9 posts tagged “integral”
(Crossposted from zBlog:~C4Chaos)
I've always wondered how Ken Wilber's vision of singularity would look like. I have some ideas of Ray Kurzweil's version which, for the most part, focuses on the exterior technological changes.
Below is an excerpt from a WIE interview with Ken Wilber. As I expected, Ken's version tends to focus on the interior psycho-spiritual development as aided by mind-expanding technology, aka brain-mind machines.
If only those two thinkers would have a public dialogue so they can give us a more inclusive picture of Integral Singularity….
(via zPod:Singularity)
WIE editors asking Ken Wilber about anything. here's something about Ken's version of the “singularity.”
Q: Finally, we’d like to ask you to let your imagination run wild. Please describe, in a stream of consciousness, an unabashedly utopian vision of a truly enlightened future … a world theocracy in which the nondual God becomes the organizing principle. Picture the year 2316 …
KW: Right, but my imagination jams at the beginning on the word “theocracy” because in the past that has meant mythic-theocracy, which is what we don’t want now. Go to Iran if that is what you want. But a truly enlightened future, in my opinion, would be one in which the center of gravity of the culture is at violet or higher, and states of consciousness are navigated at will, which would almost certainly be accompanied by brain/computer interfacing. Virtually all material wants will have been vanquished by nanotech (I’m with Ray Kurzweil on that), and the environmental crisis is long ended. The main concern for such a society is how to help individuals move up the great spiral of development and spectrum of consciousness because all exterior goods and needs have long ago been met. So what’s a poor culture to do?
Interior growth alone will answer that call. And interior growth demands structures and stages, which—unlike states—cannot be induced by drugs, meditation, or brain/mind machines. Addressing this need for interior growth will be the call of tomorrow’s integral culture.
Once that challenge is met, and I believe it will be, the second major problem will be the simple fact that, even in an ultraviolet culture, everybody is still born at square one, at infrared, and must begin their evolution and development from there. Even in today’s society, whose center of gravity is orange/green, everybody is born at square one, which is why we still have pockets of red culture (in street gangs, for example) and amber culture (in all of Kansas, it seems). But those types of problems will not disappear in any conceivable future, so they will need to be addressed creatively.
Then, the extraordinary states and stages available today only to those who work incredibly hard (via meditation, therapy, yoga, etc.) will be commonplace to all. The very Ground of All Being will be as obvious as one’s original face, as vast Emptiness announces both Freedom and Fullness for all souls, an ecstatic release and quiet riot of spiritual radiance drenching each and all, as eternity falls in love with the productions of time all over again, so that looking deep within, one can find only the entire Kosmos, with galaxies swirling where you thought your heart was and supernovas exploding in the middle of what used to be your mind, and spirit itself as simple and obvious as the sound of the rainfall on what is left of the old and forlorn world, long gone in time, never found in space, this simple and ever-present feeling of Being, now and now and endlessly now.
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
Part 1 is cool. But this Part 2 is just perfect of the Labor Day holiday...
(via zPod:Integral Institute)
Entrepreneurial Idealism and the Integral Model. Part 2. Right Bucks. Right Business. Right View.
”Brian Johnson is the co-Founder and Philosopher/CEO of social networking phenomenon Zaadz.com, a website which is one of Integral Institute’s esteemed “Integral Friends.”* A 32-year-old font of idealism-in-action, Brian is a rather extraordinary example of the passion, creativity, and drive of an emerging wave of integrally-oriented twenty- and thirty-somethings worldwide.
“Brian beings the conversation by mentioning his passion for “conscious capitalism,” and how the Zaadz “plan” as described on the site actually leads with capitalism, and then mentions the spiritual emphasis. He comments, “I deliberately do that… I’m trying to create a compelling ‘yes-and’ story here.” In other words, he’s trying to take a more integral perspective and show how capitalism and spirituality can not only coexist, but actually support each other. However, he continues, not everyone is so excited to see these two things come together, and certain camps have been particularly vocal in denouncing his entire approach, following a general “capitalist pig” theme.
As Ken comments, there are several different things going on here. To begin, even more fundamental than how one might feel about capitalism—or any of the economic systems available—is how one feels about money in general. Generally speaking, a strong negative view of money can be attributed to either 1. exclusively ascending types of spirituality or 2. the green altitude of development (types and altitude/levels being two of the five elements in the AQAL Approach, the others being quadrants, lines, and states).”NOTE: Integral Naked is a premium site. FIRST MONTH is FREE. Eavesdrop on the conversations you can hear nowhere else.
(also posted on zPod:Starship Social Enterprise)
P.S. Here's the link [PDF] to the Right Bucks essay that Ken Wilber wrote two decades ago. Happy (right) Labor Day!
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
“Small minds talk about people, Average minds talk about events, Great minds discuss ideas”
If you want to know why Ken Wilber is an important figure in the domain of ideas, all you need to do is click on this Google Book Search and see how deeeeep the rabbit hole goes.
http://books.google.com/books?q=ken+wilber
So regardless of what you think about the man, do yourself a favor: put on a great mind, and never argue with an idiot.
(Crossposted from www.c4chaos.com)
“Social entrepreneurs have existed throughout history. St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order, would qualify as a social entrepreneur – having built multiple organizations that advanced pattern changes in his “field.” Similarly, Florence Nightingale created the first professional school for nurses and established standards for hygiene and hospital care that have shaped norms worldwide. What is different today is that social entrepreneurship is developing into a mainstream vocation, not only in the United States, Canada, and Europe, but increasingly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In fact, the rise of social entrepreneurship represents the leading edge of a remarkable development that has occurred across the world over the past three decades: the emergence of millions of new citizen organizations.”
Source: How to Change the World : Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
I'm an only child who grew up in a humble country along the Pacific ocean. I remember spending my lazy afternoons with friends and neighbors just chilling out under a bayabas tree. Me and my friends were fond of watching Jackie Chan movies and anything that had to do with ninjas. We were crazy about sci-fi movies too. Thank God for VHS tapes!
I consider myself a social person but I'm the type who is more on the introvert side of the scale. That's why I can watch movies alone and get lost in books for days, only getting up if I need to eat, drink, stretch, or pee. Some people will label that as “geeky.” Then call me a blissful geek for all I care.
There was a point in my life when I had the urge of developing my personality. So I devoured inspirational books, spiritual books, philosophical books, scientific books, self-help books, and those uber-mindblowing books about enlightenment and integral stuff. Yet I was still screwed up. I still didn't know where to start and what to do with my life. Books are fingers pointing to the moon. It's so obvious now, but I was still clueless back then.
I'm at the stage in my life right now where I get easily bored with spiritual talks, philosophical dialogues, stupid lemon-eating debates, and feel-good literature. Those are still cool once in a while but most of the time I find them empty at best, or just another version of a blissful drug at worst. They give me a sense of elitism and make me think I'm special, that I'm much more intelligent and compassionate than others. Well, nothing wrong with that, and besides, those blissful drugs water the seeds of vision. But where's the action? Ah, exactly! That's the main ingredient that has been missing in my life all along.
Philosophical, intellectual, and spiritual stuff can really pump us up, but they're very partial. Most of them lack the real world examples to put our vision into action. At worst, they could even make us more naive about how interrelated things are in the social dimension – politics, economics, business, science, religion, and stages of moral development.
You see, I'm one of those naive people. So I've decided to do something about it. Instead of the never-ending personality development and purely intellectual, theoretical, and spiritual stuff, I will switch my focus on more “practical” matters in the area of social enterprise. This is my way of taking off too much attention on myself, and instead, investing a better part of my psychic energy on how to really make a better impact on others.
The first phase of my solution would be to change the flavor of my intellectual consumption, starting with books. I've created a Starship Social Enterprise book list via zBooks so that I can keep tabs of these books while sharing and discussing them with others.
The next phase would be to integrate everything I've learned and put them into collective and collaborative action in the real world. Zaadz would be my tool. Zaadz would be my livelihood that will make it possible for me to do these crazy things. We'll see.
AQAL
{
Pre-conventional: What's a blog? ;
Conventional: Check me out! ;
Post-conventional: Don't look at me, check this out! ;
Trans-post-conventional: What's a blog?
}
(via zPod:Integral Institute)
Entrepreneurial Idealism and the Integral Model. Part 1. Introducing Zaadz.
”Brian Johnson is the co-Founder and Philosopher/CEO of social networking phenomenon Zaadz.com, a website which is one of Integral Institute’s esteemed “Integral Friends.”* A 32-year-old font of idealism-in-action, Brian is a rather extraordinary example of the passion, creativity, and drive of an emerging wave of integrally-oriented twenty- and thirty-somethings worldwide.
“So
what is Zaadz anyway? Let’s start with the name: as Brian explains,
zaad is Dutch for “seed,” and in the same way that an acorn has the
potential to grow into an oak, each one of us has a “seed” within us
that can unfold into our own highest potential, and Zaadz wants to
support us every step of the way. Following hot in the steps of
personal transformation, the Zaadz mission is as follows: “We’re gonna
change the world. Our math goes like this: you be the change + you
follow your bliss + you give your greatest strengths to the world
moment to moment to moment + we do everything in our power to help you
succeed + you inspire and empower everyone you know to do the same + we
team up with millions like us = we just affected billions = we
(together) changed the world”—bet you’ve never seen a social networking
site say that before!”
NOTE: Integral Naked is a premium site. FIRST MONTH is FREE. Eavesdrop on the conversations you can hear nowhere else.
(Crossposted from ~C4Chaos@Zaadz.com)
On a rainy, overcast, and cold Thursday morning, while the UK is on critical alert due to terrorist threats, I felt the need to remind myself why I'm working at Zaadz. I believe that what we're doing here is worthwhile in the grand scheme of things…
(via zQuotes tagged with "zaadz")
First of all, I just want to make a distinction about who zaadz is serving. When we first came up with the idea for zaadz, we talked about creating a community for 'spiritual' people. Unfortunately, the word 'spiritual' normally conjures up a vision of groups of monks sitting in silent meditation or perhaps… a bunch of idealistic vegans.
Our
big realization is that 'spiritual' doesn't have to be put into a box
(or a silo). We believe that spirituality is about following your
soul's purpose, whether that's about doing yoga, spinning poi or
creating the next big thing on the web.
Source: Aeon's Blog: Towards an Integral Zaadz
But I don't see Zaadz as a place with a single motive for its members - I think that we want to enable people of like minds (whether those minds be yogic, Buddhist, self-improvement-oriented) to congregate, communicate and cooperate, to create an atmosphere of wellness, support and abundance for ourselves and our members, and for ourselves - the wizards - to do so in a sustainable way that supports our own livelihoods.
We want to be part of people's lives. People who want to live a life of health and sustainability. We want our members to learn from each other. We want our members to have various opinions. We want debate. We want encouragement. We want community.
We are not here to provide a platform for meaninglessness. We want people to come here for inspiration.
I strongly believe that nothing is more spiritual than living at our highest potential while serving others. I believe that the more closely aligned we are to “spirit” the more fully we will give ourselves in service to the world. As such, my “spiritual path” is the path that leads me to a more complete manifestation of my unique Bodhisattvic duties.
(Crossposted from ~C4Chaos@Zaadz.com)
billgates
My
friend Victor had this picture and I couldn't resist. It seems like a
sexy pose, but it is just goofy. A pretty good description of microsoft
products too.
Uploaded by HMarney on 26 Jul '05, 4.18pm PDT.
Couldn't agree more with Mr. Yasuhiko Kimura. Thanks to Brian for the link. I also added this on zPod:Philanthropy.
Bill Gates, when he announced his impending retirement and intention to turn to full-time philanthropy, stated that he “needs to give back to the community.” This begs the question, as, for instance, renowned philosopher Tibor R. Machan asked in his article for Free-Market News Network1: Why and what does he need to give back to the community? Has he taken something from the community? Have people lent him something which he needs to return?
Mr. Gates has already given immensely to the world community through his business. Very few individuals in history have ever given as much and in such a magnitude. In the process he has taken nothing from the community nor has he been lent anything from others. Just as a great architect such as Christopher Alexander builds magnificent buildings, so has Mr. Gates built a majestic business. Just as the architect deserves and receives payment for his creative work, so does Mr. Gates deserve and receive payment for his creative work.
That he worked very hard and remained a consistent winner in a game of win-or-lose is not his fault. It was neither his genius nor mission in life to change the structure and nature of the game itself. He was the last tycoon of the Industrial Age whose products happened to be requisite tools of the advancing Information Age. Regardless of how we judge the way he conducted his business, we can never deny the tremendous contribution he has made to the world. He should never feel that he “needs to return something to the community” because he has never taken anything from the community.
Thus far, Mr. Gates’ giving to the world has been done in the context of trade, which is based on the principle of equal giving and re-giving. Now, by turning to full-time philanthropy, he is only shifting the mode of giving from that based on trade to that based on gift-giving—from that within the context of market economy to that within the context of gift economy.
