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| Rubinstein Forest, Jerusalem |
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Tao subsystems - VI
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| Robert Plutchik, Wheel of Emotions |
After extero-interoception, input processing, memory, subconscious and the processes of evaluation and decision Charles T. Tart introduces the sixth subsystem of the consciousness system, the emotions:
Subsystems
Emotions
The Emotions subsystem is one which I, as a typical overintellectualized Western academic, feel least qualified to write out. I share the intellectual's distrust of emotions as forces that distort my reasoning and are liable to lead me astray. And yet, like most people, my life and consciousness are strongly controlled by the pursuit of pleasant emotions and the avoidance of unpleasant ones.
Emotions are feelings that can be named but not easily defined. They are feelings that we call grief, fear, joy, surprise, yearning, anger, but that we define inadequately in terms of words: at best we use words to evoke memories of experiences that fit those names.
The Emotions subsystem is, in one sense, the most important subsystem, for it can exert tremendous influence. If you are experiencing the emotion of fear, it may very well control you evaluations and decisions, the memories you draw upon, how you see the world and how you act. Any strong emotion tends to constellate the rest of consciousness about it. Indeed, I think that while mild levels of any emotion can occur within the region of experiential space we call the ordinary d-SoC, most strong levels of feeling may actually constitute d-ASCs. If you talk about feeling mildly angry, somewhat angry, or extremely angry, you can imagine all these things occurring in your ordinary d-SoC. But if you speak of being enraged, the word evokes associations of changes of perception (such as "seeing red") and cognition that strongly suggest that somewhere in the anger continuum there was a quantum jump, and a d-ASC of rage developed. The same is true for other strong emotions. I shall not develop the idea further here, as strong emotional states have seldom been studied scientifically as they must be to determine if they actually constitute d-SoCs. The idea holds promise for future research.
Our culture is strongly characterized by poor volitional control over the Emotions subsystem in the ordinary d-SoC. Emotions can change with lightning rapidity; external events can induce them almost automatically. We have accepted this in a despairing way as part of the human condition, ambivalently regarding attempts to control emotions as either virtuous (since all emotions make us lose control, we should suppress them) or artificial (not "genuine"). Techniques from various spiritual disciplines indicate, however, that there can be emotional control that does not involve simple suppression or denial of content of the emotion. Don Juan, for example, stated that since becoming a "man of knowledge" he had transcended ordinary emotions, but could have any one he wished. In d-ASCs, people often report either greatly increased or decreased control over their emotions.
In addition to changes in the degree of control over emotions, the intensity of emotions themselves may also change in d-ASCs. Dissociation from or dis-identification with emotions also occurs: a person reports that an emotion is going on quite strongly within him, yet is not "his": he is not identified with it and so little affected by it.
In some d-ASCs new emotions appear, emotions that are never present in the ordinary d-SoC. These include feelings like serenity, tranquillity, and ecstasy. Because we use these words in our ordinary d-SoC we think we understand them, but those who have experienced such emotions in d-ASCs insist that we have only known the palest shadows of them.
Emotions are feelings that can be named but not easily defined. They are feelings that we call grief, fear, joy, surprise, yearning, anger, but that we define inadequately in terms of words: at best we use words to evoke memories of experiences that fit those names.
The Emotions subsystem is, in one sense, the most important subsystem, for it can exert tremendous influence. If you are experiencing the emotion of fear, it may very well control you evaluations and decisions, the memories you draw upon, how you see the world and how you act. Any strong emotion tends to constellate the rest of consciousness about it. Indeed, I think that while mild levels of any emotion can occur within the region of experiential space we call the ordinary d-SoC, most strong levels of feeling may actually constitute d-ASCs. If you talk about feeling mildly angry, somewhat angry, or extremely angry, you can imagine all these things occurring in your ordinary d-SoC. But if you speak of being enraged, the word evokes associations of changes of perception (such as "seeing red") and cognition that strongly suggest that somewhere in the anger continuum there was a quantum jump, and a d-ASC of rage developed. The same is true for other strong emotions. I shall not develop the idea further here, as strong emotional states have seldom been studied scientifically as they must be to determine if they actually constitute d-SoCs. The idea holds promise for future research.
Our culture is strongly characterized by poor volitional control over the Emotions subsystem in the ordinary d-SoC. Emotions can change with lightning rapidity; external events can induce them almost automatically. We have accepted this in a despairing way as part of the human condition, ambivalently regarding attempts to control emotions as either virtuous (since all emotions make us lose control, we should suppress them) or artificial (not "genuine"). Techniques from various spiritual disciplines indicate, however, that there can be emotional control that does not involve simple suppression or denial of content of the emotion. Don Juan, for example, stated that since becoming a "man of knowledge" he had transcended ordinary emotions, but could have any one he wished. In d-ASCs, people often report either greatly increased or decreased control over their emotions.
In addition to changes in the degree of control over emotions, the intensity of emotions themselves may also change in d-ASCs. Dissociation from or dis-identification with emotions also occurs: a person reports that an emotion is going on quite strongly within him, yet is not "his": he is not identified with it and so little affected by it.
In some d-ASCs new emotions appear, emotions that are never present in the ordinary d-SoC. These include feelings like serenity, tranquillity, and ecstasy. Because we use these words in our ordinary d-SoC we think we understand them, but those who have experienced such emotions in d-ASCs insist that we have only known the palest shadows of them.
Tao subsystems - V
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Tao party
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| Golders Green Crematorium, Golders Green, Greater London, England The ashes are buried under a rosebush, plot #39802. The rosebed is located at the far end of the crematorium complex, next to the Chapel of Memory columbarium. |
Monday, May 27, 2013
Tao Paradoxico-Philosophicus 3-4
Un dieu donne le feu
Pour faire l'enfer;
Un diable, le miel
Pour faire le ciel.
TRACTATUS PARADOXICO-PHILOSOPHICUS
| 3 | Niche: an organizationally closed unity specifies a possible domain of interactions (shared processes) with its own and other organizations and processes such that without this domain the unity disintegrates. |
| 3.01 | Call this domain the niche of the unity. |
| 3.02 | The unity shares processes with its niche. |
| 3.1 | Cognitive domain: consider the niche and all other intersections of an organizationally closed unity with other organizations and processes. |
| 3.11 | The unity shares processes with its cognitive domain. |
| 3.2 | Interaction: consider the activity of the processes shared in the intersection of the cognitive domains of one or more organizationally closed unities. |
| 3.3 | Perception: consider the activity within the closed organizations that form part of the cognitive domain of an organizationally closed unity. |
| 3.4 | Distinction: consider the intersection of a closed organization with one or more processes, thus separating them from their background (other processes). |
| 3.5 | Cognition: consider the generation of new closed organizations that share processes with and expand the cognitive domain of an organizationally closed unity. |
| 4 | Observer: consider an observer as an organizationally closed unity that shares processes with its cognitive domain. |
| 4.01 | An observer perceives, distinguishes and knows within its cognitive domain. |
| 4.1 | The cognitive domain of an observer may share processes with the cognitive domain of another observer, such that: |
| 4.11 | The observer may perceive, distinguish and know the other observer, which may perceive, distinguish and know the first observer. |
| 4.2 | Two or more observers may interact through their cognitive domains forming open organizations, closed organizations and even organizationally closed unities, all made of observers. |
| 4.3 | Trivial: consider one or more observers that respond predictably to stimuli. |
| 4.31 | Non-trivial: consider one or more observers that respond unpredictably to stimuli. |
Tractatus Paradoxico-Philosophicus
A Philosophical Approach to Education
Un Acercamiento Filosófico a la Educación
Une Approche Philosophique à l'Education
Eine Philosophische Annäherung an Bildung
Ricardo B. Uribe
Copyright © by a collaborating group of people including the author, editing consultants, translators, and printers. All rights reserved.
Tao Paradoxico-Philosophicus 1-2
Thursday, May 23, 2013
meta-Tao centers
The next metapattern introduced by Tyler Volk and Jeff Bloom are centers, structures which outline the centricity characteristics of a system:
Background
Centers act to stabilize the whole, provide resistance to change, and provide for organization of the whole. They can act as attractors for autopoietic (self-generating, self-sustaining) systems. In a more general sense, they can imply importance or significance and a sense of centricity. As such, centers can radiate relations to other centers, information, and so forth.
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| Milann Dobrojevic, Psihodelic Style 2 |
Examples
- In science: nucleus, strange attractor, queen ant or bee, fulcrum, dominant male in primate societies, center of gravity, heart within circulatory system, brain within nervous system, etc.
- In architecture and design: main office, central meeting places, central structural supports (such as elevator shafts in skyscrapers), etc.
- In art: the central figure or object as subject; the organizing principle or emotional focus of a piece of art, etc.
- In social sciences: president, governor, major, dictator, leader, teacher, principal, central physical site of specific types of activity, heart as center of individual in many indigenous cultures, organizing principles of societies and other groups, brain as center of individual in most technologically developed cultures, focus of life or activity (e.g., individuals may consider self, family, work, sport, hobby, or spiritual efforts as center), ego or self centric, anthropocentrism, conceptual prototype, conceptual defining characteristics, etc.
- In other senses: altar in a church, shrine in a temple, a deity or deities, sacred sites (Mecca, Bodhgaya, Jerusalem), shopping center, etc.
Simon Norfolk, CERN - LHC
Metapatterns
The Pattern Underground
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