non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - III

René Magritte, La lunette d'approche (The Telescope), 1963
Oil on canvas - The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas

I have now lined up a series of pieces of data – hints about how the world is – and all the pieces share the notion of not communicating something under some circumstances. It is important that the Ancient Mariner not tell himself that he is blessing the snakes, and especially that he not define a “purpose” of the act of blessing. He must bless them “unaware.” ... The Indians at Iowa City shall not be photographed. The camera shall not point at their ritual actions to make them see themselves and tell the world about these mysteries. I am irritated by Joe‘s interrupting my psychedelic trip while he sets up a tape recorder, and still more irritated when he asks me to repeat what I had begun to say, which obviously could only be done with extra consciousness. And so on.

I cannot even say clearly how many examples of the same phenomenon – this avoidance of communication – are contained in the stories I have set side by side...

We find over and over again in different parts of the world and different epochs of religious thought a recurrent emphasis on the notion that discovery, invention, and knowledge in general must be regarded as dangerous. Many examples are familiar: Prometheus was chained to the rock for inventing the domestication of fire, which he stole from Phoebus Apollo; Adam was punished for eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge; and so on.

Greek mythology proposes the danger of knowledge again and again, especially cross-sex knowledge, which is always fatal. The guilty man is torn to pieces, and the Greeks even had a word for this fate, which we might Anglicize to say that he is sparagamated. Examples include Actaeon, who accidentally spied on Artemis bathing and was torn apart by her dogs, and Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by nymphs after his return from Hades, where he went to bring back Eurydice. He looked over his shoulder at her as he was leading her back and therefore lost her forever. There is also Pentheus, the disciplinarian king who was led by Bacchus to spy on the Bacchae in Euripides‘ play of that name. The god had the king dress up as a woman and climb a tree to watch the women‘s festivities. They detected him, uprooted the tree, and tore him to pieces. His mother was among the women, and in the final scene of the play she comes back from the mountains carrying her son‘s head, screaming about the “lion” that they had killed. Her father, Cadmus, then performs an act of psychotherapy. “Who did you marry?” The queen answers. “What son was born?” Again she answers. Finally, Cadmus points to the head of Pentheus; ”Who is that?” Then the queen suddenly recognizes her son‘s head. The mythical outcome of male voyeurism is death by being torn apart. We laughingly say to children, “Curiosity killed the pussy cat,” but to the Greeks it was no laughing matter.

I believe that this is a very important and significant matter, and that noncommunication of certain sorts is needed if we are to maintain the “sacred.” Communication is undesirable, not because of fear, but because communication would somehow alter the nature of the ideas.

 There are, of course, monastic orders whose members are under constraint to avoid all verbal communication. (Why especially the verbal?) These are the so-called silent orders. But if we want to know the precise contexts of that noncommunication which is the mark of the sacred, they will not give many clues. By avoiding all speech they tell us very little.

For the moment, let us simply say that there are many matters and many circumstances in which consciousness is undesirable and silence is golden, so that secrecy can be used as a marker to tell us that we are approaching holy ground. Then if we had enough instances of the unuttered, we could begin to reach for a definition of the “Sacred.” At a later stage, it will be possible to juxtapose with the stories given here examples of necessary noncommunication from the field of biology, which I believe to be formally comparable. What is it that men and women hold sacred? Are there perhaps processes in the working of all living systems such that, if news or information of these processes reaches other parts of the system, the working together of the whole will be paralyzed or disrupted? What does it mean to hold something sacred? And why does it matter?

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - II

Tao qusai oridnato

esperienza del Tao cognitivista

© Igor Morski

Il successo accademico dell'ipotesi cognitivista alla mente ed alla coscienza e la sua applicazione in numerosi campi ha fatto passare in secondo piano un fatto radicale: la sua totale discrepanza tra la cognizione ed esperienza:

Cognitivism and Human Experience

What implications does this cognitivist research program have for an understanding of our experience? We wish to emphasize two related points: (1) cognitivism postulates mental or cognitive processes of which we are not only unaware but of which we cannot be aware, and (2) cognitivism is thereby led to embrace the idea that the self or cognizing subject is fundamentally fragmented or nonunified. These two points will become considerably intertwined as we proceed.

As the reader might recall, our first point has already appeared when we presented the tension between science and experience to which cognitive science gives rise. There we quoted Daniel Dennett's claim that all cognitivist theories are theories of what Dennett calls the "sub-personal level." By this phrase, Dennett means that cognitivism postulates mental (not just physical and biological) mechanisms and processes that are not accessible to the "personal level" of consciousness, especially self-consciousness. In other words, one cannot discern in conscious awareness or self-conscious introspection any of the cognitive structures and processes that are postulated to account for cognitive behavior. Indeed, if cognition is fundamentally symbolic computation, this discrepancy between personal and subpersonal immediately follows, since presumably none of us has any awareness of computing in an internal, symbolic medium when we think.

It is possible to overlook the depth of this challenge to our self-understanding, largely because of our post-Freudian belief in the unconscious. There is a difference, however, between what we usually mean by "unconscious" and the sense in which mental processes are said to be unconscious in cognitivism: we usually suppose that what is unconscious can be brought to consciousness-if not through selfconscious reflection, then through a disciplined procedure such as psychoanalysis. Cognitivism, on the other hand, postulates processes that are mental but that cannot be brought to consciousness at all. Thus we are not simply unaware of the rules that govern the generation of mental images or of the rules that govern visual processing; we could not be aware of these rules. Indeed, it is typically noted that if such cognitive processes could be made conscious, then they could not be fast and automatic and so could not function properly. In one formulation these cognitive processes are even considered to be "modular" {to comprise distinct subsystems that cannot be penetrated by conscious mental activity). Thus cognitivism challenges our conviction that consciousness and the mind either amount to the same thing or there is an essential or necessary connection between them. Of course, Freud too challenged the idea that the mind and consciousness are the same. Furthermore, he certainly realized that to distinguish between the mind and consciousness entails the disunity of the self or cognizing subject, a point to which we shall tum shortly. It is not clear, however, whether Freud took the further step of calling into question the idea that there is an essential or necessary connection between the mind and consciousness. As Dennett notes, Freud, in his argument for unconscious beliefs, desires, and motivations, left open the possibility that these unconscious processes belonged to a fragment of ourselves hidden in the depths of the psyche. Although it is not clear the extent to which Freud meant such a fragmentation literally, it is clear that cognitive science does take a literal, if not homuncular, view. As Dennett puts it, "Although the new [cognitivist] theories abound with deliberately fanciful homunculus metaphors-subsystems like little people in the brain sending messages back and forth, asking for help, obeying and volunteering-the actual subsystems are deemed to be unproblematic nonconscious bits of organic machinery, as utterly lacking in point of view or inner life as a kidney or kneecap. In other words, the characterization of these "sub-personal" systems in "fanciful homunculus metaphors" is only provisional, for eventually all such metaphors are "discharged"-they are traded in for the storm of activity among such selfless processes as neural networks or AI data structures.

Our pretheoretical, everyday conviction, however, is that cognition and consciousness-especially self-consciousness-belong together in the same domain. Cognitivism runs directly counter to this conviction: in determining the domain of cognition, it explicitly cuts across the conscious/unconscious distinction. The domain of cognition consists of those systems that must be seen as having a distinct representational level, not necessarily of those systems that are conscious. Some representational systems are, of course, conscious, but they need not be to have representations or intentional states. Thus for cognitivists, cognition and intentionality (representation) are the inseparable pair, not cognition and consciousness.

This theoretical division of the domain of cognition is considered by cognitivists to be “an empirical discovery of no small importance” and indicates, again, the remarkable mutation wrought by cognitivism. But now a problem arises: we seem to be losing our grip on something that is undeniably close and familiar-our sense of self. If consciousness-to say nothing of self-consciousness-is not essential for cognition, and if, in the case of cognitive systems that are conscious, such as ourselves, consciousness amounts to only one kind of mental process, then just what is the cognizing subject? Is it the collection of all mental processes, both conscious and unconscious? Or is it simply one kind of mental process, such as consciousness, among all the others? In either case, our sense of self is challenged, for we typically suppose that to be a self is to have a coherent and unified "point of view," a stable and constant vantage point from which to think, perceive, and act. Indeed, this sense that we have (are?) a self seems so incontrovertible that its calling into question or denial-even by science-strikes us as absurd. And yet, if someone were to turn the tables and ask us to look for the self, we would be hard pressed to find it. Dennett, as usual, makes this point with flair: “You enter the brain through the eye, march up the optic nerve, round and round the cortex, looking behind every neuron, and then before you know it, you emerge into daylight on the spike of a motor nerve impulse, scratching your head and wondering where the self is”.

Our problem, however, goes even deeper. It is one thing to be unable to find a coherent and unified self amid the furious storm of subpersonal activity. This inability would certainly challenge our sense of self, but the challenge would be limited. We could still suppose that there really is a self but that we simply cannot find it in this fashion. Perhaps, as Jean-Paul Sartre held, the self is too close, and so we cannot uncover it by turning back upon ourselves. The cognitivist challenge, however, is much more serious. According to cognitivism, cognition can proceed without consciousness, for there is no essential or necessary connection between them. Now whatever else we suppose the self to be, we typically suppose that consciousness is its central feature. It follows, then, that cognitivism challenges our conviction that the most central feature of the self is needed for cognition. In other words, the cognitivist challenge does not consist simply in asserting that we cannot find the self; it consists, rather, in the further implication that the self is not even needed for cognition.

At this point, the tension between science and experience should be obvious and tangible. If cognition can proceed without the self, then why do we nonetheless have the experience of self? We cannot simply dismiss this experience without explanation.

seduti ai piedi del Tao

Isa Upanishad, Wellcome Library, London

L'enfasi delle Upanishad (lett.: seduti ai piedi del Maestro) è sulla Totalità. Ricordate, non sulla perfezione ma sulla totalità. Nel momento in cui si diventa interessati ad essere perfetti, si trova l'ego. L'ego è un perfezionista - il desiderio dell'ego è di essere perfetto - e la perfezione porta l'umanità verso l'insania.

La Totalità è completamente diversa; il suo sapore è diverso. La perfezione è nel futuro: si tratta di un desiderio. La Totalità è qui e ora: si tratta di una rivelazione. La Perfezione deve essere ottenuta, e naturalmente ogni realizzazione richiede tempo; deve essere graduale. Dovete sacrificare il presente per il futuro, l'oggi per il domani. E il domani non arriva mai; quello che arriva è sempre l'oggi.

---

Il Signore dimora in tutto questo Ogni cosa al mondo è tutto il mondo Se rinunci a tutto, godi tutto Non creare la ricchezza fuori di te!	All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual universe of movement in the universal motion. By that renounced thou shouldst enjoy; lust not after any man's possession.
Chi agisce così in questo mondo può vivere cento anni Se vivrai così, non incontrerai ostacoli e nessuna azione ti legherà.	Doing verily works in this world one should wish to live a hundred years. Thus it is in thee and not otherwise than this; action cleaves not to a man.
Tutti coloro che si oppongono al proprio Sé dopo la morte vanno nei ciechi mondi avvolti nelle tenebre chiamati mondi senza sole.	Sunless are those worlds and enveloped in blind gloom where to all they in their passing hence resort who are slayers of their souls.
L'Uno è immobile, eppure è più rapido del pensiero Egli è al di sopra di tutto, neanche gli déi possono raggiungerlo Senza muoversi, supera tutto ciò che corre In lui Agni compie la sua opera.	One unmoving that is swifter than Mind, That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.
Quello si muove, Quello non si muove Quello è lontano, Quello è vicino Quello è all'interno di questo, di ogni cosa Quello è all'esterno di questo, di ogni cosa.	That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
Colui che vede tutti gli esseri nel Sé e vede il Sé in tutti gli esseri, questi non odia nessuno.	But he who sees everywhere the Self in all existences and all existences in the Self, shrinks not thereafter from aught.
In colui che sa che tutti gli esseri esistono solo come Sé, in colui che così vede solo l'Uno, non c'è illusione, non c'è sofferenza.	He in whom it is the Self-Being that has become all existences that are Becomings, for he has the perfect knowledge, how shall he be deluded, whence shall he have grief who sees everywhere oneness?
Questi invero conosce ciò che è luminoso e immateriale, che non può essere ferito né bagnato, puro, senza peccato, il veggente, il sapiente, l'essere supremo, indipendente, che dall'origine dei tempi fa raggiungere il proprio scopo	It is He that has gone abroad — That which is bright, bodiless, without scar of imperfection, without sinews, pure, unpierced by evil. The Seer, the Thinker, the One who becomes everywhere, the Self-existent has ordered objects perfectly according to their nature from years sempiternal.
Coloro che dimorano nell'ignoranza cadono in una profonda oscurità Ma in una ancor più profonda oscurità cadono coloro che si compiacciono della conoscenza.	Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Knowledge alone.
Il destino di chi coltiva la conoscenza certamente è diverso da quello di chi vive nell'ignoranza Così dicono i saggi che insegnano a conoscere Quello.	Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Knowledge, other that which comes by the Ignorance; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.
Chi conosce la saggezza e l'ignoranza vincendo l'ignoranza sconfigge la morte, coltivando la saggezza beve il nettare dell'immortalità.	He who knows That as both in one, the Knowledge and the Ignorance, by the Ignorance crosses beyond death and by the Knowledge enjoys Immortality.
Coloro che adorano gli esseri invisibi cadono in una profonda oscurità Ma in una ancor più profonda oscurità cadono coloro che si compiacciono di ciò che è visibile.	Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Non-Birth, they as if into a greater darkness who devote themselves to the Birth alone.
. Il destino di chi si fonda su ciò che esiste certamente è diverso da quello di chi si fonda su ciò che non esiste Così dicono i saggi che insegnano a conoscere Quello.	Other, verily, it is said, is that which comes by the Birth, other that which comes by the Non-Birth; this is the lore we have received from the wise who revealed That to our understanding.
Chi conosce ciò che porta tutti gli esseri alla rovina, supera la rovina e la morte e beve il nettare dell'immortalità in tutti gli esseri.	He who knows That as both in one, the Birth and the dissolution of Birth, by the dissolution crosses beyond death and by the Birth enjoys Immortality.
Un velo di luce nasconde il volto della verità Ti prego, rimuovi questo velo e mostrami il vero dharma!	The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid; that do thou remove, O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth, for sight.
O sole, tu che concedi alla forza creativa il suo potere, unico Saggio, trattieni, ti prego, i tuoi raggi! Attenua il tuo splendore, perché io possa vedere la tua benedetta forma! Questo Sé simile al sole, sono io!	O Fosterer, O sole Seer, O Ordainer, O illumining Sun, O power of the Father of creatures, marshal thy rays, draw together thy light; the Lustre which is thy most blessed form of all, that in Thee I behold. The Purusha there and there, He am I.
Che questo corpo sia consumato, che il mio soffio si fonda con l'aria e divenga immortale! Om -- ricorda i miei sacrifici, ricorda come ti ho servito! Ricorda i miei sacrifici, ricorda come ti ho servito!	The Breath of things1 is an immortal Life, but of this body ashes are the end. OM! O Will, remember, that which was done remember! O Will, remember, that which was done remember.
O Agni, mio Dio, mio Signore! Tu che conosci la via, guidaci sul giusto cammino! Facci superare ogni ostacolo, liberaci da ogni difetto! Mi inchino dinnanzi a te, con queste parole ti rengo omaggio.	O god Agni, knowing all things that are manifested, lead us by the good path to the felicity; remove from us the devious attraction of sin. To thee completest speech of submission we would dispose.
Traduzione italiana da: in quiete Il sito di Gianfranco Bertagni	English translation: Sri Aurobindo

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - II

René Magritte, The Red Model II - Le modele rouge II, 1937
Oil on canvas, Edward James Foundation, Chichester, Sussex

I am an anthropologist. And the task of an anthropologist causes him to land himself in strange places. That is, places that are strange to him but, of course, not strange to the people who belong in those places. So, here I am at the governor‘s breakfast in what is for me a strange place but what is for many of you a place where you belong and have your natural being. I am here to relate this strange place to other strange places in the world where men gather together perhaps in prayer, perhaps in celebration, perhaps simply to affirm that there is something bigger in the world than money and pocketknives and automobiles. One of the things children have to learn about prayer is that you do not pray for pocketknives. Some learn it and some don‘t. If we‘re going to talk about such matters as prayer and religion, we need an example, a specimen, about which to talk. The trouble, you see, is that words like “religion” and “prayer” get used in many different senses in different times and in different parts of the world.

***

What I am suggesting is that nature of matters such as prayer, religion, and the like is most evident at moments of change – at moments of what the Buddhists call Enlightenment. And while Enlightenment may involve many sorts of experience, I think it important here to notice how often Enlightenment is a sudden realization of the biological nature of the world in which we live. It is a sudden discovery or realization of life. ... Another example, even more vivid but perhaps less familiar, alas, is the case of Job. Job, you will remember, is like Little Jack Horner. He sticks his finger in the pie and gives to the poor, and says, “What a good boy am I.” He has a God who is exactly like himself and who therefore boasts to Satan about Job‘s virtue. Satan is perhaps the most real part of Job‘s person, deeply hidden and repressed within him. He sets to work to demonstrate that Job‘s pietism is really no good. Finally, after infinite sufferings, a God who is much less pious and pedantic speaks out of the whirlwind and give Job three chapters of the most extraordinary sermon ever written, which consists in telling him that he does not know any natural history.

1 Sai tu quando le capre selvagge delle rocce figliano? Hai tu osservato quando le cerve partoriscono? 2 Conti tu i mesi della lor pregnanza e sai tu il momento in cui debbono sgravarsi? 3 S’accosciano, fanno i lor piccini, e son tosto liberate dalle loro doglie; 4 i lor piccini si fanno forti, crescono all’aperto, se ne vanno, e non tornan più alle madri … – Giobbe 39:1-4

***

There is a story, rather well known, of a man who got into a bus with a big cage covered with brown paper. He was quite drunk and quite a nuisance, insisting that the cage be set next to him on the seat. They asked him, “What is in the cage?” and he told them, “A mongoose.” They asked him what he wanted a mongoose for and he explained that a drinking man needs a mongoose for the snakes of delirium tremens. They said, “But those are not real snakes.” He answered triumphantly in a whisper, “Ah … but you see, it‘s not a real mongoose.” Is that the paradigm for all religion and all psychotherapy. Is it all bosh? And what do we mean when we say, “There is no Santa Claus!?”

***

If it‘s all bosh, then the sensible man will simply go home and forget it. He might spend the evening fixing the plumbing in his house or filling out his income-tax returns. But such sensible men have never been numerous enough to tidy up the civilization, getting rid of all mythological “junk.” Indeed almost every culture of the world has its mythical figures and forces the children to look directly at these figures to learn that they do not have the same reality as pots and pans or even persons. In every initiating culture, the novices must first experience the mystery of the masked figures and then each novice must wear and dance in the mask. He must himself swing the bull-roarer and will do so with glee. (But why so gleeful?) And what of the Bread and Wine? The communicant “partakes” of these – eats and drinks them – and there could hardly be a more definitive demonstration that the Bread is indeed just bread and the Wine of no distinguished vintage. And Yet … I once tried to help a patient who combined alcoholism with psychosis. He came from a religious family of fundamentalist Christians. In that family, they were not allowed to mention Santa Claus, because the first believing and the then being disillusioned might make the children into atheists. From “There is no Santa Claus”, they might conclude, “There is no Jehovah.” For the present discussion, let me suggest that the sentence “There is no Jehovah” might mean “There is no matrix of mind, no continuity, no pattern in the stuff of which we are made.”

non sappia il tuo Tao sinistro cosa fa il Tao destro - I

la solitudine dei Tao primi

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

I numeri primi sono divisibili soltanto per 1 e per se stessi. Se ne stanno al loro posto nell'infinita serie dei numeri naturali, schiacciati come tutti fra due, ma un passo in là rispetto agli altri. Sono numeri sospettosi e solitari.

Tra i numeri primi ce ne sono alcuni ancora più speciali. I matematici li chiamano primi gemelli: sono coppie di numeri primi che se ne stanno vicini, anzi quasi vicini, perché fra di loro vi è sempre un numero pari che gli impedisce di toccarsi per davvero. Numeri come l'11 e il 13, come il 17 e il 19, il 41 e il 43. Se si ha la pazienza di andare avanti a contare, si scopre che queste coppie via via si diradano. Ci si imbatte in numeri primi sempre più isolati, smarriti in quello spazio silenzioso e cadenzato fatto solo di cifre e si avverte il presentimento angosciante che le coppie incontrate fino a lì fossero un fatto accidentale, che il vero destino sia quello di rimanere soli. Poi, proprio quando ci si sta per arrendere, quando non si ha più voglia di contare, ecco che ci si imbatte in altri due gemelli, avvinghiati stretti l'uno all'altro. Tra i matematici è convinzione comune che per quanto si possa andare avanti, ve ne saranno sempre altri due, anche se nessuno può dire dove, finché non li si scopre.

Paolo Giordano Writer

stati del Tao: interazioni tra strutture

© Robert Fathauer, Twice Iterated Knot No. 1

L'ultima interazione considerata da Tart tra le componenti degli stati di coscienza è tra strutture e strutture:

Interaction of Structures and Structures

Although the interaction of one psychological structure with another structure depends on activation of both structures by attention/awareness energy, this interaction is modified by an important limitation: that individual structures have various kinds of properties that limit and control their potential range of interaction with one another. Structures are not equipotent with respect to interacting with one another, but have important individual characteristics. You cannot see with your ears. Information is fed into any structure in one or more way and comes out of the structure in one or more ways We can say in general that for two structures to interact

(1) they must have either a direct connection between them or some connections mediated by other structures,

(2) their input and output information must be in the same code so information output from one makes sense to the input for the other,

(3) the output signals of one structure must not be so weak that they are below the threshold for reception by the other structure,
(4) the output signals of one structure must not be so strong that they overload the input of the other structure.

Now let us consider ways in which psychological structures may not interact.
First two structures may not interact because there is no direct or mediated connection between them. I have, for example, structures involved in moving the little finger of my left hand and sensing its motion, and I have structures involved in sensing my body temperature and telling me whether I have a fever or a chill. Although I am moving my little finger vigorously now, I can get no sense of having either a fever or a chill from that action. Those two structures seem to be totally unconnected.
Second, two structures may not interact if the codes of output and input information are incompatible. My body, for example, has learned to ride a bicycle. While I can sense that knowledge in my body, in the structure that mediates my experience of riding a bicycle when I actually am doing so, I cannot verbalize it in any adequate way. The nature of knowledge encoded in that particular structure does not code into the kind of knowledge that constitutes my verbal structures.
Third, two structures may not interact if the output signal from one is too weak, below the threshold for affecting another. When I am angry with someone and arguing with him, there may, during the argument, be a still small voice in me telling me that I am acting foolishly, but I have little awareness of that still small voice, and it cannot affect the action of the structures involved in feeling angry and arguing.
Fourth, two structures may not interact properly if the output signal from one overloads the other. I may be in severe pain during a medical procedure, for instance, and I know (another structure tells me) that if I could relax the pain would be lessened considerably; but the structures involved in relaxing are so overloaded by the intense pain that they cannot carry out their normal function.
Fifth, two structures may be unable to interact properly if the action of a third structure interferes with them. An example is a neurotic defense mechanism. Suppose, for instance, your employer constantly humiliates you. Suppose also that part of your personality structure has a strong respect for authority and a belief in yourself as a very calm person who is not easily angered. Now your boss is humiliating you, but instead of feeling angry (the natural consequence of the situation), you are polite and conciliatory, and do not feel the anger. A structure of your personality has suppressed certain possible interactions between other structures (but there may well be a hidden price paid for this suppression, like ulcers). Now consider the case of smoother interaction between structures. Two structures may interact readily and smoothly with one another to form a composite structure, a system whose properties are additive properties of the individual structures, as well as gestalt properties unique to the combination. Or, two or more structures may interact with one another in such a way that the total system alters some of the properties of the individual structures to various degrees, producing a system with gestalt properties that are not simple additive properties of the individual structures. Unstable interactions may also occur between two or more structures that compete for energy, producing an unstable, shifting relationship in the composite system. All these considerations about the interactional structures apply to both hardware (biologically given) and software (culturally programmed) structures. For example, two systems may not interact for a lack of connection in the sense that their basic neural paths, built into the hardware of the human being, do not allow such interaction. Or, two software structures may not interact for lack of connection because in the enculturation, the programming of the person, the appropriate connections were simply not created. All the classical psychological defense mechanisms can be viewed in these system terms as ways of controlling interaction patterns among perceptions and psychological structures. Remember that in the real human being many structures usually interact simultaneously, with all the above-mentioned factors facilitating or inhibiting interaction to various degrees at various points in the total system formed. Thus while the interaction of structures is affected by the way attention/awareness energy is deployed, it is also affected by the properties of individual structures. In computer terms, we are not totally general-purpose computers, capable of being programmed in just any arbitrary fashion. We are specialized: that is our strength, weakness, and humanness.