From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Jul 15 2001 - 15:17:35 MDT
Robin Hanson wrote:
>
> On 7/11/2001 Amara Graps wrote:
> > >Amara Graps wrote:
> > >>Consciously or unconsciously you *know* the things that you like ...
> > >>event that might be considered a coincidence to someone else,
> > >>takes on a special meaning to you: ...
> > >to me the key question is: is it *true*?
> >
> >For me, that is not as important as the answer to the question:
> >"Is it *good* for *me*?" For a number of things in my life I don't
> >yet understand the working details, however, I use those things, ...
> >If you view synchronicity as a meaningful coincidence between an
> >external event and an internal readiness for being aware of that
> >event, then synchronicity acts as a bridge to our unconscious mind
> >or, at least, to the very edge of our conscious mind. ... I think
> >that, in order for synchronicity to work, it requires a deep
> >trust that the messages from your unconscious mind are strong,
> >authentic and move us in the direction of greater wisdom and
> >compassion and wholeness.
> >... Wouldn't it be really cool too, if your particular path
> >path was also beneficial for the world? An alignment of personal
> >universal purposes, in my opinion is the next level of integration
> >for someone. That is what being filled with the divine is about...
>
> It seems of course more reasonable to phrase factual claims in terms of
> learning things from your unconscious, rather than from nature. But it
> worries me when you talk about truth being less important, about requiring
> deep trust, and concluding that your personal path is beneficial to the
> world. I fear that your unconscious may be telling you comforting lies.
>
It depends very much on what you mean by "truth". There are
truths that are really amenable to reason, logic and the
scientific method. Truths about the material universe. There
are other truths about people and consciousness and lifes and
visions of what can be that are not so easy to touch with those
tools but they are crucially important also. The first truth is
not less important necessarily but it is certainly not more
important than the second type of truth. There are other levels
of truth I believe but we will start with this.
What was said about trusting the messages from the deep self, or
at any rate from beyond the range of the self-aware, conscious
intellectual mind is both very true and very difficult to learn
and to apply gracefully and in balance with the intellect.
Sychronizing the personal with the global is very much part of
being fully plugged in to one's life and time. Without that
synchronization we are all just islands of me-ness flooding on
the river of history waiting for the Singularity or death.
We can be, if you will, tools of what is to come, acting in its
materialization, shaping it and being shaped by it even until we
experience our lives as It manifesting us. This requires the
level of integration talked about above.
> You see, it seems that humans are not built to be truth-seekers, and so are
> often happier, etc. when they allow other considerations to influence their
> beliefs. People like to think they are more able than they are, for example.
> Humans are built to be truth-seekers more in some areas than in others,
> but in all areas must rely enormously on unconscious mental processing.
> In the areas where people seek truth more, they are conscious of critical
> processes that check claims for various sorts of reasonableness. In the
> other areas, we tend to distract or disable these critical processes in
> order to allow non-truth considerations to better influence beliefs.
> This is the essence of self-deception.
>
> Believing that what is good for me is good for the world is exactly one
> of those areas where we should expect people to be self-deceived.
Don't all of us here do precisely that? We all believe that
augmenting ourselves and running technology all out to reach the
Singularity is good for us and for the world. We believe it
regardless of what most of the world has to say. We believe it
even though it is a meta-claim not at all verifiable by our
blessed rationality. Actually, some of us seem to believe an
even stranger thing. Some believe that the world and its people
can go jump and are relatively unimportant as long as a
hyper-intelligence is born out of this world. If it turns and
eats us or otherwise destroys us then that is nothing to them.
Now that is a level of belief and of space for self-deception
far beyond what might be involved in noting and being impressed
by synchronicities!
> If
> the part of you that seems to claim this also seems to tell you that you
> must trust it without doubt or criticism, and that truth isn't really
> so important a goal, this seems a good candidate for self-deception.
> I grant that you will probably be happier if you let yourself be
> self-deceived in such a way. But perhaps you would rather be less happy
> and believe truer things.
>
I believe you are reading a lot into what was said that was
never said. For me, that which draws me, that dream of a future
and how to get there with the most joy at every point along the
way, is certainly not about only "trust it without doubt or
criticism". Without all my years of doubt and continuing doubt
and without criticisms I could neither appreciate the
possibilities or emphasize with others with just as many doubts
or begin to find a way to proceed even with all the doubts and
criticism. Doubts are part of the process. There is no make
believe here. It is deeply real and messy and wonderful.
But it is no cakewalk, no rose-colored glasses. It is nothing
at all like you seem to believe it is.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:47 MST