Brain Science and Nature

[liminal_luke]

Thought this might be of interest to some: Human brain hard-wired for rural tranquility.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-brain-hard-wired-for-rural-tranquillity-8996368.html

Edited April 30, 2017 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

I've maintained for the longest time that cities are not of human origin. 

 

Matter of fact, "rural" environments aren't either.  Sedentary agriculture, the prerequisite for cities, is the other side of the same  coin.  You can't have cities unless you yoke part of the population to the land.  Cities don't feed themselves.  And "rural" environments disintegrate more and more as time passes because the land can take the kind of abuse sedentary agriculture subjects it to only for so long.  Our (?) answer has been to "intensify" the abuse.  Intensive this and intensive that.  Beating the horse harder and harder so it runs faster.  So "rural" populations "escape" the beatings by going to the cities.  Which don't feed themselves. 

 

Wish I was watching this from a neighboring galaxy (as I'm sure someone does), I'd have the popcorn ready. 

[silent thunder]

oof...

 

realizations of this nature and magnitude

strike my awareness like a full kick to the chest

 

oof.

 

Was just talking with my son on our walk this morning, about circadian rhythms and mechanical time and how recent the idea of 5pm on friday is...  how it has nothing to do with how our species developed, or how we naturally operate.  It's been overlayed on our experience and because it happens now, before the age of critical process, it slips into the background and is often never even noticed, let alone interacted with, or questioned.

 

and the magnitude of the energetic influence and fall out effect of that one adjustment in our human process... oof.  I stopped and stood there just saturating in the magnitude of it...

 

for eons... sleeping and waking... following the cycles of seasons.

 

now, beep beep, up and attum... all so hideously 'normal'. 

[gendao]

Yea, and it actually even goes a lot deeper than that article states...!

 

Hence, I've been arguing that the real problem is not free carbon, but DEFORESTATION and WEIRD civilization.

 

Which all keeps "progressively" pushing us further and further away from our natural condition, state, and selves.  We are now becoming the equivalent of chemically-laced, pasteurized, homogenized, sterilized, GMO skim milk refrigerated in plastic bottles sitting up on shelves under the flickering glare of fluorescent lights. 

 

Which is not ever what we evolved to BE!

 

But in focusing on isolated, short term "gains," we've lost sight of all the underlying, subtle losses we've incurred in the process...on all levels, including spiritual.

 

This is well beyond a "divorce" from Mother Earth.  This is pretending that "she" is not even there anymore and doesn't even exist!

Edited June 26, 2017 by gendao

[silent thunder]

potent stuff and well said...

 

again...

 

 

oof.

[Taomeow]

It's a bit comforting to know that I'm not the only one hit with this monster of a feeling...  not the only "weirdo..."

 

@gendao:  however, what you call "WEIRD" is a side effect, not the cause.  China was civilized long before the West...  the difference is very superficial, merely stylistic.  The essence is identical.  Have you read Sima Qian lately?..

 

Whereas deforestation, indeed, is up there with the true causes, and (gasp) the true goals of civilization.

 

It's a war of non-life on life.  Its main weapon throughout history?  To pitch life against life.  Humans against forests (but let's call it "cultivation"), against animals (but let's call it "eliminating predators"), and against each other (but let's first dehumanize the humans we're going to wage war against, it's easier to hate and to hurt what you don't think of as belonging to your own kind, on whatever grounds), against mountains ("mining") and rivers ("irrigation") and prairies ("pastures") and air ("industrialization") and sunlight of the day and darkness of the night ("schedules").  And now let's move on to transhumanism, take the war against life inside the live human being, make a human being more and more machine, less and less life.  Till life is finally gone from "the desert of the real."

 

@ Silent Thunder: yes, the magnitude of it all...  Talk about totalitarian regimes.  Civilization is it.  It doesn't matter what political antics accompany what it's doing, the essence is always the same -- a total, all-encompassing attack on life on earth.

 

Many times I've thought about a movement that could possibly reverse that -- how would that be possible -- and every time I hit a wall.  Not possible.  Someone will in all likelihood post in this very thread pointing out that, whoa, I'm posting this using modern technology, which is supposed to be something to be grateful for instead of complaining, in addition to this being ironic and inconsistent and yada yada.  I mean, think about it.  Instead of sitting with my tribe around a fire pit roasting a bison I'd hunted down with the help of many friends earlier today, joking with children running around offering all kinds of assistance -- more firewood?  more oak leaves for flavoring the smoke, or maybe blackcurrant leaves? -- anything, we'll help in any way so we can eat sooner! -- joking with elders who are not required to do anything anymore unless they feel like it, laughing with my brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces and everybody else's, listening to the medicine woman sing the song of gratitude to the bison for being there when the tribe needed to eat, mending a fishing net, while there's still enough light, for tomorrow's fishing expedition, inhaling the fragrance of the forest and savoring the voices of its countless birds...  instead of all this I have chosen to savor the glorious benefits of a technologically advanced option, sit in front of the computer typing, and then, hooray, watch the "news"!! --

 

-- about, hey, are we finally going to nuke North Korea, or do they have the capabilities to nuke us here in CA first after all?  Oh, don't worry, they don't.  Enjoy the blessings -- the world has delivered its next bit of great news about how it lives right to your doorstep, don't you worry 'bout a thing, every little thing is gonna be all right...  see, I've broken into song now, that's how cheerful the wonders of technology have made me feel as soon as I remembered what it is I'd be otherwise missing. 

 

I don't know what to do to reverse civilization.  But I know where I would have to start if it was at all possible.  One would have to start with reversing the civilized.  With reversing all the lies they've been told about how bad it was before the blessings of civilization -- don't you know, didn't they tell you way back in kindergarten? -- whoa, short miserable lives, cruel and pointless, was all we had, for a million years!! -- and how wonderful it got once enough life has been eliminated from the face of the earth, and how it will get even better once all of it is gone...        

Edited May 1, 2017 by Taomeow

[silent thunder]

 *deep bow of respect*

[liminal_luke]

I don't know what to do to reverse civilization.         

 

Perhaps not, though I like to think your post above is a good start. When the forces that would destroy life gather round, you sound the alarm. You`ve got a forceful way of saying NO to that which is inhuman and cruel.  (Maybe it`s a cat thing?)  Anyway, I think there`s power in that. 

[cold]

Most if not the great majority of us can recognize what inhuman and or cruelty are.

Ignore or act that's the question?

And of course its all to easy to ignore...

 

They came for @@@@@ and I did nothing

 

Shaming students over unpaid lunch bills is one example...

Throwing away a prepared meal due to lack of parental payment is insanity in my opinion.

We should be judged on how we treat the weakest, poorest among us!

[Michael Sternbach]

It's a bit comforting to know that I'm not the only one hit with this monster of a feeling...  not the only "weirdo..."

 

@gendao:  however, what you call "WEIRD" is a side effect, not the cause.  China was civilized long before the West...  the difference is very superficial, merely stylistic.  The essence is identical.  Have you read Sima Qian lately?..

 

Whereas deforestation, indeed, is up there with the true causes, and (gasp) the true goals of civilization.

 

It's a war of non-life on life.  Its main weapon throughout history?  To pitch life against life.  Humans against forests (but let's call it "cultivation"), against animals (but let's call it "eliminating predators"), and against each other (but let's first dehumanize the humans we're going to wage war against, it's easier to hate and to hurt what you don't think of as belonging to your own kind, on whatever grounds), against mountains ("mining") and rivers ("irrigation") and prairies ("pastures") and air ("industrialization") and sunlight of the day and darkness of the night ("schedules").  And now let's move on to transhumanism, take the war against life inside the live human being, make a human being more and more machine, less and less life.  Till life is finally gone from "the desert of the real."

 

@ Silent Thunder: yes, the magnitude of it all...  Talk about totalitarian regimes.  Civilization is it.  It doesn't matter what political antics accompany what it's doing, the essence is always the same -- a total, all-encompassing attack on life on earth.

 

Many times I've thought about a movement that could possibly reverse that -- how would that be possible -- and every time I hit a wall.  Not possible.  Someone will in all likelihood post in this very thread pointing out that, whoa, I'm posting this using modern technology, which is supposed to be something to be grateful for instead of complaining, in addition to this being ironic and inconsistent and yada yada.  I mean, think about it.  Instead of sitting with my tribe around a fire pit roasting a bison I'd hunted down with the help of many friends earlier today, joking with children running around offering all kinds of assistance -- more firewood?  more oak leaves for flavoring the smoke, or maybe blackcurrant leaves? -- anything, we'll help in any way so we can eat sooner! -- joking with elders who are not required to do anything anymore unless they feel like it, laughing with my brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces and everybody else's, listening to the medicine woman sing the song of gratitude to the bison for being there when the tribe needed to eat, mending a fishing net, while there's still enough light, for tomorrow's fishing expedition, inhaling the fragrance of the forest and savoring the voices of its countless birds...  instead of all this I have chosen to savor the glorious benefits of a technologically advanced option, sit in front of the computer typing, and then, hooray, watch the "news"!! --

 

-- about, hey, are we finally going to nuke North Korea, or do they have the capabilities to nuke us here in CA first after all?  Oh, don't worry, they don't.  Enjoy the blessings -- the world has delivered its next bit of great news about how it lives right to your doorstep, don't you worry 'bout a thing, every little thing is gonna be all right...  see, I've broken into song now, that's how cheerful the wonders of technology have made me feel as soon as I remembered what it is I'd be otherwise missing. 

 

I don't know what to do to reverse civilization.  But I know where I would have to start if it was at all possible.  One would have to start with reversing the civilized.  With reversing all the lies they've been told about how bad it was before the blessings of civilization -- don't you know, didn't they tell you way back in kindergarten? -- whoa, short miserable lives, cruel and pointless, was all we had, for a million years!! -- and how wonderful it got once enough life has been eliminated from the face of the earth, and how it will get even better once all of it is gone...

 

Einstein said that he wasn't sure what weapons WWIII would be fought with, but he knew what the survivors would use for WWIV: Sticks and rocks.

 

As Daoism teaches, anything that reaches its extreme will tend to its opposite, eventually. Which will be the case here too.

 

Unless a more or less stable balance between civilization and nature will be found in time... To end this short post on more of a utopian note.

[silent thunder]

*nods* 

 

Extremes of expression in energy do seem to manifest their balancing energy inherently...

 

I watch it every time I go to the beach.  The yang energy in the wave as it meets the resistance of the shore, builds upward.  The force of its mass and inertia carrying the mass of the wave up and up until the yang energy reaches its zenith and then the magic shift and yin spontaneously manifests, as the yang inertia can no longer support its own mass and the water settles in balance.  All seemingly without effort. 

 

More and more for me, Yin\Yang no longer seem like opposites, nor even to oppose one another, rather they seem mutually beneficial and self balancing expressions of one energtic system.

 

The drawn bow will settle in balance... or snap into balance... but balancing

the spiral line as the expression of the constant flow of energies balancing.

[Taomeow]

Yes, in the perfect world (which I do believe the natural unmolested world actually is), things don't have you wait too long before they balance themselves out "by themselves."

 

But any TCM practitioner can tell you that a perfectly balanced client is someone they're yet to meet (and why would he or she show up at the doctor's anyway?..)  And as a practitioner of Chinese astrology I know that a perfectly balanced natal chart is something I'm yet to see as well. 

 

The fractal nature of the universe (sic) means that you can't have balanced people in an unbalanced world.  And vice versa.  You can't have a balanced world populated by out-of-balance people.  So whenever our world balances itself out, it may have to figure out what to do about all those unbalanced people populating it who are not compatible with a balanced world.  Know the butterfly effect?  Even one person can throw a world off balance if he finds himself positioned in the crucial spot at the crucial time...  a man (or alien or machine) with a machine gun and an up to no good mind can throw off the fate of a whole naturally living uncontacted tribe not just for a very long time but forever. 

 

So, we'll have to wait, what, something like 120,000 years till forever finally ends?..   

 

Yes, there's a good chance earth will be exploding with astonishingly rich and diverse natural life again in 120,000 years.  Immortals take heart...  

Edited May 2, 2017 by Taomeow

[dust]

Deforestation.

 

You know what's responsible for deforestation, guys, right?

 

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargill#Criticism

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/01/burger-king-animal-feed-sourced-from-deforested-lands-in-brazil-and-bolivia

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/business/energy-environment/deforestation-brazil-bolivia-south-america.html