[ExI] Transpersonal Extropianism?

[Will Steinberg]

Aaron,

You took the words out of my mouth!  Unfortunately the ExI list, for all
its positives, is not really a good spiritual resonance chamber.  I've got
the idea that a lot of people here may be stuck at the skeptic/atheist
phase, instead of pushing on to ask more deeply about the nature of reality
and consciousness.  Some here seem ok with the tautological "consciousness
is an illusion"--even though, since illusions need a subject to witness
said illusion, this leaves us at the same place as before.  Or
"consciousness is what data feels like to be processed", without asking
what is data, what is matter, what makes data incarnate in matter, why does
consciousness exist at all, how does it relate to the fundamental forces
which we have predictive maths for yet not even an iota of predictive maths
regarding consciousness, &c.

Kudos on reaching the point yourself.  For me, I used a lot of
psychedelics.  And even then, I used to think they were merely tools for
the intelligent, and was content to simply live in a mysterious universe
without any explanation for being or consciousness.

In any case, I welcome your attempts to bring these ideas here.  At some
point, the scientific community will budge, because a model that does not
include or explain consciousness is a failure.  Soon we will find the need
to incorporate spiritual-type ideas into physics.

-w
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