Technology Shamanism

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"Both computers and psychedelics are what I would call function-specific arrangements of matter. And as we develop nanotechnological abilities moving into the next century, it will be more and more clear that the difference between drugs and computers is simply that one is too large to swallow . . . and our best people are working on that. < crowd laughs >."  - Terence McKenna

(Above: One of Wright's early mentors, Terence Mckenna (now deceased), speaks about technology as prosthesis)

Related Philosophy: Marshall McLuhan 

Contents

Technology Shamansim Overview:

*Note: This article is still being reviewed for grammar.

Technology Shamanism is a postmodern "technology perspective" proposed by inventor and neurotheologist Russell Wright

As founder of the philosophy of Epimemetics, Wright found it necessary to distinguish his view of technology from both Lanierian and Kurzweillian philosphy. Put simply, Lanier has warned about the dangers of the 'dissociative' pseudo-religious 'cyber-rapture' belief system prevalent within the Ray Kurzweillian schools of thought.  *Wright is a strong advocate and supporter of Jaron Lanier and Lanierian 'humanistic information economics'.

Wright coined the neologism "Technology Shamanism" as a proposed Neurotheology that views technology (including the world wide web) as a prosthesis, extension, addition, application, or attachment that extends the intention and the *body map of a either (1) a human being,  (2) a small minority of human beings (specific or elite), or (3) the entire human collective. The extent of the technology prosthesis and/or artificial intellgence depends, of course, upon the network's size, capabilities, design, geometry, purpose, and intent. Similarly, Wright views some psychedelic substances as a potentially beneficial bio-technology and a neuro-prosthesis for mind expansion and increased creativity, when used under ritual circumstance (not daily). [*Huge 2015 update on Wright's current perspective on psychedelic substances and the dangers thereof.] This echos the philosophy of Terence Mckenna, one of Wright's early influences. 

Wright's Objection to Kurzweil's Definition of Artificial Intelligence:

A technology shaman views the world wide web and the new Networked Society- especially the internet - as a powerful mind altering technology (prosthesis) that has the capacity to expand human creativity and cooperation in the same way that certain kinds of psychedelics seem to accomplish this temporarily. But like psychedelics, which can invoke exciting feelings of newly formed understanding ranging from revelation & enlightenment - technology misunderstood and poorly designed can hurl the would-be Shaman into opposing polarity of confusion & psychosis. It is for this reason Wright proposes a significant deviation from Ray Kurzweil's definition of Artificial Intelligence which suggests that evolution is intelligent, but with an IQ only "infinitesimally greater than zero".

'Dimension of Time' as Morphic Resonance, Metaphor, and Endogenic Wisdom

Kurzweil penalizes evolution for the extremely long time it takes to create its designs. Wright suggests that the danger of such a philosophy and definition of AI is that it will tend towards dehumanization because it is defined by time, without effectively defining the dimension of time itself. If Rupert Sheldrake is correct about his morphic resonance theory, then time is a significant factor in the development of organic intelligence and endogenic wisdom. Kurweil views Sheldrake's hypothesis as junk science. Wright does not. In fact Wright suggests that the Kurzweillian defintion of Artificial Intelligence will probabaly become as outmoded as the IQ Standardize testing.  For example, IQ standardized testing poorly measures imagination or creativity. Additionally, divergent thinking, emotional quotient (EQ) and imaginative capacity tests are non-central to current IQ Standardized testing. This is because standardization and standardized IQ is a value fiction propagated by Industrialized "batch learning" educational systems that equate time with money. Wright suggests this "standard" will be discovered to be a fruitless definition for both human and Artificial Intelligence. Wright suggests that 'time' is irrelevant to 'degrees of intelligence' because evolution "takes as long as it takes" to develop divergent and holistic processes that include our (rather limited standardized definition) of intelligence. If "time" is equated to "money"  and "intelligence" to "speed" than Kurzweil's theories make sense - which is probably why they appeal to Silicon Valley investors. But, an artist and a "complexity" mathematician might both agree that divergent thinking and correlative association (i.e. Metaphor and Art) is potentially as important as pure computational speed. In fact - metaphor and storytelling itself is quite probably a form biological data compression. *See Russell's technology work and how Divergent Thinking and Co-Occurrence is of increasing importance to the future of to The Semantic Web. 


Distinction: Technology and Shamansim

Shamanism necessarily includes anamism and other archaic perspectives as a core cultural philosophy. Wright has been criticized by philosophers like Ken Wilber for tossing about the term "shamanic". *1997, Boulder Colorado. 

Nonetheless, Wright holds that a degree of Postmodern anamism and archaic archetype is healthy for cultural memory (storytelling) and metaphor. Animism (from Latin animus, -i "soul, life") is the religious worldview that natural physical entities—including animals, plants, and often even inanimate objects or phenomena—possess a spiritual essence. Animism was absolutely non-dualistic and did not distinguish between soul and body in most cases. 

So before we are too quick to dismiss this out of hand, it is first important to define the term "spiritual". 

spiritual (adj.) 
"of or concerning the spirit" (especially in religious aspects), c.1300, from Old French spirituel (12c.), from Latin spiritualis, from spiritus "of breathing, of the spirit" (see spirit (n.)). 

So Shamansim in this sense holds nature as 'natural'. It holds that everything has an "essence" of it's own that evolved over time, and that it evolved at nature's own pace. Every creature in nature has it's own "breath" and every mineral it's own molecular vibration (magnetic field) within tapestry of the cosmos. 

Technologists often get disconnected from this insight and/or experience.

Technology shamansim urges us to acknowledge that human technology can only exist as a stackable system of simplicity, and that the foundations of this stacked system began with the simple archaic building blocks of cultural myths, memes and mysteries. It is likely that some of these early memes (memories) had useful stories to share, wisdom to depart, and warnings to give. Yes, there is also some needless supersition that can be weeded out by modern Epimemetics and Neuroscience.  Nonetheless, an archaic revival could have immense cultural benefits in regards to our relationship with the world wide web. Embracing the possiblity of something "Wholly Other" will keep healthy irrationalism alive and the Dopamine Goddess afoot. Technology shamanism seeks simply to recognize that the hardware and computer chips (Prosthesis) used to build massive digital networks are made up of natural minerals and components that have qualities, *breath, conductivity, valence, and superconductivity of their own. In this sense, hardware and software is not separate from the natural world and is not "Meta" Physical. These elementals and stacked components are also part of earth's natural resources and have a cost that must be accounted for as mankind rises and reaches to grasp the mythical "Holy Grail" of the 4th Replicator (Pure Cultural Creativity). Technology shamanism also points to the inevitability of biocomputers that incorporate the discipline of biomimicry in order to "grow" super computers that are made of organic and living materials. Computers will begin to become more animated and biological because they are a result of the evolution of stacked and recursive genetic, memetic, and temetic systems that are optimized by Mother Nature Herself, over trillions of years.     


Important Related Wiki Entries from by Russell Wright:

Epimemetics
Technology as Prosthesis
Recursion or Recursive Embeddedness
Body Maps (The Body Has a Mind of It's Own)
Jaron Lanier
Alexander Bard and the Futurica Trilogy
The Dopamine Goddess (Hypermotivation)
Cognitive Dissonance
Existential Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Consonance
Existential Cognitive Consonance

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