Toward a Unified Metaphysical Understanding: Simplified Anatomy of the Global Systemic Crisis and How to Heal Civilisation    
 Simplified Anatomy of the Global Systemic Crisis and How to Heal Civilisation
picture 2008-07-28, by John Ringland

Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.

Simplified Anatomy of the
Global Systemic Crisis and
How to Heal Civilisation

The crisis can be briefly described as systemic, self-perpetuating, persistent illusion, suffering & destruction.

This analysis describes some salient features of the anatomy of the global systemic crisis, introducing the anatomy stage by stage then discussing how best to initiate a process of holistic healing that can result in lasting peace and creative flourishing.

Brief Summary

Just as life arises from self-perpetuating creative feedback loops (autocatalytic sets) so too does the global systemic crisis arise from self-perpetuating destructive feedback loops. Fundamental illusions give rise to entrenched delusions, which result in suffering and destruction, which are interpreted and responded to in delusional ways, thus reinforcing a destructive feedback loop of delusion, suffering and destruction. The illusions arise from a single source but give rise to many stages of interlocking feedback loops that form a feedback network.

In theory it is possible that if any single stage can be totally healed and kept healthy then this will feed-through the entire feedback network but in practice this is extremely difficult because all other stages will seek to undermine the healthy stage or will compensate to exclude the healthy stage from the network therefore maintaining the overall destructive feedback network.

To heal the whole feedback network the most effective approach is to identify many stages where positive influence can effectively be applied and heal these as much as possible thereby diminishing the destructive feedback and augmenting the creative feedback. This will begin a healing process and the situation will change slightly, whereon we must iterate this again by identifying many stages where positive influence can be applied and healing these as much as possible. As this process is applied again and again the whole system will go through many phases of a healing process that will diminish the overall destructive feedback and augment to overall creative feedback.

Phase 1 Personal-Ego


 

Naïve realism is the tendency to experience the objects of perception and cognition but confusedly interpret these as real external objects that exist exactly as they appear within the mind. Hence objects of perception (such as one's experience of a chair) are assumed to be real physical objects and objects of cognition (such as one's experience of a government) are assumed to be real conceptual objects. There is often something that is real that produces the cognitive impressions but the mind cannot experience them as they are but only via conditioned subconscious interpretations that appear to the conscious mind as an experiential 'world'. Hence assuming that these experiences inform one of things as they are leads to false beliefs about everything.

An organism is a complex 'civilisation' of trillions of individual living beings (cells) and this organism is inextricably inter-connected at all levels with every aspect of the universe. However the senses can only perceive the grossest of connections and thus the mind experiences itself as an isolated being in a world. From this limited perspective the “I thought” (ego) arises and formulates a self-identity, personality, desires, fears, agendas and so on. The ego becomes a central cognitive lens through which all perceptions and conceptions are sub-consciously interpreted based on memory, beliefs, expectations, fears, agendas and so on.

The ego is a construct of false beliefs and it grows by 'dressing' itself in more false beliefs such as “I am good”, “I am bad”, “I am a person”, “I am a citizen”, “I like ...”, “I hate ...” and so on. Thus the mind becomes filled with false beliefs, all of which are intrinsically naïve realist. The more naïve realist false beliefs that the mind contains the more that its subconscious interpretations are naïve realist. Thus the first phase is created and reinforced. All of this occurs within an individual cognitive memeplex.

Phase 2 Group-Ego


 

Following on from the first phase there is a great deal of individual social activity based upon false egoic beliefs about 'self' and 'world'. The mind believes that it is a 'person' in a “physical universe”. The egoic ideas lead to dysfunctional relations such as competition, cheating, deception, power struggle, conflict and so on. The materialist ideas about the world lead to enquiring only into the form, behaviour of and relations between the objects of cognition whilst assuming that one is enquiring into the “physical universe”, which leads to a total ignorance of everything that cannot be an object of cognition, such as ones own cognitive health and inter-connectedness with the universe.

The dysfunctional relations and dysfunctional enquiry lead to a dysfunctional language that expresses dysfunctional knowledge. Both are bound within the narrow scope of concepts such as the form, behaviour of and relations between “separate people” and the form, behaviour of and relations between “material objects”; all of which are misconceptions about objects of cognition that are assumed to be real external objects and events. This combination of dysfunctional relations and enquiry also results in dysfunctional micro-economics, which is the system of exchange of stored value between allegedly “separate persons” within an alleged “physical universe”.

The combination of dysfunctional language, micro-economics and knowledge leads to dysfunctional ways of organising into groups. This brings us to the realm of social memeplexes within organisations. The life of an organisation is the flow of memes through the minds of the individuals, which cause them to engage in particular social activities and thereby integrate into the organisation. Due to the dysfunctional cognitive memeplexes and dysfunctional social activities the organisations are permeated by internal tension and they form into entities that engage in organisational interactions that are permeated by tension and conflict. The organisational ecosystem is complex, with organisations within organisations and also because individuals may have allegiances to several organisations the organisations are themselves inter-penetrating. The organisational ecosystem extends from the smallest such as families or peer groups, through corporations and right up to whole nations and national blocs.

These organisations form their own group-beliefs that are imprinted into their organisational culture. Individuals may come and go but the culture is what defines the on going group-beliefs and principles of the organisation itself. It is represented in and imposed upon individuals via charters, constitutions, codes of conduct, unspoken traditions and taboos, and so on. Due to the delusional and dysfunctional origins of these organisations their group-beliefs are highly conditioned and disconnected from the actual reality in which they operate, hence they are permeated by false group-beliefs.

Due to the egoic nature of the individuals the organisations are set up in an egoic manner as well; explicitly modelled on the concept of a “separate person” in a “physical universe”. This results in organisations with group-egos that formulate their own self-identity, personality, desires, fears, agendas and so on. Hence each organisation strives for control of its human resources (its body) and its organisational environment (its world).

The group-ego is a construct of false group-beliefs and it grows by 'dressing' itself in more false group-beliefs such as “I am a successful corporation”, “I am a democratic nation”, “I like ...”, “I hate ...” and so on. Thus the organisational culture becomes filled with false group-beliefs, all of which are intrinsically naïve realist. These false group-beliefs reinforce the dysfunctional organisational structure, further distort the language and knowledge, and manipulate the micro-economics. The organisations attempt to control and condition individuals thus leading to more dysfunctional individual relations. The distorted language and knowledge leads to more dysfunctional enquiries. These further reinforce the personal-ego in each individual as well as materialism and other false beliefs. The more naïve realist false beliefs that the mind contains the more that its subconscious interpretations are naïve realist. Thus the second phase is created and both first and second phases are reinforced. This phase operates within the scope of social activity and social memeplexes.

Phase 3 Global-Ego


 

Following on from the second phase there is a great deal of organisational activity based upon false group-egoic group-beliefs about 'we' and 'world'. The organisational culture believes that it is an individual 'entity' in a “physical universe”. The group-egoic ideas lead to dysfunctional politics such as competition, cheating, deception, power struggle, conflict and so on. The scientistic ideas about the world lead to a science that enquires only into the form, behaviour of and relations between the objects of cognition whilst assuming that it is enquiring into the “physical universe”, which leads to a total ignorance of everything that cannot be an object of cognition, such as individual or organisational cognitive health and inter-connectedness with the universe.

The dysfunctional politics and dysfunctional science lead to a dysfunctional mass discourse that expresses dysfunctional group-knowledge. Both are bound within the narrow scope of concepts such as the form, behaviour of and relations between “separate people or organisations” and the form, behaviour of and relations between “material objects”; all of which are misconceptions about objects of cognition that are assumed to be real external objects and events. This combination of dysfunctional politics and science also results in dysfunctional macro-economics, which is the system of exchange of stored value between allegedly “separate organisations” within an alleged “physical universe”.

The combination of dysfunctional mass discourse, macro-economics and science leads to dysfunctional ways of organising into a whole civilisation. This brings us to the realm of organisational memeplexes within civilisation. The life of a civilisation is the flow of memes through the minds and cultures of the individuals and organisations, which cause them to engage in particular social and organisational activities and thereby integrate into a civilisation. Due to the dysfunctional cognitive and social memeplexes, and dysfunctional social and organisational activities the civilisation is permeated by internal tension and forms into an entity that engages in destructive interactions with its overall social, cultural and ecological environment.

The civilisation forms its own global-beliefs that are imprinted into its global culture. Individuals and organisations may come and go but the global culture is what defines the on going global-beliefs and principles of the whole civilisation. It is represented in and imposed upon individuals and organisations via economic and political codes of conduct, unspoken traditions and taboos, and so on. Due to the delusional and dysfunctional origins of the civilisation its global-beliefs are highly conditioned and disconnected from the actual reality in which it operates, hence it is permeated by false global-beliefs.

Due to the egoic nature of the individuals and organisations the civilisation is set up in an egoic manner as well; implicitly modelled on the concept of a “separate person” in a “physical universe”. This results in a civilisation with a global-ego that formulates its own self-identity, personality, desires, fears, agendas and so on. Hence the civilisation strives for control of its human and organisational resources (its body) and its global environment (its world).

The global-ego is a construct of false global-beliefs and it grows by 'dressing' itself in more false global-beliefs, which are difficult to express in human language. The global culture becomes filled with false global-beliefs, all of which are intrinsically naïve realist. These false global-beliefs reinforce the dysfunctional structure of civilisation, further distort the mass discourse and group knowledge, and manipulate the macro-economics. The civilisation attempts to control and condition organisations thus leading to more dysfunctional politics. The distorted mass discourse and group knowledge leads to more dysfunctional science. These further reinforce the group-ego in each organisation as well as scientism and other false group-beliefs. These false group-beliefs reinforce the dysfunctional organisational structures, further distort the language and knowledge, and manipulate the micro-economics. The organisations are encouraged to control and condition individuals thus leading to more dysfunctional individual relations. The distorted language and knowledge leads to more dysfunctional enquiries. These further reinforce the personal-ego in each individual as well as materialism and other false beliefs. The more naïve realist false beliefs that the mind contains the more that its subconscious interpretations are naïve realist. Thus the third phase is created and all three phases are reinforced. This phase operates within the scope of organisational activity and organisational memeplexes.

How to Turn the Tide of Self-Perpetuating Persistent Illusion, Suffering and Destruction

To heal the whole feedback network the most effective approach is to identify many stages where positive influence can effectively be applied and heal these as much as possible thereby diminishing the destructive feedback and augmenting the creative feedback.

Different people will find that different stages are more easily understood and influenced than others. Below are listed five general stages in order of general accessibility but not everyone needs to follow these in order. For example, some individuals may find it extremely difficult to effectively work on clarifying their own mind but very easy to effectively work on resolving macro-economic dysfunctions. Each individual should ascertain for themselves, which areas they are most able to apply positive influence, knowing that positive influence needs to be applied at all levels in a coordinated and sustained manner.

The place where we individual humans have the greatest degree of effective influence is our own cognitive memeplex, hence the first place to start is to undermine the dominance of the ego, clarify false beliefs and work to overcome naïve realism.

The second most effective place is with our own role in social activity and encouraging others to participate functionally in social activity. This means engaging in functional relations, questioning materialism, engaging in functional enquiry, bringing cooperation back into our individual relations, clarifying our use of language, clarifying and re-structuring our knowledge and engaging in functional micro-economic activities.

The third most effective place is with our own role in social memeplexes and organisational cultures. This means questioning the social memes that flow through our own minds and encouraging organisations to undermine the dominance of their group-egos, to clarify and restructure their false group-beliefs and to work to find new and more functional ways to organise themselves.

The fourth most effective place is our own participation in organisational activity and encouraging other organisations to engage in functional organisational activity. This means participating in functional organisational activities and encouraging organisations to engage in functional activities. This implies questioning scientism, engaging in functional scientific enquiry, bringing cooperation back into politics, clarifying the mass discourse, clarifying and re-structuring our group-knowledge and encouraging functional macro-economic activities.

The fifth most effective place is with our own role in organisational memeplexes and the global culture. This means questioning the organisational memes that flow through organisational cultures and our own minds, and encouraging civilisation to undermine the dominance of its global-ego, to clarify and restructure its false global-beliefs and to work to find new and more functional ways to operating as a global civilisation.

By exerting positive influence in all these areas, this will begin a healing process and the situation will change slightly, whereon we must iterate this again by identifying many particular stages where positive influence can be applied and healing these as much as possible. As this process is applied again and again the whole system will go through many phases of a healing process that will diminish the overall destructive feedback and augment to overall creative feedback. Nothing can be achieved in a single attempt but by focusing positive influence on appropriate “pressure points” we can gradually turn the tide and steer the entire civilisation back towards being a creative feedback network that lives, grows and thrives in peace and creative abundance.

 

Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.




[< Back] [Toward a Unified Metaphysical Understanding]

Category:   Tags: , ,

Other entries tagged as ""
2013-12-08: Motivating and Clarifying the Paradigm Shift at the Heart of Science
2013-12-02: What is the highest perceived benefit or aspiration of my Life?
2013-11-28: The world-view arising from my work
2013-11-26: Motivation behind my work
2012-05-09: Regarding the nature of reality and the 'world'
2011-03-06: Defending mind from anti-mind spirituality
2011-03-06: Overview of information system metaphysics
2011-01-09: A True Current of Western Spirituality or a Partial Realisation?
2010-12-28: Comments Regarding The Truth
2010-12-28: Quotes regarding truth, reality and knowledge



Other entries tagged as ""
2013-12-08: Motivating and Clarifying the Paradigm Shift at the Heart of Science
2013-12-02: What is the highest perceived benefit or aspiration of my Life?
2013-11-30: Cognitive Repression in Physics - Reasons for the Entrenched Culture of Denial
2013-11-28: The world-view arising from my work
2013-11-26: Motivation behind my work
2013-11-26: Quantum Mechanics, Naïve Realism, Scientific Realism, Abstraction and Reality
2013-10-29: Freedom, Slavery and Fundamental Limits on the Growth of Civilisation
2012-05-09: Regarding the nature of reality and the 'world'
2011-01-09: A True Current of Western Spirituality or a Partial Realisation?
2010-12-16: Purifying one's mind and infowar both personal and global



Other entries tagged as ""
2013-11-26: Motivation behind my work
2013-10-29: Freedom, Slavery and Fundamental Limits on the Growth of Civilisation
2012-05-09: Regarding the nature of reality and the 'world'
2011-01-09: A True Current of Western Spirituality or a Partial Realisation?
2010-12-27: Shadow Personality and the Poisoning of the Mind
2010-07-17: Trusting Self-Organisation - TweetList
2010-07-13: What is Consciousness? - My answer on Quora.com
2010-07-13: Karma Yoga: The Way of Action - Quotes from the Bhagavad Gita
2010-07-10: Quotes regarding the illusion of being a person
2010-07-09: Naïve Realism Discussed in the Lankavatara Sutra



Other entries in
2010-12-28: Comments Regarding The Truth
2010-12-28: Quotes regarding truth, reality and knowledge
2010-12-16: Purifying one's mind and infowar both personal and global
2010-11-08: Mystic Perspective: Comments and Quotes
2009-08-28: Extracts from the Lankavatara Sutra
2009-04-25: Discussing the Emerging Paradigm on the SSE Forum
2009-04-12: Harmony and Oneness through Clarifying Dialogue
2009-04-07: Reclaiming 'Realism' for the Sake of Being Realistic
2009-04-07: Biological Analogy for Agents of Change
2009-04-05: Advice on Nurturing the Emerging Memeplex



[< Back] [Toward a Unified Metaphysical Understanding] [PermaLink]?