Have you read or seen anything by Denis Noble? He is a passionate elder scientist who has completely destrpyed the idea of the selfish gene and much of reductionist science. He was working in the 60s (I think) on modeling the function of the heart. And he discovered that our heartbeats are not genetically programmed at all, but rather are an emergent property based roughly in a negotiated efficiency of ions flowing back and forth across cell membranes, leading to a rhythm that persists for many decades.
His catchphrase is "Harness Stochasticity." I had to look it up. It means randomness, or the potential within randomness, or something. Noble leaves it a bit of a mystery, but can talk about it for hours without being boring for a second.
I have come across this sensibility in life numerous times and they are the most lucid of moments: finding a tangible spirituality within life itself, in self-organizing systems, in liminal states, in the ability of randomness to generate possibility. (John Cage influenced my life profoundly.)
I think this relates to the autistic contiguous space - the repository of all the shadowy stuff, and also as Robert Bly I think points out (but anyway found through men's group stuff) the space of possibility, the gold within the repressed shadow. Perhaps this relates to your reverse engineering process, and your touching on zen last time.
These times call for so much courage on many levels. Reclaiming a moment of subjectivity, authorship, sovereignty - or whatever you want to call clear, holistic, life-connected thinking - is a courageous act. I salute the whole idea of aesthetic resistance. Amid what seem like end times, while clawing to remain on the neurotic side of psychosis, there is something comforting about even nightmares these days.
Have you read or seen anything by Denis Noble? He is a passionate elder scientist who has completely destrpyed the idea of the selfish gene and much of reductionist science. He was working in the 60s (I think) on modeling the function of the heart. And he discovered that our heartbeats are not genetically programmed at all, but rather are an emergent property based roughly in a negotiated efficiency of ions flowing back and forth across cell membranes, leading to a rhythm that persists for many decades.
His catchphrase is "Harness Stochasticity." I had to look it up. It means randomness, or the potential within randomness, or something. Noble leaves it a bit of a mystery, but can talk about it for hours without being boring for a second.
I have come across this sensibility in life numerous times and they are the most lucid of moments: finding a tangible spirituality within life itself, in self-organizing systems, in liminal states, in the ability of randomness to generate possibility. (John Cage influenced my life profoundly.)
I think this relates to the autistic contiguous space - the repository of all the shadowy stuff, and also as Robert Bly I think points out (but anyway found through men's group stuff) the space of possibility, the gold within the repressed shadow. Perhaps this relates to your reverse engineering process, and your touching on zen last time.
These times call for so much courage on many levels. Reclaiming a moment of subjectivity, authorship, sovereignty - or whatever you want to call clear, holistic, life-connected thinking - is a courageous act. I salute the whole idea of aesthetic resistance. Amid what seem like end times, while clawing to remain on the neurotic side of psychosis, there is something comforting about even nightmares these days.
Well I can't access the essay. All I can see is the art.