Waking Life

[HippiexEyes]

Hey man, how's everyone doing? Well, I'm pretty sure a majority of participants in this forum have seen this film "Waking Life" at one time or another.  If not, an overview can be found at: http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gte484v/wakinglife.html

Anyways.. This may be slightly off topic but I've been thinking about evolution quite a bit recently. Referred back to a quote one character in this movie says.

Which is:

"If you're looking at the highlights of human development, you have to look at the evolution of the organism, and then add the development of the interaction with its environment. Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life, proceeding through the hominid, coming to the evolution of mankind: neanderthal, cro-magnon man. Now, interestingly, what you're looking at here are three strains: biological, anthropological (development of cities, cultures), and cultural (which is human expression). Now, what you've seen here is the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time-scale that's involved here: two billion years for life, six million years  for the hominid, a hundred-thousand years for mankind as we know it, you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm. And then, when you get to agriculture, when you get to the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution, you're looking at ten thousand years, four hundred years, a hundred and fifty years. You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's going to telescope to the point that we should see it manifest itself within our lifetimes, within a generation. The new evolution stems from information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog. The digital is artificial intelligence; The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism, and you knit the two together with neurobiology. Before, under the old evolutionary paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But, under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive, non-competitive grouping independent from the external. Now what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually-centered process eminating from the needs and desires of the individual, and not an external process, a passive process, where the individual is just at the whim of the collective.

So, you produce a neo-human with a new individuality, a new consciousness. But, that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new intelligence. As intelligence pods on intelligence, as abilty pods on ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until you reach a crescendo. In a way, it could be imagined as an almost instantaneous fulfillment of human, human and neo-human, potential. It could be something totally different. It could be the amplification of the individual...the multiplication of individual existences, parallel existences, now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space. And the manifestations of this neo-human type evolution could be dramatically counter-intuitive; That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold, it's sterile, it's efficient. And, it's manifestations are those social adaptations. We're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, war, predation. These will be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of the new evolution, and that is what we would hope to see from this, that would be nice."

I personally think this quote is amazingly phrased, well worded and very intruiging. Very accurate in the observations of evolution in it's entirety.

Was just wondering what people's personal thoughts and ideas on what the progression of this evolution is looking like.."parasitism, dominance, morality, war, predation. These will be subject to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty, of justice, of freedom". Do you agree? Or is the outcome of evolution dependant on the physical being destroyed? Would love knowing your thoughts..

[Telos]

That quote is a very rough introduction of the fields of study named transhumanism and posthumanism ("neo-human" is a much lesser used variation). If you're interested in reading more, you can find a wealth of literature under these subject headings. In particular, a computer scientist named Ray Kurzweil (also at http://www.kurzweilai.net) named what the speaker above called "telescoping evolution" as the "law of accelerating returns." This idea, however, was previously and still popularly referred under something known as the technological singularity. If you follow that link you will see that the evolution of paradigms, which you were referring to before, follow a uniform power series, displayed on a logarithmic graph.

It has also been pejoratively referred to as "Rapture for nerds."

Do I agree with that last quote? I think so. The real test for me is to see if education systems reform themselves to allow more freedom and self-direction on part of the student. At all levels. Subsequently, the next test, pending that one's success, will be to give children more rights. In America there is a rising trend in the number of public Montessori schools and the Youth Rights movement has had some media attention, which is better than none. So I'm optimistic.

People speak of truth, loyalty, justice, and freedom, and seem to completely ignore the crimes against these we commit everyday to our children.  

That said, Welcome to the forum! If you suspect that others in the forum may have already discussed the topic you're thinking of, please use the search function above. Waking Life was a popular subject for a while, and you'll find that I really didn't like it. ;)

[HippiexEyes]

Hey Telos, yeah being a newbie isnt so great because people wont always reply to your posts, which is disappointing. With that said, thanks for replying anyway. I appreciate your links and background information on the subjects as well. =) Never even thought to look in the search.. thanks for that too, found some interesting topics.

I am working from the same mindframe as you are in this subject. On one hand it looks like society is progressing into something amazing with technology advancements, metaphysics, the new age movement, practices such as yoga and mediation becomming "trends", philosophies becomming studies, paradigm shifts and the like. Yet, on the other hand it would appear that society is simply "rolling with the punches" , letting it destroy itself one step at a time.  Democracy being practiced every four years with a tally of a vote? Life being measured on the financial and educational advancements of students?

We all acknowledge the power in a willing spirit. The beauty that radiates from children. We will all ultimately agree that these kids are our future, they are our light. But how do we go about recognizing this? We shelter them!! We dont let them grow with the greatest possibilities. Instead of giving them the information that can allow them be self aware, we hide it from them. We dont go into elaboration of parenting techniques with the very kids WHO ARE BEING PARENTED.  Teachings of religious beleif, sexual morality(though good in intent) all prevent the individual from the power of choice.. The power for one to think for themselves. All thats presented is one sided information. We dont recognize teens as influencial, heck society sees them as a threat, as harmful. Yet, we know that the teen years are the greatest time for developing self awareness.. Do we cater to this, cultivate it? No.. we place limitations on them.. and guess what? Oh my god, rebellion!  These kids are going to be voting at the next election but oh well, send them to boarding school.. and watever you do, just make sure they dont knock over my garden nomes!

I find it hard to believe that those with morality and comprehension of what will benefit our world will be so submissive when it comes to the collective. And to quote one of my old but not very bright friends "Sometimes you gotta put up with the bad things in the world to survive". Do these people not recognize that  this is the root of the problem? Mentality of "oh well its not affecting me" ..flippin through the news paper "OMG, a flood.. the biggest natural diaster in American History..Jeez thats harsh.... I wonder wats going on in the sports section **flips pages*..

I find it pretty comical. Doesnt incline me to doubt things such as the prophecy of Nostradamus or Armageddon.  Although i hope for much more.

I find though with the right mentality and spiritual exploration (such as F10) whichever route evolution takes is seemingly less important. For those eternal will remain.

Questions still arise in mind though. If the physical simply destroyed itself, wouldnt it appear that the majority of souls would remain in places such as F23 and F24 and the like? Rigid to be removed because it resembles the physical so much?

Anyways, sorry for blabbing.. I'll leave it at that.

[Telos]

I can't help you with that last question. I've never been able to really follow the various focus models, although I consider them very good attempts and appreciate the efforts of their originators.

What you said about the garden gnomes really made me laugh, though. ;)

Why, just this Tuesday my macroeconomics professor was saying that the book we were using was very "student friendly," although not "completely" student friendly, because if you were completely student friendly then all students would do is party. And he was clearly a good-humored and well-meaning guy... so I had to hold back the insatiable need to launch a tirade against him.

"Students would put you out of a job, if you gave them a chance!" I'd have said!

[HippiexEyes]

lol True enough!

I think that the students should spark up a revolution and overthrow the teachers. =P

Dictatorship has never been my style