The Integral Stage

The question of the promise and peril of AI is a proper one for our long-running Love the System series, but we thought it deserved its own spot as a sub-series due to the rapid development and proliferation of Large Language Models and other ground-breaking AI technologies over the past six months. It may be too early to tell yet, but with the clear power of this emergent technology, its potential to take over many of the tasks we used to regard as exclusively human, and its rapid public uptake, it feels like we are on the cusp of an epochal change. How are we to secure the psychological and spiritual health of human beings in the face of such developments? How do we ethically and wisely merge living and non-living intelligences? What wisdom from this corner of the internet -- from our respective integral, metamodern, and spiritual communities -- can help us navigate the monumental challenges and opportunities ahead? For the twelfth episode of The Soul of AI, Layman sits down with Lee Chazen, founder of GliderCell AI Lab, to talk about how artists, creatives, and generalist philosophers can contribute to the development of more fruitful expressions and applications of artificial intelligence, and about his own experiments in AI-related 'meta-fiction.' GliderCell website https://www.glidercell.com/glidercell

For the 12th episode of Non/duality, Layman meets with nondual teacher, Leeza Edwards, to talk about her early formative experiences, her spiritual practice and transformation, and her insights into the nature of nondual realization and its relationship to or impact on growth, sense of self, relational and communication dynamics, connection to ancestry and lineage, and much more. Leeza teaches self-awareness, embodied peace and mindfulness through the “direct path” lens of non-duality -- principally as self-inquiry and meditation via retreats, online gatherings, presentations and personal sessions. LinkedIn page   / leeza-edwards-756b6742   Remember to like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible!   / theintegralstage  

Integral content creator Hoe Math discusses breakthroughs in coherent evolutionary transpluralism, balancing theory with action through a dream metaphor, challenges in modern dating, societal impact of digital media, responsible technology use, and exploring red pill, blue pill, and black pill ideologies.

In Episode 25, Layman meets with Forrest Wilson, host of The Forrest Wilson Experience, to talk about healthy, generative relationships to money; the internal and external conditions needed to shift to new, more value-centered, eudaimonic economies; the importance of the cultivation of, and a living relationship with, financial intelligence; and much more. Forrest Wilson is the host of The Forrest Wilson Experience podcast. After his father passed away in his early twenties, Forrest decided to let go of the idea he had for his life based on the expectations, conditioning, and cultural constructs he took on as a young person and dive deep into healing, developmental, and awakening journeys. After nearly a decade of playing in the unseen world, Forrest has found connection to a tremendous passion for supporting a humanity to live life more fully. By embodying a way of being that is palpably alive, clear, penetrative, and illuminating, Forrest invites folks around him to play all out. Forrest Wilson website https://www.forrestbwilson.com/

The Liminal Café is where the locals of the liminal web gather for coffee and conversation. In this new series, Layman chats with the people and patrons who, for some curious reason, find themselves drawn to this sketchy corner of the internet... SHADOW-WORK, DESCENT, AND DEVELOPMENT IN EMBODIED LEADERSHIP For episode 8, Layman sits down with Ēlen Awalom to talk about her experience as an activist, her spiritual awakenings, and her path of self-healing and development on the way to the creation of an embodied, integrally informed approach to leadership and leadership training. Ēlen Awalom is a technologist, creative (writer, exhibiting photographer, poet), human rights activist, trained anthropologist and start-up entrepreneur who lives in San Francisco, California. Born in Khartoum, Sudan to Eritrean parents, Ēlen came of age in the South Bronx and Northern Virginia. Ēlen's Professional website https://www.elenawalom.com/

Dr. Marc Gafni, world philosopher of 'cosmo-erotic humanism,' discusses collective shadows in the digital age with Dr. Zak Stein. They explore responses to public narratives, valid concerns in sense-making, reclaiming inherent goodness, and moral challenges in a digital era. The podcast dives into confronting atrocities, technological evolution's impact on sense-making, leadership challenges, public discourse dynamics, and ethical platforming of controversial figures.

For the 38th episode of the Integral Stage Authors Series, Layman welcomes fellow Canadian, fearologist, and author, Michael Fisher, to talk about his 2021 book, The Marianne Williamson Presidential Phenomenon. While the book chronicled Marianne's first presidential campaign, and offered commentary and critique on the strengths and missteps of those efforts, it is relevant now as well as she enters the US presidential race again. Layman and Michael explore these questions in the larger context of a consideration of the difference between a politics of love and a politics of fear. Dr. Fisher, Ph.D., is an independent scholar, artist, educator and fearologist and is founder and director of In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute, The Fearology Center, and hosts the Fearlessness Movement ning as a social platform for building community and sharing resources on the impacts, individual and collective, of the culture of fear. He holds degrees in Ecological Sciences, Environmental Biology, Educational Psychology, Education (Secondary Science) and a M.A. in Adult Education and Ph.D. in Curriculum Design & Instruction (The University of British Columbia). He has specialized in futures, philosophy of education, leadership and organizational development and has long been on a healing and recovery quest, engaging in careers of artistry, research consulting, teaching and rehabilitation for youth and their families. The Marianne Williamson Presidential Phenomenon https://www.amazon.com/Marianne-Williamson-Presidential-Phenomenon-Evolution/dp/143317930X/

For the 39th episode of the Integral Stage Authors Series, Layman cozies up in a yurt with Simon Cox to talk about his recent book, The Subtle Body: A Genealogy. Simon tells Layman about his history studying martial arts, including six years under a kung fu master on Wudang Mountain in China, and the path that led him to a deep, graduate-level comparative exploration of conceptions of the subtle body in Taoist and Tibetan Buddhist / Bon traditions. What are the similarities and differences between Eastern models of the subtle body and those we have inherited from the Neo-Platonists? How have these models been conflated in past scholarship? What did Crowley bring to the subject? What are the practical and onto-epistemological implications of a deep understanding of subtle body tradition and practice? What are some promising paths of future research? What does this tradition have to contribute to the rising interest in neo-animism in our time, or even the strange stories about interdimensional beings now circulating in the halls of Congress following the recent UAP hearings? Join Layman and Simon as they explore these questions and many more. Simon Cox, Ph.D., is an independent scholar and translator who works primarily in Chinese, Tibetan, and Greek. His research focuses on mysticism and the body. He is also a teacher of Chinese Martial Arts at the Okanagan Valley Wudang center, and a collaborator at the Esalen Institute. The Subtle Body https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Body-Ge... Okanagan Valley Wudang https://www.okanaganvalleywudang.com/ Follow The Integral Stage on Fathom! https://hello.fathom.fm/ Remember to like, subscribe, and support The Integral Stage on Patreon to make more of these conversations possible!   / theintegralstage   Special thanks and big love to Shai Newman, the LIMITED HANGOUT guys, Brandon LaChance, Mike McElroy, Brandon Norgaard, Brendan Graham Dempsey, Francesca, and all of our other Patreon supporters!

For the eleventh episode of The Soul of AI, Layman sits down with healer, artist, and AI entrepreneur and consultant, Cris Beasley, to talk about the interface of art and AI; the narcissistic dynamics that drive much of our modern structures, and bringing healing to those dynamics; "Letting the piranha eat us"; the difference between artificial intelligence and augmented intelligence; the potential for AI to take over the "synthesizing intelligence" and function of our leading-edge thinkers, and what then is left for humans still to develop and do; and much more. Cris founded a sustainable AI company nine years ago – well before it was the latest thing on the block. It was featured in a cover story of The Atlantic. She stopped Sequoia Capital from trying to build an AI that was obviously never going to work. It was obvious if you bothered to do the back-of-the-envelope math, which Amazon did not do. They attempted the same thing, failed, and wasted a few million bucks. They should've had someone like Cris on their team. Before that, she led the redesign of Firefox support, which resulted in an extra 7MM users per year finding the answer to their questions immediately. Cris was selected to be in the first cohort of ambassadors to the Interledger Foundation. Their $15k grant supported her project about Jungian emotional polarities, Becoming Dragon, which was covered in Forbes. She advises Earthcodes.org on strategy for their regenerative data cycles project, AI for Gaia, in partnership with the Biomimicry Institute. In her copious spare time, she convinces two mischievous black cats to come when they're called, paints with watercolors, makes AI-generated short films, and plays electronic music that takes you into meditative theta brainwave states. Cris Beasley portfolio https://www.crisbeasley.com/portfolio Becoming Dragon Oracle Cards http://www.crisbeasley.com/

The question of the promise and peril of AI is a proper one for our long-running Love the System series, but we thought it deserved its own spot as a sub-series due to the rapid development and proliferation of Large Language Models and other ground-breaking AI technologies over the past six months. It may be too early to tell yet, but with the clear power of this emergent technology, its potential to take over many of the tasks we used to regard as exclusively human, and its rapid public uptake, it feels like we are on the cusp of an epochal change. How are we to secure the psychological and spiritual health of human beings in the face of such developments? How do we ethically and wisely merge living and non-living intelligences? What wisdom from this corner of the internet -- from our respective integral, metamodern, and spiritual communities -- can help us navigate the monumental challenges and opportunities ahead? For the tenth episode of The Soul of AI, Layman meets with musician and systems change thinker and advocate, Speaker John Ash, to discuss the limitations and misperceptions common to popular discourse about AI; the morally questionable, implicit goals behind the development of artificially intelligent agents; AI and art; possibilities for better and more transparently linking AI output to its sources in training data; revolutions in voting and governance systems that AI may facilitate, and much more.