Science of the SpiritS


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SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Gurdjieff and the Inner Evolution of Man - with Alan Francis

Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin
Sott.net
Fri, 04 Aug 2023 00:00 UTC
alan francis
Do human beings have 'higher bodies'? Is there an essence or essential part of one's being that individuals can consciously help to grow? And what does the development of the personality have to do with these possibilities? Philosopher and teacher G.I. Gurdjieff presented the world with an esoteric framework for self-development that has been carried forward by a number of thinkers.

What does esoteric growth look and feel like? What are some of the processes involved? And how does one go about verifying that such a process is even occurring? Does an inner questioning end when one reaches a higher state, or does it just go deeper? Joining us for his third appearance on MindMatters is author/teacher Alan Francis. Alan's decades of experience with Gurdjieff's work have helped him crystalize some insights as to how we may become more than what we are. He is the head of the International School of the Fourth Way, and the author of 'Secrets of the Fourth Way.'


Running Time: 01:27:54

Download: MP3 — 121 MB


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HAL9000

Woe, the humanity: How AI fits into broadly rising anti-humanism

Joel Kotkin & Samuel J. Abrams
Realclear Wire
Wed, 19 Jul 2023 00:00 UTC
earth from space
© https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_38.html NASA
The future of humanity is becoming ever less human. The astounding capabilities of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence have triggered fears about the coming age of machines leaving little place for human creativity or employment. Even the architects of this brave new world are sounding the alarm. Sam Altman, chairman and CEO of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, recently warned that artificial intelligence poses an "existential risk" to humanity and warned Congress that artificial intelligence "can go quite wrong."

While history is littered with apocalyptic predictions, the new alarms are different because they are taking place amid broad cultural forces that suggest human beings have lost faith in themselves and connections with humanity in general.

The new worldview might best be described as anti-humanism. This notion rejects the idea that human beings are perennially ingenious, socially connected creatures capable of wondrous creations - religious scripture, the plays of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, the science of Einstein. Instead, it casts people, society, and human life itself as a problem. Instead of seeing society as a tool to help people to build and flourish, it stresses the need to limit the damage humanity might do.
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NPC

Why do leftists promote obesity, crappy architecture, and other ugly monstrosities?

Michele Gama Sosa
Daily Caller
Fri, 21 Jul 2023 22:36 UTC
detroit past
© STAFF/AFP via Getty Images
For a country to succeed, it needs citizens that have some sort of civic pride, not only in its past accomplishments, but for the here and now. Countries not only pride themselves on providing the best of yesterday - they also pride themselves on what they have to offer from today, namely beauty and order as God intended it. That means clean, thriving cities, healthy, physically attractive and God-fearing citizens and of course, aesthetically pleasing cities and towns that make people want to live in them and visit.

America was once like this. From the early republic until the 1960s, the United States took pride in its neoclassical public buildings, cathedral-like schools and most importantly, its people. America meant strong, nuclear families living in well-ordered cities and communities where children could play unsupervised and sadistic lawlessness was restricted to organized crime - which ironically ran neighborhoods much better than the DNC does today.

Comment: See also:

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SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Cold-blooded Kindess: The Longhouse Mentality and Psychopathology - with Dr. J.D. Haltigan

Harrison Koehli, Elan Martin, Adam Daniels
Sott.net
Fri, 21 Jul 2023 00:00 UTC
jd haltigan
J.D. Haltigan is a developmental and evolutionary psychologist who writes the Multilevel Mailer on Substack. His research and writing focuses on psychopathology, social media-induced mental illness in the young, and the psychological phenomena underlying Woke ideology and the culture wars. Lately he has been writing about the negative effects of traits like compassion and empathy when not balanced and held in check by trait systematization. J.D. has also written a review of Andrew Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology tying its insight to our current sociopolitical situation.

How does a doctor of Developmental and Evolutionary Psychopathology see psychopathology at play within academia - from the inside out as it were? Gender ideology, race differences, the censorship complex, emotional dysregulation, leftwing authoritarianism, 'vulnerable narcissism', the weaponization of compassion, etc. - there is a whole slew of prominent features and developments in academia (and Western society as a whole) that, to the classically trained academic of psychopathology, are hard to ignore. And ignore it he doesn't - even if it means taking a step back and away from some of the institutions he would normally be working within.

This week on MindMatters J.D. Haltigan, PhD, gives us his unique perspective on what's wrong with the woke and culturally Marxist mindset so prevalent today in many of the West's top schools. And using his background and research, delves into such questions as how pathology has become something of an evolutionary strategy, how the most prominent traits of men and women have been skewed and weaponized, and just where political ponerology fits in with all that we're seeing.


Running Time: 01:00:46

Download: MP3 — 83.5 MB


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Brain

When you sync with someone, your brains wave together

Denyse O'Leary
Evolution News
Thu, 20 Jul 2023 01:10 UTC
brain mind connection
At Scientific American, Lydia Denworth brought up an interesting topic earlier this month: The way that brain waves synchronize between two people who are communicating successfully:
Neurons in corresponding locations of the different brains fire at the same time, creating matching patterns, like dancers moving together. Auditory and visual areas respond to shape, sound and movement in similar ways, whereas higher-order brain areas seem to behave similarly during more challenging tasks such as making meaning out of something seen or heard. The experience of "being on the same wavelength" as another person is real, and it is visible in the activity of the brain.

LYDIA DENWORTH, "BRAIN WAVES SYNCHRONIZE WHEN PEOPLE INTERACT," SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, JULY 1, 2023
For example, she tells us, "Couples exhibit higher degrees of brain synchrony than nonromantic pairs, as do close friends compared with more distant acquaintances." There's a name for the study of such moments: collective neuroscience.
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Brain

Is language a module in the brain?

Juliana Barembuem
YouTube
Sun, 16 Jul 2023 00:01 UTC
juliana barembuem language brain module
One of the mysteries of language is whether, as Noam Chomsky and many others claim, language is a "module" residing in our brain, or not. This video summarizes the theory behind it, the conditions that would need to be fulfilled for the theory to be valid, and the problems we encounter with the latter. Is Language a module? Maybe! But probably not in the way that is presented.


References:
- (book) Vyvyan Evans, "The Language Myth", Cambridge University Press (2014)
- (paper) Mark D. Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert C. Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The Mystery of language evolution", Frontiers in Psychology, Vol. 5, Article 401, (7 May 2014).

Comment: See also: MindMatters: Meaning All the Way Down: The Wonders and Mysteries of Language with Juliana Barembuem

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SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Unmasking Psychopaths and Narcissists in Business and Politics - with Dr. Clive Boddy

Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin
Sott.net
Fri, 14 Jul 2023 00:00 UTC
clive boddy
Clive Boddy is Associate Professor of Management at Anglia Ruskin University, a leading researcher in the field of corporate psychopathy, and author of the book 'A Climate Of Fear: Stone Cold Psychopaths At Work'. Today on MindMatters, we interview Clive about his research, why psychopaths do not make good leaders (despite claims to the contrary), how they contribute to employee job satisfaction, and how toxic leadership intersects with incompetent leadership. Once a taboo subject, corporate psychopathy has gained widespread acknowledgment in the last decade or so. But another related subject is only now breaking through academia and public consciousness: political psychopathy. Clive discusses his own work in that field as well, with comments on screening politicians for psychopathy. We even talk about Star Wars.


Running Time: 00:54:26

Download: MP3 — 74.8 MB


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Blue Pill

'Misinformation' is the vocabulary of a culture that has lost its capacity to discuss 'truth'

Elle Pernell
The Federalist
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:00 UTC
Church sign
© Paul Rubley/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.8Second Church of Christ Scientist Chicago
The perversion of truth is falsehood; misinformation is just the perversion of information.

In a preliminary injunction issued against the White House and federal agencies on Tuesday in Missouri v. Biden, Judge Terry Doughty eviscerated government actors for colluding with social media companies to censor users' protected speech in the name of eliminating "misinformation."

Doughty, as others have done, compares the government censorship to Orwell's hypothetical "Ministry of Truth." But Orwell's satirical title gives the speech police too much credit: It assumes "truth" is still a functional part of their vocabulary. No, our censors speak in terms of "misinformation."

The perversion of truth is falsehood; misinformation is just the perversion of information. Truth has a moral component; information doesn't. Years of moral relativism have eroded our cultural understanding of "truth" as a knowable, agreed-upon concept — and in our modern world, all we're left with is an infinite supply of information.
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Brain

Governors of the mind

Jeffrey Tucker
Daily Reckoning
Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:00 UTC
Henri de Saint-Simon
© daily reckoning.comHenri de Saint-Simon
The assault on enterprise of the last few years — meaning not the biggest politically connected businesses but smaller ones reflecting vibrant commercial life — has taken very strange forms.

Ever since The New York Times said the way forward was to "go medieval," the elites have been attempting just that. But this medievalism has not come at the expense of Big Data, Pharma, Ag or Media.

It mainly hits products and services that impact our freedom to buy, trade, travel, associate and otherwise manage our own lives. What began in lockdowns mutated into a thousand forms. That continues with daily new outrages. Maybe it's not random.
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Arrow Up

Philosopher wins 25-year bet on consciousness

Mariana Lenharo
Nature
Sat, 24 Jun 2023 23:47 UTC
Christof Koch wagered David Chalmers 25 years ago that researchers would learn how the brain achieves consciousness by now. But the quest continues.
Chalmers & Koch
© Jesse Winter for NatureDavid Chalmers (left) and Christof Koch met on 23 June in New York City to settle up their bet.
A 25-year science wager has come to an end. In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the mechanism by which the brain's neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023. Both scientists agreed publicly on 23 June, at the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York City, that it is still an ongoing quest — and declared Chalmers the winner.

What ultimately helped to settle the bet was a key study testing two leading hypotheses about the neural basis of consciousness, whose findings were unveiled at the conference.

"It was always a relatively good bet for me and a bold bet for Christof," says Chalmers, who is now co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University. But he also says this isn't the end of the story, and that an answer will come eventually: "There's been a lot of progress in the field."
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