... the Mystery Be #2, vw

         A few days ago, a friend brought up my last post (can it, really, have been over 2 months ago?).

         She stated that she had been thinking about Stephen Hawkins’ hypothesis (reference April 4 – Think I’ll just let the mystery be...vw). That post considered the question as to why technology has leaped so far ahead of our ability to create heathy sustainable ecosystems on our planet. She reflected that “something is missing in Hawkins’ response.” How exciting to me that someone else out there also wonders ….

“Something is missing ….”

I agree with Hawkins’ statement that, emotionally and spiritually, we have evolved very little while there has been considerable change in the physical and intellectual aspects of our existence. But the huge question is “why”.

 Last year my daughter loaned me a book which probed into the existence of “consciousness”. Galileo’s Error by Philip Goff, is a preliminary scientific and philosophical probing into Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. It is well written, i.e., both user-friendly and intriguing.

In (very brief) summation, Goff explains the “error” and the 3 basic theories that currently revolve around the question of how scientists are dealing with the concept of consciousness, both human and universal. The book doesn’t directly deal with what’s missing in the Hawkins’ response but it certainly opens a door to further, and deepening, questions. [… and it definitely clarifies the problem brought up in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which criticizes the current inability of science to address the very real existence of consciousness in the interrelationships of the Whole].

 My friend is right. There is something missing. There’s a lot missing. The whole reality of psychology and the paranormal are largely ignored in the current scientific establishment.

 Hawkins’ statement is over-simplified and I think we would have to extend our readings of his writings to see if he’s simplifying for brevity’s sake. Has he more deeply probed this question elsewhere? Goff concludes that the reality of consciousness lies a step beyond the immediate realities of the physical world, i.e., "hard" science. These realities are much more outright, and thus more accessible to theorization and experimentation. (… and this does not discount the fact that “hard” realities, themselves, can be infinitely complex to human understanding.)

            I hope, this winter to reread “Galileo’s Error.” Things usually make more sense to me the second (and 3^rd J) time around and this subject is just too interesting to “… let the Mystery be!”

... the Mystery Be #3kg

 love your musings.

 I think part of the problem is equating technology and human consciousness with biological processes, and viewing all evolution as a process of "betterment". This highlights for me another issue of poorly defined definitions! It's one of the same problems that has gotten created in the school of Evolutionary Psychology that tries to distill the complex processes of psychology down to the harder science of biological processes. It causes smart, scientific people to make stupid, unscientific extrapolations.

 I do think it's true what Hawkins points out about the inevitability of specialization as regards science and technology and the glut of information. That's a sound argument. I just don't like how we start muddling up all the ideas of evolution, as though it's a process that ought to move towards an endpoint of perfection and enlightenment.

 My experience of working towards a goal of "enlightenment" is that we have to work against many of the forces of nature, most certainly the nature of the human mind!!! That's where many views of spiritual enlightenment fail, by not realizing how hard it is to evolve oneself in this direction.

 

Think I'll just leave the mystery be ... Iris Dement, vw

 

            A concept that been reoccurring for me revolves around a question I’ve been thinking about for a time. “Why is it that technology and knowledge have so greatly out- distanced man’s ability to build sustainable ecosystems and human societies?”

 

            Last week I discovered Stephen Hawking’s interesting hypothesis on this question. Believing in evolution, he theorizes that, because evolution is a grindingly slow process, we have progressed (emotionally and intellectually) little beyond our cave men ancestors. While accessible knowledge has grown exponentially, as individuals we can no longer access the “whole” of the knowledge available to us. He asks if we can even imagine reading, much less studying, every book in our own city’s library. It’s incredible that not more than ~300 years ago, people could do so. Thus, he observes that we have, by necessity, come to depend on increasing specialization.

 

Steven’s theorem makes sense. Though we have made astounding strides technologically, we cannot yet cope with the task of applying this knowledge. We are not yet able to cooperate and coordinate effectively to significantly benefit ecological and social sustainability. The progression of knowledge repeatedly shows us the undeniable interrelated complexity of the “known” and the “unknown.” Again, and again, we are returned to the web of inter-connectedness and the realization of how little we know.

 

But I don’t find this situation hopeless. Even though our innate human survival instincts remain dominant in our psyches, i.e., that “me and mine” prevail, I believe we are evolving in the process. [Perhaps we can hope for a widespread beneficial mutation to put us on a fast track! J! Or a worldwide epiphany? Who knows?] As things are, however, I can’t even begin to imagine how we can coordinate an effective global unification process to save ourselves!

There have been attempts ....

The universe came into being

the moment I was born

and all things are one with me.

Since all things are one

how can I put that into words?

But since I just said they are one,

how can I say they are nothing?

The one plus my words make two

and the two plus the one make three.

If we continue this way,

even the greatest mathematician

couldn’t calculate where it will end.

It’s better just to leave things alone.”

 

Chuang-tzu (The Tao)

Scholarly translation by Stephen Mitchell

Story cw

 Vicki, your comments, in our conversations as well as written, has me looking at how I want to share my thoughts, especially in this blog, though also the family Facebook page I’m part of.  It also has me reaffirming what we shared yesterday about our thinking and goals (if we want to use that word) have, and are, evolving for our effort.

Today, I’ll tell “Story” in hopes people’s thinking and memories will respond. I know it will influence our phone visits!  Part of this I shared on Facebook a few weeks ago.

And, it is a longer post than what either of us usually write. 😊

The elevation at Idol City (those mining claims of my childhood) is six thousand feet so there was always a chance of frost at night and a rapid chill whenever the sun went behind a cloud. In my memory I hear the crackle of the fire in both the cook stove and in the heating stove, which stood in the middle of the bedroom, burning in the evenings when we needed its warmth against the chill mountain air. We used pine, fir and, especially for cooking heat, mountain mahogany. Toasty warmth as my eyes grew heavy with sleepiness, water heating in wash pans and tea kettle for the dishes and, of course, lamplight - in later years a Coleman gas lantern hanging from a nail so Mom could better see. The scent of tobacco from Granddad and Dad's pipes as they planned for the work ahead, the sound of Granddad’s voice as he told a story - how he could tell stories!

It was there I began to learn the importance of “Story” ~ especially those stories which teach us about who or what we are.

Years later that lesson came home, and I became particularly aware of Story’s power as a group of family members gathered in a restaurant after my aunt’s death. As “Aunt Angie” stories began to be told, the richness of Story washed over and around us and I realized how important hearing them was ~ to all of us. We didn’t come together often, some of us had met only a few times, but as the river of memories circled and embraced us, I realized through Story, we were able to be family, bound together through the ties of love and memory. We were able to laugh and grieve. Story not only bound us together but helped us experience closure as we honored her life through our shared memories.

For me there was added the richness of experiencing how Granddad’s talent for telling stories has come down through the generations for at least three of his descendants have, each in their own unique way, inherited Clyde’s ability to weave spells through their gift of storytelling. “How rich we are!” I thought as I felt the spell of their story telling weaving around me that wonderful evening.

Since then I’ve come to see how hungry others often are for a sense of connection and belonging which can only come from knowing who they are which is best known through knowing their family’s Story.

My sense of how important it is for people to have that sense of belonging, of knowing “where they came from” gained clarity during a family dinner as we sat, eating and talking. Our children were grown ~ all, at least out of high school ~ and we always gathered, monthly or oftener, for a time of “family.” The conversation that day turned to friends of theirs struggling with a variety of troubles, marital and legal.

“They don’t know who they are, they grew up so far away from extended family, they have no grounding” was their response when I asked why their friends were struggling. “Why is it different for you?” I asked, “We moved you up here, away from your grandparents, aunts and uncles ~ just like your friends?” My children seemed grounded to me ~ focused, certainly not having any work or legal troubles. The four pointed to the “ancestor pictures” covering the wall of our dining area, “We know who we are,” they said, “because of those pictures ~ not just the pictures ~ we know their stories.”

That conversation was a beginning impetus for me to write ~ and, here we are today😊

Building Community, Again! vw

              Field season here has long been over and yet I have remained absent from our blog. Many rationalizations, some due to personal timidity, most to prioritizing “time”, and neither, excusable. It’s not fair to Carol and so I have promised her that I would take up posting on our blog again. After-all, I did realize, when struggling to compose my annual Christmas letter this year, that building the blog with her was probably the most outstanding of my year’s adventures.

                                                     

            My birthday, recognizing 78 years, came and went. It was a sweet and quiet day, begun with 3 telephone renditions of the Birthday song and punctuated with cards and 2 wonderfully sweet gifts. As a friend once told me, “Expectations are often the cause of much disappointment.” Basically, it was a good beginning to an old woman’s new year, exemplifying the truth of my friend’s advice. I have no immediate family left to burden with my expectations and I am learning the difficult process of removing that burden from my distant family and dear friends as well.

             So here is to throwing myself out into the “ether” for it is part of the Net or "Web" that I have come to believe in so strongly. 

… and may we all have in store a -                                                                 

                                                        HAPPY NEW YEAR!