Thursday, March 7, 2019

Queen angelfish: Before the Stanford "Anthropology Dissertation Defense: Elandre Dedrick The Gilded Renewal: Capital, Politics, and the Re-Fashioning of Marseille" * * * Today's Nontheist Friendly 'NtF Conversation about Meditation' - https://youtu.be/TBGIqp8EKfg - (and also re the NtF / 'Nontheist Friends (atheist Quakers?)' wiki page for open teaching and learning at World University and School



Dear Jim,
- https://anthropology.stanford.edu/people/james-ferguson -

Nice to see you before:

Anthropology Dissertation Defense:
Elandre Dedrick
The Gilded Renewal: Capital, Politics, and the Re-Fashioning of Marseille
AUDIENCE:
General Public, Faculty/Staff, Students, Alumni/Friends, Members

- https://events.stanford.edu/events/826/82607/ -


Would love to talk with you with time about your Harbin Hot Springs' ethnographic thinking and re Chloe Conger's thesis which I think you guided - https://web.archive.org/web/20070125003710/http://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthroCASA/pdf/newsletterV2.pdf  - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/10/sri-lanka-rock-actual-virtual-harbin.html. I think we share much in common in our interpretations. (Thanks to Chloe Conger for sending me her undergraduate thesis as I was writing "Naked Harbin Ethnography: Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality & Virtual Harbin," and thanks to Nelson Graburn for writing the Forward to my "Naked Harbin Ethnography" as well).


My actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs' project continues and for my next Harbin Hot Springs' ethnographic book, I seek to create a realistic virtual Harbin for actual-virtual, physical-digital comparison, and by developing a new social science method I'm calling ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy.

I'm also seeking to teach a course comparing my "Naked Harbin Ethnography" and "Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human" both at Stanford and at World University and School concurrently, potentially online (and possibly as a conversation with Tom Boellstorff):


Bipedalism: "Naked Harbin Ethnography" Chapter Titles, Summaries and Table of Contents, for MacLeod’s "N.H.E.: Hippies, Warm Pools, Counterculture, Clothing-Optionality & Virtual Harbin," Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life, Chapter summary comparisons
- https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/06/bipedalism-naked-harbin-ethnography.html

Endemism: Reed College course with Scott MacLeod's "Naked Harbin Ethnography" book, reading Tom Boellstorff's "Coming of Age in Second Life" in parallel in the first nine weeks?, "Actual/Virtual Ethnography: ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy," Here's a beginning syllabus for a course I'm tentatively entitling, Having sold my "Naked Harbin Ethnography" book (no sales though) in person (a first ever) at Reed yesterday, I've kind of come full circle with my first book and re agency or individualism even (and with an economic "good" - a book which costs $64.95) vis a vis 'society and information technology' as a kind of social "structure"

- http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/06/endemism-reed-college-course-with-scott.html

Box jellyfish: Actual~Virtual "Naked Harbin" book, Finalizing for Publication on Valentine's Day, "... send the first batch of what you want me to read", Esalen not too long ago which Ishvara Harbin's Founder looks toward, "Coming of Age in Second Life" by Tom Boellstorff's "Reviews | Table of Contents | Chapter 1[PDF]" for free from Princeton UP - http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10611.html, Fascinating brief Harbin history in the Califia's Children blog called "Harbin Hot Springs and the Heart Consciousness Church," Hoping to create two Harbin ethnographic books as well as a new Academic Press at World University and School with its first book publication of "Naked Harbin"

- http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2015/11/box-jellyfish-actualvirtual-naked.html

Box jellyfish: Actual~Virtual "Naked Harbin" book, Finalizing for Publication on Valentine's Day, "... send the first batch of what you want me to read", Esalen not too long ago which Ishvara Harbin's Founder looks toward, "Coming of Age in Second Life" by Tom Boellstorff's "Reviews | Table of Contents | Chapter 1[PDF]" for free from Princeton UP - http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10611.html, Fascinating brief Harbin history in the Califia's Children blog called "Harbin Hot Springs and the Heart Consciousness Church," Hoping to create two Harbin ethnographic books as well as a new Academic Press at World University and School with its first book publication of "Naked Harbin"

- http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2018/10/field-and-water-programming-robotics.html

Cuyahoga Valley National Park: Fascinated that Walmart is now carrying my "Naked Harbin Ethnography" book, A course reading my Harbin book with Tom Boellstorff's "Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human" (Princeton 2008), Am teaching the first matriculated-class course for World Univ and Sch this autumn as well - http://worlduniversityandschool.org/InfoTechNetworkSocGlobalUniv.html - Am applying too for a MIT Media Lab faculty position and in part with planning to create a realistic virtual earth / Harbin - tinyurl.com/p62rpcg - as ethnographic field site, for STEM research (at the cellular and atomic levels), and as a classroom for World University and School's ~200 emergent CC MIT OCW universities in these countries' official/main languages, Harbin Hot Springs’ Actual/Virtual Ethnography: http://bit.ly/HarbinBook ~ https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ~ Tenure-track faculty search: General - MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Program in Media Arts and Sciences/Media Lab

- http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/11/cuyahoga-valley-national-park.html

How best to communicate further about this? Thank you.


Sincerely, Scott
~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg ~ https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ~ http://bit.ly/HarbinBook ~
- https://amazon.com/author/scottmacleodworlduniversity -



--
- Scott MacLeod - Founder, President & Professor

- World University and School
- http://worlduniversityandschool.org

- 415 480 4577
- http://scottmacleod.com

- CC World University and School - like CC Wikipedia with best STEM-centric CC OpenCourseWare - incorporated as a nonprofit university and school in California, and is a U.S. 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt educational organization.


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Dear Scott,

I did not have anything to do with Chloe Conger or her thesis, and I do not have any thoughts to add re: Harbin Hot Springs.  Unfortunately, my time commitments are already overwhelmed by the needs of my current Ph.D. students.

With best wishes,

JF

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Dear Jim, 

Thanks for your email. I'm attaching Chloe Conger's thesis for your interest. Do you happen please to know which Stanford faculty were her mentors in this paper, if any? Thank you.

With best wishes, Scott




* * * 


Hi NtFs / Nontheist Friends / Athiest Quakers, 

Here's today's Nontheist Friendly 'NtF Conversation about Meditation' -

https://youtu.be/TBGIqp8EKfg - (and also re the NtF / 'Nontheist Friends (atheist Quakers?)' wiki page for open teaching and learning at World University and School - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Nontheist_Friends_(atheist_Quakers%3F) ) ... which I'll seek to add this conversation to with time. Victor, would you like to add what you wrote as reference, and if it has a URL, with the URL as well?

Victor joins the conversation around 17:45 - with some opening Nontheist f/Friendly / ArQuaker NtF online meditation in the manner of Nontheist Friends - and with exploration of questions at 21:00.

NtFriendly regards, Scott

Created a Tweet about this - https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1103778490921320448 :



... Here's today's Nontheist Friendly 'NtF Conversation about Meditation' - https://youtu.be/TBGIqp8EKfg - (& also re the NtF / '#NontheistFriends (atheist Quakers?)' wiki page for open teaching & learning https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Nontheist_Friends_(atheist_Quakers%3F) ~ @HarbinBook ~ @WorldUnivAndSch conversation around 17:45 



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Sunday, March 10, 2019


Dear no mo' theism Friends, no-more-divinity-Quakers, Victor, and NtFs,

Thanks Victor for our NtF conversation on Thursday  - 

Good to have addressed these Queries: 

- What is Non-theistically Friendly/Quakerly meditation for you (speaking from one's own experience)?

- And what is NtF Quaker meeting, as one might envision this, and with regard to meditation, for you (speaking from one's own experience)?

- Barclay and other early Friends described meeting for worship as silent waiting on God, and being ready to be led by God's Spirit.  How does this translate in the absence of a belief in God?

Re our talk of Richard Dawkins' thinking and meditation, here he is in a Q&A with Buddhists I think & talking about science re religion - 
https://youtu.be/gDKzq2nZtVA  ... I could induce from this conversation that the non-theism of Buddhism re meditation would not be something he'd criticize re his thinking ... (per out conversation about Zen).

And re Questions of your word from the Japanese 'makeo' (possibly translated as illusions, or negative feelings? - but I couldn't find anything about this word) rising up in meditation, - or while centering down in Friends' Silent Meeting (in lieu of MfW ... worship word as we've talked about seems to include a predicate or object of the divine, re your essay, although others on this list in years' past have expressed interest in the "w" word) ... 

Re bad feelings rising up in NtF or Quaker Meeting ... one approach in teaching meditation / Yoga that comes to mind is to engage the words of 8 limb Yoga (Patanjali) as kinds of touchstones or meditations as a whole (as a kind of ethical system with movement of Yoga asana even) ... and with time, perhaps the illusions / fantasies in meditation with dissipate. I "riff" with these in my 'Hippy Anjali Yoga Notations' ... http://www.scottmacleod.com/yoganotations.html ... Angela Farmer's thinking here is very germane re questions of meditation as well.

I wonder too: if bad feelings/fantasies are arising while sitting in NtF Quaker Meeting, whether in a related vein, one might meditate on Quakerly "S.P.I.C.E.S" as ethical system too - https://www.friendsjournal.org/s-p-i-c-e-s-quaker-testimonies/ - and whether the bad feelings might dissipate with time.

But I also see great value in conversation with, for example, a Lacanian MD psychoanalyst (an old friend whom I knew thru Quakers was one) ... if bad feelings / fantasies are emerging in meditation / Silent Meeting ... because there may be a reason for these which conversation might help to understand and re-frame and which the religion aspects of meditation / silent Meeting in the manner of Friends / Quaker would somehow sublimate or even aggravate. And I hope World University and School can even help to train friendly Lacanian MD psychoanalysts in many languages in these regards. I've observed, in the 10 or so Quaker Monthly Meetings I've participated in, the need for psychiatry for a variety of reasons, and the lack of resources for this. Perhaps the internet can help .... and even emerging out of a Friends' Hospital in Philadelphia / Stanford Medicine collaboration. 
Rest, in general, can be of help if bad feelings are arising while mediating or when one's centering down in Friends' Meeting - re your meditation and the Japanese word for bad feelings/fantasies' question, Victor (I haven't found the minute marker for this part of our conversation yet).

In a related vein, was wondering too per our conversation whether NtFs non-theism among Friends/Quakers could have arisen in part out of thinking about the problems / fantasies of the 3 monotheistic religions (CMJ) per Huston Smith's "The Religions of Man". One could make an argument that so many problems in history have emerged over fights about theism or conceptions of a divine - and re Friends' Peace Testimony as well. NtFriendlliness may help to facilitate deeper meditations, because of the non-theism (re fantasies of theism, about which I have some concerns too).

Friendly cheers, Scott

The NtF Friendly Conversation about Meditation' is here too - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2019/03/queen-angelfish-before-stanford.html - 



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Am appreciative of the relaxation response with these steps (and re bad feelings too) - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/09/arc-steps-to-elicit-relaxation-response.html?m=0 - re meditation and letting thoughts go, and esp. re parallels with what happens in Quaker Meeting, but here understood re the biology of Friends' Meeting and centering down ....
Appreciative too of the relaxed big cat in this blog post ... can big wild cats meditate?

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Victor, and NtFs, (and No more monotheism Friends, or No more theism Quakers),

Thanks for your sharing your paper. In response to your question about what you wrote, and speaking from personal experience:
As a Friend and when in Quaker Meeting (Silent Meeting in the Manner of Friends), I often seek to Center Down, Minding the Light, here construed as a NtF non-theistically (and per our video conversation on meditation, - where Quakers have been very innovative with language and terminology over 350 years, creating their own discourse, which I see NtFs continuing). Like Anita, I'm an atheist as well, although logically, agnosticism could make more sense, because I don't think, philosophically, one can know if gods, goddesses, the divine, etc,. exist or not ... so I'm ok with the word non-theism (where theism is "belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures" per Apple dictionary) and re your writing "How do Quakers Worship?" or my view about what I do as a Quaker when I sit in Friends' Meeting, or what I think Friends do when they sit in Quaker Meeting, or about Anita's or my atheism, for example).

Friendly regards, Scott




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