Y2K As A Cultural Benchmark Pt. I

What would humanity do without the differing degrees of apprehension felt concerning the next apocalyptic lunch date with the Eschaton? How would we survive without the vague possibility of not surviving looming on the flip-side of the desktop calendar?

When we run out of specific time frames for the fruition of our myriad existential risks, what then shall we have to fret about as a species? Specificity is the key distinction regarding this phenomenon as we shall always retain plenty of factors which threaten our race. The lurking fears will always haunt us pacing just outside our door: nuclear destruction (mutually assured), epidemic, extraterrestrial invasion (via life-forms or supersonic projectile matter), supernatural reckoning per prophecy or otherwise, etc.

The date 1 January 2000 stood to play this role of possible global disaster and waited impatiently to wreak havoc upon our power grids and digital fiat money stores (i.e., our bank accounts). As we approached this milestone, turn-of-the-century event, we raced against time to update our operating systems and governmental databases to ensure that massive cybernetic haywire did not ensue thus rending useless the technological achievements of the entire 20th-Century and triggering the distress that having to adapt to a lifestyle known all so well to our quite recent forebears would lead to.

Indeed when the proverbial clock struck midnight, the celebrated ball dropped much less clumsily than our collective jaws as we exhaled a great sigh of relief, albeit in amazement, wary though it may have been. And on into the 21st-Century we headed full of apprehensive hope as a resurgence in our possible capabilities to technologically survive ourselves was reawakened after our Space Age, Promethean dreams had been slowly sobered due to the natural course of events playing out according to a different script than the sci-fi writers had envisioned (with notable exceptions such as William Gibson coming to mind).

The accrued time-binding of human knowledge logically led to the Industrial Age, and furthermore, had led to sociopolitical restructuring as an offshoot of the cultural ramifications thusly resultant thereof. The previous governmental dichotomies of the Eastern and Western world of the Enlightenment had been totally reworked both due to imperial colonization of the former and the uprising of democratic, humanistic, individualistic revolutions in the latter.

Philosophically, the Lockean movements for individual freedom had led to the classical liberalism, which in one form or another, affected much of the Occident and America as well. In the United States especially, this libertarian, though specifically Calvinistic, push for 'the American Dream' coupled perfectly with scientific, technological breakthroughs which ushered in industrialism. This state of affairs led to gigantic corporate entities wielding power previously unseen by nongovernmental organizations (the addition of a phenomenon known as corporate personhood further complicated this matter).

Immanuel Kant gave way to Hegel and before you knew it, Marxism is born. The Marxist ideology was picked up by disenfranchised, yet-to-be-unionized American dreamers of the Industrial Revolution giving birth to the union.

In Russia, the Axis shipped a sealed boxcar containing a 'plague bacillus...more deadly than any bomb' (Churchill's words), Lenin, who promised 'bread, land and peace' to the war-weary, disenchanted people and communism had a breeding ground ripe for the taking. An Oktober Revolution later, the Czar was unthroned, a dictatorial authoritarianism was instituted and the Soviet Union erected itself. By the 1940s a treaty signed in another German train was broken and the major powers of the world were in heated worldwide conflict again.

This time around, of course, the Russians did not accede to their Teutonic neighbors and Stalin teamed up with Roosevelt and Churchill to fight a multi-theatre full-scale war against the Nazis leading to the ultimate victory in Europe thanks to Hitler's decision to pull a Napoleon qua Operation Barbarossa. The ensuing political and geographical dynamic turned into a geopolitical chess game the likes of which Great Britain's eternal sunshine had never known.

The ideological differences once swept under the carpet for the purpose of defeating Hitler were now no longer confined to academic debate. The US arose with peerless hegemony in the realms of financ, production, and hence political, not to mention military power. The Soviet Union on the other hand with their own ideas of national sovereignty and individual liberties (or lack thereof) began jockeying for position as the benefactor of the world.

It took until the Berlin airlift and multiple violent national takeovers until the US realized the new state of affiars - they were now th leading proponent of 'democracy' and their erstwhile allies, the Soviets, were now trying to outbid them for the future of this new world.

Compounding this issue was the fact that the European empires were now in shambles all over the world. The race for hegemony now became a bit of a bidding war, cold though it may have been - usually, over which newly independent countries would choose to side with whom: puppet states of either the democractic ruling power or the socialists.

This led to scores of engagements over hitherto unknown nations and innumerable amounds of covert operations by the CIA and the KGB and their allies' counterparts. Every possible measure was employed by both sides, and the technology boom which the Second World War had launched did nothing but gain momentum as the competition heated up on both sides.

Global hegemony in a nuclear age called for further and further capability to strike first and have as much intellignece on the other side as possible. Von Braun's rocket program in Nazi Germany evolved into the Space Race, ushering in the new age, and with it new possibilities.

Von Neumann and Shannon et al. brought us number and information theory, eventually the personal computer as well as communication theory leading to that crowning achievement, the World Wide Web.

It must be noted that the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about was not the sole progenitor of Western technological revolution as Stuart Brand of the Merry Pranksters and the whole '60s movements in hallucinogenic, antiwar fuelled cultural backlash were and are heavily responsible for the direction so many of those technologies took once in civilian hands. This is not to mention the influence of the sometimes utopian visionaries like R Buckminster Fuller and the science fiction and underground writers of the '50s, '60s and '70s.

Whose Responsibility is it to Adapt?

Humans, having the faculties of reason, have over the course of our existence as a race furthered our knowledge of and, hence, our ability to manipulate nature, the Universe. We employ reason to develop technologies which aid in our survival, primarily (which is our primary purpose - the only inherent inborn purpose we have), and also aid and allow for the development of our own unique, individual, arbitrarily chosen purpose.

Even the most primitive jungle-bound tribes employ technology. These 'savages' reap the rewards of the capacity for reason their forefathers implemented ages ago when they developed the now primitive (in context with the 21st Century's Western civilization's high degree of sophistication) technology of spears, loin-cloths and thatched huts.

Many argue the traditional relevance of their culture and subsequent lifestyle and their 'right' to retain their primitive heritage, though it seems to only serve the status quo and an unwillingness to adapt to changing circumstances - i.e. changing realities.

When humans apply reason to a particular question they have about nature they can learn, i.e. increase their knowledge, new things about the way the Universe works, both micro- and macrocosmically. The more knowledge we have about the Universe, the more we are able to manipulate aspects thereof to serve our own purposes. This is how we develop technology.

As we implement new technologies, our lives too change as we are able to substitute one way of doing something for another via the implementation of said technology or are able to do things we weren't previously able to do at all in the first place.

This changes our situation in the world, it changes, morphs our circumstances and, thus we are in a situation where we have to adapt, or attempt to adapt.

Adaptation explains the do or die, the sink or swim aspects of reality. Adaptation consists of a system responding in the most preferential way for its own system as stimuli from res extensa are perceived within the sensory and conceptual parts of the system.

It is ultimately the responsibility of an individual to respond in the optimal way for oneself to external stimuli (changes in circumstances). Oftentimes, individuals do not have the requisite variety which comes with sufficient knowledge of a situation and the available knowledge surrounding its comprising parts to make a proper decision in terms of the long-term consequences.

Culture is a transient thing and changes as necessary to fit the changing times. As we employ our reason to increase our knowledge and then use this new knowledge (integrated with our previously gained knowledge) to create technology with which to make certain tasks easier or to allow us to perform erstwhile undoable tasks. This increase in our abilities leads to a new situation either subtle or extreme. Now we have altered our situation and must adapt to our new state of affairs.

What happens if we don't? Refusing to adapt to new realities implies an arbitrary refusal to perceive and conceive of reality as it is. This denial leads to the inconsistencies on par with trying to insert a square peg in a round hole. Either one can adapt as necessary to changes in reality and / or one can (within the reality of the situation) attempt through further reason to manipulate the reality to a way in which one wants it.

It must be noted that force / coercion are not viable options in terms of this second option (that of changing the circumstances to fit your preferred mode of being). Bear too in mind that this second alternative still requires varying degrees of adaptation to new circumstances.

Too often though, those who would prefer to keep circumstances at a status quo level disregard reason (and its implications of individual freedom and the respect subsequent thereof) in their attempts at reversion to preview circumstances.

It must be here said that the faculty of reason is what allows us to best deal with reality as it is, hence failure to apply reason to our situation as it is in reality leads inevitably to an inability to properly deal with situations in which we find ourselves. Our survival depends upon our application of reason.

We, of course, tend to employ greater and lesser degrees of reason in our quotidian lives, but the difficulty stems from prevalent mis-reasoned fundamental philosophical basics. What I am referring to here is the lifelong programming / conditioning process we go through.

As we enter this world tabula rasa in terms of concepts (discounting possibly inborn instinctual / response mechanisms) we are quickly bombarded with all manner of new sensations and subsequent perceptions upon which we, via our faculty of categorical perception, develop and integrate concepts to allow for an understanding, nascent though it may be.

With the development of linguistic capabilities our ability to grasp increasingly more sophisticated concepts grows and we are thus able to both receive concepts as well as clarify to others what our remaining questions are. Those questions being the knowledge gaps existing in our understanding of that which we perceive and the subsequent abstractions thereof.

The problem thus arises that we are at first depend upon others for our information (or rather, meta-information). The cause of the problem is not the dependence itself necessarily, but rather the reality that those upon whom we are dependent tend to have their own irrational understandings which they pass on to us.

Without necessarily malicious intent, our elders pass on faulty concepts and poor critical thinking habits which we habitualize and become to employ in a conditioned sense. This is why all mystical traditions first require deprogramming of the individual in order to rediscover the ability to perceive and conceptualize aspects of reality which are not 'visible' post normal Western lifelong conditioning. It should be noted more explicitly here that the majority of this conditioning occurs, more or less consciously (on the part of the 'elders'), early in life and become more rigid as one ages.

When culture is adhered to merely by virtue of tradition without regard to emerging realities then the fact that an irrational refusal to allow culture to modify or be modified will logically become obsolete as it does not conform to reality and thus hinders individuals involved in said culture from adapting to the new reality leading to a lack of proper / correct responses. This lack of correct response will inextricably lead, sooner or later, to difficulty in overall survival.

According to humans being rational, reasoning creatures, culture is an implement to be employed, updated and discarded as necessary to best allow for adaptation to changing circumstances. Toleration of emotionality dictating what we modify, or how or if we modify our culture, will inevitably disallow us from properly responding to changing realities because it is reason which enables us to know how to appropriately modify - via adaptation; correct responses - our culture.

Subcultures arise due to the fact that all societies with their cultures are comprised of individuals and individuals each have their own unique complexes of reason - i.e. differing degrees of the ability to correctly apply reason as well as deciding upon different things to apply reason to. With this being the case, it follows that certain individuals will develop differing concepts as to how or it a present culture should change.

This may be due to a better or worse grasp and application of reason or to the willingness to employ reason over emotionality or not.

As humans increase their knowledge of the Universe, i.e. the 'world we live in', it is inevitable that we will apply this knowledge to developing new ways of doing things and new implements to help us do them. These new implements we classify as technology. Knowledge and subsequent technology leads to changing realities and hence to the necessity for modified culture. When new technology is denied on the grounds of culture then we come to the aforementioned cundundrum, that is an irrational response system to the objective reality we find ourselves in.

If our new knowledge and subsequent technology abides by reason, and is acquired by way of reason, then a refusal to accept it is irrational.

Culture, like religions, which are 'designed' to disallow its adherents from updating it is response to changing realities are inherently 'built' to cause the overall downfall of its adherents. Abiding by a dogmatic, faith-based approach to reality will inevitably lead to this downfall because it refuses to accept changing realities and does not apply reason to understanding objective reality.

Faith insinuates the negation of reason for the purpose of understanding reality regardless of whether some of its claims turn out to be correct or not. Failure to apply reason to understanding reality is a set up for failing to respond to reality itself properly. 'Properly' in terms of the context of survival of any individual.

Primitive and developed cultures alike lose or decrease their ability to survive in a competitive world made of individuals (all out to survive, at least long enough to reproduce) when they arbitrarily decide not to do what it takes to adapt and respond accordingly to new realities. It is not the fault of those who do adapt and apply reason to acquiring new and more accurate knowledge of objective reality and implementing said knowledge as technology that other individuals / groups of individuals do not.

Those who do not adapt are not the responsibility of those who do.

Why a Free Society?

Why is a free society where everyone has equal individual rights most preferential?
Because no one possesses inherently more or different rights than others. Stating otherwise is arbitrary. People can only hold more power than others - i.e., more wealth, knowledge/information or force.

Force implies the disregarding of others' individual rights. Wealth implies material assets which can be employed in coercion (and the ownership thereof is not inherent at birth - discounting parents' or benefactors' assets, ownership of which can be transferred within the framework of an arbitrary legal system). Only information (which can be doled out or withheld for coercive purposes) and labor involve the equality with which humans have inherently. Unless, of course, we lived in a world where wealth was always obtained via information and labor - both gained and employed honestly - and not through offensive force and coercion.

Acquiring information and applying it through labor requires adaptation. Actions themselves are a form of adaptability insofar as they are responses ('correct' or not) to external stimuli to the individual.

Since, in regards to interpersonal affairs, all individual humans are inherently equal it follows that the use of the term 'better' is arbitrary and contextual. No one is intrinsically 'better' than anyone else without some contextual, delimiting qualifier. Someone may be better than another at performing a particular task or grouping of tasks, but each and every one of these is ultimately a man-made construct.

One may be a better runner than another but the qualification is arbitrary in that we must look at the arbitrary rules we outline for the performance of a competition between individuals to see who performs better in said competition. One may be faster (at the time of a competition), but one may also run longer, one may have better 'form' (as we arbitrarily define it), etc. One may have longer legs, whereas a shorter-legged person may actually move their feet faster.

Using the term 'better' implies a valuation which is in itself an arbitrary process based on personal self-interest, i.e. what is more and what is less preferential to a given individual.

This is how we develop purpose - by giving value due to our preferences to our desired outcomes given particular circumstances which we perceive from external stimuli and apply the integrated concepts in our ideospheres to reach decisions via cost/benefit analysis on how to act as responses to said stimuli to adapt to said existing circumstances. This continual feedback loop involves more and more complexity as our understanding of our external stimuli/circumstances (and all the aspects that comprise them), our perceptive and sensory faculties, our ideospheres and desired outcomes, and the why for of each increases: i.e., information is power. QED.

Res Extensa - Res Cogitans - Res Extensa

It is important to note that res extensa affects our subjective experience and how. Objective reality exists ‘apart’ from us (although we are part of it). Our perceptions thereof, via our senses, are conceptualized in our brains and those conceptions help create our reality tunnels. Our reality tunnels in turn affect how we respond to our perceptions.

Every concept in our ideosphere colors how we integrate each new concept we receive or develop (memetic reception or memeogenesis respectively). We need to analyze what our concepts are in order to realize how our ideospheres affect new concepts as well as our responses to perceptions.

Seeing as how we have reality tunnels which affect how we view the world (i.e. how we respond to our perceptions) we need to understand what our reality tunnels are; what they are comprised of. We do this by analyzing our metaprogramming and finding our imprints (what they are, how they affect our programming, whether they should be changed, deleted, dealt with at all, etc.); not only looking at what our concepts are (what our ideosphere is comprised of), but also how they affect our responses to perceptions and how our imprinted metaprograms affect our way of integrating new concepts.

All these things affect how we give meaning to the representations we have in our mind of the sensorially perceived objective realities of res extensa. They affect our concepts of quality and how we feel we should behave (our behavioral strategies) in order to achieve certain outcomes.

It is important to find out what our programming is (via imprint) insofar as it dictates what our responses are to our perceptions of res extensa. We may see a gray building and our response is negative – sadness, for instance – and it makes us depressed – i.e. our hormonal secretions may increase or decrease (depending on which hormones) and change our overall mood which affects our reality tunnel. We may see a gray building and the inverse happens and we become happy – ‘this gray building reminds me of the abilities of the mind of man’. The way we process the perceptions we receive via our senses is affected by our metaprogramming / reality tunnels.

If we irrationally respond to certain perceptions then we must chunk down until we find the imprint, i.e. why we respond as we do, in order to change our responses because our physiology affects the way we respond to perceptions and vice versa.

If we perceive something in res extensa which does not threaten us in reality, but ‘triggers’ something in our brain which causes us to respond with panic and subsequently triggers the appropriate physical responses for panic, i.e. quick breathing, sweat, inability to focus on anything but the situation at hand – all evolutionarily stable responses when the threat is real. But when these responses are not appropriate this is not an evolutionarily stable approach to said situation. It is therefore necessary to find the imprint which has caused the brain to react to such perceptions so one can change this.

One’s metaprogramming has been such that ‘it feels’ that this response is appropriate because it has always worked in the past (even though the conscious mind may not agree) and so it does not change the response to the signal. Once you can change what originally caused you to react a certain way to a certain perception then you in essence change the ‘coding’ of the metaprogram which instantiates the irrational response to said perception.

Jealousy, Priming, Synchronicity, ESS's and Cultural Evolution as Benchmarking New Paradigms

Identifying imprints or the reasons we act in certain ways (for the worse especially).

The importance of letting go and realizing that many problems stem from what we want / desire not being in line with the realities of others and objective reality in general; especially in cases where we want others to act in a certain way or feel a particular way. We can attempt to appeal to reason and empirical evidence to sway them to our mode of thought, but we cannot coerce them in any other way. Once one is able to cope with fact, then we are able to be at peace with many situations that may otherwise haunt us.

If you desire a relationship with someone who does not reciprocate such desires then we must learn to move on past that desire and allow them live their life separately, at least until such time as they see fit to act otherwise. The chances of them reversing their attitude and reciprocating is diminished if you fail to respect and dignify them by allowing them to continue their life without you and without any unjustified prying, etc. It is not your job to fix other people’s problems especially when they do not want your help.

Many further problems arise from others failing to leave others alone for one reason or another. This is an excellent example of why individuals should be extra careful with whom they have children or participate in mating practices in the first place. Coitus is the means by which humans reproduce and this should be apprised of at all times without compunctions to the contrary. Evolutionarily speaking, it feels pleasurable because that increases the chances of it happening on an oft basis so that the species replicates and ensures survivability, although we as humans, have reached capacity and are now surpassing a healthy population which endangers the species.

The sex act is primarily the means to reproduction. Emotional and spiritual aspects are secondary to this fact. It is only because of our self-referentiality and consciousness that these facts are extant at all. The sex act can be quite a useful and efficient facilitator in the emotional and spiritual arena (not to mention good exercise), but at all times it must still be acknowledged that reproduction may result from said act. This is mere causality; i.e., sperm enter an egg and a human may be the final result. Of course, there are any number of situations which may result in the human not being the result, such as successful contraception, infertility, miscarriage, etc. But, unless one is proven to be sterile, the fact remains. Henceforth, if the child is unwanted by either would-be parent, causal-related decisions must be made beforehand. The female at any given point during the pregnancy (if one results from the sex act) she may choose logically speaking, not necessarily legally) to terminate the pregnancy inasmuch as the fetus is viewed as functioning as an organ of the mother’s body, whereas the male has only until the sex act to decide whether he either desires a resultant child or not. The female has until birth because that organism is not separate from her body (it is an organ thereof) until birthed. The male’s decision is made at the point of ejaculation into the vagina (as this is the culmination of the sex act and ultimately the means by which humans attempt to reproduce) – his part is done.

Having a child – bringing a whole new life into the world – is such a big deal it is a wonder so many humans do not seem to view it as such. Unfortunately, the fact that it is not always viewed as much of a serious topic is evidenced in the way so many children are raised.

The symbiotic nature of priming and synchronicity

Due to individual ideospheres, personal time-binding colors all memes that are integrated into said ideospheres. All previously held memes and experiential memes / experiences are affected by this Korzybskian time-binding and priming and affect how each individual’s reality-tunnel evolves with each newly acquired concept.

My basic dichotomy here is this: memes = concepts; experiential memes = percepts / concepts about experience (which are understood sensorially, and hence, only understood in terms of the[relatively] few sensory perceptions both perceived and remembered thusly).

The distinction may thus be made that memes (going with the Dawkinsian view) are ideas / concepts which are transmitted from one individual (host) to another individual (although fidelity will never be perfect due to each individual’s widely varying reality-tunnels), and hence, the qualifier ‘experiential’ for experientially acquired concepts that an individual may hold / acquired via their own experience with res extensa (excluding of course, those experiences which were those of directly [or maybe indirectly also] experiences of receiving memes from another individual either explicitly or implicitly – i.e. conversation or reading of books, respectively; both directly and indirectly – i.e. communicated or imitated, respectively). This dichotomy may be further understood as those which are acquired via symbols and those acquired directly through observation (of behavior or phenomena in res extensa, i.e. of others).

This does seem to remain somewhat counter-intuitive, especially as all acquisition of information (regardless of its qualifications as memetic or not, notwithstanding personal preference in the definition thereof) is experiential (even so-called intuited information by my standards).

Relevant to this topic, I also believe that the subjectivity / objectivity dichotomy is most clearly explained as res cogitans (subjective being that which exists in the mind) and res extensa (that which exists in objective reality apart from any one – or multiple – particular consciousness(es) measuring said objective reality through any form of measuring [which in itself affects the measured aspect(s) of objective reality / res extensa]) Of course, the Universe is always ‘measuring’ (per Seife, et al.).

All this said, we must remain mindful of the inherent wholeness and unity of existence (including res cogitans, since all minds are extant within res extensa) and that our perception defines fragmentation and ‘subsystemization’ of the Universe via categorical perception. We thusly ‘choose’ how to perceive our Universe (both via conditioning and imprinting of our reality-tunnels, not to mention Consensus Reality in general) and how to fragment into categorical perceptions res extensa into res cogitans for the purposes of conceptualized understanding of our sensory perceptions. Furthermore, the symbol-systems we develop to understand and communicate our conceptions are arbitrary.

To summarize, there exists an objective reality (res extensa) which we perceive via our senses (and thus measure) which we form concepts about (res cogitans). This res extensa is a unity, a whole although we perceive the distinctions in patterns which make this up and we arbitrarily categorize fragmented subsystems within the whole (which, if nothing else, enables us to make sense of the various aspects of the Universe which we sensorially perceive, as well as our theoretical models of many other aspects).

Any relationship or organization which is to last amongst the complexity of its environment must be an evolutionarily stable system. It will either evolve itself into an ESS or it will fail and become extinct so to speak.

In an increasingly complex, and hence volatile, world both relationships and organizations must adapt to given environmental situations / circumstances in order to survive. This requires properly functioning feedback loops and self-correction. The advantage relationships and organizations have over nature is that they have the faculty of intelligence and reason to aid them in this process. The given system(s) must take signals coming from both inside and outside the system and gather meaning from them and thusly (correctly or incorrectly) respond accordingly in order to adapt to any new situation. This is an ongoing process that takes place at nearly all times at which the relationship or organization is functioning. A good example would be conversation itself or day-to-day business.

The difference that is delineated by consciousness and/or self-referentiality between genetically affected aspects of life and memetically affected aspects of life. Suggested by both Dawkins (in the final chapter of The Selfish Gene) and earlier by William James, particularly in his speech commemorating Shaw’s Boston monument. Whereas genetically affected behavior seems to (by its implicit / implicate nature) play its roles with more subtlety, memetically affected behavior too seems (once ingrained) to be difficult to distinguish as such without careful speculation and analysis.

Is there then a strict demarcation between the two (keeping in mind that genetic evolution itself is responsible for the capacity for memes in the first place) or might it be possible that epigenetics plays some kind of role of corpus callosum – a specie of liaison between the two.

The hitherto nascent study of epigenetics is currently suggesting that memetically affected behavior may play a part in recoding the genome, via the epigenome, which entails a generational change subsequent to reproduction.

Being ‘successful’ in a productive / creative endeavor requires self-discipline and hard work and this is why, I think, that the trying, difficult, sometimes depressive stage of ‘paying ones dues’ is often so formative in the life of those who are creatively, productively successful. It oftentimes requires a time period of stressful ‘do or die’ situations to instill the necessary character traits. For some reason, the causality involved between the desire to have or do something and what it takes to acquire or achieve it seems to be missed by a fairly large percentage of the population. This invokes all sorts of parallels with alchemy's Chapel Perilous and Prigogine's dissipative structures...one could even divulge into the ESS model from this perspective (at a later date).

So much of life is affected, if not dictated by fear. Either fear of pain, death, or just what others think of you (which according to Howard Bloom in Global Brain may be the most debilitating fear of all), but fear nonetheless. There are obvious reasons. Fear of death – you want to live long enough to procreate (or your genes want you to). But not just genetically, but also memetically insofar as you want to finish your intellectual endeavors so that you may gain immortality via meme, not just gene. Most hindrances in people’s lives boil down to fear in some, or multiple, forms.

Cultural evolution as benchmarking new paradigms by way of counter-cultural ‘advances’ becoming mainstream. Whereas those who may consider themselves the ‘progenitors’ of any cultural ‘advance’ (the vanguard of the counter-culture, if you will) tend to have negative attitudes towards said cultural advances taking hold in the mainstream, it should be noted that the paradigm shift leads to cultural evolution for the society as a whole and the watering down is inherent in that process. It should, in my opinion, be seen in a positive light therefore because of the overall progress made by the society. The society, by evolving, is better in its adaptability in terms of how it can face further problems and challenges and hence we can say that there is progress.

Man is not born with purpose. Man may or may not choose a purpose for himself. This purpose(s) may change at will. We can play any number of different roles that serve one purpose or another. What we choose in any given circumstance depends on our metaprogramming, how we have been imprinted and whether we have the capability to realize when and how our imprints affect our behavior and whether we should act counter to what our imprints would ‘have’ us do. This is why Gurdjieff’s self-observation is important to the Great Work, it is because it enables us to realize the otherwise subliminal, subconscious behaviors and thought processes that we enact on a constant basis: why do we do what we do?

As the pragmatists would put it (Charles Sanders Peirce in particular I believe – not sure, check on) the probabilistic predictability of your actions from one given moment to another is what makes you who you are – if you always acted totally chaotically and random you would be considered to have no personality at all (as the Existentialists would put it, you are what you do).

Inversely, your reality tunnel, the way you see the world, may also not be in accordance with ‘proper functioning’ (another Gurdjieff / Ouspensky concept) and the Great Work must lead you through the analysis of all aspects, your ecology, of your ideospheric conceptions / philosophy.

As we accumulate beliefs / concepts in general, we develop a kind of personal time-binding phenomenon, whereas Korzybski’s is a generational time-binding mechanism for memes. Korzybski’s time-binding function in the context of post-postmodernism.

It is important to note that res extensa affects our subjective experience and how. Objective reality exists ‘apart’ from us (although we are part of it). Our perceptions thereof, via our senses, are conceptualized in our brains and those conceptions help create our reality tunnels. Our reality tunnels in turn affect how we respond to our perceptions. Every concept in our ideosphere colors how we integrate each new concept we receive or develop (memetic reception or memeogenesis respectively).

We need to analyze what our concepts are in order to realize how our ideospheres affect new concepts as well as our responses to perceptions. Seeing as how we have reality tunnels which affect how we view the world (i.e. how we respond to our perceptions) we need to understand what our reality tunnels are; what they are comprised of. We do this by analyzing our metaprogramming and finding our imprints (what they are, how they affect our programming, whether they should be changed, deleted, dealt with at all, etc.); not only looking at what our concepts are (what our ideosphere is comprised of), but also how they affect our responses to perceptions and how our imprinted metaprograms affect our way of integrating new concepts.

All these things affect how we give meaning to the representations we have in our mind of the sensorially perceived objective realities of res extensa. They affect our concepts of quality and how we feel we should behave (our behavioral strategies) in order to achieve certain outcomes.

It is important to find out what our programming is (via imprint) insofar as it dictates what our responses are to our perceptions of res extensa. We may see a gray building and our response is negative – sadness, for instance – and it makes us depressed – i.e. our hormonal secretions may increase or decrease (depending on which hormones) and change our overall mood which affects our reality tunnel. We may see a gray building and the inverse happens and we become happy – ‘this gray building reminds me of the abilities of the mind of man’.

The way we process the perceptions we receive via our senses is affected by our metaprogramming/reality tunnels. If we irrationally respond to certain perceptions then we must chunk down until we find the imprint, i.e. why we respond as we do, in order to change our responses because our physiology affects the way we respond to perceptions and vice versa.

If we perceive something in res extensa which does not threaten us in reality, but ‘triggers’ something in our brain which causes us to respond with panic and subsequently triggers the appropriate physical responses for panic via the parasympathetic system, i.e. quick breathing, sweat, inability to focus on anything but the situation at hand – all evolutionarily stable responses when the threat is real. But when these responses are not appropriate this is not an evolutionarily stable approach to said situation. It is thusly necessary to find the imprint which has caused the brain to react to such perceptions so one can change this.

One’s metaprogramming has been such that ‘it feels’ that this response is appropriate because it has always worked in the past (even though the conscious mind may not agree) and so it does not change the response to the signal. Once you can change what originally caused you to react a certain way to a certain perception then you in essence (at least in theory) change the ‘coding’ of the metaprogram which instantiates the irrational response to said perception.

The concept of indigo children as those born outside of Consensus Trance/Reality; i.e. born awakened. The idea that they may or may not choose to enhance their awareness or ‘fall back asleep’.

Lockean empiricism (tabula rasa, etc.) and liberal individualism (both in terms of atomism – i.e., as an analog to Newtonian physics – as well as in terms of individual rights – freedom / liberty, property rights, libertarianism, etc.

Instead of saying that atomistic individuals are nothing without the group in which they exist (holism) look for ways to understand that they do have meaning as separate entities (the Law of Identity) but (cybernetically) are affected by their environment via feedback loops and adaptation (according to their [empirical] perceptions of res extensa). Whereas agreed upon meanings for any number of memes rests upon the larger social framework in which they exist this does not necessarily connote the inability of individuals to gather meaning on their own without a socially agreed upon ‘consensus’ meaning’s existence.

Whereas, phenomenal systems of meaning such as language are functionally worthless unless there is an agreed upon meaning for any given code being employed from sender to receiver, and vice versa, it does not at the same time negate the possibility of an individual developing a system of meaning that only said individual understands. If nothing else, it may be that qualia fall underneath this category of systems of meaning insofar as ‘redness’ can only, in practical terms, hold meaning for an individual qua that individual in so much as ‘redness’ can be considered a meme in the first place.

Individual entities in objective existence are perceived by individual consciousnesses who, in turn, develop concepts thereof via the employment of reason and thusly are given meaning in the mind of the beholder who then (through the apparatus of language) conveys (or attempts to) that meaning to another individual. Hence, a consensus meaning may be achieved, but not without the individual consciousness first developing meaning prior to the memetic transmission from one individual to the next; ergo, memeogenesis. QED.

One point that must be made here though is the arbitrariness in deciding upon given meanings.

It seems (unless I am missing something somewhere or looking at this from the wrong angle) that the holists are applying a false dichotomy to liberal individualism. I believe the appropriate approach is to acknowledge both aspects for they both bear relevance to the way actual existence plays out.

It makes the most sense to me to realize that individuals make up groups (i.e., society) and thus interact in groups – hence, societies are made up of individuals, yet individuals interact in societies. So we are interested in individuals and also how they interact with other individuals. But they are always acting as individuals. A mob may have a mentality, as it were, but that mentality is both shared by and affected by the individuals who comprise it. We can look (and should look) at both the individual parts of the system and the system itself.

The individual is always the ‘atomic’ lowest common denominator of any societal group. From within the individual you must look inwardly and outwardly to understand the makeup of said individual though. Both their environment and their genes effect ‘who they are’. Physical attributes are largely dictated by an individual’s genes, but their diet and habits also play a large role in how they turn out. One who exercises regularly will inherently have better toned muscles than one who does not. One with higher intake of particular vitamins and/or minerals will both appear and behave differently than someone with lower intake of said vitamins/minerals.

In terms of behavior and philosophy of life, one who abides by a strict diet and workout regimen may tend to have a more self-disciplined approach to life in other areas of their life as well, whereas someone who does not may be less disciplined in general. The amount of factors that play into all aspects of life are myriad, but not unchangeable (for the most part, at least).

Dissipative Structures as Chapels Perilous and Such

Challenges create the opportunity for both increased awareness due to lessons learned when scrutinizing intellectually honest analysis and self-analysis is applied as well as the possibility for an increase in resilience. Research in psychological resilience began with studying children of schizophrenic parents – the realization being made that about 1/3 of the children actually became more able to cope with catastrophic situations; their Chapel Perilous being visited and conquered successfully. These trials of childhood helped shape their abilities in their formative years and unlocked the capacity to cope and even shine in situations that might otherwise lead to other collapse on the part of the individual stuck in said situation. Their ego-resiliency and ego-control was actually improved by their atmospheric conundrums.
This can be likened to Ilya Prigogine's dissipative structures which upon threshold-reaching perturbations cause the affected system to have to adapt - sink or swim.

The importance of putting your philosophy into action – otherwise what’s the point in developing it?

Individualism as a basis – think for yourself; act for yourself

The importance of self-motivation, and discipline – institutionalized education is not necessarily (especially in today’s world) going to give you a well-rounded, useful philosophy.

You are not born with purpose – you develop purpose. This is why it is so important to develop as informed a philosophical policy for living and decision making as possible.
On the one hand we do what we have to do to survive and reproduce – producing (and producing better products and ideas than others especially) enables us to survive and reproduce better (at least in a free-market society) for we can make a better living (and hence survive better – because the more financial means the easier it is to afford better food, shelter, protection, etc.), as well as find a better mate and hence, reproduce better.
Whereas surviving and reproducing better are both preferable in order to enjoy life whilst living it one must acquire the ability to appreciate (an art in itself).

Once you develop the ability to think for yourself and educate yourself with all the necessary knowledge (and start to develop ‘wisdom’) you can tackle (or at least begin to) the otherwise seemingly meaninglessness of life through balancing both the survival / reproduction aspects of life with the enjoyment / progress aspects (a further art in itself).

It is important to keep your ‘system of belief’ open-ended (Pancritical Rationalization) always allowing for new information to be applied if it fits in logically (i.e. it passes the rigorous analysis of reason and is found to be ‘true’). This is also why one must continue ones education both formally through actively seeking new knowledge through all forms of media as well as learning from experiences. This is why we must develop finely-tuned memetic filters both for traditional memes and experiential memes as experiences tend to affect our thinking via our subjective emotional responses to said experiences more so than the objective ‘intellectual’ responses we tend to have toward memes acquired through reading or conversation, although heated conversation tends to incur emotional responses for instance our bias toward being right for our own sake – what I call the ‘I want to be right all the time’ ego fallacy, or the Passionate Believer Fallacy.

Once we dogmatize our ideas and opinions we tend to lose conceptual validity and oftentimes validity of our actions as well.

The desire to control stems from fear. The more fear you can conquer the easier it is to enjoy life. This said, it is not always useful merely to conquer a fear, it is oftentimes useful to avoid that which causes the fear (or the object of fear more precisely) i.e. fear of death or painful injury. Conquest of fear should not lead to a subsequently haphazard lifestyle; it should not lend license to carelessness / recklessness.

I find it far more useful to first develop a system for thinking than a system of thinking. Once you have rules laid out for the gathering of knowledge, then you can go through knowledge only assimilating that which can be logically shown to be ‘true’. Next you must combine the ideas to conciliate a full, consistent philosophy which in itself is a framework for action in day-to-day life.

Adaptability and Corporate Urination

The greater ones ability to adapt, the more effective one becomes in more life situations. The more knowledge one has, the greater the possibility of greater adaptability. It is necessary for a wise, co-intelligent, overarching, (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) ecological view of each situation in order to employ the right methods of adaptability for each situation.

The key is responding appropriately to specific stimuli: correct response. Furthering ones awareness increases the ability to respond correctly. This requires having both awareness of ones environment and the events occurring at a given time; and also those likely to occur as a consequence to current events and the situation surrounding them as well as possible alternative responses to the situation(s) as it/they arise.

Knowledge of current situations and the ability to correctly respond results in greatly decreased stress as stress seems to stem from the frustration brought about by not knowing how to correctly respond to a situation or an event confronting an individual. An apparent inability to do anything about a seemingly negative situation too may be a stressor, but further awareness can either lead to possible responses (which can lead to a solution) or the summoning of the peace of mind that comes with an understanding of a situation and its probable consequences; i.e. when something is ‘out of ones control’ (or at least appears to be) and one is able to accept life as it happens and deal with the oncoming situations as they arise.

Having a fuller ability to deal with diverse situations (adaptability / flexibility) engenders self-efficacy, which when employed successfully, leads to increased self-esteem over time. Understanding leads to greater awareness which leads to the possibility of greater adaptability when in conjunction with humanistic conscience and the discipline in action that stems from it.

Along with dealing with situations as they arise, awareness can also help with avoiding situations which may be detrimental in the first place further allowing one to limit even possible stress from rearing its head. Doing away with self-illusions / -delusions enable one to deal with situations as they are, not as one wants or wishes them to be, which, in turn, gives the individual the best information to work with further enabling one to correctly respond.

Of course, this may be stressful, but if one opens ones mind and escapes from consensus reality, the opportunities for growth in awareness arise and, if taken, will allow for a greater ability to deal with said situations and correct response; i.e. adaptability / flexibility is possible.

Corporations Pissing on Free Market Capitalism via Adjudicated Anthropomorphisis

Is it the case that local governments would do better to hinder individual and group efforts to reinvigorate urban areas less than to attempt to aid in such enterprises? In other words, should they just stay out and not attempt to help implying that their attempted ‘help’ would actually impede any such progress, whereas inaction would be preferable to a successful outcome?

If corporate personhood were revoked, then corporate responsibility would cease to be a near-meaningless tagline in an investment brochure and would have actual ramifications in the real world. Increased personal responsibility and self-reliance necessitates more self-awareness on the part of the individual and hence the rate of both personal and social transformation grows at a more and more rapid pace.

The revocation of corporate personhood would lead to a decrease in unethical practices because the owners of corporations would be legally held liable in such matters as individuals. This would include the practice of lobbying and, hence, the corrupt relationships between government and business which has led to many of our current problems and subsequent frustrations.