Taomeow

Neurophysiologists' consensus seems to be converging on this model lately. Apparently, natural neural networks (brains) operate on two counter streams of information. The first stream usually comes from the senses, the second, from the "prognostic circuit," i.e. from those areas of the brain in which the models of the surrounding world are formed. In this "predictive loop," a constant evolution of competing models takes place -- "survival of the fittest models of reality," so to speak. Those models survive that produce the lowest amounts of inaccuracies, inconsistencies between forecast and observation. However, what discrepancies between forecast and observation detected by a healthy brain generate is attention and interest. For example, we hear the ticking of a clock, and a ticking clock pattern quickly emerges in the "predictive loop," producing the expected ticking sound. The signal from this model is synchronized with the signal coming from the ears -- and voila, they extinguish each other and we just stop paying attention to the ticking, because it is predictable and uninteresting. That's the mechanism of getting "bored" -- uninterested and withdrawing attention: full predictability of the model of reality we are presented with. But if a second clock is introduced -- and its ticking is not synchronized with that of the first -- we will be on our guard: what is this new signal?.. Do I need to find out?.. So boredom goes, attention comes. The brain starts paying attention in order to predict what will happen in the next second (not in detail -- no brain is able to do it in detail, there will not be enough neurons -- but at the level of a generalized forecast, our brains are capable of predicting events quite well). Attention is a mechanism in the brain adapted to work with surprises, with poorly predictable phenomena. If either no new phenomena are introduced or attention is not fine-tuned enough to discern them, it has nothing to apply itself to. A healthy brain continuously works against boredom, by discerning finer and finer inaccuracies and inconsistencies between forecast and observation and creating more and more accurate models of reality. A brain that is unable to focus on finer, subtler, more hidden, less obvious inconsistencies and inaccuracies chooses a model of reality that is both the most immediately available one and the least accurate. In our time, the most available and the least accurate ones overwhelmingly come from controlled/controlling sources that mass dispense them. From the POV of brain physiology, looks like a brain that accepts such models is both ill-informed (because it readily accepts a model of reality full of inaccuracies and inconsistencies, mistaking it for an accurate and consistent one) and chronically bored. To overcome boredom, it falls for the crudest possible stimuli, because that's what it has been trained to focus on.

A cat traffic light in Zelenogradsk, Russia. They also have a cat dormitory and cat food vending machines.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” -- H.P. Lovecraft

9x10=90 8X9=72 7X8=56 6x7=42 5x6=30 4x5=20 3x4=12 A hole in the pattern (5 and 4 missing) gets filled in accordance with its already established algorithm -- and that is what gives the complete and accurate picture. The point was, noticing and not ignoring holes in observable patterns can make or break assembling an accurate picture. Which can't be done if only the known elements are looked at -- one has to extrapolate into the unknown and see if it fits the observed pattern. If it does, we're good, we're getting a complete picture even if our available data is full of holes like Swiss cheese.

Pick up the maracas, please. "It means nothing" means that among other things it doesn't mean you can't do your genius dance.

I did formulate the premise (30 seconds etc.) a bit too harshly and I have to retract that. I just got carried away by my own thoughts about how nice it would have been to subject all those people who are entrenched in their spell-induced beliefs to a battery of tests, designed by experts, that would scientifically prove to them they're stupid idiots. They do respect "experts" and "scientific proof," don't they? -- so they would be forced to accept the verdict. Alas, it's impossible. And of course I didn't mean that there's a direct correspondence between seeing, with ease, a 2D pattern (which is what the "math test" might reveal) or even a visual-spacial 3D one, and a far more broad-spectrum ability to see 3D patterns as cognitive "holograms" -- "the bigger picture," "the whole shebang," etc.. The ability and training to accomplish the latter may or may not coincide with the ability to see and interpret the former -- remember my example of how visual-spacial 3D competence in "dyslexic" kids may actually be in the way of their 2D competence? So, if you didn't get the right answer (which is 12) at first glance, it means nothing whatsoever, rather than that "your pattern recognition skills suck." Apologies all around.

Personally, I try to deactivate 2D spells by training and using (rather than suppressing, as our education and conditioning require) my pattern recognition skills, the machinery for which is naturally wired into our brains (as well as systemically) as 3D pattern processors. In other words, any and all 2D spells I'm bombarded with I try to organize in my mind into 3D networks of relations and interactions. A process also known as "connecting the dots." Enough 2D dots adequately connected invariably form a 3D pattern -- and then it's up to me to verify its correspondence to the 3D patterns in the real spacetime world, where things like introspection (the past) and prediction (the future) are integrated into the picture, making it more complete and accurate. The spell-breaking magic of the process consists in those pictures actually getting less complex. The multitude of 2D dots in our world create a false image of complexity whereas the underlying 3D picture may just emerge as perfectly clear and recognizable at a glance. Our whole education and conditioning system, on the contrary, demands that we use 2D cognition and suppress 3D perceptions -- which among other things explains the so-called "dyslexia" classified as a disorder, whereas what it really is is above-average competence in pattern recognition in 3D. This above-average level of processing is what makes it hard or nearly impossible for many "dyslexic" kids to interpret 2D images. In all cases where there's no other kinds of health impairment (until education and conditioning induce psychological trauma), a "dyslexic" is a 3D child of a 3D world who is not falling under the 2D spell with ease. For such children, a letter or a word -- an object that is not supposed to be perceived as 3D in order to be recognized -- is viscerally unnatural, and they are therefore instinctively trying to look at those images as natural 3D objects. I.e. they try to assess and interpret the depth, height, width, view from left-right-above-below, etc. -- whereas in order to gain "reading proficiency" they must cut out those "extra" dimensions and only see in 2D. Most children can be trained to lose parts of their natural perceptions in order to focus on only those aspects that are not found in the natural world -- e.g. the "sound" and "meaning" of a manmade 2D picture that "is" a letter -- but the so-called "dyslexics" struggle with that, because their 3D perceptions are resistant to being shut down. At the same time their competence in the actual 3D realm is often astounding. Nicola Tesla would be one example. He invented his devices in his head, beginning to end, and would put them on paper only toward being able to show them to others. When his assistants would tell him, OK, now that we have the blueprints we need to build the prototype and test it to see whether it works, he responded, sure, you can build the prototype and test it, or you can go ahead and build the final version and assume it has already been tested a thousand times -- it makes no difference, it will work exactly as described, I tested it in my mind. That was his extent of 3D competence -- if he built a 3D object in his 3D head (leaving higher dimensions out of the conversation for a while), building exactly the same one in the actual 3D world couldn't possibly work differently. Tesla's mother, a peasant who, according to him, was a greater and much more brilliant inventor than himself, was "wired" like that too, but without any education or "credentials" the only way she could use that genius in our world was by making brilliant improvements of household utensils and inventing new ones, unique to her home. And aside from her son, no one in the world realized she was a genius. Takes one to understand one. And now for a little test of pattern recognition skills -- if anyone cares to test theirs. You don't have to tell me or anyone how you did, just offering for self-introspection purposes, no one's grading. However, here's a tip: if you don't find the solution in 30 seconds, your pattern recognition skills suck -- and you should ask yourself why your understanding of how the world works only allows for coincidences, not patterns. Is it because it contains no patterns, or is it because you can't see them? You can't see them because there's none and those who see them where there's none are you-know-what theorists -- or because patterns are indeed there but you can't see them?.. Chicken and egg...

Girlfriend doesn't mind.

If anyone whom I see as being in dire need of good advice on the subject cared to take mine, here's what I would suggest. If you hear someone's opinion that differs from your own, don't be in a rush to slap them with a label prefabricated for the occasion. And don't ask them about their credentials (sarcastically, as a way to imply they dare not have an opinion that differs from your own.) Instead, try asking them why they think what they think. A simple "why do you think so" is the inroad into an exchange of opinions -- that is, if your goal is building an inroad into human interactions, into any which mind that is not a carbon copy of your own -- rather than a concrete wall, a moat and a fortress against any and all such minds and any and all of their thoughts. Ask them about their experience and understanding. Get curious about how exactly they'd arrived at conclusions that differ from your own. If you can see their point, re-evaluate your own position or don't re-evaluate it, depending on how open you are to the very idea. If you don't believe their experience and don't find their understanding convincing, politely stop the conversation and walk away. Example. Don't ask someone who tells you that they don't want to stick a pin into an electrical outlet for fear of electrical shock if they're an electrician. Ask them "why do you think it's dangerous" instead. Don't ask someone who believes that drunk people should refrain from driving if they're a police officer. Ask them "why do you think it's dangerous" instead. Don't ask someone who asserts that it's not prudent to light a bunch of candles in your home and leave them unattended if they're a fire department chief. Don't ask someone with an opinion about this or that health issue if they're an MD. Most people aren't electricians, police officers, fire department chiefs or MDs. Most people who can cook aren't knowledgeable about all the technicalities of steel, aluminum or cast iron production underlying their pots and pans. Most people who use devices with batteries have no idea about cobalt and lithium mining. Most people who eat food they bought at a supermarket have never farmed in their life. Question their experience and understanding on the basis of "you're this or that label I have for the likes of you" and/or on the basis of "you're not an expert" and be counted as terminally stupid. Ask them about their experience and understanding instead, and have a conversation where you can agree or disagree -- or walk away without such conversation if you are smart enough to comprehend that you actually live on different planets. Your very own planet is not the only one with intelligent life. There's 7.5 billion others and they are not all carbon copies of yours. Let that sink in. Do not invade their planet. Do not nuke it. Do not conquer it. Do not attempt to establish your absolute dictatorship over it. In other words, don't be terminally stupid. Don't be irredeemably evil while thinking you're being righteous. What's righteous on your planet is irredeemably evil in someone else's world. Live in your own and let live -- or build a bridge of understanding and communicate. This could work on a forum, in real life, or in a Galactic Federation of advanced civilizations. The opposite? Nowhere ever.

Don't know about the people, but all the scarecrows are crooked. -- Issa

In the broad sense, the overall premise of magical thinking (a category into which we should also include religious, atheistic, scientific, and any other kind that entails a "worldview" and an "explanation" not originating in personal sensorium) rests on the assumption that worlds, dimensions, realities exist that intersect with our own and can influence it when accessed by someone knowledgeable in how to "summon" their effects into our world. E.g., when people pray to god, whose kingdom is "not of this world," with the goal of soliciting god's intervention into "this" world. Or when a shaman undertakes a "journey" to the "lower" or "higher" realm toward "soul retrieval" -- the lost soul (or its parts), missing from this realm, is located in another, and brought back to ours by the professional with the know-how. The opposite route is also used -- e.g. when Asians in many countries, during particular ancestors-honoring holidays, burn paper money and paper replicas of fancy clothes, houses, cars, etc. which are symbolic representations meant to materialize in the spirit world inhabited by the departed relatives and serve them there -- because things that are symbolic in our world are thought to be transferable as real into theirs, via particular procedures linking the two worlds and allowing one to influence the other. In this sense, all information that exists in our world as 2D, i.e. not indigenous to our 3D world, "symbolic" rather than "real" in it -- whether letters or images, words or numbers or graphs on pages or pictures or moving pictures on screens -- constitutes practice of 2D magic, i.e. an endeavor whereby our 3D reality is influenced and shaped from the realm of 2D symbols, from another, "lower-dimensional" one. I intend to meditate on differentiating between parts of our 3D world that are real and parts that are symbolic 2D spells. Might yield interesting insights...

You guessed right. I'm the last all natural woman in SoCal. I wouldn't call them "false." They're all natural too. So what if they're filled with air? Air ain't no silicone, and they didn't pay the plastic surgeon to install those bags. By the way, "chicken breasts" was a very clever commercial neologism to introduce. Chickens, notoriously, are not mammals, nor pelicans, so they have no breasts at all. The unconscious associations, particularly powerful in people who were never breastfed enough as infants, of "breasts" with something irresistibly attractive in a primal way as a source of nourishment is the only explanation I can find for the popularity of the driest, least flavorful, most gastronomically uninteresting part of chicken meat.

RIP Thomas Cleary. You are remembered with gratitude. The first time I ever heard this name, many years ago, was from an elderly taoist nun, who believed she was the only ordained American taoist nun back then. She would occasionally mention a guy named Tom, someone she used to hang out with, a translator. She told me about The Taoist Classics he translated, and I wound up buying the first volume. "Chuang-tzu" was the first part of that volume, I opened it, and Chapter 1 was called Freedom. So far so good. I read the opening paragraph. "In the Northern Deep there is a great fish, thousands of miles long. It turns into a giant bird whose back is thousands of miles in size. When it gets aroused and takes to flight, its wings are like clouds covering the sky." I felt right at home right away. Delighted. Taking off on the wings of the great fish-bird Peng.

The season of CA wildfires is approaching. In other places, people worry about hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, blizzards, earthquakes (well, CA worries a bit about earthquakes too, but San Diego is not thought of as the most at-risk area for a big one, and the ones that knock a glass off the edge of your desk, while not quite as cute as when a cat does that, are not particularly unnerving for those who have already experienced a few of those -- well, for a few minutes, yes, but then confirmation bias kicks in and everybody calms down quickly.) Here, we worry about wildfires. They happen every year like clockwork. Almost half of all homes in the US identified as being at risk are in California. Before 1986, a wildfire was contained on average in less than eight days. Since then, the average wildfire has burned for 37 days. Firefighters are quitting in record numbers and new recruits are getting harder to enlist for the job due to extremely low pay. The starting salary for members of the elite "hotshot" team is $13.45 an hour. Firefighters save lives, countless lives, and ideally should be reimbursed at a higher rate than the most heroic of surgeons -- who don't risk their own life while saving someone else's -- but instead they are finding that they could make as much working in a fast food joint, and more on unemployment. In a typical fire, they get exposed to humongous amounts of carcinogenic chemicals, resulting in a very high rate of cancer, resulting in being unable to prove that their illness was job related -- "you could have been exposed to chemicals anywhere." They also have a very high rate of cardiac arrests -- the job is not just stressful, it has its moments of the highest possible stress a human being can endure, both physical and mental. In between shifts they don't get to rest in a hotel -- they sleep in the dirt. Stuff like that. I should stop thinking about... well, about everything. Gautama Buddha is said to have ultimately gained enlightenment as the outcome of discovering that there's suffering in the world. Lucky he. Most people gain nothing but heartache.

Every time someone uses this expression, I get flashbacks of all the movies I've seen, books I've read, stories told by the surviving older people in the family, and visions coming from -- who knows -- ancestral memory, genetic memory, morphogenic fields, whatever -- about concentration camps, death camps. Most often at the forefront of the vision is this SS officer, dressed in his smart black uniform, hysterically screaming, "Death to subhuman conspiracy theorists!!" Sometimes he's NKVD (a forerunner of the KGB), same thing: "Death to the enemy-of-the-people conspiracy theorists!!" Sometimes he's wearing a blue Mao suit and yells, "Death to revisionist conspiracy theorists!!" Sometimes he sports a pith helmet, is dressed in khaki, and is wielding a whip: "Death to the disobedient-to-the-master conspiracy theorists!!" The funny thing is, all of these people were conspiracy perpetrators. They came to power via a conspiracy. Not a conspiracy theory. An actual conspiracy that most of them worked for years or decades to bring to fruition. But it's those who noticed that got slapped with the label. Projection/transference is a bitch.

People who throw around the expression "conspiracy theory" applied indiscriminately to anything and everything that doesn't conform to their indoctrination as a quick-stick label originally implanted into social exchange specifically as a weaponized neuroinvasive cognitive parasite toward eliminating independent thinking and eradicating dissent in any and all areas where indoctrination could otherwise suffer from losing its monopoly on whatever it is designed to sell have blood on their hands.

I guess no one is planning to consider the origin of this elusive cat in the light of the taoist tradition of "leaving the world" and "going into the mountains," hiding away from people and living in seclusion. But I have no trouble envisioning a taoist sage accompanied by her cat on that journey away from the "red dust of the world." Or by several cats if she was a bit of a cat lady. Maybe even goddess Chin Mu had something to do with it.

More English language logic: A wonderful bird is the pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican, He can take in his beak Enough food for a week But I'm damned if I see how the helican!

An intriguing plot. Trevor Rees-Jones, princess Diana's bodyguard, was the only survivor of the car crash that killed the princess. The story goes that he had severe injuries and was kept in a medical coma. The story goes that he completely lost his memory of everything that happened before or after the accident. Career outcome -- he is now head of global security for Astra Zeneca. Where's John Le Carre when you need him.

The end of the world is already here, it's just not evenly distributed. -- A random sage on Reddit

”Fichte laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished. But in his day this was an unattainable ideal: what he regarded as the best system in existence produced Karl Marx. In future such failures are not likely to occur where there is dictatorship. Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.” ”The system, one may surmise, will be something like this: except possibly in the governing aristocracy, all but 5 per cent of males and 30 per cent of females will be sterilized. The 30 per cent of females will be expected to spend the years from eighteen to forty in reproduction, in order to secure adequate cannon fodder.” ”Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.” -- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1952