"Utopian" vs. "Utopic"

Both pertain to Utopia, obviously, but they differ in tone or approach -- the former has a favorable or supportive sense that the latter does not . That is, "utopic" refers to Utopia in a neutral sense, and includes its negative or inverse, dystopia. Its approach is critical, interrogative.

What this is

A gathering of themes or elements around a topic that at this point is obscure, not apparent. "Utopics" itself is not that topic, but rather (so it's hoped) a tool, or perhaps occasionally a light, to help in its disclosure. That too, unfortunately, may only become clearer as the elements are developed.

On the sidebar are some "extensions" and "fictions" that also pertain to this undefined topic.

(A note on sequence: the dates at the head of these posts have been set deliberately to impose a sequence on them. In some cases when the posts have been modified, however, a date may appear at the end to reflect the actual date of last modification.)


May 27/20

Elements

Immanence

"This" world as the only world -- or just the world.

Eversion

Turning the world inside out

Growth

Implying that "limits to growth" is a fundamental mistake. That in turn has further implications.

Off-planet

One of those implications: while the earth's resources are much greater than the "limits to growth" proponents imagine, they clearly do have limits -- hence the need to expand beyond the planet.

Utopia: its abuse and use

That the idea of Utopia must not function as a realizable state, but can as an imaginative structure forever located on the horizon.

Consciousness and Culture

Consciousness as a control mechanism for behavioral organisms. Culture as an imprint on consciousness, acquired through speech.

The Word

Homo Sapiens' distinguishing feature

Identity and the Constructed Self

What is an I? Who are you?

Man a Machine

From La Mettrie, via Mary Shelley, to the Terminator/Westworld contrast, the embedding of the human in the natural, and the meaning of "free will".

The Modern World and its Discontents

Secularism, "populism", and the rise of ersatz religions.

Dream and Reality: Imagination and Practice

The two layers of culture, individual and collective

Varieties of Belief

Belief: ordinary, scientific, aesthetic, religious

The Limits of Reason

Unknowns, known and unknown, and inherent uncertainty

The Darwinian Comedy

That nature has the last laugh.

The Return of the Meta-narrative

An accumulation of stories, that takes the form of a story itself -- of a journey or trek, along the way picking up things, people, knowledge. And changing.

Immanence

Simply, "immanence" here means that the only world is this world. It goes further, in other words, than asserting just that its interest or focus is on "this world" -- it's used in opposition to any "transcendence" that implies there is an alternative to, or a route out of, this world. It means, even more simply, that there is only the world. And that follows from the idea, first, of the eversion, and then of phenomenal experience as the foundation of the world.

The most obvious or at least most common alternative to this world is of course the religious notion of the "next world", so-called, or the "after-life", and to this, immanence can only fall back on the secular skepticism that comes in the wake of science. But also common, and more interesting, is the notion, since Descartes, that mind is something distinct from matter. This too is rejected within this immanent frame as being incoherent -- since what is called mind influences matter and vice versa, they clearly share a world, and that's this world, or, again, the world.

But immanence in this usage means more than just its oppositions. True, as said, it shuts the door on transcendental escapes, but it's just that re-orientation of focus that brings back the concrete immediacy of sensuous experience and appreciation, from the smell of coffee, say, to the touch of a hand, or the sight of an expert craftsman at work. It gives us back what's often called the surface of the world, in other words, doing for our experience in general what Susan Sontag would have us do for our experience of art (PDF): "What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more."

More than that, immanence means a recognition and acceptance of the human as an integral part of the natural -- no longer, even implicitly, even with a wink, can we think of "man" as an intermediate being between beast and angel. It dissolves, in fact, the distinction between the natural and the artificial, or at most making them nested rather than opposed categories. We see nature within artifice in the form of gardens or parks or nature conservatories, but nature in its fuller aspect is the container of the artificial, making human cities, for example, no more than an extension of birds' nests. All of human culture, in this sense, is simply the manifestation of a peculiar feature -- namely, speech or language -- of one animal species among many. And, all the hopes, fears, and anxieties that such a feature gives rise to notwithstanding, we have as much a home in nature/the universe as any other species. 

Jun 8/20

Eversion

Suppose one said we should turn the world inside out. Not "upside down" -- that's a phrase that's been applied to revolutionary movements that seek to reverse the rulers and the ruled -- but rather "inside out". The first question would likely be, what does that mean?

Well, for example, in a conventional philosophical view, the world is split into an internal world and an external. In that view, our internal world consists of perceptions, like colors, sounds, touches, etc. while the external world (otherwise known as the real world) consists of electromagnetic radiation, compression waves in air, nerve fiber reactions, etc. The problem with this is that it starts too late in the process, after we've already constructed conceptual artifacts like self and objects. But suppose we keep, at least provisionally, the idea of two distinct worlds or realms, but evert them, switch inside and outside, and put the colors, sounds, and so on out there as the real world, and bring the electromagnetic waves, sound waves, and so on inside, in a sense, as ideas, useful in dealing with the perceived world. In this sense, perception isn't an intermediary, at worst a veil, through which we get access to reality -- perception is instead the bedrock of reality, on top of which we build concepts that help us deal with reality. Even something as simple as the notion of an object, in this eversion, is a concept, that helps me be aware that the desk before me, for example, has a back I can't see at the moment.

This implies a pragmatic definition of truth, but of a stringent kind. Often, pragmatic notions of truth take on a kind of either opportunistic or "rule of thumb" quality, as though for someone too busy for "ultimate" truth. The eversion, however, says that practicality or usefulness just is truth, since there is no other path or kind. This in turn implies that truth has degrees, but not that it merely serves private ends (opportunism), nor that all versions are equivalent (relativism). Usefulness is the criterion of truth here, but it's a more general and extensive notion than the everyday usage might imply -- all concepts are constructions, but the most true are the most "workable", perhaps a better term than usefulness. And workability involves both relative simplicity and breadth of application.

At this point, then, I should probably say that the eversion itself was just a kind of conceptual prop, and it's time to let it go. This is because the division into two worlds is itself such a prop, and one that serves more to mislead than to help -- there's really only the world, with its foundation in our phenomenal experience, and a knowledge superstructure built on top of that. The idea of a real real world, outside of experience, a thing-in-itself, might be a common or handy shorthand, but is basically a fiction, or an unnecessary hypothesis, as Liebniz said of God.

What, one might ask, is the practical effect of this revision, what difference does it make? We should allow that any such difference would be on a very general level, removed from the everyday. But on that level, I think there are two important effects. First, it gives us back lived, phenomenal experience as a bedrock for all our knowledge, rather then as merely a surface to be excavated endlessly in search of  a foundation. And second, it lets us see knowledge as something to be built or constructed, which is fundamentally an endless creation of truth rather than just exposure of error.

Jun 3/20

Growth

No-growth implies a zero-sum society -- no one can do better without making someone else worse. But that doesn't stop people from trying, it only leads to such an intensification of conflict that the only stable equilibrium is a formally stratified society, as in overt class or caste divisions, in which everyone has their "place" and is required to keep to their place.

It's interesting to note how many fantasy, and even science-based (though these are mostly what are called "space operas"), fictions make use of just such feudal backgrounds. Part of that may be a result of the fact that historically/culturally dynamic societies are difficult to portray convincingly. And part, no doubt, reflects a nostalgia for a culture in which one's place is defined for one, which one can then either accept or rebel against, either way being simpler and less anxiety-ridden than having to continually define one's own place.

What's lost, however, is an integral component of one of the greatest breakthroughs in the human story -- namely, the idea of equality of status, embodied as one of the self-evident truths in the American Declaration of Independence. That idea directly confronted and opposed the assumptions of virtually every other culture of any complexity in history, and the consequent equality of human rights and freedoms it conferred, has been accompanied by an enormous, and in fact astonishing, growth in material well-being everywhere. It's hard these days to see this in its real historical context, so much do we take such plenty for granted -- but a short video, such as this one by Hans Rosling (which only deals with relatively recent history) helps break down that complacency. The point is that material wealth means more than just multiple brands of toasters or deodorants -- it provides unprecedented opportunity for individuals to realize their visions, and the diversity of effort that generates more growth.

For this reason, the theme of limitless economic growth is at the foundation of the topic or idea being sought here. Those espousing the contrary theme of the "limits to growth" argue that, for example, "technological advance" can be separated from economic growth, and that such would still allow for the possibility of a positive-sum growth in individual welfare. But, first, such advance is already included in the notion of growth as used here, and second, the policy-driven limits on economic growth such arguments seek to impose tend to have a negative impact on the freedom of individual initiative that is an essential ingredient to growth of any sort. It's true as well that that there are other forms of growth than the material, such as moral, aesthetic, cultural, and so on, but human thriving of any sort has its basis in the physical, natural, material universe -- without material growth, all other forms of growth wither.

Off-planet

If the planet earth is the only source of space and resources for humanity, then ultimately of course the "limits to growth" argument is correct. But, obviously, that assumption is wrong -- ultimately, in fact, the only thing that limits our expansion into the universe is the speed of light, and even that is only the case given what we know now. Admittedly, that's a fanciful extension of a counter-argument, but the point is simply that as long as we don't limit ourselves to this planet, there are no discernible limits to growth.

This is the real reason underlying the need to get human beings back into space beyond the first few hundred miles. We've taken the first step, but that was some time ago, and now the idea of people actually living off the planet seems more science-fictional than realistic. Yet that's the only way in the long run that we'll escape a lapse back into a stagnant and rigid hierarchy, or civilizational collapse altogether.

Those opposing ongoing growth -- the "limits to growth" proponents -- often argue against a move into space, usually on the grounds that it's an impractical answer to real current problems, and that it's a false hope that simply distracts from those earthly problems. And they're right on the first point at least -- the effort to free ourselves from being planet-bound is a long-range one, and is certainly not meant as a solution to immediate problems on earth. But it's not only a real possibility and hope for humanity -- in the long range, in its reduction of resource and space pressures on the planet, it may well be, ironically, the best hope for the planet.

In that long range, however, there is another, more obscure, concern about human civilization, and that is the fragmentation of the human species into radically divergent forms resulting from the wide variation in their physical environments. Not an immediate or even intermediate concern, no doubt, but interesting in the way that it leads into a broadening of the meaning of "human" -- that too is part of the journey.

Utopia: its Abuse and Use

Utopia's fortunes wax and wane with different historical eras, and lately they've been low. These days its negative image, dystopia, has been enjoying more attention in popular culture, perhaps as befits a more confused and disillusioned time. But even without the long, boring didactics that is the usual stuff of literary utopias, the utopian as such retains an illusory power, of a sort that, in the past, has lured masses of people to catastrophes.

Utopics then casts a critical eye on that kind of project. The problem with Utopia as a realizable vision is that, fundamentally, it's social-cultural Prometheanism, in which human reality is taken as raw material to be molded or engineered for maximal ... what? Efficiency? Utility? Happiness? Good, perhaps, whatever that's taken to mean. Technocratic hubris is a common diagnosis for such ambitions, but the heart of the problem is a kind of selective blindness --  the would-be molders of humanity and their followers fail to see themselves as part of the clay, exhibiting and reproducing all the lumpy distortions they want to smooth out of society.

But, under the scrutiny of utopics, utopia can emerge in a new and improved role -- as a direction rather than an end. In that role it can provide an orientation in a landscape that otherwise seems confusing, without useful markers. It can even take on visionary aspects as an imaginative construct, but one that's situated perpetually on a horizon, receding as one approaches. Though removed in this way from practical reality, it can be a part of a larger construct that gives shape and meaning to the world -- a role in a larger narrative.

Consciousness and culture

Two vast topics that are closely related.

The problem with these topics is not just that they're vast, it's that they're vague, but at the same time central, directly or indirectly, to so many other themes. In this way, they underlie a good deal of the confusion and even anxiety that infects attempts to grapple with issues that may seem at first far removed -- as, for example, the encroachment of the machine on the human, or the question of "free will".

An illustration of the confusion involved here is the frequent identification of consciousness as such with human consciousness, mixing in all the complexities of language with the simpler but notoriously "hard" problem of phenomenal experience by itself. A big first step in introducing some kind of clarity to these knotty matters, then, would just to be clear from the start that not all consciousness involves issues of language, or the self -- in particular, the whole matter of what it's "like" to be something (thank you, Thomas Nagel) is larger, and harder, than matters involving self-reflection.

So to make a start at both clarification and simplification, here are some broad assertions:

• First, consciousness is a phenomenon, and like all such is an aspect or part of the natural, physical, material world.
• Second, we commonly attribute this phenomenon, in the sense of non-verbal phenomenal experience, to most animals -- meaning we accept that it likely feels like something to be them -- but we don't attribute it to plants, or rocks, or oceans, etc.
• Third, the development of language, as a means of communicating across such conscious entities, involves a further layer or structure on top of phenomenal experience, but made out of such experience, and this layer too, like everything else in the natural, physical, material world, is an aspect or part of such a world.
• And fourth, the communication that language/speech represents, arising from a structure inherent in individual phenomenal experience, forms the basis of very extensive and complex social formations.

To be a bit more specific, it makes sense to say that consciousness in the basic or primary sense is a neurally-based control structure evolved in complex mobile organisms; and human consciousness in particular is a further development that adds an additional neurally-based structure called language, on the basis of which come all the phenomena called culture.

The important point throughout is that, given that this world is a material or physical world, and is the only world, consciousness, of whatever kind or level, is a) real, b) entirely natural or material, and c) functional. (The last point is less obvious, and will need some expansion, but later.) In general, the nature of the neural structures underlying phenomenal experience and language are of course not known in any detail at this point. But the many conceptual difficulties surrounding the subject arise more from the very nature of how we think of "explanation" as such, than from its real bases. This too, clearly, will need further expansion.

The Word

In the beginning of the human species, was the word. It's such a common thing that it's hard to see it's significance, but the use of sound or utterance in this way is as distinctive a feature of homo sapiens as the giraffe's neck or the elephant's trunk, though of course a good deal more momentous. Other species use sound as signs or signals, but those are much simpler evocations of a single response. The word, on the other hand, is a sound with deep and complex roots in an individual's personal experience, with similar but never identical depths in both its speaker and hearer.

One of the best illustrations of this is in fact the 1962 version of the film The Miracle Worker. We see the child Helen Keller being taught a large number of signs, using touch and hand signals, but as her teacher understands all too well, and with near despair, for all that she still doesn't understand a single word. Then, in the climactic scene, we see the sudden acquisition of her first actual word, "water" -- followed by an avalanche of learning, as she demands to know word after word.

The problem she had was just the huge multiplicity of experiences that go together to make that first simple word -- water to drink, water in containers, water from a pump, water splashed in her face, water running in a stream, and on and on. And all of that is just a hint of the penumbra of meaning that even such a small word accumulates for all of us -- water of life, water as cleanser, baptismal water, water as a subclass of fluid, water as a superclass of its forms (salt water, ice, vapor, etc.) and on and on again. Little wonder it took a child so handicapped, bright as she was, so long to make the breakthrough that, on the species level, inaugurated all of human culture, and then all of history.

It's interesting, in fact, to look at how the word functions in culture. Consider a simple two-person conversation, a micro-example, perhaps, of a cultural group. Each word spoken is a sound that mediates between the mental experiences of speaker and hearer. The meaning of a word to the speaker is based upon that person's accumulated experience in learning and then using the word, and the hearer of the word cannot help but recognize it -- meaning that the sound triggers an involuntary activation of the neural circuits formed in the course of the experiences that constitute the "meaning" of the word to the hearer. Those experiences must be unique to the hearer, so that meaning can never be exactly the same as the meaning for the speaker, but at the same time, for communication to occur at all, it must approximate that meaning. We can see the conversation, then, as an experience in itself, that affects the meaning -- i.e., the neural/mental circuitry -- for both participants, tending to iron out discrepancies of meaning. And this micro example of a cultural group can be extended to all the larger and more persistent instances of such groups, the harmonizing of meaning, at all levels, being what defines them as such. This is one of the bases for cultural adaptation or evolution.



Jun 14/20