Afterlife: basic issues at a moment of choice for us and for US

This morning, I posted a collage related to the issue of afterlife AND of 

major historical crossroads going on in the US today (but NOT at all unique to the US!):

https://www.facebook.com/paul.werbos/posts/2957382997625431  

i do NOT take a definite position on which is true: "cosmos as a great mind," or on Einsteinian realism versus some kind of multiverse. But in ALL cases, life at the level of experience and biology, I do assume and build upon the theory of noospheres spelled out in three papers I published last year, which you can see just by clicking:

Quantum Measurement, Consciousness, and the Soul: a New, Alternative Position (Activitas Nervosa Superior) 

The Phenomenon of Man, Revised: Evolution and IT versus Extinction in the Years to Come

Cosmos and History)

https://www.academia.edu/29703561/Rebuilding_the_Bridge_Between_Science_and_Mysticism  (Rose-Croix)

This builds on Dante's basic idea that we humans are "half beast, half angel," and thus that old age is when we really prepare for losing the beast (a major part of the self we know) and becoming something else,  but WHAT and HOW? 

Just a few days ago, at a small meeting in our living room, I got to speak to an old friend who, among other things. led the last major unclassified computer modeling of the global future of the earth (future political, economic, social, technological, etc., future), housed in the Joint Chiefs of Staff after Carter's Global 2000 project died. Like me, he sees amazing parallels (WORLDWIDE) to the standard patterns of decline described by people like Spengler and Toynbee,and a disturbing gap in deep analysis of this life or death issue in recent decades. But I do see SOME hope that big changes  both in computers and in the content of our noosphere might prevent the obvious worst case paths  looming in front of us, which would imply the extinction of the human species.Many are wallowing in the ancient neurotic defense mechanism, denial, described in detail in Valliantrs great longitudinal study -- a  certain path to death as our game changes, as has happened to MANY species on earth before. But I for one will never just give up on light, love and life -- even as "life" may mutate a bit in my own personal case (whether in one year, or 30, not to be ignored in the analysis).

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P.S. I am not a follower of Gurdjieff, but there is an obvious fit between his most important claim and what I see and deduce here: the claim that the "angel" which survives varies a LOT from person to person when they die, and that the noosphere also contains other "cell assemblies" like archetypes which vary in nature from personality images to Platonic forms like the concept of truth (a concept which reflects some very basic principles of any intelligent system, from fish brain to noosphere principles which they also apply to everything else).  (Notice that there is a kind of hall of mirrors effect here, a chain of approximations: from what the brain SEES, to the image it creates in its mind, to the image of the basic principles of HOW it creates the image by learning the truth about what predicts its experience.) 

Some folks basically fade away into dust, like the old musician in the Disney cartoon Coco, but others build more basic and enduring connections -- the great Shrine of Connection in Sanzan Shinto, and the great tree they use as an image (as do the Mayans!!), and like The Green Man (the Druid answer to that tree, a bit more human). Just a few examples. 

what is qi?

You reminded me of a few basic points about qi.

A friend recently discussed modern Chinese attempts to make sense of the age-old concept of "qi," which reflects a deep strain of important experience, but is hard to understand. My explanation:

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One of the first sources which impressed me was:

https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Chinese-Philosophy-History-Economics-ebook/dp/B00GHJH8JE/ 

He was a leading professor at Tsinghua University, then called "the MIT of China," in the days before followers of Jiang Zemin worked to discredit all such "old ideas." He later moved to the US, and found that US students have troubles understanding what was best in China; he has later books which Westerners find it easier to understand, but less content in some ways.    

I too had troubles making sense of that book after I bought it in 1962 or so, as I wandered intoa bookstorein Princeton, New Jersey. But now I especially appreciate the discussion of Meng Tzu (Mencius) and what he said about a high form of mental qi. After years of exploring many things, I found it easy to relate to things which Meng said which even Fung found puzzling. He seems to say that most readers even in China had difficulty because they were more familiar with something more like physical qi. (I also still remember an historical museum in Changsha, which included qi gong manuals commissioned by royalty MANY centuries ago.) 

But what IS qi? I always try to distinguish between the experiences and  the theories, like the news versus the editorials. (When I grew up, there was a clear distinction. Lately I worry.) The EXPERIENCE of qi is what I take seriously and can relate to. But when pompous color blind art critics all over the world overstress primitive theories... I am simply happy we do have better formal concepts available now.

Many folks even with authentic experience of qi (some clearly far more proficient than me in their areas like martial arts)

naturally assume it is a kind of substance or force fields. After all, many people with experience of heat felt it was obvious that heat must be a kind of substance (phlogiston). I disagree 100%. 

I do remember Karl Pribram and Walter Freeman both looking puzzled but then reflective and agreeing when I said to them: "psychic energy is not energy." Freud's concept of "psychic energy" is the strongest, most general foundation of his whole theory of psychodynamics, of how the brain works. Pribram was very proud of his book on Freud, and very sad that the world appreciated his lesser work more than that great work. My chain rule for ordered derivatives (later named "backpropagation" through a complex chain of history) actually came from translating that concept of Freud into mathematics and neural networks, long before any CS people knew of it. This is why Pribram provided a strong endorsement on the back of my book The Roots of Backpropagation which gave that history. 

But here is the point: what Freud called "psychic energy" is at a higher level than simple Hamiltonian physical energy. It is NOT part of the equations of physics. It is more like a flow of emotions (coded in higher order patterns of chemistry and electromagnetism organized as major patterns in cells) than a flow of electrical energy. It is an emergent, evolved phenomenon, just like the dots and dashes of Morse code; yes, they have a physical basis, but no, they are not elementary particles or anything like it. The equations of backpropagation clearly DO NOT obey the energy conservation laws familiar in physics; the level of "psychic energy" (*or resulting affect or cathexis) in mammal brains is NOT FIXED, but varies a LOT depending on the mental condition of the person, as well as physical conditions.  In essence, Freud's "psychic energy" is basically just a set of information signals computed by a mammal brain. 

SO HERE IS MY CLAIM: the reality behind "qi" ("the true meaning of qi") if=s the flow of what Freud called "psychic energy", IN THE NOOSPHERE, which is a higher order organized nervous system just like the mammal brain but more powerful. (Strictly speaking, the word "noosphere" could refer to that nervous system, or that nervous system plus the entire rest of the organism it represents. Both are meaningful concepts.) 

Even "physical qi" is MANIFESTATION of information signals over dark matter COUPLING to ordinary matter, just as our physical body energy is seen when our muscles hit something else guided by our nerves.

So for me, the distinction between "physical qi" and "mental qi" is ACTUALLY not between physical and mental signals, but between different LEVELS of what is totally mental at a deeper level. ONE nervous system, ONE noosphere (in our solar system) with many LEVELS, levels more complex than the simple "mental/physical distinction," but we need to start somewhere in sorting out experience. 

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All for now. 

Best regards,

   Paul 

P.S. A corollary is that qi is governed by that same general equation, with a modulation term (as in my IT versions). But of course, the overall structure and inputs are important to the outcomes.

Why was COP25 such a disaster? How could anyone do better?

First, I owe great thanks to Mike and to Doug for posing the question so clearly and so vividly yesterday morning: what do we need to DO to bridge the communications gap, such that groups like COP25 (the international climate meeting which fell apart so badly this month) can bring forth concrete proposals which REALLY minimize the climate threat to human existence in a way which really works -- minimum cost and delay, minimum avoidable disruption, and deep reduction in risk?

Mike urged us to work towards a "bumper sticker" level of slogan, unlike my talk in Seoul last month ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPccNVHRFIM ). I felt bad that I did not make time to be more forceful about the five key areas for action, which really need the kind of critical professional information which I have gotten access to which COP people don't know about. (See the image below). But Mike is right, that trying to get policy types to count to five is probably too much of a stretch. 

And so, from that discussion, I suppose we need some kind of crusade around the slogan (from the proper elite climate policy debates of 2009): "Instead of what Obama tried to pass, we should have gone for "sectoral legislation." 

And maybe that's what we need to explain somehow. And discuss among ourselves first.

Mike began with the obvious question; "WHY go for sectoral measures? Are the benefits of a different approach worth the risks?"

 

Simplified answer: over 80% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from electricity generation and transportation, just two sectors. (People seeking money for buildings say "commercial sector is 30%". But that's only if you attribute the GHG from the electricity they use to commercial! The data gets tabulated in many ways. If electricity in buildings comes from electric utilities which get the electricity from renewables, using electricity is fine in  buildings. Much of the GHG from industry is for electricity generation and vehicles.)

Instead of asking taxpayers for $1 trillion per year for a carbon tax which has a modest impact on those two sectors, why not pay 10% or less as much to have a bigger impact. WE CAN... if we look are hard and realistic (and global and market oriented) at what can be done in THOSE TWO SECTORS, where I led advanced research at NSF and got to know how things work far more than any of the folks I worked with at EPW knew. (I was the only professional staff working with EPW who had access to the core staffers and analysis in "all three political parties" in 2009, the year of serious climate legislation. That's how I learned how huge the gap is between what we CAN do in those sectors and what they knew.

Examples: on electricity: did you know that Gates has put money in to rescue an 8 cents per kwh proven US technology (solar power towers using advanced Brayton conversion to electricity) which Rick Perry tried to cancel and outlaw, using not market forces  but brute force state power? Did you know that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has authority, under the law and the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution, to provide one-stop approval of interstate and interregional natural gas pipelines BUT NOT ELECTRICITY? (It makes me wonder what Pickens and Dan Kammen of Berkeley are doing lately. Pickens tried to get the law fixed, but right now MARKET FAILURE is the main problem, not the carbon price.) Smiling advocates ask why not just require specific  >50 cents renewable technology everywhere, but OPENING UP MARKETS to allow the low cost solution is what we really need -- We who have to pay, and we who want all the GHG emissions to go. It makes me wonder what Gates' own groups are into... possible allies? 

In short, the cost of renewable electricity varies by a good solid documented factor of ten, and folks who try to get the public to pay ten times what they should have to are enemies of saving the human species from climate extinction, not allies. Folks who overstate the role of rooftop solar in cloudy regions may be unwitting enemies, but they HURT a lot. Confusing folks like COP25 are a big part of that.

As for highway vehicles... I actually WROTE the SBIR research topic for the Partnership for a Next Generation Vehicle (PNGV), and ran it for many years until OGC decided I was becoming too close to Eaton, a company which makes trucks. (No, I broke no rules; I just kept them informed, until they said the line was crossed.) I still remember the EPW hearing where Senator Lamar Alexander (one of the brightest, most honest Republicans) noted how Obama's climate proposal would do almost nothing to reduce GHG from  cars and trucks, or petroleum in general. (Curious how Reid and Waxman used a quiet stakeholder committee with heavy oil industry representation which came up with a climate plan which wouldn't reduce gasoline much. Yes, I met them.) If you doubt me... DOE/EIA and EPA did a joint prediction of what Obama's bill would actually do, and there was petroleum, still big in the year 2100, despite a carbon price of more than $200!!

Specter wanted to introduce a much shorter bill, less than 20 pages, focused just on transportation (a "sectoral bill"), based on an upgrade of a bill introduced by INHOFE, aimed at greater US NATIONAL SECURITY for car and truck fuel, which would have slashed GHG from highway vehicles very deeply while actually saving money for the US consumer overall. I posted that at www.werbos.com/oil.htm. Reid would not let us introduce it because "We have to pass Obama's law first. it's a matter of sequencing." No carbon tax needed!

At the end of the day, I WOULD still view a carbon tax of $20-40 per ton of CO2 as reasonable, as part of the THIRD point below, ONLY because it allows for some incentive for low-cost high-value actions in areas like agriculture and recycling flue gas. Hu of China offered a joint US-China simple carbon tax of $20/ton, eliminating the need for kludgey border adjustment rules, in 2009, but Obama listened to advisors who said this would  

violate Reid's game plan. Maybe Schumer should learn more of what really happened. Would $20-40 rebates be enough for new measured carbon sequestration in those sectors? We don't know; there are times when markets should decide!! But we can do enough in electricity and transportation already to have deep impacts.

By the way, NSF was on course to give even better options, but Lamar Smith killed all that. Long story for another day, like what happened to our access to space (relevant to points four and five, and to US security vis-a-vis North Korea, a subject I have discussed with top Koreans, albeit not by email).

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So: where from here??

For now, Mike is the only real leader in our group on this. but of course, I am eager to help in any way I can. I never forget that this is our lives at stake.