The Future of Transformation

In this episode, Dr. Sally and Dr. Jen deep dive into possibilities for the future of transformation. 

Transcript

2:22  Sally says this episode discusses the ‘future’ of transformation. The word, trans-form-ation itself is key, describing forms- that are ever trans-forming - as the future arrives, nano-second to nano-second. It’s a one word metaphor, that we've decoded, deconstructed and celebrated over 26 episodes, which have been rooted in science. This episode will be more speculative. We don't know what the future will look like. There is an event horizon - evolution has a veil. We can’t see the future even as we try to bring it down. What we can do is point to some evolutionary mechanisms, or principles. Many teachers right now are looking at the future as a binary - either dystopian, or utopian. We say it possibly be a bit of both. We feel the anxiety of the creeping dystopia, and we also know that something positive is going on in the background. There are several ways to look at the future, one of which is to be a doomer, the other a dreamer. Jen and I will integrate this binary. We need to adapt or die, as Darwin said. Giving birth to anything includes birth pangs, a mess, bodily liquids, screaming, and agony. So we're going to trust in that process. So be discriminating with both the Messianic utopianism, and the Doomer dystopianism. Let’s take the middle path, and integrate them. Einstein said, we cannot solve our problems with the same level of consciousness that we used to create them. We need to change our mindset, which has been a form of modernism – hyper-individualism, hyper-masculinity, pro constant growth, pro constant work, so that the hyper Yang moved out of balance with the yin. Modernism is a patriarchal outlook, which devalues all things yin, and this has led us to a crisis. This podcast aims to resurrect the feminine – thus ‘changing the mindset’, like Einstein said we need to do. Left brain chauvinism took over the world, turned it into an object, stripped all the resources, ignoring living systems, the vulnerable, women, the body and its feelings. Resurrecting these values IS changing the mindset. The embodied philosophy of Integral Taoism takes us there. Sally then discusses the provenance of polarity teachings, and the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, and his “Doctrine of Flux”. He described life as a river process, and enjoyed using trans-rational paradox 2500 years ago. He said that underlying all of reality, there is the connection of vacillating opposites. Whereas Hegel later spoke about the opposition of opposites, and their synthesis. Vernon Dixon spoke about di-unital thinking. We've included these thinkers - and added gender. None of these philosophers spoke about the power-over politics of these opposites. How modernity and patriarchy decided to value the one opposite over the other. Sally ends by citing some of Heraclitus paradoxes, and says the podcast is in a deep lineage, that they are connecting for the first time.

15:08  Jen agrees that one of the paradox’s we are confronting is the tension between a dystopian or utopian future, and how that tension has brought birthing pains, and an uncertainty about what will be born. Another paradox is the developmental trends in our personal lives and our collective lives? This podcast is about striking a balance between being both a healthy unique individual, and also being in a healthy, participatory, relationship within the collective - of humanity, our animal kinfolk, our Earth, home and the universe. This requires further integration and a tolerance of that paradox, which is a meta-model. Transformation is always happening, you can't avoid or stop it - we are being transformed by transformation, and at the same time, we are transforming transformation, influencing the flow with our beliefs, behaviors, choices and our ways of being in the world. So the future of transformation is trending towards more transformation on every level - personal, social, ecological, and cosmological. Yet people and structures of power are often resistant to that flow of transformation, because it impacts their status quo. So as much as we open to it, there is also going to be a force at play that rejects that transformation. There's a tension there. And so our work is to be bridge builders between those points of tension, so that we can create generative change, on all levels. We will experience Super Transformations, that will impact economies, political structures and shift global balances of power, much like the printing press, or the Internet has changed us. The future is going to be increasingly interconnected, systems based, multifaceted, and dynamically steeped in complexity. Developing an ecological consciousness is vital for those of us who are saturated in the modernist mindset of hyper-individualism and isolationism, and as we realize how interconnected we are with everything on this planet. We are to reduce harm towards ourselves, each other, animals and the planet. We have to become become kinder and gentler.

23:58  Sally says the principle dichotomous binary that has driven modernism is the idea of  ‘men versus nature’. When one part of any polarity gets too powerful, it's out of harmony and not sustainable. So bringing man and nature back into relationship, as you say, it is key to the future of transformation. Humans turned up at a very recent moment in our 14 billion years of evolution, and balanced polarities quickly become dichotomous and hierarchical binaries - man versus nature, men versus women, and white men versus every other men. So rebalancing these parts results in huge resistance in some, because of privilege built up in that model. But it's not sustainable. So there will be grief at the loss, and resistance and sadness. So we have to change our mindset, as Einstein said, and the mindset has to be a relational system, not a dominator hierarchy. Parts have to be integrated back into the interconnected ecological web. Sally then describes the four positions of polar parts: 1) far apart – ‘either/or’ dichotomous and exclusive radical opposition, often in a heirarchy. 2) a bit closer together - a workable inclusive ‘both/and’ equal but opposite value polarity, that contrasts and defines each other. 3) even closer - they are di-polar and operate with di-unity– an inter-dependent, complementary ‘system’ of opposites, like AC DC current, yin and yang, they cooperate as opposed to compete, sometimes oscillatory or rhythmic – like light waves 4) unity - the pair actually become conflated identity  - unity not di-unity. Working with this dichotomous binary allows for sustainably for the future. Alfred North Whitehead and Ken Wilber spoke about “ including and transcending” - an evolutionary mechanism, Hegel spoke about synthesis etc, and we need to apply these to not only philosophy but the opposition party, the opposite gender, the opposite race etc - we need to include to transcend. Feminism introduced us to “inclusive” of more “diversity”, because evolution is a movement towards diversity. Sally then talks about how AI understands the principles of polarity which can be interfered with on purpose, and deployed to fragment society. She quotes Jaron Lanier and Sean Parker on how AI deploys our addiction to dopamine, incremental behavioural modification and radical dichotomous polarity to generate engagement as ‘enragement’, to hijack attention. Jaron Lania says, We cannot create a culture that's built on imagination and empathy, if people are constantly being manipulated from some central source,

33:19  Jen says part of this movement towards conscious living is having an awareness of the colonization of our minds and what we're consuming. Technology has brought connectivity and increased understandings - and opportunities to develop empathy, and to participate across cultures and traditions. So technology is positive too. It's lifting up and amplifying marginalized voices, democratizing voices that have been suppressed in the past. This new awareness of systems allows us to build tolerance, and understand the problems that we face, with increased

access to information – but also disinformation. Jen asks how algorithms are going to impact the future of transformation. She describes Elon Musk's neural link, cybernetic enhancements, and the bio-hacking of our own bodies – a future where the boundaries between the body and technology are blurred. Jen then looks at some stats regarding generational attitudes towards having implants. 

 46:23  Sally says change might be a constant, but the speed is not – it will become exponential. Our brains might not be able to integrate it all. There's a lot of mental health issues already around pace. We are fragmenting to some extent, and our attention is scattering. And with creativity, there's always a lag, before the ethics of it’s use are developed. Gen Z is born into tech, but there's also still an innocence with younger people. Children are the future. Sally talks about education and how it needs to teach for imagination, resilience and adapatability - keys to the future. She cites Samuel Taylor Coleridge – ‘Esemplasticity’ - the power of imagination that shapes disparate things into unified holes - empathy. How to survive the future involves how to be flexible, how to integrate paradoxes, how to work with ethics around all this creativity, how to notice where attention is placed, how to manage the body and its nervous system, and its levels of focus, how to encourage imagination, etc. Young people are very open to exploring both their Yin and their Yang. As the stigma is lifted on binary gender roles from traditional religion, and modernism, the future is going to look more androgynous. Sally discusses this and recaps the & points she has made 1) we need to change our mindset (Einstein). 2) Adapt or die (Darwin). 3Doctrine of flux (Heraclitus and all the process philosophers). 4) Tranrational paradox. 5) Working with polarity pairs (Integral Toaism) 6) Kids (education and plastic brains, empathy and multiperspectivalism) 7) Kids (Androgeny, yin and yang, inclusion and diversity) 

55:00  Jen says the key to the future of transformation is You the listener - in your community, bio region, and on behalf of our Earth home. Your work matters, to your family, to intergenerational healing, and to collective wellness. We are literally shaping their future each and every day, with our mindsets, decisions and our ways of being in the world. We are like Time Travelers - we have the capacity to heal the past, in the present, and also envision and manifest a future. She invites listeners to do today something that your future-self would be proud of, time travel to a future self and world that you envision deeply in your heart, and give yourself a big hug.