From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Dec 18 2001 - 03:03:38 MST
(this originated as an offlist response that may give a bit more
idea to what I'm on about)
That is a surprisingly difficult thing to really answer.
Spirituality to me is bundled up with a distinct reality view
that I
will label "Primacy of Consciousness". It is the view behind
(largely) the philosophical school of Idealism and is the
axiomatic view that most mysticism and arguably most major
religions grow out of. It is usually seen as opposed by or to
the "Primacy of Matter" which is largely what other
philosophical schools such as Rationalist, Pragmatist and so on
grow out of. It is where much of the scientific worldview is
based.
Now, I am an odd fish because I can look at the universe from
either of those two very different worldviews and live within
either for varying periods of time fairly comfortably. Yet
neither one seems totally comfortable and complete. So I end up
doing a sort of bipolar dance in between a lot.
One possible meeting place is that with Singularity on the
horizon it increasingly becomes true that Mind overrides (if you
will) Matter increasingly. In a way, the two horns of my
dilemna bend around and join up possibly somewhere down the
road. (pure speculation for sure)
So what do I mean by spirituality? It includes a very
optimistic viewpoint that Mind/Consciousness ultimately
determines everything. We have tremendous freedom to design
ourselves, our world[s], our lives as we wish. So why not use
that freedom to design our ethics and interactions with one
another and even within our own mind to that which we most
believe is conducive to how we would like to live and be? To me
this includes a lot of what looks like traditional spiritual
maxims of loving and caring about the unfolding and well-being
of one another. It includes not lying, not harming one another
and not being tripped out with just getting more and more of
whatever Stuff it is we try to convince ourselves will fix us up
and make us happy. It is about learning to deeply trust and
open to each other. It is very much about creating a world of
such abundance that competition and fighting over limited
resources becomes largely pointless.
- samantha
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