Barnett Weekly

What, exactly, are we looking for, and why is it everyone is always telling us what we need and what to do? Need a new car? Of course you do and BMW has the answer. For that matter, so do Ford, GM and Chrysler. Need new clothes? Foolish question; just ask Penney’s, Target, or Nordstroms, they know. Salvation something you require? Catholics, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Buddhists are all ready to tell you what you need to do right now…or else!

I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room flipping through some curled-up waiting room magazines the other day. One snappy, well-written article after another (ain’t it nice to read a good piece of writing?) tells me all the things I’m supposed to know and do:  how to feel, how to act, how to cook, how to dress; what to buy, what to sell, who to trust and who to suspect; when to spend, when to save, where to eat, where to shop, where to play; when to pray, when to love, when to hate and when to relax, and why all this is important. Truth, it seems, is all around us. Are we lucky or what?

OK, this is how I really feel: everybody’s selling too damn hard, and it makes me suspicious. More than suspicious, it makes me doubt the whole enchilada; nobody has an exclusive on truth. Now I’m not sayin’ I’m a cynic, I’m an optimist, really; I’m sayin’ that there’s so much crappola flying around it wears me out just listening to it. Opinions, arguments, opposing points of view, expert analysis, special offers, low interest, three easy payments…yada, yada, yada. It all leaves me cold. More often than not, if the TV’s on, the screen says “MUTE” in the corner.

Truth requires no sales pitch, no one-time offers, no special pricing and no zero interest. I believe truth is complete, truth is honest and pure. At heart, you see, I’m a purist. Take the sun, for example, it rises every day; no hype, no analysis, nobody has to sell me anything about sunrise. Or breathing, the air I just inhaled and exhaled; I’ll do that eight to 10 times a minute, 24/7, day after day. That’s truth, complete and simple; no credit needed. Or love; love is truth. And for that matter, so are anger, sadness, and another 84,000 emotions. Truth is basic and available, yet everybody’s working overtime selling their version of truth. It appears there are two possibilities: (1) We are so lacking in confidence and so shell-shocked by life we can’t decide what’s good for us and incessantly need to be told how to think and what to do, or (2) All these people who are selling truth are wasting billions of dollars on paying for good writing. Possibly, (1) and (2) are both correct.

So, here I am, yet another writer “telling it like it is” to yet another reader. If you follow my logic, you should never have even started this column. But, here you are nonetheless; I’ve remarkably, miraculously, unbelievably held your attention and I have absolutely nothing to sell. This makes me either (a) an honest man or (b) a damned fool or (c) possibly both. I leave that judgment to you.

As for truth, I suggest the following zero interest contemplation: “This statement is false.”

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Rush Limbaugh

“But words will never hurt me,” says the childhood aphorism, yet nothing could be further from the truth. Try yelling “oatmeal!” in crowded theater and watch nothing happen but annoyed stares and requests to please be quiet. Yell “fire!” and watch chaos erupt.

Words, in fact, can and do hurt; words are nearly magical incantations that immediately stimulate limbic system responses, powerful emotions and physiological effects. Used maliciously they can damage others and oneself. Rush Limbaugh for example, callously called a young woman who testified about insurance payments for contraception a “slut” and found himself at the center of an organized effort to punish his radio program advertisers. Thus it is that vicious words are a double-edged weapon that cuts in two directions.

Words, of course, come easy to people. Within a few years of birth, we adopt a complex and symbolic word-based reality that nominally and metaphysically represents the world in nearly infinite glory. We move through this metaphysical realm with ease and natural comfort as long as others share our particular language. Word magic is dependent upon a collective symbolic framework; plopped down in a foreign land one immediately discovers how easily the magic disappears.

There was a time when all words were considered sacred, and their power was respected. Vowels, for example, were not included in early Hebrew writing to prevent those who had not received an authorized oral transmission from knowing how particular words were pronounced; lacking such knowledge, word magic could not be used improperly. In paleolithic and early neolithic society, speech itself was considered a sacred aspect of the wind element and therefore nothing to trifle with. Anthropologists speculate that early humans combined gestures with various sounds imitating animals and nature.

Today, of course, we toss words around without much regard for their magic. Sure, we continue to recognize words well-spoken or set down, but even this is considered by many an old-fashioned affectation or simply irrelevant. Because people are passionate, words of passion dominate TV and movies – often hateful, sarcastic, cruel, painful or mean. Words once considered obscene, such as George Carlin’s famous seven dirty words, are now in such common everyday use on cable TV that they are steadily losing a particular type of power. Sometimes I wonder what will replace them.

In our individualistic society, freedom of speech has come to mean “anything goes.” Hidden behind platitudes about honesty or having every “right” to say what we want, we often ignore the injuries we inflict on others and ourselves.

Kind and loving words have power and magic, too, lest we forget, and despite Hollywood’s depictions, most people speak kindly to one another. The rarely invoked “golden rule” is true wisdom, a valuable legacy of earlier generations that understood how a good and just society forms and functions. In today’s super-speedy culture we move faster but ironically have less time; “right speech” requires a thoughtfulness and attention that seems too slow for us. Yet, our natural inclination to promote harmony and pacify conflict underlies linguistic forms of politeness and decorum. Right speech is peaceful speech.

Personally, I find myself spending more time being quiet. Even one day of silence reveals volumes. So here’s my modest proposal: say nothing next Tuesday, just listen, and then let me know what it’s like.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Understanding of brain physiology has increased greatly in recent years, yielding answers about mapping, the role of various structures such as the neo-cortex, amygdala, corpus collosum, and so forth. Moreover, though we now know how various structures relate to processing new and retaining older memory, evaluating options and forming conclusions, one fundamental question remains unanswered, namely the origin of consciousness.

For many in the scientific community, the answer is emergence, which is to say the phenomenon of consciousness spontaneously arises as the result of the coming together of the various component physical structures of the brain. Emergence implies that consciousness is an outgrowth of complexity, an effect dependent upon specific brain architecture and processing capabilities.

However, an alternative though scientifically less popular view of consciousness is that it is not emergent, but rather an underlying and inherent force that primordially exists within the matrix of existence. This scenario implies an ever-present, all-pervading source of information and organization upon which all biological entities are built; consciousness itself merely the ultimate expression of this source.

Consciousness ranges from the simple act of having awareness of the surrounding environment and responding to it – behavior found in earthworms – to self-consciousness, a recursive form of abstract conceptualization that results in the experience of “I am.” It is this latter form of higher consciousness that is the subject of so much scientific interest.

Clearly, if an emergent explanation for organic consciousness of this latter type is forthcoming, science will look for ways to apply that knowledge to non-organic systems, hoping to replicate higher consciousness within non-living machines. Human brain structures are very small indeed, and the interconnections nearly uncountable. At the same time, quantum computing is already being tested, and due to the nearly infinitely small scale of quantum mechanics, approaching the processing and interconnectedness scale of the human brain may in fact be possible. Like the sentient HAL 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, emergent consciousness could manifest.

This issue raises moral and ethical problems. None of us want to face a “Terminator” scenario wherein machines decide to send humans on our merry way. At the same time, if a machine achieves higher consciousness, are we then morally bound to respect it? Is conscious “hardware” any less “alive” than conscious “wet ware?”

In five years I will have to have my implanted cardio-defibrillator replaced; its battery will run out. The computerized unit I currently have in my chest not only establishes and regulates my heart rhythm but simultaneously monitors my heart and intervenes with various therapies if it detects a potentially problematic arrhythmia. It will even deliver a life-saving shock if preliminary therapies fail to stop a problem. In other words, this is a “smart” little piece of hardware that mimics intelligence, but it is not conscious. Five years from now such ICD devices will be far more sophisticated and “intelligent,” and possibly (dare I say it?) conscious.

Personally, I do not agree with the theory of consciousness as an emergent phenomenon. I believe that a universal force of consciousness precedes, pervades and generates the existence of all living things. If we do succeed in generating consciousness at a quantum level we will not have proven emergent theory correct, but will have merely penetrated the very force that naturally exists and envelops us all.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I’ve just returned from a solitary retreat in the Colorado Mountains where I stayed in a tiny remote cabin in the woods without electricity, telephone, running water, bathroom, Internet connection or refrigerator. I prepared meals on a one-burner propane stove and read by lantern light. Nights were cold, though there was a wood stove; when the wind kicked up it would slice its way through the space between the front door and its frame. Sometimes I slept with my clothes on.

My life on retreat was simple, although often my mind was not. I spent many hours each day meditating, and the rest of my time was occupied with cooking, eating, washing dishes, reading, hiking, sleeping and periodically sitting on a bucket with an attached toilet seat. It reminded me of a version of the Zen commentary, “Chop wood, haul water.” Like I said, life was simple.

Going cold-turkey from my usual habits and routines was challenging at first. My normal daily life includes sitting at my computer for many hours at a time, and I actually found myself suffering from media withdrawal. I’d feel the urge to check my email and finding that impossible, I’d have a stab of anxiety. This passed within a day or two, and I never got the shakes or sweats, but it was a true addiction being broken in that little cabin in the woods.

A mind alone finds its own rhythm and space, and so it was with mine. Because meditation includes watching the mind, for a while boredom itself became the object of my meditation. Lacking all forms of familiar distraction and entertainment, the boredom that developed eventually transformed into serenity all by itself. It was transformational experience from human doing to the more fundamental nature of human being.

Modern life is filled with doing, and my life is no exception. The doing is so continuous and all-consuming that the being underlying it can all but disappear. Even regular meditation practice can become another act of doing, despite intentions otherwise.

Isolated, left alone to establish itself in space, my mind of being expanded. I went for long silent walks, traversing the ridgeline perimeter of the 9,000 foot-high valley in which my cabin was located. Protected from the cold winds by a down jacket, I’d sit for hours gazing at panoramic views of the lower Rockies and stands of Ponderosa Pine. I’d go to sleep when the sun set, and awaken before dawn. In silence, with no appointments or obligations, I lost track of time and would simply sleep when tired, day or night. The same went for eating; I lost interest in breakfast, lunch or dinner “time.” Did I miss my wife, kids, grand-kids and friends? I did, but I couldn’t call them. Like people in all but the past hundred or so years, I accepted uncertainty, leaned on faith that all were well and wished them health and well-being from a distance. Like boredom, home-sickness also became the object of my meditation, and it changed too, to gratitude.

Solitude and silence are rare these days; to find it required making advance arrangements, flying to Denver, traveling for a few hours into the mountains, and more. It’s ironic that being demanded so much doing; ultimately, though, it was well worth it.

A mind alone is a terrible thing to waste.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Want a six-foot talking Terror Bird? How about a dwarf Stegosaurus? Miniature Wooly Mammoth, anyone? Get ready; genetic engineering is about to explode into the commercial marketplace, bringing us the strange excitement of all kinds of new and intriguing designer pets.

You may think I’m kidding, but if the scientific marketplace has its way good ole’ Fido may well lose his place as boy’s best friend. And while we’re talking canines, take a look at what we’ve done to that particular creature. You want a short-haired, long-eared, stub-tailed, bug-eyed, hang-tongued canine companion? No problem, we can breed it for you. Just imagine what will be possible when consumer-oriented commercial genetic engineering gets its hot little hands on Poochy.

Yet Poochy is the least of it; let me remind you of one basic scientific truth: ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny! For those of you who don’t recall the wisdom of ninth-grade biology, let me refresh your memory. As we watch the gestation of an animal from fertilized egg onwards as an embryo develops, we observe various stages of evolution played out before our eyes. In the case of humans, an early embryo looks very much like that of a chicken, briefly displays amphibian gill-like structures and for a while even has the cutest little tail. Everything we’ve ever been is deeply encoded in our DNA, right there for the picking, and the same is true for all animals.

Moreover, science now has the ability to extract genetic information from the “soft” tissues of frozen remains, like those of the Wooly Mammoth. In no time at all, our combined know-how will result in the magic of designer animals; then free market forces will take over.

The market for exotic pets is already huge. People keep big cats, anacondas, various apes, monkeys, tarantulas, iguanas and so forth around the house or in the yard. Many of these animals are dangerous, obviously a big part of their appeal. It’s been popular for a long time. In the 1950’s my grandfather rented a winter-time house in Florida, bought a cute little baby alligator and kept it in a bathtub. After several months of a diet of hot pastrami and chicken liver it grew to two feet long, and being every inch a alligator gave my grandfather a nasty bite on the end of his index finger, effectively severing their bond of loyalty. My grandfather bundled the little gator in a towel and released him into a small pond on the nine-hole golf course across the street. Similarly abandoned exotic pets like Burmese Pythons have thus transformed the Everglades.

So, I do foresee some problems. Cleaning up after your dog is one thing, cleaning up after your mini-mammoth is another. A six-foot flightless Terror Bird, once the supreme carnivorous predator of South America, could be real handful, combining the curiosity and intelligence of Polly-the-Parrot with a razor-sharp beak and enough jaw-strength to snap a human thigh bone like a toothpick. And of course, there is the ultimate predator, T-Rex; every boy wants to have one of those. I can see it now, a miniature T-Rex three feet tall striding down the sidewalk, muzzled of course, and on a leash.

Is there danger in all this? Of course there is, just as certain breeds of dogs are dangerous. But…hey, let the free market decide, after all, it’s the job creator!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites