Calder's recent discussion of handwriting (http://cthingvold.blogspot.com/2013/10/apology-in-absence.html) brings up a mounting tide of thought I've had over the past year or so. It is no great secret that humanity (particularly those living in "developed" nations) is shoving more and more of its burdens onto automated machines. We take those tasks we deem tedious and place them in the cold hands of computers. Makes sense though, right? Who has the time anymore to actually open a dictionary? Thus, spell check. Who wants to fly a plane over the Pacific Ocean for hours and hours? Thus, auto-pilot. Who wants to make the effort to call or visit friends to check up on them? Thus, Facebook.
This attitude is dangerous for several reasons. Automation works by reducing complex situations to a list of variables that a machine can respond to in a predetermined manner. But what about situations that can't be reduced this way? What if the machine is trying to respond to a set a variables its creators never predicted? This system is designed so that it will respond correctly most of the time. The times it can't respond, a machine's human operator is required to take control. But will he be ready to? If he has assumed this whole time that the machine will do his work for him, how is the operator likely to respond when suddenly thrust into a position of control? In this way, automation not only opens itself up for error by not being able to adapt, but it also erodes the skill of those it supposedly services.
By handing our responsibilities off to machines, we are also demeaning our own abilities. One of the facts Google touts around about its driverless cars is that they have never been in an accident. The statement behind this is: we can't drive. It's a very defeatist attitude, one that weakens the trust we have in ourselves. How can we ever expect to be better (drivers) if we purposefully disengage ourselves from the task at hand?
This is the crux of the issue for me: no labor = no investment. Yes, doing things by hand takes longer. It requires more effort. Yet as Calder finds while handwriting his essays, the enjoyment of labor is the labor itself, not only the completion of it. The more time a person puts into something, the more labor it requires, the more invested she becomes in whatever it is. By sharing more time in the labor, she allows herself to attach meaning to it, to be changed by it. Can she be changed by staring at a computer screen? I have my doubts.
I've had a kind of writer's block lately. I lack motivation; I feel like I'm getting nowhere. I normally do my writing on a computer and I'm wondering now if this isn't the problem. Instead of holding in my hand the physical manifestation of my thoughts on paper, I scroll through a Word document. Instead of watching the ink vanish from my pen, I stare at my keyboard, static. Maybe its time for a change.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Monday, October 28, 2013
Why
I was just perusing our little blogiverse and am now inspired to write a response to Katie's question of the Why (http://katieneal14.blogspot.com/2013/10/stranger-than-fiction.html).
Like her, I've been thinking recently about what kinds of questions we ask and how we answer them. Being hit over the head with a chunk of science education and research for the past two years, I'd grown to see the world in a narrowly-defined, completely objective, rational way (probably due to brain damage from the aforementioned bludgeoning). Science provides us great answers to the What, How, Where, Who, and alright answers to the When. It does not provide answers to the Why and the How Does One Live (or how does one relate to all the other shit).
As Katie pointed out, where science falls short, people turn to religion. More accurately, I believe people turn to spirituality, where spirituality is not necessarily organized worship but more of a way in which one connects with the universe he finds himself in. He can use science to observe himself and his surroundings, but ultimately he must find his own way to deal with them.
This is what every human must do in order to find meaning in her existence. Even the most stoic and "objective" of scientists must give meaning to her life. Otherwise, she will die. Her body may continue on like a machine, but the spirit animating it will have perished. It is as we discussed in class: human beings need meaning to survive, and we find meaning in the telling of stories. A nihilist tells no stories, for she rejects them outright. She no longer asks Why.
For everyone else, we struggle to answer the question throughout our lives. In reality, this is a journey of self-discovery. As Eliade would put it, we are initiated into a labyrinth, one that we become lost in and wander. When we do find the center and confront the minotaur, we answer a part of the question. We know ourselves better. Then we are initiated again, lost again. It's a process I don't believe can be ended. It's also a process I don't want to end (at least not now). Questioning is living; answering is death. There's a tension between the two, one that Freud called the destrudo or death drive. He explains it differently, but it's basically the same idea: humans seek the end. We struggle so that one day our work may finally be done. We wake so that may finally lay down to rest. We ask for answers so that we may stop wondering.
This end, this death, is the ultimate goal to be sure. It is one we all must face. Getting there, though... That's what makes life a helluva time. There is no meaning in death. It is arbitrary, unchanging. It is a dispersion. Room temperature. There IS meaning in life because it is that which changes, which collects and organizes and produces information. It is heat. Is the question Why not the question of "Why are we organized this way? What have we been collected for?"
The answers will come some day when we are put to rest. Until then, we question. We live.
Like her, I've been thinking recently about what kinds of questions we ask and how we answer them. Being hit over the head with a chunk of science education and research for the past two years, I'd grown to see the world in a narrowly-defined, completely objective, rational way (probably due to brain damage from the aforementioned bludgeoning). Science provides us great answers to the What, How, Where, Who, and alright answers to the When. It does not provide answers to the Why and the How Does One Live (or how does one relate to all the other shit).
As Katie pointed out, where science falls short, people turn to religion. More accurately, I believe people turn to spirituality, where spirituality is not necessarily organized worship but more of a way in which one connects with the universe he finds himself in. He can use science to observe himself and his surroundings, but ultimately he must find his own way to deal with them.
This is what every human must do in order to find meaning in her existence. Even the most stoic and "objective" of scientists must give meaning to her life. Otherwise, she will die. Her body may continue on like a machine, but the spirit animating it will have perished. It is as we discussed in class: human beings need meaning to survive, and we find meaning in the telling of stories. A nihilist tells no stories, for she rejects them outright. She no longer asks Why.
For everyone else, we struggle to answer the question throughout our lives. In reality, this is a journey of self-discovery. As Eliade would put it, we are initiated into a labyrinth, one that we become lost in and wander. When we do find the center and confront the minotaur, we answer a part of the question. We know ourselves better. Then we are initiated again, lost again. It's a process I don't believe can be ended. It's also a process I don't want to end (at least not now). Questioning is living; answering is death. There's a tension between the two, one that Freud called the destrudo or death drive. He explains it differently, but it's basically the same idea: humans seek the end. We struggle so that one day our work may finally be done. We wake so that may finally lay down to rest. We ask for answers so that we may stop wondering.
This end, this death, is the ultimate goal to be sure. It is one we all must face. Getting there, though... That's what makes life a helluva time. There is no meaning in death. It is arbitrary, unchanging. It is a dispersion. Room temperature. There IS meaning in life because it is that which changes, which collects and organizes and produces information. It is heat. Is the question Why not the question of "Why are we organized this way? What have we been collected for?"
The answers will come some day when we are put to rest. Until then, we question. We live.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Scenes from the New World
Sorry I wasn't at today's gathering - I had a test in the lecture I usually skip to come talk with y'all. Sometimes our schooling gets in the way of our education, no?
Issue 4 of my zine also came out today. I don't have very many hard copies left, but below is a link to the Facebook page with all the pdf versions. Check them shits out if you're interested in some short bits from the story Joe and I are working on.
https://www.facebook.com/NewWorldZine
Issue 4 of my zine also came out today. I don't have very many hard copies left, but below is a link to the Facebook page with all the pdf versions. Check them shits out if you're interested in some short bits from the story Joe and I are working on.
https://www.facebook.com/NewWorldZine
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Anamnesis
I decided it would easier to share my thoughts on today's gathering in poem form.
Anamnesis
I once lay behind Heaven's door
Sat my ass in the evermore
Full of knowing the way things stood
Until I fell (as all men should)
Thrown into blindness, out of sight
The angels mark my every night
They touch my lips, make me forget
All I learned since we last met
In the dark they
have no faces
They find me in my
mother's graces
I know it then, feel
them coming
Steady as Her heart
a-drumming
They curse me for my
failed task
My face has now
become the mask
I ate too soon, they
always say
They bow their heads
and fly away
Now I wander through
a haze
I can't recall those
better days
Tweedle-dee and
Tweedle-dum
Ask whose dream I
think I'm from
Are they the angels
from before
Who shut my foot in
Heaven's door?
Caught between the high and low
Damn them 'til the
wind won't blow
What right have they
to bind me here?
To cut my wings and
keep me near
The earth and all
its mortal coils
The silly men and
all their foils
Or do the angels
know what's best?
Are they sent at His request?
To teach his son to
take the throne
When the fire's set
to his bones
Spin a web that we
call “story”
Catch those errant
wings a-soaring
Fill the pages with
my longing
'Til Heaven feels I
am belonging
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Energy
You know those conversations that wake you up? The ones that engage you so thoroughly that the hours seem to tick by like seconds? When you can feel the energy of everyone in the room gushing out and flowing together? A genuine conversation. One that brings you closer in a profound way both to knowing yourself and those around you.
That word, energy, always comes up to describe these intense kind of relationships between people. Whether you're "exchanging energy", "sharing energy", or some other starry-eyed New Age phrase, there is an idea that some kind of force or power is at play. One of my friends in the conversation last night said he couldn't conceptualize this energy because it has no physical or scientific basis. I've had similar feelings in the past, but was having a hard time reconciling them with the fact that I did feel the energy of connection between people. Hell, between everything on the planet. His comment made me realize something: there is a physical explanation. A scientific one.
Mirror neurons are those that fire when one either performs a specific action or sees it performed. The mirror neuron doesn't care who is the doer, just as long as the action happens. These types of neurons are thought to help in learning motor skills. More importantly, they are intimately linked with the concept of emotional empathy. You can watch videos of someone in a neutral mood slowly adopt the mood of those around her. For example, if she talks with a sad person, her shoulders will slump, her tone of voice will drop and slow, she will frown.
A few weeks ago Frans de Waal gave a talk at MSU on the subject of animal empathy. His lecture was fascinating and covered empathy in broad strokes, but one study he explained stood out to me. He described an experiment in which his research group found that chimpanzees (the most closely related primate to humans) who see a member of their in-group yawn are much more likely to yawn themselves than if they see a stranger yawn (the idea here being that those in the in-group will have a greater empathetic bond). And what system is responsible for this "yawn contagion"? Mirror neurons. Thus, they've showed that mirror neurons are more active between individuals who share a greater empathetic bond than between those who share a lesser one.
This fits beautifully with our notion of energy, don't you think? When you're feeling that energy, it isn't some intangible force. It is your brain's chemistry enacting change on your consciousness. It is the brain literally taking on the form of another. We feel connected with others because we are emulating them. This also explains why one feels the energy more intensely with certain individuals. People who we "click" with, who we have some innate connection to, share with us a more empathetic bond than those who we dislike or disregard. Now the reason why some bonds are inherently stronger than others is a different question.
This not only applies to conversation. In fact, the most connected I've felt with others has been while playing music with them. Whether it be a West African drum circle or Sunday Mass, it makes complete sense to me why communal music-making (especially singing) is such a strong component of cultural and religious identity. Making music requires everyone listen to each other and be in sync. While conversation is a give-and-take, music is unified expression. I'd love to see the activity of mirror neurons when one is involved in this kind of situation...
Love,
Connor
That word, energy, always comes up to describe these intense kind of relationships between people. Whether you're "exchanging energy", "sharing energy", or some other starry-eyed New Age phrase, there is an idea that some kind of force or power is at play. One of my friends in the conversation last night said he couldn't conceptualize this energy because it has no physical or scientific basis. I've had similar feelings in the past, but was having a hard time reconciling them with the fact that I did feel the energy of connection between people. Hell, between everything on the planet. His comment made me realize something: there is a physical explanation. A scientific one.
Mirror neurons are those that fire when one either performs a specific action or sees it performed. The mirror neuron doesn't care who is the doer, just as long as the action happens. These types of neurons are thought to help in learning motor skills. More importantly, they are intimately linked with the concept of emotional empathy. You can watch videos of someone in a neutral mood slowly adopt the mood of those around her. For example, if she talks with a sad person, her shoulders will slump, her tone of voice will drop and slow, she will frown.
A few weeks ago Frans de Waal gave a talk at MSU on the subject of animal empathy. His lecture was fascinating and covered empathy in broad strokes, but one study he explained stood out to me. He described an experiment in which his research group found that chimpanzees (the most closely related primate to humans) who see a member of their in-group yawn are much more likely to yawn themselves than if they see a stranger yawn (the idea here being that those in the in-group will have a greater empathetic bond). And what system is responsible for this "yawn contagion"? Mirror neurons. Thus, they've showed that mirror neurons are more active between individuals who share a greater empathetic bond than between those who share a lesser one.
This fits beautifully with our notion of energy, don't you think? When you're feeling that energy, it isn't some intangible force. It is your brain's chemistry enacting change on your consciousness. It is the brain literally taking on the form of another. We feel connected with others because we are emulating them. This also explains why one feels the energy more intensely with certain individuals. People who we "click" with, who we have some innate connection to, share with us a more empathetic bond than those who we dislike or disregard. Now the reason why some bonds are inherently stronger than others is a different question.
This not only applies to conversation. In fact, the most connected I've felt with others has been while playing music with them. Whether it be a West African drum circle or Sunday Mass, it makes complete sense to me why communal music-making (especially singing) is such a strong component of cultural and religious identity. Making music requires everyone listen to each other and be in sync. While conversation is a give-and-take, music is unified expression. I'd love to see the activity of mirror neurons when one is involved in this kind of situation...
Love,
Connor
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Thank You
Until recently, I'd thought my life to be distinct. From other humans. From other animals. From plants. From the earth, the sky, the sun. Being a scientist I was always aware of the fundamental connection my atoms had with all else. I knew that my existence was a coming-together of dust, a fleeting moment in which this particular mass of molecules formed a conscious being capable of knowing itself. But that was where my understanding of the connection stopped. It was a purely material link I thought myself to be in, my own "free will" unaffected.
Now I know better.
I know now that my life is not entirely my own. Imprinted on my mind (and yours too!) are the seeds for a pattern that is as fundamental as the atoms composing it. I remember two years ago having an illumination of the fractal branching pattern so often found in nature, whether it be in tree branches, neuronal connections, or the interplay between galaxies. It fascinated me. Maybe it's more accurate to say it haunted me. Wherever I looked, there it was: the pattern. The branches. I observed that it was a characteristic common of many structures in nature, an architecture tailored to some law of the universe that allowed it to flourish and replicate itself across every level of organization. Even so, I cut my awe of it short. I could see the pattern, the branching, but I didn't consider the possibility that such a pattern could wind its way up through the layers of human consciousness, history, and spirituality. This is what we call archetypes.
In retrospect, it's an obvious conclusion. How could I be so blind (or arrogant) to think my own mind and the minds of others weren't subject to the same patterns? I let my belief in an objective, scientific explanation for the universe cloud my judgment. As with any religion, science is exceptionally good at causing self-deception. It's a helluva lot easier to trust in it, to believe in an "objective truth" (what a ridiculous concept, right?) that one may reach from a spiritually-detached place.
But without science, or rather without the knowledge it gave me, I couldn't have made the connection at all. The biology, the mythology, the dreams and the waking, it is all one. The same pattern repeats over and over again... It's as if nature is telling us, "Look! Didn't you see it last time too?" How gracious of the universe to give us so many chances.
I hiked up the South Cottonwood trail today (and you should too if you haven't -- it's an absolutely stunning piece of country). While standing on the top of a rock formation jutting from the mountainside, I closed my eyes and breathed. I breathed in the wind borne of the solar tide. I breathed in the sun, that great body which destroys itself to cause us to live. I breathed in the rock under my feet, the old bones of the Earth. I could only say one thing after that moment: "Thank you."
Thank you.
Love,
Connor
Now I know better.
I know now that my life is not entirely my own. Imprinted on my mind (and yours too!) are the seeds for a pattern that is as fundamental as the atoms composing it. I remember two years ago having an illumination of the fractal branching pattern so often found in nature, whether it be in tree branches, neuronal connections, or the interplay between galaxies. It fascinated me. Maybe it's more accurate to say it haunted me. Wherever I looked, there it was: the pattern. The branches. I observed that it was a characteristic common of many structures in nature, an architecture tailored to some law of the universe that allowed it to flourish and replicate itself across every level of organization. Even so, I cut my awe of it short. I could see the pattern, the branching, but I didn't consider the possibility that such a pattern could wind its way up through the layers of human consciousness, history, and spirituality. This is what we call archetypes.
In retrospect, it's an obvious conclusion. How could I be so blind (or arrogant) to think my own mind and the minds of others weren't subject to the same patterns? I let my belief in an objective, scientific explanation for the universe cloud my judgment. As with any religion, science is exceptionally good at causing self-deception. It's a helluva lot easier to trust in it, to believe in an "objective truth" (what a ridiculous concept, right?) that one may reach from a spiritually-detached place.
But without science, or rather without the knowledge it gave me, I couldn't have made the connection at all. The biology, the mythology, the dreams and the waking, it is all one. The same pattern repeats over and over again... It's as if nature is telling us, "Look! Didn't you see it last time too?" How gracious of the universe to give us so many chances.
I hiked up the South Cottonwood trail today (and you should too if you haven't -- it's an absolutely stunning piece of country). While standing on the top of a rock formation jutting from the mountainside, I closed my eyes and breathed. I breathed in the wind borne of the solar tide. I breathed in the sun, that great body which destroys itself to cause us to live. I breathed in the rock under my feet, the old bones of the Earth. I could only say one thing after that moment: "Thank you."
Thank you.
Love,
Connor
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