Micro-Saccades, or, Tuning Your Radio

At any given moment, there is an infinitesimal dot of information about what the world looks like entering your brain. This is because when light enters your eyes, it is focused upon a single point on the optic nerve. You are only 'seeing' that little dot, which comprises less than 1% of the total visual field. To account for this, the eye vibrates at a very high rate that is undetectable without specialized instruments. These vibrations are called micro-saccades. The visual cortex then glues all these little dots of light together to provide a coherent phenomenal experience that we call 'vision'.

I still haven't gotten to that 'assumptions' page yet, but here's one to add to your mental list: Everything is happening at all times, always. The ten-dimensional fractal model of reality implies that if it can be conceived, it exists.

The human brain is not so much the seat of consciousness as it is a receiver of consciousness, which is all just out there, floating around, and will continue to be so when your radio is turned off (when you die). Our antennas tune into a particular station, and that is the reality we experience. Take these facts together and we recognize that it is also possible to choose the reality that you experience. It is just a matter of adjusting the frequency to pick up a new signal.

If your brain as a whole is a kind of 'eye' for consciousness, then our personal reality begins to make a little more sense. The brain has its own micro-saccades, which essentially gather the information of all our events, experiences and thoughts which are then stitched together to paint a picture of 'self' and 'the World.'

These micro-saccades can be used to your advantage. If you know the source and mechanism of the information that flows through your consciousness, then it becomes far more plausible to manifest the World as you would like to perceive it.

Recommended reading:

Tiny Rebellions: A Tool

Subtitle: On the Other Side of Everything: A Glimpse at Opposites

In Exciting Announcements last week I promised to begin posting some tools for inquiry I have discovered over the years. This is the first in the "Tools" series of blog posts.

For a very long time I have employed a personal technique in ethical development. Over time the theory behind it has expanded to include much more than the ascertainment of morality. Still, I think it's best to bring you through the process in the same organic way that I discovered it, so let's start with the age old discussion of right and wrong.

Most moral choices are relatively obvious. The problem with this is that they become habitual. You cease to do the right thing because it is the right thing. It becomes a thoughtless gesture, void of intentionality. The cure for this condition is to occasionally perturb one's own sense of morality. The 'tiny rebellion' is actually against oneself. The anecdote I have always used talking to people regards littering. I believe littering is wrong, so I don't do it. It is a moral choice, but it is vulnerable to the corruption of habit. So, every once in a while, I find myself with a crumpled receipt in my hand, or an empty beverage container, or a severed human thumb, and rather than finding a proper receptacle for disposal I toss it to the earth.

My stomach sinks and my shoulders stiffen. It feels bad to litter. I focus on the sensation, amplify it, roll it around my amygdala (generally considered to be the seat of emotion) such that I can view it from as many angles as possible. Once the feeling has been fully consumed and digested I put it in a neat little box to deposit in my mind's storeroom, clearly labeled and organized alongside similar boxes. My shoulders relax and my breath steadies. I have reminded myself of why I made the moral choice in the first place. I tested it for tractability in the World and affirmed that the choice had always been the correct one. The moral choice returns, strengthened by deliberate intention.

In a greater cultural sense, and to put the psychological effect of this in historical perspective, festivals such as Carnevale exist for precisely this reason. It is a pressure-release valve where base desires can be fulfilled, but it is also a reminder of why the rules existed in the first place. The sobering morning after, civilization's return to 'normalcy' is far more solid, real, and mutually approved than it had been a few days prior on what had been just another drab, habitual morning.

So that's great. I recommend it. But we're only in the foyer of the rabbit hole. Take a moment to appreciate the bunny's sense of composition and color in the interior design. Rabbit rocks the feng shui too. It feels good here. Gathered it all in? Let's tour the rest of the abode.

As this blog frequently contends, all things exist by comparison to their opposites. All things are defined by everything they are not. (This is one of the fundamental assumptions, the upcoming list of which was also promised in "Exciting Announcements".) What we've actually done with our moral sense is take a look at its opposite such that the definition of the moral itself can come to greater resolution.

We are in no way limited to morals (we are not quarantined to the foyer).

Whenever there is something that you do not know the alternative of, the thing itself becomes invisible. This occurs because without a counter-example for comparison, there is no effective definition. Our culture has forgotten that there is even such a thing as 'other ways to live'. Under this circumstance, participation becomes implicit. You cannot 'opt out' of society. There's nowhere else to go. Our educational system has excluded 'other ways to think and learn'. Gnosis and intuition and meditation and psychedelic drug use are not just absurd, they do not exist, or rather they take no part in 'learning'. There are countless more specific examples, but you get the gist. There are many things about humanity and its culture and the things we live with and the ways we live that are so uniform that the inverses have been lost. Civilization exists by its exclusions. The detritus, the dirt, has become invisible. We generally forget that there even were alternatives. We forget that it is even a thing worthy of a name, it is just the way things are.

One must have the courage to become one's own opposite. If you do not experience your inverse, you will never know the perimeter of your being, which is to say you will not know any part of it because it lacks definition. The only way to approach the edges of things is from both sides.

Likewise, we need, as a collective, to teach humanity to rebel against itself in the same way. This is how we save the world.

Compassionate Destruction

"There can be no creation without the prior destruction that begets the ashes from which we build. In which it is also implied that all destruction is compassionate; it is only a matter of viewing the process on the right timescale."

This is a direct quote. It was said by me to the guy getting my mimestate tea at the coffeeshop. He, with demonstrative humility, and quite genuinely, looked me gravely (with gravity) in the eyes and replied "Thank you."

There was a bit of lead-up. It wasn't out-of-context at the time. The details are unimportant, but they did inspire this post.

No entity is capable of viewing itself as obsolete. The moment it does this, the old entity is intrinsically transformed. There is a kind of spiritual suicide in the self-recognition of obsolescence. The death is a good one though. It is a noble sacrifice. It is martyrdom for the sake of whatever it is to come next. It is acceptance of the inevitability of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." All things die. All things die. Do not ever forget it.

And remember too, and embrace: you are included in all things. You will die. Everything you love will be destroyed. If it was permanent it could not be beautiful. Remember that from your ashes, new beauty will arise.

The transition between death and subsequent rebirth is chaotic. It has infinite potential, but is wholly unpredictable. The field of chaos math was built to deal with this sort of situation. Basically, the development of a chaotic system is highly sensitive to initial conditions. The results of such a system cannot be 'predicted.' The only way to arrive upon the 'result' is to put it through all successive iterations. The answer is also the manifestation of the answer - the noumenal thing-in-itself.

That's just some philosophical mumbo-jumbo. Now we can skip to the point:

A lot of things in this world are obsolete. Government, economy, and religion are a few particularly auspicious examples.

A) if we can convince them of their obsolescence, they self-destruct instantaneously and,

B) if we are cognizant and deliberate regarding the initial conditions of the ashes that result, we can ensure that the phoenix rises healthy and bright.

Welcome to the future!

Exciting announcements

There's Gonna Be Some Changes 'Round Here

I have big plans in a lot of ways, blog-related and otherwise. The content is not changing. In fact, most won't realize anything at all has changed. However, I think it's important to let the webosaur know what I'm up to so all of you out there can put individual posts in a wider context.

Basically, I'm taking everything I know about anything and organizing it in a single framework.

What this means for the blog is that most everything that comes from here on out will be predicated on 'assumptions' or givens. The purpose of this is to obviate providing a lot of background. Working with the assumptions, individual posts can be kept short, to the point, and probably more fun to read. It will also cut down on a great deal of redundancy and provide an automatic system for linking related posts. For any given post I will do my best to give a complete list of the assumptions I'm working with. (The post 'War Profiteers and the Body' from a few weeks ago is a good example). When and if an assumption is not obvious to you for whatever reason, or if you disagree with it, please bring it up in a comment or email (hamptonwritesatgmail). I can't know I'm making no sense if you don't tell me. When you do tell me, I will then have a motive for more posts - particularly ones that give more background on the assumption in question. Everyone wins! I will also maintain a list of these assumptions, categorized and numbered in outline format, and eventually the list will flesh itself out with internal links to their explanations.

Outside of the blog, I am giving larger subjects more essay-level attention. These are more fundamental, probably more important, but longer and more technical. Some examples of this type of essay exist here on older posts. I will no longer post these directly, but rather announce their completion. If ya want 'em, you'll have to ask.

In addition to the list of assumptions, I am making a list of 'tools' - these are methods of approach I have discovered and employed with great success. For the most part they are just very simple questions to ask oneself when assessing any given thing. What they do, metaphorically speaking, is shift the angle of perception, turn the thing over and look at if from behind, or in silhouette, or dangling from the ceiling, spinning, reflecting light at every angle. Did you notice the motto up top? About how you can only know a thing by knowing it from every possible perspective? These tools are how you go about doing so. Look forward to that post in the coming days.

Finally, start interacting people! I need the support of knowing people are interested and reading to keep me motivated. Comment! Question! Refute! Agree! Snarl! Hug! Do it!