476. Fragments of "Legacy" Poem Written Back in Fall of 2006 As Positively Influenced at LAP Records in Riverside, California

Back in Fall of 2006, or the beginning of my "Medieval Dark Ages" year at the "deathly age of 25--dearest me, the Quarter Life Crisis!" I fell off my own log and decided I wanted to record a song at a music studio... as I ultimately wanted to learn how to compose, record, and mix-n-master my own songs. I fell into the hands of LAP Records, a studio that was about five miles away from home. Though I had to leave the studio due to some awkward transactions that I found to be violating my own personal space, I did learn a few things, and at one point I was inspired to write a melodic poem entitled "Legacy," which was also partly influenced by the studio owner's creation of jazz music.

After reading the poem again... nearly three years later... I found most of the stanzas to be preachy, cliche, and overall unpoetic. Only two stanzas remain standing and worth revealing:

Legacy

To be alive

and to know

that you're alive

is the greatest thing

you could ever

realize.

To carve a new trail

beyond your own home,

beyond your own life,

beyond your own space,

beyond your own time.

Referring to quotes from the metaphor essay and CHESS Book of Poetry. Shifting Baseline Syndrome. Once again. "One of the greatest dilemmas of modern environmental problems is the individual human's failed ability to assign and imagine a role--a sense of self and place--in systems of greater scales beyond one's own immediate needs, surroundings, and lifespan."

I guess the "good news" is that I walked away from LAP Records learning how to record, mix-master my music with the most basic system: Yamaha touch sensitive keyboard from Costco, Samsun microphone, a really crxppy computer soundcard in this Hewlett Packard PC, and a really crxppy software program called "Sonar Home Studio" which has more than enough quirks in it.... Music creation is a whole other can of worms. I'll open this can of worms... or barrel of snakes (the music industry is the King of Corruption after all!) another time.

424. Poem / Song "Gaia-Medea" with a LOT of Backstory from Origins Conference (Arizona State University, April 2009) (EVOLUTION BY COLLECTIVE ACTION)

I know each poem is deserving of its own blog entry, but I was hunting for "Gaia-Medea" and accidentally stumbled upon two other poems/songs I was formulating in a car that I thought are worth "barfing out now" so that they can be worked upon and elaborated more consciously!

I formulated "Gaia-Medea" poem on the way down to San Diego (gone fishing!) but I was truly inspired by the works of an Earth Scientist (Dr. Peter Ward) at the Origins Conference (ASU University) who holds the perspective of the Medea Hypothesis (disastrologist, pessimist approach) over Gaia when it comes to Life on Earth as a happy-dosy-self-sustaining system. (I think water ultimately serves as a checks-and-balances character). This professor takes a unique stance in exploring the role of microbes in macro-scale ecological catastrophe in geological scales and I bet this dude will jive quite well with my undergrad advisor Armand Kuris (Parasite Prof). I talked to the moderator of the panel--I believe Dr. Manfred Laubichler (internal versus internal-regulation, serenity prayer conversation, I will discuss a later time)-- and I told him that I was concerned that Gaia and Medea are like bipolar-opposities of each other and are merely perceptual frames for research agendas. Essentially, the history of this planet shows evidence for cycles of origins, growth, shifts, decay, catastrophic ends, and cycles of rebirth, so on and so forth. The petri dish of planet Earth largely remains empty, oxygen came around, organisms explode in size and population size, like megacorporate mass production of life kicks in because efficiency of oxygen transport, then the petri dish gets full, shxt happens in a case of fullness vulnerability (combinatotion of various self-induced biotic and non-self-induced abiotic factors, density-dependent or density-independent), then the scenario is wiped blank slate again (like some kind of meteorite, toxic, anoxic event), and the meek scum rock-digesting bacteria shall always inherit the Earth. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I didn't tell Dr. Laubichler all of this, but I told him that why are there two bipolar perspectives when there are cycles of both Gaia-Medea. Wouldn't a more appropriate metaphor of A PHOENIX be more appropriate in terms of understanding coupled organismal-environmental systems? Human-envronmental systems? And he said very instinctively, yes, indeed, that would make a LOT of sense! And then I told him, that I am studying the role of metaphor and scale in conceptualizing human-environmental systems and science and society, as well as allowing the bridge of analogies and parallels with the natural sciences and the social sciences. Do you think this is a worthwhile agenda? And Dr. Laubichler also swiftly stated, that "Yes, this would indeed be a very legitimate research agenda, as long as the metaphors are not shallow-pass-off-analogies, but metaphors that are deeply embedded in the thought processes of the research and advances conceptual understanding of intra-and-interdisciplinary work. And I was very happy that he said this. I wore a gold star on my forehead for a couple of days :-). I felt legitimatized by someone with credentials I never met in my entire life until that moment in space and time. I love it!

The other issue I noticed is how disciplines borrowed terms from other rather remote disciplines. Geologists borrowed the term "incumbency," which is a word usually used in political contexts. What I thought was VERY interesting was use of the word complex--rival, non-rival (competitive-non-competitive for finite-space-time), excludable (elite club access), and non-exludable (access to all, socialist)--these traditionally-economics terms were borrowed TWICE through the entirety of the Origins symposium: once potentially by Dr. Steve Mojzsis (he's SOOO cool, I think he's and Earth Science prof based on Colorado), and once definitely by Dr. Steven Pinker (in linguistics--words as windows to the mind, who was clobbered by the skeptical ASU audience because Dr. Pinker was only measuring intelligence through word use and not spatial-problem solving and artistic outputs). I am SOOO excited simply because I witnessed this concept-word borrowing from disciplines, and it's also media-documented! Woohoo!

The other topic I did not mention to Dr. Laubichler but am now coming to vividly perceive as a REFLEXIVE SCIENTIST (a reflexive scientist [like me] is basically a scientist who has come to the conclusion that science is done by humans, and by default becomes a philosopher of science of sorts) is how the positive / negative mammalian taxis--or how OPTIMISM and PESSIMISM--ultimately shapes and frames scientific agendas.
In the parallels of the history of life on Earth, and origins of humans and their environments...

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM AS INTRINSIC PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA ADDICTION / FIXATION / GROWTH / LOSS / WITHDRAWAL: (psychology of loss, whether your family member, friend, pet, a drug addiction, post-pardum depression after quarter finals at school, your job, or 20 years of scientific research overhauled by a young stud) (five steps on death and dying) EVEN PERCEIVED IN THE NOTION OF SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM SHIFTS / SCIENCE AS INCREMENTAL AND/OR RADICAL IN CHANGE OF PERCEPTION AND THOUGHT PROCESS (like for thousands of years we added knowledge to the universe of Sun Cycling Around the Earth, and then one day we came to perceive the Earth was cycling around the sun, it requires a knowledge overhaul and shifting-re-organizing entirety of accumulated incremental knowledge!) A BIRTH AND DEATH AND REBIRTH IN SCIENTIFIC THINKING!

LIFE ON EARTH DUALIST METAPHORS OF OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM:
MEDEA HYPOTHESIS (pessimism) -- Peter Ward
GAIA HYPOTHESIS (optimism) -- James Lovelock (I don't like the frame of Gaia at all!)

HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTAL DUALIST METAPHORS/ CONCEPTS OF OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM:
HISTORICAL OVERFISHING (pessimism, "policy dark side of forest") -- Jeremy Jackson, Boris Worm, etcetera... (not to specifically mention these people, but there was a whole cult of pessimist science research coming out... well, it was by default, pessimistic, without much "what can we do about it" type of perspective
FISHERIES MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS (e.g. catch shares) (optimism, positive search image) -- Steve Gaines, Chris Costello
GLASS HALF-EMPTY / GLASS HALF-FULL--Dr. Jared Diamond dichotomized the positive and negative search image for the growth and collapse of societies (human-environmental systems) in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse" without looking into the relationships of both sides of the coin
GLASS HALF-EMPTY / GLASS HALF-FULL also perceived in the "GLOBAL WARMING" issue Al Gore taking a glass-half empty appraoch with inconsistent backing, the positive and negative aspects of the global-warming argument, as well as the post-global warming positive and negative outcomes (e.g. deserts will be prime real estate and islands will be flooded, millions of humans moved)

SOLUTION-METAPHOR THAT INTEGRATES CYCLES OF OPTIMISM-PESSIMISM-ORIGINS-GROWTH-COLLAPSE:
The Phoenix (a la Lauri Green, with a phoenix and a huge jelly fish tattooed on her back), enduring through the passing her perhaps most dearest family member, talk about TWO DIE-HARD TATTOOES! I think Lauri Green and Milton Love are the two coolest marine biologists each with two really cool tattooes, I need to start a collection here! natural history tattooed on human bodies, what an absurd collection!) through the times, life and death is all about periods of shifting baselines (life is never in a static stable state, always shifting) punctuated by extreme events (whether personal, collective human-environmental, or life on earth); and such is about constructing universal narrative themes.

More specifically, the MEDEA HYPOTHESIS (term coined by paleontologist Peter Ward for the Anti-Gaian hypothesis) is that multicellular life, unstood as a matrix-like "superorganism" is "suicidal." Succeeding at suicide would return Earth to the microbial-dominated state that has been the norm for most of its history.

The above passage was derived from Wikipedia, and it bothers the hxll out of me. I don't consider there being a "superorganism" complex. I feel that all of life has similar properties such that it acts constructively and deconstructively in feedbacks and certain events shows COLLECTIVE MASS ACCUMULATION IMPACTS ON LIFE AS A WHOLE simply because all living organisms have certain properties in common (they're all ALIVE!). Living organisms are "not suicidal" ("suicide" is TELEOLOGICAL and ANTHOPOMORPHIC: organisms as a collective with "super-organismic properties" operate as a PROCESS not with PURPOSE--assigning purpose to phenomena that are process-oriented and not induced by any individual organism or individual mind). Instead of "suicide," I would use the term "SELF-INDUCED VULNERABILITY TO MASS EXTINCTION, EITHER THROUGH THE MASS ACCUMULATION OF UNFAVORABLE BIOTIC FACTORS, COUPLED BIOTIC-ABIOTIC FACTORS, AND/OR UNCONTROLLABLE ABIOTIC EVENTS."

Anyhoo, I am so GLAD I found that the Medea Hypothesis exists because my father spoke with Dr. Martin Kennedy quite a few times about Snowball Earth the the global shutting down of a Photosynthesis Pump associated with certain abiotic factors--and I made a comment to my father on how "early organisms were self-inducing their own mass extinction, much like humans" and be both laughed our xsses off in the UC Riverside geology loading dock at the comment. And much to my glea, my own once-impromptu joke is actually the research agenda of a renowned paleontoloist I unfortunately was not exposed to at the time... yet. Now that my mind has marinated quite a bit, I even appreciate more the work of Dr. Peter Ward. I hope to run into him again and share with him my thoughts on his "controversial wording," at least in my own opinion.

One more tidbit: past "suicide attempts: include (1) methane poisoning (3.5 billion years ago), the oxygen catastrophe (2.7 billion years ago, what in the hxll is this?), Snowball Earth twice (2.3 billion years ago and 790-630 million years ago), at least 5 hydrogen-sulfide-induced mass extinctions (anoxic events?) such as the great dying 251.4 million years ago... and of course... NOT ON WIKIPEDIA, the HUMAN SET-UP to COLLECTIVE MASS EXTINCTION. Yet, as a wise fisherman in San Diego says, "When all collapses and the house of cards caves in, I will become a hero, because I know how to row my boat and catch fish. I will still be able to feed myself and my community." Amen! The world is going to hxll... and I'm not going to let me take it down with me!

Gaia-Medea

Gaia-Medea (repeated 8 times with a specific melody)

(So) Medea perceived the Planet Half Emtpy
and Gaia viewed the World in Half-n-Half Full
The Phoenix still rose from his few-gathered ashes
Of Death and Rebirth of the Cycles of Both.

Gaia-Medea, Gaia-Medea
The Phoenix still rose from his few-gathered ashes.
Gaia-Medea, Gaia-Medea
Construction still 'merges from blows of collapses.
(repeating chant)

Some Reconstruction from Collapsed Reduction
Are Carvings of Sculptures Could No Longer Endure
Irr'ducible Existence of Phasing Decay--
No longer a toy Evolution's ensured?

Gaia-Medea, Gaia-Medea
The Phoenix still rose from his few-gathered ashes.
Gaia-Medea, Gaia-Medea
Construction still 'merges from blows of collapses.
(repeating chant)

Such is the Powers and Motives of Gaming
Of Scientists and Sleuths in Narrative Framing
But how humans see, but do we really see?
In the cloak or the realms of objectivity?

Gaia-Medea, Gaia-Medea
The Phoenix still rose from his few-gathered ashes.
Gaia-Medea, Gaia-Medea
Construction still 'merges from blows of collapses.
(repeating chant)

I can't believe one short poem has so much BAGGAGE and BACKSTORY!!! Geez! Like SHOOT ME! I still think the poem needs a LOT more work... and a few more ideas placed inside the existing matrix of concepts. At least I am throwing the poem out there as a work in progress!

KEY WORDS: Gaia, Medea, phoenix, poem, song, Dr. Peter Ward, Dr. Manfred Laubichler, metaphor, scale, tattoo, Lauri Green, rival-nonrival, excludable-nonexcludable, reflexive scientist, optimism-pessimism, Dr. Milton Love, disease in the fossil record, suicide, narrative framing, collective suicide, mass accumulation effect, teleology, anthropomorphic, purpose or process, extreme events, shifting baselines, Steve Gaines, Chris Costello, Boris Worm, Al Gore, Inconvenient Truth, Jeremy Jackson, James Lovelock, positivisim-negativism, logical positivism, Steve Pinker, Steve Mojzsis, good enough list for now... geeze!

364. Fall Quarter Package Deal for Dr. Oran Young (and others), Bren, UCSB

As Corlei emphasized with me, graduate school is not just about doing a science experiment, it is also a social experiment... a series of acceptances and rejections. Science is not Truth. It is the pursuit of Common Agreement. It's about finding your ally Yes Men who agree with your perceptions. *Sigh.* Truth is only in the eye of the beholder.
Progress Report / Resume for Fall Quarter 2008. Page 1. See PDF file below.

Progress Report / Resume for Fall Quarter 2008. Page 2. PDF file right here:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/0progressfallquarter2008winter2009.pdf.

Figure 1. Scale-based reasoning in evolution, earth sciences, scaling laws in biology, historical ecology, and now... the human-environmental condition!

Figure 1. Part 1. Scale-based reasoning in evolution and geology.

Figure 1. Part 2. Scale-based reasoning in the human-environmental condition, from the individual human in proximate environments to the global-scale human-environmental condition.

Figure 1. Part 2. Photoshop Layering, Connecting the Dots. Individual humans and proximate landscapes. Organizations-institutions-technology-infrastructure, and existing non-human landscapes. Honestly, I think there is such a thing as Photoshop Logic. It's most certainly non-linear. Using photoshop, sonar home studio, and final cut pro have definitely improved my reasoning ability.

Figure 2. What is the definition of science when humans are a part of the experiment? Organism-environmental interactions are a two-way street. Organisms "adapt" to the environment, but organisms also "manipulate" "create" "maintain" environments--for themselves and for other organisms. A most peculiar organism engaged in macro-scale manipulation of environments is this critter called a "human being." Talk about ecosystem engineering!

Figure 3. Initial "Toolkit" and "Metaphors" for describing the human-environmental condition. Note our designated human specimens: Terra and Buz. Terra is agitated she has to be in the "box." Buz is near by, fully supportive of her posing.

Figure 4. Potential Spheres for the Bren Ph.D. (1) Ecology / Evolution / Earth Science (historical ecology) (2) Organizations / Institutions / Sociology (3) Philosophy of Science / History of Science. Really cool. Makes a lot of sense. Glad to figure something out very solid by the end of first quarter.

Ecology of Scale. 14-page essay scale-based reasoning and a search for metaphors on the human-environmental condition. Check out the full essay with this PDF file here:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/8ecologyofscaleSECONDRAFT.pdf.

Here is the lengthy Table 2 for the above essay on the Ecology of Scale. PDF file is right here: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/9ecologyofscaleTABLE2.pdf.

PDF file of the Abbreviated Bibliography:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/10.ecologyofscalebibliographyabbrev.pdf.

PDF file for Additional References:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/11.ecologyofscalebibliographyadditio.pdf.

PDF file for the Annotated Bibliography:

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/12.ecologyofscalebibliographyannotat.pdf.

My quarter was looking really grim. Then I snapped the day before Thanksgiving. This blog represents a three week spurt rebound. I had a wonderful conversation with my advisor, Oran, as well as Maria. Need to follow up with Wesley.

324. Scale/Zen of Photography: A Case Study with Patricia, a Santa Barbara Local (Initial Discussion Evolution of Art / Scientific Perception) Part 1

Patricia Close Up. Prototype image for a Hollywood Character in Desperate Housewives and Sex in the City.
Patricia Half-body Shot. Very lively, animated, friendly, motherly personality. Very photogenic.
Patricia 3/4 Body Shot. Camera Tilt for Aesthetics.
This was an accidental photograph, but I love it! Very strange aesthetic and distribution of elements across the image. Patricia's smile enhances everything!
Full body shot, in context of outcrops! Rocks, rocks, rocks! I love rocks! Any fossils? I wonder if the dudes seeing this image are even thinking about the outcrops behind Patricia.... Optimally aesthetic woman in front of beautiful rocks and beautiful ocean! Context! Context! Context! Could be an adbuster idea in the [near] future. Sell Nature to Society with Evolutionary Salespitching!

Patricia Full Body, Sitting Down. Silhouette effect against the sun.

Subject: Patricia, friend of Kent Schiff, rock crab distributor!
Location: Arroyo Burro Beach, Santa Barbara, California

Time: Sunset Golden Hour, September 2007.

Can't believe it took me so long to write a blog about this! Please see Blog number 324 for the full multi-layered journal/analysis of the experience. Systematic creativity is only fun in human context!

OKAY PEOPLE! SO, NOW I AM LEGITIMATE! HIRE ME FOR SOME PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK! ha ha ha! Am I serious? Or am I not?

Here are the links to the full album:

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa109/stokastika/PatriciaArroyoBurro090707/?albumview=slideshow

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa109/stokastika/PatriciaArroyoBurro090707/?start=all

303. On the Philosophy of Receipts and Perceptual Environmental Supersaturation: "I don't know and care b/c I don't have the capacity to." [SCALE]

I need to define myself
Before society can define me.
That is why I've come to return
to the grounds of UCSB.

I am staring at a pile of receipts on my portable desk (a folding, lengthened card table), and I am trying to find a way to throw them away. A way to rationalize them out of my life. First of all, I must meditate on what these receipts mean. They represent purchases. Of final products. From stores. Mostly all over Santa Barbara (and even places all over southern California). They represent products I "need" to survive at a very basal level (e.g. milk, meat, products to satisfy air, water, hunger, sleep, exercise, roof over head), but also "need" to survive, given the context of this mega human system (e.g. supplies for a computer). Technically, I do not need a computer to survive on planet Earth. But given that I was not even asked about my terms of membership of this Megascale Gigi, I am pissed I am a part of this. Would rather be part of a caveman group in the hills. Scale is the greatest demon of human society and the environment. So, at this moment in space and time, I am part of Global Gigi. For my contextual survival in Global Gigi, I NEED A COMPUTER TO SURVIVE, simply because EVERYONE ELSE HAS A COMPUTER. [VALUES AND NEED FOR SURVIVAL SHIFTS WITH SCALE OF THE SYSTEM] And I have to match and outcompete everyone else's efficiency and productivity level. So, as a graduate student, I go to the store, and I purchase these goods, in complete emotional and intellectual detachment of how these goods were made, where they came from, and where they might possibly go when I am done with their consumption. Who was involved in the process of manufacturing the good, and what did they have to "know" in order to manufacture the product? Who invented the good in the first place? Every single product in the store has a giant, beautiful story behind it, that requires quite intense research to figure out. And it's just daunting to realize this. I cannot know all this. I do not have the capacity to know all this. Same with being selective about the people I affiliate with. I cannot know all XX hundreds of professors at UC Santa Barbara. I have to stick to a few. It's not that I don't care. I don't have the capacity to care. Due to the volume of information. So, essentially I am forced to an existence of knowledge desensitization of my environment, and always exist in a state of a selectivel / filtered perception of reality. Honestly, I am overwhelmed, and I want to cry. I don't know. I don't know anything. But I guess that's the point of getting a Ph.D. You are officializing your acknowledgement that you don't know anything.

I am forced to live a detached, removed, desensitized life. I am forced to place a mental filter in my brain. I walk into Costco and I just go in, buy the product I need with glossy eyes, not admiring how many thousands of the same products exist right next to the one I picked up, not asking where the product come from, barely looking at the ingredients... dragging my feet to the line. Just shoot me in the head.

I am desensitized from a store environment for my sanity. But the desensitization makes me depressed. If I am sensitive, I go insane with information overload. I live in a state of emotional-intellectual paradox PSYCHO-ENVIRONMENTAL PARADOX. I will never be optimally "happy" one way or another. But at least I am writing this blog, manifesting this catch 22 condition. At least that relieves and externally manifests my internal turmoil. I think that is why I am so fascinated by ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOTISM and the condition of being an ENVIROCHONDRIAC. Envirochondriacism exists also because it's a scale issue.

So, these receipts represent mind-numbing trips to stores, to mind-numbingly pay money to buy final products I have no fxcking clue what I am consuming, such that I can mindfully exist in grad school. Honestly, I don't want to live a mindless life. But in a way, I am forced to. It just represents this entire divorce between the mindfulness of school and the mindlessness of the operations of society that allows me to live mindfully in school.

I am very sad. I want to live in a caveman society in the hills. Or I will just have to create my own caveman society on the UC Santa Barbara campus.

I have been looking through the bios of faculty at Bren. I came across Roland Geyer's page, and apparently he studies Industrial Ecology, an investigation of the life cycles of manufactured products. His background is in physics and engineering. I am a conformist to the reasoning of life cycles: I call it Ecological Structure and Process Knowledge and Historical Ecological Knowledge. the Proximal and Ultimate sources of products. This is also known as "political ecology," according to Julie Ekstrom (now a post doc at Stanford). The issue is I would be more interested in calling it INDUSTRIAL RESOURCE ECOLOGY, if it is the life cycle of a product that is not invented by humans. For example, humans did not "invent" rock crabs. They invented "computers." I am also interested in INDUSTRIAL MEDIA ECOLOGY: where stories come from and where they go. How stories from the university are being translated, passed around, and used in society. What are the degrees of distortion of the story. Ultimately, these ideas came to me from an animal behavior course. Except applying animal behavior to humans. Ya, as if humans weren't animals. Come ON!

I am also creating a diagram showing the relationship of human needs with the human-built environment. The piece is called "Disconnect on Disney's Cloud: the Disconnected Self." I am writing down the names of stores and products that I use.

Okay. I think I can throw away my receipts now.

288. A Tshirt and Powerpoint Slide for My Father, Dr. Richard Minnich

Nature is the best teacher

unless you study nature

in a square meter!

--Paraphrased quote by my father,

Dr. Richard Minnich, and myself....

My artistic drive wasn't as strong tonight, but I tried my very best with the above.

Talk about the theme of SCALE! Scale, scale, scale....