Symbolic thinking, Anthroposophy and Transhumanism

[Federica]

Hi Ashvin,

Thanks for clarifying your point in the above two posts. I definitely understand and agree with the expansive support and reflective potential enclosed in scientific conceptions, which, as you say, is exemplified, for instance, in the numerous mathematical and scientific analogies Cleric has used through the years, to facilitate understanding of spiritual realities - from aliasing, to Fourier transforms, to protein life, to the Schrödinger equation and more.

However, this is not exactly what I think about when reference is made to technology. I would say that technology refers to the physical (in the sense recently discussed on the GA 13 thread) expressions, the concrete manifestations of the mathematical-scientific theories and conceptions. It is the translation of those conceptions in specific and multifaceted 'riverbed features'. And the reason why I intended to revive a discussion on "technology and transhumanism" is that I see the problematic, adversarial character of these 'riverbed features', and the connected distorsions of spiritual activity, as a predominant aspect of tech developments of our present times.

In this sense, it was probably not a great choice for my part to refresh this topic by quoting your idea that technology expands our palette of activity, since we weren’t referring to the same concept of technology. Nonetheless, I think there is a danger in holding such a noble and idealized (in common sense) conception of “modern technology” as the one you have explained here. I believe that, if we contextualize modern technology through examples such as GR, QM, the foundations of physics and the findings of mechanical/materials/electronic engineering, we are at risk of giving a partially concealed, if not heavily botoxed, representation of what modern technology actually is. I think it would be more accurate to shift attention from historical scientific impulses - and tech that creates smart tools from that accumulation of knowledge and expertise - to technology that impacts (and disrupts) the physical-etheric bodily complex of man, animals and plants in the most intimate, often irreversible ways, like chemical engineering and bioengineering are doing, for example. I would say that these, in association with behavioral science and related tech, are the new, preponderant technological orientations of our present day. Good tools may elicit recognition and awe, but there’s not much novelty in that. Man has been engineering smart tools for millennia, and there are even various animal species that are able to engineer tools. In this sense, we lose something of the burning meaning of technology today if we only focus attention on the organizing beauty of mathematical models and their brilliant employments, such as the concentration and coordination of practical thought encapsulated in a car.

So I think we should rather illustrate present-day technology through the wealth of readily available examples in which man is confronted by technology directly, rather than through the intermediation of objects-tools. Tech advancements are used nowadays in convergent ways, and the point of convergence of them all is, as it appears, man himself, or should we say, life itself. In other words, to a large extent, these new convergent ways appear to directly support the advent of the transhuman man. (By the way, as an incidental comment on your example of the car, even an objectified technological tool like a “modern car” is not anymore what it used to be, but now converges unto the user and their user-experience, by impinging on their TFW as a more extensively constraining ‘riverbed').

More generally and concretely, technology as we experience it today in our cultures, manifests through - to borrow Max Leyf words - “the military-industrial complex, the agricultural-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, and the censorship-industrial complex, as Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, and that’s where we should gather our main examples. In this sense, I don’t think it’s possible to speak of a “particular technology” that, as an exception, could harm our spiritual activity or human organization. The adversarial forces are way more methodical and determined than that, and we absolutely need to develop solid consciousness of this reality.

Now pondering your question (in your first reply) “What can't we do now that we could do previously? Does modern technology make it impossible for us to explore more spiritual states of being?”
With the idea of technology given above, the extent to which I would agree with the spirit of your question (technology is a spiritual benefit that adds to our palette of activities) is the ‘mechanical’ way in which our future is always expansive compared to our past. Perceptions recede into memory and our intuitive context automatically expands and ‘smartens up’. Technology is here now and will be there in the future, hence it’s inevitably in the mix of our 'automatically wiser' future.
Now for the letter of your question, I would say: it’s not so useful to think in terms of whether anything has become impossible in principle. In thinking for example, everything is possible, in principle. With enough thinking force, we are able to express our freedom in the activity, in principle. So the answer to your question would inevitably be "no", by construction. Therefore, a more relevant question would be the question of resistance: how much extra obstacles and resistance are brought forward by technological convergence? Sure, it must be in principle redeemable, but how difficult does it get for human activity to span in certain directions and with certain intents in the face of new technology? That those directions are not made formally impossible to expand into by technology is not the point. Granted that a high Initiate and their most determined students could disproof the impossibility, how much harder has it become for humanity as a whole to carry out spiritual activity with continuity and intent?

Besides, it’s easy to name things that we can’t do now, but could do previously, especially in the sensorial and feeling spectrums. Again, in the thinking spectrum, it would be formally impossible to name something that one absolutely can’t do now, but could do previously, firstly because the potential of what we can “do” in thinking is expansive with time, by universal construction, and secondly because, with enough thinking power, everything is literally possible in thinking activity. Nonetheless, we can surely speak of thinking activities - even of the most basic type - becoming harder and harder to operate, in connection with expanding technological compounds at the convergence of which we have put our own physical, soul, and spiritual being. Things such as reliably using our physical brain functions to carry out basic intellectual thinking, from thought A to thought B, free from the hazards of mental fog, mental exhaustion, mental flutter, attention span limits, or emotional breakdown are sure examples. On the side of the sensory spectrum, examples of shrinking human activity due to technological expansion are the limitations created by environmental pollution of all kinds. And in terms of the feeling spectrum, we could look at all sorts of obstacles to a conscious life of feelings constituted by behavioral-nudging technologies, be the nudging dispensed by our smart screens, smart social engineering or our smart... car.

[AshvinP]

Hi Ashvin,

Thanks for clarifying your point in the above two posts. I definitely understand and agree with the expansive support and reflective potential enclosed in scientific conceptions, which, as you say, is exemplified, for instance, in the numerous mathematical and scientific analogies Cleric has used through the years, to facilitate understanding of spiritual realities - from aliasing, to Fourier transforms, to protein life, to the Schrödinger equation and more.

Right, but to be clear, it isn't just the fact that these developments provide us with metaphors to help our understanding, but they also reflect the evolution of thinking itself as it probes and restores more of the intuitive potential. Yet something else is obviously needed so this doesn't remain a theoretical restoration but also becomes a concrete one that inspires the collective feeling and will toward the highest ideals. That something else is the Christ impulse toward self-knowledge and moral intuition.

However, this is not exactly what I think about when reference is made to technology. I would say that technology refers to the physical (in the sense recently discussed on the GA 13 thread) expressions, the concrete manifestations of the mathematical-scientific theories and conceptions. It is the translation of those conceptions in specific and multifaceted 'riverbed features'. And the reason why I intended to revive a discussion on "technology and transhumanism" is that I see the problematic, adversarial character of these 'riverbed features', and the connected distorsions of spiritual activity, as a predominant aspect of tech developments of our present times.

In this sense, it was probably not a great choice for my part to refresh this topic by quoting your idea that technology expands our palette of activity, since we weren’t referring to the same concept of technology. Nonetheless, I think there is a danger in holding such a noble and idealized (in common sense) conception of “modern technology” as the one you have explained here. I believe that, if we contextualize modern technology through examples such as GR, QM, the foundations of physics and the findings of mechanical/materials/electronic engineering, we are at risk of giving a partially concealed, if not heavily botoxed, representation of what modern technology actually is. I think it would be more accurate to shift attention from historical scientific impulses - and tech that creates smart tools from that accumulation of knowledge and expertise - to technology that impacts (and disrupts) the physical-etheric bodily complex of man, animals and plants in the most intimate, often irreversible ways, like chemical engineering and bioengineering are doing, for example. I would say that these, in association with behavioral science and related tech, are the new, preponderant technological orientations of our present day. Good tools may elicit recognition and awe, but there’s not much novelty in that. Man has been engineering smart tools for millennia, and there are even various animal species that are able to engineer tools. In this sense, we lose something of the burning meaning of technology today if we only focus attention on the organizing beauty of mathematical models and their brilliant employments, such as the concentration and coordination of practical thought encapsulated in a car.

So I think we should rather illustrate present-day technology through the wealth of readily available examples in which man is confronted by technology directly, rather than through the intermediation of objects-tools. Tech advancements are used nowadays in convergent ways, and the point of convergence of them all is, as it appears, man himself, or should we say, life itself. In other words, to a large extent, these new convergent ways appear to directly support the advent of the transhuman man. (By the way, as an incidental comment on your example of the car, even an objectified technological tool like a “modern car” is not anymore what it used to be, but now converges unto the user and their user-experience, by impinging on their TFW as a more extensively constraining ‘riverbed').

More generally and concretely, technology as we experience it today in our cultures, manifests through - to borrow Max Leyf words - “the military-industrial complex, the agricultural-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, and the censorship-industrial complex, as Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, and that’s where we should gather our main examples. In this sense, I don’t think it’s possible to speak of a “particular technology” that, as an exception, could harm our spiritual activity or human organization. The adversarial forces are way more methodical and determined than that, and we absolutely need to develop solid consciousness of this reality.

Now pondering your question (in your first reply) “What can't we do now that we could do previously? Does modern technology make it impossible for us to explore more spiritual states of being?”
With the idea of technology given above, the extent to which I would agree with the spirit of your question (technology is a spiritual benefit that adds to our palette of activities) is the ‘mechanical’ way in which our future is always expansive compared to our past. Perceptions recede into memory and our intuitive context automatically expands and ‘smartens up’. Technology is here now and will be there in the future, hence it’s inevitably in the mix of our 'automatically wiser' future.
Now for the letter of your question, I would say: it’s not so useful to think in terms of whether anything has become impossible in principle. In thinking for example, everything is possible, in principle. With enough thinking force, we are able to express our freedom in the activity, in principle. So the answer to your question would inevitably be "no", by construction. Therefore, a more relevant question would be the question of resistance: how much extra obstacles and resistance are brought forward by technological convergence? Sure, it must be in principle redeemable, but how difficult does it get for human activity to span in certain directions and with certain intents in the face of new technology? That those directions are not made formally impossible to expand into by technology is not the point. Granted that a high Initiate and their most determined students could disproof the impossibility, how much harder has it become for humanity as a whole to carry out spiritual activity with continuity and intent?

Besides, it’s easy to name things that we can’t do now, but could do previously, especially in the sensorial and feeling spectrums. Again, in the thinking spectrum, it would be formally impossible to name something that one absolutely can’t do now, but could do previously, firstly because the potential of what we can “do” in thinking is expansive with time, by universal construction, and secondly because, with enough thinking power, everything is literally possible in thinking activity. Nonetheless, we can surely speak of thinking activities - even of the most basic type - becoming harder and harder to operate, in connection with expanding technological compounds at the convergence of which we have put our own physical, soul, and spiritual being. Things such as reliably using our physical brain functions to carry out basic intellectual thinking, from thought A to thought B, free from the hazards of mental fog, mental exhaustion, mental flutter, attention span limits, or emotional breakdown are sure examples. On the side of the sensory spectrum, examples of shrinking human activity due to technological expansion are the limitations created by environmental pollution of all kinds. And in terms of the feeling spectrum, we could look at all sorts of obstacles to a conscious life of feelings constituted by behavioral-nudging technologies, be the nudging dispensed by our smart screens, smart social engineering or our smart... car.

Yes, I think we are focusing on different things. I know many Anthroposophists feel it is important to stress the various dangers of the technological complexes we are now dealing with, and I don't have anything against that per se. For me, personally, it just feels like a completely secondary thing that can easily get lost in a sea of analytic complexity (sometimes this is why I skip through parts of Gabriel's videos, for example). We can gather many examples and dwell on all the ways they can harm us which are, of course, infinite in number. Every sip of water and breath we take could be harmful in this sense, with all that is injected into the waterways and atmosphere. There are millions of people voicing similar concerns across the whole spectrum of intellectual world outlooks. But I struggle to see how we build a bridge from that intellectual focus to the real inner work, the striving towards a holistic understanding of our spiritual existence and inner perfection of the soul life.

What would be your suggestions in this domain? How do we leverage this focus on transhumanist technology and its harmful influences to gain intuitive sensitivity to the inner gestures that are expressed through modern culture and its evolution? I am genuinely curious because, right now, I am failing to find the connection. This is why I feel like focusing on what we have been instinctively doing through our thinking pursuits in modern civilization, the deeper inner gestures we have been performing, is what holds the most hope for bringing inner clarity that can make a redemptive difference to the treacherous path we are on. It helps us orient toward the Truth of our inner activity, even when that activity expresses itself at the surface in the most grotesque technological manifestations. The adversarial forces try to hijack this truthful flow of inner activity for their own purposes, but once we reach deep enough (beyond the lower astral), there is nothing they can do to obscure its reality from our consciousness.

It is simply inevitable that large spectrums of the population will freefall with the adversarial impulses. Certain things are baked into the larger evolutionary spectrum, like the 'war of all against all'. The best thing I think we can do to mitigate the harmful effects of this evolutionary course is to work on our own cognitive development and, hopefully, act as shining beacons of light for the few people whom we happen to interact with along the way. Although we certainly need to communicate spiritual realities in lucid concepts, intellectual arguments about the dangers of materialistic technology are not going to be a stimulus of awakening for most if any souls. These simply don't seem to reach deep enough. Rather it is going to be the Spirit working through the living example we set by our whole way of thinking, feeling, and being. We may even be doing more good by praying for and sending loving auras of protection to our fellow beings, even if they don't know it.

[Federica]

What would be your suggestions in this domain?

Ashvin,

I will wait until tomorrow to post my reply. In the meantime, on the topic of the noble scientific impulses of the first scientists versus what the worldwide reality of academic research has become in the present day - through interference with adversarial impulses - this Sabine Hossenfelder video comes along at about the right time, as a reminder to keep the layers of spiritual activity in alignment with each other (my preferred passage is form about 10:05 to 11:00):

[Cleric K]

As Ashvin hints, I feel that the main trouble today is that the depth aspect of existence is simply inconceivable for most. And the greatest trouble is that people can't even realize that there's something to be conceived. It's as if the inner soul layers exercise magnetic repulsion and throw the cognizing "I" into the perceptual periphery.

One of the most exciting things about our consciousness piercing through the depth, is that we immediately recognize potential meaning of life that was simply unimaginable before. Even if we had some religious disposition previously, we still had to pass through the Earthly stage humbly, following the moral rules, and hoping for the best after death. When we awaken to the spiritual dimension of existence here and now, a completely new world of possibilities opens before our eyes which can make life highly meaningful.

Without the possibility for such deeper meaning, it is difficult to comprehend the transitional role of all technology. For example, no matter how much I've tried to explain things to my brother, he sees things as if I suggest that people should get back on the trees. To him, life without technology equals a life of naked and barefoot humans. It's beyond his imagination that there could be something coming from a direction completely orthogonal to the sensory world, which could give richness and meaning to life beyond our wildest expectations. Of course, he simply stubbornly resists understanding what I'm talking about - it's much more convenient to believe that the other party is offering something absurd and to simply dismiss it out of hand. Nevertheless, this is only a symptom of the general situation today. As long as Earthly existence is grasped as self-contained, and anything else can eventually be expected only after death, it's inevitable that our attempts to moderate technology will always seem like some 'green' attempt to minimize human impact on the natural environment. If this sentiment is followed to its ultimate conclusion we reach something like antinatalism or the voluntary human extinction movement.

In that sense, every impulse for technology moderation should be inspired by the insight into something higher to which the tech stands in the way. In the same sense, cutting alcohol or meat (which in a broader sense are also part of the tech tree) works in the best way only when we see the greater life that opens up, and not simply because of a vague sense of guilt that we want to minimize.

And none of this is easy. On one hand, the fruits of our efforts are rarely immediate, thus the lower self has plenty of reasons to protest that it makes sacrifices for nothing. On the other hand, we have to find a gradient for evolution. It's easy to say that wifi, the currents in the chips of the device we're now using to access this forum, and so on, introduce certain etheric smog. This is true. But at the same time, they give us the means of communication without which it'll be very difficult to exchange thoughts and ideas at the intensity that is presently possible. So we're faced with the non-easy task of understanding technology and be willing to endure some of its negative effects if this can be used for the greater good. We shouldn't delude ourselves that this is an easy task. There'll surely be mistakes. Yet the important thing is to always have the high ideal in sight. This is the only beacon that can help us hold the right course, even if meandering and going backward at times.

[Cleric K]

What would be your suggestions in this domain?

Ashvin,

I will wait until tomorrow to post my reply. In the meantime, on the topic of the noble scientific impulses of the first scientists versus what the worldwide reality of academic research has become in the present day - through interference with adversarial impulses - this Sabine Hossenfelder video comes along at about the right time, as a reminder to keep the layers of spiritual activity in alignment with each other (my preferred passage is form about 10:05 to 11:00):

This reminded me of something I saw recently:



In short, it's a story of the development of medicine in Europe, in the 19th century, when things like bacteria were not yet suspected. Basically, doctors did autopsies, and then without washing in any way, they went to deliver babies.

Probably the most chilling of all was the fact that the majority of doctors at that time simply refused to take seriously that washing their hands could have any relevance. It was not because there was no evidence, it was of completely human nature, including convenience and refusal to admit that there could be an error. Unfortunately, in our 'enlightened' modern age, human thinking is still enslaved by such not-in-the-least scientific habits. It will be no less shocking in the future when we look back on our present times and see how a great majority of illnesses, like cancerous, cardio, neurological, are vastly a result of the unnatural materialistic mode of existence that the soul is squeezed into, and as a result, through its unorganized forces, ruining the vital flow the body.

[Federica]

...
Yes, I think we are focusing on different things. I know many Anthroposophists feel it is important to stress the various dangers of the technological complexes we are now dealing with, and I don't have anything against that per se. For me, personally, it just feels like a completely secondary thing that can easily get lost in a sea of analytic complexity (sometimes this is why I skip through parts of Gabriel's videos, for example). We can gather many examples and dwell on all the ways they can harm us which are, of course, infinite in number. Every sip of water and breath we take could be harmful in this sense, with all that is injected into the waterways and atmosphere. There are millions of people voicing similar concerns across the whole spectrum of intellectual world outlooks. But I struggle to see how we build a bridge from that intellectual focus to the real inner work, the striving towards a holistic understanding of our spiritual existence and inner perfection of the soul life.

What would be your suggestions in this domain? How do we leverage this focus on transhumanist technology and its harmful influences to gain intuitive sensitivity to the inner gestures that are expressed through modern culture and its evolution?
...

Pre-scriptum: I see Cleric has posted something in between, but I haven't read it yet. So, if there is contradiction with what I'm writing here (I am reasonably sure there will be) it's not stubborn insistence, it's just that I am trying to discipline my thoughts, which involves not 'reading the facit' too early.


Ashvin,

I also skip through Gabriel’s videos by now. For my part, I believe he is being influenced and pushed in the direction of trying to package and market his experience (that I only partially understand as Anthroposophical) in ways that flirt with catastrophism and with inciting feelings of fear and hopelessness. I am not sure buying his latest book was a great idea.

Besides, the transhumanist agenda is a clearly identifiable function shaping the layers of our flow of becoming, but your choice of words above read as a “soft trivializing” of this reality, unless it’s only my misguided impression. In any case, my goal is not to discuss subjective impressions here, so let me try to be more factual, and clarify: I don’t argue for stressing or mapping the infinite number of dangers in the technological complexes we are dealing with. To be done seriously, such an ambition would take a considerable amount of time and, as you say, it would inevitably lead to levels of analytical complexity that could easily become distracting and dispersive. Not that deepening one’s focus on any particular technological complex is meaningless or useless per se, but I think everyone can decide for oneself what, if any, deeper analytical focus one wants to have in this domain. Anyhow, this is not what I’m talking about.

My point is rather that we need to be clearly aware of the evolving overarching character of technological complexes at this point in time, not only as outer, physical phenomena that can be apprehended intellectually, but as constraints that impact our whole spectrum of activities in peculiar ways. These ways are recognizable, because they bear the hallmark of the adversarial forces. They attack our thinking potential. They push towards an exclusive focus on the physical body. They stir up and leverage fear, pride and opposition. And since I don’t focus on the intellectual analysis of each piece of this converging matrix, but on the meaning of its unfolding as a whole, I don’t feel there are bridges to build between the understanding of these “four Horsemen of Apocalypse” and ourselves. These impulses are already well bridged in a continuum inside our thinking, feeling and will habits and practices. We don't need a bridge to get us across to some different landscape. We only have to recognize their presence in our experiential flow, and the hallmark of their operating mode at the various layers of our being. Then we have to find and express the degrees of freedom required to infuse our unfolding ‘interferences’ with harmonious intents that result in moral outcomes.

To use the language of your last Steiner quote on the Schrödinger thread, “it is not only the forces which actually determine our life on the physical plane that stream down upon us but also the measureless abundance of forces which exist only as possibilities, some of which seldom make their way into our physical consciousness.” My understanding is that, as part of those fields of possibilities, there are both good and evil spiritual intents. Both have an influence on us, because they precipitate in our perceptual spectrum and/or because they shape its meaningful context from the background, as unrealized intents. Now, one of the main avenues for the precipitation of evil intents in our flow of becoming and/or for their persistence in our intuitive potential, is surely the ahrimanic techno-transhumanist impulse. Again, with impulse I don’t intend to only point to manifesting phenomena. I imagine (lacking a direct supersensible experience of that) that the impulse that stands in the background of the technologies that are editing the human genome, for example, is an evil formative force in the etheric that has power to influence our thoughts, and upstream of that, it is grounded in soul substance that can work on our feelings, and intentions. So I believe the more we are able to bring these flowing and nudging constraints into clear consciousness, the more our soul is elevated above habitual-emotional reactivity and choices.

From this perspective, reading through your reasoning - that, in case one particular technology harms our bodily organization, then we should definitely avoid that one technology, since it obviously brings no expansive potential to spiritual activity - I feel that the super-organized, consistent character of the technological matrix (that is, a direct target on the entire human bodily organization) is disregarded, or trivialized. As I said, from my perspective, a conception of technology ushered by GR, QM, pure scientific impulses and wonders of engineering practically misrepresents the current perceptual spectrum (not only sensory), since it doesn't account for the pressure on our physical thinking capacity, pressure on our whole constitution, operated through technological means from all sides. It seems to me that such a posture impedes the proper alignment of the layers of spiritual activity. Then we practically are in the same situation as the one who stubs their toe on a table leg.

For example, if we fall for the Youtube behavioral nudging pushed onto us through their video platform technology, and spend half an hour clicking from Short to Short, passively navigating through the ‘personalized content suggestions’, not only are we ‘stubbing our toe on the table leg’, but we are also failing to integrate the continuous feedback made available to us through the experience. On the one hand, there’s an idea of technology that refers back to the abstract noble science and benevolent institutions, while, on the other hand, our deeds are obeying the constraint dictated by technological pressure, that in turn creates detrimental thinking vacuum, while our feeling may be oscillating between pleasure, reward, fear, guilt, confusion, etcetera. Such an experiential misalignment looks to me like a temporary but significant eclipse of higher intents.

So my super basic suggestion would be to simply try to remain vigilant and incorporate these impulses - including their sensory fallbacks - into our efforts to rightly apprehend our flow of becoming. And to orient it in the direction of the good, all the way down to our everyday choices and gestures. Yes, a certain level of due diligence and intellectual effort would be inevitable, but I don’t see any problems with that, as long as it’s not only an intellectual drive, guided by unscrutinized wishes. In the example, it’s not too hard to realize that letting some algorithm inundate our mind space with uncontrolled content (uncontrolled for us) for unclear (for us) purposes, through the means of behavioral technology that we let operate on our bodily-soul complex in very concrete and harmful ways cannot be healthy or wise, not for any part of our human organization. The entire depth of our layers of experiential flow would be impacted, of course.

In summary, I believe I am saying obvious things, based on spiritual common sense. That we need to bring into awareness the encompassing technological convergence that characterizes this point in time, and that we also need to mindfully adjust our deeds accordingly, in our daily experiential flow. For the same reason that - even when on an intuitive thinking path, conscious of certain spiritual and karmic realities - we pay attention not to be hit by a random car when crossing the street, and we don’t empty our savings accounts overnight to give away banknotes on a street corner, even if we foresee a world where the role of money will eventually disappear, for the same reason - and even if we foresee a world (or a part of it) in which institutions will operate benevolently and humanely - we don’t want to ignore (or see as completely secondary) the technologies behind the transhumanist impulse. I think this is part of our responsibility (the same that you often refer to) to align the concentric layers of being and, correspondingly, conduct our lives with reasonable care, in keeping with the prevalent outer and inner conditions that are necessary for us to relate to, in order to preserve our life and health to reasonable extent.

[Federica]

...
The adversarial forces try to hijack this truthful flow of inner activity for their own purposes, but once we reach deep enough (beyond the lower astral), there is nothing they can do to obscure its reality from our consciousness.

It is simply inevitable that large spectrums of the population will freefall with the adversarial impulses. Certain things are baked into the larger evolutionary spectrum, like the 'war of all against all'. The best thing I think we can do to mitigate the harmful effects of this evolutionary course is to work on our own cognitive development and, hopefully, act as shining beacons of light for the few people whom we happen to interact with along the way. Although we certainly need to communicate spiritual realities in lucid concepts, intellectual arguments about the dangers of materialistic technology are not going to be a stimulus of awakening for most if any souls. These simply don't seem to reach deep enough. Rather it is going to be the Spirit working through the living example we set by our whole way of thinking, feeling, and being. We may even be doing more good by praying for and sending loving auras of protection to our fellow beings, even if they don't know it.

Ashvin,

Could you say more on why you think that enough soul work is enough to neutralize the evil attempts to destroy our being? It comes to mind what Scaligero said about the ahrimanic attacks he was experiencing (in one of the reported lectures) and Steiner had to deal with the adversarial forces all his life, from the moment his identity was misrecorded at birth, until his body was poisoned to death.

Also, my point is not to convince others talking about the "dangers of materialistic technology". It is first and foremost an individual fight to expel the adversarial forces from one's own being, and hopefully gain enough force to counteract them in more extended ways (that I have no clear idea of yet).

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

I also skip through Gabriel’s videos by now. For my part, I believe he is being influenced and pushed in the direction of trying to package and market his experience (that I only partially understand as Anthroposophical) in ways that flirt with catastrophism and with inciting feelings of fear and hopelessness. I am not sure buying his latest book was a great idea.

Besides, the transhumanist agenda is a clearly identifiable function shaping the layers of our flow of becoming, but your choice of words above read as a “soft trivializing” of this reality, unless it’s only my misguided impression. In any case, my goal is not to discuss subjective impressions here, so let me try to be more factual, and clarify: I don’t argue for stressing or mapping the infinite number of dangers in the technological complexes we are dealing with. To be done seriously, such an ambition would take a considerable amount of time and, as you say, it would inevitably lead to levels of analytical complexity that could easily become distracting and dispersive. Not that deepening one’s focus on any particular technological complex is meaningless or useless per se, but I think everyone can decide for oneself what, if any, deeper analytical focus one wants to have in this domain. Anyhow, this is not what I’m talking about.

My point is rather that we need to be clearly aware of the evolving overarching character of technological complexes at this point in time, not only as outer, physical phenomena that can be apprehended intellectually, but as constraints that impact our whole spectrum of activities in peculiar ways. These ways are recognizable, because they bear the hallmark of the adversarial forces. They attack our thinking potential. They push towards an exclusive focus on the physical body. They stir up and leverage fear, pride and opposition. And since I don’t focus on the intellectual analysis of each piece of this converging matrix, but on the meaning of its unfolding as a whole, I don’t feel there are bridges to build between the understanding of these “four Horsemen of Apocalypse” and ourselves. These impulses are already well bridged in a continuum inside our thinking, feeling and will habits and practices. We don't need a bridge to get us across to some different landscape. We only have to recognize their presence in our experiential flow, and the hallmark of their operating mode at the various layers of our being. Then we have to find and express the degrees of freedom required to infuse our unfolding ‘interferences’ with harmonious intents that result in moral outcomes.

To use the language of your last Steiner quote on the Schrödinger thread, “it is not only the forces which actually determine our life on the physical plane that stream down upon us but also the measureless abundance of forces which exist only as possibilities, some of which seldom make their way into our physical consciousness.” My understanding is that, as part of those fields of possibilities, there are both good and evil spiritual intents. Both have an influence on us, because they precipitate in our perceptual spectrum and/or because they shape its meaningful context from the background, as unrealized intents. Now, one of the main avenues for the precipitation of evil intents in our flow of becoming and/or for their persistence in our intuitive potential, is surely the ahrimanic techno-transhumanist impulse. Again, with impulse I don’t intend to only point to manifesting phenomena. I imagine (lacking a direct supersensible experience of that) that the impulse that stands in the background of the technologies that are editing the human genome, for example, is an evil formative force in the etheric that has power to influence our thoughts, and upstream of that, it is grounded in soul substance that can work on our feelings, and intentions. So I believe the more we are able to bring these flowing and nudging constraints into clear consciousness, the more our soul is elevated above habitual-emotional reactivity and choices.

From this perspective, reading through your reasoning - that, in case one particular technology harms our bodily organization, then we should definitely avoid that one technology, since it obviously brings no expansive potential to spiritual activity - I feel that the super-organized, consistent character of the technological matrix (that is, a direct target on the entire human bodily organization) is disregarded, or trivialized. As I said, from my perspective, a conception of technology ushered by GR, QM, pure scientific impulses and wonders of engineering practically misrepresents the current perceptual spectrum (not only sensory), since it doesn't account for the pressure on our physical thinking capacity, pressure on our whole constitution, operated through technological means from all sides. It seems to me that such a posture impedes the proper alignment of the layers of spiritual activity. Then we practically are in the same situation as the one who stubs their toe on a table leg.

For example, if we fall for the Youtube behavioral nudging pushed onto us through their video platform technology, and spend half an hour clicking from Short to Short, passively navigating through the ‘personalized content suggestions’, not only are we ‘stubbing our toe on the table leg’, but we are also failing to integrate the continuous feedback made available to us through the experience. On the one hand, there’s an idea of technology that refers back to the abstract noble science and benevolent institutions, while, on the other hand, our deeds are obeying the constraint dictated by technological pressure, that in turn creates detrimental thinking vacuum, while our feeling may be oscillating between pleasure, reward, fear, guilt, confusion, etcetera. Such an experiential misalignment looks to me like a temporary but significant eclipse of higher intents.

So my super basic suggestion would be to simply try to remain vigilant and incorporate these impulses - including their sensory fallbacks - into our efforts to rightly apprehend our flow of becoming. And to orient it in the direction of the good, all the way down to our everyday choices and gestures. Yes, a certain level of due diligence and intellectual effort would be inevitable, but I don’t see any problems with that, as long as it’s not only an intellectual drive, guided by unscrutinized wishes. In the example, it’s not too hard to realize that letting some algorithm inundate our mind space with uncontrolled content (uncontrolled for us) for unclear (for us) purposes, through the means of behavioral technology that we let operate on our bodily-soul complex in very concrete and harmful ways cannot be healthy or wise, not for any part of our human organization. The entire depth of our layers of experiential flow would be impacted, of course.

In summary, I believe I am saying obvious things, based on spiritual common sense. That we need to bring into awareness the encompassing technological convergence that characterizes this point in time, and that we also need to mindfully adjust our deeds accordingly, in our daily experiential flow. For the same reason that - even when on an intuitive thinking path, conscious of certain spiritual and karmic realities - we pay attention not to be hit by a random car when crossing the street, and we don’t empty our savings accounts overnight to give away banknotes on a street corner, even if we foresee a world where the role of money will eventually disappear, for the same reason - and even if we foresee a world (or a part of it) in which institutions will operate benevolently and humanely - we don’t want to ignore (or see as completely secondary) the technologies behind the transhumanist impulse. I think this is part of our responsibility (the same that you often refer to) to align the concentric layers of being and, correspondingly, conduct our lives with reasonable care, in keeping with the prevalent outer and inner conditions that are necessary for us to relate to, in order to preserve our life and health to reasonable extent.

Ashvin,

Could you say more on why you think that enough soul work is enough to neutralize the evil attempts to destroy our being? It comes to mind what Scaligero said about the ahrimanic attacks he was experiencing (in one of the reported lectures) and Steiner had to deal with the adversarial forces all his life, from the moment his identity was misrecorded at birth, until his body was poisoned to death.

Also, my point is not to convince others talking about the "dangers of materialistic technology". It is first and foremost an individual fight to expel the adversarial forces from one's own being, and hopefully gain enough force to counteract them in more extended ways (that I have no clear idea of yet).

Thanks for this elaboration of your reasoning, Federica.

I surely agree that we need to become more conscious of all environmental influences on our flow of becoming, our soul rhythms and thinking states of being. Not only that, but we will become more conscious of them by doing the inner work - prayer, concentration, and attendant exercises - even if we aren't explicitly seeking to unveil one particular influence or another. The techno-transhumanist impulse, for ex., is embedded in our soul curvature even if we are not directly involved in the pursuit or use of such technologies. The focus on physical pleasures, the tendency toward indolence, fear, pride, etc. are all currents of our modern soul configuration that will be exposed to the light of consciousness through inner development. We will become more acquainted with these currents than we ever wished to be or imagined we could be. And, hopefully, they are also exposed to the 'purgatorial' fire of Divine consciousness in that process, so we integrate the feedback and gradually transmute them in our voluntary pursuit of more noble, more ideal pleasures and satisfactions that extend beyond mere personal interests.

I think the emphasis should always be first and foremost on that spiritual alchemy, which is also highlighted by the videos you and Cleric shared. It is not the science or technology itself that prevents us from developing our living thinking capacity and harmonizing the layers of our intuitive context. Rather it is the selfish soul habits - the stubborn assumptions, beliefs, and prejudices we cling to in vain attempts to maintain our current myopic state of being - that render the technological advances most dangerous. In that sense, we should focus on the most proximate soul constraints that we can penetrate with intuitive insight and creatively manage. These soul constraints also coincide with the collective soul configuration of modern civilization, so we will surely gain insight into the technological manifestations of these inner impulses at the same time.

On the other hand, even if there was such a technology that releases nanobots into the air that can swim directly into our brains and render them useless for spiritual development, there is hardly any point worrying about it or trying to account for its development. Just as we relax the periphery in concentration and focus on the humble thought-image we are responsible for, I think we can relax this sort of periphery as well, the techno manifestations way beyond our control. When we work on becoming conscious of the intuitive depth and thereby gaining the new meaningful perspective on life that Cleric mentioned, our orientation toward the technological environment will naturally follow a corrective course to the greatest extent possible (and it is up to the wise forces guiding our overall karmic streams what that extent will be). It won't be a linear progression, as Cleric mentioned, but more a zigzagging path with fits and starts, missteps and mistakes. Yet the overall trend will be toward incarnating more and more of the higher Self within earthly existence.

For most of us, the technologies we are immediately immersed in and need to navigate are our phones, computers, cars, home appliances, processed foods, and so forth. There are subtle destructive influences working through all of these and we are constantly exposed to them. So this is where we first need to develop intuitive sensitivity and make the tough negotiations and decisions that Cleric referenced. We will have to figure out, of course with the help of Divine feedback via prayer and meditation and living thinking, what negative effects from these sources are worth enduring and how to best make use of them in pursuit of our spiritual ideals. The YouTube example you gave is a great one and also helps highlight how it is entirely within our power to exercise self-discipline and navigate such technologies if we remain vigilant. For anything that is completely beyond our control, like this for example, I see no point in unduly obsessing over it (which is not to say you are).

I will also add that focusing on the inner nature of scientific thinking and pursuits (the intuitive gestures that make such pursuits possible), to elucidate how the intuitive potential continually condenses through our "I" into manifest existence, is anything but abstract. This isn't simply nostalgia for the bygone days of science on which we reminisce or vaguely hope to return. We want to deeply understand how the current perceptual spectrum came into existence so we can also understand how it can be reshaped through our inner efforts going forward. We want to learn from all the missteps that were made within the recesses of our soul life in condensing the current spectrum. This is an intimate work that will last over multiple incarnations and discarnate periods. It's the only thing that carries real hope for protection from adversarial influences that seek to derail Earthly evolution and for establishing the bridge between our current time and the intents to be fulfilled for future centuries and epochs.

[Federica]

This reminded me of something I saw recently:

---

In short, it's a story of the development of medicine in Europe, in the 19th century, when things like bacteria were not yet suspected. Basically, doctors did autopsies, and then without washing in any way, they went to deliver babies.

Probably the most chilling of all was the fact that the majority of doctors at that time simply refused to take seriously that washing their hands could have any relevance. It was not because there was no evidence, it was of completely human nature, including convenience and refusal to admit that there could be an error. Unfortunately, in our 'enlightened' modern age, human thinking is still enslaved by such not-in-the-least scientific habits. It will be no less shocking in the future when we look back on our present times and see how a great majority of illnesses, like cancerous, cardio, neurological, are vastly a result of the unnatural materialistic mode of existence that the soul is squeezed into, and as a result, through its unorganized forces, ruining the vital flow the body.

Curiously, it was a few days ago when I read something about Semmelweis, and that early 1800s 'women epidemic'. It makes one wonder what this unlucky man must have carried in his karma, to be forced through such a painful life path. And it makes one reflect, as you say, how we wrongly tend to believe that, in our present times, we have moved past that sort of gross mistakes and wicked, utterly unscientific, thinking habits.
I look forward to these future times you evoke, when we will look back to this day, and the widespread illnesses of misalignment in our members of being. Both the trends I am gathering from the internet, and my personal experience with the world around me, are telling me that these illnesses are unfortunately on the rise, for the time being. This year more than ever before, I am having postponed sessions for health reasons in my training/coaching work, and I am also doing countless gym class replacements for sick instructors, supposedly young and physically strong people, but for some reason, continually falling sick. Last thing I heard of, just yesterday, is tinnitus, and I remember BK also publicly shared that he was suffering from it. By the way, as I was searching for information about this condition, I found an interesting page on anthroposophic medicine:

https://www.anthromed.org/

Not that I really understand much of the concrete modes of these imbalances between the astral and the etheric, however, this is certainly a particular interest I have. I do want to better understand these imbalances, to go from the general intuition that cancer, diabetes and other conditions feed on the ‘dark corners’ that we create within the ‘dynamic ecosystem’ of our bodies, to a more transparent experience of the nature of those flows. One intuition I have - that I will pin down here as a general question - is that there are two distinct big sources of illnesses. One is the source you reference - the effect of the materialistic mindset and habits on our human organization. Then, the clear antidote is to leverage the “most proximate” layer, as Ashvin would say, and use our thinking to work through the personal soul constraints we unconsciously live into and from.

Then, I believe there is also another, distinct source of illness, that meets us from the opposite side, so to say. It penetrates our being from the side of the sensory spectrum, the physical body, and the choices we continually make in relation to it. In a sense, these illnesses are are more directly karmic, and they also form a continuum with the so-called accidents of life, including accidents occurring during embryonic development, and resulting in congenital illnesses, but also extending to the accidents-illnesses with origin in everyday life, like a car accident, a domestic accident, or a suffered violent event.

In response to these illnesses-accidents that are not directly generated by inner habits, but enter our reality from outside, so to say, we should maybe venture into less proximate layers of being, as if maintaining a large front of intents, where we aspire to become ‘polymaths’ of the fight against evil forces, I dare to say. Whilst we counter the first type by precise intervention through the most free tool we have at our disposal, and we recreate our world, day after day, from that edge, we have to deal with the latter type by surfing the interfering field of karmic possibilities, trying to develop a sensitivity for the accidents we are able to escape - since they were lingering within a window of karmic indeterminateness, at the frontier of what we have the power to ‘change’ in our becoming, taken from its material side first. I am not sure if I am making myself understood, but I feel we should equally apply the trial and error process to both edges of our becoming, inner and outer, to develop an all-front, all-round awareness, and do all in our power not to be taken aback by the encircling forces of darkness.

[Cleric K]

Curiously, it was a few days ago when I read something about Semmelweis, and that early 1800s 'women epidemic'. It makes one wonder what this unlucky man must have carried in his karma, to be forced through such a painful life path. And it makes one reflect, as you say, how we wrongly tend to believe that, in our present times, we have moved past that sort of gross mistakes and wicked, utterly unscientific, thinking habits.
I look forward to these future times you evoke, when we will look back to this day, and the widespread illnesses of misalignment in our members of being. Both the trends I am gathering from the internet, and my personal experience with the world around me, are telling me that these illnesses are unfortunately on the rise, for the time being. This year more than ever before, I am having postponed sessions for health reasons in my training/coaching work, and I am also doing countless gym class replacements for sick instructors, supposedly young and physically strong people, but for some reason, continually falling sick. Last thing I heard of, just yesterday, is tinnitus, and I remember BK also publicly shared that he was suffering from it. By the way, as I was searching for information about this condition, I found an interesting page on anthroposophic medicine:

https://www.anthromed.org/

Not that I really understand much of the concrete modes of these imbalances between the astral and the etheric, however, this is certainly a particular interest I have. I do want to better understand these imbalances, to go from the general intuition that cancer, diabetes and other conditions feed on the ‘dark corners’ that we create within the ‘dynamic ecosystem’ of our bodies, to a more transparent experience of the nature of those flows. One intuition I have - that I will pin down here as a general question - is that there are two distinct big sources of illnesses. One is the source you reference - the effect of the materialistic mindset and habits on our human organization. Then, the clear antidote is to leverage the “most proximate” layer, as Ashvin would say, and use our thinking to work through the personal soul constraints we unconsciously live into and from.

Then, I believe there is also another, distinct source of illness, that meets us from the opposite side, so to say. It penetrates our being from the side of the sensory spectrum, the physical body, and the choices we continually make in relation to it. In a sense, these illnesses are are more directly karmic, and they also form a continuum with the so-called accidents of life, including accidents occurring during embryonic development, and resulting in congenital illnesses, but also extending to the accidents-illnesses with origin in everyday life, like a car accident, a domestic accident, or a suffered violent event.

In response to these illnesses-accidents that are not directly generated by inner habits, but enter our reality from outside, so to say, we should maybe venture into less proximate layers of being, as if maintaining a large front of intents, where we aspire to become ‘polymaths’ of the fight against evil forces, I dare to say. Whilst we counter the first type by precise intervention through the most free tool we have at our disposal, and we recreate our world, day after day, from that edge, we have to deal with the latter type by surfing the interfering field of karmic possibilities, trying to develop a sensitivity fro the accidents we are able to escape - since they were lingering within a window of karmic indeterminateness, at the frontier of what we have the power to ‘change’ in our becoming, taken from its material side first. I am not sure if I am making myself understood, but I feel we sould equally apply the trial and error process to both edges of our becoming, inner and outer, to develop an all-front, all-round awareness, and do all in our power not to be taken aback by the encircling forces of darkness.

Thanks for the site, Federica. I have tinnitus since a child. But in my case it is clearly an acoustic trauma. I used to play with a toy that made clicking sounds and I clicked it very close to my ear. This caused the usual ear-ringing that we may get, for example, from a popping balloon close to our ear, except that this didn't go away. I got my other ear permanently ringing after a Metallica concert some years later Fortunately, it seems that this condition doesn't degrade my hearing quality (at least so far). If I focus my attention I can always find the sound there but normally I don't notice it. Probably the only thing that I wonder about is how perfect silence sounds like This I can't have.

You are right about the different causes of medical conditions and other events in our life. There could be karma that is embedded in the physical sheaths. This would be strongly pronounced even in the Saturn sphere in our sojourn between death and rebirth. Some of the physical conditions of our next life begin to crystalize at this stage. Even though there's no matter, chromosomes, etc., in this midnight hour of our disembodied state, the Cosmic condition is like a seed from which the whole physical universe grows, with our inner bodily experience at the center. From the qualities of that seed, many features of our physical life are determined. These qualities are usually difficult to augment in our lifetime. Instead, they are like conditions that stimulate us to develop certain spiritual forces, which will give us a new direction for our next life. Other kinds of entanglements are more proximate, residing in the soul body, and they can be transformed to a greater extent.

Yet in the physical realm, all these factors interfere in such complicated ways that it's rarely possible to leanly separate the causes. If we don't understand this, we can stumble on difficult questions, like for example something like an airplane crash. Does it mean that everyone on the plane karmically deserved this fate? The answer is no. Here's a thought on the subject:

Question [part of]: Does Anthroposophy attribute no significance to ‘chance’?

Answer [part of]: It is not unjustifiable to speak of “chance” in the physical world. And however true it is to say: there is no “chance” if we take into consideration all the worlds, yet it would be unjustifiable to eradicate the word “chance” if we are merely speaking of the interlinking of things in the physical world.

Chance in the physical world is brought about through the fact that things take place in this world within sensible space. They must, in as far as they occur within this space, also obey the laws of this space. Within this space, things may outwardly meet which have inwardly nothing to do with each other. The causes which let a brick fall from a roof, injuring me as I pass by, do not necessarily have anything to do with my karma which stems from my past.

Many people commit here the error of imagining karmic relations in too simple a fashion. They presume, for instance, that if a brick has injured a person, he must have deserved this injury karmicly. But this is not necessarily so.

In the life of every human being events constantly take place which have nothing at all to do with his merits or his guilt in the past. Such events find their karmic adjustment in the future. If something happens to me today without being my fault, I shall be compensated for it in the future.

One thing is certain: nothing remains without karmic adjustment. However, whether an experience of the human being is the effect of his karmic past or the cause of his karmic future will have to be determined in every individual instance. And this cannot be decided by the intellect accustomed to dealing with the physical world, but solely by occult experience and observation.

https://rudolfsteinerquotes.wordpress.c ... -chance-2/