AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am
Federica,
I think we really need to assess the foundational principles here, as we are also doing on the other thread. I understand all of the concerns you are expressing and feel they can be perfectly valid ones, IF they are not generalized into broad metaphysical conclusions about the 'nature' of VR. If we allow such a process to creep into our thinking on VR, then it can easily remain there when approaching other aspects of evolving human culture. To be clear, I am not arguing for the use or non-use of VR as such, which will really depend on the specific path/circumstances of any given individual and their intentions, ideals, aims, etc., but using it as a general illustration to illuminate the underlying spiritual principles. So it's really not about convincing you or anyone else to try VR as a path for spiritual development.
We can take a few different angles.
1) How could it be that we have created a fundamentally "restricted kingdom" in VR which is impenetrable against and irredeemable by the ascension to living cognition? This in itself suggests that we are masters of our strange loop, creating our own thought-kingdoms which are beyond the purview of Cosmic thinking. It means the atomized human thinking perspective can tunnel right through the Earth and end up in a parallel Universe which is free from the fourfold lawfulness of Intuitive spiritual activity.
Instead, we can understand all these cultural materialistic developments are only further sub-convolutions or 'distentions' of the intuitive spiritual landscape - they are constellated through certain interference patterns of Cosmic spiritual activity just as other human cultural institutions (like cinema, computers, etc.), the sensory spectrum, and our own seemingly 'private' soul-life and thought-life. The VR perspective is a perfectly valid and unique intuitive 'shape' which the Spirit has taken on.
Since it is Christmas, let's use some Christo-centric concepts. I have quoted this from Jung before:
"No one should deny the danger of the descent, but it can be risked. No one need risk it, but it is certain that someone will. And let those who go down the sunset way do so with open eyes, for it is a sacrifice which daunts even the gods. Yet every descent is followed by an ascent; the vanishing shapes are shaped anew, and a truth is valid in the end only if it suffers change and bears new witness in new images, in new tongues, like a new wine that is put into new bottles."
- Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation
Technically speaking, I think it's clear that VR is an additional descent into the sensory spectrum just like cinema. We are creating additional images of normal sensory images (elemental spectrum), copies of copies, and then immersing our spiritual activity in that spectrum. Actually in VR we can experience playing games in which we are watching videos and looking at photos, paintings, etc., so in that case we have descended even further into the elemental spectrum. We are experiencing copies within copies of copies.
It is a central aspect of the Mystery of human evolution that, as one descends further, one also attains the potential to ascend further. This relates to the other quote I shared from Steiner about abstract thinking as highly spiritual, in a paradoxical sort of way.
Steiner wrote:To-day it is head-knowledge. Therefore on the one side it is abstract, dry, and does not fill a man's whole life to the end, yet on the other side it is very spiritual. This dual nature is really present, so that we actually do engender what is most spiritual; for these abstract ideas are the most spiritual that can be, yet they are incapable of grasping the Spirit. It is astonishingly easy to perceive the cleavage in which man is involved through the spiritual ideas he has developed. It is precisely in them that he has become so remarkably materialistic. When these ideas come in the right way, however, materialism never arises from them. The simple existence of abstract ideas is the first refutation of materialism.
The more copies of copies of copies we create through our imagination which then influence the practical course of our lives, the more we have established the living and foundational reality of spiritual activity - the only question is whether we are aware that we have done so. This is a deeper meaning of Christ being victorious over the forces of Satan - suffering, evil, decay, death - on the Cross. In fact, the physical body decays and dies because the Spirit is ceaselessly at work. And it is given a new, resurrected life when the Spirit becomes
self-conscious in this work. The soul then meets the forces of death voluntarily and with living knowledge. Everything that was touched by the corrupting forces of sin and death - the entire elemental spectrum - is then beautified and glorified by the Spirit's self-awakening in us.
"For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men.
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ the firstfruits; then at His coming, those who belong to Him."
2) We can look at the specific example of VR fitness games with musical ideas. I am not sure if you had a chance to check out the previous essays yet. But here is a question to consider - in what other setting could one join into a musical idea with other people and engage their thought, feeling, will - their head, chest, limbs - as that idea unfolds in a visual stream of imagery tied to the beat-rhythm? This simply isn't possible outside the VR setting. Does this alone make it some super useful spiritual tool? Probably not, but it does point to a unique significance of these new virtual technologies in the stream of human spiritual evolution. It at least points to the manner in which humans are now longing to experience their shared environments, even if it's an unconscious or only semi-conscious longing for most.
As Steiner said, it can only become useful for those who balance the descent into the sub-sensory (elemental) worlds with an
ascent into the supra-sensory (archetypal) worlds (of course we are not speaking metaphysically here - there is only One metaphysical world). Then we can sense the depth structure of our own thinking, feeling, willing - spirit, soul, body - while we engage the musical idea. We can sense how our intuitive intents collapse through the fourfold convolutions and manifest as spatio-temporal sequences of perceptions which we endure and work through, returning our efforts to the supra-sensory and fulfilling the intuitive intents. All of this will sound like mostly useless abstract concepts until we experience that depth structure for ourselves. Then we can basically have an interactive experience of Cleric's illustrations while we play the game, albeit a very dim one compared to what can be attained in quiet contemplation and meditation. It is only through the latter that we will get any value from the former, and the same holds for the normal sensory spectrum.
3)
Federica wrote:What new useful metaphors and spiritual lessons could be extracted from it that are not already available to us?
And just as an addicted person is not rescued from their habits by someone descending with them in their addictive behaviors, I don’t believe there is anyone to rescue in the belly of VR. We are alone there. Also, the basic principle that no human expression is totally unredeemable and bad seems unable to explain just VR. By that token, we could just as well forget everything from Knowledge of the higher worlds and explore any possible unvirtuous human behavior, because “someone has to do it”. So my question remains, is it possible for an anthroposophist to rule out the dashboard only to end up missing it somehow, to explore a fully gated, dualistic representation of reality-in-itself, recreated just one level up the full sensory spectrum? And if it's not that, what is it?
Similar to what we asked above, we can ask - how is it possible that such a revolutionary development in human culture would have no spiritual lessons to teach us? What would need to be true of reality itself for this to be valid? Regardless of our antipathy for VR (and I share such an antipathy for VR and video games in general), there is no doubting that it is a technological revolution in progress and we have barely scratched the surface. At this stage, the valuable metaphors and spiritual lessons may be few and far between, but that can only be as a result of its early development and our own unfamiliarity with it. Nevertheless, I would say what Cleric extracted from the non-Euclidean geometry used in certain games is an extremely valuable metaphor for how our normal spatial experience precipitates from our lawful spirtual activity, that one cannot experience through the normal sensory spectrum or non-VR video games.
I think it goes without saying that our intentional agency, our moral disposition, when approaching these tools is of utmost importance. If we are approaching anything spiritual with impure intentions, even if we have living knowledge of the spiritual dynamics, then we are on the road to black magic. Unfortunately this is done very frequently. But the point is, if someone with living self-knowledge and with pure intentions does choose to approach such things, then I see no reason to arbitrarily separate out VR from any other technology or cultural development in terms of potential value to be mined. This exchange reminds me a bit of our earlier discussion about writing vs. speech - you took a similar position on writing being outside the 'continuum' of the normal flow of spiritual activity, although I know you weren't nearly so antipathetic to writing as to VR. Do you see how a similar thing might be happening here?
Ashvin,
I’ve now read your two VR essays. I don't know if something is different for you in connection with this topic, or if something is happening to me now, upon reading the essays, or both, but one thing is sure, to me they don’t seem to be consistent with your usual MO. I will try to explain, referring to the essays as needed while addressing your comments here. Preliminarily, I note that you warn me against “generalized metaphysical conclusions”, but you seem to do something very similar when you, for example, refer to “the foundational principles” of spiritual practice, or the principles of the Mystery of human evolution, like the furthest the descent, the biggest the ascent. One can wonder what makes my VR thoughts metaphysical, while the thought that VR can be
AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:17 pm
a fantastic pedagogical tool for cognition which is dwelling near the threshold of the reasoning intellect and the higher Imagination.
is not.
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am I understand all of the concerns you are expressing.
I was not expressing any concerns. I was inquiring what features in people’s ‘black boxes’ could explain a preference for, and an attraction to, VR. You seem to agree it's an interesting question, so what I've found all the more surprising in the essays, to start with, is that you are not interested in inquiring what soul attitudes might explain a preference for locking oneself in these virtual augmentations of the perceptual layers. It’s not even augmentation we are dealing with, it’s a prosthetic perceptual spectrum, aiming to replace the natural world. Kind of an intermediary stage between the traditional approach to natural perceptual spectrum and transhumanism, a more advanced stage of descent into the illusion of mastery and knowledge mentioned in my post above, where the extra layers are not simply externally and exclusively imposed to our senses through a VR kit, but they are grafted into the body, they are pushed through to the other side of the threshold of the physical boundary, as to give a double turn and a double lock to the dissociative boundary. Anyway, in your essays you don’t consider any of that. Instead, you prefer to go into the analysis of what happens when you start the game, while bashing the why-question quite strangely: VR can be a “fantastic pedagogical tool for cognition” still the essay is only for those who are either curious, or have an acquaintance who has bought the kit, or for some reason have it already at home. Equally strangely, you also state that
we cannot remain luddites in the face of this pervasive new technology - which importance is “hard to overestimate” in a culture where we are so short of “beauty and courage” but, with all this being said, for most people it’s actually best to remain luddites. I find this a confused introduction, and I wonder: what’s going on here? I am reminded of “metaphysical conclusions on the nature of VR” when reading this: “the most critical spiritual lesson we can mine from the virtual environment is that of trust in the Thinking-Spirit”. You explain:
AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:40 pm In the virtual game, the ideal content of the music is 'decohering' into objects within space-time through our imaginative thinking activity. We then visualize it as a steady, rhythmic flow of beat-cubes and other objects.
Wait a second. Are you sure it’s the “ideal content” that you visualize as steady flow of objects? The steady flow of objects is of exact same nature (correct me if I’m wrong) no matter if it’s Beethoven in the background, a pop song, or a rock one, provided that they are run on a similar metronome tap. At most, it’s the beat of the music that is mimicked, or marked, or augmented by the pace and cadence at which the objects come at you. The beat is the only thing the flow of objects can convey. How do you mean the objects convey the musical idea?
AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:40 pm
When we take off our headsets, walk outside, and encounter the world's manifold phenomena, we should also sense that we are visualizing a symphony of ideational activity and content which weave together the natural world; we should sense how all the appearances reflect back to us meaningful qualities of our own soul. The dense qualities of meaning are flowing
through our thinking-"I" into the perceptual structures. It is that
same Thinking-"I" which 're-coheres' the meaning implicit in the physical appearances, metamorphosing them into their higher spiritual essence. There is a depth structure in this overall process which involves many ideational beings.
Yes. Does this have any element of connection with VR? Is the VR experience specifically supposed to enhance such realization? Better than, for example, waking up to a new day every morning? Or are you arguing for something similar to “let’s get sick, so that when we are healed again, we can really appreciate how good it feels to be healthy”. I was expecting more from an illustration of VR’s fantastical pedagogical properties.
In general, what I notice in the essays is a preponderance of descriptions of the virtues VR has in common with other experiences and their spiritual qualities, such as listening to music, for example. The thing is, we don't need VR to listen to music. Why not have focused more on what supposedly makes the VR experience unique? That would have been more relevant. Could the reason be that there's not much of such nature to be found in VR specifically? I still think so.
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am How could it be that we have created a fundamentally "restricted kingdom" in VR which is impenetrable against and irredeemable by the ascension to living cognition?
Ashvin, you haven’t read carefully, I didn’t say that. It’s certainly redeemable. What I said is that putting forward that every cultural phenomenon is redeemable as a justification for adopting just VR, doesn’t hold up. It doesn’t explain why you stay away from a song like The dolphin’s cry because Ahrimanic, but smashing the air on the beat of a distorted version of Beethoven is higher imagination. What I mean is, you need to come up with a better reason why just this cultural phenomenon of VR more than others, is valuable to you / is valuable as a fantastic tool for cognition.
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am The VR perspective is a perfectly valid and unique intuitive 'shape' which the Spirit has taken on.
Ok, but we could also mention other equally valid phenomena of human Culture, that also are unique intuitive shapes taken by the Spirit. Still, for some reason you prefer VR. Why?
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am Technically speaking, I think it's clear that VR is an additional descent into the sensory spectrum just like cinema. We are creating additional images of normal sensory images (elemental spectrum), copies of copies, and then immersing our spiritual activity in that spectrum. Actually in VR we can experience playing games in which we are watching videos and looking at photos, paintings, etc., so in that case we have descended even further into the elemental spectrum. We are experiencing copies within copies of copies.
Agreed, copies of copies of copies are created, but you are missing the core aspect of VR, which makes it non at all “just like cinema”. The distinctive aspect is the gated nature of the copied perceptual layers. Why don’t you want to acknowledge that? There is a blatant dualism, there is a fastening of the dissociative boundary that is absent in cinema, computers, or phones. I will repeat, from my previous post: in VR, instead of expanding in thinking, encompassing the wide perceptual spectrum and us with it, we narrow and sharpen perceptions by blocking out the natural world, to make perceptions fit our restricted thought-scope, within the limited boundary of the subject-self. So we manufacture this very peculiar, sharp perceptual kingdom. In other words, we are ready to renounce full awareness in exchange for the comfort of a dense mental replica, as if it was giving us more and better knowledge (as per Cleric’s last post: "Here, take everything, but please leave me my strange loop. I promise I'll give it back at the gate of death"). We build the Great Dissociative Wall - outwardly, the VR kit - we declare unlimited ownership of everything within its borders, and we decide to live in that strange loop. From the perspective of the materialist and the analytic idealist, we can understand that, the anxiety of trying to master reality, in the absence of, and renunciation to, self-mastery (mastery of consciousness).
There is an intention that needs to be elucidated here. This is not metaphysics.
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am
The more copies of copies of copies we create through our imagination which then influence the practical course of our lives, the more we have established the living and foundational reality of spiritual activity.
It seems to me yet to be proven that multiplying and sharpening perceptions better establishes the living foundational reality of spiritual activity. But beyond that, what matters, what makes VR unhelpful, even more than the extra focus on perceptions, is the dream of seclusion. It’s the capitulation in the face of the mystery of knowledge. Mystery of knowledge is too intimidating, so we prefer to make up a world and--- here we go, let’s slip in it, and let’s know ‘the world’ now, and feel we have ‘everything’ under control. It’s like I’ve lost an earring during a night walk, I go back and search for it, but not along the path I have walked, I’ll search under the nearby streetlights, because, well, that’s where I have light.
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am
how is it possible that such a revolutionary development in human culture would have no spiritual lessons to teach us?
It's like the advent and development of positivism, or materialism. There are obviously crucial spiritual lessons to learn from such episodes of evolution. But it’s not necessary to live the materialistic life and to adopt materialistic beliefs, in order to comprehend them. Likewise, there are clearly spiritual lessons to learn from many present-day cultural phenomena. However, to refer to your most recent examples from the other thread, it’s not required that we make a career in the meat consumption industry, or that we undergo gender affirming/mitigating surgery, in order to mine those lessons is it?
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am
Nevertheless, I would say what Cleric extracted from the non-Euclidean geometry used in certain games is an extremely valuable metaphor for how our normal spatial experience precipitates from our lawful spiritual activity, that one cannot experience through the normal sensory spectrum or non-VR video games.”
Of course, we don’t need the least VR to understand and experience non-Euclidean geometry. This is a completely arbitrary assertion that only can emerge from a metaphysical position that VR is a fantastic cognitive tool of the future. It’s curious that at the same time you say that you share my antipathy for it, but still spend 30-45 minutes in virtual reality every day.
AshvinP wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 2:03 am
This exchange reminds me a bit of our earlier discussion about writing vs. speech - you took a similar position on writing being outside the 'continuum' of the normal flow of spiritual activity, although I know you weren't nearly so antipathetic to writing as to VR. Do you see how a similar thing might be happening here?
I do see how you have come to connect the two exchanges. It’s certainly because I haven’t explained my point well enough in my previous posts. I hope I got better now at showing that I am not separating VR technology from the rest of human physical and spiritual activity, as an exception or discontinuity. It is definitely part of a continuum. As I mentioned, I think the next ring in the materialistic chain, expanding on VR and the metaverse, is transhumanism. There are certainly subconscious reasons why we are engaging more and more in such types of self-secluded worlds, and I tried to sketch some initial reflections that could open to those lessons in my previous post (reflections that you seem to have ignored completely, misinterpreting them as concerns related to VR usage). What I’m saying is, it’s completely unnecessary, and at the very least a time waster, to engage in VR as a practice, hoping to extract spiritual lessons from regular use. And I maintain that: I don't think that adding more copies of copies of copies, inundating our senses with augmented perceptual flows (basically more of the same, but worse) will ever provide metaphors or lessons that are not already available to us through the sensory spectrum of the first-level world content. And so I am left with the same question I had at the end of my previous post. For a materialist VR is understandably a lure and a comfort, but how
Federica wrote: ↑Sun Dec 25, 2022 7:54 pm
is it possible for an anthroposophist to rule out the dashboard only to end up missing it somehow, to explore a fully gated, dualistic representation of reality-in-itself, recreated just one level up the full sensory spectrum?