"As for what this maturation process involves, Mckenna has two ideas: it will require us to become like children and it will require psychedelics…lots and lots of psychedelics."
I enjoyed your post, but i’m left with some questions. Without a clear definition of what is and is not ideology, it is difficult to understand the implications of decoupling. What do you believe changed before and after these events, at the psychological level? More deeply, what does this mean epistemologically? Couldn’t this post be considered an ideology itself, subject to memetic forces, and therefore untrustworthy as Mckenna suggests? Reductionist, I’m sure, but it’s an easy assertion to make from your post, elaboration would be illuminating. What do you(or mckenna) suggest take the place of ideology? again I am unsure where you put boundaries between that term and the rest of thought specifically-or is there any, given your post on living ideas? Can Ideas be trusted?
none of these questions are rhetorical, I want to know. If you read all this, thank you for your time.
Now that you have seen yourself thinking and transcribed it here and also seen the equations that arose, and now that time has passed, could you possibly rerun the equations in a frame that fits 250 characters please. I would be interested to see if the latter distils the former.
Beautiful work. Also enjoyed the exposure to McKenna and the prescient novella from Chiang. Tragically, we won’t see how the war of the many ideologies comes out because said war will prevent us from resolving our multiple environmental crises. As I’ve said now for many years: excrement eventuates.
Wow. Thank you for this outstanding and satisfying read.
I find myself meditating often lately on a couple thoughts related to what you've written here. The first is from one of the individuals you cited here, Ted Chiang, in his story "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling":
"We don’t normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers, and the consequences of that were profound."
The second is from Carl Jung, in his essay "Approaching the Unconscious":
"Our intellect has created a new world that dominates nature, and has populated it with monstrous machines. The latter are so indubitably useful that we cannot see even a possibility of getting rid of them or our subservience to them. Man is bound to follow the adventurous promptings of his scientific and inventive mind and to admire himself for his splendid achievements. At the same time, his genius shows the uncanny tendency to invent things that become more and more dangerous, because they represent better and better means for wholesale suicide."
Thank you for the challenging but enjoyable read! The link to the source of the final quote that you shared on developing a new language is now dead. I found the quote fascinating. Do you happen to know where I might find the source?
The Great Disembedding
"As for what this maturation process involves, Mckenna has two ideas: it will require us to become like children and it will require psychedelics…lots and lots of psychedelics."
No need. Just do the Russian physical therapy:
https://eharding.substack.com/p/why-does-russian-physical-therapy
I really enjoyed this read. Mind bending thoughts and ideas. Well written.
I enjoyed your post, but i’m left with some questions. Without a clear definition of what is and is not ideology, it is difficult to understand the implications of decoupling. What do you believe changed before and after these events, at the psychological level? More deeply, what does this mean epistemologically? Couldn’t this post be considered an ideology itself, subject to memetic forces, and therefore untrustworthy as Mckenna suggests? Reductionist, I’m sure, but it’s an easy assertion to make from your post, elaboration would be illuminating. What do you(or mckenna) suggest take the place of ideology? again I am unsure where you put boundaries between that term and the rest of thought specifically-or is there any, given your post on living ideas? Can Ideas be trusted?
none of these questions are rhetorical, I want to know. If you read all this, thank you for your time.
Now that you have seen yourself thinking and transcribed it here and also seen the equations that arose, and now that time has passed, could you possibly rerun the equations in a frame that fits 250 characters please. I would be interested to see if the latter distils the former.
Fantastic post, thank you for writing this!
Beautiful work. Also enjoyed the exposure to McKenna and the prescient novella from Chiang. Tragically, we won’t see how the war of the many ideologies comes out because said war will prevent us from resolving our multiple environmental crises. As I’ve said now for many years: excrement eventuates.
Wow. Thank you for this outstanding and satisfying read.
I find myself meditating often lately on a couple thoughts related to what you've written here. The first is from one of the individuals you cited here, Ted Chiang, in his story "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling":
"We don’t normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers, and the consequences of that were profound."
The second is from Carl Jung, in his essay "Approaching the Unconscious":
"Our intellect has created a new world that dominates nature, and has populated it with monstrous machines. The latter are so indubitably useful that we cannot see even a possibility of getting rid of them or our subservience to them. Man is bound to follow the adventurous promptings of his scientific and inventive mind and to admire himself for his splendid achievements. At the same time, his genius shows the uncanny tendency to invent things that become more and more dangerous, because they represent better and better means for wholesale suicide."
Thank you for the challenging but enjoyable read! The link to the source of the final quote that you shared on developing a new language is now dead. I found the quote fascinating. Do you happen to know where I might find the source?
That bit about vision being important for driving more complexity has some interesting parallels.
https://knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2021/are-spiders-intelligent
Such a great post. Thank you!