From: Timothy Bates (tbates@karri.bhs.mq.edu.au)
Date: Thu Feb 25 1999 - 05:09:19 MST
Natasha asked
>> Is there a need for an extropic transhuman spirituality?
Paul Hughes discussed the word spirituality thusly:
> We all seem to agree the word 'spirituality' has
> been used and abused so much since the 1960's that it's become almost entirely
> diluted. Even still, the word has as many definitions as there are people to
> define it.
I would say not "even still" but rather "therefore".
>Perhaps it's that diversity of definition that still makes it
> useful.
Useful for feeling good and evading hard answers perhaps but it is rather
unusual that making a symbol have 8-billion definitions makes it useful for
anything at all.
> Defining it too precisely narrows for me what is potentially infinite
> in scope.
Definitions are the sine qua none of understanding: they are the only proof
that we have an understanding.
Paul then moved toward asking "is godly spirituality needed in extropy?"
noting that
> In regards to a theology of gods or Gods, they are not entirely without use.
> If I find that a belief in a particular God or set of gods is useful to my
> overall development, how is this a bad thing?
How is it a bad thing? It is bad for you when you make decisions that are
based on a faulty reality. It is for us when your spirituality convinces you
that we are blasphemers. It is for you again if another religionist decides
that your God is competing with hers.
>Internally believing in anything "as if
> true" has its uses, no matter how absurd the belief.
Saying something has its uses is meaningless: the question is what are the
uses? what are their relative costs? More to the point, can you hold that
belief consistently in the context of all of our knowledge and does it
maximize the rate of knowledge acrual? History has given us repeated
demonstrations that it effectively minimizes progress (If you ever ever see
a copy of Joseph McCabe's books ("a rationalists encyclopedia" and "golden
ages" buy them: he has many apposite examples, from ancient Egypt through
Moorish Spain to the modern day).
> In the past I found that oscillating between fervent belief and disbelief
> was a useful exercise in finding the limits of belief and their effects on my
> own brain.
umm yeah.
Natasha then asked
>> In our transhumanist community, ...
>> there is a tendency to be critical and factual. I like this.
>> Yet, how often do we recognize the kindness in one another?
> The strong tendency within this community to criticize first and seek out
> kindredness later has always bothered me. On the other hand, it's a
> refreshing change from the blind faith and stupidity rampant almost
> everywhere else we turn.
You know this is really quite an unfair characterization, I believe. It is
of course possible to be mindlessly rejecting and I am sure we all know
people who are closed, unimaginative and lacking in both childish play and
emotional understanding. Now, as I recover from playing hallway cricket with
a screwed up paper we are working on here, and screw my head back on from
imagining travelling up on that roton ... it is also possible to both be
playful, emotional, caring, and to cry and laugh while also requiring that
the things you let into your head be informative. In short, I really don't
think that one needs to practice tarot reading to open up any part of the
brain, nor would i accept that the critical faculty which several people on
this list display is negatively related to kindness or the recognition of
kindness. Actually, the one person whom i respect most on this list (not
saying who) is also the person whom i would predict would be the most kind
and for whom I would, never having met them, do most anything. I recall also
that the person on this list some years ago who struck me as most intensely
critical was also the most objectively kind.
Natasha then noted
>> There is a need for some form of emotional/intellectual synthesis which
>> brings out the integrity in our being. There is something, some sort of
>> synergy, some element that I sense is not discussed. Anders, in a separate
>> post states, "One might imagine a gradual ascent into embodying something
>> regarded as positive, a kind of slow apotheosis as the personality and
>> ability develops."
the dictionary tells us that apotheosis is:
1. the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.
2. the ideal example; epitome; quintessence: This poem is the apotheosis of
lyric expression.
There are two things here that I would like to comment upon.
Firstly I think we should beware of that second meaning: I wise man once
told me "imperfection is that perfection for which you are seeking". Took me
a while to get what he meant but he was right. Perfection-ideals also
permeate most totalitarian philosophies, Schiller, and all those people.
Secondly, "synthesizing" the emotions and the intellect is what I would call
just being normal - i.e., millions of people people largely achieve this.
This is not the basis of becoming a God (Of course many millions do not, but
that is another, sadder, story).
The story of affect over evolution is an interesting one. Emotion has always
been a part of evolving creatures, certainly all vertebrates. The "higher"
cortical regions are themselves intrinsically affective organs - however,
they process rather different affective information than do the older,
objectively more primitive (simpler) circuits which Papez and McLean
understood as the limbic system. For instance one can measure cortical
affective responses to distant futures and imagined potentials which are
simply invisible to the limbic system. That response is directly underpinned
by intellect, affective intellect, which can represent that distant future
and its own desire for it.
I guess that what I am saying is that critical capacity and affect are not
only not opponents of one another (which no-one here has implied) but
neither are they even particularly separable elements when analyzed at an
introspective level (of course they are somewhat separable
neuropsychologically, but then we are talking about dozens of computational
modules processing such diverse things theory-of-mind, affective
representations of others versus self and in fact a plethora of highly
interesting, separable affective-cognitions).
As such, you will not (do not?) find your desired god-apotheosis in people
who are not intensely critical any more than in people who are affectively
blind: it is the exact same neuronal computational architecture underlying
critical intellect which creates those desired affective qualities.
My feeling from watching this list is that some of its members are among the
most wonderful affective and intellectual company I have ever experienced
and that the two feed elements each other quite wonderfully.
tim
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