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snoozefestaudioIt was and absolutely gorgeous November 1st today... sunny and 68F, with leaves falling everywhere you looked. I heard those juvenile November crickets out there too... chirping in the warmth of the sun, in their high pitched tones.
Especially here in the midwest, people tend to think of November as being gloomy, colorless, lifeless, and cold. And across the whole country, it kinda gets overlooked... falling between glorious October, and magical December.
But November can be quite a beautiful month... at least in the early weeks. And over the years, I've come to enjoy it's dark and moody side, in the later weeks.
We set the clocks back... night falls earlier... and the skies don't just get overcast... they get charcoal grey, with dense, billowing clouds, scrolling past one another, in turbulent currents.
Winds rush through the trees by night, in waves that sound like the ocean, and flocks of dry, brown leaves, rush down the streets... swirling, and skittering by lamplight.
The newly bare branches of the trees are a sight we haven't seen since last March. They are fully dormant now, and the landscape has changed... sleep has come to the world.
Cold rains... thermal underwear... umbrellas & gloves...
October was Fall: Act I, but November is Fall: Act II... things remain in transition, but they are now getting inevitably darker and colder. Which is fine... if you just dress for it... and happen to be a night owl like myself!
------------{=0=}------------
I'm two thirds of the way through Whole Brain Living, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
And, while I do like this idea of the four brains... limbic left, limbic right, cortex left, and cortex right... and was on board with her descriptions of the characters of the first three...
She kinda lost me, when she got to her Character Four, which I think was supposed to be the right cortex... and started describing it as... the seat of cosmic consciousness and universal love.
The book started to sound a LOT more, self-helpy, when I got to that chapter.
Science went out the window, and she was going on about using your cosmic consciousness to solve the worlds problems. She didn't use the word, "manifesting," but... she DID give a very affirmative nod to that book, The Secret... which I think is utter hogwash!
------------{=0=}------------
Before I go further, I have to disambiguate the right and left brain thing, because it was confusing to me, and may be to you.
Basically, it's the LEFT brain, which is the logical, analytical one which can do math and speech.
It's the RIGHT brain, that's all creativity, laughs, and magic, with no capacity for reading, or numbers.
LIMBIC... on both sides, is the mammalian, less evolved layer of the brain.
CORTEX... on both sides, is the human, most recently evolved layer of the brain.
Okay, with that cleared up, we can move on...
------------{=0=}------------
Bolte's whole thing is that she was a neuroscientist who suffered a severe brain aneurysm, that... essentially flooded most of her brain in blood, which did not kill those neurons, but did render them unable to fire for quite a long time.
She made a full recovery... though it took eight years to get back to 100%
At any rate, right after the aneurysm, she recalls going into a prolonged state of pure bliss!.. She lost all her memories, had no sense of self, could not speak or understand language... and could not even sense the difference between her body and the rest of the world.
She says she felt like ball of fluid energy, the size of the universe, and was one with the cosmic consciousness... feeling nothing but love and peace.
Her consciousness was restricted to just the right brain cortex.
And as she recovered, she began to sense her other three brains coming back online, one by one... and regaining those parts of her personality and functionality.
And this is the basis for her characterizations of the four parts of the brain.
--<>--
I'm sure her experience was quite real, and don't doubt that such a thing would fundamentally change one's view of life, the universe, and everything... but...
I mean, I'm not prepared to accept that the most higly evolved layer of the right brain... the cortex... is ONLY for cosmic consciousness... or that cosmic consciousness is even a real thing!
She's quite literal about the idea that the whole universe has a unifying consciousness, and asserts many times that it is the source of our individual consciousness... but also describes it MANY TIMES as an energy that ties all things together on the MOLECULAR* level!
I don't have a PHD, but... the MOLECULAR* level is quite far from being the most fundamental level of reality!
Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of quarks and leptons. And quarks and leptons arise from quantum fields!
If you're going to say that consciousness is a fundamental energy that ties everything together... you should be saying that it happens on the quantum field level!
This is why I said, science went out the window.
I mean... it went out the window, as soon as she asserted that a cosmic consciousness is real, based only on a personal experience that cannot be verified scientifically... but... MOLECULAR?.. Come on!
But she defended this stance by suggesting that scientific rigor is... afterall... only really a thing that the Left Cortex (Character 1) cares about... because it has to grapple with normal reality.
Like, "Rigorous science is SOO.. Character One!"
Which sounds exactly like, "Not believing in Astrology is SOO.. Gemini!"
------------{=0=}------------
As I said, it suddenly felt really self-help booky when I got to that chapter, and though she does have a PHD, the only reason her books have sold is because she went kinda viral after a TED talk... which is another huge red flag for a self-help guru looking to cash in on a trendy new take.
In general, I think the whole concept that we can use part of our brain to access the cosmic consciousness and create harmony in the world... or manifest things... or pray for things... or use the secret... or whatever...
Is not just useless, but actually dangerous... because that kind of thinking leads privileged people to believe the world is just!.. and that others, who suffer under cruel conditions are only really suffering because... they don't think magically enough to manifest better lives for themselves!
Even worse... this idea that suffering is all just an illusion, and people who experience suffering are secretly enjoying it... or will somehow benefit from it!
Mother Teresa, infamously allowed those under her care to suffer needlessly, because she felt it would bring them closer to God, and get them a better seat in Heaven.
Slave owners in the old US south, justified their cruetly by saying that the white man was just helping the black race to evolve spiritually and be worthy of God's salvation.
Any idea of a universal love force, that is out there willing to help you, or humanity as a whole... if only we use our minds correctly to embrace it, is absurd, because... why then, would people have not used it a long time ago... or use it now... to eliminate all cruelty and suffering in the world?
Oh, that's not the way it works!
The way it works is... it's a delusion that gets you off he hook from worrying about that stuff, so that you can enjoy your day on the pond, at your lake house!
------------{=0=}------------
As I said, at the outset, I do like this idea of the four brains... and it could be a good foundation for a bigger model of the mind.
But for many years I used to play the bass guitar, and I'm pretty sure the right cortex was responsible for my left hand (right brain controls left body, left brain controls right body) being able to deftly finger the notes, and crawl up and down the neck of that guitar with such fluidity!
That's my same left hand that can barely hold a pen, much less scrawl a legible sentence on paper with one!
The same left hand that sucks with using hand tools!
When playing guitar, it was my dominant right hand (controlled by the logical left brain) that could only hold the pick and do the grunt work of plucking the strings.
That useless left hand did all the fancy, delicate fingerwork!
Thus, I've always seen the right brain cortex as the brain responsible for learning to play instruments... and doing other advanced creative things like drawing, painting, a sense of poetry, and an eye for photography, style, and decor.
I'd also attribute to the right brain cortex, all the INSPIRATION that we apply to such creative persuits... in other words, the muse!
Bolte assigned most of those skills to the right limbic... which, to me, doesn't track, because the right limbic is a legacy layer we inherited from less evolved mammals... who do not play instruments, paint pictures, or ever seem to have creative inspirations.
I think she's right that the right limbic is the seat of humor and joy, and being forever in the present moment, wanting to play and explore...
But I think she shoved a lot of higher, uniquely human, creative abilities, down into the limbic... in order to keep the right cortex pure, and wholly devoted to cosmic love consciousness alone!
--<>--
It also doesn't track, because she characterized the LEFT cortex as being... a pretty handy executive in charge of a large range of ordinary responsibilities at work, home, and in public... including doing the math, and communicating with others.
Why then, wouldn't the RIGHT cortex be just as flexible and handy with the large range of creative tasks we manage?
------------{=0=}------------
You might be wondering what she said about the LEFT LIMBIC... and, well that's just the fearful, racist, constanly worrying, self critical, cynical, reactionary, negative, part of the brain, constantly dwelling on the past and worried about every new situation.
In other words... your inner Republican (my term there, not hers).
But that does track... as does the RIGHT LIMBIC being always in the present moment and seeing the beauty of the now... and full of humor and forgiveness and all the good stuff that makes anybody like being around you.
------------{=0=}------------
So... I think her model has merit and potential, but she really went off the rails with the molecular energy of the cosmic consciousness BS... to the point where I don't think I'll even finish the book.
Four brains... being a subset of the two brain model is a good foundation.
But there's still the autonomic fifth reptile brain that keeps you breathing and blinking and... might be Sex Guy?
But Dream Guy has no obvious place in that four or five brain model.
And neither does... the Indestructable Observer!
------------{=0=}------------
I'm gonna end this entry by reminding you that Jill Bolte Taylor, who had a massive brain aneurysm, that cut off all her past memories... her ability to speak or understand speech... her ability to recognize people... and even her ability to conceive of herself as being separate from the rest of the room and world...
WAS able, upon recovery... to go on and RELATE every stage, and second, of that experience... from her higher brain functions shutting down... to her time in the cosmic oblivion... to her brain functions slowly coming back online... to her fully regaining the four distinct characters that make up her psyche.
And THAT, was the indestructible observer!.. able to record and recall the whole thing, even the parts where she had no words or sense of self.
She even says that she had some awareness in the thick of it, that she was not dead, and was happy to be alive and experiencing life in such a blissful state.
That's the indestructible observer!
It is a part of your consciousness above all the rest... able to observe your thoughts themselves... and, in Bolte's case... even able to observe the inability to think!
And it does so, with such reliability... that after you are back to normal... all that information is readily available to your waking, conscious mind, to review and describe with detail.
--<>--
Bolte never gave any credit to the observer either... She takes it for granted like most of us do.
And I'm not saying the observer is some kind of magical force from outside the brain, residing in the seventh chakra... or the spirit monad of the astral plane or anything.
It's some part of the explainable mind, inside the brain.
And... I think proof of that is... roofies!.. which are date rape drugs specifically designed to turn off the observer!
I suppose, to get to the bottom of the observer mystery, I may have to delve into the science of memory!
Maybe I'll look for a book on that next!
--<>--
All that said, the hour grows late.
But the month...
The month of November's just begun!
°¦}
* Anatomists, of which she is one, never study anything smaller than the molecule, because biology is thought to arise at the molecular level. They learn some chemistry in their first years, and move on from there.
They don't concern themselves with atoms, or quantum field theory... which isn't normally a problem... until you're saying that an all pervading cosmic consciousness is also molecular... and then you just sound stupid!
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
Especially here in the midwest, people tend to think of November as being gloomy, colorless, lifeless, and cold. And across the whole country, it kinda gets overlooked... falling between glorious October, and magical December.
But November can be quite a beautiful month... at least in the early weeks. And over the years, I've come to enjoy it's dark and moody side, in the later weeks.
We set the clocks back... night falls earlier... and the skies don't just get overcast... they get charcoal grey, with dense, billowing clouds, scrolling past one another, in turbulent currents.
Winds rush through the trees by night, in waves that sound like the ocean, and flocks of dry, brown leaves, rush down the streets... swirling, and skittering by lamplight.
The newly bare branches of the trees are a sight we haven't seen since last March. They are fully dormant now, and the landscape has changed... sleep has come to the world.
Cold rains... thermal underwear... umbrellas & gloves...
October was Fall: Act I, but November is Fall: Act II... things remain in transition, but they are now getting inevitably darker and colder. Which is fine... if you just dress for it... and happen to be a night owl like myself!
I'm two thirds of the way through Whole Brain Living, by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
And, while I do like this idea of the four brains... limbic left, limbic right, cortex left, and cortex right... and was on board with her descriptions of the characters of the first three...
She kinda lost me, when she got to her Character Four, which I think was supposed to be the right cortex... and started describing it as... the seat of cosmic consciousness and universal love.
The book started to sound a LOT more, self-helpy, when I got to that chapter.
Science went out the window, and she was going on about using your cosmic consciousness to solve the worlds problems. She didn't use the word, "manifesting," but... she DID give a very affirmative nod to that book, The Secret... which I think is utter hogwash!
Before I go further, I have to disambiguate the right and left brain thing, because it was confusing to me, and may be to you.
Basically, it's the LEFT brain, which is the logical, analytical one which can do math and speech.
It's the RIGHT brain, that's all creativity, laughs, and magic, with no capacity for reading, or numbers.
LIMBIC... on both sides, is the mammalian, less evolved layer of the brain.
CORTEX... on both sides, is the human, most recently evolved layer of the brain.
Okay, with that cleared up, we can move on...
Bolte's whole thing is that she was a neuroscientist who suffered a severe brain aneurysm, that... essentially flooded most of her brain in blood, which did not kill those neurons, but did render them unable to fire for quite a long time.
She made a full recovery... though it took eight years to get back to 100%
At any rate, right after the aneurysm, she recalls going into a prolonged state of pure bliss!.. She lost all her memories, had no sense of self, could not speak or understand language... and could not even sense the difference between her body and the rest of the world.
She says she felt like ball of fluid energy, the size of the universe, and was one with the cosmic consciousness... feeling nothing but love and peace.
Her consciousness was restricted to just the right brain cortex.
And as she recovered, she began to sense her other three brains coming back online, one by one... and regaining those parts of her personality and functionality.
And this is the basis for her characterizations of the four parts of the brain.
I'm sure her experience was quite real, and don't doubt that such a thing would fundamentally change one's view of life, the universe, and everything... but...
I mean, I'm not prepared to accept that the most higly evolved layer of the right brain... the cortex... is ONLY for cosmic consciousness... or that cosmic consciousness is even a real thing!
She's quite literal about the idea that the whole universe has a unifying consciousness, and asserts many times that it is the source of our individual consciousness... but also describes it MANY TIMES as an energy that ties all things together on the MOLECULAR* level!
I don't have a PHD, but... the MOLECULAR* level is quite far from being the most fundamental level of reality!
Molecules are made of atoms. Atoms are made of quarks and leptons. And quarks and leptons arise from quantum fields!
If you're going to say that consciousness is a fundamental energy that ties everything together... you should be saying that it happens on the quantum field level!
This is why I said, science went out the window.
I mean... it went out the window, as soon as she asserted that a cosmic consciousness is real, based only on a personal experience that cannot be verified scientifically... but... MOLECULAR?.. Come on!
But she defended this stance by suggesting that scientific rigor is... afterall... only really a thing that the Left Cortex (Character 1) cares about... because it has to grapple with normal reality.
Like, "Rigorous science is SOO.. Character One!"
Which sounds exactly like, "Not believing in Astrology is SOO.. Gemini!"
As I said, it suddenly felt really self-help booky when I got to that chapter, and though she does have a PHD, the only reason her books have sold is because she went kinda viral after a TED talk... which is another huge red flag for a self-help guru looking to cash in on a trendy new take.
In general, I think the whole concept that we can use part of our brain to access the cosmic consciousness and create harmony in the world... or manifest things... or pray for things... or use the secret... or whatever...
Is not just useless, but actually dangerous... because that kind of thinking leads privileged people to believe the world is just!.. and that others, who suffer under cruel conditions are only really suffering because... they don't think magically enough to manifest better lives for themselves!
Even worse... this idea that suffering is all just an illusion, and people who experience suffering are secretly enjoying it... or will somehow benefit from it!
Mother Teresa, infamously allowed those under her care to suffer needlessly, because she felt it would bring them closer to God, and get them a better seat in Heaven.
Slave owners in the old US south, justified their cruetly by saying that the white man was just helping the black race to evolve spiritually and be worthy of God's salvation.
Any idea of a universal love force, that is out there willing to help you, or humanity as a whole... if only we use our minds correctly to embrace it, is absurd, because... why then, would people have not used it a long time ago... or use it now... to eliminate all cruelty and suffering in the world?
Oh, that's not the way it works!
The way it works is... it's a delusion that gets you off he hook from worrying about that stuff, so that you can enjoy your day on the pond, at your lake house!
As I said, at the outset, I do like this idea of the four brains... and it could be a good foundation for a bigger model of the mind.
But for many years I used to play the bass guitar, and I'm pretty sure the right cortex was responsible for my left hand (right brain controls left body, left brain controls right body) being able to deftly finger the notes, and crawl up and down the neck of that guitar with such fluidity!
That's my same left hand that can barely hold a pen, much less scrawl a legible sentence on paper with one!
The same left hand that sucks with using hand tools!
When playing guitar, it was my dominant right hand (controlled by the logical left brain) that could only hold the pick and do the grunt work of plucking the strings.
That useless left hand did all the fancy, delicate fingerwork!
Thus, I've always seen the right brain cortex as the brain responsible for learning to play instruments... and doing other advanced creative things like drawing, painting, a sense of poetry, and an eye for photography, style, and decor.
I'd also attribute to the right brain cortex, all the INSPIRATION that we apply to such creative persuits... in other words, the muse!
Bolte assigned most of those skills to the right limbic... which, to me, doesn't track, because the right limbic is a legacy layer we inherited from less evolved mammals... who do not play instruments, paint pictures, or ever seem to have creative inspirations.
I think she's right that the right limbic is the seat of humor and joy, and being forever in the present moment, wanting to play and explore...
But I think she shoved a lot of higher, uniquely human, creative abilities, down into the limbic... in order to keep the right cortex pure, and wholly devoted to cosmic love consciousness alone!
It also doesn't track, because she characterized the LEFT cortex as being... a pretty handy executive in charge of a large range of ordinary responsibilities at work, home, and in public... including doing the math, and communicating with others.
Why then, wouldn't the RIGHT cortex be just as flexible and handy with the large range of creative tasks we manage?
You might be wondering what she said about the LEFT LIMBIC... and, well that's just the fearful, racist, constanly worrying, self critical, cynical, reactionary, negative, part of the brain, constantly dwelling on the past and worried about every new situation.
In other words... your inner Republican (my term there, not hers).
But that does track... as does the RIGHT LIMBIC being always in the present moment and seeing the beauty of the now... and full of humor and forgiveness and all the good stuff that makes anybody like being around you.
So... I think her model has merit and potential, but she really went off the rails with the molecular energy of the cosmic consciousness BS... to the point where I don't think I'll even finish the book.
Four brains... being a subset of the two brain model is a good foundation.
But there's still the autonomic fifth reptile brain that keeps you breathing and blinking and... might be Sex Guy?
But Dream Guy has no obvious place in that four or five brain model.
And neither does... the Indestructable Observer!
I'm gonna end this entry by reminding you that Jill Bolte Taylor, who had a massive brain aneurysm, that cut off all her past memories... her ability to speak or understand speech... her ability to recognize people... and even her ability to conceive of herself as being separate from the rest of the room and world...
WAS able, upon recovery... to go on and RELATE every stage, and second, of that experience... from her higher brain functions shutting down... to her time in the cosmic oblivion... to her brain functions slowly coming back online... to her fully regaining the four distinct characters that make up her psyche.
And THAT, was the indestructible observer!.. able to record and recall the whole thing, even the parts where she had no words or sense of self.
She even says that she had some awareness in the thick of it, that she was not dead, and was happy to be alive and experiencing life in such a blissful state.
That's the indestructible observer!
It is a part of your consciousness above all the rest... able to observe your thoughts themselves... and, in Bolte's case... even able to observe the inability to think!
And it does so, with such reliability... that after you are back to normal... all that information is readily available to your waking, conscious mind, to review and describe with detail.
Bolte never gave any credit to the observer either... She takes it for granted like most of us do.
And I'm not saying the observer is some kind of magical force from outside the brain, residing in the seventh chakra... or the spirit monad of the astral plane or anything.
It's some part of the explainable mind, inside the brain.
And... I think proof of that is... roofies!.. which are date rape drugs specifically designed to turn off the observer!
I suppose, to get to the bottom of the observer mystery, I may have to delve into the science of memory!
Maybe I'll look for a book on that next!
All that said, the hour grows late.
But the month...
The month of November's just begun!
°¦}
* Anatomists, of which she is one, never study anything smaller than the molecule, because biology is thought to arise at the molecular level. They learn some chemistry in their first years, and move on from there.
They don't concern themselves with atoms, or quantum field theory... which isn't normally a problem... until you're saying that an all pervading cosmic consciousness is also molecular... and then you just sound stupid!
