Nilsi

Everything is nature. Duhh. We are already merged with all sorts of technologies (including AI). If AI starts to undermine our innate humanity though, I would consider it pathological (which it does in the case of say Facebook feed curation). Cells merge into humans, yet are not negated in their cell-dom in the process. This is fine and absolutely natural.

It should go without saying that we need regulations and that AI can potentially become extremely despotic - not to mention the potential existential risks of a superintelligence with access to all of the worlds information infrastructure. If AI is really better at everything that humans do, then we are just evolutionary bootloaders anyway. This is a pretty bleak assessment of human nature though. Humans have some intrinsic human capacities like empathy, creativity, self-directedness, sexuality and many more (and of course some nasty ones as well), which simply do not get better with increasing computing power. AI being able to do all the things we are not unqiuely adept for is the best news ever. If we dont fuck this up (which admittedly is a big if), the world will become a better and more humane place in every meaningful metric for it.

You are God, so whatever you imagine to be true will become true for you.

Im sorry, but this sounds like "mom its not a phase" for overly cerebral kids. Its good music though.

You forgot the most important one.

I dont see it. It is literally Eros - consciousness blossoming into ever greater complexity and intimacy (which is the correlate of complexity in the interior domain).

In my estimation it is a myth that suits mankind as a whole and is neccessary to cope and effectively deal with the world we currently inhabit. I dont see anyone articulating this worldview here, besides some rough intimations of it.

You keep deconstructing everything we bring to the table and you are obviously extremely knowledgeable and well versed in the history of philosophy, but youre not offering anything constructive. "Evolutionary progressivism" works very well in the real world it is adept at explaining every phenomenon in the universe it offers an ethical imperative and thus meaning and social coherence in becoming responsible stewards of evolution; it offers a sophisticated and open-ended aesthetic exploration of the universe through emergence - so I dont see any reason to replace it with some obscure archaic topsy turvy involution worldview. This is why I keep calling you a postmodernist or nihilist.

I think I know what you're saying now. So you're supposedly in some kind of enlightened state of consciousness and you're looking at an ape. Now instead of saying "I evolved from this thing," you say something like "this is my descent." Now when you look at some ideal, which discloses itself through say art or philosophy you say "This is my ascent; this is more close to my true nature." But then what? Do you actually want to embody this ideal or do you want to remain an observer frozen in time? Because if you want to reach this ideal, you will have to undergo some kind of evolutionary process. You will not magically turn into the Übermensch by sitting on your ass and deconstructing evolution and progress. So what are you even doing with your life?

Of course you can slice up time into cycles that repeat each other. But these cycles don't repeat each other exactly. There are slight variations which cascade into something completely new over long periods of time i.e. emergence through an evolutionary process . This is exactly how ontogenetic development works as well. You have microdevelopemental stages, which build on top of each other to create the acquisition of a new behavior or understanding. How does a child learn to tie a shoe? In incremental microdevelopmental stages, which build on top of each other and after many iterations of repetition the child is able to tie their shoes. Then, they can learn to tie their shoes, while thinking about what they will do today after school etc. All that is to say, fractal-like time cycles evolve in increasingly complex ways.

Isn't this just the good ol blind men and the elephant situation? I'll grant you your alternative interpretation of history, but it's just not helping anyone to flip everything on its head and talk about time as if it were flowing backwards. I'm not that familiar with the philosophy you're describing, so please correct me if I'm missing something, but to me it looks like being different for the sake of being different.

I know Im reiterating Wilber for the millionth time, but you have to seriously reckon with him (and not some strawman version of integral), if you want to make any earnest attempt at talking about evolutionary progress (or supposed lack thereof).

There is no culture without history and thus an evolutionary arc in which this culture is situated in. So the only argument you can make is that evolution is not progress, but rather (random?) change (or perhaps just a cyclical reenactment of the same fundamental movement/story?). You can criticize Spiral Dynamics and other stage theorys for colonialist tendencies and lack of universality, if you really want to. But even if you look at indigenous cultures with radically different values, you can clearly see that they have undergone an evolutionary arc of increasing complexification. These cultures have extremely sophisticated and elaborate rituals to maintain their social coherence, which must have taken thousands of generations of transmisson and refinement - i.e. mutation and selection - to achieve. So I dont see how you can remain such a hopeless romantic in the face of all this anthropoligical and scientifc evidence. Just take the cliché example of the holarchy from atoms to molecules to cells to organisms. Thats just undeniable progress. What youre doing is ironically a postmodernist levelling of the playing field. The only way you can not acknowledge that evolution is progress is by denying all hierarchies (or should I say holarchies). When a scholar of the old culture vows no longer to have anything to do with men who believe in progress, he is right. For the old culture has its greatness and goodness behind it, and an historical education forces one to admit that it can never again be fresh. - Friedrich Nietzsche

Check out René Girard. He talks about violence and scapegoating and the psychological games we play to cover these things up- very profound stuff and will probably give you a lot of insight into "gossiping."

I thought that was one of his most profound talks. Of course there is no difference between an infinity of Gods and an infinite God if you logically disect the statement, but its still a profound insight to really get that this is "us" being in this thing together - even though this "us" is only an "I" in the final analysis. This togetherness is just another facette of awakening - just like Love, Truth, God, Infinity, etc. are all "the same," but are qualitatively distinct experiences. Maybe this is already obvious to you (which it probably should be to a healthy human being), but I certainly had times when any sense of community or belonging was completely alien to me.

How convenient to frame it like that. I mean what I say. Im just fluffing it up for your own sake and my entertainment.

We just fundamentally hold different values. I see the way you carry yourself as weak and insincere and you see me as arrogant and selfish. Dont talk about systems thinking, when you boast about saving the environment by putting out fires. Thats just classic reductionist "here have some antibiotics for your illness and dont worry about the underlying cause of it" thinking. Im playing a character to break your frame, but ironically youre too stuck in your stage green kumbaya group think to look your own shadow in the eyes. So, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

I am of course dramatizing and stereotyping for the sake of the argument, but your comment is just one permutation of how this underlying slave morality manifests. So I'm happy to be an asshole and make it as salient as possible, so people can see it. You call me resentful, yet you keep insisting how "stupid" a meat-based diet is. Meanwhile everybody in this thread being on this diet is reporting how beneficial it is for them. Dare I say, you are possessed by the archetype of the slave? Your mind equates high animal product consumption with "immorality" and has to virtue signal, that you of course don't approve of such reckless behavior. If you believe that the best thing you can do for the world is just being as little of a burden as possible, that's on you. But there are people with higher ambitions and if they believe they need heaps of meat to fuel and actualize those ambitions, I say: "Let them be! - Better yet: Embrace them! for they are the true saviors of the great Web of Life!"

I was acting out, but the message still holds. Your moralization is fundamentally anti-life. I suggest you check out Nietzsches "Genealogy of Morals" or "The Antichrist" - if you dare, that is.

Actually your moralization is the bullshit ego game. I would prefer to be a vegan like a good lil boy, but I'm trying to have an actual positive impact on the world, which is why I need to look after myself. If veganism works for you: fine. But you obviously haven't thought this through in any meaningful way. I said it before, but veganism is the new christianity. You preach weakness and equality and try to drag everyone down to a petty sorry state of inaction and uninspiration, just to signal how virtuous and humble you are. You might not realize that you're doing this, but it's a tale as old as time.

How about the ethical obligations you have toward yourself. Saying that it doesn't really matter what one eats is just ignorant. I've tried veganism and vegetarianism for years, trying to get it right, but I felt like shit compared to how I feel on this meat-based diet. Also, what if keeping my mind sharp has actually a much bigger net positive impact on the ecology? Being vital and fully energized allows me to do higher quality work and to develop myself much more rapidly, which are all net positives. So it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

Youre cute

Thats very entitled of you.