Tag: philosophy

After the Alarm: Artificial Intelligence, metacrisis, and societal collapse.

jembendell

The breakneck acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved the discourse on its benefits and perils from science fiction to boardroom and government-level concern. In the last few months there has been a series of articles by the BBC about AI trends and potential dystopias. One article was about how some leaders in AI are anticipating societal collapse and getting their bunkers ready. We also read that some ‘tech bros’ even want such a collapse, as their technotopian futures involve a break with life as we know it. One BBC article mentioned that the ‘AI Futures Project’ predicts AI may achieve ‘super intelligence’ by 2027 and then human extinction, or something like it, will occur within 5 years, via an AI deliberately engineering superbugs. Supposedly, it would do that after deciding that humans are a major problem without a remedy other than mass murder. I haven’t seen the authors of that study receive the kind of aggro I got since 2018 from predicting societal collapse due to climate change. Maybe that’s because we are used to sci-fi dramas where robots kill nearly everyone. But their prediction might be part of a ‘wake up call’ for wider societal engagement and responses to AI, so we might head off the worst scenarios. Maybe I’m naive, but these dystopias certainly woke me up a bit, and so here I am writing about AI and collapse. After the jolt, I read into the nature and scale of some risks, with the aim of exploring how people who want to behave well in these times of societal disruption and collapse — including myself — could use AI responsibly. That exploration is still ongoing. 

Continue reading “After the Alarm: Artificial Intelligence, metacrisis, and societal collapse.” →

Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation

jembendell

In a time of metacrisis, disruption and collapse, many of us yearn for deeper spiritual meaning but aren’t attracted to institutional religion. We also sense that growing recognition of humanity’s predicament could prompt a spiritual awakening, at least for some. This means many of us aren’t sure where to turn to find either advice or community, or to invite others together for that. That has been my situation. Personally, I have benefitted from Buddhist and Daoist philosophy and practice, nature-based Indigenous wisdom, and mystic strands of Christianity, as I shared in a ‘Buddha At The Gas Pump’ interview and now integrate into my music. I now want to go deeper and further with others. In the New Year, we launch the Metacrisis Mentors programme, where we will draw upon a variety of wisdom traditions to explore, in challenging times: what is mine to do and how am I to be? 

In January, we will announce more about the programme, which will be open to all members of the Metacrisis Meetings initiative. One of the key texts will be Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation by Reverend Stephen G. Wright. A former palliative nurse, academic, and ordained inter-faith minister, Dr. Wright has cultivated decades of wisdom at the intersection of caregiving, contemplation, and mystical inquiry. His voice is deeply rooted in the lived experience of guiding seekers and spiritual nomads — those who feel estranged from dogma but still feel the call of the sacred.

Continue reading “Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation” →

What the farmers say

jembendell

In my experience, it is rare to hear farmers from the Global South discussing their challenges and aspirations, and what might be useful support to receive from successful restaurateurs and resort owners. That’s why I’m delighted to release a short film that brings you the voices of organic and regenerative farmers in dialogue with others in the food business sector in Bali, Indonesia. 

After 2 years of operation as a demonstration farm, school, and event space for organic and regenerative agriculture, at Bekandze Farm we hosted a meeting of organic farmers, distributors, NGOs and food retailers. The participants discussed why organic farming is such a small part of agriculture in Bali, despite the opportunities provided by the environment and the visitor economy. After discussing the challenges, we explored potential solutions for scaling organic farming on the island, and more widely in Indonesia. Achieving that would help all the people on the island, as it would increase their food security by decreasing dependence on agrochemicals. In that sense, organic and regenerative methods of farming are also methods of collapse preparedness, or practical Deep Adaptation. 

Continue reading “What the farmers say” →

Science has not proven there is no free will – almost the contrary

jembendell

This essay is the first in a series on aspects of free will and consciousness, and the implications for how we live in a metacrisis that, understandably, challenges our assumptions, beliefs and emotions. In this essay, I show how the increasingly popularised view that science has disproved relative free will is actually neither true nor scientific. I then explore other forms of knowledge on the matter. Thanks, Jem (PS: this is not written by AI ;-).

Science has not proven there is no free will – almost the contrary. 

In the last few years, you might have casually seen a few science magazines, or heard the commentary of a YouTuber or Tiktoker, and assumed that many people now think that science has proven there is no free will. If you have more than a passing interest, you might have noticed new books, from major publishers, which claim the matter is concluded – there is no free will and we can be grateful for it. A widely-quoted author on the topic, Robert Sapolsky states, “we are nothing more or less than cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control.”[1] Possible reasons and implications of an increase in the volume of arguments against free will is something I’ll explore in the second essay in this series on free will, consciousness and philosophy in an era of ‘metacrisis’ and societal collapse. In my book Breaking Together, I advance a freedom-based response to the predicament of humanity as an alternative to the various strands of either panicked authoritarianism or numbed disengagement. Therefore, the matter of whether freedom exists at all is rather important. In the book I included a brief discussion of the nature and existence of free will [2]. That was before the uptick in content claiming that our thoughts, feelings and actions were predetermined since the moment of the big bang (which is not a flippant summary of ‘determinism’). In response, with a series of essays, I will go deeper into the sciences, philosophy and social sciences on the matter. That is because this is not a mere intellectual and unending discussion; rather, it has very real ramifications for whether powerful people will accelerate the damage to humanity and the environment – and how we might organise ourselves for better outcomes.

Continue reading “Science has not proven there is no free will – almost the contrary” →

Gatecrashing Quantum Physics

jembendell1 Comment

When ChatGPT first launched there was a panic in some parts of academia about how it could be used to write essays, and academic papers, and therefore con the processes of assessment. At the time I proposed some ways of addressing that, by inviting more attention to personal experiences in the process of sensemaking and evaluation [0]. As AI has improved, I became aware it could break down the barriers of intellectual disciplines to newcomers. In addition, it could help bridge and even integrate different schools of thought, which are often separated by their respective jargons. So today I played with it on a topic I had a casual interest in over 20 years ago – quantum physics. Back then I read about the ‘double slits’ experiment, where photons of light are directed at a barrier with two slits with a detector screen behind. Instead of two bands of light, an interference pattern appears on the screen, as if the photons had travelled together as a wave. However, when observed midway by a detector, those photons cumulatively create two bands of light, not an interference pattern. It was theorised as demonstrating quantum superposition and the observer effect in collapsing possibilities into physical reality. At the time I thought that superposition could be temporal not just spatial, but did not find anyone writing about that. Perhaps my hunch was because I’d recently read Hagen’s ‘Buddhism Plain and Simple’ [1], and was reflecting on how a fundamental unity of existence must involve time as well as space. But I had just started working at the UN and wasn’t going to deviate from my vocation on the environment, so dropped my interest. Last week I was reminded of the topic when I read there are new explanations about how time does not operate in a unidirectional past-present-future manner at the quantum scale [2]. I don’t know any practising theoretical physicists at the moment, so an AI chatbot helped me have a bit of fun in revisiting my idea about the temporal superposition of photons. The full chat follows below [3]. It was interesting how I needed to accept some of the suggestions but not others in order to progress the initial idea. It was also a salutary reminder that, after I concluded the chat, I used ‘old fashioned’ web search and found a discussion of temporal superposition theory last year [4], with similarities that had been overlooked by the AI. That is a reminder of the need for discernment during an AI chat and cross-referencing with other information. Ultimately, there is a need for experts in the field to check whether there are any major oversights or misunderstandings. Therefore, a word of warning: I am not a physicist, so take these ideas with a bucket of salt. I’ll leave the comments open, in case there’s a quantum physicist seeing this post. If you aren’t bothered with this topic, skip it, as more normal stuff comes from me soon. In any case, you could take this as an inspiration to scratch your own intellectual itch, gatecrash a discipline, and autodidact your way into new areas of knowledge!

Continue reading “Gatecrashing Quantum Physics” →

Collapsis – a public health emergency of international concern

jembendell

There is now significant evidence of an ongoing breakdown of industrial consumer societies, worldwide, due to hitting natural limits and internal contradictions. As this is a painful realisation, many experts avoid saying it publicly, while the mainstream media have been ignoring it. Nevertheless, opinion polls reveal that most people know something is seriously wrong, as we have been experiencing years of disruption, degradation and decline. Consequently, a new epidemic is taking hold, which offers a distraction from the worry and pain. As this ‘Collapsis’ may soon become a ‘public health emergency of international concern’, here I’ll describe what is currently known about it 😉 

Collapsis is the novel psychological condition of believing illogical ideas to explain the unfolding breakdown of modern societies. Collapsis spreads like an infection, leading to disorientation and counterproductive responses, which might then accelerate the unfolding actual collapse of modern societies. There are already many variants of Collapsis, which will be superseded by new ones, due to the susceptibility of human hosts and the economic drivers behind spreading infection. In this blog I list fifteen variants I am already aware of.

Continue reading “Collapsis – a public health emergency of international concern” →

Crowd-sourcing philosophy on Facebook

jembendellLeave a comment

The power of crowd-sourcing information and ideas is proven by the power of wikipedia. New innovations in crowd sourcing include crowd funding, for instance for the movie Age of Stupid.

I decided to have a crack at this for something quite abstract, yet very important.

I have increasingly realised how easy it is for people to assume that one “thing” is “good” and become attached to that assumption in ways that lead to bad judgement. It happens a lot in the worlds of organisational and policy development. Examples in my field include cross-sector partnerships being seen as always good, or U process facilitation as always key, or government subsidy or regulation related to climate change as always good. Im a fan of each of these, but I’ve seen how assuming such things to always be good without understand context or intention, is a real problem. I realised this is something related to very deep themes around systems thinking and non-attachment. So, I thought I’d put the question out to my pals on facebook, to see how they could help me clarity these insights, so I could then communicate them more clearly in my advisory and writing.

Here are the preliminary results. If you can, please add in comments on this post, and Ill continue to crowd-source philosophy through wordpress!

The thread:

May 17th Facebook status: Jem is looking 4 egs or quotes 2 illustrate a problem of mistakenly thinking a practice or thing is itself “good”, rather than seeing it as good at a particular time due to its context-dependent effect & people’s intention behind it, so that no “thing” is good, except an intention & an ability to understand effects in cont…ext. The same thing in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing. Ideas?

Jerri Husch
read some of the early work in anthropology, ie. Clifford Geertz who talks about meaning creation. Or read some of Peter Berger and Luckmann’s stuff from the ’70’s who talk about action and the “social context of meaning creation”. They were the early ones to talk about how the “norms” of what is “good” and what is “bad” are based on the social context of the actors and objects….. 30+ years later they are still the best—-good luck with the work and would love to see what you come up with.
May 17 at 1:08am ·

Jem Bendell
thx. im not wanting to study it, simply to communicate this principle as simply as possible, and mention any classics e.g. from antiquity, that make the same point. any ideas?
May 17 at 1:24am ·

Jerri Husch
maybe check this out…..a good overview and maybe some quotes?http://books.google.com/books?id=kd3w_tWWeewC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=berger+and+luckmann+objectification&source=bl&ots=tDLpE3YYXZ&sig=SKkqJTkl-h092Mo7Z6UpiHRTLRs&hl=en&ei=IH_wS7DZLsP6lwef9dm1CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDsQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
May 17 at 1:32am ·

Trineesh Biswas
more neo-classical than classical, but economic governance in the uk and the us for most of the last thirty years has been marked by the notion that privatisation, deregulation, and market forces were always good and efficient, with insufficient case-by-case analysis.
May 17 at 9:45am ·

Linda Popova
A tip from a Classicist, though not necessarily easy to communicate…Read Derrida’s essay “Plato’s Pharmacy”, which, among other things, discusses the “betterness” of the spoken word over the written. It is essentially a discussion of Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus and the relationship between memory and writing. It is centered on the use of the word… See More ‘pharmakon’, which in ancient Greek means both remedy and poison. Socrates’ death by drinking the hemlock is hence said to be ambiguous: is it damnation or salvation? The Phaedrus itself makes use of two further myths – the myth of the cicadas and the myth of Theuth – to illustrate that point…Also of interest, on the ambiguity of mental concepts (metaphors) dependent on context, Lakoff’s and Johnson’s book Metaphors We Live By is a good primer, with less linguistic jargon than my first recommendation. Good luck. Fascinating subject. Would be curious to see your take on it. Best, L
May 17 at 9:46am ·

Linda Popova
p.s. And then, of course, there’s Kant’s take on the subject and my musings on the Patriot act (with which I am sure you will disagree), but nonetheless, you could use this as an example of divergent vs convergent thinking. Since science should be based on divergent mental models, i.e. competing hypotheses rather than scholarly dogma (convergent politics), I am happy to be in disagreement:-)

Late Night Thoughts on the Patriot Act: Size Matters


May 17 at 10:05am ·

Kate Tench
To raise the tone somewhat and spin netgative to positive – “Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day” Withnail & I (I believe it was “I”).
May 17 at 11:10am ·

Tiago Pinto-Pereira
“Knowledge is neither good nor bad, but man’s use of
it can be either good or bad.” Paraphrases a sentence i remember in my theory of knowledge course in high school. Not sure of the origin of this epistemological sentence.
May 17 at 1:01pm ·

Vicente Garcia-Delgado
The problem arises because we keep under the illusion that things are “things” when they are really “processes”. For example rather than saying “I am” we ought be saying “I become.” (try that for size…)
May 17 at 3:33pm ·

Jerri Husch
what a great conversation!! Thanks Jem et. al.!!!
May 17 at 4:24pm ·

John Manoochehri
Those are too complicated as examples.

Start with the original myth: the Midas touch. King Midas wanted gold, because it was his hearts desire, and was granted the wish that all he touched would become gold. He touched a tree and rejoiced at the golden tree. He touched his daughter – and then was distraught at the golden daughter. “The same thing… See More in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing.”

This story has at least two resonances: the problem of proxy-indicators of welfare, and the problem of the changed context.

One reason Midas liked gold, and the reason we like money, and consumer goods, is that they are ‘vehicles’ or welfare, they ‘carry’ welfare, but they are not in fact happiness or value themselves.

What happens all too often is that these vehicles of welfare, in particular when we get used to ‘storing’ them, as a way of holding over welfare into the future for example (e.g. by hoarding gold to buy more things in the future, banking money, etc), become ‘proxies’ of welfare, i.e. we see them as stand-ins for the welfare itself, and thereby, equivalent to the welfare itself, in the mind. The need to translate the proxy into the actual welfare recedes, and we become obsessed with money and object ownership, even while being unhappy!

Thus we are reminded “only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realise that we cannot eat money”. The child that has a hoop and a stick is happy, and the man with a house full of goods is sad, even if the house holds his old hoop and stick. “The same thing in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing.”

The other resonance is problem of changed context, where, not particularly because one’s concept of, or intention for, an object or action has changed (e.g. from an object as a vehicle of welfare, to an object as a proxy of welfare), but because the situation has changed, and thereby the welfare effect of the object or action has changed.

The hopeful boyfriend who brings a beautiful rose to his second date, shining with expectation that the girl will fall for his charms, but forgetting his girlfriend is allergic to roses; the father trembling down the stairs towards a disturbing noise, with a baseball bat clutched for protection, discovering it is just his child watching TV; the mythical king mistakenly turning to gold what he valued more than gold, more than anything – all of these are examples of an initial intended welfare effect of an object or action having quite the opposite effect (rose > love; rose > sickness; baseball bat > protection; baseball bat > threatening act; golden touch > more lovely gold things; golden touch > one less lovely daughter).

Or, as you put it. “The same thing in different contexts & with different intentions is not the same thing.”
May 17 at 11:05pm ·

Jem Bendell
im beginning to find a wonderful new use for facebook because of u guys! Hey, its funny how people think that someone having a midas touch is a good thing. Many people speak of a designer or ceo having a midas touch for a brand.. and yet.. the midas touch is a tragic story of greed and ignorance.
May 18 at 12:27am ·

Jem Bendell
ps: this has been such an interesting use of fb ill blog about it, so anyone else wanna chime in this week? all tips welcome.
May 18 at 12:28am ·

Vicente Garcia-Delgado
go ahead! “I am becoming” game!
May 18 at 12:31am ·