Utopia is In Your Mind--Enjoy It

Nick Bostrom continues to update his classic "Letter From Utopia."

Have you ever known a moment of bliss? On the rapids of inspiration, maybe, where your hands were guided by a greater force to trace the shapes of truth and beauty? Or perhaps you found such a moment in the ecstasy of love? Or in a glorious success achieved with good friends? Or in splendid conversation on a vine-overhung terrace one star-appointed night? Or perhaps there was a song or a melody that smuggled itself into your heart, setting it alight with kaleidoscopic emotion? Or during worship?

If you have experienced such a moment, experienced the best type of such a moment, then a certain idle but sincere thought may have presented itself to you: “Oh Heaven! I didn’t realize it could feel like this. This is on a different level, so very much more real and worthwhile. Why can’t it be like this always? Why must good times end? I was sleeping; now I am awake.”

Bostrom seeks to convey to present-day humanity what their existence might be like if it were substantially elevated.

What I have is not merely more of what is available to you now. It isn’t just the particular things, the paintings and toothpaste-tube designs, the record covers and books, the epochs, lives, leaves, rivers, and random encounters, the satellite images and the collider data – it is also the complex relationships between these particulars that make up my mind. There are ideas that can be formed only on top of such a wide experience base. There are depths that can be fathomed only with such ideas.

You could say I am happy, that I feel good. You could say that I feel surpassing bliss. But these are words invented to describe human experience. What I feel is as far beyond human feelings as my thoughts are beyond human thoughts. I wish I could show you what I have in mind. If only I could share one second of my conscious life with you!

Bostrom joins other writers from the distant past: More, Bacon, Bellamy, Plato, Huxley and many others who have made the attempt to paint their longings (and warnings) in words so that they must be understood. These several authors have sought to motivate their readers--to awaken them from complacency and inefficacy. To inspire them to grow beyond their present selves and tendencies.

I have always been drawn toward the dystopian side of the literature. It is the marvelous feeling of awakening from the Orwellian nightmare into a bracing reality that drives much of my selection in leisure reading. Looking up from Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 to glance across the thousands of books in my library, or pausing a moment from A Clockwork Orange to gently stroke the soft hair of my bedmate.

Likewise, in science fiction, I am drawn to the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic. The challenge of preserving civilisation through the apocalypse--or of jump-starting civilisation in a post-apocalyptic era--is stimulating. Certainly I would prefer to move straight through the present into a next level future, without the apocalypse. But we should always count on something going wrong, at some point.

As for utopia, it really is up to us. Utopia, like happiness or heaven, is in our minds. We can cultivate it or neglect it.

In terms of future society, my utopia is not what they call the "singularity." My utopia is an open-ended future where at least 10% of humans (hopefully a much higher proportion) are empowered by brighter minds, longer lives, wiser perspectives, and a compassionate desire to take enlightened life into the cosmos. My utopia is a utopia-by-choice, so that I would never expect every human to choose it.

Many modern day persons are content with a climate-controlled place to watch cable/satellite HD television, play high-res video games, or enjoy alternate reality VR immersion. Preferably with an infinite supply and under the influence of their drug of choice. Others immerse themselves in missionary religious fervour, some even willing to kill the infidel to create their utopia. Still others are content to work, raise a small family, enjoy hobbies and limited interests, and thus serve out their time. Some cluster together with like-minded people to create the closest approximation to utopia their mind can hold. And another category of people see themselves as wolves, to prey on all the rest who they see as sheep.

Even in the era of my utopia--the next level--there will be examples of all of those groups and more, who choose not to participate in my particular utopia. Some will opt out because they have their own visions of utopia. Others simply can not be bothered.

Letter from Utopia

Nick Bostrom has captured the essence of the "next level" in his Letter from Utopia.

I am really writing on behalf of my contemporaries, and we are addressing ourselves to all of your contemporaries. Among our numbers are many who are possible futures of your people. Some of us are possible futures of children that you have not yet given birth to. Some of us are possible artificial persons that you may one day create. What unites us is that we are all dependent on you to make us real. You could think of this note as though it were an invitation to a ball - a ball that will only take place if people turn up.

...The challenge I put before you is one of self-transformation. To grow up. This is not only about technology, but technology is necessary to participate in this way of life. If you want to live and play on my level, you need to acquire new capacities. To reach Utopia, and experience life here, you must discover the means to three fundamental transformations.

• The First Transformation: Extend your life.
• The Second Transformation: Amplify your cognition.
• The Third Transformation: Elevate your well-being

...When you embark on this quest [utopia], you will confront high seas and difficult problems. To solve them will take your best science, your best technology, and your best politics. Yet each problem has a solution. My existence violates no law of nature. The materials are all there. Your people must acquire the skills of master builders, and then you must build yourself up, without crushing yourself.

Do not accept that it is good for you and your friends to get sick and die in a cage. Do not assume that it's a blessing to be forever confined behind the fences of stupidity. Do not believe that there is nothing worth experiencing outside your current psychic limitations.

...We love life here every instant. Every second is so good that it would knock you unconscious had your mind not been strengthened beforehand. My contemporaries and I bear witness, and we are requesting your aid. Please, help us come into existence! Please, join us! Whether this tremendous possibility becomes a reality depends on your actions.

Nick Bostrom

The "Twelve Step" programs utilise the concept of "something greater than oneself" in order to provide the motive power for self-improvement and emergence from dead-end living. Seekers of utopia or the next level can do the same in order to push themselves to achieve even higher goals.

This is what many of the world's religions seem to be reaching for. But without the ability to extend the mind's reach and the life's span, the elevation of well-being and mind states can only be heart-breakingly transient.

Religion and Transcendent Art for the Confirmed Atheist

What can an atheist learn from religion, to become a better artist?

Let me make my premises clear: I am a professed atheist and a pro-choice libertarian Democrat. But based on my college experiences in the 1960s, when interest in Hinduism and Buddhism was intense, I have been calling for nearly two decades for massive educational reform that would put the study of comparative religion at the center of the university curriculum. Though I shared the exasperation of my generation with the moralism and prudery of organized religion, I view each world religion, including Judeo-Christianity and Islam, as a complex symbol system, a metaphysical lens through which we can see the vastness and sublimity of the universe. Knowledge of the Bible, one of the West's foundational texts, is dangerously waning among aspiring young artists and writers. When a society becomes all-consumed in the provincial minutiae of partisan politics (as has happened in the US over the past twenty years), all perspective is lost. Great art can be made out of love for religion as well as rebellion against it. But a totally secularized society with contempt for religion sinks into materialism and self-absorption and gradually goes slack, without leaving an artistic legacy.

Source

Like Camille Paglia, I have chosen my own path, away from religious and political groupthink. Although I do not believe in the god of any religion, I am quite capable of feeling the same awe and wonder that is inspired in the heart of any devout believer. My awe and wonder is inspired by music, beauty in the natural universe, and inspired art and literature, not religious belief.

When I see the current obsession with tearing down icons of religious belief simply to replace them with empty cynicism, I feel sadness for the deluded pseudo-liberation that is taking place. But these are the choices we must all make.

If we want to create great art, music, and inspired literature, however, we must be inspired by something. Something greater than ourselves--at least greater than our working concept of ourselves.

Cynicism grows and becomes all consuming, if allowed. The proper end of cynicism is to come full circle--until cynicism becomes cynical of itself. That moment is one doorway to enlightenment.

Utopia--I'll Make My Own, Thanks

Singularity News Blog has an article quoting from Nick Bostrom's 'Letter from Utopia'. "There is a beauty and joy here that you cannot fathom. It feels so good that if the sensation were translated into tears of gratitude, rivers would overflow. I wish I could elaborate but language abandons me."

Is he just talking about pleasure, the secret ingredient for a more fulfilling life? No, more. Joy, beauty, pleasure, love . . . These are some of the ingredients of Utopia, not exactly a place or time, but then you should read Nick's letter to get a better feeling for the thing. It almost reads like an invitation from a next level human to between levels.

Every time governments or ideologues try to create utopia, they end up creating hell. True Utopia lies through a door that must be crossed by one person at a time. Each person has to make himself ready for the crossing. Not a casual choice, no, not at all.

Dreaming, Flying, Falling, Away

Searching for a dream, for a wonder, for the magnificent moment when everything fits. Troubled by the incongruity of the pleasure of perfect flow with the comfort of luxurious attainment. You cannot hold a crashing cataract still in a crystal goblet. A dynamic mind perfectly balanced on the wave of flowing ions will not rest contented in the food or drug sated condition.

While the masses pursue the calm of slumber, the repose of intoxicated diversion, the eccentric and exceptional few cultivate the vintage of growth, forward momentum, evolution. The euphoria of discovery, the enchantment of invention, the elation of creativity. These intoxicating enterprises demand long hours of exacting effort, to reach the point of effortlessness, of completion.

Yet if the world of reality is a fractal entity, there can never be completion. Merely the attainment of another level. Retirement is not an option. The chase goes on as long as contenders step forward to the pursuit.

Most between levels humans will be content to rest, to eat, to drink, to sleep. The commonwealth will provide the provisions for their survival. It is presently an exacting and exorbitant obligation, but necessary. Even after the attainment of millions of next level humans, the need will remain to support the many billions of between levels who will never achieve the transition.

The lion's share of next levels will devote their time to the goals of understanding space, time, matter, energy, and mind. A few will feel an ancestral obligation to devote a tithe of their time to providing support for those who cannot cross the gulf. Intelligent machines and automated factories and plantations will provide the goods and foods for the between levels who cannot or will not work. For the between levels who wish to work, ample opportunity will be given for the creation of small scale economies. The only prohibitions will be on weapons of great lethality, and on acts of violence. Coercion and inequality will be inevitable in any between levels society. At least the basic necessities will be provided.

Most of earth's land mass will be devoted to the housing, recreation, and well-being of between levels humans. Next levels will tend to occupy islands, and mini-cities located in more isolated areas of continents.

Everyone dreams of something. A utopian dreams of more utopia. A creator dreams of more creation. A drunken sot dreams of more drinking. A criminal dreams of more satisfying crime. A playboy dreams of flocks of willing and seducible females. A slut dreams of ever more men, and plenty of time. A lot of people seem happy with 500 channels of cable, high speed internet, and a surfeit of snack food and full beer or wine bottles in the pantry.

Humans fear the nightmare of hell, of eternal slavery and subjugation to something evil, something that demands everything and gives nothing. The fear of being nothing but an object for something more powerful. The fear of being sucked dry by vampirish exploiters who cannot be denied. That was indeed the experience of life for those under Pol Pot, for those under the Taliban, for those under Idi Amin, Kim Jong Il, Khomeini, and Robert Mugabe. These modern vampires of state gladly expand their empires of blood as far as possible. You see the fangs of an Osama bin Laden, or an Iranian theocrat, a wahabi imam. You watch the blood drip from the ever thirsty lips of a third world dictator. Hell on earth. That is the future without next levels.

Next level humans will require little in terms of land area. For the time spent on the planet's surface, little acreage will be needed. If next levels become prolific in numbers, that will take place away from this planet. Dispersal of next levels is likely to be profound.

Enter the Chakra

The East, land of mysticism, oriental land of subtlety and enigma. Yogic mind and body control, buddhist meditation, acupuncture, subtle body energies and chakras. Exquisite control of motion in the tea ceremony, or the aikido throw. Mastery of the self.

Westerners scoff at anything that cannot be seen, measured, and visibly manipulated. That attitude has served the west in its dominance of the planet. Yet westerners are running headlong into the fractal nature of reality. Getting from here to there is no longer accomplished by traveling a straight line. Brute force cannot accomplish many of the necessary intermediate and long term goals. More subtle means of sensing the flow of knowledge may be necessary.

Information science and other problem solving disciplines utilise indirection and lateral thinking in solving complex logic problems. Such methods begin to stray from the stereotypical western "straight-on" approach. Chronic pain has so burdened employees of western enterprises, that western physicians finally accepted acupuncture as a valid discipline. Acupuncture lacks the dependency problems that often come from the pharmaceutical treatment of chronic pain.

Western music has often been a path to the mystical, from medieval monastic chants, to modern new age and trance music. Manfred Clyne, a neuroscientist and musician, discovered a path to spiritual regeneration when researching emotions and their connection to music. For westerners, Clyne's method of exercising and purging the emotions would be an extremely useful practise.

The eastern concept of chakra is another portal through which westerners might possibly step into fractal reality. The act of visualising various energy centers within one's body could conceivably tap into the body's proven [PDF]neuroendocrine axis. Since white blood cells carry neurotransmitter and hormone receptor proteins, the immune system is part of the same axis. Norman Cousins explored the territory in his own battles with serious disease.

Western civilisation has developed amazing tools for analysis and exploration. The overwhelming dominance of the western world attests to this. Even China, center of the eastern world, has only been able to shake itself partially out of its age-old slumber through adopting many western methods in finance, engineering, and science. It is past time to admit that the western world is capable of learning from other civilisations. Matter without energy is inert. Energy without mind is blind. Mind without spirit is futile. Spirit without freedom is despair. Update: Aristides
demonstrates that freedom without spirit is also despair. Many thanks.

Reality is fractal. To understand and deal with reality, the west needs the east. The straight on, brute force approach must be supplemented with indirection and subtlety. The mind must make peace with the body, and emotions, each working with the others. Together they must reach out to something higher: a possibility, a dream.

By embracing a larger complexity of life and possibilities, humans can incorporate a larger portion of enchantment into their realities.