Hi Carl,

This is fun, and I am sure it is all about MoQ :-).

On 2/7/12, Carl Thames <cthames@cent...> wrote:
>
>
> Mark:
>> It is as if I am conspiring with everything else to create the present
>> moment.  This collective realization happens so often to me that I no
>> longer wonder at it.  I am part of it all, and glad to be.  To ignore
>> that is to live in isolation, imo.  What a strange world it is if we
>> assume that we operate outside of it.  I believe that MoQ is an
>> attempt to bring humanity back into reality.
>
> Carl:
> Well, last night the regular guest didn't show up for whatever reason on
> Coast to Coast, so they called in a substitute.  Do you want to guess what
> his topic was?  Yep.  Synchronicity.  Seriously.  I couldn't make that up.
> He's written a book about it, and has a website.  (Did you do that, or did
> I? :-)
>
> http://howsynchronicityworks.com/
>
> He talked a bit about co-creating our existence.

Mark
Ha ha!  Thanks for the link.  I sdon't think we discuss these things
in complete isolation.  I do my best to not get too involved in the
synchronicity stuff since it became disabling at one point  (I can't
handle it).   I do not want to get distracted from a task at hand.
Usually I just say (to whatever is listening): "Oh, yeah, thanks for
the info, now leave me alone, I have work to do".  Don't want to enter
into that world of schizophrenia for no reason (of course talking to
myself is not a normal thing if done outloud, but I think we talk to
ourselves silently more than we should).  Jung claimed a form of
premonition concerning synchronicity.  This may be possible, but I am
too dumb to be able to put everyting together to be a fortune teller.
However, I do believe that some are able to do this, not in a logical
way, but some other way.  However such a thing is somewhat
inconsequential.  Of course then there are those who make claims that
just do not reflect what they produce.  So, I do not hang my hat on
this phenomenon.  In fact, it is not something that interests me.
Nostradamus stuff is not my cup of tea.
>
> Mark:
>>By compartmentalizing we are able to function.  Anthing
>> interfering with this compartmentalization will both confuse and open
>> up new ways of personal thinking (most often the former).
>
> Carl:
> Considering that most people have no interest whatever in anything outside
> their normal range of experience, I can agree with this.  In fact, from my
> experience, most people refuse to even think about the possibility of
> something other than what they expect happening.  I've mentioned before the
> idea of normalcy bias.  It's alive and well, as far as I can tell.  Have you
> ever asked someone to free-associate and have them sit and stare at you?
> Either that, or they start and follow a linear, logical path along lines
> they're familiar with.  I think my problem with that is that as a young
> child, I moved around a lot.  (Fifteen different towns by the eighth grade.)
> I never really got a chance to establish "normal" like other kids.  Each new
> place had different people, different experiences, etc.  Maybe that's why I
> had such a mundane experience with the halluciagens?  I dunno.  Like you
> say, who needs them?  My problem isn't opening my mind, it's closing it
> around a specific concept long enough to make it work for me. <G>

I love free association since I am pretty fast with it (I have been
told).  I just leave my mind free and let it do the talking.  I think
about other things while it is doing its thing.  It is said that it is
an expression of the subconscious, so I am interested in consciously
trapping the subconscious in sq so that I can talk about it.  Of
course the sq is simply some wrapping put over the phenomenon to give
it some vague dimensions.

We seem to have something in common in that I moved around a lot as a
child.  My father was in Oil (as opposed to the military which was the
case with many of my temporary American friends).  Every two to three
years we moved from one continent to another, from one language to
another.  As a kid it was easy to pick up the native languages, and my
father is Dutch so I learned all those swear words :-).  I did not
learn how to make lasting friends however, so I decided to bring my
children up in the same place, So.Cal (although they were both born in
Hawaii).  I think the travel gave me a freer perspective than I would
have had otherwise, since I not only have some idea how people in
other countries think, but I have also thought that way.  I remember
living in Argentina in high school and being somewhat anti-American.
When I moved here to go to college, all that changed of course,
especially when I became an American citizen, GBA.
>
> Carl:
> I think that's where a lot of our problem have come from, in that we don't
> really have a good way to vent any more.  Fighting is frowned upon, as is
> getting drunk.  It's really no wonder to me why so many kids now use drugs.
> They want out, but there's no doorway.

Mark
Yes, I agree.  We are taught to "rationalize" everything, which only
makes things worse.  The more one tries to "fix" something by thinking
about it in depth the worse it seem to become, until Boom!  If I feel
blue, the last thing I am going to do is wonder why I am feeling blue
(the same can be said for happy).  The negative emotional can be
locked in by the mental, the positive emotional can be destroyed by
the mental, imo.  My strategy is to look at something like conceptual
fear as a wind that is blowing through me.  I am a tree, my leaves
will rustle and branches bend, but that is part of being a tree.  The
wind always stops on its own.

> Carl:
> Someone once said that once you become real, you cannot become unreal again.
> I agree with your idea of treating reality with respect, either ours or
> someone else's.  If you want to make someone really angry, challenge their
> reality.  It's sad, but I've experienced it too often to deny it.  It's part
> of the reason I look for philosophical discussions.  A lot of the time the
> topics are those I've already thought about, but there is new stuff too,
> which keeps it interesting.

Mark:
I suppose we are all defensive with our realities since if we don't
know what is going on then it is a sad state of affairs.  This seems
to be what is known as the ego.  What seems to be the case in any
philosphical discussion is that old concepts are presented in the new
vernacular.  I think this is part of our creativeness.  The best part
of philosophizing is sharing with like-minded individuals.  I do not
see myself as some "conversion expert".  I'll leave that to the folk
that walk around with the book.
>
>
> Carl:
> I think that choice process are largely DQ.  So many choices in fact, that
> life becomes fairly unpredictable.  I was having a bit of a problem with
> your concept of morality, until I realized that you're speaking in very
> general terms.  i.e. we make the choices that don't include killing off a
> lot of people, generally for the improvement of the species, etc.  My
> concept is a personal one, normally based in spirituality.  Equally valid,
> but different.

I think that is a good way in which to understand DQ (without defining
it :-)).  I suppose that what I mean by morality is personal
responsibility.  I will try to keep it simple by using that term
instead.  As seen from some broad conceptual frame, Morality can
become a tool of the dominating.  As I see it we each have the ability
of choice, that is a basic aspect of morality.  In this way I try to
stay away from the dictates of better or worse.  At each moment we all
know what is better.  When we try to encapsulate it into some dictum,
it gets real messy.  This notion of moral superiority creates nothing
but havoc.  The idea of relative morality allows every one to do
whatever "on moral grounds", which means that morality is whatever you
want it to be.  Anything can be justified on "Moral Grounds", and this
points to something besides Morality.
>

> Carl:
> Entropy, or the conservation of energy?  I haven't really decided yet.  We
> want the most return for our investment, either in money, time, or energy.
> We want to follow the path of least resistence.  There is a point, though,
> when we become bored with having no challenges in our lives.  We need some
> reason to get up in the morning.  I can speak from personal experience on
> that one.  I've been on disability for over ten years, and it provides my
> basic necessities.  My bills are paid, but not much more than that.
> Frequently, I find myself with nothing to do and all day to do it in.  I
> can't afford the normal distractions, and I am developing a loathe/hate
> relationship with television.  I can barely stand to watch most movies, so I
> end up reading a lot.  I went back to school.  I want to be productive, help
> people, and hopefully, make enough money that I can afford more than I have
> now.  I AM willing to work for it, though.  I guess I was just never very
> good at playing the victim.  (I did that for a bit too.  It got old.)  It's
> interesting to me that a lot of people think I'm nuts because I'm making an
> effort to get off of disability.  They think I have it made.  Sigh.

Mark
I am not sure about the biggest bang for our buck.  This is indeed
forward looking, but much of what I do on a daily basis is more about
habit.  I suppose habit is the path of least resistance, until it runs
up against the unmovable object.  I do not like the way that some
reporters tend to put things in terms of economics.  Economics is a
result, not a driving force in my opinion.  We can certainly explain
things in economic terms, but that does not mean that such description
turns around and directs our actions.

A number of years ago I had a hip replaced.  What this meant was that
I lived in a hospital for about a week so that I could get a constant
infusion of antibiotics just to be on the safe side.  It was an
adventure and I met lots of interesting characters since my room mate
was always changing.  One such character was in for some spinal injury
that he confessed was self inflicted.  He would brag to me on how he
had beat the system and had been on continual disability through his
clever destruction of his body.  This kind of world was so dissociated
from my views that it was hard for me to enter into it to understand
it.  I think a lot of his driving energy was the result of fear or
lack of confidence, something that I am familiar with from my past.
In today's economy even the temporary request for assistance can be
disabling.  Of course I am all for families getting support to feed
their children.  Children should not unduly suffer for adult mistakes.
However I know some friends who don't want to get a job because they
will "lose their welfare".  I can imagine that it is a hard thing to
get out of the certainty of some support without a lot of stressful
determination.  So I commend you on your effort, and support you all
the way.
>
> Mark:
>>I could never be a guru of any kind.  Not that I am drawing
>> a personal relationship, but I believe that many of the great thinkers
>> thought as much.  Notice that Buddha, Socrates, Christ, and others
>> (that we will never know about) never wrote anything down.  For to
>> write things down makes one a beaurocrat of some kind dispensing rules
>> for existence.
>
> Carl:
> I have avoided being seen as a guru for most of my life.  I want to help
> people become their own guru.  The situation is that most people are told
> they don't have the ability to do that.  Usually, it's by some early
> religious training, where the person doing the teaching has a vested
> interest in keeping people dependent on them.  I rejected that pretty early.
> Now, I have people looking to me for guidance, and I refuse.  I point them
> in the direction they can take to get their own answers, but I don't provide
> those answers.  Can you tell I'm a Rogerian?  LOL!  (Practioner of Carl
> Rogers' approach.)   Even then, when I started attending the discussion
> group on the Bhagavad Gita, the people who got me involved apparently told
> the woman who hosts it, (from India) that I'm some sort of advanced
> whatever, based on some healing work I've done in the past.  The woman from
> India insists on calling me a "Holy man" and brushing my feet every time I
> go there.  I tell her repeatedly that I'm not, but she insists.  Sigh.

Yes, what makes me the most free is to unconditionally help others.  I
am not some altruistic person, I just want to be free.  If I do not
need much, and know that helping others does not result in negative
pay back (usually), then I do not have to worry about what I do.  If I
did worry, I would have to continually justify what I am doing all the
time.  Helping others does not require justification in my opinion.
In fact the less others know that I am helping the better and the more
free I am.  The wind helps the sailboat move, and asks for nothing in
return.
>
> Mark:
>>Then there is another form of memory which is the memory retained by the
>>universe in general.
>
> Carl:
> I think you are referring to Jung's Collective Consciousness.  I totally
> agree, and have tapped into that on occasion.  At first, when it happened, I
> thought of it as clairesentience, because I would just "know" the answer to
> the question, then I realized I was tapping into something other than normal
> reality.

Mark:
Yes perhaps I am.  I think we become aware of some structure which we
are fitting into, when I think of the Collective Consciousness.  I
feel more secure in my own home than somebody else's.  The collective
consciousness is kind of the human home, if you will.  If we accept
such structure then things become more secure.
>
> Carl:
> I know exactly what you're taking about.  There was a French scientist, Dr.
> Jacques Benveniste, that attempted to prove this.  "Nature" magazine went to
> examine his findings.  The editor took "The Amazing Randi", a paranormal
> debunker, with him to do that.  Since Randi exists to disprove, that's what
> they did.  It destroyed the French guy's reputation  After that, I stopped
> reading Nature.  My opinion of them went right down the toilet.  Randi has
> no credentials, is totally biased, etc.  It was disgusting, and I kept
> hoping that the Frenchman would have sued.  He didn't, that I know of, and
> has since died.

Yes, I know exactly of that incident.  I had many heated debates when
that was happening (I was living in England at that time).  I remember
the witch hunt and the retractions and all that.  My side of the
argument was that science was so restrictive in what it deemed to be
real that progress moves at a snail's pace.  At one point I was going
to change my Ph.D research to Cold Fusion since that was happening at
the time.  So I waited for a short while to see if anything was
happening there.  I noticed that it was very difficult to do, so I
stayed away from it.  What we know often restricts what we can know.
If we see knowledge as a creation of ours rather than some boundary
put on us, then we can build more easily.

Yeah, you got to love Randi.  Of course he was just a product of his
time.  Everybody wants to show that Science is the way to go.
However, such science comes from our imaginations.  So we are up
against those who want to tame the imagination with strict rules.  I
can see that we may have similar opinions on this.
>
> Mark:
>> It makes sense.  The way I see it, is that everything has free will.
>> If we want to take a statistical view of things (which is often
>> misleading) I could say that what we exist in is a synthesis of all
>> the free wills.  This would also mean that any choice that we make
>> will change everything.  Our memories affect our choices, but each
>> moment is new and therefore not determined by memory alone.  This
>> could be a kind of "chicken and egg" thing.  Perhaps we could say that
>> "accidents" diminish one's ability to stay in tune with a universal
>> morality.  Just an idea, but abberant behavior is not considered
>> "normal", and we do not decide what is normal.  I am convinced that
>> morality has a chemical or structural component, but it also has
>> umpteen additional components.  I hesitate to point to one as being
>> more important than another.  Umpteen means infinite in this case :-).
>
> Carl:
> We study "normal" by examining "abnormal" all the time, don't we?  We get a
> lot of answers that way.  "Why is this other than that?" is a great starting
> point for most research.  Why did this organism develop cancer when that one
> didn't?  etc.  I do agree that morality has many components.  Again, my
> concept of morality tends to be a personal one, whereas you're operating
> from a bigger picture.  I think RMP was talking about the bigger picture
> too.

Yes, we establish the normal by presenting the abnormal.  I will
restrict my opinions of morality to the personal sort.  I think RMP
uses the word as a rhetorical tool to provoke discussion.  I think he
has done a good job for those who care about such things.
>
>>> Carl:
>>> Ah yes.  Focused human endeavor.  It is a wonder to see at times.  I'm
>>> looking forward to the Superbowl later today for the same reason.
>
> Mark:
>> Well as the game went on, I became more and more a Giants fan.
>> Perhaps I contributed to their victory in a very, very small way :-).
>
> Carl:
> I think the reason I liked the Giants was their resiliency.  They never gave
> up.  The last seven games of the season were the same way.  Most of them
> involved a come-back late in the game.  I just admire that.
>
> Mark:
>> I am learning something here about my structure of reality, thanks for
>> the insight.
>
> Carl:
> Heheheh.  I love corrupting young minds.  Wait - did I say that out loud?
> :-)
>
> Mark:
>> Lewis Carrol below:
>> Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so
>> she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said 'What else had you to learn?'
>
> Carl:
> Aaarrrggghh!  Again with the turtles!  I'm seeing turtles everywhere.  I
> guess you knew that already, right?

These days it is more about spiders for me.  I have no idea what that
means.  I get them on the radio, on TV, in articles I read on the
internet, in songs (spiders from Mars just played today out of the
blue).  Too many spiders why don't they just leave me alone.  So, I
did fumigate the shed, so what!  It was a practice of high morality so
that we did not get bit :-)!

Before that it was snakes eating their own tails.  Snakes, snakes
everywhere.  They seem to be gone now.  At least they are not
presented on the radio, or popping up on the internet.  It was both
the pictures and their use to describe something.  I was even writing
about it!

I hope I did not start this for you, especially if you have arachnophobia :-)
>
> Carl:
> I laughed out loud when I read that.  A classmate commented that many of the
> students are having a problem understanding our professor.  He is from an
> academic background, whereas most of the professors we've had so far have
> been counselors.  I don't have a problem with him at all.  She, (the
> classmate) said that it was because we were "sprial" thinkers, rather than
> linear thinkers like the majority of the people in the class.  Thinking
> spirally, you can see why it would be funny to think about fainting in
> coils....

Yeah, if ever I need inspiration for getting through a sticky
situation, I randomly open Alice to a page and follow the
instructions.  I guess it is my personal I Ching.
>
Later,
Mark
>
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