confusion

As is my unaccustomed wont, I post this AM without a preliminary journal entry, spurred on by perusing my newly arrived Scientific American, which unsurprisingly notes that bigger and better colliders will push us into new territory. Kind of like Huck. A definite improvement over the guy who 110 years ago pronounced all fundamental scientific discoveries to have been already made.

I'm with Jack Kerouac on this one: eastern philosophers have long pronounced all to be manifestations of mind. This, too, is scalable.

I once asked an expert soft ware designer what kind of computer he used in his work. He pointed at his head. His primary technical instrument? A pencil.

Our minds are best used as an instrument of exploration and companionship however bonded and far away. And as ancient Chinese proverb say, "Wise man does not ask how his own mind works."

A Little Bit of Heaven

The warrior's only enemy is self. Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

The Art of Psychotherapy

Before being admitted to medical school I worked as an orderly in a psychiatric unit of a prestigious university hospital headed by an internationally known shrink. The unit was directed by an associate professor with a full complement of residents, interns, psychologists, social workers, nurses, medical students, allied therapists, and menials like myself. Once a week we all gathered in the solarium for patient government, an exercise I never understood or enjoyed. The pipe smoking residents in their white barber's outfits did impress me by their understated comments, clearly pregnant with meaning.

The patients were a democratic mix of white folk: involutionally melancholic retired executives; involutionallly melancholic wives of successful executives; unsuccessfully rebellious co-eds; aimless scions of the malefactors of great wealth; and lost souls of all sexes with money or insurance. I learned the important skill of restraining the dangerous for needed injections. And I followed the lead of the other orderlies, most of whom were black. There were also invisible staff members who brought the meals, scrubbed the floors, and did the laundry.

As I reflected on my experience later, I remembered how it had been clear to me that only one staff member had helped everyone. Dignified, professional, careful in tailoring her always honest approach to the needs of either patient or staff member, she left the sad smiling and the agitated, calm. This was Mrs. Clemons, the black orderly. I long aspired to be her equal.

Gnosis, Faith and the Creation of the Bicameral Mind

In my copy of Phaedo, Socrates is translated as saying "Many are called to carry the mystic wand, but few are chosen to use it." The old philosopher goes on in a pre-gnostic vein to state that purifying one's soul through the ever more finely grained pursuit of truth and justice will bring one into the company of the immortals. Or so he fondly hopes. Do you believe he owed a cock to Aesculapius? Or do you know it?

Faith and knowledge. Science and art. Left brain/right brain. Stereoscopic vision.

Duality in the mind creates duality in the brain. Why do women's corpus callosi, on average, carry so much more info than the average guy's? Will these niggling questions never cease?

My edition of the Brittanica states: " [ ] ....is dependent upon the understanding of the universe; hence it is the duty of believers to put it into the new setting, so that it adopts and adapts astronomy, geology, biology, and psychology."

Psychology as yet has no insights into consciousness to compare to Socrates' and Kant's. In my humble opinion.

Biology, if we will allow botany to assert its humble claim as a division of this great science, does, however, have new insights that can be so adapted. The ability of chlorophyll to extract nearly 100% of the energy of incident photons has been recently elucidated. Apparently, in a manner analogous to the destruction of the Tacoma Narrows bridge, the wave length of the light is precisely tuned to the architecture of the chlorophyll molecule. But instead of destruction we get........a free lunch!

Geology. Consider poor old von Wegener, who like most kids with a National Geographic map of the world, saw how neatly S. America fits into Africa and even correlated the geologic strata. He was laughed out of town. Circumstantial evidence. You've got no motive, Alfred; therefore no case. Faith in common sense will get him and you.....what, exactly? Eureka! Plate tectonics. Motive revealed. Von Wegener redeemed? Faith? Knowledge? What have we learned about the scientific method? Ask Kuhn.

Astronomy. Consider the lowly black hole. Now possibly produced at the submicroscopic level.
Will you put a hook through Leviathan's nose? Maybe so. An accretion disc was recently found to be directing a blast at a nearby cosmic body. Dermabrasion? Cosmic engraving? Star wars?

Nothing is but thinking makes it so. Purify your thoughts.

Great Fucked Up Minds Think Alike

Would you really rather marry a duck-billed platypus than end up like old Oedipus Rex? Sigmund, who tellingly thought being a mother's favorite a boon, fundamentally misperceived young Oedipus' tragic fix. It was epistemological, not psycho-sexual, though there's no question men have a different epistemlogical style from the fairer sex. You see, what marks us all and makes us Everyman is not the urge to fuck your mother and kill your father, conscious or unconscious. Rather, like Hamlet, we are all confounded by the basis of our own knowledge.

Consider.

Having heeded the oracle's warning, Oedipus set out to avoid his fate. Just one little epistemologic problem: he assumed his knowledge of his parents' identity was infallible. It no more occurred to him to doubt the truth of what he knew than it would occur to a fish to discover water. And how many proofs of his impeccable knowledge did he not receive? He bested the Sphinx by his wits, won fair lady, and ruled Thebes unquestionedly. And we, so secure in our fundamental assumptions, from religious to scientific----what surprises await us? Like Casey-- or was it Yogi?--said: YOU DON"T KNOW NUTHIN.

Do you?

But let us take a different tack. Consider Hamlet, who knew damn well what to think but couldn't prove it to anybody. He sure as hell knew who killed his father and married his mother. Because of a hallucination! Sure, Hamlet; whatever you say, babe. I've got the Truth, but I just can't convince anyone. Shades of Godel. I think I'm losing my mind.

Or Job. Another random case. I know I ain't done shit to deserve this, he opines. His friends disagree. God kindly lets THEM know they're completely full of shit when it comes to knowledge about Hisself. Sure Job knows he's done nothing; that's his story and he's sticking to it. At least until he repents in dust and ashes. And like Finnegan begins again.

Might we learn something from these gentlemen? Or shall we, too, darken a design with ignorance?

Life in These United States: Prison rehab

At one time in my career I was the only psychiatrist in a "super-max" state prison. I had one patient, who strangely enough, would have brought a smile to Diogenes' face were he alive. This was a man of impeccable integrity, though his mind had been partially broken.

His story: arriving from a Caribbean nation where the ganja grows, he set about making his way. He'd had a difficult childhood with a strict mother, distant father and the need to become self reliant quickly. Settling in the big city, he joined a relative in the sales and distribution of a yuppie favorite. One fine day his colleague asked for his help in righting a business wrong. My guy's girl suggested he opt out. He demurred and went. After the pair had located and bound their miscreant, my guy was told to leave the room while his partner "scared" the swindler. This involved shooting and killing him. My guy, hearing the shots, ran home. Shortly thereafter he realized that as the only witness he might have become a liability to his senior partner. This realization was confirmed when he saw Big Mo coming up his stoop with a piece jammed under his sweater. When Mo burst through his door, my guy jumped out the window. Oops, broke his back in the fall. Cops arrive, put two and two together, and two go off to jail.

They charge the two identically. My guy has studied civics and believes that in America everyone is entitled to a fair trial. He spurns the D.A.'s offer of a plea bargain that would have him out in three to six because he knows he is innocent of those particular charges. He freely admits to all his actions that were criminal, but he is certain a jury will find him innocent of what the D.A. is accusing him. Wrong. Twenty to life after the verdict is in. No problem, says he. I took my best shot and the system has worked as I understood it to. I will use my incarceration to improve myself.

Wheelchair bound and incarcerated, he adopts a code of conduct. He will treat others with respect, and they, of course, will respond appropriately. He fails to understand that he has become a piece of shit. He thought the sentence was the punishment. Guards help to disabuse him by not so gentle persuasion when he tries to insist on respectful treatment. He goes to the law library for a long time after recovering from his injuries, becomes a decent jail house lawyer, wins a financial judgement, and the unlucky guard is fired. This does not endear my guy to anyone in Corrections. Another beating, another successful law suit. And when the time comes, parole is denied. And denied again. And again. The shooter goes home in the interim. But my guy remains. He still is determined to improve himself and uses some of his legal winnings to buy an electronic keyboard. He petitions the education committee to allow him to buy some of the piano music of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. The request is denied, and the denial is affirmed by the warden, who shows my guy exactly what the prison deems educational. There is a list of approved subjects: classical composers are not on it. Neither are modern composers or music in general. Case closed.

Mother's Day

Grigory Rushanov, a tough little friend of mine, was reputed to have been the welterweight champion of the Russian Navy. An Armenian out of Baku, he could do anything with his hands: play Chopin, Bond-O a wreck. If you know the guy on Sweet Caporals, you've got the general take on Grigory. Maybe 5'4'', with a gold tooth, a bushy mustache, and a walk that says, "Don't mess." And nobody does.

He invites me over to his brother's place one May day to join them in celebrating mothers, his in particular. "Beel," he says, "come over. I make sheeshkabob. Plenty food..drink." I walk over on the Sunday morning in question and arrive at the appropriate housing complex around 11:30. Grigory is squatting over a hibachi in the parking lot, an empty quart of Smirnoff's by his side, skewers on the grill. "Beel, you want?" Kabobs, yes, when ready. Nothing more. "Beer, you like beer?" No, but don't let that stop you.

Not to worry.

When he drives me home two hours later, three empty six packs lie next to the Smirnoff's. In the interim, he has tearfully told me of his mother's lonely death from cancer in L.A. three years earlier. He blames himself for this and more. Several months later, I assume after a similar day of feasting, I see Grigory on the local news. He's plunged a blade into brudder's gut, necessitating hospitalization for the one, incarceration for the other.

But I digress.

It's Mothers' Day, and we're zipping along Kenmore Avenue at a modest 55 to 60. Kenmore's finest quickly approaches from the rear, the cruiser's bells and whistles at full volume. Grigory pulls over and the constabulary approaches. A bullet headed young officer with the build of a weight lifter turns his head to avoid Grigory's breath.

--License and registration please.

-----No got. License on car.

--Step out of the car please. Driver, you stand over there. You, out of the car, too, and let me
see your ID.

While I'm pulling out my ID, I see Grigory taking a leak in the gutter. The cop turns, says,

--Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?

And changes the focus of his attention. I am left to the ministrations of his partner, a savvy black woman officer. She puts me in the back of the cruiser and runs an ID check on me.

--There's a warrant for your arrest in Buffalo. I'll have to call the Buffalo PD to come and pick you up. You don't look like a criminal. What's up with this?

The Buffalo PD shows up, cuffs me, puts me in the back of their cruiser, and I'm off to the clink. Grigory is conversing with Kenmore on the curb. Downtown, the cop behind the desk says, "The perp we're after is 27. That ain't you. They take the cuffs off, and I go home. I call Grigory's house, figuring the cop had him in jail after he "resisted arrest." To my surprise, Grigory has been home asleep for the past hour.

Glories of the English Language

It's a hot summer's morning in the mid 90's. A group of us are sitting around the city mission parking lot. Kenny, a big black dude, dumb as a box of sox, sees a guy sauntering across the blacktop and says, "Isn't that the motherfucking motherfucker who motherfucked that motherfucker?" What's funny is that we all know exactly what he means.

arete

One bourbon, one scotch, one beer. Parapraxes Freud called them. Perhaps Marie Antoinette was on my mind, though she only married into the French branch of the family. Or perhaps it's dysnomenia, an old affliction of mine. Crossett used to read selections from our weekly essays and blue book exams periodically. The first one of mine he read, he prefaced by saying, "I don't know what to do about this," the only time I ever heard him make that statement. He read my answer and said it was brilliant and beautiful but that I had unfortunately written about Joseph when the question was about Jacob (or vice versa.) I got an F.

So I lose the trees for the forest. Sue me.

The generation of men is as the generation of leaves. Or so I think Lattimore translated one of the combatant's speeches prior to a mano a mano to the death. When it's time to shoot, shoot.
There's always time to talk.

Talk is cheap.

A man's word is his bond.

-You don't say much, do you son?
-No, sir.
-That's good.

Mega biblion, mega kakon.