alt.dreams.castaneda.donovan

[Eldon Donovan]

Does anyone know how a new newsgroup originates, how to start a new NG?

I am prompted to look at the new newsgroups all the time but have ni idea
how a new NG is "instantiated."

I wish to instantiate a new news group.

Alt.Dreams.Castaneda.Was.A.Fake or something of the like.

Eldon

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Eldon Donovan" <El...@eldon.net> wrote:

That idea's worth a baker's dozen of my favorite Mingus cuts.
Tried to stay away from his most famous. Here's what was uploaded:

Duke Ellington's Sound of Love
Ecclusiastics
Girl Of My Dreams
The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers
Moanin'
Orange Was the Color of Her Dress
Self Portrait In Three Colors
Sue's Changes
Epitaph - Tribute - Main Score Part 2 and Started Melody (live)
Epitaph - Tribute - Noon Night (live)
Epitaph - Tribute - Peggy's Blue Skylight (live)
Epitaph - Tribute - Please Don't Come Back From The Moon (live)
Epitaph - Tribute - The Soul (live)

Eldon, I've noticed possible problems with timing out on your ftp site
while downloading BIG files (like Sue's Changes and Main Score - both
around 17 minutes). So what I recommend is that when ftp'ing into
your site with just regular ftp, issue the 'hash' command to turn on
hash marks while songs are downloading (or use some ftp utility that
takes care of it automatically). I believe that will keep it from
timing out, but you may want to make sure. Are you able to
successfully download the long songs?

-Jer

[Leo]

"instantiate"???? does this mean like institute or initiate or to do both at
the same time?.. I don't know if this word would pass in a game of scrabble.
lol ;)....seriously tho, I don't think it would be too hard but a quick look
thru my OE didn't show how, maybe it is done thru the news server.....i
remember seeing somewhere recently that groups that begin with the alt.*
pre-fix are "outlaw" groups with no moderator or rules and you should be
aware that some of these groups can get a bit raunchy at times ....yee
haww....sounds kinda excitin' don't it? Any way if you are up to suggestions
for a name for a new NG maybe some of the folks here might have some to
offer.....here's an idea to start how about "alt. bignavel".....anyone else?
:-)

"Eldon Donovan" <El...@eldon.net> wrote in message
news:1_6dnbEW7qV...@comcast.com...

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Jeremy Donovan" <

> That idea's worth a baker's dozen of my favorite Mingus cuts.
> Tried to stay away from his most famous. Here's what was uploaded:

AWESOME THANKS!>

> Eldon, (or use some ftp utility that

> takes care of it automatically).

I just uploaded "WS_FTP 7.62 Pro" to the Shoobie Doobie folder. I've never
had a problem uploading or downloading anything with WS_FTP and I have moved
freakin' terrabytes of shit...LOL!

I have always used WS_FTP to do my bidding and not the weeny get it for free
on the internet version. I have been able to get the Pro versions as they've
come out for the last few years and it's really top stuff. Makes
webmastering a breeze and I never even think about it. There is a version 9
out now and I need to update to that at some point. bu the version I
uploaded is dynamite. When you install just tell you are an educational
institution or a student, if it asks.

WS_FTP has never timed out on me while uploading or downloading, only when I
leave it idle. Even then it reconnects in a jiff when I start tranferring
again.

if you have anyproblems istalling let me know and I will put my orginal
self-extracting .rar file up for you.

> I believe that will keep it from
> timing out, but you may want to make sure. Are you able to
> successfully download the long songs?

Aw, hell yeah. I just DL'd that whole 134 Mbs in 5 1/2 minutes, no problems.
Uploading would have taken about 10x's that long but it wouldna been no
thing, yknowhaImthayin.... I will check the setting on my webserver, eh, but
I honestly donna believe'a there is anything'a causing any'a restrictions
ona you speed, eh, or volume of downloads from the ftp.

holy mole' mostaccioli.'

Enjoying mingus now...

cheers
Eldon

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:

>"instantiate"???? does this mean like institute or initiate or to do both at
>the same time?.. I don't know if this word would pass in a game of scrabble.
>lol ;)....seriously tho, I don't think it would be too hard but a quick look
>thru my OE didn't show how, maybe it is done thru the news server.....i
>remember seeing somewhere recently that groups that begin with the alt.*
>pre-fix are "outlaw" groups with no moderator or rules and you should be
>aware that some of these groups can get a bit raunchy at times ....yee
>haww....sounds kinda excitin' don't it?

Yeah! Boy I bet that's fun, I think I'll try it.

>Any way if you are up to suggestions
>for a name for a new NG maybe some of the folks here might have some to
>offer.....here's an idea to start how about "alt. bignavel".....anyone else?
>:-)

In that spirit, how about: alt..little-packs-of-desiccant

>"Eldon Donovan" <El...@eldon.net> wrote in message
>news:1_6dnbEW7qV...@comcast.com...
>> Does anyone know how a new newsgroup originates, how to start a new NG?
>>
>> I am prompted to look at the new newsgroups all the time but have ni idea
>> how a new NG is "instantiated."
>>
>> I wish to instantiate a new news group.
>>
>> Alt.Dreams.Castaneda.Was.A.Fake or something of the like.
>>
>> Eldon

I'm uploading one more musical thing today, one more in keeping with
the mood of all things Castaneda.

I drove up to Ojai this afternoon and walked around the art galleries
and shops for awhile. In a music shop I found a good price on a used
copy of a Bill Evans album I had wanted for awhile, so I picked it up.

And here's a picture I took of Ojai Valley:
http://www.grovestreet.com/jsp/onepic.jsp?id=494329
(click again when it loads to get the full-sized original)

The Bill Evans album is called: You Must Believe In Spring. It was
put out in 1981. Evans died in 1980.

It opens with B Minor Waltz (For Ellaine). Ellaine was his common-law
wife, who had recently committed suicide when he wrote the song. They
had been separated for several years...

The fourth song on the album is called: We Will Meet Again (For
Harry). Turns out Harry was Bill's brother, a music professor who
also killed himself a couple of years before this was recorded.

And the last cut on the original album was: Suicide is Painless (the
theme used for M*A*S*H).

I've included the three bonus cuts that came with the CD as well as
all the originals.

So while the album is called You Must Believe In Spring, it seems to
be largely about death... The funny thing is that I had been wanting
to write a song and call it something like: Spring Will Never Come
(in LA it's almost like we don't really even HAVE seasons at all, not
winter or fall either, really...). So when I actually saw this CD on
sale in the shop on sale I had to pick it up.

Here is a list of cuts:

B Minor Waltz (For Ellaine)
You Must Believe In Spring
Gary's Theme
We Will Meet Again (For Harry)
The Peacocks
Sometime Ago
Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H)

Bonus 1 - Without A Song.mp3
Bonus 2 - Freddie Freeloader.mp3
Bonus 3 - All Of You.mp3

You know Eldon, I never get tired of that "Piano Jazz" piece you gave
me in that collection you posted. That one's stuck in my heart
forever. Thanks again for it. However, I thought you might want to
know, it's not Bill Evans. Actually, the NAME of that song is "Bill
Evans", and it's from one of the albums in a big SERIES of albums
called "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz". The song "Bill Evans" was
written by Les McCann, and it is a piano duet performed by McCann and
McPartland.

This is the CD it is from:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000005HKV/ref=m_art_li_9/104-4448248-0341539?v=glance&s=music

Actually, one of the albums in the Piano Jazz series DID feature Bill
Evans (in 1978), but that particular cut is not from it, and indeed,
Evans was long dead when this particular radio program aired (1989).

It was part of a radio program McPartland put together that was played
over National Public Radio for several years (I even remember catching
some of the program once in awhile...). Then several years later a
lot of it was released on CD.

Such a gorgeous piece I had to go track it down.

-Jer

[Harlow]

Jeremy Donovan <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message news:<iobth0h5mjrolrs5s...@4ax.com>...

> And here's a picture I took of Ojai Valley:
> http://www.grovestreet.com/jsp/onepic.jsp?id=494329

David Worrell?
Any connection with 3-brained Miscavige?
-Harlow

[Jeremy Donovan]

har...@k.st (Harlow) wrote:

Well, we're both human beings named David, so I can sure see why you'd
suspect a connection and immediately post queries to the appropriate
groups. But ... no.

Btw, you're not related to Arlo Guthrie are you? Your names not only
rhyme but are both nearly contained in the word "Charlotte" as well,
so I've taken the liberty of adjusting the distribution.

Warm regards,

Jer

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Jeremy Donovan"

> > And here's a picture I took of Ojai Valley:
> http://www.grovestreet.com/jsp/onepic.jsp?id=494329
> (click again when it loads to get the full-sized original)

Cool. I love Ojai. It's kind of a pricey resort town but if you can afford
it, it's a nice resort. Especially if you golf. I used to fo fishing at Lake
Casitas. Caught some pretty nice Bass there. We used to rent a skiff for $14
a day...LOL!

pretty sweet... I don't imagine you could touch one for under $40-50 now

>
> The Bill Evans album is called: You Must Believe In Spring. It was
> put out in 1981. Evans died in 1980.

Nice find... you gotta love it.

> Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H)

Man, interesting bit of history, Jer. I had not known any of that before.
Always nice to learn more about historic Jazz figures. But actually that is
a pretty dark stretch you desrcibe there.

>
> You know Eldon, I never get tired of that "Piano Jazz" piece you gave
> me in that collection you posted. That one's stuck in my heart
> forever. Thanks again for it. However, I thought you might want to
> know, it's not Bill Evans.

HAHAHA!
too funny..

Yeah when I was uploading I was just rifleing thrpugh a DVD that has all my
Kazaa and Grokster finds on it. I probably even DL'd it based on that too.

I probably just grabbed it cause it said Bill Evans on it...
Yeah, I think I have more of the McPartland stuff too...

http://www.prex.com/biography/Bill-Evans-discography.html

Here is a pretty comprehensive discography of Bill Evans' recordings, both
live, studio and otherwise.

Truly amazing...
It's like the guy had a microphone up his ass and everytime he even farted
somebody was recording it....lol

> Then several years later a
> lot of it was released on CD.
> Such a gorgeous piece I had to go track it down.

Right on, I don't have the folder right here with me, I'll go grab it off
the DVD again... to remind myself what the hell you're talking about HAHAHA!

;^)

I am uploading both versions of Flamenco Sketches from the old Mile's
classic Kind of Blue. I am assuming you have probably heard Kind of Blue
over and over through the years. Total classic disc from '59. Most people
have a copy or two lying around. My buddy gave me the copy I had because he
had like 3 different issues of it...LOL!

this one has two versions of Flamenco Sketches. Ver 1 being the original and
ver 2 being the "value added" one put on this 1997 Sony release as a bonus.

It's 9 minutes, 9 mbs. I really enjoy everything on ver 1, especially
around the 4:40 mark, the riffs get real lyrical and as it moves on into
Bill's solo which lasts a couple minutes, it's just a slow mellow sound, a
real gentle, very understated solo.

When I listen to ver 2 I can totally see why they chose ver 1 for the album.
You will too. Miles first note just about blows your eardrums out...LOL and
there are some other less enchanting areas of the tune... it's just not as
interesting or as happening as ver 1. But that might be purely subjective on
my part. the 4:40 mark doesn't have the lyrical sound but Bill's solo is
always worth the price of admission. It's not a great solo though, much
shorter and a little clumbsy at first. He just seems to be experimenting
with what he wants to do with the song, a couple thematic areas, dymnamic
range, rather than playing his definitive take.

On Ver 2 miles is just really mixed too hot...lol Miles dynamic sense is
just way off on this take...lol maybe it's just the mix.

Also putting up some Pat Martino but I will make another post for that
because it deserves it's own space to be experienced in.

cheers,
Eldon.

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Jeremy Donovan" <

> Here is a list of cuts:
>
> B Minor Waltz (For Ellaine)
> You Must Believe In Spring
> Gary's Theme
> We Will Meet Again (For Harry)
> The Peacocks
> Sometime Ago
> Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H)
>
> Bonus 1 - Without A Song.mp3
> Bonus 2 - Freddie Freeloader.mp3
> Bonus 3 - All Of You.mp3

Oh, BTW!
84 Mb - 4:03

;^)
Thanks, Jer,
this batch looks particularly lovely

[MX]

"Eldon Donovan" <El...@eldon.net> wrote:
>Does anyone know how a new newsgroup originates, how to start a new NG?

take a look at alt.config news group

:)

[Caxley@loxinfo.co.th Gary Caxley]

alt.dreams. sounds like just the newsgroup that Stevie Flamer would fit
into :-)

"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message

news:o9suh0hvmasf6n4o4...@4ax.com...

[Leo]

"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message

news:iobth0h5mjrolrs5s...@4ax.com...
>

>
>
>
>
> >Any way if you are up to suggestions
> >for a name for a new NG maybe some of the folks here might have some to
> >offer.....here's an idea to start how about "alt. bignavel".....anyone
else?
> >:-)
>
> In that spirit, how about: alt..little-packs-of-desiccant
>

>Nice................., how about: alt.jeremy-got-smack

or............................................: alt.dirty-laundry

or my fave.............................: alt.pimpin' your psyche

cheers,

Leo

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Gary Caxley"

> alt.dreams. sounds like just the newsgroup that Stevie Flamer would fit
> into :-)
>

alt.dreams.masturbation

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:

>"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message
>news:iobth0h5mjrolrs5s...@4ax.com...
>>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >Any way if you are up to suggestions
>> >for a name for a new NG maybe some of the folks here might have some to
>> >offer.....here's an idea to start how about "alt. bignavel".....anyone
>else?
>> >:-)
>>
>> In that spirit, how about: alt..little-packs-of-desiccant
>>
>>Nice................., how about: alt.jeremy-got-smack

I don't use smack, and don't like titles that are personally
derogatory.

>or............................................: alt.dirty-laundry

That's pretty good.

>or my fave.............................: alt.pimpin' your psyche

Like that one too.

>cheers,

rah rah.

-J.

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"MX"

> take a look at alt.config news group

yeah I checked it out and they gave me this info...
thanks for the hot tip

Want to propose a newsgroup? Browse these links for help:
http://www.faqs.org/usenet/alt/
http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/good-newgroup.html
http://nylon.net/alt/newgroup.htm
For information on moderating a newsgroup:
http://www.swcp.com/~dmckeon/mod-faq.html
http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/mod-pitfalls.html
http://www.landfield.com/moderators/
Tale discusses control messages:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/CONFIG/README
For proposals that belong in the UK hierarchy:
http://www.usenet.org.uk/
To locate a newsgroup control message:
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/[hierarchy]/[group.name].gz
Open with WinZip.
Newsgroup Propagation Search:
http://usenet.klaas.ca/groupsearch/

[Leo]

"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message

news:9n23i0h56ceg6cv9j...@4ax.com...

>
> "Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:
>
> >"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message
> >news:iobth0h5mjrolrs5s...@4ax.com...
> >>
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >Any way if you are up to suggestions
> >> >for a name for a new NG maybe some of the folks here might have some
to
> >> >offer.....here's an idea to start how about "alt. bignavel".....anyone
> >else?
> >> >:-)
> >>
> >> In that spirit, how about: alt..little-packs-of-desiccant
> >>
> >>Nice................., how about: alt.jeremy-got-smack
>
> I don't use smack, and don't like titles that are personally
> derogatory.
>

>Sorry dude. Didn't mean to offend you. I wasn't sure what to make of the
"little-packets -of desiccant" thing so I guess it threw me off little bit.
I mean you gotta admit thats a pretty extraordinary suggestion. By the way
altho' I'm not from the 'hood or nothin' I do watch TV and movies and the
smack I was referring to is like the old jive or trash talk, as in someone
who can talk smack not shoot smack ( the drug). Hope that smoothes it for ya
, it's like a little bit o' props for your debatin' skills. Peace out. ;)

>
> >or............................................: alt.dirty-laundry
>
> That's pretty good.
>
>
>
>
> >or my fave.............................: alt.pimpin' your psyche
>
> Like that one too.
>
>
>
>
> >cheers,
>
> rah rah.
>

Hell yeah ! You know I have followed this Ng for some time( probably about a
year or so) under a few different names. A forum like this is a great place
to air out some ideas and see what other people think.

Regards,

Leo

P.S. .........How About ................: alt. science - schmience

or....................: alt.egos- we don't need no
stinkin' egos

or....................: alt.smiling feces

or.....................: alt. its only words (
logos? what logos?)

[rbb]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote in message
news:mHBUc.138310$gE.64998@pd7tw3no...

> Hell yeah ! You know I have followed this Ng for some time( probably about
a
> year or so) under a few different names. A forum like this is a great
place
> to air out some ideas and see what other people think.

alt.think

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:

Um, all right then Leo...

alt.whatever

alt..smart-aleck

alt.substance.for.a.change?

alt.when.will.they.learn

alt.sex.bestiality.Barney

(no wait, those last two already exist...)

-J.

[Leo]

"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net> wrote in message

news:1ss5i0d26i93fc3hg...@4ax.com...

alt. not extraordinary

alt. save the lecture

alt. wise acre

[Leo]

"rbb" <ely...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:wcCUc.105959$i7.7...@amsnews05.chello.com...

alt.thunk

alt.thank

[Jeremy Donovan]

alt.u.came.here.to.pick.some.stupid.fight.like.the.last.twenty.dumbasses

:-)

-J.

[slider]

Jeremy wrote

alt.u.came.here.to.pick.some.stupid.fight.like.the.last.twenty.dumbasses

:-)

### - definitely sounds like something you'd be right at-home with alright jeremy heh...

but why have to be always so sly about things... why not just be straight up:

e.g.

alt.information.castaneda
alt.anti-castaneda
alt.hoax.castaneda
alt.cult.castaneda

and just for fun...

alt.internal.dialogue
alt.dialogue.blah.blah.blah
alt.marching.up.and.down
alt.get.your.mind.right.boy (smile, set that last one up for crsds :)

[Jeremy Donovan]

"slider" <sli...@anashram.com> wrote:

> Jeremy wrote
>
> alt.u.came.here.to.pick.some.stupid.fight.like.the.last.twenty.dumbasses
>
> :-)
>
> ### - definitely sounds like something you'd be right at-home with alright jeremy heh...

Something I've been putting up with, and dealing with, for a very long
time just so I could keep having a few exchanges like the one I'm
having with Eldon about music.

> but why have to be always so sly about things... why not just be straight up:
>
> e.g.
>
> alt.information.castaneda
> alt.anti-castaneda
> alt.hoax.castaneda
> alt.cult.castaneda

Those would all be fine.
alt.dreams.castaneda.hoax is my favorite.

> and just for fun...
>
> alt.internal.dialogue
> alt.dialogue.blah.blah.blah

Those wouldn't work. Because newsgroups are external dialog. LOL.
alt.internal.dialog would be superficially the same as alt.silence,
donchaknow.

And they're worth about the same in reality too. :-)

> alt.marching.up.and.down
> alt.get.your.mind.right.boy (smile, set that last one up for crsds :)

Yeah, you probably get chills when you hear Ray Charles sing Georgia
on my Mind and think of his struggles as a blind black artist, but ...
you won't realize(like I do) that that music was composed by Hoagy
Carmichael (A gangly looking white pianist) in 1930.

Let's just say that a great many of your other ideas are similarly
superficial in nature...

-Jer

[rbb]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote in message

news:rdHUc.132217$M95.15348@pd7tw1no...

alt.ploing

[rbb]

"Eldon Leighton Donovan" <El...@SpamSucks.com> wrote in message
news:Obmdnbi50p3...@comcast.com...

Not if your post your ass again.

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"rbb" <

> Not if your post your ass again.
>

Again?
I don't ever remember posting my ass in the first place?
(unless you are speaking metaphorically, of course.)

[Leo]

> alt.u.came.here.to.pick.some.stupid.fight.like.the.last.twenty.dumbasses
>
> :-)
>
>
>
> -J.
>
Not true my good man. You know virtually nothing about me. On the
other hand because I have had the benefit of reading many of your postings
here, I perhaps have more of an impression of you. Feel free to correct me
if I have not perceived correctly. You are are a man of middleish age say
50-55 y.o.. You are divorced and currently single with one teenaged son. You
live in the greater Los Angeles area of California. You have just recently
moved within the area and begun a new job.You have completed some level of
higher education perhaps with a degree or two. You have had a varied and
wide ranging career and life. You have experimented with drugs and were
heavily influenced by the works of Carlos Castaneda. Your interest in
Castaneda became a life consuming passion for several years until you began
to question the efficacy and validity of both Castaneda and his group. You
subsequently left the group and have engaged in efforts to debunk the
Castaneda story. You have a wide variety of interests ranging from music to,
photography, politics, philosophy & lifestyles, scientific frontiers
etc.etc.. You are now finally feeling a sense of having found your true
self. You enjoy the comfort and confidence this feeling brings you. You are
not an overly social animal but you enjoy the companionship of a few close
friends and you like to commmune with the adc newsgroup, although of late
you have been finding it harder to justify this due to your desire to be
free of all things Castaneda. You have stated that the main reason you still
frequent the group is to converse and share music with your namesake Eldon.
I think that Eldon, being the good and perceptive friend to you that he is ,
has picked up on this and has put forth the suggestion (more than once) for
the formation of a brand new group. You are intelligent, have a well ordered
mind and a wide ranging knowledge of many things. You do not suffer fools
gladly. Frivolity and frivolousness is not one of your stronger suits. You
prefer the more serious type of humor found in parody or satire.
In response to Eldon's enquiry about starting a newsgroup, I engaged
in a bit of frivolousness by suggesting a not too serious name for a group
and inviting anyone else to take a try. You responded with another idea and
I then added a few more and so forth until your final contribution as seen
at the top of this post. Obviously the frivolity was quickly drained out of
this little exercise as it turned into sarcasm and ended with your
pronouncement of my nefarious motives. You may rest assured however that my
intention was not to engage in a fight with you or anyone else. OK.
Forty - Love and balls to you. :-)

Sincerely,

Leo

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:

It's still like I said before. If not, then ... do one of those
things on yourself instead of parroting back what I've said here over
the years. What could be the point of that?? See, I actually know
what I've done and what I've said here about it. But ... finding my
"true self"? Ha. What a laugh... And I'm not quite that old.

If you're not here to start some shit then ... what DO you want?

-J.

[Leo]

>
> If you're not here to start some shit then ... what DO you want?
>
>
>
> -J.
>

" I think what we have here is a failure to communicate."

-Leo

[rbb]

"Jeremy Donovan" <jeremy...@earthlinkspammers.net>
>
> If you're not here to start some shit then ... what DO you want.

Why don't you just wait and find out.

[rbb]

"Eldon Leighton Donovan" <El...@SpamSucks.com> wrote in message

news:i4OdnfPm0Ot...@comcast.com...

It was in the pointing to the moon thread.
Who's hairy ass have you been posting if not yours?
Confess.

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:

Just remember, the guy gets shot and killed right after he says
that... :-)

And since I've commnicated the equivalent of at least 3 or 4 novels
here including most of my life story as you have already made... some
kind of pointless point (?)... that failure at this juncture would be
... yours.

But since you want to "communicate" so bad, let's do that.

The first thing out of your mouth was that 'smack Jeremy' thing. The
second thing was "science-schmience", while talking to a person who
has made no secret of being very into science. And like you've got
anything better.

So, you started baiting me from the moment you opened your mouth.
Then you tried to act like you weren't. So you're also ... deceptive
(and that's being polite about it).

Next you wrote up my semi-on-line-biography and posted that, for no
discernable reason. So what are you talking about ME for?? What's
your big interest in me?

You want to talk? It starts with you saying who you are and what's
really on your mind. I don't like people who play some goddamn game.
I don't like people who remain anonymous either. So stop trying to
make yourself look like "goodie two shoes" to the peanut gallery, and
say what you have to say.

-J.

[Jeremy Donovan]

Eldon,

That Chet Atkins-Mark Knofler song is a real gem. :-)

-Jer

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"rbb"

> It was in the pointing to the moon thread.
> Who's hairy ass have you been posting if not yours?
> Confess.

LOL!
some guy on the internet who bared his hairy ass for the world to see...

I just elevated his ass to a cosmic status... (and gave it the wings of a
bird)

LOL!

just for nostalgia:
http://www.sargenti.org/mp3/moonfinger.html

Eldon

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Jeremy Donovan"

> That Chet Atkins-Mark Knofler song is a real gem. :-)

Absoluckinflutely!

[The Prophet]

So what is this fetish on donkeys about? We all know donkeys (asses)
are hairy, and surely asses were elevated to cosmic status when the
late JC rode one into Jerusalam.

JC and the girls
All good boys go to heaven! all bad boys go to Pattaya

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Eldon Leighton Donovan" <El...@SpamSucks.com> wrote:

So what the heck did you do with it? I went to download it from
another location, and ... gone.

About Para Decir Adios...

It ticked me off that it cuts off in the end, so I went and got a
better copy of it. I've uploaded to you a higher quality recording
that doesn't cut off (in the ftp root). All I'd like in return is for
you to find me a decent tranlation of the lyrics. :-)

-Jer

[rbb]

"Eldon Leighton Donovan" <El...@SpamSucks.com> wrote in message

news:sLadnTsE8_E...@comcast.com...

>
> "rbb"
> > It was in the pointing to the moon thread.
> > Who's hairy ass have you been posting if not yours?
> > Confess.
>
>
> LOL!
> some guy on the internet who bared his hairy ass for the world to see...
>
> I just elevated his ass to a cosmic status... (and gave it the wings of a
> bird)
>
> LOL!

Cracking up....
Now this is really funny.
What a karma to have ones ass
rising to cosmical importance and have no idea about it.
I would like to see the face of the guy discovering this.
You go boy.

>
> just for nostalgia:
> http://www.sargenti.org/mp3/moonfinger.html
>

Still like that image for a walk on the moon.
It is one of my Adc favorites.
I mean most of our post are in the category no content,
but we do have an outstanding form of humor.

By the way have forgotten to ask... did you use real skin for the
moonsurface?

RBB

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"rbb"

> By the way have forgotten to ask... did you use real skin for the
> moonsurface?

I did, but I hear that when you get closer to it, its actually covered with
craters and pock marks...

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Jeremy Donovan"> About Para Decir Adios...

>
> It ticked me off that it cuts off in the end, so I went and got a
> better copy of it. I've uploaded to you a higher quality recording
> that doesn't cut off (in the ftp root).

I appreciate that and apologize for the bad mp3.

I am uploading a nice little plate full of treats for you right now...
I think you'll be quite pleased.
;o)

One of them is a wma file. sorry about that but windows will play it.

Thanks again for the upgrade on the Feliciano tune. I have huge respect for
Jose... he's truly great. If you can find any more Feliciano I'd freak out.
I heard him perform on TV once in 1998-1999. He was touring his latest
album. I didn't catch the name of the song, it was his latest at the time,
but maaaan, it was a real stunner. Beautiful vocal / acoustic guitar piece.
I'd love to figure out what the hell that was.

> All I'd like in return is for
> you to find me a decent tranlation of the lyrics. :-)

how about "in return" ... I offer Return To Forever... ;^)

viewing lyrics online has become the ultimate marketing, spam, spyware and
adware trap of all time. I guess the victimizers of marketing figured out
people love to flook up the words to songs. So bots began compiling lyrics
archives and using them as subversive adware installation traps. It sucks
how every lyric site is trap nowadays...

So I will have to pass on finding lyrics anymore... only because it's
gotten really bad. You can't even find a site now that isn't an adware and
spyware trap.

[Leo]

> >" I think what we have here is a failure to communicate."
>
> Just remember, the guy gets shot and killed right after he says
> that... :-)

Do you remember why they shot him? It was the only thing to do
really. I mean he just wasn't going to co-operate was he? Plug him and put
an end to it. Can't have that kind runnin' around loose. What the hell was
he thinkin'. Good. Now things'll settle down. Get back to normal.

> And since I've commnicated the equivalent of at least 3 or 4 novels
> here including most of my life story as you have already made... some
> kind of pointless point (?)... that failure at this juncture would be
> ... yours.
>
> But since you want to "communicate" so bad, let's do that.
>
> The first thing out of your mouth was that 'smack Jeremy' thing. The
> second thing was "science-schmience", while talking to a person who
> has made no secret of being very into science. And like you've got
> anything better.
>

I already apologized and tried to explain to you about those things.

> So, you started baiting me from the moment you opened your mouth.
> Then you tried to act like you weren't. So you're also ... deceptive
> (and that's being polite about it).
>

Gee. Thanks for being so polite.

> Next you wrote up my semi-on-line-biography and posted that, for no
> discernable reason. So what are you talking about ME for?? What's
> your big interest in me?
>

Well since you like people to back up their statements, that's just
what I did. I said you knew virtually nothing about me but that I had the
benefit of reading some of what you have posted here and so could formulate
a bit of an impression from that. Then I backed that up. I have no BIG
interest in you.

> You want to talk? It starts with you saying who you are and what's
> really on your mind. I don't like people who play some goddamn game.
> I don't like people who remain anonymous either. So stop trying to
> make yourself look like "goodie two shoes" to the peanut gallery, and
> say what you have to say.
>

Who cares who I am? I had some free time and decided to contribute
something to the discussion. If you don't like my style or my ideas, I'm
sorry. I don't expect to please everybody. Whats on my mind changes
constantly. A goddamn game? Seriously dude, if this is not some sort of act
on your part you should really see about getting some kind of help for that
anger.You don't like people who remain anonymous on usenet? Well you must
not like a whole lotta people. Do you think I look like " goodie two shoes"?
Phfft. Do the rest of the folks that read and post messages here constitute
the peanut gallery?Hmmmm. Bit of a showman at heart are ya'. I say if you
don't like all the anonymous people , and you don't like the association of
this group to Carlos Castaneda and you want to start a new group with Eldon
, then.........GO FOR IT !!! Don't worry I'm sure a lot of the folks from
here will want to come an' check you out and see whats goin' on. Let me
think. What might be a good name for your new group.Hmmm. Gotta be careful
here. Don't wanna stick another big burr in yer saddle now. Let's see. How
about. Mmmm noooo I just don't think I have it right now. Maybe you got
sumthin'?

Cheers,

~ Leo

" There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is
an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Eldon Leighton Donovan" <El...@SpamSucks.com> wrote:

Okay then. :-) I use adware and spyware blockers, but I keep
getting crappy translations. I'll gladly take the Return to Forever
instead.

-Jer

[Jeremy Donovan]

"Leo" <l...@rainbow.net> wrote:

Yawn.

Okay, maybe I was wrong, and you actually DON'T have anything to say.

-Jer

[Eldon Leighton Donovan]

"Jeremy Donovan"

> Okay then. :-) I use adware and spyware blockers, but I keep
> getting crappy translations. I'll gladly take the Return to Forever
> instead.

Coool,
I have a life long friend who is WAY into Leon. He was way into DL'ing
too when he first learned how to get online and use a computer... (which was
only a couple years ago.) He amassed some 1800 files right quick and had to
learn a lot about computers real fast just to keep from losing his archive.

Anyway to make a long story short I talked him into joining us in adding
to our tidy little mp3 archive. He says he's got a lot of classic video too.
So I am axious to see what he shares with us. He's more of a classic rock
type guy than a Jazz buff, but I'm interested what he might cough up. I
think you will be too.

I am going to set him up and walk him through the joys of FTP tonight
probably. Then we'll see what happens

Private little Kazaa-like ftp clubs... sharing a wealth of cool shit...
I like it.

Eldon

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

Is it true that "love takes a lifetime?"
Is it "just a reflection of all of the time that's gone by?"
Is 'a lifetime', at any given moment, "all of the time that's gone by"?
If so, then can one always love?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12Tc0-U1Ijc

Does it seem degrading, or does it seem mysterious and inspiring,
that this girl has no eyes?

Is he romantic? An idealist? A serial killer? A silly hippie?

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

How long is 'now'?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530030.500-the-time-illusion-how-your-brain-creates-now.html?full=true

***

The time illusion: How your brain creates now

07 January 2015 by Laura Spinney

Think you live in the present? It's all an illusion created
by your brain, says Laura Spinney.

Time is not out there - "now" is a strange trick of the mind. The good news is that with training you can live in the moment for longer.

WHAT is "now"? It is an idea that physics treats as a mere illusion, yet it is something we are all familiar with. We tend to think of it as this current instant, a moment with no duration. But if now were timeless, we wouldn't experience a succession of nows as time passing. Neither would we be able to perceive things like motion. We couldn't operate in the world if the present had no duration. So how long is it?

That sounds like a metaphysical question, but neuroscientists and psychologists have an answer. In recent years, they have amassed evidence indicating that now lasts on average between 2 and 3 seconds. This is the now you are aware of - the window within which your brain fuses what you are experiencing into a "psychological present". It is surprisingly long. But that's just the beginning of the weirdness. There is also evidence that the now you experience is made up of a jumble of mini subconscious nows and that your brain is choosy about what events it admits into your nows. Different parts of the brain measure now in different ways. What's more, the window of perceived now can expand in some circumstances and contract in others.

Now is clearly a slippery concept. Nevertheless, it would be good to pin it down because it could tell us something about the bigger picture of how the brain tracks time. Not just that, the perception of the present is also crucial to how we experience the world. If events appear simultaneous when they aren't, that has implications for our understanding of what causes what. "Your sense of nowness underpins your entire conscious experience," says Marc Wittmann at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany. Understanding now even helps us address the question of whether we have free will.

We have long known that the brain contains structures that use cycles of light and dark to set its daily clock. How it tracks the passing of seconds and minutes is much less well understood. At this level, there are two broad types of timing mechanism, an implicit and an explicit one. The explicit one relates to how we judge duration - something we're surprisingly good at. The implicit mechanism is the timing of "now" - it is how the brain defines a psychological moment and so structures our conscious experience.

Our implicit sense of time is itself made up of two seemingly incompatible aspects: the fact that we exist permanently in the present yet experience time flowing from the past towards the future. So how do successive nows get sewn together into the smooth-flowing river of time? Wittmann has addressed this question by drawing on the mass of psychophysical and neuroscientific data gathered in recent decades (Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, vol 5, article 66). He believes this points to a hierarchy of nows, each of which forms the building blocks of the next, until the property of flow emerges.

If Wittmann is correct, to understand the now that we experience, we first need to understand its subconscious component, the "functional moment", which operates on the timescale at which a person can distinguish one event from another. This varies for different senses. The auditory system, for example, can distinguish two sounds just 2 milliseconds apart, whereas the visual system requires tens of milliseconds. Detecting the order of stimuli takes even longer. Two events must be at least 50 milliseconds apart before you can tell which came first.

The brain must somehow reconcile these different detection thresholds to make sense of the world. Its task is made more difficult by the fact that light and sound travel through air at different speeds and can reach our sensory apparatus at different times, even if they were emitted by the same object at the same time. How does the brain bind all the dislocated stimuli into a single psychological event, a functional moment?

There's good evidence that even at the subconscious, millisecond level, the brain makes predictions. This is what happens when you watch a badly dubbed movie. Your brain predicts that the audio and visual streams should occur simultaneously and - as long as the lag between them doesn't exceed about 200 milliseconds - after a while you stop noticing that the lip movements and voices of the actors are out of sync. Exploiting this effect, Virginie van Wassenhove at the French medical research agency's Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit in Gif-sur-Yvette and her colleagues have been investigating how the brain might bind incoming information into a unified functional moment. What they found is intriguing.

Mind meld

They exposed people to sequences of beeps and flashes, both occurring once per second, but 200 milliseconds out of sync. Brain imaging then revealed the electrical activity produced by these stimuli. This consisted of two distinct brain waves, one in the auditory cortex and another in the visual cortex, both oscillating at a frequency of 1 hertz - once per second. At first the two oscillations were out of phase, and the volunteers experienced the light and sound as out of sync. But as people reported that they started to perceive the beeps and flashes as being simultaneous, the auditory oscillation became aligned with the visual one (NeuroImage, vol 92, p 274). "The changes predict participants' conscious timing," says van Wassenhove, "so we have to hypothesise that this reflects an active mechanism of the brain to deal with time in the world." In other words, your brain seems to physically adjust signals to synchronise events if it thinks they should belong together.

This is the first time that a biological basis has been found for implicit timing. It also suggests that, even at the subconscious level, the brain is choosing what it allows into a moment. However, this functional moment is not the now of which we are conscious. That comes at the next level of Wittmann's hierarchy, with the "experienced moment". So what do we know about this?

It is this now that seems to last between 2 and 3 seconds. A neat demonstration of that was provided last year by David Melcher at the University of Trento, Italy, and his colleagues. They presented volunteers with short movie clips in which segments lasting from milliseconds to several seconds had been subdivided into small chunks that were then shuffled randomly. If the shuffling occurred within a segment of up to 2.5 seconds, people could still follow the story as if they hadn't noticed the switches. But the volunteers became confused if the shuffled window was longer than this (PLoS ONE, vol 9, p e102248). In other words, our brains seem able to integrate jumbled stimuli into a cohesive, comprehensible whole within a time frame of up to 2.5 seconds. The researchers suggest that this window is the "subjective present", and exists to allow us to consciously perceive complex sequences of events.

Melcher likens the effect to the way we are able to guess a written word even if some of its letters are missing or out of place. Because we have a cohesive concept of the word, we can fill in the gaps, but comprehension breaks down if the words either side of it don't provide context, or the first and last letters have been tampered with. Melcher thinks the 2 to 3 second window provides a sort of bridging mechanism to compensate for the fact that our brains are always working on outdated information. Right now, your brain is processing stimuli that impinged on your senses hundreds of milliseconds ago, but if you were to react with that lag you wouldn't function effectively in the real world.

"Our sense of now can be viewed as a psychological illusion based on the past and a prediction of the near future," says Melcher. "And this illusion is calibrated so that it allows us to do amazing things like run, jump, play sports or drive a car." Consciously or not, Hollywood movie editors take account of our experienced moment. In the cutting room, they rarely create shots that last less than 2 or 3 seconds, unless the director is aiming to create a sense of chaotic or confusing movement. "Three seconds is long enough to understand what's going on, but not so long that you have to rely too heavily on memory to maintain access to all the relevant information," says Melcher. "It's the sweet spot."

Wittmann acknowledges that it is not clear how a group of subconscious functional moments are combined to create the conscious experienced moment. The biological signature of the experienced moment has yet to be found, although neuroscientist and philosopher Georg Northoff at the University of Ottawa in Canada has proposed one possibility. In his 2013 book Unlocking the Brain, he speculated that implicit timing could be related to slow cortical potentials, a kind of background electrical activity measurable across the brain's cortex. It's telling, says Wittmann, that these waves of electrical activity can last several seconds. He also points out that consciousness is itself a kind of filter because it focuses our attention on some things to the exclusion of others. Influenced by factors such as emotion or memory, it might tag or label a subset of functional moments as belonging together, to create an experienced moment.

Creating flow

However the present moments we experience arise, they are combined to give us a sense of continuity or "mental presence", the final now in Wittmann's hierarchy. This operates over a timespan of about 30 seconds and gives you a sense of continuity. According to his model, the glue that holds the experienced moments together to create an impression of time flowing is working memory - the ability to retain and use a limited amount of information for a short time. Mental presence is what underpins the sense that it is you who is experiencing events. "It is the now of 'I', of your narrative self," Wittmann says.

The implications of this new view of nowness are potentially mind-boggling. Take, for example, the debate over free will. In the 1980s, US physiologist Benjamin Libet found that people reported deciding to flick their wrist about 500 milliseconds after he had detected activity in their brains that preceded each wrist-flick. His now controversial conclusion was that we have less conscious control over our actions than we think. But, given what we know about implicit timing, it is possible that what he actually detected was an artefact of the brain's insensitivity to order at very small time scales. At 500 milliseconds, says Wittmann, "we are definitely within margins of temporal resolution where you cannot distinguish which event came first".

Then there's the issue of the stretchiness of now. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that time can seem to expand or contract depending on what's happening around us - for example, that events seem to unfold in slow motion during car accidents. Such expansion has been reproduced in the lab, when people are presented with a succession of stimuli of equal length yet report that an oddball event in the series seems to have a longer duration. What's more, Melcher has preliminary findings showing that, when people perceive an event to have lasted longer than it actually did, they also take in more detail about it, describing it more accurately. In his opinion, this shows that temporal stretchiness reflects real changes in sensory processing, which in turn may have conferred an evolutionary advantage. By ratcheting up the brain's processing rate at critical moments and easing back when the environment becomes predictable and calm again, we conserve precious cognitive resources.

Such changes in sensory processing would be subconscious, but might we be able to take control of our perception of now? Regular meditators often claim that they live more fully or intensely in the present than most people. To test the claim, Wittmann asked 38 people who meditate and 38 who do not to look at an ambiguous line drawing of a cube, known as a Necker cube, and press a button each time their perspective of it reversed. The reversal time in this kind of task is considered a good estimate of the length of the psychological present. By this measure, people in both groups perceived now to last about 4 seconds, seeming to confound the claims of some meditators. However, when Wittmann asked participants to try to hold a given perspective for as long as possible, the meditators managed 8 seconds on average, compared with 6 seconds for the others.

Meditators tend to score highly in tests of attention and working memory capacity, says Wittmann. "If you are more aware of what is happening around you, you not only experience more in the present moment, you also have more memory content." And that in turn affects your sense of the passing of time. "Meditators perceive time to pass more slowly than non-meditators, both in the present and retrospectively," he says.

This suggests that with a bit of effort we are all capable of manipulating our perception of now. If meditation extends your now, then as well as expanding your mind it could also expand your life. So, grab hold of your consciousness and revel in the moment for longer. There's no time like the present.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Once upon a time"

***

The first statement in the article above is:
"Time is not out there - "now" is a strange trick of the mind."

I don't agree. Neither does Lee Smolin.
I say time is BOTH "a strange trick of mind"
AND a fundamental characteristic of the universe itself.
I'm particularly interested in Smolin's views of time,
rather than his challenge of the multiverse,
although that is interesting too.

***

You think there's a multiverse? Get real.

20 January 2015 by Lee Smolin

Positing that alternative universes exist is just disguising our lack of knowledge of the cosmos. It's time to move on.

COSMOLOGY is in crisis. Recent experiments have given us an increasingly precise narrative of the history of our universe, but attempts to interpret the data have led to a picture of a "preposterous universe" that eludes explanation in the terms familiar to scientists.

Everything we know suggests that the universe is unusual. It is flatter, smoother, larger and emptier than a "typical" universe predicted by the known laws of physics. If we reached into a hat filled with pieces of paper, each with the specifications of a possible universe written on it, it is exceedingly unlikely that we would get a universe anything like ours in one pick - or even a billion.

The challenge that cosmologists face is to make sense of this specialness. One approach to this question is inflation - the hypothesis that the early universe went through a phase of exponentially fast expansion. At first, inflation seemed to do the trick. A simple version of the idea gave correct predictions for the spectrum of fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background.

But a closer look shows that we have just moved the problem further back in time. To make inflation happen at all requires us to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe. And unless inflation is highly tuned and constrained, it leads to a runaway process of universe creation. As a result, some cosmologists suggest that there is not one universe, but an infinite number, with a huge variety of properties: the multiverse. There are an infinite number of universes in the collection that are like our universe and an infinite number that are not. But the ratio of infinity to infinity is undefined, and can be made into anything the theorist wants. Thus the multiverse theory has difficulty making any firm predictions and threatens to take us out of the realm of science.

These other universes are unobservable and because chance dictates the random distribution of properties across universes, positing the existence of a multiverse does not let us deduce anything about our universe beyond what we already know. As attractive as the idea may seem, it is basically a sleight of hand, which converts an explanatory failure into an apparent explanatory success. The success is empty because anything that might be observed about our universe could be explained as something that must, by chance, happen somewhere in the multiverse.

We started out trying to explain why the universe is so special, and we end up being asked to believe that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes with random properties. This makes me suspect that there is a basic but unexamined assumption about the laws of nature that must be overturned.

Cosmology has new questions to answer. Not just what are the laws, but why are these laws the laws? How were they chosen? We can't just hypothesize what the initial conditions were at the big bang, we need to explain those initial conditions. Thus we are in the position of a computer program asked to explain its inputs. It is clear that if we are to get anywhere, we need to invent new methods, and perhaps new kinds of laws, to gain a scientific description of the universe as a whole.

Physicist James Hartle has talked about the "excess baggage" that has to be left on the platform before we can board the train to further progress in cosmology. In work together with philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger, we believe we have identified several of pieces of this baggage.

The first thing that must be discarded is the assumption that the same kind of laws that work on the scale of small subsystems of the world work, scaled up, at the level of the whole universe. We call this assumption the cosmological fallacy because it leads to a breakdown of predictability - as in the multiverse.

The second piece of excess baggage is the Newtonian paradigm, a method common to classical and quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is used to describe a subsystem of the universe, like a system studied in a laboratory, an atom or a star. This method depends on two elements: the set of possible initial configurations (or states) of the system and a law that specifies how the states change in time. Once we start the system off at an initial state, the law tells us what the state will be at later times. But if the laws and initial conditions are the inputs to the method, they cannot be its outputs too. If we want to understand why the laws hold and how the initial conditions of the universe are chosen, we need a new kind of law and methodology.

The Newtonian paradigm is ideal for describing systems in a laboratory but if we attempt to apply it to the universe, it explains both too little and too much. It fails to explain how the solution to the laws governing our universe is picked from the infinite number of solutions that don't govern anything. But it also predicts an infinite number of facts about an infinite number of non-existent universes. This is one of the reasons why the Newtonian paradigm cannot be applied to the universe as a whole.

These concepts illuminate why the multiverse fails as a scientific hypothesis in spite of the fact that simple versions of inflation made some predictions that have been confirmed. The idea of inflation is plagued by the need to explain how the initial conditions were chosen. This was done in the context of a methodology that only makes sense when applied to a subsystem of a larger system. When applied to the universe, it forced us to treat the universe as a subsystem of a much larger system: hence we had to invent the multiverse. And thus with an infinite ensemble of unobservable entities we leave the domain of science behind. In some sense, the multiverse embodies the unreal ensemble of all possible solutions to the laws of physics, imagined as elements of an invented ensemble of bubble universes. But this just trades one imaginary, unreal ensemble for another.

Once we accept that we need a new paradigm to do science at the level of the universe as a whole, the next question to ask is what principle that new paradigm should be founded on. This is a question we hope to provoke cosmologists to think about. Mangabeira Unger and I propose three principles, which we argue are necessary to underlie any theory capable of explaining big cosmological questions - like the selection of the laws and initial conditions of the universe - in a way that is open to experimental test.

The first is that there is just one universe. The second is that time is real and the laws of nature are not timeless but evolve. The third is that mathematics is not a description of some separate timeless, Platonic reality, but is a description of the properties of one universe.

These principles take us beyond the Newtonian paradigm and the cosmological fallacy, and are a starting point for exploring the science of the universe as a whole.

***

I don't know if there's more than one universe or not.
But I believe Smolin is correct in believing that time is a real,
fundamental property of the universe, and that math can describe
real properties of the universe.

Math can describe "idealities" too, but I don't think it's about
any "timeless, Platonic reality", whatever that's supposed to be.

***

I'd also just like everyone to note how a major issue for
understanding "consciousness" is that the brain reconciles
different detection thresholds to make sense of the world,
and makes predictions and synchronizes events to help do that.
Better understanding how the brain does these things will
eventually lead to a better understanding of 'consciousness'.

[allreadygone]

without some memory we wouldn't even
know what 'now' is. now on a lighter
note mexican comedian George Lopez uses
this method for getting to the moment:
now? like right now? or right now right now?
yes george right now right now.
not later later man, btw, see you later later.

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

The 12 Worst Ideas Religion Has Unleashed On The World

These dubious concepts advocate conflict, cruelty and suffering.

By Valerie Tarico / AlterNet
January 21, 2015

Some of humanity's technological innovations are things we would have been better off without: the medieval rack, the atomic bomb and powdered lead potions come to mind. Religions tend to invent ideas or concepts rather than technologies, but like every other creative human enterprise, they produce some really bad ones along with the good.

These twelve dubious concepts promote conflict, cruelty, suffering and death rather than love and peace. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, they belong in the dustbin of history just as soon as we can get them there.

1. Chosen People -The term "Chosen People" typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. They talk about "God's elect," and in Calvinism these privileged few were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah's witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. Symbols like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

2. Heretics - Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don't merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves. Those who don't believe in a god are corrupt, doers of abominable deeds. There is none [among them] who does good," says the Psalmist.

Islam teaches the concept of "dhimmitude" and provides special rules for the subjugation of religious minorities, with monotheists getting better treatment than polytheists. Christianity blurs together the concepts of unbeliever and evildoer. Ultimately, heretics are a threat that needs to be neutralized by conversion, conquest, isolation, domination, or--in worst cases--mass murder.

3. Holy War - If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries. The Hebrew scriptures recount battle after battle in which their war God, Yahweh, helps them to not only defeat but also exterminate the shepherding cultures that occupy their "Promised Land." As in later holy wars, like the modern rise of ISIS, divine sanction let them kill the elderly and children, burn orchards, and take virgin females as sexual slaves--all while retaining a sense of moral superiority.

4. Blasphemy - Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and that is precisely the emotion the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not, but death-to-blasphemers became part of Shariah during medieval times.

The idea that blasphemy must be prevented or avenged has caused millions of murders over the centuries and countless other horrors. As I write, blogger Raif Badawi awaits round after round of flogging in Saudi Arabia--1000 lashes in batches of 50--while his wife and children plead from Canada for the international community to do something.

5. Glorified suffering - Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn't one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture--if it's just intense and prolonged enough--can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief. Shia Muslims beat themselves with lashes and chains during Aashura, a form of sanctified suffering called Matam that commemorates the death of the martyr Hussein. Self-denial in the form of asceticism and fasting is a part of both Eastern and Western religions, not only because deprivation induces altered states but also because people believe suffering somehow brings us closer to divinity.

Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it. The problem, of course is that glorifying suffering--turning it into a spiritual good--has made people more willing to inflict it on not only themselves and their enemies but also those who are helpless, including the ill or dying (as in the case of Mother Teresa and the American Bishops) and children (as in the child beating Patriarchy movement).

6. Genital mutilation - Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks--if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision serves as a sign of tribal membership in Jews, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts. In one Bible story, a chieftain agrees to convert and submit his clan to the procedure as a show of commitment to a peace treaty. (While the men lie incapacitated, the whole town is then slain by the Israelites.)

In Islam, painful male circumcision serves as a rite of passage into manhood, initiation into a powerful club. By contrast, in some Muslim cultures cutting away or burning the female clitoris and labia ritually establishes the submission of women by reducing sexual arousal and agency. An estimated 2 million girls annually are subjected to the procedure, with consequences including hemorrhage, infection, painful urination and death.

7. Blood sacrifice - In the list of religion's worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Only Hindus continue to ritually hack and slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale.

When our ancient ancestors slit the throats of humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed that they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changed--the gods didn't need feeding so much as they needed signs of devotion and penance. The residual child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (yes it is there) typically has this function. Christianity's persistent focus on blood atonement--the notion of Jesus as the be-all-end-all lamb without blemish, the final "propitiation" for human sin--is hopefully the last iteration of humanity's long fascination with blood sacrifice.

8. Hell - Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.

While Buddhism sees hell as a metaphor, a journey into the evil inside the self, many Muslims and Christians hasten to assure that it is a real place, full of fire and the anguish of non-believers. Some Christians have gone so far as to insist that the screams of the damned can be heard from the center of the Earth or that observing their anguish from afar will be one of the pleasures of paradise.

9. Karma - Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior--it'll come back at you later--but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karma sanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something to bring their position on themselves.

10. Heaven - To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn't take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellish--an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).

The real reason that the notion of eternal life is such a bad invention, though, is the degree to which it diminishes and degrades existence on this earthly plane. With eyes lifted heavenward, we can't see the intricate beauty beneath our feet. Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.

11. Male Ownership of Female Fertility- The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn't originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman should die of childbearing "she was made to do it," most certainly did. Traditional religions variously assert that men have a god given right to give women in marriage, take them in war, exclude them from heaven, and kill them if the origins of their offspring can't be assured. Hence Catholicism's maniacal obsession with the virginity of Mary and female martyrs.

As we approach the limits of our planetary life support system and stare dystopia in the face, defining women as breeders and children as assets becomes ever more costly. We now know that resource scarcity is a conflict trigger and that demand for water and arable land is growing even as both resources decline. And yet, a pope who claims to care about the desperate poor lectures them against contraception while Muslim leaders ban vasectomies in a drive to outbreed their enemies.

12. Bibliolatry - Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practice--essentially--book worship, also known as bibliolatry.

"Because the faith of Islam is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the religion," says one young Muslim explaining his faith online. His statement betrays a lack of information about the origins of his own beliefs. But more broadly, it sums up the challenge all religions face moving forward. Imagine if a physicist said, "Because our understanding of physics is perfect, it does not allow for any innovations to the field."

Adherents who think their faith is perfect, are not just naïve or ill informed. They are developmentally arrested, and in the case of the world's major religions, they are anchored to the Iron Age, a time of violence, slavery, desperation and early death.

Ironically, the mindset that our sacred texts are perfect betrays the very quest that drove our ancestors to write those texts. Each of the men who wrote part of the Bible, Quran, or Gita took his received tradition, revised it, and offered his own best articulation of what is good and real. We can honor the quest of our spiritual ancestors, or we can honor their answers, but we cannot do both.

Religious apologists often try to deny, minimize, or explain away the sins of scripture and the evils of religious history. "It wasn't really slavery." "That's just the Old Testament." "He didn't mean it that way." "You have to understand how bad their enemies were." "Those people who did harm in the name of God weren't real [Christians/Jews/Muslims]." Such platitudes may offer comfort, but denying problems doesn't solve them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Change comes with introspection and insight, a willingness to acknowledge our faults and flaws while still embracing our strengths and potential for growth.

In a world that is teeming with humanity, armed with pipe bombs and machine guns and nuclear weapons and drones, we don't need defenders of religion's status quo--we need real reformation, as radical as that of the 16th Century and much, much broader. It is only by acknowledging religion's worst ideas that we have any hope of embracing the best.

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

This article on drug addiction is right in line
with what I have long believed.

***

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered and It Is Not What You Think
The new evidence will force us to change ourselves.

By Johann Hari / The Huffington Post
January 21, 2015

It is now 100 years since drugs were first banned, and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction, by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious. It seems manifestly true. Until I set off three and a half years ago on a 30,000-mile journey for my book Chasing The Scream: The First And Last Days of the War on Drugs to figure out what is really driving the drug war, I believed it too. But what I learned on the road is that almost everything we have been told about addiction is wrong. There is a very different story waiting for us, if only we are ready to hear it.

If we truly absorb this new story, we will have to change a lot more than the drug war. We will have to change ourselves.

I learned it from an extraordinary mixture of people I met on my travels: From the surviving friends of Billie Holiday, who helped me to learn how the founder of the war on drugs stalked and helped to kill her; from a Jewish doctor who was smuggled out of the Budapest ghetto as a baby, only to unlock the secrets of addiction as a grown man; from a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn who was conceived when his mother, a crack-addict, was raped by his father, an NYPD officer; from a man who was kept at the bottom of a well for two years by a torturing dictatorship, only to emerge to be elected president of Uruguay and begin the last days of the war on drugs.

I had a personal reason to search for these answers. One of my earliest memories as a kid is trying to wake up one of my relatives, and not being able to. Ever since then, I have been turning over the essential mystery of addiction in my mind. What causes some people to become fixated on a drug or a behavior until they can't stop? How do we help those people to come back to us? As I got older, another of my close relatives developed a cocaine addiction, and I fell into a relationship with a heroin addict. I guess addiction felt like home to me.

If you had asked me what causes drug addiction at the start, I would have said, "Drugs. Duh." It's not difficult to grasp. I thought I had seen it in my own life. We can all explain it. Imagine if you and I and the next 20 people to pass us on the street take a really potent drug for 20 days. There are strong chemical hooks in these drugs, so if we stopped on day 21, our bodies would need the chemical. We would have a ferocious craving. We would be addicted. That's what addiction means.

One of the ways this theory was first established is through rat experiments which were injected into the American psyche in the 1980s, in a famous advert by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. You may remember it. The experiment is simple. Put a rat in a cage, alone, with two water bottles. One is water. The other is water laced with heroin or cocaine. Almost every time you run this experiment, the rat will become obsessed with the drugged water, and keep coming back for more, until it kills itself.

The advert explains: "Only one drug is so addictive, nine out of 10 laboratory rats will use it. And use it. And use it. Until dead. It's called cocaine. And it can do the same thing to you."

But in the 1970s, Vancouver psychology professor Bruce Alexander noticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Alexander built Rat Park, a lush cage where the rats had colored balls and the best rat food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, would happen then?

In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn't know what was in them. But what happened next was startling.

The rats with good lives didn't like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats had used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did.

At first, I thought this was merely a quirk of rats, until I discovered that at the same time as the Rat Park experiment there was a helpful human equivalent taking place. It was called the Vietnam War. Time magazine reported heroin was "as common as chewing gum" among U.S. soldiers, and there is solid evidence to back this up: some 20 percent of U.S. soldiers became addicted to heroin there, according to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Many people were understandably terrified: they believed a huge number of addicts were about to head home when the war ended.

But in fact, some 95 percent of the addicted soldiers, according to the same study, simply stopped using. Very few had rehab. They shifted from a terrifying cage back to a pleasant one, so they didn't want the drug anymore.

Bruce Alexander argues this discovery is a profound challenge both to the right-wing view that addiction is a moral failing caused by too much hedonistic partying, and the liberal view that addiction is a disease taking place in a chemically hijacked brain. In fact, he argues, addiction is an adaptation. It's not you: It's your cage.

After the first phase of Rat Park, Alexander took the test further. He repeated the early experiments, where the rats were left alone and became compulsive users of the drug. He let them use for 57 days; if anything can hook you, it's that. Then he took them out of isolation, and placed them in Rat Park. He wanted to know, if you fall into that state of addiction, is your brain hijacked so you can't recover? Do the drugs take over? What happened is striking. The rats seemed to have a few twitches of withdrawal, but they soon stopped their heavy use, and went back to having a normal life. The good cage saved them. (The full references to all the studies I am discussing are in the book.)

This new theory is such a radical assault on what we have been told it felt like it could not be true. But the more scientists I interviewed, and the more I looked at their studies, the more I discovered things that don't seem to make sense--unless you take into account this new approach.

Here's one example of an experiment that is happening all around you, and may well happen to you one day. If you get run over today and you break your hip, you will probably be given diamorphine, the medical name for heroin. In the hospital around you, there will be plenty of people also given heroin for long periods, for pain relief. The heroin you get from your doctor will have a much higher purity and potency than the heroin being used by street addicts, who have to buy from criminals who adulterate it. So if the old theory of addiction is right--it's the drugs that cause it; they make your body need them--it's obvious what should happen. Loads of people should leave the hospital and try to score smack on the streets, to meet their habits.

But here's the strange thing. It virtually never happens. As the Canadian doctor Gabor Mate was the first to explain to me, medical users just stop, despite months of use. The same drug, used for the same length of time, turns street users into desperate addicts--and leaves medical patients unaffected.

If you still believe, as I used to, that addiction is caused by chemical hooks, this makes no sense. But if you believe Bruce Alexander's theory, the picture falls into place. The street addict is like a rat in the first cage: isolated and alone, with only one source of solace to turn to. The medical patient is like a rat in the second cage: going home to a life where she is surrounded by the people she loves. The drug is the same, but the environment is different.

This gives us an insight that goes much deeper than the need to understand addicts. Professor Peter Cohen argues that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. If we can't connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find--the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He says we should stop talking about "addiction" altogether and instead call it "bonding." A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn't bond as fully with anything else.

So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection.

I still couldn't shake off a nagging doubt. Are these scientists saying chemical hooks make no difference? It was explained to me: you can become addicted to gambling, and nobody thinks you inject a pack of cards into your veins. You can have all the addiction and none of the chemical hooks. I went to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in Las Vegas and they were as plainly addicted as the cocaine and heroin addicts I have known. Yet there are no chemical hooks on a craps table.

But surely, I asked, there is some role for the chemicals? It turns out there is an experiment which gives us the answer to this in precise terms, which I learned about in Richard DeGrandpre's book The Cult of Pharmacology.

Everyone agrees cigarette smoking is one of the most addictive processes around. The chemical hooks in tobacco come from a drug called nicotine. So when nicotine patches were developed in the early 1990s, there was a huge surge of optimism--cigarette smokers could get all of their chemical hooks, without the other filthy, and deadly, effects of cigarette smoking. They would be freed.

But the Office of the Surgeon General has found that just 17.7 percent of cigarette smokers are able to stop using nicotine patches. That's not nothing. If the chemicals drive 17.7 percent of addiction, as this shows, that's still millions of lives ruined globally. But what it reveals again is that the story we have been taught about the cause of addiction being chemical hooks is real, but it's only a minor part of a much bigger picture.

This has huge implications for the 100-year-old war on drugs. This massive war, which kills people from the plazas of Mexico to the streets of Liverpool, is based on the claim that we need to physically eradicate a whole array of chemicals because they hijack people's brains and cause addiction. But if drugs aren't the driver of addiction-- if, in fact, it is disconnection that drives addiction--then this makes no sense.

Ironically, the war on drugs actually increases all those larger drivers of addiction. I visited a prison in Arizona, Tent City, where inmates are detained in tiny stone isolation cages (the Hole) for weeks on end, to punish them for drug use. It is as close to a human re-creation of the cages that guaranteed deadly addiction in rats as I can imagine. When those prisoners get out of prison, they will be unemployable because of their criminal record, guaranteeing they will be cut off even more.

There is an alternative. We can build a system that is designed to help drug addicts reconnect with the world and leave behind their addictions.

This isn't theoretical. It is happening. Nearly 15 years ago, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe. They had tried a drug war, and the problem just kept getting worse. So they decided to do something radically different. They resolved to decriminalize all drugs, and take all the money they once spent on arresting and jailing drug addicts, and spend it instead on reconnecting them--to their own feelings, and to the wider society. The most crucial step was to get them secure housing and subsidized jobs, so they had a purpose in life, and something to get out of bed for. In warm and welcoming clinics, addicts are taught how to reconnect with their feelings, after years of trauma. One group of addicts was given a loan to set up a removals firm. Suddenly, they were a group, all bonded to each other and to society, and responsible for each other's care.

An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen, and intraveneous drug use is down by 50 percent. Decriminalization has been such a success that very few people in Portugal want to go back to the old system. The main campaigner against the decriminalization back in 2000 was Joao Figueira, the country's top drug cop. He offered all the dire warnings we would expect from the Daily Mail or Fox News. But when we sat together in Lisbon, he told me that everything he predicted had not come to pass--and he now hopes the whole world will follow Portugal's example.

This isn't only relevant to the addicts I love. It is relevant to all of us, because it forces us to think differently about ourselves. Human beings are bonding animals. We need to connect and love. The wisest sentence of the 20th century was E.M. Forster's, "Only connect." But we have created an environment and a culture that cut us off from connection. The rise of addiction is a symptom of a deeper sickness in the way we live, constantly directing our gaze toward the next shiny object we should buy, rather than the human beings all around us.

The writer George Monbiot has called this the "age of loneliness." We have created human societies where it is easier for people to become cut off from all human connection. The Internet offers only a parody of connection. Bruce Alexander, the creator of Rat Park, told me that for too long, we have talked exclusively about individual recovery from addiction. We need now to talk about social recovery; how we all recover, together, from the sickness of isolation.

But this new evidence isn't just a challenge to us politically. It doesn't just force us to change our minds; it forces us to change our hearts.

Loving an addict is really hard. When I looked at the addicts I love, it was always tempting to follow the tough love advice doled out by reality shows like "Intervention": Tell the addict to shape up, or cut them off. Their message is that an addict who won't stop should be shunned. It's the logic of the drug war, imported into our private lives. But that will only deepen their addiction, and you may lose them all together. I came home determined to bind the addicts in my life closer to me than ever, to let them know I love them unconditionally, whether they stop, or whether they can't.

When I returned from my long journey, I looked at my ex-boyfriend, in withdrawal, trembling on my spare bed, and I thought about him differently. For a century now, we have been singing war songs about addicts. It occurred to me that we should have been singing love songs to them all along.

[allreadygone]

yes.

by making contact.

make contact with another human being.

and don't use your cell phone or computer.

[slider]

Jeremy wrote...

> This article on drug addiction is right in line
> with what I have long believed.
>
> ***
>
> The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered and It Is Not What You
> Think
> The new evidence will force us to change ourselves.
>
> By Johann Hari / The Huffington Post
> January 21, 2015

> When I returned from my long journey, I looked at my ex-boyfriend, in
> withdrawal, trembling on my spare bed, and I thought about him
> differently. For a century now, we have been singing war songs about
> addicts. It occurred to me that we should have been singing love songs
> to them all along.

(snipped only for brevity)

### - some interesting ideas and conclusions alright, but can't really
agree with them based on (my own and others) observations in this area
over the years...

worth reading in this respect is william burroughs 'Junkie' based on his
near lifetime of heroin addiction, in which he makes several noteworthy
observations: one such that always comes to mind being the rather
interesting + curious observation of his that he'd never ever met such a
thing as a schizophrenic junky and accordingly proposed using heroin as a
possibly potentially far more effective treatment for the disease!

burroughs himself being living proof that it's actually 'possible' to
live/survive on junk and still live/have 'some' kinda normal life,
assuming you're not a moron that is, in which case you shouldn't even be
allowed to play with a box of matches let alone heroin! lol:)

a good example of which being ex british prime minister john major's
medical practitioner (his MD) whom, it turned out, had at the time
actually been completely addicted to heroin for at least the past 11 years
and yet was apparently still quite able to practice medicine competently!
something almost certainly attributable to his having easy access to the
pure chemical, as opposed to street junk which is often adulterated by
anything up to 90% (or more) by who knows what kinda crap!

iow: it's not heroin itself that 'actually' fucks people up, it's the shit
they 'cut' it with that's doing all the damage! pure heroin, if used
properly under sterile conditions, isn't really (nor actually) the problem
at all! something attested to/proven by it's literally daily use in
hospitals everywhere where this simple opiate actually 'saves' lives!

i.e... it tuns out that heroin just so happens to be THE best painkiller
in the world! you could, for example, literally have all your arms and
legs chopped off in some completely horrendous accident, the shock of
which alone could easily kill just about anyone who wasn't made of iron,
but jack them up with a shot of medicinal smack and instead they'll
probably be alright! they'll be able to survive/come to terms with it!
heroin not only killing all 'physical' pain but obviously also that of all
mental and emotional pain/discomfort too!

and (imho) this also explains those lab-rat's behaviour too, in that:
place 'any' animal into a totally unnatural environment and it will
experience unbearable 'stress' and the heroin just made them 'feel' better
was all, because one of the properties of heroin is to literally 'detach'
ya mentally, emotionally and physically to everything that's going on! iow
it doesn't just make ya 'stupid' as such, it just removes all/any pain and
thus allows one to cope + again be reasonably objective instead of merely
being subjectively overwhelmed...

applying 'this' understanding to street junkies we thus begin to see
what's really been happening to them all along: complex human beings
forced to live in equivalent empty 'rat-cages' perforce experience stress
(lol yes, am comparing average society city-life to that of living in an
empty rat-cage ha!:) 'some' of whom have obviously noticed (or get to
notice then) the available 'heroin-water' and found that it actually eases
their discomfort and/or pain! living in a rat-cage suddenly ain't so bad!
it becomes... tolerable!

imho, in this regard: 'dependence' is/would-be a better/more encompassing
term than 'addiction' and all its more generally associated negative
connotations... the 'physical' dependence involved (which is probably no
worse upon withdrawal than having a mild dose of flu) literally being
'nothing' compared to the likely emotional and mental assault that follows
upon finding themselves suddenly back in a rat-cage with no (in this case
'chemically' induced) detachment to speak of! i.e. it's not the 'physical'
dependence that keeps them hooked so much as the 'mental and emotional'
relief it affords from basically having to live a 'rat-cage' existence!

in similar circumstances it's well known that others turn to 'alcohol' for
their pain (it's legal after all) and 'just about' kinda manage to
survive, for a while... but only for a while what with drink being so very
destructive, far more so than heroin for example! (and then only because
it's been adulterated)

the more 'simple' truth being that not everyone 'can' cope with living a
rat-cage existence! many for sure 'do' cope with such an existence
(particularly if they're somehow a bit thick or just plain dumb lol;
ignorance of such 'literally' being bliss and all heh) it's usually the
more intelligent, sensitive and aware types that tend to suffer
inordinately under such 'dire' circumstances (dire 'to them' that is)
'chemical' detachment obviously being better than no detachment at all, i
suppose... just not recommended :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi2XCsPKlY8

But every junkie's
like a settin' sun

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

The brains of lucid dreamers:
http://tinyurl.com/nhoe67b

Quotes:

"Participants in the high-lucidity group showed greater gray matter volume in the frontopolar cortex (BA9/10) compared with those in the low-lucidity group. Further, differences in brain structure were mirrored by differences in brain function. The BA9/10 regions identified through structural analyses showed increases in blood oxygen level-dependent signal during thought monitoring in both groups, and more strongly in the high-lucidity group."

"Many arrows seem to be pointing to the frontal lobes in lucid dreaming, which makes sense as that is the part of the brain that is most involved in reality testing, self-reflection, and metacognition (thinking about thinking). The authors in the 2015 study also conclude from this:

"Our results reveal shared neural systems between lucid dreaming and metacognitive function, in particular in the domain of thought monitoring."

In other words, we possess brain structures, specifically the frontopolar cortex, that allow our brains to monitor, and to some degree control, their own activity. We experience this as thinking about our own thoughts; being self-reflective.

It is therefore likely that lucid dreaming is an epiphenomenon. It is not something that humans specifically evolved nor does it serve a specific adaptive function. It is simply something that occasionally emerges out of brain function that has a separate function, that of introspection. These structures may have or be part of a deeper function still, such as the ability to pay attention, and just be aware of our own stream of consciousness."

"lucid dreaming points to one of the "highest" brain functions that we possess - the ability to monitor and reflect upon our own thoughts."

***

The most recent study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25609624

Our results reveal shared neural systems between lucid dreaming and metacognitive function, in particular in the domain of thought monitoring.

***

This seems to imply that people who become good at
monitoring their own thoughts and perceptions can also
become good at lucid dreaming.

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Do Rats Have the capacity for empathy?

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/reconsider-the-rat/

Frans de Waal, a man I admire, says:
"It would be totally surprising, from a Darwinian perspective,
if humans had empathy and other mammals totally lacked it."

Totally agree.

"We share the same neural structure with rats that we use
for our own empathic responses," said Ben-Ami Bartal.

In that case, we should be able to measure and confirm it.

"...metacognition--the ability to think about thinking--
already has been demonstrated in rats; as with empathy,
simpler explanations could suffice, but the possibility
is certainly there."

Since they have metacognition, do rats ever dream in lucidity? :)
(that I actually doubt... but who knows?)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

The article below has a line in it that made me laugh out loud
with how obvious it seemed. The line:

"...defining people by a devastating label may not help them."

:) Gosh, ya think?

***

Redefining Mental Illness

JAN. 17, 2015
T. M. Luhrmann

TWO months ago, the British Psychological Society released a remarkable document entitled "Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia." Its authors say that hearing voices and feeling paranoid are common experiences, and are often a reaction to trauma, abuse or deprivation: "Calling them symptoms of mental illness, psychosis or schizophrenia is only one way of thinking about them, with advantages and disadvantages."

The report says that there is no strict dividing line between psychosis and normal experience: "Some people find it useful to think of themselves as having an illness. Others prefer to think of their problems as, for example, an aspect of their personality which sometimes gets them into trouble but which they would not want to be without."

The report adds that antipsychotic medications are sometimes helpful, but that "there is no evidence that it corrects an underlying biological abnormality." It then warns about the risk of taking these drugs for years.

And the report says that it is "vital" that those who suffer with distressing symptoms be given an opportunity to "talk in detail about their experiences and to make sense of what has happened to them" -- and points out that mental health services rarely make such opportunities available.

This is a radically different vision of severe mental illness from the one held by most Americans, and indeed many American psychiatrists. Americans think of schizophrenia as a brain disorder that can be treated only with medication. Yet there is plenty of scientific evidence for the report's claims.

Moreover, the perspective is surprisingly consonant -- in some ways -- with the new approach by our own National Institute of Mental Health, which funds much of the research on mental illness in this country. For decades, American psychiatric science took diagnosis to be fundamental. These categories -- depression, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder -- were assumed to represent biologically distinct diseases, and the goal of the research was to figure out the biology of the disease.

That didn't pan out. In 2013, the institute's director, Thomas R. Insel, announced that psychiatric science had failed to find unique biological mechanisms associated with specific diagnoses. What genetic underpinnings or neural circuits they had identified were mostly common across diagnostic groups. Diagnoses were neither particularly useful nor accurate for understanding the brain, and would no longer be used to guide research.

And so the institute has begun one of the most interesting and radical experiments in scientific research in years. It jettisoned a decades-long tradition of diagnosis-driven research, in which a scientist became, for example, a schizophrenia researcher. Under a program called Research Domain Criteria, all research must begin from a matrix of neuroscientific structures (genes, cells, circuits) that cut across behavioral, cognitive and social domains (acute fear, loss, arousal). To use an example from the program's website, psychiatric researchers will no longer study people with anxiety; they will study fear circuitry.

Our current diagnostic system -- the main achievement of the biomedical revolution in psychiatry -- drew a sharp , clear line between those who were sick and those who were well, and that line was determined by science. The system started with the behavior of persons, and sorted them into types. That approach sank deep roots into our culture, possibly because sorting ourselves into different kinds of people comes naturally to us.

The institute is rejecting this system because it does not lead to useful research. It is starting afresh, with a focus on how the brain and its trillions of synaptic connections work. The British Psychological Society rejects the centrality of diagnosis for seemingly quite different reasons -- among them, because defining people by a devastating label may not help them.

Both approaches recognize that mental illnesses are complex individual responses -- less like hypothyroidism, in which you fall ill because your body does not secrete enough thyroid hormone, and more like metabolic syndrome, in which a collection of unrelated risk factors (high blood pressure, body fat around the waist) increases your chance of heart disease.

The implications are that social experience plays a significant role in who becomes mentally ill, when they fall ill and how their illness unfolds. We should view illness as caused not only by brain deficits but also by abuse, deprivation and inequality, which alter the way brains behave. Illness thus requires social interventions, not just pharmacological ones.

ONE outcome of this rethinking could be that talk therapy will regain some of the importance it lost when the new diagnostic system was young. And we know how to do talk therapy. That doesn't rule out medication: while there may be problems with the long-term use of antipsychotics, many people find them useful when their symptoms are severe.

The rethinking comes at a time of disconcerting awareness that mental health problems are far more pervasive than we might have imagined. The World Health Organization estimates that one in four people will have an episode of mental illness in their lifetime. Mental and behavioral problems are the biggest single cause of disability on the planet. But in low- and middle-income countries, about four of five of those disabled by the illnesses do not receive treatment for them.

When the United Nations sets its new Sustainable Development Goals this spring, it should include mental illness, along with diseases like AIDS and malaria, as scourges to be combated. There is much we still do not know about mental illness, and much we can do to improve its care. But we know enough to do something, and to accept that knowing more and doing more should be a fundamental commitment.

***

The main points I agree with:

"Others prefer to think of their problems as, for example,
an aspect of their personality which sometimes gets them
into trouble but which they would not want to be without."

"it is vital that those who suffer with distressing symptoms
be given an opportunity to "talk in detail about their
experiences and to make sense of what has happened to them."

"We should view illness as caused not only by brain deficits
but also by abuse, deprivation and inequality, which alter
the way brains behave. Illness thus requires social interventions,
not just pharmacological ones."

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Look, someone put my moral philosophy
in the mouth of 'the Buddha':

http://tinyurl.com/onasq9u

I usually say it like:

"just don't be a jerk"
or
"just don't be an a-hole"

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

3 Articles on Dreaming Studies, from Max-Planck-Gesellschaft site:

***

Cognitive Science

Lucid dreams and metacognition: Awareness of thinking - awareness of dreaming

Brain researchers discover similarities between dreaming and wakefulness

January 20, 2015

To control one's dreams and to live out there what is impossible in real life - a truly tempting idea. Some persons - so-called lucid dreamers - can do this. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich have discovered that the brain area which enables self-reflection is larger in lucid dreamers. Thus, lucid dreamers are possibly also more self-reflecting when being awake.

Image:
http://www.mpg.de/8866101/zoom.jpg

Image Caption:
In lucid dreamers compared to other people, the prefrontal cortex enabling self-reflection is bigger.

Lucid dreamers are aware of dreaming while dreaming. Sometimes, they can even play an active role in their dreams. Most of them, however, have this experience only several times a year and just very few almost every night. Internet forums and blogs are full of instructions and tips on lucid dreaming. Possibly, lucid dreaming is closely related to the human capability of self-reflection - the so-called metacognition.

Neuroscientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry have compared brain structures of frequent lucid dreamers and participants who never or only rarely have lucid dreams. Accordingly, the anterior prefrontal cortex, i.e., the brain area controlling conscious cognitive processes and playing an important role in the capability of self-reflection, is larger in lucid dreamers.

The differences in volumes in the anterior prefrontal cortex between lucid dreamers and non-lucid dreamers suggest that lucid dreaming and metacognition are indeed closely connected. This theory is supported by brain images taken when test persons were solving metacognitive tests while being awake. Those images show that the brain activity in the prefrontal cortex was higher in lucid dreamers. "Our results indicate that self-reflection in everyday life is more pronounced in persons who can easily control their dreams," states Elisa Filevich, post-doc in the Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

The researchers further want to know whether metacognitive skills can be trained. In a follow-up study, they intend to train volunteers in lucid dreaming to examine whether this improves the capability of self-reflection.

***

Cognitive Science

The seat of meta-consciousness in the brain

Studies of lucid dreamers visualise which centres of the brain become active when we become aware of ourselves

July 27, 2012

Which areas of the brain help us to perceive our world in a self-reflective manner is difficult to measure. During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not. But there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep. Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid consciousness is attained. All of these regions are associated with self-reflective functions. This research into lucid dreaming gives the authors of the latest study insight into the neural basis of human consciousness.

Image:
http://www.mpg.de/5916840/zoom.jpg

Image Caption:
Brain regions activated more strongly during lucid dreaming than in a normal dream.

The human capacity of self-perception, self-reflection and consciousness development are among the unsolved mysteries of neuroscience. Despite modern imaging techniques, it is still impossible to fully visualise what goes on in the brain when people move to consciousness from an unconscious state. The problem lies in the fact that it is difficult to watch our brain during this transitional change. Although this process is the same, every time a person awakens from sleep, the basic activity of our brain is usually greatly reduced during deep sleep. This makes it impossible to clearly delineate the specific brain activity underlying the regained self-perception and consciousness during the transition to wakefulness from the global changes in brain activity that takes place at the same time.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes of Psychiatry in Munich and for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and from Charité in Berlin have now studied people who are aware that they are dreaming while being in a dream state, and are also able to deliberately control their dreams. Those so-called lucid dreamers have access to their memories during lucid dreaming, can perform actions and are aware of themselves - although remaining unmistakably in a dream state and not waking up. As author Martin Dresler explains, "In a normal dream, we have a very basal consciousness, we experience perceptions and emotions but we are not aware that we are only dreaming. It's only in a lucid dream that the dreamer gets a meta-insight into his or her state."

By comparing the activity of the brain during one of these lucid periods with the activity measured immediately before in a normal dream, the scientists were able to identify the characteristic brain activities of lucid awareness.

"The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream," says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. "In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds. The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings. The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception." The findings confirm earlier studies and have made the neural networks of a conscious mental state visible for the first time.

***

Cognitive Science

Scientists measure dream content for the first time

Dreams activate the brain in a similar way to real actions

October 28, 2011

The ability to dream is a fascinating aspect of the human mind. However, how the images and emotions that we experience so intensively when we dream form in our heads remains a mystery. Up to now it has not been possible to measure dream content. Max Planck scientists working with colleagues from the Charité hospital in Berlin have now succeeded, for the first time, in analysing the activity of the brain during dreaming. They were able to do this with the help of lucid dreamers, i.e. people who become aware of their dreaming state and are able to alter the content of their dreams. The scientists measured that the brain activity during the dreamed motion matched the one observed during a real executed movement in a state of wakefulness.

Methods like functional magnetic resonance imaging have enabled scientists to visualise and identify the precise spatial location of brain activity during sleep. However, up to now, researchers have not been able to analyse specific brain activity associated with dream content, as measured brain activity can only be traced back to a specific dream if the precise temporal coincidence of the dream content and measurement is known. Whether a person is dreaming is something that could only be reported by the individual himself.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, the Charité hospital in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig availed of the ability of lucid dreamers to dream consciously for their research. Lucid dreamers were asked to become aware of their dream while sleeping in a magnetic resonance scanner and to report this "lucid" state to the researchers by means of eye movements. They were then asked to voluntarily "dream" that they were repeatedly clenching first their right fist and then their left one for ten seconds.

This enabled the scientists to measure the entry into REM sleep - a phase in which dreams are perceived particularly intensively - with the help of the subject's electroencephalogram (EEG) and to detect the beginning of a lucid phase. The brain activity measured from this time onwards corresponded with the arranged "dream" involving the fist clenching. A region in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain, which is responsible for the execution of movements, was actually activated during the dream. This is directly comparable with the brain activity that arises when the hand is moved while the person is awake. Even if the lucid dreamer just imagines the hand movement while awake, the sensorimotor cortex reacts in a similar way.

The coincidence of the brain activity measured during dreaming and the conscious action shows that dream content can be measured. "With this combination of sleep EEGs, imaging methods and lucid dreamers, we can measure not only simple movements during sleep but also the activity patterns in the brain during visual dream perceptions," says Martin Dresler, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry.

Image:
http://www.mpg.de/4614160/zoom.jpg

Image Caption:
Activity in the motor cortex during the movement of the hands while awake (left) and during a dreamed movement (right). Blue areas indicate the activity during a movement of the right hand, which is clearly demonstrated in the left brain hemisphere, while red regions indicate the corresponding left-hand movements in the opposite brain hemisphere.

The researchers were able to confirm the data obtained using MR imaging in another subject using a different technology. With the help of near-infrared spectroscopy, they also observed increased activity in a region of the brain that plays an important role in the planning of movements. "Our dreams are therefore not a 'sleep cinema' in which we merely observe an event passively, but involve activity in the regions of the brain that are relevant to the dream content," explains Michael Czisch, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry.

***

Link to the site:
http://www.mpg.de/8869963/lucid-dreams-prefrontal-cortex

[david.j...@gmail.com]

Now presenting...

The "Mr. Deity Show"!!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Mr.+Deity%22

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

PLASTIC PLANET
Dawn of the Plasticene, from New Scientist.

Plastic Age: How it's reshaping rocks, oceans and life
January 2015 by Christina Reed

Dawn of the Plasticene Age (Image: Bigshot Toyworks)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2xfbw1ifctoti4/plasticene.jpg?dl=0

The ultimate fate of waste plastic is hazy - but we know future geologists will find traces of a fleeting era written in the stones. Welcome to the Plasticene.

ONE million years from now, geologists exploring our planet's concrete-coated crust will uncover strange signs of civilisations past. "Look at this," one will exclaim, cracking open a rock to reveal a thin black disc covered in tiny ridges. "It's a fossil from the Plasticene age."

Our addiction to plastics, combined with a reticence to recycle, means the stuff is already leaving its mark on our planet's geology. Of the 300 million tonnes of plastics produced annually, about a third is chucked away soon after use. Much is buried in landfill where it will probably remain, but a huge amount ends up in the oceans. "All the plastics that have ever been made are already enough to wrap the whole world in plastic film," palaeobiologist Jan Zalasiewicz of the University of Leicester, UK, recently told a conference in Berlin, Germany. It sounds enough to asphyxiate the planet.

What will become of this debris? Landfill will stay buried until future generations rediscover it, but it's a different story for plastic that reaches the ocean. Some is washed up on beaches or eaten by wildlife. Most remains in the sea where it breaks down into small fragments. However, our knowledge of its ultimate fate is hazy. We don't really know how much plastic pollution is choking the seas. Nor do we understand its potential impact on the health of sea creatures and those who eat them. Nor do we have any idea where the stuff will end up in the distant future - will plastic debris break down entirely or will it leave a permanent mark?

The scale of our plastic problem became clear in 1997 when US oceanographer Charles Moore came across a huge area of floating trash - now dubbed the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" - as he sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to California. It was soon found that other oceans contained similar concentrations of rubbish.

These patches are created by surface currents, or gyres, which meander from coast to coast in circular loops on either side of the equator - clockwise in the northern hemisphere and anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere. And just as noodles gather in the centre of a bowl of stirred soup, anything caught in these currents is likely to drift into the middle. The five biggest concentrations of marine debris are in the Indian Ocean, the North and South Pacific and North and South Atlantic (see Map). This year Moore reported finding one spot in the Pacific gyre where there was so much accumulated rubbish you could walk on it.

Most of the debris is plastic. "On a global basis, about 70 per cent of all the litter in the sea is plastic," says marine biologist Richard Thompson of Plymouth University, UK.

How much is that? To find out, an international team headed by Marcus Eriksen at the Five Gyres Institute in Santa Monica, California, gathered data on the amount of plastic caught in nets towed behind research ships on 24 expeditions over a period of six years. This was added to records from spotters who stood on the decks of these ships and counted every piece of plastic they observed. The team estimate that 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing more than 260,000 tonnes, are currently floating at sea. Most is big stuff like buckets, bottles, bags, disposable packaging and polystyrene foam. The highest concentrations found were on the order of 10 kilograms of plastic - equivalent to about 800 water bottles - per square kilometre. Given the huge size of the oceans, this represents an incredible amount of trash.

What is most surprising, however, is that Eriksen and his team didn't find more plastic. According to PlasticsEurope, a plastics industry trade association, production has increased from 1.5 million tonnes annually in the 1950s to 299 million tonnes in 2013. Given that it's often cheaper for manufacturers to produce virgin material than to buy and use recycled plastic, much of this material is thrown away after use. For example, in 2012, only 9 per cent of the 32 million tonnes of plastic waste generated in the US was recycled.

Eriksen's study found less than 0.1 per cent of the plastic produced each year. This is close to the result of a 1975 survey by the US National Academy of Sciences, which estimated that 0.1 per cent of global plastic production makes its way into the ocean annually - equivalent to about 300,000 tonnes this year.

More surprisingly, the amount of plastic in the gyres doesn't seem to be changing. A team led by oceanographer Kara Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, combed through decades of data recording plastic collected during research voyages in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea, and found that the amount was fairly constant (Science, vol 329, p 1185). "Despite a strong increase in discarded plastic, no trend was observed in plastic marine debris in the 22-year data set," they reported. "Where is all the plastic?" asks Law.

The answer could be that plastic breaks down more quickly than we thought, as the action of sunlight and waves degrades it into small fragments. The missing plastic may exist as a soup of tiny pieces suspended in the water column.

In July 2014, Andrés Cózar of the University of Cadiz in Spain, working with a team of international marine scientists, calculated the total amount of plastic fragments floating in the seas at between 7000 and 35,000 tonnes (PNAS, vol 111, p 10239). Eriksen's team reckons there are 35,500 tonnes of plastic particles measuring less than 5 millimetres across (PLoS One, e111913). But both figures seem low - a million tonnes of these tiny pieces should have been found in the water.
Through the net

There are a few possible explanations. Plastic particles less than a third of a millimetre across will slip through the trawl nets because the mesh size is too large, so a huge amount of plastic could have been overlooked.

Thompson believes that some plastic might also be locked up in ice. In June 2014, his team reported finding up to 234 particles of plastic per cubic metre of Arctic sea ice - several orders of magnitude higher than in the heavily contaminated waters of the gyres. He suggests that as seawater turns to freshwater ice, it traps and concentrates small particles. Given that there are about 6 million square kilometres of sea ice, this could represent a huge reservoir of plastic. If the ice melts, this material will be released back into the sea.

More recently, Thompson's team has discovered another place where plastic is accumulating. In December, the group published data showing that tiny pieces of plastic and other polymers, mostly in the form of fibres, are up to 10,000 times more abundant in deep-sea sediments in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean than in surface waters. Samples contained up to 800,000 particles per cubic metre. The small number of samples - just 12 sediment cores taken from seven expeditions, and four coral samples - was small, but they found plastic debris everywhere they looked.

Could deep-sea sediments hold the key to the missing plastic? It seems likely, given that there are about 300 million square kilometres of seabed.

Some plastic particles are heavier than water and will sink, while others will become colonised by creatures such as phytoplankton, or clump together with other particles and drift downwards towards the seabed like falling snow. This process could be aided by ocean currents, Thompson says.

Confirming this model won't be easy. We don't know the density of minute particles of plastic in the sea, says Law, because we don't have a good way to measure anything there that is smaller than about 0.5 millimetres. But marine geochemist Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has a solution. His group is using a special laser scanning microscope to investigate seawater. "We have just begun this work and are seeing plastics in the 2-20 micrometre range," he says.

There are similar gaps in our knowledge when it comes to understanding what impact this stuff is having on marine creatures. We know larger creatures like birds, turtles, fish and whales confuse plastic trash with food, and then choke to death or die of starvation as their stomachs become clogged. But the effect on smaller sea dwellers is far more complex.

For some microbes, plastic is the equivalent of a hotel buffet table. Any hard surface in the ocean becomes a collection plate for nutrients, says Mincer. This is why structures like oil rigs or sunken ships become oases of life.

Other species, too, are taking advantage of the floating debris. Across the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the insect species Halobates sericeus, a type of water strider, deposits its eggs on the floating plastic. As plastic debris has increased in the Pacific, so too has these insects' reliance on it.

H. sericeus isn't alone. Erik Zettler of the Sea Education Association, working with Mincer and Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, discovered that the plastics are even providing an entirely new ecosystem - one Amaral-Zettler dubs the "plastisphere". Like the rhizosphere of microbes colonising roots, there is an entire "cast of characters that colonise plastic", says Mincer. The ones that are attracting most of his attention are bacterial strains called Vibrio. "These are very good at colonising surfaces and can be pathogenic as well," he says. There have been cases of people getting a hook caught in the hand while fishing at sea and coming down with Vibrio infections that are difficult to treat, he says.

Pathogenic Vibrio colonise the intestines of fish, empty the tissues of nutrients and salts, and break down blood cells to collect iron. Once excreted, they can attach themselves to a piece of plastic, regroup and wait to attack the next fish that mistakes their home for plankton.

Viruses might also find plastic useful. "We can't say confidently 'that is a virus' but we do see viral signals in the metagenomic data sets from plastic," says Mincer. It's not surprising, he says: there are far higher concentrations of viruses in the water column than there are microbial cells. "The more I look at genomic sequences, the more I tell my team to wash their hands and be careful," he says.

There are other reasons to worry about plastics. There is evidence that plastic microparticles are entering the food chain. Vibrio, for example, are bioluminescent, and can create a spectacular blue-green glow in the water. "During midnight tows in the summer, you frequently see the plastic glowing in the dark," says Mincer. The fact that plastic particles loaded with harmful bacteria mimic food using bioluminescence "is diabolical in its own way", he says.

Microplastics aren't good news for fish. The particles can reduce the efficiency of food absorption, and as they break down, release additives such as phthalates and bisphenol A, which can mimic hormones, as well as toxic flame retardants. Plastics also act like sponges for chemicals in seawater, absorbing organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticides such as DDT. Studies suggest that pollutants stuck to plastics can poison fish.

We might feel these effects too. According to environmental toxicologist Lisbeth Van Cauwenberghe of Ghent University in Belgium, eating shellfish can expose you to 11,000 pieces of microplastic each year. Her tests show that commercially grown mussels contained an average of 0.36 microplastic particles per gram of tissue. Oysters contained slightly more. You would have to eat a lot of this seafood, says Van Cauwenberghe, "but marine microplastics could pose a threat to food safety".

So what will happen to all our discarded plastic in the long term? Rocks on Kamilo beach, a remote spot in Hawaii, may hold one answer. Here hikers often burn plastic in campfires and the sand is now strewn with "plastiglomerates", a mix of sand and artificial materials, all glued together with melted plastic that has cooled and hardened. Although these have so far only been found in relatively small amounts, it is conceivable that similar "plasticene" deposits might form on beaches where lava flows run, or where forest fires and extreme temperatures occur, says geologist Patricia Corcoran at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Corcoran and her colleagues have collected hundreds of fragments of this new "rock" and suggest it could eventually become embedded in the geological record.

Zalasiewicz agrees. "We are creating novel materials, which are very widespread in the environment. How do we know these will preserve?" Zalasiewicz works on fossilised plankton that leave a very small and delicate shell of organic polymers. "We know how they change when they enter the rock strata," he says: they lose hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, leaving carbon films, or become coated with iron sulphides or carbonates which leave fossil impressions in the strata. Similarly, as temperatures rise over time, pieces of buried plastic will begin to darken as the polymers break down, eventually releasing tiny amounts of oil and gas, and leaving a residue of brittle carbon. "On that basis, I see no problem in plastic drink bottles or CDs being preserved as fossils in the future - not exactly as they are, but as recognisable remnants," he says.

"What I would really like to see would be the preservation of vinyl long-playing records - good enough to preserve details of the grooves," says Zalasiewicz. And why not? Fossil worms preserved in 500 million-year-old Burgess Shale rocks show signs of fine grooves that would have created colours by refraction. These grooves are separated by less than a micrometre. Given that the grooves on LPs are around 20 times wider, there is a chance they, too, could survive, given the right conditions. "That would mean fossilisation of the patterns of sounds," says Zalasiewicz - music locked up in the geological record. So plastic could leave more than one type of rock for future generations to discover.

Stemming the flow

Huge amounts of plastic enter the oceans via rivers. Major components of this waste are fibres from synthetic clothes released during washing. It also contains microbeads, which are tiny plastic spheres used in many cosmetics. Water treatment plants can't filter them out, so they all end up in rivers.

In 2014, the state of Illinois passed the world's first ban on microbeads, after studies showed that the tiny plastic particles are a common pollutant floating on the surface of the Great Lakes. US senator Kirsten Gillibrand is pushing for legislation that will ban microbeads in all US cosmetics. Some manufacturers have already acted: Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson have all committed to eliminating these beads from their products.

Meanwhile, some groups are hoping to harvest plastic from the gyres. Last year, an organisation called The Ocean Cleanup completed a trial of a floating boom system in the Atlantic near the Azores. Based on the results, the group estimates that floating debris in a single gyre could be cleared in five to 10 years without harming wildlife. The organisation is now raising funds for a pilot project which could begin in 2018.

***

Plastic people! Oh baby, now you're such a drag!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy4KU0bWrbc

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

Smoking turns out to be even worse than previously thought:
http://tinyurl.com/p98wua4

Excerpt:

"The U.S. surgeon general lists 21 deadly diseases that are caused by smoking. Now, a study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine points to more than a dozen other diseases that apparently add to the tobacco death toll.

To arrive at this conclusion, scientists from the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute and several universities tracked nearly a million people for a decade and recorded their causes of death.

As expected, the researchers found that smokers were much more likely to die of lung cancer, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, esophageal cancer, mouth cancer and a long list of other diseases that health officials have previously linked to smoking.

But author Eric Jacobs, strategic director of pharmacoepidemiology at the American Cancer Society, found other causes of death that were also more common in smokers -- "things like kidney failure, infections and certain types of heart and respiratory diseases that weren't previously counted," he says.

For five of the diseases added to the list, smokers were about twice as likely as nonsmokers to die from these ailments."

[slider]

Jeremy wrote...

### - lol now we ain't gonna all get blown up let's go back to giving up
smoking again??:)))

smile... newsflash! - 'latest news' on the big C!

ah, um, yeah ya remember how they've been tellin' us all along how
probably one 1 in 3 people 'will' likely get cancer over their lifetime
and, but more reassuringly, that we should accordingly all give up
unhealthy habits and eat organic food and exercise and stuff if we wanna
live longer and shit?

weeelll, apparently, they been getting that ever sooo slightly wrong until
now, and the 'real' figures are actually more like: 1 in 2 of us are all
gonna get cancer in our lifetime, whether we like it or not!!!

iow... it don't fucking matter one freaking iota what ya give up, or eat
or, or don't eat, or well, anything come to that: HALF of us are all gonna
get it anyway!

or maybe the figures are actually even 'higher' than that and we're ALL
gonna get it coz of the thick toxic chemical soup that passes for
atmosphere and environment on this fucked up world!

but let's blame it aaall on the smokers ok? after all: they're as good a
scapegoat as any?

yeah folks! let's hysterically nail all thems 'dirty smokies' to the wall
and NOT those lovely helpful scientist chaps who invented all that
poison-shit that's been 'actually' killin' us all in the first place, yeah?

whoo-hoo! isn't scientism fun??? let's adopt 'another' polar bear today
and fuckin' celebrate!

riiight! :)))

(iow: shouldn't believe everything ya read jeremy just coz it comes from
some so-called 'scientific' stroke 'official' source... they might have
vested interests in misleading peeps:)

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-06-07/cancer-macmillan-cancer-support-uk-diagnosed/

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

You don't seem to get this, man.
For smokers, several major institutes measured:
"death rates above and beyond those seen in nonsmokers"
in a subject pool of "nearly a million" people.

So the data is conclusive,
and your attempt at rebuttal was irrelevant.
Did you even read that article? If you did,
and you still tried to make that feeble comeback,
then dude, you are squarely *in denial*.

Just tell me you're not a regular smoker??
Because if so, to me that would simply mean you're one of
those unfortunate people who don't really even want to live...

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

A few photos of a Neil DeGrasse Tyson event we attended:
http://tinyurl.com/oyjdqdm

Neil said he was doing a special talk for LA, which consisted of
his science-related thoughts on a series of numerous Hollywood movies,
as he played short clips from them. It was about 50-50, highlighting
aspects the producers had got either wrong or right. I thought his
talk was really funny and entertaining throughout. Near the end,
he did an updated version of Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot", while
displaying a picture of Earth taken from Saturn. My girlfriend's
22-year-old daughter got to ask one question in the follow up
question-and-answer period, and both of my companions considered
this talk quite fun and memorable.

[slider]

Jeremy wrote...

### - (cough cough hack!) i don't (cough) smoke cigarettes regularly
(ahem, cough) at all, very infrequently actually (splutter) but i do (hem
hem hem) smoke 'joints' made with tobacco, all the fucking time maan!
lol:)))

why not! you don't think the bogeyman's gonna getcha do ya? :P

hey look... we ALL gotta die of... 'something' right?

and at 'our' age, let's face it... probably fairly soon!

so what's yer 'poison' maan? whaddaya... like?

i don't worship 'my inventory' (chucked it actually lol:)

so i like music and a nice smoke of the green, a bit of literature
occasionally + anything amusing/entertaining; like lucid dreaming for
example...

how 'bout you? :)

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

I do a few shots of good Tequila now and then.
Occasional beer or wine, always just a glass or two.
Occasionally some hallucinogenic mushrooms or truffles.
Once in a while salvia divinorum.
Once in a while 'the green'.
Once in a blue moon maybe some LSD or mescaline.
Sniff a little glue or paint.

Kidding, but only on the last one. :)

Interesting how you like to mix tobacco and weed.
I still have not tried that.
If you don't smoke cigs regularly,
you're probably not in danger.
Good.

[slider]

### - i don't smoke 'em (cigs)... on their own :)))

that said: am probably a between 5 to 10 joints a day-person! lol (but in
very small amounts:)

can't be bothered with anything else these days, just the green, but have
probably done erm, well everything really lol at one time or another heh
(not glue/paint tho either:) i guess they all have their merits/demerits

i 'like' tobacco, i like/appreciate what it... does!

especially in-combination with the green ;)

a little bit's ok! ("i'm tough i can handle it maan":) but then ya hear
about some peeps doing 60 a day!? i mean sheesh, that would be like doing
a liter of vodka a day! or 15 burgers a day! (or whatever) i mean ffs:
have some fucking restraint already! coz that much would make 'anyone'
sick! innit tho! lol ya don't have to smoke it like they made all those
poor monkeys smoke it! i mean really!:)

Ps... we were ALWAYS in danger! from the moment we were lucky enough to be
born! but that don't mean we all have to be terrified of everything as
well ;)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Slider wrote:
>we were ALWAYS in danger! from the moment we were lucky enough to be
born! but that don't mean we all have to be terrified of everything as
well ;)

My view is that since such an enormous amount of energy went into
creating and supporting who I am (I'm the end of a genetic chain
millions of years in length), not to even speak of all the
resources of civilization I've used, I feel I 'owe it' to
life itself to take the best possible care of myself.

But I'll still probably have a few shots of tequila tonight...
Hey, it's a long 'holiday' weekend. ;)

[slider]

> My view is that since such an enormous amount of energy went into
> creating and supporting who I am (I'm the end of a genetic chain
> millions of years in length), not to even speak of all the
> resources of civilization I've used, I feel I 'owe it' to
> life itself to take the best possible care of myself.
>
> But I'll still probably have a few shots of tequila tonight...
> Hey, it's a long 'holiday' weekend. ;)

### - heh "a long 'holiday' weekend" is kinda how am beginning to view my
whole life to date!

anyway, can't stand here chatting away with 'you' all day...

there's joints to be smoked! :)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Interesting in-depth article on the motives of ISIS,
which is basically a dangerous, medieval religious cult.

http://tinyurl.com/o3tn7p7

[allreadygone]

yeah here's the thing though:

if those douchers push their luck
too far, they can ask Japan what
to expect. Yes we do hold all the
cards no matter what they believe.

So, what's it gonna be?
Death now or death later?
we can wait forever too. :)

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 01:06:20 -0000, slider <sli...@aanashram.org>
wrote:

>Jeremy wrote...
>
>> You don't seem to get this, man.
>> For smokers, several major institutes measured:
>> "death rates above and beyond those seen in nonsmokers"
>> in a subject pool of "nearly a million" people.
>>
>> So the data is conclusive,
>> and your attempt at rebuttal was irrelevant.
>> Did you even read that article? If you did,
>> and you still tried to make that feeble comeback,
>> then dude, you are squarely *in denial*.
>>
>> Just tell me you're not a regular smoker??
>> Because if so, to me that would simply mean you're one of
>> those unfortunate people who don't really even want to live...
>
>### - (cough cough hack!) i don't (cough) smoke cigarettes regularly
>(ahem, cough) at all, very infrequently actually (splutter) but i do (hem
>hem hem) smoke 'joints' made with tobacco, all the fucking time maan!
>lol:)))

You complete and utter bullshit artist. You do NOT smoke dope all the
time, you simply don't smoke because you can't get it. You don't have
supply...

Post a pic in any of the free upload sites - I might post another in a
few days, I've come across a nice bag since I've been back from the
land of smiles ... I dare you to do that, mate :)

>
>why not! you don't think the bogeyman's gonna getcha do ya? :P
>
>hey look... we ALL gotta die of... 'something' right?
>
>and at 'our' age, let's face it... probably fairly soon!

Heh, maybe you sport...with your lonely, closeted, parasitic
lifestyle.

>
>so what's yer 'poison' maan? whaddaya... like?
>
>i don't worship 'my inventory' (chucked it actually lol:)
>
>so i like music and a nice smoke of the green, a bit of literature
>occasionally + anything amusing/entertaining; like lucid dreaming for
>example...

Shame you fantasise so much about that nice bowl of pot you keep on
going on about.
>
>how 'bout you? :)

No, how about you, liar.

[thang ornerythinchus]

Good man :)

Keep up the tradition and age be fucked.

>
>Kidding, but only on the last one. :)
>
>Interesting how you like to mix tobacco and weed.
>I still have not tried that.
>If you don't smoke cigs regularly,
>you're probably not in danger.
>Good.

I used to smoke joints with tobacco, but only roll your own tobacco,
never if I could help it (and if I was pissed, I couldn't help it)
tailor mades.

Now and for the past years it's been just dope in small pipes. A few
hits, and I'm pleasant verging on euphoric. MIght have one in a
moment actually :)

Cigs are fucking death but some people can smoke all their lives, live
long lives, and never suffer ill health due to the smokes. As you
yanks say "go figure".

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2015 01:55:39 -0000, slider <sli...@aanashram.org>
wrote:

You fucking liar. Use your phone, or your camera, take a pic and
upload it like I did and like Dave did a few months ago. With a note
saying "fuck you thang" or similar to prove veracity and
contemporaneity.

Betcha don't...

>
>can't be bothered with anything else these days, just the green, but have
>probably done erm, well everything really lol at one time or another heh
>(not glue/paint tho either:) i guess they all have their merits/demerits

Liar.

>
>i 'like' tobacco, i like/appreciate what it... does!
>
>especially in-combination with the green ;)

Liar.

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Sat, 14 Feb 2015 17:32:15 -0000, slider <sli...@aanashram.org>
wrote:

Yeah, but not by you.

[slider]

thang ignoramus wrote...

### - dammit he's back! lost me thread now heh, where was i again? oh i
know!

yeah that's it, i remember now!

(ahem ahem...)

You fucking ignorant 'bigoted' cunt!

yeah that was it alright :)

(cracking up :)))

[slider]

thang wrote...

> You fucking liar. Use your phone, or your camera, take a pic and
> upload it like I did and like Dave did a few months ago. With a note
> saying "fuck you thang" or similar to prove veracity and
> contemporaneity.
> Betcha don't...

### - what, and virtually hand my service provider, username & password
over to a complete fucking idiot like you (more likely: someone you 'paid'
to do yer dirty work for ya ha!:) on a proverbial plate; coz ya already
tried and can't trace me otherwise + that's wot you were advised to do, ya
mean??

riiight + fuck you! :)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

New Year's Trip 2014-2015 - Arizona and New Mexico

8-day trip to National Monuments, State Parks,
and Native American Pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico.

http://tinyurl.com/pqze6p4

Locations, in order: Organ Pipe NM, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum,
Tombstone, City Of Rocks SP, Pinos Altos, Gila NM, El Malpais NM,
El Morro NM, Acoma Pueblo, Laguna Pueblo, Zuni Pueblo,
Window Rock Tribal Park, Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site,
Holman, Walnut Canyon NM, San Francisco Peaks, Sunset Crater NM,
Wupatki NM.

Music, in order: Percy Thrillington, Burt Bacharach, Nick Drake,
Percy Thrillington, Django Reinhardt, Jean Luc Ponty, Stan Getz,
Charles Mingus, John McLaughlin/Carlos Santana.

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 15:20:20 -0000, slider <sli...@aanashram.org>
wrote:

What a lame excuse. I've posted pics of pot etc and no one has come
after me. So has Donovan.

I don't give a fuck who you are Brian or what you are. It doesn't
change the fact that you are an embittered, lost soul in the midst of
a gigantic uncaring city - who, evidently, has no one and pretends you
need no one.

You use that Italian free text posting service. It is totally
anonymous. Nothing can be gleaned of you from that, even if someone
wanted to. It's hosted in Italy and they do NOT like Americans.

All you need to do is upload anonymously to an anonymous file hosting
service. That's what I did (admittedly, I did use Tor/Privoxy/Vidalia
and my NSP is based in Singapore - but you don't need to). Here are
some.

http://www.filehosthome.com/anonymous-file-hosting.php

Now, what gets up my nose about you Brian is the fact that you are
always going on about how to smoke dope, how many joints you smoke,
what the effects of smoking dope are, how experienced you are in
smoking pot and so on and so on. Always. I quietened you down a lot
before I went overseas, but then I come back and you're up to you old
bullshit tricks again with the impressionable audience.

If you don't use one of the anon hosts above to post some pics with a
note proving (a) contemporaneity and (b) veracity, then not only I
will know you are the king of bullshit.

>
>riiight + fuck you! :)

Possibly. The next move is up to you.

[thang ornerythinchus]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2015 14:50:09 -0000, slider <sli...@aanashram.org>
wrote:

Really?? Are you really cracking up?? After the denouement, the
revelation, that you are nothing but a common troll and liar? Perhaps
I should say - the denouncement. Are you really laying back in your
leather sofa and cracking up slider?

heh "there's joints to be smoked!"

[Jeremy H. Donovan]

Originally the YouTube link had a glitch,
which is fixed now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERrNcd49bw

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Arctic biologist: I can't keep up with climate change

20 February 2015 by Catherine Brahic
Magazine issue 3009.

Antje Boetius is watching Arctic ecosystems transform at an alarming rate, using every tool at her disposal in a bid to keep track of it all

You've spent months at a time on icebreakers in the Arctic. What's life like up there?

It's a fascinating landscape. You feel like this is an area where you don't belong - but it's beautiful. When sunlight hits the ice it glitters, and when the ship breaks the ice, the chunks flip and underneath there are sometimes fish or other animals. There are snow flowers that form on top of the ice. It almost feels like a different planet.

What are you looking for when you are there?

I'm interested in the deep sea. We have tried hard to produce high-quality images that show that the Arctic Ocean isn't a dead ocean. There's actually a lot of life on the sea floor.

I understand that there's a decent amount of biomass but not a huge amount of diversity...

Yes, and that always intrigued me. This is an ocean covered by a lid of ice at the top of the world, where it receives little light: only two, three months in the year have enough sunlight for primary production [plant and algae growth], and the rest of the year it's pitch dark. As a PhD student I took some of the first deep-sea samples of bacteria and was intrigued to find that there is quite some biomass. That told me there was an unknown source of energy for these waters.

Did you find that energy source?

I think it's the ice algae. They form big accumulations that colour the ice green and brown. There can be 100 times or even 1000 times more algae in the ice than in seawater, though of course there's less ice than there is water. But is most photosynthesis going on in the sea ice or in the water column? And when the ice is no longer there, will there be more productivity or less?

Are you talking about sea-ice loss as a result of climate change?

Yes. We were amazed by one type of algae, Melosira arctica. It grows in chains and forms what looks like an upside-down kelp forest, hanging from the ice. The filaments can reach 8 metres long. And because the ice drifts, they get lots of nutrients. These are the biggest accumulations of algae that we know of in the Arctic, besides kelp that grows on rocks at the shores. We have gone to great lengths to observe these algae with robotsMovie Camera, cameras in the ice and by drilling holes. We were up there for the summer 2012 melt season, which saw record ice loss. Because of that melt, all the ice algae fell to the sea floor. The entire Eurasian basin was littered with it.

The loss of all that algae sounds like a big deal.

Some scientists who have worked with ice algae say it will be the end when thick ice floes are gone because then the algae can no longer grow on the ice. I think we will lose these big forests, but there'll be floating clumps.

Presumably life on the seabed benefits if more ice algae sink down, bringing more nutrients?

Well, one weird thing is very few animals are able to eat them, so they accumulate into big masses on the seabed. In the deep sea we found only two species that ate the algae - a sea cucumber and a brittle star. In other oceans you would find millions of organisms jumping into the green patches to feed. I think this seabed abundance is brand new for the Arctic, and deep-sea life has not yet adapted to it.

What counts as the "deep sea", and are there any fish down there?

The deep sea is any part of the ocean where there is no sunlight at any point during the year: where it is forever night and very cold - below freezing. It is an enigmatic environment. Russian scientists suggested there were no fish in the Arctic deep sea. We thought this for a hundred years. But a fish was discovered down there for the first time last November.

Wow! How was the fish discovered?

We have hundreds of hours of film from the Arctic sea floor, and experiments with traps, and we had never seen a fish below 800 metres. Right now there are two Norwegians sitting on a hovercraft, overwintering in the Arctic (New Scientist, 3 January 2015)Movie Camera. They have a camera and occasionally they lower it to the bottom. In November, they documented a fish about 1400 metres down. It's like an eel.

Is it possible that this fish is a new arrival, courtesy of warming waters?

That remains to be investigated. Most likely there are simply very few deep-sea fish. I tried to get my hands on all of the data and samples ever taken in the Arctic deep sea to count the animals, but we have very little data: most of it is from German and Russian expeditions. There are less than 100 samples, and very few zoologists can name the organisms retrieved. We basically rely on one Russian lab for that.

Does that make it difficult to understand the changes that are happening now?

The environment is changing faster than we can research it. It's a shitty feeling for a scientist if you are trying to learn something from that change and you know you're far too slow. People only started seeing that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was increasing 30 years after it began. That is crazy. The change is happening right now and we can't wait 30 years to conclude: "Oh, by now the entire typical life of the Arctic has been lost - wow, we have finally shown it."

Is it hard to live with that feeling?

One year I do the climate change work and the next I like to do exploration work because it's just too depressing otherwise. In 2016, I have a mission to explore a gigantic underwater mountain that starts in a hole at a depth of 4000 metres and climbs 3500 metres. I'll go with robots and cameras to explore what life we find on these very steep walls. That's not as sad as climate change research.

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Ocean acidification triggered devastating extinction, study finds:
http://tinyurl.com/kw72q7g

And that's what we are doing right now. Acidifying the ocean big time.

***

Quotes:

"Ocean acidification triggered by massive volcanic eruptions helped
cause the worst mass extinction in the history of life on Earth."

"Today's carbon influx isn't nearly as massive as the one possibly
triggered by Siberian Trap volcanism some 252 million years ago,
the scientists pointed out - their model requires 24,000 petagrams
of carbon, far more than the roughly 5,000 petagrams of carbon
available in conventional fossil fuels today."

"But it is being injected into the atmosphere today at a similar rate
as it was back then. A high rate of carbon injection, not just the
overall amount injected into the oceans, was probably a major part
of the problem, because it left species with little time to adapt."

***

In the greatest mass extinction in history, it happened fast, over
a period of 10,000 years, which is lightning fast in geological time.
But we are doing it in just a few hundred years. The blink of an eye.

Carbon is being injected into the atmosphere at a similar rate
to that of the greatest mass extinction in history.

Yet some people think that's not a problem...

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Age Of Disbelief - Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?
http://tinyurl.com/njvvkag

This is a great article on science doubters in National Geographic.
Many important current issues are hit right on the head here...

***

Quotes:

'We live in an age when all manner of scientific knowledge--from the safety of fluoride and vaccines to the reality of climate change--faces organized and often furious opposition. Empowered by their own sources of information and their own interpretations of research, doubters have declared war on the consensus of experts. There are so many of these controversies these days, you'd think a diabolical agency had put something in the water to make people argumentative.'

' "Science is not a body of facts," says geophysicist Marcia McNutt, who once headed the U.S. Geological Survey and is now editor of Science, the prestigious journal. "Science is a method for deciding whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not." But that method doesn't come naturally to most of us. And so we run into trouble, again and again.'

'...as we become scientifically literate, we repress our naive beliefs but never eliminate them entirely.'

'We have trouble digesting randomness; our brains crave pattern and meaning. Science warns us, however, that we can deceive ourselves.'

'Even for scientists, the scientific method is a hard discipline. Like the rest of us, they're vulnerable to what they call confirmation bias--the tendency to look for and see only evidence that confirms what they already believe. But unlike the rest of us, they submit their ideas to formal peer review before publishing them. Once their results are published, if they're important enough, other scientists will try to reproduce them--and, being congenitally skeptical and competitive, will be very happy to announce that they don't hold up. Scientific results are always provisional, susceptible to being overturned by some future experiment or observation. Scientists rarely proclaim an absolute truth or absolute certainty. Uncertainty is inevitable at the frontiers of knowledge.'

' "Science will find the truth...It may get it wrong the first time and maybe the second time, but ultimately it will find the truth." That provisional quality of science is another thing a lot of people have trouble with. '

***

Climate Change

Last fall the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which consists of hundreds of scientists operating under the auspices of the United Nations, released its fifth report in the past 25 years. This one repeated louder and clearer than ever the consensus of the world's scientists: The planet's surface temperature has risen by about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 130 years, and human actions, including the burning of fossil fuels, are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the warming since the mid-20th century. Many people in the United States--a far greater percentage than in other countries--retain doubts about that consensus or believe that climate activists are using the threat of global warming to attack the free market and industrial society generally. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, one of the most powerful Republican voices on environmental matters, has long declared global warming a hoax.

The idea that hundreds of scientists from all over the world would collaborate on such a vast hoax is laughable--scientists love to debunk one another. It's very clear, however, that organizations funded in part by the fossil fuel industry have deliberately tried to undermine the public's understanding of the scientific consensus by promoting a few skeptics.

***

'There aren't really two sides to all these issues. Climate change is happening. Vaccines really do save lives. Being right does matter--and the science tribe has a long track record of getting things right in the end. Modern society is built on things it got right.'

'It's their very detachment, what you might call the cold-bloodedness of science, that makes science the killer app. It's the way science tells us the truth rather than what we'd like the truth to be. Scientists can be as dogmatic as anyone else--but their dogma is always wilting in the hot glare of new research. In science it's not a sin to change your mind when the evidence demands it. For some people, the tribe is more important than the truth; for the best scientists, the truth is more important than the tribe.'

'Scientific thinking has to be taught, and sometimes it's not taught well, McNutt says. Students come away thinking of science as a collection of facts, not a method. Shtulman's research has shown that even many college students don't really understand what evidence is. The scientific method doesn't come naturally--but if you think about it, neither does democracy. For most of human history neither existed. We went around killing each other to get on a throne, praying to a rain god, and for better and much worse, doing things pretty much as our ancestors did.'

'Now we have incredibly rapid change, and it's scary sometimes. It's not all progress. Our science has made us the dominant organisms, with all due respect to ants and blue-green algae, and we're changing the whole planet. Of course we're right to ask questions about some of the things science and technology allow us to do. "Everybody should be questioning," says McNutt. "That's a hallmark of a scientist. But then they should use the scientific method, or trust people using the scientific method, to decide which way they fall on those questions." '

***

Yeah, that's what all of this is about in a nutshell: the truth
is more important than the tribe. And it's like... too many people
still do not get that.

Recent findings indicate that religion may have given rise initially
to much of what we think of as 'civilization'. But another thing people
don't get is: even if that was the initial impetus, it doesn't mean
religion should have much to do with how we direct civilization now.
Because ... the truth is more important.

Another side to that is: although the truth is more important,
that doesn't mean we can sacrifice the tribe for the truth.
We still need the tribe too. It's not one or the other; we need both.
That means we must also learn to use the truth we discover with wisdom.
To even get to a place where we can do that, the truth has to be regarded
as important. It's not okay anymore to have 'the tribe' persist by belief
in lies. The tribe needs to grow the f*ck up, and keep on growing up.

'Science' eventually tells us the truth rather than what we'd like the
truth to be, while 'wisdom' asks: what are the possible consequences
of different ways of acting on our knowledge of the truth? Wisdom simultaneously asks: how can we do our utmost to maximize benefits
while minimizing negative consequences?

That equation must always consider the greatest good for most things
that live (not only the greatest good for humans). The hardest part
for "capitalistic" societies to learn seems to be: doing that isn't
just about humans making lots of money. The right way to act is to
create the greatest good for most living things.

[slider]

Jeremy wrote...

### - religion 'definitely' gave rise to civilisation (something i've been
claiming for more than a decade on here) and for sure is/was the "initial
impetus" - and although, as you say: "it doesn't mean
religion should have much to do with how we direct civilization now", the
PROBLEM is having been 'raised' that way over a several millennia; that
MANNER of thinking and behaving has, quite naturally, become 'second
nature' to people! hence it remains very easy for them indeed to be
mentally and emotionally preyed upon and/or swayed into 'believing' just
about anything someone (or anything) in authority 'tells' them to believe!
(ref. noam chomsky's: 'manufacturing consent' highlighting the problem)

i.e. 'people' are 'not' scientists! anymore than people are/were priests
or clergymen! and accordingly, they literally still have no choice but to
trust (have faith) in what said authorities tell them to believe!

> Another side to that is: although the truth is more important,
> that doesn't mean we can sacrifice the tribe for the truth.
> We still need the tribe too. It's not one or the other; we need both.
> That means we must also learn to use the truth we discover with wisdom.
> To even get to a place where we can do that, the truth has to be regarded
> as important. It's not okay anymore to have 'the tribe' persist by belief
> in lies. The tribe needs to grow the f*ck up, and keep on growing up.

### - so what's next then already? (he said, a bit sarcastically) a
'planet' of scientists??

with death to true/real Art into the bargain? (the modern equivalent of
selling our soul to the devil, surely)

i mean, do ya really think (for example) that the likes of john coltrane
even gave 2 flying-fucks about atoms and shit? or that he seriously ever
'needed' knowledge of that nature in order to: 'do his thing'? (we've had
this argument before innit:)

> 'Science' eventually tells us the truth rather than what we'd like the
> truth to be, while 'wisdom' asks: what are the possible consequences
> of different ways of acting on our knowledge of the truth? Wisdom
> simultaneously asks: how can we do our utmost to maximize benefits
> while minimizing negative consequences?

### - 'eventually' tells us the truth, yes... but only in a round-about
way by revealing to us all the lies of our 'previous' stupid beliefs and
resulting erroneous consensuses!

> That equation must always consider the greatest good for most things
> that live (not only the greatest good for humans). The hardest part
> for "capitalistic" societies to learn seems to be: doing that isn't
> just about humans making lots of money. The right way to act is to
> create the greatest good for most living things.

### - iow: 'human corruption' is what is actually at the heart of all the
shit in our world, scientific or otherwise... (totally agree)

an ingrained/second-nature corruption to our whole human way of thinking
and modeling that was literally systematically drummed into us over 1000's
of years via the express medium of religion and religious-type reasoning!
perforce which includes kowtowing to 'approved' authority figures! (all
'cults' literally being only a mirror-image of this general working
principle of society in action, albeit it in miniature/microcosm)

a corruption that goes much farther (and deeper) than the greed created by
the 'haves and have-nots' of capitalism alone, but actually goes to the
very roots of the way we even 'think' about things and/or conceptualise!

the facts being that: there's a really only 'tiny minority' of scientists
on this planet and the rest of humanity hardly knows (or even care to
know) fuck all about it beyond what they are 'told' to believe in and
conform to!

basically: there's nothing 'wrong' with science per se... it's fucked up
human beings, the result and end product of 1000's years of make-believe,
that still brings shit to science and the way science is implemented!

science is actually the mark (and sign) of humanity's intelligence!

the 'problem' is... humanity is already almost completely fucking insane!

thus 'science' wont/can't 'make' us sane; imho only Art does (or can do)
that :)

which is all just my 2-cents etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nGKqH26xlg

(it's all in the intro)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

There's no conflict at all between science and art.

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

"Things don't change".
http://tinyurl.com/p5fjjq9

QUOTE:

"They burned the city twice," Atilla Engin said, standing atop Oylum Höyük, a barren man-made hill in southeastern Turkey. "We don't know who or why. There were many wars back then."

Engin is a Turkish archaeologist from the University of Cumhuriyet. He stared into a square pit being dug into the mound's summit by villagers working under the direction of his graduate students. The hole was 30 feet deep, and the mound was among the biggest in Turkey: 120 feet high and 500 yards long, a lopsided layer cake of time. Its oldest evidence of occupation dated from the Neolithic, some 9,000 years ago. But above that--built, abandoned, and long since forgotten--lies the debris of at least nine human eras. Copper Age masonry. Bronze Age cuneiform tablets. Hellenistic coins. Roman and Byzantine brickwork.

Many empires had seesawed back and forth across the often embattled heartland of Asia Minor. Engin was focused on a walled Bronze Age settlement, possibly a powerful city-state called Ullis, that was mentioned in ancient Hittite records and Iron Age papyri. To reach this lost city, his team had shoveled through strata that looked like cardiograms of upheaval--rumpled horizons of soil, ash, and rubble, 9,000 years of systole and diastole, construction and destruction.

"Things don't change," Engin said. He had the tired half smile of a man who thought in millennia. "Outside powers still fight over this area -- the Mesopotamian plain. It is the meeting place of Africa, Asia, and Europe. It is the center of the Middle East. It is a gateway of the world."

From a ladder that he used to photograph his sprawling dig, Engin could almost see the refugee camp near Kilis, a nearby Turkish town on the Syrian border. Some 14,000 people who had fled Syria's apocalyptic civil war have been stewing for two and a half years in the camp, stupefied by boredom. An additional 90,000 Syrians have thronged the ramshackle town, doubling its original population and driving up the rents. (The previous week an anti-Syrian mob had attacked refugees and smashed their cars.)

There are about 1.6 million Syrian war refugees in Turkey. Another eight million or more are internally displaced within Syria or eke out a hand-to-mouth living in such fragile way stations as Lebanon and Jordan. The war has bled into neighboring Iraq too, of course, where the zealots of the Islamic State have uprooted another two million civilians. All told, perhaps 12 million souls are adrift across the larger Middle East.

***

I say: things need to change. And by "things", I mean: the way
in which human beings resolve ideological conflicts, internationally.
This is plain old human emotion/instinct going nuts, same as always:
greed, hate, fanaticism, delusion, oppression.

Here, essentially, power mongers and ancient religious cults
still manage to wreak havoc for millions of people, internationally.

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

In the fight to stop climate disruption, we cannot fall short.
The answer is simple -- keep dirty fuels in the ground
and develop clean, renewable energy like wind and solar.

Tell President Obama to keep dirty fuels in the ground -->

sc.org/AddUpDirtyFuels

[slider]

Jeremy self-pleasures :)

### - sorry, pass, am not into... 'group-wanks' lol :)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

So you weren't in this group?

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/10000-fire-london-hyde-park-420

[slider]

> So you weren't in this group?
>
> http://www.alternet.org/drugs/10000-fire-london-hyde-park-420

### - nah don't protest anymore (bit too far left) been to some in the
past though hyde park included, was much more dangerous then in the day of
course, got nicked a couple of times for possession, once even for
supplying! (i.e. for owning the shit my friend was smoking coz i'd passed
the joint to him, fucking duh:)

was even in a band once heh... but don't 'do' groups any more :)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

And you wouldn't take part in this group?

http://tinyurl.com/mn5hl7f

[slider]

> And you wouldn't take part in this group?
>
> http://tinyurl.com/mn5hl7f

### - maybe 30 years ago! :)

perhaps could explain it like this... Authur Rimbaud was a rapid learner,
so much so in fact that by age only 19 he'd completely done with science,
literature, art, poetry and the lot ("i've done enough! i've seen enough!
'the vision' can now be seen on any street corner!" --rimbaud) and then he
literally downed-tools and fucked off! more than eager to go put into
absolute practice everything he'd now realised was required of him...

he never wrote again :)

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Oh come on, do you think you're a genius poet? Where are your poems?
How about this group? You like music, and are kind of a humanist.
http://www.meetup.com/britishhumanistchoir/

I can really see you singing with these folks - a happy community member. :)

[slider]

>> > And you wouldn't take part in this group?
>> >
>> > http://tinyurl.com/mn5hl7f
>>
>> ### - maybe 30 years ago! :)
>>
>> perhaps could explain it like this... Authur Rimbaud was a rapid
>> learner,
>> so much so in fact that by age only 19 he'd completely done with
>> science,
>> literature, art, poetry and the lot ("i've done enough! i've seen
>> enough!
>> 'the vision' can now be seen on any street corner!" --rimbaud) and then
>> he
>> literally downed-tools and fucked off! more than eager to go put into
>> absolute practice everything he'd now realised was required of him...
>>
>> he never wrote again :)
>
> Oh come on, do you think you're a genius poet? Where are your poems?

### - trust you to go for the wrong part of it heh :)

and no, am not comparing myself in any way to the genius/prodigy rimbaud
himself (no one compares to rimbaud, he 'was' the best!) am saying that at
a certain point (age 19 for him, incredibly early) he'd literally
exhausted every subject, something most people don't do even after a whole
lifetime!

anyway, there came a time when he'd completely done with book learning,
art and even writing! he's done it all! so there was no reason to do it
all again... instead of hanging around meetings and book clubs or
whatever, he dropped the lot and moved on! (lennon did something similar
at one point)

and although am no rimbaud myself (i did a few songs not poems) anyone can
still reach that same position albeit usually much later in life than
rimbaud managed to do it...

after all, he was a genius! :)

> How about this group? You like music, and are kind of a humanist.
> http://www.meetup.com/britishhumanistchoir/
>
> I can really see you singing with these folks - a happy community
> member. :)

### - lol yeah riiight :)

am no longer a 'community member' of any kind heh, am an outsider,
perforce am totally alone, the world goes up and down but i no longer go
up and down with it, in cc's terms (they're only borrowed terms borrowed
for your benefit so don't get excited) you could say i've lost the human
form/have broken all the chains that bind, plus there's no way to go back
+ wouldn't go back even if i could - at which point the daily world
perceivably became wallyworld which no longer has anything i want in the
same way any normal adult would be bored shitless hanging around a bunch
of 7 years olds and their inane (just very young) activities all day
either...

thus these days i live 'beside' the insane nightmare that is the daily
human world of human goals and human aspirations, am in the world but no
longer 'belong' to... well, anything really :)

as for adc... crsds originally invited me here (so blame him heh;) where i
bumped into a fairly intelligent bunch of 'aspiring' outsiders? people who
had, for one reason or another, ended up kinda nowhere and in a kind of
no-man's land that was neither fish nor fowl, the 'branch' (limb) they'd
been crawling along had been sawed clean through and they were all in
freefall (i even wrote something about it, a parody thing about the coming
'crunch-day' heh) i liked them, they made me welcome and i duly shared
everything i had/knew with 'em...

many responded, many didn't, my task/job is almost done here...

it's nearly time to move on :)

[slider]

> as for adc... crsds originally invited me here (so blame him heh;) where
> i bumped into a fairly intelligent bunch of 'aspiring' outsiders? people
> who had, for one reason or another, ended up kinda nowhere and in a kind
> of no-man's land that was neither fish nor fowl, the 'branch' (limb)
> they'd been crawling along had been sawed clean through and they were
> all in freefall (i even wrote something about it, a parody thing about
> the coming 'crunch-day' heh) i liked them, they made me welcome and i
> duly shared everything i had/knew with 'em...

june 1999 (repost)

a man, his parachute strapped firmly to his back, leaps from an
aircraft that is flying "impossibly high" ...for a few short
moments he can feel his acceleration as he falls, and the wind
picks up around him... the aircraft he jumped from becoming
smaller and smaller... till it finally disappears altogether in
the uniform clear, blue sky...

when the man's falling speed reaches it's maximum... he begins to
play with the wind and his angle of descent until he finds that
he can control, to some extent, how he falls through the air...
turning when he wants to... diving and then leveling out again -
even looping the loop...

after some minutes of this, the man begins to lose all sense of
the fact that he is falling... he feels free... "he is flying"
and he proves this to himself over and over...

soon he is joined by others of his kind... and together in the
clear blue sky, they perform stunts and formations of great
daring and beauty, attempting to out-do one another in their
feats of bravado... no longer any sense of falling, cavorting,
and enjoying their fun, everyone feels just fine...

soon more people come to join... until there are so many,
that wherever one looks, one is surrounded by the faces of
others... everyone doing their own thing... everyone enjoying
themselves... together... in the clear blue sky... falling, but
not falling... their world is born... a world of freedom and
play...

eventually, new children come amongst them... inquisitive and
free... they dart about, exploring their new world... asking
questions... and staring at strangers... they are unafraid... and
they fly about with a naturalness all of their own... what's this
mommy? - what's that mommy? - up and down they go...


before long, a small town arises... with all the things that
people need in order to get by... crops are planted... weddings
take place... birthdays are celebrated, and more and more people
come to share in the work and the joy... all falling... all
descending... all at the same time...

there comes then, a time when all parachutes are eventually
forgotten... and then finally... banned... for cities have
arisen, and kingdoms have been and gone... for many generations,
no one has even believed the old tales of a falling past...
until one day, a stranger comes among them...

he tells them of a world where all is falling... and where the
people had forgotten this is so... he explains that obviously,
this situation couldn't possibly continue for ever... that one
day there would come a great landing... and that those that
weren't prepared... would perish in the crash...

at first the people were mystified... and then amazed at this
disturbing tale, but they began to grow angry at the stranger
when they realised that it was in fact them that he was talking
about... they could understand the story, but just couldn't
accept that it might apply to them... but some of the people
came to the stranger... believing in what he had told them...
realising that it "might" be true...

the stranger taught these few about a new thing... and the
principals of using it... and taking quite ordinary materials, he
fashioned a sail... which, he said, if used properly, would
catch the wind... and one would vanish from the world in a
moment... no longer to share in it's crashing fate...

and when these few had mastered the principals of this "magic
sail", the stranger astonished everyone by donning one of the
sails and pulling the handle... where-on he simply vanished in
front of everyone's eyes... seemingly ascending suddenly, a magic
sail towering above him, and lifting him into the blue...

from that day on... news of the stranger and his magic sail,
spread far and wide in the land... many began to believe in the
life saving power of the sail... and openly, or in secret,
fashioned one for themselves and their families... preparing for
what was to become known then, as the day of landings...

before he had left, the stranger had warned them all of the signs
to watch out for at the time of the end of falling... and as the
great day of landing approached, many began to pull the handle on
their sail and vanish instantly from the sight and the company of
the others... until all one could see was the brilliant white of
magic sails everywhere... thousands upon thousands... filling
the air... (but many remained behind... still dis-believing the
evidence of their own eyes...)

for those in the air, it appeared that their world had suddenly
dropped out from under their feet... in an instant, they were
high above the world... a world that raced away from them as they
experienced a sensation of slowing down... till finally, in a
great cloud of dust and debris, the world they had known,
crashed into the ground... and they themselves floated down
to land gently amongst the ruins of what once had been... a whole
world to them...

the new world that they had landed in... was bigger than anyone
could have ever possibly imagined... vast beyond belief...
bewildered, the people looked around... and saw all the
possibilities that existed to help them to live... and they gave
thanks for their lives... and to the stranger that had brought
them safely, through his tale and his example... to another
world...

(copywrite c/o intent :)))

...and the moral of the story is??? -

well go figure!:)))

(much amused...) from slider...

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Rimbaud was an 'enfant terrible' who managed to die of cancer at 37,
first, in young adulthood, managing to write a few good surrealist poems.

> > How about this group? You like music, and are kind of a humanist.
> > http://www.meetup.com/britishhumanistchoir/
> >
> > I can really see you singing with these folks - a happy community
> > member. :)
>
> ### - lol yeah riiight :)
>
> am no longer a 'community member' of any kind heh, am an outsider,
> perforce am totally alone, the world goes up and down but i no longer go
> up and down with it, in cc's terms (they're only borrowed terms borrowed
> for your benefit so don't get excited) you could say i've lost the human
> form/have broken all the chains that bind

You've lost the human form/have broken all the chains that bind.
LOL. So you like to think you belong to a club called "outsiders".
Is it that different from singing in a non-denominational choir?

>, plus there's no way to go back
> + wouldn't go back even if i could -

It wouldn't matter much if you did "go back",
just as it doesn't matter much that you don't.

> at which point the daily world
> perceivably became wallyworld which no longer has anything i want in the
> same way any normal adult would be bored shitless hanging around a bunch
> of 7 years olds and their inane (just very young) activities all day
> either...

It can be great fun hanging around 7-year-olds. Actually,
it's usually a lot more fun than being around someone like you,
who imagines he knows everything, but really doesn't.

> thus these days i live 'beside' the insane nightmare that is the daily
> human world of human goals and human aspirations, am in the world but no
> longer 'belong' to... well, anything really :)

You're as much a part of the 'insane nightmare' as anyone else, as
your remarkably argumentative and logically feeble posts here have
amply illustrated, and you are just another example of human goals
and aspirations, albeit rather deluded ones.

> as for adc... crsds originally invited me here (so blame him heh;) where i
> bumped into a fairly intelligent bunch of 'aspiring' outsiders? people who
> had, for one reason or another, ended up kinda nowhere and in a kind of
> no-man's land that was neither fish nor fowl, the 'branch' (limb) they'd
> been crawling along had been sawed clean through and they were all in
> freefall (i even wrote something about it, a parody thing about the coming
> 'crunch-day' heh) i liked them, they made me welcome and i duly shared
> everything i had/knew with 'em...
>
> many responded, many didn't, my task/job is almost done here...
>
> it's nearly time to move on :)

Ah, you had a "task" here? What was it maestro? To drive some of the
most interesting posters away, and troll a few of the others bats?

Yesterday was 4/20 day. To celebrate a little, I spent the evening with
a nice hash oil high. Was the first time in several months for TCH.

[slider]

### - so it's truth-time again eh? :)

lol + exactly what i said! plus thank you indeed for supplying the
absolute 'proof' of my statement that you're quite apparently singularly
'incapable' of keeping a civil tongue in your head, even 'without' any
provocation! that unless you're intimidating/demeaning someone (the very
thing you were actively engaged in when i came here, and still are!) you
just can't seem to function as a normal human being!

if i were you (and thank goodness am not) you should go spend some of your
ill-gotten gains (i.e. as in 'legal' robbery) on putting yourself into
some serious therapy for that badly damaged/mangled ego of yours,
compounded, as it so obviously has been, by the dreadful series of crucial
mistakes you've made in your erm: pretty poor/shabby choice of
philosophies to date :)

it also amazes me how someone of your 'apparent' intelligence (which by
now is probably only just an act anyway) can actually get to your ripe old
age (presumably in your 60's) and 'still' not grasp/understand just what
an 'Outsider' actually is/represents in literary terms?? else you wouldn't
talk the absolute shite you assert below regarding outsiders as being part
of a... club?? (tut tut tut + duh!) as for your comments on rimbaud: i
wont even dignify them with a response lol + sheesh at such complete and
utter ignorance on what is only really common knowledge...

because no jeremy, 'you' are the one who likes 'clubs' and 'belonging' to
'em!

many responded, many didn't (or couldn't) and you're just one of the ones
that couldn't + i suspected as much when you took to accusing me of
mental illness when in fact it's quite obviously been you all along that's
not been playing with a full deck, that chip (or rather: boulder) on your
shoulder, has been totally over-shadowing/obscuring your perception all
along, until you've basically become a... nut

but them's the breaks kiddo!

and apparently there's nothing can be done about it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd3btVhwr48

(i did at least try! but apparently one cannot save the impossible)



jeremy inanely replies...

> It can be great fun hanging around 7-year-olds. Actually,
> it's usually a lot more fun than being around someone like you,
> who imagines he knows everything, but really doesn't.

### - 'seven year olds' is just about your max level for sure :P

> Ah, you had a "task" here? What was it maestro? To drive some of the
> most interesting posters away, and troll a few of the others bats?

### - roaring lols! talk about the pot calling the kettle black?!?! :P

> Yesterday was 4/20 day. To celebrate a little, I spent the evening with
> a nice hash oil high. Was the first time in several months for TCH.

### - heh well if all you were looking for (in life) was... a 'buzz'

then have you maybe considered 40 sleeping tablets? :P

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

And there is it again folks, the kind of "truth" one gets
from another human who claims "he has lost the human form". :)

How about... I give you just a little real truth in return?
Outsiders belong to a club that doesn't realize it's a club.

Don't you know, 50%+ of the people living think they're outsiders?
Probably one of this world's most common problems - alienation.
Ironic, isn't it, how 'outsiders' all tend to think they're special,
when there's actually nothing more common. Not only is it a club,
it's one of the largest and most boring clubs on earth, comprised of:
insignificant, alienated dirt bags who think they're 'special' but
only suffer from delusions of grandeur. Enjoy being yet another
silly member of one of the largest clubs on planet earth, maestro.

[slider]

Jeremy vomits on art and literature 'because' he doesn't understand :)

### - lol no wonder you ended up in CoS; you're a genuine dumbass! :P

the only thing that is really quite surprising about it being that you're
not still with CoS??

lol so is that why you left CoS... they threw you out? (cracking up:)

no point trying to educate a ex-CoS moron lol, that would literally be
casting pearls before swines! - so the following is expressly for anyone
who has difficulty relating to jeremy's dumbass version of, well,
everything really... Life! :)


http://offthed.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/role-of-outsider.html (a single
example taken at random)

“The writer must be universal in sympathy, and an outcast by nature; only
then can he see clearly.” –Julian Barnes

The role of the outsider in literature is a vital one. The author often
employs an outsider’s point of view to relate a poignant story, a
narration through the eyes of one who is “so close yet so far” in terms of
fitting in to the society in which they supposedly already belong. The
author uses an outsider as the narrator precisely because the outsider’s
view is the sharpest and the most valuable.

There are many reasons why the outsider’s view is so cherished:

• Outsiders experience constant pain as a result of their second-class
status. It is painful to realize one will probably never feel like they
"belong”, since humans crave belonging to a community. Communities provide
a safety net and comfort to a vulnerable human.

• Outsiders are often newcomers to the country, or scene. They have a
fresher perspective which has not yet been dulled by years of familiarity.

• Outsiders have a special sense of motivation, a hint of desperation to
succeed. Their challenges are great, and there is this sense of “sink or
swim.”

The outsider experiences deep pain and rejection. In the words of Chaim
Potok: “One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain. It
is important to know of pain…It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance,
our indifference towards others…” There is a profound strength that comes
along with pain, and that is a heightened sensitivity on the part of the
suffering individual.

There’s some deep chord in our emotional makeup, some deep sense of
empathy stirred by the outsider’s voice. We all know on some deep level
what it feels like to be rejected for who we are, what we believe, the way
we look, the family we’re born into, and many other things we could not
change even if we wanted to. That’s why something about the outsider’s
voice instantly commands our attention. We commiserate and identify so
deeply with pain of the outsider that she commands our respect.

There is also the concept of second-class status or rejection, that
inferiority label slapped on to so many with hardly good cause and which
is often experienced first-hand by the outsider in literature. For
instance, one can refer to Edmund’s famous rallying cry in King Lear: “Now
gods, stand up for bastards!”

Pain sensitizes us in a deep way. It makes us much more compassionate and
understanding of other people’s struggles. It essentially renders us more
human. And what could possibly be more appealing in an author than
humanity?

Those who suffer can better understand the rest of the world’s suffering.
Pain is more of an asset than a liability artistically, as it allows for a
more sensitive portrayal, a fuller, deeper picture, on paper or canvas.

With the newcomer’s arrival in her new country, a sense of desperation
often accompanies her. It is “sink or swim.” She has arrived in a whole
new world, and her old experiences are of little value here. She will need
to learn an entirely new language, culture, class system, system of
government, etc. She is therefore a marginalized minority.

The outsider is also distinctly separate from the rest of the society.
They often look, think and behave differently. They are therefore a
*marginalized minority,* (definitely NOT a club jeremy lol:) a class of
individuals operating on the margins of mainstream society, while the
majority live in the centre.

Children, too, are rarely given power, and their voices are rarely heard.
Once in a while, a rare child writer comes along, like an Anne Frank, and
has astonishing success. This is because her voice is that of an outsider,
denied power, respect and authority, yet so moving in its honesty,
humility, and crystal-clear perception of the subject matter.

There are many different kinds of outsiders in literature. Women and
children are in many ways outsiders. Traditionally, white males have held
most of the power in Western civilizations, although this is now starting
to slowly change. As Virginia Woolf so eloquently points out, “We are
conscious of a woman’s presence – of someone resenting the treatment of
her sex and pleading for its rights”. Women have been denied the education
and experience of men, and have been kept ignorant, and relegated to
living rooms and domestic duties. They had slim chances of success in
literature, and the few books they managed to get published were mostly
just novels.

Any painter or poet must be an outsider. In the words of Vincent van Gogh,
“It is only too true that a lot of artists are mentally ill – it’s a life
which, to put it mildly, makes one an outsider. I’m all right when I
completely immerse myself in my work, but I’ll always remain half-crazy.”
The author, much like the narrator, needs that outsider’s edge, that tinge
of ever-present sadness, in order to churn out masterpieces. In the words
of a great friend of mine (Margo!), “Joy, love and peace comprise much of
my world, but only pain causes my pen to flow so.” Or, as Socrates said,
“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get
a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher, and that is a good thing for any
man,” meaning that that tinge of sadness, even melancholy, is necessary
for the artist.

-------------

in truth jeremy has basically spent his whole life 'trying' to be an
'insider' of one kind or another (CoS and cc just to name 2 that we 'do'
know of heh, there's probably more) but he couldn't even do THAT properly!

why? because he's a 'lover' of all things rational but NOT rational per
se, and/or 'currently' merely just part of an emotionally charged audience
of 'lovers' and 'worshipers' of the orderly works of reason but never
actually a participant...

iow: a king-sized... loser!

always has been, always will be... and a sore loser at that!

a 'total' failure!

heh looks like that big fat head of yours is gonna have to 'remain' jammed
up your asshole for life dude, lol there just isn't a culo-expander 'big
enough' to do the job! (boom-boom!:)))

(fuck me what a jerk 'you' turned out to be! :P )

see ya!

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

I love art and literature. You should see my personal library. :)
I've been friends with many artists and writers over the years.
Last month, a girl I baby-sat as a child (a good friend's daughter)
put out her first book, to a favorable New York Times book review.

When I did my old radio show, I read exclusive translations of
renown Indian poets who have barely been published in the west,
obtained from one of said poets' sons (a friend of mine).

There are paintings on my walls by several artists who may become
more recognized one day - who are also friends and acquaintances.
My girlfriend's daughter (who lives with us now) is an artist too.
She is attending a top-rated arts college.

Recently I purchased a nicer portable electronic grand piano,
with which I've been having lots of fun, and the latest book
added to my library is a famous rare classic that was unavailable
to the public for almost 80 years, withheld by the author's family
until released. I'm in the process of studying it.
http://tinyurl.com/l55vll6

So you see I'm not hurting at all for art or literature.

Your assertion that anyone artistic must be an 'outsider' is
just wrong. Here for example is the current U.S. poet laureate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wright_%28poet%29

I do patronize some outsider poets, especially musically. Examples:

This video has only 33 Views (and I have the whole album):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQS87XgLs8A

One of my all time favorite songs, with less than 100,000 views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPUtINIwcCs

Yet sometimes people do listen; another favorite with more views:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbHjYwSeZpQ

Sometimes millions listen; yet still few know certain of their works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8b9iQ9f8MU

(And if you don't know the poem 'Thanatopsis', you should; it's good.)

You're neither an artist nor a writer of any consequence, Slider.
So isn't it more than a bit ironic for you to continually imply
you hold membership in those 'clubs' too? I think so.

It's also completely common for the 50%+ of the population who fancy
themselves 'outsiders' to prop up their egos riding the artistic
coat-tails of the famous, while doing nothing themselves.

Do you really not know how utterly common that is? Yes,
the pain of 'outsiders' is everywhere, and is largely banal.

[Jeremy H. Denisovan]

Actually, I've been listening to lots of Buckethead lately.

Datura:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guAEEK8c29c

And reading a bit too much Shithead (Slider). :)