chim

What an amazing lecture and what a great personality. I will definitely look up more of his talks. Apart from nailing the biological nature of depression, it's a great breakdown on the aspects involved, but something really surprised me: his mentions of the limbic system and the anterior cingulate cortex. I recently read some info from neuroscientific studies on the effects of Zen meditation on the brain. I don't have the sources on hand right now so you'll have to take my word for it, and I'm not a neuroscientist so this will be greatly simplified, but basically the studies showed that Zazen primarily affects three parts of the brain; the frontal lobe, the limbic system and the anterior cingulate cortex. The study showed that when one practices Zazen a minimum of 12 minutes a day, the frontal lobe and anterior cingulate cortex are strengthened and the limbic system is basically put on the backburner. As the limbic system is responsible for primal, emotional fight/flight responses and such, this has an effect on reactionary behavior, lessening primal instincts and allowing us to respond from a different state of awareness. This drastically affects states of anxiety and depression, and the strenghtening of the anterior cingulate cortex in particular will affect addictive/dependent behavior. The anterior cingulate cortex is interesting because it involves empathic/compassionate behavior as well - it's a high-tech, recently evolved part of the brain. And with the strengthening of the frontal lobe, we are able to choose and act from logical conclusions rather than emotionally-driven motives. I already found this information interesting in relation to my own experiences with meditation, but it's worth bringing up in light of that lecture. Aside from this, there are studies on the effects of peripheral vs. fovial vision on activity in specific brain regions (related to how the eyes are used in zazen) - basically, focused viewing in a small area for prolonged times (like computer usage) correlates with anxiety and depression, which is the complete opposite of the neutral, wide view of open-eye meditation practice (not mentioning the fact that after an initial period of sitting practice, zazen can be carried out in activity). And I haven't even brought up on the effects of abdomen-focused breathing on the enteric nervous system, relationships between posture and brain activity/chemistry, etc. There's a lot of stuff out there. Zen evolved long before the advances of neuroscience, but it's an ancient well-known fact that meditation practice develops something called joriki, which roughly translates to self-power and means the ability to respond appropriately to any situation with calm and without having to collect one's wits. There's a funny anecdote related to this from the Ming dynasty period:

Thanks for jumping in ahead of me to comment on that Audioblysk. Some of you are making it sound like anarchy is the cure and the most likely result of breaking up the ennui of modern society is some kumbaya wonderland of hippie communes. The history of not just such communes but the history of humanity in general makes it less than likely. FWIW I believe that the structure of society is largely to blame for many of these problems but it keeps people alive. Speculating about utopian alternatives does not do this discussion justice. I'm not saying many people, maybe myself included, wouldn't be better off in a simpler more primitive communal lifestyle, but that has incredible dangers as well, looking at parts of the world where people still live like that. I think this ties in with something poignant that another poster (gmanyo) mentioned, which was about more or less getting over your emotions - I can attest to the efficacy of this. While I don't agree with "getting over it" is the right way of phrasing it, it's important to accept your condition. It's important to accept that a large part of your condition (besides theoretical deficiencies or whatever metaphysical kinks you've got) isn't that your deep soul is being stifled by oppressive forces, but that evolutionary habits designed to keep you alive and procreating are deeply driven desires which are liable to cause incredible conflict when you're dealing with the realities of life. So, a part of learning to deal with emotional disorders is learning to deal with life in different manners. I can attest that at when initially learning to deal with intense anxiety rather than allow it to run wild and ruin your life, it will be necessary to accept that in certain situations, like certain social situations, your private version of events essentially "isn't happening" to a large degree, so that you temporarily stop trusting it for emotionally driven decision making. This sounds potentially destructive, but it's not so much putting a lid on it, but learning to recondition your perception of the world and restructuring your ideas on threat handling and the huge amount of guesswork and exaggeration involved - this pretty much has to be radical on some level in order for it to work. And I think it can work with some long-term rehabilitation, private or assisted on some level, but it certainly isn't easy.

^jazz [youtubehd]IyDdVJ81Ixs[/youtubehd] science! wow

^ So good!

Hobbit 2: Incredibly entertaining, but

old school

Eagerly anticipating the next crash.

ahahahahaha the fucking sheep sounds

Ender's Game - Haven't read the book. Better than expected.

I bought a japanese meditation cushion with buckwheat stuffing, plus a thick zabuton mat (kapok stuffing). It's stiff and pliable at the same time, like sitting in sand, really done wonders for my posture. It's really not that difficult. Intrinsic awareness is continuous and effortless, there's no technique except to stop chasing after thoughts and let conditions be as they are. Awareness itself is objectless so there's nothing to meditate upon - no need to meditate. Just keep the mind free of judgment and open like the sky. At that point there's really no difference between sitting calmly or being at work, in traffic etc. Been reflecting on this quote by Foyan, a 11th century zen monk:

I've been trying real hard to think of something worth asking about, I'm unsure if these questions are that and/or have been phrased in some way before, but here goes. 1. I want to ask about all that complexity in your music. Is it something purely to keep the mind interested, or do you both find it the best way to communicate that deeper artistic intention behind Autechre as a whole? Being a synesthete myself, looking at the context of the artwork and album track flows, a lot of it suggests a kind of synergistic communication - you mentioned Autechre being bigger than the both of you consciously and I found this a fascinating statement. I know how hard it is to put stuff like an artistic vision into words, but many of your tunes literally go all over the place and I'm curious how that connects with the intention that seems to be going on behind all that work. 2. Your music has the strangest intricate combination of hard and soft, dry and wet, fat steady beats and arrythmic cacophonia. It's clear from most of your posts and your music that you are ultra-committed to getting your production process just the way you want it. Do you ever feel like you lose track of your musical output? 3. In some of your work, you seem to make a thing out of hiding or disrupting melodical content, in the midst of percussion or disharmony/microtonality (An example would be the post 4 minute mark of Lcc on Untilted, it's like you're intentionally bordering on breaking the track). What's up with that? Thanks for doing this to the ridiculous extent that you have.

FM or subtractive synthesis?

Sooo good

The Internship Apart from the hellish google propagandic nature of it, this is an excellent film. Some of the jokes are insanely funny... if you can tolerate Owen Wilson.

10/10

Alio Die is my hero. Not easy to find ambient favourites on youtube.

Nice

I'm really divided about this type of music.

Some kinda blackcurrant winey thing

Bioshock Infinite was fucking amazing. I felt abit stupid at the ending.

Anchorman is indeed a masterpiece.

Elysium - I really enjoyed it!