[From Rick Marken (20000101.1100)]
I, too, watched the PBS coverage around the world. It made me remember the
Apollo 8 trip in '68, and the photographs they brought back of earthrise
over the moon! Re the New Year's Show on PBS: While each area of the
world had its own approach, flavor you might say, all had the joy and hope
that maybe in this millenium we will get closer to treating one another
(nationally, racially, species, one-to-one) as members of the same family.
Controlling for constant goals through varied actions. That's all it is.
These images drive home the reality that we are all ONE on this planet. I
am sincerely sorry for those who would accept the antique belief that some
deity would select a favored species or some self-selected subset of one
species on the basis of some regionally derived notions. To brainwash
people who can't (yet) control for a perception of the world as seen from
the Moon, and as seen in action last night on PBS, yes, that is the real
sin against nature.
Ok. Call me sentimental but I thought the coverage of the round
the world celebration of the New Millennium was very moving.
I really got a sense of the fact that there are many different
groups of people all over the surface of this giant rotating ball.
And it was great to see (in replay, anyway) each group doing its
own special thing as they rotated through the imaginary plane that
defines 12 midnight. It certainly exposed the religious notion
of an apocalyptic "end of the world" for the primative, regional
fantasy that it is. And I realized that this is why I do research
to demonstrate the phenonenon of perceptual control (control _of_
the consequences of action). I do it in the hopes of dispelling
another primitive, regional fantasy that is just as hurtful as
the fantasy of apocalypse: the notion that human actions are
controlled by their consequences.
Right up to the last hours, there were those (you know) scare-tactics about
Y2K, and the implications of blowing up the Temple on the Mount... Wow,
consider how those involved in such schemes are inputting actions to try
control for the Third Temple in Jerusalem. Mmmm... Too scary.
On PBS, Nature will have a program next week, called "Inside the Animal
Mind, Part 1," about the thought processes of animals, how they "think."
For CSGnet, this is probably not anything shocking, since PCT predicts a
continuous development of perceptual control systems from archaea to higher
animals, such as whales (oh, and us, too!). I am not sure of local
listings, so check yer TV book, if this is of interest.
Recently, I saw the show on Koko, and while watching Koko control for her
perceptions (wow!) I meditated on the implications PCT could bring to
understanding cute li'l gorillas (and other species other than humans) as
living control systems. I would love for Koko's human friend to get a copy
of MSOB.
Happy New Year
Rick...
Cheers,
Bryan