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User:LionKimbro

From Evolutionary Spirituality

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http://www.speakeasy.org/~lion/lion_positive2.jpg

Homepage: http://www.speakeasy.org/~lion/

Primary clique/community: CommunityWiki.

I was a participant at the second Evolutionary Salon, and part of the third.

My primary focus is on things like collective intelligence, which I think & write about on CommunityWiki.

My method is basically to work only with good, clear ideas, that make sense to me, and to work with them from there. That said, I am experimenting with opening myself up to the irrational, the imaginitive, because it is clear to me (clarity is a big one for me) that it is healthy for me and my tribe.

Pages here:

  • Lions questions -- questions I have about Evolutionary Spirituality
  • Popular media -- Evolutionary Spirituality, as present in popular media

Contents

[edit] Announcement

video on future, artificial intelligence, and so on

[edit] My Sense of the Evolutionary Movement

I see the evolutionary movement from the perspective of a male geek who was born in 1977, had a childhood in the 1980's, went through my teens in the 1990's, hooked into the Internet circa 1993, went to college for Computer Science, went to work in computers, and works part time in Open Source.

I'm still piecing this together; consider these just scattered notes. I'm not trying to say anything specific or authoritative here.

Elementary School, Junior High School, High School

My schooling (Santa Cruz & Aptos, California) was rooted in Evolution. It was a real no-brainer for me and my fellow students.

There was one day in high school where I met a girl who didn't believe in evolution. "My grandfather wasn't a monkey!" she said. The rest of us thought she was pretty weird. "But nobody said your grandfather was a monkey." That was the only real exposure to that kind of perspective that I ever saw in High School.

1999: Alpha Centauri

In 1999, there was a popular game released named "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri."

I didn't realize it at the time, because it would be several years before I was introduced to transhumanism more formally- but this was a game that was setting the stage. This game is a "civilization" simulation. It's theme is the future of humanity. Many of the themes we explore here are the entire point of the game: Ecology (the planet,) personality, feedback systems, society understanding society, transcendence, and so on. The game even uses direct transhumanist terminology (it names transhumans specificly,) towards the end of the game, and even details out the Matrioshka brain scenario. I didn't understand it, when I played it in 1999. But replaying it again in 2006, I see it so clearly.

This game was very popular, and it bedded itself in our psyche.

I see a place on this wiki to talk about evolutionary games and evolutionary media in general, elsewhere on this wiki. I think that computer games and simulation in general are very critical themes for the evolutionary movement.

1999: The Matrix

In 1999, there was a popular movie released: The Matrix.

The Matrix lit people's minds on fire. Everybody was talking about it, and the ideas in it. It was analyzed every which way. It was the first of a full trilogy.

These movies are marked by considerations of simulation, and meaning. While on the surface, it's not evolution, the themes that it invokes are the same sort of themes we find that people who think about evolution are thinking about. The matrix does not invoke evolution, rather, it assumes it. You can hear this in the language of Agent Smith, and his questioning about meaning and purpose within a simulation, and so on, and Neo's answers about choice.

My sense of the Matrix movies, is that they are preparation for a final "ka-chink" in people's minds, about evolutionary spirituality, and our super-narrative about our place in the world.

1999: WTO

Another thing happened in 1999: The N30 "Battle of Seattle," locally known here as just: "the WTO." ("Remember when the WTO happened? Where were you? What were you doing?")

Before, I was totally oblivious. But when it happened, I had to ask myself: "Why am I being stopped by the national guard at every block corner on my way to work?" "Why are there canisters flying outside my window here at work?"

Those questions were the seeds of an even deeper inquiry into what was going around me in society, and the world in general. I must have been 22 years old.

This led me to research Anarchism, and the Twin Oaks commune, and to start asking first principle questions like "What is society for?" ...and the like. "What's this all about? What are we doing here?"

Not that, above, is about my personal awakening to evolutionary spirituality.

As far as the evolutionary spirituality movement is concerned, the significance is that it shows the questions people are asking in their minds: "How shall we organize? What is Democracy?"

My sense of evolutionary spirituality is not as much rooted in genes and memes, as it is rooted in cybernetics. Genes and memes are critical parts of the story- I'm just saying that: With respect to Democracy, I am thinking of "Cybernetics: The Science of Communication and Control in Animal and Machine." Or, "Cybernetics: The Human Use of Human Beings." (I've got the titles a little wrong.) These are Norbert Wiener classics (that I have never read!) I'm bringing up the titles to invoke their themes.

It seems to me that minds operate by somewhat different rules than arms. The rule for an arm is to obey, but what is the rule for a mind? (Aristotle had some interesting things to say about this, that I want to defer for now.) But in the social organism, many people are arms, and a few people are minds, even though every single one of has (individually) minds and arms.

~2003: discover Transhumanism

Somewhere around 2003, or a little before, I started to awaken to possibilities that were opened up by technology. This turned into an inquiry into transhumanism. There was a natural place in the narrative for me, because I am a computer programmer. And I saw that many of the scenarios were plausible.

What does that have to do with evolutionary spirituality? It's because transhumanism, in my opinion, is the natural end-point for evolutionary thinking, and the proper future bed for evolutionary spirituality.

This is not a startling perspective: Many people have, dozens of years before me, seen it. It's just that this is around when it was happening for me. That: This is my sense of the evolutionary movement.

~2004, ~2005: CommunityWiki on the HiveMind

Sometime around here, I started exploring HiveMind themes on the CommunityWiki. Transhumanism deepend for me, as a reality.

I still had not noticed changes in spirituality in general, though: That would only become clear for me in 2006.

2006: Evolutionary Salons

This is when I went to evolutionary salon #2 and #3. This is where it all started coming together deeply for me.

This is where I first saw all of these religious people, and all of these pagans, and all of these metaphysicians, and so on, all getting excited about evolution, and talking in terms of the evolutionary story.

I was also shocked to discover that one of the major leaders, who was consciously teaching the evolutionary story as a story, had already fit Transhumanism into place as a sympathetic element.

I learned a great deal at the salons about how the social systems change and adapt, and how deeply the evolutionary story has touched people, without us even knowing it. We are thoroughly saturated in it; Rejection of the story is only strengthening is, and demonstrating how thoroughly it's infiltrated.

2006: Movies & Net Activity

After the Salons, I discovered the wealth of resources coming out on the Internet describing the evolutionary story, from all sorts of angles.

2006: Spore

Spore is poised to come out soon, and again, I see how deeply the evolutionary story has overtaken our culture. The game designer talks at GDC (Game Developers Conference, the #1 conference of actual game designers, game artists, game programmers, and so on, in the USA) to captivated audiences about evolution, astronomy, and deep time. People are really digging it: They sincerely dig it. And it spreads through the magazines as well, and to the "elite gamer" culture: Gamers who pay attention to the trends and so on. When this game releases, it will release in a big way: The hype is enormous, and it's not the product of a media marketing machine.

[edit] Questions

These are some questions, or "challenges," that I have about the Evolutionary worldview, and Evolutionary spirituality.

  • What is the foundation of morality, ethics, and virtue?

The answers so far given are based in the language of competition, cooperation, and so on. The answer argues that we are in a "cooperation" stage, and so we are learning to cooperate nicely.

This answer does not satisfy me. Not because I don't believe the answer is true, (I do believe we are going into a "cooperation" phase,) but because it does not answer the question: "What is the foundation of morality, ethics, and virue?"

The answer so far is basically akin to saying, "There is no foundation, but, that's okay, because we're going to be nice to each other."

I am actually okay with the idea that morality may be nothing more than a successful pattern of fashionable cybernetic swirl.

What troubles me is that we have no opportunities for transcendence in the story so far: One day, the pendulum swings back to competition, and then we (by some causal chain) are back at throats again.

Incidentaly, I have a good related link: Nature: Bloody in Tooth and Claw? (by Vernor Vinge.)

I think "nature" must be part of a good (and evolutionary) answer to "what is the foundation of morality," but I think it can only be part of the answer.

The major part of the answer to the question, to my mind, must be: "The Golden Rule." The Golden Rule gets a lot of flack nowadays, arguments generally referring to S & M: "What about the person who wants to be a masochist? Does that give them the right to treat others like they want to be treated?"

My answer to that is that people should treat (and want to be treated by) a political intermediary. That is: "polite." The way we act in public, and with the-many. We have a concept of "a person in general," or "a person out in the city." The "stranger," so to speak. And the way we want to be treated as a stranger, as an unknown, is often different than the way we want to be treated by a close friend, or lover. We have concepts of role relations, and so on, and we should treat others in their role relations as we would want to be treated if we were in the role relations.

There are good answers that make the Golden Rule work. The Golden Rule is no lazy thing: It's not a simple table that we can look up the easy answer in, and start formulating law from. Rather, it's something that requires dedication: A dedication to fairness, and evenness, and so on.

I believe that the concept of the Golden Rule comes into the Evolutionary framework in the consideration of, not genes, not even memes, but rather in the consideration of general cybernetic systems.

When I put the phrase "Golden Rule" side-by-side the word "genetics," I get strong dissonance. When I put the phrase "Golden Rule" side-by-side the word "feedback systems," I get a very strong resonance.

The chain of associations would then be: "Evolutionary Spirituality -- Cybernetics -- Feedback Systems -- Golden Rule," rather than "Evolutionary Spirituality -- Evolutionary Psychology -- Genetics -- Golden Rule." The first is in harmony for me, the second breaks.

(Further, I have a general deep suspicion of the over-application of Evolutionary Psychology: I've seen many instances where the argumentative forms used in evolutionary psychology explanations are clearly mis-applied, the conclusions do not follow, and the conclusions accepted solely on the basis of conformity with (demonstratably false) public belief, and the use of the word "evolution," which we all believe in, and want to demonstrate our support for.)

If someone can convince people that that "murder is in our genes," then many people will make ethical cases that murder is appropriate, and several traditional evolutionary constructions of morality do nothing to prevent murder, as long as it's outside of the tribe, or whatever.

But look: Explain it by feedback systems and the Golden Rule, and now murder is wrong again. Not only is it just "wrong again," but it's univerally wrong, though we must caution for legalism: The Golden Rule is based in Cybernetics, not written on stone tablets, and thus it's proper application is as complicated as we are.

[edit] Puzzle Pieces I Hold

  • "Eudaimonia."

A word I discovered recently, from 3 different angles.

Here is an interesting paper: <a href="http://stampe.nu/eudaimonia/index-en.html">Eudaimonia as Utopia.</a>

The vision is of a society where people strive for eudaimonia, which is something like happiness, something like excellence, and something like success.

  • "Transhumanism."

But, then again, the evolutionary worldview already contains this. So if I hold this puzzle piece, I'm hardly alone in that..!

[edit] Links

  • a book called: "Phoenix: A Tale of the Future" -- by Osamu Tezuka, the greatest Manga artist of Japan -- It presents Evolutionary Spirituality as a basic world view, in graphic detail.

See: my "Evolutionary Spirituality Reader" page, where I am collecting links on Evolutionary Spirituality.

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