Love you and Perspectiva’s work as always. With niche construction catching on as a concept in developmental biology and with our deep understanding of just how difficult it is to define technical boundaries of the biological self (i think Levin is proposing computational boundaries or is, at least, testing that), it is no longer just a hunch of how interconnected we are with everything, but a revelation of that “fact.” The question then becomes having been made aware of the fact that we are deeply interconnected with everything on this planet, we are a product of its soil and we make its soil, how does this shift our perspective of what “I” means in this world, and how does that “I” fit into a place, where in a real sense, we are part of the whole thing? I feel like this matters, that’s it not just an awareness of “we are all in this together,” but that in a fundamental way, “we are all this together.”
I’ve always been curious about just about everything, but I think we’ve forgotten that some things just don’t scale well in terms of what we can apprehend, grasp, influence or change. I find I have to keep reminding myself of that, and try to focus on my little patch of the planet, as a gardener, if you will!
Oct 23, 2023·edited Oct 23, 2023Liked by Jonathan Rowson
Beautiful piece, thank you. I think what should follow is:
An elucidation of how we should, and can, go from a planetary imaginary to a planetary morality, ideally including a description of what the future could look like if such a morality becomes commonplace, and how we can get there.
The kind of thing I think should be included in such a successful story of becoming a planetary species, is building an economic system that can get us into the Doughnut in a way that sees its limits as a framework within which to thrive; enabling a renewed flourishing of cultures, but this time with a shared moral basis of us all being part of a single human family; and having a deep future perspective that gives us an awed understanding that 'every adventure has its time' - from the initial peopling of new continents by our distant ancestors, to, perhaps, the eventual peopling of other worlds by our distant descendants. Today's adventure? Saving and establishing a shared ecological, informational and technological inheritance for current and future generations, such as resilient and abundant food systems, a stable climate and thriving nature, and universal access to the internet.
Have you heard of Marcelo Gleiser? He spoke at a conference I attended this year, and this writing greatly reminds me of the talk he gave, calling for a re-centering of the Earth and of life itself in our values. There's a video at this link (about the 10th video down).
Reading “Spiritualise” now - have you ever expanded on Spufford’s “Human Propensity to Eff Things Up” from Unapologetic? HPtFtU. How do we think about leading human groups/societies with this idea in mind?
I’ve just spent the weekend in Edinburgh and we visited Dynamic Earth. Your piece reads as a response to the exhibits there (in fact I’d be surprised if you haven’t been). If you plan to explore these ideas further and in collaboration with others, that place would be an ideal venue to meet. The programme of planetarium films open the mind on a quick-yet-epic scale that I think would be conducive to the kind of thinking you want to stimulate.
It’s the first time I’ve been to that venue in nearly two decades. The previous time was to attend a press conference with the Dalai Lama who, by virtue of being an immortal soul who has inhabited at least fourteen mortal bodies. Listening to him speak at close quarters, I was struck that his personal projects (peace-building, nationhood for a people hopelessly under the thumb of the PRC) depend on a long-termism that harmonise with your ‘planetization’.
Love this perspective. In terms of what should follow, some thoughts:
Anything. Nothing. Something. It's already there, following from ahead. It's perfect as is, whichever way you choose to reveal it. I'm looking forward (or behind?) to reading it!
There's the question of how the relationships between 'things' alters depending on perspective. All things a being is aware of must be in relation to each other - including the thing that is the aware being. But awareness is limited by how the aware being perceives. With the conceptualisation of their experiences, humans (and probably all conceptualising beings, but we don't experience this) necessarily see themselves as apart from all other things - this apartness helps them navigate the world, to know themselves as individuals. But this apartness also misleads them into being blind to the appreciation and respect of other beings they see as not being 'one of them' (non-human animals, other groups of human beings, and probably extraterrestrial beings were they to encounter them), and also into thinking of themselves as superior and outside of the mechanics of the whole. As we start to "increasingly experience the whole thing as our arena" we should do so not with the mindset of being apart and superior, but with the realisation that we are part of the interconnected whole, and with respect for all those who inhabit our time and space.
What should follow? What follows the withdrawal of carbon sequestration which took over hundreds of millions of years but is withdrawn millions of times faster? What follows the "carbon pulse" which enables energy to flow so freely around the finite planet, which enables me to 'follow' you from across the Atlantic? What follows when that deposited resource becomes less available for fewer folks at increasingly premium prices?
Simplification seems to follow. And, pure conjecture, perhaps a genetic species-wide mutation which allows homo futura to communicate, to commune instantly to 'solve problems' rather than all the wasted noise-signal sorting required by our current ear-mouth method (and complicated by all that 'abundant' energy.)
Over-seriousness aside, I enjoy and appreciate your and Perspectiva's contribution to my understanding of self and world. Thanks, from all the way over in "the friendly state."
Love you and Perspectiva’s work as always. With niche construction catching on as a concept in developmental biology and with our deep understanding of just how difficult it is to define technical boundaries of the biological self (i think Levin is proposing computational boundaries or is, at least, testing that), it is no longer just a hunch of how interconnected we are with everything, but a revelation of that “fact.” The question then becomes having been made aware of the fact that we are deeply interconnected with everything on this planet, we are a product of its soil and we make its soil, how does this shift our perspective of what “I” means in this world, and how does that “I” fit into a place, where in a real sense, we are part of the whole thing? I feel like this matters, that’s it not just an awareness of “we are all in this together,” but that in a fundamental way, “we are all this together.”
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I’ve always been curious about just about everything, but I think we’ve forgotten that some things just don’t scale well in terms of what we can apprehend, grasp, influence or change. I find I have to keep reminding myself of that, and try to focus on my little patch of the planet, as a gardener, if you will!
Beautiful piece, thank you. I think what should follow is:
An elucidation of how we should, and can, go from a planetary imaginary to a planetary morality, ideally including a description of what the future could look like if such a morality becomes commonplace, and how we can get there.
The kind of thing I think should be included in such a successful story of becoming a planetary species, is building an economic system that can get us into the Doughnut in a way that sees its limits as a framework within which to thrive; enabling a renewed flourishing of cultures, but this time with a shared moral basis of us all being part of a single human family; and having a deep future perspective that gives us an awed understanding that 'every adventure has its time' - from the initial peopling of new continents by our distant ancestors, to, perhaps, the eventual peopling of other worlds by our distant descendants. Today's adventure? Saving and establishing a shared ecological, informational and technological inheritance for current and future generations, such as resilient and abundant food systems, a stable climate and thriving nature, and universal access to the internet.
Have you heard of Marcelo Gleiser? He spoke at a conference I attended this year, and this writing greatly reminds me of the talk he gave, calling for a re-centering of the Earth and of life itself in our values. There's a video at this link (about the 10th video down).
https://promega.widencollective.com/portals/p7bigueo/ConsciousnessForum
He also has a new book that I haven't gotten around to reading yet called The Dawn of a Mindful Universe.
Reading “Spiritualise” now - have you ever expanded on Spufford’s “Human Propensity to Eff Things Up” from Unapologetic? HPtFtU. How do we think about leading human groups/societies with this idea in mind?
I’ve just spent the weekend in Edinburgh and we visited Dynamic Earth. Your piece reads as a response to the exhibits there (in fact I’d be surprised if you haven’t been). If you plan to explore these ideas further and in collaboration with others, that place would be an ideal venue to meet. The programme of planetarium films open the mind on a quick-yet-epic scale that I think would be conducive to the kind of thinking you want to stimulate.
It’s the first time I’ve been to that venue in nearly two decades. The previous time was to attend a press conference with the Dalai Lama who, by virtue of being an immortal soul who has inhabited at least fourteen mortal bodies. Listening to him speak at close quarters, I was struck that his personal projects (peace-building, nationhood for a people hopelessly under the thumb of the PRC) depend on a long-termism that harmonise with your ‘planetization’.
Love this perspective. In terms of what should follow, some thoughts:
Anything. Nothing. Something. It's already there, following from ahead. It's perfect as is, whichever way you choose to reveal it. I'm looking forward (or behind?) to reading it!
There's the question of how the relationships between 'things' alters depending on perspective. All things a being is aware of must be in relation to each other - including the thing that is the aware being. But awareness is limited by how the aware being perceives. With the conceptualisation of their experiences, humans (and probably all conceptualising beings, but we don't experience this) necessarily see themselves as apart from all other things - this apartness helps them navigate the world, to know themselves as individuals. But this apartness also misleads them into being blind to the appreciation and respect of other beings they see as not being 'one of them' (non-human animals, other groups of human beings, and probably extraterrestrial beings were they to encounter them), and also into thinking of themselves as superior and outside of the mechanics of the whole. As we start to "increasingly experience the whole thing as our arena" we should do so not with the mindset of being apart and superior, but with the realisation that we are part of the interconnected whole, and with respect for all those who inhabit our time and space.
What should follow? What follows the withdrawal of carbon sequestration which took over hundreds of millions of years but is withdrawn millions of times faster? What follows the "carbon pulse" which enables energy to flow so freely around the finite planet, which enables me to 'follow' you from across the Atlantic? What follows when that deposited resource becomes less available for fewer folks at increasingly premium prices?
Simplification seems to follow. And, pure conjecture, perhaps a genetic species-wide mutation which allows homo futura to communicate, to commune instantly to 'solve problems' rather than all the wasted noise-signal sorting required by our current ear-mouth method (and complicated by all that 'abundant' energy.)
Over-seriousness aside, I enjoy and appreciate your and Perspectiva's contribution to my understanding of self and world. Thanks, from all the way over in "the friendly state."