The Sane Asylum Wisdom Series

The grand project of epistemology, to separate all true knowledge from false knowledge, that was the philosophical goal of the scientific era that has collapsed. In its place two new epistemological projects have been revealed. The first is the project that is showing up in cognitive science and biology to answer the question of what is knowledge–presumed to be answerable in a naturalistic way. The second project is more diverse. It covers an array of questions of how knowledge is used. There are questions of whether or how much is knowledge embodied, what is the meaning and status of knowledge communities, what are pragmatic ways of resolving differences beyond the appeal to truth, and how does one understand special types of knowing such as intuition or particular cultural ways of knowing....Jake Keenen, Epistemology Express

From The Study-a conversation of possibilities

Surfing the Mental Ecology:
On Doing the Buddha-Descartes Boogie(Written for Burning Man "Festival," August 2003)

These are the spiritual climes that try human souls. Everywhere, to attach or not to attach. Everywhere, another "I think, therefore blah, blah, blah." And of course we live in the midst of an information explosion that runs in parallel with ecosystem stress rumblings.

In the solutions realm of changed mindsets, there is a way out of the polarized worlds of the external and the internal–of science and psychology/spiritual practices. There is the inter-world of knowledge formed by actual human entanglements with objects of interest. Three facets are worth bringing to mind:

1. Each of us is tied very specifically to the outer world by our cares, interests and knowledge.

2. A world of meaning is formed from all the knowledge entanglements of individuals, cultures and corporate bodies. This world works as any ecology where some meanings proliferate, are selected, work in certain cultural environments and so forth.

3. To acknowledge the active and extensive world of meaning that humans add to context-defining organisms is to have the choice of leaving the intolerant and boring cultural realms of various forms of objectivism for embodied forms of living where transactions of meaning are care-to-care rather than object versus object.

In Buddhist terms we are our attachments and there are many. But unlike Buddhism we can choose not to run from our attachments but rather to frolic in the mental ecology like a Zen gardener.

In Cartesian epistemology terms there are obvious peaks of agreement where the mental ecology finds just one species of meaning and where things appear–ohmigod–“objective.” No matter how wild the Zen gardener in the ecology of meaning it doesn’t preclude a little bending to the priorities of our interdependence.

Dance, dance ... with my body and with my mind, straight and high until I die.

Inside The Sane Asylum-Meet the Orginal homesteaders

OLE GOAT MAN-is like a wandering sage. He lives on the outskirts with his goat named Goat. He claims we all have a goat but we just happen to see his. Most people will call him crazy but here, we think he provides "Illusions of the Truth".

"There's an old man who keeps a small herd of goats on the other side of the Seam. I don't know his real name; everyone just calls him the Goat Man."

―Katniss Everdeen on the Goat Man

Goat Man, have you ever been married?

"Yes. The Good Lord has blessed me with three wives. As it turns out, that proved to be three to many. The Good Book says there will be seven wives for every man. Well Somebody else can have my other four".

Any words of advice?

"Yes. Eat Coca nuts while you still have your teeth".

Ches
Americas original goat man