I probably don’t have the kinds of concepts you’re interested in, but…
Some significant conceptual pieces in my opinion are:
“As above, so below.” Everything that happens in the world can be seen as a direct, fractal-like reflection of ‘the mind’ that is operating (both individual and collective). Basically, things like ‘colonialism’ and ‘fascism’ and all that are external representations of the internal. (So, when some organization is having ‘a crisis’ of some kind, this is like the Shakespeare play happening on stage… playing out something that’s going on internal to the org, both at the group level and the individual level.) Egregores, therefore, are also linked inextricably to ‘the mind’, broadly construed. They’re ‘emergent’ and not ‘fixed’. (So whatever this ‘rationality’ thing is, could be important in a fundamental way, if it changes ‘the mind’.) Circling makes this tangible on a small scale.
My teacher gave a talk on “AI” where he lists four kinds of processes (or algorithms, you could say) that all fit onto a spectrum. Artificial Intelligence > Culture > Emotions / Thoughts > Sense perception. Each of these ‘algorithms’ have ‘agendas’ or ‘functions’. And these functions are not necessarily in service of truth. (‘Sense perception’ clearly evolved from natural selection, which is keyed into survival and reproduction. Not truth-seeking aims. In other words, it’s ‘not aligned’.) Humans ‘buy in’ to these algorithms and deeply believe they’re serving our betterment, but ‘fitness’ (ability to survive and reproduce) is not necessarily the result of ‘more truth-aligned’ or ‘goodness aligned’. So … a deeper investigation may be needed to discern what’s trustworthy. Why do we believe what we believe? Why do we believe the results of AI processes… and then why do we believe in our cultural ideologies? And why do I buy into my thoughts and feelings? Being able to see the nature of all four of these processes and seeing how they’re the same phenomena on different scales / using different mediums is useful.
Different people have different ‘roles’ with respect to the egregores. The obvious role I see is something like ‘fundamentalist priest’? Rationality has ‘fundamentalist priests’ too. They use their religion as a tool for controlling others. “Wow you don’t believe X? You must be stupid or insane.” To be more charitable though, some people just ‘want to move on’ from debating things that they’ve already ‘resolved’ as ‘true’. And so they reify certain doctrines as ‘true doctrine’ and then create platforms, organizations, and institutions where those doctrines are ‘established truth’. From THERE, it becomes much easier to coordinate. And coordination is power. By aligning groups using doctrines, these groups ‘get a lot done’. “Getting a lot done” here includes taking stuff over… ideological conquest, among other forms of conquest. This is the pattern that has played out for thousands of years. We have not broken free of this at all, and rationality (maybe moreso EA) has played right into this. And now there’s a lot of incentive to maintain and prop up these ‘doctrines’ because a lot has been built on top of them.
Why do humans keep getting captured? Well we’re really easy to manipulate. I think the Sequences covers a lot of this… but also, things like ‘fear of death, illness, and loss of livelihood’ is a pretty reliable thing humans fall prey to. They readily give away their power when faced with these fears. See: COVID-19.
Because we are afraid of various forms of loss, we desperately build and maintain castles on top of propped up, false doctrines… so yeah, we’re scheduling our own collapse. That shit is not gonna hold. Everything we see happening in this world, we ourselves created the conditions for.
I probably don’t have the kinds of concepts you’re interested in, but…
Some significant conceptual pieces in my opinion are:
“As above, so below.” Everything that happens in the world can be seen as a direct, fractal-like reflection of ‘the mind’ that is operating (both individual and collective). Basically, things like ‘colonialism’ and ‘fascism’ and all that are external representations of the internal. (So, when some organization is having ‘a crisis’ of some kind, this is like the Shakespeare play happening on stage… playing out something that’s going on internal to the org, both at the group level and the individual level.) Egregores, therefore, are also linked inextricably to ‘the mind’, broadly construed. They’re ‘emergent’ and not ‘fixed’. (So whatever this ‘rationality’ thing is, could be important in a fundamental way, if it changes ‘the mind’.) Circling makes this tangible on a small scale.
My teacher gave a talk on “AI” where he lists four kinds of processes (or algorithms, you could say) that all fit onto a spectrum. Artificial Intelligence > Culture > Emotions / Thoughts > Sense perception. Each of these ‘algorithms’ have ‘agendas’ or ‘functions’. And these functions are not necessarily in service of truth. (‘Sense perception’ clearly evolved from natural selection, which is keyed into survival and reproduction. Not truth-seeking aims. In other words, it’s ‘not aligned’.) Humans ‘buy in’ to these algorithms and deeply believe they’re serving our betterment, but ‘fitness’ (ability to survive and reproduce) is not necessarily the result of ‘more truth-aligned’ or ‘goodness aligned’. So … a deeper investigation may be needed to discern what’s trustworthy. Why do we believe what we believe? Why do we believe the results of AI processes… and then why do we believe in our cultural ideologies? And why do I buy into my thoughts and feelings? Being able to see the nature of all four of these processes and seeing how they’re the same phenomena on different scales / using different mediums is useful.
Different people have different ‘roles’ with respect to the egregores. The obvious role I see is something like ‘fundamentalist priest’? Rationality has ‘fundamentalist priests’ too. They use their religion as a tool for controlling others. “Wow you don’t believe X? You must be stupid or insane.” To be more charitable though, some people just ‘want to move on’ from debating things that they’ve already ‘resolved’ as ‘true’. And so they reify certain doctrines as ‘true doctrine’ and then create platforms, organizations, and institutions where those doctrines are ‘established truth’. From THERE, it becomes much easier to coordinate. And coordination is power. By aligning groups using doctrines, these groups ‘get a lot done’. “Getting a lot done” here includes taking stuff over… ideological conquest, among other forms of conquest. This is the pattern that has played out for thousands of years. We have not broken free of this at all, and rationality (maybe moreso EA) has played right into this. And now there’s a lot of incentive to maintain and prop up these ‘doctrines’ because a lot has been built on top of them.
Why do humans keep getting captured? Well we’re really easy to manipulate. I think the Sequences covers a lot of this… but also, things like ‘fear of death, illness, and loss of livelihood’ is a pretty reliable thing humans fall prey to. They readily give away their power when faced with these fears. See: COVID-19.
Because we are afraid of various forms of loss, we desperately build and maintain castles on top of propped up, false doctrines… so yeah, we’re scheduling our own collapse. That shit is not gonna hold. Everything we see happening in this world, we ourselves created the conditions for.