On Saturday we hiked up Waimano Trail towards the Halapepenui Trail. As  we entered the steeper trail going up the ridge towards the Waiau Trail the uluhe became thicker slowing our progress and the heat of the day and humidity made the way more difficult. I rested a few times on the way just behind Richard Rovin and Baby his dog. We both stopped and sat in the uluhe talking for fifteen minutes about a Beatle song "Let It Be" written by Paul McCartney.  

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, “let it be”


[Chorus]
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

[Verse 2]
And when the brokenhearted people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted, there is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be

[Chorus]
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Yeah, there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

[Instrumental Bridge]

[Chorus]
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

[Verse 3]
And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me
Shine on 'til tomorrow, let it be
I wake up to the sound of music, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, "let it be"

[Chorus]
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
Oh there will be an answer, let it be
Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

McCartney was facing the dissolution of the Beatles band. His mother's name is Mary. 

Richard likes folk and other songs knowing the lyrics and used this song to make a point about creativity, free will, and consciousness which was the topic of our discussion while cooling down and catching our breath. Our discussion included Buddhist teachings about reincarnation and escaping the here and now of suffering in life, the practicing of meditation to be aware, and the problems of Hindu philosophy for both of us which  allows for castes and hierarchies of privilege and resources to flow to a select few. Elisa Gabbert in her book the Unreality of Memory discusses her personal experiences and our humankind angst resulting in polarization and scapegoating. I left off in my previous post with her first essay. She points out the horror of the black plague and the murdering of others due to conspiracy theories of witchcraft. The persecution of witches and others was horrible with large population groups accused of sorcery and black arts tortured and then killed in Europe and in colonial America. I'm reminded that the Incas and Aztecs practiced similar killings many ritualized to subjugate and project power to be captured in the death of the human. The conquistadors continued killings on a mass scale viewing the subjugated and killed as lesser than those in power. New Guinea tribes offered anthropologist more examples of practices that were very violent and resulted in killings. 

Gregory Bateson gave a few seminars in which I heard about his theory of Schizmogenesis.     The theory of schismogenesis is based on cybernetic systems theory. Consider a positive feedback loop in which A is acting on B acting on A acting on B and so on, each loop amplifying the action on the other, resulting in progressive disorder and increasing entropy. The entire system, A and B, will inevitable collapse, unless the loops are broken, i.e., a new way of communicating and exchanging "information" between A and B is created. The theory of schismogenesis was put forward by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1904-1980), author of Naven 1958, Steps to an Ecology of Mind 1972, and Mind and Nature 1979. Bateson asserts that institutions within societies and societies themselves act similarly, as a series of positive feedback loops. Two types can be easily observed, symmetrical and complementary (asymmetrical). The result of both forms of schismogenesis can be disastrous, unless the ways the institutions or societies relate to one another are significantly re-structured, into negative feedback loops. Competitive rivals, each mirroring the actions of the other, now re-define and redirect their relations with each other, perhaps becoming collaborators?  He studied a tribe in New Guinea in which the adolescent initiate was beaten, cut, and abused in a ritual manner. The more  the initiate suffered the worse the punishment and he wondered why any of the adolescent males ever lived through this. There's a feedback loop that both creates the severity and also allows for its termination. Gabbert mentions the Gahuku-Gama tribe who care for each other, respect property, and work out conflicts peacefully amongst themselves but not towards strangers who may suffer the reverse behavior. There is a moral code but its local. She points out research with camp children showing that the Lord of the Flies is alive and well if two groups are separated and then compete. Gabbert points out that empathy has its limits in our society and those with normal amounts of empathy can suffer from fatigue. There is so much injustice, suffering, tragedies, wars, and poverty with famine in the world. Our news feeds are amplified in our modern times with problems in volume and accuracy. Some of us have very low empathy behaviors and emotional responses including psychopaths. So when empathy is low feedback from the tragedy, abuse, war, discrimination are not seen and felt.So these issues bring me back to my conversation with Richard about Buddhism and Hindu philosophy. The song Let It Be suggests that sometimes we must just allow our relationships to change with loss of what we had a consequence though hope for something else being there even a reunion in the Beatles song. Letting go and embracing the future. But what if we do not let it be?  

Can we choose? Is there a me to decide while aware that I choose? In the many universe theory of time and the universe we choose one path but there is the possibility that this choice spits the universe now with the consequences of that choice now enfolding while another choice in another universe runs its course. An interesting thought experiment which cannot be studied and then seems to me to say that my choice did not matter and I as conscious and an actor in this world am fooling myself. 

Wilder Penfield  was a neurosurgeon in South Africa who operated on people with intractable epilepsy. He was able to talk to the patient while he used electrodes to map out areas of the brain he ultimately excised to help end the seizures if successful. While using his electrodes he could move a body part when touching the motor cortex, he could elicit a sensation and even a memory when stimulating other parts of the brain. He had many hundreds of subjects. He asked them also why they had these memories sensations, and and movements and all of his subjects said that the cause came from the surgeon and his electrodes. Roger Sperry studied people who had their corpus callosum cut. This part of the brain has the connection between the right and left hemisphere of the brain. Will the hemispheres compete? are there two consciousness?  Well on more casual observation the people with severed corpus collosum do not report nor behave as if they have two different selves. However, on more formal testing phenomenon of the alien hand and  rationalizations for behavior initiated on the non verbal usually right hemisphere are observed. So trying to locate this elusive “I” in the brain has failed so far. We can find evidence of our decision to press a button when finally seeing the target stimulus about 1/2 second before the press. We can not find any evidence of brain activity when the instructions also include the preferred choice that after seeing the target don’t press the button. So is our decision making I associated with deciding what not to do? We can have seizures that include complex behaviors, vocalizations, and auras of our senses before movements and unconsciousness but no seizures involving self or “I”. So I append this link which suggests that agencies and parts of the brain are involved in various processes that are not related to consciousness yet related. Maybe consciousness is an illusion.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_consciousness

This brings me to think about time. Subjective time and Einstein defined time related to space. How are we aware of time? Subjective time as described by the philosophy of Henri Bergson or objective time now included in the theory of relativity. Maybe our awareness is associated with our having memory in which we remember our actions and events in our lives but construe these memories as time. Well, I am pursuing this line of my blog to understand how it is that our world problems are so contentious with conflict and hatred, prejudice and cruelty, exploitation and privilege so adherents even advocate against their best interests! For example, there are about 100 corporations in the world responsible for the majority of pollution in the atmosphere. These corporation have no incentive to stop since they make huge sums of money, have power and prestige, and use their resources to influence the population at large against their best interests. Our consciousness, free will, ability to make choices lead at the the beginning of this discussion but our evolutionary fast thinking, narrative storytelling myth building is opposed to these analytic facts. 

I need to end here. I know this discussion is incomplete but bear with me while I let it be for a while.