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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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why would the mind have two opinions?
is this the "free will" everyone is talking about?
theres definiely not free will in managing the bodys functioning ever, or even when we're asleep. body functioning is left up to the brain. or maybe the individual parts? like an octopus.(thats a different discussion).
im talkin about when the mind is conscious (operating with the ability to remember)does it have the opportunity for choice. the brain is obliviously linear. while the mind can go in any direction.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, CA
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Let us not forget about 'lead'. If ingested, lead is poisonous to animals, including humans. It damages the nervous system and causes brain disorders. Excessive lead also causes blood disorders in mammals. Like the element mercury, another heavy metal, lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates both in soft tissues and the bones. Lead poisoning has been documented from ancient Rome, ancient Greece, and ancient China.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^^YEA!
my mouth is full of mercury.something the so called science approved magicians were able to fix teeth with.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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"If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration" - Nikola Tesla
good on you Tom, and Mr.Tesla.
i,ve found secrets. and have confirmed with others.the root of my evil, is why only some can believe?
back to the mind.
why does each of ours give us atleast two distinctive conclusions?
if it were up to evolution its the biggest and strongest.and there wouldnt be much of a choice. have we graduated to a choice? that we could deferre to whats good for others to?
has a plant ever been concened about the well bein of another plant?
the lioness certainly responds to whats good for her cubs. but is she concerned with whats up with the zebra?
sorry i degress
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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^^the conglomeration is highly respectful. and the drake proposal is neat.
but im still talkin about the here and now.today' and what we,ve learned from yesterday. maybe i need to revise that video
not what we think might be
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MH2
climber
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The molecular-level view of a synaptic bouton astounds me. We cannot think or imagine our way to finding out how we are made. We must look.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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it is awesome, indeed, MH2...
and we must look, no doubt about that. How interesting and fun that is, the looking.
We walk to the cliff, our approach provides us views that only affirm our doubts that any line takes us to the top. At the base we find some possible weakness, but our limited vantage point can't prove a passage to the top. Finally on the route, we get to some point, apparently devoid of any means of passage. Our focus then on tiny crystals, tiny edges, time itself slows and we probe out in our reconnaissance testing every possible way, and eventually find the one.
It isn't something that can be proved or disproved with indisputable arguments based on philosophy, or even belief. We murder "impossible" with the gentle weapon of our presence, our presence and careful looking.
it is awesome, indeed.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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It isn't something that can be proved or disproved with indisputable arguments based on philosophy, or even belief. We murder "impossible" with the gentle weapon of our presence, our presence and careful looking.
Sounds like a good description of meditation and other inner explorations as well.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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it wasn't intended to be an exclusive statement, we must look, that is something very general...
From Eric Shipton's book Blank on the Map
Another strange feature that had caused a good deal of dispute among geographers was the Workmans' Cornice glacier. According to these explorers they had found a glacier which had no outlet, being completely surrounded by mountains. This remarkable glacier lay in the angle formed by the Hispar south wall and by the Biafo west wall, and although never actually reached, yet it had been observed from all sides. Sir Martin Conway denied the physical possibility of an enclosed glacier, on the ground that for thousands of years snow must have been pouring into it, and that either the resulting ice would have piled up and over-flowed the barrier wall, or melted and found an outlet as water. The Workmans retorted that they had observed correctly, and appealed to the argumentum ad hominem- Sir Martin Conway "not having seen the glacier in question nor its barriers" - leaving the controversy to be renewed by us after a lapse of nearly thirty years. Shipton and Spender had derided the idea of a completely enclosed glacier, while Auden and I supported the Doctor and Mrs. Workman - more, perhaps, from chivalrous motives than for any scientific reason. So upon me lay the task of establishing (I hoped) the truth of the Workmans' assertion and of confounding the scientific skeptics a consummation always desirable, if seldom attainable.
…
After I rejoined the Sherpas we followed down the right bank, passing great logs of juniper which made me long to camp and start a fire. After a fortnight without wood, I felt quite guilty at passing all this fuel without adding some to our loads, forgetting that we were going down the glacier and not up. Two miles on we reached the snout of the glacier and a grazing village of tumble-down stone huts. Conversation with the inhabitants was not easy, but we managed to get a few eggs and learnt that the village from which the shepherds came was Bisil in the main Basha valley. We could now identify the nullah we were in as that marked on the map as the Kushuchun Lungma. It is difficult to understand how the Workmans failed to suspect some connection between the large stream issuing from this nullah and their Cornice glacier, when they affirmed so positively that it had no outlet. In a drab world it would be refreshing to report the discovery of a glacier flowing uphill, or even of one which did not flow at all. It gives me no pleasure, therefore, to have to affirm that this glacier behaved as others do. To many - schoolmasters and parents, editors and politicians, for instance - correcting the mistakes of others is a congenial task. As it is more usual for me to give than to receive opportunities for performing this pleasant duty, I ought to have rejoiced, but I can honestly say that to tramp down the Cornice glacier, hoping every moment to reach an impasse and finding none, was as sorry a business as any that has fallen to my lot.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Sounds like a good description of meditation and other inner explorations as well.
The problem encountered with meditation in this regard has to do with the inevitable invocation of faith---much like the default position encountered in faith-based religious life or spirituality in general. The problem of unravelling an inner conundrum or apparent mystery without the capacity to compare and generalize is a difficult and perhaps insurmountable one .
If the meditator encounters what he/she considers some nugget of experiential truth about the inner experience ---how can it be ascertained that the subjective perception of this truth is not an illusion?Science itself ,operating in the objective world overflowing with verifiable comparisons and reliable precedent often gets things wrong---so how can a meditator know that they are wrong about something encountered in the specialized brain state of meditation?
Faith?
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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If the meditator encounters some nugget of truth about the inner experience how can it be ascertained that the subjective perception of this truth is not an illusion? . . . so how can a meditator know that they are wrong about something encountered in the specialized brain state of meditation? Faith?
I have raised this question many times. At one point JL criticized my use of the word "illusion" (he was correct in doing so). Those who meditate will point to thousands of years of guided meditation that has resulted in shared epiphanies . . . that may or may not reflect anything other than mind games having little to nothing to do with the real world.
The more one works at a project, the greater one perceives the value of the project.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Those who meditate will point to thousands of years of guided meditation that has resulted in shared epiphanies
You know there may be an interesting point of comparison here between these "shared epiphanies" and the problem of Near Death Experiences or NDEs.
Raymond Moody, MD was a leading researchers who coined the term NDE:
He’s boiled the typical NDE down to a few key features. First, there’s a strange kind of noise, alternately described as a ringing or a buzzing. There is a sense of blissful peace, and often an out-of-body experience (feeling as if one is floating above one’s body and observing it from that vantage point). There’s that light at the end of the tunnel, being met by loved ones, angels, or other religious figures, and a kind of “life review”—seeing one’s life flash before one’s eyes.
Remember these NDEs seem to be shared in the above general form by thousands of individuals.
However:
Why do so many people see a light at the end of the tunnel? Susan Blackmore, a psychology professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol, thinks she might have an explanation: neural noise. During cardiac arrest, in the throes of death, the brain is deprived of oxygen, causing brain cells to fire rapidly and quite randomly in the visual cortex. There are lots of cells firing in the middle, and fewer towards the outer edge, producing white light in the center fading into dark at the outer edges. That feeling of peace and well-being might be due to the fact that the brain is pumping out endorphins in response to pain, which can produce a dream-like state of euphoria. That same cerebral anoxia might also cause the strange buzzing or ringing sound people claim to hear when they enter an NDE.
Furthermore:
Karl Jansen has managed to induce NDEs with ketamine, a hallucenogenic related to PCP, but far less destructive; it’s an anesthetic that works not just by dulling pain, but by creating a dissociative state. According to Jansen, the conditions that give rise to NDEs—low oxygen, low blood flow, low blood sugar, and so forth—can kill brain cells, and the brain often responds by triggering a flood of chemicals very similar to ketamine to protect those cells, which would produce “out of body” sensations and possibly even hallucinations. Jansen claims his approach can reproduce all the main elements Moody attributes to NDEs
I have cited just a couple of currently handy examples of the recent explorations of neuroscience and psychology on this controversial subject.
Of course NDEs is a murky and complex subject . It may one of the few areas of inquiry in which Carl Jung's "collective unconscious " just might shed some new light.
Edit: what I meant to say by invoking Jung in this connection has to do with what appears to me to be two distinct salient aspects of many NDEs:
A) Strictly sensational physiological manifestations , like the proverbial light at the end of a tunnel (or in the distance) and floating out of the body or above it.
B) Complex iconic dream-like images and action sequences ---such as angelic figures, meeting relatives, and past life reviews.
A in the above might find some relatively easier explanations.
B in the above not so easy.
Essentially we may be in the same position Jung was in which eventually led to his analytical and theoretical explanations for the persistence of archetypal images exhibiting the same meaning in the ordinary nocturnal dreams across thousands of his patients.
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Bushman
Social climber
Elk Grove, CA
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'Rocketing into the Fourth Dimension and Falling Back to Earth'
Putting all whimsy aside, I have decided throw in and voice my opinion on the question of, "What is Mind?" The best way I have to convey this is though a personal accounting of my experiences with the subject.
About five years ago I began amateur stargazing in earnest, which rekindled the interest in science and space exploration I had as a boy. At the same time, I still struggled with the issue of science vs. religion and would constantly enter philosophical debates with friends and family members. I was raised in the Protestant church, and my father, a minister in Southern California, and my grandparents from east Texas indoctrinated me into Christianity with sermons and whippings, the accepted method of enlightenment for boys during the early 1960s.
As a teenager, I rebelled from this god of punishment and the religious views of my family, and became an agnostic, but held onto a deep resentment towards any religion that offered the promise of eternal reward at the price of a lifetime of sacrifice.
Being at war with myself over all of this, whenever I saw people of religion or government violently exerting their will over the rights of other people, I would feel rage. What right did anyone have to force upon others their own doctrine of what to think or believe? We are reminded daily as we see in the news the examples of this form of tyranny, of the constant wars over political ideology being fought around the world, and the continuing repression and/or assassinations of those who champion the causes of human rights.
I took LSD for the first time as a teenager, in Tuolumne Meadows at the base of Lembert Dome in the early 1970s. That experience then, though I was not well equipped to deal with it, was unmistakably the most powerful experience I have ever had with psychedelic drugs. I spent the next dozen years or so of my life in pursuit of repeating the experience, with never the same level of intensity. But I wanted to feel that exotic state of timelessness, to perceive the world with almost alien beauty, to try and view it like a tapestry with a sense of the selfless detachment as I had on that warm summer day at the base of a cliff far from home in my budding youth. As both frightening and moving as these experiences were, I was caught unaware of the slow and sobering journey that lie ahead through adolescence and adulthood. After much pain and some failings, by my early thirties, I resolved to put away all desire for mind altering substances. So armed, I embarked upon several years of clean and sober climbing, relegating the memory of my drinking and drugging years to the 'coming of age' period of my life.
On my last foray onto El Cap in the summer of 1993, my partner and I chose the worst heat wave weekend to be on the rock. After the grueling approach, fixing rope, and the grimy base bivouac, we started up, not fully prepared for three more days on Lurking Fear. With two haul bags full of gear and water bottles; we had planned for a two day ascent, who would think six gallons would not be enough in the 105 degree heat. It was good climbing, but we blew through our water and were down to a couple quarts near the end of day two. My partner took a bruising 30 footer out of an expanding flake and so I took all the leads from there.
By sunset, I was dehydrated, and flamed out in the wide steep crack below Thanksgiving ledge. Not wanting to risk a battering fall, I back cleaned as I down climbed and took the dirty corner crack to the left. Easy aid, but gardening the dirt filled crack in the dark took me hours, as I pulled up a headlamp, more water, and gear on the haul line part way up the pitch. By the time I reached Thanksgiving ledge it was ten thirty at night. I was so dry from all the munge dust that fits of coughing brought up chunks of skin torn from the back of my throat. We found a gallon of water in the back of cave on the ledge. It felt like Christmas champagne as we sipped water from little fruit cans in our hole near the top of the ‘captain’ that night.
In the morning the climbing eased to 4th class a couple pitches above the big ledge, and I sat looking out to the west from the belay while my partner followed the last 5th class pitch. With a cool breeze, water, and some morning shade, I was feeling rehydrated and refueled by our last reserves of water and some hard candy. That's when I noticed something in the high cirrus clouds to the southwest. There appeared to be words and letters written in the clouds in some strange foreign language that I could not read. The strange writing looked somewhat Arabic, and was tinted in pink and purple as it floated in the sky. As I blinked and rubbed my eyes, the words moved and waved in gentle ripples. At first I thought it was the euphoria of topping out on another big wall, but then I realized that what was happening to my mind was due to a heightened state of exhaustion, coupled with the need to keep my composure for an extended period of time. This experience, the most intense I have ever had with a clear mind, was a natural high. As my partner and I scrambled towards the top, I immediately returned to a more normal state of awareness while focusing on finding the descent.
Three years later, after spending nine months hobbling around on crutches due to surgery on a blown out ankle, I was fortunate to climb for another season. With an ankle that wouldn't bend all the way out and a wrist that was constantly taped to relieve the stress from severe tendon damage, I decided at the ripe young age of thirty nine to retire from climbing and find other interests. Work, traveling, grandfather duties, following auto racing, flying model airplanes, woodworking, and fixing old machinery; these diversions have kept me mostly busy since I stopped climbing.
On a deeper level, like many others, I have still struggled to reconcile the religious ideology pumped into me during childhood with the more progressive ideas that I hinge my thinking on today. The nagging obsession to answer these few basic questions about life has always possessed me; what is the meaning of life? What will happen after I die? Is there a god? In 2010 I read the book 'God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything' by Christopher Hitchens, when everything clicked. I knew enough of history, politics, philosophy, and religion to make the connection; that the persecution and oppression of new ideas and free thinking was a measured conspiracy by church and state, a continuing effort by those of religious orders and political hierarchies to silence anyone who threatens or opposes their power over the lives of billions throughout thousands of years of human history. As I read, the memories washed over me, of the years I spent living in fear of retribution from a punishing god who would condemn me for my weakest animal tendencies and human folly, the sure conviction I had from an early age that I would be punished for my defiance against this primitive and unjust god, and the knowledge that if such a god exists my actions would entitle me to an eternity of incineration and torture.
There was never a god in my opinion. Never again would the words or explanations by ‘men of faith’ at the death of a loved one or during time of emotional need suffice. Never again would these concepts such as god’s will, faith, redemption, resurrection, providence, or the state of our eternal souls puzzle me. In my view, such grandiose ideas of human sanctity are a form of arrogance. Conversely, what I know of some eastern religious practices is that I must perform meditation well in this life in order find enlightenment, or be reincarnated until I do so. There is no scientific evidence that we even have souls, let alone that one would be eternal. I had the good fortune to live twelve years of life with a golden retriever of such loyalty and devotion that I have often considered him to be of more value to society than many of our members of congress. What clergyman would pray over his departed soul and intercede to usher him to his just rewards in an eternity of canine nirvana I ask? I’d had enough. Today I consider myself to be an atheist, and one who prefers to look to physics for explanations into the origin of the cosmos, and to evolution and neuroscience for explanations having to do with the development of the human mind.
As my interest in physics and astronomy continues to grow, my views are tempered by the fact that through science we only know a small portion of what there is to know or what will be discovered. I also realize that as a civilization we have stressed our planet to the point where we soon will face extinction if we continue to cause the release of carbon into the atmosphere. But through science I have found a newer and broader understanding of our natural world. I have experienced a profound shift in my thinking, a paradigm for a new way of viewing our existence.
As I have studied the night sky through my telescope and seen the planets and moons move through though their orbits, witnessing with awe and wonder the star clusters and nebulae within our galaxy, and mentally mapping the position of some of the other galaxies to find them again and again with binoculars or the naked eye, I fully realize the tenuous perch we inhabit on the side of this spiraling orbiting planet, free falling through space, warmed to a fertile temperature zone as we orbit in the grip of a star. And this star hurls among a cloud of billions of stars, swirling in the grip and gravity of a super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, a galaxy spanning a hundred thousand light years across, a tiny speck in a universe connected by strands of speck sized galactic clusters resembling a web, stretching and expanding. And from what is presently believed by physicist and their data, these galaxies, have been hurtling in all directions in accelerating velocities from the center of the universe since the Big Bang happened almost 14 billion years ago.
As I have contemplated the many theories and concepts posited by today's physicists, the quantum theories of subatomic particles and their bizarre properties, the macro level of astrophysics, M theory, the Multiverse, and the predictions by scientists of future Star Trek type technologies, I feel more positive than ever that our civilization might overcome some of its major deficiencies and find a way to reverse the effects of global warming and the dire consequences of a runaway greenhouse effect on earth. I also feel more positive and uplifted by predictions that a surviving human species might someday overcome their self inflicted strife, and embrace the exciting possibility that our progeny would learn to travel to other planets and other stars long before those that remain, only few billion years from now, will face eminent destruction when enveloped by a dying star.
Regarding the question of mind; I can identify four levels of growth that my mind has gone through during my life.
1. The indoctrination of fundamentalist/evangelist views of a Christian upbringing.
2. The liberal, progressive, and revolutionary views of the 1960s and 1970s.
3. A coming of age and finding stability and responsibility in adulthood, (selling out?).
4. Embracing atheism and a scientific view of our universe.
I have also listed the emotional and philosophical journey of my mind in this category.
1. When I was a child I trusted in god and the arms of my family to keep me safe and warm.
2. As an adolescent I lost hope in religion and family and relied upon fate, with no purpose or direction to guide me
3. As a teenager I became hooked on thrill seeking, and told myself that the pursuit of adventure was the only worthwhile goal.
4. As a young man I experienced the death and loss of a close family member, I struggled with addiction, and I found comfort in the love of a good woman which could only be gained through fealty.
5. As youth waned I struggled through adversity to cast off the trappings of youth while learning to help maintain a family and secure a living.
6. In middle age I found adversity to be the norm, and began to understand the foolishness of my youth and the limitations of my mortality.
7. As years went by and loved ones passed, I saw the frailty and suffering of my infirm spouse, finding no solace to be had by any god, nor any evidence of a benevolent being in the universe.
8. As summer wanes to the autumn of my life, I begin to feel the weight and wear of my years, and I wonder sometimes, am I as lost and clueless as in my youth?
9. Of what little I have learned of truth in my life, some things are certain;
a. Life goes by too quickly for us to even understand just how quickly it goes by.
b. Love can be the only thing that matters when all else is lost and stripped away by disease, hardship, tragedy, and death.
c. Laughter can comfort and hurt at the same time, while pain is just... painful.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Love can be the only thing that matters when all else is lost and stripped away by disease, hardship, tragedy, and death.
Yup.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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So it seems we reach an agreement. Whether we are more interested in science or subjective experiences like meditation, more looking and more loving is good.
Speaking of which, Todd Murphy whom certain people were quick to dismiss because his talks were using models which have since been supplemented, was/is looking for scientific explanations of subjective experiences which people have had.
He talked about being able to produce the sensed presence in the lab with a very weak magnetic force in the "god helmet". He never mentioned the third man experienced by so many explorers but it would seem they come from the same area of the brain.It's hard to see though, what magnetic pulses, sensory deprivation and exhaustion have in common though. It seems every phenomenon of the brain is just frustratingly complex.
To me, all of these experiences can be approached impersonally as through science alone, or through a religious format, with the meaning already spelt out, or through pure personal subjectivity where a person supplies any meaning themselves according to their background. What seems to work least well in my view is the traditional stance of the philosophers, that one can understand them through pure reasoning.
And I agree with jgill that the danger of any human endeavor that one invests a great deal of time in, is that it is easy to lose perspective on its more universal significance. I think this applies to meditation, rock climbing, science, or dysfunctional relationships among others.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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In nearly all experiences, oddly, this "Third Man" speaks, unseen, from behind and to the right.
If this is true then it is probably due to the left hemisphere of the brain taking over in very stressful situations.
Also:
The left hemisphere of the brain dominates over the right in processing different sounds. Specifically, the left hemisphere dominates in processing rapidly changing sounds such as in speech, and the right hemisphere dominates in processing prolonged tones such as in music.
Furthermore, the left hemisphere , in general, not only contains sharper reasoning powers but tends to be associated with:
The left is most active when recalling happy memories, meditating on love for another, and during the expansiveness of grandiosity or mania. The left hemisphere is even preferentially more active among people free of depression and less active among the unhappy.
If one is facing perhaps lurking or imminent death then it definitely pays to be able to think clearly, hear and see well, be somewhat manic and remain upbeat. LOL
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Then you'd advocate for an experience simply for it's own sake. Which, I suppose, works for many.
That's a tricky issue, especially I would think, in the rock climbing community. Our actions have long term consequences.
For me, the more rational and mechanistic approaches and the more personal approaches both carry the danger of not having enough ethics attached,so if we are transitioning to a new era without traditional belief systems, how do we create a sense of ethics?
I think we should all be thinking about how to come up with a generalized set of them, free from religious and cultural trappings. I think this could be done in the modern societies of the world anyway and already is.
Think of how quickly views on gay marriage changed on the part of the majority when a general ethical principle of equality of opportunity was brought to bear on the specifics of certain traditions that opposed it.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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I think we should all be thinking about how to come up with a generalized set of them, free from religious and cultureal trappings. I think this could be done in the modern societies of the world anyway.
Think what you are saying here Jan. In order to address the possibility of specific moral violations by scientists, not covered by existing law, you are suggesting a politically correct council of elders in the form of a "code" --- somehow miraculously wise and neutral enough not to contain demonstrable traces of religion or culture.
This code would presumably instruct science what it can or can't do based upon the peculiar but generalized prejudiced attitudes of those responsible for cooking up the code.
Let's hope that half-baked idea never sees the light of day. It is a prescription for further tyranny and centralized control under the misplaced guise of altruism.
So very familiar sounding.
Even if such silliness did come about it would be violated straightaway at the first opportunity for a fruitful discovery or a line of inquiry proscribed or not proscribed by the stupid code of conduct .
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