111. Notes - patience / circumstance / disbelief

111.3 May 2019

       Almost noon on a rain-dreary Friday. The Columbus Dispatch came late and you both just finished reading it. Carol spent the morning washing clothes, you swept the usual floors. You don't know how to respond to Miss Havisham's late blog page comment yesterday. - Amorella

       1204 hours. Here is Miss Havisham's comment: "The soul doesn't concentrate; the soul absorbs the heartanmind as the nose absorbs a fragrance."

       1207 hours. First, I need specific definitions of concentrate and absorb.

** **

concentrate- verb 

1 [with no object] focus one's attention or mental effort on a particular object or activity-  

ORIGIN mid 17th century (in the sense ‘bring towards a center’): Latinized form of concenter, or from French concentrer ‘to concentrate’. -

Selected and edited from the Oxford/American software

** **

absorb - verb [with object] 

1 take in or soak up -  take in and understand fully (information, ideas, or experience) -

ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin absorbere,

from ab- ‘from’ + sorbere ‘suck in’.                                                               

Selected and edited from the Oxford/American software

** **

       1230 hours. "Absorb" is the better word because suggest an absolute - "to take in and understand fully" and I can see the reasoning behind the use of "fragrance".

** **

fragrance | - noun a pleasant, sweet smell:  

ORIGIN mid 17th century: from French, or from Latin fragrantia, from fragrare ‘smell sweet’.

Selected and edited from the Oxford-American software

** **

       I accept the combined heartanmind contained in the soul as pleasant. mh

** **

pleasant - adjective (pleasanter, pleasantest) giving a sense of happy satisfaction or enjoyment- 

 • (of a person or their manner) friendly and considerate; likable: 

ORIGIN Middle English (in the sense ‘pleasing’): from Old French plaisant ‘pleasing’, from the verb plaisir (see please).

Selected and edited from the Oxford/American software

** **

       Yes, Mr. Orndorff, "a sense of satisfaction with my functioning in that I am friendly and considerate whereas you (heartanmind) are not always so, thus my assimilated

patience." mh

       Post. - Amorella

       1251 hours. Miss Havisham's comment is deserved. I shouldn't have needed a definition of "pleasant" in context with her commentary. Actually, it was rather arrogant of me. Sorry. I personally don't like rudeness myself. - rho

      You stopped at McD's for two large diet Cokes and are parked in the north lot of Heritage Park facing west with the picnic shelter behind. Carol left for her walk at 1725. - Amorella

       1729 hours. After Miss Havisham's last comment, I find myself wondering if what I sometimes think is a ghostly presence in my otherwise empty room is my soul (once I have excluded you Amorella).

        More likely it's likely, as you can split yourself into a variety of fictional and/or otherwise useful cognitive identities. The evidence is: encountersinmind@blogspot.com as well as the original Merlyn trilogy. - Amorella

       1744 hours. Well stated. I concur. I do try to learn something from these many escapades from the norms of reality. 

       Why don't you take the time to learn more from the likes of me? - mh

       1748 hours. Gladly, I would. I do not have the intelligence to ask the right questions, particularly if you are solely an imaginary character. 

       Over the years you have been convinced that Amorella is a reality although perhaps she is completely imaginary. mh

       1752 hours. I am convinced mostly because she is true to her character, she continually speaks from the position that she feels she is real, and I allow her that freedom. 

       But originally, according to your old notes and the encounters in mind blog, she addresses you. You did not know of her existence.  You did not search for her.  mh

       1757 hours. That's true. I assume my unconsciousness called her to consciousness.

.

       Carol just returned and is beginning a book she hasn't read by Harlan Coben, Darkest Fear, copyright 2000, 356 pages, and she is laughing already. You are happy she is happily reading. - Amorella

       And a short time ago, Amorella introduced you to a personified and thus translatable me. mh

       1821 hours. True, she did. The point being, I assume, is that I trust Amorella, thus I should trust her to bring forth my real soul, or at least identifiable aspects of my real soul. The rationale being that people personify their hearts to communicate with them and they personify their minds to communicate with them; so why not personify their souls to communicate with them. 

       You assume correctly. mh

       1828 hours. Written evidence shows I have listened to my heart, and I have listened to my mind also. It is not unreasonable under these circumstances that I can listen to my soul too. I need to take a break. 

       Later, my young friend. - Amorella

       2059 hours. I do not have the conscious memory experience to be self-instructed by my personified soul, Miss Havisham. 

       Several times in your adult life you have hypothetically attempted empathetically to come to an understanding of alien and/or angelic characters in your fictional stories. Personified, I am little different. mh

       2211 hours. My weakness, as it were, is to invest so much freedom in my characters that they follow through (my creativity/imagination) to the point that they are believable to me in context with the hypothetical story I am creatively investing for myself and my readers (with me being one of the first readers). If I am to create a "willing state of disbelief" in the reader I have to allow this "willing state" in myself. At the same time, in context, I have to consciously recognize the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

** **

Suspension of disbelief

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term suspension of disbelief or willing suspension of disbelief has been defined as a willingness to suspend one's critical faculties and believe something surreal; sacrifice of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment. The term was coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a "human interest and a semblance of truth" into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the implausibility of the narrative. Suspension of disbelief often applies to fictional works of the action, comedy, fantasy, and horror genres. Cognitive estrangement in fiction involves using a person's ignorance to promote suspension of disbelief. 

The phrase "suspension of disbelief" came to be used more loosely in the later 20th century, often used to imply that the burden was on the reader, rather than the writer, to achieve it. This might be used to refer to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium, so that these do not interfere with the acceptance of those premises. These premises may also lend to the engagement of the mind and perhaps proposition of thoughts, ideas, art and theories. 

Suspension of disbelief is often an essential element for a magic act or a circus sideshow act. For example, an audience is not expected to actually believe that a woman is cut in half or transforms into a gorilla in order to enjoy the performance.

According to the theory, suspension of disbelief is an essential ingredient for any kind of storytelling. With any film, the viewer has to ignore the reality that they are viewing a staged performance and temporarily accept it as their reality in order to be entertained. Black-and-white films provide an obvious early example that audiences are willing to suspend disbelief, no matter how implausible the images appear, for the sake of entertainment. With the exception of totally color blind people (achromats), no person viewing these films sees the real world without color, but some are still willing to suspend disbelief and accept the images in order to be entertained. Suspension of disbelief is also supposed to be essential for the enjoyment of many films and television shows involving complex stunts, special effects, and seemingly unrealistic plots and characterizations.

Coleridge's original formulation

Coleridge coined the phrase in his Biographia Literaria, published in 1817, in the context of the creation and reading of poetry.Chapter XIV describes the preparations with Wordsworth for their revolutionary collaboration Lyrical Ballads (first edition 1798), for which Coleridge had contributed the more romantic, gothic pieces including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Poetry and fiction involving the supernatural had gone out of fashion to a large extent in the 18th century, in part due to the declining belief in witches and other supernatural agents among the educated classes, who embraced the rational approach to the world offered by the new science. Alexander Pope, notably, felt the need to explain and justify his use of elemental spirits in The Rape of the Lock, one of the few English poems of the century that invoked the supernatural. Coleridge wished to revive the use of fantastic elements in poetry. The concept of "willing suspension of disbelief" explained how a modern, enlightened audience might continue to enjoy such types of story.

Coleridge recalled:

... It was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth on the other hand was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us ... 

The notion of such an action by an audience was however recognized in antiquity, as seen particularly in the Roman theoretical concerns of Horace, who also lived in an age of increasing skepticism about the supernatural, in his Ars Poetica (with the quotation Ut pictura poesis).

Suspension of disbelief is sometimes said to be an essential component of live theater, where it was recognized by Shakespeare, who refers to it in the Prologue to Henry V:

[…] make imaginary puissance […] 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings […] turning the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass.

Psychological critic Norman Holland points to a neuroscientific explanation. When we hear or watch any narrative, our brains go wholly into perceiving mode, turning off the systems for acting or planning to act, and with them go our systems for assessing reality. 

We have, in Coleridge's second, more accurate phrase, "poetic faith". That's why humans have such trouble recognizing lies: they first believe, then have to make a conscious effort to disbelieve.

Only when we stop perceiving to think about what we have seen or heard, only then do we assess its truth-value. If we are really "into" the fiction – "transported", in the psychologists' term – we are, as Immanuel Kant pointed out long ago, "disinterested". We respond aesthetically, without purpose. We don't judge the truth of what we're perceiving, even though if we stop being transported and think about it, we know quite well it's a fiction.

Suspension of disbelief has also been used within a mental health context by Frank DeFulgentis in his book Flux. It is an attempt to describe the phenomenon of forgetting irrational thoughts associated with cases of OCD. In the book, the author suggests 'suspending disbelief' as opposed to forcing ourselves to forget; similar to how one would put a virus in quarantine. We can thereby allow ourselves to be absorbed in the activities around us until these irrationalities vanish on their own accord.

Aesthetic philosophers generally reject claims that suspension of disbelief accurately characterizes the relationship between people and "fictions."

Kendall Walton notes that, if viewers were to truly suspend disbelief at a horror movie and accept its images as absolute fact, they would have a true-to-life set of reactions. 

For instance, audience members would cry out, "Look behind you!" to an endangered on-screen character or call the police when they witnessed an on-screen murder.

Not all authors believe that suspension of the disbelief adequately characterizes the audience's relationship to imaginative works of art. --

J. R. R. Tolkien challenges this concept in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", choosing instead the paradigm of secondary belief based on inner consistency of reality. -

Tolkien says that, in order for the narrative to work, the reader must believe that what he reads is true within the secondary reality of the fictional world. -

By focusing on creating an internally consistent fictional world, the author makes secondary belief possible. Tolkien argues that suspension of disbelief is only necessary when the work has failed to create secondary belief. -

From that point the spell is broken, and the reader ceases to be immersed in the story and must make a conscious effort to suspend disbelief or else give up on it entirely. 

Selected and edited from Wikipedia (My underlining for emphasis.)

** **

       What you wish me to do is to create my own 'willing suspension of disbelief' when "Tolkien argues that suspension of disbelief is only necessary when the work has failed to create secondary belief." I am a human soul, your human soul. I cannot in truth recreate what I am. mh

       2248 hours. This is my dilemma. I have to accept that you are my authentic soul (personified) because you and Amorella say you are.I am willing to do so in context with focus and content of this blog and particularly this blog #111.

       We (Richard, Miss Havisham, and myself) willingly agree on this subject of "willing suspension of disbelief" in relationship to this blog: "Encounters-in-Spirit". Post. - Amorella

Note - Posting times in this blog series of posts are not accurate. It is presently 2308 hours.

110. Notes - out of the blue / no measurement / soul absorbs

110. 2 May 2019

       You are at Bob Evans in Westerville waiting for Fritz M. You are going to ask him about the Attorney General and what's to be done. Hoping for an interesting conversation. - Amorella

       1134 hours. That I am. Fritz is an old-time lawyer, second in his class at Ohio State. He knows his stuff and has been following state and national politics as long as I've known him.

       You are home. Carol is drying her hair in a prep for the AAUW (American Association of University Women) dinner meeting tonight. Fritz said his mother was in the organization from the 1950's on. Cathy is in and your cousin Wendy used to be its local president among holding other offices.

** **

American Association of University Women

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 members and supporters, 1,000 local branches, and 800 college and university partners. Its headquarters are in Washington, D.C. AAUW's CEO is Kim Churches.

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

** **

       Wendy W. had asked you to send her the family genetics from 1550 on (she gave you the names). You just finished this and sent it to her but you had not updated her parents since they died, Aunt Patsy and Uncle Ernie, and feel badly about this as they were to of your favorites along with Aunt Ruthie S. - Amorella

       Hello, Mr. Orndorff. Sadness and remorse in not updating the genealogy are understood from the heartanmind viewpoint. You particularly loved Uncle Ernie (Warren Ernsberger) as a second father along with your grandfather, Clell Orndorff, ever known by you affectionately as "Popo". You felt they were kinder to you growing up than your own father, Richard Bookman Orndorff, was. In later years you came to understand your father better and parted as 'friendly' when he died. Uncle  Ernie, in his last year told you that your father was a good man whether you understood so or not, but you still told Uncle Ernie he was like a second father to you. This is how I preview the situation presently. - Miss Havisham

       1628 hours. The words speak true and better put (clearer) than I could have possibly placed them. I am content that they are. Strange, is this how would have thought on the situation were I dead? That is, would this have run through my heartanmind and into my soul in passage?

       Orndorff, you cannot seem to help yourself to any fleeting question that comes to mind. - Amorella

       Yes, this is the usual passageway -- heart to mind and mind to heart and heart to soul. In this sense, you would personify the soul as your dearest and closest friend. Why? Because with you're being physically dead, it is.  mh

       1642 hours. Now, this content was/is truly out of the blue. 

       Post. - Amorella

       Carol is at her dinner meeting with Cathy. You are wondering where approximately the soul exists within the physical body. - Amorella

       1959 hours. The heartansoulanmind, I assume stay close to the human body but I've never thought of it actually being within the body. Shoot, for all I know it could be in two or more places at once anywhere within or without our known universe. I haven't really thought about it. I remember some time back in the early nineteenth century someone tried to scientifically measure the weight of the soul . . .. 

** **

21 grams experiment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 21 grams experiment refers to a scientific study published in 1907 by Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts. MacDougall hypothesized that souls have physical weight, and attempted to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul departed the body. MacDougall attempted to measure the mass change of six patients at the moment of death. One of the six subjects lost three-fourths of an ounce (21.3 grams).

MacDougall stated his experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be obtained. The experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unscientific due to the small sample size, the methods used, as well as the fact only one of the six subjects met the hypothesis.^[1] The case has been cited as an example of selective reporting. Despite its rejection within the scientific community, MacDougall's experiment popularized the concept that the soul has weight, and specifically that it weighs 21 grams.

Experiment

In 1901, Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Haverhill, Massachusetts, who wished to scientifically determine if a soul had weight, identified six patients in nursing homes whose death was imminent. Four were suffering from tuberculosis, one from diabetes, and one from unspecified causes. MacDougall specifically chose people who were suffering from conditions that caused physical exhaustion, as he needed the patients to remain still when they died to measure them accurately. When the patients looked like they were close to death, their entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale that was sensitive within two tenths of an ounce (5.6 grams).^[1][2][3] On the belief that humans have souls and that animals do not, MacDougall later measured the changes in weight from fifteen dogs after death. MacDougall said he wished to use dogs that were sick or dying for his experiment, though was unable to find any. It is therefore presumed he poisoned healthy dogs.^[3][4][5]

One of the patients lost weight but then put the weight back on, and two of the other patients registered a loss of weight at death but a few minutes later lost even more weight. One of the patients lost "three-fourths of an ounce" (21.3 grams) in weight, coinciding with the time of death. MacDougall disregarded the results of another patient on the grounds the scales were "not finely adjusted", and discounted the results of another as the patient died while the equipment was still being calibrated. MacDougall reported that none of the dogs lost any weight after death.^[1][4]

While MacDougall believed that the results from his experiment showed the human soul might have weight, his report, which was not published until 1907, stated the experiment would have to be repeated many times before any conclusion could be obtained.^[4][5]

Before MacDougall was able to publish the results of his experiments, The New York Times broke the story in an article titled "Soul has Weight, Physician Thinks".^[6] MacDougall's results were published in April of the same year in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research,^[7]and the medical journal American Medicine.^[8]

Following the publication of the experiment in American Medicine, physician Augustus P. Clarke criticized the experiment's validity. Clarke noted that at the time of death there is a sudden rise in body temperature as the lungs are no longer cooling blood, causing a subsequent rise in sweating which could easily account for MacDougall’s missing 21 grams. Clarke also pointed out that, as dogs do not have sweat glands, they would not lose weight in this manner after death.^[2][3] Clarke's criticism was published in the May issue of American Medicine. Arguments between MacDougall and Clarke debating the validity of the experiment continued to be published in the journal until at least December that year.^[3]

MacDougall's experiment has been the subject of considerable skepticism, and he has been accused of both flawed methods and outright fraud in obtaining his results.^[9] Noting that only one of the six patients measured supported the hypothesis, Karl Kruszelnicki has stated the experiment is a case of selective reporting, as MacDougall ignored the majority of the results. Kruszelnicki also criticized the small sample size, and questioned how MacDougall was able to determine the exact moment when a person had died considering the technology available at the time.^[1] Physicist Robert L. Park has written that MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit",^[5] and psychologist Bruce Hood wrote that "because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific".^[9] Professor Richard Wiseman said that within the scientific community, the experiment is confined to a "large pile of scientific curiosities labelled 'almost certainly not true'".^[2]

An article by Snopes in 2013 said the experiment was flawed because the methods used were suspect, the sample size was much too small, and the capability to measure weight changes too imprecise, concluding: "credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams."^[4] The fact that MacDougall likely poisoned and killed fifteen healthy dogs in an attempt to support his research has also been a source of criticism.^[3][4]

Selected and edited from Wikipedia

** **

       2010 hours. I never gave the concept of the article much credence, probably no more than anyone would give my blog much credence for that matter. I do not claim any of this is non-fiction other than it is written as I see it, literally. Conjecture is what others might say of my blog, but I do not claim anything like a scientific experiment with my soul. In fact, I don't really want to waste Amorella or Miss Havisham's time on the subject. It was at most, "another fleeting question" as Amorella might say. 

       Post. - Amorella

       Carol and Cathy were back about nine, earlier than you expected. Their next AAUW meeting is in September. They enjoyed the session and the dinner, you are happy they did. - Amorella

       2222 hours. Carol is watching "The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell" and it is difficult concentrating on writing the blog. 

       The soul doesn't concentrate, the soul absorbs the heartanmind as the nose absorbs a fragrance. mh

       Post. - Amorella

109. Notes - cemeteries and dark humor

109.1 May 2019

       Later in the afternoon. You are facing west at the north Heritage Park lot with a woods at the front of the Honda and a soccer field behind. Carol is on her walk. Tomorrow, breakfast with Kim at Scrambler Marie's off Polaris Blvd. Lunch with Fritz late morning; and Carol has dinner out with your sister Cathy in the Polaris area in the evening. You had an early supper tonight -- a (breakfast) McD picnic right here where you sit. - Amorella

       1646 hours. It's a warm 82 degrees with a brisk wind; very comfortable. Looking at the woods, Thoreau and Waldon's Pond comes to mind as well as Emerson and Concord and the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where both writers rest in peace. Emerson has the fancier head stone, Thoreau's is less than a foot high with "Henry" placed in the stone. 

***

Henry

Emerson

          ***           

       Before dusk you and Carol both worked in the 'meadow' area near the old farm fence separating your backyard from the mowed meadow behind you. You watched the news and a renewed detective show on Prime as well as Rachael Maddow tonight. - Amorella

       2241 hours. I thought you, Miss Havisham, were going to focus on my soul in this blog, not me. 

       Don't be silly, Mr. Orndorff. This blog is about the metaphysics of your spirit, your heartansoulanmind. mh

       2243 hours. Earlier in the evening I was thinking on the serenity of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. I love the romance of old graveyards no matter where they are. 

       You like the fact there are nearby trees and woods down to Alum Creek near your and Carol's gravestone at Otterbein Cemetery. - Amorella

       2249 hours. We do. Many of our relatives on both sides of our families are already buried at Otterbein. I played on the cemetery as a kid and I buried people in the cemetery when I was in college. I have great fondness for that personally sacred ground in my life. 

       Do you feel you will meet and greet with those familiar family spirits one day? mh

       2257 hours. I don't know. No, to be honest, I don't think I will. I assume if spirits move on from mortal ground we will have other matters to attend, a further purpose for the human spirit beyond living and experiencing our physical selves. That would be a positive for me. I like learning new stuff. I like wondering about what I do not know. 

       Post. - Amorella

       2301 hours. I thought this page was going to go somewhere else.

       Just like you think being Dead, you will be going somewhere else. - Amorella

       2303 hours. You do make a good, humorous point, Amorella. Dark humor. I like that. I can live with that. 

       How about continuing with the dark humor in heartansoulanmind after physical death? - Amorella

       2305 hours. As long as I was spiritually smiling at the seemingly continuous everlasting joke, i.e. that I learned wisdom from the running dark humor in being human spiritually I would have no problem with it, at least I don't think I would.

       Post. - Amorella

       I don't think you would either, Mr. Orndorff. You do love to learn new stuff in a variety of new ways. mh

       2311 hours. Sometimes I am surprised by just being who I am. (No offense.) This is indeed a humbling thought I have never thought before. Life is interesting. 

108. Notes - true, it was

108. 30 April 2019

       Mid-afternoon. Carol is napping. She mowed the front and the front side yards while you trimmed then replaced the 'string' on the trimmer. A little later you are going to meet Cathy, Tod and cousin Wendy at the Old Bag of Nails in Uptown Westerville for an early dinner. In an earlier conversation with Kim you mentioned you might be looking for a new Toyota Avalon Hybrid Limited sooner than later and were asking about borrowing Paul's 'bargaining' skills. She said he would love to do so, that he loves bargaining for new cars, which you already knew. - Amorella

       1554 hours. The only question I have is whether it would be better to wait for the 2020 model which might have even more/better safety features. Earlier in life it was easier making the decision (I would wait) but at my age driving to Florida with a car with new safety features might be better in the short run as well as the longer. -- This has nothing to do with my soul; it is more a heartanmind matter.

       It is a mind matter, Mr. Orndorff. Heartansoul are neutral on these sorts of decisions. mh

       1601 hours. Really? 

       In this particular case. The question of buying a new car brings in the heartanmind. The decision as to when is mind only because it is a given that you are buying the car you and Carol want to buy. Now, color of the car is another matter. Your heartansoul was into buying that red 1985 Volkswagen GTI. mh

       1606 hours. True, it was. 

       Post. - Amorella