Collated by Tusar Nath Mohapatra
Towards Psychological Independence
Matthijs Cornelissen
Education in India, as elsewhere, is based largely on the physicalist-reductionist philosophy that underlies modern science. For the so-called “hard” sciences, this philosophical framework appears, at least at first sight, to have worked quite well, but on the social sciences it has had a rather negative influence. Physicalist reductionism and its constructionist and deconstructionist successors have shown to stand in the way of a meaningful understanding of consciousness, values, love, beauty, the sense of the sacred, and even “meaning” itself. And what is human psychology if it fails in exactly those areas that make us human?
The historical cause of our present lapse into a sophisticated and well-argued inability to deal with the most important aspects of human life is the long-drawn fight between science and religion in Europe. But since colonial rule is over, there is no longer any excuse for India to suffer under this European anomaly. In the Indian tradition there is no serious conflict between religion, philosophy and science, as all three are equally rooted in an essentially spiritual understanding of reality.
Macaulay and his contemporaries were not only blinded by nationalistic pride but they were carried away by the seductive material successes of the industrial revolution. And it is this fascination with material success that is still with us, and that continues to support the materialist Western education that Macaulay enforced in India. The best of students in the best of Indian schools opt for engineering and the hard sciences: the race is for money and technical, material prowess.
In a way this is not an altogether negative development, because India, which was once one of the wealthiest regions in the world, now lags behind economically, and she has to catch up. But in the process of recovery we must not forget that a too exclusive pursuit of power and money remains a sign of barbarism, a shift down the line from spirit and culture to material comfort.
Śraddhā April 2023 84
One of Peter Thiel's crazier ideas: what we call the enlightenment actually started an intellectual dark age. Religious disputes are bloody, so we switched the old Gods with a new uncontroversial deity: Material Progress. Price of peace was forgetting eternal religious questions
https://twitter.com/oldbooksguy/status/1748072562314359171?t=D1rMHqyfg0BawGa9A2Cn4Q&s=19
Peter Thiel In The Straussian Moment:
"The singular example of bin Laden and his followers has rendered incomplete the economically motivated political thought that has dominated the modern West...From the Enlightenment on, modern political philosophy has been characterized by the abandonment of a set of questions that an earlier age had deemed central: What is a well-lived life? What does it mean to be human? What is the nature of the city and humanity? How does culture and religion fit into all of this? For the modern world, the death of God was followed by the disappearance of the question of human nature. gwern.net/doc/politics/2…
https://twitter.com/oldbooksguy/status/1748074144997187636?t=jLYSGlGfvaCb1tlSaWwSig&s=19
Thiel is best known for his Stagnation Thesis - that the nukes freaked out humans, our power was greater than our wisdom, and we unconsciously decided that it was better to lose ourselves in managerial red tape than to keep churning out ever more powerful bombs. What's missed is Thiel's insistence that wrestling with the "Why" of life, civilization, and technology is just as important as inventing ever slicker ways of extending our dominion over the laws of physics
https://twitter.com/oldbooksguy/status/1748074803200971014?t=7s_9bXiQ9LuSkolhzNNyBQ&s=19
There has been a rash of books about awe and wonder—essentially celebrating the profound impact of these emotions upon the human brain. UC Berkeley professor Dacher Keltner’s Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life offers a very readable, scientifically sound exploration of a near-ineffable experience, which he defines as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.” (As an aside, I spoke to the philosopher Robert Clewis about ‘the sublime’ early last year, and he noted that he had been collaborating with experimental psychologists researching awe; the sublime, he said, could be interpreted as a form of ‘aesthetic awe.’)
And, on a similar topic but taking a very different—more personal—approach, Katherine May’s Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age shares stories from her own life, in which she has sought to escape feelings of stress, disconnection, and overwhelm by re-awakening her awareness of the subtle beauty that can be found everyday life. She swims in the sea, keeps bees, and watches a meteor shower… Altogether these gentle personal essays make for a feelgood book that might be dipped in and out of, and it should appeal to those who enjoyed her debut Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in a Difficult World, which amassed a huge fanbase during the Covid lockdowns.
recommended by Cal Flyn
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/notable-psychology-and-self-help-books-of-2023-cal-flyn/
Savitri Era Religion doesn't scavenge upon the past for it's precursed on the texture and contours of the future. Not only the dynamics of society or mindscape of man but also possible changes in his body and capabilities of the organs. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have done a lot.
https://twitter.com/SavitriEra/status/1748120606896463955?t=9mA1ob7SgOGqCD8Qq0ZTug&s=19
Do I really need to listen to this Milei speech? Didn't the West already try laissez-faire capitalism? It led to eco-catastrophe, world war, great depression, & the rise of Stalinism.
Collectivism & individualism are both failed ideologies. Markets are great, but not a panacea.
https://twitter.com/ThouArtThat/status/1748096237298127210?t=zliXv-vpuA3X7XzAY7UBGw&s=19
Overview & criticism of #BigHistory the author says its bad because it's a modern-day positivist creation myth. I say it's good for same reason. My interest is in integrating positivist Big History with mythic esotericism, as well as incorporating #AI
https://twitter.com/akazlev/status/1748084676202467471?t=_aHNNm9y0RLiIwkYGZRqTg&s=19
Looks interesting! I mention Bostrom and doomerism in my #WIP I'm guessing here he has a more positive take on #AGI than his previous book. btw thanks for your work Émile, I always find your essays interesting and informative.
https://twitter.com/akazlev/status/1748088781989978448?t=yxEO39VW7Fe-KRO_itK9mQ&s=19
