Monday, June 1, 2009

Magenta Dragonfly: Contact Improv, Countercultural Memes 'In The Air,' Culture and Genes ~ Never The Twain Shall Meet?

To Canyon, California, again ... from the Boston area ...


and contact improv ... MMmmm ... it's health producing :)


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What countercultural memes (Rainbow Gathering, long hair) are 'in the air' these days, that people enjoy, and which create synergies with 'positive' cultural memes (shelter, warm pools, artistic objects)? Might these rewrite questions of culture and counterculture in a synthesis? And in terms of individual choice here?


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What are great hopes, and opportunities, today for people? ...


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Culture and genes, ~ never the twain shall meet? As I see life, most species, including homo sapiens, come through millions of years of reproduction of generation after generation, - an ongoing movement of genes through time on earth.

Culture - much of the stuff of daily human interaction - that is, memes as cultural units, words, socioeconomic processes in modernity, narratives (including religious, philosophical and knowledge/reason/academically-oriented ones), much that has occurred language-wise since writing began about 5500 years ago, music, symbolizing processes (Deacon), among humans,

and the learning of sign language, as well as the use of tools among higher primates (such as that by chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas, for example),

seem to me to be distinct from replicating genes through time, for these species.

And for the other 1.3 million + species vis-a-vis genetic replication (biology), the above 'cultural' processes seem almost irrelevant to genes, including homo sapiens. (This leads to a kind of evolutionary biological nihilism for me).

There are potentially tens of thousands of generations ahead for all species...


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Trithemis Aurora ~ eol.org/pages/131029 ~ Magenta Dragonfly

http://k43.pbase.com/o5/05/598805/1/68893822.JOQRzLmg.21102006dfc.jpg


http://www.geoparks2010.com/images/pic%20baru/flora%20&%20fauna/Trithemis%20aurora.JPG


Such a beautiful species!


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Perhaps culture and genes may somehow meet in the relaxation response: relaxationresponse.org/steps

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