Mind Meld 117 | There Is But One Fractal Mind with Philosopher, Peter Sjöstedt H

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Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt returns!

Peter is a philosopher of mind with a focus on panpsychism and altered states of sentience. Peter is the author of Noumenautics and his work was the inspiration behind the inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak.

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We are not our ideological affiliations or patterns. No matter how long we’ve harbored them or how solid they may seem, they’re not unshakable (though ideas at large are indeed kind of sacred and mysterious). Still, the more ideas take root within us, the more they begin to serve as dogmatic spackle for the bricks of our egos. That’s a problem.

The more we identify with our ideas, the more rigid we become. The more rigid we become, the less empathetic to other viewpoints we are– You see where this is going.

For that reason, the ideological constructs buttressing our ego are worth confronting, surveying and possibly exploding from time to time.

This doesn’t mean you sacrifice your convictions, heal all of your sore spots or drop your psychic baggage all at once. It’s  more incremental, it’s in how you deal with ideological confrontation in the moment.

Ultimately it boils down to this –  will we wield our ideas as tools carve regressive, stagnant tribal borders or as evolutionary tools? In my humble opinion, it is the latter that makes humans unique. It’s what separates us from animals. I mean, there’s no Alan Watts of geese out there elevating the consciousness of a generation of geese. That’s a precisely human sort of magic. Then again, there’s no Hitler of geese out there trying to commit genocide on certain types of other geese, either, so that’s worth considering.

Or maybe it’s not.

Anyway, exploring ideas with nuance and an open mind is an exercise, but it’s exercise that can be quite fun. Especially when you’re doing so with a man as brilliant as Peter Shojedt H. PSH really travels those ideological pathways like a possessed Lewis and Clark of curiosity. He’s a philosopher in the truest sense, the author of Noumonautics and he’s an expert on some of my favorite subjects like panpsychism and the philosophy of consciousness.

Musings in this mind meld 

• Humphry Davy the first scientific psychonaut
• Is nitrous oxide psychedelic?
• Spinoza is celebrated as a rationalist, but was deeply mystical
• Constellations In Travel, or, The Last Days of a Philosopher 
• Monism and Spinoza
• Spinoza’s intellectual love of god and Plotinus’ experience of “the one”
• Three kinds of knowledge- Opinion, intellect and intuition
• Physics is weirder than magic
• Panpsychism – consciousness is fundamental
• Defining consciousness is a very nuanced endeavor
• AI be conscious or just intelligent and what’s the difference?
• Why we need a new language to map consciousness