https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=UklvPPSJ9Ss
Hello, everybody. Welcome to maybe the first live version of Unbodying a Logos. So we’re going to try and relate to feedback while we’re going. So I got Nick with me for the second time in a really short period, which is really amazing because I love talking to Nick because he’s been ahead of the curve for a while, at least in our discovery until he decided to drop off the map and lose all his skills. And instead sharpen iron instead of using iron himself. So today we’re going to bring back a good oldie, Talos. It’s been percolating on the background because it’s really important in the way that we think, in the way that we organize our lives, in the way that we discuss things. But yeah, we wanted to do a deep dive because Nick at some point came with these ideas like, well, Talos isn’t sufficient. You need an open end of Talos because you have a closed Talos, all sorts of bad things happen. That was basically the case. I hope I don’t misframe it. So yeah, we want to first explore what an open end of Talos is. Well, the Talos as such is and then what an open end of Talos is and why this would be good for us. But yeah, just let us lay out the case for Talos first, Nick. Let’s go. So the way I understand a Talos, a teleology, is that it is in some sense the goal or final state of a thing. Now that’s obviously important. I mean, you can get into Aristotle and final cause as part of the definition or what makes a thing a thing in the first place or the Platonic forms or, you know, there’s been quite a bit of different forms of bringing a Talos in. But most fundamentally, it’s kind of the emanation principle that draws a thing into being. It’s in some sense the, you know, the guiding star of the hierarchy of oh, what’s the word I’m looking for? Organizing principle. Right. I was trying to think of the philosophical term that relates to being as such. See, I’m too slow. It’s been too long. Is that it? That’ll work. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, ontology is what I was thinking of. Oh, no, no, no. There we go. Don’t, don’t, don’t. Don’t. Yeah. So it’s a fundamental organizing principle. And, you know, perhaps it’s more a Talos has been such an obvious part of things for so long that it is perhaps almost in contrast to, you know, the last 60 years of philosophical discussion and, and kind of even just mass cultures conception of things where we’ve deviated away from the required Talos of a thing. And, and you can kind of contrast it against teleology as it existed throughout most human history and see how there’s an important facet that when we lose teleology, you start getting a dissolving of categories and of meaning. And a big part of this was actually like why I, I I saw a need for an open ended Talos was from Verveckis awakening from the meaning crisis series, where he brings up a lot of criticisms of teleology in general. And he just kind of leaves it at like, well, we don’t really need teleology. And I thought that that was not a good move. He brings up a lot of great criticisms of kind of the classic form of a Talos. And so the way I’ve gone about kind of splitting a classical Talos from a open ended Talos is Hold on, hold on. Let’s, let’s stay here. Right. So you perceive a need. So first of all, like, what is what is the criticism that you deemed valid that Vervecki brought up? Honestly, it’s been so long since I watched it. I forget his specific criticisms. I would say in some of these might be his. They might be ones that are just floating around in my head. There’s two problems I can think of right off the bat is that you have the reification of a concept that and I would say that a classical form of a Talos is particularly open to this type of thing where you move from an iconographic vision of a Talos to a idolatrous vision of a Talos. So, you know, you might see this in a Christian’s description of heaven, right, this kind of perfect place where everyone’s happy and you exist forever and there’s no death and there’s no right. You can kind of get this creeping sense of horror as at least I did as this you start playing out this concept in your head, like what would it mean to live forever in a place that is pure happiness? Right, it almost feels it starts to feel dystopian and now I think there’s ways around that, right? Hold on, hold on, hold on, because I think you’re making a big jump, right? Like how do we get to a place of foreverness and happiness? Like how do we get there? Like why does this have to do with Talos? Well, heaven would be the final state, the teleological goal of a certain type of Christian, right? And then I’m going, I’m basically saying that the attempt to describe that state necessarily reifies into these kinds of bizarre descriptions, some of which might be something, this kind of static perfect vision of what the ideal form of existence is. Okay, and like why is this a criticism against Talos? It’s a criticism because of the, one, I think it forms an idolatrous vision and two, I think there, even if you play it out in your own head, there’s a creeping sense of horror behind these attempts to fit perfect static states into the living experience of being. So there’s a problem with translation of the word. Yeah, a problem of, well, I would say it’s almost, it’s partially of translation and it’s partly of conception in the first place. Right, but my first question there would be like how is this a problem of Talos? Well, it’s not. It’s a problem with a certain form of defining a Talos. Okay. Which is in perfect static terms, which is classically the way a Talos is communicated. So I’m going to rephrase the case for Talos, right? Like so, like Talos is that which draws into being effectively. And like I would argue that it defines thingness as opposed to that a thing has a Talos, right? Because I think you need to reason from the Talos to the thing and not the other way around. And then there would be an ultimate Talos, at least in the religious world view, that would be worthy of striving for and dedicating yourself to because that would unite everything in it effectively. Right? Okay. Is that a good case? I would say, yeah, yeah, that’s the functionality of a Talos. I would agree. Although you can have a more limited, you know, in some sense, you’re hitting at the ultimate Talos at the very top of any given, you know, sometimes it’s easier to play with the concept in, you know, a closer level. Yes. Yeah. Well, like one I like to use is the the image of a perfect circle, right? There are none of them anywhere in existence. It’s an impossible object. And in some sense, the only way that we have a grasp of the only way we we experience a perfect circle is through the infinite non repeating decimals of the ratio pi. Right? Yeah, like I wouldn’t phrase it that way, but I get your point. Well, and this, this flows into my open ended Talos argument. Right? So basically, what you’re saying is, is there’s an accessibility to the ideal, right? And in order to have that, we get into these weird things like pi that, that basically are infinite approximations. Right. Right. And it’s process, it’s process oriented, right? We can have a optimal dynamic vision of what a perfect circle is through the number pi. The optimal part of the ideal is the number pi. Right. The optimal part being whatever the algorithm we it is to discover the next decimal in the ratio pi. And the dynamic being that it is an infinite non repeating decimal. Right. So, so, so far, I, I’ve been feeling that your objections are, are relational, right? So like, yeah, there’s this thing that they had in the past and like, apparently, we suck at having a healthy relationship to it. Especially if we, we start putting it in heaven, which is like so far away from us that basically we can’t be intimate with it. Right? Like there’s a, there’s a connectivity, a quality of connection that we can achieve. Right. So I would use more like Peterson’s argument, right? Like when you, when you want to sit the tree stump as a chair, right? So like, the talos is that which organizes the world and it provides intelligibility in some sense. Right. But and it’s, it’s in that sense, I wouldn’t say life giving, but meaning giving, right? Like it gives meaning to the tree stump and a way for us to relate to it. Right. Right. The relationality is, is a big one. Right. And then that gets into Verveckis whole, you know, fittedness and kind of relational ontology, which I know you don’t like that word, but well, I don’t know. I like, like, I, I, I churned with a lot of Verveckis work, right? So this relational aspect, I definitely agree with, right? Like when we get into the ontology, like we, like, now we’re just going to say, right? Like, like if you say ontology, you’re removing the agent that is executing the action. Right. Like, like there’s a, I’m like, if I’m fat, right? Like I can’t sit on certain things while if I’m slim, I can. Right. So like it’s, it, it, that just breaks it down already. Right. And like, this is not even to make a distinction between a human and a bat. Right. Like, well, in some sense, you, you would say something similar to a relational ontology being a type of oxymoron. Well, yeah, yeah. Well, if you, if you say, right, like relational ontology and ontology is how you relate to being or whatever. Right. And it’s like, yeah, like in order to be in relationship, you need to participate in the being already. Right. Like this, there’s this. Right. Yeah. Well, I think, I think why he creates the categories or smushes those words together in that particular way is, is again, kind of this like reworking previous conceptions. So usually when you say the word ontology, you’re pulling from, you know, 2000 years worth of a certain way that people related or perceived being in the first place, which had that kind of divorce to it that you’re talking about that removal of agency. So then when he sticks the word relational in front of it, it kind of creates a, yeah, but it, but it’s, it’s like an inversion, right? Like it’s, it’s like a correction of a mistake after it already happened. Happened. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think we went kind of over what it tells us is so like, like, why, why is it necessary to have this? Right. Like you, you say that you kind of disagreed with Kravakian throwing it out. So like, why do we need to keep tell us? Because I, well, similar arguments, you need a goal. You can’t be in a goalless state. And, you know, for the purposes of intelligibility, for the purposes of having guidance in some sense to even have a sense of honesty towards the way towards the way you’re, you’re able to cognitively apprehend the world at all, kind of requires that there’s some directionality, that there’s some hierarchy in place. And that I think it’s just a naive move to go, well, we can be just fine without a teleology at all. Right. Because the argument there would be then we’d be subjected to an emergence, feeling right. And we don’t have a relationship. Right. Well, it’s not even a teleology. At that point, it’s just emergence for the sake of emergence. The emergence is going nowhere. Right? Yeah. Well, that depends on how, how much you’re captured in it. But yes, fair enough. Because if you’re a drug user or whatever, right, like it’s, it’s actually dictating not emerging. Right. Like, so you can be captured by addiction. Right. And I think this is what for me, this argument is right. And then we get into reciprocally opening and reciprocally narrowing. And I think that’s also where you got the idea of open ended from. Right. That’s my guess. That’s right. The reciprocally narrowing, right, which would, would by definition be a closed tellers, right, that would be like a point. That that’s basically like a gravitational pull that just keeps you in orbit. Right. And the problem there is, is that you, you cannot escape your identity and the ability to assume other identities decreases, right, like atrophies. And that’s why you narrow onto, onto that identity. And then the reciprocal opening would be an identity that would be receptive to being informed by the outside. Right. And that would afford you at least to break the reciprocal narrowing. Right. And I think even when he brings in the argument of reciprocal narrowing and reciprocal opening, he’s already brought a open ended tell us in, why is he preferencing one over the other? Right. Basically, there’s some process that is dynamic and optimal to relate to life, you know, better than another way of relating to life. You see the move that you made there? Like, did you catch it? I’m not sure what there is some process. Yeah, that will allow you to be optimally. So now you’ve narrowed on the process. Right. So you made the process your tells, which is, I think that’s exactly what an open ended tell us is. That’s my whole argument. But then it’s also closed, right? Because now you have this, this single identity that is drawing you into it. Yeah. Yeah. This is the problem, right? Like, like you, you end up shifting your addiction to this process. Literally. And, and well, this is basically my, my problem with Poveke and my argument that I made from the start, right? Like if you make a religion, that’s not a religion, you end up smuggling in an ethic, right? And then it will be a religion, like, like, at that point. And so, oh, I agree with that argument. Yeah. Yeah. So to go back to, to the teleology. So the need, the need for, for the open ended tell us would, would be to include all the potential in the world that you don’t have a relationship to yet. Effective, right? Right. Well, it’s okay. So let me see if this works as a, as a way of distinguishing, right? Within Christianity, we could say there’s two dominant telloy. There’s reaching heaven and there’s unity with God. Right? I would say that achieving heaven has a very strong tendency to describe itself in perfect static terms. Whereas unity with God has a strong propensity to describe itself in optimal dynamic terms. And so I would say that unity with God should, would be the better form of a teleology than heaven. Right? It’s fundamentally process oriented. It’s, it’s, it’s living. It’s a relational living into God. Now, again, you can hear that there’s a little trick I’m playing here because unity with God requires some concept of God, which falls back into a static, perfect, um, tell us, right? So in some sense, I’m making the argument. It’s almost a pragmatic argument that by focusing on the process towards something as your fundamental tell us, you actually can, in some sense, have a higher ability to properly make use of that tell us as opposed to, um, making the perfect static state, the goal. Yeah. So like, in some sense, you’re incorporating your own, um, phenomenology into the concept of the tell us. Okay. So, um, I’m just gonna finish with making the cage. Right? So, okay. So like, so like basically that, so the, the, the tell us is the call of perfection that we, that we end up participating with, um, and into, and there’s a, a problem of relationality. And that literally goes into, into the questions that I’m having right now, right? Like, how do we relate to the tell us? Like, cause, cause having, having a tell us and living it out are, are not the same thing, right? Like there’s a, a, a translationary process and maybe, uh, we, we should spend time on that. Um, because I think that’s the interesting part. And then while we will get to my criticism on it, which like I, I’ve already had in some sense, but yeah, like I, I think, I think we both agree that the relationality is, is where, well, the proof is in the eating, right? Of the putting, uh, where the rubber meets the road. Like there’s all of these things where it’s like, okay, like there’s an embodiment that needs to happen. And that’s where the complexity appears. So yeah, like, uh, I, do you feel up for, for that question or you want, you want to? Yeah, I think that’s a good place for the conversation to move. Sorry. Again, my cat is going through her first heat, so there might be a lot of meowing in the background here. Um, I’m not sure if the mic’s picking it up or not, but just in case, um, it also makes it very hard to concentrate. Hold on. I’m just going to put her outside real quick. Okay. Okay. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll fill in the space a little bit. So yeah, we, we went into the need for tell us what a tell us is, how it works, right? So, and now we have to find a relationship to it, right? So like there’s something that draws us into the future, into a direction on, on many levels, right? Like it’s not only on what do we do now, but who do we need to be? Uh, what, what is the final expectation of us? Uh, how do we fit in, right? Like how do we, uh, relate to our environment? Uh, like, like how do we organize the social structures of our environment? All of these things, uh, go into our relationship to the tell us. Um, so yeah, Nick, how would you, how would you, uh, describe this? Um, so yeah, we’ve kind of moved into the whole pragmatic side of things at this point. Yeah. Would you agree with that? Um, or are we still dealing with the concept and the splitting of the concepts between the study? No, no, no, no. Like we’ve accepted the need for this open and that is right. Cause like there’s something that draws us in and like we, we don’t have the ability to crystallize that and, uh, have, have a right relationship to it. Right. And I can throw in some of Mark’s, uh, points here, right? Cause he’s, he’s, he’s trying to relate tell us, uh, with, with dogma dogma is, is in some sense, a, a point, uh, a marker on the path that we can move towards. And I would argue even pass at a certain point. Right. So you could, you could use the analogy of, of having a Google maps or whatever, right? Like, uh, the Tom Tom to drive across the streets. And it’s like, well, at this point, you need to go left. And at this point you need to take the roundabout for three quarters and then grow up. Right. And, and like that’s for a car, which is basically, uh, a one and a half dimensional thing. If you put it on the road, it it’s, that’s fairly manageable, right? Like it, like it makes sense, those instructions and, and in some sense you learned to drive, right? So you have incorporated a framework that can express these instructions in, into something and body, right? Like something that that car can live out or drive out on, on the road. But now, now we’re having this problem, right? Like, cause at some point you get this instruction and you’re like, wait, what? Like, like it doesn’t compute with the reality that you’re experiencing, maybe because the map hasn’t been updated or, or, or maybe because you just don’t have the functional, uh, functionality to relate to the instructions, right? And then I think, uh, that that is the case that we, we want to worry about, right? Like that’s, that’s the interesting part because the other parts, they’re already sold by you being indoctrinated effect, right? Like you, you adopted the doctrine and so you can participate in, in the requirements. Okay. So, so should we relate or should we focus on how, on how a static teleology leads to dogma or do you want to try and start from there and see if there’s another way to relate to a telos that, um, doesn’t collapse or reify into a, a, um, dogmatic? Well, like, like, like, I, I think I just, uh, formulated the breakpoint of dogma, right? So there’s a limitation to dogma, right? Right. And, and basically the proposition there is that an open-ended telos is, is going to resolve that problem. So I like, I, like, I want to sketch how, how that gets resolved. I’m like, why does that open on the telos allow us to do that? So we might say that something like an open-ended telos in the example of driving a car, um, right? It, it might give us more of a vision of how to navigate in a more general sense, right? So the purpose of using the vehicle becomes, um, getting from, uh, point A to point B in a safe and efficient manner. That’s a reduction, right? Already, right? It is a reduction, but it’s also, I mean, you need the reduction. That’s the point of the telos. The trick is, is the reduction a functionally useful one that still allows adaptation or does it, right? Every time you get in a car, you have to make two lefts and one right, right? Which is what a train is, right? Like that’s a train, like, right. Which allows for different optimization, right? It does. It does. Absolutely. Yeah. You can fit a lot more people on a train than you can in a car. Uh, generally speaking, or else your car starts to look a lot like a train. Yeah, right. Right. So, um, so it might, you know, the, that open-ended telos might give you instructions on, you know, what’s the best way to shift gears. Uh, how do you shift gears? How do you make sure your brakes work? How do you, right? Is the, the, um, purpose of the car, um, fitted to the goal that you are imposing upon it? Uh, but I would describe that as an open-ended teleology. It’s, it’s fundamentally optimal dynamic terms that you’re defining, uh, as your limiter to, to not be, you know, caught up in either meaninglessness or combinatorial explosion. Right. And so now we, we, we, we entered this ad case. Right. And so now we, we, we, we entered this ad case, right? Where, where the functionality breaks down. And so like what, what, what, how does the, the open-ended telos look differently? Like what does it allow us to do? Well, it, it just focus it. I would say it allows us to do a lot of what a classic static telos allows us to do. It provides orientation. It provides meaning. Um, the only difference is that I would consider it being less open to the forms of distortion that come along with static teleology. You know, one of those being dogma, for example. Um, now that doesn’t mean that there’s no boundaries, right? It’s inherent in having a telos at all that there are boundaries. It’s just that they have less of a propensity to reify into dogmas. So it’s, it’s what I’m trying to do is preserve the functionality of a telos while putting it in a, in a state that makes it less open to the types of critiques, proper critiques and mistakes that come along with classic forms of teleology. That’s all it is. It’s just a reworking of our, of the concept of a telos. So my problem here is how is this different than going meta? In some sense, it is, you know, a good argument for why a static teleology doesn’t work is girdles and completeness, right? Any, any attempt to form a static telos is inherently a lie, or at least inherently, um, contains its own, um, dynamic state. And that’s because necessarily it can, it will hide within it a meta layer that starts creating a dynamic vision of the telos to begin with, right? So in some sense, it’s, I’m just saying this is a more honest way to describe a telos at all. So if I want to be really crude, you could say, like, where are we putting the escape hatch, right? Because like, I like to have this analogy of the deer, right? Like the deer walks a while, like it’s focused on the goal, and then it looks up, it’s looking for predators, other pathways, and then it focuses back on walking, right? So there’s this, right, these two states that are in an alternate nation. So what an open and the telos would do from my perspective is to basically introduce a routine that incorporates looking around. Right. But you could also say that because you are a human being, right, and you’re sitting in the car, you are already that. Because you’re not in the system of the car and the navigator, even though you’re participating and you’re submitting yourself to that telos, right? Like you’re not that telos, right? Like you’re always more. You bring something into it, which is also a really interesting argument against AI. I don’t get it. But I would, I think you’re dead on there. And I think that’s why there can be this kind of creeping sense of horror when you listen to someone describe a state like heaven. Right. In some sense, there’s no room for the human aspect in a concept like heaven. That’s where the horror is coming from. In some sense, the state is so perfect that there’s like there’s nothing there anymore. Right. In some deep sense, it’s as if any proper description of heaven is indistinguishable from nothingness or any other perfect static state. Right. But to be fair, right. So like heaven in the way that you’re describing it is not a telos, right. It’s a crystallization of the telos. Like that would be a form of an or an idea. Right. Why isn’t it a telos? So getting into heaven would be the telos or not heaven itself? Because you’re taking it out of the telos, right? Like the fact that it has a shape already means that it’s no longer that which informs it. Okay. But then doesn’t that mean that necessarily we would have to describe our telos in a dynamic form and not a static one? Well, I have a different solution. I’m asking. I’m actually asking the question. It wasn’t rhetorical. Well, like, like, like, first of all, like, I would be against describing the telos. So how? Okay. So, yeah, you’re it’s, I want to hear your your explanation or your argument. So, like, if we go to the proper relation to dogma, right, like, the dogma is is something on the path. Right. So like, when we make a description of a telos, right, like that’s that which allows us to gain a certain discernment so that we can move towards it, right, because we’re not there, because else we wouldn’t have to do it. Right. So it’s like, like, and so and then because we’ve moved, our relation to the telos has changed, right, because we as an agent have changed. Right. So just like the computer has to update this thing with the GPS signal, like, you have to redefine your route at every point in the thing, because, like, it’s no longer the same route. And therefore, the goal is no longer the same, like I would argue. Right. At least from your perspective, even though the goal is the same, it’s only present within its relationship to you. Right. And then, like, if we start talking about heaven and communicating it in something like a book, like, now we’re getting into the problem is like, okay, like, let’s say I can describe it perfectly for you, which I can. Right. Right. Let’s say I can, like that description is not perfect for me. Right. Because I have a different, well, like a different grasp on it. And so if you would ask my solution to this, right, like, it would be to literally see the telos as an aminesh. Right. Like, it’s like the fountain which you drink from. And it’s not a fountain that you build. Like, I read this idea, right, like, Jesus went up the hill with three of the apostles, and then met Moses and Elijah. Right. And what did Peter say? He said, I want to build three tenths. Like, so what did he want to do? Well, he wanted to trap that which was revealed. Like, he wanted to make an image of it. Like, when I related that to making the golden cat, right, like, he was doing Aaron’s job. And so that’s the problem that we get in. The idolatry problem. The idolatry problem. Right. But the idolatry problem, like, the other part of that story, since, like, I somehow have to use that story now. The other part of that story is that Jesus said, don’t talk about it until I’ve risen from the dead. Right. So there’s a, even though they had the experience and they had the revelation, let’s say that was heaven, right, they still weren’t able to give proper meaning to it, to themselves, let alone other people. Right. Right. And that is my- Necessarily. Yeah. Yeah. You’re making my own argument for me. Well, like, I don’t think we disagree on the problem formulation, right? Right. Right. Like, the problem is real, right? Like, the question is, how do we resolve it? Right. And so, like, the way I look at it is, like, okay, so basically, Jesus needed to die, right, and to have closed his stelos, right, or something, right, like, he’s fulfilled his stelos. That’s the right way. And in the fulfillment, only at that point, the proper meaning could be given to that which happened in the past. Right. So now we get into this real-time thing, right? It’s like, okay, because, like, only by what happened in the future, that which in the past can be properly understood, and then we have this problem of, well, who experienced it? And, like, how do they understand it? Right. And then we have, like, okay, even if I understand it, right, like, so I’m Peter, right, and I’m like, okay, Jesus died, and now I get it. I get it. It’s like, well, now what? Because, like, my neighbor doesn’t get it. Right. So we’re still stuck in this translation, right, and, like, like, in some sense, like, Peter needs to take someone up that hill, right, and repeat what Jesus did so that he can create the new Peter, so that Peter can only after Peter, the first Peter dies, Peter the second, can, right? And so there’s, you’re stuck in this, in this way more complex thing than closed talents open under talents, right? Like, I guess that’s the case that I’m trying to make. I don’t disagree with any of that. I think every, yeah, you are stuck in them. Okay, let me, I’m stuck in a girdle. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, you’ve got quite a paradox there. Maybe, okay, well, we’re not going to form a perfect thing. That would fall back into the closed telos, right? Well, no, but, but no, I like, like, okay. So I think, I think we might be able to form a perfect thing. But the perfect thing has has a different characteristic, right? Because, because, like, the perfection is in the fulfillment of the talent, right? So we’re, we’re moving away from having a, a, a state to having an, a method of going somewhere, right? Like, like to go back to the navigation, right? And, and so, and that, that’s, that’s, union with God as opposed to heaven is how I often describe it. Yeah, but, but, but, but, but if you, if you say it like this, right, like, follow me and everything will be added onto you. So it’s, it’s, it’s not so much, right? Like you, you, you, you, like, what is heaven? Like, like, there’s, there’s a heavenly kingdom in inside of you, like this, to go all platonic, right? So there’s that which we have to embody as, as a collective, but there’s also that which you have to embody as, as an individual. And when you, when you embody it as an individual, I think by definition you are in heaven, like, like, and, and so heaven is, is that which allows you to fulfill yourself or your telos, right? Like, and, and therefore that’s not a static thing, because what that means for me now is different than what it means for me in five years or 10. Hence the need for an open ended telos. Yeah, but, but, but it’s, it’s, yeah, okay, but, okay, wait, let me try something and let’s see what you think about it. So we could almost kind of translate. I think there’s a couple, I pointed this out a little bit earlier, even when I say like a more appropriate way of of viewing heaven is as union with God, because it refocuses it from this noun like perfect end state to this prosper verb like relational form, even if they effectively mean the same thing. Mm hmm. But hiding in the statement union with God is, is a static, perfect thing, God, at least static in its, in its orientation, if not in our relation to it. So maybe another way of kind of thinking about this is kind of, we’ll do an Ian McGillcrest move and go that there’s a master state and an emissary state of a telos. And maybe what I’m actually critiquing by using an open ended telos is, is reversing which one is the master and which one is the emissary. Mm hmm. Right? Because you need both of them at some level. It’s just what’s the proper relationality between them. And so, you know, that verb like relational thing would be the, I’m trying to say it would make a better master than it would an emissary. Whereas classically, it’s been the static perfect that has been the master and the emissary has been the relational aspect. Okay. Okay. Okay. Right. Then I’m going to mute because of the cat. Now I’m going to make an ontological argument. Like I do. I want to go here yet. Well, I’ve been going here anyway. But, but like, if we’re talking about hierarchies, right, there’s a point at the top and then you get a plurality, you get another point or multiple points, right. And they get, right. So when, when you’re talking about primacy, like the one always has primacy over that which gets informed by the one. Now you might also argue because it’s one, we can’t relate to it because there’s no contrast. Right. Cause I think that’s the problem. Right. Like it’s like, okay, I guess there’s always this thing that that’s beyond us because it’s the source of that, which we’re relating to. And that what we’re relating to is always a mystery because we don’t get to the source of it. And so if you’re, if you’re making a relational statement in the sense that that which is phenomenologically, that which gets presented to us or revealed to us is open-ended necessarily because we can never get beyond it. I would argue yes. But I would also argue that it’s fundamentally a mistake to take that which is originated to be as the originator. And therefore you still need to have primacy in the origin, even though we don’t have a relationship to it. So you let me see if I can kind of rephrase it using the previous example and make sure I’m understanding what you’re saying in some sense, right? God, that noun like thing in that sentence is necessarily, it has to have a higher ontological status at all times. And so it gets confusing because when you privilege the process statement, union with God, in some sense, what you’re doing is giving primacy to the word union and not to God. Right. And you’re taking the glory away from God, effectively, right? And so now you’re in sin and you’re in, but so you’re not in idolatry, but you’re in pride. I think that’s the move. Fair. Yeah. Right. Because I think that’s a fair criticism. Yeah. If you don’t have the point of origin, right, you are the point of origin by default because you are reconstructing that point of origin in your image. Right. Well, okay. But I’m going to argue back a little bit there because I think there’s two ways to understand that. I think you’re absolutely right. That pride becomes a very big danger when you start privileging an open ended telos. I think that’s dead on. But I would argue that I don’t think it is a necessity. So right. Another way to describe that pridefulness is also just honesty. Right. I’m starting from the primacy of myself because I find myself being myself. Right. That’s where I’m necessarily starting. No. Why not? Are you starting as God? No. But like what is humility? Right. Like humility is properly placing yourself in creation. Right. Like that which is divorced from God and seeking union with it. That’s what’s hiding in the telos union with God. You can’t have union with God unless you already aren’t in union. Oh, no. Like I’m there. I’m in disagreement. How come? Like no. Like you, you, that’s what the garden is. Like they live, they walked with God. Like they weren’t in disagreement with God before the fall. Okay. But how does that relate to what we’re talking about? Post fall. Okay. So what is sin? Right. Like sin is an act of pride. Right. Which would mean that you’re taking your perspective over that which is revealed to you. Right. Which we all end up doing in some way because we’re scared. Like that’s basically what happens. Well, we’re also post fall. Like we’re also starting within sin. Right. Like I do think sin is inevitable. Like I don’t know. Like at what point are you sinning? Like is it at conception or is it when you get born or when your cognition develops? Right. Like I mean, that’s, I don’t know. All right. Like I don’t want to have that argument. Argument. Yeah, that’s fine. But I would argue that there’s a choice element in the sin. Right. And so like at a certain point, you get a choice and you make the wrong one. It’s like, and when that is, like I have no clue. I’m not going to burn my hand on that one. Right. And also like I don’t think it matters because like we’re still going to inevitably end up in that fallen state. Right. State. Right. So but parts of us won’t. Okay. Yeah. But see, it’s funny. It’s like we’re flipping the argument back on each other over and over again here because I would say that in order to remedy a problem or to seek a remedy to a problem, you have to acknowledge the problem exists. Right. No. Now that can be. No. Like this is. Why not? Because your parents can fix it for you. Your parents can fix it for you. Right. So if your parents say do this and you do it and you get better. Right. Like this is what your spiritual father is supposed to do. This is the functionality of God. Right. Like God is basically say, well, you could do it this way. And if you do it this way, then the problem doesn’t exist. So there never was a problem. There is no problem state. No, that like sin is the self-creation of a problem. Okay. Right. Like that’s like you walk with God. Right. Until you don’t. And then you not inevitably. You might never realize that you’re naked. Right. But then the potential of the nakedness comes forward. And then we get the whole problem of technology. Right. Like we start making creating means to avoid having that naked. Well, let me. Okay. Let me try this statement. The reason I would phrase it as honesty is that the acknowledgement of the problem in this case is the humility that allows the space for one to give away their self. Oh, no. I don’t think humility is the acknowledgement of the problem. Well, no. The acknowledgement of the problem is the humility. It’s a different. The acknowledgement of the problem could lead to humility. The acknowledgement of the problem could lead to humility or pride. Like, yes, I agree with that. I agree with that. I agree with that. Okay. So the humility is the giving up of the problem. Well, the pride is the embrace of the problem as something within your agency. Yeah. Well, see, I don’t know. Well, something within your agency. Well, yeah. I mean, in a deep sense, it is the giving away of your agency that is the mechanism. Well, that’s the consequence of humility, right? Like, the consequence of humility is, well, ideally, right? That you get to the place from where you can give up that which you’ve grasped onto that you shouldn’t grasp on. Right. Yeah. But to me, that’s recognition of the problem itself. But what is the problem, according to you? Because, like, I think you’re misphrasing the solution on the problem, like you’re confusing them. The solution in the problem. Well, I’m saying that you can’t. Even if it’s in retrospect, you will acknowledge that there was a problem when the problem is solved. Right. Even if you are the child who just follows his parents’ orders, the only way that you have any idea that something changed is that you can go, oh, I didn’t even recognize that was a problem. But by exiting the problem state, you will have necessarily recognized the problem. Okay. Like, in this sense, I might be more extreme than you. Like, you don’t need to know that stupid problem. Like, you don’t. And actually, the trying to know the problem is an act of pride. Well, I don’t know. I’ve experienced it differently than that. Like, you know, let me rephrase it. Right. When you have awareness of the problem of misness, you are in sin. I don’t. I don’t think so. I think you can be in humility and that that is the recognition that you are incapable of being in proper relation. That’s a recognition of the problem. It’s just you’re giving the problem away. Right. But that’s still sin. I don’t know why it would still be because you’re still in the problem. Like, you’re not beyond the problem. Right. Like, it might be a necessarily necessary step to go through. Right. But you’re still caught. Right. Like, you still need to raise from the depth. Like, only when you’ve risen, the resolution has happened. Yeah. But why does that divorce itself from any cognition? I don’t get it. Because if it’s still in your cognition, you’re not reborn. Yeah, maybe. Like, so. So there is no. As I’d like to tell us. Or in a sinless state, there is no such thing as the past in a sinless state. Yeah. It’s your argument. Yeah. Because like, what is the past? Like, how is the past relevant? Right. Because like, the past is not bringing glory to God. Right. Like, your participation right now is that which brings in the kingdom. Right. Like, and if you’re captured by the past, right, like you’re you’re not in the kingdom. You don’t have to be captured in order to recognize. No, no, no, no. No, every. No, no, but I’m serious about this. Right. Like, every attention that you give to something is a distraction. It can be. It doesn’t have to be. Again, I would I would phrase this as a as a form of proper relation to something, not in these kind of absolutist terms. Well, yes. But if you’re attending to manifest the kingdom of God, right, like then it’s something that’s necessarily happening right now. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But the past is. Yeah. OK. But what. Yeah. OK. But what. So what do you what does this look like to you? You just stand still, bringing forth the kingdom of God, any action, any diffusion of your attention into the world as such necessarily is is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because because it’s it’s not a static state. Right. Like we like this. I know. But that’s what I’m criticizing. It sounds like you’re describing a static state because. OK, here’s a. Here’s an example. No, no, I’m describing a spirit like that’s what I’m describing. I know. But that spirit is not bound as in the terms of like no past exists. It’s it’s the way the past manifests in through you in the novel moment through the transformation of your experience. Right. That’s proper relationality. It doesn’t mean the past doesn’t exist. Right. Obviously, we have an inheritance of the past. Right. Right. Because that’s the the the the capacity that we have to act in the moment is necessarily an inheritance from the past. Right. Right. So yes. Right. And then that gets connected to what we’re called to do. Right. And either there’s an answer there. Right. And then we can act that out. Right. So then we’re in a spirit or there’s there’s not an answer. Right. Like like there’s an error. And when when we get into the error, like well, now there’s two things. And like I’m I’m still iffy on on what the proper reaction is. Right. But like the the the reflex, at least personally for me, would be to look at the past or whatever. Right. Like in order to correct that which is is wrong. Right. But I think the proper response would be what am I called to do. Right. So it’s like, OK, like I’m the deer. Like I’m looking up. It’s like, OK, like I obviously miscategorize the option space. Right. Like so I’m I’m running on my navigation app. And like there’s there’s a traffic accident or whatever. Right. And like, OK, like my app can’t deal with it, but I can deal with it. Like, can I deal with it perfectly? No. But can I stay true to the spirit of getting to the place where I need to be? Yes. If I don’t panic. Right. Because if I panic or if I’m like, oh, I should have taken like the previous turn or whatever. Right. Like like why did I end up in this accident? Right. Right. And then you get captured by the past. Right. Like and then that this allows you from participating in the talent. Right. So so it’s it’s not about optimization towards the titles. Right. But it’s about staying true to it. And in order to stay true, you need to stay in it. Like you have to maintain faith. And when you can you maintain faith, that to me sounds like a prideful statement. The mechanism by which we maintain faith is necessarily a giving away. Okay. Now we’re going back to nestedness. Right. Well, you can hear how we’re looping on. I agree. Right. So so I would argue that as a Christian to go from the Christian perspective again. And like I was I was having the kingdom prayer and I kind of feel silly because I’ve not been using the first two lines. Father our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Right. Because I’ve been leaving those two out. But like what is our father in heaven? Right. Like that’s you opening communication. Right. And then second thing is how that be your name is the recognition of who you’re talking to. And your relationality to it. You’re you’re lowering. Well, yes. So yes. When you recognize that which you relate to, now you get an identity in response. Right. Right. And then it’s okay. Your kingdom come. Right. So now that’s the tellers. Right. Right. And then your will be done is through which the manner through which the tellers manifests manifest right on have on earth as it is in heaven is the means. Right. Right. So to bring this back to what we’ve been talking about. Right. So so the king the kingdom is the tellers. Right. Like the will is is something that is necessarily in time. Right. So there’s a connectedness. I’m going to throw in a little thing here. Your kingdom come. The come is the dynamic form of that. Right. Right. Now I can go I can go one sentence up. Right. Hallowed be your name static. Right. Right. Well, yeah, I don’t disagree. But it’s it’s I mean, again, that’s what I was bringing up earlier when I was saying union with God, I’m hiding a static in in the form of a dynamic relation. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But it is also earth and heaven. Right. Like like heaven is the static and on earth as it is in heaven. Right. So it’s like, oh, the dynamic has to come from to to to the static. Right. But so. So again, we get to the point of of we almost fall into a necessary pragmatism, which is how we got onto this whole recognition of errors. How do you give yourself away? Right. So what you would say that the static has is the master of the master and emissary relationship. Right. But it’s not agent. It’s leading. Right. So like this, this is the problem, right? Like like the king says, oh, it would be nice if that person wasn’t there. Right. And then like the person gets killed during the night. It’s like. King didn’t do that. Did he make it happen? Was it his will? Like, maybe. But you get into this really fuzzy, fuzzy place because he didn’t say I decree this has to happen. Right. He didn’t make a decree. So he didn’t use his official capacity to set a law. Right. Or a prophecy. Right. Like, OK, like this is the way it’s going to be. And so maybe we need to go out of the individual frame for this one and to look at how this manifests in a group. Right. Because like there needs to be something that holds true on these layers. Right. And like so what is a leader? Right. Or a king? Well, the king is someone who speaks like literally because he can’t speak. Right. But in some sense, that’s speaking with action. Right. And and. And. And he sets an example. Like, well, he does an example. And like, he also gave us the glory. Right. Like everything is in order to glorify the name of the king and by glorifying the name of the king is glorifying the kingdom as such. And then you’ve got to have a name. Right. Glorifying the name of the king is glorifying the kingdom as such. And then you get to share in the glory as a concept. Yeah. Well, you get the fountain like shape. Right. Right. The top you you have it, the base, the basin of water feeding up towards the glory of that king who sits at the apex and the king’s glory falls back down and feeds the basin. Yeah. Trickle down. Glory trickle down. Gloronomics. But, you know, this is made explicit in Christianity. Right. The king comes to serve. That is that is his ultimate role as one of servitude. Right. And like, if that’s not the case, then like. You have a tyrant and right. Right. Right. Right. So it’s not even like it should be. It’s like, no, like it has to be. Right. Right. Yeah, I’m a little bit lost. Oh, yeah. So the telos of the group is basically that which is spoken by the king. Right. And so what what is spoken? Well, like the king does not give you details. Right. Right. The king says, I want this to happen. Make it so. And then. And then it filters down the hierarchical chain of command and alters the structure. Right. And then the body parts, they self organize in order to facilitate. Right. Right. So like, oh, I want to have more. But now we need to have training. We need to have weapon production. We need to have stores. We need to have a gathering of people at a certain spot. Right. Like, so we need to have logistics. And all of these things that they get facilitated. By. By. All of the individual parts. Right. And again, the body parts, they self organize. These individual parts, they don’t know their relationship to the will of the king. And they shouldn’t. Right. Like they should know that they’re manifesting the will of the king. But it’s not their responsibility to know. It’s their responsibility to celebrate. But it’s not their responsibility to know. I’m not sure. Well, OK, let’s take let’s take the blacksmith, for instance. Right. The king. Whoa. Hi there. The. Sorry. The. King decides he wants to go to war. Right. Why? Oh, my goodness gracious. Give me just a second. Yeah. So Nick is not a really good king to his cat. His will will not be done. The. Yeah. The cat’s hormones are a much better king to the cat than me at the moment. Why does the blacksmith not. Don his armor and go join the army. Why does he instead forge the weapons for the army to use? No, but this is this is a false raven. Because why would he why would he don an arm like that? Silly like you should never don an arm or. Well, it’s because he knows his relationship to the authority that he knows. His role is that of supplying for. No, but no, but Nick, Nick. You’re you’re presupposing that the optionality of donning an armor. Is in his savings. Well, it very well. Why wouldn’t it be? No, like like it can be right. Yeah. But that’s not the natural state. Well, it can be the natural state. No, it cannot by definition because it’s it’s it’s like the doling of an army armor. Is a calling and like you need to hear the calling before you can. You have to know that’s that’s my point. Yeah, that’s my point. But but but if nobody’s going to call him, why would he hear the calling? That like there needs to be a messenger, right? There needs to be a herald that says, hey, please come and join the army before that becomes a real option. Right, right, right. I agree. But that’s being in relation to the king’s decree, is it not? Well, only if the herald knowing his appropriate relation to the king’s decree. No, no, but only if the herald visits you like like you’re like you’re presupposing. Some other means of communication. OK. Right, like like because like like. Well, it’s it’s it doesn’t matter that he’s a blacksmith other than he just has the potential to make weapons for the army. In either case, the herald will have to come and define his relationship to the king’s decree. Right. Either stay as a blacksmith and make us weapons. But that’s knowledge of the relation to the king’s decree. That’s what that is. No, no, no, that’s that’s well, that’s the spreading of a talos for him. OK, because the fact that he can infer that if he’s making weapons instead of plows that will go for a war doesn’t mean that he knows or that he has to know. Like the only has to know is that he needs to make weapons. Yeah, but that knowing necessarily is knowledge of his relationality to the king’s decree. Right. Right. And that was the whole thing. You have to have knowledge of your relationality to the king. Like like if he’s not made aware of the draft, he has no knowledge of that relationality even being an option. I agree. Yeah. OK, OK. I’m not saying like everything’s psychic. OK. But then, right, like the reason that he doesn’t do A instead of B is because B is not revealed to him. Basically, I’m not asking him. Yeah, but that’s a requirement of knowledge. You had said earlier that he does not need to have knowledge of his relationality to the king. To the king’s will. To the king’s will. Because he does not need to know whether there’s a tournament, there’s a war, there’s a world war. He just needs to know to make weapons instead of plows. Is that your point? OK. Yeah. I see. OK. OK. I get your point. Sorry. I got. This was the thing that happened in Nazi Germany, right? Like the guy is like, yeah, I just need to make gas chambers or whatever. Right. I need to make train schedules. Like I don’t need to know what these train schedules are used for. Like that’s not my problem. Problem. That’s the way the whole CIA works here in America. Right. They call it stove piping. But basically, right, people will receive orders. They have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing. Like no one in the CIA has any idea why they’re doing what they’re doing. And it’s done intentionally so that information doesn’t leak about what the actual goal is. Which is a good thing if they’re doing good things. And which is a horrible thing. Right. If they’re doing it. Yeah. Right. They’ve lost their mechanism for correction. And they’ve done so because they’ve entirely placed their trust in the organization that they’re a part of. Right. And. Well, no, they do have a mechanism of correction. They have a mechanism of correction that’s not. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. To. Right. Well, it’s am I carrying out the will of the order that came down or am I not? Yeah, or do I have the resources to carry out the will? Right. Like there is corrective mechanisms. And there should be, right. And this is why the king should serve the lowest, right. There should be a means of classifying the needs or whatever, right. So that the king can serve. That which is on bottom, right. So and lift them up, right. And if you don’t have that ethical responsibility in the top, right. So if you don’t have the purity at the top, then that whole system is going to corrupt and collapse and it’s going to be horrible. Right. Which is basically the whole modernist argument. The history of humanity. No, no, no. This is the modernist argument, right. Like that’s why they want to have democracy and all sorts of stuff. Right. And so basically what they did is they said, well, we don’t want to have God on top. We don’t want to have man on top. And now we made a system that’s not relying upon God, but upon pride. And technology has been really helping us out on that for a while at least. Right. But like to I like this frame, actually. So what does it say about the telos of modern society? Because don’t we have an open and the telos as modern society? Because I would argue yes. And isn’t that the Hegelian dialectic? It could be. I mean, I would say it’s not an open ended telos in that there’s actually no goal state. It’s just a process. Yeah, but that’s not the way that they’re looking at it, though. Well, like is science an open ended telos or is it just a process? And then you have to introduce a telos for that process to be an open ended telos. Well, I would argue that the way that scientists practice is actually a closed telos because they’re trying to find the answer and they’re trying to find a unifying theory. Right. Like that’s explicitly the purpose of a lot of scientists. Right. So like that’s closed. Now, if you were asking me what’s the process of science, then I think the process of science is just stuck in combinatorially explosion. Right. So like that’s. I mean, there’s the scientific method, which is just a process of investigation to try and find meaningful patterns from non meaningful patterns. Is it, though? Strip away as much of our bias in understanding the patterns as possible. But I would. Okay. Define. I’m just saying that’s that the scientific method is just a procedural little thing. Right. Just meditation is a little thing, but it can be directed towards different telloy. Right. You might be meditating because you’re a CEO and you want to figure out the best solution for communicating that you’re taking money away or firing half of your workforce. Right. That might be why you’re meditating. But you could also be meditating because you’re a monk or a nun and you’re seeking right some spiritual state. Right. I would say the scientific method is like that. It’s just a procedure. And then you’re introducing an open ended telos to direct the procedure towards one of any number of goals. One of which might be to have a systematic understanding of the entirety of the universe, as is the case with physics specifically. Huh? That’s a close. That would be a closed telos. Yeah. Right. Oh, I see. Because I said open ended. Right. Because the way I see it, it’s like science is just an image of the scientist on the world through his methodology, which is also an image of it. Right. Well, and we have to remember physics, at least in the case of Newton, started with this idea that they were discovering or glorifying the creation of God. So it’s right a little. You can carry out a procedure with a number of different goals in mind. So we’ve done all the heaven stuff like a lot. So if we go down a level, because I think I don’t like truly like if you’re at heaven, in a serious matter, right, where you actually have a relationship to it. I don’t think these questions matter. True. Okay. Okay. Well, no, we’re getting somewhere interesting. Yeah. Why don’t we have this conversation, Nick? Well, perhaps a better a better conception of these types of conversations is much more akin to a song than it is a a it’s a celebration of of of a type of revelation. Of the past, are we in sin? Almost certainly. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, I thought I escaped this. I am I am I am trapped one level up. Oh, no. Let me see, because I okay. So so so what is the functionality of the concept of open on the talus? Because like I do think that there’s functionality to it, right? Basically, what we’ve been dancing around is this problem of dogma, right? Or, right, being dogmatic, more so, right? And I think this is what I am Mark, I’ve been dancing around and to go back to please mark. You want to? Well, he said that this open on the talus led him to the idea of intimacy crisis, right? So there’s a lot of things that are happening in the world. Right. So there’s a there’s a connectedness, a quality aspect of the relational that the concept of open on the talus allows us to get a relationship to, right, especially if we’re more than having yet. Right. And so the the quality of that would be that the open endedness is is is is a way to introduce the dynamic nature. Yeah. Right. So basically, what it says is, it’s like an updating system, right, like your your updating system. And if we’re looking at like the the layers of reality, if we’re looking at like the layers of reality, right, so you have a relationship to yourself, you have a relationship to others, you have a relationship to God. I’m going to add the future as well, right, because I think those are the same necessarily. So you have all of these these layers and and different projections of yourself into them. And we we get lost if we don’t have an orientation within those. Right. Right. Like make it a plug for religion. I think religion properly practiced is hierarchically organizing these things in basically a kingdom. And then that kingdom allows you to locate all these places where you’re assuming an identity, whether it’s conscious or not. And like you don’t even have to have a conscious conception of that identity. But you do have a recognition of your participation and a correction of that participation towards heaven, right, towards the idea. And so this is this is why, like, I don’t think it’s important or like it’s a sin to refer to the past, right, because the update is always oriented towards the future, right, like it’s always oriented towards the ideal and towards your distance from it, right, like in your lack, your lacking of the ideal, right. And it’s like, OK, and then we can bring in rationality as the organizing of all these all these relational identities in a way where we attend to the things that give us most quality, whatever that means. Yeah, I mean, I didn’t hear anything in there that I would disagree with. And so you’re basically outlining, like, why what is the functionality of the open-ended telos? Why use an open-ended telos as opposed to a static closed telos? Right, because it opens this idea, right, that which I just described, it opens the door for the potential of that idea and inhabiting it, right, because, yeah, I don’t think we want to get into that. But like, first of all, like, how does that kingdom look like? Right, because there’s a lot of and why is it even a kingdom? Right, like, why is it not a democracy? Because I have a book here that claims it’s a democracy without a head. OK, so I think, like, I think the question is, is there a way to do that? I think, well, maybe see, this gets back into the, I think there’s an inherent humility in the acknowledgement of an open-ended telos, right? In some sense, it’s it’s admitting you don’t know your future state or what its appropriate form is, right? There’s an automatic wall, you’re acknowledging the wall that you are not in control of your own best interest. And that gets back to, I mean, that’s basically a reformation of why I was bringing up, you know, the acknowledgement of original sin and why you would locate yourself primarily as fundamental. Now we’re back in the same discussion, right, because locating yourself, an open-ended telos can can serve either one. It can be used as a recognition of your humility, or it can be used as a recognition of your pride, right? And it can stabilize itself in either form. This is where it gets kind of back to that, like, master emissary. OK, so we can say an open-ended telos is probably pragmatically a more useful understanding of our relation to teloi in a general sense. But you nonetheless need something meaningful that carries that static quality to which you are humbling yourself. All right. Yeah, so I like this idea, right, like this teloi, because basically what you’re saying is, OK, this open-ended stuff is really useful at the low level, right? Because where do you get captured? Where you get captured at the bottom of the mountain or even in the desert, right? Like when we haven’t gone up yet and we can’t look down. So if we’re stuck in flat land or in the reductionistic frame of reality, it allows us a lot. But I just got reminded of James Lindsay. He had this whole thing about SEL, which is basically, I think it’s the new learning method that they’re doing. Social-emotional learning, I think it’s called. OK. So what they’re doing is they’re using a Hegelian dialectic framework. So basically what they’re saying is they’re going in and they’re like, well, we want our teachers to do these points, right? And then we want them to rate themselves onto these points. And then we can create self-actualizing citizens from the children, and they need to go to these stages, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we know that we’re not perfect. And so we’re going to create a feedback mechanism so that we can evaluate ourselves based upon the scores that we’ve gotten by our own system and our own inherent values. And then we can update. And so what they’re doing is they introduced like an open-ended challenge, right? No, we’re not proclaiming to have the answer, but we are proclaiming to have the method to get to the answer. Right. Which is open-ended, right? So it gives this illusion of, oh, yeah, we’re doing the right thing. But what’s the end state? There’s no end state. Then it’s not a telos. This is my critique of verveki. That’s why I combined. Well, no, because it’s process only. It’s process only. But how does an open-ended telos have an end state? Like, now I’m confusing him. This is again, I’ve been saying it. Okay. The whole reason I came up with the idea of an open-ended telos is because verveki basically did an SEL type thing. Right. And I’m like, that’s not sufficient. That’s you need a telos. But my whole thing was that it makes more sense to dodge the problems with the static perfect telloy to describe them in verb like terms. Right. So union with God over, you know, achievement of heaven or achievement of perfection. Okay. So, but you still have an end state. The end state is union with God. It’s just a verb. Creating a religion that’s not a religion or running a religion that’s not a religion. Right. Like, how is that different than the SEL thing that I like? Oh, I agree. But I mean, again, what I’m trying to bring in is, is a telos. Is a telos. That’s why it’s called an open-ended telos. So your, is the argument to go back to the SEL that they have not defined a telos, but like they do, like they do. The telos is like, we want to create model systems. Yeah, but it has no meaning. It’s, it’s solipsistic in its character. There’s nothing to which they give themselves away other than themselves. No, it’s, it’s a self-consuming process. But the process is not individualistic in nature. It’s a collectivist project. Okay. Just like the religion that’s not a religion is not an individualistic, it’s a collectivist project. Okay. I’m still confused. I agree that you don’t resolve the problem because you just get the problem level up. Right. Like, like, like what, like you always have to reference something, right. Like, and, and the reference always has to be an ideology. Right. And like, then the ideology always, because it’s, it’s idolatrous, like it has to be self-consuming because it can’t sustain itself. Right. Because it’s not open enough because it is, it is within a closed system. Right. And so the only thing that you can do within that is evil. But like, that’s what they’re doing. Right. Like that’s, and like, that’s how open-ended telos is used. Like, I’d like, I, I think their argument is sound within their ideology. Yeah, maybe. Fair enough. I don’t, I don’t know. So, so, so like, I guess, I guess the question would be why would this open-ended telos thing would be a good thing? Because like, like I just see it as a. It, because you are still defining the telos. It’s not a good thing inherently. There’s nothing inherent about it that makes it good that you can have a telos of, of how do I murder somebody in the most efficient way possible where I don’t get caught. Right. Now you can apply a static form of that telos, or you can apply an open-ended form of that. It doesn’t mean, right. It doesn’t mean that you chose a good telos. Like the goodness is being granted by God. Right. In the case of the open-ended telos is unity with God. Yeah. Right. Is that, is that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Like answer the question. I, it kind of answers it, but, but I, like, I wanted to, to look at the other side, right. It’s like, cause we were like, okay, when you’re in heaven. Yeah. Like it’s not relevant, right. Like, cause you already have the. Right. Which means static telos are useless. How did you get to have them? Do you have humility for the part you want? Shall we look at the past for a second? Oh, gosh. No, but like, like I, I, I am in agreement, right. But I am, but on the other hand, like it might be easier to say that a closed telos is wrong than an open-ended telos. Right. Cause like, that’s, I guess the fear that I have is like, if, if people claim a open-ended telos framework, then they smuggle in something, right. Like then. Yeah. They smuggle unaccountability in, like that’s literally what they’re doing. Right. Like they’re the shoving of the responsibility for the results of their framework and they’re the, the capacity to self correct gets removed. Well, again, I think this is where there’s the kind of, of. There’s that master emissary relationship. And again, I don’t like, again, the reason I used open-ended telos as a specific thing was specifically to bring that accountability back in. I don’t think Verveckis religion that’s not a religion is a proper open-ended telos. Maybe it would be better stated that his actual telos is the attainment of wisdom. Right. And the attainment of wisdom would be an open-ended telos and the goodness is being granted to it through the goal of wisdom itself. Right. I think people, I just found the whole thing dishonest. But wisdom is also in service to something. Right. I agree. I agree. I would not, I would not define an open, a goal state of attainment of wisdom in and of itself as a, as a good thing. Right. Okay. So, so how did you see the self correction? Cause I think, I think that’s maybe actually the important point that we. Oh, so that’s where I bring in the paradox, right? Is when I’m defining what I would consider to be a proper open-ended telos, namely, unity, and the importance of the only. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I’m a Christian. What do you want me to? No, no, no, but that’s important. Right. So there’s only one. Appropriate open-ended telos. Well, I would make that argument. Of course I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. I would. Appropriate open-ended telos. Well, I would make that argument. Of course I would. Of course. I’m saying I think the proper relation is one of open-endedness, not closed, a closed vision of unity with God, a noun like vision. I don’t think it’s noun like, I think it’s verb like. That’s my whole point. But we’re doing a particle wave thing here, right? Like it’s like, can you have the one without the other? Like I don’t. No, no. And that’s why at the beginning I made, you know, I’m sneaking God in, right? God is a closed telos in a sense. It’s just I’m prioritizing my relation to the end state. Okay. So here, so, cause I think the fear of God in some sense has to do with this closeness, right? This absoluteness, this, yes, like things get collapsed into an identity at some point and you’ll be judged for it, right? Like there are actual things, there’s actual events with meaning and that should be really scary, right? And then there’s the living spirit, right? That resolves that, right? That has the redemptive quality that even if you fuck up, like you will, there’s a manner in which it can be gathered under something higher to make it work for the good. And so talking about this self-correction, right? Like so this static functionality works until you break out of it, which will happen. And then you have the flood, right? And then you need to self-correct and like, how do you relate to the flood? Well, you navigate, right? Like you, and then when you familiarize, you gain new agency in the navigation, right? Like you can crystallize that again into a new stability, right? And then you have to find the cornerstone, right? Like you have to find the cornerstone that does not get swept by any flood. And then you can start, and so like, do you see how like that cornerstone eventually has to be a stone? Yes, yes. That’s why I was, again, I’m sneaking God in right at the beginning, right? Yes, I do understand. We are in agreement, Manuel. I am so amazed by myself. This was, like, I don’t know how I do it. It is, I enjoy watching myself for real. Oh, gosh. Oh, man. So who said all this high level intellectual conversation would not be really funny? Oh, man. Like, how is this funny, dude? Like, for real, like, I don’t understand how this can be funny. I think it is, I think the funniness comes in the recognition of our humility. Suddenly, this game we’ve been playing that we didn’t quite recognize as a game is revealed for what it is. Oh, you mean we’re naked? Oh, yeah, right. Oh, gosh. Notice, I did like it. Like, I hope people get a, get a, get a, get a, get a, get a, get a, get a sense of the shapes that we went through in the conversation. Because I think that might be the most important part of what we’ve been doing, right? We’ve been not fully circumambulating, but we’re like, I don’t want to be trapped. Oh, let’s make a hole here. And then it’s like, oh, still trapped. Yeah, yeah, such is the, such is how this this goes. I mean, the project as a whole, right? It’s kind of ironic. We’re like sitting here critiquing knowledge. And then this whole thing is just like an exercise of how far can I extend my knowledge? Let’s try and pop out this way. Oh, okay. Well, what about that direction? This is not a tunnel. Well, maybe it is. It’s just a tunnel with a lot of really intense pinch points as you go through it. Well, yeah, you definitely end up somewhere that wasn’t on your knees. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, do you want to do you want to still bring in something? Let’s see if I know. No, I think I think I went through all the things I wanted to go through. I think I’ve given my conclusion. I would definitely like some feedback. Also, whether you actually were able to follow any of what we said. Someone’s gonna have to have some some good patience for this. And we actually fit it within a somewhat reasonable length of time for once two hours as opposed to our normal four hour. So yeah, what’s your conclusion? Then we can liberate these people from our laughter. Well, I mean, I feel like we’ve largely come to a nice meeting point between the critique and the the usefulness of the concept. And, and, you know, I still pretty much perhaps I think what I gained from thinking about it and going through this was the primacy, how important it is to have that snuck in absolute static thing that you are relating to, but it’s not an end state for you. Right. God. God is there, but it retains its identity. It’s just in relation to it, your telos takes on a form of a dynamic, you know, Yeah, and I like this idea that that you cannot have ownership over it. Right? Like it’s fun. Like it’s its main identity is being out of reach. Right, right. Right. Like, like that’s maybe it’s essence. And the necessity of that. And yeah, like, like to have a sense making framework that’s based upon that. Right. Like, so it’s everything gets inherited from that, which is out of reach. Right. But cannot. Yeah, there’s, there’s a one dimensional communication. And I think that’s maybe what worship is. Right. Right. Well, and again, just to drag it back in, because I’ve been using the example the whole time. That’s what the clothes tell us the attainment of heaven. Right. I mean, to to reach heaven, heaven is yours now. Right. It has this ownership feeling. It doesn’t have to. But I think it is extremely open to the distortion of our, of our pride and of our own self attainment. Which I, you know, I think that’s the problem with it. I think that’s also why the descriptions of it end up as these kind of horror fantasies of someone’s own creation. Right. It’s like, Okay. I have to admit that, like, I read through it. And I was like, happy that I could understand somewhat of the things in the revelation. I think I think it requires a lot more integration before I get what you’re talking about. Right. Okay. Well, thanks everybody for watching. We’re going to close this down. I hope this was really revealing and as enjoyable as it was for me. Like, subscribe, give feedback on all the things and see you next time. Bye.