…everyone wants to do that, the problem is always somebody else's fault, we all have our very long lists, the Fed, Keynesian economists, Austrian economists, Monsanto, Materialists, Spiritualists, Scientists, the Religious, Republicans, Democrats, etc, etc. I admit it, I do have my own. But the path to freedom is through personal responsibility, it's the message the universe has been screaming at us that we are so diligently trying to avoid and for oh so long. Material reality may be an illusion, but it is what we have woven so that we can fulfill the meaning of our own existence (not somebody else's). Discard it at your own risk.
To discard the illusion of physical reality is to participate in delusion. As PD Ouspensky said, the chief characteristic of all human beings is that we are liars. Jesus warned us against such behavior in another way:
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
The world seems so cruel and unfair, downright brutal, certainly we are not part of creating that, well the sad fact is, that we are. In the old days we called that original sin, but that has picked up way to much negative baggage, let say instead, that we are the dream weavers, fashioning darkness into light by waking up.
"The use of spiritual principles to and explain away material limitations is a futile exercise. " Agreed, there are legit questions about the interaction of mind and matter, and there is hocus pocus. You can follow The Secret and write a check to yourself, expecting the universe to fulfill it for you, but you'll be disappointed because only bankers have that siddhi.
I live near one of the proposed fracking sites in the UK, the UK passed peak conventional years ago - as we know and as per Hubbert - and now some fools want to drill through the main aquifer in the area and slurp hydrocarbons through it. Not only that but it's the area most at flood risk in the UK and a couple feet of sea level rise will endanger the lot. It's all happening right in front of me, but i stil don't see why asteroid mining will not go ahead even if the English eastern seaboard is evacuated (a real possibility) or turned into a second Netherlands. The trend of life on Earth is expansion and migration, with occasional extinctions. Maybe only some post-human life form wa-a-ay in the future, post anthropocene extinction, will leave the planet for good, but at the moment it's looking like it will be humans within this century.
I've got a cheap little solar powered calculator here, sometimes i use it for doing my business accounts. It's been sat in my desk drawer for at least ten years and I fish it out now and then. The value I get from it isn't limited by Earth's energy resources, it's part of an Earth-Sol economy. Isn't it ?
[quote]You can swing it as nothing special about technology, but I think the thing that people don't want to hear is that there is nothing special about nature either. [/quote]
I keep getting stuck on this point. Perhaps this is OT and I acknowledge I know nothing of Krishnamurti and am not particularly taken by highly speculative or abstract thought patterns. However, to speculate there is nothing special about nature is wildly wrong.
As I think of nature, it encompasses all of life that we know of. We have detected no life anywhere else in the universe, let alone so-called intelligent life. I am totally willing to stipulate there probably is life elsewhere and probably intelligent life. But, we haven't detected or communicated with such life. Further, even if we do detect some life elsewhere, is it on a planet that would be liveable for higher life forms from this planet. And, even if we do detect such life (a nearly infinitely small probability) can we get there? The answer, in all probability, is no. We haven't even figured out how to get to other planets in our solar system alive. If distances are measured in light years (which any other destination would be), there is no way, Star Wars and Star Trek notwithstanding.
Given all of that, nature as it is expressed on earth is indeed very special. To my way of thinking, nothing is more important. We must protect and preserve what we have. There is no viable option.
Well, from the scientific viewpoint you're right, we haven't detected life anywhere else, SETI has drawn a blank so far. The spiritual viewpoint can be very different with regards to what constitutes life or not. So much mysticism is natural in context, but then again, much is centred on technology too - Japanese zen methods spring to mind, zen archery is entirely dependent on technology, and martial technology at that.
Looking through a database of spiritual experiences of scientists http://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=arc&ss=1 shows both facets
–Nature–
Expansion of Self in the Antarctic
Red Hong
I was about 34 I think and working as a scientist in Antarctica for the summer. We had been flown in to Lake Vanda in the dry valleys to clean up an oil spill that happened when a drum being dropped from a Hercules on a routine delivery run split on hitting the surface of the frozen lake. It took 2 days to chip the polluted surface ice off the lake with ice-picks. Then there was a blizzard back at base so the chopper pilots couldn't come and pick us up and we had a (much needed) 2 day holiday. As you do on holiday, we went for a walk.
We walked (or rather rock-hopped) up to the end of the valley and then climbed up Bull Pass. We all went up the hill at our own pace, so I was separated from my companions by the time I reached the top and sat down to recover. My mind was totally blank. After a while I realized that I had expanded. I was no longer a small discrete consciousness located in my head - I encompassed the whole valley. I was HUGE. I was part of everything - or rather everything was part of me. I was ancient and unbelievably powerful. It was wonderful.
After some time, I don't have much idea how long but it might have been about 10 minutes, my friends appeared and my state snapped back to normal. I was very sorry about this, but also fairly relieved! We ate some Spam, regretted that no one had brought anything to drink, and slid off down the hill again. And that was that.
Contributor's Comments on the Experience
At this time I had never felt any inclination towards spiritual seeking. I was a regulation, standard-issue scientific atheist and didn't even know what meditation was, let alone what it was supposed to accomplish.
–Technology–
Awareness Of A Train
Martha diChristi
I took the train from Boston to Philadelphia, and felt very happy looking out at the world. All things pleased me and seemed to me blessed. At one point I felt drowsy, so I stretched out a bit across two seats, and put my head on some books. The motion of the train and allowing myself to rest was very pleasant.
I felt at some point that I had nodded off, and then at some moment I became aware that I was in a state that was neither waking or sleeping, and that I had been in that state for what seemed to me 4-5 seconds. In this state, although my eyes were closed, I was completely aware in detail of the train car I was in and its contents. But I was aware in a different way than if I had simply been lying awake with my eyes closed. I was aware of the train car with my mind and not with my perceptions - sight, sound… And yet I was completely aware of it, not as a concept or a memory!
You might say I knew the train car. And this awareness was melded somehow with the awareness of everything else in my mind. That is, my awareness of the train car was of exactly the same order as my awareness of the rest of my contents of my mind. That is, the usual sense I have of something being inside me (my mind) and outside me (the things in the world that I perceive) was dissolved, and there was no longer any such distinction. This seemed to me to result in a state of mind that was neither sleeping nor waking.
The instant I became aware that I was in such a state, I snapped out of it and converted to an ordinary waking state with my eyes closed. This state was a very good state, not because I felt any particular emotions. What I experienced was on a level of fact, and there was no evaluation like that implied in emotions, good or bad. But exactly in the absence of what I would call emotion was something much "better," more "joyful" than the best positive emotion.
Mark, maybe we should all post on Facebook and whoever gets the most likes wins! Yay!
Seriously, though…we have two opinions: I say that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is correct, and that the U.S. GDP (adjusted for inflation to 2013 dollars) will eventually equal $80 trillion (approximately the present world GDP). Chris says it will not.
One of us will be wrong, and one of us will be right. There's no way that we can either both be wrong or both be right. But how does anyone decide which of us is likely to be wrong, and which is likely to be right?
Well, isn't it logical that economists would likely be a source of knowledge about future economic growth? Presumably, the CBO, whose projections Chris mocks as being completely unrealistic, has some economists. Do those economists at the CBO know what they're talking about?
One way to check whether the CBO economists know what they're talking about would be to ask other economists whether the CBO is right, and that U.S. GDP (adjusted for inflation to 2013 dollars) can eventually equal $80 trillion. I don't think there's any controversy in the CBO analysis. I think every single economist contacted (Keynesian or not) would agree that the CBO is right, and Chris is wrong.
Of course, maybe whole economics profession is wrong, and Chris is right. Well, that's a truly extraordinary claim, and as the late Carl Sagan observed, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Chris has not provided such evidence. He's basically provided anecdotal BS that is easily debunked. (But it takes time to debunk each piece of BS, and very little time to provide new pieces, so debunking every piece may take more time than anyone is willing to spend.)
Take soil, for example. His claims that "Britain has only 100 harvests left" or that worldwide there are "only 60 years of farming left" are absurd. They are examples of somebody saying a ridiculous thing on the basis of no solid research, and then the ridiculous things being parroted across the Internet (by people who know nothing about the subject, but love the idea of an imminent environmental apocalypse).
unless I'm wrong, there is little here with which you agree. Then, may you consider why are you here?
Well, that would depend on how we define "little." For example, I definitely agree that Japan's national debt seems problematic (at least for people in Japan). But I tend to comment on things with which I don't agree, rather than things with which I do agree.
I'm here mainly because future world economic growth and present and future energy technologies (and their environmental impacts) are subjects about which I've devoted quite a lot of thought and study.
It pains me a bit to see people being led into conclusions that I think are obviously wrong (i.e., that world food production is likely to collapse because soils will be depleted, or that the world economy is likely to collapse due to lack of energy). So I try to point out that the research (as I understand it, and on things like energy I've studied the subject a whollllllle lot) leads to different conclusions.
I also come because there's a (remote ) chance I may be wrong.
I agree with that treebeard. I've experienced a handful or two of those over the years, and it's amazing how little impact they have had on my day to day life a few weeks or even a few days later other than those times when I've kept on doing the work of staying present.
Add to that the fact that we have evolved over millions of years to be finely tuned not just physically, but neurologically (sensory, emotional, etc.) to the natural environment as exists on this earth. Can we adapt to different "off planet" environments with different stimuli while maintaining a functional social system and a healthy psychology? Some evidence on "denatured" (i.e. urbanized or industrialized) environments on earth suggests the answer is "no".
As long as you're not trolling let's hear you intelligently articulate your opinions, I can't remember which of Chris'es podcast guests challenged him to have more guests that disagree
Add to that the fact that we have evolved over millions of years to be finely tuned not just physically, but neurologically (sensory, emotional, etc.) to the natural environment as exists on this earth. Can we adapt to different "off planet" environments with different stimuli while maintaining a functional social system and a healthy psychology? Some evidence on "denatured" (i.e. urbanized or industrialized) environments on earth suggests the answer is "no".
Well I personally find city life more stressful than beautiful countryside for the most part, partly because I live in a poor area, and I find streets a bit claustrophobic. Camping and bathing in streams is a real treat. But humans are adapted to all sorts of extremes - deserts to ice fields, and regularly seek isolation in remote places. There's a long tradition of people isolating themselves for religious reasons - lamas in caves etc.
But yeah, industrialisation is often too fast a process to adapt to, hence rickets used to be a problem in the industrial revolution UK - amongst other things. Nobody seems to have adapted to smog yet, and it doesn't look like fossil fuels are going to be around long enough for anything like that. But often urban living is OK, often described as beautiful, even. Just depends where you are.
Come to that, humans haven't fully adapted to agriculture yet, hence all the tooth decay and obesity, and the trendiness of the paleo diet. But adaptation happens, somewhere along the line some people adapted to be able to digest milk, for example.
Adaptation for permanently leaving Earth would be a step change again, or multiple ones, but it's in the works it seems.
States of non-duality, where the division between the perceiver and the thing perceived, are not quite what they are cracked up be.
I agree with that treebeard. I've experienced a handful or two of those over the years, and it's amazing how little impact they have had on my day to day life a few weeks or even a few days later other than those times when I've kept on doing the work of staying present.
I know what you mean. I thought it worth raising because I see so much about the Earth set against civilisation, and a widespread tendency to place a barrier between nature and civilisation, one as sacred the other as profane, and it seems misconceived. Possibly a hangover from monotheism - swap God for Gaia, add some original sin, say the sacred is always outside you somewhere, say that Gaia isn't really in control of everything but that you have free will to muck things up, and here's some commandments for you. Or is it swapping Gaia for God ? The old question - why does God allow man's evil if he's omnipotent? Why does Gaia make a species that messes her up out of her control? The answer is (seems to me)... they don't.
No, that's not logical at all. Economists have not predicted any of the many recessions in advance, their entire profession remains glued to 1700's versions of closed form equations, despite overwhelming evidence that the economy is an open source system. This means, of course, that the economy is dependent on outside sources of energy for its complexity and order.
For anybody curious this is laid out in beautiful detail in Erik Beinhocker's book The Origin Of Wealth.
To have "predicted" an increase in economic activity as energy extraction was increasing had nothing to do with economists knowing anything at all. It just happened and it would have happened without a single economist noting anything or running incomplete equations attempting to explain it all.
Which beings us to the next silly assertion (again being masqueraded as fact or at least a well considered and deep opinion):
One way to check whether the CBO economists know what they're talking about would be to ask other economists whether the CBO is right, and that U.S. GDP (adjusted for inflation to 2013 dollars) can eventually equal $80 trillion. I don't think there's any controversy in the CBO analysis. I think every single economist contacted (Keynesian or not) would agree that the CBO is right, and Chris is wrong.
Yeah, not so much.
Peter Victor is one who says 'no' quite unequivocally and who also makes the awesome point that humans have been around for 125,000 generations but it's only in the last 8 of those that we've had the form of growth to which everyone now seems to have adjusted as normal and our divine birthright.
Of course Herman Daly, and Bonaiuti and other ecological economists would heartily protest your blanket claim as well. A pretty good summary of the obvious decline of economic returns across the sweep of history (spoiler alert: decreasing marginal returns is a 7 decade trend at present) can be found here. There are LOTS of economists who have serious to grave doubts about endless growth. They are quite easy to find.
I don't mind being challenged at all, but I am completely allergic to people who make sweeping assertions, fail to back them up and then carry on as if having made a fine point. It is this mind-set that I think is going to sink us, and I have low tolerance for it. After all, arguing against unreasonable assertions is a waste of time.
If Mark wants to show some data, perhaps a few calculations to demonstrate how the US is going to undergo a 470% increase in GDP he's going to also have to demonstrate where the resources for that are going to come from. For example, one rule of thumb (that has been very consistent over many decades) is that each 1% increase in GDP will require 0.5% of electricity growth. This would mean the US will need 230% more electricity than it currently consumes.
Since he's studied this issue extensively, this should be easy. And, no, waving about a few Ray Kurzweil or Amory Lovin quotes about what we might be able to do won't cut it. No and then a miracle happens! stuff is allowed here, because that stuff is really all just belief systems pretending to be wisdom.
I think every single economist contacted (Keynesian or not) would agree that the CBO is right, and Chris is wrong.
Chris responds:
Yeah, not so much
OK, how about putting your money where your mouth is? Contact Peter Victor and Herman Daly and pose them this question:
The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that by 2080, the GDP of the U.S. will approximately equal the present gross world product (approximately $80 trillion in 2015 dollars). I say that the GDP of the U.S. could never equal the present gross world product. Do you think I'm right, and the U.S. GDP could never equal the present gross world product?
If they both agree with you that the U.S. GDP could never equal the present gross world product, I'll give you $40. If either one disagrees with you, you give me $10.
I'm wading in here, Mark, to enforce some limits, now that you're clearly over-stepping.
Instead of demanding that Chris jump to your tune, one still unsubstantiated by anything but your opinion, how about you comply to this site's Discussion Guidelines & Rules and back up your assertions regarding 2080's GDP with some calculations, published theory, or anything remotely empirical?
IF you take the time to do this, and IF Chris has the time, he MAY respond once you've given him something concrete to engage with.
But he does not exist (nor do I) to chase down the whims of those too intellectually lazy to meet us halfway, on the terms this site community has agreed to.
I strongly suggest you put effort into making sure your next response complies with our posted guidelines. If not, odds are high you'll be hearing from our site moderators.
That was part of Tom Murphy response when asked by Theo Leggett of the BBC: Can the World Get Richer Forever?
The discussion in the comments section of Tom’s blog is interesting and touches on the subject of growth of non-physical exchanges. On the theoretical almost limitless growth of information flow here is his reply:
I’m not quite sure how much we care to have: my brain has limited bandwidth and needs sleep sometimes, so I perceive some limits to how much information flow I want. –
To quote myself above, let’s be respectful and quote data.
The reason I like people respectfully challenging views, is that I believe it follows the scientific method to bring out the truth.
Every time I’ve seen Chris appropriately challenged, he seems to find another gear and explain facts with even greater clarity and share more evidence. He expertly separates facts from beliefs and opinions.
This is one of your best posts treebeard. I was about to launch into something but deleted the lot. All I was attempting to do was transform the other.
But old habits die hard. There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread. I would simply suggest anyone interested learn a little about Integral Theory (Ken Wilber). It really is a brilliant map of the internal and external facets of our universe. I don't have a specific place to direct you. Just google it and follow your nose.