Slow

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Dear fellow coma victims, back to the main point of this blog. My walking has deteriorated of late, perhaps my brain is adjusting the new pathways and making permanent it’s rerouting. I have definitely experienced setbacks like this before, and again. I always need a stick now. At the same time my right hand is playing up which makes sense if the brain is adjusting itself. I’ve had problems with the entire right hand side of my body since coma. In particular the right hand doesn’t open properly. So often I’m taken for a stroke victim, and again recently. Let’s hope this is the brains last significant adjustment. I’m probably wrong about such speculations as I’m not a doctor and these statements just represent my opinion. So fellow coma victim, keep scanning the internet and don’t accept this fake news! But I don’t claim for it to be news, merely expression. The only useful remarks I can offer is recovery from coma takes an extremely long time with ups and downs. The brain tries to create a new pathway for this different purpose. This new pathways route was originally used for something else I suspect, maybe vision, hearing or memory but now must be used to communicate with the leg while walking. Many subtelties to learn, ankle and balance etc.

I thought to include a link that speaks of the same:  https://www.livestrong.com/article/327679-exercises-to-improve-walking-after-a-stroke/

Fake News

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The thing that makes humans special is thought. There is an assumption that human thought looks for truth. In actual fact human thought is a consequence of experience and there is no underlying truth, except for facts. Fact versus belief, or opinion. For facts there is the obvious, science tells us about the atom and Mars is a planet of our solar system. But during my education I understood that there were such thoughts as right, wrong, good, bad, difference and also subjective truth. Indeed we humans become assimilated, when using our minds and considering ideas. There is an obvious mental path for us to follow, a sensibility. Is there a right or wrong way to think? This is fake news. As a thinking being I often wonder where to aim my thought, what to consider and whether my thought is accurate. What logic I’m using. I wonder about my mental processing and if it’s fit for purpose. Sometimes I think with simple binary logic, up versus down, left or right, good or evil, etc. Perhaps it’s illogical to speak of consciousness in this way with too much detail, maybe thought is always merely best fit. In the west we believe in absolute truth. But there is no absolutely correct mode of thinking, thought is just another human approximation of reality. The TV news just now appealed to “what’s right” presuming there is an absolute truth, a “what’s right”. Indeed the human mind is shaped by the times we live in and not by our absolute truths. We have created a very muddled world of opinion. A human academic might laugh at me and say of course there is such a concept as absolute truth, it is right not to kill. Yes it does seem to me that there are absolute truths but they are very human and not absolute. Thought exists in individual and collective consciousness, the collective is now becoming more substantial through technology. Artificial intelligence provides us an opportunity to deeply consider thought’s laws and the mental processing that occurs in consciousness. Political thought seems most malleable when considering today’s Trump and Russia. The US believe there are absolutes truths like individual freedom, Russia thinks people are just trying to live their lives through struggle. The long and short of this post is “you are what you think” although some people say “you are what you do”. I don’t intimately trust my thoughts but am aware I think. It is true that I exist, I do, another thought. And what thoughts lead Assad to use chemical weapons in Syria against his own people? The CNN news now tells me this but these ideas should be checked against fake news, opinion or fact. I actually think news services perpetuate the state of play by always stating current opinion between facts. Maybe we’ll get past all this fact versus opinion when we evolve. Maybe we’ll transcend thought.

 

Ho Chi Minh

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Travelling again, another trip to Vietnam. Ho is very close to home, less than a  2 hour flight. Vietnam is one of my favourite countries in Asia although I like all of them in this region. For me Asia is better than my home country Australia because I suspect that many Aussies have doubts about otherness given the boat people policies there. Some people seeking freedom by traveling in boats to Australia are put in prison or desolate places. People in Australia should just celebrate life like they do here. Quite a profound experience again the war remnants museum. Deplorable human actions of the past continue, now in Syria, Iraq etc. Agression is central to humans. Agent orange was devastating and we still use chemical weapons. Probably some of the boat people came from Vietnam, there has been so much suffering in this country.

Influence

 

FaceNews services like CNN and BBC are concerned about social media. Facebook helped to elect Trump these news services suggest because Facebook sold private data to communicate with and influence voters. Apparently another company called “Caimbridge Analytica” was involved. This opinion might be considered fake news, only fact if they provide evidence for changed votes. The fact is Hillary had 3 million more votes than Trump who won because of the college voting system. We should always remember that people can be influenced by anyone but must decide for themselves when voting. There are people trying to influence you everywhere, in the City Square or on the Bourke Street Mall (Melbourne Australia), and beggars, all manner of interests trying to get your attention. Are we suggesting people shouldn’t go to public places? I regard Facebook as just that. Globally through technology Facebook is a public place where I can interact with the people I know anywhere in the world. Indeed like all public places social media can be used to influence if you want to listen. People should take responsibility for their decisions and not blame social media. Personally I think there is some value in the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress etc, we have taken communication to the next level. They are now saying on CNN that Facebook privacy was abused. Perhaps but I have always regarded anything on the internet as public and am careful not to put things online that I think I don’t want to share. Things that I don’t want anybody else to see. For me the internet is where I can keep in touch with people, and see fake news and sometimes facts. For example what’s the distance to Mars? How’s your day wifey?

Cinema

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I loved film before coma so here is another post about an old film, perhaps I’m becoming normal. Stanley Kubrick was my favourite film maker, or perhaps Tarkovsky. We recently watched a Kubrick film again, “Eyes Wide Shut”. Philosophically opposed to his classic “A Space Odyssey 2001” which was a story about aliens or maybe Artificial Intelligence, “Eyes Wide Shut” is about humans, it explores the human condition of emotion. For humans sex is central, there are two sexes man and woman and then the act of sex for pleasure, emotion and procreation. He considers these desires focusing on emotion, on love and it’s difference for the two sexes. It’s most interesting that in both films Kubrick arrives at fundamental questions for humanity, we think and we feel. “A Space Odyssey” is about thinking, other intelligence exists in the universe. “Eyes Wide Shut” is about feeling, love. It was goodg to watch “Eyes Wide Shut” again, during the time of “me too”.

Facts

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So much for fake news, Trump is taking alternative facts the next level. There is news today of an unconfirmed meeting with the president of Canada (unconfirmed because they don’t know if the meeting happened, he said it did) where Trump makes the false claim of a trade deficit with Canada. I suspect the real problem for the most powerful man in the world is senility, they ought to test his mental fitness. For such an unwitting person soon to have a meeting about nuclear weapons with North Korea is quite dangerous. Not to mention global warming, that’s extremely dangerous. Climate change is an enormous threat to our species, we face extinction.

Think

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Looking at people I wonder about them more and more, about the unique events of their lives. Perhaps an easy thing for a coma victim, maybe a sign of aging. I wonder what they are thinking and what made them think that. If they are trapped in a thought pattern or if for them thought is an exploration of being. Certainly all humans become trapped by habit, by the things we consider. I too am trapped, thoughts like what next and evolution. I suspect most people think about other people, friends and children, and aren’t so interested in the problems of humanity, except for the likes of Plato, a profound thinker.