Michael Patterson
Member
But of course :)
I'm sure I sound like a broken record, but I'm going to mention hierarchy and decentralized network again. Maybe it is so basic that everyone already sees it and I'm just fascinated with the obvious, but anyway... IMO, it is impossible to explicate the conspiracy culture phenomenon at a high level without talking about the different forms of organization as applied to the noosphere.
If we imagine a spectrum from centralized hierarchy on the left to a distributed network on the right, then conspiracies are the result of the steep power pyramid of ages past. Conspiracy theory culture is developed as a result of the noosphere getting jolted from (a) to (c) in the above diagram and then gradually evolving towards (b).
Yeah, a lot of the time a lot of us don't know what the hell we're talking about, but we are each nodes existing in an increasingly interconnected network, and we are collectively developing the same way any neural network develops. Before 9/11 the human hive mind looked more like (a) above. Then 9/11 comes along at the same time that the internet looked more like (c) above. The chaos of 9/11 primed our "circuits" to begin to recognize conspiracy.
From 9/11 onwards, we were presented with images and news stories one after another of traumatic events and we began to sort them out and develop more nuanced perceptions. Certain individuals arose as major nodes in the new network. The strength of each node began to be modified as feedback came in and the network now migrates back towards (b).
Like the Bitcoin blockchain miners, we are all constantly comparing notes and in the process of reaching a consensus on what is real. When a threshold is reached, suddenly perceptions shift as a new "mainstream" is established... not unlike that optical illusion we've all seen where a dancer appears to be spinning one direction and then if you try, you can see the dancer spinning the opposite direction. Have you ever imagined the neuronal storm that must be going on inside your head to make that shift? The battle that occurs to arrive at the consensus on which way the dancer is spinning?
The tendency over time is for things to migrate back towards centralization so we need periodic episodes of chaos to reset the network and overcome institutionalized biases. Our brains being massive networks, perhaps that is what the Kundalini experience is? A big jolt of chaos to the mental system that causes entrenched hierarchical perceptions to dissolve allowing a reset and reorganization to take place?
In a centralized hierarchical system there are always secrets, information is capital, deception is necessary, and narrative is power.
In a distributed network, everyone knows everything, information is constantly validated, validation strengthens the node, and narrative is the consensus rather than the script of an authority.
Okay... end of sermon on network/hierarchy.
Regarding the absurdity of biological robots in a meaningless universe... I feel like that is the result of atheist materialist fundamentalism, but most people aren't really fundies. They prefer to live with and ignore the implicit contradictions in their paradigm and go by feel rather than reason it to its nihilistic conclusion.
As a result, most debates about "biological robots" with materialists come down to ideas of monism vs. dualism. In a way, Alex is promoting a dualism (hey guys there's something "other" to consider here!) and the materialists are saying, "there can't be something "other" because how would we even interact with it? So it is all physics and material".
But what needs to happen is someone needs to point out that material - as in a solid object - is an ideal, and we can stretch the definition of material into something immaterial.
The real dualism is between things that follow rules and things that don't. If it follows rules and regularities it can be viewed in some sense as material (even if in an alternate dimension) and the scientific method can analyze it. If it does not follow rules and regularities then it is only an experience.. it is immaterial... until it happens again... and again... and again... and by repetition it becomes material... it graduates from chaos to order as our pattern recognizing neural networks adapt and integrate it.
Normal human consciousness dances between the physical and the metaphysical routinely - to the extent that we seem to inhabit the intersection between the two. The materialistic 'biological robot' mentality is a dogmatic denial of what should be self-evident. The denial is based upon awful logic - so bad in fact it is flagrantly illogical. It is not reason based and it is not information based. It is an existential dread dressed up to look like reason - and it looks like that only to people who share the dread. It looks like a ghoul to others.
However materialism has done such a fine marketing job in convincing our communities that it is responsible for all the wonderful material benefits we enjoy. While that may be true in the exploitation of scientific knowledge and subsequent commercialisation, it is not true for the actual science. People who do the science work are not materialists as a class - and the very best science seems to have been done by people who are at the very least open to the spiritual and the metaphysical.
But the average citizen doesn't know this. They validate the materialist propaganda because it seems reasonable. They buy the imputed authority and lose faith in their own experiences. They are persuaded that they must have misperceived, misinterpreted or hallucinated. And yet they harbour doubts. For many the alternative to materialism is only religion, and that has been subjected to seemingly just and rational objections.
For me this is the worst crime of materialism - to cause mistrust of one's own capacity to know what is true and real and good and seek, instead the assurance of authority. It is a criminal enterprise adapted from dogmatic religion. This is, for me, Conspiracy#1.
I think the materialist cause is dead in the water and starting to stink. But what is left is its impact in conditioning our collective and shared mentality and language. I am a great fan of Dynamo, Magician Impossible (check him out on YouTube). A witness to one of his impressive performances was a woman who did not appear to be especially well educated. Her response to what she had witnessed was to say that it "wasn't scientific". Others have observed that what they see isn't "proper" or "right". Who are these people to know what is 'scientific', 'proper' or 'right'?
We understand their words, because this is the language of our age - conditioned by materialism and scientific rationalism. But did the woman who said what she saw was "not scientific" literally mean that? I don't think she did. She meant the performance violated her notion of normal and expected in an emphatic manner. She used the language of the dominant mentality, the same way, centuries ago, the dominant mentality was religious and the language reflected that.
My point is that the widespread use of materialistic language is not evidence of materialistic thought. Even today an atheist will exclaim "For God's sake!" or "Christ!" and we will not take this as evidence of a conversion to the faith, will we?
Are we still fighting the battle or are we on the battlefield in the aftermath of a victory? Its a question we need to ask and answer. The answer shapes our thought and language.