Meaning of digital culture?
-
@psi said in Meaning of digital culture?:
@yerrag I haven't read Steiner's books. They're more up to date and less dogmatic than Abrahamic literature. Careful with false dichotomies. Materialism and reductionism are very useful for fixing machines, but fail miserably with living cells. Blindly opposing a mindset or a technique removes your ability to see other worlds. I am not very interested in what's divine. It's a mostly meaningless word for me. I often catch myself asking gods to help me, but realize how lame it is to be a beggar, so I just ask for a sign when I'm in a state of panic and severe stress. Sometimes the response is undeniable and swift (I saw weird spooky lights on a hike, but it turned out to be just the moon obstructed by vegetation). I thought I was gonna see aliens but the rigid forces of reason returned me back into the matrix. Ultimately the willpower, openness to accept good messages will machete a path through the jungle.
We're undeniably born into a world of material reductionists, and can't help but be one. It would just be like being born into a world of sugar being evil, only to slowly accepting it as good. But you have to be exposed, and to think about the other side of it, to suspend judgment, or revise your conviction, in order to widen your horizon.
I am tempted to kidnap you, and subject you to audio lectures of Steiner, and when you are released, you may wish to be kept longer in captivity.
Ray often writes in passing about the active field of life and how that idea is rejected by material reductionists, but that idea is valid and exploring more into it is not something I would consider out of my scope.
After all, when we talk about digital culture, it is very much about how information is put together and repackaged for dissemination into our minds. As to whether the digital intermediation makes us all the more enlightened and capable makes me question whether the material limitation of our exposure to ideas is enough. What we don't know enough of is not reason for rejection. Truths remain whether we know of them or not.
-
@yerrag I'm already in captivity called civilization. You're gonna give me food and shelter and I get to listen to a podcast? What's the catch? Haha
I don't understand what you mean by active field. I'm more interested in how the material substance affects the mind and spirit. Hormones are a great example of that. Why make a big distinction between physical and spiritual when the intersection of them is the real deal. To me, obsessing over the divine or non material is similar dogmatism as digital tech censorship.
-
@psi said in Meaning of digital culture?:
I don't understand what you mean by active field
Like an active field like the absence of a cell membrane. What separates a cell from its surroundings isn't physical, but a field of energy composed of structured water an positive ions of potassium.
This refutes the idea of a physical barrier that requires the creation of pumps such ad sodium pumps to overcome the physical barrier.
This isn't spiritual in any way, but an example of how a force field is actualized. That field is active and all the more present in a healthy body.
You would deny the spirit realm a hand in active fields as a certainty out of your active rejection of its possibility as an avowed materialist, but I wouldn't.
Forgive me if I should consider you such. But why do you mention Steiner as he is your antithesis?
-
@yerrag I mentioned him because I brought up Steiner schools previously. I simply don't like imagining spirit realms. I can also imagine having wings and flying that way, or I can get an airplane ticket. Musk imagines going to Mars, but can't implement it. You can't show me your spirit realms. All you can do is teach me how to imagine them and be impressed.
-
Like you I haven't any experience with the spirit realm. But I'm just more open to accepting that realm exists. It's your call as it is my call.
I am just as likely to find the concept of insulin sensitivity to be a red herring as I deem you less likely to take that position. But I could be mistaken.
-
@yerrag sure it exists. Some call ayahuasca / DMT the door to it. Steiner used mescaline iirc. Those are materials to see the spiritual realms. Not my thing personally, it gets old pretty quickly and it's too chaotic. Meditation can get you there too, but success rate is low.
-
It can get chaotic.
Would I want to have a third eye? No. As you said, it could get chaotic. But would I like to be inspired? Yes, but I wouldn't know it anyway if I should become more inspired. I would probably call it the fruit of having a high metabolism that leaves me with a lot of extra energy to develop my brain.
-
@yerrag I miss inspiration because most people are too traumatized and tired to exit the culture. I should be thankful that it's possible at all to discuss this topic, as you'll be seen as a total crank by the masses. Obsession with the spirit realm and psychedelics didn't work after decades. Joe Rogan still believes that sugar is bad, DMT doesn't convey sufficient guidance. Steiner schools are very rare after 100 years. There are countless other hoaxes less important than nutrition.
Now you saw behind the curtain, what's next?
As for spiritual experiences, mine were very interesting. In one I completely lost awareness of time and body and lived in a world of rapid moving lights with its own logic and culture. Becoming human again felt disorienting at first, but the standard vibrations eventually cemented. And now I'm happier to be in the physical world as a human.
If you're eager to explore the spirit realms, the digital infrastructure is very useful
-
@psi said in Meaning of digital culture?:
If you're eager to explore the spirit realms, the digital infrastructure is very useful
I fail to see that. Care to explain?
-
@yerrag in Steiner's time, all they knew was the cactus. Nowadays there's 100 documented plants readily available using the Internet. After you're done listening to his lectures, you can purchase the plants, or even find them locally. You can then have a similar experience as those occult circles did 100 years ago. My theory is that the cactus was only available in that scene back then, and that's why Steiner was spending time socializing with those folks.
Aldous Huxley wrote the doors of perception which is similar message to knowledge of the spirit realms. Both were inspired by the cactus.
-
Is that your spoiler alert lol? I have to go through tons of his lectures. So far they've been interesting listens. But it sure seems to encompass more than just cacti.
-
@yerrag spot on, the cactus is just the entrance. How deep you go and where you turn is up to you. What you take back may be chaotic. Steiner had access to just one thing, but you're lucky to have choice after a century of exploration. Usually people bring back a book. I have failed to do that unlike Terence McKenna or Graham Hancock, or Steiner and Huxley. I don't need to believe that they tell the truth, I know it, but it's not my preference to explore anymore. Perhaps I'll change my mind when I'm in the Amazon. It has to be vibrant enough physically to put me in the right mood.
-
You've dived deep and you seem to have gone beyond scratching the surface. The names you mention don't register with me but I'll be sure to use them. Exploring the Amazon must be part and parcel of your search, from the wasteland of being civilized to the wild civility of nature in the Amazon.
When I was very sickly, I held the Amazon as a place I hoped to spend time in when I'm strong enough to weather its insults.
Enjoy the book you will find yourself in as you close the one you're in.
-
@yerrag I don't agree with calling those HIGHER realms. They're different, distorted. Ultimately we come back to "normal" senses, and though I have no regrets, I'm saddened to be in a world full of zombies/bugmen who have no aspirations to see something beautiful and strange.
I'm not sure if living in the jungle would work out for me. My body's too weak, and I lack support from tribes or proper funds to do it prepper style. Part of me thinks it's possible, but it's likely a delusion. So here I remain in the prison of this stage of civilization.
-
Here's good bits by Hancock
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVFctzhK0xg
And McKenna
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IAGxjOr3vYA
They all reject reductionism, and their books sold well, but culture is still bad.
-
I can understand the challenges living in the Amazon entails. You know that well enough. Health is paramount. Where you're not expecting health insurance to fill in for a weak internal composition. Against the natural immunity of the wild, how could a body propped up by drugs stand a chance? Then you need the support of a tribe or a community that knows the ways there. You have to spend some time there be not be a stranger to it. Nothing like plucking a tour guide or a sherpa to carry for you, which is just a tad better than relying on ducktors on an insurance plan. Nice though to dream.
-
@yerrag another thing is that loggers and miners continuously encroach onto the wilderness and there's no escape from the big machine even there. But setting that aside, what are the chances to win there? Disease and flies that eat your flesh build character, but I'd be foolish to say I'm eager to experience that. The wilderness is a big collection of suffering if things go south, and they always will. That being said, at some point I'll be so tired and humiliated that it will become attractive.
-
It's one thing to say, another to do. Maybe what we can realistically do is hike the Appalachian Trail, or the Oeegon Trail.
-
@yerrag I've already done that. It's great, but ultimately doesn't solve the main issue which is fear and apathy in most I meet and lack of funds to be more detached from the machine.
-
Still, you got to do things which most people wouldn't be willing nor able to do.
