R: Well, my point with all of this … interesting chain of events … I take it as an omen. I look forward to reading Penrose with my, algebra-1-from-high-school, current math level, in order to “determine if (I) really desire what (I) report.” I do have a sense of improbability about it all, somehow. But perhaps the book will suggest the answer to my question of where to start, in practice. It does feel like the mountain of sand that I KNOW I must move one grain at a time until it is all moved, and yet … I don’t know, I just don’t know what else to do in life that challenges and draws me. I’ve been told that I am mathematically inclined and that has been my belief too, but I NEVER studied math and therefore, ability or not, I don’t know it. Yet I’d truly love to understand what it means for mathematics to be beautiful. I’ve heard that said about advanced math and it’s in my mind like something that must be equal to others not knowing the “smell/taste sense” of color. Others have not even the concept of color beyond seeing it, yet it is there. Is that not akin to mathematical “beauty?” The closest I ever got to it was in, perhaps 7th grade, when we were studying a circle of radius 1 with its center on (0,0) on the Cartesian plain and I realized that all of the facts we were learning from that simple drawing were right there to be extrapolated without any explanation. It was a small thing, but I loved knowing that … that was exciting to me. I don’t feel that about anything else in daily first attention life. I love doing pottery, painting, writing, but it doesn’t come close to that feeling of “seeing” the circle.
M: All that I can say here, is that I’m smiling …
M: It is all connected together. For a time you really seemed to think that abstractions, philosophy, science, metaphysics, mathematics, music, et al, and the impetus to study, understand and flow – were all separate – and perhaps now there is the beginning of recognition that they are not.
R: Now, the piano. Taken from my 7-24 email to you: “I discovered the piano at age 29 when I sat down having never before touched the keys or any musical instrument, and found that the black keys all sounded good together and that excursions into the white keys solicited timing of sorts. I returned with a tape recorder and played of three hours on the second flour of the Ala Moana Hotel at one in the morning in a huge nearly empty lobby. I still like to listen to the tape at times.”
R: I am drawn to the piano much as I am to mathematics, oddly, I suspect mathematics and the piano are very much the same and would love to reach the point where I could precisely convert “my” piano to pure mathematics.
M: Yes, they are very similar – once one gets above the tedium of simple “numbers” and flows with concepts. A good analogy re piano would be the dexterity of wrists, hands, and fingers. The mechanics of the human body require “practice” to tune up these mechanical muscle responses and this is called “dexterity”, which BTW, is also a DNA inherited trait at the higher levels of performance. In any case, to be proficient at Piano, it is necessary to “get beyond” the simple mechanics of moving fingers, et al. Once that is accomplished through discipline, (practice) then the “music” may flow as an extension of self.
R: I wonder about the relation between music and the sought after unification theory.
M: The “unification” will be found in “strings”. The “string set” is a sequential linkage of matter, particles, fields, and the universe itself is founded on immense macro-electromagnetic-strings. At the quantum level “strings” of subatomic movements exist in activity in TEN dimensions, and these are where sentient consciousness is found. The babble in “science” about the “big bang”, although populist in astrophysics, seems very human-centric conceptually in it’s “violence” mode because it really didn’t have to happen that way at all.
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M: Most everything has tendrils of interconnection to everything else. It requires a very global/universal view sometimes to see the interconnections. If one is in a tree, studying the leaves of the tree, it is difficult to see what the forest looks like and what it’s relevance is to the topology and features that forms the environment of the forest.
R: I like the Sorcerers’ Crossing and probably should add it to my compilation. I’m reminded of all the questions I could ask you about the way of knowledge. Like, “How does one find a power spot, and what do you do with it once you’ve found it.
M: The “spots” are frequently around us, and they are not difficult to find once one recognizes them. They are not quiescent for long periods however, since they have mobility. They are components of what Jacob (renamed to Isreal) saw as energy columns (currently misnamed “Jacob’s ladders”) as reported in the Old Testament.
R: I recall don Juan saying something about crossing the eyes and “feeling” power spots. I’ve not bothered much with so many aspects of the teachings, when I think about it. Yet I do feel drawn to those aspects.
M: The crossing eyes idea is only a device to cause “unfocus”, but it silly that the eyes have to actually BE crossed to achieve that. It’s a device to “see” beyond the tactile first attention.
R: From your last note. Please say more about the interrelatedness of math, the way, and all. Especially more about your statement that, “It is all connected together. For a time you really seemed to think that abstractions, philosophy, science, metaphysics, mathematics, music, et al, and the impetus to study, understand and flow – were all separate – and perhaps now there is the beginning of recognition that they are not.”
M: Hummm large subject, and it would probably require many many metaphors, allegories, and analogies to fully describe so here is a quick attempt though it is feared that this will be far too shallow.
M: In any subject there can be a great deal of background to understand to the point where it is comfortable. The “comfort factor” is a varied reality for each person. What this means is that there are two situations working in parallel: the information itself with it’s background as precursor; and, the reality of the person having the information downloaded.
M: Start with Philosophy. What drives a person’s psychology, assuming that a person is a seeker in any significant manner? …
R: Do you mean what drives how they think, their thought processes? Is that what you mean by a person’s psychology?
M: Yes, with elaboration. “How they think” has several different components: how they process information/data; in what style and manner CAN they even “receive” the data. These two interact because sometimes the data form that they “receive” impacts the “manner” in which the data is processed. The manner in which the data is processed also impacts the conclusions that are eventually yielded. Acting in the role of a teacher, it is incumbent on the teacher to constantly modify his/her style and approach to each student on a one:one basis, because each person in their own realities are able to “receive” information (get it into their processing system called the brain and memory) at significantly different rates.
M: … The Philosophy that a person finds by imprint, experiment, or “knowledge” however gained, drives a person’s psychology. …
R: What do you mean “by imprint?” Touch a hot stove and learn about hot, I suppose.
M: Yes, however, it also means impact of parents for example. What “imprints” a person? Usually “striking” experiences. Some are tactile, some are emotional, but they are “striking”.
M: … What drives a person’s emotions? … R: “Drives?” Are emotions driven?
M: Of course emotions are driven. Think of any “reflex” emotion that you carry around with you, emphasis on “any and reflex”. These emotions are usually simply old emotions that are stored in memory from old experiences. These old emotions provoke “flash” or impulse or reflex duplicates of themselves when something occurs that “triggers” (or drives) them into re-creation.
M: … Psychology drives emotions and that is interconnected to philosophy. …
R: By drives you mean: what produces a persons emotions? How? How is it interconnected? Like philosophy and psychology rolling down the hill together gathering the snow of experience-belief-experience-belief, and on and on? I suppose so.
M: Yes. What changes the pattern after it’s established? Inquiry changes the pattern. This happens when a person states to self “I want out of this mode”. So, the beginning of a philosophical change starts at that point.
M: … What drives a direction of musical communication, or poetry (a different expression of the same thing) in a person? Psychology as a derivative from philosophy, yet again makes a large formative piece of these components. What fundamentally imprints a TREND of philosophy, that in turn drives psychology, into a person? The TREND, meaning the direction, is a formative process that starts with a person’s DNA. …