tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70115553889073094992024-03-06T14:01:07.461-06:00Digital Dharma: Metaphors of Consciousness in the InfosphereBased on my book, Digital Dharma: A Users Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Age of the Infosphere, this blog will provide links to the book, information about talks and articles, and provide a discussion space for those interested in the (metaphoric/esoteric) links between our telecommunications technologies and the path of evolving human/planetary consciousness.
Please check the archives for chapter summaries. You can order the book at AMAZON or http://questbooks.com
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-985467650751364542020-05-03T14:50:00.007-05:002020-05-03T14:50:58.200-05:00Is “5G” a “5D-Technology” Created in “4D-Consciousness?”
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As readers of this blog know, I dedicated much of my working life to creating and expanding public media technologies (such as public radio and television, cable television, fiberoptics networks, and then the research internet) for the <a href="https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-77074374/reforging-the-links-between-public-television-and">delivery of distance education</a>. At the same time, hidden from my employers and clients, I was developing my “mystic’s eye.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is with this dual understanding that I welcome the emergence of a new “fifth-dimensional consciousness” (5D), and watch (somewhat bemusedly) my New Age friends’ panic over fifth-generation (5G) mobile data technology and the attempts to link it to Covid-19. From my perspective, we are witnessing, a crisis of over-connection without the preparation of spiritual transformation. 5G is a “smart cloud” grid-technology being introduced within the old paradigm of separation. Our fears about it reflect a distrust, not only that it will be put to “lower-frequency” uses, but on a deeper level, that humanity is still choosing to operate on fourth-dimension (4D) principles, using our emerging technical and spiritual powers for profit, personal gain, magic and control. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />In my 2007 book <a href="https://questbooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=802">D</a><a href="https://questbooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=802">igital Dharma</a>, I posited that all of our media technology (starting with the telegraph, “<a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2007/07/first-level-digital-dharma-is-about.html">when electricity hit the nervous system</a>”) is an externalization of the inner networks of our energy body: each medium both stimulating and, at the same time mirroring, the psycho-spiritual work of a specific chakra. I wrote about the <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2007/07/reach-out-and-touch-from-chapter-two.html">telephone</a><a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2007/07/reach-out-and-touch-from-chapter-two.html"> </a>externalizing the second chakra’s hunger for intimacy, releasing the seductive power of the lover, and unleashing from Victorian constraints, the feminine voice; I wrote of the third chakra power of <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2007/07/radio-projecting-power-to-universe-from.html">radio’s “tribal drum”</a> to pull together or tear about communities; and fifth chakra-driven over-connection, and the resulting <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-three-spiritual-metaphors-of-social.html">social media addiction</a>, spread of viruses and the <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2017/07/firewalls-and-silos-turning-from-face.html">counter reaction of mistrust and alienation</a>. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Today, many us of believe that a new, higher frequency of spiritual energy is pushing our consciousness forward into the domain of the upper chakras. Here, the third-eye is free to see beyond the “false news” and conceptual habits of a limited view of reality, and the Crown is opened to receiving new signals, connecting with spirits, connecting with all the beings of the natural world, and in the “we space” connecting us all. Many seers have called this <a href="https://thewakeupexperience.eu/3d-4d-and-5d-the-dimensions-and-their-differences/">5D Consciousness.</a><br /><br /> Well, it sounds pretty good! But as every chakra holds both light and shadow, each chakra’s communications modality is also fraught with pitfalls. The most dangerous is the ego’s need to be “special.” In the realm of the sixth chakra, this means tapping into the energetic domains, not to serve others, but for one’s own needs. In doing so, it is easy to get caught in the (4D) astral planes, unable to discern good from evil, connecting unfiltered to all the ginns and tricksters r<a href="https://www.rose-rosetree.com/blog/2020/01/04/5th-dimension-nonsense-serious-warning/">eady to seduce us</a>; getting lost in a psychic hall of mirrors, caught in a never-ending spiritual attention deficit disorder. This is the dark side of violent video games, virtual reality pornography, and social media terrorism. <br /><br /> In terms of 5G, we have projected these legitimate “4D misuse” fears on to a technology whose very structure reflects the work of the seventh chakra. 5G, or fifth-generation mobile wireless, continues a move from centralized “big towers” (hierarchically-communicating top-down with dumb devices), to a topology of smaller, intelligent nodes, communicating over shorter distances, at higher frequencies and lower power levels, allowing for faster data rates, lower latencies, and real-time peer-to-peer information exchanges. At its best, the 5G-enabled cloud-based “internet of things,” could be more than a way to deliver self-driving cars, instant movie downloads and smarter talking personal assistants. It could enable a world where we are drawn closer to other beings, both human and animal. A world where we can actually see in real-time <a href="https://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2013/02/gaias-voice.html">the health of the environment</a>, hear the singing of whales, and the cries of endangered species. Managed from a place of 5D consciousness, it could be the physical representation of an intelligent self-aware universe, where each “node of awareness” does its specific evolutionary task, monitors its surroundings and shares its experience within the we-space of the communal grid. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Given the sad history of humanity’s attraction to filling its longing heart with the substitute drugs of power and control, its no wonder we are terrified! In the service of our lower selves these technologies can lead not to greater unity, but to a beehive-like, always “jacked in,” world devoid of quiet personal time; where global corporations use 5G wireless to extend their control to the most remote corners of the planet and our most private spaces; where the smallest personal action is tracked in giant marketing databases; a world where physical nature and even human love are replaced by commercially-driven computer simulations. But this nightmare is not a consequence of the silicon chips, fiber-optics connections and wireless radio frequencies that make 5G possible. It is a consequence of our own shadow! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Yes, we do need more peer-reviewed studies of RF energy on our bodies. There is some evidence that while 5G’s higher frequencies are less absorbed through the skin than our favorite FM channels and our in-home Wi-Fi routers, like too much sun, too much 5G exposure (especially to the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29459303">sweat glands</a>) may <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820018/">increase some skin cancers </a><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820018/">for some people</a><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6820018/">.</a> So, I am not offering a blanket defense of 5G, but I am asking that you consider our 5G fears as a metaphor for a deeper distress. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />Let us be wary of disowning our dark impulses, every conspiracy fear, every loss-of-control dread, on to some external “other” – whether it be a nation, religious or ethnic group, an inanimate virus, or radio-frequency device. Its not about “banning the towers,” but seeing them as ourselves. Not about staying up at night worrying that our electric meters are spying on us, but about enacting laws that protect our data privacy, and breaking up the media monopolies that kidnap our attention and traffic in our very awareness. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is about seeing ourselves as part of a smart grid, not of commerce or control, but of global compassion and co-creation. 5D thinking requires us to look at 5G as a physical representation of a deeper call to engage with each other as “learning nodes” on a great grid of awareness, forming a true cloud consciousness around the entire planet, moving from listening to our smart refrigerators and thermostats, to the <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2009/07/twitter-ambient-awareness-and-spiritual.html">Tweets of All Beings</a>, hearing the cries of the ocean’s creatures, the spreading deserts, and burning rain-forests. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moving into seventh-chakra communication means confronting all the parts that we hide from others and ourselves, living in radical honesty and transparency; confronting the fear of ego-death that draws us into separation and the hoarding of power and control. Finally, it means having the courage to move past the distractions of the astral (magical powers, ego-boosting spirit guides) into the true plane of Divine Love, Creativity, and Joy. Living in Cloud Consciousness we are challenged to see that our intelligence has always been connected in every action – past, present and future, and that we and all the other individual processors are sharing the same memory and power source. In the 5D-connected cloud we hold all experiences in common, consciously downloading those wisdom programs that use our individual consciousness for a higher purpose. Our bodies and our life experiences become vessels of divine curiosity; and our prayers of gratitude become the uploading technology that refreshes and heals the great web of Being. <br /><br /> <br /> <br /><br /> <br /> <br /><br /><br /> <br /></span>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-327192816229022402020-04-01T10:51:00.001-05:002020-04-08T07:41:22.915-05:00Social Media Yoga for These Time<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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Media Yoga:</b></span></span></span></span></div>
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“Digital Dharma” Practices for These Physically Separated, Yet
Over-Connected, Times</b></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the space of a just a few short weeks, most of our contact with work, friends and family, as well as our cultural, social and spiritual support, has moved online. Our offices, schools, stores, streets and skies are quiet, while we spend hours looking at faces on two-dimensional screens, relying on social media, video conferencing, and the internet for needed connection and information. Many of us are exhausted, feeling the impact of all this screen time on our physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A decade ago, I wrote <a href="https://questbooks.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=802">Digital Dharma</a>, a book that looked looked at the then-emerging web of global communications networks and technologies as externalizations of our inner energy transponders – the seven chakras. Looking at our immersion in the Infosphere, I have drawn upon and updated the book’s <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2010/07/chakra-meditations-for-cyber-addiction.html">digital dharma practices</a>, and offer them as a media yoga for our challenging times.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">1. <u>Ground Before Connecting</u></span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Stepping into the planetary electronic grid, we are engulfed in a world of instant connection and ceaseless alarms, a chorus of attention-demanding babble that is nearly overwhelming. Spiritual practice teaches us that we can handle our “signal over-sensitivity,” not by abandoning ourselves to every message calling out for immediate response or by building thicker ego-protecting walls, but by calming the mind and strengthening our grounding to the earth. The current crisis has brought forth an outpouring of free online classes on breath-work, movement and meditation. Set time aside to participate in these programs before sitting down to hours in front of the screen. Use apps such as Here and Now, and Stop, Breath and Think, or Insight Timer to program your smartphone to remind you to stop and take a deep breath. And when it’s safe, get out of the house, find a patch of ground and stand bare-footed, taking breaths that connect your Crown to the earth below. Find a tree to hug, and if it’s safe, extend your outside time to include a device-free walk, experiencing your own mini “<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2019/08/29/the-case-for-tech-sabbath-too-connected-world/IY0fJoC6nNMfuh2YVT698H/story.html" target="_blank">Digital Sabbath</a>.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our interconnected global networks of remote sensors and environmental monitoring stations offer a chance to expand our receptivity beyond the noise and chatter of humanity’s monkey-mind messages. From deep undersea observatories, to atmospheric carbon and ozone stations on the tops of mountains, from tectonic stress-sensors embedded deep in the earth, it is now possible to “listen” to the voices of Gaia herself. Instead of following some celebrity’s every text, consider subscribing to the many services that allow one to “adopt” a distant <a href="https://wolf.org/programs/educator-resources-wolf-link/track-wild-wolves/">wolf</a>, <a href="https://www.pacificwhale.org/research/citizen-science/whale-and-dolphin-tracker/">whale </a><a href="https://www.pacificwhale.org/research/citizen-science/whale-and-dolphin-tracker/">or dolphin</a>, receiving ongoing status reports as to their location and health. On a more personal level, one can practice “<a href="https://www.heartmath.org/science/">heart math</a>,” learning to listen to and align one’s breath and heart rhythms. Find time during the day to turn off your messaging apps and sit quietly under a tree and listen to its sap rise, or tune in to the incredibly slow rhythms of that unassuming rock at your feet. Finally, try to practice the art of mentally sending kind thoughts with every text or tweet, setting the intention as you hit the send button that it deliver the highest good and well-being to all that receive it. And, if you want to be more engaged in sending digital kindness, consider one of the apps such as <a href="https://thenextweb.com/apps/2016/07/26/kruzo-makes-days/">Kruzo</a> or T<a href="https://textforhumanity.com/">ext for Humanity</a> that allow you to compose and send a positive text message to a random recipient.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">3. <u>Create
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we struggle with the loneliness of forced physical distancing and self-quarantine, a healthy relationship with our social media platforms becomes more and more important. Too often we discover that our time on social media has left us feeling less connected, more stressed, a bit vulnerable and more fearful. In a communications environment where everyone has a voice, and multiple “truths” run free, being connected to everyone all the time can easily overwhelm our mental body’s defense systems. Clearly, we need to “curate our connections,” establishing appropriate boundaries for each of our personal online networks. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Putting boundaries on who you friend and follow means creating multiple relationship circles – different accounts for different folks. Some will be more intimate: a place where you can drop your masks and cry, a place of recovery and joy, solace and support, a place where only your close friends can invite their close friends to request membership. Your others groups can face outwards, held together by shared political and social values, creative expression, hobbies or work interests. They must however, be separated from your more intimate-sharing space, which in turn (by government regulation or hopefully, mass social pressure), must be insulated from the commercial forces that have so distorted our common meeting grounds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">4.<u> Bless the Face of the Other, Bless Yourself </u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Instagram, YouTube and Facebook have put so many faces on our screens – happy or sad, angry, wounded or injured, cute or ugly – they all show up. The Other is no longer someone “out there,” but in our personal space. Faced with this onslaught of images, instead of backing away, lean in to them all. Send silent blessings of goodwill to all the random faces you see on your screen. See their inner Light. Send loving kindness to all those “exposed” on social media, neutralizing the waves of judgment and anonymous cruelty that these channels seem to encourage. This is the core Buddhist teaching of metta: first sending kind thoughts and wishes of well-being to your friends and contacts, then to random faces that you do not know, then moving on to those whose faces bring you discomfort or judgment.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1sym">i</a> Take a few minutes to do this practice every day, interrupting your me-focused screen time to make it a time of spiritual gifting to the “we.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Also, extend this practice to yourself. Take a moment as you log onto a videoconference to bless your own image. And before sending out a selfie, stop for a moment. Look at it with deep eyes; take a breath and savor the moment – the colors, smell, sounds and body experience you want to share online. Then before you hit the send or upload button, blink and inhale, sending the memory of that experience to your own energetic in-box and out to the universe as a snapshot of gratitude for being alive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">5.<u> Zoom Out, Zoom In, to Deeper Connection </u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Even though you may have become isolated spatially, you can use your real-time video connections to zoom-in and forge deeper levels of heart contact. Agree to “compassionate conferencing” practices: allowing for uninterrupted “I-statement” check-ins about feelings, not just thoughts or opinions. Make direct eye contact and share the moment-to-moment experience of being present in <a href="https://evolutionarycollective.com/blogposts/creative-union/">creative union</a> with another soul. “What are you experiencing now? What is emerging for us together in this breath? And the next one?” In group meetings, take a few minutes to gaze on all participants in “gallery view,” sending appreciation and goodwill to everyone – all the little tiles of humanity looking out at you from the quilt of the collective we. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can also use your computer or phone screen to zoom-out of your constricted surroundings, seeing the world with “eyes of wonder.” The internet has blessed us with easy access to millions of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WTX_I4deM">positive </a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WTX_I4deM">videos</a> that can take you to the outer reaches of the universe and into the workings of the smallest cell, and time-lapse and slow-motion <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WTX_I4deM">movies</a> of the once-ignored natural or human-created processes all around us. Instead of spending hours binging on old movies and silly pet videos, <a href="https://accessmars.withgoogle.com/">visit Mars</a> or the <a href="https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/videos">San Diego Zo</a>o. Better yet, find a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-2KSeUU5SMCX6XLRD-AEvw">nature cam</a> of nesting baby eagles on a city skyscraper ledges or remote forest branch. Watch resting sea lions, or the march of tiny insects in the canopy of the rain forest. Zoom out far enough and you will see life as one great tapestry, and recognize that you are called in our post-pandemic job to tikkun olam, to use social media to reweave the tattered threads of community and the natural world we all share.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1anc">i</a> A few years ago I developed <a href="https://myblessingcircle.com/">My BlessingCircle</a>, a service that would present you with a photo of a stranger and a kindness blessing to read out loud as you looked at their face. When you hit the send button, the recipient got the blessing and your photo. No names or contact information was shared in either direction. It didn’t gain much traction, so I mothballed it. Perhaps it’s time to reboot it! Please contact me if you’d like to help.</span><br />
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Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-82154537935185212352019-06-04T14:41:00.003-05:002020-04-01T11:06:51.308-05:00Evolving towards Cloud Consciousness: A MYSTIC LOOKS AT THE INTERNET OF THINGS<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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Ten years ago, I wrote Digital Dharma as a way to look at the emerging technology of the Internet as a challenge to our old “consciousness of separation.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1sym">i</a> I saw the development of our telecommunications networks as a mirror and guide to the evolution of our global consciousness, and the social/spiritual issues at each level, as reflections of the chakra system and its seven “energetic transponders.” I started with the on-off (first chakra) binary signaling of the telegraph, through the telephone, radio, television, the internet, virtual reality and social media, and ended with what I saw as a model of seventh-level chakra consciousness: the emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) “grid computing” and the wireless micro-connectivity that would enable “the internet of things.”<br />
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Today, the grid-based “cloud” is indeed our dominant communications metaphor, and the United States and China are rushing to control the fifth-generation (5G) communications platform that will allow the smallest “intelligent devices” to connect with that cloud. One one level, it is important that we debate what country manufactures and controls this new technology, as well as the potential dangers of engulfing every corner of the earth in 5G signals, but from a mystical perspective, there is a deeper esoteric question reflected in the electrical structure of cloud technology: are we ready to move from separation consciousness to shared intelligence, from tuning into the grid, to becoming the grid itself?<br />
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The Transpersonal Metaphors of the Cloud <br />
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In my early posts (and book chapters) dealing with the television, the Internet, and virtual reality, I discussed the critical challenges of always-on-connectivity, and the resulting fear response of “wall building,” projection of a “curated self,” and a retreat from the belief in truth itself.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote2sym">ii</a> Countering these fears requires us to step into integral thinking: seeing the world as one living network, accepting our “data nakedness,” and staying open to wonder of the “tweets of all beings,” as we tune to the voice of Gaia herself. This new “networked awareness” is also at the heart of deep-seeing practices: such as energy balancing, past-life repair and family constellation work, channeled guidance, and other forms of quantum healing. Our new challenge however, is not about our individual connections as nodes on the Divine Network, but in moving past individual identity itself, seeing the universe simultaneously from a place of self, and at the same time seeing ourselves as holograms containing the entire network in our separate being. If the Internet, social media and encoded reality held the projection of the old challenge, the Internet of Things is the mirror of our new transpersonal, inter-subjective evolution.<br />
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As we move more and more of our computer memory and processing into the shared space of the cloud, we find the core metaphor of shared intelligence. Cloud-based technology allows for data storage, software and computing processors to reside out on the network "grid" and be called forth only when needed. The cloud has become the "place" where we store more and more of our cumulative human intelligence, relying on ever-more-powerful search engines and "data mining" algorithms, crowd-sourcing and social media recommendations to make sense of this overflowing abundance: the collages and mash-ups, meshes, mixes, remixes of our popular culture. <br />
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The cloud-based “internet of things,” is more than a way to envision self-driving cars and talking personal assistants, but a physical representation of the embedded intelligence of a self-aware universe, where each node monitors its surroundings and shares its experience with the grid itself. Of course, this scenario has a frightening side: in the service of our "lower selves" these technologies can lead us to a beehive-like world devoid of quiet personal space; where global corporations use 5G wireless to extend their control to the most remote corners of the planet; where the smallest personal action is tracked in giant marketing databases; a world where physical nature and even human love are replaced by computer simulations. The spiritual metaphor is the blasted open Crown Chakra – connecting unfiltered to all the ginns and tricksters of the astral plane; lost in the psychic hall of mirrors, caught in never-ending technology-enabled spiritual attention deficit disorder.<br />
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But when seen through the lens of spiritual metaphor, the very structure of the cloud offers us a path to a very different outcome: what mystics have understood as "unity consciousness," the simultaneous knowledge of the knower and the known, of individual identity and cosmic oneness. Here knowledge resides equally, both in the network, and at all of its nodes and the spaces in between<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote3sym">iii</a>; not hoarded by one tribe, gender or species, nor projected into an unreachable central God Authority.<br />
<br />As I wrote in Digital Dharma:<br />
<i><br />Beyond the web of communicating appliances is the seventh-level vision of an interconnected creative culture… And beyond this cultural vision is this spiritual teaching: We can create a world where all beings are simultaneously aware of their common Source (the universal intelligence of the Grid) and their power to download all the divine love and light their field can handle… deciding to fully connect with every other being, and simultaneously with something greater than oneself… We are conscious of our own programs, but we also hold space for the greater field that connects us all. This is a web where connectivity extends, in Matthew Fox’s words, “into the heavens and into the past (to our ancestors) and the future (to our descendants) to make community happen… it is light meeting light.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote4sym">iv</a></i><br /><br />Living in Cloud Consciousness we are challenged to see that our intelligence has always been connected in every action – past, present and future, and that we and all the other individual processors are sharing the same memory and power source. On the internet we learned to process our own data, drawing from external repositories as needed; in the cloud we hold all the repositories in common, consciously downloading those wisdom programs that use our human consciousness for a higher purpose. Our bodies and our life experiences become vessels of divine curiosity; and our prayers of gratitude become the uploading technology that refreshes and heals the great web of Being..<br /><br /><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1anc">i</a> Digital Dharma: A Users Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Infosphere (Quest Books, 2007; JAICO, 2012)</div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote2anc">ii</a> See my “teleconsciousness” blog posts at <a href="http://srvedro.com/">http://srvedro.com</a> or my Facebook Digital Dharma Notes at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/Digital-Dharma-Spiritual-Metaphors-of-Technology-168927409852731/notes/">https://www.facebook.com/pg/Digital-Dharma-Spiritual-Metaphors-of-Technology-168927409852731/notes/</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote3anc">iii</a> Patricia Albere’s “Mutual Awakening Process” is one new approach to tuning into the inter-subjective wisdom between our individual fields. See: <a href="https://evolutionarycollective.com/">https://evolutionarycollective.com/</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote4anc">iv</a> Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh (Harmony Books, 1999), p.112</div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-56503612338978139572019-05-12T19:05:00.002-05:002020-04-01T11:14:06.279-05:00The Three Spiritual Metaphors of Social Media<ol><div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>As
Above, So Below: </b></i><i><b>The Three Spiritual Messages of
</b></i><i><b>Social Media </b></i></span></span>
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<br /><br />An electronic web now surrounds the planet. The Infosphere – the totality of our electronic systems for sharing knowledge, is now a field that engulfs our physical, mental and spiritual bodies. The human nervous system has been “outered” (as media sage Marshal McLuhan predicted in the early 1960’s) into a global embrace.<br />
<br />Today, this embrace seems to be choking us! Our social media feeds, while promising connection, often seem to cut us off from really seeing each other’s true inner essence. Fear-filled rumors and hate speech seem to be traveling faster on Facebook and Instagram than any pro-social memes. Teenagers with calluses on their thumbs from sending text messages every few minutes cannot hold a face-to-face conversation, while too many parents spend more time checking their online “friends” than listening to their children. Wireless connectivity seems to have forever breached the border between work and home; destroying what little rest we have eked out for our inner self, while the radiation from the myriad of devices around us has put us into an electromagnetic energy soup of still unknown effects.<br />
<br />Yes, communications technology impacts all aspects of life for good and for bad. But those of us who see the world through spiritual eyes, must also recognize that this relationship works in three ways: (1) technology impacts and changes our consciousness, (2) it is a product of consciousness, and (3) “as above, so below,” it is an external mirror of the evolution of consciousness – reflecting with all of its confusion and shadow, and its misdirected hunger for true Divine connection, the current state of global mass consciousness. <br /><br />
As we commit ourselves to bringing forth a new way of seeing the world: moving from dualism to holism, and separation to unity, we are opening our eyes to the wisdom teachings manifesting all around us. We should also include those metaphors and reminders encoded in our electronic devices of increasing complexity, interactivity, and awareness, and the networks of silicon, radio and fiber-optics that link them together. The electronic web we have created is but a thin representation of what we are truly capable of. The energy body and its chakras are already pre-tuned to the frequencies of the planetary grid. We are being called to activate those higher energetic connections, and by looking closely at the structure of the technologies that have us so worried, we may find some needed tools. Taking the best of them and applying them not just to our online interactions, but to how we connect with the natural world, with each other, and with our spiritual essence, is our contemporary “digital dharma.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1sym">i</a>.<br />
<br />Looking at the Infosphere with a mystic’s eyes, we see three important teachings: <br /><br />
<ul>
<li>Its time to wake up to our connection to all beings on the great web. We’ve always been connected on a soul level, but now our challenge is to manage this connection in the world of matter, not by building walls of isolation, but by learning appropriate filters for these new inputs.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Its time to step up to see and hear beyond our habitual reality. In this fully open and aware state, we can fully appreciate the depth of Gaia’s mystery, and in our humbleness, live in radical honesty, compassionately witnessing all of humanity’s light and shadow. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Its time to hook up our separate “reality-processors” into the “smart grid” of Divine Intelligence. Our tools of artificial intelligence and deep-data modeling are showing us that our true job is to awaken into our role of co-creating and embodying a light-filled reality for all beings. </li>
</ul>
These themes are reflected back to us in the structures of the electronic web. The Infosphere is a metaphor for, and a challenge to, our move to global oneness. We can use it as a template for higher connection, or we can get swept up in all of its distractions and false promises. From a grounded place, connected to spirit, we can see it for what it is: a blueprint for our next evolutionary step, not the step itself. With that in mind, each of these three spiritual teachings being made manifest in the Infosphere, offers a lesson, not about technology, but about the awakened soul!<br /><br /><br />Always-On, Always Connected to the Other<br />
<br />Out in the Infosphere, the process of moving into Oneness Consciousness was first reflected back to us on the flickering black and white screens of television – an extension of the fourth chakra emotional heart, a close-up visual medium of expression and feelings. It came into our homes as a conscience-stimulating medium of human and animal rights and environmental awareness. Its focus on bringing the “face of the other” into our living rooms stimulated a new generation’s sympathy for the “underdog,” as it introduced us to people of different colors, tribe and nation. It challenged us to open our eyes and see the entire planet as one Spaceship Earth, and for the first time it brought the carnage of war into everyone’s consciousness. <br /><br />
Today, our video screens (now in full color and high resolution, pocket-sized or room-filling giants,) still invite us to look out at the world and emotionally connect or emotionally recoil, but the world we’re seeing is no longer safely out there. For while television offered an opportunity to look at the multicultural world, the internet has brought us the gift and the challenge of actually connecting with it. In this world, the “other” is not just a face on a screen out there, but someone, invited or not, inside our personal space.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote2sym">ii</a> <br /><br />
Connected to potentially millions of faces, we are discovering that without appropriate grounding and appropriate “energy filters,” stepping into relationship with all the beings sharing planet earth is not such an easy task. Everything now touches us, everything calls for a response, and everything we do impacts everyone else. We are in a place where we can no longer ignore the multiple overlapping voices of minority peoples and cultures; a place where everyone is speaking all at once, where all secrets are outed and every dark corner’s shadow (institutional or individual) is revealed to all. In the babel of this open marketplace is an emerging opportunity for people of spirit to connect outside of our “safe silos,” modeling the creativity that comes from rubbing against new peoples and new ideas. From a spiritual perspective, the internet’s core metaphor of “we’re all connected,” offers an opportunity to embrace the true interconnection of all life, and the possibility of creating new tools to better integrate humanity into the biosphere. <br /><br />
Yet, for many people without the gift of a spiritual connection, the recognition that one’s secrets are no longer safe, and that “transparency” works in both directions, has left them feeling vulnerable, unprotected and overwhelmed. From massive data thefts and cyber-attacks on the technological pillars of the information economy, to the transmission of horrific acts of violence, the internet has shown us the darker side of being part of one web-linked world. It is no surprise that this move into a networked world would generate push-back from those hurt by all this connectivity: those left out of the information economy, those frightened by the appearance of the “the other” on every video screen, and those who felt that their (formally unquestioned and dominant) voices were being challenged by those they could no longer ignore. More broadly, projected outwards, this connection-anxiety is reflected in our heightened fear of infection – from computer and real-life viruses, and from the waves of destitute global migrants pressing on the borders of the developed world – and the resulting calls to “protect our borders” by building stronger (physical, technological, or cultural) walls. <br /><br />
Connecting our separate personality-selves into a greater Oneness is our contemporary evolutionary task. The light and shadow of the internet is only a mirror of this challenge. Turning away from the distractions of digital reality to our deeper knowing, we see that we are being called to open our “spiritual receivers” to Gaia’s voice and the guides and helpers that surround us. Spiritual practice teaches us that we can handle this new receptivity, not by abandoning ourselves to every channeled message from the “other side,” or by building thicker energetic walls, but by strengthening our core grounding to the earth. Yoga, breath-work, meridian tapping and tai chi, are all available mechanisms to balance the over-stimulated (and over-radiated) nervous system.<br /><br />
We can take these same practices into our relationship with technology. We can program our smartphones to remind us to “stop and take a deep breath,” and, as spiritual pilgrims have been doing for millennia, we can choose the gift of the Sabbath – a time for technology disconnection, walks in nature, and sharing the gift of community in face-to-face group interaction, celebration, and support. From this centered place we can open ourselves to the “tweets of all beings” – listening to the song of our microbiome, the wisdom of the giant whales and redwoods, the pulsing of the stars, and the heart rhythms of everyone we meet. <br /><br />
As we continue to become more and more comfortable with our real-time connection to the planet’s multiple voices, we will continue the evolutionary process of shedding our old way of seeing ourselves as individuals competing for resources, power or status. Looking at the mirror of the computer grid and networked cloud, we will see ourselves as self-aware nodes in a joyously communicating system. And with that system awareness comes the chance to connect, not only with every other being, but through conscious awareness of that unity connection, with the Divine network itself.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote3sym">iii</a> Moving into the true wonder of being part of this evolving planetary system, we can embrace our responsibility for Tikkun Olam: reweaving (at the most personal to the most global) the frayed threads of the web of life.<br /><br /><br />Deep-Seeing: From Data Nakedness to Soul Transparency<br /><br />
Beyond (fifth chakra level) connection, the internet has opened our communal (sixth chakra) third eye, and with it has come more powerful ways of seeing and hearing, and a deep anxiety about the loss of privacy. We are not only connected, but we are constantly looking, and are constantly looked at. On the internet nothing is protected from our eyes and ears: from leaked reports of government and corporate malfeasance, to all levels of violence and pornography. Every credit card purchase, every trip through the grocery store, and every phone call or text is now “on the record.” On the positive side, balancing the power of government or corporate “Big Brother” has come “Little Brother with a camera” to hold the powerful accountable: from predatory priests and gurus to rogue police and crooked politicians. Every person with a cellphone camera is now a threat to the old order of secrecy and control.<br /><br />
Is it any wonder that one response to always being observed is the creation of a false online self: always happy, always chatting, always presenting the best side to the world, and the concurrent sense of loneliness that so many hooked on social media feel? At its worst, this is a shadow place where much of everything is artifice and falsehood; a dark world where nothing can be believed; a place full of bots, scammers, and poseurs; where everything is “fake news” and dark conspiracies.<br /><br />
From a spiritual perspective, refocusing the third-eye’s capacity for deep-seeing offers a way out of the addictive routine of counting “likes”, responding to false friends and struggling with maliciously-spread false truths. In a world where everything is seen, and it only takes a few keystrokes to pass judgments seen by thousands, communicating with “radical honesty” is probably the wisest choice. Opening our eyes to the light and shadow of the world calls for looking at each other from “witness consciousness.” Holding one’s center in equanimity, refusing to get hooked by every mediated outrage, and choosing to radiate compassion and loving-kindness to every new face, strengthens our discernment filters for truly living with eyes wide open. Our commitment to deep-seeing will help us understand someone’s “bad” behavior – their childhood wounds, their inherited family trauma, or even their soul’s karmic agreements, and the same holds for looking compassionately at our own faults.<br /><br />
Numerous sages have told us that “solid physical truth” is really only a set of quantum probabilities and shared mental algorithms. For those who have not yet woken to this esoteric truth, this is indeed frightening. The fear-based response is either to shut down, withdrawing into to a cynical disconnected stance, or to invent a safer “alternate reality” with its own “facts” and history<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote4sym">iv</a>. We can see it in the popularity of videogame escapism, or in the retreat to a mythical past of ethno-tribal greatness. But should we truly look at our world with fully open sixth-chakra “eyes of wonder,” we will find beauty and creativity beyond our wildest dreams. <br /><br />
The internet has blessed us with easy access to millions of positive images: videos that fly us over every boundary, macro- and micro- cameras that take us to the outer reaches of the universe and into the workings of the smallest cell, time-lapse and slow-motion movies of once-hidden, unheard or ignored natural processes all around us. We are indeed seeing more than we ever used to see!<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote5sym">v</a> We can observe wild animals (from nesting baby bald eagles on city skyscraper ledges, to deep-diving seals, to tiny insects in the canopy of the rain forest), or travel to remote monitoring stations under the sea or on the tops of mountains, listening to the voice of Gaia herself.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote6sym">vi</a> <br /><br />
Our spiritual challenge is to insist that these new planetary awareness tools are used for the highest good: to electronically track and publicly display such warning signs as the encroachment of the deserts, the size of the islands of plastic floating in the ocean, or the decline of the ocean’s diversity; subscribing to regular tweets from grid-connected whales, sea turtles, giant redwoods or tiny mushrooms living in the Amazon. Could it be that these new “deep-seeing technologies” are suggestions in the physical plane that we use our spiritual power to zoom out to the bigger picture of Creation, seeing ourselves as part of an evolving whole, where no one is separate, and all beings hold the reflection of our shared unity? <br /><br /><br />Deep Mind: Co-creation in the Cloud<br /><br />
In the recent years we’ve seen the image of the internet morph from a two-dimensional “grid” to a three-dimensional pervasive “cloud.” Cloud technology allows for storage, software and computing technology to reside out on the network in large interconnected data centers far removed from the local user. The cloud is becoming the place where we store more and more of our cumulative human intelligence, relying on ever-more-powerful search engines, "data mining" algorithms and crowd-sourcing to make sense of this overflowing information abundance. At the same time we are building a distributed processing network, we are adding more and more self-aware intelligent devices at its periphery into “an internet of things.” Many office machines already call in service technicians before their owners are aware of any problems. Tiny sensors monitor soil and water conditions, alerting farmers when to irrigate and harvest. Similar devices in bridges send wind, wave, and traffic data to the highway department, while some vending machines already adjust their prices depending on supply and the current weather and traffic conditions, texting when they need restocking. And, of course, all those self-driving vehicles we are told are in our future will depend on massively-interconnected cloud intelligence.<br /><br />
This rapid shift to a world of machine-augmented interactions, driven by the emerging power of complex (and invisible) self-learning pattern-recognition software, threatens to leave us all “outside the computational box,” watching with great unease. No one wants to see a surveillance-based marketplace that uses these tools to monetize everything about us, including our decision-making processes. Clearly, there is a need for a debate over the role of cloud-connected “AI” and how it can be managed in a democracy.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote7sym">vii</a><br /><br />
But again, stepping back and looking at the evolution of cloud intelligence, we see a reflection of our work towards our next level of human co-creation. We are individual beings, holding our own stories in our own memory banks. Yet, we are also part of an intelligence greater than we can imagine! Our devices are learning to share knowledge and experience over a grid of 5G radios and fiberoptics, calling upon each other to donate computing cycles to the larger program. So too, we are learning to connect with each other in the soul matrix, understanding that our individual processing of incarnation that seems so important to us, is really part of a larger spiritual computational project: the manifesting of Divine thought in physical form.<br />
<br />Self-learning, self-aware, and self-healing networks are not just computational terms, but are the very essence of the communities of co-creation, directed prayer, and shared intention that are coming together to bring about quantum healing and planetary transformation. Open to deeper connections, looking with deep-seeing eyes, protected by appropriate discernment filters, and with an energy body grounded to the earth, we are prepared to tap into the power of a greater grid: the cloud of divine intelligence that has been with us since Creation. Here knowledge resides equally, both in the network, and at all of its nodes; not hoarded by one tribe, gender or species, nor projected into an unreachable central God Authority. This is a web of seventh-chakra connections, where connectivity extends, in Matthew Fox’s words, “into the heavens and into the past (to our ancestors) and the future (to our descendants) to make community happen.” <br /><br />Our spiritual challenge being modeled by “cloud computing” is how to stay fully aware as we “run our individual apps of incarnation,” while simultaneously staying connected to the “big network” that is the mind of God – living our lives with full presence, taking in all experiences, and when we die, uploading our soul’s experience to the greater field of All That Is. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1anc">i</a> In my 2007 book, Digital Dharma (Quest Books and also available from Amazon) I explored the Infosphere as reflection of the psycho-spiritual aspects of each of the seven chakras.<br />
<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote2anc">ii</a> As New York Times’ columnist Tom Friedman writes, “Suddenly connectivity became so fast, cheap, easy for you and ubiquitous that it felt like you could touch someone whom you could never touch before and that you could be touched by someone who could never touch you before.”<br />
<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote3anc">iii </a>This is what the mystics have understood as "unity consciousness," the simultaneous experience of individual identity and cosmic oneness (which is awesome). <br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote4anc">iv</a> However, just as we must validate every internet-delivered “fact,” so too with our expanded spiritual communications reception. From crop circles to messages from the dolphins and redwoods, from extra terrestrials, spirits, angels, ancestors, and avatars of all forms, our communal intelligence is being bombarded with new data that we too must carefully filter through the discernment of our anchored heart and grounded body wisdom. There are tricksters on both sides of the esoteric grid!<br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote5anc">v </a>See Louie Schwartzberg’s great time-lapse videos of flowers opening, and his data-driven mapping of the global movement of clouds, water, airplanes and ships at sea at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WTX_I4deM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WTX_I4deM</a>.<br />
<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote6anc">vi</a> These tools are already powering a new “ambient awareness” of our complex interconnected natural systems, tracking myriads of data streams, synthesizing their impact and displaying them in easy-to-understand visual representations, living maps, or physical devices One example is a “cyber cat” whose tail changes color as electrical consumption increases and whose purr is replaced with a sad grumble as more carbon-based power is added to the supply mix.<br />
<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote7anc">vii</a> In a world where every data device reflects the possibility of grid intelligence, we must hold the highest vision. Left to the forces of the marketplace and the surveillance state, the ego-self will be swept up in a false world of constant stimulation, false presentation and unbroken forgetfulness: a world where the “grid” is an echo-chamber of separation – from our bodies, from the earth, and from our Divine nature. This is a desolate earth where the unemployed masses are enthralled by electronic media circuses, and where the super-rich dream of escaping to survival bunkers, colonies on Mars, porting their brains to robot selves, or if all else fails, to the deep freeze of a cryogenics tank. <br />
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Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-84783668591279698142019-02-05T19:07:00.002-06:002021-01-04T08:02:18.796-06:00Tom Friedman's Warning that Everything is Going Deep"
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I
just finished reading an essay by </span><i>New York Times</i>
columnist Tom Friedman [Warning! Everything is Going Deep,” January
29] that aligns fully with the core thesis of <i>Digital Dharma.
“</i><span style="font-style: normal;">Technology moves </span><span style="font-style: normal;">up
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">in steps,” </span><span style="font-style: normal;">he
writes, and each step is “biased toward a new set of capabilities</span><i>.”
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">And right now, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">our
society is experiencing the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">chang</span><span style="font-style: normal;">e</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
from the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">technology </span><span style="font-style: normal;">metaphor</span><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
of “connectivity” driven by the Internet and social media, to
those associated with “deep knowledge.” According to Friedman,
we’re all being driven by the explosion in </span><span style="font-style: normal;">complex
systems-learning, AI, and huge database analysis, “</span><span style="font-style: normal;">to
the deep end of the pool” </span><span style="font-style: normal;">where
the forces of surveillance capitalism swim like sharks, and the
regulatory </span><span style="font-style: normal;">lifeguard
(government, social institutions, business and religious leaders)
“doe</span><span style="font-style: normal;">sn’t</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
know how to swim!”</span></span></div>
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Readers of my 2007
book <i>Digital Dharma</i> (and this “teleconsciousness” blog),
are already familiar with the idea that <i>communications technology
</i><i>impacts all aspects of social, spiritual and cultural life,
and that most importantly, this impact is a two-way street: our
technology is both a product of the evolution of consciousness, </i><i>and
</i><i>a mirror of this evolution; </i><i>and </i><i>it </i><i>also
</i><i>reveals the light and shadow facing us at each stage of that
</i><i>evolution</i><i>ary process.</i><i><a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1sym" name="sdendnote1anc"><sup>i</sup></a>
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">Our shift from </span><span style="font-style: normal;">the
issues of </span><span style="font-style: normal;">“connectivity”
to </span><span style="font-style: normal;">those associated with</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
“deep </span><span style="font-style: normal;">pattern </span><span style="font-style: normal;">processing”
is indeed momentous, as the technologies of social media, smart
devices, predictive algorithms, virtual reality and the
all-encompassing Cloud, envelope, seduce and enrapture </span><span style="font-style: normal;">us</span><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">impacting</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
our social, political and spiritual lives. </span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">In
this short essay I will expand on Friedman’s thesis </span><span style="font-style: normal;">of
technology-driven metaphors. Using the 2012 election as an anchor, I
will start a bit earlier: looking at the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">shift
from a world dominated by television to that of the Internet. I will
also go deeper into exploring the impacts of these shifts on our
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">political and social life</span><span style="font-style: normal;">,
and most importantly, look at how each shift brought forth a new set
of </span><span style="font-style: normal;">spiritual challenges
reflecting both our highest aspirations and lowest fears. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Finally,
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">I will look ahead, suggesting
that Friedman’s “deep processing” metaphor can be split into
two memes: our current “crisis of truth” reflected in the work
</span><i>deep seeing</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, and the
emerging challenge of </span><i>deep mind</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
brought about by AI, smart devices and the cloud.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u>2012:
</u><u>From Television to Twitter to Trump</u></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Back
in the late 1950’s, media scholar Marshall McLuhan watched as
television swept across Canada, ending the dominance of radio and
print media, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">but more
importantly, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">changing family
life, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">social norms, and even
political beliefs. He coined the phrase, “the medium is the
message,” to get us to look at the impacts of a communications
technology form that had nothing to do with the programming delivered
on it. Hundreds of books and thousands of articles have analyzed
television through McLuhan’s lens, looking at the deep changes
wrought by this flickering “electronic hearth.” In </span><i>Digital
Dharma,</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> I proposed that
television was an extension of our </span><span style="font-style: normal;">emotional
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">H</span><span style="font-style: normal;">eart:
a medium of </span><span style="font-style: normal;">expression and
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">feeling</span><span style="font-style: normal;">s,
stimulating both sympathy </span><span style="font-style: normal;">for
those different than us, and an addictive hunger to suppress those
new feelings by stuffing ourselves with food, material objects and
distractions.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote2sym" name="sdendnote2anc"><sup>ii</sup></a></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Television’s
gift to the “boomer” generation was its face-to-face close-up
view of the world’s diverse community. Despite its menu of cowboys
and Indians, crime-fighters and often violent cartoons, TV also
introduced us to the humanity of </span></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>outsiders</i></span><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of different colors, tribe and nation. It connected us, along with
the Space Program, for the first time to our entire planet as one
Spaceship Earth. </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">It
was the medium of human and animal rights, the environment and
holistic thinking. Balancing its diet of “hard news” and
glorified sports violence, it was also a medium of the feminine: of
the intimate family narrative and soap operas of personal disclosure,
bringing the carnage of the Vietnam War into every living room. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">And,
at the same time TV was bringing the world to the developed west, it
was exporting these values, and the images of consumer wealth, to the
rest of the world, destabilizing the old regimes, and stimulating
migratory dreams.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
its </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">reflection
of the “shadow” aspect of the h</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">eart,
television </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">gave
us </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">addictive
emotionalism: the glorification of desire, and its fulfillment at
bargain-basement prices. Instead of true compassion, it offered a
chance to feel pity or disdain for the parade of the world’s
“losers” brought to our screens (or faux corporate boardrooms), a
half-response that only deepened a sense of spiritual depression and
disconnection. As consciousness evolved, television’s world-view of
naive optimism, self-pity and addictive consumerism, became easier
and easier to mock. Donald Trump’</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s
network producers</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
understood this, and brazenly used television itself to belittle its
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">soft
emotional (</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">feminine</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
side, offering in opposition, a parody </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">television
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">masculinity:
a </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">loud-mouthed,
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">unfeeling,
so-called </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">self-made
millionaire, beauty-pageant and wrestling promoter. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">At
the same time </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Donald
was being introduced to </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
nation’s viewers</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
Internet was moving from a carrier of email and a place to “surf
the web,” to the home of Facebook, blogging, podcasts and all forms
“social media.” If television was an extension of the heart, then
the all-connected, all-present online world, was an extension of our
skin.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote3sym" name="sdendnote3anc"><sup>iii</sup></a>
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Over-c</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">onnection,
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">not
over-emotion, would become the new challenge.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">While
television offer</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ed</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
an opportunity to </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>look
at</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
the multicultural world, the Internet br</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ought</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
us the gift and the challenge of actually </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>connecting
with it.</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">As
Friedman writes, “Suddenly connectivity became so fast, cheap, easy
for you and ubiquitous that it felt like you could touch someone whom
you could never touch before and that you could be touched by someone
who could never touch you before.” In this world, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
“other” is not just a face on a screen </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>out
there</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
but someone, invited or not, i</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>nside
our personal space</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
This is the multi-cultural, globally-cosmopolitan, knowledge-based,
world of today. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">It
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">is
a place </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">where
we </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">can
no longer ignore</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
multiple overlapping </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">voices
of minority peoples </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
cultures</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">;
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">a
place </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">where
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>everyone
</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>is
speaking all at once</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>,</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and everything </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">about
us </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">is
revealed. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">At
its best, a</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
place for </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">organizing
decentralized online communities, and the creativity that comes from
rubbing against new peoples and new ideas. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Its
metaphor of “we’re all connected,” offers an opportunity to
embrace “holistic </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">awareness,”
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">an
understanding </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">of
the true interconnection of all life, and the possibility of new
tools to better integrate humanity into the biosphere. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Yet
at the same time, the deep anxiety that comes from this realization
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">leaves
on </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">feel</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ing
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">“data
naked,” unprotected and overwhelmed by incoming signals. F</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">rom
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">pandemics
of AIDS, SARS and Ebola, to the waves of global migrants at the door
of the developed world, to the data thefts, and cyber-attacks on the
technological pillars of the information economy, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
Internet has made us vulnerable to the darker side of being part of
one web-linked world. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">This
was the world that Barack Obama symbolized. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">His
campaign was based on data-driven Internet organizing, and his
Presidency was based on the “cool management” of a less
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">self-</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">inflated
nation in a multi-polar world. It is no surprise that this move into
network-style governance would generate unease and push-back from
those </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hurt
by all this “connectivity.” All those </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">left
out of the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">capital
flows of the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">information
economy, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">those
whose jobs were outsourced to internet-linked factories overseas,
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">those
frightened by the real or imagined appearance of the “the other”
at the door, and those who felt that their (formally unquestioned and
dominant) voices were now being </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">drowned
out</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
by </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">those
they couldn’t shut down due to the new codes of</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
“political correctness.” </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
the 2016 campaign, at a time of deep social division and growing
distrust of the new networked global financial corporations and
financial institutions, the Democrats offered a candidate steeped in
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">television’s</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
aspirational memes (fairness and multicultural “rights”), coupled
with an unpleasant air of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">boomer</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
entitlement (“its my turn”). Donald Trump, who rose to fame
manipulating television’s shadow as the exemplar of me-first
materialism, crass cynicism and melodrama, easily embraced the role
of anti-</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Internet</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">metaphor
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">avatar.
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Like
many of the “strong man nationalists” coming to power today, h</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">e
ran as the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">a</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>nti-connectionist
</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">anti-diversity,
anti-politically-correct speech, anti-feminist, anti-immigration</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">)</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
candidate. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Trump
effectively </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">channeled
his attacks against the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">metaphors
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">of
the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">multi-polar,
all-connected internet</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(“America
First,” “Build the Wall”), </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">using
not just his television persona, but even more radically, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">by
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">mastering
a </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">regressive
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">communications
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">medium
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">whose
operative metaphor (“Here I Am”) is </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">most
aligned with the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">older
values of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">security,
survival, and fight or flight: </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
command and control, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">one-way
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">280-character
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">mini-telegram
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>solar-plexus
</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>broadcast</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>s</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">of
the Twitter feed.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote4sym" name="sdendnote4anc"><sup>iv</sup></a>
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
its declarative pronouncements, free of nuance (without even the
perfunctory hellos and goodbyes, let alone the empathetic responses
of telephone talk), Twitter communication is a </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">throwback
to the Victorian Internet, a </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">rejection
of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">holism
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
its complexities – </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
perfect medium of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">competitive
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">narcissism.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Trump’</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s
attacks on the “deep state” </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">tap
the very unease that Friedman call</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
“swimming in the deep end” – </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
sense that our interconnected databases and complex
pattern-recognition software, while “abstracting complexity at a
speed, scope and scale we’d never experienced before,” </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">are</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
leaving </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">us
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">“on
the outside,” blind to </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">what’s
happening inside the algorithms that </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">have
begun </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">to
control our lives</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">while
at the same time the surveillance state and the corporations of
surveillance capitalism could see everything about us, including our
decision-making processes that we hardly knew existed. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Is
it any wonder that one response to this sense of “</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">not
seeing” </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">is
the creation of a </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">social
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">media</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">world
of</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">curated
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">presentation
– where everything </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">i</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">artifice
and falsehood, where nothing c</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">an
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">be
believed, a place </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">full
of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">bots,
scammers, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">poseurs
and grifters, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">where
everything </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">i</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s
“fake news.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">How
to manage the ethical challenge</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>d</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>eep
</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>s</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>eeing</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
is </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">our
present </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">dilemma
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
opportunity.</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Faced
with the dark shadow of our smart technologies, and a President who
is leading the charge away from </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">even
discussing its implications, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Friedman
sees great peril. He </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">calls
for </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">trusted
seers </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">navigators
that can “offer the public deep truths, deep privacy protections,
and deep trust.” </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Perhaps
these attributes will be the focus of our next presidential race, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">as
a number of candidates have embraced a return to complex policy
analysis and are touting their “inner nerd.” We can hope that the
rejection of science won’t continue in the face of global
ecological catastrophe. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">F</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">rom
an </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">integral
perspective, </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">spiritual
“third eye” </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">metaphor
of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>deep-seeing</i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
offers a way out of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
deep waters </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">of
false alarms, false friends and false truths. Recognizing that every
sound and image we perceive might be manipulated, that every “solid
physical truth” is really only a set of quantum probabilities, can
lead us to a deeply cynical disconnected stance: to immersion in
virtual reality escapism, or the passions of tribal regression. But
it can also lead us to a </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">more
holistic understanding of our place in this complex universe.<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote5sym" name="sdendnote5anc"><sup>v</sup></a>
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Many
spiritual traditions urge to recognize the bigger picture of
creation: to see ourselves as part of an evolving whole, where no one
is separate, and the face of the Other is a reflection of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">our
shared divinity. Could it be that the metaphor of deep-seeing is an
invitation to mindfully “watch the codes” of our own thought
processes? </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
second set of “deep processes” identified by Friedman are those
associated with thought itself – artificial intelligence, big data,
cloud computing, and predictive algorithms. In a future blog post I
will look at these technologies as reflections of consciousness
itself: are we separate thinking beings or part of one larger global
brain?<a class="sdendnoteanc" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote6sym" name="sdendnote6anc"><sup>vi</sup></a>
Are we stand-alone processors, or nodes on a giant network? Is our
work to protect our ego-selves, or </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><i>Tikun
Olum – </i></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">to
repair the grid of Creation? </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">To
dance and sing together in community rituals and share in small
face-to-face healing circles? </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Or
to embrace the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">libertarian
fantas</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">y</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
of </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">preserving
one’s separate self </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">by
fleeing to a bunker in New Zealand, a colony on Mars, or worst case,
into a liquid-nitrogen-cooled brain-storage unit!</span></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote1">
<div class="sdendnote">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote1anc" name="sdendnote1sym">i</a> Of
course, I didn’t invent this idea! It is drawn from the field of
media ecology pioneered by Marshal McLuhan, the integral philosophy
of Ken Wilber, and the consciousness evolution model of Spiral
Dynamics.</div>
<div class="sdendnote">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote2">
<div class="sdendnote">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote2anc" name="sdendnote2sym">ii </a>Philosopher
Ken Wilber has called this response “boomeritis” – utopian
dreaming and multicultural sympathies bordering on collective guilt
for all the world’s victims, mixed with unacknowledged attachment
to material luxuries and high drama. </div>
<div class="sdendnote">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote3">
<div class="sdendnote">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote3anc" name="sdendnote3sym">iii </a>In
Digital Dharma (DD), I linked it to the Fifth Chakra: the Throat
Center, the place of our voice and all communications.</div>
<div class="sdendnote">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote4">
<div class="sdendnote">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote4anc" name="sdendnote4sym">iv </a><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
Chapter One of </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">DD,</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
I called </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">texting
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">“the
telegraph of Aliveness,” and suggested that this medium was the
perfect voice of adolescence: the time when kids start to push away
and declare their individuality, announcing and reinforcing their
‘Beingness’ to their peers, calling attention to their
cleverness. Adults usually grow out of this narcissism. When they
don’t, in Maureen Dowd’s words, “its as if your id had a
typewriter.” </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Twitter
combines this First Chakra hunger to announce oneself with the
broadcast power of radio, the Third Chakra medium.</span></span></div>
<div class="sdendnote">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote5">
<div class="sdendnote">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote5anc" name="sdendnote5sym">v</a> I
looked at the impact of digital audio and video compression on our
sense that “not everything we see is real,” and the resulting
response of the “curated-self” in DD Chapter Five.</div>
<div class="sdendnote">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="sdendnote6">
<div class="sdendnote">
<a class="sdendnotesym" href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?rinli=1&pli=1&blogID=7011555388907309499#sdendnote6anc" name="sdendnote6sym">vi</a> This
is the work of the Crown Center, discussed in DD Chapter Seven.</div>
</div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-63573542611115204902018-03-02T14:20:00.005-06:002018-03-05T11:00:17.632-06:00The Media Chakras of Clinton, Obama, and Trump<div align="center" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;">Over
sixty years ago, media scholar Marshall McLuhan suggested that every
medium of communications, regardless of the content it carries, both
extends and impacts our nervous system to both good and ill effect.
Today, our electronic grid of smartphones, social media and
“always-on internet connections” has extended our individual
nervous system to the entire planet. And, just as our nervous system
has its spiritual energy centers – <i>the chakras,</i> so too, I
believe, does the global grid. Each communications technology emerges
as a product of consciousness, and each holds and reflects a
different spiritual challenge. Each is associated with a different
chakra. </span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "liberation" serif , serif;">I
developed this model in my book, <i>Digital Dharma (2007),</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
where I traced the evolution of telecommunications from the spark of
the first electric telegraph, through the analog waves of the
telephone’s seductive voice, the power broadcasts of radio, the
broken heart of television, and on into the then</span><span style="font-style: normal;">-</span><span style="font-style: normal;">emerging
technologies of global interconnection, digital compression and
virtual reality and the “internet of things,” speaking to each
other via “grid computing” </span><span style="font-style: normal;">(or,
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">what we now call “</span><span style="font-style: normal;">the
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">cloud”</span><span style="font-style: normal;">).
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">Today,</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
a decade later, the technologies of social media: Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, and our smartphone apps, have become the foundation of
much of our lives, reflecting and impacting the state of mass
consciousness, and its reflection in our contemporary political and
social lives. Using the chakra-based model of </span><i>Digital
Dharma</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">I
will look at our Twitter-obsessed “</span><span style="font-style: normal;">texting”
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">president, and why his claims
of “false news” are actually shadow intimations of a deeper
spiritual truth; why he continues to be successful in railing against
the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">internet-driven
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">consequences of global
integration and boundary deterioration; </span><span style="font-style: normal;">why
Hillary’s </span><span style="font-style: normal;">television
image-based</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> appeal was so
easy to mock; </span><span style="font-style: normal;">and</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
why </span><span style="font-style: normal;">the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">heart-centered
v</span><span style="font-style: normal;">alues </span><span style="font-style: normal;">embedded
in</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;">new
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">visual communications, may
indeed bring someone like Oprah to the White House.</span></span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u>Hillary’s
Fourth Chakra Television-Based Campaign</u></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="text-decoration: none;">Hillary
Clinton’</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">s campaign was
built on the “dynamic feminine” </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">ourth
</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra
values of “sharing and caring” – inclusion and cooperation,
compassion for outsider groups, and the protection of individual
rights. The work of this chakra is to integrate the heart’s desire
to be fully loved with the reality of living in an ego-based world of
limitation and attachment. </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">Thwarted
fourth-level emotional energy can easily turn to hypersensitivity and
the high drama of the victim syndrome. Philosopher Ken Wilber has
called this response “boomeritis” – utopian dreaming and
multicultural sympathies bordering on collective guilt for all the
world’s victims, mixed with unacknowledged attachment to material
luxuries and high drama. </span>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="text-decoration: none;">These
are the same core values of the medium of television: the technology
that brought her husband to the White House, but seemed out of date
in the Internet age. </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">Television’s
gift to the “boomer” generation was its face-to-face close-up
view of the world’s diverse community: people, plants and animals,
and our home planet itself. Despite its menu of cowboys and Indians,
crime fighters and violent cartoons, TV also introduced us to
outsiders of different colors, tribe and nation. It connected us,
along with the Space Program, for the first time to our entire planet
as </span><span style="text-decoration: none;">o</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">ne
</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">Spaceship Earth</span><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">It
was the medium of human and animal rights, the environment and
holistic thinking. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Balancing
its diet of “hard news” and glorified sports violence, it was
also a medium of the feminine: of the intimate family narrative and
soap operas of personal disclosure, bringing the carnage of the
Vietnam War into every living room. In its “shadow reflection” of
the </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">H</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">eart
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">C</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra,
television offered an addictive emotionalism: the glorification of
desire, and its fulfillment at bargain-basement prices. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Instead
of true compassion, its shadow offered a chance to feel pity or
disdain for the parade of the world’s “losers” brought to our
screens (or faux corporate boardrooms), a half-response that only
deepened a sense of spiritual depression and disconnection. As
consciousness evolved, television’s world-view of naive optimism,
and its shadow of self-pity and addictive consumerism, became easier
and easier to </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">mock</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">.
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Donald
Trump </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">understood
this, and </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">brazenly
us</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">ed</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
television </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">itself
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">to
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">belittle
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">its
feminine side, offering </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">in
opposition a</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">parody
character </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">of
a </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">loud-mouthed,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">self-made
millionaire and beauty-pageant and wrestling promoter. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">At
the same time, consciousness was pushing us upwards into </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
new, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">ifth
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">technology
of the Internet, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">bringing
with it new forms of social connection, new problems, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">and
a new form of presidential campaigning. </span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u><span style="font-style: normal;">T</span><span style="font-style: normal;">he
Fifth Chakra, Internet-Presidency, of Barack Obama</span></u></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">While
television offers an opportunity to </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">look
at</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
the multicultural world, the Internet brings us the gift and the
challenge of actually </span></span><i><span style="text-decoration: none;">connecting
with it.</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
Fifth-level communications presents us with a world of </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">overlapping
instantaneous, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">unfiltered
interconnection: </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
“other” is not just a face on a screen “out there,” but
someone, invited or not, inside our personal space. This is the
multi-cultural, globally-cosmopolitan, knowledge-based, world of
today. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">At
its best, this is a place of respect for the formerly-unheard voices
of minority peoples, for the organizing of vibrant decentralized
online communities, and the creativity that comes from rubbing
against new peoples and new ideas. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">It
offers a new </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">holistic
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">environmental
awareness of the true interconnection of all life, and the
possibility of new tools to better integrate humanity into the
biosphere.</span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Its
shadow reflection can be found in our fear of viral infection –
from pandemics of AIDS and SARS and Ebola, to the waves of global
migrants at the door of the “developed world,” to the infection,
data thefts, and cyber-attacks on the technological pillars of the
information economy. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">A
strong </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">ifth
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra
can cope with this bombardment of </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">messages.
It is a “truth filter,” capable of resisting unhealthy viral
memes, able to discern the </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">underlying
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">truth
in every system of relationships</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">. When
closed, this chakra manifests </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">as
the intellectual </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">cynicism
of deconstructionism where “nothing is rea</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">l,”
or its gut-level version of “alternative facts” and “fake
news.” Blasted open, it manifests as compulsive self-regard, a
fixation on “the presentation of self,” </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
end of all privacy, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">and
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
pseudo-communication of </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">outright
lying. The Internet’s constant chatter mimics the babble and
distraction of our planetary “monkey mind.”</span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">This
was the world that Barack Obama understood in ways that the older
TV-generation could not. His campaign was based on data-driven
Internet organizing, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">and
his Presidency was based on the “cool management” of a less
inflated nation in a multi-polar world. It is no surprise that this
move into </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">ifth-</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">network-style
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">governance</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">would
generate </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">unease
and </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">push-back
from those left out of the information economy, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">those
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">frightened
by the real or imagined appearance of the “the other” at the
door, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">and
those who felt that their (formally unquestioned and dominant) voices
were now being stifled by “political correctness.” </span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u><span style="font-style: normal;">A
Return to the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Text</span><span style="font-style: normal;">:
Donald Trump as the Twitter Candidate</span></u><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
</span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">I</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">n
the 2016 campaign, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">at
a time of deep social division and growing distrust of the new
networked global financial corporations and financial institutions,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
Democrats offered a candidate steeped in fourth chakra aspirational
memes </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">(fairness
and multicultural “rights”),</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
coupled with </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">an
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">unpleasant
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">air
of fourth chakra entitlement shadow (“its my turn”). Donald
Trump, who rose to fame manipulating television’</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">s</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
shadow as the exemplar of me-first materialism, crass cynicism, and
melodrama, easily embraced </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
role of </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">anti</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">-</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">ifth
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra
avatar.</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
He ran</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">as
the anti-diversity, anti-politically-correct speech, anti-feminist,
anti-immigration, candidate. He tapped and twisted the
deconstructionist ethos into casual lying, a disregard for the truth,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">projecting
his own </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">ifth
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">shadow
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">into
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">chants
of “lying Hillary” and “fake news.” He channeled his attacks
against the </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">values
of the </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Internet
Presidency using </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">not
just his television persona, but even more radically, the medium most
aligned with the primal </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">masculine
“alphabet </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">power”
of the </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">irst
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">–
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
chakra of </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">security,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">survival,
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">and
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">fight
or flight, </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the
140-character “telegraph of self,” </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">the</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
“</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">I
talk, you listen”</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">
</span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">one-way
broadcast of the Twitter feed.</span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Twitter’s
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">mini-telegrams
– short textual declarations, free of nuance, without even the
perfunctory hellos and goodbyes, let alone the empathetic responses
of telephone talk, reflect the </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">f</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">irst
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">c</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">hakra’s
</span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">work
of individuation: discovering the I – and presenting it to the
world. </span></span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">At
this stage of development, relationships are evaluated primarily in
terms of one’s safety and one’s gain: </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
very applications that drove the early </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">telegraph
system </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(what
Tom Standage has called the “Victorian Internet”) </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">–
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">market
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">transactions,
military and colonial control, and emergency communications. </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
Chapter One of </span></span><i>Digital Dharma</i><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
I called these wireless services “the telegraph of Aliveness,”
and suggested that this medium was the perfect voice of adolescence:
the time when kids start to push away and declare their
individuality, announcing and reinforcing their ‘</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">B</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">eingness’
to their peers, calling attention to their cleverness. Adults usually
grow out of this narcissism. When they don’t, in Maureen Dowd’s
words, “its as if your id had a typewriter.” </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">T</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">oday,
the most prodigious user of texting, the loudest voice on Twitter, is
the President of the United States! </span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u>What Might Come in 2020?</u></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">T</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">he
same force of technological evolution, </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
its impact on consciousness, </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">that
brought us from the telegraph to the telephone, radio and beyond, is
still at work. We are accommodating ourselves to unfinished work of
fifth-level communications. </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
response to the crudity of the Trump “winner take all”
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">lower-chakra
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">politics,
we are already seeing the </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">activation
of a mass movement of deeply-offended women </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">pushing
for a return to</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
some of the be</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">tter</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">f</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ourth
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">c</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hakra
values </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(personified
by television’s face of empathy and financial reward, Ophrah
Winfrey)</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.
This trend will grow stronger as text-based communication itself
continues to decline in favor of visual image sharing and voice
networking. Fifth-level shadow will continue to </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">be
exposed as the Internet reveals the impossibility of holding
“secrets” from the public, manifesting in more calls for
“transparency” and “Me Too” campaigns, and also in more fears
of “secret deep state actors” and other conspiracies. Immigration
policy – how to manage boundaries in a networked world – will
also swing between heart-centered compassion for the “dreamers”
and calls to build stronger firewalls and security systems.</span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Into
this mix will also come the initial impact of </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ixth</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">-c</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hakra
communications. This is the center of “deeper seeing,” of the
“codes of reality,” and the mystical understanding that “all
reality is but a dream, all reality is the same!” At its best, this
chakra reminds us to t</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">reat</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
all communications </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">as
the product of the ego-self, to act with great humility in “deep
listening” to those we have decided are “others,” and to
connect with all beings at the soul level. </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">It teaches us to "watch the codes," in practices like mindfulness meditation. </span></span>In its shadow
presentation, this is the center of hallucination, false voices, and
false realities (including the latest dark phenomena of creating real-looking fraudulent videos). Sixth-level communication technologies include all
digital image devices, video games and VR, </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">virtual
worlds such as </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><i>Second
Life,</i></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
and </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
coding schemes that make them work. Issues of managing </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">genetic
coding, </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">controlling
AI, and accommodating different variants on the racial, gender, and
neurological spectrum will dominate political debate in the coming
years.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">One can imagine further polarization along three versions of
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">s</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ixth
</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">c</span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hakra
“truths” – (1) “My truth is the only truth, (and its written
here in my Holy Book),” (2) “There is no truth, everything is
fake, (and therefore only my tribe’s stories are real),” and (3)
“All things are true, (and we must learn to communicate the deeper
feelings and needs under our words).” Let us hope that </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">our
evolving </span></span><span style="font-variant: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;">consciousness
brings us closer to the third response!</span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-decoration: none;">
<br /></div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-74809435534318927212017-07-22T15:03:00.002-05:002017-07-22T15:03:44.678-05:00FIREWALLS AND SILOS: TURNING FROM THE FACE OF THE OTHER
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In Chapter Five of
<i>Digital Dharma</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, I wrote about
the impending “crisis of contagion” as our Internet connections
collapsed every wall and barrier to the Other. “Television,” I
wrote, “prods us to open our hearts to the world; the Internet
reflects the challenge of dealing with the consequences of such
openness… a sea of memes – idea fragments that flow from brain to
brain, reproducing like viruses” (DD, 90). </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Reflected
in the Internet are all the symptoms of a dangerously over-active
Fifth Chakra: self-righteous speech that is often arrogant,
over-reactive, dogmatic or fanatical. This unfiltered network gives
equal voice to hate-mongers, liars, and unscrupulous profiteers and
purveyors of pornography and rapidly-spreading viruses. For every
online Utopian</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><span style="font-style: normal;">community,
there’s another full of seduction and anger. (DD, 95)</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">I
balanced this dark portrayal with the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">hope
that we would find a way to truly see the gift in this technology
that has pushed us into direct contact with all the truths – about
our constructed false selves, our secrets and lies, and all the dark
places – that we repress, suppress and deny. As we are forced to
see the Other in every blog post, tweet or news-feed, we often
respond by building stronger defenses and boundary walls to keep the
“foreign contagion” out of our system, or countering with even
more of the same – excessive “presentation of the self” that
takes the form of nonstop talking, poor listening, or outright lying</span><span style="font-style: normal;">.
As our world gets more complex and integrated, where former
“outsiders” no longer keep their mouths shut, it is no surprise
that for many frightened folks, the answer is to build higher walls
and ban outsiders, challenge the idea of “truth itself,” making
all values transient figments of fleeting clashing subcultures, and
dropping down to safer forms of one-way discourse such as Twitter
(DD, 88-9).</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">T</span><span style="font-style: normal;">en
years ago I warned that in a </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">communications
environment where everyone has a voice, and multiple “truths” run
free, “being connected to everyone all the time” can easily
overwhelm our brain’s defense systems. In a world of what William
Gibson described as “deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through
with misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and a
quotidian degree of madness” (DD, 100), I suggested that simply
building bigger firewalls and loading our computers with more and
more anti-virus software, w</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ould</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
not protect us. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">We
needed to </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">both
turn inwards and outwards: participating in smaller, intimate
communities, where we could drop our masks and ego posturing; and
also begin to build links to </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">“trusted
sources” t</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hat
could </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">validate
and verify the swirl of conflicting “truths” coming our way.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">These
conflicting responses – more walls and more “</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">hyper-curated
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">pretend</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">-</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">selves”
on one hand, and the pull </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">of
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">staying
in safe communities, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">have
only increased in the intervening decade. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">W</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">e’</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">ve
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">see</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">n</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
the continued proliferation of special-interest sharing and support
forums, “</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
private spaces where people gather to share information they might
not be willing to broadcast publicly, or behave in ways they might
not want their friends to know about.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Facebook
itself, whose entire business model has been focused on getting users
to “share as much information as they could, as publicly as
possible” in its electronic town square, recently turned to
promoting, as </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>New
York Times’</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
business writer </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Kevin
Roose </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">wrote,
“its gated subdivisions” </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">[</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Behind
the Velvet Ropes of Facebook’s Private Groups</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
(7/16/17)</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">].</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">While
these groups are a healthy response to media overexposure, and
reflect our human hunger for the safety and intimacy of trusted small
group connection, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">trusting
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">only
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">one’s
friends at the expense of respected experts, seems to be a new
cultural fault line. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
some communities, s</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">cience
itself is under attack, and more and more people prefer to
communicate from safely within their “thought silos,” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">taking
their cue from their Twitter feeds and </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">online
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">“taste
buddies.” </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Finding
a way to step outside of our comfortable though environments without
being overwhelmed remains a core challenge. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Our
“digital dharma work” is to make a jump in consciousness – in
Ken Wilber’s words, “from relativism to holism, or from </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>pluralism
to integralism</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">”
(DD, 88), simultaneously living in multiple overlapping hyperlinked
networks, where everything and everyone are connected, where the true
face of the Other cannot be avoided, all while maintaining one’s
unique, but permeable, center. </span></span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">O</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ne
way to strengthen our ability to live in these multiple worlds is to
strengthen our core Self through meditation practice: clearing the
memory buffers and brain chatter that confuse and distract. These
moments of silence are the “inner firewalls” against the waves of
electronic stimuli that surround us all. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">From
this place of deep quiet we can begin to perceive the whole web of
illusion, beyond appearances and habitual concepts, to the true state
of non-duality which modulates all reality. As media scholar Marshall
McLuhan told us 60-years-ago, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>pay
attention to the underlying medium, not the message.</i></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Mindfulness
meditation is, in effect, a process of observing the instruction
codes of our consensual reality come and go, without actually
downloading them and running their embedded programs of thoughts,
emotions and attachments. From this place of unity consciousness, we
can be both a “node on the network” and an observer of the
<a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2010/07/sufi-soul-of-cloud.html">network
cloud</a>, with all of its lightning and data storms. In earlier
posts I suggested some <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2010/07/chakra-meditations-for-cyber-addiction.html">“cyber-mediations”</a>
and offered <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2009/07/twitter-ambient-awareness-and-spiritual.html">“ambient
awareness”</a> as one way to help us with “Twitter overload.”
They seem as timely today as when I </span><span style="font-size: small;">first
</span><span style="font-size: small;">wrote them in 2007, and in my <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2013/02/strenthening-our-inner-firewalls.html">follow-up blog posts</a>.</span></div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-23221098424387159232017-07-19T17:19:00.001-05:002017-07-19T17:19:14.151-05:00ALEXA and the SEDUCTIVE POWER OF THE DISEMBODIED VOICE
<br />
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Last Thursday
(7/13/17), the <u>New York Times</u>’ <i>Style</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
section featured a number of people admitting that they’ve
developed quite an attachment to their Amazon Alexa “bot.”
Whether “ideal roommate,” “a cross between a mistress and a
nurse,” or “perfect woman, (who) never says, ‘Not tonight,
dear,’” we see</span><span style="font-style: normal;">m</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
deeply drawn to this disembodied, but friendly, voice in the dark.
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">Media scholars understand
that this allure is nothing new. It recapitulates </span><span style="font-style: normal;">our
earlier fascination and deep emotional attachment to our </span><i>telephones.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">Marshall McLuhan, writing in
the 1950’s, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">asked: </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.49in;">
<span style="font-family: Liberation Serif, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Why
s</span>hould the phone create an intense feeling of loneliness? Why
should we feel compelled to answer a ringing public phone when we
know the call cannot concern us? Why does a phone ringing on the
stage create instant tension? Why is that tension so very much less
for an unanswered phone in a movie scene? The answer to all of these
questions is simply that the phone is a participant form that demands
a partner, with all the intensity of electric polarity.</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.49in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">As
I wrote in </span><i>D</i><i>igital </i><i>D</i><i>harma</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
“a quality of intense longing has permeated the social history of
telephony from the moment of its birth.” As opposed to the
declarative texts of telegraphy and its modern rebirth as </span><span style="font-style: normal;">texting
and </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Twitter, the telephone
represented what Erik Davis has called the “ultimate animist
technology… an inert thing full of voices,” – a technology of
feelings, wants and desires. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">While
first seen as a business tool, limited to the male domain of
business, government and the military, the telephone, by the 1920’s
had become a </span><i>domestic</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
appliance, moving from the ordered left-brain-dominant realm of the
alphabet, to the flowing, musical, feminine right-brain space of the
voice. It was deeply unsettling to the established patriarchal social
order: it empowered women in numerous ways, along with lovers,
pranksters, and criminals. It was, in the words of historian Robert
MacDougall, “a lawless thing, at times dangerous, at others
sexualized, at others juv</span><span style="font-style: normal;">e</span><span style="font-style: normal;">nile.”
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">[</span><span style="font-style: normal;">S</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ee
</span><i>DD</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> p. 36-42, for </span><span style="font-style: normal;">a
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">discussion of </span><span style="font-style: normal;">the
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">impact of the telephone’s
“call to intimacy.”]</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">I
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">believe that the telephone
and its new forms as responsive “voice bots,” can be seen as
extensions of our </span><span style="font-style: normal;">S</span><span style="font-style: normal;">econd
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">C</span><span style="font-style: normal;">hakra’s
hunger for deep connection: at its best, drawing us into places of
intimate sharing and community; and at its worst, fostering
dependence and unhealthy emotional attachments. As we talk less and
less on our phones, interacting with the world through our eyes, it
is no surprise that our primal prewired attachment to the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">intimacy
of the human </span><span style="font-style: normal;">voice </span><span style="font-style: normal;">is
reasserting itself through these new devices. Our </span><span style="font-style: normal;">inner
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">challenge </span><span style="font-style: normal;">before
we fully engage with these external “voice whisperers,” </span><span style="font-style: normal;">is
to create our own </span><i>internal </i><span style="font-style: normal;">“voice
of validation,” clearing old attachments and disconnecting the
stuck cords to </span><span style="font-style: normal;">the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">unhealthy
belief systems </span><span style="font-style: normal;">of our inner
wounded children</span><span style="font-style: normal;">. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">With
these cords of communication cleared, we can truly enjoy our newfound
talking, Cloud-connected, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">playful
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">electronic friends</span><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-69426270720129041322017-07-17T16:01:00.003-05:002017-07-17T16:01:45.041-05:00 THE GLOBAL TELEGRAPH AND A PRESIDENT WHO CAN’T STOP “TWEETING”
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">T</span><span style="font-style: normal;">HE
GLOBAL TELEGRAPH AND A PRESIDENT WHO CAN’T STOP “TWEETING”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">As
early as 1851, in </span><i>The House of the Seven Gables</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
Nathaniel Hawthorne has its protagonist reflect on the marriage of
electricity and the human nervous system, presaging the emergence of
the Global Brain. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.49in;">
“<span style="font-style: normal;">Is
it a fact — or have I dreamt it — that, by means of electricity,
the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of
miles in a breathless point of time? Rather, the round globe is a
vast head, a brain, instinct with intelligence! Or, shall we say, it
is itself a thought, nothing but thought, and no longer the substance
which we deemed it!" </span><span style="font-style: normal;">His
listener who is less taken with modernity, responds, "If you
mean the telegraph," said the old gentleman, glancing his eye
toward its wire, alongside the rail-track, "it is an excellent
thing, — that is, of course, if the speculators in cotton and
politics don't get possession of it. A great thing, indeed, sir,
particularly as regards the detection of bank-robbers and murderers.”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">H</span><span style="font-style: normal;">awthorne
goes on to suggest that this new technology would be ideally suited
to the back and forth of lovers:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-left: 0.49in;">
… <span style="font-style: normal;">A</span>n
almost spiritual medium, like the electric telegraph, should be
consecrated to high, deep, joyful, and holy missions. Lovers, day by,
day — hour by hour, if so often moved to do it, — might send
their heart-throbs from Maine to Florida, with some such words as
these 'I love you forever!' — 'My heart runs over with love!' —
'I love you more than I can!' and, again, at the next message 'I have
lived an hour longer, and love you twice as much!' Or, when a good
man has departed, his distant friend should be conscious of an
electric thrill, as from the world of happy spirits, telling him
'Your dear friend is in bliss!'
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">As
the telegraph network evolved into what Tom Standage has called “the
Victorian Internet,” it never became the transcendent medium of
Utopian global intelligence, but was quickly turned to “first-level”
concerns of commerce, public safety, colonialism and war. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Inventor
and mystic Nikola Tesla too, in a 1904 article on “World
Telegraphy,” had a vision of the earth “converted into a huge
brain” once the wireless telegraph could be connected to a “cheap
and simple device, which might be carried in one’s pocket.” </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Today, Tesla’s dream is a reality, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">over
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">560</span><span style="font-style: normal;">-b</span><span style="font-style: normal;">illion
text messages </span><span style="font-style: normal;">w</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ere
sent </span><span style="font-style: normal;">worldwide </span><span style="font-style: normal;">last
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">month (not counting
60-billion Facebook and WhatsApp </span><i>daily</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
messages!)</span><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">but
our new wired brain seems to be stuck in the most primitive level of
communicating: “this message is all about Me.” </span><span style="font-style: normal;">It’s
as if in the midst of our climb through the developmental stages
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">[</span><span style="font-style: normal;">described
by Maslow, Ken Wilber and </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Don
Beck (and my use of the Chakra model)], from concerns with personal
safety and control to true global interrelationships, from the
telegraph to telephone, radio to television, the Internet to Virtual
Reality and the Cloud, made possible by Cloud technologies, we’ve
cycled back to the security of simple Yes/No binary signaling!</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">I
believe that these mini-telegrams – short textual declarations,
free of nuance, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">without even
the perfunctory hellos and goodbyes, let alone the empathetic
responses, of telephone talk, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">reflect
the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">primary </span><span style="font-style: normal;">psycho-social
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">inner work </span><span style="font-style: normal;">of
individuation: </span><span style="font-style: normal;">discovering
the I – and presenting it to the world.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">At
this stage of development, relationships are evaluated primarily in
terms of one’s safety and one’s gain. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">In
Chapter One of </span><i>Digital Dharma</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
I called these wireless services “the telegraph of Aliveness.” I
connected RF-ID and texting to the coordination broadcasts of our
living cells, and suggested that this medium was the perfect voice of
adolescence: the time when kids start to push away and declare their
individuality, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">announcing and
reinforcing their ‘</span><span style="font-style: normal;">b</span><span style="font-style: normal;">eingness’
to their peers, calling attention to their cleverness. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Adults
usually grow out of this narcissism. When they don’t, in Maureen
Dowd’s words, “its as if your id had a typewriter.” </span><span style="font-style: normal;">And,
t</span><span style="font-style: normal;">oday, t</span><span style="font-style: normal;">he
most prodigious user of texting, the loudest voice on Twitter, is the
President of the United States! </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">Clearly,
we are beset with existential challenges. Our choice is to embrace
them at the highest level of our consciousness, or drop back to
fear-based responses – and an embrace of the technologies that
amplify and reflect </span><span style="font-style: normal;">our
hunger to be seen and to feel safe, </span><span style="font-style: normal;">to
send out our </span><i>He-Ne-Nee</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
call, or by “following” our pop star heroes, to join in the
safety of the (electronic) crowd.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">I
ended Chapter One with the hope that </span><span style="font-style: normal;">these
messages connect us </span><span style="font-style: normal;">the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">S</span><span style="font-style: normal;">ong
of Aliveness </span><span style="font-style: normal;">transmitted by
</span><i>a</i><i>ll </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Beings,
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">that we use them to </span><span style="font-style: normal;">giv</span><span style="font-style: normal;">e</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
voice to the planet itself as we extend digital sensors to the ocean
depths and the tagging collars of dwindling wild species. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">This
is still my view of the potential to live this aspect of our Digital
Dharma.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-42148796822460371392017-07-17T15:40:00.000-05:002017-07-17T15:40:01.415-05:00DIGITAL DHARMA TEN YEARS LATER
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Its been ten years
since my book, <i>Digital Dharma,</i> was released by the
Theosophical Publishing House (Quest Books). I’ve decided to look
over some of my “predictions” a decade later, and in general, I
think I did pretty well! Yes, <i>Second Life </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and
</span><i>Friendster </i><span style="font-style: normal;">didn’t
make it as </span><span style="font-style: normal;">online
communities, but </span><i>Facebook</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
has over </span><span style="font-style: normal;">1.9</span><span style="font-style: normal;">
billion </span><span style="font-style: normal;">monthly </span><span style="font-style: normal;">users.
I called Twitter messages “twits,” but truly predicted the rise
of SMS text-based services, and while I labeled the emergence of
shared global intelligence networks “the grid,” we are all
becoming dependent on our “smart devices” communicating via “the
Cloud!”</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">In
retrospect, using the </span><i>chakras</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
as the organizing ladder was probably a mistake in terms of
marketing: my media-ecology and technology readers were frightened
away by the esoteric references to “energy wheels,” while my New
Age friends often told me that they “hate their computers and
smartphones,” and have no interest in seeing them as tools for
self-reflection. It might have been safer to rely more on </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Don
Beck’s </span><span style="font-style: normal;">“Spiral Dynamics”
and Ken Wilber’s </span><i>holons</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
but in the end, the real leap I asked my readers to entertain was
that our “outer technologies” both reflect and influence our
inner psycho-spiritual challenges, and are in turn, created and used
in ways that also reflect the state if our mass consciousness. As our
world gets even more connected, having a “big picture view” of
the emerging </span><span style="font-style: normal;">spiritual </span><span style="font-style: normal;">issues
</span><span style="font-style: normal;">– the Light and Shadow of
each technology – </span><span style="font-style: normal;">is even
more critical to our mental health and the survival of the planet. </span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">In
the next few weeks, I will try to update each of the book’s seven
chapters. I will also try to respond to any blog questions readers
may have about the intersection of telecommunications technologies
and spiritual evolution. </span><span style="font-style: normal;">As
a start, here is a look at how the global telegraph, with its “first
level” issues of security and self-identity, has reemerged in our
constant “texting” and Twitter feeds, and a President who can’t
keep his thumbs off the phone screen!</span></div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-37198231939870372712013-10-15T14:55:00.002-05:002020-05-03T14:24:50.736-05:00Building the Cloud: Hearing Gaia's Voice<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The coupling of electricity with our nervous system over a century-and-a half ago started the process of what the prescient media sage Marshal McLuhan’s called, “the outering our nervous system.” From the one-to-one communications technologies of the telegraph and telephone, to the one-to-many forms of broadcast radio and television, and the all-to-all global grids of the internet and social media, we continue to grow more connected, more accessible, and more stimulated. Today, we are moving from interconnected networks to entire environments of distributed intelligence. With that change comes many potential negative outcomes, but I believe that despite the dangers of being seduced into Matrix-like pseudo-environments controlled by commercial interests, our emerging cloud consciousness – driven by these enabling technologies – also gives us an opportunity to reconnect with Gaia herself.<br /><br /><br />In the recent years we’ve seen the image of the internet morph from a two-dimensional “grid” to three-dimensional pervasive “cloud.” Distributed processing technology allows for data storage, software and computing technology to reside out on the network in large interconnected data centers far removed from the local user. Using these networks and remote data centers, extremely large-scale computing projects can now be shared across millions of independent loosely-coupled smaller processors worldwide, each "donating" its spare computing cycles to the functioning of the whole. Cloud-based shared computing networks are already tackling the modeling of new cancer-fighting drugs, the mapping of the universe, and the tracking of the smallest quantum interactions.<br /><br />The cloud is now the "place" where we store more and more of our cumulative human intelligence. In addition to shared processing cycles and web applications, eventually every book written, every recording, every webpage, every film and television program -- the entire works of humankind, will find its way to the cloud, while we rely on ever-more-powerful search engines, "data mining" algorithms and crowd-sourcing to make sense of this overflowing abundance: the meshes, mixes and remixes of our evolving culture.<br /><br />The explosive expansion of the information cloud is given more and more objects and places a digital voice: many office machines call in service technicians before their owners are aware of any problems, tiny sensors monitor soil and water conditions, alerting farmers when to irrigate and harvest. Similar devices in bridges are now sending wind, wave, and traffic data to the highway department, while soon vending machines will adjust their prices depending on supply and the current weather and traffic conditions, texting when they need restocking. Cellphone-guided neighborhood tours and local living histories are being developed in many communities: one New York artist has recruited his neighbors to record stories about the love life in their building, while another has poets tell the stories of individual trees in a Bronx park.<br /><br />But beyond “talking trees” is the emergence of real-time connectivity to the earth’s life web itself. The internet has allowed us to vicariously participate in the naturalist’s work of monitoring and tracking wild animals: from nesting baby bald eagles on city sky-scraper ledges, to grey wolves in Yellowstone, to deep-diving seals, to tiny insects in the canopy of the rain forest. Earth-based monitoring – from interactive underwater observatories, to atmospheric carbon and ozone monitoring stations on the tops of mountains and deep in the forest; from stress sensors embedded deep in the earth, to the emergence of the “smart electrical grid,” is creating a proto-nervous system for the planet, making it possible to “listen” to Gaia herself.<br /><br />We must learn to synthesize and integrate the messages from these extended neurons without becoming overwhelmed or overly thick-skinned. The technology of “ambient devices” provides one such tool. These devices track myriads of complex data inputs, synthesize their impact and display them in easy-to-understand interfaces such a cellphone app or a “cyber-pet” whose tail changes color as electrical consumption increases and whose purr is replace with a sad grumble as more carbon-based power is added to the mix.<br /><br />As we learn to monitor our physical environment through such digital intermediaries, we will be challenged to pick inputs that represent our highest selves. What if we insisted that we use this planetary ambient awareness to electronically track and share the encroachment of the deserts, the thinning of the Ozone Layer, the decline of the ocean’s diversity? Not just the condition of our investment portfolio, but the number of malnourished children in the world? Not just status updates from “friends” we hardly know, but reports from our “adopted” whales, sea turtles, giant redwoods or tiny mushrooms living in the Amazon?<br /><br />I believe that as we become more comfortable with our real-time connection to the planet’s multiple voices, we will begin to see ourselves less as individual beings competing for resources, power or status, and more as one node in a joyously, noisily communicating system. And with that system awareness, comes the chance to see in the Cloud beginnings of a paradigm shift in human consciousness: the modeling of a world where we connect not only with every other being, but through awareness of that interconnection, with the larger network itself – what the mystics have understood as "unity consciousness," the simultaneous experience of individual identity and cosmic oneness.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-size: small; line-height: 17.9972px;"><br />© Steven R Vedro, 2013</span></span>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-80427553172204109532013-02-12T14:44:00.002-06:002013-02-12T14:44:53.846-06:00Strenthening Our Inner Firewalls<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our always-on
electronic devices have connected us to a pulsating web of information, social
chatter and the possibility of endless distraction. Many writers have lamented
the addictive nature of the never-ending stimuli brought to us by our
smartphone apps, Facebook updates, texts and emails. In last Sunday’s (2/10) <i>New York Times</i> Maureen Dowd decried the “intoxicating
lure” of instant electronic gratification, while Frank Bruni blamed “the
Internet… and social media and cable television” for upending our belief in
moderation, and replacing it with a culture of extremes— from food and diets,
to sports and politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In <i>Digital Dharma</i> I discussed the “shadow
side” of the Internet, digital realities and self-reinforcing online
communities. In a communications environment where everyone has a voice, and
multiple “truths” run free, being connected to everyone all the time can easily
overwhelm our brain’s defense systems. In a world of what William Gibson
described as “deliriously multiple viewpoints, shot through with misinformation,
disinformation, conspiracy theories and a quotidian degree of madness,”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Steven/Desktop/Documents/DD/New%20Edition-Reality%20Sandwich/WATCHING%20INDRA.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
we need to cultivate the power of discernment – conscious attention and
conscious inattention. In a hyper-stimulated media world, silence clears the “memory
buffers.” Mind clarification must precede mind expansion. </span><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Our gullible consciousness responds to any software we put into it.</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Steven/Desktop/Documents/DD/New%20Edition-Reality%20Sandwich/WATCHING%20INDRA.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[ii]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 16px; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These
moments of silence are the “inner firewalls” against the waves of cultural spam
that threaten to inundate us. From this place of deep quiet we can begin to perceive
the whole web of illusion, beyond appearances and habitual concepts, to the
true state of non-duality which modulates all reality. As media scholar Marshall McLuhan told us
60-years-ago, <i>pay attention to the
underlying medium, not the message.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Mindfulness meditation is, in effect, a process of observing the instruction
codes of our consensual reality come and go, without actually downloading them
and running their embedded programs of thoughts, emotions and attachments. From
this place of unity consciousness, we can be both a “node on the network” and
an observer of the </span><a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2010/07/sufi-soul-of-cloud.html" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">network cloud</a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, with all of its lightning and data storms. In
earlier posts I suggested some <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2010/07/chakra-meditations-for-cyber-addiction.html">“cyber-mediations”</a> and offered <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2009/07/twitter-ambient-awareness-and-spiritual.html">“ambient awareness”</a> as one way to help us with “Twitter overload.” They seem as timely
today as when I first wrote them.</span></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Steven/Desktop/Documents/DD/New%20Edition-Reality%20Sandwich/WATCHING%20INDRA.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
William Gibson, “The Road to Oceana,” <i>New
York Times,</i> June 23, 2003; (p. 100 in <i>Digital
Dharma).<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/Steven/Desktop/Documents/DD/New%20Edition-Reality%20Sandwich/WATCHING%20INDRA.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Discussed
in more detail in pp. 132-135 in <i>Digital
Dharma.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-53386494558658376432013-02-06T14:53:00.000-06:002013-02-06T14:53:02.530-06:00Gaia's Voice<br />
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In my 2008 book, <i>Digital Dharma,</i>
I wrote about tiny digital chips becoming embedded in our physical environment –
from our houses to shopping malls, to our appliances, clothing and body parts –
and how soon these devices would evolve from simple one-way signaling beacons
to fully-interactive and addressable nodes, monitoring their internal processes
and sharing their status with every other device on the net. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In this world, office machines call
in service technicians before their owners are aware of any problems. Tiny
sensors monitor soil and water conditions, alerting farmers when to irrigate
and harvest. Similar devices embedded in bridges send wind, wave, and traffic
data to the highway department… and Coke machines adjust their prices depending
on supply and the current weather and traffic conditions… calling nearby
delivery drivers when they need restocking. (p. 150)<o:p></o:p></div>
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In our emerging <i>Infosphere</i>
(of what we now call “the cloud”), we are beginning to give a voice to
Gaia herself. From interactive underwater observatories, connected to each
other and to land-based research laboratories, to atmospheric carbon and ozone
monitoring stations on the tops of mountains and deep in the forest; from
dairy cows that tweet that their udders are full, to stress sensors embedded
deep in the earth and in roads and bridges, data about the earth’s health now
pours in from all around our environment: each adding its own small signal to
our collective nervous system. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We are even giving threatened species a chance to be heard. Last
Monday’s (2/4/13<i>) New York Times</i> had
an opinion piece about how the internet has allowed us to vicariously
participate in the naturalist’s work of monitoring and tracking wild animals.
Writer Emily Anthes told of how thousands of people had become friends of
832F, an alpha-female grey wolf who left her protected environment in
Yellowstone National Park and was shot by a hunter. She describes how wireless “tracking
collars,” connected to the Internet by satellite and cellular frequencies, are
being used “to track everything from tiny tropical orchid bees to blubbery,
deep-diving elephant seals.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As we learn to monitor our physical and social environments
through such digital intermediaries, we will be challenged to pick inputs that
represent our highest selves. What if we demand that our signaling technologies
send us easy-to-understand messages about the planet’s true health as opposed
to just the rise and fall of the financial markets? What if we insisted
that we use this planetary ambient awareness to electronically track and share
the conditions of our environment, the encroachment of the deserts, the
thinning of the Ozone Layer, the decline of the ocean’s diversity? Not just the
condition of our investment portfolio, but the number of malnourished children
in the world? Not just status updates from “friends” we hardly know, but
reports from our “adopted” whales, eagles, foxes, sea turtles, giant redwoods or
the tiny mushrooms living in the soil deep in the Amazon rainforest?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I believe that as we become more comfortable with our
real-time connection to the planet’s multiple voices, we will begin to see
ourselves less as individual beings competing for resources, power or status,
and more as one node in a joyously, noisily communicating, system. And with
that system awareness, comes the chance to see in the Cloud beginnings of a paradigm
shift in human consciousness: the modeling of a world where we connect not
only with every other being, but through awareness of that interconnection,
with the network itself: what the mystics have understood as "unity
consciousness," the simultaneous knowledge of individual identity and
cosmic oneness.<o:p></o:p></div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-58194459272408330822013-02-01T13:07:00.001-06:002013-02-01T13:07:48.750-06:00Book Talk Announcement in Sarasota on May 13th<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJAiKu62k_YlCp3iQJ9ToOp9jnmr7PPvYbF6mg_k1K22CE1EU4lv_Rw9Sxvewwks_W0M9dFg6jhbl4gh1aasolXvWY3IOYppB6XpFYxlvQSczOXRnVSN6t-EclEX8EtskbmvqKeEQwcKJ/s1600/boy+with+radio_low.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnJAiKu62k_YlCp3iQJ9ToOp9jnmr7PPvYbF6mg_k1K22CE1EU4lv_Rw9Sxvewwks_W0M9dFg6jhbl4gh1aasolXvWY3IOYppB6XpFYxlvQSczOXRnVSN6t-EclEX8EtskbmvqKeEQwcKJ/s320/boy+with+radio_low.jpeg" width="199" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">In the last
decade </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">our
shared planetary nervous system has been extended, as media sage Marshal
McLuhan predicted in the early 1960’s, into a global embrace. Communications networks have advanced from wires to fiber
optics, from interconnected radio and television grids to a world of billions
of wirelessly communicating sensory devices – each with its own address in
cyberspace. Our collective systems for sharing thought have undergone the
most rapid change in human history, affecting our mental, psychological, and <i>etheric</i>
bodies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The electronic media
amplify, distort and attenuate our senses, change our awareness, and “mediate”
our experiences. But from a mystical perspective, everything we have created in
cyberspace holds a lesson for our spiritual unfolding. The Infosphere is the
new environment through which humanity must now play out its evolutionary
challenges. If the universe itself, as many philosophers tell us, is a field,
not just of matter, but also of <i>information</i>, then the Infosphere must
hold in its microcosm all levels of human experience: all knowledge, all our
dramas of politics and power, and all our dreams. This knowledge is encoded in
our ubiquitous systems of telecommunications, and yet because it is so
omnipresent, to most of us it is still invisible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Based on his book <i>Digital
Dharma, </i>Steven Vedro’s multimedia presentation will introduce the core
communications metaphors of each of the seven levels of consciousness. Join Steven
for a challenging and entertaining exploration of the developmental metaphors
of light and shadow in our cellphone and texting mania, the impossibility of
finding the truth over the internet, the challenge of deep-seeing brought to us
by digital compression, and the glimpses of field awareness inherent in evolving
social media and “cloud consciousness.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5WQU_3eNIKaJaIS7lrRQhyphenhyphenA9Qxgw_SJOTlfP6kQNrDuRZa1tsNU35xQexFL9hnVXT1oOtnF9ypPaOcbnqMQMzqpQtIUZ5RA41Uxw-IeNgyKgyh3ANWZW5Y_6-uiHQHpY7zTh55Zr1kkDV/s1600/DigitalDharmaNewFinalCover5x7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5WQU_3eNIKaJaIS7lrRQhyphenhyphenA9Qxgw_SJOTlfP6kQNrDuRZa1tsNU35xQexFL9hnVXT1oOtnF9ypPaOcbnqMQMzqpQtIUZ5RA41Uxw-IeNgyKgyh3ANWZW5Y_6-uiHQHpY7zTh55Zr1kkDV/s320/DigitalDharmaNewFinalCover5x7.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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</span><strong><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Event Name</span></strong><span style="background: white; color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">: DIGITAL DHARMA BOOK TALK</span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Segoe UI","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Event
Date </span></strong><strong><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-weight: normal;">Wednesday</span></strong><strong><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">, </span></strong><span style="background: white;">02/13/2013</span><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Time</span></strong><span style="background: white;">: 7-9pm</span><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Location</span></strong><span style="background: white;">: Rising Tide Spiritual Center, <b>5102 Swift Road</b>, Sarasota</span><br />
<strong><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Price</span></strong><span style="background: white;">: FREE<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-41341511092079188242012-06-25T13:11:00.001-05:002012-06-25T13:11:59.860-05:00ARCHETYPES IN THE CLOUD<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">ARCHETYPES IN THE CLOUD<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Learning how to navigate a world where everyone and
everything is connected, where every object has a voice (if not IP address),
where all things can be found, and all that was hidden is seen, where realities
comes into being based on what decoding scheme we chose, is truly a mythic
challenge. Without proper tools and spiritual preparation, hyper-connectivity
can be an endless hall of mirrors, trapping us in the morass of our
electronically magnified addictions and fears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Perhaps it is from the inner world of myth and archetype that
we can find the wisdom to live and thrive in this new environment? Each
archetype has its “gold” -- its power and its gift to connect us with our
deepest aspirations for our soul, and its “shadow” -- its immature
manifestation that tricks us with false promises (of safety, of power, of love,
of spiritual connection), and leads us further into isolation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Traversing this
new world we can draw upon the deep wisdom of the protector archetypes: the <i>Warrior</i>,
whose work it is to set and protect boundaries from a deeply grounded place;
the <i>Lover, </i>who can establish clean connections with "the
other;" the <i>Magician</i>, who is able to discern shadow from light, and
recognize the larger patterns; and the Elder/Sovereign, who through the act of
blessing and generosity, can not only see, but <i>change,</i> the codes of
reality, healing the web of creation. We can see the light and shadow side of
these archetypes at play within each of the current strategies we have embraced
to guide us through the world of the cloud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Magician<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Out in cyberspace, where every digital bit effects all
others, and where each bit brings forth a slightly different “reality,” having
a guide that can see through the “data smog” and recognize the underlying
patterns -- the meta-information -- is critical. This is the domain of the
Magician -- one who is comfortable in the shadow places, one who is a systems-seer,
capable of finding their way in a sea of conflicting signals. The Magician is
comfortable walking in the world of the manifest, and in the worlds of
potential form. It sees beyond habitual concepts to the underlying patterns
that modulate all reality. And, because it can past the illusion, it is not
seduced by every immediate stimuli. “Spend time pondering not <i>what</i> you
see, but <i>why</i> you see it,” Merlin tells the young Arthur in Depak Chopra’s
<i>The Way of the Wizard. ‘</i>Look at the carpets rising and the straw blowing
about; branches, leaves and trees dancing; the pond wearing rippled armor,’ all
these things look different, Rumi tells us, but “in root and reality, they‘re
one: the wind.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">At its best, this archetype can help us distinguish between
all the potential tricksters and false signs that we meet on the journey; at
its worst, in its “shadow” manifestation, it is itself the great manipulator,
the promoter of false insights and dreams that pass for reality -- the land of
the <i>Matrix </i>movies. More often, the Magician gets carried away with her
mental abilities, becomes detached from the earth, and loses touch with her
heart. Google’s reliance on its data-mining processes has much Magician energy
about it: wonderful results can come forth, but sometimes it provides results
that are completely disconnected from life as we live it!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Men and women following the Magician in cyberspace must be
alert for the intoxication of data-gathering, for the delusion that “only the
right algorithm can find the truth,” for the temptation to “just play one more
level” or download “just one more app.” But, at its best, the Magician reminds
us to venture past our fear of the unknown, to widen our reception channels, to
take in more frequencies, until we can see with what Sri Aurobindo called “the
eye of complete union,” finding, as poet William Blake saw, “a world in a grain
of sand.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Lover</span></u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Lover seeks connection, sparks our creativity, and holds
all beings out in the web in its heart center. Relationship and reciprocity is
the core communications focus of this archetype, its greatest desire is to
reveal our dreams and joys, our innermost desires, to a trusting circle of
friends. When in shadow mode, the Lover can lead us into obsessive concern
about <i>not being connected</i>, and lead us to engage in compensatory
over-communications to the point of drowning out the truly important signals
all around us. It often mistakes codependency for compassionate listening,
getting hooked into other’s stories as if they were “real.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This guide is an important friend, as it pulls us back from
the Magician’s conjured dreamspace and abstractions into the domain of feelings
and the safety of trusted circles of friends. The Lover is a strong advocate of
“crowd sourcing” and open-systems, freeware and shared content. It must be
alert however, to the seduction of self-promotion, group-think and mutual ego
inflation, that flows like a dark current through much of today’s social media
networks. When disconnected from the intelligence of the Magician, and
vulnerable without the protection of the Warrior, the Shadow-Lover may “spill
its secrets” on to all and everyone with the click of a mouse regardless of the
impact (some would see this “naïve openness” shadow in WikiLeaks). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A wounded lover can respond be becoming “thick-skinned” and
cynical as a way of self-defense, eagerly awaiting another scandal or
embarrassing video thrown up on to the web for all to see. At the other
extreme, the shadow can take the form of hyper-sensitivity and the “victim
syndrome,” compulsively finding more reasons for their own loneliness in every
friend’s Facebook status update or Twitter post. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Lover understands that a trusted friend is a much greater
security check than layers of complex passwords and firewalls, that a referral
from within one’s circle of intimates is going to carry much more weight that a
data-driven recommendation protocol. The explosive growth of Facebook and
social search, the flood of heart-tugging “cute animal videos” on YouTube, and
the success of viral campaigns for human rights that continues today, reminds
us that the Lover has never been banished by the geek Magicians of cyberspace.
For this we can be thankful, for it will be the Lover responding to these calls
for environmental sanity, that keeps us from destroying our spaceship Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Warrior<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">If we use the Magician to help us see the underlying data
patterns within the cloud, the Warrior archetype gives us the power to move
through this hall of mirrors towards our true goals. It gives us a shield to
protect us from the constant bombardment of data distractions in our
hyper-connected world. The Warrior is protective of boundaries, defending our
personal information from expropriation by those that may want to harm us or
use our data for inappropriate purposes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Warrior is not tricked by appearances (the Lover’s
weakness) or seduced (as is the Magician) by the complexity of near-infinite
choice. Warrior energy fuels the use of the internet and social media for
justice and civil rights, for calls to live a life of mission and service.
Listening to the cries of the Lover, this archetype takes on the responsibility
of using technology for the care the earth, pushing the Magician to simplify
and clarify (through careful design and presentation) the complex data patterns
about global warming, population growth, pandemic outbreaks, etc., in such a
way that individuals and groups can take specific action. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We are all too familiar with the Warrior’s shadow. Violence
and aggression against projected demons and external enemies, rigidity and
attachment to rules and procedures, distrust and distance from the messiness of
life, are all signs of the wounded or immature Warrior archetype. We see these
behaviors all over the web. On the aggressive side, flaming wars, scattershot
spam, hate speech and “trolls” set out to destroy the infrastructure of the
network itself. In its passive form, hierarchical systems of control that
stifle others creativity and sharing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In so many ways, Steven Jobs and Apple personified these
positive and negative Warrior traits -- from elegant simplified design
strategies and top-to-bottom responsibility for its products, to the rigidity
of locked battery cases and non-interchangeable cables, to exclusive smart
phone “apps” and cellphone contracts that trap its customers in a “follow the
leader” relationship. In its quest for just-in-time streamlined manufacturing
processes, Apple has been accused of forgetting the Lover’s core values in
terms of worker health and safety. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Tapping the power of the Warrior allows us to navigate the
cloud from a place of personal safety. And from this place, tap our power of
creativity, whether it is the making of new programs and applications, to
playing with our online identities and finding our personal expressive
voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<u><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Sovereign<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Sovereign [Wise Elder/Crone] operates from a place of
blessing and generosity. Closer to death than any of the other archetypes, she
is no longer caught up in her own ego defense. She has no fear of the
transpersonal realms, but her stance is not to “understand it” [as a Magician]
or “change it” [as a Warrior], but to <i>observe it</i> with love and
compassion, watching the flow of information as it traverses the cloud from a
place of non-attachment. This distancing from the “hooks of attachment and
attention” allows the Elder to offer unconditional love for the entire human
experience. The shadow danger is here is one of inflation and narcissism,
mistaking one’s “big picture understanding” for that of the Divine mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Healthy Sovereign energy fuels our efforts to heal the web of
life. It is the underlying ethos of the internet itself -- openness, trust, the
free flow of packets across multiple paths, all finding their way to the final
destination through the “goodwill” of router devices that read the packet’s
destination and generously forward it on to next node that is either closer to
its goal or relatively free of competing traffic. The Sovereign understands that
each packet has its own destiny and path, but that once assembled in the proper
order, the true meaning of the message is revealed. Its job is to keep the
network itself, and all of its potential paths and routers, as strong as
possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">When we tap this archetype, we are empowered to commit acts
of kindness without attribution. Performing the ancient Jewish moral
commandment of <i>Tikkun Olam, </i>the Sovereign calls upon all the other
archetypical energies to guide its stewardship of the planet, and its electronic
nervous system. It means staying fully conscious of our operating systems, and
like the self-healing “mesh networks” we are building out in the Infosphere,
downloading new applications that are in greater alignment with our inner work:
stepping into the Cloud not as dependent children, or dangerously independent
adolescents, but as “inter-dependent” adults, bringing forth a transformation
of human consciousness.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-21750331507796575662012-06-25T13:10:00.002-05:002013-02-04T20:02:06.672-06:00From the Web to the Cloud<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The coupling of electricity with our nervous system over a
century-and-a half ago started the process of what the prescient media sage
Marshal McLuhan’s called, “the outering our nervous system.” From the
one-to-one communications technologies of the telegraph and telephone, to the
inter-personal one-to-many forms of broadcast radio and television, and the
all-to-all global grids of the internet and the emerging distributed
intelligence of peer-to-peer and social networks, we continue to grow more
connected, more accessible, more stimulated. Each technological stretching of
our communications matrix has an impact on our emotional and spiritual life, on
our language, and on the myths we live by. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Our technologies are the products of our evolving
consciousness, and they also change our consciousness. Yet, it is from the deep
well of consciousness -- myth and metaphor -- that we may draw the wisdom to
guide us through this transformative shift. Our communications structures are
moving from interconnected <i>networks</i> to entire environments of <i>distributed
intelligence. </i>With that change comes the challenge of moving from focusing
on “how do I relate to the other beings in this world”, to the transpersonal
question of “what is it that we are all co-creating in every moment of that
connection?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">In the Internet world we are all connected. Boundaries mean
little when all knowledge, both public and private, is available to anyone. On
the internet nothing is protected from our eyes and ears: from leaked reports
of government and corporate malfeasance, to all levels of violence and
pornography. Once-hidden religious doctrines, mystical texts, and secret
practices from Scientology to staged wrestling matches, are now available to
all to see. Every person with a cellphone camera is a threat to the old order
of secrecy and control. Even online bookies are finding that their clients now
know more about the odds than they do!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Our Internet-connected computers have opened every
"closet," short-circuited old modes of denial - for wayward spouses
and for Presidents and Presidential candidates. We have become “data naked” --
every transaction, every credit card purchase, every trip through the grocery
store, and every phone call (and its originating location) is now “on the
record.” Even once-expunged court records (the “clean slate” granted by a
judge for minor convictions years ago) are finding their way on to the Web, as
records once held only in paper, are now are routinely digitized. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In this hyper-connected environment, “boundary control”
becomes a full-time job. We are all conscious of our vulnerability, and the
weakness of our carefully maintained public self. “Who am I and who do I
pretend to be? Where am I, and where do I end and you begin? Who do I let into
my space, and how can I trust that you say who <i>you </i>are?” Our
networks are interconnected across the old boundaries of public and private,
nation to nation, time and space, no one processor stands alone. With this new
vulnerability has come fears of “information infection” and contagion. Is it no
wonder that in our physical world we use the same metaphors? We fear viruses
and foreign terrorist infiltrators, and we worry about the modification of our
core operating systems, our food and our very DNA. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In the recent years we’ve seen the image of the internet
morph from a two-dimensional ““grid” to three-dimensional pervasive “cloud.” What <i>Wired </i>contributing editor Steven
Johnson has called <u><a href="http://fora.tv/2007/05/11/Steven_Johnson_and_Long_Zoom"><span style="color: windowtext;">"long-zoom consciousness"</span></a></u>-
reflected by our digital capability to "zoom out" from the scale of
DNA up through “Google Earth” photos and on satellite images of the earth and
beyond to deep-space imaging of the enormity of the cosmos - is emerging as
contemporary culture's defining way of seeing. According to Johnson, this has
created a new view of information space - interconnected and multi-layered -
that is as disruptive to our old ways of thinking as the earlier revolutions of
Newton and Einstein. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Today, our computers are no longer discreet systems sitting
at the desktop, but are all around us in “smart handheld devices” that combine
mobile phones, music and game players, GPS locators, and dozens of other
applications. Networked processors are
everywhere: in our appliances, on the street, at the market, and soon in our
clothing and eyeglasses. Our technologies are even empowering physical
locations to tell their stories: one New York artist has recruited his
neighbors to record stories about the love life in their building, while
another tells the stories of a grove of trees in an urban park.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But, beyond personal awareness of place, the web has
metaphorically given a voice to <i>Gaia</i> herself. We are building
grids of network sensors that will crisscross our world. From interactive
underwater observatories, connected to each other and to land-based research
laboratories, to atmospheric carbon and ozone monitoring stations on the
tops of mountains and deep in the forest; from stress sensors embedded deep in
the earth and in roads and bridges, to the emergence of the “smart electrical
grid,” data will be pouring in from so many places in our everyday environment:
each sensor with its own IP (internet protocol) address, each adding its own
signal to our collective nervous system. Each aware of its location, each
reacting to new data, monitoring its internal processes, receiving updates
from, and sharing new information with, its peers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Distributed processing technology allows for data
storage, software and computing technology to reside out on the network in
large interconnected data centers far removed from the local user. “Grid”
computing distributes these resources not in central locations, but in small
pieces across all the computers sharing the same network. Using these networks
and remote data centers, extremely large-scale computing projects can now be
shared across millions of independent loosely-coupled smaller processors
worldwide, each "donating" its spare computing cycles to the functioning
of the whole. Cloud-based shared computing networks are already tackling the
modeling of new cancer-fighting drugs, the mapping of the universe, and the
tracking of the smallest quantum interactions. In its shadow form, computer
criminals have captured thousands of computers (by infecting them with “botnet”
viruses and malware) turning them into giant “spamming engines” -- all without
the knowledge of the computer’s owners!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">On the net, </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">our social challenge is to negotiate with all the “others“
out in the universe, conscious of our need for appropriate boundaries, but
understanding that like it or not, we are now all connected. <i>In the cloud, </i>we
assume this connection and our shared use of common resources and intelligence,
and are challenged to take what we need and use it to create value for the
whole community -- whether by offering spare computing cycles in a grid
project, uploading environmental observations to a shared database, forwarding
cellphone videos and tweets of street protesters fighting repressive regimes,
contributing dollars to an online social cause, or engaging in other acts of “digital
generosity.” New forms of collaboration are emerging as people engage in
multi-user gaming, music and visual arts creation, creating new “mashups” from
these aggregated offerings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">On the net, our content is locally-stored (on our
personal hard drives); in the cloud, we store our files and programs across the
network (in remote data centers), with only snippets of code (apps) residing on
the local machines. We draw from these external repositories as needed,
downloading content to our lighter, streamlined tablets and smart devices. Indeed, the cloud is now the
"place" where we store more and more of our cumulative human
intelligence. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">In addition to shared processing cycles and web
applications, eventually every book written, every recording, every webpage,
every film and television program -- the entire works of humankind, will find
its way to the cloud, while we </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">rely on ever-more-powerful search engines, "data mining"
algorithms and crowd-sourcing to make sense of this overflowing abundance --
the unleashed outpouring of the new, and the taking from and recreating of the
old: the mash-ups, meshes, mixes and remixes of our evolving culture, that
populates the "long-tail" graph of network destinations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This scenario has of course, a frightening side - in the
service of our "lower selves" these technologies can lead us to a
beehive-like world devoid of quiet personal space; where global corporations
extend their control to the most remote corners of the planet; where the
smallest personal action is tracked in giant marketing databases; a world where
physical nature and even human love are replaced by computer simulations. But
when seen through the lens of metaphor, the very structure of the cloud offers
us a path to a very different outcome. Cloud </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-Roman;">technologies show
how people can be more than individual transmitters and receivers, not the
infinite but separate reflecting jewels on <i>Indra’s web</i>, but part of a
joyously, noisily communicating, </span><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-Italic;">system</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Times-Roman;">.
And with that system awareness, comes the chance to see in the Cloud beginnings
of the paradigm shift in human consciousness: </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">the modeling of a world where we connect not only with
every other being, but through that interconnection, simultaneously with
something greater then ourselves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-font-kerning: 14.0pt;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><i>Archetypes
of the Cloud: Adventures in Cyberspace” was first published in the June 2012
issue of Noetic Now, the online journal of the Institute of Noetic Sciences,
located at www.noetic.org/noetic. With permission
from the publisher. ©2012</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-60692936044568242532012-04-04T19:20:00.001-05:002012-04-04T19:22:19.292-05:00Indian subcontinent edition<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4MLvIu2eXfoSS0dFMtOXLp7qz4jUA2jdqIpHmCe7ucbdp1tI9sRfJT1zwmxASStJYWWJXL5yN6JWrfVt9-aJRE7GYPyJBzFdBcxJW2LW6t8KFfqMACXcKUdDLAHkXsyRsO7K5x8BolqMv/s1600/J-2132_s.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4MLvIu2eXfoSS0dFMtOXLp7qz4jUA2jdqIpHmCe7ucbdp1tI9sRfJT1zwmxASStJYWWJXL5yN6JWrfVt9-aJRE7GYPyJBzFdBcxJW2LW6t8KFfqMACXcKUdDLAHkXsyRsO7K5x8BolqMv/s320/J-2132_s.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5727705352494682370" /></a>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-36315059896106209592012-04-04T19:12:00.002-05:002012-04-04T19:15:30.776-05:00New Dimensions Radio InterviewWhile in California last month I was interviewed on the NEW DIMENSIONS RADIO Program. The show airs this week on over 100 stations in the USA and Canada. Here is their program description. You can use the link (above in the title) to order a podcast for $1.99.<br /><br />How do we move through the glut of information and data, that the internet and “the cloud” has brought to us? How do we meet the challenge of mining the abundance of images, sounds, and wisdom from the new technologies? How will our spiritual metaphors shift? Vedro suggests there are filters and guides now cropping up, and they may be the, “the neo-cloud technology artist of the future.”<br /><br />He says these people are emerging. “In some ways they will point us to what was there all along, but give us the filters [to see more clearly].” They will access many different bits and pieces from “the cloud,” and will mash them into new sounds and new images, which will help us realize our interconnectedness with one another and the planet. Vedro shares ways in which our metaphors are changing. <br /><br />We are moving away from the old industrial society of hierarchy and power based on individuals holding information closely, as we enter an age of information that is mutually shared by multiple intelligences. It’s a culture in which our metaphors reflect a worldview of abundance and interconnectedness. (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)<br /><br />Steven Vedro is a writer, lecturer, and nationally recognized telecommunications consultant He is the author of Digital Dharma: A User’s Guide to Expanding Consciousness in the Infosphere (Quest Books 2007 & Jaico Publishing House 2011). To learn more about the work and blogs of Steven Vedro go to www.teleconsciousness.blogspot.com<br /><br />Topics Explored in this Dialogue:<br /><br />- How our metaphors are moving from those of power and hierarchy to abundance and filtering<br />- What is the difference between the net and the cloud<br />- How the new guides of the “infosphere” might be likened to modern day DJs<br />- How this abundance of choices is actually limiting people’s perspective<br />- Who will be our guides to help us find our way through the information maze<br />- How have the metaphors of spiritual evolution shifted as technology has shifted<br />- How will technology bring us closer to a gift and trust economy<br />- How do we maintain our spiritual center in the midst of info smogStevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-90631280794001873482011-11-09T19:53:00.001-06:002011-11-09T19:55:28.963-06:00The Lytro Camera and "deep Seeing"In the same issue of the Atlantic, Rob Walker describes the "Lytro Camera." This device incorporates hundreds of sensors and micro-lenses, and captures a scene in all of its depth. "The upshot is a photograph that's less a slice of visual information than a cube... a light-field visual object." <br /><br />This seems to me to be another technological representation of the spiritual work of the 6th Chakra: that of "deep seeing." This camera reminds us once again that the reality we take so much for granted is really just "one slice of the hologram," that our brain is always choosing a more limited view of reality. Our spiritual challenge at this level of awareness is to see, as Sri Aurobindo challenged us, with "the eye of complete union."Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-36474770705310902702011-11-09T19:06:00.002-06:002011-11-09T19:21:04.874-06:00Oprah and the Heart of TelevisionIn this month's <i>Atlantic </i>magazine, Caitlin Flanagan writes about Oprah Winfrey's rise out of the hell of racism, poverty, and sexual abuse, and links it to the heart-centered power of television itself. "Because," Flanagan writes, "into every household in America, no matter how low or mean or outright evil, into each squalid nest and decent place pours the great, pure light of television."<div><br /></div><div>Oprah invented herself, created her own dream of entering into that safe magical place, as a young child watching television when "every story had a happy ending."</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe that Oprah indeed embodies and fully understands the feminine, embracing, emotion opening, power of this medium. Its light -- its ability to bring us into face-to-face relationship with "the others" in our interconnected family, and its shadow -- its ability to open the heart and then fill it with consumer goods and addictive longing.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is the theme of Chapter Four of <i>Digital Dharma.</i></div>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-20714114972338541922011-10-11T20:34:00.002-05:002011-10-11T20:37:51.953-05:00The Trans-personal Metaphors of the CloudIf texting challenges us at the <i>personal identity</i> level, and the Internet and social media offer us an opportunity to examine <i>our inter-personal boundaries</i>, then our move to “the cloud” can be seen as a technological reflection of the metaphors of the <i>transpersonal.</i> <div><br /></div><div>As we move more and more of our memory and our intelligence into the shared space of the cloud, we confront a set of metaphors based on drawing from a common source of Being.<o:p></o:p>Distributed processing technology allows for data storage, software and computing processors to reside out on the network "grid" and be called forth only when needed. Extremely large-scale computing projects can be shared across millions of smaller processors worldwide, each "donating" its spare computing cycles to the functioning of the whole. In addition to connecting data sensors and data processors, the cloud is also becoming the "place" where we store more and more of our cumulative human intelligence, relying on ever-more-powerful search engines and "data mining" algorithms, crowd-sourcing and the "long-tail", to make sense of this overflowing abundance - the unleashed outpouring of the new and the taking from and recreating of the old, the collages and mash-ups, meshes, mixes, remixes of our popular culture - to our computers, MP3 players, and smart phones.<br /><br />This scenario has a frightening side - in the service of our "lower selves" these technologies can lead us to a beehive-like world devoid of quiet personal space; where global corporations extend their control to the most remote corners of the planet; where the smallest personal action is tracked in giant marketing databases; a world where physical nature and even human love are replaced by computer simulations. The spiritual metaphor is the blasted open “Crown Chakra” – connecting unfiltered to all the <i>gins and tricksters</i> of the astral plane; lost in the psychic hall of mirrors, caught in never-ending attention deficit.<br /><br />But when seen through the lens of metaphor, the very structure of the cloud offers us a path to a very different outcome: what mystics have understood as "unity consciousness," the simultaneous knowledge of the knower and the known, of individual identity and cosmic oneness. Beyond the communicating appliances, the mash-ups and the long tails, is the vision of an interconnected creative culture. And beyond this cultural vision is a spiritual teaching, the modeling of a world where consciousness connects with every other being, and simultaneously with something greater then itself.<br /><br />On the net we <i>negotiate</i> with the other, protective of our boundaries, but understanding that, like it or not, we are all connected; in the cloud we begin to see how our intelligence has always been connected in every action, past, present and future – the we and the other are individual processors sharing the same memory and power source.<span> </span>On the net we share some of our localized content; in the cloud we download what we need from the Divine Treasury and return it to the greater good. On the net we process our own data, drawing from external repositories as needed; in the cloud we hold all the repositories in common, maintaining our foreground processing, but intentionally making room for seed programs to use our spare computing cycles for a higher purpose: our bodies and our life experiences, vessels of Divine Curiosity; our prayers of gratitude, the uploading technology that refreshes and heals the great web of consciousness.<p></p></div>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-13792438270396850252011-10-06T15:53:00.002-05:002011-10-06T16:01:52.018-05:00Internet MindfulnessIn the Internet world we are all connected. Boundaries mean little, when all knowledge, both public and private is available to anyone. Our inter-personal relationships are being challenged at every level of intimacy. Infection and contagion, border control and foreign infiltrators, modification of our very DNA, are the metaphors of the day. On the web nothing is protected from our eyes and ears.<br /><br />It seems that we are becoming “data naked” when every transaction, every credit card purchase, every trip through the grocery store, and every phone call (and its originating location) is now “on the record.” Even once-expunged court records (the “clean slate” granted by a judge for minor convictions years ago) are finding their way on to the Web, as records once held only in paper, are now are routinely digitized. </p> Pushed into the Infosphere -- all of our secrets revealed, our every thought accessible, connected to the planet's very intelligence -- we are being forced to redefine our boundaries. Who am I and who do I pretend to be? Where am I, and where do I end and you begin? Who do I let into my space, and how can I trust that you say who you are?<br /><br />This is a core existential challenge, and has brought us a great deal of pain. Yet, from a spiritual point of view, maybe being mutually naked isn’t such a terrible thing. The Internet has allowed us to see beyond the masks of the ego-self, corporate and government posturing, and build our own “peer networks.” Yes, social networking allows for addictive connection, personal posturing and closed-minded self-referential “friends circles.” But, it also offers the possibility of experiencing self as part of a larger web – of friends, of communities of interest and of place, of creation itself. <br /><br />As we struggle to define our multiple overlapping circles of “close friends, friends, or acquaintances” on Facebook, we are reminded that social connection to a small group of trusted souls (in support group, recovery meeting or sangha), has always been how we found the safety to explore the dreams and the shadows of our own souls. In an environment where everyone is connected and sharing their every experience, learning how to observe incoming data without reacting to every stimulus is a critical cyber-survival skill. The core tool is mindful awareness without reaction to every new message. Our flood of tweets and emails can inundate and overwhelm, or like the stick of the Zen master, invite us to pay attention to where we habitually put our attention. The shaman’s skill is in cultivating a wider-seeing vision that takes in all vibrations, and the shield of<i>discernment,</i> that allows her to know what signals require action, and which ones are part of the background.<br /><br />Many forms of spiritual practice involve stilling the busy mind and being present to, without being hooked by, these incoming data streams. Awareness meditation is, in effect, a process of <i>observing the instruction codes of reality without processing them</i> into thoughts, emotions and suffering. In Buddhism this is called <i>mindfulness</i>, watching the codes go by, “indifferent” to one story over another, but still very much connected to the experience of life – processing the reality of the outer world in full consciousness that one is in fact,<i>data processing.</i></p>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-80713391655450633702011-10-06T13:32:00.007-05:002011-10-06T13:49:25.689-05:00Signals of Aliveness: Staying Grounded in a World of Electronic Alerts<span class="Apple-style-span">In <i>Digital Dharma </i>I discussed the impact of electronic media on each of the body’s seven psycho-energetic centers, <i>the chakras.</i> This approach be too “new age” for many potential readers, who might be interested in the social, psychological, and indeed <i>spiritual</i>, challenges of the Infosphere. So, in my next three posts I will summarize the core impacts of our new always-on, always-connected, information environment on our (a) personal, (b) interpersonal, and (c) transpersonal relationships. This posting is about the "personal" domain.<br /><br /></span><p></p> I believe that the explosion of text messaging among the world’s youth (many send hundreds of messages <i>a day</i>), the constant email alerts on our PDAs, and the never-ending roll of “tweets,” are primal cries for acknowledgement – for recognition of existence and individual ego identities, in a time when everyone and everything is calling out their unique location and update status. The danger of this explosion is a crisis of ego need and electronically amplified narcissism: everyone has a voice, and everyone is afraid of not being heard.<br /><br /><p>On a positive note, giving everything a “voice” is a deep immersion in what we too often chose to ignore or deny: the voices of the disempowered and marginalized, the voices of objects we take for granted, the voices of <i>Gaia</i> herself, the voices of our own body’s cellular broadcasters. Our challenge is to learn to listen with discernment, to create systems to recognize threatening changes in our ambient data environment, and to both figuratively and <i>literally,</i> keep ourselves “grounded.” Walks in nature, and quiet time listening to our own breath and heartbeat, are important centering strategies, and so is dancing and drumming, making vibrant tweets that arise from our physical being.<br /><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span">For more discussion of "everything has an [IP] voice" <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2009/07/twitter-ambient-awareness-and-spiritual.html">see my earlier essay on "Ambient Awareness."</a><br /><br /></span></p>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-76025610625161455272011-09-05T20:36:00.001-05:002011-09-05T20:37:30.346-05:00Reflections on James Gleick's "The Information"<p class="MsoNormal">In <i>Digital Dharma</i> I argued that as we moved into the Internet Age, our spiritual work would shift to the light and shadow of the core metaphors associated with the “second tier” technologies of the Internet (truth versus falsehood, contagion and connection, firewalls and other rigid “boundaries” versus “smart filtering”), digital compression (coding schemes, consensual reality, mindfulness), and the “cloud” (the universe as intelligent processor and humans as part of a large “grid computing” experiment with the Divine).</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">These are the same metaphors explored in great detail, and without their spiritual associations, in James Gleick’s book, <i>The Information.</i><span> </span>He writes about the shift from metaphors of “energy” to “information” in describing the vastness of the universe [as a “cosmic information processing machine… the universe computes its own destiny”] and the microscopic world of our cells [where genes “encapsulate information and enable procedures for reading it in and writing it out… Life spreads by networking”]. I described these functions – and the fascination with the metaphor of “the codes” – in Chapter Six, a look at the spiritual challenges of the technologies of digital representation, and their metaphoric association with the opening of the esoteric “third eye.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I described the value of “attention” (when information becomes cheap), and the importance of “smart filtering” in dealing with the glut of data connections made possible by the Internet in my discussion of spiritual impact of “actually being <i>connected</i> to ‘the other’ versus the earlier moral crisis of seeing the other’s face brought by television into our living room in the 1960’s and 70’s. And finally, in Chapter Seven, I too found hope in the evolution of the cloud, where our true work is that of <i>tikun olam</i>, repairing the world.</p>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7011555388907309499.post-57167179244190424052011-08-31T14:46:00.005-05:002011-09-07T10:40:09.832-05:00Technology as Toilet Paper: Reflections from the SEED ConferenceI just returned from a fascinating <a href="http://www.seedgraduateinstitute.org/13th-language-of-spirit-conference.html"><span>SEED Institute conference</span></a> in Albuquerque – a structured hybrid of “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue"><span>Bohmian Dialog</span></a>” and Native American talking circle, with 24 invited wisdom teachers (elders, teachers, and shamans) discussing the spiritual implications of science, technology and creativity. In a pre-discussion talk, I had a chance to present my vision of telecommunications technologies as external metaphors for the inner spiritual work of evolving consciousness. During the dialog itself, I mostly listened, and when I did contribute to the flow, it was from a place of deep metaphor: looking at technology as extensions of the body, reflecting our flight from limits of embodiment and at the same time, our hunger to connect more fully with the Divine as embodied vessels of Divine curiosity.<p></p> <p> This contradiction ran throughout our discussions. Technology as an alienating force, removing us from contact with community, with Nature, and our Mother Earth; and yet, at the same time, we heard of communications technology as something that was preserving native languages, allowing native communities to reach out to each other and to supporters around the world, empowering youth and providing new ways for Elders to tell their stories.</p><p></p> In native communities, one way to resolve these tensions is through storytelling and humor. And one of the most powerful characters in Native stories is the Trickster, the one who forces us to look at our denied and repressed qualities, including our “shitty” attachments to symbols of power and prestige. One the last day of our meeting, Dan Longboat, a Canadian Mohawk environmental educator, told a joke about “technology as trickster artifice” that encapsulated all the themes of the conference. I’ve paraphrased it below:<p></p> <p></p><blockquote>This morning, Shawn Secatero (Canoncito Navajo), Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot) and I, met for breakfast. Leroy, as befitting his elder status, was on “Indian time,” and hadn’t yet shown up. Shawn and I, as befitting male Indians showing off their ceremonial jewelry, soon got into a competition as to who had the coolest cellphone.</blockquote><p></p><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>Shawn had a silver and turquoise Bluetooth-powered wristwatch phone. He could send messages and talk just by waving his arm, and putting his hand to his face. [Dan demonstrated by talking into his wrist, “hello, can you hear me.”] I brought out my I-Phone and showed him the latest “find a Pow-Wow” GPS app. We were going at it fast and furious, when Leroy interrupted us. We turned to him for his opinion. Each of us wanted him to know that we had the best communications technology device.</blockquote><p></p> <p></p><blockquote>But while he was thinking about our request, we couldn’t help but notice that he had a long tail of toilet paper sticking out of his clothes. He obviously had just come from the bathroom, and didn’t do a good job of pulling up his pants. We couldn’t help but tease him. “Grandfather, what’s that trail of paper following you around? Were you in such a hurry to get here that you rushed out of the bathroom without noticing?”<p></p> <p></p> Leroy looked at us, and at our flashy cellphones, and said, “That’s not toilet paper. I’m receiving a fax.”<p></p></blockquote><p></p> This story has made the rounds in a number of forms before Dan adapted it for a Native American audience. I found a pretty funny version that begins, “A man walks into a bar,” <a href="http://butlerwebs.com/jokes/toilet.htm"><span>on the web</span></a>. But I really found the toilet paper metaphor powerful and appropriate when trying to understand the spiritual challenges of telecomm. Our media tools, as Marshall McLuhan wrote, are external facsimiles of our body organs. And, as Norman O. Brown’s <i>Life Against Death </i>(a powerful treatise on the “psychoanalytic meaning of history”) showed us, when technology is disconnected from our flesh and blood bodies, it becomes alienated containers of our fear of death, mentalized and transformed excrement. <p></p> As I learned from Brown (and the Trickster), the repressed always has a way of returning to bite us. I do believe that each of our technologies has a shadow side – externalized parts that we want to hide, repress or deny. Television has made over-consumption a way of life, stuffing ourselves to avoid the pain of really “seeing the other.” The Internet has pushed into our faces all the lies of humanity. Virtual reality has trapped us in a world of phantoms and information hypnosis. While our embrace of “the cloud” can be seen as the final step in disconnection from Mother Earth, from our bodies to the mental astral planes. <p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But buried within each of these “facsimiles” is a mirror pointing back to our selves, back to our physical, emotional, and spiritual bodies. In <i>Digital Dharma</i>, I proposed that each external technology is a portal into a specific chakra, and that by returning to full awareness of the emotional light and shadow of each chakra, we could begin to heal our alienated selves. Looking at our technological toilet paper, shit and all, could be part of our reintegration process.</p> Our technologies are putting sensors in every corner of the planet. Our job is to learn to monitor <i>Gaia’s</i> health, and our own inner states through <a href="http://teleconsciousness.blogspot.com/2009/07/twitter-ambient-awareness-and-spiritual.html"><span>mindful ambient awareness</span></a>. Twitter can take us out of our bodies, or into the thick of political protest, or playful dance. If the universe, as many cosmologists now think [1], is one big information processing project could it be that we are all part of <a href="http://www.evolver.net/user/srvedro/blog/mysticism_cloud_computing">a great “grid computing” effort -</a> where consciousness, in its desire to know itself, created billions upon billions of small processors called humans, each thinking its own thoughts and living and dying its own dreams and desires, but each running way in the background, a small virus program dedicated to solving some small unrecognizable fragment of this great puzzle?<p></p> <p></p> From this perspective, our technologies must in the end, point us back into the body. Two other stories from the SEED Dialog reminded me of this truth. <p></p> <p></p><blockquote>A native mother spoke of her fear of technology. How she had banned television and the Internet from her home, and how she was constantly fighting her twelve-year-old’s desire for a cell phone. Then she admitted that if she could, she would put an RF-ID chip and GPS locator into each of her children. She told her grandfather of this desire. “My dear one,” he responded, “you can always ask the eagle to see your children. Have your forgotten your shaman’s sight?”</blockquote><p></p> <blockquote>Two elders from different pueblos had agreed to meet and conduct a healing ceremony. However, a fierce storm had closed the roads. Their grandchildren volunteered to use their cell phones to connect them. The old men greeted each other over these devices, and started their prayers. All was going well, until it was time for the blessing of the corn. “I can’t feel it, blow harder,” called out one of the pair. “No, I still can’t feel it,” he repeated, holding the kernels closer to the phone. Finally, he called out, “don’t worry, I’ll blow for you,” and he breathed into his hand, and smiled.</blockquote><p></p> Is not the first story a reminder that we already have all of the powers of the network within our physical selves, that we can “visit the cloud” and return. The second seems to be telling us that in the end, it is our spiritual connection with one another that really counts. That our breath is most holy, and that while it cannot be sent via fiber optics or radio waves, it can be aligned with the breath of any person, anywhere on the planet.<div><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--></span></span> James Gleick, <i>The Information (2011), Chapter 13.<o:p></o:p></i><p></p> </div>Stevenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02826896898781637515noreply@blogger.com2