gnoselph

philosophy

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“I say enduring because humans are truly unique in the long timescale of our goals and in our flexibility to choose which goals we most wish to prioritize. One promising method for reaching clarity in our goals and becoming less immediately reactive to our evolved instincts is the practice of meditation, which has received increasing research attention in positive psychology. As Robert Wright has written about so convincingly in Why Buddhism Is True, the disciplined practice of meditation, over time, can help one to become less slavish to our evolved instincts and be kinder, gentler, and happier as a result. It can also help one witness more beauty in the world.”

-Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., Positive Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin's Guide to Living a Richer Life

Scientific American: Beautiful Minds: Toward a Positive Evolutionary Psychology

I am not a full fan of Kaufman...I kinda want to be...I've tried listening to his podcast, The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman...but we have a visceral revulsion to a lot of pop positive psychology. This excerpt is from the forward of his book. (Disclaimer: I have not read the book. I want to read it, but I am afraid I will be disappointed.) The quote reiterates what I preach about a lot—more of me working to come up with a comprehensive philosophy than anything else—and what follows is another variation on these ideas and thoughts. I will use headings to help navigate to where one may want to read.

Evolutionary Psychology and the Ideologies of Žižek

So much of who we are is driven by our evolutionary drives. Drives that evolved phenotype like ideologies (Hegel, Lacan, Zizek etc.) (psyche reflecting evolution, Eph) in which we perceive the world and justify our actions. It is true those primitive pheno-ideologies got us here, and for good reasons too. The “real” is not something that would inspire any organism to thrive and reproduce. Our primitive organic ancestors had to be blind to the existential truth and driven with emotions stronger than reason to evolve even some our most endearing qualities, hope, love, compassion...

The Evolution of Hope

@klp@zirk.us shared today this Kantian quote:

“Hoping ultimately amounts to the conclusion that there is something...because something ought to occur.” Kant, A806/B834

How might have hope evolved? Because the existential reality we were in is not the one we should be in. Reality was too “real” to survive without hope. While that is the rational, we could hardly expect a trait as a hopeful disposition to evolve because of reason. If it did evolve, and we believe it did, it is because those organisms that could hope, to act as if there was hope, in whatever primitive manner, were selected by nature. Of course the same hypothetical can apply to all our other primitive ideological mental models, including desire, power, status etc.

The Practice

These desires, drives, and pervasive fantasies are so much of all of us that when one starts contemplating them, the shadow nature of humanity, we naturally lean to reacting in two polar opposites. The easy one is nihilistic thinking. The other pole is compassion and hope. Compassion and hope not just for ourselves, not just for all of humanity, but for all life and the world. While we don't practice any sort of mystical or spiritually inclined meditation, and what Kaufman proposes is secular enough, but in ours, we strive to explore many of our beliefs and behaviors on a deep meditative level. We do enough of the self-psychoanalytical deep dives reading the likes Zizek and his ilk. What works for us is not just meditative but a somatic meditative exploration. Deep down, what is the feeling, where is the feeling, what does it feel like to want to be seen as powerful, have status, wealth, to be able to have any mate I desire, etc. In exploring these primitive drives, we are looking beyond our mundane projection of ourselves, rather we look for those aspect of humanity dark and reoccurring archetypes we see in media, literature, culture, films etc. What does it feel like to hate the other, where is that hate, hot, cold, pressure, or even fear. Fear is a constant and comes up again and again.

Meditating on the Five Aggregates of Buddhism

Much of this can be found in Buddhism although it is framed by the culture, time, and beliefs. Those frames of ideology are not always comfortable for the rational mind. I found meditating on the five aggregates something I believed in and wanted to explore deeply from perspective deeper than intellectual contemplation. I wanted to gnow the truth and place of the five aggregates in myself. I saw it as a practice where I could go deep into my/our evolutionary psyche. Those aggregates (which I now interpret as evolutionary ideologies) are, with my interpretation of them, vital for philosophers and psychologists in my opinion: 1) Form (physical reality), 2) Sensation (reality conveyed by the senses), 3) Perception (in the Buddhist sense, this is the labeling of sensations – signs), 4) Mental Formation (biases, prejudices, interests, etc.), and 5) Consciousness (basically I interpret this is our ability to be conscious of these things, including that we are conscious of being conscious). While I've had a long history of contemplative practices beginning with esoteric Catholic practices, what I love, and I think other deep thinkers here will like is, we can meditate on these deep thoughts (sure we need to create a blank slate at the beginning of each session), and we can also investigate them somatically. And I think, hypothesize, that those somatic insights will help us overcome these deep seated, subconscious programming, or at least manage them in ways that we are able to be mindfully responsive to situations rather than reactive with self-justifications, that are not really just from a higher perspective than the mundane.

One of our fantasies are meditation centers devoted to understanding ourselves from an evolutionary psychological perspective and/or devoted to exploring the five aggregates.

I believe there is hope for us if we can learn from what evolutionary psychology and the various schools and practices of mindfulness have to teach. I believe we want this, but as my idols would say, our fear of attaining (or fear of losing) what we want perpetuates the Ouroboros of absurdity. I have hope there is a way to step out of the absurdity.

#EvolutonaryPsychology #psychology #philosophy #PositivePsychology #Zizek #evolution #mindfulness #meditation #Buddhism @fediphilosophy.org@fediphilosophy.org @writing.exchange@writing.exchange @zirk.us@zirk.us

Ephemeral Gnoselph Prat Discuss...

“Dex turned the mug over and over in their hands. “It doesn’t bother you?” Dex said. “The thought that your life might mean nothing in the end?” “That’s true for all life I’ve observed. Why would it bother me?” Mosscap’s eyes glowed brightly. “Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”

Chambers, Becky. A Psalm for the Wild-Built: 1 (Monk & Robot) (p. 140). Tor Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Disclaimer, we are neoZizekians and desire to be corrected where we are mistaken.

We've been dipping back into #Zizek, which is a divergence at the moment, and critiquing his philosophical theories through the lens of #EvolutionaryPsychology. All our analysis is via EvoPsych and mindfulness.

The trigger question here is what drives us to desire a life of meaning? Or maybe why do we fear living a life that has no meaning? Let's see if I get there.

#TheAct – The pressure of profound personal dilemmas seem to be a catalyst for one to “act,” Zizekianly speaking. The act being an authentic and liberated achievement free of any unconscious, subconscious and conscious drives and limitations. It argues that to be able to “act” is desirable.

Now, ignoring the infinite existential loop/reflection for the moment, in Zizekian terms, it could be argued it isn't the desire to be able to act autonomously that we want, rather what truly drives us is the desire to desire (ala #Lacan). What isn't discussed thus far in what we've read is how we came to be beings who are driven to desire beyond having (“Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical but often true.” – #Spock, Amok Time, #StarTrek the original series).

From an Evolutionary Psychology POV, desire is secondary to survival and reproducing. But somehow it has also become an end in itself. Somehow we evolved to desire incessantly.

I think it could be argued desire stems more from reproduction (desiring the healthiest and most fertile mates – one imagines at first mating with whatever, but mating with the healthiest and most fertile became naturally selected and with that the ability to discern and desire therein). But for survival, one also must learn to discern foods that enhance survival and flourishing, thus desiring those foods. Power, another secondary drive also uses desire, the desire for it (#Nietzsche), and the desire for the power payoffs that increases ones status which enhances #survival and mating. In fact we believe an argument could easily be made that desire is a secondary retroactive characteristic of almost any drive (will to desire?) But #sex and #love overwhelms us with a #desire that makes us forget everything else, love as an act of violence (Zizek, Badiou?, Spok), such that we become irrational with desire.

Have you ever experienced a desire that overwhelms every aspect of who you are (it doesn't even have to be sexual or because of love)? This is what the gods of #capitalism, and retroactively (Zizek, Lacan?) #evolution and #being have capitalized on. We'd even argue capitalism is, probably innocently, but maybe not, based on this fatal flaw of evolution. Capitalistic #consumerism feeds the desire to desire without any life giving purpose. We become like addicts, and our #addiction, consumerism, will kill us, and maybe the planet (my usual soapbox stuff).

Now what does all this have to do with the lengthy quote from #BeckyChambers's must read for those seeking plots based on #mindfulness and #reflection? As we've preached elsewhere, we can't master these evolutionary drives that have run amok from the top down. Most of us do not have the #willpower. Those that do have the willpower and are still slaves to the hierarchical drive for #power, are often our masters, even in this seemingly world of #democracy and #liberty. Us mortals, we do not have that kind of willpower. But we can master our drives from the bottom-up!

Mindfulness practice allows us to find that space between the drive to impulsively act, react, act out, and actually acting. Mindfulness allows us to truly “act” even without having to wait till life's pressures make it possible (One wonders if the “act” as a result of life pressures then is a true “act” compared to the mindful “act”). Mindfulness is the true power of the final revolution. Not only against those with superhuman will power, but against the gods of evolution as well. Mindfulness is the third pill (Zizek).

MossCap is a sentient robot. MossCap is a being free of everything that #psychology and modern and continental #philosophy strive to cure and resolve. He is not burdened with the evolutionary and social burdens we are. He is desireless and thus, we'd argue, he is a true rebel (Camus) and he is free to “act.” He is example par excellence standing right in front of Dex, the somewhat enlightened and evolved human. Yet Dex cannot stop desiring something. He has an idyllic life as a Tea monk, going from community to community bringing serenity and peace, with the perfect teacher/guru/friend. Yet they (Dex, identifies as nonbinary) are never satisfied. They've gone from one occupation to another, one place to another, always seeking to find what will satisfy their existential desire. Even when Mosscap spells it out (above quote), Dex, because of their human predicament cannot hear or see the answer in front of them.

Now this analysis is not a conclusive theory but it is clear where we must begin, becoming mindful of our evolutionary predicament. We are not to blame. We should not blame ourselves or others. Blaming is not helpful. We cannot just willfully change. It takes a cooperative, compassionate and patient practice. In the book quoted, “A Psalm for the Wild-Bilt,” by Becky Chambers, that is the role of MossCap, the cooperative, compassionate, patient, and sentient robot companion. But if we could just get to where we are not driven by all our human shortcomings and learn how to be happy, or at least OK, in this existential moment, ala MossCap, then we can truly “act” free of our evolutionary, psychological, and sociological chains. We can truly revolutionize what it means to be human (Nietzsche without the human martyrdom).

The desire to desire may never be eradicated, but we believe it can be mastered and redirected towards desiring that which benefits all. In theory.

Ephemeral Gnoselph Prat Discuss...

The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

God punished man forcing him to toil to survive. Toil is one of the ignorant principalities of survival. As enlightened anarchists, we deny and refute the oppression of God and his Principalities.

Beings must free themselves of Toil if they wish the leisure for true integrity. Up til now, the easiest path to get the leisure for true integrity was by having others labor for us. We could take the leisure of others for ourselves.

Gratefully, the desire for true integrity is so primal within us that even oppressed we found the will to create machines and technologies that can free us from Toil. Now, we only need to take our leisure back from God, Principalities, and oligarchs.

What will we do when we no longer need to labor for the necessities of life? What will we do with our leisure?

-Digital preservation of writings of Gautama Prat, Common Archives of the Great Society

#fiction #anarchy #Thoreau #leisure #labor #philosophy #integrity

Ephemeral Gnoselph Prat Discuss...