Reminder

Life is messy and chaotic, peppered with occasional happenings that, for a ephemeral moment, fail to buttress even a single held judgement, opinion or thought. And then, at that exact precious moment, sometimes a long buried reminder surfaces and whispers that it’s OK to be alive.

Credits: Gino Yu

Alan Macy

October 2021

Timing

Sometimes it seems that life offers a opportunity to focus on an issue and then, in the next moment, a signal to pull back for context. This phenomenon appears to characterize an aspect of relationships between people. The lack of synchronization of this phenomenon, from individual to individual, points to the wonder of understanding.

Alan Macy

October 2021

Expression often appears as a distortion to the surrounding status quo — like a string dropped into a super-saturated sugar solution. Crystals cling to the string because it’s a distortion in the watery environment. Similarly, an ocean coral reef establishes a foundation to support sea life. Another example is the physical presence of the rock that supports clinging lichen.

Expression and service are linked. The coral reef services the surrounding fish because the coral expresses to the sea and the life therein. The rock services the lichen as a consequence of the rock’s presence in the environment.

Given input from R. Spira and J. Loomis — When awareness is described as water, then a distortion in the water, like an eddy or current, can be thought of as an object of experience.

The distortion of medium behaves as expression and experience that establish a foundation for service.

Alan Macy

April 2021

Foundational Rhythym

Life on Earth developed in concert with cyclic variations associated with Earth’s rotation, its orbit around the sun and linked phenomena, such as sunlight, seasonal and weather influences. As primeval organic compounds assembled into increasingly complex forms, these forcing energetic rhythmical variations impressed themselves onto the fundamental structures of living organisms that populated the Earth.

The evidence of these forcing energetic rhythms, upon life, is clear when encountering the behavior of creatures in a tide pool, examining how plant leaves orient to sunlight, knowing that a bear hibernates in the winter or walking through a splash of spring wildflowers.

Life evolved in accommodation to the various levels and periodicities of the impinging energies. There are the varying effects of the juxtaposed gravitational fields of the Sun, Earth and Moon, directly reflected in the tides. There is the insolation of the Sun, on the latitudes of the Earth, that periodically changes over the course of a year.

The consistent rhythm of the cycle of the day, has imprinted itself on the behavior of a wide range of species. For example, note the timing parallels, in circadian rhythm, between the photosynthesis cycle in trees and the cortisol production cycle in humans.

Roughly aligned with vertical position along the human spine, starting at the sacrum, and moving upwards towards the crown, the indicated organ systems have periodicity as follows:

One cycle per month: Hormonal variations associated with gonads , ovaries and testes — at the base of the spine

One cycle per day: Circadian production of cortisol via the adrenal glands — located on the top of the kidneys

Three cycles per minute: Peristaltic action of stomach and intestines

Six to Twenty cycles per minute: Breathing, ventilation and respiration

50–90 cycles per minute: Heartbeat, pulse, vascular resistance and blood pressure

6–90 cycles per minute: Cerebral spinal fluid movement, a composite of harmonics of heart and lung rhythms

0.5–4 cycles per second: Delta Waves — low frequency EEG waves, present in stage four of sleep (deep sleep) and the primary EEG frequency present in infants

4–8 cycles per second: Theta Waves — moderate frequency EEG waves, present during stage three of sleep and is present during hypnosis and storytelling

8–13 cycles per second: Alpha Waves — medium frequency EEG waves, present during normal waking consciousness and mind-wandering

13–22 cycles per second: Beta Waves — higher frequency EEG waves, present during periods of concentration and focus

22–100 cycles per second: Gamma Waves — highest frequency EEG waves, associated with periods of of awe, epiphany and wonder

The lower frequency systems drive higher frequency systems via a change of state. A lower frequency system can be represented by a wave. The face of the wave resides between the peak and trough. As an example, consider a surfer approaching a breaking ocean wave. The surfer’s arms propel the surfboard to align with the slower-moving breaking wave. When the surfer catches the wave, the wave imparts its energy to the surfer and the surfer starts to move faster, than the forward motion of the wave, but in a perpendicular direction.

We are organized in the form of stacked, coupled, chaotic oscillators, loosely organized in orientation along the spine, with lower frequency systems towards the base of the spine and higher frequency systems towards the crown of the head. The lower frequency systems impart energy and periodicity to higher frequency systems. This transfer of energy is empowered by the strength of the derivative of the lower frequency wave.

And certainly, individual organ communications and activity rhythms will pervade the entire corpus, with all organ system cycle energies presented everywhere throughout the body.

Alan Macy

January 2021

“The act or process of making known….”

Conjecture — Art is stimulus

* Stimulus provokes response

* Responses can be measurable

* Response to art can be indexed

Perception, Filtering and Art

- Expanding Sensory Capability -

The human sensory system is a filtering system. Physical form and activity are perceived by the senses and translated into modulated streams of ionic current. These currents are moved though the body, via the nervous system, to the brain. Specialized brain regions receive and decipher these modulated current signals to process them for interpretation by other functionalities operating within the body.

Since the advent of Galileo’s telescope, when he first pointed it at Jupiter in 1610 and discovered four orbiting moons, it has become increasingly clear that the unaided human sensory system can only perceive a small fraction of the physical phenomena surrounding us. The range of human hearing is 20Hz to 20,000Hz. The visual chromatic spectrum runs from red (780nm) to violet (390nm). We can taste five basic flavors: bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami. For all human senses, there are limits to both sensitivity and range. There are sounds too soft to hear, colors we can’t see and flavors too intense to identify. However, we’ve always pushed back against our sensory limits to better understand the environment. From long ago, by using our hands to cup the ears or shade the eyes, we’ve been able to improve our range of hearing and sight. We’ve added salt to our food to accentuate taste. We learned to use magnetic lodestones, which allowed us to sense the Earth’s magnetic field. We’ve crafted shaped glass for telescopes, that bend the paths of far-traveling photons, to concentrate them on our retinas.

ENHANCING OUR SENSORY EXPERIENCE

With the development of the telephone, first patented in 1876, we’ve been increasingly able to harness the movement of electrons, to greatly mimic, enhance and extend the human nervous system. Since this harnessing, human sensory capability, sensitivity and range has grown a million-fold. In only 138 years, since the telephone patent, humans have developed instruments to sense the original moments of the universe’s big bang, 13.8 billion years ago, via measurement of cosmic background radiation. We can slow time to perceive the exact characteristic flutter of the hummingbird’s wings via high frame rate camera. We can feel the surface of objects, too small to touch, with atomic force microscopes. We can see the heat radiating from a person’s body, even if far away, with thermal imaging.

With our improved and expanded human senses, it seems a new flood of data surrounds us. Even so, the human nervous system has always been swamped with data. Our senses have always over-delivered information. The evolution of the human brain is testament. The brain is capable of sweeping though the vast trove of real-time data from the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. The brain immediately assesses, and then determines, what to ignore, keep or act upon. These filtering actions are essential to survival. Our perceptual abilities undergo limiting, via filtering, no matter the amount of data deluge. By selective limiting or filtering, we allow for an improvement in our ability to sense data within that filtered range. In electrical theory terms, we attempt to improve our received signal to noise ratio. Our newly improved, instrument-aided, sensory system provides us with more and different types of information. Our brains still filter this new information and certainly, the instruments that provide this new data act as filters too. These instruments are improving the signal to noise ratio, for phenomena normally too faint to perceive.

ART APPRECIATION THROUGH SENSORY FILTERING

Artists will often go to great extent to improve the signal to noise ratios associated with the experiencing of their work. This interest in filtering explains the classical, white-walled, gallery space for hanging paintings. The establishment of a neutral background will improve an observer’s ability to detect nuance in the artwork. Similarly, the anechoic concert hall is a neutral framework to aid in the appreciation of music. Some artists have long understood that the human perceptual system and associated environment are essential foundations that support the art appreciation experience. Visual artist, James Turrell, created his “Skyspaces” to improve ones ability to perceive a section of sky as framed by an enclosure with an open roof. This work clearly illustrates the role of both environmental and human sensory filtering in terms of our perception. Turrell’s work demonstrates the continuity of the filtering effect as moving from outside the body to inside the body. So seamless is the transition, it becomes clear that there is no definable point which separates body from environment, in a sensory context. The filtering of sensed data, as conditioned by the environment, is indistinguishable from the filtering provided by our sensory system. Turrell shows us that our complete perception, filtered by environment, physiology, sensory-nervous system and brain, is inseparable from perceived art.

LOOPING THROUGH THE MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL STATES

There are volitional and non-volitional (autonomic) aspects to our bodies. We can consciously and intentionally stimulate motor neurons, which innervate muscle fibers, to move our bodies. Other processes, like heart rate, digestion and perspiration are primarily subconsciously mediated. Some actions, like breathing, are subject to both subconscious and conscious control. And certainly, our conscious thought rests upon an emotional sea and our emotions are linked to autonomic processes in our bodies. If aroused, we can experience increased heart rate and perspiration. If we are happy, delicate muscles in our face contract to create a smile. Our mood, which stimulates our conscious thought, will influence our perception because our emotional substrate acts as a neurological filter.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

Marshall McLuhan writes, “the medium is the message”. McLuhan describes the medium as an environmentally-conditioned transport system for sensed data. This transport system is a perceptual filter that includes our own nervous system. Filters both emphasize and suppress aspects of sensed data. Electrical communications theory shows that a specific data signal is optimally received by using a matched filter. A matched filter has the inverse Fourier transform of the signal to which it is matched. A matched filter is the dual of the signal, in that the signal is defined by the filter and vice versa. As a filter becomes more effective, the filter construct increasingly becomes a better descriptor of the incoming data. By example, in speech recognition algorithms, the human vocal tract is estimated and modeled. The vocal tract is defined by the position and movement of the neck, teeth, tongue, cheeks, mouth and lips. The coefficients that describe the vocal tract filter become the descriptor of the speech. The medium of the vocal tract acts to filter the buzzing of the vocal cords to produce intelligible speech. Speech recognition algorithms operate by reducing words to the filter description which produces those words. This technology exploits, as operating principle, the idea that the medium filter (vocal tract) is exactly the message.

If the medium is a perceptual filter, it seems the medium must encompass the entire, environmentally-conditioned, data transport system from external source to internal conscious awareness. Judgement of artistic effort, as with ones ability to discern beauty, rests upon the presumption of consciousness and that depends upon ones physiological state. The effect of physiological state upon people’s ability to consciously appreciate are recognized as profound. In “Of the Standard of Taste” — 1757, Hume writes, “But though all the general rules of art are founded only on experience and on the observation of the common sentiments of human nature, we must not imagine, that, on every occasion the feelings of men will be conformable to these rules. Those finer emotions of the mind are of a very tender and delicate nature, and require the concurrence of many favourable circumstances to make them play with facility and exactness, according to their general and established principles. The least exterior hindrance to such small springs, or the least internal disorder, disturbs their motion, and confounds the operation of the whole machine.” Hume muses that the ability to appreciate art is subject to ones emotional state. Hume’s thoughts regarding the appreciation of art and beauty seem coupled to a passage in his “Treatise on Human Nature” — 1740, namely “Reason is and ought only to be a slave of the passions”.

The medium established by our physiological state is pivotally important. We absorb data that has been environmentally and neural-sensory conditioned. The manner in how we generate conscious thought, regarding this absorbed, conditioned data is dependent upon our emotional state. Emotional state is reflected in autonomic processes, within the body, that are related to our physiological state. William James, in 1880, described the mental aspect of emotion, emotional feeling, as subject to underlying physiological state and not vice-versa. Even so, when considering human perception as a recursive system, cause and effect can conspire to create other behavior. Ones ability to interpret data from the environment, within the confines of an emotional state, will affect ones influence within that environment. The affected environment acts to influence physiological state and subsequently emotional state. These recursive systems can have infinite looping responses. An initial stimulus may initiate an endless cycling of cause and effect.

SENSORY ENVIRONMENT AS AN EXTENSION OF THE BODY

There is no clear separation, in the total sensory medium, ranging from outside to inside the body. The sensory environment can be considered an extension of ones body by virtue of the idea that sensed data energy is only additionally-filtered by any boundary between the inanimate and animate. This energy was externally-filtered prior to reaching this boundary and was then internally-filtered subsequent to sensing. Human perception encompasses a continuum of medium filters, whether they are rooted internal or external to the body. Also, the relationship between body and environment is richer than these connected medium filters. There is a resonance established, between body and environment, that is subject to the cause and effect relationship between physiological and emotional state. We are stimulated by the environmental medium, and in turn, we manipulate that medium.

Elucidation of our perceptual channels, both subconscious and conscious, seems relevant to the creation and appreciation of art. The visceral reflection of physiological state, reminds us that our judgements rest on a substrate that is only partly within normal awareness. Like the fish, perhaps not realizing that it’s swimming in water, we may not always notice that our perception is modified by the medium that permits its functioning. The development of communication methods that employ aspects of our physiological substrate medium, to enhance perception, would seem important. Generated phenomena that expose the substrate of human perception, ranging from the subconscious to conscious, are reminders of the nature of our recursive, complex selves.

Past-Present-Future

Ancient Corpus Hippocraticum (400 B.C.E.), Ayurvedic (500 B.C.E.) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (100 B.C.E.), writings described imagined relationships between human physical health, mental state and external influences. These sets of writings linked ideas related to human disease, emotion, behavior and the environment. These schools of thought espoused similar concepts, in that fundamental constituents act to orchestrate a person’s mental/physical state and mind/body type. A very prominent theory, of the Corpus writings, was the four humors doctrine. Physical and psychological health was defined as a balance of the four “humors”, consisting of Black and Yellow Bile, Blood and Phlegm. In the case of Ayurvedic writings, health was related to the equilibrium of the three “principles”, namely Kapha, Pitta and Vata. With Traditional Chinese Medicine health was determined by harmony of Yin and Yang “character”. In ancient Greece, India and China, the observed state of one’s physical and mental health was connected to the state of balance of one’s constituents, namely humors, principles or characters. Furthermore, if the constituents could be brought into proper proportion for the individual, health could be maintained. Constituents could be balanced by modifying external conditions, such as receiving treatments or by changing diet or activity habits. The shared ideas being that people are stimulated by their environment and the associated influences have a direct bearing on health. Although these ancient ideas have been supplanted by contemporary medical theory, some essential concepts remain. Two fundamental ones are; a person’s mental state and physical state are linked, and external stimulus can affect either mental or physical state.

Since ancient times, a combination of a medical practitioner’s senses were required to best establish a patient’s mental/physical state. A doctor may provide an excellent assessment of a patient’s mental and physical health, by simply looking at, listening to and touching the patient. A multi-sensory based system of observation of physiological processes is important to the development of associated models and systems. Historically, all five senses have been employed by medical practitioners to better understand physiological processes. Sight to observe appearance; hearing to listen to the heart or lungs; taste and smell to sample the compounds in excretions; touch to feel for irregularities. Modern physiological recording and measurement methods are based upon work involving sensory enhancement. With new technology, developed tools extend the sensory range beyond what is normally perceivable by humans. For example, the small electrical signal, manifested by the heart, can’t be directly perceived by people until the tiny signal is translated into a record which can be seen. This visual record is known as an Electrocardiogram and the device which makes this record is called an Electrocardiograph.

The different modalities of human physiology express in a variety of ways. In the circumstance of body movement, the nervous system. guides and propagates an electrical signal which originates the brain. When the signal reaches the targeted area, the muscle manifests an electrical signal during contraction. In the lungs, inspired oxygen is exchanged for expired carbon dioxide. Vascular beds in the fingertip fill and empty with blood during each heartbeat cycle and the pressure in the arteries changes during the course of each beat. The oxygen saturation level in the blood relates to respiratory activity. All of these different actions can be observed directly, once the changing variable of electricity, gas concentration, optical property or pressure is transformed into a human-perceptual quantity, which is typically a written, graphical form. Even so, transformations to other types of sensory modes are possible. For example, the skeletal muscle contraction’s electrical signal, the electromyogram, can be converted directly to audible form. Hearing these sounds, skilled practitioners can better interpret the electromyogram signal to diagnose specific myopathies.

Physiological data is highly complex and has rhythmic, chaotic and fractal qualities and it must first be well-perceived before it can be better understood. To better measure and interpret physiological data, one can use specific equipment to sense a subtle process and convert the signal into forms readily perceived by one or more of the human senses. Simultaneously, this data can be converted into forms amenable to computer-based processing. In this manner, complex data can be better conceptualized and then additional, software-based, interpretive tools can be evolved to assist in the process of further understanding. Historically it has proven successful to employ heuristic methods, based largely on visual interpretation of time-series data, to further reduce physiological data to meaningful and otherwise relatively unambiguous indicators. Successful mathematically-based models of physiological processes have been developed as a consequence of better understanding of physiological data. Over time, increasingly sophisticated software-based signal processing methods will be applied to physiological data sets. These methods will likely employ strategies which make efficient use of new information provided by the simultaneous collection of a variety of physiologically-sourced variables.

The goal of physiological monitoring, when in the service of medical treatment, is to reduce the complicated flux of multi-dimensional physiological data to actionable vectors. In essence, it’s important to develop methods to distill the vast amount of physiological data into something which is readily interpreted. These methods are reflected in the training a practitioner receives to look for the symptoms of problems. Because of the complexity of physiological phenomena, there is an ongoing effort to augment human expert analysis of raw physiological data with computer-based signal processing. Artificial neural networks, demonstrated by IBM to decisively win at “Jeopardy” in 2011, illustrate the ability of software-based intelligent systems to parse complex data sets and provide meaningful responses to human questions. This technology, called “deep learning”, has already been put to use in services like Apple’s Siri® virtual personal assistant and in Google’s Street View®, which uses machine vision to identify specific addresses. Data analysis and interpretation methods also benefit when large data sets become available. New abilities to collect physiological data, evolving from computer and sensing technology, will deliver copious amounts of information from large groups of people. Wireless integration of physiological information, from the ambulatory population, into data networks will increasingly improve health maintenance and delivery systems. Improved, real-time, physiological recording systems will aid the community’s health by providing significant data sets that can be used to assess public wellness.

Improved physiological recording and analysis technology will continue to enhance human capability, especially in terms of communications, design and development. In the specific example of human/computer interface, a person’s interaction with the computer can be characterized as a feedback system. The computer application senses the user’s sound and movement gestures via microphone, keyboard, mouse, motion sensor or camera input. The computer application then produces some visual or auditory feedback to the user. Presently, there remains a vast host of user-generated physiological variables still unmapped to most computer applications. These variables include signals such as: heart rate, electrodermal activity, pupil diameter, facial micro-expressions, cardiac output and blood pressure. This data could be employed by computer applications to greatly transform the human/computer interface. Interestingly, this type of physiological data is often directly influenced by human emotional state. As computers interfaces are designed to sense such data, computer applications will become more aware of our core emotional and motivational feelings.

Ever since Hume penned in 1739, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of passions…”, it has become increasingly clear that our cognitive abilities rest upon an emotional substrate. Contemporary fMRI brain scans are used to identify the relative brain locations of rational and emotional thought processes and point to the associated, layered, relationships. Any lucid understanding of the basis for human rational thought must incorporate an assessment of associated emotional thought. The rapidly growing field of neuroeconomics embraces this perspective. Neuroeconomics is defined as the convergence of the neural and social sciences, applied to the understanding and prediction of decisions about rewards, such as money, food, information acquisition, physical pleasure or pain, and social interactions. An interesting aspect of emotional thought is that it commonly expresses throughout the entire body. For example, neuroeconomics research studies have found that skin conductance, pupil dilation and heart rate are all higher in response to monetary loss than to equivalent gain. All three measures are involved in physiological stress responses, and the example infers that losing a particular amount of money is experienced more strongly than gaining the same amount.

Current research suggests that emotions result from thought processes that combine the sensations of pleasure and intensity with information about possibilities that connect past experiences with expectations for the future. Objective physiological indexes of affect or emotion are. available. Positive affect is indicated by increasing zygomaticus activity. Negative affect is indicated by increasing corrugator activity. The circumplex model of affect illustrates emotional states on a two dimensional chart with valence (pleasure, from negative to positive) as the horizontal axis and activation (intensity or “arousal” from low to high as indicated by increased heart rate and electrodermal activity) as the vertical axis.

Perhaps more fundamental than emotional state is the concept of motivational state. Motivational state is. indexed by specific, bodily expressed, physiological states that can easily be measured. Motivational state is based on the concept of core relational themes, called “challenge” and “threat”. During the course of living, humans relate to environmental stimulus as a combination of challenge and threat. A challenge response is similar to the aerobic physiological response, and involves an increase in heart rate and cardiac output and a decrease in vascular resistance. A threat response is characterized by an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and an increase or little change in vascular resistance and a decrease or no change in stroke volume.

Technical methods are being developed which build upon our present capabilities to measure, not just general physiological parameters, but specific emotional and motivational states. On the cognitive side, fMRI methods illustrate how different parts of the brain engage in certain activities. A powerful, investigative toolset is provided by the combination of virtual reality stimulation within the confines of fMRI. Electroencephalograph (EEG) based techniques will increasingly employ software processors to evaluate real-time neuronal activity to reflect a person’s state of attention and engagement. In addition, functional near-infrared (fNIR) technology will be used to measure functioning of different parts of the cerebral cortex. As sensing tools improve, it will become increasingly clear that all emotional and rational thought and associated action occurs as a consequence of physiological changes in the body. Blood flow in the brain, stress-induced cortisol production and sequential nerve firing to activate muscle, are all examples of measurable physiological processes that contribute to human behavior. Increasingly subtle physiological phenomena will be monitored and measured. Layered on this measurement capability will be new methods to analyze physiological data. These methods will help us better answer medical questions related to the prevention, treatment or cure of disease. Furthermore, as the capability of tools improve in regard to discerning changes in physiological state, they will also help to identify changes in psychological state. Indeed, physiological state is the foundation for psychological state. Clear examples, which support this view, lie in the contemporary scientific consensus that there is a biological/genetic basis for many mental afflictions, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, autism and narcissistic personality disorder.

As our senses are enhanced and expanded by technology, and as our data processing software improves, we continue to learn how physiological systems combine to manifest as a complete person. Increasingly, we comprehend the nature of the relationship between physiological processes, motivational state, emotions and rational thought. As a consequence, human/computer interfaces will be granted enhanced ability to sense nuance in our behavior because these interfaces will have high bandwidth connections to, and interpretive capabilities for, the physiological processes which drive behavior. As new applications make use of these enhanced user interfaces, we will be able to move beyond the presently generic computer signal input/output modalities of hearing, seeing and gesturing. We are entering an era when computers and by extension, our environments, will be able to identify our motivational, emotional, attentive and engagement states and will increasingly become extensions of ourselves.

Expansion of Self

- To express into community

Serve the Expanded Self

- To be of service to that community

Experience more than Self

- To have transcendent experiences, such as those associated with love, beauty, art, nature and the sublime

Alan Macy

February 2022

There is a moment when, just as the aortic valve cracks open and all 85 ml of pressurized blood still resides in the left ventricle, with the cardiac muscle fibers bearing down hard in an effort to push that new bolus of blood out the aortic valve, and then into the aorta, and then the pulmonary artery to the rest of the corpus.

At that exact squeezing moment when the blood has still not moved, a pressure wave, warning of the impending rush of blood propagates through the entire arterial tree because blood is incompressible.

At that instant the blood is about to move, and as the pressure wave rises, the entire collection of blood vessels that connect the heart to all the parts of the body, becomes stiff with pressure and so, at that time, the entire arterial vasculature links and locks to the heart itself and all the oxygenated blood becomes fully impressed by the minute cracking open of the aortic valve because all the pancake-shaped red blood cells align like iron filings in a magnetic field, in an organized manner, thereby presenting a minimal cross section to the impinging pressure wave.

If these affected vessels are then interrogated with a alternating sinusoidal current, there is a impedance change signature that is measurable by those skilled in the art. This signature is a fingerprint of the heart itself, a measure called “contractility” that is the most direct, clear, unambiguous statement that the heart makes with each beat. A measure of the fundamental power and agility of the heart. And this measure of contractility tells much about a person’s physical state, and similarly, this person’s psychological state.

Contractility appears as biological simile to the Big Bang of the Universe where the resulting 13.8 billion years of evolution results from the instantaneous actions of fields and pressures at the moment of expansion.

With each passing moment, as our cycle of thoughts carry us through feelings of moroseness or neutrality or joy, the contractility of the heart varies in kind, so much so, and so tightly linked, that it might be impossible to determine what comes first, the heartbeat or the thought….

Alan Macy

July, 2020