Hello Mr. Allen, I am very grateful for your writing because of how crystal clear it is and your uncompromising desire to tell the truth.
I wonder if there are any specific shifts you've made or are making in your life based on your vision of societal collapse. I remember you saying in one of the Hermitix interviews that you are fine with being part of the first waves of people dying from the collapse of supply chains. Am I correct in remembering that, and is that still your view? If so, could you describe why you do not feel compelled by a route such as trying to find a permaculture-based community which has at least some chance of sustaining themselves based on their local activity? Does it simply not feel possible in your current situation?
I doubt you could say he's 'against' these, but to put it briefly, if you don't see that the self-pleasuring and loveless sex in your life come pre-packaged with pain, then you're in for a lot more pain.
Just read apocalypedia and ad radicem, both books blew my mind in an excellent way.. although I’m struggling to communicate my excitement about your perspective to others without them thinking I’m a nihilistic pessimist… i think there are some pre requisites around cultivating a soft consciousness you need to get before you can see how it might be more uplifting than it first appears
I’m still struggling with the possibility for a techno utopian future though… couldn’t we find a way to shape big technology to provide us with unlimited energy, escape planetary confinement and bat away asteroids without all the horror?
I also found your description of optimal consciousness very close to McGhilchrists idea of the right brain? I guess you’ve thought about this?
How would you go about extricating good tech from bad tech for the utopian future? The tech itself isn't neutral, it's imbued with the trappings of the existing system. If the new system is utopian, then there's no exploited labour. Just do a basic thought experiment on the various possessions you have on you just now. Try to unwind the makeup of those possessions and their materials, guessing at what they contain, where they came from and the labour required. Imagine a world where people could choose whether or not they gave their labour. Would that labour be forthcoming, and would the object be made.
For example, would a phone's materials be mined if a worker didn't have the man-made fiction of a mortgage, taxation, food bills etc? Would the middle class move from charitable donations, to hands on philanthropic mining in order to keep the digital world going? Not likely.
Apply that logic to everything, and there is really very little that would pass the test and continue. The global supply chain wouldn't exist, even if there was appetite for global supply. Essentially, the utopian world is local and accessible. You'll be able to see it, touch it and feel it - and its costs - every day.
I'd like to add my two cents on this as I have had plenty of convo's with some friends on the state of tech in our lives, present and future. One friend reckons we can have a technological utopian society. I asked him sincerely, and ask you sincerely; do we humans, as a whole, have the conscious awareness and sensitivity to consciously handle the sophisticated tech that we are creating?
My answer is no. I say this because when I go out in the world I see person after person looking face down in their phone, even though they are surrounded by so much beauty (plants, birds, space, array of differently shaped faces). This is the beauty of the earth that according to you, we are confined in. But this beauty and this earth is not what I'm confined in, it is me! I don't want to escape it, either through my phone or in a space ship, I want to go deeper into it.
Lastly, we have unlimited energy. You, me, everyone else, sheep dogs (who actually enjoy working), some horses (they'll help too if we treat them well); our body's together. As for batting away asteroids, we just need a giant cricket bat, obviously (or baseball bat).
Why is the beginning of agriculture not enough of a satisfactory explanation for the beginning of the tool that took over? If it’s not then what events or set of circumstances preceded agriculture to cause the loss of consciousness? Why would one leave paradise willingly?
Does the timeline of the settling of Fertile Crescent coincide with the development of ego?
Does our mythological history explain what happened?
Psychoanalysis of War by Franco Fornari, fascinating read.
"In the same manner as placing itself beyond reality testing is a part of the dream experience, it seems to be a part of the social experience to place itself in a psychic dimension which is beyond reality testing. But on the other hand, the fact that in the social experience we are not required to carry out reality testing, but only to express our internal human needs, does not mean that the experience is valueless. On the contrary’, the social experience seems to be of fundamental importance to man, so much so we may safely assume that to deprive man of it would expose him to the same primary frustrations aroused by the deprivation of dreams."
[....]
"Not only this, but while the dreamer, on awakening, separates himself from the dream and finds before him a real world where he can concretely satisfy his desires, an individual, wishing to separate himself from the social experience and, so to speak, awake from the strongly cathected social experience, would find himself assailed by an anxiety of exclusion that would have all the characteristics of the child’s original fear of separation from the mother."
YENGing.
Nother brainstorm in the cup I had was how the Internet (a hub of powerlessness), the screens are what was criticized on those texts, one from Gulf War times, the war that didn't take place according to Baudrillard other more recent about Ukraine war when it started.
"The “Nintendo effect” worked so well that the euphoric generals had to caution against too much public euphoria for fear that it might backfire. Interviews with soldiers in the desert revealed that they, like everyone else, depended almost totally on the media to tell them what was supposedly happening. The domination of image over reality was sensed by everyone. A large portion of the coverage consisted of coverage of the coverage. The spectacle itself presented superficial debates on the new level of instant global spectacularization and its effects on the spectator.
Nineteenth-century capitalism alienated people from themselves and from each other by alienating them from the products of their own activity. This alienation has been intensified as those products have increasingly become “productions” that we passively contemplate. The power of the mass media is only the most obvious manifestation of this development; in the larger sense the spectacle is everything from arts to politicians that have become autonomous representations of life. “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation among people, mediated by images”
"For one, the growing screenization of our personal and collective life has rendered images considerably more powerful, and the technical resources required to cut, edit, and manipulate footage of any kind, along with the channels available to diffuse a given “evidence” or an “indisputable fact,” have significantly increased. On the other hand, the distinction between entertainment, opinion and reporting has become more tenuous, forcing us to constantly filter and interpret what is presented as reliable and verified information. In this regard, the nightmarish symphony of deeds producing reports and reports causing deeds has only enhanced its volume since the First World War."
There seems to be a huge uptick in the number of people quoting Churchill on democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". As someone that also believes that democracy is shite, would you also agree that Churchill was likely a massive bellend?
Also in the news, are hundreds of professional classers talking about how everyone who voted for Trump was clearly a moron. Yet they still believe in democracy? It doesn't make sense, unless they believe in some sort of cumulative moron effect, whereby a mass of morons will somehow come to a different conclusion than each individual moron. Are they fucking stupid?
‘The masses always live on hope. In the modern western world, it was thought that democracy would make everybody happy. Hopefully.
‘The introduction of representative democracy was the first concerted attempt by unhappy people to make themselves happy. Through the democratic vote, each man could express his unhappiness by choosing an unhappy man or party to express his unhappiness for him to other unhappy parties. These unhappy parties working unhappily together would produce happiness. That was the notion. That was the hope.
‘Getting the vote did indeed allow the unhappy masses to express their unhappiness. But as the masses do not exist, predictably their vote has no effect. Thus men were no happier; their unhappiness no less.’
Love Barry. I've watched a significant portion of his teachings on YouTube, to the extent that I now read every quote of his in the Barry voice. Given your lack of recordings on the web, I've never developed a subconscious inner Darren. Maybe one day.
Darren does have a few interviews on Youtube! Maybe also one or two on alt video sites. His voice is surprisingly gentle and melodic, if you're in the market for another mind-voice.
Just finished reading Where Are the Elephants by Leon Rosselson. I have enjoyed listening to his music for the last few years and find a lot of his songs jive well with your critiques of (un)life in the system. Have you listened to his music?
Every comment so far is addressed to the author, so let me ask the gentlefolk here: In what ways has Allen's work changed your life, for better or worse, subtly or bigly? Please provide examples, and I want it on my desk by Tuesday or else I'll dock your grade.
I don't want to just list a bunch of points because as he often points to, real change doesn't come from a list of isolated observations but a total shift in awareness which permeates even through your body, but it's difficult for my writing not to devolve into that.
But I would say it has given me more clarity about the ugly unhappy world that surrounds us, the mirage of hope that many people chase, the social games that others and especially myself engage in, and ultimately just how incredibly mysterious and vivid the things we take for granted are: to have a body and feel it at every instant, the shifting landscape of the clouds and the singing and chirping of the birds. What a delightfully fascinating world to be part of.
That there's such a thing as a "cultural diet", and therefore there is cultural nourishment and cultural junk food. Tchaikovsky and 50s music and learning about art and drawing feels nourishing, whereas I now realise that a lot of what I had grown up on and certainly what todays gen grow up on is junk. Maccas one day Kentucky fried the next. Day after day.
Also I was a lefty before reading DA. That started to wane when I was aboard the Jordan Peterson train, then reading Apocalapedia, 33 myths and Ivan Illich (Who I had never even heard of) just blew all political positions out of the water. It's just so obvious now how bogus it all is. Jordan included!
Real enchantment is in nature and the here and now (so can be found anywhere really), always,, just subtle at times so it takes a keen wit. This is opposed to the fake enchantment (glamour) of the world, which funny enough still pulls me in.
Thanks Darren, thanks everyone.
PS, are we celebrating Christmas on the 25th of November now? It's just that all the chrissy decorations are out. I may have missed that memo.
What a relief how all that needs to be said has been said, and so well! Still, his work is not a Bible but more like a port of call, supplying us with what we need to sail out into the world on our own adventure.
I can only say that I've spent many a pleasant moment reading about the good ol' Expressive Egg while hiding from the dull cuboid horrors of work in the office bathroom.
Allen's work has helped me emerge from behind a sort of veil of living death that came over me sometime in my childhood (due to growing up with the internet and video games; I was born in 1995). My escape from it began before I stumbled across his work, but I'd say I've only begun living in earnest since finding it.
In some ways, it's easier to use hindsight to describe the state of living death I experienced and say "not that" to provide an example--not because actually living is too difficult to put to words but because it's so obvious, so elegantly plain.
But since I found Allen's work in April of this year, I've given away my vast array of tech trinkets and other accumulated possessions (the removal of my headphones, in particular, has opened up my life; I'm convinced they are the most nefarious of our gadgets, aggressively trapping people inside their heads). I also told my Big Tech Company boss that our work and products are harmful. My last day there is at the end of November.
Especially now as that decrepit Zuckberg with his "Meta" (it's now being rolled out on WhatsApp for the masses, it also ended up in chinese hands), and those mediocre opportunistic young "entrepeneurs" of Anduril and Palantir want to have a piece of the cake. (I simply cannot believe how those men have power)
Do you agree with Bernardo Kastrup’s theory. That Matter is part of and orginates from Consciousness or Mind? It seems to be the thing at the moment. Although he seems to me to be a bit scientific or reductive in his thoughts. Process instead of meaning and love. David Bentley Hart sways toward the latter, which I prefer but has a religious attitude regarding it.
I quite like your writings on the shallowness of modern music and art. It had me wondering, have you ever listened to/liked the bands ‘Current 93’ or ‘Death in June’?
They started their careers in punk bands in the 70s (Crisis) and would later re-assemble into the post-punk scene. In the 80s their sound developed into an industrial kind of neofolk/apocalyptic folk music. The two bands leads are very endearing and ambiguous (David Tibet and Douglas Pearce).
Tibet is also visual artist and poet and has infused a lot of mysticism into his works. Pearce is eccentric & controversial but very passionate about his work. He grew up in a rough council estate in London in the 60s and had to break out of that environment to survive. I think they both really embody what good art should be.
What's your take on Monism vs. Dualism — to me, it seems like there are two facts: The world is one substance, and our experience is somewhat separate from the world (qualia ≠ physical space) — essentially: how would you reconcile these ideas?
His previous book "The Divine Names" is the search for god according to the way he reveals himself in the world, on this one he goes for god's transcendence according to the way in which he must be infinitely other than the world, for if god is present he must never be limited or contaminated by it; so he assumes that the author of sense, mind and feeling can neither be touched, known nor felt.
I would take god, monism and consciousness as a single word; dualism and experience is all the rest.
The conceptual mind, and everything it grasps, is dualistic. Obviously reality is partially dualistic, and to say otherwise is insanity — although those who do assert such nonsense don’t live by their credo. They doubt magic tricks and don’t try to walk through walls.
Consciousness is one, but there is no way to speak of it, mind to mind, as such. To do so is to betray it — with platitudes and cliches (God is love, we are all one, blah blah blah). It has to be expressed dualistically, the special kind of dualism we call ‘metaphor’.
Thus to talk of experience, reality, consciousness and so on demands an artistic sensibility, to be able to experience univocal dualism here, and equivocal monism there; to hear the voice of angels in the breeze and speak the strange language of bees.
I would argue that the "dualism" we experience is purely a product of the distance between mind & matter. It's like saying two peaks of a mountain range are different, despite the fact that they belong to the same range; it is possible to move from one to the other.
Also, any dualistic system necessarily has to have those two parts interact, and how can two parts interact without sharing a substrate through which they interact? Hence my initial claim of Monism at a logical level, Dualism at an experiential level.
Ah, I tend to use "substrate" as a neutral phrasing, mainly because "consciousness" sets off semantic alarm bells for many people. I'd argue that the topology of consciousness is akin to that of the substrate, but the difference would be that the substrate is the mountain range itself, and consciousness represents all possible paths between the visible peaks of the material and the mental — largely the same, but different in that the substrate is the *thing* and consciousness is the *map*.
(Also, you wouldn't believe how well a working knowledge of monistic physics helps any love life, you can appeal to the sensibilities of both hippies and logicians without having to accept the pitfalls of either.)
Thank you Şahan. Not sure I quite understand your first question, but I am suspicious of philosophers who cannot write fiction, and fiction writers who cannot philosophise. Greatness straddles subjectivity and objectivity.
As far as I know the Apocalypedia is literature, but I am working on something now which I think answers your second question.
And your third question - is it a bad thing you think I have the whole truth? Dunno, could be. It depends on your powers of discrimination.
What are your views on mysticism or the esoteric? You’ve mentioned your interest in Gurdjieff and Christian mysticism a few times, quoting the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and Meister Eckhart.
Also, are there any poets apart from Lawrence and Eliot that you admire?
Hello Mr. Allen, I am very grateful for your writing because of how crystal clear it is and your uncompromising desire to tell the truth.
I wonder if there are any specific shifts you've made or are making in your life based on your vision of societal collapse. I remember you saying in one of the Hermitix interviews that you are fine with being part of the first waves of people dying from the collapse of supply chains. Am I correct in remembering that, and is that still your view? If so, could you describe why you do not feel compelled by a route such as trying to find a permaculture-based community which has at least some chance of sustaining themselves based on their local activity? Does it simply not feel possible in your current situation?
Why are you against masturbating? What about sex? Thanks for your writings, I’ve only read a few so far but I find them compelling and provoking.
I doubt you could say he's 'against' these, but to put it briefly, if you don't see that the self-pleasuring and loveless sex in your life come pre-packaged with pain, then you're in for a lot more pain.
Just read apocalypedia and ad radicem, both books blew my mind in an excellent way.. although I’m struggling to communicate my excitement about your perspective to others without them thinking I’m a nihilistic pessimist… i think there are some pre requisites around cultivating a soft consciousness you need to get before you can see how it might be more uplifting than it first appears
I’m still struggling with the possibility for a techno utopian future though… couldn’t we find a way to shape big technology to provide us with unlimited energy, escape planetary confinement and bat away asteroids without all the horror?
I also found your description of optimal consciousness very close to McGhilchrists idea of the right brain? I guess you’ve thought about this?
Adam,
How would you go about extricating good tech from bad tech for the utopian future? The tech itself isn't neutral, it's imbued with the trappings of the existing system. If the new system is utopian, then there's no exploited labour. Just do a basic thought experiment on the various possessions you have on you just now. Try to unwind the makeup of those possessions and their materials, guessing at what they contain, where they came from and the labour required. Imagine a world where people could choose whether or not they gave their labour. Would that labour be forthcoming, and would the object be made.
For example, would a phone's materials be mined if a worker didn't have the man-made fiction of a mortgage, taxation, food bills etc? Would the middle class move from charitable donations, to hands on philanthropic mining in order to keep the digital world going? Not likely.
Apply that logic to everything, and there is really very little that would pass the test and continue. The global supply chain wouldn't exist, even if there was appetite for global supply. Essentially, the utopian world is local and accessible. You'll be able to see it, touch it and feel it - and its costs - every day.
Hi Adam
I'd like to add my two cents on this as I have had plenty of convo's with some friends on the state of tech in our lives, present and future. One friend reckons we can have a technological utopian society. I asked him sincerely, and ask you sincerely; do we humans, as a whole, have the conscious awareness and sensitivity to consciously handle the sophisticated tech that we are creating?
My answer is no. I say this because when I go out in the world I see person after person looking face down in their phone, even though they are surrounded by so much beauty (plants, birds, space, array of differently shaped faces). This is the beauty of the earth that according to you, we are confined in. But this beauty and this earth is not what I'm confined in, it is me! I don't want to escape it, either through my phone or in a space ship, I want to go deeper into it.
Lastly, we have unlimited energy. You, me, everyone else, sheep dogs (who actually enjoy working), some horses (they'll help too if we treat them well); our body's together. As for batting away asteroids, we just need a giant cricket bat, obviously (or baseball bat).
My best,
Gerard
On the Origin of Egos
How can we account for the genesis of the ego?
Why is the beginning of agriculture not enough of a satisfactory explanation for the beginning of the tool that took over? If it’s not then what events or set of circumstances preceded agriculture to cause the loss of consciousness? Why would one leave paradise willingly?
Does the timeline of the settling of Fertile Crescent coincide with the development of ego?
Does our mythological history explain what happened?
Why did I bring helium instead of air?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bZHLnlgIqs
"Cult" the only way it works indeed
https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/ideologies/resources/fornari-psychoanalysis-of-war/
Psychoanalysis of War by Franco Fornari, fascinating read.
"In the same manner as placing itself beyond reality testing is a part of the dream experience, it seems to be a part of the social experience to place itself in a psychic dimension which is beyond reality testing. But on the other hand, the fact that in the social experience we are not required to carry out reality testing, but only to express our internal human needs, does not mean that the experience is valueless. On the contrary’, the social experience seems to be of fundamental importance to man, so much so we may safely assume that to deprive man of it would expose him to the same primary frustrations aroused by the deprivation of dreams."
[....]
"Not only this, but while the dreamer, on awakening, separates himself from the dream and finds before him a real world where he can concretely satisfy his desires, an individual, wishing to separate himself from the social experience and, so to speak, awake from the strongly cathected social experience, would find himself assailed by an anxiety of exclusion that would have all the characteristics of the child’s original fear of separation from the mother."
YENGing.
Nother brainstorm in the cup I had was how the Internet (a hub of powerlessness), the screens are what was criticized on those texts, one from Gulf War times, the war that didn't take place according to Baudrillard other more recent about Ukraine war when it started.
Voyeurism, eunuch in the harem. All sooo boring!
https://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/gulfwar.htm
"The “Nintendo effect” worked so well that the euphoric generals had to caution against too much public euphoria for fear that it might backfire. Interviews with soldiers in the desert revealed that they, like everyone else, depended almost totally on the media to tell them what was supposedly happening. The domination of image over reality was sensed by everyone. A large portion of the coverage consisted of coverage of the coverage. The spectacle itself presented superficial debates on the new level of instant global spectacularization and its effects on the spectator.
Nineteenth-century capitalism alienated people from themselves and from each other by alienating them from the products of their own activity. This alienation has been intensified as those products have increasingly become “productions” that we passively contemplate. The power of the mass media is only the most obvious manifestation of this development; in the larger sense the spectacle is everything from arts to politicians that have become autonomous representations of life. “The spectacle is not a collection of images; it is a social relation among people, mediated by images”
http://insurgentnotes.com/2022/12/war-as-spectacle/
"For one, the growing screenization of our personal and collective life has rendered images considerably more powerful, and the technical resources required to cut, edit, and manipulate footage of any kind, along with the channels available to diffuse a given “evidence” or an “indisputable fact,” have significantly increased. On the other hand, the distinction between entertainment, opinion and reporting has become more tenuous, forcing us to constantly filter and interpret what is presented as reliable and verified information. In this regard, the nightmarish symphony of deeds producing reports and reports causing deeds has only enhanced its volume since the First World War."
Madman dumping!
https://youtu.be/2wRmTKnjERw?&t=48
Thanks, that’s actually the exact one I wanted to read.
There seems to be a huge uptick in the number of people quoting Churchill on democracy: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time". As someone that also believes that democracy is shite, would you also agree that Churchill was likely a massive bellend?
Also in the news, are hundreds of professional classers talking about how everyone who voted for Trump was clearly a moron. Yet they still believe in democracy? It doesn't make sense, unless they believe in some sort of cumulative moron effect, whereby a mass of morons will somehow come to a different conclusion than each individual moron. Are they fucking stupid?
‘The masses always live on hope. In the modern western world, it was thought that democracy would make everybody happy. Hopefully.
‘The introduction of representative democracy was the first concerted attempt by unhappy people to make themselves happy. Through the democratic vote, each man could express his unhappiness by choosing an unhappy man or party to express his unhappiness for him to other unhappy parties. These unhappy parties working unhappily together would produce happiness. That was the notion. That was the hope.
‘Getting the vote did indeed allow the unhappy masses to express their unhappiness. But as the masses do not exist, predictably their vote has no effect. Thus men were no happier; their unhappiness no less.’
Barry Long, Only Fear Dies
Love Barry. I've watched a significant portion of his teachings on YouTube, to the extent that I now read every quote of his in the Barry voice. Given your lack of recordings on the web, I've never developed a subconscious inner Darren. Maybe one day.
Darren does have a few interviews on Youtube! Maybe also one or two on alt video sites. His voice is surprisingly gentle and melodic, if you're in the market for another mind-voice.
Just finished reading Where Are the Elephants by Leon Rosselson. I have enjoyed listening to his music for the last few years and find a lot of his songs jive well with your critiques of (un)life in the system. Have you listened to his music?
Every comment so far is addressed to the author, so let me ask the gentlefolk here: In what ways has Allen's work changed your life, for better or worse, subtly or bigly? Please provide examples, and I want it on my desk by Tuesday or else I'll dock your grade.
I don't want to just list a bunch of points because as he often points to, real change doesn't come from a list of isolated observations but a total shift in awareness which permeates even through your body, but it's difficult for my writing not to devolve into that.
But I would say it has given me more clarity about the ugly unhappy world that surrounds us, the mirage of hope that many people chase, the social games that others and especially myself engage in, and ultimately just how incredibly mysterious and vivid the things we take for granted are: to have a body and feel it at every instant, the shifting landscape of the clouds and the singing and chirping of the birds. What a delightfully fascinating world to be part of.
That there's such a thing as a "cultural diet", and therefore there is cultural nourishment and cultural junk food. Tchaikovsky and 50s music and learning about art and drawing feels nourishing, whereas I now realise that a lot of what I had grown up on and certainly what todays gen grow up on is junk. Maccas one day Kentucky fried the next. Day after day.
Also I was a lefty before reading DA. That started to wane when I was aboard the Jordan Peterson train, then reading Apocalapedia, 33 myths and Ivan Illich (Who I had never even heard of) just blew all political positions out of the water. It's just so obvious now how bogus it all is. Jordan included!
Real enchantment is in nature and the here and now (so can be found anywhere really), always,, just subtle at times so it takes a keen wit. This is opposed to the fake enchantment (glamour) of the world, which funny enough still pulls me in.
Thanks Darren, thanks everyone.
PS, are we celebrating Christmas on the 25th of November now? It's just that all the chrissy decorations are out. I may have missed that memo.
The merchants are eager to use this "glamour/fake enchantment" you said to sell more, this is why they desperately decorate so early.
"Thatll beall for tody. Call it off. Godnotch, vryboily. End a muddy crushmess!"
Incredible how reading DA changed your dominant hand from left to right!
It has affect on my writing: the thing is alive, and you can just mention what's relevant, without being boring.
It also fills a hole that one of us don't have to write like that, someone already did it.
What a relief how all that needs to be said has been said, and so well! Still, his work is not a Bible but more like a port of call, supplying us with what we need to sail out into the world on our own adventure.
I can only say that I've spent many a pleasant moment reading about the good ol' Expressive Egg while hiding from the dull cuboid horrors of work in the office bathroom.
Allen's work has helped me emerge from behind a sort of veil of living death that came over me sometime in my childhood (due to growing up with the internet and video games; I was born in 1995). My escape from it began before I stumbled across his work, but I'd say I've only begun living in earnest since finding it.
In some ways, it's easier to use hindsight to describe the state of living death I experienced and say "not that" to provide an example--not because actually living is too difficult to put to words but because it's so obvious, so elegantly plain.
But since I found Allen's work in April of this year, I've given away my vast array of tech trinkets and other accumulated possessions (the removal of my headphones, in particular, has opened up my life; I'm convinced they are the most nefarious of our gadgets, aggressively trapping people inside their heads). I also told my Big Tech Company boss that our work and products are harmful. My last day there is at the end of November.
"I also told my Big Tech Company boss that our work and products are harmful. My last day there is at the end of November".
Yiew!! ^This is rad, well done mate!
Great to hear that, Ellsberg had some advice for those who work in Big Tech
https://youtu.be/e7cJG9j0NdY?&t=3166
Especially now as that decrepit Zuckberg with his "Meta" (it's now being rolled out on WhatsApp for the masses, it also ended up in chinese hands), and those mediocre opportunistic young "entrepeneurs" of Anduril and Palantir want to have a piece of the cake. (I simply cannot believe how those men have power)
Never thought of headphones that way, and freedom is so incredibly sweet. I own you.
He just smash us with the key to the unspeakable on everything we can think of, it's as preposterous as undeserved.
Paul Cudenec is a great admirer of your work. Have you ever been in contact with him?
Do you agree with Bernardo Kastrup’s theory. That Matter is part of and orginates from Consciousness or Mind? It seems to be the thing at the moment. Although he seems to me to be a bit scientific or reductive in his thoughts. Process instead of meaning and love. David Bentley Hart sways toward the latter, which I prefer but has a religious attitude regarding it.
I quite like your writings on the shallowness of modern music and art. It had me wondering, have you ever listened to/liked the bands ‘Current 93’ or ‘Death in June’?
They started their careers in punk bands in the 70s (Crisis) and would later re-assemble into the post-punk scene. In the 80s their sound developed into an industrial kind of neofolk/apocalyptic folk music. The two bands leads are very endearing and ambiguous (David Tibet and Douglas Pearce).
Tibet is also visual artist and poet and has infused a lot of mysticism into his works. Pearce is eccentric & controversial but very passionate about his work. He grew up in a rough council estate in London in the 60s and had to break out of that environment to survive. I think they both really embody what good art should be.
Interview with Douglas Pearce:
https://youtu.be/tyjxUEpL2pA?si=vWWrheo44n6D5ocR
Interview with David Tibet:
https://youtu.be/6Wk4NTkw71Y?si=Ox54RZwtv7sa0L9_
What's your take on Monism vs. Dualism — to me, it seems like there are two facts: The world is one substance, and our experience is somewhat separate from the world (qualia ≠ physical space) — essentially: how would you reconcile these ideas?
"Theologia Mystica" attributed to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (5th century AD) to me touch on the subject.
- https://ia904505.us.archive.org/34/items/watts-1944-ps.-dionysius/Watts%2C%201944%2C%20Ps.-Dionysius.pdf
I'll give this a read, but in the meantime do let me know if the premise is basically:
"The Divine and the Human interact, thus, a third, all-encompassing substance is needed for them to interact, thus all is One."
Because a lot of fields have grounding metaphysical arguments that are variations on that.
His previous book "The Divine Names" is the search for god according to the way he reveals himself in the world, on this one he goes for god's transcendence according to the way in which he must be infinitely other than the world, for if god is present he must never be limited or contaminated by it; so he assumes that the author of sense, mind and feeling can neither be touched, known nor felt.
I would take god, monism and consciousness as a single word; dualism and experience is all the rest.
The conceptual mind, and everything it grasps, is dualistic. Obviously reality is partially dualistic, and to say otherwise is insanity — although those who do assert such nonsense don’t live by their credo. They doubt magic tricks and don’t try to walk through walls.
Consciousness is one, but there is no way to speak of it, mind to mind, as such. To do so is to betray it — with platitudes and cliches (God is love, we are all one, blah blah blah). It has to be expressed dualistically, the special kind of dualism we call ‘metaphor’.
Thus to talk of experience, reality, consciousness and so on demands an artistic sensibility, to be able to experience univocal dualism here, and equivocal monism there; to hear the voice of angels in the breeze and speak the strange language of bees.
I would argue that the "dualism" we experience is purely a product of the distance between mind & matter. It's like saying two peaks of a mountain range are different, despite the fact that they belong to the same range; it is possible to move from one to the other.
Also, any dualistic system necessarily has to have those two parts interact, and how can two parts interact without sharing a substrate through which they interact? Hence my initial claim of Monism at a logical level, Dualism at an experiential level.
Ah, I tend to use "substrate" as a neutral phrasing, mainly because "consciousness" sets off semantic alarm bells for many people. I'd argue that the topology of consciousness is akin to that of the substrate, but the difference would be that the substrate is the mountain range itself, and consciousness represents all possible paths between the visible peaks of the material and the mental — largely the same, but different in that the substrate is the *thing* and consciousness is the *map*.
(Also, you wouldn't believe how well a working knowledge of monistic physics helps any love life, you can appeal to the sensibilities of both hippies and logicians without having to accept the pitfalls of either.)
Sounds alright to me, although it’s misleading to speak of consciousness as a ‘substrate’.
The question is, does it help your love life?
Do you think writing serious essays and writing literature dwells from the same source, making it less?
Apocalypedia was great, any ideas turning it into literature?
You write remarkably and in depth, and I as a reader think you have the whole truth. Isn't this a bad thing?
In Turkish your first mention was made by us. Maybe not ideal, but I tried to make your ideas clear. https://youtu.be/xq624LbmIsA?si=cFQNSb0tzD9mdxJq
By literature do you mean fiction? I'd say Allen's novel Fired certainly has the same essence as the Apocalypedia.
Yes, thanks for mentioning, that was on my list.
I avoid the term fiction when I can, it implies duality.
Thank you Şahan. Not sure I quite understand your first question, but I am suspicious of philosophers who cannot write fiction, and fiction writers who cannot philosophise. Greatness straddles subjectivity and objectivity.
As far as I know the Apocalypedia is literature, but I am working on something now which I think answers your second question.
And your third question - is it a bad thing you think I have the whole truth? Dunno, could be. It depends on your powers of discrimination.
What are your views on mysticism or the esoteric? You’ve mentioned your interest in Gurdjieff and Christian mysticism a few times, quoting the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and Meister Eckhart.
Also, are there any poets apart from Lawrence and Eliot that you admire?
Any recent films you’ve watched and liked?
Mysticism: Too big a question to answer here, I’m afraid. I’ve got an essay on Guru-nature in the works, not sure when (or if) it’ll appear.
Poets: Donne, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Shelley, Li He, Basho, Clare, Whitman, Poe, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Larkin, Hughes.
Recent films: Brian and Charles.