“Opposites? Man-machine interfaces & Soul care?” ~ Doc Meek

April 25th, 2011 |

Image from: http://media.photobucket.com/image/meditation/NeshebaofEspiritE/League%20of%20Black%20Women/meditation.jpg?o=4

Monday, April 25, 2011. Today I am so grateful that great minds come from seemingly totally different places and yet coalesce into a comprehensible whole if we keep our minds open and put our whole-mind learning to work! – Doc Meek

(1) Perspective One: Care of the Soul is not just about meditation.

“This book may just help you give up the futile quest for salvation and get down to the possible task of taking care of your soul. A modest, and therefore marvelous, book about the life of the spirit.” – Sam Keen, author of Fire in the Belly

CARE OF THE SOUL: A GUIDE FOR CULTIVATING DEPTH AND SACREDNESS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

Thomas Moore (Author); (80 customer reviews)

Image/text from: http://www.amazon.com/Care-Soul-Cultivating-Sacredness-Everyday/dp/0060922249/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303712292&sr=1-1

One of the surprises from Thomas Moore is his “Gifts of Depression” and “The Healing Power of Depression.” And here we thought that depression was to be avoided at all costs, eh?

Here is Thomas Moore speaking for himself, in his Introduction to Care of the Soul:

“The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is “loss of soul.” When soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning.

“Our temptation is to isolate these symptoms or try to eradicate them one by one; but the root problem is that we have lost our wisdom about the soul, even our interest in it . . . .

“[I want] to show that by caring for the soul we can find relief from our distress and discover deep satisfaction and pleasure.

“It is impossible to define precisely what the soul is. Definition is an intellectual enterprise anyway; the soul prefers to imagine.***”

– From the “Introduction” to Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, by Thomas Moore, psychotherapist and writer who lives in New England, in the USA

(2) Perspective Two: Man-machine interfaces are not just about technology and mechanics. Perhaps man-machine interfaces help us get down to the business of interfacing our life with our essence as well?

” . . . a provocative, thoughtful, and novel view of how this amazing machine called our brain processes and acts on information about our world. Always a scientist and often a poet, [Miguel] Nicolelis writes in an informative and engaging style that is accessible to specialist and layman alike.” – Thomas J. Carew, Dept of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine; former president of The Society for Neuroscience.”

BEYOND BOUNDARIES: THE NEW NEUROSCIENCE OF CONNECTING BRAINS WITH MACHINES–AND HOW IT WILL CHANGE OUR LIVES

Miguel Nicolelis (Author); (2 customer reviews)

Image/text from: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Boundaries-Neuroscience-Connecting-Machines/dp/0805090525/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303713309&sr=1-1

Miguel Nicolelis and others are conducting experiments with rats and monkeys that demonstrate that machines can be controlled by brain thought processes alone, without any bodily interfaces. Further, they are planning experiments for brain to brain interfaces–thought to thought interfaces, without any bodily involvement.

Astounding!

Thank you, Thomas Moore and Miguel Nicolelis, for stretching our minds around both our souls and the thought-machine technologies of our world!

Doc Meek, Mon, Apr 25, 2011, Sherwood Park, Alberta, CANADA

____________________

*** Imagination trumps knowledge

Recognized as the father of modern physics, Albert Einstein believed that imagination was far more important than knowledge.

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
– Albert Einstein

Most of us are not educated in the best of schools, nor do we absorb all of the world’s available information. Those of us who excel even without being born to privilege have the ability to imagine beyond the knowledge that privilege provides. Creation of art, new knowledge, wealth and more lies in the capacity to imagine beyond what is currently known. As you make time to learn something new, remember to give your imagination equal time.

Image/text from: http://garryking.org/blog/2011/01/27/imagination-trumps-knowledge/