Jesse Pinkman sells Obamacare

Jesse from Breaking Bad tries to help Obama out in this opening to SNL.

Justice Dept. files suit to stop NC voter law

Great news in this article. The US Justice Dept. (DOJ) filed suit today challenging the draconian North Carolina law that would deliberately disenfranchise minority voters. The law does so by eliminating early voting days, eliminating same-day registration, throwing out certain provisional ballots and requiring certain forms of picture ID. The DOJ will also ask that NC submit any voting changes to a federal panel or judiciary, which used to be in the Voting Rights Act until struck down by the Supreme Court. The DOJ intends this as a strong message to any other States considering such voting changes. Kudos to the DOJ for pursuing action against blatant and regressive voting restrictions.

Commentary on integral semiotics, Madhyamaka & involutionary givens

I posted the following in the IPS thread. David said he prefers Wilber's view because it was Madhyamaka. I said:

There are many different schools within Madhyamaka. Generally it is divided into shentong and rangtong. Wilber is much more on the shentong side and I prefer the rangtong.* See the Batchelor thread and its references for that exploration. Therein I explore what I think of as the more metaphysicial view of the shentongs and how that applies to the 'absolute' side of Wilber's work.

* Actually I'm a pOOOntongpa, my own version.

Then I posted this, from Integral Options on the Lingam's semiotics paper:

Transcendental signifiers, signifieds and referents

See the recent IPS postings on integral semiotics starting here with David and Balder discussing Desilet's critique. It goes on for a couple of pages. My response:

I don't think Derrida collapses signifiers and signfieds. My sense is that differance pervades them so that they are distinct yet inseparable, mutually entailing as it were. That is in accord with kennilingus on the relative side of the street. As for the absolute side, there is ample evidence that the Lingam espouses an ultimate transcendental signified in the metaphysical and representational sense. One definition of metaphysics (there are several) is in fact the Cartesian divide between subject and object, absolute and immanent, i.e., formal operations. And there is no question kennilingus engages that sort of reasoning with transcendental signifieds. See earlier in this thread for but one example.

Bill Maher on California's progressive model

See Maher's new rule on CA. All of those socialist commie things regressive hate are working in CA, so they of course must hate them more. Especially since CA has been the bellwether for how the US will go. Some examples of what's working there include gun control, immigration reform, universal healthcare via successful implementation of Obamacare, higher taxes on the rich, gay marriage, medical marijuana, a budget surplus from not only cutting spending but raising taxes, abortion rights and good government for the public good.

Desilet on Wilber's metaphysics of presence

I've highlighted Desilet before but he came up again in the IPS integral semiotics thread. The following are excerpts from a more recent Desilet essay. Some commentary to follow.

“If you want to know this, do this” (Wilber, 2006, p. 267).

"With respect to spirituality and the question of God, this means that in a very concrete sense the existence of God, the ultimate transcendental signified, is, in Wilber’s view, verifiable and may be verified by any person who chooses to undertake the demonstration. [...] It may be safely said there are no set of operations ensuring the level to which any given player can rise. Coaching and practice may be important ingredients but at a certain level of mastery it becomes difficult to instruct anyone on how exceptional greatness is achieved. The grandmaster’s difference is operationalized in game performances yet the secret of success remains hidden. The secret cannot itself be operationalized in a set of words or routines and provides an ongoing stimulus to others to uncover it. The secret is unobservable (say, in the grandmaster’s beetle box) but not therefore entirely inaccessible or untheorizable to the imagination due to its observed effects. This residual or partially hidden genius is anything but irrelevant."

Jon Stewart interviews Richard Dawkins

See part one below. See this link for parts 2 and 3.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Bill O'Reilly is a coward

We all knew this but further evidence comes from Robert Reich. O'Reilly called Reich a communist and when Reich called him on it O'Reilly balked and refuses to discuss the subject. Reich wants to debate him about it and the Factor is scared like a little girl. I guess he remembers when he last debated with Jon Stewart and got his ass kicked. See Reich's piece on it and email O'Reilly to face the music: oreilly@foxnews.com

Facts on Obamacare premiums

Forget the Faux Snooze propaganda, since they are averse to facts of any kind. See this article for what Obamacare will cost, with and without subsidies, and who qualifies for subsidies. The premiums are far lower than the deliberate lies and misinformation, and for those in poverty the premiums could be negligible or nil. A few examples from the article.

Altered states through voice

Driving across the US I had a lot of time to practice eliciting altered states via voice, like mantra but without specific religious mantras. For a long time now I've been experimenting with just chanting vowels, sometimes individually, sometimes all together, just intuitively as I feel into the moment. In every case, whether for a few moments or for a few minutes, it produces a change of state. With more extended practices like on this road trip I've been able to produce LSD-like states of limited duration, perhaps only minutes long.

Fight the regressive obssession with Obamacare

The House regressives voted to shut down the government if we don't defund Obamacare. They are actually willing to terribly hurt millions of people if we don't cut millions off of insurance. This is truly a grave sickness that aims to bring down an entire nation with it. See the below from Senator Boxer and consider signing the petition. Quote:

There they go again. The House Republicans just voted to try and shut down the government unless they get their way on defunding Obamacare. Let's be clear:

• They had already tried to repeal Obamacare 41 times -- and failed.
• They had already taken it all the way to the Supreme Court -- and lost.
• They had already run a 2012 presidential election campaign on that platform -- and were defeated.

Clearly, none of that was enough for them. So now they're willing to shut down the government at midnight on Sept‌ember 30 unless they get their way.

Enough is enough. Will you stand with me and Mayor Cory Booker -- a great friend and fighter for the people whom I hope will join me in the Senate soon -- to tell the Republicans to end their obsession with 

Obamacare and stop playing politics with a government shutdown?

Join Cory Booker and me today to tell the GOP: End your obsession with repealing Obamacare, and stop playing politics with a government shutdown!

Heart of the sunrise

On the road at dawn this morning from Nashville to Memphis there was heavy fog. The sun was due to rise at any moment but it wasn't apparent in the dark, swirling and mysterious mist. So I put on the Yes song above, peaked a hill, and came out of the fog ans the sun danced above the horizon to the music. It was a glorious sunrise.

Jim Wallis on food stamp cuts

See his article here, which was posted before the House vote that occurred later in the day and they indeed cut $40 billion from the program over 10 years. As Wallis attests, 72% of those in the program are working and have children. They are not the lazy slackers getting over on the system as regressives portray. They just don't make enough money to properly feed their family working at the likes of Walmart, which keeps them in poverty despite working full-time. And food stamps are anything but living high on the hog, as it provides about $1.50 per meal per person.

More on integral semiotics

Continuing the discussion in this IPS thread. My first impression reminds me of Edwards' criticism of putting holons in quadrants rather than each holon having 4 quadrants. I think this applies to referents as well, in that each referent has 4 quads. Thus each referent has individual and social signifiers and signifieds in their respective quadrants. That is why referents can have kosmic addresses in a variety of quadrants, levels, lines etc.

Bryant's Borromean knot domains works better in this regard, as they don't track equivalently to the quadrants. He locates the referent in the Real domain and the Real can be both actual and virtual. We might therefore say that the Real has signifiers and signifieds, whether it is actual or not. As can the other two domains as well, given the withdrawn virtual of any domain in the 'center' of differance, itself being actual and virtual.

Metaphysical Freemasonry

The following is a strong reason I gave up Freemasonry and related wesoterica after I went postmetaphysical. From Mackey’s The Symbolism of Freemasonry, the section on The Lost Word:

 

“From the very commencement of his career, the aspirant is by significant symbols and expressive instructions directed to the acquisition of this divine truth; and the whole lesson, if not completed in its full extent, is at least well developed in the myths and legends of the Master's degree. God and the soul—the unity of the one and the immortality of the other—are the great truths, the search for which is to constitute the constant occupation of every Mason, and which, when found, are to become the chief corner-stone, or the stone of foundation, of the spiritual temple—‘the house not made with hands’—which he is engaged in erecting.”

Metaphysical semiotics

See Balder's latest series of IPS posts on semiotics starting here. Indeed, as earlier in the thread attests, Kennilingam does maintain a transcendental signified that is 'experienced' by privileged and direct access. Hence he maintains the critique only on the relative side of the street while the absolute side transcends it. And this supposed nondual relation is exactly a metaphysics of presence. I'm sure we have amply demonstrated in the forum how to have a postmetaphysical metaphysics of the Real that avoids such claims to 'presence.' And the Lingam is literally only halfway there with his mixed bag. Perhaps we might call his version metaphysemiotics? Pronounced meta-FIZZ-em-ee-ah-tics.

Amber Riley

Opening night on Dancing with the Stars and Amber comes out with three 9s. That has never before happened on the show, scores that high that early. She is going to be one to watch this season. The dancing starts at around 1:20 if you want to skip the hype.

Senator Warren on the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act

From Senator Warren's email. Click on the blue text if you want to sign her petition.

I partnered with Senators John McCain, Maria Cantwell, and Angus King to offer up one potential way to address the Too Big to Fail problem:  the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. It's time to separate boring commercial banking from risky investment banking once again.

We all remember the darkest days of the financial crisis five years ago. Credit dried up. The stock market cratered. Millions of people lost their jobs. Billions of dollars in retirement savings disappeared. There were legitimate fears that the dominos of our financial system would never stop falling, and we were heading into another Great Depression. On many of these fronts, we've made real progress. The Dodd-Frank Act was the strongest financial reform law in three generations. If I had been in the Senate three years ago, I would have voted for it proudly.

House Committee on climage change

The following is from Organizing for Action:

Readiness potential don't mean shit

See this prior post on Peter Tse's new book on the neuroscience of free will along with a YouTube talk. In this much shorter video he did an experiment that dissociates the readiness potential from the will and undermines Libet's research, the foundation for claims against free will. His claim is similar to Schurger et al in this post which also showed that the readiness potential has nothing to do with either the action or the will, just being spontaneous fluctuations. Yes, this is verifiable scientific tests. Go forth, reproduce them, validate the results. If you're not so attached to your Libet delusion that you are incapable of overcoming confirmation bias, that is.

What middle class?

Ministry of Truth posted this on the Daily Kos. Amen brother! A few excerpts follow but go read his superb sermon on the nonexistent middle class. Alleluia and glory be unto man.

"You can't tell me there is a middle if 4/5ths of us are almost poor. How can their be a middle when 80% of Americans are poor or will be poor at some point in the future. If we are all poor or near poor than poor is the new middle. There is a 'working class' and the wealthy, that is it. The middle class is DEAD. And everyone, specifically Democrats, need to stop pretending otherwise.

"In High School Econ 101 we were taught that there are poor people and working poor people. Working poor people have jobs but are still poor. If we are to cling to the notion of a mythical middle than we must admit that working poor IS the new middle class, and that means there IS no middle class because you are still fucking poor.

The Lost Symbol

I'm reading Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol, about Freemasonry and Washington DC. It is related to  this IPS thread because it's about the mystical tradition of Freemasonry that is imbued in the buildings and lay-out of DC and the very origins of the US. Part of its mythology is that via certain procedures we can attain to mystical states that attune us to ultimate reality and our actual apotheosis. Oh yes, this is Freemasonry as I well know from the inside. But now I'm much more in line with the protagonist of the story, Robert Langdon, who said:

"Let's just say I'm a skeptic [...] I have never seen anything in the real world to suggest the Ancient Mysteries are anything other than legend--a recurring mythological archetype" (99). [...] "He's made the same error many zealots make--confusing metaphor with literal reality" (100).

Which is not to say I scoff at meditative or mystical states and their beneficial effects. This thread is ample evidence that I take them quite seriously. I just don't see them as inflated powers or enlightenment, much less apotheosis, portrayed in the traditional literature both east and west.

The myth of the free market

Robert Reich comments on this myth here. Regressives think of the free market as a metaphysical given, as if it existed by preordination, a gift from God on high that is of the very nature of things. To see its inequities or try to change them is literal anathema and evil. If one cannot make a living in the free market then it's their own damned fault and the deserve what they get. Same of course with the rich. It's the way of nature if not of God, and its survival of the fittest and all that. 

More on free will

See this talk by Susan Blackmore on free will. We had a previous discussion on free will here. Near the end of it was a link to Thompson's YouTube series on the topic from his combined neuroscientific and Buddhist perspective. And here is the Thompson thread, where he uses Damasio's ideas to elucidate top-down causation, which presupposes ipseity and will. I personally prefer these approaches to Blackmore's more traditional Buddhist no-self perspective. Blackmore mentioned Peter Tse's recent work, as did I on the previous page for his new book. The New Scientist article Blackmore references requires a subscription to access. I somewhere linked before to his 2 hour YouTube talk but have yet to listen to the whole thing.

Bill Maher on bombing Syria

Leave it to Maher to not only show the folly of this notion but to make us LOL in the process. In the following video he thinks we "need a debate on why we're always debating whether to bomb someone." This incessant need to wreak havoc at any provocation has us looking like George Zimmerman: "Itching to use force and then pretending we had no choice." Who made us the boss of bombing everyone? "It doesn't make any sense; our schools are crumbling and we want to teach everyone else a lesson." Seems the US is the only country that muses out load about who we might bomb next. He finds it much like saying around the office: "Heh, you think we should kill Bob? Well it would send a message to Steve."

Taal

Balder posted this Bollywood movie at IPS. I watched the first few minutes and know I'm going to enjoy it when I have time. I've always been attracted to Indian culture, music, dance, philosophy. It seems there are common roots with my European heritage, especially through Indo-European language. I guess that's why I'm into Nagarjuna's Indian Madhyamaka, and not so much when it moves to Tibet and combines with their indigenous influences.

Laske on developmental paradigms

Some excerpts from Otto Laske’s article in the Aug/Nov ’13 issue of ILR follow. The first 2 paragraphs question the scientific or ‘objective’ facts claimed by developmentalists and see them more as a product of their unconscious societal biases. One of those biases is that very blindness in accepting the modernist (formal) premises of a pure objectivity apart from more subjective biases, as if science or math could get outside of context and determine the final ‘truth’ of things. Such a blindness then doesn’t even recognize the societal shifts necessary for personal transformation, instead assuming that it’s all a personal quest and responsibility, the very values inherent to that status quo, modernist and capitalist system that only accepts personal responsibility as legitimate via this formal and metaphysical logic. All we need do is get them to personally grow and send them back into the shark-pit of the capitalist workforce, as if they then have the personal power and will to overcome it.

Another example of that is the incessant obsession with classification in the 3^rd paragraph, and that those classes are rigidly structured with clear dividing lines: you’re either in the classification or not. Laske doesn’t see this a representative of dialectical thinking but a continuation of formal logic. And this maintains the hierarchical status quo of business as usual, with the ‘leaders’ in charge as they should be. However once we ‘enlighten’ them with personal growth this will of course trickle down to the rest of us and make our lives better? Instead it reinforces the very formal and modernist notion of hierarchical business relationships in the first place and completely misses the P2P boat of the actual next phase of societal development.

Note: Also see this post and following for more on Laske.

Laske:

Reality Check on liberal/conservative

Continuing this post, the following is an excerpt from the book Reality Check which supports these studies:

“Mooney (2012) also describes research which shows that conservatives (especially modern Republicans) are particularly prone to deny scientific realities such as evolution or climate change. […] Conservatism also tends to be associated with a variety of other personalty traits, including dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity and uncertainly, fear of death, fear of change, less openness to new experiences, less integrative complexity in their thinking, less nuanced thinking, more need for so-called closure, and so on. Liberals, on the other hand are characterized by some of the opposite personality traits: rejection of dogma, tolerance of ambiguity and uncertainly, less fear of death or change, more openness to new experience, curiosity about the world, and more complex and nuanced thinking without the need for simplicity or closure” (300).

'Power' to the people

From the video below:

“All through history when communication revolutions merge, converge, and join with energy revolutions it changes the economic footprint, paradigm. It actually changes consciousness, it changes our temporal relationships, our spatial relationships in very fundamental ways” (3:45).

He argues that how the internet is organized has had this effect. As we use it it changes the way we process, communicate, think, be. It is just now merging with the new energy regime which will further inculcate the P2P meme when we literally give 'power' to the people.

Joking Bad

If you are a Breaking Bad fan like I am you'll likely enjoy Fallon's parody:

Questions about the Real

In this IPS post Balder explains the basics of Bhaskar's notions of the real, actual and empirical. I responded and we had an exchange, some of which follows. See the link and following for the rest of the conversation.

Me: So we might draw out into the actual and empirical some latent real potentialities via controlled experiments. I presume though this is not to say that we can draw out all of the latent real potentials if we could but devise enough experiments? Bryant might say that this withdrawn real (in distinction from the actual real) is virtually infinite.

A comment on the actual/empirical. The cognitive unconscious, for example, has quite a bit of actuality of which we can infer empirically though not experience directly. Which of course helps us tremendously in using such data to curb the overstatements of phenomenological access to postmetaphysically ground claims of god or nirvana or the causal. But then there is the transcendental deduction of what must be necessary to get the actual going. So is this part of Bhaskar's real or actual?

We see this explored in Bryant and DeLanda, that we have withdrawn and virtual generative mechanisms that we infer from traces in the actual, like attractors. According to them such attractors never enter into the actual and hence the empirical, yet it seems we can empirically use them anyway.

Jon Stewart on regressive response to Syria

In this video Stewart first points out that the idea of Syria surrendering its chemical arsenal to international authorities came from an off-the-cuff and cynical response from US Secretary of State Kerry, when asked what Syria could do to avert a military strike. Kerry completed that sarcastic statement with "it can't be done." Lo and behold Russia picks up on the wise crack, takes it seriously, then offers it as its own idea and Syria agrees to it! So here we have a situation that averts violence and achieves the effect of what the US wanted, which is to prevent Syria from using chemical weapons again. You'd think that was a win-win for everyone.

Is math invented or discovered?

Some excerpts of this article follow. Recall my criticism (real/false reason) of the math basis of the Model of Hierarchical Complexity, which has metaphysical, Platonic bases.

"A recent development within the last century was the discovery of fractals. Beautiful complex patterns, such as the Mandelbrot set, can be generated from simple iterative equations. Mathematical Platonists eagerly point out that elegant fractal patterns are common in nature, and that mathematicians clearly discover rather than invent them. A counterargument is that any set of rules has emergent properties. For example, the rules of chess are clearly a human contrivance, yet they result in a set of elegant and sometimes surprising characteristics. There are infinite numbers of possible iterative equations one can possibly construct, and if we focus on the small subset that result in beautiful fractal patterns we have merely seduced ourselves.

Evolution doesn't need a skyhook

My response to Joseph's post here follows, when he asked where neural nets come from.

From a long process of evolution that does just fine without any skyhooks or involutionary givens including archetypes. I think you'll find more of the 'general' complexifiers, including Cilliars, have no need for such contraptions, that evolution is sufficient for the process, including genetics. The latter also evolved and is not an a priori given, and is still evolving.

See Complexity and Pomodernism, the section "learning through selection" starting at 100. E.g.:

The Black NRA

According to the NRA we all have the right to bear arms, right? Everyone, up to an including young black men, right? Hence this public service announcement for the Black NRA. Let's see how quickly the regular NRA embraces this.

 

Corporate capitalism's track record

See this report by the Institute for Policy Studies. They examined the performance of 241 CEOs who were among the highest paid. The capitalist rationale is that they deserve it because they produce value not only for their shareholders but for society and the economy as a whole. They earned their merit pay, right? Not so says the report, in fact to the contrary. Nearly 40% were bailed out, booted or busted. It's cronyism and corruption that rules the day for many. I'm also wondering though about the other 60%, if they are on the straight and narrow. And even if so, do they 'deserve' such high paychecks while the real income of the 99% is going down, not addressed by this article.

David Loy on Buddhism, duality, transformation & social justice

Balder posted a Loy video talk in this post. I commented on it in the linked thread as well as the IPS anti-capitalism thread, both commentaries enclosed below.

After listening to the first few minutes a couple of comments. He starts by noting that Buddhism's defining characteristics are impermanence and co-dependent arising. (I'd even call these characteristics of postmetaphysics, in that there is no utterly transcendent, permanent or unchanging anything.) Then he discusses how Buddhism must itself exemplify those characteristics when it enters new cultures. Hence it syncretized with Taoism in China and with Bon in Tibet. However if in the syncretization process it takes on characteristics that are not impermanent and/or co-dependent arising then it cease to be Buddhism per se. It could be a mix of Buddhism and something else, part of each, but it loses that essenceless 'essence' or groundless 'ground,' at least in some respects and contexts. We see this is kennlingus, for example, which mixes Vedanta and Buddhism and thereby the model has both elements of metaphysics and postmetaphysics.

Burn it down

Onticological semiotics

 From a recent Bryant blog post:

"This is the point behind the borromean critical theory I’ve been talking about. The knot of borromean critical theory (not to be confused with Lacan’s knot), is meant to emphasize that the three orders simultaneously overlap and interpenetrate and are autonomous. It is a logic of the both/and, not the either/or. What it tries to reject is any of the three orders as being treated as foundational to the others. The order of the symbolic (S) is the order of signs, signifiers, language, meaning. [...] The order of the imaginary (I) is the order of phenomenological lived experience. The order of the real (R) is the order of the physical, natural, or material investigated by biology, physics, chemistry, and neurology."

Buddhism and the groundless ground

In this IPS thread Balder linked to a David Loy video. After listening to the first few minutes a couple of comments. He starts by noting that Buddhism's defining characteristics are impermanence and co-dependent arising. (I'd even call these characteristics of postmetaphysics, in that there is no utterly transcendent, permanent or unchanging anything.) Then he discusses how Buddhism must itself exemplify those characteristics when it enters new cultures. Hence it syncretized with Taoism in China and with Bon in Tibet. However if in the syncretization process it takes on characteristics that are not impermanent and/or co-dependent arising then it cease to be Buddhism per se. It could be a mix of Buddhism and something else, part of each, but it loses that essenceless 'essence' or groundless 'ground,' at least in some respects and contexts. We see this is kennlingus, for example, which mixes Vedanta and Buddhism and thereby the model has both elements of metaphysics and postmetaphysics.

Regressive rationalization

Defined Lines (Blurred Lines parody)

Love it, strong women respond to Robin Thicke's misogynistic bullshit.

Tangled knots

More thoughts on this previous post, responding to Joe again. The only appeal to authority I see Joe is that you accept the Sefer Yetzirah and its Cube attributions as if they are a given. I'll grant that you are making a good case for recontextualizing it in postmetaphysical terms given the SY premises and attributions. It's just that perhaps the SY and the Cube itself could undergo some further development and even transformation?

As some possible examples of the last comment, note that only the consonants are used in the basic  Hebrew alphabet (with the exception of Aleph). Of course that language further developed to add marks in certain places to indicate the vowels, but originally the alphabet was based on consonants. I don't know the historical reasons but some of the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo I've heard is to hide the correct pronunciation of 'magic' words which actually create things out of thin air, so the vowels and their placement was kept hidden. Whatever the reason, what if we add the vowels into the Cube, since there are only 22 places for attributions?

Little Boxes

My last post reminds me of this song:

Confirmation bias and bad fits

You know that human propensity to make everything fit your worldview whether it does or not? It's called confirmation bias. We all do it but some are more apt to change their worldview when confronted with facts contrary to it. (Remember these studies?) This is what I often see even in so-called evolutionary circles when we might expect them to be more open to changing views on the basis of new evidence, since they tend toward the more educated and more 'liberal' orientations. But this is overirdden by our lower evolutionary impulses especially when we adopt metaphysical systems that arose in those wordspaces. So it is with Wilber's mixed bag of both metaphysical and postmetaphysical enactments. And those trying to incorporate and recontextualize metaphysical frames into the postmetaphysical.

One example is Joseph commenting in this IPS post. My response follows:

Reality Check

I'm excited about this new book I borrowed from the library: Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future by Donald Prothero. There are chapters on climate change, religion, AIDS deniers, astrology, peak oil and more. This is going to be really good. From the Foreword on 9/11 conspiracies:

"What is the evidence for this conspiratorial claim? There is no positive evidence whatsoever--no security camera videotape or people planting explosive devices, no explosive device debris in the World Trade Center ruins, no letters, emails, memos, or documents of any kind, no confessions by conspirators or their friends, family, or colleagues who might have overheard a clandestine conversation, and no one coming forward to tell all in a book or on a television talk show about what they saw or heard. Nothing."

Shentong and Vedanta

Balder replied here on Wilber's possible shentong view. I replied:

Yes, I go into the history of the shentong/rangtong debate in the Batchelor thread. So technically shentong is 'Buddhism' but many within that tradition, including Batchelor, see shentong as a return to Vedanta. For example this post from the referenced thread specifically naming Wilber (though misspelled):

In the thread where Pepper criticizes Wallace, Batchelor commented in the original linked discussion. I copied some of Batchelor's comments in the Pepper thread below, with some additions. He said:

Same old metaphysics of presence

Continuing from the last post (and in the IPS integral semiotics thread), from p. 3 of "Integral Semiotics":

“The net result, at supermind, is that all of the basic rungs or basic structures—and all of the major states—are still in existence, and now  fully integrated [….] and is grounded in ever‑present pure Presence […] and all that remains is the freely arising, self-manifesting, self-liberating structures and states of consciousness, which plug the individual into all of the realms (worldviews, domains, states, conditions, and levels) of the entire Kosmos. The Awakened individual’s Kosmic Address includes the Kosmic Address of every phenomenon in the universe.”

Metaphysics of presence? Also recall this post from the critical realism thread, at least consistent with this metaphysics:

The future of spirituality?

See the short video below with the same dualistic notions. Emptiness is not unchanging; it's very definition in Buddhism is impermanence and dependent arising. Any Buddhism that posits an unchanging emptiness is not only not the fourth turning but goes back to Vedanta or no turning. See the Batchelor thread for a more in-depth discussion.

From the Integral Life ad:

“The enlightened person of today and of 2,000 years ago are equally free,”  meaning it's the same on the absolute side of the street as it's always been. "Absolute truth, the realm of formless emptiness and oneness with the divine, was discovered by the great mystics over 2,000 years ago" 

 

The regressive healthcare plan

Labor Day message

This short video is about how unions change the workplace for the better. Do you want a better workplace?

Bill Moyers on the end of democracy

Wow, Moyers starkly and cleary lays it out in this article. Can anyone honestly say this isn't accurate? Some excerpts:

"The predators in Washington are only this far from monopoly control of our government. They have bought the political system, lock, stock and pork barrel, making change from within impossible. [...] They fix the system so multimillionaire hedge fund managers and private equity tycoons pay less of a tax rate on their income than school teachers, police and fire fighters, secretaries and janitors. They give subsidies to rich corporate farms and cut food stamps for working people facing hunger. They remove oversight of the wall street casinos, bail out the bankers who torpedo the economy, fight the modest reforms of Dodd-Frank, prolong tax havens for multinationals, and stick it to consumers while rewarding corporations.

Support low wage workers

Click this link for the petition, as follows:

Dear Walmart & the Walton Family:
We call on you to:

1. Publicly commit to pay your workers a minimum real wage of $25,000 annually so they can support a family, and;
2. Immediately end your attempts to suppress workers’ rights by reinstating and rescinding punishment of the more than 70 Walmart workers who were unjustly targeted for standing up.

Failure to act will result in intensified actions nationwide.