https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=mb9PDN-YDBE
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Embodying the Logos. Today, my guest will be Theo and our topic is actually going to be the embodiment of the logos because this is, this embodiment stuff, this is a tricky business and I’ve been thinking about it. I had a conversation with Theo a week ago or something and he was like, yeah, there’s a lot there. He wanted to process it and he wanted to have it on video to reference. And so I thought, well, we’ll just make it available to everybody so that we can share our thoughts. So yeah, Theo, do you want to have some introductory statement? Yeah, it’s not much. I’m just glad to have this opportunity. Like you said, the conversation we had about a week ago was very illuminating for me and I think it’ll be helpful to others. Yeah, I hope so. I have to say that, well, the conversation was about God, right? And this is all following from my steps into Christianity. So I’m using my, well, yeah, literally atheist framework to try and establish a connection and I’m running into a bunch of things and I’ll now try to set up a framing that I think will be helpful to engage from, right? So we have two types of ways to look at the world, right? Like so there’s one descriptive world, right? Like this is the world that science tries to get access to. It’s the is-ness, right? Like it’s just what is. And then there’s the world of action. There’s the world of life. There’s the world of participation. And this is about the things that you ought to do in the world. And so in the world where you ought to do things, things like orientation are important, right? So this defines where you’re looking at, where you’re going, and then agency is important because agency is the capacity to do things, right? So some things are outside of your control or your capability, right? So you don’t have the agency to manifest them. And then there’s awareness, right? So in order to do things, you have to be aware of them. Like they have to be presented to you in a way that you can interact with your agency, right, towards your orientation. And then all of these things happen in a relationship, right? Like this is the relationary realm. And so yeah, that’s kind of like the two worlds, right? And I want to, the descriptive world is in some sense I hope already familiar to everybody, right? But this other world, I think we lack proper understanding of. So Theo, do you want to hop in? Yeah, I like the trinity of the awareness, orientation, and agency that’s coupled with the world of action. The descriptive world, I think that all before there’s an orientation to the descriptive world as well, I would say, because what’s I think all three awareness and orientation, I would say also applies to the descriptive world. What do you make of that? The stance that you take in would determine what you’re, would determine how you are. For example, if you’re the conversation between Paul and the guy from the recording, the gurus, they were talking about the ad different descriptive world and the West, they are this yeah, that because he’s a scientific materialist and Paul’s religious. So they were trying to find a way to mesh worlds. So I think the descriptive world, we can say it’s a given, but even in that as an orientation, and an awareness that differs from person to person. Yeah, right. Like, yes. So there’s a framing that you have on the descriptive world, right? And the framing on the descriptive world is a consequence of your, the world that you live in, right? Like, so your participation highlights what you would describe. And so you could say, right, what you describe is always post hoc, right? You can only describe the things that you’ve already participated in because else they don’t make sense, right? Like there’s no grounding for you to talk from. But yeah, like, because the descriptive world is post hoc, I think it’s not interest, right? Because like, it’s a way to orient, right? Like to have an analysis about what you’re doing or whatever, right? But it’s not helpful in how we ought to live our lives, right? But is there a relationship between the descriptive world and the world of action? I think there’s a transjected relationship between the two. Right. Yeah, yeah. Well, the world of action, right, is in some sense creating the affordances, right, the ability to see. It’s creating the eyes to see, right? So if you have eyes to see, you can describe things, right? You can describe what you see, right? But like, in order to describe something, you first have to interpret it and hopefully also have an understanding of it, right? So so that requires a familiarity, right? Like it requires for you to have some sort of intimate relationship to it already, right? And this intimacy comes from your participation. Like, yeah, that’s what I’m like, what are the things that you get intimate to? Like, how do you get intimate? I, yeah, if you have more questions, maybe we should handle them. But like, I go into that later on. So yeah, I’ll lay you I’ve got some other thoughts, but I think they’ll will say we’ll circle back to them. Okay, yeah, because I think I think that’s a really good basis, right? To come back to multiple times. Right. So yeah, so I mentioned relation, right? And relation is interesting, interesting, because it’s something that unfolds over time. Right? So it’s an interaction, right? And you let yourself be informed by the relation. And what is the proper target of a relationship? Right? What’s the subject that you have a relationship to? Well, that’s a person, right? Like you relate to a person. And then what is a person? Well, a person is an entity with a body that consists of multiple parts. And those parts cooperate in a whole. Right? So you can say the multiple parts are like perspectives that you can engage with it, right? Like they might have physical manifestations, they might not have physical manifestations. But the fact that it’s multi dimensional allows you to be in a dance, right? And then across time, right, like these dimensions, they they move at different speeds or different ways, right? And so you develop intimacy with whatever that body is. Is it important to have a descriptive frame for that body, for that entity? Um, well, sometimes if you want to communicate it, but like in another sense, it doesn’t matter, right? Because like, if it works, it works, right? And, and in order to do the dance with that body, you have to know the body, right? Because else you can’t, you can’t dance with it, right? And, and, and that’s again, it goes back to intimacy, right? You get to know the body by engaging in that dance continuously. That’s how over time, that’s how you get to know the body. Right. And then you can choose to find a way to, to talk about it, right? To describe it. But like that, that’s not a prerequisite. Like you can just be a dancer and just be good at dance. And, and in some sense, right, like we’ve been talking about enchanting the world in, in this little corner, right? Like if you, if you try to describe it, like if you try to deconstruct it, right, then you, you remove the magic, right? Because now you, you can, you can say, oh, I’m doing this, right? Oh, I’m doing that. Right. So you get this horrible word, right? You get some sort of meta awareness, right? Which takes you out of the actual participation, right? And you can get stuck, right? Like, cause it’s like really nice, like, oh, I’m doing this. Oh, I’m doing that. Right. And like, after a while, yeah, it takes you out of the flow. And after a while, you just become like this, this commentator to yourself, right? Oh yeah. Look at me, right? I’m, I’m getting the likes, right? Like, oh, look at me. I, I made that backflip really well, right? Like, and, and that’s where, where you start living in sin, right? Like that’s where you start going out of control. Just to, just to contextualize this for the, for the people viewing, the frame, this, the frame that we’ve described earlier, that’s, uh, if you’re aware of Paul Van der Klaas, God number one, God number two, you can sort of visualize what we’re talking about. With the descriptive being God number one and the action being God number two, the agentic God. Right. So, so I, I, I feel like this, right? This is right. Cause that’s God number one. Is that what, what is, and I go up number two, is that what ought, right? Like there’s, there’s, there’s an implication of, of action there, right? That implication of action follows from, from the relationship, right? And the relationship is again to a person, right? Cause it’s a body with different parts expressing themselves different ways, right? Like God has the most complex body, right? So it’s most difficult to do that dance and have the right understanding. But yeah, you can, you can see that fractally go down, right? So you have a body, right? Or you have two bodies, right? You have a physical body and you have your actual body, right? And your physical body is a body part of your actual body. Yeah, yeah. And so, so yeah, so this is fractally, right? So the community also has a body and your arm also has a body with, with parts. And in context of a relationship with God, you’re saying that ought the action that you’re taking and engaging in that relationship is more important than your conception of who you’re engaging with. Am I following? Right. So, so, so again, right? Like if we take God, but I can even take, take you, maybe that’s, that’s easier, right? So we can scale that up. Let’s start lower. Yeah, go on. Like it’s like Plato’s Republic, but then inverted. So, so when I, when I relate to you, I don’t know you, right? And I can say, well, you live in England, right? So I can approach you with all the English customs, right? So now I have a procedural method to engage with you, right? And that, that is functional for certain part, for certain relationship. But beyond that, right? Like for example, what we’re trying to do now, that’s insufficient, right? And so, so what, what do I do, right? Like, well, now I’m, I’m giving an example to you. Well, what, what am I supposed to do when I give an example to you? Well, I’m, I’m, I have to appeal to you, right? To your body parts, right? Like it’s, I have to give you something that you can grasp onto spiritually so that you can internalize it, right? And how do I do that? Well, I, I can look at you and I can see your reaction, right? And I can see whether what I’m saying is resonating. But like when I, when it’s resonating, do I know if it’s resonating the right way, right? So I have this pull and push, right? Now you’re nodding. That’s the dance. That’s the dance. That’s the dance that we’re doing in engagement. Yeah, completely. Right. And you’re engaging, you’re engaging me on the, you give an example that hopefully I can find a way to grasp onto. And then I returned that by, okay, this is what I got from it. And then you see that, okay, was that what was intended? We keep going back and forth with this dance. But the, in the, even in that dance, we’re still, neither of us are fully aware of either the person. I don’t, I still don’t know you and you still don’t know me, but we’re in doing, in having this dance relationship, we get to you find out more about each other. Yeah. So that on this scale, I’m following you. Okay. And like when you don’t understand a thing, right? Like I might be able to see what’s behind do not understand, right? Because like I might be able to see, well, okay, he would react this way if all of these other things were true, right? So like, I can see way more of you than just the answer that you give, right? If I’m right, right? Like I might be wrong. I’m, I’m, I project upon you and then I corrupt our intimacy, right? So it’s important that I don’t do that too much and that I double check, right? And stuff like that. But, but there’s a way to see inside of you, right? When I’m talking to you. And, and so I don’t, I don’t know that, right? Like, like if you, if I’d have to tell you, right? I’d have to think real hard, like how that works. And maybe I can give you an answer. Maybe I can not, right? But I can get an intuitive thing, right? Like, like I know what to do. And you’ve got, you’ve got, every person’s got a toolkit that we draw from ways that we’ve engaged with people prior and we’ll try different things to see what works. And, and we’ll use that to build up the map of the person that we’re, that we’re engaging with. Right. And that’s the agency, right? So to go back, right? So I have an orientation when I engage with you, right? I have my toolbox, which is my agency, and I have my awareness. So like when, when I pay attention to the way that you respond, I pick up certain signals and I don’t pick up other signals, right? So I need to choose what signals I want to pick up depending on what I’m doing. And so, so like there’s all this stuff going on, right? And that makes you a person and I’ll go, go back into person later. Like I think we need to leave God for the end because I think God is just, just really hard. Yes, that’s, but I think by building up, it will be able to clarify our differences when we do get to the God part. But yeah, so far we’re tracking. Yeah. So, so it’s interesting because the next thing that I’ve done is that, that you have to relate to beyond the parts, right? So the body is, is something that’s beyond the parts, right? It’s, and it’s, it’s what brings the parts to it together. And that has a personality, right? The personality is the way in, in which these, these things dance together, right? By, by, by which they come a whole, right? That’s the personality and that, that’s a way of self-expression that the body has, right? Does it not come together in identity? Is that not what gives all the parts, different parts of owners? No, no. What, when you say personality, I heard identity. So can you differentiate it? No, no. So, so the personality is the way in which the body parts commune, right? So it’s, it’s the manifestation of the communion. So the relationship between the body parts, the way they interject, okay. The way that they’re integrated, right? And then the identity is how the body parts, right? Or how the agency expressed through the body parts is relating to something in the world. That’s the identity, right? So, Right. Got you. So identity, personality is insular relationship dynamic between the different body parts and identity is the must be presented to the parts outside of the body to, to, to personalities outside of the body. Well, the identity, the identity is like a higher level organization, right? So you have the organization, like, okay, like my brain says something and my hand does this, right? Which is always true, right? Because else I don’t have a hand that I can use, right? So that’s not my identity, right? Like that’s my part of part of the person that I am. So, so then you would that relationship between the neurons in the brain and the muscles that you classify as personality? Well, yeah, well, that would form your, your personality. Okay. And then the way that that gets expressed or personhood, but I think that’s what personality is, right? And, and, and the way that the person is picking up a glass of water, right? Like, so if I, if I want to pick up my glass, right, like, then I’m organizing my, my hand in a certain way, right? And, and because I’m organizing them, right. And, and that’s not my personality, right? But like, I might be stubborn and grab my glass this way, right? And that would be my personality. affecting the way that I grab my glass, right? So, yeah, distinction there. Yeah, yeah, I do. I don’t know if I agree by this, this distinction. Yeah, well, just, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m on the edge of my thinking, right? So that’s, that’s, that’s fine. And I’m giving affordance to that because I find it very interesting. Yeah, so, so when, when, when we recognize a personality, right? So when I recognize a personality in you, then I can reduce the complexity of you, right? Like into that personality, right? So I don’t, I don’t have to identify every specific thing, but I have this archetype of you or this soul of you, right? Like the thing that is you that is expressed, right? Is that, is that this just came to mind? Prophelicity. What’s the relationship between pro between prophelicity and I think prophelicity is more of a virtual, it’s some YouTube, YouTuber philosopher, that kind of term, Paul commented on a few of his videos and that what you’re describing sounds or prophelicity might be more to do with identity because I think that’s more to do with how you present to the world, which you, it’s identity in your classification. But in terms of personality, just let me give you an example to try to show if I understand what you’re coming from. So the, what can I think of the entrance in, I want to give an example that’s a social way of doing things and how you differ from the social way of doing things is the personality, but I can’t think of one. Did what I say just makes- Well, like, so for example, I reach out my hand, right? And there’s an innate reaction within some person to take a step back, right? You can have the fight, flight and freeze response, right? So one of those would like, if your personality is in a way, right, you default to one of those, right? But it doesn’t mean that you always default to that, but you have a reliable way of self-expression, right? And that’s why I went with the hand, right? You have a reliable way. A reliable way of self-expression. That’s a good- Right. And so now I can trust you, right? So I know you and therefore I can trust you, right? And what do I know? Well, I know the way that you express yourself, right? And in some sense, that is the expression of your soul, right? And I had a nice definition of soul, right? And the soul is the way that, like, the interface between the reality and how it gets presented to you, right? Like that’s- Well, the re- Say that again. Your soul is that which deals with, right, all the information that comes at you and puts that in organization, right? That, the whole of that is your soul, right? I think that- And that’s, when you say all of that, you mean both physically and spiritually? No, I think that’s purely spiritual, right? Like the physicality is an enablement of the spiritual, right? Like- For your spirit, okay, yeah, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s- I’m just chewing over the soul definition that you’ve given in- Yeah, yeah, but like I’m still working on that too, right? Oh, yeah. Edge of my thinking. This is great, this is great, Manu. I’ll keep going. Okay, so let’s go back, like, seven sentences. So, when I know your personality, right? Or maybe you need to use a different word, right? But when I know your personality- When you’ve got a reliable way of self-expression that breeds trust, right? And that affords a more efficient stance in the relationship. Right, but it also reduces my cognitive load, right? Like, so, how taxing it is for me to relate to you gets reduced, right? That’s a good point, that is a very good point, yeah. And so, that is really important. And then the things that I do track, right? Like, I can reduce to really specific aspects, right? Anyway, but this is all intuitive, right? Like, this is not me making models of you or whatever, right? Okay, so, we can say, sort of, in our engagement issues, just us two, we can have a stereotype can be the starts, like, the basic starting point of engagement. And then, as you develop a more reliable way of- as I’ve got a better understanding of your reliable way of self-expression personality, that affords trust and reduces cognitive load. Okay, I’m tracking, yeah. Yeah. So, if you- all you have to do is relate to the personality, you can also recognize the breaks in the personality fairly easy, right? Because, like, you don’t have to track all these things. So, then, you can track the inconsistencies. And this is what I do, right? Like, I track people’s inconsistencies like there’s no tomorrow, right? And then it’s like, well, what do these inconsistencies say, right? And then there’s two options, right? Like, the way that I have understood you up until now was wrong. It’s incorrect, or- No, you changed. But it doesn’t matter, right? Because the answer is the same, I need to update. Update your personality file on me, yeah. Right. And maybe, right, like, if my understanding of you was wrong, I need to not only update you, but I also need to update me, because I’m misaligned with the signals I receive, because there’s more complexity that I don’t have a relationship to. Right? But it’s important, right? The answer is the same, right? And we don’t understand these things, right? Like, okay, different causes, still same reaction. The answer is the same, but depending- the answer is the same being update file, update personality file on X. However, how well you can do that update depends on the answer. If it’s because you’re wrong, then that means you have to go back to start. You have to go back and where was the mistake made in the personality file that I’ve got for you? So, for example, if I presume because you’re Dutch, you’re tall, and then I meet you, you’re not, that’s a fairly easy one to reconcile. Okay, my stereotype was wrong, update personality file. This is- that’s incorrect. However, if it’s something more serious, let’s say you’re a Christian, we met at church, and I found out that you’re someone that we go to, we go shopping, and I find that you’re someone that likes to steal. And okay, how does that fit into things? So, there are different ways to- there are different means, and that would be a more difficult update to do than the other, because now it’s a- you’re like- there’s a lot more complexity to filter through. That makes sense. And what you’re talking about, right, like, is connected to intimacy, right? So, my height is not an intimate connection, right? But like, my understanding, my motivations coming from a Christian framework and stealing requires a lot of connections, right? Like, it requires you to be able to dance with me really well, and that’s probably your mistake, right? Like, you’re presuming that you know this dance when you don’t have any right to make that assumption. I’ve put- I’ve used too many of my Christian source code in your- in my programming of your personality, and it’s incorrect. Right. Yeah. I think, again, these so far are not person-to-person level. I’m tracking. So, I like the case you’re building, and you’re building it very well. Well, why thank you. So, but like, this is- this is- so, the case that I’m building is a case for personhood, right? And so, personhood is that which relates to- which you relate to, and we’ve made the obvious person reference, but now that we’ve accepted that this is important, right, you can also see how an inanimate object can have a personality, right? So, the easiest example of this might be a car, right? Like, there’s people that’s like, oh, this car feels like this, or whatever, right? So, a car is a vessel, right? Like, it- it- when you’re in it, right, like, you’re connected with it, through it, with the world, right? So, there’s all of these things going on, right? And that’s a really dynamic relationship, right? And so, the way, right, by which that gets manifest, right, has certain characteristics, right? Like, so, the characteristics would be an expression of how the steering wheel relates to the wheels, relates to how they have grip on the floor, right? And so, now we’re getting- A very common one is people knowing how much gas- how little gas is required for distance. So, don’t worry, I know my car, it can- it can- we can get there. So, yeah. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. But also, your computer, right? Depending on the operating system that you use, or depending on the program that you use within the operating system, there’s ways that the computer relates to you, right? And it might get you angry, it might suit you, right? Like, depending on what website you go to, like, you might get certain emotional responses. So, all of this stuff is there in our daily reactions, right? But even a cop, right, a cop can do that, right? Because, like, you can have a cop and you can take a sip, and there’s this trust, right? There’s this ritual that you do every time, every day, and you get drunk out of whatever frustration you are in, and you reorient yourself in the remembrance of that cop, and maybe you made it, or maybe someone gave it to you, right? So, there’s this emotional story that you lift up by it, right? So, like, even a cop can have a personality, right? And this goes back to the enchantedness, right? Like, how is the way that we connect to it, right? And, like, what are the connections that we’re making? Like, if the cop is just that which holds the liquid that I need to put in my mouth, then it’s not gonna be more than that, right? Like, and its personality will be just as flat, right? It will just like, oh, it’s shiny, you know? So, so this thing scale, this thing scale, the personality of an inanimate object, well, what’s this? I was thinking, I was thinking, our tide is the personal, the reliable way of self-expression. Our dynamic is that, because that changes depending on the person. There are different affordances given to different people. So, in a relationship, your relationship to your car is different to how you relate to your spouse, and how you relate to your spouse is different to how you relate to your kid. And those personalities are, yeah, different people will have a different reliable way, different people will have different understanding of your reliable way of self-expression, depending on the relationship. Right, because you have a different identity towards all of them, right? Okay, so that’s why you said identities, okay, I’m tracking now. Now I’ve got identity and personality. But the personality is like what’s universal among all identities, right? Is it? That’s what I’m pointing at. Is it? I don’t think it is. Well, okay, why would you say no? Because my understanding of the way you define personality is, I’ve got here, a reliable way of self-expression. Correct? So, a reliable way of self-expression between a father and a son. Like, what does the son understand the father’s self-expression to be? I don’t know, I guess maybe I’m still getting identity and personality mixed up in my brain. Because, for example, I’ll give an example that’s universal, a personality that’s universal, one that’s not. So, snoring, my dad snores, that’s regardless of who you are, you know that that’s something that he does, he’s a snorer. That’s a personality that’s universal across all identity. A personality that’s not universal across all identity is, my dad, as it relates to me, is stricter with his sons than it is with my sister. It’s a different, like, we, my sister will describe us that as like gentle and such, and the boy describes us like hard and tough. Does that make sense? So, that’s different personality. No, I would put that in identity, right? Because when I relate to my daughter, right, I want different things than I relate to my son, right? Like, because they’re not the same. So, who I need to be is different, right? But the way you express it is that personality identity. The way… Well, but like, you can connect the personality to the agency, right? So, like, the agency that I have, right? So, the means of self-expression that I have, right, are defining me, right? They define me in a profound way, right? Like, I don’t want to limit it to this, right? But like, you can see that depending on the agency that I have, I’m going to act in certain ways, right? And yes, right, like, on the specific details of the situation, if I have not developed my agency, I’m going to treat my daughter the same as my son, right? Because if I have not developed that part of myself, I only have one means, right, like one agency, one mode of being that I can participate in when I relate to a child, for example, right? And like, this is actually what’s happening in the modern world, right? Like, that’s the flattening of the world, right? Like, people don’t understand the complexity of the relations, right? So, they can’t assume different identities between… that are required of them because they don’t even realize that they can change the identity of their children. Is agency, and I’ve got agency in brackets, the toolbox of… yeah, I’ve just got toolbox, there’s toolbox of… don’t know what that means, but is agency related more to personality or more to identity? So, the agency that you have available determines your personality, and the agency that you use determines your identity. I like… so, let me write that down and see how it reads. Sorry, you keep talking. Okay, I’m just gonna go back to the notes that I have, right? So, but when we’re having these objects, right, like we develop a familiarity with the object, right? And notice the word family and familiar, right? So, that’s effectively familiarity is a level of intimacy, right? Like, it breeds a type of relationship with the object, right? And so, it’s important to realize that we can become familiar with something, right? And we can develop these relationships. And so, yeah, we were talking about a ship, right? I wanted to bring a ship back in. Yeah, last week, Manuel spent at least an hour, I think, talking to me about this ship, and I think it was only in the 58th minute of the hour that I had a little bit of understanding of what the ship was. So, let’s get to it. Well, so, a ship is a vessel, right, or a container of being in relation, right? So, it’s unfolding across time, right? Or you can take a car, right? So, if you’re in your car, you are in relation to the road, to the things around you, also to your future, right, because you’re going somewhere. And so, it becomes an extension of yourself, right? It becomes a skin, like if we use biblical language, right? And so, this car, it extends our framing of the world, right? So, the way that we understand the world is no longer the same. It allows us to find new things relevant that we couldn’t even make sense of, right? For example, there are things that are far away on the street that draw your attention, that you wouldn’t look at normally in that way because they’re coming at you real fast, right? So, now you’re dealing with things at a distance that you wouldn’t be dealing with, right? But it also gives you a new relationship to space because the car is way bigger than you are, right? So, you have to be responsible for something like you are now larger, like you just increased your own size, right? Because you identify with the car. And it also stretches your sense of responsibility, right? You have to take care of the car in order to function it, right? You have to take care of the car like you still know how to drive, right? You don’t do crazy stuff, like you have to clean it, right? Like there’s all these ways in which you get transformed as a consequence of having this car and this relationship to the car. Yeah. And, right, if we go back to a person, right, like that’s what a relationship to a person is, right? Like you let them change you a little bit, you change them a little bit, right? Like you change your car as well, you put the scent thing there, and you change the reflectors, what do you mean, the mirrors, right? Because you can see that. And maybe you do a paint job or you put extensions on it and, yeah. So, are we good? Or shall we go? Yeah, we’re good. No, no, no. So now I want to flip it around, right? So there’s an imposition made upon you by the car, right? Like the car is now asking things of you, right? And that has to be true in order for you to be in a true relationship, right? So, and what is being… What has to be true for you to be in a relationship? Something has to be asked of you? Yes. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Right? And what the car asks for you is it’s dynamic over time, right? Like when you break down the demands of the car are completely different and like they throw your whole life in disarray, right? And I can find completely different expressions, right? So one way a car can make an abandonment on you is you want to make sure that you always have snacks in your car, right? So now you have to make sure that they’re always there, like that’s a boot on the point, right? Or you might want to tune the car with the latest tech because like this affords you a means of presenting yourself to the world, right? Like it gives you a way of self expression, right? And relating to other people, right? So it becomes a means by which people see you, right? And you will be bound to this, right? Like you’ve committed to this relationship and you’ve given a part of yourself in expectation of a return, right? Like the personhood of the car is gonna provide something to you, right? And you could even call that worship, right? Because that’s like you attend. When I think worship, I think attending and then celebrating. I see the attending part, I don’t see the celebrating. Well, if you tune your car and you go pick up girls with like, you don’t, you don’t. I see it. I see it. But also, like, I can get to my job that I would have to walk two hours to, right? Like, you’re not celebrating that. Like that’s just you not understanding how the world works, right? Like you should be grateful for that. And so, yeah, right? So now we’re getting into polytheism, effectively, right? Because now we have like the spirit, right? The personality of the object that you have a worship type relationship to. But in terms of agency, the demands of the car is much less than the demand of a person, because the car has less agency than a person. And the relationship, though yet still dynamic, is not as dynamic as the relationship between two people. Yeah, but that’s not reliable, right? Because like there is people who have a more intense relationship than some people have to their wife, right? Like, with their car, yeah. Yeah. Like that actually happens. But that would be, would that not be more the demand that person’s putting on the car than the demand the car’s putting on them? Well, but that’s what I said, right? Like the demand the car puts on you is dynamic over time. And like there’s no law that states how much demand the car has to put on you. But there is a point where if you’re perceiving the car to have so much agency that is put in demand on you, that for example, people that use the example of a spouse, people that think of their car as like their wife or an extension of themselves to the point where it’s, they’ve now assumed the identity of the car. That’s an unhealthy relationship because you’re giving more, you’re affording more agency to the car than it’s got, correct? Right. And you can do the same with your wife. Yes. But like, so that’s, in some sense, that’s idolatry, right? Yes. Like, that’s lit, like, like, and that’s, that’s why it’s difficult, right? Because like there is some agent, some responsibility or binding that that car can hold, but beyond that, it becomes an illusion, right? It becomes ungrounded. And where’s that line? I have no clue. Right? But we were talking about spiritual bypassing, right? Like there’s also, like there’s just, spiritual bypassing is the idea that you don’t deal with the thing that you should deal with, and you go around, right? So the example is you meditate, right? And then you pat yourself on the back that you meditate, then you don’t change, right? So you go through the motions and you think you’re doing the right thing, but you’re not, right? And that means that you’re in wrong relationship, right? And being in right relationship requires sacrifice, right? Like, it requires the personalization of what you’re doing, right? Like you need to have an understanding of the body that you’re engaging with so that you know whether the demands that the body plays on you are correct or incorrect, right? And so this is in relation to orientation, right? Like you need to have the right orientation when you engage in anything, right? And so when you do this crazy treating your car as your wife, you have the wrong orientation towards the car, right? Like you have an idolatrous orientation. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I think we’re slowly warming up to the big G. Yeah, well, I did my introduction. I did my framing. So yeah, when we go to God, well, if we compare God to your car, right? Like what is a car? Well, a car is something that in some sense is really intelligible, right? Like you go straight, right? You can go a little bit left or right, right? Like you need to pay attention to a bunch of things, right? So your understanding of the car or the car is really important. So you need to have an understanding of the car or at least your understanding of who you need to be, right? Your identity within the car is fairly manageable for most people, right? Like they catch it fairly fast, right? And like they become intimate with it. But it’s not complex, right? Or like it’s complicated, maybe, but like it’s not complex. Now, if we look at God, right? Like God is like the ultimate complexity in some sense, right? So how do we… What’s the right orientation? Yeah, well, yeah. What is the right orientation when we’re talking about having a relationship with God? The thing that I learned, right? Like in the church, there’s all of these words like honoring, worship, prayer, right? And they’re all referencing a participatory relationship between you and something else, right? So you can honor your car, right? You can honor your wife, right? You can honor like whatever. You can honor a king. So that… Right, like it is… Well, it is a part of your personality, right? Like part of your agency, right? Like what is the way in which I can be towards others, right? And so what they’re doing in church is they’re highlighting a bunch of these ways that I can be in relationship, right? And they’re training you in it, right? So what does the training do? Well, it provides intelligibility, right? Like you develop a sense-making within that modality, right? So you gain eyes to see certain aspects of the world. And if you never participate in that relationship, right? So for example, if you’re a rebellious teenager that grew up without religion, how are you going to participate in humility? You have no clue what it is because you never had a framework that would even make sense of what humility is. Like Faveki has this practice, dialoguos, and he’s talking about the virtues, right? It’s like… Like the fact that that’s even a thing means that these people don’t normally have a cultivated relationship to these things, right? Like they don’t have a cultivated relationship to courage, to to trust, right? Like to faith, to hope. And I think all of these things, you learn what they are in church and they’re like… They give you affordances, right? They give you ways to relate in the world that you wouldn’t see otherwise, right? And so you could… If we do the fractal thing, right? So if you bow down before the highest, right? Like you can then know what it’s like to bow down, right? And then you can maybe have the humility to not be in rebellion to someone else, right? So that’s basically what I see happening in church. Yeah, I’m trying to decide which one of the five different directions my brain I want to go, so I’m just going to go to the start. One of the… You sent me a great preach a few weeks back that detailed a pastor or a spiritual leader in somewhere in Africa. I don’t remember. I want to say Uganda, but that could be wrong. Somewhere in Africa that went through a spiritual journey that resulted in a and his team having a deep encounter with God that required repentance. And this process took a while because there was a feeling they knew something was wrong, but they were trying to find out what was that was wrong and it required them changing the way they were changing. No, it required… I would say required God revealing what it is to be wrong. You would say required them changing the way the orientation the orientation to God to be able to get access to the truth that was revealed to them. And I think in that shows the… I don’t go to a Calvinist church, but I think I’m probably a Calvinist because I’ve got a very high view of God’s agency compared to man’s. And it’s… This is why the God number one, God number two thing was brought up. It’s the God… Using God number one, we can build up. We can see the fractal patterns of our being in right relationship can result in betterment. However, God number two is the one that I would say was the transformation. I would say in regard you can figure you can try to arrange yourself as best you can. And sometimes yet you still wouldn’t have the result. There is no equation that you can figure out, okay, this is our best to get God to respond to whatever. Now, where I do agree with is that in participation with other parts of the body, this is why the church is referred to as a body. That’s the best way to find, okay, to submit your… To do the sacrifice thing. Your second thing, before I forget, this was a great thing that came to my mind while you were speaking, which is a way to frame the Christian life is submitting your personalities to Christ and being humble, having an orientation of humility such that your personalities can be changed, could be conformed to be worthy of the kingdom. How does that sound to you? Yeah, so I don’t think we’re in disagreement about the agency of God, right? It’s just… There’s two… Well, there’s… You can look at it from the point of view of God, right? It’s like, oh yeah, he’s reaching out to this muppet and the muppet doesn’t know what he’s doing. And like, I agree, right? Yes, but you say… But no, there’s unknown unknowns, right? So like, I need a relationship with the unknown unknowns and I cannot orchestrate that relationship. That’s not in my capacity, right? So like, in that sense, I’m fully dependent upon God. So now I do have the ability to look away. So if I’m in sin, I kind of make sure, right? Like, I don’t want to go to 100%, but like, I’m going to say close to 100% that I’m not going to hear God, right? If I keep looking away. Okay, so there’s things that I need to do in order to listen, right? And like, Jesus talks about this all the time, right? Like, he even says, well, hey Pharisees, you say you have eyes to see? Well, now you’re in sin, right? Because now you’re claiming that you could have the answer, but you don’t, right? Well, if you would say that you couldn’t have the answer, then you’re not in sin, right? So in some sense, that doesn’t change them, right? Like, it just changes their orientation. Like, they’re literally the same person. And so… What’s the relationship between your orientation and your personality? Is there a relationship? I know I’m pushing you at the edge of your thinking, but… The orientation is related to your tells, right? So the orientation is towards the future, right? Now we can add a couple of Christian words again, right? Like inspiration, vision, right? Hope, right? Like, they’re all things that pull you towards something that you don’t have any right in any sense, right? Because if you’d assume that you’d have a right to it, like you wouldn’t be in a state of hope, you’d be in a different relationship, right? So yeah, like these things, right? Like when you gain a vision, right? Like what is a vision? Well, it’s a construction of how the world could be, right? And with that, it’s a construction of who you could be so that you could be in that world, right? So there’s an is-ness, right? Like this is what the world is like, and actually we kind of do this in the practice of Lectio Divina that we’ve developed, right? So what would the world be like if that were true, right? And then who do you need to be in order to live in that world, right? And now you have a vision, right? And now you have a a means of calling upon God, right? It’s like, okay, like how can what I learn in the Bible assist me to manifest myself towards my vision? Visions are good work because this, you need to submit your vision, because your vision, I’ll say, you’re saying that’s linked to your orientation. You’re submitting that and getting a different vision. That’s the Christian promise, isn’t it? Is giving up the way you think things should be for the way God says the way things are. Right. Well, but there’s still you in God’s plan, right? So you need to see yourself in God’s plan, right? So you still have to have the vision of yourself, right? But the container in which you have the vision is the will of God, right? Primarily. Yeah, I like that. No, no, the container, I’m writing that down. Okay, the container in which you have the vision is the will of God. But there’s still the you in it. So the sacrifice being made, that’s what I guess I’m tracking. I’m tracking in the world we’re building, where’s the sacrifice being made? Where is that sacrifice being made for the sake of the whole? Because once you’re in the Christian framework, you’re part of a body. And for all the parts of the body to function as whole, they all have to sacrifice for the good of the body. And the sacrifice is that coming in the identity, meaning the… No, no, it has to come in the personality. Okay, that’s what I’m tracking. It has to come in the personality, it has to come in the orientation, and it has to come in the attention. Like, no, like, it’s on the ground level, right? Like, you have to die. You have to die. Like, you have to sacrifice all. Personality, vision, and what was the other one? Well, it’s your agency, right? Like, your agency is the way that you self-expressed, right? So if you have anger fits, you have to stop doing anger fits. If you work porn, you have to stop working porn. Agency, agency, agency, no, agency is a key one. Agency is the key one. If we refer to agency as the toolbox, which is what in this frame, that’s what we’re doing. You get a whole new toolkit that you get to, you get arrested from, and you have to give up some of those items in your toolkit that don’t, that aren’t in right relationship with the new tool, toolkits you’re being offered. I like that. That’s a good frame for the Christian. Right, and how do you do that? You reorient, right? So what happens when you step into the car? The world that you see changes, right? Because now things have a different meaning when you’re driving, right? So the same thing happens. Also, I’m just going to push on the identity part a little bit, because in that, the way that transformation is instantiated is when you become part of a community. As someone that tried to do the Christian journey by myself, and it’s more difficult to recognize which of your toolkits needs changing when you’re not active, an active member of the community. Yep. Well, yeah, right. But that’s, no, no, no, no, that’s identity, correct? Yes. Well, yeah, yeah, well, yes, yes. But there’s the identity, but that’s also there’s what allows you to have the identity, right? It’s your personality. Right. And that’s the problem, right? So if you don’t have, if you have agency that you can transform into the church, right, you can maintain part of yourself, right, part of who you are, and still conform, right? But like, if you’re an individualist, right, an nihilistic individualist, you can’t do that, because then you’d not be in the right relationship in the church. Right. Like, so like, how much of you has to die? It’s like, it’s way more. And then the question is, is, is how do you do that? Right? Because now we’re coming at the edge of awe and horror, right? Because if you, if you go there, and you’re seeing like, oh my god, like, I get it, right, like, this is what’s required of me. How the heck do I get there? Right? Like, that’s the dance. You have to engage in the dance, don’t you? The only or the best way, like we said earlier, I’ll use the example of the person is over time, as you are engaged in the right with the right orientation, with the relationship, but in the Christian frame, I guess what I’m saying is you first engage with the local body, it’s the local body that gives like a representation of what’s of what the of what the is value good is. And then if you start there, then you can sort of, but also, you’ve all got this, you’ve got our Bibles that you can read from, and you can compare notes with like, how’s the body? That’s what Synod was. And all of Synod was people comparing us, okay, how does this, the Bible relates to what the body is practicing and figuring out that dance? Well, yeah, but again, right, like, you need to have eyes to see and ears to hear, right? So when, when I came into the church, first time, right, I went to a black church, right? So, like, I get, well, yeah, a lot of dancing, and sometimes more extreme things. You, well, I don’t, I don’t have any means to understand these people’s experience, right? Like, it was that I, like, followed for Viki for a long time, and I like to talk to Christians online for a long time. And I had all of this interpretive framework, so that I could judge whether what they were doing was good or not, right? But you can just imagine atheist flat world person coming in and say, what, this is that, like, this is cult, right? Like, this is just a cult of people. And like, they’re drinking wine instead of Kool-Aid, right? I really, I wish, I wish to be a flat underworld, the first time. That, that would be worth the price of admission. But, well, yeah, no, that, yeah, well, that must have been amazing. I am, I am very, very, I’m just on a quick side. I’m one of, I really enjoyed talking to you because I’m impressed by the journey that you’re taking this journey very seriously, more seriously than most. And you’re actually doing the work underground, you’re going into churches, you’re still, okay, how does this, I’ve had all of this, thinking, talking thing online that I’ve engaged in. And then you actually went and put some skill in the game by embodying the practices that you claim online. So that’s, that’s why I enjoy talking to you. It’s, you’ve got both all of this and also you’re doing it on the ground. So that’s a good, you’re doing the dance and that’s what I’m learning from. Yeah, well, I’m partially, like my, my participation in the community is, is limited because, well, because of that I’ve still, I’m working my way out of the depression, right? So like I recently started thinking about, they’re doing all of these child activities, right? So let, let me just look at them, right? I have all of these ideas of how frameworks and how to relate to things. So like I’m, I can just come there and I can just say, well, maybe you should do this, maybe you should do that, right? And so I talked to the guy who was responsible and then the day after I said, I said at home and I’m like deliberating about it and I’m like, I shouldn’t be doing this. Like, like, I don’t, I don’t know what these kids need. I don’t, I don’t know what the plan is within the church. Like, like, how, how am I gonna like make the right decisions if, if, if I don’t have a dance to dance, right? So like, I, I realized that what even with all of, all of my anticipation, right? Like I still have this hubris. So I go back to the guy and like, like, I can do it like this, like, this is not okay. Yeah. Another thing that we spoke about last week and sort of, but I think you said that fully agree with you is the danger of what we’re doing right now and the danger of um, having a frame where we see this online participation as a idolatrous practice in some, in some sense. There is a, it’s the best we’ve got for this time, but if something feels off about it. Yeah. Well, like, like I don’t, I don’t think that it has to be idolatrous, right? Like, I, for example, the, the, the meditation group that we did was amazing and like it transformed people’s lives like a lot. And also we, we did this Lactio Divina practice and I think, I think it’s, it’s amazing, right? But like, it’s different when people come together, right? And they, they have this idea, right? Like, and I’m guilty of this, right? So like, they have this idea and then they start wrestling with this idea and then they wasted another night, right? Like, like I, I, I’ve been like, I’ve been in a little crisis, I guess, right? Like, cause I was, I was building this, this framework with Mark, right? And then I started my YouTube channel and all of these things. And I and Mark kind of stopped building that much, right? Cause like, we think we have all of these puzzle pieces, but now the question is, well, like, how do you give that to the world? Right? Like, like Mark, Mark has his YouTube channel and he has his way and like, I’m, I’m thinking of writing a book, right? I’m like, I had this introduction to this video and I’m like, I’m really happy about the way that I framed everything. I like, I think it’s amazing that I can do that. Right. Like I think that’s a good way for me to find expression, but like, I, I, I need, I need something to, to identify against, unfortunately, right? To, to contrast myself, right? I need a person. So that, so that to dance with, right. To dance with, because I’ve, if I don’t have the person to dance with, what will happen is I will, I will be spouting my nonsense, right? Like it will, I will be formatting me into the world and I don’t, I don’t want to do that. Like I, I want to attune to what is needed. And so that’s exactly right. Attuning, attuning to what is needed is exactly right. And that’s, that’s something that too much of this, what’s the word? For people that like to learn online by themselves, it’s an A word, I forgot what the word is, but too much of that individualistic, autodiadactism, too much, too much of the autodiadact traits can become dangerous and can lead to being off. But it’s individualism as well, right? So if I come in and I’m like, oh, I’m thinking about this, right? So like now everybody has to conform to you because you set the tone, right? So you’re not in an intimate relationship. Like you might get into one, but it’s not a good start, right? And then if we look at like what Van der Kley is doing, for example, right? Like he says, I’m trying to settle my thinking, right? And there’s a lot of value in it because he’s, well, he got an amazing set of ideas, right, that he’s pulling from, right? And there’s an enchantment in that. But on the other hand, like, why are you watching that, right? Like he’s literally spouting the overflow of his mind on a video, right? And like this is one of the criticisms I gave him, it’s like, you need to organize your thoughts. You need to work towards a goal, right? Like, no, it’s important, right? Like you want to achieve something because if you’re not doing that, you’re not enacting the good, right? I’m sorry. This is where the carbon is, it comes in. It’s the, yeah, it’s the God is good all the time, and all the time God is good, and God will have the final say. And God makes straight lines out of crooked sticks. Right, but also don’t test God. But also be responsible because you will be held accountable. Yeah, but don’t test God, right? It’s like, yeah, Jesus is not jumping off the temple, right, which is basically not taking responsibility, right? Like giving it over to God, like, God save me, right? Like he’s saying, no, I’m not gonna make that move, right? So every time that you don’t take responsibility for how your actions land in the world, you’re jumping off that temple. And it’s like, you can be Calvinist all you want, but like, you’re still making that jump, and you shouldn’t jump. Yeah, I think, what do you mean by take responsibility? Well, taking responsibility, this is the feedback, right? Like, what’s wrong with the world? Well, politicians aren’t held accountable, right? Like, so taking responsibility is holding yourself accountable, right? It’s putting skin in the game, right? Like, okay. But that holding yourself accountable to a standard. Well, not so much to a standard, right? Like, you bind yourself to something, right? So your destiny is entwined with what you’ve bound yourself to, right? So you bind yourself to a structure, right? With a leader, right? And a hierarchy that is going somewhere, right? So the structure has an orientation, right? Which is what the church is, right? Like, structure has an orientation, and now you can participate in the body of the church to find an expression in the vision of the church, right? So your vision is a sub-vision of the vision of the church, right? Or you’re a die vision, right? Like, you’re part of the vision, right? Anyway, so if you don’t have that, then you’re unguided. And obviously there’s always a level by which you’re unguided, right? Like, there’s always the unknown unknowns, which God is responsible for, right? Like, whatever body you’re going to create, like, it will still have that relationship. Is he only responsible for the unknown unknowns? No, no, no. But that’s why you don’t have responsibility. Okay, that’s why you draw the line between man’s agency and God’s agency. Right, like, you have a certain amount of responsibility to the known unknowns, right? But even with the known unknowns, you have almost no responsibility, right? Because that’s mostly God. And then you have the known knowns, right? And like, you have almost full responsibility for those. Thank you, Teo, for joining me on this exploration. We’re having an embodying the logos about embodying the logos. I think we’ve made an outline of what that means, right? Like, it’s like, oh, you have all of these relationships to the logos, but I don’t think we’ve fully explored what that actually means and how that functions. So I think that’s where we should pick it up on the continuation of this conversation. This has been very fruitful. Thank you for asking me to be a part of it. It’s been very enjoyable. And yes, I think we’ve got a lot more meat on the bone and I look forward to our next talk. Well, everybody leave your comments, suggestions and maybe have some ideas. Like and subscribe. Thank you, Teo, because I shouldn’t say that myself. And yeah, see you all next time. Bye.