Diego, Ana Isabel, Pablito y yo leimos el capítulo 5 y 6 de Don Quijote en el Jardin Ayau. Descubrí lo importante y magnífico que es Don Quijote. También la cantidad de libros que desconocemos que tenía nuestro personaje principal.

Don Quijote, siendo una persona íntegra y fiel a su Dulcinea había sido apaleado por unos hombres que se había encontrado en el camino, a los cuales les había mencionado de la belleza de su señora, pero nadie le hizo caso  y esto había enfadado a Don Quijote.

Aun así, se encontró a un conocido suyo el cual le mencionó quien era el: "el hidalgo de Quijana"...

"Yo sé quién soy —respondió don Quijote—; y sé que puedo ser no sólo los que he dicho, sino todos los Doce Pares de Francia, y aun todos los Nueve de la Fama, pues a todas las hazañas que ellos todos juntos y cada uno por sí hicieron, se aventajarán las mías."

Llevó pues el labrador a Don Quijote a su casa, en donde el ama, el barbero y el cura decidieron quemar una gran cantidad de los libros del caballero. Y los que no quemaron, los escondieron.

En el dialogo con Amable, el hizo una pregunta muy relevante para el libro. Si Don Quijote estaba siguiendo a ciegas su propósito (un nivel de idealismo a donde no se puede más), será seguir uno su propósito algo que equivale a locura?

Ah, yo prefiero que se me seque el cerebro como a Don Quijote y seguir eso que amo a que no se me seque el cerebro y vivir una vida de "cuerdo".

Tambien, elegí a la señora de mis ideales, mi Dulcinea, y ella se llama música.

Aye, I made that one up. I remember my mom wouldn't stop teasing me telling me that "curiosity killed the cat". Well mama, I ain't no cat!

Why do we have an epigenetic rule that let's us be free, innovate and create? That is a question that has really concerned me. We're somehow hardwired to have this space for freedom. It is amazing, though it has helped us to survive.

But still, our human nature have that emotional fact that searches for beauty and mystery. The dialogue went around this topic, and it went amazing. There was a lot of "awe" and smiles. I really enjoyed it.

But one of the things that I really liked was, that when we're in a critical moment, we start creating. For this I'll say, we're in crisis if we don't create. An individual crisis.

The name of the chapter caught me from the very beginning.
"Neither science nor the arts can be complete without combining their separate strengths. Science needs the intuition and metaphorical power of the arts, and the arts need the fresh blood of science."
I can't help thinking in how imagination and wonderment is implicit in all scientific or artistic discovery. It isn't like we only have reason in one side to think of science or just emotion when we think on creating music. We're creative, by nature.

Some chapters before, Wilson claimed in how arts and documented work made culture evolve faster. In this chapter, he wrote "gene-culture coevolution is, I believe, the underlying process by which the brain evolved and the arts originated." and there is, culture documented through the years making our artistic works evolve more and more.

Also, the origins of our artistic brain is theorized as a mechanism that started off by putting meaning to things we didn't understand in our surroundings. We have an aesthetic instinct, and I would dare to say that it is also a search for human seal in things. We like to see our genes printed throughout nature. And also, we have idealized beauty characteristics that come from our instinctual search for fertility and powerful genes.

This chapter was special. I have to confess, that before I started reading Consilience I had this certainty that we would never get to the bottom of anything. We, humans won't ever be able to find truth. But, ah, I was mistaken. There are something we can figure out. But one of the most difficult things that can be given a scientific explanations relies on social networks. In complex societies.

Culture is not alienated from genetics. In fact, these two interact and they interact based in epigenetics. There's a lot of interesting things concerning to universal cultural characteristics such as clothing, food, etc. But other interesting thing is that we also tend to divide things like "good' or "bad", and certain actions are correlated with each division. But, I wonder, is there an ethical concern here?

Other thing that is extremely interesting in this chapter is the fact that children, without any knowledge of what is "in tune" or "out of tune", are able to recognize and like symmetrical combinations of music over others. But before that, newborns are able to distinguish noise and tone. These is absolutely interesting!

So, I discovered I have a 2D vision. Just kidding. Javier Tabush's morning meeting consisted in showing us some 3D images.
Also called stereoscopy (from the Greek στερεός (firm) and σκοπέω (see)), the thing with 3D visualization is the interaction of the two eyes and their perception.

It is that illusion of depth that some images give us (when in 2D), by changing the color characteristics and their placements. That is why it is easier to find the image when one stares near the picture and starts separating the pupils from the image, so the vision can be parallel and it can perceive that third dimensional impression.

Listen. Then imagine what these sounds mean. Maybe an image of someone with tears on his eyes. Maybe a romantic scene. 

My morning meeting consisted in exploring semiotics and sounds. How do we interpret sounds is something really interesting. How some people prefer major over minor scales. It all depends in how we interpret these sounds. And we convert this meaning into a great experience. 

First, people had to make sounds of emotions, hiding their faces. The spectators had to guess what this sound meant. Interesting, even though one sound wasn't so easy to follow, most of the sounds were recognizable. We understand how some sounds reflect emotions.

Afterwards, I put 7 compositions from different composers, with the people not knowing the composition (or maybe yes), they would have to write the meaning they related with the track. Afterwards I told them the names of the songs and the meanings.

These were the tracks and some of the meanings that people gave to them:
1. Melancolie - Poulenc (1940)
Romantic passionate stories in a lake, at the 18th century. Deep desire. Ballet. France. Father teaching daughter how to dance. Love story. Discovery. Fall. Happiness and Hope. 

2. Cello Concerto (1st Movement) - Elgar (1920)
Passionate love about someone. Heartbreaks. Regret leaving to forgiveness. Sad romances. Tragedies. Suicide. Rural Russia in the 40's. Happy.

3. Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky (1876)
People had previous knowledge of this track, and that changed their way to imagine in this track.
People thought of the movie Black Swan, Fantasia and Ballet.

4. Saeglopur - Sigur Rós (2006)
People who knew the band was limited by previous knowledge.
But the ones who didn't had previous knowledge thought on old films, a person on the top of the world, happiness and peace, journeys, rain, movement and presence.

5. Winter - Vivaldi (1723)
Factories, childhood, wars and happy victories, anticipation, awaiting, fun, uncertainty, big festivals and people sharing.

6. Silentium - Arvo Part (XX century)
Darkness, grief and sadness, family being separated, being left, no humans around, peaceful, memoirs, nostalgia, old houses, the movie Big Fish...

So many meanings. The imagination of people flew so condensed and so beautifully.

Now, I would have loved to see this video with my peers and end with the question. Does music have a meaning? I believe yes, but is it objective? John Cage shares his opinions about this...

Today Isa presented in her morning meeting, some optical illusions. It was really fun, because some of us noticed some things while others saw other things. It's incredible, because from images, we struggle with semiotics! There's ambiguity everywhere if we only use our System 1! 

This one's cool. 

So let's suppose the picture above is our new ideal at the MPC. Today we all sang, and we classified our voice range.
Gaby - Alto
Diego - Tenor
Isa - Soprano
Pablito - Tenor
Franz - Tenor
Chacho - Baritone
Bert - Baritone
Alejo - Tenor
Marce - Alto
Grace - Alto
Majo - Alto
Lola - Soprano
Javier - Baritone
Carmen - Alto
Kata - Alto

So it's Halloween! And Kata's morning meeting consisted in carving some pumpkins she brought. I dressed like Waldo Emerson, and I had a great time cutting a Mike Wasowski face on that pumpkin.
I also came in late, for which I felt really embarrassed. 

Today we made an experiment. I was waiting to do this for a long time! So the rules are visible on the picture. Everyone had one color and we all started painting. Like a dialogue: one at a time.

It all started really carefully and discreetly. Everyone was making contributions and eventually it just started flowing and flowing... until it became our final piece, which you can see on the picture. 

Even though it seems chaotic, that is what this experiment was all about. Isa mentioned something really cool: "Is not about the concept of beauty you have"... and I totally agree. Is more kind of observing how many people interact, and how they actually get to achieve something out of the expectation. Is not a matter of controlling how the face will look like. By the way, I appreciate the authenticity of the work.

The rules were formulated in basis of the rubric of dialogue, The Republic of Science by Michael Polanyi and the Getting Real book.
For example, (and this was an issue), the thing that everyone had a different color and had to stick to it was a symbolism of how important our own tools are as individuals. I am a color, I am myself and I am using that color to create great things. 

Still, even though I don't believe that there is such thing as an "essential you", I believe in that one can create oneself, but those matters of taste in deciding who one is are purely essential. Where does that color taste comes from?