Episode 37: Reverse Engineering Enlightenment, Part 2
So last time we were taking a look at the perennial problems that are endemic to us precisely because of the functioning and structuring and development of our adaptive religio. The very processes that make us intelligently adaptive also make us vulnerable to self-deceptive, self-destructive behavior, and I propose to you that:
- we can address parasitic processing with a counteractive dynamical system
- we can address modal confusion by the cultivation of sati
- we can address the reflectiveness gap by the the cultivation of flow
- we can address absurdity by cultivating prajna
- we can address anxiety by cultivating inner dialogue by internalizing the sage through a process of internalization and indwelling that allows us to identify with the sage
- we can address the process of alienation through the cultivation of communitas
I mentioned to you some new sets of communal psychotechnologies that are emerging and people who are trying to develop thinking about how to make use of authentic relating, circling, or trying to break through our current cultural grammar to a form of authentic discourse and relating. So that's on offer.
We can respond to existential entrapment by the cultivation of gnosis, we can be empowered by a core capacity for realizing higher states of consciousness, so what you have is basically a higher state of consciousness that is empowering gnosis. That is of course sat within gnosis; as you remember I argued it has to be set within a proper ritual context. This is being used to cultivate and is being reflectively transformed by a counteractive dynamical system that is going to get you sets of practices for cultivating sati, cultivating flow, cultivating prajna, cultivating communitas, cultivating inner dialogue, etc.; when this is set in a wisdom framing so that comprehensively that person is developing interlocking sets of virtues for addressing self-deception and for affording self-optimization. This results in a reliable response, amelioration and alleviation of the perennial problems.
I would say that's enlightenment, at least, you know, an enlightenment that I'm trying to reverse-engineer; the components can each ultimately be explained and understood by our best cognitive science. I believe I've given you reasons that we can rationally hope that what needs to be done is to still try to articulate wisdom from a scientific perspective, and of course that is one of the most exciting things that's happening right now, something that I am privileged to participate in.
John Vervaeke has a lecture series on YouTube called Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. I thought it was great, so I'm arranging a lecture club to discuss it here on Less Wrong. The format is simple: each weekday I post a comment that's a link to the next lecture and the summary (which I plan on stealing from the recap at the beginning of the next lecture), and then sometimes comment beneath it with my own thoughts. If you're coming late (even years late!) feel free to join in, and go at whatever pace works for you.
(Who is John Vervaeke? He's a lecturer in cognitive science at the University of Toronto. I hadn't heard of him before the series, which came highly recommended to me.)
I split the lecture series into three parts: the philosophical, religious, and cultural history of humankind (25 episodes) related to meaning, the cognitive science of wisdom and meaning (20 episodes), and more recent philosophy related to the meaning crisis specifically (5 episodes). Each episode is about an hour at regular speed (but I think they're understandable at 2x speed). I am not yet aware of a good text version of the lectures; I also have some suspicion that some important content is not in the text itself, and so even if I transcribed them (or paid someone to) it'd still be worth watching or listening to it.
I think the subject matter is 1) very convergent with the sort of rationality people are interested in on LW, and 2) relevant to AI alignment, especially thinking about embedded agency.
Discussion: