Signs & Symbols: The Pribram Model

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He's the kind of a guy who lights up a room just by flicking a switch. ~ Unknown

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[Francis]

The symbol is the original artifice and the first layer of mental abstraction separating us from our feelings and our environment. The process of mental abstraction probably arose from a primitive experience of accidental mistaken identity. A bush is mistaken for a bear, because it looks similar. We can respond and even feel as if the bush were a bear.

“The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear. ~ Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V

Symbols and signs can both evoke emotions. The main difference is that a sign occurs naturally and a symbol is an artificial construction. Signs refer to empirical and objective aspects of the world outside and symbols refer to subjective aspects of the world within (Pribram).

Signs are naturally occurring events or circumstances that are empirically correlated to past, present or future events or circumstances. For example, clouds and wind are signs of impending rain. Yellow teeth are a sign of coffee addiction. Signs can evoke emotion, but they are not designed to do so and often do not do so. 

Symbols on the other hand are contrived forms that are designed to elicit semi-specific brain states. For example the letter ‘R’ is associated with a state of consciousness, as are all symbols. The shape and or sound associated with a symbol evokes a specific state of consciousness. This is easier to see with words than with individual letters. Nouns and verbs evoke memories, images and feelings associated with the words. Conjunctions, punctuation marks, etc.; all correspond to thought paths which, alone or with other symbols, point to semi-specific states of mind.

Seeing the shape of a bear in the woods may evoke fear, but the shape was not designed to evoke any brain state. The brain state has been learned. Seeing the shape of a swastika may evoke fear, even though it may have been originally designed to evoke another state of mind.

States of consciousness are largely determined by the signs and symbols that are experienced. Emotional intelligence is the mastery of symbolism, whereas intellectual knowledge is the mastery of significance. The developmental process of mastering symbolism and significance allows a person to gain control over his or her states of consciousness instead of being controlled by signs and symbols. To do this, a person cultivates detachment and self-observation (i.e. objective witnessing of subjective brain sates).

[Jana]

"States of consciousness are largely determined by the signs and symbols that are experienced. Emotional intelligence is the mastery of symbolism, whereas intellectual knowledge is the mastery of significance. The developmental process of mastering symbolism and significance allows a person to gain control over his or her states of consciousness instead of being controlled by signs and symbols. To do this, a person cultivates detachment and self-observation (i.e. objective witnessing of subjective brain sates)."

Thats good, I want to put it in my archetypal matrix section of BOK.


This meta-perspective and mastery of the “technician of the mind” a progressive process. We constantly fall down into our "story" depending on our witnessing and energy levels. Our ability to resist embeddedness in the contents of mind itself is dependent on whether we have discovered a source of being beyond our name, heritage, experience, relationships, education, profession, clothes, baubles and gadgets. This is why sovereignty or connection to Muse, Source and Unity is essential to the noble human life. Or else we will be hopelessly lost in the internal and external pushes and pulls of our identity-making machine. That is without a true generative center, we will compulsively go about trying to design an identity through the use of signs, symbols and synchronicities. We can never "find ourselves" however in the concocted castle of our defense and glorification…for all this does is create varying degrees of separation from All and denial of truth. The entropic culture has mesmerized us into focusing almost entirely on the “shell-self,” and our economy is based around this descended value system—which is why we are running into a “moral” perfect storm.


The limbic system is more tied into the right-brain, which is a dream-like, symbolic, visual, meaning making brain, for meaning or “quality” is derived from emotion. We are emotional infants due to the trauma of the last 10,000 years of militarized civilization building. Since the end of the last ice age especially, we have been building up our technical left-brain and because culture has been determined by power-over methods, our emotional intelligence has fallen behind our adaptive left-brain. The Dionysian and integrative powers of the right-brain are what integrate feeling, thought and emotion, they integrate body, mind and spirit, and integrate the multilayered levels of consciousness from the Field, through primary perception, cell membrane communication, the triune brain and waking, dreaming, conscious and superconsciousness. The essence of the humanizing force lies in emotion for only through emotion do we know empathy with life, quality, value, right from wrong. Plus consciousness rising up from the Field passes through sensation and then emotion prior to arriving as Eureka in our cognitive hardware.

[Francis]

Use it if you like it.


I had a good laugh when Pribram was describing how he finally decided to let the lobotomized monkeys shell their own peanuts, which he uses as “reinforcing stimuli”. The plight of the experimental animals he describes is truly appalling. I feel a tinge of guilt even reading about it. 
 

[Jana]

THE MYTH OF LIFE
My Parcifal Quest of the Holy Grail
Being somewhat kundi active still...my responses can be extreme when provoked at an archetypal level where there is some "personal" desire or love raised within me. Most men do not provoke this desire...only Opusono and Steve whom I saw on the beach in 1999. Mr Universal provoked the most intense desire-awakening storm anyone could possibly imagine...in fact few people could grasp the intensity and implications of such an experience. But that was what was needed to produce BOK...an essential contribution to the rationalization of spirit. My work is this rationalization and synthesis of the domains (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, cosmological) in order to bring about a new Man and new society. That is to not in any way devalue the myth of life, but to bring ever increasing rationality to it so that the mystery itself deepens. In this way both the left and the right hemispheres go to God in perfect synchrony.


Because I am more sensitive than even I can fully grok, my response to my Father's undiagnosed cancer was a kundalini awakening...in precognition of his death. My response to Mr Universal was out of biological telepathy with the fact that he had a life threatening autoimmune condition. I suspect that my ovaries response to Opusono was because he probably has Lyme...and so my cells reacted in a life and death response which throws me into a hypervigilant state...my flight-fight fires up and kundalini is turned up. The narcosis I experienced in response to Opusono may not be a mating response, but an effort of the deep Self to pull consciousness out of normal ego chatter and into a more profound, archetypal, lucid and God-like or objective consciousness of Alpha and Theta brainwaves. I was called to something of importance...and for me that never seems to be a personal relationship, but the cellular well-being of certain men of a particular genetic type and importance in the scheme of human consciousness (Holy blood, Holy Grail). This is the third time that a medical alert emergency has been activated in me. Next time it happens I will realize what is going on while it is happening.

If we are embedded in our story without a rational overview of our mythic archetypal-symbolic terrain, then we cannot get well, for the "story has us!" Without rational detachment and third person observation (witnessing) we recycle the same chemistry around and around and become sickened by the intensity and tangibility of our self-constructed nightmare. If both the Fisher King and the people (Parcifal) remain transfixed in either consensus trance or their reaction to it, then the Wasteland ensues along with the disease and demise of Eros…the force of life. The sovereign call to ask “Why?” is the doorway out of the labyrinth of cultural thoughts, processes and systems that undermine the wellbeing of life and love.

There are many ways to break the pattern and establish a new healthier cosmology and mythology along with its consequent chemistry and experience. BOK is a result of the attempted rationalization of spiritual experience and the healing or integration of the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and cosmological. It is up to each of us to overcome the dominant-submissive play of energies within us to assuage the wound of the ages and come home to our infinitely deep Self...in tune with the Universal Spiritual drives of the Kosmos.

http://biologyofkundalini.com/article.php?story=KundaliniandSchizophrenia

[Jana]

On the nature of Parsifal...
I met one yesterday...a young guy wondering around looking for a magic Goddess to help him become a lawyer. Bordering on insane exuberance, sporting a Green's T'shirt and a beard...visiting Naropa from back East. After I massage him, he declares himself in love with me, my having given him no sign than I was more interested in him than a fly. Such is the extremely foolish nature of Parsifal. He then asked me if I could help him find a wife who was a massage therapist.
Humanity is in a very poor, poor state indeed. I told him to first find his spiritual vocation and to tread that path and he might find his match but to not expect her to massage him, for that level of codependency is death to relationship.

I wonder about this country...it is like living in a madhouse.

[Francis]

I think the problem is that ‘consensus trance’ has a tendency to produce psychopaths. These people have no sense of accountability or integrity. They are so self-absorbed that they cannot appreciate the feelings of others. They represent the worst case of extreme compartmentalization. The ends justify the means, any means necessary. They are represented in the Tarot by the ill-dignified court card in the suit of Swords.

The classic psychopaths from literature are Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch That Stole Christmas, both of whom were rehabilitated, at least in the fictional accounts. They found a way to connect to their emotions and to take ownership of their feelings.

However, according to wiki:

“In practice, mental health professionals rarely treat psychopathic personality disorders as they are considered untreatable and no interventions have proved to be effective…
Symptoms
Common characteristics of those with psychopathy are:
•   Grandiose sense of self-worth
•   Superficial charm
•   Criminal versatility
•   Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others
•   Impulse control problems
•   Irresponsibility
•   Inability to tolerate boredom
•   Pathological narcissism
•   Pathological lying
•   Shallow affect
•   Deceitfulness/manipulativeness
•   Aggressive or violent tendencies, repeated physical fights or assaults on others
•   Lack of empathy
•   Lack of remorse, indifferent to or rationalizes having hurt or mistreated others
•   A sense of extreme entitlement
•   Lack of or diminished levels of anxiety/nervousness and other emotions
•   Promiscuous sexual behavior, sexually deviant lifestyle
•   Poor judgment, failure to learn from experience
•   Lack of personal insight
•   Failure to follow any life plan
•   Abuse of drugs including alcohol
•   Inability to distinguish right from wrong
~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

"Knight of Swords"
He is active, clever, subtle, fierce, delicate, courageous, skilful, but inclined to domineer. Also to overvalue small things, unless well dignified.
If ill dignified, deceitful, tyrannical and crafty.
"Queen of Swords"
Intensely perceptive, keen observation, subtle, quick and confident: often persevering, accurate in superficial things, graceful, fond of dancing and balancing.
If ill dignified, cruel, sly, deceitful, unreliable, though with a good exterior.
"King of Swords"
A drawn sword in one hand; a sickle in the other. With the sword he rules, with the sickle he slays. Full of ideas and thoughts and designs, distrustful, suspicious, firm in friendship and enmity; careful, observant, slow, over-cautious, symbolizes; he slays as fast as he creates.
If ill dignified: harsh, malicious, plotting; obstinate, yet hesitating; unreliable.
"Knave of Swords"
Wisdom, strength, acuteness; subtlety in material things: grace and dexterity.
If ill dignified, she is frivolous and cunning. ~ Crowley

Unfortunately, psychopathy is fast becoming the norm for modern society. I propose a two pronged approach; punish them severely (stick) and reward others for their demonstrated integrity and empathy, wherever you find it (carrot).

[Jana]

A sociopathic culture...that is a culture that destroys the humanizing process and Self actualization...can largely only produce sociopaths.
We are all mad, but the trick is to allow the madness to drive us toward sanity.

The answer does lie in the mind as far as the mind can be a willing servant to the body and soul and surrender to integration and the raising of ones energy state. It is the state of ones energy field that is paramount, for this determines the nature of the mind and emotions, the wholeness of the body and the expression of soul. Raw food, exercise, nature, soul-relations and enlivening (awakening) practices, grounding and visionary sleep determines the quality of our energy field.

[Francis]

The problem is that sociopaths are rewarded with power and prestige as long as they manage to obscure their more egregious behaviour. They are known for being unflappable, cool under pressure and having extraordinary poise. The rest of us tend to elect them and trust them for these reasons. Worse, we emulate and copy them. Perhaps exposing there more egregious acts would help. Note how the former vice president is vehemently against any inquiry into heinous acts of wanton cruelty committed on his watch.   

[Jana]

Haha, that is just a snowjob to hide the real issue which was the 250 people on those planes that were exterminated Nazi style on 911 in the NASA building at Cleveland. Not to mention the 3000 people in the towers, and the hundreds or thousands of rescue and cleanup crew that must now be fighting for their health/lives.

And not to mention the millions of Iraqis dead, genocide thru depleted uranium and hundreds of thousands of dead and radiated US troops.

[jimtzu]

are there levels or degrees of sociopathy or is it like being pregnant? 

[Jana]

In pyramid cultures we are all pregnant with sociopathy. Some play the victim role, some the perpetrator, some a little of both. Ultimately the victim is also a perpetrator (perpetuator), and the perpetrator is also a victim of their role. This is an unhealthy dance we are inevitably engaged in prior to sovereign illumination, and both poles arise from disempowerment and irresponsibility. The game of conqueror and the conquered is a deeply embedded dynamic that stems from the entire lineage of our animal evolution, As we make an effort to rise above the autonomic nature of these ancient roles, we are challenged by multiple layers of trickery, deceit, weakness, jealousy, camouflage, bribery, trading, bargaining, threat, power tripping, self doubt and fear as the layers pyramidal programming mechanically present themselves one after the other.

We cannot be free from the armored cage of sociopathy and the crippling self-abdication and self-betrayal it puts us under, unless we recognize and embrace these robotic programs as they arise within us in the course of allowing the Mystic Culture to flower within our midst. Feeling the sickness and pain within the social miasma, breathing through it and allowing the friction present in this resistance to illuminate the sovereign condition that still can be ultimately found deep within any degree of malodorous social chemistry. It is the parasite in us that allows us to victimize others, and it is the predator in us that allows us to be victimized. Working through these malignancies to the sovereign state allows us to consciously navigate a sick sociosphere and prevents us from continuing to perpetuate the lower survival programs which are holding the human species back in the animal hell realms. 

[Francis]

How is it possible to lose a self? The treachery, unknown and unthinkable, begins with our secret psychic death in childhood. It is a perfect double crime, murder and conspiracy, in which the tiny self gradually and unwittingly takes part. He has not been accepted for himself, as he is. Oh, they "love" him, but they want him or force him or expect him to be different! Therefore he must be unacceptable. He himself learns to believe it and at last even take it for granted. He has truly given himself up. No matter now whether he obeys them, whether he clings, rebels or withdraws-his behavior, his performance is all that matters. His center of gravity is in "them," not in himself-yet if he so much as noticed he'd think it natural enough. And the whole thing is entirely plausible; all invisible, automatic and anonymous!
  This is a perfect paradox. Everything looks normal; no crime was intended; there is no corpse, no guilt. All we can see is the sun rising and setting as usual. But what has happened? He has been rejected not only by them but by himself. He is actually without a self. What has he lost? Just the one true and vital part of himself: his own yes-feeling, which is his very capacity for growth, his root system. But alas, he is not dead. "Life" goes on, and so must he. From the moment he gives himself up, and to the extent he does so, all unknowingly he sets about to create and maintain a pseudo-self. But this is an expediency-a self without wishes. This shall be loved (or feared) where he is despised, strong where he is weak; it shall go through all the motions not for fun or joy but for survival; not simply because it wants to move but because it has to obey. This necessity is not life-not his life-it is a defense mechanism against death. It is also the machine of death. From now on he will be torn apart by compulsive, unconscious conflicts into paralysis, every moment and every instant canceling out his being, his integrity; and all the while he is disguised as a normal person and expected to behave like one! We become neurotic seeking and defending a pseudo-self, a self-system; and we are neurotic to the extent that we are self-less. ~ Quoted in Speeth's The Gurdjeiff Work

[Jana]

Wow yea, the human condition in a nutshell, thanks.

[Francis]

Playing around with some more mixed metaphors:

The inner essence is the “true will” while the personality is the “free will” The inner essence corresponds to the Sun and the personality corresponds to the Moon. The moon can only reflect the light of the sun or be dark. The marriage of the Sun and Moon aligns the free will with the true will allowing the personality to be congruent with the inner essence. Neurosis is like a lunar eclipse; the light of the sun cannot illuminate the moon, being blocked by the earth (or ‘body’). I.e. the neurotic personality is ‘in the dark’ and cannot reflect the inner essence or true will.

[jimtzu]

great last couple of posts, francis.. mix away....

the positive side of self-centeredness..  having the innate confidence of keeping the child-like (not childish) essence thru the fires of cultural conditioning.