Latest from Yuval Harari

[idlecuriosity]

Only Man (evolved in a planetary environment) can metacognize. The transpersonal mind (MAL) does not metacognize (because it has nothing to oppose its will) so knows not what it does in moral terms (is amoral). Our self-reflection feeds back to MAL to inform future evolution (hopefully reducing predatory and parasitic cruelty and suffering).

That's an interesting theory but what would be the factual precedent for it? Just an idea?

[AshvinP]

Yup and a transhumanism combining AI and human biology is what has been predicted as a saving vision by the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis of a future epoch in which humans and artificial intelligence together will help the Earth survive. See James Lovelock: "Novacene"

Unfortunately, these things will become more common as people do everything possible to avoid confronting the spiritual reality which is irrupting within the physical. How do you stop an unstoppable force of Nature from manifesting in human experience? You don't fight the force itself, but try and stop people from ever noticing it or understanding it by getting them to willingly replace all of their life (soul) and thinking (spirit) processes with lifeless mechanism. But to end on a more positive note, I will quote this Wisdom expressed through Jean Gebser and The EPO:

The new mutation of consciousness, on the other hand, as a consequence of arationality, receives its decisive stamp from the manifest perceptual emergence of the spiritual....

Two apocryphal statements of Christian doctrine clarify in their way what is meant here: “This world is a bridge, cross it but do not make of it your dwelling place,”2 and “I have chosen you before the earth began.”3 They point to the spiritual origin prior to all spatio-temporal materialization. We may regard such materialization as a bridge that makes possible the merging or coalescence, the concrescere of origin and the present. The great church father Irenaeus presumably had these sayings in mind when he stated: “Blessed is he who was before the coming of man.”4 We have seen him; he revealed himself in space and time. In his departure he was beheld by his disciples in his transparency, a transparency appropriate only to the spiritual origin (if anything can be appropriated to it), the transparency which a time-free and ego-free person can presentiate in the most fortunate certainty of life. The grand and painful path of consciousness emergence, or, more appropriately, the unfolding and intensification of consciousness, manifests itself as an increasingly intense luminescence of the spiritual in man.

Throughout the millennia the traditionalists, the “initiates,” have seen man’s previous journey as a decline, a departure from the affinity to and a distanciation from origin. Painful as this distanciation may be, it has served the requisite intensification of consciousness. Only distanciation contains the possibility for the awakening of consciousness. The phenomenon releasing origin is spiritual, and with each consciousness mutation it becomes more realizable by man. With respect to the presently emerging mutation we may speak of a concretion of the spiritual.

What purpose does Christianity serve for phenomenological and spiritual idealism? It's a popular religion to be sure but I don't think there's a huge reason to believe any of the things it described actually happened, although it may be instrumental in elucidating us as to what higher consciousness or higher entities would look like if there's a parallel between what we gravitate to religiously and what 'is.' You mentioned Christ rising again in another thread, but if we're to assume cause and effect are still cognizant actors in M@L and perhaps, too, in working out how the light beyond the cave operates then how can we assume for sure biblical values weren't fabricated to manage large groups of people by serving as bulwarks between our lesser nature and visiting a pox on society?

A greater god may exist but may not take on all of the mythological presuppositions of the ancient hebrew mythology itself. It may have even been a misinterpreted visitation from such a higher entity, which could also explain why so many people gravitate to the 'idea' of God while sometimes (as decent people) shirking a lot of the minutiae from the behavioural code and conduct. 'Knowing God,' some call it. But would that be the Christian god?

Those are great questions to contemplate. They deserve a deeper treatment than I can give now, but I will make a few points and return to them later.

1 - From a phenomenological standpoint, Barfield has shown how the evolution of language ("fossils of consciousness") necessitates the Christ events, which is summed up in his essay, Philology and the Incarnation (conclusion pasted below, arguments at link).

Well, as I say, the supposition is an impossible one, but it is possible — I know because it happened in my own case — for a man to have been brought up in the belief, and to have taken it for granted, that the account given in the gospels of the birth and the resurrection of Christ is a noble fairy story with no more claim to historical accuracy than any other myth; and it is possible for such a man, after studying in depth the history of the growth of language, to look again at the New Testament and the literature and tradition that has grown up around it, and to accept [if you like, to be obliged to accept] the record as an historical fact, not because of the authority of the Church nor by any process of ratiocination such as C. S. Lewis has recorded in his own case, but rather because it fitted so inevitably with the other facts as he had already found them. Rather because he felt, in the utmost humility, that if he had never heard of it through the Scriptures, he would have been obliged to try his best to invent something like it as an hypothesis to save the appearances.

2 - What is concluded from studying the evolution of language can also be concluded from studying the evolution of mythology, philosophy, art, and religion. Moreover, it can be concluded from studying how perception-cognition evolves in our own lifetimes and immanent experience.

3 - What has been considered "ideal" (i.e. idealism) prior to the modern age has been practically synonymous with "spirit". It is the the invisible reality that is opposite pole to sense-perceptible reality. These poles can be distinguished but not divided from each other. So to say that physical images around us (or relayed in ancient mythology) point to "ideal" or "mental" realities is no different from saying they point to a spiritual reality.

3 - The entire thrust of imagistically represented evolution found within ancient mythology of all cultures in all epochs is that of the Spirit descending (kenosis), incarnating into the sense-world, and evolving back to the spiritual realms (theosis). It is true we need to be careful of anthropormorphizing the spiritual concepts found in scripture, or assuming everything described took place in the visible physical realms rather than the invisible spiritual (ideal) realms. But avoiding this common idolatry has no logical connection to denying the reality of the spiritual events described.

4 - The "laws of nature" are not static and uniform. The evolve along with perception-cognition, because they are reflecting that evolutionary process.

5 - We experience death and resurrection at a microcosmic level every day. Again, if we take the ideal reality and its logical implications seriously, for our thoughts and ego to die and be reborn through the forces of the invisible reality cannot be meaningfully distanced from what we call "physical" death and resurrection in qualitative essence, only in degree.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Only Man (evolved in a planetary environment) can metacognize. The transpersonal mind (MAL) does not metacognize (because it has nothing to oppose its will) so knows not what it does in moral terms (is amoral). Our self-reflection feeds back to MAL to inform future evolution ...

Looking forward to M@L version googolplex.0, with an infinitude of versions left to go ... youniverse just gotta hang in there

[Ben Iscatus]

Looking forward to M@L version googolplex.0, with an infinitude of versions left to go ... youniverse just gotta hang in there

Well yes, it does seem highly optimistic (perhaps unrealistically so if our time here is short, as it currently appears) but if we could add to the billions of metacognitive alters on Earth billions of other life-supporting worlds, there may be "something going on"...

[Lou Gold]

Only Man (evolved in a planetary environment) can metacognize. The transpersonal mind (MAL) does not metacognize (because it has nothing to oppose its will) so knows not what it does in moral terms (is amoral). Our self-reflection feeds back to MAL to inform future evolution (hopefully reducing predatory and parasitic cruelty and suffering).

Well stated Ben. I've speculated much the same way. However, metacognition may not be needed in order to provide feedback to M@L. I believe this feedback function is performed by all biotic life. Think of the way the interactions among the 40+ trillion cells in a human body provide feedback about wellness, comfort, pleasure, balance, etc. In this sense, it's not that Man is super special as much as humans have unique roles to play within an earthly ecology that may be unique in its evolutionary function. Perhaps this function is to explore experimentally, reflect (metacognize) its process, and discard its errors.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Well yes, it does seem highly optimistic (perhaps unrealistically so if our time here is short, as it currently appears) but if we could add to the billions of metacognitive alters on Earth billions of other life-supporting worlds, there may be "something going on"...

Note to Self: don't limit oneself to one self ...

[Lou Gold]

Just a note to say that I post Harari not as a follower but because he offers much that begs for philosophical contemplation. I tend to agree with the core assertion of "Sapiens" is that myth (fiction) is a powerful organizing technology but I do not accept his elitist interpretation called "history", which seems to me more as the legends written by conquerors. In this sense, I'm very grateful for counter legends such as recently put forth by Graeber and Wengrow. I do not believe that history is prologue except as a powerfully repeating habit and is not a total guide to the possibilities freed by releasing or at least relaxing the grip of the habit. On the other hand, because Harari is aligned with elitist thought he is well positioned to warn of its incredible dangers.

[idlecuriosity]

Unfortunately, these things will become more common as people do everything possible to avoid confronting the spiritual reality which is irrupting within the physical. How do you stop an unstoppable force of Nature from manifesting in human experience? You don't fight the force itself, but try and stop people from ever noticing it or understanding it by getting them to willingly replace all of their life (soul) and thinking (spirit) processes with lifeless mechanism. But to end on a more positive note, I will quote this Wisdom expressed through Jean Gebser and The EPO:

What purpose does Christianity serve for phenomenological and spiritual idealism? It's a popular religion to be sure but I don't think there's a huge reason to believe any of the things it described actually happened, although it may be instrumental in elucidating us as to what higher consciousness or higher entities would look like if there's a parallel between what we gravitate to religiously and what 'is.' You mentioned Christ rising again in another thread, but if we're to assume cause and effect are still cognizant actors in M@L and perhaps, too, in working out how the light beyond the cave operates then how can we assume for sure biblical values weren't fabricated to manage large groups of people by serving as bulwarks between our lesser nature and visiting a pox on society?

A greater god may exist but may not take on all of the mythological presuppositions of the ancient hebrew mythology itself. It may have even been a misinterpreted visitation from such a higher entity, which could also explain why so many people gravitate to the 'idea' of God while sometimes (as decent people) shirking a lot of the minutiae from the behavioural code and conduct. 'Knowing God,' some call it. But would that be the Christian god?

Those are great questions to contemplate. They deserve a deeper treatment than I can give now, but I will make a few points and return to them later.

1 - From a phenomenological standpoint, Barfield has shown how the evolution of language ("fossils of consciousness") necessitates the Christ events, which is summed up in his essay, Philology and the Incarnation (conclusion pasted below, arguments at link).

Well, as I say, the supposition is an impossible one, but it is possible — I know because it happened in my own case — for a man to have been brought up in the belief, and to have taken it for granted, that the account given in the gospels of the birth and the resurrection of Christ is a noble fairy story with no more claim to historical accuracy than any other myth; and it is possible for such a man, after studying in depth the history of the growth of language, to look again at the New Testament and the literature and tradition that has grown up around it, and to accept [if you like, to be obliged to accept] the record as an historical fact, not because of the authority of the Church nor by any process of ratiocination such as C. S. Lewis has recorded in his own case, but rather because it fitted so inevitably with the other facts as he had already found them. Rather because he felt, in the utmost humility, that if he had never heard of it through the Scriptures, he would have been obliged to try his best to invent something like it as an hypothesis to save the appearances.

2 - What is concluded from studying the evolution of language can also be concluded from studying the evolution of mythology, philosophy, art, and religion. Moreover, it can be concluded from studying how perception-cognition evolves in our own lifetimes and immanent experience.

3 - What has been considered "ideal" (i.e. idealism) prior to the modern age has been practically synonymous with "spirit". It is the the invisible reality that is opposite pole to sense-perceptible reality. These poles can be distinguished but not divided from each other. So to say that physical images around us (or relayed in ancient mythology) point to "ideal" or "mental" realities is no different from saying they point to a spiritual reality.

3 - The entire thrust of imagistically represented evolution found within ancient mythology of all cultures in all epochs is that of the Spirit descending (kenosis), incarnating into the sense-world, and evolving back to the spiritual realms (theosis). It is true we need to be careful of anthropormorphizing the spiritual concepts found in scripture, or assuming everything described took place in the visible physical realms rather than the invisible spiritual (ideal) realms. But avoiding this common idolatry has no logical connection to denying the reality of the spiritual events described.

4 - The "laws of nature" are not static and uniform. The evolve along with perception-cognition, because they are reflecting that evolutionary process.

5 - We experience death and resurrection at a microcosmic level every day. Again, if we take the ideal reality and its logical implications seriously, for our thoughts and ego to die and be reborn through the forces of the invisible reality cannot be meaningfully distanced from what we call "physical" death and resurrection in qualitative essence, only in degree.

I'll sound spicy momentarily, I'm a bit of a joker so just take it with a pinch of salt:

None of that seemed to prove the existence of Christ or correspondingly similar events, this seems like someone raised in a culture where they believe with all of their might Santa is real and sit there hypothesizing at it for thousands of years until they cannot live without a very specific rationalization that proves the existence of his son along with the idea he is going to resurrect and save us all. It reminds me of how when something is politicized it becomes salad tossed in a cacophony of tribalistic preponderances until some absolutely absurd premise is arrived at and satiated by the masses to serve their requirements that something they want to be true just 'is,' like a random face generator left to 'pick similar' for a good 1000 years until it's a bastardized apotheosis that doesn't conjure a single characteristic of it's origin point.

Wasn't Santa a saint in that mythology too? I understand that you might have been raised religious and I'm not here to knock heads with the spiritual pillar of western developmental progress (Christians are fantastic chaps on average and I think you seem pretty cool as well) but at some point you have to admit Santa Claus may not be real and that we can still have a cognizant, spiritually coherent and scientific idea of where the light in the cave may be shining from without leaps like this. ..Maybe? Maybe not. It's not entirely given that cave dwellers will ever be proven to have the prerequisite avatars let alone the opportunity granted to find enough research material, with the chance to glance at the light or leave outright being far less likely possibilities.

I suppose in that case I can look at such momentous swipes at the straw bucket with admiring resign and get where you are coming from. My juvenile assumption is that Goku is just not going to rise from the dead to save us all until we have further notice and I'm sure the scientific method you rigorously circumambulate in... Most of your posts, is happier about few things more than that

We have no grounds on which to presume the people in our past were spiritually acquiescent of many things you've espoused here and achieved enough of a rational interpretation in their philosophical musings for us to take accounts of, say, divinity at face value. Don't take it to heart though, I'll just have to read all of it in greater scrutiny to see if anything can salvage this idea from foundational logical presuppositions I'm superimposing upon it, honestly. Basically, it's not like my opinion on the whole accounts for much and even you said your premise requires more elaboration anyway.

It would be really interesting if the biggest group of people religiously back then were complicit in retrofitting reality through the sheer adulation of their faith, though. This reminds me of a known author of questionable prose and thematic versatility that I'd do myself a disservice to even bring up by name here but his universe was interesting, it centers around the idea that humans used to have more sway over reality because we hadn't yet discovered all of the 'unseen things,' so occultists would find ways to scientific reenact the unknown for the purposes of weaponry or healing. It used to be a lot stronger because we hadn't yet scientifically dissected and exposed a whole lot of reality. Most religious figures existed then. Ignoring that: I always thought about our legends at face value anyway, it's a leap but I'm not entirely discrediting your ideas to myself and I think it'd be fantastically interesting if God really did exist in the form posited by religion.

5 - We experience death and resurrection at a microcosmic level every day. Again, if we take the ideal reality and its logical implications seriously, for our thoughts and ego to die and be reborn through the forces of the invisible reality cannot be meaningfully distanced from what we call "physical" death and resurrection in qualitative essence, only in degree.

Kastrup proposes we have phenomenological consciousness when we sleep and experience a smorgasbord of phenomena that our memory centers just don't or can't ascribe data to. Given the apparent need for an observer for us to maintain a process, it would be a rational reason for us being the same person. I don't think we experience death and resurrection, there's an analogue to it but we are entirely contiguous with our previous 'selves', not only in form but continuity too

I think and make elaborate plans concerning fictitious writings I have while I'm out cold, I have a sort of pseudo self awareness in what appear to be worlds with a very tenuous physicality that wouldn't really map well onto photos, in the way you might describe a person without an imagination in color picturing things. Somehow I have a sense of vague lucidity as a trade off for having sleep journeys sans imagery, although I wouldn't say it's elaborate enough it beggars belief

Also, this is important:

"invent something like it"

How like it? Just physical events that would fill in the gaps? The actual occurrences of the miracles or natural disasters befalling the earth in a way that wouldn't make sense without miracles? If you disregard the above as being unsubstantive musings the real meat of my inquiry is here; what exactly does the 'negative space' left behind by his rationale - when you don't include religion - *look like?* Are we sure that rationale, sans the parts left broadly unexplained without Christ, are infallible enough to predicate such a leap of faith on? You seem to think so and I am not doubting, but I am asking.

Put up to it, what that man meant there by 'like it' is important and I wonder what you think of this.

In addendum, thanks for the food for thought. You have at least in some way reinvigorated an aspirant aghast or even childlike wonder in me and my inner adventurer, I've always had a dream of being in a storybook like the tales I've read and the idea we might exist in a reality that channels a distinct sense of wonder that could stand proudly on a bookshelf besides some of our historical literary landmarks (be they within something as childishly fun as manga or historically exalting as Zarathustra) does knock the ground beneath some of my quips earlier, given that I probably couldn't be more happier than I'd be knowing our universe *may well be* playing host to that kind of sublimity.

[Jim Cross]

ic,

When we actually look at the results of Christianity, the entire story of Christ must be completely false. Christ must be actually the son of Satan and realized this when he succumbed to temptation during the forty days in the desert. The story as told has been part of an elaborate ruse to trick people into worshipping of Satan. The result has been as would be expected: Western civilization and its most Christian nations has subjugated the world, wiping out other peoples and religions, and has destroyed the environment.

lou,

Got the G&W book and started on it. Still too early to say much but not seeing a lot to change my opinion.

BTW, did you see this?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 121622.htm

differences in the amount of meat in diets can explain why some societies were less densely populated than others. In regions with harsh winters or large dry seasons, the available edible vegetation was greatly reduced during a large segment of the year, leaving the hunter-gatherers highly dependent on meat consumption. Because animals tend to be less abundant than edible plants, they can only provide enough food for a small human population. In contrast, the populations settled in places where climate favoured the abundance of plant foods throughout the year were able to take fuller advantage of the overall production in the environment to grow more numerous.

This seasonality in availability of food resources accounts on assembling of large groups in times of abundance and then later the dispersal into smaller groups. It also explains the preference of people for areas with year round abundance of plants and the entire rationale for agriculture which creates an artificial year round abuundence.

[Ben Iscatus]

Western civilization and its most Christian nations has subjugated the world, wiping out other peoples and religions, and has destroyed the environment.

Don't limit yourself to bigging up the West, Jim. What about the Soviet Union (as was) and now the Chinese? Credit where it's due!