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Extropianism - Bill the Piper - 01-11-2020
The idea that the ultimate good is complexity, vitality and capacity for experience. We should as individuals and as society always strive to protect and expand Mind in all its forms.
Pros and cons?
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 01-14-2020
(01-11-2020, 08:39 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: The idea that the ultimate good is complexity, vitality and capacity for experience. We should as individuals and as society always strive to protect and expand Mind in all its forms.
Pros and cons?
Expand consciousness, which extends through all the chakras and all levels of our being. The ideal is to integrate all of our functions into an integral whole. The chakras and the kaballah are good models from esoteric traditions of these levels of our being.
The best template I know is based around Bach's music and includes all these esoteric ideas. This site explains them all, and integrates them all, with many links to them all:
http://philosopherswheel.com/toccata.html
RE: Extropianism - Bill the Piper - 01-14-2020
So you think Extropianism is a good philosophy, Eric?
A more complete description is available here:
https://www.mrob.com/pub/religion/extro_prin.html
I don't like it that the authors borrow concepts from libertarianism and Maslow's psychology of self - two bad ideologies that should die with the Millennial Saeculum. But I'm all for the basic idea I stated in the OP.
Is Extropianism more civic or prophetic?
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 01-14-2020
(01-14-2020, 07:40 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: So you think Extropianism is a good philosophy, Eric?
A more complete description is available here:
https://www.mrob.com/pub/religion/extro_prin.html
I don't like it that the authors borrow concepts from libertarianism and Maslow's psychology of self - two bad ideologies that should die with the Millennial Saeculum. But I'm all for the basic idea I stated in the OP.
Is Extropianism more civic or prophetic?
"The idea that the ultimate good is complexity, vitality and capacity for experience. We should as individuals and as society
always strive to protect and expand Mind in all its forms."
Is Extropianism more civic or prophetic? I don't know. As you summarize it there, it seems fine.
I am fine with Maslow but not libertarianism. As you have described world views you recommend in the past, I like parts of them and not other parts.
I don't think any world view for the future is viable that keeps too much of the worldviews dominant before the sixties awakening, and only if they express the sixties awakening to some degree, especially the preference for spirit over matter, are they viable for the future.
"Mind" if another word for consciousness is a valid basis for a worldview for the future. If it means intellect, then it is not viable enough. I have expressed my views before to you.
As I say, I want a worldview that balances all our faculties and excludes none. Does Extropianism do this? Not if you exclude spirituality and psychism as "medieval and outdated"
What do you think of the esoteric view I posted? Did you read the article?
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 01-14-2020
EXTROPIANISM — The evolving transhumanist philosophy of extropy.
"Extropianism is a transhumanist philosophy. The Extropian Principles define a specific version or "brand" of transhumanist thinking. Like humanists, transhumanists favor reason, progress, and values centered on our well being rather than on an external religious authority. Transhumanists take humanism further by challenging human limits by means of science and technology combined with critical and creative thinking. We challenge the inevitability of aging and death, and we seek continuing enhancements to our intellectual abilities, our physical capacities, and our emotional development. We see humanity as a transitory stage in the evolutionary development of intelligence. We advocate using science to accelerate our move from human to a transhuman or posthuman condition. As physicist Freeman Dyson has said: "Humanity looks to me like a magnificent beginning but not the final word."
I favor transhumanism more or less as Nietzsche first defined it, and it goes back to the romantics. To become the overman requires a spiritual journey, not so much a scientific technology. It requires developing our human potential. I don't oppose technology, but do not agree that it is the key to becoming more than human. That is an ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuit. To be transhuman in the new age perspective I uphold is to be able to manifest God as ourselves. The human potential movement begun in the 2T Awakening is the path to follow for a genuine transhumanism.
I agree an external religious authority is not an appropriate central value for humanity, or for going beyond human.
I challenge the inevitability of aging and death, not only by using science, but by understanding the afterlife, reincarnation and between lives.
I agree with developing our abilities, including spiritual abilities.
Your tendency to discount the value of Nature and the dangers of climate change go against my philosophy. We must respect Nature, even if we can transcend it in some ways. Nature is a value in itself, and teaches us a great deal, as the romantics and transcendentalists taught us and the greens of today proclaim. Nature teaches us that life and evolution grows from within outward, and is not made like a machine or the result of natural selection alone. And so it will continue to be. To expand as humans, we must honor and expand the sources of life and consciousness. These sources are divine and natural.
As described here, I do agree that Extropianism is civic. If you are a Millennial, Bill, then you are typical.
RE: Extropianism - Bill the Piper - 01-15-2020
The Toccata unfolds in seven distinct upward-moving phases, it is an audio picture of the seven major chakras
I don't believe in chakras (which are a Hindu superstition) and I don't think Bach ever did. He lived in 17th century Europe, and it's very unlikely he was familiar with Hinduism at all. Furthermore, he was a devout Protestant:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/arts/music/bach-religion-music.html
The number 7 is prominent in many cultures because it reflects 5 planets visible to the naked eye plus sun and moon. 7 days in a week, 7 sacraments and 7 cardinal sins in Catholicism, 7 wonders of the world according to ancient Greeks, seven paradises in Islam. All of these could have inspired Bach.
The correspondence between some parts of the Toccata and the Hebrew alphabet is more likely since Hebrew was widely known in Europe back then.
I agree that mindful listening to classical music is very good for your brain. So is mindfulness. As for your meditation on the Toccata, I see it as a poem reflecting how you see reality. Music can bring the wildest associations.
Eric the Green Wrote:I favor transhumanism more or less as Nietzsche first defined it, and it goes back to the romantics. To become the overman requires a spiritual journey, not so much a scientific technology. It requires developing our human potential. I don't oppose technology, but do not agree that it is the key to becoming more than human. That is an ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuit. To be transhuman in the new age perspective I uphold is to be able to manifest God as ourselves. The human potential movement begun in the 2T Awakening is the path to follow for a genuine transhumanism.
What are these "ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuits" that can make us more than human? If they don't require technology, they have likely been known for ages. So why aren't we transhuman already?
I don't devalue things like art, music or psychotherapy. I always try to interpret my dreams to understand myself better. But all that has only limited potential. If we want to really transcend human limitations, we need to use biotech.
Quote:I don't think any world view for the future is viable that keeps too much of the worldviews dominant before the sixties awakening, and only if they express the sixties awakening to some degree, especially the preference for spirit over matter, are they viable for the future.
Extropianism values the mind above matter, but it doesn't try to deny that mind needs a material substrate (a brain, or a computer, or a swarm of nanobots) to exist. New Age idea of consciousness is like the ghost Casper
Also, we duly notice that the Sixties awakening was an overreaction to the evils of fascism:
-fascism praise military discipline above all, the Sixties awakening condemned all things martial
-fascism believed in racial superiority, the Sixties awakening pretended all cultures are equal
-fascism subordinated everything to the state, the Sixties awakening wanted to do away with the state
-fascism was insane collectivism, the Sixties awakening was extreme individualism
I guess extropianism looks out for common sense positions with respect to these issues. Sometimes the answer is more self-expression to allow creativity, sometimes the state and the military must come first.
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 01-16-2020
(01-15-2020, 06:38 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: The Toccata unfolds in seven distinct upward-moving phases, it is an audio picture of the seven major chakras
I don't believe in chakras (which are a Hindu superstition) and I don't think Bach ever did. He lived in 17th century Europe, and it's very unlikely he was familiar with Hinduism at all. Furthermore, he was a devout Protestant:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/arts/music/bach-religion-music.html
The number 7 is prominent in many cultures because it reflects 5 planets visible to the naked eye plus sun and moon. 7 days in a week, 7 sacraments and 7 cardinal sins in Catholicism, 7 wonders of the world according to ancient Greeks, seven paradises in Islam. All of these could have inspired Bach.
The correspondence between some parts of the Toccata and the Hebrew alphabet is more likely since Hebrew was widely known in Europe back then.
I agree that mindful listening to classical music is very good for your brain. So is mindfulness. As for your meditation on the Toccata, I see it as a poem reflecting how you see reality. Music can bring the wildest associations.
Thanks for watching and listening my article; at least in part. As it makes clear, no I don't think Bach knew specifically about the chakras. They certainly are no superstition, but a directly-experienced and physical as well as mental/spiritual reality, and their account is not limited to Hindus but pervades western philosophical and hermetic traditions too. If you observe your own body and mind, you will find the chakras there. What Bach did was much as you say; he picked up on the 7-fold archetypal rhythm. He did have much background, apparently, in the worldviews concerning the seven levels of reality and unfoldment, according to his library, and such currents of thought were current in his time and place. The associations of the Toccata with aspects of esoteric and scientific truth are not "wild," of course, but are perhaps "wildly" at variance with what anyone else knows about Bach's Toccata and with many prevalent worldviews generally.
But the hero's journey archetype is well known to pervade virtually every story and epic, and Bach's Toccata in F 540 is certainly a heroic, epic and dramatic story if it is anything. The chakras, tarot, astrology, kabbalah and other such subjects are pervaded with the hero's journey archetype, and so if Bach was inspired to write a heroic and epic journey in music, as the Toccata in F is, then similarities with other hero's journey stories would certainly be expected. And beyond that, the coincidences involving Bach and his Toccata are amazing. For example, how did Schmeider manage to choose the number 540 for this work 100 years after Bach's death, based entirely on its genre and maturity among his works, and yet a number which is so mathematically and astronomically significant, embedded in eastern religious traditions and culture, and symbolic of spirit itself?
Quote:Eric the Green Wrote:I favor transhumanism more or less as Nietzsche first defined it, and it goes back to the romantics. To become the overman requires a spiritual journey, not so much a scientific technology. It requires developing our human potential. I don't oppose technology, but do not agree that it is the key to becoming more than human. That is an ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuit. To be transhuman in the new age perspective I uphold is to be able to manifest God as ourselves. The human potential movement begun in the 2T Awakening is the path to follow for a genuine transhumanism.
What are these "ethical, psychological, spiritual pursuits" that can make us more than human? If they don't require technology, they have likely been known for ages. So why aren't we transhuman already?
Well, it will likely take that long even with technology to transcend the human. In the old age, and even in our new age, the esoteric knowledge is and has been very suppressed. Scientism believers suppress it even today, along with traditional religions. The path is practiced in some eastern religions, and in esoteric western ones like the Golden Dawn. But it is not an easy path, and the human potential movements of the sixties and seventies attempted to make the path quicker, whether with psychedelics or with trainings like est. Technology may now also assist the path, as for example the meditation aids that Deepak Chopra is offering.
Quote:I don't devalue things like art, music or psychotherapy. I always try to interpret my dreams to understand myself better. But all that has only limited potential. If we want to really transcend human limitations, we need to use biotech.
But how can biotech make us better human beings? I suspect it still requires cultivation of virtue. Can you technologically instill good character, and bring out our spontaneous and genuine love? No, it takes spiritual practice, of which meditation is primary.
Quote:Quote:I don't think any world view for the future is viable that keeps too much of the worldviews dominant before the sixties awakening, and only if they express the sixties awakening to some degree, especially the preference for spirit over matter, are they viable for the future.
Extropianism values the mind above matter, but it doesn't try to deny that mind needs a material substrate (a brain, or a computer, or a swarm of nanobots) to exist. New Age idea of consciousness is like the ghost Casper
Also, we duly notice that the Sixties awakening was an overreaction to the evils of fascism:
-fascism praise military discipline above all, the Sixties awakening condemned all things martial
-fascism believed in racial superiority, the Sixties awakening pretended all cultures are equal
-fascism subordinated everything to the state, the Sixties awakening wanted to do away with the state
-fascism was insane collectivism, the Sixties awakening was extreme individualism
I guess extropianism looks out for common sense positions with respect to these issues. Sometimes the answer is more self-expression to allow creativity, sometimes the state and the military must come first.
I don't think extropianism values mind over matter if it holds that the mind needs a material substrate. Mind over matter means that the spirit is the substrate, and the body/brain is the vehicle. We are indeed spirit (geist, ghost if you will), but Spirit needs the vehicle to effectively manifest on the physical plane. That's why spirit has evolved the vehicles it needs to be creative here on this special planet, such as nervous systems. Evolution continues and we have much to learn, as our rather pitiful behavior continues to show.
The sixties awakening still featured much respect for the state and the collective, in the form of the strong drives for legal reform that pervaded it. The consumer and environmental movements which began in the sixties and seventies required legal remedies, and still do. So did prevention of discrimination on the basis of false notions of racial superiority. The 2T began with the passage of the civil rights bill, and then the great society legal and state programs like Medicare.
Those who wanted to preserve the power of corporations and the wealthy as well as the racists and religious traditionalists fought back against these reforms, and they put their man Reagan into office. His efforts and those of his cohorts created the 3T, in which reaction held sway against government as "the problem" with trickle-down economics as the false cure.
I don't agree that the Awakening was an over-reaction, in essence, but I agree the behavior and tactics were frequently extreme, unbalanced and unfocused, and that discredited the awakening for many people. One reason for this was its high dependence on an abundance of young people, who are naturally uninhibited and roudy. It is essential however for any progress whatever on any front that we remember and recover the movements, ideals, programs, experience and goals of the Awakening of 1964-1984. Otherwise we are merely going in circles.
RE: Extropianism - Bill the Piper - 01-17-2020
(01-16-2020, 02:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But how can biotech make us better human beings? I suspect it still requires cultivation of virtue. Can you technologically instill good character, and bring out our spontaneous and genuine love? No, it takes spiritual practice, of which meditation is primary.
What about eliminating Dark Triad traits (psychopathy, narcissism and sadism) from the human genetic makeup? The love we feel now is also a result of our brain structure and neurotransmitter production, so future humans with better brain structure and more balanced neurotransmitters will certainly be better at loving their fellows. To the extent meditation works, it does because it affects the brain.
I agree that transhumanism must be based on cultivation of virtue, and a correct moral philosophy. 60s Leftism that glorified "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll" won't do
Quote:I don't think extropianism values mind over matter if it holds that the mind needs a material substrate.
Think how the amount of limitations we experience because of our material substrate is decreasing because of technology. We can talk in real time to people from another continent. We can access all mankind's knowledge online. We can also slow down ageing, at least superficially, so that thirtyish women already can run in beauty pageants and compete with 20-somethings. All of that would seem magical or otherworldly to a person from the Victorian age, let alone Ancient Greece. This development has to continue using a similar methodology, based on rationality rather than magic or faith. In the future, full immersion virtual reality will enable people to experience being their favourite fictional characters or play out their sexual fantasies. We will also be able to clone a new body and transplant our brains into it, gaining a completely different appearance. Remotely controlling the cloned body would probably be more handy, and allow one's brain to remain absolutely safe. In fact we will gain many abilities Greek Gods used to have. Furthermore, automation will free us of the necessity of wage labour and capitalism will become obsolete or at least marginalised.
Quote:Those who wanted to preserve the power of corporations and the wealthy as well as the racists and religious traditionalists fought back against these reforms, and they put their man Reagan into office. His efforts and those of his cohorts created the 3T, in which reaction held sway against government as "the problem" with trickle-down economics as the false cure.
Wait... Didn't America already have a Keynesian economics and strong welfare sector (aka compassionate conservatism) under the New Deal? European nations also chose a similar system during the previous cycle.
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 01-17-2020
(01-17-2020, 01:13 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(01-16-2020, 02:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: But how can biotech make us better human beings? I suspect it still requires cultivation of virtue. Can you technologically instill good character, and bring out our spontaneous and genuine love? No, it takes spiritual practice, of which meditation is primary.
What about eliminating Dark Triad traits (psychopathy, narcissism and sadism) from the human genetic makeup? The love we feel now is also a result of our brain structure and neurotransmitter production, so future humans with better brain structure and more balanced neurotransmitters will certainly be better at loving their fellows. To the extent meditation works, it does because it affects the brain.
I agree that transhumanism must be based on cultivation of virtue, and a correct moral philosophy. 60s Leftism that glorified "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll" won't do
I don't see how genetics determines dark or virtuous traits. Lots of children inherit good genes who don't live up to them. Physicalism that posits that objectively-handled and observed phenomena such as brains determines events and behavior by cause and effect, cannot as I see it explain human behavior, which has a large element of spontaneity. As we all observe this, within ourselves as well as in other life, it is beyond obvious and clear that spontaneity and creativity cannot be determined as objects caused by other objects. Cause and effect is only useful within a certain limit. As an explanation, it is infinite regress. As such, it declares and proclaims to us the obvious fact that all action originates now. The big bang is now; we are never in any other time. The infinite and eternal now is the bedrock of reality. What scientific studies of meditation prove beyond any doubt is that we as whole beings and spirit have the ability to change our brains through our spontaneous, self-caused and unexplanable activity of meditating. Reverse your statement. Our brains can be affected because meditation works. Science provides evidence that meditation works because it affects the brain.
Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll have their valuable place, as well as their drawbacks. But insofar as sixties culture (and I don't know that it was always inherently political) opened us up to the spiritual, it opened us up to spiritual traditions from which all philosophy and moral virtue is derived. The occult study of such subjects as chakras and astrology comes directly from Greek philosophy as well as other ancient sources of wisdom. Those fields were opened up to us in the 60s/70s Awakening, and are a great treasure recovered and built upon since then. The virtues are embedded, described and made accessible through these esoteric subjects. The 4 virtue tarot cards, for example, come directly from Plato's Republic, which was a dialogue inquiring into the nature of Justice. I pointed that out in my Bach Toccata essay.
![[Image: c644b9a85c9a750b3bb71f2c631fc1ca.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c6/44/b9/c644b9a85c9a750b3bb71f2c631fc1ca.jpg)
Quote:Quote:I don't think extropianism values mind over matter if it holds that the mind needs a material substrate.
Think how the amount of limitations we experience because of our material substrate is decreasing because of technology. We can talk in real time to people from another continent. We can access all mankind's knowledge online. We can also slow down ageing, at least superficially, so that thirtyish women already can run in beauty pageants and compete with 20-somethings. All of that would seem magical or otherworldly to a person from the Victorian age, let alone Ancient Greece. This development has to continue using a similar methodology, based on rationality rather than magic or faith. In the future, full immersion virtual reality will enable people to experience being their favourite fictional characters or play out their sexual fantasies. We will also be able to clone a new body and transplant our brains into it, gaining a completely different appearance. Remotely controlling the cloned body would probably be more handy, and allow one's brain to remain absolutely safe. In fact we will gain many abilities Greek Gods used to have. Furthermore, automation will free us of the necessity of wage labour and capitalism will become obsolete or at least marginalised.
Yes, I know millennials and many late cohort Xers are enamoured with technology. We have been bombarded with it for decades. Progress is our most important product, said Reagan's company GE. It's all fine, but there are other interests and pursuits of far greater value and importance to our future evolution, including in the realm of the arts and spirituality and our veneration of the Earth and the environment that sustains and models real life for us. The value of technology does not at all prove that spirit needs a material substrate; that does not follow at all. Technology was created by brilliant minds who were born from the womb and nourished by culture.
Quote:Quote:Those who wanted to preserve the power of corporations and the wealthy as well as the racists and religious traditionalists fought back against these reforms, and they put their man Reagan into office. His efforts and those of his cohorts created the 3T, in which reaction held sway against government as "the problem" with trickle-down economics as the false cure.
Wait... Didn't America already have a Keynesian economics and strong welfare sector (aka compassionate conservatism) under the New Deal? European nations also chose a similar system during the previous cycle.
That was not during the recent 3T; that was in the 4T that followed the previous 3T. It was compassionate liberalism, as opposed to current 3T neo-liberalism.
In our current 4T, we need to revive some of those New Deal traditions and make them Green, if we are to persist as a prosperous and just American nation and world, rather than continue our slides into banana republic status and tyranny. Civic millennials will be doing their best role if they can help make this turn back into civic sanity.
Say, do you have a biotech remedy for me to make me less lazy and get out from behind this computer and indulging in this forum?
RE: Extropianism - Anthony '58 - 01-18-2020
The tarology I was taught lined up the colors to the suits of the Minor Arcana, which are in turn linked to the elements, and are the same as the Christian (specifically Roman Catholic) liturgical colors:
Cups: Water/White (sometimes Gold)
Wands: Fire/Red
Pentacles: Earth/Green
Swords: Air/Violet
Extending this to the Major Arcana, that would make violet the color of the Justice card (indeed, the figure holds a sword and sits in front of a violet curtain).
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 01-18-2020
(01-18-2020, 10:14 AM)Anthony Wrote: The tarology I was taught lined up the colors to the suits of the Minor Arcana, which are in turn linked to the elements, and are the same as the Christian (specifically Roman Catholic) liturgical colors:
Cups: Water/White (sometimes Gold)
Wands: Fire/Red
Pentacles: Earth/Green
Swords: Air/Violet
Extending this to the Major Arcana, that would make violet the color of the Justice card (indeed, the figure holds a sword and sits in front of a violet curtain).
It's a fun and fascinating study. As I have seen it, and agree, generally speaking the most-primary colors are the ones linked to elements and suits, not white or black.
Cups: Water/Blue
Wands: Fire/Red
Pentacles: Earth/Green
Swords: Air/Yellow and orange
These also align with colors used on the 4 central sephiroth circles on the kabbalah Tree of Life. The central sephiroth is often linked to the fifth element of Spirit. It's color is usually yellow, but can also be violet or white.
![[Image: detailed-sephirot-tree-of-life-kabbalah-...202773.jpg]](https://cdn4.vectorstock.com/i/1000x1000/27/73/detailed-sephirot-tree-of-life-kabbalah-scheme-on-vector-9202773.jpg)
These circles are also linked to planets:
Chesed = Jupiter/Blue
Geburah = Mars/Red
Netzach = Venus/Green
Hod = Mercury/Yellow-orange
The Tree of Life is a template for the archetypes of life. It is arranged according to the geo-centric view of the solar system and cosmos prevalent at the time the kabbalah was developed.
The central circle was symbolized by the Sun and Yellow. This central circle "Tipareth" can also be represented as Earth, with the Sun at the Crown, in a more heliocentric scheme. I was thinking that this fits with the spiritual goal of uniting the crown chakra at the top of the head (mind, connection to the divine) with the heart chakra (love, God manifest as a human being), since both are linked to spirit and to yellow and gold.
http://philosopherswheel.com
RE: Extropianism - Captain Genet - 06-09-2021
Extropianism is an oversimplified moral philosophy. Not all complexity is good, and not all good things can be reduced to complexity. Simple, yet wholesome lifestyle of the Amish is more moral than complex nuances of online millennial culture.
Max Scheler's axiology has multiple values, arranged as a hierarchy: prosperity, pleasure, vitality, cultural sophistication and sanctity. It fits human moral intuitions better.
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 06-09-2021
(06-09-2021, 04:00 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: Extropianism is an oversimplified moral philosophy. Not all complexity is good, and not all good things can be reduced to complexity. Simple, yet wholesome lifestyle of the Amish is more moral than complex nuances of online millennial culture.
Max Scheler's axiology has multiple values, arranged as a hierarchy: prosperity, pleasure, vitality, cultural sophistication and sanctity. It fits human moral intuitions better.
That hierarchy is close to fitting the chakras. Strangely enough, it omits the most important chakra for living on Earth, the Heart. "Cultural sophistication" could fit both the throat and third eye.
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-91/The-7-Chakras-for-Beginners.html
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 06-14-2021
Other great intros to chakras:
RE: Extropianism - Captain Genet - 06-15-2021
Yes, I left Orion's Arm space magic to embrace postwar California weed magic.
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 06-16-2021
(06-15-2021, 05:55 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: Yes, I left Orion's Arm space magic to embrace postwar California weed magic.
I don't know what that means, but in any case, if you watch the videos on chakras, you know it is worldwide and ancient, and has no connection to "weed", if I understand your meaning. Chakras are just an essential part of what is, and who humans are. Anyone who doubts them or puts them down is just cutting themselves off from who they are, and from virtue as well.
RE: Extropianism - Captain Genet - 06-17-2021
http://www.skepdic.com/chakras.html
"Some have tried to connect the chakras with physical organs such as the pineal gland and the thymus." So rather than waste time with pre-scientific descriptions of the human body, I'll just go straight to an anatomy text book. Anyway, I don't see connection between human anatomy and Scheler's value hierarchy.
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 06-20-2021
(06-17-2021, 02:38 PM)Captain Genet Wrote: http://www.skepdic.com/chakras.html
"Some have tried to connect the chakras with physical organs such as the pineal gland and the thymus." So rather than waste time with pre-scientific descriptions of the human body, I'll just go straight to an anatomy text book. Anyway, I don't see connection between human anatomy and Scheler's value hierarchy.
The connection to chakras was obvious from the given titles. Given the similarity, that's a clue that what Scheler tapped into was in fact the chakras.
The human body is also spiritual; complete understanding of reality requires both objective and subjective observation. The subjective is based on what you actually experience and feel. You observe your consciousness. Both subjective and objective are verifiable, although in different ways. Objective modern western science is important, but can never be the only knowledge. To think so is the modernist view, or positivism. But the more up to date view is the new age view, or at least post-modern. The up-to-date view also includes eastern knowledge. You are cut off from the currents of thought and knowledge of our time if you only accept modernist views. Recognize that there are others, even if you don't buy them.
The glands are not really "organs", but the endocrine system. There are even more important physical correlates to the chakras called nerve ganglia. The solar plexus and the heart area are the most well-known. The chakras are what we directly feel. If you focus on or touch these areas of your body, you can feel the chakras and their traits and powers. Of course, psychics or therapists also contact them to understand a client's aura and which chakras (and thus which of our functions, abilities and needs) are blocked and which are healthy and active.
After all these years since the Awakening, I think there's no excuse to ignore its lessons and re-discoveries. And for many millennials it goes against the grain of what you have been exposed to in our ignorant, backward, reactive culture. A healthy society keeps some of its lessons from the recent past. We don't. Myself, I absorbed the modernist view in childhood, but saw past it in 1966-67 and beyond because the Awakening opened me directly and all by myself, with the help of the social turning's mood going on. IOW there was "something in the air." Those of us who experienced the Awakening discovered that modern society is bankrupt. Alternatives are needed in our culture. But, some alternatives of today are off the deep end, rationally. We have to get the right perspective and balance to move forward.
![[Image: chakrasendo1.jpg]](https://philosopherswheel.com/chakrasendo1.jpg)
chakras as I described them years ago:
7 (crown of the head): bliss, enlightenment, connection to God and cosmos, spirit, thought and understanding, pituitary gland*
6 (third eye): vision, intuition, insight, psychic awareness, imagination, light, left/right brain, pineal gland*
5 (throat): expression, communication, hearing, sound, speech, interpretation, hands, adaptation, purification, thyroid gland
4 (heart): love, compassion, relationship, balance and harmony, inner guidance, authentic self, thymus gland
3 (solar plexus/navel): will, power, energy, digestion, center of gravity, self-esteem, action, muscles, legs, adrenal glands
2 (lower stomach): sexual/sensual energy, female sexuality, joy and pleasure, connecting to others, desire, subconscious mind, ovaries, prostate gland
1 (base of spine): survival, grounding, finances, roots of life, feet, "seat of pants" basic instincts, instilled beliefs, excretory system, male sexuality, testicles
https://philosopherswheel.com/toccata.htm#ChakrasandtheToccata
RE: Extropianism - Eric the Green - 06-20-2021
It's like this. If people are not grounded in the knowledge of chakras, then they only function from their brains. They are likely dominated by their lower brains too. The Awakening revealed that modernism has no heart; only a brain. Our modern culture literally has no heart, and we are living and walking around in our modern structures and computerized lifestyles with no heart. Thus we are often unkind and lack compassion, and don't know how to relate to others. Educated as a modern, I count myself among these.
Our other chakras are cut off too. The chakra that rules the brain is the third eye. But modern western culture has no notion of such a thing, whereas it is common knowledge in the Orient. The third eye is where we can meditate and control the wild and compulsive thoughts in our brains. It also balances the left and right brain. This way it opens intuition as well as reason. Modernism is completely cut off from the right brain and its thinking is completely unbalanced.
Also we lack another very important connection. Modernism wants us all to be industrial slaves. Cogs in the machine. It wants us to buy progress as our most important product. Consequently, modernism robs us of our own will. We have no connection to our own ability to direct our lives and express power. That is convenient for modern western society that wants subservient robots it can control. Our will and power is our solar plexus, the navel or third chakra. Martial artists center and power themselves by using it. But modernists and modern society has no notion of such a thing, and thus modern people have completely lost their own will and their own power.
The Wizard of Oz is actually a story of how we can recover these three vital chakras. And if we don't, we are lost, and not at home. And there's no place like home.
RE: Extropianism - Captain Genet - 06-21-2021
(06-20-2021, 05:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: It's like this. If people are not grounded in the knowledge of chakras, then they only function from their brains. They are likely dominated by their lower brains too. The Awakening revealed that modernism has no heart; only a brain. Our modern culture literally has no heart, and we are living and walking around in our modern structures and computerized lifestyles with no heart. Thus we are often unkind and lack compassion, and don't know how to relate to others. Educated as a modern, I count myself among these.
Modernism (whether Randian or Bolshevik) has no heart. But New Age has no sceptical brain. It accepts ideas as true because they sound cool, or are different from the beliefs of GI "fascists", or make one feel good. Some people also discarded modernist scepticism in order to subscribe to Evangelicalism or neo-Nazism.
I try to live according to Stapledon's advice, have the head of a modernist sceptic but the heart of a Christian saint.
Quote:Our other chakras are cut off too. The chakra that rules the brain is the third eye. But modern western culture has no notion of such a thing, whereas it is common knowledge in the Orient. The third eye is where we can meditate and control the wild and compulsive thoughts in our brains. It also balances the left and right brain. This way it opens intuition as well as reason. Modernism is completely cut off from the right brain and its thinking is completely unbalanced.
Also we lack another very important connection. Modernism wants us all to be industrial slaves. Cogs in the machine. It wants us to buy progress as our most important product. Consequently, modernism robs us of our own will. We have no connection to our own ability to direct our lives and express power. That is convenient for modern western society that wants subservient robots it can control. Our will and power is our solar plexus, the navel or third chakra. Martial artists center and power themselves by using it. But modernists and modern society has no notion of such a thing, and thus modern people have completely lost their own will and their own power.
Current capitalism does not want subservient industrial robots like Victorian capitalism did, but consumers who believe buying a newest iPhone actualizes their potential. Self psychology (Fromm, Maslow and Rogers) as well as New Age psychology are great tools for marketing. If these were useful for challenging capitalism, they would be popular in socialist countries, but the Reds were clever enough to understand this kind of psychology is capitalist woo.
I respect martial arts, but the issue is the ancient masters did not understand human anatomy and physiology the way modernist medicine does, so they made up stuff to explain why the techniques work. Like, instead of "flexing your abs" they would call it "directing chi into your abdominal region". This is no better or worse than Aristotle's humours theory. There is no excuse to believe in either in 2021. Of course strong abs are necessary to protect your vital organs.
Actual martial artist vs a "Yellow Bamboo" shyster. The attacker in black T-shirt should be paralyzed by the yellow magician's concentrated psychic power, but nothing happens because this is not Dune or Avatar, but reality.
A superstition-free Soviet martial art:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(martial_art)
Quote:The Wizard of Oz is actually a story of how we can recover these three vital chakras. And if we don't, we are lost, and not at home. And there's no place like home.
I've thought it's a childrens adventure story. Some people believe it's an economic allegory, calling for the use of silver-based currency.