As I began to read your essays I was thinking "John Paul Lederach" and then, of course, you went there.
I am from a Mennonite background and there has been substantial reflection in our community not only around pacifism or peacemaking, but also even more peacebuilding. Two terms we use frequently for this more wholistic vision are the Hebrew term Shalom, and the more recent "Just peace" (as an alternative to Just War).
One Mennonite theorist I lean on is Lisa Schirch, now at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute (https://kroc.nd.edu/faculty-and-staff/lisa-schirch/). A few years ago she prepared a "state of the field" report that I've found helpful. I know you are a better researcher than I am, but I thought I'd point you to this link (and Lisa as a resource) in case you haven't seen it yet.
Thank you for this. I also think that our moral imagination is key. Yet, everything about our dominant culture of imperialism operates to disable this natural human capacity.
One of the most disabling features of imperialism is the morally infantile "might makes right" worldview upon which it is founded. Within that worldview, violence is the only means of conflict resolution that can be conceived. Violence is necessary to impose order. Any solution arising from a larger, more mature moral universe is considered suspect, foolish, unworkable, and unreliable.
I like to say that peace is the people's power. Empire will always win when we engage it on its own terms because it has hoarded material power and has no scruples in its use. In its view, murder, torture, genocide, and mountains of dead children are all acceptable means to its ends. When we operate beyond the might makes right worldview, we deprive empire of its home field advantage and have our best chance of unseating it from the throne of our shared endeavors.💜
I am pretty well educated but still struggle with seeing how clear and insightful language is going to move the world. Of course I see some possibilities, I'm just not sure I believe any of them. So much so that I wonder if the third attractor mustn't imply the future cabal, the future secret society of conspiracy theory.
If the answer to 'cui bono?' is 'everyone' then how is their agency to be enlisted? It just isn't clear from where I sit watching youtube etc that the good word reaches much beyond the choir, and the needed congregation is after all so vast, and so susceptible to persuasion by self interested actors, so much so as to be persuaded to be/ that they are themselves self interested actors...
The intellectual problem then, which I do appreciate is being worked on, would be: crafting the message that will penetrate sufficiently deeply into the man and woman on the Clapham omnibus as to engender a change sufficient to meet the needs of the metacrisis... Am I crazy, but is this a Trojan Horse problem? I think I hope not.
Negative peace is defined by such phrases as, “the absence of violence” or “freedom from anxiety”, whereas positive peace evinces concepts such as eudaimonia, equality and freedom. Negative peace is a necessary but not sufficient condition for positive peace. The internal and external dimensions of peace is probably best illustrated by the distinction that we make between saying that a person is at peace, (e.g. free from anxiety -internally), and that nations are at peace (e.g. free from war -externally) although this is a continuum that extends from within the individual’s psyche to the farthest conception of human contact.
Thus negative internal peace is the freedom from unpleasant thoughts, emotions and sensations, whereas positive internal peace is the presence of constructive thoughts, emotions and sensations that lead to the full realisation of human capabilities (cf Capabilities Approach).
“Full realisation” in this case means, for everyone, everywhere, everywhen; we are not living in (positive) peace when some subset of society, or the world community, are enjoying these advantages at the cost of others. This is a point that is driven home by Galtung’s definitions of structural and cultural violence.
Working towards the goal of eliminating direct, structural and cultural violence could make a country a 'better', more peaceful place to live and at the same time, a less attractive place to invade. Thus, peace work can have both intra- as well as international effects.
Under conditions of positive peace, we would expect to see a less hierarchical, less centralised, less specialised, less technocratic, and more egalitarian society. Australian Peace scholar Brian Martin argues that the absence of controlling elites would make it harder for an invader (or a despot) to gain control of a society. How do you win a game of chess if your opponent doesn't have a king? And what if all of their pieces are ambiguously placed?
Galtung 1990, "Whom does God choose? Would it not be
Please find a set of references which provide a unique Understanding of the causes and all-encompassing cultural consequences in the now time of "2024"
Isn't part of the problem the increasing inability to distingish between ones own determinations (even allowing that they arise in the context of our societal concepts) and the determinations that are received as being 'the truth' from external sources (the media, social media, your mates, and now manipulated AI)? I look forward to reading your views on how we can keep trying to see/hear through the barrage of chatter and static regarding "Gaza, Ukraine, Climate Collapse, Democracy, and AI", and how we might find authentic ground in this "liminal time".
It's a nice piece Johnathan, but are you confused by the way a lack of knowledge and awareness of your internal reality sees you behaving like a well-educated literary lover, who like Iain McGilchrist uses words like 'consciousness' in an undifferentiated way?
Could you flip the metacrisis debate on its head by making the 'move' that check-mates your own rationality? If you you can conceive the current meta or poly-crisis, as Humanity's Messiah?
The sentient species of homo-sapiens destiny, as this age of consequence creates a global pressure to mature?
As systems theorists point out 'chaos' is a much needed way of creating system integration as smaller systems converge to create a more coherent system. The point of this comment being that the current chaos of the metacrisis will inevitably create the long prophesied Messianic Age of Peace & Prosperity for All Humanity.
Once we create the kind of synthesis, of new information about the unseen nature of the universe and new information about the unseen nature of our own reality, that David Fuller's Rebel Wisdom was kinda hoping the IDW would provide us with.
David, I wonder what gives you confidence that the pressure you seem rightly to point to will have the effect you suggest, rather than one of the others Jonathan posits as attractors? Not to bring up free will but it seems one should want to be 'part of the solution', requiring a framing within which one is active, and that yields a tolerable future...
Experiential clarity about the epistemic delusion inherent in the surface impression labels of language and the peculiarly human form of blindness created by our self-hypnotic experience of mind-sight. A phenomenon Daniel Goleman points towards in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception. Which when married with R. D. Laing’s "how much of who we are, is what we have been hypnotized to be," makes sense of why Einstein said we can't solve our problems from the same 'level' of consciousness that created them. Modernity's "l think therefore l am," self-hypnotic trance level of a communication biased consciousness, l would argue. Or put another way, late-stage Capitalism parallels late-stage Descartesism the same way the cognitive illusion of the language 'label' sunrise parallels the optical illusion that the sun moves in an arc across the sky? Pressure to save ourselves from ourselves will surely lead to a global confession of self-ignorance, even amongst well educated people of high rank and status, don't you think? For the sake of children & grandchildren?
And to the latter argument, what does it look like when the world wakes up to its self-ignorance? And what does it look like for it to stumble onwards into the future?
I'm put in mind of CS Lewis in 'Miracles' remarking about the need for wisdom, and whether we could expect all individuals to undertake the journey to become sages, or whether there is the need for an infrastructure provided by some few to the many to serve this need, (in words roughly to this effect). What is the wisdom going to look like that is going to serve the turn.
I have a sense that I'm familiar with what you're talking about - the world as it appears is the way we see it. But why do you think you have escaped an enculturated outlook?
The wisdom that will serve the turn is the same as it was during the days of the cognitive behavioral therapy within the Socratic method of self-cross-examination. With the epistemic delusion inherent in language laid bare in the rhetoric is reality of an us vs them politics of experience. The 'affective' grip of words simply dissolves in the reality-wise ability to see through the foolishness of our faith in the descriptive nature of language, once one 'feels' the 'fusion' of description with definition in each and every perceptual event.
People have a habit of talking about the problems in the world from a systems perspective, with neither knowledge or awareness of the 'unseen' system humanity uses to create systems that aid our survival. And the 'tool' making species has only very, very, recently created the tools that allow us to begin observing bodily processes we cannot see.
1990 will likely go down in history as the turning point of moving beyond our appalling and overwhelmingly denied self-ignorance. Go back down the timeline of your life Joe, as Plato and others advised when they spoke of memory (the subconscious & conscious mind) 'as-if' it were a boat?
How did you perceive reality in the first 12 months of your life, before you used the power of imitation and the auto-suggestion power of memory, to begin speaking your mother's tongue? Just like every human being does regardless of place or race. Motifs, Metaphors, & Meaning?
David I'm going to say that I am there already, wherever it is you want me to be. My question to you is, what comes next, after you wake up to yourself or whatever? Give me some of the wisdom that will serve the turn? You seem to see others as lacking a kind of insight you seem to be claiming to possess. But the insight seems to say no more than 'be like me; be insight'. Sure: if everyone/ enough people 'woke up' (or however one prefers to put it), the course of history would likely be different, but HOW to get people to wake up therefore is THE QUESTION! So tell me in your own words, and accessible words, how one is to get through to the wo/man on the street, and wake them up to their own unfathomable depth, and profound actuality?
What i have done Joe is ask you questions that revolve around the fundamental problem of self-ignorance and how language creates the 'illusory' sense of 'knowing' that IS an epistemic (pertaining to knowledge and its validation) delusion.
Please try to notice 'how' your replies avoid the question of whether naming an object of perception with any word you can possibly imagine, change the reality of what your eyes are seeing, given that the sense perception organs of sight only SEE surface impressions or appearances of reality. Is it true or false that naming any object of perception with different words, does NOT change the reality your eyes see?
And please try to notice that you haven't actually said WHERE you are, what it actually is you have awoken to or from. And when you write "You seem to see others as lacking a kind of insight you seem to be claiming to possess," is this my reality or your psychological projection, given the 2-dimensional medium we are communicating in?
The real issue, I believe, is as stated by Slavoj Zizek:
YOU CAN SAY THE TRUTH BUT IT DOESN'T AWAKEN US.
In the in-between worlds, we would need to raise global consciousness to a sufficient level for the truth to be recognised. Only truth can set us free leading to peace and cooperation rather than conflict and Paradoxes. Systemic stability on a global level through a superintelligent god-like computational simulation for mundane earthly issues as well as seeking the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. Only, this hasn't happened yet over millions of years. But once the first ones get through the change of mind others will follow. Non-utopian utopia! Let us aim at the Right Mindset fit for the 21st Century. Brother Niels.
Like consciousness, is 'truth' merely a reality labeling word? And in using the words of our spoken language or mother tongue, in a slip-of-the-tongue way, because the auto-suggestion power of memory sees words leap to mind 'automatically,' do we demonstrate humanity's universal confusion about the nature of language and the nature of reality?
If language is primarily a tool of thought, as Chomsky believes, do we use our thoughts for the primary purpose of self-affectation? You write about aiming for the right mindset, yet are we, as John Vervaeke believes, comprehensively prone to the self-deception of our 'projected' mind-sight, as Daniel Goleman observes in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception.
May I point out the existential meaning of the word LANGAUGE: 1. a system of communication which comprises a set of sounds and written symbols. 2. a system of communication which comprises a set of sounds and written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for talking or writing. 3. audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs. 4. a means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks. 5. the means by which animals communicate.
Is language our common, confused sense-of-reality, Iain McGilchrist points us towards in his chapter on human perception with these words:
"‘We live in two worlds, the world of sight and the world of thought’, wrote Friedrich Max Müller, one of the most celebrated philologists of the nineteenth century, ‘and, strange as it may sound, nothing that we think, nothing that we name, nothing that we find in our dictionary, can ever be seen or heard, or perceived.’3 Perception is the act whereby we reach out from our cage of mental constructs to taste, smell, touch, hear and see the living world."
McGilchrist, Iain . The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (p. 165). Perspectiva Press. Kindle Edition.
Do we need the right mind-set or the right mind-sight?
Simply put, we only need the Right Mind the causal effect of which is revealed by the Unconscious Right Hemisphere, a network of complete relational connections. The opposite Delusional Mind the causal effect of which is revealed by the conscious Left Hemisphere, so beautifully described by Iain's work of opposites of deep truths. The difference between the hemispheres is simply the opposite interpretation of the same network of complete relational connections. I am in great agreement with your intuitions through algorithmic computational logic, my main language over more than 50 years, a very precise, unforgiving language, the interpretation of which the LH falls short!
"The Right Hemisphere: The New Math of Life, The Unmaking of the Delusional World." The title of a book, in honour of Iain, I have researched over the last 6 years, and is now ready to write.
Sounds like a fine theory Niels. Can you 'feel' the electro-chemical nature of the relational connections within the 80 -- 100 million cells that constitute the biological reality of one of your body's major organs? Ian himself has warned about the dangers of viewing the brain in 'computational' way, as-if its similar to the hard drive or ssd of a computer operating system.
And sadly Iain's great hypothesis has yielded little actionable insight into the 'here-now' reality of human behavior, like the non-conscious orchestration of HOW we walk & talk.
I argue that the way we use language alienates us from our own reality and the cosmic reality of the world we live in, and I inserted the excerpt from Iain book to help make this point about the illusory nature of language, with its surface impression labelling of the reality our eyes see. And I would argue that hypothesizing in discussions like: The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis, are clear evidence of our psychological self-deception, caused by our unquestioned use of language.
An unquestioned use that creates the communication biased consciousness of our self-hypnotic mind-sight. And as a practical and actionable demonstration of the self-hypnotic process we name 'mind,' please notice how any object you can see right now is named by the auto-suggestion power of memory, and ask yourself if using any other name you can think of will change the reality of what your eyes are seeing?
Hence Daniel Goleman writes: "For people to comprehend their conditioned self-deception scheme, they must try not to impose a perceptual expectation of mind-sight on the perception capacity of eye-sight." In his book, Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Psychology of Self Deception
And from this practical way of apprehending the self-hypnotic nature of mind-sight I would rename Iain's great book: The Matter with Thoughts as Things, because language is how we unmake the reality of a world we "seeing, see not," to paraphrase the Ascension Philosopher from Nazareth.
((Dear David, I have bracketed my take on each of your paragraphs seen from the perspective of the RH, and I apologize beforehand should this upset you, in my experience the normal reaction of all of us when stuck in LH-dynamics.))
Sounds like a fine theory Niels. Can you 'feel' the electro-chemical nature of the relational connections within the 80 -- 100 million cells that constitute the biological reality of one of your body's major organs? Ian himself has warned about the dangers of viewing the brain in 'computational' way, as-if its similar to the hard drive or ssd of a computer operating system.
(( If it was a theory I don’t mind calling it fine. In fact, it was a discovery asking the question: what if we perform the optimisation process in the opposite direction? First the process. For the LH we sort all relational branches one by one in order of distance from an origin reducing a very complex lateral network to one vertical list of distances to every branch endpoint, in this it is complete. In finding paths it is incomplete and used only to find one path from end to end. A cascading process of value integration. The opposite RH process sorts all branches one by one in order of action to a goal the reaction of which becomes the least action potential for flow from every beginning of every branch. It creates directions for everyone from everywhere associated with the same goal in the now. In a sense only now exists. An extendable creative intelligence holding interacting agents in memory. An electromagnetic attractor field. A relative gravitational activity field. A Deterministic Nondeterministic paradigm))
And sadly Iain's great hypothesis has yielded little actionable insight into the 'here-now' reality of human behavior, like the non-conscious orchestration of HOW we walk & talk.
(( This is where Iain refers to Henry Bergson as the relevant philosopher. RH process has to be the decision making process in an emergent unfolding of interacting agents. This relates to David Bohm’s “Wholeness and implicate order. Where all implicate orders are from the future to the past, in the now. This is the basis of a simulation model we developed 30+ years ago))
I argue that the way we use language alienates us from our own reality and the cosmic reality of the world we live in, and I inserted the excerpt from Iain book to help make this point about the illusory nature of language, with its surface impression labelling of the reality our eyes see. And I would argue that hypothesizing in discussions like: The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis, are clear evidence of our psychological self-deception, caused by our unquestioned use of language. ((The hemisphere difference sketched above put things into a better perspective of the true problem humanity is facing. Bohm’s Rheomode of interpretation + RH would be a much improved ground for communication and equality. A form of unconditional love of neighbour as self.))
An unquestioned use that creates the communication biased consciousness of our self-hypnotic mind-sight. And as a practical and actionable demonstration of the self-hypnotic process we name 'mind,' please notice how any object you can see right now is named by the auto-suggestion power of memory, and ask yourself if using any other name you can think of will change the reality of what your eyes are seeing?
Hence Daniel Goleman writes: "For people to comprehend their conditioned self-deception scheme, they must try not to impose a perceptual expectation of mind-sight on the perception capacity of eye-sight." In his book, Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Psychology of Self Deception
And from this practical way of apprehending the self-hypnotic nature of mind-sight I would rename Iain's great book: The Matter with Thoughts as Things, because language is how we unmake the reality of a world we "seeing, see not," to paraphrase the Ascension Philosopher from Nazareth.
(( Yet the LH world we see today is the result of force as opposed to RH gentle power of complete understanding. See, David R Watkins: “ Power vs Force” . I personally would prefer “Ascension Realist from Nazareth.” The nature of nature is miraculous))
Dear Niels, I understand where you're coming from after spending the last decade integrating The Polyvagal Theory information about the structure & function of our human nervous system and developing a 'visceral' awareness of the role muscular tensions & vascular pressures play in helping to 'energize' the electro-chemical nature of my thoughts.
And I take your point about humanity's need for a 'complete understanding' that will end our confusion about the symbolic nature of language & the nature of reality, especially our own reality.
The undeniable truth that no human being alive today can explain 'how' they walk & talk demonstrates our self-ignorance & proneness to psychological self-deception, as the core issue in, as you say, "the undeniable problems humanity is facing."
Like the self-deception of believing in the linguistic conventions of 'time' consisting of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months in a calendar year, in denial of the earth-turning reality of time for all forms of life on earth.
Hence, as you say, the New Testament story is most likely based on the need to recognize truths about our social world's 'alienation' from solar reality. A story written by wise people who understood the growing sense of alienation for people who lived in urban centers like Jerusalem and were losing touch with 'living resurrection' practices involving profoundly 'cathartic' experiences of darkness & light, developed in Africa.
Hence, as you say, the Ascension Philosopher from Nazareth was indeed, a realist, advocating a 'third attractor' return of the Psalm 22 (Hind of Dawn) orientation to the 'reality' of earth-axis rotation, 'cause' of the periods of light and dark humanity 'named' a day and a night.
May I suggest to you, that far from undermining the 'experiential' wisdom of the past, science is confirming it as we continue to develop a better understanding of reality, as it is, especially our own reality.
BTW you can develop a visceral awareness of the living resurrection practice that I believe seeded the N. T's timeless wisdom story with salient information about the speed of earth-axis rotation @ the cosmic location you reside in: http://www.unitarium.com/earth-speed
Lastly, are we both guilty of attention as a moral act, in our comments to each other? My "sounds like a fine theory" and your "I apologize beforehand should this upset you, in my experience the normal reaction of all of us when stuck in LH-dynamics.?" And is this one of the major problems humanity is facing in our social world of us & them?
"The Polyvagal Theory information about the structure & function of our human nervous system and developing a 'visceral' awareness of the role muscular tensions & vascular pressures play in helping to 'energize' the electro-chemical nature of my thoughts." Very interesting David, it, in a way underpins Dr David R Watkins's idea of Power vs Force, where the strength of a muscle connecting the shoulders seems to be an indicator of the relative energy level of consciousness on a logarithmic scale. Top of the scale is the infinite energy level of avatars like Christ, Budha...etc., which calibrates at 1000. Chapter 22. With this goes the Mind of Christ, the Father, and the mediator, the Holy Spirit. The domain of the RH. Thank you David. Brother Niels
Well, as you say after a lifetime of playing wargames you might not be the right bloke to lead anyone to peace. Peace and war both are not goals. They are byproducts of other factors. And they are not even a thing. What is that peace? A war won? The absence of struggle? Of tension? Is it some fragile balance? A to be kept at all costs state of things? Do you wish to be a peace-monger? What means are justified to reach your goal? Is there any difference with the colleagues across the table?
The world seems to make the same mistake with health. Making health a goal, and fighting all things unhealthy is insanity. Not because fighting isn't part of the deal, of life's processes, but because it is not our fight. So leaving in peace may be the future form that allows for a different result.
Thanks for this. I appreciate your work so much.
As I began to read your essays I was thinking "John Paul Lederach" and then, of course, you went there.
I am from a Mennonite background and there has been substantial reflection in our community not only around pacifism or peacemaking, but also even more peacebuilding. Two terms we use frequently for this more wholistic vision are the Hebrew term Shalom, and the more recent "Just peace" (as an alternative to Just War).
One Mennonite theorist I lean on is Lisa Schirch, now at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute (https://kroc.nd.edu/faculty-and-staff/lisa-schirch/). A few years ago she prepared a "state of the field" report that I've found helpful. I know you are a better researcher than I am, but I thought I'd point you to this link (and Lisa as a resource) in case you haven't seen it yet.
https://wiscomp.org/peaceprints/1-1/1.1.1.pdf
Again, great stuff, Much appreciated.
Thank you for this. I also think that our moral imagination is key. Yet, everything about our dominant culture of imperialism operates to disable this natural human capacity.
One of the most disabling features of imperialism is the morally infantile "might makes right" worldview upon which it is founded. Within that worldview, violence is the only means of conflict resolution that can be conceived. Violence is necessary to impose order. Any solution arising from a larger, more mature moral universe is considered suspect, foolish, unworkable, and unreliable.
I like to say that peace is the people's power. Empire will always win when we engage it on its own terms because it has hoarded material power and has no scruples in its use. In its view, murder, torture, genocide, and mountains of dead children are all acceptable means to its ends. When we operate beyond the might makes right worldview, we deprive empire of its home field advantage and have our best chance of unseating it from the throne of our shared endeavors.💜
Thank you. It's all about the realisation...
I am pretty well educated but still struggle with seeing how clear and insightful language is going to move the world. Of course I see some possibilities, I'm just not sure I believe any of them. So much so that I wonder if the third attractor mustn't imply the future cabal, the future secret society of conspiracy theory.
If the answer to 'cui bono?' is 'everyone' then how is their agency to be enlisted? It just isn't clear from where I sit watching youtube etc that the good word reaches much beyond the choir, and the needed congregation is after all so vast, and so susceptible to persuasion by self interested actors, so much so as to be persuaded to be/ that they are themselves self interested actors...
The intellectual problem then, which I do appreciate is being worked on, would be: crafting the message that will penetrate sufficiently deeply into the man and woman on the Clapham omnibus as to engender a change sufficient to meet the needs of the metacrisis... Am I crazy, but is this a Trojan Horse problem? I think I hope not.
Of equal importance to Galtung's 1969 paper is his 1990 paper "Cultural Violence" (https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/7574246/mod_resource/content/1/Cultural%20violence%20by%20Galtung%20J.%20%28z-lib.org%29%20%281%29.pdf)
Negative peace is defined by such phrases as, “the absence of violence” or “freedom from anxiety”, whereas positive peace evinces concepts such as eudaimonia, equality and freedom. Negative peace is a necessary but not sufficient condition for positive peace. The internal and external dimensions of peace is probably best illustrated by the distinction that we make between saying that a person is at peace, (e.g. free from anxiety -internally), and that nations are at peace (e.g. free from war -externally) although this is a continuum that extends from within the individual’s psyche to the farthest conception of human contact.
Thus negative internal peace is the freedom from unpleasant thoughts, emotions and sensations, whereas positive internal peace is the presence of constructive thoughts, emotions and sensations that lead to the full realisation of human capabilities (cf Capabilities Approach).
“Full realisation” in this case means, for everyone, everywhere, everywhen; we are not living in (positive) peace when some subset of society, or the world community, are enjoying these advantages at the cost of others. This is a point that is driven home by Galtung’s definitions of structural and cultural violence.
Working towards the goal of eliminating direct, structural and cultural violence could make a country a 'better', more peaceful place to live and at the same time, a less attractive place to invade. Thus, peace work can have both intra- as well as international effects.
Under conditions of positive peace, we would expect to see a less hierarchical, less centralised, less specialised, less technocratic, and more egalitarian society. Australian Peace scholar Brian Martin argues that the absence of controlling elites would make it harder for an invader (or a despot) to gain control of a society. How do you win a game of chess if your opponent doesn't have a king? And what if all of their pieces are ambiguously placed?
Galtung 1990, "Whom does God choose? Would it not be
reasonable to assume that He chooses those
most in His image, leaving it to Satan to take
the others? This
would give us a double dichotomy with God,
the Chosen Ones (by God), The Unchosen
Ones (by God, chosen by Satan) and Satan;
the chosen heading for salvation and close-
ness to God in Heaven, the unchosen for
damnation and closeness to Satan in Hell.
However, Heaven and Hell can also be
reproduced on earth, as a foretaste or indica-
tion of the afterlife. Misery/luxury can be
seen as preparations for Hell/Heaven - and
social class as the finger of God.
An immanent concept of god as residing
inside us would make any such dichotomy an
act against god. With a transcendental God,
however, this all becomes meaningful..."
Please find a set of references which provide a unique Understanding of the causes and all-encompassing cultural consequences in the now time of "2024"
http://www.daplastique.com/essay/the-maze-of-ecstasy
http://beezone.com/beezones-main-stack/ontranscendingtheinsubordinatemind.html
http://beezone.com/beezones-main-stack/stresschemistry.html
http://beezone.com/adida/quandramamashikhara/thelawofpleasuredomeedit.html The Pleasure Dome Principle
http://beezone.com/wide-stack-many-topics/death_message.html
http://beezone.com/whats-new
Not Two Is Peace & Prior Unity
http://www.priorunity.org
http://www.dabase.org/not2p1.htm 100 or so summary statements - note the first statement
http://www.nottwoispeace.org/excerpt-reality-humanity
http://www.integralworld.net/reynolds42.html
http://beezone.com/lopezisland/lopezislanddescription.html Love Is a Fierce Force
Isn't part of the problem the increasing inability to distingish between ones own determinations (even allowing that they arise in the context of our societal concepts) and the determinations that are received as being 'the truth' from external sources (the media, social media, your mates, and now manipulated AI)? I look forward to reading your views on how we can keep trying to see/hear through the barrage of chatter and static regarding "Gaza, Ukraine, Climate Collapse, Democracy, and AI", and how we might find authentic ground in this "liminal time".
It's a nice piece Johnathan, but are you confused by the way a lack of knowledge and awareness of your internal reality sees you behaving like a well-educated literary lover, who like Iain McGilchrist uses words like 'consciousness' in an undifferentiated way?
Could you flip the metacrisis debate on its head by making the 'move' that check-mates your own rationality? If you you can conceive the current meta or poly-crisis, as Humanity's Messiah?
The sentient species of homo-sapiens destiny, as this age of consequence creates a global pressure to mature?
As systems theorists point out 'chaos' is a much needed way of creating system integration as smaller systems converge to create a more coherent system. The point of this comment being that the current chaos of the metacrisis will inevitably create the long prophesied Messianic Age of Peace & Prosperity for All Humanity.
Once we create the kind of synthesis, of new information about the unseen nature of the universe and new information about the unseen nature of our own reality, that David Fuller's Rebel Wisdom was kinda hoping the IDW would provide us with.
David, I wonder what gives you confidence that the pressure you seem rightly to point to will have the effect you suggest, rather than one of the others Jonathan posits as attractors? Not to bring up free will but it seems one should want to be 'part of the solution', requiring a framing within which one is active, and that yields a tolerable future...
Experiential clarity about the epistemic delusion inherent in the surface impression labels of language and the peculiarly human form of blindness created by our self-hypnotic experience of mind-sight. A phenomenon Daniel Goleman points towards in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception. Which when married with R. D. Laing’s "how much of who we are, is what we have been hypnotized to be," makes sense of why Einstein said we can't solve our problems from the same 'level' of consciousness that created them. Modernity's "l think therefore l am," self-hypnotic trance level of a communication biased consciousness, l would argue. Or put another way, late-stage Capitalism parallels late-stage Descartesism the same way the cognitive illusion of the language 'label' sunrise parallels the optical illusion that the sun moves in an arc across the sky? Pressure to save ourselves from ourselves will surely lead to a global confession of self-ignorance, even amongst well educated people of high rank and status, don't you think? For the sake of children & grandchildren?
And to the latter argument, what does it look like when the world wakes up to its self-ignorance? And what does it look like for it to stumble onwards into the future?
I'm put in mind of CS Lewis in 'Miracles' remarking about the need for wisdom, and whether we could expect all individuals to undertake the journey to become sages, or whether there is the need for an infrastructure provided by some few to the many to serve this need, (in words roughly to this effect). What is the wisdom going to look like that is going to serve the turn.
Hi. I don't really follow.
I have a sense that I'm familiar with what you're talking about - the world as it appears is the way we see it. But why do you think you have escaped an enculturated outlook?
Anyone can insist, no I'm the enlightened one...
The wisdom that will serve the turn is the same as it was during the days of the cognitive behavioral therapy within the Socratic method of self-cross-examination. With the epistemic delusion inherent in language laid bare in the rhetoric is reality of an us vs them politics of experience. The 'affective' grip of words simply dissolves in the reality-wise ability to see through the foolishness of our faith in the descriptive nature of language, once one 'feels' the 'fusion' of description with definition in each and every perceptual event.
People have a habit of talking about the problems in the world from a systems perspective, with neither knowledge or awareness of the 'unseen' system humanity uses to create systems that aid our survival. And the 'tool' making species has only very, very, recently created the tools that allow us to begin observing bodily processes we cannot see.
1990 will likely go down in history as the turning point of moving beyond our appalling and overwhelmingly denied self-ignorance. Go back down the timeline of your life Joe, as Plato and others advised when they spoke of memory (the subconscious & conscious mind) 'as-if' it were a boat?
How did you perceive reality in the first 12 months of your life, before you used the power of imitation and the auto-suggestion power of memory, to begin speaking your mother's tongue? Just like every human being does regardless of place or race. Motifs, Metaphors, & Meaning?
David I'm going to say that I am there already, wherever it is you want me to be. My question to you is, what comes next, after you wake up to yourself or whatever? Give me some of the wisdom that will serve the turn? You seem to see others as lacking a kind of insight you seem to be claiming to possess. But the insight seems to say no more than 'be like me; be insight'. Sure: if everyone/ enough people 'woke up' (or however one prefers to put it), the course of history would likely be different, but HOW to get people to wake up therefore is THE QUESTION! So tell me in your own words, and accessible words, how one is to get through to the wo/man on the street, and wake them up to their own unfathomable depth, and profound actuality?
What i have done Joe is ask you questions that revolve around the fundamental problem of self-ignorance and how language creates the 'illusory' sense of 'knowing' that IS an epistemic (pertaining to knowledge and its validation) delusion.
Please try to notice 'how' your replies avoid the question of whether naming an object of perception with any word you can possibly imagine, change the reality of what your eyes are seeing, given that the sense perception organs of sight only SEE surface impressions or appearances of reality. Is it true or false that naming any object of perception with different words, does NOT change the reality your eyes see?
And please try to notice that you haven't actually said WHERE you are, what it actually is you have awoken to or from. And when you write "You seem to see others as lacking a kind of insight you seem to be claiming to possess," is this my reality or your psychological projection, given the 2-dimensional medium we are communicating in?
The real issue, I believe, is as stated by Slavoj Zizek:
YOU CAN SAY THE TRUTH BUT IT DOESN'T AWAKEN US.
In the in-between worlds, we would need to raise global consciousness to a sufficient level for the truth to be recognised. Only truth can set us free leading to peace and cooperation rather than conflict and Paradoxes. Systemic stability on a global level through a superintelligent god-like computational simulation for mundane earthly issues as well as seeking the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. Only, this hasn't happened yet over millions of years. But once the first ones get through the change of mind others will follow. Non-utopian utopia! Let us aim at the Right Mindset fit for the 21st Century. Brother Niels.
Like consciousness, is 'truth' merely a reality labeling word? And in using the words of our spoken language or mother tongue, in a slip-of-the-tongue way, because the auto-suggestion power of memory sees words leap to mind 'automatically,' do we demonstrate humanity's universal confusion about the nature of language and the nature of reality?
If language is primarily a tool of thought, as Chomsky believes, do we use our thoughts for the primary purpose of self-affectation? You write about aiming for the right mindset, yet are we, as John Vervaeke believes, comprehensively prone to the self-deception of our 'projected' mind-sight, as Daniel Goleman observes in his book Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception.
May I point out the existential meaning of the word LANGAUGE: 1. a system of communication which comprises a set of sounds and written symbols. 2. a system of communication which comprises a set of sounds and written symbols which are used by the people of a particular country or region for talking or writing. 3. audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by the action of the vocal organs. 4. a means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks. 5. the means by which animals communicate.
Is language our common, confused sense-of-reality, Iain McGilchrist points us towards in his chapter on human perception with these words:
"‘We live in two worlds, the world of sight and the world of thought’, wrote Friedrich Max Müller, one of the most celebrated philologists of the nineteenth century, ‘and, strange as it may sound, nothing that we think, nothing that we name, nothing that we find in our dictionary, can ever be seen or heard, or perceived.’3 Perception is the act whereby we reach out from our cage of mental constructs to taste, smell, touch, hear and see the living world."
McGilchrist, Iain . The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (p. 165). Perspectiva Press. Kindle Edition.
Do we need the right mind-set or the right mind-sight?
Simply put, we only need the Right Mind the causal effect of which is revealed by the Unconscious Right Hemisphere, a network of complete relational connections. The opposite Delusional Mind the causal effect of which is revealed by the conscious Left Hemisphere, so beautifully described by Iain's work of opposites of deep truths. The difference between the hemispheres is simply the opposite interpretation of the same network of complete relational connections. I am in great agreement with your intuitions through algorithmic computational logic, my main language over more than 50 years, a very precise, unforgiving language, the interpretation of which the LH falls short!
"The Right Hemisphere: The New Math of Life, The Unmaking of the Delusional World." The title of a book, in honour of Iain, I have researched over the last 6 years, and is now ready to write.
Sounds like a fine theory Niels. Can you 'feel' the electro-chemical nature of the relational connections within the 80 -- 100 million cells that constitute the biological reality of one of your body's major organs? Ian himself has warned about the dangers of viewing the brain in 'computational' way, as-if its similar to the hard drive or ssd of a computer operating system.
And sadly Iain's great hypothesis has yielded little actionable insight into the 'here-now' reality of human behavior, like the non-conscious orchestration of HOW we walk & talk.
I argue that the way we use language alienates us from our own reality and the cosmic reality of the world we live in, and I inserted the excerpt from Iain book to help make this point about the illusory nature of language, with its surface impression labelling of the reality our eyes see. And I would argue that hypothesizing in discussions like: The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis, are clear evidence of our psychological self-deception, caused by our unquestioned use of language.
An unquestioned use that creates the communication biased consciousness of our self-hypnotic mind-sight. And as a practical and actionable demonstration of the self-hypnotic process we name 'mind,' please notice how any object you can see right now is named by the auto-suggestion power of memory, and ask yourself if using any other name you can think of will change the reality of what your eyes are seeing?
Hence Daniel Goleman writes: "For people to comprehend their conditioned self-deception scheme, they must try not to impose a perceptual expectation of mind-sight on the perception capacity of eye-sight." In his book, Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Psychology of Self Deception
And from this practical way of apprehending the self-hypnotic nature of mind-sight I would rename Iain's great book: The Matter with Thoughts as Things, because language is how we unmake the reality of a world we "seeing, see not," to paraphrase the Ascension Philosopher from Nazareth.
((Dear David, I have bracketed my take on each of your paragraphs seen from the perspective of the RH, and I apologize beforehand should this upset you, in my experience the normal reaction of all of us when stuck in LH-dynamics.))
Sounds like a fine theory Niels. Can you 'feel' the electro-chemical nature of the relational connections within the 80 -- 100 million cells that constitute the biological reality of one of your body's major organs? Ian himself has warned about the dangers of viewing the brain in 'computational' way, as-if its similar to the hard drive or ssd of a computer operating system.
(( If it was a theory I don’t mind calling it fine. In fact, it was a discovery asking the question: what if we perform the optimisation process in the opposite direction? First the process. For the LH we sort all relational branches one by one in order of distance from an origin reducing a very complex lateral network to one vertical list of distances to every branch endpoint, in this it is complete. In finding paths it is incomplete and used only to find one path from end to end. A cascading process of value integration. The opposite RH process sorts all branches one by one in order of action to a goal the reaction of which becomes the least action potential for flow from every beginning of every branch. It creates directions for everyone from everywhere associated with the same goal in the now. In a sense only now exists. An extendable creative intelligence holding interacting agents in memory. An electromagnetic attractor field. A relative gravitational activity field. A Deterministic Nondeterministic paradigm))
And sadly Iain's great hypothesis has yielded little actionable insight into the 'here-now' reality of human behavior, like the non-conscious orchestration of HOW we walk & talk.
(( This is where Iain refers to Henry Bergson as the relevant philosopher. RH process has to be the decision making process in an emergent unfolding of interacting agents. This relates to David Bohm’s “Wholeness and implicate order. Where all implicate orders are from the future to the past, in the now. This is the basis of a simulation model we developed 30+ years ago))
I argue that the way we use language alienates us from our own reality and the cosmic reality of the world we live in, and I inserted the excerpt from Iain book to help make this point about the illusory nature of language, with its surface impression labelling of the reality our eyes see. And I would argue that hypothesizing in discussions like: The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis, are clear evidence of our psychological self-deception, caused by our unquestioned use of language. ((The hemisphere difference sketched above put things into a better perspective of the true problem humanity is facing. Bohm’s Rheomode of interpretation + RH would be a much improved ground for communication and equality. A form of unconditional love of neighbour as self.))
An unquestioned use that creates the communication biased consciousness of our self-hypnotic mind-sight. And as a practical and actionable demonstration of the self-hypnotic process we name 'mind,' please notice how any object you can see right now is named by the auto-suggestion power of memory, and ask yourself if using any other name you can think of will change the reality of what your eyes are seeing?
Hence Daniel Goleman writes: "For people to comprehend their conditioned self-deception scheme, they must try not to impose a perceptual expectation of mind-sight on the perception capacity of eye-sight." In his book, Vital Lies, Simple Truths, The Psychology of Self Deception
And from this practical way of apprehending the self-hypnotic nature of mind-sight I would rename Iain's great book: The Matter with Thoughts as Things, because language is how we unmake the reality of a world we "seeing, see not," to paraphrase the Ascension Philosopher from Nazareth.
(( Yet the LH world we see today is the result of force as opposed to RH gentle power of complete understanding. See, David R Watkins: “ Power vs Force” . I personally would prefer “Ascension Realist from Nazareth.” The nature of nature is miraculous))
Dear Niels, I understand where you're coming from after spending the last decade integrating The Polyvagal Theory information about the structure & function of our human nervous system and developing a 'visceral' awareness of the role muscular tensions & vascular pressures play in helping to 'energize' the electro-chemical nature of my thoughts.
And I take your point about humanity's need for a 'complete understanding' that will end our confusion about the symbolic nature of language & the nature of reality, especially our own reality.
The undeniable truth that no human being alive today can explain 'how' they walk & talk demonstrates our self-ignorance & proneness to psychological self-deception, as the core issue in, as you say, "the undeniable problems humanity is facing."
Like the self-deception of believing in the linguistic conventions of 'time' consisting of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months in a calendar year, in denial of the earth-turning reality of time for all forms of life on earth.
Hence, as you say, the New Testament story is most likely based on the need to recognize truths about our social world's 'alienation' from solar reality. A story written by wise people who understood the growing sense of alienation for people who lived in urban centers like Jerusalem and were losing touch with 'living resurrection' practices involving profoundly 'cathartic' experiences of darkness & light, developed in Africa.
Hence, as you say, the Ascension Philosopher from Nazareth was indeed, a realist, advocating a 'third attractor' return of the Psalm 22 (Hind of Dawn) orientation to the 'reality' of earth-axis rotation, 'cause' of the periods of light and dark humanity 'named' a day and a night.
May I suggest to you, that far from undermining the 'experiential' wisdom of the past, science is confirming it as we continue to develop a better understanding of reality, as it is, especially our own reality.
BTW you can develop a visceral awareness of the living resurrection practice that I believe seeded the N. T's timeless wisdom story with salient information about the speed of earth-axis rotation @ the cosmic location you reside in: http://www.unitarium.com/earth-speed
Lastly, are we both guilty of attention as a moral act, in our comments to each other? My "sounds like a fine theory" and your "I apologize beforehand should this upset you, in my experience the normal reaction of all of us when stuck in LH-dynamics.?" And is this one of the major problems humanity is facing in our social world of us & them?
"The Polyvagal Theory information about the structure & function of our human nervous system and developing a 'visceral' awareness of the role muscular tensions & vascular pressures play in helping to 'energize' the electro-chemical nature of my thoughts." Very interesting David, it, in a way underpins Dr David R Watkins's idea of Power vs Force, where the strength of a muscle connecting the shoulders seems to be an indicator of the relative energy level of consciousness on a logarithmic scale. Top of the scale is the infinite energy level of avatars like Christ, Budha...etc., which calibrates at 1000. Chapter 22. With this goes the Mind of Christ, the Father, and the mediator, the Holy Spirit. The domain of the RH. Thank you David. Brother Niels
Well, as you say after a lifetime of playing wargames you might not be the right bloke to lead anyone to peace. Peace and war both are not goals. They are byproducts of other factors. And they are not even a thing. What is that peace? A war won? The absence of struggle? Of tension? Is it some fragile balance? A to be kept at all costs state of things? Do you wish to be a peace-monger? What means are justified to reach your goal? Is there any difference with the colleagues across the table?
The world seems to make the same mistake with health. Making health a goal, and fighting all things unhealthy is insanity. Not because fighting isn't part of the deal, of life's processes, but because it is not our fight. So leaving in peace may be the future form that allows for a different result.