What happens to the human psyche when a society dispenses with the need for people to create?
What happens when daily life is not punctuated with the opportunity to fashion something useful out of base materials?

The Western lifestyle appears to be hurtling ever further away from the fundamental human need to engage in the creative process on a n instinctual level.

Just interested to know how people fulfill this basic need in a society that expects most items to be ready-made in the shops - and what, if any, psychological rewards are received from the act of creation on a personal level.

Poirot I truly think anyone who is not trying to create some thing is mentally dead already.
My creation post work is a huge garden, mostly flowers but inventive and grow most veges I eat.
Still find time to explore the net and doubt all of us will ever stop searching for better.

Poirot, I think that you are jumping to wrong conclusions, in your
haste to condem our present society.

Creative people continue to be creative as ever. Look at the most
popular tv shows right now, cooking shows! Millions watch, then
head off to buy their own ingredients and experiment. No more all
that bland Aussie food of 40 years ago.

Look at gardens and houses. Again people being creative, compared
to the bland looking 3 by 1 weatherboard of 50 years ago.

In fact alot of people are being more creative then ever, as due
to the global economy, power tools, materialas etc are cheaper
and more easily available then ever before.

The list goes on. Creativity in business, on the net, all increased.

Perhaps you need to rethink your theory, as it could be flawed.

i am feeling far from creative
[listening to parlementry speeches
and name calling has that affect on me]

creation begins with the mind
it also ends in the mind..and
[often continues ..in the mind of the beholder]

mass production is one such process
that begins in the mind of one..
then goes into the mind of another..and another

each doing their creative bit..till it finally has been made...[a product]..

then the one who thunk it gets a little..
and the ones who made it get a little less
and the one who ...*only put in money
gets most of the money ..made from others desiring it

others who couldnt have thunk it
nor created it..nor had the money to make it

these i call the useless eaters
con-sumer's

all they do is buy stuff..that ensures more money is spent creating the same type of useless stuff..[and the good/usefull/needed stuff never gets built]

i gift my minds creative energies
even gift my bodilly energies
and my minds visions

yes there is clearly something wrong with my mind
but i guess..the fundamental human need to engage in the creative process on an instinctual level....is somehow being met

i am content..to know ..i tried to help others
even when many think it me ..that needs 'help'

""and what,if any,psychological rewards
are received from the act of creation on a personal level""

none
i feel its a duty
to try to give back

and try to help others
find their own ..creative outlets satisfied

[to help others feel ..they are helping others..
simply by asking opinion ..or trying to form opinion]
or see something beyond themselves..
or thier[our] own petty needs or greeds..

oh well
i tried

next

Hi Poirot,

I'm a theatre goer and I still find inspiration and entertainment in
just about every production that I see. To me, theatre is alive and well in Melbourne. Last night we went to see the musical, "Mary Poppins." It was simply stunning. Of course, the creation of a production like the one we saw requires more than just talented individuals. Artistic production is a social process, for the form that the creativity takes, and the amount of acceptance it wins, are deeply influenced by the surrounding cultural environment. Judging from the full-house of last night's production - it proves that Melbourne audiences are willing to support something that they feel is worthwhile. The point that I'm trying to make is that artistic success depends not only on what the artist produces, but also on what the audience of the time and place in question is willing to accept.

An interesting question Poirot. I think that modern life leaves little time for creativity at all.

It is easy for us all, to get in the comfort zone, and cruise through life. In fact thats whats most of us, end up doing. The connection between true creative essence and humankind, is waning , most definitely.

I would go so far to say, that it is possible that the true connection between creativity and the human spirit, is at risk of extinction.

Sounds emotive I know Poirot, but you had to be there. To experience the real nature of creativity. Which in essence, is new ideas in practise, just for the sake of it.

In my case, I have only experienced glimpses of valuable musical creativity in my own field
occasionally and understand my limitations, never once having had the ecstasy of having a really big idea, but I know how I could have one.

It just comes to you.

Yabby,

You are right, of course, that creativity is still with us in varying degrees - how could it not be. I'm just as interested in the ways that people indulge their creative instincts. I do suspect, however, that people watch the cooking shows more for entertainment than inspiration.

Thinker 2,

It's interesting that you said you never had a big idea. I've always been interested in truly original creativity. I draw quite well, but have trouble composing a picture. I'm good at copying, but not so good at coming up with an original concept.

Lexi,

Funny that you mentioned Mary Poppins, as I was talking to a young girl who had seen it recently in Melbourne and who seemed thoroughly enchanted by the experience.
I often watch my son's dance teacher as she seemingly comes up with the choreography on the spot - you can almost hear her mind ticking over - very creative.

Belly,

No better creation than a garden - it feeds the soul through the senses.

* I do suspect, however, that people watch the cooking shows more for entertainment than inspiration.*

Poirot, I think its a bit of both, judging by the sales of ingredients, at places like Coles.

What I think has changed, is that now its not experts doing the
cooking, but everyday people, even kids. That gives other
everyday people and their kids, the confidence to have a go.
So the results are huge.

Australians are fast becoming a nation of good cooks, which is
a welcome change from some of the shocking British food that
was standard fare, 30 years ago. So its all good news at the
moment.

My deepest satisfactions come from creating but it does not have to be from raw materials. Our mass production, access to shared knowledge on the web and on-line shopping give me the opportunity to source components to create things that I can't just buy in the shop's. There is endless opportunity for taking what others have learned and building on it. Access to a world of materials, components and knowledge that was unthinkable for most of us not so long ago.

For most of my creative interests there are groups of people sharing their learnings on the web, for some there are groups collaborating on projects to big for one, there are suppliers of materials which I'd never find in my local community.

The opportunities are if anything greater than they have ever been.

R0bert

I hope you are right, Yabby.
- although judging by the plethora of fast-food outlets and the mass of pre-packaged "convenience" foods available, one might construe that our culinary creativity has some pretty stiff competition.

OUG,

Interestingly, I consider repetitively producing only one component of an article almost a frustration of the creative act...especially in a situation on a production line. People in such situations never experience the fulfillment of creating the article in its entirety - completing the journey, so to speak.

The other important aspect is that much of what is produced by Western man has no direct relationship to himself or his needs, he is, therefore, disconnected from the object he is creating, robbing the act of its meaning.

Poirot:

You wrote that most people don't have the satisfaction of creating an entire object but only a part of one. It is a great satisfaction to create an entire unit or subunit. I have had that satisfaction as a design engineer. It is indeed a great satisfaction.

When I was working at General Electric I felt sorry for the women on the assembly line testing cables. It seemed to me a monotonous, boring job. However, when I talked to them I found most of them liked their jobs for reasons other than the pay check. Some enjoyed checking out the connections while socialising with their mates. they made it a communal and bonding activity.

My wife is a creative individual. She works out her designs and then makes objects in wood and fabric, She belongs to a fabric group and a woodworking group. Many ask her, "Where did you get those designs?" they have seen nothing like it in their pattern books, and they don't make their own designs.

I have consulted in manufacturing. When suggesting a change in operation, the response I got frequently was, "this is the way we've always done it."

I don't think Western civilisation has sapped creativity. I think most people like to do a job right, feel secure with routine and feel uneasy with changes. Successful politicians know that.

It is the creative people who write things that many give lip service to. However, I don't think most people really want creativity even though they may benefit from it.

That's a fascinating question, Poirot. I wish I knew the answer.
Human beings uniquely manipulate nature rather than adapting to it, and I suppose the question is, is that creative ability fundamental to a fulfilling life. I suspect it is and wouldn't be surprised if the ills at both individual and social levels were the result of an utterly catered existence for many. I have Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy", all but obsolete in most ways, excluding, among other things, his insistence that creative activity is as good as a cure for melancholy. Yet most of us live utterly passively, "sated with novelties" (I wish that was an oxymoron) cannily crafted to seduce us yet leave us wanting more. Unfulfilable desire is the bane of our lives and something to be exploited by consumer culture.

Where I live there are many markets springing up where home grown produce and home made goods are the attraction and they are very popular - people almost craving the 'authentic' or the organic product over the mass produced. There has even been a rise in some of the older artisan activities like blacksmithing.

The lack of creative products in the shops has spurred a whole new activity in markets and with imports many people are choosing to shop at markets to help local producers.

I am a bit of a dabbler in the creative arts doing a bit of writing, website design and art mainly oils and drawing with plans to undertake a mosaics course soon.

My biggest and most regular creative pursuit is the garden and the kitchen. We have too many fruit and veg to name here including some exotics and heritage varieties. The chickens have free range and a large coop/run and the eggs are delicious.

I even tried to grow a red dragon fruit (pitaya) in our cold climes but it was not a success. Jackie French was an inspiration there having grown warmer varieties in her cold garden using micro climates, but alas my efforts failed (although still thinking about trying avocado in a pot).

David f,

The women on the General Electric production line probably weren't getting much of a creative kick from their jobs. they were, however, socialising, which is in itself enjoyable - especially as they were being paid to engage their brain only marginally in their work. (I presume repetitive testing would become an almost automative response after long enough)

Your wife, though, knows the satisfaction of fashioning something useful or beautiful from inspiration to actuality.

Squeers,

After I started this thread I remembered that my daughter had written a magazine article on the subject (she's creative) - she called the act of creation a form of alchemy in that it transmutes something of lesser value in one form to something of greater value in another - interesting.

I haven't read "The Anatomy of Melancholy" although I've read excerpts quoted here and there. I do think the creative act is strongly connected with our sense of purpose relating to the utility of our environment. Burton, I believe, thought that melancholy was part of the deal - these days we think its something haywire - we call it depression and take pills to mask its presence.

I'm fascinated by human adaptation in the modern world and the ways we have altered our creative instincts to match the technology - although I suspect it is fundamental that we should continue engage in some form of material creativity.

Pelican,

Your place sounds resonant with opportunities to create. A vegetable garden is not a static entity, but a thriving environment where you become part of the process.
(We have chooks too.)

As I mentioned, I'm quite good a drafting, but have trouble with original concepts. My sister, however, has in the last few years taken up painting and is shortly to open her second exhibition - she seems much more spontaneous about the whole thing. My daughter is also artistic and has her own style...they both have the thing that I've always struggled to find, and yet each of us gravitates to the pictorial representation of life.

Dear Poirot,

the women testing the products weren't getting any sort of creative kick from their jobs. After talking to them it was obvious that they were not disappointed since that wasn't what they were looking for. I suspect you are a very creative individual. I also suspect that you think others have the same impulse, but it is often stifled in them.

We are so conditioned by society that our impulses that we think are spontaneous are really impulses we are conditioned to have.

I think we all have the instincts of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. For the survival of such a society it is necessary that most people not question too much. In New South Wales there is an Aboriginal cultural centre which my wife and I visited. One of the Aborigines took us on a tour and told us about their culture. teenage (I can't make a capital t on this computer) Aborigines who asked too many questions were unlikely to survive the initiation ceremonies. Other tribal cultures probably are the same. Although we don't live in a tribal culture and stifling of creativity is not a good thing in our culture I think we still to a great degree have that tribal mindset which is fearful of and uncomfortable with questioning and creativity.

Dear David f,

I could be more creative - I tend to spend a little too much time thinking.

I was just tossing over in my mind your example of the women on the production line, and I compared it to indigenous peasants sitting in a group weaving baskets. Both are social acts and both are contributing to or are creative acts in a repetitive mode.
Then there are the weavers of beautiful oriental rugs who are often of the peasant class - some are nomadic and carry their simple portable looms with them. Their children learn the designs of such rugs almost like a language, in that they instinctively absorb the perennial patterns handed down from antiquity.

Creation in a human sense is an act of transformation and a tool for the exaltation of the spirit

creation takes place ..in the perceptive mind
after being created..is only is truelly appriciated in a receptive mind

thus is it with gods creation
he thought it and behold it is

many minds will speculate how god did it
and get it wrong..prefering to watch cooking shows

they will never know ..the how ..or why of it..
yet still appiciate ..[or not]..its having been created

[if only in the privacy of their own minds]

here is my latest creation

its worth a reading the source
http://www.openaustralia.org/debates/?id=2011-03-24.30.1

""The Carbon Credits Bill 2011
fulfils an election commitment*
to give* farmers,forest growers and landholders
access to carbon markets.""[foreign carbon credits]

that gives a con-text

""This will begin to unlock the abatement opportunities
..in the land sector which currently..""

the creation/then the reasoning

which currently..*make up 23 per cent
of Australia’s emissions.""

then the kicker

""*Australia has amongst the highest
*agricultural emissions..*/of the developed countries*""

now my creative joinder
of facts

mainly via their generating..*nitrous oxide..[not taxed]
[300 times worse..than carbon dioxide][taxed]

joining more dots

from nitrogen[see previous posts]
and landline link

BUT THATS NOT BEING TAXED...
now you know why

we made a promise

thus we talk of greenhouse gasses
but only tax carbon..lol

it might not be very creative
but its about getting the NEW info created
[inspirated/inspirwed]..into the other mind's

oh never mind

go back to sleep

even dreaming ..*is creation
if only in ya dreams

It is a bit hard to be creative today, with 3 levels of government trying very hard, to bash it & any spontaneity out of every one.

Like the young bloke, who's been told by Logan council that he is not permitted to continue with the restoration of his Ford GT in his garage, as he has been doing for over a year, without complaint of any neighbours.

They tell him it's OK for him to get a mobile mechanic to do it for him, but its a $100,000 fine if he does it himself. I suppose the mobile mechanic has payed a fee.

Like the bloke who has been told by another council he can't have glass doors onto a covered deck on the south western side [the side with the great view]of a home he wants to build. That would allow an hours heating by the setting sun & may make him run CO2 producing air conditioning. The fact he was prepared to install a blind doesn't count, nor the fact that he would plan to eat breakfasts & lunches out there, saving the running of aircon can not be considered.

Then you had better be careful of growing trees. If you do it, & sell those trees, off your 120 hectare property, with out paying a fee for the right permit, you will find yourself treated worse than an armed robber.

Be creative, you've got to be kidding.

Dear Poirot,

that's an excellent comparison of the peasant women and the women on the assembly line. I think of creativity as essentially a lonely act. Creative people may bounce ideas off each and may occasionally produce something together. However, I think of creativity as generally opposed to sociability.

You write: "I could be more creative - I tend to spend a little too much time thinking." I was under the impression that creativity proceeds from thinking. I watch my wife creating. She sits by herself. then she draws something or several somethings. then she puts it aside. Finally she makes a drawing that she uses as a pattern. My observation of her behaviour while creating is that she spends more time thinking about what she is going to do than doing what she is going to do. When she reads a book she may put it aside and think what comes next. that applies to both fiction and non-fiction. She was riding about theolution of Fermat's theorem before we went to bed. In the wee hours she woke me. "I think I have a proof of the theorem for n=3. She had a beautiful proof involving infinite series, and she has only had high school mathematics. She went to university, but when she went to be a nurse, teacher or librarian were the only choices for women. While she was attending a new course opened up - occupational therapy - so that is what she became.

Dear David.f,

You're right that we tend to think of creativity as a lonely act.
But when we look more closely, we often find that many of the great artists and writers tend to form little communes where they support each other and share ideas and inspiration.

In fact, I believe these cliques serve as incubators from which issue the distilled genius of the artist (or writer) and their experiences.
Think of the Impressionists or the Pre-Raphaelites as an example.

creative instinct is an oxymoron
instinct according to the survivalists is survival of the fat-test
fit-test..or whatever]

there was a guy who had an idea
some experiment he did for his students
his students took the idea demonstrated further
he demonstrated to the teacher that diods can transmit masive ammounts of info

thery are rushing the idea to market
[my idea built on this concept is how could this affect the mbn]
i could get creative and search the origonal story from dw tv..[where i heard the concept]

or even google it..[i cant network it being a loner]..and so the story finishes here

but there might be some one who reads this
and searches it and does something with it

but my instinct says no..[stop dreaming]

you wanted a reason to post info about it
and now you have passed it on

anyhow creation isnt an instinct
it is a focused effort

baskett weaving isnt mass production
its something to draw people together
to allow peers to be with peers[thats the instinct]
like herds with like

the 70's had great music because musitions
jammed with other musitions

the music died when each stopped sharing
i recall many art movements flourished when painters shared

or even poets reciting their latest creations..its not an instinct as such..but the result of instinctive ..need for recognition of our peers

but go ahead
ignore the loner

so desperit to please
simply trying to fit in
somewhere in this god forsaken reality

ya bullies
masses produce nuthin
but steal energy from those they outcast[ignore demean]through fearing ideas

Dear Poirot,

Take one dream. Dream it in detail. Put it into your own hands. See its final outcome clearly in your mind. Then mix it with a little effort and add a generous portion of self-discipline. Flavour it with a wholesome pinch of ambition. Stir briskly with confidence until the mixture becomes clear, the doubt separated from the resolution. Then bake at an even temperature in a moderate mind until the dream rises and is firm to the touch. Decorate with individuality. Cut into generous portions and serve with justifiable pride.

Approached in this manner, life is a piece of cake according to the
very creative writer, Bryce Courtenay.

As for me - I love creating short stories. To me words are the gift of imagination. I allow my ear to be my dictionary, while my eyes observe the details and my mind constructs the storylines. I learned
early in life that I wanted to be a storyteller and I love my words.
I can feel their colour and their textures. I can understand their
constraints. I know their weakness and am aware of their strengths
and I couldn't imagine being without books, or stories. Perhaps it is
because of my ancestry. As I wrote some time back, "I come from a tribe of nature worshippers, pantheists, believers in faeries, forest sprites, and wood nymphs. Who heard devils in their windmills, met them in the woods, cloven-hoofed and dapper gentlemen of the night..."

Creativity to me is a vital impulse existing since time immemorial. It's an intensely human desire and it clothes itself in various forms...

I try to create some chaos and drama on OLO. Does that count?

People create in different ways these days. They take photos and videos, they make android apps, they create totally fake online personas on Facebook, they create new religions (AGW).

So, base materials, well, should we all take up pottery? Would the potters of potterville have cared for their art if they could pop down to Big W? Would Michelangelo bother if he could use Photoshop or HDR technology or 3D studio Max.

Actually, the guys who wrote Photoshop Lightroom were damned creative.

I have a theory though about standardisation and 'best practise'. The result is stick thin models and Big Macs and McMansions.

The pursuit of uniformity is the real problem. There is a standard model size and shape ( A model being a person) and standard work-flow in computer image manipulation, standard clothes sizes for easier designing (With cheaper material costs for petite models on the cat walk . That women decide to worship fashion models yet blame men for anorexia and for the images in magazines that they buy is a side issue).

It's all about economics and reducing the 'bottom' line, by Our Ford. Huxley discussed all this, it's where we're headed. It's not all bad either.

'ending is better than mending'

So from this new philosophy, people specialise, and are 'creative' within economic boundaries. You just don't get allrounders like Michelangelo any more. We've become too smart for that. People watch Masterchef and The Block. They're into creating man. It's just the competition is so great these days, it's all been done. There is a limit to how many tunes you can make that actually sound good. We've worked out asthetics, design, even facial measurements of attractive people.

The second issue is insurance, and risk aversion. Society has become increasingly risk averse as there is more to lose, and we hear so much bad news.

Thirdly, a lot of the truly creative people have had the assistance of mind altering drugs. This seems to be discouraged these days.

Lexi

Have you ever read any Sheri S Tepper? Am currently reading her latest, "The Water's Rising". She will take you on an a ride that is breathtaking.

Hasbeen

Not just government grinding creativity into the ground - true. In the private sector it is immediately the property of the employer.

'he is, therefore, disconnected from the object he is creating, robbing the act of its meaning'

That is the problem of the 'news' media too. All that information about what one has no control over, whereas before news was local to the community and could be acted upon and had a direct affect on one's life.

The effect on ones life is still there, but it is indirect, complex and opaque, and we are removed from the process, our stake barely recognised. I always wonder who the 'Key Stakeholders' pelican's lot talk about actually are.

We are just voyeurs now. Impotent observers.

Voyeurism is hence the paradigm of our time. That's why reality TV is so popular. We know 'about' so much stuff, but we have little detailed knowledge on any single topic. I think the kids will evolve with their shorter attention spans and multitasking skills to be a different organism. We are making humans less and less individual (creative) and more part of the machine. More and more little cogs, working together.

And so the unempowered masses concentrate on the details. Cooking and Home improvement, amateur porn, grief porn and Kochie.

In the end, it makes sense to turn our backs. One can still feel the sun, and chuckle at the faint cries of Clive Hamilton in the distance.

Big Screen Television
Say no more
switch it on and I'll see you in hell
We have the good seats, just look at the smiles on our faces.
Right now we are the luckiest people in the world.

And that silly 'thinker' thinks we are time poor. Hahahaha. The problems the privileged invent.

One more thing...

Bryce Courtenay!

Hahahahaha.

....

....

....

..
.

Hahahahahhaahah!

Ms Detective,

'In fact, I believe these cliques serve as incubators from which issue the distilled genius of the artist (or writer) and their experiences.'

NO! It's simply that the nerds or the lame 'artists' are so tiresome they must stick together to have any social life at all.

* People in such situations never experience the fulfillment of creating the article in its entirety - completing the journey, so to speak.*

Some people are quite content to work on production lines. Some
people don't want to think much. There would be huge genetic
variation.

Poirot, I think you are taking a highly personal perspective on
all this, but do not forget, there is quite some genetic variation
in the human population, so not everyone thinks like you happen to.

The secret seems to be in discovering our own aptitudes and acting
on them. There is a difference between having creative ideas and
manufacturing something.

Now if you listen to some of the workers who make top quality
goods, like build Maseratis and similar kinds of goods, many are
craftsmen and are extremely proud of what they are making. They
also enjoy making them.

In fact good management is all about encouraging the tribal team
spirit, so that nobody on the team, lets the side down. So see
it a bit like football. Just because one person does not win the
match on their own, does not mean that the game is not enjoyable
for all participants, no matter how small the role played by each
of them.

In fact if you ran a company where the workers did not care about
what they produced, you would most likely be producing crappy
products. You'd most likely go broke eventually.

"...It's simply that nerds or the lame "artists" are so tiresome.....", blah...blah...blah....

Really, Houellie, I thought it was so they could avoid the associating with bogans tinkering with their V8s or waxing lyrical on the latest new burger at McDonalds.

But, it you say so...

Dear Ammonite,

No I haven't read anything by Sheri S. Tepper. But I've made a note of
"The Water's Rising," and shall look into it. Thanks - sounds intriguing.

Dear Houellebecq,

This one's for you from Bryce Courtenay:

"There was a young man from Rangoon
Whose farts could be heard on the moon
When you least would expect them
They'd roar from his rectum
With a sound like a double bassoon!"

You've got to lay off the hamburgers.

Houellie,

Just read your post about voyeurism - and I agree.

We are voyeurs. We watch the telly and absorb stuff - then we buy stuff - and then we watch the telly again.

"Right now we are the luckiest people in the world."

...but then, the reindeer herdsman on the Siberian tundra might have the same opinion of his life....

You are a stirrer Houellebecq, but you too have said something profound and most probably correct.

"Thirdly, a lot of the truly creative people have had the assistance of mind altering drugs. This seems to be discouraged these days".

Imagine if you will the first cave man that accidentally ate hallucinogenic fungi while on a food foraging expedition. He hallucinates in his cave, realises that it is not real, but in fact a picture of something real. He has an epiphonic moment, and draws the image he is seeing on the wall of his cave with a stone, and voila, art is born. The very notion of depiction is born.

And the observation you make is correct Houelle, it is only tolerable to see reality from one perspective in our modern society. Arts and sciences have indeed suffered,(maybe even, been held back 100 years or more) in the absence of the acceptance of alternative or altered perspectives, or more accurately, points of reference for human thinking.

We are in effect a bunch of chemical reactions running around in our own receptacle.
The core concepts we accept and understand to be truth today, are as pagan as our most fundamental instinct, that being "fear of the unknown".

I dont think, I am that silly for thinking us time poor Houelle, but it is much more complex than that.
I think we are choice poor, independent thought poor, and basically corralled like sheep really.

Dear thinker 2,

I disagree. We are not sheep. We are wolves. Wolves are both predators and social animals. However, a predatory animal needs prey, and the pack must not grow too large. Due to our technology we have far outstripped our optimum pack size. We have domesticated our prey. However, our instincts are predatory although religious images cast us as sheep needing a shepherd. We try to live as sheep, but we are predators. Therefore we have wars with other large packs and prey on each other within our pack.

Though I acknowledge instinctual or primordial motivations, I dislike and disagree with the propensity, in many disciplines, to explain away human behaviour as ancient baggage. It's such a convenient rationale, with no empirical evidence to back it up; it's just so damned intuitive it must be right.. Wrong!
I think we are both more spontaneous than that and more individualised. However, both of these are demeaned within our passive-receptive, utterly missionary existence.

*It's such a convenient rationale, with no empirical evidence to back it up; it's just so damned intuitive it must be right.. Wrong!*

Not so Squeers. The Tabula Raza theory has been thrown out the
window for quite a while now. Perhaps you should read up on the
identical twin studies that have been undertaken, of identical
twins separated at birth, grown up in different environments.

You would be quite foolish to claim that genes don't influence
behaviour, for the empirical evidence shows that they do.

But there is also a mass of circumstantial evidence. I know a
few young blokes in this district, who are now in their 20s.
Their fathers took off years ago, having never known them. Not all,
but some of those guys walk, talk and act just like the fathers they
have never met. The " chip off the old block" is not just
about environment.

Even you should know that, observing your own children. They can
live in a similar environment, with much the same upbringing,
but turn out quite differently.

Genes matter, but live in denial if you will.

Yabby,
I don't think I said anything about tabula raza, did I?
The brain also has a remarkable ability (a definite flaw) to montage sense perception, experience, and even other people's posts!
And when you talk about genes you are merely changing dialect.
Has it not occurred to you that our intellectual efforts translate and rationalise rather than explain nature, behaviour etc?
I thought I could credit "Even you" with that much depth..

*I dislike and disagree with the propensity, in many disciplines, to explain away human behaviour as ancient baggage*

Well forgive me Squeers, but the above was good enough for me,
to assume that you understimate the power of genetics! The
Tabula Raza theory was so much the "in thing" in the psychology
and philosophy departments, some years ago.

*our intellectual efforts translate and rationalise rather than explain nature, behaviour etc?*

I would certainly disagree with that. Neuroscience has opened up
a huge can of worms, which basically shows how much those primordial
parts of the brain matter, even if we are not aware of it.

The explantions are becoming more and more meaningful, the more
we learn. Free will, as many imagine it, is not so free at all.

there is a tendency in both religion and ideology to make humans different from other animals and not recognise our shared heritage with the rest of the animal kingdom. In the monotheistic religions humans between god and the rest of creation. Some ideologies promise that changing society can produce a new man - that we are basically plastic and can be changed in nature.

Our bodies show what we are. Predators such as the eagle and the tiger have binocular vision. their eyes can focus on a prey. Doves and rabbits have eyes on each side of their head so they can look in all directions for a possible attacker. We are predators. the wiring of our brains is not visible as is our phenotype, but we are wiring for particular behaviour.

Within limits we can change our behaviour but only within limits.

we can sepperate 'twins' as much as we like
[ignoring their rights to know what they are]
[who comes up with these things]

but try as you migght..they had the same conditions
till their joint emergance into divergent realities

se the thing is genes need stimulous to switch on
the same stimuli will stimulte the same reaction

its said big noses and long fingers
indicate stess has turned on certain genes

i speculate the mutilation of boys at the 8 day stage
of their being ..also turns on cetain genes..

we are not so much ruled by genes..as much as limited in our action[or rather reaction]..that stimulates them ..*into affect..[or non affect..according as to lifes events[for good or ill each has their fruits]

its said we are like the beasts
only as much as..the same god created us all
we and the beasts are moderated by our limitations
was can only be what our genetic inheritance..allows us to be

yet we are still more than genes
to think genes is to stop thinking
to feel all is explained..

but yet if you dont know fully why
/how the genes do their thing..you got nothing

just like any simple answer
the truth is far more complex
than any would chose it to be..had one a choice

but we dont have that chosing
one size dont fit all

if you think you got the only answer's
chances are you dont got the right question's

i refuse to be sure
even on that...

i just know that which i personally know
and dare not guess on how much i never can know

i got enough troubles with that
i do know true..to bother about rebutting that i know to be faulse..we may claim to have an instinct..to 'create[invent/imaginate or delude]

but creation is beyond instinct
if it cant be made real
its all in ya mind

Forgive "me", Yabby, but I believe I have a more up to date understanding of the topic and its relations than you do.
I stand by my comment above: "I dislike and disagree with the propensity, in many disciplines, to explain away human behaviour as ancient baggage. It's such a convenient rationale, with no empirical evidence to back it up; it's just so damned intuitive it must be right.. Wrong!"
Considering science is so proud of its analytic method, it's rather a glaring and a priori leap of faith to automatically assign human behaviour to entirely material causes. Of course according to the lights of our day, we "automatically" rule out quasi or even meta physical possibilities, or at least we dismiss them as religious hangovers or wishful thinking. The physical reality we put such faith in, after all, is mere finite "form".
I'd remind you too, David, that Humanism is itself an anthropocentric and hubristic doctrine.
The fact is that after decades of trying, scientists still can't explain the mind-body problem in purely materialistic terms, and now in their desperation they are turning to more exotic, actually archaic, possibilities--pre-eminently, dualisms.
I don't often read analytic philosophers--a forbidding breed that for my money puts too much faith in the ability both to infer and transcribe their findings.
But as I say, they're learning modesty.
I'm currently reading "The Waning of Materialism", whose 23 eminent authors explore other possibilities. One offers "emergent dualism, which affirms that a mental 'substance' emerges, under suitable conditions, from a functioning brain and nervous system" as the explanation "for the role of the physical organism in generating consciousness, as well as the distinctively 'mental' character of consciousness".
Another even has an explanation for human transcendental consciousness contra other animals. Another says other animals too project this sort of ectoplasmic consciousness. Another actually revisits Thomism and defends Aquinas' proposition of a soul!
These are hard-bitten analytic philosophers mind you! The fact is, they still haven't got beyond Kant.
I cleave to my ignorance.

*Considering science is so proud of its analytic method, it's rather a glaring and a priori leap of faith to automatically assign human behaviour to entirely material causes*

I think it makes perfect sense, Squeers. The world is full of dreamers.
The way that I understand it, its up to those people
to show evidence that their claims are more then dreams or flawed
thinking. The larger the claim, the more evidence required, fair
enough.

If there is another law of physics that we don't know about, so
show it and win the nobel prize.

But there are no ghosts in the machine and until somebody can
prove that there are, materialism is what we have.

One cannot prove a negative, its up to claimants to prove their
claims, not up to science to try to do so.

But don't expect to be taken seriously, until you do actually have
some evidence for your claims.

Yabby,

If you ever took the time to look beneath the surface, you'd realise that human experience is defined by more than conscious associations.

There is a bridge between the material world and its meaning to us. It is found in the patterns and harmonies that we instinctively recognise around us.

It's our perception that rules our lives.

Materiality is not a static notion, but one that transcends its solidity by imbuing our consciousness with symbols and geometry which in turn infuses our minds with meaning.

You can't separate the material world from the metaphysical meaning that we glean from it.

Yabby,
it may suit your purposes to label me a dreamer, but I most certainly am not. Perhaps before you get too cosy in your belief system you should familiarise yourself with the various contradictions that make a mockery of humanity's attempts to achieve a theory of everything.
Until we do achieve that, scepticism is the correct view to take. To which I add the rider that this material reality is indeed the one that ought to be our prima facie concern.
I don't care whether I'm taken seriously or not. I will continue to dig beneath the surfaces that appear to satisfy you.
I make no claims, btw. If you want to look at the new book, "The Waning of Materialism", limited previews are available through Google. You might then like to take issue with the authors--once you have a glimmering of the issues that is.

*It's our perception that rules our lives.*

It certainly does and those perceptions could well be flawed.
People read all sorts of strange meanings, into all sorts of
thngs. Some of us simply can't be bothered.

Squeers, spend your time navel gazing, if it makes you happy
and you feel that your time is well spent, millions have in the
past and millions have also jumped to the wrong conclusions.

Let me know when you discover something of substance, for which
there is solid evidence, for then it might matter.

I am one of those people who simply accept that when it comes
to some things, I know that I don't know, and given the lack of
evidence, it would be a waste of time to spend my life speculating.

So I get on with understanding what we do know and where we do have
some evidence. That mountain is so large, that I will never know
it all, but there is enough there to keep me busy for life
and to understand the world that we live in, a little better then
those who know little but speculation and navel gazing.

If you are going to be a skeptic, you should be skeptical of
philosophical dreaming as well.

have submitted this as a new topic

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/bang.php

the first few parragraphs
of...'THE "BIG BANG"
IS JUST RELIGION DISGUISED AS SCIENCE'

it pretty much figures in
with what the current astate of debate here/now..is
[but dont be destracted]

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was this guy named Aristotle. Pretty sharp fellow; he thought up a lot of good things. But, occasionally he made a mistake.

One mistake he made was to toss an orange up in the air and watch it come straight back down to his hand. Aristotle reasoned that if he was moving, the orange would have flown off to one side as soon as it left his hand.

Because the orange did not do so,
Aristotle concluded he was not moving.

*On the basis of this one observed fact, and the assumption that there was no other explanation for what he observed, Aristotle concluded that the Earth does not move and that therefore the rest of the universe had to move around it.

Aristotle was a very sharp guy, but the fact is that there was another explanation for why the orange fell back into his hand,

and it would wait about another 2000 years
before another smart man, Sir Isaac Newton,
explained just what it was Aristotle had overlooked,
and set forth in ...*Newton's laws of motion.

end quote
one must not judge too hastely
too much 'creativity'..and you could just get

a new tax
built on delusion
[but thats another topic]...too

im reminded of an advert i just saw on tv
for glen20 poisen-spray

the advert has astrong imagry
saying BACTERIA are everywhere

or something like 'everything is full of bacteria"

then in the next breath..
GLENSTWENTY kills 99.998%
of all *GERMS...!

from omnipresent/bacteria
to killing omnipotant/germs

that is the type of spin...that gets
under your concentrated attention span
generated by convoluted creative in-stinked

that's
the creative spin
*that gets in

I think I would have to acknowledge the probable truth in your wolf analogy david f, and progress report.

I was referring to our corralling, more than the nature of beast we are.

Civil liberties have been eroded in the last 100 yrs. I think this is counter progressive.
I think we would be a lot more advanced in our thinking, had we not done this, in the last 100 yrs.

And as for genes, you could use my own family as a case study on that one.

Thinker 2 and David f,

If it's a matter of following the herd - that's what people do.
It is very difficult, from a psychological perspective, to go against the tide of accepted practice.

For instance, when I decided to homeschool, I found that it took me considerable effort to come to terms with the fact that it was possible for me to do it. I was prepared for a barrage of criticism from friends and family (which didn't eventuate).

Who was it that said that humans can't handle the concept of freedom?

I think it was on The Matrix Ms Detective

Yabby,

Right on. Navel gazing should be banned. Or only done in private. navel gazers like squeers go on about the 'unexamined life' thinking, like 'thinker' that they are the only thinkers. They are more special than the masses. It's very narcisistic. Self absorbed people who cant get past their own mortality, and cant baaaare to aaccept they're common as mutton.

They poo too you know. But they need to look in the bowl, where you and I just know there's a load of turds in there. Or a computer simulation of turds. I lean towards the Matrix way of things. But the difference is I don't think it matters. Whatever makes one happy, just that I don't think I've ever seen a happy nave gazer.

There's nothing clever about being 'deep' and tortured', nomatter how it attracts teenaged girls or how much everyone loves Greg House.

Poirot,

'It is very difficult, from a psychological perspective, to go against the tide of accepted practice.'

It's more difficult from a practical perspective. I bet you would be very upset if peole started jumpin on someone else's train....

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won't leave any trace
It's always the same
You're jumping someone else's train

It won't take you long
To learn the new smile
You'll have to adapt
Or you'll be out of style
It's always the same
You're jumping someone else's train

If you pick up on it quick
You can say you were there
Again and again and again
You're jumping someone else's train

It's the latest wave
That you've been craving for
The old ideal
Was getting such a bore
Now you're back in line
Going not quite quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone's happy
They're finally all the same
'cause everyone's jumping
Everyone else's train

Robert Smith.

Poirot secretly fears common people will home school and it will not be as impressive a dinner party topic:-)

Hee, hee, Houellie - you think you can read me - but you can't.

Because I lament bogan sensibilities, you think I'm a "dinner party" type.

Because I can string a few words together, you've got me pegged at a certain echelon of society.

Well I'm out here somewhere, but I doubt if you could accurately categorize me...but, by all means, keep trying.

("...how can you say I go about things the wrong way....")

You misread me poirot. I anticipate what you would least like to be characterised as.

Well it doesn't matter then - your anticipations are no concern of mine.

No it doesn't matter.

Nothing matters.

A lot goes on but nothing happens.

The needle turns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before.

It's a luscious mix of words and tricks
That let us bet when we know we should fold

Hold your glass up, hold it in
Never betray the way you've always known it is.

All these squawking birds won't quit.
Building nothing, laying bricks.

Don't think about all the things you fear.
Just be glad to be here.

its like jesus said
its about sorting ya sheep..from ya goat

its about sorting the wheat..from the tares
some are so bleedingly obviously different..that the sorting is easy
others can only be decided/defined by fine thinking..or at harvest time

see we are/mostly..like we think
of course even the most certain
can certainly be delusional

but we live[even think
we have 'lived']and then many even think we die

but we are energy being..in the beginning gods-energy created us
in the present gods/love-energy..sustains us to live
at the end
the energy we all thought ourselves to be..goes back to god

of course there is energy
that thinks it alone..knows truth
creates its reality..within that truth
and there are other energies..based in faul-city

there are dark/energies
and light/energies
good/bad..etc

but all energy
has its beginning
and ending with and in god[good]
but energy is eternal..it can change state..
*be creative..*or destructive

but its still the flow
of energy flowing here and there
to and fro..here goes the energy of my words
..my thoughts..wrought by works..into words..to rest/who knows where

it could be good..or sad
that we all dont know

yet that we do know is vast
yet that we dont know..is more..[ever more

the more we are ,..the more..
less of us know
a given..or percieved truth..or faulsity

its thought by some
that in=spiration comes from within
[let then have their miss-belief]

know the truth is in-spiration comes in
via the in-flow..in-flux..of like/seeking like

that which follows the sorting
of the goats from the sheep
the tares from the wheat
the good from the bad
the light from the dark

once like en-joines/with the influx/..inflow of like
the love-song..comes to the lover becomes a lover
the murder mystry..to the hater

peace to the peacefull
and eternal war..to the worrier
so war-ry no more.. and do not worry

you essentially are energy..

and energy cannot be destroyed
so waste no energy..on the energy you wasted
use the energy you still have..to bring the changes

*for the better
[time to end this letter]

Houellie,

Notwithstanding your penchant for relieving yourself upon the well-laid tables of pretension, I wonder why you denigrate anyone who questions the status quo - navel gazers and narcissists, no less.

When I was in my teens, I was watching Dallas and Great Temptation - I was reading the latest potboilers. Then one day I picked up a book by Tolstoy - I used to read it in my car at lunchtimes while I ate a burger.
So one book led to another book and another and so on and so on....

Some of us meander away from the prescribed course and in doing so are exposed to other minds from other times. We learn things and slowly imperceptibly are changed...we start to look at things differently.
But it doesn't mean that we lose the perspective of our mortality or our human condition - in fact, it brings it into sharper relief,

I find it fascinating that you and Yabby waste no time in putting the boot into anyone who dares to suggest an alternative to Western thinking, anyone who is being creative in their vision.

*I find it fascinating that you and Yabby waste no time in putting the boot into anyone who dares to suggest an alternative to Western thinking, anyone who is being creative in their vision.*

Poirot, I find it fascinating that you should expect me to have
double standards. Feel free to criticise and question our system,
I certainly do. But apply the same standard of critique to
your own ponderings of an alternate system, as you do to the
one that we presently have. The one we have has clearly evolved
into what it is for some good reasons.

So all I am doing is applying yours and Squeers standards of
critique to what you write and lo and behold, then you are
amazed.

Believe me, you are not the first to think that they are special,
because they ponder about the world and have read books. I call
them the fairy flock.

As a teenager, I lived for a couple of years in Paris and would
listen to philosophers on the banks of the Seine, spout their
stuff. At that age I was still impressionable.

Hundreds of thousands of educated people were attracted to the
old Bhagwhan as they searched for meaning and he preached his
philosophies. They showered him with Rolls Royces and all the
sex he could handle. Its a profitable business to impress the
impressionable.

Yabby,

I always appreciate your input (and Houellie's too) - after all, I'm here to try and learn something...so it's all grist to the mill.

Dear Poirot,

In the last few years - books that used to be the purview of only dedicated spiritual seekers now hit the bestseller lists and stay there for weeks and months.

As the philosopher Schopenhauer once wrote, "Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed. In the second, it is opposed. In the third, it is regarded as self-evident."

Some people still linger between ridicule and opposition, but millions throughout the world are beginning to regard as self-evident principles of ancient spiritual wisdom. There is so much hatred in the world that people are turning to spiritual ideas looking for answers. Embracing cold, technical, mechanistic reasoning (not that those are embraceable things) and suppressing their most essential strengths: passion, intuition, ideas, many people find no longer satisfying. Many people are no longer prepared to give up their hearts to the illusionary fruits of the material world. They find that a life without heart is a life without its life force. Like Chinese women who bound their feet and then could no longer walk freely, some people feel that having bound their hearts, they have stunted their growth as moral beings. And perhaps therein - lies the hope for mankind - and the antidote against global hatred.

Lexi,

On those three stages of Schopenhauer's: as Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Sometimes a ridiculous idea is just that. How do we know the difference between 'one of Schopenhauer's' and 'one of Freud's' ? We test them. We see if they are refutable, or falsifiable:

* If they can't be falsified or tested, then we quite properly put them aside: they are not part of 'knowledge', only of metaphysics, surmising, 'what-if'.

* If they can be tested and are found to hold up, then we move into Schopenhauer's second and third stages.

* If they can be tested and are found wanting, we reject them.

That's modern, post-Enlightenment, 'Western' knowledge, or epistemology, how we go about knowing, what counts as valid knowledge. If some ancient notion can stand up to that process, then it can be incorporated into 'modern' knowledge. If not, then it may not count as knowledge - opinion maybe, perspective, point of view, outlook, part of one's ideology - but not knowledge :)

Joe

Hi Joe,

My reference was to Western materialism versus spirituality. As we give up our collective enslavement to the dictates of Western materialism, we relinquish the increasingly primitive belief that the world outside remains unaffected by our thoughts. We've begun to recognise that our individual minds create our collective realities, and we're ready to take responsibility for the world by taking more seriously our individual contributions to it. Personal transformation can and does have global effects.

As I've written in the past - I don't have all the answers to the big questions in life. I'm still on my own road to discovery. I find that the more I learn, the more I realise how little I know. But everything is relative, everything has its story, and everyone has obstacles to overcome. They are our greatest teachers. Each of us goes through transitions and transformations. The important thing is that we acknowledge and learn from them. If someone asks me what makes me happiest, it's never anything I can quantify like a possession or something I can touch. It's the spirit of the human being, which can fill me with more joy than anything in the world. I have met some amazing souls who have truly inspired me.

Digby Wolfe wrote the following for a TV Special:

"Here's to the kids who are different;
the kids who don't always get A's,
the kids who have ears twice the size of their
peers', or names that go on for days.
Here's to the kids who are different,
the kids who are just out of step,
the kids they all tease, who have cuts on their knees
and whose sneakers are constantly wet.
Here's to the kids who are different,
the kids with a mischievous streak,
for when they have grown,
as history has shown,
it's their difference that makes them unique."

Hi Lexi,

Digby Wolfe - I haven't heard his name for nearly fifty years.

Yes, we are all different in some way, there are no two people who are exactly the same - but we are all similar in the sense that we all have - or should have - equal rights, equal access to opportunities and happiness and fulfilment, whether we are male or female, Black or White.

I reckon you would love Sheri Tepper's "Gate to Women's Country". Intricately clever :)

Joe

Lexi, we can easily bog ourselves down in semantics here.
There are many definitions of materialism.

So let me sum it up this way. The mind is, what the brain does.
There is no supernatural input that we know of or can show to
exist.

The heart is little more then a pump. But yes, Egyptians seemingly
thought that it all happened in the heart, the brain was a mere
cooling system. We have moved on from there, even if you are not
aware of it :)

Emotion and reason and are not mutually exclusive. Yes, the
emotionally engulfed exist, they wear their hearts on their sleeves.
But you are moving ahead mentally, if you learn to think about
what you feel and why. The balance between the two matters, even
if not to you personally. Its not about black and white, as you
seem to imply.

As a librarian you should know all this, Goleman covered it pretty
well in his "Emotional Intelligence"

Fact is, the world is a far kinder place, then is used to be, so
things are getting better, not worse.

Just today the ABC screened a documentary about justice, in the
last thousand years. William the Conquerer used to castrate and
blind people. The Vatican used to have heretics burned at the
stake. In fact, we don't do slavery any more, we accept human
rights as a reality, we communicate more then ever before in
global terms. I put it to you that hatred is decreasing, not
increasing, as you claim.

Yabby,

Considering you're so "well-read", you seem to possess a particularly narrow view of the world, and human experience outside of the Western model - apart from the fact that you've noted that there are too many people in some countries.

"The world is a far kinder place than it used to be"...here again, it depends on where you happen to reside. Slavery and injustice go on as they ever did...rich countries exploit poor nations as they ever did....but the West is ever snug and "kind" in its excess.

I always thought Shelley's poem "Ozymandias" was an accurate take on the arrogance and assuredness of those who fail to grasp the impermanence of an exalted position:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stampt on these lifeless things,
The hand that mockt them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

its funny how someone can look into the brain
just like one can look into a portable radio
and say its all comming from within

its funny how there are so many quotes
from others creations..how our mind is clutterd with others thoughts

im not judging if they were right or wrong
the one thing in common is they have all moved on
[and dont be petty here]..if they arnt dead all ready they all soon will be

and them the battery goes dead
the tranny radio station ..is heard no more
yes the station may well yet be on air..but the radio reciever.. recieves its reception no more

man kind is so clever
it says life came from non life
yet cant do it ..cant repeat what he calls an accident
yet deneys gods hand in it

it says a mind has/makes the thought/..created it
yet the thought in the mind lives on without the mind
this time in a book perhaps..or another recording device

but the energy that created the first signal
..[the broadcasting station..if you will]..
no one in reality knows
[or if it does claim to know ..cant replicte]
thus is just a speculation

the input
the in-spiration
the residual influx[source]
the mind recieved [percieved]

what revieved the concept ..the thought..
the song
the emoted feeling

cant be proved to be its own creation
[this is clearly revealed with every new invention]

that came from somewhere
it wasnt from within..
it wasnt wrote by rote on the book of ya mind

the in-spiration came from somwhere
but not from within..

unless you can explain..in full
egsactly...*how

see the interconnected neurons
each a memory intact..and mainly egsact
where from...came the new thought..?

[error's in per-ception/re-ception]
..or ac-ception of actual fact

im fine..with ya all ignoring me
but please dont reply..by avoidance

it aint half obvious

anyhow my thoughts
broadcast widely upon this thread..are now gone
only the echo..

of the thoughts..
behind the words
lives on

OUG,

Chopra says that everything is energy and information at quantum mechanical levels - and that our physical body is more of "a wiggle, a wave, a fluctuation..." in the larger quantum field....and that we are not merely a bodily entity that has occasional spiritual experiences, but a spiritual entity that has occasional bodily experiences.

"anyhow my thoughts
broadcast widely on this thread
are now gone
only the echo"

...like throwing a stone into a pond....

I've read every comment of yours on this thread - so the ripple goes on....

Poirot,

'I wonder why you denigrate anyone who questions the status quo - navel gazers and narcissists, no less.'

That's a bit of as misrepresentation. My position is that everyone questions the status quo, it's only some who

a) Think they are right (for everyone) (ie Foxy's 'slaves')
b) Assume to speak for 'mankind'
c) Think they are somehow 'different', read 'better' that the average Joe.

'Some of us meander away from the prescribed course '

What is the 'prescribed course'. Has it ever occurred to you you are rebelling against thin air. Maybe the 'prescribed' course is in your mind in the first place.

Anyway, by your own admission, your 'alternative' ideas and 'creative vision' and 'difference' is attained by reading books. So they aren't YOUR ideas at all. You're just on a band wagon.

Granted, you choose to home school. That's a step further than your average bandwagoner and I already gave you kudos for that.

See, the bandwagon lot are part of the Western Evil Consumerist Materialism Plot. They're just the 'niche' market, to be marketed to via ego just as much as the guy who only wears Nike.

'I call them the fairy flock.' Knuckles Yabby:-)

Houellie,

The "prescribed course" is the one that is most accessible in any society. The one that appears when you switch on the telly or read newspapers or magazines, or grab the latest bestseller or talk on the bus.
It's the conveyor belt that glides you along a preordained route. It's the guided tour as opposed to the eclectic ramble.

What is it with you and Yabby - that if anyone has an alternative opinion, all of a sudden they are "speaking for mankind" or thinking they are "right"?

Not so....perhaps their spirit is a little more non-conformist and liberated than that of the "levellers" and the "botherers" who can't abide it when someone raises their head above the parapet.

I presume your opinions on OLO are your version of "right" (always a subjective value judgment, that one.)

here are my latest stones
trying to track down the basics opf creating form
from its cause [the spirit realm]

i began with some basic words
into a search engine..[lets call the act of searching]
looking for a noun
rather than an ajective

so here i have the basic key notes

my music+
shaping tonal/affect
into form

http://www.google.com/search?q=music+shaping+tonal+affect+into+form&shva=1

the first search result ..seemed of intrest
seemed interesting
but i moved on

removed the limitator noun of 'music'

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=shaping+tonality+into+form&btnG=Search&aq=o&aqi=&aql=&oq=

again only one search result
seemed of intrest

so i added the noun 'spirit'

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=shaping+tonality+of+spirit+into+form&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

here are the most interesting results from the first two pages

http://www.newgnosis.co.uk/qr.html
http://www.healingrelease.com/toning.htm
http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0265051700007233

http://ilincabernea.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/hernri-focillon-the-phenomenology-of-shape-and-aesthetical-empathy/

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/g/guardian_spirit.html

http://www.thenewyoga.org/mantra.htm
http://www.shapingthyspirit.com/mqd_inward_journey.html
http://www.healingtaousa.com/pdf/dao_inner_alchemy.pdf
http://www.thriverightnow.com/shaping-thy-spirit-soulwork.html

anyhow
thats it for me
this is as far as my creative 'instinct' took it
now it becomes hard work..from here on

the instinct worked by setting up a resonation
that interacted with like resonations
setting up a field of interferance

a spirituawl ossilation
that if focused may result in form
[a concept]..from an idea..so far i have done little

others wrote it
i just took note of it

anyhow i will work backwards
[the first link shall be last]

it wont be a mass production
it will be hard to find other simular minds to link up with
not impossable..but each will have its own points of intrest
that disjoint the mind meld

those who enjoy the unity
of common thought and purpose..are lucky

more lucky than many
would or could relise..

anyhow cheers

the dreamer is again dreaming
[just as tony is raving on
in parlement]..on the radio

ahhh reality..lol
it just keeps on giving
go on tony give it too her..nbn be dammed go for the imagration center
its the last sitting for 6 weeks..play into it mate..get into the tax

you beauty
darn you juliar

Houlley you are good at a bit of navel gazing yourself making a national sport of picking at the edges of what anyone else has to say. It is too simplistic to reduce any discussion or opinion as "speaking for mankind".

We don't live in a bubble, and while it is possible to live outside the prescribed course to some extent (the prescribed course can be relatively wide depending in which country one resides), it is naive to think that there are not some constraints.

Largely the important stuff at the domestic level can be ignored until it has an impact on (for example) energy bills or speak to the Japanese citizens about how failure by big corps to adhere to nuclear safety standards will have a massive impact on their lives. Tell them that the prescribed course of unaccountability is in "their mind".

What happens when some of this big stuff of which people mostly do not have much control, starts to impede into one's personal space.

We can do nothing (which is what we all usually do) other than vent spleens on OLO or we can do something, similar to the spirit of Wikileaks or other organisations that seek accountability and for others who push for more participatory democracy.

Fact is Houlley participation is voluntary, it always has been.

What do we mean when we speak
of feeling 'uplifted'..with joy,
or 'weighed down'..by sadness..
of being 'radiant'..with enthusiasm or..in a 'dark' mood?

What do we mean when we speak of someone..emanating 'warmth'
or being 'cold'..towards us?

Are we simply using 'metaphors'
to describe disembodied mental..or emotional states?

Or are we in fact describing fundamental qualities of awareness itself -its own intrinsic qualities..of lightness and heaviness, light and darkness, warmth and coolness...{upon the id..[you/me]..}

More importantly,what body..is it with which we feel 'closer' or more 'distant' to someone -independently of the physical distance?

What body are we referring to..when we speak of being touched by someone..without any physical contact,..of moving 'closer' to them or 'distancing'..*ourselves from them?

What body are we referring to
when we speak of someone being 'warm-hearted'
or 'cold', 'thick-skinned' or 'thin-skinned', 'balanced' or 'imbalanced', 'solid' or 'mercurial', 'stable' or 'volatile'?

Are these phrases..merely emotional metaphors
derived from motions in physical space,..from our physical anatomy and from elemental states of matter?

Or do they in fact..describe basic motions and elemental states of awareness, motions belonging to an inner body of awareness -a 'soul body' with its own inner anatomy?..{E-motions]

No more important question can be asked
if we wish to understand the true nature of the soul or psyche,
{id]..and with it, the true nature of bodyhood as such.

No more important question can be asked if we wish the 'science' of psychology to live up to its name...Today the very term 'psychology' has become a contradiction in terms.

For this supposedly 'scientific' psychology..is a 'psychology' which, paradoxically, has absolutely no place for the soul or psyche -

which it either identifies with a disembodied 'mind'
or reduces to a by-product of the brain and body functions.

It will require a revolution in human thinking to shed the myth, still endlessly recycled in new forms,..that awareness is simply a by-product of our brains,

*an instrument by which we perceive other bodies,
or the medium through which we become conscious of our own bodies...

http://www.newgnosis.co.uk/qr.html

ok..thats the best so far

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

No argument from me on a fair go for people. If we can divert unprecedented energy and resources to the real problems that face us, including poverty, disease, overpopulation, injustice, oppression, and the devastation of our natural environment we will be able to enhance the life on the bright and lovely planet on which billions of us share our adventure.

Dear Yabby,

The only thing that guarantees freedom is our commitment to it. That commitment must include our capacity to love each other as human beings, to remember we are brothers/sisters on this planet. Without a spiritual basis, every system disintegrates. We mustn't think that our nation is immune to the viruses that destroy nations, any more than any of us are immune to the flu if it's coming through town.
Many of the things that most of us were brought up to think "could never happen here," have already begun to happen. Dangerous scapegoating, violent hate crimes, small-minded intolerance. Without personal commitment to the attributes of fair play and integrity, our country is in grave danger. Of course that's only my opinion - as I wrote previously - that things that make me happy are not posessions.
I believe that Mankind has come to a major crossroads, at which the spirit alone can lead us toward human survival. But enough said.

'As we give up our collective enslavement to the dictates of Western materialism,...'

Just one in a sea
Of the collective royal we.

Sorry, I just don't feel dictated to, or a slave to anything. Now, the popular retort to you lot would be 'you're blind', but that's exactly my point.

Poirot,

Just because one takes the path of least resistance doesn't, *doesn't* mean they haven't been exposed to other options or had the opportunity to take them. It may just be, now this is radical now, that they LIKE that path.

Certainly, I don't see those who read books and regurgitate the ideas as any more 'creative' or non-conformist. In fact, doing so with the ideal of being non-conformist is in itself conforming.

You can even take the idea back to feminism, since anti isn't here. The woman who enjoys cooking and caring for children, and admits it and spends her life that way is less of a conformist than the idealistic feminist who sees these activities as a nod to The Grand Evil Patriarchy, and so rejects anyone who does enjoy it as a slave to such.

Basing your life on a knee jerk reaction to an ideology is being more of a slave to that ideology than those who take what they like, reject what they don't, and get on with their lives, secure in the knowledge that everyone is different, and all paths are valid.

'Not so....perhaps their spirit is a little more non-conformist and liberated than that of the "levellers" and the "botherers" who can't abide it when someone raises their head above the parapet.'

Ah, so admit you feel you are 'above' the parapet. All seeing all knowing, a little bit smarter than the 'sheeple'.

Are you really liberated? I think the truly liberated person is the one who doesn't feel they need to be liberated from anything. Maybe you're looking to be liberated from yourself, and your guilt at being influenced by marketing or something, but it is folly to project that onto me.

I LOVE my big screen TV.

Poirot, if you're quoting Choprah, then IMHO you are simply on
the fairy flock treadmill, like millions of others.

This is what happened when Dawkins interviewed Choprah about
quantum physics.

http://www.science20.com/cool-links/richard_dawkins_lets_deepak_chopra_take_down_himself

All credit to Choprah for turning being a guru for the rich, into
an extremely profitable industry. I gather he worked for the Yogi
himself once, so would have had a great teacher about human
gullibility.

Houellie,

You're the one that keeps trying to label me as someone who thinks they are a cut above the rest.
It's not about being "above" anything - it's about being aware of the options that are available.
I'm not necessarily doing an "Adrian Mole". Intellectuality is all very well, as far as it goes, but it can only take you so far.

I've loved being a mum and caring for my kids.I like cooking and gardening and all the stuff that goes with "home". I breastfed my last for yonks - simply because that's the way it worked out - no planning, it just happened that way. (no doubt, you'll accuse me next of trying to be some mother goddess).

You're the one who wants to make me out as a person who thinks they're superior.
It's your thing - not mine.
Like Pelican said, we all have to work out the way that suits us best individually from within the constraints around us.

*That commitment must include our capacity to love each other as human beings, to remember we are brothers/sisters on this planet. Without a spiritual basis, every system disintegrates.*

Lexi, your Kumbayah philosophies are all very sweet, but all this
stuff is in fact quite predicatable, no need for gurus, just
tune in to a few David Attenborough documentaries to understand it.

We are not above the laws of nature, but kid yourself otherwise.

If the crunch came, you wouild follow the same laws of nature.
First would come defence of your kids, plus the rest of your
family. You would look after their surival above all else, to
the death.

So you can see us a bit like that fat and contented pack of lions.
There is plenty for all and they all get along just fine, relying
on each other for company, amusement and resource provision.
They even schmooze with one another, mainly its males squabbling
with one another, to see who gets the sex.

Its only when the resources start to run low, animals start dying
and it all changes, to be about survival.

Human society is no different really. The veneer is thin, the
Kumbaya is great and no doubt fills the hearts of many. But
when the crap hits the fan, its back to survival of the fittest.

We are generous and caring, when we can afford to be. Evolutionary
psychology has done this stuff to death.

Houllie, I love my big screen tv too! But I bought an LED.
It was my electrician who pointed out that it only uses 140W
of power. Most likely that would be less then the old one which
Poirot drags out to watch the odd show.

I actually find it amusing that Poirot's ilk love reading books
and take it all as gospel, but if the same information is on tv,
then its frowned on. Real intellectual snobbery IMHO.

Okey Houellie and Yabby,

The game is obviously up...

You two come across as a pair of smart-arsed know-it-all adolescent schoolboys each clamouring to take the top mantle of working-class hero. (that's me being superior)

Obviously you're both harbouring a secret crush on me - but that's understandable, after all... (that's me being superior AND egotistical).

Sorry though, I have to decline as neither of you come up to scratch. (that's me being superior, egotistical and choosy).

(P.S. I'm thrilled that you love your big screen T.V., Houellie, - I hope you'll both be very happy together.)

i resent the resentment
the rebutting of an inherant goodness
[re the kumbeya comment]

i have seen many nature documentries
and while they occasionally show murder
ie meat/eaters killing to eat..it mostly is not a cruelty

a snake may bite..then wrap arround its next meal
but its holding firmly...killing fast and sure
ditto the lion holding the windpipe of its future kill
its fast and as clean as possable..

[not of spite or intent to hurt]

humans even in their most civilised best do their best
yet prolong suffering..in being kind they often prevent others from dying fast..

many long deaths are reported..
long painfull prolonged deaths

[often doped to the eyeballs
so much so that many spirits remain unaware they even died]

its to easy to rationalise us as civilised
and nature as survival of the fittest

but watch how even the most cruel 'beast'
loves and nurtures its young

or stays loyal to its mate

it might be 'creative'
to use creative licence

but its hardly constructive
to say our way is better

when that is only opinion at best

even a kitten ..accidentally killing its first mouse
mourns it...actually misses its plaything
it didnt have murder in its heart

*Obviously you're both harbouring a secret crush on me*

I doubt it, Poirot, for if I really wanted to chat you up,
I would be telling you how wonderful and clever you are,
boost your confidence and tell you all the schmalz that you
want to hear. It works like a charm most times.

Sadly you don't even own a car, so could not even come to the
wheatbelt to seduce me, even if you chose to :)

To me you come across as a typical new ager. If you
were any older, the Rashneeshees would have been your calling.
Because you've done a bit of reading, you're sure that you
are on the path to discover the so called enlightenend truth.

So some kind of snob value sets in, you consider yourself
above the bogans who don't homeschool or watch tv regularly.

Personally I feel a bit sorry for the kids of mums who swear
by homeschoooling. I went to school to be with my mates,
home was simply where the washing was done and the food was
provided. I would have hated a doting mother who wanted
to teach me as well, denying me all that contact with
friends, some of whom I still in contact with, to this day.

But doting mothers generally don't examine things from
that kind of perspective.

Dear Yabby,

Our physical adaptations and the behavioral flexibility offered by our huge and complex brains have made us the most creative species in the planet's history. "Homo sapiens" have spread to every continent, frequently driving other animal species to extinction in the process. We have become the most widely dispersed species on the planet,yet always finding some specialized means of living in these widely differing environments.

What accounts for this unprecedented success that our species has enjoyed thus far? The answer in a word - is culture.

We make our own social environment, inventing and sharing the patterns of behaviour that shape our lives, and we use our learned knowledge to modify the natural environment. Our shared culture is what makes social life possible. Without a culture transmitted from the past, each new generation would have to solve the most elementary problems of human existence over again. It would be obliged to devise a family system, to invent a language, to discover fire, to create the wheel, and so on.

Clearly, the contents of culture cannot be genetically transmitted. There is no gene that tells us to believe in a particular god (or not), to get married (or not), to drive on the right or left, to build homes, or to write computer programs. Everything in culture is
learned.

Culture is a substitute for "instinct" as a means of responding to the environment, and it provides a vastly superior way of doing so. Culture frees us from reliance on the slow, random, accidental process of physical evolution by offering us a purposive and efficient means of adapting to changing conditions. If we waited for natural selection to enable us to live at the North Pole, to fly, or to live under the sea, we would wait forever. Cultural inventions enable us to be insulated from the cold of the arctic, to travel through air, and to live in submarines - all without any recourse to physical evolution. The emergence of a species that depends for its survival on a learned culture is perhaps the greatest breakthrough in evolutionary history.

*"Homo sapiens" have spread to every continent, frequently driving other animal species to extinction in the process*

Absolutaly Lexi. Rather then homo sapiens, we should have been
labelled as homo destructor. If anyone is going to completely stuff
the planet and make it uninhabitable for mammals, we will. Ok,
fair enough.

*The answer in a word - is culture.*

Hang on Lexi, you are showing your suburban, anthropocentric side
here, perhaps you don't know any better.

Do you really think that other species don't teach their young
how to find food, how to make tools, how to behave, how to survive?

Think again, or better still, look up somebody like Frans de Waal
at work, to learn about the culture practised by other primate
species, etc. Even my dumb old sheep, teach their young what to
eat, what to drink, when to drink and eat it. They are just plain
old herbivores.

*Culture is a substitute for "instinct"*

Culture is not a subsititute for instinct, the two are intertwined.
You didn't land up pregnant with a husband and kids because of
culture, instinct played its role, whether you were aware of it
or not. Those motherly feelings are not cultural, they are genetic.

Humans indeed developed a larger brain as a way to compete for
resources with other species. As the Japanese are fast finding
out, its also large enough to stuff the planet eventually, given
our lack of good judgement or need to learn by pain.

Yabby,

Well it was a joke : )

I wouldn't really expect a couple of young whippersnappers like yourselves to aspire to someone of my superior status.
After all, it's quite a responsibility being a doting motherly New Age snob - I'm quite shocked actually, that I haven't noticed it before. The rot must have set in when we tossed out the white bread.

No doubt you picture me in flowing dresses, dripping and rattling with beaded trinkets, candles ablaze and incense wafting with the strains of sitar music in the background.

I know you and Houellie both consider yourselves very clever and insightful, but you're both so far off the mark, it's entertaining.

Btw,I notice that for someone fond of calling others "snob" that you dish out quite a nice line of condescension yourself,(as was admirably demonstrated in your last reply to Lexi) - you should watch that you know, you're prone to that.

Anyway, all in all, top marks for creativity...

'The rot must have set in when we tossed out the white bread.'

That was a good one:-) I'm enjoying this new spirit from POirot.

'You two come across as a pair of smart-arsed know-it-all adolescent schoolboys each clamouring to take the top mantle of working-class hero.'

That's spot on really! I do enjoy championing the working classes, knocking the ABC, Clive Hamilton, tree-changers, sea-changers. Any middle-class pretence, particularly of the baby boomer lot, I'm there to knock it down! I read the Herald letters section just to be outraged by the 'beggars belief' 'de rigueur' Cate Blanchett worshipping Abbott Haters.

Reverse snobbery tickles my fancy.

I hand the mantle to Yabby though, I'm as middle class as they come! I enjoy knocking the Bogans 'Crack open a coldie!', Yea-nah, Bundie rum and tram stamps. ThingsBogansLike is my second favourite site after The Onion.

I'm a social chameleon. I am equally at home taking the piss out of both crowds. I put Poirot in the crowd that makes her protest too much:-)

'No doubt you picture me in flowing dresses, dripping and rattling with beaded trinkets, candles ablaze and incense wafting with the strains of sitar music in the background.'

That's how I used to picture Fractelle! Exactly.

PS: I only own 1 modestly sized 32 inch TV in the house (I don't like a TV dominate my lounge), and my viewing habits consist solely of Cricket, Rugby, House MD, Rake, The Street, Outnumbered, and the occasional reluctant viewing of Better Homes than Yours, Hi-5, Play School and Charlie and Lola (Which I secretly LOVE). My secret shame is I'm one of those people who doesn't watch commercial TV. I only saw one election advertisement though so it has it's rewards.

Houellie,

"...and Charlie and Lola (Which I secretly LOVE)".

Maybe there is hope for us...I used to like that one too. In fact, I'm lamenting not being able to watch all those "little kid" shows now that my son is older.

I do watch telly sometimes, although haven't watched commercial telly for yonks....and I only saw one advert at election time too.

have you an inner sounding of your name?
im trying to make your name 'heard'.. in my mind

trying to sound out poirot
im not happy with the sound poi
followed by sound rot..[it just dosnt fit my mental image of you]

i cant hear the sound poir
except maybe as purr..and the ot as in begot
in the end it might be the sound picture of your name
equates to that of that detective perreau

why am, i sounding your name in my mind?

i just read this

""Letters and words are not only symbols.
They also have a sound.

Words can be considered not just as composites
but as bodies of sound. Like words, bodies are also sounds.

They are bodies of sound
–not audible sounds
but inner soul sounds.



Any thought, unspoken, has an inner sound.
True ‘thinking’ is impossible unless we can clearly hear the mental words of our unspoken thoughts with our inner ear, and fully feel their inner sense..or resonance within our bodies.""

why does this seem nessesary?

""The physical body organism..is the ‘word become flesh’.
It is the embodiment of an inner language
of soul sounds and soul tones.""

extracted from

http://www.thenewyoga.org/mantra.htm

there is a lot of gibberish
but some real gold ammoung the tares

i should sort them more properly
link them to other links i posted re the after life

but hesitate to come
between two lovers

[too much mass
for true creative production]

have you noticed..you only consciously recall..
things you actually recall hearing..or consiously set about reading

[if the dont form a mind/picture
the mind cant see it

what it cant see
[ie hasnt been consiously seen/heard felt..

re-cognised...
em-bodied co-nsciously..within]

it cant recall..
in fact never real-ised
[made real within]

yeah i know
why bother!

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to contribute here, but have enjoyed reading it.
I confess to a secret love of the Toy Story films and Shreck one and two, which, having littlies for the last 15 years, I've seen uncounted times.
I sympathise with Houellebecq's grinchly qualities but his cynicism isn't serious, ergo it isn't cynicism, it's the grumpy old man thing.

Would love to talk more about materialism apropos the intangibles Lexi's been on about. Much more interesting than the sterile subservience to the pseudo-intellectual, cheap-materialistic order Yabby appears to worship.
Unfortunately, I have to deny myself the pleasure of lobbing grenades on this occasion :-(

how is this for
unlocking the creative?

Unpaid jobs:
The new normal?

While businesses are generally wary of the risks of using unpaid labor, companies that have used free workers say it can pay off when done right.

By Katherine Reynolds Lewis,

FORTUNE -- With nearly 14 million unemployed workers in America, many have gotten so desperate that they're willing to work for free. While some businesses are wary of the legal risks and supervision such an arrangement might require, companies that have used free workers say it can pay off when done right.

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative,*"

says Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist, a Toronto and New York-based startup that provides Web-based interior design services. "From a cost savings perspective, to get something off the ground, it's huge. Especially if you're a small business."

In the last three years, Fallis has used
about 50 unpaid interns for duties in marketing, editorial, advertising, sales, account management and public relations.

She's convinced it's the wave of the future in human resources. "Ten years from now, this is going to be the norm," she says.

Why do people work for free?

read her creative reply here
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/25/unpaid-jobs-the-new-normal/

for mine its make them feel bad
call them bludgers etc

use peer presure
to create slaves

from wage-slave
to welfare/slave

creative thinking
eh whot?

wait till it becomes a mass deduction production

live in food camps
work in the lields
sleep in the barn

avoid thinking too much
about how come everyting is so cheap

*No doubt you picture me in flowing dresses, dripping and rattling with beaded trinkets, candles ablaze and incense wafting with the strains of sitar music in the background*

Nope, not at all Poirot. More like around the change of life
age, in jeans, little or no make up, in a country cottage
around Bridgetown or similar.

Poirot
H and Y are good at the odd stir up but seem like good blokes, just don't give them any ammunition. :)

Still think Yabby needs to go on 'Farmer Wants a Wife' speaking of voyeuristic TV shows. C'mon Yabs what about it? Or will we see you cooking up a mean roast lamb on Masterchef?

Lexi,

Thanks for your input on this thread - I seem to have become a little sidetracked entertaining the boys: )

Speaking of our cultural heritage - Yabby says that other species teach their young - and, of course, that is true, but what other species are capable of the level of manipulation that homo sapiens sapiens habitually undertakes?

Our neo-cortex has pushed us far beyond merely instinctual behaviour and yet instinctual behaviour remains intrinsic to our behaviour.

Perhaps as we have advanced to our present level, there has arisen an incompatibility between our instinctual and our intellectual endeavours - Keostler likened the human condition to one of a horse and rider without any connection between them.

Squeers,

Toy Story is wonderful - and my other favourite by Pixar was Monsters Inc - they do it so well.

OUG

Your example may have worked in a close-knit inclusive community that nurtures and values all its members - not a fair system in the modern paradigm.

(You seem to have homed in on an "R" sounding word.)

Yabby

Close...though not spot-on....but enough to get you a pass mark :)

Dear Yabby,

The idea that we do not have instincts is difficult for some people to accept, because it seems to run contrary to
"common sense." One reason for the difficulty is that the word "instinct" is often used very loosely in ordinary speech.

People talk about "instinctively" stepping on the brake or "instinctively" mistrusting someone, when these actions and attitudes are in fact, culturally learned. Another reason is that much of our learned behaviour is so taken for granted that it becomes
"second nature," to us. The behaviour seems so "natural" that we lose the awareness that it is learned, not inherited.

We do have some genetically determined types of behaviour, of course, but these are simple "reflexes" - involuntary muscular responses, such as starting at an unexpected loud noise, throwing out our arms when we lose our balance, pulling back our hand when it touches a hot surface. We also have a few inborn, basic drives - organic urges that need satisfaction, such as our desires for self preservation, for food and drink, for sex, and perhaps for the company of other people.

But the way we satisfy these drives is learned through cultural experience. Most people, of course learn to fulfill their drives in the way their culture tells them to. But we're not programmed to satisfy them in any particular way. If we were, we would all fulfill our drives in a rigid, identical manner. In fact, unlike all other species, we can even override our drives completely. We can ignore the drive for self-preservation by committing suicide or by risking our lives for others. Protestors can ignore the drive for food and go on hunger strikes, even if it means starvation. People can live out their lives in celibacy. Hermits can override the drive for human contact and so on. One of the most liberating aspects of the sociological perspective is that it strips away myths about our social behaviour, showing whar seems "natural" or "instinctive" as usually nothing more than a cultural product of a specific human society at a particular moment in history.

Dear Poirot,

Thank You for this thread. I'm enjoying it very much. You've kept all of us greatly entertained. The inputs have all been very interesting. BTW - I also loved Toy Story and Monsters Inc.
And, just a bit off subject here - did you every see the film,
"The Last Station," starring Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as Tolstoy's wife - Sofia? I think you'd enjoy it - it's available for rental on DVD.

*Close...though not spot-on....but enough to get you a pass mark :)*

Fair enough, Poirot. I was not too sure about the armpits :)

Indeed we are a manipulative species, but not the only one. We
simply have the ability to think more. That's why I've enjoyed
reading about primatology, its a leveller. It makes you realise
that humans are not as special as they think they are. In my
experience, the less people know about other primates, the more
they think that we are special.

Neuroscience is interesting, because it deals with this
think/feel conflict and how the brain deals with it. It puzzled
me that I could feel one thing and think another, about the same
topic. So I set out to understand that a bit better.

*C'mon Yabs what about it?*

Pelican, you voyeur you! I think I told you, first you have to
do the Miss January spread in the OLO nudie calender for charity :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oMmLWdKz70

There your go Lexi, the power of human instinct!

Of course learning to drive is learned, but instinct protects you.
To understand it, learn about the role of the amygala. You see
danger, your heart beats faster and your react, long before you
think. Joseph LeDoux did some great work on all this and its well
published.

Lexi, humans are not the only ones who can be trained to think
a certain way, at certain times. Even my sheep dogs are trained
to leave the stock alone, unless ordered otherwise. So they
chase rabbits or parrots to keep themselves amused. But lurking
beneath all that good behaviour lies their instinct. My dogs
would never starve, they are related to wolves after all.

I remember reading of doting mothers who were going to change the world,
by giving their boys dolls to play with. They were horrified
when they turned them into soldiers.

So my point remains. You can train people to believe all sorts of
things, but invariably their natural instincts will surface,
especially in times of survival of themselves and those close to
them.

Some years ago, there was a woman in my social circle, who had
no kids, as agreed with her partner and kept reminding us, how great
they had it, 2 Dinks doing so well. One day, totally unexpectedly
to everyone including her partner, she ran off with what was close
to a stranger. The reason? The instinctive urge to have kids.
What she thought and felt were in conflict. That is why its such
an interesting topic.

Yabby,

It's useful to ponder the differences and similarities between humans and other apes. One of the things that sets us apart is our ability and opportunity to ruminate - to contemplate our condition.

The contemporary philosopher Ortega Y Gasset wrote this in his tract "The Self and the Other":

"But the ape is so like ourselves that it invites us to pursue the comparison, to discover more concrete and more fertile differences.

If we are to remain still for a time in passive contemplation of the simian scene, one of its characteristics will presently, and as if spontaneously, become dominant and strike us like a flash of lightening. And this is that the infernal little beasts are constantly on the alert, perpetually uneasy, looking and listening for all the signals that reach them from their surroundings, intent upon their environment as if they feared some constant peril in it.... The creature, in short, lives in perpetual fear of the world.....it is the objects and events in its surroundings which govern the animal's life, which pull it and push it about like a marionette.
....Observe that this marvellous faculty which man possesses of temporarily freeing himself from his slavery to things implies two very different powers: one, his ability to ignore the world for a greater or less time without fatal risk; the other, his having somewhere to take his stand, to be, when he has virtually left the world..... a "within", an "intus, the inwardness of man, his "self", which is principally made up of ideas."

Food for thought.

*And this is that the infernal little beasts are constantly on the alert, perpetually uneasy, looking and listening for all the signals that reach them from their surroundings *

Poirot, that was clearly written by a philosopher and not an
observant primatologist, for it's not the case.

Yes, it applies to some primate species in some conditions, but
depends on environment and species. Species which happen to
be lunch for eagles, chimps, etc, are very much on the alert.
But take a species like the bonobo, where there are no threats
around, not much worries them and they are relaxed as any
philosopher. They are also our closest relative in terms of
dna.

Humans too, are not that relaxed, when their life is threatened.

Dear Yabby,

I would recommend that you re-read my previous post and make a note of
things like simple reflexes, basic drives and so on - as opposed to
instincts.

Our behaviour is a product of an interaction between our basic biological heritage and the learning experiences of the particular culture in which we happen to live. For example, we have the biological capacity to speak, but which language we use and how we use it depends on our environment. We have the biological capacity to laugh, to cry, to blush, to become angry, but the circumstances under which we might do any of these things are learned. Nature provides us with legs, but we are not obliged to use them only for walking. We can use them to kick a ball, ride a bicycle, dance, cover with pants, or sit cross-legged while contemplating.

Most modern psychologists agree that human beings do not have "instincts," sorry if I'm repeating myself here. An "instinct"
is a behaviour pattern with three essential features: it is complex, it is unlearned, and it appears in all normal members of the species under identical conditions. For example, all members of some bird or insect species will build complex nests of exactly the same type, even if they have never seen such nests built before, as soon as the nesting season begins. Any instincts we once had, however, have been
lost in the course of our evolution.

Yabby, you need to do more reading. The higher the animal, the more it can learn and the less it depends on instinct. Fish behave more by instinct than do birds, and birds perform more instinctive actions than do mammals. Animals that can learn only a little so their survival depends on built-in-behaviour patterns. But in human beings most of their behaviour is learned.

Yabby,

It was fairly plain in meaning that what Ortega was alluding to is that man's ability to manipulate his environment and tame the wilderness (to a greater or lesser extent) furnishes him with advantage in the form of extended relaxation from the perils of nature.

Of course he reacts with fright, flight or aggression when he is threatened - that is instinctual.

Lexi,

Thanks for the movie tip - sounds good. Will look it up.

Lexi,

I have to disagree with you on that one.
Man, I believe, relies to a great extent on instinct.

Language, it would appear, is an instinct. As Steven Pinker writes in his book, "The Language Instinct", there are stone- age peoples in the world but there are no stone-age languages. The tribesman with his spear in his hand speaks a language every bit as sophisticated as the man who carries his briefcase into the office.

Look at a three year-old children and marvel at their language skills - they instinctively know the grammar (not the usual grammar) of language. In a sentence, they intuitively understand where the principles and parameters of phrase structure in a sentence.

Try and get hold of Pinker's book (in the orange Penguins). I think you'll find it fascinating.

It's a shame I haven't got the editing instinct : )

The second last paragraph should read:

Look at three year-old children and marvel at their language skills - they instinctively know the grammar of language (not the usual grammar we learn in school).
They intuitively understand the principles and parameters of phrase structure in a sentence.

*Yabby, you need to do more reading*

Lol Lexi. I will agree that when it comes to reading pop
psychologists preaching Kumbaya outcomes, you would be way
ahead of me. It was similar psychologists who made rash
and false claims about the Tabula Raza theory. But when
it comes to how the human brain functions and how the brains
of other species function, I'd most likely be years ahead of
you.

But I'm not seeking anthropocentric solutions as you are.
I read your first bit again, its full of holes.

Perhaps we can bog ourselves down in semantics here, but
when I refer to instinct, I refer to the genetic input of
human behaviour. Nope, its not the same for all of one species,
because we don't have identical dna.

What % is genetic, will always be argued about, roughly half
is commonly accepted as not far from the mark.

Humans have a complex endocrine system for instance and every
thought, every feeling, every action that you undertake, is
affected by that complex brain chemistry. You are not going
to wish it away by learning. Genes matter and are part of
every action that you undertake.

The Vatican has tried for 2000 years to keep its priests
celibate, they have failed miserably. Gays remain gays, no
matter how much they are taught.

But I grant you, the pop psychologists with their own agenda
preach that by mere education you can change the world and
that love will solve it all. Perhaps they should go back
and study some basic biology.

BTW Poirot, if you dust off your tv and tune in to SBS at 7.30
WA time, like tonight, pretty soon, there will be a programme
about anxiety.

As it happens, we'd be one of the most anxious species on the
planet, for we are the only one to have to invent religions,
to give us perceived certainty.

According to the programme, its a major problem, with something
like 15% of population suffering from anxiety disorders in any
one year.

So perhaps we should be relabeled as the anxious species,
despite all that protection from nature.

yabby quote..""when I refer to instinct,..
I refer to the genetic input of human behaviour."'

that might sound explanitory
but is far from inclusive or conclusive

genes arnt as simple as you got them
and thus you got what the genes is presumed to do

importantly genes NEED to be switched on
need stimulation to generate its rna instructionms
..needs the receptors to accept and proces..[the rna]

needs apropriate stimulation
instinct cant wait till the genes switch on
it needs be instant

instinct is much missunderstood
[we are being too clever by half claiming genes as any form of accurate answer]

a bird sitting in a nest for 8 weeks
will have felt tasted smelt it intimatly
thus
will instictivly seek the same comfort level
the origonal particular parental nest supplied..

it will seek to achieve the same comfort
[by hit or miss method]..till it works..
till it atracts the right mate or whatever]

""its not the same for all of one species,
because we don't have identical dna.""

dna has little to do with it
its environment ,maturity and life events
that ultimatly stimulates a gene into activation...

""What % is genetic, will always be argued about, roughly half
is commonly accepted as not far from the mark.""

any evidence?

""Humans have a complex endocrine system
and every thought, every feeling, every action that you undertake, is
affected by that complex brain chemistry.''

AND DETERMINES IF A GENE GETS ACTIVATED
OR NOT..[damm cap loc]

but season determines much
[think of apple 'season'..or mating season]

environment determines much more
[the right mate food nest material]

even coral
spawning at the right moment of moon-rise

without all that being right
the genes dont matter a damm

""You are not going
to wish it away by learning.""

you cant avoid everything having its season
[cause/affect]

""Genes matter and are part of
every action that you undertake.""

not as much as your trying to make others believe
genes determine your breed /species/sex/type[gene-otype]

but instinct is mostly..learned/earned..
[the hardway]because..it worked ...the last time

Yabby,

My televisual therapy is coming along nicely - I watched two programs last night : )

Regarding the one on "anxiety" - it seemed to me that all the people who spoke were anxious about their interactions with other humans.
The seat of their anxiety seemed be how they were perceived by their fellows, how they would be judged and how they valued themselves - self worth.

It's interesting that when natural threats are removed (to a great extent) that human anxiety then becomes fixated on alternative (perceived) threats.

The program following it was interesting - he went down 2 kms into the ocean in that sub - and there was abundant "life".

OUG

The definition of an instinct is that it that it demonstrates behaviours or responses that are unlearned.
A baby crying and its urge to suck is instinctual
Our penchant for fatty foods is instinctual. Our ancestors knew that it was beneficial to lay down fat as it gave them a better chance of survival - our common rejection of bitter tasting food is instinctual.
Even gambling is tied to our instinct for risk taking.

I think a lot of instinctual behaviours are obscured by our advanced state of development.

Dear Yabby abd Poirot,

I suppose I should have made things clearer. My apologies. All animals perform both instinctive and learned actions. Instinct almost completely determines the behaviour of insects, spiders, and crustaceans (crabs, lobsters). These animals can learn only a little and so their survival depends on built-in beaviour patterns. Higher animals, including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, can learn more. They can also modify their instinctive behaviour by learning.

The higher the animal, the more it can learn and the less it depends on instinct. Fish behave more by instinct than do birds, and birds perform more instinctive actions than do mammals. Among human beings, infants smile and suck instinctively. But as human beings grow older, most of their acts are learned.

Poirot - Thanks again for this thread. It's been interesting. I had fun but I now feel it's run its course for me.

Yabby - I've enjoyed our robust discussion. You certainly are a challenge, but an interesting one and I agree with Poirot - you should go on "A Farmer Wants A Wife." You deserve to find your perfect match. She's out there somewhere.

Actually this debate reminds me of one that I once had with an
anthropologist, about the definition of culture. His take was that
it entails the things that humans learn from their community etc.

When I then questioned what he called the things that chimpanzees
learn from their community, he claimed it could not be called
culture, as they were not human! Pfffft.

Poirot, glad to hear that you enjoyed that programme, I watched it
a bit earlier on the satelite and found it interesting.

I think tv is simply about picking what to watch. I hated history
at school, as it was a mindless learning of names and dates, mostly
they were meaningless. But watching things like the advent of
the industrial revolution and other history programmes on tv, where
they actually showed places, machines, canals, engines and how it
all came together, I was fascinated and relearned the whole thing.

purerot./.quote..""instinct is that it
demonstrates behaviours or responses that are unlearned.
A baby crying and its urge to suck is instinctual""

i might agree with one but not the other
i havnt studied the crying 'instinct'
but have seen how it can be modified

i have studied the feeding 'instinct'
again what comes to mind is show me the gene
but yabby dosnt seem keen to expand on his theory

anyhow back to the feeding from the mammery glands
for the mother its clearly not instinctive
and as a male..yet having the required nipples
and testing the ..'its naturally instinct..theory'..

found on actually trying it..[naturally]..it isnt natural nor instinct..though i credit[blame] trying..on a natural instinct to confirm or satisfy curiosity or just learn

anyhow on study of the matriarchal instinct
i noted the baby might reflex and again may not
it did consistantly 'learn' to suckle..in the end

im sure a specialised topic would confirm my findings
[again i need ask by what 'gene']

you say
""Our penchant for fatty foods is instinctual.""

ok your penchant?
but no i must lack the required 'gene'
i hate fat..

[but agree it might be an aquired or learned habbit]
what with all the propaganda and guilt..in the media etc

""our common rejection of bitter tasting food is instinctual.""

yet others love it..
[im thinking it might be more learned/aquired habbit

if your mother [genetuical or adoptive]..makes it..
you love it..

or starve]

i hate burning my mouth
thus hate hot foods

*must be my genes
[ie mum never cooked with it]

of course if you got mex-i-can genes
you must love it..if you dont got mex-i-cant genes..you dont

''Even gambling is tied to our instinct for risk taking''

so your with yabby
i can see you pair in the woumb
making bets with each other,,[who will come put first]
who will swipe the docter..or wet the nurse.

anyhow your defending the yabby
thats so nice

must be genetical
its certainly not heriticall

anyhow
i note others are leaving

heard this bit of 'creativity' last night
1000 at risk of getting mammery cancer
by taking tamoxocilan..

can prevent 40 from getting it
[the creative bit
was leaving out..how many still got it]

or how many died from bleeding-clots 6/1000
and woumb cancer[4/1000]..just two of its known side affects]

the other creative bit
leaving out how many still got it
plus
taking the..normal quantities
out of..the studies numbers

its all creative accounting
afterall all you got to do is beat doing nuthing
[placebo affect]

OUG,

"anyhow your defending the yabby
that's so nice"

hmmm....so I'm not allowed to have thoughts of my own?

Our society these days provides the opportunity to eat fatty foods at the drop of a hat.
However, our ancestors only had occasional access to fatty foods, existing as they did on a diet of berries, nuts , fish, etc. When a beast was hunted and killed, they had an opportunity to eat some fat, and they seized it with relish.

The bitter taste of many foods is associated with toxic properties.

Babies crying at a louder sustained pitch avails them of a more rapid response from their caregivers.

Women possess mammary glands in order to nourish their infant offspring - we can only imagine how instinctive it was for our female ancestors to feed their babies this way.

ok they are your own thoughts
i didnt mean to imply they were not

they were put up to expand on a previous concept
that i regard as being too simplistic

its easy to say its genes..when its parenting
my kids are good..because i got good/genes
but yours are bad..because you got bad/genes..[so to speak]

its like saying
we cant help..what you are
you just got..the wrong/genes

but it was just luckey
one had good parenting
and the other hasnt

[the fruit cant fall far from the tree]
a child raised with apes will be more ape than human

but lets reply quotes...""When a beast was hunted and killed,they had an opportunity to eat some fat,and they seized it with relish.""

hunger will do..this sort of thing

in civil society this extreem hunger
now is mainly seen with sex crimes

""The bitter taste of many foods
is associated with toxic properties""

and unripe fruit
but recall as a child being tOLD by a parent....
dont do this..dont eat that...because etc etc

""Babies crying at a louder sustained pitch
avails them of a more rapid response from their caregivers.""

yes its a learned action
that can be unlearned,..when they find it no longer 'works'

i recall it was more imagined judgment of the neighbours
that got me out of a warm bed..to check on a crying child
[ok i never said i was a good parent]

""Women possess mammary glands
in order to nourish their infant offspring""

so woman would have us believe
dont you know how good they feel
to the inner child we know all men to be

""we can only imagine how instinctive it was""
somehow i see eve sitting[hiding]in a cave
the cry threatening to awake adam
surrounded with wild beasts
mainly meat-eaters

thinking
how can i stop the noise
from awakening that beast beside me

[lets face it
it stopped adams griping]

its hard to talk [or cry or whine]
with a full mouth..[i must not try to be so creative]

it works

for most of the people
most of the time

OUG,

I "don't" think that everything that eventuates pertaining to the human condition is down to only the genes.
Every facet of our interaction with each other and our planet affects our behaviours and responses.

Perhaps a baby who ceases to cry because it is repeatedly ignored has "unlearned" its instinctual behaviour. After all, the instinct to cry kicks-in in anticipation of a reciprocal instinctive response from its carer. In this case, a lack of response, would warp the baby's instinctual behaviour.
These things happened in Rumania when they practised putting orphans in institutions without adequate interaction and attention to their needs - the children withdrew and appeared to be significantly psychologically damaged.

Regarding breastfeeding - you are right. I demand-fed both of my children - and for me it was the easiest thing in the world. Especially in the middle of the night as their was no messing with teats and bottles.
They cry, they are changed, they are fed. They are also close to their parent"s body - warmth, heartbeat - everything they need.

UOG, as usual I can't make head or tail of your posts, so I won't
bother to try to reply.

Poirot, smart lady that you are, this is how I envisage you
playing backgammon :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEvwxLsNAtI

.

Ha ha!

(You've been peeping over my fence)

I like Squeers earlier, haven't had time to contribute to this post, but have read with interest a most stimulating discussion.

I think it true to say that there is such a thing as genetic disposition, contained within the complex human organism.

Mass production has largely removed the necessity for innovation, rather than contributed to it, and those with a propensity for it, find themselves doing something else, and therefore it is possible that we may have damaged the creative instinct, or at least learnt less than we would have liked from our modern life.

Where do we go from here ?. That is the question. How do we fix it ?.

My theory is that when we are considering creativity, we need to take a new look at individual civil liberties. We apply this with capitalism not part of the equation. And we allow our natural innovators innovate, with an open mind, giving consideration to all things.

quote the adverts..""
Behavioural Testing
Find out how candidates will behave
so you can hire & keep the best....""

and figure out who will
cop your abuse in silence

"Potty Train a Dog Quick" ]
Your Dog Will Never Pee or Poop Inside.
System Works in 6 Days!""

we can overide gene's
as well as instinct

im reminded of the time i saw a dog doing a poop
and asked nanny why

oh thats instinkt child

i asked my mummy mummy what is instinct]
mummy says thats all through ya genes

so i asked daddy why the in stink was in my jeans
and he sad thats the way jeans go

so i asked god..why do parents use such big words
that pretend to say so much..yet explain so little

he said litle man..thats instinct..i asked god what is instinct
and god said thats when you ask too many questions from those who dont really know..its a genetric default setting..designed to make you stop asking questions

so i now dont ask
i know by instinct
they will end up blaming genes
mainly because so few know how genes work
or even comprehend that having a gene and switching it on
are two differnt things

gee what wont genes do
baffle em with spin

the genes is the excuse for those feeling
instinct just dont reply the question..this time

basic thing is
they dont know the how or why
so its genes or instinct..[when mostly its by chance..learned or habitual]

but as long as the question stops
thats all thats needed
for now

thinker 2,

Innovation is the process by which man seeks to advantage himself by improving a situation or a process. In the case of the modern world, innovation is often employed to speed up production and take the creative process out of individual hands (more product - more profit).

Probably the most significant example of innovation pertaining to Western development was the advent of spinning and weaving machinery at the dawn of the Industrial revolution. The mills were, without doubt, an innovation - one that usurped the hands-on cottage spinning and weaving industries in the most absolute manner.. Whole populations were driven to live in urban conglomerations to service this "industry" which led to entirely new way of living.

So innovation is a product of man's ingenuity and creativity.
Over the eons it has elevated him in stuttering steps to the position he now enjoys on the planet. It provides modern man with much that is positive and makes life a more comfortable proposition than the one lived by his ancestors - yet, it often robs him of his own agency to "create" using simple methods and materials.

Just bang your clubs on the ground and grab your female by the hair, (with care of course:) ) then slam the door on your caves, and wait for the next evolutionary jump..........for biting off too much that our tiny brains have not evolved to excepted the fact that our kind is the wrong kind.LOL. I cant wait to see the end of the Mass Productions of mankind with the Creative Instincts that's not much higher than a chimpanzee lol...after all, they are our mirror image of what we think we shouldn't be:)

I wonder what happens when we do eventually cover our-selves over everything on this small and fragile planet? and who do we blame when it does? As for the females of our species that care more for their off-spring, dont worry.....we have evolved enough to have the problem solved.......DAY CARE CENTRES:) I can see them asking the questions right now....ARE YOU MY MUMMY?

LEAP:)

Hello LEAP (BLU?),

Well, yes, humans have a penchant for covering the earth with concrete and bitumen - and daycare centres are what we sacrifice our infants to in the name of endless growth.

Yabby,

Just in passing....it's interesting how the genders approach each other in a discussion.

You put up your "entertaining" video - all in fun, I know - gave me a laugh, but was mainly gender-specific in its frivolity.

I also note that that earlier in this thread I (apparently) adopted a strategy where I attempted to verbally emasculate you by turning you into a "schoolboy" and giving you "marks".

I wonder if these sorts of subliminal strategies are instinctive or learned interactions between the genders - or do you think I'm being too analytical?

Poirot, I'm commonly criticised for being too analytical, but
you must be worse then me :)

I just saw both as good humour and nothing more. But then I
commonly see the funny side of lots of things where others sometimes
don't, which gets me into all sorts of trouble.

Personally I think its important that we don't take ourselves so
seriously, that we sometimes can't laugh at our own foibles.

Poirot and Yabby,

Being analytical is a trait that most people admire and its a skill not everyone has. However be careful not to overdo. After all there's a reason that "anal" is part of the word. :-)

(BLU?),.....No Iam quite happy thanks:)LOL

LEAP:)

*After all there's a reason that "anal" is part of the word. :-)*

Ah, there are two ways to look at that one, Lexi. I actually
quite like women with a cute arse :)

But I take your point. Let's say I chatted up Poirot. Chances
are that she'd be there analysing everything, rather then lying
back to enjoy the moment.

Perhaps that's another good reason why we men need a good stock
of red wine handy :)

.

Poirot

"Just in passing....it's interesting how the genders approach each other in a discussion." I thought you would of got the chimp joke, but never mind:) but just to stop you from having aneurysm, the post was one of a neutral but thought provoking satire with a humorous climax with NO particular intent and placed in a non-productive non-assertive way:)

Iam afraid Mr yabby is right, and one of OUG,s links seems to very true with the over-analysing of everything, and females are the number one instigators of the breaches of the verbal Morality code not only in the domestic dwelling but in the classroom as it is here.

But then again....OUG motives on most things comes under the conspiracies flag of truth.......So YEAH:) try and relax....and no red wine:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZJoCfgAEuE&feature=player_detailpage

Have a great day.

LEAP

Well....having analysed all of your responses, I've come to the conclusion that I'm inclined to be a tad over-analytical.

I'm considering embarking on a strict regime of commercial telly (and red wine) - that should cure it : )

Dear Yabby,

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.

Poirot, I think you could be right about BLU, even if he won't admit
it.

As for the rest, just be yourself, as you feel content. If others
don't like it, well too bad.

Personally I think its just how the genes panned out at conception.
Even as a little kid, I was always asking why, driving mommy
nuts.

Mind you, when she lists my bad points, I remind her that it is
all her fault. I was an innocent little tadpole, swimming along
minding my own business :)

Oh lexi, tis,tis,tis,..and Poirot, I mean...how much more blood were you going to drain out of this thread? Great read, No doubt about it, and Yabby...Ive been 10 dif I,D,s since:)( "to delete and start again is not against the rules") Have you all noticed, that I come in at the end of posts? Remember! all work and No play make for dried up old fools:) Oh and lexi.....I used to be an assistant self-defence instructor, and I kid you not:)See lexi, all humans bleed, hurt, and die just the same as I do, so whats there to fear? Be nice! Your one of the greats here.

I will try not to bother you all too much in the future.

LEAP

On creativity, I have often found myself in a similar position to ( I think) James Thurber (or was it Huxley?) when he said -words to the effect of:
The hardest thing about being a writer is convincing my wife that, when I am seated in my most comfortable chair, drawing ruminatively on my favourite pipe and staring vacantly through the window, that I am actually working very very hard.
On the question of 'instinct', the single word which unites all life on Earth is "more". From uni cellular animals endlessly busy to the famous goat/sheep/cow with it's head stuck in the fence, to the pensioner or dole recipient who can 'almost get it together; just another $10 or $20, and why do people need to earn 12 million dollars a year? Why don't they just retire after a month?
Of course the mega rich movie stars and producers can blame their muse; it's their creativity which drives them on...
Sci Fi writer Clifford Simak, many years ago proposed an experiment; giving a colony of ants everything it needed so the colony had maximum leisure time. After a while, smoke started coming out of the tiny chimneys...
I fear people today have less and less time to be creative.

Grim,

Less time and less inclination....

I include the following just to give an idea of the sorts of creative industry that used to go on in homes before the advent of the Industrial Revolution (and before everyone jumps down my throat - I don't expect us to return to this type of set-up anytime soon. It's just a look back into the past).

Lord Ernle wrote in "English Farm, Past and Present":

(in cottages)..."Women spun and wove wool into course cloth, and hemp or nettles into linen; men tanned their own leather. The rough tools required for the cultivation of the soil, and the household utensils needed for the comfort of daily life were made at home. In the long winter evenings, farmers and their sons and their servants carved the wooden spoons, the platters, and the beechen bowls...They plaited the osiers and reeds into baskets and into "weeles" for catching fish; they fixed handles to scythes, rakes and other tools...shaped the teeth for rakes and harrows from ash and willow, and hardened them in the fire; cut out the wooden shovels for casting the corn in the granary, fashioned ox-yokes and bows, forks, racks and rack staves; twisted willows into scythe-cradles.....Meanwhile, the women plaited straw or reed for neck collars, stitched and stuffed sheepskin bags for cart-saddles, peeled rushes for wicks and made candles. Thread was often made from nettles. Spinning wheels, distaff and needles were never idle. Home-made cloth and linen supplied all wants. Flaxen linen for board cloths, sheets, shirts, smocks or shirts and towels, as the napkins were called..."

These people are now often thought of as unskilled and ignorant - we are the ones who would be helpless without our support network of technology.

WOW! I bet you all feel warm and fuzzy inside:) Dont worry.....the mirror will be there in the morning:)

LEAP:)

True enough Poirot, I recall my mother's hands were rarely still; even watching TV she would knit or crochet.
I think another angle of the creativity puzzle may be education. While I am a strong advocate of education (I believe everyone on social security benefits should earn their pay, through education) there is some truth in the adage: those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
Education is -in the areas of craft, at least- in a sense showing people how to do things parrot fashion, that a creative person did naturally; although of course there are empirical gains to be made -by the more creative ones.
Does our society encourage creativity, or stifle creativity for the sake of uniformity?
It seems only in the field of information technology are mavericks just starting to be appreciated. Certainly climate change sceptics claim the process of peer review seems (to their eyes) to keep climate scientists in line.

Wow Grim you've mentioned one of my favourite Science fiction writers in Clifford Simak. His title Way Station sums up the relative position of human existence in the general scheme of things rather well.

An open mind is a basic requirement in creativity. My own personel understanding of the creative process is limited to the artistic level. If only I had more time. Supplying the basics of life for my family has pretty much removed any opportunity I now have to access the neural passages that I have developed for the purpose of artistic innovation and creativity over the years. Genetic dispostion allowed me to discover that I possessed such neural passages early in life.

Even music appears to be a product of mass production with software available that does it for you. If I can draw an analogy, it is not unlike a child whom thinks that milk comes out of carton,,having no understanding of the cows input. Musical creativity is now supplied by software instead of from within the musician.The process now begins and ends for the most part externally.

Imagine if you will a peice of software that paints a masterpeice for you.

How long would it take before the capacity to create,disappeared altogether. 1 generation or 2, thats about all.

My bass player whom had his teeth kicked in milking cows this week has been made redundant by loops.(Pre-recorded snippets of someone else,s creativity). I am fearful for his sanity and his physical health, and his analogue talent for real time creativity(rare in humans),is no longer useful or utilised. Soon to disappear altogether I fear.

thinker 2,

There is a pervasive disconnection in the minds of Western man between the origins of produce and its relationship with the consumer.
David Suzuki tells the story of a Japanese teacher who was shocked to realise that her very young charges thought fish just appeared in a tray covered with plastic.

To be creative in times past was part and parcel of survival. It was natural in the sense that it was organic.
Children watched, helped and emulated their adult mentors and so the skill was learned and in time expanded upon.
They also felt a strong connection to the skills they were learning and to the people who were teaching them because those who were involved were connected in myriad ways to the same cycle of life.

Poirot, what your Lord Ernie was describing would have been very
much about necessity being the mother of invention.

Even now, go onto some more isolated farms in the WA backblocks and
you would be amazed what they make, right there in their farm
workshops etc.

To survive that kind of lifestyle, you have to be practical and
creative, or you won't make it.

Those who don't, are better off heading to the cities for a factory
or office job. Not much has changed in that regard.

Yabby,

I suppose that is the crux of Western development and advancement - the urbanization of the population.

People who don't need basic skills certainly don't go about cultivating them.

Poirot, yup I'd agree.

People in cities have a choice, many choose to have everything done
for them. But if you are in the backblocks of Hyden or Newdegate
and you break down, or need to solve something, you are forced
to do it yourself and in the process learn many skills.

You'll see that with many kids who have grown up on farms. Many
drive utes etc at 7 or 8, some can strip an engine or use a
welder, make something from wood or steel. They have learnt from
watching dad and probably have the aptitude, like he does.

City kids are more likely to be hanging out down at the shopping
centre, doing drugs or whatever.

Desmond Morris was correct, when he wrote the Human Zoo.

'City kids are more likely to be hanging out down at the shopping
centre, doing drugs or whatever. '

And WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT!

Oh Yabby, many a naive country kid has had the wool easily pulled over their eyes in the big smoke mate. There must be something missing in their 'education'. Street smarts for one.

Since you can claim all the city kids don't hot up their cars or open a twist top with their eye socket (Obviously you don't count Penriff as the city), I hereby claim all country kids are like Crocodile Dundee when they go to the city.

Easily led astray, struggle on escalators and bidets, cant handle their drugs, are rubbish on Grand Theft Auto, cant spot the hookers from the... well I suppose we all have trouble the way the chickadees dress these days:-)

They're just different Basic Skills Poirot.

Scamming free mobile phones by switching providers and selling the free phone on Ebay has replaced making quaint pots and standing around at the local fair for a whole day for someone to haggle you down to $15 for 3 hours work.

Making an android apps has replaced making tyre sculptures.

Shooting and gutting pigs has been replaced by learning where is best to buy good drugs and how much water to drink and when to take the second pill (or whether to double-drop to start with), what time you should go to bed based on the come-down cycle so you don't feel all irritated, trying your best to save a couple of lines to perk you up in the morning. These are all very useful skills.

Why do old people always yearn for the good ol' days. When 3 yr old kiddies were working in the mines, and 2 yr old kiddies were working next to the three year old kiddies....

Ah Houllie, you make some valid points. The rat race is the
perfect place for rats!

That's a good thing of course, for it keeps the rats out of
the countryside, they feel lost and lonely out there, so mostly
head back to the big smoke.

As to druge, if they only smoked the odd joint or dropped the
odd Ecky, it really wouldn't matter.

Its when they start to steal and sell off their parents possessions
to finance their smack habit, or tear at their skin in an ice
frenzy, as it fries their brain, that you face an awkward problem.
If its your kid when he/she grows up, well tough titties Houllie.
The rats won.

Valid points about new skills.
My oldest daughter is hopeless at mental arithmetic, but brilliant at filling out forms.
Unbelievably fast at texting too, come to think of it.
I wonder how long it will be before we can just speak to one of these phones, instead of all that tedious typing...

its all about creativity

[selling the dream
selling the spin
selling the delusion]

once you highjack peoples creativity
they loose all vision

give a dog a bad name
is only the beginning of the creative bit

its only a game
here is how one game changfing play was creativly done

step by step
a timeline

of how others creativity
got to stiffle yet others creativity

in the end the big payoff

ya just gotta admire the hutspa
but the goyum are so dumbed down..they dont even notice
wouldnt know the truth...if you played them the vidio proof

a production for the dumbm-asses
by those who think to rule the world

especially the creative bits of it
you just gotta admire the most clever guys in the room

all the riches of the world..
built upon feet of clay

the smallest shake and it all falls down
cause it was designed that way

http://jewishcrimenetwork.blogspot.com/p/israel-did-911-all-proof.html

more creativity

Holocaust,Hate Speech & Were the Germans so Stupid?

Suppressing free and open discussion on any subject is as bad as telling lies, and knowingly suppressing the truth is the biggest lie of all,because it is based,..not on a mistake or a genuine error,..but on a deliberate intention to deceive.

Having been tortured, Rudolf Höss,who was the commander of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943,..almost certainly lied to save the lives of his wife and children.

Even if torture and duress cannot not be proven,the overwhelming reason for recognizing the utter falsity of the Höss confession is that the gassing method..he described was not scientifically plausible.

Rudolf Höss's confession,extracted under torture,included descriptions of atrocities against Jews at Camp Walczak...This may have been Höss's means of sending a message,..because there was no Camp Walczak.

Or maybe the promoters of the official myth decided to create a fictional camp that nobody could locate,to forestall anyone being able to check the claimed facts of the story for themselves.
http://vimeo.com/21508099

Israel plans to resume assasination campaigns
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/9308.aspx
The Israeli army awaits the improvement of weather conditions to resume its assassinations operations targeted at leaders and activists affiliated with Hamas military wing.

In a report published by the Hebrew version of Ynet Monday, a military commentator,..Ron Bin Yeshay,said that the resumption of assassinations..comes in an effort to excursive deterrence in confronting Palestinian factions

Bin Yeshay,indicated that the decision to take these operations to the next level*..was made recently in a small ministerial meeting presided over by Benjamin Netanyahu.

Also at the meeting were leaders of Israel's security organs.

IF this report is true, "Excursive deterrence" obviously translates here into extrajudicial murder..on the part of the Israeli military.

These assassinations will be an attempt to goad the military wing of Hamas into further provocation,giving Israel the "excuse" for hammering Gaza yet again with a "Cast Lead 2.

And of course,the US leadership cannot possibly challenge Israel against such an action,..because the US has an extrajudicial assassination program of its own.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/9/obama_administration_us_forces_can_assassinate

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5911854258361448985#
http://members.beforeitsnews.com/story/536/471/Kucinich_says_Billions_Missing_Establishment_lying_us_into_war_again.html
http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=14499&title=5-8-million-israelis-get-100-billion-in-us-tax-dollars-while-american-states-are-falling-apart
more creativity
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/stealing-money-by-the-trillons/
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/eu-secretly-ups-cesium-safety-level-in-food-20-fold/

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5911854258361448985#
http://dailybail.com/home/is-ge-the-real-reason-paulson-panicked-in-the-aftermath-of-l.html