Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Ted, ancestors have a great deal to do with one's luck. 

Jim, the GMI sounds wonderful. However, it strikes me that if we
lived in a society that truly believed in dignity, even the dignity
of having a job(career), we would start, in our current work based
economy, by offerring free and accessable post secondary education
to any and all comers. Yet we know this to be the complete opposite:
higher education has become less accesible in the US since the
Reagan era.

Last night, on YT, I watched part of a documentary series, The OJ
Simpson Story: Made In America, and learned some 1980-90's LA
history concerning race issues. The poor black people of LA were not
being treated with any dignity at all, and things seem to have
gotten much worse in the US over the 25 years since, for poor people
of all races.  

My point? How do we turn human's hearts and minds so that they
believe in dignity? Is that job #2 after we overturn Citizen's
United?

Somehow, we have to get the words "dignity based society" on the
lips of the masses. The breakdown of society and infrastructure
tells me we are currently on a course 180 degrees away from a
"dignity based society". What are the attractors for a dignity based
society?

Certainly Occupy and Bernie Sanders seemed to be directed at
dignity.

 
 
  

 




 
  

    
>Certainly Occupy and Bernie Sanders seemed to be directed at
>dignity.

Very much so.  I was involved 2012 to 2014 in an abortive political
organizing effort.  It failed institutionally, but my big positive
take-away was how self radicalizing the Millennial generation is.  

Millennials will be reaching their peak percentage of voters around
2024, that alone provides a significant vector towards the good.   

plus, someone needs to figure out how to bridge the gap between the
mostly white Millennial radicalism and especially the Black
population.  If Black Americans had voted for Bernie in the same
percentages at WHite Americans, Bernie would have been the nominee. 
Historically Black Americans have voted disproportionately for the
more Progressive Democratic Primary candidates.  Not this time.  

Find the answer to that tragic disconnect AND take advantage of the
rising Millennial tide over the next 8 years and there is hope. 
Indeed really a fair amount of hope.  

We've also gotten lucky: the face of the Neo-Fascist attractor in
America - Trump - has turned out to be at the end of the day
(fingers very strongly crossed) to be a klown.  Had it been Cruz,
the story could be far worse.  

Clinton will provide some aid and comfort to Big Money and the
status quo, but she won't actively persecute the rising tide of
radicalism the way a Trump or Cruz might have.  Clinton, let us
hope, will be the Gorbachev who while thinking they are the
modernizer of the status quo, is really the presider over its
downfall.

 
  

    
BanjoJohn et al:

Ted just informed that the discussion continues and, since it seems
that the W.E.L.L. gods have allowed me to log-in (or maybe it's just
an echo that has fooled my browser), let me jump back in . . . <g> 

1) I post Amazon links because you can read quite a lot there for
free!!  It's the only way I know to do that.  I have found that many
people I'm talking with would like to see where the ideas being
batted around have come from, so Amazon's LOOK INSIDE is my answer. 
Is there a better one?

2) As I would describe it, the Santa Fe Institute has been dealing
with *material* causes -- which is to say, nothing in "complexity"
requires that humans be involved and, as the Big History Project
asserts, this approach works quite well on Astrophysics (indeed, it
was begun by Astrophysicists).  What we're talking about at the
Center is FORMAL cause and that's why we begin with the work of
Marshall McLuhan. What we care about is *psychology* and not
*physics* and, indeed, we don't think that they follow the same
"rules."

I recently wrote a post for the Digital Life list (which is where we
continue this discussion daily) called "Reality (physics) and the
Human Brain (psychology) -- Which Constructs What?" (that is also
available on my Facebook page), which talks about aspects of this. 
Maybe if this post goes through I should also post it here?

3) Universal Basic Income won't "work" for what we're facing for a
couple of reasons. First, it was a system designed to *replace* all
forms of "welfare" and the politics of doing that are likely
insurmountable.  Second, it was a system designed to deal with the
shift from INDUSTRIAL to SERVICE (i.e. post-industrial) economics
(i.e. the 1960s/70s) and does not begin to address the far more
fundamental shift to ROBO-industrial economics.  Something far
*more* basic is now needed.

One attempt to tackle these much more sweeping changes -- including
in our *psychology* as a result of DIGITAL techno-semiotics -- is
what Doug Rushkoff calls "Digital Distributism."  You can read about
what he thinks (for free) right here --

https://www.amazon.com/Throwing-Rocks-Google-Bus-Prosperity-ebook/dp/B00Z8VTKB
Q/

Mark
  

    
[Since that seems to have worked, let me try this . . . ]

Reality (physics) and the Human Brain (psychology) -- Which
Constructs What?

We shape our tools [physics] and, thereafter, they shape us
[psychology] -- John Culkin (1967)

As far as we can tell, *reality* (i.e. the realm described by
physics, chemistry and biology etc) is fairly stable.  It seems
reasonable, based on current knowledge, to presume that HOMO
SAPIENS, as a distinct biological species, has remained
anatomically, biochemically, genetically etc. the "same" for some
200,000 years. Yet, obviously, many things about us change.

So, what is it that changes and how?  Our *psychology* has
apparently shifted repeatedly and in dramatic fashion.  From a
"physical" standpoint, this is exactly what would be expected.  The
*human* brain is not a "stable" structure.  It is often referred to
as PLASTIC and, as we all know from our own lives and our
experiences of others, while we may be born "alike," that's not how
we turn out.

Gross neuro-anatomy can be mapped and dissected.  Overall, human
brains seem to have the "same" structures, with individual
differences that, by and large, "prove the rule" and reflect back on
the importance of that stability.  So, what is that actually
changes?

We are still unable to map the "fine-structure" of the brain.  But
we know that throughout a human's life, the neurological "circuitry"
-- which neurons "en-nervate" others and which neuro-transmitters
dominate when-and-where in our encephalitic "soup" --  can show
remarkable variation.  We are apparently *shaped* by our experiences
-- making each of us individually "different" and, at the social
level, collectively different from groups of humans who lived under
different conditions.

Modern science tells us that while the periodic table of elements is
invariant enough to allow us to print it on shower curtains (and
explain the groupings by quantum electron levels etc), the "periodic
table" of human behaviors and attitudes is not at all susceptible to
the same sort of rigorous categorization.  Yes, many have tried but
equally many have failed.  And, for good reason.

Plato's life was not the "same" as Kant's.  And, Kant's wasn't the
same as Foucault's.  They all lived in radically different
techno-semiotic *environments* and, as a result, didn't experience
the same things.  So, given what we must presume to have been
sharply different "fine-structures" of their brains, we would be
foolish to think that they were the "same" sorts of people. 
By-and-large, we don't do that.  We allow that these were different
people, living in different times -- resulting in different brains
and, as a result, different behaviors and attitudes.

However, for perhaps the first time in human history, a widespread
attitude has recently developed which tries to "invert" what we all
(should) know about these processes.  It is called "social
constructionism" and it holds that *reality* (or at least the
"social" aspects of reality) can be deliberately molded.  It
professes that society can be whatever we want it to be.  This
contrasts sharply with the far more common historic view (held by
both Plato and Kant) that society has its own kinds of "laws" which
must be understood and followed.  What sort of human brain would
come up with this bizarre "constructionist" idea?

Michel Foucault is perhaps a good example of that sort of brain.  In
terms of "modern" philosophers, Foucault is well known for the
*extremes* of experience that he sought out.  In particular, his
documented hallucinogenic drug and "dangerous" sex life were
anything but typical, even among his peers.  This was a man who
seems to have done as much to "re-wire" his own brain as he could
without killing himself.  As a result, we perhaps should consider
the products of that brain to be as *odd* as the experiences which
produced that brain.

Another "strange" brain example might be Frederick Nietzsche.  It is
well known among Nietzsche scholars that he traveled with a suitcase
of drugs and that his eventual "insanity" -- arrested while talking
to a horse on the streets of Turin -- likely has explanations that
tie back to his deliberate manipulation of his own brain chemistry
over many decades.  Yes, this is "scandalous" for many who wish to
hold that brain as exemplary and, indeed, it appears that dwelling
on Nietzsche's "psycho-chemistry" is *verboten* among Nietzsche
scholars.  Try it out (as I have), see what happens when you try to
bring up the pharmacological "tools" that *shaped* his strange
brain.

But, more broadly, the historically strange notion of "social
constructionism" is itself the product of a *hallucinatory*
environment.  It is no accident that these notions began life in the
LSD-fueled 1960s, became widespread in the "revolutionary" 1970s and
then, went the "generation of '68" (the French street-uprising that
was itself driven by KGB-supplied LSD) took over much of social
science, became "dogma" starting in the 1980s.

Yes, Plato and Kant -- both of whom spent their lives trying to sort
out the "invariants" regarding human social life (based, in each
case, on the unique techno-semiotics of their own experiences) --
would have thought that Foucault and Nietzsche et al must have been
"taking something."  And, in fact, they would have been correct. The
"what have you been smoking?" injunction clearly applies to these
modern exemplars and all the others who have fallen for this
"constructivist" nonsense.

Why is this important today?  Simply put, we don't take LSD anymore.
More expansively, we don't live in a world dominated by the
"hallucination machine" of TELEVISION anymore.  So, as a result, we
don't need to pay much attention to Foucault or Nietzsche (or the
thousands who followed in their wake) anymore.  How strange that we
ever did . . . !!

Today, our brains are being "wired" differently.  Yes, physics is
the same (despite its own *hallucinatory* detours, having also been
"saved by the Hippies") as it was in Plato and Kant's times. 
However, our psychology is not the same.  The techno-semiotics that
produces the "fine-structure" (neurologically speaking) of our
brains is, once again, radically different and, as a result, so are
we.

Far from "reality" being whatever we want it to be, we are
ourselves, once again,  being *constructed* by the tools we have
shaped.  Unless, of course, we take the time and effort to
UNDERSTAND media . . . <g>

https://www.amazon.com/Social-Construction-Reality-Sociology-Knowledge/dp/0385
058985/
  

    
Too cool. Thanks for jumping back in Mark.

I was hoping Doug was going to participate earlier on as he is so
keen on the need for an 'evolutionary' bump in global consciousness.
(Does the globe have a consciousness???can it evolve?? Hopefully you
know what I mean - that humanity 3.0 occurs within our lifetimes.
That, for me, a more cosmic consciousness, an awareness of much
higher realities than the mundane ones we find ourselves in so much
of the time.

For me, that higher consciousness goes above and beyond the
East/West dichotomies - it resolves the current dilemma.

But, then, that's analog, not digital.
  

    
Ted:

Be careful what you hope for -- Douglas Rushkoff (paraphrased)

Yes, the ELECTRIC techno-semiotics of our lives has certainly pushed
us towards a "cosmic consciousness" (a term used as the title of
Richard Bucke's 1901 book, subtitled "A Study in the Evolution of
the Human Mind").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousnesshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wik
i/Cosmic_Consciousness

However, as I've been discussing in this INKWELL thread, we aren't
doing that anymore.  Now, we are DIGITAL and that brings a
completely different techno-semiotics, leading to quite different
behaviors and attitudes.  As a result, all of that "cosmic
consciousness" (and "co-evolution") stuff has to go . . . !!

In it's stead, we are now groping towards something that is based on
a very different *faculty* of our minds -- MEMORY.  Instead of
"evolving" into something fanciful (and electric), such as
Three-Point-Zero humanity, we are now exploring what we have always
been.

No, we are not immortal.  No, we are not PURE or "perfect" or
God-like and we never will be.  Stewart Brand was (and still is?)
fundamentally wrong.  We are *not* "as Gods and might as well get
good at it."  We are *humans* and we'd better get used to it . . .
<g> 
  

    
As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, "whose 'we' white man"

You can be digital if you want, I'm analog and still working out the
rest here is this meat suit. Still find I don't need a cell phone to
talk to folks <g>, not that this isn't wonderful and all, just
typing away.

Not buying it Mark. On this point we will have to agree to disagree
or I need to be better educated, and i AM listening, as to what you
mean.

It sounds like you are saying I'm digital whether I like it or
not...and I get your 'tools' point, but I'm either the Captain of my
ship or I'm not (ala Walt). Maybe I'm confused here. 
  

    
Ted:

We shape our tools and, thereafter, they shape us -- John Culkin
(1967)

"Either I'm the Captain of my ship or I'm not" -- Ted Newcomb (2016)

You're not.  Your behaviors and attitudes do *not* belong to you. 
You, along with all the rest of us, are "informed" by the
techno-semiotic environment in which we live.  And, what you call
"analog" is actually TELEVISION, which dominated all of our lives
(living as we do in the USA) from roughly 1950-2000.

That techno-semiotic environment was based on FANTASY and it simply
doesn't work anymore.  As a result, the *consumer* economy is
permanently broken, and no economist can put it back together again.
As a result, the *two-party* political system is permanently broken,
and no political scientist can put it back together again.  As a
result we don't live in Kansas anymore, Toto . . . <g>

The shift to a new *environment* started in earnest in the 1990s. 
We were all told by Stewart and Kevin's WIRED magazine that
everything in our lives would be "disrupted" and that's exactly what
has happened.

Welcome to your future (and as TimeOut said in their first magazine
issue for NYC, "now get out) . . . !!
  

    <hidden>
  

    
#184 hidden due to length
  

    
Turn off, tune out, drop in....the great mandela spins again.
  

    
Just spent 7 hours at the Phoenix Zoo while my grandson played
Pokemon Go, so he could level up two levels...nice thing was we got
to talk for 5 hours, I needed a couple of naps...and we saw a 45
year old white rhino in all her glory...

This was relaxing for Kyle...normally he has three screens going at
all times, PC for League of Legends, TV for South Park, and the
phone for You Tube videos.

He started off complaining that he had had a difficult time falling
asleep because when he closes his eyes he keeps seeing white lights
and things running around on the inside of his eyelids....

Which led to 5 hours of talking about what we have been talking
about here, and his generation and what is happening to his brain as
he spends 8 to 10 hours a day in all these screens...and of course,
he can't wait to get his VR googles...

And there you have it...

He does not read books --- too slow, and not enough inputs, he finds
it boring...but he will do audio books, so I am reading his T.H.
White's The Once and Future King while he is currently playing
League, watching Cartoon Network and the phone is charging from all
the zoo, so he has an input channel available..
  

    
Ted:

In the 1988 "Laws of Media: The New Science," Eric McLuhan explains
the TETRAD as a heuristic to help understand the *effects* of any
technology on our subconscious psychology.  Yes, I run the Tetrad
forum on Facebook, if anyone would like to join.

https://www.amazon.com/Laws-Media-Science-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0802077153/

On page 158-59 a Tetrad for TELEVISION is suggested and in the
"Reversal" quadrant (i.e. what happens at the *extreme* version of
the technology), the entry is the INNER TRIP.  This is what is
happening to your grandson.  And, his parents should "go to jail"
for what they've done to him . . . !!

This is the reason why LSD -- which was invented in the 1930s (no,
the "official story" is *not* what actually happened, as shown by
Leo Perutz's "St. Peter's Snow" novel) but didn't catch on until the
1960s under *television* conditions -- was so important for the
"counter-culture" and, indeed, the W.E.L.L.

Can you imagine the W.E.L.L. without it?  The "Tune In" portion of
Leary's mantra likely came from Marshall McLuhan (at a lunch the two
had in NYC in 1967) and it specifically ties LSD to TELEVISION --
which, after all, is the "source" of so much that has happened on
this very BBS (and at the Whole Earth and its many spin-offs over
the past 50+ years).

LSD = TELEVISION since, in fact, both are parallel *hallucination*
machines and, as a result, your grandson is "tripping" everyday
(with VR/AR/HR/MR aimed squarely at his "demographic") . . . !!
  

    
Yup, I agree on all counts and thanks for the Tetrad link, asked to
join.

The neurology of all this is scary and fascinating at the same time.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/brains-reaction-to-virtual-reality-should-pr
ompt-further-study-suggests-new-research-by-ucla-neuroscientists:

"“The pattern of activity in a brain region involved in spatial
learning in the virtual world is completely different than when it
processes activity in the real world,” said Mayank Mehta, a UCLA
professor of physics, neurology and neurobiology in the UCLA College
and the study’s senior author. “Since so many people are using
virtual reality, it is important to understand why there are such
big differences.”"

Virtual Neuroscience Lab:
http://www.neurosc.com/research/

"We aim to grow the body of knowledge about virtual presence and
also apply this in our primary reality. Some keywords we
investigate: consciousness; body ownership; agency; suspension of
disbelief. Get ready to redefine the human psyche."

Gaming Addiction:
http://www.vice.com/read/gaming-in-virtual-reality-could-be-the-very-real-deat
h-of-you-911

Legal Heroin: Is VR our next hard Drug
  

    
In rereading this topic from the top, I notice quite a bit of the
use of the word "consciousness" and, as is all to typical, with
various, not sharply defined meanings.

For whatever reason, "consciousness" seems to be one of those terms
like "racism" that wants to expand to fill the available meme-space!

Unfortunately, that makes for sloppy thinking.

I'd suggest the following glossary to help sharpen the conversation:

1.  Per Searle, "consciousness" is a biological function of a class
similar to digestion.  Like digestion a process in which multiple
components participate.  Like digestion consciousness is
biologically expensive to maintain, and it serves a critical purpose
in life of organisms that have that feature.

2.  Primary Consciousness, per Gerald Edelman:  the kind of
consciousness that we share with a dog, a rat, a mouse, and
probabaly with reptiles and birds.   Consists of a of single
threaded multi-sensory (including retrieved memories) scene in which
exactly one object is the current focus of attention.  Animals with
Primary consciousness experience a loss of consciousness in deep
sleep and some forms of anesthesia, but can reboot back into
consciousness with memories and "personality" in tact (more or
less). 

3.  Extended Consciousness, also per Edelman: that kind of
consciousness that humans have in relatively strong form, and that
Chimps and Gorillas have in weak form, and that some other advanced
mammals such as elephants, dolphins, and orangutans may have in even
weaker form.  The hall marks of Extended consciousness appear to be
meta-cognition including explicit sense of self and theory of mind. 
It may or may not be tightly linked to symbol processing (i suspect
it is).

Other uses of "consciousness" are by analogy.  Again, much like
digestion.  In the chemical and pharma industries, the process of
using bacteria and yeasts to transform organic chemistry from a less
useful to a more useful form is called "digestion", though it not at
all like animal digestion in any details.

Thus if we say "a computer is conscious" in non-analogous form we
would say "no".  A computer is not an animal, nothing like one,
hence can't be conscious like an animal.  On the other hand, if we
are speaking analogously, we can say that a computer is "conscious"
if we can demonstrate that is performs some of the functions of
animal consciousness.  

I believe the above distinctions help reduce a LOT of confusion in
discussions about "consciousness".

For the analogic case, there have been some recent attempts to
formalize and even quantify definitions of "consciousness".  One of
the most interesting is Tononi's Integrated Information Theory.  

http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003588

Under Tononi's definition everything that processes information,
even a little bit, is "conscious" in a measurable way.  Thus an
"on/off" light switch has a Phi of one bit of Integrated Information
"Consciousness".

Tononi's Phi can be applied to theories of group consciousness, such
as the consciousness of a group of humans or even all humans. 
Interestingly Phi almost identical for one human or many humans,
thus at least in Tononi's definition of consciousness, concepts like
"group consciousness" have relatively little meaning.






 
  

    
Thus consciousness in the above definitions is a form of processing.


As to what consciousness is processing, I use the term "conscious
contents" from Bernard Barr.  these include the outputs of
perception, retrieved memories, and in Extended Cognition inputs
from an internal dialog apparatus.  In a very loose analogy
"consciousness" is computer, and conscious contents are both the
program and the data.  

Thus transformations like those described by Julian Jaynes are more
parsimoniously described as a large scale changes in conscious
contents, rather than in consciousness itself.

Of course a significant change in the types of conscious contents
being processed would be likely to put evolutionary pressure on the
machinery of consciousness to be be able to use such contents more
efficaciously.  

I suspect a feedback loop between conscious contents and evolution
of the neural substrates of consciousness happened a way much more
profound than Jaynes' hypothesis, about 40,000 years ago when we see
the the first signs widespread signs of symbols and abstract
thought.

Separating "consciousness" from "conscious contents" I also find
helps make discussions to be less murky.
  

    
Still enjoying this topic. Thank you, Mark, for stepping back in. 

I've got a copy of Richard Bucke's book, and it occurs to me that
the  change in conscious quality he was describing started long
before TV or LSD. 

That's stating the obvious, I know, but- <sphere3>, are you saying
that Bucke's evolution towards Cosmic Consciousness, which(if true)
was surely magnified by LSD(and stunted by TV, IMO) has been stopped
dead in it's tracks by the digital age? Or was Bucke just mistaken
in his assumptions, and the trend he tried to document was an
illusion?

As per Ted's comments, what is the difference between Virtual
Reality and TV, or, for that matter, VR and LSD hallucinations?  

I would contend that LSD, Mushrooms, Peyoye, Cannabis, etc do much
more within the human mind than produce hallucinations. Also, I
don't think we've "stopped taking LSD". I see a lot of LSD and
mushroom use among millenials.


In any case, I know I'm way behind ya'll, but trying to get up to
speed. I'm compelled by <memetic>'s concept of a dignity based
future.
  

    <scribbled by banjojohn>
  

    
<178> #3

Mark, when you say that we need something "more basic" than a UBI,
can you be more specific? I'm very curious. 

scribbled and reworded my previous post
  

    
In my opinion UBI is a useful part of the evolution to a new
economic distribution model.  i especially like that it has a single
powerful tune-able parameter: What proportion of the consumer GDP is
allocated to the UBI? Which allows a smooth adaptation to the
presumably increasing productivity of artificial intelligence.  

The other interim reform is to fix the rule for non-rivalrous goods.


By "non-rivalrous" I mean goods that have very low costs to
duplicate.  The most obvious and so far pervasive example is
digitized music.  Costs almost nothing to copy and transmit.

A rational world should encourage maximal distribution of
non-rivalrous goods.  

Unfortunately our intellectual property laws are designed to
frustrate obvious microeconomic truth.  

And non-rival applies not only to nice-to-haves like digital music,
but more critical resources such as many small molecule drugs that
have very low costs of manufacture at scale, and for important
intellectual resources like scientific papers.  

The yet to be solved problem is how to create a feedback loop to
compensate creators of new rivalrous goods while not constraining
distribution after creation.  People work on ideas for that but
still an open issue.


Here is one idea for dealing with non-rival creation.  It's a small
step, but like UBI has an obvious simple parameter to increase its
force over time: 
http://emancipationparty.org/reforms/open-creation/