for - unpack - key insight - with the postulate of consciousness as the foundation, it makes sense that this is - an inner reality made of qualia - and an outer reality made of shareable symbols we call matter - Federico Faggin - question - about Federico Faggin's ideas - in what way is matter a symbol? - adjacency - poverty mentality - I am the universe who wants to know itself question - in what way is matter a symbol? - Matter is a symbol in the sense that it - we describe reality using language, both - ordinary words as well as - mathematics - It is those symbolic descriptions that DIRECT US to jump from one phenomena to another related phenomena. - After all, WHO is the knower of the symbolic descriptions? - WHAT is it that knows? Is it not, as FF points out, the universe itself - as expressed uniquely through all the MEs of the world, that knows? - Hence, the true nature of all authentic spiritual practices is that - the reality outside of us is intrinsically the same as - the reality within us - our lebenswelt of qualia

for - adjacency - key insight - quote - localization enables (infinite or universal consciousness) to perceive itself - Rupert Spira - discerning single voice at a busy party metaphor - existential isolation - umwelt

adjacency - between - key insight - quote - localization enables (infinite or universal consciousness) to perceive itself - Rupert Spira - discerning single voice at a busy party metaphor - existential isolation - adjacency relationship - quote - localization enables (infinite or universal consciousness) to perceive itself - Rupert Spira - This localization process enables (infinite) consciousness to perceive itself as the universe because - infinite consciousness cannot perceive its own activity directly - because if infinite consciousness were to perceive the universe directly - it would have to do so from every single point of view in the universe - It would be the deepest, darkest black image you could imagine - So in order to perceive an object - (infinite) consciousness must localize itself as an apparently separate subject so - the apparent localization of our self or - the dissociation of ourselves - as finite minds out of infinite consciousness enables - perception and - thought

• There is a metaphor that applies here:
  • At a busy dinner party, many people are talking at the same time
  • As the number of people approach infinite, the signal becomes more difficult to detect
  • In the same manner, as the activities of the universe are seemingly unbounded, how could infinite consciousness possibly observe its own infinite entirety?
  • Existential isolation is deemed depressing because it makes us feel intrinsically separated and disconnected from others, yet
    • it may be very necessary
  • Can you imagine hearing and understanding the voices of every human being, much less every living being?
  • An individual human does not have the capacity to process all that information
  • In the same manner, the body of every living organism is fine tuned for only one specific set of unwelts
  • How would we process the unbound amounts of information if we had an infinite number of different detectors?

for - key insight - universal consciousness contracts to localized human consciousness - experiences its own activity as the outside universe - Rupert Spira

for - key insight - quote - self knowledge - Rupert Spira

key insight - quote - self knowledge - Rupert Spira - There is one aspect of the universe that we have direct unmediated access to w

• When i say unmediated i mean we have access to it through a channel that is does not go through

  • perception or
  • thought and that is our knowledge of our self

• Our knowledge of our self is the only knowledge there is that is not mediated through

  • thought or
  • perception

• and therefore it is the only channel through which we have direct unmediated access to the reality of the universe

• It is for this reason that self-knowledge stands at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions.

for - key insight - human vs artificial intelligence - humans will create the best ideas

key insight - human vs artificial intelligence - humans will create the best ideas - why? - because we are - slower - imperfect - less rational - drifting away - forgetting - and we learn from the mistakes we make and from different perspectives shared with us

for - key insight - claim - humans can generate new ideas by changing the way we think - AI cannot do this

for - key insight - governance - new planetary scale - NOT the UN

for - climate crisis - key insight - why UN cannot address the climate crisis

climate crisis - key insight - why UN cannot address the climate crisis - The UN responds to sovereign states, not to humanity nor to the planet

for - key insight - we are the same across deep time and space

key insight - we are the same across deep time and space - He elaborates quite well on the fact that we are the same across deep time and space - This is the Common Human Denominator (CHD) of Deep Humanity praxis

for - key insight - we evolved from hunters - who don't look beyond the next animal we kill

key insight - we evolved from hunters - who don't look beyond the next animal we kill - We are in a binge mode of subsistence that requires instant gratification - This is the same default thinking that runs our economy and much of our lives and it takes effort to counter it

for - key insight - progress trap - A Short History of Progress - we are clever but NOT wise!

key insight - progress trap - A Short History of Progress - we are clever but NOT wise! - In other words - Intelligence is FAR DIFFERENT than wisdom

new memes - We have an abundance of intelligence and a dearth of wisdom - A little knowledge is dangerous, a lot of knowledge is even more dangerous

for - key insight - farmed fish have no omega 3 because they eat corn, not algae

for - key insight - insulin covers up the real problem of mitochondria dysfunction

for - key insight - health - insulin resistance

key insight - health - insulin resistance - This is the key to the mechanism by which insulin levels increase in the blood. - As our diet places higher levels of glucose in the blood, the pancreas responds by releasing more and more insulin to process this elevated level of insulin and the cells respond, - but the cells, especially surrounding the organs no longer store fat when a certain threshold of high insulin is reached - high amounts of visceral fat around the organs is then accompanied by fat being released by the cells into the blood stream, elevating triglyceride levels - The liver then starts to take this up and if there are now elevated trigycerides in the bloodstream, the liver and cells get locked into a vicious cycle of fat release

for - key insight - key issue of 2024 election is NOT which democrat to vote for, but to prevent autocracy at any cost

for - key insight - gainful employment of white working class led to cultural backlash and shift from left to far-right - to - Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace

key insight - gainful employment of white working class led to cultural backlash and shift from left to far-right - source - Davidson and Saul

to - Neoliberalism and the Far-Right: A Contradictory Embrace - https://hyp.is/8Hf0lDzqEe-KM9dQxJDxsw/core.ac.uk/download/pdf/84148846.pdf

for - key insight - Wage stagnation is a universal problem of the working class and reducing racial and gender inequality goes hand-in-hand with reducing class inequality.

for - key insight - demographic shift will have major implications on U.S. economy, politics and social infrastructure.

for - key insight - free trade - from - Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of The Far-Right

quote - free trade - (see below)

key insight - free trade - NAFTA displays the classic free-trade quandary: - Diffuse benefits with - concentrated costs - While the economy as a whole may have seen a slight boost, - certain sectors and communities experienced profound disruption. - A town in the Southeast loses hundreds of jobs when a textile mill closes, - but hundreds of thousands of people find their clothes marginally cheaper. - Depending on how you quantify it, the overall economic gain is probably greater but barely perceptible at the individual level; - the overall economic loss is small in the grand scheme of things, - but devastating for those it affects directly.

from - Backfire: How the Rise of Neoliberalism Facilitated the Rise of The Far-Right - https://hyp.is/F6XYujyREe-TaldInE8OGA/scholarworks.arcadia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066&context=thecompass

for - key insight - low security at top AI labs - high risk of information theft ending up in wrong hands

for - key insight - AGI as automated AI researchers to create superintelligence

key insight - AGI as automated AI researchers to create superintelligence - We will reach a period of explosive, exponential AI research growth once AGI has been produced - The key is to deploy AGI as AI researchers that can do AI research 24/7 - 5,000 of such AGI research agents could result in superintelligence in a very short time period (years) - because every time any one of them makes a breakthrough, it is immediately sent to all 4,999 other AGI researchers

for - key insight - AGI in next 5 to 10 years or bust

key insight - AGI in next 5 to 10 years or bust - As we start approaching billion, hundred billion and trillion dollar clusters, hardware improvements will slow down due to - cost - ecological impact - Moore's Law limits - If AGI doesn't emerge by then, then we will need to have major breakthrough in - architecture or - algorithms

for - key insight - the unconscious - fundamental assumptions are the root problem - Nora Bateson

key insight, quote - the unconscious - fundamental assumptions are the root problem - Nora Bateson - (see below) - Even though we can point with - language and - statistics and - all sorts of measurements - to all the aspects of what we might call - the meta crisis or - the poly crisis - the real issues are: - insidious - they're underground - they're down in our our baseline premises of understanding - what life is and - what it means - To ask - what's in it for me - what's the point of this - where is this going - what am I going to get out of this - These type of questions that have to do with in some way embellishing our individual takeback - are deeply and totally unecological responses - so they're disrupting our possibility for perception

for - quote, key insight - progress trap - Nora Bateson

quote - progress trap - Nora Bateson - Nora hits the head of the nail with this observation - There are always multiple causes to one result - and by addressing only one cause, we cannot solve the problem, but in fact - allow it to continue and often make it worse - This is essentially another way of stating the teachings of millenia of Eastern philosophy, - that the universe is - infinitely interconnected - and its inherent nature of continuous transformation - Therefore, any state, which might be recognized as a problem state - is the result of many different causes and conditions coalescing

for - key insight - problem solving paradox - emptiness

key insight- problem solving paradox - emptiness - Due to the complex nature of reality - in which everything we perceive is connected to so many other things beyond our wildest imagination - a - *problem" doesn't have - a "solution" - Why not? - because a problem is human attention devoted to one aspect in our entire field of view (nature) - It's like looking at one stitch in the entire fabric of a weave - That one stitch could be so critical that tearing it off - can cause the entire fabric to fall apart - This massive connectedness and innumerable relationships is also described by the Eastern philosophical terms - emptiness - interdependent origination - references already provided in earlier annotations of this video.

for - key insight - the real is the illusory - interdependent origination - emptiness

key insight - the real is the illusory - There is profundity in this single statement that takes huge effort to truly understand - because we've been heaped with so much social conditioning - For example, a lot of psychological science research distinguishes between - what is real and - what is an illusion - However, the investigations that these teachings are referring to reveal that what both - conventional science and - the ordinary, mundane view of reality - take for real are both illusory when we deeply understand interdependent origination - The illusion is extraordinarily real and - it is a huge leap to know, feel and experience that ALL of reality, including both your - inner private world and the - outer shared world are illusory - That is, that while appearing, everything that appears is only due to other causes and conditions - Another way to say this is that nouns (things/objects) are temporary designations - underneath them is always verbs (processes)

for - key insight - Russian oppression - zero chance of protest and uprising

key insight - Russian oppression - zero chance of protest and uprising - Putin is so ruthless as a dictator that anyone who protests risks death. - Under these conditions, noone dares to organize - If there is a synchronized movement, Putin can be overthrown, but Putin's brutality insures that no such synchronization can happen

to - Jake Broe interview - Russian citizen complacency - like German citizens allowing millions of Jews to die - https://hyp.is/sXpZth5fEe-Xtj_-DhT_BQ/docdrop.org/video/XX3zU5QNvCw/

for - key insight - geopolitics - arrest of General Ivan Papov - suppress uprising

key insight - geopolitics - Russia - arrest of general Papov - The arrest sends a signal to all the generals - do not try to overthrow Putin

for - key insight - Putin is trying to create autocratic governments all over the world - geopolitics - Putin's influence in Georgia

for - key insight - geopolitics - Russian government is a mafia

key insight - geopolitics - Russian government is a mafia - everyone is corrupt and almost everyone in Putin's government is loyal to Putin and have committed crimes that Putin can use against them

for - key insight, adjacency - conformity bias - accepting evil - Russian citizen complacency - no protest

adjacency, key insight - between - geopolitics - Russia Ukraine War - complacency - oppression - adjacency relationship - Just like how ordinary German citizens accepted the death of millions of Jews, the same thing is happening in Russia. - Millions of ordinary Russian citizens are just doing what they can individually to survive day to day - If that means accepting the death of hundreds of thousands of innocents, then that is the price they will pay - Putin's oppression is so brutal that individuals risk their lives if they put up any resistance or protest

for - key insight, quote - the Pact between the West and dictators since 1992

quote - Since 1992 it's been a good deal - The Pact that the Western Alliance has made with dictators around the world - we'll buy your oil you can get rich - we'll look the other way when you kill your own people - but you just can't attack your neighbors

for - key insight - why US geopolitics installed dictatorships - progress trap- US foreign policy that shaped modernity

key insight - why US geopolitics installed dictatorships - This was the US's rationale to justify the geopolitical mess it created this century: - If you allow democracy in the age of Communism - people might vote for communism, then - kill all the rich people, then - take their stuff, then - redistribute it - You can get a majority support for that in an impoverished country and that was perceived as a threat - So the United States was suppressing Democratic movements around the world - because if an authoritarian if a communist can win an election fairly one time, - that's the end of free and fair elections - So for decades, the US foreign policy agenda was to install dictators to suppress the threat that democracy could produce communism. - But after "communism was defeated" - all these installed dictators around the world that are the direct result of the pathological US foreign policy posed a new, unexpected quagmire - The decades of US foreign policy had created an enormous progress trap that we are all living through now - The US now had to normalize relations with the new world of dictators it had helped created out of its own fears<br /> - A new US foreign policy rule emerged to deal with this fiasco - Stay in your own country - If you want to kill, imprison, brutalize or subjegate your own people, it is fine with the US government as long as it is done within your own state borders - As long as a nation state abuses their own people, the US will continue to: - buy your oil - trade with you - show up at the UN - even have an occasional State event for you - However, Russia broke that rule

.> for - key insight - downscaling planetary boundaries - Steffen et al.

for - key insight - reproduction is for adaptability, not to reproduce the gene pool

key insight - reproduction is for adaptability, not to reproduce the gene pool - for example, trees reproduce so they can move themselves - They are rooted so they cannot get up and walk - so they produce seeds that are transported by over living organisms and by the wind

for - key insight - evolution - not producing the same, but different, more adaptive

key insight - evolution - not producing the same, but different, more adaptive - The goal of evolution is not to replicate the same individual, but to create a different one that is BETTER ADAPTED to its environment - and towards this end, physiology is evolution, evolution is physiology (via epigenetics)

for - individual / collective gestalt - gene centrism - paradigm shift - adjacency - mistake of 20th century biology - reductionism - separating organism from environment - individual / collective gestalt, individual / environment gestalt - quote - mistake of 20th century biology - Ray Noble - key insight - mistake of 20th century biology- Ray Noble

quote - mistake of 20th century biology - Ray Noble - (see below)

• I think one of the other mistakes that have been made in biology of the 20th century
  • was to treat organisms as if they existed within an environment that was sort of like some nebulous box as it were
  • and you could study the organism by taking it out
  • and you study it in isolation
• It's the beginning of reductionism in a sense because
  • you taken it away from the environment but the organism has an intimate relationship with the environment
• It's feeding both
  • to the environment and
  • from the environment
• What is that environment?
  • That environment in large part is
    • other organisms of the same species but
    • other organisms of different species
• and it's in a continuous bubble of change
• It's like a cauldron of change
• So the big question for life is
  • how do you maintain yourself in this cauldron of change?
• You cannot do it by standing still
• You have to respond to it
  • so it's not surprising therefore that you find that you know organisms have mechanisms for responding to those changes

adjacency - mistake of 20th century biology - between - reductionism - separating organism from environment - individual / collective gestalt, - individual / environment gestalt - adjacency relationship - The mistake that 20th century biology has made is in - ascribing too much power to the gene, and - minimizing the role of epigenetics - Focusing the majority of attention and resources on the genes of the organism, and - defocusing attention on the organisms (epigenetic) interactions with the environment, including both - biotic elements and - abiotic elements - It's not the case that the genes are the major determinant factor and the epigenetics play a minor role - It IS the case that epigenetics play an equally important role in transmitting and assimilating features into the genome - The individual organism is intertwingled with its environment and with other living organisms - The individual / collective gestalt and the individual / environment gestalt is the appropriate unit of study

for - key insight - natural selection happens by epigenetic change followed by genetic change

key insight - natural selection happens by epigenetic change followed by genetic change - It's an advantage for epigenetic changes to be temporary because - if the environment is only a temporary change you can forget about it - if the environment is long lasting it can get assimilation in the genome and you've got speciation - That's the extraordinary thing - natural selection is not the origin of speciation, - it's epigenetics - followed by the genetic changes - The epigenetic leads - therefore, the environment leads

for - key insight - eliminating cartesian dualism in biology - creativity - multi-scale explanation

key insight - eliminating cartesian dualism in biology - Noble advances a radical and simple explanation to explain how<br /> - higher level organisms and cellular mechanisms make the decisions that inform the genetic switches which decision path to make - The higher level system takes advantage of the random events in molecular mechanisms and chooses the ones that are most fit - This has the potential to explain creativity at all living scales, up to human consciousness itself!

for - key insight - failure of the gene coding uni-causal model - key insight - failure of genetic determinism

for - key insight - decision-making structures are in the cell membrane, not the genes

key insight - The codes that enable us to make choices are located in - the membranes of our cells and - their protein channels - There are no genes for - any of those membranes - all the lipids that form the membranes and the complicated structures that you can see in a typical cell - None of that is coded for in the genome - All of that is inherited

for - key insight - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness - adjacency - fallacy of misplaced concreteness - climate denialism - mistrust in science - polycrisis - Deep Humanity

• the worry for Goethe and whitehead is that
  • we forget sometimes with the typical scientific method that = we can only ever apply concepts derived from our empirical experience
• and so if we're trying to understand experience as if it were really
  • an illusion produced by
    • collisions of particles or
    • brain chemistry or
    • something that we can never in principle experience
• what we're doing is
  • applying concepts derived from our experience
  • to an imagined realm that
    • we think is beyond experience
• but it's not
• This is Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

key insight - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness - This helps explain the rising rejection of science from the masses. I didn't realize there was already a name for the phenomena responsible for the emergence of collective denialist behavior

adjacency - between - fallacy of misplaced concreteness - increasing collective rejection of science in the polycrisis - adjacency statement - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness exactly names and describes - the growing trend of a populus rejection of climate science (climate denialism), COVID vaccine denialism, exponential growth of conspiracy theory and misinformation - because of the inability for non-elites and elites alike to concretize abstractions the same way that elite scientists and policy-makers do - Research papers have shown that the knowledge deficit model which was relied upon for decades was not accurate representation of climate denialism - Yet, I would hold that Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concretism plays a role here - This mistrust in science is rooted in this fallacy as well as progress traps - Deep Humanity is quite steeped in Whitehead's process relational ontology and the fallacy of misplaced concreteness requires mass education for a sustainable transition - This abstract concreteness is everywhere: - Shift from Ptolemy's geocentric worldview to the Copernican heliocentric worldview - Now we are told that the sun is not fixed, but is itself rotating around the Milky Way with billions of other galaxies - scientific techniques like radiocarbon dating for dating objects in deep time - climate science - atomic physics - quantum physics - distrust of vaccines, which we cannot see - Timothy Morton's hyperobjects is related to this fallacy of misplaced concreteness. - "Seeing is believing" but we cannot directly experience the ultra large or ultra small. So we have scientific language that draws parallels to that, but it is not a direct experience. - - Those not steeped in years or decades of science have the very real option of feeling that the concepts are fallacies and don't hold as much weight as that which they can experience directly, even though those concepts have obviously produced artefacts that they use, like cellphones, the internet and airplanes.

for - quote - taste - who can't develop it - perfectionists - key insight - finding our own unique voice - adjacency - creativity - learning from others - synthesis

quote - taste - who can't develop it - (see below)

• the one thing I can't teach is taste,
  • and the one predictor I have of the people who will never develop it are
    • the ones who are perfectionists.
• Because they're filtering their-- perfectionists that filter their perfection through the feedback of others.

comment - We we are overly dependent on others - it becomes difficult to develop our own - taste or - style - To develop our own unique taste is a balancing act - we are influenced by others by digesting the work of others - but then we must synthesize our own unique expression out of that - A useful metaphor is tuning a string - too loose and it can't work - neither if it is too tight - it snaps

adjacency - between - creativity - learning from others - synthesis - adjacency statement - our creativity depends on a balance of - learning from others - synthesizing what we've learned into something uniquely ours

for - key insight - not knowing - advantages - quote - Rick Ruben - quote - advantages of having no references

quote - advantages of having no references - (see below)

• I had the advantage,
  • early in my career,
• of starting making music without any experience,
• which was helpful, because
  • I didn't know what rules I was breaking.
• And so it wasn't intentional breaking of rules.
  • I just did what seemed right to me,
  • but I didn't realize that I was doing things that other people wouldn't do.

for - key insight - all roads lead to progress - progress trap - Prometheus complex - impuslive urge to invent

Comment - This is fleshed out in the final three paragraphs of this article - I disagree with the closing sentence, however

• “It’s not possible [to avoid invention],
  • because all knowledge is interconnected like a web,” Carlin told Big Think.
• “If you walled off a certain part of it because you saw the potential downside,
  • you would get to the same outcome sort of in a roundabout way, right?

• The connections might not be direct, like saying, ‘Oh, I see nuclear weapons in the distance; let’s go there,’

  • but we would go through the back door, and eventually we would discover everything around that thing.”

• To bring Carlin’s analogy home,

  • we can think about the idea of artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
• AGI is the point at which AI can perform a wide variety of tasks so competently
  • that it matches or exceeds human intelligence and performance.
• Some people might see AGI as dangerous.
• Others may see AGI as the savior of humanity.
• But while we have debates and conversations,
  • we’re still marching toward AGI.
• Scientists and programmers behind their computers are
  • solving “everything around that thing.”
• Our hands and our brains will,
  • perhaps unconsciously,

• drift toward the very thing we’re debating if we should do.

• The Prometheus complex can be seen over and over again

  • in the history of science.
• It is not simply that Edenic urge to eat the fruit or push the red button.
• It’s the fact that
  • as the rational, intellectual part of ourselves wrestles with the decision,
  • a deeper, Promethean part of ourselves has pressed it already.
• Thankfully, it usually turns out okay.

comment - I disagree with the last line - If the meta-poly-perma-crisis is what is meant by "OK", then it is a very distorted use of that word. - Rather, this Promethian way of thinking and act - compounded over the lifetime of human civilization - is EXACTLY what has brought us to the brink of civilizational disaster - and it may not turn out to be "ok"!

for - quote - working class - net zero - adjacency - working class - net zero - key insight - working class - net zero

quote - Chris Yates - within class - net zero - (see quote below)

• What is the most that a working-class person could hope for
  • from a net-zero future?
• At present,
  • in the vision being broadly promoted,
  • it’s
    • the same hard work,
    • the same exploitation,
  • but with
  • a heat pump instead of
    • a gas boiler.

insight - hyperobjects

Comment - This of why a Deep Humanity approach that identifies and clarifies the fundamental issues is so important

key insight - of all about the venison of individual liberty that modernization had sold is a companion bill of goods on

for - quote - roots of misinformation, quote - roots of fake news, key insight - roots of misinformation

key insight - roots of misinformation - (see below)

quote - roots of misinformation - we have a media that needs to survive based on - clicks and - controversy and - serving the most engaged people - so they both sides the issues - they they lift up - facts and - lies - as equivalent in order to claim no bias but - that in itself is a bias because - it gives more oxygen to the - lies and - the disinformation - that is really dangerous to our society and - we are living through the impacts of - those errors and - that malpractice -done by media in America

for - key insight - movement of movements - What's missing - transformation catalyst - indyweb / Indranet

• What is more lacking, however,
• are approaches to transformation
• that can be applied in and adapted to
• multiple (and necessarily unique) contexts
• to provide a framework for building such action strategies.
• Here I would introduce the concepts of transformation catalysts
• who build effective, purposeful transformation systems
• using three general processes of
  • connecting,
  • cohering, and
  • amplifying.

for - key insight - global movement requirements - new organising system - indyweb /Indranet - people-centered - interpersonal - individual collective gestalt - a foundational idea of indyweb / Indranet epistemology - Deep Humanity - epistemological foundation of indyweb / Indranet

• The world cannot wait
• for us to learn or know everything that we need to know
• for bringing about purposeful system change
• towards desired and broadly shared aspirations
• for a more
  • equitable,
  • just, and
  • ecologically flourishing
• world.
• The key question before us is
  • how to become transformation catalysts
  • that work with numerous associated
    • initiatives and
    • leaders
  • to form
    • purposeful and
    • action-oriented
  • transformation systems
  • that build on the collective strength inherent
  • in the many networks already working towards transformation.
• Doing that requires new approaches
• to organizing for transformation
• where multiple initiatives
  • connect,
  • cohere, and
  • amplify
• their
  • individual and
  • collective
• transformative actions

Comment - indyweb / Indranet is ideally suited for this - seeing the mention of individual and collective in a sentence surfaced the new Deep Humanity concept of individual collective gestalt that is intrinsic to the epistemological foundation of the Indyweb / Indranet - This is reflected in the words to describe the Indyweb / Indranet as people-centered and interpersonal

for - circular economy - building - excavation waste - circular economy - construction - excavation waste - key insight - repurpose excavation waste as building material

key insight - She makes an pretty important observation about the inefficiency of current linear construction process - The excavation part requires enormous amounts of energy, and the earth that is excavated is treated as waste that must be disposed of AT A COST! - Instead, with a paradigm shift of earth as a valuable building resource, the excavation PRODUCES the building materials! - This is precisely what BC Material's circular economy business model is and it makes total sense!<br /> - With a simple paradigm and perspective shift, waste is suddenly transformed into a resource! - waste2resource - waste-to-resource

new meme - Waste-2-Resource

for - key insight - concrescence - definition - concrescence - Whitehead - definition - The many become the one - Whitehead - definition - Res Potentia - Tim Eastman - definition - superject - Whitehead - definition - moment of satisfaction - Whitehead - definition - dipolar - Whitehead - definition - ingression - Whitehead definition - CONCRESCENCE - is the description of the phases of the iterative process by which reality advances from the past into the present then into the future - this definition is metaphysical and applies to all aspects of reality

• Concrescence is the process by which

  • THE MANY BECOME THE ONE and
  • THE MANY ARE INCREASED BY ONE
    • The "many" here refers to the past
    • the perished objects in the past environment

• There's another domain that whitehead makes reference to

  • He's a platonist in this sense, though he's a reformed platonist
  • He makes reference to this realm of eternal objects which for him are pure possibilities
  • i was mentioning Tim Eastman earlier
    • He calls this domain "RES POTENTIA", the realm of possibilities which have not yet been actualized
• And so for Whitehead
  • the realm of possibility is infinite
  • the realm of actuality is finite
• In the realm of actuality, there's a limited amount of certain types of experience which have been realized
  • but the realm of actuality draws upon this plenum of possibility and
  • it's because there is this plenum of possibility in relationship to the realm of actuality that
  • novelty is possible
  • new things can still happen we're not just constantly repeating the past

• Whitehead describes the process of concrescence or each drop of experience as DIPOLAR, having two poles:

  • a physical pole and
  • a mental pole

• Each concrescence or drop of experience begins with the physical pole

  • where the perished objects of the past environment are apprehended or felt and
  • these feelings of the past grow together into this newly emerging drop of experience
  • and then in the process of their growing together
    • the actualized perished objects of the past environment
    • are brought into comparison with eternal objects or pure potentials possibilities and
    • these possibilities INGRESS so there's
      • INGRESSION of eternal objects and
    • PREHENSION of past actualities
    • INGRESSION of potentials PREHENSIONS of past actualities

• and what the ingression of eternal objects do is provide each occasion of experience, each concrescence with

  • the opportunity to interpret the past differently
• to say maybe it's not like that maybe it's like this
• and so these ingressions come into the mental pole

• If the physical pole is what initiates the experience of each concrescing occasion

  • the mental pole is is a subsequent process that compares
    • what's been felt in the past with
    • what is possible alternatives that could be experienced that are not given yet in the past

• The subjective form is how the occasion fills the past

• The subjective aim is what draws the many feelings of the past towards the unification and the mental pole
  • where
    • the ingression of eternal objects and
    • the feelings of past actualities
  • are brought together into what Whitehead calls this MOMENT OF SATISFACTION
• it's the culmination of the process of concrescence
  • where a new perspective on the universe is achieved - This is the many have become one
• They are increased by one when the satisfaction is achieved
• It's a new perspective on the whole
• As soon as this new perspective is achieved
  • it becomes a SUPERJECT which is not a subject enjoying its own experience anymore
  • it's a perished subject
• The superject is the achieved perspective that has been experienced
  • but then perishes itself int a superject-hood to become
  • one among the many that will be inherited by the next moment of experience, the next concrescence and
• This superject has objective immortality in the sense that
  • every subsequent concrescence will inherit the satisfaction achieved by the prior concrescences

• And so this is the most general account in Whitehead's view that we can offer

  • of the nature of reality
  • the nature of the passage of nature
  • the movement
    • out of the past
    • through the present and
    • into the future

• Experience is always in the present and the satisfaction that is achieved by each moment of concrescence is enjoyed in the present

  • but as soon as we achieve that
  • it perishes and the next moment of concrescence arises to inherit what was achieved
  • and this is an iterative process
  • it's repeating constantly and it's cumulative
• It's a process of growth
  • building on what's been achieved in the past

for - key insight - multicellularity - memory wiping

• key insight
  • individuals have information in their memories about survival
  • when they merge and join, they pool their information and you can't tell whose memories came from whom initially
  • this memory wiping is a key aspect of multcellularity

investigate - salience of memory wiping for multicellularity - This is a very important biological behavior. - Perform a literature review to understand examples of this

question - biological memory wiping - can it be extrapolated to social superorganism?

for - key insight - spiritual collectives - bound by values instead of beliefs

for - climate crisis - U.S. intra-country migration - key insight - climate migration - towards disaster zones

for - quote - commonality between far left and far right - key insight

If there’s a commonality between far Left and far Right, says Lyons,

• it’s a common opposition to the status quo
  • but one that’s based on fundamentally different reasons.

• for: meme - make it expensive to destroy the planet, quote - Johan Rockstrom, quote - make it expensive to destroy the planet, key insight - make it expensive to destroy the planet

• key insight

• meme
• quote: Johan Rockstrom
  • we need to make the transition acceptable and attractive for the vast majority of citizens, and the only way to do that, is to make the changes easy to adopt. This requires strong engagement with society at large, and policies that make sustainable life choices not only easier, but also cheaper and more attractive. Or, put it the other way around, it must be more expensive to destroy the planet or the health of our fellow citizens".

• for: key insight - sectors emerged naturally

• for: key insight - adjacency - polycrisis - pension funds investing in private equity are a driving force

• key insight

• adjacency between
  • polycrisis
  • pension funds
  • private equity
  • inequality
  • climate crisis
• adjacency statement
  • Pension funds are major investors in private equity, who in turn, through speculative investing are maintaining wealth supremacy and perpetuation inequality and climate crisis

• for: James Hansen - 2023 paper, key insight - James Hansen, leverage point - emergence of new 3rd political party, leverage point - youth in politics, climate change - politics, climate crisis - politics

• Key insight: James Hansen

  • The key insight James Hansen conveys is that
    • the key to rapid system change is
      • WHAT? the rapid emergence of a new, third political party that does not take money from special interest lobbys.
      • WHY? Hit the Achilles heel of the Fossil Fuel industry
      • HOW? widespread citizen / youth campaign to elect new youth leaders across the US and around the globe
      • WHEN? Timing is critical. In the US,
        • Don't spoil the vote for the two party system in 2024 elections. Better to have a democracy than a dictatorship.
        • Realistically, likely have to wait to be a contender in the 2028 election.

• reference

  • paper - Global Warming in the Pipeline
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Facademic.oup.com%2Foocc%2Farticle%2F3%2F1%2Fkgad008%2F7335889&group=world
  • Michael Mann's critique of the paper
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmichaelmann.net%2Fcontent%2Fcomments-new-article-james-hansen&group=world

• for: key insight- polycrisis - climate crisis - political crisis, climate crisis - requires a new political party, money in politics, climate crisis - fossil fuel lobbyists, climate change - politics, climate crisis - politics, James Hansen - key insight - political action - 3rd party

• key insight

  • Both democrats and conservatives are captured by fossil fuel lobbyist interests
  • A new third political party that does not take money from special interests is required
  • The nature of the polycrisis is that crisis are entangled . This is a case in point. The climate crisis cannot be solved unless the political crisis of money influencing politics is resolved
  • The system needs to be rapidly reformed to kick money of special interest groups out of politics.

• question

  • Given the short timescale, the earliest we can achieve this is 2028 in the US Election cycle
  • Meanwhile what can we do in between?
  • How much impact can alternative forms of local governance like https://sonec.org/ have?
  • In particular, could citizens form local alternative forms of governance and implement incentives to drive sustainable behavior?

• for: key insight - anti-vaxxers, key insight - conspiracy theories, key insight - maga, key insight - neoliberalism and failure at collective action

• key insight: neoliberalism and failure of collective action

  • neoliberalism's continuous assault on society has striped use off any support system, leaving us to fend for ourselves
  • when polycrisis events occur, it provokes a distrust of any attempt at government intervention
  • this is a sign of things to come when climate chaos will accelerate social breakdown

• for: academic communication to the public - importance, elites - two types, key insight - elites, key insight - science communication

• comment

• key insight

  • Elites are necessary in every society
  • Historically, people who strongly believe that the current elites aren't necessary or are harmful often become the revolutionaries who become the new elites
  • elites need to speak in their own specialist language to each other but there are two kinds of elites
    • those who serve society
    • those who serve themselves
    • often, we have fox in sheep's clothing - elites who serve themselves but disguise themselves in the language of elites who serve others in order to gain access to power ,
    • we normally think of wealthy people as elites, but Harari classifies scientists as also a kind of elite
  • elites may be necessary but
    • We are caught in a double bind, a wicked problem as elites are also the world's greatest per capita energy consumers and their outsized ecological, consumption and energy footprint is now a existential threat to the survival of our species

• references

  • Kevin Anderson: A Habitable Earth Can No Longer Afford The Rich – And That Could Mean Me And You
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fclimateuncensored.com%2F1485-2%2F&group=world
  • The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41560-021-00900-y&group=world
  • Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 °C ambitions
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fpii%2FS2666791622000252&group=world

• for: Thomas Theorem, The definition of the situation, William Isaac Thomas, Dorothy Swain Thomas, definition - Thomas Theorem, definition - definition of the situation, conflicting belief systems - Thomas theorem, learned something new - Thomas theorem

• definition: Thomas Theorem

• definition: definition of the situation
  • "The Thomas theorem is a theory of sociology which was formulated in 1928 by William Isaac Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas:

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.[1]

In other words, the interpretation of a situation causes the action. This interpretation is not objective. Actions are affected by subjective perceptions of situations. Whether there even is an objectively correct interpretation is not important for the purposes of helping guide individuals' behavior.|

• comment
• learned something new

• key insight: polarization

  • Behaviors subsequently are enacted out of a set of beliefs.
  • If there are a multitude of conflicting belief systems emerged from different cultures, then real conflicts can emerge out of the disharmony of conflicting beliefs
  • This is a very important insight into the polarization we see in the world today

• adjacency between:

  • polarization
  • Thomas Theorem

• adjacency statement

  • polarization can be explained by the Thomas Theorem

• reference

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_theorem#:~:text=The%20Thomas%20theorem%20is%20a,This%20interpretation%20is%20not%20objective.

• for: quote - Kevin Anderson, quote - elite positive feedback carbon inequality loop, climate crisis - societal aspirations, elites - societal aspirations, societal aspirations, key insight - societal aspirations

• quote

  • This 1% of humanity uses its awesome power to manipulate
    • societal aspirations and
    • the narratives around climate change.
  • These extend from
    • well-funded advertising to
    • pseudo-technical solutions,
    • and financialisation of carbon emissions (and increasingly, nature) to
    • labelling extreme any meaningful narrative that questions inequality and power.

• comment

• key insight - societal aspirations
  • it is the societal aspiration of the logic of capitalism and the free market that continues to create the next generation of the 1%
  • How can the luxury industry NOT BE high carbon intensity? It's an oxymoron. High carbon is baked into the definition of luxury, and it is luxury goods and services which accelerate climate breakdown.
  • The elites have a strong feeling of entitlement. They feel they DESERVE to reward themselves with a luxury lifestyle. That aspiration and reward structure multiplied by 80 million (1% of 8 billion) is a major variable driving the climate crisis

• for: adjacency - synchronization - clues - positive feedbacks, key insight - synchronisation - positive feedbacks

• adjacency between

  • positive feedback
  • synchronization
• adjacency statement
• key insight
  • look for where the positive feedbacks are occurring within the system
  • that will tell you where the synchronization is occurring within the system

• for: key insight - community capacity

• key insight - community capacity

• quote
  • . Although there are many initiatives, they have not yet reached the scale necessary to respond effectively to the crises; they often lack a stable and facile organisation of collaboration and a clearly structured process of joint decision making

• for: key insight - mass mobilization - leadership and circumstances

• for: key insight - shaking up the system - populists
• key insight
  • This is a good observation. The point that Ruben makes is that populist leaders want to shake up the system, they have tapped into the discontent, but they channel it to their own nefarious ends. They are still thoroughly within modernity, however. so don't get to the root problem.

• for: key insight - Alberta

• comment

  • claim
    • Alberta is a very patriarchal province. It was settled in the late 19th century so already had a culture of controlling nature.

• for key insight - sustainability industry is stuck

• key insight

  • claim
    • sustainability industry is plagued with the same root cause as the problem that it is trying to solve

• for: key insight - recognizing the other creates intimacy

• for: key insight - modernity - inefficiency - biological system - resilience

• key insight

  • in our modern way of thinking the dominant metaphors are mechanical
  • and in mechanical system is literally the case if you can make the system more efficient you get rid of waste
  • so if you have parts that duplicate each other they're not needed you can get rid of one of them
  • and that's true for mechanical systems so that waste and mechanical systems is something you can get rid of and decrease efficiency
  • but in living human and even biological systems duplication is not waste it's resilience

• comment

  • aspectualization and situatedness

• for: key insight - modernity framework is the major narrative, quote - modernity framework is the major narrative

• key insight: modernity framework is the major narrative

• quote: modernity framework is the major narrative
  • the official fantasy of the 20th century after the war but now also the 21st century is this that
    • of course they will all become like us
      • after the war we called it development
      • they were then third world countries would become first world
      • some second world countries as well
    • and the interesting thing is is that fundamentally that really hasn't changed
    • if you scratch under the paint of the UN's sustainable development goals what you find is they want to take the very best fruits of modernity and make them in a fair way distribute them more evenly across the planet so that everybody has the advantages of a modern life and
    • as Bill (Reese) suggested, that's a fantasy that isn't going to happen
    • there isn't enough planet for that to happen but
    • nevertheless this is the official fantasy that drives
      • the OECD and
      • the folks at Davos and
      • the UN and
      • most universities

• for: major cultural paradigms, modernity - leaving, cultural transition, cultural evolution, MET, Major Evolutionary Transition, kiey insight - 4 major cultural paradigms

• comment

• key insight: 4 major cultural paradigms

  • This matrix doesn't quite capture what Ruben is proposing because he later talks about neo-indigenous, which means taking elements of modernity but within an overall indigenous framework, so a hybrid
  • It would be worth exploring implications for an evolutionary framework of Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET)

• for: key insight - phenomenology as life's pre-scientific dimension

• key insight

• paraphrase
  • Due to its nature, phenomenology focuses on experiences and emphasizes the sense that surrounds the everyday, the meaning of the human being,,
    • that is to say, the experience of what we are.
  • Phenomenology is sensitive to the problems around the world of life.
  • The world of life represents the reality of daily life, which is investigated under a non-naive eye. -This world without categories or explanations, coming from science, is the life's pre-scientific dimension, characterized by being extremely rich, a world of experiences and experience.
  • In this world, objective sciences are examined as cultural facts.
  • It is the sum of borders and horizons in which worldly facts are born and established, and which have to be regenerated by experience. This study corresponds to the worldly phenomenology.

• for key insight: object overshadows subject

• paraphrase

  • we become so focused on the object that we lose sight off our subjective involvement in the act of observation or participation.
  • she gives the example of writing in which we forget the sensations of the fingers because we are so engaged with the ideas flowing out

• for: key insight, key insight - Andrew Millison, key insight - geomorphology, quote, quote - Andrew Millison, quote - geomorphology

• definition: geomorphology, geomorphic

  • geomorphology.is the study of the shape of the land and geomorphic means conforming to the shape of the land.

• quote: Andrew Millison

  • The fundamental flaw of our civilization is that our political boundaries and our land management units, property boundaries are not conforming to the shape of the land. Because if they did, then decisions we made would have an integrated holistic landscape scale impact instead of a fragmented or fractured impact.
• date: 2023

• for: key insight, climate movement, biodiversity movement, adjacency, adjacency - climate movement - biodiversity movement

• key insight

  • We currently have
    • a climate movement and
    • a biodiversity movement.
  • These are for the most part, two separate movements.
  • As our understandings grow and spread of how important biodiversity is to climate,
    • these two movements can merge and synergize.

• for: key insight, science - key insight, science - epoche

• key insight

• quote
  • Electrons, protons, quarks, and so on, what they turn out to be is just inferences that we do from marks on the screens of our apparatuses in the laboratory essentially.
• author: Michel Bitbot

• for: evolutionary design, organisms - problem solving
• key insight
  • organisms as evolution's way of solving a specific problem
  • hence, organisms are by their very nature, solvers of specific evolutionary problems of how to best adapt to an environment, and that includes our own human species

• for: sense of lack, sense of self, sense of self and sense of lack, human condition, poverty mentality, alienation, separation, emptiness, emptiness of emptiness, W2W, inequality
• key insight
  • sense of self is equivalent to
    • sense of lack
    • duality
    • disconnection
    • alienation
    • separation
    • solidification - the opposite of emptiness
• comment
  • this sense of lack that is intrinsically associated with the sense of self is perhaps the deepest root of our unhappiness
  • this is a key insight for sharing for both those who have too much (the 1%) as well as those who are so materially impoverished and deprived that they are forced to adopt survivalist strategies to stay alive, and if successful, take on a hard edge to survivalism, over-appreciating materialism
  • the same mistake is committed on both end of the disparity spectrum, both groups are still under the illusion that that sense of lack can be filled

• for: transformation, inner/outer transformation, rapid whole system change, religious alienation, poverty mentality
• key insight
  • Ludwig Feuerbach
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Feuerbach
    • quote
      • "In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the infinity of his own nature."
      • "If man is to find contentment in God, he must find himself in God."
    • Thus God is nothing else than human: he is, so to speak, the outward projection of a human's inward nature.
    • This projection is dubbed as a chimera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent upon the aspect of benevolence.
    • Feuerbach states that "a God who is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God",

-quote - religion is a place where human beings alienate their intrinsic superpowers - author - Timotny Morton, quoting Ludwig Feuerbach

• key insight
• quote
  • if we want to end up with a world that is shaped by the best of us, rather than very often the worst of us,
    • we have to think carefully, we have to engineer a system.
    • think of the worst person for the job position you are hiring for
    • design the system to
      • screen that person out
      • if they do manage to get in, have oversight that can eliminate them from the post
      • have a system in place that looks upwards to the top position to scrutinize them and hold them accountable

• comment
• key insight

• key observation
• key insight
• quuotable
• quote

!- key insight : autonomy and symbiosis

!- surveillance capitalism : key insight -mass behavioral modification takes away autonomy