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In Praise of the Corpus Callosum

Started by Cramulus, February 26, 2018, 02:56:38 PM

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Cramulus

If you don't support the two party system, at least support the Corpus Callosum.


The Corpus Callosum is the wad of brain matter that connects the left and right hemisphere.

It is said that the mind works in an antagonistic way - one part of the mind asserts something, another part scans it for weakness and puts that forward. Through this push-pull** between left and right hemisphere, a good idea is developed.

**perhaps subsitute the word "romance" or "wedding"

This is the physical incarnation of the Hegelian dialectic (Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesus). It's Gurdjieff's Triamazikamno, the "third force" (The Holy Affirming, the Holy Denying, the Holy Unifying). All positions are incomplete until they have been tested and refined.

And if our culture is acting, right now, like two separate hemispheres that cannot communicate, it suggests some flaw in our collective Corpus Callosum.


What's going wrong with one hemisphere's signal that the other hemisphere can't process it? Our collective brain is not processing data well, the antagonism just seems to escalate instead of resolve, refine, and unify.


Is there a way to act as this piece of neural hardware within the greater brain? Can an individual help shephard the signals from left to right in a way that actually transmits information?




Cainad (dec.)

I've been thinking about what it means to "reach out" to "the other side" (whatever that means, although in the current context I'm thinking about American political life) and what fruits that can bear, if any.

Contemporary wisdom always favors moderation, and extolls the virtue of compromise. Taking a firm stance is almost always seen as poor marketing at best and fanaticism at worst. Is this always the case?

What if you believe you have truly made a good-faith effort to understand your opposition's position, and came to the conclusion that their way just plain sucks? What is your recourse to something better?

Cramulus

>>What if you believe you have truly made a good-faith effort to understand your opposition's position, and came to the conclusion that their way just plain sucks? What is your recourse to something better?

Let's talk about the small self for a second, because maybe it will give us clues about the Big Collective Self....

If you follow me that the individual self has three distinct "processors" (intellect / emotions / body), then it seems like a lot of data you encounter doesn't get processed in the right way. The intellect can't figure out what to do with it, nor do your emotions, so the body processes the information as physical stress. A lot of the physical tension and fatigue you experience is maybe because of Ideas or Emotions that you can't work with and resolve... and they gotta go somewhere. And now your shoulders are tight and your breathing is weird.

If somebody tells me "the shop is closing in 5 minutes", I experience this physical stress, but this stress is a part of my motivation to act, to find what I need, and buy it, before the store closes.

But a lot of the time, I'm getting hit by data which affects me, but it doesn't lead to an action or motivation. It's not something I can act on. Sometimes we do get frustrated at the self ("Dear body, I know you want cake but STFU for a second"). Maybe I will act, but in a way that is unproductive (like, when you're hungry and you lash out at people).

Or sometimes I do have stupid ideas, and another part of my mind stops me from acting on them --that's what I think you're talking about! Can we feel what alchemy is happening within us in that exact moment?



Quote from: Mexico City Blues by Jack KerouacEverything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesn't like to be reminded of fits—

So what do you do when you notice this happening in yourself? When one part of you wants something, but the rest does not?






I speak only for myself here

but in my internal monologue, there are two good responses to bad ideas


1. to dispel it by examining its weakness -- like of course I can't take a 9 week vacation, because of reasons

2. if that doesn't work, to stop elaborating on it - like sometimes when the train is coming, you just get this impulse to step off the platform and let it cream you - you are not suicidal, but your imagination plays out how effortless it would be to do something like that -- and you don't do it, but you also don't need to have a long internal debate about it.

It's unhealthy to focus on things you can't affect in any way whatsoever. But these things outside of our locus of control also become points of obsession, they are the borders of our agency and we naturally want to conquer that geography.

So maybe you're not debating with Random Internet Idiot because you are illustrating the folly of his shitty ideas, maybe you are debating because you are wishing for some kind of environmental control which is actually beyond your agency. And any energy you spend debating is actually wasted.

WidgetOtaku

Quote from: Cramulus on February 26, 2018, 02:56:38 PM
And if our culture is acting, right now, like two separate hemispheres that cannot communicate, it suggests some flaw in our collective Corpus Callosum.
:eek:
Woah, and I thought that Mega Brain was a defective "brain unit" reject... (if you know of what I'm talking about, congratulations)
"You've scoffed at my creations... Now look upon my work and despair!"