As of this morning the project I've helped start, Buddhist Geeks has officially launched!!!  After several months of planning and hard work we are unleashing BGeeks to the world.  MwahahHaHahahahaa. 

Our first podcast--which is part of a weekly podcast series--is a conversation between myself and the other two founding members of BGeeks (Ryan Oelke and Gwen Bell).  We discuss our interests, the format of the site, and some of the people we have interviewed and plan on interviewing.  Next Monday will be our first "interview" podcast with Alan Wallace.  Should be good stuff...

Also look out for our written posts which will be coming out on Wednesday and Fridays. 

P.S. - Thanks to C4Chaos for letting us use his music as a backdrop for our podcast intro.  You rock dawg!

I spent part of my day hanging w/ Ryan and Gwen working on various aspects of BuddhistGeeks.com.  Since this was the first time the three of us had seen in each other in person, we spent a good portion of our time simply getting to know one another.  We each shared some of the highlights from the last few years of our life, and also starting talking about what we saw as our individual (and later collective) vision of BGeeks. 

It was time well spent, and it looks like we'll be having several more meetings before I move towards the end of the month.

[Cross-Posted from Numinous Nonsense]

Just caught this portion of an interview between Acne Paper and Ken Wilber as seen on his blog. This question, and Ken’s answer, are directly related to something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Basically if we look at Kurzweil’s theory of “the law of accelerating returns,” where he is describing exponential change of technological systems we see that it corresponds to the lower right quadrant in Wilber’s model (or perhaps both the upper and lower right). If as Wilber claims quadrants “tetra-emerge,” meaning that you can not separate a trend in one quadrant from a trend in another, what is the corresponding trend in the the left-hand quadrants, in the interiors of individuals and cultures here on earth? The obvious answer is that they share in this exponential growth curve. Consciousness is growing exponentially.

Acne: Do you think the periods between new stages [of development] will come at ever shorter intervals?

Wilber: So it’s 300,000 years, 30,000 years, 3,000 years, 300 years and 30 years. So the next one will take 3 years… And you know, there are some pretty sober, responsible theorists who believe that. I do not believe it the way it is normally stated. I mean, some people even believe, like Jay Kurtzwell [Ray Kurzweil], that there is going to be a singularity - because the rate of technological innovation it is going to approach infinity - and then when there is a singularity, and the laws of physics could change and we could go up in light and that kind of thing. I don’t think so. Even if it is an accelerated rate, it could well be that what happens then when you get down to, you know, from 300 years to 30 years to 3 years, is that you really are leaping to the next tier. Then it kind of starts all over again. In other words it could take then another 300 years for the next stage, and then 30 years, and 3 years and so on, and then a new tier could emerge. So even though there might be this accelerated rate I don’t think we are going up in light or anything.

Now, while his answer does directly relate to my original question, I found it to be rather lacking. For one, Ken misrepresents Kurzweil’s position. Perhaps he’s just trying to be cute, or didn’t remember what Kurzweil had said, but nowhere in The Singularity is Near does Kurzweil claim that the laws of physics are going to change or that we’re going up in light. He only claims that as intelligence approaches and then goes beyond the singularity (which he puts at 2045–when the nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be 1 billion times all of human intelligence today) that we will saturate the universe with that intelligence.

The other problem with Ken’s response is that he sort of ignores the fact that Kurzweil has already formulated a theory that addresses stage changes (and possibly tier shifts as well). While Kurzweil doesn’t call them stages—he calls them epochs—he has recognized that between each stage shift there is what he calls an S-curve. In other words, during each stage or epoch, the exponential growth reaches a certain point and then begins to level out again (as in an S-curve), but then begins another exponential growth pattern. In other words, the stage or epoch reaches its limits and begins to steady out as a new paradigm or stage takes its place. But, and this is really important, if you look at this series of exponential growth curves and S-curves, one would see that the over-all trend is still exponential!

But Ken’s argument could be that there is another layer of S-curve shifts in this over all exponential trend, which he is calling a tier shift. The only problem with that theory, is a) there are no previous tier shifts in history to base this conclusion and corresponding evidence on and b) according to Kurzweil’s evidence, this exponential growth trend of increasing intelligence dates back to the big bang itself, so that the trend is happening irregardless of human evolution. Surely, if on a universal scale, we don’t see this trend of double S-curve one cannot assume that human beings as they enter “2nd tier” are going to suddenly turn this pattern around. Instead, I offer this alternative theory.

My theory, and I think Kurzweil hints at this, is that even as this exponential growth of consciousness and technology happens, we will not become overwhelmed by this increase of change over time, nor will we go up in light (although we will become more light). Our systems and frames of reference will be such that we adapt to the change, and continue to have a relatively stable sense of time. Our intelligence increases just enough to understand and cope with the ever increasing complexity, and our consciousness and “universe-view” changes just enough to make sense of all that’s happening. Even though this exponential trend is still happening, it might be that we begin to experience time at finer levels. Perhaps we begin experiencing things at the nano- or pico-second level. Each moment of subjective experience becomes increasingly smaller due to our radically different means of perception, and so our sense of time between paradigmatic shifts stay relatively the same.

There doesn’t seem to be much (if any) evidence to support this notion, so keep in mind this is purely speculative, but is potentially more accurate than Wilber’s notion, given that he doesn’t appear to actually understands Kurzweil’s position, or at least hasn’t shown that he does.

Any other Integral-Singulatarian-Geeks have a potentially illuminating view on this issue?

[Cross-posted from Numinous Nonsense]

While I take global warming very seriously, and am committed to taking specific actions to help prevent it, it’s interesting to consider the perspective of techno-enthusiast Ray Kurzweil, as his opinions and models for predicting the future tend to re-frame everything. From a question and answer piece published in the Washington Post this summer, in response to questions of global warming:

Columbia, Md.: I have been following your career with great interest since my office acquired one of your first reading machines. And I have been fascinated by the SINGULARITY IS NEAR. I am also impressed with Al Gore’s arguments that the global warming problem should be near the top of everyone’s agenda. He claims that climate scientists say we have only about ten years, absent a concerted effort and political will to solve the problem, before the planet has reached a point where it’s too late to prevent catastrophic consequences. Do you believe, given your arguments about progress acceleration, that these scientists are unduly pessimistic? Do you think that accelerated technology alone—even without political will to solve the problem—will save the planet?

Ray Kurzweil: None of the global warming discussions mention the word “nanotechnology.” Yet nanotechnology will eliminate the need for fossil fuels within 20 years. If we captured 1% of 1% of the sunlight (1 part in 10,000) we could meet 100% of our energy needs without ANY fossil fuels. We can’t do that today because the solar panels are too heavy, expensive, and inefficient. But there are new nanoengineered designs that are much more effective. Within five to six years, this technology will make a significant contribution. Within 20 years, it can provide all of our energy needs. The discussions talk about current trends continuing for the next century as if nothing is going to change. I think global warming is real but it has been modest thus far - 1 degree f. in 100 years. It would be concern if that continued or accelerated for a long period of time, but that’s not going to happen. And it’s not just environmental concern that will drive this, the $2 trillion we spend on energy is providing plenty of economic incentive. I don’t see any disasters occuring in the next 10 years from this. However, I AM concerned about other environment issues. There are other reasons to want to move quickly away from fossil fuels including environmental pollution at every step and the geopolitical instability it causes.

So this argument would seem to support C4’s seeing global warming *as if* it will be a problem.  It must also be noted that while I appreciate Kurzweil’s perspective, I never lay my hat on any of his predictions.

 

[Cross-posted from Numinous Nonsense]

Never is about 18 months long. - Buff Duff

Duff and I were discussing various trends yesterday while hanging out at “the office.” At that point he mentioned how in the past he had routinely thought things would not happen (such as his adoption of cellular technology or the wide adoption of wi-fi), and that he had routinely been wrong (by about 18 months). In other words, he would say, “Wireless technology will never be widespread” and around 18 months or so later it had become just that.

Ray Kurzweil, who I mention incessantly, has a helpful distinction when it comes to most trends (at least those related to information growth) that explains the common person’s inability to accurately grasp future possibilities.

Most long-range forecasts of what is technically feasible in future time periods dramatically underestimate the power of future developments because they are based on what I call the “intuitive linear” view of history rather than the “historical exponential” view. My models show that we are doubling the paradigm-shift rate every decade … we won’t experience one hundred years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of twenty thousand years of progress (again, when measure by today’s rate of progress), or about one thousand times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century

One who has adopted the intuitive linear model will likely assume—knowingly or unknowingly—that the next x number of years (in terms of the rate of progress) will look like the last x number of years. Someone using the historical exponential view rather then simply making that blanket assumption actually looks at the historical data and notices mathematical trends. From this foundation one can then make much more accurate assumption about future trends. Because, as Kurzweil points out information technology trends are exponential, so we can expect the next 5 years to be exponentially different then the last 5 years. This of course is why, as Duff rightly pointed out, never is about 18 months long. And that holds true even for those of us who are well informed but still operating from an intuitive linear model of the future.

[Crossposted from Numinous Nonsense]

Last night, I was trying to explain what “Web 2.0” is to a dear friend, who although fairly tech savvy, is just now starting to explore the world of crazy web 2.0 apps. I showed him Zaadz, Ma.Gnolia, Google Calendar, and some others, and the profundity of Web 2.0, especially in regards to human relationships started to strike me.

You see, Web 2.0 has deeply impacted my relationships. I belong to a sort of collective virtual community that is made up of blogs, social networks, shared bookmarking services, RSS Readers, and much more. The net impact is that I’m deeply connected to what’s happening with the group of people I know and share interests with. I know because I’m reading their blog, because they’re commenting on mine, because I’m reading the same things they are, etc. It’s as if we’re all in a constant dialogue that usually has nothing to do with one-on-one discussion (although that is included at times too). And it isn’t just with one, or two, or even three people, but with dozens!

In a sense I feel like it’s the beginning of a small collective organism. Like systems in the body we’re each connected in near simultaneity (especially for those of us who are always online). When one person (or node or sub-system or whatever analogy we want to use) becomes aware of something, like a new web-service, story, etc. all of the other people in the collective come into “the know” almost immediately as that information ripples outwards into the collectively wired system/organism.

And what makes this a real organism (or the beginnings of one) is that after that ripple goes out, there are new ripples that respond immediately from the other nodes. The system is constantly responding to itself, taking relevant information from the outside, communicating that information to the rest of the system, and then seeing an immediate response (in the form of comments, new tags, podcasts, blog posts, etc.) from the other nodes in a process of constant mutual response and learning.

The collective is held together by mutual trust, shared interests, and similar communication mediums (in this case web 1.0 & 2.0). The outside consists of everything that we’re in contact with outside of this network (Google News, other blogs, etc.). But the cool thing, which just occurred to me, is that the outside for one node is the inside for another. One node’s deep interests and trust networks can be different, with a kind of overlapping occurring. In this way one node is simultaneously part of several collective organisms, and so there emerges in the virtual (and non-virtual) world an overlapping, inter-penetrating, collective of collectives all informing and being responded to by each individual collective and individual node, all in near-real-time with a powerful medium that is only becoming more powerful each day.

And to bring this abstract vision back down to earth—where it ultimately belongs—I have an example of how this virtual collective has profoundly impacted my local connections. I have a few very close friends who also live in Boulder that are part of my social collective network. In virtual space we are reading each others blogs, sending each other bookmarks, aggregating similar reading material, and sharing other material. When we get together in person to chat we don’t have to catch up share what we’ve been reading, etc. We just jump right in at a hyper-speed level and begin where the virtual world left off—with the beautiful addition of being able to connect in the more heartfelt and personable ways that web 2.0 simply can’t capture (yet). The conversations we then have as we’re able to weave together all of these different threads of interest, experience, and thought become the manure, motivation, inspiration for new virtual proliferations (such as this one). This proliferation, which is nothing more than an expression of what most of us have already been considering and talking about, then becomes an added piece to an already emerging puzzle.

And all of this begs the question, what exactly is emerging and where is it all heading?

[Crossposted from Numinous Nonsense]

My friend Duff, who I'm convinced will probably be one of the best coaches on the planet in the next 10 years, is offering free coaching via e-mail to a limited number of people! Check it out while the checking is good.

I received coaching from another dear friend of mine (who just happens to be flying out to Boulder tomorrow!) a few years back. That entire experience, and the relationship we formed, has ranked among the top 3 most profound experiences of my life. Coaching can be phenomenally transformative (and challenging), especially if one is totally willing to take advantage of the coaching context.

Alright, that's enough blatant promotion from me. ;)

[Crossposted from Numinous Nonsense]

When you hear the truth, it sounds familiar. Like seeing a reflection of something you already posses. This film is that clear and simple reflection. I enjoyed every moment. - Jim Carrey

 

It has been raining for the past two days. A rare occurrence in Boulder. After going to the gym this evening (a much needed visit) I grabbed some food, a book, and caught a movie.

Inspired by Dan Millman's book, The Peaceful Warrior in movie form was quite delightful. I read the book several years ago, probably when I was 18 or so. Right around the time I was getting turned on to other quasi-mystical new-agey sort of stuff (Conversations with God, The Celestine Prophecy, etc.). [Warning: This isn't so much going to be a movie review as it is a stream of consciousness post-movie reflection, which oddly may tell you some about the movie.]

The movie itself seemed to get pretty bad marks, in part because it was filled with a bunch of cheesy and awkwardly timed new-age platitudes. The other reason is that many of the reviewers probably didn't get the movie. It was simply over their heads. Here is what Roger Ebert had to say:

The story arc of Peaceful Warrior is so familiar that in addition to being inspired by fact, it is inspired by at least two-thirds of all the sports movies ever made.

 

It's true that many movies, where the main character is trying to achieve some fantastic feat (in this case a sports related one) they are confronted intense obstacles, dig down to find some deeply buried or newly cultivated self-confidence, and then go on to accomplish their original goal to the amazement of everyone around. Ebert is right that many of the best movie-makers have perfected this kind of movie. But Peaceful Warrior wasn't really about that. It was actually about self-transcendence, of going beyond and dropping the bondage of self-referential anything.

The odd thing is that our hero actually did achieve something in the movie, but in the end he realized it wasn't at all about achieving the "thing." Instead, it was about resting with the Truth of Things, just as they are and were. Achievement still happens (or not), but that isn't the point of this movie, or the point of the spiritual path. I'm coming to see now, as our main character Dan does, that it isn't so much about anything at all.

The seeking mind—the mind that wants to become—will never find what it's looking for. Once we realize this (which is bound to happen at least a few times if we care at all about true knowledge) why don't we just drop the seeking mind altogether?

"Who is it that wants to drop the seeking mind?"

Oh, you caught me again you little trickster! The seeking mind wishes to find the non-seeking mind. What a strange and funny thing! I've turned the spiritual path into yet another thing to attain, and I pat myself on the back for every step I take towards the perceived goal? When I ask, "What goal?" the question, or inquiry, reveals its own absurdity.

But wait... am I sure there is no goal? What if I'm wrong and I miss out on realizing what I've strove so hard to understand, that which is so dear to me, so important, so...

"So what?"

[Crossposted from VincentHorn.com]

Soon after I got back from retreat, I chatted with a friend of mine who has been a long time vipassana practitioner. After some 20 years of practice he has more or less stopped believing that vipassana leads to enlightenment (well, not exactly but bear with me), and adopted what I would call a much more “non-dual” approach. The difference between the two, according to my friend, is the difference between what he was calling “Enlightenment A” and “Enlightenment B.”

Enlightenment B is the realization that comes from a progressive unfolding of more and more refined states of consciousness. It’s often associated with the rising of kundalini, and tends to happen in a stage-like fashion. Vipassana and the “stages of enlightenment” in the Therevadin Buddhist tradition seem to be a good example of a path that leads to Enlightenment B.

Enlightenment A, on the other hand, can not be attained or acquired over time, because it is not time-bound. It’s something which is true right now, irreducible, and “ever-present.” This kind of Enlightenment seems to be expressed most clearly from teachers such as Ramana Maharshi and Eckhart Tolle.

Now, whether or not this distinction is a helpful one, has in my opinion, yet to be seen. Enlightenment B, or gradual enlightenment, has served to inspire my practice, keeping me going on retreats, etc. But it has also been the source of a great bit of frustration, striving, and discontent. Enlightenment A, or the non-dual approach, when I’ve considered it has relieved a great deal of pressure from the whole spiritual path. If there’s no where to get, then why need I stress so much? It tends to re-imbue the path with a sense of ease and relaxation. But it also seems like I tend to remember this greater ease primarily when I’ve been practicing quite a bit!!!

Part of the reason I’m not entirely sure I can simply split them apart, as my friend has done, is that there are very few cases of people who have realized Enlightenment A before pursuing Enlightenment B. A couple come to mind, whereas I’m willing to bet there are many who have pursued the gradual path, and that has someone turned into the sudden path (B pursued far enough becomes A). One could argue that this is exactly what has happened with my friend. And I’ve even gone so far as to ask him, “You mean doing vipassana for 20 years has nothing to do with what you recognize now?” His shocking answer is “No.” But is this shocking? I suppose if what is realized in Enlightenment A is actually non-dual and not bounded by time, then trying to come up with a logical (logic exists in time) and causal (causality also happens in time) explanation may be by definition pointless.

Is there a relationship here?