Deeper into ecological intelligence with Rich Blundell - Voices with Vervaeke 2

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:09,800
Welcome back everyone to another voices with Reveki. I'm very excited. This is my second
2
00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:15,700
time to talk at length and in depth with Rich Blondel. There was such a fantastic response
3
00:00:15,700 --> 00:00:23,840
to our last Theologos because I believe we actually got into that. That I wanted Rick
4
00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:29,800
to come back and thankfully he wanted to come back. And so we're going to pick up the conversation
5
00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:39,440
and I think what's important to remember is that Rich and I are both coming into this
6
00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:46,400
right very open-ended, very exploratory and we're welcoming you to come along on that
7
00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:52,560
journey and I think that's very exciting. So Rich welcome back. It's really great to
8
00:00:52,560 --> 00:00:53,560
have you here again.
9
00:00:53,560 --> 00:01:00,280
Thanks John. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Yeah, I thought maybe we could start because
10
00:01:00,280 --> 00:01:06,200
ever since our talk last time I've been giving a lot of thought to like why are we talking?
11
00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:12,000
I feel a little bit like an anomaly because I follow your other conversations across the
12
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:18,040
whole spectrum. Everybody from Jordan Hall, Jonathan Pajot, been doing a lot of catching
13
00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:25,040
up on it but then you get into these amazing conversations with your colleagues in cognitive
14
00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:32,320
science and I find those incredibly exciting for some reason. I think I know why. I think
15
00:01:32,320 --> 00:01:40,840
I know why I find them so exciting on multiple levels but I thought maybe we could just spend
16
00:01:40,840 --> 00:01:46,640
a little bit of time trying to figure out like why because I don't really fall into the category
17
00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:52,880
of a colleague to you. Like I'm not doing any research. I'm not doing science. I'm certainly
18
00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:59,400
not doing science and so I just was hoping maybe we could maybe explore that a little
19
00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:07,440
bit. Like why? Why have there's a lot of reasons for me to want to talk to you. I am curious
20
00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:11,720
why you're willing to talk to me and I don't want to put you on the spot to explain that
21
00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:16,560
but that's what I thought maybe we could start with that because that's something I'd like
22
00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:24,080
to know. Well, I mean there's lots of reasons that I want to talk to you. I mean first of
23
00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:32,840
all I do try to talk to people. I don't have to write down for it but the problem with
24
00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:36,920
the word practice and practical is it has taken on such a market meaning. That means
25
00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:41,880
cutting to the bottom line and profitable and instrumentally useful. I want something
26
00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:47,920
that's almost like the ancient Greek word ascesis which is like spiritual practice,
27
00:02:47,920 --> 00:02:54,280
transformation. And so I also want to talk to people who are addressing the meaning
28
00:02:54,280 --> 00:03:08,600
crisis in a way that is powerful, that is both intellectually respectable and existentially
29
00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:17,640
powerful. I mean for me this is the great thing of Socrates. Socrates rejects the natural
30
00:03:17,640 --> 00:03:22,700
philosophers of his time because they're pursuing truth without transformative relevance. He
31
00:03:22,700 --> 00:03:28,080
rejects the sophist because they're pursuing the power of transformation disconnected from
32
00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:33,160
a concern for what's real and for what's true and he wanted to find a way of practicing
33
00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:39,520
those together and that's the Socratic ideal. And so the Socratic ideal that I aspire to
34
00:03:39,520 --> 00:03:47,160
is not a purely theoretical or a purely rhetorical endeavor. It's about something that transcends
35
00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:54,200
both of those. And so I'd like to talk to people who will talk to me in good faith and
36
00:03:54,200 --> 00:04:05,680
in depth and you have about how they are envisioning things and how that envisioning is allowing
37
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:14,840
them to enact a way of life that could make a difference. So for me, I mean, and I'm
38
00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:19,520
asking you to take this seriously. I want to talk to people that are embodying that
39
00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:24,080
Socratic ideal. I'm not saying you're Socrates, I'm not trying to put you into that place,
40
00:04:24,080 --> 00:04:30,120
but right that you are living and I mean this again, in the Socratic sense, you're living
41
00:04:30,120 --> 00:04:34,800
a provocative way of life. You're trying to live in a way that will provoke other people
42
00:04:34,800 --> 00:04:42,080
to live in convergent manner in a way that will try and well, not to put it too grandly,
43
00:04:42,080 --> 00:04:48,040
but save the planet, both save the meaning of it and save the actual materiality of it.
44
00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:55,840
And that seems to me to be worthy of both deep recognition and deep dialogue. So that's
45
00:04:55,840 --> 00:04:58,440
from my end why I'm talking to you.
46
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:05,160
That makes a lot of sense. And it's very much the same reason I want to talk to you. You
47
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:13,600
know, I perhaps it's appropriate here to dive a little bit into, you know, my research
48
00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:19,160
a little bit. Because I'm not really a researcher, but in order to fulfill the requirements of
49
00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:24,200
the PhD, I had to do some research and the research that I chose was to understand my
50
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:30,480
experience of the world. And I know that's sort of that's not quite legit in academia
51
00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:37,960
to pursue a research question that is that is, you know, fundamentally relevant to one's
52
00:05:37,960 --> 00:05:41,920
own lived experience. For some reason, I think that might be thrown upon it sort of crosses
53
00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:48,760
the objectivity line in some ways. But that is, that is what I did. In fact, that's the
54
00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:55,760
driving motivation behind my entire academic career, which is to say, you know, to put
55
00:05:55,760 --> 00:06:04,880
it to put it mildly, it's it's it's unconventional. You know, I had this experience with a with
56
00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:10,240
the 800 pound bluefin tuna that sort of awakened something within me after I killed it. And
57
00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:18,000
I want and the premises that I wanted to understand what that transformation was about, like how
58
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:25,160
this something was communicated. And that sparked in me a desire to know to want to
59
00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:30,280
know how something like that could happen and what it could mean. Anyway, it turned out
60
00:06:30,280 --> 00:06:39,120
uncovering a lot of deeper things that were, you know, part of my growing up part of my
61
00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:47,920
formative years, that I was sort of revisiting in some way. But so anyway, the way that that
62
00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:54,960
also culminated was in research in understanding how engaging with the story of the universe
63
00:06:54,960 --> 00:07:03,680
the scientific narrative that the scientific narrative that's been revealed through science
64
00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:08,120
of how the universe has evolved from the Big Bang till the present day. So that's, which
65
00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:13,560
I guess is, you know, where you end up if you if you want to understand it all, you
66
00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:18,160
sort of have to understand it all. And that's what that was about. And so my research was
67
00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:27,440
about coming up with a way to empirically test or empirically explore literally how
68
00:07:27,440 --> 00:07:33,280
engaging with the story of the universe, the story of nature as a whole could be transformative
69
00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:38,120
to people like what were the elements of that transformation, right? Right. Could they could
70
00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:42,360
they be qualified and quantified in some way? And again, this was really so that I could
71
00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:48,120
understand it. So I can understand so that I can understand like what the lived experience
72
00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:53,200
of that was. And so, you know, without getting into the details, you know, I basically took
73
00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:59,280
a reductionist approach, qualitative reductionist approach and identify so I taught this course
74
00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:02,600
in cosmic evolution where I told the whole story from the Big Bang all the way through
75
00:08:02,600 --> 00:08:11,560
to today. And then surveyed the students who were in this course over the course of my
76
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:20,520
whole, you know, this is a three year study. And got them to answer, you know, in in plain
77
00:08:20,520 --> 00:08:26,240
language. First, I had to first I had to quantify whether or not a transformative experience
78
00:08:26,240 --> 00:08:33,080
happened. And that's something that you can get a handle on by asking people basically
79
00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:36,840
three questions. The three questions that I used as criteria for transformative experience
80
00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:43,400
were motivated use, which means, did you learn something in this course that you then called
81
00:08:43,400 --> 00:08:49,240
upon in an in context outside of the course, where you're not expected. So it's not like
82
00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:53,160
a test where you're being expected to recall it, but you recalled it when you were just
83
00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:57,160
living your life. Right. That is an indication of transformation because it's something that
84
00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:01,840
came to you from the course, you integrated into your life. In other words, it transformed
85
00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:07,480
you. And then the two others were expansion of perception, whether or not this course
86
00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:11,840
expanded your perception, which is a pretty, you know, if it's a cosmic, if it's a course
87
00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:17,040
in cosmic evolution, it stands a good chance of expanding your perception. Right. So that
88
00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:21,360
was the third second question. The third one was about, did it have experiential value
89
00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:25,160
to you? So these are, you know, these are subjective questions. But if you answered
90
00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:31,400
two, two out of three of those in the affirmative, I sort of assumed that you this was a transformative
91
00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:37,920
experience for you. Then of that subset, I then asked deeper questions to draw out, well,
92
00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:43,680
what was the nature of that of that transformative experience? Right. And then just put, you
93
00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:49,440
know, I really just took the language apart, analyzed it, interpreted it, reinterpreted
94
00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:55,560
it, you know, went through the, the, you know, the, the, the process of validating external
95
00:09:55,560 --> 00:10:02,000
validity, internal validity, did all that, and basically came up with a series of qualities
96
00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:08,240
of transformative experience that are inherent in engaging with the story of nature. Sure.
97
00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:14,400
Those turned out to be largely things like understanding causal relationships, how one
98
00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:21,920
thing leads to another, things like narrative awareness, like what, what, when you engage
99
00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:29,960
with the story of the universe and it's new, it tends to disrupt or perturb or ask, invite
100
00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:35,160
you to adapt your narratives about the way the world is. So narrative, you know, narrative
101
00:10:35,160 --> 00:10:41,080
surfaced as this really important aspect of transformation. Other things like expressions
102
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:47,440
of gratitude showed up, like these really like, surprising in some way, but not surprising,
103
00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:52,920
you know, that when you, when you see the big picture of who we are and how we came
104
00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:59,120
to be the way we are in the context of the cosmos, it has a tendency to elicit feelings
105
00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:05,240
of gratitude and appreciation. So things like that. And others, there was another one that
106
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:09,400
that I thought was really interesting that there's this process of insignificance, people
107
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:19,320
will feel insignificant. Yeah. And then, but then often that insignificance feeling would
108
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:24,040
over time, if they, if the student would really engage with the content would actually flip
109
00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:28,720
into a feeling of significance. So if you stuck with it long enough, you went from this
110
00:11:28,720 --> 00:11:34,040
feeling of insignificance to like, well, wait a minute, you know, we actually represent
111
00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:41,600
this story right here right now, which is a pretty significant position to inhabit. So
112
00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:45,880
that's the nature of, you know, as far as my research goes, that's really what I sought
113
00:11:45,880 --> 00:11:51,960
to understand. And then what I tried to do was to take all of that and then reverse engineer
114
00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:58,920
a curriculum that would then, you know, take all of these ideas and these conceptual changes
115
00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:04,880
and actually convert them into experiences that one can have in the world. So the idea
116
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:14,640
was to go from these conceptual understandings of these elements and build experiences that
117
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:20,280
if you can recreate those experiences in a, you know, more informal learning setting,
118
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:26,680
then you could actually get the transformative experience more widely distributed. Now, why
119
00:12:26,680 --> 00:12:31,160
the question, and this is where I think one of the, one of the ways or one of the areas
120
00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:40,680
where what I'm doing and what you're doing sort of find each other, that what is the
121
00:12:40,680 --> 00:12:45,320
point of that transformative experience? Like what is the nature of it and what value or
122
00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:52,640
what function could it serve in the way we sort of live our lives individually, personally,
123
00:12:52,640 --> 00:12:58,400
and then also collectively? Like how would the collective expression of living a life
124
00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:05,600
that's cognizant and aware and feels a sense of participation in this cosmos in the natural
125
00:13:05,600 --> 00:13:15,160
world? How would that intersect with the, the, the meaning crisis basically? I use the term
126
00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:20,720
the Anthropocene as my sort of catch all because I'm in the environmental sense is in the Anthropocene,
127
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:28,520
you can, it's this, it's this idea that the humans have this impact on the planet, like,
128
00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:34,880
you know, this just global scale impact. And I looked at the science of all that and the
129
00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:44,120
way that it's divided up how what scientists do is to divide all of these domains into,
130
00:13:44,120 --> 00:13:48,720
you know, into disciplines, basically. Yes. How is, how is the, how is humanity affecting
131
00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:54,720
the planet? Well, we are pumping, you know, nutrients, phosphates, nitrates into the environment
132
00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:59,340
and that's having a consequence. We are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and that's having
133
00:13:59,340 --> 00:14:04,480
a consequence. We're using land and soils in a way that's unsustainable and that's having
134
00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:12,520
a consequences. We are, you know, there's all kinds of socioeconomic aspects of the Anthropocene.
135
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:17,920
But what I realized when I looked at it is that nowhere in the model of the Anthropocene,
136
00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:24,680
as far as the scientists are concerned, is the actual Anthropos part. Yes. Yes. Yes.
137
00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:30,600
What they're not, they, they, they, science doesn't study the Anthropos in that way. You
138
00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:36,840
know, maybe it starts to in the social sciences and things like that. But, but there's, there's
139
00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:42,360
no real acknowledgement of the deep fundamental ways of living and the beliefs behind those
140
00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:48,160
ways of living that contributes to the Anthropocene. So, so we're, so what we end up with is this
141
00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:54,200
system where we treat symptoms, the symptoms of that deeper thinking as, and not the deeper
142
00:14:54,200 --> 00:15:00,400
thinking that causes those symptoms. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in agreement with them. Yeah. So
143
00:15:00,400 --> 00:15:05,240
there's this sort of whack-a-mole approach that we see all these symptoms like pollution
144
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:14,920
and, you know, economic injustice and xenophobia. And these are just symptoms of some deeper,
145
00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:21,480
some deeper pathology that, that we're not really equipped or prepared or ready to, to
146
00:15:21,480 --> 00:15:25,400
explore until it gets to the point where it's existential, which is where we are now. So
147
00:15:25,400 --> 00:15:30,120
now it's like, well, we need to get serious about asking, well, how did we get here? How,
148
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:36,600
what are the habits of thinking and the habits of organizing ourselves that brought us to
149
00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:42,800
this point? And so this is where I think that it intersects with the meaning crisis. So
150
00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:54,440
yeah, does that give you any fodder to? Very much so. I mean, I think, I think the, there's
151
00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:59,160
so much in what you said. But first of all, no, no, don't apologize. Don't ever apologize
152
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:08,040
for giving a lot of thought. That should never be something we should apologize for. So that
153
00:16:08,040 --> 00:16:12,960
idea, I'll start here, I was looking for where to start to try and thread, right? The idea
154
00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:18,040
that a lot of this is symptomatic and we're not looking at the deeper cause. I profoundly
155
00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:26,280
agree with that. And I've been trying to understand what that deeper cause is. And I think it,
156
00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:31,120
a big part of it was something you put your finger on it in that the anthropos is not
157
00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:36,360
in the science. And I don't think that's just in practice. I think that's right now in
158
00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:41,800
principle. We have this scientific worldview in which we have no proper place or home.
159
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:46,760
We do not belong in it. And I think, I think when we say we're now we're in an existential
160
00:16:46,760 --> 00:16:51,560
crisis, I think I want to invoke both meanings of that word, in the sense that our existence
161
00:16:51,560 --> 00:16:57,800
might disappear, but also in the sense in which, you know, Heidegger and Kierkegaard would
162
00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:07,800
use the word existential, that our fundamental self understanding and our capacity for orienting
163
00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:14,640
towards trying to realize who and what we are and how we are connected to reality in
164
00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:19,080
a way that matters to us so cratically, like I was saying at the beginning, and not just
165
00:17:19,080 --> 00:17:24,480
in terms of a checklist of propositions that we have gathered together is true, but that
166
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:31,520
really make the difference to people's life. And I think this translates down into or translates
167
00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:40,200
out, I want to use the right metaphor, into a couple of very specific dimensions. One
168
00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:52,240
dimension is that to the degree to which people are impoverished, they lack that sense of a
169
00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:58,720
self transcending connectedness to themselves to others in the world, the way to which they're
170
00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:06,040
in a scarcity mentality about that, they get locked into a kind, well, what all scarcity
171
00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:11,720
mentality does, it locks you into a kind of cognitive inflexibility, you get ossified,
172
00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:23,040
you get very self protective. So that mindset, I think is particularly deleterious, not just
173
00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:28,120
for us existentially, which it is, but also in the other sense of existential, it actually
174
00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:35,900
significantly hampers our ability to bring wisdom to bear on the problems we're facing.
175
00:18:35,900 --> 00:18:44,360
So we are lacking that way. There's a second dimension to that, which is, I think it's
176
00:18:44,360 --> 00:18:51,680
highly probable and plausible, probable meaning there's, you know, evidence pointing towards
177
00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:57,640
it as having a significant chance of being the case and plausible in that it makes very
178
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:07,960
good sense that we are going to have to change and probably reduce our standard of living,
179
00:19:07,960 --> 00:19:12,720
the way it's currently measured and understood, the way it confuses meaning with subjective
180
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:16,800
well being and subjective well being with wealth, we're going to have to pull all of
181
00:19:16,800 --> 00:19:25,240
those apart, we're going to have to write change. And I think people will not take a
182
00:19:25,240 --> 00:19:30,820
hit to their subjective well being unless you do something for them. And the evidence
183
00:19:30,820 --> 00:19:36,100
is dramatic and it comes out in the, you know, when people have a child, because having a
184
00:19:36,100 --> 00:19:40,820
child, I use this example because it's so available to everybody, it crushes your subjective
185
00:19:40,820 --> 00:19:44,580
well being, your finances go down, your health goes down, your sleep goes down, your foot,
186
00:19:44,580 --> 00:19:48,740
your feeding goes down, your relationship to your significant other is significant, everything
187
00:19:48,740 --> 00:19:54,580
goes down. Well, why in the world would you do it? Well, because it's meaningful, because
188
00:19:54,580 --> 00:20:01,860
people feel connected to something that has a reality and a value beyond their own egocentric
189
00:20:01,860 --> 00:20:11,460
framework. That's that connectedness to something bigger. So not only is the, that lack of meaning,
190
00:20:11,460 --> 00:20:20,140
that lack of proper participation, and I like that word very much, like sort of seriously
191
00:20:20,140 --> 00:20:25,460
hampering the cognitive flexibility and insight and discernment and self direction, we need
192
00:20:25,460 --> 00:20:32,220
to solve these problems. It's also demotivating because people will only take significant
193
00:20:32,220 --> 00:20:38,980
change to their subjective well being their contentedness. If you can actually promise
194
00:20:38,980 --> 00:20:44,660
them eudaimonia, if you can promise them an enriched meaning in their life. And so in
195
00:20:44,660 --> 00:20:51,380
these two mutually viciously reinforcing ways, the meaning crisis is particularly preventing
196
00:20:51,380 --> 00:20:57,740
us from doing what we need to do. And so I see it is in that sense, a metaproblem that
197
00:20:57,740 --> 00:21:06,140
needs to be addressed along with all of our other methods and practices and attempts to
198
00:21:06,140 --> 00:21:08,580
address as you put it, the symptoms.
199
00:21:08,580 --> 00:21:18,180
Yeah, okay, so there's a lot there. So, and this is also, I think, why I get really excited
200
00:21:18,180 --> 00:21:20,980
when I listen to you talk with your cognitive science colleagues, because you're talking
201
00:21:20,980 --> 00:21:25,340
about reciprocal narrow ring and reciprocal opening. And it's like these things actually
202
00:21:25,340 --> 00:21:29,680
make a lot of sense to me. I don't, you know, I'm sure there might be some risk of confirmation
203
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:35,740
bias in like, but but something about what you're saying feels so right. And so like,
204
00:21:35,740 --> 00:21:40,540
actually, that is what's going on this whole idea of relevance realization that I'm scanning,
205
00:21:40,540 --> 00:21:45,860
looking for relationships, the ones to be in, you know, and creating a silence landscape,
206
00:21:45,860 --> 00:21:52,940
and all of that. And then that that gets embodied in some way. All of that makes perfect sense.
207
00:21:52,940 --> 00:21:57,260
Like, like, not only not only to me, like as like a someone who experiences the world,
208
00:21:57,260 --> 00:22:03,260
but when I look at the story of the cosmos, and I see how from the very beginning, from
209
00:22:03,260 --> 00:22:10,060
when it was a very simple universe, when there was not a lot of complexity, those dynamics
210
00:22:10,060 --> 00:22:15,860
of relation relational dynamics, like, they are written right into the blueprint that are
211
00:22:15,860 --> 00:22:21,500
in the DNA of the of the cosmos of nature, of nature. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree.
212
00:22:21,500 --> 00:22:26,780
So that they would then later be expressed in the cognitive infrastructure and the mechanics
213
00:22:26,780 --> 00:22:33,780
of human thought and and, you know, process makes perfect sense. Like, there's no, there's
214
00:22:33,780 --> 00:22:39,900
no controversy as to why our cognition, our inner dialogue, our way of making sense of
215
00:22:39,900 --> 00:22:46,660
the world would have this thing reflected in the actual fabric of the cosmos. And that
216
00:22:46,660 --> 00:22:52,060
that okay, it's like, you know, I don't know if that's if I know that that is a common
217
00:22:52,060 --> 00:22:58,380
experience throughout the ages that people have had an insight into that that that that
218
00:22:58,380 --> 00:23:06,020
the tacit knowing or the sort of the the the intuitive understanding of that. But it turns
219
00:23:06,020 --> 00:23:14,140
out it's actually borne out by the science by the physics by the ecological dynamics.
220
00:23:14,140 --> 00:23:19,540
So I think there's something powerful in there, there's something like if we can recover that
221
00:23:19,540 --> 00:23:28,100
link to the cosmos to nature, then it would act as a kind of salve to the things these
222
00:23:28,100 --> 00:23:33,740
negative processing routines that were that you that you that you identify as being stuck
223
00:23:33,740 --> 00:23:37,380
in. Yes, there's an opportunity there, it seems.
224
00:23:37,380 --> 00:23:42,020
I think that's right. I think that's right. I was recently talking with John Russen about
225
00:23:42,020 --> 00:23:47,540
this. And we brought up or slow good and I brought up or slow goodness idea about trying
226
00:23:47,540 --> 00:23:52,220
to get back a sense of transcendence but not nostalgia, not to go back.
227
00:23:52,220 --> 00:23:59,900
No, right. Right. But to this idea of transcendence into the point of transcendence is to enhance
228
00:23:59,900 --> 00:24:07,140
the sense of the depth of participation that one is one one finds oneself within.
229
00:24:07,140 --> 00:24:14,340
Yeah. Yeah. And and and I see that showing up in like the symbolic world, for example,
230
00:24:14,340 --> 00:24:23,140
I don't I'm not here to like criticize anything other than to say like if if you seek that
231
00:24:23,140 --> 00:24:28,740
kind of meaning and that kind of connection in the world that we refer to now as the symbolic
232
00:24:28,740 --> 00:24:34,340
world, then it will be as big as the symbolic world is. But if you can somehow find that
233
00:24:34,340 --> 00:24:38,860
sense of transcendence in that sense of deep fundamental belonging in something that actually
234
00:24:38,860 --> 00:24:45,140
is bigger than because the symbolic world is but a feature of the cosmos. Right. So if
235
00:24:45,140 --> 00:24:52,300
you can then and I see this, I see it playing out, you know, in it's frustrating actually
236
00:24:52,300 --> 00:25:04,500
to just to hear. Learned thoughtful, sincere seekers, you know, going only so far as the
237
00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:11,940
humanities or the yes, yes, mythic structures that that that arose in medieval times or
238
00:25:11,940 --> 00:25:18,380
yes, yes. And then we seek everything within that. And then you've got this whole cosmos
239
00:25:18,380 --> 00:25:26,940
of nature that that brought about that that that whole dimension that whole domain. But
240
00:25:26,940 --> 00:25:31,860
it somehow is like profane, you know, that it's
241
00:25:31,860 --> 00:25:36,420
so this is I'm reading, I'm reading, I forget the author of the book, Masters of Learned
242
00:25:36,420 --> 00:25:42,940
Ignorance. And I'm reading Erogena, somebody who has had a huge influence and increasing
243
00:25:42,940 --> 00:25:50,380
influence. And I'm sorry, I forget the author of the book. But the author is talking about
244
00:25:50,380 --> 00:25:59,340
how Erogena takes very, very, very deeply this sort of stereoscopic view. There's the
245
00:25:59,340 --> 00:26:02,700
scriptures, but there's also what he calls the book of nature and their equivalent for
246
00:26:02,700 --> 00:26:10,700
him books. And the idea there is equivalent as like side by side like that, or equivalent
247
00:26:10,700 --> 00:26:16,060
as in they are actually continuous in some way, they have do they have continuity, or
248
00:26:16,060 --> 00:26:24,260
are they just two different domains. So the
249
00:26:24,260 --> 00:26:28,220
clearly the second and I'm trying to think of if there's an important difference that's
250
00:26:28,220 --> 00:26:33,100
picked up by the first point, I don't think so. But very sorry, the mail is being delivered.
251
00:26:33,100 --> 00:26:39,380
Yeah, yeah. So for him, there's this is what the author is arguing. There. In fact, the
252
00:26:39,380 --> 00:26:50,460
point is, you there is a deep continuity between them such that you don't limit symbolism
253
00:26:50,460 --> 00:26:59,860
to human artifact. And what you you see all of. So you have to remember he belongs to
254
00:26:59,860 --> 00:27:10,780
a platonic epistemology in which you are participating. You are in you are you are a fit there's a
255
00:27:10,780 --> 00:27:15,420
affinity between that you and that which you know in a profound way. And so within that
256
00:27:15,420 --> 00:27:26,660
what he is arguing that Regina argued for is that we see everything as we see both human
257
00:27:26,660 --> 00:27:32,340
symbol creation. Now for him, he wouldn't say it was human. He'd say that the scriptures
258
00:27:32,340 --> 00:27:37,620
were divinely origin, but I'll put that aside. Right. He'd say that. I don't mean to put it
259
00:27:37,620 --> 00:27:43,380
aside dismissively. I'm just putting it aside so I can make a point. Right. That that process,
260
00:27:43,380 --> 00:27:49,660
at least our response to the scriptures, which you could say is the symbolic world. And what
261
00:27:49,660 --> 00:27:55,620
we are coming into contact with reality, they both point to a deeper shared common source.
262
00:27:55,620 --> 00:28:01,260
Yeah. Right. So for Erojina, that's what I mean by like stereoscopic. I was trying to
263
00:28:01,260 --> 00:28:06,820
say like you you you you look through the scriptures, and I'll take that to stand for
264
00:28:06,820 --> 00:28:11,540
the symbolic world. And then you look through the cosmos. But remember this looking isn't
265
00:28:11,540 --> 00:28:16,420
it's not Cartesian looking. It's it's platonic looking. And you look through them and you're
266
00:28:16,420 --> 00:28:25,180
trying to find God as the ultimate source for both of them. And so they have to be constantly
267
00:28:25,180 --> 00:28:30,780
read together. The two books have to be constantly read together. That was what was being proposed
268
00:28:30,780 --> 00:28:37,860
in Erojina. Okay, got it. Like and and all of that sounds, you know, doable to me. Like
269
00:28:37,860 --> 00:28:45,140
yes, I look I look at it, you know, as a sort of not linearly, but I do take time seriously,
270
00:28:45,140 --> 00:28:49,780
you know, in the way we understand it now, until some better understanding comes along.
271
00:28:49,780 --> 00:28:56,580
I'm going to look at this as a as a chronology, that that the universe happened 13.8, you
272
00:28:56,580 --> 00:29:02,340
know, billion years ago, it started and complex relationships started happening and the creativity
273
00:29:02,340 --> 00:29:07,340
of the universe is then expressed through those relationships. And that there is this
274
00:29:07,340 --> 00:29:13,900
continuum, a narrative continuum that brings forth life brings forth consciousness brings
275
00:29:13,900 --> 00:29:19,780
forth, you know, primates and primates do what they do. And, and maybe later we can
276
00:29:19,780 --> 00:29:24,620
get into, you know, how art fits into all this like, like where does art actually really
277
00:29:24,620 --> 00:29:32,660
come from. And that these then this whole trajectory or this domain that you're sort
278
00:29:32,660 --> 00:29:39,500
of pointing at through one of the stereoscopic lenses, then emerges from that. So in other
279
00:29:39,500 --> 00:29:47,300
words, they're actually not two bodies of knowledge, they're just one continuum of increasing
280
00:29:47,300 --> 00:29:54,780
complexity, which then comes into self reflectiveness and then starts to create the symbolic world.
281
00:29:54,780 --> 00:30:00,740
But it's really, you know, it's, and then, lo and behold, there's still God, you know,
282
00:30:00,740 --> 00:30:06,420
like it that you don't you don't not have to forfeit God in any way, you know, not even
283
00:30:06,420 --> 00:30:09,020
semantically you don't have to forfeit God in this.
284
00:30:09,020 --> 00:30:17,780
Yeah, I agree. I agree. So, well, let the, and I share your aspirational hope. I do want
285
00:30:17,780 --> 00:30:24,740
to put in a note that Erogyna was driven away as a heretic for proposing that. And we have
286
00:30:24,740 --> 00:30:30,620
to ask why that's the case, because I'm sure that there are some Christians listening
287
00:30:30,620 --> 00:30:36,380
to that to what I just said, they're saying, of course, yes. But then I, and again, I'm
288
00:30:36,380 --> 00:30:37,380
not here.
289
00:30:37,380 --> 00:30:42,500
Why is that so heretical to say something as simple as the creation is the creator or
290
00:30:42,500 --> 00:30:46,260
the creator is the creation? I mean, I remember having a conversation like that with somebody
291
00:30:46,260 --> 00:30:50,340
who was really devout and it was just something that I could, he was just adamant, you know,
292
00:30:50,340 --> 00:30:52,340
and it was like, you know,
293
00:30:52,340 --> 00:31:00,500
So part of it is a historical answer. And I'll try to be as respectfully fair as I can.
294
00:31:00,500 --> 00:31:11,100
So Christianity is right, trying to capture the ancient world. And the main competitor
295
00:31:11,100 --> 00:31:14,380
is paganism broadly construed.
296
00:31:14,380 --> 00:31:15,380
Yeah.
297
00:31:15,380 --> 00:31:19,580
Now, when we think of paganism, we think of some something from the Simpsons, like blood
298
00:31:19,580 --> 00:31:23,460
for ball and like really prim, like, we're not talking about that, we're talking about
299
00:31:23,460 --> 00:31:30,180
a really, you know, a paganism that had gone through a lot of changes through in the hands
300
00:31:30,180 --> 00:31:38,380
of epicure Platonism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Neoplatonism. So it's a very powerful framework.
301
00:31:38,380 --> 00:31:42,620
And so so much so that Christianity adopted a lot of that into it. But Christianity also
302
00:31:42,620 --> 00:31:48,220
needed to powerfully distinguish itself from the pagan world. Some of that was through
303
00:31:48,220 --> 00:31:56,220
the really prophetic, in the sense of telling forth of agape, that was powerful and important.
304
00:31:56,220 --> 00:32:08,660
But also Christianity made very made very clear that it saw itself as saying more clearly
305
00:32:08,660 --> 00:32:12,940
something that had been discovered within that philosophical tradition within Platonism,
306
00:32:12,940 --> 00:32:19,380
which was the distinction between immortality and eternity. So the gods are immortal, but
307
00:32:19,380 --> 00:32:25,540
they're not eternal. They do not reflect the ultimate principles of reality. Right.
308
00:32:25,540 --> 00:32:32,420
And this, and you can see this discovery in Plato, where he's pulling them apart. And
309
00:32:32,420 --> 00:32:39,500
so Christianity said, aha, and what where we can see that very clearly is in the doctrine
310
00:32:39,500 --> 00:32:47,380
of creation ex nihilo, which is the idea that unlike the gods, right, who emerge, right,
311
00:32:47,380 --> 00:32:55,660
and are immortal, but are bound by a higher order, right, domain of eternity. This God,
312
00:32:55,660 --> 00:33:02,340
the God, the Abrahamic God, the claim is actually speaks from eternity. And that right, and
313
00:33:02,340 --> 00:33:15,380
is therefore not not limited to the principles of the cosmos. And so and we can challenge
314
00:33:15,380 --> 00:33:20,460
that I'm just trying to offer an explanation, first of all. And so part of what is the fear
315
00:33:20,460 --> 00:33:28,380
is is and it's not usually legitimate. And I think it was unfairly given to Erogyna,
316
00:33:28,380 --> 00:33:33,740
I think was unfairly given to Spinoza. There's a fear of pantheism, as it's typically called,
317
00:33:33,740 --> 00:33:42,140
which is all that we're talking about is we're talking about something that is emergent within
318
00:33:42,140 --> 00:33:49,660
the cosmos, but doesn't explain the the eternal dimensions. This was Plato's great concern
319
00:33:49,660 --> 00:33:54,220
to so it's the Christians aren't just pointing in the dark. It's like, and I mean, and this
320
00:33:54,220 --> 00:33:57,780
is a this is a problem that goes still into the heart of the philosophy of science. Why
321
00:33:57,780 --> 00:34:03,500
should math, why should math tell us about the fundamental nature of reality? To think
322
00:34:03,500 --> 00:34:09,180
about what a weird thing math is, how abstract it is, how timeless and spaceless it is. And
323
00:34:09,180 --> 00:34:14,900
yet it tells us about how things unfold in time and space. This is an old problem. And
324
00:34:14,900 --> 00:34:20,500
I'm not asking you to solve that problem. I'm just trying to explain that Christianity
325
00:34:20,500 --> 00:34:30,980
saw itself as inheriting a criticism within paganism of paganism that it that it saw itself
326
00:34:30,980 --> 00:34:36,780
as properly aligning and fulfilling, aligning to and fulfilling. Sorry, that I'm trying
327
00:34:36,780 --> 00:34:39,660
to make something very complex as short as I possibly can.
328
00:34:39,660 --> 00:34:46,460
No, I get it that there is this, it is a morass of of inherited politics is what I mean, I
329
00:34:46,460 --> 00:34:51,380
don't mean to say that, you know, in a disparaging way, but that's kind of what it strikes me
330
00:34:51,380 --> 00:34:57,540
as is that there's a lot of jostling, there's a lot of power dynamics. There is good faith,
331
00:34:57,540 --> 00:35:04,020
faith, you know, trying to to feel, you know, that that deep and abiding sense of connectedness.
332
00:35:04,020 --> 00:35:09,340
Yes, which I think is also part of it. But at the same time, it sounds like a lot, especially
333
00:35:09,340 --> 00:35:16,340
given what we now know about the way the world has come to be, you know, prior to any of
334
00:35:16,340 --> 00:35:19,140
this arguing prior to any of this conflict.
335
00:35:19,140 --> 00:35:24,700
I think I think that's I think that's right. So I'm reading Religion After Science by Selling
336
00:35:24,700 --> 00:35:30,060
Beck, who's in Nova Scotia, which is a province in Canada. So whenever I can, Canada, yeah,
337
00:35:30,060 --> 00:35:32,020
go Canada.
338
00:35:32,020 --> 00:35:38,660
And he's talking about that we have not yet and this goes with what I was talking with
339
00:35:38,660 --> 00:35:45,740
Jordan about when talking with layman and and Bruce about layman Pascal Bruce Alderman,
340
00:35:45,740 --> 00:35:50,460
you know, we haven't properly grieved the death of God. And part of what I mean by that is
341
00:35:50,460 --> 00:35:52,740
we are aware of big time.
342
00:35:52,740 --> 00:35:58,660
Right. And this is selling back's point, we're aware of deep time, not only backwards, but
343
00:35:58,660 --> 00:36:07,180
forwards. And yet we have not taken it into our existential narrative. And he says, the
344
00:36:07,180 --> 00:36:14,460
most plausible conclusion we should draw about ourselves is that the ultimate questions are
345
00:36:14,460 --> 00:36:20,780
the ones that will take the most time and require the biggest time scale to understand.
346
00:36:20,780 --> 00:36:30,020
And we don't have those. So he he he actually proposes and I think I mean, I want this to
347
00:36:30,020 --> 00:36:31,180
be taken care of.
348
00:36:31,180 --> 00:36:36,500
He proposes a hypothesis of spiritual immaturity, that it's very much the case that we are at
349
00:36:36,500 --> 00:36:43,580
the beginning of trying to answer the ultimate questions, not the end, but at the beginning,
350
00:36:43,580 --> 00:36:51,020
and that we need to take an appropriate attitude towards ultimate reality that takes into account
351
00:36:51,020 --> 00:36:59,580
big time and engenders in us a profound acknowledgement and appreciation that we are extremely spiritually
352
00:36:59,580 --> 00:37:09,300
immature rather than we have got the completed answer. And he says, like, like it's strange
353
00:37:09,300 --> 00:37:14,380
that we think that the most profound questions are the ones that have received the complete
354
00:37:14,380 --> 00:37:16,620
answer and less profound question.
355
00:37:16,620 --> 00:37:22,180
Like you'll ask people, how long do you think it'll take us to really figure out something,
356
00:37:22,180 --> 00:37:27,700
some scientific phenomenon, they'll say hundreds, thousands of years. But the same people, if
357
00:37:27,700 --> 00:37:32,300
you ask and he did this, right, if you ask them in another context, like, what's the
358
00:37:32,300 --> 00:37:36,580
ultimate nature of reality? And they think, you know, well, we sort of have the answers
359
00:37:36,580 --> 00:37:37,580
for that.
360
00:37:37,580 --> 00:37:43,380
Right. They either give us, they either give a confidence theism, or same thing, a confidence
361
00:37:43,380 --> 00:37:47,420
atheism and say, Nope, the question's answered, it's solved.
362
00:37:47,420 --> 00:37:54,780
And I say, don't don't don't don't we see this as a fractal expressed in every teenager
363
00:37:54,780 --> 00:37:55,780
in every.
364
00:37:55,780 --> 00:38:01,700
I mean, it's not like it's not like it's hard to see. I mean, all the evidence suggests
365
00:38:01,700 --> 00:38:07,340
that we are in that sort of, and what it takes to mature is to be able to get outside of that
366
00:38:07,340 --> 00:38:11,860
a little bit and take, you know, accept a little humility about about, you know, instead of
367
00:38:11,860 --> 00:38:15,420
pontiffing it, cating about everything, just saying, Well, we don't know.
368
00:38:15,420 --> 00:38:22,900
Imagine if you talk to somebody in the Bronze Age about religion, and could they have foreseen
369
00:38:22,900 --> 00:38:26,900
what was going to come in the actual revolution, they can offer, they couldn't have foreseen
370
00:38:26,900 --> 00:38:34,780
that. And then, right. And then this is this, this is the end of illusion history. We, we
371
00:38:34,780 --> 00:38:39,180
do it as individuals. This is how it comes rich right into us. So if you ask people,
372
00:38:39,180 --> 00:38:43,460
how much have you changed in the last 10 years, they'll say, Oh, I've tried change tremendously.
373
00:38:43,460 --> 00:38:47,940
And you say, How much will you change in the next 10 years? Oh, I won't change very much
374
00:38:47,940 --> 00:38:53,300
at all. And you can and they'll say this every 10 years, by the way. Okay. Everybody believes
375
00:38:53,300 --> 00:38:57,220
they're complete, even though the evidence is overwhelming that they're not.
376
00:38:57,220 --> 00:39:01,700
I'm willing to cut people a break. You know, we're all children at this. And you know,
377
00:39:01,700 --> 00:39:05,980
we're all sort of find ourselves cast into this thing. And we're just all trying to figure
378
00:39:05,980 --> 00:39:10,060
it out. So I'm not really, I'm really not interested in, you know, I'm not saying you
379
00:39:10,060 --> 00:39:17,700
are either, but just not interested in sort of complaining and holding anyone to blame.
380
00:39:17,700 --> 00:39:23,380
However, we do, we are backs are up against the wall. And we do need something profoundly
381
00:39:23,380 --> 00:39:27,340
different, some profoundly different way of relating to the world, because we are on this
382
00:39:27,340 --> 00:39:33,140
terminal, you know, we're in. And again, I know you've said this many times. And I say
383
00:39:33,140 --> 00:39:39,660
it over and over, I'm not a utopianist. And I'm not, you know, but I'm seeing how what
384
00:39:39,660 --> 00:39:44,980
the corner with that we've packed ourselves into here is now ecological, you know, it's
385
00:39:44,980 --> 00:39:50,540
no, it's not just some ideological thing that risks a lot of, you know, local suffering.
386
00:39:50,540 --> 00:39:56,660
Granted, we do now have, you know, mutually asserted destruction looming. And so I'm not
387
00:39:56,660 --> 00:40:04,860
trying to dismiss that. But, but once we do hopefully get beyond this sort of this, this
388
00:40:04,860 --> 00:40:12,100
present medieval brutality that surfaced, we can now focus on, you know, what is our,
389
00:40:12,100 --> 00:40:17,640
what is the issue that is really putting all of us at stake, everything, the whole history
390
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:22,220
of us at stake, which is ecological, you know, collapse, it's, it's run away climate change
391
00:40:22,220 --> 00:40:28,380
of some form or another, and or just the ecological, you know, the local ecological collapses
392
00:40:28,380 --> 00:40:33,740
that are going to happen. You know, we've got to get this is why, you know, I'm sort
393
00:40:33,740 --> 00:40:38,700
of adamant about saying, you know, we have to do this in the framework of nature, we've
394
00:40:38,700 --> 00:40:44,460
got to do this in alliance, we've got to include the natural world as part of our future. Because
395
00:40:44,460 --> 00:40:48,820
if we don't get that one right, it really doesn't matter how, you know, how woke you
396
00:40:48,820 --> 00:40:54,180
are, if, if, if you don't have a habitable planet. And so, yeah, and I also have the
397
00:40:54,180 --> 00:41:00,940
good news here, I think also is that those, those, those more socially confined problems
398
00:41:00,940 --> 00:41:07,140
will tend to resolve themselves if we get the deeper alignment, the deeper identification
399
00:41:07,140 --> 00:41:08,140
with the planet.
400
00:41:08,140 --> 00:41:12,940
I think that's right. I do, I guess I was not here to beat up on anybody. I was trying
401
00:41:12,940 --> 00:41:19,460
to answer your question. How do we get into this sort of thing? And I think I agree with
402
00:41:19,460 --> 00:41:29,340
you, we, we, we need to bring back like, Tilek, we need the God beyond God, the God of theism
403
00:41:29,340 --> 00:41:33,420
in this current situation. He was talking about that in the 50s, and he was talking just about
404
00:41:33,420 --> 00:41:38,540
the meaning crisis. But I think that's even more the case now. And that's something that
405
00:41:38,540 --> 00:41:42,300
Jordan Hall has been arguing for. We need the God beyond the God of theism, which is
406
00:41:42,300 --> 00:41:48,700
not the God of pantheism either. Right. We, we have to take seriously our spiritual immaturity
407
00:41:48,700 --> 00:41:52,620
and the spiritual ambiguity of the universe. We have to take those seriously and we have
408
00:41:52,620 --> 00:41:53,620
to.
409
00:41:53,620 --> 00:42:00,460
You we have to embody them. We had to actually, yes, yes, we did take, take, take them on as
410
00:42:00,460 --> 00:42:02,580
our, ours, ours. Yes.
411
00:42:02,580 --> 00:42:04,780
That's how we participate.
412
00:42:04,780 --> 00:42:10,940
Exactly. And, and we have to take them on, not in an idealistic fashion, like, but, but,
413
00:42:10,940 --> 00:42:15,020
but in a way that opens the eyes of wonder, engagement, all,
414
00:42:15,020 --> 00:42:19,260
I guess it depends on what kind of future you want. If you want a nihilistic future, then
415
00:42:19,260 --> 00:42:23,700
take it on as a nihilistic pursuit. But if you want it to be a creative process, which
416
00:42:23,700 --> 00:42:28,780
it has been up until now for us, it's, you know, we have been on this extended creative
417
00:42:28,780 --> 00:42:34,180
role. Do we want to make choices that can further extend the creative role that we're
418
00:42:34,180 --> 00:42:37,860
on? Or do we want to be the participants in the one that, you know, brings at least this
419
00:42:37,860 --> 00:42:42,980
experiment to an end? I mean, I don't see it's not a big hard question to answer. You
420
00:42:42,980 --> 00:42:48,780
know, do you want, do you want creativity or do you want, do you want more ugliness?
421
00:42:48,780 --> 00:42:53,940
I just don't think it's really even, I don't even want to waste time asking the question,
422
00:42:53,940 --> 00:42:54,940
you know, like,
423
00:42:54,940 --> 00:42:58,740
Yeah, I, I, I mean, I do.
424
00:42:58,740 --> 00:43:05,900
Like, first of all, I agree with what you said, but I do meet people that I don't know
425
00:43:05,900 --> 00:43:11,380
how to put it. They've been exhausted. They're burnt out to use Hans language. They've been
426
00:43:11,380 --> 00:43:16,100
burnt out by the nihilistic thread within the culture.
427
00:43:16,100 --> 00:43:17,100
And they,
428
00:43:17,100 --> 00:43:20,140
Okay, so let's, how about we're just tired of it? Well, if you're tired of it,
429
00:43:20,140 --> 00:43:25,900
Try something else. Try something else. Try identifying with something more fulfilling,
430
00:43:25,900 --> 00:43:31,620
something more gratifying, something more beautiful, you know, because it's there too.
431
00:43:31,620 --> 00:43:36,900
I don't think this is a question of sacrifice and compromise and a lowered quality of life.
432
00:43:36,900 --> 00:43:43,020
I actually think the opposite that, that, that, that the secret of the hidden gem here
433
00:43:43,020 --> 00:43:52,820
is that there's something profoundly more beautiful to be had in this process.
434
00:43:52,820 --> 00:43:54,300
I agree. I agree.
435
00:43:54,300 --> 00:43:56,300
It's everywhere.
436
00:43:56,300 --> 00:44:01,260
But let's take on this challenge together and not posing it as something you're responsible
437
00:44:01,260 --> 00:44:07,980
for because it's something, but there's people that are beyond tired. There are people that
438
00:44:07,980 --> 00:44:14,820
despair. This is a Kierkegaardian point and despair is a very self fulfilling, self maintaining
439
00:44:14,820 --> 00:44:21,580
mindset. Right? It locks you in and it self perpetuates and it defends itself against.
440
00:44:21,580 --> 00:44:27,620
And so part of the issue and, you know, and one of the things that's interesting about
441
00:44:27,620 --> 00:44:36,540
Kierkegaard on one side and Nishitani on the other is their answer is, well, and I'm asking
442
00:44:36,540 --> 00:44:40,220
you what you think of it. They say, well, you haven't followed the despair all the way
443
00:44:40,220 --> 00:44:47,460
down. That's Nishitani's critique of Nietzsche. Like, you know, don't live it on the surface.
444
00:44:47,460 --> 00:44:52,540
Take it. Take it all the way down. Like really open your, really take it on. Just hang on
445
00:44:52,540 --> 00:45:00,740
a sec. Yeah, because you're responding in a very, very, I think, predictable and responsible
446
00:45:00,740 --> 00:45:06,220
manner. But what they say is when you do that, if you are willing to follow it all the way
447
00:45:06,220 --> 00:45:12,900
through, it opens you out to something beyond all the frameworks that bound you into the
448
00:45:12,900 --> 00:45:19,500
despair and you weren't aware of how they bound you into the despair. And I, this is
449
00:45:19,500 --> 00:45:26,500
not what I properly mean by we haven't grieved the death of God.
450
00:45:26,500 --> 00:45:31,180
So Nietzsche's critique, right, was that we set the axial age gave us the two world mythology
451
00:45:31,180 --> 00:45:34,980
and that was wonderful and beautiful and helped us talk about transcendence and the power
452
00:45:34,980 --> 00:45:41,260
of creativity and participation. But then what happens is this world progressively became
453
00:45:41,260 --> 00:45:45,980
instrumental for the upper world, the lower world becomes instrumental. And then when
454
00:45:45,980 --> 00:45:51,540
the upper world for historical scientific reasons becomes absurd to us, then we are
455
00:45:51,540 --> 00:45:58,420
only left with a lower world that we have been inculturated to regard as purely instrumental
456
00:45:58,420 --> 00:46:02,860
in value. And so you say, well, don't, don't treat the world instrumental. Yeah, but you
457
00:46:02,860 --> 00:46:08,540
know what you need to do? You need to go back and unravel that axial age grammar that two
458
00:46:08,540 --> 00:46:14,460
worlds mythology, that two worlds way of thinking of transcendence and participation so that
459
00:46:14,460 --> 00:46:21,540
people can recover that. That's what I mean. Like if we don't do that, we people are locked
460
00:46:21,540 --> 00:46:25,220
like you meet, I don't know if you meet me, I meet people say like, well, we're just
461
00:46:25,220 --> 00:46:30,380
meat machines and it's like, you don't really live that way. But I understand what you like
462
00:46:30,380 --> 00:46:36,540
they, there's a whole, this is Nietzsche's idea of right. And Heidegger picks it up
463
00:46:36,540 --> 00:46:42,940
that we have a framework of seeing this world, which I believe and you believe are the only
464
00:46:42,940 --> 00:46:48,180
world as only instrumental value. But if there's nothing that it's instrumental for, then
465
00:46:48,180 --> 00:46:53,460
it has no value. This is what I mean about just this is why Nietzsche particularly the
466
00:46:53,460 --> 00:46:57,780
madman proclaims the death of God, not to the believers in the marketplace, but to the
467
00:46:57,780 --> 00:47:02,380
atheists. And he says to them, you haven't realized what you've done. You've taken a
468
00:47:02,380 --> 00:47:06,940
sponge and you've wiped away the sky, we are forever falling. Right. That's, that's what
469
00:47:06,940 --> 00:47:10,660
I'm trying to get at. Like, how do we, how, sorry, I'm talking too much.
470
00:47:10,660 --> 00:47:16,300
No, no, I just, I just, but I feel like, okay, well, we do have that we have a new mythos
471
00:47:16,300 --> 00:47:20,820
that can actually restore that it's not down there and up there, what you're looking for
472
00:47:20,820 --> 00:47:26,020
up there is actually down there. It's like that's in the mud. It's the mad, the divine
473
00:47:26,020 --> 00:47:31,420
is this world. And this is what the, this is what the science is telling us, not that
474
00:47:31,420 --> 00:47:35,460
science is the only way of knowing I'm not, I'm not making an argument that science is
475
00:47:35,460 --> 00:47:40,140
the true and better way of knowing and that the indigenous and that the other spiritual
476
00:47:40,140 --> 00:47:44,460
traditions are useless. I'm not saying that what I'm saying is that all of these things
477
00:47:44,460 --> 00:47:52,380
now agree that that immature way that you just described that, that it's just mistaken.
478
00:47:52,380 --> 00:47:58,660
And it's the problem I think though is that now it takes a lot of bandwidth to, to deconstruct
479
00:47:58,660 --> 00:48:05,660
and, you know, to de, what is the word de reify all of those things that and, and, and
480
00:48:05,660 --> 00:48:12,020
bring in something install something that's bigger and, and more complex and more real
481
00:48:12,020 --> 00:48:17,580
more relevant to the world that we as we actually now know how it that that we live
482
00:48:17,580 --> 00:48:26,340
in. So I don't see I see how it can be done. I don't think it's like hard in theory to
483
00:48:26,340 --> 00:48:33,820
do. It's it's hard in practice because because we've backed ourselves into this corner. Yeah,
484
00:48:33,820 --> 00:48:44,820
of nihilism or complaint. So we have it now like we I remember Jim rut asked you once
485
00:48:44,820 --> 00:48:51,060
you know what's the mythos. And you know you were very careful to answer his question
486
00:48:51,060 --> 00:48:57,420
by saying that you are not the prophet, which I fully, you know, can appreciate that sense
487
00:48:57,420 --> 00:49:03,900
that you know that take but but but you didn't give an answer about the mythos like and and
488
00:49:03,900 --> 00:49:08,100
I guess what I would have I would love for someone to ask me that question one day not
489
00:49:08,100 --> 00:49:13,180
right now but that what we do have a mythos we have a mythos worthy of a new credo you
490
00:49:13,180 --> 00:49:22,260
know we have this. I agree. So I guess for me what you and what you find exciting in
491
00:49:22,260 --> 00:49:28,820
the in the 40 cogs I is the point about the mythos right is it has to be a mythos that
492
00:49:28,820 --> 00:49:33,900
engages your religion. It can't be it can't be a story out there. It has to be a story
493
00:49:33,900 --> 00:49:38,980
simultaneously out there and in here. Right. Right. It has to be transjective in an important
494
00:49:38,980 --> 00:49:46,860
way. And for me. And perhaps that's why you're finding the 40 cogs I talk so exciting is
495
00:49:46,860 --> 00:49:53,060
because 40 cognitive science is building a way of talking about biology and cognition
496
00:49:53,060 --> 00:50:00,460
that and its deep embeddedness and dependence on a dynamic environment right as a way that
497
00:50:00,460 --> 00:50:09,060
fits into a larger story. A sort of meta modern story of complexity. So I mean, you know,
498
00:50:09,060 --> 00:50:15,620
Brendan Graham Dempsey did a great thing on the story talks about, you know, you have
499
00:50:15,620 --> 00:50:20,700
the traditional model which is the classic two worlds. And then you have the sort of
500
00:50:20,700 --> 00:50:29,140
the optimism of modernity and it is offering right sort of this. It sort of emphasizes
501
00:50:29,140 --> 00:50:35,380
utility and power. And then you have postmodernism which emphasizes diversity. And then the
502
00:50:35,380 --> 00:50:43,060
sort of defining ethos of meta modernism is complexity. And the idea of understanding
503
00:50:43,060 --> 00:50:51,060
how important complexity is. So another way I would put is that not only do the traditional
504
00:50:51,060 --> 00:50:58,420
religions not really grapple well with deep time both forward and back the way selling
505
00:50:58,420 --> 00:51:04,500
back argues selling back selling back argues. But they also don't they're not set up to
506
00:51:04,500 --> 00:51:11,380
deal with dynamic complexity as a fundamental aspect of their ontology. And, and I think
507
00:51:11,380 --> 00:51:19,380
that is that's why there's this growing. And again, I'm not happy with this word, but
508
00:51:19,380 --> 00:51:29,460
just sort of this meta modern spirituality, like it's trying to be responsive and responsible
509
00:51:29,460 --> 00:51:36,060
to these deep facts. I'm going to use that really, you know, controversial term but these
510
00:51:36,060 --> 00:51:43,980
deep facts about deep time in both directions and deep complexity, right? We need a spirituality
511
00:51:43,980 --> 00:51:50,620
that is mature or at least trying to become mature, right? And here's why I turn to John
512
00:51:50,620 --> 00:51:54,740
Rusen again. You said you never finished maturity and let's take it that we are spiritually
513
00:51:54,740 --> 00:51:59,220
immature. But what does it mean to decide I'm going to become more spiritually mature?
514
00:51:59,220 --> 00:52:05,300
It means to face up the fundamental facts of reality. And we need a religious vision.
515
00:52:05,300 --> 00:52:11,500
And this is why I'm talking to you that allows us to face up to the deep facts of deep time,
516
00:52:11,500 --> 00:52:16,900
both directions and deep complexity from the bottom up and the top down because the complexity
517
00:52:16,900 --> 00:52:23,860
goes both ways. Yes. And I'm here to tell you that we do have that. When I listened to
518
00:52:23,860 --> 00:52:28,860
the Rusen conversation, he talked a lot about maturing into you know, the political and
519
00:52:28,860 --> 00:52:34,180
the economic realities that we inherit. But, but, but what I didn't hear was a reference
520
00:52:34,180 --> 00:52:40,820
to the natural ecological realities that we are living into as well because it's in those
521
00:52:40,820 --> 00:52:45,860
it's in that story, the story of nature is that thing that you're looking for. We do
522
00:52:45,860 --> 00:52:53,740
have a really fine grained story of facts that when strung together in a meaningful
523
00:52:53,740 --> 00:53:00,820
way that that that that brings that continuity of what of my personal identity to the natural
524
00:53:00,820 --> 00:53:08,100
to the world, the cosmos, we have that now. Like, so it's, and it will have it will extend
525
00:53:08,100 --> 00:53:15,380
its tendrils of impact into these other domains that we are just habitually drawing on like,
526
00:53:15,380 --> 00:53:22,740
like young Ian mythologies, which I'm sure are, you know, amazing. But they are human.
527
00:53:22,740 --> 00:53:27,700
They are humanistic, you know, they are. Yes, maybe maybe he was a cosmologist, I don't know.
528
00:53:27,700 --> 00:53:32,620
But what we now know about the evolution of the cosmos is so much more fine grained and
529
00:53:32,620 --> 00:53:37,980
getting more and more fine grained every day into eternity, because that's, I'm not saying
530
00:53:37,980 --> 00:53:42,820
that there is a, I'm not putting a boundary on what it is we can know because, because
531
00:53:42,820 --> 00:53:48,420
now that if we can identify with the cosmos itself, we don't know its trajectory, it could
532
00:53:48,420 --> 00:53:53,660
be infinite in which case, so will our growth with it so will our evolution into it if we
533
00:53:53,660 --> 00:53:58,780
can get through this current bottleneck, you know, which we are trying to do, I think,
534
00:53:58,780 --> 00:54:07,380
and there's so yeah, I'm sorry, I don't mean to like, but much here. Yeah, and I mean,
535
00:54:07,380 --> 00:54:12,900
so I mean, the talk with Jonathan with John Rootson was amazing. John has had a huge impact
536
00:54:12,900 --> 00:54:17,180
on me and his idea of trying to I find so much convergence with my work of trying to
537
00:54:17,180 --> 00:54:21,780
be Plato and phenomenology back together. But you notice the one place where we were
538
00:54:21,780 --> 00:54:26,660
a little bit sort of, not friction, but there was a little bit of distance was when I was
539
00:54:26,660 --> 00:54:34,980
pressing him on sort of issues around transcendence and that aspect, and trying to take this more
540
00:54:34,980 --> 00:54:40,220
into an ontological depth the way I see people like DC Schindler and other people doing and
541
00:54:40,220 --> 00:54:47,620
saying, we at some point we need to, right. And I think John would actually be open to
542
00:54:47,620 --> 00:54:54,780
this. What I've read, you know, we need an all used Erogenus language, we need, we do
543
00:54:54,780 --> 00:55:01,460
need to reflect deeply on the logos of the Anthropos, how how logo shows up in human
544
00:55:01,460 --> 00:55:07,740
beings and in human being. But we also need to put that into relationship with the logos
545
00:55:07,740 --> 00:55:15,100
of on college of the on toast of being so right those and that I thought I see that as
546
00:55:15,100 --> 00:55:22,620
a as a properly platonic project. So there people talk about the two things that are
547
00:55:22,620 --> 00:55:26,700
being talked about in the Republic, there's the psyche and the state, well, there's actually
548
00:55:26,700 --> 00:55:31,260
three that are being talked about in the Republic. There's the psyche and the state and the analogy
549
00:55:31,260 --> 00:55:36,380
between them, but the analogy between the psyche and the state and reality, there's the divided
550
00:55:36,380 --> 00:55:42,580
line and the cave. And so there's actually three that are in the platonic triangle, not
551
00:55:42,580 --> 00:55:48,020
just the two. And I'm going to talk to john again about that. And I'll bring it up with
552
00:55:48,020 --> 00:55:55,260
them. But I did agree with what he did agree with the proposal of transcendence into as
553
00:55:55,260 --> 00:56:00,860
to as as different from transcendence beyond as part of what's needed. And I don't know
554
00:56:00,860 --> 00:56:05,860
if you've read good enough, but she she talks in a way very similar to the way you do about
555
00:56:05,860 --> 00:56:13,700
fine friends and friends with Ursula. Of course you are. Of course you are. So I'm sorry. I
556
00:56:13,700 --> 00:56:20,300
am speaking. I'm speaking to somebody who knows much better than I do. But that notion
557
00:56:20,300 --> 00:56:26,220
of finding in the depths of nature, a real transcendence that allows people to transcend
558
00:56:26,220 --> 00:56:33,900
out of egocentrism and leave the cave. If I think that's very, very, very important.
559
00:56:33,900 --> 00:56:38,540
I think I wish that notion was more broadly understood. I think that distinction is very
560
00:56:38,540 --> 00:56:41,860
important. And of course you know her. So
561
00:56:41,860 --> 00:56:48,180
it just I actually interviewed pretty much every big historian that was you know, was
562
00:56:48,180 --> 00:56:52,060
around at the time when I was doing my research, I went and spoke with every everybody I could
563
00:56:52,060 --> 00:56:58,220
find to to figure this out. And hers, her, her, you know, her story and her, her narrative,
564
00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:04,420
her trajectory is, you know, is a good one, I think. She had a religious background and
565
00:57:04,420 --> 00:57:10,260
found all that she found in religion she could also find in nature. Yes, really no, no controversy,
566
00:57:10,260 --> 00:57:16,540
no, no big conflict. It just opened, it opened up, it opened up her ideas of spirituality
567
00:57:16,540 --> 00:57:24,660
in a way that you know, only nature can do. Yeah, go ahead. No, please. Well, I just like
568
00:57:24,660 --> 00:57:32,140
the sacred depths of nature. And I mean, you even I think it's Cusa who talks about this,
569
00:57:32,140 --> 00:57:38,860
you know, God is within but not enclosed. God is beyond but not excluded. And if you
570
00:57:38,860 --> 00:57:47,100
think about, yeah, right. Well, yeah, nothing inconsistent. Can I have can I have am I entitled
571
00:57:47,100 --> 00:57:53,620
to have that, even though I maintain a scientific worldview? Yes, or would someone seek to deprive
572
00:57:53,620 --> 00:57:58,900
me of that? Yes, I don't know. I'm not asking you. I'm just saying like, how come I can't
573
00:57:58,900 --> 00:58:05,300
have that that that relationship to God to just because I just because I revere the creation,
574
00:58:05,300 --> 00:58:15,460
you know, you can actually it turns out. I think so. And I'm very interested in how the
575
00:58:15,460 --> 00:58:22,140
logos that shows up in the logos translates into relationship between the human logos
576
00:58:22,140 --> 00:58:36,180
and the onto logos and how that should ramify into our relationship to the world to nature.
577
00:58:36,180 --> 00:58:40,260
And again, nature doesn't mean wilderness. That's part of the problem that people that's
578
00:58:40,260 --> 00:58:45,260
also something that has to be understood is just the language fails us in that way. And
579
00:58:45,260 --> 00:58:50,980
that it's it's a constant struggle to you know, I think you were telling me about Spinoza
580
00:58:50,980 --> 00:58:56,300
using nature or God in sort of interchangeably. Yes, exactly. Exactly. I wish we had I wish
581
00:58:56,300 --> 00:59:01,700
we had a better language that could really capture the relationship that's inherent there.
582
00:59:01,700 --> 00:59:05,980
I think we need to read more Spinoza Spinoza is in the midst of the scientific revolution.
583
00:59:05,980 --> 00:59:11,700
He is maybe the most one of the most profound first readers of Descartes. I think he's the
584
00:59:11,700 --> 00:59:18,620
person that translates Descartes initially. So he gets what's going on. And yet he sees
585
00:59:18,620 --> 00:59:26,420
the project is not going to go well if if the spiritual, the ethical, the existential
586
00:59:26,420 --> 00:59:31,820
are left out of the equation. And so that's what he tries to do in the ethics. He tries
587
00:59:31,820 --> 00:59:37,100
to correct that at the very beginning. And the language he used, and of course, he is
588
00:59:37,100 --> 00:59:44,180
also declared a heretic. He's dismissed as a pantheist. And a lot of things. And now
589
00:59:44,180 --> 00:59:49,620
what's happened recently is he's been going through a revival and many people are saying
590
00:59:49,620 --> 00:59:54,780
these labels that you've applied to him are ways of actually misapprehending him. And
591
00:59:54,780 --> 00:59:59,580
so he can miss rather than wrestling with the new way of thinking that he's trying to
592
00:59:59,580 --> 01:00:08,020
get you to see. And I agree. So I strongly recommend Carlisle's book, Spinoza's Religion.
593
01:00:08,020 --> 01:00:16,740
The book really, really opens up what Spinoza is doing in a way that is deeply relevant
594
01:00:16,740 --> 01:00:18,260
to what we're talking about here and now.
595
01:00:18,260 --> 01:00:22,500
But here's the thing, John, I think I might be living Spinoza's religion. This is the
596
01:00:22,500 --> 01:00:27,780
I need to actually actually need to make a confession. You know, you you're really great
597
01:00:27,780 --> 01:00:32,140
at rattling off, you know, researchers and books and things like that. And I have to
598
01:00:32,140 --> 01:00:37,300
confess, like, I don't that is not where I'm coming from. I literally just I come in off
599
01:00:37,300 --> 01:00:40,980
the trail, like I was, you know, just on the abolition trail to come in and have this conversation.
600
01:00:40,980 --> 01:00:43,940
That's why I'm talking to you. But that's why I'm talking.
601
01:00:43,940 --> 01:00:50,340
And it's like, it just feels like, you know, someone has to come in and speak for the earth.
602
01:00:50,340 --> 01:00:53,980
And I don't mean that in a, you know, I'm not saying that in a, in a, in a way, I'm
603
01:00:53,980 --> 01:00:57,580
not saying that I speak for the earth. I'm saying somebody has to somebody has to come
604
01:00:57,580 --> 01:01:04,980
into this and speak directly for because and it's interesting that when I listen to your,
605
01:01:04,980 --> 01:01:09,700
you know, when your deep conversations with lots of people, I don't find myself referring
606
01:01:09,700 --> 01:01:13,940
back to something that someone has written. I refer back to something that I've either
607
01:01:13,940 --> 01:01:19,540
witnessed or experienced or something in the way an animal moves or just the way an animal
608
01:01:19,540 --> 01:01:25,700
carries itself for the way that light bounces off of things or the way that the rivers meander,
609
01:01:25,700 --> 01:01:32,980
you know, that kind of thing. I'm seeing this stuff out there in nature, which I think,
610
01:01:32,980 --> 01:01:40,180
I think there's something useful there to bring that perspective to this conversation.
611
01:01:40,180 --> 01:01:43,060
I think there's more than useful. I think it's necessary.
612
01:01:43,060 --> 01:01:47,700
Absolutely. You said it last time you said something like, you know, you think that these,
613
01:01:47,700 --> 01:01:52,180
these practice, these ecology of practices that, you know, you're doing could benefit from,
614
01:01:52,180 --> 01:01:58,900
you know, having more sort of time spent in nature, contemplating nature. Actually, I
615
01:01:58,900 --> 01:02:04,340
think it's more, more than useful. I think it's like the past to do that.
616
01:02:04,340 --> 01:02:05,060
Yes. Yes.
617
01:02:05,700 --> 01:02:12,820
Be because it's through that relationship first with planet, then with cosmos, if you,
618
01:02:12,820 --> 01:02:17,700
if you dare to go. But the point is that we've got this planetary thing that needs to be
619
01:02:18,980 --> 01:02:22,580
healed. We've got a relationship with this planet that needs to be healed before we can
620
01:02:22,580 --> 01:02:26,420
make our way to the stars. You know, we're not going to get to the stars at the price of this
621
01:02:26,420 --> 01:02:31,940
planet. It's just not, we're going to get there by tapping into the creative
622
01:02:32,580 --> 01:02:39,140
impulse of nature. And until we sort of drop the hubris and do that, you know, in a serious way,
623
01:02:39,140 --> 01:02:46,820
then the universe is off limits, you know, to our, the galaxy doesn't need another paracitic
624
01:02:46,820 --> 01:02:53,060
species coming out and claiming colonial rights to the place. You know, it's like, I think that
625
01:02:53,060 --> 01:02:58,020
it's going to take a different, different ideology of not an ideology, but it just a
626
01:02:58,020 --> 01:03:01,220
different mindset to get there. Yes.
627
01:03:02,580 --> 01:03:07,940
And I agree totally with the way you are. I mean, that where we've almost circled back
628
01:03:07,940 --> 01:03:11,700
to the first question, why am I talking to you? I'm talking to you precisely because
629
01:03:12,900 --> 01:03:18,100
to use some of Bruce's language, you bear witness to epiphany. That's the title of one
630
01:03:18,100 --> 01:03:23,620
of his books. You bear witness to epiphany. And I deny that. Yeah, cannot deny that.
631
01:03:23,620 --> 01:03:28,420
Right. And we need that. And that's the part of, you know, and, and, and Russin's point,
632
01:03:28,420 --> 01:03:35,220
the brilliant point is that's, it's not only that we need it because of the, the, the exigent
633
01:03:35,220 --> 01:03:39,860
situation we're in, but we also need it because it's a fundamental need to bear witness to
634
01:03:39,860 --> 01:03:45,860
him to epiphany. It's a fun, it's, I mean, I think I bear witness to epiphany. One of John
635
01:03:45,860 --> 01:03:50,260
Russin's books is a masterpiece. I've read it twice. I've studied it with that, Chiapi in depth.
636
01:03:50,260 --> 01:03:56,420
And that proposal that bearing witness to epiphany is fundamental to us as human beings.
637
01:03:57,060 --> 01:04:03,620
Right. I think that's exactly right. So I want to talk to you because you're doing that. You're
638
01:04:03,620 --> 01:04:09,220
bearing witness to epiphany. I bring these things in not because I'm trying to point out
639
01:04:10,420 --> 01:04:14,100
or place a demand on you. I'm trying to, I'm just trying to bring in a convergence
640
01:04:14,100 --> 01:04:20,580
and say there, like there's as many, if we can bring as many voices together
641
01:04:21,860 --> 01:04:28,340
with, you know, different degrees of expertise and background and converge on saying the same thing,
642
01:04:28,340 --> 01:04:33,300
the more plausible and attractive it becomes as a proposal. That's what I'm trying to do.
643
01:04:34,580 --> 01:04:41,620
Yeah, I agree. And I see that I would say that I think it's actually beyond convergence and more
644
01:04:41,620 --> 01:04:46,740
in the realm of conciliants. In other words, that these are disparate lines of inquiry that
645
01:04:46,740 --> 01:04:54,260
are coming together on an insight. That insight then deserves some kind of privileged examination,
646
01:04:54,260 --> 01:05:00,580
a privileged analysis. It deserves totally. And it's precisely because we're coming at it from
647
01:05:00,580 --> 01:05:08,100
disparate directions, whether that's spiritual or permaculture or, you know, any one of the other,
648
01:05:08,100 --> 01:05:16,900
you know, traditions. It's, yeah. And I think nature is down there, just kind of waiting to
649
01:05:16,900 --> 01:05:26,180
be to fulfill its role in this process. We just have to take it seriously. Yes. I think nature's
650
01:05:26,180 --> 01:05:32,100
down there. I think nature, well, here, I want to say something even different. I hope it lands
651
01:05:32,100 --> 01:05:36,180
well with you. I want to replace natures down there or up there with just, oh, absolutely,
652
01:05:36,180 --> 01:05:46,580
natures around. It's encompassing. Right, because it uses us. Yes, it's also beyond us in, like,
653
01:05:46,580 --> 01:05:52,900
again, the deep time and the deep complexity, right, and the combinatorial explosive nature
654
01:05:52,900 --> 01:05:58,900
of reality. These are facts we can no longer deny. In fact, they are facts that we have to,
655
01:05:58,900 --> 01:06:04,900
as you said, we have to make central sacred to make centered to center it and to center our
656
01:06:04,900 --> 01:06:11,460
attention to it. That's what we, they have to become sacred facts to us. For many people,
657
01:06:11,460 --> 01:06:16,900
they're barely propositional facts. And for many people, they are not sacred facts, I would argue.
658
01:06:18,260 --> 01:06:25,540
Yeah, I think I couldn't agree more. And all I can do is to say again that everything that we know
659
01:06:25,540 --> 01:06:31,620
scientifically about the way the universe has unfolded, every new discovery, every bit of insight
660
01:06:31,620 --> 01:06:38,180
that science manages to, you know, agree upon, it is sort of a consensus operation. But the point
661
01:06:38,180 --> 01:06:48,260
is that the best science we have is consistent. And it brings all of these questions together in a way
662
01:06:49,540 --> 01:06:56,660
that solves many, many problems at once, not all of them. Again, this isn't about the end of inquiry
663
01:06:56,660 --> 01:07:05,060
or the end of suffering. It's just that we're ready for this other way of imagining ourselves in
664
01:07:05,060 --> 01:07:09,060
the world. Yeah, and we haven't even had a chance to talk about all these things that I wanted to
665
01:07:09,060 --> 01:07:13,380
ask you about about your, you know, the some of the other papers that you're publishing in the
666
01:07:14,580 --> 01:07:21,140
and your conversations on predictive processing with Mark. Right. That stuff is so relevant. It's
667
01:07:21,140 --> 01:07:26,900
so relevant. And I don't know if you got a chance to see the talk I gave at Cambridge about
668
01:07:26,900 --> 01:07:32,020
rationality. Oh, I did. I've been quoting it left and right about how, how
669
01:07:33,060 --> 01:07:38,340
augment, imaginably augmented perception, cognition and perception just to discern
670
01:07:38,900 --> 01:07:43,700
real patterns in the world is like that that is Oika practice to me, like that. Yes, that's what I
671
01:07:43,700 --> 01:07:48,100
call Oika practice. I did want to ask you maybe if I could put you on the spot here a little bit
672
01:07:48,100 --> 01:07:57,940
it on the on the point about the NASA astronauts sort of enacting a problem with the rover in
673
01:07:57,940 --> 01:08:05,140
their in their own biology. Are you saying that they that they experienced these
674
01:08:06,260 --> 01:08:11,460
faults or whatever you want to call it these problems prior to learning that the rover had
675
01:08:11,460 --> 01:08:17,620
this had had had an analogous issue or or are you just saying that I mean because what is the
676
01:08:17,620 --> 01:08:22,500
claim there I mean the scientist in me is asking this question single so I'm not clear about which
677
01:08:22,500 --> 01:08:28,260
claim the claim that they they would enact it or the claim that they felt a sympathetic identity
678
01:08:28,260 --> 01:08:32,020
with the rover which well the fact that they would feel a sympathetic identity isn't isn't
679
01:08:32,020 --> 01:08:36,900
really surprising to me at all but the fact that they might feel it prior to it prior to their
680
01:08:36,900 --> 01:08:45,140
knowledge of it. So I think it's very much if I understand you correctly it it was not
681
01:08:46,820 --> 01:08:53,060
it was something that emerged intuitively bottom up and not even individually but collectively
682
01:08:53,060 --> 01:08:58,660
and only I think when the ethnographers were there was where they actually bringing any
683
01:08:58,660 --> 01:09:05,940
reflective awareness on this whole process. They were okay they were very they were very focused
684
01:09:05,940 --> 01:09:11,060
they're very focused on producing the propositional scientific reports as they should be I mean that
685
01:09:11,060 --> 01:09:16,100
that's that's that there's not the scientists I'm not criticizing them but the the work of the
686
01:09:16,100 --> 01:09:20,660
ethnographers was to say yeah and that and that's what the work that Dan and I were doing in the
687
01:09:20,660 --> 01:09:27,060
publications yeah but doing that this is a brilliant case study because of its strangeness
688
01:09:27,060 --> 01:09:33,700
because of its displacement in time and space and topography we can it can it can bring things out
689
01:09:33,700 --> 01:09:38,740
that are normally happening so fast and so implicitly and intuitively that we don't see them
690
01:09:38,740 --> 01:09:44,020
and that the ethnographers go in and see right and then Dan and I go and take the ethnography so
691
01:09:44,020 --> 01:09:51,140
you're watching this process of recursive reflection that is explicating so by the time Dan and I get
692
01:09:51,140 --> 01:09:54,980
and by and then and then I take that by the way Dan approved of it right he really thought the
693
01:09:54,980 --> 01:09:59,300
talk I gave at Cambridge was great but then I took that and then develop it further so you're
694
01:09:59,300 --> 01:10:05,460
getting you're getting several orders of the explication of something that was densely implicit
695
01:10:05,460 --> 01:10:11,380
in situ sure no that makes perfect sense and that that's a kind of a claim that I would say well
696
01:10:11,380 --> 01:10:17,220
yeah you know like that makes perfect sense it's just that idea of that they would that they would
697
01:10:17,220 --> 01:10:23,460
that they would lodge a complaint about you know a stiff shoulder and then and then two days later
698
01:10:23,460 --> 01:10:30,900
you know the engineers would would report that oh by the way the it was often the same day the same
699
01:10:30,900 --> 01:10:38,340
day they'd say I was doing this in the garden in the morning and then they got to the lab and spirits
700
01:10:38,340 --> 01:10:44,580
right wheel was stuck they would talk to they would I don't have like I would I would I don't have
701
01:10:44,580 --> 01:10:52,020
like an explanation like I obviously in terms of like if you I'll have to say to that if you say so
702
01:10:52,020 --> 01:10:56,900
you know like like that that's anecdotal let's be careful what I'm not claiming I'm not claiming
703
01:10:56,900 --> 01:11:03,620
clairvoyance or anything like that what I'm claiming is they right are implicitly identifying
704
01:11:03,620 --> 01:11:09,460
with the rover in ways that facilitate them yeah interacting with the rovers that they have which
705
01:11:09,460 --> 01:11:15,940
is profound which is let's not I don't want to you know dismiss that that's that is a profound
706
01:11:15,940 --> 01:11:22,660
description of reality that actually is consistent with everything that I you know know about an act
707
01:11:22,660 --> 01:11:29,140
in activism so uh yeah I was just a little I just wanted clarification on that one thing about you
708
01:11:29,140 --> 01:11:33,860
know yeah I know I'm being made that's all yeah yeah so some people have tried to say oh well
709
01:11:33,860 --> 01:11:39,140
you're talking you know the clairvoyance the the thing that I would say I'm not claiming that Dan
710
01:11:39,140 --> 01:11:45,220
and I are not claiming that well we're claiming what I just said to you and one other thing the one
711
01:11:45,220 --> 01:11:52,980
other thing is these scientists are having an experience that is powerful and functional for
712
01:11:52,980 --> 01:11:58,260
them but they don't have a language other than the language of magic to talk about it and that's
713
01:11:58,260 --> 01:12:04,420
part of the meeting crisis that's another yeah I totally agree and and I don't think you need to
714
01:12:04,420 --> 01:12:08,580
call it magic I think it's all magic I mean the fact that you and I having this conversation the
715
01:12:08,580 --> 01:12:14,340
fact that you know I'm here is magic but the point is that I don't think you really need it's
716
01:12:14,340 --> 01:12:18,660
magical but I don't think it's necessarily magic do you know what I mean I agree I agree and I think
717
01:12:18,660 --> 01:12:24,420
trying I mean so I want to be very careful I'm not criticizing them I'm trying to say they are
718
01:12:24,420 --> 01:12:29,860
struggling to find a language to articulate this they do not have one and so they resort to a kind
719
01:12:29,860 --> 01:12:36,340
of mythological way of explaining it but they are trying to that that experience is pointing to a
720
01:12:36,340 --> 01:12:43,940
profound a profound set of individual and shared cognitive processes and and and ways in which well
721
01:12:43,940 --> 01:12:48,740
as I make the argument the ways in which procedural respectable and participatory knowing are doing
722
01:12:48,740 --> 01:12:55,060
the heavy work for making sense and so that science is possible I think that's the profound point
723
01:12:55,060 --> 01:13:00,900
that they're struggling that their experience is sort of bringing into their awareness but in a way
724
01:13:00,900 --> 01:13:05,780
that they can't bring a conceptual it's like it's like it's like tacit no I mean it's kind of
725
01:13:05,780 --> 01:13:15,460
Polanyi's tacit knowledge it is it's Polanyi and through and through very much very very much very
726
01:13:15,460 --> 01:13:20,420
good well I you know there's just so much John that I want to talk to you about so I mean just like
727
01:13:20,420 --> 01:13:26,580
the the function of art and like where art comes from and how that like let's do that next let's do
728
01:13:26,580 --> 01:13:31,940
that next let's do that let's have enough I mean like let's do another one where we can come in
729
01:13:31,940 --> 01:13:36,900
and we can talk about the imaginal we can talk about art we can talk about ritual and and follow
730
01:13:36,900 --> 01:13:40,820
up on everything we've talked about today so let's just set that up and make that happen
731
01:13:42,260 --> 01:13:42,660
perfect
732
01:13:45,860 --> 01:13:48,820
Rich is there anything more you'd like to say before I stop recording
733
01:13:51,220 --> 01:13:57,060
no not not not again I mean what I said it last time just that I think that we are
734
01:13:57,060 --> 01:14:06,660
um the the kind of things that are going on in the world right now make perfect sense given
735
01:14:07,860 --> 01:14:14,340
what we're going through collectively you know that that that that these events and this moment
736
01:14:14,340 --> 01:14:22,740
this time is is pivotal um and it's it's it's part of um it's part of a much bigger trajectory of
737
01:14:22,740 --> 01:14:28,180
development I don't mean to like make any profound claims on that other than just to say
738
01:14:29,540 --> 01:14:35,540
this is what transformation feels like this is what paradigm shift feels like and so try to
739
01:14:35,540 --> 01:14:53,220
enjoy the ride try to participate in it I guess that's it thank you so much rich thank you john