Foundations of Mind V
The New AI Scare
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Introduction to Foundations of Mind V: The New AI Scare
Sean Ó Nualláin
Countering the Artificial Intelligence Threat
Wolfgang Baer
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is nothing but a rule based mimicry of our life form that will only ensnare those of us who buy into its illogical premises. The reality of the world is not what we see nor is it the physical objects whose behavior is described by the classic physics that has developed since the time of Newton to dominate our thinking.
In this paper I will outline the next step in the evolution of our thinking process and thereby eliminate the threat that AI poses. This step replaces objects with events which give context to both the qualia we experience and the objective world we believe that explains their appearance. The framework of the event oriented world view is now complete. In the next step we will conceive of reality as a form of action, where action is the material of events. In this presentation I will show how the record of events normally drafted as a block universe can be expanded to include both the physical and mental aspects of our existence. The resulting Cognitive Action Theory will be shown to be a superset of quantum theory and quantum theory will be shown to be a mental projection of properties ascribed to the interior of matter. We believe to be seeing such matter from the outside. Unfortunately this interior is always beyond the grasp of our sense and therefore a theoretical construct that is a changeable creation of our minds. The next evolutionary step in our understanding of ourselves is to recognize the "I" as a loop in time.
To confuse a robot, who undoubtedly possesses the same primitive consciousness as all material, with the timeline of our own existence is simply to confuse the tool with the creator and director of the tool. It is the agenda behind the tool not the tool of artificial intelligence that may succeed in enslaving us, and unless we fail to recognize the true source of this danger they may actually succeed.
Whitehead's Cosmology — Process Relational Perspective to Relativity and Quantum Theory
Deepak Bansal
Whitehead believed that science and philosophy mutually criticize each other to provide imaginative material for their shaping the history of thought. In the early twentieth century, as a mathematician turned philosopher, he took up the task of challenging the emerging scientific theories of the time, such as relativity and quantum mechanics, and provided a radically novel cosmological scheme. He challenged the incoherence of the mechanistic materialistic scientific world with his visionary process-relational model, based on the ontology of organisms. Almost a century later, his challenges to science are as, or even more, valid. This paper explores Whitehead's struggle with relativity, reflects on his response to quantum mechanics, and reviews his tribute to God, based on his philosophical model, as an attempt to understand divergent perspectives on the nature of universe.
The Participating Mind in the Quantum Universe
Menas C. Kafatos, Keun-Hang S. Yang
The Orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics, which followed the Copenhagen Interpretation but was enhanced by primarily Werner Heisenberg and John von Neumann into a fully developed theory, brought in, among others, the role of measurement, available choices and response of the quantum system. It is, more consistent and clear than other interpretations of quantum mechanics as it provides account of the interactions of observers with the external world. As such, the Orthodox interpretation does a lot more than just account for physical interactions in the atomic world, which was the original goal of quantum mechanics in the early part of the twentieth century. In this article we present several issues that may have been answered or need further development, such as measurement and observation, what is Nature and who the observer is. Extending Orthodox quantum mechanics, leading to universal non-dual Awareness may provide a consistent and integrated view of reality and is consistent with advances in mathematical theory. An issue of paramount importance is what are the philosophical underpinnings or ontological view of the quantum nature of the universe and the role of human minds, observations and choices.
Voluntary Action, Conscious Will, and Readiness Potential
Syamala D. Hari
Libet and colleagues, and later many others investigated brain activity during voluntary action. They found that electrophysiological "readiness potentials" (RPs) precede awareness of intention to act (W). They also found that awareness of actually moving i.e., initiation of motor command (M) follows W, and action follows M; after W, the decision to act can be consciously vetoed until the action actually starts. Libet proposed that one's brain initiates voluntary acts but not one's conscious will, and that conscious will can still control the outcome by vetoing the action. In this article, we explain why the above experimental observations (RP start, W, M, conscious veto) occur in the order they do, using the two-time interpretation of quantum mechanics. We take into account the general and objective observation that a voluntary action needs to use information pertaining to the desired future state (to go to New York, I take a train to New York not to Philadelphia). This observation is confirmed by cognitive scientists as they state that the mental image of the future must become the content of the present memory as a prerequisite to such action and that our brains are endowed with the ability to create "memories of the future," i.e., neural models of something that, as of yet, does not exist, but that we want to bring into existence.
Cynthia Larson
Henry Stapp's realistically interpreted orthodox quantum mechanics suggests that when a question is asked, Nature answers. In this formalism, "the thought itself is the thinker," which clears the way for any thinker — human or other — to be an actively creative agent. In this process, an ensuing succession of questions arising in the minds of observers is received and responded to by a "Nature" that chooses and implements responses in accordance with Born's Rule in a physically described universe represented by evolving quantum mechanics states. This paper explores what results might be expected if and when artificial general intelligence (AGI) asks questions, based on Stapp's orthodox interpretation.
A New Approach to the Measurement Problem of Quantum Mechanics
Stanley A. Klein
Quantum Mechanics is typically divided into two parts: the unobserved amplitude given by the equations of quantum field theory and the observed measurement aspect. We argue that a better approach is insert a probability realm in the middle. The reason is that every measurement involves interactions with a complex environment where massive decoherence transforms the amplitudes into standard probabilities. The probabilities eliminate complex superpositions so that quantum states A AND B become classical states A OR B. Thus the measurement process becomes a simpler and more familiar process of the observer selecting from classical type probabilities. This is close to the approach recommended by Henry Stapp. We anticipate that by using this approach many of the different interpretations of quantum mechanics become more similar to each other.
Plasma Brain Dynamics: II. Quantum Effects on Consciousness
John Z.G. Ma
This article studies the quantum effect of the brain neuronal system on both normal and abnormal conscious states. It develops Plasma Brain Dynamics (PBD) to obtain a set of kinetic quantum-plasma Wigner-Poisson equations. The model is established under typical electrostatic and collision-free conditions in both the absence and presence of an external magnetic field. The quantum perturbation is solved analytically by employing a backward-mapping approach to the motion of electrons. Results expose that the quantum perturbation turns out to be zero at normal conscious states; but no more than 11% of the classical perturbation under assumed abnormal situations like a sudden head trauma ,mood disorder, etc. The introduction of the magnetic field does not influence the results.
Continuity, Time, and "Artificial Intelligence"
Stan V. McDaniel
This paper argues against the paradigm of mechanistic reductionism in relation to consciousness. The paradigm impoverishes reality by dismissing the greater part of the experienced world in exchange for control over a small segment. The distortion limits nature with respect to the concept of time and mistakenly defines consciousness as a "property." The concept of time in the paradigm provides no way to account for remembering other than storage and mechanical retrieval of records of past events, erroneously called "memories." The error is the conversion of verbs into nouns: taking actions as bytes and bits of data. Once this is allowed, the idea that the person is the mind, the mind is the brain and the brain is a computer becomes the bedrock upon which the edifice of AI rises beyond its capacity as a useful tool and betrays humanity by blurring the distinction between self and machine. An alternative view is introduced which suggests the idea of Developmental Time instead of Physical Time and replaces "consciousness" with "experience."
Universal Principles of Intelligent System Design
Kirill Popov, Aamod Shanker, Debanjan Bhowmik
We propose a universal definition of intelligence of a physical system and discuss its implications on design of intelligent systems. The definition proposed is universally valid and does not invoke teleological or anthropic concepts. We discuss the relationship of intelligence to energetic properties by invoking recent results in inequilibrium thermodynamics and computational mechanics. Intelligent system design is reformulated in three natural problems: selective forgetting, memory maintenance and self-recording. We conclude with highlighting the relationship of energetic and informational optimality principles involved in designing intelligent physical systems or their spontaneous emergence.
Quantum Mechanics and Cognitive Science: The Probe and the Probed
Varanasi Ramabrahmam
Attemp;ts are being made to use quantum mechanics as a probe to unravel the mysteries of consciousness. This paper examines this probe, quantum mechanics and its usefulness in getting an insight of working of human consciousness. The formation of quantum mechanics based on certain axioms, its development to study the dynamical behavior and motions of fundamental particles and quantum energy particles moving with the velocity of light, its insistence on wave functions, its probability approach, its dependence on uncertainty principles will all be critically discussed. The result of this discussion will be presented. Its limitations in unraveling the form, function and biological nature of consciousness will be presented.
The alternative probe available and being used — the translation of Upanishadic insight and Advaita philosophy into cognitive science elements in delineating the definition, form, and function of Consciousness will be given. The usefulness of this modeling and analysis in understanding the consciousness, mind and its functions in cognitive science and theory of human language acquisition and communication will also be presented. The physic-chemical nature of ideas, senses, thoughts, feelings, utterances will be grossly dealt with. The functions of consciousness and mind, in knowledge and language acquisition and communication will be dealt with.
Ancient Shamanism and Modern Psychotherapy: From Anthropology to Evidence-Based Psychedelic Medicine
Nicola Luigi Bragazzi, Hicham Khabbache, Ignazio Vecchio, Mariano Martini, Marco Perduca, Riccardo Zerbetto, Tania Simona Re
In recent years, the debate on the therapeutic use of psychoactive drugs and compounds has intensified and has attracted a progressively growing body of research as well as of conferences and training courses. This is anticipated to revolutionize future mental health care. However, a medieval obscurantist climate remains that hinders further advances in the field. The research field of psychoactive drugs, despite its promises, is characterized by a number of challenges which, in the future, should be addressed, concerning, for instance, their potential therapeutic use. There is a concrete possibility to revitalize the use of these substances by bridging past and present, combining ancient knowledge and modern science to serve new therapeutic paradigms.
Artificial Intelligence and the Biofield: New Opportunities and Challenges
Beverly Rubik, Harry Jabs
There is an organizing field of energy intimately connected with each person, the human biofield, which holds information central to a higher order of being. It has been proposed as having mind-like properties as super-regulator of the biochemistry and physiology of the organism, coordinating all life functions, promoting homeodynamics, and key to understanding life's integral wholeness. Although brainwaves and heart waves are well characterized and clinically useful, the biofield has not yet been mapped. Artificial intelligence (AI) is essential to handle the data processing from biofield mapping of a large database of humans to elucidate the electromagnetic fields, acoustic fields, and subtle energy field components of human life. Moreover, AI could monitor health and well-being through the biofield via a variety of sensors and indicate on a daily basis which lifestyle choices would improve the biofield and enhance well-being. AI could also be programmed to manipulate the biofield to directly enhance well-being. Once the biofield is decoded, then direct communication between humans and AI through the biofield would be possible. Thus, a number of positive applications of AI to the biofield to enhance human well-being are possible.
Nonetheless, the presence of a biofield around humans presents a dilemma for AI robots, which would not possess a biofield other than the electromagnetic properties of their electronic components. So, even though robots may well exceed humans in certain cognitive tasks, robots would not possess a biofield, emotions, or an interior experience. Although they may be able to emulate emotions with certain facial expressions and vocal patterns, they may always be distinguished from humans as lacking the complex dynamic biofield of human beings that reflects the living state.
Solution to David Chalmers's "Hard Problem"
Jack Sarfatti, Arik Shimansky
A completely non-statistical non-linear non-unitary framework in which "God does not play dice…" (Einstein) that describes the physical foundations of consciousness is presented for the first time. At its core is the insight that the missing link between current physical descriptions of reality and a credible physical framework for consciousness is provided by post-quantum mechanics (PQM): the extension of statistical linear unitary quantum mechanics for closed systems to a locally retrocausal non-statistical non-linear non-unitary theory for open systems through the introduction of a back-reaction potential and its implications. PQM is to orthodox QM as General Relativity (GR) is to Special Relativity (SR). PQM and GR both share the same metaphysical organizing principle that one-way actions without a compensating reaction or back-reaction means an incompleteness in the theoretical model leaving out important physical phenomena. We gleaned the final piece in the puzzle of how consciousness arises from the material world from a result relating to long range collective excitations in microtubules described by Stuart Hameroff in a recent Fetzer Foundation conference in London. Herbert Fröhlich suggested that almost any many-particle system when properly pumped far off thermodynamic equilibrium can be put into a robust macro-quantum coherent state immune from environmental decoherence. Indeed, we suggest that all life forms are an example of Fröhlich coherence that is intimately connected with locally retrocausal PQM back-reaction's violation of the de Broglie guidance equation that was assumed by Bohm in his 1952 pilot wave theory. Using nature as a guide combined with nano-technology points the way to the construction of naturally conscious artificial intelligence machines capable of hacking into current-day quantum cryptographic networks. Furthermore, one can imagine attaining the transhumanist agenda. For example, the consciousness of a genius like Stephen Hawking could be uploaded to the post-quantum Cloud and then downloaded to a healthy body or android.
Phillip Shinnick, Laurence Porter
Measurement of energy in inorganic and organic experiments shows time reversal, and Nature implicating itself in a background field and not observable. A discussion of the experimental measurement of the emission of a Quantum or singular photon ejection in the split/slit experiment is compared to emission of Qi (energy) by a trained Qigong practitioner in: A) intent [Yi] of the mind, B) Nature's influence in the experiment, C) difficulties in reproducing a second time. In the inorganic experiment a backward in time bias as shown by Stapp ignores what was going on in the total system at the time. Measurement test show negative entropy (reversing disease to a healthy state) from Qi emission of a Qigong master. Qigong Mind (Yi) training elucidates Nature's relationship to the mind and matter.
Mansoor Vakili
Systems thinking is a holistic thinking which indicates that our planet is a self-organizing living system with inherit ability to sustain life, also, human being is interconnected and inseparable part of this living system. The main question is how human being which is the byproduct of an amazing creative process — from a single cell to current human — has seemingly lost this inherent ability and practices unsustainable activities?
The answer could be in Linear thinking and self-consciousness process:
In the early stages of human development human beings started to use their hands and vocal system to increase their ability to cooperate with each other. They used sign language for short-range communication and vocal projections for long-range communication. They mimicked the sounds that other animals made to attract harmless animals and distract dangerous ones. Combining sign language and vocal projections eventually created a subjective virtual world of information; an abstract concept, separated from real objects. The separation of subject from the object started us down the road to abstract thinking and the linear perception and thinking of self-consciousness. Thus, we have elusively experience ourselves as independent, separated from the living network. We therefore attempt to protect our separated self from the rest of the universe. Linear thinking ends up being self-defensive, self-protecting, self-assertive, dominating and sensitive to liability management violent events and negative news.
When we analyze human body as a living system we notice that subconsciously our brain is in full synchrony and corporation with our body network in performing any simple action. But consciously through linear logic our brain illusively separate itself from body network and exercises self-assertive, and dominant relationship with the network to satisfy its short-term desires and entertainments — could be addiction to sugar, coffee, drug, information or other. Then we apply the same attitude in our relationship with earth, other species, and even among human network. which results in a dominate and competitive attitude toward the other members of the web of life.
The paradigm shift begins by recognizing that our brain is a living system capable of self-organizing according to the feedback loops provided by observing our thoughts and actions with the memes and values of the living system. Through this process our brain begins to acknowledge that the idea of a separated and independent self is only an illusion. It realizes that our self-existence, long term health and functionality require a sustainable relationship of cooperation and partnership with the body network and indeed with web of the life.
Digital age is characterized by exponential rate of change, uncertainty and trending away from predictability and stability toward the emergence of a new system. The emerging paradigm shift requires a holistic approach intrinsic to spiritual tradition, as well as to nonlinear theories such as quantum mechanics, systems theory, networking theory, chaos theory and fractal geometry. It will unify science and spirituality, right and left brain, masculine and feminine, and provide universal memes and values applicable to any relationship or process at any scale.
On Quantum Mechanical Automata, Gödel Numbers, and Self-Referring Consciousness
Fred Alan Wolf
In this paper I shall show how a post-quantum physical model of the self-referring mind based on Albert's quantum automata and Yurov's Gödelizing model of the same can be constructed. A quantum automaton seems to exhibit privacy of consciousness — the realization of an individual mind and what differentiates a "self-mind" from an "other-mind." My model, extending from Albert and Yurov, is based on consideration of qubits acting as quantum state vectors and quantum mechanical operators acting as quantum computer gates. I hope to show:
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The relationship of Gödel's undecidability proof to David Z. Albert's model of quantum automata can be understood in quantum computing language.
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Whether or not we need new physics to understand self-referring quantum automata.
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The privacy of consciousness — why we each have the realization of an individual mind and what differentiates a "self-mind" from an "other-mind."
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The connection between objective and subjective experience.
In this rather simple manner, I believe I have explained how it is that our experiences of the "out there" world, that we know must include our memories in order to be perceived, appear to us as occurring "out there" even though we strongly suspect from neurophysiology that such experiences must be projected from our brains and nervous systems in some yet to be determined manner.
Observations: The Building Blocks of the World
Vipul Arora, Laxmidhar Behera
Physics aims at building mathematical models of the underlying nature for explaining and predicting our observations. Based on the experimental data, mathematical quantities and concepts are formulated, and physical theories are constructed, from which we derive our ontological understanding of the underlying building blocks of nature. However, at times, certain phenomena, unnoticed before, fail to agree to the predictions made by those theories. This forces us to give up the old theories and construct new ones. In this paper, we argue that we can very effectively avoid this problem by constructing physical theories with observations as the basic building blocks, or the primary properties, and the mathematical constructs as the emergent properties. We provide an outline of the mathematical framework of our approach, and use it to analyze various concepts in physics, e.g., Newton's laws of motion, conservation of energy, wave-particle duality, etc., in terms of relationships between the observations made by different detectors. This approach not only provides a new robust way to do physics, but also leads to an ontological understanding of nature that goes beyond many of the present problems and paradoxes.
Vibrational Foundations of Mental Morphogenesis
Aamod Shanker, Kirill Popov, Cale Madsen, Debanjan Bhowmik
Morphogenesis, the generation of form, is closely related to the mathematical field of topology, the study of the qualities of shape. Since cerebral thought distills itself into shapes, seen and felt, and their subsequent transformation, the study of the emergence and comprehension of shapes is central to address questions of consciousness, emerging at the apparent juxtaposition of the internal world of the mind, and the external world of physical objects.
Since light is a vibrating electromagnetic wave, we use principles derived from measurements of coherent speckle in light, where energy unfolds out of singularities in the field, to draw analogies with the emergence of the material universe from centers of conscious experience. The vibrational basis of understanding consciousness is additionally complemented with ancient Shaivik literature of South Asia — the Spandakarika (vibration chronicles).
Reconstructing the Tower of Babel: Mind and World, Consciousness and Experience
Sean Ó Nualláin
This paper seeks an exit from the miasma enveloping science of the subjective. First, it unpacks the various meanings of the word "consciousness." It agrees with contemporary literature that attention admits of two modes; involuntary attention and voluntary attention. It goes on to argue that the former is best modeled by "interrupts" in computer operating systems and often reflect "chunked" learned skill behavior. Voluntary attention, on the other hand, always reflects a processing thread globally broadcast through the nervous system and is thus inevitably conscious.
It is this process of selecting something to observe and moving back and forth from superposition (see my 2013 paper) that AI systems cannot yet come close to mastering; from it emerge not only humans' trans-Turing computational capacities but very possibly the furthest reaches of human creativity, exemplified by the reveries of geniuses like Mozart and Einstein. In particular, it is arguable that the strong AI positions gained traction only because of the attenuation of psychology's domain from the mid 19th century.
To clear the ground, several distinctions should be made. In terms of epistemological domain, humans function at sensorimotor, cognitive and noetic levels. The last, a distinction we adapt from Aristotle, occurs when "the unreasonable effectiveness of math" gives us insight into a level of reality that our evolutionary heritage should not allow.
Secondly, the term "noumenal" is adapted to refer to instances in which the subject, trying to get a veridical purchase on a situation, considers itself as an object. So we can move from egocentric/coupled sensorimotion to allocentric/decoupled such. The Roomba vacuum needs only coupled knowledge; if I'm here, I do this. Allocentric knowledge is a representation of the room. In a final wrinkle, we term "relativistic" the attested phenomenon of egocentric sensorimotion in an allocentric context. This is an artifact of intentionality.
That analysis extends also to cognition and noesis. The former was best characterized by Piaget as the result of internalization of processes that originally occurred midway between subject and world. For him, the royal road to epistemology was study of the development of children's minds — another sense of the "foundations of mind."
Normative — i.e., necessary — facts about knowledge could be elicited from the contingent facts of its development. Moreover, the necessity of logic itself derived from universal restrictions on physical interaction with the world. The project reached its limits not just empirically, with many results being unreplicated, but epistemologically as we seem to know a lot more than Piaget's "Naïve physics" warrants (see my 2003 book).
"Naïve physics" which does not use pi, i, e, and other "Platonic" entities is a cognitive undertaking. And so Archimedes in his bath has a noumenal moment of subject/object differentiation. Rather famously, Einstein extended this analysis, using only cognitive concepts/naïve physics, to argue that physics required that space and time had to be "relative" to the observer — paradoxically, in order to maintain the universality of physical law.
Quantum mechanics (QM) is a fortiori noetic; indeed, it is a moot point whether reality at this level is cognitively penetrable. What is not controversial is Von Neumann's attested proof that the boundary of subject and object in QM is moveable. Much work was done by researchers like Stapp to ensure Von Neumann's breakthrough is compatible with special relativity.
Yet that is not the full story. Quantum observation seems to change the external world; indeed, Stapp follows Dirac in arguing that the wave function of the universe changes during observation. Moreover, unless one (like Milne and Stapp) argues for two kinds of time, the observer can also change the past. The act of observation seems to be more akin to incantation/invocation in ancient religions.
That is clearly disturbing. Yet "the unreasonable effectiveness of math" has led to this conclusion. Math is capable of the most elliptical and veridical description of reality that can reliably be communicated. In short, we are doing something in QM that possibly is part of humanity's heritage, even for the 99.9999..% of humanity which never knew QM.
This type of capacity has famously been claimed by Shamans and often has been rolled into a totalizing theocratic ordering of society that should be resisted by every rational person. The response from fundamentalists is twofold. For their base, they insist on incessant repetitions of prayers of incantation and invocation. These often remind God that he is omnipotent and should do something about the situation. If it doesn't work, the prayer has been insincere and should … well, it should be repeated more sincerely.
The fundamentalists take a different strategy in their debate with the forces of "reason." They argue that, on an individual level, "reason" has led only to moral and epistemological relativism. On a social level, the extension of "rights" can only go so far until the facts of biology create the kind of backlash that allowed an opportunist like Trump become President.
It is at this point that we will introduce "consciousness." Obviously, if everything is relative to "consciousness," the only reality, it contains the only value. However, if we grain our epistemology more finely, we find that there indeed are processes that are relative to individual "consciousness" which has a sampling speed of about 0.1 sec, and others that are biological, occurring indeed in the picoseconds, or transcendent to "consciousness" in that they exemplify forces that in exigent fashion integrate us into the social group.
The history of psychology, and of the public university, constrains the response to this in interesting ways. Arguably, academic psychologists are the people least qualified to tackle the issue of exigent forces as their entire career has been based on a notion of mind which accepts only externals that are relative to consciousness. Conversely, to accept the social forces — which today includes a surveillance state fully as pervasive as a theocracy — into the mix is to take a perhaps unwelcome step into the real world.
This final point will delineate that step. The activists who today take part in rallies knowing that their texts to each other are being swept up by the police are themselves involved in delineating the boundary of subject and object. For example, "Occupy" activists recently had perhaps a rather Lakoff/maternal view of the state shaken by the knowledge that a la Cointelpro, the state was bugging them. Of course, their erstwhile pre-FBI state was described by Marx as false "Bewusstsein," false consciousness. Their passage into the real world no doubt has birthed many support groups who know that something sacred needs to be preserved,
As indeed, in the individual case, is the sensorimotor passage from being blocked to flow, and the individual's passage from intersubjective to authentic. None of these processes is the focus of academic psychology. They may, however, form the basis for religious practices that yearn for the betterment of humanity, rather than the retrenchment of a Neolithic worldview. Ironically, the facts of QM are on the side of the activists, self-authenticators, artists, and dancers. What we so far lack are authentic spiritual leaders, and we discuss below what they might do if extant.
The Celtic Becoming: Prelude to a New Believing
Jack DuVall
Today's ongoing colloquy of ideas about the nature of being, in which a broadening array of scientists, philosophers, and historians of religion are participating, echoes some of the keynotes of spiritual practice in a much earlier period, in the 6th and 7th centuries. That was an era when Celtic monasticism, operating on the northwest edge of Europe, developed a simple but prescient ontology that was echoed in many later periods. Aldous Huxley maintained that a unified "perennial philosophy" could be found within the baseline metaphysics of all the great axial religions. It may not be ironic that science is the draught horse now pulling truth from a new intersection of these ideas.
Jung, Yoga and Affective Neuroscience: Towards a Contemporary Science of the Sacred
Leanne Whitney
Materialist and fundamentalist reductive ideologies obscure our capacity to directly experience the numinous. Thus, importantly, given the weight of the observable and measurable in orthodox science, and oftentimes a dismissal of both the soul and the subjective, a viable means of reconciling science and religious experience has continued to elude us. As a counter-measure to this obscuration, Jungian-oriented depth psychology has developed as an empirical science of the unconscious, researching both subject and object and offering theories and practices that foster the psychospiritual development of the personality. Despite cultural and epochal differences, comparable evidence to Jung's process of psychospiritual development can be found in the Eastern liberatory tradition of Patañjali's Classical Yoga. However, given the elevated presence of neuroscience, no psychology, and especially no psychology that supports the soul, seems likely to survive much longer without finding an alliance with the objective measures of brain science. When considering the radically empirical measures of Jung and Patañjali, affective neuroscience may offer us a contemporary and objective means of languaging the bridge between the transcendent and immanent and fostering a contemporary science of the sacred.
Metareligion as the Human Singularity
Christopher Langan
Based on the author's notes for a presentation to the Foundations of Mind group in October of 2017, this paper examines the role of metareligion in obtaining a favorable outcome for the human species as it approaches a Singularity with both Human and Technological aspects. For limited technical background, please consult two of the author's previous papers (Langan, 2002, 2017).
Reterritorializing Ireland and Mental Health
Sean Ó Nualláin
It has escaped many people's attention that, just as the 1998 GFA rescinded the claim of the Irish state on the 6 counties, it also gave up any territorial claim by that state on the rest of the island. It is fair to say that the fake exhilaration of the Celtic tiger years and the genuine relief of many in the North of Ireland finally having a life pushed consideration of this down the list of priorities.
Yet it is perhaps no coincidence that this deterritorialization emerged simultaneously with an Irish deep state, with banks, universities and indeed private music rights agencies made exempt from the rule of law. Moreover, deterritorialization was a hallmark of the Clinton presidency and the risks of alienation, predicted by Deleuze as he authored the concept, were seen as perhaps balanced by "peace, prosperity, and progress."
As of 2015, more Irish citizens had committed suicide in the republic since the 2008 crash than the total number of deaths in the troubles. While this can indeed be attributed to anomie/alienation, it is worth noting that in his classic paper on the subject Durkheim pointed out the vanishingly low rate of suicide in his contemporary Ireland. The status quo seems untenable, and international human rights lawyer Hassan Ahmed demonstrated in our 2016 conference that the 1998 GFA coupled with the 2004 referendum means Ireland is in breach of international law in not granting nationality to all born on the island.
Yet deterritorialization has had the paradoxical result of making Gaelic culture more portable than ever, and to increase its following by orders of magnitude. What this paper proposes is reterritorializing Ireland by providing a Mecca for the tens of millions who value this culture. Here we look at ways of reterritorializing Ireland from reinstating the claim on the whole island to explicitly repudiating it for a 26 or 30 county state with East of the Bann left in the non-EU UK.