Who’s Talking?

There’s always someone talking even when I am alone.  This talker goes on and on.  Today the voice has rambled on about religion.  Oh, how far back the cause and effect goes.  About 1575 my ancestor was expected to be a good catholic.  Then Bloody Mary is succeeded by Elizabeth and my ancestor didn’t have to pretend that he was so stupid and that only the Catholic Priest and the Church could tell him what the Bible said. My ancestor found that he wasn’t going to have to face an Inquisitor if he read the Bible and made judgements himself.  At some time between 1600 and 1700 one of my ancestors rejected both the Church of England and the Catholic Church.  For about the next 200 years my ancestors read the Bible or attended various Protestant services.  About 1968 I married an Episcopalian, took instruction in the Faith, joined an American Episcopalian church and was married.  We had a high Mass and the wedding was not a 10 minute quickie.  I have found that the American Episcopal Church has mainly been what I believed a church should be.  Not exactly a full circle.  I found that I was too liberal to ever become a Papist and too antiauthoritarian to ever accept the dictates of the Catholic Church.  I do like the ceremony, the vestments, the Book of Prayer, and weekly communion.  I am a strong proponent of the Episcopal Forward Movement and find solace, guidance, and inspiration in their publication Forward Day By Day.  I have looked at other world religions and have read many of their basic texts and teachings.  Now, in my later years of life, I would find it difficult to change my religious affiliation.  Of course, the talker in my head goes on and on.  Since this is a frequent topic, I may write down at another time more about religion.  But enough as been written for today.

Writing like a Roman emporer

Years ago, I browsed a copy of “The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antonius”.  I vaguely remember a comment in the Introduction that the Emperor had a cadre of scribes that followed him around and wrote down everything that he said.  Technology is advancing at such a rate that even now it is nearly possible for an individual to have everything that they say written down.  It strikes me as amazing that in modern terms “Meditations” appears to be a collection of blogs from the Emperor.  Modern bloggers who are looking for templates should look very carefully at “Meditations”.

From the very beginning, each section introduces a topic and the Emperor comments on that topic.  In the opening of “Meditations”,  Marcus Aurelius’ topic is “what I have learned and who I learned it from”.

“Of my grandfather Verus I have learned to be gentle and meek, and to
refrain from all anger and passion. From the fame and memory of him that
begot me I have learned both shamefastness and manlike behavior.”

“Of my mother I have learned to be religious, and bountiful; and to forbear,
not only to do, but to intend any evil; to content myself with a spare
diet, and to fly all such excess as is incidental to great wealth.”

“Of my great-grandfather, both to frequent public schools and auditories, and
to get me good and able teachers at home; and that I ought not to think
much, if upon such occasions, I were at excessive charges.”

Well, I don’t have a cadre of scribes, and my technology is not sufficiently developed, and I have other things I must do, so I will stop here for now.

where do you see yourself

…. in five or ten years?

it’s a simple question
employers have asked it for years
except this time
it’s from my therapist

“where do you see yourself?”
he asks again
concern on his face
over the total lack of comprehension
on mine

“i don’t”
is all i can say

in all honesty
i don’t see my life changing
ever
at all
yet i know i cannot
will not
be able to live this way
forever

he asks if i’m safe
and i laugh

i have no desire
no wish
no thoughts
of ending my life

i just don’t see myself in five years

then the vision completes
like a veil slipping away from my eyes

if my life does not change
which i’ve already decided won’t happen
when i turn sixty
my heart will stop
i will need do nothing

like my Native ancestors
i just shall will
to not live
and my heart
out of obedience
will stop

i don’t see myself in five years
because i’m not there to be seen

… when i turn 60?
i turned fifty-nine last fall

survivor road

.... in five or ten years? it's a simple question employers have asked it for years except this time it's from my therapist "where do you see yourself?" he asks again concern on his face over the total lack of comprehension on mine "i don't" is all i can say in all honesty i don't see my life changing ever at all yet i know i cannot will not be able to live this way forever he asks if i'm safe and i laugh i have no desire no wish no thoughts of ending my life i just don't see myself in five years then the vision completes like a veil slipping away from my eyes if my life does not change which i've already decided won't happen when i turn sixty my heart will stop i will need do nothing like my Native ancestors i just shall will to…

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Write on my mind, my heart, and my lips

Where can you write quickly?  In your mind? Yes, but it swiftly fades away.  Why would you want your mind writing to last?

If your writing is preserved, then you can put a thought aside, then later come back and expand on that saved thought.  A saved thought can become an idea. The idea can be used in a plan.  The plan can become an action.  The action can be repeated over with changes being made as the thought becomes more detailed and the idea may start to take on form that has some relative permanence in the physical world.

Yesterday, I looked at a video that demonstrates how a person can use holographic equipment to move about in virtual environment, such as a virtual representation of the surface of Mars.  Perhaps it was suggested by the video, but the idea of coupling holographic equipment with a robotic body suggested new possibilities for a person who is handicapped.

Inchworm

Inchworm, Inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds,
Seems to me you’d stop and see
How beautiful they are.
Inchworm, Inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds,
You and your arithmetic
Will probably go far.
Inchworm, Inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds,
Seems to me you’d stop and see
How beautiful they are.

This song was originally posted at:
http://bussongs.com/songs/inchworm.php

Song Video

Information About Inchworm

The song “Inchworm” or the “The Inch Worm” was performed by Danny Kaye in the film Hans Christian Andersen from 1952. The song was written by Tony Award winning songwriter Frank Loesser.

The song is today a popular children’s song and liked for its arithmetic-based chorus. A children’s chorus sings the song in the film using the “arithmetic” version while sitting inside a small classroom. Hans Christian Andersen is outside listening to the singing while looking at an inchworm crawling on a flower.

Attaining a Higher Level of Dignity

Dignity is not tangible.  It is a thing measured, such as physical fitness.   It is reasonable to suppose that you could not even imagine dignity if you did not have some type of “dignity scale”.  It implies being worthy of honor or respect.  The judge of the worthiness can be either yourself or other people you connect with in some way.

Another normal day in Gehenna

Is there anyone that owns a measuring device that measures everything around them to see if everything fits a standard, model, or pattern all the time?  If anyone has such a device, then it must be amazingly magical or highly technologically advanced.  I don’t have such a device, so how do I have the audacity to say that I am going to tell you about another normal day.  At best, all I can really do is tell you about the patterns that I see day after day.

Since Sir Thomas Moore coined the term Utopia for his 1516 book there have been a multitude of writers trying to come up with ideals for social and political structures.  Since everything seems to have an opposite, even more writers have imagined horrible Dystopias.  My normal day is never a model Utopia or Dystopia.  My normal day is always mottled.   There are splotches of color, some warm brown, and some velvety black.  There is also always some suffering, both mental anguish and physical pain.  For me, a normal day feels a lot like Purgatory which is synonymous with Gehenna, but never in the exact meaning of either purgatory or gehenna.  It is Purgatory in the sense that I often feel like the suffering is not some damnation, but a purification forcing me to try to attain a higher level of dignity.  At times my day is Hell in the sense that I feel like I am being punished.  My punishment is sometimes for things I do, or have done.  Mainly my punishment is because of things that I can’t control, such as my age and my earning potential.

Getting Started

“The secret of getting started is breaking 
your complex, overwhelming tasks into 
small manageable tasks, and then 
starting on the first one.”
– Mark Twain

Tell Me A Story

Sounds.  How can I tell you a story when there are so many sounds.  There are at least four different sounds all mixing together.  First there is the sound of the television broadcasting the sounds of the Price is Right (in between the sounds of commercials).  The clothes dryer is running and there is the machine sound and an occasional clunk.  Charlie (watching TV,  drinking a beer, running water in the kitchen sink, rattling dishes) walks back and forth from the den to the kitchen, coughs.   The most persistent sound is in my head.  My mind tells me that I need to tell the story to the blog.  The keyboard keys softly click.

A story needs characters.  Sometime the story teller is one of the characters.   The opening sentences tell something about a character or possibly the story teller.  The story teller may be unnamed throughout the story.  This is “point of view”.

“Thomas Cole was sharpening a knife with his whetstone when the tornado hit.

The knife belonged to the lady in the big green house. Every time Cole came by with his Fixit cart the lady had something to be sharpened. Once in awhile she gave him a cup of coffee, hot black coffee from an old bent pot. He liked that fine; he enjoyed good coffee.”

“Security Commissioner Reinhart rapidly climbed the front steps and entered the Council building. Council guards stepped quickly aside and he entered the familiar place of great whirring machines. His thin face rapt, eyes alight with emotion, Reinhart gazed intently up at the central SRB computer, studying its reading.”

Above from: The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Variable Man, by Philip K. Dick.

Comments on the Trouble With Brain Science

Comments refer to NY Time article titled The Trouble With Brain Science”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/opinion/the-trouble-with-brain-science.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

The trouble seems to lie somewhere within the lack of knowledge about “temporal sequencing”.  It seems to me that there are basic units that repeat day after day.  I don’t believe these repeating units have been classified.  A taxonomy of these temporal sequences should provide reusable building blocks for constructing  a model of the brain.  Even simplest brains should contain “temporal sequences”.  Identify “basic” temporal sequences, then what is left should provide insight to “complex” temporal sequences.

As to combining neuroscience and psychology – both should appear in a “temporal sequence”.

There is a saying, the best thing about the world is that each sunset results in a new sunrise.  Most of the new day will be like the past day.  Some things will change.  Identify the things that don’t change, or change only slightly, then you can see the complex changes.

The Human Brain project may seem too complicated at present because it concentrates on structure and ignores temporal sequence.  The Human Brain Initiative may contain data that will help identify and classify these sequences.