tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post417605641299183499..comments2024-03-27T16:08:30.313-05:00Comments on The Great Change: Mycelial MindAlbert Bateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17627996921976501534noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-19987265795526005652018-04-26T08:15:58.377-05:002018-04-26T08:15:58.377-05:00We are mostly governed by the drive to survive, ju...We are mostly governed by the drive to survive, just as any living thing. Just as Mycelium doesn't step aside to share, we have to 'put our masks on first', but unlike humans 'Milo' doesn't gorge beyond all reasonable need.terrefirmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09786121620970285202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-77541963979252033622018-04-22T16:26:03.495-05:002018-04-22T16:26:03.495-05:00Some thoughts provoked by Jordan Peterson, Antonio...Some thoughts provoked by Jordan Peterson, Antonio Damasio (The Strange Order of Things), and Ward Farnsworth (The Practicing Stoic). Relates to networks and balance.<br /><br />*Peterson, as an aside, remarked in a You Tube video that The Taoist symbol reflects the need to walk the fine line between rigidity and chaos, and that the small white dot in the black space and the small black dot in the white space signify that purity is seldom the solution.<br /><br />Farnsworth uses the very quotable Stoics from ancient Greece and Rome up through Montaigne and Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith (The Theory of Moral Sentiments). But since the quotes are frequently one sided (e.g., don't worry about death, it happens to everyone; anyway, you are only a speck in the Universe), Farnsworth and the Stoics themselves have to do quite a bit of backing and filling to explain that the situation is more complicated than slogans typically allow for.<br /><br />For example, the Stoics on occasion advised not getting involved in politics, and at other times advised people to be involved in their society. One of the things that was missing in the slogans was the distinction between what one COULD effect and what one COULD NOT effect.<br /><br />Finally, Damasio spends a whole book developing his theory that life, from bacteria to humans through societies, is governed by the search for homeostasis (or homeodynamics): we want life and then some. Which circles us back around to Peterson and his view that Taoism is about walking a fine line.<br /><br />I do not believe that we have concise language to describe what is going on. Instead, we get hung up on absolutes, which are always misleading (as we can see with Farnsworth or any discussion about religion or in any discussion about exactly what an individual is supposed to do about the parlous state of the world).<br /><br />Don StewartDon Stewarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05449201744675390686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1575603731696062553.post-63135414824055960492018-04-22T09:48:16.970-05:002018-04-22T09:48:16.970-05:00It would be interesting to see whether "behav...It would be interesting to see whether "behaviors" as greed, kindness, etc are observed in mycelial behavior at a fungal level. If it does, it might explain why we humans want or tend to dominate towards others. A study of that nature might bring out the crazies who would view it as proof and validity for our drive to be better than our fellow man and take from others to survive.DChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00149256812316770507noreply@blogger.com