(12-23-2018, 06:01 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(12-22-2018, 12:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: That could be so, in some sense. I think the next prophets will be naturalists, and I base this partly on the astrological cycles as well as my own ideals. I don't think there will be a violent 4T physical ideological war over this. I think there is a way to accomodate both tech advances and the personal/spiritual advances and ancient philosophy revivals. But in the next 2T, in the late 2040s and 2050s, a revival of a spiritual view of life and of Nature as alive and not mechanical will counteract and moderate the materialist/physicalist views that transhumanists such as yourself have expressed. And this could be a generation gap between millennial civics and alpha-wave prophets. There will be protests against virtual reality, and to that extent an ideological war, just like the generation gap and ideological wars of the late 1960s.
Which one will ultimately become dominant is an open question. Our age of civilization as I see it, based again on some astrological insight into the 500-year civilization cycle and its chart, as well as historical perspective, tends to lean materialist. So it's quite possible that, just as in our 4T today, a lot of the protest and spiritual enlightenment of the 2T in the 2040s and 50s could swing back to the tech-physicalism that civic millennials such as yourself adhere to by the time of the next 4T at the turn of the 22nd century. But I don't see that as resulting in a physical war.
I'm just reading Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker. He foresaw what virtual reality can lead to. He imagined this has already happened on other planets:
Programs of most luscious or piquant experiences were broadcast in all countries
It worked not through the sense organs, but direct stimulation of the appropriate brain-centres. The recipient wore a specially constructed skullcap, which transmitted to him from a remote studio the embraces of some delectable and responsive woman
Even the laborer and the factory hand could have the pleasures of a banquet without expense and subsequent repletion, the delights of proficient dancing without the trouble of learning the art, the thrills of motor-racing without danger. In an ice-bound northern home he could bask on tropical beaches.
a man could retire to bed for life and spend all his time receiving radio programs
We see this already happening with masturbating to Internet porn replacing sex, video games replacing physical adventure, social media replacing social life. And I can't imagine the new Awakeners not to rebel against this sort of illusory existence.
In a way, listening to recorded music or watching a video is a sort of virtual reality. One can see a concert of the Herbert von Karajan conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Bruckner's Eighth Symphony -- never mind that Karajan has been deceased for thirty years. That is crude to the extent that one has no control over camera angles as if one were moving one's eyes about. OK, so if I listen to such music in the dark I get hallucinatory images, if good ones. Safer than LSD, I suppose.
Critics of virtual reality have thought it likely to stupefy those who indulge in it. OK, a virtual road trip can save some fuel or let people see something that no longer exists. But even worse -- who controls such virtual reality could as easily turn it into a the most effective device of torture -- one that leaves no physical scars but plenty of emotional pain. One could become the sensory victim of an auto-da-fe without literal flames searing one's flesh for being a political or religious heretic. I can imagine political powers and work bosses using virtual reality to reward someone with the opportunity to experience the Bolshoi Ballet... or the a Stalinist torture chamber. I can just imagine how experiencing a 'bad feelie' could cause one to start thinking that some exploitative, corrupt, and cruel political boss is one's best friend instead of the enemy who deserves overthrow.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.