sushil_yadav

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

Dear Group Members,

I want to share an article with you. This is about the link bet**en Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues. The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if ** destroy Nature.

Thank you,
Sushil Yadav

Please note : The article has been written in short sentences rather than paragraph-form because it is about subjective experience / emotion/ reduction of thought.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.


Emotion is what ** experience during gaps in our thinking.

If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.




When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps bet**en thinking go on decreasing.

There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

Emotion ends.

Man becomes machine.




A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.




FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.

SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.


A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.



I am trying to get the following experiment conducted in a psychophysiology/ bio-chemistry laboratory.


There is a link bet**en visual / verbal speed ( in perception, memory,
imagery ) and the bio-chemical state of the brain and the body.

Emotion can intensify / sustain only when visual and verbal processing
associated with the emotion slows down ( stops / freezes ).

The degree of difficulty of an emotion depends upon the degree of
freezing (of visuals and words ) required to intensify and sustain that
particular emotion.


Experiment:

Subjects (preferably actors specialising in tragedy / tragic roles )
will be asked to watch a silent video film showing any of the
following:-

(1) Human suffering.
(2) Animal suffering.
(3) Suffering ( Destruction ) of Air / Water / Land / Trees.

Subjects will be asked to intensify and sustain the subjective feeling of pain/ grief for the sufferer.

The chemical changes associated with the emotion in the body(blood) would be measured by appropriate methods.

The silent video film will be shown at different speeds :
(1) 125% of actual speed.
(2) Actual/real speed.
(3) 75% of actual speed.
(4) 50% of actual speed.
(5) 25% of actual speed.


Results :

(1) Intensity of emotion increases with the decrease in visual speed.
(2) Intensity of emotion is maximum when visual speed is minimum (25%
of actual speed)

(3) The amount of chemical change associated with the emotion in the
body(blood) will be found to increase with the decrease in visual speed.

(4) The chemical change is maximum when visual speed is minimum.
(5) The amount of chemical change will increase with the decrease in
breathing rate. Breathing becomes so slow and non-rhythmic that it stops
for some time at the inhalation/ exhalation stages.

The above co-relations will be valid for all subjects -even for those who cannot feel pain/ grief. Such subjects will experience emotion associated with boredom/ discomfort/ restlessness/ irritability/ uneasiness. The chemicals released will be different but the co-relation bet**en visual speed and amount of chemical will be same( the breathing rates will be different/ fast).
All subjects will experience some kind of emotion.

[If scientists can discover 4000 different chemicals in cigarette-smoke then they can certainly detect the few chemicals released in blood when **experience higher-level emotions like pain, empathy, compassion, remorse etc… ]


In the 2nd stage of experiment ** shall replace the silent video film with a Narrator ( Audio only ) and repeat the procedure thereby establishing the link bet**en intensity of emotion and verbal speed. The narrator will slow down verbal speed by-- speaking slowly, stretching words, repetition of words/ sentences & making use of
pause/ silence bet**en words.

Please note:
(1) A THINKING MIND CANNOT INTENSIFY / SUSTAIN ANY EMOTION.
While this statement is generally true for all emotions, it is
particularly true for all painful emotions.

(2) In a society in which visual ( verbal ) speed and breathing- rates
are fast , pain / remorse / empathy cannot be experienced. It is
impossible.



PROOF.
Proof of the link bet**en pain and slow visuals / words :-

In the last century man has made thousands of movies / films on various
themes / subjects. Whenever pain / tragedy is shown in any film the
visuals ( scenes ) and words ( dialogues ) are always slo**d down. In
many films tragedy is shown in slow motion. At the most intense moment
of pain the films almost become static / stationary.

Tragedy-films provide direct proof / evidence of the link bet**en pain
and slowness.

Pain can intensify / sustain only when visual ( and verbal ) speed slows
down( stops/ freezes).


CHANGE IN VISUAL SPEED OVER THE YEARS


One thousand years ago visuals would change only when man physically
moved himself to a new place or when other people ( animals / birds )
and objects ( clouds / water ) physically moved themselves before him.

Today man sits in front of TV / Computer and watches the rapidly
changing visuals / audio.

He sits in a vehicle ( car / train / bus ) and as it moves he watches
the rapidly changing visuals.

He turns the pages of a book / newspaper / magazine and sees many
visuals / text in a short span.


CHANGE IN VERBAL SPEED OVER THE YEARS

In ancient times verbal processing was “live” in nature—ie it happened when people actually spoke.
Today there is non-stop verbal processing inside the mind through print and electronic media ( newspapers, books, magazines, radio, television, computer etc…) as a result of which the verbal content & speed has increased thousands of times.


The speed of visuals ( and words ) has increased so much during the last
one hundred years that today the human brain has become incapable of
focussing on slow visuals /words through perception, memory, imagery.

If ** cannot focus on slow visuals / words ** cannot experience emotions
associated with slow visuals /words.





Before the advent of Industrial Revolution Man's thinking was primarily
limited to :

(a) visual processing ( slow visuals )
(b) verbal / language processing ( slow words )

Today there are many kinds of fast thinking :

(1) visual processing ( fast visuals )
(2) verbal / language processing ( fast words )
(3) Scientific / Technical thinking ( fast )
(4) Industrial thinking ( fast )
(5) Business thinking ( fast )

(3), (4) & (5) ARE ASSOCIATED WITH NUMBERS / SYMBOLS / EQUATIONS /
GRAPHS /CIRCUITS / DIAGRAMS / MONEY / ACCOUNTING etc…

As long as the mind is doing this kind of thinking it cannot feel any
emotion - not an iota of emotion.

In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
In a thinking ( scientific / industrial ) society emotion itself becomes extinct.

EMOTION IS WHAT REMAINS IN THE MIND WHEN VISUAL /VERBAL PROCESSING SLOWS DOWN (STOPS/ FREEZES )



There are certain categories of people who feel more emotion (subjective experience ) than others.

If ** attempt to understand why (and how ) they feel more emotion ** can learn a lot about emotion.

Writers, poets, actors, painters ( and other artists )

WRITERS
Writers do verbal ( and associated visual) processing whole day- every day.
They do slow verbal ( and associated visual) processing every day.
(A novel that ** read in 2 hours might have taken 2 years to write. This is also the reason why the reader can never feel the intensity & duration of emotion experienced by the writer )

POETS
Poets do verbal ( and associated visual ) processing whole day- every day.
There is more emotion in poetry than in prose.
This happens because there are very few words ( and associated visuals ) in poetry than in any other kind of writing.
There is a very high degree of freezing / slowing down of visuals & words in poetry.

ACTORS
Actors do verbal ( and associated visual ) processing whole day- every day. During shooting / rehearsal they repeat the dialogues ( words ) again and again ( the associated visuals / scenes also get repeated along with the dialogues )

PAINTERS
Painters do visual ( and associated verbal ) processing whole day- every day.
They do extremely slow visual processing - The visual on the canvas changes only when the painter adds to what already exists on the canvas.