Symbolic thinking, Anthroposophy and Transhumanism

[Federica]

The central idea was that Steiner was a 'proto-transhumanist', which I responded to, and you have ignored to focus instead on dissecting Linnel's videos and resume, presumably questioning whether he is qualified to speak on any of these issues, rather than the issues themselves.

Linnell is an Anthroposophist, whether you want to call him that or not. If you are claiming his ideas are incompatible with Anthroposophy, then I am interested in hearing exactly why.

Andrew Linnell Is Co-Founder And CEO Of MysTech (Mystech.Org And Mystech.Co), An Organization Seeking To Realize Rudolf Steiner’s Indications On Mechanical Occultism. He Retired From A 42-Year Career In The Computer Industry In 2013. He Had Been CTO Of OmegaBand In Austin, TX. And Has Worked At EMC, Compaq, DEC, Wang Labs, And IBM. He Is President Of The Boston Branch Of The Anthroposophical Society And A Member Of The School For Spiritual Science. He Is The Father Of Three And The Author Of Two Children’s Books Plus An Art History Book The Hidden Heretic Of The Renaissance: Leonardo And A History Book The Uncomfortable History Of Christianity. He Leads Several MysTech Study Groups And Has Published Four Study Group Guidebooks.

Ashvin,

We can certainly come to Steiner's vision of the future, and I wish to explore that. But before that, you have completely dismissed my word of caution about Linnell's approach, putting it entirely on the back of my supposedly fully subjective vagaries, so yes, the question of Linnell's approach needs to be addressed first.

As you are clarifying here, you are actually the one who was focused on qualifications. The fact that Linnell is the President of the Boston branch of the Anthroposophical Society gives him an official title. Needless to say, the title in itself does not make him an Anthroposophist in concrete sense. Yes, I am claming that his ideas as expressed through what is available online, are not Anthroposophical. My next post will be on that.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

please let me know if you also feel, like I do, that the whole theme of human evolution is outlined in the flattest and most abstract manner, with arguably some questionable readings of Steiner's spiritual vision too.

No, I don't feel like you do about the video, so I will need you to be more specific and lay out the portions you felt were "flattest and most abstract" and why.

If you don’t, Ashvin, then please notice how, all throughout the presentation, Linnell’s train of thoughts is plainly reductionist, flattened onto the physical world only. The all too evident goal appears to be to get the audience accustomed to transhumanism, which he presents as the scary-but-actually-not-so-scary thing that is happening to our life on Earth.

The described progressive transformation of the physical body into a "humanoid, remote-controlled robotic body" is the only theme he shows interest in, and the only key to the whole speech. No reference whatsoever, not one reference is made to any necessary evolution of consciousness in the process, to any awakening of thinking force, any progression towards continuity of consciousness, nothing about what it will mean, in living thinking terms, to evolve away from matter, into the etheric.

Rather, the etheric is described as a sort of evolved sci-fi dimension from which humans will be able to remotely control and use a humanoid robotic body to play around with on Earth, among Steiner’s spider-like beings, while Earth progressively disappears. To this goal, he uses his IBM seasoned executive oiled (but standard) rhetorics, and slide deck technique, to make it look like his narrative is aligned with Steiner, whom he tries to recruit to his purposes by calling him a proto-transhumanist, leveraging some usable quotes, and by inviting us to call AI (wait for it) “””the artificial soul”””.

As a result, the whole presentation appears as an ideological promotion of the transhumanist ‘idea’. So when I say that this content is reductionist and abstract, I am pointing to the evidence of the presentation, which explains our future loss of physicality in purely material terms. Any reference to the evolution of thinking is absent. No connection is made with the fact that man will have to start building his own spiritual body from within the conscious forces of the I. There is nothing about an evolution of consciousness to the point of acquiring the power of “destroying nature in order to reconstruct it” - as in MS, for example. The only focus is the move from physicality into the etheric, in order for man to remote control from the etheric his future robotic body on the dying physical plane.

Now, why would human evolution take that direction? What overarching evolutionary intents these developments would glance at? These questions unfortunately go well beyond the horizon of this content. As it seems, the objective here is not to help people transform their thinking. Rather, it is to accustom the audience to the transhumanist perspective. Notice an additional thing: the changes to come to the physical Earth are presented as destiny, about to fall on man’s head from outside, as a spooky-not-so-spooky external destiny - kind of like in the same spirit of the showcased films and books - not as the process itself of the evolution of human consciousness. Accordingly, nothing is said about any processes, tasks, or urgent challenges related to the redemption of thinking. The challenge in sight here is to prepare for the transition to the human “artificial soul”. Therefore, all references to the non-physical, the etheric body, and so on, are done in purely instrumental manner, devoid of any depths of thinking power. We are so far away from the authentic continuators of Steiner's work we are learning from on this forum....

This presentation appears as an unfortunate attempt to influence the general Waldorf school people and other anthroposophy-friendly communities in favor of a wider, more immediate acceptance of AI in a transhumanist perspective, against the background of a supposedly anthroposophy-backed, for-profit business (have you noticed, among other things, how the amazon publications look?). To this purpose, Linnell has complemented his speaker persona with a surface-level knowledge of Greek mythology, Italian Renaissance, and so on. But what happens when one starts to scratch the surface of that? There is a saying in Italian that comes to mind: The devil makes the pots but not the lids.


The man uses the words “””moral technology””” and apparently that has marvelous effects on people. Linnell’s moral technology is, in plain language, apologia of transhumanism, dressed in highsounding narrative and anthoposoph-ish vocabulary. You are, until proven otherwise, the one who has written on The occult dangers of transhumanism or 'crystallization' of the soul-spirit, where you argue that “clearly the trend toward 'transhumanism' has only strengthened as people fail to develop living spiritual activity.” Are you still that thinker? Or, is your current infatuation with Linnell the token of a transmutation of thinking?

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

please let me know if you also feel, like I do, that the whole theme of human evolution is outlined in the flattest and most abstract manner, with arguably some questionable readings of Steiner's spiritual vision too.

No, I don't feel like you do about the video, so I will need you to be more specific and lay out the portions you felt were "flattest and most abstract" and why.

If you don’t, Ashvin, then please notice how, all throughout the presentation, Linnell’s train of thoughts is plainly reductionist, flattened onto the physical world only. The all too evident goal appears to be to get the audience accustomed to transhumanism, which he presents as the scary-but-actually-not-so-scary thing that is happening to our life on Earth.

The described progressive transformation of the physical body into a "humanoid, remote-controlled robotic body" is the only theme he shows interest in, and the only key to the whole speech. No reference whatsoever, not one reference is made to any necessary evolution of consciousness in the process, to any awakening of thinking force, any progression towards continuity of consciousness, nothing about what it will mean, in living thinking terms, to evolve away from matter, into the etheric.

Rather, the etheric is described as a sort of evolved sci-fi dimension from which humans will be able to remotely control and use a humanoid robotic body to play around with on Earth, among Steiner’s spider-like beings, while Earth progressively disappears. To this goal, he uses his IBM seasoned executive oiled (but standard) rhetorics, and slide deck technique, to make it look like his narrative is aligned with Steiner, whom he tries to recruit to his purposes by calling him a proto-transhumanist, leveraging some usable quotes, and by inviting us to call AI (wait for it) “””the artificial soul”””.

As a result, the whole presentation appears as an ideological promotion of the transhumanist ‘idea’. So when I say that this content is reductionist and abstract, I am pointing to the evidence of the presentation, which explains our future loss of physicality in purely material terms. Any reference to the evolution of thinking is absent. No connection is made with the fact that man will have to start building his own spiritual body from within the conscious forces of the I. There is nothing about an evolution of consciousness to the point of acquiring the power of “destroying nature in order to reconstruct it” - as in MS, for example. The only focus is the move from physicality into the etheric, in order for man to remote control from the etheric his future robotic body on the dying physical plane.

Now, why would human evolution take that direction? What overarching evolutionary intents these developments would glance at? These questions unfortunately go well beyond the horizon of this content. As it seems, the objective here is not to help people transform their thinking. Rather, it is to accustom the audience to the transhumanist perspective. Notice an additional thing: the changes to come to the physical Earth are presented as destiny, about to fall on man’s head from outside, as a spooky-not-so-spooky external destiny - kind of like in the same spirit of the showcased films and books - not as the process itself of the evolution of human consciousness. Accordingly, nothing is said about any processes, tasks, or urgent challenges related to the redemption of thinking. The challenge in sight here is to prepare for the transition to the human “artificial soul”. Therefore, all references to the non-physical, the etheric body, and so on, are done in purely instrumental manner, devoid of any depths of thinking power. We are so far away from the authentic continuators of Steiner's work we are learning from on this forum....

This presentation appears as an unfortunate attempt to influence the general Waldorf school people and other anthroposophy-friendly communities in favor of a wider, more immediate acceptance of AI in a transhumanist perspective, against the background of a supposedly anthroposophy-backed, for-profit business (have you noticed, among other things, how the amazon publications look?). To this purpose, Linnell has complemented his speaker persona with a surface-level knowledge of Greek mythology, Italian Renaissance, and so on. But what happens when one starts to scratch the surface of that? There is a saying in Italian that comes to mind: The devil makes the pots but not the lids.


The man uses the words “””moral technology””” and apparently that has marvelous effects on people. Linnell’s moral technology is, in plain language, apologia of transhumanism, dressed in highsounding narrative and anthoposoph-ish vocabulary. You are, until proven otherwise, the one who has written on The occult dangers of transhumanism or 'crystallization' of the soul-spirit, where you argue that “clearly the trend toward 'transhumanism' has only strengthened as people fail to develop living spiritual activity.” Are you still that thinker? Or, is your current infatuation with Linnell the token of a transmutation of thinking?

Federica,

I feel this post is very similar to Anthony's post with respect to Powell - "run for the hills" and little more than that. You don't point out anything that he got wrong about the course of spiritual evolution, only things that you wish he had included in the video and how you wished he had given the presentation. From what is not included you draw many unwarranted conclusions. You haven't addressed the Steiner quotes that he uses or that I shared in my previous post. Instead, you are confusing his description of what he thinks will happen out of the momentum of our current evolution for what he is promoting and saying should happen. The inverse crystallization will happen for some portion of humanity and the question is how we will confront and handle it, i.e. how will we redeem it.  

"The point is not what is going to happen, for it certainly will happen, but how it happens — how these things are handled. The welding together of human beings with machines will be a great and important problem for the rest of the earth-evolution." (Steiner)

Not everybody has it in their Karma to evolve higher cognition and become initiates. Not everybody needs to be only focusing on that aspect of the path to contribute valuable insights into the course of our spiritual evolution in any particular domain of life. Steiner himself draws on the ideas of many different thinkers, some of whom were out-and-out materialists, for valuable insights. In fact, if Linnell is experientially unfamiliar with higher cognition, it is exactly the responsible thing for him to focus his efforts on the broader conceptual outlines of spiritual evolution, and we would be criticizing him for doing otherwise. He sticks very closely to Steiner's research and there is no indication to me yet that he is misconstruing it. If we are unable to draw critical insights from those outlines, then we have no one to blame but ourselves, as it is our lack of living thinking that is responsible. There is no need to project the blame onto others and accuse them of conspiracies. 

From what I have said you will have seen that knowledge about the spiritual world can be acquired. This knowledge has profound significance for the human soul; it makes the soul something different, as it were. It lays hold of the life of the soul, regardless of whether one is a spiritual investigator or has merely heard and understood the results of spiritual investigation and has absorbed them. It is of no importance whether or not one does the research oneself; the result can be comprehensible just the same. Everything can be understood if we penetrate it with sufficient depth. We only need to have absorbed it. Then, however, when we have grasped it in its full essence, it enters the human soul life in such a way that one day it becomes more significant than all the other events of life.

Beyond that, we simply don't know whether Linnell or his relatively new organization will make living thinking a core part of their work, perhaps by teaming up with others who are already doing that. We have no idea what sort of work they will come up with in months and years to come. If we look at his other videos, we will find some of the other things you mentioned, like "the process itself of the evolution of human consciousness." He also mentions Steiner's meditations and living thinking, i.e. how to lift the etheric body more out of the physical body, to some extent in another recording on the website - "Welding Together". He also touches on the Christ impulse in that recording - "If man really permeates himself with the Christ, then these Ahrimanic powers cannot permeate upward through the middle stratum. Then they cannot, with their spiritual forces, pull down the intellectual force. Everything to do with our future depends on that." As usual, we are only hurting our own capacity for growth when we rush to form premature judgments based on limited information and thereby foreclose on opportunities to learn from others, even those we disagree with in style or content.
 
We should really evaluate what we are accomplishing with these distractions that only seed mistrust, cynicism, and enmity. While speculating on how people like Linnell are probably part of a conspiracy to prepare us to accept transhumanism, you are distracting from the ability for us to actually extract insights from his work for our own development and do inner battle with those dark forces in a meaningful way. At the same time, we are reinforcing the default mistrusting and cynical mindset with such an approach. I have little interest to contribute to or indulge in this dramatic and divisive approach any more than I already have. It is exactly this approach, this "we are the real Anthroposophists and all others must be ousted/shunned" attitude, that created a schism in the Anthroposophical Society and has rendered it so ineffectual in reaching the hearts and minds of more people, as Tomberg, Powell, MS, JVH, and others have all criticized. 

On another occasion, they [certain Anthroposophists] did not question a few jokes that I told, again to disarm the exaggerated tone of suspicion with which they on always received me-for example, that I actually hypnotized tram conductors o avoid paying for tickets, and that I amused myself as to a snake charmer. (This harkened back to the prankish way I could not occasionally resist signing myself in as "a snake charmer" under "profession" in the registry of personal information at Sala B of the Library Vittorio Emmanuele II). Thus, they began to believe I was Lucifer and some others believed I was Ahriman; they had more than one reason for this and, from their point of view, I truly justified those reasons.

Thus, two parties were formed; one believed I was Lucifer and the other believed I was Ahriman. I confess that this surprised me initially, but I quickly decided to take it with good humor. At a certain point, having intuited the situation, I did nothing to disabuse them, trusting in a spirit of truth and cordiality that would end in a triumph of semblances - but that instead, unfortunately, never ceased to be vigorously connected with me. When I entered the lounge, I noticed winks and elbow jabs of certain gentlemen, seriously at odds with one another over my Luciferic or Ahrimanic identity. By now, not even my passive manner and peaceful listening could silence the opinions of those friends; I was judged once and for all. (MS, From Yoga to the Rose Cross) 

If you want to discuss the actual issues involved without reference to Linnell, then I am willing to continue, but I don't want to continue debating Linnell as a specific personality at this point. No one said that we need to become devout followers of Linnell or even watch his videos. We don't need to survey his works if we are more comfortable with other avenues of living thinking, but then there is no need to cast aspersions on him either. It was just a simple suggestion to help with becoming familiar with the Christ events or with symbolically thinking through spiritual evolution with the imaginative tool of ancient mythology.  People are free to ignore that and continue with their preferred avenues of thought. There is no need for this detour into negative thoughts and emotions about other human beings that we hardly know. 

[Federica]

No, I don't feel like you do about the video, so I will need you to be more specific and lay out the portions you felt were "flattest and most abstract" and why.

If you don’t, Ashvin, then please notice how, all throughout the presentation, Linnell’s train of thoughts is plainly reductionist, flattened onto the physical world only. The all too evident goal appears to be to get the audience accustomed to transhumanism, which he presents as the scary-but-actually-not-so-scary thing that is happening to our life on Earth.

The described progressive transformation of the physical body into a "humanoid, remote-controlled robotic body" is the only theme he shows interest in, and the only key to the whole speech. No reference whatsoever, not one reference is made to any necessary evolution of consciousness in the process, to any awakening of thinking force, any progression towards continuity of consciousness, nothing about what it will mean, in living thinking terms, to evolve away from matter, into the etheric.

Rather, the etheric is described as a sort of evolved sci-fi dimension from which humans will be able to remotely control and use a humanoid robotic body to play around with on Earth, among Steiner’s spider-like beings, while Earth progressively disappears. To this goal, he uses his IBM seasoned executive oiled (but standard) rhetorics, and slide deck technique, to make it look like his narrative is aligned with Steiner, whom he tries to recruit to his purposes by calling him a proto-transhumanist, leveraging some usable quotes, and by inviting us to call AI (wait for it) “””the artificial soul”””.

As a result, the whole presentation appears as an ideological promotion of the transhumanist ‘idea’. So when I say that this content is reductionist and abstract, I am pointing to the evidence of the presentation, which explains our future loss of physicality in purely material terms. Any reference to the evolution of thinking is absent. No connection is made with the fact that man will have to start building his own spiritual body from within the conscious forces of the I. There is nothing about an evolution of consciousness to the point of acquiring the power of “destroying nature in order to reconstruct it” - as in MS, for example. The only focus is the move from physicality into the etheric, in order for man to remote control from the etheric his future robotic body on the dying physical plane.

Now, why would human evolution take that direction? What overarching evolutionary intents these developments would glance at? These questions unfortunately go well beyond the horizon of this content. As it seems, the objective here is not to help people transform their thinking. Rather, it is to accustom the audience to the transhumanist perspective. Notice an additional thing: the changes to come to the physical Earth are presented as destiny, about to fall on man’s head from outside, as a spooky-not-so-spooky external destiny - kind of like in the same spirit of the showcased films and books - not as the process itself of the evolution of human consciousness. Accordingly, nothing is said about any processes, tasks, or urgent challenges related to the redemption of thinking. The challenge in sight here is to prepare for the transition to the human “artificial soul”. Therefore, all references to the non-physical, the etheric body, and so on, are done in purely instrumental manner, devoid of any depths of thinking power. We are so far away from the authentic continuators of Steiner's work we are learning from on this forum....

This presentation appears as an unfortunate attempt to influence the general Waldorf school people and other anthroposophy-friendly communities in favor of a wider, more immediate acceptance of AI in a transhumanist perspective, against the background of a supposedly anthroposophy-backed, for-profit business (have you noticed, among other things, how the amazon publications look?). To this purpose, Linnell has complemented his speaker persona with a surface-level knowledge of Greek mythology, Italian Renaissance, and so on. But what happens when one starts to scratch the surface of that? There is a saying in Italian that comes to mind: The devil makes the pots but not the lids.


The man uses the words “””moral technology””” and apparently that has marvelous effects on people. Linnell’s moral technology is, in plain language, apologia of transhumanism, dressed in highsounding narrative and anthoposoph-ish vocabulary. You are, until proven otherwise, the one who has written on The occult dangers of transhumanism or 'crystallization' of the soul-spirit, where you argue that “clearly the trend toward 'transhumanism' has only strengthened as people fail to develop living spiritual activity.” Are you still that thinker? Or, is your current infatuation with Linnell the token of a transmutation of thinking?

Federica,

I feel this post is very similar to Anthony's post with respect to Powell - "run for the hills" and little more than that. You don't point out anything that he got wrong about the course of spiritual evolution, only things that you wish he had included in the video and how you wished he had given the presentation.

The precise pointing are many, Ashvin, easily available. If you really can't see them, I can point them out for you. There is an interesting discussion on Youtube, by the Spiritual Scientist, who is in conversation with Linnell on the topics of technology, moral technology, AI, from a spiritual scientific perspective. If you haven’t yet, I recommend you watch it, as the host really questions Linnell on the core themes of transhumanism and morality in the light of Anthroposophy.


The host starts off with the core question: “What is your understanding of technology in relation to SS?" Linnell replies with various lateral thoughts, one of these is: "Mystech's mission is to go beyond fear of technology and see how we can deal with technology in a positive way". So it should be interesting. Soon enough, the hosts comes back to the core question (at 14:40) “...the freedom we have acquired in our times to choose to develop spiritually, or not to: how do you think that ties in with technology?”


I'll let you decide if he got this answer right (and the following ones). He starts from an overview of the cosmic evolution from Saturn, to Sun, to Moon, to now Earth and, in the future, to Jupiter, where we will have the role of the current angels - Linnell explains - and we don’t really know the details of that phase. How are we going to make that happen?, he asks.
Of course, the true answer is: through the development of thinking, through I-consciousness.
But Linnell has a different take (at 20:20): “So there is a question: does technology enable us to go in that direction? where we will be able, through our work with technology, to incarnate into a body of the next planetary condition called Jupiter. That’s pretty spooky and pretty amazing stuff!”. So the thought is very clear: The enabler is not the development of our thinking force. The enabler is technology.

Just afterwards, he adds: “But there is more, in the immediate future, that makes all the scary aspects of transhumanism make more sense” where he then compares transhumanism to Mephistopheles in Faust claiming he “intends to do evil, but ends up doing the good”.


Trying to really clarify the role of AI, the presenter then asks for a sort of AI state of the art, and what the moral aspects are. Linnell prefaces his answer saying that there are concerns about the dangers of AI, people speak of the need for safeguards, and on the other side there are those who don’t want to be economic losers on that market, etc, etc, etc, lots of beating around the bush. So, he continues: "what are the counterbalances for the risks of technology?" Here we would expect to finally understand what he means by moral technology, I suppose?


His answer is the following (31:00): he is himself facing a computer screen 12 hours a day, so what he does to counterbalance is to take a break every 20 minutes. This is his first answer. Not only that. He spends a few minutes explaining how we can “counterbalance” the risks of technology in this way, I spare you the details. The next point in his tackling of morality is: “But what about all the questions of being human? That’s the real question, what is it to be human? (33:30) Does our definition of human equal physical body or is there something more?” … Here he goes off on a lengthy aside on science and various recent brain experiments, suggesting there is more than physical body,... the hippies, the new age, various beating around the bush. Interesting?


To which, the presenter tries to bring it back to the moral question of transhumanism, and the transhumanist aspiration to immortality through machines. "Do you think this is possible?" he asks.

Linnell: "Yes, it is possible, if you have watched the film Avatar, that we will control a robotic entity, that we would see going down the streets of NY as robots controlled by people sitting in their office through augmented reality."
Of course this does not answer the question, so the presenter brings it back to the question again: "Do you think it will be possible to upload our consciousness to the cloud and control a robot from there?"

Here, in the corner, Linnell comes up with a masterpiece of fluff and confusion, where he compares the cloud of AI to the clouds of the book of Revelation... it’s not possible to upload consciousness there, because "we would need to kill it first, to put it in a dead matter"..… which brings us to the etheric realm…. That "AI is dead thinking but not entirely dead"….

Summarizing those thoughts goes beyond my abilities. I recommend watching, from 40:00 to 47:00, it’s worth it, I think.


Next question: "What is living thinking for you?" Wait for the answer. He goes directly to examples of living thinking. He cites: child thinking that we dismiss as adults; book knowledge, which is usually dead, but can become inspiring living thinking in us, if the author wrote well; brainstorming, when as a group we come up with a brilliant solution to a problem that lives beyond our brains, as spiritual being. “I hope that helps” he concludes.


I think it does, in a sense!!!
Those were some concrete examples, of thing he got wrong, Ashvin.
What do you think? All good from your side?

[AshvinP]

The precise pointing are many, Ashvin, easily available. If you really can't see them, I can point them out for you. There is an interesting discussion on Youtube, by the Spiritual Scientist, who is in conversation with Linnell on the topics of technology, moral technology, AI, from a spiritual scientific perspective. If you haven’t yet, I recommend you watch it, as the host really questions Linnell on the core themes of transhumanism and morality in the light of Anthroposophy.


The host starts off with the core question: “What is your understanding of technology in relation to SS?" Linnell replies with various lateral thoughts, one of these is: "Mystech's mission is to go beyond fear of technology and see how we can deal with technology in a positive way". So it should be interesting. Soon enough, the hosts comes back to the core question (at 14:40) “...the freedom we have acquired in our times to choose to develop spiritually, or not to: how do you think that ties in with technology?”


I'll let you decide if he got this answer right (and the following ones). He starts from an overview of the cosmic evolution from Saturn, to Sun, to Moon, to now Earth and, in the future, to Jupiter, where we will have the role of the current angels - Linnell explains - and we don’t really know the details of that phase. How are we going to make that happen?, he asks.
Of course, the true answer is: through the development of thinking, through I-consciousness.
But Linnell has a different take (at 20:20): “So there is a question: does technology enable us to go in that direction? where we will be able, through our work with technology, to incarnate into a body of the next planetary condition called Jupiter. That’s pretty spooky and pretty amazing stuff!”. So the thought is very clear: The enabler is not the development of our thinking force. The enabler is technology.

Just afterwards, he adds: “But there is more, in the immediate future, that makes all the scary aspects of transhumanism make more sense” where he then compares transhumanism to Mephistopheles in Faust claiming he “intends to do evil, but ends up doing the good”.


Trying to really clarify the role of AI, the presenter then asks for a sort of AI state of the art, and what the moral aspects are. Linnell prefaces his answer saying that there are concerns about the dangers of AI, people speak of the need for safeguards, and on the other side there are those who don’t want to be economic losers on that market, etc, etc, etc, lots of beating around the bush. So, he continues: "what are the counterbalances for the risks of technology?" Here we would expect to finally understand what he means by moral technology, I suppose?


His answer is the following (31:00): he is himself facing a computer screen 12 hours a day, so what he does to counterbalance is to take a break every 20 minutes. This is his first answer. Not only that. He spends a few minutes explaining how we can “counterbalance” the risks of technology in this way, I spare you the details. The next point in his tackling of morality is: “But what about all the questions of being human? That’s the real question, what is it to be human? (33:30) Does our definition of human equal physical body or is there something more?” … Here he goes off on a lengthy aside on science and various recent brain experiments, suggesting there is more than physical body,... the hippies, the new age, various beating around the bush. Interesting?


To which, the presenter tries to bring it back to the moral question of transhumanism, and the transhumanist aspiration to immortality through machines. "Do you think this is possible?" he asks.

Linnell: "Yes, it is possible, if you have watched the film Avatar, that we will control a robotic entity, that we would see going down the streets of NY as robots controlled by people sitting in their office through augmented reality."
Of course this does not answer the question, so the presenter brings it back to the question again: "Do you think it will be possible to upload our consciousness to the cloud and control a robot from there?"

Here, in the corner, Linnell comes up with a masterpiece of fluff and confusion, where he compares the cloud of AI to the clouds of the book of Revelation... it’s not possible to upload consciousness there, because "we would need to kill it first, to put it in a dead matter"..… which brings us to the etheric realm…. That "AI is dead thinking but not entirely dead"….

Summarizing those thoughts goes beyond my abilities. I recommend watching, from 40:00 to 47:00, it’s worth it, I think.


Next question: "What is living thinking for you?" Wait for the answer. He goes directly to examples of living thinking. He cites: child thinking that we dismiss as adults; book knowledge, which is usually dead, but can become inspiring living thinking in us, if the author wrote well; brainstorming, when as a group we come up with a brilliant solution to a problem that lives beyond our brains, as spiritual being. “I hope that helps” he concludes.


I think it does, in a sense!!!
Those were some concrete examples, of thing he got wrong, Ashvin.
What do you think? All good from your side?

Federica,

For all those quotes you provided, you still don't explain why any of it was wrong. Instead, you "let me decide". But I have already listened to all these interviews and decided he didn't get anything wrong. Of course, by "wrong" I don't mean factually incorrect, but a fundamentally misguided approach to spiritual understanding or misconstrual of spiritual research.

The issue is really simple - you disagree with his vision of the future. He is trying to make sense of how the inevitable technological developments of humanity could be repurposed for the Good i.e. to fulfill the wise intents of our Divine guidance and redeem those who will fall into sub-nature through hyper-materialism, mysticism, animism, etc. No one is saying that his vision is infallible or must be adhered to, only that it could be something to pay attention to and worth contemplating in sofar as it stirs our creative and moral thinking forces. 

But instead of offering any intelligent critique or your own alternate vision of how these broad curvatures of human destiny will be fulfilled, you simply quote him and snarkily dismiss everything that he says as self-evidently (to you) nonsensical, absurd, abstract, or what have you. Anyone can ridicule others and cynically dismiss their ideas as 'fluff and confusion', but not everyone can present their own creative vision for the spiritual-moral integration of mechanical technology.

It is similar to what has happened several times before on this forum, where you one-sidedly focus on the development of higher knowledge, but not on the elaboration of that knowledge into creative and moral will forces that sacrificially work into the World for its redemption. 

"Of course, the true answer is: through the development of thinking, through I-consciousness."

That is part of the answer, in very broad terms, but you consistently limit the role of greater I-consciousness to something that remains in the head alone and does not creatively work in the World through human institutions and technology. You consistently feel like anyone who goes into the living details of how this may come about is fragmenting from spiritual Unity back to physical multiplicity. That is what happened in the discussion with Cleric on the nature of 'freedom' at the Jupiter stage as well. If you feel that Linnell's vision is so absurd or perhaps evil, then what is yours? How do you imagine that those who evolve their cognition into the Cosmic spheres will be able to interface with those left behind in the Earthly context to work on their redemption during the rest of Earth's evolution and the future Jupiter stage?

PS - the part where he discusses how the secular scientific explanation for how the heavy metals came into existence corresponds with Steiner's research on the four planetary stages was fascinating.

[Federica]

Federica,

For all those quotes you provided, you still don't explain why any of it was wrong. Instead, you "let me decide". But I have already listened to all these interviews and decided he didn't get anything wrong. Of course, by "wrong" I don't mean factually incorrect, but a fundamentally misguided approach to spiritual understanding or misconstrual of spiritual research.

The issue is really simple - you disagree with his vision of the future. He is trying to make sense of how the inevitable technological developments of humanity could be repurposed for the Good i.e. to fulfill the wise intents of our Divine guidance and redeem those who will fall into sub-nature through hyper-materialism, mysticism, animism, etc. No one is saying that his vision is infallible or must be adhered to, only that it could be something to pay attention to and worth contemplating in sofar as it stirs our creative and moral thinking forces. 

But instead of offering any intelligent critique or your own alternate vision of how these broad curvatures of human destiny will be fulfilled, you simply quote him and snarkily dismiss everything that he says as self-evidently (to you) nonsensical, absurd, abstract, or what have you. Anyone can ridicule others and cynically dismiss their ideas as 'fluff and confusion', but not everyone can present their own creative vision for the spiritual-moral integration of mechanical technology.

It is similar to what has happened several times before on this forum, where you one-sidedly focus on the development of higher knowledge, but not on the elaboration of that knowledge into creative and moral will forces that sacrificially work into the World for its redemption. 

"Of course, the true answer is: through the development of thinking, through I-consciousness."

That is part of the answer, in very broad terms, but you consistently limit the role of greater I-consciousness to something that remains in the head alone and does not creatively work in the World through human institutions and technology. You consistently feel like anyone who goes into the living details of how this may come about is fragmenting from spiritual Unity back to physical multiplicity. That is what happened in the discussion with Cleric on the nature of 'freedom' at the Jupiter stage as well. If you feel that Linnell's vision is so absurd or perhaps evil, then what is yours? How do you imagine that those who evolve their cognition into the Cosmic spheres will be able to interface with those left behind in the Earthly context to work on their redemption during the rest of Earth's evolution and the future Jupiter stage?

PS - the part where he discusses how the secular scientific explanation for how the heavy metals came into existence corresponds with Steiner's research on the four planetary stages was fascinating.

Ashvin,

The lengths you are ready to go when your resolve is directly challenged really are extraordinary. You have deprecated that I was not providing concrete elements. Here we have a wealth of concrete elements. They scream incompatibility with any genuine esoteric understanding - including mine and also yours, as you have expressed it on this forum for years. The quotes speak for themselves. If the size of your obstination enables you to unashamedly state that there’s nothing wrong with the above, if you can't admit that your first impression was hurried, then it is senseless to discuss. Anything is redeemable, if you only decide. This makes you ontologically always right, and this is your new philosophy, as it were. Sure you can try to “prescribe” reality, just by thinking it your way. But systematically ignoring all feedback the landscape provides, puts you on a scary boundary.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

The lengths you are ready to go when your resolve is directly challenged really are extraordinary. You have deprecated that I was not providing concrete elements. Here we have a wealth of concrete elements. They scream incompatibility with any genuine esoteric understanding - mine and also yours, as you have expressed it on this forum for years. The quotes speak for themselves. If the size of your obstination enables you to unashamedly state that there’s nothing wrong with the above, if you can't admit that your first impression was hurried, then it is senseless to discuss. Anything is redeemable, if you only decide. This makes you ontologically always right, and this is your new philosophy, as it were. Sure you can try to “prescribe” reality, just by thinking it your way. But systematically ignoring all feedback the landscape provides, puts you on a scary boundary.

Come on, Federica, these are not "concrete examples". It is literally a list of quotes and timestamps with no further explanation, and a presumption that it is self-evidently incompatible with a proper spiritual understanding. If it's so obvious to you, then just take the time and effort to explain it to me.

And you are still avoiding the issue of WHY this matters. Why must we figure out if Linnell is someone we can call an "Anthroposophist"? What are we gaining from this thought-distraction? We can think through all of these issues independently of Linnell. So why not respond directly to the quotes from Steiner and what they suggest about the potential developments in the 'welding together of man and machine'?

I think it should also be said that "living thinking" is not easy to define. We have had plenty of trouble trying to speak about it on this forum. The host of that podcast also said that every time he asks about it, he gets a different answer from people. Linnell prefaced his answer that he would try but it would be a challenge. So if you think his answer was so off the mark, then maybe should offer your own illustration of what living thinking is, so that we can all benefit. As it is, no one is possibly benefitting from your condescending remarks about Linnell.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

The lengths you are ready to go when your resolve is directly challenged really are extraordinary. You have deprecated that I was not providing concrete elements. Here we have a wealth of concrete elements. They scream incompatibility with any genuine esoteric understanding - mine and also yours, as you have expressed it on this forum for years. The quotes speak for themselves. If the size of your obstination enables you to unashamedly state that there’s nothing wrong with the above, if you can't admit that your first impression was hurried, then it is senseless to discuss. Anything is redeemable, if you only decide. This makes you ontologically always right, and this is your new philosophy, as it were. Sure you can try to “prescribe” reality, just by thinking it your way. But systematically ignoring all feedback the landscape provides, puts you on a scary boundary.

Come on, Federica, these are not "concrete examples". It is literally a list of quotes and timestamps with no further explanation, and a presumption that it is self-evidently incompatible with a proper spiritual understanding. If it's so obvious to you, then just take the time and effort to explain it to me.

And you are still avoiding the issue of WHY this matters. Why must we figure out if Linnell is someone we can call an "Anthroposophist"? What are we gaining from this thought-distraction? We can think through all of these issues independently of Linnell. So why not respond directly to the quotes from Steiner and what they suggest about the potential developments in the 'welding together of man and machine'?

I think it should also be said that "living thinking" is not easy to define. We have had plenty of trouble trying to speak about it on this forum. The host of that podcast also said that every time he asks about it, he gets a different answer from people. Linnell prefaced his answer that he would try but it would be a challenge. So if you think his answer was so off the mark, then maybe should offer your own illustration of what living thinking is, so that we can all benefit. As it is, no one is possibly benefitting from your condescending remarks about Linnell.

Why? Because it's paramount to be very conscious of transhumanist attempts to influence our feeling, thinking and will. Even more so when they are dressed in Anthroposophical vocabulary. They behead thinking. They are the same who say "Don't do it, distract yourself".

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

The lengths you are ready to go when your resolve is directly challenged really are extraordinary. You have deprecated that I was not providing concrete elements. Here we have a wealth of concrete elements. They scream incompatibility with any genuine esoteric understanding - mine and also yours, as you have expressed it on this forum for years. The quotes speak for themselves. If the size of your obstination enables you to unashamedly state that there’s nothing wrong with the above, if you can't admit that your first impression was hurried, then it is senseless to discuss. Anything is redeemable, if you only decide. This makes you ontologically always right, and this is your new philosophy, as it were. Sure you can try to “prescribe” reality, just by thinking it your way. But systematically ignoring all feedback the landscape provides, puts you on a scary boundary.

Come on, Federica, these are not "concrete examples". It is literally a list of quotes and timestamps with no further explanation, and a presumption that it is self-evidently incompatible with a proper spiritual understanding. If it's so obvious to you, then just take the time and effort to explain it to me.

And you are still avoiding the issue of WHY this matters. Why must we figure out if Linnell is someone we can call an "Anthroposophist"? What are we gaining from this thought-distraction? We can think through all of these issues independently of Linnell. So why not respond directly to the quotes from Steiner and what they suggest about the potential developments in the 'welding together of man and machine'?

I think it should also be said that "living thinking" is not easy to define. We have had plenty of trouble trying to speak about it on this forum. The host of that podcast also said that every time he asks about it, he gets a different answer from people. Linnell prefaced his answer that he would try but it would be a challenge. So if you think his answer was so off the mark, then maybe should offer your own illustration of what living thinking is, so that we can all benefit. As it is, no one is possibly benefitting from your condescending remarks about Linnell.

Why? Because it's paramount to be very conscious of transhumanist attempts to influence our feeling, thinking and will. Even more so when they are dressed in Anthroposophical vocabulary. They behead thinking. They are the same who say "Don't do it, distract yourself".

I know how tempting the conspiratorial path is to take, especially when we start off in Anthroposophy where Lucifer and Ahriman are perceived around every corner. And of course, there is a truth to that, which is first and foremost an inner truth that we must search for within ourselves. Conspiracies also play into our desire for drama and entertainment on the esoteric path. It alleviates the inevitable sense of complexity when we must work through all the living details of spiritual reality to mine new meaningful insights. Conspiracy theories give us something quick and easy to digest, a neat "us vs. them" narrative to make things black and white, simple and straightforward.

But if we just look at the end result of getting mired in such thinking, it is clear that it serves as a distraction from genuine inner work and investigation. Pages that could be spent on mining insights from Linnell, Scaligero, both or neither, and relating those insights to our own intuitive stream of becoming, are instead spent on 'proving' your theory that Linnell is a materialistic transhumanist in disguise. My attempts to redirect towards the central ideas of spiritual evolution also could not halt that train once it got going. Maybe he is! It doesn't matter. Ahriman doesn't need to kill the Light of our I-consciousness, and he can't kill the Light, but only to redirect it into a million different unproductive and divisive channels. In that process, our fellow humans, even our fellow spiritual seekers, become our enemies and we forget all about the inner battle that we need to wage.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

[Federica]

Come on, Federica, these are not "concrete examples". It is literally a list of quotes and timestamps with no further explanation, and a presumption that it is self-evidently incompatible with a proper spiritual understanding. If it's so obvious to you, then just take the time and effort to explain it to me.

And you are still avoiding the issue of WHY this matters. Why must we figure out if Linnell is someone we can call an "Anthroposophist"? What are we gaining from this thought-distraction? We can think through all of these issues independently of Linnell. So why not respond directly to the quotes from Steiner and what they suggest about the potential developments in the 'welding together of man and machine'?

I think it should also be said that "living thinking" is not easy to define. We have had plenty of trouble trying to speak about it on this forum. The host of that podcast also said that every time he asks about it, he gets a different answer from people. Linnell prefaced his answer that he would try but it would be a challenge. So if you think his answer was so off the mark, then maybe should offer your own illustration of what living thinking is, so that we can all benefit. As it is, no one is possibly benefitting from your condescending remarks about Linnell.

Why? Because it's paramount to be very conscious of transhumanist attempts to influence our feeling, thinking and will. Even more so when they are dressed in Anthroposophical vocabulary. They behead thinking. They are the same who say "Don't do it, distract yourself".

I know how tempting the conspiratorial path is to take, especially when we start off in Anthroposophy where Lucifer and Ahriman are perceived around every corner. And of course, there is a truth to that, which is first and foremost an inner truth that we must search for within ourselves. Conspiracies also play into our desire for drama and entertainment on the esoteric path. It alleviates the inevitable sense of complexity when we must work through all the living details of spiritual reality to mine new meaningful insights. Conspiracy theories give us something quick and easy to digest, a neat "us vs. them" narrative to make things black and white, simple and straightforward.

But if we just look at the end result of getting mired in such thinking, it is clear that it serves as a distraction from genuine inner work and investigation. Pages that could be spent on mining insights from Linnell, Scaligero, both or neither, and relating those insights to our own intuitive stream of becoming, are instead spent on 'proving' your theory that Linnell is a materialistic transhumanist in disguise. My attempts to redirect towards the central ideas of spiritual evolution also could not halt that train once it got going. Maybe he is! It doesn't matter. Ahriman doesn't need to kill the Light of our I-consciousness, and he can't kill the Light, but only to redirect it into a million different unproductive and divisive channels. In that process, our fellow humans, even our fellow spiritual seekers, become our enemies and we forget all about the inner battle that we need to wage.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

I never spoke of conspiracy, I dont' think there is one. Again something you invent. What would stop you from throwing up all these constructions? By the way I have done my programmed inner work today as well. Not to mention that this "distraction" is a valuable spiritual exercise in itself, if one is open to that.
Beyond that, this question is important, because this reality has presented itself to us, therefore it is important to seize the opportunity and be active, and search clarification.
Regarding your request, I am not going to fall into the bottomless pit you are digging for me, Ashvin. I won't start tonight writing my little new version of Anthroposophical notes. Your request is grotesque. Go read the posts I have already written on living thinking, among other things, and especially go back and read all that Cleric and yourself have written over the last year here.
Yes, I am sarcastic in my comments, because I think it is not ok, even as unaware bearer of transhumanist impulses, to have such level of anthroposophical understanding, and such level of facade knowledge, after 40 years of practice, and with that, in that role, go out and impart damaging spiritual-technological advice to people, reading powerpoints word for word, or producing the above-mentioned type of conversation, when there is unfortunately no reader's notes to read from.