Substantiating Positive Psychology

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[Nickeson]

Jana,

Please tell me in 25 words or less what is the difference between everything that has been posted on this thread and the " miniscule rantings of the robot mind."

Steven

[Jana]

Substantiating Positive Psychology 

www.youtube.com/user/GnosticMedia  —The Pharmacratic Inquisition DVD part 1 of 12 includes rare audio by John Marco Allegro
http://gnosticmedia.podomatic.com/      Jan Irvin
www.johnallegro.org 

[Jana]

The Need To Belong
True relationship requires sovereignty. While enmeshment occurs on all levels prior to sovereignty. Enmeshment is entropic—in that it is a form of codependence born on weakness not on strength—for it originates in the separate self sense, not the Self or Source.
We can only create community that is not some version of draconian hegemony by unique origination and differentiation. Homogeneity is the refuge of the uncreative, noninitiate and willing slave. We can get our belonging needs met at a higher level through unity and connection at the cosmic level rather than at the reptilian brain level.

“Inclusion in the hierarchy is all. Exclusion, the paramount fear. Would you agree gentlemen that these youths tyrannized by the good opinion of their peers do not possess freedom? They are slaves are they not? They act not by the dictates of their own hearts, but to please others. There are two words for this: demagoguery and fashion.” Tides of War, Steven Pressfield

Both compliance and rebellion are an infringement and distraction on our true freedom of being and the realization of the heights of who we truly are in essence.

“Those who continue fighting and rebelling against the established dominator moral culture risk persecution and scapegoating by the enforcers of herd morality…Unfettered expansion of consciousness evolves into conscience, a code that guides us according to our vision, not the unconscious dictates of inherited moral considerations.” Antero Alli, The Eight-Circuit Brain: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body,

[Jana]

Hey Francis, the following is the key to sustaining positive psychology and upgrading will-action and pleasure-reward chemistry:

The brains reward chemistry for “success” improves memory by prolonging neural efficiency (signal-to-noise ratio) producing a heightened response which makes success more likely in the next trial. This explains why we seem to learn more from our successes than our failures.

"We have shown that brain cells keep track of whether recent behaviors were successful or not," Miller said. Furthermore, when a behavior was successful, cells became more finely tuned to what the animal was learning. After a failure, there was little or no change in the brain — nor was there any improvement in behavior…"But after an error there was no improvement. In other words, only after successes, not failures, did brain processing and the monkeys' behavior improve."The prefrontal cortex orchestrates thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals while the basal ganglia are associated with motor control, cognition and emotions. This work shows that these two brain areas, long suspected to play key roles in learning and memory, have full information available to them to do all the neural computations necessary for learning.

The prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia, extensively connected with each other and with the rest of the brain, are thought to help us learn abstract associations by generating brief neural signals when a response is correct or incorrect. But researchers never understood how this transient activity, which fades in less than a second, influenced actions that occurred later.

In this study, the researchers found activity in many neurons within both brain regions that reflected the delivery or withholding of a reward lasted for several seconds, until the next trial. Single neurons in both areas conveyed strong, sustained outcome information for four to six seconds, spanning the entire time frame between trials.

Response selectivity was stronger on a given trial if the previous trial had been rewarded and weaker if the previous trial was an error. This occurred whether the animal was just learning the association or was already good at it.

After a correct response, the electrical impulses coming from neurons in each of the brain areas was more robust and conveyed more information. "The signal-to-noise ratio improved in both brain regions," Miller said. "The heightened response led to them being more likely to get the next trial correct, too. This explains on a neural level why we seem to learn more from our successes than our failures."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090729121557.htm

[Francis]

neurons [within brain regions that reflected the delivery or withholding of a reward]conveyed strong, sustained outcome information for four to six seconds, spanning the entire time frame between trials.

In other words, if the frequency is wrong and the brain does not get the reward in time, then the learning might not work. The reward, when it comes, is not necessarily associated with the "success" behaviour and the lesson is lost. Worse yet, it might get randomly associated with some "non-success" behaviour just due to their concurrence in time. Timing is everything and patience is a virtue. This analysis has disturbing implications with respect to the concept of virtue. 

[Jana]

Don't quite get the timing thing...?
To Thine Own Self Be True

Doing the right thing is a divine mandate to the heart awakened.

The morality or virtue thing is obvious...it is the marriage of intent, will, truth, honesty and action through the integration of body, mind and spirit. However consider that we have been bred for compliance, complacency and the suppression of emotional truth. We have been bred for hundreds of thousands of years to follow orders and say "Yes sir." The qualities of sovereignty such as original thought, gnosis, connection to the divine, differentiation, genius-creativity, critical thinking, spiritual-rationalism, and autonomous proactive action etc...these have been neglected or suppressed by extermination, ridicule, and the poisoning effect of orthodoxy and status. The species has been conditioned into an unwholesome sleep of those that deny their very existence in order to appeal and comply to outer authority...any authority other than their own inner mastery. Most often it is the sheep following the wolves, or rather the wolves herding the sheep.

We know that victims who do not resist perpetrators invite further abuse. We abdicate from our whole human capacities when we go unconscious or harm ourselves in the face of toxic power and other unhealthy relationships. Once we understand primate power dynamics and establish a sovereignty practice we can use the inharmonious energies in our daily social lives to further wake up to what it is to be sovereign. Since it is mothers, in the modern nuclear family, that are largely forming the brains of their sons, we have to consider whether the security seeking and power hunger of the negative feminine sets men up with the hapless aggression of the hero and provider.

This abdication of our soul is destroying our body, our minds and the earth and breeding such passive and overt aggression that we are being broken asunder due to the stress of belonging to the human species. The subjugation and dys-integration of the whole human by the aggressive power chemistry of the left-brain masculine authoritarian mode is the foundation of the pathological revulsion, guilt, shame and self-hatred that underlies the systematic destruction of ourselves, others and the planet.

The messianic religions, patriarchy, war, genocide, rape of the earth, scarcity and degeneration are all symptoms of the same delusional sickness that perpetuates itself through intellectual and spiritual immaturity. Humanity has been holding itself back for thousands of years through the soul sickness I call the degenerative complex. Compliance to outer authority at the expensive of our inner sovereignty is what is destroying the humanizing principle and therefore killing Gaia. The entire degenerative complex arises from this misalignment with cosmic truth. Love is the only truth that is true and so the Source can be the only Master to the true life. To be virtuous is to be true to life!

As with all life, the human spirit desires emancipation above all else for this is the evolutionary force and our spontaneous connection with God (ALL). There is no maturation without freedom of spirit, and without maturation, human life on earth will become increasingly hellish. This is the developmental challenge…we must wake up to the sovereign-Self before we are permanently put to sleep. Since the essence of our species is the “creative ape” I hold high hopes that we can rise cheerfully and gratefully to the crucial invitations of the age. If we do not do our work, then it is that much harder for those who come after us.

[Francis]

Think of it this way; if someone is being pushed on a swing, the timing of each push can either make the swing speed up, slow down or even stop. In order to reinforce the act of swinging, the timing of the push has to be right (at the inflection point).

[Francis]

Among the “hippie” set, the values and philosophies espoused seem similar: change the internal world with drugs and ignore constructive efforts to improve the external world ~ Jean Smith

Among the rest of society, the values and philosophies espoused likewise seem similar: change the external world with technology and ignore constructive efforts to improve the internal world.

It’s a two-way street; external configurations (i.e. circumstances) give rise to internal configurations (i.e. states) and vice versa. There is a certain type of insatiable restlessness required in order to focus all our efforts on improving the external world with technology. This restlessness is the driving force behind the efforts at external improvement. So a certain type of uncomfortable internal configuration is encouraged, for the sake of progress. Furthermore, the new circumstances cannot ever completely resolve this restlessness into satiety or else all the drive for so called ‘progress’ would cease.

The problem then, is that we are driven to accomplish great modifications of the environment in order to satisfy an inner drive that can never be satisfied. Indeed, it ‘should’ never be satisfied or else ‘progress’ will cease. This is the fundamental predicament of western-style consensus trance.

Quiet desperation is the norm. The internal configuration is permanently set to a state of dissatisfaction. It’s unproductive and socially unacceptable to adjust your inner configuration to be in harmony with your external circumstances.  The notion of progress has become dissociated from the internal states that the so called progress should be affecting. The internal configuration remains relatively fixed, so that progress can continue indefinitely. But what’s the point? Especially since this dissociation has engendered modifications to the environment that actually make us feel worse inside in many cases, by increasing feelings of alienation and disconnection from nature. Failure to make the connection, to re-associate the two halves, makes the drive for progress even more pronounced. But while the disconnect exists, this type of effort becomes a blind force for change that has no compass. Such is our life.

[Jana]

Ok I get the rhythm thing...that last post was brilliant! 
What would you title that post with?...Dissatisfaction Based Progress is No progress at All.
Basic flaw in the structure of human existence.
The Trap


The science daily article describes a neurological mechanism pointing to why punitive authoritarian systems do not work for efficient brain function, success or human evolution and well-being.

Stress or neurological incoherence (dysrhythmia) would occur under all pathological power structures in which tasks are performed within a context of never good enough, guilty until proven innocent, petty tyrant, or double binds and paradoxical intent such that the sense of accomplishment is not forth coming. Within all critical performance environments a chronic sense of hopelessness arises over the sense of never succeeding no matter how hard one tries. This in essence is the basis of a lose-lose relationship…a form of sickness which can infest the entire species at a certain stage of sociological (spiral dynamic) evolution. It is the mental illness inherent in fascist industrialism wherein the top dog is psychotic and the bottom dog is neurotic.

[Jana]

Because punitive authoritarian systems undermine efficient and harmonious brain function, they undermine sovereignty and hence “maturity,” and in this way the humanity destroys itself, even whilst engaged in a race to the stars. This is the underbelly of primate power politics and the bane of the stress damage civilization.

The brain is loaded with receptors for testosterone and its conversion products. Emotional stress and consequent high corticosteroid levels decreases testosterone levels and produces irritability and depression. Humans and animals are more likely to injure themselves in combat when testosterone is low and a nervous, withdrawn state leads to irritation and striking out irrationally. Testosterone and sufficient DHEA stimulate neuronal growth. However, it is more likely that testosterone is stimulating neuronal growth indirectly, perhaps after conversion to estradiol.

Nude sunbathing, or rather genital sunbathing could be a major boost to the chemistry of sovereignty. Testosterone is produced in greatest amounts through sun exposure on the skin around the genitals. This testosterone would contribute to increased noradrenergic neuron growth and number of protrusions. Making for a more complex and complete base chakra effect…the incoming faucet to God. Thus in order to become sovereign and “whole” sunbath your genitals frequently while lying on the earth for grounding.

“It is my primary hypothesis that DHEA optimizes replication and transcription of DNA.  Therefore, DHEA will positively affect all tissues.  The increases of testosterone during evolution of primates and humans positively affected the ability of some tissues, more than others, to absorb DHEA.  I think the most important of these is the brain.  This is why the brains of primates and humans are increased in size compared to other mammals.  Testosterone stimulates formation of the “androgen receptor” in tissues.  DHEA utilizes the androgen receptor.” James Michael Howard
http://www.anthropogeny.com/Pruning.htm

“My explanation of cancer suggests high testosterone and low DHEA are involved.  Humans have high testosterone and low DHEA, compared to other primates.  This may explain why humans have more cancer.  Also, as we age, DHEA declines.  This may explain why cancer increases in old age.” James Michael Howard

http://www.anthropogeny.com/  —Anthropogeny is the study of human ontogeny and phylogeny. Human ontogeny, the life of the individual, and phylogeny, the life of the species, are interdependent.

[PDF]
The Mismatch Effect: When Testosterone and Status Are at Odds
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Much of the evidence linking testosterone and status comes ... defense of the testosterone-status relationship in humans, a socio- ...
homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/faculty/josephs/.../mismatch.pdf

I will print out this article on testosterone and status and report back after reading.

[Francis]

 How about "The Structure of Modern Societal Psychosis"?

Within all critical performance environments a chronic sense of hopelessness arises over the sense of never succeeding no matter how hard one tries

Sometimes I wonder what's worse; hopelessness or false hope? I have a saying: Always work more than you hope. IOW if too much energy is put into hoping, then there's not enough left over to actually accomplish the goal. Accomplished people don't hope; they just act. Hope is a trap.

[Jana]

Ok, hopelessness is the wrong word for that sentence, I will think of another, thanks.

The mind is not the ego...the ego armoring...the defense is "resistance" to the divine consciousness which we have yet to realize as the human mind. Resistance to dysfunction is a trap that keeps us from knowledge of our Self.

In sovereignty there is no “Us vs. Them.” Instead we simply make a perceptive flip of withdrawing our energy completely from the parasite or predator and focusing our attention on our Source. That way we are immune to surrounding dysfunction and can conserve our integrity and energy for crafting our life as Art. Any indulgence or engagement with the parasite or predator only builds resistance, and disharmony in our Self. Coming from a meta-historical and anthropogenic perspective we are freed from wasting our lives in response to that which is not working and are liberated to express ourselves in that which works.

[Francis]

differential expression of essentially identical DNA’s created differences in the various hominids

Great site Jana, did you come across anything about endocrine disrupters and the effects of soy products on testosterone/estrogen levels?

DHEA therapy is tempting. I think I'll wait until more people have tried it. I hate being the guinea pig. Contraindications are a bitch!

[Francis]

I don't think it was the wrong word. I was just riffing on it. "discouragement" or "demoralization" don't have the same force as "hopelessness". Your exposition as worded, is logically and rhetorically sound, imho.

Anyway, I'm not sure how to accomplish it but I certainly agree that we need to be "immune to surrounding dysfunction" and able to "conserve our integrity and energy for crafting our life as Art." Anything that interferes with this agenda needs to be subverted or vanquished by any means that our morals will allow. I typically try to sit back and let them self-destruct. The old "give 'em enough rope" strategy.

[Jana]

 
This is moving along nicely.
the term change is learned hopelessness (death of will)


Tonight with the full moon, heart burning like a chinook, I think I have found my last paragraph...it goes like this...

We cannot fight the pyramid, because we can only ever work on ourselves to avoid maladaptive coping strategies to develop mastery. As power chemistry is a directly mirrored relationship, there is no "Us vs. Them." The pyramid and the primate status posturing that creates it, is built on "We." It is "We" that ARE the pyramid. If the grokking of this is not progressively understood then there is no possibility of ever being transformed and transcending the pyramid. Instead we remain locked into the unconscious game of power chemistry with all the consequent damage to our health, our hormones, neurons and DNA that stress chemistry creates. As soon as we divide the top dog from the bottom dog and set them apart, we lock ourselves inextricably into the degeneration and destruction of the stony matrix of the pyramid - that is until we receive the awesome realization that the duality is "One." Thus the awakening of the sovereign Self begins.