(environed mentalism)
BRAIN – sure: situated between the ears.
MIND on the other hand: that whole circulating
feedback system of information that gets the job
done— wood cut, blind-man-down-the-street.: chips
and chiaroscuro sunlight and the heft of ax and wind
and expanding tree-cut gap and the white cane tap,
tap, taping information from side walk. to hand and
arm and nervous system :.
MIND minding mindfully.
This “systems” way of talking & thinking about MIND
and mental process offers the advantage of conceptually
dislocating “mind” from individual “terminals” situated
between ears and seeing “it” in terms of circuits-of-
information whose processes are composed of living
and non-living environment.
With this “in mind,” so to speak, one can see how
ego-conscious purpose and “brilliance” (between-the-
ears-"mind") can naturally eclipse and occlude the larger
circuits of information and difference that are integral to
the whole “system” (wood-chopper system, blind-man
navigational system, driving-to-Connecticut system etc.)
[Why am I so proud of myself when I managed to
drive from North Carolina to Connecticut and get
there in 12 hours? The variables I ignore (my deficient
attention) are immensely greater than the ones I tended to ]
Environ-Mental begins to take on a fuller
descriptive significance.
Parts-to-(more than sum-of-parts) Whole relationship begins
to take on an All-in-the- Family Thanksgiving Dinner going on,
chairs & smells & linoleum kitchen floor, turkey baster &
arguments as to cooking variables, heat and light and it’s all
MIND MINDING MINDFULLY
if you care to de-anthropomorphize mind , de-humanize for
the sake of argument & frame IT in “systems” (relationship)
terms as opposedto the traditional Me, My Self, and I.
kind of talk.
.
{Elaborating on Gregory Bateson’s: Steps
to An Ecology of Mind and Angels Fear:
Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred.)
xxxooo, Sam
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