Chapter 15 - The Nonlinear Line

The chapter starts with a story about a scientist who was studying Mars and said he found evidence of canals. Not natural canals but canals that were in a straight line. Something that does not happen in the natural world. So they were evidence of life on Mars. Yay!

But with more research they found they weren’t straight after all. Curved and caused by natural events.

“What Lowell saw was an illusion. There were no canals, no straight lines; but the eye is trained to see patterns and wants to see patterns  even where there are none”

According to this chapter, there are practically no straight lines in nature. If you think you see something that is straight, look again. Look closely, or change your vantage point. The horizon may look straight but go up in a plane and you see, it’s not a straight line.

An interesting point was that all the shapes that we got taught in our geometry class do not exist in real life. With the exception of the circle, you won’t find them in nature.

“The straight line is the fingerprint of consciousness.”

Now the way we think about consciousness in AT, is not the consciousness that is being talked about in this book. When the author refers to consciousness in this book, I think he’s talking about the ego. The consciousness we talk about, I think is the Me, the author talks about. I think.

The world of the straight line, consciousness, the ego, is pretty organized, everything is in its box. But, man, boring and leaves us feeling pretty empty. Because so much information is discarded to create a straight line, it’s easy to describe and easy to predict.

“There is far less information in a beautifully smooth highway than in a cobbled alley. when we asphalt at town Square, discard the information from the terrain used to be there, and make it easier to describe that particular area of the earths surface than it was before we flattened it. Civilization is about attaining predictability; and predictability is the opposite of information, because information is a measure of the surprise value of a message: the astoundment it unleashes.“

So as we became more and more “conscious” and “civilized” we removed information about our surroundings so our senses are not burdened with all that information. Consciousness can put its attention elsewhere...

We form a hypothesis about what we are sensing: we simulate the surroundings that are filling us with sensory data.  Only then do we experience the simulation. We do not see the spectrum of electromagnetic waves: We see a red fire engine. Our brains apprehended something that resembles what it has already experienced.”

The tendency of civilization towards linearity is therefore precisely the power of consciousness over non-consciousness; the power of projection over spontaneity; the power of the gutter over the raindrop. The straight-line is the medium of planning, will, and decision. The crooked line is the medium of sensory perception, improvisation, and abandon. I is linear; the meat is non-linear. The social domain the conversational domain tends to be linear, on L alloyed chatter. The personal domain the domain of sensory perception is more able to preserve the non-linear. Art seeks out the nonlinear; signs the linear. The computer demolish is the difference, because it gives consciousness the ability to convert large quantities of information by machine.

“One must necessarily discard information when one creates a concept.”

Chapter 16 - The Sublime

This chapter talks a lot about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and how for a long time we were obsessed with fear about the annihilation of the world because of it. Now, no one talks about it. How did that happen.

The author tells us this is what is called “emergent politics” A transformation has taken place without anybody really noticing or any legislation passing through a parliament.”

The basic theory is that tiny changes repeated many, many times can result in surprises. Doing what you feel is right to the depth of your being can and does result in effects greater than we are conscious of. Do what our gut feeling tells us.

Through conscious studies of man in his consciousness, it has become clear that man is much more than his consciousness. It has become clear that people perceive far more than consciousness knows; the people do far more than their consciousness knows. The simulation of the world about us, which we experience and believe is the world itself, it’s made possible only through systematic illusions and reductions that result from discarding most of the unpredictable otherness that abuse the world outside us.”

“ The body cannot lie. It’s bandwith is too high for that. But the I can. In fact, that I can do nothing else. The I refers to itself as if it were than Me. But it is not. The I simulates being being the Me, having control of the Me. But the I is just a map of the Me. A map can lie. A terrain cannot.“

“ The word “sublime“ comes from Latin and means elevated, raised above the ordinary and humdrum...In a sublime performance, the Me is given permission by the I: there is such trust present that art comes to life.”

The author ends the book with the encouragement to “dare to be pleased that we are not in full control, are not conscious all the time; to enjoy the liveliness of no consciousness and combine it with the discipline and reliability of consciousness. Life is really more fun when you are not conscious of it.”

I’m going to review the chapters and then will finish up this book with one last post. I will hopefully, be able to wrap my head around what all this has to do with this spiritual journey.

Ok, so I've decided to move on to Happiness Beyond Thought which is where this all started from. Then I'll come back and see if the two compliment each other. 

If anyone is following this thread. Look for a new one called Happiness Beyond Thought.

Namaste,

Well, I breezed through Happiness Beyond Thought and it just didn't speak to me so I'm going to drop this thread for now and see if things bring me back around at some point.