rohnbayesjourney

'the numinous beginning'

is how carl jung describes his early work exploring the 'unconscious'
he documented this work with a collection of paintings and calligraphy in a book called the red book

the red book has been recently published for the first time and the picture below is one of the many visual images contained in it

click to enlarge

the book of hours was the most popular book of the middle ages

 

the book of kells is an illustrated manuscript containing the four gospels and other exegesis
thought to have originating in ireland around 800 AD

 

the borgia codex from pre-columbian mexico

 

what's the point ??

creative expression is endemic to human beings
and furthermore the source of creativity lies within us and that source of creativity is infinite
that's why it's fun to do something creative - you are actually touching the infinite inside of yourself
pretty cool

is that a football ??

i broke the cup

i threw it in the air it tumbled

and fell smack like the sound of a hoof thrown against the rough boards of a corral by a penned in black stallion recently captured from the open range at the base of the wind river mountains in central wyoming

this represents the end of my coffee habit (yeah sure) and the beginning of tea

i have a new cup handmade by audrey with no handles just the lip reaching out with a smile i dusted myself off and swept up the pieces

and entered my new life of yerba mate imported from the shady subtropical rainforests of brasil the bitter twigs and leaves ground into straw brewed infused and decocted infact into a mellower high a subtler buzz a medicine lunch

on the phone with customer support

'Hello.  My internet is down.'
'Ok.  Let me take a look . . . your modem is fine.  Try unplugging your router for 30 seconds and plugging it back in.'
'Alright . . . so how's everything in customer support tonight?'
'Not too bad.  Got some issues in Austin.'
'You probly enjoy it when everything is out, right?'
'No not really.'
'All kinds of puzzling dilemmas.'
'Yeah.'
'People with problems.'
'Right.'
'Mysterious occurrences.'
'No kidding.'

'So, is 30 seconds up?'
'Yeah go ahead and plug it in.'
'Ok . . . hmmm it seems to be working.  You know, it went out exactly at the moment my neighbor came to the door.'
'Really.'
'Yeah, the only reason I could hear the knock was because the music stopped.  I think maybe he affected the connection in my computer somehow.'
'Like the machine attained self awareness.'
'Oh . . . my . . .  God.  It's like even human beings haven't done that yet.'
'Ha ha.'
'Ha ha ha.'

progenitor

I would like to claim as my progenitor the Rev. Thomas Bayes.  He is the inventor, ofcourse, of Bayesian statistics whereby one can prove the existence of the unknown through statistical inference.

This is a mighty skill and very useful as we shall see and practiced with zeal and due diligence by my family tree whose branches and fruits extend thru the reverend ministers and minister's wives of the Presbytrey and the Baptist (without excluding the Methodist).  The reality of things unseen and unknown having been previously the exclusive purvey of theology, the advent of 'Bayesian statistics' shed new light on what might be called 'possibility'. 

According to the theorem there need be only a paucity of evidence regarding any unknown phenomenon which when subjected to the rigors of this analytical persuasion results in knowing of (if not knowing) the nature of a non-existent thing.  This seems to me the essence of all religion after all and a true intellectual epiphany of one who was schooled in the logic and theology of 18th century Scottish Academia.  Indeed how could it be otherwise when that which we seek to know holds no attributes other than those described by scripture and dogma, the combination of the two sometimes referred to as 'magma'.

Ascending the throne of heaven has never been more lugubrious, the spokes of the ladder never more luminous.  We can assume to know and that assumption carries the assurance of logic therefore the world comes to be known in it's surety and lies fallow at our feet awaiting our gruff command and our great pronouncement, something of imminent domain, fecund with possibility and rich with the fat of the goose.  Indeed we call upon the giant universe to bring forth whatever we want and although it sounds entirely implausible it is no problem at all for those of us versed in 'Bayesian statistics' and bathed in the blessed Knowledge of our illustrious progenitor, the inimitable, the inestimable, the inevitable Rev. Thomas Bayes.

reading an email

i have something to say about something
i often do
finding the right words is the way of writing which
is my point writing
used to be symbols and pictographs - glyphs as in gyroglyphs
like the giant giraffe that used to roam africa : ) there see it happened
again the gylph appears

my friend
wrote me a letter the other day on email
and signed it with
.......__o
.......\<,
....( )/ ( )
i couldn't figure it out until i read the subscript
Riding 70 miles for a cure
Tour de Cure 2009
ok now we have the same arcane symbology of our written language representing cryptograms in the form of bicycle riders
the point as i type away on my apple computer book happily tapping keys assigned meaning by abc but also replete with apples and wizard signals and my typepad blog too with a full row of arcane pictographs along the top - 'my tool bar' ah yah i'm feeling like a cave man now working with my tool kit chipping away on the stone making fresh marks

is that it all comes around in a big fat circle
doesn't it and what does it mean to be human ??
and what is our origin ??
maybe your kids one day reading their kindle will know a question that
we forgot what am i doing here ??
no really

let's go
.......__o
.......\<,
....( )/ ( )

fun facts from wikipedia and a group hug

"Modern humans" are defined as the Homo sapiens species, (from the Latin: meaning "wise human" or "knowing human")  DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. 

The closest living relatives of Homo sapiens are two chimpanzee species: the Common Chimpanzee and the Bonobo.  Full genome sequencing has resulted in the conclusion that "after 6.5 [million] years of separate evolution, the differences between chimpanzee and human are just 10 times greater than those between two unrelated people.

Sexual social behavior

Sexual intercourse plays a major role in Bonobo society, being used as a greeting, a means of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconciliation.  The species is best characterized as female-centered and egalitarian and as one that substitutes sex for aggression. Whereas in most other species sexual behavior is a fairly distinct category, in the bonobo it is part and parcel of social relations.

            

gee where did we go wrong ??
our male dominated sexually suppressed highly stratified societies use war and violence as a means of conflict resolution - even our gods get angry

somebody threw a switch somewhere and we decided to go down the path of control and domination instead of embracing the common good - we often choose fear and loathing instead of love and compassion

we build F-16s and nuclear bombs
the bonobos choose to substitute sex for aggression
so if we are the 'wise humans' why shouldn't we be able to adopt a new strategy  ??

or are we going to blow everybody up before we get tired of war ??
i suggest a group hug instead
maybe a music concert
we could use our clever brains to convert war machines into energy producing devices with no pollution
we could invent ways to live on our lovely planet while respecting all human beings and their lifestyles

and the critters too - they just want to have fun
why not invent a worldwide communications device that allows all people everywhere to communicate with each other and express themselves instantly in multiple medias so we could talk to each other and exchange good ideas and creativity

oh - we already have that
now we're making progress : )

bohemian

now i'm posting other people's blogs
on my blog
this is an easy way to blog
probly because i'm writing a book about being a bohemian

the reality of denial

or how to understand women

is the title of the book we came up with last night at the party

i'm going to write about humiliation and humbleness
and how they seem to follow each other and bring courage
you have to be courageus to be truly humbled
but most people of course are in denial so they don't have to be humble
that would be alarming to their operating system which is based of course on
hearsay and belief so anything unfamiliar that might altar their model world
and cause it to falter is denied decried criticized rebuked maybe even sent to hell

they  never let up on the gas
no pits stops barely time to refuel
it's called 'the reality of denial'

i have alot more to say about it that i haven't thought of yet

don't know if it'll help you understand women
we just put that in there for marketing

red & blue

i don't know when this happened
or how we got here but now everything is
red & blue
you're either in a red state or a blue state

so what's the synthesis of the two
purple ?? green ??
i need to know
mauve ??
pink-grey ??

and how can we move away from
the true blue the ultrafantastic
red into a shaded grove with a circle of stones
and a slight breeze and a scent of magnolia

coming from the canopy and a bird's call
a bunting that seems to say
sit here for awhile sit
by the stones and look the grey
is green and the green is black

and the sky is changing not blue
not white not even azure

peace and prosperity :: is it possible

presented at the Philosophy Dialogue Series
Texas State University
3.5.08

** introduction ** when i look around at this world - the world i share with all of you - i see escalating conflict - i see proliferation of war and the means of war - i see the struggle for control of dwindling resources amidst a burgeoning population and ofcourse i see that the nation who is considered to be the leader of the world is infact the one who has set the standard for weapons of mass destruction so that any nation who wants to gain power and influence and climb the ladder necessarily does so by acquiring their own weapons whether it’s a truck load of AK-47’s or a nuclear bomb

i also sense a feeling of unease and anxiety about where this is all going

  > models of the world

what i would like to suggest is this :: that the world which i have described is something we have constructed that this is a projection of our beliefs and values and ideas and that if we don’t like the direction it’s taking us we can change the model - we are the choosers we are the conscious deciders we are the ones projecting this film on the screen ** major point ** and we are the ones who can change the film

maybe for example you grew up in a family with lot’s of siblings and one day mom baked a pie and set it on the window sill to cool and you saw it and you wanted a piece - you were hungry but so were your siblings - they saw the pie too - so what did you do ?? you exerted control and domination techniques and made sure you got your piece of the pie - this is a learned response and like many of the responses we learn once they are repeated over and over they become patterns or models

we have adopted a model of the world today that says - ‘struggle and strife are endemic to the human condition’ it says ‘there’s not enough for everybody so i have to make sure i get mine’ and this model is not new by the way - it goes back thousands of years - the roman proverb ‘if you want peace, prepare for war’ is an example so if we are the projectors and this film that is playing against the screen of the world is rolling thru our heads how do we change that film - how do we play a film that we enjoy - that doesn’t have the dire consequences that we see unfolding before us ?? 

  > how do we change the model ??

first of all maybe we need to be aware that we have chosen a model - whether consciously or by default ** major point ** and that we are projecting these ideas onto the screen of this world and maybe we need to be aware that there are many models we could choose

our distant ancestors the hunter/gatherers lived for many thousands of generations on this earth relatively successfully (and still exist today) with a model of the world that saw nature as their provider they didn’t seek domination or control - it was a mother force mother nature - they didn’t see the world thru scientific explanations as we do today they saw gods and nature spirits and strove to be on friendly terms with them so all could be in balance - god knows they could be angry - they saw a world filled with natural phenomenon that they identified with human qualities so they could find a place amongst them - so they could find meaning - they didn’t see stars as massive far off objects fueled by nuclear fission they saw celestial beings exerting their influence over earthly affairs

today ofcourse we know that’s baloney - we know about gravity and the orbits of planets and that our sun is not a god but a very nearby star and this is all very obvious right ?? we have agreed to see the world this way because this is how science explains it to us and our model today is very different from theirs

  > empowerment

a football field is lit up from many bulbs
a shirt is woven from many threads
we are the bulbs
we are the threads
sometimes it can be hard to distinguish between one’s conditioning and that which we know innately to be true - between innate knowing and opinion - between certainty and belief - maybe conscious choice is actually about knowing ourselves so we can make the distinction ** major point ** maybe the focus should first be within maybe self-knowledge is the platform which we can stand on with our own two feet with our own understanding and be who we are and express what we have to say and do what we can do maybe then we can create a model of the world based in harmony with our own nature - maybe we could create a world based on the idea that the universe is bountiful maybe mom is baking more pies maybe there’s an endless amount of pies coming out of the oven maybe we can create a model of the world based on the idea that cooperation is more beneficial to individuals than exercising techniques of control and domination as the hunters/gatherers learned - they knew this and that’s how they survived living in their small tribes in the wild world for so long - by close cooperation and common vision
so what is our nature ??

  > what is the nature of a human being ??

look at a new born baby - just born - it’s first day on earth - there it is a living human being totally helpless but it possesses an incredible power and do you know what that power is ??  this baby can smile a smile so brilliant so innocent so compelling that it can melt the heart of the coldest meanest person in the world - especially if that person happens to be the child’s father or mother - and this person may be ironclad - impenetrable nothing can touch them nothing can influence them - armies can be arrayed against them and they will remain unmoved - but this little creature with a simple smile can melt their heart without even trying - that’s powerful !!

let’s look at someone on the other end of the journey
this person is lying on their bed and they’re breathing their final breaths and they know it - this person will be going thru a process called ‘dying’ and they will find themselves in the peculiar situation where everything that has meant everything to them now means nothing - they are not interested in money they are not interested in their relationships they are not interested in politics they in fact are interested in only one thing and do you know what that is ?? this is documented there is a whole process that goes on from denial - ‘no i’m going to be ok' to anger ‘why me god ??!! it isn’t fair !!’ to negotiation ‘can we make a deal here - i’ll go to church more - i’ll be nicer to my friends - i’ll whatever whatever’ to the next phase which is called acceptance - finding peace - making peace with everyone and everything and this is all that’s on the agenda ultimately - this becomes not simply a nice thing to do not a pleasant option not something for later it becomes infact an urgent necessity

what is the similarity between these two scenes ??
the child has not yet been conditioned by society it’s 'preconditioned' - it doesn’t even have an identity - if you wanted to inform the child about some important matter the child would not understand - it is as close to it’s original authentic nature as it can be and yet when it feels content it will smile a smile so brilliant !! and nobody has taught it that 
the dying person has gone thru their entire life with all their goals and ambitions and achievements and now cares nothing about them - this person could be described as 'post conditioned' and what remains ?? a simple and overwhelming desire to be in peace

** major point ** i would like to offer these two examples as evidence that our true nature - something that we are born with and carry within inside of us all our lives has something to do with a deep appreciation of contentment and an indomitable longing for peace

  > peace and prosperity :: is it possible ??

and so to answer the question- 'peace and prosperity :: is it possible?'  in my opinion yes - it is possible because these qualities of peace and contentment are inherent within us ** main major point ** and if we choose to create a world in harmony with our true nature then the standard set by all civilizations throughout history ‘peace and prosperity’ can also be attained because this is the foundation - us - we are the projectors - we are the bulbs lighting up the field of play - we are the threads that make up the warp and woof of this cloth called the world and the fundamental tool for establishing peace and prosperity is being in touch with one's own nature - self-knowledge - being conscious - being aware of the peace within

addendum ::

to view a short movie that presents the idea of self-knowldege as expressed throughout history click on this website http://www.whour.org/ - the website also introduces the message of prem rawat or maharaji who is considered by many to be a master on the subject of self knowledge - the movie is called 'new dawn' - it can be accessed by clicking on 'visual' and 'new dawn'

examples of recent projects started from a vision of openness sharing cooperation and trust

> the internet (google that !!)
> One Laptop per Child Project - Nicholas Negroponte
> Grameen Bank - Dr. Yunus Noble Prize winning economist from Bangladesh

interesting link >
http://www.yesmagazine.org/other/pop_print_article.asp?ID=1463

The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community