daden's blog

Art and the artist

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:16:00 -0500

I saw a special about James Taylor recently on PBS -- oh, actually, just remembered, it was on the flight to Austria for my son's wedding. In any case, it was an interview with him interspersed with some music. Pretty interesting overall but one line of questioning struck me. The interviewer was asking about the songs he wrote in the Sweet Baby James period -- the ones that were somewhat melancholy. The interviewer was asking JT about what those songs meant or might mean or might indicate about JT's life at the time. JT basically responded to the effect that music and the life are different things. He seemed to be saying that he could write things that may or may not represent how he was actually feeling at the time. In other words, the art and the artist are different things. Of course, some artists can create works of art that represent something they are feeling or going through in their lives but it is not a requirement. Seems to me the real professional would be capable of producing art that communicates any emotion or response or idea whether or not it represents what he/she feels. Hopefully, artists select subjects and emotions which uplift or create positive change rather than encouraging degradation but perhaps that's just a personal preference. One interesting point is that some research carried out by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1950's into the wavelengths of life energy covered the relationship between aesthetics and life -- and a mechanism behind the tendency for aesthetics and life to become confused. (See the book Scientology 8-80.) It was fascinating to see that underlying mechanism played out so clearly. This lead to the recognition that it is pretty common -- for me too, of course -- to confuse the art with the artist when in fact they are quite different. The artist is the creator, the art the created. The simple fact is that works of art (the created) have properties as an energy that tend to become confused with the energy of life (the creator). The details are in the book reference above.

Word changes: deterioration in view

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:56:00 -0500

In comparing the definitions of a word in dictionaries from two different eras, I ran across an interesting example of the deterioration of the view of Man as a causative, responsible being. The first definition is from the Century Dictionary, an online dictionary which contains images of a dictionary apparently published near the end of the 1800's/beginning of the 1900's. The word is "Reason": "An idea acting as a cause to create or confirm a belief, or to induce a voluntary action; a judgment or belief going to determine a given belief or line of conduct." So, reason is a cause that leads to action. It is an idea that leads to something being done or a belief being held. It is a causative agent -- something that results in an effect: the causative nature is very clear. From the Macmillan Dictionary for Students published in 1981: "something, as a fact or circumstance, which serves as a ground, motive, or cause." Significantly less clearly causative. Now it is something out there that might possibly serve as a cause. It is not necessarily actually a cause, but might be interpreted that way. From the Webster's New World Dictionary for Young Readers from 1989: "something said to explain or try to explain an act, idea, etc." Nothing causative about this any more. Now a reason is just an excuse used to justify something that was done. So, thoughs or actions might have happened -- who knows how -- and the "reason" is what we use to explain what we believe or do. Very little causativeness there. The second definition in the same dictionary does say: "a cause for some action, feeling, etc." but the example sentence is "Noisy neighbors were our reason for moving." In other words, there may be a cause, but here we're talking about someone else causing something. So we still haven't identified the individual as being causative. What's been removed from the definition? The idea of a responsible, causative agent capable of coming to conclusions that result in beliefs and actions. To my mind, what's been removed is the person himself. I guess somewhere between 1900 and 1989, the core of Man got lost. Perhaps in that time he changed from a causative agent to a lump of chemicals that reacts and then provides explanations for why he acted. Or perhaps he didn't change but the PR about him did. Perhaps someone has a reason ("an idea acting as a cause to create or confirm a belief, or to induce a voluntary action; a judgment or belief going to determine a given belief or line of conduct") that leads to belief and action to promote an image of Man that makes him out to be far less causative than he used to be. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, just a great deal of stupidity and perhaps some financial or political advantage that someone might have somewhere. I wonder what would happen if our kids were taught that they are causative people whose thoughts, decisions and reasons matter because they mean something and they are responsible? Personally, I like the 1900's view better and, I suspect, society at large might run better if each individual was viewed as a causative agent rather than someone who thinks of excuses to explain why they did the stupid things they just did. :-)

things catch up eventually...

Thu, 29 May 2008 16:45:00 -0500

I heard a radio story in the last few days about an experiment which was something to the effect of the following: the researcher laid in an hypnotic command to associate a single word with something unpleasant. Then, two different versions of a story was told to the person who had be given the command. One version included the word, the other did not and it was found that the subject felt differently about the story which contained the "charged" word. This was kind of a big deal apparently. Funny thing is the same phenomenon was described years ago in great detail in 1950 in Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and, more importantly, the underlying mechanism behind it was also described as was the way to undo the effect. But it wasn't just the fact that a big deal was being made of out something that has already been thoroughly investigated that struck me, it was that the clue to an important mechanism was not followed up. Once again, psychology seems to shine as a collection of stupid human tricks and uncoordinated phenomenon without diving in and trying to answer the interesting questions posed by the phenomenon -- where's the search for underlying causes? Perhaps they feel all that is handled over in the philosophy department and so ain't their job. Did the researcher not get interested in such things as: how does this mechanism really work? What makes it work? Where is the hidden hypnotic command stored and does this possibly imply the existence of a more general repository of similar hidden things? And, most importantly, if people can be manipulated this way, what can we do to undo the manipulations and put them in such as state that they can't be so manipulated? I suspect that if the researchers intention was to help people instead of finding new quirky things you can do to them, he/she might have looked into it further and come up with something useful.

New info available about Scientology

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:33:00 -0500

Have only started to review it, but there's a great reference for people interested in some basic information about Scientology, its tenets and activities around the world. It's at the primary Scientology web site.

Machiavelli

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:23:00 -0500

I'm listening to an NPR radio show about Machiavelli, "The Prince" in particular. What strikes me initially is how far off the mark these guys have to be to take his suggestions as serious or accurate principles by which to govern. The fact that people are capable of acting like animals doesn't mean they are no more than animals. The fact that you can force a people by starvation and degradation to be animalistic doesn't logically lead to the conclusion that they are naught but animals. The narrowness of Machiavelli's vision is striking -- sounds like a small man with a poor opinion of himself and similarly bad opinion of others. And this would be a person we should select to guide political thought or action? I suspect that his writings in fact serve a different purpose -- after-the-fact justification of bad leadership, poor decisions or out-and-out destructive or criminal actions. Again, what's not remarkable is that someone would write this or believe it. What's remarkable is that more than a couple of people might seriously present his work as a valid or correct way to think about leadership. If a guy starts out believing that all is destined to fail or be destroyed and that we're subject to the whims of a random, uncontrollable fortune, wouldn't it be logical to assume that his philosophy or approach would lead in that direction? No matter how much he writes, he's not going to reach an escape velocity sufficient to surpass the constraints imposed by his small, starting assumptions.

The height of close-minded science

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 12:38:00 -0500

It strikes me as remarkable how dedicatedly unscientific so much media and "science" is today when it comes to studying and understanding people. Virtually every story I hear on the radio, see on TV or read which relates to people or behavior starts from the same unexamined, limiting point of departure. Here is the format of the stories: 1) Some oddity of human behavior is noticed (I'm listening to a story now about people who mix perceptions -- they hear color or see sounds). 2) An incredibly complicated theory is advanced about how the phenomenon is caused by the brain. In other words, the assumption is it is a brain problem - the "science" consists of trying to find proof after-the-fact of the point-of-assumption. 3) The person advancing the theory admits they really don't know, there is much to learn and it will likely take a lot of money and time to begin to figure it out. The problem with this? The religious-like, unexamined, unquestionable tenet that the brain is the answer. How is this science? Wouldn't science examine a phenomenon to understand as much about it as possible which, based on data, would then lead to the advancement of a theory which would, if in the theory has a shred of truth, provide predictions of new data which, when looked for, could be found? Also, I would expect that correct data might lead to the development of practical applications that, surprise, surprise, would do some good. I'm not a historian by any means, but I'm guessing that many of the great advances in science, engineering and other such fields have been made by questioning fundamental tenets. Those people who, instead of going along with the "everyone believes data" which have never been tested or proved, look again at the unquestioned everyone-knows. And by doing so, they discover something new, fundamental or even world-changing. Just because religions have said that Man is more than a collection of chemicals (i.e. spiritual in nature) and religions have never particularly dealt in proof or a scientific approach to data does NOT itself provide proof of the opposite, i.e. that "all is brain." I don't know of any proof that exists that Man is not spiritual. Similarly, I've not heard of any proof that shows that everything about Man can be explained by brain activity -- in fact quite the contrary even the "brain-is-everything" folks constantly talk about how much they don't know and how complicated it all is. As mentioned above, they constantly seem to be in search of data to validate their assumption point. That just seems so backwards. If you have a fundamental assumption point that is correct, it should lead you to new and interesting data -- a scientific exploration based on a tentative theory. Reversing it -- finding interesting or new data and then trying to figure out how it is explained by your assumption point is not science. Honestly, it is more like what we think of as religion. Let me be clear -- I'm not suggesting that science should unilaterally throw out the brain-is-everything idea. What I am suggesting is that its proponents look very unscientific by assuming it without question. The High Priests of Authority have no place in science. That this belief is more a matter of religious fervor than scientific thought is confirmed by the rabid frothing at the mouth and dismissive sarcasm that seems to accompany any public questioning of the "divine principle" that the brain is everything. Let's skip the rhetoric and the arguments on both side -- let me just ask a simple question. What if the ultimate nature of Man is that some non-chemical, non-physical element is involved? Wouldn't that be the most important fact in the entire study of human nature? Until a proof exists that it is NOT the case (not just a lack of proof that it IS the case), wouldn't it be prudent to approach related issues with a little be more circumspection? I'm just suggesting that perhaps we could loosen up a little bit on the fixed, starting-point idea that "everything is explained by the brain." There are so many things not explained by that theory, the results of that strand of thought (electric shock as therapy, horrendous institutional abuses, the drugging of 10 million kids in the U.S. alone for diseases for which no physical confirmation exists) are so offensive it seems to me that we should just grow up to the intellectual integrity and maturity of being open to questioning it at least a little.

On the benefits of doing something about it....

Thu, 17 May 2007 10:14:00 -0500

I received an email with a great quote from one of L. Ron Hubbard's lectures given in December 1956 (the same month I was working on getting a new body. :-) ) It speaks to the virtue of not turning away but instead turning towards and handling things that are there to be addressed. --------------------- "Now, each one of us has a certain amount of responsibility in this sphere, this universe, whatever size it is. And the number of times we didn't go into communication are the number of times we're out of communication. So we can always say, "The wrong thing to do is nothing. "'There's a big atomic bomb. What can I do about the atomic bomb! I'm just me, I'm not anything.' "Why are you just you? How'd you get to be just you? "'Well, everybody is broke and there's five states blowing away out there, and there's drought sweeping through the Middle West, and we have an oversupply of food.' I don't know how we mesh these things together. 'And there isn't enough money to buy products, and the distribution is that, and so forth.' And you say, 'Well, I'm just me. I can't do anything.' "How'd you get to be just you that can't do anything about it? By not doing anything about it. Don't you see? "Someday, sooner or later, anybody has to turn on the devils that pursue him. Someday. You can turn with processing (Dianetic or Scientology counseling) but you can also turn with living. By what? By doing something about it. "Now, there are not wrong things to do and right things to do to the degree of error that there is 'nothing to do about it.' Can you see that?" --------------------- A pretty simple, powerful argument against standing idly by. d

Okay, another lag in posting here....

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:02:00 -0500

It's been a pretty active last week or so. Probably too much to briefly summarize here. But one thing that was brought home to me in connection with some issues that arose at work is the power that correct communication has to resolve problems. I think we intuitively know about (or at least pay lip service to) that power when it comes to organizations or marriages, but I also had it redemonstrated to me on a personal level. In other words, communication that follows the formula of communication is quite therapeutic. An interesting point is that there IS a pattern of communication that to some extent we may feel we "all know" but the fact that we "already know all about it" doesn't seem to interfer with our ability to screw up communication six ways to Sunday. The idea that there is a formula to communication, that communication has component parts and that an understanding of the formula and those parts can make life easier is described in an online article. d

Dianetic success

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 21:32:00 -0500

Awhile ago, I wrote up a success I had in Dianetics a year or so ago. I thought it might be worth putting here. Certain types of music had always had a strong emotional impact on me. In fact, ever since I was a kid, I both loved and yet was strongly and sadly affected by music from a particular era. Early in my Dianetics, a seemingly small reaction I had to a conversation with someone between sessions came up as needing to be handled. During the conversation, I'd gotten somewhat introverted and we took it up. After running through it a time or two we found an earlier incident of incredible loss. For several minutes, I could barely talk the grief was so intense and I was crying so hard. The incident and grief was thoroughly wrapped up in the exact music that had affected me for as long as I could remember. The auditor got me through the incident a time or two and then we found the earlier incident. This one was a moment of physical pain and, when I fully saw what had happened, I burst out laughing, so ridiculous was the circumstance and so silly my conclusions at the time. What was remarkable about this was the way Dianetics handled a right now reaction I'd pretty much identified as just being how I was, traced that back through a mountain of misemotion to find the underlying physical pain that held it all in place. I still love the music, but now without that same overwhelming grief sitting in the way of enjoying it.

Science of Survival

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 09:00:00 -0500

I recently started reading the book Science of Survival which I last read almost 30 years ago. I'm just at the beginning, but it already has helped to clarify the difference between a mechanistic view of the world and one that encompasses a spiritual view. By separating out these two factors of existence, things become clearer and simpler.

Bridging the religious gap

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:41:00 -0500

I spent some time speaking yesterday with someone who didn't know anything about Scientology and, more important, was from a country that has a very strong Catholic tradition. What was interesting about this was to get a view of how someone from another, somewhat insular cultural tradition, understands religion. She was very bright and curious but it was still something of an effort for her to understand the religious nature of Scientology because it didn't match to the very strong, Catholic tradition with which she is familiar. This was obviously a communication issue more than anything else. At the same time, the conversation reminded me of how many things various religions, despite their individual differences, do have in common. Particularly in this time of global, religious-related struggle, it is probably even more important to concentrate on what religions hold in common and how they can work together. The Human Rights News Forum is one of many resources covering the importance of religious freedom.

Religion and stuff first posting

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:22:00 -0500

Okay, this is an area to stay out of if you don't want to discuss religion or possibly politics. If you don't want the potential arguments, just don't read the postings in this category. To kick things off, here's a couple of basics: 1) I've been a Scientologist for about 30 years. I worked for the Church for about 10 or 15 years and it was easily the best, most enjoyable job I've ever had. Some info on Scn is available at: What Is Scientology? site. 2) I think that everyone has a right to believe as they choose and practice their faith as they see fit. It seems to me that the only boundaries on this are when someone's beliefs or religious practices impede someone else from believing and practicing their chosen religion. 3) I think there are things at large in the world today that should be, but aren't generally, classified as religion. An obvious and unoriginal example is psychiatry. My impression is that this was pointed out by Dr. Thomas Szasz among others. It seems to me that when a group purports to know and be working with the basic nature of man (in the case of psychiatry that he is a biological accident, with no spiritual side) that we are talking about something religious. There are no blood tests, x-rays, MRI's or other objective tests that show up mental illnesses. Categorization of someone as mentally ill is based on opinion and in particular the foundational opinion that man's problems or differences or peculiarities are attributable to physical differences in the brain and, more often than not, in chemical imbalances. In other words, an opinion about the basic nature of man. Christians have an opinion about the basic nature of man and the source of his problems; Buddhists have an opinion about the basic nature of man and the source of his problems as I'm sure do Jews and Muslims and a host of other religions. These are all opinions or beliefs and are classified as religious in nature. So, why isn't psychiatry considered a religion because of its opinion about the basic nature of man? Simply because it denies, ignores or doesn't care about the spiritual nature of man? Why isn't it prohibited from receiving governmental funding and support? The moment psychiatry shows up with the following: 1) An objective physical test that reliably and consistently identifies something we could call "mental health" or "mental illness" and 2) A regular treatment that does, by test, cure both the symptoms and the underlying cause (which change should show up in the same tests mentioned above). we could reconsider classifying psychiatry as something other than religion. But for now, let's be blunt -- it is a religion. d