Philosophical Speculations

I'm biased toward inter-being and believe BK's model of individual alters lacks structure. I feel that much that we speak of as 'morals' is about relationship or finding right balance within a structure or system. I also see effective organization as a source of power and domination. I agree with Harari about the organizing power of fictions. These are my 'leanings' and should not be taken as a coherent model.

At this point I feel like a meteorologist trying to predict the weather during a period of very unstable weather patterns. I loved this article not for it's discussion on what got us here but from the conclusions of where the writer or writers think we should be going. I was an automation engineer without a degree in anything (I still don't have a degree in anything). That occurred only because I had a unique ability to solve complex process control problems using the new fangled computers coming out. Prior to computers process control was done by human, pneumatic, electrical and mechanical devices. All of the time prior to 1977 when I left the US Air Force where I was a weapons control system technician on the F-4E Phantom fighter/ bomber very little in industry was done by computer. Cars were designed and built, oil was produced and refined, crops were planted, grown, harvested and distributed etc., etc. and that list of etc.'s is almost endless. Society was made up of millions of autonomous people and systems. Then computers came along and all of that went out the window. Now in plants that used to require a 100 operators you can do the job with 3. Then you had control loops that operated completely independently now are all interconnected. Back then you had a 100 operators that many of them understood how almost all of the systems worked to now you have 3 operators that don't have a clue. They have no more of a clue then the vast majority of people using computers understand how their computers work. When I play out where this is going in my mind using the data I collect now through the news and articles such as this I think humanity especially in technological society's is doomed. We have more and more self indulgent, self important people demanding more and more control and feel totally justified in destroying systems that don't meet their demands. More and more "equality" from people that produce nothing and don't have a clue of how anything is produced. What we now have happening on a global scale is Venezuela. I believe Venezuela is broken beyond repair and anybody that might have fixed it has left and is begging on the street corners in cities like Cuenca for food to feed their families.

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:06 amI'm biased toward inter-being and believe BK's model of individual alters lacks structure.

Bernardo relies greatly on his observations of nature and its ecosystems from which he derives his model, indeed calling his model naturalistic, and so I see it as being entirely isomorphic with the structure of any living ecosystem. So a bee, for example, would be an discrete alter of being within the cohesive structure of a hive of relational inter-being, a structure that serves such inter-being well, until, in the case of human beings, due to our 'fall' ~ or is it a 'lift' ~ into metacognition, that naturalistic structure has been disrupted, and now must be restructured to take the metacognitive faculty into account, clearly still an evolving work in progress, with the outcome yet to be determined. Here, Cleric's most recent post may be instructive.

Shu,

Yup, I know the model and don't feel satisfied by it. In my view, we are natural beings embedded in nature and, while there are costs and benefits associated with all movement, no moves are 'unnatural'. So-called 'disruption' is simply related to the fact that creativity is both constructive and destructive. I understand the 'fall' as a movement from potential into manifest, from nondual into dual, from unaware to aware, to and fro, the awareness of which we call metacognition in an everlasting dynamic of change. In this movement, thinking places an overemphasis on the value of separation resulting in an unbalanced individualism which will be corrected by systemic responses imposing awareness of limits. It's a dance.

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:36 pm Shu,

Yup, I know the model and don't feel satisfied by it. In my view, we are natural beings embedded in nature and, while there are costs and benefits associated with all movement, no moves are 'unnatural'. So-called 'disruption' is simply related to the fact that creativity is both constructive and destructive. I understand the 'fall' as a movement from potential into manifest, from nondual into dual, from unaware to aware, to and fro, the awareness of which we call metacognition in an everlasting dynamic of change. In this movement, thinking places an overemphasis on the value of separation resulting in an unbalanced individualism which will be corrected by systemic responses imposing awareness of limits. It's a dance.

This is called in kabbalah “ran and returned” (“ratzo va-shov”). A principle that expresses the tension and dynamics in reality between male and female, thought and faith, expansion and contraction and more. Like a melody

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:36 pmYup, I know the model and don't feel satisfied by it. In my view, we are natural beings embedded in nature and, while there are costs and benefits associated with all movement, no moves are 'unnatural'. So-called 'disruption' is simply related to the fact that creativity is both constructive and destructive. I understand the 'fall' as a movement from potential into manifest, from nondual into dual, from unaware to aware, to and fro, the awareness of which we call metacognition in an everlasting dynamic of change. In this movement, thinking places an overemphasis on the value of separation resulting in an unbalanced individualism which will be corrected by systemic responses imposing awareness of limits. It's a dance.

Well, aside from the above feeling more satisfying to you, how does it deny Bernardo's model having structure?

Soul_of_Shu wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:12 pm

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:36 pmYup, I know the model and don't feel satisfied by it. In my view, we are natural beings embedded in nature and, while there are costs and benefits associated with all movement, no moves are 'unnatural'. So-called 'disruption' is simply related to the fact that creativity is both constructive and destructive. I understand the 'fall' as a movement from potential into manifest, from nondual into dual, from unaware to aware, to and fro, the awareness of which we call metacognition in an everlasting dynamic of change. In this movement, thinking places an overemphasis on the value of separation resulting in an unbalanced individualism which will be corrected by systemic responses imposing awareness of limits. It's a dance.

Well, aside from the above feeling more satisfying to you, how does it deny Bernardo's model having structure?

This is an excellent question Shu and, in my intuitive way, I'm feeling my way into it. Tentatively, I would say that the Idealist model(s) is biased toward potentials and the Materialist model is biased toward limits. My feeling is that neither are overwhelmingly correct but rather, depending on time and conditions, more or less appropriate for sustaining biotic life. Intuitively, I suspect that this is what holds a biologist like Sheldrake back from a full embrace of a BK-style Idealism, preferring instead Cosmopsychism. Sometimes, again intuitively, I suspect an underlying argument between biology and physics with the former being more complex and mysterious and the latter being simpler-to-model and more abstract. I'm wondering, can you name a famous biologist or life science researcher who is a BK-style Idealist?

Shaibei wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:09 pm

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:36 pm Shu,

Yup, I know the model and don't feel satisfied by it. In my view, we are natural beings embedded in nature and, while there are costs and benefits associated with all movement, no moves are 'unnatural'. So-called 'disruption' is simply related to the fact that creativity is both constructive and destructive. I understand the 'fall' as a movement from potential into manifest, from nondual into dual, from unaware to aware, to and fro, the awareness of which we call metacognition in an everlasting dynamic of change. In this movement, thinking places an overemphasis on the value of separation resulting in an unbalanced individualism which will be corrected by systemic responses imposing awareness of limits. It's a dance.

This is called in kabbalah “ran and returned” (“ratzo va-shov”). A principle that expresses the tension and dynamics in reality between male and female, thought and faith, expansion and contraction and more. Like a melody

Yes, I agree. I had a very interesting experience in Brazil of being immersed, as a non-Portuguese speaker, in a spiritual practice heavily dependent on music where I would be drawn musically deep into its essential heartfelt doctrine but later, with translation of the lyrics, be diverted into a bunch of mental judgemental agreements and disagreements. Balancing or integrating heart and mind is quite a dance, the success of which is revealed only in performance.

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 8:07 pm

Shaibei wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:09 pm

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:36 pm Shu,

Yup, I know the model and don't feel satisfied by it. In my view, we are natural beings embedded in nature and, while there are costs and benefits associated with all movement, no moves are 'unnatural'. So-called 'disruption' is simply related to the fact that creativity is both constructive and destructive. I understand the 'fall' as a movement from potential into manifest, from nondual into dual, from unaware to aware, to and fro, the awareness of which we call metacognition in an everlasting dynamic of change. In this movement, thinking places an overemphasis on the value of separation resulting in an unbalanced individualism which will be corrected by systemic responses imposing awareness of limits. It's a dance.

This is called in kabbalah “ran and returned” (“ratzo va-shov”). A principle that expresses the tension and dynamics in reality between male and female, thought and faith, expansion and contraction and more. Like a melody

Yes, I agree. I had a very interesting experience in Brazil of being immersed, as a non-Portuguese speaker, in a spiritual practice heavily dependent on music where I would be drawn musically deep into its essential heartfelt doctrine but later, with translation of the lyrics, be diverted into a bunch of mental judgemental agreements and disagreements. Balancing or integrating heart and mind is quite a dance, the success of which is revealed only in performance.

In my opinion it is a product of spiritual maturity. By the way I loved the poem of Mary Oliver

Lou Gold wrote: ↑Thu Apr 15, 2021 7:56 pmI'm wondering, can you name a famous biologist or life science researcher who is a BK-style Idealist?

Neil Theise, whose field of expertise is biology-based, and being familiar with Bernardo's model does not balk at idealism, would be about as close it it gets.