You don’t need to know. I can assure you, it’s magical time. 
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Thank you for this. I will have to watch the entire video at a later time, but I listened to Hayden White’s very witty remarks and a bit of Eelco Runia’s defense. I take it White is not enamored by Moved by the Past. (Another book for my list; now I’m well into 2022… LOL) Of course, “Historians don’t think,” is a going to be perceived as a challenge…
I could not better explain what I have been saying about the use and limits of history. White is exactly right about the difference between “the past” and that small part of the past that has been “mapped” (history). I also appreciated his comments to the effect that history reading, despite the possibility of illumination of present problems (perhaps) through context and “precedent”, is not alone adequate for coming up with effective solutions. And the reluctance of historians to transgress their chosen professional boundaries (for some very good reasons it must be said) is clearly on display.
You can see right away how vision for the future requires more than this.
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If I understand the gist of TJ’s speculation regarding the relative durations of (the historical dominance of) the magic, mythic, and mental structures of consciousness, it’s that the integral is in some way a higher-level recapitulation of the mythic—in a sort of long - short - long - short pattern. Moreover, it could be that the longer-reigning integral could hold a world together in a way that magic or mental could not. Correct me if I misinterpreted your intent, TJ, but is your idea that the integral’s poly-meta-narrative and multi-dimensional-and-structural inclusiveness could provide some ‘decentralized center’ and relative order for a world beyond atomized subjects and rational universals—and that we might expect to see such a transition sooner rather than later?
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I feel that these two threads (_Globes _ #1 And this one) are converging parallel threads…
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That was my main thought at the time. Potentially, the incorporation of various ‘pushes and pulls’ in a constructively open way could, as the mythical structure did with polarities, hold balance for an integrated world.
This is of course more problematic. We cannot keep up all this modern dysfunction indefinitely, or could we…? We may actually have more of the efficient mental to bring ‘on-line’ first - the development of a real comfort level with the multi-perspectival and meta-perspectival before we start to see the aperspectival. (All provided the power stays on and barring any other ‘extinction event’…)
What would really suck - whether my long-short-long pattern holds water or (more likely) Ed’s compression of structure duration as history moves forward map is correct - would be to reach the integral (a version of Gebser’s ideal vision, spiritual concretion and all) and proceed to mess that up too… 
But that is for future generations to decide.
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Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!
William Shakespeare
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This morning I woke up remembering that Gebser argued that we have the option (a poor way to put it, I know) to go directly to the deficient integral. We don’t have to pass Consciousness Go and collect anything, we can go jump right in. There is also nothing in his approach that I can see that says that the efficient mode must precede the deficient, though the historical evidence that he reviewed seemed to indicate that this was the way things “usually” went.
It could also be, as @madrush is implying that the Integral is just a bit different in a lot of ways to the previous consciousness structures, that there could be something about the Integral structure that could “hold a world together”, though decentralized. However, if that’s the case, and the Integral is as tolerant of paradox as we have been speculating, then its opposite could also be true: there is nothing there at all to hold anything together, which brings me back to Gebser’s statement that we could simply go deficient integral right off.
One of the most difficult take-aways I took from Gebser, though, was his insistence on not spatializing the descriptions of the structures. The very notion of “level” was bothersome to him, for “up” tends to be associated with “better” in our mental/rational minds. Phrases like “a higher-level recapitulation of the mythic” make me nervous, though I’m pretty sure I know what @madrush means. I think it is a useful exercise to try and discuss topics like this without resorting to spatial metaphors, just to force us to think about them differently. This is why you often hear me talking about intensifications instead of levels or beyonds. (Don’t even get the impression that I’ve got this down, this is an exercise I’m constantly involved in to see if it is fruitful in grokking what’s happening. I think it is, but that’s just me.) Of course, I agree with both you and @madrush that playing and exploring with poly-, multi-, and meta-perspectivity may be exceedingly helpful along the way, especially since were all struggling to grok all that “a-” stuff he talks about. 
As @johnnydavis54 often points out, and I certainly agree, from the Integral we need to be aware of all the previous structures and of when the Magical structure would be most effective and when the Mythical would be most effective or when some combination of even, say, the Archaic and Mental would be most effective. In that the previous consciousness structures have been superseded, they would therefore be incorporated into our consciousness and thereby at our disposal, part of our consciousness tool-box, if you will. I imagine that to be much like the goal we had when I was performing logistics analysis and writing technical documentation: providing the right procedures with the right tools for the right person at the right place at the right time for the right problem in order to enable maintenance to be accomplished in the most efficient or optimal way. Even though that is a very mental-rational description (perhaps “relevant” or “appropriate” would be a more effective word than “right”), I think it illustrates as well that when mental-rational is the way to go, then go with it. This also implies – but I’m going to have to start thinking about this more intensely – that there are situations, circumstances, conditions under which deficient Magical or deficient Mythical “tools” would be the best fit.
The only point with which I do not fully agree is that this is for future generations to decide. I believe we are being rather forcefully presented with that decision already. 
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Agreed. The future is already here. It has been here since the beginning. The non-local connections we are making (picking up on what your next door neighbor is thinking) can be distracting so we screen it out.
Learning which filter, as you mentioned, TJ, to apply may become the most important meta-skill, as the effects of our non-local connections becomes more dramatic.
Learning how to cope with the basic five physical senses has proved challenging in our current mental deficient science and historiography, which focuses on the verifiable in a rigid, sometimes legalistic way. What happens when we open up to the much vaster extra-physical senses?
How long can we keep the lid on this container? I doubt we can sweep the non-local information and those who register it locked up much longer.
How can governments and societies function without secrets? Popper wrote a book, The Open Society and It’s Enemies, which I read back in the 80’s, and he seemed still caught up in the first wave of perplexity brought on by advanced technology.
He wanted to live in an open society but not in a transparent society.
If we were inclined to love our neighbor as our self we could live in a transparent society, but we would still need filters. Our sense of a self among selves requires that we differentiate and commune rather than differentiate and occlude.
This is where Models of the Self are becoming important research projects. Where are our boundaries? Where do our boundaries come from? How do we sustain a living arrangement without good boundaries? Isn’t this dilemma a lot like what we see in the movies or in dream-time?
I think Whitehead and Aurobindo and Gebser may be skillful guides and I hope we can convene a conference like inquiry into these vast possibles. I would love to demonstrate some more models on the Self, as I have done some research in this area.
How to bring the efficient magical into a late stage capitalist society is tricky. The anti-structure nature of our serendipitous society needs to be respected.
Breath deep while you sleep breathe deep.
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And the map is a performance by the territory!
Epistemology recapitulates ontology.
How do we know the integral?
It is an experience. An intensity.
And wherabouts is that intensity? Does it have a color, size, or shape?
In forms, bodies, and appearances, in…space.
And when “forms, bodies, and appearances,” in space, then what happens?
‘…’
I’m in accord with @Douggins’ view that parallel threads are converging.
An explosion of space from the inside, and an irruption of time…from the outside?
”In morphological and immunological terms, one can claim that God’s most important act in the metaphysical age was to secure the border against nothingness, the ouside and infinite.” — Globes, p. 125
From womb to cosmic void…and civilization in between? The death and rebirth of God in the flesh of the Cosmos?
I remain curious why Gebser saw the shape the Integral as a sphere…
And Sloterdijk writes, at the conclusion of his Introduction to Volume II:
”The present book, a mausoleum for the idea of the all-encompassing unity, belongs to the two-thousand-year empire of the monosphere of the integral globe…” —p. 133
(His subsequent remarks on that page are worth pondering, too…)
And yet, distinct from all meta-poly-trans-post-hyper-mental-theoretical displays, Gebser says that the integral structure (which is not a higher evolutionary level, he stresses—though it presupposes prior emergents) has the quality of transparency. In the end, everything is simple.
Thus I posit: after the maximum intensification of time (e.g., through ‘peak everything,’ or an integral singularity event), do we not arrive in the apocalypse of space? Doesn’t aperspectival time-freedom have a crypto-Parmenidean flavor?
”For Parmenides, the theory of the orb meant nothing other than free circumspection in the interior of an open entity that provides insight into itself.”— p. 83
What’s at the center of an open entity? Does ontology now recapitulate epistemology? What else about alternate ways of knowing? And, to bring my questions to a point: Where are we when we’re in the integral?
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Could not agree more … the notion of “filtering” can’t be emphasized enough.
Yes, very different entities. Those who favor the patriarchial, hierarchical, top-down, (these days, ever increasingly) authoritarian side of things find transparency anathema. Transparency requires a sense of equality that is difficult for many people to even imagine, let alone practice.
Good points, both about inclinations and filters. We humans can only manage so much cognitive and affective stimulation, but we also increase the stress transparency brings when we find ourselves trying to hide those parts of ourselves that we probably don’t like very much ourselves. I think Jung’s notion of individuation can be helpful here. After all, if we’re going to get over our egos, we have to have selves, and if we’re going to go integral, we have to get over ourselves. You can also read “transcend” for “get over”. 
(BTW, your the second person in two weeks to set me up with a link to Targ’s TED talk. How synchronistic is that? The fact that it was “banned” (though you can see how far that got them, we’re watching it anyhow … in that respect the internet, which never forgets, thwarts all those who would like to control it, but that isn’t stopping the authoritarians from trying to kill its neutrality, in yet another attempt at control.)
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I guess the real trick is to be able to discern the difference between deficient and efficient forms of any of the structures.
A failure to do so is what the parable of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is all about.
And when efficient is there a size or shape? What happens next?
Unless we are not sufficient at recognizing the difference that make a difference, we will not make it and we should just break out the booze and keep on dancing. I think many on Wall Street are doing just that
Knowing the difference between an absolute infinity and an actual infinity may not be just for Mathematicians and Logicians.
I am deficient…I am efficient…and I am both efficient and deficient…I am neither deficient nor efficient…
Everything is real and not real,
Both real and not real,
Neither real nor not real.
This is Lord Buddha’s teaching.
“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow”-Hamlet
We need to know the limits of our thought and stop worshiping idols.
Easier said than done.
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Keep going, don’t stop now…
This is where Whitehead comes in. If we are not aware of the nature of the interplay of concepts and percepts we get lost in the fallacies of misplaced concreteness.
I would offer our last cafe as an example of what an efficient trance logic could be. I point to that event as a dynamic reference point in our history and in our past.
The past has not become history until we have a map. Is any map going to be adequate unless we pay attention to the internal process, external behavior and the internal states of those we are reality testing with?
And how do you know your Being, without Doing?
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Weren’t these themes picked up in Barfield’s Saving the Appearances?
Even if not, it’s sound advice.
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Yes indeed. Barfield is another neglected author we could study. His books are short, articulate and to the point. Highly efficient!
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As I’ve said elsewhere before, I’m not completely satisfied with it, and Gebser himself is not very specific on this point. On p. 100 of EPO, he introduces it as the symbol of the Integral as part of discussion of (oddly enough) geometry, in particular what came out of the work of Desargues (whose work was furthered by the very young Pascal) who was challenging Descartes analytical geometry. Out of Desargues’ Theory of Conic Sections came a kind of projective geometry which abandoned “a prurely three-dimensional space in favor of spherical solid or ‘filled’ space, leaving behind the ‘emptiness’ of purely linear space and touching that dimension of fulfillment that is a precondition of, at the very least, the latent presence of the temporal.” He then goes on, “Here, too, we encounter for the first time the striking symbol of the integral structure, the sphere. In is in fact a kind of signature for the four-dimensinonality of this structure which we are to understand as a sphere in motion” [emphasis mine].
Later, in Part 2 (ca. pp 342-355) , he goes more deeply into his understanding of the fourth dimension and how it relates to time. I will not go into that here as it would probably better fit in the session you have imagined for this coming Tuesday. (At least that will give me a bit more time to mull all this over and check out the other 25 or so references to spheres/spherical he has strewn about the text.
What is most relevant in regard to your questions, however, is his conceptualization of this as not a “simple”, three-dimensional sphere, but rather a “moving, transparent sphere” in (at least) four dimensions. It seems the motion, the transparency and temporal aspects of this conceptualization were the deciding factors.
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I would like to offer a case study to ground this question. You offer a good cluster of questions and what I offer in response, is what I would claim is emergent knowledge, which comes out of a direct experience of the mutating consciousness.
This article, which I consider a crude sketch, is an example of trying to model an alternate way of knowing. I hesitate to offer it as I am very reluctant to throw pearls before swine.
By that I refer to a remark by Jesus, and it is wise advice. Swine are not able to recognize the beauty of the pearl. It is stupid to wear for apparel what was intended as a curtain for the inmost soul.
Since I am convinced there are no swine here I submit this article, and hope for the best. I do sense that if we are better able to engage in discourse that allows the modeling of alternate ways of knowing, we could start to move mountains. But that could just be another crash and burn move.
And perhaps a less flattened ontology would emerge?
http://www.cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/193/1/Alternate-Ways-of-Knowing/Page1.html
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"The AI Index, as it’s called, was published this week, and begins by telling readers we’re essentially “flying blind” in our estimations of AI’s capacity. It goes on to make two main points: first, that the field of AI is more active than ever before, with minds and money pouring in at an incredible rate; and second, that although AI has overtaken humanity when it comes to performing a few very specific tasks, it’s still extremely limited in terms of general intelligence. "
The Day the Earth Stood Still
I’m curious if there is a serendipitous learning happening here?
Developmental pressures may force us to figure out what a " general intelligence" is compared to the pseudo-intelligence of AI, which will probably be largely punitive, modeled upon the strict father archetype. Will we get re-programed by Darth Vader robots, who will nuke us, if we fight back?
Perhaps we can review our maps and discover together where is the edge of our maps?
I imagine our future selves will enjoy our paradoxes and will delight in sharing them when they occur.
I want to co-create research projects that will evolve us and that are going to be aesthetically driven.
Can we create freedom for time to develop knowledge rather than improve the profit margins for the few?
What needs to happen to create freedom for Time?
I got an interesting hit last night from astral plane. I brought back a symbol. I will scan it and add it to the archive.
“The Masters depend upon the creativity of the Slaves.”- Roy Bhaskar
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This clip is wonderful! My journey to this Infinite Conversations site may have originated in Gebser and Metamodernism, but, since September, my ultimate line of thought is expanding upon what I am calling “forced enlightenment.” (and thanks to your modeling skills, the mental image of how this might fit into my personal model is expanding and achieving higher resolution).
It is a positive version of force (the seriousness love that prevents a child from crossing a busy street, for example)…could it be an enlightenment pill, a cranial device that trains us (similar to an invisible fence for dogs), that monitors our emotions and brings us into a “happier” state, rather than go down a depressive void for hours, days on end…etc. The problem, of course, is how do we ‘force’ this upon those who need it the most? Children and elders we have some control over…what of the mass population?
The police robot is definitely an outdated idea (this movie was created in 1951, says internet)…I would hope that we slaves could come up with something more creative and have it come to fruition.
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I hope so too! Thanks for your feedback. I am aware the cultural metaphors for alternate ways of knowing are usually derived from Hollywood generated sci fi which is very narrowly focused.
I recall that budgets for teachers were cut in California back in the 80’s because the use of computers would eliminate the need for reading instruction. Computers would teach kids how to read.
It was later discovered this was premature. Computers dont teach children how to read. Parents with a child on the knee are the best teachers. The kid joins the world of the parent through the language game and the cognitive/affective capacities of the child are activated, so that reading can start. Shared attention and the ability to point ( with the finger) is the key to almost all cognitive development.
Reading is not something that computers do. Nor do they tell jokes or summarize particularly well.
I have heard a lot of hype before from the Deficient Mental Science and I am so far underwhelmed.
But maybe that is the edge of my map…
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If the ever-reliable hint “follow the money” holds true, this is not surprising at all, but when those minds are linked to money (which could very well be why the minds are pouring in), it doesn’t bode well for an AI that will be the least bit intelligent, generally or otherwise, for even the specific aspects will be profit-related in the end.
Which is really all those who are “calling the shots” know. Richter (in the book I just read) calls it the “God complex”, we could probably also call it the “Superman syndrome”.
The '51 version of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is one of my all-time favorites, I must admit. No big effects but a lot of classy dialogue.
I’m still old-school enough to believe that “knowledge”, as I think you are using the word, is human-based/bound. Time doesn’t need freedom, it is unbound by its very nature. Maybe the question is, “How do we get humanity time-free to develop the knowledge we need?” (for we need it fairly quickly, the curmudgeon reminds me).
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