Andy Lowry @AndyLowry@qoto.org
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
Andy Lowry
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During the American Civil War, the South thought they could blackmail the British into supporting them by restricting the supply of cotton. Without cotton the mills of Lancashire would close and there would be real hardship. However, the mill workers of Lancashire opposed slavery, and the British eventually got new sources of cotton like Egypt. #history shows the commodity weapon Putin thinks he has, isn’t all that. #politics #SlavaUkraini
Andy Lowry
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810 million websites are self-hosted with WordPress.
Imagine if all those websites had this ActivityPub plugin installed.
Those websites would then become 810 million Fediverse instances.
@jayarava
(As it seems unlikely that you would be aware of it, I should probably mention that this view of everything being continually re-created, moment by moment, though with obvious tendencies of continuing on the paths of least resistance, is a Zen orthodoxy with a lot of Soto practitioners. I can probably track down some references for it if you like, though I've mostly encountered it in dharma talks rather than literature.)
I know of at least one relatively well-known teacher with several books under his belt who likes to suggest that this is what the Buddha meant by "rebirth"-- the continual refreshing of all that is, with a lack of carried-over "identity" from one movie frame to the next. Ah, just remembered that the Japanese call each segmentary moment a "nen." Masao Abe wrote about it some, though I no longer have his book to look it up in.
Do I think every moment is a new world? Ultimately, yes, though to actually perceive even hints of it is rare. It's mostly just something interesting to think about, for me. Einstein also seems to have had some similar thoughts, based on some quotes I've seen.
Does it affect my everyday life in any way? Nope. Doesn't matter if it's actually an accurate assessment and has nothing to do with the actual work that is set before me. 😎
Andy Lowry
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Serotonin is such an enigma.
In a fresh paper by the lab of Mark Andermann it is shown that serotonin gates the information flow from retina to thalamus.
https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)01079-0
Trying to understand the bigger picture, we have recently proposed that serotonin has a central role in digesting information. Our paper w @macshine @DrYohanJohn @claireocallaghan and others can be found here: https://shine-lab.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2022_brain.pdf
Andy Lowry
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Noel Coward said that having to read a footnote "resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love" (according to the back-cover blurb on Anthony Grafton's The Footnote), but I'd say it's more like being invited downstairs by the erudite widow below, who has a superb library and a broad oak desk covered with papers and file folders and a typewriter, and brews coffee while discussing her approach to an intricate historical problem she's currently writing about
@jayarava
Well damn. Printing this last "Cessation" document means I need a size upgrade to my official Jayarava folder. Silly me, thought I could get away with a 2" binder. 🙄
The only non-you material in that binder is the famous Nattier article.
(I like to print them so I can scribble little notes about things I want to get more info on. Probably be questions forthcoming on this one!)
Andy Lowry
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Apparently doctors get a free pass for conveying misinformation because... they're doctors?
That is mindless, faux "intellectualism" at it's finest.
Yes, apparently you can still find a "doctor" who will insist getting #covid yields some sort of magical #immunity - with no consequences.
But here's the thing: while I despise these grifter idiots, the real blame lies on the #medical community. Because to this day hardly any are taking a conservative stance during a #pandemic, and most are now acting cavalier. While simultaneously getting reinfected while their coworkers continue to get reinfected.
Staying quiet while people work around #cancer patients or the elderly, with no masks. Or even outwardly flaunting no vaccination, or concern for symptoms.
Indicating a true lack of understanding of statistics or virology. Alternately, revealing sociopathy, which may be an advantage in their field?
People viewed as authorities *DID NOT, AND DO NOT* take any stand on preventative measures, or urging caution anymore beyond the minimum.
They did not speak up when charlatan "doctors" insisted things that defied reason. The snake oil salesmen, the grifters were naturally louder. But met no *official* resistance.
The CDC maintained the barest minimum of advisement. The media talking heads never stressed any real concern. None critical of the charlatans who shouldn't be practicing "medicine".
Does anybody #mask in the medical community now?
There will be remarks in January "well, nobody could have seen another surge coming", "we thought it was over", etc. etc..
It's either incompetence, grifting, or sociopathy. There are no excuses at this point. I don't blame 45, Biden, dr. Shi or WIV:
medical authorities have not played their roles.
In the U.S. >2,000 dead a week, "officially" 500,000 cases a week, and we know #China is opening borders Jan. 6. Long covid known as a real phenomena, no consideration for the elderly or >40% comorbid. "It's mild, I feel fine now".
2,000 every week end up not feeling anything. 8,000 a month, 2,000 more than WW2.
... and people ignore it. Mass hypnosis.
BECAUSE THEY DON'T SEE MEDICAL AUTHORITIES SHOW CONCERN.
No admonishment for reckless virus transmission, so criticism for moronic misinformation.
Incompetence, grifting or sociopathy.
Andy Lowry
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Śūnyatā can't "arise", in a #Buddhist sense of being dependent on a condition, because śūnyatā occurs only when all conditions for sensory experience are absent (śūnya). It can't "cease" because there is no present (aśūnya) condition you can remove to make it stop.
This is why śūnyatā is an asaṃskṛta (unconditioned) dharma. A mental state that does not depend on the presence of conditions.
@shlowry
Hey, always nice to meet another Lowry! Unusual to see what I think of as the "real" spelling. 😉
Andy Lowry
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What if Firefox became the best Fediverse client? Could be very powerful and timely.
http://benlog.com/2022/12/28/firefox-should-become-the-best-freaking-fediverse-app/
Builds on ideas from @luis_in_brief
@jayarava
Oh ho! My big question and concern were addressed right there in the abstract.
"...about the cessation of sensory experience leaving the meditator in a state of contentless awareness which early Buddhists called suññatāvihāra, “dwelling in [the] absence [of sensory experience].”
Though I surely wouldn't call contentless awareness the same thing as absence of sensory experience, at least I now understand what you were getting at. Contentless awareness I can understand.
Now on to read the rest to see how that could relate to gradations of the sensorium!
Andy Lowry
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😄
Just a journalist who's angry that I let people know about apps and features that exist.
Apparently, letting people know about Akkoma or Calckey or Friendica is "gatekeeping" and "hostile to journalism".
Oh, and according to them, "Nobody cares about the Fediverse".
Andy Lowry
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The 8th article to come out of my Heart Sutra research focused on Edward Conze. A man consumed with hatred: esp in the forms of misogyny and racism.
Worse, Conze bungled the editing, translation, and interpretation of Prajñāpāramitā. He hoodwinked #buddhism and #buddhiststudies.
(2020). "Edward Conze: A Re-evaluation of the Man and his Contribution to Prajñāpāramitā Studies." Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, 19, 22-51. http://jocbs.org/index.php/jocbs/article/view/223
@jayarava
With your general-interest post today about sensations and samadhi, I think I've figured out my problem with what you've been saying regarding sensory engagement-- I was misunderstanding what you meant by "sensation" in other discussions because of your (and Orsborn's) conclusions about the topic of anupalambhayogena. Had I just taken it in the usual Skandhas R Us "vedana" way, I would not have managed to confuse myself as much. 😉 I really need an emoticon for slapping-one's-forehead.
As to whether the Prajnaparamita texts really are recommending withdrawal from sensory input, that will take more work on my part to understand. It's a very stupid idea, but that doesn't mean nobody ever had it or tried it out. I gather that Jains and Brahmins do indeed engage in such practices, but it seems the opposite of Buddhist teachings of any school (though I don't know a lot about the Tibetan methods; perhaps they're into such practices).
I am aware of the jhana instructions which spend some time on sensory withdrawal, but never thought of them as a path toward awakening, more like beating the dancing monkey into submission so as to get some insight into what the mind is doing and why.
Samadhi seems the opposite of withdrawal to me, as would the realization of anatta/emptiness, but then my background is mostly Zen, where they use the terms in that sense. There are references in the suttas (actual suttas, the Pali ones, I mean) to that Zennish awakening experience, like in the Theri- and Theragatha recountings of the typical out-of-the-blue occurrence. There's also the Ananda awakening story in which it happens after exhausting himself in striving and then the big zap as his head is on its way to his pillow, but there are several versions of it and thus hard to know what the real version is if there is one.
I used to be disappointed in the lack of text referring to the actual experience of arhantship, but then realized that they wouldn't have been any better at talking about it than the bazillion words in Chan/Zen books are. The whole lesser-or-greater vehicle and bodhisattva ideas in both the Pali sense and the Mahayana sense are very misleading, since the experience and resultant understandings have always been the same. There, I said it. I can see the Tricycle headline now: '"Ain't no difference in the Dhamma teachings,"' claims unknown guy who is neither a scholar nor a teacher." 😎
Andy Lowry
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I like how many instances are bothered by the prospect of the defederation.
They often make the erroneous claim that it will create an isolated experience for instances that do this, which is ridiculous because this assumes more instances will not be created.
What they are really worried about is their instances being isolated, and they are protecting that fear to the rest of the fedi.
They are terrified of the prospect of there being consequences for bad behavior. Choosing to give bigotry and hate space will be relegated to its corner of the fedi where all they have is access to each other.
And this is what bigots fear the most—lack of access to us.
Andy Lowry
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George Santos is the Milli Vanilli of politics!!
Andy Lowry
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Andy Lowry
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Philip Rotner writes,
"it appears that the previously missing link—the link between the fake elector scheme and Trump himself—is no longer missing. Trump not only ;participated' in the fake elector scheme, he orchestrated it."
#Trump #crime #Jan6 #insurrection
(1 of 2)
https://www.thebulwark.com/what-the-jan-6th-report-says-about-the-fake-electors-scheme/
Andy Lowry
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Someone just emailed me to say I need to stop using fancy words and should cut out adverbs altogether. All I can say is that I perused that missive disbelievingly.
Retired SysAdmin living in the high country of Arizona, USA. I enjoy learning about physics, cosmology, genetics, neurology, and suchlike. Deeply confused by worldwide trends towards authoritarianism. I thought we'd already learned about that stuff. But I guess not.
Joined Nov 2022
