{"id":41916,"date":"2014-04-21T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=41916"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:35:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:35:06","slug":"now-as-the-ultimate-cognitive-strange-attractor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/04\/now-as-the-ultimate-cognitive-strange-attractor\/","title":{"rendered":"Now as the Ultimate Cognitive Strange Attractor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A Continuing Invitation &#8220;Down the Rabbit Hole&#8221;? <\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The main paper clarifies understandings of &#8220;feeling alive&#8221; and &#8220;feeling dead&#8221; in this strange period, and the associated ambiguities, as a means of framing the strange experience of &#8220;now&#8221;. That argument concluded with sections on:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laetusinpraesens.org\/musings\/alive.php#life\" >Quest for life &#8212; and feeling alive<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laetusinpraesens.org\/musings\/alive.php#deat\" >Quest for death &#8212; and the significance of closure<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laetusinpraesens.org\/musings\/alive.php#exce\" >Excessive complexity engendering collapse<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laetusinpraesens.org\/musings\/alive.php#sens\" >Sensing personal &#8220;world lines&#8221; and identifying with their convergence <\/a><\/li>\n<li><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laetusinpraesens.org\/musings\/alive.php#enab\" >Being alive through centering?<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The latter section drew attention to the existence of unusual geometric forms which could serve metaphorically as &#8220;containers&#8221; for cognitive engagement with &#8220;now&#8221; &#8212; and to the challenge of their comprehension. This was seen as a key to enabling and enhancing the sense of &#8220;feeling alive&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>This argument is developed further here by reframing &#8220;centre&#8221; as a curious form of &#8220;hole&#8221; which, like the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_holes\" >black holes<\/a> of astrophysics, functions cognitively as a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Strange_attractor\" >strange attractor<\/a>. As such, in the moment, the experience of &#8220;now&#8221; is a continuing invitation to &#8220;go down the rabbit hole&#8221; &#8212; as framed for children by <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charles_Lutwidge_Dodgson\" >Charles Lutwidge Dodgson<\/a>under the pseudonym <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lewis_Carroll\" >Lewis Carroll<\/a> <strong><em>(<\/em><\/strong><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland\" >Alice&#8217;s Adventures in Wonderland<\/a><\/em>, 1865). Dodgson was a mathematician and logician (<em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Game_of_Logic\" >The Game of Logic<\/a><\/em>, 1887).<\/p>\n<p>Entering a &#8220;rabbit hole&#8221; has been understood as framing a period of chaos or confusion &#8212; appropriate to the current condition of global civilization and the challenge of individual response to it. The phrase has featured as the subtitle of a DVD version of the much-cited film <em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know%21%3F\" >What the Bleep Do We Know!?<\/a> <\/em>(2004), <em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dvdtalk.com\/reviews\/23083\/what-the-bleepdown-the-rabbit-hole-quantum-edition\/\" >What the Bleep! Down the Rabbit Hole &#8211; Quantum Edition<\/a><\/em> (2006), following a book version <em>What the Bleep Do We Know!? Discovering the Endless Possibilities of Your Everyday Reality<\/em> (2005). This combines documentary-style interviews, computer-animated graphics, and a narrative that posits a spiritual connection between quantum physics and consciousness &#8212; framed as the foundation of future thought.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laetusinpraesens.org\/musings\/alivenow.php\" >PLEASE CONTINUE READING THE PAPER IN THE ORIGINAL \u2013 laetusinpraesens.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Continuing Invitation &#8220;Down the Rabbit Hole&#8221;? Entering a &#8220;rabbit hole&#8221; has been understood as framing a period of chaos or confusion &#8212; appropriate to the current condition of global civilization and the challenge of individual response to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}