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This has been bugging me for awhile, it means something but it's hard to put a handle on it.
People shape the world. Most animals do in some way, like ants & termites, herbivore overgrazing or any animal that overexploits its' resources, but I'm not talking about that as much as functionally useless changes to impress other humans. We can call it "useful" but there are other forms of the same solution that can be easier to make and maintain.
Once these changes are made, they can develop other uses so they become indispensable to someone grown used to them. Like what on earth would we ever do w/o cell phones and chat-gbt?
Ants, bees and reef fish do it to a certain extent based on social nuances of smell and color. But the point is there's a pattern in our physiology that needs to express for hormonal reasons.
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Things fall apart.
I'm a handyman in a small town on the N.calif coast. I have maybe 3 to 5 accounts going at any time except during winter. Sun and salt air is job insurance because they slowly dissolve wood and metal so everything needs to be replaced periodically. Termites help too. Occasionally I get philosophical about it because people give me nasty broken stuff to fix because it's cheaper than buying new stuff (nearest town is 30 mi away and gas is expensive):
Basically, there are limited atoms in the universe and they're exchanging electrons and forming new molecules which recombine in other forms, like rust and rocks. Things that appropriate the disintegration process are called "life"; that's us. We put things together to maintain our physical integrity: Bodies, houses, devices, territory. It all seems pretty natural, we've always done it. Fish do it, insects, etc. Our brains create rituals : spiders maintain their webs, pheromones attract reproductive partners. When I patch ratholes in Barbaras henhouse to protect the eggs, I'm competing with the rats for resources (by proxy, because Barbara pays me to do it. I like chickens and I like rats too but they don't pay me). I'm a mercenary.
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Cultures.
People tend to associate with groups they understand and probably grew up with. They/we tend to agree on appropriate behavior whether it's Zen Wall Staring or Nazi salutes, it insulates us from things our group says are threatening, and it's our basic definition.
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Rituals
Rituals are formalized teaching. They need to be taught in the form they were originally experienced. Hijinks may ensue if forms are crossed. Writing is a ritual that manifests memes. If the memes are forgotten, the message is too. An example of crossing forms would be singing the ABCs like kids do in kindergarten. Other ritual forms are music, dance, construction, art, philosophy, war, statecraft. There are probably others and even more in other languages. It's where cultural knowledge is expressed.
Some ritual no longer describes its founding meme and survives by being associated with something else, for example almost anything in the church. Its supporting meme isn't in the ritual but in the community that performs the ritual. It brings them together. Thats a good thing I think, because it homogenizes society. President Trump would love to call on religious believers but he can't pull off the morality issue. If he could, it would solve a lot of his other problems.
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Thought processes
When a thought begins it has no context, we add that. It's an empty impulse, possibly the same one that regulates flow of cerebral fluid. Sort of like a heartbeat or it may even be stimulated by a heartbeat.
When awake, that function keeps us aware of our environment. When asleep, it causes lucid dreaming. Its rhythmical pulsing probably comes from the cerebellum or some more basic/primitive sections. (I don't know what they're called) it's a biological equivalent of the hertz rate of a computers CPU.
The thought content is determined by mood.
The mood is a random construction made of memories, and whatever body process have worked there way to awareness. Some form of stress, or relief even tiny.
The memories stimulate hormones that tell you if you're happy, sad or angry. The pathway seems to run through the amygdala because that's its basic function (according to literature).
The thought is then filled in with something to justify the hormone. Like HOW to get food, establish dominance, run away, rest break, whatever; by the "Grey matter". Any physical action has already begun: You're slammed shut in your car before you think verbally: "Wow a Grizzly! Where's the cell phone?"
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News Flash: Waking up at 4 AM can make you more productive, the downside is you still have to do something.
Ok you've read your first article. I need $247.50 within the next 30 days. You don't have to pay it all at once.
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How thrilling can it get?! This
