BBC Radio Brains Trust, 1941 - this responded to questions sent-in by listeners. I think I recognize CEM Joad second from the left, and (?) Jacob Bronowski on the right (although it may be Julian Huxley).
I am mentally working-through some stuff that isn't currently ready for posting (and may never be); so if commenters have a particular question they want to ask, now is a good time - as a comment to this post.
I will take a look at "all"* questions and respond if possible (and appropriate!)
*Note: If you want an answer, don't comment anonymously - because (as stated in the sidebar and on the commenting form) such comments typically get deleted without being read. This happens since, from past experience; nearly-all anonymous comments emanate from bots, shills, psychopaths, or the entitled.
14 comments:
From Laeth:
"how do you know when a post is ready? what kind of criteria do you consider? or is it purely intuitive, not based on analysis? do you consider specific impact on the reader, or it's a purely personal endeavour until hitting publish? "
BGC: I'm not sure whether you mean "ready" to write, or to publish.
"To publish" is easiest to answer: when it's finished. Sometimes I need to do something, and the proofreading must wait until later - ideally, but not always, I proof read it before hitting "publish".
Ready "to write" is typically one of two ways. The posts comes from a kind of written meditation/ stream of consciousness journaling. Most days I start doing this after wakening (early, c 5.30) and having coffee; this often leads to something that seems like a good idea for a post, so I sit down and write. Sometimes I have had the idea later in the morning when at a cafe, and then this gets written-up either later in the day or the next morning.
I am writing essentially from my own reasons, to get something clear for myself; or a possible development of earlier ideas.
I don't consider the readers much, I'm afraid. I could not have blogged for 16 years 1.5 posts per day average from motives of altruism! I'm just not that kind of person. Writing has to be selfish/ from my own needs, really.
(Because, of course, I've not made a penny out of blogging, nor from any of the four books that arose from it; and deliberately - because that is necessary to keep me spiritually-free.)
More from Laeth:
"to clarify, reformulate: how do you know a piece is 'finished' (before the proofreading)?"
I just know. But when I go back, I sometimes find something more to add - usually at the end. (Commenter G says these "Note added" bits are usually the best...)
"do you think exalted people (gods), have a consciousness similar to ours (that is, modern) or ancient, or something else entirely? and if the latter, can you elaborate on what you think it might be, and the differences between that and our type of consciousness."
I think "a consciousness similar to ours" - in the same kind of way that the most loving and creative mature adult human being imaginable, has a similar consciousness to what the same person had as a baby, child, or adolescent - and from the same causes/ for the same reasons.
True that the "Note added" bits are frequently the best!
That is Bronowski at far right, aged about thirty-three then.
@Jonathan - A more patient man than I am would maybe hold back publishing until after the "note added" had come to mind.
But then there is an element of me interacting with what I have written than can be a stimulus to extra thought - so maybe it needs to be published first, in order that there be a second thought.
@a_p - That's what I think. Compare the photo illustrating "wartime work" on Wikipedia - looks like the same man to me:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Bronowski
However, Bronowski is not mentioned in the caption on the BBC website from which I took the photo heading this post, whereas Huxley is.
What do think about Nick Land's view of capitalism as proto-AI, a distributed intelligence that has been optimizing, accelerating, and reshaping human life toward its own ends and religion as ancient, compressed code, ritual and taboo that transmitted adaptive wisdom before anyone could explain why it worked?
@B - I have written elsewhere on the blog on this subject, and my view is about the opposite of what you describe for NL. I don't accept that there is such a thing as a distributed *intelligence*, intelligence is an attribute of living beings.
Purpose and strategy come from beings, including spirit beings as well as material beings such as humans. In this instance it is the spirit beings called demons that are relevant - which is why and how social trends can be multi-generational and over-ride human interests.
There is no such thing as "capitalism" here and now; it has incrementally been displaced all over the world over the past decades, going back to the Russian Revolution at least, then the war economies in The West - now essentially everywhere.
What we have is a global system characterized by bureaucracy and managerialism and aiming at omni-surveillance and micro-control of dehumanized humans.
But currently the dominant powers are becoming more and more orientated towards spiteful destruction by multiple means including encouraging war, starvation, disease and poisoning, economic, collapse, dehumanization etc. But this is a spiritual war so the key is getting people to accept, and even desire, this destruction.
This destructiveness I term "Sorathic evil" - do a word search - and is using The System to destroy itself.
complexity vs. simplicity
You have written before about how you want to find a way to think about things so that they can be comprehended in a simple act of understanding. But not everything in this world can be. Even a Heaven of beings coordinated by love is not simple in that it is many beings.
Do you have any thoughts on simplicity versus complexity?
I'm not expressing any particular theory, just wondering if you have thought about the topic, beyond your remarks about it when discussing other topics.
@NLR - "things so that they can be comprehended in a simple act of understanding. But not everything in this world can be."
I agree, and then *we cannot understand them* - not really understand. If we don't understand we are "just obeying orders".
I think the main thing for me is that Some things in life Need to be understood, and then we must work to attain that single-grasp comprehension.
Simplicity versus complexity is not a mathematical division of objective reality, as evidence by the fact that complexity can neither be detected nor measured "objectively", but only sampled and modelled with proxies, and the proxies must be chosen by people.
(The same applies to "information" - contra Shannon, information is not itself mathematical. Humans have to model complexity, and humans choose how and when to apply their models to phenomena, and judge whether this application works or fails.)
Complexity is ultimately rooted in a judgment of consciousness, as is the presence of A System.
(I realized this after several years of working in complex systems theory!)
In general, I have striven to replace divisions like simplicity and complexity, concrete versus abstract - with a focus on the primacy of beings and their thinking/ consciousness. Beings are the primary divisions in reality. The rest is various ways of "saving the appearances".
It is one of my theories that this kind of "ask me anything" session is a fundamentally male way of exploring. Are you aware of a woman doing this kind of thing?
@Lucinda. I don't know. But I don't read many blogs regularly, outside the handful linked on the sidebar, who are all male.
I do not reply to all questions - some Qs I do not wish to answer.
I’ve noticed you tend to say something like “The true, the beautiful, and the virtuous” rather than “the good, the beautiful, and the true.” Why is that?
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