuals.

But think about it.

Is it important to the social body itself, WHO DOES WHAT, and where it comes from, as long as the DIFFERENCE is maintained ?

Perhaps not.

The social body does NOT feel, eat, sleep, get pregnant, die.

Na. It is not human, the social body.

It is us, and not us, at the same time.

Magic, right ?

Environment... Or when boundaries can put the squeeze on

... Today's post takes a line from every emergency physician's handbook: "life in a fishbowl".






Now imagine you are a fish swimming in that same fish bowl when the boundaries of your system suddenly implode (see below). What would happen?







... Or in a nod to JP, perhaps your fish tank manifold or boundary or "world" is a Calabi-Yau fractal (image below)?




Anyway, keep this (or these) images in your head as we shift aspect or viewpoint or frame of reference to New Age "holistic" thinking momentarily and see how our little fish- itself the sum of all its individual little fractal building blocks nested within further fractal building blocks- rests within a larger environment or world or manifold or boundary (chose your term).

PS- I can't but add how pleased I was to find an image of a fish in a matryoshka doll fish bowl. This is truly how my own mind tends to see this issue. For our little fish rests within a near infinite number of boundaries or manifolds, etc... many it simply cannot "see". Yet the boundaries of these larger systems or manifolds which the fish resides within are very real to our fish. And they are absolutely necessary for the formation of the fish's B-E condensate we call consciousness.

That's all before work today

Be well

Externalitites... A wonderful example of how the conservation of energy plays out in a shrinking system

I highly recommend the following NYT article.

We are seeing this same effect in medicine as well

Sync

What do you see?



People have discovered in a number of locations around the world such as Thailand and Tennessee where groups of fireflies independently flashing will emergently synchronize their flashes. This is one video of this emergent phenomena.

So is the whole simply the sum of the parts? Is the whole something more? Or is it both?

G Factor Intelligence

First let me state two things very clearly so there is absolutely no misunderstanding.

One: I think human biodiversity bloggers are simply modern Social Darwinists. And as I will say till I'm blue in the face, at its most flattering, Social Darwinism is pseudoscience. And as I will say in less flattering terms... well, let me just say I'd be happy to indulge any who want to go all ape $#!*&!! on them.

Two: any discussion on what I call "information structures" such as intelligence or consciousness is still bounded with the same communication aspect problem that is inherent to all other communication. And fundamental to any issue concerning aspect is my old friend cooperation. For as Bill Clinton wonderfully illustrated with his "it depends on what the meaning of the word is is", one person can be absolutely truthful, yet not particularly helpful, when they do not cooperate to eliminate aspect problems. And while cooperating communicators usually recognize and automatically adjust to minimize mis-communication around this problem, non-cooperative communicators rarely do, as any trial lawyer will clearly tell you. Hence discussions on intelligence often get plagued with emotional aspects and two people talking about the same thing leave with very different take away messages.

Kind of a version of that old saying you get what you put in.

So let me just say for the record I do not think intelligence is either etched in stone (the endless nature-nurture rabbit hole), nor do I think it particularly useful in predicting a particular individual's future, nor do I think it indicative of "better" or "worse" on any absolute cosmic scale. The universe could care less what your IQ is.

I do however think it can be a useful epidemiological tool when examining groups of people- again you need to be careful how you define this. But I want to be clear, I think it very dangerous when used in the context of any one particular individual, just like sending a patient with chest pain and a normal EKG home can be very risky as well.

... Enough said on this other than I might point out things like this bug me (e.g. the school's use of IQ tests in determining admission), but it is what it is and clearly people are going to do what they are going to do regardless of what I say.

Yet to get back to my post's original point, like everything else in life, the issue of intelligence is "complex", and even an immoral blind squirrel can catch a few nuts now an then. And in particular, I think HBD bloggers have caught a rather interesting nut with their metaphor of an iterative building block they call "g" as the most atomic or irreducible of intelligence sub-structures. And whether g does or does not represent a neuron or something even more atomic, still as a hopeless fractalholic, I think g a wonderful visual metaphor for the fractal nature of the mind and its meta-output information structures we call behavior, intelligence, emotion, judgment, consciousness, etc...

I am very interested in your thoughts and opinions at this point before we move on.

Cliff Notes on Fractals

Okie shared the following video with us a while ago; it is a great intro if you need one.





PS- use this link if the video will not work, I am having a little trouble embedding so this is a backup.

Mysticism and Venereal Disease

What could POSSIBLY be the relation between mysticism and venereal disease ??...

It took me a long long time to realize what mysticism was, and that I was a mystic.

Oddly enough, you MAY NOT BELIEVE THIS, BUT...

If I said that I was a mystic in the Bible belt, in the company of some of those people who I get the feeling that most people reading this blog don't understand and can't even believe exist, they would probably eye me strangely, and move stealthily towards the edge of their seats in much the same way that...

You get the point.

I had my first mystical experience when I was 14 years old.

It was pretty exciting, and did not scare me at all.

It was outside my piano teacher's house, while waiting for a lesson.

I was standing underneath his weeping willow, and all of a sudden...

No, the heavens did NOT open, and I did NOT see a vision of the Father, the Son, etc etc.

Something about the structure of that willow's leaves (are they leaves ?).

The... MATHEMATICAL regularity of those willow leaves looked a lot like what I saw in Van Gogh's paintings.

So, obviously, TO ME, I was seeing this scene LIKE Van Gogh had seen it.

I was seeing LIKE Van Gogh saw.

(The mystical experience was in the WAY that I was seeing, not in seeing LIKE Van Gogh.)

Lots of people think that Van Gogh was a loony. Probably Van Gogh thought he was a loony too. His family.

Not me.

I think that Van Gogh had mystical experiences of SEEING THE WORLD in a DIFFERENT WAY. Particularly nature, of course. And that unfortunately, he did NOT have access to a mentor who could help him understand the nature of his gift, and his severely... PROTESTANT upbringing must have made it very very difficult for him to understand what was happening to him. Like another man. Carl Gustav Jung.

Of course... this is ANOTHER form the question of POINT OF VIEW takes.

Consciousness, if you like.

Which brings us back to Doctor John's post on ketchup a short while ago, and his commentary on direct vs indirect experience. You cannot learn mysticism from a book, not from reading ABOUT it.

There is NO MORE DIRECT experience than mystical experience, I believe. There is no ABOUT in mystical experience.

(What is the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN I believe and I think ? Another.. rabbit hole.)

These days, my mystical experiences have become an integrated part of my existence.

This WAY OF SEEING is like a warp that goes through my entire existence. It bears my.. DAILY, ROUTINE EXISTENCE up. Gives it intense meaning.

It.. scares some people.

It used to scare me. Not any more.

Of course, one of the BIGGEST PROBLEMS with mystical experiences is that they exist at the very spot where language.. comes together ? Fails ?

You can't talk ABOUT them.

So... what do you do ?

You make the words do what mystical experience does.

You.. LET the words do what mystical experience does.

You let the.. notes, the fingers do what mystical experience does.

A translation ? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know.

One last thing.

Lots of people seem to think that mysticism=God.

Na. It's a lot more complicated than that. A LOT more.

Who knows ?... YOU may be having mystical experiences, but you don't recognize them as such.

Are they mystical EVEN IF YOU DON'T RECOGNIZE THEM AS SUCH ?

Those rabbit holes...

Part II of Consciousness... Scale Free Networks

Per Dr. John, Part II of my consciousness posts explaining why I think B-E condensates explains consciousness will continue...



... And just like the last post, the issue of where to begin this discussion is not entirely clear.

Yet we have to start somewhere, so I will take an additional detour into netork theory, and to a particular kind of network known as scale free networks, a classic example of which might be the world wide web.

As there are many types of networks (the above diagram is a simple example), and any discussion on networks is rabbit hole in itself; still I will gloss over this line of discussion in the interest of brevity.

... But I would like to comment that scale free networks are unique as they follow power law distributions. And power laws are laws- or relationships- which follow powers of an original template no matter a template's size or shape- e.g. power laws are self similar or fractal (no matter how much they fracture, the still look the same). A classic example is the formula for the area of a circle: the formula for the area of a circle is the same no matter how large or small the circle is (Πrˆ2 is always true).

PS- If you notice a certain similarity to self similar and self-referential, I would suggest you hold on to your hat as others have noticed this similarity too. I should be obvious that self referential similarly holds true no matter how large or small an individual is. ;-)

Anyway, any discussion of networks and scale free might occupy many posts, and as we need to move on, lets do so with the understanding that I will answer whatever questions I can in comments.

It has been along day so I will stop here but I will add that if you have trouble following this, let me know in comments.

Be well

PS- this is a very good Scientific American article for those unfamiliar with scale free networks (it is a .pdf and therefore takes a little while to download with online viewing)

Pop Physics... Or otherwise known as aspect or "under certain conditions"

Not knowing where to begin this post, I shall instead pick up from where Dr. John responded to Dink's question on consciousness, namely: "We talk of consciousness when we really have not even agreed on what that means."

For although I have had zero formal linguistic training, and am probably therefore on very shaky ground- still I think it important to remember that an inability to get agreement on this issue should be very little cause for alarm.

For one of the greatest problems inherent in all communication is my old friend grammatical aspect... or sometimes referred to as point of view or frame of references.

I have read that English is apparently a particularly bad language at reminding its users of the inherent problems of aspect/point of view in communication. Not knowing if this is true or not, I will chose to believe it until I learn otherwise. Still I suspect that aspect causes communication errors in any language. It seems so easy to forget the aspect or vector of approach when we communicate, etc...

Further, as I am visual/geometric thinker, and tend to think of all things using geometry as metaphor, and in particular tend to visualize aspect as akin to an incoming/approaching jet airplane attempting to land on a runway. Clearly some angles of approach will lead to safety, others to disaster.


Perhaps the most famous recent example of how aspect is often ignored at our own peril occurred when Bill Clinton correctly made the following famous comment:



Clearly linguists everywhere smiled in ironic acknowledgment as they realized Bill Clinton must have paid very close attention in class. ;-)



Anyway, I say all this as introduction to the subject of consciousness, which I hope we will all explore together in coming posts. I will share with you why I think consciousness is a quantum phenomena of a particular type of scale free network called a Boze-Einstein Condensate and would very much appreciate your thoughts on this matter. I hope you'll also all come to understand my reference to "under certain conditions" in relation to "aspect"; clearly I am no expert on consciousness.

Until next post, be well all.

The Most Fabulous Object In The World

(The title of this post pays homage to the great movie "Time Bandits")

Our recent discussions involving consciousness got me curious about what other people have thought up so far. So I type "theories of consciousness" into Google. As always, wikipedia popped up close to the top and lured me in with a nice summary of the situation.

Under the Evolutionary Biology section I found this:

Budiansky, by contrast, limits consciousness to humans, proposing that human consciousness may have evolved as an adaptation to anticipate and counter social strategems of other humans, predators, and prey.[38] Alternatively, it has been argued that the recursive circuitry underwriting consciousness is much more primitive, having evolved initially in premammalian species because it improves the capacity for interaction with both social and natural environments by providing an energy-saving "neutral" gear in an otherwise energy-expensive motor output machine

This is alluring. Adaptation loves energy-saving devices. Elsewhere in the wiki someone posited that consciousness wasn't needed until "culture" came about (I interpret this as group selection literally guiding physical changes).

Another section brought up Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. I've never read this book, but I keep coming across it. Smart people have heralded it and then denounced it. Its weird. But could it fit with the Stroke of Insight author's experience? I may have to breakdown and buy the weird thing. Stolen sentences include:

Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up like a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogs of behavior in the physical world. Its reality is of the same order as mathematics. It allows us to shortcut behavioral processes and arrive at more adequate decisions. Like mathematics, it is an operator rather than a repository. And it is intimately bound up with volition and decision.
...and page 65...

It operates by way of analogy, by way of constructing an analog space with an analog "I" that can observe that space, and move metaphorically in it.
...and perhaps most tellingly, page 66...

there is nothing in consciousness that is not an analog of something that was in behavior first.

Really, what is the use of all the other wonders of the world if we don't have a conscious to admire them with? Hence, it is The Most Fabulous Object In The World.

"Good" Friday

Sorry for being testy this week.

This is a rough time of year for me.

This week is Passion week.

The week where we celebrate the major events in the last week of Jesus Christ's life.

His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey on Palm Sunday (last Sunday in the calendar), was an open declaration of war to the Jewish authorities.

He knew his texts. The Messiah was supposed to enter Jerusalem on the back of a donkey in the texts...

And today is the anniversary of his Crucifixion....

This week, at the same time I mourn the ultimate injustice of a mock trial, a political farce, beating, scapegoating an innocent man, a painful, drawn out public execution, I mourn my dead parents, and remember others around me who have died. I also think of the countless others, the named and nameless others who have suffered Jesus Christ's fate, and who are YET to suffer his death (in my mother country, in China, in Saudi Arabia, by lethal injection, hanging, beheading, who knows...).

And my two precious religious traditions, Catholic and Protestant, and their very different ways of commemorating Jesus' death.

If you take a look at Hieronymus Bosch's "Carrying of the Cross", a small panel, you will see a pale faced Jesus, eyes closed, clutching the cross, while around him the bestial figures of men and women excited like bloodhounds at the prospect of what's to come. To the side, Veronika holds the handkerchief that she used to wipe the sweat from Jesus's face. (Catholic tradition)

Jesus is like a... Eucharistic wafer gleaming in the midst of an impenetrable darkness.

What did he say ? "I am the Light". Yes, in this painting, he is the ONLY light.

Cut to the Matthaus Passion. Johann Sebastian Bach.

Another great mystic, albeit a Protestant one.

No idols, no pictures, no.. cathedrals for the Protestants.

But... the Matthaus Passion is one enormous cathedral built to house Jesus Christ.

And right smack dab in the middle of this cathedral there is a triptych.

A choral part, where the choir is the crowd, and they scream "Crucify him".

Music as modern, as gut wrenching as any that has ever been written. Terrifying.

And you can.. hear the people in Bosch's painting.

You can hear how they have become ? not animal... just another facet of human, which means.. US, and not THEM. (Remember the Milgram experiment...)

Right after you hear the soprano aria : "Aus liebe will mein Heiland sterben". Out of love my Savior is willing to die. And this aria represents... the small, quiet nest of calm right in the middle of that terrible storm, that nest where Veronika takes out her handkerchief and wipes the sweat from Jesus' face. A tender, merciful gesture.

Music which is almost atonal, almost outside the system, that's how moved Bach is to be recounting this episode from HIS point of view. What founds his faith. What he believes in, right down to the roots of his being.

Then the choir picks up again, and the moment is engulfed in "Crucify him" again..

This is Good Friday.

The day that I remember that I am constantly called on to choose between playing the part of... Veronika, or the crowd that screams "crucify him".

That I am constantly called on to try to see Jesus Christ in my neighbor, even when I want to see one of the members of the crowd.

When I try to remember how weak I am to achieve this, even when I am congratulating myself about how well I am doing it.

And of course, all of this would be intolerable without the promise of the Resurrection.

An even greater mystery. THE mystery.

Lest you think that I am trying to convert you..

How could I be trying to convert you when I am understanding this AS I GO ALONG ?

"Making it up" as I go along ?

Be well, as Thai says.

April Fools

Hey... one of my unreachable goals in life has always been to...LIGHTEN UP.

This is something that I don't do well at all. I have been trying for years. It doesn't get any easier...

It is April Fools Day today.

A great tradition.

If I were running for political office, I think that I would decree that the first day of every month should be April Fools Day.

Way back when in France, when French television was STILL a public service, STILL EXCELLENT, I used to love poring over our rather intellectual weekly TV magazine on April Fools week to try to find the "canular". The joke.

Sometimes it was really sophisticated stuff. You had to exercise your neurons to pick up WHERE the joke was. It was not immediately obvious.

I wish somebody here (Thai ? Dink ?) would stick down a link with some famous April Fools jobs.

A couple memorable ones... (a gift from my loony forum. Can't stick down the link cause it's all in French, and you wouldn't understand, I assume.)

In 1957 the BBC announced that the Italian spaghetti trees were doing nicely, and that the upcoming spaghetti harvest was going to be fabulous (can't find a good word here.. a bumper crop ?? maybe like a... BULL crop...)

The BBC got tons of mail. People, uh, really believed that spaghetti grew on trees...

(Amazing what people will believe when they want to, right ?)

And in France, one of the papers announced that the Elysée had decided to unbuild the Tour Eiffel and move it to Disneyland where it would be reconstructed. Replacing the Tour Eiffel on site with a giant stadium for the 1992 Olympics (I could be wrong on the date...). Lots of mail on that one too...

I think that we could bring back the Roman Saturnalias with great profit...

Think of it... a MONTH where all of the big bosses, the.. Presidents, the heads of state, the PEOPLE WHO COUNT, the stars, would trade places with... janitors. Loonies. The little guys. The down and outs. The less down and outs. The middle class... (well, not JUST the middle class, we already saw this act during the French revolution, and look where it got us...)

I think that this kind of social regulation would be a very good idea.

Beyond the fact that it would do our leaders a world of good getting some hands on direct experience of down and out--

It would do worlds of good combating scapegoating, for example.

When you got fed up, you would say to yourself... "just one more week, one more day, one more month and I get to parade around as Barack..."

Wouldn't that be fun now ?

(A week ? A month, the Saturnalias ? I will stand corrected if anybody wants to correct...)