Inventing the New Normal on your own terms

36058 said:

I once heard somebody opine that if you look out over a city, that every home every building everything you can see began as somebody's dream. Keep that dream alive, and Oregon is magnificent.

I favor the south pacific, but what the hell!

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I like that spirit!
Oregon isn't set in stone. Nothing's set in stone about it yet, haha. It will be quite some time before I get to it, I think.

iflewoverthecuckoosnest said:

People have to struggle through 40 + hours of labor a week to meet their basic needs in the traditional system, and that's in my rural town where property is (relatively) cheap.

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Not just the rural towns... if I may say.... no bias just demonstration... metropolitan or suburban or rural/Independence... the pressures are the same in a lot of ways. The financial instruments that moderate and degrade personal autonomy are applied differently but have the same effect on all those social structures.

I'm an out-lier suburban/city person. I don't come from a privileged family but a ... well to my chagrin and sadness a family that is caught in the economic paradigm and does not understand that cooperative efforts and tolerance and understanding are substantial qualities in success of a family/community unit.

iflewoverthecuckoosnest said:

Who knows what normal will be in the future. But, if the "normal" of now remains the "normal" of mankind's future, we won't be here for very long.

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iflewoverthecuckoosnest said:

Adapt or die, that's been a harsh reality since the beginning of time.

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I don't mean to be a pessimistic throwing this out... but that text made me think of the Kurt Vonnegut novel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_(novel)

Galápagos

I've also read "Cat's Cradle" should read "Slaugherhouse... five/ "

36058 said:

Set in stone reminds me of a funeral for some reason.

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Every man faces the yawning grave... and all the same time erodes your stone.
But for a while... it lasts.

Odin said:

Not just the rural towns... if I may say.... no bias just demonstration... metropolitan or suburban or rural/Independence... the pressures are the same in a lot of ways. The financial instruments that moderate and degrade personal autonomy are applied differently but have the same effect on all those social structures.

I'm an out-lier suburban/city person. I don't come from a privileged family but a ... well to my chagrin and sadness a family that is caught in the economic paradigm and does not understand that cooperative efforts and tolerance and understanding are substantial qualities in success of a family/community unit.





I don't mean to be a pessimistic throwing this out... but that text made me think of the Kurt Vonnegut novel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_(novel)

Galápagos

I've also read "Cat's Cradle" should read "Slaugherhouse... five/ "

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Vonnegut is a god! Haven't read Galapagos yet, though. A trip to the library it is.

It is an unfortunate reality that the human brain is very prone to fallacy; the reasoning, intellectual capacities of the brain only evolved quite recently. The deeply rooted animal brain still holds more emotional sway. However, if we can become aware of our weaknesses and our tendencies to form unreasoned prejudices, I believe that we can begin to overcome our brute shadows.

I find it sad to think that I could go to a McDonald's almost anywhere in the world. We're scooping the tigers out of the jungles and hiring the Pygmys to work in hotels, molimo be dammed.

iflewoverthecuckoosnest said:

Vonnegut is a god!

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At the very least he makes us think what it is we value, understand and accept as god. Or if we should.

iflewoverthecuckoosnest said:

It is an unfortunate reality that the human brain is very prone to fallacy

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Yes it is.

And so are the instruments of our intellect through the scientific method.
Allow me to play devils advocate... because I do not find the weakness of human experience and consciousness as an argument against the validity of what personal experience validates for an individuals understanding of reality.

You can argue first hand experience and hearsay of a human beings testimony... yet the same can apply to an ultimate level of scientific method.

Science is a revisionist process. There are cherished ideas throughout sciences history and arguably in the present that are held and often defended in science for reasons that have nothing to do with science and everything to do with ego driven pride and economy.

On top of that there are certain limitations of measurement in our ability to ascertain results in the natural world.
The uncertainty principle still holds I believe... and there are if you would call them fringe or crackpot ideas tied into quantum mechanics and perhaps pseudoscience that demonstrate the effect of consciousness on the results of human scientific query. (peace mediation studies for example...?) So I may not be updated but with the increase of fringe ideas I wonder if we overcome our weakness and tendency of brute shadows.

Ultimately embracing both aspects of human scientific inquiry and practical mechanics of survival... gives everyone a better life.

I hope.

Odin said:

At the very least he makes us think what it is we value, understand and accept as god. Or if we should.




Yes it is.

And so are the instruments of our intellect through the scientific method.
Allow me to play devils advocate... because I do not find the weakness of human experience and consciousness as an argument against the validity of what personal experience validates for an individuals understanding of reality.

You can argue first hand experience and hearsay of a human beings testimony... yet the same can apply to an ultimate level of scientific method.

Science is a revisionist process. There are cherished ideas throughout sciences history and arguably in the present that are held and often defended in science for reasons that have nothing to do with science and everything to do with ego driven pride and economy.

On top of that there are certain limitations of measurement in our ability to ascertain results in the natural world.
The uncertainty principle still holds I believe... and there are if you would call them fringe or crackpot ideas tied into quantum mechanics and perhaps pseudoscience that demonstrate the effect of consciousness on the results of human scientific query. (peace mediation studies for example...?) So I may not be updated but with the increase of fringe ideas I wonder if we overcome our weakness and tendency of brute shadows.

Ultimately embracing both aspects of human scientific inquiry and practical mechanics of survival... gives everyone a better life.

I hope.

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Human beings can never be 100% objective. It is not in our nature. The fact that we are emotional, feeling beings is good. The experience of empathy may not be "rational", but it is conducive to a better world. Our subjective experience is what gives our current reality meaning, and I did not mean to invalidate that.
However, the irrational brain can also cause biases, prejudices, etc. and, as you say, that certainly does go up the scientific ladder. Science can never give us absolute objectivity because it is created by humans. What science can give us is the most likely possibility based on reasoned evidence, and the most likely possibility, or theory, is ever changing. It will never be perfect, but it is one of our best tools for acquiring knowledge.
Knowledge applied to the human element in an ethical way can give us a better life, but not a perfect one. We will never overcome the shadow completely, but I hope that we can, at least, come to better terms with it.
This is an interesting conversation. Thank you for giving me food for thought.

iflewoverthecuckoosnest said:

This is an interesting conversation. Thank you for giving me food for thought.

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Well I was drinking ROCKET FUEL last night.... so lol. I try.
I agree whole heartedly, empathy is a huge force for change and betterment of the human condition. Rationality is not always the necessary tool.

36058 said:

It is an interesting conversation and I agree with both of you. Science has limitations because it is based on math, and math is merely an abstraction. Science shares the same basic flaws that all of our opinions share: that it is a work in progress which means while improving - perpetually wrong, subject to bias and subject to the limitations of our observations or experience. And in both cases people become invested in ideas which does not always promote the fastest learning curve.

But if we could learn to come to terms with not knowing, and abandon the fallacy that the scientific method is some magical formula for divining truth we could make good progress at every level by combining the merits of scientific approach with the merits of inspiration and even subjective magic.

The UNiverse IS a magical place after all. It isn't just a vast collection of charged particles and laws and forces. It is a vast collection of all of those and more arranged into intensely magical arrangements.

Never discount the obvious.

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Very well said. Awesome. Yes there is an element of the unknown. Of subjective experience and mystery that people who place science on the highest pedestal miss in application of understanding the human experience and world around them.
I'm a huge supporter of scientific method understanding and education. But.
I can't understand strictly taking a view for example that consciousness is nothing but the sum of brain functions.
There is more mystery and more opinions/experiences to add in consideration. Meditation, psychedelic/entheogen experimentation, endoginous neuro chemicals quantum effects in the brains smallest structures and NDE and dream states and just for some... a strangeness to the gritty yet mailable feel of reality.

In relations to your threads subject, the new normal for me is right now a emerging work in progress.
I'm deeply dissatisfied with what modern society puts forward as the "only" means to a successful life.
I plan to create my new normal through the greatest and oldest method. Travel. I need to get out there and take my subjective experience to the unknown... and in time and with intention hopefully find people I can share a close worldview and cooperative lifestyle with. Either in an organized community or if more independent... (say living off a boat) but in an area that provides the community and places to gather and interact with outside of the destructive consumer driven power hungry model of modern times.

This is difficult to do but I will see how far my action... and perhaps more importantly my intentions and mindset can take me.

Just gotta take it easy on the JP-8 jet fuel.

Science is a language for understanding, just like poetry and art. Languages filter. They become lenses of understanding. The ultimate, however, remains unspeakable. It is beyond any lens, yet imminent in each moment and as each moment.
"Darkness within darkness, the gateway to all understanding."
-Lao Tzu
So I can definitely see your point.

Andrea Van Scoyoc said:

@Kal ...

My dad's family has oil land in Montana, tied up somehow with the government.

My grandfather never saw any of the money, my dad didn't, my brother and I, I doubt ever wiil...and the same goes for his kids.

I never got the whole story...but I have a feeling my family won't ever have access to it. Everyone is tight lipped and I don't have anything to do with my dad's family, so it's not like I could just ask what the deal is.

Good thing I'm not materialistic. Otherwise, I'd waste money on attorneys, like has already been done.

If anything, I'd just go protest the land being pumped.

Not wanting to do anything but get the rigs torn down and the ground turned into a hippie commune certainly wouldn't win me any fans, not in my family.

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You would win points with me. Hell no to oil rigs and hell yes to hippie commune.

Kal said:

You would win points with me. Hell no to oil rigs and hell yes to hippie commune.

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Thanks, Kal.

You'd be welcome at the commune, any time!

Andrea Van Scoyoc said:

Thanks, Kal.

You'd be welcome at the commune, any time!

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Awesome!!!!!!!!