POETRY AND THE DETERMINED MIND

Joe Bescop said (on the Pantheism website):

"Most of the arts require a focused mind, without which, the physical mechanisms tend to become as dysfunctional as the unfocused mind.

"I find with the musical and literary arts this is the case in my practices--more so in the musical than literary arena."

I replied:

At 73 (just had a birthday last month), I notice I've lost the capacity for poetic concentration. It was concentration (Joe's focused mind) that led to my best poetry. It's a state of mind out of which arises metaphorical and happy connections about concrete objects in the material world. Sometimes, however, poems came with me out of sleep. All I needed to do was write the words down and arrange them on the page to look like poetry.

The following is one such poem which was selected for Intro 9, a collection of the best poetry to come out of writing programs around the US that year:

EXPLORATION BY CANOE

The savages had left them.
By accident, by searching, hidden
in bushes, we found them—
canoes of animal skin.
Where water was stillest, we pushed in,
then worked out where it ran swiftest.
Someone had lost our maps—
by a not knowing, we got along.

This river we've not seen the end of
empties to a sea we've not tested,
a sea horizon we must think beyond—
over its edge another place to go or,
up, an endless black the stars gleam through
like small hopes we feel inside of us that say,
Yes. Our boats are working out a long journey.
From this river, the sea's imagination away
and beyond that the endless black or…
over the edge in our animal skin canoes!


I just now realize how much determinism is in that poem which I wrote while a believer in AA. Most fascinating about this concentration process (call it meditative too) is that when the poet focuses purely on a physical activity, like flying a kite, and, following that line of concentration, emotively and accurately describes the physical situation, he often discovers that his brain is talking, giving him words, about an intellectual process that evokes similar feelings. Making the "I" conscious of a connection between the feeling brain and outside world.

Thus a poem I wrote about flying a kite as a child, many years later I understood as a search for God, at the end of which my line came down with the kite, and I came "to lay my line along the earth". I can still recall the powerful way those lines felt when they struck into my consciousness, accompanied by powerful feelings of RIGHTNESS. That process is so powerful a feeling that ancient poets often thought they were possessed by a spirit of poetry. What interests me, nowadays, when the poems no longer come my way, is how a physical activity can equate emotionally to a mental process through the act of accurately and emotionally describing the physical world. It's got to be as powerful as early humanoids felt when they began to become conscious of the physical world they lived in. Thus internal emotional states took on spiritual clothing that we are only just now beginning to unravel.


MORE OF SAME LATER...

In a discussion of poetic inspiration on another thread, I got another slant on free will, consciousness and determinism. It is that poetry, art and music are the means by which the body speaks about its connections within itself and to the world outside of itself. Since most good poetry arises mystically, through deep concentration, and is concerned with discussing physical objects, as metaphor, and the body's relationships to that metaphorical and physical world, I'd say that good poetry is free of the "I-ness" quality of consciousness... whereas more abstract and intellectual "I" conscious poetry is not that good, doesn't resonate with the body. How often in writers writing about writing does one come across the idea that one needs to get away from abstractions and get into the material world with metaphors rooted in the material world? Through poetic inspiration I derive another argument that the human species has little free will since free will is located in consciousness whereas poetry is located in pre-conscious connections in the synaptic landscape.

If the body can write poetry without need of consciousness, why does it need consciousness to make other types of decisions? Decisions are always first a feeling in the body (like poetry) which then through activation of the body parts are realized in the real world in such a way as to allow observers to judge the intent and purpose of the actor's behavior. Emotional decisions can be made and not acted upon if other factors, such as fear or shyness or love, hem in the potential for action in the physical world.

Poetry is powerful because it speaks to the emotional parts of the brain where all decisions are ultimately made, and, again, if poetry can, through inspiration arise without conscious intent, and then influence another body to action, where does the power of decision rest... as we normally think of it? And if poetry has this unconscious power to arise unasked into consciousness and, then, to influence personal behavior and, by transmission, influence the decisions of other listeners, why not recognize that all language operates exactly as poetic language operates? And language began I believe with naming things. Before that, human life was all feeling, with no access to language. It's this power of consciousness that continually obscures our discussions of free will and makes us think we have conscious power over the emotions that deeply make our decisions for us.

In a discussion of poetic inspiration on another thread, I got another slant on free will, consciousness and determinism. It is that poetry, art and music are the means by which the body speaks about its connections within itself and to the world outside of itself. Since most good poetry arises mystically, through deep concentration, and is concerned with discussing physical objects, as metaphor, and the body's relationships to that metaphorical and physical world, I'd say that good poetry is free of the "I-ness" quality of consciousness. Whereas more abstract and intellectual "I" conscious poetry is not that good, doesn't resonate with the body. How often in writers writing about writing does one come across the idea that one needs to get away from abstractions and get into the material world with metaphors rooted in the material world? Through poetic inspiration I derive another argument that the human species has little free will since free will is located in consciousness whereas poetry is located in pre-conscious connections in the synaptic landscape.<br /> <br /> If the body can write poetry without need of consciousness, why does it need consciousness to make other types of decisions? Decisions are always first a feeling in the body (like poetry) which then through activation of the body parts are realized in the real world in such a way as to allow observers to judge the intent and purpose of the actor's behavior. Emotional decisions can be made and not acted upon if other factors, such as fear or shyness or love, hem in the potential for action in the physical world.<br /> <br /> Poetry is powerful because it speaks to the emotional parts of the brain where all decisions are ultimately made, and, again, if poetry can, through inspiration arise without conscious intent, and then influence another body to action, where does the power of decision rest... as we normally think of it? And if poetry has this unconscious power to arise unasked into consciousness and, then, to influence personal behavior and, by transmission, influence the decisions of other listeners, why not recognize that all language operates exactly as poetic language arises? It's this power of consciousness that continually obscures our discussions of free will and makes us think we have conscious power over the emotions that deeply make our decisions for us.

Cancel

ARGUMENT FOR A TEXTBOOK

Lily and Graham,

Before you get too deeply invested in your opposition to the facts about dominance hierarchies which is another name for "intrinsic hierarchical structures", I implore you to read Buss's The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology". Specially Part V which is entitled "GROUP LIVING" and, specifically, Chapter 23, "Dominance, Status and Social Hierarchies".

I believe we human animals must accept (1) that we are just like all other animals that have survived via evolved instinctual mechanisms like dominance hierarchies or (2) that we are a special creation outside of the animal kingdom. Evolutionary psychology, which sticks to what can be observed and tested and, thus, is outside of pleasant moral considerations that make us human animals feel good about ourselves, reveals that we are buried deeply in our animal heritage and are not outside of or beyond our evolved animal natures.

We human animals sometimes catch ourselves anthropomorphizing our fellow mammals. The interesting thing about evolutionary psych is that it doesn't allow us to anthropomorphize our fellow mammals. It pays us humans the opposite compliment by animalizing or instinctualizing our human behaviors. The following is a short passage from Buss's "Introduction" to the evolutionary psychology textbook which goes a little way toward explaining why we don't catch ourselves being the animals we are:

Instincts are invisible to our intuitions, even as they generate them. They are no more accessible to consciousness than our retinal cells and line detectors but are just as important in manufacturing our perceptions of the world. As a species, we have been blind to the existence of these instincts, not because we lack them but precisely because they work so well. Because they process information so effortlessly and automatically, their operation disappears unnoticed into the background. Moreover, these instincts structure our thought and experience so powerfully we mistake their products for features of the external world: Color, beauty, status, friendship, charm—all are computed by the mind and then experienced as if they were objective properties of the objects they are attributed to. These mechanisms limit our sense of behavioral possibility to choices people commonly make, shielding us from seeing how complex and regulated the mechanics of choice is. Indeed, these mechanisms make it difficult to imagine how things could be otherwise. As a result, we take normal behavior for granted. We do not realize that normal behavior needs to be explained at all. [The boldface passage is my doing.]

When I understand reality and my place in it through these findings of evolutionary psychology, I feel profoundly my place in the Cosmos, so completely a part of the natural world that even my choices are as instinctual as a gazelle's. In those moments of vision (like right now) I feel a near mystic oneness with nature. I am at one with nature and not separated from it through some magical power which other animals don't have. The only difference between me and any other animals is the evolutionary complexity of the sound system by which I communicate with my fellow human animals and ruminate about my instinctive behaviors. I feel another sort of mystic power when my instincts cause me to communicate with you two as I'm doing just now. I feel this writing instinct so powerfully that I imagine I had a choice about writing these comments..,

BUT I DON'T or DIDN'T!

MORE ON DETERMINISM, FREE WILL AND HAPPINESS

In a later entry on the pantheism website, I added the next commentary.

I wrote: Evolutionary psychology, which sticks to what can be observed and tested and, thus, is outside of pleasant moral considerations that make us human animals feel good about ourselves, accepts that we are buried deeply in our animal heritage and are not outside of or beyond our evolved animal natures.

I'm 73, and I have personally experienced a struggle between my genetic attributes and my cultural sensibilities. I was born with a heavy dose of genetic material from my artsy-fartsy mother, complicated by a heavy cultural dose from my loving grandmother who churched me and who raised me between the ages of 4 and 8, and then, further complicated by a cultural dosing from a traditional Catholic stepmother who was psychologically and physically abusive. I understand nurture to be an alteration by chemical processes of my genetic base, a combination of which created the chemically-derived instinctual person I now am.

For a long portion of my life, I struggled with accepting my genetic inheritance. Here was I, genetically bent toward an artsy-fartsy nature in a man's world, verbal by nature and very much aware of my emotional life. I am empowered by talking about my emotional life with other people. I'm into self-revelation to the point of it hampering my interactions with more traditional males who have no idea what I'm talking about. All of my chemically derived traits separated me from the more genetically average male personality who succeeds in American life in the role of father, provider and husband. Fortunately for me, I'm not attracted to males or I'd be as gay as you please and having also to deal with that. As it is, I had a lot of trouble accepting my nature which did not fit comfortably into the machine shop, factory working life I lived while trying to make it as a writer.

I blamed myself for being what, by genes and nurture, I am. This is why I found evolutionary psychology to be so helpful. Instead of hating myself as a flawed male, I'm able to see myself as genetically determined to be what I am. I found that by honest acceptance of who I am (rather than by fighting it) I learned I'm nothing to be ashamed of. With my happy acceptance of genetic determinism, I even came upon a woman whose own genetic makeup causes her to cherish a male who has strong female instincts when it comes to self-revelation. Many women thought they liked that trait in me (it's poetic) until they discovered the other parts of that instinctual nature which made me a poor role-player when it came to protecting and providing. It takes a truly free and self-actualizing woman to appreciate me. However, I should point out that by accepting my genetic makeup and not being afraid of it, I have been able to contribute more in the protecting and providing side of my current partnership. In fact, I discovered that the best sort of relationship is founded in mutual protecting and providing rather than in traditional roles. Took three divorces to learn that.

Now this brings me to the idea of statistical analysis of human traits. Women hate evolutionary psychology because they think that if they're determined by their female natures, they'll be shut out from positions of power or from scientific pursuits. They fear this finding, even though it's not universally true. So, in order to feel good about themselves, to feel empowered, they reject the facts buried in the findings of evolutionary psych and grasp hold of blank slate, free will hypotheses. They're encouraged in their rejection of the facts by insecure males who tell women what they want to hear in order to grab hold of an insecure female, and they are attacked by another sort of insecure male (think Rush Limbaugh—I do) who hates women for asking him to be more of a male and less of the queer he actually is. [Aside to gays: I don't use the word "queer" with any malice toward homosexuality but to turn it's traditional nastiness back upon Rush and his kind who are so dishonest about their own homosexual tendencies.]

All any of us has to do is accept who we are and be comfortable with the strengths of who we are as individuals. Granted, perhaps, the statistics suggest that women, on average, won't be scientifically apt, but neither are males, on average, scientifically apt. Males sure like to tinker with mechanical gadgets, but that's not science. However, statistics will reveal that some females are quite good at science or at running a company... but not all women. It behooves each and every one of us to find out our own strengths and to play to our strengths rather than our weaknesses. If some woman is a bang up housewife and child-rearer, let her revel in that and let each of us revel in it too rather than beat each other up with labels. If a man is a poor provider, let him accept that genetic and cultural sport and cherish his other traits. Why must each of us want to be what we are not and to hate ourselves for being who we are?

I suggest that instead of allowing ourselves to be emotionally determined by the fact of determinism, we find out about our true and INDIVIDUAL natures, accept ourselves for what we are and discover peace in the world harmony such honesty would bring about.

PANTHEIST WEBSITE: THE NATURE OF TIME

Peter,

I like your thoughts. I see the seeds in it of the way I often see the world as divided between these huge concepts which don't seem to exist in the world in a way that my senses can access and the real world that triggers my survival behaviors and make me an animal more than a philosopher..

I've had an idea for some time about the origin of time consciousness in the human species, how it evolved quite intimately connected to biology. It offers a sensory base to time that precedes conceptual ideas about time by locating time in the biology of the brain.

Here it is. Predation would be at the root of our time sense, in that any prey which escapes an attack before it is actually in the jaws of its predator, can, in a sense, be said to be seeing into the future. The fear that a prey feels and which causes its running, freezing or any escape procedure is an anticipation of a future event i.e. the arrival of a predator. Throughout geological time various species have extended the zone of anticipation, the contemplation of the future, so to speak. In a sense, humans are successful adaptions because they've run anticipation of danger out toward the farthest future to an astonishing degree. Doesn't this mean that the physical structures in our brains could be said to have naturally generated our sense of time?

But, our ability to anticipate danger far into the future seems to alleviate any sense of fear about those distant events... like the collapse of our global environment and loss of potable water. We poor humans still don't respond until the "predator" is at the doorstep. And, of course, what about war?

FREE WILL DOESN'T EXIST—WHAT ONE DOES IS ALWAYS DETERMINED

The following flows out of a continuing discussion on the World Pantheism website:

Graham wrote: What is real about ‘I’? I ask ‘ when does control start or finish in any situation?’ If we have free will then why would we allow any psychological suffering to ourselves? We could just say ‘ this is horrible, I’ll end it’. I tend to do this, ironically, by accepting that I have no control.

As I see it, language brought the I along with it. It's the key feature of self-awareness. I imagine the human species had language (very primitive) before it had self-consciousness. Historically, humans probably had 30 or 40 sounds, like other animals did and do, they could produce—things to do with warnings and alerts and anger or love (i.e. grunts suggesting procreation). By some process (still under debate) human word symbols grew more more numerous and more complex and language's recursive nature (maybe) created self-consciousness. Somehow we became aware of ourselves being aware. (I just had the thought that maybe we became aware of our brute's being a brute rather than of ourselves being aware.) Anyhow, the question of this thread is "did this trick of language called self awareness (I-ness) also break us free of instinct or is being aware of ourselves just another deterministic quality of being a brute?"

Critically, your solution to your own suffering is key to many philosophies and it also is another proof of determinism. In AA we learned to "let go and let God". Buddhists also can speak of "letting go". Letting go in AA was also associated with the concept just don't think about it. Almost all philosophies contain an answer to conscious suffering that has to do with escaping it by leaving it out of the equation. The fact that consciousness creates emotional anguish reveals that thinking about a situation is futile and pain-producing. For example, in my case, I deeply felt that without alcohol, I couldn't be funny and being funny was my key to getting laid. It was a deep-seated electrochemical response. Certain situations in mixed company would trigger the feelings along with the thoughts connected to the anguish. The situation created the feelings and the feelings found the associated thoughts. The conflict between my staying sober versus wanting to approach and humor women always produced anguished feelings when I confronted it. In AA they rationalize that anguish as the feeling of "powerlessness"—fear we won't get what we want and fear that we'll lose what we have—powerlessness in the face of reality.

Through sober time and repeatedly encountering powerless situations, my body learned synaptic patterns that led it to stop thinking about things that it had no control over, which is just about everything in the Cosmos. My body became conditioned to healthier responses. Since the information about "letting go" came to it from outside its awareness, my brute can take no credit for its receiving the information into its conscious element and memorizing it. Nor can it take credit for being forced to encounter its powerlessness over and over until it formed new mental connections that led to new instincts forming that related to humorous behaviors, women and social situations with mixed company.

All the I of my brute has ever been able to do is observe what's going on with its brute and discuss it with itself and with other I's in its experience. Like you, my brute has learned the synaptic solution to conflict—acceptance of conditions beyond its control. It's I realizes what the brute has learned, but its I did not teach the brute to do anything. It only acted as an interpreter through which my brute heard of a potential solution to its troubles, i.e. sobriety. Always... always... always, in counseling and in life, the feelings change before the behavior changes and, then, the consciousness explains to itself and to other conscious I's what happened.

My years of one on one counseling proves it to me. I cried a lot, deep sobbing moments when recalled experience caused powerful moments of grief to engulf me. Thinking about intellectual concepts was never useful. It was recalling from my past in strong detail experiences which, then, caused emotions from the past to sweep through me. I could see no purpose in all my crying and re-feeling of experience while the process was going on. None at all. I do know that after these moments of deep feeling, my brute would walk out of its counselor's office altered in some way. Everything in the environment took on deeper colors for it. It felt deeply refreshed. Its voice came from a deeper center in the chest. Voice overheard reverberated differently.

Through a long process of grieving (feeling only) my brute became changed. The proof that my brute had changed is evidenced to its interpreter the I of me in that the brute is now happily married after three failed attempts. I continually recognize that my brute feels but does not respond to his penchant to desire incest victims and other damaged women to have sex with. He's contented with his present situation. If he was not, he'd find some way to ruin it. Not only that my brute's spouse is delighted at the weird humor of the brute who I interpret for. She likes the humor that my brute gives me to offer her through his non-verbal slapstick as well as the words his humors offer up to her through verbal means.

A key step in my getting sober was in my body learning to deal with situations in which was triggered the feeling of powerlessness. People who are damaged as children, when they are truly powerless over what adults do to them, often have deeply seated psychological responses to situations in which they feel powerless as adults. Any amateur psychologist knows that damaged people's responses to powerlessness can range from blushing to murder.

My view is that the conscious I is an interpreter for its brute's behavior. Consciousness is out of the behavior loop even though it is very aware of the information informing the decisions its brute-self is making. Because the human animal is more aware of and can rationalize (i.e. think about and discuss) its behaviors, the conscious I imagines it has more control than it actually has. Underneath consciousness, the brute is still humming along as it always has, making decisions through emotional triggers that fire or don't fire according to basic survival features still active today. Consciousness merely interprets its behavior to other brutes in its vicinity and even to its own brute.

In short, thinking about possible outcomes causes anguish while ignoring one's thoughts and heeding one's instincts leads to successful conclusions. Mental states, if one is willing to let go of thinking and trust the brute's feelings (i.e. instincts), will always work themselves out successfully.

Lastly, my interpretations run from one subject to the next as my brute's whims lead it. Time flies. My brute wants to get on to its math lessons which give it pleasure. My brute wants me to stop here and go to math. So it signals this need to change activities through a sensation I interpret as impatience. I'm aware in my function as language master and interpreter for the brute that so much of this essay is incomplete and ill-formed. IT DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT. So another piece of the brute wants me to keep working over his essay. Even the instincts for language are influenced by the brute's feeling-based decision mechanisms. Even as I seem to be free of him, through language, he informs even the way I interpret his needs and wants. Which brutish feeling will win out? Will I go on to math or keep slaving over this essay. I am never free of him, the brute. He causes my every action.

MORE FREE WILLIES AND DETERMINISTS

Ron,

Thanks for the response, Ron. My brain has never felt sharper, except in remembering the faces of all its favorite movie stars. I think your basic, clear explanation about predictability clearly reveals why one can be deterministic or free willist even with all the evidence in. However, let me respond and add more considerations.

The brain is also rolling dice when it acts but is much more deterministic in result than the dice because in the millions of synaptic firings going on simultaneously in the brain, only a few (7-10) will make the decision and initiate action. If I know a person well enough and that person is facing a familiar situation, I'll be more accurate in predicting their response than I will in predicting the dice roll. For example, I knew a man who always checked with his wife before he'd take an independent action. By watching him, I learned how better to get along with a wife. In fact he was so consistent that some of us could make good natured jokes about the situation. I doubt whether I'd be so accurate in deciding what a dice roll would come up as. And how many of us know people who have favorite expressions for certain situations. Like God Bless.

Further, mental damage will groove compulsions in people so that they'll repeat certain actions or words frequently. All we have to do is limit supposed free will by a tiny bit, and humans can become even more predictable in many ways, even more predictable than a dice roll.

Another proof of the deterministic nature of human behavior is how well we know our friends. Think in how many ways we know our friends and their actions. The fact that we can recognize our friends and their behaviors and proclivities among strangers is a solid proof of the deterministic nature of the human brain. We hardly notice how habitual their behavior is. Think how often one little difference in a friend's behavior causes us to worry and to ask them questions or to ask friends if they've noticed a change in our mutual acquaintance? In fact the behaviors of our friends are so predictable and familiar to us that the only behavior that really gets our attention is a behavior that stands out from the familiar behavior. It stands out and screams for attention. Differences from the deterministed is what alerts our brains.

Because our brains respond so automatically to the deterministic world they live in, we are hardly aware of that determinism because the brain concentrates attention on the new and different. We don't know strangers and our brains focus on them and notices how different their behavior seems. Since we encounter more strangers than friends during a day, our brain is pickled in the unpredictable. It's always the odd act or different behavior that gets the brain's attention. That's the thing the brain must evaluate, the thing that stands out from all the deterministic events that bombard it. So, of course, a human brain, after a few years of practice, hardly notices just how many deterministic events it observes and ignores. It always notices the new thing. It's function is to notice the new thing and learn whether to trust or distrust that new thing. So, again, noticing free will is the default setting of a brain. It hardly notices how determined life is. It ignores the safe and predictable which is what most of life is.

MORE OF DISCUSSION OF FREE WILL VERSUS DETERMINISM

Walt wrote: George has written that he found adopting his 'robotic' stance has made him feel more empowered (George, correct me if I misunderstood your point).

Walt, I described the moment that I (identical with the concept brain) realized that it (identical with the concept he) was a robot. The brain that is I/me woke up one morning, realized suddenly that its first conscious thoughts were not freely chosen by itself but that thoughts arrived with this quality it possessed called consciousness. This made it consciousness of the fact that it was always functioning even when it slept and had been functioning since the day that it became viable enough to function on in its own. That realization was not its own invention. The realization resulted from a couple of years of reading evolutionary psych which prepped the brain (identical with the concept of me) for the realization of its predicament. Next it experienced a nerve-tingling, joyous feeling accompanied shortly thereafter by a set of words that arose automatically into its consciousness function to explain the feeling it was experiencing. The words were exactly, "I've never felt so free!" The connection of emotional biases to language units caused that set of words to arise and make sense of its situation in the world along with the psychological and emotional acceptance of its plight.

The operant word in that sentence about freedom was "felt". Since emotional biases make all our decisions for us, that's a key realization about free will. Let me also call an emotional bias a set of synaptic connections that runs through the limbic system and into other areas of the brain, making them function together. Any emotional bias will always fire up when the brain (beneath consciousness) in its monitoring of the outside world in search for safe behavior in any situation randomly considers that bias along with many other emotional biases that are triggered by the familiarity of the situation to a past situation. If any bias or set of biases becomes the preferred bias upon which the brain acts in any situation, the set of words connected with that bias will also arise into consciousness shortly after the bias becomes active as a set of behaviors visible to the outside world. The brain follows this line of authority: observe, react (select safe behavior) connect words to it (become conscious of what its observed and acted upon).

Consciousness is a secondary characteristic of the function by which long term memories are formed. The more powerful the learning experience, the more it will stick in memory and be available to consciousness in similar situations. Another important element in my brain's awareness scenario described above is that from that moment on, this brain (now divulging itself on this page) finds itself possessed of a strong consciousness of and an emotional bias for discussing its robotic behavior in all other situations. The brain that is identical with the meme "I" strongly feels the need to spread these memes about free will and determinism. It has never forgotten that morning because the experience was so powerful. Again: the strength of the emotion in an experiential moment functions to enter the experience and all behaviors attached to it into memory and the words that go along with it too.

So what did the brain experience in that moment. What was it free of? And how does all this go along with my falling into and climbing out of the experiential state, called alcoholism? Paul finds this ability to change, reform, rehabilitate, to be central to his concept of the human condition called free will. To keep it simple, I'll stop here. The answer to Paul's conditions for free will is another lengthy dissertation.