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chrislofting

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Joang,

you wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> Chris,
> were yu a bassist, by any chance?
>

no. mostly lead singer and in some bands I played tenor sax (I did start off learning bass though). My last band was with Andy Gibb back in the mid 70s - he went to the US, I went back to my education to satisfy my 'need to know' ;-) I was 26 at the time. Got into university. Got bored (doing a BSc), dropped out half way through 2nd year and did an intense 6 months course in programming (Control Data Institute) - took to it like a duck takes to water and have been in it ever since - I usually work as a contractor aka professional invoice writer! ;-) The tight IT market at the moment, together with not completing my degree, is causing 'issues' so whilst I search for work I attempt to 'flesh out' my IDM/ICPlus material - may need to take a different path to make a living! ;-)

Chris.
 

joang

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Sheesh, Chris!
A simple, "No,I played tenor sax" would have sufficed. LOL, you are funny. No offence intended.

Namaste,
Joan
 

chrislofting

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Hi Joang,

you wrote:
>
> Sheesh, Chris!
> A simple, "No,I played tenor sax" would have sufficed. LOL,
> you are funny. No offence intended.
>

none taken. you should know by now that I believe in usually supplying a degree of background with an answer! ;-)

Chris.
 

joang

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Chris,
yes, but I didn't know that applied to EVERY question. :cool: What do you say when you are asked, "You want fries with that?"

Namaste,
Joan
 

joang

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Hi, Martin.
You wrote, "raise your head and gaze in the blue sky
And the mind is empty.
No questions ..."

Thank you. That was very pithy. I think.

Namaste,
Joan
 

cal val

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Dear Chris...

Well it's a pleasure to meet you! Really! I'm pleased with the background information as I'm sure Joan is despite her teasing...*grin*...and are probably a few others as well.

I'm f-f-ff-fff-ff-ffff-f...ahhhhh forget it. Do you know the difference between your forties and your fifties? Nothing! You still say "f-ff-f-f-ff-ffff-f-f-ff-fff."

I'm the divorced mother of one daughter and grandmother of one brand new beautiful grandson. I'm an artist with so-so talent, and I do any day job I can get to keep from starving. If I didn't...I'd be a starving so-so artist...*grin*

I know only too well what you mean by "professional invoice writer." And I wish you much good fortune in your job hunt.

Love,

Val
 

heylise

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Shenshu 34:
Maybe "raise your head and look to the blue heaven" is a better translation. Leaves more open to your own interpretation. "Blue sky/heaven" also means "judge; upright magistrate, a respectful sobriquet for a clean and upright official".

I have the Chinese text, thanks to Pedro (it is on Internet), and Wenlin, a program to translate Chinese. See http://www.wenlin.com Very good!

LiSe
 

chrislofting

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>
> By Joang (Joang) on Monday, October 13, 2003 - 04:36 am:
>
> Chris,
> yes, but I didn't know that applied to EVERY question. :cool:
> What do you say when you are asked, "You want fries with
> that?"
>

'umm... whats available?...french or freedom? are they thin or thick? with ketchup or mayo? olive-oil cooked or 'oil' cooked? or do you have wedges? or perhaps you could literally fry them, pan fry rather than deep fry, and in butter? tsk tsk so many choices! umm... where are my coins....

Chris.
 

pedro

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Dear Chris, even so its surpring you managed to pull up such a concise answer for the question Joan sugested. What, no species nature of fries? No IDM correspondances? No read my article on poly-insaturated oils? No cornucopia of links to everything fri-ness?
juz kiddin
wink.gif
 
C

candid

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Gotta love the variety within our 'species'. No matter what controversies arise, its the differences, not the similarities, which give color and texture to a topic. Sometimes its like looking at a large cut gemstone, each peering through the facet that is before them, reflecting and refracting light from within, and then sending one?s personal hue back into the collective stone ? a living stone, not a mere quartz.
 

chrislofting

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Hi Candid,

you wrote:
>
> Gotta love the variety within our 'species'. No matter what
> controversies arise, its the differences, not the
> similarities, which give color and texture to a topic.

sure. that is what consciousness is about - dealing with differences and the focus on EXPRESSION, its diversity. BUT these expressions are all PARTS of the WHOLE that is the species. Every trigram or hexagram or dodecagram reflects difference but out of a base that is same. Our current state of consciousness is limited in trying to comprehend the depths of what we are dealing with since it is still a 'child' and believes it is originating and being originating there is nothing 'hidden' - there is a LOT hidden! ;-)

> Sometimes its like looking at a large cut gemstone, each
> peering through the facet that is before them, reflecting
> and refracting light from within, and then sending one?s
> personal hue back into the collective stone ? a living
> stone, not a mere quartz.
>

the *cut* gemstone reflects consciousness, shiny, bright, precise; the uncut reflects speciesness, cloudy, approximate, diffuse. The problems we as a species have are in the cut gemstone thinking it came into existence 'as is' and as such sees all other gemstones as 'different' and as threatening to its survival and so the cut gemstone goes on to make its own little world unaware of the sameness in us all. It is that sameness that is our core, the bedrock, out of which we have all developed and we are now in a position to understand the nature of that bedrock and so refine it rather than try to break free of it, a common focus in cut gemstones lacking understanding of their uncut origins! ;-)

IMHO only by recognising (differentiating) and then integrating our consciousness-nature (the explicit) and our species-nature (the implicit) does our consciousness develop and the I Ching can aid in that process - when combined with what we have learnt about our 'hidden' aspects over the last 3000+ years ;-) The core focus is to teach our 'species-nature' before the specialisations zoom-in and introduce biases in perspectives that treat the part as whole and so act to threaten the whole.

Chris.
 
C

candid

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Chris, good food for thought as I leave to take on the day. I'll read your last post again this evening when I return, possibly reply. It does resonate within me. Then, there have been a number of things you've said here that resonate with me, I just have trouble sifting through the means by which you achieve your ends sometimes.

Peace,
Candid
 

martin

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Hi Joan,

"Pithy"? Me? ("I wrote that")

"*grin*"
 

megabobby

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hey chrisl

you were one of the architects of disco???
what are the i ching paramaters of funk played octave booty shaking grooves???

i been reading your posts (especially in the 7 laws post where everybody got on your case and made you speak english [ha ha])----mister,you need to write a book--pay off those dang taxes.
on one of those posts you were mentioning things like "these sequences even wilhelm didn't know"
geeeeniuss!!!!!

megadummy
 

joang

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Hi, Val. You wrote:

"I'm pleased with the background information as I'm sure Joan is despite her teasing...*grin*..."

Yes, I was teasing. Actually, Chris's lengthy reply was my fault. Since I didn't tell him why I was asking if he was a bassist, he may have assumed I was trying to pigeonhole him, and he responded by supplying his credentials [which I had already read in another thread, btw].

Chris reminds me a little of my beloved nephew, who also happens to be a programmer/systems analyst. I would ask him a simple computer question, and he would respond by explaining binary machine language until my eyes glazed over. :)

Namaste,
Joan
 

joang

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Thank you, LiSe, that helps.

I would love to get the Wenlin program, but the price tag gives me pause. I think I will get the 30-day trial version first. More than likely, that will whet my appetite for the full version later.

Namaste,
Joan
 
C

candid

Guest
Chris, your description of the man-cut (explicit) and natural stone (implicit) has me intrigued still. Its a great picture to ponder.

Let me ask you: Using the mandala as an image, how would you apply this same line of thinking? It seems that like a gem stone or crystal, it has implicit nature and also that which we project into it (explicit).

Oh, and if you could dumb it down for the sake of my right brain dominance/left brain deficit, I'd sure appreciate it.
wink.gif


Thanks!
 

chrislofting

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Hi Candid,

You wrote:
>
> Chris, your description of the man-cut (explicit) and
> natural stone (implicit) has me intrigued still. Its a great
> picture to ponder.
>
> Let me ask you: Using the mandala as an image, how would you
> apply this same line of thinking? It seems that like a gem
> stone or crystal, it has implicit nature and also that which
> we project into it (explicit).
>
> Oh, and if you could dumb it down for the sake of my right
> brain dominance/left brain deficit, I'd sure appreciate it.
> [ wink ]
>

As a mandala form we can treat this as an eye. The eye has two levels of focus, the parafovea that is the outside. Its focus is on edge detection, form detection (integration), peripheral vision. In the centre is the fovea, it deals with details, colours (and so harmonics - parts).

Looking at the centre we see the cut, the detail, but that detail is derived, it is the form, the edges picked up by peripheral vision that draws our attention, causes us to turn our heads to focus. As anyone who does Astronomy can tell you, when looking at the stars there are patterns detected by peripheral vision that will 'disappear' when you focus attention - you move 'past' the diffuse, implicit, whole and into parts and in doing so can lose 'sight' of the whole ;-)

Our brains do this. Right is more peripheral vision, more into approximations, pattern recognition, approximations when compared to the left that is more precise, more particular. BUT the right can survive without the left, it just lacks the precision. (if I remove a hemisphere before puberty the other is still plastic enough to compensate and take on both roles to some degree but usually the right is more developed at birth and the left starts to dominate when high precision communications come on-line as in the spoken/written word etc (and so high precision labelling)).

(I am being VERY 'general' here, the left/right distinctions reflect more a dimension of precision that is applied left-right but also front-back and surface-core and is identifiable all the way down to the basic neuron! - this is all fractal stuff, self-referencing etc - see the table in http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/hemis.html )

A 'good' mandala would contain high detail in the centre and more diffuse patterns on the circumference but patterns identifiable as such and not observable when you focus attention upon them.

This gets into the simple distincts of foreground (fovea) and background (parafovea), the foreground is detail, the background a 'blur' but focusing attention brings something from the background into the foreground, we focus our attention.

If I am born into a world that is overly biased to the characteristics of the fovea I can fail to realise that behind that world is the parafovea. The parafovea world integrates, the fovea differentiates. Parafovea reflects 'species-nature', the fovea reflects 'consciousness-nature'. Our being is the two, not one or the other.

The realm of the everyday of the species is that of the parafovea, instincts, habits, pushed by context with the occasional need to 'focus' to solve some LOCAL issue and as such is diffuse, foggy, approximate when compared to consciousness. (if there is no consciousness as we label it then the realm of the parafovea is 'reality')

Thus in the brain the focus on pattern matching, and so a more 'right' bias is reflected in a bias to integrating, to use of coordinates etc, a focus on a unit of measure no less than a PAIR. This is the realm of A AND B, BOTH/AND-ness. Meaning is often IMPLIED by the linking of vague 'differences' that make an implication (as in change of leaf colours plus lower temperatures implies autumn/winter is coming, all very 'general' when seen from the perspective of our consciousness but all very 'everyday' when seen from the position of our speciesness, our primate nature)

The more 'left' bias is reflected in differentiating bias (integration is rigid WITHIN what has been differentiated. It gets reflected in language through the concept of syntax and also in one's sense of self - gets exaggerated using drugs such as cocaine and speed - feeling of power etc) The overall bias here is on a unit of measure of ONE and so excluding all else, A XOR B, the exclusive OR.

The consistency of these patterns from neurons to eyes to brains to minds etc reflects a constant theme in the form of dimension of precision with differentiating at one end and integrating at the other and the mix of the two inbetween. The IDM material identifies these patterns at the GENERAL level where to communicate we have to go to details and so out pop specialisations such as the I Ching!

In the binary sequence of the I Ching the earth end is that of integration, the parafovea. The heaven end is that of differentiating, the fovea. All glitter, METAL, exchange focus, all expression but also potential 'delusions' in that we can see more in things than is there (and so the left is focused on interpretations rather than 'as is'. The interpretations mean we can put into something more than what was there in the first place, the use of our imagination and so a creative bias but also a potential source of misinterpretations that can get out of hand! - like looking into the cut gemstone where we can be overloaded with facets that were no there prior to the 'cut')

Chris.
 
C

candid

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Damn, Chris! I didn't expect your answer to come from this quarter, though I definately should have. *chuckle*

I have to scoot out the door to work, but I'll be giving this some thought and will read it again more thoroughly this evening. Interesting perspective, for sure. I know there's something significant here to get my head around.

Thanks again.
 
C

candid

Guest
Chris,

Well, I had a lot of fun thinking about your concept of mandala ? the eye. The outline and the colors within the lines. Stone and the gem we make it into. Implicit and explicit. I don?t have near the grasp on it that you do and it wasn?t an easy concept to stay focused on. What I like most from what I?ve gotten is the idea of filling in the outlines with my own colors, and likening that to I Ching. The amplification of symbols, which trigger our acceptance of the implicit, but fill in the colors to make it explicit ? providing our answer. (my gross over-simplification!)

There?s still something unsatisfied concerning this. I mean, it addresses my questions extremely well, but there?s another side which remains unanswered:

The center of mandala, whether as a physical, optical affect or some sort of Devine origin (both implicit), has an attribute of seeing, as well as being seen. Its this two way seeing that has transforming energy or power.

In your estimation, does mandala (or eye) look back at you, or is it a one way stream of consciousness?

Candid
 

chrislofting

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Hi Candid,

You wrote:
> Chris,

> There?s still something unsatisfied concerning this. I mean,
> it addresses my questions extremely well, but there?s
> another side which remains unanswered:
>
> The center of mandala, whether as a physical, optical affect
> or some sort of Devine origin (both implicit), has an
> attribute of seeing, as well as being seen. Its this two way
> seeing that has transforming energy or power.
>
> In your estimation, does mandala (or eye) look back at you,
> or is it a one way stream of consciousness?
>

:) our nature is such that we focus on possibilities and so use our imagination to aid us in our development. This is the benefit of consciousness in that it allows us to imagine contexts, elicit sensations, and so refine our instincts/habits to be prepared for these imagined contexts if they ever happen.

Our species-nature brain does not make the distinctions between fact and fiction - IMAGINE you are seeing things and the vision areas of your brain will 'light-up' in brain scans, and note that emotions such as fear can kill us, we can scare our selves to death through excessive strain on heart etc - and then depression etc can lead to suicide, and psychosis, where we create our own little worlds and 'dissapear' into them, is a form of mental suicide.

Lack of understanding of the 'laws' of reality can make us come-up with all sorts of 'novel' interpretations and imagined events. Our history as a conscious species shows that, given a sensation and no reference to similar sensations to act as measure, we will use ourselves as measure, we use analogy and metaphor and in doing so practice anthropomorphism - we give the sensation 'life', or more so a *reflection* of ourselves.

Any form of meditation on a mandala etc will elicit (a) habituation where sameness causes our sense to 'glaze over' and (b) projection, we see things that are not there, we amplify the reality, distort it, etc to work off possibles (gets into issues of the monkey-mind ;-))

This process means that the stream of consciousness is not 'one way' in that we use mandalas, pools of still water (as used by Nostrodarmus and others), crystal balls, meditations whilst using a mantra, basic prayer etc etc as sounding boards to our projections - our imagination can create whole universes ;-)

As such if we dont communicate with others we communicate with ourselves - feedback processes. We appear to often 'split' our personalities and interact with our selves 'in here'. more feedback. These personas are PARTS of the WHOLE that is the structure of personality. Actors learn to use them when they reasearch a role etc in that the range of all personas is in us all, it is a combination of genetic biases and the context of nurture that makes us take-up a 'preferred' form of expression out of this set of possible expressions.

IDM shows that the hexagrams of the I Ching, or more so the qualities that they represent, reflect the personas derived in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and as such the hexagrams reflect personas as well as all else ;-) (see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/MBITX.htm ) Given this fact, using our consciousness and feedback, we can interact with these parts, the sum of which reflect our whole personality where different contexts can elicit different expressions of that whole. Using the I Ching symbolisms we can experience these different personas, 'refine' them if need be and so extend our range, our context-sensitivity (see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/icproact.html) - we can 'appreciate' other perspectives and recognise that our own is but a PART of the whole.

We can use mandalas etc (I ching hexagrams) to project these personas, or design mandalas that REFLECT these personas and as such interact with, learn from, and so develop ourselves, which is what consciousness focuses upon - transcendence at work. The issue is we cannot afford to lose contact with our species-nature, our imagination is bounded, or else we dissapear into 'gaga-land' ;-) as such we need to learn about our species-nature, to ground ourselves and so our imaginations - to be able to do something our brain has an issue with - determining fact reality from imagined reality.

Chris.
 

chrislofting

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Candid,

in the context of the brain not differentiating 'fact' from 'fiction', or more so using the same areas to process actual vision vs imagined vision:

(a) see my pages on synethesthesia (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/synth.html and also consider the following off the evolutionarypsychology list:


-----Original Message-----
From: Liza May [mailto:lizamay@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, 15 October 2003 3:48 AM
To: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [evol-psych] Pain's Common Source in Brain


The brain systems involved in perceiving physical pain are also involved
in feeling emotional pain, new research has found.

In a brain imaging study of social rejection, scientists found that a
brain area called the anterior cingulate was activated. The same area is
activated by a slap or a bruise.

"The social attachment system, which keeps the young near caregivers,
may have piggybacked onto the physical pain system to promote survival,"
wrote researchers at UCLA, who published the study in Science.

Volunteers asked to participate in a rigged computer game were
artificially excluded in a virtual game of catch. Scientists scanned
their brains as volunteers waited for a ball to be thrown to them.

The experience of physical pain, while unpleasant, is crucial to
survival because it teaches animals to avoid dangerous, unhealthy or
unknown activities. Emotional pain seems to have a similar role,
prompting people to seek companionship and love, and to avoid isolation
and rejection. Social species such as humans survive through
interdependent bonds, as anthropologists and writers have known for
ages.

Linking the two phenomena through brain science is a new development.
Although no one needs a brain scan to know that a broken heart can be as
painful as a broken bone, the research sheds light into how the brain
works, and how it efficiently uses the same neural networks for
radically different functions.

http://tinyurl.com/qwf0


Human Nature Review http://human-nature.com
Evolutionary Psychology http://human-nature.com/ep
Human Nature Daily Review http://human-nature.com/nibbs
====================

As I pointed out our consciousness can elicit sensations using imagination (as in the above ability to elicit psychic pain etc) to aid in 'refining' our instincts/habits PRIOR to experience of some context. That is useful but also one needs to be aware of such functions - we need a 'species 101' course ;-)


Chris.
 
C

candid

Guest
Hi Chris,

If I were reading your last two posts unassociated with my ?seeing question?, I?d have found it all very interesting. I still find it interesting but haven?t been able to connect it to my last question. Then, its 1AM here and I was awakened by a phone call, so I?m not altogether here yet.

From what I gather, the more direct answer to my last question is likely: mandala (or eye) does not look back at you, and, consciousness is a one-way stream, which reflects back to us, wherein we take our meaning. More like a mirror than an eye.

I don?t have a problem with this idea as it seems logical. But we come again to that word: synchronicity. This is an interplay, similar to what we have been discussing. Does any portion or aspect of our environment actually relate directly to our input receptors, or are we doing this all alone?

IE: When I ask a question of Yi, do I receive only a random answer from which I skew my (Yi?s) answer? Sort of like filling in the implicit with my own to make it explicit, or cutting the stone to form an order-matrix, which my mind links to the question or mentally/emotionally pressing issue?

Considering Liza May?s article, these experiences are all part of survival and are all related. The way our environment cooperates is by providing the natural images to evoke our responses, all of which aids in the survival of species. But, there really is no actual input other than what we extract (or reflect).

But when pain happens, such as the article points out, it often has an external cause or stimulus. This means that there actually was something apart from our imagination interplaying with our response.

Given that I?m asking you these questions, I see no point in contesting your answers. So its not in the spirit of argument that I still can only partially agree. Though I can not logically fill in all the answers, I can not escape the exactness of Yi?s answers, nor the timing. I still think the eye looks back at us. And I recognize that I could be entirely wrong.

Thanks much for your input.

Candid
 

chrislofting

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Hi Candid,

You wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> If I were reading your last two posts unassociated with my
> ?seeing question?, I?d have found it all very interesting. I
> still find it interesting but haven?t been able to connect
> it to my last question. Then, its 1AM here and I was
> awakened by a phone call, so I?m not altogether here yet.
>
> From what I gather, the more direct answer to my last
> question is likely: mandala (or eye) does not look back at
> you, and, consciousness is a one-way stream, which reflects
> back to us, wherein we take our meaning. More like a mirror
> than an eye.
>

sort of. Note that the feedback can modify you and so your reflection can change! ;-)

> I don?t have a problem with this idea as it seems logical.
> But we come again to that word: synchronicity. This is an
> interplay, similar to what we have been discussing. Does any
> portion or aspect of our environment actually relate
> directly to our input receptors, or are we doing this all
> alone?
>

the dichotomy here is causality/synchronicity. Causality is differentiating and serial, syntax focused. B follows A. C follows B etc Synchronicity is more 'field' oriented where ALL of the expressions of causality are expressed at the one moment and the focus is on any patterns in this expression - of what goes with what, what stays away from what in these 'moments'.

Imagine standing in a crowd of people and the context pushes you at a moment such that half the crowd 'instinctively' takes a step back and the other half a step forward. There are no words here, the 'something' is out of consciousness. Our MINDS, our consciousness, unaware of the nature how context can set-off behaviours 'out of consciousness', can fire instincts at a VERY subtle level, will interpret this as a 'synchronous' moment - 'Wow! you step forward just when I did!' - Jung's concept covered the synchrony over hours, days, not just the immediate moment. Note in this the approximation focus, a focus that is very 'right brained' when compared to the 'dot' precision of the 'left brained'.)

I think a discussion of this is 'brewing' on the recent post thread of

"Marie Louise von Franz - On Divination & Synchronicity"

In that book von Franz covers the differences in perspectives of causal vs synchronicity and the IDM material would validate that dichotomy as reflecting a differentiation bias (western, dot oriented, serial, precise) vs an integrating bias (eastern, field oriented, parallel, approximate). IOW Jung's noticing of the differences where inevitable in that the distinctions are part of our brain makeup, they become noticable as we become more precise in our analysis of consciousness (and unconsciousness) etc.

Jung's focus is strongly on the "Collective Unconscious" and so our species-nature and that nature is integrating and with it comes its interpretation of time etc that LACKS the precision of causal time concepts, focuses more on the relationships between things as compared to a more differentiating perspective that focuses on the thing itself.

The 'right brained' form of thinking will identify things IMPLICITLY, through rough linking of a pattern of events all happening in synchronous time and 'implying' something, some meaning. The focus here is on pattern matching - the realm of, the specialisation of, the parafovea in vision.

Imagine for all individuals each causal line as represented by a lightbulb. Imagine all of these lines packed together into a circular form. As each light goes off or on so a pattern will emerge in the WHOLE set of light bulbs. Those patterns can be interpreted as reflecting 'synchrony' where there is no apparent 'logical' link but the oberservation of some 'meaning' shared. Implied in this is that an archetype can 'set off' causal activity that creates a unique pattern tied to the archetype. Get in tune with the parallel and you can sense the patterns - patterns that PUSH individuals and so enable predictions of events, behaviours at the general level.

This gets into flocking behaviour in flocks of birds, swarms of bees, crowds of people, and neural networks. All of the individuals will make LOCAL distinctions in relation to their immediate surroundings (and so context). Those distinctions will reverberate, be amplified and dampened across the collective such that a pattern will emerge in the collective not necessarily related to the actions of any ONE individual at that moment.

Any benefits from this activity can feedback to encourage the individuals to make the same local distinctions such that out pops 'magic' in that ONE individual believes their actions elicit the expression whereas it is the interactions of all that does this. A PART is treated as if a WHOLE and from that can develop all sorts of belief systems if the individual/collective does not know about these sorts of dynamics in nature.

> IE: When I ask a question of Yi, do I receive only a random
> answer from which I skew my (Yi?s) answer? Sort of like
> filling in the implicit with my own to make it explicit, or
> cutting the stone to form an order-matrix, which my mind
> links to the question or mentally/emotionally pressing
> issue?
>

For any moment in time, the WHOLE of the I Ching is applicable, IS applied, and so reflects the parallel focus. But our consciousness is serial oriented, particulars focus, and so zooms in on a PART of the I Ching, a hexagram. We are not explicitly aware (without learning about it) of the WHOLE that is active, we are trained to focus on the PART, the 'best fit', for us, of all of the parts that apply to any moment.

When you ask a question through divination techniques (as in coins, marbles, yarrow sticks etc) what you get is ONE of the PARTS of the I Ching for that moment. You may get the 'best fit' hexagram, you may get the 'worst fit' hexagram but whatever hexagram you get will elicit meaning in some way in that the I Ching is our filter of reality such that it describes 'all there is' - or we make so ;-) (if the hexagram comes across as 'no way!' then convert it to its opposite, you have probably picked-up the 'worst fit' hexagram! ;-))

The advantage of the divination method, the use of 'randomness' is that the WHOLE is unconscious to you and as such your decisions can be 'clouded' by local judgements (yours included). The randomness can give you a perspective out of 'left field' that you may not have considered in reflecting on 'the situation'. In more ancient times this act was to reflect the 'thoughts of the gods', of determinism.

Determinism is strongly 'right brained' and is reflected in such concepts as archetypes, instincts etc. Free will is 'left brained' as reflects the ability to break-free of an archetype/instinct/habit by (a) intentionally moving to another archetype or (b) by backing away from the current (and so backing into another archetype). As such, archetypes are operating as contexts all of the time, your free will is the ability to switch from one to another ;-) (or try to assert your own version to 'replace' the existing - charisma etc allows for this).

The proactive approach to divination/prediction etc stems from analysis of how our brains work at a very generic level for ANY information processing. In that system you answer three to six questions that should give you a hexagram close to the 'best fit' for the moment. Since for any moment all 64 hexagrams are expressed, but in a distorted manner, ordered from best to worst fit, so eliciting the best fit allows you to get a better grip on what is happening. (see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/lofting/proact.html (six questions) or the quick IC - http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/proact3.html )

Other work allows you to derive the full order of the hexagrams for that situation from best fit to worst fit - a sequence of 64 hexagrams (if 23 is the best fit then its opposite will be the worst fit and there is an ordering of hexagrams covering that dimension from 23 to 43)

> Considering Liza May?s article, these experiences are all
> part of survival and are all related. The way our
> environment cooperates is by providing the natural images to
> evoke our responses, all of which aids in the survival of
> species. But, there really is no actual input other than
> what we extract (or reflect).
>

the general dynamic is at the level of the parallel, the local dynamic at the level of the serial. Our confusions is often of mixing local with non-local, particular with/as general, metonomy with metaphor. Our species-nature is hard-coded in the form of instincts and the development of habits and so allow context to PUSH us (instincts and habits are encoded into the input areas of our neurons - allows us to conserve energy by being pushed)

We have the ability to modify the environment in the form of SIGNS and SYMBOLS such that there is a 'mind' out there influencing us, it is the mind of the species, the collective etc. Over generations those signs/symbols become 'objectified' in that they function either side of one's lifespan (but are still subjective from the perspective of the collective). As the richness of signs/symbols develops so our output is added to be input with the 'natural' input, we are creating a hybrid reality made-up of the materialism of the Universe and the idealism of our conscious species.

Problems can develop when this hybrid reality is interpreted as the reality of the Universe and the problem is that this hybrid reality IS originated in 'mind' such that it is easy to consider consciousness as 'originating' - the data on brain development etc suggests otherwise, favours the development of the hybrid model and so two 'everydays' to deal with - the material and the hybrid.

Chris.
 

pedro

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Here we go again...
happy.gif


<BLOCKQUOTE><HR SIZE=0><!-Quote-!><FONT SIZE=1>Quote:</FONT>

Candid:

> IE: When I ask a question of Yi, do I receive only a random
> answer from which I skew my (Yi?s) answer? Sort of like
> filling in the implicit with my own to make it explicit, or
> cutting the stone to form an order-matrix, which my mind
> links to the question or mentally/emotionally pressing
> issue?
>

Chris:

For any moment in time, the WHOLE of the I Ching is applicable, IS applied, and so reflects the parallel focus. But our consciousness is serial oriented, particulars focus, and so zooms in on a PART of the I Ching, a hexagram. We are not explicitly aware (without learning about it) of the WHOLE that is active, we are trained to focus on the PART, the 'best fit', for us, of all of the parts that apply to any moment.

When you ask a question through divination techniques (as in coins, marbles, yarrow sticks etc) what you get is ONE of the PARTS of the I Ching for that moment. You may get the 'best fit' hexagram, you may get the 'worst fit' hexagram but whatever hexagram you get will elicit meaning in some way in that the I Ching is our filter of reality such that it describes 'all there is' - or we make so ;-) (if the hexagram comes across as 'no way!' then convert it to its opposite, you have probably picked-up the 'worst fit' hexagram! ;-)) <!-/Quote-!><HR SIZE=0></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, this is one of those endless discussions, where in the end its faith alone that decides the side we choose to stay on. I just believe that its not merely a mental construction (that will work with either the best or the worst fit, because we find meaning in them both) because there were more times than I can remember when the answer I got was the best fit beyond any reasonable doubt. So either Im lucky or there is something else at work here. Knowledge seems to appear before us following some shceme, I have had numerous times when particularly important clues of knowledge fell on my lap at the needed time. Because I chose to pay attention, Chris would say, but here as much as with the Yi, its personal experience that convinces me of the opposite. When we reach some threshold of appropriateness, it cannot be just chance and selective thinking. It must be our soul's intrinsic journey
 
C

candid

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Pedro, my conclusion is the same as yours. I don't discount Chris' views at all, but I can only embrace half of it. Be it just my subjective experience, it still speaks to me more than what I project into it. The eye does see.
 

chrislofting

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Pedro, Candid,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: I Ching Community Discussion Forum
> [mailto:support@onlineClarity.co.uk]
> Sent: Thursday, 16 October 2003 7:30 PM
> To: ddiamond@ozemail.com.au
> Subject: Shen shu?
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> I Ching Community Discussion Forum: Open Space: Shen shu?
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> By Candid (Candid) on Thursday, October 16, 2003 - 10:30 am:
>
> Pedro, my conclusion is the same as yours. I don't discount
> Chris' views at all, but I can only embrace half of it. Be
> it just my subjective experience, it still speaks to me more
> than what I project into it. The eye does see.
>

As I have emphasised, your personal points of view are PARTS of the whole. There is a lot going on you are consciously NOT aware of BUT current work in neurosciences etc is starting to unravel that hidden element.

What would it mean to either of you if the half you cannot embrace was 'true'? How would you adapt to that change? If you find it difficult to accept it or work with it as if 'real' then pretend. Use your imagination. What would things 'be'? ;-)
What would, in your eyes, be the consequences for each of you and for the species as a whole?

Chris.
 

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