Too Vague To Fail

This would not be a final answer, but something at last,  occurred to me in reference to an odd aspect of the human intellect. This feature of human mentation is prominent, and yet, almost never noticed. 

The aspect of man's thinking I point to is it's ability to stop sharply when the trail is just getting interesting. Everybody does this, -- the point in an argument when a woman says I don't want to talk about it, when the man says, I think this interview is over.

The characteristic of the rational faculties to which I refer is part of the phemomenon described by the great philisophico-mystics of the 20 th century--- Georges Gurdjieff and Jan Cox, in these terms---man's sleeping condition. And yet our focus is on a narrow stripe in this level of consciousness. 

Man's dreaming state, his automatic functioning at the intellectual level, includes this ability to avert attention at a certain point. This point one has to assume involves the self-preservation of the sleeping consciousness, a kind of way when you are in a dream, to prolong the dream. 

The universality of what I have noticed in man's mentation points to its being a basic aspect of the dream state. Perhaps I should point out in case anyone readng this is unfamiliar with the thinkers I mention above, this sleeping state is absolutely necessary to man's progress. That though is not the point here, and what I want to do is stress the universal aspect of this trick of sleeping mentation, by pointing out the phenomenon as it exists in the general intellectual climate, the academic and scientific cloud which defines major modern mechanical intellectual progress. 

The physicist who says, when asked about how empty space could generate particles, well, that space is "almost empty." The fellow reveals himself to be lacking basic philisophical comprehension if he thinks this is an answer. But this response allows the duller blades in the scientific cabinet to carry on ignoring a basic philosophical query: how is it that something comes from nothing. 

The philosopher who contends, as is common in the past century, that something cannot be true, if it cannot externally verified in a public, repetitive process, is on the same level as a Bible thumper when it comes to neuronal alacrity. I say this because the basic premise of the positivist's position cannot itself be verified according to the dictum of what is called the verification principle. Again, a line is drawn in the gray goo, and the mechanical mind cannot be coaxed to pursue it's intellectual inquiries in a consistent and empirical matter.

From the perspective of those Eliot called "reckless religious adventurers" (referring to Gurdjieff) where you draw the line is irrelevant as long as you refuse to pursue intellectual questions careless of the consequences to  your own intellectual presumptions. That refusal to continue with the  questioning is typical of the man who answers a question with 'because the bible says so', as well as the man who rejects a report with the assertion some purported event is a statistical anomaly. 

So the above paragraphs are a setup to what occurred to me just now, about what has long been a puzzling feature of man's mechanical intellect. This general ability to come to a screeching halt, functions to maintain balance within that phenomenon called Humanity of course. The point is not that this ability to shutdown one's intellect is not functional. What occurred to me though was that this self-regulating thermostatic aspect of human mentation is a self protective device so that man does not despair in the face of the certainty of his own impending death.

The train is so loud and noisy

Metal on metal, screeching with a regular irregularity, as the rail cars rush on by, metal tracks, metal braces, metal hitchs, metal wheels. You cannot stop the train with your hands, you can only step away.

And as you back away, internally, from  ---- your own internal cerebral energy, you notice the painting on the box cars, the colors of the graffiti, on most of the train cars.

That graffiti may be your own verbalizing, the words in your head, and your words, about your intent, your life.  Those words--- are as effective as that paint on wood and metal, is
in determining the train engine.

Stick this picture in your brain

The ability to question your own interior credibility is fundamental to progress on a path toward a kind of unnameable mental  integrity. Gurdjieff and Jan Cox called a method for this questioning, self-observation. Their term is perhaps clearer than my latest picture, which is of a psychological credit card. This card is one you have to learn to keep declining, when your verbal thoughts present themselves. Debit cards, in this little fantasy, would have the funds from direct experience -- direct experience which you have not labeled with words.  The more you decline your personal mental credit card, the greater the balance on your silent but potent debit card. Okay, analogy is breaking down here. Still, give the picture some attention.

Wouldn't it be fun

Wouldn't it be fun to discover the origin of binary thought at a pre-human level?? Binary thought, that great weapon for dividing the external world; binary thought is responsible for the obvious progress of man in manipulating the external world. Without binary thought there would be no way to imaginatively consider alternatives to features of the natural world of which we are such a significant part. These alternatives allow testing, experimentation, and brilliant alternatives that leverage our external world to better support, protect, and grow our species. All of this depends on the ability of human cerebration to consider the visible world as amenable to improvement and the means to achieve this: binary thought. Something is either this or that. Two choices, that is all you get with binary thought, along with the reality crushing ignorance of the way things interact and interpenetrate. Any point under consideration must be this or that, and thus we have air conditioning, frozen food, cyberspace, and the ability to heavy mighty machines at the sky. 

Our reach is extended, our grip empowered, our vision acute beyond that of any other species. The example Jan Cox used once or twice in conveying this aspect of mental processing, was the example of diverting a river to run uphill via a watermill structure. You have to be able to imagine how things might be different, and how rearranging the external world could achieve a greater potency. Without binary thought, we'd never be able to consider getting off this planet, much less how it might happen. To achieve our special species goals we have to pretend that one and two are distinct numbers, without any fluff on the right of the decimal, or whatever point you specify as the edge.Binary thought, the focus must be on this or that. Two choices.

And what flashed on my mind was that a hunting animal, say a stalking cat, was displaying this kind of binary mental capacity on the level of four paws, slouched body, straight tail.Slow movement. And I say binary because that attention is focused on one thing, so you have the object, and everything else. The either/or capacity is necessary for the cat to successfully seize the bird. The feral cat does not eat without this ability to divide the world.

Wouldn't it be fun is there was a connection between hunting cat and thinking man?

He had a hat

Some of the people in this vignette are still alive, so I have to blur out the details a bit. Jan is standing at a bar, with a buddy. Not someone in the group. The guy is fuming about something political. (A lot like me, recently). Jan had this shrug, and I see him now, standing close to this person. Jan is nodding, big nods, with this shrug ( a yeah, well, what are you going to do, shrug) and rolling his eyes, in what someone who did not know him, would assume was sympathetic warmth. Then he reached for his beer. 

Gurdjieff left Russia in a time of civil war, he left Turkey in a time of religious strife, he left Germany quickly, and he settled in France, an exile from his homeland. When the Nazis  invaded, and though his friends were often terrified, Gurdjieff stayed in Paris, keeping a low profile. 

If the point of words is to remind you of silence, what could you say in a political context? Above are just two stories to restore perspective. 

A Hub You Have Seen

Picture this metropolitan hub, you have been there, you have seen this: buses lined up, rapid rail trains stopped or not, taxis idling, and people, hot, intent, definitely going some place. Lots of people. Empty kiss/ride lot. Best of all--- just like in your recollections--- there is a wall of paper schedules, little boxes lined up, they have identical looking folded sheets stuffed in plastic bins---but the schedules are for different city locations, and let you know times, destinations, in case, you are going by city bus.

Because this is a transportation hub, people pass through, it facilitates, but is itself not a destination. The hub is how you get someplace---besides the hub. 

Or-

That's what you have been told. Because those places in big letters on the front of the bus, those street corners in tiny print in the schedule, stops the loud speaker yells out---- the point of the busy activity, the reasons you are passing through the hub---- are just a fib---those are not the places you are going. The destinations, are all, a myth.

The destinations just exist so you will keep cycling through the hub, and not noticing -- the hub. The hub only works when you do not notice it. 

Do you see? 

The hub is in your head. 

Chew on this

Eating meat, especially red meat, was not encouraged by the mystical philosopher Jan Cox. But that is just a background point, now, to my setup of a new picture for a person's efforts in their struggle to taste, and persist in, the cerebral objectivity Jan taught his students. The link embedded is to an article about meat consumption, but my interest is in the news item there, about a cow named Molly, who bolted from a slaughter house. Our effect to remember the goal, to practice the special attention, Jan taught us, -- the goal of neuralizing, is one word he made up to describe it, -- could be likened to a black cow, leaping over a fence, and running away. Our personal effort then, is like a cow, escaping from the factory of mechanical thinking. 

That picture is of just one moment, that must be repeated, to gain any traction. Still, a black cow bolting from a meat packaging facility, is an educational picture of the reality of spiritual ambition, mechanical human mentation, and the odds of anyone, sustaining their efforts to see individually, apart from the group mind. Molly, was allowed to end her days in a pasture, but for people, the reality of freedom must be enacted every moment. 

Although Jan's students did not, eat meat, often, they were not "vegetarians" for such labeling is an example of binary thought, the very mechanical thinking one escapes any moment the neuralizing occurs.