This story has by now been told often. How
on January 2, 2007, Wesley Autrey was waiting for a train at the 137th Street and Broadway station in Manhattan with his two very young daughters. Around 12:45 p.m., he noticed a man,
Cameron Hollopeter, having a seizure. Afterwards, the guy stumbled from the platform, falling onto the tracks. As Hollopeter lay on the tracks, Autrey saw the lights of an incoming
into a drainage ditchtrain. One of the women held Autrey's daughters back away from the edge of the platform and Autrey jumped down into the track area. After realizing he did not have time to get Hollopeter off the tracks before the oncming train, Wesley Autrey protected Hollopeter by pushing him between the tracks, and throwing himself over Hollopeter. The operator of the train saw them and tried to stop before reaching the two people, but two cars still passed over Autrey and Hollopeter. Autrey was not scratched.
Okay the point for our purposes is that there is no way this guy thought out what he was going to do. Autrey's story illustrates the fallacies of thinking that the brain controls our actions. In the words of Jan Cox, "the brain is the last to know." Picture what must have happened if you doubt this. There is a train, there is no way this guy could think, if I do this, then will my daughters see me die, is it worth my life for this poor fella. No, there was no time for any thought, the body just took over. If I cannot argue persuasively that this scenario is typical of human action, at least try and see how in this case, the brain did not decide to be a hero. This story still freaks me out, but it is not a story of rational activity, and that is why I include it here.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
Emulate the Aristocrats
Ever notice how they wave at crowds--- Jan Cox once pointed this out--that wave that aristocrats and autocratic rulers give to the subjects. Any "Hello" magazine will show it, even the kids pick up this royal wave early. See them in their motorcades, raising their hand to recognise the people, and then slightly turning their hand.
Okay---this is the attitude we aim to have towards our----thoughts. They ain't going away (the thoughts, yes the aristocrats did go away, ignore that for now). In one of his final (and I say 'final' knowing that the idea of a boundary here, a frame, is very alien to what Jan was striving to convey to us.) Jan Cox repeated this---you never completely get rid of those thoughts, regardless of what most mystical texts advertise.
Anyway we can ape those aristocrats til we hit the genetic grand prize. Like, know yourself---all those books about and pictures of royalty---most folks do not have this family documentation, but the aristocrats do, only -- they forget it all----they can do this because the library has a lock on it. It is all there, just not cluttering up the moment.
And do not forget your goal. Yes, the aristocrats were overthrown on occasion. And what did they do? Again, a direct quote from Jan Cox. He said once that real aristocrats never gave up getting their kingdoms back. If removed from power they spent their time gathering troops on the border of their lost kingdom.
Also--notice the really rich (the kind who you will not see waving in a parade) they do not want you even knowing their name, an instance being the heirs that until recently controlled the Wall Street Journal. They have their reasons; so too does a different aristocracy, The really really rich (that'd be those who knew Jan Cox) do not speak of themselves, or give interviews. And they may not always even always know their OWN names.
....
And yeah, Jan did NOT put THIS into words but, hey, those royalty, they get to have as many animals as they want. That would however be the only advantage the rich really have.
Okay---this is the attitude we aim to have towards our----thoughts. They ain't going away (the thoughts, yes the aristocrats did go away, ignore that for now). In one of his final (and I say 'final' knowing that the idea of a boundary here, a frame, is very alien to what Jan was striving to convey to us.) Jan Cox repeated this---you never completely get rid of those thoughts, regardless of what most mystical texts advertise.
Anyway we can ape those aristocrats til we hit the genetic grand prize. Like, know yourself---all those books about and pictures of royalty---most folks do not have this family documentation, but the aristocrats do, only -- they forget it all----they can do this because the library has a lock on it. It is all there, just not cluttering up the moment.
And do not forget your goal. Yes, the aristocrats were overthrown on occasion. And what did they do? Again, a direct quote from Jan Cox. He said once that real aristocrats never gave up getting their kingdoms back. If removed from power they spent their time gathering troops on the border of their lost kingdom.
Also--notice the really rich (the kind who you will not see waving in a parade) they do not want you even knowing their name, an instance being the heirs that until recently controlled the Wall Street Journal. They have their reasons; so too does a different aristocracy, The really really rich (that'd be those who knew Jan Cox) do not speak of themselves, or give interviews. And they may not always even always know their OWN names.
....
And yeah, Jan did NOT put THIS into words but, hey, those royalty, they get to have as many animals as they want. That would however be the only advantage the rich really have.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Brotherhood and Motherhood
Hmm, distracted from my intended topic today (the difference between action and thinking of action as exemplied by the Wesley Autrey heroism) by thoughts growing out of yesterday's topic.
I need to rewrite yesterdays actually, easy to do in blogland, but right now let's notice, regarding the difference between men and women, the significance of the idea of sacrifice in human history.
Jan Cox never mentioned women in this regard and I often wondered, while he was alive, why he did not mention motherhood more, especially since to me motherhood seemed the perfect model for the idea of self sacrifice. After all mothers literally can lay down their lives for their children and this seemed to perhaps be the origin of human heroism. Now it is clearer why my thoughts here were off the mark.
The genetic basis for motherhood in people and other primates is so necessary for the survival of the species that flexibility is not useful at the level of primate mothering.
Whereas, with men, and that brotherhood feeling I mentioned yesterday, a group of men can have such intense interaction that they actually do form a unit, or perhaps remember the herd hunting instincts, and activate that layer of reality. Only this activation, critical also for the survival of the species, happened to a species with innate and undeveloped talents for mentation. Beside being a possible vision of the origin of thought, the closeness of this bond, (see yesterdays entry about men hunting, and the surrounding unknown milieu in which a sense of where your fellow hunter may actually be at that moment, in space, based on calculations that used what later was called spatial logic.) may also illuminate the idea of sacrifice and the development in history of this idea. (Jesus etc.)
After all, if a group is so tight as to become a singular unit, then loosing one member does not kill, the group. The idea of an afterlife too, might come from this group experience. This would probably have preceded the concept (and experience) of individuality. Perhaps.
And perhaps not---this whole analysis is suspiciously binary. Two hands--on one women are locked in a well known arena where success depended on repetitive tasks. On the other men are out in an environment of the unknown, hunting, and depending on help from other men.
But perhaps not. Something will fall out of this analysis.
I need to rewrite yesterdays actually, easy to do in blogland, but right now let's notice, regarding the difference between men and women, the significance of the idea of sacrifice in human history.
Jan Cox never mentioned women in this regard and I often wondered, while he was alive, why he did not mention motherhood more, especially since to me motherhood seemed the perfect model for the idea of self sacrifice. After all mothers literally can lay down their lives for their children and this seemed to perhaps be the origin of human heroism. Now it is clearer why my thoughts here were off the mark.
The genetic basis for motherhood in people and other primates is so necessary for the survival of the species that flexibility is not useful at the level of primate mothering.
Whereas, with men, and that brotherhood feeling I mentioned yesterday, a group of men can have such intense interaction that they actually do form a unit, or perhaps remember the herd hunting instincts, and activate that layer of reality. Only this activation, critical also for the survival of the species, happened to a species with innate and undeveloped talents for mentation. Beside being a possible vision of the origin of thought, the closeness of this bond, (see yesterdays entry about men hunting, and the surrounding unknown milieu in which a sense of where your fellow hunter may actually be at that moment, in space, based on calculations that used what later was called spatial logic.) may also illuminate the idea of sacrifice and the development in history of this idea. (Jesus etc.)
After all, if a group is so tight as to become a singular unit, then loosing one member does not kill, the group. The idea of an afterlife too, might come from this group experience. This would probably have preceded the concept (and experience) of individuality. Perhaps.
And perhaps not---this whole analysis is suspiciously binary. Two hands--on one women are locked in a well known arena where success depended on repetitive tasks. On the other men are out in an environment of the unknown, hunting, and depending on help from other men.
But perhaps not. Something will fall out of this analysis.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
The Bond Between Men
The mechanical group feeling that men can develop with each other is actually amazing and the strength of this tie is not visible to women often. The first of the year is not a bad time to reflect on how this might have come about--- hunters are more successful hunting in groups, more eyes, more weapons, coordinated tactics. This is how lions hunt. Today they (men not lions though both may be napping at one level together), will be grouping to observe predatory play. It is possible that the origin of thought, (certainly not mechanical the first time a particular thought got thunk,) was in the psychic conditions that enhanced the success of hunting. The closeness of the bond between men, the intensity of the hunt (success or die of course was the game), may have fostered what we would today call psychic events. Some thousand years ago this psychic awareness may have developed into -- words. To communicate a picture of an event, one far away in space, this could be called a psychic event, and may have developed into an ability to share information about events far away in time, also. So useful for hunting, a ball, like cats today, or the origin of ball play, dinner.
Now women were, are, only slowly connected to this. We did not need that intense interest in what our fellows were doing, ("Is so and so close enough to help me if I take on this beast, now?").
Why, because our intensest interest had to be raising, protecting, a child, a young primate, and it was lonely. Not much intellectual problem solving needed in grabbing the young one away from the fire or the centipede. Pretty much how to do this was in our genetic primate code and did NOT get enhanced with group problem solving. What was the need for spatial logic when the arena for action was as far as an infant could crawl, NOT an unknown wild jungle, where the predator could become the prey instantly. The female genetic package worked pretty well by itself. And this was what was needed for the good of the species then. Now??? Still crucial. Who is spreading these silly stories about replacing sex?? Anyway evolution is evolving.
Now women were, are, only slowly connected to this. We did not need that intense interest in what our fellows were doing, ("Is so and so close enough to help me if I take on this beast, now?").
Why, because our intensest interest had to be raising, protecting, a child, a young primate, and it was lonely. Not much intellectual problem solving needed in grabbing the young one away from the fire or the centipede. Pretty much how to do this was in our genetic primate code and did NOT get enhanced with group problem solving. What was the need for spatial logic when the arena for action was as far as an infant could crawl, NOT an unknown wild jungle, where the predator could become the prey instantly. The female genetic package worked pretty well by itself. And this was what was needed for the good of the species then. Now??? Still crucial. Who is spreading these silly stories about replacing sex?? Anyway evolution is evolving.
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