Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Mind-Spectrums
“Reality” as a Mind-Spectrum
I’ve elsewhere proposed that many dimensions of mind be viewed as a spectrum, and here I suggest that the experience of reality also be thus portrayed. Some things seem really, really, real, while other things seem pretty unreal. The key word is seem and what is at issue here is the illusion that something is […]
“Ultimate Concern”
Paul Tillich, the theologian, uses this phrase to refer to his approach to theology. He attributes this to everyone, but I think people relate to religion at their own level of consciousness. Tillich is attributing to everyone an abstract resonance that he himself experiences. (I tend to do this also, because I take my thinking […]
Amplification in Group Work
People often lower their voice unconsciously in order to disqualify their own statements. It’s an expression of ambivalence: “Perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this.” There’s a gradient of disclosure from repression to shouting it from the highest hill: – I can’t admit it to myself at all. Repression. – I admit it secretly […]
Annoyances 2014
Well, one way to cope with them is to bring them from the preconscious, hardly articulated “mood” level to explicit and expressed consciousness, so here are some that have come up lately. They’re minor, residues of childish desires, but saying them neutralizes them a bit: – Having to put away stuff. I don’t mind taking […]
Aptitudes: Language
I am interested in individuality, a concept that calls the reality of individual differences into sharper contrast. People differ in so many ways and one of these is the aptitude for picking up languages. Some people have a tin ear for music while others are naturally more talented. Michael Erard just wrote a book ( […]
Astonishmentality: A Review of “Spectrums”
A recent book, Spectrums: Our Mind-Boggling Universe From Infinitesimal to Infinity, written by David Blatner, my son, is really a great book, even though I may be biased. The author has opened his mind beyond what I’ve known, and his reaction, I’m proud to say, is, basically, "Wow!" But, not satisfied with wow-ing, David has […]
At the Bottom Edge of Higher Consciousness
Alas, my mind plays best at this interface. I even speculate on a half-level higher. Mind interpenetrates all these, from one to seven dimensions. Each dimensional advance partakes of all “lower” dimensions. I’ve speculated on this spectrum of dimensions in past blog posts. The one before that also. I’ll not say that everything is mind, […]
Awe: Another Viewpoint
Stimulated by a recent article a friend sent me about awe, and building on my theory of levels of consciousness, awe emerges as our minds perceive that which is far greater than us. We open to not just the bigness or whatever, but that such realms exist. It is not only nature. In milder terms […]
Being Apophatic
According to the online free dictionary, apophatic is defined as “of or relating to the belief that God can be known to humans only in terms of what He is not (such as `God is unknowable’). I take it as a confession that puny human brains can never know, and I hold to this. I […]
Beyond-ness
There are realms beyond our own. This truth has been almost hammered into human minds over the last five hundred years: Micro-realms with the invention of the microscope, and macro-realms with the telescope. Current developments have extended these view many-fold. We have further learned that we perceive and can perceive only a limited range of […]
Biochemistry Enlivened
I’m sorry to have to use the trope of “little men,” elves and fairies that look like little people, but that’s where humanity is. It’s hard to realize that at the micro-level, subtle astral forces facilitate events as much as the fairies help flowers to blossom or birds to find their mates. (Oh, yeah, just […]
Changes are Happening!
Things that are changing at an ever-increasing rate: – People learning that other people have other opinions … and what those opinions are about religion, politics, etc. – People are feeling free to change denominations, or join this or that religion, or no religion or make up their own, or […]
Confabulations: The Series
If you search the word “confabulations” on this blog-site, you’ll find a number devoted to this word, and more are being added. These were also webpages on my website under the sub-heading of “Fooling around”. Over time I will add more and transfer over others. How else but through play can I suggest possibilities for […]
Consciousness-Raising
(This was written more than a week ago, too) The first point is to recognize that people can participate in raising their own consciousness. This is not a small step. Most folks take their own view of life, the world, people, themselves, pretty much for granted. It is what it seems to be. But of […]
Contemplations on Consciousness
I’ve been enjoying an exchange with some friends about current arguments relating to the possibilities that computers will reach the point of consciousness. I doubt this for the following reason: The whole enterprise hinges on a deep misunderstanding of the mind as rational, logical, and therefore reproducible via algorithms of sufficient complexity. But this is […]
Corpus Callosum (2)
The connection between the right and left brain was shown earlier and it has been revealed to me what was going through the mind of the subject at the moment. It was this: Funny little sunny little puny human brain. Pretty incredibly complex, but not so much to beings who are far more intelligent and […]
Cross-Section of Images Crossing the Corpus Callosum
The brain is, in my thinking, not a manufacturer of thoughts, but rather a receiver. It picks up transmissions from what David Bohm calls the “implicate order.” (I wonder, though, if he ever recognized the profound dis-order that operates in that realm, mixed with certain kinds of order.) Here’s my drawing of three perspectives on […]
Differences in Strengths and Weaknesses
Intellectual strengths and weaknesses may overlap with temperamental ones. I have a mild case of Asperger’s Disorder which, I think, operates on a spectrum. Severe is autism. Mild is Asperger’s. But the spectrum goes on: Social Learning Disability, average, and socially talented—“the hostess with the mostest” as they said of Pearl Mesta in the 1950s. […]
Dimension-ality
I am rather sure that there are dimensions beyond what most folks can perceive, contemplate, travel in or beyond. My “magnum opus” is an illustrated philosophical contemplation of the many facets of existence, most of which few people imagine much less contemplate. There’s one dimension, which means more or less of anything. More brightness or […]
Dimensional Philosophy
I use the metaphor of “dimension,” drawn from geometry. From the internet: “A dimension is a measurable extent of some kind, such as length, breadth, depth, or height, as, for example, "the final dimensions of the pond were 14 ft. x 8 ft." Synonyms might be size, measurement, proportions, extent, volume, capacity, area, breadth, width, […]
Dimensional Theology
I have a friend, a rabbi, who has chosen to work within the Holy Scriptures, and to "milk" them. He writes sermons about them and/or teachings of others about them. Of course he reads into these writings his own interpretations, scholarly confabulations, seeing in them what sincerely seems to be there. He says, “As you […]
Dimensional Thinking
There is a hidden assumption that everything can be presented in terms known to all. This is as fallacious as saying that all higher mathematics can be symbolized by simple arithmetic and no other symbols are needed. It’s a matter of trying not to be all “stuck up”—we learned to try to not be this […]
Dimensions of Mind
One dimension is a line, two dimensions is a plane, and our world is experienced in three dimensions, length, breadth, height. But in truth, we experience it in what Einstein called a fourth dimension of time, and our experiencing it might well be viewed as from a fifth dimension: Mind. Let’s then reflect how existence […]