Sir, I just finished your book. I really liked it. And I will say that it is quite accurate, but totalitarianism has change from the time Arendt wrote on that topic. The great Québécois sociologist Michel Freitag died in 2009, but a posthumous book call Formes de la société was publish in 2020 on his theory of totalitarianism. Basically, the way you analyzed this phenomena is what he called "archaic totalitarianism". In our time, in the postmodernism time, there is a new form of this phenomena.
Also, at the page 184, you said that the knowledge coming from God is a knowledge coming from the outside. Of course, the scriptures were given to all nations of the world by God through his incarnate Avatar, which are Jesus, Bouddha, Khrisna, etc., but what they all urged us to do, is to go inside to find God and become one with the Holy Ghost. So the sources ove all knowledge is inside man, through union of the mind and the soul, at first, and then with God through Spirit to reach Cosmic consciousness. So when you write : "Therefore, the source of all knowledge lay outside man", you have it wrong. It is the complete opposite that is true.
It is the mechanistic worldview that consider everything from the outisde. If you consider things from the inside you feel that everything is one, every living things are energy in the dream of God. But from the outside, everything feels like stranger to you because you cant have empathy for the living, you are in a position emperical observer.
Let me finish with a quote from Carl Gustav Jung : "Celui qui regarde à l’extérieur de soi ne fait que rêver ; celui qui regarde en soi se réveille."
This is a well written article, and so too is your book. Its shortcomings however stem both from a limited perspective of history but more from 60+ years of re-education of an evolutionary origin and perceived progress of man.
Your conclusion testifies to the exact conclusion determined already by the elites through their desired 'Great Reset', "to envision a new view of human kind and the world", this too is their goal, though their end is diametrically opposed to freedom. The real question respecting whose "view" prevails will be one of means, and they have all the means they need!
The present satanic regime has been built step by step for several hundred years to create a single, and evidently Biblical, end; a Global Government with absolute control. 'Truth Speech' are your last two words, the goal of technocracy is to both define 'truth' and govern it.
Modernity held truth as absolute, Post Modernity held it as relative, our current Post-Post modernity holds it both as relative and yet individually absolute; the future however will see truth governed and any infringement's immediately chastised.
What is occurring in the world today is precisely that which the Bible speaks of. Having now abandoned absolute truth, mankind does not turn to believe nothing, but anything! "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" says The Book abandoned, its testimony now being realised.
The division we see occurring globally is that written off in the book of Daniel, the global cross-over from the 'legs of iron' to the "feet of iron and clay" seems to have been C19, when the entire world seemed to have made their independent decisions in unison, like a puppet show. The division is not of a left wing against a right, that political bird is flying in one direction only, the division is what it always was, Good and Evil, it only seems to be more manifest today.
If there is any true desire that there be a "lengthening of thy tranquility", we will need to return to The Book abandoned. We will not stop what is so clearly a convergence of signs in these times, but we may lengthen the days of our peace if we return to trusting the same God who gave The Book abandoned. If however we still think we will be saved by our own right hand, be sure to know that we are living in the Time of the Signs.
You bring many things to light, and I certainly applaud you for it. Pieces of the puzzle seem to form small pictures here and there, but you will never put it all together without The Picture on the box (The Bible).
I now understand why the “refuse-to-believers” (RTBs) have such an extreme, hateful reaction to the “messengers of truth” (MOT). The evil that is driving the campaign to vaccinate and control all of humanity is so frightening and disgusting that most RTBs direct their horror and fear at the MOTs rather than at the institutions responsible for the crimes. It is simply too frightening to believe that all of our major social institutions are complicit in the evil. If a shadow government comprised of a few thousand unelected billionaires is truly executing a global coup d'état, the threat is too psychologically disturbing to face. Better to aim all the negative emotions at the MOTs and discredit them and the truth together. A profound emotional defensive reaction to the evil is justified, but who receives it is still up in the air.
A mass psychosis reinforced by continuous propaganda helps to sustain the attacks against the MOTs but the deeper root of the problem is a phobic inability to even contemplate or discuss the true situation at hand. If the facade of civilization crumbles, what on Earth will be left to believe in?
I am writing to say how much I appreciated your book, the Psychology of Totalitarianism. It was useful for me to understand how it could be emergent from latent conditions, and only then manipulated, rather than necessarily some entirely organised conspiracy. It has certainly left me thinking.
I think you are right to identify mechanical mindedness as the significant prevalent problem. It seems to be the dominant spirit of the age; although cultic and/or deterministic religious belief can clearly cause exactly the same conformist problem which can then so easily be led astray by any old pied piper. (It’s ironic that Non-conformist denominations are often the most conformist within their groups.)
I think you are also right to identify a lack of proper self-identity as the root driver for this conformism, which then leads to the development of conformist rules as an identity substitute; either inward and narcissistic or outward like some neo puritan. The scourge of modern society seems to be both of these to extreme, with both selfies and the growth of risk averse regulation.
I am not sure if all your supporting arguments best support your position though, it might have been better to put more explicit reference quotation in the text. The fact that someone you quotes might not support your final thesis does not mean that you cannot use their substantiation of a fact you need, but maybe one should be clearer about this, to stop the pedants from have such easy justification for a moan.
What has got me thinking the most is your argument from quantum science and chaos theory to try to break apart the mechanical mindedness. Although I appreciate the point I am afraid that I don’t see this as being justified. I don’t think that quantum and their seeming chaos effects negate classical macro physics, they instead form the foundation for them. The problem of course is that no-one knows the full relationship but whatever it is the quantum is in the end is still the foundation for the classical, so it is difficult to use it to negate the mechanical mindedness which stems from that classic cause and effect thinking.
My guess, or hypothesis – is that all classical processes, have an underlying quantum phase aspect. Most of the time our science does mechanical cause and effect A to B (unless maybe there is an irrational number involved) and as such is of course correspondingly true; but I suspect that to get from classical A to B there is always a simultaneous quantum A to C to B, which represents superposition or the phase of the quantum environment which continuously supports it. A to B can be analysed mechanically with cause and effect with reasonable precision even if irrational numbers get involved, but A to C to B cannot, because it is more like someone else idea consistently imposing perpendicularly to our flat A to B world. Our ability to grasp this is reduced to statistics, but not entirely useless because it seems there are still patterns. But I just don’t think quantum indeterminacy effects will really alter the deterministic mind-set that much, for you can still use even Newtonian physics to get to the moon, and you can use some quantum effects to make super computers. This utility means this finer tuning of understanding is unlikely to break the ideology.
I believe that you should instead break the mechanical mindedness from the core of its own context. The problem is that the natural world cannot explain itself. With regard to existence the two most attested macro mechanical laws, the 1st and 2nd of thermodynamics undo natural self-explanation when considered in the context of the conservation of energy and/or in logical terms in the context of an infinite regression, because energy is preserved and/or because it is impossible to get something for nothing, whether in space time or in some other abstraction.
Infinite regression is the trip stone for all world views, in any type of world. If you don’t deal with it, if you can’t explain why it’s no longer appropriate to ask “why” or “what caused”, then you are left with an infinite linear regression of why’s or how’s which leaves you with the impossibility of an open set, which cannot exist as its undefined. This is a basic problem for atheist and theist alike, and nobody seems to deal with.
In my view the only construction which can stop this infinite regression must have a “basic closed circular type form to avoid the open ended linear regression, necessarily continuously rotating or moving, with multi but irreducible characteristics, self-existent and therefore also self-conscious. It is The Trinitarian I am who I am, in an imagined form of a tri-triple petal Celtic endless knot, which can be hypothesised to meet the 3 fundamental problems associated with explaining existence, including the infinite regression one. (the atheists could of course go for big bang to big crunch, with energy as the self-existent (according to the 1st law) brute fact, but the 2nd law is so far linear and irreversible, and such a view is self-defeating where meaning is concerned, as it destroys it all. So having completed your hypothesis it just falls through your figures) … Cont’d
To cut a longer story short the irreducible characteristics mentioned needs to be of such type that would enable self-consciousness (not just consciousness) to be emergent from their interplay across a field of action, caused by the shape of the overall form. I am of course describing a view of the Christian Trinitarian God, which if you like explains the real point of its seeming complete obscurity. (It turns out that Unitarianism cannot work, because you can’t get self-consciousness and so self-existence out of it) Where this leads, especially given that man is supposedly made in the image of God, is agreement with you that there really are some fundamental irreducible bones to our character or identity, which should never be denied (and some of your own list would fall into this or be a subset of them), Likewise we are called to the diverse “flesh” of creative, adaptive, individual, life and growth. Again in the image of God which again should not be denied.
What has been so disappointing in the coronavirus responses is the general lack of resistance from the church. It could not see that fundamental ”in the image of God” characteristics were being denied, because it is generally so caught up in conformity to its own self identifying “group think” that it is blind to the true empowering universal created identity it is really called to. It could not therefore sense the rug being pulled from underneath it. Alternatively some of the Christian determinists are sadly seemingly saying “yes bring this persecution on” (to the detriment of so many brothers), “because it’s foretold by God and we will not and would be foolish to stand in His way”. But I can’t see it should ever be the case, whether we are in supposed last days or not, that the church should not fight against restriction of image of God characteristics, because they are absolutely fundamental to everything.
What the exact list of these characteristics are and should be, and which should therefore be encouraged and empowered so we can live our best lives in this life is or course a further story. A focal point would be imagining what characteristics might be fundamental for self-consciousness to arise, because they are also fundamental to God’s character. But a key issue would be to recognise the distinction between common bones and diverse flesh issues, and not to miscategorise or conflate them, which unfortunately current Equality and diversity ideology does, leaving us in practice with equality and equality but with the elites more equal than others.
The point of this analysis is primarily to re-strengthen the church to re-assert the bones of human “in the image of God” identity aspects, because it is now understood as tied up with what in the end is the most fundamental doctrine regarding the character of God (even if it’s not the most important). The church along with all small “c” conservative society have been utterly on the back foot about all the identity politics because within their own conformism they have not bothered to properly understand what must be the foundations required to respond to it. But it also strengthens or at least informs a more general humanist position, a neutral ground where we should all be able to agree, and which would be about people being able to live their best lives whether in a faith or not.
Of course this is all in the end about faith, but as we see the atheists and mechanical minded people are all in the same boat, they cannot explain existence without faith (i.e. that somehow the 2nd law is circular after all) either, and their explanation must then in the end be self-defeating given the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. I doubt whether the churches can however respond positively to such ideas, for they are generally so tied up with formal written rules of their current identity that it would be historically and politically within those groups, difficult to move. It’s odd that the reformed wing of the church could not reform, because reform is already written in rules seemingly on stone.
A second point would be the practical consideration that those essential bones need to be written into a new declaration of rights without of course an opening for the progressive mission creep which would try to make diversity issues into fundamental basic ones, which would mess it up again. But this time it would need a court system to actively defend them, rather than wait until someone can afford to. For even the American constitution could not resist the onslaught of corona madness, but may only eventually save the world through an extremely expensive and slow rear guard legal counter offensive – which I know is ongoing. The EU and UK rights are not of course fundamental as they can and have been so easily “legally” suspended, and so in the end useless as has been so far shown.
Anyway I wondered whether you might be interested in this different view point, given what I feel is a complimentary resonance between our different perspectives.
David Icke proposes that people are going to be so attached to instantaneous gratification for information etc. they will be clamoring for their coupling to AI
All of it was planned...all of it. They knew the tactic called "fear appeal" would work brilliantly. This is what turned people we once knew and respected into scared morons overnight who would do anything and everything they were told...including physicians.
Thank you Mattias. No doubt, we experience a revival of a mechanist-rationalist view of humans and the world like during the time of Enlightenment. However, instead of Humanism, today's cold rationalism of the elite brings us Transhumanism, instead of Kant's "sapere aude", there is mass formation induced by anxiety, fear, and ignorance, instead of freedom we suffer under neo-feudalism and global totalitarianism. The Enlightenment was met by many great philosophers, ethics, spirituality and virtues. Where are they today?
Transhumanism (for the one percent, anti-humanism for the rest) is around the corner enabled by the twin revolutions of information technology and biotechnology. They will amplify each other and merge. Biotechnology will re-engineer life and information technology add technological enhancements to it, creating Human 2.0, Nietzsche's Super Human, or Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus. The base of transhumanism enablers are disruptive technologies: artificial intelligence, quantum computing and quantum communication, gene editing, nanotechnology.
The rest, now sub-humans, deplorable, deltas will be seamlessly controlled and manipulated living like cattle in the "build/t back better" future.
Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism and spirituality, free market economics, and constant self-critique and science (instead scientism)—was to liberate people from fear, daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, sickness, and an often-unforgiving nature. The one percent know that: benefits of transhumanism for thee anti-humanism for them (us).
One thing seems apparent, the energy and food crisis, the warmongering of an imploding hegemony of the "Golden Billion" against the BRICS, the timely COVID pandemic, the mass migration into, the mass formation of, the induced mass poverty in the West have happened not by accident. They have been utilizing the mentioned disruptive technologies already.
Recently I read in a medical paper that the successful application of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 has further validated the platform and opened the floodgates to mRNA vaccine's potential in infectious disease prevention, especially in the veterinary field for Emerging Animal and Zoonotic Diseases. After the biggest medical human experiment of mankind. Nice to know our place.
Nearly finished reading "The Psychology of Totalitarianism", but couldn't wait for the end before writing a review and sharing it with my friends. So well done! https://dave.marney.org/overcoming-mass-fear/
I'm sure I found the original root explanation for the mass formation. It is caused by mechanistic reasoning, but then there is an underlying cause for the mechanistic reasoning as well.
People like to think of choosing in terms of figuring out the best option. There is enormous psychological pressure and appeal related to that idea. Because of this psychological force, people then become to fundamentally define choosing in terms of figuring out the best result.
That is however a logic error. To choose in terms of what is best, is a conflation between the moral advice to do your best, and the barebone logic of choosing. So I am saying it is not an error to choose in terms of what is best, it is only an error to make choosing in terms of what is best the fundamental definition of choosing. To choose in terms of what is best, is a complex way of choosing, based on the fundamental definition of choosing in terms of spontaneity.
Very weird things start to happen, when you fundamentally define choosing in terms of figuring out the best result. In the oxford dictionary, which is also the dictionary google uses, the verb choose is defined as: pick out (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.
For example, consider this: Say that I choose to rob a bank. Then according to oxford I "did what was best or most appropiate". I choose to drink from the toilet, then again, according to oxford "I did what was best or most appropiate". Regardless of what I choose, when my conscience consults the definition that I use of the verb choose, then my conscience always messages back, great!, you did what is best!
The mechanistic thinking is directly caused by defining choosing in terms of what is best. Because then choosing becomes to be conceived of as like a chesscomputer calculating a move, in a completely forced, and therefore, mechanistic way.
Actually you can really only understand about these errors if you know the correct definition of choosing to begin with. The correct definition is something like, choose: to make one of alternative possible futures the present. So choosing is essentially spontaneous.
Then the most important aspect of choosing is that the decisionmaker can only be identified with a chosen opinion. That is how subjectivity works. For example, emotions like love and fear, personal character like cowardice and laziness, they are attributes of a decisionmaker, and therefore they can only be identified with a chosen opinion. Any and all subjectivity works this way, that a subjective opinion is chosen, and that the opinion expresses something about a decisionmaker.
For example, to say a painting is beautiful. The opinion is chosen, in spontaneous expression of emotion with free will. The opinion expresses a love for the way the painting looks, on the part of the person that chose the opinion.
There is then a subjective part of reality, a spiritual domain, which consists of all that part of reality that chooses. What is in this spiritual domain, is a matter of chosen opinion.
The chosen part of reality, is then the objective part of it. A fact is obtained by evidence of a creation forcing to produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it, in the mind. Which is the wellknown correspondence theory, but then restricted to creations.
I see a glass on the table. The words basically provide a 1 to 1 corresponding model of the actual glass that is on the table. A copy from the universe proper, to the universe of mind.
Now put subjectivity and objectivity together in one conceptual scheme, then you get:
2. Creation / chosen / material / objective / fact
Which is obviously creationism. So then creationism is really the better alternative to materialism, which materialism validates the concept of objectivity, but does not validate the concept of subjectivity.
And the better alternative to postmodernism, which basically asserts that subjectivity is inherent in statements of fact, but does not really validate either concept of fact or opinion, but rather assumes it without explanation.
Creationism validates both concepts of subjectivity and objectivity, each in their own right, with their own rules, and their own domain.
Creationism which is almost universally discarded in academics, and very strenously opposed by many in academics. Which says much about the capability of academic people to make subjective judgments.
In nazi ideology, the personal character of people was regarded to be established as a matter of fact of racial science. This was the basis of nazism, according to the handbook for schooling the Hitler youth. The book even starts out with the title to the introduction "factual outlook on life".
This made the nazis have very hard emotionless judgments on people's personal character. Because of transposing the logic of objectivity, over what is really a subjective issue. Supposedly the hard judgments provided the attitudes for warmongering and genocide.
So you can chew on this idea of fundamentally defining choosing in terms of what is best, and see things in relation to this, and get lots of apparently meaningful insights about the psychology of it.
Could it be said that the covid totalitarians are very overachieverisly doing their best? Sacrificing themselves and everyone else, for the best?
Or, did the Mao communists who melted perfectly good steel equipment, like farm equipment, in order to produce more steel, were they overachieverishly doing their best?
And would defining choosing in terms of figuring out the best result, be related to inferiority / superiority complexes, related to the worse and better options in a choice? Such as in inferior and superior races.
Would what is good and bad become to be considered as a matter of fact, just as in a chesscomputer program scoring the most points is effectively a fact of what is good. Do the values that are used to evaluate options with, take the place of the spirit choosing?
And again, what is very good about my theory, is that there is a very large psychological motive. The enormous pressure and appeal, related to doing your best.
Sir, I just finished your book. I really liked it. And I will say that it is quite accurate, but totalitarianism has change from the time Arendt wrote on that topic. The great Québécois sociologist Michel Freitag died in 2009, but a posthumous book call Formes de la société was publish in 2020 on his theory of totalitarianism. Basically, the way you analyzed this phenomena is what he called "archaic totalitarianism". In our time, in the postmodernism time, there is a new form of this phenomena.
Also, at the page 184, you said that the knowledge coming from God is a knowledge coming from the outside. Of course, the scriptures were given to all nations of the world by God through his incarnate Avatar, which are Jesus, Bouddha, Khrisna, etc., but what they all urged us to do, is to go inside to find God and become one with the Holy Ghost. So the sources ove all knowledge is inside man, through union of the mind and the soul, at first, and then with God through Spirit to reach Cosmic consciousness. So when you write : "Therefore, the source of all knowledge lay outside man", you have it wrong. It is the complete opposite that is true.
It is the mechanistic worldview that consider everything from the outisde. If you consider things from the inside you feel that everything is one, every living things are energy in the dream of God. But from the outside, everything feels like stranger to you because you cant have empathy for the living, you are in a position emperical observer.
Let me finish with a quote from Carl Gustav Jung : "Celui qui regarde à l’extérieur de soi ne fait que rêver ; celui qui regarde en soi se réveille."
This is a well written article, and so too is your book. Its shortcomings however stem both from a limited perspective of history but more from 60+ years of re-education of an evolutionary origin and perceived progress of man.
Your conclusion testifies to the exact conclusion determined already by the elites through their desired 'Great Reset', "to envision a new view of human kind and the world", this too is their goal, though their end is diametrically opposed to freedom. The real question respecting whose "view" prevails will be one of means, and they have all the means they need!
The present satanic regime has been built step by step for several hundred years to create a single, and evidently Biblical, end; a Global Government with absolute control. 'Truth Speech' are your last two words, the goal of technocracy is to both define 'truth' and govern it.
Modernity held truth as absolute, Post Modernity held it as relative, our current Post-Post modernity holds it both as relative and yet individually absolute; the future however will see truth governed and any infringement's immediately chastised.
What is occurring in the world today is precisely that which the Bible speaks of. Having now abandoned absolute truth, mankind does not turn to believe nothing, but anything! "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!" says The Book abandoned, its testimony now being realised.
The division we see occurring globally is that written off in the book of Daniel, the global cross-over from the 'legs of iron' to the "feet of iron and clay" seems to have been C19, when the entire world seemed to have made their independent decisions in unison, like a puppet show. The division is not of a left wing against a right, that political bird is flying in one direction only, the division is what it always was, Good and Evil, it only seems to be more manifest today.
If there is any true desire that there be a "lengthening of thy tranquility", we will need to return to The Book abandoned. We will not stop what is so clearly a convergence of signs in these times, but we may lengthen the days of our peace if we return to trusting the same God who gave The Book abandoned. If however we still think we will be saved by our own right hand, be sure to know that we are living in the Time of the Signs.
You bring many things to light, and I certainly applaud you for it. Pieces of the puzzle seem to form small pictures here and there, but you will never put it all together without The Picture on the box (The Bible).
God bless, Pr Edi
Thanks for this great write up Mattias!
I now understand why the “refuse-to-believers” (RTBs) have such an extreme, hateful reaction to the “messengers of truth” (MOT). The evil that is driving the campaign to vaccinate and control all of humanity is so frightening and disgusting that most RTBs direct their horror and fear at the MOTs rather than at the institutions responsible for the crimes. It is simply too frightening to believe that all of our major social institutions are complicit in the evil. If a shadow government comprised of a few thousand unelected billionaires is truly executing a global coup d'état, the threat is too psychologically disturbing to face. Better to aim all the negative emotions at the MOTs and discredit them and the truth together. A profound emotional defensive reaction to the evil is justified, but who receives it is still up in the air.
A mass psychosis reinforced by continuous propaganda helps to sustain the attacks against the MOTs but the deeper root of the problem is a phobic inability to even contemplate or discuss the true situation at hand. If the facade of civilization crumbles, what on Earth will be left to believe in?
Excellent essay. Is not psychological projection the root of the suicidal mass formation... https://godtype.substack.com/p/died-suddenly-must-watch-documentary
Great post.
I would love it if you had time to read the following Substack and pen a few words on why it, with your observations makes for a total disaster.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/gatos-postulate
Hello Mattias (Part 1)
I am writing to say how much I appreciated your book, the Psychology of Totalitarianism. It was useful for me to understand how it could be emergent from latent conditions, and only then manipulated, rather than necessarily some entirely organised conspiracy. It has certainly left me thinking.
I think you are right to identify mechanical mindedness as the significant prevalent problem. It seems to be the dominant spirit of the age; although cultic and/or deterministic religious belief can clearly cause exactly the same conformist problem which can then so easily be led astray by any old pied piper. (It’s ironic that Non-conformist denominations are often the most conformist within their groups.)
I think you are also right to identify a lack of proper self-identity as the root driver for this conformism, which then leads to the development of conformist rules as an identity substitute; either inward and narcissistic or outward like some neo puritan. The scourge of modern society seems to be both of these to extreme, with both selfies and the growth of risk averse regulation.
I am not sure if all your supporting arguments best support your position though, it might have been better to put more explicit reference quotation in the text. The fact that someone you quotes might not support your final thesis does not mean that you cannot use their substantiation of a fact you need, but maybe one should be clearer about this, to stop the pedants from have such easy justification for a moan.
What has got me thinking the most is your argument from quantum science and chaos theory to try to break apart the mechanical mindedness. Although I appreciate the point I am afraid that I don’t see this as being justified. I don’t think that quantum and their seeming chaos effects negate classical macro physics, they instead form the foundation for them. The problem of course is that no-one knows the full relationship but whatever it is the quantum is in the end is still the foundation for the classical, so it is difficult to use it to negate the mechanical mindedness which stems from that classic cause and effect thinking.
My guess, or hypothesis – is that all classical processes, have an underlying quantum phase aspect. Most of the time our science does mechanical cause and effect A to B (unless maybe there is an irrational number involved) and as such is of course correspondingly true; but I suspect that to get from classical A to B there is always a simultaneous quantum A to C to B, which represents superposition or the phase of the quantum environment which continuously supports it. A to B can be analysed mechanically with cause and effect with reasonable precision even if irrational numbers get involved, but A to C to B cannot, because it is more like someone else idea consistently imposing perpendicularly to our flat A to B world. Our ability to grasp this is reduced to statistics, but not entirely useless because it seems there are still patterns. But I just don’t think quantum indeterminacy effects will really alter the deterministic mind-set that much, for you can still use even Newtonian physics to get to the moon, and you can use some quantum effects to make super computers. This utility means this finer tuning of understanding is unlikely to break the ideology.
I believe that you should instead break the mechanical mindedness from the core of its own context. The problem is that the natural world cannot explain itself. With regard to existence the two most attested macro mechanical laws, the 1st and 2nd of thermodynamics undo natural self-explanation when considered in the context of the conservation of energy and/or in logical terms in the context of an infinite regression, because energy is preserved and/or because it is impossible to get something for nothing, whether in space time or in some other abstraction.
Infinite regression is the trip stone for all world views, in any type of world. If you don’t deal with it, if you can’t explain why it’s no longer appropriate to ask “why” or “what caused”, then you are left with an infinite linear regression of why’s or how’s which leaves you with the impossibility of an open set, which cannot exist as its undefined. This is a basic problem for atheist and theist alike, and nobody seems to deal with.
In my view the only construction which can stop this infinite regression must have a “basic closed circular type form to avoid the open ended linear regression, necessarily continuously rotating or moving, with multi but irreducible characteristics, self-existent and therefore also self-conscious. It is The Trinitarian I am who I am, in an imagined form of a tri-triple petal Celtic endless knot, which can be hypothesised to meet the 3 fundamental problems associated with explaining existence, including the infinite regression one. (the atheists could of course go for big bang to big crunch, with energy as the self-existent (according to the 1st law) brute fact, but the 2nd law is so far linear and irreversible, and such a view is self-defeating where meaning is concerned, as it destroys it all. So having completed your hypothesis it just falls through your figures) … Cont’d
Hello Mattias (Part 2)
To cut a longer story short the irreducible characteristics mentioned needs to be of such type that would enable self-consciousness (not just consciousness) to be emergent from their interplay across a field of action, caused by the shape of the overall form. I am of course describing a view of the Christian Trinitarian God, which if you like explains the real point of its seeming complete obscurity. (It turns out that Unitarianism cannot work, because you can’t get self-consciousness and so self-existence out of it) Where this leads, especially given that man is supposedly made in the image of God, is agreement with you that there really are some fundamental irreducible bones to our character or identity, which should never be denied (and some of your own list would fall into this or be a subset of them), Likewise we are called to the diverse “flesh” of creative, adaptive, individual, life and growth. Again in the image of God which again should not be denied.
What has been so disappointing in the coronavirus responses is the general lack of resistance from the church. It could not see that fundamental ”in the image of God” characteristics were being denied, because it is generally so caught up in conformity to its own self identifying “group think” that it is blind to the true empowering universal created identity it is really called to. It could not therefore sense the rug being pulled from underneath it. Alternatively some of the Christian determinists are sadly seemingly saying “yes bring this persecution on” (to the detriment of so many brothers), “because it’s foretold by God and we will not and would be foolish to stand in His way”. But I can’t see it should ever be the case, whether we are in supposed last days or not, that the church should not fight against restriction of image of God characteristics, because they are absolutely fundamental to everything.
What the exact list of these characteristics are and should be, and which should therefore be encouraged and empowered so we can live our best lives in this life is or course a further story. A focal point would be imagining what characteristics might be fundamental for self-consciousness to arise, because they are also fundamental to God’s character. But a key issue would be to recognise the distinction between common bones and diverse flesh issues, and not to miscategorise or conflate them, which unfortunately current Equality and diversity ideology does, leaving us in practice with equality and equality but with the elites more equal than others.
The point of this analysis is primarily to re-strengthen the church to re-assert the bones of human “in the image of God” identity aspects, because it is now understood as tied up with what in the end is the most fundamental doctrine regarding the character of God (even if it’s not the most important). The church along with all small “c” conservative society have been utterly on the back foot about all the identity politics because within their own conformism they have not bothered to properly understand what must be the foundations required to respond to it. But it also strengthens or at least informs a more general humanist position, a neutral ground where we should all be able to agree, and which would be about people being able to live their best lives whether in a faith or not.
Of course this is all in the end about faith, but as we see the atheists and mechanical minded people are all in the same boat, they cannot explain existence without faith (i.e. that somehow the 2nd law is circular after all) either, and their explanation must then in the end be self-defeating given the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics. I doubt whether the churches can however respond positively to such ideas, for they are generally so tied up with formal written rules of their current identity that it would be historically and politically within those groups, difficult to move. It’s odd that the reformed wing of the church could not reform, because reform is already written in rules seemingly on stone.
A second point would be the practical consideration that those essential bones need to be written into a new declaration of rights without of course an opening for the progressive mission creep which would try to make diversity issues into fundamental basic ones, which would mess it up again. But this time it would need a court system to actively defend them, rather than wait until someone can afford to. For even the American constitution could not resist the onslaught of corona madness, but may only eventually save the world through an extremely expensive and slow rear guard legal counter offensive – which I know is ongoing. The EU and UK rights are not of course fundamental as they can and have been so easily “legally” suspended, and so in the end useless as has been so far shown.
Anyway I wondered whether you might be interested in this different view point, given what I feel is a complimentary resonance between our different perspectives.
Concerning truth, does/can Musk exist in that space to any degree?
David Icke proposes that people are going to be so attached to instantaneous gratification for information etc. they will be clamoring for their coupling to AI
All of it was planned...all of it. They knew the tactic called "fear appeal" would work brilliantly. This is what turned people we once knew and respected into scared morons overnight who would do anything and everything they were told...including physicians.
Thank you Mattias. No doubt, we experience a revival of a mechanist-rationalist view of humans and the world like during the time of Enlightenment. However, instead of Humanism, today's cold rationalism of the elite brings us Transhumanism, instead of Kant's "sapere aude", there is mass formation induced by anxiety, fear, and ignorance, instead of freedom we suffer under neo-feudalism and global totalitarianism. The Enlightenment was met by many great philosophers, ethics, spirituality and virtues. Where are they today?
Transhumanism (for the one percent, anti-humanism for the rest) is around the corner enabled by the twin revolutions of information technology and biotechnology. They will amplify each other and merge. Biotechnology will re-engineer life and information technology add technological enhancements to it, creating Human 2.0, Nietzsche's Super Human, or Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus. The base of transhumanism enablers are disruptive technologies: artificial intelligence, quantum computing and quantum communication, gene editing, nanotechnology.
The rest, now sub-humans, deplorable, deltas will be seamlessly controlled and manipulated living like cattle in the "build/t back better" future.
Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism and spirituality, free market economics, and constant self-critique and science (instead scientism)—was to liberate people from fear, daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, sickness, and an often-unforgiving nature. The one percent know that: benefits of transhumanism for thee anti-humanism for them (us).
One thing seems apparent, the energy and food crisis, the warmongering of an imploding hegemony of the "Golden Billion" against the BRICS, the timely COVID pandemic, the mass migration into, the mass formation of, the induced mass poverty in the West have happened not by accident. They have been utilizing the mentioned disruptive technologies already.
Recently I read in a medical paper that the successful application of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 has further validated the platform and opened the floodgates to mRNA vaccine's potential in infectious disease prevention, especially in the veterinary field for Emerging Animal and Zoonotic Diseases. After the biggest medical human experiment of mankind. Nice to know our place.
Nearly finished reading "The Psychology of Totalitarianism", but couldn't wait for the end before writing a review and sharing it with my friends. So well done! https://dave.marney.org/overcoming-mass-fear/
I'm sure I found the original root explanation for the mass formation. It is caused by mechanistic reasoning, but then there is an underlying cause for the mechanistic reasoning as well.
People like to think of choosing in terms of figuring out the best option. There is enormous psychological pressure and appeal related to that idea. Because of this psychological force, people then become to fundamentally define choosing in terms of figuring out the best result.
That is however a logic error. To choose in terms of what is best, is a conflation between the moral advice to do your best, and the barebone logic of choosing. So I am saying it is not an error to choose in terms of what is best, it is only an error to make choosing in terms of what is best the fundamental definition of choosing. To choose in terms of what is best, is a complex way of choosing, based on the fundamental definition of choosing in terms of spontaneity.
Very weird things start to happen, when you fundamentally define choosing in terms of figuring out the best result. In the oxford dictionary, which is also the dictionary google uses, the verb choose is defined as: pick out (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.
For example, consider this: Say that I choose to rob a bank. Then according to oxford I "did what was best or most appropiate". I choose to drink from the toilet, then again, according to oxford "I did what was best or most appropiate". Regardless of what I choose, when my conscience consults the definition that I use of the verb choose, then my conscience always messages back, great!, you did what is best!
The mechanistic thinking is directly caused by defining choosing in terms of what is best. Because then choosing becomes to be conceived of as like a chesscomputer calculating a move, in a completely forced, and therefore, mechanistic way.
Actually you can really only understand about these errors if you know the correct definition of choosing to begin with. The correct definition is something like, choose: to make one of alternative possible futures the present. So choosing is essentially spontaneous.
Then the most important aspect of choosing is that the decisionmaker can only be identified with a chosen opinion. That is how subjectivity works. For example, emotions like love and fear, personal character like cowardice and laziness, they are attributes of a decisionmaker, and therefore they can only be identified with a chosen opinion. Any and all subjectivity works this way, that a subjective opinion is chosen, and that the opinion expresses something about a decisionmaker.
For example, to say a painting is beautiful. The opinion is chosen, in spontaneous expression of emotion with free will. The opinion expresses a love for the way the painting looks, on the part of the person that chose the opinion.
There is then a subjective part of reality, a spiritual domain, which consists of all that part of reality that chooses. What is in this spiritual domain, is a matter of chosen opinion.
The chosen part of reality, is then the objective part of it. A fact is obtained by evidence of a creation forcing to produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it, in the mind. Which is the wellknown correspondence theory, but then restricted to creations.
I see a glass on the table. The words basically provide a 1 to 1 corresponding model of the actual glass that is on the table. A copy from the universe proper, to the universe of mind.
Now put subjectivity and objectivity together in one conceptual scheme, then you get:
1. Creator / chooses / spiritual / subjective / opinion
2. Creation / chosen / material / objective / fact
Which is obviously creationism. So then creationism is really the better alternative to materialism, which materialism validates the concept of objectivity, but does not validate the concept of subjectivity.
And the better alternative to postmodernism, which basically asserts that subjectivity is inherent in statements of fact, but does not really validate either concept of fact or opinion, but rather assumes it without explanation.
Creationism validates both concepts of subjectivity and objectivity, each in their own right, with their own rules, and their own domain.
Creationism which is almost universally discarded in academics, and very strenously opposed by many in academics. Which says much about the capability of academic people to make subjective judgments.
In nazi ideology, the personal character of people was regarded to be established as a matter of fact of racial science. This was the basis of nazism, according to the handbook for schooling the Hitler youth. The book even starts out with the title to the introduction "factual outlook on life".
This made the nazis have very hard emotionless judgments on people's personal character. Because of transposing the logic of objectivity, over what is really a subjective issue. Supposedly the hard judgments provided the attitudes for warmongering and genocide.
So you can chew on this idea of fundamentally defining choosing in terms of what is best, and see things in relation to this, and get lots of apparently meaningful insights about the psychology of it.
Could it be said that the covid totalitarians are very overachieverisly doing their best? Sacrificing themselves and everyone else, for the best?
Or, did the Mao communists who melted perfectly good steel equipment, like farm equipment, in order to produce more steel, were they overachieverishly doing their best?
And would defining choosing in terms of figuring out the best result, be related to inferiority / superiority complexes, related to the worse and better options in a choice? Such as in inferior and superior races.
Would what is good and bad become to be considered as a matter of fact, just as in a chesscomputer program scoring the most points is effectively a fact of what is good. Do the values that are used to evaluate options with, take the place of the spirit choosing?
And again, what is very good about my theory, is that there is a very large psychological motive. The enormous pressure and appeal, related to doing your best.
Amazing concoction of lies and distortions. Fodder for conspiracy types and those who see monsters under the bed.
Thank you so much for all the work you've done with shining light on the topic of Mass Formation! It's given me insight and clarity about what we can do about it now that we have this framework. https://jamesgovernale.substack.com/p/mass-formation-what-can-be-done?r=q8asd&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web