“We have met the enemy and he is us.”–Pogo. We put those assholes in power, at least here in America.
Interesting…
The 100th monkey thing isn’t too extensive really. It pretty much states that if 100 monkeys within a certain radius (in the experiment, it was an island, with the 101st monkey on a different island) start using a tool, it is enough for it to simply manifest on a different island. So the 101st monkey hadn’t seen it done before, he simply seemed to start doing it out of nowhere.
There have been other tests as well, where they allowed a sample group to do a bunch of daily crosswords (various samplings from different papers of that day) to see the average score, and then they choose a couple daily crosswords that were from the day before, and the scores dramatically increased, like 1/3. It’s like once the answers are out there… voila.
Such would explain why different things like fire, speech, art, all seemed to pop up around the world all at the same general time.
Indeed!
Sometimes in busy areas I’ll try and do the anger/harmony conversion meditation. That is, I’ll breathe in the bad intentions and exhale the good. I’m not that good and sometimes if there are too many people around I feel overwhelmed, but I’ve been told that if you come within like visual distance of the Dali Lama you feel peaceful.
On my optimistic days your only paradigm will be bio-philosophy. On my pessimistic days our indirect “expressions…(of the thought we give) the human condition” will be through entertainment, until the lights go out.
Old_Gobbo,
I read the article on the 100th monkey phenomenon joyously. In the mid-1980s I was turned on to brain studies and their implications about physical underpinnings of thought. This has been, for me, a study encompassing over two decades of intensive research. Among the ideas I ran across, I was particularly drawn to those of Julian Jaynes and Paul MacLean. Jaynes notes in his “Breakdown of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind” that the writer of the “Iliad” tells of a people who had no self-conscious reference to the external world and who considered their environmental influences to be spirits and gods who, as King Lear notes, “are like flies to wanton boys, who kill them for their sport.” Jaynes also compares the voices of the gods to those heard by schizophrenics. Paul MacLean, whose theory of the truine brain appeared in Carl Sagan’s “The Dragons of Eden” and other surveys of neuroscience, believed in an evolution of the brain that retains its antecedent developments.
I’ve found that both Jaynes’ and MacLean’s ideas have been violently criticized by both philosophers and neuroscientists. The problem with the ideas appears to be that many will not believe in evolution in any form whether it is the gradual, Darwinian process, the Gould branching theory or theories of sudden change due to accumulation to a critical mass. My preferences have been toward theories that involve our creative potential.
Our minds are affected by our physical environments and our physical environments are affected by our minds.
DEB,
We agree. Here’s a few lines from my poem “Bearcreek 1998”, a nostalgic look at the beauty and ugliness of the late 1960s. It’s a parody on the Beatles’ “Revolution” (White Album).
The best way to stop a revolution
Is to put it up for sale.
The consummeristic solution
Is that fads will never fail
To bring in the customers daily
To buy what they cannot do
While the video-voyeur security
Sucks the life right out of you.
What?
how do you presume to know this? You seems very confindent in your personal but quite obscure paradigm to assume this order of appearance of things.
‘Science’ is not a paradigm. Newtonian physics is a paradigm, Einsteinean physics is another. Evolution is a paradigm, Creationism is one.
Promethean mythology is more at par as a paradigm to what you call science than with Eleusean mythology. And religion as a paradigm? Were it only so, we’d be spared a lot of of bloodshed.
A paradigm is a perspective built of of knowlegde, not a category of ways to categorize knowlegde.
Right now we are in a paradigm shift which encompasses science, religion, mythology and philosophy - a paradigm shift changing our entire modus of thought.
Loki,
I presume nothing. My ideas come from two decades of extensive research and I feel little desire to document for those who have read little in these fields what they may want to hear. When my book on the subject is published, you have the right to read it and disagree with its findings or to not read it if you feel it upsets your own findings. This is not hubris on my part, it is lack of tolerance for those who have some axe to grind and do it on scholarship. My concept of paradigms, for example, has been stated by scholars I consider authortitative. These ideas are not merely my opinions; they are laboriously worked out definitions that have a history of antecedents in scholarship. I am not an absolute authority on anything, but at least I do my homework.
So . . . 1. mythology, 2. religion, 3. philosophy, 4. science, 5. psionics? / tellepresence?
Just interpreting where this conversation is going.
I imagine a pattern here, where at the beginning we are feeble subjects of an external will. A polytheism, gods with petty desires that have their way with as as they feel like (1), Man creates god.
moving into something of a reliable and universal will, still demanding very human demands. A setting of principals- both divine and technical reasons why they’re in place (2), Man unifies god.
then questioning the external wills, in favour of our internal decisions and potential to implement them. We decide maybe we have choices after all (3), Man questions god.
now empowering ourselves using tricks available to us for our internal decisions. We not only have choices, those choices influence what we once perceived as godlike (4), Man destroys god.
and if you follow this pattern you lead to our internal decisions leading somewhere beyond mere tricks. Einstein once said: “Technology will surpass humanity, then humanity will surpass technology.” Considering biotechnology, life transforming life rather than life transforming inanimate things, we begin defining our own perpetual growth. Considering eastern philosophy, concsious decision may influence physical things more directly than once thought, and we “will” our environment to some degree. (5), Man becomes God.
Still. New paradigms didn’t seem to just get embraced and accepted by the former. Each paradigm seems to be a succession of the former status quo by shear rebellion against persecution. So what could we be doing fundamentally wrong by default which rebels are going to challenge and destroy? I opt that using ballots as an excuse for democracy is one of them.
Gai, Wow!!! All of your ideas are right on the mark. I’ll respond to them after time for good conderation.
Loki, I apologize for my testiness. Really, that is not me at my best. If you have a problem with the word paradigm, could archetypal understandings, zeitgeists or memes be preferable? I only intended to show an evolution of human insights as worldviews.
About the idea of symbols. I’m stiill fascinated by it. Symbol making appears to be the most current brain product, which implies a presymbolic understanding.
Gai,
Whether one believes Jung’s theory of archetypes or not, there appears to be, in extant writings, mythological narratives that evoke the same responses from diverse people in diverse places, people without the possibility of contact or communication with each other. Call these symbolic narratives, these transpersonal ideas, achetypes, zeitgeists, memes or whatever and they still persist and evoke. From studies of the history of written thought, these ideas appear to be first impressions of the human response to what is other.
Cave art in Southern France dates back to 30,000 BCE. The depictions of deer, bison, etc., are realistic. It has been suggested that these drawings represent sympathetic magic, an idea found among current primitives. The suggestion is anachronistic only if one sees no connection between first responses to what is other as expressed then and now. The expressions found in ancient myths become a basis for an evolution of thought, which coincides with an evolution of brains (Julian Jaynes, Paul MacLean). The evolution of mythological ideas into religious ideas is thoroughly documented, as is the evolution of religious ideas into philosophic ideas.
This evolution does entail what humans see as gods or as forces beyond themselves that affect their destinies.
yeep.
Carl Jung was a firm believer in his “synchronicity” which is both pleasing and disturbing.
Synchronicity suggests something like psychic knowledge, hidden in events that surround us much like the meanings in a dream. And that responding to these events in certain ways helps you affect things that would be thought of as unrelated.
Unfortunately, I think some are too fanatic and believe whatever you want to happen will be done if you just clap your hands and think happy thoughts.
I’m interested in seeing the Global Concsiousness Project work to make parapsychology (metaphysics, whatever) scientiffically valid. In order to do that they need algorithms which at least rule out the plausibility of coincidence. Perhaps this is in line with chaos theory.
Phenomena aside, there are obvious things that have changed our understanding. I’m thoroughly convinced that it is no longer scientifically meaningful for people to think in terms of: “My body here, my children here, my house here.” They’re all such temporary, alterable things. We still need to think in terms of parts, and objects. But our endeavors have to substantiate the whole. My neighbour’s kids could be my kids, I could be half dog instead of simply having a dog. I could build a cyborg that’s partially mechanical but still alive. My thoughts could be shared with 10 other people and how would I define “Me” or what I am or who my children are or what’s alive?
This paradigm shift like all others brings a crisis in which we must abandon values that we were supposedly to live by. The new paradigm is so difficult because it renders the former one meaningless, the one that we held as our reason for being. Each one is a new “you were wrong all along.” And yet, it seems necessary for us to have thought this certain fallacious way. The same way we excuse children jumping into fallacy for the sake of their development. Would we really have built our cities had we not been motivated by our gods?
So the line goes . . .
(Primates) (1) I’m just looking for food and shelter. You’re saying gods are judging me?
(2) But all I want is for my gods to be happy! You tell me we’re stuck with one?
(3) But it’s lonely without my god. You mean we’re stuck to fend for ourselves?
(4) I wanted to find the truth. You’re saying other things will calculate for me?
(5) You’re saying there’s not even really an “I”? There’s just stuff?
Gai,
Your response overwhelms me. It is great to find someone who has not only read a great deal, but who is able to integrate references into articulate opinion. I will respond to your post only after thoroughly considering it.
As for positive thinking, I’m reminded that, in the old West in America, many folks came to the circus that was a public hanging joyously, with positive attitudes.
Yes, the paradigm shift is not without pain. It is having to admit that once one has found a comfortable resting place, he/she must be roused to move on. Thank you again for your clear insights.
Gaiaguerrilla, shame on you.
Your name has the answer.
Religion is cristalyzed form of mythology.
Philosophy is the extension of religion.
Science evolved from philosophy.
The next one is Gaia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory_(science)
or
http://www.gaianet.fsbusiness.co.uk/gaiatheory.html
ravencry,
Thanks for your input. Gaia is a very old concept. It relates to mythological ideas of lost golden ages, of the loss of Eden. I wish we could go back there, but the angels at the gates of Eden have swords.
The swords are an incentive for us to move on beyond womb comforts, beyond utopian stopping places to places that encompass growth and development. We can’t go back there; but we can always improve the moving conditions of what we are now and wish to be in the future.
IMHO, the “paradigms”, mindsets, or whatever, which I presented here are all extant, all still valid. Evolving is accumulation, not necessarily always a shedding of skins. Homologies are built on what works. Maybe the next paradigm is parapsychology if that mindset can move forward while retaining the best that we have been able to envision.
Gaia is becoming a new concept. Not only based on mythology but religion, philosophy and science.
It is the discovery of interdependence of lifeforms and their environment what is becoming more obvious.
If you recall only a short time ago we were promised the cure for all diseases by geneticists only to discover that the DNA is not a simple ‘mechanical’ blueprint but rather a guideline with a complexity beyond our understanding.
If one cell in our body is life then why not the biosphere as a whole can be considered life.
I apologies for not being more structured but these thought are kind of new to me.
ravencry,
No apologies necessary. You articulate well. Yes, Gaia is recurring as a mindset, if by that word you imlpy recognition of our biosphere and our interdependence on all aspects of it. Ecology could be the 5th paradigm; but I don’t see a majority of people caring about it.
Science and technology may have put guns in the hands if children, if you know what I mean. Can our race mature without threats of total extinction?
Unfortunately that is a hypothetic question.
With having one planet to live on and surviving on the power provided by an enormous nuclear reactor our days are numbered. At the same time the universe is throwing huge rocks all over. Not to mention our own irresponsible behavior towards the environment.
Partly because of all the threats to our lives and partly as a result of maturing I can see the development of a new attitude. You might want to call it something else then Gaia, say “Global Planet†after Global Economy, but it should include all of mankind’s experiences. It would be something even creationists could support based on the proposition that God created Earth and all living things, therefor we should take good care of it. It would be very beneficial if we could agree an some new global principles of morality instead of trying to find a scapegoat.
ravencry,
Excellent post!!! I agree whole heartedly. In our painful shifts of epstemological paradigms (what we think we know, what we think we can know), there must be one that reunites us as all humans, all dependent for our existence on a fragile biosphere, all in this same boat together; and ,if the boat is sinking, all responsible.