[P2P-F] Fwd: is there no p2p spirituality because there is no spirituality

Mon Sep 12 16:45:25 CEST 2011

Video content is the way forward they say ;)

On 12 September 2011 16:39, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:

> we could start a series of recorded skype talks, with 3-4 people, on
> different topics, with this as a first one?
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 9:36 PM, Amaia Arcos <amaia.arcos at googlemail.com>wrote:
>
>> What about a Skype based video-conference? We can make our own coffee and
>> sip along, as if we were physically in the same place?
>>
>> I think this sort of discussion is more fun "in person" :)
>>
>> It could be recorded for archival and publishing purposes..
>>
>>
>> On 12 September 2011 16:26, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>wrote:
>>
>>> thanks Richard, very 'enlightening' stuff, but this time, I'm just
>>> reading ... it's a bit of time question for me now, as I'm preparing a
>>> lecture tour ....
>>>
>>> If you had time, I'd be interested in some kind of summary of our
>>> discussions, that is readable for outsiders,
>>>
>>> just a suggestion,
>>>
>>> perhaps one day, when I'm back from my travels, we can have an organized,
>>> publishable, email-based discussion, less tit for tat, more an extented
>>> dialogue,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Poor Richard <poor_richard at att.net>wrote:
>>>
>>>> **
>>>> my comments as usual are interlinear
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 9/12/2011 3:56 AM, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 3:01 PM, Poor Richard <poor_richard at att.net>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  My comments are interlinear
>>>>>
>>>>> But what makes the term "spirituality" even more problematic than
>>>>> "love" in many contexts is that it is indeed a "hot button" word for many in
>>>>> the atheist/agnostic/skeptic/free-thought/science community.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> yes, but that is exactly because they have chosen for an impoverished
>>>> understanding of the world, and thus the world challenges that ...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I do not believe such a description fits me nor a substantial portion of
>>>> the communities in question.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  for me it's very easy to recognize the people who have either gone
>>>> through this inner transformation, or not,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I somewhat agree, but for me it may not be as easy as for you. I am
>>>> often surprised by what extended dialog may unearth.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  and the acceptance of the word 'spirituality' seems like a good
>>>> indicator for that.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> To me the word spirituality, when used in a non-sectarian universalist
>>>> or new-age sort of way, is lately an indicator of a sort of intermediate
>>>> phase of development, although few that I encounter actually seem to pass
>>>> beyond it. That may sound superior or arrogant but I think it best that I
>>>> don't sugar coat it with euphamisms or sneak it in sideways. I base this on
>>>> my own life trajectory as well as my last few years of study and re-analysis
>>>> of myself and those I have known.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   You are one of the few exceptions, i.e. having clearly having
>>>> experiences but not using the concept.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes I will stack up the quantity and intensity of my religious,
>>>> mystical, and shamanistic experiences (with and without psychoactive
>>>> substances) against anybody's. I'm no slouch as an amateur scholar of
>>>> comparative religion and other wisdom traditions, either. I used the concept
>>>> of spirituality most of my life. It has only been in the past decade that I
>>>> have abandoned the concept of supernaturality and only in the past few years
>>>> have I questioned the implicit associations of supernaturality (and other
>>>> connotations I consider doubtful or fallacious) with the word
>>>> "spirituality". It may be telling that I titled my blog post, "Is spiritual
>>>> the new supernatural?," with a question rather than a statement. I am still
>>>> agnostic as to the existence of anything logically and qualitatively
>>>> distinct from everything else in the natural world, i.e. anything
>>>> supernatural or non-natural) but I have completely abandoned the idea in my
>>>> own thought pending some startling future revelation). One might think my
>>>> aforementioned experiences would have provided just that revelation and
>>>> indeed I interpreted them that way once. But gradually over the past couple
>>>> of decades, concurrent with my deepening practice of introspection and my
>>>> further assimilation of neuroscience and other life sciences I have come to
>>>> interpret them in naturalistic ways that are much more satisfying to me than
>>>> my former spiritual  interpretations. My naturalistic interpretations are
>>>> more satisfying because they are more intellectually parsimonious
>>>> (spirituality no longer "adds value" to my interpretations--if it did I
>>>> would retain it); because they expand rather than shrink the horizons of my
>>>> mind; and because they fractally interdigitate with all the rest of my
>>>> knowledge as my previous interpretations never could. The silver lining of
>>>> spending years in extreme depression during which as much as half my time
>>>> was spent in a semi-trance-like, semi-meditative state interspersed with
>>>> long periods of careful and lucid examination of my thoughts, my beliefs,
>>>> and my entire body of knowledge and experience-- was that I was able to
>>>> sort, cross-index, and integrate all that content and process it to an
>>>> extent I think that few people ever experience. This has given me an
>>>> intellectual rebirth. I would say that my new brain is about two years old.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  But from the above, your choice seems politically and socially
>>>> motivated by the acceptance of that said community.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Not at all. I neither accept nor am I accepted by those communities (I
>>>> mentioned several) to any extent that would influence me. My brief
>>>> interaction with people in the local atheist community in N. Alabama was
>>>> quite contentious. My acceptance of science is not of the community but of
>>>> the methods, philosophies (with exceptions), and discoveries of science. I
>>>> merely mentioned the various communities in question because they are
>>>> well-represented in internet fora. I run across them all the time, but
>>>> usually in open discussions of activism, politics, economics, ethics,
>>>> conservation, general philosophy, and life sciences. I get the impression
>>>> they are well-represented in the ranks of public intellectuals, internet
>>>> geeks, and social activists. Very few of them seem to specialize in hyping
>>>> their atheism, skepticism, etc. to the exclusion of the general spectrum of
>>>> issues and ideas, any more than most gender-atypical or neuro-atypical
>>>> people or handi-capable people are obsessed with talking just about their
>>>> special community ad nauseum.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  I understand that position perfectly, for the same reason I do not use
>>>> the loaded s- and c-words .. but rather p2p to start a fresh investigation
>>>> of emancipatory possibilities
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If I slant my language for any audience (which is seldom), it is usually
>>>> the "mainstream" audience. But if I were in your position I would probably
>>>> avoid loaded words, too. From that frame of reference I might be fairly
>>>> neutral on spirituality, since it is so popular, but I think I would avoid
>>>> constructing many articles (with occasional exceptions, of course) that
>>>> didn't allow some room or comfort level for bright, non-spiritual and
>>>> anti-spiritual people to feel safe about participating.
>>>>
>>>>    We can say that "all is part of life", but again, isn't there a sea
>>>>> of difference between understanding this mentally, i.e. still separately as
>>>>> a watching and conversing mind, and/or to experience this directly, as a
>>>>> shaman might.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  I behold a sunset. I am moved esthetically and emotionally, and
>>>>> perhaps in other ways for which "naturalistic spirituality" might serve as a
>>>>> place holder for other words we don't have for responses of our organism
>>>>> that are still insufficiently examined. I'm not even saying that we can't
>>>>> value the sunset without examining our experience at all. But if someone
>>>>> tells me the sunset moves them spiritually, I probably know less than if
>>>>> they say it moves them esthetically or emotionally. Most people would just
>>>>> accept the spiritual explanation as if that meant the same thing to
>>>>> everyone. If you said you love the sunset, depending on the context I might
>>>>> say "yeah, me too" or I might ask "why?", or "what do you love about it?,"
>>>>> or "what do you mean?, or "why don't you marry it?"
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The sunset is not a good example, as anyone can 'easily' experience
>>>> that, but what about shamanistic, mystical, gnostic and other experiences,
>>>> that are not reducable to an external input from nature, but are rather
>>>> inner events, from problematic origins (your 3 mind theory) . THere is more
>>>> to life than nature 'mysticism' ..
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I want to say a bit about eroticism and then I'll discuss shamanism. A
>>>> lot of artful lovers (I include myself of earlier years) have had so-called
>>>> spiritual erotic experiences--merging with the cosmos kind of stuff. The
>>>> thing is, all kinds of hormones get flowing in the nervous system that are
>>>> capable of producing hallucinations and there is ample evidence of the
>>>> interaction of bio-elctromagnetic fields that probably affect the
>>>> proprioceptive nervous system in exotic ways. I myself became fairly adept
>>>> at the latter, and for years I considered various spiritual interpretations.
>>>> Gradually I worked out naturalistic hypotheses that were more plausible to
>>>> me. This does not exhaust the possibilities for evoking spiritual-like
>>>> erotic experiences but I think it probably characterizes the whole spectrum
>>>> of the phenomena.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not sure how you might distinguish mystical and gnostic, but one of
>>>> the few experiences I have no good naturalistic hypothesis for is my
>>>> occasional ability to correctly visualize the interior construction of a
>>>> machine I have never worked with before. One example is the case of a WWII
>>>> vintage Willys Jeep that wouldn't start in the middle of the wilderness.
>>>> Although I was not likely to have ever seen a schematic of a Willys starter,
>>>> much less ever disassembled one, I had a vision of the construction of the
>>>> starter which actually included the problem. I disassembled the starter and
>>>> found the problem exactly as I had seen it. Its possible that I had
>>>> disassembled maybe one other starter, possibly that of a 1949 Jaguar,
>>>> before. So go figure. I've had similar experiences with other machines.
>>>> Leaky mind?
>>>>
>>>> What shall I say about shamanism without fearing for my life? Here again
>>>> I think the proprioceptive nervous system and the bio-electromagnetic fields
>>>> of living organisms are recruited in exotic ways, often with the aid of
>>>> psychoactive substances, music, chants, rhythmic movements, sleep
>>>> deprivation, and many other devices that alter or reconfigure the neural
>>>> networks and the electrochemical state of the brain and the entire nervous
>>>> system of the practitioner and sometimes other participants. Even though a
>>>> lot of real stuff, including very exotic biophysical and biochemical stuff,
>>>> is actually going on, the other dimension of it is that memory contents (not
>>>> just the conscious memory but the eidetic lifetime memory of every sense
>>>> perception you ever had and every Hieronymus Bosch<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paintings_by_Hieronymus_Bosch>-esque
>>>> image you ever imagined or dreamed in your life) are recruited to wrap the
>>>> real physiological phenomena in a "virtual reality", or a sort of channeled
>>>> hallucination that relates in a meaningful way to the shamanistic activity
>>>> being conducted. The deal is that stuff happens that seems like magic, but
>>>> is actually very natural despite its being truly unusual, mind-boggling, and
>>>> poorly understood by science. That is not to say that all practices
>>>> considered as shamanism, such as so-called psychic surgery, are legitimate.
>>>> But there truly is real shamanic "magic", healing, and communication with
>>>> nature in the manner I characterized above. I am fairly convinced I have
>>>> communicated with plants and animals shamanistically, but a large part of
>>>> what I thought I experienced was probably amplified and elaborated by my
>>>> brain. Lets say one percent of the communication was real and 99% was
>>>> brain-generated virtual reality (to be very conservative).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>  But, this is crucial, just as we cannot reduce the 'meaning' of
>>>>> skakespeare by the physical qualities of the ink on paper,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  This is a bad example for your position. Meaning is only a relevant
>>>>> word in the context of a conscious entity. The ink on paper only has meaning
>>>>> when it is given such by the reader. We have learned a great deal about how
>>>>> all that works, and have no good reason to think that any of the stuff we
>>>>> don't know about it yet is not just as naturalistic as what we already know.
>>>>> When it comes right down to it, there is no good, logical, persuasive way to
>>>>> assert that anything unknown or mysterious is unnatural, because of the very
>>>>> lack of explanatory evidence that makes it a mystery. I have been
>>>>> experiencing and witnessing real mysterious phenomena for decades and have
>>>>> not seen, heard, nor read any convincing evidence that anything that exists
>>>>> or anything that is real is unnatural. Thus one of my objections to the very
>>>>> prevalent "supernatural" or dualistic connotation of the word spiritual.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ok again, there is no need to accept the supernatural at all; but here
>>>> is a crucual difference, you seem to argue that one day, we'll know enough
>>>> of the brain to explain the inner experiences of shakespeare lovers and
>>>> tibetan monks, and that is the reductionism I object two. These are entirely
>>>> different planes or aspects. No matter how much we know about how the brain
>>>> works, that does not say anything about the hermeneutic aspects of
>>>> Shakespeare. For that you would need psychological and social sciences but
>>>> even more: intersubjective dialogue, irreducible to any 'science'.
>>>>
>>>>>  Not yet. That will require full visibility into all levels of brain
>>>>> function and a way to "play back" these recorded correlates into another
>>>>> brain to verify that the experience induced by the recording is as complete
>>>>> as the original. I predict that some day it will be demonstrated so. I'd
>>>>> guess that to occur around 2040. I hope I'll live to experience
>>>>> high-fidelity brain recordings.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> again, for me that has no bearing on understanding the phenomena in
>>>> question, physical correlates are just physical correlates, they do not
>>>> exhaust the issue at all
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How can you say that does not exhaust the issue if you record the
>>>> correlates and play them back in an actual brain to reproduce the original
>>>> experience? I put that in specifically because it would confirm that the
>>>> correlates + brain were in fact sufficient to reproduce the full subjective
>>>> experience. You can say that's impossible and will never happen, fair
>>>> enough, but if it did happen why wouldn't it exhaust the issue?
>>>>
>>>> Besides, there is all the evidence from brain damage, stimulation, etc.
>>>> that the brain creates the subjective experience because when you damage or
>>>> stimulate it you alter or extinguish a specific category of subjective
>>>> experience or cognition.
>>>>
>>>> I consider this just as well-settled as an election where 40% of the
>>>> votes are in and every single one of them is for the same candidate. In
>>>> other words, I don't believe in miracles even though there is still a small
>>>> possibility they could happen. If and when one happens I'll reappraise the
>>>> situation. This is not so much reductionism as a tendency to conserve ones
>>>> resources by concentrating on the most probable pay dirt.
>>>>
>>>> We are all reductionists. That is built in to the nature of our brains
>>>> and it offers certain economies and efficiencies. That is why we have to be
>>>> so vigilant for habitual cognitive biases and why all our beliefs, even
>>>> about our own first-person experiences, have to be provisional and have to
>>>> be regularly examined, tested, and revised. The issue is whether one's
>>>> reductionism is reasonable in a given context. For example, if you are even
>>>> remotely fundamentalist about anything, including science, that is excessive
>>>> reductionism. Many religious people have some of the most reductionist views
>>>> of reality of all. I would say that one's world view must be at least 50%
>>>> based on the best available science or it is a reductionist world-view. By
>>>> that standard probably 90% of the human species has a pathologically
>>>> reductionist world-view. Most of the remaining 10% would be some
>>>> approximation of a scientist-shaman.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>  Hence the dialogue is always between those three levels, that of
>>>>> understanding material laws, that of understanding human meaning, and that
>>>>> of experiencing directly the transformative power of spiritual experiences.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  In that scenario I'm not sure I see any difference between direct
>>>>> spiritual experience and, say, direct experience with a microscope.
>>>>> Experience with microscopes is also transformative.  Direct experience is
>>>>> integral to science, and science is transformative, too. So is torture.
>>>>> (Different strokes....)
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> well it is the difference between physical torture, mental torture, and
>>>> what it all means to the human being doing and experiencing it ... multiple
>>>> levels of reality, not reducible to the physical correlates ... each new
>>>> level of complexity is based on the lower level and cannot exist without it,
>>>> but brings new 'laws' to the table .. i.e. emergent realities
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Not reducible to the physical correlates -- I haven't said that. It is
>>>> correlates + living brain. But if we can play the brain like a player piano,
>>>> it means we don't need anything else (except more detail) to explain it.
>>>> That's not irrational reductionism, that is rational parsimony.  An Amazon
>>>> tribesman might wonder what kind of spirit animates a chain saw or an
>>>> excavating machine, but we don't. We understand the machine performs its
>>>> function without requiring a spirit. In my opinion there is no credible
>>>> evidence that we are anything but amazingly subtle and complex machines.
>>>> That is not a reductionist position unless I hold it in the face of reliable
>>>> contradictory evidence.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>    That doesn't require anyone to believe anything said by such
>>>>> experiencer, but only, if we want, to follow the injunctions that may lead
>>>>> to those occuring in us as well. There is no obligation, but in my mind,
>>>>> there should also not be a rejection.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  I disagree. Many (perhaps all) altered states of consciousness can be
>>>>> induced by secular means free of any association with religious or spiritual
>>>>> trappings. What the religious and spiritual terminologies, narratives,
>>>>> rituals, sacraments, art, architecture, etc. mostly seem to contribute is to
>>>>> make a practice or procedure more interesting, entertaining, or emotionally
>>>>> compelling (sometimes frightening) to many. This is a way of exploiting
>>>>> human nature.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> well again, "a means of exploiting human nature" "hoaxes", instead of :
>>>> different cultural and historical ways to experience human and other
>>>> realities
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That is not a fair characterization of my position. However it would be
>>>> foolish not to acknowledge that a great portion of what most people
>>>> (including modern, educated westerners) actually believe is contradicted by
>>>> fact, and that (a separate issue) there are many people in all cultures who
>>>> exploit human nature and perpetrate hoaxes.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   ... there is a sea of difference between the dead western funerals I
>>>> experienced in Belgium (for my father) and the lively, communal, rich
>>>> funeral rites I experienced here in Thailand (for my mother). An incredible
>>>> difference in effectiveness, psychological, social, spiritual ..
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> There are many levels on which traditional funeral rites comfort the
>>>> living and assist in their adjustment and I don't quarrel with that at all
>>>> (with some possible exceptions) because at that point people are generally
>>>> not in a balanced, integral state. By the same token prayer is known to help
>>>> many people recover from illness, although there is also evidence that
>>>> non-religious guided imagery has a similar impact. In the absence of other
>>>> evidence I attribute these to a type of placebo effect. The downside of the
>>>> spiritual versions of psychoneuroimmunology and suggestion is that false
>>>> belief systems or biases may be reinforced which could have negative as well
>>>> as positive consequences at some point int the future. For example, a person
>>>> convinced that gods had healed them my become fundamentalist or apocalyptic.
>>>> Of course if the interventions are truly life saving I suppose future
>>>> consequences can be damned.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   there is really a sea of difference between artificially creating a
>>>> altered states through drugs and machinery, and the collective process that
>>>> goes on through a spiritual path. Which is not to say we could not develop
>>>> and are developing, contempary methodologies, such as John Heron's
>>>> Cooperative INquiry and many others,
>>>> http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Spirituality#Key_Articles
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I strongly agree that good collective process is often more powerful
>>>> than individual practice, though of course they are complementary, and that
>>>> altered states achieved without drugs or machinery, if possible, are
>>>> preferable--or perhaps I should say they reflect a greater achievement.
>>>>
>>>> However, altered states acheived au naturale do not escape my scrutiny.
>>>> I have had many unassisted "mystical/religious" experiences for which at the
>>>> time my highly educated, practiced, and subtle mind had little recourse but
>>>> to spiritual interpretations. Drugless, in prayer, I was once enclosed in
>>>> two giant, cupped hands that were a translucent, glowing greenish-blue
>>>> color. This was visible to my open eyes. I was certain they were the hands
>>>> of Jesus. Another time while meditating (drugless) in a group of experienced
>>>> meditators in a very special, highly conducive place, I watched myself as I
>>>> lay in a small rowboat floating across a smooth, silvery blue lake towards a
>>>> far shore that was not visible at first. As the far shore just became
>>>> visible, I heard the unmistakable voice of Jesus --not in my mind but
>>>> speaking softly in my ears--giving me a blessing. I realized that the far
>>>> shore was the threshold of the heavenly world where my wife (dead for two
>>>> decades) might be. As I began to anticipate reaching that shore, I was told
>>>> in a different voice, unfamiliar but nonthreatening, that it was not
>>>> permitted. My consciousness gradually returned to the room and I felt better
>>>> than I ever had in my life. Was this a spiritual experience? In form and
>>>> content, perhaps; but in time I came to consider it a self-induced
>>>> hallucination. Curiously, the experience was so incredibly remarkable that I
>>>> did not feel disappointed to think of it as an hallucination. I was very
>>>> impressed with my brain. Despite its past injuries and some genetic
>>>> handicaps, it is a very  fine brain and I gotta love it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>     Apart from the rejection of the semantics of the concept of spirit
>>>>> and spirituality, it is now a historical time to go beyond the rejection of
>>>>> 19th century rationalism against anything that is not purely 'rational', to
>>>>> a time of integration and dialogue between the various levels of the human
>>>>> being.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  That's what I'm all up in here about. My rational arguments would not
>>>>> be what they are without decades of practical experience and observation of
>>>>> all things mystical and shamanistic from a highly open and sympathetic point
>>>>> of view. I do not reject the experience, but I do reject many of the common
>>>>> interpretations of it.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Understood, so do I, but I believe what is needed is participant
>>>> observation, not a superior condemnation from a morally higher vantage point
>>>> (i.e. rational thinking vs. hoaxes and human exploitation)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I understand. Despite what I said about loving my brain, I don't think
>>>> my interpretations are ecessively ego-based. But I agree that is not always
>>>> the case for others who object to spiritual interpretations. In the past I
>>>> was often a sympathetic participant-observer of many cultural traditions and
>>>> practices. In the present, my aim is not condemnation but cognitive
>>>> emancipation and evolution. I only reject (for myself) beliefs that are
>>>> contrary to evidence or for which I have compelling (at least to me)
>>>> naturalistic hypotheses; and I only discuss these in what I think are
>>>> appropriate venues.
>>>>
>>>> PR
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>>
>>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>>> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>>
>>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> “We would think and live better and be closer to our purpose as humans if
>> we moved continuously on foot across the surface of the earth” Bruce Chatwin
>>
>
>
>
> --
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
>

-- 
“We would think and live better and be closer to our purpose as humans if we
moved continuously on foot across the surface of the earth” Bruce Chatwin
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ourproject.org/pipermail/p2p-foundation/attachments/20110912/c2147005/attachment.htm 