Nothing like a good thenewgreen response, inquisitive and open as ever.

Lacan is often criticised in philosophy (and was explicitly criticised by Jacques Derrida) as being too "phallogocentric". Phallogocentric means that you are developing knowledge from a "masculine" "linguistic" centric focus. This is why many deconstructionists would try to delegitimise Lacan's program by saying that his psychoanalysis basically amounts to a privileging of the phallic organ.

I tend to think this is a huge philosophical mistake. The first thing to note is that, towards the end of his career, Lacan specifically focused on the psychoanalysis of feminine jouissance (sexual enjoyment). For Lacan, as well as the many feminist Lacanian scholars who have further developed his concepts, feminine jouissance is perhaps the most mysterious and important of all psychoanalytic experiences. The second thing to note is that Lacan's paradigm (his "return to Freud") is meant to reinterpret all of the Freudian conceptual edifice (which relies on many biological metaphors) through the lens of structural linguistics. This means that when Lacan talks about the "phallic function" he is not referring to the "biological penis" but the way in which the symbolic is always-already overdetermining the "biological penis". I think this is nicely captured if one takes a close look at the symbolism of early human cultures where the phallus is always central and fundamental representation of ontology. Furthermore, in Lacanian psychoanalysis castration, basically the lack of "THE" penis ("THE" man) is something that all human subjects pass through (not just biological males). The consequence of castration, then, is that the lack of the penis (symbolic) is something which overdetermines gender identity for both men and women. For men they experience it as "not-having" and for women they experience it as "not-being". This negative effect is crucial to understand Lacanian metaphysics.

In terms of the penis as organ having an "outsized" emotional/mental impact, there is no question! But it is crucial to note that this "outsized" impact is something that must be read on the level of the symbolic and thus on the level of sublimation. It is not just the "sex act in itself" in which the "outsized" impact has consequences on the body. Indeed, for any human subject who "submits to the phallic function" and "becomes a man" (husband, father), there is a sense in which one is actually an "organ without body". The "phallic function" has "overdetermined" the body. This is the meaning of integrating the signifier "husband" or "father". It takes an enormous amount of integration of unconscious emotional energy to enact these roles.

I love your points about the strange way in which certain organs become important metaphors for feeling and action (e.g. penis, heart), whereas others would seem totally out of place (e.g. spleen). The heart in particular is an interesting metaphor, and I think it would be seen, or possible to interpret more on the level of the feminine jouissance.

In terms of animal emotions, I have recently been diving head first into learning more about the Wim Hoff method. I was really moved by his phenomenal description of learning the truth of the body and the brain imaging work that showed he was accessing the deeper emotional cores of the brain beneath abstract reason. For me, I am so in abstractions and so disconnected from my emotions that I have a lot of work to do to connect deeply with my emotional brain. From the descriptions of some of the neuroscientific literature on emotions, I would tend to think that emotions go down to the core of complex organisms. I think that emotions like "fear" and "hunger" are primal and core to their being. I think that the difference with emotions is that we have this layer of abstract self reflection and understanding. This layer of abstract self reflection and understanding filters the emotions and sometimes they can be "too much". Whatever is unique in humans, we may say from a religious point of view, is that this awareness of emotions is the core of suffering ("life is suffering"). It makes me think that the core difference between the sciences and the religions is related to the difference between the primordial scientific axiom of "I think therefore I am". With this axiom we have the pure abstract cogito (thinking subject) gaining an objective universal frame for being. What this pure abstract cogito sacrifices is embodiment (Cartesian dualism), and thus, perhaps, sets the stage for the division between science and religion. In the Western-Christian sense the body (and bodily resurrection) are central and primary. It may even be related to an axiom something like "I feel therefore I am" ("I love therefore I am"). This is totally foreign to the classical scientific understanding, but absolutely primary to the classical religious understanding. In any case, some of my thoughts. Not sure how I feel about it!

Thanks for bringing it to my attention thenewgreen. The classical "subject of science" is a weird appearance precisely because the limits of their knowledge are not inscribed into the "thing-in-itself" (i.e. we cannot objectively study inner states like thoughts and feelings, therefore there must not be inner states like thoughts and feelings). Of course such a split is likely the consequence of a Cartesian metaphysics where the self-certain knower-thinker can perfect an abstract understanding.

Nonetheless it seems much more likely the case that emotions and thoughts exist throughout the animal kingdom even if we cannot study them objectively or prove them in the way that we can prove the existence of certain external manifestations of behaviour. I would just add a precise distinction on the level of the symbolic or cultural. Animals likely experience feelings and thoughts, but only in the human world are these feelings and thoughts marked by/interpreted through symbolic-cultural material.

Either way there is no way to get inside another's head, animal or human. The advantage with humans (and hence the existence of psychoanalysis) is that a human can tell us that they experience feelings and thoughts with their linguistic capacity. We believe them, even if the subject of science tends not to find the methods and practice of psychoanalysis too convincing.

In any case, I quite like de Waal's specific metaphor about "emotions as organs". I experience my emotions like a 'throbbing organ" (heart, lung, etc.). When they are on they are on: desire, love, fear, sadness. The beat of the organ takes over my body. This is why I like Jacques Lacan's notion of "organ without body" to capture the idea of the emotion as an organ which overdetermines the body as a whole (as opposed to the physical organ which is a part within the body).

The part where he talks about the 3d printing clothes and circuit boards etc. is a little under developed.

I agree. I wish I could have gotten more concrete examples of how new technologies could be used to generate practical steps towards empowered individuation and self-organized communities. This is still super blurry to me and always seems to miss the dimension of the need for new large-scale political forms.

Thanks steve. I'm excited to start producing some online content again. I hope you enjoyed the whole episode :-)

I think it is interesting to note that the amoeba metaphor was also used to illustrate the nature of the imaginary limit-image in-itself (i.e. the virtual domain, the excessive sphere of language) by psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (see: Lacan, J. 2005. Position of the Unconscious. In: Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: Norton. p. 846-8.). When thinking the "limit-image" in-itself think for example the radical multiplicity of views that humans posit in relationship to the whole of reality but which have no physical substantiation (i.e. sub-atomic string worlds, multiverse worlds, post-human utopian worlds, heavens and other supernatural worlds etc.). These "limit-images" don't "physically exist" but they nonetheless structure the motion of human subjectivity (and in radically different worldview domains).

In some of my recent Ph.D preparations I have found this video useful to illustrate the potential large scale meta relation between the imaginary nature of language in its relation to biology (i.e. the nature of humans as "linguistic bodies") where the "amoeba" can be visualized as language, the paramecium can be viewed as "pre-historical primates" and the interaction between the amoeba and the paramecium over time can be viewed as the stages of "pre-history" (amoeba surrounding unaware paramecium), "history" (paramecium struggling in vain to escape the totalitarian control of the amoeba) and the "end of history/event horizon" (the death of the paramecium and the triumph of the amoeba). In this mode of representation the imaginary domain in-itself can be conceptualized as a type of infinitely divisible immortal surface that pre-disposes humanity from ever being satisfied with the contemporary state of the world (i.e. no matter where you go in history you will find people positing or striving for some utopian image of perfection).

This is extra interesting in the context of the contemporary scientific mode of technological singularity theory. The question from my perspective is how should we interpret this utopian positing of actualized future immortality? Should we think that the contemporary positing of humans utilizing a scientific view of the world as legitimately going to actualize some form of human immortality? In this mode we could think of some continuously transforming identity structure that was capable of achieving ever greater degrees of cognitive control over its surrounding medium of interaction (which is certainly what many humans desire spontaneously). Or should we think that there is a general imaginary force colonizing the whole of humanity that is expressing in-itself the force of immortality in different cultural forms? It is certainly the case that the idea of immortality has been around for as long as we have written accounts of human thought and the archetypes of immortality likely stretch back to pre-historical times. In other words, could it be that the force of immortality is an inhuman virtuality that is "always-already" a part of the linguistic/symbolic order structuring an insane "super-human" motivation in some type of meta-historical dialectic?

If we are to seriously entertain the latter hypothesis then how should we approach scientists who are working in the genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics revolutions and their potential consequences? How should we think about their symbolic interventions in the world? On the one hand clearly their worldview structures have far greater actual effectiveness then any previous worldview structures, even and especially when factoring in idealistic positing (where typically religious ideal positing is totally impotent). However, there is still usually a profound gap between the ideal positing of scientists and the actual manifestation (the consequences) of the positing. In that light how should we entertain the possibility that the ideal positing of scientists related to radically longer life expectancy (genetic engineering of our stem cells, nanotechnological replacement of biology, etc.) could lead to consequences that are dramatic... but dramatic in a totally unexpected way? In other words could it be that the idea that we will eventually be immortal will not actually lead to the actualization of human immortality, but rather some other type of event horizon or radical discontinuity where we confront directly the limits of human existence?

Thanks b_b -- I'm all good. Actually the scary thing is that the Maelbeek/Schuman metro area is a line I take everyday. Luckily I have a pretty bad flu today so I decided to stay in...

Ya, I share a practically identical perspective.

Agreed. As soon as I read that I had the same reaction.

Have you listened to the other conversation in that post? it goes into a lot more detail.

I know what I'm going to do tonight! Thanks for the link :)

I think that this is basically the best argument for "mincome" or something like it. There are, in the not too distant future, going to be people who aren't just unemployed, they are unemployable. We will be in a "post-scarcity economy"

I, of course -- (I am not a monster!) -- I support Universal Basic Income (UBI). But I think the whole notion and societal conversation of a UBI suggests to me that there is something far more serious and fundamental that is wrong with our socioeconomic system (not that that is news...) and that we need to go beyond money, whatever, post-money, eventually. I think eventually it will be unnecessary and there will be a more effective and humane ways to build trust and collaboration between humans and the networks of AI/AGI that emerge throughout the century. Even sharing economy and gift economy models of organization are surprisingly varied and abundant, I have been looking more into different entities that function without money, and there are many of them! One of my favourite examples is, and I have used it quite a lot now, is couch surfing. It totally functions, it could of course function better, but it totally functions just on altruism and reputation systems, which enable a type of social trust without any money exchanging hands. I think there are signs for optimism here.

I think C.G.P Grey's "Humans Need Not Apply" video was a cultural moment. For people who had been following general singularity theory for some time all this is not news, but now that the wave of technological innovation is disrupting basic functioning of civilization in regards to -- I think the key categories of disruption include labour, property, and state -- now it will affect the way people in general imagine themselves and their relation to society.

The processes of change is on our side!

Shouldn't be too long... I even don't care about paywalls for the journals I've published in, I anyway make the paper available for free and no one at the journal has ever contacted me.

EDIT: but maybe if I was a bigger name in academia etc. they would pay more attention to that act of rebellion...

The truth of the matter is that our national identities are competing with our identities that don't benefit from geopolitical boundaries.

I agree, but now the burden falls on us to affirm that this process, of our national (bounded) societal identity undergoing a processual transition towards an online (open) societal identity, is irreversible. In this sense what is important is not ultimately the identity but rather guiding the process of differentiation leading to higher degrees of freedom and expression.

Absolutely. Not necessarily bitcoin specifically, but something like it.

This is my general impression as well. It seems like a general case with a big innovation that the particular content of the innovation is not that important (i.e. in this case bit coin), but that the universal property (i.e. in this case digital currencies supported on a system of open, transparent trust) nonetheless presents us with an immanent emergence.

replacing traditional agents of trust

Would be nice. Of course it is ironic to consider our current "agents of trust" as such. I think the existence of money itself is an explicit sign of mistrust.

I am more interested in what you think of blockchain technology. Do you think it could facilitate a transition to a world of trade that can more accurately track value of human interactions with a foundation of trust and reputation?

Relevant

It's a good point. And the idea of the mind as a quantum field metaphor is now getting more attention in cognitive psychology.

It's a pretty ambitious prediction, and not your typical crazy prediction, i.e. "sometime in the next 20 years" (short enough to peak our attention but long enough away to be forgotten if it doesn't happen) -- so we can see if they succeed! Would be amazing!

What's your speculation on the reason?

Oh for sure. Internet for all! It should eventually be a basic human right (which is actually another reason why I am trying not to pay for Internet/cell phone etc., our communication space should be based on free universal access). And I realize what I am experimenting with is not realistic nor desirable to everyone... just something I am exploring.

Imagine having NO access to the internet in this day and age?

Actually, I can imagine it. I have gone for the past few months without Internet connection in my apartment (and over a year now without a phone!). I find that the space of disconnection is a good place for me to collect my mind and feel more fully inside myself. I personally found/find it to be necessary, at least at the moment. But the goal would be that this space allows me to more fully engage with/on the Internet in a proactive and creative way.

But ya, Loon! Let's get the global brain up and running... !

feed the good and help it grow.

For today, Plato!

I would say I am unhappy and angry because of the above (i.e. inequality and exclusive hierarchy). When you try to make something of yourself under the naive assumption that you live in an inclusive society that rewards ambitious and initiative, and then discover that this is all a mirage... it can be disorienting and a long process to re-discover who you want to be as an adult, and how it is you want to engage with society. Most of the time I just want to hide in a forest and wait for the Singularity.

But yes, I am channeling my anger and unhappiness in a productive direction - or starting to. I want to identify the ways that we can actually break out of the contemporary order. I agree that the opportunity for real change is high, and another world is possible.

Thanks, added it - not sure why it didn't attach in the original attempt

I don't personally take any supplements, and I don't know of any that sound attractive to me.

I've been taking some for metabolism and nerve health, as well as your typically multivitamins for immune system health etc., and I do generally feel better, like my body is operating a little smoother and more efficiently. But of course, it is hard for me to conclude that it is not a placebo effect or something like that.

Have you ever read Kurzweil's book on life extension? He details some of the supplements and approaches he uses to extend his life span.

Based on my knowledge of paleo diet, I can't say that I'm a huge fan, but I'm not a huge fan of most diets.

I'm not a fan of diets either. I only call it the paleo diet because my supervisor is obsessed with it and he has developed his whole personal dietary system around it. I personally find some of his tips helpful, for example sticking primarily to fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts etc., but like I said, I use them more as guiding principles. To be honest, I think a lot of things related to health are more about common sense and mature decision-making when it comes to the timing and amount you eat, etc.

I think that we're better off when we eat things that are not made in industrial factories, and this requirement can be satisfied by many foods, paleo or otherwise (and I completely agree that the name is ridiculous; there's nothing caveman-like about a perfectly marbled ribeye, but that's neither here nor there).

Ya, I agree with you. I still eat things that are not considered paleo, like for example beans, yogurt, eggs (not sure if eggs are "paleo"), but ya, there are lots of foods that are good for you. Have you heard of the National Geographic "Blue Zone" project focused on understanding the dietary and lifestyle habits of human populations who experience longest life spans? Many of the populations in these samples are eating grains and wheat in their diets. What seems most important and primary is calorie restriction, but also most notably, community... and many of us have lost that today...

That's pretty extreme eating once per day. If I wanted to cut down on my food, I'd probably cut the size of each meal.

Ya, well it is kind of misleading. What I should have said is that I eat one meal a day and then I just pick and snack on small things, like a banana or some nuts etc.

I get shaky hands if I don't eat enough. I tried to do one of those 72 hour fasts in the fashion of katakowsj or mike, and I failed after 30 hours. I developed a headache that was intense and seemingly getting stronger with every second.

Haha, ya, I've never tried anything like this but I probably would suffer in a similar way...

So far as I'm aware, no one has found an organism that doesn't respond to it in lab settings. It seems unreasonable that humans would be an exception. Not impossible, but not likely. The data that exist on mice and worms are very clear, and if a mechanism is preserved across those models (which diverged at the beginning of the Cambrian), then it's probably fairly important, so why would it have disappeared since rodents and humans diverged (don't know when off the top of my head, but very recently compared to that split)? This isn't a rock solid argument, or course, but it's a solid hunch, especially when we know that calorie restriction in humans does things like make chemo more survivable, has positive immune system effects, etc.

Indeed, I understand your reasoning here. In general terms I do think that calorie restriction must have some positive effects on health and the ageing process.

Nooooooooooooo!

Haha, I was hoping you would respond.

Past studies have found that calorie restriction extends life and boosts this enzyme

Yes, I have heard similar things about calorie restriction in various organisms. How solid is the data on calorie restriction and life span for humans? I know it is something I have started thinking about as a strategy to slow down my own ageing process.

I'd bet a large amount of money that any single enzyme is a small piece of the puzzle.

The body is an incredibly complex system, so I would tend to strongly agree with you.

Really, it's still a lot easier and cheaper to walk more and eat less than to take a supplement that probably doesn't work every day for the rest of you (indeterminately long) life.

And in terms of supplements, what do you recommend? Do you have a specific dietary strategy for ageing? I have started doing the "paleo" diet (but I don't like that name). Basically I have switched to eating mostly fruits, vegetables, meat, and nuts/berries etc. But these are just guiding principles. I've also started to eat once a day and fast for the rest of the day. What do you think of these strategies?

Is Athens as great as someone told me?

I'm loving it! Although it is crazy humid at the moment, it is at the same time totally surreal in regards to the architecture, landscape, mountains, beaches, statues, museums etc. I'm just taking my time, will probably stay for another week or two before hitting the islands.

I hiked to the top of the acropolis in Athens today! It was fun! And definitely needed for someone who is constantly feeling stressed about the world.

http://imgur.com/EO8SVUc

First, thank you for sharing your point of view, I find the parallels between religious prophecy, and specifically eschatology, with actually existing global realities related to economics and technological evolution to be very interesting.

when the end time came (somewhere around the year 2000), a new world order would occur, illuminati, secret upper eschelon groups ruling the world

As an anthropologist I view this belief as "folk knowledge", in the sense that, yes, there is a (so-called) "new world order" (i.e. post-"second world"-communist world order) that is being controlled by a wealthy financial elite that is more and more able to direct the contours of the global economy away from transparent democratic decision-making processes. However, as I noted above, it is not being coordinated by some "illuminati" or whatever, it is just the unconscious tendencies of a capitalist super-organism, which is indeed very real, even if it is not conscious.

we'd have identity chips encoded into our skin to mark us as loyal citizens, there'd no longer be money, it'd be electronic, that the world would be slaves crushed by an authoritarian elite.

This is another example of folk knowledge, in the sense that, yes, money will eventually disappear, and eventually we will have some type of system which is hopefully far more ethical and socially moral, ideally based around mechanisms of universal access, trust, and reputation (things that help online social media sites self-organize for example, i.e. on Hubski we have universal access to the site (no money changes hands), and there are sophisticated mechanisms based trust and reputation in regards to the pre-programmed value system of Hubski, which is "thoughtfulness" of commentary, etc. We need to be innovative about the future of socioeconomics, and, in my opinion, that innovation away from capitalism and money, and towards a more social and ethical system, should be based in universality, trust, reputation, etc.

In short, what the particular example of folk knowledge represents, to me, is a classic example where a group of people make the common sense extrapolation of technological advancement (i.e. money disappearing and electronic devices merging with human biology, etc.) and do not realize that such advancement will necessarily require a concomitant social revolution in the way we structure the world. Of course, such social revolution is always the true singularity, which is why, in this particular example, we get a dystopian scenario where we are all controlled by authoritarian elites.

That only those who rejected the Mark of the Beast would be saved--these people would be swept up in the The Rapture, whisked away to Heaven, and all the weak, godless people who'd taken the Mark of the Beast would then live 100, 1000 (can't quite remember) years in the reign of the Antichrist, Satan reborn on the face of the earth, and those would be terrible, terrible times.

This is classic Christian anti-Singultarianism (there is also Christian pro-Singultarianism). I think it comes down to whether or not you take the central warning of Christianity seriously or not (i.e. do not eat from the tree of knowledge). If you take it seriously than the singularity, i.e. using human knowledge to become God-like and live indefinitely, is indeed the mark of the Antichrist. But what is obvious, at least to me, is that this central warning of Christianity is at best ambiguous, and possibly even a joke (i.e. why in the world would God create an infinitely inquisitive and curious species and place them within a world where they are ignorant of the natural processes around them, if He didn't want them to explore that world and learn how to better live in symbiosis with it?).

But it's scary, how close the description of the Rapture--apocalypse, end times I grew up with--mirrors what is happening in the world around me. Messes with my mind.

I can sympathise. What I would recommend, if my recommendation is worth anything, is that you look for the synergies between knowledge structures. This is basically the Kurzweilian approach to singularity, in the sense that Kurzweil, on the first page of The Singularity Is Near (2005) reveals that he was raised in a Unitarian church where he was encouraged to explore all of the overlapping commonalities between world religions under the basic principle of "many paths to the truth". Of course, we do know, from a scientific perspective, that objective knowledge is illusory, and that our models are not objective reality, and our perceptions are not objective reality (or Kant's we do not see the "Thing In Itself", etc.). So, in the end, all we have is our historically contingent, subjectively constructed knowledge structures, created with imperfect perception, and imperfect tools, to explore a world we all share, but at the same time, to explore a world we all have an irreducibly unique perspective and understanding of, etc.

But we still have to come to terms with the fact that this is now happening globally, in basically every country. It is really hard for me to think of any region on the planet where representative democracy is actually functioning, even roughly on its core principles. If anyone has good examples I'd like to see them, but the data tend to show a very real and advancing drift towards some form of financial authoritarianism, or global oligarchy, whatever. Of course, it is not consciously coordinated, but instead an adaptive property of unregulated capitalism, which should perhaps give us some hope because if we do show solidarity and commitment to fight this system, we can affect regulatory change. However, I must admit things overall look quite bad, and the struggle would be very tough. Look at Greece, I couldn't be more proud of the Greek people and also the European people who came out in solidarity with them. But it didn't do anything to help their situation in the end. Now it seems like the more the people fight back, the even more harsh the economic policies developed by the financial sector become. Crazy, crazy, times.

Also very true. It is ok to bail out a country that just caused a World War, but it is not ok to bail out a country suffering from the rule of oligarchic tyrants.