Cosmos Café: Metamodeling and Integration [review session, 5/1/18]

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@ccafe crew: Doug, Johnny, and I were discussing here potentially reading the ‘Genius’ chapter from Irreducible Mind for this coming Tuesday, but I’d like to suggest (/beg) that we put it off for a couple weeks, as it’s pretty long (~70 pages) and I will not personally have time to (properly) read it before our next meeting.

I am single-dadding it this weekend, with Kayla visiting her family in Minnesota, and I would also like to focus my constrained reading time and available intellectual bandwidth on Globes, Soul Mountain, and The Minor Gesture—which is quite a mindful already!

Finally, I feel incomplete with our last conversation on the Mereon Matrix. I still have questions. I still don’t quite know what to make of it all. At the very end of our last session, @LDennis33 began talking about the name “Mereon.” It had something to do with spacetime and E=MC2. But we didn’t get the full story. And there is much more I’m sure we didn’t get!

I would like to follow up with a comparative inquiry. For example, I wonder about the relationship between the Mereon Matrix and the Cosmic Hologram which Jude Currivan describes. There must also be some relationship to the Meru research, which we can tease out. And what about the Mereon Matrix and transforming language? I am curious about how @Lisa uses this work. And how might a Cosmic Doughknotology describe our trefoil twists of fate, fortune, and free will? And is there some Timeless Earth Wisdom we might need to bring into the mix?

Could we dive into the Irreducible Mind “Genius” chapter during the interregnum between Slotedijk and Aurobindo (mid-May)? And for this next session (Tuesday, 5/1) could we look at the various metamodels we’ve been exploring over the past few months and see if we can clarify what’s going on in the visionary space they all seem to be coming from / about?

How might we weave visions together in the way Jennifer Gidley models in her work on Steiner, Gebser, and Aurobindo? Can we model the modelers?

These are just some thoughts to get us going! As always, this process is open to feedback, revisions, new ideas, cosmic intuitions, alternative ways of knowing, etc.

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Happy to participate when possible and respond to specific questions!

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I’m all for not having to read the “Genius” chapter (again … as I only dabbled through it the first time) before Tuesday. I was trying to dig more into the Mereon material, which is slow going for a plodder like me and I got sidetracked by what appeared to be a harmless genealogical hook-up with a distant genetic/genealogical cousin, but it has turned out to be a major undertaking to get the family tree branches properly trimmed.

Since I don’t do anything serious on Sundays (other than cook … and tomorrow is asparagus day, so I’ve got 2.5 kg of the stuff to peel (we do white, not green in these parts), so I’ll be spending more time in the kitchen but enjoying it less – well, until it’s time to eat), I will only have Monday morning and most of Tuesday to get any serious reading done. Like Marco, I’m still not clear on a number of things and every time I start looking at the materials again, everything else that he mentioned keeps pushing into my awareness. Therefore, there is still a lot of sorting to do.

Now, Lynnclaire has more or less said she would be able to make it to the café, I’d say we should take advantage of the opportunity before forging on.

My less-than-a-nickel’s contribution.

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A question (w/r/t the conversation): Can one’s present/current frame of mind dictate/influence the songs that come up on one’s playlist, be it iTunes, Spotify, whatever. I’ve thought about this since playlists began. Is it simply AI or something more profound? Just asking …

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I want to do a conversation on meta-modeling. We already have some excellent material we have gathered. Perhaps this is a good time to contrast and compare some of the models we have explored and figure out if there are any relationships emerging between models?

For me, it is premature to ask any specific questions about the Mereon Matrix. I would like to read another chapter from the book and check out the website so that I can make the most of Lynnclaire’s presence at a future event. I have at this stage of the game no specific questions but imagine after some more immersion in the text and the website I could come up with something useful.

These are some preliminary questions I could pose to the Cosmos crew.

Is there a relationship between Mereon Matrix, the Hebrew Alphabet and the Klein Bottle?

I would make it my personal task to review the previous video presentations by Lisa, Ed and Lynnclaire.

Are there are any patterns that connect one model/map with another?

Is there a relationship between these models and what Erin Manning calls research-creation?

"In my view, the most important development that needs to occur at this point in planetary time is, for all of us who are working in our various ways to nurture post-formal, integral or planetary consciousness, to continue and increase our collaboration to assist the planet-wide awakening of emergent new features of consciousness. " Jennifer Gidley

Gidley demonstrates in the paper we read a meta-modeling practice.

And is there a relationship between meta-modeling and self-modeling?

This is an example of what I would label self modeling from a recent Clean Language interview I conducted with TJ and Doug . We discuss an epiphany TJ had while studying some of these models.

My interest in all of this is to develop what Erin Manning called an ecology of practice.

And out of all of these models we have studied, what are you most drawn to?

And for this next cafe to be valuable for you, this cafe will be like what?

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I would also add if you would like to make a doodle or share a sketch of what you would like to have happen please feel free to share.

Or maybe you would like to sing a song or show us a dance move or a minor gesture that captures what you would like to have happen.

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More ideas about Meta-modeling and collaborative research- creation. I want to offer an example from the previous modeling exercise as I try to explore post formal, planetary, future(s) co-arising.

Here is an example of what I believe Erin is calling a minor gesture! These are my own comments after exploring with many of you some ways and means of modeling.

If you look at this image made by TJ and listen to his meta- comments about the image we can enter the weave of relational forces shaped by words and pictures. Everything becomes gestural. TJ reflects later in that conversation that the micro dynamics of culture makes itself felt through each of us.

Every-thing that doesn’t move is, as Erin Manning suggests, an abstraction. We are in perpetual movement but we tend to privilege the high level abstractions, in our discourse events. So the need, a primal need, to sing and dance, to make metaphor and story gets trivialized.

I imagine that a drawing or sketch emerges out of that primal need to move. The process brings forth the form. We tend to fixate on product. The gesture captures a trace of that experiment in moving between concrete to abstract and to re-concertize and know it for the first time. This is to catch the relational tempo-ryhtyms, an essentially participatory process that gets structured in various ways. I am interested in what happens in the in between.

What would happen if we could get more sensitive to these micro-dynamics while in the moment? What would happen to the relationships between the concrete and abstract? What are the differences between the maps we use and what are the differences that make a difference? How would we re-embody this sensitivity?

I hope we can refresh ourselves by putting all these topological figures we have been discussing and make connections. I am intrigued by what is in between the possible interplay of these figures and our politics, education, and more intimate living arrangements.

I suggest we use an ‘as if’ frame and sense into what is happening between the Torus, the Klein bottle, the Mereon Matrix. Perhaps these are more like Major Gestures? What is the under-commons from which they emerge? Where is the minor gesture?

So I am practicing sharing my own attempt here at modeling a shared reality using the new technology. Are we there yet? I’m not sure.
image

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OK, time out …

Y’all should know by now that I’m the last one to rain on anyone’s parade

In all seriousness and with all due respect: I’m up for a lot, but if we haven’t got a topic for Tuesday, I’ll opt to enjoy the Ausklang of my holiday and sit on the porch.

No threats, no opposition … just a simple statement of fact: personally, I’m having trouble keeping up. Maybe it’s my age, maybe its “the” age, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’m perhaps the dinosaur in the age of mammals. That’s OK. What I’m saying reflects on no one but me.

Are we going to /do we need to read something? Are we going to consolidate what we’ve been up to over the past few weeks? Is there a way to do either of these without me having to learn a (nother whole) new vocabulary and method (in all honor to Erin: I’ve not read nor am I following the relevant thread)? I’m all up for trying to consolidate, if there is nothing new on the agenda. But, I’m (personally) not ready for more new stuff. I’m struggling to make due with what I’ve got.

Please understand that I’m not just being my curmudgeony self (or maybe I am), but I’ve got too many balls in the air to take on anything new, and if it hasn’t come across clearly enough from before: I ain’t drawin’ no more pictures (I’m neither that visual, nor do I believe I’m going to become so in my old age).

You should know: I love ya, John, but have pity on us poor troglodytes.

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Short answer: no additional reading or even watching of any Cosmos videos.

The Minor Gesture conversation was enlightening for some of us…we can explain later.

@madrush has a stellar summary, listed in the opening post, of the sum of our recent integrative “story;” @johnnydavis54 is infusing us with specific efforts (@patanswer’s own integration of Donald, Gidley & Aurobindo, for example) and setting the mood. I am typing this with opposable thumbs on a phone (and all of the retyping required is proof that I should be the one on the porch, separated from all that is tech…you are part of the reason I have been “uplifted,” so no porch breaks for you, kind sir :running_man: ).

PS: We do seem to need a cafe break session each month here recently, clear poof that we are reaching maximum data capacity. I think that even if there is a required reading that we do not find time to read, we should still attend. Proof: some of my best thoughts about Sloterdijk came before I even touched a book of his.

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I’ve outlined my personal task, Ed, and not to be confused with the group’s task whatever that might be. I fully expect that you will do whatever you want to do and am perfectly okay with that. I am perfectly okay with a time out, too, as I got plenty to do as well. As I express my interests I fully expect not everyone will share that and yet how will I know if I am not explicit?There may be forks in the road, and bifurcations of an unpredictable nature, and maybe no one is driving the bus. So thanks for the message(s), Ed, and I hear the fatigue with all of this new vocabulary stuff- me, too, and I may drop it completely after I get a chance to rehearse it. I expect that we will each have to figure out what our capacity is and try to find a pace that works for whoever shows up. I am working in different zones and different speeds and with different groups so I expect that each of us will decide what is the right pace for each of us. Not too loose and not too tight, not too easy and not too hard, not too fast, not too slow. Just right, the Goldilocks zone. But that changes for me quite often and I am driven no doubt by uneven development.

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Thanks for the understanding, @johnnydavis54 and @Douggins, I really do appreciate it.

Before going to bed I thought seriously about just deleting the post … after the fact, it struck me as stronger than intended, but I zonked out before I could get up and do it. You are right: there is a certain fatigue in my whole body right now, and for this old camel, it looked like another straw coming.

Those damn perceptions will getcha every time.

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Yes I know that feeling well and know that a good night’s sleep is a great blessing. We can figure all of this out at the Cafe, if you are up for it. I have not reached any grand conclusions about anything, and I take each day as it comes. A lot is coming at me these days, and I am trying to surf it but more often than not I get knocked off center. I am, however, getting a surge from reading, and reading widely. It is a great hazard and a great opportunity that there is more than enough material and so many good ideas in circulation. We do the best we can to make sense of it all and focus our attention. Thanks for speaking up, Ed, I share some of that frustration. We often need to declare that there are limits to our growth, log off and take a nap. That may be a minor gesture but a very important one to make. The minor gesture makes the entire ensemble more effective. And when we wake up from the nap, the break from the hard thinking , the rest phase of the learning cycle, then what happens?
image

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Hehehe. I’m a firm believer in naps - or, since the body/mind checking out when necessary in nose-thumbing defiance of the will is like a law of physics (in this reality), I have come to recognize there are times to go with the ebb as well as the flow. (Wonder where that falls on the free will/determinism spectrum… LOL - no, not going there today…)

Not only that, my wisdom-filled young friend, but a regularly-scheduled “integration” session, specifically for questions and tying up the explorations of the month would, I think, help with meta-modeling in the most concrete way I can think of. Beyond that, an short unrecorded free-for-all discussion twice a year or so might also be in order. Yes, knowing this group, that is likely to go deep and fruitful fast, but starting with the premise of no premise save personal level valuing may be its own reward.

More “just thinking”…

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Great ideas. I’m going to show up tomorrow, but I’m not going to prepare a thing. I have been doing a lot of reading and research for these previous calls (we’re up to now 20 sessions!)—but this time, I would like to review—and perhaps re-see—what we’ve already explored. I would like to take a few breaths, walk about in the open Orb.

I feel the upcoming Aurobindo reading, combined with various other emergents, is going to entail a rather major movement this summer (in this hemisphere), and that allowing space now for some minor gestures (I have already been planning to procure a new sketchbook!) seems to be in order at the moment. Even troglodytes need their beauty sleep, right? :smile:

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We can express more “free will” when we have surrendered to the ultraidian rhythms of the body-mind, a 90 minute cycle of activity/rest, which we are taught by the factory model to override. Along with alarm clocks this interruption of our poly-phasic nature creates havoc in our lives, driving people to drink and drugs and other externals to regulate themselves. A brief nap and a couple of daydreams makes for a more integrated person. Our wildly overstimulated culture, driven by the jagged rhythms of the capitalist frenzy, is not free at all. So we really do need to relax and gaze out the window once in a while. I do think having a chance to talk about what you have learned with competent people moves us more quickly towards Integration.

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A camping trip: sitting on logs 'round the camp’s fire, with the dark, swollen-Spring river’s roar behind us, making spoken words hard to hear; but the heat from the fire radiates back from the huge boulder (the size of a small room) behind the flames, keeps us warm in heart and mind. The fire’s light illuminates our faces and hands. We gesture widely, as we try to be heard and understood. Words and language don’t seem to matter much anymore. The ambiant atmosphere of The Wild embraces us. We are content but not bored. … Marco gets up to piss. Ed snorts. Geoffrey stairs at the glowing coals. Doug hears a “pop” from somewhere and wonders … . Zach’s mind drifts back to his wife and family, and his life in the great Northwest. Mark remembers the rain and rainbows, and how time waits for no one. …
Just having fun. See ya all tomorrow.

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Oops … left out John & TJ (Freudian slip?). We could sort it all out … but probably not. I’m sorry. Where’s my psych-girl? (too expensive?) By the way, where is the feminine voice/perspective? Not that they’re all the same?

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Obviously, speechless before your brilliant wit & wisdom. You shelled out $2.50/minute for counseling, all those sessions, and that’s the best you can do?

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Errg. Time will tell, or not. See ya tomorrow.

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Ed, let me know with enough advance notice of when the next dialogue is. I’d love to join even to be a fly on the wall! LD

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