[p2p-research] Free flipper! argues scientist

[Ryan Lanham]

On 1/3/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> there is an interesting spiritual background to this.
>
> It is possible to interpret the evolution of religious feeling (I'm not
> implying progress necessarily) as a increasing condensation of the spiritual
> force away from the objects of nature. Animist peoples see the spirit
> everywhere, both in living and non-living things; as we moved to
> polytheistic religion, it was condensated in some more general personalized
> principles, and finally, with monotheism, is concentrated into one God. This
> paradoxically depletes the natural universe from spirit, and henceforth,
> nature becomes an object to be treated in secular and capitalist industrial
> society.


I agree for now it is science fiction, but we do not know when it is not
science fiction until we establish thresholds.  As contested as borders and
boundaries are, I would think our theorists would spend most of their time
defining them or arguing they are irrelevant.  The boundaries of peer will
be, I'd guess, increasingly relevant.

My son plays World of Warcraft now and has disdain for computer generated
characters versus human-backed ones.  Why?  I don't know.  I assume it is
prowess.  There is something odd and interested in games where people play
each other versus a machine.  If I couldn't tell, I wonder how I would
respond?

Interesting point on monotheism.  Clearly monotheism had important
historical effects.  But I would argue that P2P is necessarily atheistic.
Polytheist systems are sort of like my Twitter as P2P...partial but not
sufficient.  The reason P2P systems must be atheistic is that the
introduction of the spiritual destroys any real prospect for individual to
individual communication devoid of external participation.  I think it also
destroys the moral impetus for mutual respect as a necessary element for
authentic P2P.  Rather, it creates external elements that force or cause the
ethos to manifest.

It was Max Weber who most closely tied capitalism to christianity.  I think
his arguments were a bit off, but your commented reminded me of his
(different) line of reasoning.  It was probably the case that proscriptions
against usury probably severely retarded Christian and Muslim commerce for
centuries and greatly prolonged the period of relatively minor innovation
and dissemination of information.  I strongly suspect that the relatively
high intellectual success rate of Jews in various societies comes from their
being outsiders forced to cope without social safety nets rather than their
monotheism.

I read where there is a great resurgeance of faith in India...particularly
amongst Hindus.  I'm not sure what this means, but I read at least one tract
that said it was comparable to US conservative religious revival during a
time of economic expansion.

I follow the discussions of atheism and science rather closely.  Most senior
scientists (indeed most scientists) are a-religious though of course not all
are.  When innovation does not require much science, I think it is highly
compatible with faith.  In times like the present where one must have a
relatively fact-based perception of reality to make much scientific
progress, I'd guess it is much harder to reconcile faith and
innovation.  Interestingly, I think physicians tend to be more spiritual.

I particularly like the point about the Japanese family and the robotic
dog.  That is/would make great sociology.  Just a few data points like that
I'm sure would be a very good article.

I am told that robot war (with predators and such) is very close.  That is
another facet.  One wonders about destroying machines versus destroying
humans.  Strangely, (reverting to SF), in something like Star Wars the film
makers see little emotion in killing their highly sophisticated robots, nor
do they suggest robots have "the force."  This always struck me as very
1980s.  Maybe not though.
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