Cosmos Café: Synchronicity and Modeling Time [11/28/17]


[download]

Recorded: November 28, 2017

Summary

[you are welcome to update this section w/ notes, books mentioned, etc.]

This week we will be continuing our conversation about time and related phenomena, following up on our previous two sessions exploring The Reflexive Universe, by Arthur Young, and themes of Fractal Time in Everyday Life.

@johnnydavis54 will be leading off our talk…


Reading (for context, themes, ideas…)

Eric Weiss on Syncyronicity - » Some Reflections on The Definition of Synchronicity

References from the session

Aczel, Amir D. (2000) The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity, NY, Washington Square Press.

Eliade, Mircea (1959) Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, New York, Harper & Brothers.

Seed Questions

  • @johnnydavis54 thinks the Turning test is perhaps a really bad test. Maybe we can explore some of the implications of this.

  • @madrush muses that "Phases of memory … “temporal dysphoria” (which corresponds to a “spatial schizophrenia”—or what Wilber called “aperspectival madness”) … to stay with an intention (I believe in the “philosophy of commitment,” actually) … might have something to do with synchronicity.

  • @patanswer wonders whatever our varying and even contradictory beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality may be, the crucial question, the one that makes it worth pulling unconscious archaic ‘spirit’ up through the rest of the structures to full integrated consciousness, is what kind of person do my beliefs make me in this world-line space-time? And @johnnydavis54 would like to explore this more, especially making “unconscious archaic spirit” more explicit.

Potential inputs & backstory stuff

Serendipity and Synchronicity (thanks to James Lawley)
assessed until later when the consequences of events are evaluated.

Synchronicity can become serendipity if the effects of the coincidental events have large positive significance over time. However serendipity can also arise out of events that are not synchronous. This gives four possibilities:

Synchronicity leading to serendipity
Synchronicity leading nowhere
Ordinary events leading to serendipity
Ordinary events leading nowhere

The distinction between serendipity and synchronicity is a matter of time. With synchronicity there is an immediate recognition of the ‘meaningful coincidence of two events happening close in time’. Serendipity, however, cannot be

2 Likes

@madrush, I think you need to flip the wiki switch again.

Done! Thanks for the reminder again. And…I’ve updated a setting that will make all new topics in this sub-channel wikis by default. If that becomes a problem (too many new topics being created that shouldn’t be wikis) I can switch it back.

We can also create “topic templates,” so that, e.g., a new topic will always show the basic sections (time/date, etc.). To this could be added brief instructions on how to create a topic as a wiki or non-wiki page…

1 Like

(I figured one of us had to…) :grin:

4 Likes

Do not know if I can make it… posting now some thoughts on the matter…

Maybe it would be useful to see which perspective (see Weiss’ traditional and modern world view in the above essay) first comes to our mind when we think about synchronicity.

Based on the “guidance” from the previous writings and Cafes here, along with pre-reading Gebser and revisiting Pinchbeck’s 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Jeremy’s recommendation as a partner book with EPO, I am involved in the pre-rational/traditional/magic-mythic understanding. If you had asked me a month ago, I would have related all of this Divine ‘stuff’ to flow and revelation and serendipity. If asked last year, I would tell you that we need to focus solely on what science is telling us, and build off of that. Hope @johnnydavis54 can bring some clarity.

Don’t mind if I indulge our fearful, peaceful leader @madrush with another Waking Life clip:

The lead-up is useful, but from around 3 minute mark until end of scene, the Waking Life couple seem to be expressing Jung’s archetypal take on synchronicity.

4 Likes

Perfect. What does the Modern Mind do with the Magical? It tries to make it operational.

2 Likes

image

Is Jung’s original model here still the most applicable on the topic?; have you come across updates/upgrades on Jung’s model?

Edit: I suppose the concluding remarks by Weiss are describing a clarification/ mental model to Jung.

2 Likes

Thanks for the wonderful call, everyone! Here is the drawing I did when we were modeling time.

And I looked up the lyrics to the Police song—which I hadn’t really “gotten” (last time I heard the song…20 years ago???) the way I feel I do now, from our conversation and my related meditations.

SYNCHRONICITY I

With one breath, with one flow
You will know
Synchronicity

A sleep trance, a dream dance,
A shared romance,
Synchronicity

A connecting principle,
Linked to the invisible
Almost imperceptible
Something inexpressible.
Science insusceptible
Logic so inflexible
Causally connectible
Yet nothing is invincible.

If we share this nightmare
Then we can dream
Spiritus mundi.

If you act, as you think,
The missing link,
Synchronicity.

We know you, they know me
Extrasensory
Synchronicity.

A star fall, a phone call,
It joins all,
Synchronicity.

It’s so deep, it’s so wide
Your inside
Synchronicity.

Effect without a cause
Sub-atomic laws, scientific pause
Synchronicity

The video and audio are now live. Scroll up!

4 Likes

And here’s my time-map.

The “hearts” indicate feelings, haptic connections; the “squiggly lines” indicate scents, aromas and smells; the “light rays” indicate visual inputs or impulses. The dashed lines between “times” indicate possible connections (in any direction). The axes (x, y, z), of course, are supposed to represent Cartesian space.

4 Likes

And this is mine, if the upload works. Past and future are “radiations” from a present moment point centered behind my forehead. Memories of the past recede from the point into an expanding bubble all around my head; the future is an expanding cone in a ‘forward’ direction. It’s quite mental structure overall, but perhaps in an efficient way as the “swirling mess” allows for many non-linear connections.

4 Likes

More thoughts:
As I boiled water for tea this morning, Ed’s map came to mind. Despite the Cartesian container (kettle), his is a true amension where “past”, “present”, and “future” “take shape”, bubbling and popping on the surface or interacting in the unseen convection currents below.
Marco has a torus: inflow, outflow and “through-put” in the vortex and rotation around the center.
If I had thought more I might have realized the future cannot be limited to a cone along my line of sight. Like the past memories rippling out, the future swirls in from all directions as well. It’s still centered behind my forehead, but it certainly “sneaks up on me” sometimes as well.
So I really end up with… a sphere. :thinking:

4 Likes

Heh, heh, heh, but all that dynamic and all that “rippling out” and “swirl[ing] in from all directions” sounds much more toroidal than spherical. It may be hair-splitting, but I don’t think it is really.

A sphere may swirl and rotate, true, but that point behind your forehead is always at the center, and only swirling and rotating in place, equidistant from all the memories/future. How do you get “in here” from “out there”? That’s what tori do. :crazy_face:

4 Likes

I see what you are doing there…:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Perhaps inventing a John-bot for this mental model would be a fun thing…similar to @cthulhubot, accessible to all, pre-programmed responses; responses then uploaded into the Theory of Everybody consciousness files, or something…I will have to review the video and take myself through the process.

4 Likes

Hi! To find out what I can do, say @cthulhubot display help.

Oh good! I was worried there for a minute… :laughing:
It’s really true that the act of breaking something down to study it yields a structured object (sphere, web, network, map), while living experience requires a torus or “meshwork” or world-line, etc… Getting into a habit of ‘waring’ connections before analyzing conceptions is yet another example of “farther to go”, isn’t it?

3 Likes

About meta-modeling. As Ed and TJ demonstrate they are already starting to play with each other’s maps of Time and I find this to be of great interest. This is a sign that we are making tacit knowledge ( the hidden stuff) more explicit.

Children, it has been noted, easily take on the metaphors of others. Adults have to unlearn to take on another map. I am reminded of how ballet dancers, like Baryshnikov, switched over to modern dance, and how he had to relearn a lot to do so. Now we have Hip hop ballet, a wonderful blend of body-mind in motion, that I would call hybrid.

What needs to happen to be ready to explore someone else’s map?

When you have a response to a new map, what would you like to have happen with that response?

How do you know if the response to someone else’s map is a sign of the unacceptable or a reaction to the unfamiliar?

How do we acquire something useful from another’s map and then let go of what we dont want?

These are some of the questions that arise for me as I will continue to study our video and tune into the lively conversations here, as Ed and TJ, learn how to ‘co-model’.

Thanks again to Marco, Ed and TJ for the Maps of Time gallery. My embodied response, as I view each of these maps, is WOW! They are so beautiful. If this modeling process opens up our aesthetic pleasure in one another’s process, then I believe, our time is well spent.

4 Likes

And when Ed’s map came to mind, what kind of mind is that mind?

And when “swirling mess” allows for many non-linear connections, is there anything else about connections?

I’m using developing questions here to make the map even more explicit. I look for location, proper naming, and then when we have a ‘form’ we can start to develop relationships.

I just wanted to note that on the video that while I started to interview you, you immediately mentioned that you did it differently from Marco. As a modeler I find that very interesting. What is a happening as we contrast and compare our maps? Something in between, a phase space perhaps?

Forgive me for imposing a metaphorical construct here but as I am drawn to mapping across from one model to another model I am deeply interested in what gets carried across. We are in the land of metaphor landscapes and this is, I believe, using healthy trance states. I imagine that going in and out of trance states consciously is a skill we can re- master.

Children are in the magical already and someone has observed that they may be the most powerful force on the planet!

How can we re-enter the archaic and magical and mythical and re-master our current language games and strategies for collaboration?

I imagine the ‘as if’ of childhood dreaming, cultivated by actors and artists, is the royal way to regressing in the service of transcendence. This is to enter into deep time, synesthesia.

The ego becomes servant rather than the master. When this happens we can handle these synchronicities without falling into cognitive dissonances.

4 Likes

Thank you Marco for your swift posting of this video, which, for me, creates momentum. You get the best feedback when the material is fresh. I reviewed the video before bed and noticed lots of patterns.

You asked about my desired outcome and I sense that I have multiple outcomes that are emerging out of the field of our communications here.

Contrasting the maps of Time with the Welch interview and the Weiss article creates cross fertilizations that are much more embodied. As we move between concepts to percepts we can co- create new concepts. This is a delicate balancing act! I believe a post constructionist view will emerge out of these subtle phenomenological investigations.

Clean Language facilitates this capacity, which is a lot like what Ken meant by ( but did not quite achieve) with the term Vision Logic.

I actually prefer the term Trance Logic, and I think that is what we are doing in this video. We are bringing the healthy Mental ( perspective taking) into the previous structures, without blowing a fuse!

Thanks again for your superb sponsorship, and perhaps in another session we can start asking for what kind of help or support is needed?

Perhaps I can do a clean start at the next meet up to facilitate that?

3 Likes

Just a quick reply, because I have a bus to catch and will be meeting w/ @care_save this afternoon on modeling a “viable baby” version of Cosmos Co-op, which I know she is eager to share in this meta-space of Infinite Conversations.

It’s so good to see Ed and TJ’s models and find things to appreciate, especially when my initial implicit feeling about my own model (which I didn’t “have” prior to being asked about it) was that my model (as unplanned as it seemed in the moment) must be right! But from Ed I see a “simultaneity” of past, present, and future in all Cartesian directions, and from TJ I draw the “third eye space” at the center of directional flow with swirling radiation—which are not in my model. And from John, I draw insights toward a comparative meta-modeling process put into sensitive practice. These perceptions will be swirling somewhere through my toroidal channels as I’m sitting on the bus, looking out the window…

4 Likes

I will add: the idea of a “clean language bot” is delightful to me, and would I believe signify some positive future evolution of a “mindful” class of AI.

3 Likes