James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© January 24, 2020
A READER WRITES
Jim.
Had a wonderful book by Giulio Tononi; gave it to a friend. Will search for his “integrated information theory.”
Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking ... I believe I do some of that; makes it hard for others to get my drift about topics. Correlates a bit with quantum theory as it sits alongside the simple “yes or no” dualism.
The reptilian mind... reminds me of a book by Carl Sagan, written way back when.
Jim, it seems that our paths crosses at many a junction where my low road touches your high one. Funny as it goes ...
Henry
MY RESPONSE
Henry,
There is no high road or low road, at the moment. There is no road at all. We are stumbling through the chaos of a dark forest trying to purchase order, but not too wisely.
That is because the road to the future no longer emanates from within. Existence today bombards our senses from without with incessant clatter devoid of music.
We both know this. Our long lives have taught us to respect our consciences that give credence to our moral centers and our natural guidance system from within. Consequently, we take failure and setbacks in stride, as we do modest achievements, because we have never lost our way.
On the other hand, we can smell a phony across the room or across the airwaves, waxing genuine with false sincerity revving up hedonistic appetites with empty promises.
Henry, we are outliers with opinions; not to attract idolaters or indulgent readers but to open minds to the dangers, and yes, possibilities of the times.
Life has been a struggle but we have persevered with insights learned that we would like to share, but alas, there is no audience.
People don’t want to be reminded of their sins of omission or commission. They want to be reassured, entertained and lifted out of morass. Politicians are at the ready to fill that void. They are selling the mitigation of our sins without the penalty of consequences or necessity of penance. They preach pleasure without pain, benefits without sacrifice, something for nothing, happiness without sorrow.
One political party is as guilty of this deception as the other as neither has any sense of the painful consequences of false hope, as each cynically believes mendacity is the only way to being electable.
They may call themselves “liberals” or “conservatives,” but they are neither. They have more in common with Shakespeare’s Shylock of the “Merchant of Venice,” driven more by self-interest and validation then love and compassion. Ironically, they aspire to change the world without the necessity of changing themselves.
Culture, identity, role relationships, the place of God, church and state in society have been shattered. Like the two faces of Janus, no one seems to know whether they are coming or going. Decay and decadence stand tall on the hill while love and compassion cower obsequiously in the bushes in the valley. Small wonder, we find ourselves in Nowhere Land.
You and I have lived the better part of the last century, and are now in this new century in the late evening of our lives.
We are survivors who have been able, despite all the pressures to do otherwise, to hold on to our values, beliefs, passions, and sense of history and humanity. We are neither do-gooders nor detached from doing, but feel most people can figure out things for themselves.
After a century of suicidal warfare in which more than 100 million lives were lost, not on the battlefields as soldiers, but as collateral damage during the insanity of two World Wars, we have lost our way, without discernible insight as to where we are much less where we are going. This is demonstrated with outrageous force on the Internet, in social networks, on television and in film, in music and literature, as communal and community life has no sense of embarrassment or appreciation of the absurd.
Ordinary people during the last century attempted to live private modest lives but have become unwitting victims of cultural insanity. With war, historical and sacred landmarks have disappeared, as have the magnificent architecture of churches, monuments and stately buildings across Europe and Asia.
While this destruction has been visible and palpable, the emotional toll on civilians across the globe lingers in fractured lives; lives that escaped the dread in one sense only to fall victim to it in another. Civilization has become unglued with profligate addiction, permissiveness, pornography, hedonism, materialism, surrealism, which has in turn fostered bizarre behavior as the new norm, not to overlook mental illness, hate crimes and gratuitous violence.
Children are born innocent but often take on the social contagions of their culture and time. The nightly television news of any metropolitan city in the United States offers a litany of the carnage that has occurred in the previous 24 hours with young people often the perpetrators of such acts. Why?
My! What a time Shakespeare would have with our times. While rejecting the idea of God, many in the political, social and economic sphere attempt to be like God in quest of wealth, celebrity, identity, power and invincibility.
Meanwhile, we have a tragic comedy going on in Washington, DC at the moment giving people an escape from their own miseries, and an opportunity to fixate on our national collective biases.
Henry, we are limping into the future without a guidance system as the United States gravitates to the high theater of the absurd.
Indeed, we no longer have a clear sense of what it means to be a man or a woman, a husband or a wife, a boy or a girl, a teacher or a student, a worker or a manager, a member of a group, be it a church, a school, a family, or a profession, or, what it means to be an individual, or even what is the difference between right and wrong, or good and bad behavior.
Evidence of this anxiety is apparent in the number of books being written on identity, while the lack of identity is demonstrated provocatively in the explosive growth of the tattoo industry. It would seem everyone desires to become a human billboard advertising who they are.
Speaking of advertising, we gravitate to what advertisers tell us is important even if it is not self-serving but that is a subject for another time.
You mention quantum theory. I led with that reference in my previous missive. I failed, however, to mention German Nobel Laureate in Physics, Werner Heisenberg, who found holes in Einstein’s theory of relativity with his “Uncertain Principle.” This shattered the precision once thought to exist in the subatomic world.
Einstein, who sought but unsuccessfully, to develop a “Unified Theory,” had a problem from the beginning with quantum mechanics because it was not tidy with him suggesting that “God didn’t believe in throwing the dice.”
But we find God is not tidy, He is not a good housekeeper, and He has treated Nature as if a gambler, purposely making it a habit like “throwing the dice,” causing embarrassment to those who still believe they have a handle on existence.
Perhaps that is our salvation, imprecision, or recognizing that life is primarily existence in a fog, suggesting that we best make the most of it "as is."
Finally, Carl Sagan refers to Paul D. MacLean’s “triune brain” in “The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence” (1977), which relates to the Reptilian Complex, the Limbic System and the Neocortex.
Culture, identity, role relationships, the place of God, church and state in society have been shattered. Like the two faces of Janus, no one seems to know whether they are coming or going. Decay and decadence stand tall on the hill while love and compassion cower obsequiously in the bushes in the valley. Small wonder, we find ourselves in Nowhere Land.
You and I have lived the better part of the last century, and are now in this new century in the late evening of our lives.
We are survivors who have been able, despite all the pressures to do otherwise, to hold on to our values, beliefs, passions, and sense of history and humanity. We are neither do-gooders nor detached from doing, but feel most people can figure out things for themselves.
After a century of suicidal warfare in which more than 100 million lives were lost, not on the battlefields as soldiers, but as collateral damage during the insanity of two World Wars, we have lost our way, without discernible insight as to where we are much less where we are going. This is demonstrated with outrageous force on the Internet, in social networks, on television and in film, in music and literature, as communal and community life has no sense of embarrassment or appreciation of the absurd.
Ordinary people during the last century attempted to live private modest lives but have become unwitting victims of cultural insanity. With war, historical and sacred landmarks have disappeared, as have the magnificent architecture of churches, monuments and stately buildings across Europe and Asia.
While this destruction has been visible and palpable, the emotional toll on civilians across the globe lingers in fractured lives; lives that escaped the dread in one sense only to fall victim to it in another. Civilization has become unglued with profligate addiction, permissiveness, pornography, hedonism, materialism, surrealism, which has in turn fostered bizarre behavior as the new norm, not to overlook mental illness, hate crimes and gratuitous violence.
Children are born innocent but often take on the social contagions of their culture and time. The nightly television news of any metropolitan city in the United States offers a litany of the carnage that has occurred in the previous 24 hours with young people often the perpetrators of such acts. Why?
My! What a time Shakespeare would have with our times. While rejecting the idea of God, many in the political, social and economic sphere attempt to be like God in quest of wealth, celebrity, identity, power and invincibility.
Meanwhile, we have a tragic comedy going on in Washington, DC at the moment giving people an escape from their own miseries, and an opportunity to fixate on our national collective biases.
Henry, we are limping into the future without a guidance system as the United States gravitates to the high theater of the absurd.
Indeed, we no longer have a clear sense of what it means to be a man or a woman, a husband or a wife, a boy or a girl, a teacher or a student, a worker or a manager, a member of a group, be it a church, a school, a family, or a profession, or, what it means to be an individual, or even what is the difference between right and wrong, or good and bad behavior.
Evidence of this anxiety is apparent in the number of books being written on identity, while the lack of identity is demonstrated provocatively in the explosive growth of the tattoo industry. It would seem everyone desires to become a human billboard advertising who they are.
Speaking of advertising, we gravitate to what advertisers tell us is important even if it is not self-serving but that is a subject for another time.
You mention quantum theory. I led with that reference in my previous missive. I failed, however, to mention German Nobel Laureate in Physics, Werner Heisenberg, who found holes in Einstein’s theory of relativity with his “Uncertain Principle.” This shattered the precision once thought to exist in the subatomic world.
Einstein, who sought but unsuccessfully, to develop a “Unified Theory,” had a problem from the beginning with quantum mechanics because it was not tidy with him suggesting that “God didn’t believe in throwing the dice.”
But we find God is not tidy, He is not a good housekeeper, and He has treated Nature as if a gambler, purposely making it a habit like “throwing the dice,” causing embarrassment to those who still believe they have a handle on existence.
Perhaps that is our salvation, imprecision, or recognizing that life is primarily existence in a fog, suggesting that we best make the most of it "as is."
Finally, Carl Sagan refers to Paul D. MacLean’s “triune brain” in “The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence” (1977), which relates to the Reptilian Complex, the Limbic System and the Neocortex.
My interest in the Reptilian Brain (for The Fisher Paradigm©™) is in the context of the mechanisms of intuitive and survival instincts, whereas Sagan goes off on a tangent about the reptilian brain's dinosaur function and dream world where “dragons can be heard, hissing and rasping, and the dinosaurs thunder still.” Perhaps this is the book of Sagan's that you read. I'll say more about this in my new book.
Thank you for listening.
Be always safe,
Jim
Thank you for listening.
Be always safe,
Jim
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