Armadillo: If You Feel Like Editing, and Adding To, World University & School, Click "Edit This Page" at WUaS

If you feel like editing, and adding to, a section or 'Subject' at World University & School occasionally, it's a way to become very knowledgeable about a field.

For example, I added the Subjects 'Economics' {worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Economics} and 'Computer Music' {worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Computer_Music} and to World University & School - worlduniversity.wikia.com - with NEW Bibliographic sections.

Just click 'Edit this Page,' copy the code, & start a new section in whatever you're interested in.










(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/09/armadillo-if-you-feel-like-editing-and.html - September 1, 2009)

Desert Tortoise: Harbin as Commune, Countercultural Funkiness, Loving Bliss

Harbin as commune ... How? It is ... and it's funkiness is countercultural ...


*

It's also exploratory


**

I'm curious about codes for, and neurophsyiology of, loving bliss there ...

Hot Sun: Home Warms in the Heat of the Sun, Harbin

Hot Sun


Home warms
in Canyon
in the heat
of the sun.

Summertime travel
to Harbin
for the waters ~

after the Contact jam
in Berkeley :)

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/hot-sun-home-warms-in-heat-of-sun.html - August 29, 2009)

Alligators: Neural Cascades of Pleasure, These 'gators are Struttin,' Mike Marshall & Chris Thile Making Music

Neural Cascades of Pleasure ~



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQMswzRbiu8
The Gator Strut - Mike Marshall & Chris Thile








To Mandolin at World University and School ~ http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Mandolin

{in the Music School ~ http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University_Music_School~ for ALL instruments in ALL languages, and for jamming with ~ http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Musical_Jamming}









Encore :)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYfL2l_trV8

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/alligators-neural-cascades-of-pleasure.html - August 27, 2009)

Sarracenia Rosea: Relaxation Response with Envisioning, Writing, Giving Form in Life

The relaxation response, especially, then with envisioning, and writing {or creating representations}, can give form in life.














(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/sarracenia-rosea-relaxation-response.html - August 27, 2009)

Iceland: Listening to the Music

Listening to the music ...
which especially moves me ~
code which sings.













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/iceland-listening-to-music.html - August 26, 2009)

Cenote Waterfall: Nontheistically Friendly Online Quaker Meetings, Clothing Optionalness, Loving Bliss

August 25, 2009

Nontheist Friends,

Here is information about online Quaker Meetings that I know of. While none of them are explicitly nontheistically friendly, I see them as interesting options. All are open to attendees, and welcoming, I suspect. Are there others?


Quaker Meetings in Second Life (meets on Sea Turtle Island in-world)
The following page mentions both the Saturday Meeting, which I've attended, as well as the Wednesday Quaker Meeting:
homefries.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page


Online Quaker Meeting (London)
And Silent Meetings here are requested at all and any times:
quakerworship.org/default.asp


I've blogged a little about these here:
scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/05/online-quaker-meeting-and-world.html

I gravitate away (a lot) from the word 'worship,' with my leanings as an evolutionary biologically-oriented nontheist friend. 'Silent meeting' nomenclature works for me. I often elicit the relaxation response in silent meetings, with its rich, salutary, biological effects, perhaps enriched in meetings among gathered nontheist Friends. I also find flax seed oil for omega-3 fatty acids (1000 mg 3-4 times a day with food, as well as a daily multi-vitamin) harmonizing and brightening. Although I haven't seen the clinical evidence for this, I'm looking for related medical studies, and suspect I will find them. (Some friends of mine have experienced this, too, and others haven't). I also find a good, supportive community to be salutary.


Someone on the nontheist Friends' email list replied (August 25, 2009):

"I went to the Second Life meeting about a month ago, but there was no one there, though I'm pretty certain it was at the right time (10:00 Pacific time, right?). But maybe it was a good thing since I'm new to Second Life and hadn't yet figured out how to get clothes; so my avatar was stark naked (no obvious naughty bits, but no clothing either). I couldn't help wondering if SL Friends would accept me as I was. Anyway, I figured out the clothing thing and am now thoroughly decent and ready to try again some day."

Ian



Nontheist Friends,

The Saturday Quaker Meeting in Second Life at 10 am Pacific Time has always had pretty good attendance - avatars sitting in silence - when I've attended (perhaps 7 times). Having an avatar (it's like having an email address, and it's free) is useful also for attending classes, conversations, lectures and concerts in Second Life. (Second Life is pretty reliable these days, in my experience, but 2 gigs of RAM (memory) help. I've taught 'Society and Information Technology' in-world - in Second Life - for a number of years there).

I did find just a few references online to Quaker naturism when I looked. Although much of the developed world has social norms of wearing clothing, as does Second Life (although not all of the 'modern' world and Second Life), I find it interesting to think about examples of non-clothing 'norms.' Since all of our ancestors over tens of thousands of generations did not wear clothes, and a fair number of people (possibly a billion-ish?) in the world still live naked, and a fair number of Western European beaches are at least topless, I affirm clothing-optionalness, and am a little wary of clothing-centric norms. Just as nontheistic Friends have not always been 'accepted' within the Society of Friends (Quakers) - perhaps nontheist Friends are making progress - I'm personally curious to see how clothing-optionalness may grow as a practice in general (and possibly in the Society of Friends and even among nontheist friends). {Note: I'm writing an ethnography/anthropology about clothing-optional Harbin Hot Springs - harbin.org - in northern California, in which I'm creating a virtual Harbin in Second Life, or Open Simulator, for comparison, where, like on-the-ground Harbin, clothing-optionalness will be the norm, and a fascinating, virtual field site}. (And some people on this nontheist Friends list have visited the parallel, also clothing-optional, Esalen and other hot springs, I think).

Harbin Hot Springs (which is clothing-optional) is officially / legally a church in the state of California {Heart Consciousness Church}; it began in its current form in 1972, emerging out of the 60s ('counterculture'). And it's a curious and beautiful place. I find the relaxation response greatly enhanced in the Harbin warm pool, with a lot of parallels with opening to gatheredness (group relaxation response?) in Quaker silent meeting. Here's a letter I've written with more thoughts about Quaker Meeting online in Second Life, the relaxation response vis-a-vis silent meeting, and potentially in your bathtub, as well as ideas for eliciting the neurochemistry of loving bliss, naturally :) ~ scottmacleod.com/LovingBlissFriends.htm.

With friendly greetings,
Scott

scottmacleod.com
worlduniversity.wikia.com


(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/wilderness-falls-nontheist-friendly.html - August 25, 2009)

False Morels: Human Experience vis-a-vis the Material, Biological, Symbolic and Neurophysiological, Flourishing Brain Chemicals, and Bliss

I'm interested in questions of the human experience vis-a-vis the material, biological, symbolic and neurophysiological.


*

I wonder, in a related vein, how the 3 1/2 pounds of meat inside our craniums can flourish, and grow in flourishing, over time. What are the neurochemicals of flourishing, and how might we elicit them over decades so our bodyminds grow in flourishing toward loving bliss, naturally and richly? {On the neurochemical level, for example, you could take a dose of ecstasy (MDMA) and many (possibly 75%) would experience a kind of remarkable affective euphoria}. Engaging ideas is one likely way, but uniquely - as code. Here's one example: For friends who would like to spend a few minutes in 'flow' today, here’s a Bollywood road song, which is great ~ youtube.com/watch?v=NXC-VaRMkK0


How might one teach eliciting loving bliss? {And at World University & School, for example}?


**

Gyromitra infula (Schaeff.) Quél. 1886 - eol.org/pages/133489 - False Morels


***

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/false-morels-human-experience-vis-vis.html - August 24, 2009)

Gap: Place Creates Its Own Culture, Variation, Loving Bliss

The island I'm visiting creates its own world. I'd say place gives rise to (socially constructs, in a sense) culture or subculture. And humans do this all the time vis-a-vis place, and have done this very far back into ancestral (evolutionary) environments. This human variety is wonderful, and occurs today in conjunction with the homogenizing processes of globalization, modernity, post-modernity, internetity etc.

I think of such unique cultural expressions as ongoing developments of singularization vis-a-vis Kopytoff's writing about this (see, for example: scottmacleod.com/2002May24SocialMeanings.htm).


*

Can one focus such subcultures on something unique like eliciting loving bliss? Yes, but I can't yet think of many historical examples that have been successful in the way I envision here: scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm.


**

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/gap-place-creates-its-own-culture.html - August 22, 2009).

Ripples: Windmill, Nearby Penikese Island, Hippie-mindedness, Lands End

Cuttyhunk Island in the 1970s, and good ideas ...


*

A windmill was built on Cuttyhunk in the 1970s and stood for decades without generating power for the island. The person who built it was conservationist-minded (as was his father), built this windmill with his own money, and the windmill was an expression of alternative-energy thinking of the 1960s and 70s. Unfortunately, the town of Cuttyhunk wouldn't pay for the system to hook it into the existing power generator, which still runs on diesel fuel.

The person who envisioned and built the windmill hired many of his friends, also hippies, to build it.


**

On nearby Penikese Island, Dave Marsh and George Cadwallader created new possibilities for juvenile delinquents, by setting up a state program in a very rustic place, where at-risk kids, who were 'offenders,' from communities on the mainland closeby could come to live and work for many months. Kids had to want to come to be admitted to the Penikese program. The program was paid for by the state of Massachusetts, and kids learned building and other skills, in a radically different environment. The program still is helping kids almost 40 years later. (In a way this Penikese program is an interesting social psychology experiment, vis-a-vis Zimbardo (1972), Milgram, et als.' research, but I never heard of it being conceived of as this).


***

Envisioning possibilities on Cuttyhunk as a teenager in the milieu of the 1970s, and with radical intellectual, Marxian friends ... with much creativity, I found Cuttyhunk very stimulating and fun, a place where I experienced freedom and sometimes loving bliss. A commune de Cuttyhunk?


****

In the mid 1970s, there was also a garbage can painting competition on Cuttyhunk. This involved recycling! 55 gallon drums again as trash receptacles, to be used then to keep Cuttyhunk trash-free. In the competition, people could paint their can any way they wanted. People were very creative, and made these unsightly cans beautiful. The competition was one of many summer happenings that brought people together, and benefited the island in multifaceted ways. I haven't seen any of these beautiful works of art in years.

So many benefits emerged from this clever countercultural way of thinking.


*****

I can think of a lot of examples of countercultural thinking from Cuttyhunk from the 1970s. Counterculture was fascinating in its pervasiveness in the U.S.


*****

Cuttyhunk Island's native American name is Pocutahunconoh, meaning something like "land's end," and people have come to Cuttyhunk to get away - for its remoteness - and for decades. In a way, it's a pretty hippie thing to do.

And Cuttyhunk's fishing culture, which is signficant, is a parallel example, but perhaps without the colorfulness or creativity of counterculture, as it found expression on Cuttyhunk in the 1970s.

Cuttyhunk is hard to get to, and people have come here for a long time just to get away from it all, including from modernity ...


*****

In a way, life on Cuttyhunk dovetails sweetly with (and precedes, too) hippie-mindedness - (turn on, tune in, drop out).


******

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/windmill-nearby-penikese-island.html - August 21, 2009)