[p2p-research] Free flipper! argues scientist

Mon Jan 4 16:40:23 CET 2010

Hi Ryan,

I disagree that p2p must be 'atheistic', I would agree it is based on
(post-)secular spirituality,

pure atheistic secularism, which destroys our participative link with the
nature and the totality of the universe, with its radical subject/object
split, is co-extensive with capitalism, modernity and industrial society, it
is the system we are in the process of leaving.

As Paul Ray has shown, about 25% of the western population are believers in
religions, though they sometimes still grow in political clout, their
numbers are slowly but surely dwindling and they can't keep their young from
secularising, including in the U.S., as recent data have confirmed

The modernist population is dwindling as well, it's about 35-40%, so still
dominant

but the post-secular segment, which rejects belief but is open to the inner
life, has been growing roughly from 25 to 30% in a decade or so,

P2P is definitely not associated with the modernist agenda of separation and
domination,  but part of the participative consciousness of the post-secular
segment of the population, in it most pure form, as shown by susan cook
greuter, the p2p ethos only represents at most 2% of the western population,
but it is the also the 'ideal' of the post-secular segment.

Now what concerns machines as peers. Recognition has always been the result
of social struggle, either by those wishing recognition themselves, or by
those moved by the suffering of these (as in the case of slavery and animal
suffering).

So for machinic peerdom to emerge, either machines must be articulate
themselves about their suffering and need for recognition, or a group of
humans must be empathic with that perceived suffering.

For the foreseeable future, that does not seem to be the case, and there not
even single signs that it would, machines are still objects, programmed by
us.

Nevertheless a peer spirituality would be generally respectul of all
subjects and objectgs, although in different ways, so p2p would be good for
robots.

I choose to see, but this is a metaphysical presupposition that is not
provable in fact, though the stated experience of natives peoples and other
adherents of participative spiritualities, that consciousness is not a
treshold affair (though it has punctuated tresholds in its continuum), but a
continuum. In that sense, I do believe that rocks and objects do have very
subtle forms of 'consciousness' (though not at the individual level, but I
do think that there are rudiments of some very subtle forms of
intentionality in all matter. All matter contains matter/energy, and
information that organizes it, and I consider that information to be its
'spirit',

Michel

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 8:18 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

>  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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