per McLuhan, the new, sped-up environment will make the previous environment finally visible. the proliferation of speaking machines will make it apparent that wisdom comes from reading. *prays
Would anyone care to critique what I am about to write? It has seemed to me, for decades, the simplest thing imaginable to completely defeat the materialist/physicalist view.
I was surprised and delighted to discover, when I joined Bernardo Kastrup's forum in 2013, that he made the same essential argument. In David Bentley Hart's masterful critique of physicalist naturalism, 'All Things Are Full of Gods," he makes the same critique though with infinitely more wisdom, grace, and beauty.
It's incredibly simple (there are many many obvious objections to the way this is framed - please note, I am intentionally framing it from within the physicalist view, as a starting point. I thoroughly reject this view but I'm intending to speak to the vast majority of people who take it for granted)
1. What characterizes your experience?
A. Virtually every aspect of every experience you've had, throughout your life, is held within, embraced within, "known" within one unbroken field of awareness.
B. Obviously, we are not isolated in a solipsistic mind, but there is nothing in all of scientific enquiry - as currently conceived - that can give us direct, unmediated access to an extra-sensory, extra-mental reality.
2. So we are left with two choices as to the nature of the reality beyond our individual experience:
A. It is of the same nature as our individual experience (Kastrup argues this is the most "parsimonious" view; that is, it requires the fewest additional assumptions. in other words, the universe at large also consists of phenomena within a universal field of awareness.
B. It is utterly different, and underlying our perceptions of a phenomenal, experiential world, is some kind of indefinable, unfindable (thus only truly known by faith without any direct evidence for it) "physical" (which we can't define) stuff, with no possible explanation for how it came into being, why after the first trillionth of a second following the "Big Bang," it began to act in an orderly fashion, continues to act in an orderly fashion, or how qualia emerge, how life, sentience, emotion, reason, intelligence, will and consciousness emerge.
3. Since there is not and can never be direct (rather than inferred) evidence for this physical "stuff," and View A is completely consistent with all scientific endeavor over the past 3-4 centuries, the burden of choosing view B is on those who choose to accept it. There is no reason or evidence for accepting it other than the motivation of rejecting religion and spirituality.
Brilliant piece Mark. "The fear is that a world without reading is being forged by the prevalence of flighty, flashing screens and addictive social media.'
Could it be that the very pacing of modern day life is what's drawing people away from reading and deep reflection? The dopamine boosts gained from social media being the narcotic that numbs us from the inner essence of our being?
Brings to mind Kenneth Clark’s episode of Why Civilisations Fall. Skepticism and divinity to me are like day and night. At the moment divinity is on the ascent, but in essence the difference between them is the same as between body and mind.
Thanks, Mark - another thought-provoking piece. When Blake writes on the 'emptying out: “No Faith is in all the Earth: the Book of God is trodden under Foot”', I think of GMH's 'God's Grandeur': 'Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; / And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil ...' Is there a known link? But I like the way Blake turns his/our excesses into a positive, something hopeful: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” and perhaps our very foolishness will peak and vice will teeter over into virtue? We can but hope! As you say, 'time will tell'.
A problem with argument is that one is encouraged to join in, which means accepting the boundaries, the sides, the ends, the middle, caveats and all. But a master from the chat show rules the earth, we might well ask, or turn away with a shrug?
And a less successful King was reputed to want to experiment to find God's natural language.
McGilchrist is full of argument but tells some lovely stories and reads the poets beautifully aloud. He quotes a story of St Thomas Aquinas who stopped his 35 years of highly valued writing, apparently in mid chapter ('Penance'), and wrote ne're another word thereafter
'Of which we know and cannot tell, we must say nothing', to seriously misquote someone else? Language is not a private matter, I guess. Smile.
I suspect awakenings abound, though they always do, in fact. Such is the suffering of life. As to accelerationism, I also think things can’t be forced, which I believe that ideology seeks..?
Yes, I agree that we are foolish to think we can force anything for a predicted outcome. It's almost as though the Blakean adage has been hijacked. That said, I think there's an interesting question about the degree to which the fruits of intellection are forced or unforced, willed or found. In the march of technological and social progress/process, the changes in man's plastic mind ushering further mental change, the speed gathered, the acceleration, seem written into the spirit of discovery. Maybe this is a category error on my part - a blurring of inspiration and political cooperation. But I do believe the momentum gathered is separate from our individual will... We cannot resist... Even engaging in debate on the internet seems an act of personal accelerationism. Lol, I think I'm slightly mad, Mark.
per McLuhan, the new, sped-up environment will make the previous environment finally visible. the proliferation of speaking machines will make it apparent that wisdom comes from reading. *prays
Powerful. And rich. Both properly understood. Appreciated.
Harari, don't get me started.
Would anyone care to critique what I am about to write? It has seemed to me, for decades, the simplest thing imaginable to completely defeat the materialist/physicalist view.
I wrote a somewhat lengthy version of this in 2011: "Shaving Science With Ockham's Razor" - https://www.integralworld.net/salmon3.html
I was surprised and delighted to discover, when I joined Bernardo Kastrup's forum in 2013, that he made the same essential argument. In David Bentley Hart's masterful critique of physicalist naturalism, 'All Things Are Full of Gods," he makes the same critique though with infinitely more wisdom, grace, and beauty.
It's incredibly simple (there are many many obvious objections to the way this is framed - please note, I am intentionally framing it from within the physicalist view, as a starting point. I thoroughly reject this view but I'm intending to speak to the vast majority of people who take it for granted)
1. What characterizes your experience?
A. Virtually every aspect of every experience you've had, throughout your life, is held within, embraced within, "known" within one unbroken field of awareness.
B. Obviously, we are not isolated in a solipsistic mind, but there is nothing in all of scientific enquiry - as currently conceived - that can give us direct, unmediated access to an extra-sensory, extra-mental reality.
2. So we are left with two choices as to the nature of the reality beyond our individual experience:
A. It is of the same nature as our individual experience (Kastrup argues this is the most "parsimonious" view; that is, it requires the fewest additional assumptions. in other words, the universe at large also consists of phenomena within a universal field of awareness.
B. It is utterly different, and underlying our perceptions of a phenomenal, experiential world, is some kind of indefinable, unfindable (thus only truly known by faith without any direct evidence for it) "physical" (which we can't define) stuff, with no possible explanation for how it came into being, why after the first trillionth of a second following the "Big Bang," it began to act in an orderly fashion, continues to act in an orderly fashion, or how qualia emerge, how life, sentience, emotion, reason, intelligence, will and consciousness emerge.
3. Since there is not and can never be direct (rather than inferred) evidence for this physical "stuff," and View A is completely consistent with all scientific endeavor over the past 3-4 centuries, the burden of choosing view B is on those who choose to accept it. There is no reason or evidence for accepting it other than the motivation of rejecting religion and spirituality.
Arguments? The more the better!!!
Brilliant piece Mark. "The fear is that a world without reading is being forged by the prevalence of flighty, flashing screens and addictive social media.'
Could it be that the very pacing of modern day life is what's drawing people away from reading and deep reflection? The dopamine boosts gained from social media being the narcotic that numbs us from the inner essence of our being?
Brings to mind Kenneth Clark’s episode of Why Civilisations Fall. Skepticism and divinity to me are like day and night. At the moment divinity is on the ascent, but in essence the difference between them is the same as between body and mind.
Thanks, Mark - another thought-provoking piece. When Blake writes on the 'emptying out: “No Faith is in all the Earth: the Book of God is trodden under Foot”', I think of GMH's 'God's Grandeur': 'Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; / And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil ...' Is there a known link? But I like the way Blake turns his/our excesses into a positive, something hopeful: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” and perhaps our very foolishness will peak and vice will teeter over into virtue? We can but hope! As you say, 'time will tell'.
The analysis being the antidote is key, yes! I don’t know of GMH like with Blake, but he would have known of him, of course
A problem with argument is that one is encouraged to join in, which means accepting the boundaries, the sides, the ends, the middle, caveats and all. But a master from the chat show rules the earth, we might well ask, or turn away with a shrug?
And a less successful King was reputed to want to experiment to find God's natural language.
McGilchrist is full of argument but tells some lovely stories and reads the poets beautifully aloud. He quotes a story of St Thomas Aquinas who stopped his 35 years of highly valued writing, apparently in mid chapter ('Penance'), and wrote ne're another word thereafter
'Of which we know and cannot tell, we must say nothing', to seriously misquote someone else? Language is not a private matter, I guess. Smile.
thanks.for.this
The fools are doubling down on their folly - am I a fool for hoping this is the precursor to dramatic awakenings?
Hm, what about the "fools persisting in their folly" principle, and accelerationism?
I suspect awakenings abound, though they always do, in fact. Such is the suffering of life. As to accelerationism, I also think things can’t be forced, which I believe that ideology seeks..?
Yes, I agree that we are foolish to think we can force anything for a predicted outcome. It's almost as though the Blakean adage has been hijacked. That said, I think there's an interesting question about the degree to which the fruits of intellection are forced or unforced, willed or found. In the march of technological and social progress/process, the changes in man's plastic mind ushering further mental change, the speed gathered, the acceleration, seem written into the spirit of discovery. Maybe this is a category error on my part - a blurring of inspiration and political cooperation. But I do believe the momentum gathered is separate from our individual will... We cannot resist... Even engaging in debate on the internet seems an act of personal accelerationism. Lol, I think I'm slightly mad, Mark.
Co-creation is another possibility…
I'd love to talk to you about The Sunless Scene