Using the Blog's Topical Index

The best method for finding your way around the Simple Explanation blog is to use the Topical Index on the right side of the screen.



 The articles under Concerning Consciousness have to do with the fractal nature of consciousness and the relationship between consciousness and matter.

The "Simple Explanation of..." articles demonstrate how explanations within a variety of fields (religion, spirituality, psychology, sociology, politics, biology, physics, etc.) can be described in terms of the Simple Explanation.

Toroids and Toroidal Forces is a series of articles that explore the geometrical figure of the torus.

Red blood cells are toroids

The Simple Explanation uses the torus as an all-purpose model of our material universe.

Meme Share is an interactive space where readers may share memes with other readers. What's a meme? Use the topical index to find out!

I apologize for the Miscellaneous category. Don't know where else to index these articles. There are some very popular articles there.

Toroidal skylight in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia Cathedral

 Personal Process Notes is my attempt to humanize the blog space with my personal presence. If you wish to become acquainted with the Simple Explanation's author, this is the place.

Dr. Cyd Ropp

Process Note: "Effacement of Ego"

Naturally, I give out Simple Explanation business cards to people I meet, so they can check out the blog if they are curious.

The other day I was out of business cards, so I went to print out some more on the computer printer. The printer chose to run out of black ink during my business card print job. Here is the comical result. I call it: "Effacement of Ego." It suggests to me that the blog is more important than my egoic declarations of authorship. :-)

Autumnal Tori Abound

Here's today's centerpiece on the table at the Albion Inn. A lovely example of the toroidal pattern imposing itself upon pumpkins, squash, and tomatoes. Enjoy!

Toroidal pumpkins, squash, and tomatoes.

Toroidal Symmetries and Fractal Divisions

Noodling around with a protractor, bisecting circles into smaller circles to make them into toroids. Along the way, the 2-D drawing displays beautiful symmetries of various kinds.

I drew this toroidal pattern using a pencil compass on paper. The lines you see at the circles' centers is where the compass dug into the paper. Pardon the mathematical imperfections, as this was done freehand.

I imported the drawing into Paint and airbrushed out the compass scratches. I can see toroids all over this drawing, but you may only be seeing the circles.

Here I've used the Paint program to highlight the largest torus in this drawing, which shows up if you imagine this as a cross-section of a sphere. The blue lines show the cross section of the torus cutaway. This inner torus has been subdivided again into two smaller tori (darker blue circles). The vertical yellow lines are the poles; the longest pole is for the central torus; the two shorter lines are the poles of the two subdivided tori. You can go on subdividing each torus this way, each time dividing the cutaway of the torus into half-sized tori.

This torus and its poles was used to illustrate "the great square within the torus." Same view as the blue lined cutaway above.

The darkest blue circles represent my clumsy eyeball method of illustrating how the torus is dividing fractally. Each torus cross section can divide into two more.
I wish I had a program that would draw these things more accurately. Any volunteers?

Notice the interesting way this fractal division works. It will go on forever, larger and larger or smaller and smaller, in true fractal manner.

Usually when I've thought about multiply-linked tori, they appear to nest at a single center pole, like Russian dolls. But these new drawings show how the tori can divide fractally along different lines. 

Concentric tori courtesy of http://www.multidimensionalmusic.com/review2.html

The Simple Explanation has also used nesting toroids to illustrate chakras.

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A little more fooling around in Paint gives us a "quasi torus" in the vertical direction (yellow). Look for more on this tie-in to quasi-particles in a future article.

Here I've used the poles to define a quasi torus perpendicular to the blue set. Following the logic of the Simple Explanation, I don't really think the tori divide up and down like this, along the poles, since the poles represent time and motion rather than space. I think the tori only divide in the horizontal (blue) space. But here we can see that this structure has room for a fully symmetrical set of divisions in the vertical (yellow) dimension.

The Rhetoric of Childbirth: The Trial of a California Midwife

In 2001 I was awarded a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from the Department of Communication at the University of Memphis. My dissertation, The Rhetoric of Childbirth: The Trial of a California Midwife, examines the language used by medical experts in the 1997 trial of Abigail Odam, a San Diego midwife who was arrested and convicted of several felony counts of "Practicing Medicine Without a License" for childbirths she assisted with in private homes. 

I've just made the book available on the web as a pdf. You may download it for free from my lulu.com storefront.

This is academic writing at its finest. Definitely not simple. Those of you reading this blog in other countries are probably not aware of the professional schism between physicians and midwives in the United States, typical of the larger divide between conventional Western medicine and traditional/alternative healers.

Here is the Abstract:

How one characterizes pregnancy determines how the exigency of birth should be handled.  Should pregnancy be defined as a medical condition as obstetricians would claim, or is childbirth a natural, normal event rarely requiring medical intervention, as midwives would have it?  The testimonies of health care professionals who appeared as witnesses in the case of The People of the State of California v. Abigail Odam were analyzed using Kenneth Burke's dramatistic pentad in order to demonstrate the significant professional demarcation revealed by the discourse, clinical approach, and philosophical worldviews held by adherents of the medical model of birth and traditional midwifery.  Trial testimonies such as these make it possible to see how physicians and midwives describe physiological processes in markedly different ways--the result of differences in perspective arising from very different terministic screens.  The trial also provides a situated example of the state's alliance with conventional philosophy, science, and medicine, and how the lay midwives, who came to the trial as a culturally marginalized profession, were further hampered by the structural imposition of rules of evidence and discourse that tended to undermine their rhetorical style and non-scientific worldview while simultaneously privileging the discourse of physicians.

Communing With the Soul of God

This morning we were reading from The Second Coming of Christ/The Resurrection of the Christ Within You. This book was assembled and edited by the Self Realization Fellowship from numerous writings published by Paramahansa Yogananda during his lifetime (1893-1952).

Paramahansa Yogananda

Yogananda taught his followers a modified Kriya yoga technique of "scientific meditation" as the way to open up intuitive vision and access direct knowledge of "God" or, alternately, "Reality." The following quote from his chapter on Jesus and Nicodemus (John 3:1-8) leads into a discussion of what it means to be "born again":

 "All bona fide revealed religions of the world are based on intuitive knowledge. Each has an exoteric or outer particularity, and an esoteric or inner core. The exoteric aspect is the public image, and includes moral precepts and a body of doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs to guide the general populace of its followers. The esoteric aspect includes methods that focus on actual communion of the soul with God. The exoteric aspect is for the many; the esoteric is for the ardent few. It is the esoteric aspect of religion that leads to intuition, the firsthand knowledge of Reality." (Yogananda, p.240, vol. 1)

According to the Simple Explanation, the exoteric, public image of a religious institution is defined by the memes held by or rejected by that institution. The "moral precepts" and "doctrines, dogmas, dissertations, rules, and customs" are the particular memes and meme chords that define membership in that institution. Many religious meme chords are shared by members of diverse religions. Religions generally share, for example, belief in the overarching "God" meme chord, and generally agree on most of the lesser-included memes that make up the God chord, such as memes concerning God's omniscience and omnipotence, and the importance of communing with God in prayer. Then come the memes religions do not share in common--memes of saints and saviors, histories, and other customary beliefs. The memes they do not share set them apart from each other. 

A Simple Explanation of the esoteric aspect referred to by Paramahansa that focuses on "communion of the soul with God" is that such communion is not of the religious meme-sharing variety, but involves its opposite--meme shedding. When one's grip on habitual thought patterns relaxes, their governing UC intuitively aligns itself with the metaversal principles embodied by the Universal UC. During these brief or extended periods of alignment, "firsthand knowledge of Reality" is glimpsed.

"Glimpsing God" through a toroidal skylight at Sagrada Familia Cathedral.

Exoteric knowledge is often defined as knowledge available to anyone, whereas esoteric knowledge is reserved for the innermost circle of devotees. This definition makes it seem as though true knowledge is being withheld by those in power. Yet, if one adopts the Simple Explanation's definition of meme-based vs. intuitive knowledge, then esoteric knowledge of God is truly available to any and every believer. The only limitation is the believer's own willingness to suspend attachment to their personal meme bundle long enough to allow their UC to align with the Universal UC.

When the memes are set aside, i.e. thought is suspended; language suspended; the person's governing UC remains. This fractal unit of consciousness underlies the memes. Unencumbered by meme attachments, the person's governing UC aligns with the Universal UC. This condition is called "bliss" in Buddhist and Yogic teachings. "Be still and know that I am God" is how the Bible says it (Psalm 46:10). Verse 16 of the Tao Te Ching says, "Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity," (J. Star translation).

To "be still" is to suspend attachment. Knowing comes during the still point between the pendulum swings of breath and thought. To "be still" is how we hear God. Be still.

Process Note: My Birthday

Can't let my birthday go by without blogging. Our season here at the Albion Inn will soon be drawing down as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival season comes to a close. Then I will have plenty of time to philosophize with you here at the Simple Explanation blog.

Franny and Zoey beaking on the bricks in the Albion Inn's rose garden.

Meanwhile, we have had a very pleasant busy season, full of good weather, great theatre, beautiful flowers, and excellent guests. 
Many more fresh blog articles are pending in the notes pile, including updates on how some of us have been putting the Simple Explanation into practice. I'm also going to be turning the articles into a single, cohesive book.

Tell me: would you be more inclined to read a book called "A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything," or "A Simple Fractal Model of the Conscious Universe"? Please leave your answer below as a comment if you would. Thank you.

Meaning Is In the Memes

The Simple Explanation states that a huge part of our personalities is shaped by the memes we hold dear as well as the memes we hate.

The memes you cling to (sanskara), both the ones you like and ones you don't like, influence your ability to exercise your free will in the here and now. When you unthinkingly lock onto a meme or set of memes, it is your belief in the memes that determines how you will interpret your surroundings and how you will respond. Your response may or may not be the best response to a situation, but it is the only one your set of memes allows.

We see this phenomenon at play every day. For example, a person (person A) whose meme bundle includes a belief that others are "out to get me" will interpret events in a manner that reinforces that meme. The most innocent statements on another's part (person B) will activate person A's "out to get me" meme, even when no such insult was intended. Person A's ego is hurt by their own meme, not by person B.

Another example of delimiting memes occurs during problem-solving. The more tightly held one's memes are, the fewer solutions will present themselves. The ability to consider solutions "outside the box" and to engage in "lateral thinking" comes about through nonattachment to the "shoulds" and "oughts" of how things work. One must be willing to set aside treasured beliefs in order to perceive memes outside one's own bundle and thereby discover fresh solutions.

I realized the other day that each and every cultural institution we belong to (family, workplace, church, mosque, tribe, nation, etc.) not only comes with its own bundle of shared memes held in common by its members, it also comes with a filter that prevents members from acknowledging or adopting incompatible memes. Memes are even more important to an institution than its members in the sense that members come and go, but memes persist.

Institutions are defined as much by their excluded memes as they are by their included memes. An exclusive institution holds tightly to the indentity provided by its memes; its border is strong and its filter powerful. An inclusive institution allows members more latitude in the memes they may hold; its border is less defined; its filter less opaque. An "open-minded" institution acknowledges the fact that there are memes out there in the greater culture that may have value, and is willing to consider new memes; its border is permeable and its filter thin.

A goal of the Simple Explanation is to demonstrate the simple commonality of the reality underlying the panoply of memes. Not just the religious memes; not just the spiritual memes; but the "rational" and "scientific" memes, too.

Fractal Yarrow Flower

The yarrow flowers are abundant this year, due to an especially late spring and late, heavy rains. Yesterday, when I was out walking the dogs, I noticed how beautifully fractal the yarrow flowers are. Looking at the largest flowerhead shape here as the first level, you can easily see two fractal levels down from there--the florets within the flower have florets of their own. Here's the picture I took with my cell phone.

Notice how fractal the yarrow flower is

When I look at this outwardly bursting, fractal pattern I am reminded of ananda-joy energy exploding outward into our space-time continuum from the center of here and now.

Ananda-joy energy bursting outward into our space-time continuum manifests at the next fractal level up as the smallest level of material quanta (anu). The Simple Explanation proposes that a unit of consciousness (UC) is associated with every manifested thing, from quanta on up.

When the inward-poking forces wrap around from the outside and slide into the vortex, they wind up poking outward from the center in an explosive pattern. You can read more about toroidal flow here.

Here is what the yarrow flower looks like before it unfurls. All the florets are turned inward, facing the inside.

Can you see how the inside of the yarrow resembles the illustration above of toroidal flow? On the outside, you can see only the stems, looking very much like meme strings wrapped around a UC.

I am also reminded of "falling backward" into smaller and smaller fractal calculations until the pattern of the yarrow flower becomes the pattern of the molecules and the atoms and the sub-atomic particles fractally nesting until not even their wave forms remain to disturb the singularity of pure consciousness.

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At the beginning of this article I identified three fractal levels of one repetitive pattern that makes up the yarrow flower. Here are a couple of more pictures that demonstrate two more fractal levels up from the flower. Looking at the entire plant, you can see that each yarrow flower is to the plant as each floret is to the flower. One level up from there, you can see that each yarrow plant is to the field as each flower is to the plant, as each floret is to the flower, as each tiny floret is to the larger floret...

Yarrow flower

Yarrow plant

Yarrow field

Toroids and Trees

Almost every day I walk with my dogs in a small woods that runs alongside a canyon creek near our inn. Over the past three years, I've become very fond of these woods, the little creek, and the tiny waterfall that marks our turnaround point. 

Franny and Zoey at Oredson-Todd Woods in Ashland, OR

Since writing the Simple Explanation, I've been noticing toroids in the trees. Look--

Tree Torus

My cell-phone photos do not do justice to this sensuous, rounded tree torus. Each tree has a torus wherever a branch existed and exists no more. When the branch goes away, the tree's skin fills in and rounds out the hollow.

For that matter, the torus is there from the beginning of the branch, as well. You could say that the branch emerges out of the torus form, like a stick poking out through a donut. It is difficult to observe this at the formative stage, but you can see how it happened in retrospect, by examining a branch in the process of going away.

In the photo above, you see a dead branch on its way out, emerging out of the torus in the wall of a fallen tree. Had this been a live tree, the skin would have grown back around the hole left behind after the branch stump finally fell out, forming the torus shape in the earlier photo.



Tree in process of reforming a torus shape around a sawn-off limb.

In the same manner that the Simple Explanation suggests each of our organs has "a mind of its own" with its own governing UC attached to it, so each tree branch is a separate and distinct entity, a fractal of the mother tree. Each branch as a job to do, to follow the sun and gain nourishment from the rain and sky, in order to contribute to the tree's greater good. When it is no longer able to do its job, the branch withdraws into its original torus shape from which it emerged.