Monday 12 July 2004

Pic of the day: For each of us to keep our shields up, for each of us to walk around in our own bubble, surely that must be tiring and cumbersome. (Screenshot from City of Heroes. This entry is not about the game though.)

Friends and mirrors

There is a saying that you don't need a mirror if you have a good friend. I was reminded of this when I wrote about the quest to stay young, two days ago.

It was something that I have read often before, but not really connected it. On one side, the health benefits of meditation: Lower blood pressure, improved immune defense, general happiness and a longer life. Then the benefits of good friends, which just happen to be pretty much just the same. Coincidence? I think not.

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One of the things I have been writing about from time to time, which I really hope will be remembered (though not necessarily associated with me) is the idea of the sentience loop. Actually I partly borrowed this from the game Alpha Centauri, where consciousness is also casually mentioned to be a loop. What happens in humans is that our thoughts reach a form where they might be expressed. But then instead of going straight out to the surrounds, they trigger our self awareness. We become aware of what we are about to say (or otherwise express, like body language etc, but this is harder to notice) before it happens. This means we can redirect the expression back to ourselves and react to it, modify it perhaps, before it even leaves our brain.

Now it is a fact that people differ in how much they do this. Generally small kids just let it go, much like they do with other things. But as we grow up, some people seem to develop a strong "gravity well" for their self-expression. It takes more to make their thoughts leave the brain and go out to others. We call these people introverts. Or if they specialize in abstract thinking we call them philosophers. Or if we think it is a problem we say they have "Asperger's Syndrome" or "borderline autism" or some such.

In the same way, other people let their words fly easily. They may censor things that are socially unacceptable, but otherwise their words seems to have gone through very little refinement before leaving the brain. These people are called "extroverts" or "outgoing" or "normal".

When people, extroverts in particular, are together with their friends, they enjoy the attention. They get a response, and even though the thing they talk about may not be important, the reaction from others is. Without it, they would grow depressed and literally sick. Solitary confinement is considered cruel and unusual punishment and can cause serious health problems for body as well as soul.

It is intriguing that meditation can trigger much the same effects as a tight social network. Is it because we somehow create our own attention? (Unless it's actually a Higher Power involved, but I've not heard that there is any difference between religious and secular meditation. (Of course, our ideas about Higher Powers could be way off.)) Or is it because we let down our guard and relax in both cases? Keeping our shields up must surely be taxing for body and soul.