Charlotte Iserbyt: Societies Secrets

[Gary Severson]

400 some yrs. ago Benedict Spinoza posited the phrase "I am, therefore I think" in opposition to his contemporary Rene Descartes who had described a human as, "I think, therefore I am". IOW Spinoza solved the mind body split 400 yrs. ago and everything since is a footnote incld. your bibliography. Marx did his doctoral dissertation on Epicurus, the forerunner of Spinoza.

[Ed Jewett]

So, in other words, the cognitive sciences have learned nothing in 400 years?

[Gary Severson]

Isn't that a "strawman" argument response?

[Charles Drago]

I refer you to "The Philosophers' Drinking Song"

Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nieizsche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will,
after half a pint of shanty wasparticularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.

[Ed Jewett]

"'The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature' is a book written by the German philosopher Karl Marx as his university thesis. Completed in 1841, it was on the basis of this work that he earned his Ph.D."

Is there a copy in English that can be acquired digitally or in print? Yes, right here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22759637/Karl-...-of-Nature

I shall endeavor to read it later, perhaps over a few bottles of Blackberry Witbier ["Being fond of alcoholic beverages, at Bonn [Marx] joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (Landsmannschaft der Treveraner) and at one point served as its co-president."] since the state of Massachusetts (once described as "The People's Republic of Cambridge"] may soon radically diminish the abilities of Sam Adams to brew such things.

"The essay has been described as "a daring and original piece of work in which he set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy"...[33]

From my bibliography:

Afterwards, You're a Genius: Faith, Medicine and the Metaphysics of Healing, Chip Brown, Riverhead Books (Penguin Putnam), New York 1998. [A journalist, a skeptic by profession who, if he did not become a True Believer, at least came to understand that it starts with belief.

Awakening to the Sacred: Creating a Spiritual Life from Scratch, Lama Surya Das, Broadway Books, Random House, New York. 1999

Better, Atul Gawande, Henry Holt, Metropolitan, 2007. [Notable for a discussion about due diligence en route to positive deviance.]

Breakfast at the Victory: The Mysticism of Ordinary Experience, James P.. Carse, HarperOne, San Franciso, 1994. [A delightful read by a retired professor of the history of literature and religion.]

The Break-Out Principle, Herbert Benson, M.D. and William Proctor, Scribner, New York 2003. [How to activate your accessible biomechanical "trigger" to power up creativity, insight, stress-reduction, and top-notch performance, by the author of The Relaxation Response.]

Counter Clockwise: mindful health and the power of possibility, Ellen Langer, Ballantine Books, NY 2009.

Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet, Matthew Fox, Tarcher/Putnam, New York 2002.

Emergence: The Connected Lives, of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software, Steven Johnson, Touchstone Books, 2002. [On the evolution of organizations.]

The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotions in the Making of Consciousness, Antonio Damasio, Harcourt, 1999.

God in Many Worlds: An Anthology of Contemporary Spiritual Writing, ed. by Lucinda Vardey, Pantheon Books, New York, 1995.



God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution, by James Redfield, Michael Murphy and Sylvia Timbers, Tarcher/Putnam, New York 2002. [A profound book with a stunning premise, something more than just its thorough yet simple review of the wisdoms of sages, mystics and scientists, it is an exploration of the range of extraordinary capabilities available to the human body/mind/spirit, and it is a call to personal action. Redfield is the author of The Celestine Prophecy, The Tenth Insight and The Celestine Vision. Murphy, the founder of the Esalen Institute, is the author of In the Zone (with Rhea Murphy), The Future of the Body, and The Life We are Given (with George Leonard). Timbers has been involved in consciousness studies and training for 20 years and a multimedia producer of projects focused on psychological and spiritual development. The book also contains a 66-page guide to the literature of transformative practice and a 28-page series of simple suggested practices that will deepen anyone's abilities in personal development of body/mind/spirit unity.]

Healing Beyond the Body: Medicine and the Infinite Reach of the Mind, Larry Dossey, M.D., Shambhala, Boston 2001.

Hymns to an Unknown God: Awakening the Spirit In Everyday Life, Sam Keen, Bantam, NY 1995.

Liars, Lovers and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are, Steven R. Quartz, Ph.D. and Terrence J. Sejnowski, Ph.D., HarperCollins/Wm. Morrow, New York 2002. [Quartz is the director of the Social Cognitive NeuroScience Lab at the California Institute of Technology. Sejnowski is regarded as the foremost theoretical brain scientist; he directs the Computational Biology Lab at the Salk Institute.]

Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life, Steven Johnson, Scribner, NY, 2004. [Neuroscience for the rest of us….]

Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, Bill Plotkin, New World Library, Novato, CA 2008. {A major work on developmental psychology and ecopsychology.]

The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, Thomas Moore, HarperPerennial 1997. [Written by a monk/theologist/psychologist, this is about the ways in which soulful living invests ordinary experiences with magic and enchantment.]

Shadow Culture: Psychology and Spirituality in America, Eugene Taylor, Counterpoint Press, Washington, DC 1999. [The author holds an MA in psychology and a PhD. in the history of philosophy and psychology, is a lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard, and is a senior psychologist at Massachusetts General, an author of books on William James as well as the psychology of spiritual healing, and is the chief instructor at the Harvard University Aikido Club.]

The Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, Joseph LeDoux, Viking Books, New York 2002. [A synthesis of the latest insights from neuroscience.]

Thinking With Your Soul: Spiritual Intelligence and Why It Matters, 
Richard Wolman, Ph.D., Random House/Harmony Books, New York 2001.

A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention and the Four Theaters of the Brain, John J. Ratey, M.D., Random House/Pantheon, New York, New York 2001. [A fascinating book that ranges across the neurosciences, psychology, pharmacology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and education in the subjects of development, perception, attention, consciousness, movement, memory, emotion, language, the social brain, brain function, identity/behavior, and the care and feeding of the brain.] 



Walking in this World: The Practical Art of Creativity, Julia Cameron, Tarcher/Putnam 2002. [A follow-up to The Artists' Way, this book is about rediscovering our senses of origin, proportion, perspective, adventure, personal territory, boundaries, momentum, discernment, resiliency, camaraderie, authenticity and dignity. Her list of recommended reading is remarkable.]

A Way of Working (D. M. Dooling, editor), Anchor Books, 1979.

***

There's a lot of God, spirit, meditation, and theology in there for a book that is supposed to be about "socialist man" based on Marx. I don't see any references to Hegelianism, any works written by anyone listed in the Wikipedia entry that were inspired by him. It says in that Wikipedia entry that "Marx sees the social function of religion in terms of highlighting/preserving political and economic status quo and inequality", but perhaps you can enlighten me about how the books i have noted or the excerpts from them you cannot have seen highlights or preserves economic status quo and inequality.

[Gary Severson]

I tried to respond to this post this morning but couldn't connect & then had to leave for the "state of usury", South Dakota. What I had said this morning went something like this.

Marx wasn't as irreligious as we think. Yes, he said "religion is the opiate of the people" and "the sigh of the oppressed". The fact that the Communist Party of the US (CPUSA-Marxist-Leninist) has a religion commission with clergymen from various faiths is some indication as to how complex Marxism is when it comes to religion. There is a line of thought from Epicurus through Spinoza to Marx. I see one of your biblio. books is by Antonio Dimasio. Much of Dimasio is related to Spinoza's ideas about the mind body split. The term pantheism was coined in 1805 to describe Spinoza's religious views. When Einstein was asked if he believed in God he said "yes, my god is the God of Spinoza". Einstein was a socialist.

[Ed Jewett]

Magda and Gary: There are over two hundred source books (plus notes from about 20 hours of post-graduate classroom lecture) in "Summon The Magic". I look forward -- delivered in a new thread, or by PM or e-mail, but subject to publication -- to your explanations and support for the argument where, in all of that, there is any discussion about socialism, the state, duty to the state or the people of the state.

Have you read all 200 books? Do you have the list?

The mind-map for the totality of the concept is a graphic that links 226 key words; in those 226 words, how many of them have anything to do with the state, government, political systems or approaches, or society?

Ed, I do not have the list. It may have been on my previous and now expired computer :damncomputer:

The bibliography was posted at EPU, and has been sent tonight by e-mail. I tried putting the mind map into an online mind-mapping program but without much success. My old PC fried as well, so the old copies of the totality I had on CD are not going to be read easily on an iMac. I have been able to resurrect the preface, the biblio, the introduction, the mind map, and the expanded table of contents, and I still have the original text plus many of the appendices in print form. It will eventually all go online.

I did mention in the Evica WWUH recordings thread that the University of Hartford holds a special place in my heart. I drove down there one Saturday afternoon for a ballgame and somehow had the knowledge that something very special was to occur later that day. When I arrived, I hung a "poster" with one of the "nuggets" I had discovered on the back of the chain-link backstop where all the visiting players could read it; they all did. The catcher, who had been getting the nuggets all along, went 3-for-3 that day, tying an NCAA record with three home runs in three at-bats, one to left, one to center, and the last to right. The other team's catcher asked the player who went to the plate right after the third round-tripper and said "What on earth can you throw to this kid that she can't hit out of the park?"

The poster:

"If You Want to Achieve Excellence...

You must have total intention
to create it here and now.

Total intention is the powerful combination
of desire, belief and acceptance.

You must not only desire it,
but you must believe that you
are capable of bringing it about.

And you must be willing to accept
the positives and the responsibilities that will come when it arrives, as well as the responsibilities when it does not."

Thus ends this diversion from the original thrust of the thread.

[Gary Severson]

I have a good memory from the U. of Hartford too. In 71 I went to a student gathering on campus. The attraction was the Yogi Maharishi Mahesh of Beatles fame. Whatever his shortcomings eventually were it was kind of a peak experience at the time. I wonder if GME was there at the time?

[Ed Jewett]

I tried to respond to this post this morning but couldn't connect & then had to leave for the "state of usury", South Dakota. What I had said this morning went something like this.

Marx wasn't as irreligious as we think. Yes, he said "religion is the opiate of the people" and "the sigh of the oppressed". The fact that the Communist Party of the US (CPUSA-Marxist-Leninist) has a religion commission with clergymen from various faiths is some indication as to how complex Marxism is when it comes to religion. There is a line of thought from Epicurus through Spinoza to Marx. I see one of your biblio. books is by Antonio Dimasio. Much of Dimasio is related to Spinoza's ideas about the mind body split. The term pantheism was coined in 1805 to describe Spinoza's religious views. When Einstein was asked if he believed in God he said "yes, my god is the God of Spinoza". Einstein was a socialist.

Well, the great thing about Internet discussion is that it is asynchronous, so it doesn't really matter when you respond. Everyone has other things to do during the day and night.

Pulling the Damasio book off the shelf, I note that Spinoza is noted in the index of the 335-page book once, on page 25, with footnote to his book first published in 1677. The text on page 25 is about consciousness, and the paragraph reads as follows:

"Consciousness opens the possibility of constructing in the mind some counterpart to the regulatory specifications hidden in the brain core, a new way for the life urged to press its claims for the organism to act on them. Consciousness is the right of passage which allows an organism armed with the ability to regulate its metabolism, with inmate reflexes, and with a form of learning known as conditioning, to become a minded organism, the kind of organism in which responses are shaped by mental concern over the organism's own life. Spinoza said that the effort to preserve oneself is the first and unique foundation of virtue. Consciousness enables that effort."

I checked the index of "The Feeling of What Happens" for mentions of "socialism", "the state", the relationship of the self to the state, anything having to do with politics, anthropology, sociology, etc., as well as the table of contents, as well as the conclusion (especially the part "Where does consciousness fit in the grand scheme of things?" on page 309 ff and the graphic on page 310 of the upwardly-curving pathway from wakefulness through autobiographical self to creativity) and I found ... hold your breath, now... nothing.

Perhaps I can scan all the books and all the excerpts and feed them to the NSA computers for a linguistic, historical and etymological analysis and ask them to post the results here. Surely, being a good socialist state, the USofA would accede to the request in off hours; it ought to take their ganged Cray computers about 42 milliseconds and could be fit into the gaps of their ongoing surveillance of everything on the planet.

How is excellence (and the coaching and development of it) related to socialism? Why is it, apparently in your mind, necessary that it be applied to the state or the collective? It does not exclude ethics, or empathy.

The idea that Einstein was a socialist is about as relevant to the question of whether my synthesis of material is socialist as the notation that Candace Pert donated almost $2,000 to Hilary Clinton.

As it says in the "Intro" to my collection, borrowing from The Consultant's Guide to Excellence, by Wayne Halliwell, Ph.D., Terry Orlick, Ph.D., Kenneth Ravizza, Ph.D., and Bob Rotella, Ph.D., published by Orlick Excel, Chelsea, Quebec 1999:

People can be helped to become exceptional, to be the best that they can be, when they seize opportunities and find ways to enhance their own performance and their own lives by strengthening positive perspectives,
by learning skills that allow them to embrace the challenges of higher-level achievement, by developing effective strategies for pursuing their dreams, by harnessing their passion, and by becoming their own best coach.

"The reason that doubt is such an enemy is that it attacks the will itself. Anxiety and fear are emotional and psychological disturbances that make functioning more difficult, but doubt weakens the will, which is at the center of our being. Doubt can cripple a person's desired act, think or even to live.

To perpetrate dought in the educational system, or in parent-child or manager- employee relationships, is one of the most debilitating -though often unconscious -crimes against human potential.

The cost of not recognizing [and counteracting] this is high, not only for the individual but for the group or organization. When doubt becomes internalized norms, the spirit suffers, a sense of purpose decays, dignity declines, excellence and greatness going to hiding, and the seeds for decadence and failure are germinated." [W. Timothy Gallwey]

We are in a world, whether socialist, capitalist or other, in which fear and anxiety are routinely generated. Our collective sense of purpose has decayed, excellence is in hiding where US educational systems cannot create an individual who can make change accurately at a retail cash register with the help of a calculator.

Why do you persist in trying to label my work, my intent, and my application of that synthesis as socialist?

Well, somewhere else, my avatar is a piece of calligraphy by my first aikido sensei which connotes the idea that the solution is at the heart of the matter...



if we keep moving in dialogue and the spirit of the way of harmony in movement, we may arrive at it.

Is this it?

And is all this an antidote for the manure and the produce that comes out of secret societies?

If secret societies have really found an avenue to improved or enhanced society, why is it secret?

[Gary Severson]

Ed, I'm not critical of your work as you seem to think. In fact I agree with the philosophies in most of your biblio. It seems though, your attitude toward Marxism is very negative and doesn't allow the possibility there could be other ways of interpreting the books in your list.

It seems to me Einstein the socialist has everythng to do with Spinoza and Dimassio. Dimassio has another book "Looking for Spinoza" which is an indication Spinoza is a very big part of Dimassio's attempt to deal with the mind/body problem. There doesn't have to be an obvious mention of socialism in any of these books for them to be related to the creation of socialist man. The attributes of a socialist man would be basically one who puts the welfare of others first. I don't know why you have such a negative view of that kind of person. Your emphasis on the individual as the locus of development suggests a connection to Objectivism as in Ayn Rand. That's just a thought but you seem to liberal to embrace her views.