Kevin R D Shepherd Allied With LSD Advocate Robert Priddy

Kevin R.D. Shepherd attempted to defend LSD advocate Robert Priddy (a caustic critic and defamer of Sathya Sai Baba) on his citizeninitiative.com domain. Needless to say, it can be thoroughly proven that Robert Priddy’s pseudo-criticism of LSD was nothing more than a shameless attempt to cover-up and blur his decades-long praise of mind-altering drugs. Kevin Shepherd said (underlined emphasis added by Moreno):

citizeninitiative.com/sathya_sai_and_wikipedia.htm
Kevin R.D. Shepherd:

That was a long time ago, though Priddy did subsequently compose three documents describing his LSD experiences, and which he placed on the web in the 1980s. These writings remained on the web while he was a devotee of Sathya Sai, though he deleted them at the end of his devotee phase.

As a critic of LSD, I questioned the relevance of these writings, though Priddy told me in 2007 that he had long outgrown the eulogies, to which he had added cautions. In The Psychedelic Experience, Priddy says that he did not become addicted and that his disillusionment with LSD led to his conclusion that “all psycho-chemicals of this nature should be avoided.” He stresses instead the “gradual evolution of the psyche by controlled moral and mental discipline.”

I do not myself agree with promotions of psychedelic experimentation. In fact, I can present strong arguments against that option. However, in cases where there is clear denial of the “spiritual enlightenment” syndrome, extenuating factors should be acknowledged by critics. Retrospective accounts of this nature are deemed relevant by some academic analysts, in that these accounts serve to offset the exuberant and misleading conclusions found elsewhere. It is apparent that Priddy does not believe in “LSD spirituality,” unlike many other writers on the subject of psychedelic experience. The intensity of LSD experiences is not denied by critical analysts. It is the psychoactive context of these experiences that is in dispute…

One should respect the warning of Priddy in the same document abovecited that:

“The use of biochemicals like LSD-25 to alter consciousness is like reaching for ‘plastic grapes.’ They do not allay one’s hunger. They can also create an illusion of knowledge and power, and that can be harmful.”

The Priddy version of LSD is thus very different to that of Stanislav Grof and other psychedelic enthusiasts, who interpret the “illusion of knowledge and power” in terms of an LSD “therapy” amounting to a “spiritual path” of neoshamanism. Those enthusiasts have an extension in MAPS (Multidisciplinary Assn for Psychedelic Studies), the controversial American organisation influenced by Grof, and which ingeniously includes data on the “risks and benefits” of drugs, though the underlying motivation is clearly one of drug promotion converging with the Grof paradigm.

Robert Priddy’s Denial: LSD-Visions Were Not Hallucinations:

On Robert Priddy’s Anti-Baba blog, he said the following about his LSD-induced hallucinations:

Robert Priddy: On LSD-25 and alleged “drug-induced hallucinations” Moreno makes false assumptions in dismissing LSD-25 experiences merely as induced hallucinations – it is very far from being so simple. Hallucinations can occur as a result of LSD, but they did not in my case. I was a student interested in psychiatry and psychology and my dose of LSD-25 was actually provided by the Norwegian Minister of Health explicitly for experimental purposes! Only one who has experienced it can have any idea at all of what inner clarity and scope of the mind may be released, if one is well-balanced and fortunate in the circumstances. In that I was in company with many well-known writers and hands-on researchers on the subject (egs. Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, Professor Susan Blackmore etc.) The dangers are considerable for borderline psychotics and others, so experiments are definitely not to be recommended to the public.

In Robert Priddy’s detailed LSD articles (and in a subsequent update added by him after a Pro-Sai Activist found the LSD-related webpages), he never stated that his LSD-25 was “provided by the Norwegian Minister of Health explicitly for experimental purposes”. Robert Priddy specifically stated he first experimented with cannabis then later experimented with LSD when he was 26 years old in 1963 with his friend Eric Steadman (with whom he shared a “perfect unspoken telepathic awareness”) and the entire episode was saved on a tape-recorder he turned on.

Although Robert Priddy wrote about his LSD experiences in depth, he never mentioned anything about any University officials, volunteer testing, Karl Evang or that the LSD-25 he took was “provided by the Norwegian Minister of Health explicitly for experimental purposes”. Furthermore, Robert Priddy admitted he experimented with cannabis before he experimented with LSD in 1963, experimented with “strong bio-chemicals” and LSD years after he experimented with LSD in 1963 and even wrote about another LSD-induced hallucination in 1965. Therefore, Robert Priddy fully acknowledged he experimented with drugs prior to and after his initial LSD trip in 1963. Was Robert Priddy also using cannabis and other “strong bio-chemicals” for “experimental purposes”? Although Robert Priddy whined that his druggy years are “outdated” and “ancient”, it is amusing to note the he eulogized his “outdated” and “ancient” druggy years:

1. In 1988 (25 years later) in his LSD article entitled “TRUTH, BEING AND BLISS – AN AMAZING PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE – Described By Robert C. Priddy – British author & ret’d researcher and teacher in philosophy and sociology, University of Oslo, Norway”: “I try here to give as truthful an account as I can of what befell me in 1963. In the intervening 25 years I have continually been returning to that experience as as source of inspiration and in the hope that the fullest possible light may be shed on it for me.” (LSD Reference).
2. In 1994 (31 years later) in his book “Source Of The Dream”, pg: 16-7, Chapter 2: ‘When the Soil is Ready’: “A totally mind-shattering and subsequently most wonderful and intensely ecstatic experience befell me one day, as if from out of the blue. Much could be said on the subject, as it is an almost entirely misunderstood one and thus very controversial, but I do not believe doing so would appreciably enlighten anyone who has not actually had the very same experience. I am certain that no words can capture the vital nature and truth of such an experience of transcendental consciousness…” (LSD Reference).
3. In 2009 (46 years later) on his Anti-Baba blog in an article entitled “Copyright Infringement By SathyaSaiBaba”.

In the referenced quote above, Robert Priddy claimed “I was a student interested in psychiatry and psychology”. Robert Priddy told a different story in his LSD article entitled “The Psychedelic Experience – On how I came to psychedelic experiences By Robert C. Priddy”. In that article, Robert Priddy said he was a student of philosophy and sociology (not “psychiatry and psychology”) and that he considered psychology “mostly irrelevant to understanding people, myself or anything remotely like the psyche”!

It is also significant to point out that the scientific community (contrary to Robert Priddy’s layman claims) unanimously agrees that LSD is a hallucinogenic drug and is commonly referred to as a “hallucinogen” (Refs: LSD 01 – LSD 02 – LSD 03 – LSD 04).

When Sai Devotees attribute extraordinary experiences, dreams or visions to Sathya Sai Baba (without the aid of drugs), Robert Priddy bashes those experiences as mere flights of fantasy, imagination, mental disorder and/or projection. However, when it comes to Robert Priddy’s LSD experiences (induced with the aid of drugs), he proudly proclaims them as genuine and bona-fide! This is the type of Anti-Guru / Pro-LSD weirdo who continually attempts to invalidate Sai devotees for their spiritual experiences! If a person claimed a spiritual experience, who would you be more inclined to believe:

1. A person who never used drugs?
2. A person tripping on LSD?

And let us not forget what exactly Robert Priddy claimed was revealed to him when he tripped on LSD. Robert Priddy claimed he saw (amidst lots of fluff and airy-fairy scenes) his wrist break with the bones sticking out of his flesh, compared the experience to what “schizophrenics may experience with intensity”, that his mind was ”deranged” and that his mind was “shattered into pieces again and again”. Gee, that doesn’t sound “hallucinatory” at all, does it? (sarcasm implied)

Finally, let us take a look at the three people that Robert Priddy cited to support and defend his views on LSD. I wonder what Kevin R.D. Shepherd would say:

• Susan Blackmore: “I hope that one day soon it will be; that as a society we will prove wise enough to use LSD for its highest potential, not its worst. And for purely selfish reasons, I hope this will happen in time for me to take LSD again in my lifetime and that, like Huxley, I may be able to take it on my deathbed.” (Ref)
• Aldous Huxley was a humanist and pacifist, and he was latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology, Human Potential Movement, Vedanta and philosophical mysticism. He is also well known for advocating and taking psychedelics. Aldous Huxley took LSD on his deathbed and referred to LSD as “a mystical, religious experience”.
• Gerald Heard was a historian, science writer, educator, LSD advocate, philosopher and friend of Aldous Huxley.

Therefore, Robert Priddy’s current views on LSD are based on the views of LSD advocates he considered authorities on the subject!

LSD Advocate Robert Priddy Refers Readers To A Pro-Drug Website:

Attempting to bolster the case for his experimentation with LSD, Robert Priddy posted the following link on his Anti-Baba blog:

Robert Priddy Cited A Pro-Drug Forum Intended For Drug Users

Robert Priddy: For objective source materials and intelligent discussions of LSD-25, see this major Forum

Since “scholar” Robert Priddy (who always boasts how thorough his research is) provided a link to drugs-forum.com (and described it as being “objective” and providing “intelligent discussions of LSD-25”), he apparently researched the site thoroughly and approved of its contents.

Let us take a closer look at drugs-forum.com, a website Robert Priddy described as “objective” and providing “intelligent discussions of LSD-25”.

First and foremost, drugs-forum.com is an international Pro-Drug website where users can request and/or share information on how to take, grow, purchase, make and use all types of illegal drugs, including LSD-25 (Refs: 01 – 02 – 03 or View Entire LSD Threads). All of these LSD-related threads prove that the discussions therein are far removed from being “objective” and do not provide “intelligent discussions on LSD-25” (unless you happen to be a drug addict).

Drugs-forum.com provides numerous threads advocating for legalizing all types of drugs (Ref) and even provides threads about which drugs maximize sexual experiences (Ref). Drugs-forum.com also provides picture galleries so that users can identify hallucinogenic mushrooms, peyote, opiods, hallucinogenic cacti and hallucinogenic plants (Ref). A majority of the posts on the drugs-forum.com domain are chock full of invectives and graphic language. This is the type of Pro-Drug forum that “scholar” Robert Priddy described as being “objective” and providing “intelligent discussions on LSD-25”! Perhaps Robert Priddy posts on that Pro-Drug forum since he claims to know it so well, he actually provided a link to it on his Anti-Baba blog.

Robert Priddy revealed his drug advocacy and revealed his standards for “objectivity” and “intelligent discussion” by citing a Pro-Drug forum full of invectives that is intended for drug users! Thank you, Mr. Priddles for coming clean once again!

Robert Priddy’s defense of LSD is in severe conflict with Kevin R.D. Shepherd’s Anti-LSD / Anti-Drug position.

Robert Priddy, Kevin Shepherd, Drugs-Forum.com & Stanislav Grof:

It is also amusing to note that the drugs-forum.com webpage that Robert Priddy linked to (which he described as being “objective” and providing “intelligent discussions of LSD-25”), linked directly to another drugs-forum.com LSD webpage that strongly advocated for Stanislav Grof’s book “History Of LSD Therapy” (Ref). The drugs-forum.com website provides over 120 pro-articles on Stanislav Grof, holotropic breathwork and Pro-LSD research (Ref). The reason why this is so amusing is because Robert Priddy professes friendship and alliance with Kevin Shepherd, a staunch Anti-Drug, Anti-LSD and Anti-Grof critic! Isn’t it ironic that Kevin R.D. Shepherd professes friendship and alliance with Robert Priddy although:

1. Robert Priddy eulogized and promoted LSD for those who are “well-balanced and fortunate in the circumstances”?
2. Robert Priddy eulogized his LSD-induced experiences as bona fide revelations and not as the result of hallucinations (an absurd and dubious claim at best)?
3. Robert Priddy solicited the objectivity and intelligent discussions of a Pro-Drug forum intended for drug users?
4. Robert Priddy solicited the objectivity and intelligent discussions of a Pro-Drug forum intended for drug users that strongly advocates for Stanislav Grof, Holotropic Breathwork and the benefits of LSD?

What more can I say more about Robert Priddy and his laughable views, absurd arguments and clown-like antics about LSD? This is the guy who is attempting to “expose” Sathya Sai Baba. Well, the truth is now out about Robert Priddy (direct from his personal blog) and there is no stopping it! Expect Robert Priddy to do damage control, offer no apologies, deflect from the issue and bore everyone with his mindless prattle. Afterall, that is what he does best.

Predictable Update:

After publishing this article about Robert Priddy’s loud endorsement of drugs-forum.com, a Pro-Drug Forum intended for drug users (which he described as containing “objective source materials and intelligent discussions of LSD-25”), Robert Priddy rushed to do damage control (just as Moreno predicted he would) and removed the link to drugs-forum.com by saying:

Robert Priddy Removes Link To Pro-Drug Website Intended For Drug Users

Robert Priddy: “Please note: Having looked more closely at the web pages on LSD-25 I had first linked to here I found them partly very misleading and that there was an overall bias towards possibly dangerous viewpoints, though there was also nonetheless a good deal of accurate historical and other materials in them and/or linked to them. As a whole those pages do not represent my standpoint, therefore the link is deleted”

“Scholar” Robert Priddy (who constantly claims he conducts thorough research) argued that drugs-forum.com (a Pro-Drug Forum intended for drug users) contained “objective source materials and intelligent discussions of LSD-25”). Now, however, Robert Priddy is claiming that his initial assessement of drugs-forum.com was wrong and the website is not as “objective” or as ”intelligent” as he first assessed it to be.

Why doesn’t Robert Priddy specifically tell us which webpages on drugs-forum.com (a Pro-Drug Forum intended for drug users) contained a “good deal of accurate historical and other materials in them and/or linked to them”?

Perhaps Robert Priddy’s change of heart was prompted by an email I sent to Kevin Shepherd about Priddy’s Pro-Drug advocacy? Kevin Shepherd is a notorious critic of the Findhorn Foundation, Stanislav Grof and LSD. Kevin Shepherd has a lot of face to lose by allying himself with LSD-advocate Robert Priddy. Well, for interested Findhorn Foundation members, Stanislav Grof advocates and LSD critics, Robert Priddy still believes that there is absolutely nothing wrong with using LSD and that his LSD trips were not hallucinatory in nature (although LSD is a hallucinogen)!

Rather, Robert Priddy would have the world believe that LSD is simply a great “mind clearer” that produces out-of-body experiences that result in enlightenment and visions of broken bones sticking out of bloody flesh! What more can one do but laugh out loud at Kevin Shepherd and his LSD-advocating friend, Robert Priddy?

LSD advocate Robert Priddy is the person with whom Kevin R.D. Shepherd openly professes alliance. Consequently, Kevin R.D. Shepherd’s Anti-LSD rants are to be considered diluted, self-serving, hypocritical and selective. Kevin Shepherd’s defense of LSD advocate Robert Priddy is akin to his defense of Pyschic Trance Medium Conny Larsson.

Once again I’d like to bring to the attention of the reader a lecture by the infamous Dr Susan Blackmore about consciousness being nothing more than just an illusion. I won’t say anymore, as I feel the title adequately describes the point being made.

“The Grand Illusion of Consciousness”

A bit about Sue Blackmore:

Dr. Susan Blackmore is a freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She practices Zen and campaigns for drug legalization.

Sue Blackmore no longer works on the paranormal.

She writes for several magazines and newspapers, blogs for the Guardian newspaper and Psychology Today, and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio and television. She is author of over sixty academic articles, about fifty book contributions, and many book reviews. Her books include Dying to Live (on near-death experiences, 1993), In Search of the Light (autobiography, 1996), and Test Your Psychic Powers (with Adam Hart-Davis, 1997)…

For more information on Sue Blackmore, please visit her website, which you can do by clicking here.

This week, in discussing Sigmund Freud’s views on homosexuality with a class of A-Level Psychology students at Guiseley School in Leeds, the question was raised as to just how ‘normal’ gay and lesbian relationships are. When I stated that most recent surveys – ie: in the past 10 years or so – have tended to average around 2-4% of the adult population in the Western-ish world clearly identifying as gay men or lesbian – ie: verging on the statistically abnormal – I was quite taken aback by the sheer vociferousness of the class that the true number was at least 10% and, therefore, normal.

2 things struck me about this response:-

• How accepting the class were that homosexuality was ‘normal’ – quite a contrast with a Psychology class in Goole 3 years previous, in which the class had insisted that Evolutionary Psychology proved that homosexuality was abnormal and a perversion
• Where this mythical number of 10% of the population had come from and how strongly it was entrenched amongst the Guiseley students.

In and amongst the praise heaped on my book, ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, by Integral Review in 2007, I was castigated for ignoring homosexual relationships; I had 3 chapters on male-female relationships and none on same-sex relationships.

To be honest, it simply hadn’t occurred to me to include homosexual relationships. I have only come across a couple of handfuls of openly gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in my 55 years. Compared to the hundreds of heterosexual relationships I have encountered, same-sex relationships seemed so few in number they just didn’t register as a social fact I needed to write about.

Nonetheless, my RED vMEME’s pride stung by Integral Review’s criticism, I set out to discover if it was possible to find out just how many gay and lesbian relationships there might be.

What the surveys tell us
I found the following surveys carried out from 2003:-

• 2003: The largest and most thorough survey in Australia to date was conducted by telephone interview by the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society with 19,307 respondents between the ages of 16 and 59 in 2001/2002. The study found that 97.4% of men identified as heterosexual, 1.6% as gay and 0.9% as bisexual. For women 97.7% identified as heterosexual, 0.8% as lesbian and 1.4% as bisexual. However, 8.6% of men and 15.1% of women reported either feelings of attraction to the same gender or some sexual experience with the same gender. 50% of the men and 66.66% of the women who had same-sex sexual experience regarded themselves as heterosexual rather than homosexual or bisexual.
• 2003: In the United States Tom W Smith’s analysis of National Opinion Research Center data states that 4.9% of sexually active American males have had a male sexual partner since age 18, but that “since age 18 less than 1% are [exclusively] gay and 4+% bisexual”. In the top twelve urban areas however, the rates are double the national average. Smith adds that: “It is generally believed that including adolescent behavior would further increase these rates.”
•  2003: According to the Durex Global Sex Survey for 2003, 12% of Norwegian respondents have had homosexual sex
•  2003: The Canadian Community Health Survey of 135,000 Canadians found that 1.0% of the respondents identified themselves as homosexual and 0.7% identified themselves as bisexual. About 1.3% of men considered themselves homosexual, almost twice the proportion of 0.7% among women. However, 0.9% of women reported being bisexual, slightly higher than the proportion of 0.6% among men. 2.0% of those in the 18-35 age bracket considered themselves to be either homosexual or bisexual, but the number decreased to 1.9% among 35-44 year olds, and further still to 1.2% in the population aged 45-59. Quebec and British Columbia had higher percentages than the national average at 2.3% and 1.9%, respectively.
•  2005: HM Treasury and the Department for Trade & Industry completed a survey to help the Government analyse the financial implications of the Civil Partnerships Act (such as pensions, inheritance and tax benefits). They concluded that there were 3.6 m gay people in the United Kingdom – around 6% of the total population or 1 in 16.66 people
•  2005: The American Community Survey from the US Census estimated 776,943 same-sex couples in the country as a whole, representing about 0.5% of the population.
•  2006: A study by Nathaniel McConaghy, Dusan Hadzi-Pavlovic, Carol Stevens, Vijaya Manicavasagar, Neil Buhrich & Ute Vollmer-Conna found 2-3% Australians identified as homosexual while 20% of Australians reported having same-sex attractions

More recently Joseph Fried’s 2008 analysis of General Social Survey data looked at the percentage of American males, categorised as either Democrat or Republican, reporting homosexual activity for three time periods. Democrats admitting homosexual activity rose from 2.8% in 1988-1992 to 5.8% in 1993-1998 and then 6.6% in 2000-2006. Republicans admitting to homosexual activity peaked at 2.2% in 1988-1992.

A CNN exit polling showed self-identified gay, lesbian, and bisexual voters at 4% of the voting population in the 2008 US presidential election.

While the surveys present quite a mixed picture, by and large the percentages of openly gay people are well below the 10% figure the Guiseley students threw at me. An average would be around the 2-3-4% mark, depending just how it was calculated (as the surveys do not all measure like for like) – and that is verging on statistically abnormal.  In a normal distribution of population – such as that shown in the graphic for IQ (copyright © 2001 Psychology Press Ltd) – the vast bulk of the population (95%) falls within 2 standard deviations of the mean. Therefore, what is beyond 2 standard deviations is considered statistically abnormal.

There are, of course, huge problems in collecting this kind of data, due to the large amount of prejudice & discrimination against gay men and lesbians still in many parts of the Western world. Many people who are gay undoubtedly try to conceal it to avoid being discriminated against. Thus, for reasons of social desirability bias (wanting to appear in the best light), political and social prudence, and perhaps just sheer fear, people responding to these surveys may not always have told the truth. The real number of gay men and lesbians in the samples used in these is almost certainly higher than the official figures produced. The problem is we have absolutely no idea how much higher. Slightly higher or a lot higher…? We simply don’t know and we have no way of finding out. The best guestimates are just that: guesses. As most researchers into heterosexual relationships will admit, it’s incredibly difficult to get at what really goes on behind closed doors. Enter the murky underworld of homosexuality and it’s that much harder. We have Gay Pride Festivals in New York City and London; but in places like Goole it’s still very much a secretive, barely-admitted underground scene.

The best we can say is that the official responses to surveys tend to average out somewhere in the 2-4% region – verging on the statistically abnormal – but the real figure is almost certainly higher. Just how much higher we don’t know.

The meme of the 10% figure
The myth that 10% of the population are gay appears to have developed from the work of Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy & Clyde Martin whose notorious bestseller ‘Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male’ (1948) – see The Sex Reports – was the first widely read neo-scientific attempt to study sexual relationships, orientation and practices. (In 1942, shortly before the Hierarchy of Needs construct made his name, Abraham Maslow had published an investigation into female sexuality and dominance but it was not widely read at the time.)

What Kinsey et al actually wrote was that, of the American males surveyed, 10% were “more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55″. Whether this meant the men surveyed were homosexual as a permanent sexual orientation or had merely gone through a homosexual phase is unclear. In any case, there are serious validity problems with Kinsey et al’s sample groups. Firstly, they included an unrepresentatively-large number of prisoners and male prostitutes when set against the ratio of such persons in the general population. Secondly, his responses may have been coloured by personality bias – as they were self-selected and it can be argued it takes a certain type of personality to volunteer to talk about ’taboo’ subjects.

Whatever Kinsey et al actually intended and whatever the flaws in their studies, the 10% figure has stuck – and this demonstrates the power of memes – ideas that can spread from mind to mind like infectious viruses. No wonder a whole new psychological sub-science of memetics has developed over the past 30 years, concerned with understanding the what and how of memetic infection. Just what kind of ideas propagate best and in what kind of circumstances. Susan Blackmore (1999) has investigated those qualities of memes which make them most likely to propagate; but Don Beck & Chris Cowan’s 1996 concept of Spiral Dynamics is even more pertinent as it links the successful propagation of different memes to which motivational systems (vMEMES) are dominant in the minds of the receptor – collective grouping or individual.

Thus, we can link the decline in influence of the BLUE vMEME in North American and Europe – particularly in terms of strict Christian teaching – over the past 40 years or so and the emergence of GREEN with its libertarian and egalitarian values. Thus, the rise of GREEN has facilitated the spread of the ‘homosexuality is OK’ meme.

Of course, with growing Muslim populations in many parts of Europe, we may well be in for a new wave of BLUE thinking that could challenge GREEN’s ‘anything-that-liberates-the-human-spirit-is-OK’ ethos. I deal with this in my post on the Right to Be Blog, ‘What will Islam do for homosexuals?’

So is homosexuality normal?
Statistically it might be verging on the abnormal; but is it abnormal in any other way?

Certainly it’s not an illness, as the American Psychiatric Association finally recognised in 1973 when they withdrew its entry in the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. There is no credible evidence it is injurious to psychological well-being provided the gay man or lesbian can accept they are what they are and they have effective strategies for dealing with the discrimination they are subjected to. There are some concerns about the sheer level of promiscuity among gay men – not only in terms of sexually transmitted infections but also potential emotional instability brought on by such behaviour. However, according to Celia Kitzinger & Adrian Coyle (1995) promiscuous gay men tend to protect themselves by being more distant with their partners.

If the evidence indicates that, by and large, it’s not psychologically harmful, why then do so many people find the mere concept of homosexuality so offensive?

The ‘it’s not natural’ argument falls down on 2 points:-

• Firstly, it’s natural for most homosexuals – yes, it doesn’t fit with Evolutionary Psychology’s motif that sex is all about procreation and passing on your genes but then neither does contraception or some heterosexual couples choosing not to have children. Besides which, we have so many men with so much sperm, it’s hardly a survival-of-the-species issue if a small minority choose to waste it on other men!
• Dean Hamer’s (1993) attributing of the genetic marker Xq28 on the X chromosome to homosexual preferences may mean some men really don’t have a choice in sexual orientation. Hamer’s work has yet to be validated to the point of complete acceptance but it’s certainly setting the lead on investigating causes of homosexuality – see: Homosexuality: Nature or Nurture?. (Of course, no one’s yet come up with a potential biological determinant for lesbianism!)

What is much more likely to be behind such a dislike for homosexuality is the PURPLE vMEME’s distinction between those it identifies with/belongs to and those who ‘are not of our tribe’.

PURPLE uses all kinds of markers for discriminating between those who are in its in-group and others who are in the out-groups. It can be race, nationality, religion, gender, etc, etc…and, of course, sexual orientation.

To go back to our example of Goole which is a largely traditional white working class inland port, with lots of social and economic deprivation. In such communities, PURPLE tends to dominate much of the culture, propagating and enforcing its memetic taboos and rituals. Undoubtedly there is something of a BLUE vMEME harmonic left over from the days when Christianity really was the religion of the land. Christianity paints homosexuality as sinful – eg: Leviticus 20:13, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 – and this lends legitimacy to PURPLE’s categorising of homosexuals into the out-group.

Small wonder the homophobic Goole students found support in Evolutionary Psychology’s stance of sex-is-for-procreation. It’s a BEIGE level argument, about as basic as you can get…but higher up the Spiral the arguments are much more complex. Eg: the homosexuality-accepting Guiseley students are from one of the more affluent parts of Leeds, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the UK, with substantial ethnic minorities. In that mix of money, commerce and diversity, they will be exposed to just about every vMEME – every way of thinking – there is. So it is no surprise that they may have absorbed some of GREEN’s values around sexual orientation.

In reflection, then, the argument about whether homosexuality is ‘normal’ or not is more a question of differing values held by different vMEMES. As to just what proportion of the population is homosexual, we don’t really know; but it’s probably more than 2-4%. What we shouldn’t do is unthinkingly accept memetic ‘urban myths’ like 10%.

Susan Blackmore at TED, sharing her knowledge about the 2nd and 3rd replicators. A very interesting, passionate and well defined explaination of the replicators.

This article was writen for the New Scientist by Dr. Susan Blackmore, and was pulished on the 13th March 1999. Personally, out all of the ideas about reality that I’ve come across so far, this one in particular (for me, at least) stands beautifully apart from the rest and addresses very accurately the notions of reality, free-will and how the subsequent illusion of the “Self” arises.

Meme, Myself and I

Hold out your arm in front of you. Whenever you feel like it, of your own free will, flex your wrist. Repeat this a few times, making sure you do it as consciously as you can. You’ll probably experience some kind of decision process, in which you hold back from doing anything and then decide to act. Now ask yourself, what began the process that led to the action? Was it you?

Neuroscientist Benjamin Libet of the University of California in San Francisco asked volunteers to do exactly that. A clock allowed the subjects to note exactly when they decided to act, and by fitting electrodes to their wrists, Libet could time the start of the action. More electrodes on their scalps recorded a particular brain wave pattern called the readiness potential, which occurs just before any complex action and is associated with the brain planning its next move.

Libet’s controversial finding was that the decision to act came after the readiness potential. It looks as though there is no conscious “self” jumping into the synapses and starting things off.

This and other research has led me to believe that the idea of “self” is an illusion. You are nothing more than a creation of genes and memes in a unique environment. Memes are ideas, skills, habits, stories, songs or inventions that are passed from person to person by imitation. They have shaped our minds, leading to the evo-lution of big brains and language because these served to spread the memes. But the memes with the cleverest trick are those that persuade us that our “selves” really exist. We all live our lives as a lie. The memes have made us do it–because giving us the illusion of “self” helps them to survive and spread.

…continued here…

A bit about Sue Blackmore:

Dr. Susan Blackmore is a freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She practices Zen and campaigns for drug legalization.
Sue Blackmore no longer works on the paranormal.

She writes for several magazines and newspapers, blogs for the Guardian newspaper and Psychology Today, and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio and television. She is author of over sixty academic articles, about fifty book contributions, and many book reviews. Her books include Dying to Live (on near-death experiences, 1993), In Search of the Light (autobiography, 1996), and Test Your Psychic Powers (with Adam Hart-Davis, 1997)…

“Saying there’s no soul because the brain has consciousness structures is like saying there’s no light because a lightbulb has filaments.” - John Shirley

A thought which needs further development…

It’s a common statement by modern scientists – especially the strain of no-ghost-in-the-machine rationalism espoused by the likes of Pinker and Blackmore – that there’s a part of the brain which acts as though it has some contact with a higher consciousness or God. Of course in their minds this part is either some kind of bizarre evolutionary holdover like the appendix or else just a glitch in the way we think. It can’t be actually be sensing anything, because what it reports doesn’t fit their model of the universe.

It occurs to me that the same thread of scientific enquiry has found many interesting flaws and glitches in our senses – in fact many optical, sonic and other sensory illusions are often offered as a kind of explanation for why people see or report non-ordinary phenomena. Yet, knowing this, those scientists do not automatically dismiss all sensory data.

Why is it so hard to consider the possibility that the ‘god-sensing’ part of our minds is at least as valid a sense organ as the others?

Prone to confusion and mistake, sure. Full of holes and possible to trick, certainly. But since that’s exactly what all our other senses are like, why dismiss it completely?

The Mind In The Cave: Thomas Hirschhorn's Cavemanman

Neuroaesthetics just made another poke at contemporary art when an interesting show recently opened at the Hayward Gallery in London under the title Walking In My Mind. The exhibition gathers ten artists from USA, Europe and Japan that all have made works that can be “read as translations of the human mind into physical form.”, using the words by one of the two curators Stephanie Rosenthal (the other being Mami Kataoka). In her catalogue essay for the show Rosenthal tries to outline a non-engaged theory of mind and art institution. She does best in her attempt to relate works such as Thomas Hirschhorn’s work Cavemanman. The work is described as a way of trying to structure the viewer’s mind as in a cave with cavities ”where you put something inside, with garbage, with unspeakable things.”. Sure Hirschhorn knows that he he working with metaphors, but I have a hard time seeing his cave metaphor pared with Hegel’s theory of absolute mind how this is more than a naive attempt at talking about the brain through an established artistic practice. Sorry Hirschhorn!

Much more intriguing is psychologist Susan Blackmore’s text “Mysteries of the Mind”. In it she makes interesting (although no ground-breaking) points on the mind-body problem, as seen through the artifacts in a contemporary art exhibition.  Other artists in the exhibition include Pipilotti Rist, Mark Manders and Yoshitomo Nara.

If you are going anywhere this artsy summer, should be via London.

First coming to popular notice in 1975 in the book Life After Life, by Dr. Raymond Moody, who  also founded the Association for the Scientific Study of Near-Death Phenomena in 1977, near death experiences, or NDEs, are a class of subjective phenomena often experienced by those who are close to dying, but are revived or recover. More extensive research since then has corroborated many of his findings.

In a 1982 Gallup poll, one in 7 Americans had escaped death, and about 1 in 20 reported an NDE. Another Gallup poll taken during the early 1990s indicates some 8 million Americans have reported having at least one.

Dr. Fred Shoonmaker, chief of cardiovascular services at St. Luke’s hospital in Denver studied NDEs for over a decade and published his results in 1979. Out of 2,300 cases in his study, some 60% had reported NDEs.

Dr. Michael Sabom, a cardiologist in Atlanta investigated some 78 people who had nearly died, with 42% reporting an ‘ideal’ or ‘complete’ NDE.

In a detailed study by Dr. Kenneth Ring, a Psychologist in Connecticut, hospital records and news events featuring some 162 people whose lives had been threatened showed about 50% having an NDE. He classified NDEs into five stages, with the earlier stages having the highest frequency of occurrence:

• Peace and a Sense of Well-Being: 60%
• Separation from one’s Body: 37%
• Entering a Place of Darkness: 23%
• Seeing a Bright Light: 16%
• Entering a Place of Light: 10%

Dutch physician Pim van Lommel, and colleagues Ruud van Wees, Vincent Meyers and Ingrid Elfferich, in a prospective study published in the British medical journal Lancet, in 2001, investigated 344 patients immediately after suffering a heart attack, and to gauge the long-term effects, did follow-ups 2 and 8 years later. Only 18% reported an NDE. They found that the occurrence of an NDE was unrelated to the period of unconsciousness, length of the heart attack, or by fear of death. The depth of the experience, however was affected by sex (women reported more deep NDEs than men), the place of revival (resuscitation outside of the hospital was more likely to trigger a deep NDE), and by fear of death.

Stage 2, The out-of-body experience or OBE, is the feeling of departing from the physical body, and observing oneself as if outside of it. This is common during such states as dreaming, daydreaming, lucid dreaming, stress, seizures, meditation, exhaustion, and while under the effects of drugs such as hallucinogens. Drugs such as ketamine can induce an OBE, and during the Vietnam War was used as an anesthetic in the field. It caused a patient subjected to it to so dissociate themselves from their bodies that it enabled doctors to easily perform surgery, but its use was discontinued when too many solders were having OBEs as a result of its effects. We are homing in on the parts of the brain that cause these events. There are portions of the brain which give one the sensation of being in one’s body, which when disrupted by magnetic and pharmaceutical stimulation produce the feeling of leaving it, and most of the features of an NDE, such as OBEs, can even now be induced artificially.

it is of note that the so-called ‘core’ experiences of an NDE are universal across cultures: the NDEs of Indian swamis are not substantially different from those of Westerners, according to psychologists Karlis Osis and Erlendur Haraldsson.

One hypothesis of this class of phenomena is that NDEs are evidence of the survival of a ’soul’ or ‘psyche’ after the death of the physical body, and the first line of evidence used to support this claim are those alleged memories of events dating from a period of, and I quote, “no brain activity,” memories of so-called veridical experiences.

There are two problems with this:

First, its difficult to completely validate that there is no brain activity going on, even, and especially with electroencephalograph (EEG)equipment, as the equipment is not, even if used by an expert, always sensitive enough or set to the proper gain to reliably verify the lack of brain function in the patient. An EEG can only pick up activity in the outermost areas of the brain, and brain activity can be happening at such a deep level that surface electrodes simply don’t pick it up. This is one of the reasons that in many parts of the U.S., an EEG scan is not considered a reliable source of documentation for brain death, even if brain-stem reflexes are checked, which is not totally reliable either. Absence of evidence for apparent brain function is not conclusive proof of absent brain function. Then again, nothing in science can be proven conclusively, only beyond a rational doubt.

Second, even with minimal brain activity, when no memories are being formed, someone recovering from this state can report memories upon awakening that they feel date to the time of cardiac arrest.

After a period of no activity, the brain recovers, not just within moments, but often after hours or days, depending on how long CPR took, during which the patient is delirious and confused. It is during this period that the patient often does not have a good sense of time, often remembering something that took place then, but mistakenly thinking that it dates from immediately after they lost consciousness or after cardiac arrest, thus these are not reliable indicators of any memory formation during brain non-functionality.

The dualist/soul hypothesis is easy to prove. Some hospitals have messages or numbers written in spots above the operating room, usually chandeliers, that can only be seen from the vantage point of the ceiling, that would be clearly seen in a ‘real’ OBE, yet no one ever has ever mentioned these, and many who regularly have recreational OBEs have been challenged to go to some place that they claim they can, and determine what’s inside a box specifically hidden for this purpose, which should be trivial, but is typically never done.

Many claim to have an OBE during surgery and watch the procedure while under the knife, and supposedly recall information that they could only know if they were aware. This sort of claim is common, but has never been documented in a way to rule out memory contamination from the recovery period, things suggested to them, things that they infer which are likely to have happened, what people would imagine to have happened, etc. Many report seeing personnel in the operating room during the OBE, but this is not reliable either, as they could have been visited by those conducting the operation during the recovery period, seen them during a previous visit to the hospital, passed them in the hall, saw them behind a desk. During the operation, especially in a teaching hospital, the personnel in the operating room would name each other and detail the procedure to the students, details which could be heard by the patient. Hearing is the last sense to be lost in an NDE, and even in blind patients, the verbal descriptions gained by hearing can be rendered into visual images (memories gained from a time they were sighted…)and rendered back into words while giving their accounts. As for patients born blind, switch the rendering into visual images with auditory ones; verbal description directly to auditory memory back to verbal account. Simply put, the brain maps itself to the use it is put to, and those who have never seen anything in their lives have never had the opportunity to develop the visual cortex of the brain because they have never used it. Even if the functionality of the eyes could be somehow acquired, it is not possible for one who has never had sight in his life to describe visual input during an alleged hospital OBE; He wouldn’t know what he was describing, as the cognitive frame of reference is just not there.

After examining all of the major studies, Susan Blackmore, the world’s leading expert on OBEs concluded:

All these experiments were aimed at finding out whether subjects could see a distant target during an OBE [out-of-body experience]. At best there are a very few properly controlled experiments (some critics would say, none) which have provided unequivocal evidence that a subject could detect anything by other than normal means. Although the experimental OBE may differ from the spontaneous kind, a simple conclusion is possible from the experimental studies. That is, OBE vision, if it occurs, is extremely poor.

It seems that the experimental evidence gathered to date does not show beyond a rational doubt that one can obtain information about physical reality during an OBE.

Another feature of an NDE used as evidence for the soul hypothesis, are the transformative effects of the event on the personality on the one having it. But there is a problem even with this: reading a piece of good fiction can also change one’s personality, but this does not mean that the characters read about are real. Merely because the profound effects of NDEs on the personality are real, and they are, it does not logically follow that NDEs imply the existence of a literal ’soul’ that can exist independently of the body.

The soul hypothesis has other difficulties:

The ’soul’ seems to have a location in space, as many OBEers report floating around rooms and traveling through walls. It also seems to have a shape, usually discernible as human, and so is not completely nonphysical. Anything with physical properties should be detectable, but all attempts to do this have failed, even using ultraviolet and infrared sensors, magnetometers, thermistors, etc. None have succeeded.

If the soul is physical, it should be detectable, which it is not, and if not physical, it cannot have a definite shape or location in space, which it is reported to have. So far, all the dualistic/soul hypothesis tells us is that something, we don’t know what, gets information, we don’t know how, and goes someplace, we don’t know where. Not a very informative hypothesis.

The soul hypothesis is also contradicted by over 200 years of findings by psychologists concerning the huge amount of data that directly correlates events and processes of the mind with brain activity. Neurophysiologist Barry Beyerstein has listed a few compelling examples of this.

• Phylogenetic: the evolutionary relationship between a species’ cognitive abilities and brain complexity…
• Developmental: the emergence of abilities with brain maturation; mental development is impaired with the brain’s failure to mature…
• Clinical: brain damage from toxins, accident, nutritional deprivation, infection, or stimulation during development predictably resulting in largely irreversible loss of mental function…
• Experimental: the operation of the mind correlating with electrical, biochemical, biomagnetic, and anatomical changes in the brain; when stimulated electrically or chemically, movements, perceptions, memories and appetites are brought into being like those arising from normal activation of the same cells…
• Experiential: Various natural and synthetic substances act chemically upon brain cells, as shown by the recreational value of nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, LSD, cocaine, and marijuana, which would be as pleasant as blowing soap bubbles if this were not so…

While this does not by itself dictate the definitive truth of a neurological hypothesis for NDEs, it is more parsimonious than the soul hypothesis, and more fruitful in terms of its research productivity as well as accounting nicely for a wide range of phenomena in light of a lack of credible counter-evidence.

The Psychoneural Identity Theory, or just Identity Theory, is not the only possible one, but it explains the available data better than any other so far. It is more parsimonious than a dualistic theory because it doesn’t assume the existence of anything immaterial, more productive because it has predicted a good number of new phenomena, and since it explains the production of mental states in entirely physical terms, it covers a wider range of observed phenomena.

Another hypothesis, that NDEs are recollections of the birth experience, was originally put forth by psychologists Stanislov Grof and Joan Halifax. This one would seem to account for the universality of NDEs. It has been discredited by studies of infant cognition, which show that the brains of newborns are not developed enough to allow them to form memories of the particular details of their birth. Second, infants’ faces are pressed against the birth canal and they don’t see anything until they have emerged from the uterus. Thirdly, it doesn’t account for those individuals born by caesarean section who have NDEs involving emerging into a place of light from a tunnel. Susan Blackmore did a survey involving 254 people, of whom 36 were born by caesarean section and found that they were just as likely to experience a tunnel phenomenon during an NDE as someone who wasn’t.

A third hypothesis is that NDEs are hallucinations caused by chemical reactions in the brain, though given their often powerful transformative effects, I would hasten to say not mere hallucinations. This hypothesis derives from the fact that certain drugs can produce events identical to those of near-death survivors, and is held by a number of investigators. Psychologist Ron Siegel has discovered that all of the core elements of an NDE can brought about by way of drugs. He hypothesizes that the process of being near death induces the production of chemicals by the brain that causes the experience.

However the most evident problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn’t explain the universality of the experience, since drugs can produce a huge range of different hallucinations, and the ones they induce heavily depend on the conditions of environment and expectation. Why not a gate, doorway, or the River Styx? Why a tunnel? Why always above the body and not below it? The point is, we don’t have a clear idea of what chemicals are involved or why they produce just those effects. The idea of cerebral anoxia causing the production of these chemicals doesn’t work, because the hallucinations often brought about by documented cases of oxygen loss to the brain are different than those of a NDE. That, and those who experience cerebral anoxia and recover recognize their hallucinations as just that: they are not as compelling as an NDE.

A fourth hypothesis, thankfully the last in this already long post, has been proposed by Susan Blackmore: that NDEs are the result of the brain attempting to construct a stable model of reality after normal sources of input have been cut off. She proposes that to better comprehend NDEs, we need to understand the ways in which our brains tell illusion from reality, and by illusion, I don’t mean “mere” illusion. Our brains process information, and do this to make sense of what input they get by constructing our perception, our models, of reality. What we assume to be real at any particular instant is the most stable model available, that which has the most matches to the available data. When near death, these models become unstable, and the brain tries to make due with whatever we have.

One bennie to this hypothesis is that it considers the seeming reality of NDEs, as we take to be real whatever is the most stable memory model at a given time. This accounts for the profound transformational ability of these experiences, as at the time, they seem real… and extraordinary. Other features of NDEs can be accounted for by invoking brain physiology, such as the production of endorphins in response to stress to explain the feeling of peace and well-being often accompanying these experiences. That, and brain activity can be inhibited by way of clusters of neurons, which, when this inhibition is reduced (as with NDEs), then brain activity increases, and increases in activity of the visual cortex can produce noise that causes the tunnel experience. This biochemical activity can account for the universality of the experience, since they originate from the same general sort of brain chemistry possessed by all human beings.

This last hypothesis is also more parsimonious and reserved than the dualist/soul hypothesis, is at least as such as the other hypotheses, AND its assumptions don’t contradict what we know of brain physiology and function. It would seem to my troythuluness that this last is, for the present time, the best explanation for this fascinating family of cognitive phenomena. Fnord.

We wpisie z 27 grudnia ub. roku dramatycznie wołałem: „Wiadomo dlaczego ewoluują gatunki, ale co z kulturą?” Byłem wtedy świeżo po lekturze książki „Homo przypadkiem Sapiens” Konrada Fiałkowskiego i Tadeusza Bielickiego, gdzie wyłożono, jak i dlaczego wyewoluował człowiek ze swoim wielkim i sprawnym mózgiem: stało się tak, ponieważ pra-Homo ewoluował jako drapieżnik pozyskujący mięso przez doprowadzenie zwierzyny do śmierci z przegrzania, czyli prosto mówiąc przez zagonienie na śmierć. Ale żeby samemu przy tym zajęciu nie wymrzeć, “sporządził” sobie ewolucyjnie mózg odporny na przegrzanie, a to dzięki temu, że wszystkie obwody i połączenia neuronów zostały zwielokrotnione. Tak przebudowany mózg okazał się, przypadkiem, być dobrym narzędziem dla języka i kultury.
Ewolucja biologiczna tłumaczy się prosto: pewne geny szybciej rozmnażają swoich nosicieli niż inne. Ale jaki mechanizm leży u podstaw ewolucji kultur? Bo jasne jest, że tu same geny nie wystarczą. Tymczasem hasło tłumaczące ten napęd znałem już: brzmi ono: mem. Teraz wpadła mi dopiero w ręce, spóźniona, bo po 10 latach od wydania oryginału i po 7 latach od polskiego przekładu, książka Susan Blackmore (zob. też tu) „Maszyna memowa”.
Memy replikują się, są one drugim – dodatkowym po genach – istniejącym na Ziemi replikatorem. Memy konkurują o zasoby, w tym, bardzo bezpośrednio, o zasoby naszych mózgów: o naszą pamięć i motywację. Memy motywują ludzi do działania. Memy rozpowszechniają się przez naśladowanie, a człowiek okazuje się być przede wszystkim zwierzęciem naśladującym – to jest to, co go odróżnia od całej reszty.
Jeśli gdzieś bardzo zgodzę się z rozpoznaniami Susan Blackmore lub przeciwnie, zaprotestuję, podzielę się tym tu. (Niech mem się propaguje.)
Wojciech Jóźwiak

Susan Blackmore estuda memética, o conceito de que ideias (memes) teriam vida própria que se reproduziriam da cabeça de uma pessoa para a outra competindo entre elas pela sobrevivência da mais forte, assim como os genes.

Pensamentos são parasitas. Não foi a Susan que pensou em falar, nem eu que pensei em postar, muito menos foi você que pensou em clicar. Foi o meme que veio se hospedar nas nossas cabeças.

A ideia de que memes passam de cabeça em cabeça é um meme. Todas as outras ideias, símbolos e práticas culturais também são memes. Pelo menos essa é a teoria.

Daí ela fala em temes, que seriam memes de tecnologia. Mas esse é um meme que eu acho que não vai vingar.

O termo meme foi cunhado por Richard Dawkins, autor de Deus, um delírio e O gene egoísta (Companhia das Letras), embora o conceito parece que já existisse antes. Esse cara me passa a imagem de um ateu dogmático - o que não deixa de ser uma forma de fundamentalismo religioso – mas a ideia da memética me pegou.  

Em inglês, com legendas em inglês ou espanhol. 

Via: TED

Susan Blackmore analiza los memes en las TED talks. Se trata de ideas que se replican a sí mismas de una mente a otra como un virus. Expone un nuevo y audaz argumento: la humanidad ha engendrado una nueva clase de meme, el teme, que se disemina a sí mismo por medio de la tecnología e inventa nuevas formas para mantenerse vivo. Ojalá lo disfruten:

Vision 1: In letzter Zeit quassel ich ihr die Birne voll, ich möchte unbedingt einen Haushaltsroboter, der unser aller Alltagsleben erleichtert. Denn mit dem anhaltenden Fortschritt der Technik gibt es ja eigentlich keinen Grund mehr, warum ich meinen (noch nicht so fetten, aber das kommt noch) Arsch bewegen sollte, um mir einen Tee zu machen, oder um den Geschirrspüler aufzufüllen, oder die Wäsche zu waschen, oder überhaupt irgend eine manuelle Arbeit zu verrichten. Klar könnte man statt eines Roboters auch eine menschliche Haushalthilfe anstellen, aber denen haftet leider das Problem an, dass sie – wie soll ich sagen – dass sie eben Menschen sind. Und Menschen haben Rechte (die ich hier auf gar keinen Fall in Frage stellen will!) und einen eigenen Charakter, und das macht die Sache dann wieder viel zu kompliziert und teuer.Ich möchte in meiner Freizeit viel lieber nur noch die angenehmen Dinge des Lebens tun. Surfen, TV schauen, lesen, vielleicht ein Buch schreiben oder wenigstens ein Blog, miteinander was unternehmen (ja klar, auch das, woran Ihr grad denkt), reisen, spazieren, wandern, radfahren usw. Und wenn wir grad dabei sind: Ich möchte auch viel mehr Freizeit, denn die Technik erleichtert uns ja auch die Arbeit (sollte sie zumindest), so dass wir heute in acht Stunden genauso viel erledigen können wie anno Grossvater in zwölf. Und das, was wir heute in acht Stunden am Tag erledigen, können ständig intelligenter werdende Maschinen uns dann hoffentlich auch einmal abnehmen, so dass die Menschheit gar nicht mehr arbeiten muss und das ganz ohne Verlust von Wohlstand (den uns die Maschinen ja freundlicherweise her- und zur Verfügung stellen).

Das ist meine bevorzugte Vision. Und die Leute arbeiten ja (jetzt mit Hilfe ihrer Maschinen) auch alle fleissig daran, dass wir immer mehr Freizeit für uns selbst haben. Mir ist schon klar, dass die Vision auch einen Haken hat. Die zeitliche Abfolge dieser Entwicklung ist zum Beispiel ein bisschen ein Problem. Wir sind nicht von heute auf morgen in Karl Marx’ Welt von „Morgens fischen, mittags jagen, abends kritischer Kritiker sein“. Eine menschliche Arbeiten nach der anderen verschwindet. Früher muss es wohl ein Heer von Strassenfegern gegeben haben, heute gibt es in jeder Stadt noch ein paar Arbeiter, die in ihren Strassenfeg-Vehikeln herumcruisen so die Strasse reinigen. Viel effizienter, aber der rest des Heeres, das früher die Strassen reinigte, hat, wenn überhaupt, jetzt eine andere Arbeit.

Gleichzeitig mit dem Wegfall von Arbeit in alten Bereichen (eben z.B. Strassenreinigung) entsteht ja (vorübergehend) Arbeit in neuen Bereichen (etwa im High-Tech-Bereich). Doch die Fähigkeiten, welche die Strassenreiniger mitbringen, könnten allenfalls unpassend sein für die Arbeit, die entstanden ist. Und wenn man davon ausgeht, dass insgesamt immer weniger menschlicher Input nötig ist, dann bräuchten die überzähligen Strassenreiniger ja auch gar nicht mehr auf Jobsuche gehen. Sie wären dann einfach die ersten glücklichen, welche die Früchte des Fortschritts in ihrer absolutesten Form geniessen dürfen. Will heissen: Die entlassenen Strassenreiniger sollen weiterhin ihren vollen Lohn erhalten, auch wenn man sie nicht mehr braucht. Denn ihre Arbeit, d.h. der früher von ihnen geschaffene Wohlstand, wird ja immer noch in gleicher Qualität erledigt. Niemand müsste also einen Verlust hinnehmen, wenn die Technik Arbeit überflüssig macht.

Doch die Gesellschaft funktioniert leider nicht so, und verständlicherweise möchten diejenigen Strassenreiniger, die nun in ihren Strassenreinigungs-Fahrzeugen die Stadt unsicher machen, dafür belohnt werden, dass sie immer noch ihre Freizeit opfern für die Öffentlichkeit, im Gegensatz zu jenen, die jetzt ihre Frührente geniessen. So ganz ohne Konflikte und soziale Reformen (Stichwort Umverteilung) wird der Übergang in die Welt totaler Freizeit also nicht ablaufen, aber früher oder später sollten wir mit, sagen wir, einer halben Stunde Entscheidungsarbeit pro Tag durchkommen. Den Rest können die Maschinen übernehmen. Die Entscheidungsarbeit ist der Kern dessen, was der Mensch bis in alle Ewigkeit wird leisten müssen. Wenn er auch diese Arbeit abdelegiert, landen wir auf direktem Weg in…

…Vision 2. Terminator kennt ihr alle ja? Die Geschichte der Maschinen, die sich selbständig machen und die Menschheit auszurotten beginnen, genau. Und dass das total abwegiger Schwachsinn ist, wissen wir ja alle. Ausser…Überlegt Euch mal folgendes: Ich schreibe gerade diesen Beitrag hier, inspiriert durch jenen Beitrag dort. Will heissen: Ein Stück digitale Information (ein Mem) hat mich als Replikator benutzt, um sich weiter verbreiten zu können. Memen sind aber im heutigen Web gar nicht mehr unbedingt darauf angewiesen, dass eine lebende Person sie weiter kopiert.

Sie brauchen den Menschen noch, damit jemand sie repariert, wenn sie kaputt sind, und damit Strom fliesst. Beides ist aber grundsätzlich denkbar ohne Menschen. Das heisst, wenn wir Menschen effektiv daran arbeiten, unsere eigene Arbeit demnächst einmal überflüssig zu machen, damit wir nur noch müssig nach Lust und Laune durchs Leben wandern können, dann brauchen nicht nur wir uns nicht mehr, sondern auch die Maschinen kommen ab diesem Zeitpunkt ohne uns aus. Denen kann es dann egal sein, ob man die Luft auf dem Planeten noch atmen kann, oder ob es was zu essen gibt. Es geht noch weiter: Was keinen einsehbaren Nutzen hat, wird mit der Zeit sogar lästig. Was, wenn ein menschlicher Müssiggänger zum Beispiel den Spleen entwickelt, in seiner Freizeit die maschinell kontrollierte Stromversorgung zu sabotieren? Das könnte ich als Maschine jedenfalls nie akzeptieren. Ich weigere mich jetzt, an Vision 2 weiter zu denken.

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

Viene de la Parte 4

Fuente: The Edge

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

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Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

Viene de la Parte 3

… Continua en la Parte 5

Fuente: The Edge

Fuente: Kris Davos (Flickr)

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Fuente: Fractal Recursions

La primera parte de este conjunto de interesantes leyes, se puede consultar aquí

(Esto no es pesimismo, sino realismo, una analogía ampliada de la segunda ley de la termodinámica.)

Por ejemplo:
Cerebro-Mente
Mente-Cuerpo
Emoción-Razón
Natural-Adquirido
Nosotros-Ellos
Recuerda siempre que es fácil estar en posesión de alguna explicación, pero extraordinariamente dificil conocer la verdad.


… Continúa en la Parte 3…

Fuente: The Edge

Fuente: Flickr, KrisDavos

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Listen here (listener discretion advised)

A little consciousness chat with Susan Blackmore

A little message from Kentie and his lies

Help me clean the bath whilst I review what’s going on with winter, work, and the U.S. economy

A hymn from the Church of the SubGenius

A little dance mix from Christian Bale

A little message from John of the Deep Forest (and Kentie)

Defending my musical choices and a little mention about Brian

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