[Captions] Berkeley Foundations of Mind Conference
Two great speeches at the University of California, Berkeley, 55 years apart.
I’d heard Chris speak and write about the parasitic divergence of mankind since we’d first met through the Prometheus Society in the late 1990s. I was fascinated by the dystopian topic. Could man overcome his self-destructive nature and ascend into an Age of Teleologic Enlightenment? It seemed questionable at best.
The real-world ramifications of what Chris was describing were frightening, and when Chris asked me in 2017 what I thought he might speak on at the UC Berkeley Foundations of Mind Conference, I urged him to speak about this fascinating topic. This crucial presentation was well-received by the audience of interdisciplinary academics and would be expanded into a full-length paper for Cosmos & History. 1
Unfortunately, the audio was so poor that the presentation was virtually unintelligible. After consulting with numerous professional and semi-professional content editors, who were stymied and unable to improve the quality, I eventually found a way to improve it enough that, with the addition of captions, it was watchable and even enjoyable (although the topic is dire). At some point, I hope to get Chris to do a voiceover and plug that in. In the meantime, we have this great brief overview of CTMU Metareligion and how it can be used to create balance and cohesiveness in the world.
This concept, that of a “parasitic divergence” or predatory splitting apart of the human population, was poignantly explored in the prescient novel, The Time Machine by H G Wells. Man’s inhumanity to man and his lust for power has been a popular topic in literature for centuries. In 1962, George Orwell’s discussed the problem in a very practical way in his famous speech, also at Berkeley. In the speech, Orwell related a conversation he had with Darwin, as I recall, during which the pair wondered if humanity could ever extricate itself from this parasitic cycle (although he did not use the term as such). They were not confident that this was possible.
This human ramification of this propensity toward the cycle of parasitic divergence is described in a very general way in this catchphrase that has become very popular in recent years:
Hard Times Create Strong Men, Strong Men Create Good Times, Good Times Create Weak Men, Weak Men Create Hard Times.
But why is this happening? What’s driving this, and how do we stop this cycle? Chris presents the solution to at least part of the problem (religious division/secularism) in this enlightening presentation that premiered on March 12, at our YouTube channel. Please share this (finally) public presentation with like-minded friends, family, and religious leaders in your community. God Bless!
A special note of thanks to Fares Barry for his excellent editing work on the visuals for this presentation.
Although the audio was sufficient, it would be better if it were read again (since the content deserves clarity). I listened on March 12 and found the content to be unexpectedly moving. Which is wierd since I can't explain why this happened, must have been on an intuitive level. Maybe I was grateful for the logos.