08 Symbolic Representation – Transcript

00:14Robert Anton Wilson once remarked that we are trapped in linguistic constructs, the only reality we know is the one we manufacture. We are immersed within a culture of symbols, as Goethers said, everything is a symbol. This woeful abstraction and sheathing of reality destroys the outer world and fills the inner world with emptiness. The more involved this internal representational system is, the more distance we are from the reality around us.

00:41Other connections and cognitive perspectives are inhibited and substituted by the alienation of symbolic representation. Several prominent 20th century psychologists saw that social control requires the use of symbols to disempower and disconnect people from the natural somatic rhythms of life. The most obvious example is our concept, i.e. symbol of time, being completely mechanical and thus keeps us bound to the clock

01:07and never in the here and now. We often say that we don't have the time, but it is the basic reification of time that has us. Ernst Casira said of this distancing from experience that physical reality seems to reduce in proportion as man's symbolic activity advances. Perhaps we can begin to appreciate why language is called the curse of the Kale Yuga. Michael Baxando said, any language is a conspiracy against experience

01:35in the sense of being a collective attempt to simplify and arrange experience into manageable parcels. We tend to think of civilization as an advancement of what came before it because of the illusion of accumulated knowledge which is brought forward allowing us to profit from others experiences as though they were our own. What we are forgetting though is that others experiences are not our own and that the civilizing process is thus a vicarious

02:01and inauthentic one. Civilization and likewise technology and history began when writing began. Technology requires the objectification of things and events to allow for division of labor and its concovidence, whereas history is only possible with the concept of linear time and the keeping of written records. When we talk about the beginning of time, what we are really talking about is the beginning of our concept of time which is

02:28contained within history. With the growth of civilization we can see the increased use in abstract science to point at increasingly abstract reference. Even our concept of wealth has become just an empty symbol which has no inherent value other than that which we believe it to have.

02:44Words were originally only meant to be spoken. This in part explains why in the past the spelling of words was not important. It was more about the sound of the word created when it was spoken. Whereas knowledge written upon a page no longer needs to be remembered by an individual and as a result the individual comes to understand less of what he thinks he knows, becoming more focused on the collection and recording of information for its own sake than on the practical application of it in the present moment. Socrates, even though he was doubtlessly

03:13a great philosopher, never wrote a thing. He believed the written word was left too vulnerable to misinterpretation because anyone reading it may pull from the same words something entirely different than what the author himself intended. Language represents the mind's reification of its experience and analysis into parts in which concepts can be manipulated as if they were objects. As Sigmund Freud put it the whole world was once anima in a full engaging way. With the arrival of symbolic culture the totem animal was replaced

03:42by the name of a god a signpost of the advancing symbolic. It is for this reason that the indigenous elders who are asked to make audio or video recordings often decline insisting what they say must be communicated in person face to face. I wish I could do the same with this presentation rather than from behind the dead eyes of technology. Elden Taylor writes man lives in an environment of symbols and it is extremely important to understand

04:09something about the symbol making process because symbols are the raw material of human thought and all communication. Superficially we think that words are the only form of communication because we live in such a highly verbal atmosphere yet in actuality there is a far greater amount of non-verbal communication going on all the time through the use of symbols rather than words. William Bramley writes the transformation of spiritual knowledge into a system of obscure symbols has had a devastating impact on human

04:37society. This misidentification is so strong today that almost all studies of spirit or spiritual phenomena are lumped into such disgrace classifications as occultism, spiritualism or witchcraft. The attempt thousands of years ago to keep spiritual knowledge out of the hands of the profane has almost entirely destroyed the credibility and unity of that knowledge. In a very deep sense only what is repressed is symbolized because only what is repressed needs to be symbolized. The magnitude of

05:06symbolization testifies to how much has been repressed and buried. Anything we are not in a conscious relationship with possesses us from behind. Paul Levy writes, due to our unawareness of the key role that the psyche plays in our world we experience a dissociation from our own psyche through the medium of the outside world.

05:25When we are inwardly disassociated the external world reinforces that dissociation. The external world is the canvas on which the psyche gives the shape performed to as well as cultivates its inner dissociation. Carl Jung said, people will do anything no matter how absurd to stop from facing their souls.

05:45Numerical symbolism is also of fundamental importance to the development of a cultural world. In many primitive societies it was and is considered unlucky to count living creatures as it reificates the creature into an object. Counting like naming is part of the domestication process. Franz Boas concluded that counting does not become necessary until objects are considered in such generalized form that their individualities are entirely lost sight of.

06:12The act of reification creates a pseudo-existence that facilitates exploitation, cruelty, murder and genocide. As the saying goes it is easier to kill a number than an individual. Perhaps if you could imagine a Paleolithic philosopher and saying to him that there are three trees over there who would find that absurd and say that there are one and one and one and they each occupy a unique place. Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints.

06:39The rules that run us. Language is using us to talk. We think we're using the language but language is doing the thinking. We're its slavish agents. Harry Matthews. The destructive potential of language is contained within the very nature of its representation. Words particularly nouns force an infinity of unique objects and processes into a finite number of categories. Words deny the uniqueness of each moment and each experience reducing it to a this or a that. They grant us the power to manipulate and

07:08control with logic the things they refer to. Language also reasserts the presence of the ego through the use of pronouns creating a speaker and listener dialect. In fact in Robert Anton Wilson's book Cosmic Trigger the final secret of the Illuminati he recounts how he stopped using pronouns for a week and went into an altered state of consciousness purely by changing his linguistic topology. Language by its very nature reaffirms duality because each word is

07:35a signifier representing the signified. If a signifier exists without pointing to a signified then it's regarded as meaningless. We tend to think there is a class of things which are symbols and a class of things which are not but there is not a clear distinction between a signifier and a signified. A signified may be itself a signifier pointing to another signified to which that idea refers is merely another symbol. What few people realize is that even

08:01if I held up a physical cat in front of you it is still just a symbol of a constructed class of animals. Perhaps the most prescient and controversial meme to come out of symbolic representation is that of artificial intelligence and virtual reality which is ultimately a pinnacle of the hyperreal. AI is interesting to consider symbolically within biblical cryptography something which will be looked at later. In the book of Genesis

08:26Cain was the son of Eve and the serpent and stands on one leg. This is a cipher for the letter I whereas Abel was the son of Adam and Eve and he was able to stand on two feet. This is a cipher for the letter A which also metaphorically stands on two feet.

08:43So symbolically with AI we have the two brothers and the alchemical wedding of good and evil combined. As other people might be quick to point out Cain also bore the mark of ill omen which some relate to the introduction of microchips. Consider also that Lucifer is the embodiment of science intelligence and rational thought. AI represents the Promethean desire to bring the fire from heaven so that man may live as a god. Transhumanism can be seen as an updated

09:13high-tech variety of Luciferianism leading us into a post-human condition. As the saying goes better to reign in hell than serve in heaven. Consider also that there are many applications of computerized systems which blur the distinction between organic and synthetic reality. Certain aircraft for instance can be controlled remotely from the ground through a flight simulation. Also notice the rise in violence within video games and the

09:40increasing realism with which it is depicted. To quote Jean-Pierre Drillard to simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. Before its theatrical release avatar is already being filled as a milestone in filmmaking history. The new technology developed to create this film has enabled unsurpassed three-dimensional realism. This massive production marks a shift within the entertainment industry away from film toward complete virtual reality.

10:08This isn't surprising considering that avatars are a key element within virtual worlds. The film avatar is a glimpse into the future of virtual reality itself. To exist within a virtual reality one has to act through an avatar. The word avatar is derived from the Sanskrit avatar which refers to a being that has descended into existence from a higher spiritual realm. Avatar is usually used to describe a spiritual being who incarnates into material

10:34existence and the same concept applies to virtual reality. One descends into a synthetic digital world through their avatar. This theme of descent from high places to lower is seen in the avatar film. The fact that a man goes from a highly advanced technological society down to that of a primitive tribe shows this. Going from high to low is also symbolic of the

10:59mind itself. Now this at Sigoni Weaver says just relax and let your mind go blank in the trailer. The lower emotional base level brain functions are often referred to as animal instinct. This is why the avatar in this film is a human animal hybrid. It symbolizes the fact that living through an avatar is a descent from higher level intellectual brain functions to lower animal instincts. This is a clue to the way in which virtual reality will continue to develop.

11:28It will cater to our most base drives. Entertainment does this already as it plays to our emotions not our logic or reason. By creating virtual worlds which seem better than reality people will become addicted to them. What you see in the avatar film is only a glimpse at the spectacle that will exist within virtual realities. These synthetic worlds will be a trap set up to separate us from our higher rational minds once and for all.

11:56Master hunters prey upon animals. Our lower animal instincts are well known and are now being preyed upon with the aid of science and technology. Engage your higher spirit to escape this virtual underworld. Use your mind to rise above.