PHL final exam Flashcards
study guide
using one of Murchie’s examples of a super-organism, answer both of the following: [i] how do super-organisms exemplify transcendence? [ii] how is a super-organism like a Type-1 Entity [in McKenna’s sense]?
Murchie’s superorganism refers to a high level of organization between a group of organisms. (Ex. colony of ants forming a bridge or a raft, schools of fish staying together to avoid predators)
i) superorganisms exemplify transcendence by giving up individual thought and survival, and becoming one with the colony surrounding them. The colony becomes the organism. This means that individual organism exist beyond the normal physical level
ii) McKenna’s type 1 entity is rare, but physical. A super organism is like this because they are not often seen in nature, making them rare, and they are physical creatures that can be observed.
explain this quote by Theodore Roszak: “The epistemological systems that have been developed since the time of Descartes have often been ingenious . . . But all of them are marked by the same curious fact. They leave out the Angel of Truth—as indeed Descartes himself did.
This quote is referring to the fact Theodore Roszak think Descartes never returned to the source of his original inspiration. Descartes never discussed the role of his dreams, revelations, and insights, on his philosophy. Instead, he focused only on formal, logical procedures with rational thought.
“This is a fateful oversight by the father of philosophy, it leaves out of account the aspect of thinking which makes it more an art than a science, let alone a technology: the moment of inspiration, the mysterious origin of ideas”
Basically, Descartes leaving out the Angel of Truth means he tried to rationally think of the dreams and visions he was having, instead of discussing the dreams and visions themselves; thus leaving out an important aspect of science
He received inspiration from entity. Get into state where you are open to contact from an outside entity. Shouldn’t we make this part of the methodology. All great minds receive vertical transmission that gives them particular guidance. Part of the scientific method is making contact with something that appears higher than us.
who was Faust and why, according to Sheldrake, is he a symbol of modern science?
Faust is a paradigmatic scientist that sells his soul to the devil in return for unlimited knowledge and power
According to Faust, the guiding spirit of modern science is a satanic demon called Mephistopheles
Sheldrake agrees with this using a paragraph from Paradise Lost. He claims fallen angels (demons) are causes the whole of civilization to ransack the treasures of Earth
Faust becomes symbol for darker side of science. Part of shift from alchemy to chemistry. Stands in for shift to science. Makes deal with devil for knowledge. All sorts of things are sacrificed for knowledge. Science has been moved forward from entity contact. Faust says that the contact is demonic
how are UFOs ‘hermetic’, according to Davis / Vallee?
Unidentifiable flying objects have something in their very nature that makes it hard to analyze or categorize them. This informational phenomena appears with contradictory qualities which says something about the nature of information being sent to Earth from an outside system. The engineer of the message would have to design the meme in a way that would maximize informational spread. This trickster spirit is a personification of the Greek god Hermes who had the special ability to move between the heavens and Earth. Hermes conveyed divine information to the mortals, much how the UFO operates. Hermes personality is mischievous and he is a trickster by nature, softening playing games with mortals. The messenger god, who is responsible for communication between worlds is perceived as a trickster and this says something about the nature of information, UFO’s are hermetic in the sense that they are information from an outside world that naturally take on paradoxical interpretations as that is the nature of information.
what does the ‘U’ in the Hermetic UFO stand for? what are the Ones and Zeros of the Hermetic UFO? why does the UFO appear in this binary form, according to Davis/Vallee?
The U in the Hermetic UFO stands for Unidentifiable , this difference from “Unidentified Flying Object”. The latter suggests that the object is yet to be identified and will be identified given time and reaseroces. However, the former suggests that there is something in its very nature that makes it impossible to categorize or analyze the object. The information appears with contradicting qualities; it is a spaceship engineering to confuse us. Where an unidentified flying object leaves a trail of exhaust, the deep UFO leaves a trail of 1s and 0s. The one is an affirmation of an event presented as a fact and the zero is a denial or retraction of it. This binary is seen with every spotting of a UFO. An authoritative institution confirms that they have detected strange and suspicious activity but then later retracts it by saying it was a “weather balloon”. This format causes controversy which fuels conspiracy as evidence for both the 1 and 0 are equally strong.
“the shaman is a master of polyphasia.” explain.
Phasic means a way of being. Our society and culture in the west are monophasic despite the fact that we celebrate cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity. This celebration of diversity is just a coverup of our deeper monophasia. The shaman, however, is a master of polyphasia in the sense that they are skilled at moving between states of consciousness. Furthermore, the shamans role as a master of polyphasia also includes the spreading of polyphasia through means like iwoska. This is one of the many social roles a shaman plays, they also act as a tribes doctor, priest, political advisors etc. This differs from today’s monophasia where every profession is extremely specialized and each of these jobs are assigned to different individuals
how is god found in the figurants, in the trash stratum? why is god more likely found there?
Gnostics believe that God is found in the figurants and trash stratum. By figurant, it means the background characters or NPC’s in one’s life. The important information isn’t where everyone is looking. The figurants might reveal to someone who is carefully paying attention that reality is not real. A similar idea is applied to the trash stratum, where all the garbage and filth of a society is thrown. Both terms help us understand the gnostic viewpoint that our reality is an illusion and that God is forced to appear in the figurants and trash stratum because they are locked out of this world by a false God. So, God must break into the world un detected through places where no one would look.
define any two of the following three terms, relating them to each other and to Dick’s revelatory experience: [i] anamnesis; [ii] Black Iron Prison; [iii] balking
i) Anamnesis: means recollection of amnesia. Plato believed it to be the recollection of the world of ideas in which the soul dwelled before incarnating in human form. In Dicks view, anamnesis it the waking up from the false reality. it means the recollection of the souls origins beyond our fallen world
ii) Black Iron Prison: the prison world of political tyranny and determinism which Dick was able to see past with his vertical infusion. Dick realized he was living in it and through his fiction, he was writing about it.
iii) Balking: Balking is a baseball term used by Dick to signify rebelling against the BIP. The rebelling could be gentle and could take forms of little disruptions that show that one does not buy into the current narrative and that they will not play along with the script
what, in general, is a naturalistic explanation of religion? Does it prove that god doesn’t exist, if successful?
There exist two categories of explanations for religion. The first one being religious explanations. These explanations use religion itself as an explanation. For example, the answer a Muslim would give for Islam is that the angel Gabriel revealed the word of Allah to the prophet Muhammad. In contrast, a naturalistic explanation of religion uses knowledge of what’s already in our natural world to explain religion. Naturalistic explanations don’t necessarily prove or disprove the existence of God or gods, they just provide a means to understand how religion arose and how it has had such a deep impact on civilization.
briefly explain any two of the following three Naturalistic Explanations of Religion: [i] the gods are anthropomorphic projections; [ii] religion is the opiate of the masses; and [iii] religion is an adaptation that increases group cohesion.
i) Anthropomorphic means to make something human which it is not. Anthropomorphic projection is us humans looking up at the night sky and projecting ourselves onto the cosmos. This explanation of religion argues that God is made in our image and that this highlights the child like condition of humanity Early in human history, we did not have a clear understanding of who we were, much like how a child may not recognize themselves in a mirror and may believe that what they are looking at is actually another person rather than themselves. Anthropomorphic projection is clearly seen when we look at different civilizations. The Greek gods look Greek, the Egyptian gods look Egyption, etc. These were examples of the bicameral man making sense of the voices inside his head.
ii) Viewing religion through a Marxist lens reveals that it is a tool used by the bourgeoisie throughout history to keep the working class from revolting against their oppressors. Religion validates the power structure by giving legitimacy to the upper classes rule. Many Kings have legitimize their rule by attributing it to the will of the gods or God. Furthermore, narratives like blessed are the poor give the working class peace of mind and make them almost accepting of their oppression since in the afterlife they will go to heaven and the rich will not.
iii) Religion can also be described as evolutionary adaptation like wings, or webbed feet which have given humans an advantage. The theory states that humans along with physical adaptations, develop psychological adaptations to survive better. Religion exhibits the traits of a psychological adaptation in the sense that the human species expend energy to do it. Humans expend a lot of energy in the form of time, resources, and man power for religion and religious institution. This is because religion serves a purpose in increasing group cohesion.
How are memes like genes? Drawing from Dennett and/or Blackmore, explain the reproductive success of any one religious meme.
A meme is a unit of information that replicates and spreads through communication from mind to mind, it is a mechanism for cultural evolution. Similarly, a gene holds genetic information that it replicates and spreads through procreation. The difference between a meme and a gene is that a gene is very accurate while a meme is not. Religions can be described as memeplexes that spread through the C-TaP structure like a virus. This virus Is passed from person to person and reproduces and expands through communication. However, the C-Tap structure is not the only driver of religious ideology.
What is a meme? How are religious memes harmful, according to Susan Blackmore? How is meditation a “meta-meme”?
The words Meme conveys an idea, behaviour or style that spreds from person to person within culture. A Meme acts as an unit of carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writings, speeches, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomenon.
Susane Blackmore is spiritual, an atheist, a humanist. She was very critical abut Religious Memes. She opined that Religious memes are harmful. According to Susane all kinds of infectious memes thrive in religions, in spite of being false, such as the idea of a creator god, virgin births, the subservience of women, transubstantiation, and many more. In the major religions, they are backed up by admonitions to have faith not doubt, and by untestable but ferocious rewards and punishments.
What is a H.A.D.D? What are exopsychic decision procedures?
HADD is a hyperactive detection device. HADDs are an organism’s mechanisms to detect the presence of other life in their vicinity. Our HADD leads us to see faces and voices through pareidolia. This pareidolia can be explained through evolution. A human with a HADD that would give false positives is more likely to survive than a human who’s HADD gave them false negatives. Our complex brains would react to these pareidolia in complex ways. For example, one might hear the wind speaking to them on a particularly windy day and then see a face in the bark of a tree. They might equate this experience to being spoken to by the spirit of the woods. Naturally, this can be applied to many different circumstances and it can be seen how a society could form a pantheon of gods through this phenomena. An exophysic decision procedure is outsourcing decision to something non-mental. For example, tossing a coin
Exopsychic decision procedures proliferate when we lose bicameral contact with God. Part of religion is exophysic decision procedures, augustinian synchronicity: flipping bible. Astrology is the most dominant surviving form of exopsychic decision procedures. Praying to god to send you a sign, scanning environment for sign. We don’t think of exposyic decision procedures as psychic
how does Dennett explain the origins of shamanic healing?
The shaman plays a crucial role in human society. They act as the tribe healer, spiritual guider, political advisor etc. When serving their role as a healer, they woul use hypnotic induction techniques to put their patients into a suggestible state and more prone to healing. Over time, nature would select for those who were more suggestible to religious authority figures because for them, it meant life or death. In summary, those who are more likely to go under a hypnotic state under the presence of hypnotic figures are more likely to survive.
What is bicameral consciousness, according to Julian Jaynes? Illustrate by either: i. his analysis of the Greek epics; or ii. his analysis of the Old Testament
The bicambrial represents a time [3000 + years ago] before humans had the ability to introspect or deliberate and had very acute self awareness. Instead, the bicambrial human can be compared to a schizophrenic human in that they leave the decision making process to an outside voice. There are not many robust psychological documents from this time period that can help us understand the bicameral mind. Since introspection is second nature to modern humans it is hard to understand how the bicameral mind worked. The iliad and the Old Testament offer a glimpse into the mind of the Bicambrial human.
i. The Trojan War happened in the bronze age. Though it is uncertain whether the Iliad is an actual historical document, it was written before humans developed introspection. There is no instance in the Iliad of a character making up their mind through thought or deliberation. Instead, gods take place of consciousness. In a schizophrenic manner, gods would appear and tell the human what to do in a time of crisis. Most of their actions were following a programmed route, and fork in the road caused the human to hallucinate visually or auditorily
ii. When looking at the oldest written book in the Bible and comparing it with the newest book in the Bible, a stark contrast can be seen in the psychology of the authors through their writing. The oldest book being written by Amos in 800 B.C feature as very bicameral transmission. Amos acts almost as a radio from God, quoting him word for word with almost no thought or input from Amos himself. This is very evident of a bicameral mind as no deliberation or introspection is taking place, rather an almost schizophrenic thought process is taking place. In contrast, Ecclesiastes, who wrote in 200B.C, exhibits a great deal of introspection. He is very self reflective as he observes the world.
