Previous articles have made mention of the "Praxis Teleios": the effort by this author to formalize an irreligious modality for improving the moral self -- yet actual techniques and applications have been somewhat scarce. The following is an attempt to remedy this.
Morality is a big thing to take on. No doubt about that, not at all. It has been argued on this blog that religiosity,
as opposed to secularism, is detrimental to a widely moral society. This is something that has been addressed, of course. Some initial goals for this methodology have already been addressed: rationality under stress, self-improvement. A stab has also been made at addressing methodologies: meditation as a technique. One thing is definitely certain in this: there is great, great room for improvement.
It is no secret, of course, that much of this author's efforts come from a transhumanist perspective. And I am certainly far from the first "H+'er" to attempt to make a
connection between secular thought and spirituality. One of the greatest dangers of any such attempt is that it might degenerate into something like
Raëlism:
Raëlism is a naturalist[1] UFO religion promoted by the Raëlian Movement, which was founded by former auto racing journalist Claude Vorhilon. Followers, the Raëlians, believe in the rights of individualism, sexual self-determination, distributive economy, and accountability, claiming that this will be fostered by greater intelligences and will bring a new age of wealth and peace, as predicted by the main religions.
This is plainly unacceptable. But how
can one safeguard against the misguided intentions of the followers and/or leaders of a movement (to engage in an act of hubris)? One possible means would be to open the topic to public review, much like is done with a "Wiki". So: openness within "the movement" must remain an additional goal: so that intellectual mistakes do not turn into painfully absurd beliefs. Categorize this one under, "honesty." Of course, so many people
claim that they value honesty that attempts to emphasize it usually are equally absurd.
Entire philosophies have centered around attempting to discern whether or not such a thing as "truth" even exists, or in what form it may. In the end, however, it will always remain at least partly useful to remember that this is a topic that we all understand without needing it to be defined for us. And
that will suffice, given what is to follow.
Another element is the thought that we are, all of us, penultimately responsible for our own selves. We cannot control in any reliable sense of the word anything but our own selves and actions. Many would argue that we cannot even reliably control
ourselves, but the entire thought behind the
praxis teleios is to obtain that control. This line of thinking, while related to "
self-ownership", is not to be mistaken with that ideology. Rather than being a declaration that, "
Self-ownership could be viewed as a decentralized bottom-up philosophy, as opposed to totalitarianism being a centralized top-down system. Henry David Thoreau regarded self-ownership as a key component in achieving utopia, while Robert Nozick, an influential libertarian political philosopher, based his theory of property-ownership on the premise of self-ownership,"(Emphasis added), it is important to recognize that this does not imply that there is nothing outside the self, socially. I.e.; there are so few "absolutes" that attempting to apply this as one is futile. (
Author's Note: Utopia is a good word for the idea: seeing as the word literally means, "No-place".)
So far we have; rationality under stress; self-improvement; personal honesty and social openness; self-
responsibility and individual action; and rigorous self-control or self-determination. Okay, great. Now, how do we get there? For the vast majority of people, the sheer amount of
discipline necessary to obtain such control is not only too great an investment for them, the very approach is so alien as to make it fruitless: it isn't like everybody has a Zen monastary around the corner with
Tummo classes every Monday and Thursday from 7-9 PM. There is, however,
an answer to this problem:
Neurofeedback, sometimes called NFB, neurobiofeedback or EEG biofeedback, is a method which attempts to train brainwave activity, as measured by electrodes on the scalp, and is presented to an individual as feedback in the form of a video display, sound or vibration. If brain activity changes in the direction desired by the therapist, a positive "reward" feedback is given to the individual, and if it regresses, either a negative feedback or no feedback is given (depending on the protocol). [...]
There are a lot of conjectural approaches to this: what one chosen seems to be more a matter of personal choice rather than overt efficacy. They run the range from simple biofeedback techniques which have no cost associated at all save the time it takes to get the practice, to more expensive set-ups that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and require medical training to use effectively, in a therapeutic/clinical model (A trial sample of one such approach, entrainment -- using external resources to train one's neural patterns to specific frequencies, can
be found here -- the actual cost would be ~$50-$60 USD).
The goal, for the practitioner
teleios, is to obtain the mental focus through such techniques necessary to begin to "tie-in" specific mental responses as more "natural"; this is perhaps on-par with "affirmation". This is precisely what meditation has granted the practitioner for centuries or even millennia. Consider it the application of that much-aligned concept,
autosuggestion, to consciously direct the change in a person in accordance with a pre-mapped plan. To be truly effective, however, requires that the practitioner
teleios be proficient in inducing specific psychological responses; thus be able to
intentionally associate specific ideas and concepts with either negative or positive responses, on an emotional level. This is precisely what neurofeedback hopes to accomplish in a clinical setting; however, since it is entirely based on the personal experience, the clinical setting while contributive, is hardly
necessary.
Remember; the idea is to use technology to assist one's self in retraining the mind to associate the following things positively: rationality under stress; self-improvement; personal honesty and social openness; self-
responsibility and individual action; and rigorous self-control or self-determination. It is not enough, however, to use simple "catch-phrases"; the words themselves. They must be "
actuated", or they mean nothing.
The next question becomes: does this sort of approach -- with the use of non-invasive technologies to accelerate or assist the learning process, to reach a level that would be unreachable without said technology or without radical changes in lifestyle -- does it qualify as an early stage of transhuman "application"?
See More:-- On the Praxis Teleios--
On Secular Morality