On Virtuous Decentralized Collective Intelligence
This is my last comment on the final episode, 50, of John Vervaeke’s YouTube series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis:
Caution, long comment ahead:
This series changed my orientation to life beyond what I could summarize. Due to my sometimes horrible attention span made worse by modern technology, I didn't understand everything in this series particularly with the cognitive science, and sped-watched through some of it, particularly in the later half, to get through all 50 hours faster. But without its existence and the connections it lead me to, I think that I might be a lot worse off as a result of being less able to pursue meaning in life in general. So I'm grateful for that and all the effort that went into it.
The most consistent realization for me in watching this was, as a result of a background of temporary experiences in Advaita Vedanta, is that a lot of the philosophy here seems to me like it is trying to get to the experience of Brahman-- or picking out aspects of the experience of Brahman in trying to get to it-- where the permanent experience of Brahman is “spiritual enlightenment”, according to Advaita Vedanta-- and where I use quotes around “spiritual enlightenment” to show that I can't scientifically prove anything exists that is “spiritual” in the sense of being supernatural.
I don't disagree with the importance to meaning in pursuing the understanding of “spiritual enlightenment” probabilistically and scientifically, but I disagree with knowing whether or not it is the most valuable pursuit because I see another path.
Mark Lefebvre from the AftMC discord server frames the meaning crisis as the intimacy crisis, which I think is a more accurate perceptual framing to point the crisis towards its solutions. I will say that if intimacy is the connection to something greater than oneself, I think this is deepened by the revealing of objective truth which has more true connection than what is false. I want to define “objective truth” here as synonymous with the most probable truth, and see that as containing the sum-total of everything, including all perception (including the perception of spiritual enlightenment)-- and however objective or objectively false any aspect of one's perception might be at any particular place and time.
So I think there is a fork in the road in addressing the meaning/intimacy crisis between two forms of pursuing intimacy and objective truth: an ongoing choice in the present moment (when it seems good for one's wellbeing) between pursuing intimacy and objective truth through meditation, and pursuing intimacy and objective truth through social connection-- I see pursuing connection to non-living things as possibly being one or both of those types of intimacy-- and as for pursuing intimacy and objective truth towards one's own physical and mental wellbeing, that's important, but pursuing it too much without sufficient balance in the other two, whether or not it is intentional, seems to be part of the problem.
I also think this is a “fork in the road” to the degree that one path is able to be followed at the cost of not following the other path; and in my humble opinion, I think this is exemplified in how anti-language meditation is when it sufficiently pursues “spiritual enlightenment” at least from a Vedantist perspective, and in how much I believe language, while necessary in a mantra or pointing context, ultimately pulls one away from the non-linguistic altered/meditative consciousness that is required in this pursuit.
To explain the pursuit of intimacy and objective truth through social connection in more depth, first I will create and define a term that comes from ideas like "Dialogos" and "decentralized collective intelligence" that come from Vervaeke and people he's connected to like Jordan Hall, and is arguably a slight modification of the latter term.
I want to use the word “intelligence” as synonymous with the word “wisdom” for this post, because intelligence is a more popular word, which possibly helps me reach more people outside of this community using the term “virtuous decentralized collective intelligence”; I will explain why I'm using this as opposed to “virtuous decentralized collective wisdom”.
While universal agreement on definitions is good, and having more accurate definitions for things are good, I'm also afraid that conversations around definitions can potentially take time, energy, and attention away from the capacity to innovate-- and in writing or speaking for maximum accessibility to the public, which may have some effect on innovative capacity, I sometimes find it is potentially useful to bend to their collective will with the definitions and popularity of words, under the condition that one feels doing so will reveal objective reality/truth more than distort it.
I will abbreviate “virtuous decentralized collective intelligence” as VDCI. I include the word virtuous in this term because it emphasizes the importance of using and hopefully understanding the objective reality of morality in an attempt to keep the pursuit of decentralized collective intelligence from becoming destructive. I will define VDCI here as: “Conversation which attempts to exponentially realize more: objective/more probable truth, including the attempt to exponentially understand the important subtopics of virtues, physiological wellbeing, and beauty as it relates to these things.”
I will add that VDCI already exists in human beings to some extent. But a current fundamental goal within VDCI, to attempt to paraphrase some ideas from Daniel Smachtenberger and Jordan Hall, seems to be the transformation of debate and lack of conversation towards a conversation where both parties are open to changing their views based on the search for, and application of, practices that enhance finding probability, and intuition around what is probable, in a way that produces exponential beauty and wellbeing, creating a virtuous feedback loop, where beauty and wellbeing draws in people to voluntarily participate in attempts at this transformation of conversation.
I believe that the pursuit of VDCI is more important than the pursuit of the probable theory and science of “spiritual enlightenment” to some degree. First, because VDCI leans away from the subjective and more towards language than meditation does, and VDCI already exists to some extent, so it seems more consistent in human life than mystical experiences, and that focusing on strengthening VDCI seems like it would lead to easier access to connectedness/meaningfulness for people in general.
Second, if we assume that healing trauma increases our wisdom and wellbeing, VDCI seems more likely to do more to heal trauma.. since anecdotally, I have little faith in temporary meditative experiences being able to heal trauma as well as VDCI around psychology and related knowledge-- nor do I see human beings becoming a voluntarily “spiritually enlightened” species anytime soon, assuming that would heal trauma as effectively as VDCI could, and not to say that both wouldn't do the most to heal it.
And third, both are necessary for maximizing meaningfulness, so if VDCI causes easier access to connectedness/meaningfulness for people than the pursuit of objectively understanding how to reach the realization of “spiritual enlightenment”, the greater VDCI is, the more it amplifies our collective cognitive power, giving us a higher probability of more quickly mapping out probable theory of "spiritual enlightenment", and eventually, maybe, a science of “spiritual enlightenment”, which we can theoretically more wisely pursue, as a result of having a better culture/container of probabilistically systemized values/life values/virtues/core beliefs created voluntarily by VDCI.
I will continue to explore this.
Video: https://rumble.com/v119rja-on-virtuous-decentralized-collective-intelligence.html
Awakening from the Meaning Crisis:
Jordan Hall: Decentralised Collective Intelligence (clip):
Photo source:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/pattern-texture-leaf-green-1268129/