The Social Mind 2

DrB-76

Social 2

A Band of Chimps

So what happened? Our intrepid band of chimps has been time warped into the present, bringing their survival skills with them. It is no longer the paleolithic but it’s the same society. The alpha male has morphed into an ideology. The band has morphed into a hyper-tribe and the cohesion of the band has been lost. He no longer has a band to be loyal to. As he has evolved to live in a band of less than 150, the hyper-tribe is an abstraction. The lion has morphed into corporations to prey on him. He has evolved to be a slave. One thing that has not changed though, the hyper males that have taken over this system still get most of the poon-tang and bananas. As long as the hyper-males can keep the chimps fighting among themselves, this will continue.

Valedictorian DeathByAnomie UberMind Stupid is forever KeyToANN TypeZero M&M’s Manliness Bogart AynRand TheArts MarathonMan LeftHandOfANN ChimpWar Systems

 

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Erica Goldson Valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School. August, 2010

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him.But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.”

To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you.Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!

Sign of the Times

HereIStand.pdf

Stupid is forever

You can’t fix stupid

“Stupid is as stupid does” – Forrest Gump

Oops! My Fraudian slip is showing. The critical point in determining whether a person is an idiot. (I mean that in the clinical sense) is whether a concept, which challenges the framework, can be transferred from one mind to another. My first comments which lead to this line bumped up against your framework, and you responded with top down thinking. (programmed responses) ie something you had previously considered and formulated an answer for. In your next response you flipped into bottom up thinking focusing in on the “what if”. You disagreed but the concept was transferred. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN WITH AN IDIOT. If you were an idiot your first comment would have been your best and only shot. That’s all there would have been to Ted. One dimensional. That’s why I don’t like talking to an idiot, it’s like talking to a coffee table. An easy way to flush out the idiots is to wrap an unorthodox, but valid, concept in crazy. An idiot can’t get past the crazy and goes away. My, that works out nicely. A centered will brush the crazy off like the fluff it is and consider the concept. That works out nicely too. He may disagree, but he’s not an idiot.

As to the permanent nature of stupid. I pulled the following off the web. Most of the cases are anecdotal but 5 are well documented and investigated. It would appear that after a critical age, the average is 7, the thought patterns become set. For instance, a child might learn a few words but have no conceptual understanding of language. No amount of training, therapy or instruction can overcome this. In my case I was paralyzed from the chest down with statin poisoning. After I quit taking the poison, the effects were flushed out of my system and it returned to normal. BUT, I have lost the ability to walk without thinking about it. I have to concentrate on moving the muscles. My critical period for learning to walk has passed. This condition is forever. (but a lot better than being paralyzed)

Feral Children and the Critical Period

“Although the critical period hypothesis was hotly debated for some years, there is now compelling evidence — including the evidence from feral, confined and isolated children — that, unless they are exposed to language in the early years of life, humans lose much of their innate ability to learn a language, and especially its grammatical system.”

CriticalPeriod

So, Yup, stupid is forever. I see overwhelming evidence that it is, and no evidence that it isn’t.  Fixing stupid is an inter-generational problem.

Ayn Rand speaks to the “slavering beast that is devouring the minds of man” as do I

The Beast

10% to 20% of the population are non-idiots (centered), but are pretending to be idiots in the same sense that I pretend to be crazy. I don’t like talking to idiots. I find that if i wrap a concept in “crazy” the idiots can’t get past the wrapping, while a centered can’t wait to discard the wrapping to see what treasure lies inside. I like it that way. This is the target. The rest are idiots. The ones that can understand you will, those that can’t won’t. Stupid is forever. Consider; I showed DrB RatBrain2 in which an amorphous mass of neurons began “connecting and communicating” I asked why “cause that’s what neurons do”. What is the robot doing? “Looking for more neurons”. She instantly saw the relevance. This simple one minute video blows the doors off psychology in the same sense that the cosmic standing wave blows the doors off physics. But as she said “what do we do with it?” Even the guy that made it can’t see the relevance, he immediately talks about plans to make it stupid.

UberMind

What is emerging is a picture of society as a system.  Wheels within wheels

Whereas the mind is an amorphous mass of self-programming neurons, society is an amorphous mass of self-replicating morons and the internet is an amorphous mass of self organizing electrons. The implications of this are sobering. What it means is that if one could push an easy button and get rid of all the assholes, it would only create a vacuum which would immediately be filled with more assholes. As the dendrite system of the mind modulates the activity of the neuron, the institutions of society modulates the activity of the moron. This is the “double think” of George Orwell’s “New Speak”, in which the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them is promoted as a virtue. Dogma is touted as “faith” to keep society dumb. IE The FDA supposedly is an organization devoted to the wellness of the public. Actually it is an organization devoted to the wellness of the drug companies. The goal is an extension of the sickness of patients so as to maximize profits. The same is true of all institutionalized nodes; FTC, AMA, FED etc. What to do? As any sane understanding of the mind must start with the neuron, any sane understanding of society must start with the individual. Destroying the nodes of power represented by institutionalization can only be regarded as a holding action. Politicians are only a symbol of power, they are in fact only stooges, but they’re not our stooges. Here be dragons.

This is as good a place as any to mention a cosmic consciousness.  I can’t add anything to this so Heeeere’s Mr Sid  Synchronicity The Lost Generation

Death by anomie

Old timers disease

Or Pre-senile dementia

Alzheimer’s AKA Old Timers disease starts much earlier than psychology posits.

Durkheim also formally posited anomie as a mismatch, not simply as the absence of norms. Thus, a society with too much rigidity and little individual discretion could also produce a kind of anomie, a mismatch between individual circumstances and larger social mores. Thus, fatalistic suicide arises when a person is too rule-governed, when there is no free horizon of expectation, an absence of legitimate aspirations.

I remember a movie I saw in the mid ’50’s. I forget the name but it starred James Stewart.  I vividly recall one particular scene. It struck me as profound and very descriptive of society. The story involves a newspaper owner who brought his newly college graduated son into the business. After a series of catastrophes which the old man straightened out there was a heated confrontation between father and son.

Father> “well, you always have these conflicts any time a person with fresh, innovative ideas comes into contact with an old fart who is set in his ways with no imagination and adhering to rigid rules.

Son> “Ah, dad, I never thought of you as an old fart”

Father> “No, actually, I think of you as an old fart”

Yup, he’s got it.

Unused neurons die off. We start with about 300 billion and end up with about 100 billion. We must have aspirations, but they must be legitimate aspirations. In this materialistic society our educational system is geared towards outputting superficial robots to feed industrial demand. This imprinting blocks access to the right mind cutting off our connectedness with the world. Industry uses these people up and crushes them like a Styrofoam cup to be tossed in the trash.  Applying the “use ’em or ‘lose ’em rule, the unused neurons in the right mind die off.  Goodbye insight, intuition, creativity, connectedness, centering, harmony etc.  Hello robots, idiots, zombies, parrots, stupidos, hollow or superficial.  Oddly, although psychology defines superficiality, it does not define non superficiality.  IE what is normal?  There is no room for the self .

Psychology posits that there is something wrong with the person. I posit that it is society which is psychotic, not the patient. He/she just cracked earlier than the “norm”.  It is pathological to be well adjusted in this society.

Leave room for the self. The understanding of the glory of the world and the knowledge that we are integral with it.

Never surrender your mind.

Never

Pink Floyd – The Wall, download this, it’s excellent  The Wall

When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children in any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
And exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids

But in the town, it was well known
When they got home at night, their fat and
Psychopathic wives would thrash them
Within inches of their lives.

We don’t need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

Manliness

of the Titanic

Manliness

ONE OF THE LEAST VISITED memorials in Washington is a waterfront statue commemorating the men who died on the Titanic. Seventy-four percent of the women passengers survived the April 15, 1912, calamity, while 80 percent of the men perished. Why? Because the men followed the principle “women and children first.”

The monument, an 18-foot granite male figure with arms outstretched to the side, was erected by “the women of America” in 1931 to show their gratitude. The inscription reads: “To the brave men who perished in the wreck of the Titanic. . . . They gave their lives that women and children might be saved.”

Compare this to the sinking of the Estonia in 1994.  Of the 989 people onboard M/S ESTONIA only 137 survived. There were 94 passengers who survived the catastrophe, 80 men and 14 women. There were also a total of 43 crew members who survived, 31 men and 12 women. During the two day rescue operation 95 bodies were recovered, 53 men and 42 women. A total of 757 people are missing and presumed dead, 340 men and 417 women.  The men were throwing the women out of the life boats.  Hmmm!

Today, almost no one remembers those men. Women no longer bring flowers to the statue on April 15 to honor their chivalry. The idea of male gallantry makes many women nervous, suggesting (as it does) that women require special protection. It implies the sexes are objectively different. It tells us that some things are best left to men. Gallantry is a virtue that dare not speak its name.

“It’s a bad time to be a boy in America,” writes Christina Hoff Sommers. Boys are less likely than girls to go to college or do their homework. They’re more likely to cheat on tests, wind up in detention, or drop out of school. Yet it’s “the myth of the fragile girl,” that is being discussed in contemporary books.When boys are discussed at all, it’s in the context of how to modify their antisocial behavior–i.e., how to make them more like girls.     It has become fashionable to attribute pathology to millions of healthy boys. Boys need love and tolerant understanding. They do not need to be shot up with dopazine.
Her previous book “Who Stole Feminism” pointed out the gender switch. “If we continue on our present course, boys will, indeed, be tomorrow’s second sex.”  She essentially urges parents and educators to let boys be boys, even though their “very masculinity turns out to be politically incorrect.”

In Manliness, Harvey C. Mansfield seeks to persuade skeptical readers, especially educated women, to reconsider the merits of male protectiveness and assertiveness. It is in no way a defense of male privilege, but many will be offended by its old-fashioned claim that the virtues of men and women are different and complementary. Women would be foolish not to pay close attention to Mansfield’s subtle and fascinating argument.

Mansfield offers what he calls a modest defense of manliness.   “Most good things, like French wine, are mostly good and accidentally bad. Manliness, however, seems to be about fifty-fifty good and bad.  “Manliness,” he says, “is a quality that causes individuals to stand for something.” “so the man’s soul defends human ends higher than itself.”

The manly man is not satisfied to let things be as they are, and he makes sure everyone knows it. He invests his perception of injustice with cosmic importance.  Manliness can be noble and heroic, like the men on the Titanic; but it can also be foolish, stubborn, and violent.  Manliness  transcends mere animal spiritedness.  Moreover, women seem to like manly men: “Manliness is still around, and we still find it attractive,” says Mansfield.  It is difficult for a man who is attracted to a woman not to find her cute, rather than intimidating, when she gets angry.  Too much manliness is dangerous, but too little is fatal to a society’s prospects for greatness–or even for its survival.  The true man wants two things, danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

“It should be expected that men will be manly and sometimes a bit bossy and that women will be impressed with them or skeptical.”

There is a movement among men to revive the virtues of a bygone era.  The Art of manliness is an excellent site.  Bringing back quaint concepts such as chivalry, gallantry, good taste, social responsibility.  This is the address bar of one such site.  The Art of Manliness

Home A Man’s Life Dress & Grooming Health & Sports Manly Skills Money & Career Relationships & Family Community Man Knowledge

Where are these life skills being taught in todays society?  There is no room for a man to be manly.  There are even yoga classes for men.  A real man doesn’t do yoga, he does zen.  No noble cause. No desire to be more than you can be.  No striving for excellence.  A man’s gotta believe in something.  Despite the feminism, women still want manly men (preferably with money)

The Quintessential Man

What Every Woman Needs To Know About MenThere is a movie mid 1940’s in which Humphrey Bogart plays a cynical, hard bitten coarse owner of a bar and casino in Casablanca. (The name of the movie) In the movie there is a sequence in which a young woman approaches him to ask for advice on whether or not to sleep with the constable to obtain passage out of Morocco before the Nazi’s take over. She and her husband are Jewish and do not have the money to pay the bribes. Her husband is in the casino gambling the last of their funds. Rick blows her off, wanders into the casino and whispers to her husband “22 black” the wheel is spun and the ball lands in 22 black. The husband reaches for the chips and Rick whispers “let it ride” 22 black again. Rick says loudly “Cash in your chips and get out of here. Never come back.” Rick has gone through an elaborate ruse to hide (to others, and perhaps to himself) the fact that he has feelings (taboo). This is within every man.

The Quintessential Man

“In the 1942 film Casablanca, Rick’s Café Americain has a trick roulette wheel. The croupier can cause it to land on 22 at will. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) urges a Bulgarian refugee with whose case he becomes sympathetic to put his last three chips on 22 and motions to the croupier to let him win. After the man’s number dramatically comes up, Rick tells him to let it all ride on 22 and lets him win again. Although the details are not mentioned in the film (the croupier only notes that they are “a couple of thousand” down), it appears that Rick has given the man 3885 ((3*36*36)-3) francs.Three on any number would pay 35 to 1, “letting it ride” would result in a bet of 108(105+3)pieces, which would yield a payoff of 3780, or 3888 if he took his bet down.” – Wikipedia

Here’s the entire movie, Casablanca here, if you want it.

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Systems

I’ll try another approach. Keeping in mind that what we see is not what we perceive. What we perceive are systems, what we see is an interpretation of what we see. IE the “real” world is not composed of objects, but systems.

Systems share common characteristics, including:

Systems have structure, defined by parts and their composition;

Systems have behavior, which involves inputs, processing and outputs of material, energy or information;

Systems have interconnectivity: the various parts of a system have functional as well as structural relationships between each other. IE Systems are self organizing

Yet most people assume that what they see is what they perceive.

Also keep in mind that people think backwards, IE The see the movement of the tree leaves and assume that to be the cause of wind. They confuse cause and effect. (we evolved to be slaves)

Starting at the bottom, we’ll look at the fabric of the universe. Einstein assumed it to consist of 3 dimensions plus the space/time continuum. But time is not real, it is an interpretation of vectored movement. (direction + amplitude) In the sense that a line is the shadow of a square, a square is the shadow of a cube and a cube is the shadow of a dodecahedron. We can’t see a line but we can perceive it. We can see and perceive a square and a cube. We cannot see or perceive a dodecahedron. So the fabric of the universe consists of 3 dimensions and the ether, as described by Plato, or the 3 dimensions plus a fourth as described by Lisi. (It’s the same thing)

Next up is the atomic level, The electron, proton and neuron are actually shadows of vibrations in the fourth dimension, Fractals are shadows of these vibrations and provide the structure of the universe. (you/re probably wondering right now about what this has to do with PTSD but it’s relevant)

Next up is the neuron, which, in accordance with the laws of the universe is a self organizing system. When it becomes organized we call it a mind. Throughout all of this is the self organizing effect of the vibrations in the 4th dimension. (fractals) In view of the butterfly effect the odds approach infinity that any two minds are alike, although it could be said that most brains are similar. That’s about as indeterminate as you can get.

Next up is society, which again, must conform to the laws of the universe (system). The individual performs the role of the neuron in the mind. The problem is that the individual mind is (usually) flawed and provides negative feedback resulting in a dysfunctional society which affects the individual. (mental disorders) It is pathological to be well-adjusted in a dysfunctional society. It is society which is the collective consciousness, and it is psychotic.

Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality, usually including false ideas about what is taking place or who one is (delusions) and seeing or hearing things that aren’t there (hallucinations) (or things that are there that they can’t see – Walt)

Interestingly, the web seems to be following these same laws of self-organization. We may indeed be approaching the Singularity.

I hope that clears things up

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/allegory_of_the_cave.html