Cosmos Café: Stare into the lights my pretties—a talk with filmmaker Jordan Brown [2018.02.20]

Commons Cosmos Café
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“The more you live through screens, the more you’re living in a narrow bandwith, an abstract world that is increasingly artificial. And that virtual world is safe and controllable, but it’s not rich and unpredictable in the way the real world is. I’m worried what will happen if we lose our connection to reality altogether.”

Edit: Posted as additional perspective; I do see Geoffrey’s point above and agree that there is also the distinct possibility of strong reaction to all this. And in the article, Bess does mention that his screen-staring students can yet turn the things off and have awareness of their impact.

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This afternoon during my after-lunch reading, I came across the following which dovetails with the virtual/real-virtual/physical part of this thread. It is, I should highlight ahead of time, from Stan Tenen, so I you want to simply skim over the parts about the Hebrew letters, but the parts addressing “dimensionality” are very relevant to what is being touched on here [all emphases are in the original]:

We can compare the conceptual space we experience and organize in our minds with an ideal hyperdimensional space in mathematics and physics. As it turns out, fundamental properties of entities in physics can be specified by a “quantum state vector” which points in some particular direction in thehyperdimensional space in which physics takes place. Every event/entity in physics can be represented by a direction in space.

So too in the conceptual space of our minds. If our minds can model hyperspace, then each thought/event in our mind can also be rpresented by a direction in space.

(Which is background to the following paragraph(s) which particularly caught my eye …)

In complex 3-space (6-dimensional “real” space) there are 27 “preferred” directions (corresponding to the 27 lines on the general cubic surface).[ii] It is our conjecture that these 27-directions correspond to the 27 Hebrew letters. If this is so, then the Hebrew letter set would enable us to completely, compactly, and elegantly specify the hyperdimensional map on our motor and sensory cortices that corresponds to any action or thing.

If the above, or something like it, is at work in the formation of language, then Hebrew (or related “sacred” languages and alphabets) should not be thought of as conversational language but rather as a common source language representing in the most compact and elegant way the underlying structures common to all possible descriptions of all entities in physical (3-D) and spiritual (4-D) reality.

The Hebrew letters would represnet the basic repertoire of directions we use to form ideas and concepts, pointing to anything we can experinece in 3- and 4-(or higher) dimensional reality.^

^ Since there are more fundamental primary symmetry sgructures in 3- and 4-dimensions than in any other dimensionality (under ~24-D), the Hebrew letters can point to anything in higher spaces as well.

[ii] See H.S.M. Coexeter, "Polytope 2 [sub]21 whose 27.Vertices Correspond to the Lines on teh General Cubic Surface (1938), printed in teh American Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 62 (1940), pp. 457-486.
Also see Geometry and the Imagination by Hilber and Cohn-Vossen, Capter III: “Projective Configurations” (pp. 94-170. (c) 1952, 1983 by Chelsea Publishing Company, ISBN 0-8284-0087-3

From Stan Tenen (1991) “Some Preliminary Speculations on A Natural Common Universal Language and Alphabet System with Applications to the Hebrew Alef-Bet”, in Tenen, S. & L. Tenen (eds.) The Alphabet in Genesis: III. Essential Findings, The Meru Foundation, Sharon, MA, 2006, p. 3.33.

Just some food for thought.

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I guess it is the degree of darkness and light. Perhaps the term is used because, though they want their message to come to light, they have to remain in the dark to some degree, or as the article states, they have been rejected or neglected by the “gated institutional narrative” (which is really a term Weinstein did take credit for…it looks like from this quick video clip from which the “intellectual dark web” term was first(?) used that he was taken out of context; it was a friend of his that said he was hanging out with people of the “intellectual dark web”…then it was used as the title of a Harris podcast…then it was taken even further out of context). His brother Bret Weinstein (as mentioned in the article) was fired from Evergreen for holding his ground on a controversial issue.
A real issue, which I am guilty of here, is the spreading of misleading information or faulty research. The article on the intellectual dark web has at least two: the “dark web” coinage and this:

Far from the counter-culture movement of the 1960 featuring figures like Timothy Leary, the famed psychologist and LSD advocate, Harris and other proponents of a psychedelic revival are of the elite classes – working in Silicon Valley, holding advanced degrees.

Leary had a PhD and did research for Harvard, then perhaps dropped into the “dark web” of the era.

I am often one to say “ahh…its just a minor detail,” but thanks to you, Ed, I really wish to continue to watch what I say, even if it means dealing with a little tedium at times, and the curmudgeonly bludgeoning :confounded:. Being new to this whole conversation game (literally never shared opinions in my life until recently!), I appreciate the time and effort you devote to keeping us in the light and the right, whether you can help yourself or not :grin:

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I can assure you that the last person I was targeting with my comment was you! Contrary to most of the bosses I ever worked for, I truly don’t believe in killing the messenger.

Your comment above describes precisely what got me agitated enough to comment on the term. Everyone in that chain of out-of-contextualization should have known better, but they didn’t act better. Of course it is not a new phenomenon, as your reference to Timothy Leary makes patently clear: it’s not just the Harris’ (and I’m not picking on him in particular, he just happens to be the individual referred to in the quote) and too many are too willing to put forth their unthought-through opinions over accurate reporting.

Some details are in fact minor and trivial, but what really got me about the “dark web” concept is that it is used primarily in association with what most people think are heinous crimes. Even a cavalier connection can get seated in consciousnesses who are unwilling to become aware of what they are saying – which obviously excludes anyone in the current conversation here – because we live increasingly in a guilt-by-association world, and I don’t want people who are being unjustly relegated to the shadows dumped into the same bucket with those who consciously and actively seek them.

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I have been reading (and teaching) about the dark web over the past couple of weeks, so I find it interesting that the subject has also cropped up here (synchronicity!). So while I don’t disagree with your first sentence here, I do take issue with the second. I have been teaching in French, and so the first thing I did was look up the French translation. The “dark web” is translated into French as “le réseau superposé” or “le réseau alternatif” - so the superimposed network or the alternative network. These are decidedly less sinister-sounding terms than the English “darknet”, but it is the same concept. Essentially, it is an alternative web with distinct modes of access and connection. Bitcoin is part of the darkweb. But the darkweb, although it does include the criminal element, is not limited to them. The darknet, in additional to criminals, and terrorists, includes the hacker culture, that you may or may not think of as criminal (parts of it are, and parts of are not), certain forms of rebellion or resistance (e.g. occupy wall street, etc.), some artists along with their audiences (although artists seek a public, some seek a special type of public that may be entirely contained within the darknet), certain afficionados of sexual practices off the main grid (not just predators), espionage services, police informers, etc. It would be interesting to find out how much of the darknet is criminal, but precisely because it is dark, getting statistics is difficult.

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I agree very much, Geoffrey … I overstated that second sentence, but I was thinking more of what may be in most people’s minds not, as you have so cogently stated, what should be in most people’s minds. Thanks for the gentle nudge out of the dramatic.

Having said that, I don’t think that Jordan Peterson or Sam Harris posting podcasts and videos on YouTube falls into the category of “distinct modes of access and connection”, which is very much the point behind my overstatement. What Bitcoin does where and how would count, I suppose, even though any novice could hook up with Bitcoin itself rather easily. I would like to think that the darknet, regardless of sinister it sounds in English – and Erik Davis does help us get an understanding of just why we choose such terms – might get an undue bad name.

Truth be told, I’m a quite a fan of the “true” darknet, not because criminals and terrorists may lurk there, but because those with noble intent (resistors, artists, hackers (not crackers), and simply those who honor and desire privacy) should have their “space”, as well.

In fact, wouldn’t you agree that we (the good ol’ generic one, of course) should be advocating and educating everyone on the use of encryption, VPNing, anonymizing, etc. as part of our everyday practice? It would seem to me that looking forward it would worthwhile to have more people smarter about generally (and specifically) protecting their privacy when online.

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I also have a personal biais about “dissing the dark” all the time, and “favouring the light”, even though we live in more than one culture that does this systematically. Here is an excerpt from my current book manuscript (“Cordis Intima” - the same manuscript I have excerpted elsewhere here) which underlines this point :

“The minority faction within the Humanitat that we call NarFax, focussed on deviant life practices organized around hedonistic forms of satisfaction, could be considered the penultimate in shadow sexuality or any other type of hidden experience), and yet the vision I had presented me with a universe of white on white, hence a paradoxical shading of whites, not greys. This confounded me at the time. But the vision, with its focus on violence and pain, did two things for me that I didn’t appreciate until much later. First, it reminded me that deviancy within the Ido and the Humanitat, is hardly a part of the Shadow. On the contrary, it is viewed as part of the paradox of life - the very fact that there is an official faction devoted to such practices bears witness to this. The shadow of the Ido is not deviancy, nor even violence, but our denial of violence. It is because we refuse to admit to, and deal with, excessive forms of violence that the Humanitat is in trouble. Hence the massacre carried out by the Nirvanists was ignored by the wider Humanitat, as were, for example, the acts of violence perpetrated against Oreph’s family on Pinnacle. The Sodenheim Crisis finds its roots in that inability to acknowledge and manage ongoing violence. It was the white on white character of that second vision that forewarned these issues.”

So in my future, which is, in general terms, a utopia, the problem area is the “denial of violence”, that is, it is a problem with the light. I think our cultures also have problems in this area. I think we view men as problematic and women as less so (cf the #metoo movement). The problem with this perspective is that women also have problematic sides, but these are often in areas that are viewed as “never bad” or “rarely bad” and are harder to name and articulate. Think of emotionally invasive mothers as an prototypical example. Also, although we view religious fanaticism as negative, a certain kind of evangelism may be viewed more positively. We view childhood as characterized by “innocence” and yet, much of childhood is not innocent. I could go on but you get my point. As I’ve said before, what I am trying to explore in my SF writing, is the shadow side of utopia. My interest in the darknet (which I call “NarFax” in my manuscript) is, on the other hand, and paradoxically, its luminous side.

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This is a great insight (and the great thing about fiction is that you can bypass the empirical research and explore such aspects of our society). We discussed the denial of violence in the last Globes conversation and the fine lines between keeping our dark lives at bay before the repressed animal within shines light with bright teeth and nails. A society with a healthy devotion to the dynamics of sexual, religious/spiritual, violent rooms within is an aware society, aware of paradox. As a whole we can hardly agree today on, say, what a healthy religion is, though we have most of the answers right in front of us. We have been battling with the same tired stories, a generational perpetuation, yet aren’t listening to the ones that can set us free. Our darkweb here and elsewhere is present all around us, but who is listening? A YouTube video of Geoffrey promoting his techno-garments for disabled individuals gets 25 views (if one might to exist) and the teen with the latest outfit of the day gets millions.

In the US, we have a commercial that states “show me the CarFax,” which provides a cumulative history of the cars repairs and other warts, to make sure you are getting a good car deal. I say “show me the NarFax!!” We could all use a nice dose of awareness and acceptance of our warts and all.

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Since this is where the most closely related discussion took place, I thought I’d share the following article by Bernardo Kastrup which appeared in Scientific American. We have often talked about this kind of thing, and I found his lead-in describing the difference between “intelligence” and “consciousness” an excellent place to start.

Of course, this would fit in well over in our discussion on Teilhard de Chardin or what we’ve been kicking around with Sri Aurobindo, too.

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Thanks, Ed, for Kastrup’s essay. I follow him a lot, though I confess, much of his argument goes over my head, I still read him as he seems closest to my own sense making. Panentheism is where I have landed, rather than a pop panscychism, so fashionable these days. We are completely immanent and completely transcendent and a robot or a computer is not and never will be. The search for ultimate Algorithms, as I mentioned in our last cafe, is based upon a fabrication. Algorithms are non conscious, are unfelt and unituited and made up by people who want to manipulate your data. We need to dispel this absurd myth as soon as we can. This is what happens when deficient mythic meets deficient mental. Lisa said something similar about the cultural dystopian bias getting turned into movies and people getting hypnotized by pseudo-science. This doomsday stuff could be fun if there were more self reflexive audiences watching but I fear many are not self-reflexive and are quite fragmented already and under stress and they project their wobbly ontology onto a non existent future technology. Most of the Trans-humanism fantasia fluff is like watching bad Leni Reifenstall epics. We need to take back the powers of our Imagination from the speed demons who are advertising fast gadgets that will takes us to nowhere. Kastrup states clearly that science is only about creating technology. It is about nothing else. Very important but not the be all and the end all of anything.

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Much food for thought. Thanks for sharing.

“I can emulate the physiology of kidney function in all its excruciating molecular details in my desktop computer, but this won’t make the computer urinate on my desk.”

There’s the laugh I needed this morning.

“Unfortunately [this abyssal explanatory gap] has instead given licence to a circus of arbitrary speculation about how to engineer, download and upload consciousness.”

“…the entertainment media is rendering nonsense culturally plausible…”

These I will have to chew on, especially the last. There is a whole conversation to be had on culturally plausible nonsense (for instance, to what extent is making nonsense plausible the very job of culture?) :smiling_imp: …

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And I should think – no pressure, of course – that it would be very beneficial to have a CCafé session on this very topic, but one that may not take place without you being present.

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It’s probably just as well that we’d be talking mid-April at this rate, if it pans out. But as I was mulling over how the definition of ‘nonsense’ itself might depend on the consciousness structure and the communication/technology matrix available, etc., it struck me there is quite a bit there to play with.

Hmm… “Culture: Plausibility, Stuff and Nonsense”…

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Personally, I’m not so much concerned about when it is, rather my interest is that it is.

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I have several problems with Kastrup’s argument, although I agree with his conclusion. Which means that I use a different argument to get to a similar conclusion. I agree that arguments about the “pixelization” of perception do not necessarily transfer to the “pixelization” of the perceiver. However, he appears to take this as an argument that the perceiver cannot be pixelized, which goes too far in my opinion. Or he simply states it without offering any proof at all. Instead he presents the argument that the simulated is not the thing being simulated. Again, I agree with that argument. But then he seems to say that because that is true, consciousness cannot be generated from constituent parts… Or something - I find his argument muddled.

There is a way to have a progressive aggregation argument that is more like biological cells than like pixels or subatomic particles. So, biological cells on their own have pretty limited behaviours, but when they are organized into coherent structures, the behaviour of the whole may be very different from the behaviour of the individual cells. I am not talking about animals per se, but, for example, animal organs - the heart has a complex set of properties and functions that in some sense include emergent properties that the individual cells do not have. There is some kind of a threshold above which a complex celled entity can function and maintain itself (in relation to its environment, of course, never separately from the latter) but below which the sophisticated behaviour is lost. When a heart stops pumping, it doesn’t mean its constituent cells die immediately - they eventually will because they lack the resources they need to continue. So a certain kind of “experience of life” may be viewed as being “constructed” from component parts in such a way that emergent properties confer a more sophisticated experience of life. Note that this is an argument that Kastrup negates, in a sense, and yet which also leads towards a comparable conclusion for other reasons. Instead of rejecting the idea that consciousness can be “downloaded” into an appropriately designed artificial structure because experience cannot be fragmented into pieces (which is how I understand part of Kastrup’s argument), the alternative reason is because experience requires emergent properties of a particular kind (indeed, of the living, embodied kind), and artificial structures made from inert matter cannot generate the right kinds of emergent properties. This would suggest that one might be able to “create” organic structures that did have the right kind of emergent properties to produce consciousness. We do not have the means to test such an idea today, but, as a scientist, I prefer arguments that can be tested over arguments that cannot (I do not know how to test the idea that consciousness cannot be broken into pieces…). And it seems to me it might be true that one could “create” or “design” a conscious being out of organic components and behaviours rather than inorganic components. Maybe… This still does not mean one could be able to “download a consciousness from one organic living body into another” - that would depend on the details of what emergent properties are needed to generate consciousness, another question we are unable to answer at the moment. Furthermore, the argument about embodiment is that the specifics of a particular body matters - that is, the embodied hypothesis of consciousness is that a given body may generate a single and unique consciousness. If that is the case, then you cannot simply “transfer” consciousness from one body to another - it doesn’t work like that at all.

Furthermore, although individual cells don’t have the same life experiences as complex cell ensembles which include sophisticated and emergent behaviours, yet, as individuals, they may be said to have some kind of “life experience”. The critical distinction here is the existence of emergent properties and their role as a manifestation of a kind of “complexity threshold” (which is what Teilhard talked about - nobody talked about emergent properties in his day). Is consciousness an emergent property of certain kinds of life forms? That is the question we should be asking, not whether subatomic particles have some kind of “microconsciousness”… However, the same kinds of questions also were once applied to the emergence of life from inert matter, and the science seems to suggest that life IS an emergent property of certain kinds of macromolecules. Kastrup says that is an argument for biology, and he is again correct, but that does not mean it is not also an argument for consciousness if the two levels of argument are linked together…

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A relevant panel discussion about the social impacts of AI, especially after our conversation with Jordan. There are already children, raised on screens, who have no social skills. What happens next? Well, my pretty ones may not be so pretty, when we need armed teachers in class rooms. It looks like with the rise of AI, some of us, are getting dumber and dumber.

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OK…so after you’ve been staring into the lights for a while, close your eyes and listen to (feel) the interlacing words & grooves:

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