Collingwood's Idea of History & Speculum Mentis

[JGeropoulas]

Re: Session 14 October 2017

Everyone needs to read Adrian Raine's book "The Anatomy of Violence". It's about much more than just that. Indeed, conditioning and external environment CAN CHANGE THE HARDWARE!!!

Biological Roots of Crime with Adrian Raine (1:24:30)
SaintScholastica Published on Nov 13, 2015

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The article excerpted below, "America's Real Criminal Element," discusses studies showing that the increase (or decrease) of a common environmental molecule is linked to the increase (or decrease) in crime rates.

Experts often suggest that crime resembles an epidemic. But what kind? Karl Smith, a professor of public economics and government at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, has a good rule of thumb for categorizing epidemics:

If it spreads along lines of communication, he says, the cause is information. Think Bieber Fever.
If it travels along major transportation routes, the cause is microbial. Think influenza.
If it spreads out like a fan, the cause is an insect. Think malaria.
But if it’s everywhere, all at once—as the ’60- ’70s rise of crime—the cause is a molecule.

But which molecule?

The biggest source of lead in the postwar era, it turns out, wasn’t paint. It was leaded gasoline. And if you chart the rise and fall of atmospheric lead caused by the rise and fall of leaded gasoline consumption, you get a pretty simple upside-down U: Lead emissions from tailpipes rose steadily from the early ’40s through the early ’70s, nearly quadrupling over that period.

Then, as unleaded gasoline began to replace leaded gasoline, emissions plummeted. Intriguingly, violent crime rates followed the same upside-down U pattern. The only thing different was the time period: Crime rates rose dramatically in the ’60s through the ’80s, and then began dropping steadily starting in the early ’90s. The two curves looked eerily identical, but were offset by about 20 years.

So Nevin dove in further, digging up detailed data on lead emissions and crime rates to see if the similarity of the curves was as good as it seemed. It turned out to be even better: In a 2000 paper he concluded that if you add a lag time of 23 years, lead emissions from automobiles explain 90 percent of the variation in violent crime in America.

And with that we have our molecule: tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive invented by General Motors in the 1920s to prevent knocking and pinging in high-performance engines. As auto sales boomed after World War II, and drivers in powerful new cars increasingly asked service station attendants to “fill ‘er up with ethyl,” they were unwittingly creating a crime wave two decades later.

So no matter how good the fit, if you only have a single correlation it might just be a coincidence. You need to do something more to establish causality.

[But after 20 years of research] We now have studies at the international level, the national level, the state level, the city level, and even the individual level. Groups of children have been followed from the womb to adulthood, and higher childhood blood lead levels are consistently associated with higher adult arrest rates for violent crimes. All of these studies tell the same story: Gasoline lead is responsible for a good share of the rise and fall of violent crime over the past half century.

_http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/

 

[whitecoast]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Finished History and halfway through Psychopathy. I don't want to comment in detail as I haven't finished it yet, but one thing I wanted to comment on was how so many of the physiological defects of psychopathy seems to be around the inability to empathize with another. Their brains literally have trouble re-enacting the emotions of other people, which is what empathy is primarily for. I thought this was an interesting connection to Collingwood's notion of history of the re-enactment of the thoughts of others as agencies. From that perspective it seems like empathic emotions are a primitive, system one form of attempting to see the other as the self. This, taken to the next level, is the evolved discipline of history where the re-enactment is now a work of consciousness (instead of the just the pre-rational faculties) and involves the absorption of information from all directions about the lives and acts of others and the conditions in which they lived. The summaries Approaching Infinity have given about Paul and the Stoics seems to follow a similar thread vis-a-vis using the aforementioned disciplines to develop greater identity and rapport with the others. Just some observations of mine, and I'm still reading and digesting to see what to make of them. Thanks for everyone for your comments in all the related threads thus far. It's been an educational week or two. :)

 

[Laura]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Finished History and halfway through Psychopathy. I don't want to comment in detail as I haven't finished it yet, but one thing I wanted to comment on was how so many of the physiological defects of psychopathy seems to be around the inability to empathize with another. Their brains literally have trouble re-enacting the emotions of other people, which is what empathy is primarily for. I thought this was an interesting connection to Collingwood's notion of history of the re-enactment of the thoughts of others as agencies. From that perspective it seems like empathic emotions are a primitive, system one form of attempting to see the other as the self. This, taken to the next level, is the evolved discipline of history where the re-enactment is now a work of consciousness (instead of the just the pre-rational faculties) and involves the absorption of information from all directions about the lives and acts of others and the conditions in which they lived. The summaries Approaching Infinity have given about Paul and the Stoics seems to follow a similar thread vis-a-vis using the aforementioned disciplines to develop greater identity and rapport with the others. Just some observations of mine, and I'm still reading and digesting to see what to make of them. Thanks for everyone for your comments in all the related threads thus far. It's been an educational week or two. :)

This is a very interesting point and you've hit on why history is such a mess. Most historians, lacking the knowledge of psychopathology to the extent required, attempt to interpret the data they have from the perspective of "natural language" as Lobaczewski put it, language representing thought. And, since we know that throughout history, it has been the cheaters, the psychopaths and related, who rise to the top, most of what happens at those levels is pathological thinking made manifest. Attempting to interpret that by "re-thinking the thoughts" is difficult at best.

 

[luc]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

I hope this is the right place for this, but since Collingwood talks so much about "re-enacting" thoughts of others, and indeed our own thoughts, and that we need to develop a kind of "second level thinking" where we can think something and at the same time watch that process as an observer and draw conclusions, I was reminded very much of Nancy Collier's book "Inviting a monkey to tea". That book was kind of a game changer for me; when I read it I really understood how important it is to observe our own thinking while we are thinking, because this allows us to recognize patterns and the nonsense that our thoughts often are.

There is a thread about it where you can find quotes of some juicy passages. I think it's particularly useful because it doesn't focus only on thinking, but also its connection to feelings and sensations. This is very important I think because our thoughts are so connected to emotions, which is part of the reason why it's so darn difficult to detach ourselves from them, or to "re-enact" thoughts of others that we don't like for whatever reason.

Here is an excerpt about the process she calls "un-sticking", in this case from our thoughts:

UN-STICKING FROM THOUGHT

Most of us are prisoners, held hostage by our thoughts. Our thoughts drag us around through our days, a bone caught in a dog’s mouth. Whatever thought appear, we feel we have to entertain it, solve its problem, engage with its story. While we may feel anything but sleepy as a result of our thoughts, in fact, our true self is anesthetized and covered over by the unceasing blanket of thoughts. We are so unaware as to not even notice that thoughts are ruling our world—constantly arising and constantly being responded to. In this system, we are our thoughts; there is no space between us and them, no separate self or awareness to notice the thoughts and their demands for attention. Thoughts enter our consciousness with a honey glaze or maybe more aptly, a crazy glue coating. As a result, our identity gets stuck to them. It is not until we wake up, minutes, hours, days, years, lifetimes later, that we realize that we have been gone, absent from our life, stuck inside a prison of thought.

Ironically, the majority of what comprises our thoughts is information we already know. Our thoughts chatter on without breaks, repetitively, saying little of interest and never allowing for silence or for anything interesting to happen. Mostly, our thoughts remind us of what can go wrong, what we are doing wrong, what others are doing wrong, what we need to fear, and what we need to remember that we have not forgotten since the last time we were reminded just a moment ago. Sometimes thoughts remind us of good things too, as in why we should trust ourselves, who loves us, and so on. But most of our thoughts are like background static, noise without any real value, a buzz of grocery lists and repetitive worries about past and future events, an unrelenting river of mostly useless data. We are trying to feel well while simultaneously conducting a constant dialogue with a dreadful radio station dialed up to volume 11 inside our heads.

Creating space from our thoughts means building an I that is not obliged to engage with every thought that appears, an I that can choose how it wants to direct its attention. No matter how our thoughts beckon us to get involved, convince us of their utmost importance, that we will die if we let one pass, we need an I that is un-stuck and thus free to choose whether or not to engage in our mind’s offerings. The fact that a thought appears in us does not mean that we have to spend the next hour, day, or week, entangled with it, lost in its contents, our life held hostage by it. When we loosen our attachment to our thoughts, and are less convinced that our thoughts are who we are, we are free to become the true driver of our life. The placement of our attention—how and where we live—is finally ours to decide.

As we create space between our I and our thoughts, we are able to notice the particular characteristics of our thoughts: what they say, what they assume, what tone they use, what their habits and favorite subjects are, and so on. Separating the I that is looking at our thoughts from the contents of those thoughts allows us to slow down the assembly line that is continually passing through our mind. As a result, we are given the chance to actually examine the product that our mind is producing, and most importantly, decide if we want to partake in it.

Loch Kelly, founder of the Natural Wakefulness Center, offers the following: “I wonder what thought I am going to have next?”3 From this perspective, we can watch our own mind with curiosity, even humor, noticing its particular fixations, tricks, hobbies, as well as the gifts it sends our way. When we are curious, we notice that the majority of our thoughts are not new, not important, not interesting, not helpful, or any one of an infinite number of nots. As a friend pondered, “Why do I keep telling myself things I already know?” Her question begged an important follow-up question, namely, “If you are telling yourself things that you already know, who is it that you are telling?”

[Our mind is like an out of order circuitry system. Out of order, but still firing. The master board throws out material randomly, habitually, but without a gauge for importance, or a sense of discipline. Getting unstuck from our thoughts means building a self that can choose amongst the noise that the system spews out. Once released from the compulsion to engage with each thought that arises, we are free to select from the offerings, to decide if there is anything important or interesting happening inside our head. If not, we are free to be—in our life, fully present, living a life that we choose.

Where our attention is, is where we are residing. Where is our attention at this moment? Where are we placing the nectar of our awareness? We are not free to truly create our life until we can notice and determine the movements of our own attention. Indeed, we have the skill to choose how we engage our attention. When we can separate the thought that our mind is generating from the self to whom it is appearing, a new I gains authority, the I of awareness. This new I is then free to direct our attention, and thus, direct our life.

THE POWER OF PRACTICE

So how do we get space from our thoughts? How do we un-stick and become this larger I that can choose its own direction? Simply put, we practice. We start paying attention to our thoughts, turning our ear inward, listening in to the material that our own mind generates. In so doing, we build a new ground inside ourselves—one that is not made of thought, but can notice thought as it appears before us. As we practice watching the tickertape that continually runs in our head, a new self grows, one that can see the ever-moving contents of our own mind from a place that is still, hear the incessant chatter from a place that is quiet.

We learn a lot of skills growing up, but, amazingly, not the most important one. We are not encouraged to study and know our own mind—to be aware of what is going on in our own premises. Being able to master our own mind is the skill that gives us control of our life, and ultimately, freedom. The more we practice paying attention to our thoughts, the better we get at it. In the process, our awareness grows stronger. Our gym for this practice is life. We are building the muscle of awareness, and it is this particular muscle that allows us to un-stick who we are from the conversation our mind generates, to liberate our identity from the contents of our thoughts.

 

[Mike]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

I found this quote from ‘Speculum Mentis’ chapter on art really interesting. Parts of the quote made me think about the C’s experiment and the often times mentioned that the experiment is 90% work and 10% inspiration. And in order to increase accuracy or even to have intelligent questions to ask a person needs to put in the work to understand the facts and what is currently known about any given subject. The quote, especially the bolded parts, also reminded me of C’s session about unstable gravity waves and gravity, which I will comment on after the Collingwood quote.

Questioning is the cutting edge of knowledge, assertion is the dead weight behind the edge that gives it driving force. Questions undirected by positive information, random questions, cut nothing; they fall in the void and yield no knowledge. Information, when it is not ground to a keen edge of inquiry, is not knowledge but mere pedantry, the talent buried in earth. It ought to be put out at interest, to yield new knowledge and so to purify and correct itself as well as to increase its bulk. Text-books and encyclopedias are contemptible only when regarded as constituting and exhausting knowledge itself, as records of the achievement of knowledge, as constituting the body of information which directs our further questioning, their importance is immeasurable. Information may be the body of knowledge, but questioning is the soul.

Supposal and questioning are at bottom the same thing, or rather, supposal when seen in its proper perspective as an integral element in knowledge turns out to be questioning. The activity of questioning is a puzzle to empiricist theories of knowledge because in it we seem to contemplate an object which does not necessarily exist, and empiricism believes that it is only because an object really exists that it has, so to speak, the force to imprint itself upon our mind or engage our attention. But we never ask a question without some degree of contemplating the non-existent, for asking a question means envisaging alternatives, and only one at most of these alternatives can really exist. Thus questioning is essentially a suspension of the activity of asserting, and that is how we have defined the aesthetic experience or imagination. But true questioning is a suspension which looks forward to a renewal of this asserting activity, in the shape of the answer. In art, on the other hand, the suspending of assertion seems to be an end in itself, and does not look forward to its own negation, the renewal of assertion. Art, as pure imagination, imagination without assertion, may be paradoxically defined as a question which expects no answer, that is, a supposal.

But a question looks back as well as forward. To ask any question, even the silliest or most irresponsible, we must already possess information. A mind which did nothing but question could not even frame its questions; the questions which it asked would be mere marks of interrogation, the empty form of questioning, questions which ask nothing. And they would not be even that, for even the empty form of questioning implies the knowledge that there is information to be had. Similarly, in terms of inductive logic, you must know your facts before you can frame your hypothesis; and this means not only that without knowing the facts you cannot frame a relevant or illuminating hypothesis, but that you cannot frame any hypothesis whatever. Any act must start somewhere, and a pure act of imagination, just because it was completely divorced from fact, would have nowhere to start from and would therefore have no reason for determining itself in any one way rather than any other. So, even if art is pure imagination, it must spring from a soil of concrete fact; the artist must really exist in a real world, and his works of art are necessarily a kind of sublimated version of his experience as a real person, however unconscious of this fact he may be. The work of art is an imaginative cutting edge to a mind whose solid backing of factual experience may be forgotten for the moment, but is none the less very real; or rather, it is not forgotten but distilled into the work of art, present to the mind in this form and no other.

Thus the imaginative activity of art is itself supported and surrounded by a medium of fact; but the essence of the purely aesthetic frame of mind is that this medium or background is overlooked. The artist necessarily overlooks it, but that does not excuse the philosopher from doing so, and his attempt to build up a philosophy from a basis of pure imagination is doomed to failure because the basis itself is unsound. Imagination does not exist in the free state, and itself requires a basis of fact. This basis of fact in turn requires a basis of imagination, for no fact can be known until it has been sought by the imaginative act of questioning, and this question itself requires a further basis of fact, and so ad infinitum. This is not an infinite regress only because the two moments, question and answer, are not actually separate. Their distinction is an ideal distinction only, and the presupposition of each by the other is only a way of stating their inseparability. The process of knowledge is therefore, strictly speaking, not so much an alternation of question and answer as a perpetual restatement of the question, which is identical with a perpetual revision of the answer. […]

My speculative thoughts on how Collingwood’s quote relates to the C’s session quoted below and gravity, is the question and answer dynamic or the seeking to understand reality via question and answers is gravity and/or creates unstable gravity waves. It seems to me from looking at the perspective from 1D (matter) to 7D (pure consciousness and full view of all reality) that using the senses, perception and thinking, such as a 3D human using their five senses and the ability to think, continually validates reality via a seamless process given whatever abilities a being has to perceive, think and understand reality. It is possible that this is what binds the universe together and the C’s have said is gravity and a binder. If information and theories on information for the universe forms a key aspect of understanding reality, then questioning and finding answers is an active or activating component of information and fundamental component of reality. Could this active process from 1D thru to 7D be in and of everything as the C’s explain about gravity?

The question and answer dynamic also provides a being with the ability to choose a polarity, be it STO or STS then take action toward the path they have chosen. Information -> Question -> Answer-> Choice -> Action from choice.

This all seems pretty wild to speculate about and I may be way off, but figured I’d post it since the Collingwood quote is excellent for many reason and made me think about the C’s session and info on gravity.

Q: (L) Okay. So, we are onto something with the Sufi teachings. But, we don't need to get off the track. I guess that they did with the Koran what some other mystics have done with the Bible. It is clear that there is something under the surface of it, but it is corrupted and twisted. And, I was convinced by seeing this underlying pattern that it was possible to penetrate the veil, and that gave me the impetus to push for a breakthrough.

A: Unstable gravity waves unlock as yet unknown secrets of quantum physics to make the picture crystal clear.

Q: (L) Can we free associate about these gravity waves since no bookstores are open at this hour? Gravity seems to be a property of matter. Is that correct?

A: And....

Q: (L) And hmmmm....

A: And antimatter!

Q: (L) Is the gravity that is a property of antimatter "antigravity?" Or, is it just gravity on the other side, so to speak?

A: Binder.

Q: (L) Okay. Gravity is the binder. Is gravity the binder of matter?

A: And...

Q: (L) Is gravity a property of light?

A: Not the issue.

Q: (L) What is the issue? Can you help me out here, Frank?

A: Gravity binds all that is physical with all that is ethereal through unstable gravity waves!!!

Q: (L) Is antimatter ethereal existence?

A: Pathway to.

Q: (L) Okay.

A: Doorway to.

Q: (L) Are unstable gravity waves... no, hold everything... do unstable gravity waves emanate from 7th density?

A: Throughout.

Q: (L) Do they emanate from any particular density?

A: That is just the point, there is none.

Q: (L) There are no unstable gravity waves?

A: Wrong...

Q: (L) There is no emanation point?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) So, they are a property or attribute of the existence of matter, and the binder of matter to ethereal ideation?

A: Sort of, but they are a property of anti-matter, too!

Q: (L) So, through unstable gravity waves, you can access other densities?

A: Everything.

Q: (L) Can you generate them mechanically?

A: Generation is really collecting and dispersing.

Q: (L) Okay, what kind of a device would collect and disperse gravity waves? Is this what spirals do?

A: On the way to.

Q: (L) So, if were to focus on collecting unstable gravity waves...

A: When you wrote "Noah" where did you place gravity?

Q: (L) I thought that gravity was an indicator of the consumption of electricity; that gravity was a byproduct of a continuous flow of electrical energy...

A: Gravity is no byproduct! It is the central ingredient of all existence!

Q: (L) I was evaluating by electric flow and consumption... and I was thinking that electricity was evidence of some sort of consciousness, and that gravity was evidence that a planet that had it, had life...

A: We have told you before that planets and stars are windows. And where does it go?

Q: (L) The windows?

A: The gravity.

Q: (L) Oh. Gravity must go into the ethereal dimensions or densities. I mean, you have my head going in so many different directions that I feel like I have popcorn in there.

A: Good!

Q: (L) Well, where does gravity go. The sun is a window. Even our planet must be a window!

A: You have it too!!

Q: (L) So, gravity is the unifying principle... the thing that keeps things together, like the way all the fat pulls together in a bowl of soup.

A: Gravity is all there is.

Q: (L) Is light the emanation of gravity?

A: No.

Q: (L) What is light?

A: Gravity.

Q: (L) Is gravity the same as the strong and weak nuclear forces?

A: Gravity is "God."

Q: (L) But, I thought God was light?

A: If gravity is everything, what isn't it? Light is energy expression generated by gravity.

Q: (L) Is gravity the "light that cannot be seen," as the Sufis call it: the Source.

A: Please name something that is not gravity.

Q: (L) Well, if gravity is everything, there is nothing that is not gravity. Fine. What is absolute nothingness?

A: A mere thought.

Q: (L) So, there is no such thing as non-existence?

A: Yes, there is.

Q: (L) Do thoughts produce gravity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Does sound produce gravity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Can sound manipulate gravity?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Can it be done with the human voice?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Can it be done tonally or by power through thought?

A: Both.

Q: (L) Then, is there also specific sound configurations involved?

A: Gravity is manipulated by sound when thought manipulated by gravity chooses to produce sound which manipulates gravity.

Q: (L) Now, did the fellow who built the Coral Castle spin in his airplane seat while thinking his manipulations into place?

A: No. He spun when gravity chose to manipulate him to spin in order to manipulate gravity.

Q: (L) Does gravity have consciousness?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Is it ever possible for the individual to do the choosing, or is it gravity that IS him that chose?

A: The gravity that was inside him was all the gravity in existence.

Q: (L) Well, I thought the Sufis were tough! (F) Well, it's probably because of your studies that this door opened. (L) Good grief! What have I done! Alright. I am confused.

A: No you are not.

Q: (L) Then, just put it this way: I am befuddled and overloaded.

A: Befuddling is fun!

Q: (L) Well, I guess that if any of this is going to be of particular significance to us, then we will certainly find out the details as we go along.

A: How many times do we have to tell you?!?!

Q: (L) Learning is fun! Right!

A: The entire sum total of all existence exists within each of you, and vice versa.

Q: (L) Then what is the explanation for the "manyness" that we perceive?

A: Perception of 3rd density.

Q: (L) So, the entire universe is inside me... okay, that's... I understand. Oddly enough, I do. The problem is accessing it, stripping away the veils.

A: That is the fun part.

Q: (L) So, the fellow who built the Coral Castle was able to access this. Consistently or only intermittently?

A: Partially.

Q: (L) According to what I understand, at the speed of light, there is no mass, no time, and no gravity. How can this be?

A: No mass, no time, but yes, gravity.

Q: (L) A photon has gravity?

A: Gravity supersedes light speed.

Q: (L) Gravity waves are faster than light?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) What would make a gravity wave unstable?

A: Utilization.

Q: (L) I feel like I am missing a really big point here...

A: You are, but you can only find it at your own pace.

Q: (L) Well, I think I need to do some reading and research so that I can come back to this.

A: And, on that note, good night.

 

[Jones]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Bear:

My speculative thoughts on how Collingwood’s quote relates to the C’s session quoted below and gravity, is the question and answer dynamic or the seeking to understand reality via question and answers is gravity and/or creates unstable gravity waves. It seems to me from looking at the perspective from 1D (matter) to 7D (pure consciousness and full view of all reality) that using the senses, perception and thinking, such as a 3D human using their five senses and the ability to think, continually validates reality via a seamless process given whatever abilities a being has to perceive, think and understand reality. It is possible that this is what binds the universe together and the C’s have said is gravity and a binder. If information and theories on information for the universe forms a key aspect of understanding reality, then questioning and finding answers is an active or activating component of information and fundamental component of reality. Could this active process from 1D thru to 7D be in and of everything as the C’s explain about gravity?

The question and answer dynamic also provides a being with the ability to choose a polarity, be it STO or STS then take action toward the path they have chosen. Information -> Question -> Answer-> Choice -> Action from choice.

This all seems pretty wild to speculate about and I may be way off, but figured I’d post it since the Collingwood quote is excellent for many reason and made me think about the C’s session and info on gravity.

Hence "All to those that ask"?

 

[Laura]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Yup. Now ya'll can see some of the things that struck me as rather amazing while reading Collingwood.

 

[ka]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Hi, all:
These conversations about Collingwood, Paul and the Stoics are really going somewhere! I am all ears to hear about how we can optimize the equipment we were born with, to enable us to ride the Wave rather being swept under.

I came across a conversation in another place that might inform our efforts to overcome the chaos and develop our minds into effective receivers/transmitters. It concerned a very basic concept taken from the ancient traditions of memory training.

And this approach is: “The art by which one uses the imagination to find connections between ideas.”

In Greco-Roman antiquity this was the basis of the Art of Memory which was taught to orators to help them speak fluently and persuasively without referring to notes.

Anthropologists have observed that this focus on “finding connections between ideas” was the approached used by non-literate peoples. They held prodigious bodies of knowledge—about the natural world, mythology, genealogy, and other things—in their heads, and transmitted them faithfully forward through many generations without written records .

The celtic druids actually forbade the writing down of their knowledge, because they thought it was more important to develop the mental capacities that come with memory training.

One could begin building up memory power by making efforts to store in and retrieve from your skull things that have been stored in a smart phone or notebook. Rather than automatically referring to a record, try to recall it without external help.

It would be a start.

I remember hearing interviews of people who were put on TV as prodigies of memory power; they described linking a name to a mental image, the more outrageous or silly, the better. The associations were childish and seemingly ridiculous, but they have worked when I tried them.

Beyond remembering names and numbers, the imaginative work of linking up new knowledge with things you already know is very powerful in building up a coherent understanding of reality.

Bear's insight about the relationship of gravity to questioning is a mind-blowing example of the art.

It seems to me this approach might actually enable us to USE the chaos, in a sort of “resistance training” for building up our mental capacities.

 

[Keit]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

Another thing that emerged from the above mentioned discussion is this kind of altered state that occurs when you have absorbed so much data (relating to a wide spectrum of topics like economy, religion, sociology, philosophy, hard sciences...) about the period of history you study that you sort of recreate this whole context in your mind and when you try to understand a historical event, you do so while not being in today's context but in total submersion in the whole context of the period of history you study.

It's almost like a time machine. Well, I never experienced such an immersion but that's what Laura reported and from my observations of her writing process, I think this is indeed occurring and probably constitutes the key factor when one wants to write proper history.

I am still only on the third part of the book, but Collingwood's emphasis on the importance of imagination when studying history, including the above, reminded me of something. I have a habit from childhood, where while walking on the street I like to look into other people's windows and see how they live. It isn't due to being a "Peeking Tom" or anything like that. ;) And it isn't because I am interested in their decor per se. It has to do with wanting to feel the atmosphere of their home, try and immerse myself in it and imagine how would it be to live there. For no particular reason, just out of curiosity.

And maybe thinking about historical period is similar to this kind of "peeking", just on a greater level that involves entire society?

 

[Altair]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

And maybe thinking about historical period is similar to this kind of "peeking", just on a greater level that involves entire society?

Paraphrasing Collingwood one can say in general "extracting of information [from information field] by thought", as he writes in Speculum Mentis.

 

[PerfectCircle]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

I have a habit from childhood, where while walking on the street I like to look into other people's windows and see how they live. It isn't due to being a "Peeking Tom" or anything like that. ;) And it isn't because I am interested in their decor per se. It has to do with wanting to feel the atmosphere of their home, try and immerse myself in it and imagine how would it be to live there. For no particular reason, just out of curiosity.

And maybe thinking about historical period is similar to this kind of "peeking", just on a greater level that involves entire society?

Hehe that's what I have also been doing.
And not only that, but also when I visit another town, region or country I try to put myself in that perspective and figure out how the life "goes" over there.

About what you said in last sentence: it could maybe be practiced when you visit history-rich town/city and connect the picture for the whole society of that time.

 

[Laura]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

I have a habit from childhood, where while walking on the street I like to look into other people's windows and see how they live. It isn't due to being a "Peeking Tom" or anything like that. ;) And it isn't because I am interested in their decor per se. It has to do with wanting to feel the atmosphere of their home, try and immerse myself in it and imagine how would it be to live there. For no particular reason, just out of curiosity.

And maybe thinking about historical period is similar to this kind of "peeking", just on a greater level that involves entire society?

Hehe that's what I have also been doing.
And not only that, but also when I visit another town, region or country I try to put myself in that perspective and figure out how the life "goes" over there.

About what you said in last sentence: it could maybe be practiced when you visit history-rich town/city and connect the picture for the whole society of that time.

I've been doing the same thing since I was a kid.

 

[Adaryn]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

I have a habit from childhood, where while walking on the street I like to look into other people's windows and see how they live. It isn't due to being a "Peeking Tom" or anything like that. ;) And it isn't because I am interested in their decor per se. It has to do with wanting to feel the atmosphere of their home, try and immerse myself in it and imagine how would it be to live there. For no particular reason, just out of curiosity.

When I go to other people's homes (for work), I like to look around - trying to feel the atmosphere of the house, looking at the furniture and stuff. I particularly like to look at family photos on display - on the wall, on cupboards… trying to imagine what kind of family it is, what kind of life they live. When it's old B&W photos or photos of people who are now dead, I try to imagine how they were like when they were alive. When you ask them, most people love to tell their life/family stories, and it's always very interesting to listen to them. Some stories are quite sad, too.

 

[Yozilla]

Re: Collingwood's Idea of History, Speculum Mentis & Gurdjieff's Primitive Cosmology

Me also likes very much to see inside others' dwellings - while working as cable guy a dozen years ago, i especially liked that aspect of me-job. But it cuts both ways - i've seen good and bad, nice and sick, poor and rich, from some i hardly wanted to leave - others regretted that i've ever entered. Maybe i'll start that job again - everybody love cableguys. ain't it? ..... NOOOOOT

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[Timótheos]

Re: R. G. Collingwood: The Idea of History

When I go to other people's homes (for work), I like to look around - trying to feel the atmosphere of the house, looking at the furniture and stuff. I particularly like to look at family photos on display - on the wall, on cupboards… trying to imagine what kind of family it is, what kind of life they live. When it's old B&W photos or photos of people who are now dead, I try to imagine how they were like when they were alive. When you ask them, most people love to tell their life/family stories, and it's always very interesting to listen to them. Some stories are quite sad, too.

Back when we were living in Canada, every weekend in the summertime, we would go to neighbourhood garage sales to search for interesting and unique items to resell in our store. You can get a good sense of the people living inside by the things that they getting rid of and no longer have any use for, and also what they choose not to sell. But I found nothing more entertaining and informative than to see what kind of books were on display. Many houses had no books at all, which is also interesting, but those who had were filled mostly with light genre fiction, romance, suspense, horror, etc. Every once in a while though, we'd stumble across a family with a wide range of interesting literature, fiction and non-fiction and we'd promptly buy most of their titles. I've often thought that perusing someone's library is like taking a peek inside their mind.